stupid things people do.

each morning at work we get a little newspaper on the fax machine. six pages of mini-blurbs of news. it's of very little use, and takes all of thirty seconds to read.

I read it this morning. there were two utterly ridiculous stories.

the first was talking about all the schools that were closing around the state today. school districts had decided to close schools due to all the snow we were SUPPOSED to get today. forget the fact that we didn't actually get much. hell, the streets were dry when I went to work this morning. people coming in from the outlying areas reported a bit of white at the higher elevations. certainly not enough to warrant closing schools down. I just have to wonder about the genius that sees a weather forecast, which is hardly EVER accurate, and says, "oh shit, we could get a bunch of snow, let's panic!"

but as stupid as that is, there was an even stupider story...

last week, some whacked meth-head shot up the tacoma mall with an assault rifle, including hostages being taken and everything. rants about how a 20 year old meth head gets an assault rifle aside, there's been all sorts of news stories about a "hero" who is now paralyzed. he's the only one who was seriously hurt in the shooting. everyone else either saw the fucko coming or heard the gunshots and ran. but this guy? he's a BIG man, worked at the house of cutlery. with a concealed weapons permit. so he walks up to fucko da methhead, and goes for his sidearm. it's like some sort of fucked up western. problem is, fucko already had his rifle out, and shot him. several times. including once in the spine. guy will never walk again.

so why is this guy a hero? why should we all celebrate what he did? he tried to take the law into his own hands, and he nearly ended up dead because of it. boy, THAT sure is a good argument for "more guns = less crime"... just has me thinking of the line from 'serenity'.. "you know what a hero is? it's someone who gets a lot of innocent people killed."

the lesson is: if you see some fuckhead with a big gun, GET OUT OF THE GOD DAMNED WAY!

and if it might snow tomorrow, hide under your bed and wait for spring.

two words: santa fucking con!

so miyuki and I went out for dinner with my friend piper tonight. I've known piper since I was ten. piper is the single worst influence on me. ever. jaegerbombs? piper's influence. bubbletea blowguns? piper. staring strippers in the eyes to make them so uncomfortable they lose track of their routine? piper. opening a portal to hell by lighting the contents of fifty road flares on fire at once? piper.

this guy is the epitome of the evil genius. and tonight he edumacated me on the glory and grandeur that is SantaCon. turns out this year it's happening in Ballard, starting just a few blocks from my apartment.

the premise? hundreds of drunkards in santa costumes overtaking the city on a twelve plus hour bender of a pub crawl. giving out gifts to all the boys and girls (candy for the kiddies, booze and sex toys for the adults). getting thrown out of as many establishments as possible. generally just raising hell in a yuletide orgy. hell, last year they even hijacked a "Ride the Ducks" amphibious vehicle and took it for a spin.

I want to be there. I need to get a santa suit (I've been told the cheaper the better, most opt for the $12 model from party city), a bag full of goodies, and some way of concealing a large quantity of alcohol (to keep the cheeks rosy for a good twelve hours). I need to make sure my pants stay on so I don't get arrested.

so my question is, who wants to make the trip to seattle for this? it's saturday, dec 10. there's also one in portland the 17th, and I believe one is planned for vancouver bc on dec 3 (with a smaller warm-up in bellingham the night previous). if anyone wants to come down for the debauchery, you're welcome to crash at our place. there's also a hotel being arranged for a massive afterparty as well, but I don't have the details yet. let me know if you're interested. this sounds like an AWESOME time, and it's a long overdue bit of debauchery for me...

you can never go home again.

miyuki and I are at my parents' house for the holiday weekend. it's always weird coming here. they've only lived in this house a couple years, it was never "home" to me. I always feel like a guest here, and never know where anything goes.

we had a mellow thanksmurder dinner. our friend jenn came down with us, because she couldn't get to her family (she has to work today). she knows my family (works for the same company as my dad and bro-in-law), so it was nice for her to be with a family, even if it wasn't her own. she took the train back to seattle last night.

I've already had two leftover turkey sammiches. first was about 9pm last night, and I think it was a mistake. I didn't sleep well at all, and I attribute much of it to the sammich. the lack of cats, noise, and street lights through the windows probably also threw me off. damn suburbs. but I ended up having two VERY weird dreams that kept me up most of the night. not nightmares, but they got me so ANGRY I couldn't sleep. the first had something to do with two annoying goth girls we had for neighbours (no idea why) that had little voodoo cats made out of paper. they were using them to try to kill our cats. I ended up making my own paper voodoo-cat of THEIR pet, and ate it. then I woke up. second dream took place at safeco field, and dealt with a really annoying concession vendor. I thought I found a really good deal on corn dogs (two for $2), but when I got them, one was half eaten. I ended up missing the entire game demanding (and being refused) a replacement corn dog or refund (I'm stupidly stubborn even in my dreams), and then couldn't find miyuki after the game. so I just stared at where the ceiling would have been for an hour or so (it's REALLY dark in the guest room here), and finally just got up a couple hours before I had planned. so much for sleeping in.

I was also reminded of one of my dad's most amusing neuroses while I was taking a shower. he refuses to use bars of soap once they get to a certain size. there were four mini-bars of soap in the shower, all about the size of a hotel bar, and a brand new bar he had just opened. I assume I am like most people, and when the soap gets too small to use properly, I'll open a new bar, and mold the smaller soap bit onto the new bar. not my dad. so I molded the four small bars into two slightly larger bars, and used them. tomorrow, I'll try to form those two into a larger bar. wasting soap like that just seems silly...

it's gonna be a boring weekend. we've got plans to see a few friends, and we have to run a couple of errands while we're down here. but mostly, it's just going to be boring. we already saw a crappy movie yesterday ('just friends.' my sister picked it, and my sister has horrendous taste in movies), and we'll probably see at least one more while we're here (harry potter, jarhead or ice harvest).

blah.

I think I have mono.

at least that would explain while I've felt so run down lately. it sucks. I'm been going to bed earlier, oversleeping a bit... I don't do much other than work and sleep, it seems. I have been putting in about 10 hours a day, and it's been grueling this week. trying to do too much, still learning what I'm doing, blah blah blah...

I got a call from my former 401k provider. they're going to be sending me two cheques. the 80% cheque is rolled over to an IRA retirement fund. the 20% cheque will be made out directly to me, after tax withholdings. what worries me is the total they gave me. it's amount to $15,731.80. I wasn't aware I had that much in retirement. it has me wondering if they forgot to subtract the $2500 or so that was still owed against my loan. I have a bad feeling they're gonna come after me for that later on. that company has fucked up countless times, so it'll happen. it'll be nice to put a couple thousand back in savings and not have to worry about it. with miyuki hopefully starting work next month, maybe we can even leave it there without touching it. or heaven fobid, add to the nest egg...

I am thinking of using ING's feature of opening several sub-accounts to my savings. have one for a house, one for vacation fund, one for a vespa fund, one for a new computer, etc. I do wonder if it would be to my advantage to leave it all in one account tho, to benefit from compound interest. I'll have to do the math on that, see if it makes any difference. I don't think it should.

also crunched some numbers and realised if miyuki can find a job that earns just $11 an hour (which shouldn't be difficult given her office experience), we're gonna have enough income to put several hundred dollars per month away for savings, down payment on a house, vacations, and various fun. woo for fiscal responsibility!

sharp darts.

got my first paycheque yesterday. there was a payroll snafu, and I only got paid for two weeks. I should have been paid for 120 hours, but I'll get the other 40 on the next cheque. things will be a little bit tight until then, but we'll get by.

we went out to celebrate a bit tho, met up with a couple old friends up mine at dante's in the U district. miyuki had her first Grape Nehi. and her second. and I played darts for the first time.

first game, we played some form of cricket. while the point of the game was to have as low a score as possible, I ended up with 596 before being spoiled. I've been told that's the highest score anyone has seen. a bit of a dubious honour to be sure, but a record nonetheless.

second game, we played splat. and I won. I even managed to splat someone when they had like 318 points. object of the game is to hit 333 exactly. and I did. still not sure how.

third game, we played cricket again, and while I didn't win, I was doing quite well. if not for my inability to hit a bullseye, I could have won it as well.

so I'm impressed. I so rarely pick up games or sports and do well. especially that quickly. so I figure I either have some marginal talent at throwing darts (tho I would need to practice, my consistency blew), or it's just incredibly easy to do in the first place I will be sticking to electronic machines for now, as the scoring system stills baffles me... but hey, i may have a new hobby.

hail to the chump.

either I'm a wonderful employee, or I'm an idiot. I guess it's possible I could be both.

my predecessor worked a 40 hour week. and towards the end, it's even debatable as to whether she worked the whole time... but she didn't stick around for extra. it's a salary position. that doesn't mean overtime isn't possible, but it's not really available.

I've worked a couple extra hours the past couple of days. and I volunteered to head in this weekend for a few hours. I didn't ask about getting paid for it, and no one said anything. for now, I'll just assume it's volunteered work unless I hear otherwise. my logic for donating precious non-work time is two-fold. mostly, I feel guilty for not being up to speed, so I'm making up for my lack of production by working extra hours to get the shit done. but I also have an insane sort of loyalty, a trait I get from my dad. I think I'm eager to prove that I'm a team player by going above and beyond what would be expected of me. plus, I want to take in as much as I can as quickly as possible. I don't like feeling lost. I'm taking on extra tasks that I normally wouldn't need to do, just to understand the processes so I know what I'm delegating. I think that's important.

unfortunately, this will probably set a dangerous precedent. if I start out working extra for free, it'll become expected. and once I'm up to speed and functioning at 100% within the normal 40 hours, I might be expected to still put in that extra ten hours a week, just to get a bit ahead. odds of this happening our slim. like most people, I only work at a pace necessary to accomplish what needs done. I'm not gonna shift into overdrive during a slow period. few people can sustain that, you burn out too quickly. when you're behind, some people can gear up and get more done. I'm one of those people, but I need the right motivation. from what I've seen, there are peaks and valleys anyway, so there will always be slow times and fast times. at ridgemont high.

it's only been three weeks. most everyone has said I'm doing well. I do feel I'm doing better now than I was a week ago. but it's gonna be another month or two before I really settle in and feel comfortable.

I just hope I don't forget everything during the holiday break. oh yeah, did I mention I get nearly two weeks off at the end of the year? whole plant shuts down dec 22 and doesn't open again til after new years. seven normal working days off. paid. and without using vacation time. the three weeks vacation time I'm allotted.

this job does have its perks.

overwhelmed and under the influence.

the newest "just say no" type ad campaign for kids is called "over the influence"... that's just BEGGING to be mocked. kinda like how in high school, my friends and I used to hug each other while shouting, "hugs, not drugs!" while baked off of our asses...

work is getting overwhelming. I've reached the point where I'm being turned to and expected to handle stuff that is far beyond my meagre training. I'm discovering all sorts of crap my predecessor didn't mention. much of it never came up in my nine days of training, but I suspect a lot of it had to do with the fact that she was about fourteen months pregnant and days away from quitting. of course she wasn't going to give a shit.

problem is, my boss was tied up in meetings all day yesterday. and he was AWOL this morning. so everything that had been piled on my desk since monday is still there. and it'll STILL be there tomorrow. you know, thursday. it's had me wondering about the security of staying at a job you hate, but can do in your sleep. I keep reminding myself I'll get this down soon enough and it'll be second nature too, but right now, it's just damn HARD. and well, I'm lazy.

I had to leave work today at 11:30 too. I had stayed late the past few work days to build up the comp time, but it still sucked to leave such a massive heap on my desk. had to take miyuki down to the dept of homey security. in TUKWILA. that's like half an hour away. heaven forbid they have an office downtown with the rest of the govt buildings. nooooo, they had to put their office on the far side of boeing field. it was ridiculous. so was the nearly four hours we wasted there getting her "biometrics" done. she won't tell me what biometrics mean. she says it was just a picture. but they already had pictures, and it shouldn't cost $70 and take four hours to take a picture. I think they took DNA or something. or maybe they probed her and she's embarassed to tell me. anyway, it's hopefully the last step we have to do. now we just wait for her work visa (sometime in the next month) and her green card (sometime in march or april). she can start working with the visa, but can't return to canada until she gets the green card. it's totally lame. worst part about the whole ordeal was I didn't get anything to eat all day. I never eat breakfast, and didn't have time for lunch. I bought a small bag of pretzels from the vending machine, and that's all I'd eaten todat until we stopped at jack in the box for $1 chicken sammiches at 4pm. they were just to hold us over til dinner around 6:30 or so...

blah. I want it to be the weekend.

not your space.

I had wanted to send an email to a former coworker about the jones soda thing, but couldn't remember her addy. I knew she had a myspace profile, so I looked that up to send her the email. in the meantime, I figured I'd update my profile, since myspace seems to be the net fad du jour. unfortunately, I only know one person on there (CHA, who got me to sign up), so anyone who has a myspace account, lemme know? my profile is melferburque. you know, how it ALWAYS is.

anyway, I was bored and went looking for profiles I might recognise. and for some reason, found the ex wife's. it was depressing. I haven't had an actual conversation with her in over a year, aside from screaming at her about missed car payments. I really have no idea what she's been up to or anything.

so she's officially "bi" now... whatever. she's smoking. which is ironic, since she has severe allergies from exposure to her alcoholic father's second hand smoke growing up. she also had some stupid meme that said she's had sex with "double digit" people... funny, when we split, that number was two. she also said something about eating bacon. funny, she was one of those annoying vegetarians from the age of sixteen to who knows when... also looks like she drinks. a lot. most of her spare time is spent in bars, according to what she'd written there. she never used to drink, and in fact used to lecture me over having a beer or two with a meal. it's just amazing how she seems to have systematically changed every facet of her personality.

you would have thought that after spending seven years with someone, you'd know them despite the differences. but she's a completely changed person. has me wondering about other people I used to know but never see anymore. how much do people naturally drift apart over time? miyuki and I are meeting up with my friend ben and his new wife over thanksmurder break, since we'll both be visiting our families for the holiday. I haven't seen ben in four or five years, but we have kept in contact via email and sports fantasy leagues. we never were that close to begin with, so who knows... gee, could some of this be underlying regret for not going to my high school reunion, too?

in other news, miyuki got her xmas prezzie way early. she got a new sewing machine, 'cos it was on sale really cheap. while that may not seem a very romantic gift, she seems happy with it, and it's what she really wanted... now I just gotta decide if I want a canucks or mariners jersey from here. thinking I'm leaning towards mariners. I have three hockey sweaters already...

two weeks down. one thousand, five hundred fifty-eight to go...

I'm learning a lot about the new job. or more accurately, about the people at my new job.

there are a lot of, erm, "personalities" there. but what I've learned most, particularly yesterday, was what my predecessor did that annoyed everyone. many requests and possible compliments were passed on to me. "if you can do this better, and it looks like you can, you'll be a vast improvement!" problem is, everyone liked her so much, they never complained. at least not to her. I'll have the benefit of everyone being so sick of the way things were done, that I can use their feedback to try to get into good habits and develop a system that'll keep everyone happy. I don't have all those bad habits yet, I'm very malleable.

I was also told that people are going to take advantage of my n00bie shine, which I expect. I pointed out I do have a decent memory for being raped tho, and have ways of exacting my revenge. nothing devious, mind you, but once I get my berarings and settle in, I'm sure I'll find ways of taking little jabs at those who take advantage of my naïvety.

I've also been told by several people that I'm doing okay so far, and that no one expects me to be functionally at the level my predecessor was for quite awhile. after all, she had five years at the company. I'm going to be granted several months handicap to get up to speed. it'll take awhile, but as I've been informed, "it ain't rocket science"...

fuck directv.

so I got so sick of comcast that I went looking for other options for tv and interweb. we opted for directv. cheaper than cable, and a nice nhl package.

problem is, it doesn't work in the rain. I live in seattle. it's going to rain for the next six months. we have no signal. I have a black screen where my hockey should be. hockey I paid $130 for and had planned on wearing a nice groove into my couch watching.

I call up directv. they tell me they can send a tech out tuesday. gee, I was kinda hoping to watch my habs and canucks games NOW. I ask about cancelling my service. I have a year commitment, they tell me it's $150 to break my contract. I told them they've already broken it by failing to live up to reasonable expections. I'm sorry, normal seattle november rain (heh) should not be considered "serious weather"... the bimbo on the phone tells me one of their customers in the south survived wilma until their power went out, but never lost a signal. I asked why a little rain could knock out my dish when 100+ mph winds wouldn't. she couldn't tell me. instead she gave me $5 off my bill and free showtime for the next six months. and if I want to look into a "dish cover" they'll reiumburse me up to $70 as a credit on my bill. meanwhile, my saturday night is shot. this means I'll actually have to spend time paying attention to my wife!

but in other news, this this is the awesomest thing I have ever heard.

I will survive.

first week at the new place is done. I'm still alive. hopefully I'll have retained at least some of what I learned going into next week. I'm pretty good with the order entry and filing. the actual planning, not so good. the more basic units I'm down with, but that's because they're done on a constant basis, and I just need to lay out the next batch for the guys who do them. the bigger jobs will be more problematic. fortunately, as they're bigger jobs, they don't happen as often. the vast majority of the orders I do (60% or more) are either parts (easy) or shipped direct from mexico with no customisation (even easier). another 20% of the orders are the basic units, so those aren't too bad. they're always finished within two weeks, done in batches of nine, and two batches can be done in a week by the one guy who does them. the last 20% of the orders are the tough ones. even then, I should have help from the sales staff...

they do bagels or donuts every friday there. I got an onion bagel with cream cheese this morning. I asked about beers after work, but most people have long commutes, and the schedules are staggered too. there's no set "closing time"... production guys leave at 2 or so, I leave at 3:30, sales people leave around 5.

and on a totally unrelated note, miyuki sent me to the store for an optional dinner ingredient (cilantro, I REALLY like fresh cilantro), so I ran over to the store. walked through the door, and realised just how fortunate I was for my cilantro fetish. right inside the door was a small display for jones soda holiday pack 2005. I went apeshit trying to find this last year, and here were eight right in front of me. and on sale $3 cheaper at that. I bought four. called my bro in law, he said he wanted one. but he also wanted an extra to actually taste, so we're splitting that one. keep one for myself, that means I still have one left. if someone wants to lay claim and kiss a lot of butt, they'll get it for xmas. otherwise it'll go on ebay in about six weeks, and probably fetch around $50 if last year was any indication (they only make 5000 I think, very limited run). not bad for a $15 investment. five bottles, each a different flavour. this year it's turkey and gravy, salmon pate, broccoli casserole, corn on the cob, and pecan pie. I would have preferred last year's green bean casserole over stupid broccoli, but oh well. miyuki wants the pecan pie flavour. we're all a bit worried abour salmon flavoured soda.

the jones soda website has a turkey with a "3 days left" countdown, so I'm wondering if I actually got them early, or if they just hadn't updated their website...

anyway, I'm feeling lucky, punk. yay!

egad! I was shot!

so yeah, it seems a bit odd that I got a free flu shot on my second day at the new job. never had a flu shot before, and it was free. we'll see how it goes. I half suspect I'll end up CATCHING the flu from it... got the shot in my left arm in case I got sore, and the nurse stabbed me right in the middle of my tattoo. I'd like to think my tattoo just happened to be right where she needed to give the shot, but it's DEAD centre. there's a little hole in my arm. she put a band aid on it, but it never bled. that's also a bit disturbing.

second day at work was considerably more difficult than the first. and it's gonna get a LOT worse. I just hope my predecessor sticks around awhile... if she has her baby anytime too soon, it's gonna be a rough start for me. I do think it'll take me two or three months to really start to feel comfortable. and it'll probably be six months before I've got the hang of everything. that just seems so odd for me, since I've been doing more or less the same thing my entire life. even the new stuff had enough familiar elements that it made for an easy transition. this is all new people, all new product, and an all new system.

but I did hear back from an old coworker... yeah, the "masterplan" is a joke. they won't be replacing me. which is dumb, because purchasing is somewhat VITAL. was even told there was interest in my old position, and the boss turned them all away. whatever. I'm out of there, the ship can go down without me on it...