Monday, February 28, 2005

I don't know what to title this.

  1. February is ending and soon my time in the city will be.
  2. The semen trees are blooming and stinking.
  3. In a week, at most, the only comments here will be the blogger created ones.
  4. And the good news from 2500 miles away is: Heels and Logic are going to have a baby.

1. Last year, the month ended a day late, and I wasn't a dollar short. This year, the month is ending right on time, and I'm more than a dollar short.

I went and spoke with the manager of the apartments today, she took my last month's rent and gave me a paper to fill out because SlackBastard is leaving this building at the end of the month as well. The lady in the office was nice, which is always a plus when I have to do something that is some form of confrontation.

I'm trying to get WWGG to take my shift on Thursday so I can head up to Cow Town and drop off stuff at my parent's house.

2. There are these trees all over Cow City that just started to bloom. They have little white blossoms, which are quite nice to look at. The problem is, they stink. And it's not normal stink that can get blown away by a breeze. No. This stink is heavy and thick. A hurricane couldn't blow this stink away. I swear I can feel it collecting on my clothes. For once I'm fortunate that I carry with me the overpowering stench of coffee.

And then there's the name I gave them at the top of this. That is exactly what these blossoms smell like.

Just imagine that smell greeting you every time you step out the front door.

Oh, in case you're wondering, I'm not the prevert who recognized that smell, that would be the old Assistant Manger #2, the one who left 'Bucks in December. She told me the name last spring when I was bitching about the stench.

3. I was looking through the old things I've written and I wanted to see some of the comments you, the readers have left over the last year and few months. Unfortunately, your comments are no longer on the posts that came before November, but not for much longer, I think, and I've started to move your comments into the blogger ones.

I thought that I would be able to do it all in one day, but, for some reason, I'm only allowed to move twenty or so posts a day and I've already used up today's posts.

You may as well keep using the HaloScan ones until they're gone, forever.

4. It was the first personal letter I've gotten in my gmail account and it was wonderful. I think I had a smile on my face for an hour after.

My only fear is that after so many months of trying to make this child the process of making it wasn't as much fun anymore. Boy, I hope I'm wrong on that.

5. And there's this:



Your Brain is 60.00% Female, 40.00% Male

Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female
You are both sensitive and savvy
Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed
But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve




Which doesn't really do anything for me.

Friday, February 25, 2005

Gizoogle

I've been playin' with Gizoogle tonight. I've looked at all the blogs on my list. The best were Gizoogled Queenie and Gizoogled Suzifitz.

Trizz-i it your S-to-tha-izzelf.

The Oscars, 2005

Since they're coming up this Sunday, I figured I better do my, hopefully, annual list of who I want to win, even if they won't actually pull it off.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE
Don Cheadle - HOTEL RWANDA
Johnny Depp - FINDING NEVERLAND
Leonardo DiCaprio - THE AVIATOR
Clint Eastwood - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Jamie Foxx - RAY

So, I only saw Ray, which was better than I expected, and The Aviator, which was longer than I expected. Both of these actors were good, and, if you're betting, Jamie Foxx is the most likely to pull it off. The guy who should win, even though I haven't seen his movie is Don Cheadle. I'm constantly impressed by him when he's on screen. I want him to win because he should have been nominated years ago, especially for his part in Traffic. PS Where's Paul Giamatti nomination? Two years in a row he's been screwed over by not being nominated for outstanding leading roles! When will those Academy bastards give him some recognition?!

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE
Annette Bening - BEING JULIA
Catalina Sandino Moreno - MARIA FULL OF GRACE
Imelda Staunton - VERA DRAKE
Hilary Swank - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Kate Winslet - ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND

Wouldn't it be fun to see Annette Bening beat Hilary Swank this time around? Bening should have won for American Beauty all those years ago, too bad she's not most deserving this year. This year the Oscar should go to Kate Winslet. Her performance blew me away. The way she was both sweet and a bitch. The way she played a memory who just didn't want to be eliminated. Wonderful.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Alan Alda - THE AVIATOR
Thomas Haden Church - SIDEWAYS
Jamie Foxx - COLLATERAL
Morgan Freeman - MILLION DOLLAR BABY
Clive Owen - CLOSER

You'll hear a lot from me on Sidways later on in this post, but here the man with an alliterative name, Alan Alda, should take the gold phallic shaped man. He was such a great asshole, searching for the way to be the top man in the country by taking one down.

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE
Cate Blanchett - THE AVIATOR
Laura Linney - KINSEY
Virginia Madsen - SIDEWAYS
Sophie Okonedo - HOTEL RWANDA
Natalie Portman - CLOSER

Bam! Virginia Madsen should win! Sure, Cate Blanchett was a hot Kate Hepburn, but I don't think she got to show the huge range of emotions that Madsen got to show in Sideways. Madsen made me fall in love with Maya from the beginning and feel all her hurt when she learns the truth and then understand the need to make the phone call later.

DIRECTING
THE AVIATOR
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
RAY
SIDEWAYS
VERA DRAKE


So, once again, Martin Scorsese gets a pity nomination for best director. He should have won in 1980 for Raging Bull and the Academy is trying to make up for that fuck-up. He's not the person who deserves to win, though; that person is Alexander Payne for Sideways. I can't really describe the melancholy perfection that is this movie. I can only say you need to go and see it yourself. Payne is the main cause, since he directed it and co-wrote the screenplay. Give this man an award.

MUSIC (SCORE)
FINDING NEVERLAND
HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN
LEMONY SNICKET'S A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST
THE VILLAGE


John Williams has not, in my opinion, written a better score than the one he wrote for Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. It has the amazing Potter theme he wrote for the first movie and it has more. It seems to me that Williams was willing to play with the music like the director was willing to play with the scenery. Go Williams!

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
BEFORE SUNSET
FINDING NEVERLAND
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES
SIDEWAYS


Guess which one I want to win? Don't be an asshole, I want Sideways to win. I can't help it. This movie ruled. Go see it.

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY)
THE AVIATOR
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND
HOTEL RWANDA
THE INCREDIBLES
VERA DRAKE


A large chunk of me would like to see The Incredibles win because it was fun, fast, and funny, but the winner should be (and probably will be) Charlie Kaufman's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Honestly, it if was up for best picture, this is the movie I'd choose. Kaufman crafted a masterpiece of twists and turns, never showing where he was leading us. Best movie out last year.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
THE INCREDIBLES
SHARK TALE
SHREK 2


What moron put Shark Tale in this category? That movie wasn't best anything. Even that stupid Disney movie Home on the Range was better and it sucked. Why not nominate The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, that was as funny as Shrek 2 and as charming as anything else out there? Probably because it was traditional cel animation and not CG animation, fuckers. Anyhow, the winner should and will be The Incredibles. The Incredibles gave me a grin throughout its entirety and on my walk out of the theater and for the rest of the day. Spectacular movie!

BEST PICTURE
THE AVIATOR
FINDING NEVERLAND
MILLION DOLLAR BABY
RAY
SIDEWAYS


Sideways. Do I need to say anything else?

Some days in the life of. . .

Yesterday, as usual, I get to work about ten minutes early and sit down on a folding chair in the back room to read. Just a bit a quiet time for myself before I have to serve people stuff they don't really need at prices they don't really want to pay just so they can look trendy to all the people out there who don't know them. (For those who are curious, at this current store most people don't look at customers the same way I do. Most of the people I work with actually think they are providing a service that is needed in this world and not just some useless luxury that helps to define how excessive this nation has become. Since I'm in the minority in this store and the stores I've subbed at, I assume I'm in the minority around the world. Just thought you'd like to know that most of the people serving you aren't thinking "Asshole" every time they hand you a drink.) I like to clear my mind with fiction.

I flipped the book open and read the entire first paragraph when Assistant Manager #1, who is soon to leave for a month before becoming a Shift Supervisor at some other store, turned to me and said, "You know how I get Chinese food sometimes." This clearly was not a question, but she waited for a response.

"Yeah," I said, wanting to throw my book at her.

"You know how I collect fortunes."

I didn't know this but I said, "Yeah," anyway.

"Well, I got this fortune cookie the other day and, well, do you know what it said?" She turned away to look at what ever was happening on the computer screen.

I rolled my eyes. How could I possible know what it said? Was I there the other day? Could I peer into her mind and pick out meaningless statements mass produced in Michigan? "No," I said, "I don't know what it said."

"Well, let me tell you," she said, still facing the computers. "I'll tell you what it said. I'll just tell you." She finally turned back to me. "It said 'God gave us two faces: the one we show in public and the one we keep for ourselves.'"

In my mind, I added the words "in bed" to the end of the fortune and chuckled silently. I didn't say a word, just looked at her lizard skin and blinked three or four times.

"I'm not like that," she said.

"Okay," I said, but didn't believe her. Everyone is different with certain people than they are with other people or when alone. Some are less different than others, but we all change some.

"I mean it, I'm not. I don't do that."

"Okay.

"I think. . . I don't even know what they were thinking when they wrote that one."

"Well," I said, "they probably mean that people show themselves in different ways around different peop--"

"I don't do that," she interrupted me. "I'm the same. I'm exactly the same here as I am at home."

"Okay," I said, but thought, Bullshit. I doubt you kiss your daughters ass like you do the DMs or the customers. And I really doubt you're the same person when you forget to take your Prozac.

"I just don't know how they could put something like that on a fortune cookie. I mean, it's not true. Not about me. Maybe about other people, but it's not true about me. Not at all true."

She kept going on like this. I was afraid she'd never stop so when she paused to take a breath I said, "It's funny how it starts with God, isn't it? The fortune, I mean."

Her breath got longer and her eyes narrowed, "Yeah, it is. I got this other fortune the other day and it said, 'God has found each of us our perfect part in His world." I took it out and gave it to [JCBG] and told her I got her fortune. She read it and said, 'Maybe He meant it for you.'"

She laughed from the belly. I laughed to cover up desire to run.


Last week, even though it feels more like a month ago, I got my hair cut. If I weren't the lazy person I am, I would have gotten it cut several months ago, but my desire to create a groove in the couch and spend less than $15 on a hair cut, it just happened recently. My hair was long, but not loooong; it was no where near my shoulders. But I got it cut short, very short. Like only two inches on the top so I can have something to "play with," if you call running a comb through your hair three time in the morning "play with."

Saturday, I went to Cow Town to drop of the first shipment of stuff to my parent's house, so no one at work got to see me without my tresses.

Monday, just before noon, I zipped into the parking lot after the long drive back from Cow Town. Work started at noon. I pulled myself out of the car and shuffled to the front door. BHHC sat at a table just outside the door on her lunch break.

"[ticknart], you got you hair cut," she said.

"All of them, actually."

"Your hair looks good."

"Thanks," I said, opening the door and heading in.

FLIG stood at the counter, bored, but waiting for the next customer. "You got your hair cut, [ticknart]."

"Yup, all of 'em." Which became my automatic response to the statement about a hair cut in 10th grade because it's what one of my favorite teachers always said it, along with "Pie are not squared, pie are round."

"Well," she said, "it looks real good."

"Thanks," I said, hitailing it to the back room for some alone time.

Fifteen minutes after I clocked on, JCBG walked in in her civvies looked at me, did a double-take and stepped closer to me.

"You got your hair cut, [ticknart], didn't you?" she asked.

"Each and every one," I said.

"Doesn't it look good?" BHHC asked JCBG.

"It does," said JCBG.

"Thanks," I mumbled. "Do you want a drink?"

JCBG told me what she wanted.

"I mean," said BHHC, "I like guys with long hair, just look at my boyfriend, but your short hair looks good."

I stared to steam milk so I didn't have to listen to any more.

Ever since then, whenever I see someone who hasn't yet seen me with short hair (except for DFFB, since he's the only other straight guy in the store) has told me how good, or great, my hair looks. The thing that strikes me as odd is how everyone says they hair looks good. When other people in the store have gotten new hair styles or a new hair color I hear people say "You look great." not "Your hair looks good."

I suppose I'm just being my normal paranoid self.


People at the store don't want me to move away.

Most seem to grasp the fact that I don't actually make enough money to make a positive change in my situation, but they don't understand (or don't want to understand) that why I'm moving.

Even a couple of customers have said that they're sad to hear I'm leaving, which made me reevaluate my harsh judgment of customers for a minute. Of course, right after that they added that I screw up their drink less than anyone else and they hate having to wait for a second drink.

ASGG said, joking, that I can move in with him and his boyfriend. He said that all I'd have to do is clean the bathroom, kitchen, and play video games with him and live there rent free. One of those customers from the previous paragraph heard him reiterate this and said I should take it up. I told her that once he showed me the uniform I'd have to wear, I turned him down. ASGG laughed. I laughed. The customer gave me a strange look; I don't think she knew ASGG is gay.

GIESW made a claim that she wants to move to Cow Town too. She only says this, though, because she's depressed that guy she dumped New Years Day convinced her to stay with him at least through the end of January and two weeks later he dumped her and then two weeks after that he started dating some big breasted blonde who has two kids. GIESW always pulls a dark cloud around by a leash, but now it's grown and is shooting forks of lightening at her head. She'd be really unhappy in Cow Town, because even though she hates being out in the world, she's a city-girl at heart.

The Manager still hasn't called down to the 'Bucks in Cow Town to arrange my transfer and she's gone all week at some meeting that all the managers in the US are at. But it's all okay. Sunday, I spoke with The Manager in Cow Town and gave her all my pertinent information, so she knows to start scheduling me the week of the 14th.

Assistant Manager #1 wants me to go to a party that's for GGWB's promotion and a good-bye to #1, who's stepping down to Shift Supervisor, and good-bye to JFCG, who is transferring to a store closer to her house and school, and good-bye to me. Unfortunately, the party is scheduled for the night of the day I had planned to finish moving the bulk of my stuff back to Cow Town. The plan was to not come back to Cow City until Tuesday, when I have class. I told #1 last week that I would go to a good-bye party if it was on a day that I could go. So, she schedules it for the day I leave and then gets really angry at me for saying that I won't be able to make it because I don't want to drive 100ish miles to Cow Town, drop my stuff off, and then drive 100ish miles back to Cow City to eat a meal that night. Am I being unreasonable about this? I know I've been unreasonable about store parties in the past, so I told her if she could move it to Friday, I'd be there, but she said no.

Am I being unreasonable this time?


So, Hunter S. Thompson is dead. I'm sure those of you who enjoyed his stuff already know that he shot himself on Sunday. That's not the way I expected him to go. I always expected a legacy Hells Angels, whose father was put in the spotlight in Thompson's book Hell's Angels, to go to Colorado and take Thompson out, but never suicide.

I wasn't as inspired by Thompson's writing as other people. Sure, I thought its style and his story telling great, but I guess I could never really immerse myself in the drinking and drug stuff that he sometimes wrote about. But if, someday, someone compares me to Thompson I'll get the chance to yell at the world "NO ONE IS AS GOOD AS HUNTER S. THOMPSON!" while inwardly smiling.

I fell like I should break out some mescaline and hit the road to Vegas in this man's honor.


I remember hearing someone, a long time ago, say, "You're only as old as you feel."

If that's true, then I'm 63 years old, have had three heart attacks in the past four years, just got nailed in a harsh divorce, and am looking at the age we get retirement supplements from Social Security about to raise.

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

Another Stupid Test

I am 58% Asshole/Bitch.
Sort of Assholy or Bitchy!
I am abrasive, some people really hate me, but there may be a group of other tight knit assholes and bitches that I can hang out with and get me. Everybody else? Fuck ‘em.

Friday, February 18, 2005

Something I'd love to say and mean, in real life:

"A man would know he had to walk through fire and tame a lioness with his bare hands every time he approached you. Every day an adventure..."

Tuesday, February 15, 2005

Movin'

So... I'm gonna be moving away from Cow City and back to Cow Town in about a month.

Yes, I'll be living with my parents, again, which makes me feel pathetic.

Most of you who have read this blog before must be assuming that I'm making this move because I hate this city and that wouldn't be an unreasonable guess, but it's not the reason. The reason is simply that I can't afford to live here anymore.

Since two weeks before Christmas, I have averaged less than 25 scheduled hours a week. For a couple of those weeks, I made some trades to get more hours or worked at another store. I hate doing that. The managers complain that we don't have enough people, but they bring in people from other stores to fill in hours rather than giving it to people who actually work there. Then, a few days later, The Manager wrote a note to Assistant Manager #1 saying we're using too many hours in the store and people should be sent home early, but at the bottom of that note one wrote that there was a girl coming in for an interview and to hire her because she's good. Mixed messages anyone?

I explained this to my roommate today. He said he understood. And I feel horrible.

Now I have to finish my homework for my class and feel like I'm abandoning my friend.

Friday, February 11, 2005

Dressing on the Set

I should have been in bed trying to sleep, if not actually sleeping.

Instead, I watched the series finale of Star Trek: Deep Space 9, again. At one point, while Vic Fontaine is singing, I started geeking out on the set dressing--the goofy red cowboy slot machine, his name in lights, the microphone with the huge cable he has to drag around as he walks among the audience--to an empty room. I wasn't even really listening to myself. I think I need a geek. How much do they cost?

Thursday, February 10, 2005

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

Taxes, Not Death

Sent off my tax stuff today. I'm gonna be getting just over $100 back. Something like 9% of my wages for last year are still with the government. I wouldn't mind so much if I was still under the illusion that all the money taken for Social Security actually went to people who need Social Security rather than the "war" or petty political pork-barrels.

One good thing about this money, it'll pay off the two fucking parking tickets I got in The Bay on Saturday. Sure, park on the street all day Friday and don't get a ticket, but park there for part of Saturday and owe Crazyville money.

*sigh*

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

The Future?

So, if anyone out there took the time to look, they have discovered that craigslist.org is not the site for free porn we all yearn for, but it's all about getting a job, hopefully a better one.

See, Friday afternoon, in The City, Altered Ego and Wingb said that I should move down to The Bay. One, I don't remember who, said that he or she was sick of me hating the place that I live, so I should live down there and be happy. I said I wouldn't ever move to a bigger city unless it was for a job that I actually want. Altered suggested that I go to craigslist. I didn't know what it was, so he showed me. After a quick peek, we were back in his living room discussing what we're going to be selling at APE. (Yup, this year I'm going to pretend that I'm a grown-up who's actually produced stuff.) The more we talked, the more excited both of them seemed to get. Eventually, Altered turned to me and said, "You know, I bet if you moved down here, I'd get a lot more work done."

Maybe it didn't happen exactly this way, but this is better story telling.

If I do move there, it wouldn't be until late June. I want to finish this class I'm taking. It may not come in handy in my life, but it's fun.

Since I barely know what my tomorrow will be like, I don't want to say what the next six months will be like.