Many things happened today that might just ensure I remember it years from now. First, I grabbed my Barnes n' Nobles-in-a-bag and made my way to a coffee shop to do some reading. The Flying M was packed so I settled for Java a block away. There, I read more of The End of Faith, and then spent some time reading An Essay on Morals by Philip Wylie. An Essay on Morals was printend in 1947. The author believes that morality should be tied to instinct. He pays special attention to instinct, time, the ego, individualism, the conscious, the subconscious, among other ideas. Incidentally, he thinks religion is ridiculous. The book is fun to read in that the author tends to go off on these tangents that sound very much like poetry or a sermon.
Yeah, so I read for a little over an hour, finished my mocha, and left Java in order to find a new place where I could get a new tasty beverage and read a little longer. First, I stopped in at The Lux, a used clothing store that features more quality, stylish apparel, and less of the common thrift store crap. I was surprised to find a couple things a really liked. One was a green t-shirt with graphics on the front consisting of a cruise ship in the distance, a sexy couple lounging on the beach, palm trees, and the word "California" splayed across the upper chest. Very 80s. The second thing I ended up buying was a black button up long sleeve shirt embroidered with two roses below the somewhat pointy collars. The shirt actually seems kind of cliche, in a fashion sense-like something Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20 would wear in a video-or like just about any pop artist would wear in a video, including modern country "artists". Nevertheless, it is a cool shirt, and I'm glad I bought it.
From the Lux I stopped in for some lunch at Subway. I had a 6" tuna sub with swiss, toasted. I scarfed that down and walked next door to River City Bagel and bought myself a Irish Creme Latte (to celebrate St. Patrich's day) and read another book I had in my bag called Introducing Marxism. The book is really neat. It is one in a series of "Introducing..." books which all utilize fun, cartoon/comic-like illustrations to provide the reader a visual aid in order to understand the oft-complex topics of focus. I find that the illustrations help a lot, and the book itself is exactly what I need to read a long with the more in-depth The Philosophy of Marxism in order to really retain the knowledge I'm being exposed to.
Next, I walked a few blocks over to Function, my favorite high-end clothing store, to have a look around. While there I had a talk with a guy named Andrew, someone who knows people I know, who hangs out at places I hang out, and who obviously shares my appreciation for stylish clothing. He also happens to be the brother of this guy Brian who I sold my 75 Plymouth Valiant to a couple months ago. A few weeks ago, vandals broke out the cars beautiful curved rear window, and tore off its antannea and windshield wipers. Andrew and I talked about how we'd love to get our hands on the fuckers who did that to such a cool car. I also had a long chat with the very pregnant salesperson about all things music, in a general, philisophical way.
I didn't buy anything. Then I went to my bank, Bank of America, cashed my check and attempted to close my account; but I couldn't due it as a transaction I had just made needed time to go through. So I made my way to Idaho Central Credit Union and opened up a checking and savings account. This is Fern's bank and she highly recommended it. My primary motive for changing banks was bitterness towards Bank of America for charging me a 29.99% interest rate on my Visa in the past. Also, the new bank has online banking and online bill pay which will make my life easier.
After setting up an account, I went to Georges and chatted with Tom for a while after letting him in on the fact that I was there to talk to Mike about getting a raise. When Mike was available, we talked in the office for just a short time, I asked him for a raise, and he said he would talk to Tom, but he responded so positively that I know the raise is a sure thing. So, hopefully, I'll get the 10% raise that I asked for, which equates to around $2000 more dollars in my pocket in a year.
I left Georges and headed home. There I did the dishes and worked out a bit. Fern called and said that she made arrangements to hang out with Devlyn for a while, so I went on a mountain bike ride. The weather was nice-just a little chilly, windy, and grey, but not bad overall.
At home I cleaned up and waited for Fern to pick me up so we could go get dinner. After going to Ichibon, a Japanese Steakhouse, and seeing that all non-sushi menu items were like $18 dollars, we fled and went to Red Robin. There I had a Mushroom and Swiss Turkey Burger that was absolutely amazing. Fern had a BBQ version of a Turkey Burger.
Finally, after making a trip out to Edwards for the opening night of V is for Vandetta, and after realizing that we'd have to wait a whole hour to catch the next showing, we went to the two dollar theater on Overland and watched Hoodwinked, a funny and cute animated film (aren't they all) about Little Red Riding Hood, her Extreme Sports Grammy, a singing goat, a hyped up squirrel, a big-dumb yoddeling actor, a funny looking frog PI, a investigative journalist wolf, a cute furry evil bunny rabbit played by Andy Dick-among others. The movie was hilarious and completely worth the two dollars.