Providing Worthless Knowledge One Day at a Time

Just a few quick items for the time being:

- While walking home tonight, I was crossing the street about 1 block from the apartment, and saw a NYC Yellow Cab pulled over, with the hood up. Upon further investigation, I saw smoke coming from under the hood. Then, I took another closer look and saw that the engine was on fire. We're talking small flames like you'd see in barbeque or small campfire. People just walked by like nothing was going on. Traffic continued to pass right by. Not that anyone was worried about a possible explosion or anything. Soon enough, the FDNY showed up, and they put out the fire. However, they did leave the cab where it was, with the extinguisher residue all over it. The cab driver was nowhere to be found. Then again, what does he care? He receives his $20K per year regardless of how many cars he destroys.

- I should have held out for this plasma TV: Panasonic 103-inch Plasma. If anyone has $70,000 to spare, they oughta invest in this fine piece of equipment in the upcoming holiday season.

- The Jessica is threatening to see if my TV has a parental lock feature so that I can't flip to ESPN. I wish I was kidding. And I wouldn't put it passed her to play this joke on me.

- America is a free country, right? We have the freedoms of the Constitution which suggest free speech and religion, and all of those righteous ideas. However, somewhere it was written that one shall not be able to back out of thou gym membership without a damn good excuse. Case in point: after moving downtown, the Jessica decided that she'd prefer a new gym, which in very close proximity to the new apartment. She looked into canceling her membership to the old gym, which had decent locations near her old apartment. However, old gym notified her that she wouldn't be able to cancel without having physically moved out of Manhattan, joined the Army, or one of other numerous life altering events.

I find this to be rather ridiculous. It's a gym, and I feel like that "contract" or "agreement" isn't as important as a lease signed for an apartment, other legal documents, or disclosure forms that you'd sign for an employer. The latter are items that you wouldn't think about breaking, unless under dire circumstances. But a gym membership agreement? What if you want to find a better deal elsewhere? What if you aren't happy with the facilities anymore? What if you move to an area of the city where they don't have as many locations? I feel like you should be able to tell them, "Sorry, I just don't want to come here anymore", and that's the end of it. But, that's not the case. People have to jump though hoops, and it sounds absurd.

Luckily, the whole situation was alleviated when the Jessica showed them her valid Pennsylvania drivers license and just stated that she's "moving back home with Mom and Dad". That was good enough for them, and proof enough to get the point across. No questions asked. However, if she didn't have that PA license, then she'd have to pay a termination fee, and that's a bunch of crap. The profit margins on gyms are astronomical anyway. The whole industry is a racket. I'm all pissed off.

That's all for now. Tonight's lesson: "Caveat emptor" when you sign up for gym memberships. Back tomorrow.