Dear eMusic ... I'm sorry, we're breaking up

Look, I know we've had a great relationship for going on five years now, and I know that we've both changed in that time, but after today's visit, I'm afraid I don't know you anymore.

It really comes down to the money.  I used to get a lot of bang for my buck with you. In fact, when I started, we're talking songs were as low as 17 cents ... based on how I purchased and paid ... and there were lots of other options.

Lots of great music at cheap prices ... albums as low as $3.00 and exclusive tracks that nobody else had, not to mention that there were bands that nobody else had in a digital format.

Then, as you grew, you got more expensive .. but you were still the best bargain around ... even at 40 or 50 cents, you were great.  Your catalog was expanding, your exclusive tracks and impressive collections of whole discographies were amazing to me.

Then you had to big-time us.

Adding Columbia and RCA and all sorts of major labels that, quite frankly, none of us wanted.  As a bunch of introverts who would stare at our own shoes, mixed with the occasional extrovert who stared at other people's shoes, we wanted our indie rock legal, and cheap.

We wanted Ryan Adams, not Bryan Adams.  Bruce Cockburn, not Bruce Springsteen.

The final straw, though, was switching from download credits to actual cash ... I'd rather get my 30 credits at 50 cents a month than a flat out $12 dollars and 89 cent songs.

You've become Amazon without the selection. iTunes without the iPod. I see you heading down the same road as the download services once offered by WalMart and Sony and Napster ... you went from a niche player that ruled your market to the smallest fish in your pond.

And I'm taking my tackle box and leaving.  Good luck to you.

Dear BW3 in Norwood, Ohio

Fuck you.

Seriously. Fuck. You.

Now, having said that, let me tell you the ways:

1. Lying bartenders.
2. Shitty service.
3. Clueless manager.
4. Lying managers.
5. Clueless bartenders.

Let me explain.

1. Lying Bartenders

I walk into BW3's at 6:50 p.m. I would love to play some Buzztime Trivia, get ready to watch hockey, and suck down some iced tea because I'm on call for work and won't drink. Which is good, because they're out of the beer I normally drink, anyway. I ask for a trivia box. Bartender says "They're broken." I say, "What?" She says, "All the boxes are broken. Nobody can play."

Now last week when I was in there, same bartender told me that most of the boxes they had were in disrepair and she didn't have any that worked behind the bar, however, I managed to snag one from a server on the restaurant side. And yes, her tip reflected that, and her lack of service.

So her telling me that this week was even lamer. So I order an unsweetened iced tea, take a seat and read the USA Today since trivia doesn't work.

But wait. I look around. There are people playing trivia. And poker, too, which operates on the same server.

Hmmmm. Lying whore.

So I continue reading the paper, sending text messages to one of the managers at the BW3 I play at and give him the torrid details of this disaster in the making.
Which brings us to:

2. Shitty Service

So after an hour of sitting there with a single (now empty) glass of iced tea, the other server, who was very nice, comes up and asks if I want a refill. I say yes, and would like to order food. She says, "Oh, let met get (other bartender)." I say "No. I'd much prefer you and she's already lied to me once tonight and ignored me after my initial order. And you've not lied to me yet. And noticed me sitting here with an empty glass. So you win." She laughed. The kind of laugh that people laugh when you point out one of their co-workers sucks and they can't agree, but acknowledge that you are correct by a) laughing and b) not denying or defending. So I ask her if she can put the hockey game on and she says "Oh, sure. What channel?" I tell her, she puts the game on instead of Women's Tennis and all is good.

Next time she comes around, she says "Oh, you wanted food, too, right?" and takes the order, makes sure my iced tea is kept filled and eventually brings my food over. That's when I ask to speak to her manager. Which leads us to:

3. Clueless Managers

Josh comes over and introduces himself nervously. I tell him about outright lie from the bartender; the total lack of service, the sitting there for 25 minutes with an empty glass, how I spend three or four nights at various BW3's and tip accordingly.

He says, "I'm sorry. Thanks for letting me know" and walks away.

I look around the bar, I count heads. There are 52 people there. All the bar seats are full, four guys are playing poker (on the allegedly broken Buzztime Trivia system) There are 9 people in Red Wings jerseys, 2 in Red Wings hats; 5 in Pens jerseys, 3 in Pens t-shirts and 1 with a hat; compared to two people wearing Reds hats. No Reds jerseys, no Reds t-shirts.

So what's the sound in the bar? Game 51 out of 162 games the Cincinnati Reds will play during the 2009 Major League Baseball Season. Hey, I understand I'm in Cincinnati. But a smart bartender / bar manager / etc. will look at the crowd, determine what they're there for, and adjust televisions accordingly. Even if it's not for the home team. The popular overrides the local, especially when the local is 2-1/2 games out of first place. I've been in bars in Cleveland that show Steelers Games. Bars in Columbus that show Bengals games. Bars in Columbus that show Steelers games. They base it on the crowd.

Except the BW3's in Norwood. Who had sound for the Reds game.

So I ask Josh about it. This brings on:

4. Lying Managers

So the other manager on that night, who's name I didn't get, was working the AV equipment. He walks past, I ask him why he has the sound on for the Reds game, not the STANLEY CUP FINALS. He says, "Someone asked for the sound on the Reds game." So I ask him to look around and judge the crowd and see who's watching what. He says, "I have to go with what Josh wants on the sound." And walks away.

Josh walks past again. I catch his attention, again, and he, again, nervously approaches me. I ask him why I had to ask for hockey on TV versus women's tennis when it's the Stanley Cup Finals. He says, "Oh, I didn't realize it was the finals." Really? How is that possible that you run a sports bar and don't know that? Oh, you're lying. You get a daily sheet of what's on the various sports channels that your bar pays for. I know this because I've seen it.

He then says, "Oh, and I talked to the server about the trivia. She said the server needed rebooted, and the other manager did that. She should have gotten you a box, though." Yeah, ya think? Again, he walked away offering nothing more than an apology.

And, unknown to Josh, if you reboot the server, you kick all the people playing off the server. I know this. I manage about 3,000 servers, and if I reboot one with a user connected and using an application on that server, they get disconnected. So, Josh, you, too, are a lying whore.
And finally, we wind up with ...

5. Clueless Bartenders

Now me being me ... I decided to share my lack of enjoyment of the 90 minutes I spent at the BW3 in Norwood with the bartender who lied to and then ignored me. Because I'm all about the customer service.

In my wallet I have the receipts from my Saturday night at BW3 playing music trivia and watching hockey; and my Sunday night at BW3 playing trivia and watching hockey. Both show a bar tab of about $35 with a 20% and 30% tip (sorry, service on Sunday was significantly better than Saturday). If I'm spending 4 hours at your bar, I tip like I'm spending 4 hours at your bar. I was a bartender. I know the system.

So after I tell her what a total opportunity she blew, she looks at me and says, "Well, people who normally drink iced tea don't tip well." I said, "Yeah, I know. But when you assume that and ignore accordingly, and lie to your customers, and act like you don't really care about your job, all that is reflected in your tips that you receive from all your customers who recognize shitty service and tip accordingly. Or don't tip. Perhaps you should learn that the phrase TIPS actually stands for To Insure Proper Service ... meaning, I get proper service, I tip accordingly to the time and service, not the bill. I'm sorry you work in a BTW’s in a shitty college-level neighborhood bordered by a ghetto ... but we're not all like that." Or something close to that, hitting all the highlighted points there I made. But I did use the 'BW3's in a shitty college-level neighborhood bordered by a ghetto' part.

So ... to sum up this missive ...

BW3 in Norwood ... Fuck you.

Dear Cincinnati Drivers

(rant mode = ON)

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

Maybe it's because I'm from the snow belt.

Maybe it's because I have a front-wheel drive vehicle.

Maybe it's because I'm not from Cincinnati. Yet.

But if three inches of snow makes a 15 mile trip take FOUR GOD DAMNED HOURS ON AN INTERSTATE ... maybe all you fuckers should just take the bus.

I entered Interstate 71 at mile marker 2 at 6:45 p.m. I hit the I-275/75 Split (mile marker17) at 10:48 p.m.. I got home to Columbus at 12:15 a.m. From Lebanon on, mile marker 32, I was back to highway speeds. While some would say that's because the snow didn't go that far south, I'm going to say it was because I was 15 miles north of Cincinnati.

Yeah, I know, the crack weather teams there along the shores with their millions of dollars of technology got owned by an overgrown rodent this week who correctly predicted six more weeks of winter while all that fancy equipment called for a dusting in the Queen City ...

But really ... for fucks sake ... learn how to drive in the snow. It's not hard. Really.

And FUCK ME SIDEWAYS ... but when your car dies in the midst of a full interstate highway system that's moving at the speed of snot, WHY DO YOU ABANDON IT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FUCKING HIGHWAY?

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

I saw SIX abandoned cars, covered in snow, sitting in either the middle or left lane. Empty. Fucking up the already cluster-fucked traffic.

I think I might kind of know the answer to that one ... when we're all creeping along the interstate at the speed of cold snot, WHY THE FUCK DO YOU NOT LET PEOPLE MERGE WHEN THEY CLEARLY SIGNAL THEIR INTENT BY USING TURN SIGNALS?

Is being 20 feet ahead of me going to get either one of us to our destination any faster? No.

Jebus, people. It's snow. We get some every year.

Please try to figure that the fuck out before I move down there and have to resort to chewing bubble gum and kicking ass.

Because I'm all out of bubble gum.

Dear Arby's at Polaris

Fuck you.

No, seriously. Fuck. You.

I pull up, I order, I pay, I get food.

I get home. I try to eat food.

Sadly, the food sucked.

The sandwich was the driest, stringiest, toughest roast beef I've ever had. It made beef jerky appealing.

The potato cakes were double-cooked. How do I know this? They were dark brown, not golden brown, and dry as morning-after hangover mouth.

And the iced tea had no ice.

At least the Arby's sauce was good.

So, really ... Arby's at Polaris ... Fuck you. I won't be back. Ever.

Dear John McCain ...

Senator McCain,

As a fan of fighter pilots everywhere, and with much respect for you and your fellow prisoners of war, I write this to you, today, older, wiser and more disgusted than I was when, as a bright-eyed enlisted man in the U.S. Air Force, I admired you in your darkest hours as a junior senator ... during the Keating 5 affair, where you got off with just a bad judgment spank on the wrist for watching as the Savings and Loan fiasco happened. I was paying attention because there by your side in the wrist-slapping line was my home-state senator, John Glenn.

When you re-emerged in the late 1990's dipping your toes in the presidential race, I was again a fan of yours. For your service, surviving the torture, and your ability to come back from the Keating 5, and for another decade of superb service in the U.S. Senate.

And you had my primary vote because you were noble. You were honorable. You were respectful. And you were qualified.

And we all know what happened: You got Roved.

When you returned to presidential politics in 2007, I was again, happy. In March 2008, well before the Democrats had picked their candidate, you told the Associated Press, "I will not take the low road to the highest office in this land."

In April, you again told the AP, "In all my travels here, Americans want a respectful campaign, they do, they want it. Now people say negative ads move numbers, they may, but do we have to go to the lowest common denominator? I don't think so."

Today, the country's economy is in ruin; global markets going down the drain; millions of Americans are without health care, hope, or jobs. Our clout in the world has fallen to unheard of levels, we're involved in two wars and there are our elected leaders are pushing towards Iran and threatening Russia; we're no closer to getting Bin Laden than we were prior to 9/11 AND the lame dead duck administration has no solid plans on how to fix any of the clusterfucks they've created before the end of an error on January 20, 2009 ... all you can talk about is William Ayres?

Seriously?

Are you so desperate to have switched campaign tactics and are now doing what you said you would not do having been through it yourself?

Please. Go back to your respectful, honorable persona. Talk about your plans to fix this great country. And if you lose ... do it with class.

Stop the attack dogs. Don't go down in history as bitter. Leave your legacy as the man of honor you were, or want to be; not the sad, nasty, Rovarian you've become.

We're a virus with shoes

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And I still love you

And I still love you.

How many times have we heard that from someone we've broken up with?

Or said that to someone who broke up with us?

If you're like me, it's happened. A couple of times.

And it's happening again.

Differently, this time, but still, happening, again.

The love is there, and always will be. But the appeal has faded to the point where I'm wondering what it ever really was.

If that makes any sense at all.

I guess it's the truest case of falling out of love.

You always hear songs about people who fall in love.

You seldom hear songs about people who fall out of love.

"Falling out of love is suicide
But it's a crazy, crazy ride"
~ Janine stoll, "Crazy Ride"

(Yeah, leave it to me to find a redheaded Canadian singer-songwriter who can write a breakup song. Shocking.)

But the past couple of days I've been realizing that the love I used to have is really, really distant.

Sure, it will always be there. But not like it used to be.

And I'm a bit sad about that, because it had such promise.

Such is life.

Yes, I used to be totally in love with the city of Columbus. Now, not so much.

I will always love you, you big city in the middle of the state, but I'm not in love with you, anymore.

An Open Letter to Ronald M.

Dear Ronald,

It is with much sadness I must tell you, our relationship is over.

Yes, I can no longer eat at your fine chain of dining establishments.

It's not that I don't like your food. Your coffee is legendary, the apple pies totally tasty, and every so often I need a dose of the grease that is a quarter pounder to get things moving, if you know what I mean.

And I think you do.

So why am I ending our relationship?

No, it's not another new year's resolution of better eating. I know the occasional greaseburger in and amongst itself isn't going to kill me.

You see, around eight this morning, at your fine dining establishment at the intersection of Salt-Springs Road and US Route 422 in Mineral Ridge, Ohio, I had an eye-opening experience when I stopped to get a coffee.

The line at the drive-thru was quite long, but there was only one person inside at the counter, so I parked and went in.

Yes, like most relationships, when you open that door unexpectedly, sometimes what you see will change your whole outlook on the relationship.

As I stood at the counter waiting to order my coffee, I was looking over the menu trying to figure out what would go well with the coffee. What was I hungry for? A McGriddle? An Egg McMuffin? Perhaps even a Sausage Biscuit.

Then it all went downhill, fast.

One of the managers (I could tell by the white shirt she was wearing) in the food prep area walked away from the breakfast-sandwich building counter to spit a big loogie into a trash can - right next to the fry-a-lator.

Seeing that someone who was about to make the food I was planning on eating is sick will do wonders to cure your appetite. However, that's why I'm breaking up with you.

As I stood there, still kind of shocked to have seen someone in the food prep area of a restaurant spit into a trash can, the inbred and/or retarded looking fry-a-lator girl pulled a rack of hash browns out of the grease. As they dripped dry, she grabbed another rack from the stack behind the trash can the white-shirted manager just spit into, and put it into the holder to load up with more frozen potato goodness.

Apparently that much physical activity caused her some sort of wardrobe malfunction.

She stopped, and reached into the one-size-fits-most elastic-waisted black stretch pants issued by your fine corporation (I could tell by the Golden Arch logo on the ass) to tuck the one-size-fits-most 2x maroon shirt back into place.

I worked fast food, for that big-headed guy they call the King. I know you're not friends, but you have a lot of things in common. Bad fitting uniforms are high on the list. I know that the uniforms he gives, as well as yours, are not only made of the cheapest material available to third-world sweatshops, they're ill-fitting as well.

And I've worked in advertising, too, and I know that you use actors in your commercials, because I've not seen an attractive person over the age of 18 working at any of your establishments in my lifetime.

The closest the fry-a-lator hash brown woman will come to a McDonald's commercial is if she stands next to the television when one is broadcast. I'm not talking about her looks - I'm just talking body shape. She is high waisted and short-torsoed with a lumpy ass, a lumpy belly, but not a lumpy chest.

No, that's not an insult. For the record, I'm one of the few white guys in the world who will admit I like pear-shaped women with big asses.

But back to fry-a-lator girl.

Because of her odd body shape, the ill-fitting, one-size-fits-most shirt was extra big on her, and hanging well below the waist, in both the front and back.

That, my large-footed, red-haired friend, is not a guess.

I know this is fact because I watched her reach down to about mid-thigh on both the front the front and back of her pants, adjusting the shirt.

Bare handed.

When she was finished - and that whole process took about 30 seconds and included her smoothing the ass area of her pants from inside her pants - she then turned back to the fry-a-lator.

And with the same hands she just had down the front - and back - of her one-size-fits-most elastic-waisted black stretch pants, opened the bag of frozen hash browns, reached in the bag and loaded the hash browns in the rack.

Bare handed.

Without washing her hands in the sink right next to the fry-a-lator.

That's why were breaking up.

If I'm going to have a close encounter with the ass area of a woman, it's gonna be on my terms, be my decision, or be the result an involuntary buck of her hips that moves the field of play. It will not be because an inbred/retarded fry-a-lator girl leaves fecal matter on my hash browns.

Good luck in the future.

Sincerely,

Me.