I cannot think of a single reason that Walmart exists other than the fact that they deliver low prices. They buy products from developing nations that have few (if any) labor laws and treat employees inhumanely. If that was not bad enough, they often put smaller local businesses out of business in whatever locality they occupy. They provide low paying jobs with health insurance that the employees cannot pay for with their meager salary. Walmart is also responsible for bringing the coqui frog to the Big Island. They also use way too many plastic bags and do not encourage proper bagging procedures thus causing waste and harm to the environment.

In light of these issues (and others) the Big Island should be having a public hearing for a proposed bill to ban big box retailers. Kauai has already banned big box retailers. It should be interesting to see how this issue unfolds…

Popularity: 17% [?]

Being a vegetarian, it only stands to reason that I would be attracted to the idea of vegetarian shoes. I was just looking at Zappos and I took a look at the vegetarian shoes they carry. I really like the idea of buying nice shoes that are earth friendly, recyclable, cruelty free, and all of that good stuff but every vegetarian shoe I have seen looks like it jumped out of the 1960s or the 1980s. Who decided that vegetarians should lack fashion sense? I would not buy a single shoe I saw on that page. The more casual shoes look more like something the hippies with dreadlocks that live in Pahoa would wear - nothing wrong with that - but it is just not me. This shoe, called the Earth Flight is just about the ugliest shoe I’ve ever seen and it comes in such an array of colors - black, poo brown, lighter shade of poo brown, and dirty ocean color. These people should give Manolo Blahnik a call so he can straighten them out about how to make shoes. Make less ugly shoes, please!

*Update* After being out and about today I would just like to say that Crocs are *not* an acceptable vegetarian solution to footwear.  Those things are so hideously ugly that they should have gone out long long ago.  They are made out of something called  croslite  but they feel really mushy and soft in a rather gross way, I think.  Those things should be kept for the garden only.

Brian is out of town for the day - he’s in Honolulu living it up in Waikiki. Fortunately, he will be taking a cab where he needs to go so I don’t have to worry about him driving there (since he does not know where things are). I am sure he will not have the grand time I had last weekend in Honolulu with the cute convertible, fun convention, and my culinary adventure.

Popularity: 15% [?]

My bread machine has decided it is time to kick the bucket.  It is currently cooking some kind of hard lump.  It no longer posesses the power to mix the dough and an odd burning smell is let out any time that the machine is trying to mix the dough.  Locating a bread machine on the Big Island might not be so easy - but we shall see…

Popularity: 9% [?]

A myriad of things are going on right now and all of them are fun and exciting!  Some interesting things are occuring business-wise and I could not be more excited.

We spent Valentine’s Day watching two really bad and gruesome X-Files episodes while eating Chinese takeout - it was interesting.  The episodes were these two:  the weird man with mother issues who kills people and takes hair and nails from them and the other episode was some satanic cult that sacrifices the kids living in the town.  We could not even finish watching the second episode, it was just too stupid and absurd.
Today, I am going to find a dresser and a new sewing table.  I also have a doctor’s appointment to find out what is going on with my body…

Popularity: 13% [?]

I just returned home from a trip to CVS (a drugstore). All the many times I have gone to a CVS I have never had a problem with anything. The stores are always clean and the shelves are always stocked. Sometimes, the prices are even decent. This time, I went in looking for a wrist brace for my carpal tunnel. Given all the heavy weights I am lifting, Brian and I both think it is best to heal this for good so that I will not have issues later down the line when I am competing in the Strongwoman competitions. At any rate, back to CVS… I found a satisfactory wrist splint and went to purchase it. The manager, an old fat woman in her late 60s (or she may have been 30 and just looked really really old, who knows), was the one who finally came over to the register where I was patiently waiting. She was too busy eating her White Castle hamburger to come help me. So, I had the joyous occasion of having her greasy hamburger and french fry fingers touch my item and then my debit card, and then my receipt. She asked if I had a CVS customer care card and I said no, because I had no desire to get into the fact that my CVS card was stolen in December (when we were robbed the day before our wedding) as well as the fact that I did not want to increase my exposure to hamburger and french fry goo on her nasty Ohioan hands. The last time I went into CVS, it was to buy perioding pads and the cashier (a college age male) asked if I had a CVS customer care card. I said no, it was stolen and I needed a new one. But frankly, he was turning so red from having to scan pads that he did not even hear me. Surprise, women bleed regularly, get over it. The other thing that irritated me about this CVS is that they have two doors to walk in/out of and then another two doors to get inside the store from the entry way. Why do they unlock only one door on each side, it seems illogical to me to have to zigzag and use the door that was marked for “out” to go “in”. More Ohioan stupidity, I suppose… We will not be sad to leave Ohio, that is for sure.

Popularity: 7% [?]

We decided to go to the North Market today. We stopped off at the ATM in Giant Eagle (grocery store) to get some cash. We were second in line. I thought that would mean that we would be in and out quickly. I did notice that the manager or assistant manager of Giant Eagle was helping a person with a mullet haircut at the ATM. Apparently, this fellow was illiterate. He was not only illiterate but he could not understand that you had to take money out in increments of $20. He wanted to take out $10 and said that his account should have at least $10 in it. Of course, this was not his bank so he would also have to pay a $2 service charge. He could not understand why $22 could not be debited from his bank account that held $10. The manager person (Brian says he is a bag boy, I think he was too nice to be a bag boy, whatever…). Anyway, this illiterate person just stands there at the ATM trying to argue at the bag boy/manager trying to understand this situation using what minuscule amount of logical capabilities he had. As we were leaving, I commented about the person and Brian said that the illiterate person was mentally challenged. I really just think the person took many drugs and his brain is fried…

After that lovely experience, we went to the bus stop to take a trip to the North Market. Some weird person randomly says, “Sure is a long wait, isn’t it?” to us. We ignore him, as he is a random weird Ohioan that we have no social or intellectual interest in. I spot a weird woman go out of her way to pick up a penny on the sidewalk. The bus finally comes and we head down High St.

We arrive in the Arena District at the North Market and all of the local farmers have set up little tents outside of the building. We looked around and it seems as though the 30+ farmers only grow corn and tomatoes. Great. We did not buy any of it as we already had locally grown tomatoes at home and the corn did not look so hot. The place was filled with stupid Ohioans and we had to wait for them to move since they seemed to enjoy just standing in the middle of walkways. We got inside the building and walked around looking at everything. We noticed that they had a disproportionately large sections of meat compared with everything else. We stopped to look at the cheese shop, the Vietnamese shop, and various other little shops. We ate a lemon fraiche from Jeni’s Ice Cream. After a while, we decided to leave. I always seem to want to remember the North Market as being better than it really is.

Then we walked north on High St. to where the Happy Greek is located and caught a bus going north. We got on the bus and saw three vacant seats. Then we noticed that they had tape over them. I could not tell why at first but I later figured out that someone poo-pooed on the seat. Great. Finally were able to move to the back of the bus to sit in poo-free seats. Yay. Of course, this was after being thrown about the bus by the driver who liked to drive double the speed limit, cut off cars, and tail them. I asked Brian if this was supposed to be the *New Express #2 Bus*. He laughed because I am very funny. We then arrived home safely and still in time to workout at 2 PM.

We went to the gym and I started out on the elliptical trainer watching some inane news program on TV. I had the remote on the elliptical with me. Then, some girl walked in and bothered me while I was working out. She asked if it was possible to watch tennis. Then she channel surfs to find tennis announcing each channel, as “that’s not tennis” and making me annoyed. I jumped off the elliptical trainer to get away from her and went to start on the weight workout. Two of her little friends came in, they started yelling across the workout room, and then they did 3 minutes of cardio and then worked out with 5 lb. weights. Why bother? Then one of the friends took the workout cleaner so I waited for her to return with it. She came back and attempted to start a conversation with me. Annoying… I avoided it and took the bottle from her. Why would I want to talk to her? Creepy. As I was doing my weight workout, I could see out of the corner of my eye that tennis TV girl was just lying on a mat watching TV. Go home; this is a gym, not a living room. She reminded me of the fat guy who was laying on a mat watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer while his girlfriend and her friend attempted to manage a shoddy workout. Of course, those same idiots brought a large dog into the workout room and attached it to the leg extension machine. Great. Fortunately, I turned them in and they had to leave the workout room. Funny, I have not seen them in there since…

Popularity: 8% [?]

Today I took my paternal grandmother shopping for a new entertainment armoire. That was certainly rather interesting, humorous, and annoying. She only has a small corner to put the armoire in so we went to a custom furniture store to see about having one built to fit the space. She decides that she wants a full-length entertainment center that is about fifteen feet long and is made for a widescreen television. I said no because it would not fit in the space. She told me that she could do whatever she wanted to do. I told her she would have to move to find a space to put that entertainment center. She pitched a little hissy fit and then she finally looked at the armoires I wanted her to look at. She decided on one, they were writing up the estimate, and we were getting ready to pay when she declares that she wants to see it in person. It is a custom piece; you cannot see it before you buy it! I explained this to her a myriad of times. She says she did not want it then. I tell her that she cannot have ANY entertainment armoire unless she purchases a custom one from the place we were at currently. My parents have always used this place and they are quite good so no reason existed to go elsewhere. She starts walking out of the store while I am trying to get the quote and then she runs right into a china cabinet. She then claims that someone in the store hit her. She is insane. She then reminded me for the tenth time (literally) that she desired to get money out of the bank. I explained for the millionth time that I had her ATM card and we would get money at the grocery store. When we were at the grocery store, she hit two people with the cart as well as a number of store displays. We ate lunch after that and she could not decide what she wanted so I had to order for her. Then she spilled it all over herself. Then in the car, she was shaking her apartment keys and the to-go cup from lunch that was filled with ice. I thought I was going to go insane. I endured it and dropped her off. Unfortunately, she has a dentist appointment tomorrow that she does not need to go to and is only going because she is crazy. I believe I am finished ranting for the day…

Popularity: 5% [?]

I am slightly cranky today. I almost lost my temper today as well. While grocery shopping with my grandmother she rammed the grocery cart into my Achilles tendon. The first two times were not terribly painful but the third time was *extremely* painful. My grandmother thought it was a serious injury and she asked if I needed to go see a surgeon. Of course, I declined her offer. Yet, she continued to ask people in line behind us if they knew the name of a good surgeon. We then had to proceed to Home Depot to procure a garden bench for the rose garden. She did not like any of the benches that they had so we then had to proceed to Lowes. She finally settled on a bench at Lowes and I was able to get the giant box that weighed 100 pounds into the cart. Her pulling the cart out from under me twice hindered my effort. I was *very* annoyed at that point. Nonetheless, several Lowes employees asked if they could help and take it out to my car. I refused, as I had no desire to make idle small talk for ten minutes. I was finally able to put the bench in the Cadillac, however, she pulled the cart out from under the bench, but this time it fell on my foot! That really did feel quite good! Tomorrow shall be even more fun as I get to clean out her refrigerator and pantry! Yay! Fun times! It is *always* something with her…

Popularity: 6% [?]