Odd I Don't Do This More Often

Well today I am going to do something I have not done more than a very few times (early on) in the history of this blog. I am going to review multiple subjects. Considering my scattershot brain activity, it is quite odd I have not taken this approach more often. Maybe your response might answer that question.

Here goes for Humpday!

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ME AND THE DMV

Do either of these pictures remind you of your last visit to your local DMV? 

If they do, I have news for you. Move to Texas!  Garland specifically.

This is how I remember my last visit to the DMV. I dreaded going and wasting precious minutes of my life in this atmosphere. There were always families with 6 children running around and two babies crying somewhere near me. People who lost faith in soap and shampoo or had a Pigpen cloud of stale smoke hovering around them seemed to gravitate to the DMV whenever I had to go renew my license.

The complaints throughout the Dallas area made the news. Two hour waits were the norm. Tensions were always high. It seemed to be the most bureaucratic and archaic nightmare on the planet. The grist for the mill of late night talk-show monologues. Well believe it or not the state responded to the outcry.

My good fortune, they opened one of the most state of the art DMV offices in the state right here in Garland, TX! You wait longer now at many fast food restaurants!! This place is run like a well oiled machine.

Here was a wrap of my experience yesterday:

Enter the building and walk right up to the counter. Tell the clerk I need to renew my license. She hands me the paperwork I need to fill out and directs me to the area of desks and pens. Along with the paperwork I am handed a numbered ticket - A171. I will always remember this number. As I am filling out my paperwork I hear a pleasant voice over the speaker announce, " Serving number A165 at station 23". I looked back down at my number...only 6 numbers away. I keep writing. Immediately another announcement, "Serving number A166 at station 15". Now I am getting nervous (?) only five numbers to go and I'm thinking I am going to be called before I am ready! What??? The countdown and writing are a race against each other.

I finish and stand up to look at the flat-screen on the wall and see my number at the top of the list with a wait time of one minute! WTF...where am I?? I just stood there and looked at the monitor...and within a minute, "Serving number A171 at station 26". I NEVER TOOK A SEAT IN THE WAITING AREA!!!!

I go to station 26 and sit down. Answer a couple questions. Get a new picture. Verify I can see without glasses. Done.

Fifteen minutes and I was leaving the parking lot!

Too bad in 6 years I can renew online!

The end.

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STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS (if you have not seen it, stop now)

The DMV was just the beginning of the birthday celebrations for the day. My wife was off work so we (I) decided we'd go see the new Star Trek movie (3-D of course).



Yes, this was part of the movie!!

I will try and keep this review short. I have always been a Star Trek fan. Not a Trekkie per se, but I loved the original series as a kid and watched reruns once it went off the air. Of all the follow ups, I only really ever watched Next Generation with any enthusiasm. I was die hard original Trek.

I liked the movies because the original cast played their parts. And yes, Wrath of Khan was the best sequel. I was a little leery of the 2009 version when I heard about it but thought it was fantastic when I saw in the theatre. And beyond the special effects of the Into Darkness trailer, I was concerned about this one too.

As for action, you could not have crammed any more into two hours and fifteen minutes. I have no issue with the plot, action, or acting. I would see it again to see Alice Eve a little longer!

My concern is with the restating of history (or is it really the future?) and some hokeyness. This movie and the one preceding it are Star-dated PRIOR to the original series star dates. Obviously, as Kirk and crew are much younger and this is supposedly their beginnings. The hokeyness came in two parts for me (with the rewriting of the future sandwiched in between):

1. Spock early on uses the classic line, "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."  I think this line belongs immortalized in ST II and should not have been trivialized at this early time in his career. Shame, shame, J.J. Just my opinion.

2. Christopher Pike did not die in the manner portrayed. Very Bad Robot, Mr Abrams. Chris Pike [anyone else see how close that is to Chris Pine] was the disabled star of The Menagerie (the only two-part episode ever) in the first season of the original series. This movie being prior in time...see how problematic this is? And Pike was not an Admiral...his promotion was to Fleet Captain. Talos IV would have been a good place to live out your life.

3. Lastly (for now) I have huge issue with the reversed Kirk/Spock roles in the "radiation death" sequence. I did not like it for one. Kirk appeared too wimpy and Spock raging the immortal, "Khaaaannnnn". This again tread on sacred ground for me. If you had walked in on this part of the film, you would have thought you were in a Scary Movie-type spoof of Wrath. Not good.

4. On the plus side, I am glad that before having Trouble With Tribbles, One of them was useful in saving Kirk's life. How poetic.

Live long and prosper.


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GOOD VAPES

I entered a place yesterday after the Trek movie that is straight out of some sci-fi show. It was called Good Vapes.

My wife is trying hard to quit smoking and one of the steps (besides Chantix) is moving more to an e-cigarette. The first style she tried earlier this year, well the company went out of business so she kind of fell off the wagon. A visit to her doctor convinced her that quitting sometime in the near future was a good idea.

So she got on board the new e-cigarette with the Baskin-Robbins 180 flavor choices.

Walking into this place was interesting. If you click on the link above you get the virtual store tour in four pictures. This is exactly the store I was in.

When you walk up to the first counter in the center of the room, you ask for a trial tip and your own personal cigarette-tip condom. (My euphemism, not their marketing word.) Then you proceed leisurely to the racks on the wall containing the flavor end of the unit and screw one on your tip. Then vape away to vanilla-cherry, lemon-lime, chocolate cake, or any one of the 180 different flavors. the taste and the vapor are the scent of the flavor. It's a little weird to see a room full of people puffing away and not smelling any nasty smoke. The scents are not strong so it is not like being in a room of a thousand smells all at once. And they don't linger in the air like smoke since it is water vapor anyway.

The old, the young, male, female, old hippies, they are all here. The employees mix the "juice" in the back customer by customer based on the flavor you order.

It was intriguing but I am glad I quit smoking (twice) and don't have any desire to try this. At least my wife can "smoke" in the movies, our new car, and on the plane.

Is it just me or does this kit look eerily like a heroin users "works"?

Except for the USB charger, of course

Fun fact: they have a flavor called The Dude. Figuring it was from The Big Lebowski it had to either taste like pot or a White Russian. I encouraged my wife to try it. By her reaction I am guessing it tasted like neither. ;)

Til next time...

**maybe I don't do this more often because the post gets too long!!