Chinese Buffets?

Ok so if you go to a restaurant you basically know what you are goin to get right? I mean KFC is chicken, Whataburger is hamburgers etc.... So then when I stepped foot into a restaurant that was called "Chinese Palace Buffet" I naturally thought I was going to get Chinese food. Apparently I was wrong. I think the rice was Chinese but that was about it. Mashed potatoes and gravy? Spaghetti? WTF? I mean I know you have to have child friendly items but stuffed mushrooms? Fajitas? Did I step into Golden Corral by mistake? Oh wait I couldn't have Golden Corral is better than this joint.

Oh and here's another thing. I base my tips on service, give me good service I give you a good tip, bad service bad tip. Pretty simple. Well our server took forever to bring us our drinks, never really came by for refills and all in all didn't do much. So we left her a dollar, and she proceeded to get huffy. Again, WTF? Its not like you brought us the food, we did that ourselves. You didn't even seat us!

Man I am sticking to china town.

Remember? You member!

When we were kids we would hear the adults talking about the good ol' days. The era of soda shops and dime movies. When Cokes were a nickle and pop corn was a few cents, cheaper if you brought your own paper bag. I would sit there in awe, wondering what it would be like to buy a steak dinner for 75cents. With all the fixens' too not just the steak. "What a time to be alive everything was so cheap." My elders would look at me and say "cheap? no son that was not cheap. We made about $25 a week back then and every penny had to be spent wisely." What a minute $25 a week? I would kill for kind of money, as it was I didn't even get an allowance for doing my chores, my dad would say i let you live here that's enough. "$25 a week! Wow you guys were rich!" They looked at me and laughed. "oh how cute, wait till he finds out". Find out what? What aren't you telling me? What secret am I missing out on? Tell me I must know! Well they never did. And the mystery went on for years.

The mystery became evident when I began to live on my own. Your paycheck always seems to just cover you. Food, gas, rent, and god help you if you have a girlfriend. But even then you seem content. Money for beer and snacks is all you seem to need. Then as you get older, you get needier. You keep buying more stuff, eventually you get a house to hold your stuff, and then what do you do? You go buy more stuff. No matter how much money you make there is always something there to take it away. So what I learned is take care of the stuff money can't buy. Like family and friends. No matter what size your paycheck, or no matter how big your house, true friends and family can never be bought.

Taking the Leap

Look at this guy in this picture. There was a time when I would do that for shits and giggles. Do it for that rush you get when lightly knock on deaths doorstep. Hell I used to do it when I would go mountain biking back home in the Franklin Mountains. Peddle your ass off and go. Sometimes I made it, sometimes I didn't. Most of the time I didn't. I busted my ass so many times my parents actually bought insurance for the bike because the expense of fixing every week got to be too much. Now I got bumped and bruised and scarred but thanks to my guardian angel (who worked overtime by the way) I never got seriously hurt, I always walked away. Some where I lost that feeling and I miss it. And I don't know how to get it back, I'm not sure I want it back. Hell peddling a bike may cause me to have a heart attack nowadays. Have I gotten older and wiser? Or older and miser? Who knows I don't the answer to that question yet. Hell I don't think anyone does.

The Olympics

Now here's the deal. Are the Olympics worth having anymore? I can't remember the last time I saw them on TV. This is supposed to be an event showing the world the status of your countries athletic prowess. But now it seems like it has become and over runned by advertising and sponsorships. And as we all know protest in one form or an another. So what's the point? Why go through all the trouble of spending millions of dollars on training, advertising, and transportation only to have your, or one of the other countries, protest the politics of the day. If the countries leaders decide to boycott well then all of the money, time, and not to mention shattered dreams all go to waste. Do we participate in order to save face? Or to allow the athletes to shine? Maybe we should consider this before we interupped our favorite programming with this centuries old tradition.

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