BillyStyle

The past two days here in St. George, Utah have been pretty bizarre for this area. It has snowed for about half of yesterday and today. I’ve lived here for over five years and have seen it snow for probably a total of three hours in that time.

Anyway, I just looked out my window to see something very strange. I saw two standard balloons falling from the sky pretty rapidly. I’d never really thought of it before, but that’s just something you don’t see. It’s not uncommon to see balloons float up and out of sight. I imagine those come down somewhere, but I’ve never seen it happen, maybe they go into space and to some far galaxy, who knows.

So yeah, two balloons, falling fast. They both hit the ground so I went outside and looked up and saw probably 20 more balloons that go thousands of feet into the sky, probably going on past what is visible, all of them are falling toward the ground at a good rate, with a little breeze from the south. I figure they must have all escaped from a car dealership when it was a little warmer outside, gotten up pretty high, then cooled down significantly and started their decent.

I stayed outside for a while longer, just watching the balloons fall and bounce off of buildings and streets, parking lots, just rolling around. It was kind of a surreal moment.

No, I’m not a workaholic, I don’t drink while on the job. What you say? That’s not what a workaholic does? I beg to differ!

Unfortunately, the word workaholic has become commonplace amongst the masses. Let’s take a look at what comprises this horrific monstrosity of a “word” shall we? It is sad, but Webster has this word in the dictionary. From Webster:

Etymology: work + -aholic, alteration of -oholic (as in alcoholic)

Part one: Work. Work is the root of this mutant freak of a word, that is fine. Part two: Alcoholic. For starters, the aholic part for some reason changed the O to an A which makes no sense. Now to dig deeper into the word alcoholic. Let’s see what was changed about the root word to make it addictive in nature. The only change is an added ic. So alcohol becomes alcoholic, simple enough.

Now, someone who works so much that it’s comparable to the drinking habits of an alcoholic. Some genius decided to mesh the two words as workaholic which bothers me to no end. When I hear that word, I think of somebody who just can’t stop drinking while on the job. This is because it’s alcoholic not alcoholaholic.

I submit that if we are going to compare working to drinking (a horrible comparison that is a whole other story), the word ought to be workic. That’s right, simply workic.

He can’t leave the office; he’s a workic.

I’m a bit of a workic.

She was the top salesperson of the quarter. She’s quite the workic.

There, isn’t that nice? No implications that the person has a problem identifiable with that of a compulsive drinker. From now on, I urge you, the reader, to simply add an ic to words to make them addictive. Let’s not make everybody with a passion an alcoholic.

Hetian is a term I learned in St. George. Some friends and I decided that would be a good way to spell it. It is pronounced “hesh-in”. What does it mean? As far as I’ve gathered, it’s the local version of white trash – local being Saint George, Utah.

Anyway, tonight I wanted a little Carl’s Jr. so I figured I’d hit the drive through, so no need to change out of my sweat pants I was wearing, because I wasn’t going to actually be in public. My plan got a chink in it when I showed up to find about 10 cars in the drive in line. I decided I’d white trash it and go inside. Now Utah is a strange place. Most places I’ve lived, you don’t see people in sweats in public very much. Here in Utah, it is common to see people wearing sweats even in decent places. For instance, I work in a very large top quality furniture store. I see well-to-do women and men come into the store (it’s hard to spend less than $1,000 there if you’re buying something) wearing sweats frequently. Anyhow, I felt more like a Utard being in sweats in public than I ever have before.

This story kind of sucks, but I’ll keep it up anyway, I’m in a weird mood.

I got a response today from my complaint about the Q-tips. Here tis:

Hello,

Thanks so much for writing!

We do apologize for the experience you had with our product. Please
understand that the condition you’ve reported does not represent our
usual quality. We will forward your comments describing your experience
on to our Brand Manager and Quality Assurance staff.

We will certainly forward you a replacement coupon.

We again apologize and thank you for your interest!
Your friends at Unilever HPC

I’m a picky person with some things, not with others, as most people probably are. One of the many things which I am picky about are cotton swabs, commonly referred to as Q-tips, which is the brand I prefer. I prefer Q-tips because they have a stiffer shaft than all other brands I’ve used. I like the stiffer shaft because when I use them, I like to be able to apply pressure to things on the side of the cotton swab because I’m usually trying to wipe something off the side of another thing with the swab (duh).

Anyway, I enjoy doing things simply based on principle. I realize that Unilever Corporation (Q-tips parent company) will even notice anything a single consumer has to say, but alas, here is what I’ve done. I went to their website and filled out a contact form explaining my frustration. Following is what I wrote in the contact form, including the whole reason I am writing this specific post. Enjoy!

I’ve long used Q-tips because all other cotton swabs I’ve used have a weak shaft. Q-tips have always had a stronger shaft so they don’t bend as easy.

I recently bought a box of Q-tips, and noticed the shaft is softer and the whole swabs are slightly shorter. I’m a picky person, and this bothers me. I realize it’s probably saving tens of thousands of dollars, and that my opinion really doesn’t matter, but I just wanted to know if this is a permanent change.

If it is a permanent change, I am requesting to change it back to how they were before, good and strong. Tell ya what, I’ll meet you in the middle, you can keep them shorter, but give me the stiffness back.

You know when you’re really trying to get some good circular action on that Q-tip and the blasted shaft just keeps bending so you can’t put any pressure on the end? Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about. Q-tips used to be the good stuff, but now, there is no advantage and I might as well save 17 cents or however much less the generic brands are.

If a person read this, I’m impressed. Thanks for your attention. If you have the same feelings as I do, do what you can to fight for the little man. Otherwise, enjoy giving me a cookie cutter response.

Regards,
Billy Park
billystyle@gmail.com

Apparently Australians do too. Found this today on the good ol’ Australian Pepsi website. It doesn’t get much more awesome. For the record, I currently have the upper right wallpaper on my desktop centered with a white background along with the Hoff screen saver. It really is glorious.

Link: Pepsi + David Hasselhoff

This week I bought a new mattress/box spring set. I realized that this is the first time I’ve ever had a brand new mattress set. I’m 27 years old, pretty interesting I thought. I have spent most of my life on a twin sized mattress. The most recent was a twin from Deseret Industries thrift store that I got used from a roommate about four years back. It was getting pretty bad, if I sat on the mattress, the springs bottomed out.

I had a plan to get a king sized mattress soon, but a sweet deal came up. I work at a large furniture store. Recently, the mattress buyer for the store got a slew of mattresses from a new company to see if the store would begin carrying the brand. He decided not to carry the brand and sell the new unused mattresses to employees at a very good price, although still making $100 – $200 profit per mattress…naturally. I put my name on the list to get one of these, and last night I slept on it for the first time.

Now, this being the first time on a new mattress that I bought, I actually didn’t sleep too well. I feel great this morning, so I think the mattress is great, so here’s my theory. I think I didn’t sleep well because subconsciously, I was paying too much attention to how comfortable the mattress was, and didn’t let myself fall deeply asleep. Pretty interesting. I imagine over the next week or so, the novelty will wear thin and then I’ll get back into the normal swing of things.