The Random Pointless Observations about Things You Did Today Thread

Meh.

Went all the way out to a Walmart at just-before-midday in an exurb/suburb.

Freeway driving all the way. Which I hate. But, I haven't forgotten how.

I suppose it wasn't fruitless -- I desired a second mattress/boxspring cover to complete phase one of my bedbug-mitigation technique.

Just some cheap vinyl thing — probably have to cover it with lots of duck tape, for the box "spring" part of the bed.

EXCITING news, they had a four-pack of black T-shirts, with pockets, and in size L, they fit great and I can show off my pasty-white biceps without seeming too tacky on the job.

Also some socks — while I was just looking for nylon liner socks, these look thin enough. I didn't pick this up from Ray Jardine, but he and I seem to agree that the best sock+footwear combination is the lightest and thinnest possible. ETA The idea is for doing a lot of work or distance with the feet — I love the thicker socks for around home, but I agree with Jardine that if you're going to be walking twenty or more miles, the thinner socks are more effective.

ALSO it is a goddamned zoo out there. Never get off the boat. Fucking crazy people driving like maniacs, dumbass morons with probably six kids in the car.

AND I think I have three and a half Steel Reserve 211 24-oz cans of beer at home, plus two Totino's "party" pizze, so I can fuck around with my diatomaceous earth and bedspring cover (the shitty vinyl one) and mattress cover (the supposedly good one with the like zillion zipper locks and whatever).

AND whatserface, WareGirl was, as usual, nice to me at work. Not like a Mae West kind of nice, but I think she's coming back to getting warmed up.

Must be the good time of the month, or something.

Good reminder to self! During weekend, get a haircut, and, like, extract some pheromones from various insects and rub them into my scalp.

That's the kind of sugar papa likes.

I'm not giving up on her: she'll take it and she'll like it, just like a stuffed bird.

Russell. Performance. "Fresh Force." Socks. They're cops.

No, not too bad. Not the gossamer nylon liner socks I wanted, but even though they're only rated up to a mere size 12 men's shoe size, they are acceptable. We'll see.

Hanes "Comfort Soft" tagless T-s, with pocket. Extremely light-weight undershirts, shows off my Shatner tribute physique (plus massive biceps) and comes in a pack of four, all in black. They don't have a "loose fit," for these are undershirts, and while presentable in public, they aren't the usual baggy athletic Rocky-style gear.

Yeah, not crazy about the socks — but you can't ever tell with socks. EETA No, fuck the socks. They're much lighter-weight than regular sport-socks, but I return them and get more Shatner T-shirts. I swear to effing god, if they made these in that horrible orange color, they could be a uniform on TOS. I love it!

The women are going to be leaking about my Shatner T-shirt look, though. Hey. Four days a week, then I can launder and repeat.

Lucky dames.

I'm going to be getting so much tail.

ETA Just a job. Five days a week. Rocket man. OK, that was gratuitous.

Ah, but that was kind of a nice ending to the shift today, just me and this new girl, kind of pretty (well, she seemed fertile and was pretty and not fat — she was pretty ethnic, but the good kind, and a native speaker of English), just grabbing a drink of water while waiting for the time-clock.

I think I might be a terrible person, but I really hope whatserface WareGirl noticed me and this broad (no, I don't remember her name) sharing pleasantries in a relaxed fashion

IN BROAD FLORESCENT LIGHT!

Maybe WareGirl can pick up some ideas that, even if you may be a severe introvert like me, you can still learn to jump on my rod, or at least let me dive into your muff.

Kids these days.

That whole last post was wrong.

In a few ways.

The facts were correct, but for one: I didn't actually ask what her name was. We were just talking.

Literally around the water cooler.

And "ethnic" is not a really good way to de....no....I'll stand by that.

But I was right in that I'm probably a terrible person. Half of my mind thinking, "What a good chance to welcome a new person to the warehouse and show her that it's not that bad." I like that this woman is friendly and appealing, and I shall say a friendly hello if I see her again. Other half thinking, "Tchey, suck on that WareGirl, I can roll any chick in the house."

Not that good.

WOMEN are far too trusting, as a sex of younger age. Geez. Most men, one hopes, become socialized and not smarmy bastards, but it's like that thing from Conrad that Bob Dylan stole: "Men who live outside the law have to eliminate dishonesty" or whatever.

I have very few things going for me, but being honest is the last thing that's going to go before my brain rots from dementia or whatever.

I just heard a pet dog squeal, from the rental complex next door.

And, I really do hope a coyote ate it.

And, no, I'm not sorry to say, I'm on the coyotes' side. I see between some and twenty each week, and I think they're magnificent animals.

Well, the hungry ones straggling along in packs aren't exactly "pretty" beasts, but I admire their sand, and it makes me happy when I see them in my semi-suburban "community."

Yes, I see maybe 0.5 per day (arithmetic mean, not one-half a coyote) going into to town, and those tend to be more sturdy, handsome creatures. I don't know what they eat, and I don't care.

They're a magnificent animal, and anybody who disagrees can ess my dee.

They don't cause crack-ups, like deer. They're just fine.

And the very last things I do before going to bed:

(i)Put some toothpaste on my mechanical device, and try to remember to floss and brush.

(ii)Try to decide which is a good Jesse Ventura line to say in unknown circumstances
(a) "Take a good long look at these pythons"
(b) unintelligible
(c) "I ain't got time to bleed"'

(iii) Still deciding if I should floss and brush before submitting this post.

ETA None of the above. Eh, since I got the toothbrush out, I should use it (on my teeth, shithead). But the Ventura question is not going to be answered.

EETA Yeah, brush thoroughly but not floss. My secret shame. Also, not sure if Jesse Ventura ever said (ii.a) but it is the best line for all circumstance.

Especially against pantywaists at the warehouse.

EEETA Not people who actually wear panties. Most of those can stay. More like, theologians and shit. That kind. The fancylads. Take a good long look at these pythons, boy. And then get that rump into the barrel which has no name. Yeah.

Ah, finally, the magical shrunken stomach of the Jizz returns in force.

One pound of fatty ground beef (I don't know the weight of the fat that was released into the pan and the air), about a pound of skirt steak, and 3/4 of a "fifth" of whiskey plus 1.5 of those little bottled coffee+sugar+milk drinks.

Natch, I was dehydrated this morning, so drank a bunch of water.

Ah, familiar vomiting mostly liquid into the toilet in the morning. With some errant chunks of meat.

Don't know what it smelled like, but probably the opposite of victory.

And yet "I eat it because it is bitter, and because it is my heart," I think is the line from that Crane short poem.

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Also, yesterday at work I got stuck unloading boxes off pallets onto a conveyer belt. On direction to speed up or slow down pace, I adjusted the spacing of my boxes from between five and eight feet.

But, no, this simpleton Isaiah working the other side of the belt just keeps throwing shit willy-nilly.

If he had any personality greater than a wet dishrag, that could be tolerable, or at least understandable. I think he is a limp-dick mama's boy.

Dumbass kids screwing with my method.

BUT Morgan was about twenty feet down the line scanning the boxes and marking them for sorting (or if you think this is a word, "sortation") — ah. She understood my method, and my consistency.

I'm going to go ahead and assume she infers I apply firm, deliberate pressure to all tasks where such attributes are required.

Yeah, that's a ticket to Finger Man, admission two.

Huh. Apparently XOR can be applied to create a nice, compact, doubly linked-list.

I suspect the authors of the C++ "standard library" have exploited this fact for their own code.

One never knows exactly what's in the C++ standard library code, and I don't have the energy to try to reverse-engineer (i.e., look at the many thousands of lines of code, in assembly) this, but I get a Peter Falk kind of hunch that may be what the idea is.

Of course, I could be wrong.

Hmmm.

Well, that's a kind of brainless activity I can explore, looking at dis-assembling the STL for the doubly-linked list. ETA Oh, god, I forgot what a PITA it is to try different tools to "uncompile" code. First you get the hex, then you rely on some tools to partially "re-assemble" into some kind of assembly language. Jeez. There's probably reason one I decided to become a professor of comp lit. And also the desire for accuracy is the reason why I didn't finish my dissertation.

Sort of like watching TV, I guess.

To me it's kind of amusing. I won't win any prizes, but it's not without uses.

Not a Russian hacker.

NB: the late jazz pianist Frank Hewitt used to favor wearing a white ballcap.

I should amplify a bit about the above: it's that the "standard library" for C++, which contains many very useful pre-built functions or classes so that one doesn't have to re-invent the wheel or write a linked-list or a string class from scratch (both common exercises CS students are expected to be able to do in any programming language).

Well, the source code for these "bits" are compiled to binary machine code, so you can't actually see how any given class is implemented (I suspect many of them are written directly in C, not C++, and the various platform-specific compilers are designed to optimize, or not, any such loop and so forth).

So, since you don't have the source code, but you do have the API in the form of what arguments each function or class can take and return. That's where the "standard" part of the library comes in handy — they follow a general template, if you will.

But, if you want to know exactly what methods are being used by the libraries, it's a black box, so you're stuck reverse-engineering or "disassembling" the various bits.

And, when you do that, you typically lose any helpful mnemonics like "Red-Black Tree Rotate" or "Traverse backwards."

So, it's about as much fun as watching Wapner on the toob. If Wapner consisted of a vast amount of code that can only be understood by following carefully line by line.

Oh, but the real RL.

Ever since Thursday when I directly gave a time and place (albeit on short notice) to my WareGirl and asked for her phone number — which wasn't so bad, she said she still had my number and she can text me with hers.

Hmmm..

Maybe she thinks I'm going to cut off my ear and send it to her in a box.

Well, I think a good job of defrosting some of the ice today casually, but what I would have liked to have said (not a good opportunity) was, "look, don't worry about it, we're both adults."

/////////

In happier news, this Nigerian immigrant and I had a few laughs while towards the end of the shift — I think he's about my age.

And while we were chatting and stuff, this newer girl, a hispanic American who is pretty fun (but also very good at her job, which is same as mine), joined in the fun.

I wouldn't mind a little of her, even though she's old, like my age or, in girl-years, probably five years younger.

//////

And, of course, me and James decided to do a *Cool Hand Luke* style "fill up these rows with bags as quick as possible." Under five minutes we did. I think he might actually think we'll get an award or something, but it does make the job go faster to make a game of it and just shovel asphalt as quick as possible.

//////

Ehh. People are pretty funny.

Apparently two packets of ramen noodles, quite a bit of macaroni, powdered cheese, olive oil, and about five croissants is enough to make me hurl chunks in the morning after drinking about a liter of water.

Now you see why Paul counseled Timothy to drink a bit of wine, for his stomach.

A liter of wine, an empty stomach, and I think the raging storms within are quieting down. Too much food can indeed, as the commercials say on TV, be like a storm raging inside you.

Ah. Yesterday.

Will have to wait to see how my new dental insurance works for my out-of-network regular people, but, man, is Elisa (I think that's her name)....in girl years, she's probably about my age. What a nice set of jugs.

Oh, sorry, what? Well, she gave some good head or mouth, or whatever.

I think my teeth and gums are like an open sewer to her.

But she tried.

Although, for people who are flirting with smoking cigarettes, the straight dope is that it fucks with your gums and other periodontal shit big time. So don't do it. Much of the 1.5 hr cleaning was spent in pain on about a 6 or 7 on a ten-point scale. It hurts like a bitch.

And those nice jugs occasionally pressing against various parts of my body didn't help too much.

It's fucking painful.

So, I have to make a new rule and just use cigarettes for in the car-commute and during a break at work.

Not difficult, just that's the rule for me now.

////////

ALSO, why is it that I can't keep from bashing into cars in a parking lot? I did a short stint as a valet parker for a while, so I know how to park probably better than the next guy.

Maybe I just don't give a shit.

Like, cars aren't people, so I don't care so much.

A few scrapes adds character to the (other person's) vehicle, so I'm really doing them a favor.

/////////

OH, and that "hispanic woman" has a name. It happens to be Claudia. And she continues to be nice — same ethos as me and a lot of people, just keep things light and funny, just to get through the day.

Hot name for a hot girl.

And, no, I really couldn't say her ethnicity. She's a native speaker of English. And, no, in her case her ethnicity I don't think is part of her outward persona, so it's not relevant. For some people, it is. Often I can't tell how they perceive themselves, so I err on the side of including specifications, for want of excluding an important detail.

One thing I would counsel any younger people is that humor can be pretty universal, sort of like smiling and laughing is part of humanity.

Ah. Claudia. She is kind of a ray of sunshine. Me and the Nigerian Prince were picking an aisle together and she comes over doing an aisle next "door," and says "Hey, my two favorite men!"

See?

Maybe she's a bit of a flirt, but it's all in good fun, and makes the job tolerable.

///////////

Heh. This gal Shelby is a spitfire. She's like the younger sister you can make fun of and she gives as good as she gets. I can't even remember in detail our latest jabs at each other, but it's all in fun,

It all boils down to her saying "Yeah, well you're old! You're like forty!" and me calling her a kid.

"Oh NO! dammit, SHELBY's on this aisle....ugghhh...well, I'll take one for the team"
—"Shut up, John, you're the one who's in MY way!"

See?

It's pretty amusing and easy to entertain oneself in the warehouse.

Oh, she and I and two "ambassadors" (they're sort of floor-level supervisors, but they don't have any authority) had a good little convo going about calculus and the continuum.

Natch, Shelby hates it.

Meh, I don't care about operations on R, but it still comes up a lot IRL.

I don't know why work on expansion of infinite series and algorithms on multivariate polynomials is lumped in with first-year Calc, but it is the way it is.

Yeah, so this ambassador (I think he's like 19 or something) did pipe and say, "well, calculus is pretty useful" (in response to my outburst that the front desk manager probably flunked her one term of calculus getting her BBA).

So, we agreed, and I silenced Shelby by saying, "yeah, well, you try building a catenary suspension bridge."

I think I got lost in what I was trying to post, but whatever.

Yesterday. I woke up too late, so had to make it an hour late to work.

Natch I used the web interface to report I would be late, citing "reason" as "Menstrual cramps."

So I come in, pass by one of the managers, he asked, "You're the one who put in the late starting time on the employee site?"

"Yeah. I did put down menstrual cramps as the reason, but I didn't say whose those were."

True fact. I thought it was funny, anyway.

Today I discovered that all one needs to do to retain precision in day-to-day life after a change in scheduling and tasks is to recalculate and reassign priorities to things that were once habitual.

Such as, properly cleaning one's kitchen or teeth, or allotting precise times for "leisure" activities such as technical work in music, or readings, or whatever.

Very simple, however, I find it is required for me to restore an acceptable "home life."

Other people, certainly, do this sort of thing regularly.

However, my method is superior.

For me.

But they're wrong.

Probably.

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OK, well, I won't say more about my opinions of others' methods of allocating time, but I'm mildly irritated that I could have written a nice little program that would have allowed me to assess areas of competence or deliquency.

And, to boot, I could have done it in that shitty language Python, because I still need to get better at exploiting it for simple little things like that.

Although, who am I kidding, I probably would have made a simple linked list in C with multiple priorities and struggled with how to add a nice GUI to it or how to import a CSV Excel/spreadsheet file.

No, Python would have been the easiest tool to make something stupid like that. I could have even bit the bullet and expanded my knowledge of some of the Java libraries.

But I wouldn't have liked it.

Therefore, I'm sticking with pencil and paper.

If I don't write it, it's not any good.

Against very sharp odds, I managed to get approved to work a different shift at the warehouse.

Starting at 1000.

On the one hand, waking up at 0200 every morning has been limiting my ability to pursue better careers, you know, salaried, wearing adult clothes, all that.

On the other hand, this new shift (starting this Sunday) is a bit of a sausage fest — I'm actually going to miss light banter with, particularly, the women on the old shift.

On the other hand, I don't have to deal with the contract panel-van drivers — most of them are just wanting to their stuff and get out of the warehouse ASAP, but the scheduling is done with extreme incompetence by their handlers from within The Company, who are useless morons.

On the good hand, on the new "mellow" shift, we actually tend to get a break after two hours, as opposed to 3.5 or four hours, which renders fatigued manual laborers as much a liability in terms of production as the boobs who handle the workers.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Although, who am I kidding, I probably would have made a simple linked list in C with multiple priorities and struggled with how to add a nice GUI to it or how to import a CSV Excel/spreadsheet file.

---

I should have corrected myself — there are GUI libraries, even for C, but that's not really what one typically does with the language.

Also, it's not hard to parse out a comma-separated Excel file, but, also, that's a lot of extra writing in C to do something that more "hurrdurr" languages have well-documented libraries for.

Even in C++, there are certainly specific libraries comparable to PyJava, but it's not really what the language is for, so you end up hacking your way through some odd libraries and fixing it all up together.

Not very productive.

OTOH, Python or Java make these sorts of things more "mainstream," however, I'd just as soon use a command-line shell to input and execute.

I don't know why I felt compelled to specify, but it seemed good to correct some flaws in my post.

Well, I did one thing I don't like to do, but a woman asked me, so I had to.

One of the contract van drivers piped up as I was walking by, "Hey, can you help me?"

Medium-sized garden spider was in her van complete with its web.

I felt like a savage, but I just smashed it with my hands and stepped on it.

Oh well. It was a very sitcom-esque moment — she was not a tiny shrinking violet woman. Bold and sassy, I could say. Apparently she just didn't dig on spiders.

FTR, I like spiders — they control flying pests, and, they don't bother me at home so I don't bother them and vice versa.

ETA So, I guess I'm an executioner. Oh well. It had to be done, I guess.

Ah, that was kind of a nice favor today.

My mother and father were in my neighborhood picking up some prescriptions at my grocery/pharmacy (no, I still don't know why they switched to this QFC vs. their closer Fred Meyer — just better service, and fewer mistakes, I guess).

Eh, they were both able to help me put pest-proof (supposedly) covers on my bed frame and mattress.

That's kind of nice. They're still only in their sixties, but I think they enjoy lending a hand if it's convenient, and it was certainly a challenging chore — those bitches are heavy, and awkward to haul around by oneself.

Maybe I should make some friends.

Nah. That'd be cheating!

Holy shit.

I look at a clock and see "1500" and think "Well, time to take some Benadryl and get ready for bed."

NO!!!!

Dude, I can like stay awake until like 2200 or even 0000! With time to spare!

Wow.

Like an actual person!

I like it, but it's still weird!

//ETA How weird is it, you ask? It's pretty fucking weird. I suspect the various neural interconnects are going to sap some energy while I readjust to normal-person hours.

Eh, fuck it. I still got some of Dr. James Crow and plenty of wine, and a big bottle of Benadryl, so, I just have to wait out the hours until normal people go to sleep.

Very strange, waking up at 0700 and spending a few hours prepping for work.

VERY mellow shift.

Ferchrissakes, they had Duke Ellington playing on the PA.

And...I don't know the military sizes of troops, but, say, instead of a platoon (what is that, 30-50 troops?), it's more a squad this shift.

And we can take a break after two hours or so, without being measured to the millisecond. As opposed to working up to 3.5 or 4 hours at hard labor before some cunt decides, "yeah, OK, I guess we'll allow it."

True, there is much less prime grade-A poontang, but that's OK too.

And I was able to off-handedly mention when one of Duke's boys on tenor was blowing a bitching solo to this chick, "Man, that guy is smoking his balls off on tenor!" (I don't remember exactly what I said), and it wasn't like crazy or weird or anything, she's just like, "Yeah, he's blowing his ass off, damned right!"

It's all the fun of working at a tedious job in a warehouse, but we're all adults and so we just TCB and are trusted to do so.

Ah. After almost exactly a year, and a successful vote to completely replace everyone on the HOA board (we're still stuck with the property manager), they start to fix the giant hole in my roof. Well, the big hole is mostly on the other unit, but they're actually doing the whole roof. After wasting all the HOA reserves on stupid shit like concrete stairs and shit.

Also, there are women on my new shift, and we get along just fine, but ain't none that's going to be my "best girl."

Probably for the best. Just show up and do the job, is really all I should care about.

It's just a job. Five days a week. Rocket man.

Holy fucking shit. I come back home today and this crew has got the entire roof down to the bare frame.

They are not fucking kidding around. Say what you want about the hispanics in labor, but they get shit done, and no kidding around.

They stripped it down to the wood frame in...what, like eight hours since I left this morning? And already a good of plywood laid up, combination of screws and nails.

Well, I hope the six million dollar "assessment" is worth it.

Stupid HOA assholes.

At least the entire board has been voted out. There's some kind of visceral satisfaction in that. But that was at least a month ago. The board doesn't do shit except jerk each other off once a month, so it hardly matters.

And, today during work — I don't know if it was satellite radio or somebody's playlist.

Pretty much the entire album of Tower of Power's Back to Oakland (?) — you know, the one with Chester Thompson on Hammond organ, "What is Hip?," "Squib Cakes" and all that.

Fucking A damned right this is a mellow shift to work!

How many times a day at work do you get to play "air Hammond organ" (if you think nobody's watching!)?

Oh, "air organ" involves using both hands on the two manuals/keyboards, plus using the LH to change the Leslie speaker, plus adjust the drawbars with either LH or RH.

"Air organ" is a whole intricate process, and I suspect most people would think you're insane if they watched you do it.

ETA wait a damned minute — was somebody playing a joke about the Raiders/Browns game yesterday? That would make sense, but, still, it's a pretty subtle joke.

All right. All I know about this new crew/squad is that they are all, pretty much, super American football fans. Women+men, everybody seems to "bond" over "last night's game" or whatever.

About that, I can't really add to the group vibe, but I guess I know roughly as much as the next person — difficult to avoid hearing stuff. Although I still don't care to follow.

///////

Hey, you all probably heard in financial news that The Company is giving a higher hourly wage for beginning employees.

I don't know what that means for me, but also down the grapevine I heard about some improvements in comprehensive health insurance, as well as some fiddling with stock options and a few other things.

No, AFAIK, nobody really knows the nitty-gritty yet, at least at my warehouse, but that's the word.

I'm skeptical, but even a few bucks per hour for an hourly-worker adds up, and may make buying into group insurance affordable to those who desire it.

Yeah, The Company's weird thing is that we're covered pretty well for dental and vision, but not for, you know, a GP, PCP, regular doctor in, say, internal medicine.

That was kind of fun. The roofers are still pounding away, so I put on the Allman Brother's Band Brothers And Sisters album and just played along on piano. Well, I made it as far as the tune "Southbound" before my hands/forearms got tired, but that was still a good, what, twenty minutes of HEAVY pounding on piano.

Hey, fuck 'em.

If they can pound with hammers, then at least I can get some more exercise too.

My little Onkyo stereo amplifier + the 12" Dynaco/Altec speakers gets pretty damned loud. I don't know how much compression the mixer/mastering engineer used for the redbook CD, but it's a pretty loud album, without a lot of dynamics.

One of the few albums where the compression doesn't really bother me — maybe it's just I'm used to that mix.

And, of course, Chuck Leavell (now with the Stones since the early 1980s) and his piano comes through just perfect.

It's fun to try to just copy exactly what he's playing — I think he was only in his early twenties when this was recorded.

A true badass rock and roll piano picker.

Yesterday, I did an extra shift at my "job" at The Company. Just for the extra money and partly to make sure "my people" were doing it right.

It was kind of exciting — I'm not really exaggerating, it was like "the king approacheth!" Hey, we need you back on pick&stage! Hey how's the new shift!

And, yes, even Shelby admitted that I'm not "old" — according to her, "like, 40 is old. You don't look that old!" I'm pretty sure she has no idea what she's talking about. But still that was fun. Well, I don't want to tell all of her stories.

We're not going to talk about Morgan. She did, apparently under duress, eventually mumble something about "How you like the new shift?"

OH, and on the next shift (my new regular shift), one of the floor supervisors (who'd also been there since 0500, just like me), actually said "You know, I don't think anyone's thanked you today." I said, "well, what for, really?" (something like that). She: "Just you're doing a good job."

So that's kind of nice — she's kind of a tough broad who does all the same physical stuff everyone else on the floor, and isn't exactly emotionally or verbally forthcoming.

Although, the first day I started, back in March, she seemed shocked when I piped up in a breakroom conversation about Ichiro (baseball), "You into baseball?" I guess that pleased her: maybe she thought I was a fancy lad or didn't like regular stuff.

ETA yeah, that was a common theme since High School. "You wouldn't think he'd pitch in and help the stage crew, but he gets it done."

I don't know if that's my patrician appearance, or somewhat introverted character, but people seem to be surprised I just get it done without needing specific instructions.

I just put it down to working since a young age — picking berries in the field, working retail, whatever.

What I've found at this latest blue-collar job is that there just isn't any room for people who don't pitch in.

As it should be, IMHO.

AND, I'm pretty sure Claudia gives a nice little wink/smile to me. Actually, not "pretty sure": that's just how she does, although not with everybody.

She's a good looking woman.

I'm pretty sure she's hooked up with the usual boyfriend or whatever, but she's got the flirt down pretty good.

That's not a criticism at all — I like the nice, friendly flirt.

It's all in good fun, and, AFAIC, everyone knows what it is. Just it's nice when people speak the language.

As an aside, she's a pretty nice-looking woman.

She seems to have almost an antagonistic-joking quality to the newer hire whom she's training.

Sometimes she seems to go a bit too far. I.e., "STOP! DON'T MOVE!" to her underling, but maybe that's some kind of hazing. Such that her underling/trainee literally stops and almost bows deferentially to her "master."

Well, that's between them.

I find it amusing, anyway.

No, there is no way that Claudia (no, I'm not inventing the name — in fact, I hope she never finds this forum) is "on the hunt," like a lioness, but yet one more amusing aspect of human behavior. Well, maybe she has some crackhead BF or something, but damned, she is a pretty woman.

Nope. Not pursuing. Not for me, anyway. I still like Morgan, and maybe her self-confidence is driving her down. Oh well, nothing to be done about that. I would like to try to build up her self-confidence, and at least we can be friends. But, that's not up to me.

I must say </Ed Grimley> I'm glad I put my bed back together.

Something is probably good to say for sleeping out of the "dust zone," i.e., not just plopping a mattress down on the floor and being like, "meh, it's fine."

Not really interested in seeing how many bedbugs crawl up through the diamotaceous earth — meh, they're OK. Don't really both me if I can't see or detect them.

Actually, I disapprove of Claudia's method of training.

It reminds me of that scene from the movie Dazed and Confused, where whatserface......whatever, senior cheerleader is like "fry like bacon!!!!"

In fact, I don't like it at all.

Yeah, I know, good for me, whatever.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

I don't know how much compression the mixer/mastering engineer used for the redbook CD, but it's a pretty loud album, without a lot of dynamics.

One of the few albums where the compression doesn't really bother me

---

That's kind of wrong, and it bothers me.

I should have said it was mastered and mixed with about the right amount and quality of compression.

In no way is that album a victim of the "loudness wars" or whatever else.

It just happens to be a loud album with impressive, musical mixing.

ETA And, yes, I suspect Claudia probably takes it like a knife she enjoys. (To non-cis-males reading, that's a good thing). Just my opinion.

EETA And why "musical" mixing? Easiest is just listen to Leavell's piano -- I don't know how they got the resonance of the bass strings, but while the sound of the piano is, to be sure, most in the mid and mid-highs (I don't remember the exact octave numbers in Hz), it's still got the full sound of the acoustic piano.

I don't know if that's from the microphone(s) used, or what equipment from the board, but that's what I mean.

Nothing much. Got to know some of "my" new crew better at work.

I think I've been spinning my wheels trying to do basic text munging and sorting using Python — I may have mentioned that I find the syntax complicated, and I also rebel against the idea of "one way to do it." (By that I don't mean avoid writing nicely commented, non-obfuscated code, nor do I really mean using the whitespace convention).

So, since any work in basic Machine Learning I do is going to be in a C++ library, or, puke, in some crap like Java, using these....differently-abled....conventions for Python for just sorting text (csv, tsv) is a major headache.

So, partly inspired by some thread on some other board, since I already know what are called "regular expressions" (more or less a way of encoding "wildcards" to specify what you're after in any given file), and since I use *nix BASh and all that, I can't believe I just haven't been using Perl to take care of text-processing tasks. No more double-underscores, none of that — I can do all that in a language I already know the conventions for.

"Michael! How could you have been so blind? This Sicilian Thing that's been going on for centuries!"

Well, better late than never to just use the easiest tool.

And, yes, I'm aware most people would say "You find PYTHON's syntax and conventions frustrating, and yet you prefer C or C++? Whatever, pointer-head!"

Oh, here's my second warehouse bug-killing "story." A few aisles down there was some women talking animatedly about "that's a stinkbug!"

So, naturally, I was curious and came over.

It wasn't a "stinkbug," it was a box elder bug. So, without thinking, I just smashed it and moved the carapace out of the way.

Of course the two kinds of bugs are closely related, and they both stink, but one of the "gals" didn't really approve of my disposing of the bug.

Well, fine, lady! If you wanted to catch and release, that's fine with me — maybe you should have done that before creating a mini hysteria! Mind you, there's plenty more where that one came from.

I guess we all have our preferences about bugs and stuff — I don't care about box-elder bugs, but I'd as soon not kill a spider.

God, I thought she was going to cry or something or call PETA on me.

Oh no, the shit's out of the bag now. I pulled into work this AM and saw Shelby waiting out front for her ride. She waved "Hi!" so I came over and said 'hi!'

She knows all about me and my crush on this girl I call "WareGirl" — she wouldn't reveal her source, which I agreed she shouldn't do, but she also agreed that a behaved like a perfect gentleman, although ruled by his urges.

Apparently some supervisor, about my age, got "suspended" for doing some shit like buying gifts and shift for this 20-year-old woman, whom I didn't recognize by name.

Well, that's not an issue between me and WareGirl, because we're the same "rank" and I just asked her out and left it at that, because I'm not some perv or somebody trying to weasel into being "friends" with ulterior motives.

Anyway, that's about it.

Just some anecdotes probably only amusing to me.

No shit.

I think what I and a lot of people have been calling "boxelder bugs" are actually "stink bugs," around here.

Visual identification seems a near certainty — I don't have much of a sense of smell, and I rarely crush them and savor the aroma.

They're not so much a problem, although I don't like them inside my place (they're very loud when they buzz around ineptly, crashing into things, like everyone's favorite brain-damaged dipsomaniac uncle).

But there sure are a lot of them, pretty much every year. Several- or more- dozen "congregating" on a sunlit wall is pretty common — and while we do have acer macrophylla (big-leaf maple), supposedly a prime source of food for the boxelder aka "maple-seed" bug, not really a lot in my immediate neighborhood. Alnus rubra, and pseudotsug. menz. and tsug. het. are the main trees in these acres. And some vine maple,and a few proper maple.

I guess "people" in the neighborhood just call them boxelder bugs because "stink bugs" sounds crass or something.

////////////

ETA But in actual news. I did get to have a short "Hey, how you been, etc." with KNOWN FLIRT Claudia.

Actually it was good to see her again — some people from my old shift stayed overtime to do some shit with the Laverne and Shirley conveyer belt.

And now I know who is responsible for that shit-sucking goddamned dance club music — it's that dried out old hag Natasha. God I wish she'd just die, preferably after killing her family.

Yeah, I have to put up with more dangling bits on the later shift than I prefer, and less more...appealing, or pudendic, if you will...but at least we don't listen to shit music.

And, no, I don't actually have to inspect the genitals — that's not even close to my job description. "Men" who are complete nerd-pussies << Actual people who happen to be women.

In general.

And, no, jackasses, "<<" is meant to be the common shorthand for not just "<" but, like much "<"

EETA AND, I have a new use for my strangely large collection of Sharpie colored pens. Green, light blue, and red, are the three color codes for routes that have to be staged, so I can just use those to conveniently encode my paper sheet of distributions by hour.

So, therefore, I can have an extra glass of wine during break and at breakfast, and not get confused.

Shuddup.

It's very Continental.

The rechargeable marine horn is going to be my new best friend.

Good for at home AND in the car.

I don't know what kind of drugs or alcohol or stupidity or loudness these people 200-300 meters away are on, but it is some of the stupidest shit I have ever heard.

Cocktail party my ass. A bunch of birds in a field? No fucking way.

If they were capable of masticating instead of just huffing paint I could just throw out some poisoned steaks while doing a drive-by.

My PA speaker doesn't have enough throw and encourages my neighbors to call the pigs on me.

I would like to throw gasoline on them and burn them, but I'm not smart like the Unabomber.

Yesterday was OK -- picked up an extra shift at 0500, then did my regular stuff.

Got to "train" somebody on her first day.

TBH, I think I'm an excellent teacher, and I hope she remembers a few little tips and tricks for just how to get through the mess of the warehouse while being both correct and chilled out, mentally.

She was probably only eighteen or so. I'd never seen such wide-eyed observation in a long time.

And, no, she will not be found in a dumpster somewhere: I have doubts she can lift some of the heavier freight, but I think I gave her some pointers to not worry about it so much, just ask for help and a few shortcuts.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

and since I use *nix BASh and all that, I can't believe I just haven't been using Perl to take care of text-processing tasks. No more double-underscores, none of that — I can do all that in a language I already know the conventions for.

---

In fact, that's wrong. What I should have said is just use awk+sed — Perl may be a nice language, with nice well-tested scripts for all sorts of stuff, but for just simple data munging, I think it's more useful to just use a BASh script with sed+awk, and still reserve part of the brain for advancing with Python's very nice libraries, like "pandas" and other stuff.

For me it's about what's more versatile and is likely to be more useful in the future.

Yeah, the conventions of Python and its libraries are irritating, but it still doesn't stop me from using awk and other tools. It's just slightly less a PITA than anything else. Plus, play nicely with others — it's not exactly hieroglyphs, the language, and most people, including me, can at least read and write Python. It's a volume and efficiency game.

/*
ETA Actually, I noticed Claudia poured the Spanish accent on pretty thick yesterday. I don't know if that's code-switching, or what, but she really almost went overboard. I think she was training somebody as well, so, maybe make them feel comfortable, I guess.

Kind of odd to observe someone ... well, that's not very odd. If I speak or think in French while conversing with someone, I still have a French accent in English when trying back — sort of franglais. It's an unconscious, because the whole shape of the mouth has to change. And FR is only a second language to me: although it is very familiar to me, I was raised by anglophones who were my parents (my father's father dropped FR and, true to immigration behavior among FR Canadians, more-or-less assimilated) and peers (who were rednecks, so that's my peer group from a young age). But I'm convinced Claudia is familiar with hispanic culture, in some ways.

I'll keep an eye on her.*/

Bleh. I stupidly agreed to take an extra shift starting at 2015 this evening. I have no idea how long the shift will last, but be assured driving on a Friday night is not something I look forward to.

Especially since having retired early last evening and woke up at 0300, after a solid eight hours sleep.

Oh well, maybe this new crew will take umbrage at my reeking of wine and they'll fire me or send me home. That would be a good outcome.

/*
Oh, each of the two extra early morning (start == 0500) shifts I picked up.

WTF Morgan.

I think she's being a bitch.

Everyone else is friendly to me, and happy to see me again.

Whatever.
*/

Huh.

The Ecosense refillable marine horn is not as flimsy as Amazon reviewers make it out to be.

And after three or four short blasts from two feet from one ear, it is likely to have already caused more hearing damage to the user.

However, the Schrader bike valve is easy to access, and the device is easy to operate, as well as being very light in mass.

I suspect the higher-pitched shriek will discourage generation Z from maltreating their dogs, by allowing me to intercede from a distance of upwards of 200 meters.

It will not enable to cut out the egg-producing parts of the human females, nor burn the testes of the males.

But it is a start.

Very good device.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Also, there are women on my new shift, and we get along just fine, but ain't none that's going to be my "best girl."

---

Well, that's still true, but one "girl" (maybe she's in her mid-twenties) seems especially friendly. I'm not so much into her, but it is nice to be able to respond to friendly gestures. Of course, there are a few other women on the shift, but that's pretty much "just the facts, ma'am," even though we get along and I'm learning the new routine from them.

I'm still burned up about how The Company is running their employee website: really? Apparently, I have to keep paper records of every little thing, because some differently-abled back-end web developer doesn't have his or her shit together. Major PITA.

I almost think it would be worth it to try to go back to the earlier shift, mostly because I kicked ass at that and had a good, fun rapport with everybody. But that's...I think I'm stuck with this new shift, which is pretty goddamned boring.

Ideally I could work double shifts for half the days, but I don't think The Company has much in mind except some kind of dumb management technique of "rise through the ranks, and you'll get the shifts you desire!"

Whatever.

It's just a job. Five days a week. Rocket Man.

Here's random and pointless: I was just doing a little thing on piano, like an 8-bar kind of "Trouble in Mind" thing. Real slow, then I started getting into it and modulated all over into different keys, until almost getting to a pretty fast boogie/rock.

I guess my LH is used to that kind of abuse, but the RH has forgotten how to be loose and flexible.

Which I think is the only way to be able to play.

Something entirely different than RL, b/c the wrist rotations used in keyboard playing are not something you do in regular life, especially at manual labor.

I don't know what they'd call it, like axial motion about the wrist or something. Every other RL action is more about creating rigid, supportive structures in that part of the arm/hand, but I guess it's true. A little more limp-wristed action is needed for fast, non-tiring work at the keyboards.

Well, this is a few days ago.

I guess most fun is Friday there was some downtime and this kid during the earlier shift and I were chatting, along with one of the van drivers — my little buddy from the earlier shift is from Somalia, originally, which I didn't know (yes, I tried my few phrases of Somali and failed miserably), but the other guy was from Kenya.

I didn't know that Swahili was spoken much more widely than Kenya. We chatted for a few minutes in French, and the other guy, my little buddy, was like "John's not saying anything, he's all making it up!" "—No, no, it's good!"

So that was sort of a compliment, I guess, not to mention just fun.

OTOH Apparently I got "in trouble" for using the online employee "report an issue" form using some....unsavory language. Apparently that is not "the Company Way." Not a big deal, just you probably should not write, "Have my timesheet fixed, you cocksucking retard database administrator," because apparently such things actually get read by people.

No, I'm not "in trouble," I was just "verbally instructed" to stop doing that.

Actually, the manager admitted as much that "because of my military background I'm used to that language, but HR sees these comments, so I have to let you know it's not The Company Way."

So, that was pretty cool as far as a "dressing down" gets.

And my response was pretty bitching — contemplative, calm, "Consider it fixed: I understand, sir." With correct, earnest eye contact when appropriate.

Hunh.

I guess I ordered two pairs of eyeglasses from Zenni Optical.

I'm kind of sceptical.

(i) They weren't as cheap as I expected

(ii) I have no clue what they shall look like if they arrive (yes, I'm using the modal future tense correctly, you jackass).

(iii) OTOH, even though I have vision insurance, I'm pretty sure sixty or so USD is about what I would have paid in co-pay, examination fees, and parking, much less for one pair of prescription sunglasses and one pair of (probably dorky-looking) regular glasses.

And the hottie bartender said they looked OK, from the computer screen.

Meh. Fine. Just wait until they show up.

Just like zee woomen. How much for zee women???

Fuck it.


Meh, see what happens.

While I enjoy having "more" sun in the mornings, it is really difficult to stay awake in the evening.

Although, sorry Redskins fans, you all got your asses beat. I think that was the most American football I've ever seen in one sitting (the last 1.3 quarters, which, typical to American football, took about an hour and a half to get through). Kind of annoying with all the throngs of crowds, but its still the only decent cheap place on my way home from work.

Jeesus, Britt was working her ass off — only person behind the bar and there were probably fifty or sixty people crammed in there to watch "the game." She may be a hottie, but she knows what she's doing. For context, it's a tiny place with a couple of pool tables, a kitchen, and mostly cabbies or warehouse workers (and some errant hipsters), aside from it being nominally a sort of sports bar which occasionally gets some American football or that abomination the British call "soccer" fans.

What I didn't realize is that American football players aren't generally, as I initially thought, just huge blocks of meat hidden behind robotic gear. I suppose they could be called athletes.

It's still not my favorite game to watch, but I'll grudgingly allow it.

AND I ended up sitting next to someone who was a "ringer" for John Goodman's "Walter Sobchek (sp?)" from TBL. The haircut, the bulk, the, when I asked him towards the end of the game if he thought there was going to be a riot in the bar, said, "I don't care."

AND I had a chance to use my Wittner "Super Mini" metronome at work, since it was really slow and most of us were just doing make-work. It really does make things more interesting to find a good tempo and try to work on subdividing rhythms or just use it to inspire some mental practice of any given piece of music.

ETA AND when I was exiting work one of the "flex" drivers (private individuals with their own vehicles who deliver random shit we give them) had their car with a cute...I think a Pomerian doggie. Of course I said "Hi, doggie!" I think the driver's teenage daughter was in the passenger seat and the doggie gave some good protective barks at me. We both had a good moment of amusement at the doggie's vehemence. And, no, I was not perving on some underage girl, it was just a neat scene.

Well, finally today my Ørberg edition of some of Petronius's Cena arrived. I used to have a similar student's edition, but I lost it a few year ago, although I still have a photocopy.

This is a cute little text of a good bit of Petronius, with all the vocabulary glosses provided in Latin — there's not a scrap of English in the text. Similar to the old "ad usum Delphini" texts.

Not especially rewarding, as a text, but it's cargo-pocket-sized and is much easier to carry to have something to puzzle out instead of my much larger Vulgate edition of the new testament. That's not true — Petronius is hilarious, even if he's no great poet like Vergil or Horace.

And, no, I'm not a masochist — Petronius's prose is not very challenging, but my Latin is rusty. I just prefer to use the language, however abridged, or annotated, just for the fun of it.

///////////

AND, a few days ago, even though I've been playing Bach's 3-part inventions (sinfonias) as part of a daily routine for a few years, I've been using printed out copies from the Busoni edition of the 3-parts, as well as printed pages from the Wiener and the Henle editions.

So, I finally was tired of always losing pages here and there, so bought the Alfred's publishing spiral-bound of Bach's 2-and 3-part inventions.

Just to not be as annoyed, especially since for most of the 3-parts I've already done the painstaking work of figuring out fingerings and which hand covers which parts.

Surprisingly, the printing and suggestions of separation of the hands (one doesn't have three hands, don't you know) is extremely readable, especially if you already know the pieces and just never committed to memory all of them.

In fact, I think the Alfred edition, at first glance through, preserves the "right" way of dividing up the parts between the hands in the three-parts — that's the only reason I used the Busoni edition, anyway, when learning. They seem about equally practical, and in many cases about the same.

Yeah, the appearance is kind of as a cheesy "student book," but I'd put the 3-part inventions up against or over many of the pieces of the Well-Tempered Clavier — so, I don't have anything to prove and I'm glad to have a bound edition I can just flip through much easier than photocopies when at the keyboard.

ETA And, yes, even the simpler 2-part inventions are great examples of composition and improvisation, and some of them, like the Bbmaj, give a good isolation workout for some wrist rotations in LH. I don't spend very much time on the 2-parts, but I think it's reasonable to ear-transpose the C major into all twelve major keys (no, I can't do that by ear yet, but it's a good goal that probably few people bothered to do), as well as invert the voices as an exercise, and to use some others as a "spot-check" on some technical problems (the A maj, the Bb maj, and some others probably). Even the E is sort of a companion piece to the Corrente from the E minor Partita, so it's nice to have it in a convenient volume to just read through.

////////////

When I get my next paycheck, I'm going to get an actual bound version of Bach's English Suites (Henle), Debussy's Préludes (Henle) and Beethoven's Op. 27 no. 1 (Henle). Many of them are familiar to me, but it will simplify my music "corner" of my front room to do away with a lot of scattered photocopies and so on.

Of course, I consult with many editions for these and all other pieces, but for having something to easily read to refresh the memory, I think it's very nice to have a "reading" score for reference/refresher of memory.

Still wondering if this rube van driver on an earlier shift I picked was trying to instigate a fight when he said "You got some balls."

Jackass. Don't fucking stand in the way of an 800-lb hand-carried cart and be surprised when a slack-jawed-appearing person just silently waits for you to move your stupid ass.

Cunts.

Eh....

I was invited to a drive with my three nephews and their grandparents in a minivan up along the Columbia (River) Gorge to go buy some apples.

I'm not sure what the point was — maybe to relieve my nephews' parents of their children for most of a day.

I brought along my Wittner Mini metronome, which the nephews enjoyed for a minute or two.

And the Alfred's publication of Bach's 2- and 3-part inventions, which they didn't enjoy at all.

But they dug the hell out of using the analog "stopwatch" feature of my watch.

Unfortunately, they didn't really seem to do the slide-rule bezel feature that good.

BUT no one can deny the Columbia River is a good one. It's a shame there's all that crappy highway along it, at least as far as a town called "Hood River."

And no, I didn't just think of the word "clitoris" when I said the name of that town, until just now.

Well, I suppose I'll have to go back there.

OHHH, but not only did I get to sing "Roll On Columbia" in my best John Carradine impersonation (very deep baritone!), but me and the other adults had some fun doing Wm Shatner impressions of such songs and others.

ETTA I will say after I asked to make a quick stop at the grocery near my place, the middle nephew asked as I put the Bach in my paper grocery sack in the car..."What's that book?" Of course I said, "It's music!" And, pretty cute, as I was dropped off back at my place, he gave me a small blank piece of paper. "Do you want me to write on it?" <nods yes> "Should I write something on it now?" <shakes head no> "OK, well, I'm going to keep it and write something for you next time I see you! Thank you!"

I think I'm going to be perverse and write some music on standard staff-lines — maybe I'll do a short (it's like a 2x4 inch piece of paper) thing about his name in music (cf. the "B-A-C-H" theme).

That should slow them down for a while.

:)

Well, I'll be damned. The Company doesn't have a non-third-party seller of a stand-alone edition of Beethoven's Op. 27 no. 1. I already have break-out editions of Op. 27 no. 2 (which I promise myself I will never play again, but still occasionally read through, especially the last two movements), and Op. 26 (I'm still working on mastering that one — particularly the variations and the Rondo), and the Pathétique (likewise, no interest in playing again) and the Op. 10 no. 3 (nope, not again), so not interested in a "collected sonatas vol. 1."

However, they did have a cheap Henle edition of Debussy "Children's Corner" (no, it's not intended to be played by children — some of it is kind of difficult, actually).

And Henle had a cheap edition of just the first three of Bach's English Suites, which suits my needs (I'm really only playing the A major and the A minor — and the A minor I'm still struggling with, so maybe a good bound edition will make it a little easier to dip into).

Oh, and Henle had a cheap edition of Beethoven's two "easy" piano sonatas, Op. 49. Actually, I've read through them at least once, and while they aren't typically demonic in technique, they're still not exactly plink-a-plink pieces of music, and I think they're worthwhile to use as warmups or to have something nice and musical to have in my "book" that doesn't take too much brain-power.

Plus, if Seannie keep up with music, he can have that and the Bach Invention/Sinfonias, along with other smaller editions suitable for an intermediate player/learner. Lots of others in my little library, but those would be good ones to pass along.

ETAOh, I should have looked up a nice edition of the Diabelli Variations — oh well, that's more for curiosity than anything I hope to play end-to-end.

And, yes, of course Seannie can have the Joplin material and all the related — but I don't think the ragtime spirit has caught up to him yet. :)

EETA And, no, I don't have a fetish for the Henle editions — it's just that since I was a kid, I always found them easy to read, with lots of space to mark up things with pencil. And, I'll admit, the blue covers are very handsome. The Wiener Urtext is also good, and in some cases easier to read for Bach, but can be cramped for annotating in pencil for Beethoven.

So, I consult them all, but I'm sticking with Henle for music I'm past "studying" and just want to read efficiently. My difficulties with the A-minor English Suite notwithstanding — it's not the notes so much, it's just that there are so many of them, in that particular Suite.

EETA All right, changed my mind. I don't need or want the Beethoven Op. 49. HOWEVER, Henle has the WTC vol. II with fingerings by András Schiff from The Company, and I only have the Peters edition of WTC vol. I (with photocopies of some of WTCII). So, that's a better buy.

YES, I know from watching Schiff's performance of, for example, the Chopin Préludes, that I won't be using his fingering suggestions, and will indeed be supplementing the volume with my own notes, but unlike some people, I happen to think Schiff is the greatest living Bach interpreter today, even better than .... Angela Hewitt. I don't think he had much to do with the editing of the volume in the scholarly sense, but the Henle is bound (ahem) to be readable.

Oh, and my Ørberg annotated edition of Vergil Aeneid bks 1 and 4 (with extracts from the interceding books) is due to arrive soon.

Yeah, I've used Clyde Pharr's student edition, which is very good (except I don't like having to flip back-and-forth between two different languages, which is one reason I'm an awful translator), and while I still have my Oxford Press edition of Vergil, it's challenging. I even have the Cambridge "green and gold" of the Georgics, but those are very difficult without significant cribs to help with the agricultural terms.

I'm tired of writing my own cribs and annotations in pencil on various photocopies pasted into books these days.

So, I guess I'm sticking with the classics in music and literature these days.

Sort of, like, humanizing, or something.

Maybe Shelby, she's right: I'm an old, old man. Yeah, well so what? I can still kick some ass!

Shit, I am fucked.

I just read through a handful of the little 2-part inventions which were new to me at the keyboard — all of the ones I stumbled through while waiting for my chickpeas to heat up are going to take my patented "very, very slow" method of playing through. I couldn't even remember the D minor (IMHO one of the more straightforward ones, and one I often just did for fun), and looking at the music just confused me.

No, I'm not going to treat these as compositional exercises, as they were intended, but just use them as opportunities to fix some technical problems, not to mention that (most of) they/m are good music.

So, more or less, the "easy" two-part inventions (all of them), will be like a little textbook for me to hack my way through. More or less "physical training" on the basics.

Still on board with the 3-part sinfonie, but I'll have to see if the new text printing confuses me. Those are a little closer to me in terms of knowing how they sound and some good ways of playing them. (Even though I still take the D maj and the A maj a little slowly, and don't have the blinding speed I desire for the E maj [which is not probably the way it should be played, but I think it's fun like that]).

And similarly, the three-part inventions will remain part of my regular routine, except now I won't have the excuse that I can't find where this or that errant page went.

ETA Oh, and the reason I likely won't be blindly following Schiff's fingering suggestions (for a different set of Bach pieces) is just that, observing his performances, his fingers are shorter than mine — it doesn't really translate, necessarily. And, I'm not as familiar with WTCII, most of it, as I am familiar with many of the WTCI pieces (mind you, not mastered, just familiar with from reading at the keyboard etc.), so I'll have to figure it out for myself anyway.

I have concluded that M______ from The Company might actually be either (i) a lesbian or (ii) not interested in me or (iii) just doesn't want to get involved in the workplace, even though I'm super-chill.

I prefer to think (i), but (ii) is fine also.

It's possible she has something she considers shameful in her private life: a wild, untamed bush, or maybe she's not financially independent, or maybe she's self-conscious about being petite.

Therefore, I conclude she requires some magic dong, preceded by some nice words, and then, some nice more bit of dong.

Oh well, I can't convince them all. But she still is nice and we get along fine when I see her and talk to her.

Still needs more dong. Mine, not hers.

/*BUT I still am interested to look at Schiff's fingering in the Henle WTCII — I find it interesting to examine how others perform more-or-less-complex pieces.*/

OK, listen up bitches.

The András Schiff-fingered edition of WTC II published by G. Henle (and, no, I don't know why children on piano forums don't seem to understand that "Verlag" is not actually some guy's name — well, back in my day, it was understood that knowing French, German, and English was a prerequisite to studying humanities, like mathematics, music, literature, or the technical specialties of science).

Well, I've only flipped through it, but the fingerings and hand-divisions seem uncontroversial. And, more importantly, it's very legible.

The Peter Verlag (hehe) of WTC I has served me well, but I had to do quite a bit of supplementing with my own notes, and the typesetting is pretty cramped.

This new (to me) edition of WTC II will make things a bit easier.

AND, while flipping through the Henle edition of the Engl Stes 1-3, it occurred to me I already have bootlegged photocopies of the Henle of 1 and 2 (A major and A minor, repectively), I still appreciate having these in bound form.

Primarily because the Preludes to both Engl Stes 1 and 2 are very long — especially the A minor — and it is a pita to deal with photocopies for such a longer piece that is meant to be played in one "breath." (At least if one doesn't intend to commit it to memory, or tape together multiple pages in one Kerouac-length roll).

Oh, and I saw yet another John Goodman/"Walter" double driving into the warehouse today.

There must be something about guys who are ... hefty, and who wear glasses that leads them to the Walter way, including haircut and wardrobe. Whites only — other ethnicities of similar build seem to go different ways.

Very curious, but also, pretty damned funny. In a good way.

I think I'm going to get my tires rotated (Les Schwab! free!), BUT more importantly, I'll swing by a brick-and-mortar music shop and try to just grab one a cheap edition of Beethoven's Op. 27 no. 1 — that's another one that's tiresome to use photocopies, and just easier to have it all in one thin volume. I've mostly got all the movements down, but it's hard to remember without a "crib," or some kind of aide-memory, so something to flip through at the keyboard would be helpful.

IMHO.

ETA Oh, yeah, definitely watch the elderly Emil Gilels on youtube do this sonata. A man and his horn. That's about the way I think it should be done — simple, matter-of-factly.

EETA And, yes, if anyone doubts the power of the V7-->I cadence, well, that's your piece. I haven't bothered to improvise on the 1st or 2nd movements, but it could probably be done just for fun. And, no, the last movement with the overlapping hands isn't all that hard — but it would be a good technique to use for improvising, maybe on a Monk tune.

Well, I'm not there yet, but at least I can still do as Beethoven wrote.

It would be better to abstract the technique away from the tune LvanB wrote, though, and use it for other things. Well, I guess there's a time for everything.

Well, the Debussy (Henle edition) of Children's Corner arrived yesterday — very legible, and indeed, just as I recalled, some of them are kind of a technical workout.

The Ørberg edition of Vergil, Aeneid bks 1 and 4, also arrived. I'm not sure the glosses and marginalia, all in Latin, are all that useful, but it is a slim volume and it is convenient to not have to resort to photocopies of various cribs and pencil markings. The ultimate goal is just to read the Oxford Classic Text edition without needing to look anything up, so I'm happy with this as a goal. The classic Clyde Pharr is great for learning, but like I was saying, it's confusing to me to switch between English and the original text.

All right.

So there must be some kind of gossip train going around — this little friendlet of mine asked me today, "How come you know French?"

She'd have no reason to know I speak even pidgin French, except maybe she overheard me talking with some Africans or muttering under my breath.

Oh well.

She seemed satisfied when I told her that I wear a tweed jacket and smoke a tobacco pipe.

Meh, I don't know. I don't go around speaking French except if I want to mutter something absolutely inappropriate to myself.

"Meh blah blah I had a French boyfriend once!"

Good! Good for you!

Ergh.

And, no.

No, thank you.

Tricks ain't walking no more.

Fool me once, blah blah.

What kind of idiot parks in the back parking lot? So you can spend your ten minute break looking at the whoremongering horde of the warehouse?

Yeah, thank you no much. '

I park in front — I relish breaks so much in order to get away from you, not be reminded of "you."

Fucking idiots.

Oh, well, I guess if everyone did as I did there wouldn't be much difference.

But they don't.

score, dude.

One call to my doctor's office and I can get some REAL sudafed.

You know, the kind that used to be OTC until all the junkies screwed it all up.

Maybe I can get through a day with only soaking one hankie instead of two or more.

Surprisingly easy — I'm sure I'll have to give the pharmacist fingerprints and ID and whatever, but I'm reassured that my doctor doesn't think I'm some kind of meth junkie.

And, no, you can't have any. This is between me and my upper respiratory system alone.

ETA Oh, I did try insufflating pseudoephredine once. Key word is "once," and that was a long time ago, before all the meth people.

I highly do not recommend trying that.

Actually, since I'm moralizing, don't insufflate cocaine either. It's a nice buzz, but turn it down if someone offers you a filthy rolled-up piece of paper money. I mean, good god, use a fucking piece of a bic pen — who do you think you are, Tony Montana?

Disgusting.

So, what have we learned?

Use Sudafed as directed, and don't be a dumbass.

Oh. I bet I know how Shelby knows I speak FR (near-native? I don't know how to classify it, except that the term "fluent" isn't too useful — I've heard plenty of supposedly "fluent" people talk with horrible broken accents and not even know how to chat up a women or just bullshit at some café — yeah, sure, I speak FR but unless I'm writing or speaking to academics, I speak it like the english language, namely, pretty sloppy and just chat informally).

It's my little Somali buddy from the earlier shift: at least he's heard me chatting with a Kenyan in FR, and he knows I'm super into M________ (no, dumbass, that's not "M" as in "Men,"). Probably he started some thing like that.

Well, that's OK.

At least I think that solves that "problem." For all I know, he was trying to help me out with this gal M______, although I'm not sure why that would help. But he's a young kid, and we trade jokes a lot, so I think the "team-work" approach is probably what he's going for. ETA ZOMG HE WANTS TO DOUBLE STUFF M_______ WITH ME! UP WITH WHICH I WILL NOT STAND! No, pretty sure he doesn't see why I find Morgan attractive, although he seemed interested to know how many black girls I was "with." The answer is two, but that's none of your business, so stay out of it.

You know, if he makes me seem "exotic" to this girl, then maybe his own status gets elevated.

But why or how? I don't know. Maybe he's just glad to be in good with a white who isn't a total racist and who tends to be mistaken for "a boss" sometimes.

I will say in defense of The Company — they really do practice what they preach about diversity, at least among ethnic divisions. It reminds me of living in an actual city, this warehouse, where there isn't a concentration of power among sexes or ethnicities. Probably higher up there is, but they do good at the warehouse level.

And there's no particular "clannishness" among the workers — women, men, of whatever skin color or native language just pretty much do their stuff and get along.

Hmmmm.

My Zenni Optical glasses arrived today — I wasn't expecting much at all, but the regular glasses seem to be fine. And the sunglasses almost seem a little 1960s European crime movie style.

Most importantly, they fit and I can see out of them.

Not up to doing photographs yet, but sometime soon maybe, just for fun.

(i) I was conversing briefly with a veteran coworker at The Company, mostly just being an ear to listen to, and she actually starting crying a bit. No, I didn't try to slip her the sizzler, but the coherent, legitimate complaints she made to me in private, combined with her generally stoic and stalwart profile, leads me to think Ivan Drago is part of a conspiracy.

(ii) I was looking for an empty "cart" at work with which to transport goods, and after having identified one which suited my needs, said to M_______, "this is about the right size cart for me." Remembering after the fact that she is a little self-conscious about being shorter than 5'5""

(iii) The only thing that makes M_______ smile a bit is when I interject "Sir" as a form of address to her. She prefers that to "ma'am." I don't know why. She thinks it's funny because I teased her a bit about her using a clipboard during part of her training as...I don't know, see (i). Probably also she's convinced I've desexualized her and no longer propositioned her on....ta ta DUH!...a date!

(iv) I managed to make some photos of the online opticals Z____ Optical sent me — actually, they look better in pictures than IRL. But, IME, since they soak you on the tinting for presciption sunglasses, those are better to do in person. Regular glasses? Those are OK. I think they cost like $9.95 (USD) and are just fine, unless you have uneven ear-heights and have the balls to try to bend the "branches" (stems? I don't know what the word is) into a more comfortable shape. Unfortunately, imgbb is being slow, so just use your imagination.

(i) I was conversing briefly with a veteran coworker at The Company, mostly just being an ear to listen to, and she actually starting crying a bit. No, I didn't try to slip her the sizzler, but the coherent, legitimate complaints she made to me in private, combined with her generally stoic and stalwart profile, leads me to think Ivan Drago is part of a conspiracy.

(ii) I was looking for an empty "cart" at work with which to transport goods, and after having identified one which suited my needs, said to M_______, "this is about the right size cart for me." Remembering after the fact that she is a little self-conscious about being shorter than 5'5""

(iii) The only thing that makes M_______ smile a bit is when I interject "Sir" as a form of address to her. She prefers that to "ma'am." I don't know why. She thinks it's funny because I teased her a bit about her using a clipboard during part of her training as...I don't know, see (i). Probably also she's convinced I've desexualized her and no longer propositioned her on....ta ta DUH!...a date!

(iv) I managed to make some photos of the online opticals Z____ Optical sent me — actually, they look better in pictures than IRL. But, IME, since they soak you on the tinting for presciption sunglasses, those are better to do in person. Regular glasses? Those are OK. I think they cost like $9.95 (USD) and are just fine, unless you have uneven ear-heights and have the balls to try to bend the "branches" (stems? I don't know what the word is) into a more comfortable shape. Unfortunately, imgbb is being slow, so just use your imagination.

God damned.

I am a bad man, so I will just say.

That fucking bitch who gave me a haircut ... doesn't anybody know about Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now?

All right, it was a fine haircut I guess, but I don't want to look like Mitt Romney or somebody!

There's a fine balance between "business in back" and "kick your ass" in the front!

Women.

And, yeah, I tipped her whatever, so stop whining you complaintards.

I'm slightly still peeved at this one little confidante, Sh_____, whom I sometimes see as she's coming off my (past) shift, waiting for a ride, while I'm parking and getting ready for my new shift.

She really gave me some brutal sassing about when I asked her about "Hey, how's M____ doing?"

Yeah, she's pretty...has kind of an upfront sense of humor, I guess....but it wasn't really necessary for her to say "M_____ thinks you're too old and ...."

I can't remember, just juvenile sass — we all know each other, pretty much, but still, she went a little too far.

OTOH, when I was just chatting with a few others, they didn't have much nice to say about Sh______ — I still think it's unfair to her, and maybe fuels some of her apparent vitriol against my (apparently) well-known "like" like of M_____.

I don't have anything to be ashamed of about the latter — I asked her out, and either it didn't take or she has some other things going on, or, like me, she'll take months to make a decision about something. Beyond which, we're still friendly, and not in a creepy way. Just like it should be, IMHO: play your hand and then move on.

It was shocking to me just how much negativity Sh_____ had about the subject — we're not best friends or anything, but I'd never seen her unload such negativity on the basis of one "chit-chat" topic.

Oh well: it was cold outside, as well as busy as hell, I'm sure, for her shift.

///////////

I'm pretty sure the manager for this portion of the week put me outside out front, paired up with a burly ex-Marine ... apparently there was some trouble with one of the private drivers yesterday, something about cops being called and shit.

It's nice to be recognized for my skills at being tall and supposedly able to repel a threat, even though I still think the best move is to de-escalate: The Company isn't worth endangering myself or anyone else for, even though I admit I don't mind a fight or even just some harsh words, said in a calm voice.

Well, I can't quite figure R__ticia out — I think we might be becoming pretty good work-friends.

In fact, I think most of the core group have warmed up to me after about a month — probably something about them getting used to me getting shit done quickly despite my pores constantly leaking wine, and my greediness when it comes to break-times (no, I don't abuse taking breaks, just I find it very difficult to go more than a few hours happily without taking five to cocoon myself in seclusion).

The guys in the new shift seem to run the gamut from yoga-exercising hipsters to pretty macho guys, and also some neckbeard nerds, but that all seems good relationships at work so far. We get along and communicate and get it done.

Ra____icia seems to have developed some kind of special bond with me, though — kind of funny, but I guess we're just on the same wavelength.

There is a real problem with trying to "date" women in Portland — from what I can see, rents are high, so most people who aren't professionals seem to have roommates.

I don't know how that would work, going to "her place," with a roommate. I'm not interested in meeting her little friends in that situation, and dealing with that whole thing would put me in a bad groove.

My place is fine, but it would probably be unappealing to a non-crack-whore, what with my housekeeping abilities and such. True, no roommate, and the toilet seat is clean enough, I guess.

A non-smoker would not be able to deal, and, in fact, my entire front room is filled with music crap, with barely a spot on the couch to sit down.

Well, that's not going to change anytime soon, but it's a real problem, I tell you.

THIS is a portion of the job assignment roster for today.

Yes, you can imagine that was the source of much amusement.

At first it was funny — I think I started it by laughing out loud.

Unfortunately, I think I have some new nicknames on the job.

Yeah, that was a fun few days to see how long that lasted.

Oh well, it's all in good fun. Sort of a little madhouse in there. Well, I'm not the cabin boy anymore, so time to move on.

Interesting exchange, we were changing shifts (temporally, not clothes), but C___ and M______ were walking side-by-side while I was on my way to empty my bladder before the shift change.

Carl's a nice guy — typical to him, he said his usual "Hey, good morning J___! Nice to see you again!"

And the usual reciprocations — eh, he's almost ten years older than me, and also kind of short and pretty fat.

Nice guy, I've chatted with him a bunch, and we're good coworkers.

Of course, en passant, M_____ held her little arm up to give a "high-five," and also gave me a nice smile.

WHY? do people do the "high five," when it's very uncool! It is not the way! We're not playing B-Ball or winning a trophy!

And, no, I'm not jealous of C___: that would surprise me if she went for that, but, whatever, he's a nice guy, so if she feels like throwing that guy some poontang, it's all right with me.

Kind of reminds me of this other fellow, about the same age as C___, about whom I went apeshit when I saw M___ and him giving each other a hug in the parking lot.

Mmmmmm....probably just, I don't know what her deal is, but she might favor male company with unlikely people, for gratification other than sexual. Maybe she's got some kind of friendship-fetish, if that is such a thing.

Couldn't say.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Mmmmmm....probably just, I don't know what her deal is, but she might favor male company with unlikely people, for gratification other than sexual. Maybe she's got some kind of friendship-fetish, if that is such a thing.

---

That was a fucking ridiculous thing to say.

It's clear that she thought enough of me to give a friendly salute, even if it was in the defective form of a high-five and a smile.

I wish she knew that me smoking cigarettes (at the moment) isn't a deal-breaker.

Or at least it shouldn't be: she doesn't know my dislike of them, nor that it's no problem for me to not smoke around her.

And here's something truly pointless you'll really enjoy.

Me sitting waiting for the laundry machine, obsessing thinking about what my girl is thinking:

"Well, gee, I dunno, he is really strong and has big hands, but it seems like he knows some stuff about like stuff, and is interested in what I have to say. He is kind of a pig, and he smokes, but the blacks like him and he's really friendly. My vagina is getting a little moist. Is it worth plugging in the Hitachi? I don't know, oh dear."

I saw a kitty in a tree today!

Apparently my parents' kitty just likes to perch up in their Xmas tree and...I don't know what...just sort of sit there.

It can be fun to drop by on the parents and help oversee the nephews if you have an afternoon off.

:)

ETA I'm very proud of my middle nephew: he hasn't been taught how to read time on an "analog" clock, but, his grandmother told me "they're working on it."

He was able to read the very tiny subdials on my watch when we decided to time how long until his older brother arrived this afternoon.

AND he can play do-re-mi-fa-sol and down again with both hands very good on piano.

I'm very proud.

I can't remember if that's yikhes or nakhes, but that just proves I don't know my Yiddisher Sprache.

Well, USPS surprised me today:

Schaum's Outline of Graph Theory. I've read this before, but I can use the problems sets as kind of fun.

Schaum's Outline of Statistics, 6th ed. Holy shit, this is a thick book for a Schaum's outline, but I can use a print reference book when I need to look something up.

Moszkowski, 15 Virtuosic Études per aspera. Alfred edition. Slim, cheap volume — I'm hoping to clean up my mass of photocopies and stuff and I like these "concert études" better than the Chopin.

AND the surprise was, when I was studying for the CCNA certification, I used online editions of Lammle's Complete Study Guide (for the CCNA Routing/Switching). So, it's for review, but I was shocked how large a book this is in physical form. It's valuable as a reference text, and for light reading. Seriously, the book is about three and a half inches thick — I've read and studied it before, but never in the full paperback format. I'm going to ETA that for those working on the CCNA, Lammle is not the best text, necessarily. The Wendell Odom text is the most complete and the one I spent most time on, but Lammle reads like a novel, and he certainly covers the main points. I don't know if one could really pass the CCNA R/S with Lammle alone, but it's excellent for a refresher or just for lighter reading.

AND yesterday, my Rothco "outdoor vest" arrived. Yeah, I have a long torso, so it only extends just a few inches below my belt line, but I'm looking forward to warmer weather and having an alternative to wearing a sportcoat in the summer, to carry book(s), pipe+tobacco, air horn, collapsible baton, and so forth. Believe it or not, I plan to use most of the pockets, and the back pocket is big enough to carry a sizeable book in. And two front pockets are large enough for smaller-format paperbacks.

Oh, I found out about two very good books, *Python Cookbook* and *Python for Data Analysis* — I'm not very good at Python language, but these two are exactly what I need to just get some stuff done. For anything that needs a GUI or creating plots, I'm just abandoning my rudimentary Java aspirations, and stick with C++ and Python. I don't need to clutter my head with Java/C# when I'm already pretty good at C++ and its libraries, and Python can do the rest of data wrangling and sysadmin stuff.

I am looking forward to checking out *Mastering Python Networking*, however, which claims to be a good guide to using SDN, which, before, I'd just use C and the sockets library for.

And for good sport, I'm still waiting for a delivery of a basic guide for the Security+ cert: I'm not getting that cert, but the more you know, etc. Most of my security stuff is in working with C and ASM, and detecting malware, but a good guide for enterprise-level tools would be good. People aren't disassembling code in the field and looking at the assembly, you know, it's sort of a toolbelt-wearing profession.

Well, I officially didn't look down while taking a piss and the urine splashed off my unbuckled belt, and all down my pants, and probably all over the place in the bathroom (well, it's my own bathroom, so while it looks tidy, trust me, it's seen worse).

This is why young men should enlist in the armed services — pretty sure they teach you to not do stupid stuff like that.

Dammit. I just washed those pants, and furthermore, I just showered.

Dammit.

It is not computer science to avoid pissing on yourself, your clothes, and every exposed surface while in front of a toilet.

Yeah. I'm glad I splurged and got the 1971 edition of Schaum's Outline of Advanced Mathematics for Engineers and Scientists.

I think it will be a useful reference, but gawd it looks like something I might have found in Grandpa's basement.

Oh well, it's just for reference. Even though it looks like an old Penthouse magazine I wasn't supposed to have found.

IT will be a random walk to see if the 2TB hard drive will hold up as a backup-to-the-backups. Who knows.

AND it's fucking busy as shit outside. How fucking dare they go to the grocery at the same time as me? Bleeding ponces.

AND what's the first thing I smell on coming back inside after a quick trip to the grocery store?

Goddamned urine, that's what.

It must be Festivus time.

Smells like it.

ETA Actually, the Murray Spiegel Advanced Mathematics for Engineers and Scientists is very nicely presented. The first chapter gives a quick review of basic calc, and then it's off to the races. I don't find it useful to know more about Fourier or Laplace Transforms, but certainly the proofs and solved problems are convenient to have in one place. Jesus fucking christ, though, who would have the balls to sell a paperback printed in 1971 on The Company's site, without a word of warning? I think I've been Spiegeled. But, the material is fine and it was cheap, so, whatever.

And an observation: I think I'm becoming like that guy from that TV show Lost who made up little "clever" names for people. Or, worse, like...I think it was Rob Schneider from SNL,"Making copies, blah blah blah."

Seriously.

Instead of Richard, it becomes, "Hey, Richie Beirach." Or "James of the Jamersons!" Or "Hey, Mr. R [a guy who uses the computer language called R for data and stats]."

There's a line there, and I think I crossed it.

It's OK if it's someone you're friendly with and just say, "Hey youngblood, you keeping them aisles clean?" or whatever, but I should tone that shit down in general.

But I can't resist my new line for this girl, M_____, "Hello, Captain! Captain Morgan, sir!" see, because she's like a lane captain or whatever on that early shift.

Yay!

I just now noticed one of my automobile headlights is burned out/faulty.

I suspect it's in part due to my habit of "lights on for safety" no matter what the daylight conditions are.

Fucking PITA. I really do not want to spend upwards of an hour or even two replacing it, setting aside finding a place that can source a compatible headlight for immediate purchase.

OH and joy, somebody apparently saw my smashed in fender and figured "hey, I'll file an insurance claim with this rube's license plate to get my own shit car fixed!" Never mind they claimed the "incident" occurred in Sept. 2018, they have no police report, and, AFAIK, no witnesses. AND, I can prove my own car was damaged well prior to September.

Well, I'm pretty sure whatever shit-knuckle attempting to commit insurance fraud is not going to be happy when they lose. They should go to jail, or go to hell, or at least they should be the ones to pay my no-doubt increased insurance fees.

Fucking assholes.

Oh, on Thursday, some light has shined on this little pest who attempts to intercede in my affairs at work.

A few of us were standing around waiting for some reason, and someone said, "Hey, I think that Sh____ has a crush on you." Someone else pipes up, "Yeah, she's always in the break room talking about you." Me: "I think she's just jealous because I have a crush on this girl from the earlier shift." And blah blah.

OH, I did get to use my "line" on M____: "Morgen M_____!" She thought it was funny. Which it isn't, so that means she likes me.

Hmmm.

It appears that when some cow-town auto parts shop sells you a high-beam replacement when you asked for a headlamp replacement bulb, which does not fit into the correct receptacle, which one finds out after PITA trial and error, they're happy to sell you the right part.

BUT, the cute late-twenties chick behind the counter offers to check out your car in the lot and pop in the new bulb (not difficult when the right part is supplied), the VERY least one can do is give her five bucks cash plus the cost of the bulb.

Wow. One of those redheads who doesn't look all gross and pasty.

Pretty sure she was not insulted.

But I redeemed myself by putting in the new bulb before driving off and testing it.

I was wearing my Walter Sobchek (sp?) vest, so I was pretty studly.

I should have just taken her with me.

Oh, and the Security+ Certification book is ... differently abled.

Just a bunch of trivial vocabulary and concepts, nothing to do about securing wifi, WANs or LANs in the real world.

It's no wonder the CompTIA certs are of no more worth than, say, ace-ing some test at a CC or a HS. Even though the Cisco certs tend to be extremely difficult, not to mention tied to the "Cisco way" (Cisco manufactures a great number of the routers, switches, and wireless access points in use today, even though it's not the only company), their router/switch "operating system" follows a great many *nix invocation conventions.

////////

I still wonder about giving the saleslady a five-spot as a tip. Too much? Too little? Insulting? Well, whatever, she'll get over it when she's glad I didn't crudely proposition her when she was bent under the hood of my car and she's treating herself to a free beer.

Oh,

I guess this is the right thread for it.

Geez. I didn't even remember the last time I had a hangover.

But, at least I had a shower first thing out of bed and so...well, it's good to get the caked-on layers of antipersperant/deodorant and antifungicides off with some soap, even though it is the weekend (for me)

And you're welcome for that mental image. Forget about it. Trust me: I do.

Made a quick trip up to the grocery store and succumbed to the ultimate impulse buy. Apparently Brach's is making the new brand of the old classic Valentine candies. Meh, $0.33 USD, never know. Might come in handy.

How? I don't really know. Maybe some girl sneezes or coughs, you could have in your pocket a little box of "Be Mine!" or whatever candies. Actually, could do for anybody, but I think it's a good little trick.

Even better if it's that special someone.

God, she really does have a nice smile. That short, dumpy-looking broad with the raven-black hair. Whatever.

I guess this is the right thread for it.

Geez. I didn't even remember the last time I had a hangover.

But, at least I had a shower first thing out of bed and so...well, it's good to get the caked-on layers of antipersperant/deodorant and antifungicides off with some soap, even though it is the weekend (for me)

And you're welcome for that mental image. Forget about it. Trust me: I do.

Made a quick trip up to the grocery store and succumbed to the ultimate impulse buy. Apparently Brach's is making the new brand of the old classic Valentine candies. Meh, $0.33 USD, never know. Might come in handy.

How? I don't really know. Maybe some girl sneezes or coughs, you could have in your pocket a little box of "Be Mine!" or whatever candies. Actually, could do for anybody, but I think it's a good little trick.

Even better if it's that special someone.

God, she really does have a nice smile. That short, dumpy-looking broad with the raven-black hair. Whatever.

Well, I'll be damned. The ELeaf iJust 2 actually works, with some Crown brand "42" 12 mg nicotine "cool mint" flavor.

Obligatory Caddyshack reference: "it's a little harsh."

But no more of a learning curve than smoking an actual briar tobacco pipe.

And it's easily more fun and cheaper than cigarettes.

I don't see why people are so down on vaping: sure, nobody actually wants to interact with people in the little head shops and stuff, but it seems harmless enough to me. Pedestrian ingredients to make up the liquid.

And only a little bitch would complain about the so-called "odor" that is emitted.

And if one drives an automobile every day, anything related to public or personal safety one has to say should be disregarded. I could skin and gut one feral kitten per day and still be a better person than an automobile user.

Plus, this shit's going to get me more ass than a toilet seat. The bitches love that shit.

I'll be brief since I got .......... semit.......anyway the post I was writing got over-deleted mid-sentence.

(i) While working an aisle with an older divorcée whom I've met outside of work as part of a small hen party. Turns out WareGirl was next aisle over, so I was glad to say to my divorcée friend that I was glad to not be smoking cigarettes. Trust me, I could smell the heat coming off her loins. That's the way to get into that one.

(ii) Used a JiffyLube coupon for oil change. I assume they changed the oil and filter, but man do they give you one fucking hell of a multi-stage upselling thing. "Let's wash the inside of those headlamps!" You fucker, I just changed two of the bulbs. And fucking brake fluid. Bullshit. And it wasn't all that cheap even with 15USD off. And, yeah, right, that air filter, sure. That looked terrible.

(iii) Stopped over since I was out that way by my nephews' grandparents' house. The middle one has a knack for the music! He can identify and copy melodies and intervals.

(iv) on the way home I stopped by this big grocery store out that way to stock up on some supplies. I am not kidding, every single line in front of a cash register was between 100 and 200 meters long. No shit, those are literal distances. I did my best after abandoning my cart to pretend like I was shoplifting, in the hope that I could beat some security guard up in self-defense, but no dice. That was the most insanely crowded grocery store I've ever seen — and I really wanted to buy some stuff there.

(v) last evening some cheap USB-powered, 1/8" stereo jack tiny speakers arrived, they seem to be adequate for a few uses. Along with the Iron Gym total upper body workout bar. Haven't mounted it, yet, but i think I can get my pull-ups and chin-ups going during the next few months. fucking difficult as hell exercises for me, but by the end of Lent, I should be at least at the level of (let's say an average of the several armed services) a recent recruit, including a minimum of a 1.5 mi. run at a brisk pace (yeah, I can run three miles still, but now I'm just going for the standard and add speed). Pushups? I want to say no problem, I love those, but cranking them out in perfect form during a short period of time is another little test.

(vi) at a grocery store close to me, same deal. Except the meat section was almost very literally EMPTY of anything except a few dodgy-looking ribeyes and two or three packs of pre-formed ground beef patties.

People are going fucking nuts, expecting the storm of the motherfucking century.

It's a madhouse! A madhouse I say!

It's not even cold here and we're supposed to get a few inches of snow tonight or tomorrow.

I've never seen anything like it, even in legitimate snow or blizzard conditions. Which this most certainly is not.Even here, a place not known for espe

Oh, there were a few nice moments with WareGirl yesterday.

(i) For some reason I responded to "How are doing, J___?" with "just looking forward to Spring." She remembered from almost a year ago some random comment about crows and jested with me with about, to which I could only say "I don't hate all corvids, just crows!"

I could have gone with a super a capella version of Schubert's song "Eine Krähe" ("eine Krähe wunderliche Tier, blah blah something German." But I don't have the voice for that.

I could have amplified by suggesting it is the Lenten season is important to me, but since I suspect her of being a Jewess, it could have led to a more interesting conversation. However, as I shall say sub (ii), both she and I have a similar tendency to just do the job and only chat in passing.

(ii) She did drop a bag off her cart while in motion, so I was able to smoothly pick it up with one hand (it wasn't that heavy) and hand it off to her twenty meters later.

(iii) AND, lest she thinks I'm some "milady, I shall assist you" idiot, she did see me crudely (but wisely and with firm resolve) tuck in a driver's side-view mirror as I was walking past.

So, IOW, that's a recipe for not getting a woman to hate you.

Except if she would have just given me her phone number I could have said why Schubert's Winterreise and the song "Die Krähe" is a significant part of German-language poetry and music.

But she didn't know then that I despise cigarettes, which she does now, through some calculated "overhearings" on her part and thanks to my carpe whatever. And FWIW, my conversation with the divorcée also revealed or reinforced that I care enough to reconnect via chit-chat with another person speaking about another person, named Ging__.

Either I can't lose for winning, or I can't win for losing, but I prefer to call it a productive series of interactions.

One does not, after all, build one's house on one girl alone.

Potential problem, the divorcée seems slightly jealous of the younger one. From a long time ago, "Yeah, she's cute, I remember in high school all the boys liked the shorter cute girls...."

So, it's perhaps likely that WareGirl will not be hearing the good news from her. However, I am careful to only expose what I wish at the correct times.

I don't think that's "manipulative" — just not being too stupid and having a good sense of timing

Oh, I think it's fine. I'm liking that WareGirl seems to have warmed up to me.

I made a mistake by not starting some conversation about her apparent love of North American Crows, but I've waited this long and it's not a big deal.

I still don't understand why this particular woman doesn't reciprocate for getting to know each other, and yet every time I see her she remembers in detail my preference of bird species.

Maybe she's slower than me. I wouldn't think that's possible, but then again I'm the guy who waited two months after she said to my prompt, "Eh, I'm just talking nonsense,": "I don't mind listening to you."

And "Ginger and Sara and I sometimes meet after work for breakfast (long time ago): I like to play pool and maybe have a beer." M____: "Maybe I could like to learn how to play pool!"

Yes, so I invite her out. I didn't miss my chance.

Like I say, she might be slower than me. Not in the cognitive sense: she seems to have an excellent memory and is....prettty.....preccious......uh, anyway, she has similar interests to me.

And in case anyone is wondering, I think she is pretty.

I'm going to forward to our meeting up and she wearing a nice flowing skirt and her accepting that I kiss her on both cheeks and tell her nicely, "You look very pretty today."

It may never happen, but that's just how it's going to roll.

And it is true, I think she is pretty. Not "cute" or "darling" or whatever. And I shall have no shame in saying, "You could even be beautiful, but I'd have to see more to be sure."

And, if she wants to come hear me play some Schubert or whatever, I can legitimately warn her that the cigarette smell is probably not disappeared.

BUT, I find that lying under the covers of my bed keeps the particulates out, and is a very good way to keep warm.

It's all true.

What do I know about this Waregirl?

(i) She remembers a random comment I made almost a year ago about my opinion of the North American Crow. I presume she also remembers my affection for the recurring flock of Steller's Jays near my home office window.

(ii) She knows I quit smoking cigarettes, and that I only smoked them since beginning this pedestrian job about a year ago.

(iii) She knows I am able to make easy small-talk with work-friends, and recall mutual acquaintances and am able to express appropriately concern for her, in this case.

(iv) She observes that I perform helpful tasks when needed for all coworkers, and doesn't exclude her from my largesse.

(v) She observes that I am a bit shy when speaking to her, but still am adept at socialization, including when speaking with her.

(vi) She has probably heard me from second-hand sources me speaking French, German, Yiddish, and Italian to various people, so she has no reason to disbelieve that I have a rudimentary education.

(vii) She has observed that I have an interest in her field of interest, because I said so, and is, I believe, somewhat interested in what I could say about formal ontology and biomedical databases.

(viii) Probably through gossip or intuition, she thinks both that I think she is pretty, and yet that I don't be offended if she doesn't feel the same way about me.

(ix) She might think she's too short for me, but she probably doesn't know that I know for a fact that it's not a problem at all.

What do I hope she knows?

(i) That for me it is nothing to accommodate her crippling asthma in order that she does not suffer in my presence.

(ii) That her thoughts and opinions are more important to me than that she is, to me, an attractive woman.

(iii) That her choices of past mates will be considered in a negative fashion by me, but is not a deal-breaker.

(iv) That while I try to take advantage of every situation, I've never lied to even the most casual acquaintance, and wouldn't therefore do so to her.

And, no, I'm not obsessed with WareGirl.

She's like Bach's two-part invention in C major.

I just like her, that's all. Just about my size and I think I can play her.

Like a fish?

Maybe.

I really don't have a problem with womanizing, but it's just some of them are so damned good you can spend your whole life trying them out and finding some good ones.

Yeah, so I'm a bastard, but nobody ever asked for me a refund.

And in my defense, she and I share an interest in outdoors, and divergent interests in ornithology (both, hers more) and botany (mine, more) and consonant interests and behaviors.

And, we probably could both use a shower before intimate contact.

And, she's just my size — a foot less in height is about perfect.

And she has a wonderfully expressive smile, as do I.

I command her to submit to my will!

No, that's wrong, but she can be on top, in fact, I want her to.

It's a wonder to me how I manage to dress myself each morning.

She will be mine, or at least she will become a good friend. I don't care about the sex — if she's not into my rockin' pudgy bod, so be it. But I still like her and think she could be a good friend.

Well, some warmer weather and rain cleared things up.

Unfortunately, I was stuck outside for the two and a half hours when it was freezing rain, gentle snowflakes, and a few hardened ice particulates. I didn't know in advance that was to be my role today, for if I had, I would have brought my raincoat and umbrella in from the parking lot.

But, there was another guy out there as well, so I just decided to man up and not complain.

I: WTF is wrong with these private "Flex" drivers? They get paid, literally, to run errands for me. And some septuagenarian actually questions what I tell her to do? Just do it, lady. I don't have the time or inclination to talk you down from whatever bad brown acid you ate, you crazy cunt.

II: Just because road conditions are a bit more favorable, if you ride my ass on the highway when I'm going home, not only do I enjoy brake-checking you for about three-miles, but when I followed you home, I think you should be very frightened. Do not fuck with me. I will not murder you, but I will take as few minutes of my time as is necessary to make you believe you are the prey of a demented psychopath.

III: "You need to find yourself a woman!" —"Yeah, well, maybe a pet. I shouldn't have said that..." "Well, a pet can't do everything for you a woman can." —"Well, ..." All good-natured conversation.

IV: It really is true that pretty intense sweating in an environment with humidity potential sort of makes you smell of shit. I showered this morning, with soap, and wore clean clothes, but it's an upsetting phenomenon, I find. ETAThat's meant to be an analogy between electrical potential and humidity potential — I think it's true, at least from what I experienced today, but it might not be the right analogy. HOWEVER, there is a reason the USN has these things called "poopie suits."

—"Well there has to be an order."
—"No, [unspoken: you're a half-hour early to do my company's errands], just find a place where you're comfortable being parked."
—"What's the order?"
—"There isn't any real order, just wherever you feel comfortable waiting a bit."
—"Yes, but what's the order!"
—"There isn't any order."
—"But there has to be an order."
—"I know. Just go over there or go over there and talk to somebody inside. [There's no way she'd be admitted inside the warehouse without safety gear, and there's no entrance for errand-people on foot.]"

One of two people today who seemed to think there's some "order" for when they show up early to run my errands.

No. There isn't. You fucked up and got here early. Good for you.

Just sit in the fucking parking lot until I radio in that I want you.

Or fucking deliver pizzas instead. We don't want your shit — there are plenty of good drivers who aren't going to get "accidentally" have a bad experience inside the warehouse.

Really.

You're delivering a pizza.

Be glad I let you do that much, you wormy little piece of shit.

They call me Mister Tibbs.

I'm not a fucking fry cook or hamburger-flipper.

What the hell planet does some errand-boy come from flipping me shit?

This is not a customer-service job, and you work for me.

So do what I say, and none of that sass-mouth.

I am really having a hard time getting over having to treat these errand-runners as "customers."

They're not my customers, and, in fact, I'm doing them a favor by allowing them into my warehouse. Don't like it? Go deliver pizzas, or whatever makes you feel like you're not on death's door. Or whatever the hell reason they do an errand-boy's job at the age of eighty or whatever. Too bad you sucked at life: my portfolio has been growing since I was twenty years old, and my life hasn't suffered by saving up for retirement. Younger people never give me any static — they're glad to get a small paycheck, same as me, and seem to be adequately socialized.

That said, I'm really good at people.

95+% of them.

I don't understand the small number of people who somehow think they are not errand delivery people.

And, trust me, there is no "old money" in PDX. The closest there is, I know them all by name, and they know me.

So you got a nice car. Good for you. Just get in line and deliver what I tell you to. Yuppie fucking assholes, good luck with your McDonald's franchise, or your failing (or prosperous, relatively) sole-proprietor shop. Bunch of nitwits.

And, no, some peanut-head cheese-eating white bitch with lamentable property holdings and a lack of pedigree, education. Sorry, you dried up old cunt, you just don't belong in the world.

Time to die.

Goddammit. Fucking son of a bitch.

I thought Carhartt work pants were supposed to fucking last. Doing some grunt detail, fucking crotch split as I was fisting a loose board from one of those crappy wooden pallets.

Not too bad, I can still wear them, and I have some extras to rotate through the week. But, still.

But it ALSO annoys me that it seems most of my jockey boxer-briefs have odd holes in them. The usual between-the-thighs/balls holes, but also just random holes in odd places.

Fucking A. I don't want to drive out to fucking WalMart or Target just to get some more shorts. BUT, it is worth it, I suppose, to not have to fish around in the "clean clothes" pile to find undergarments every fucking morning.

What they need is something like those old "Tuffskins" pants for adults: clearly, my usual garments are not lasting like I want them to. Bitches be sewing the clothes wrong. That's all there is to it.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

III: "You need to find yourself a woman!" —"Yeah, well, maybe a pet. I shouldn't have said that..." "Well, a pet can't do everything for you a woman can." —"Well, ..." All good-natured conversation.

---

Oh, this one. Friendly gal. Process of divorcing. Has kids. Is kind of ... not my type... but I like her as a work-buddy and as a person, and is the only other practicing Catholic I know on this shift (well, she's about as practicing as I am, given she hasn't mention annulment, but apparently she sends her kids to a parochial school in a different parish; for all I know, she's knee-deep in the whole religion stuff, but probably not).

I think she might be getting the wrong idea about me.

I hope I'm wrong.

Well, I can deal with any "advances" from women who don't interest me — they just use me for my husky body.

Nice Marmot, Dude.

Christ on a motherfucking cross, fucking got half a toe bleeding off stubbing my toe on that idiotic attempt to take a piss and got my toe temporarily stuck in the space heater.

Fucking A.

Looks like a goddamned crucifix.

Fucking A.

Yeah, well dude, at least I got hydrogen peroxide and some gauze, which is more than my buddies got lying face down in the muck in Viet-Nam.

Dude.

fuckers fuck shit.

This is not today, but of Ash Wednesday.

Yeah, I bothered to attend the 0730 service at my parish and get "ashed," and I am not at all ashamed to have washed off the mark when I went to work two hours later that day.

But, I am proud to say that I got to pass Waregirl as she was ending her shift and I was starting mine. Pretty sure she noticed I had some shit on my forehead.

I probably saw two hundred people that day, and maybe five seemed to not say, "Hey, you have something on your forehead!"

Judas priest, I find it barely believable that 99.99% of people don't know what Ash Wednesday is.

And, yes, while I attend mass every single goddamned week, or appropriately confess, I admit I only do it for more fornication opportunities. Putain de merde ma foi ce n'est qu'un riposte et bien un tentatif bien pâle mais soutenu.

Son of bitch.

Not one but two pairs of the same model of Carhartt "work" pants split in the crotch at about the same time after four months of wear. And I don't mean they just had some slight fraying at the perineum. Full on ass-less chaps, basically. To be cut up and used as rags at home.

SO, I ordered two pairs of "gussetted" crotch pants. One pair of blue "work" jeans, from Timberland's "PRO" line, and a pair of Wrangler "Riggs" ranger pants.

They seem fine and all. I even went a size up on the canvas pants, as suggested. The blue jeans I just got my regular 36 waist, 34 length.

Neither of them can I button.

BUT, I found the back of my home office chair is wide enough that I can attempt to stretch them out overnight. Still probably have to leave the button undone and wear an untucked shirt (plus belt, natch), but I guess I have until the end of Lent to drop some inches off my waist line.

I swear I wear 36 waist recently, which isn't all that huge a size.

But apparently a year of drinking three or four liters of wine every day sort of makes you a fatty.

I have noticed I've stopped sweating profusely every day at work since quitting drinking wine (not a Lent thing, just a prudent thing), even though I still have a few beers after work some days.

Carharrt my ass. Bull shit. I really liked those pants too: they fit good, they looked well, and were comfortable.

"Taxpayer, I cannot hear you. Taxpayer, we must have a bad reception. Taxpayer, I cannot hear you. I suggest you call back at another time."

Stupid fucking mobile phones and goddamned fuck shit.

Second time in a row after waiting on hold to "verify" my identity.

I bet that's what really set Ted Kaczynski off, not the rape of the natural world.

No, nothing yet. Trying to set my sleep to pick up an extra eight hours today by waking up at 0130, then sleep at about 1100 until 2000.

I think the only reason I like to work is that I get to meet girls. It's like a disco, but I also get paid for it.

I also found the most ridiculously apropos crotchety olman thread that existed.

I only found it by accident when I was noticing that I happen to have "The Club" (steering-wheel-locking anti-theft device) and was thinking about getting rid of the mountain of trash in my passenger-side footwell and how it would be good to be able to stop the car, open the door, and pick up the device the next time someone honks their horn when I'm letting a pedestrian cross, as is their right.

N.B. They have the right, de facto et de jure, except when they don't. In the USA, automobilists do not have any right to occupy any bit of asphalt or macadam, unless they are granted some kind of certificate.

Judas priest, "The Who" at Tanglewood July of 1970.

Holy shit, so, like everybody, I've seen This is Spinal Tap more times than should be allowed.

This is the shit.

And Benadryl (house brand) was on sale for $4 USD per 100-ct bottles, so before I take a nap of six hours, I just saved a whole bunch of money [on my sleep aid] ready to start at 2015 this PM.

Judas priest, "The Who" at Tanglewood July of 1970.

Holy shit, so, like everybody, I've seen This is Spinal Tap more times than should be allowed.

This is the shit.

And Benadryl (house brand) was on sale for $4 USD per 100-ct bottles, so before I take a nap of six hours, I just saved a whole bunch of money [on my sleep aid] ready to start at 2015 this PM.

Well, I tried but I could not. I can't do an impromptu graveyard shift without adequate sleep. I thought I could beat the devil and do 3.5 hours sleep, walk up at 0130, then go for a walk with my middle nephew and his grandmother at 0800, then grab five hours sleep during the day.

No.

I did last four hours through the shift, but the sorting shift is not just awful. It is gawdawful. First of all, it's a sausage-fest: while the crew seemed nice and the atmosphere was relaxed, and <gasp!> they actually self-policed the timing of the break after two hours, trusting everybody to get down to business after ten or fifteen minutes (which is nice).

The work itself is the worst I've ever done, as a job. Remember in Cool Hand Luke when Luke is digging holes in the ground and filling them back in? Exactly the same. Picture a fifteen foot aisle, and you're "in charge of," say, six or seven of those. A Laverne-and-Shirley-style conveyer belt is running constantly and people are picking up boxes and envelopes off the belt and sorting them into the aisles you're working.

You walk back and forth, maybe fifteen feet, picking up one box at a time, finding the correct bag it goes into, stoop down to scan the often besmirched QR codes to indicate the package is sorted, then go back and grab another one.

And there's no end in sight. I think 35,000 packages (including envelopes) was tonight's load. But the belt never stops.

You walk up and down, turn over, bend down, stand up right, walk ten feet, rinse, repeat.

It's digging ditches, is exactly what that shift is like. Or shoveling shit.

After four hours I just said "fuck it," but I did the responsible thing and told the shift supervisor that "I just can't stay awake and continue to be safe and accurate. Just as a courtesy, I thought I'd let you know rather than just walk off."

Honestly, I was dizzy from walking to-and-fro rapidly in circles, every article of clothing I had was soaked with sweat, and I basically was a non-hacker who did not pack the gear necessary to serve in that shift.

Good crew, had some good mini-conversations to get the feel of the shift, but some things just aren't worth working after midnight for on very little sleep.

Just getting old, I guess.

Great workout, though! Four hours of stooping, fetching, stepping, and sweating!

I'm never going to complain about my comparatively cushy shift again....we even got some new meat to break in! Plus I can wake up at six or seven in the morning instead of trying to be a goddamned Special Ops grunt stressing the limits of endurance.

About the "new meat": there's some guy named "Zane." He's OK. Young kid, sort of like me, prefers doing the grunt manual labor, just to stay busy. Natalie. She's about good for me — she won me over when she said "Balls!" as an expletive, and seemed to "get" my little comment which was, "Hey, what are you, Sid Vicious?" I haven't seen Abdullahi in the past week: I tried some of my few bits of Somali with him (I just guessed he was Somali, and I was right), and he taught me a new phrase which I forgot. No, I don't know any Somali, just "what's up?" "thank you!" "yes" and "no."

I hope he comes back to the shift, though — I like shooting the shit with East Africans, for some reason. They're not what I would call "chilled out" people, as a rule (rather, pretty guarded for good reasons) but me and them seem to get along OK, in general.

And, Dan got negged from his "Ambassador" position (he's a total neckbeard nerd, but he has a good sense of humor and is competent and straightforward), and I like having somebody in my crew who actually gets shit done so we don't have to be scrambling at the last minute. We work good together. BTW an "Ambassador" is....sort of like one of many sub-supervisors. They don't get paid anymore than us regulars, but .... I don't know. They get a special safety vest. Basically they're just grunts who do the same stuff as anybody else but with a touch more bling and nothing else.

Yeah, that's the best thing about working with "my" crew — just we all know exactly what to do and automatically cover each other's backs using shorthand, like a nod of the head or so forth.

Yep. Nothing like spending about half your paycheck at a bar drinking beer and dealing with your bitch-ass uncle.

But it's nobody's fault but mine — I was, indeed, the one who called him from the bar after my graveyard shift and, as is my way, was insistent that he join me for a few beers (he lives in downtown, and "my" bar is not far from there, but it might as well be a hundred miles for all the PITA driving through downtown is).

It wasn't all bad — I picked up some 2mm "B" pencil lead for my clutch pencil at ths art "mega-store" called Blick's, and I insisted Jerry try it out using both the HB and the B lead. He's a pretty good drawer, so that was amusing for a while.

I don't know what it is about him, but the bartender looked askance a bit abut him after we'd had a few (I mean that literally, just a few beers of PBR).

But somehow the bartender seemed to take my word for it it was fine — I guess that's what you get after coming to the same place five days a week for over a year and not being a total knob.

That was an amazing show of trust and faith the bartender put in me — her license woiuld have been in jeopardy if she indeed did overserve some rummies and they ran a schoolbus off the road or whatever.

So that was nice.

I sort of bullied/persuaded JJ to come back to my place, only so that I wouldn't have to drive downtown again and could have delayed The Trip until the morning.

The good: he showed me a little trick on piano for Frankie Laine/Mel Brooks's Blazing Saddles — namely, like, let's see we're in the model key of C and as a preparation for the dominant, you hit a Bb triad (really, I think that's a Vm7 in disguise). Of course we got in a minor little Felix/Oscar bitch-fight after it.

But I put him in his place a bit by doing the tune in all kinds of weird keys, like C# or whatever. Which are not "weird" keys: The only weird keys for improvising American music IMHO are B major and F#

And,of course, I get to deal with his whining "Hey Jack, can we go out and get some more beer?"

My response: "What did I take 90 minutes ago for the express purpose of going to sleep? Benadryl, Steinberg! And did I take my pants off a bit ago? Does it look like I want to go to the grocery store wearing my undershorts?" Just chill, dude.

Real edgy guy. He's really the very model of a modern man-child. Christ, he can't act like a person!

And he tried his hand at acting down in Hollywood, so I'm confused why he can't/won't apply some of that technique to interacting with the world.

More later, I guess. Honestly, I'd rather just forget about the whole thing and be glad I woke up in one piece, but I doin't trust that guy. It's no fun going to sleep with your wallet and other valuables on your nightstand, with the door closed, wondering if this jerk is going to burn the place down.

Oh, and we did watch the The Who concert from Tangelwood in 1970. So we got to have some good light chatter about the musicians' abilities as performers/entertainers as well as bickering about the exact chords used.

Well, I wouldn't it say it was pointless, but after several hundred yards of e-braking while maintaining speed to back this tail-gating motherfucker off my ass, I did get a wild hair to cram the e-brake HARD, and make an immediate right turn, after checking to clear the intersection of other vehicles and their betters, pedestrians.

Nicely executed, I would say. Fish-tail, laid a ton of rubber on the asphalt, and yet ended up where I desired.

My real desire was that the offender would have crashed, and maimed or killed the occupants of his or her vehicle, including any children born of such a creature.

No, apparently they survived, but IMHO that's too bad.

It was a pretty sweet turn, though, I made.

Well, I've gotten my disgust for that pap they play — this is the fucking archdiocese of Portland, you know, which happens to be my paish church.

Whatever, the music is shit. It's .... I can't even say.

People like this George Winston bullshit?

Fuck them.

I don't go to mass to sing fucking Vince Guaraldi shit — fucking A. And Vince Guaraldi was an actual musician, not like this shit.

Yeah, OK "Pop contemporary adult worship."

Are you shitting me? (A) I don't sing for nobody and (B) IF I sang for somebody, at least it'd be fucking good.

ON THE GOOD NOTE, I'm liking this new gal on my shift. No, I didnt say "shaft" so stop saying that. She's not that good prima facie, but she could be. Seems smart, quick to have a laugh, and probably would debase herself with me if I gave her some gelt.

Good enough.

ETA And don't tell her that I deliberately try to do FBI-style J-turns using the emergency brake to try to eliminate tail-gaters. Or do. I don't care. I'm not even that great at eating pussy — short tongue, don't you know.

But she doesn't have to know that: IME enthusiasm goes a long way, so to speak.

All right, so I'm a pig, but just don't tell her that.

She'll find out on her own.

Yeah, this counts as an "observation": jeez, OK, fine, lady behind me. Fine. You're a mega-super-ultra Christian. Who happens to be Catholic.

I don't want to hear your bleating in my ear with your fucking bullshit songs.

And I'm going to PRETEND I didn't just see you doing the orans (open palms extended outward), which I've seen a number of people do during that one part of mass. That's the celebrant's/priest's job, and I think it's a garish mockery and a huge affectation to think "this is what we can do too!"

Yeah, I'm sorry, but this isn't some hippie new age mass where you just kind of "do your own thing, man!"

I don't have a problem with members of a family (I assume the hispanic group in front of me were a family — some younger kids, and probably the papa and maybe an uncle) holding hands during the Pater noster. Or anyone, really. It is, after all, called communion for a reason, and there need not be a biological kinship. I'm just glad no one tried to touch me other than during the sign of peace.

It's quaint, but if it makes them happy, then it certainly doesn't bother me. It seems pretty common, in fact. It's fine. Whatever makes you happy.

More the "m'as-tu-vu?"-ism of some of the more "upright" types. That just means the "look-at-me!" type person. Which may not be their motivation, but it is certainly the effect.

Lack of humility, I would say.

WHICH, BTW. Fucking stop saying "peace be with you" across many pews? The cathedral was designed for pretty good acoustics: one needn't even raise one's voice, let alone shriek. And, maybe just keep it to yourself if you're not sitting with your "special friends."

////

CONCLUSION. I think I might need to find a different time of mass or commute to a different parish which is a little more subdued and more traditional. No, it's true I made the effort to learn the rosary and the spoken parts of mass in Latin, but I certainly don't speak the words in more than a very subdued voice, because in my view, that would be contrary to the purpose of the celebration of the mass and the participation in the communion of the faithful.

I think the next nearest church with regular masses is St. Cecilia's in a nearby town, which has a largely Spanish-speaking flock, and, somehow, I think I would be less annoyed by people there. No, I don't speak Spanish, but the language is not that important. Anyway, there's always the universal language of the RCC, which suits me fine.

Although, I was reading from Luke today in the Vulgate and I admit I had only about 60% comprehension of the words. So, use it or lose it, I guess.

Oh, here's a sort of witty explanation of why I'm right and these other people are wrong and should be ashamed of their abuses and liberties taken during the concelebration of the mass.

WOW. I've got a nice one, from just now (just got home and took off my shoes+socks).

So, I'm turning into my "condo community" which shares partly one part of a street with a big rental complex.

Naturally, I hew to the fifteen MPH limit by downshifting into first.

Yep. Some motherfucking did what I thought they were doing. For about fifty yards. Could have been accidental.

No. I don't have that happen to me without my best effort to kill the tailgater.

I recalled I have one of those red "club" car-theft devices in my front passenger seat footspace, buried under all the coffee cups and shit.
No, sir.

Not in my neighborhood.

Took me a while to dig it out of the rubble, too.

I put "The Club" on the roof of my car and drove slowly through every inch of the rental drivelanes.

Yes, that was pretty psycho. And, no, it did not make me or anyone else feel better.

BUT, one does what one must.
/////////

Oh, I had a few extra dollars these week so I bought, rare for me, some "fun" books: The Order of Mass in Nine Languages and Liber Psalmorum: The Vulgate Latin Psalter (Latin Edition) .

In other words, the first is just a missal with side-by-each translations in a few languages. I know the Latin, the English, and sometimes I can remember the French, but I might switch parishes to a predominantly Spanish (Mexican)-speaking one. No, I have no interest in learning the Tagalog or the Portgueuse, but it might be a handy text.

The Latin Psalter will be of amusement to me — I use the Vulgate New Testament when I want to look something up, but I don't own the OT in the Vulgate, and the Psalter is a good one to consult, perhaps, from time to time. There's no doubt I'll need to use a dictionary, even often, but I find it to be a convenient text to have at hand.

If it turns out the Missal is not that useful a text to own, it may be of interest to the nephews — the two eldest seem to enjoy figuring stuff out, so that's a good primer, regardless of religious intent, of which I have none.

I don't think anyone but me in the family will be interested in the Psalter, but that's OK.

Huh. No kidding. UPS just delivered the small paperback "Liber psalmorum" (the Psalter, or just the book of Psalms in Latin).

Tiny book. It reminds me of the Edmond Jabès novel .... I can't remember the title...something like "Small book held in the crook of one's arm": it was supposed to be a reference to one of the great purges of Jews from Europe — Spain, basically, this time. When Jews would hold a small book in their sleeves to...I don't remember.

Wow. It's a spooky looking book, though. Matte black, with the only text on the cover in white saying Liber Psalmorum. And the text is nothing but wall-to-wall Vulgate Latin.

ANYWAY, while I am still considering if I can bring this book out in public without being burned as a witch or something, YESTERDAY the Alfred edition of Bk 2 of Debussy's Préludes arrived.

I was expecting a spiral-comb bound thing, but I find the text/notes legible, and there's something interesting in the commentary. And, it's nicely bound, so it's not going to fall apart anytime soon.

Frankly, a lot of these préludes are beastly difficult, so it needs to hold up to a lot of abuse.

HOWEVER, I sort of regret not holding out for the Henle edition of Bk 2 (the Henle of Bk 1 is beautiful, and the cream-colored pages are much easier to read, and, there's some editorial rationale given for various choices, as well as some interesting prefatorial reading). But, the Alfred edition was I think 9.95 USD and those préludes that interest me I already have photocopies of, so it's a matter of convenience as well as frugality.

I should have mentioned that the editorial choices in, for example, the Henle of the Debussy are kind of beside the point — after all, Debussy composed his préludes, both books, well into the twentieth century, and really, if there is an "urtext," it's most certainly the version personally approved and overseen by Debussy himself, published by Durand &cie.

But, still, it's interesting to read some of the paralipomena even if there's no or little doubt what Debussy wanted.

NEW. The postman/lady/whatever delivered just now The Order of Mass in Nine Languages. No, I'm not going to read the Tagalog, the Vietnamese, the Polish, the Portugeuse.

Even though it is "published with the approval of the US conference of Catholic Bishops," I find it odd that they don't have a "nihil obstat" on the publication page.

But, yes, I find it an amusing slim text, and could come in handy, even though every church I've been to has some kinds of little paper/placard aides-mémoires in the pews.

Still, I want some "nihil obstat" if not an imprimatur on the book, dammit!

No, it's just the usual stuff, nothing outrageous I can see. They should have put the various tunes in the Gregorian chant notation, though — I think a slightly more expensive version claimed to do that, but whatever. I still ain't singing no shit, no where, no time.

No to the Alfred edition of the Debussy.

The shock-white paper is hard on the eyes, and just now was playing through "General Lavine, Eccentric" (sp?) and it's terrible for sight-reading.

Yes, the three staves (normally piano music just has two staves — more or less kind of bass and treble) doesn't make it easier, but I can deal with that. It's really mostly Debussy wanting an extra inch and using the "sostenuto" pedal on the modern piano (the middle pedal on a modern grand piano or some digital pianos). Not too hard to see at a glance how to get the effect.

Just an odd way of engraving/typesetting the notes.

Did I mention the shock-white paper yet? It's really hard on the eyes when you're reading a lot of information at one glance, and looking several bars/measures ahead to not be surprised by some odd cross-hands stuff or a key-signature change.

Is that particular prelude a ball-buster? No, not necessarily. The rhythm is straight-forward, and while there are some large chords with improbable clusters, it's not so bad. Reminds me quite a bit of "Minstrels" from Bk. 1.

Oh well.

Should have done it proper and got the Henle edition, but this is good enough.

Barely.

Very entertaining, jackass.

Put me in sole charge of the two busiest drivelanes, presumably for the amusement of watching me do my "Charlie Kelly" impersonation from the TV show It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Bah.

Well, my team helped out, but I'm sure it was amusing imagining me chain smoking cigarettes and obsessively checking every detail while simultaneously walking at a thirteen-minute mile regularly fetching missing pieces.

For the past two days.

Oh well. This is the life we chose. I didn't get upset, I didn't ask questions. There isn't even a plaque in that city Jack built.

No, I don't want any tuna sandwiches.

But the chubbier girls are looking a little better to me these days. What is that? Fever dementia? I don't know.

And forget about the PM flex team who supposedly are supposed to relieve us completely at 1300.

They're as useful as a dug up corpse.

I think I outlined one minor (hour-long?) task I was given today in that "Questions?" thread. Namely fill up an empty semi-truck trailer with full pallets of dubious wrapping quality and various amounts of lopsided-ness, each of which weighed (I estimate) between eight hundred and maybe as much as fifteen-hundred pounds in weight, using a hand-tool called a "pallet-jack."

And the trailer is at an incline when parked at one of the freight bays, so not only are you pushing this shit uphill (as much as....maybe fifteen degrees), it's a lot of other bullshit.

Yeah, I had a helper, but these pallet jacks are not exactly designed for precision work. It's like driving a vehicle with +1 qt. of corn liquor, for the amount of control. There are a few tricks and it gets easier once you get the hang of it, but it is the very definition of brute forcing your way into a solution. And, obviously, there's very little room for error or wasted space due to any errors.

I suppose I should be proud I was "selected" by the shift supervisor as one of the "strong" people who could do the job, but it's fucking difficult.

AND, I really think there's a better way to load trucks. This way is bullshit. UpHILL, pushing these loads? Surely not.

However, there's an upside, I guess: either all the women either think I'm some kind of Conan Barbarian, or else a fat rummy who is always at risk of having a stroke at any moment.

But, I'm pretty sure if they start firing people, I'm going to be one of the last to be let go.

Because I'm fucking crazy and will just do whatever crazy shit they want no matter what, so long as they pay me.

I'm very much more angered by the edition of Bk. 2 of Debussy's Préludes than I thought possible, because when sight-reading the "Feuilles mortes" prélude, I was both struck by how much a debt "post-bop" (let's pretend that's a thing) piano owes to Debussy's voicing of chords on piano, and how upsetting it is to not be able to have an edition which is easier to read.

Yes, I'm sure someone has written a dissertation on Debussy's chord voicings for piano, and, yes, there are certainly simpler examples within Debussy's music which are easier to read. I find it mentally exhausting to read at tempo a tune such as this without the benefit of a nicer-colored paper than stark white. Since, after all, when one sight-reads, one is not just looking at one chord, but scanning ahead and seeing what else.

But, I felt the same way about Bach's music, and I gave his works for keyboard the benefit of the doubt and re-wrote in pencil various iterations of the various works.

Still, Debussy can be difficult to sight-read at any proper speed, when he is creating the denser clusters of chords.

Yes, I'm now firmly committed to the idea that Debussy was as much an "atonal"-oriented composer as our infamous Schönberg and others.

I'm sure people have tried to shoe-horn the harmonies of Debussy into roman numeral analysis (i.e., functional harmony), but, aside from some clumsy attempts by "jazz" theorists, pertinent to their own field, I don't see the point.

I see very elaborate vertical structures, which tend to move at will in parallel, built over generally strong bass notes suggesting one tonality or key, proviso temporary modulations, and generally tuneful gestures in the soprano voice.

What happens in between the bass and the soprano is, as far as I'm concerned, more or less a kind of controlled chaos which probably shouldn't be analyzed according to the same tools we use to look at Mozart's music or Haydn's.

Yes, that's all very nice, but the latest news I "did" today is surely the most surprising. Sure, some nicer weather, so I decide to open up my home office window. I like fresh air. The blinds are busted, so I have this neat system where I balance one end of the bottom plane of the blinds on top of the "dictionaries" shelf, and a piece of cardboard underneath the other.

Apparently, since things come in bundles, while I was doing one of my least favorite tasks (laundering clothes) the whole thing came undone and shattered the glass lamp on my desk.

Mind you, the LED bulb still works like a champ.

However, also mind you, apparently glass .... blown or however they make these things.... not really great.

Well, it's one more excuse for me to not have women with children or pets ever visit me. The asthmatics are already out, because of the pungent aroma of my pipe.

Really.

Small shards of glass everywhere within a two foot radius circle of the lamp, I suppose. Probably more inside than out, because of the screen and what.

I suppose having small shards of glass be "discovered" in my feet will give me something to complain about for the next few months.

Can't be helped.

Well, I do have a vacuum cleaner, but I'm not sure whether to set it at "sucks" or "blows." Besides, that's a lot of effort and ... well, it's .... some effort.

//////////////////////

And, ETA, yes, I remember why I kept this window closed during the rainy season here. Goddamned fucking idiots. To their dogs, apparently, yelling "No, no, I told you no going around in the blackberries!" WTF??????

And it goes on and on.

But, now I have a reason to go to the local Target and buy a bike pump, since I can't seem to find mine, to refill my rechargeable marine air-horn.

Seems to quiet them down.

I should also buy about three dozen more pairs of undershorts, so I don't have to do laundry that often.

That really cheeses me off, boyo.

Oh, god damned it, mother fucker.

Just when I was about to say you shouldn't eat four servings of "Italian sub sandwich" with some triscuits, a few slices of cheese, and about three and a half...checks weight...four and a half liters of wine, because you might vomit.

Yes, copious amounts.

Sure. That's fine. That's why one has indoor plumbing.

No, the icing on the cake is after I got it all "out of my system," I dropped the butter knife I was using to unclog my bathroom sink down the hole.

Dude, I don't even...I just can't...

I was so happy when I unclogged the sink ...

And then...

So sad.

No. I have pliers right here, but I'm not going to do it.

The tune that caused all, apparently, this jostling about? "Hey Nineteen" by the Steely Dan on or K-Rock classic hits of the golden years. Yes, no shit, I was literally playing it and hitting pause on my computer.

I supose this all makes sense with this dream I had last night, extremely detailed about Dean Martin, and Jeannie and houseguests.

No, not really, but I thought I should have some say over what has been the prettuy much crappiest ordnary day in an ordinary guy's life on a day off from the mines.

Yeah, but really I'm not complaining, but everything that could have gone wrong did.

The final blow? Actually coming so close to fixing the problem and I lose the tool down the dmned drain.

Well, at least it's early in the week and I've got my whole paycheck to blow on utilities and, maybe some charity ass from the local bar;

I don't care.

Well, it's about 2115 or so, and I think I'm about to sack out, as usual, take some Benadryl as a sleep aid (yes, 75 mg qd is perfecty safe, that's my usual dose even when drinking much more than q diem istem, and for years now it's not been any tolerance I've noticed).

Wake up tomorrow, get the ... yeah, that took about a minute flat to fish the table knife out of the drain in the bathroom.

So, apparently, some people can drink five liters of wine in nine hours and be functional, to th extent of repairing damages to one's domicile, and so forth.

And I'm pretty sure I'm going to wake up right as rain after eight hours of sleep, buy some stupid pencil lead, have a quick beer at the local, and wonder "why haven't I been studying my Red Hat Enterprise Linux" textbook.

Meh, I don't care. I want results and some pecker-wood from The Company is not going to ...

Eh.

Insert the last few bars from Debussy's "Feux d'artifice [sic]" from the bk.2 Préludes, or, for that matter, Liszt's outrageous arrangement of the same theme.

When I go, it's going to be anything to write "home" about: if it's in Bb and people can vamp up and down to the submediant and back to the tonic, ad infin., that's fine. But A's as sharp a key as I want to go. Db? Great. Ab? Excellent. None of this B major or E major. Says the person who probably grew a tenth of a millimeter in forearm muscles by playing blues in all those keys especially the sharp ones today in forty minutes or less.

You try it! Go ahead, play "Tipitina" or "Big Chief" or whatever regular tune in E or in B on a piano. It's a workout, both mentally and physically. I mean, it's the same tunes, but it takes a little bit of stretching and thinking. In that respect, jazz and Debussy should be a great encouragement to pianists and organists who don't want to just play the identical patterns in whatever key (yeah, it can be done, but it's a PITA many times: people invented those things on the keyboard in a specific key for a reason you know): namely, just go full melody and full harmony and, ideally, just go where the lead voice is going.

Hunh.

Apparently the better part of my judgment and looked at himself in the mirror, after cleaning up the oily T-zone, and decided, "No, I don't think we're going to drive the half mile to the grocery store," instead seeing: "WTF dude, it's the beginning of a Friday evening, and you look like fucking Nick Nolte right down to the tropical floral shirt, and what fucking reasonable person, even at the grocery store you visit like five sevenths of a week would sell you even beer?"

And still, I may resemble Nick Nolte's infamous mugshot, but I know how to...oh shit, all of my clothes are still in the laundry basket because I was too lazy to hang them all....w

Oh.

Well, scratch all that.

I sure do like them french fried pertaters, um-hunh.

To think, but a simple man, could do so little as to put on pants and a shirt and go buy some beer.

And yet, there is a man.

A Nick Nolte.

Shut up get out the way of my raccoon meat and pudding pie! I smell beer, who's holding! People magazine ain't what it was, sexiest man alive! Get off me, varmints, go find your own hole, because this is the way of the Nick.

Commander Riker, I'll thank you to confine your leisure activities to your own quarters, is that understood?

Well, apparently not much news.

I was glad to have four and a half pints of Pabst in cans, but only felt like getting up and woke to have a fifth of Old Crow at about 1100 or just after.

I haven't quite finished the "bottle," but I'm looking into it at the moment.

About seventeen units of alcohol, so that means I cut my alcohol intake from yesterday by 100%.

On the good note, I discovered that it's quite a bit more tricky to improvise a bassline and some simple harmonies in a minor key than one had thought. Vide, "Rawhide" sung by Frankie Laine, or the tune that Mia and Vincent danced to in PF, in C-minor.

For some reason, I never played a lot in C minor — I mean, it comes up, like in standards in Eb and some of the sad standards like "My Funny Valentine" and stuff, but it never seemed like the go-to key if...I don't know, somebody wanted to sing a "St James Infirmary" or something, it wouldn't be my first choice.

But, I think it's good as a "model key," and now that I have my pencil loaded with B lead, I'll probably just fool around with the sets of pitches.


No, C minor never occurred to me to use as a model key for regular circle-of-fifth tunes like "Green Leaves of Summer" or "Yesterdays" and stuff, but now I should probably think about it.

"Well it's not your job to be as confused as Nigel, now, is it?"

How long has this pattern of easy morning routes, full of inexplicable 4.5 hour routes, plus an afternoon packed of full-boat 46 on one side, 28 on the other, missing six on B, so we improvise staging at the top and improvise faking like we're improvising the remaining five at the top of A.

And yet, I am good at that one very thing — getting stuff where it needs to be, and picking up the slack where it's wanting.

And yet, where does that motherfucker put me today? On checkout, doing the computer scanner machine, where I still help where I can except I've got a fucking laptop around my neck like a need a bag on my hip.

I don't even know how this fucking computer machine works.

Way to go, dickhead.

I'm spending five minutes pushing a stalled car out of the warehouse, by myself, another five minutes rushing to get some cunt her damned safety vest which she forgot, the other five minutes of the same five minutes trying to get these motherfuckers out of the door before they start plugging the diners, and the same five minutes scanning some magical fucking fairy packages that aren't where there supposed to be.

And the next five minutes of the same five minutes, I'm grabbing a fucking flaming orange flag and trying to get the people in the damned door.

What a fucking convenient week for everybody to start showing up "sick," i.e., not showing up.

And I need this fucking PM flex crew like I need an asshole up my ass.

You know, I've never been so fucking hungover for months or maybe years the last few days.

Like, I'm telling you, it was a challenge shaving and putting on pants. That kind of hungover. Yeah, as opposed to the good kind, I know.

Fucking A.

I'm going to fucking love to hear what kind of stories everybody and his or her mother came up with this shit.

And fuck you, asshole: I don't work computer/check-out. If I ever feel like saying "OK, looks like you're good to go! Have a good one! Yep, you too!" in private, please just fucking shoot me.

What the fuck is that? These drivers aren't my goddamned customers: they deliver whatever the fuck I and my team says they do.

No there's no rulebook that says I have to be Mr. Friendly to them: managers don't give a fuck about that.

But, as a decent enough person, that's just my own rulebook. You know, just be nice.

Like I'm a fucking girl wearing pinafores socialized for this shit.

It just takes a lot out of me being some kind of "deal with this crappy driver who doesn't what the fuck she's doing," primarily because I do care, and I don't have it in me to put up a stonewall face.

But, fuck you Jason, you bastard.

You should have known goddamned better than to put me in that role for today. Sure, I can figure out the computer and whatever. Still, there are some limits.

Fucking motherfucker. Shit. Eat shit.

I mean, really.

The whole pattern for the past week and, it looks like, the coming week is a heavy assail of full-boat double and triple-staging, and yet the shift supervisor thinks his best scheduling play is to put me behind a rolling cart checking to see if the flex drivers are one or two packages light?

No.

Especially since I'm going to be doing a fair bit of prep-work myself.

No.

You get somebody who's happy to move heavy freight, especially when we're understaffed, you damned well use him or her. Pu____ima and Des__ée are just fine at checkout, as is that geek who is into R and SAS data analysis.

I suppose, cross-training is fine, but then again I also suppose my shift supervisor is an ancient pot-head who should probably get his head out of the 1970s.

So, not only is the job starting to include me, it seems, along with most everyone else, getting saddled with the added stress of having to play nursemaid to this crew of dipsht dumbass kids who are supposed to take over, with an hour of overlap, for the afternoon flex routes, but it seems Raet____a is on a forced paid "leave of absence" because she playfully gave a little slap to some supervisor, who apparently is a giant puss and decided to escalate it to some kind of "investigation."

From what I heard, they were pretty buddy-buddy and I guarantee Raet____a didn't have any evil intent.

It sucks, not just for her, but for the rest of us, because we're already short-staffed, and she was kind of a "glue" element that helped us feel like a complete team.

Not only was she always ready with a light-hearted joke, she was damned good at the job, and she had a lot of knowledge of the ins-and-outs of stuff about The Company as a whole.

And I liked her as a person, as did everybody, except apparently that dickless sonofabitch. Well, maybe not everybody, but she had a good way of bonding with people who were on her wavelength.

And it's raining.

And my desk lamp broke. And my office chair fell apart. And I haven't been sleeping well or eating well. And I'm going to be almost flat broke for the next few weeks due to some poor financial planning to cover utilities, car insurance, gas, and all that good stuff.

Goddammit, yet another thrilling example of the "new kids" on the PM "team" — who gave them the fucking idea that they just jerk off doing piddly little shit when they've got routes to go out?

And where's their fucking supervisors setting them straight?

I understand it takes a while to figure out what apparently is a new environment (well, a month now, if not longer), but you have us, including all of our supervisors, each of whom knows as much as me or any other regular person on the AM crew, soaked with sweat, busting ass all morning, making it work.

Supposedly, at some point, the PM team is supposed to take over, while the AM team takes care of housekeeping and getting things set up for "their" afternoon.

Which, if they're doing it right, they're not going to have time for.

Because they're supposed to be working on getting these flex motherfuckers in and out.

No. Apparently AM team does everything until PM team feels like they are somehow able to shuffle their feet a little faster and do their shit.

They're as useful as a dug up corpse.

As is management.

Bunch of flaming idiots.

I haven't union-bait in a long time. For one, some dickhead used some permanent marker on one of the men's room's stalls to scrawl some idiotic screed, and I suspect some people thought it was me, even though, while crass, I'm not going to make more work for the janitors. And some stupid posters on some outside walls.

That's all ridiculous.

However, while "work-to-rule" is obviously a non-starter, being unaffiliated workers, I think it might be a good idea if our AM team just held mgmt to their dictum and said "Fine, if PM team takes over at one PM, we'll spend from one to two PM doing prep-work. And if they get stuck, well, maybe they should have considered that."

Fuck it.

I'm done being in stress hours after work for stuff that isn't my problem.

The problem is that like all of my AM team, we do care.

But, just resist the urge and, when appropriate, carefully suggest that, "Since PM team can't handle from 1300 to 1400, why don't we just continue, and then at 1355:01, let them sink their own damn boats."

All right, tomorrow morning, assuming someone else doesn't bring it up first, I'll suggest that (i) PM team needs non-greenhorn supervisors or that (ii) AM team needs to cover for PM team for another hour while they're fucking around with their heads up their asses.

And yet, somehow by magic or force of will or something, AM team manages to stage 50+ routes in the fifteen minutes before the first flex drivers enter the warehouse.

Without the benefit of having other people take care of all the fucked-up carts in the drivelanes or stray bullshit.

Almost like we work together and get shit done.

Granted, it's not exactly music theory, or graph theory, or topology, but it's almost as though we manage to cooperate and work together. We do have a mentally-impaired person with us — I don't know if it's autism or something, but it's pretty severe, but I'd put him up against anyone as far as being where he's supposed to be and doing the right thing at the right time.

What is that, Monty Python, "well, it's getting better!"

Supposedly they "promoted" some of the PM crew to what they call "Ambassadors" (it's not a pay-raise, but they're supposedly people who know a bunch — that is not, actually, the case, because .... well, never mind, but many people just prefer to not take the added responsibility, unless they are trying to become a "shift supervisor" or something, or unless they don't know any better and are like "sure, I'll do that!"), but from what I observe of the PM crew's floor-level supervisors aka "Ambassadors," they don't know shit and make the barest of all efforts to control their crew.

AM crew's Ambassadors are...well, it's a mixed bag, depending on who you talk with and some personality conflicts...but at least they've been there a while and if I don't know the answer to a question, they or somebody else will, and since we've been working together a while we have that kind of rapport. And I'm a relative n00b to this crew, but the newer additions are getting the same consideration.

Except for K___en. Nobody likes her: she smells and is obnoxious and holier-than-thou about her previous shift. But she's OK.

Nat___lie, though! Yeah, baby. She's on the button. It's kind of funny, the lesbians on the crew have been over the past month or more sort of sniffing around, testing out where she's at. No, that's not a put-down, just me noticing on break, if she's in her car and see who comes over and asks her for a light for a cigarette, that kind of thing. I don't know, but she seems to like me well enough: eye contact, jokes, and things like that.

And she's pretty good at the job — at least it seems to me she picked things up quickly.

Open question as to where her "sympathies" lie, but AFAIC, she's just there to punch the clock and is, probably wisely, not interested in emotional connection with her coworkers.

OK, here's a good analogy that illustrates why I (and WVO Quine and any other reasonably literate person) detest the absurd faux-mis-pronunciation of "prah-sess-eez."

Does one say "divergen-SEEZ"? No.

One does not.

It doesn't matter the reason why this abomination occurs, just a neat analogy that popped into my head. I've never heard anyone say "divergences" that way IRL, but that's precisely the point.

Oh, and for reference or for those who are unfamiliar with this genial book, I'll note Quine's (liberal arts major, despite what that turd who writes that scum-sucking piece of shit cartoon claims) entry in his Quiddities : an intermittently philosophical dictionary [sic] under "Plurals":

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Liberal Arts Major Quine

An ignorant refinement that has unaccountably infested academic circles in recent decades is prŏcessēs, or prōcessēs....Why in God's name? It is not something these people grew up with. Do they think they are being scholarly about a Greco-Latin plural, as in basēs, crisēs, and proboscēs? Will they venture a singular processis? Or will they move on to horsēs and assēs?

---

And, yes, that took me forever to figure out how to reproduce the "ŏ" (inverted circumflex or unstressed or whatever the name is) symbol on the keyboard, but it was worth it.

Yeah. Next time I see this fucking silver-haired patrician-looking PM flex "Ambassador" just wandering around, I have one thing to say:

"How's your team doing so far, chief?"

I'm fucking getting older too, and maybe I got lucky that my hair isn't shock white like Ray Wise in Twin Peaks.

You better be fucking doing something for me other than looking like a token "old guy," you fucking crumble-cake. I know people with thirty years on you who can eat your lunch and come back for more.

Or else go back to fucking sort or pick packages out in Troutdale.

Fucking people with fucking attitudes.

Like a fucking bag up, in, and on my urethra do I need this.

Do something, you fucking empty sack.

Oh, well I guess it turns out in my timezone it is a new day.

I haven't been awake this long since a long time.

This is a silly observation, but since it just now happened, I suppose this is a good place for it.

For some reason I was just now playing that old tune "For Auld Lang Syne."

Trust me, you know it. Everyone knows it.

I have no idea what the words mean, but I was just going up through the keys at the keyboard.

All of a sudden, when I hit Bb, it struck me like a bolt of lightning!

Yeah, it was pretty miraculous — I was just making it sound good in odd keys like Gb and A and Db, and the whole key, so to speak, is just head down to the submediant (e.g., in Bb, just pretend you're playing "Didn't He Ramble" or, in a less oracular fashion, just prepare via the dominant chord for the Gm, i.e., the submediant key).

I don't know if that's the correct terminology, but it's certainly the right idea, and it makes playing intervals of a tenth a lot easier in the LH, since you can invert them to match the bassline descending motion.

Anyway, so that's good to remember for next time: when in doubt, just play it in Bb and just do it in all twelve keys on that basis.

Really not a tune that requires a lot of thought, but it can be uncomfortable to make it sound fluent with full chords and bassline in the LH in all of the keys.

When in doubt, invert it out. Or something.

Well, I'm not going to talk about work, which was a disaster, thanks to a number of imbecile civilians driving routes in their own shit cars. You deliver what I tell you, and that's final. And if your fucking car won't start back up after your done filling it with pizzas and kitty litter or whatever, that's not my fucking problem. We'll push it into the parking lot and say, "lots of luck, pal."

BUT, I did just now have an amusing thought. For some reason I was trying to remember the prominent Situationist author of Societé du spéctacle and finally remembered, "Guy Debord." Yes, it took me almost a minute of me snapping my fingers and staring off into space at my desk, but I remembered.

What is funny is that I never realized the several homophones his name has for regular English phrases.

I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader, but it amused me, sort of.

Well, that was good times. The one time I put in earplugs (actually just wetted pieces of paper — had to improvise — on account of some asshole playing EDM over the top PA speakers (tche, it's ridiculous), I do the unthinkable. Actually turned a cart over on it's side. It was empty, and new hire for the crew T-S, Ike (as, I suppose, he likes to be called, according to his name) picked up the slack and got my attention.

Strange fellow — he actually winked at me the first time we had a down time and I was like, "Hey, Ike, my names Jizzesondirtyundies, good to meet you." So, that was weird, but it's OK w me if he thinks I'm sort of some underground cabal or thinks ... couldn't say. Well, whatever, but I was lucky the cart didn't capsize onto some delivery person's car or someone's torso.

Well, whatever. I sure as hell hope the PM flex crew is finally getting the picture that, after 1300, I'm not doing shit to help them. Fuck 'em. All I know is whatever time of day it is, when I start it actually doing stuff. Hell, we've got a guy on our crew who happens to have some pretty severe cognitive disabilities, but he's at least he's actually doing stuff and he's not in the way and he generally has a good attitude. I'd put him up against ten of the slimy little cocksucking communist twinkle-toed shithead fairies...wait...well. at least he could do as our mascot.

Srsly, I wonder how some of these pickers for Flex manage to cross the fucking street.

All hopped on those EDM Grammy awards and dancing.

No, I am serious: about forty percent of the pickers are not doing jack shit except being punker rockers.

Fuck. Yeah, I did pick up an extra shift for tomorrow a 0500, and our respective picking teams will overlap for a little while.

So, yeah, I'm bringing four spare dry shirts and blah blah blah.

Fortunately, if some piece of rugburned stained-Hanes shitbird wiseass shift supervisor says one word to me about measuring breaks in terms of seconds, all I have to do is just disappear, reappear and submit via the browser on the phone (Microsoft Edge! Woohoo!) the hours as "sick time," and go wait out the shift in my car listening to Joe Henderson, waiting for the next shift to start.

I'm here to solve problems. If my help is not appreciated, then, well, lots of luck, fellas.

Yes, my basic approach to this job is that shared by Winston Wolf and everybody who had to be in charge of herding cattle, and getting them out, in a timely fashion.

Emotions are for pussies.

ETA The point I was trying to end up on was that I remember what damages I caused by being a FNG, and that it's hard to remember making rookie mistakes, but at the (literal) end of the day (def: whenever work stops), (no, I'm not going to make a formal recursive definition), but I didn't quite be able to do or make a good post.

Take it or leave it, I don't care. It's stil random and pointless.

You know, even though I dip into the well and take extra early morning shifts to keep my "skills" at having abraded fingertips, I'm fucking done with that.

Here's a little exchange between some gold-plated, copper-bottomed piece of shit. She used to work on the floor. So, it was free burritos (actually, they were good, and I generally don't eat at work or during the day).

She had the acumen to say, "No, you guys don't get burritos yet."

The short-bus acumen.

My response: "Wrong." (Literally). She seemed surprised at my curt dismissal of her problem. Fuck her. She's a shift supervisor

Her: "Oh, you're doing an extra time in the morning."

Me: "Right."

Only words you can say to those fucking fascist ego-trippers are: "Right," "Wrong," and "Let's see."

I hope she kills herself today. Waste of human sperm even if most of it ran down the crack of her mothers ass.

Heh.

I didn't think anything would come of this junket into network engineering, and I'm still not sure if what <insert owner's name> wants is a network/hardware engineer vs. more a marketing/web design person.

But, it seems like, according to my intermediary contact, who put in a good word for me — which counts, in this situation, what with this being (i) a small town and (ii) the owner's desire to keep people working at his "shop" to come from "inside the house," namely, regular people whom he doesn't have to vet or do background checks on (more or less he wants people from within "his" community, instead of just grabbing some names out of a phonebook) — at least I can look over his basic network design.

Meh. It's not really much, but I'll have a one-sheet of how to segment his internet traffic, and strongly suggest using quality of service (QoS) methods to inspect traffic and guarantee connectivity for things like POS and maybe all the video poker (I believe the OLCC governs video poker/keno, but I don't know how deep into internal networks they go — they may well have their own ISP dedicated to their little enterprise).

Meh. I'll type out a page with my contact info and a few qualifications/certs, some bullet points of what should be done, and probably draw in pencil or pen a rough sketch of what a good design would look like.

One page, maximum, and not my whole life history or anything like that: just the facts. Here's what you need, and here's how to do it.
ETA
And he's blind, and, apparently he knows who I am, probably from asking the bartenders and regulars.

And, I have zero idea of what he wants, so I'll just lay out on paper how his existing network should work, and account for any unexpected additions to the number of hosts and subnets/VLANs he may need in the future.

So, just a blank page with some stuff on it.

Such that someone can read it to him and tell him what's what.

Well, my experience with my newly-acquired wet wipes was a success.

The only part of my body that really reeks after a few days of just sitting around is the groin (specifically, the spot between the balls and the thighs — it is a very bad smell). Surprisingly, the actual ass left no visible residue, but the front-groin left a disturbingly yellowed mixture of...I have no idea, but it's not good.

Armpits, no problem. The wet wipes seemed to do as good a job as a washcloth with soap, plus liberal application of underarm deodorant. It's fine.

Naturally, I always wash my face with hot water and soap.

So, I feel pretty good to have another tool in my arsenal.

And, no, this isn't some philosophical or biological experiment — I just despise getting wet, towelling off, the noise of the bathroom fan.

It's an unpleasant chore to me, and I really don't like to do things like that aren't strictly necessary, or which have convenient shortcuts.

My hair probably stinks, but likely more of tobacco smoke than anything else, and it just looks better IMHO without having to apply "product" (alcohol-based hair gel) each time after washing.

So, I conclude that a whore's bath is just about as good as a wet-wipe bath, both of which are functionally (outwardly) equivalent to drowning yourself in a torrent of aerated water every day for two or three minutes.

Which has its place, but in frequency, not as often as many others seem to find for themselves.

I reserve showers for washing hair, scrubbing the back with one of those bristle-brushes with a wooden handle, without scruples or shame.

And that is what I did this morning.

If it looks good, smells good, and is combined with good grooming of hair, stubble, and dental hygiene, that is the complete set of desiderata.

A good day. To return some stuff to a Target I had the bright idea of going to the downtown Target after work, upon finding they validate parking. And was able to buy some 2B and 4B pencil leads at the big art supply store nearby.

AND, Target posted the credit to my debit card the very same day.

Which is nice.

And I ate fried chicken and a pretty good sandwich and only had three beers.

Hmmm.

Got about the most abbreviated, yet good haircut on a spur-of-the-moment impulse.

Well, I needed/wanted a haircut anyway: we can't all be as cool as Nick Nolte hiding in a place where a raccoon built a real cool nest where you can stash your GHB while waiting to make some burritos out of squirrel meat.

It was after work and my face was sweaty/oily and my hair wasn't clean, but no one ever complained before at a Great Clips about that.

The lady didn't complain either, although she did try to upsell me on a shampoo and rinse.

Fuck that, bitch — I'm going to wash my hair and shower afterwards to get all the loose hairs and whatever super-poly-grip product she slathered onto my hair afterwards.

Shit, motherfuck. The grey hairs at the roots are getting a little more foncés.

Meh, fuck all that.

Oh, but I think the cut was $18 US, and I tipped her two bucks.

I usually go a little bit more, but I realize that's a little over 11%. I felt a bit cheap.

But fuck that, five minutes in a chair while she reads the instructions from my last cut, plus her bitching at my to let her shampoo my hair.

Anyway, that's the chain's fault for pricing a stupid men's haircut so high.

I mean, she was nice and everything, but she wasn't anything special.

What's special? Take you in the back and suck your dick?

I'd go over twelve percent for that!

</gratuitous Reservoir Dogs quotes>

Oh, and my big genius revelation of the day:

one reason I dislike showering is that I don't trust the non-slip pad I have over the enamel.

I mean, it's just a false sense of security, and I don't trust it.

I trust my bare feet more, but enough soap and...it's like I spend most of my effort ensuring my foothold.

Trust me, I've used plenty of different showers, I know how to maintain balance.

I walk barefoot outdoors on gravel and hot asphalt all the time.

But still, it's a detail that perturbs me and uses up part of my brain that I should be using to get in and out of the shower PDQ.

BUT, GENIUS IDEA!!!!

So, I go to wherever they sell this kind of thing, buy some flip-flop sandals with a nice spongy, rubberized sole, then come shower time (which, honestly, could be every day for the amount of each day I spend soaked in sweat), pop those suckers on, and ba-bing, my showering task is about 500% easier.

Yeah, I know.

Hold your applause until I acquire such footwear.

But there will be applause.

Because that fucking cures all the problems.

QED.

Oh, and my big genius revelation of the day:

one reason I dislike showering is that I don't trust the non-slip pad I have over the enamel.

I mean, it's just a false sense of security, and I don't trust it.

I trust my bare feet more, but enough soap and...it's like I spend most of my effort ensuring my foothold.

Trust me, I've used plenty of different showers, I know how to maintain balance.

I walk barefoot outdoors on gravel and hot asphalt all the time.

But still, it's a detail that perturbs me and uses up part of my brain that I should be using to get in and out of the shower PDQ.

BUT, GENIUS IDEA!!!!

So, I go to wherever they sell this kind of thing, buy some flip-flop sandals with a nice spongy, rubberized sole, then come shower time (which, honestly, could be every day for the amount of each day I spend soaked in sweat), pop those suckers on, and ba-bing, my showering task is about 500% easier.

Yeah, I know.

Hold your applause until I acquire such footwear.

But there will be applause.

Because that fucking cures all the problems.

QED.

Fucking A damned right.

See?

This is what happens when two people of like minds get together after work for a beer.

It's called a date.

And it ends with a nice hug and all that in a public place, and without doubt that there's no doubt it's going to happen again.

Even if it's at 1415 after work, when you and she spend three hours talking and never getting bored, and nobody used the rape horn.

That's a motherfucking date, motherfucker.

And, yes, I am the man.

Oh, and apparently what, according to her, just in casual conversation, into thinking I was OK is "he works hard and seems to know what he's doing."

That surprised me — apparently she just isn't into slackers on the job.

Well, it takes all sorts, I guess.

She had no idea about anything about my intellectual pursuits or education: AFAIK, she just knew I was a career warehouse worker before today, but just one who worked hard and, presumably, she conveniently overlooked my habit of ogling women's behinds while performing my tasks.

She's a keeper.

And she's street-smart: obviously, I have her digits and stuff, but she's not going to go get liquored up and follow me to my car.

Of course I invited her, so according to my rules, the open tab was for her too, with the tacit understanding that when she invites me out, she can pay.

But, still, that's thinking smart — she doesn't want to be "owing" some guy something.

And she's thirty-four — so, that's not too young, she's just about right in age to not be some weird thing.

And, yes, you can guess, I'm very happy.

Not dick-wet happy, but I'm glad to have met a very interesting peron with whom I can talk for hours, and vice versa.

I think it's going to be a very good next few months.

Well, I made amends for my drunken texting (really I was just complaining about being a gimp in the leg these days, using colorful language). I just said "OK, here's my new rule: I'm not going to drunk-text you again."

She actually replied, concerned that maybe I thought she was "ghosting" me. She's doing sixteen-hour days at an intensive workshop in physical therapy-learning, so naturally I just responded and said she should take care of herself and that everything is chill.

So, that's kind of nice: no bridges burned.

And, anyway, in a way, I was kind of doing her a favor by showing what she would have found out anyway. Namely, that I'm not always the cleanest monkey in the cage. Best to get that out of the way sooner than later, so she has the true facts.

WTF????!!!!!

Driving home yesterday, not only did I see some moron chick weaving in and around the right-hand side of the road wearing old-school roller skates. In the street. Granted, this was in a residential/commercial neighborhood with low posted speeds, but still pretty busy traffic.

So, after nearly having a heart attack cautiously avoiding her and nearly front-ending another car in motion, what next?

Up an extremely busy highway — still, lots of pedestrians and cyclists and whatever, who usually are no problem, just be cautious on that stretch.

Not one, but two people riding those stupid electric scooters.

Which is fine, better than mowing down peds on the sidewalk, I guess.

Absolutely weaving back and forth in the right-side of the street, like they were doing that thing from Easy Rider playing around on motorcycles.

OH and here's nice. Again, smaller neighborhood-type roads. Bicyclist. Which is fine with me.

I think he about shit his pants and nearly rear-ended ME, when I decided to actually stop at a stop sign.

Bunch of fucking dumbass cretins.

Maybe not be smoking the pot so much, or whatever.

Free spirits, my ass.

No kidding.

I got this tip for my posterior tibial tendonitis from a coworker who used to play baseball in college — maybe she still does athletic things, for all I know, but she knows a lot and I can tell it's not bullshit.

Athletic tape/kinesio tape — lots of different names and brand names, but they all seem about the same to me.

There are some rather specific wrapping techniques that address problems in various tendons of the foot/ankle, which can be a bit complicated, but I for one am very glad to have this tool at my disposal.

I'm trying a double-wrapped arch support this evening, but tomorrow I look forward to trying a different technique, since I don't believe my arch needs much support (although it seems to help).

Pauca intelligenti: I do believe that using alcohol swabs to clean the skin helps the tape adhere, at least for this brand I'm using (3M Nexcare — only one at the grocery store's pharmacy). The package suggests shaving the area, but fortunately my ankles and feet are not especially hairy. I haven't tested this, but the tape I'm using is not overwhelmingly adhesive, probably because people don't want the epidermis being removed along with the tape during "changing times."

ETAIt is counterintuitive, since the arch of the foot is not painful to me, but the bolstered support of the arch does indeed seem to relieve stress on the offending tendon.

You know, there may be something to this medicine science mumbo jumbo.

Hmmm. Well, I think I covered the more interesting stuff today in other threads.

Or else I can't remember and it doesn't matter.

But this was about my third or fourth foray into doing an actual crossing the white dotted line to discourage some gearhead leadfoot motorhead from passing on the right, in a transparent needle-dick move on the part of the corn-hole fanatic.

And, yes, I learned that from car-chase movies of the 1970s.

In all cases, it was not a close distance manoeuvre, just me deliberately blocking the right hand lane whch was about to merge into the LH lane in about a hundred meters or so.

I think I'm just plain a dick, who thinks it's my duty to shut them crackers down, while in no way impeding traffic by failing to adhere to the flow of traffic.

Or else a narcissist who insists that the rules of the road are flexible, but not subject to ad-hoc changes, and that my method is correct.

Also, I think my steering wheel hand position is objectively correct: hands at five and seven, at the bottom of the wheel.

And people who don't drive with their headlights on at all times are fools.

Well, I finally got to use my dork quote, "MMMMMmmmm. That IS a tasty burger!" in person while actually being served a burger, not a fur burger, today.

It really was a good burger, and the cook who brought it up to the bar got the reference. Yeah, he's like laughing and saying "Thanks, Sammy!"

As all good people should.

Burger+Ham+Fried Egg+tomatoes, onions, good mustard, cheese, and I think the cook snuck some bacon on there just because.

Full side of french fried pertateroes </slingblade>.

Yep.

Unfonrtunately my bartender pal girl didn't notice when she said, thity seconds after it arrived and I ate it. after cutting in half, "You must have liked that!"

"Mmmm....I sure do like the taste of a good burger! Me, I usually can't get 'em .... " etc.

Oh well, the cook got my appreciation, and damned right I throw cash left and right for tips when it's good. And I'm not a rich man.

Fucking A, yeah, it's worth it;.

ETA, and yes, always cut the burger in half before diving in. There will be finger things to pick up at various points during the savaging, but IMHO it is just good form to make an attempt.

Not much. Interesting experience on the way to work. My usual route has maybe a mile and a half of a neighborhood road full of potholes, and through-traffic is generally controlled by what I think are called "round-abouts." Anyway, the side-streets have stop signs, and we circle around through these round thingies every few blocks or so.

So, naturally, I yield to a few pedestrians who are crossing at an interestion.

But this fucking bicycle cunt, noticing I'm stopped, but apparently had no idea why, decided to just blow her stop sign and proceed.

I took great pleasure in proceeding as though she didn't exist and heard her slam on her bicycle brakes and the trailer she was towing hit the rear end of her bicycle.

Stupid bitch.

You're traffic you piece of crap, and I don't discriminate. If you can't control your vehicle, stick to walking, unless that's also too difficult.

/////////////////

BUT, great news, my Zenni Optical replacement glasses arrived in the mail today.

I just used the same frames I have for my prescription sunglasses since I didn't want to shop through their catalog and they already had my prescription.

I think they're adequate, and I'm tired of metal frames: the little nose pads always get fucked up, and I don't think the color/style is obnoxiously hipster. Plus, they're lightweight, and very simple in design. One piece for the front, and then two branches plus the springs or whatever.

And they seem to have an OK prescription: at least I can see out of them better than without.

https://ibb.co/dWfyqbW

////////

OH, I should edit and say I figured out where some interesting abrasions on the driver's side body of the car came from. Well, I was still in control of the vehicle. I just didn't think those little plastic divider thingies would leave a mark.

Or else it was neighborhood kids, probably.

Fine, I'm a shitty driver prone to taking impulsive, yet calculated risks.

But I've never had a moving violation in my life!

Just...minor damage has sometimes occurred.

Perhaps, mistakes have been made.

But never proved! Or charged!

My blood pressure, measured by a real doctor, after having had six beers, a giant sandwich made of cured, salty meats and vegetables, and about ten cigarettes, is 110/70.

Suck on that, old people!

My weight? Not so good. Its all muscle, I tell you. And some water weight. Nothing to see there. I still wear a size 36 pants, so it's not that bad.

Apparently the doctor thinks 800 mg of ibuprofen 3x qd is OK, so at least my insurance picked up the tab for that and I can take one horse-pill sized ibuprofen instead of gobbling handfuls of Advil throughout the day.

He wrote me a referral to X-Ray for the ankle/foot, but I don't think I'm going to bother with that.

So, like I suspected, he didn't really tell me anything I didn't know, except tthat higher doses of ibuprofen can be tolerated by many people for durations of several weeks or longer.

But, good to have a real opinion rather than my own fake, made up opinions (which are right, but not necessarily for the right reasons).

Oh.

So, between work and going to the doctor's office I decided to do what some people probably consider "bad" or something.

It was some old KJV of the bible, I don't remember why I had it at my place Great-Grandma Anne couldn't get no nothing else to read, I guess.

So, since I usually carry the Psalter (Vulgate book of Psalms) in my pants/shorts pocket, so as to have something to read if I have to pass the time, given that I usually only understand the "gist" of the Latin, I did the unthinkable and tore Psalms I->XXIV out of this KJV bible.

Holy shit.

That is the worst fucking thing I have ever read in my life.

Yeah I know, blah blah, James VI, cunning linguist, assembled the best.

That translation doesn't have any fucking thing to do with the Vulgate.

Fuck you, KJV.

I don't know what's wrong with me: I'm pretty sure in Nat___ie's mind I've gone from "that guy who I went out with once who was really fun to talk with and knew a bunch of stuff and seemed to like me" to "that fucking idiot who seems to get drunk every other day and keeps texting me."

Well, that's OK.

But here's the part of more concern: when I think about her, I pretty much only think about the act of cunnilingis. Spelling uncertain. There's no mistaking what I'm talking about, however.

It sends me into a kind of trance, which is influenced by the libido, of course, but is not necessarily accompanied by other symptoms of aroused senses.

Well, I'm pretty sure I figured out where that word "poonhound" comes from.

Like a bloodhound or some other kind of hunting dog.

Except for poon.

Well, before retiring this evening I did have a chance to visit the grocery store for supplies.

One of those great ejaculations one pronounces out loud, as one does, until being interrupted mid-stride by noticing some very polite people rounding the corner.

Yeah, it was a good one:

"Goddamned, it's like a refrigerator made by retards....." and, after noticing the two younger women (probably mother and daughter), "Er...excuse me."

I'm officially turning this thread, proviso ad istem temporem, into "Random Petty Complaints About Something Today."

WTF, dude?

So, I have an older car. A vintage car, if you will. It happens to have a 6-CD changer, and I happen to have a pretty large collection of audio CDs, so it works out fine.

WTF, dude?

The only CD I can get to play is The Three Sounds with Stanley Turrentine, called Blue Hour.

It is a classic record, even though Gene Harris does a lot more block chords than straight-up blues single-note on the piano keyboard.

It takes fucking forever to systematically test each slot in the changer for fresh discs.

So now I got to go grab a dozen or so new discs (off the shelf at home — in sleeves, including artwork, but no "jewel" boxes), on the assumption that the ones I've left in the car (yes, I can see some visible scarring on the Lonnie Smith Turning Point CD, but none of the others).

I suppose I could just sit in my carport with a six-pack and run through discs and see what happens.

Yes, I know about the so-called "cleaning" disc.

Likely what happened is that a combination of use, heat, and environmental corruption has made the device unpredictable.

STILL, I suppose there's worse albums to be stuck with. I'm sure never going to forget "Gee Baby, Ain't I Good To You" ever again, nor have a lapse of memory playing "I Want A Little Girl." But I already knew those tunes.

All right, I'm fasting from food today, tomorrow, and Saturday, excepting a small glass of milk to wash down my 800mg ibuprofen.

And some beer.

I'm grabbing...what can I stand to listen to.

All of Joe Henderson's Blue Note albums.

"Somethin' Else" of Cannonball.

Alfred Brendel's recordings of Mozart, piano+orchestra.

All of Sonny Clark (already tried Dial 'S' for Sonny, but the rest).

All of of Elmo Hope (already tried one of his sextet/quintet records).

Bud Powell! All that shit, bring it!

And, all the Aretha Atlantic records.

Mmmmm.

I suspect I'm going to run out of beer before I get done cycling the disc changer through all these.

THEN, I shall try discs burned with mp3 files.

Life is rather tedious.

Gawd I like just sitting in my chair, rather than fucking with automotive crap.

Yeah, yeah, somebody put a bullet in Moe Greene's eye, and I didn't complain, and there isn't even a plaque in that city.

Well, that wasn't so bad. I worked the door at work, which is boring as shit, but didn't aggravate my posterior tibial tendon. The twat they have filling in while our regular twat is still on vacation is pretty nice, but she's fucking an idiot.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

After grabbing a few beers after work I decided to return this stupid bike shit pump to WalMart. No receipt, and I forgot to replace the little plastic widget thing on the end. Doesn't matter, it was still garbage, but they accepted the return anyway.

Sunday, so the freeways were pretty open. The store itself was a goddamned catastrophe of hell.

But I had a five USD gift card courtesy of Microsoft and bought six pairs of socks and some flip-flops, in addition to having credit restored for that shitty pump.

I guess that about pays for the gasoline spent.

And I got lost coming back so went through some of the old southwest part of Portland Heights and it wasn't so bad.

It happened I ended up by a Target I'd been meaning to stop in to buy another pair of these shorts I like I bought there a few months ago.

No. Apparently I bought the last pair of OK shorts they ever sold there. I didn't see anything but ridiculous, overpriced garbage that should have been in a garage sale.

Oh, and suburban twats don't know how to fucking drive.

Bought travel insurance today. For the first time, had to answer medical questions because I'm now 60.

It's all down hill from here.

Well, I didn't spend my day staring down the Grim Reaper and his actuaries, so there's that.

I did get to see that the best "fit" AMZ can come up with for a temporary shift supervisor is one of the worst, most incompetent, clueless people I've ever interacted with. One of a select handful in other areas, but still up there.

I'm taking as much time possible off from work until this seaward woman is drowned or returned to her hell-realm. And especially given that this is a special season for AMZ, the coming week.

Winston Wolf: "I'm here to solve problems. If my help is not appreciated, then, well, lots of luck, fellas."

Really. My team knows what we're doing, and we need some idiot fucking with our close cooperative, efficient teamwork like we need a bag on the hip.

If our core team had followed suit and just taken a few days off (which is permitted — just fill out the paperwork online) the next few days, maybe the message might get through to CornJob Central in the Excel Warriors' suite.

Nah, they're all a bunch of pussies. But they're my pussies. I think they're nuts to put up with this shit, but whatever.

Oh yes: in case one forgets, please don't ever EVER "test" one's marine air horn after it's been filled to 100+ psi.

Especially not in a semi-enclosed space. Not even in a car with a window rolled down.

I'm pretty sure that's about the same amount of earhole damage as discharging a big firearm without ear protection.

Oh well, it's only rock and roll and we like it.

Geezub, thhinking back a few hours.

Yes. literally a few hours. Like eight or so hours. Or whatever, but it was still today.

Yeah, so sure, I roll in and am liike "fill it up, regular, card." (Yes, I received a settlement check for an LCD screen thing, so I splurged).

I think the actual fucking manager at the time (it's one of two local cab services in town) came out as I was filling up my marine air horn using the hose near one of the pumps.
'
I told him, "Yep, it's a marine air horn. Trust me, I'm not going to sound off, just filling it up, boss."

The guy really did remind me of Roddy McDowall (sp?) in DMCL.

My metric of getting old is that there is not one place I frequent on a daily basis where I'm not known.

Not in a bad way.

I'm pretty sure most customer servants are just like, "Hey! It's that guy! He's OK!"

Better living through customer service, I guess.

Oh, also, note to self and probably other people: trust me.

Just don't use the marine air horn, even when it seems appropriate.

Example: some woman complaining to her mate which one happens to overhear because it is so fucking loud.\\

Trust me.

The marine air horn is not only louder, but it's really not good to use except if you're at sea or something. I.e., it's really fucking loud.

Just don't use it.

Without ear protection.

Just like the guns.

Use it. Or them.

But use ear protection.

And also only in extreme prejudice.

Well look at that. I was all pissed off at the interim shift manager last week (along with everyone else — nice bonus, she suddenly wasn't here today), and slightly drunk, so I put in a request for a medical leave of absence for my posterior tib tendonitis (it is not a joke, I saw the doctor at my own expense and everything, and have been ruining my stomach by taking 2400-3200 mg of ibuprofren daily for a few weeks).

It happens to be "Prime Week" at Amazon during which personal time off is "blacked out" as in unavailable, so I admittedly put in the request just to fuck with that demented imbecile of a substitute manager, in addition to my legitimate medical needs.

Hey, you don't ask, you don't get.

Naturally, some body from a distant HR center e-mailed me and told me what forms to fill out.

Apparently somebody fucked up and I am noted as on "leave of absence," so when I punch in, it's as "account inactive."

So now some manager just has to manually fix all of that.

And that, people, is why you always insist on getting things in writing, as I always do.

No voicemail messages, no "Sissy Spacek told me I could have the dogs for free."

Writing.

Currently my pain is only about a two or three out of ten, as opposed to six, seven, or eight over the past weeks, thanks to faithful application of ibuprofren, so I just show up and if they don't pay me, well, foot goes right in someone's ass.

I think Jake Blues's diet might not have been real. At least for me, eating one whole fried chicken twice in two days is a bit much. You know, minus the head and the spine and the feet.

Also, I am not happy about the new "news about John" at the Company: so this coworker, I overheard her saying in the breakroom she teaches French at a local school, and so we ended up chatting for quite a while. She was way over the top about praising how good I spoke and that my accent wasn't the typical American one.

Anyway, she's a nice lady and I enjoyed speaking with her and talking about how higher ed can be a PITA in some ways, and as a bonus, nobody else could understand if they were listening.

But then I think as we were all signing out to go home she started gushing to everybody else about blah blah what a cool fluent dude I am and all this shit.

Now particularly these two younger kids on my shift are like, think I'm some kind of professor god or something. Yes, I told them it's just in the past, like having the measles. "I always thought academics were stiff, but you're cool!"

Jeez.

I mean, it's nice of them or whatever and maybe they haven't met a lot of people who did that thing for a while, but it's really not something I'd prefer to be general knowledge. I just prefer to be seen as a regular jackass, which indeed I am. Except when chatting with some francophone African immigrant van drivers and bitching about stuff or saying really vile things under my breath.

Of all the things to get excited about — I'm pretty sure loads of people speak lots of languages in the warehouse. Anyway, I'm not some master of the language: I know how to order drinks and crudely proposition women in a somewhat-polite way without using a smartphone "app," and other stuff, but I'm not interested in having my whole biography known widely, because I can't remember it that well myself.

TODAY. I received a settlement check from the class-action suit about LCD screens which was about EXACTLY the amount needed for parts and labor of replacing my RF strut mount, which was extremely severely damaged from potholes. To the extent that the hood is bent from the inside by contact with some intermediary in the engine compartment, i.e., "under the hood."

So, I made an appt with the people who diagnosed the problem, for free, viz., Les Schwab (I don't know if it's a national chain or whatever, but it's pretty big in these parts).

Arrived early, dropped the "valet key" off, and a couple of hours later, there she was.

Now I can call the car a "she" instead of a hulking, groaning creaking sack of indeterminate sex.

Still has the gorilla tape "covering" the massive rear end damage, and also holding the driver's side sideview mirror on, but she's getting on in years, so that's all cosmetics.

////////////////

In the interim I limped over (yes, the tendonitis gets progressively worse as the week ends, so I probably should have rented one of those Bird scooters or whatever) to my usual place of recreation, had about too many beers, did the WSJ crossword (I think I finished it — whatsisface who edits that one is slipping, IMHO, although it's been years and years since I used to really "do" crosswords), scanned most of the Business&Finance section (I didn't read the A section yet).

So I got some quarters and was practicing pool, starting with my usual set-up: 14 balls racked, one ball tossed randomly, and toss the cue ball anywhere, just like a continuation in a straight pool game.

Sucked. Even worse than usual.

Played two games with some dude — pretty much the traditionally what you'd expect in a working class dive bar, rides a Harley, fim handshake, all that.

I've never been more convinced that someone deliberately dumped some shot than today. I've seen people let up a little bit, and even done it myself, even though I don't have much to begin with, but just to be friendly, not like "fuck you, I'ma kill this table right now! game over!"

No, this guy dumped some easy shots, just to keep the game going.

And I mean missed the shots in a very realistic way. And even sometimes not missing a shot but just doing some impossible feat, like trying to cut a ball into a far corner along the rail past the horns of the center pocket. Like even I know that's not going to happen, like ever. I think it might be physically impossible.

No, it wasn't any money/beers game, just like killing time, and I'm not being paranoid. I think he just liked totally showing off "hey, it's just a game, but I totally rule, plus I ride a motorcycle and don't need to brag, because it's all cool, all right, man, good luck with your car!"

Not that I'm not cool personally myself, but this guy just whipped my ass in probably every aspect of life.

Eh, I thought I decided a long time ago that it's "viz," not "viz." Yeah, it's pig latin for "vide licet," or whatever, but I'm pretty sure it's better spelled in English as just "viz." It's not short for anything, except what it is.

Fucking bastard shit motherfucker.

I fucking hate making mistakes. And yet, here I am. Goddamnit.

Stepped on a rusty nail. That sucks, I guess. I think you're supposed to wash it or something. Or file an incident report with HR. Or both.

Got out of work early.

Probably not coincidentally, that's been the only time I've ever driven up this road on my commute during daylight hours and not seen the stupidest driving I've ever seen. It's almost like people weren't demented morons with lack of experience driving.

Woke up and that fucking bitch in the condo office put a "friendly reminder" to "see us about a parking permit" under my windshield wiper.

Dumbass fucking cunt. I have a fucking pass, I just don't hang it over my mirror because (i) I keep it with my registration and insurance information because the car cannot be driven legally and safely with it in place (ii) dude, you fucking idiot, I gave you my fucking license plate and everyone knows goddamned well what car I drive, because it's parked in the same fucking spot since forever.

So, thoughtfully I had a black Sharpie in the car and was able to scrawl in caps, "FUCK YOU CUNT" on the permit as I dutifully placed it in the window.

All in all, a pretty good day, actually.

Oh, also, this just in.

Yes, it's tempting, and the dogs' yappings are very bad, but really, don't use the marine horn without ear protection.

It's really loud.

I don't mean like "zomg that fire alarm is so loud!" or "that warning signal at the warehouse hurts my tender earballs."

It's pretty much a lot different.

So don't do it.

/////////

Oh, this was weird or remarkable: this guy "Fr____" who works two days that overlap with mine, new hire, older guy, you know, probably late-fifties or so. Chill dude, knows a lot about jazz, so we've chatted quite a bit during downtimes about stuff like Les McCann and everybody. I noticed yesterday he had a hat on that said "NYU dad" and was like "yeah, cool! you got a kid in...." blah blah.

Anyway, he apparently "forgot some shit" in his locker and was just walking around the aisles where he spotted a whole pack of us just whittling time away, and he was all like, first thing, made a bee-line to me and gave me his card and said "You know, I've just really enjoyed you letting me talk about jazz a lot, and any time you're around playing, let me know and I'd like to hear it."

Well, it appears he is an attorney at law....wait a sec...yeah, it's legit.

So, anyway, when I see the card, I'm like "Oh, is he going to want to do a thing about personal injury or if I need counsel against the Goliath in the future?"

No, I don't think so.

Well....yeah, actually. I'm not sure what he was doing working for...what, three weeks?....at some shitty manual labor job....

I don't know, and don't really care, but I guess I have a local attorney who has his own practice who wants some business or at least a jazz show out of it. I told him "Man, well, I don't really bring out my gear anymore, but you never know, I might get a call someday." (I know two local attorneys, friends [one, from childhood, the other, BFF with my sister during her high school], but they work for big firms and have specializations).

So, that was weird, but I guess I have my own soul-brother Saul Goodman on my team, without rifling through the yellow pages. Should the need arise.

I somewhat doubt I'm going to see that guy again, but he was an amiable-enough dude, and was pretty knowledgeable about jazz music, and, when he pestered me enough to reveal some of my interests, French literature and...

What a character. I like that: Gray Panther Saul Goodman drums up business for his sole proprietorship LLC. Probably was a bit too young for the real revolution of black power and is trying to get some back.

Yeah, I didn't want to describe a whole thing about it, but anyway, that was pretty random and pointless.

Shit. I don't even want to speculate. Hell, it's definitely an oddity. And true story! I wish I could make stuff like this up, but then I'd have to spend hours over the fucking keyboard. .....

FULL CIRCLE!!!!

That last remark reminds me of one of Barry Smith's points in his paper with Jorst (?) Landgrebe ..... the one that demonstrates why generalized AI is a retarded fantasy...oh, yeah, the notion of a Turing respondent will not be able to satisfy the completeness-despite-loci-of-indeterminacy-pace-ingarden (my terminology).

Oh, I think that's what they call "rambling," so that's more than enough.

OK. Yeah, he's legit in his profession, but over the past few weeks (I don't know what the amounts to in terms of days spent working together — no more than twelve days), I get the idea, given his volubility (and he has the knowledge to back it up), and our discussions about what an UG education costs, and his apparent pride in talking (not much, just a bit here and there — he's cautious) about his son and daughter and their UG experiences, and how he wanted to give that to them, business is slow for him, and he just was slumming it a bit for the experience.

Maybe make a few hundred extra bucks for a treat for himself or something. I don't know.

That and probably just (i) bored of sitting around the office waiting for the phone to ring and (ii) wondering how come his kids are in the big coastal areas and (iii) might as well make a few bucks just standing around chatting with people.

That's my best guess.

Second day in a row, driving home at my usual time.

No assholes driving up my route back home! (ETA, OK, fine, probably every single person on the road was a fucking dickhead, including me, but it didn't show in their driving).

I think Abbie Hoffman or somebody put something in the water, and I approve.

Pretty goddamned good!

I was making a first attempt to tidy up my place and I guess I felt a little guilty about the many, many, many beer cans and such I've just tossed out, so I bagged up what turned out to be like a couple hundred empties, just in my office (a shocking amount — I'd forgotten that half of the floor existed).

So, in my US county, most grocery stores are not required to accept and pay out the ten cent bottle deposit.

Instead they have some private contractor called BottleDrop that takes care of that.

I managed to find the one nearest me and go out there. I was headed out that way anyway, so for you eco-people, it didn't really burn much more gas. Obviously, the gasoline used far, far outweighed the miniscule "savings," if any, from my own recycling, but whatever. I got almost twenty bucks cash and got to people watch and amuse myself on a day off.

Pretty unremarkable, smooth process. It was a Friday at about 1030, but there was still a decent line of people. Lots of mothers with their children and stuff.

HOWEVER, apparently the machine says "Our business does not accept this brand" or something like that to Olde English 400 bottles.

Remarkably strange. The machine accepted everything else, including all kinds of ghetto beers a lot stronger than OE.

Weird things are happening!

Quote:

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Originally posted by Jizzelbin

So, thoughtfully I had a black Sharpie in the car and was able to scrawl in caps, "FUCK YOU CUNT" on the permit as I dutifully placed it in the window.

All in all, a pretty good day, actually.

---

All I did today was

(i) think about laundering towels and blankets in hot water, and then not do it, because doing laundry sucks

(ii) walk out to my car with a roll of Gorilla tape and tape the permit to the lower RF edge of the windshield from the inside. Yes, it still says "FUCK YOU CUNT" (which is an ambiguous statement — it could be an amatory advance or an alert to an adversary).

(iii) wonder if the permit (iiia) is visible enough to that cunt property manager (iiib) is liable to be lost when I drive with the LF window down, which is nearly always (iiic) think about taking a photograph of the vehicle from the outside with the permit displayed as backup

(iv) i innerly rejoice at having mastered the art of walking in flip-flops, and am considering making it my only footwear. void where prohibited.

Hunh.

Yeah, I was thinking about the first scenes in the movie The Blues Brothers and how, at the age of seven coming up, my middle nephew kind of reminds me of Jake Blues. Before, he reminded me of Lou Costello, but now I think he's doing it on purpose, the few times I see him, just to be a funny guy.

So, anyway, I watched a bit of the movie again and at the start of the James Brown scene, I was "inspired" to go to the piano and do...well, I just did the theme from The Jeffersons. I think that's also in G, IIRC, but it doesn't matter.

I found it uncomfortable to play in, so I just moved to Bb.

I really tried to do the bassline to "Compared to What" and keep it going while doing something in the RH, but about all I could manage was to drift into "Think" and then just into whatever that Aretha tune is, like "Since You Been Gone."

I don't know. I'd been playing a bit earlier in Bb, just like good old stuff.

I found it difficult to play some octave runs in the RH (you know, just improvising some around the melody with the RH), and I found it difficult to keep that on-top-almost-ahead-of-the-beat feel going. Yeah, I mean, that's how I hear bebop and everything, but for more roots kind of music, I hear the beat implied and my LH is steady and it's the RH that is driving that "on top of the beat" feeling, just with some punctuations up in the top of the keyboard.

Oh shit.

I think I really jizzed in the bartender's box big time.

Well. You know, a couple of bucks, whatever, but I like to play the game fair.

So, yeah I think I had about five pints, plus a burger, so, that's like $30, or so, right?

No, when I was signing the charge/debit slip, she only put me down for six dollars worth of beer (plus the burger, so add ten for that, plus a dollar in quarters for the pool table!

Well, I tip ten bucks, figure that's fair for a $17.50 check.

No. She comped me probably two drafts for whatever reason, so, the tip should have been twelve dollars.

Ah. That's not worth worrying about.

Still, that's the old school rules! Even if it's a few extra bucks.

Quote:

---

Originally posted by Jizzelbin

Oh shit.

I think I really jizzed in the bartender's box big time.

Well. You know, a couple of bucks, whatever, but I like to play the game fair.

So, yeah I think I had about five pints, plus a burger, so, that's like $30, or so, right?

No, when I was signing the charge/debit slip, she only put me down for six dollars worth of beer (plus the burger, so add ten for that, plus a dollar in quarters for the pool table!

Well, I tip ten bucks, figure that's fair for a $17.50 check.

No. She comped me probably two drafts for whatever reason, so, the tip should have been twelve dollars.

Ah. That's not worth worrying about.

Still, that's the old school rules! Even if it's a few extra bucks.

---

Shit. That should have been $15 tip plus the $17.16 or whatever.

No, she's not warm for my form, and, vice versa, sure, but she's more like a kid sister or something to me, so, it's not like that.

You know, how can you put a price on somebody who intuits when you want some quarters for the pool table, or magically appears with a fresh beer at exactly the right moment?

Well. yeah, you can put a price on it. It's called a tip, motherfucker. That's why it's a bar and not your home kitchen.

woo hoo!

Just passed emissions control and reregistered my ride (my state doesn't do mechanical inspections, and in the more populated areas they have to check that you're not driving the Bluesmobile around in terms of emissions).

Fuck, I hate driving out the way. It's kind of a ritzy exurb, and people drive like shit out there.

But it's done, and I was only technically illegal for like four days total after expiry of the old one.