Who do you GoodSearch for?

You know I love Google like crazy. However I almost never, ever use it for searching things online. Instead I use GoodSearch, a Yahoo-powered search engine which donates roughly a penny per search.

(There is also a link on the GoodSearch page for GoodShop which runs on the same basic idea. You click on the link to a store--BN, Best Buy, Amazon, eBay, iTunes, Dell... practically anything you could ever want can be found in the participating merchant stores--do your online shopping, checkout and bam, a percentage of your purchase is donated to your cause. I GoodShop'd Zappos for shoes!!)

Who do I GoodSearch for? ARF! Or the Amyloidosis Research Foundation. Amyloidosis is a rare group of diseases that effects proteins in the body which in turn mess you up. A couple of good friends have this disease and have lost too many family members to it. I feel bad that most of my time and energy is devoted to Relay, but I feel a little better knowing that alot of the 3,900+ searches (read: over $39.00) in 2008 were because of my searches!

I tend to do lots of searches either for work or reference for a project. Did I also mention I'm an uber nerd and comic book geek... Just think of what that does to a guy.

Now, I'm not going to preach about how it's important to volunteer and get involved and make a difference. You know that already, whether or not you actually DO something about it or not. But here I am, giving you a way to DO SOMETHING about a cause. Literally all you have to do is go to GoodSearch and look something up.

So I'm asking you to use it. Even if you don't do it for my cause, you should do it for some cause. Making a difference has never been so easy.

Hey dude, wanna buy an entertainment system?

Almost without fail, every place I've traveled to I've encountered at least one person who wanted to sell me drugs. In Florida, it was "something to tickle my nose with." In Oregon, I think it was your regular run-of-the-mill pot. In Cali, it was heroin. It's become sort of fun to see what I'll be offered next.

While I haven't been offered drugs recently, today as I was leaving the store a van pulled up next to me and a youngish guy leaned out the passenger side window to ask, "Excuse me dude, would you be interested in an entertainment system. I've got an extra one."

My tongue got the better of me and I asked him how much. (I think it was a combination of trying to do something so I wouldn't laugh and trying to be neighborly to someone addressing me.)

His friend leans over the steering wheel to tell me it's worth a few thousand dollars, and I can take a look at it and tell them how much I think it's worth. Original van man tells me he'll give it to me for "hundreds, or make a deal."

Oh, to be a random guy in a parking lot trying to fit dog food and bags into a car without dropping anything and with no visible backup or rent-a-cops in sight.

I also find funny that even had I trusted these upstanding citizens with an "extra" entertainment system to allow me to view their goods and not rob me or beat me or anything, I'd have absolutely no idea how much anything would cost.

Yay random people in vans.

"You wanna pick me up?"

There's this lady on her cell phone, looking through clothes on a rack in the store. There's assorted merchandise strewn over her cart in a comical fashion. She looks like she tried to put herself together pretty nice to go out shopping. She is also speaking stereotypically loud.

"They're coming for dinner?"
"Are they coming for dinner?"
"I was thinking dinner at like 2 or 3 and you're saying 6 or 7"
"Where were the keys?"
"Did you find the keys?"
"What did you do with the keys?"
"You have the keys?"

Hahahaha. I immediately thought of this and only wished that life was as magical as an animated sitcom.

It's fun to make a scene!

While shopping today, I had the pleasure of coming across Eric and his beautiful friend girl. Whether this was a wife, girlfriend, sister or any other female companion, I do not know. What I do know is said girl is a beast of a woman!

It started in the shoe department. Said beast (let's call her... Portly Girl of the Flushed Face, or Psycho Chick) was huffily trying on a selection of gaudy footwear. I took little notice as I continued to browse until I heard, "Why do you always do that?!"

Now granted, I was only an aisle or two away, so I didn't immediately notice the volume. I kept on moving away in my endless quest to find a pair of shoes when I then hear, "You can't just keep your comments to yourself! You always do that!" This causes a bout of chuckling I conceal by pretending to be enthralled by the bottle opener not-so-concealed in the strap of a pair of sandals.

Then I start to notice how many people are actually in this section of the store. Husbands and wives, older people, mothers with children, etc. Yet, Psycho Chick doesn't seem to be phased by her audience.

"I HATE it when you do that! No one appreciates your attitude!"

I see Eric hustle away with the shopping cart. I hadn't heard him open his mouth once and figured it was probably best for him to get the hell out of there. But it wasn't over. From across the store now we all hear, "YES OR NO!?! IT'S A SIMPLE QUESTION!!!"

At this point I'm visibly laughing. Honestly, even if Eric is a total jerk, do you need to scream and shout across an entire store? Some of the startled customers are now looking at me laugh at Eric and Psycho Chick. None of them seemed to find it as funny as I did and a couple seemed to think my laughing was worse than her public display of anger.

I wonder if that makes me a bad person. But I'm pretty sure I'll get over it.