Welcome to Taco Bell. How may I over charge you?

While checking out the blog of a co-worker, Jason Murphy, I found a great post that talked about a guy who got handcuffed and taken to jail for using 57 $2 bills to pay for something at Best Buy. Here is the the link to the original story, which is a funny read. Somebody left a comment on the post that linked to an even funnier story about a Taco Bell worker who didn’t think a $2 bill was real money. This story made me laugh and it also reminded me of a semi-related thing that happened at a Taco Bell many years ago… Here is my true story.

I went in to a Taco Bell to grab some lunch. I reached in my pocket and found two singles. Since a taco was $0.69 and a burrito was $0.79 cents, I knew, through simple calculations, that I could get one of each. So, when I get to the front of the line, I order exactly that. The conversation between me and the employee went something like this:

Taco Bell Employee: May I help you?
Me: I’ll have 1 bean burrito and 1 taco, please.
TBE: Anything to drink?
Me: Nope.
TBE: OK, your total is $3.72
Me: Uh, that can’t be right.
TBE: It is. It says so on the register.
Me: No, it can’t be. A burrito is 69 cents and a taco is 79 cents…
TBE: Plus tax.
Me: Even with tax there is no way it’s more than $2.00.
TBE: Look, that’s what it says on the register.
Me: OK, fine. I’ll just have 1 taco then.
TBE: So, you don’t want the burrito?
Me: I only have $2.00 so I’ll just get the taco.
TBE: OK, 1 taco. Your total is $2.15
Me: WHAT??? How can that be???
TBE: Oh, it looks like it’s also charging you for a small drink. Do you want the drink?

It makes me wonder how many times other stuff has been added on to my bill at places that I didn’t catch. And, would I have even caught this if I had more money in my pocket and wasn’t stuck to such a specific budget…

Legos out, Pixel Blocks in!

ThinkGeekOh, holy cow, I must have these!!! Imagine an entire box full of 1×1 colored bricks that connect together to make all sorts of cool (OK, you got me… geeky) art pieces. Follow the link and click on the Additional Images or Action Shots links. You’ll see what I’m talking about. There are a bunch of cool old video game art works like Mario, Sonic and other pixelated heros. You can bet these will be on my Christmast list!!!

Wow, 4 years already…

It’s hard to believe that it’s already been 4 years since the 9/11/01 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The details of that morning are so clear in my head still. I remember sitting on the edge of the bed watching the TV as the second plane hit the second tower. I didn’t know what to do, what to say, who to call. Hell, I don’t even know that I knew what to think. What did it all mean? Should we still go to work that day? As the provider and protector of my family, I felt very vulnerable. The tragedy was happening 3000 miles away and yet I remember feeling that it was happening not only to them, but to all of us.

The anniversary of 9/11 also brings back some other memories for me. The night before the attacks was the last time I was able to spend an evening with my grandpa, Harry Mills. His body was overrun with cancer and one of the many side-effects was that it was causing him to loose his sight. I went over to his house to help install a new TV with a bigger screen that would hopefully make it easier for him to watch TV. Once the TV was installed we sat around and gabbed for a couple hours before I needed to head home. The following morning I was scheduled to be on a plane headed for Vegas. But, a weird thing happened and I ended up canceling the flight the night before. I would have been in the air at the EXACT time the planes were crashing in to the WTC. I an only imagine how freaked out my wife would have been.

My grandpa passed away a couple weeks later. While I hated to lose him, it was comforting to know that he wouldn’t be in agonizing pain any longer.

If you are in the giving mood, stop on over to the American Cancer Society website and send them a little donation.

Am I the LAST to know about this?

Have you ever felt like you have totally missed out on something that you think you should have been in to for a while? I think I really lose some geek-cred when I say that this week I found MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator). If you don’t know what Mame is, it’s software that you can run on your computer that will allow you to play virtually any arcade game you have ever seen in any arcade. So, if you want to relive the ’80s without having to shell out rolls and rolls of quarters, now you can. Mame is free to download, but don’t think you are done once you’ve downloaded and installed Mame. Here’s a short list of what I’ve gone through so far.

1. I downloaded the command line version of Mame from here. This is a simple zip file that once unzipped, you can simply run games directly from the command line. There are a LOT of configurable parts to this, so don’t think it’s just hit start and go…

2. I downloaded a bunch of ROMs. ROMs are the games themselves. You’ll need these before you can star shooting space aliens. There are many sites out there offer them up. You can start here. I was luck enough to have a buddy who had several thousand games and sent me a bunch to get me started…

3. You’ll want to find a “Front End”. This is basically a Windows program that you can run that will let play the games from inside Windows rather than having to futz with the command line. Trust me, this is just short of a MUST. Mame32 is what are looking for. I think there is a version 0.99 available, but I don’t know where. But, you can get a version of it here

4. Next I went and purchased the X-Arcade Joystick. Without this, you’ll be controlling everything with your keyboard. It’s fun for a few minutes, but gets old really quick. With the joystick, you’ll think you were back in the arcade.

Well, that’s all the time I’ve got. Time to go save Princess Peach.

The best and worst we have to offer

If you ever want to see the best and worst come out in people, just wait until there is a major disaster in our country. Then, in the weeks that follow you will see the absolute best and absolute worst our country has to offer.

Like everybody else, I’ve been following what’s been going on in New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina. Reading CNN.com and watching the video clips they offer is where I get most of my news. Of course, you are always going to get the big name celebs who immediately offer monitary help, which is awesome. Then, you get stories of local heros who risked their own lives to help out their neighbors. I even read about some college kids who didn’t think the releif efforts were good enough so they drove several hundred miles to pitch in. I loved hearing about the woman who owns katrina.com switched her site to a helpful resource for getting information about the hurricane and it’s survivors. These stories are touching and can sometimes make you temporarily forget that there is another side…

I don’t even know why I was surprised by it… but I was. This morning, while checking cnn.com I saw a link that says "Fake aid Web sites tout Katrina aid". So basically, some guys put up a site that ask for donations that they say are to help the victims but instead it’s just a scam to steal money and probably much more (identity theft, etc..) Again I say, I don’t know why this suprised me… Perhaps I put too much faith in thinking that deep down, when push comes to shove, everybody would lend a hand when it was needed.

Pretty naive, I guess.

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