Castle of the Dark Knight

The road to recovery...

2008-05-01T11:02:13Z

About three days ago, I found the critical missing item. I'd managed to leave it sitting on my dad's toolbox, where apparently neither of us noticed it.

Now, all of my jeans are shot (my now-broken name badge for work ripped out the left pockets), and the weather just turned cold, so shorts are out for the near future (and all I can say is "asdf"). But that can be remedied with money, which I have. Still missing an item or two, but those are non-critical.

Danica wins, then Ashley Force. (well, Will Power and Dan Wheldon win in between, but that's all in like 8 days). Good year for non-NASCAR racing. Trust me, if you've never seen the IRL race before, try a few races (they can't ALL be great, but the bad ones are still better than last year, and the good ones? who knows? Those are mostly post-Indy).

Started a new chapter called "Forsaken Home". It's coming along slowly, but it provide some context for Annalisa. She's really one hell of a girl, but she's so opposite Kendell in personality that people often think she's a sissy. Not the case at all. She's just not arrogant, violent, sarcastic, and confrontational. If she was, she'd be Kendell with breasts. Ummm, no thanks. I have at least three women who are aggressive. Torndraq, Denzent, and Karina are all more "Kendell with boobs" than Annalisa should ever be. (in fact, they overlap a little, but Torndraq is violent, Denzent sarcastic and confrontational, and Karina arrogant). Annalisa is supposed to be a sweetheart. One with plenty of steel to her, but essentially, the kind of girl you can't help but be friends with. So I hope the new chapter really shows my readers just what she is really made of. She never will compare to Kendell, if you want an avatar of destruction. He is ideally suited for it. She's ideally suited for, well, you'll have to see. It's not the path she's on, which is exactly the way it should be. I've probably said too much...

5 weeks later...

2008-04-07T09:36:34Z

First, I'm totally stressed about a bunch of crap that's gone missing. No idea when or if I'll find some of it, which is bad. real bad.

Second, I've broken a lot of stuff in strange ways and will need a week or so to get it fixed, and a month to replace the worst of it. Yay unplanned for expenses.

Third, Graham Rahal managed to win the second IRL race of the season, in what's turning out to be a much improved series (which says a lot, since the IRL has put on good shows for some time now). If NASCAR doesn't have enough racing for you, try IndyCar.

I finished all of my rewrite efforts, and I'm just waiting for people to help sort through the mess of chapters with fresher eyes than mine...

I'm sure more has gone on, but until some of my absent items reappear, I probably will stay too scatterbrained to recall them...

random thoughts...

2008-02-29T09:47:34Z

So CHamp Car is dead. Could there be anything better for the unified IRL than to have:
- Paul Tracy get into it with someone at Homestead, including a little fisticuffs? Kanaan or Dixon would be "best", publicity-wise...
- Graham Rahal and Marco Andretti in a serious dogfight all race long
- Danica and Helio shooting it out for the win.
- a Michigan International Speedway 500-miler in Late July, with a major sponsorship package

Raymond E. Feist does it again. Into A Dark Realm totally blew me away. There are something like five or six plot threads going at all times, with less than that number of character groupings. Valko's thread is the most awesome. I can sell a protagonist who is, by most standards, quite insane just fine. That's easy to imagine. I can sell the idea that a city is defended by beams of concentrated light and steel swords at the same time, because while it doesn't make sense from our perspective, it's not too difficult to imagine that it could have happened in another world/universe/whatever. However, the idea I have always heard laughed at as impossible to imagine is "evil as a concious choice" and stuff. Trust me, Feist can sell you on it. Valko's thread? AMAZING writing. Not necessarily as a technical exercise (because I'd almost certainly fail those standards), but in the sense of he makes one of the concepts most widely ridiculed in my literary circle not only imaginable, but vividly plausible.

Good luck to Sarah Fisher on her new Indy team. She'll need it with the recent merger. However, she's got enough talent for the car. May her team find enough talent for the driver.

Thanks to kuroichi, who has been mowing through the backlog of chapters, and swears that once he's through the initial experience, he'll go through and make critical notes. I eagerly await his results, because there's a lot of "untested" material there.

136264 and counting

2008-02-13T09:30:01Z

That's not even the full story. As you can see, the prologue and first section of my story are rather involved. Heck, to get the writing up another two notches, you can probably add 15% to that word count and be a tad low.

I'm actually looking for a sort of headliner quote for this section, which deals with my substantially broken protagonist and another major character. I already have an idea what I would preface the whole book with, and everyone agrees that it's suitable, but I'd like something that captures a bit of the dynamic that leads to the final scene of this segment of the story.

Unfortunately, my proofreading squad has had a busy month, and I don't want to burden my special forces for trivial matters of consistancy, basic typos and grammar, etc. I'm something like 47332 words behind on making sure the writing is "decent", let alone quality...

I hate retail

2008-01-08T07:48:46Z

Imagine this situation: It's the middle of winter, and your winter jacket suddenly and without warning fails to zip properly.

Just go to the store and buy a new one, right?

SUCKER!

The dolts in retail already have their craptastic winter coats on clearance, which means "you can't find one in your size". There's like two styles, usually the "I want to look cool if I go back in time" style, and the "I HATEHATEHATEHATEHATEHATE anything that might remind me of the idea of cold." style. I really don't need a jacket an inch thick. Or one that makes it look like I'm going out on the town in 1997. I just need a realtively thin jacket that keeps my body heat in, the wind out, and is actually made with the expectation that it will be used for work. That shouldn't be too hard to find. I'm not asking for a spandex jacket that insulates like a triple down coat. I don't want anything that insulates like a triple down coat. I want something that insulates like a jacket that anticipates you sweating in it at -2 degrees, and understands that a buttload of insulation is going to get very uncomfortable very quick.

Nope, the damn retail bastards are having none of that. Gotta play to the big spending niche, rather than the people who buy what they actually need, I guess. Needless to say, I'm now looking for the niche players in the jacket game, the ones who actually, you know, are either in-season, or all seasons. I'm sick of this "next season" crap.

Random stuff...

2007-09-26T08:41:27Z

They changed the way we work at work. I won't say it's a bad change, just that the current implementation is worse than bad. Given time, they probably can make it better than it is. The question is whether that will or won't happen.

So I went and got an LCD monitor shipped to me. Went from a 17" Dell flat-screen CRT to a 20.1" Samsung. Both do 1600x1200 top-end, but the Dell's too blurry to read, while the HDMI-driven Samsung is clear... and HUGE. Oh, and it uses less power than my light fixture.

My mp3 player is just about dead after many, many road trips. It's no longer perfectly reading CDs that burn fine (and play in my mom's DVD player). So I wan a new player. Thing is that it's hard to find the kind of reviews I need to actually pick out what I need. It's really hard to finish a review that spends a page talking about how the player looks. I can honestly say that that would NEVER be a primary purchasing decision-maker for me when it comes to audio devices. That would be like selecting a lawnmower based on how well it can be used as a skateboard. No matter how true the opinion, there's simply no substantial relevance.

What I'm looking for is:
Capacity of 4 GB or more
Durable shell, because it will wind up hitting something
Low PC-side software requirements (the less the better, because I said so)
standalone charging (because I don't always have a PC or a car to use)
field-replacable battery (if I can build a PC, I can damn sure change a battery)
if possible, two features of my old player: headphone jack remote and a main control lock-out switch. If you don't know what either are, I'll explain.

I finished another chapter of writing after a really long time. The title is "Lead Us Into Temptation", and it throws at least one unexpected curve at you. My content-consistancy checking guy said there's some excellent lines of dialogue in there, too...

Victory is MINE!

2007-09-17T10:18:30Z

After who the hell KNOWS how many years, I finally managed to beat Septerra COre (on my third attempt to go through the game, each one on a different PC, no less).

I must say that while the ending is a bit too New Age for me, it's actually quite a piece of writing. Hell, that's why I loved the game so much. It's things like Corgan and Robin arguing religion, Araym and Robin discussing (literally) whose ass the bounty hunters chase, Maya admonishing Araym about what is and is not a business, and Led calling Oasis a junk heap, and then admitting that's why she loves it that make the game so entertaining. It's not usually that you HAVE to go revisit places with different people, but that you wonder what kind of interaction a different character will have with each NPC...

So, anyway, it's a damn good ending, because it uses earlier plot points to bring about the totally unexpected.

I limp AGAIN!

2007-07-23T09:16:31Z

My ankle has recovered sufficiently for me to not need my ankle brace some days. I wear it all the time I'm off work anymore, though. Still limp a fair amount of the time, but we're in the calm before the storm, and I've got help at work finally, so I'm recovering.

Still no major progress on my projects, except for a nice bit of effort on Lead Us Into Temptation, which is a pivotal chapter in Kendell's life. It's shaping up nicely, in that I have exactly three segments to write, I know what they all are, and how they'll progress. In theory, I should be able to knock them out in no time once I get up the willpower ot write the first paragraph of the next segment.

After I get this one into the "Readable" stage, I want to start work on my DX10, 64-bit game. It's kind of an early adopter type of project: to reward the people on the edge.

The anime Claymore is amazing me every week, as they continually avoid the easy way out of situations, choosing suitable resolutions over shounen typicals. Plus, Clare looks so graceful when she counterattacks by sheer Yoki-sense. It's a real contrast to how she fights the rest of the time, where she's a loose cannon (claymore?) and uses muscle rather than finesse to polish off her foes (or slip up and let them slap her through walls).

Another Tsubasa Chronicle DVD is in the mail, which means the first truly emotional scene in the series will hit soon, and we get to see how empty Sakura's head is without her life filling it...

Got Aquarian Age and Noir. The Former is just different. The latter... I didn't like the end, because poor little Kirika didn't get exactly what I wished for her.

Break Down

2007-06-17T08:32:02Z

It's finally happened. Work has managed to seriously injure me, but true to the unwritten, unspoken code, I still go in and bust my (greatly reduced in size) butt.

The good news is I can finally somewhat walk barefoot again, after months of needing shoes to get out of my room. The bad news is that I'm capable because I had to purchase an ankle brace. It's not fun trying to do the job of 2-3 veterans at my position. We have PEOPLE now, but they outnumber me. Makes it really hard to train them, because I have to curb three or so wild impulses to mess up, rather than having two people to curb a single impulse to mess up the system. At least tomorrow, I should be able to run around less and get some relief.

Tsubasa Chronicle came out on DVD (in part), so I'm excited. Thuggy says it is too romantic, and my mom doesn't think it romantic at all...
I'll tend to agree with Thuggy moreso. What the hell is more romantic than a guy willing to sacrifice everything he values for the girl he loves? Now, *too* romantic? not in the least, it's just romance done right. I'm fairly sure that Thuggy will concede that it's one of the better done ones.

Let's not get me started on that, though.

In other news, Irilaine on IRC has recently read all of my somewhat polished chapters and given me good marks for the most part on my writing. Nice, but I need someone to push me a little on it, or I'll never get going with new chapters. I'd love to finish the Kendell-Annalisa segment of the plot, because then I can start to explain why Kendell's a nutjob. It's not possible without ruining the whole experience until after the Annalisa problem is dealt with. The really fun part is that I have great lines in store for the second and third segments. The fourth segment is the hardest, and I'm not entirely sure I should do it. It's something like "it requires me to let someone grow in ways I can't be sure I can write."

general update

2007-06-01T08:59:19Z

New computer still has some stability issues to work out, but it generally performs well, especially considering it's running on non-native drivers for now.

I've got a few projects boiling in my head, but I never seem to have the time to do anything. I probably need to start telling people no more when they want something. I've had 2 days off, and haven't done much for myself.

My shoulder is shot. I hurt the rotator cuff over the weekend at work, 2 days off haven't helped much.

My mouth is in worse shape: I need to see a dentist badly, for a tooth I broke ages ago. Fortunately, a bottle of water is enough to keep me pain-free most of the time.

I have a short story idea brewing in my head, too. Like I'll write that anytime soon, though....

So, the Kendora is an idiot.

2007-05-10T07:52:15Z

Took me 4 tries to remember which password I used here. Sad thing is that it happened to be one I use a lot, but for some reason, thought I didn't use...

anyway, yay Core 2. the CPU temp drops back to the 32-33 C range like instantly when it lessens its load.

It lives!

2007-05-09T07:13:18Z

Core 2 has blue screened twice, but that was before I fixed the memory voltages (some stuff was really over-volted) and installed the new drivers. It's been rock solid since, except for once where it went into suspend mode when I wanted a shut down. down freaks who actually like to suspend to disk. sheesh.

So.... Vista... the resource hog... uses a grand 3% of my CPU. My exhaust temp is about... 1 degree above room temp :)

That said, I won't win any awards for looks. It's a FULL TOWER. and I can see right through it across the motherboard. Runs cool, though :)

The final specs

2007-05-07T03:01:05Z

Everything for the new PC is ordered, and except for 4 items I just ordered, it'll all be here in time for a Tuesday build.

Now I'm sure that collectively, all of my decisions will have someone disagreeing with them. Oh well. I can't follow everyone's advice, and just because advice is sound doesn't mean it suits my ultimate needs. So, anyway...

The 680-based Asus SLI motherboard (not the Striker Extreme)
Intel Core 2 Duo E6700
2 GB of Corsair DDR2-800 RAM
320 GB SATA Seagate 7200.10 hard drive
20x LiteOn SATA burner
EVGA overclocked 640 MB GeForce 8800GTS
X-Fi Fatal1ty Pro XtremeGamer sound card
Vista 64-bit
Office 2k7
600W power supply
1 HUGE full tower case

additionally, I've got an MS ergo keyboard coming, not the split designs that I loathe, and an Intellimouse optical, and a new Logitech PS2 Dual Shock clone game pad, and a Logitech headset that was really cheap.

Everything will be new except the monitor :)

Let Freedom Ring (up on the cash register?)

2007-04-21T09:46:26Z

Just a thought: how far would you go to remove the worst dictators from power?

For some people, the answer is "Never to war". While I personally disagree, let's look at it another way.

How much would you pay to buy out the North Korean government? To officially have them surrender to South Korea and reuinify that nation?

Would you pay Kim Jong Il $100 million?
Could you let him come to Hollywood?
Bankroll a few movies for him?
Would you grant him immunity for his past?
give him a no-extradition clause, so he couldn't be tried elsewhere for his rule?

How much are you willing to pay for the freedom of every single North Korean?

What if it was, say Cuba? How much would you pay Castro to allow a fair, open national election for his successor, and if he allowed people who feld to return and run? Assuming, of course, it was a genuine offer?

Is the truth that many are not willing to pay for the freedom of others, either with blood or with currency?

If the Mad Mullahs in Iran offered to leave the country for a tropical pacific island... for $1 trillion over 20 years, would you advise the President to accept?

Think carefully. What is the price of freedom? How much is it worth?

If the thugs running kleptocracy in Africa was willing to pick up and leave, clearing the way for a far more open, less corrupt government, what price would you pay?

I fear the truth is that we in the United States are too often unwilling to pay any price for freedom, because we're so hypersensitive about nonsense "threats" to our own that we simply have nothing left to care about anyone else.

Plus and Minus

2007-04-09T07:22:33Z

A plus to TRAC of SNEeSe fame, for being sane dissent on my computer plans. He didn't change my mind on anything, but it was refreshing to hear logic instead of superstition for a change.

A minus to damn near everyone else for the exact opposite. FUD, hearsay, and flat out idiocy are waaaaay to common. Seriously, what kind of sane person hears "I've blown 90% of the drives from Manufacturer A" and turns around and recommends using Manufacturer A's drives? Yet... they do.

A Plus to Lakmir, just because he makes fun games understandable.

A Minus to Lakmir. Slacker rushed me to do a tool on my day off, and hasn't used it a month later.

A Plus to Iriliane for being my first new proofreader in ages.

A minus to Microsoft for 32-bit only Office 2007. Seriously, guys. Why offer a 64-bit OS if you're not going to reward adopters? I'm annoyed with you and all, but it does mean you're admitting that my Core 2 Duo will be here in time for me to offer an early 64-bit game toolkit. Thanks for validating my plan. Maybe someday when I finish it and get customers and am making a living doing programming again, we can even have a chat, kick some ideas around, and see what we both like. For now, though, understand that if there's a 64-bit Office in less than 3 years and there's not some kind of special deal for those of us who wanted 64-bit NOW, I will be hurt. You'd be punishing the very people trying to shift the market for you, and that's just not nice.

A plus to the Islanders for taking advantage of a last chance. When you are handed something you can do to control your destiny, that's what you need to do. Didn't see the game, but it's an awesome win anyway.

A minus to myself for wasting Easter looking at parts for a new PC when I'm not yet funded to buy it.

Plan B

2007-03-30T19:23:31Z

Ok, so that MP3 player idea? I can't seem to commit to doing it.

On the other hand, less immediately, I *can* commit to getting a Core 2 Duo this summer. Serious and viable suggestions are welcome, but don't nag my choice in processor. (Right now, it's looking like an E6600, when I have money, it might be a faster model)

The basic expectations are that I'll probably wind up with:

an E6600 Core 2 Duo
4 GB of RAM
a cheap nVidia PCI Express video card, since I don't 3D game much.
possibly a one of those 7.1 Creative Labs audio boards
a Sony DVD burner
300 GB SATA hard drive
680W power supply
new mid-tower case

Somehow, it's cheaper to get the CPU and motherboard together...

Projects update and more

2007-03-27T10:14:23Z

Unrequited is on hold. It's not that I don't know what to do, it's that I'm just not feeling the mood anymore for that.

As far as my mainline stories, A New Reality is on the table getting a descriptive upgrade. So far, it's not much, but I think in the end, you'll agree that the world is more colorful and solid than before. I added 14 words to one page, and it totally made a difference, just saying that a door was made of oak, or that the lantern glowed orange.

Soggy Nachos is idle, and will be for a while.

my as of yet nameless scripting language has been fleshed out a little. I have no idea what the actual storage format will be, though. That's important, since it will affect how I structure the named editor that makes life much easier than using notepad, or emacs for the truly disturbed. Seriously. This ain't C. It doesn't work like C. It should not be editted like C. This is designed to enable the creative mind to write an interactive epic. It is not designed for programmers. You have C and C++ and C# and Java and python and LISP already. This is programming for the storyteller. You are not intended to create rigid flow control. You are intended to take advantage of the block structure of the language. You aren't intended to develop a thread library for it. You are intended to make use of the various priority, stop, and exclusive bits, as well as the flow control halts to make interesting and sane plots. You aren't intended to write an mp3 decoder in this. You are intended to have the option to map new functions into the script processor to tell your mp3-based sound engine to change songs. Get the idea? It's not meant to do everything, it's meant to make it easier for you to create a game script if you are not a code monkey. That means a smart, custom editor. For the love of all that is holy, don't use notepad!

That aside, I'm working out the feature set (and the keywords) that will eventually turn into the actual language. Then I have a lot of work to do before I can test, but it should be simple enough to rig up a console application as a testbed. The fun is that the script executes in an unreadable format. It'll be faster, but harder to debug. Oh, and all the script processor gets is basically a "state update" message. It doesn't really "know" what it's going to do. Inefficient, to a point, but it lends itself to reuse much, much better than a per-game mechanism.

Next up, shopping for a real capacity upgrade in mp3 players...

Counterproductivity

2007-03-08T11:18:46Z

Just worked after a couple days off.

I was slow as hell for two hours. I had the top speed and all, but not the ability to sustain it.

I think I set a record for lack of productivity the last hour, at least for someone trying to get things done. Pissed off one guy, too. He wanted me to do less and rest more. See, my blood pressure tanked (the top number was pretty constant, but the bottom number was 10 points lower than usual), which took out my balance. I never fell, but I was walking kind of oddly, and after a while, it led to nausea. Still, I actually clocked out early with the job done, though not as soon as if I'd been real help.

Some water at work, and some sleep at home, and I'm feeling ok (I highly doubt a sip of water and two potato chips that nearly made me puke helped), but I guess I need to make sure I have something to eat and stay hydrated at work again. It's not like this happens often, but it does recur from time to time, and always under similar circumstances: eating extra light and not drinking much = problems. Guess I really should learn to watch that...

Math Lesson?

2007-02-26T10:28:39Z

100 (M+G+D) = 48
110M+ 135 (G+D) = 53

Solve for all variables. (yes, it's impossible, because I don't have any way to separate G and D.

What's it add up to? Trouble at work.

Rant revisited

2007-02-16T10:57:19Z

I meant to revisit this a few days ago, since I'm supposedly older and more mature by 365 days.

Last year, I posted my Theory of Romance on Valentine's Day. I had a date with a semi this year, so I'm late revisiting it.

Let's see... I still agree with point #1. Seriously, there's never a "romantic" film that makes me want to sit down and watch. Not for free, and definitely not at my expense. Having had recent experience trying to write some romance-like prose, I know it isn't easy, but I'd say I got about 1000000x as emotional (if my profanity-laden announcement of completion was any indication) over my own prose as I have over the supposed tear-jerker films.

Point #2: I'm still dead on. In fact, my prose hinges aound the main statement. Passion is not romance, romance is not passion. That's what I wrote, and I think I sold my first reader on the scene in question. Now, I haven't tried a romance without passion personally, but I have ideas how I can do so, and so it's a goal for the next year: write a chapter-sized tale that is romantic without utilizing passion.

3. I'm currently buying Romance comics drawn for early teenage Japanese girls... and enjoying them. Clearly, one or both of the following apply: I am completely deranged, or it's just great writing. (Miss Watase is *still* improving after some pretty darn good efforts already.) Despite an expanded circle of male acquaintences through work, I can't expand on this, but it holds true for everyone I know. Including some watching Japanese girly shows in secret. Seriously, guys. Be men about it. I watch shoujo series all the time and love them. Just admit it, and be proud of it. You don't need a support group. You just need to admit you have better taste than Naruto fanboys.

4. Genbu Kaiden to my rescue! Seriously, I can show you exactly what I mean about soft and delicate winning the day. About how scarcity amplifies importance, and all that. Just read Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden. The main romance? Something like one kiss per volume. The sweet, soft, and tender kind, too. Really gets me, because that's how I'd want it.

5. Seeing as it's sports season, I think you can find your "average American male" and run your own experiments. I think it still holds true, though.

6. Less is still more. Seriously. I just wrote some of this stuff, and it would have sucked if I'd have focused on the rush towards intimacy. I honestly think I managed to sell the whole passionate sequence because I focused on...err... that's a secret. Let's just say that the angle I chose probably sold the scene more than any amount of talking about flushed faces, burning touches, or anything else.

7. nothing to add. I hate trying to write kissykissy crap, so don't expect me to break any new ground here personally.

8. Once again, I offer a Yuu Watase work as defense of my original position: this time, the FY OVAs. People are willing to endure endless uncertainties, repeated heartbreaks, and even death... because they love someone enough to give up EVERYTHING. That's what it's really about. Love is not about you. It's about the one you love. I think that's another reason for #1: it's not about you, but they sell it to you as if it were.

So, in summation, my last year has taught me... I like romances better than a year ago, but does it really count if it's all one author? I don't think so, because it only proves she has something going for her in the perspective area. I've tried my own hand at the content game, and I can see why it's so damn cliché. Still, that's no excuse. In a realm of infinite possibilities (the human imagination), why is it that we're still generally stuck with lame love? Maybe it does need a Kendoric love story to awaken people. I hope not. Given infinite time and money to accomplish such a task, I'm still much more likely to die by bashing my skull in in frustration that I am to complete it...

bargain binning for fun (but not profit)

2007-02-13T11:00:48Z

Finally got a new hard drive. No bargain, but it has the rare combination of attributes I like: Not Western Digital, and less than 137 GB (128 GB in Windows terms). Can't win them all...

On the other hand, I've gotten about $500 of DVDs this year, for like $150. Yes, I have a great eye for anime on closeout sale :)
Also managed to score $21 off new clothing.

Spent tonight in a screaming match with my unofficial boss (he gets the title by concession on my part, and he can't fire me, etc). Then we took break together and chilled, and then we go back to screaming as soon as break's over. Oh, and we reliably try to help each other... while insulting each other constantly. I love receiving. It's the only place where you're nicer to the people you hate than the people you like.

In other news, a lady I worked with was really happy tonight. Last night I moved some candy to help her fill some space, and the last item I selected completely sold out. Go me!

MK-isms in the back room

2007-01-23T10:02:21Z

Some of the sayings that are obviously me at work with a translation for normal people:

Just throw it all on the floor! (Hahaha... you dropped a box)

Easy, Killer! (don't push the damn boxes right off the line!)

Getting a free pizza (getting fired)

high school drama club (coworkers who do stupid and immature things because there isn't enough drama in the workplace to suit them)

showering on the clock (working outside in the rain, usually doing the lowest jobs in the place)

team lift (1. lifting heavy objects by myself. 2. Lifting pathetically light boxes that say "team lift" on them)

air mail (throwing a lot of similar boxes a short distance to an coworker)

bowling (skidding a box across the floor to a coworker)

impersonating Monica (working on my knees for an extended period of time, referring to, of course, Monica Lewinsky)

Is it social security day? (do you have money to spare?)

Time to hit the middle school again? (you're broke, aren't you?)

suicide shift (working from the end of first shift to the start of it the next day)

OOOOOOOOOOOOOH CRAP! (Why the *&^*&^* didn't Electronics tell us we were getting PS3s in today??????)

come play with us! (We're shorthanded and could use your help)

safe working practices (there is no translation for this, we were hoping you could supply one)

I can fit another box (I'll probably get three more in, but watch your head when you open the door)

It's unstable (Even I'm not stupid enough to move that!)

Gravity Sorting (letting unstable stacks fall over)

Discuss these or add your own, only $0.00! Post now while supplies last!

I'm still not dead...

2006-12-18T10:28:38Z

...it's not a job benefit.

We're so damn understaffed, it's pathetic. literally, we have fewer people than a full crew can put on the job *every day*.

Still need to do some accessory shopping. And pick up my paycheck. And get a belt so I can resume fasting at work. Sad but true, I've taken up eating McDonald's to slow down my weight loss until I can get new pants.

Working on several new or old projects at once. Very Slowly.

Saw the dad's fam for Christmas already. Too much went on to bother with a post...

Laters...

Contrary to rumors...

2006-10-15T16:24:19Z

... I'm neither dead nordid I get fired.

This is my 4th day off in the last 5 days, though. Other than that, I've been working (and bleeding).

My cousin brought Howl's Moving Castle over Wednesday, and we watched that. Then I went to Pizza House the next day for dinner with my immediate family. Good deal.

Saturday, my $500 worth of anime came in. PLEASE don't play Asu E no Brilliant Road around me right now. 13 episodes of Stellvia in a row have me a little... unbalanced.

Work fun...

2006-09-15T00:21:54Z

Most of you have heard, I've had some strange days at work.

Tuesday, it was raining on me. Inside.

Then I got to replace an assistant manager. Of course, I can't really work "above" my status, so it's a good thing she was doing the lowest job we had.

While I was doing that, this guy tried to sell me his girlfriend. Twenty bucks, return her in the morning. Or, if I'd prefer, for forty, I could get his buddy's woman *too*. Umm... how about no? Not that the idea of two girls for the night isn't exciting, but seriously, I ain't into being a John. Especially not at work. What the hell?

Wednesday, the hot topic, aside from "cat lovers", where "cat" = mountain lion, and "lover" is in the "koi" sense... was setting me up with whatever girl I seemed to know.talk to/see out of the corner of my eye.