Thin Skinned Politicians.

It is sad to see that some politicians today just can't take a joke. I am not making a reference to our current president, by the way, even though that is his picture at the head of this blog. What you see is a product that what was available at the University of Tennessee bookstore. The product was removed when State Representative Joe Armstrong, a Democrat, went to the store and made a complaint. Armstrong is quoted as saying, "When you operate on state and federal dollars, you ought to be sensitive to those type of politically specific products. If it was a private entity or corporation or store, (that's different), but this is a state university. We certainly don't want in any way to put the university in a bad light by having those political (products), particularly aimed at defaming the president."

Of course Representative Armstrong doesn't see this as being a free-speech issue. It's just plain offensive to him. I wonder if he's ever looked at political cartoon? The mints are made by the Unemployed Philosophers Guild, who love the put out products with unusual names. Are they just singling out President Obama for ridicule? The answer to that is very easy.

The mints you see here were sold at the University of Tennessee bookstore in 2004. There were no Republicans going in there demanding that those be removed from the shelves. In 2008 another product appeared on the shelves:

Where was the outrage over that product? Personally, I find them all very funny. As usual, when someone tries to make a huge issue out of nothing, it has a tendency to backfire on them. The Disappoint-mints have sold out and are appearing on eBay as collectors items. Representative Armstrong is finding himself becoming an object of ridicule. He should have seen this coming.

As far as I know, that is a mockup, not an actual product. However, I'm willing to bet very soon you will be able to buy those. It'll be interesting to see if Representative Armstrong gets reelected. He really needs to lighten up a little bit.

Sunday Song.

How Dumb Do You Have To Be?

To need directions to put together a box that looks like this. I found this on the floor this morning at work. The sad thing is, I have some coworkers who would have trouble doing this with directions.

You Can't Please Everybody.

Last night was very interesting. Every night before we start work we have a short meeting where we learn how sales are doing and the managers bring up anything they feel needs to be discussed. As soon as the meeting was over and I went to the sales floor the phone was ringing. There was another person working electronics, but she was helping a customer, so I answered the phone. The caller started out by asking,  "Doesn't anybody answer the phone there." According to the lady she had been trying for a week to contact the store. I really don't believe she was telling the truth. All I told her was that I didn't understand why nobody had answered, but then asked her what could I do for her. She was wanting to order something from our website and was having trouble doing so. The way the website works is you can purchase anything listed and have it shipped to the store for free. The item has to be paid for before it is shipped, but what this lady wanted was to have the item shipped to the store and then she would come in and pay for it. I told her that we couldn't do that. She did not want to register an account on the website, and did not want to use her credit card there either. I told her that if she came in a got a gift card that that would be an acceptable form of payment, which didn't make her very happy either. Then she told me she didn't understand why we just simply didn't have every item on the website in the store. I tried to explain that there were simply too many items for that to happen and that some of the items purchased were in limited quantities so there were not enough items to send one to every store in the company. She grumbled a little bit more, but then did thank me for my help and hung up.

That was quite a way to start the night. I have always said, there are some customers that no matter what you do, you could shine their shoes and wax their car, they would still find something to complain about. A lot of people don't seem to understand that even though our store is part of a corporation, not every store carries the exact same merchandise. For one thing, the stores are all different sizes. The one I work in is smaller than several others in this area. For another, they try and merchandise accordingly to what will sell in the area the store is located in. One example of that is being here in Georgia, we would be very hard-pressed to sell any snow blowers, where as in Illinois they wouldn't have a problem. I do everything in my power to make people happy, but the last time I tried walking on water I nearly drowned. Fortunately, people like that are in the minority.

The prank phone calls seem to have totally ended. Maybe they're just taking a break, but if I get any more I will let you know about it.

Andersonville.

I had mentioned when I made the Florida trip that I had four goals in mind, to see the Atlantic Ocean, to go to Tallahassee, to see the Gulf of Mexico, and to go to Warm Springs, Georgia. The Gulf of Mexico got pushed to next year, and I decided to delay Warm Springs. The reason I'm delaying Warm Springs is that it is close enough that I could do that on a day off. It is about a two-hour drive from here. I decided instead to go to Andersonville, which was home to a notorious Confederate prisoner of war camp. I considered a side stop to Plains, Georgia, but I would had to have waited there about half an hour for the Jimmy Carter Museum to open, so I went on.

About 5 miles south of Andersonville, I saw a sign which led to the place where Charles Lindbergh made his first solo flight. I had never heard of that and decided it was something to check out. The picture at the top of this blog here is the Lindbergh statue, which is in front of a the Jimmy Carter Regional Airport. It is nothing fancy but made for a nice stop.

In addition to the Civil War prison, there is a Prisoner of War Museum at Andersonville. The building you see here is the Welcome Center as well as the Museum. The museum is a fascinating place to visit. It covers all of the wars that America has been in. There are many items that former POWs had saved and had used during their incarceration.

Naturally, there is nothing remaining from the original stockade. They have not reconstructed the entire fenced area, just to them at the opposite ends of the area. This is the gate that the prisoners first saw when they entered Andersonville. The stockade was built to house 10,000 men, but eventually over 31,000 were held there.

This was taken at the opposite end from the gate. You can see a guard tower, which were built all away alongside the stockade.

This is a reconstruction of some of the shelters that the men used to shield themselves from the weather. Very little of this was provided for them.

One of the reasons that Andersonville was located where it was, was there was a stream that ran through the center of the stockade. This was to provide fresh water for the men kept their. Unfortunately, there was a drought. After the men started arriving in Andersonville. Conditions had gotten very bad. Several months after the place was filling up, a summer storm came up which help to wash out the camp. Lightning struck where you see this little shelter. The men there, said water came up from where the lightning it hit, and they named the place, Providence Springs.

Here is a view of the fountain that is found inside that building. They do post warning signs not be drinking from that fountain.

There are fence posts all the way around the area where the stockade stood. The first post that you see was where the where the outer walls stood. The inner post was called the deadline. Any man who went past that line was killed.

Several attempts were made to tunnel out of Andersonville. This is one of the holes that was dug. There is a fence surrounding it to preserve it.

There also is a national cemetery at Andersonville. It is still used today. I wasn't able to take a tour of the entire cemetery because they were doing a burial that day.

After touring Andersonville, I was ready to head for home. I considered several different ways to go and decided to take Route 41, which took me right through Atlanta. I have always avoided Atlanta because of the traffic, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. This is the first time that I've taken a trip like that, and I will be doing more, because there is a lot I want to see while I'm still able to.

Now on DVD.

There were only two movies that came out today, not counting those that have just been released on Blu-ray. The only movies that I will talk about will be those that have come out for the first time. The first movie was Rio, an animated movie about a bird who does not know how to fly. The previews that I have seen of it have not convinced me that I need to see this movie. It does have a rating of 7.1 on the IMDB, and it did $143 million at the box office.

Soul Surfer is another movie that I will pass on. It is not that I think that it's a bad movie, it's just something that I have no desire to see. It is based on the true story of Bethany Hamilton, who at age 13, lost an arm during a shark attack while surfing. It is rated 6.5 on the IMDB and grossed $43 million at the box office.

Meeting A Friend I Had Never Met.

When I was telling my friends about my Florida trip, I always said that I was going to see the ocean and going to Tallahassee to meet a friend that I had never met. I got a few strange looks from that comment. Several times I have mentioned in this blog that I belong to the Captain Comics Board. There are several people on the board that I have always considered friends, even though the only way we know each other is through what we have posted there. Most people on that board post under an alias, however, I am not one of them. One of my friends there posts under the name Dagwan. He is one of the followers of this blog, and has commented on it several times. He also is the owner of a comic book store, which is called The Secret Headquarters. Since I know that he reads this and I wanted to surprise him, I didn't post much before I left on vacation. That way he didn't have a chance to leave town.

His store was very easy to find. All I had to do was take exit 199 off I-10 and go south. It wasn't very far down that road. I didn't park directly in front of the store because I wanted to take the picture that you see and didn't want him to see me taking it. When I entered the store he asked if he could help me. I told him that I was the ambassador from the Centauri Republic, and I had a question that I wanted to ask him. (On the Captain Comics Board we gave ourselves titles. If you been reading this blog long enough you know that the my title comes from the TV series Babylon 5 and the line was said by the Centauri ambassador, Londo Mollari. I have been the Centauri ambassador on that board for years.) He gave me a look like, oh my, the lunatics have escaped the asylum and I forgot to lock the door. Then he asked me to remove my hat and he knew who I was. Up until that point I didn't even know his real name, which is Brian. His daughter was also in the store with, and he is always affectionately referring to her as Baby Bean. She is a delightful little girl.

We had a very nice visit, and I did buy a couple of books from him. He also gave me a couple of books, one of which was a copy of a Godzilla book which shows Godzilla destroying his store. While he is running away from a carrying his daughter. Here is that cover.

The question that I had for him was how can you call your place The Secret Headquarters and then tell everyone where is at? He told me about once a week someone comes and says that they didn't know he was there. He tells them that's why it is a secret headquarters. Brian is a great guy and has a very good comic book store. If you want to know more, you can go to his website here. Incidentally, Brian, I am planning next year to go see the Gulf of Mexico. I will drop in again when I go there. I'll try and let you know I am coming this time, so you can leave town if you'd like. All kidding aside, Brian it was great to meet you and your daughter. I wish you the best luck in the future.

One of the things that we talked about was my feelings about the changes that are coming from DC comics. Closer to the time that those changes take place I'm going to be devoting a blog post to it. Brian knows how I feel about it, but thanks to him I am changing my stance just a little bit. That, however, is a discussion for another day.

After leaving Tallahassee, I went to Albany, Georgia, where I spent the night. What I did on the return trip I will talk about Wednesday. I am making a slight change on my Tuesday posts. Instead of it being Baseball Card Tuesday, it will now be New Release Tuesday. New movies come out every Tuesday and since I am now the one putting them out I will tell you what is available.