puppies are cute

HA! Gotta ya! Puppies are, in fact, cute. But, that statement has nothing to do with the subject of this blog.

First, Lost. What the fa...? So, Ben is Carrie now? For a bit, I thought he has multiple personality disorder (and could ya blame the guy--dad's birthday greeting of "this is the day you killed your mother" doesn't really scream out Hallmark does it). But when crap started flying around, I began to have Sissy Spacek flashbacks. And if Locke is dead I will be sooooo annoyed. He is one of my favorite characters. I felt very confused after the episode ended, but I'm looking forward to the big two hour finale in a couple of weeks. Jack flashback groovieness and hopefully, the start of an Others ass kickin'. One more bit, the guy who recruited Juliet must have found the fountain of youth if he's the same guy who was talking to Ben as a kid. I need some clarification on this point.

At work, the preparation, or lack thereof, for inventory continues. Last year, when I was still responsible for damaged/defective markdowns, I had to complete them the Mon. before inventory. We weren't allowed to do d/d's after that point until inventory had been completed. Now, since we shifted that responsibility to the store manager and we no longer have actual paperwork to fill out, I'm not sure if this is still the case. None the less, I have 4 full boxes of crap, plus what's on the cart that needs to be gone through or else I have to find somewhere for it to go. I left sir mix a lot a note asking him to please do this task. Originally the note said "you MUST do this by the 14th" and ended with "if you don't it will suck." I re-wrote the note, but nothing has happened yet.

Sir Mix has also re-started a policy that we aren't allowed to read at the info desk or at the cash registers. In a small way, this idea seems to make sense. Especially when you are a head cashier and a line is forming and your co-worker asks you to come help and you tell them just a sec while you finish the page you are on. (And some managers want to move this person up in the food chain.) But, when no one is around and you've completed all the little piddly tasks, it's nice to be able to flip through a magazine or book now and again.

Here's the less than logical bit. Sir Mix did say it was okay to be milling about in front of the info desk and browse books that are on a table or stop and look at books while walking the aisles. Sir's "logic" is that customers will see you reading and think, "Gosh, that employee is expanding their knowledge of the book product they sell." The reality, I think, is the customer will think, that employee is dicking around and probably won't want to help me. Or, if they are perusing Penthouse Letters XXIV (which is so much better than XXIII), they will think, ewww I don't want this person near me.

I suppose I could be wrong though.

I got nothing people...

No real title today and no real purpose behind the picture. This is a shot of Athens that I took. The last night we were there a few of us went to the top of that big ass hill. There is a functioning church and a bar up there. I spent my last bit of money on the lift to the top and had to bum cash for the taxi ride home. Oops. One of the ladies that went with us was nice enough to buy me a soda at the bar.

I forgot to mention that last week a customer came in and claimed he'd seen a UFO at a local mall parking lot. I still need to get the details of the story, but considering some of the people that shop at our place I wasn't surprised to hear someone had made such a claim.

Our big inventory is coming up and I am not looking forward to working that night. The only place I think you can find a more depressing group of people would be at the DMV. I see these old ladies up till the crack of dawn counting books and I think, holy crud, that's me in about 30 years. Assuming Wendy's doesn't pan out of course.

24 has turned into plot convenience playhouse. I was hoping Jack's sister in law was gonna get popped, but no such luck. The actress has two facial expressions and they are both annoying. Speaking of annoying, Lost is going to stretch out their final 48 episodes over 3 seasons. 16 eps a year. And, I believe they are going to do a 24 and start their run in the winter to have it go straight through without breaks. So, we'll get 4 months of shows then have to wait 8 months for new ones. Why not just do a true 24 and give us 24 eps each year for two years? Is this a ploy to sell 3 dvd sets instead of 2? A blogger on this tv page I check out asked if the dvd's would be 33% cheaper since we'd be getting 33% fewer episodes. Valid question.

Okay, I'm tired and I want to check and see if Steve Nash got his nose gashed again.

You Say It's Your Birthday...

Today I spent about 4 or so hours with 10 children between the ages of 3 and 12. No, I was not banished to some prison full of child laborers. I was at a birthday party. 9 of these children were boys. I'm not sure I need to actually tell you anything else.

I spent a decent amount of time yelling out phrases like:

Please stop throwing (insert the following at the correct times--rocks, dirt, cherries, your younger brother).

Let's check with your mother before doing that.

At what point did wandering off into the brush seem like a good idea?

Hey! Stop that! (good for almost any situation)

Where did (kid's name here) go?

Obi-Wan is my favorite because Ewan McGregor is cute, that's why!

The day was spent in one of two places. Inside eating or outside burning off the sugar rush. The kids weren't too horrible. They were just mostly boys and the inherent testosterone frenzy often created moments of shoving, hitting and tackling. Not to mention a couple of instances of using one of the younger kids to create a distraction so the rest could go running off like madmen. I don't know how elementary school teachers do it every day.

I'm being a good friend and not going to see Spiderman 3 until my movie buddies are able to find a sitter. We made an attempt for Friday nite, but it was a no go. Now, I may be doing the two in one day option this Sat. as 28 Weeks Later comes out on the 11th. Mmmmm...zombies...and British accents...yeah.

WATCH IT:

Shortbus--rented this over the weekend and I really enjoyed it, even though I thought it lost some steam towards the end. The big controversy over this flick stemmed from it being one of the first mainstream American films where the actors are having real sex as opposed to "acting" sex. In truth, there are only a couple of times where you have a view that let's you know people are really doing it. Otherwise most of the straight folk sex looks the same and the gay sex resembles an episode of Queer As Folk with more full frontal and participation and less dancing to techno. I will say the moment involving the singing of the National Anthem had me cracking up. Ultimately the movie is about connecting with people. In this case, most of the people seem to connect or disconnect via sex (or something like sex). I thought the film was entertaining and some of the sex was pretty humorous. But, if you don't want to see the penises (or is that penisi?) of about 7 different guys you may want to skip this one.

LISTEN TO IT:

Duran Duran--Ordinary World. Seriously, this somewhat recent tune from DD gives us fans everything we want. A lovely melody, a little melancholy, Simon's fabbo voice and a sing along chorus with a build toward the end of the song. I gave in to an impulse and picked up a DD greatest hits cd and spent about a week listening to it.

READ IT:

Wired magazine--there's a great article in the latest issue about the CIA's covert operation to get six Americans out of Iran at the start of the '79 hostage crisis. The folks were able to get out of the embassy and make their way to the Canadian embassy, but needed professional help to get out of the country. It's a great story and we owe the Canadians. Did you know Canada called a special secret meeting of Parliment to give permission for the Canadian government to create real passports using fake identities to give to the 6 people trying to escape? Canada had last called such a session during WW2!

Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School

Today was a bad luck sort of day so I opted for a picture of two of my favorite things. Bunnies and Gromit. When I went and saw Wallace and Gromit and the Curse of the Were-Rabbit in theaters (that's right...you heard me), I literally exclaimed "bunnies!" when the rabbits first appeared. Love the bunnies.

Here was my day:

Delayed at post office so opted to not fill up my car so I wouldn't be late to work.

Stuck behind slo-mo driver so I zigged when I normally zag and I got stopped by a train for about 8 min.

While driving to work noticed that gas had gone up from the $2.99 where I live to $3.19. FUCK ME!! Praying will not get shafted by pricing at home.

Arrive at work about 5 or so minutes late and discover a series of sheets on my desk that need to be completed by noon. It is 11:05-ish at this point. These sheets are a part of our loss prevention self audit which is done every quarter. We know we have to do them. Someone in the building knows when they are due. Almost everytime, the sheets don't get handed out till the day they are due even though we've had around 3 months to complete these freakin' things. I opt to fake my way through it somewhat as I feel the following--1) I really don't care and 2) it would normally take a couple of hours to complete it and I've got less than one so I'm not checking every tiny detail. The form finally changed this time around. Last quarter it had a question on it referring to a task that is no longer being done as of last June. We are so on top of things in this company! One question was completely foreign to me as I didn't even recognize what the form in question was and where it could be found.

Thought I'd be leaving around 3pm because we were only getting in 52 boxes. Sent Jinn home around 12:30. Got a call around 1:40 saying our truck broke down and they have no idea when it will be arriving. It got in around 4:45. I don't blame our driver at all. It just sucks that I'd gotten all excited about heading out with a half day. Instead, I left around 5:30 or so and atleast got home in time for Ugly Betty.

Only other bright spot, found a gas station on the way home that was still at $2.99. Whew.

WATCH IT:

Lost--FINALLY! Holy snot last night's episode rocked. I can say that I guessed it was going to be Sawyer offing John's dad last week. I have a witness. Josh H's acting was possibly the best I've seen this year. The look on his face when John told him he knew about his parents was heartbreaking. Whoosh.

The Road To Guantanamo--a docu-drama about 3 British guys originally who sort of stumbled into Afghanistan only to be picked up and labeled Talaban (sp) then end up spending around 3 years in Guantanamo. The real life guys do interviews which lead into actors portraying them and what happened to them. Not one of the USA's prouder moments, but compelling viewing.

LISTEN TO IT:

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club--Need Some Air from Baby 81. The cd just came out and this was a stand-out track. The band has gone from Jesus and Mary Chain-ish rock to something more alt-country and now to blues influenced rock. Love them no matter what they are doing.