I went to Wal-Mart and Office Max this afternoon. Visiting Wal-Mart is a strange experience for various reasons. Wal-Mart: plethora personified. It makes me sad to know that half of the people I see will eventually die of heart disease. It makes me happy, though, when I see an older man who doesn't give a damn about what others think of him. I saw a gentleman today with a white shirt, suspenders, and some "highwaters" and it made me smile. He spoke to me (we were both looking at the same item) and it became very clear very quickly that he was very intelligent (very, even). He didn't care what others thought about him, whether he was knowledgeable about what's popular right now. I like that a lot.

As we drove down the highway, the large signs and billboards decorating the divide to our left passed much like a giant picket fence, hitting us with vertical absence with varying degrees of consistency. That probably makes sense only in my mind (I'm insane). Anyway, I took notice of each one and, sadly, slogans and inane doggerel popped into my brain. I've been programmed by million dollar commercials written by ad wizards with mid-life crises. I saw an Enterprise billboard and my lips immediately moved to say, "We'll pick you up." I'm a slave.

That cabin in Oregon looks really good right about now.