Gotta Protect It, Brother!

I was beginning to believe I was a statistical anomaly. Research shows that over 102.7% of people will be the victim of some type of crime in their lifetime ( the stat seems a little high to me too, maybe almost impossible, but who I am to question the experts. Yes, that was a joke.  I know the stat is impossible, hence the reason I made it up.), however I had never had this experience. Was it me? Was I doing something wrong not to be a part of the victim pool? And then it finally happened yesterday early in the morning. My car was broken into by what I assume was some dirty meth head looking to obliterate a window into a million tiny pieces and grab whatever their shaky, scab-covered hand could reach, which happened to be my iPod, that they could trade in for their next fix. On the off chance that said druggie actually decided to keep the iPod as an entertainment device, and did not delete my play list, I will be on the lookout for an emaciated individual scratching furiously at their puss-filled soars while twitching in time to the rhythmic beats of Justin Bieber. While everyone says don’t blame yourself, and that the person who broke into the car is the criminal, I of course have been repeatedly asking myself why I left my poor, vulnerable portable jukebox in the car in the first place. After being angry with myself for a while during the morning, I looked at the bright side of things. Yeah, that’s right, a new iPod was in my future!

Given that the window had cost much less to replace than I had anticipated, I decided I would go ahead and spend a little more money and upgrade to the iPod with the fancy touch screen, envisioning my fingers flying deftly over the screen with Chopin-like grace making selections from movies, music and more, just like my coworkers who I had covetously watched do the very same things as I stood by, never believing that I would reach the upper echelons of technology and be part of the cool kids club. So yesterday evening I traveled to the local electronics store, bought the new iPod and a thin sheet of plastic that serves as a screen protector .

This morning, I haphazardly tore apart the screen protector box, thinking I would just be opening up this bad boy and slapping it on as sweet and simple as an elementary school teacher adhering a scratch n‘ sniff sticker to a 100% spelling test. I mean seriously, how complex could this be? Well, the sight of the instructions for the six-step process of appropriate screen protector application prompted me to head right back into the kitchen for a second cup of coffee to ensure maximum attentiveness during what I was now realizing would be a labor intensive task. As if I was heading into brain surgery or working in a crime lab, I was first instructed to vigorously cleanse my hands to avoid tainting the protector with skin oils. The next step was too apply an included application solution before handling the protector to avoid fingerprints. Fingerprint concealment? I began to wonder if I had accidentally purchased the mob hit man’s starter kit. I diligently sprayed on the liquid as instructed, and then moved onto the next step of peeling the sticky, plastic saver of screens from the paper backing to which it was attached. I attempted to peel the protector from two different corners, but met with resistance as the protector stuck to the paper and began to tear away at it’s parchment partner's fragile fibers. My pulse began to quicken as anxiety overcame me and I began to wonder how long the fingerprint spray would last? Was I wasting valuable seconds engaged in an adhesive-based Armageddon, only to find that by the time I was able to gain victory over my sticky adversary that my toxic skin oils had again risen to the surface of my fingertips and were waiting, like stealthy ninjas, to ambush the pristine clarity of the screen protector. I set down the protector, once gain doused my hands in the mystical fingerprint impeding elixir, and went back to work peeling away the protector from the paper. I had no trouble this time, and gazed back at the instructions to absorb the next step, which essentially was to spray both sides of the protector with the application solution. There was even a cautionary tip advising me to make sure that I sprayed the screen protector, NOT my device. What, you mean don’t spray liquid all over my electronic device? Oh, and don’t throw it on the floor and smash it with a giant mallet either? Oh, OK.

After spraying the magical mist on the screen protector, the instructions simply stated place the adhesive side down on the front of the device and “slide into place”. I did not quite understand this, but figured that maybe the application solution somehow created a frictionless surface between the adhesive and the device to allow for this alleged “sliding” to take place. That was a negatory Ghost Rider. Once the sheet was applied, the adhesive grabbed the screen in a death embrace, thwarting any attempt at maneuvering the screen protector into the proper alignment over the face of the iPod. I peeled off the protector, reapplied the solution (mind you, at this point, I was getting quite perturbed at having to use almost all of the solution, as I had intended to save an ample amount to spray on my fingerprints to use as a forensic countermeasure just prior to throttling the methamphetamine monstrosity that broke into my car, if ever the day came that our paths were to cross), and then placed the protector back on the screen, taking extra caution to make sure it matched up perfectly to ensure that no impossible sliding was required. I followed the rest of the instructions successfully, including pressing out the moisture bubbles with what the company called a squeegee, but looked like nothing more than a square piece of plastic to me. The bottom of the instruction document read, “For more installation instructions, go to blah, blah, blah website.” Why in the hell would someone want to go get more installation instructions? Isn’t a six-step process to apply a glorified sticker to the front of an iPod enough? However, if there were more instructions, why wouldn’t you include them in the package? What kind of company withholds part of the instructions for their product? What are these mystery instructions anyway? “Do not apply protector on a Saturday. Doing so may cause your device to explode!” or maybe “Do not attempt to use application solution as a forensic countermeasure.”

“Step Right Up And Throw Away Your Future!”

OK, so I am not so naïve to believe that the vulnerable “buy me that right now” minds of young children are not the subjects of the merciless attacks launched en masse by the hordes of marketing companies that litter the capitalistic landscape, but I would hope there would be at least a smattering of integrity found amongst this group of money grubbing, brainwashing bandits. However, as I exited a store last night, my eyes gazed upon a sign that obliterated my dreams that there was an actual depth to which business owners would not sink to corrupt the youth of America. The sign was located in one of those large plastic enclosed boxes that holds a fluffy mound of stuffed animals captive which beckons any willing, adventurous soul to wager their spare change (and depending on the machine, spare dollar bills) to simply manipulate a metal claw and rescue one of the captive creatures. Of course it never is that simple, is it? I am actually convinced the claw is greased with the same goop these slimy business owners have oozing from their pores, making it nearly impossible to actually win one of the prizes and thereby increasing their profit margins to obscene levels. To those of you who would argue with me regarding the fairness of these games, and the frequency with which the player actually wins, I direct you to take a close look at the prizes available in the machines that have been present in the local arcade for the last 25 years.. Do you honestly believe those Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake dolls and stuffed Pac Man characters were just placed there last week, and not in June of 1985? And what was this ominous sign that had me in such a tizzy all you ask? As if the words (or at least the general idea) had been plucked from any number of billboards for Las Vegas, or your nearby Native American gaming venue, the sign had the following splashed against it’s colorful backdrop: “You can‘t win if you don‘t play. Over 3 million animals won last year alone.” Disgusting….absolutely revolting. The owners of these machines, whose paltry payout percentages most assuredly lie far below the average slot machine, are blatantly flaunting in our parental faces their attempts to turn our children into miniature, pre-pubescent gambling addicts. I expect that within the near future, they will be offering players club cards to any and all children, providing them the opportunity to rack up points with every dollar they slide into the greedy slot on the front of the machine. Low level players will be able to trade in their points for basic “comps” such as tiny Dixie cups filled with watered-down Kool-Aid and small bags of broken goldfish crackers. High rollers will be able to enjoy televisions brought game side to enjoy their favorite cartoons or Disney movies and will receive, free of charge, tawdry trinkets from those dull-finished metal 25 cent vending machines often found in close proximity to the high-priced currency hoarding claw machines of financial ruin. The final result of this pandering to the juvenile masses will likely be banks of these machines lining the walls of arcades with child after child whose sad, soulless eyes stare blankly into cloudy, scratched plexiglass, as they waste away their childhood by mechanically chain-chewing piece after piece of bubble gum while they feed dollar upon dollar into the machines in hopes of hitting an elusive batting-filled jackpot. My only request of the owners of what I contend are slot machines without the bothersome legal restrictions placed on those in casinos is that for now you leave our children be. I promise you that when they reach the legal gambling age, you can corrupt them all you want.

Stranger Danger: Bring It On Home

As I was zipping around in cyberspace a few days ago I happened upon the unfamiliar term “couch surfing”. I, of course, believed this to be just the latest wild addition to the litany of adrenaline junkie activities that already propagate our world. My mind immediately became satiated with images of thrill-seeking individuals of marginal mental stability precariously perched on love seats with their tendon-strained legs maintaining one foot on each arm while their psychotic sofa sleds went careening at ungodly speeds down insanely sloped city streets. A little research on the internet about couch surfing revealed that I was completely wrong about what this activity actually entailed (Readers, please excuse me as my first impression of what couch surfing was has sparked my business savvy, and I have had an amazing idea come upon me like an other-worldly vision, and must document it for future use. Note to self: Million Dollar Idea in the making...Furniture Funland. A theme park geared towards visitors who want to engage their thrill-seeking side through the use of common household furnishings. Guests can jump up and down on giant beds, zoom on a race track strapped to a rolling office chair and build gargantuan forts out of mountains of couch cushions. For the park guest who wishes to take a quiet respite and have an educational experience, a museum quality exhibit can be offered entitled The Ottoman Empire: A World History of Footstools. This idea is pure gold. Sorry to my readers for the tangent.)

Apparently, couch surfing is where generous homeowners known as “hosts” allow travelers haling from lands both near and far to enjoy much needed slumber on their love seats, couches, chase lounges and settees free of charge instead of these budget-minded globe hoppers being forced to spend their limited bankrolls on over-priced hotel rooms. The website where I gathered my information from, whose function is to offer an online community where hosts and mooches, err travelers, can make contact with one another, also touted couch surfing as a means by which people from different cultures and backgrounds can share experiences with one another.

To be honest, all this sounds like to me is a lazy serial killer’s dream come true. So many would-be Ted Bundy’s out there have the sincere desire to commit ghastly acts upon other human beings, but simply don’t want to put out the predatory effort that is required to track down a proper victim. For these individuals, couch surfing is a “victims direct to you” type of service that is hard to pass up. Having strangers stay in your home, or staying in a stranger’s home, just doesn’t strike me as the safest activity to engage in. As if the website were reading my apprehensive thoughts, I found a link to a page that the site prepared with safety tips that were being proffered as a meager offering to mollify the feelings of trepidation a rationally-minded (I use the term loosely) person like myself would experience regarding this type of risky behavior. In the introductory portion of this section, the site stated, “Think about when you meet someone on a train. What information do you have? Just your own first impressions.” Yeah, well, I’m not going to invite some complete stranger from a train to stay on my couch, now am I (unless she is hot…but let's stay focused….and at least moderately realistic)? But I got where they were going with this. The next several sections of the safety page listed numerous alleged safeguards this website had put into place including: references (people can leave comments, both positive or negative, about hosts or travelers, so that new members can make educated decisions about the individuals in the community), vouching (according to the website, vouching “shows a strong bond between two members and is a carefully considered sign of trust. A member's vouch says that they stand behind another member and their actions. Anything that a member does, whether good or bad, reflects on those who have vouched for them, so this tool is used very carefully used.” If the description is to be believed, vouching is the promise-making equivalent of the sacred pinky swear. They even have a nifty little icon of several hands holding one another for people who have been vouched for).

This is all fine and dandy if you want a false sense of security, but let’s get real folks. All it takes is a group of serial killers to get together and start making positive references singing the other demented individuals’ praises and vouching for one another to lure you into their parlors of peril. “Oh sure, I’ll vouch for you Bill, but if the next couch surfer is a blonde that looks like my emasculating mother, I call dibs.” Another fear-soothing section was entitled report website abuse. Seems pretty useless, and a little late, to me. “Uh yes, I would like to report misuse of the website. My friend was tricked into staying with a murderer, was dismembered and unnatural acts were committed with the limbs.” “I’m sorry to hear that ma’am. Well, the first offense of website abuse is a stern written warning, but if this occurs again, we will most assuredly enforce a one month ban from the website community, and the host receives a nasty thumbs down icon.” The silliest part of all is that the last paragraph of the safety page began with a line that indicated that individual judgment was, of course, the most important safety measure of all. Really? Isn’t that the very thing you discounted at the beginning of the safety page regarding first impressions. This was just the websites way of saying, “If something goes wrong, you only have yourself to blame.” I honestly believe that the only thing that scares me even more than the serial killers lurking in every home is staying on a couch that has a mystery stain…ewwww! I think I will just stay in a happy little Motel 6 when traveling, and keep my couch stranger free.

You’re Staying Where? Motel 6? You Lucky Dog You!

Over the last two months my son and I have spent almost every other Saturday at my parents house in the country, where my mature acting six year old “T” spends most of his time developing his driving skills precariously close to my parents’ trees in a golf cart with me nervously, not to mention vainly, gripping the handrail of the runaway vehicle out of sheer terror harboring the belief that if I pull hard enough on the handrail I will be able to control our runaway death trap, with T laughing maniacally the whole time taking immense pleasure from the shocked and fearful look on my face. Despite T’s belief that he is more than capable of operating this misplaced, mayhem-inducing motor coach of the links, I only allow the “solo” driving for so long before my strong instincts of self-preservation lead to keeping at least one hand on the wheel and a foot hovering only millimeters away from the break.

Although I enjoy these little rides, I decided that this weekend we would do something different, and would take a quick weekend jaunt out of town. I had decided on visiting the Los Angeles Zoo, and then entertaining ourselves the following day at Six Flags Magic Mountain. I know all of you emotional sadists out there probably think that I am planning on taking T on some of the most aggressive, trauma inflicting, blackout inducing and projectile vomit causing rides that California has to offer as his penance for the crazy rides he makes me endure on the golf cart, but even I am not that cruel. There are many rides that cater to riders of T’s age and small stature that he is sure to enjoy, and I will end up lamenting after he forces me to ride the same slow-paced ride umpteen times that will dredge up memories of our traversing over the terrain of Disneyland seemingly ad infinitum in the monorail (Oh Mickey You're So Fine) As this was going to be a two-day trip, ample hotel accommodations were going to be needed, so I started scouring the internet for the most economic choice. Motel 6 offered the best deal, and was relatively close to both destinations, so I decided that would be our home away from home for one night.

As I was perusing the website getting ready to make my reservation, I noticed that the website offered a glimpse into my potential lodging via a short video clip featuring the specific Motel 6 we would be staying at. The video actually started with a realistic portrayal of the property, which I appreciated. An outside camera shot of the property came into focus, as the narrator described this particular Motel 6 as an “ideal resting place for road-weary travelers traversing the state or for adventuring-seeking visitors looking to enjoy the lowest room rates of any national chain.” Now that was an excellent job going to their bread and butter feature: economy hotel option. However, despite the quality start, I realized this would be the pinnacle of the presentation, and things would start to go downhill from there. The next few lines stated how they were just 8 miles from Six Flags Magic Mountain, 11 Miles from Bob Hope Airport and “…not too much further to Universal Studios and the bright lights of Hollywood.” To be precise you have to drive 20 miles to get to Hollywood. Now in my mind “not too much further” is the colloquial equivalent to “down yonder way” and “drive for just a spell”, and while I realize that in the grand scheme of things 20 miles is nothing, anyone that has driven in the herky-jerky stop-and-go traffic of Los Angeles’ hellish highways, 20 miles can seem to be an eternity. Many a time in my travels through Los Angeles, I have observed signs that read my destination was what I believed to be only a paltry amount of mileage away, however no matter how many times I switched lanes, honked, flashed inappropriate gestures, banged on the steering wheel or asked myself how such slow moving traffic was even possible, all I could hear in the back of my mind was the classic Atari sound byte of WAGA, WAGA, WAGA, WAGA that so symbolized precious moments of my life being methodically gobbled up not by a hungry ¾ yellow circle, but by the short-sighted road engineers of days gone by that failed to realize the catastrophic example of gridlock that Los Angeles would one day become.

Then the video clip really took a quick plunge for me. The cinematic masterminds behind the clips production just couldn’t help it. It’s not their fault…it’s just the way they are. Like a heroin junkie unable to resist the nagging temptation to indulge in the next fix, the makers of the clip simply could not slake their artistic urges by simply doing the clean, cheap room approach, but had to go over the top, making more out of the hotel than it is. After citing it’s proximity to Hollywood, the narrator’s voice next quipped, “This Motel 6 has a little bit of that star quality.” Uh, yeah, OK, sure it does. And as evidence of this “star quality” the video faded into the next shot and panned across the dank lobby landscape, with it’s drab colored walls, 1973 florescent lighting and one small potted plant. This place had as much panache as a 1940’s hospital with it’s alabaster skinned nurses wearing bleached white uniforms roaming off-white linoleum tiled hallways checking charts hanging from the edges of ivory colored metal framed beds. Oh yeah, this says upscale to me for sure. I had to blink twice lest I thought I had accidentally stepped foot into the foyer of some starlet’s Beverly Hills mansion. The video went on to show other “examples” of high-end boudoir amenities, such as bed spreads suitable for an eight year old (yes, the picture above is of the bed in our room, which T did emphatically describe as “awesome”). The makers of this increasingly overdramatic video then obviously realized they still needed to fill another twenty seconds of video and just started rattling off basic commonplace features contained within the rooms such as “modern bathrooms and plenty of clean towels.” Wow, actual indoor plumbing and an ample supply of non-soiled linens…my heart runneth over with joy and amazement! What’s next? Please don’t keep me in suspense. If you say you have beds with pillows and doors that lock from the inside I may pee myself from excitement. And of course they couldn’t just let it go at that and end the clip. They had to go back one more time, dig down deep, search the inner sanctum of their imaginations, wallow in their creative juices and spew forth one more ridiculous Hollywood reference, “There’s even a sunny pool area where you can lounge about like a movie star.” Oh, I am sure this is exactly the movie star pool experience. I can just see a rich, world-famous movie star surrounded by pot-bellied papas and muumuu-wearing mamas while they submerge themselves in water that has been tainted by the inconsiderate, free-flowing bladders of tantrum throwing toddlers. My suggestion, do a five second commercial, “We’re cheap, we’re relatively clean and we usually have vacancies."