Gym & Work

Wednesday night at work actually went great - it was not an exhausting pace for me (which was nice since I had the most work of the entire line that night), and the taping guy even payed attention to how much he put through the machine. Unfortunately, that was apparently a once-in-a-blue-moon thing - he went back to normal Thursday.

Yesterday, the trainer at the gym added an exercise (arm extensions) and my muscles are still sore from it.

Time to go and game with the friends though - woohoo!

Work Sucks (plus one funny thing)

I currently work for Harry & David, the gift basket people. I get to put boxes on racks from the line, and wrap & tag them.

It gets hard to do that when the materials co-coordinator doesn't show up for half-hours at a time, meaning I get to move the racks (her job) myself. Which means the second big issue comes up - the guy taping the boxes. On the other hand, she only does this once a night, and she is usually busy - but not being aware.

The guy, Alfred I shall call him, seems to be the epitome of you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I have no idea how old he is, but he is at least 55+ - senior discount for sure. The issues :

• He doesn't look when he pushes a box through the tape machine but rarely. Once or twice a night. Which means if the line is full, the boxes start falling off at the bend. I am thankful we have a bend - a straight line falls over when overfilled, requiring it to be set back up, and all the boxes put back on.
• He is the taper - why do I have to change the tape? He has watched me do it, I have shown him how while telling him what I am doing, I have done everything but tell him to do it himself - I think I might, next time.
• He gets to put the fruit nutritional info inside - and doesn't always remember to tell us he needs more when he is just low. Today, again, we had to stop and wait for the supervisor to get some from upstairs. The entire time, baskests keep coming through the shrink wrap ovens, and piling up.

Sometimes I just want to bash his head in (and I got a hammer next to me at all times! It's tempting!)

On the other hand, someone (lets call her Trish) was doubting (for whatever reason) that one of our co-workers was Jewish. Someone else offered to ask for the first person, who was being a coward and not wanting to ask him herself. So, when the helpful coworker went and asked on behalf of Trish (making sure he knew Trish was the one wanting to know) if he knew what a dradle is, and what kosher was, she added in "Did your parents have a bris?"

Trish looks pretty when she is red in the face :)

To the Gym!

So I have finally done two workouts at the gym, not counting the initial one with a trainer.

Don't know if I will be able to get in again, since the rest of the week I have to worry about having enough sleep for both jobs, and doing it friday night/saturday morning at until 2am then going in again at 11am probably isn't wise ( to meet with the trainer again).

Getting ready

So, when asking who isn't going to show up at work tomorrow (or I guess, today - yay swing-shift-past-midnight), my supervisor was also asking why.

I won the free excused absence with "My friend from high-school whom I have not seen for about 9 months is in town for a little while".

So, trying something new for holloween - as part of dressing up as a ghost, I am trying to bleach my hair. I will know in about ten minutes or so how well it is doing, I guess.

And trying to think of what to do for NaNoWriMo - too many small ideas, not enough fleshed out :/

Birthday survived

It was Mom's birthday, and she was nicely awed by the pegusi mare/foal statue I found for her (not a winged unicorn! :p) Actually planned that one out two months ago - a record for me. Good thing - it had to get special ordered in.

Of course, my sholder-top angel demands I pay for mom's dinner I got dragged to (previous post) so I am going to sneak some money into her checking account tomorrow/today.

Yummy Food and Fire

So, to celebrate about three different birthdays (one being my mother's), a big group of family/friends went to a restaurant called Shoji's - one of those Asian-style food places that makes a big show out of cooking your food in front of you.

And they will, in order to clean the grill with a flair, light alcohol spread onto the grill on fire. As in, they tell you to lean away if you like your eyebrows.

The little tyke with us, who is about a year and a half old, kept clapping at the fire, saying "fire" over and over, and other general signs of a pyro. He also got the most out of the entertainment, it seemed.

So dinner was fried rice (and the rice was the only thing that was put onto the grill already cooked), grilled veggies, and teriyaki chicken and even some cooked bean sprouts. A lot of all of it. Had a taste of the shrimp, and it was great. I want to go there again.

It's awesome if you get a chance to go there.

Super Smash Brothers

I can't wait.

I want it now!

This game just keeps getting more and more awesome.

To Do List & Observations

To Do:

• Actually use this blog.
• Disconnect the stereo, since I don't know how to undo the 1:30 turn on my brother put it on and refuses to undo, despite nobody every being home then.
• Plan out what I want to do for NaNoWriMo.
• Play the DS games I have bought.
• Play City of Heroes, since I have paid for six months of it.
• Get a non-swing shift job.

Observations:

• My family hates to check the mail.
• The dog is getting better at not meeting your eyes when you call him on the trash being everywhere.
• People can get real upset when they drive through a parking lot to use as a shortcut when you get in their way, trying to park your car. How dare I think I take precedence when I am not trespassing on private property.
  

Nostalgia

Lately, when writing in this blog, I keep thinking back to my childhood. Specifically, watching
Doogie Houser, MD., type into his journal at the end of the show. Occasionally even while reading others.

Thunder and Lighting, Very Very Annoying Me

I love thunderstorms, really. But we have two dogs.

The older one is afraid of it, and is currently trying to get under my desk as I type. It will take me about three minutes to get out of my chair, as I don't care to hurt her.

The younger is upset we won't let him out to prove he isn't afraid by barking at the thunder.

Now, if they could combine their feelings, we would have thunder-mellow dogs. I can dream, can't I?

1 step forward

So I am messing more with Joomla. Wrapped my blog into it, changed the format of the blog to fit into joomla better.

Also, letting my mom use my Nintendo DS... She likes Mario, but has never played Mario 64... it's interesting.

Blind as a sighted man

I have started to mess with Joomla to make a website.

I feel like a man who, having been able to see normally all his life, is thrust into a light-less maze. And told to watch the razor edges on some surfaces. At least a blind man knows the tricks to avoiding the sharp poking surfaces.

Pirates and Oceans Oh my!

As I said in a previous post, I went and saw Oceans 13 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 the Tuesday before last.

Pirates was great. Much better than the second movie. And the ending ended the tale without ending everything. If they make a fourth movie it can be solid, and not feel forced for the sake of a buck if the quality is as good as either this one or the first.

Ocean's 13 was excellent - but I have always loved the sneaky/thieving stuff anyway. I love Mr & Mrs. Smith, Mission Impossible 1, etc. Definitely something that you should watch the prior movies first if you have never seen them before.

Heres for Transformers on the 2nd :)

Life is at a moderate "Blah" level.

Today was blah. Best thing is I started making a lanyard. Of course, I had to go and do an 8 strand, which has always been my limit, after doing none at all for a couple years now.

Today would of been 100% better on a Motorcycle. Maybe 500%. I wanna ZOOOM.

Irony at the Insurer's Office

Today, after grabing a cheap bite to eat at work after watching Pirates 3 and Ocean's 13, I tried to go though this strip mall behind us to take the easier way back to the freeway.

At that point in time, we had one deli and an All State insurance office in flames. About 30 feet high. Wonder what their fire insurance premiums are going to look like next month?

And right as I see even more hoses get in to the action, I notice the big sports/auto/outdoors store is advertising their water sports sale. You could almost demo in the store.

One idiot almost got a ticket for not clearing out of the parkinglot when an officer asked him to (and the officer thought the guy called him a dick, maybe he did), and many more seemed to be upset they were not allowed to pull into the parking lot and watch.

The fire took a little off the top of the Supercuts next door, too.

Silly Apologies

While running pizza today, I forgot to bring the 2-liter of Dr. Pepper a lady ordered.

I wanted to slap her.

Really, I screwed up, why is SHE apologizing?

Love's Requiem - 1st Movement

The first thing he noticed upon waking was the smell.

The smell of cleaning disinfectant.

And the walls. A nice soothing color, one that seemed to change as you looked at it. And some kind of design going around the edges of the walls. With a circle in the same design...

Carmine bolted upright, and noticed that the design was a warding. The kind the use in a hospital with unstable yet magically gifted patients. Why was he here? Rhapsadoy could of told them he...

A grinning madman, standing over Rhapsody's body. Then him screaming, Carmine screaming, and something pouring out of the other man's face

He turned and hung his head over the side of the bed just in time to puke onto the floor. The nursing staff was going to kill him.

Love's Requiem

Love's Requiem is another character of mine from City of Villains - a Sonic/Sonic corruptor.

Of note - I keep having people complain he looks too much like the family, and keep giving them false starts.

Prelude to a Requiem

It was a great day.

Carmine was walking through Steel Canyon, having used the Yellow line train from Galaxy City, where he worked with the Freedom Corps, helping in various stages of the New Hero Orientation. He was 24, married to a wonderful woman, had an excellent career in a well-know group in Paragon City as well as helping tutor students in voice, and celebrating his 3rd anniversary of working at Freedom Corps.

He had not only received a raise, but a very generous gift of dinner at the Three Sisters' Restaurant, one of the more expensive and longstanding five-star restaurants of Paragon. He was going to home to change, and pick up his wife to go to dinner. She said she would wear the red dress, the same one he first saw her in that first day he started work, as she was going to pick up her younger brother who had once again tried to "run away from home" to be a hero.

He was whistling as he walked, remembering his hopes as a child, hoping for the little bit of magic he was sensed to have to bloom, but never had anything happen. Come to think of it, "little" James was almost sixteen - just the age to gain a hero's ID. He was gunning for the name Janan, a variation of Janus, for his ability to both heal and harm with his inner flame...

Impatient, Carmine was running up the stairs, since the elevator was old, and slow. As he opened the door, shouting "Rhaps, you in the red..." he stopped, cold. She was indeed wearing the red, the red of her lifeblood, splattered also on the wall behind hind her, the furniture around her. And on one of the young men, with a maniacal grin, as he finished cutting the finger bearing her wedding ring from her fist clutched in a rictus grip.

Deep inside, something shattered, and a howl of despair came out of his' singer's throat. A howl so horrendous that it didn't merely kill his wife's murderer, but literally caused his now-fluid brain matter to flow out of his ears and nose.

By the time Carmine awoke, the bodies were gone, taken to the morgue. The others who were with the killer escaped, gone while he was unconscious.

The prelude was over, the Requiem begun.

About Eve

I play the City of Heroes and City of Villains MMOs. During the 06 Halloween event, I made a companion to santa's evil and exiled elf who goes by the moniker Executive Toymaker (at the I was fiddling with the idea of making a "Evil, Inc" or similarly named VillainGroup) on Virtue, called Eve of All Hollows, on Victory (as I was out of room for making new characters on Virtue, and Victory had my other Super & Villain group I was part of, the HotBod Super Squad).

Idea's in my head started to form, and the opening bellow is what little exists outside of my head at the moment.

Dawning of Eve

The first thing she noticed was a feeling of suppression. Of something trying to flatten her. As she came aware, for the first time in a century or more, she opened her eyes.

Eyes? she thought. Since when have I had eyes? She reached up, rubbing her head in confusion, and froze. A smile curled on her blood-red lips. So I have a body this time. Been a very long time, finally I get to play with the mortals. Getting up, she struggled against the feeling of weight that she hadn't felt since before Rome was built.

And gravity still sucks ass.

As she looked around her, she saw the ocean spread out below her. Hmm, which one? The Atlantic, I think, she mused. Looking behind her, she saw a gaping wound in the earth, with metal creatures, structures, and humans running about. Machines. Those metal creatures are machines, as the humans call them. Most of them, anyway. Some of them seem to be elementals of human dross. Interesting.

A little bit better

Original goal yesterday was to get up and ride my bike to work. About a 45 or so minute ride.

Got out of the shower with 15 minutes to be there.

However, I did take the time to shove my bike in the back of my car - so after work I was able to go the wrong way (adding 1.2 miles to my riding today, yay!) on the bike path, and walked around our little mall a couple of times, looking at stuff. Money burns, especially in the pocket.

Most interesting thing today was trying to stock the prep table with pizza toppings while our regional inspector guy was moving it around.

Kinda like having a little brother run while you try to give him a wedgie - minus the underwear, though.

Three-quarters of the Way There

On my birthday last year, in July, I was walking through the county fair.

I was thinking about things I had done, and what had happened to me, mostly in the last year.

Around May 06 I was fired/let go from where I had worked for nearly four years for stealing soda refills. They admitted I had paid for the original fill, but then said I would refill it and not pay. Said they had five copies - so I paid the 6 or so dollars (no refill price there, they made you pay full price each fill), and we went our separate ways. I can kinda understand, since apparently each time, it was under similar circumstances - who was and wasn't there, mainly. But still, I was pissed. I had benefits, and while I was finally stressed out enough to quit anyway, I wanted to wait a few more months for my anniversary (and thus, vacation) to roll around. Doing dairy and bottle returns, the deli work, was exhausting, and I was ready for a change.


Unfortunately, I kinda panicked. I went to the local 7-11, and got a job there - but it was too similar, and I was let go in a few months after that. I was pretty much stressed out, and wore out while working there. The worst thing is I had known the owners for the past 6 or so years, and I got the job because the owner had said I had a job whenever asked for it, and hated the fact that my burn out hit him.

While working there, though, is when the fair happened. I decided I really needed to change myself. As a sign, I got a nipple pierced, just as a subtle reminder that would stare me in the face each morning in front of the sink. I set some goals - the main ones being to make sure I get a job I can tolerate, lose some weight, and move out by my next birthday.

After this, I got fired from the 7-11. I didn't blame the guy. Then I got a grunt labor job at Harry and Davids for the season, and had my car break down. Also, because a several factors, mostly how I was not paying attentions, my piercing had to come out and be allowed to heal up normal. At the end of that job, I had my left nipple pierced, so I wouldn't forget my goals.

I found a job delivering pizza - low hours, but low stress. I am going to start looking for a second, or better job, tomorrow as the pizza parlor isn't giving me enough hours, even with the tips, although that is changing. I plan to get up early tomorrow, and bike to work. Several miles, but mostly downhill, and I used to do that kinda length semi-regularly in high school, and I know I still can if not as quick. It helps that the way there is downhill, mostly. So $2 goes into my wallet, just in case I don't get any tips. I can do this because the company I work for owns their own delivery cars (which is the only reason I drive for them). I hope to turn it into a regular habit, and maybe even get enough stamina back to do the return trip after work.


I already have a roommate lined up, thankfully, and so I just need to get the cash together, and we can start looking for a new place to live. Thankfully, the places were we will most likely end up working are were we would be looking for an appartment are close to both his and my (current) workplace, and pretty central to everything as it is.

Here is to being in a better place in three months.