A Crappy Day

When did it start? At 5 p.m.? 5 a.m.? 11 p.m. the last day? I don't know.

Technically, it started at 5:30 a.m. A transcript of the conversation between me and the McD's manager.

Me: Hey, are you serving breakfast now?
McD: Yeah.
Me: Groovy. I'll have a Sausage McMuffin...a Sausage Egg McMuffin meal with orange.
McD: Orange juice?
Me: Sure.
McD: Okay. That'll be 4.66
Me: Okay.
(Few minutes of awkward shifting, as I search for the $4 in change I thought I had. I come up with only a dollar, and 1.75 I had for parking.)
Me: How much for just the sandwich?
(McD does some addition)
Me: 2.66.

The sandwich was good, however. Nice, tasty, hadn't had one in years, (supposedly the most fatty food on the menu) and most importantly, steaming hot (I could see the steam in the dawn light, through my sunglasses.)

Why hot important? I'd been working in a freezer for about six hours.
11 p.m., my first shift. First thing Ray the night manager says, (looks exactly like Glenn, only with brown hair) "Let's get your knife."

He asks me whether or not I want to say cold or hot work. I thought he was talking about within the store, so I say, "I don't have a preference." I was sent to load in frozen foods.

So then I started working with Craig. A comic book collector, which was cool. He grades comic books, sells him for profit. We talked about this while we were loading Michelina's and I was freezing my fingers off.

Recently, the skin on my fingertip's been looking slightly zombie. No skin where there should be. Wrinkly, like a prune. I think I can see a few veins, but that could just be me.

Washing my hands on break, I commented to myself, "I'm literally working my fingers raw."

Somewhere in the darkness, someone eyed my leather jacket pocket...

So then I get home, let the dog out (ruining a perfectly good pair of socks chasing him back into the house after he tasted freedom from the fence.) Then I slept, fitfully, waking up every two hours.

The third dream was of a beautiful, blonde haired women with sharp features on a field as the sun hand up. My hand was going up her tank-top as she lay with me. Religious worker style. And then I woke up in my bed in the basement.

I cursed myself, as I'm still a swinging single (think Hangman, not 70s/Austin Powers). But, as a true believer in la belle amour, I wouldn't let our love die. I consummated our relationship alone, with only her beauty to guide me.

Then, I got up and played some City of Heroes, a multiplayer role playing game. The goal is to level up by beating up bad guys as a superhero. I kept dying, each time getting some debt payed off by beating up more bad guys. I got the Restrained badge - you get that by being immobilized by the bad guys for the longest time.

It's a great honour.

Then I got a call to get some steel-toed boots - I'm a temp construction worker! Think of all the manual labour of a construction worker, with all the dignity of an office temp.

I'm hoping that I can do data entry work, despite the fact that I hate office work. But I got my blue collar work at Superstore.

Then my father came home, and we had a Hiroshima-style argument about my job. My arguments were thus:

- It sucks.
- I don't want it.
- It sucks.
- It's only paying for less than 1 percent of my college education.
- It sucks.

His arguments were thus:

- It's your responsibility to waste your summer doing an unnecessary job because it's your college education for which I'm paying 99%.
- Re: It sucks. Suck it up.

Bah. He's a lawyer.
(I'm simplyifying things obviously.)

But I got something past him, which is cool.

"What have I asked for or wanted for myself?"
He mentioned my car and it's stereo system. I got the car three years ago. And the stereo faceplate jumps off whenever I hit a bump. Duct tape covered the repairs. And I only drive it for 1/3 of the year, when I'm not off at college.

So then things calmed down. We got pizza with lots of meat on it. I offered to get it and pay for it, but I had trouble finding my wallet.

Then, I installed Max Payne 2 and played it for a bit. Then I got a call. A female voice.

"Are you 19?"

Porno visions met my bewilderment. "Who is this?"

Turns out she found my wallet near her friend Beaver's house that morning. I thought of lying when my father asked who was calling, but I decided not to.

My dad told me to, "Suck it up!" and go get my wallet. I got it, losing 60 dollars, but they hadn't used my credit card, thankfully.

After that, I thought that a fellow employee stole it. On my first day. I'll tell my boss tomorrow. Or is that the day after tomorrow?

Bonus points: Name this lyric without the internet.
Mr. President, tell me what to do,......, send more troops.
Monsieur Président, dire me ce que de faire, ......, envoie plus de troupes.

Working Late

So, from 11 P.M. to 4 A.M., I'll be stocking shelves. On a Sunday.

I really wish I hadn't put Anytime on my application.

So, funny story about Blockbuster. My brother works there. He gives me free rentals, and I return them.

I put them on the till right above the Return box inside the store. Haven't had a problem with it so far. Now, he says that's wrong. I gotta go right up to it, and give it right to them. Even though they have never said anything about it.

We argued. And the argument was moot, because it turns out I hadn't returned the movies at all. I could've made a big to-do about it, but decided not to.

I'm tired, it's 2:34 a.m. now, and I haven't done anything all day. I'm gonna hate Superstore.

"Hey, stop writing that blog and go out and make us some money."
"Yes, Big Daddy Superstore."

Nice to know I'm wanted somewhere. P.S., Is there any good job anywhere where you are shifted at 4 a.m.? So far, I'm thinking prostitute, night clerk, 7-11 guy, thief, professional insomniac, that guy on the tv/radio station responsible for putting the tape in so that the shows play on TV. And radio personalities don't count, because they put the crappy shows on late at night that no one listens to. It's the ass-end, and they probably pre-recorded it at 2 p.m.

Just like criminals and Batman, I'm going to fear the night.
Giusto come i criminali e come Batman, vado temere la notte.

Me, A Night Clerk

I'm a grocery store night clerk. I'm going to orientation in 2 hours. I'll tell how cheesy it was.

It'll be great, working long hours stocking shelves. I don't get an employee discount, as far as I know. I'm working at Superstore, the Canadian Wal-Mart. Only, we're unionized, Local 1400. So, less evil.

Why do people hate Wal-Mart? Well, everyone shops at Wal-Mart. Then, everybody starts to work at Wal-Mart, too. Then, they close it down because it ain't making no money, like a pimp gets rid of a ho.

Sam Walton's a bigger mack than any mofo.

Of course, while Wal-Mart be big pimpin' out retail stores, there's gotta be the hand that bitchslaps hos. For my superstore, it's Glenn Gottfried.

I wish I could make up names like that.

He looks like a pedophile. Balding, mustache, creepy smile (You know, the one where his eyes don't move, remaining at half mast, while his mouth smiles, showing a few teeth.)

Of course, I could have two crappy jobs. Which is surprising, considering I'm not a single parent, don't have a drug habit, and my parents are paying for college. Of course, as my dad says, it's my job to pay for a fraction of that. You know, because 1/1000 is a fraction.

The second job is a construction worker temp job. The biggest qualification needed for that job is steel-toed boots. I'm calling him today. I'm hoping he'll give me a typing/data entry job. That'd be cool.

Funny story about my typing speed. When I was in Grade 3, we had to take a typing class. I was typing way slower than my classmates. So, then I practiced. Not just in the classroom, but everywhere, usually Church. I imagined the keyboard as if it were on my hands. As a sentence popped up in my head, I typed on that imagined keyboard, getting to know where the keys were, so that I wouldn't have to look.

I can type around 80 words per minute now.

Which'll be great, when I'm a male secretary supporting a bratty kid, smoking crack to forget about how Sheila left me for Rico, and to get me through my job as a night clerk for Superstore, which'll just be closing down because it's become unprofitable.

Half-Baked Philosophy About Intellectual Context or Some Other Bullshit

Does the language fit the context, or is it the other way around?

Yeah, it's unimportant, and pretty self-evident, and pretty simple. Wittgenstein on a stupid day. You can quit now.

I've killed the Nothing Important joke, an inbred who humps trees when the chicken's giving him the silent treatment, who buys lottery tickets, could make that joke. Someone capable of making a joke could make that joke. I apologize for all the times I made that joke.

I assume you know what I mean, and I just want to write because my dad told me office jobs aren't so bad. "Oh, but you haven't gone to an office job. You don't know. You're just spouting rhetoric." I haven't been to jail either. I have read a few Dilbert's, though. Most of what I said was spouting rhetoric. But I want to be a professional writer. My best-seller, Booker-Pulitzer-Nobel prize winning book, coming soon.

Soon as I stop playing video games. If this were 24, Kiefer Sutherland would desparately be trying to stop the X-Box. The President would be on high alert.

"My God, Mr. President! They've just loaded Halo 2!"

Anyway. The article that assumes you tutor at Harvard is over.

Assuming I didn't lose anybody with that first statement. I think I didn't. But I probably think that people are stupider than they are and/or that I'm smarter than I think I am.

Here. Okay, going back to language fits the context.

Usually, my family eats together, my mother and father sitting east-west, my brother sitting north-south. A fun supper-time activity that comes up is when my brother and I discuss comic books - the artists, what we liked about them, what we didn't. This, of course, confounds my parents, because they only know comics from the covers that we leave around the house.

Now, something is out of place, something doesn't fit for them, which leaves them befuddled. Now, why is this? Is it because they lack the context (namely, having read comics intensively, sometimes memorizing them, as I have a few particularly stellar issues?) Or, is it because they lack the language that could allow them to picture in their mind what I'm talking about, create a context for what I'm talking about, even if they haven't read the comic books that I'm currently discussing?

On the topic of comic books, they are filled with art. I have read and re-read thousands of comic books. I know what works, and what doesn't. But eventually, I can never say why I like the art, other than, "Art pretty. Me like." This, despite reading thousands of comic books. The language that is elementary betrays my lack of knowledge of the area.

Thus, the way I see comics is different than a professional artist, befitting my lack of language about comic books.

The things they talk about (and the language they use) come from the things they do, or do the things they talk about create the things they do? If a hick went to Harvard, eventually, he could pick up on what they were talking about. He would learn their Academic language. But is this because to fit into Harvard, he would have to learn the language? Like someone in France would eventually learn Allez, Sil Vous Plait, or Merci, simply out of necessity? Or is it because Harvard uses academic language, primarily concerned with abstract/academic/'smart' ideas, that it becomes academic? Thus, academic language necessarily creates an academic environment.

On a minor, probably wrong note, this could be why pop culture studies are so successful. Simple shows, meant for entertainment, become academically significant once they are discussed academically, once they are viewed in an academic context. (Just like when I say about comics, "This pretty. Me like." Only with bigger words.)

I'll probably re-work this essay/thing later. Peace out.

"No one wishes that they spent more time at the office."
Keine Manne mochten dass sie waren um die Rathause mehr oft.

That German's probably wrong. I'll fix it when I re-work it. It's late, and I got an interview at an office place tommorow.

Video Game Hubris

Okay, since I've been killing myself with video games, that's what this blog is going to be about. Oh, and about hubris, man's choices, and how God has a sense of irony that's keen-o.

All right, I've been playing Dead or Alive 3. My favorite character is Brad Wong.

I like him for his name - He's a white guy with silver hair with basically no trace of Chinese nature. He's also got an unkempt look, as if he can't grow a beard, but he just doesn't care about shaving. Like yours truly.

Yeah, those are real sexy. But right now, I'm going hermit, and my social life's as dead as disco. But eh, social life'd require work, and I don't feel like working.

I would like sex with a woman, though. Very much.

But anyway, he's cool because he practices the exquisite art of Zian Quan.

Drunken boxing. It's one of those things that nearly redeems all the accountants. Makes us cool. Aesthetic martial art, fun to watch.

Every night, for the past two or three weeks, I've been practicing to get a high score, and get in 1st. I've been practicing in epic battles against my brother with that character. I could never break past 3rd. I've done his training mode (with all 112 of his moves) three or four times.

One time, I switched to another, nearly random character.

I mashed buttons, and, I got in 2nd.

I've resolved never to pay video games again. Of course, I'll probably break it. I'm still a Brad Wong man, after all.

Bonus Points to anyone who can name this song.
You make my heart beat faster!
Vous faites mon battement de coeur plus rapide

My Shirt Epic

So I spent too much on a shirt I didn't really want.

Let me explain. First, I went to my eye doctor's. Right next to it, is a shopping store. I've been wanting a white dress shirt recently, and they have white dress shirts cheap.

I bought one, but I didn't pay attention to the size. It was too big. I returned it.

Then I got another one. A better size, but it was 55%-45% cotton/polyester. I usually wear a 60%-40% shirt, but I figured an extra 5% wouldn't matter.

Oh, how I loathe polyester.

The shirt, when I got it, was itchy. Figuring that somehow the magic power of the washer would expunge the demons making the shirt itch, I put it in, knowing that the shirt could not be returned if it was done so.

Now, I'm stuck with a shirt that's itchy.

There's a lesson in there somewhere, but I don't want to tell you about it.

(P.S. - I may be able to return the shirt, but I don't want to put the effort into there, and by now, I say forget it. Money's nothing to a playa like me.)

You must die!
Du musst toten!

Funny News Stories

Sorry for the delay. I've been shutting down my brain recently. Nothing but computer and video games.

Anyway, I've got some funny/weird stories.

This will be in a Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez movie at some point...

This is more of a weird story.

Why The Elderly And The Young Get Cheaper Movie Ticket Prices

Basically, it's all about their mortality.

They're easier to kill and die, so they get cheaper tickets. And really, if you're more likely to die, you deserve cheaper ticket prices.

And that's really all I have to say. You have an update - I think that death means cheaper ticket prices. Which means if I'm dying of a disease and I only have 24 hours to live and I want to see a movie, I should get in free.

And believe me, I'm gonna put that to the test someday.

On Baby Seals

Two thoughts.

1. Would anybody care about baby seals being killed in the ass-end of Canada if they weren't so photogenic, and the methods of disposing them weren't so caveman-ish?

2. How hard core do you have to be to cub what is basically one of the cutest animals alive and skin it? Do you, fair reader, think you could club a baby seal?

Now for the infotainment section.

From some website: " A Norwegian invention, the hakapik was adopted by Canada in 1976 as a safe and humane killing tool. Seals were struck with the blunt end, and a hunter who lost his footing could use the hooked end to haul himself out of the water."

Basically, it's a stick with a nail on one end. Think a scythe, but the blade and handle is much smaller.

Oh, and shotguns are allowed too. Think about that the next time you're wearing your...your...seal-skin clothing.

Yeah. You won't shop at...you know, a store that sells seal-skin clothing ever again.

A message from someone who's up too late.

Don't Gamble

Okay, I'm seeing some of my old friends. They suggest going to a casino at 12 on a Monday. I go with them, because I have nothing better to do.

All right, my friends have seen the anti-gambling ads, so they know not to mess around. My friends look for the cheapest black jack table they could. They couldn't find one under $5, so they go to a $10 table. My friend's dad drives a Beemer that has the original German settings, and a Martini set upstairs.

While they're playing, a woman past 60 with too much make up comes up. She's a pro, playing two hands at once. She doesn't speak a word.

5 minutes into the game, I'm thinking, "Is that the same 50 dollar bill she was playing with earlier?"

When it's done, my friend's got a bit left of the 40 dollars he's spent. The woman leaves, silently, $140 dollars poorer. She doesn't stop for a second, heading straight to the 25 cent machines located directly behind her.

I talk about this with my friends later on. One friend says, "Oh, but she was stupid." He then went back to his game. It was a mini horse track. You could bet on the miniature horses, with all the facts of a real horse. They had the same motion, over and over. If you didn't want to watch the miniature horses, they had two giant size screens showing ugly pixelated horses, with graphics befitting a Sega Genesis, and the guy who was winning. They raced continously. You could play for 25 cents.

Fun Fact: $800 per month is a moderate gambler, according to a brochure that the Casino hands out about gambling problems.
Spaßtatsache: $800 ist pro Monat ein mäßigt Spieler, gemäß einer Broschüre, die das Kasino um Spielenprobleme ausgibt.