Footnotes, Misquotes, and Ice Cream Floats

I saw a spider in my office this morning. I'm not talking about a garden variety black spider or daddy-long-legs, either. This bastard was brown and thick, probably the approximate size of a fifty-cent piece. I find spiders creepy enough to be fascinating when they're on television or behind glass. Otherwise, they cause me much distress. I managed to find someone to spray it with some substance and bear away its carcass. Now each time I come into my office I scan around for more. I'm a little paranoid. Hopefully by Tuesday I'll have forgotten about it.

It should be noted that "The Spider Incident" is the most exciting thing that has happened around here for weeks.

I'm always looking for ways to improve my blog. I have a couple of ideas that I'll be trying to implement shortly. I like this new template, for the most part. It's more pleasing to the eye than my old one was. One thing I don't especially like is the wasted screen space. On my screen, I'd say less than 50% of the horizontal screen space is actually used once you scroll down past the sidebar. Unfortunately, this template is harder to customize than the last one was, due to its reliance on graphics. I like it well enough the way it is, though.

Since I have a lot of free time on my hands, I check out quite a few blogs. I am stunned and appalled at the lack of writing skill demonstrated on many of them. Why is it so hard to learn proper writing technique? Poor spelling, punctuation, and grammar abound. The function of writing is the communication of ideas, and having poor technical skill just causes the message to get lost. It's sad. And yet, with so many people out there who obviously have trouble writing, I can't find an editing job.

On the other hand, there are at least a few people out there with interesting things to say and the skill to say it well. It is these people that make me grateful for the blogging phenomenon.

The NBA playoffs last too long. I don't know offhand when the regular season ended, but it feels like forever ago. I'm tired of hearing about the NBA. It's baseball season now. On the other hand, hearing about basketball of any kind is preferable to golf, horse racing, or NASCAR. Oh, and the Lakers, for all the talent on their team, are simply dreadful to watch. Too much trash talking and thuggery. Much of the respect I gained for the NBA by watching the Cleveland Cavs and Lebron James over the course of the regular season has been drained by the terrible exhibition of basketball that has gone on during the playoffs. Yuck. I'll continue to watch the Cavs for years to come, because Lebron is a joy to watch, but other than that, give me college basketball. Hell, give me high school basketball.

A long weekend is coming up. That'll be nice. I'm looking forward to sleeping in until at least noon each day. I think there should be at least one three-day weekend per month. Is anyone against this?

Walk Into McDonald's and Whom Do I See?

Boba Fett served my lunch today.

Okay, I admit it: that's a blatant untruth. This is just another picture from that Star Wars exhibit I talked about earlier.

In actuality, I didn't even leave the office for lunch today. I had leftovers from last night's dinner (Applebee's), so I brought that with me today and ate at my desk. I brought my book (The Godfather) in so I could still read, though. I thought that would make it seem more like a regular lunch hour.

However, I'd have to say that staying here for lunch is one of the worst ideas I've had in a long time. On one hand, I'd like to do it more often--packing my lunch would be cheaper and healthier than going out for fast food each day, and I also wouldn't be driving those extra ten miles per day. That's not much, but with gas prices the way they are, cutting out any extraneous driving is a good thing. Even with all of these benefits, though, I just don't know if I could handle it. Staying here for lunch makes the day seem so long. Time is going slow enough right now as it is, since I have no work to do, and spending an extra hour in the office makes me borderline suicidal. I like getting out for an hour each day and removing all thoughts of this place from my mind.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I had some work to do, and the rest of the time didn't go by so slowly. Being here for nine hours for no apparent reason drains me mentally. I spend most of that time thinking of ways to amuse myself, like posting photos and pretending I saw Boba Fett at McDonald's. See what this job does to me? It's making me warped!

What? I've been warped since I was young?

Oh.

I'm Bored and Felt Like Posting a Photo

Hangin' With Mr. Vader

A couple of years ago, the Toledo Museum of Art hosted an exhibition entitled Star Wars: The Magic of Myth, which was a traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. Being the Star Wars enthusiast that I am, I couldn't pass it up. It was awesome to see so many original props and costumes from the movie. I've been in awe of Darth Vader for as long as I can remember (Star Wars debuted about a month and a half before I was born, so I definitely grew up with it), so this is one of my favorites of the many photos I took that day. Maybe I'll post a few others sometime when I'm bored.

In other words, look for them soon.

Conan the Comedian

Last night I watched Late Night With Conan O'Brien. I wouldn't say I'm a regular viewer by any means, but I do like Conan very much, and I catch his show occasionally. I have to say that last night's show was one of the strangest I've seen, and that's saying something.

First off, lately Conan has been showing a bunch of clips from Walker, Texas Ranger, a cheesily awful television show which stars Chuck Norris and airs on the USA Network. Those are amusing just because they're so bad, and because Conan seems to derive so much glee just from being able to show them.

Last night's guests were Tom Arnold and Dan Radcliffe (star of the Harry Potter films), and the musical guest was John Pizzarelli. Tom Arnold came out extremely high-strung, so much so that he was practically vibrating. He was just hard to watch. Dan Radcliffe was interesting and amusing, but he was clearly nervous. I suppose that's understandable for a 14-year-old kid, even if he is an actor. The musical guest just sucked. He was a pretty good jazz guitarist, but he could not sing. I say that as an accomplished not-singer myself. If I had to listen to him sing another song, I would have gone on a scavenger hunt for razor blades.

The funniest Conan guests I can remember have been Harrison Ford and "The Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin. Harrison Ford (who is known to me, now and forever, as Captain Solo) was on there to promote the movie K19: The Widowmaker, and ended up talking about how he would love to do a Dumb and Dumber-type movie. Steve Irwin was just incredibly energetic and unintentionally funny as he bounced around, talking in his Austrailian accent about his encounters with various animals.

Of course, the reason I initially started to enjoy Conan's show was Andy Richter, his sidekick who has since moved on to other things. He was a great foil for Conan, who is elaborately goofy and over-the-top. Andy could play on that, but he was more dry and subtle. Damned funny, though. I really thought that the show would have a hard time surviving after Andy left, but I'm glad to see that it's still thriving.

I developed my fondness for Conan (and Andy) during my freshman year in college. I started off at Wright State University in Dayton, and my roommate was a great guy named Matt. Just about every night, we'd huddle in front of my TV, usually with our friends Jacki and Lora, and watch late night television. We'd start off with Letterman (Leno just isn't that funny...he isn't goofy enough), then switch over to Conan when that ended. After Conan we'd watch Real Stories of the Highway Patrol, and whatever real-life cop shows came on after that. Those were good times.

Speaking of Letterman, I also caught about half of his show last night. I don't have all that much to say about it, except that I was thrilled with the musical guest. It was a band called Velvet Revolver, which includes some former members of Guns N' Roses and the lead singer of the Stone Temple Pilots. I'm a huge fan of Guns N' Roses, and these guys have been out of circulation for way too long. It's too bad that Axl Rose couldn't keep his shit together so GNR could still be around, but I think Scott Weiland will be a more than adequate replacement. I really liked the song they played on the show, and I'm stoked to hear more stuff from them.

Deliver Me From Boredom

Here I sit, with absolutely no work to do. This is the worst kind of day. The time absolutely crawls by, and the end of the day seems to draw no closer. Even worse, I have nothing especially on my mind that I care to write about. That being the case, I think it's time to bust out another edition of Random Notes. I may have trouble even filling one of these. I'm feeling strangely blank today.

I'm sure everyone will be relieved to know that I've already managed to secure tickets for Brandi and myself to go see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on the first day it opens (Friday, June 4). I got tickets to the latest showing (10:10 p.m.) in hopes that as few children as possible will be there. I'm sure there will still be some, but the later time will keep it to a minimum. Hopefully.

Speaking of movies...I've been seeing a lot of previews lately for the movie The Day After Tomorrow. Movies like this are not exactly uncommon, and it just makes me wonder: what exactly is the fascination we, as a culture (and perhaps as a species), have with seeing depictions of our world/society being wiped out? Independence Day, Armageddon, Stephen King's The Stand...there are plenty of examples. I want to see this movie myself, so I'm certainly not excluded from the phenomenon, I'm just fascinated by it. It's a little morbid, don't you think?

The Cincinnati Reds are currently 26-18. That not only puts them alone in first place in the National League Central, it's also the best record in all of the National League. I'm the hardest of die-hards when it comes to the Reds, but not even I saw them doing this well. They've played 44 games, which is more than 25% of the 162-game schedule. This is manager Dave Miley's first full year with the major league club, and it's the only year on his contract. If he isn't offered another contract sometime soon, there's something seriously wrong. Who are the Reds going to get that will do better?

I haven't played my PlayStation since Saturday afternoon. I expect to have a seizure anytime now.

A sales rep just came to visit me from a steel company we purchase from quite often. He brought me a cool-ass pen. This almost makes it worth showing up today.

No it doesn't.

So, uh...anyone in the Toledo area need a good copy editor?

Weekend Review

Have I mentioned that Ohio's springtime weather is inconsistent? Rarely has that been more true than it was this weekend. Sometimes it was sunny, sometimes it was stormy. I can't really complain too much, because it provided me with an early start to the weekend.

While I was on my lunch break on Friday afternoon, the weather was perfect. I was driving around with my window rolled down and my arm sticking out. After I got back, the clouds started rolling in. It kept getting darker and darker, until it seriously looked like nighttime, at around 2:15 p.m. We all abandoned our desks at that point and gathered in the lobby to watch the approaching storm. Trees were being whipped around in the wind, and our sign was swaying noticeably. We saw some pretty brilliant flashes of lightning. The rain was coming down in sheets, creating a river in our parking lot, and there was even a little bit of hail. Shortly after 2:30, we lost electricity at our facility. We stayed in the lobby for a while after that, continuing to watch the storm (I like storms, so this was pretty cool for me). After the storm passed and the electricity had still not returned, our company president let everyone go around 3:20.

It was pretty close to 4:00 by the time I got home, and Brandi was already there. We took advantage of my early arrival by napping. We were planning to sleep for a bit and then get up and do something, but it didn't work out that way. Sleeping was far too comfy, and we ended up staying in bed until 10:00 that night. We got up then and ordered pizza and watched a movie, then went back to bed around 2:00.

We didn't have any specific plans for the weekend, so we got to sleep in on Saturday. It wouldn't seem like we would need it, after how much we slept on Friday evening, but apparently we did. We got up shortly before noon. Brandi went to work out while I stayed home and played video games.

We just hung out for a while after she got back, eating leftover pizza and watching TV. Actually, we got a little goofy for a while and started chasing each other around the apartment. That was fun.

That evening we got together for dinner with our friends Cricket and Adam. Cricket graduated with her Master's degree a couple of weeks ago, so we bought them dinner as a graduation present. We went to Cucina di Betto in downtown Bowling Green, which was excellent, as usual.

Adam had tickets to a Mud Hens game that evening, but the weather situation was uncertain. We decided to skip it. It never did rain, at least not where we were, but you never know. It was supposed to rain, and it looked like it would, so we decided to do something else instead. We went to see Shrek 2, which was highly entertaining. We wanted to see it at some point during the weekend anyway, so this worked out for all of us.

We headed home after that. Saturday Night Live was showing "The Best of Christopher Walken." I love Chris Walken, so I was pretty happy about this. Brandi was somewhat less enthralled than I was, and ended up going to bed shortly before it ended. I joined her when it was over.

We slept in again on Sunday, not getting up until shortly after noon. We eventually headed out for lunch at Easystreet Cafe, which is another of our favorite places to eat in BG. It was pretty hot in my apartment, and my landlords haven't yet seen fit to enable our air conditioning, so we decided to stay out for a while and hit some places where it would be cool.

After Easystreet, we went to the Wood County Humane Society to visit some cats, as we do occasionally. Since we can't have pets of our own, this is our next best option. However, making a visit on this particular day turned out to be something of a mistake. Also visiting at this particular time was a fair number of undisciplined children running amok, and the cats were pissed. Most of them wanted only to be left alone, which made it not much fun for us. We didn't stay very long. We also visited the dogs while we were there, but you're not really allowed to pet them, so it wasn't much fun.

After the humane society, we went across the street to walk around the BG mall for a bit. The BG mall is really close to becoming a waste of time. If ever Waldenbooks decides to leave, that'll be it. We weren't there for very long. We went from there to the grocery, where we picked up a few things to snack on that evening. After that, we finally admitted defeat and headed home.

I parked myself on the couch when we got home and ended up napping for a while. Brandi woke me up a while later when it looked like a pretty vicious storm was on the way. It fizzled out as it approached BG, though. I think it may have rained a little, but that's it. We just hung out and watched TV for most of the rest of the evening. We did read in bed for a little bit before turning in.

Now it's Monday, and I'm back at work. I was hoping the power would still be off when I got here, but no such luck. Looks like I'm going to have to spend a full day at work after all. Oh well, at least I've got an upcoming long weekend to look forward to.

I Already Knew This, but It's Nice to Have Confirmation

You are a GRAMMAR GOD!


If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!


How grammatically sound are you?
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Speed Reading

On my old blog template, I maintained a list entitled "What I'm Reading Now." On this list I noted which books I was currently in the process of reading (or re-reading). I haven't yet added that feature to my new template, but it will be back eventually. I'm working on a couple of ideas for possibly doing it a bit differently.

In the meantime, I want to mention that last night I finished my most recent re-read of Stephen King's Wizard and Glass (which I've talked about before) and started re-reading Wolves of the Calla. These are Books IV and V, respectively, of King's Dark Tower series. The next installment, Book VI, Song of Susannah is scheduled to be released on June 8. I'll almost certainly be picking it up on its release date, and I want to finish off Wolves before then so I can be up to date and ready to dive right into the new one.

I'm a fast reader, so I highly doubt I'll have any trouble being ready. You never know, though.

I'm really excited for the new book. I love this whole series. I've been a Tower junkie since I was in junior high, I believe, when I got the first two books of the series (The Gunslinger and The Drawing of the Three) as a Christmas gift. It's been a frustrating interest at times, as additional books have generally been long in coming. However, King wrote the final three books in quick succession, so the wait is almost over. Wolves of the Calla was released last November; Song of Susannah will be here in a few weeks; and the final volume, The Dark Tower, will be released in September. I think I can probably work in yet another re-read of the whole series (and some of the auxiliary books) between June and September.

Of course, the release date for The Dark Tower also happens to be the release date for the original Star Wars trilogy on DVD. That's going to be an expensive day for me. It also means that my reading of that final book may be stretched out, as I'll have to work it in between viewings of my all-time favorite movie series (provided George Lucas doesn't totally ruin it with even more tweakings).

It's Getting Hot Out There, So Take Off All Your Clothes

It isn't even June yet, but it's already starting to feel like summer.

Ohio is like that a lot of the time, though. Spring and fall here can be pretty short, at least in terms of mild temperatures. Generally they're just quick fades from summer to winter and vice versa. It's not all bad, though: by the time the Ohio winter is over, we're ready for it to warm up quickly so the possibility of more snow can fade and die.

One thing that's pretty consistent about springtime here is the chance of rain. If you look at a ten-day forecast for this area, you'll see that there's a chance of rain just about every day, usually in the evenings. It doesn't always happen, of course, but there's usually at least a chance. Even on nights when it doesn't actually rain, it's fairly common to see a flash of lightning or two, especially when the humidity is high.

That's how yesterday was. It didn't rain, but it was hot and muggy. I decided to take advantage of the lack of precipitation, so I went for a run. I went out around 11:00 p.m.--according to The Weather Channel, it was still 78° with 82% humidity at that time.

I actually like running when it's like this. I love working up a good sweat, and that I certainly did. Since the season is still young, I haven't been running much yet, so I'm still working on building up my wind and my legs. Since it was so hot last night, I didn't expect much from myself. I did a lot better than I thought I would, though, so I feel pretty good about that. If I had to guess, I'd say I did somewhere between a mile and a mile and a half. My legs feel pretty good today. I can definitely tell that I worked them last night, but I'm not sore.

Of course, I also did laundry last night. I thought it would be a great idea to put a load of clothes in the dryer and then go out for my run. What I failed to consider was the distinct discomfort that would be caused to my already overheated body (even a quick shower didn't cool me off too much) by entering a warm laundry room and dealing with a pile of hot clothes fresh out of the dryer. Yikes.

Exacerbating the situation is the fact that my landlords haven't yet seen fit to enable our building's air conditioning units. That being the case, the climate inside my apartment wasn't too much different from that outside. I do have a fan that was at least providing a nice breeze, but it would have been lovely to step into some air conditioned comfort.

This Blog Contains a Dog

The Other Lady In My Life

SO, Blogger now tells me I can post photos in my blog. With all the other changes they've gone though recently, how could I resist this? I doubt I'll do it often, but hey, you never know. I do have a digital camera after all. I rarely use it, but now I have an easy method of posting to the web. This could be fun.

Oh, that's my dog Cupid, by the way. I probably shouldn't say she's "mine," seeing as how she lives 110 miles away, with my parents, but...yeah, she's really my dog. She loves the hell out of me, and the feeling, I assure you, is mutual.

A Correction

In my post on Wednesday about Randy Johnson's perfect game, I said that Tom Browning's perfect game for the Reds against the Dodgers in 1988 was played in Los Angeles. That, in fact, is incorrect. The game was in Cincinnati. The reason the game ended so late was because it was delayed by rain. My mistake.

The Great Re-Launch

If you've been here before, you may notice a layout change. I decided to change templates to make this blog a little easier on the eyes.

I still have the code for my old template, and I reserve the right to switch back to it at any time, or to choose a different one altogether. I haven't totally ruled out either option, because I'm not sure yet how crazy I am about this particular template. There are some things I like, and some things I don't. We'll see if it grows on me.

Anyway, I'm going to be doing some tweaking of this template, just as I did with the last one. There will be some changes coming, although most of them likely won't be major, and shouldn't affect the site's functionality at all. So enjoy, and as always, leave comments or e-mail if you have something to say.

The Big Unit

Johnson K's 13 in perfect effort

I happened to catch the last couple innings of Randy Johnson's perfect game last night, and was reminded once again of one of the major reasons why I love sports.

Johnson pitches for the Arizona Diamondbacks, and the game last night was played in Atlanta. Toward the end of the game, the fans--the overwhelming majority of which, one could assume, were Braves fans--stood and cheered for Johnson, hoping he would finish it out. When the game was over, they gave him a standing ovation, appreciative of his feat despite the fact that it was accomplished against their home team, and he made sure to tip his cap to everyone.

I love stuff like that.

This is one of the great things about baseball. You never know what you're going to see, and this is the sort of historic performance you would love to be in attendance for. This was only the 17th perfect game in baseball history, so obviously it's a rare occurrence.

I'm especially happy that it happened for Johnson, who has long been one of my favorite non-Reds players. He's simply a dominating performer, and probably the only pitcher I would actually pay money to see. I generally like to see a lot of offense, but I love watching Johnson pitch when he's on. He's awesome. He's such an imposing presence on the mound. He throws a hard fastball, and when his other pitches are working, he makes the hitters look silly. It's so much fun to watch.

The only other perfect game memory I have is of Tom Browning's perfect game for the Reds over the Dodgers in 1988. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see any of that game. I was staying at my aunt and uncle's house at the time, because their grandson (my cousin) was in town for a visit. The game was in Los Angeles, so it was pretty late here in the east when it ended, and my cousin and I were in bed. Of course, being young boys, we were still awake, goofing off. My uncle is a big Reds fan and knew I was too, so he came in to tell us about it when it ended.

That was pretty cool, but no comparison to actually seeing the game. Even in the ninth inning, Johnson was dominating the hitters and blowing them away. I just wish I would have seen the whole game.

Putting My Degree to Use

Here's something I found interesting. Try as I might I couldn't find the origins, but apparently there's a list circulating of an arbitrary reading list, inviting each reader to highlight the ones they've read. Here's what mine looks like:

Beowulf
Achebe, Chinua - Things Fall Apart
Agee, James - A Death in the Family
Austen, Jane - Pride and Prejudice
Baldwin, James - Go Tell It on the Mountain
Beckett, Samuel - Waiting for Godot
Bellow, Saul - The Adventures of Augie March
Brontë, Charlotte - Jane Eyre
Brontë, Emily - Wuthering Heights
Camus, Albert - The Stranger
Cather, Willa - Death Comes for the Archbishop
Chaucer, Geoffrey - The Canterbury Tales
Chekhov, Anton - The Cherry Orchard
Chopin, Kate - The Awakening
Conrad, Joseph - Heart of Darkness
Cooper, James Fenimore - The Last of the Mohicans
Crane, Stephen - The Red Badge of Courage
Dante - Inferno
de Cervantes, Miguel - Don Quixote
Defoe, Daniel - Robinson Crusoe
Dickens, Charles - A Tale of Two Cities
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor - Crime and Punishment
Douglass, Frederick - Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Dreiser, Theodore - An American Tragedy
Dumas, Alexandre - The Three Musketeers
Eliot, George - The Mill on the Floss
Ellison, Ralph - Invisible Man
Emerson, Ralph Waldo - Selected Essays
Faulkner, William - As I Lay Dying
Faulkner, William - The Sound and the Fury
Fielding, Henry - Tom Jones
Fitzgerald, F. Scott - The Great Gatsby
Flaubert, Gustave - Madame Bovary
Ford, Ford Madox - The Good Soldier
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von - Faust
Golding, William - Lord of the Flies
Hardy, Thomas - Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Hawthorne, Nathaniel - The Scarlet Letter
Heller, Joseph - Catch 22
Hemingway, Ernest - A Farewell to Arms
Homer - The Iliad
Homer - The Odyssey
Hugo, Victor - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Hurston, Zora Neale - Their Eyes Were Watching God
Huxley, Aldous - Brave New World
Ibsen, Henrik - A Doll's House
James, Henry - The Portrait of a Lady
James, Henry - The Turn of the Screw
Joyce, James - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Kafka, Franz - The Metamorphosis
Kingston, Maxine Hong - The Woman Warrior
Lee, Harper - To Kill a Mockingbird
Lewis, Sinclair - Babbitt
London, Jack - The Call of the Wild
Mann, Thomas - The Magic Mountain
Marquez, Gabriel García - One Hundred Years of Solitude
Melville, Herman - Bartleby the Scrivener
Melville, Herman - Moby Dick
Miller, Arthur - The Crucible
Morrison, Toni - Beloved
O'Connor, Flannery - A Good Man is Hard to Find
O'Neill, Eugene - Long Day's Journey into Night
Orwell, George - Animal Farm
Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
Plath, Sylvia - The Bell Jar
Poe, Edgar Allan - Selected Tales
Proust, Marcel - Swann's Way
Pynchon, Thomas - The Crying of Lot 49
Remarque, Erich Maria - All Quiet on the Western Front
Rostand, Edmond - Cyrano de Bergerac
Roth, Henry - Call It Sleep
Salinger, J.D. - The Catcher in the Rye
Shakespeare, William - Hamlet
Shakespeare, William - Macbeth
Shakespeare, William - A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare, William - Romeo and Juliet
Shaw, George Bernard - Pygmalion
Shelley, Mary - Frankenstein
Silko, Leslie Marmon - Ceremony
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Sophocles - Antigone
Sophocles - Oedipus Rex
Steinbeck, John - The Grapes of Wrath
Stevenson, Robert Louis - Treasure Island
Stowe, Harriet Beecher - Uncle Tom's Cabin
Swift, Jonathan - Gulliver's Travels
Thackeray, William - Vanity Fair
Thoreau, Henry David - Walden
Tolstoy, Leo - War and Peace
Turgenev, Ivan - Fathers and Sons
Twain, Mark - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Voltaire - Candide
Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. - Slaughterhouse-Five
Walker, Alice - The Color Purple
Wharton, Edith - The House of Mirth
Welty, Eudora - Collected Stories
Whitman, Walt - Leaves of Grass
Wilde, Oscar - The Picture of Dorian Gray
Williams, Tennessee - The Glass Menagerie
Woolf, Virginia - To the Lighthouse
Wright, Richard - Native Son

All things considered, I think I've got some decent coverage. I'd be really interested to know who put this list together, though, and what the criteria were. There were some interesting selections made. For instance, James Joyce has a book on the list, but it isn't Ulysses. Similarly, for Steinbeck--with just one book, who picked that one? And Dickens? I just don't get it. Still, it's an interesting list for discussion, if nothing else.

Just to make myself feel better, here are the writers on this list that I've read something other than the material named here: James Baldwin, Anton Chekhov, Stephen Crane, Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Gabriel García Marquez, Toni Morrison, John Steinbeck, Jonathan Swift, Leo Tolstoy, Mark Twain, and Richard Wright.

Yet Another Pet Peeve

A note to my co-workers, and to everyone else who speaks English all throughout the world: no matter what you may have heard, the proof is not in the pudding. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. That makes much more sense, don't you think?

Thank you, and have a nice day.

Exploration and Discovery

Let me start this entry by saying, "Damn it!" I'd really like to go to another Mud Hens game sometime in the near future. Unfortunately for me, according to the Weather Channel online, it's supposed to rain every day from now until the end of my life. Except Wednesday. On Wednesday, of course, the Mud Hens play at 10:30 in the morning. At 10:30 on Wednesday, yours truly will be exactly where he is right now: at work.

Moving on....

Today was a Wendy's day on my lunch schedule. However, I didn't feel like going to the Wendy's I normally go to. I go there a lot (generally twice a week), so almost everyone who works there knows me. While this definitely has its perks, today I felt like being left alone, so I went to the "other" Wendy's. This turned out to be a good decision.

Before you get your hopes too far up, I should mention that it was a good decision for extremely minor reasons. If you're looking for a good story, filled with action and adventure, I don't want to waste your time. This isn't it. Still, it made me happy, and since I use this space for bitching more often than not, I thought I'd share something that brightened my day, even a little bit.

To start off, just getting to this Wendy's is easier. Both locations are about the same distance away. I think this one is technically just a little further away, but I end up getting there faster just because of traffic differences. The one I went to today is located in a small town; it isn't right off a fairly major interstate (as the other one is), and there aren't as many traffic lights in between. This means less driving time, which means more eating time (I'm a slow eater) and more reading time. These are good things.

I noticed when I went inside Wendy's that this location has a sticker on their door indicating that they accept various credit cards. One of my few remaining reasons for ever carrying cash is beginning to slip away, and for that I am grateful.

When I got inside, ordered, and went to pay, I noticed another thing: my meal (single combo) was slightly cheaper than normal. After thinking about this for a surprisingly brief period of time, I came upon the answer. The Wendy's I visited today is in a different county (Fulton) than the one I normally visit (Lucas), and the sales tax rate is therefore slightly lower. The difference is small enough to be inconsequential for just one visit, but it all adds up.

Then, of course, there was my initial reason for choosing this Wendy's today in the first place. Once I ordered my meal, I was able to sit down and eat and read in peace. At the Wendy's I normally visit, the dining room attendant always stops for a chat, and occasionally one of the other employees will join me to talk for a minute or two. They're nice people and I generally like this, but today I just wasn't in the mood. It was nice to be left alone.

Of course, it just wouldn't be me if I finished off an entry on an entirely positive note, so let me also note my one pet peeve about Wendy's. When are they going to join the rest of the fast food restaurants in putting their drink fountain in the dining room and letting the patrons get their own drinks (and, most importantly, refills)? Having to stand in line just for a refill is a real pain. Sometimes they see you standing there and take care of you quickly, but sometimes you just have to wait it out. I'm sure that discourages a lot of people, and that's probably why they do it. After all, fewer refills = higher profit margin. And I don't get refills every day, just because I really don't need all those extra empty calories. Some days I really need one, though, and it seems like those are the days that Wendy's is extra busy.

Weekend Review (The Short Short Version)

I went to Stow this weekend. As Brandi and I were both in the process of getting over colds, we didn't do much. Therefore, instead of boring you with a blow-by-blow account of the whole weekend, I thought I'd just hit some of the high points.

First off, I'm feeling almost back to normal now, with just a little weirdness left over in the back of my throat. I'm sure that's due to how much we slept this weekend. We slept past noon on both days, and even found time to nap on Sunday. It was lovely. Even when I'm totally healthy, I love a laid-back weekend where I can sleep a lot.

The highlight of Friday came toward the end of the evening. Brandi and I were laying on the floor together while I sang along with a CD I made for her a while ago. As much as I love music, I can't sing to save my life, and I'm sure that having a headcold made me sound even worse than usual (I wouldn't know--mercifully, my ears were plugged). I love to sing, though, and Brandi humors me from time to time. She even claims to enjoy it, which really just makes me think she's a glutton for punishment.

On Saturday we thought briefly about going to see a movie. We thought about Troy, but we didn't feel like hacking and coughing in a theater for nearly three full hours. We decided on Mean Girls, but we were caught between showings and didn't feel like waiting. So we ended up going to the video store instead, where we rented School of Rock. Good movie. It's not an all-time classic or anything, but it was good for about two hours of entertainment.

On Sunday we found ourselves without a whole lot to do, so we went to the mall in Cuyahoga Falls and walked around for a little bit. I bought a shirt and a pair of shorts. Later that night we ordered pizza and watched Finding Nemo for the hundredth time.

Now I'm back at work. I'm still catching up a little bit after taking last Thursday off sick, but I'll be there soon enough. Once I am, it may get exceptionally boring around here. Then again, what else is new?

What This Blog Aspires To Be

Everything is wrong with me

Book Review: Beach Music

Beach Music, by Pat Conroy, was the lunchtime book I just finished. It's 799 pretty dense pages, and even being a fast reader, knocking it out in 45-minute-per-day intervals took quite a while. As such, it's definitely going to merit a re-read under different circumstances so I can get through it more quickly and get a better feel for it.

Despite some pretty serious flaws, I enjoyed the book for the most part. However, I think the ending may have killed it for me. The vast majority of the book is spent building up and fleshing out these great and seemingly irreconcilable tensions between characters. At the end, though, everyone sits down together, and most of the problems get worked out in the space of just a few pages. What bothered me the most was when the book's strongest and most intriguing character, Jordan Elliott, suddenly caved in, renounced some of his strongest beliefs, and forgave his father for years of abuse, and the two of them became good friends.

Even before that, there were plenty of things about this book that bothered me. The first thing I noticed was the dialogue. I have an ear for good dialogue, and there were parts of this book where it was just painful to read. People don't talk this way. It wasn't bad all the way through, but it definitely had its moments.

There was a lot of character inconsistency. Jordan's forgiveness of his father was the biggest example, but there were plenty of other examples. Most of it dealt with the main character, Jack McCall, who had moved to Rome from South Carolina to raise his daughter after his wife's suicide because he felt, essentially, that the American South had ruined his life. He spends the first part of the book focusing on his daughter, saying how he never wants her to meet his family or spend time in South Carolina for fear that they/it will ruin her life as it did his. The second part of the book, naturally, he takes her to South Carolina and essentially abandons her care to the family he never wanted her to meet while he runs around chasing his past. He treats his dying mother with bitterness, and never really explains why--all glimpses into his past show him adoring her, and she him. He hates his alcoholic father, but gets angry when another character disrespects him. I realize that real people can often be this complex and contrary, and I think characters like that can be fascinating if done well, but in this case it was just confusing and irritating. It seemed like the author wasn't being true to the character, rather than actual character complexity.

The narration was troublesome as well. It was told from the first-person point of view of McCall, which is fine. The premise of the book is predicated on his emotions, and that's the best way of getting right into his head. A problem arises whenever there's a flashback or a telling of someone else's story, and somehow Jack knows every bit of it. If he's the narrator, it's only through him the story can be told, right? Yet there's no way he can know as much of these other stories as he does. It becomes sort of a first-person omniscient point of view, and it doesn't work all that well.

Conroy also includes some minor storylines that never really get tied up anywhere. Jack tells his daughter stories of "The Great Dog Chippie," which we eventually find out was his childhood pet. We never really find out what was so great about this dog, though. There's only one anecdote that includes the dog, and its role is pretty minor. There's also a passage in the middle of the book where Jack is shot by terrorists in the Rome airport, and I still haven't figured out the point of that.

And don't even get me started on Jack getting re-married at the end of the book, after making it clear to his new bride that she would always be second in his heart to the first wife who killed herself. I would understand him just feeling that way, but I can't imagine someone actually going so far out of their way to point it out to the person they're marrying, and I further can't imagine that person being okay with it. This scenario is a real stretch.

After all this, you may be wondering what I liked about the book. For one thing, there are whole passages where the prose is just incredible. Conroy definitely has a way with words. I love the English language, and I have a hard time disliking the writing of anyone who is good with it. Another thing that draws me into a book is strong emotion and rapport between characters. Conroy did well with this. The dialogue was wooden at times, but never so much so that the characters didn't seem real. I had a feel for each of the main characters, and this book, for all its flaws, is definitely emotionally charged. I felt the emotion, and it drew me in.

Still, I just don't think I can get past the ending. I was really bothered by how quickly and neatly everything ended. This wasn't a book that should have gone that way. With all the conflicts these people had, it should have been impossible for everything to be reconciled, especially Jordan and his father. The way Conroy brought an end to that conflict is sloppy and inexcusable.

I'm going to read this book again, though, and I'll post more thoughts if anything substantial comes up.

Book Review: Schoolboy Trojans

Schoolboy Trojans was originally going to be the next book I brought with me to read on my lunch breaks. My plans were changed when I took yesterday off sick, and ended up reading the entire book while getting my car worked on. My new lunchtime book will be The Godfather, by Mario Puzo. It's the book that the classic film was based on. I've seen parts of the movie, but never the whole thing in its entirety. If I enjoy the book, I'll likely see the film.

I really liked Schoolboy Trojans. When I finished it, though, I had to ask myself whether I would have liked it as much if it wasn't set in my own hometown. The answer is probably not. Boiled down, it was essentially the story of the author's younger days and what a jerk he was then. Mildly entertaining, but not all that compelling on its own.

The fact that it was set in Troy, Ohio--my hometown, the place I grew up, a place I love and am intimately familiar with--was what made it great for me. Granted, the author (Vernon Vaughn Knuckles Jr.) graduated from Troy High School 32 years before I did, and Troy has seen some drastic changes since then. Still, a lot of stuff is the same. I knew many of the places he mentioned, and that's what made it fun.

Also, the author changed the names of real people, making them "characters," but in many cases it was impossible to not know who he was talking about. Not the main cast of his friends, but several Troy High School legends were brought up--Bob Ferguson, Tom Vaughn, Tom Myers, Ryan Brewer, etc. You can't go to Troy High School and not recognize these names, even when they're changed slightly in the interests of fictionalization.

Up next: a review of Pat Conroy's Beach Music.

A Pet Peeve

The apartment building I live in has a laundry room for use by the residents. Is it really so hard for people to clean their own lint from the dryers when they're finished? I hate opening a dryer to put my clothes in and having to dig someone else's lint out of the trap. I always clean mine out when I'm finished.

Why am I doing laundry tonight anyway? I'm sick, dammit!

Today I'd Rather Be at Work

Home sick today. As irritating as my job has been lately, I'd rather be totally healthy and there than sick and here. Oh well, it's just a cold and it'll pass shortly. I'm already feeling quite a bit better than I was when I woke up this morning. Maybe that's just the drugs.

High on Day-Quil and feeling mostly okay, I took my car to Midas for an oil change and a brake job. I remember mentioning the fact that I needed a brake job a while ago; I finally got it taken care of today.

I said yesterday that I would need a new book for my lunch hour, and that the book would probably be Schoolboy Trojans, by Vernon Vaughn Knuckles. As it turns out, I'll have to find a different one, as I took that book with me to Midas and managed to read the whole thing while waiting for the work to be done on my car. They didn't take an inordinate amount of time to do it, but I was there for maybe two hours, and the book wasn't all that substantial. It was pretty entertaining, though. It also made me miss my hometown fiercely. I need to get back there soon.

Tomorrow I'll probably be back at work and all revved up for the weekend.

Notes, Quotes, and Sporks

Nope, it doesn't rhyme. It's a fun word, though, and I rarely get to use it. Also, it's random, so it fits right in with the spirit of this entry. Spork spork spork.

Brandi is ending her extended weekend today, leaving BG and heading back to Stow. She's finally starting to feel better, so she's going back to work today. It was awesome to have her stay for a couple extra days, it just sucks that she had to get sick in order to do it.

Of course, one thing Brandi and I do very well is share. Brandi has decided to share her illness with me. Isn't that lovely? It hasn't hit me nearly as hard as it did her, though. At least not yet. I've just got a bit of a stuffy nose and a sore throat. Generally, colds don't bring me down too much.

Brandi will be in the area again this time next week, having her wisdom teeth removed. Ouch!

Today on my lunch break I finally finished Beach Music by Pat Conroy. I liked it a great deal, although I also have quite a bit of criticism for it. I'll post an in-depth review maybe tomorrow, after I've had some time to think about it and let it all sink in.

Finishing the book means I need to pick out a new book to read on my lunch hour. I'll probably go with Schoolboy Trojans by Vernon Vaughn Knuckles Jr., which is a book about my hometown of Troy, Ohio (and the high school football team) in the 50s. I think I can get through that one pretty quickly, and then I'll probably move on to The Godfather by Mario Puzo or The Winds of War by Herman Wouk.

The weather outside is awesome today. I wish the Mud Hens were in town. I need to get to a game soon.

I'm on the "John Kerry for President" e-mail list, and I just got an e-mail written by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. I have enormous respect for Mr. Clinton, but I wish they had chosen a different photograph to include than the one that Conan O'Brien uses for his bit where he "talks" with different individuals (Clinton, Bob Dole, Kathy Lee Gifford, etc.) by superimposing video of someone else's mouth onto a headshot photograph. It's just hard to take that photograph seriously when it's been the source of so much Conan hilarity.

Before leaving work yesterday, I talked to our head engineer about the stability of our jobs. He said he feels pretty secure, and that the staff really can't be cut any further than it already is. That goes for shop staff as well as office staff. I just wonder if he knows that so many of the guys out in the shop aren't planning on sticking around much longer, and how much his opinion would change if he did.

I Have to Get Out of Here, ASAP

One of my earliest blog posts was about my desire to have an actual door on the entryway into my office (The Joy of Doors). Several months later, I find myself wanting this more than ever. I can overhear far too much conversation going on in nearby offices.

One of our shop guys, having noticed the trend of people around him disappearing, today accepted a position with another company. Who can blame him? He wrote up a sheet giving notice that this Friday will be his last day here, and stuck it in the company president's mailbox before leaving for the day.

It so happens that the next office over from mine belongs to the office manager. Our company president was just in there, informing the office manager of said shop guy's impending departure, and bitching about the "lack of notice," without a trace of irony in his voice.

This, of course, is coming from the same person who has staged a flurry of layoffs recently, informing the guys as they left on Friday that they shouldn't come in on Monday. Lack of notice, indeed. Oh, and I also might mention that he doesn't deign to tell them himself; he has the head engineer do it.

I'm aware that it's traditional to give an employer two weeks of notice before a resignation; however, employees here don't even know right now if they'll be employed here next week. Given the situation, I don't think an end-of-week notice is at all inappropriate.

Given all of this, I'm going to be stepping up my own job search, for a couple of reasons. For one, I'm losing more respect for certain co-workers and the company's leadership with each passing day, and that leads to self-loathing when I realize I'm working for this clown. Beyond that, I don't see how this place is going to survive much longer. Most of the remaining few shop guys are close to landing other jobs, and this isn't the sort of place where they can bring anyone in off the street and train them to do the job in a day or two.

The company president has no respect for the expertise he has here in his shop right now. They're not well paid (no one here is), they're not particularly well treated, and now they have no sense of job security. Of course they're going to leave! This isn't just the shop guys, either--our production manager and head engineer are also actively looking elsewhere. If even some of these people leave, I don't know how this place can function. No one is irreplaceable, but no one here is easily replaceable. The powers-that-be would have a hard time attracting quality workers because he has no desire to pay anyone.

Frustration, thy name is work.

Lunchtime Blues

Normally, Tuesday is a Subway day for me. Unfortunately, Thursday is also a Subway day. Only Wendy's has the power to keep me interested when I eat there twice a week, so I've been on a bit of Subway burnout lately. I didn't go there at all last week, and didn't really feel like eating there today. So, I decided to try something new.

Today for lunch I ate at a place called Magic Wok. I like Chinese food. That hasn't always been the case--I used to avoid it like the plague. It grew on me over time, though, and now I like it quite a bit. Surprisingly, this was my first time eating at Magic Wok, even though it's not a new restaurant and I drive by it almost every day on my lunch break.

Sadly, the food wasn't that good. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't nearly what I had hoped for. I can see myself going in there again, but I won't be making it a regular stop.

In general, lunchtime just isn't what it used to be. I find myself missing Tony Kornheiser's show on ESPN Radio more and more each day. I do listen to Colin Cowherd, the guy who took over Tony's time slot, and he's grown on me a little bit. I find him mildly amusing, but that's as far as it goes.

Despite the fact that it was on ESPN Radio, Tony's show wasn't always about sports. Maybe that's why he's gone, but that's one of the reasons I liked it. Tony's a lot like me: an intellectual kind of guy who has plenty of interests outside of sports. He'd talk about a little bit of everything, and that was great. It challenged and informed me. There were plenty of times when I got back from my lunch break and wrote in this very blog about something Tony was talking about, be it sports or otherwise.

Cowherd will occasionally talk about topics other than sports, but when he does so the conversation tends to degenerate into a discussion of attractive women or one of the show's producers talking in his trucker voice. That's about it. It's mildly entertaining, but it doesn't exactly require all my brain cells.

Make no mistake, Tony could also be banal at times, but even when he was, he was still intelligent. That appeals to me a lot. Sophomoric humor is readily available pretty much anywhere; intelligence is a lot harder to find, especially on a sports channel. It seems to me that Cowherd's show is just like every other sports talk show.

I'm still hoping that Tony will end up on the radio again someday. It won't be ESPN Radio, but hopefully it'll be syndicated with a Toledo affiliate so I can hear it. I need something to entertain AND enlighten me on my lunch break each day.

Come back to the radio, Tony! Do it for the kids! (We need Old Guy Radio!)

Did I Hear That Right?

"That's the biggest problem around here: everyone thinks too much."

I just overheard this declaration from a co-worker. This is just wrong on so many levels. Personally, I used to have several different ideas about what the biggest problem was around here, but now I know unequivocally what it is.

The biggest problem around here is that someone actually thinks the biggest problem around here is that everyone thinks too much. If anyone is thinking too much, they sure aren't thinking about the right things.

I think the person who uttered this ridiculous statement just wants to be able to tell people what to do and not have them question it. If that ever happens, we'll be in worse shape than we are now, if that's possible.

Of course, I should also mention that I overheard this same co-worker several months ago trying to convince our receptionist that child pornography is legal. Obviously, this person isn't too aware of...well, anything.

Ch-ch-changes

As spring makes its way toward summer, it seems to be the time of year for significant changes. Looking around, I can see evidence of this everywhere. My friend Mike just graduated with his Bachelor's degree and will be moving soon. I think my cousin Mike may have just finished his internship, and therefore also graduated. Cricket just got her Master's, got a job, and will be moving to Texas, along with Adam, who was just accepted to grad school. Jamie just got a job in Chicago and will be moving soon. Erin is pregnant. Jessica just got engaged, and is looking to buy a house.

Even closer to me, Brandi is looking for a new job, and it seems like she's close. She'll be moving back to Bowling Green sometime this summer, come hell or high water.

I think this is how it was supposed to be four years ago, when I graduated. Somehow, though, everything managed to hold off until now. I just hope it rubs off on me somehow. The only real change I'm looking for is a new job. I haven't had any luck with this, but maybe I will soon. It seems like something's in the air right now.

One thing that may be changing for me in the near future is this blog. Blogger re-launched over the weekend, with a significant re-design to their site and some added functionality. I haven't really looked too hard at what they've done just yet, but even doing a quick skim showed some pretty cool stuff. I'll probably be experimenting some with it in the coming days, so be aware that some changes may be taking place in this blog.

It's not a new job, but it's better than nothing.

Weekend Review

Wow. It's a Monday morning, and there's plenty going on. I feel rested, I have work to do, and I've actually enjoyed being at work so far. I'm not counting on any of these things being the start of a trend, but it's definitely a nice change.

[Editor's Note: it's Monday morning when I'm starting to write this; it'll probably be into the afternoon before I finish it.]

The reason I feel rested, I'm sure, is because I actually felt like the weekend was long enough for a change. Normally I come in here on Monday morning, feeling like "where in the hell did the weekend go?" Today it's not like that. This weekend was the perfect mixture of busy fun stuff and lazy down time. I love that.

Brandi came into BG shortly after I got home from work on Friday. She got off work before noon and spent some time in between in her hometown of Clyde. I straightened up my apartment a bit before she got there. She had gotten up extremely early that morning and had a pretty busy day, so she was tired. She took a nap while I watched the Reds game on TV.

After she woke up, we got ready and went out with our friends Cricket and Adam (and a slew of others) to celebrate Cricket's graduation. She got her Master's Degree is Music Education. Actually, Adam was just accepted to grad school in Texas (near Austin), and Cricket just got a job down there, so they'll be moving sometime this summer. It sucks for us, but it's a good opportunity for them.

We went to several different bars over the course of the night, and had a really good time. Adam actually used to be a roommate of mine, but I think we talked more on Friday than we ever have before in our lives. We wanted to get something to eat after our night of drinking, but the Corner Grill was full, so we ended up going to Cricket's place for leftover Sloppy Joes. I happen to love a good Sloppy Joe, so that was fine by me.

Adam told me the next day that he fell down the steps after we left that night. Ouch!

Saturday started off as a pretty lazy day. Brandi and I stayed in bed until almost 1:00. We got up and watched the Reds game on TV (yes!), and I went and got Wendy's for us for lunch (yes!). We just hung out for a bit after that.

Brandi had plans that evening to meet up with her sister and a friend from high school for dinner, so she left around 6:15. I mostly just played PlayStation while she was gone. She came back a while later and we hung out some more, and then later that night I went to a party at my friend Jamie's place. Jamie just got a job in Chicago, so she'll be moving later this month. I didn't drink at the party, since we had been out drinking the night before and I didn't feel like it. It was a good time, though. I got to talk for a while to my friend Mike, who finally just finished his Bachelor's Degree and should now be able to hang out more.

Sunday was definitely a lazy day, all the way through. We started it off by sleeping into the afternoon once again. We laid around for a while, then finally went out for a late lunch/early dinner. We went to the same Mexican place we ate at the weekend before, and it was good once again. From there we proceeded to Wal-Mart, where we bought some outdoor toys (a Nerf football and some bubbles), and then onto campus to play around for a bit.

It started looking a little stormy, so we headed back to my place. We watched some TV while it rained, then went back out to get some ice cream after it cleared up. We brought our ice cream back to the apartment and parked ourselves on my couch to watch Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which was being shown on ABC. We've seen it about a million times already, of course, but this showing included some new footage, as well as a preview of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (which comes out June 4) and some commentary by stars Dan Radcliffe (Harry), Emma Watson (Hermione), and Rupert Grint (Ron).

The only downside to all of this is that Brandi woke up feeling a little sick yesterday, and it got worse as the day wore on. She went to the doctor today to get some allergy medication, so hopefully that will make her feel better. For today, though, she's already called in sick to her job, so she'll be staying with me another night. While I'm in favor of this, it sucks that she had to get sick in order for it to happen.

Today has been a pretty decent day at work so far as well. We're gearing up for some coming orders, so I've had some stuff to do. This morning I got to ride along as we tested a piece of equipment we're getting ready to ship. That was pretty cool.

Trends, please begin...NOW.

This is the Year 2004, Right?

Tennessee County's Vote to Ban Gays Protested

Banned and arrested for "crimes against nature"? Are you f**king kidding me? I have no words to describe how disgusted I am by these backwater hicks.

Notes, Quotes, and Raincoats

The weather in Ohio is notoriously inconsistent, but this is getting ridiculous. Yesterday it was sunny and 86°. Now it's raining and 60°. If it was a simple progression, that would be fine, but it wasn't. It was hot all day yesterday, then clouded up and stormed some last night. Then it cleared up. Then it stormed again early this morning. Then it cleared up and was gorgeous and sunny for a while. Then it got really dark and stormed again. Now it's just cloudy and rainy. It's supposed to clear up again this evening, and then storm again overnight.

It's supposed to rain on and off all weekend. This makes me even more glad that I took advantage of Wednesday's awesome weather.

After some searching, I've finally found the channel on which Time Warner Cable in Bowling Green is showing Reds games that are televised on Fox Sports Ohio, even when they're pre-empted locally by Cleveland Indians games. This means I'll get to see a fair number of Reds games this season after all. This makes me happy.

Unfortunately, as is my habit, I fell asleep on the couch in front of last night's game. This means I missed Ken Griffey Jr.'s return to form. I'm glad to hear about it, though, even if I didn't actually see it. We need Junior to stay healthy this year and do the things he's capable of doing.

Other than baseball, what a crappy time of year this is for sports. I've tried to get into the NBA and NHL playoffs, but I just can't do it. Unfortunately, that stuff is dominating sports coverage due to its "importance." I'm ready for these sports to be over so ESPN can focus on baseball. Of course, then they'll probably ramp up coverage of golf and NASCAR, which are even worse.

I don't attend nearly as many sporting events through the summer as I do the rest of the year. There's plenty of other cool stuff to look forward to in the coming weeks and months, though. The new Stephen King book, Song of Susannah, comes out on June 8. Edwin McCain's new CD, Scream and Whisper, comes out on June 22 (also Brandi's birthday), and hopefully he'll be playing a show or two in the area. I have tickets for Brandi and I to go see the Reds on June 12 when they play in Cleveland, and I'd like to get down to a game or two in Cincy.

There are plenty of cool movies coming out this summer as well. I'm a bit of a movie buff, but I probably won't get to the theater to see each one I'm interested in. Oh well, that's what DVD players are for. The one I'm most anticipating is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, which comes out on June 4. Troy comes out today, and it looks pretty cool. I also want to see Shrek 2 (May 21), The Day After Tomorrow (May 28), Garfield (June 11), Spider-Man 2 (June 30), and Anchorman (July 9). I'm sure there will be more.

Speaking of Harry Potter...I know I've linked this site before, but I wanted to mention it again. Not having much to do this morning, I was perusing this site and some of the essays people have written. I'm amazed at how much analytical though has gone into some of them. I think it's awesome. I have a tendency to geek out on stuff sometimes, and it's good to know I'm not the only one.

Okay, so Friends is over now. I wasn't a regular viewer by any means, but I've seen my share of episodes and was mildly amused by them. Anyway, not many sitcoms have this kind of staying power, so I'm a little sad to see it go. On the other hand, I don't generally watch television that doesn't involve some sort of athletic competition, so what do I care? Why am I even writing about this? I don't know. If you're looking for a sitcom to watch, check out That 70s Show. Now that is quality television.

For my latest video game fix, I'm thinking of picking up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It looks really cool. I've been playing sports games almost exclusively for a while, so it'll be nice to plunge into a role-playing game, particularly a Star Wars game. In the back of my mind I'm still interested in Galaxies, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game, but I doubt my life would be the same if I got into it. Also, I really don't have any spare funds right now for a game subscription.

Sounds like we're all set to lay off some more guys this afternoon. Shop guys, of course, unless someone isn't telling me something, which is possible. Current plans call for laid-off employees to be called back to work on June 7. I'll believe it when I see it. We have no business right now, and our "sales staff" doesn't seem up to the job. If things get worse, I just hope the owner decides to sell instead of just folding the company, even if I'm not here at that point. There's potential here, but right now there's no leadership.

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore"

Those of you who read this blog on a regular basis (both of you) will notice that there were no entries made yesterday. That's because I blew off work yesterday. I have no regrets. I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I thought it could be.

That one is for any Office Space aficianados who may be lurking. In truth, there was a little bit more to it than that...but not much.

The whole thing started with Brandi coming into Bowling Green on Tuesday night. She was scheduled for an interview in BG on Wednesday afternoon, so she drove over to my place when she got off work on Tuesday. She had much of the day free on Wednesday, so I decided to burn a vacation day and take it off with her.

It was a perfect, Ferris Bueller-esque kind of day for it. You know..."How could I possibly be expected to handle school on a day like this?" In my case, being at the ripe old age of 26 and out of college for going on four years now, it was work rather than school, but the general concept was the same. I saw no point in coming to work and sitting here with nothing to do while behind me a large window looked out on a perfectly beautiful day that I would be unable to enjoy.

So I stayed home, and I'm so glad I did. Brandi and I slept in until 11:00 with the window open so we could enjoy the breeze. She decided to skip her interview (which was for a part time position she wasn't all that interested in anyway), so we had the whole afternoon together. We had Chinese food for lunch, then ran around town a little bit, culminating in a trip to the local Dairy Queen. We took our overflowing ice cream cones to the picnic bench outside and basked in the sun, watching traffic, road construction workers, and people flowing in and out of the rental management office across the street.

We hung out for a bit after that, and Brandi had to leave at 4:00 to be at work. I played some PlayStation basketball after she left (in front of the windows, of course), and then drove to Stow to join her for the evening after she got off work. We had a nice, relaxing evening, eating pizza and watching a movie. Then we went to bed, and I got up early this morning and came to work.

I do this from time to time, and it's always nice to have a day off in the middle of a week. It helps me to recharge. The daily routine really wears on me after a while, because I hate being on a schedule. I hate it passionately. I prefer flexibility (although not unpredictability) in my day-to-day life. I can handle being on a schedule, but I don't like it. Sometimes I have to take a day to break out.

If I ever find myself in a situation where I'm in charge of this sort of thing, my first option would be to let everyone work flex-time. Choose your own hours, as long as everything gets done by when it needs to be done and your hours come out to forty. I had a limited form of flex-time in a previous job, and I liked it a whole lot. If I needed to get off early one night for one sporting event or another, no problem--I just made up the time on some other day.

That was great for me personally, but I realize that setup isn't optimal for all businesses and work environments. Therefore, my second option would be to offer each employee one "discretionary day" per month. It's a simple concept: you get one day off to use per month, use it or lose it. Preferably these days would be scheduled in advance (like vacation days) to avoid conflicts, but if you just get up one morning and decide it's too nice of a day to come in, so be it. I need days like that from time to time, and I suspect I'm not the only one. I think even a lot of people who don't acknowledge that they need an unscheduled break from time to time would benefit greatly from having one.

This is why I'll never be in charge of anyone. Any business that made the mistake of putting me in a position of power would be doomed to fail miserably.

For the most part, I think that's because I don't exactly have a traditional view of jobs and careers. There is almost no job that I will ever hold that will be part of how I define myself. It seems to me that a lot of people make having a certain career one of their life's goals, and/or become absorbed in it once they get there. Not me. I've never had a job that I've spared much more than a passing thought for when I wasn't actually there doing it. For me, a job is just something I do so that I can do other things. Only this and nothing more.

To close, I'll defer again to Office Space and the great sage, Peter Gibbons: "We don't have a lot of time on this earth! We weren't meant to spend it this way. Human beings were not meant to sit in little cubicles staring at computer screens all day...filling out useless forms...and listening to eight different bosses drone on about mission statements."

"I told those fudge-packers that I liked Michael Bolton's music."
"Oh, that is not right, Michael."

Two Peas in a Pod

Despite our lack of business and actual work to do, my place of employment has been a bastion of excitement so far this week.

Our facility is located just down the road from Toledo Express Airport, and the window in my office looks out in that general direction. It so happens that our fearless leader, President Bush, was in town this morning. He flew into Toledo Express around 9:00. Needless to say, my office was a pretty popular place at that time, as my co-workers gathered at the window, hoping for a glimpse of Air Force One as it landed, or of the presidential motorcade if it happened to pass by.

Although I'm not a fan of our current president by any means, I joined my co-workers at the window for a short time. A chance to see this sort of thing doesn't come up very often. Mostly I was just interested to see some of the peripheral events. A co-worker insisted they would close off the road in front of our building, and I wanted to see them accomplish that. Also, there was a helicopter circling above the woods across the street from our facility, which I thought was interesting.

Alas, I missed the landing of Air Force One, and the motorcade didn't pass by here. How sad. The whole thing certainly stirred everyone up around here, though.

On a sidenote: before President Bush landed, we had clear, sunny skies here in Toledo. Around the time he landed, the skies clouded over. Around 10:15, as Mr. Bush was taking off again, the skies cleared up. No political commentary here, just simple fact.

It's interesting that Mr. Bush was in the area today, ostensibly bringing the message that the economy is improving. Let's just say that we here in Toledo have yet to see this improvement. Far from it. On Friday of last week, three individuals were laid off from their jobs here.

Although they were let go on Friday, they came in on Monday to collect their personal items. One of them was caught trying to smuggle company equipment out in his toolbox. That's always fun.

Of course, all three guys let go were shop workers. The office staff seems strangely immune to being laid off. Being one of them, I'm selfishly grateful for this, but at the same time I have to wonder about it. We now have seven guys working in our shop, seven people in the office, and our production manager doing a bit of both. I have a hard time understanding how seven workers can require eight administrators.

Then again, maybe I should deduct two from my count of office personnel, since our company president and marketing director (the president's fiancee) are here only sporadically. Strangely enough, they seem to come in late, take long lunches, and leave early. Sometimes they don't show up at all. That doesn't seem like a good business practice, especially considering the fact that they're also our main sales staff. Some customers have been getting irate lately after calling several times and being unable to reach anyone in our sales department. I think it's logical to assume that we're losing potential orders, and it's not too difficult to see why we don't have any business right now and why people are being laid off.

To that end, our head engineer has also started taking sales calls, against our president's wishes. Someone has to sell stuff if this company is going to survive. Interestingly, our head engineer is also our entire IT department. That seems to be the underlying theory behind this company's hiring practices: overspread and underpay. I say that as someone who is also currently filling two positions.

In short, I'd say this company's leadership is none too capable. Much like the U.S. in general, come to think of it. Yes indeed, it was fitting that President Bush was around today. It's too bad he couldn't have met up with our company's president. Maybe they could have played the fiddle together. I don't know if they've noticed or not, but Rome is burning.

Also, gas prices around the area went up another twenty cents today in honor of Mr. Bush's visit. Thank you, sir; please come again. Come to think of it, I should practice saying that last sentence. If Bush is placed in charge of the economy for another four years, it may become part of my career. Don't laugh: it could happen to you, too.

Would you like fries with that?

Weekend Review

Occasionally there are weekends that don't feel 100% like weekends because there's so much going on. Sure, I'm not at work, but I'm on the go and don't have much downtime, and when I get back to work on Monday, I'm like "What the hell just happened?" This isn't a bad thing, by any means, just different. I'm not a high-energy person who's always busy, so weekends like this are somewhat rare.

Brandi and I got into Bowling Green around the same time on Friday. I was coming home from work, and she was coming from her hometown of Clyde, which is about 45 minutes east. We hung out for a little bit (watching That 70s Show) and then went out for dinner at Easystreet Cafe in downtown BG. We had to wait a little bit for a table, so we went upstairs into their bar area to have a drink and play a game of pool. We got seated for dinner not too long after that, and it was great. The food was awesome, as usual, and the service was good as well.

After dinner we just headed back to my apartment. We thought briefly about going out for a while, but we were both pretty tired, so we didn't bother. We sat on my couch and watched Animal Planet. We're both big fans of that Funniest Animal Home Videos show, or whatever it's called. We ended up falling asleep in front of an episode of that.

We got up relatively early on Saturday--about 10:45, which is early when you consider that neither of us was really ready to get up at that point. We had tickets for the Red Wings' playoff game in Detroit. The game was scheduled to start at 3:00, and due to a terrible previous traffic experience for a sporting event in Detroit (the Motor City Bowl at Ford Field this past December), I wanted to leave plenty early. We were able to take our time getting ready, and we got on the road about 12:15.

That turned out to be almost perfect timing. The streets in Detroit...well, they leave something to be desired. If nothing else, the signage wasn't very good, and it was by pure luck that we managed to find Joe Louis Arena on our first try. We found convenient parking for only $4 and got into the arena around 2:00.

The game experience was a lot of fun. Hockey is huge in Detroit, and that arena was loud. I like that a lot. There was a little bit of fighting, and Detroit's Steve Yzerman got whacked in the face with a puck and had to be helped off the ice. Unfortunately, the Wings lost, and didn't even score. The game was a lot of fun, though. I think we may have turned Brandi into a big hockey fan--she can't wait to go see another game.

Getting out of Detroit after the game was interesting, due mainly to traffic and the driving habits of others. We made it, though. On the way back, we decided to stop at a Mexican place in Toledo (Loma Linda) for dinner. When we got there, though, the place was packed. I couldn't even find the person we needed to see to get our name in for a table. We were both hungry, so we didn't want to wait. We went back to Bowling Green and ate at a Mexican place there (El Zarape) instead. The food there was pretty good, if not quite as good as the Mexican food we had last week.

After dinner, we stopped in at the grocery store to pick up a few things, then headed back to my place. We watched Zoolander on DVD and ended up falling asleep before it was over. Luckily for us, we've already seen it a bunch of times.

On Sunday we did get to sleep in. We got up around 12:30. Of course, neither of us really felt like getting up even then, but we had some stuff we needed to get done. Our first item of business was to find the YMCA in Toledo that expressed interest in hiring Brandi, so she could fill out an application and all that. Getting there was something of an ordeal, due to a stopped train blocking one of the roads we were on, but eventually we got there. Brandi went in to fill out her application and take a tour (she liked it a lot and it sounds pretty promising, by the way) while I stayed out in the car and listened to the Reds game on the radio.

From there we went to the Franklin Park Mall in Toledo. Brandi wanted to get a Mother's Day gift, and I was thinking of looking for a new cell phone. Also while we were there, we went in several different jewelry stores to look at engagement rings. Now, I'm not saying I am or am not planning to buy one of these beasts anytime soon, but browsing them (and conversing with jewelry store employees) was highly educational. It was an interesting experience, and it made Brandi almost maniacally happy, so it was all worth it.

It was around 5:30 when we finished at the mall, and I was extremely hungry, having not eaten all day. Due to an accident on the interstate, getting somewhere to get food was something of an ordeal as well. We had to guess our way around Toledo, which we managed quite nicely, if I do say so myself. I felt a lot better once we got something to eat--I had been starting to zone out and get random, which happens from time to time.

We got to relax a little bit once we got home. We watched The Simpsons, and then I played some PlayStation basketball while Brandi played The Sims. Then we went for a walk on campus, which was really nice. I went to school at BGSU for three years, and I've been out of school for four years, and I still love being on campus.

After our walk, we watched an episode of a show called Curb Your Enthusiasm, which Brandi borrowed on DVD from a co-worker. It was pretty funny. We only got to watch one episode, but I've still got the DVD, so I'll probably try out a couple more of them.

Now I'm back at work, thinking "Where in the hell did the weekend go?" Of course, today has been a story unto itself. We'll save that for a little bit later, though.