A Day in the Life: Truckstop Radiation & Wal-mart

Not the real name of course, but that's what I call it.

The good: I got off work early.
The bad: It's so I can come here to Truckstop Radiation to get another MRI. This time on my neck.
The ugly: I'm really beginning to hate this place. I should own shares by now. I'll update later.
Another reason to hate it:  I’ve been here a half dozen times over the past few months.  Still, they want me to fill out the same idiotic form with the same questions and the same answers every damn time.  I even asked the guy why couldn’t they just Xerox it.

“We just want to know if there are any changes,” he said.

“No, there aren’t.  Now here’s your paper back,”  I said.  In my mind that is.  I filled the damn thing out.

Update: 5:30 and I'm done. Didn't take as long as others I've had. This new blogger app is better than what we had but it still needs work. For instance, any time I do an update, if I add a picture it should beneath or above your text . Instead it just shoves them all to the bottom of your page.  There’s no way to actually place them unless you’re an HTML whiz kid.  I am not.   I also wish there was a way to auto watermark your pics, but there isn't as far as I can tell.  (Note:  these were watermarked  and placed properly after I returned home)

Update: Traffic isn't as bad as usual. At the Rosedale Wal Mart to pick up some Allegra my HCP wants me to take. I was in Rite Aid yesterday and the price was outrageous. Even for the store brand. I would have bought it anyway because you don't save any money driving all the way into Bakersfield, but I knew I had to come into town anyway for the MRI so I just waited since Wal-mart was in the vicinity.  Hell, there’s always a Wally World in the vicinity.

The 15 tablet pack of Allegra was almost 18 bucks at Rite Aid yesterday. It was about $5 less here. The generic store brand was less then ten dollars at Wal-mart. That's what I bought.  Here’s some comparison price shopping for you though.

There were only a couple of packages of the Wal-mart brand left and they were kind of beat up.  But I didn’t really want to spring for the 30 pack since these are one a day tablets and I have to go back to the HCP in two weeks so she can see how I’m doing.  And I will be doing just fine, because the last thing I want is another specialist hitting me up for my 15 dollar co-pay.

I hate shopping here at the Wal-mart in Rosedale though.  The place is a Zoo.  There’s always a bunch of little monsters running amok and the aisles are way too narrow.  I had to wait forever to get to the aisle with the Allegra in it.  After I got the stuff, I headed to the back of the store for some DVD and electronics browsing.  But first I had to stop off for some needed supplies.

Usually I would buy the Gain and use it to pollute our environment with.  I’ve found that the really generic cheap shit doesn’t clean your clothes very well.  But with the six dollar price different and the inviting aroma of lavender, how could I resist the Great Value?  And dig that colorful packaging!  Or am I just becoming a cheap skate.  I would prefer to buy Tide but with Guiding Light off the air, why should I support Proctor and Gamble?  Oh hell, they probably made all of these brands.

 

If I buy microwave popcorn at the local Save-Mart, the best I can do is get the generic Sunny Select brand for $4.49.  For that price you get ten bags.  Here, for $3.68 you get twelve bags.  So since I eat a lot of this stuff (it’s my one major indulgence), I stocked up.  The best low fat microwave popcorn I’ve tasted is Jolly Time, above and beyond the taste of any others.  Since I don’t eat regular fatty popcorn, I can’t attest to the taste of those.  The problem with Jolly Time is that it’s so darn expensive.  At Save Mart, it only comes in three packs, for about $2.69.  So that’s almost 90 cents a bag which means ten bags is about $9.00.  I did get some at Rite Aid not too long ago because they had single bags for 69 Cents.  Still, that’s seven dollars for ten bags.  But this stuff is okay for the price.

You’ll recognize the above picture.  It is the $5 DVD bin where all DVD’s go to die.  I used to get some goodies out of here but lately the pickings have been slim.  Such was the case this time.  The rule of thumb is if I don’t already have them, chances are that I don’t want them.  That is not always the case though because I did find one DVD that I decided to get.  Believe it or not I’ve never seen it, although I did see it’s unrelated predecessor.  Maybe I’ll end up writing a review on it.  How this did not end up in my collection I don’t know, and I’m a Julia Roberts booster.

I see I screwed up the watermark on it though.  I don’t know how the date and time got turned on for this picture and none of the others.  Freaking IPhone!  Anyway, I’ll put this on the shelf and get around to it.  I haven’t seen Erin Brockovich either, something I really need to do.  It’s here at the house somewhere.    I mean after all, she did win an Academy Award for that one.  The next thing I came across was the following worthless piece of shit.

Wasn’t this out at theaters less than a month ago?  I notice theater owners aren’t bitching about this movie’s quick release to DVD.  Although this shelf is full, I bet there’s plenty of wing nuts out there to spend their $13.00.  Idiots.  Damn, I just now noticed that.   At that price for a new release, they really are desperate to get rid of these drink coasters.  However, if somebody wants to send me a copy, feel free to do so and I promise to be fair and watch the thing before I write a review ripping it to shreds.  (I sure as hell am not wasting a spot in my Netflix Queue or a dollar at Redbox on it)  The next time I watch The Undefeated, it’ll have John Wayne and Rock Hudson in it.  And Missy, if you’re reading this, will you please return my gawddamn DVD’s?

Speaking of bad movies, whatever you do, don’t ever ask me to review these next three films.  There is no way I’ll ever sit through them again.  Once was one time too many and it’s taken me all of these years to cleanse them from my memory.  I don’t care if they are just $13.00.

I own seasons one through eight of Hawaii Five-O, then I had to quit on it.  The darn things were just costing me too much money at $35 or more a season.  And besides, you can now stream the show on Netflix so what’s the point?  Still, I might finish off my collection when the price comes down.  The consensus of opinion is that the series was on a steady decline after the seventh season anyway.  Being honest, I would love to own the whole series, but time and money are not on my side.  It was a great series though and maybe some time in the future I’ll write about it.

 

 

I love Chucky.  He’s a class act.  Too bad a few of his movies stank up the joint though.  Still I came close to buying this.  I didn’t for two reasons.  One was that the first film, the most important one, was not a part of this pack.  So it wasn’t the complete series.  Two, I already own one of these (Seed of Chucky) so I wouldn’t have been getting as great of a deal as I would have otherwise.  But I still yet may buy this.  I did find the original Child’s Play film in the following set.

 

 

Yeah, you can buy this if you want the original movie.  I wasn’t tempted.  I already own a special edition of Carrie (and have reviewed it and will soon move it over to this blog),  and the original Amityville Horror is a really lousy movie.  Or at least the way I remember it when I originally saw it at the drive in years ago.  I know I wasn’t scared at all and was pretty much bored.  So I would in a sense, have been paying $13 for Child’s Play, and that crap just ain’t happening.

 

I did give a quick look to the blu-rays before moving on.  But I usually get those on line because they are cheaper.  Wal-mart does have one blu-ray I want but you have to order it from their internet site because it’s an exclusive.  Why they don’t just put it in the damn store is beyond me.  That would be the  blu-ray of Legally Blonde for $10.  So there was nothing else in this department that said “buy me.”   Besides, I just got Scream 4 and Fast Five this week, and a spanking new Ben-Hur last week.

 

 

And then there’s this.  This is the same blu ray player I bought some months back for the TV in the bedroom.  Once they added Amazon to it the way it was supposed to have been, the thing has worked like a charm and certainly at $88 I probably got my money’s worth.

 

Last stop, The Sims.  Boy how I used to love this game until EA ruined the fun with it’s endless marketing shenanigans and it’s Crappy Sims 3 Store they invented to take advantage of the mindless guppies that buy that crap.  Buying the games is one thing, but giving in to the greedy corporate mindset and to continue buying way overpriced pieces of digital dung, is just silly.  I know the guppy and the sheep will argue that it’s okay to be guppy and sheep, but I can’t deal with that.  I read what these zombified goof balls have to say on The Sims 3 site, and it really makes me want to puke.  I haven’t bothered loading the game up in months, and if I do, it’ll be so I can rewrite my Sims story.  I really need to write an article to vent about this crap.  And how many go rounds is this for the digital dogs anyway?

By the time I checked out of the store I had spent about $83 bucks, I had one of my bad dizzy spells, my back was hurting and my leg was on fire.  So I decided just to stop at the local Long John Silvers/A & W Root Beer place to get something to take home. I love the atmosphere here, the 50’s styling and the juke box.  Food is just so-so cakes, but I get tired of burgers.  I had the chicken and fish mix (1 piece and 2 pieces)

 

And finally, I read somewhere that Microsoft is going to discontinue the Zune.  It’s too bad.  I own one, and it is a superior dedicated digital music player when compared head to head to the iPod.  (We’re not talking Ipod touch here.  Get real.)  As a matter of fact, I prefer using it for music before using my IPhone.  I was going to get a new Zune HD but guess I won’t now.  The Zune connects to my car radio, and you can actually get more music on it’s 8 GBS than you can an IPod's 8 GBS.   How is that?  It has to do with reducing the bit rate.  You can go lower on the Zune and not have it affect the music.  You only have two choices on the Ipod.  Take me home, Nat.