Oh Good Ole' Computer Fun!!!

Soooo.... what does images.traffic.cmp.com or Optimizer or Hpotdd01 or Rundll32 etc, etc, mean to you?

Up till last month sometime, they meant nothing to me, except for exasperating me to the point of tearing out all my hair as I would sit and surf the net with pop-ups shooting up all around me like some sort of horrific curse.

Now, those I listed are nothing compared to my friend Brad's computer. When I go to Army Guard drills I fix his computer, because invariably someone will have downloaded some auto dialer or computer porn/gambling shit onto his computer via Kazza or Morpheus, and by the time I get to it (once a month) he can hardly even surf the web.

This time was especially bad. I tried to upload Windows XP upon his Gateway computer a few months back to replace the XP that was already there, but what I didn't realize is that if you do that without using the 'Gateway Restoration Disk' you simply upload another copy of the same operating system, leaving the old one there to have to choose from when doing a reboot, and severely limiting system resources by wasting a lot of space on the hard drive.

So, I called Gateway up to find out how I can wipe off the hard drive leaving it in it's empty virgin state, ready for uploading of the operating system, drivers, software, etc. This is when I found out that Gateway outsources it's technical support to India. No, not Indiana folks, but actually way the fucking way around the world India. I couldn't understand anything the guy was saying, except for one thing:

According to this putz, Gateway computers do not come with the 2 restoration cds that a person needs to reload the XP onto their computer, you have 15 days from purchase to get them for free, after that they are 'not responsible' for your lack of the discs and you have to purchase them for 35 dollars. Needless to say I had some choice words, some of which spewed out as I tried to make this person of Taj Mahal persuasion understand the complete lunacy of having software discs with your computer but being unable to reload the majority of them because of the lack of the 'incredibly user friendly' restoration cds.

Not only that, but when I tried to get more help from him, he informed me that because the computer was more than 2 years old, it was out of warranty, and that he could no longer talk to me unless I was willing to pay 2.99 a minute for customer service and support. At this point, I wanted to fly to India and shoot this guy, and anyone else who would ever think up something so incredibly stupid as this. So anyways, I never did get the other operating system off his computer.

I ended up jotting down a lot of notes, every time I would see a popup 'popup', I wrote down the first address that showed up in the window title, usually a quick flash of the company that created the adware, and looked at properties, then used Yahoo and AskJeeves to find forums that talked about that specific problem. I ran an adware finder and it found more than 280 different files, cookies, and folders that are known virues of one sort or another. WOAH!!! I was able to remove most of what I found, at least to the point that he can use his computer without pop ups.

I learned so much, a self taught still newbie software tweaker am I. I am now able to use 'run' to do a 'msconfig'to find out what sort of crap is running on my computer and 'regedit' to remove keys from the registry that are set up there to screw with my computer either by spying or causing pop ups or worse.

I'm not an expert at this mind you, but I'm doing the best I can. CWShredder, Spy Sweeper, Spy Hunter, HijackThis, and other programs are a life saver because they allow me to find stupid little bastard files that are dicking with my computer and to blast them off with a few rather difficult but attainable quests to remove them.

Is it fun? Not so much at first, but it's satisfying to send a worm or virus out of your hard drive... FOREVER!!! (or until the next one rears it's ugly ass head)

New Job Idea

I'm thinking of putting in an application to be a corrections officer here in Omaha. My job at the windshield warehouse is worse than ever, got yelled at today for being 'too slow' with my returns in the morning, when I was sent out by the idiot to pick up a truck right when I got there, and that took me an hour to go get and set me back an hour, obviously.

Also, my elbow is in a lot of pain (and it's not the right one so shut up!! heh), I am certain it has a lot to do with the constant motion of picking up 30 to 75 lb windshields and moving them around and so forth. My big worry is that I would be shit out of luck in terms of health coverage unless I wand to continue my health insurance after I leave, but that would be expensive.

As I understand it, a corrections job pays 14 bucks an hour and can be a spring board to get onto the police force or sheriff's department. I'll need to find out more about it before I can really make a decision. One thing is for sure, a newbie corrections officer is probably fucked in terms of the hours he/she would work, but I think I could handle that.

Anyways, I'll keep you posted.

Another Bit Of fraNk Trivia, Perhaps Not As Useless

"I found love at first sight one time... in fifth grade"

It's odd really, I never really give it much thought anymore. In fact, most often I don't even recognize that particular time in my life as being in love but if it wasn't then intense infatuation at first sight would at least be an appropriate description.

Emily Armstrong... that was her name. We had advanced reading class together, I remember walking into that class, I was one of the last ones in because my regular classroom was way in the basement, so the people from our class were always last to get to the other 5th grade classrooms on the third floor. The reading class was overflowing, so everyone from my basement classroom had to sit at a separate table at the front of the class, to make up for having so many students.

I remember looking into the first row, and there she sat. I was spellbound and probably stared for like 10 minutes. You have to understand something, that in the 5th grade, being all of 10 years old, I didn't understand at all what was wrong with me, I felt like I couldn't breathe, like there was this aura radiating from this person and I had to be within the vicinity of it because of how that made me feel.

Thus, I would find myself running around the playground doing ANYTHING stupid just to get her attention, and many times of course I did, and whenever she noticed me it was like this surge of adrenaline rushing thru my veins. This crossed over after the end of the school year into the summer, when I would ride my bike the five miles into town to go swimming at the public pool *I would have probably rode and swam there anyway, but Emily being at the pool was just an added bonus*. I would try crazy things off the diving board, again, anything to get her attention, anything to make her smile. I probably looked like the most insanely hyperactive fool, but nothing really mattered as long as she saw me.

An interesting fact about all of this, is that I never had more than just a passing greeting from her, never said more than maybe 5 to 10 words to her at a time, but that was enough for me to suddenly float high as a kite, elation beyond compare, to have any interaction with her.

Around July of that summer, I was sitting near Emily and her friends when I overheard something that knocked the wind out of me just as sure as being hit by a large truck... Emily was moving away, in fact, this would be her last day in my hometown. I can remember that feeling of complete desperation overtake me, I wanted so badly to say something, anything, but as always, I did nothing other than watch her for the rest of that afternoon. At 4 pm, she left, and I followed her and her friends out of the poolhouse, and I rode my bike past them and acted goofy just once more, and they all laughed, like they always did.

I sat on my bike and watched them as they turned the corner, they were of course oblivious to my feelings, although I'm sure that they were also very sad about Emily moving away. I rode my bike past the pool, and rode all the way home and hid out at the farm, utterly crushed. I didn't go back to the pool for quite a while after that...

That was my first taste of love, infatuation, whatever you may call it. I remember wondering what ever became of Emily Armstrong, but never throughout the next couple of years did I have the guts to ask any of her friends about her, I was always too afraid. And with time's passing I found other girls that I liked, but Emily was the only person who has ever smitten me at first sight.

Song: Swing Swing by The American Rejects, and other songs such as Laid, off of the American Wedding Soundtrack, had I Known it was this good I would have purchased this thing like a year ago.

A Professional Opinion About My Favorite Movies

I went to Yahoo Movies tonite and took a look at how critics and Yahoo users rate my favorite movies. For most of the older movies I like, there weren't any critic reviews so you'll have to rely on user reviews instead. What's interesting is that nothing finished below a B. Wish my grades has always been that good haha.

Heat

Critics: B+
Users: A-

Hunt For Red October

Critics: None Available *wtf is this supposed to mean? who knows...*
Users: B+

Tombstone

Critics: None again?
Users: A-

The Cutting Edge

Critics: None
Users: A-

Boyz In The Hood

Critics: None
Users: B+

The Usual Suspects

Critics: B
Users: A-

The Matrix

Critics: B+
Users: A-

American Beauty

Critics: A-
Users: A-

Seven

Critics: B
Users: A-

Fallen

Critics: none available *interesting, made in 1998*
Users: B+

Another Useless Bit Of fraNk Trivia

"As a freshman in high school, fraNk was 5'3" tall and weighed 109 lbs"

Yes, this is true, the next year I went up to about 5'5" and 119 lbs, then my junior year I really grew, to 155 lbs, don't remember how tall I was though. I believe I was right about 176 lbs when I graduated, but that also included my 3 months in basic training, during which I gained some upper body mass. Now, well, refer to the last post haha.

Song: listening to Breakdown by Guns N' Roses (the entire Use Your Illusion II cd *blue* is so good)

Immortality?

I was thinking a little bit last night about what it might be like to live forever. I also wondered what point in my life I would pick, as in, what age I would want to be. I decided a person should pick when they were in the best physical shape of their life, for me that would be when I was 24 years old.

Right now I'm sitting right about 200 lbs, I am in relatively good shape, I could toss on running shoes and go run 5 miles if I had to, and I could do 50 pushups and 50 situps if need be. But when I was 24, I was 180 lbs of lean mean fitness machine. I was working that summer in a factory making the wooden pieces for postal carts *one of the worst jobs I ever had, yes, I have had a lot of bad jobs haha* I was cutting 2' X 3' plywood sections out of 8' X 4' plywood sheets, doing about 500 of them a day.

Now, right now my upper body is probably just as good as it was then, but back then when I would get home at night, I would do about 200 pushups and 200 situps and also run about 3 miles, every single day. Nowadays I really don't have the time to do that, although I would like to. Also, I don't know if it's getting older or having the extra 20 lbs on me, but I can't run nearly as fast as I did back then, I get winded so much easier. I will try to get myself into a lot better shape this summer.

I guess the dilemma is this: does a person pick the time in their life when they were in the best shape, or the time that they were happiest? I say the best shape, because happiness is not primary in this situation, meaning, you have all the time in the world to find happiness, you are immortal. But you have only one period in your life to pick for being immortal. Did that make sense? I hope so.

Bah, who would want to be immortal anyway, buy the time I'd reach about age 250 I would probably want to be dead anyway Haag, as much as I dislike change.

What's For Dinner?

Tonite, spaghetti. I make the word's best spaghetti, I would put my spaghetti up against anyone's spaghetti, that is for sure. And I use meat, lots of meat, none of that lame veggie bullshit either. Let's say for whatever reason, that I am being fed my last meal, and I can pick whatever I want to eat *looks around nervously, I don't think I'll ever be eating my last meal, SHHH, cops don't know about me* anyways, if I had to pick that meal, it would be my own spaghetti. Too bad I didn't like something like my own salad, I seem to eat too much of my spaghetti heh heh.

Song: listening to That Particular Time by Alanis Morrisette.

Another Useless Bit Of fraNk Trivia

I'll try to make this a frequent installment of my blog to help those of you (2 at the most) who actually read my blog. (did I say two? Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic, oh well).

"fraNk knows how to break dance"

Let's break this particular statement down though, I can do two break dancing moves, the worm, and the moonwalk. The worm isn't terribly hard, it just requires a bit of flexibility, coordination, and not minding if you crush your balls for a little bit. The moonwalk on the other hand, that is tough. It requires a lot more coordination and timing. Is this something to brag about? Undoubtedly no, especially when considering that I can't fast dance worth a shit. If I was about to be killed, and someone said I could save my life by fast dancing and doing it good, well, you might as well shoot me because I'm doomed.

But back in the 80's, the moonwalk was the pinnacle of freestyle break dancing, if you could do the moonwalk, your social status was improved immeasurably, your cool level went up so much... unfortunately, by the time I really got good at it, moonwalking was pretty much a thing of the past, with the next 'big thing' having come along, though I'm not sure now what that might have been.

But, just for the record, I can breakdance... a little.

Lightweight Champion Of The World!!!

It's me, that's right. I sit here on a Saturday night drinking Warsteiner, and after 3 of them I'm tipsy as hell. Wait, look, I'm about halfway thru my fourth beer okay? So, it's not as bad as you might think haha. I really can't drink like when I was in college but that's a good thing.

Beer: Warsteiner Premium Verum (bottle)
Game: Tharsis Gate (is this a surprise, I think not)
Song: Long Day, Matchbox 20
Condition: Half Fucked Up (best I've felt in some time heh heh)

Useless Bit Of fraNk Trivia II

"fraNk wanted to be a doctor when he was little"

I can remember being dressed up for kindergarten as a fireman, and another time as an astronaut. But deep down I always wanted to be a doctor. I am not sure why... I suppose the fact that I was in the hospital when I was 2 for surgery and again at the age of 4 after a car accident, I may have developed a particular fondness for doctors. I don't remember much of anything about those visits, none of course from being 2 years old, about all I can really remember from when I was 4 years old was that the nurses were a bunch of total bitches, and that the food sucked.

Within a few years, by about the time I was 8 or 9 years old, I realized that I really didn't much like math, and that being a doctor required a substantial amount of work in that field, and so it was likely that being a doctor was out of the question. But I can sure remember at a young age always believing I would be one.

Nowadays I despise doctors, not so much as the doctors themselves, not even for what they do, but because if I'm seeing a doctor it usually means there is something wrong, and I don't like feeling I can't control things in my life on my own. I imagine you end up seeing them more and more though. Right now I'm a little more concerned about going to the dentist, I need to do that pronto.

"Dr fraNk report to surgery, Dr fraNk"

Seventh Layer Of Lameness

Okay, I'm getting old, I realize this now, and also that I'm extraordinarily lame, as I listen to the Pretty Woman soundtrack. 1990... wow, 14 years ago when Julia Roberts did this movie with that gerbil in the butt guy? Sometimes that year seems like just yesterday, and other times it seems like a million years ago. That was the year I went thru basic training, between my junior and senior years of high school.

OMFG hahahaha, might I increase my already obvious lameness to an entirely new level!! On this soundtrack is a song by David Bowie, and for all this time I've thought he was singing 'BABE'... when in fact he was singing 'FAME'. Oh, don't think that makes me more lame? Well, consider this, the song is called Fame 90. haha, wow, I is stupid.

Some Fun Images!!

Not the clown to invite to the kids birthday party!!!

WANNA HONK MY NOSE?!!

Add one cup of nuts...

WHAT'S THAT SMELL?

Another Job Post

I am a fool for staying with this job. They have rehired the old assistant manager, part time now. The guy is a complete piece of shit, I worked with him for about 3 days last year right when I started, his quitting was the reason I got hired. He is supposed to be starting at ground level, a pee on so to speak, but I doubt he'll stick with that. I'm so glad I'm taking two days of vacation next week, I will get rid of the other three and get the fuck out of this job, it's killing me, I'm stressed about so much, I mean, there is this 'uncomfortable but complete' feeling based on the familiarity of the job, but damn, I have to draw the line when it comes to working with this guy, he's a liar, annoying as hell, and he's going to get on my nerves immediately. I already have one person who gets on my nerves at work, I don't need another guy that's even worse.

Useless Bit Of fraNk Trivia

"fraNk has had the same razor since Christmas of 1991"

Yes, this is a shocking tid bit, is it not? Now, don't get too concerned about my face being all chopped and such, and don't think I use a straight razor to shave with either. This particular razor is the Gillette Sensor. I have evolved a bit at least to the Gillette Sensor Excel disposable heads for my razor, but the razor 'body' if you will, and the little holding station, are both from 1991, a christmas gift from an aunt. Luckily the 5-pack of replacement heads fits perfectly into that old holding station.

Back then I really didn't shave more than once maybe every 4 days. When I went to basic training at the age of 17, in 1990, I can remember them making fun of me because I didn't have enough facial hair to justify shaving. That taunting lasted all of about a week, when they all would say "Damn, I wish I didn't have to shave", to which I just smirked. Nowadays, if I'm staying on top of things, I shave every 2 days, and from time to time if I'm active duty for the military for whatever reason, I have shaved 2 days in a row, but even then it's normally every 2 days.

Well, this got to be a lot more than just a smidgen of useless information, it has turned into a veritable cornucopia of crap that you probably just as well didn't need to know. I thank you for your time, please feel free to return to my journal at any time for more useless knowledge, about moi!!

Change

"Change, now it's time for change, nothing stays the same, now it's time for change"

Ah, to bring a little Motley Crue into my little online journal, how nice is that? If you don't like the big hair 80's bands, well, move on then!! Actually, that's as far as I'll go into that topic for the time being.

Change... the intangible constant that seems the only sure thing, other than death and taxes. Those who best adjust to change have a considerable advantage to those like me, who seem to abhore change and cringe at even the concept of walking into their own living room and finding that someone moved the recliner to the other side of the room. Certainly, there are aspects to change that are acceptable, like the change in my wages last week when I gained a dollar an hour, but in most situations, change is evil, something to be attacked and killed off like a spiteful demon from hell *am I being a bit overdramatic here? Yah, I am, oh well, DAMN YOU CHANGE*

I can remember way back to high school, the first time something like that hit me. Your life is so well structured up to the point when you graduate from high school, at which time, society deems you to be ready for one giant change: moving on to college, or into the work force, or becoming a bum and moving from town to town in open train cars *there are certainly times when that seems more appealing than working for a living, I'll tell you that much*

I did go to college, after one year of working at my parents farm. I didn't feel I was ready for that vigorous of a change yet so I took that year to grow up a little, and I think it really helped me out. It was at college that I saw where change can really hit you hard: the people you become good friends with decide that either college isn't the way for them or they move far away to another college, and you never see them again. Now, depending on how good a friend they are, will indicate the amount this change affects you. It seems when you become friends with someone you invest part of yourself within them, I suppose this recipe includes time, your heart, maybe even a little of your soul to those who are very close.

College is so interesting... it's almost as though you end up learning more from the environment than you do from the actual classes themselves. For most, it's the first experience they have with living on their own, although some seem so tied into their parents that they don't really live on their own at all, but I feel most end up adjusting and moving on away from their immediate famililies and making the changes necessary to facilitate being on their own. I think there are other environments that duplicate what you see in college, working for a large company, working for the government, certainly being in the military is also a lot like that.

After college, you get a job, you hope to find someone you are compatible with, and begin to carve out your little niche in life. Change is now at it's peak. Everything is moving at such a constant, you learn to deal with it, and that's how it is.


I tend to lash out at change, directing my anger at times at those who facilitate changes, it's usually friends that become the target of my misplaced rage and irritation, and I've done that a few times lately, and then I feel enormous sadness, because certainly my inability to deal with changes leads to this, but damn, sometimes it's nice just to have some things remain, at least in the tiniest amount, the same.

But alas, life, and change, can never have that. And again, as always, change comes along, and just like right now, knocks me off the computer and sends me away to my wonderful job. I imagine change is a good thing, if there is no change, it's likely you are dead. I suppose a person could learn to be a hobo, or a hermit, and not deal with so much change, but that would sure be boring. Anyways, look at that, I'm going to be late for my job... haha, oh well. Have a change filled day everyone!!!

Blah

Today....

I don't feel witty
I don't feel smart
I don't feel funny

I am a cauldron

"Employee 2704, report to the water torture room!!!

Well, Mack put in his two weeks last week, and was going to join Jason at a competitors warehouse, for 50 cents more an hour, but then he got offered a dollar an hour to stay here, so he took that offer instead. Bonus to this: Because I started when Mack did, I also got a one dollar an hour raise. Does 80 bucks every pay check help? Hell yes, but it doesn't make up for how shitty this job is so I'm still looking to quit soon.

Lenny has been screwing up lately at work, just like always, and today it caught up to him. Just to clarify, I like Lenny, but his systematic daily fuck ups have been grinding on me so badly that I can hardly stand to be around him lately, as sad as that sounds. I would suggest ways to improve what he is doing wrong and he would laugh as though it was a big joke, and if I pressed on he would start to get mad. Just to get one thing straight though, Larry is as hard a worker as anyone I have ever known at his age. He's 67 years old, and I just hope that when I get to be his age that I'm in as good of shape as he is, because it's amazing.

But he was better off on his daytime 6 hour drive, because after they canceled it, he was forced to work in the warehouse, and that transition hasn't worked for him, or anyone else, so today Art was forced to let him go. I know he didn't want to fire Lenny but you have to draw the line somewhere, and 3 screw ups yesterday that cost us a bunch of time and almost lost an account, enough was enough.

I talked a little to Lenny as he left, I could tell he was really upset, his eyes were a little blurry when he talked about how he had given 5 years to this company, but in all reality, he's going to be better off now. He didn't need this job, like most of us do, he just needed something to do with his time. Now I find myself sighing and thinking how much it stinks when someone gets fired, someone you didn't mind being around so much, just that he couldn't get the work done correctly. I guess I'm too soft about certain things, if I like someone I don't like seeing them go thru any pain.

Soooooooo, the question you are now asking, if you have read my previous writings about my job: Are they going to hire anyone? Well, yes they are. There is no way in hell they could possibly keep things going with just Art and three warehouse workers/drivers. 2 of us would be gone most of the day leaving only one person in the warehouse to take deliveries in town, and nothing would ever get put away/cleaned/repaired. So Monday next week they are going to hire someone, as we have been told now.

I get one week of vacation when I get to my one year anniversary at work, that being April 8th. I have given notice that I will be taking 2 days of that the 15th and 16th, and it's likely I'll use the other 3 days the next week. I wonder if you can guess what I'll be doing at that point? Hmm? If you said "looking for another job", DING DING DING, you are RIGHT!!

This company has never, in the one year that I have been here, had a company meeting with all the employees, to discuss ANYTHING!!! I've never seen such stupidity. Not once has the general manager (not Art, but the corporate baboon upstairs), done anything for anyone in the building, never bought pizza, never done anything for anyone's birthday, hell, I doubt he even knows my name. I hate this company and it will be none too soon when I find a new job.

ATTACK OF THE TALKING HEADS!!!

Okay, this could quite possibly be the funniest web site I have found yet.

Veeper's technology can make any picture of someone talk!!

Basically this is relatively new technology that you can now use in ingenious and evil ways to make a photo of someone say anything you want them to say. The downside to this is that it's only archived for 2 weeks, and you can't save what you made *at least I haven't figured out a way to do it yet* but the upside to this is obvious, some really, really funny stuff while you waste away your time on the internet, as I tend to do for about, oh, 20 minutes a day? heheh.

Check it out, you won't regret it.

SUPERHAIRYFRAGILISTIC

You know what is rather interesting? Well, it's interesting to me that is, is that so few people don't realize that you cannot have a goatee in the military. You can have a mustache, but it must be trimmed as to go no further than each side of your mouth and cannot extend over the upper portion of your top lip.

Just why am I bringing this up? Well, I have an army guard drill this weekend, the first one I've had in seven weeks. After my last drill, I decided I was going to grow out a goatee, because we were having such a long time between guard drills...

Anyways, I will have to shave it off come friday, this is the longest I have ever grown a goatee before. I'm going to take a picture of it and post it for anyone who is interested in seeing what I look like with this rug on my mug. It is actually so long now I can comb it, well, sort of, but I can't get any sort of part in it, which stinks. I'm thinking of trying some hair spray and spiking it out and stuff, well, maybe, but I probably shouldn't.

It's incredibly itchy sometimes, but one thing I found to be quite amazing, one morning it was about 12 degrees, this was about a week ago, and I was unloading windshields, it was so windy outside. I could actually tell my goatee was keeping my face warmer than if I didn't have one. I thought that was interesting.

Friday though, this sucker is coming off, which is alright with me. I think I'm kind of scary with a goatee actually. You should see the kids running away from me.

Music Anyone?

The last 4 days have brought about some really insane changes to the radio stations in Omaha.

1) Sweet 98 - 98.5 FM - was top 40 with a strong influence in R&B, has now become Q98, plays a lot of Dave Matthews type stuff, other lighter rock and roll type of music.

2) 106.9 The City FM - was playing a lot of tori amos, sting, music that is supposed to be hip, but not hit, that sort of music, now is playing all hits from 80's and early 90's,

3) turned on 93.3 the dam today, and it's all country music, it WAS hard rock, the only station that played hard rock in all of omaha, THIS made me really mad, well, at least there is still 106.3, the hard rock sister station of 93.3, in Lincoln, with it's 100,000 watt transmitter, to listen to. I don't know why it is country, tried to listen to find out, but only got really sad and suicidal (country music will do that you know?)

4) so I'm listening to 106.3 The Blaze, and god dammit, now they are going to be on another station, same format, but it will be called 94.1 The Blaze. Problem? 94.1 must be the weakest transmitting station on the planet, I can't get it in Omaha, so that's it for hard rock for me (sad sad sad face)

So, here is the breakdown of all this activity:

There are no longer any top 40 stations in Omaha

There are no longer any hard rock stations in Omaha

There is ANOTHER country station in Omaha that I won't be listening to

I might listen to the 80's and 90's station occasionally

I won't really listen to the new Q98, they were already playing music I'd never heard of. They are like a tad harder version of what 106.9 The City was.

All in all, this really sucks. I never listened to Sweet 98 anyway, but the loss of both 93.3 and 106.3 for me is devastating, due to the amount of time at work I would spend listening to those stations.

Oh well, I guess there is always A.M. sports radio all day long from now on. *sigh*

So if I'm inside your head
Don't believe what you might have read
You'll see what I might have said
To hear it

Come waste your time with me

Just When You Thought It WAS Bad...

I guess my previous post about my job was a little premature and misleading, and for that I apologize. What I had painted as a picture of a bad job, has now become a HORRIBLE job.

Bear with me, this is going to be one big post.

I suppose I will have to put thru the cast of characters in this particular docudrama:

Art - warehouse manager
Jason - assistant manager
Chas - maintenance/warehouse worker/delivery driver
Bill - returns specialist/warehouse worker/delivery driver
Lenny - daytime north route driver
ME - perishables/warehouse worker/delivery driver
Mack - moldings/mirrors/warehouse worker/delivery driver

I got this job, as anyone who reads my blog knows, back in April of last year. My intentions were to remain 3 months till something else came up. Unfortunately, that has not been the case.

Things went smoothly enough throughout all last year, we had things pretty much going well for our crew. Lenny was problematic but then he is around 65 years old so he tends to fuck things up. But he had the daytime north run so he was gone from 9 in the morning till about 3 in the afternoon, and when he would get back, he would just get sent home right away, no reason for him to stay. This suited him perfectly.

As I said before, one of the workers quit about a month ago, Bill, so I had to take over his returns duties, which is okay but it's a rather half assed set up for stock transfers from one part of the company to another so it takes awhile to get used to. Well, they hire no one to replace him. That was where we left off the last time, on As This Shitty Job Turns. Then about 2 weeks ago, Jason puts in his two weeks... to move over to a competitor and get a management job. BOOM, they sent him home that day, basically fired, but understandable because he IS going to be going to a competitor.

So, of course, they have to hire someone to replace him, RIGHT???

Uhm, WRONG! The idiot general manager comes down and lets Art know that, because of these 'hard times' we have to make due with what we have. Well ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLRIGHT!!! *sarcasm should be noted here*

Art is in a wheelchair, because of a surgery he had to repair his foot, so he can't help at all, not for some time either. And Chas, well, Chas is a lazy slob. I can get along with him in most instances, but Chas has been there longer than me or Mack, so therefore, he believes, even though they are not filling the assistant manager slot, that it's 'his' position in absentia, so to speak. And when Art needs to go home early, or heads off for lunch, Chas takes it upon himself to not do a god damn thing, but sit on his ass and answer the phone, which Art does, because Art IS IN A WHEELCHAIR!!! HE CAN'T HELP!!!

Add to this that Chas is perpetually getting hurt, twice it was his back, now it's his hand, so I would say over the last year, about half the time I've been there he's been on 'light duty' due to injury. And even when he is healthy he is the master of 'switching off' jobs on myself and Mack. Let's say a ticket comes up to pull a part, and nothing else needs to be done. Well, rather than pull that part, Chas would call myself or Mack in and try to pawn that ticket off on us. I usually didn't care I would just take the ticket and head to get the part.

NOW... this changes if there is another ticket that comes up all the sudden. Let's say this ticket has 5 parts that need to be pulled, he will come out and say "oh, I'll get that ticket you have, you take this one" and hands you the harder ticket. When someone does that even a few times, you start to get pissed. Well, Chas does it all day long every day. To put this into perspective, Jason ALWAYS pulled tickets, he never traded out for easier tickets, and he worked his ass off even if Art was gone to lunch or gone for the day, something Chas never does now, even though he isn't even the assistant manager and technically holds no more power than Mack or I other than seniority.

Well, our general manager (different from warehouse manager, general manager is a moron who can't run a facility if his life depended on it), he comes down about 4 days after Jason was let go to let us know that the north run was being cancelled during the day and that Lenny would now be working full time during the day. Talk about a kick to the stomach... for both Lenny and us. Lenny was good driving that north route because he is getting too old to be handling parts in the warehouse, and makes a lot of mistakes for the time he was in the warehouse.

So WOW, now we have Lenny all day long fucking up probably about 20 times a day. If he's not pulling the wrong part he is leaving his returns on the truck or routing tickets on the wrong route for the night drivers and generally making more work for everyone. Art is now seriously thinking about getting rid of Lenny, but the problem is: will anyone new be hired or not??? Right now we are totally swamped beyond belief and if we lose someone else from our crew without someone being hired, it will really suck. If we can keep Lenny in a truck and on deliveries, away from the warehouse, it's pretty much okay, although he fucks up deliveries pretty good too, at times.

So here we are, Art useless in terms of pulling parts or helping load trucks, Chas using every excuse to remain on light duty yet trying to worm his way into being assistant manager while still being a lazy bastard, even if it's an assistant manager position in his own mind rather than reality. Lenny screwing up about as much as he helps out, and Mack and I trying somehow to keep things afloat as the only two non injured fully capable employees in that warehouse. As you can guess there is a perpetual sinking feeling going on.

Because we are a skeleton crew, we now have mandatory overtime to put up parts into stock when they come in, because we can't afford to do it during the day, we just don't have the manpower. Sure, this is great overtime, but wow, not when you are so tired that you just want to fall over at the end of every day. Plus, they mess up your check half the time anyway, mysteriously always in their favor (you always lose money). This last time I lost out on 144 dollars from two night runs I took. They made it up, but had I not been looking closely I might have missed it and never known it.

It can't get worse, right? There just isn't any way???

Again, wrong. We are told last Friday that one of our sister warehouses is being closed, and that all the stock from that warehouse is coming here. Nice, because I'm the returns specialist I have to handle in processing of all incoming stock, which basically meant I was unloading 90 to 100 pieces off the truck every morning all week, and it will continue into next week. Add onto that the main office decides they are going to send out stock transfers to us at the same time, and we end up moving another 60 parts after I put away the other 90 or so. I worked it out in my head last night that I had walked more than 4 miles inside the warehouse yesterday, talk about crazy.

So, it's what, March 10th on Wednesday? Welllll, we get a lovely email from the main office:

"As it approaches spring we would like to do what we can to help with the budget crunch. All furnances need to be turned off. Thank you."

WTF?? First off, what is a furnance? Is that Nancy with a beard or something? Secondly, this is March in Nebraska, and it gets DAMN cold in March around these areas. We turned out furnaces down, but needless to say we did NOT turn them all the way off.

So, anyways, I'm doing all of what Bill's job was, with returns. I'm doing 75% of what Jason's job was (the other 25% was the laid back part of ass. manager job, and of course Chas feels that is his job.) I am doing the stock transfers and all sorts of crap, there seems to be no end in site. As I'm in there with Art each day, we make jokes about how awful it is, referring to one another by numbers instead of names:

"Employee 2704, are you swearing about the company??? Report to the anal probe room IMMEDIATELY!!!"

Anything to make the day go by quicker. Now I really need to kick it into high gear and get a job elsewhere, and that's exactly what I plan to do.

Why Am I Even Going To Talk About It?

Well, the democrats picked Kerry as their presidential candidate to run against Bush in November. Yes, I know, politics, what am I doing talking about it? Well, I just find it rather amusing is all. Of all the candidates that ran on the democratic ticket, the ignorant democrats pick the most liberal candidate of them all for the November election. That won't bode well with the American public, considering Kerry's rather outlandish left wing views on just about every subject (although it was funny, his little 'about face' on gay marriages, he comes out on record against them yet you will still see the gay community support him just because he is a liberal. It's about like having a bully punch you in the face and immediately tell everyone how wonderful the guy is. I mean, they may both be against gay marriages, but lets just fore go anything else that is important about a candidate's platform, such as, the economy, national defense, etc).

President Bush has a 78% approval rating, the only democrat who stood a chance in hell of defeating him this fall was Howard Dean because he was the most moderate of any of the candidates. Hell, he is the only one I would really even listen to because some of what he had to say actually made sense. But no, instead it's Kerry, who's idiotic platform consisted almost entirely of 'let's attack Bush on everything' rather than try to run on his own accord, ideas, or record. Here we go folks, 8 months of mud-slinging and stupid commercials that say nothing important, 240 days of muck and shit and nasty comments by every person affiliated with politics talking about each candidate, isn't it exciting?

No, it really isn't.

Site Of The Day

I find myself spending way too much time at Best And Worst lately, a web site filled with user added polls about anything you can imagine. Here are a few random polls, just for an example of what you can find on a day to day basis:

4074. Can god make so big stone that he cant lift it

13958.Is George W. Bush the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, the return of our lord?

10202. Should the U.S. nuke Canada for exporting a diseased cow to America? Next, they'll try it with their SARS!

20002. Why aren't migets bigger

12259.(George W. Bush only) Shouldn't you be taking your pills now?

17650.If Spongebob was real, Would you do him?

7639. Is it illegal to make fun of someone on the net?

2388. If you had a choice of which dog could sniff your ass, which would it be?

16954. if you were stranded on a desert island with George W Bush, Michael Jackson & Justin Timberlake & a gun with only one bullet, who would you shoot?

The one below here, without any doubt at all, is my personal favorite, I have no clue what someone was thinking when they posted it, or if they were thinking at all, but I busted out laughing when I read it.

5784.Why the crap is there a GIANT SQUID on top of my house?!?!?!!!

What is sort of crazy is the obsession everyone has with George W. Bush, for fun, enter his name into the search area on the page to find polls with his name in them, as you can see I added a few of them above. Some are very funny. And if you are looking at any of the polls, always check out the other polls listed on the right, you will find yourself hooked to this ridiculous site in short order!!

The Passion Of Hypocrisy

I have yet to see the film "The Passion of Christ", but from what I have heard it is an epic film, extremely realistic and follows elements of the New Testament from the Bible pretty closely. What just boggles the mind is how many Jewish people are attacking this film. They lash out at the film, saying it puts Jews in a bad light.

It's completely hypocritical of them to do so. Just how many movies have been about the Holocaust during WWII, or had the Holocaust as some integral part of the film? Dozens at least, possibly hundreds. I doubt you will find even ONE of these films portraying the Germans as benevolent, wonderful people with admirable character. Yet you don't hear them bitching and whining about those movies. Why??? Because they KNOW the way they treated the Jews and many other groups of people during WWII was deplorable.

The same can be said for the Jesus' treatment by the Jews, as accounted for in the Bible. There are literally hundreds of millions of people around the world who subscribe to the teachings found within the Bible as historical truth, plus the New Testament in the Bible is told from several points of view, hence the names of the Books, Luke, John, Matthew, etc, and those books corroborate one another for the most part. So why are Jewish leaders being hypocritical about this particular movie, saying that it portrays Jews in a bad light?

Mel Gibson said quite plainly that the movie was going to follow, to the best of his abilities to make it do so, the story as told in the Bible. In the Bible, the Romans ask the Jewish people if Jesus should be spared, to which there was a vehement negative response. The Jewish people spat at Jesus, tore at his hair and clothing, and called for his death. Yet as the story is told, a full 2000 years after the death of Jesus Christ, Jewish leaders are having a fit over what happened, way back then? Give me a break.

Nearly every religion, race, creed, etc, can point to a difficult period in which terrible misdeeds can be attributed to them, cripes, it is what about half of all movies are about in some form or another, the horrible injustice towards someone by someone else. You don't hear the British screaming about "The Patriot" movie, or the Russians having a shit-fit over "The Hunt For Red October", do you? No you don't, yet Jewish leaders believe they should be given preferential treatment??? For WHAT???

If you don't believe the Bible to be a fairy tale, something to remember is this: most movies are based on fiction, even those that fault a particular group of people may have a truthful plot, but in the end need a LOT of filler material to keep the movie going ("Pear Harbor" anyone?).

Something Jewish people need to realize, hell, something we all need to realize... no one is perfect, everyone has had faults, either by themselves or their ancestry, it's how you live today that judges who you are, and by sniveling and whining about something that in all likelihood actually happened in your past, you do nothing more than expose yourselves as shallow contemptuous characters in the present.

HIRE ME PLEASE!!

I try to remember that, regardless of where I'm working at, it's important to "like the job I'm doing" rather than "do the job I like." With that thought in mind I find ways to make my job enjoyable, regardless of what company I'm working for or what I do for that company. This has always served me well with the military, especially as I gained rank. I realized the importance of what we are doing, the big picture that is, and also how my actions as a key leader within my unit can affect the attitude of everyone within the unit.

But dang, my civilian job sure makes it had to do that sometimes. Let me give you a run down... I make hardly anything at the job I'm doing, sure it's above minimum wage, but it isn't enough to live comfortably, it's hardly enough to just scrape by. The general manager for our location never spends a dime on anyone, you know how the boss in most places will buy donuts on friday, or bring in pizza during inventory or on special occasions, perhaps recognize you on your birthday, maybe even let you get a half day off with pay?

Well... not at my job. Not only does our general manager never buy anything for anyone, he works his ass off finding ways to make things as uncomfortable as possible for us. Take one of the guys we work with, he started 2 years ago, and every year you are supposed to get a raise, but for the last 4 years or so our company has had a 'screw the employee bonanza', otherwise known as a 'wage freeze', so he hasn't gotten a single raise, so odds are that I won't either. Every 180 days without an accident, we get a pizza party!!! YAHHH!! Wait, that's just what the sign says. I believe we are up to 550 some odd days without an accident now, with no pizza ever, HOORAY!!

So anyways, our crew, as it was last year, 2003, from March when I and another guy started, till the end of the year, consisted of the warehouse manager (different from general manager), warehouse supervisor (under the manager), 4 warehouse workers/drivers, 1 daytime driver for the 'north route' and then 3 drivers that arrive around 5pm to drive the 3 night routes.

Well, one night driver was fired in November after several incidents involving costly accidents with company vehicles, he was replaced with an installer from the shop (we have a shop at our location). He was quite annoying, I mean, he meant well but my god he never shut up, about anything. Then our warehouse manager has surgery to repair his foot and has to be in a wheelchair, so he becomes useless in way of pulling parts. After that, one of the 4 warehouse workers quits. And oh, wouldn't you believe it? The general manager tells us that we can't hire anyone to replace him until April. Now one of the other workers has a hurt hand, he seems to always have something wrong with him that keeps him in 'light duty' status per doctors orders. He brought in an excuse that says it will be that way until next week. Not that it's any different from the way he normally is, as in, irritatingly lazy. He was on vacation today and, oddly enough, we didn't even notice he was gone.

So, the night driver that replaced the one who was fired, well, he quits. Now we have a female night driver, and that's okay, except, to be honest, she's just not tall enough to keep up with putting windshields on and off the big trucks, and I have a feeling she won't last very long because of that. Add to that the warehouse supervisor tends to drink too much (just got his license back as a matter of fact) and he was late like 5 times over a month long period, not just a few minutes late, I'm talking about a half hour to an hour and a half late... the last time I thought he was going to get fired, thank god he didn't because he's the most knowledgeable person in terms of where locations are in our warehouse for parts and stuff.

You can see that this basically qualifies for a 'dead end job' as the term goes. I have no upward mobility, no job security, hell, the medical insurance is even terrible. I could go on and on about this, but I think you get the picture. Anyways, anyone hiring? I only need roughly 30 grand a year to be happy, come on, it's not that much money!!! HIRE ME!!! PLEASE!!!!

Parking For Anyone But You

It's frustrating sometimes when you go to a place of business and can't find a parking spot, but right up front there are 8 or 10 handicap spots that never get used. It's understandable in most instances, especially at places like churches or hospitals where the expectation of those spots being needed by those with special needs is greatest. Heck, even at a supermarket I can understand it. Where it makes no sense at all however is at a fitness facility or gym, or at a fitness trail parking area, I mean, come on now, let's be reasonable here: If you are going somewhere to get exercise, why in the hell do you need to have a handicap spot?

A person can basically deal with that though, handicap spots take up about 5 percent of the overall parking spots, unless in a tiny parking lot in which you rarely find them all filled up anyway (well, Murphy's Law will tell you that when you are late for any sort of appointment the lot will be filled up except for those spots). What is REALLY freaking irritating is what I have seen at several department stores: specialized parking based on being elderly (uhm, hello??? Isn't that what the handicapped parking is for???), and even crazier, at the grocery store we frequent, they now have "Shoppers With Children" parking spots. Shoppers with children??? When does this madness end???

I suppose they will have "Receding Hairline Shopper Parking" for those with special balding needs, perhaps "Abdominal Gas Problems Parking" for that person leaving a trail of death behind his or herself, or even "Far Sighted Shopper Parking" for the semi-blind person, probably something great for the parking lot at your local optometrist, but damned if I am going to park beside that guy, not unless you like a series of door dings, depending on the number of far sighted shoppers park beside you while you are there.

Why can't I have any specialized parking for me? Perhaps, "Semi Athletic 'Hoping To Be In Better Shape Soon' Shopper Parking", or "Tired Grumpy Shopper Who Dislikes His Job Parking", or my personal favorite "Easily Irritated Driver With A Propensity For Speeding Shopper Parking"??? I mean, is it too much to ask for my own personal parking spot??? Hell, put it way at the back end of the parking lot for all I care, I JUST WANT SOME DAMNED RECOGNITION OKAY??? If the annoying lady with 3 kids can have her own spot, then I sure as hell should be able to, shouldn't I?

Blah, with my luck they would make my spot a sub-compact and I'd have to buy some nasty Geo Metro or something...

Trust

Trust is like a house of cards. Building a house of cards is a tedious undertaking requiring great patience, diligence, and most of all, time. But one wrong move, one err in judgment, and the house will come crashing down, with nothing at all left, not one part of the house standing, leaving you to start all over again.

But with starting over, therein lies the difference, because unlike the house of cards, rebuilding trust is much harder. It would be as though the cards were all damaged, bent, with frayed edges, requiring much more effort to rebuild. Once trust has been betrayed, it becomes exceptionally hard to regain, and in some ways, maybe never fully regained again.

I’m learning a lot about myself lately, and how things like this relate… I’ve done a lot that I regret, hurt people who didn’t deserve hurting, destroyed enough houses of cards to fill a casino… one thing is for sure, anyone who believes I do not have a conscience is absolutely unequivocally wrong…

A conscience can truly eat you alive…

No Milk For You!!

Postponed, we'll try it again later this week... one guy had a sore throat and it was just too damn cold to try it today, like minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit today.

Milk Fever!!!

Well, tomorrow at work, 3 of us, maybe even 4, are going to try something to dispel an urban myth, or legend if you will. We are going to attempt to drink one gallon of milk in one hour (one gallon for one person).

I have heard it can't be done, but growing up on a dairy farm, I find that very hard to believe, I can remember drinking so much milk some days. I plan on taking about 15 Oreo cookies into work with me, and that's going to be my lunch, a gallon of milk, and some cookies.

I'll come back tomorrow night and update so that everyone can have an idea of whether or not I have met success in my endeavor.

Arctic Odoriferous

We've had a few days in a row now of that "walk outside and your lungs freeze" type of cold weather. It's interesting to me how there is like little or no 'smell' outside when the weather is so cold... as though the odors are trapped within a frozen time warp themselves.

Now, certainly, not all things smell good outdoors, try walking around a farm on the first 50 degree sunny day after a few weeks of frozen weather and you will find that out, but on that first sunny day as I drive around with the window open on your car and take a deep breath, I always seem to think to myself about how strange it is that there isn't much that has any smell at all when it's really cold out.

I imagine though, that people with allergies really like the frozen weather because it eliminates a lot of the catalysts that cause their allergies to rear their ugly heads... I don't like cold weather though, it's amazing I live where I do, no difference between Nebraska and the north pole this time of year, except for a few barbed wire fences...

Calling Dinosaurs

I have spent most of the day today in the most miserable condition you can imagine...

I woke up at around 7 this morning and didn't exactly feel too spiffy but I couldn't put my finger on it. This wasn't too much of a surprise, I have been sick now about half the time for what seems like forever, since September when I got a cold. I got up and used the computer for a little while and just felt worse and worse so I finally ended up in the living room on the couch trying to be comfortable, but never quite getting there.

Then at about 11, this nasty nauseated feeling rolled over me like a bus, in like 10 seconds I had to run to the bathroom and 'call dinosaurs.' I hate throwing up, you feel that warm saliva roll into your mouth, then it's like you are hugging the toilet, your body convulsing every hold on your face spitting out either tears or whatever your body is trying to expel. After each wave of throwing up you sit there wondering if that's the end, or if there is more to come. Miserable...

After that I was a little better for a couple of hours, very weak, but not so nasty feeling. Then it came back, and I tried to sleep all day, but it was really an exercise in futility, I would nod off and wake up in a pool of sweat. Only about an hour ago did the feeling start to fade away.

So I just had some Lipton Cup O' Soup, and one Wheat Thin, that's all I've eaten in about 30 hours. I'm so fatigued right now, not tired, I laid around all day, but just really beat. I hope after a few hours of sleep that I'll be a lot better, one thing is for sure, I can't be missing work... so tomorrow I need to improve a lot.

Late Charge? HAH!!!! YOU WISH!!

I have had a credit card since 1994. During that time, I cannot tell you how often I have been nailed with late fees because I wait till about 5 days before the payment is due to send the payment in. Then I get mad and call, and I get to listen to the nobody at the other end of the phone tell me how "the postal service can take up to 7 days to get your mail to us", which is a load of bullshit. I have never had a letter take more than 2 days to send to anyone in the United States. So that excuse is just that, a load of stinking bullshit.

Anyways, sure enough, it was December 30, and I realized that I needed to get my credit card payment in by January 5th... (okay, that's my excuse for procrastination). Anyways, I went into the post office, and was getting set to send in my payment, and I told the guy at the counter my sad story, about how MBNA (Master Card) always blames my payment getting there late on the US Postal Service, and he laughed and told me about a little something called "Delivery Confirmation".

Delivery Confirmation is an ingenious little service from the Postal Service, it costs about $3.50, and it allows you to use the internet or a toll free number to track your letter and find out exactly when the recipient receives it. Anywas, I went online to the MBNA web site on the 5th of this month, and sure enough, my payment did not show as posted. So, I called MBNA up and asked about that. Sure enough, got the old "can take up to 7 days" speech, and also the "we post payments within 24 hours of receiving them blah blah blah".

Unfortunately for them, I had checked my delivery confirmation, and waddaya know? It was delivered on January 2nd at 4:30 in the morning. When I told this to the MBNA rep on the phone, he said "uh, well, hmm, uhm, can I put you on hold for a moment?" I spent the next 5 minutes listening to a variety of wonderful elevator Christmas music before the rep came back to me.

"Sorry about the inconvenience, I'll make note on the account that your payment should be here, please check tomorrow to insure no late charges are incurred, and call back if there are any."

WOW, thank you United States Postal Service, talk about a friend to have on your side in that little battle. Before, they would basically tell me that they didn't have the payment, and I had no way to prove that they did. Now, I realize I could pay this bill earlier, especially considering that I normally always have the money to do so, but it sure is nice to know that I can use Delivery Confirmation to bust through a company's bullshit.

I would recommend anyone sending something of value, like a rebate offer or payment, to use this, if they are unsure about the reputation of the company especially. Of course, in my case, it is a credit card company, and there is no honor amongst thieves, which is basically what they are.

One Hit Wonder Greatest Hits Album

There are plenty of musicians out there that have one hit wonder songs. A one hit wonder, for those who do not know, is a song that is a hit, but it's the only hit song that the musician ever puts out. Many groups have had this happen, probably the most notable one hit wonder is "Take On Me" by Ah-Ha, from the 1980's. There is even a list of the top 100 One Hit Wonders:


Top 20 One Hit Wonders


Where am I going with all of this? Well, I'm in Best Buy the other day and I see SilverChair's Greatest Hits album. SilverChair???? They had one hit song, ONE!! Not only that, but they called the greatest hits album "Silverchair: The Best Of, Volume 1". HUH???? Is this supposed to imply that there is more to come? I sure as hell hope not.

Another one is Wilson Phillips. In 1990,Wilson Phillips released a self titled album with four top 10 hits on it. They released another album 2 years later that flopped, a pile of crap called "Shadows & Light", after which the band unceremoniously broke up. Obviously the record companies involved with Wilson Phillips must think pretty highly of them, because they have THREE GREATEST HITS ALBUMS, yep, count 'em, three!!

I actually owned a single cassette of "Hold On", arguably their best song, but even as a fan (yah, I liked them, so what, shut up) I have to admit they didn't have near enough material for one greatest hits album, much less THREE. I doubt though that they had much say in it, after all, they were broke up. Something tells me that for them, and even bands like SilverChair, a crappy band still trying to put out music, that the record label puts the greatest hits albums out whether they like it or not.

ALL HAIL THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR, and those consumers stupid enough to buy albums such as these.

Tipping The Scales With Special K!!

Isn’t it interesting when you see a commercial for a low fat product, advertising itself as a great way to lose weight? The person you see eating the product in question is always in shape, if it’s a man he is tone and muscular, if it’s a women she is thin and lean. They live in an immaculate white house with white carpeting, a white kitchen… every freaking thing is white. It would be much better if advertising was more realistic.

The commercial for Kellogg’s Special K starts, and should show a person of normal size, eating about half the box of cereal out of a large bowl, with about half a cup of sugar sprinkled in, that would be a lot more realistic. Or a Bow Flex commercial with a person who is a bit on the obese side, using the exercise equipment twice, at most three times, then showing it sit in the corner or down in the basement collecting dust… now THAT is reality.

I tend to think about food commercials though, and how you don’t see a 350 pound man happily buying a Big Mac, large fries, and Diet Coke at McDonalds in any commercial, even though this is a common scenario in real life. This brings me to the diet soda situation, that being: Why on earth do people even buy a diet soda when ordering a value meal at a fast food restaurant? Do they think the diet pop is really going to give them the edge in the war against girth? Not really, when you lost this battle of the bulge the moment you walked in the fast food doorway.

I suppose realism in advertising would create a substantial loss in appeal, even among those who are overweight, who would probably think twice about eating at a fast food joint if the people in the commercial were grossly overweight. Same goes for low fat food, where seeing a fat person eating large quantities of the low fat food would lead a person to wonder what the point of buying the food would be… “If I buy that I’ll probably do the same damn thing, screw that!!�

No one will ever use reality in advertising because reality does not appeal to the common consumer. But it would be pretty funny sometimes to see a little more reality.

Some Jobs Stink, Others Are Worse Than That

I did telemarketing for about a year once. No, that doesn't mean I was the "MORONIC FOOL" that called you during dinner or while Survivor was on television, I did inbound, not outbound. For the better part of 1997 I worked for West Teleservices here in Omaha, Nebraska. I started the job as a quick fix to get some money, and yah, stayed longer than I should have.

I don't really recall what I was making an hour when I started working there, it was decent pay to a kid fresh out of college, a college in a town where you couldn't make more than 6 dollars an hour doing anything. I had just moved to Omaha, and I was going to do the whole telemarketing thing for a couple months. I didn't know what to expect, I figured everyone that you would talk to would be pissy and irritable. That's hardly the case at all. With inbound, people are calling you, and they are in most cases ordering something they saw on television, in a magazine, heard on the radio, etc. West handled everything from The Eurosealer to Valtrex medicine for herpes. If nothing else, it was an interesting job.

I met a truly wide variety of people there. I use the word variety as a friendly term, because I imagine freaks could just as easily describe a lot of them. Take PAHA for instance. PAHA was really strange, for really only one reason. He was an older guy, probably around 55, and he liked to talk a lot. No big deal, right? Well, until you walk into the bathroom and see him standing in front of the urinal with his pants around his ankles, hence the name, P.A.H.A. Yes, that's right, he would stand there bare assed in front of the urinal, taking a leak. Nothing like a good reason to leave and come back later, especially because he would still talk to you while you are trying to take a leak, it was a little unnerving to be quite truthful.

There were gay guys, lesbian women, there was even a guy that always smelled horribly like cat urine. My friend Alfonzo and I would hint at that guy, trying somehow to let him know how bad he stunk. We would ask "Do you own a cat" or "How many cats do you own" and so forth, but the guy would say he didn't own a cat, which was perplexing. Finally one day Alfonzo flat out told the guy that he smelled really bad, because it got to the point where you would smell the guy coming before you even saw him.

Alfonzo is one of my best friends to this day. He might be black, but you would swear that he and I are brothers, perhaps in another life or something. We had a lot of fun at West, he was one of the reasons, well, about the only reason I look back fondly on that job. Later on he took another position on the 'floor' while I got promoted twice, the second promotion ended up with the one and only time I ever got fired in my life, after ONE WEEK on the job.

I got fired for 'being belligerent on the telephone' to a senior West Teleservices vice president, which was odd, because I was never on the phones that day. My direct supervisor knew this but she never supported me a bit. I didn't like her anyway, she and I just didn't click, I could see that from day one. So I didn't let it bother me too much. It hurt to be fired, but in that situation, when it was under less than truthful circumstances on their part, I wasn't bothered all that much by it.

Rather Annoyed Tonite

I love Nebraska football, I always have. Guess that stems from Nebraska being number one in the country the day I was born, and that Nebraska has won 5 national titles since 1971 and more in the last 10 years than any other school (3).

But tonite I'm really irritated with Nebraska football, our athletic director, the boosters, and a lot of our fans. Nebraska Coach Frank Solich was fired tonite, on the verge of a possible 10 win season (with a win in an upcoming bowl game). I can't believe the insanity of all this. All I can hope is that there is something I don't know that is going on. He's the sixth winningest active coach in the NCAA right now, and his record is basically identical to what Tom Osbornes was at the same point in both of their careers.

I have this impending sense of dread and doom about all of this, about several seasons of chaos and mediocrity, and the true end to any chance for Nebraska to ever return to dominance, something they did for more than 30 years until last year's 7-7 season. Going 9-3 thus far, and a chance at 10-3 in the bowl game this year, should have been enough to save this man's job. But the unreal expectations of a few outweighed the opinions of the many in this case. I am afraid of what is going to happen during the next few seasons for my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers.

All Around The Turkey Breast Is Turkey (With Bits Of Wing, Thigh, Neck, Etc.)

I went to the store tonite, to purchase an extra pie shell, seems the pie my significant other was making had a LOT of filling to it. So while there, I decided to purchase a turkey breast, because I wasn't sure yet what we were doing for Thanksgiving dinner.

Now, I have never bought a turkey before, so as I walked down the Turkey Section (I will call it that, because for this time of year, the turkey has seemingly it's own section, the GobbleGobble Group, right next door to the ham, in the Porker Portion. I gave these sections there own names, because, well, they didn't have names yet). I realized as I looked around at the other bewildered men, all staring at the hundreds of types of turkeys, that I didn't know shit about fowl, and neither did they. I have never seen a more satisfied look on a meat worker's face than the guy going around to and from, person to person, explaining what was what to anyone who needed help. Never has one man donned in a bloody apron had so much power over so many at one time.

I found what I figured was the right thing, it did SAY turkey breast, and I brought it home. Of course, I get in the door and get it out and the laughing starts. I'm not sure if I did anything wrong, but the package stated something around the order of "Turkey Breast, including bits of thigh, chunks of wing, scraps of neck, etc." as though it was some Frankensteinish freak bird or something. I think I did pretty good myself, I bought the Turkey Breast PLUS version of turkey, I mean, who wants to settle for just the breast when you have all the makings for turkey nuggets too? Well, I suppose you need the turkey lips and buttcheeks for the nuggets, and I don't know if those are attached to the breast, probably not. Do turkeys even have buttcheeks? How do they sit down?

As you can see, my general lack of knowledge about turkeys doesn't stop with just the breast. God help me if I ever went on a date with a turkey. I would need a road map to get to first base. Wait, I have dated some turkeys. Well, figuratively speaking, that is*spits feathers out of mouth*. I think I'm going to just stick to the mashed potatos and stuffing tomorrow, that turkey business is downright confusing.

Jim Rome, Ignoramus

I drive around quite a bit at work, as most of you know. I enjoy listening to music mostly, but I need variety to avoid getting bored out of my mind, and so I listen to quite a bit of sport's radio. We get two stations in Omaha, ESPN 1620 AM and Fox 1490 AM. In the morning the listening is pretty good, 1620 has Mike and Mike in the Morning, one Mike is Mike Golic, an emmy winning ex NFL player, and they are witty and pretty knowledgeable about sports. I'm not sure who Fox has on as their morning guy, but he's not too bad either. Both programs are nationally syndicated, as are most of the programs on both stations during the day. Unfortunately, on 1490, at noon each weekday, they put the Jim Rome show on for 3 hours.

If you have never heard of Jim Rome, you are fortunate. For those of us who have heard of him, he is the epitome of ignorance and pessimistic review, he bashes everyone, yet the closest he ever got to playing sports was licking the sweat off Bill Walton's jock strap, I don't think Rome ever even played college sports, much less any pro sport of any kind. He is a complete pompous ass and a disgrace to the sport's media profession. He has his own special name for the brain dead tards that actually follow his show and write in and call him, he calls them 'Clones'.

His interviews are absolutely atrocious. Rome can spend a week bashing a guy, then he'll have the guy on his show on the following Monday, and he's got the knee pad's on doing a Monica Lewinsky on his guest, as though his guest is the greatest guy he's EVER had on. I suppose he is like this because of his history...

Years ago on ESPN2, probably the funniest thing I have ever seen in sports, or at least in the top 10, occurred in 1994. ESPN2 was a relatively new channel, a 'spin-off' if you will, from ESPN. A show called Talk2 had started the year before, and was hosted by Jim Rome, who was relatively unknown at the time. Basically, all that Rome was known for was his insulting comments towards people. Jim Everett was an NFL quarterback at the time, playing for the New Orlean Saints. Unfortunately for Everett, he had gotten several concussions and was seriously considering retiring.

Jim Rome, being the ass monkey that he is, spent about 2 years calling Everett "Chris Everett", trying to compare Everett to the tennis player, saying he was not a real man at all. So then came the day when Jim Everett was a guest on Talk2:

http://home.swbell.net/jdougs/everett.mpeg

(I am not linking it, some people can't get it to work that way, copy paste this into your address bar on your browser.)

If you can't see it, basically Everett tells Rome not to call him Chris again, and of course, Rome, being a childish idiot, calls him Chris. Everett tosses the table that separated them and smacks Rome around and then right off the stage, it's really the crowning moment for Jim Rome in his broadcast career, and almost immediately afterwards he was fired from ESPN. Rome should have invited Chris Everett on the show too, so she could kick his ass for being a chauvanistic pig.

Unfortunately, this was not the end of Mr. Rome. Fox, who specializes in the hiring of baboons and other primates, hired Rome to do a radio show for them. And for the last 8 years or so that is what he has done, much to the irritation of any human with a brain. So, he has spent his time ridiculing and insulting everyone he can in any sport you can imagine, from baseball to football to NASCAR to the Olympics, his rectal rhetoric knows no boundaries. He uses moronic slang, calling money "mad jack", and of course, his "clones" comments. And what an egomaniac, he finishes almost every interview with "wow, that was just an amazing interview, I'm so good, look at me, blah blah blah."

Then, for whatever stupid reason, ESPN was moronic enough to hire Rome's lame dimwitted ass back on, for a show called "Rome Is Burning". I won't ever watch it, it's bad enough having to deal with him on the radio, much less having to look at his ugly face on television, the man, er, boy has no common sense at all as far as etiquette, and I'm sure he'll end up getting his ass kicked on television again, except, this time he doesn't actually have people on the show with him, they are 'teleconferenced' in with him.

I think the only way I would watch this show is if someone actually did light him on fire, then "Rome Is Burning" would really be a meaningful show to watch, a real family pleaser. Stay tuned to local listings for time and channel.

Hot November!!!

It was 75 degrees today!!! WOW, talk about amazing. Of course, I was at work, and because the sun is basically gone by the time I get off work, I was unable to exploit this beautiful day to the fullest, be it running naked thru the park or protesting war protesters with a bullhorn, but non the less, it was a truly wonderful day.

I think to myself about how nice it would be if it were this temperature year round. Move to San Diego you say? Nah, learn to swim in the Arizona Bay, I say. I would have to say though that I like the heat of summer, the 100 degree temperatures that other people shy away from, I thrive in. And I would probably miss the snow and cold (I know, am I crazy???) if I got away from it, even though I tend to cuss up a storm about it sometimes in the winter around here.

I think that during the winter, I have time (lots of time) to really appreciate how nice the spring/summer really is around here. Nothing like the first 2 or 3 minutes in your car at 7:30 in the morning on a monday on your way to work, to make you think about the summertime, and how nice the mornings are during the summer.

I really did want to go for a jog tonite, but I realized that it had dropped about 20 degrees in 2 minutes once the sun disappeared. Oh well, such is life in the frozen wasteland that is the midwest during the bleak months of winter. ***This paragraph brought to you by Dairy Queen Blizzards, you want a really cool treat? Try a Dairy Queen Blizzard treat, now in Turkey and Stove Top Flavor!!!***

Legalized Robbery

Credit card companies certainly do make a hefty living ripping off the general public. Why is it that you can put money into a bank account and not get more than 3 percent interest on it right now, yet the interest on the credit card is 19%??? Wow, that really makes a lot of sense? Whatever. And God help you if you go over your limit. They nail you with an 'over your limit' fee each month that is more than your minimum payment. If by some chance, you are lucky enough to get back below your limit, if you pay the minimum payment each month, it will take you approximately 415 years to pay the card off, good luck. Even better, send in your monthly payment with under 15 days left till the cut off date, and they won't get it credited to your account on time, WOW, another fee!!! THANK YOU AGAIN!!!

Call them to complain about it, and you get to talk to a trained baboon who's only excuse is "well, you know, the post office takes up to 15 days to get your payment to us." Yes, I suppose that is why every letter you ever send someone never takes more than 3 days, and in most cases is there the next day. I guess that's just a conspiracy by the United States Post Office to screw over the poor helpless credit card companies and we should feel sorry for them and agree to paying stupid fees that accrue, yeah that's the ticket. I don't know what sort of sense credit card companies make. They basically wait for a person to fall down, then they run up and kick you in the head as hard as they can.

Even more fun: I get a letter from my card company that says "Your credit rating has changed, we now consider you a risk, we are raising your interest rate from 19% to 29%." Of course, I called to ask them why it had changed, and the baboon that answered the phone just grunted in my ear, had no answers, and ate a banana.

Just for fun, let's apply credit card mentality to a life situation:

For the following scenario:

your credit card = boat
dollars = people
credit card company = coast guard
drop in credit rating = crack in boat

Problem:

A boat is out in the ocean, there are too many people on the boat, and the boat is starting to sink, they need some help bad!!!

Coast Guard:

Tell them the only way to save themselves is to get people off the boat, all the while putting more people into the boat. Oh, you waited too long to get people off the boat, you get more people added into the boat. What? The boat can only hold 1000 people and you have 1020 people on the boat?? PUT 50 MORE PEOPLE ON THE BOAT!!! What? The boat develops a slight crack in it? ADD IN 10 MORE PEOPLE PER MINUTE!!

I think we can all see what happens here, the boat sinks. Oh, one more:

boat sinks = bankruptcy

It's really confusing actually. And you call and try to work with them and all they really want to do, to let you get people off your boat, is add a few more in. Talk about frustrating. And sure, you can say "you are the one that ran the limit up on your card." I suppose that is a fair statement, but that doesn't give these companies the right to bend a guy over the coach with sandpaper, now does it?

I guess a quick and easy way to pay off credit cards would be a new law. Every time a credit card company sends me a credit card application in the mail, they have to include a dollar bill with the application. It's really weird, I have such a bad rating, but they continue to send me application after application. "Sorry folks, I can only pilot one boat at a time, and this one is sinking fast okay?" If I get a dollar for every application they send in the mail, I should get my card paid off after I get about 1100 applications. That should take, oh, about 2 months. I wonder if I have the power to get that law passed? Yeah, good luck on that one.

Mortality Rears It's Ugly Head

I have been relatively healthy my entire life. This is a combination of things. I have reasonably good family background as far as heart disease and cancer (I'm young yet so I haven't given a lot of that thought), I have been lucky enough to avoid pitfalls such as car accidents, and addictions such as cigarettes or worse. I also enjoy working out, where as most people would sooner eat their own underwear than go run a mile.

The last year or so has brought about certain realities though. I can no longer 'cheat' my way to performing well on my physical training test for the military (work out for 2 weeks and overextend my abilities to score well). At this last school I went to, from 10/25 to 11/6/03, I had to do a PT test, and I did worse than I've ever done, even when I was at basic. I only did 47 pushups, and I ran the 2 mile a full minute slower than I ever have (12:57). I was quite disappointed.

Well, as the days went on (we took that test on the second day there), I began to feel a soreness in my chest. Subtle at first, then it slowly got worse. Felt like my heart was going to explode at times. It got to a point where it became hard to sleep. At 31 years of age, the idea of my heart failing was really scary, to be quite honest.

I go into the doctor tomorrow to find out what it is. I have an idea already. I would think that if it were a serious heart problem, it would have gradually showed up, where as this seems to have popped up in a matter of two days. I think I caught some sort of infection or virus when I did my run way too hard, and it has caused the tissue around my heart and/or lungs to become swollen, either from infection or from fluid building up. Either way it hurts pretty bad sometimes.

I sit and wonder about things, it's hard to not have that 'ideal body', and to deal with the problems that arise as you get older. I know I need glasses, for instance, but it's almost as though getting the glasses is like admitting that I'm imperfect, and you know, I'm just not ready to do that yet? *blah, I do need the glasses though, getting to a point where I can't read highway signs at night*.

From this point on I realize I need to work that much harder at eating healthy and maintaining an active lifestyle that includes running, walking, biking, and my usual pushups and situps. But even with that, do I need to consider something other than situps to avoid hurting my back? Heh, the things I have to begin thinking of... I may not be ready for them, but my body is sure ready to force the stinking issue.

The Despised "Leap Year"

Next year is that year that comes around every four years, the one that I despise. No, I'm not talking about the traditional "Leap Year" that we all know of, I'm talking about that nasty, stinking, annoying, pure crap presidential election year, and all I have to say about that is a resounding YUCK YUCK BLECK!!!

Every day, we will be blasted with a stinking plethora of steamy political bullshit, a veritable cornucopia of oral feces in the form of news, commercials, editorials, etc, on the radio, on television, in the newspaper, on billboards. It will be force fed to us, 'the masses', as though we are all babies and this is our Gerber Political Food and we need to eat it to survive.

I would love to say that I will be boycotting all of it, but I'm too much of a news junkie myself to avoid reading the paper, or traveling to www.yahoo.com to see the headlines, or catching the latest news breaks on CNN.

I have to wonder sometimes: was it always like this? I mean, nowadays, rather than run on any real political platform with easy to understand agendas and clear cut opinions on the issues that concern 'the masses', presidential hopefuls instead spend all their time trying to make all the other candidates look worse than themselves. By the time November rolls around, each candidate has degraded himself, and been degraded by others to such an extent that it's like choosing the best pile of horse dung; none seem to be good, so you look for the one that has the least stink.

Was there ever a time when the candidates campaigned on their own opinions, when they let us all know what they thought, where their passions lay? If there was, I sure don't remember it. And here we go again, another leap year filled with the stench of waist deep spouting political bullshit, try not to drown folks.

Random Thoughts On The Highway

I spend a lot of time driving around at work. I am still doing the whole windshield delivery thing, but I hope to get into something else sometime in November, but for now just to be working and supporting myself is good enough. There are several reasons why I'm going to move on from this job though.

I find myself yelling at other drivers more than I ever have before, now this doesn't mean I'm actually leaning out my window and yelling obscenities at them and giving them the middle finger (well, not usually anyways, most often I reserve that sort of behavior for family and co-workers). But I sit in the cab of my truck and silently mutter under my breath about the ignorance and stupidity of other drivers. What is bad about this is that the things those drivers are doing are things that I do in my own car when I'm not at work, so what right do I have to be that way? Although, there are some especially bad drivers that I reserve the most vehement attitudes for, those that are out and out dangerous and those that are just purely stupid. I tend to be an aggressive driver in my own vehicle but that doesn't necessarily make me a bad driver. But when I find myself driving the company vehicle sometimes like I would my own then there in lies a problem.

Another reason is the heavy lifting. Now, a windshield in and of itself is not all that heavy, well, some are, but most aren't too bad. But when you are lifting them while standing way up in a cage on a forklift it's precarious and twice now I've thrown my back out doing it. Plus at the end of the day I go and try to work out, be it running a few miles or doing a couple hundred push ups and situps, and I find myself tiring very easily.

I could also attribute that last part to the rampant cigarette smoking that goes on at work, I can't handle being around that, it makes my eyes hurt and I would swear it contributes to me having a sore throat and ear aches too. Add in the fact that there is no upward mobility within the company, and that the company doesn't give a crap about it's employees (we were on 410 days or so without an lost time injury at work, and there is supposed to be a pizza party every 100 days, and no pizza was ever given, no party either), put it all together and I realize I should begin looking for employment elsewhere.

Don't get me wrong, I like the people, for the most part anyways. One tends to be really lazy, but I can handle that for the most part. It's rare I've ever worked anywhere where I actually got along with everyone I worked with.

A little side note, I have noticed the "YELLOW" fleet trucks out on the interstate, and one question comes to mind. Why isn't that company called "ORANGE"??? The truck is NOT yellow, that is for sure, it's a very, very orange shade. Anyways, just a random rambling there.

World's Scariest Special Effects Editing

I'm not sure how long those police video shows have been on now, the ones that have actual police footage from cruisers and helicopters of people running from the police. I would say about 10 years now? When they first came out, they were really interesting. I guess that's because for the first couple of years they were working with probably about 20 years worth of video, and able to use the cream of the crop.

But now you watch the show and it's just a watered down version of what it once was, probably because they ran out of decent footage and have had to resort to the use of the crap that never made it into the earlier shows.

That doesn't so much bother me, you can't have all great footage when you've used a lot of the best stuff so far. What really annoyed me one night was a sudden realization about "World's Wildest Police Chases". As I was watching, I realized that the helicopter guy's voice sounded just like the voice of a sheriff involved in a chase in Georgia from previous footage on the same show.

This is because nearly every sound on that show is added in. This is something they didn't do when they first started making the show. I find the 'added' tire squealing, sirens, and crashing noises to be irritating, but that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is when the show adds in the voices of cops to the video. No cop in his right mind says something like "Okay, there he goes, he's crossing traffic, WOAH HE GOT CLOSE THERE, he just came back into my lane" and on and on, they don't give a running commentary over the police radio like that, they never do.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the show doesn't need all that extra gobbledeegoop to make it work, it does well enough on it's own. Adding in fake asinine sirens and 'officer narration' is just the same as lying about what is going on in the first place. Heck, who knows, maybe those are actually blood thirsty goblins driving those police cars and it's the innocent humans trying to get away from them. What? It could happen!!

Oh, one more related note, Paul Stojanovich, a former producer of COPS who produced World's Wildest Police chases, fell off a cliff while his fiancé was taking his picture and he died. Talk about wierd... do you think his fiancé has a video of it? World's Wildest Cliff Accidents, coming to a television near you.

Sorry I've Been Complacent

I am going to try to add a post a day until I leave the 25th for my two weeks of military schooling. I have been looking forward to this for some time now but I'm also very disappointed in the timing because it will not allow me to attend my sweetheart's sister's wedding, which would have been a wonderful time to meet her extended family, and to meet even her sister whom I have yet to meet.

I wish the Nebraska Military Department would have gotten me into the earlier class this month but they did not. I will be attending ANCOC, advanced non commissioned officer course, to be at least eligible for my next promotion in rank to E-7, Sergeant First Class.

Anyways, back to the reason I'm posting, I am cleaning off the cobwebs and getting to work in here again, going for a month and a half is way too long between posts.