you stay put

These People Are Not Business Owners. They Are Actors. Also, Comcast Sucks.

2009-12-07T12:13:00.011-06:00

One of your biggest pet peeves is a commercial where actors pretend to be real people. For example, every Comcast Business Class commercial ever made.

You worked for Comcast, and you can attest to the fact that Comcast Business Class is the biggest scam Comcast offers. It's the same crappy service they offer residential customers, but with a different name and a HIGHER price. If a business owner wants reliable phone service for their office, they should go through the local phone company. But that's getting off topic.

Here's an imdb.com profile of one of the "business owners" in the commercial below. The IMDB profile is complete with headshots and a contact link for the actor's agent: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1152701/

Pop Tarts are not healthy breakfast food, so don't feed your kids Pop Tarts. Make them a healthy breakfast, lazy-ass parents.

2009-11-24T09:03:00.007-06:00

You really hate it when companies like Kellogg's attempt to convince you that feeding children sugar and empty calories will make said children wake up in the morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and ready to dance with their mothers.

The only way a company like Kellogg's can attempt to pull this off is through cutesy-ass, romanticized animation that has cutesy-ass "bah-bah bah-bah-bah" music as the soundtrack.

Any parent who sends their kid off to school with a gut full of sugar and lard baked in a toaster should be arrested for neglect.

This George Sodini Mess (Your Attempt to Help)

2009-08-07T09:38:00.009-05:00

Considering this recent mess with uber-douchebag George Sodini, you feel the need to write another blog for men who are without a clue when it comes to dealing with women.

You start these blogs with a disclaimer, and you will do it again for this one:

You don't know everything about women. Hardly. But it has become obvious through simple observation that you know a lot more than the typical, clumsy straight-male douchebag wandering around on the street, or in the club, or etc. Most of what you know has been learned the hard way. Trial and error. But at least you learned. You've been in many, many relationships with women of varying lengths of time and you've tried to benefit from past mistakes.

Now, considering recent events, here's some things that need to be said up front:

1. Women will not like you if you shoot them. Even if they survive.

2. Despite what you may have heard (or gleaned from movies), most women do not find gun-toting douchebags attractive. And, should you find a woman who is hot for a gun-toting douchebag, you probably won't be attracted to her, because she is a crazy freak (and not in a good way). Besides, she will dump you for any guy who comes along with bigger and/or more guns that threatens to kill her even more violently than you ever could.

3. Douchebag George Sodini stated in one of his blogs something to the effect of "Life is all games..." No. Life is not all games. Life is life. You are either living your life, or you are wishing you were living your life. If you think life is a game, then you ain't livin', douchebag.

Now, let's get to the point. How do you attract women:

1. Get a life. Yes, that's right, get a fucking life, dummy. Guess what, if you spend all your time trying to meet women, and thinking up ways to get women, you will NOT get any women. Why? Because you will have the stench of desperation all over you, and women will smell you coming a mile away. "Check it out. Desperate fucking douchebag coming our way at 12 o'clock. Let's put on our bitch faces, ladies."

2. Women are different than you. I know that sounds simple, and you already know this, but you need to actually KNOW it, and ACCEPT it.

(whoops. Time for work. You'll finish this later.)

Bumpit up to fucking big-headed-alien-retard look

2009-06-29T17:02:00.006-05:00

"Feel confident and beautiful..."

When did looking like you have a giant alien head become a good idea?

When did it become fashion? Well, you realize in the 60's, but why now?

You wonder, when will people just accept the fact that they look like humans, and stop trying to look like pre-humans (cavemen? missing link?) and/or post-humans (aliens? robots?), and just decide to look like humans?

They should call this doucheit!

2009-05-10T12:15:00.003-05:00

Advertising was once a way for companies to educate consumers about their products. That was a long, long time ago. So long ago, in fact, that anyone who remembers that kind of advertising is long dead, or already frozen for future reanimation.

Over time, advertising has morphed into a sad form of desperate propaganda. Here's an example of the idiocy I'm referring to:

Economic Downturn, We Hardly Knew Ye.

2009-05-09T01:02:00.009-05:00

You promised more about why you think the economic tsunami was really making the world a better place. And then you never got around to it. Now the talking heads are saying that our economic troubles may be bottoming out.

Job losses are slowing, but not stopping. Banks are now managing to turn a profit off of all the free money we gave them. Housing prices have leveled off to a point that may actually reflect what a house is actually worth, so people are almost willing to shackle themselves to a mortgage again.

Hurray. Happy days.

And, once again, you are late to the party.

It's kind of silly for you to blog about how much you're enjoying the economic downturn if the downturn is done turning down.

***

You're going to miss seeing pathetic, sun-faded "for sale" signs in the windows of parked SUV's.

"Priced below blue book." Duh. The only thing more pathetic is the douchebag down the street actually asking blue book.

"First reasonable offer drives it away." Does that mean you've accepted your backwards loan payment as a life lesson, or are you just flirting with reality?

And your favorite: "Downsizing. My loss is your gain." No shit? Why not just put a sign out by the street that says, "Are you stupider than me, and do you have cash? Please apply inside to take on my burden for a reasonable fee."

***

You're going to miss motivational musings like: "I don't have to go to work. I get to go to work." Yeah, that's exactly what your douchebag boss wants you to think.

Or, "At least we're not standing in soup lines." That's because there aren't any soup lines. Go down on the street with a big pot of chicken broth and a ladle. Watch how many jackasses grab a spoon and queue up.

You're going to miss newspaper articles and NPR stories about that poor, down-and-out HR manager who, after 6 - 10 years of loyally sorting resumes, scheduling interviews, and asking canned questions from across a desk in the potpourri stench of her sunny little office, she's been let go. And, now, after months of searching for another job, she may actually consider accepting a position for less than $46,000 a year...if only someone would offer her a job. Late at night, she has suicidal thoughts. Why, oh, why has fate been so unkind?
Oh, boo-fucking-hoo, you cunt. Now you know what it's like, don't you? Sucks doesn't it? It hurts knowing that someone has your resume in middle of a big thick pile of other resumes right next to the shredder. Now you know what it's like to sit in a room and discuss your life with an HR robot just like yourself: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"

"Describe a stressful event at your last job and how you handled it."

"How do you think a team should work together?"

"Do you enjoy change? Why or why not?"

"What do you like most about your current supervisor?"

Do you find it hard to answer one silly-ass question after another, Mrs. Laid-Off HR bitch? Is it hard to hide your desperation? You must be very self-conscious in those interviews considering you know the signs too well. Firm handshake. Good eye contact. Wait until you're asked to sit down. Choose a chair with arms if one is available. Don't fidget. Sound confident. No pauses. Smile. And, FGS, don't talk about how you've been laid off for months, but don't avoid the subject either. Tell them you've enjoyed the time away from work. Tell them you've had some great quality time with the kids. LOL, but you know they'll see right through that line of crap. You always did, didn't you? You never hired the poor, lost sap who needed a job, did you? Not when there were plenty of confident, winking blue chips who could take or leave the position you were hiring for. Yeah, now you know exactly what it's like.

Stubborn Must Run In the Family

2009-05-04T02:01:00.014-05:00

Your biological half-sister, let's call her Ann, has tried a time or two or three to get you to meet the biological father you both share. He supposedly brought up the idea to her, and she took it upon herself to play go-between, which is really kind of a pussy-ass way for him to go about this sort of thing, IMO.

Then again, you weren't there for the whole "let's have your long-lost brother over for dinner" conversation. Maybe he really could give a shit less, just like you could give a shit less, and the whole plan to get us together in one room is more her idea.

Who's to say?

You could ask Ann to clarify things, but you won't.

Anyway, today Ann posted pictures online of a party celebrating your bio-dad's retirement from the Iowa Air National Guard. He was a freakin' Master Sergeant, so he was obviously involved in this thing for quite some time. You had no idea. This is all brand new information for yours truly.

Should you learn a few more interesting facts about this bio-father-person, you may be able to shake his hand one day in a moment that might pass as simply awkward, instead of what could possibly be a tad bit hostile.

Who's to say, really?

Not that you have anything against the guy. You don't even know his side of the story (or his side of any story, for that matter). Perhaps there's a very good explanation for having absolutely nothing at all to do with your son for over 30 years-plus-and-counting.

Your mother once attempted a shaky, kinda-sorta, patched-together pre-birth history/explanation for your benefit. Her story had a few holes, but you didn't/don't hold that against her. In fact, you've let the whole thing drop for the most part...until recently.

Actually, you have never been the one to pick up the subject. Your mother suddenly felt the need to explain things after she discovered that the sister you didn't know you had was attempting to contact you. Whoops.

So, now, here we are.

You'll be 38 at the end of this month. Sigh. You've never met this guy, so why should you meet him now? Are you supposed to invite him up for a baseball game or something? Go Twins? He's probably a Royals fan.

How are these overdue disfunctional entanglements supposed to get worked out? And, more importantly, is working it out more of a pain in the ass than it's worth?

Here's another question you've learned to ask yourself in certain situations: What good can come of it?

When you look at those digipics of this old, bald guy in spectacles and camouflage fatigues...he's holding a plaque in one, and eating cake in another...you just don't recognize yourself in him. He just seems way too dim.

Fact: Your bio-dad was in Vietnam when you were born. That fact was the cornerstone of your mother's rushed attempt to explain things. Killing commies was kind of a big deal around the time you were born. It's an excuse for many things.

Another fact: Your bio-dad is divorced. His marriage fell apart when Ann was in high school. Her mother moving out of the house was the subject of one of our first conversations. Good times.

Granted, there's not much to work with, but the facts at hand suggest that your biological father has a hard time keeping his relationships intact long-term.

So, you'll ask again: Is it more of a pain in the ass than it's worth? What good can come of it?

Economic Downturn...Hooray!

2009-03-23T00:34:00.005-05:00

You're enjoying this so-called economic downturn. This busted market has made things much more bearable around here.

See, you've never been the type to appreciate wealth like the other douchebags trudging about in this bullshit arena of day-to-day, dog-eat-dog existence. Perhaps this is one more thing you can blame on your bleak catholic upbringing, but you've always considered money evil. (Not that all catholics consider money evil, because there are plenty of pious, genuflecting, Sunday-mass-oholic hypocrites who love to worship their net worth once they lose sight of the church door…but then that’s probably a subject for another blog.)

Until recently, you’ve never given saving money, or investing money, or managing money a second thought. Even the idea of earning money seemed sort of sacrilegious. Not that you’re lazy. You always have 5 – 10 projects on your plate, but that’s usually stuff that doesn’t get you paid, like, for example, writing blog posts. Earning money has always been simply a means of feeding yourself and paying the rent.

Here’s the thing, though: When one chooses to believe that money is no big thing, while living within a money-centric society, life can get kinda rough.

Here’s a little story: Your friend Leslie moved to Boston years ago to attend graduate school at Emerson University. She had a similar mindset as your own when it came to $$$. You’d never been to Boston, so, a few months later, you asked her, “So, what’s it like living in Boston.” She replied, “It’s a lot better than the Midwest. The people here still look down on you if it looks like you have no money, but it’s in more of a ‘I’ll overlook the fact that you’re poor as long as you overlook the fact that I’m greedy and shallow’ kind of way.”

You knew exactly what she meant.

Lately, (sigh) you’ve sort of surrendered to the concepts of buying a home and saving a nest egg for the future, but this is a very recent development. So recent, in fact, that you’ve hardly been affected by this horrible “economic tsunami” that’s depressing the entire globe. Sure, you’re 401k went down a bit, but close to 50% of that is free money anyway, so, unless things really take a dump, you’re not really losing anything. Plus, there really wasn’t that much there to begin with, and it was deposited in the past couple years, so any dip in the market now is just a blip on your account balance. However, with the market bottoming out and all, the balance of the ol’ retirement account has nowhere to go but up. If you had been dumping cash in there from day one, you’d probably be as pissed off as all these people who are pissed off because the 401k’s they’ve been dumping cash into since day one are all fucked up and deflated.

So, really, if you think about it, you kinda dodged a bullet, huh?

OK, you're not done with this subject, but you're out of time. You'll have to finish later. (And you were just about to get really antagonistic, too.)

Dirty-Ass Minnesota Snow

2009-03-09T15:27:00.006-05:00

You are so sick of snow. Dirty, dirty-ass Minnesota snow in fucking March.

It makes you feel like taking a nap without brushing your teeth first.

You are off to bed at 3 in the afternoon.

Here's a pic of you and Sweetie on dirty-ass, frozen Lake Harriet Beach...in fucking March.

The RNC Anarchy Revelation (not Revolution)

2008-09-04T15:13:00.007-05:00

Wanna know the difference between an anarchist and a pseudo-anarchist?

An anarchist understands that all things oppressive and hierarchical are feeble and absurd attempts at some sort of systematic order, and therefore finds party conventions, riot police, and organized hurricane evacuations laughable in light of their final eventualities.

A pseudo-anarchist breaks a Macy's window in downtown St. Paul in the name of anarchy, and then runs from the police.

Just sayin'.

The RNC Sucks Nuts Update

2008-09-01T17:25:00.003-05:00

So, you got into your car just after 4:30 PM, and there was smoke billowing just across the river in downtown St. Paul. You're assuming this was probably tear gas as one of the smoke clouds was green.

At work, you had a perfect view of all the douchebaggery going on across the river. There was stalled traffic, and riot police all over Wabasha, and far to the south on the same river, a hurricane was hitting Louisiana. Nice.

Luckily, the protesters and police were pretty much fully engaged as you were leaving work, so you actually got out of there pretty quickly. For once, the douchebags were keeping each other busy, and they left you to your own devices. The only hold up was a long line of traffic headed to Harriet Island, but you were going the opposite direction.
Goodbye, St. Paul. You won't be coming back until all this bullshit is over with.

The Time to Drive to St. Paul and Attempt to Avoid RNC Delegates and the Associated Protesting

2008-09-01T06:54:00.003-05:00

You did not shower. You're wearing your all black Twins cap because your hair is a mess.

You hope you get to St. Paul without incident. God knows you'd hate to miss work on Labor Day.

The Still Don't Give a Shit About the RNC Update

2008-08-31T19:37:00.006-05:00

So, getting to work in St. Paul has been uneventful for the most part. The worst part has been on 94 where people are attempting to get off on Snelling in order to get to the the Minnesota State Fair. There's always a long line of cars on the offramp, and they're so backed up that one of the lanes on the interstate is blocked.

Also, this morning there was a nice wreck on 94 in Minneapolis just before the bridge, so there was a traffic jam ON SUNDAY MORNING. These church going types need to learn how to drive.

There are cops everywhere. You drove by two traffic stops on my way home from work tonight. There are unmarked police cars parked here and there around work.

The big day is tomorrow. Thank god the president W and his bulldog, Cheney, decided not to come to St. Paul due to hurricane weather. That should make your drive work in the morning a little easier.

You have your fingers crossed for an easy drive to work an back, but you're certain at least one or both will be hell.

Shit hit the fan at work. All these emails came down the pipe. Anyone working tomorrow MUST have their parking permit, and MUST have their ID badge. We have to park in special places behind the building, and we have to enter through the trucking bay doors, because the front of the building will be blocked and locked.

Who would want to bomb Castcom? Well, actually, a lot of their customers would like to bomb them, but not for political reasons.

You've been getting a lot of wackos calling in too. Some dipshit called in and started yelling at you because CSPAN was showing an old interview with Dick Cheney. He wanted you to shut down CSPAN because the speech is politically biased, blah, blah, blah. And you were like, "Um, sir...number one...you've reached tech support for high-speed internet. Two, Castcom doesn't control CSPAN, they just broadcast it. And, three, do you really think Castcom cares what you think, or me for that matter?"

His response: "Well, Castcom is the 800-pound gorilla! You know what I mean! The gorilla in the room!"

Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

You transferred him to a supervisor's voicemail just to get rid of him.

The Don't Give a Shit About the RNC Update

2008-08-28T23:39:00.002-05:00

Minneapolis, Minn. - You didn't give a rat's ass about the RNC again today. You had the day off and you didn't do much, but you sure as hell didn't think about the RNC being in town starting next week.

At one point, around 3:30 PM, you did go to the gym. You decided to just do cardio today, because your delts, chest, obliques, and abs are still sore from your previous two days' workouts. But you still didn't give a shit that the RNC will be in St. Paul starting Monday.

You watched a few episodes of King of Queens you had on your DVR. But, as much of a waste of time as that was, you still weren't bored enough to care that the Republic national convention was in town.

You did some laundry. Towels mostly. You used liquid Tide, and Bounce fabric softener, but you could give a shit less that the RNC is about to start.

STAY TUNED!

The STAY TUNED: Republican National Convention is in town, and it's a pain in the ass

2008-08-27T14:19:00.003-05:00

It's your intention to give an unadulterated view of what it's like to live in Minneapolis, and work in Saint Paul, and still attempt to ignore the fact that the Republican National Convention will be in town.

You're doing a pretty good job so far.

The worst part will be Monday, September 1st. On that day you have to work at 7:30 AM. It's Labor Day, but you're pretty sure traffic is still going to suck super ass because it's the first day of the freakin' RNC.

Reports will follow.

The Herkimer Review

2008-08-27T08:05:00.004-05:00

So, there was an incident. You're plastering this review of the Herkimer everywhere.

My girlfriend and I go to the Herk at least twice each month for dinner, and probably another two times in a month just to have a beer and watch the game. We don't go for the food, because the food isn't that great. We don't go for the beer, because the beer isn't that great either. And we certainly don't go for the service, because the service is consistently awful. We go because we live a few blocks away, and we like to support the neighborhood.

Well, that changed last night. We decided on the Herk, because we wanted burgers, beer, and a place to watch the Twins game. The bartender (the douchebag with the sad blonde mohawk. Ooooh, yr so pseudo-punk and stuff) refused to serve us, because, in his words, "One of the waitresses thinks you've had a few too many already."

What?

1. My girlfriend had just gotten off work.
2. He was the first person we'd encountered in the bar.
3. We were ASKING FOR DINNER MENUS.
And, most importantly...
4. We simply hadn't been drinking...yet.

Understand that my GF and I were ready to plunk down at least $50-60 plus tip, if not more (the beer is overpriced, and the food isn't exactly cheap). We are very good tippers, especially at establishments we frequent a lot. And, again, we hadn't been drinking before we walked through the Herk's front door. What gives?

The staff at the Herk has always seemed like a group of stuck up, lazy douchebags, but last night pretty much sealed it. My GF and I have both worked in restaurants in the past, so we know laziness and outright douchebaggery when we see it, and we see it at the Herkimer A LOT.

Good riddance. We went to Figlio's instead. They have a better special on Tuesday nights anyway. We would have gone there in the first place, but it's further away.

To sum up: Avoid the Herk. Douchebags work there. The food kinda blows, and the beer is overpriced. Thanks for your time.

The New Job

2008-08-20T09:18:00.007-05:00

Yes, you've been offered a new job. Yay! And you've accepted the new job. Uhg!

But, come on, it will be more of the same. It may be tier II tech support, but it's still tech support, and it may be a promotion, but that is so not glamorous.

It's more money. Not a lot more money, but enough more to make Sweetie go, "Ooooh, that's like $5,000 more a year. Ooooh, that's nice." See, that's why Sweetie is so awesome, because her math is always on the bright side.

It's a Minneapolis-based company. You've talked to people who have worked there in the past, and you hear it's like uber-corporate. Like never utter the word "penis" corporate. Like don't stare too long at the hot girl in the next cubicle too long corporate. Like don't drive an ugly car corporate. Like don't discuss your private life, because it might be too sexy, or illegal in some way, or involve uncomfortable subject matter like cancer or Jesus or dance music or XXX movies or what day the garbage man comes or dandruff shampoo or diarrhea or that gay cousin you bumped into downtown.

But it has to be better that Castcom where no one talks at all.

You meant to blog about the job interview, but like everything else, it fell to the wayside. Here's an abridged version:

The interview was a surprise, so you had to get a crappy haircut at Cost Cutters because Hairpolice was booked with only a one-day notice. You bought a pinstriped Billy London suit, a blue shirt, and a hot DKNY tie at Herberger's and you returned the suit after the interview (but you kept the tie because Sweetie really liked it). This was all accomplished within an hour after working overtime at Castcom from 6 - 10 AM.

The interview was at 12:30 PM. Who schedules an interview during lunch hour?

You drove north for awhile, and you took a wrong turn, but thanks to breaking the speed limit and running red lights, you ended up at the interview with 5 minutes to spare. Whew!

The place was sort of depressing. You had to talk through a speaker on the front door to a security guard in order to get access. The guard made you sign a clipboard and then gave you one of those "VISITOR" passes to clip on your suit jacket that screams "THIS DORK IS HERE FOR A JOB INTERVIEW" but you looked damn good in that suit, so you didn't panic.

The place had fake plants. Always a bad sign. If a place doesn't pay someone to take care of the plants, then the place is skimpy and could care less about the small details. The cubicle walls were originally off-white, but they were all old and stained. Yuck! Depressing. They looked like dirty diapers.

The guy who interviewed you was a serious dick. But, hey, like you told Sweetie, maybe it's time to have a boss who's a dick, and who tells it like it is. You Castcom manager seemed very, very, very nice in the interview, and she turned out to be a corporate witch who never left her office unless it meant coming to a meeting to shout down any dissenters of her new ridiculous policies. So, maybe it's time to have a boss who's going to be a dick from day one. No surprises.

The Wanna Fuck Miley Cyrus

2008-08-07T16:19:00.016-05:00

So, you wanna fuck Miley Cyrus, and you realize that makes you a giant pedophile perv. Yeah, you and every guy on the planet who isn't gay, and you're pretty sure, given the opportunity, even one or two gay guys would put their penis in Miley's vaginal area just to be able to say they did it. (They just have the good taste not to blog about it, probably.)

And, believe it or not, that's not even the really fucked-up part, because you don't even think Miley Cyrus is that cute.

Let's have a picture:

Wanting to fuck Miley Cyrus has nothing to do with how Miley Cyrus looks. In fact, if she wasn't famous, and she walked by you on the street, you wouldn't even notice. She'd be just another annoying 15-year-old douchebag. Wanting to fuck Miley Cyrus has to do with who she is.

Why is she everyone's sweetheart? You have no idea. Whatever. Who cares. But the fact that she is everyone's sweetheart makes her fuckable fantasy material.

You've never even heard a Miley Cyrus song (though, you're pretty certain her music is probably Disney-esque, paint-by-numbers, sing-songy bullshit that sucks major balls), but her picture is plastered everywhere. EVERYWHERE!

Have you ever attempted to walk through a Walmart without seeing Miley's cleavage? You haven't, but that's because you don't shop at fucking Walmart, but you were in a Kmart the other day for some reason, and Miley Cyrus's toothy face was in every aisle.

And she's always in these these skimpy outfits showing all that leg. You need another picture to illustrate your point:

They should change her name to Money Cyrus, because her pretty ass is making everyone loads of dough. Well, everyone but you. Her pimp/father has got to be raking it in, but that's a subject for another blog.

The 911 Sandwich Douchebag

2008-08-07T09:19:00.008-05:00

Ok, you deal with a lot of dipshits at work, and A LOT of douchebags, but this asshole really takes dipshit and douchebag to a whole new level:

Here's another story from CNN about how 911 operaters have to deal with a large number of idiots on a daily basis. Ha! They should try tech support at Castcom! You had to tell a woman the other day you couldn't help her with her sticky keyboard after she spilled Diet Coke on it. Well, except you told her to switch to Coke Zero, because Diet Coke tastes like ass, and Coke Zero is awesome.

The Superbad

2008-08-06T14:26:00.008-05:00

OK, so you're late for everything, which includes seeing movies. Because, well, movies are encompassed by the term "everything".

So, you just now saw the movie SUPERBAD, which was released like forever ago and whatnot, and everyone else has already seen it, but everyone else seems to have a free moment or two in their fucking lives to see a movie every now and then, and, well, you don't, so you just saw SUPERBAD now.

Anyway, so you pulled the movie up on "on demand" (free premium OD is one of the perks of your shitty job) and you only meant to have it on in the background while you were getting ready to go to the gym, but it made you laugh so hard you nearly peed yourself, so you ended up watching the whole thing, and now Sweetie is going to kill you, because you had a whole "to do" list of shit to take care of this afternoon, and, well, you accomplished none of it.

One of the things you were supposed to do was apply for a mortgage.

Whoops!

Anyway, you're so glad there are still movies being made that are actually worth seeing. You're so glad that some guys had the balls to write a screenplay about being a kid that only adults are allowed to see, because, well, that tells you something doesn't it.

Oh, and in case any superfans of SUPERBAD stumble onto this: my favorite character was Fogell/Mclovin.

That's fucking genius. But, then I'm telling you what you already know, right?

The Personality Assessments

2008-07-30T11:30:00.002-05:00

The job search has begun in a flurry. You've sent your resume to like 50 or so potential employers.

You've already done like ten of those fucking "personality assessments". Those suck serious ass. You've basically come up with a system to get through them. You only answer strongly when it's obvious they want the question answered strongly.

For example, if the statement is:

"Sometimes customers are not satisfied."

You answer either: "Disagree" or "Agree".

But, if the statement is:

"I pretty much hate everyone I work with, and someday I will come through the front door with a sawed-off shotgun and kill the whole lot of them, and then fuck their gaping head wounds before blowing my own brains out."

You answer: "Strongly Disagree" or "Strongly Agree".

The You Can't Handle the Castcom Bullshit Any Longer

2008-07-14T11:14:00.007-05:00

Yesterday was a turning point with your job at Castcom. You can't handle it anymore. When you sat down and logged into your phone at 10:30 AM, there were 65 calls waiting in queue. The wait time on hold was over an hour. Every customer you spoke with was wildly PISSED. After 5 hours of that, you had to leave. You actually left "sick" in the middle of your shift. And today, you called in "sick." And you have vacation scheduled for the next 10 days.

The vacation was actually planned a while back, because you have a family reunion to travel to this weekend, and Sweetie is coming with, but now you'll be using "sick days" to search for a new job.

Castcom call center has become a complete sweatshop. It's been call after call of really pissed off people for over six weeks now. Castcom doesn't have the staff to handle the current call volume. Management keeps telling you that, for some reason, the call volume is way up from last year. You see, they staff based on the call volumes they had the previous year, and they tell us we are getting 8,000 calls a month more this year than last year FOR SOME REASON. So, of course, it's not management's fault that things suck at work, because they didn't know there would be 8,000 more complaints about Castcom's crappy service this year than last year. DUH!

Idiots.

No, they only forced everyone in the Metro who had the old Castcom/ATT telephone service to switch over to Castcom Digital Voice a few months ago, and CDV is junk (see previous blog), so every asshole and their dog is calling in to report their shit don't work. Uhg!

You wish these idiot "customers" would call the newspapers and the television stations and complain about the fucking hold times. Maybe they could get Castcom fined for not fullfilling their service agreements.

Until yesterday, you had faith that Castcom management would pull their heads from their asses and get things fixed, but six weeks is long enough to give them your faith. Now, you'll be getting a new job.

The CDV is Junk

2008-07-14T09:24:00.006-05:00

It's time you started blowing the whistle about Castcom Digital Voice.

You have this rule about selling stuff. You ask yourself, "Would you sell this to your mother?" And, when you ask that question about Castcom Digital Voice, the answer is a very passionate "NO!"

CDV is JUNK.

The REAL market for the CDV product is very small. It's a good product for douchebags like yourself who are engaged by a lot of goofy technical crap, and don't mind (and perhaps even thrive on) the occasional glitch to get the benefit of free long distance. However, even a guy like yourself wouldn't want CDV, because you don't use the phone enough to make it worthwhile.

So, who should actually subscribe to this product? Any person who enjoys dinking around with new technology for the sake of cheap long distance.

Here's the kicker: because you are an employee, you could have CDV for $15 a month...and you STILL refuse to have that shit in your home. Seriously people. In your opinion, it isn't even worth $15 a month. You probably wouldn't even get it IF IT WERE FREE, because it's such a pain in the ass to install.

Here's the problem: Castcom markets their Digital Voice product as if it's a land-line telephone service. Well, it is NOT a land-line telephone service. It's VOIP!

Now, you realize all the techy types reading this are going to be all, "DUH!" But, think about it a minute...every douchebag in all the Castcom service areas are being brainwashed to think that installing CDV (VOIP) service is the same as Ma Bell (telephone) service.

So, now you've got all these old people, and housewives, and other miscellaneous douchebags installing CDV in their homes, and replacing their old-reliable-pick-it-up-and-get-dial-tone telephone service with the same finicky works-until-a-random-server-in-Hackensack-fails system that the internet is based on.

Are you the only one who sees a problem with that?

You probably are, because you're the idiot who still has a job taking call after call from every douchebag who doesn't realize that their phone modem has lost synch and needs to acquire a new IP adress in order to get dial tone, which involves powercycling and/or reseting that phone modem.

Or they don't realize that the phone modem needs to be plugged in for the phone to have dial tone. Do you know how many douchebags turn everything in the house off at night before they go to bed, and then call on their cell phone in panic going, "My phone is DEAD! I have no DIALTONE!" The sad thing is that there are probably thousands of people out there who unplug the power to their phone modem at night and have yet to realize that, by doing so, they are also DISCONNECTING THEIR PHONE SERVICE every night.

Uhg! Get a clue people. If you want phone service, then don't buy CDV from Castcom. Castcom sells VOIP service. And VOIP service requires constant attention and upkeep in order to work. If you want a phone that works all the time...even during a power outage...even if the server is down...or if you want phone service that does not require a modem, then subscribe to regular old-fashioned switch phone from your local TELEPHONE COMPANY.

If you live in Minneapolis or St. Paul, then you should get phone service from Qwest. Or Frontier. Does it cost a little more? Yes. Is it reliable. Of course it is. It's copper wire buried under the ground, for god's sake. Unless you push a backhoe through it, IT FUCKING WORKS. Will it work during a power outage? DUH! The phone company has a basement bunker full of giant batteries that will ensures you'll still have dialtone EVEN IF THERE'S A NUCLEAR WAR. Sheesh! Take a tour of your local phone company's facilities, and they'll show you both the bunker and the batteries. They make a loud buzzing sound. If you get too close, your hair will stand up.

To sum up: Please don't subscribe to Castcom Digital Voice unless you're willing to put with all it's glitches and unreliability. If you subscribe to Castcom Digital Voice, do it with the understanding that what you are paying for ISN'T TELEPHONE SERVICE.

2008-07-09T12:57:00.003-05:00

You are watching the Twins play the Red Sox in Boston on Fox Sports North in the middle of a perfectly beatiful afternoon on your day off.

Sheesh. How the hell did you become a fan of pro baseball? A year ago, you would have considered this a complete waste of time. Of course, a year ago you weren't living in the Twin Cities, and this is the first city you've lived in with a pro baseball team, and people here love their Twinkies.

In fact, you've already attended two games at the Metrodome this season. And you dragged Sweetie along with you for both of them.

On June 18th, you watched the Twins crush the Washington Nationals 11 - 2. When you got to the dome, a scalper offered you two seats on the upper deck right behind the plate. Those seats are usually $21 a pop, but you got them for $10. Plus, Wednesday is Dollar Dome Dog night, so we drank beers and ate hot dogs (covered with mustard and onions) through the game.

On July 2nd, both you and Sweetie had the day off, so Sweetie and you drove down to the MOA. You bought 6-hour passes for you and Sweetie and then rode the train downtown where you watched the Twins destroy the Detroit Tigers 7 - 0. This was your first time riding the Minneapolis light rail.

You even considered buying a Twins baseball cap. In fact, when you got back to the MOA, you shopped for one.

Uhg. When did you start wearing baseball caps?

Sweet! Kubel just crushed one over the Green Monster.

The Actual Details Soon

2008-07-07T09:37:00.004-05:00

You should probably start puking up actual details of your shitty life pretty soon. That might actually make this blog interesting maybe.

For now, let's just say you have no discipline and no direction. You were given no guidance when you were young and impressionable, and you're lucky you made it this far.

The Starting Over

2008-06-25T12:52:00.007-05:00

Starting over. You've decided to start over. Not only now, but in the future as well. You'll be doing a lot of starting over from here on out.

You like starting over. It makes you feel nice and clean. Like a newly freshly diapered baby.

See, that's what starting over is all about. It's all about nonsense and bad metaphors...or similes...or whatever, and using the adverb forms of words for absolutely no fucking reason whatsoever.

Plus, you have today off from your shit job, so starting over is easier today. You had yesterday off too. So, starting over has pretty much spanned two days already.

Sweet.

You know that phrase, "Today is the first day of the rest of your life"? Yeah, well, starting over is a lot like that phrase except not so fucking lame. A phrase like "titfdotroyl" (that's what you'll call that phrase from now on) is something a douchebag would pull from his or her ass while catching a bus home from his or her AA meeting and/or massage parlor, so it's not really like that, but it's on the right track.

You see, starting over involves a lot less "give a shit" than "titfdotroyl". And it involves a lot more "fuck this shit" than "titfdotroyl".

Is that clear?

OK, so it's settled. I'm starting over.

The Socializing At Work

2008-06-24T12:33:00.005-05:00

This morning, you realized one of the major reasons you hate your job and the company you work for:

There is absolutely no socializing where you work…at least not for you…or your peers. You know nothing about the people you work with. Well, other than the one douchebag who sits next to you and talks constantly about Star Wars between calls.

The manager and supervisors seem to have endless time to gab, and make bland, humorless, pseudo-work-related comments to each other, and then endlessly fake laugh with a lot of volume to let everyone know how fun they are to work with. However, you can tell that the second they walk out the front door, they forget that the people at Castcom even exists.

Anyone at work that you actually had a rapport with (Luke, Blong, Chuck, Riz, etc.) has either quit, been fired, or (in the case of Annette, and your friend heavy-metal Rick) has been moved to the other side of the building where you never see them.

Your previous jobs were far from perfect (boy, is that an understatement), but at least you met people there that you actually knew OUTSIDE OF WORK, and that you actually enjoyed socializing with. In fact, you're still friends with many of the people you met at other jobs.

But, at your current job, it’s just: walk in the door; talk to douchebags all day about things that are either their own damn fault, or something you can’t really do anything about; eat lunch; talk to more douchebags; go home.

Castcom is a sterile, impotent, ugly, and depressing place.

The Top-Five Worst Public Reputations of American Corporations

2008-06-24T00:03:00.003-05:00

You hate your employer. It's a shame that you continue slaving away for such an evil corporation. What's your problem?

It was recently reported that your employer is one of the top-five American corporations with the worst public reputations. And you can report that they definitely deserve it.

If you weren't three beers deep, and getting up early to rollerblade, you'd explain further.

The Jack SHit Disappointing Blog

2008-06-22T00:15:00.003-05:00

Why is it that you have so much to blog about all day long, but the minute you have a free second, and you do mean second, or perhaps 60 or 90 seconds, you can't think jack shit to blog about?

The Brother-In-Law's Jaw

2008-06-20T23:40:00.003-05:00

So, your brother-in-law got decked by some guy, and had to have surgery today, because his jaw is broken.

He went to a College World Series game, and went out for a drink afterwards at a bar in the Old Market. And, supposedly, as he was waiting for some friends outside, some random dude punched him.

It just doesn't add up. You're pretty sure he said something to someone, and then he got decked. You want to think this was all not his fault, but you have to admit that you've always thought your sister could do better. Not that he's a bad guy. He just seems to end up in situations where he gets, thrown out of a bar, or running a stop sign, or getting slugged. It's his M.O.

You'd think that you'd get along with him considering that you're no fucking saint, or genius, or a success in any way whatsoever. Uhg. And you don't not get along with him...really.

Face it. It would be worse if your sister had married someone much better, because then he'd probably look down on YOU, and write in his blog what a loser HIS brother-in-law is. And his bog would probably be much better than yours.

The Update On the Guy At Work Who Is Never At Work

2008-06-17T07:31:00.005-05:00

Yeah, he left early again yesterday. This time he didn't even bother telling us he was leaving. He just called the douchebags in Resource Management, said he had a headache, or the sniffles, or whatever, and then walked out the door.

Seriously.

If it weren't so fucking ridiculous, it would be funny. If the guy didn't annoy you so fucking much, it would be hilarious.

Yesterday, during the short time he was actually at work, he asked you if you were a gamer. You said no, but he went off on a nerdy retard rant about "newbs" anyway.

Please, kill you. No, wait...kill him...not you.

The Layoffs

2008-06-17T06:31:00.007-05:00

Sweetie and you are in trouble.

Sweetie's employer, let's call them Tillips & Phemro, has been laying people off left and right. Yesterday, they had a company-wide meeting, and they announced they're going to start outsourcing a lot of their work to China.

Jeezus. What a crock.

Tillips & Phemro is a small, laid-back company that manufactures engine-block heaters. Sweetie does admin work for them, and she's been there since she was in high school.

You always thought Tillips & Phemro sounded like a nice place to work, but you also wondered how they made any money. Their website sucks, and they spend tons of money on fun frivolous, catered parties for their employees with open bars and karaoke sing-alongs. All the employees get every holiday off with pay, and they even get a lot of fake holidays off. For example, Sweetie had Good Friday off every year with pay, and she also got the Monday AFTER Easter off with pay...and Sweetie isn't even Catholic.

During the warm months (when no one orders block heaters), most of the staff twiddle their thumbs from 8 - 5, with an hour break for lunch.

Well, that's all over. Two different CEO's, and one CFO have "resigned" in the past couple months. A new guy was recently hired to run the place, and he got all corporate nazi on their asses, and battened down the hatches.

Now, everyone's afraid to take a shit without asking first, and the pink slips are raining down like confetti.

Sweetie's worried she's next on the chopping block.

You're worried that you hate your own job too much to support the both of you. Plus, you're a broke douchebag with the resume of a cockroach on acid.

And Tillips & Phemro have been complete douchebags about the layoffs too. For example, the sucky website you mentioned above. Well, they've had a marketing person working on a new website for months, and the minute she finished the project...she was axed.

"Hey, thanks for all your hard work. You're fired!"

Side note: Sweetie thinks the new website is hilarious, because it has all these pictures of people...well, pictures of models acting and posing like people...that DO NOT work at Tillips & Phemro.

Also, the website still sucks.

2008-06-15T23:29:00.001-05:00

So, at this point, you pretty much just consider anyone who calls the Castcom tech support line an idiot.

You hate them all. The legit ones...well, you just feel sorry for them, but they're still idiots.

2008-06-14T00:38:00.004-05:00

It's impossible to put what you see into words.

Right now, you're lying in bed, looking out the small attic window above your head, and, above you, the sky is lit by a bright 3/4 moon, and small purple clouds are floating by, and, between them, you can see stars.

You should have been asleep long ago, but you keep staring at that small bit of dark sky you can see through the window.

There's one bright star in the center of it all. Twinkling. It's probably a planet. What the hell do you know? Go to sleep.

The Steak and Eggs

2008-06-12T14:51:00.011-05:00

OK, in the spirit of making this blog a place where people can go to feel better about their own lives...

Your latest white trash purchase is a tabletop propane camp grill. It cost you less than twenty bucks. You've used this grill every night since you brought it home from Menards. Well, except last night when Sweetie treated your broke ass to dinner at Shiraz Fire Roasted Cuisine, which was awesome, BTW. (Yes, you are a serious carnivore. You can't even take one night off.) You want to go there again on a Saturday night when they have belly dancers, which totally gives you an opportunity to put a gratuitous hot picture of Rachel Brice in this post, because you enjoy pictures of Rachel Brice. You may start putting pictures of her in posts completely unrelated to belly dancing.

So, yeah, you make a nightly run to Cub Foods where you buy meat. And then you stand over your little grill in the back yard and cook the meat. The other night you marinated a whole skirt steak, and since then you've been having leftover skirt steak with your eggs for breakfast.

That's right. Steak and eggs for breakfast every morning people. Living like a king here in the Twin Cities.

The Hobo Expressway

2008-06-12T13:48:00.003-05:00

You are so glad you have the day off today. This is one of the nicest days ever. Blue sky. Big puffy white clouds. Cool breeze. Perfect temperature.

You've spent the day blading. You just came back home to make some lunch, and to watch Maury, of course. Also, you have to put on some sun block, because your arms are already red, red, red.

Today, you decided to skate the Midtown Greenway and the Southwest LRT. AKA the "bum freeway". AKA the "hobo highway". AKA the "vagabond expressway". It's the stretch of connecting trails that make it easier for rouges and tramps to get from one end of Minneapolis to the other with their carts full of empty aluminum cans and bottles.

The Guy At Work Who Is Never At Work

2008-06-10T10:38:00.003-05:00

So, you work with this douchebag. Let's call him Aaron Douchebag. And he's the type of guy who stays fat, and he talks with a lisp, and has crooked teeth. He plays with his Star Wars cards in between tech support calls, because he can't stop until he's become a complete dweeb in the eyes of his peers.

He started about 6 - 8 weeks ago, and he's annoyed you ever since.

Anyway, for the past two weeks, his desk has been deserted, and you had no idea what was going on. All you know is that he left one afternoon about an hour after arriving for work because his "allergies were acting up" and he needed to leave.

Even your lead, John Douchebag, was completely clueless as to the whereabouts of Aaron Douchebag. In fact, John asked you if you knew what happened to Aaron Douchebag, and you just shrugged.

Well, yesterday, he came back to work. He arrived at the start of his shift at 2 PM. At 3:30 PM, he logged off his phone, stood up, and stated, "I have a headache. I'm going home." And then he was gone again.

Not to brag, but you have perfect attendance at work, and you want to call in sick every day, because you really hate your job. Your question is: Why isn't this guy fired yet?

The Reoccuring Dream About Missing Class

2008-06-08T23:50:00.006-05:00

So, you've been having this reoccurring dream.

You're taking classes...at a college...or a university. Sometimes it's a college or university you actually attended in your past, sometimes it's a college you'd never get into, sometimes it's a shitty community college that anyone could get into.

Sometimes you're college age, and you're a full-time student. Sometimes you're the age you are now, and you're just taking a couple classes for fun. Sometimes you're taking a couple classes because you need to for a very important reason which you're not really clear in you're waking world.

What's the same in every dream is that you've done well in all classes...except one.

In fact, it's 3/4 through the semester, and you've completely forgotten to attend that class, and it's too late to make up the work for the class, and way too late drop the class, so you're fucked. Sometimes it's that you forgot you registered for the class. Sometimes it's that the class moved and you just never bothered to find it again. Sometimes you just didn't go at first, because you thought the class would be easy, but then got carried away with skipping it to the point where you never attended the class.

And even though you've done very well in the other classes, this one class is going to ruin your academic career.

The Interview You're Not Prepared For

2008-06-03T09:15:00.005-05:00

You have a job interview today.

You had very little time to prepare considering your supervisor delayed the approval of your transfer request until a few days ago, and HR needs to find someone immediately, and they've already been doing interviews, and they've been waiting six weeks to find out whether or not you'd be one of those interviews.

You did what you could, but you are not prepared.

You need to be at Hair Police at noon for a haircut. You need to buy a suit before noon. Your interview is at 3:30 PM.

David Douchebag delayed the transfer request for six weeks. What a joke. Something that takes two minutes. At worst, it should take ten minutes.

You spent six weeks not knowing whether or not you'd be given an interview. You could have prepared, but what if it had been a waste of time in the end? Is that the wrong attitude?

2008-05-30T08:08:00.002-05:00

You're totally on vacation.

No misanthropy until tomorrow.

The "The Lakes"

2008-05-15T18:59:00.009-05:00

So, you've been skating around the Chain of Lakes on the Minneapolis Grand Rounds Scenic Byway for a few weeks now. You're new to both inline skating and to "the lakes" (as the locals refer to them), and you have a few initial observations.

The lakes are a real draw in the Twin Cities. On a sunny day, the lakes are crawling with douchebags. You've blogged previously about how your neighborhood (located smack dab between I-35W and the lakes) becomes a traffic nightmare, because every SUV, Beemer, or Audi-driving douchebag and their dog is on their way to and from the lakes. But it's not just the suburban douchebags who come out...it's a magnet for freaks as well. It's a real good mix of people who should just stay away from each other.

There are two trails: one for wheels, and another for those without wheels. The trail for wheels is a one-way trail with a 10-mile-per-hour speed limit. However, douchebags frequently "bend the rules" so to speak. For some reason, runners love to run on the wheel trail. I don't know why, maybe you'll ask one of them sometime. You think it may have to do with the fact that the wheel trail is on the outside, so it's longer. Occasionally, even walkers end up on the wheel trail, which makes no sense at all except that they are complete undeniable douchebags with no sense whatsoever.

Then there are the douchebags on wheels. There are douchebags who go the wrong direction on the wheel trail. The direction you should go is clearly marked with big white arrows painted right on the trail. Sweetie likes to yell at these douchebags, which will probably get you beat up one of these days.

One day, Sweetie and you came upon two suburban douchebags pushing a baby carriage on the wheel trail...wait for it...IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. Uhg. Sweetie gave them what for. She pointed out that they were putting their baby in danger, which was completely true, because it was like your second time on inline skates, and you had very little control, so the baby could have been toast.

Your favorite trail is Lake Harriet. The trail is very wooded, so it's not only very scenic, but the wind is blocked and has very little effect on your skating. Lake Calhoun is a fun skate, but the wind really whips across that lake, and on a gusty day will make skating a real chore. Plus, Calhoun is the most popular of all the lakes, so on a sunny day, it's basically douchebag central. Lake of the Isles is the smoothest of lake trails, and is practically deserted...even on nice days. The very expensive real estate around this lake is the only scenery, though. So, unless you're into architecture, or you're one of those self-loathing douchebags who wishes they were rich enough to own more house than they actually need, then this trail may not be for you.

2008-05-15T18:34:00.000-05:00

Sweetie doesn't get off work for another 90 minutes, so I need to occupy my brain during that time.

The Terminator is on UPN 29. It just started. "The machines rose from the ashes of the nuclear fire..."

But TV isn't enough. And complaining about everything and/or writing about how I want everything to crumble into dust just seems really typical of me at this point.

Hmmm...how about a real post. (See above.)

I'm so hungry, but I can't eat until Sweetie gets here, so we can have dinner together.

The White-Hot Explosion

2008-05-15T12:49:00.009-05:00

For some reason, you're trying to take a nap, which is kinda retarded considering it's a perfect day. It's sunny, and the sky is a big blue toilet bowl with clouds floating in it like wonderful puffy white turds.

Have you ever wanted everything to just burn? Seriously. It's sounds scary, doesn't it? Well, not to you. There are just so many people out there who should melt into a protien glop and then burst into a bright blue flame.

You've heard comedians George Carlin and Bill Hicks joke about how great it would be if there were one big giant disaster that would wipe everything out, and how nice it would be afterwards. And, usually you just think it's funny, but today your nap keeps getting interupted with thoughts of how great things would be if everything were wiped out in a big white-hot explosion.

Granted, a big explosion probably wouldn't be any picnic for you either, but you're somewhat comforted by the fact that a big explosion that could burn up everything probably isn't going to happen anytime in the near future. So, fuck it, you'll consider it all you want.

Since you can't sleep, you'll go rollerblading. Maybe that will brighten your attitude some.

The Creepy Guys Who Sit In Their Cars

2008-05-12T09:24:00.004-05:00

Why do creepy guys hang around the lakes in their cars?

Seriously. It's never women sitting in their cars gawking at everyone. It's either old men, or bald guys. Or both. In their cars. Sitting. Gawking.

Sometimes they drink coffee. Sometimes they smoke. Sometimes they write things in notebooks. (Maybe, later, they're blogging about sitting in their cars by the lake.)

Old, bald men by the lake...GET OUT OF YOUR CARS AND TRUCKS AND JOIN THE WORLD, because you are creeping the rest of us out.

The Up Early & Watching Commercials

2008-05-12T07:36:00.003-05:00

You hate commercials.

You're up early this morning, and you noticed their are a lot of commercials about mouthwash.

There are also a lot of commercials for medications, along with a lot of commercials for lawyers looking for people who want to sue drug companies. What gives?

I'm going rollerblading.

The How WIll You Sleep

2008-05-08T01:24:00.003-05:00

You would do anything lately not to have to dissect your life. Any distraction will do.

During the day, you watch TV, you cook, and then you rollerblade. You look forward to rollerblading. You're glad you decided to try it, and that Sweetie had the persistence too make you follow through with the idea. Even now, you want to rollerblade. You want to go around the lake, but it's 1:48 AM, and the Lake would be a dangerous place right now, so you'll wait until daylight.

A few hours ago, you distracted yourself with Mongolian BBQ, and then the 9:40 PM showing of Iron Man at the Southdale Mall AMC Theater. You were with Sweetie and your friend Summer.

At the moment, you're distracting yourself by watching 28 Weeks Later on HBO On-Demand, which you know is a big mistake. Your internal parent is screaming at you to turn it off. It's such a depressing movie. How will you sleep when it's over?

The What Gives?

2008-05-03T05:38:00.002-05:00

You're up at 5 AM. Watching Just Shoot Me episodes from your DVR.

Why are you awake. Well,it's because you pretty much hate everything, and it's hard to sleep when you pretty much hate everything.

You're hoping watching an old sitcom will shut your brain off.

You're mixing a banana cream protein shake with sugar-free soy milk. Maybe that will knock you out.

You have a headache, and the fucking birds are singing. It's cold as fuck out, and windy as fuck, and, yet, it's fucking May 3rd. What gives?

Just another shitty gray day in Minnesota. And you have to be at work in a few hours.

The Smoking BMW

2008-04-29T00:25:00.014-05:00

Tonight on your drive home from work around 11:20 PM, you saw the best thing...

You occasionally stop for a burger at Hardee's. The only Hardee's restaurant in the Twin Cities is located right in the middle of your drive to and from work at 369 Hamline Ave S in St. Paul. It's open 24 hours.

The only other Hardee's restaurant within 30 miles is in Anoka.

Anyway, you were going around 70 miles per hour, and you were heading toward the far right lane so you could get off I-94 onto Hamline. You glanced at the review-mirror and saw headlights speeding toward you in the far left lane. As you were getting onto the Hamline exit, you saw a white BMW pass by like you were sitting still. It had to have been going at least 120 miles per hour. Gray smoke was billowing from the engine compartment and trailing it like the tail of a comet.

It was a wonderful sight. Just lovely. Like a bush of blooming roses rooted in a big pile of dog shit.

You can't help but wonder what the story was there. Your imagination sucks ass, because all can think think of is that the car was stolen by a couple douchebags and they were trashing it. Or maybe the owner was just a rich douchebag who would rather trash his/her car by getting home before it broke down so they wouldn't have to wait for a tow truck on the shoulder of the interstate.

Sidebar: There's a St. Paul Police precinct immediately next door to the Hardees on Hamline. There were police officers milling about in the parking lot. None of them looked concerned.

The Cheap-Ass Peppery Wine

2008-04-29T00:10:00.004-05:00

You are watching Will & Grace after work, and you are drinking wine. It's the peppery wine you like from Chile. Yum. And it's only $5 a bottle! Awesome.

Thanks to the cheap-ass liquor store in Bloomington that Sweetie visits on occasion. They always put wine on sale for half price when they want to get rid of it. You forgot the name of the liquor store.

Seriously! $5! This wine is too awesome to be $5. It's too awesome to be $10. You're going to send Sweetie back for more. And she loves you, so she'll do it (even though she doesn't like this kind of wine). You're going to have her buy all the bottles they have left.

The best part: despite the fact that your life is complete shit, you're happy at the moment, and it has a lot to do with the peppery wine from Chile. Maybe you'll become a wino and live on the street, and then you'll freeze to death, because this is fucking Minnesota, and it's cold as fuck until May...or June.

The Internal Job Application

2008-04-21T23:44:00.016-05:00

Oh, you really hate working for a big fascist corporation.

Here's the thing: a few days ago, you applied for a different position internally at Castcom. It's a low-level administrative position that involves marketing research and creating promotion materials using desktop publishing and presentation software, and "additional duties as assigned." You are perfect for the position, and the position is in Minnetonka instead of St. Paul, so the daily commute would be so much better. Plus, the hours are the same as Sweetie's hours, so you could actually see her for more than a few hours a week.

You have every qualification the position requires. In fact, you are probably overqualified, but then you're waaaaaaay overqualified for your current position in technical support.

So, what's the problem?

Well, like every giant fascist corporation, Castcom has many policies regarding applying for a different position within the company. One of these policies is that your current supervisor must approve of the transfer to the new position, and this has to be done BEFORE they'll accept your application.

So, today, you tactfully approached your supervisor--let's call him David Douchebag--with your completed internal transfer form, and he hemmed and hawed for awhile. Then he asked why you thought you were qualified for the position. You explained your qualifications to him, and then explained why you thought you'd be a good fit for the new position and why you would enjoy the position. Then David Douchebag hemmed and hawed some more before asking you for a copy of the job description, which you immediately handed him along with a copy of your resume, because you just had a feeling he'd ask for it.

Then...get this...David Douchebag says, "I need to do more research on this. I'll get back to you about it." So, you politely point out to David Douchebag that the window for applying for this position ends tomorrow (open positions are only open to internal apps for 7 days, and you found out about the position 3 days ago, and David Douchebag has been out of the office until today). David Douchebag says, "Yeah, I'll get back to you tomorrow."

Now, understand that you start work at 2 PM, and you still need approval from the HR department (another policy) before your internal application can officially be accepted, and HR closes it's office door at five sharp every day (actually, they close the door at five 'til five, because they are buddyfuckers). So, you now only have a three-hour window to get all this taken care of. However, David Douchebag certainly isn't going to give you time off the tech-support phone to get HR's approval, so you'll have to do it during your break at 4:00, which actually leaves only a 15-minute window to get the transfer approved. But you'll have to take a piss as well, so that leaves a ten-minute window.

What a crock of shit.

What would David Douchebag need to research other than a reason to not approve your transfer? Because, at the moment, he hasn't got one. It's a pretty cut and dried thing. Just sign the goddamn form.

The real purpose behind the "transfer approval by the current supervisor" policy is not literally about "approval." If it were, no one at a corporation would actually get to transfer except incompetent employees that supervisors WANT to get rid of. The "approval of transfer" is meant to be a way of keeping your current supervisor apprised of your plan to transfer, and his signature on this form proves that you kept him up to date with your internal job search.

However, like a typical corporate middle manager, David Douchebag loves to let his surfs know that he is in control, and now he's going to let your internal transfer form set on his desk until he's good and ready to give it back to you. Just signing the damn form and letting you get on with the rest of your corporate-red-tape-life would have just been too fucking easy for the both of you.

Why all the flack? Seriously, why?

All you're asking for is a chance to interview for the position. If you're not qualified (and YOU ARE qualified), or if someone else is better qualified, shouldn't that be the HIRING supervisor's say, and not the say of someone biased who has a reason NOT to let you apply for a different position?

With all this red tape, it's actually easier for you to search for a position OUTSIDE of Castcom, which is exactly what's going to happen if David Douchebag doesn't approve your transfer.

Also, if he doesn't approve your transfer, he better have conjured up a very, very good bullshit reason not to. Otherwise shit is going to hit the fan at work. You're not afraid to call bullshit on this douchebag and take the issue to HIS supervisor. As if that will do any good [eyes rolling], but you will do it, and you will be noisy about the whole business of questioning David Douchebag's competence in front of your peers.

The Fuck the Customer Equation

2008-04-20T01:02:00.005-05:00

You worked for eight hours tonight, and, really, you helped no one. You took over 30 calls today, and you helped no one.

For some reason, people seem to think that tech support is where one calls to get technical help. Well, that couldn't be further from the truth.

You work for a ridiculously large communications company. Let's call that company Castcom. Castcom is the largest provider of cable television, and the second-largest provider of internet access in the United States, and they didn't become a large fascist douchebag corporation by HELPING people.

Please. Get real.

Castcom cares about one thing, and one thing only: $$$$$$$

Are you surprised?

Well, you shouldn't be. Anyone who believes that any corporation really gives a rat's ass about customer satisfaction is naive and/or stupid. No one cares about a customer's satisfaction except the customer, and there's a constant equation going through all those middle management brains that goes something like this:

profit - (time+wages+overhead) = fuck the customer

The first question out of your lead's mouth before he takes a "supe call" is: "What services do they have?" In other words, if you ain't buyin' shit, you ain't gettin' his ear. If a customer only has "basic cable" and/or "economy" internet service...forget it. Seriously. They'll wait on hold...for...a...while. They may as well not even ask for a supe. They're lucky they got YOU.

(Notice how when a customer asks for a "supervisor" that they don't actually get a supervisor. That's hilarious. There will be more on that in a later blog.)

Despite the fact that you are very good at technical support (that isn't saying much, but still), and CastCom maxed out their salary grade to pull you from the company you worked for previously, they don't really want you doing technical support. What they really want you to do is sell stuff to the people calling in for technical support. In fact, CastCom could care less whether you help anyone or not with their technical issues. But you'd better sell some shit to them regardless.

It's completely ass-backwards. Uhg! And, boy, do the customers resent it.

Actually, here's the real sad fact: many of the morons who call technical support WILL BUY SOMETHING even if the other services they already have aren't working. It's ridiculous and horrifying. You always thought people were stupid, but this proves it.

You had a guy screaming at you the other day because his father had just come home from the hospital and the CastCom phone service wasn't working in his father's house. Let's call that guy Dusty Douchebag.

Dusty Douchebag had already called in twice, and some other unlucky rep had already scheduled a tech visit to fix the phone service within the federally-mandated 24-hour window, but Dusty Douchebag wasn't done screaming yet, and you were the lucky recipient.

Dusty Douchebag screams, "What the fuck is he supposed to do if he needs to call the hospital or 911?"

You said, "I'm sorry, sir, but the best we can do is a service call tomorrow afternoon."

Dusty Douchebag then went into a flurry of nasty expletives directed at you in a personal manner, and then demanded a technician be sent out immediately to fix his father's phone. So, to get Dusty Douchebag off the phone, you used a tactic you like to call "hard sell to the asshole."

"Hard selling to the asshole" is basically aggressively offering to sell them services in response to anything they say until they get annoyed enough to hang up the phone. This kills two birds with one stone: it gets the asshole off the phone, and if the call gets QA'ed, you actually don't get docked for being a prick to the customer...YOU GET A BETTER SCORE for attempting to upsell them.

Yeah, wow. Cool, huh? Feel free to use that at your own tech support and/or customer service job.

So, to Dusty Douchebag you said, "I can't get a technician out there until tomorrow, but you wouldn't believe the deal I can get your father on digital television. Just $39.99 for 6 months!"

What does Dusty Douchebag do? He actually paused...AND CONSIDERED THE OFFER. He suddenly stopped yelling...there was a long silence...and then he said, "Well, I'd like that, but I can't decide right now. I have too much other stuff to think about." Seriously. No exaggeration.

The False Tow

2008-04-16T07:03:00.006-05:00

It's 7 AM, and Sweetie woke you up before she left for work so that you could move your car before it gets towed.

Well, it's your day off damnit. Why is the city towing your car on your day off? And why so goddamn early in the morning? Fucking city and their fucking temporary fucking we'll -tow-your-ASS-to-the-stone-age-signs.

When you get outside to move the car...you see the sign clearly states THURSDAY in giant red letters.

Uhg! Sweetie is soooooo gunna get it when she gets home tonight. She owes you dinner. You think you want a fried-oyster po' boy at Stella's Fish Cafe. That'll teach her to wake you up early in the morning on your day off because she doesn't want your car to get towed. Grrr.

Plus, you want the whole New Orleans experience with your po' boy. You're gunna order a hurricane, and you're gunna make her wear Mardi Gras beads and show you her boobs.

The Break Shit After Watching A James Cameron Movie

2008-04-16T01:23:00.007-05:00

It's after work, and you are watching Aliens. This was one of your favorite movies as a kid.

You also liked The Terminator.

Perhaps if you had spent less time watching James Cameron's bleak science fiction movies over and over and over, you could have actually paid attention to something worthwhile...like studying algebra, or playing football.

Yet, here you sit...years later...still watching.

There are things you should break...starting with the television.

No. The first thing you're going to break is that fucking worthless Lexmark printer. What a god-awful hunk of shit that thing is. You had an HP Deskjet for like ten years, and it never failed you, but it wasn't compatible with your new laptop, so you were forced to purchase a new printer, and you bought a lame-ass fucking Lexmark X-series. Uhg! And it's never worked once. No exaggeration. Not once. It's junk. You're taking an aluminum baseball bat to it tomorrow.

The Advice for Guys

2008-04-10T23:52:00.014-05:00

You should start by admitting that you don't know everything about women, and it would be very foolish of you to think that you did, and even more foolish for you to tell people that you did.

However, you've been in many, many, many various relationships with a long list of assorted ladies, and you've made many, many, many mistakes, and you've learned a lot...the hard way.

One of your favorite pastimes is people watching. You often go out to a bar, find a nice spot in the corner, and watch the show in the rest of the room. The most entertaining part of the show is watching the guys in the room attempt to meet and/or impress and/or talk to the women in the room, and it's always a pathetic scene.

And it’s not just the young guys either. It’s older guys too. It’s like, when it comes to women, men are incapable of retaining any sort of intellectual capacity. They just keep trying the same lame shit over and over and over.

Sidebar: Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Jerry does the stand up routine at the end about the guy who honks his car horn at women on the street. “Have you seen men doing this? What is this? The man is in the car. The woman walks by the front of the car. He honks the horn. This man is out of ideas.” That’s what you're talking about.

So, off the top of your head, here’s a few rules you think guys should follow:

1. Don’t be too available. Women will quickly learn to hate your guts if you’re around too much, or if you come running every time they call.

2. Don’t give women flowers. Uhg. Only dorks give women flowers. Giving women “courting gifts” is an antiquated concept. (This rule can only be broken if the woman in question is your mother. Or, if you’ve been in a relationship with a woman for a while, and it’s her birthday, or Valentines Day. Valentines Day is a stupid non-holiday, but if you want to get laid, you better put some thought into what you give her for V-Day. The best V-Day gifts are given in a way that it impresses her friends and coworkers, because women love to impress their friends and coworkers with their V-Day gifts.)

3. Don’t seek out women. Only dorks go out LOOKING for women. Women are perceptive. They know when you’re looking for a date, and they keep their distance from dorks on the prowl. Plus, women are everywhere, so why are you working so hard to find them?

4. Live your life. This is tied in closely with #1 and #3. A guy who spends every waking moment looking for a woman and/or attempting to impress a woman is NOT attractive. Women are everywhere, and they’re drawn to guys who live their lives.

5. If you’re going to hit on a woman, DO IT SOBER. Uhg. If you need liquid courage to talk to a woman, then you’re better off acting aloof (see #1 and #4). She may or may not find your aloofness attractive, but at least she won’t think you’re a drunken loser tool.

6. Have a spine. You are an individual, and individuals have beliefs and opinions that are different than other individuals, and this includes women. Nothing turns a woman off faster than a dork who agrees with everything she says. In fact...and this is important…if you like a woman, it’s imperative that you disagree with her A LOT, and be able to tell her why you disagree with her...IN DETAIL.

7. Don’t go out on dates. Only dorks “date” women, and women don’t date dorks. It’s a catch-22. (See #3 and #4 and #6.) If you’re going to a movie, by all means, take someone along…if it’s a woman, so much the better, but don’t just go to a movie because you need an excuse to spend time with a woman. Uhg. In other words, it’s not: “Do you wanna go to a movie with me, because I really like you and stuff.” It’s: “I’m going to see this band tomorrow night, and you’re coming with me. Why? Because you have terrible taste in music, and I’m going to change that. Be ready at seven if you know what's good for you.”

8. Women are crazy. Never attempt to rationalize their actions. All your failures with women will be well planned. If things are going too well in your relationship with a woman...it's a trap. And, last, but not least: The fight you are having with her is NOT the same fight she is having with you. Read that last sentence again. It's very important that you understand. Example: If she picks a fight with you about walking too fast, she's actually picking a fight with you because she thinks you think she's fat, even though you've never said anything about her being fat, and you don't think she's fat at all, but that doesn't mean she doesn't think you think she's fat, but she sure isn't going to get you to admit that you think she's fat, you son-of-bitch, because she can tell you think she's fat by how fast you're walking, so quit walking so goddamn fast, you prick, or she'll just sit there and pout until you reassure her that she isn't fat, and that's all she wanted when she picked that fight with you about walking too fast, and the fight about walking too fast will end as soon as you tell her she isn't fat by complimenting the dress she wore especially for you, but you didn't even notice her dress, you prick, but you complimented that other girl's hair two hours ago, and now you're walking too fast.

OK, that’s enough for now. Class dismissed.

The You're Too Broke For Rollerblades

2008-04-09T10:03:00.017-05:00

Sweetie likes to rollerblade. She really likes to rollerblade. And you like it when she rollerblades, because after a few warm months of rollerblading around Lake Calhoun, you can bounce a quarter off Sweetie's ass, which is nice for you, because you are an ass man.

Here's the problem: a few weeks back, you told Sweetie you were going to get some rollerblades and rollerblade with her, which was true at the time, and you really want to, but you are fucking broke, and inline skates are expensive.

Well, Sweetie is very excited about the rollerblading plan you came up with, because you aren't really a rollerblading type of guy, so she really never expected you to even consider rollerblading with her, but now that you actually brought it up, she is seriously tickled shitty about the whole project, and now she can't wait for a nice warm day when neither of you have to work so you can both go blade it up on the trails.

Now that you live in Minneapolis with Sweetie, it would be nice if you could actually do some stuff together. You know...like couples do. But she works all the time, and you work all time, and you have completely different schedules, and you almost wish you were still living in different cities and just spending the weekends together like you used to. There was no time for rollerblading then, but at least for two days there was lots and lots of sex, and that was a very inexpensive, yet aerobic, pastime.

Anyway, you considered working overtime to get extra $$$$ for the rolleblades, but if you actually sacrificed more than forty hours a week of your life at your job, you would definitely have to put a bullet through your brain, or drink yourself to death, or both, and that won't get you the rollerblades, and it probably wouldn't make Sweetie very happy either.

The Phoning It In

2008-04-09T09:35:00.004-05:00

You've been agonizing over this blog. You want to do more than just phone in a post now and then, but you're a real chicken shit.

Plus, you're being too goddamned cryptic in the posts you actually post. The above sentences are a perfect example. Sheesh. Could you be any less specific?

You thought writing anonymously in third person would help, but it doesn't, because, let's face it, you just don't want to admit how awful your life is...to yourself. Putting it down would mean actually analyzing the hell hole you've put yourself in. Joy!

Plus, you don't know where to begin. There is so much bullshit going on around you. Staying focused on one particular turd is nearly impossible, because it all ties in, doesn't it?

The Chuckhole Central

2008-04-07T01:17:00.005-05:00

The Twin Cities are fucking pothole central these days, and have been all winter.

You've already dented two rims driving back and forth to work. Seriously. You aren't exaggerating. Two rims. Dented. The streets and highways are fucked up.

You had to order a new rim and tire for the car a few weeks back. Then you took the bent rim into the basement and pounded it out with a hammer, so now the rim looks like complete shit on one side and needs to be balanced, but at least it's round again.

You were using the fucked-up rim as a spare until a few days ago when you hit another pothole on the Minneapolis I-94 ramp. This pothole was the size of a bathtub. OK, you're exaggerating a little now, but the chuckhole you hit WAS huge. It sounded like you hit a wall.

And now you have another bent rim. This one is worse than the other. You'll probably spend your next day off pounding the shit out of it with a dead-blow hammer.

These rims are over $300 a pop. And having them professionally fixed is like $100 a pop, or possibly more. You're thinking the cost of fixing your rims and tires should be deducted from your state taxes.

If the douchebag in charge of fixing the streets in the Minneapolis is reading this...hey, you're doing a hell of job, you dick licker.

The Take A Fucking Class

2008-04-06T00:36:00.012-05:00

You are sick of talking to idiots day after day after day, but it's what you get paid for, so you have to keep doing it, because you have bills to pay.

Uhg.

Some of the douchebags you're forced to deal with on a daily basis make you really wonder how the human race has survived. There are actually people out there who don't know that a computer can be used for more than surfing the internet. You hear this statement at least once a day: "My internet is broken." After a few questions, you soon discover that the douchebag's COMPUTER IS BROKEN.

If you are an ignorant douchebag who doesn't have basic computer skills and/or knows zilch about the internet...then TAKE A FUCKING CLASS, for fucks sake! Don't call tech support to bitch and whine about how this or that isn't working when you clearly have no clue what you're doing.

And don't expect tech support to train you over the phone, because people with real issues are waiting in queue. Or, worse yet, don't fuck something up by dicking around with it and then call tech support afterwords and pretend that "it just stopped working." Yeah, I guess evil gremlins fucked up your machine's networking while you were sleeping. Guess what, douchebag...we know you're lying, so just admit you were dicking with it and it'll get fixed much faster, because otherwise troubleshooting the issue is just shooting in the dark. Also, while we're at it, we know you got that virus while you were surfing for porn.

Here is a conversation that you have with douchebags almost daily at work:

Tech Support Guy: Please open a browser and pull up google.com.

Customer: Open a what?

Tech Support Guy: A browser. Please open a browser.

Customer: What's a browser?

Tech Support Guy: It's software you use to surf the internet like Internet Explorer, or Firefox, or Safari.

Customer: Do you mean open the internet?

Tech Support Guy: Sigh. Yes, please open "the internet."

Customer: The internet won't open.

Tech Support Guy: Do you mean the browser won't open, or that google won't pull up IN the browser?

Customer: When I open the internet...nothing happens.

Tech Support Guy: So, you're saying that when you click on the icon that opens your browser...absolutely nothing happens.

Customer: Yeah, nothing happens when I open the internet.

Tech Support Guy: So, tell me what you see on the monitor right now.

Customer: Nothing.

Tech Support Guy: Surely you must see SOMETHING.

Customer: It says, "search page cannot be found."

The Days Off

2008-04-03T10:33:00.007-05:00

It's you're day off. The second of two.

You're in the sunny attic drinking your breakfast: coffee and an EAS chocolate-fudge protein shake. (For a moment you thought you meant boozing before noon, didn't you? LOL You aren't that pathetic. Not yet, anyway.)

You're watching the Battlestar Galactica marathon on the SciFi Network, which has become your new obsession. You don't want it to be an obsession, but your DVR only holds so much, so the past couple days have been all watch and delete and watch and delete and watch and delete and watch and delete and...the DVR just keeps churning, and you need room for a three-hour hockey game later tonight.

At the moment, your days off come in the middle of the week. Wednesday and Thursday. This gives your life a weird little quirk.

You'll state the obvious: The world seems built around the idea that everyone has Saturday and Sunday off, and people who actually have Saturday and Sunday off seem to think that everyone else has Saturday and Sunday off.

You live a few blocks from Lake and Lyndale, which is also close to Uptown, and just east of Lake Calhoun. This is a popular area, and one thing you hate about the weekends is that every douchebag in a beemer or Audi drives their silly ass out of the suburbs and into your neighborhood to have a good time. They love to drive around the lake for no reason, and they love to visit all the kitchy little stores and restaurants in your neighborhood.

The Traffic Sucks in the Twin Cities

2008-04-03T00:59:00.038-05:00

As much as you would love to get into the specifics of how shitty your job is, the shitty traffic in the Twin Cities just keeps getting precedence.

So, it snowed like fucking crazy Monday, and the drive to work was pure stupid, but it was nothing compared to Tuesday.

On Tuesday, a douchebag driving a semi played chicken with a snowplow on the interstate, and the snowplow won.

You have pictures of the stand-still traffic jam you were in on I-94 between Minneapolis and St. Paul.

Yay! Life is great!

You left 45 minutes EARLY for work and barely made it in time.

Who the fuck runs this town? Do they know how shitty traffic is?

Seriously. You're asking. Because traffic here blows serious fucking ass in a big way.

The Patriotic Douchebaggery

2008-04-01T01:07:00.010-05:00

Your employer practices what you like to call "Patriotic Douchebaggery".

Patriotic douchebaggery happens when an individual douchebag or group of douchebags puts on a patriotic guise in order to reap the benefits, but doesn't follow up with any of the responsibilities of said patriotism.

The picture to the left was taken during today's snow storm. Notice how the flags (three of them, mind you) are still flying in front of the building. These flags are NEVER taken down.

You remember when you were a young tyke going to school in a small town in the Heartland of America...anytime it was as much as misting precipitation, the flag flying on the pole in front of the school was immediately taken down and folded by a group of boys who were specifically chosen for that task.

They would also take down the flag at the end of every day, and then raise it again the next morning.

If the flag ever became tattered, it would be taken to the the local VFW where it would be respectfully and ceremoniously burned.

Any individual or group of individuals who flies a tattered flag day and night whether during a snow storm or not is practicing patriotic douchebaggery.

The Site Disclaimer

2008-04-01T00:47:00.005-05:00

You Stay Put is the web-log or blog by a fictional douchebag named You. And as the main content provider for You Stay Put, You will be referred to as "blogger" from this place forth.

The content of this blog is the fictional blogger’s opinion and the fictional blogger is responsible for those opinions. Should you, dear reader, agree or disagree with any opinions expressed within, it is your duty to comment and share your point of view. You Stay Put strives to present the idiosyncrasies of the human condition while making no apologies, thus without your comment the human condition can not fully be represented.

You, dear reader, agree that by accessing and viewing http://youstayput.blogspot.com/ to not hold the fictional blogger libel for any written text or images displayed. The content of this blog is the opinion of a fictional blogger and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual.

Of course, if it DOES malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual, then...whatever...I guess that religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual deserved it.

The fictional blogger, at no time, represents past or present employers, corporations, volunteer groups, membership organizations, or douchebag, or group of douchebags, and etc. The fictional blogger represents the fictional blogger and only the fictional blogger.

The Buy a New Fucking Computer

2008-03-31T00:28:00.003-05:00

You are still doing technical support for eight hours a day. And you have a lot of advice to give to the customers about their issues.

At work, you give them the advice you're paid to give them...but there is more advice to give.

You'd like to start with:

BUY A NEW FUCKING COMPUTER!

If you're using a version of Windows older than XP, then buy a new computer.

If you only have a telephone modem, and you don't have an ethernet port, then buy a new computer.

The Good Things About Your Job

2008-03-29T10:00:00.014-05:00

This morning, you had the DVR set to go off at 8AM so that you could wake up to Home Alone 2 on Starz Kids and Family, which is a channel that you didn't even know existed until last night when you set the DVR to "wake up".

The DVR is a perk of your shitty job. You get like 1000 channels, which includes all the premium movie channels (even obscure ones like Starz Kids and Family), and all the Spanish language channels, and all the digital music channels, and all the HD channels, and etc. You also get 6 M of free high-speed internet access. You could also have the home phone service they offer, but it's an inferior product you wouldn't sell to your enemies, so you didn't install it.

There are only two good things about your shitty job. The free services, and the view from your desk.

Here's what the view looked like yesterday:

That's the Robert Street Bridge over the Mississippi River with the St. Paul skyline behind it.

Can you see the tugboat?

Nice, huh? Yeah, otherwise your job sucks ass.

There will be much more about how your job sucks ass in the days to come.

The Sunny Attic

2008-03-27T19:05:00.006-05:00

This is Sweetie and you in the sunny attic.

The sunny attic is where you live.

The sunny attic is where most of these posts are/will be created.

The sunny attic is not always sunny, but, when it is sunny, it's a great place to be, especially when Sweetie is there with you.

Sweetie lives one floor below you in Sweetie's room. You both have the same view of Minneapolis, except your view is one floor higher.

The Road Rage

2008-03-26T12:58:00.016-05:00

There was an incident yesterday, so today you've decided to take 35W to Diamond Lake Road in order to get to the gym. It's faster that way, so you should probably go that way anyway.

You usually take Lyndale. It's usually scenic and relaxing. You like to look at the houses that line the street, especially down toward Tangletown where they become beautiful two-story structures with ornate windows and brick chimneys and balconies and peaked roofs and carriage houses and etc.

However, Lyndale Avenue has an issue. Most of the time it's a two-way thoroughfare that has one lane going in each direction with plenty of room for parking on each side. Seems simple, right?

Well, here's the complication: Twice a day, during the morning and evening rush hours, Lyndale Ave becomes a no-parking zone, and the parking lanes are then used for the overflowing traffic.

Ordinarily, the fact that any street in Minneapolis becoming a four-lane rush-hour raceway for douchebags is not an issue for you, because you do not drive during rush hour. You've scheduled your entire existence in the Twin Cities around that premise.

But here's where the complication gets even hairier: During the non-rush-hour times, douchebags seem to think that they can use the parking lane as a passing lane. This turns your nice, relaxing drive to the gym each day into a Mad Max movie.

The street is always peppered with parked vehicles, so douchebags are constantly weaving in and out and cutting other drivers off, which is stupid, because the douchebags who do the most weaving and speeding are always caught at the next stoplight just like the drivers who choose not to speed and weave.

So, being the douchebag you are...yesterday, you got caught up in the douchebaggery of it all:

A douchebag in a green Ford Taurus careened up behind you and then attempted to pass. In response, you stepped on the gas. You thought this was pretty funny until you got to the next red stoplight where you had to sidle up next to a gargantuan purple Chevy Suburban (why do so many douchebags in Minnesota drive purple vehicles? Is it a Viking thing?) in order to keep the green Taurus from doing the same. We'll the douchebag in the purple Suburban took that as a challenge and gunned it when the light turned green.

Now, here's the thing: You have a fast car: Nissan SE-R Spec-V. It doesn't look like a sports car, and that's part of the reason you love it, because it's so unassuming, but it has a 175-horse-power 2.5-liter engine, with a six-speed manual transmission, which goes 0 to 60 in 7 seconds.

Anyway, you passed the Suburban like it was sitting still. This, I guess, emasculated the driver of the heavy-ass, gas-guzzling, Detroit-steel monstrosity, so at the next stoplight, he proceeded to not only pull out in front of you at the next intersection to block you in, but then he jumped out of the Suburban and started yelling profanities and flipping you off at the same time.

This would have been extremely hilarious except that he was standing in the middle of a busy intersection blocking traffic and putting himself in a serious mortal-idiot-squashed-by-automobile predicament, and you really don't like seeing people die right in front of you.

Also, although you doubt he recognized you, you know this particular douchebag. He works at the NAPA store down the street, and you occasionally buy auto parts there.

So, the outlook on your karma portfolio is way the fuck down this quarter, and you're certain the cosmos will cash it in any time now. Uhg.

And now you take the interstate, where drivers expect to be passed, and cut off, and raced, and etc. And it's not scenic AT ALL.

The Pizza Luce

2008-03-26T00:41:00.006-05:00

Where to start...where to start?

As always, today sucked ass.

You drove by the house after work in case Sweetie was still awake. Her light was on so you parked and went into the house. When you got to her room, you found her tangled in the comforter with the TV and lights still on, but she was dead asleep.

When you flipped off the light, she immediately bolted upright in bed. You said, "It's OK, Sweetie. It's just me. You fell asleep with the light on, and I turned it off." Then you kissed her and told her to go back to sleep.

She won't remember any of that tomorrow.

So, you decided to go out for a slice at Pizza Luce, because it's close and they have half-price pints of beer after 10 PM.

You walked in to find the waitress who has the pink hair and the nice butt (in blue Dickies pants) sweeping and mopping the dining room floor. She had all the chairs up on the tables, and you immediately feel guilty, so you ask the cute girl (with the nose ring) at the counter if it's still OK to sit. "Oh, yeah," she says. So, you wait next to the "please wait to be seated" sign.

The waitress with the nice Dickies butt asks if it's just you. "Yes," you say, "just me."

"Are you ordering from the menu or slices," she asks.

"Slices," you say.

She tells you to order at the counter.

So you go back to the cute girl at the counter, and she gets you one meat slice and one veggie slice, and a pint of Amstel light.

She checks your ID, and you hand her your bank card, which is...uhg...declined. For what reason...who knows, because there's money in the bank. Not a whole lot of money, mind you, but enough to cover pizza and beer.

You say to her, "Ouch. Well, that's never good." And you hand her another card, which immediately goes through, but it's still an awkward moment, and you wonder why, because you have a girlfriend, and you certainly don't need another one of those. One woman at a time is more than enough. So, what the fuck do you care what this other woman thinks? This woman you don't even know. A complete stranger.

You tip her two dollars.

Ego. It's a shitty thing. If you could hack it off yourself with a butcher knife like a sixth toe or a second head...you would.

And with the above thought in mind, you eat your pizza, and drink your beer, and order another beer, and drink that beer.

The Fat People At Work

2008-03-25T01:44:00.006-05:00

There are so many fat people working for your employer. It's a good thing they aren't paying by the pound.

You walked past two of them talking outside the door of a conference room today and overheard this:

Fatty #1 said, "...and in the middle is a meatball. Oh, it's just great."

Fatty #2 replied, "Just unexpected, huh? Like cheese? That does sound good."

The fatties at work waddle down the hallways breathing heavily. They sit in the break room eating microwave Lean Cuisine meals and drinking Diet Rite, but you know they go right home and cram Big Macs and Ding Dongs into their gaping maws, and wash it down with Yoo Hoo and Kahlua.

You think, is it just here, or do this many fat people work in every office building?

The Dress Code

2008-03-24T00:12:00.014-05:00

You didn't shower today. You threw on a pair of unwashed jeans, an unwashed sweatshirt, and a North Stars baseball cap. And that's what you wore to work. You smell...and you smelled for eight hours at work, because fuck work.

At one point, while peeing, while your zipper was open, you got a good whiff of the odor coming off your crotch area, and it was quite pungent. It made your eyes water just a little. Your coworkers kept their distance.

Awesome.

Tomorrow, the corporate dress code that everyone pretends to conform with kicks in again for four days. Instead of jeans and untucked collared shirts, it'll be untucked collared shirts and varying shades of wrinkled khakis or painter pants.

What a joke.

You’ll be going with the Dickies work pants, and faded Gap polo.

The Families In Commercials

2008-03-23T23:31:00.005-05:00

You've begun to notice that families in TV commercials just don't add up.

Like the one you just saw for Splenda artificial sweetener while you were watching a syndicated episode of Seinfeld (“The Vasectomy”). The family seemed perfect except that the “father” and “mother” in the commercial both had brown eyes, and the children (one girl, and one boy) both had blue eyes.

Whoops.

I mean, genetically, that’s impossible…unless the makers of the commercial want consumers like you to think those are someone else’s children. In which case, how nice of that nice couple to feed someone else’s children breakfast. And how nice of them to consider the health consequences of feeding someone else’s children too much sugar.

The Easter In Minneapolis

2008-03-23T07:08:00.010-05:00

You can't sleep. It’s Easter, and you’re awake early.

You consider going to mass, but this is the busiest day of the year for church, so that idea is just cliché.

You decide that it’s probably best to get out and get some breakfast before all those bandwagon churchgoing fucks fill every restaurant with their frilly, Easter-colored Sunday best.

Your Sweetie is sleeping next to you. She is usually the early riser. You move over and slide a knee under her butt. She moans and smacks her lips. She says, "You're up early. Maybe you should go to the gym, and then we can get breakfast."

You say, "I'm not going to the gym today. It's Easter." Besides, your abs are sore from yesterday.

She stands up on the bed and looks out the window. "Oh, my god. It snowed again," she says.

What a fucking mess. Nothing brings people out like a religious holiday, and nothing makes them stupider than driving in new snow.

I'm going to need a miracle to get to work in one piece today.

Help me, Jesus!

The After-Work Routine 2

2008-03-22T00:45:00.007-05:00

You drank a beer, then swallowed a sleeping pill, and then drank another beer.

Today was Good Friday, and it snowed six inches, which meant sacrificing a lot to get to work on time.

Your sister's birthday was yesterday, and you forgot to call. Her baby is due in April, so it's a double whammy. You'd like to blame your absent-mindedness on how complicated your life is, but your life isn't that complicated. It's work, sleep, work, sleep, whatever, etc.

Get real.

The Food Poisoning

2008-03-20T12:46:00.009-05:00

You are on the toilet. You had food poisoning yesterday, and the remnants of the illness are leaving your body now.

The night before last, you hardly slept. Your guts felt hard as stone, and any movement increased your nausea. You laid there all night in pain staring at the ceiling.

There are windows above your bed, and, at some point in the night, the moon came into view. The sky was clear and the moon was nearly full. For some reason, it made you feel a little better to see it there hanging above you.

Yesterday, you felt old and off balance, as if the virus, or bacteria, or whatever, had aged you and fucked up your equalibrium. Other than a visit to the bathroom, where you spent nearly five minutes squirting something out of your penis that looked more like root beer than urine, you spent most of the day in bed watching episodes of Star Trek Voyager from your DVR (yes, you watch crappy televised science fiction. You shouldn't be judged for that). Thank god you had the day off, but what a big fucking waste of a day off.

After your Sweetie got home from work, she got into bed with you and rubbed your back. The she drove you to Lund's, because you needed soup and saltines to choke down for sustenance, and on the way back to the house she honked at some idiot double-parking an SUV on Lake Street, and you said, "Please don't get me in a fight today, Sweetie. I'm too weak to defend myself." And then you laughed weakly. And she said, "Sorry." But then she honked at the idiot again.

Today, you not only feel better, but you feel vigorous. You're drinking coffee with a lot of cream. You're going to eat a big pile of scrambled eggs. Both would have disgusted you yesterday.

The sickness is draining out of you now. It smells horrible, like rotting death. Not even the flowery spray your Sweetie leaves in the bathroom can cover it up. It's dripping everywhere. Toilet paper will not be enough for this mess. The final insult of this sickness will be skid marks on your Calvin Klein boxer briefs.

The Douchebag Who Shovels At the Butt-Crack of Dawn

2008-03-18T06:29:00.010-05:00

You're awake at 5:30 AM, because the idiot across the street is shoveling his front walk.

"SCRAPE! SCRAPE! SCRAPE-SCRAPE! scraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!"

What a fucking asshole.

Is their no fucking common courtesy any longer? He must really be one bored son-of-a-bitch if he's up before the ass-crack of dawn scraping cement. Or maybe he's just that fucking anal. Or maybe he's one of those righteous, flag-waving, my-way-or-the-highway douchebag fucks who thinks everyone should wake up at 5:30 AM and do manual labour.

Sheesh! Douchebags everywhere!

He's lucky this is probably the last snowfall of the year, or they'd be removing that shovel from his colon.

The Fuck Poetics

2008-03-18T00:20:00.006-05:00

You don’t want to be poetic. Fuck that shit.

And you don’t like attention…ordinarily.

You just need a way to vent. A way to get things off your chest. That way you’re not boring people around you with the mundane bullshit that is your stupid life. You're just boring everyone else...but whatever.

The After-Work Routine

2008-03-17T00:29:00.005-05:00

You come home and you open a beer. You eat the leftover pizza in the fridge. You eat it cold, because nuking it would take effort. Then you open another beer.

You watch syndicated episodes of old sitcoms. King of Queens, Just Shoot Me, That 70's Show, King of the Hill, etc.

Your girlfriend's cat rubs against your leg and yowls. You tell the cat to shutup because your girlfriend is downstairs asleep, and the cat's yowling tends to wake her up, and she has to get up in a few hours to go to her job.

You should be looking for a new job. A job that gets you home before midnight. A job that doesn't involve driving in the Twin Cities' shitty traffic twice a day.

Minnesota nice? Whatever. These people drive like serious fucking douchebags.

You're tired. The sitcoms shut down your brain. And, soon, the beer will knock you out

Time to brush your teeth and then pass out.