alt.startrek.wesley.die.die.die

I won the Perkins Poker Tournament of Champions last night. Nine went in, only one came out. (me.) Sweet, sweet vindication... I finally got all my money back from all those times I pushed with premium hands against Heidi "I thought I might get something if I called" Hogenson. (she did, without fail)

And this isn't really news any more (2 days old), but it's new to me, and freakin' sweet: A Slashdot interview with Wil Wheaton.

new record

oh, i forgot.

shot a -11 on the frolf course yesterday.

i rule.

ann coulter

so it's half past three, according to my fuzzy clock.

I can't sleep. Maybe it's because I fell asleep for a couple hours around 7 last evening.

So for the last three hours, I've been reading the best of craigslist. That I can stay focused on one task for so long speaks to the entertainment found therein. I had a couple of ideas for new posts, but all of them were wiped away once I read this story.

I knew deep in my heart of hearts that I had found today's post.

god, I hate ann coulter.

all grown up

"I'm not a child any more, I'm an adult. I can buy my own insurance and everything."

- FLCL

geek out

I did a couple of geeky things today.

My phone battery was running low, so I thought I'd stab it with the charger dongle, you know, to recharge it. Unfortunately, the charger didn't fit into its slot. Curious, I peered into the little gap in the bottom of my treo. There are 14 little brass pins that stick straight at you, a bit like a nintendo cartridge. Four of them were bent out towards the sides of the gap, preventing the dongle from connecting to them or any of their brethren. Nervous about snapping the little bent bastards off, and doing my best to be gentle, I took the smallest possible implement on my trusty gerber multi-tool and ever-so-slowly bent them back into position, or at least a position resembling the one they were in to begin with. Victory was mine a few minutes later, after restoring three of the four pins to their original condition. I'm not sure what the fourth one does, or if it's even necessary, because everything seems to work okay without it.

I also installed Tiger (OS update) on the iMac. I had to wipe the HD in order to install 10.4, and I've been busy ever since downloading software to replace the software I just erased. That, and Dashboard widgets. My first impression is that spotlight is awesome, but QuickSilver performs a similar task with a slightly different keystroke. Dashboard is also awesome... an alarm clock, Fox Trot, stir-fry recipes, the weather, Twins scores, a Word of the Day, and a reading from the Tao Te Ching... all by pressing F12.

I got my financial aid award letter today. They're willing to loan me money, more than enough to go to UND. hooray. Also heard back from the 10,000 lakes people. At least I have a job for four days, at the end of the month.

The vice president went to a hospital in Vail, CO yesterday. Not sure if this made the news, nothing good ever does any more, but the huffington post has mention or two of an "...angina attack" that everyone from here to the Beltway is denying. Sounds to me like the GOP wants to run Cheney in '08 and doesn't want anyone to be able to talk about the fact that the poor guy has had, like, seven heart attacks.

oh, and let me just say that Karl Rove is a FUCK. he is the ultimate pejorative. if I ever heard one of my kids say the words "karl rove," I would demand that they wash their mouths out with soap after I slap them until their lips bleed. he is not suitable for our elders, strangers, or girls we want to impress. he is DEFINITELY not suitable for customers or clients. Brilliant, victorious, blah, blah, yes. He is an EVIL FUCK. and a liar.

a terrible stnank

ACK! I have just made ... a terrible stnank.

I had a whole decent post right here, waiting to publish, and then my keyboard went totally insane. I ended up having to unplug the damn thing from the iMac.

I was writing about how awesome Augusten Burroughs is, again, and to tell you all that I just finished reading "Dry," his memoir about rehab (only 30 days, that wuss. I could write EIGHT books about 30-day rehab). Reading his tales of bizarro-things they make you do and bizarro-people that you meet, I found myself identifying with a frightening number of stylized caricatures and exaggerations of events that have happened to me, as well. He took it all to heart, though, whereas I always thought it was interesting, but mostly crap. And there he is, an ad agent writing books, and here I am. Here I am. what a terrible stnank.

I am also about to make what I hope is not a terrible stnank. I'm selling my car.

It may just be that I spent all of last winter indoors, and simply do not know what cold is any more, and will regret my decision once the weather turns frosty. However, the more I think about it, the more I'm okay with living the bipedal-ambulatory life. I'll be clean and green, helping America to free itself from its addiction to foreign oil. (No 12-step program for that, yet.) I'll walk, skate, or ride everywhere, giving myself the incredible gym-body that I know I deserve. I'll live within 20 minutes of school, and best of all, I won't have to get a job until school starts. It'll be magical. I will also be unable to drive drunk, drive too fast, annoy other drivers, or almost crash when I try to get my ringing phone out of my pocket while I'm driving.

Boy, this is sounding better all the time. Hey, you. Yeah, you, reading the blog. Wanna buy a '95 civic?

ja mata

From the Senate hearing on Iraq:

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va.: "Mr. Secretary, I've watched you with a considerable amount of amusement. ... I've been here a long time, longer than you have. ... I've seen a lot of secretaries of defense. ... I don't think I've ever heard a secretary of defense who likes to lecture the committee as much as you. ...

"You may not like our questions but we represent the people. ... We ask the questions that the people ask of us whether you like it or not. ... The problem is we didn't ask enough questions at the beginning of this war that we got into, Mr. Bush's war. ...

"I don't mean to be discourteous. I've just heard enough of your smart answers to these people here who are elected. ... So get off your high horse when you come up here."

Rumsfeld didn't respond to those remarks.

^_^

(it's raining. bummer.)

tool shed

Normally, my job is pretty easy. I've worked with many of my co-workers for a long time, and we generally get along pretty well. When I do something dumb, they're quick to forgive me, and I am willing to let things go if someobdy wrongs me. (not showing up for work, slacking off, goofing around when I'm trying to work, whatever) Usually the whole process takes five minutes.

This being said, one of the supervisors (J) is the biggest joke I've ever seen. Monday evening, we had a sudden rush of people at about 7:30 pm; the restaurant was probably 2/3 full in 10 minutes. There were only two of us left on the floor, and this made for a mad dash around the restaurant, my only goal to get all my orders taken so that the "where's my damn waiter?" faces would be wiped away.

Customers are generally indifferent to a sweating, out-of-breath waiter:
"Are you... ready... to... order?"
1: "Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.... I don't know, Margie, are you?"
2: "Ohhhhh.... I don't knooooooowwwwww...... Are you ready? I don't think I am, but I could decide in a minute.....
"
"I can... (catches breath) come back...?"
1: "No, no..... we're ready... I think................... I'll have........ gosh, there's so many things......."
2: "I think I'll.... yeah, I think I'll have the salmon."
"Great. Which two dinner sides would you like?"
2: "Oh, you get sides? I hadn't even looked at those. Where are they? Goodness, there's so many!!!"

Meanwhile, I can hear the couple at the table next to my time-burglars drumming their fingers on the table, waiting not-very-patiently.

So taking the orders takes plenty of time in and of itself. If I had to run all my beverages and all my food, it would have been an unmitigated disaster. Luckily, J was not working. The supervisor and the hosts coordinated to make sure all my tables had their beverages before I even got there, and that my trays were taken out when they were ready if I wasn't there to take care of them. They probably lightened my workload by a third, sometimes even going back and forth to get the random items people want after you bring their food (more ranch dressing, napkins, ketchup, more ranch dressing, refills, and one more side of ranch dressing, please). If they hadn't, I would've been sunk.

If J had been working, he would have seated every table, told me and the other waitress where they were seated, and then gone back up to the lobby and told another story to the hosts about one of his many girlfriends, or about how much protein he needs to consume to get bigger muscles, or something. If things had gotten really out of hand, he would have gone back to help the cooks. He would not have gotten anything for any of the tables, and would have left us to ask him and the hosts for help (not really feasible when you've got ten things to do.) So, all I can say is praise be that he wasn't there to sink us.

So that's the kind of guy he is. A week ago, it was 10 pm, two hours away from closing. There were maybe six tables in the restaurant, and the pantry was clean and stocked, so the other waitress and I decided that one of us could go home. I owed her a chance to close alone, but she said she'd made enough money and would let me stay. I asked J if we could let her go, and this is what went down:

J: "Go ahead. It sounds like you made the decision anyways, I don't know why you're asking me."
me: "You're the boss; I just wanted you to be on the same page."
J: "If we were on the same page, I'd send both of you home."
me: (brings out stuff, comes back) "Hey, go for it. I've closed alone when I've supervised and it's been slow."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say.

J: "Do you want to go home?"
me: "Not especially, that's why I said I'd stay."
J: (points to waitress) "You stay." (points to me) "You go home."
me: "That's ridiculous! What are you gonna do, write me up? What for?"
J: (shouting) "If you get written up, it's your job. You'll get fired. Do you really wanna lose your job over this? I don't want to hear any more of your smart comments!"
me: (thinks about it, remains silent, clocks out, goes home)

So I talk to the general manager the next morning. A couple days later, she sits us both down to "hear both sides of the story." J gets there before I do and spends ten or fifteen minutes speaking heatedly to her. She calls me over and sits me down, telling me in very nice language that she doesn't especially want to hear my side of the story. I am then dressed down for having the audacity to "smart off" to my supervisor after he decided to send me home.

GM: "Anything you want to say?"
me: ".....no, I guess not."
J: "I want to hear what he has to say. I think he's got a lot of stuff on his mind."
me: "You sure?"
J: "Yeah."
me: "Okay. I think you're a terrible supervisor. I don't think you have the chops to manage people. You yell at my customers, you yell at the emp---"
J: "Okay, let me get a couple of things straight. I'm not the only one who yells or screws around. The one time I yelled at someone else, I had a valid reason...(continues talking for several minutes about specific instances in the past). I respect you, dusty, because I can rely on you. I know my servers, and I know that I can make the floor a specific way that plays to your strengths. I know that I can put kelsey in section 1 and you in section 2 every night and you'll both do fine, because you're my strongest servers."

(what J apparently doesn't realize is that kelsey HATES section 1 and will desperately try to give it away. I'm never in section 2; that's kelsey's favorite section. I always end up someplace else. I'm not sure if J is just making this up as he goes, or if he just misspoke, or what, but even though he might look like he knows what's going on, he's just revealing his ignorance/indifference.)

J: "....(talks a while)...do you have anything else?"
me: (thinks a second) "...nope. Look, I just want to wait my tables, get my tips, and go home. Can I go now?"

After this, I considered the matter closed. J and I worked together that night, made a couple of jokes, and he let me go without even checking my clean-up work at the end of my shift. (I left a bunch of silverware unwrapped..naughty naughty!) Since then, we've been on decent terms.

When I was talking to the GM the first time about J's psycho-freak-out, one of the kitchen supervisors came up and said that he could hear J freaking out from in the dining room. J was not very happy that someone else came to my defense, and tracked the other kitchen supe down at his OTHER job to yell at him and declare their friendship over. Whatever; I want to stay as far away from that conflict as I can.

Two nights ago, somebody slashed J's tires when he was at work. That's pretty dumb; I mean, I think the guy's a tool shed, but that's no reason to make him spend another 300 bucks on another new set of tires.

old coffee

I woke up yesterday at about 12:30 pm after a very long and restful sleep, broken only a couple of times for long slurps of water from the bathroom tap so as not to rouse myself any more than necessary by going up and down the stairs. As is my custom if I don't have to be anyplace right after I wake up, I went downstairs and brewed a pot of coffee with the last of my precious beans. (Random fact: In the 15 and 1600s, if a Turkish man could not keep enough coffee in his household, his wife would have cause to divorce him.) Drinking three large cups, I promptly forgot about the remaining brew as I went about the business of my day.

Fast-forward to about 4:30 this morning. Still awake, and resigned to the fact that I will be awake for quite a while, I decide upon a late-night snack and make my way down to the fridge. Lo and behold, the coffeepot is still on. I turn it off, carve out a slice of gigantic, greasy pizza, and return to my room to read.

A few hours later, I have finished reading "Magical Thinking," a memoir I devoured like a pint of Ben and Jerry's after a long night of smoking weed. The book was written by Augusten Burroughs, whom I now love and admire with all my heart. (Obligatory blog link here.) Needless to say, it was a fantastic book, spurring me onward to either read or borrow the remaining two books of his that I have not read. I also suddenly feel compelled to finish reading the collected works of David Sedaris.

My task complete, and the sun now risen, I feel like I should pretend that it is a new day, and I had plenty of rejuvenating sleep instead of fascinating bookreading. I trod downstairs and microwave the last bit of super-dense coffee, adding a bit of water to replace the liquid that evaporated over the 16 hours the coffee was resting, waiting for a drinker.

I've lived in a couple of places for short enough periods of time to never really get acquainted with the neighborhood. I don't want to let that happen here; for one, I hope to stay in this house for a good while, and for two, this neighborhood is much too pleasant to remain a stranger. So, I took one of our newly-acquired lawn chairs and sat in our backyard as the sun warmed my face, sipping my super-coffee, listening to the birds, and admiring all our little trees.

The coffee cup I purchased in SF is missing. One of my roommates has apparently used it and not returned it to the cupboard yet; I am mildly disappointed, as I was hoping it would become MY COFFEE CUP. I even got my mother a matching one from this awful little tourist trap by the bay called "After the Quake Shopping Zone." As I understood it, the quake in '89 left the nearby freeway in pancake form atop another section of freeway, causing massive damage. So, if the only thing left After the Quake is rubble, what exactly am I buying? Why would you name your store that? And why would it be so successful? Regardless, I am drinking coffee from one of the big black mugs plentiful in our kitchen, and the coffee is so thick it looks like the cup has a false bottom that slips further and further away the more that I drink. As I reach the final sip, the thought, the feeling, and the retching all combine into one certain truth: this coffee is shockingly, startlingly awful.

sisters

Making fun of people is a popular and difficult pastime. It's easy to rip on someone with vulgar words, attacks on masculinity/femininity/promiscuity, or even just by saying the same thing they say in a funny voice.

These, of course, are all bush-league tactics. To get the big laughs, one must be intimately acquainted with their victim, as well as intensely frustrated by something the victim said or did. (Simply retelling a funny story will sometimes lead the teller to start laughing, which ruins a story faster than rain ruins a cookout.)

These are but a few factors involved in proper mockery, but the thesis they support remains the same: If you want to hear something hilarious about somebody else, ask their older sister. (brother will work in a pinch.) Two sisters, one 23 and one 20, work at Perkins with me. The older one does an impression of her little sister borne from many years of irritation and frustration, and the crowning glory is this little snort-laugh-choke noise she makes. It's very quick, and it makes the younger sister sound like a half-tard, complete with lazy eye, thick lips, and coke-bottle glasses. It is also the funniest sound in the world, rendering myself and a co-worker unable to do anything but laugh for a good five minutes. The only problem with this story is that it cannot be shared by anybody but the older sister, as nobody else can make the sound.

Here is an article that lends support to something I've been saying for years. The very existence of a gene like this makes it more likely that there is an analogue in humans that explains a lot about why we are the way we are. There is, however, anecdotal evidence that straight guys occasionally bat for the other team, as it were. Any thoughts?

victory

there was an arcade down towards the pier, and they had a tekken 5 machine, which i had never played... i proved that i am a better tekken player than any of my friends when i beat kevin maybe 40 times.