If you are going to use the “Express Lane” at your local retail or grocery store – have your payment out and ready.
Cash and Credit are preferred, as they are fast and usually take little time to process, thus making the experience of yourself, the cashier and the customers behind you inline an “Express” experience.
please do not use:
Small change
checks, (if you must use small change please fill it out ahead of time – with every bit of information you can possibly have on it – Drivers License Number – Date of birth – home phone, work phone, next of kin social security number name and location of first born -for Pete’s sake get with the 21st century and start using cash or credit.
And finally I implore you – don’t bring coupons to the Express Lane. Coupons do not equal “Express” (neither do checks).
Do these simple things, and the people behind you in line will indeed not be firing laser beams into the back of your head while YOU fail the douche-canoe test of not understanding the word “Express”
This has been a public service announcement from the Large Bald Man (LBM) behind you in line….with the laserbeams and loud mouth.
As many of you know, I am a veteran. I am proud to have served in the U.S. Army for 4 years. I have a personal belief that everyone should serve this great country of ours in some way for at least 2 years of their lives. Not necessarily in the military, but in some way, be it police, USO, Military, or whatever. Civic Duty, it means something special to me.
In many ways, my life has been both very hard and very easy, things were never as bad as they could be, and things were never as good as they could be. Some of that I had control over some of it I didn’t. Sometimes I did something about it, sometimes I didn’t do enough. Overall pretty normal, pretty average.
I’ve been blessed with good friends and family for the most part, though there have been rough times on all of those fronts as well as fantastic times as well – again pretty normal.
In November of 1990 I was stationed in Ft. Riley Kansas, my unit was put on Alert and in December off we went to Saudi Arabia to serve in Operation Desert Shield it turned into Desert Storm, and my unit went racing across the border into Iraq, turned right went down through the burning oil fields, saw a small amount of action, then moved as fast as we could to the Kuwait Airstrip. Then Blam it was over – next thing I knew it was May of 1991 and I was on a bird back for the Grand ole US of A.
That is it, the gist of my “combat tour” in one tiny paragraph.
But we got home, to (for the most part) a greatful nation. People met us at the airport cheering, they met us when we arrived back at Ft. Riley cheering. We went to the bars in down town Junction City KS. and people bought us drinks, I had the privilege to March in the “National Victory Celebration” In Washington DC, and people lined the streets and cheered. I walked the National Mall in DC like a celebrity, people shook my hand, thanked me, gave me drinks, kissed me, asked me to do them the honor of sitting with them, oh and just for the heck of it they put on one hell of a fireworks display for us and had countless performing artists play for us. I Marched in a Ticker Tape Parade in New York City really a FREAKING tickertape parade! and people lined the streets, cheered us, covored us in grattitude. THEN as if all of that wasn’t enough – they closed the USS Intrepid to the public, and threw a huge party for us. took us on boat tours out around Elis Island. I walked the streets of NY that day – they TOLD US to stay in uniform, people shook my hand, kissed me, even more….
But I told you all of that to tell you this….
The people who cheered the most, the ones who bought me the most drinks, the ones I stayed up with till 3 in the morning listening to their stories, the ones who cheered the loudest, with the most tears in their eyes, those people DESERVED what we got. They should have had what we had, they faced 100 times the danger and peril we did. they did 100x more than we did, they gave up more than we did. and most of them somewhere had this:
Most of these folks were Vietnam Vets who deserved SO MUCH MORE what we got than we did, and I told them that every chance I had. and I do it again now.
Please don’t misunderstand, I am very thankful and honored for and by the reception we recieved, I am proud to have served my country, and honored that my country appreciated it. I am disappointed however that those who returned from Vietnam didn’t get the same thing, when they needed it most.
To all veterans everywhere, I say to you with all respect, love and appreciation.
Every time there is a rule change for “safety” reasons, or because something is just stupid or obviously needs changing. Someone complains loudly…
WHY? where is the data? Show me the injury reports or incident reports for <insert changed rule / or comment about hitting too hard here>
Well there aren’t any, or not very many at least, and here is why.
Injuries:
* WE DON’T REPORT THEM. – about the ONLY (yes a *little* hyperbole ) way they are reported is if the churgeonate gets involved in some way. Or if the fighter injured has to go tot he Dr. THAT DAY, from the event, and even then only if someone in the marshalate knows about it.
*Most fighters don’t want to be seen as wimps, so they tough it out (or call it a day), and get checked out a couple of days later. by their Dr. and NEVER report it to the marshalate.
* Most fighters don’t want the general churgeon touching them. a specific few maybe, but most of us know an EMT or nurse or Dr. and will go let them check us out, we’ll suck it up and wait till Monday, or go hit a local doc in the box before we’ll let someone at the event who we don’t know touch us. and frankly that is generally smart.
* We don’t want to be the guy who gets the 3″ diameter sticks of rattan that our buddies use as “boom sticks” because they are so thick they no longer flex anymore, banned just because it fractured our arm…because our friends “like to use that”
Incident reports:
We don’t file them, we don’t report them.
Have a guy who is destroying armor or breaking bones (hey it was probably an accident, or poor armour right?) : we talk to them first (we don’t write anything down or report it)
2 months later he still have a problem breaking his friends?
We talk to him again, with a “no we really mean it” <insert wagging finger here> but we still don’t write anything down
3 months later, its still going on. NOW we want to do something about it, but wait, we can’t – we report him to the KEM but he can’t do anything, why? – no incident reports on him….so NOW we have to start a paper trail and give the guy who has been breaking the rules for 6 months an “official” warning…
What we can’t do (because of no incident reports) is say “you bad fighter, you break your toys, you sit down right now for 6 months or I bash your goohaloog’n head in” (without the head bashing or goohaloog’n part, sorry I channeled Detritus there for a second… – its a joke, laugh if you like the Discworld…no I don’t advocate bashing anyone’s actual head in.)
(Same for if they constantly try to fight without an elbow cop or gorget, always “forgetting” to send in their authorization paperwork, and just reauthorizing at every event so they don’t have to pay the $25 non member fee to get their fighting card…or whatever rule or convention they happen to be breaking)
Why don’t we fill out the paperwork and turn it in the “FIRST TIME?” because 1) we don’t like paperwork, 2) we’re horrible about even getting in event reports and quarterly reports in at all, much less on time. and 3) we don’t want to be seen as being a “bad guy” or “rules lawyer” or jerk or whatever. and it generally takes a catastrophic failure or issue for incidents and injuries to be reported the first time something happened.
Don’t mis-understand I’m just as guilty as the next guy – I have had a broken arm, 3 cracked ribs, 2 broken ribs, a broken finger, countless sprained ankles and knee’s, a separated shoulder, approximately 9 “micro fractures” of my forearm, a couple of HUGE hanging hematoma’s from fighting – and I think only one of them (the broken arm) did I ever make sure was reported to the marshal because I felt my opponent was intentionally trying to injure me. (and I doubt it was ever reported to their KEM)
That is why SEM’s and KEM’s have to make rules based on less “proof” than we think would be necessary or needed. They aren’t failing us by not having enough data to make an informed decision, they are doing the best they can with what they have, we (their marshalate and fighter populace) are in general failing them because we rarely report anything.
Anything going to change? Nope probably not, BUT there you have the “why” they don’t “provide better information on why they are making these rulings”.
