(Joe, you'll appreciate this.)
Fuck Best Buy and fuck BestBuy.com.

My dad got me the ninth season of X-Files for my birthday, but he bought it online back in May when it was on sale for super-cheap. Anyway, I obviously just got it last week when my birthday rolled around. It was "damaged," at least by my defintion. The box was pretty dinged up and a good number of the spokes that hold the DVDs in were broken. Had my Dad sent me the receipt and went to the Rego Park BB tonight to exchange it. Basically got into a shouting match with all the fucktards there, who told me because it was purchased six months ago, they couldn't do anything for me. Please keep in mind that I HAD MY RECEIPT and all I wanted to do was an even exchange. Left there after giving it my all to get something going. Called up Best Buy.com customer service, and it took 15 minutes for the moron there to understand the problem. Common customer service complaint, but if you've had training for your job and I haven't, I shouldn't be able to do your job better than you. In the interim, I pulled out the season again and was able to convince myself that it wasn't that bad. All the discs are playable and fine condition, it's just the packaging that was pretty messed up... made worse when the cuntrag on Best Buy couldn't figure out how to get the packaging back together. (Hey whore, you fold in from BOTH sides, numnuts, not just from one!) Anyway, eventually hung up on BB.com, realizing that this was causing me more trouble than it was worth. I'll be fine with leaving things they way they are... but so help me god, if season 8 has any markings on it when I get it for X-Mas, it'll ruin my holiday.

I wanted a beer after all that, but I didn't want to go out again, so I just took a couple trays of ice and the remainders of my fifth of Smirnoff vodka and Strawberry Daq. mix, threw them in the blender, and hoped it wouldn't overflow. Now I have a lot of drinking to do.

It just brings up the point that I don't deal well with anxiety. I let stuff that doesn't really matter get to me, and while I can use relaxation techniques to stifle anger and depression without missing a beat, the task becomes so much more difficult when it comes to anxiety. Found out my Behavior Modification book for my ABA class has a chapter towards the back on Fear and Anxiety Reduction Procedures, so I'm in the process of checking that out now. I just don't understand why I'm so unwillingly to apply one of the things I believe in before all else (Behavior Analysis) to my own personal problems. The answers are all there, I just have to put forth the effort. Even the precedent is there. Summer 2003: lost quite a bit of weight. First half of 2004: became emotionally self-sustaining. It's not to say that I haven't grown more and adapted since then, but between June 2003 and June 2004, I honestly amazed myself with all the progress I made. It's that period that resulted in the amazed looks and comments I receieved from people I didn't see that often. So, I need to refuse to become comfortable, to draw upon that strength and the strength it took to make this move in the first place, and jump-start this engine. The irony is that one of the things I need to work on is not being so hard on myself and striving so relentlessly to achieve perfection within myself, to just go with the flow.

I watched The Big Lebowski over the weekend, and I thought to myself while watching The Dude, "I don't want to be him, but I do want to be more like him." On a more short-term basis though, I think tonight is a good night to get half-sloshed, order a little Chinese, and watch The Office.

I honestly don't want to feel that I'm vastly superior to a large percentage of the population. I think the majority of the people I associate with feel the same way. But it's so freakin' difficult to not feel that way when you are reminded of their complete and utter ignorance on a regular basis. Honestly though, how do these people dress themselves in the morning?

(edit 7:53pm) Ten points to the security guard at Queens Plaza, who I got into a brief X-Files watercooler discussion after he saw me inspecting my product after leaving Best Buy fuming. He casually inquired which episode was the one "with all the goo coming outta the guy's eye" and the one with "the spaceship in the desert." And that was bliss in a nutshell for me: to spend 45 minutes wading through shit just to get that one sweet breath of flesh air at the end of the tunnel.

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