Back from the DEAD!

  Took sometime off from blogging to do some stuff.  Stuff like cleaning my room, bike rides, soul searching, watching "WKRP in Cincinnati" reruns and the like. So after a year of blog inactivity, I logged in today to check and see if anyone actually visited "Thisiswhattheygiveme" during my hiatus and...VOILA! Traffic here has gone waaayy up since I stopped writing on it! Coincidence?

  Here is the map that Google Blogger supplies me regarding traffic to the site for the past year. Dark greens represent heavy traffic(USA!) and the lighter the greens represent lighter traffic.   The USofA is in first place with Russia in second(are you Ruskies trying to crack my password?). Then, ironically, the Ukraine was next followed by Germany.
I guess a nation has to visit more than once as visits from  Greece, Malaysia, Romania and South Africa and listed in the numeric totals but not placed on the map.
  Of course, all welcome and if you are from out of town please feel free comment on where on Earth you are from! 

Come on Australia! Only three visits? Pick up the pace a little bit!

My most viewed Blog Post?  I Hate MiniVans(andthepeoplethatdrivethem!)

Just some things I've had lying around

Click on images to ENLARGE them...

Eat This NOT That...

I'm generally pretty polite to panhandlers and occasionally I do give them money.  Especially if they actually work for it by playing a sax or by performing magic. But I get a little edgy when they start asking for MY food that I happen to be carrying at the time like when...

*Big, fat guy sits down at a bench across from my father and I and starts chatting us up. He then asks us for some $ for his next meal while he's eating a bag of those Roasted Pecans that you can buy from street carts but you don't because they cost like seven bucks a bag? Gall. My Dad looked very uncomfortable but I just laughed and told him "No".

*Big, fat guy on Michigan Avenue in Chicago spies my leftovers from The Cheese Cake Factory and asks if I'm going to eat them.  ???  My girlfriends with me and I'm too unsure of the area to give him a crafty answer so I just walked on by.

*Today, I'm biking home with my take-out dinner from Noodles when I have to stop and zip my backpack because crap was starting to fall out of it. A big, fat girl waiting for the bus nearby asks "Hey you gonna eat that?"
Well, I was holding work shoe in my hand at the time so I had no idea what she was talking about so I just replied...
"What?" 
"You gonna eat them Noodles leftovers you just threw on the ground?" says the fat girl.
I'm still a little confused but then realized that my noodles bag from Noodles had Noodles written on it so I figured that she was talking about the noodles even though it was new and not leftovers(whew).
"I didn't throw it on the ground. I set it on the ground" I replied while recramming junk in my backpack.
"I'll take em if you ain't gonna eat em then."

(OK, at this point I had just finished a difficult day at work and all I wanted to do was go home and eat so I really wasn't in the best of spirits for this encounter. The rest of what was said was done so with high volume and wild gesticulating.)
 
"YEAH, I'M GONNA EAT THEM! WHY DO THINK I'M CARRYING THEM AROUND, SO I CAN JUST THROW THEM OUT WHEN I GET HOME?!"
"Well fucking alright then you don't need to get all nasty about it motherfucker", says the big,fat girl.
"No, you're the one that's nasty asking people for their leftovers. You have a bag of fucking groceries, what are you doing asking me for my food?
"Fuck you motherfucker. Bike out of here you faggot ass"
"You're the one that you could use a ride on a bike you fat fuck" I replied as I rode away leaving her to scream at me.

By the way, that was the BEST bowl of Noodles I had ever eaten in my life.

First World Problems

"First World Problems" is one of my favorite meme's that I encounter on the internetz. Probably because they portray our cultures silliness so well. Enjoy.

Wisconsin Hicks

Ever dreamed about going out in the woods with your fellow hicks to hunt Gray Wolves? Then Wisconsin is the place for you, brother. And just to make it even more enjoyable, you're legally able to bring your own pack-of-dogs to add to the hunts festivities. Oh, oh! And if you are too much of a chickenshit to actually hunt a wolf you are able to use a trap as well!

The Facts: *Wisconsin has been receiving thousands of applications for Gray Wolf hunting that will enable "hunters" to bag 201 of the states 800 wolves. *The use of dogs is permitted. *The Chippewa Tribe gets first crack at them. *The hunt regulations are being set by the state legislature not the DNR. *You can shoot or trap a wolf as well as use bait.
The best part is this hillbilly quote from Scott Loomans of the DNR  who is experiencing child-like euphoria at the application process. "I guess we really didn't know what to expect," Loomans said. "But it sounds encouraging. We're hoping to get as many applications as we can."

So there you go. Spend millions of dollars to bring back the wolf so hicks can have a day in the woods.

Blacks, Democrats and Black Democrats

I'm tired of discussing the current political situation but I still enjoy the semantics of politics. Thought this bit was interesting, pretty accurate and absolutely ASTONISHING since it's a brother talking bad(and truthfully) about the Democratic Party and it's relationship with black Americans. Huh, truth really is stranger than fiction.

Union For A Day

UNIONS! We love them and hate them! Me?  I understand their purpose but question their usefulness for the most part.  I am able to speak from experience on this matter as I was a union member for exactly ONE day...

The Story: I was hired as a grocery bagger at the Kroger supermarket in town and my starting wage was a hot  $3.45 per hour which was ten-cents higher than the minimum wage of $3.35. How did I manage to successfully wrangle such a deal? The Union, Man!  See, when I first started the local union rep explained to me how they had negotiated a "premium" starting wage for new employees and since they went through all this trouble to do this for me that they were going to deduct a mere TEN-CENTS-PER-HOUR in union dues in order to continue fighting for me, their fellow brother.
What?
So the union fought for an extra dime per hour for starting employees just so they could pay the union dues? That can't be right, can it?  You bet your ass that's what they did, and after my first shitty day on that job I was thankfully contacted by a local restaurant(non-union) which offered to pay me better hourly wages and tips. I called up the Kroger store and told them the situation and they told me that I would have to meet wth the union rep(again) to sign a paper which would formally release me from the union. Yeah, right.

With that in mind, dear reader, I leave you with this classic union commercial from the 1980's. Enjoy.

 

I Know These Things!

Just some of the amazing things that I know...
  *five people that I work with have Bachelor Degrees but make under $10/hour.
   *three different guys who have either a Playstation or an Xbox but don't have a bed and sleep on the floor.
    *a Puerto Rican woman who believed that Puerto Rico is a State in the Union.
     *a woman who bet me $10 that Oklahoma is located on the Gulf of Mexico.        
        *a guy who thinks that the Holocaust is fictional.
        *a guy that only eats beans and bananas(not the same guy, surprisingly).
         *a couple who lost over $150,000 to Bernie Madoff.
          *a guy that played the video game "Halo3" for five days straight and lost his job. 
            *five lawyers that I personally know are currently unemployed.             
                *a guy that accidentally shot himself  in the head