Bullshit Manifesto

You have the Rossetti girl look. You are the kind
of girl pre-Raphaelite painters admired; tall,
slender, and fair as a lily flower. The
pre-Raphaelite girl had dramatic beauty; long
neck, large soulful eyes, full shapely mouth
and masses of wavy hair. The pre-Raphaelites
painted girls like this, they showed them in
dramatic situations dressed as famous
characters in legends, plays and poetry. The
favourite colours of the artists were russet,
green and gold. The following artists would
have loved to paint you; Holman Hunt, John
Everett Millais, Edward Burne-Jones, William
Morris and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

‘Pretty As A Picture’ – Which Artist Would Paint You?
brought to you by Quizilla

I’m hoping the test was designed for womens.

I turn 25 on June 11th, and I believe that I am having my quarter life crisis. When I graduated from high school I wanted to be a teacher. I’m good with kids, I felt passionate about math, and I was fairly decent at tutoring math, so it was a rational way to go. I was working part time, went to school, and lived with the folks. This, of course, is where the story gets interesting.

I kept ditching school, and eventually stopped going entirely. I was a slacker. There isn’t an excuse for it, that’s just what happened. I started working full time, and liked the money that came with it. Since I was paying minimal rent to the folks, most of the money went to partying. This, again, is where the story gets even more interesting.

My family got a notice to leave the apartment we were living in. Not an eviction, but merely “Please leave.” See, we’d been there long enough that with restricitons on annual rent increases they weren’t making money on us anymore. So they kicked us out, fixed up the place, and hiked the rent super high. My folks found a place, but it would mean that I would have to find a new place of my own. I shacked up with Brett while I found my place, which was within about 2 weeks. I lived with an old buddy from high school. While living there I worked full time, and lived in a cloud of smoke and booze.

From there I moved in with another coulpe of buddies from high school, etc. While there I still worked full time, and lived in a cloud of smoke and booze. I drank daily, smoked a pack a day, didn’t do much, played video games all day, and had no sight of my goals. It was during my time living there that I met Milca. My eyes opened to what I really wanted in life, but I still couldn’t see straight.

In the next 2 years Milca and I fell in love, moved in together, got engaged, and will get married in January. I went back to school, thoroughly enjoying Speech, but despising my math classes. I kept working full time, but couldn’t stand where I work, who I worked for, and what they stood for. This hasn’t changed to date.

I want something different. I want more. I want to go to school, but I might break down trying to work and go to school at the same time. Some people can do it, but I’m not one of them. Maybe part time, but not full time. I’d kill for a part time job. I don’t really want to be a teacher all that much anymore, and if I did I’d probably want to teach really young kids. I’ve wanted to act most of my life. I never pursued it because I’ve always been told I need something to fall back on, which I was then told should be dictated by my strengths. All of this combined with my male mentality where I need to plan for a family and be able to provide for them made me look towards other things.

I still want to go to school. I want to write. I want to read. I want to act. I want to learn. I don’t want to take another math class if I can avoid it, and if I have to I’ll take fluff. I want to do voice acting. I want to do plays.

I’ve been extremely depressed these past few months. I’ve been really happy with my relationship, but everything around it was sucking me dry. Too little time to do anything I really wanted to and so much time doing what I don’t like. I suppose one could argue that this is life, but I’m young enough that I can change it while I still have the chance.

That being said, let’s go.

Oscar Wilde: The Portrait of Dorian Gray. You are a
horror novel from the world of dandies, rich
pretty boys, art and aesthetics, and
intellectual debates between ethical people and
decadent pleasure-seekers. You value beauty and
pleasure but realize their dangers, as well.

Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

I suppose I’ll have to read this now.

My blog from camp is now complete. Read from the bottom up to start from the beginning.

It was a cold, overcast day in June. June 21, 2003, to be exact. The date is important as it was the day that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was released. I had ordered my copy from Amazon weeks before, and was anxiously awaiting it’s arrival. I had received an email from Amazon telling me that I would be receiving my copy that very day, as it was the largest pre-order that they had ever received.

The Pookie had gotten me hooked on the Harry Potter series, but she was in Amsterdam with the Gweeba. I ws to pick her up at the airport the next day, which meant that I had until that time to finish the book so I could have my one up on her. After every book I finished I was ranting and raving, and there she was waiting for me saying, “I KNOW!!” This time would be different. This time I would be the one saying, “I KNOW!!”

It was noon. A Budget moving truck stopped in front of the house. Was someone moving? No, that was the truck they were using to deliver all the books. They weren’t kidding with that biggest order business. I ripped open the box, and got to reading. I stopped only breifly to statr a load of laundry. I also stopped to look into the fridge, as my stomach was on the verge of going on strike.

Nothing in the fridge.

Time for delivery.

I loved me some Papa John’s pizza. It was that dipping sauce that they served with the pizza tht made it that much yummier. Granted, your arteries would harden at the mere mention of it, but it was still grubbin’. I called them up and made my order.

The Order

1) One medium Chicken Alfredo Pizza.

2) One extra order of the garlic sauce (because one is never enough).

3) One 2 liter of root beer.

4) They said it would take a half an hour.

I was able to drink the last beer in the house to tide me over for 30 minutes, so I was set. 35 minutes later, no pizza.

40 minutes, no pizza.

45 minutes, no pizza.

I called them up. “Your pizza should be there within 30 minutes or so, maybe 40 minutes.”

“When did they leave your store?”

“Lemme check… oh… 45 minutes ago… If he’s not there in 10 minutes call us again.”

Ten minutes later I make that call.

“When the driver gets there tell him the pizza is free and to call us if he has any questions.”

Hell yeah the pizzas free.

4) They said it would take a half an hour.

He arrived after an hour from my initial call. Apparently he had gotten a ticket, hence his tardiness. I would have felt a bit sorrier for him if I hadn’t had a headache from having not eaten any real food (if you want to call pizza real food). It was at this time that I realized something. He didn’t have my 2 liter of root beer.

3) One 2 liter of root beer.

Since it was free, I didn’t gripe too much. I don’t think he would have gone back for it either.

I went inside and opened the box.

2) One extra order of the garlic sauce (because one is never enough)

One would have to be enough, apparently.

I served up a couple slices, sat down, opened the book back up, and took a bite. Something was off. A couple more bites. Something is extremely weird about this pizza… There was no sauce on this pizza.

1) One medium Chicken Alfredo Pizza.

Every item from the order had been messed up. I called to see what the manager would say to this, which was a promise of a free pizza the next time I called. I informed him that this was unnecessary, as there would not be a next time. That would be my last time calling them or eating their pizza.

The next day I finished the book, picked up the pookie at the airport, and waited at home for the call. When it came, I said, “I KNOW!!”

Fuck Papa John’s.

This has been a thorn in my side long enough. I have ranted before, but now I’ve done my homework, and I have to say its worse than I thought. In the city of Pasadena there are 13 Starbucks locations. This is counting the Starbucks inside the Vons, too. This figure is official, as it comes directly from the Starbucks website.

I don’t have a problem with Starbucks. The way I figure it, if there are enough people buying their product to warrant 13 of them in one city, go for it. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. That’s the wonder of living in a capitalist country. Your spending dollars are your votes as to what stays. I also love me a white chocolate mocha, and used to have Frappuccinos once in a while until I found out they have as many calories as a Whopper. Sure, seeing another one being erected does bug a little, but only because it seems to be trendy to make fun of that fact. This is not what I’m doing here, mind.

How many In ‘n Outs are there in Pasadena? One. Uno. Un. This will not do. And on top of that the one we have is swamped with traffic, the line is always heinous, and it’s just far away enough that the drive is an annoyance at times. We need another one.

Sure, there are locations in Alhambra and Arcadia, but this too will not do. Glendale has two. We have one weak ass In ‘n Out, and Glendale has two.

What can we do about this? I’ll tell you what we can do, we can tell In ‘n Out we want another one. I sent a similar message to Papa John’s via their website, and lo and behold they brought me a location close to my home. This was before they lost me as a customer entirely, which will warrant another post. I can’t believe I haven’t made that post yet.

My manager and I alternate weekends, which means that one week I will work on Friday and Saturday and that following week I’ll have those days off. I always have Sunday off. Friday and Saturday we close fairly early, so even on those weekends I have to work it’s not so bad. This past weekend was my weekend off, so it would have been a 3 day weekend. Oh, but then we were closed on Thanksgiving, so that makes 4. Oh, but back in February when I had to set up my vacation schedule I chose the day before so that I could have a 5 day weekend. Oh, but then there were all those days I skipped lunch, came in early, or stayed late which meant I had an extra day which I took Tuesday making it a 6 day weekend. Since that’s more of a week than a weekend I am calling it a vacation, and a vacation that I needed in a big way.

Monday night Sean came over to hang out. It was then that I opened my big mouth and had one of the best ideas I’ve ever had. It’s even better than my idea to make a dildo with William Shatner’s head on it and naming it the USS Enter-Thighs. I am going to write a book about my current employer and it’s affiliated organization. As I still work for said organization, I’ll be vague. Once I have found a new job all will be told.

Tuesday night I went over to Brett’s for some post snowtrip shenanigans. A bunch of the homies went to Big Bear and stayed in guess’s cabin. This was the weekend with lots of rain down here, but up there it was the weekend of lots of snow. They got snowed in without chains and without booze. I thought they might have gone Donner party on each other, but luckily that was not the case and everyone came back unscathed. The pictures were pretty funny and are up on p’rick’s site.

Wednesday was a quiet night at home drinking sweet, sweet brandy. This was the perfect end to a day spent playing video games and doing laundry.

Thursday was of course Turkey day. I’m calling it Turkey Day this year because nobody mentioned anything that they were thankful for. I let Milca know I was thankful for her, of course, but nobody said something they’re thankful for before the meal like we used to every year. Whatever, there was turkey and ham. On the way up my brothers and I stopped at KMart because they were open. This in and of itself was entertainment galore because they had signs for about a block before KMart, all around the parking lot, and then they had some poor sap on the corner up the block holding two of the signs saying they were open. After the meal my brothers and I got tremendously lost, which took us out on sort of a Grandma tour of the area. We passed where she and Grandpa used to live, we passed where she used to work, and we passed the place that they lived years ago, too. It was kinda nice getting so lost.

Friday was another day lost to rain and gloominess. I played many video games, and enjoyed it thoroughly.

Saturday I went over to p’ricks to play some poker. I had only played poker for real money once before, and it truly showed. I was the only person to lose all of my money. The pookie came out kinda light, but Nikki, p’rick and Cathy came out ahead. It was loads of fun, and I got home at a reasonable hour.

Sunday Milca and I went out for breakfast with her mom, then we went hiking with the dogs. We then went to meet her mom at the art store as her mom needed to get some supplies for work. While there Milca and I had an epiphany regarding Christmas gifts for our friends. We had already decided that we wanted to save money by making the gifts we give this year, but we had no idea as to what we should make. Now we know, and I have to say it’s going to be hella fun, and everyone should like what they’re getting. Not everyone will be getting one of these much coveted gifts, so they truly will be special. More to follow.

So now I’m back at work, want to quit, can’t stand working were I do, and want to go somewhere else where they will pay me more money. Vacations sort of put that whole work thing into perspective. I don’t like it so much. I suppose that’s why they pay me to do it… or they pay me to act like I’m doing it is a bit more accurate.

Today is the last day of my vacation, so there will be a post tomorrow covering the antics of said vacation. For the time being there’s an update on the comments. I hadn’t fiddled around with the comments’ settings and didn’t realize that you could choose a stylesheet for the comments. Long story short (too late) the comments match the site a bit better.

Stay tuned for that post, which will be big and juicy for you. Lots of stuff happened, and even more on the horizon.

Part One

Part Two

All caught up? Let’s continue then.

When I was a wee little tot, my parents would put me to sleep by driving with me in my car seat. Apparently, I would fall asleep almost immediately. Present day I can be found to have passed out fallen asleep while a passenger in a car, even without the car seat.

There’s a lot of people out there that get really pissed at traffic, and I can’t say that I blame them, but I typically find it very calming and relaxing to be driving, even if I am driving like a bandit.

Over the past week or so the computers here at work have been replaced with much better hardware and software. We went from NT 4.0 to XP Pro. We went from Celerons to P4’s. We went from clunky 15″ monitors to sleek flat touch screen monitors. Playing around in XP with a touch screen is almost enough to make you giddy. Along with this change came many problems that made me quite aware of what I knew when it came to Excel and what I needed to learn. There were also problems in balancing sales from 3 days where we didn’t have computers. All of these things meant stress, which called for some stress release.

I got into my car, I had a special job to do, then I went for a drive around Hastings Ranch. I rolled slowly around the neighborhood with my windows down enjoying the cool autumn breeze. There were no cars behind me and nobody in front of me. The streets were riddled with red, brown, and yellow leaves that crunched beneath my tires. It was then that I realized waht the problem with cars are. The windows.

Okay, so you need the windows, and I understand this. Are they truly necessary 100% of the time, though? I try to keep them up when I’m on the scar freeway, but they’re typically down otherwise. You might say that this is because of my lack of AC, and on a hot day you’d be right for the most part. Even when it’s cold, though, there’s that feeling of air rushing over my oustretched arm, the wind running through my hair, and then there’s the fact that I could hear, feel, and smell autumn which brings me right back to the fact that I am a breathing living creature on this planet, and the planet itself is also alive. With your windows up the only thing you know is that the tickets for the KROQ Acoustic Christmas are on sale and that KLOS wants you to unlock some damn vault that has $10,000 for you.

Roll down your windows.

Open your doors.

Go outside.

Breathe.

Another three day weekend has passed, which of course means I bring you another long ass post.

Veteran’s Day went by fairly quickly at work, what with there being so few customers. There was much drama from trying to fix the problem with the new system, however. That, in and of itself, will warrant a post when it’s all finally done.

Friday I played the obligatory video games (I’m still trying to unlock the cheats in Tony Hawk Underground 1), then went to work to pick up my check. From there I met up with Milca and her mom at Milca’s work. From there the lot of us went to the home of the woman who is making my suit, her dress, and now the accessories for the wedding party (shawls for ladies, ties for men). I had to be there to get measured. Milca had actual fittings and whatnot. My part being done first and quickly I was excused to go for a walk so as to not have any idea what she will look like on the day of.

As it turns out this woman lives on the same block as the first place I had ever lived. My folks and I lived there until I was about six, as my mom was pregnant with turd boy, and we were in a one bedroom as is. I walked by the old place, which had changed ever so slightly over the years. I’m sure there were drastic changes, but the memories I had of the outside were few and very hazy. I wish I had been able to get inside the apartment itself. That would have boiled my noodle. As is I was fortunate enough to talk to a sweet woman who was the current manager about the place and whatnot. After about 10 minutes I walked around the block and back to everyone else.

When we got back home we were expecting to see Nikki, and we did, but with a good deal of lagging. I suppose I am partially to blame for said lagging with respect to a lack of prior communication, but there was lagging across the board for the most part. At any rate I got my Nikki, Pookie, p’rick, and Brett on, so life was good.

Saturday was the day I was set to see Sean, who I hadn’t seen since before he left for his 45 day European extravaganza. He and the pookie came over, and the lot of us went to this place Jax in Glendale to eat, listen to music, and chat. It was too loud to chat, but the music and the food were pretty damn good. We made it home at a reasonable hour and crashed out.

Sunday night my mom arranged to have her, dad, my brothers, a couple that are family friends, myself, Milca, and Milca’s mom over for an early Thanksgiving dinner, as there are a fair amount of shenanigans that will prevent some of use from seeing eachother on the day itself. It was also an excuse to cook a 20 pound turkey and drink yummy wine from maui (some of their bottles can be purchased at Cost+, if shipping isn’t your thing). Stories, pictures, memories, etc were shared. A good time was had by all. My brothers and I did throw down in some Donkey Konga, which is one of the funnest games I’ve played in some time. I have some rhythym, but I have MUCH room for growth as a percussionist. I did hold my own against the drummer in the family, though.

So, there you have it. Now go outside and smell that autumn air. Go on, I’ll be here waiting for you…