Candid Canada Candy

Oh Canada! With all your candies, bear. Why do your forsake me with your tantilizing treats which only reside North of our US border? Canada knows how to make chocolate. Canada Chocolate tastes like.... well, Chocolate. The way it should be. Have you ever splurged on a good chocolate bar from Europe? Compared to US chocolate, it is more choclately and less sugary/waxy. Try a bar up there and you will know. They make bars like Aero, Coffee Crisp, Wunderbar, Smarties, Dairy Milk, on and on. They also make a great hard chewy Toffee bar call Mack. Fabulous. WAIT A MINUTE! You have a picture of a Kit-Kat Bar. That is available in the US, ya idiot! Well, yes. That is true but the chocolate they use on the Kit-Kat in Canada is 100x better. Try it yourself. Get a Canadian Kit-Kat and an American one and try for yourself. If you ask the people at Costco up in Vancouver BC which Bars sell the most for Americans they say it is easily the Aero and the Kit-Kat bar.

Technically, the best golf ball

Let it be known, I am probably the worst golfer known to man. For those of you who do golf you will understand that golfing a 130+ for 18 holes is not considered even a fair golfer. Regardless of that, I needed to get some golf balls for this weekend's golf event with my friends, Billy, Ken, and Mac Crappy. I like to research things to make sure I get the best bang for my buck. Somewhat of a technical geek, I like to see the cold hard facts regarding the specs so I can make a sound judgment based on my needs. Enter the ultimate golf ball. The Nike Power Distance Long ball. These are SERIOUS Balls. How do I know? Simple. Take a look at the other picture with the graph. They are so proud of these balls they actually post the graph right on the box! Sorry for the blurry camera photo but the red box says "Driver" and the writing above the graph says "Faster, Longer Distance". So how do you read the graph? Well there is no data on the X axis or the Y axis, thats true. And there is no comparison to the competition either. You got a point there... But regardless, look at that graph! Its all there. It starts off small and goes out a long was and gets wider by the end. That is enough for me!!! Best ball ever!

Timmy's Theorem of Consistent Reporting

The Theorem is another simple one that a lot of you have already heard. Two parts:

1) No matter how much shopping goes on, Christmas sales will always be dissappointing
2) No matter how much Snowfall and rain Oregon gets, we will have some sort of drought warning

You can set your watch to both of these. When you read about them in the paper I want you all to think about me and the useful information you receive here at timmyopolis.

Christmas Sales: This one bugs me the most. In the good economic times or the bad economic times, it does not matter, there is always a report soon after thanksgiving and after Christmas that the retailers reported less than expected sales. What the heck are these guys expecting? How is it that you wait in lines forever at a mall or Target or anywhere but still they report dismal sales? Were there not enough lines? Were people only buying socks? Not from what I see. I was recently reading USA today and they are already reporting dismal sales for Christmas and Thanksgiving has not even started yet!!!! Granted, a lot of stores are already starting their Christmas sales due to this economic crisis we are in but Sheesh.... Wait until the Shopping season has begun!

Drought: We have years when rain and snowfall is far below normal. I get it. That means we need to conserve water and do our part. No problems there. Here is what gets me.... Sometime in January, they do their official readings of snowpack and current status of stored water and river levels. On years where where snowfall is over the top in height and reservoirs are so full that they need to open the flood gates to make way for the snow melt they still have the gall to say something to the effect that we still need to be cautious of our water usage because we either need to recover from a drought 3 years ago or because our demand is much more than our snowfall can produce. Listen and you will hear it. I have no Idea why this bugs me. Perhaps it is because I am a born and raised Oregonian and I hear it every year. I don't know Either way, you can set your watch to it.

Timmy's Strip Mall Theorem

The Theorem simply states: With the exception of Dry Cleaners, any strip mall store that places specific 'Reserved parking' signs in front of their store will go out of business within 6 months.

Prove me wrong!!!

Look, We saw this happen with frozen yogurt shops, the mom and pop video stores and we see this in a variety of other stores including those tiny computer stores. What is going on in there head?.....

Computer shop owner: Hmmmm. Why is my business failing? People like an over-cluttered dusty store. They like outdated equipment. They like no-name brands that look like its been stolen.... No thats not it. I know its not the prices. I continusouly raise them to make up for the lack of sales so I am good there. My Attitude? Nope. I have no social skills but people appreciate me pointing out their flaws when it comes to computer knowledge. They just don't understand how ignorant they are. So, what could it be..... Got it! it is that darn Hallmark store next door with their crazy customer base. I have counted over 6 customers in a period of a day. That is crazy! This is putting a chokehold on my customers trying to get in to my store. People are driving right on by.

Signs go up. Store closes down.

Handey Halloween

A beautiful Jack Handey Quote:

Sometimes when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I'll go over to the person's house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes to the door, I'm gone, but you know what I've left on the porch? A jack-o'-lantern with a knife in the side of its head with a note that says "you." After that, I usually feel a lot better, and no harm done.

There Back!!!

I thought these things died out in the 70's or the 80's? I don't think I was old enough to drive when these bad boys were plastered to cars across America. Well, enough about the past. Lets talk about the future and after seeing this, it appears its going to be a bright one.

I saw this one in the parking lot at work last night. It is the only one I have seen BUT I am sure they are catching on like wildfire. They are absolutely hillarious and original but there is also a serious side to them. Take note of the Shape and the color. Yup.... Caution. This sign is indicating that there is an important message within its borders that should be read, understood, and if necessary, make the appropriate adjustments to what you are doing to heed the caution.
If I was driving and saw one of these signs, I think the appropriate measure is to slow down and proceed with extreme caution until you are certain that safe passage for the "baby on board" is achieved. I wish a lot more people had these so I could continuously scan for these signs and make adjustments to my driving immediately.

One problem though.... This was a parked car and although there was a baby seat in it, there was no baby. Hmmm. How does that work? One would think that with such an important sign being displayed in your car that the owner should take the responsiblity to take the sign down when the baby is Not on Board. Perhaps once the baby has been taken out of the car, the driver should take down the sign and replace it with a "Baby not on Board" sign. That would help me a lot.

Free Beverage and Fruit

The company has thrown me a couple of bones and I am gnawing. We have all enjoyed the complimentary beverages (Soda, Coffee, Tea,...) for a few months now And BAM! they throw us this:

Well, Howdy doo. Not a bad deal.

I had a Banana this morning and now I am finishing off the trifecta right now. Diet Coke and a Washington Red Delicious. Thats what I'm talkin' bout.

Aesop Fables...

Last night, the kids wanted for me to read a few Stories in Aesop Fables. I liked reading the short stories as a kid and it turns out my kids like them too. They like to guess the moral to the story. Some of the stories make no sense but is fun to guess.

Anyway, we were reading a story regarding a wagon driver (Wagoner) who drove through mud and got stuck. His horse team was unable to pull out of it. The wagoner cried to the gods for help (Gods in these days were in the realm of Greek Mythology). Finally, Hercules himself showed up to see what the problem was. After assessing the situation, he told the wagoner to get out and put his shoulder behind a wheel and use his strength with the horses to push his way out of the mess. He was to call him back only if he had exhausted all his options.

Morale to the story? Heaven helps those who help themselves.

Hey, I thought that was a biblical quote. Did a little research on the internet and found that this quote is commonly referred as a Bible quote but it is not. Aesop owns this one.

Ya learn something new every day.

Entering the Land of Blogs....

A bold step I needed to make. The calling for me to publish my thoughts so everyone can read became unbearable. The strings of my heart being pulled ever so tightly has forced me to create this blog. Now that I have created one, I thought I could relax knowing that this inner force has been quenched. But no. It appears that blogging is like that crazy widow in the Winchester Mansion who had to keep building on to her mansion to keep the ghosts of people who were shot by Winchester weapons at bay. I too must write. I just wish there was a button I could push to mandate that everyone is required to read what I have got to say. My blog is by no means important. But, if everyone in the world was required to read it, would it not be important at some level?

Anyway, I have a friend. Erikv who has a blog www.erikv.com. I enjoy reading it. I am not a bicycle fanatic like he is but I still enjoy reading it. One of our mutual friends, Kara complained that his website was "too much Cyclecross and not enough family". Kara is a smart lady. She is right. I have learned over the months that the world revolves around family and not Cyclecross. It took me some time to realize it but I have come to grips. That is a good thing because I barely know what Cyclecross is in the first place. So, my random thoughts will contain family and whatever else I am up to. I currently plan to be a 100% Cyclecross free blog. I need time to recover.

Well, enough about this as my first post comes to an end. I will leave you with a Deep thought by Jack Handey:

"I can still recall old Mister Barslow getting out every morning and nailing a fresh load of tadpoles to that old board of his. Then he'd spin it round and round like a wheel of fortune, and no matter where it stopped he'd yell out, "Tadpoles! Tadpoles is a winner!" We all thought he was crazy, But then, we had some growing up to do"