Over the past couple of months, my experience with shopping in retail stores has been extremely terrible. I used to just complain that brick-and-mortar stores were terrible because they never had what I wanted in stock. Selections were poor and stock was always low. Now I can add poorly kept stores, terrible customer service and ERRORs everywhere to that list.

I shop online, but I’m not a fan of shopping online for everything. Sometimes I like the experience of being surrounded by the physical goods, inspecting them, and trying them. Especially for clothing and electronics. I don’t enjoy needing to return things, which seemed to happen far too often when purchasing goods online for me. But, now I can extend the pain of needing to return things to my in-person shopping as well.

Every single shopping trip I’ve taken in the past 2 months, including large grocery store trips, has resulted in me returning items to the store. I’ve had to return a faulty aluminum water bottle, a ripped purse, a pair of 2 right shoes, wilted spinach, missing parts from Ikea lamps, cracked pot for plants, etc. What’s up??? Why are products in stores so poor. Why are the staff so mean when you return them nicely?

It’s just amazing how many names of cities in the U.S. are borrowed from other countries, even other states. Some cities are even named after other countries. What cities in the U.S. have you been where the city name has originated from another country?

City and state you visited (should be an exact match)
Originating country

Example:
Bristol, PA
Bristol, England, UK
I’m going to start collecting these for an interesting study :)

The Senate is looking to give US taxpayers a $100 rebate check to help offset the cost of high gas prices. Sure it’s nice to get “free” money, but giving each taxpayer a $100 isn’t going to solve anything. Just like the supposed great tax refund that George Bush gave most taxpayers in his first term. Just hush money if you tell me.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/04/27/gas.rebate/index.html

How is it that the government can even afford to give away this money? Aren’t we in serious debt?

I’m a huge movie fan. I’m not a movie expert, just a fan. Movies to me are like books to my boyfriend. Sure, I like to read, but I’m so damn picky about what kinds of books. I get bored with books easily. Perhaps TV growing up has killed my attention span for things that need concentrating like reading. Who knows.

I fully immerse myself in the movies that I watch. While watching, many times I start to feel like I’m really part of the story. Just standing by observing and feeling all the emotions of the characters as well as my own. I’m sure a lot of people do this, especially with really well done movies that they enjoy.

Perhaps this love of movies is what makes me sometimes feel like I’m in one. Ever since I was young, there have been brief moments in my life where I “felt” like I was in a movie and some how not in real life. No, it’s not some crazy way to remove myself for tense situations–it’s just the ability for your mind to briefly remove itself form reality. Daydreaming, I suppose.

For instance, last week I was walking down the street in Zagreb, on my way to the tourist center to pick up some brochures (in English this time ;) Now, everyone thinks all the time. When you are walking alone or quietly somewhere, your thoughts run a mile a minute and most times you aren’t really concious of that. You just think, and think, and think, and hold conversations with yourself in your head, etc. But for me, sometimes I feel like I’m in a movie.

So, while walking my thoughts about the day and the week, etc drift away. The outside noise starts to mimick something of a soundtrack and I feel like I’m the main character in some transitional portion of a film. Where the character is usually travelling somewhere and is either amazed by their surroundings or in deep thought and retrospection about their life.

I’m not actually amazed by my surrounds or in retrospect of some great event in my life, but that’s what I imagine my “character” as doing. The moment where I feel like I’m in a movie is brief, usually interrupted by the jolt of the tram, a bumping of a passerby, car horns, the like.

It’s a really interesting and enjoyable thing that happens to me. It can sometimes remind me of Selma in Dancer in the Dark. She hears music everywhere she goes. The noises of the day make wonderful music and she imagines herself in a musical. Mine is much simpler and I don’t start “acting” in it ;)

When I told this to my boyfriend, he said that I was weird and there’s no one else out there that does this. I beg to differ. I think there are lots of people who have experienced this and I might spend some time searching other blogs to find out, hehehe. There’s NEVER only one person that does something. There are too many people in the world for that to happen.