Reason 734 Why the Fall Sucks: The Greenway Fountains Are Turned Off

The Greenway without fountains, just isn't the Greenway to me. I have no idea why I'm so attached to these damn fountains, but I am, I'll literally be fighting through small bouts of depression every time I walk by these water barren parks until the spring. It's completely irrational.

Going Apple Picking this Weekend? Why Not Go In Style in a Limousine?

Oh sure, can we bring Crowley, the Butler, along as well? I'd hate to dirty my hand picking the apples from the tree with my own hands, what do you make of me, a commoner?

I appreciate the effort from the limo company here, that Sunday morning in the fall time slot has to be a bitch to fill in the limo industry, but this just isn't going to work. In general I think it's just frowned upon to show up for activities that illegal immigrant day workers do for a living, in a limousine. Just seems in bad taste.

This is just a straight up announcement that you’re an asshat, right? Rolling up to an apple orchard at like 11 am in evening wear for some apple picking. Yes, definitely as asshattery as it gets. I’m going to go out on a limb and say total sales for this package is currently standing at zero dollars and zero cents. I have no idea what they're charging, but I'm going to guess and say it's cheaper for me to roll down to Market Basket and buy a bag of apples than to rent a limo for 3 hours just to pick some fruit off of trees.

Shocking News: Panera's Pay What You Feel Restaurant is Failing

Consumerist - Panera Bread's noble experiment in pay-what-you-want retail has been successful at its first two restaurants in St. Louis and Detroit, taking in about 80% of the retail price of the food they serve. They serve as shining reminders of the fundamental goodness of people. In the Midwest, anyway. Until recently, the third free-will restaurant in Portland, Oregon was faltering, not attracting enough paying customers and losing money. It turns out that the down-and-out in Portland like to eat free food and linger. For hours on end. While the point of the eatery is to help people out, the experiment was never intended as a homeless shelter. The business model depends on attracting customers who will pay retail for their meals, and some who will pay a little extra. There's a difference between a restaurant with a diverse clientele and a day shelter with paintings of bread on the walls, and the restaurant began to resemble the latter. "We had to help them understand that this is a café of shared responsibility and not a handout," Panera founder Ron Shaich told the Portland Tribune. "It can't serve as a shelter and we can't have community organizations sending everybody down."

"We had to help them understand that this is a cafe of shared responsibility and not a hand out." Umm, no, if that was the message you wanted to send you'd put prices up on the menu like every other restaurant in the history of restaurants. No one's going to share the responsibility voluntarily, no one with a brain anyway. You know what I'm not doing this afternoon? Going to lunch at a soup kitchen, because I can afford to buy my lunch somewhere bums aren't hanging out.

Who Panera is kidding here,  it just sounds like residents of Oregon are a bit smarter than the good, but simple, people of St. Louis and Detroit. I don't know what the hell is the matter with those guys, but if you tell me I can have a sandwich for free, I'm sure as shit not paying upwards of 80% of its value for it.  I'll leave my servers a couple buck tip in their jar, but that's about it. What the hell were these simpletons in Detroit and St. Louis doing? Take a cue from Oregon guys, if someone's giving you something for free, don't pay them for it. That's illogical. Like Detroit, you guys are broke as fuck. You're in no position to be paying for free sandwiches, it's stupid financial decisions like this that sunk your city in the first place.

What's the Rule on Stealing Change From Fountains and Wishing Wells?

San Marcos — Police say someone apparently intent on stealing coins broke into a San Marcos cave late Sunday or early Monday. The area of Wonder Cave is known as the “Wishing Well.” “Someone apparently tried to lower themselves down the elevator shaft to steal money out of there,” San Marcos Police Sergeant Fred Wisener said. The crime was discovered because a canvas bag was found by Wonder World staff at the bottom of the well, Wisener said, adding that the suspect or suspects also left a broken flashlight behind.

What’s the protocol here, is this actually considered stealing? I’ve always wondered that, I mean these coins technically don’t belong to anyone, do they? It’s always been a mystery to me why homeless people waste so much time collecting cans and lugging them around in shopping carts when they could just go to the local mall or park and get the coins without the middle man, plus the added benefit of a bath. 

That said I completely see a mall freaking out if you went to take their change on them...Listen guys, the fountain aint a tip jar, we're not just flipping those coins in to say thanks to Simon for providing us such a great mall.  I think the best route to go on those is to treat them as a giant leave a penny take a penny tray, allow someone to take up to a dollar a day out of the thing, but that's it. I think that'd be a pretty fair resolution.

Personal wells on the other hand are a whole other thing. These are directly on someone's property and the homeowner definitely has some sort of claim to the cash. I'd say a 50/50 finders fee split for any bounty collected works in this case. Lets be honest, there aren't many home owners that are cool with being lowered down a 3 foot wide hole to the bottom of a well via wooden bucket and rope, if some adventure seeker/member of the Goonie family wants to take a crack at it, all the power to them, just know you're doing it for the thrill, not the riches.

Caffeine Cut Off: Sean's Day Without Coffee

Note:  These extrapolations are based on the hastily scribbled notes that I wrote during my impromptu experiment, which was conducted largely as a test of self discipline.  What followed was a level of anger and profanity I didn't know I was even capable of, which is saying a lot because my disposition is has a baseline level of being just plain rude.

           Sure, there might be poignant issues in the news as well as some current affairs that I could lend some valuable insight to.  But what the hell would be the fun in blogging about that??  I'm not a dried up old geezer who cares about that shit yet (with all due repect to my Chief of Staff, CW), nor am I comedic genius/social critic Dennis Miller, so ranting about the shitty situations in our economy and social systems that I have no chance of repairing on my own seems like a pretty self-defeating exercise.  So I came up with a much more entertaining topic for my newest blog entry.  I've noticed that besides just having my daily coffee, I find myself enjoying it exponentially more the longer I am deprived of it's stimulant based properties.  If I have it first thing in the morning, I'm completely fine, nothing to see here people, please go about your day.  However, if it so happens that I have my coffee in the afternoon by some unfortunate circumstance, I more resemble Johnny Cash in Walk the Line where I have to be forcible tied to a bed frame to detox as I violently struggle against my fate.  Bearing my coffee addiction in mind, lets go through the chronology of events that occurred on Wednesday, September 28th, in one of the most ill-advised undertakings of my life.

7:45 AM-Waking up, not looking forward to prospect of day without liquid fuel.  Rather curious, seeing as my academic productivity level with the brain boosting beverage flowing through my veins is roughly 10 % of what I'm capable of (Yes, I'm a lazy college student when it comes to school work, but exercising, blogging and drinking are tackled with a fervor similar to that of religious zealots. Go figure.)

9:15 AM: First class, already feel like I've been through a couple level's of Dante's hell.  My head is screaming, "What the fuck are you doing?!?!? THIS ISN'T OUR AGREEMENT!!!" as I half listen to the professor babbble on about something she seems to think is important.  Desperately needing distraction, I turn to my go to activity of Words with Friends.  Alpha Bitch sees it fit to call me out for using my phone when at least 50 % of the class is doing the exact same thing.  Exchange goes like this

Professor:  Who can tell me (insert question that I didn't listen to here) is all about? Sean, since you're paying such close attention by texting, how about you?

Me: Uh...Well, with all due respect professor (polite people speak for "I don't mean to say this with any respect at all, I'm just saving face socially by dropping this little idiom) I'm not texting.

Professor:  Let me rephrase:  Since your playing Words With Friends, you can answer my question?

Me:  Well, no....because I'm playing Words with Friends.

This day is going swimmingly already

10:30 AM- Struggle on my way over to work study where I employ myself as an every important "Mail Room Associate" for the great financial leech that we call "Northeastern University"  My head feels like it is a cleft in the earth being split into two massive chunks by a very determined miner.  I swear to god, even the homeless people think something is desperately wrong with me by the fact I'm walking with one hand massaging my temples while muttering curse words at a faster pace than Mac from Always Sunny in Philadelphia gained weight (Sidenote:  Fat Mac is both HUGE and hysterical.  A guy who gains absurd amounts of flab just for the humor of it?  A straight baller in my book.)

12:00 PM- Just as I was about to start throwing box cutters in every conceivable direction because of the headeache that has now erupted like an active volcano in my brain, an unexpected twist of amazing, perhaps even divine intervention occurs:  Someone has brought pizza to the mailroom, and since all the other mindless drones serving the queen bee of endless amounts of mail happen to be out delivering, I become one of the lucky recipients of this amazing gift.  Though not coffee/caffeine, grease, cheese, and pepperoni do much to soothe the combination of agony and building rage transfusing throughout my entire body.

1:32 PM-  Clocked out 5 minutes early, so that I could stagger back to my apartment just to hide from reality without my black, Colombian-bean based fuel.  Without my brain in overdrive like it normal is by this time of day, I am immensely tired and fatigued, despite the fact I have complete maybe 30 % of my daily routine.  To absolutely no one's great surprise, I fall asleep for a lengthy nap.

3:45ish PM- Awake in one of the most awful conditions possible:  groggy, taste of sleepy mouth evident, and a headache that has turned into a full scale percussion ensemble playing a concert on the stage of whatever is left of my alcohol ravaged brain.  This is one of the most stupid things I have ever done, and this includes agreeing to jump off my roof into my neighbor’s yard (our houses are close together) to win a 5$ bet.  I can almost POSTIVELY swear that my dream had coffee themed instances engrained within it.  That’s how hopelessly addicted I have become.  This could very well be almost on par with what meth heads go through…without the meth and illegally acquired drug that actively kills you with every puff.  So really, it’s not all that similar, Whatever, I’m grouchy.

6:00 PM- Walk into Stetson East dining hall with the intention of gorging myself on the dense, completely nutrient deficient food served within the premises to gain at least some modicum of pleasure during my stroll through a day of oblivion.  Ultimate test of will occurs when I see the MASSIVE tanks of Green Mountain coffee sitting near the dessert table.  Though pissed off for the entire day, I was pretty sure I could pull this off.  Then this curveball gets thrown at me.  I felt like a guy just released from alcoholics anonymous and while being on vacation accidentally opens the mini-bar to see all those little bottles of liquid courage sitting there.  I now finally understand people when they say “I NEED…(insert thing they don’t actually need here”  I didn’t need coffee.  But my god, did I want to chug that entire barrel of black liquid goodness, even if it meant third degree burns all along the inside of my throat.  Somehow, I was able to walk by it, though I continued to stare it the same way a pedophile surveys a playground from an unmarked van.

7:45-9:00 PM- Have just been informed I have an intramural basketball game to play in.  This is wonderful news, since it’s not like I want to punch every living person in the face at the moment (I don’t actually think I could hit another person in the face unless extremely agitated.  I’d settle for a shin kick because it hurts like holy hell, but you look like a complete bitch if you complain about your shin hurting.  Count that one as a victory on multiple fronts for this guy)  For whatever reason, engaging in physical activity is actually possible and the only enjoyable thing I have done all day.  Sadly, as soon as the game ends, misery wakes up from his late evening siesta and takes his rightful place back inside my head.

10:30 PM-Dead to the world asleep.  Was sitting on the couch doing that “bobblehead” action you do when you are in a really fucking boring class where your head tilts slowly forward as your consciousness slowly fades away, only for you to realize in the nick of time “Shit, I actually need to pay attention” and you snap back to ready position, only to repeat this process multiple times.  Called it quits shortly after a few rounds of this pointless endeavor.

Message:  If you as a person have become so accustomed to a substance that has been socially accepted on a mass scale and perhaps biologically woven into the fabric of your being, for the love of god, DON’T GIVE IT UP, even for a second.  I apologize to you, coffee.  You are a wonderful girl that I should never have even dreamed of leaving, even if it was for the sake of science.

"Amanda Hugnkiss, I Need Amanda Hugnkiss"

Vid from: LAis

The most fun a city council meeting has ever been.