CBC can eat my asshole.

I didn't pay for hockey this year, so I only get to see two games a week, at most. every saturday, CBC shows a double header called "hockey night in canada". one east coast game, one west coast game.

the east coast game is ALWAYS toronto against whoever toronto is playing. the second game is split pretty evenly between calgary, edmonton and vancouver, the three west coast canadian teams.

this sucks. why? because toronto sucks. I'm a huge habs fan, I'd much rather watch montreal. but if my choice was toronto or ottawa? I'd take the sens in a heartbeat. hell, I'd take ANYONE over toronto in a heartbeat. fourteen other teams in the eastern conference, and I'd rather watch any of them.

but this week is particularly terrible. montreal is playing the pittsburgh penguins. captained by sid the kid, sidney crosby, the pride and joy of nova scotia, and the best player to come out of canada since wayne gretzky. montreal, meanwhile, has won 24 championships and had several dynasties. the maple leaves haven't won a championship since 1967. they've had their fair share of scandals since then, however, including a nasty bout of pedophilia in the 70s and 80s. they're a team full of cheap-shotting prima donnas, and yet they are CANADA'S TEAM. thus, the national broadcast is toronto vs the new york rangers. only the quebec and maritime region will get to see sid square off against the habs.

so fuck CBC. fuck "hockey night in toronto". and may it be another forty years before the worthless maple leaves win another championship...

ch-ch-ch-changes.

ann, the last blogger on earth, has bugged me into adding an RSS feed to my neglected blog... it took awhile to even figure out what the hell I was doing. there was a time when I was up on computer technology. I ran my own BBS, I hacked into the network in my high school's computer lab, I even coded my own html about ten years ago... but lately, technology is leaving me behind. I can barely manage bit torrents. I'm confused by and scared of social networking. I find text messages on my phone to be both annoying and expensive...

yet here I am. broadcasting via RSS on the inter-tubes. it's ann's fault. the hideous new template is her fault as well, the old template didn't have an RSS link and I was too lazy to figure out how to add it.

lots of poop has happened recently. several of us hit the fremont zombie walk '07. it was awesome. I was glad we didn't look like lame zombies, but we definitely weren't in the cream of the crop either. some of those folks just spent way too much time and money on costumes and makeup. they do a few a year, but we figure once annually is good enough for us. I dropped probably $50 on makeup and fake blood, and had to throw out the clothes soaked in fake blood. miyuki made me some awesome fake intestines too, but those had to go as well, they were starting to go off. the flick pics are here. there are quite a few of me in there...

I did end up with a nasty rash on my neck from the spirit gum used to attach my massive gash. it's a very pretty bright pink raised chunk. it looks like someone attacked me with digusting puff paint. the rash is only now going away, five days after the zombie walk.

I should be getting a sizable raise at work... not as sizable as I asked for, but they're not asking me to do as much as I offered too, either. there is a rumour that my old boss (the one that ran me out of the company to begin with) may be taking over my branch, which would be bad... but I don't know yet. the rumour doesn't make any sense, but that's never stopped them before. if he is my new boss, I imagine I'll be looking for work again soon. I really don't want to work for him again. fortunately, I've developed some good relationships with customers and reps, I could probably find work easily enough if I needed to.

I've also decided to get a new compy. the one miyuki got from work for free over a year ago is dying. it might just be the fan, but it's seeming awfully slow, and I want to switch back to a mac. we're going to get a mac mini next weekend (save the tax in portland). top of the line model, super drive and everything...

I already have my xmas prezzie from miyuki... "she" got me a new habs sweater, the 1946 retro reverse colour scheme, customised with koivu's name & number. my old habs sweater was ten years old, I needed a new one. and it was on sale, so we ordered it. she's getting her prezzie early too, because we're horrible people. she wants a nice new winter coat, we'll go shopping for that this weekend...

we're having some friends over and the in-laws down for thanksmurder. I'll be cooking again this year. the turkey turned out really well last year, I just need to perfect my gravy skills.

we've already done about half of our xmas shopping. yay! I just need lists from my sister's clan and we'll be done with my family. we're not doing much for miyuki's this year, since we won't be in canada for the holidays...

so yeah, that's life in a nutshell, for my audience of one...

fuck neumo's (or: what kind of day has it been?)

today was supposed to be the awesomest day ever.

I was supposed to get the raise/promotion I was promised three months ago.

I was supposed to get the office I was promised six months ago.

I was supposed to go out for ethernopian food for dinner.

I was supposed to see my favouritist band, the weakerthans, in concert for the first of two concerts in as many nights.

well, at least I got ethernopian for dinner...

I didn't get my promotion. my boss decided he should drive a truck until 3pm. his boss decided to go to lunch at 11:30 and never come back. I needed both of them present to discuss my new job description and pay raise. now I won't get to talk to them until wednesday at the very earliest. and to be honest, I doubt it will even happen then. my boss has been promising me a promotion to department head (and a 20% or so raise to go along with it) for months now. but he's a lame duck, he's transferring at the end of the year. I've talked to HIS boss, and he won't do shit unless he's cornered. I've yet to get both of them in the building at the same time.

I was also supposed to get an office today. I finally whined enough, after being promised in the spring, to get someone to approve getting the phone company in to set up lines at the other end of the building. that's done, so the two people in "my" office just need to move out. it was supposed to happen thursday. it was supposed to happen today. it never did. and it probably never will. I'll be stuck out in a tiny cubicle with no privacy and even less working space. another example of my employer making empty promises to try to keep me happy.

I had an even bigger asshole moment today too... one of our printers jammed, but it didn't register. so it just kept printing orders all day long. since I found it, it was my problem to fix. I called out IT department and asked them to check the print log and tell me everything that had printed on that printer in the past 24 hours. I was told that was impossible, because once a print job spools it is purged from memory and can't be recovered. so I went about doing it the hard way, generating reports of open orders and shit. pain in the ass. two hours later, something came across the fax to a coworker with a list of 51 orders and a note, "here's the list you requested, [not xian]!" from the same bitch who told me she couldn't do anything. when I asked my coworker about it, he started giving me shit about "catching more flies with honey"... which is a load of shit. the woman who helped him (and was flirting with him) but wouldn't help me is a bitch. she's WORSE than the stereotypical BOFH. she's about 45, russian, and attractive. and she knows it. she uses her tits to get her way, and doesn't give a shit about you if you don't somehow improve her life somehow. I asked her politely to DO HER FUCKING JOB and she refused. but because my coworker called up, did the same thing, but also flattered her fucking ego, she did it for him. that's fucking horseshit. and I was about to deck the coworker who was lecturing me on how to deal with people nicely. fuck that. women who use their sexuality to get ahead are fucking whores.

so yeah, by the time I left work, I was in a pretty bad mood. I had a bad headache. I picked up miyuki, drove to the venue for the concert, and tried to pick up our tickets. I ordered our tickets online nearly three weeks ago, to be mailed to us. they never arrived. when I called earlier in the week, I was told "it can take 7-10 business days for tickets to be processed. they were printed on 9/20. if you don't have them by thursday, call back." thursday came, no tickets. I sat on hold for fifteen minutes at ticketswest (it's sad when you actually miss being anally raped by ticketmaster), and was told they put my tickets on will call.

I show up about 5:30, the box office is closed. I ask around, I'm told they open the box office closer to when they open the doors, around 8pm. so we went for dinner. we got back at 6:30, the box office still wasn't open. by 7:15, a line was forming at the back door, so I got into it. 8 comes and goes, they still haven't opened anything.

at 8:15, they finally open the box office window. they start distributing tickets, which are literally those little "admit one" tickets you get at a carnival. they then tell us to stand in another line IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET. at 8:30, they finally open the doors and start letting people in. the back door. the front door was never opened. everything happens through the back door. why even have a front door?

we notice the list on the door had the first opening band from 9-9:30, the second band from 10-10:30, and weakerthans from 11-12:15.

my urge to kill was rising. my headache was getting worse.

at 9:30, the opening act STILL hadn't taken the stage. I was ready to firebomb the whole fucking venue, so we left. total waste of $29.50. and about four hours of my life.

for all I know, they still haven't started the fucking concert.

neumo's is the worst fucking venue I have ever been to. it's run by retards who obviously can't tell time. I'm used to rock concerts starting a few minutes late... but for everything to start over 30 minutes after advertised? we could tell why the show hadn't started when we left at 9:30... there were still people in line out the door trying to get in. gee, y'think maybe if they opened the fucking box office before fifteen minutes AFTER the doors were supposed to open, that wouldn't happen? or maybe if they offered a separate window for ticket purchases and will call? they literally had ticketholders, will call and people looking to buy tickets in ONE line.

fucking retards. but hey, it's a fitting end to one of the worst days of my life. that's what I get for actually expecting things to go as planned and to be happy for a change.

the show tomorrow night had better be better.