what kind of day has it been?

it's been one of those days where I prayed for a nuclear holocaust to wipe every last motherfucker off the planet.

it started off with me getting yelled at by one of my shop monkeys. one of the very same bigotted assholes from yesterday. and why did I get yelled at? because I had the audacity to use one of his tools and not return it immediately. yes, of that I was guilty. but to get my ass reamed over it, BY A GODDAMN UNDERLING, is bullshit. so I called him on it. I apologised for my mistake, and pointed out he should treat me (and everyone) in a more respectful and professional tone. he essentially told me to fuck off, that I was wrong and he was right.

I got out late for lunch, and decided I'd go with my one choice, jack in the box. there were twenty people in line when I got there. literally. so I was stuck eating fucking 7-11 hot dogs for lunch. I SWORE I would never touch one of those fuckers. I had no choice.

miyuki had a doctor's appointment, so I came home a bit early to take her. it's two miles away, normally a five minute drive, tops. we leave fifteen minutes early. we get there ten minutes late. I can LITERALLY walk to the doctor's office, at a leisurely pace, no less, faster than we drove there. nearly half an hour to drive about thirty blocks.

I get home, and decide to do miyuki's canadian income taxes for her. she's been putting it off, knowing she's got money coming to her so they won't complain. I got onto a website that allows electronic filing, find she's owed $1200. that's our elliptical trainer right there. problem is, the website is retarded. it won't allow for non canadian addresses. it won't allow for non canadian spouses... so we set it up with her maiden name and her parent's house... go to pay for it, the billing options are limited in the same way. so we dig out her one old credit card, figuring we'll bug her mom to pay the $11 for us. we can't e-file. we go through all that trouble only to find out that the canadian revenue service's idea of e-filing is painfully restrictive. we need to print it out and mail it. fine.

I can't print. the piece of shit HP all-in-one printer won't spit the fucking thing out. it's prints one page, then chokes on it. I try printing four times. then I had an 'office space' michael bolton moment. I put my fist through the scanner plate. this means you won't be seeing any artwork on miyuki's page anytime soon, as she has no way of scanning it. it also means all my printing will have to be done at work, which means emailing everything to myself.

you name it, it's gone wrong today. even the joy of knowing we have $1200 coming gets tainted by bullshit. knowing my luck, I'll probably have ended up causing her to get audited and she'll end up OWING money.

fuck the universe.

sigh.

at some point in my life, I'd like to work with people who aren't pigs. I used to work in the plumbing industry with a bunch of warehouse grunts and even office people generally lacking in education or refinement.

now, I work with production people on a shop floor who also show an amazingly small amount of tolerance. it's nothing too terribly bad, but that's probably because there aren't any gay people here (that anyone knows of, anyway). but the shop guys pretty much always come back to "brokeback mountain" jokes... it's sad how they're still having this conversation. none of them have seen it. they all said once they heard what it was about, they didn't want to.

so I've decided to shock them a bit... told them about how good brokeback was, but went a little further... stuff like priscilla, flawless or bad education, where you move beyond normal gay characters to more fringe types. that really freaks them out. I heard things like, "I've lost a lot of respect for you" when I talk about enjoying such movies. I don't think they realise that the feeling is reciprocal.

just for good measure, I have to throw in various amusing pastimes of my social circle, such as the go-gay-for list, or a personal fave, gay chicken. it's sad that these actually need explation.

"what's a go gay for list?"
"it's a list of guys I'd go gay for."
"what?!"
"y'know, like sean connery. I'd go gay for him just to say I fucked sean connery. it's purely hypothetical, since sean connery likely wouldn't want to fuck ME."

or gay chicken...
"you ever played regular chicken?"
"yeah."
"okay, same thing, except you just act really, REALLY gay. first person to flinch loses."
bonus points if you can actually creep out a real gay guy.

probably best I didn't mention I've actually kissed guys before while playing. for some reason that's actually WORSE than grabbing of junk to these people.

heaven forbid I actually talk about books or movies I like...

that which does not kill me likely maims me for life.

put in my first eight plus hours of SIFF volunteering. I'm pretty sure my usher team leader was that rat chick from "the head"... inly without the big nose. and after smoking a LOT of weed.

met a few nice people, but for some reason I doubt I'll see any of them again. the whole seattle thing is true, people here are polite and all, but no one wants to get to know anyone.

my lard tho, volunteering is boring. I need to bring a book or a gameboy next time. I started out blocking the balcony. why it took them half an hour to realise posting signs on the door saying "sorry, balcony is closed" is beyond me... in the meantime, they had three or us just telling people the balcony was closed. I ended up spending most of the shift on will call, which was amazingly easy. gone are the days of thousands of preprinted tickets sorted in envelopes... now we print them on demand.

I also got to see "princess raccoon" for free... I thought it looked interesting, but I was disappointed. I can only describe it as 'sleeping beauty playing super mario 3'...

I'm gonna use my four vouchers earned today to get miyuki and I tickets to "bickford shmeckler's cool ideas" (which looks incredible) and chaplin's "gold rush"... I'd really like to see "expiration date," which looks like an awesome french black comedy, but it plays at 4pm on a weekday, and I don't think we can get there in time... we'll have to wait for when it comes out this summer.

I also signed up for another shift at the neptune, 'cos I realised I don't want to go nearly three weeks between shifts. that'll get me my SIFF membership PLUS the four tix for the shows I want to see... so if I get more shifts, I don't know what to do with the vouchers... I suppose I could get miyuki a membership as well?

what ho! what news?

for once I actually have shit to talk about other than whining...

first, I got my SIFF badge! it only took me three tries, but I finally got over there to pick it up when they were open... it's so spiffy and it has a horrible, grainy picture of me, but at least it's better than my license picture. I also got a spiffy t-shirt that is surprising unugly for a free volunteer t-shirt, and it entitles me to free burritos while I'm volunteering! I don't know details about this, but hey, free burritos rock.

I also found out I get a free voucher for every two hours worked, not every SHIFT worked as I thought. this means I'm going to have about a dozen free vouchers. rock, yo.

oh, and miyuki got free mariners tickets for last night. great seats, too. for some reason, despite the fact that she works with a hundred people, most of whom are crazy greedy when it comes to free foodstuffs offered, no one takes free mariners tickets. so we got to go. they even won, too! fourth win in a row, which sort of made up for us deciding not to go to the game sunday... richie hit a grand slam too boot, which was nice, since he's stunk up the place all year...

okay, so I thought I had more to talk about than that. free mariners game and free SIFF stuff. woot.

a moral dilemma.

I need to decide where my priorities lie. do I reduce my tendencies to drive to work by buying a bike (and thus provide myself with a cheap method of getting to work quickly, especially when I'm running late), or do I buy an air condition since I haven't been able to sleep in our broiler of a bedroom?

I have a $10 "project starter" for a local box store, which would basically cover tax on the AC unit. it expires next friday. and while the past week was bloody hot (at least for my liking), it's supposed to rain the next little while, which means it's less likely to be unbearable for awhile.

I could instead take the hundred or so I'd spend on the AC unit and buy a bike from craiglist. I'd lose out on the free ten bucks if I go this route. and it's not like I have to choose one or the other, period. I'll just have to wait a couple weeks to get the other one, as the current paycheque surplus won't cover both.

I'm leaning towards getting the bike first, since I've gone my whole life without an AC unit, another couple weeks shouldn't kill me. famous last words.

yay for activism!

volunteering for the film fest counts as activism, right?

I'm signed up to work several shifts for SIFF. my goal is to get five shifts in so I can get a free SIFF membership and get access to all sorts of cool shit next year. it may mean I don't get to see many movies, since I'll beushering most of my free time, but of well. should be a fun way to meet some new people, since we don't know many people in seattle. and I get a free volunteer tshirt AND a SIFF namebadge WITH MY PICTURE ON IT! you can't PAY for this shit. you gotta earn it.

in other news, I successfully made chili in a pressure cooker without killing or maiming anyone. I'm awesome. it turned out quite tasty. the meat was REALLY tender. next time I need to cut back on the peppers tho... had to cut it with a lot of sour cream to keep my stomach from spontaneously combusting.

actually, I guess it would be spontaneous if I added a whole bunch of spicy chiles, huh?

the sun can eat my ass.

we're spending mommy's day with my mommy and sister. wen to a couple of little league games to watch the two older nephews play baseball. brutally bad, I might add.

now, I have what you may call a FAIR complexion. basically, I'm bordering on albino. I get this from my mom. and from never going outside.

that changed today. instead of a beautiful milky white, I am now a bright lobster red, with lots of bumps.

first game was at 11am. I wore a cap, but had just short sleeves. it was warm and sunny. I got burnt. we came home between games, and I put on sunscreen before the second game at 4. some parable about a missing horse and a barn door being shut comes to mind. I figure it did at least prevent FURTHER burning, at least of my skin. of my eyes, it created a whole new level of burning. I kinda have this perspiration problem when it gets hot. I think it's 'cos I'm fat. I sweat, it beads up sunscreen and goes RIGHT into my eyes.

the fun's just starting, however... get home at the end of the day, and notice my arms and neck are covered in hives. turns out I'm allergic to the 15spf sunscreen my mom gave me. I'm just lucky I put 30spf on my face...

so paul, you were asking if karma had collected yet? yeah, fuck you for your asking and sincere compassion. asshole.

fucking karma.

last week on my way into work I found a twenty dollar bill folded up on the ground. I picked it up and kept going, 'cos hey, it's a free twenty bucks.

good things happening to me can't go unpunished, tho. I've somehow lost $10. I paid for my lunch with a twenty. the coins I know I put in my desk, but I can't find the ten dollar bill. either I forgot to grab it from the change thing (unlikely, given how annoying it is when it beeps at the self-checkout aisle), of I tossed it out with the folded up receipt... but that doesn't seem likely either, I remember tossing it at work.

or maybe the wadded up bill just fell out of my pocket, kinda like how that twenty fell out of someone else's pocket.

I'm bound to lose more money at some point, probably with interest. dammit.

subsidised dates rule.

miyuki got a bunch of cool shit from work... she got free mariners tickets, and she got a $100 gift card for secret.. err, administrative professionals day to a fancy steakhouse called daniel's broiler. we decided today would make for a good date day.

we went to the game earlier... mariners lost 2-0, not much offense or exciting play. but the seats were pretty good (third base line), and in all we spent about $20 for the entire day. miyuki got a program with kenji johjima on front, and she used the scorecard to keep track of everything that went on. I didn't have to help her much, it's cool that she's getting into baseball. means I can go to more games without a lot of persuasion. we got some kettle corn, I got some pistachios, all of this outside so it was cheap(er). she filled up on the kettle corn, but I got a $5 hot dog and $4 bottle of mt dew... sad how there's a 400% markup on a bottle of soda inside the stadium.

we're going out for our fancy dinner tonight. I think I've convinced miyuki to go for a steak. she was leaning towards a chicken dish, but in my limited experience at these high end steak houses, the steaks are worth it. I don't normally care for steak either, but they're damn good. we'll probably be out about $40 after the gift card is used up, but that makes for a REALLY cheap day considering everything we will have done. it normally would have been well over $200, and we'll get by on about $60.

unfortunately, I had to work most of yesterday, so it doesn't really seem like sunday. have to go back to work tomorrow, which sucks some balls...

my day off.

why can't every day be a day off work? I've been a total bachelor loser today, and it's great.

slept in til 9:30.

walked to the bank for quarters.

did two loads of laundry.

attempted to season our new wok. I don't think it worked.

watched 'empire strikes back' and 'return of the jedi' on VHS (original dub, yo).

played some KoL.

boiled some taters for tater salad. mmmmm, tater salad.

and I've still got two hours til miyuki comes home.

geek cred.

I've proven myself far more geeky than any of my coworkers. yeah, the "electric sheep" t-shirt had already pretty much sealed that dubious honour, but I cemented it for all time today.

one of the salespeople gave me a UPS red order today for an emergency shipment.. I told her we didn't have any of the control boards available, we had two but they were needed for other jobs. she asked me to steal one from my production guy... he REALLY hates it when I do that, and will usually try to stop me.

so I snuck in, snagged the board and packed it up before he noticed it was gone. when I went in to tell her the order would ship, I said "many bothans died to bring us this sale"... she stared at me dumbfounded. so I figured I'd ask around to the other geekly types to see if THEY got the reference.

no one did.

I don't know which is more sad, that no one I work with gets a marginally obscure star wars quote, or that I was really upset by it...