Today was a fun one at work. I dug up the half package of Halls menthol cough drops left over from the last time I was sick with a cough and brought them in with me.
Normally when I feel sick I just soldier on and try to be normal at work. But something about this (minor as it is) seems to be kicking my ass. It may just be me getting old has reduced my ability to gloss over when I'm sick, or maybe the effort of will that it takes to not lose my fucking mind at my job drains me of energy. I don't know.
In any case, by the measures of most people, the symptoms of this bug are pretty minor. When it started, I had pretty bad head and body aches for most of a day (thankfully, not one I was at work) along with the beginnings of a slightly sore throat. Now, it's progressed to a "productive"cough, and general shitty feeling.
Hopefully (if my past experiences with simillar illnesses prove any guide) I'll get over this soon. It sucks.
Just sticking this in here to enlighten you all to the fact that I'm not dead, and that I do still update this from sources other than my Twitter account (via LoudTwitter's auto-publishing).
I've been pretty busy at work. A six-day week this past week, and yesterday a 13hr hour day. Matt (AKA crackhead) is still on vacation, and things are still a bit confused until he gets back. Well, at least until Bill fires him for fucking up again.
I hope to sit down and post a real update sometime soon. Tomorrow, hopefully. The inspiration is starting to strike again. I'd do it now, but as the timestamp on this indicates, I should be in bed already.
I haven't found a decent LJ update app for the Pre yet. Hopefully I can go back to the posts from work once I do. I could do it from the browser, but there's an irritatingly large amount of scrolling doing it that way. I think once I get a chance to install the Classic emulation app that I'll just use the old Palm LJ updater app from within that.
I meant to post this a while ago with some more specific information, but it kind of fell by the wayside as things have been hectic with me trying to cram in as much to be done as possible. Hell, on my days off this week, I drove 60 miles... which is the same as if I'd worked (28 mile round trip commute each day for me).
Well, to start off, Sherman got fired. I know Bill thought he was lazy and questionably trustworthy, so he'd be trying to get rid of him for a while. He essentially out and said that Sherman would be gone by Friday. So on Tuesday, I offered to buy him dinner from box lady. A sort of clandestine "last supper", if you will. My way of giving him a decent memory of working there. He turned me down, even though I offered to pay, since he happened to have brought food that day. Since I was in the mood for eating out already anyway, I went there. As always, Christine (the box lady's name) gave me free soup, and undercharged me. She is made of awesome, and makes her food out of delicious. I ordered her shrimp Egg Foo Yung, since I've never actually had it before, and I enjoy trying things on her menu I haven't had before. I was not disappointed in the slightest. It was amazing. Afterward, I wanted so badly to take a nap. I was full, happy, and lethargic. Classic symptoms of food coma.
When I came in on Friday, I discovered Matt and Bill were both there, since Bill was (unsurprisingly) going to fire Sherman, and he needed someone to cover. So, when Sherman got in, I half expected fireworks. They didn't come. He did leave his ABC shirt and back belt. I asked Bill if I could snag the shirt, since Sherman and I are approximately the same shirt size. He said to go ahead and take it, so I did. No complaints at getting an extra ABC shirt for free. The company charges us $10 each for those fucking things.
Bill had to close, since Matt opened. So Bill ordered from box lady. I opted in for a couple of eggrolls and some soup (since I wasn't terribly hungry, but I adore her eggrolls). I ran over to pick up the order, and she again didn't charge us for the soup. Bill raved about the Egg Foo Yung (which he'd ordered at my recommendation) as well.
That's the most interesting stuff that I've had go on recently. Other than that, it's been a lot of running around picking up odds and ends (like brake light bulbs, since I unexpectedly had the high-mount one go out on me). Mostly stuff for the new car. I wasn't able to get the windows tinted on my day off like I thought I was, because (get this) the one and only tint guy at the place where I was planning to take it called in sick. Oh well, I have another week to get that done.
It looks like I won't be able to salvage the rear-view mirror from the old car, nor the old rear window with the defroster and it's associated switch. I was hoping that I could, but I don't think either of those will be impossible to obtain in the near future, so I'm going to back-burner it for a bit. I am glad that I was able to retrieve the wiring harness for the radio, though. I forgot to grab that when I was scavenging parts because I mistakenly thought I'dd have to cut the wires for some reason. Turns out that it's a bitch to find one of those, not to mention finding a breakout pigtail to wire into it that's compatible with my deck. It's a fuckload easier to just pull it. So hopefully that install is going to be a fairly easy task, something I can get to within the next couple of days. The deck switching to tape mode (and going silent in the process) is driving me fucking insane.
Most recent big thing was that I finally made good on some of the things I threatened to buy for work. I told Bill that one of these days, I'd just get us a coffeemaker and I did. Due in part to Sherman's replacement, Craig, being a coffee drinker as well as Bill and myself. Also bought a decent broom, since Bill seems to like the shitty one we have, in spite of it driving me nuts. Also, a pair of gloves for us to use when cleaning (since handling bleach without them is just so much fun). Also made good on my threat/promise to buy Matt (crackhead) a pre-paid cell phone since he keeps getting his MetroPCS phone disconnected for weeks at a time. We need to call him sometimes, and he doesn't have a phone. And I managed to find a Net10 handset for a mere $7.48.
Also snagged this interesting email gadget called a Peek. Target had them on clearance for $7, so I picked one up to play with it's month of service. I've been enjoying it quite a bit so far (as may be evident from the emailed tweets that I've posted from it ). It's limited, yes... but fun to use, and at the price, I couldn't help myself, I just had to play with the thing.
Dealt with (I hope) my traffic violation the other night. Mailed a check to the county court office, along with a letter asking them to contact me if the amount was wrong, since the paperwork was so vague. I just have to sign up for one of the online traffic school courses and complete that. Hopefully it'll only take a day or two, and the whole sordid mess will finally be behind me.
Trying to get caught up on some the electronic things that have fallen by the wayside. I posted a bunch of pictures (the post prior to this one) and I have another round or two that should be coming at some point in the near future. One set is of the new car, for all of you that might be curious about that.
I was at the Little Ceasar's off of Fletcher the other evening grabbing a large cheese, and someone apparently abandoned a large with anchovies. They offered to sell it to anyone who was interested for the employee price of $4. I took them up on it, as I happened to have enough cash at the time. It was actually pretty good, to my surprise. Most places don't do anchovies right, but they managed it decently.
I think those are all the important bits. If you made it this far, you get a cookie. I like LoudTwitter's posts to fill in on the occasional day when I don't post here, but I don't just want to end up with my LJ full of nothing but encapsulated tweets, either. So I'll try to be better at keeping up from here on out.
...some funny and interesting photos (mainly) from my workplace.
Two of the neck tags from Three Olives vodka. The sequel to the one I posed a while back and pegged as "Gordon Freeman getting nailed in the ass". These speak for themselves, though if you have any particularly entertaining captions, feel free to chime in with them.
A slide from the presentation at the mandatory sexual harassment seminar. I found the line at the bottom "don't display it" to be particularly snicker-worthy.
These came in on a truck a few weeks ago. These are the forms we use to write people up. Bill ordered some, and they sent us an entire pad. It cracked me up.
Bonus picture (taken when buying groceries at a SuperTarget): pancake batter IN A CAN!
While this photo of Peter Brum sparkling wine with gold flakes in it isn't funny, it is indeed awesome. I bought this bottle back when I worked at store #95 for a few days.
This bottle of Richard Hennessy costs $2134.99. No joke. Store #95 is one of the few that carries it.
In the same vein as above, here's a shot of Remy Martin's Louis XIII. Retails for $2249.99.
I have more pics to share, but this is enough for the time being, so I'll post more tomorrow (most likely).
It's been a long week. Actually, more than a single week. But it hasn't had anything to break it up, so it's felt like a single one.
I'm at the shop getting some routine stuff done on the "new" car. Timing and serpentine belts, temp sensor, water pump. I'm going to be here a few hours. Then, if I'm lucky... I'll have time to go to a Sprint store today as well.
I need to go to a Sprint corporate store and discuss details of a "new" plan. I can apparently save about $12/mo by switching to it, but I need to know for sure that the new "everything data 450" covers tethering use, like my current plan does.
Tomorrow, I have to go part-picking the corpse of my old car. Then it's off to the place to get my windows tinted, and then minor work on the new car (radio, speaker and rear view mirror installation). But that I can fuck around with at home.
And then of course, a further five workdays. I don't see a respite in sight until I take my road trip.
Same old song. Days off, didn't do shit. I lay part of the blame on having to close the day before a day off. I then promptly sleep through most of that day off. Of course, I can only blame myself when I turn out to be incapable of pulling an all-nighter in order to get needed tasks accomplished.
I'm just going to have to start being more rigid with myself, I guess. Since there are things I've been needing to do for literally several weeks running and still haven't been around / awake / available to do them.
Making a bunch of phone calls during 9-5 business hours won't take me long, but being awake and not at work during that time is very hard for me. It seems if I go to sleep earlier, I just sleep later and feel rested. While that's all well and good, it also doesn't help me much if I need to get up earlier. I really don't know what would, other than someone to harass me awake in the morning.
I think I might do well to take some and try to stay away from the computer and the TV... they seem to be my biggest time-sinks lately.
To top things off, I think my motivation has been gimped for the same reasons I find myself feeling extra-strongly antisocial and angry lately. Not sure exactly why it is, mind you, but it is. I'm just so sick and tired of everything I deal with on a daily basis. Hood rats, traffic, lack of money, the death of my dreams. It's just all snowballed into me being bitter and apathetic. Not to mention, hermit-like. While interaction at a distance doesn't bother me, the idea of being around anyone in person when not forced to be so is becoming more than more unappealing to me. To hell with people.
Updates here will continue to be sporadic for the foreseeable future. There's just nothing changing or happening in my life. And that doesn't seem likely to change any time soon.
Finished the by now epic "make fried rice" project. It turned out well, if a shade shy of really authentic to take-out taste. I did greatly enjoy it, however. Ended up deciding to buy a wok to make it properly. I now have a wok. I added my own little flourishes, and it turned out pretty damned good. I ended up eating my entire batch in three massive plates... which is not surprising considering that it was my first meal of the day and it was almost 11PM by that time. But it was also damned good. I think it's something I'll be doing again in the future, as well as utilizing the wok for stir-frying.
Speaking of the wok, carbon steel (and cast iron, as well) is a pain in the ass to "season". Whatever coating came on the wok when I bought it (claimed to be "nontoxic, flavorless and odorless") burnt itself to the wok as I was trying to season it. Serious scrubbing (that is, everything shy of steel wool) was unable to remove the ugly brown stain. Other than looking ugly, it doesn't seem to affect it. So I'm just going to ignore it, like that ugly stuff permanently welded to the bottom of my stock pot.
Decided to take that trip back up to Vermont before gas prices get obscene again (and they're well on the rebound from that lovely $1.50 per gallon that they bottomed out at a few months back). I'm borrowing a thousand bucks from my folks in order to do so, since I have no idea if I'll ever be able to scrape up that much cash in one lump sum, and I don't want to do this all on my already taxed plastic. I'm not sure about all the details, but as I iron them out, I'll keep this updated. At the moment, it's looking like I'm going to take a week of vacation time, and see if Bill will bookend it with a couple of unpaid days off to allow me to keep a week of paid time for when Jacob comes to visit.
Got a statement from the Social Security Administration. Greatly amusing to read about how by 2041 SS will only be able to pay out an estimated 78% percent of what's owed. I really wish we'd just abolish this dinosaur already. Thinking it'll last longer than 15 years from now is foolish. Also amusing was my year-by-year "taxable SS wages". I made a career-high $24,000 in 2006, and I made $17,000 in 2008. Oh joy. A $7,000 per year drop. No wonder I'm feeling the pinch financially. That's something on the order of 20% less. Whatever happened to things getting better as you go along? Oh well.
Bought home some of the salvageable damages from work. I snagged a bottle of Creme De Casis with a cracked cap (anyone have any ideas what I can make with that other than a grasshopper?), about 1/3rd of a 1.75L bottle of Sailor Jerry spiced rum, 48 St. Brendon's Irish cream minis (which thus far have all proved to be coagulated), and a 1.75L bottle of Tenure polish vodka with a chunk of the bottle's shoulder chipped off. Crackhead actually had a good idea for once. Run it through a coffee filter to make 100% sure that all the tiny flecks of broken glass are gone, and it should be safe. That's missing about 250 to 300 mils that spilled out, but most of a 1.75 isn't bad. So, I picked up some coffee filters for a buck and change along with the wok tonight. Incidentally, those cheap bar-style pourers that we sell are quite nice. I got one for the Patron Pyrat rum, since its bottle is a pain in the ass to pour from, and I'm using it all the time now (the pour spout).
I had fun technically breaking the law, getting that cracked bottle of tenure home. Since I didn't want it anyplace where I couldn't control it and prevent it from tipping over during turns, it sat in my lap. With a hole in the side, covered with tape. I'm glad I'm paranoid since I passed two state police cars parked on the shoulder. I know that since the neckband seal was still intact, the hole in the side covered with tape, and I was stone cold sober, I might not have been charged with anything if I'd been pulled over... but why take the chance? Also, vodka dissolves the adhesive on packing tape. I knew intellectually that it's an organic solvent, but it surprises me the unexpected other uses it has, sometimes.
Have a bunch of housework to get around to tonight and/or tomorrow. Might clean the bathroom before I vacuum (since I can do that at night). But hopefully I should be able to check off most of what's on my list by Wednesday.
Moved the "to do" pile of crap from the living room into the bedroom. Okay, so I didn't deal with it, but at least I consolidated the "I haven't dealt with this yet" mess to a single, less-used area.
Still have pictures and long-promised updates to post here, but I'll probably try to make time for that tomorrow night after I get home.
I feel really shitty lately. I'm not sure why, it continues even on the days when I go out of my way to ensure that I get a full night's sleep. It doesn't seem to make a great deal of difference. I still feel shitty in the morning, just less so.
Not sure what I can do about it. I eat healthier than I was for a while, but it doesn't seem to help. I'm tempted to load up and go on another giant shopping trip (like I used to, bi-monthly, before I got out of the habit), but I really don't want to run up any more expenses. I'm not sure it'd even make any difference if I did that, either.
I think I'm actually becoming a sociopath. I find myself actively avoiding people, and staying at home at times when I think others will be around. It wouldn't bother me so much if I wasn't forced to deal with society's dregs on a daily basis to pay the bills, but after a full day of arguing with people about ID and having someone insist than "Henny VSOP is stronger than the regular" and other such painfully idiotic positions that I run into on a daily basis, I want to crawl into a hole and hide from the world. I used to make an effort to be sociable and try to spend time with other people, friends of friends and such. Hell, even fairly recently (a year ago or so) I was wanting to get out and meet people, make some local friends. I no longer have any desire to do that. I am perfectly content with my social circle being 1300+ miles away. They can come here, I can go there... but I'm not going to meet new ones. I have enough friends.
I got a rejection notice from Target the other day. Official "fuck off" notice. I'm debating if it's worth calling Eddie (my old ETL from 1476) and having him vouch for me. I don't know if that'll help. And even if it does, am I sure I want to go back to the company that I ran away from practically full-tilt? I know I need money, but I keep wondering if there's a better way.
I am sick to death of people telling me "be thankful you have a job", or if it's someone trying to console me (parents, friends) "things will get better". Of course I was able to geta job. Almost anyone can get a job, even in this economy if they lower their standards enough. As far as things getting better... I sure as fuck don't see it coming. I'm honestly starting to thank that it's not even possible for things to get better... only worse. As a general rule, mind you. Not even just specifically applicable to me.
I have several posts in the queue, but I haven't felt like working on any of them lately. And I also have several calls to make, as well as a bunch of photos to go through. Eventually, there will be the "visit" posts, but I don't know when I'm going to feel enough in the mood to sit down and pound out the last bits of those. I keep meaning to on days off, but those somehow always seem be consumed by laundry, sleep, and massive inertia.
I've made a large amount of progress with my (seemingly) eternal project: the MP3 dump. I'm down to just a week's worth of work. Well, straight through, that is. Mostly what's left is a Temptations discog, a few gigs of random music, and the complete Bach collection. After that's done, I'll have all of my music sorted, filed, and imported into my iTunes library. I'm already up past 55,000 songs, and 320GB.
“Well, I'd seen some strange things at work but that has to take the cake. I get out, I'm leaving. There's a guy in a green Mustang, sitting in there talking to this rather good-looking dark-skinned woman and she's got her phone in her hand like she's putting his number in it. Not terribly surprising, I've seen people hook up where I work before. Not the first time, and I'm sure it's not going to be the last. However, the part that's the most interesting is I was hooking up the iPod, turning the headlights on, starting the car. So I was sitting there for a couple minutes while they're talking. And I noticed that she goes over to an SUV parked on the other side of my car and she rummages around in the front seat and then opens the back door. The gentleman from the green Mustang she was talking to followed her over to her car and I noticed that they were both leaning into the back seat of this large white SUV. Now, I'm not entirely sure what was going on. Not sure, but I have a pretty good idea that they were about have sex in the back seat of that car. In the parking lot of my workplace. Now I make a lot of jokes about being in the ghetto, but seriously, WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT?! Really! Alright, words fail me as far as expressing just how trashy it is that... just... if you're gonna fuck in a car at least find some place, that's not on, or just off the main road or in a you know, well-used parking lot. I just cannot understand what comes over some people. They... it wouldn't surprise me if after I left, 5 minutes later he walked into the store and asked if we had condoms! One of those people. It just, this is one of the days when I've been rendered speechless about something that happened at work. There are no words to express what.... UGH!”
Well, space is cold. It’s so fuckin' lonely And though I’m bold. I’m pretty fuckin' homely I got a heavy load. It’s fuckin' overwhelming And I may explode. This motherfuckin' ship I’m helming
I had a rough day at work And my back really hurts The crew don’t take me seriously they just look at me and smirk I’ll just go back to my quarters and jerk my Kirk
You pass me in the corridors You never ever notice me lurking I’m spending all my time alone Nobody knows how hard I’m working it I wanna take a voyage home ‘Cause right now I’m going berserk and The places where my fantasies roam Have got my blood burning
I had a rough day at work And my back really hurts I’m gonna quit star fleet and be a motherfuckin' file clerk Or just go back to my quarters and jerk my Kirk
All by myself In my own private hell My quarters are a dungeon And my mind is a cell Where I’m locked up tight Alone every night Losing the battle of a Pon farr fight And I can’t get control I’m never ever done I can’t let go of my own number one But I try God I try If I could just stop and re-supply But I know I’m never gonna stop Jerking my Kirk ‘til the day I drop And I know nothing works I’m always gonna have to jerk my Kirk
I had a had time concentrating on work. I actually had crackhead bitch at me to keep moving. But there was nothing I could have done about it. I got twice as much sleep as is typical for me (six hours versus the normal 3-4) yet I still felt like shit all day.
We got mugged for boxes bad, so when box lady came, I didn't have much for her. So, I saved some more and brought them to her. She offered me food (as she typically does when I bring them to her) but I politely declined, since I was wanting to get home and collapse. Unusual for me, I usually hit her up for a couple of egg rolls or a bit of fried rice.
I was going to try my hand at making fried rice tonight, but I was too tired to stop at the store on the way home. So I'm going to do that on Wednesday instead.
I have a stupid goddamned mandatory sexual harassment class to go to on Thursday morning. At ten in the fucking AM. What the fuck? On my goddamned day off. It's my fucking day off, and I have to go in for two hours? This is bullshit. But I really don't expect anything else from this company anymore. So much for getting any decent rest this pseudo-weekend.
Being as today's Sunday, and tomorrow (er, today) is Monday... I'm going to try to get to sleep in a few. Figured I'd post here a quick one before I flopped.
Slow Sunday, though we did more than last year's numbers, surprisingly. I got bored and ran to the store to get a can of air freshener for our bathroom.
I forgot to mention in a previous post, we had The Duke come back for the first time in quite a while the other night. That was entertaining.
I lost my Hoti medallion that I got off of a bottle of Pyrat rum. I'm bummed, I only had it a couple of days. I'll have to snag another one.
Going to try my hand at making fried rice tomorrow.
Bill found a crapload of box wine that went out of date, and offered us some. I don't usually drink box wine, but I'll partake of it if it's free. Sure, why not? It's been a while since I've had white zin anyway.
Some highlights from today: I bought from the drawer a quarter from 1958 and a Honduran 50 cent piece (which someone mistakenly spent as a quarter). Quarters (and other denominations, to a lesser extent) with silver in them make a very different sound to my ears when dropped than modern copper-zinc ones. It's quite noticeable. An almost musical quality to it.
I really hate dealing with the public. We had some real gems tonight. Some people are so staggeringly ignorant that it makes my head hurt.
Played with some online backup services' free trials tonight. Looks like the one with unlimited storage for $4.95/mo might actually be a pretty decent deal. But uploading is slow. It wouldn't surprise me if backing up this machine's entire drive literally took days.
I think Monday I'm going to try to make home-made fried rice. I've been wanting to try for a few days now, but I've been getting home so late after closing shifts that I'd feel really bad about setting off the smoke alarm if I fuck it up. And it wouldn't take much. The smoke alarm in here is insanely sensitive.
I enjoy picking Bill's brain, trying to learn a little more Spanish as I can. I've learned a lot more just asking him questions (he speaks it fluently) and practicing what I little I do know. I told him, I already have the most important phrase down pat: "Mi espanol es no bueno. Habla engles, por favor?". I know the spelling and punctuation are mangled pretty badly, but I don't feel like spending ten minutes fishing individual characters out from charmap just to make the point. I enjoy learning Spanish by osmosis. It keeps the language center of my brain active, and it's been languishing for quite some time. It also enmeshes me further as a resident of the area. As I've said before... I like living here. In part because of the Hispanic people, so I don't mind being accommodating to some degree. It'll be a while before I can count change back in it (Spanish), but I already know how to ask for ID, if a card is credit or debit, and instruct someone how to use the debit terminal. I'm proud that I have an aptitude for picking it up by ear, as small a usable vocabulary as I have so far.
Well, I'm still not dead. Anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
LoudTwitter (the automatic publisher I was using to post tweets here) had had some problems, and may not be coming back at all. So, I'm going to try to do better to keep this updated since there will be no placeholder content from Twitter for an indeterminate amount of time.
There really hasn't been too much of note. I have to close this entire week, except Monday (truck day). Oh boy. I just love dealing with the party kids. They're so much fucking fun.
Fucked around with the Xserve the other day. Installed some apps, tried to change some configuration stuff. I have forgotten how to share a folder that isn't someone's home directory. I'm not sure if there's even a way to do it from the GUI, I might have to go in and fuck around with the smb.conf file. Maybe I'll get lucky and find a way around that.
I have some photos I want to share, as well as the trip post(s) to finish and upload. The problem is that whenever the drive to write up a post comes, it's usually at a stupidly late hour when I should be in bed. I think my creativity is enhanced by lack of sleep. Something to do with alpha brainwaves, perhaps?
At any rate, I'm going to try to get back into the daily posting habit, even if it's short like this.
A brief update of substance before I hit the sheets.
I've been ignoring LJ in favor of my actual life (such as it is). I had the parents visit me for a few days recently. It was nice. Didn't get to spend as much time with them as I'd have liked, since I didn't have enough notice from them to take time off. Such is life.
I found out from Bill that the classes do indeed count as time and a half (and I verified this on a paystub). I don't know where Sherman got the idea, but it sure hit a nerve. I get paid little enough, I want to be sure I can milk it for all it's worth.
I have to go to two classes tomorrow (today, in a few hours, actually. Ugh!) and then to work a close shift. I don't mind the long day, but I do mind that I have to be off of the clock for a completely useless two hours in the middle of the day in order to prevent overtime. What the fuck am I supposed to do with two hours in the middle of a workday? It's not enough time to go home and do anything. I'm tempted to go out and have a late lunch at Sweet Tomatoes (across the street from where I work). But of course, that costs money. And I don't like to spend what I don't have.
I have more stuff to post about, but none of it's terribly important. I'll do a larger one of these (or at least one or two more with some actual substance) at some point during my time off over the next few days.
I was Talking with Sherman, and he told me that the wine classes aren't time and a half, since they're billed to a different department of the company as "training".
I think it's bullshit to have to go there and sit in a wine class (that's useless to me so long I'm working at this store anyway) after working a full 40 hours that week, and not be getting overtime for it.
It's a function I'm required to attend for work, and it's run by the same company. I don't think they can get away with this. Can they?
If they can do this, I'm going to tell Bill that I'm not going to go to any more wine classes unless I work less than 40 hours that week.
To expand upon the earlier Tweet, Matt said something about doing some counts. I started counting slowly and distinctively, intending to be obnoxious, but when I got to five or six, I decided to imitate The Count from Sesame Street. So I ended with "Eight bottles of gin! Ha ha ha!" in the right voice. Matt about fell off the chair he was laughing so hard. I didn't think of it at the time, but it was doubly funny, since the counts that he was referring to were for New Amsterdam gin. That cracked me up when I realized it.
Later on, one of the local, ragged-looking guys (I think he was homeless) came in and asked if either of us had a jack to change some lady's tire. Apparently, she didn't have one. So, being the gentleman that I am, I went out and dug around in the trunk. I've never had to use mine, so I wasn't sure if it even still worked after 16 years. Partly I just wanted to know. It was a bit of a struggle... The women whose car was having the trouble didn't have a tire iron in her trunk, either. And of course mine wasn't quite the right size. I have a nagging suspicion that hers were metric, and mine was standard. Which is odd, since they are both domestic.
I got pissed off with the tire iron not fitting. This was the second time that I didn't have a socket when I needed one. So, I went to go to Home Depot to get a set. They were closed. So, I went to Walmart to see what they had. They carried a couple of Decent Stanley ones, so I picked up a good one to keep in the house, and a small but serviceable one for the trunk of the car. Also, an adapter for the drill so I could use them that way.
I needed it anyway. I'd told myself that the next time I needed one, I'd go out and get a set. So I did. After we got the spare on, I saw it was flat. So I dug out my cigarette lighter air compressor and pumped it up pretty good for them. The ladies were very appreciative for the assistance. Since the ladies did not reward the nice men who helped them, I bought them beer as a way of thanking them for restoring part of my faith in humanity.
That was far from the last entertaining thing that went on tonight, however.
We had about 15 people descend on us at one point. Loud and boisterous. I quipped to Matt that it was "just as if a bus took a run through the hood, gathered up all the hood rats, and then dropped them all on our doorstep".
After that, we had a couple of folks from an anime con that had been in town (MetroCon, I believe). Chatted a bit with the big (holy crap, huge!) guy. He knew Schlock Mercenary, that was cool.
Had another couple of young guys come in and I carded them both. One was an Asian dude, and he made a comment about being Asian and unable to gain weight. I commented that there was a horrible joke I could make about Chinese buffets, but that I was going to hold back and be nice. We also traded a few comments about Gran Torino (which is an awesome move, incidentally).
Later, another big dude came in. Apparently, his job is to shuttle the drunken topless dancers from titty bar to titty bar across town. So he told us some interesting stories.
Tonight was not a very productive night, but it was amusing and entertaining. And also profitable. We were up $1,000 from last year on the same date.
It was different. It's actually in a pretty decent area. Unlike every other store I've worked at, the hood rats don't swarm it on Saturday nights. And in spite of it's giant size, me and Mike (guy that normally works there) were able to handle things perfectly adequately.
I kind of liked working there. I actually made a pretty decent amount on commission (more than a typical week at my own store). Also, there was a giant pile of free (expired) snacks. An entire shopping cart full. So, I had some free munchies.
Also got some more nifty swag that we don't have at #96. I picked up an absinthe spoon and set of traditional glasses to go with it. My favorite (which was crying out to me to take when I saw it) was the Malibu rum "koozie". It's a zippered neoprene sleeve that fits the 750ml bottle. It's exactly like those ones that you'd put on a 12oz bottle of beer, but sized up for a 750ml liquor or wine bottle. You could use it to insulate a bottle of wine from the elements, pretty neat. My favorite part is the wrist strap, though. That really amused me.
I wanted to get some stuff done, but I still haven't taken the car in, made those calls, done some cleaning I've been needing to do, or a few other things.
My new toy arrived, so I got sidetracked getting that ready to use. I bought a used G4 Xserve for a song off of Ebay to replace the tired ghetto-rigged G4 I've been using for some stuff for a while now. The problem is, getting an OS on it is turning out to be quite a challenge. First, I forgot that the first couple of generations only had 24x CDROM drives. Not even a basic DVD reader. That shot holes in my plans. Then, I tired to boot from my Panther (10.3) Server CDs. Fail. Tried a bunch of other stuff, all failing. I got 10.4 server installed on it, by using the laptop and putting the Xserve into FireWire target disk mode. That is damned useful sometimes. I was going to put 10.5 Server on there, but when I boot up from the DVD, it bitches about the laptop not having a full gig of RAM. It only has 768MB. I've been meaning to upgrade it forever, so I said "fuck it" and bought a module. Two birds, one stone, and all that. So, that's on hold until I get that module.
Then on Tuesday, I had the best of intentions... but I got sidetracked when the rare (for me, these days) gaming bug hit. I ended up playing Spore the entire night. I actually had to stay up until after the sun came up just to finish the laundry and dishes so that I could use them. I was completely out of work shirts (two are now out of service do to giant, unrepairable rips) and had the coffeepot in the dishwasher.
Spore is fucking fun. And addictive as hell, as evidenced from the Tweets posted here about it. It's really an amazing game. Very involving. Strokes the ego to play god like that. I haven't enjoyed meddling in the life of lesser beings since Black & White was a hot game.
Have to work at store #95 tomorrow. So I'm going to hit the hay early tonight in hopes that I'll feel less dead than I did today. Anything is better than the 3.5 hours of sleep that I managed to grab. The fact that I was even able to stagger out of bed and go to work in the first place is a testament to my sheer force of will.
crappy
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aggravated
lazy
tired
anxious
shocked