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Now, for my whole purpose in posting this.  Hardcore Pawn is about, as I am sure you can gather from the name, a pawn shop.  In this case it’s a rather large pawn shop in Detroit called American Jewelry and Loan.  I just saw something that amazed me, and it’s not the first time I have seen it either, but it’s the first time I decided to post something about it.  The way the pawn shop works is, you take whatever it is that you want to pawn (get a loan on) or just outright sell, to the shop.  Once you take it inside the shop, one of the people who work there will take a look at it, basically appraise it (figuring out what it might be worth and if they thing they can make any money on it) and then will tell you what your options are.  By options I mean what they will give you for it.

Usually, they will give you two numbers, the amount of money they will loan you if you are looking to get it back, and the amount of money they will pay you outright if you are wanting to sell it.  From what I have seen, and this only applies to American Jewelry and Loan since they are the ones in the TV show, those numbers are pretty much solid and there is little room for negotiation.  Sometimes people come in and tell them what they want out of something, and if it’s too high the staff will then negotiate, but they don’t hesitate to say no if someone wants too much.

Such was the case that got me typing this article.  A young woman wanted to pawn a pair of earrings and the clerk informed her that the “diamonds” on the earrings were false and that they were not interested in paying anything for them.  This is where it gets a bit crazy.  The customer tells the clerk that she “don’t wanna hear that” and that the clerk is in fact gonna pay for her earrings.  The clerk says again that they are not interested while the customer repeats her mantra “just pawn my earrings”.  What I find funny and crazy about this is that the store has said no, and the customer tells the clerk that they are going to do it anyway.  Like the clerk should then say something like “Oh, you are right, what was I thinking”.

Do these customers (remember, this isn’t the first time I have seen this happen) really think that their tantrums are going to change someones mind?  I mean, come on, you don’t go to a restaurant and eat your meal and then when the check comes tell them that they are going to charge you $2.00 for that stake instead of $8.00 like it says on the menu.  It boggles my mind, I cannot comprehend what these people are thinking.  “No, we don’t want to buy your item.” – “Yes you do, you are going to buy it and right now.”  Maybe they don’t realize that Jedi mind tricks aren’t real?  These aren’t the droids you are looking for!

Anyway, I had to express something about this because I have seen it over and over and it blows my mind. Just like you can’t push a rope, you can’t use mind control to get better deals at a pawn shop!  Hey, anyone out there, drop a comment or pop into the forums (I am setting them up now, should be operational soon!) and tell me what you think.

http://www.clayloomis.com/odd.html

So, let me make a little sense here from what I just said above.  Rather than admitting that Michael Jackson was a man, and a human being with god and bad and trials and tribulations just like the rest of it, the are trying to point to the doctor and say that he did it, so that Michael’s “image” can seem untarnished by this, it was the doctor that caused his death not his addiction to drugs.

I say come one people, look at the facts, the real facts, not what the news pundits are trying to spoon feed you.  My bet is that Michael was in a lot of pain, between all the surgeries he had, and the extremely physical performances he put on, all that stuff takes a toll on your body and I bet he used the pain killers to help with that.  The problem thought, is that like with a lot of people, famous or not, they get to depending on them too much and whammo, they are addicted.

Michael Jackson was a man of huge and extreme talent, the likes of which we probably never see again, at least not any time soon, but he was still a man nonetheless, and a great loss when he died.

Wow, seems to me like they are sending the wrong message, and really, I think this is just one more way that the folks in charge are buying votes.  I mean, let’s get real, if you are already not having to work for a living because you are getting funded by the Feds, and now on top of that they toss in a new phone and service for free to boot?  Who the heck would you vote for, the people that keep giving you free stuff, or someone that might want to cut that back and expect you to take care of yourself just a little bit.

Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

I knew Best Buy was run by a bunch of crooks, but this takes the cake.  Heck, I didn’t even know they sold water (they don’t in my home town), but I think they will sell anything if it means turning a buck.  Check out the original article for information and updates, I don’t want to steal their thunder, but this was one thing that had to be shared.  Just another notch in my hate stick for Best Buy.  Why do all big corporate companies also have to be jerks?

I still don’t know what the hell I did that made him so mad, I was trucking on Interstate 81, three lanes, left lane for fast runners, middle lane for normal I guess because the right lane was for slow moving vehicles.  I wasn’t going fast or slow, so I was in the middle.  This jerk decides to come up behind me fast, right on my ass, and then hit the left lane.  Keep in mind that the left and right lanes are clear, I’m in the middle.  He hits the left lane, comes up about halfway past me and then comes on over into my lane.  At first I thought it was just a mistake, it happens, nobody’s perfect, right?  Wrong, he proceeds to move all the way over to the right lane to hit the exit ramp.  Now, he could have just hit the right lane in the first place, but no, he had to get beside me on the left and run my ass off the road.  I got out of his way so he didn’t succeed, but  it wasn’t any damn fun.

And that’s one thing I have noticed about the big rig truck drivers, a profession that used to be honorable that is now rife with wage cutting mexican job stealing wheel monkeys that have to care for the craft.  I have noticed that since they are driving the big vehicles on the road, they pretty much don’t give a shit about the rest of us.  They have some kind of king of the road ooh boy look how much I can compensate with this big thing complex and all the little four wheelers be damned.  There are some good drivers out there sure, but unfortunately they are in the vast minority anymore.  All this just gets me circled right back around to my point that people are self centered jerks.  Here’s a tip, try not to be one, maybe life will be better for all of us.