Yea training videos

Today I had to attend a two-hour "orientation" meeting about benefits, even though I've been working at my new job for more than three months now. And, since they had all of us "new" employees trapped in one place at the mercy of the human resources gods, it was deemed that we should watch some crappy training videos – you know, to really get us pumped about working.

I'm pretty certain that one of the training videos I was subjected to was the exact same video I had to watch 8 or 9 years ago when I first started working as a busser at Chi-Chi's Mexican Restaurant during high school. It was about those guys at the Seattle fish market who throw the fish. And they have so much fun doing it, too.

As the fish-throwers spouted off a myriad of platitudes about how great it is to throw and catch fish for a living, and how everyone can love their jobs as long as they have a good attitude (smile, meatpackers – your job wouldn't suck so bad if only you had a better attitude about gutting cows), I started to get an eerie sense of deja vu. And then it dawned on me – I had been subjected to the exact same video almost 10 years earlier before starting a crappy minimum-wage job involving scraping people's half-eaten food scraps into the garbage. One decade and a college degree later, I still can't avoid the sub-standard training videos.

Another milestone in adulthood

I decided that it's time for me to buy a new car. Actually, my mom decided it was time for me to buy a new car, and so we went to the Honda, Nissan and Toyota dealers in Iowa City in hopes of taking advantage of the tornadoes that went through the area a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, those tornadoes left many a college student with no place to live. Fortunately, however, they also left many of those brand-new cars with tons of barely noticeable scratches and dents that forced dealers to slash their prices.

My parents eagerly took advantage of the deals, snatching up two brand-new cars. So when I came into town, I decided to head down to Iowa City with my mom to check out all these amazing deals that I'd heard about. Sadly, most of those deals were long gone - all those storm-damaged cars sold like wildfire within a week of the tornadoes, leaving me with little to look at.

But I did find one new Nissan Sentra with a big dent in the hood and scratches all along the side. To top that off, the windows had all been blown out of it, so the interior was coated in mud. I couldn't have been more excited, knowing how much my parents' cars were discounted for barely-noticeable damage.

Unfortunately, the salesman was only willing to sell it for $1,500 off the overpriced sticker price of $22,000. Since he had previously indicated - before I test-drove it, of course - that we would be looking at paying $14,000 to $15,000 for the car, I was a little disappointed. My mom basically told him to go to hell and we left.

Even though I didn't buy a car that day, the test drive made me fall in love with the idea of having a new car. So now my new project is researching everything I could ever hope to find out about the two cars that I would consider buying – the Toyota Corolla and Honda Civic. I found some cool Web sites that have the MSRP, invoice cost, and market value for both cars, so the next time I go face the salesperson, I have ammunition and know what I should be paying for the car - as opposed to the bullshit, inflated price they put on the window.

That Nissan Sentra, by the way, was supposed to sell for $20,000 anyway, and they were offering it to me for $19,500 with a big-ass dent in the hood and trying to pass that off as a good deal. I'm glad we walked away from it. And since I'm in car-buying mode now, I'm interested in any car-buying horror stories, tips, advice, etc., that my many faithful blog readers care to offer.

Stupid Amazon

I got a little bit excited when I discovered that you could buy complete seasons of the Mary Tyler Moore Show on DVD... much like my collections of Friends, Family Guy, Everybody Loves Raymond and That 70s Show. OK, I'm kind of obsessed with owning DVDs of various TV shows and then watching them when I'm bored, too.

Anyhow, I found seasons 1, 2, and 3 of MTM on Amazon.com for only about $30 each. So I decided I'd start out my MTM DVD collection with the complete season 3 (I decided to go with that one since it was on sale for $20).

To get free shipping, I had to have it sent via U.S. Postal Service snail mail - which I figured was no big deal. I'd still have it in a few days. Well that was over a week ago and still no Mary Tyler Moore DVDs!!!! I'm starting to get very upset with the post office. I can't track it because it's going through the stupid post office, and they don't track regular mail. But Amazon said it was supposed to be here on Saturday.

Every day I watch out my window for the mail truck and then after it leaves I run downstairs to the mailbox and anxiously check for the DVDs. It's starting to drive me crazy. I can't handle this disappointment much longer. AHHHHHH!!!!

My new obsession

My new obsession, in addition of course to obsessing about getting old, is working out. I'm signing up to run road races - well, just one so far, but I'll see how it goes and then maybe try another one. I'm on the five-day-a-week elliptical machine plan, and lifting weights three times a week. I can't really explain why except that I moved to an apartment where it was readily available for free and it provides something productive to do with my time during the day.


Before I moved, my free time during the day was primarily spent watching "Friends" on DVD and reading political Web sites. And while that was fun, I can't really say that it was productive - and I often felt bored.

But now, I just go work out like clockwork, every day around noon. It's the craziest thing, too, because I don't even have to force myself to do it. I just feel like doing it because I know I have nothing better to do with my time. I know that if I don't, I'll just spend my morning/early afternoon watching "Friends" DVDs and surfing the Internet - and that seems boring to me.

So yay for boredom. It's helping me get into shape for the first time in about eight years. I highly recommend it - it's a good motivational tool. Just tell yourself, "I have nothing better to do right now." Of course, that might not work for people who do have lives and do have something better to do... in that case I really can't help you.

I'll let you know when it wears off.