Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Survey

10 Firsts:

First Best Friend: Ironically, the same best friends I have now, JR and Joel.
First Screen Name: AndySnacks....though I did chat a few times under the name "Wolf." Back when I thought I was cool.
First Piercing: Will never happen.
First Crush: Hmmmm....Probably the daycare girl named Kim that played basketball with us. I thought she was awesome.
First Music: I remember thinking MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" was the pinnacle of modern music. I had a big crush on Hilary Brown because she was the only person other than me that knew exactly when to say "STOP! Hammertime!"
First Car: 1985 Ford Bronco II.
First love: First girl I said I love you too I didn't mean it....then I kinda kept the word in check. Don't think I really used it again until Rachel. So I guess Rachel would be my first love.
First stuffed animal: Don't remember, but that blanket with the Rocking Horse stuck with me until college.
First Job: Working summers at basketball camps and baling hay for my dad. First "real" job was working at a ski resort in Colorado for the summers.

9 Lasts:
Last Cigarette: That would be never.
Last Alchoholic beverage: Also does not apply to me.
Last Car Ride: Rachel and I took a trip to Albertson's to buy some Beaver Tracks ice cream about 2 hours ago.
Last Movie Seen in theatres: Wow, it's been a while....seriously I don't remember. I think it was the 40 Year Old Virgin.
Last Phone Call: My dad...we were talking wedding.
Last Kiss: Rachel, about half an hour ago when she went to bed.
Last CD Played: my mix cd with the new Gorillaz song...watch the way I navigate ha ha ha ha ha
Last Bubble Bath: Around 1988....care bears bubble bath. Turns out I was allergic and got all puffy and itchy. I stay away from the bubbles now.
Last time you cried: When my grandma died.

8 Have You Ever:
Have You Ever Been Out Side The Country: Canada, around 1995.
Have You Ever Dated One Of Your Best Friends: Never one of my best friends....had a few that wanted to date me, but I never went that route.
Have You Ever Been Arrested: Can't say that I have.
Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: Only inadvertently....it was a pretty big wave.
Have You Ever Been on TV: Yeah a few times.....most recently the news did a piece on the Civil War and interviewed me the night before the game.
Have You Ever Kissed Someone and Then Regretted It: Oh yes....more than once.
Have You Ever had a Suggestive Dream About Someone You Knew: All the time...not in the past few months though. It's funny, because then you see that person, and you wonder if it'd be like it was in your dream, and you act all funny around them for a few days.
Have you ever cheated: Never.

6 Things You've Done Today:
1. Watched the White Sox win the world series
2. Went to Subway
3. Ate some ice cream
4. Talked to JR
5. Made dinner
6. Took it easy at work to make sure I had just enough work to last the day and not have to do any extra.

5. Things you ate today:
1. honey nut cheerios
2. ham and turkey sandwich on italian herbs and cheese bread
3. fish sticks
4. peas
5. Beaver Tracks Ice Cream!

4. People You Can Tell [ALMOST] Anything to:
1. Rachel
2. Grant
3. Joel
4. Oh pretty much anyone can fit in this last spot...I'm an open book.



3 Choices:
1. Black or White: Gray
2. Hot or Cold: cold
3. Sun or Rain: rain

2 Things You Want to Do Before you die:
1. Visit Ireland
2. Learn to play some sort of catchy instrument like a banjo or harmonica or something.

1 thing you regret: Not actively pursuing a chance to play basketball at a small college.
I've noticed over the past weeks, I've felt the seductive breath of the internet on the back of my neck much less. Perhaps it's because I spend 8 hours a day at a computer now. Coming home and hopping online sounds like going back to work to me. But, as it is my best, and in some cases, only means of communicating with some people, here I am, soldiering on.

Apparently disaster relief isn't going so well with Wilma. Is anyone really surprised at this point? I wonder if are these problems with all natural disasters and we just never hear about them because they happen on the other side of the world. When hurricane Andrew hit, or hurricane Charlie, did these long lines and lack of resources not happen? Is it just the fact that we've got national guard all over the world, there's been an unusually high number of disasters in the past 10 months, or what? Or is everyone just jumping on the "I'm not getting my way" bandwagon and bitching more? I wish I knew.

OSU is all up in arms about a perceived racial bias by the Barometer. In a story about the football team's actions on the wrong side of the law, pictures of two football players were shown. Coincidentally, both these players were black. Now everyone thinks they're not showing the white players as bad. I think this is a product of hypersensitivity more than anything. Everyone's worried about racism, so they invent it where it isn't. Had both players been white, nobody would be saying "they're not accurately representing the football team." In fact, in guessing the football team is 85% black, so the fact that they showed two pictures of black football players in a story about the football team isn't that surprising. Nonetheless, now everyone will go back to walking on eggshells for the next few months.

Work pulled another crazy ploy out of their ass the other day. They're planning on remodeling our entire office, and to do so they need everyone out. 3 days off for us, right? Well, not really. People are being forced to use personal time for the time they're out of the office. Well, I suppose that everyone could just not get paid for those days. But the timing of the thing is the worst part. It's Jan. 3-5, right after the holidays. People have already put in for their time off during the holidays, so they don't have a lot of extra days off to use. Plus, everyone will have just spent all their money on christmas shopping, so they can't really afford to not be getting paid. Just seems a bit ridiculous to me. Of course this doesn't affect me, because I'm one of the few select people who will be required to work out of a closet during the move. No big deal, I'd rather work than anything else. I can't afford to waste any days off right now, what with the wedding and stuff coming up this summer.

I guess that the Cubs are next in line to win the world series now....Red Sox snapped their 86 year "curse" and now the White Sox are going to win for the first time since 1917. By the way, curse is another word for "not as good as the teams that won." Although someone actually did put a curse on the Cubs. It's a fascinating story involving a goat. Look it up if you want. And the Angels did build their stadium on an indian burial ground, and then won nothing forever. But that ended, so I can't exactly blame the great spirits for keeping my team down anymore. I can just blame Doug Eddings.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Work....ugh

Work's been a pain in my ass. Yesterday we had a meeting that lasted 2 freaking hours. Basically all our bosses and managers wanted to tell us what a great job we were doing. Then they went over how we're going to reorganize our workspace. Then someone started bitching about how the breakroom was being moved all the way to the other side of the building. It's not like we work at O'Hare Airport or even at Costco. It's not a big freakin building. But everyone starts bitching. Then it turns into "we need someone to buy us more microwaves....we only have 4." 4 microwaves! How is that not enough? Once they exhausted the microwave issue, the conversation turned to people wearing offensive perfumes. I was stunned. One lady went so far as to say that because of her asthma, anyone walking by her desk wearing a strong scent could cause her to have to go home, and then she won't be able to make a living! Are you kidding me? Once they couldn't argue about cologne and perfume, they started attacking the smokers. They demanded that management designate a smoking area. When told that there was a designated smoking area, they demanded that it be moved farther away from the door. What is it with these people?

I was disgusted with the cattiness of these women. Then something happened that got me all fired up, and I had to join in the bitching.

Apparently unlike the rest of the company and most of the free world, our department will not be getting December 26th off this year. That is, unless we can meet 150% of our goal for the year before that date. Not only is this bullshit, but I put in for time off from the 27-31st because I thought that we'd be getting that day off. Now I have to reapply for that monday off as well and hope that I also get approved for that day. Crap. But now, personal reason aside, let me present a few reasons this is the most fucked up thing ever.

* Why set a goal if you're not going to reward people unless they exceed it by 50%? Why not just make that the goal?

* That's nice that we have to set a goal for a year in less than year. Granted it's only 6 days, but say we end up at 149%? Are they going to cave and give us the day off? I doubt it.

* Our goal is a monetary goal. How exactly can we do anything as in patient accounts to bring in money? We can't send out more bills. We can't make people pay. No matter how fast I enter in the payments, I can only enter in what people pay. It's absolute bullshit. We're expected to meet a goal that we have no control over. I actually asked "as a data entry clerk, is there any way possible for me to help us reach this goal?" The answer was no. So why is it a goal? What incentive to I have to work hard? So fucked up. I'm absolutely irate at the way this department is run.

Anyone who knows anyone in Oregon had to be freaking out when they heard that the Powerball winner was from the state. Then I remembered the lottery rule: Only people who are already rich or who are complete backwoods yokels win the lottery. Lo and Behold, the winner hails from tiny Jacksonville, Oregon. Whoever won can now buy that entire town and rename it PowerBall.

To give you an idea of how much money $340 million is, I learned yesterday that Samaritan Health Services total net worth is $320 million. That includes all the hospitals, all the equipment....everything. You could buy an entire health care NETWORK, and still have enough money left over to get a football stadium named after you. That's some serious cheddar.

For my first post in a week and a half, I feel pretty good. I need to do this more often. Don't you agree? ;)

Wednesday, October 12, 2005

The other shoe drops....

Way back in 1997, I was watching the National League Championship Series with my roommate Steve. We'd been at Oregon State as freshman for about a month or so. We watched as Livan Hernandez set a postseason record for strikeouts in a game, thanks to a generous umpire named Eric Gregg. I remember laughing hysterically with each ridiculous strike he called. One after another, Braves hitters shook their head in disgust, unable to tell themselves to swing at what were so obviously balls. Obvious to everyone that is except Eric Gregg. Steve was just pissed that an umpire was taking over the game in such a fashion. I, on the other hand, loved it because it meant the Braves were getting jobbed.

I got what was coming to me tonight. Eight years later, what went around came back.

For those of you who didn't see, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Kelvim Escobar threw strike three to AJ Persynzinksziksi or however you spell it. Josh Paul catches the ball, the umpire signals strike three, then raises his hand into the traditional sign for "out." Paul lobs the ball back to the mound and the Angels start exiting to field to take their ups in the top of the 10th. However, AJ starts running towards first, as if it were a dropped third strike. He gets to first, and the umpire makes no signal whatsoever. An argument ensues, but nothing comes of it. Play continues in the bottom of the ninth. A pinch runner, stolen base, and RBI double later, the Angels have lost and the series is tied 1-1.

Now, I'm not so mad that the umpire thought the ball may have hit the ground. Doug Eddings is not perfect. I do not expect miracles behind the plate. What I do expect, however, is to make a call and stick with it. Don't call a guy out, then let him run to first, say you didn't call him out, and let the game resume. It doesn't work like that. Imagine if a referee in football signaled that a guy stepped out of bounds. Only the guy keeps running and scores a touchdown because the defense saw the referee make call and stopped. The guy gets to the end zone, where the referee now signals touchdown. This is not how it works.

In an interview after the game, Josh Paul, the Angels catcher, said that in that particular situation, umpires usually yell "no catch" if the ball has hit the ground. Doug Eddings did not do this. In fact, Doug Eddings really did nothing, and waited to see what would come of it. That's not an umpires job. The umpires don't get to wait and see what happens, then make a call after the fact. On a 3-2 pitch, you don't wait until the guy starts running to first to decide it must've been ball four. You make the call. Basically, Doug Eddings crapped his pants, and the Angels happened to be in his pants on this particular night. Way to go Doug.

I'm not saying that the Angels would've won. We had 4 measly hits, and it took a homerun by a mediocre player just to tie up the game for us. But Escobar had struck out 5 hitters in 3 innings and nobody was even close to touching him. Really what Dougy did was take the game out of the players hands. Imagine the game was a see-saw, with the win sitting in the middle. For 8 innings and 5 outs, it was pretty level. Then Doug went and sat next to the White Sox, pushing the Angels up in the air, and allowing the win to make its way to the White Sox a little easier.

But perhaps the thing that bothered me most after the game, was seeing the umpires press conference. While the crew chief and umpiring coordinator looked serious and a little tired, Doug is sitting there with the goofy ass grin on his face, as if he's ENJOYING all the attention he's getting. It's been said that the best umpires and officials are the ones you don't know, because all they do is what they're supposed to do. Nobody knew who Phil Luckett was until the heads-tails game. Nobody knew who Eric Gregg was until Livan Hernandez struck out 800 hitters. The only NBA referee I know on sight (other than the chick) is Steve Javie, and that's only because he is on such a power trip that he hands out technical fouls like he's the God damned Easter Bunny.

Hope you're happy Doug. You're a household name now. However, I've got a few more household names for you:

Lorena Bobbit
Jeffrey Dahmer
Adolf Hitler
Milli Vanilli
Tonya Harding
Keanu Reeves
Steve Bartman
Bill Buckner

FUDE!!!!!!

Saturday, October 8, 2005

Trucks and titles?

So this week was pretty much like every other week. Work was uneventful. In fact, it was painfully slow. Monday we had to stay an extra hour and a half, but Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, we were done with all our data entry pretty much by lunch. That sucked, because then we become work sluts, whoring ourselves out to whomever we can find that hasn't got all their stuff done. Tuesday I took old files out of a file cabinet, put them in boxes, labeled the boxes, then put the boxes ON TOP OF THE FILE CABINET. I moved these files all of six f*cking inches. That's not productive, that's busy work. The explaination for this mindless work was that now we have room to put the new files in the cabinet. I don't understand why we just don't put the new files in boxes as they come in. Seems like it elminates the whole file cabinet fiasco in the first place. Wednesday I had to pull urgent care forms and file those. Thursday I got to pull EOBs (Explanation of Benefit sheets) for the analysts. Freaking joke. I'm worried that if it stays slow, I'm going to end up doing everyone elses work while they slack off, knowing that they've got help coming every afternoon.


Then comes Friday. Friday is always a busy day, because we get a lot of stuff on Fridays. I had to enter this 298 page voucher into the computer. Roughly 500 entries. Well I get all done entering this thing in, and I'm off by one freakin penny. So I had to search through every single entry to find my one penny error. That slowed me way down. Took me all damn morning. Well then I go to lunch, and wouldn't you know it, my truck dies in the Arby's parking lot. Brown Sugar would not be coaxed back to life. Keep in mind that I only have a half an hour lunch. So I had to walk down to Les Schwab to see if they'd help me. They were like "sounds like a starter problem, we don't do starters." All I wanted was for one of their guys to walk the one block to Arby's and take a look and let me know what they thought. I mean, I figured they'd know more than I would. I finally convince the guy to come take a look, but the jackass says "we'll have someone there in 20-30 minutes." It's a two minute walk! Sudden service my ass. Those bastards will jog out to a car to meet you in the parking lot (at least in the commercials), but you want them to walk a block to look at a truck and it's going to take them half an hour. Assholes.

So I walk back to the truck, called work and left a message (apparently everyone else was on lunch too) and tried to sweet talk Sug into starting. After 10 minutes of cranking, she finally started. She sounded sick, she sounded cranky, but she started, bless her 500,000+ mile heart. Made it back to work a half an hour late, but it only delayed us by about 15 minutes and I was out the door in plenty of time to watch the Angels game.

Speaking of the Angels, I'm still a little upset at Mike Scioscia for pinch hitting for Juan Rivera (batting .500 in the series!) in the ninth inning of game one and then pinch running for him in the seventh of game two, but my anger is eased by a 2-1 lead in the series. I said last night that I thought we'd win if we could knock Johnson out before the seventh inning. As he walked off the field after 3+ innings to a chorus of boos from the Bronx faithful trailing 5-0, I felt pretty good. But, as Joe Morgan said "Any Angel fan who thinks they've got this game wrapped up, it's never easy at Yankee Stadium." True to form, by the 5th inning it was 6-5 Yankees. Then the feeble Yankees bullpen showed up. 11 runs and 19 hits later, the Angels had a 2 to 1 series lead. Gotta feel good about that.

Game 4 is today, but I agreed to go to the coast with Rachel for the fall kite festival in Lincoln City today. They're just going to have to go get a series clinching win without my support today. I will be wearing my jersey to the coast today though. I owe Rachel a big one anyway. She's had to put up with my family and friends coming down and squatting on the couches for football the last three weekends. That's worth at least one missed playoff game.

Ok, this is getting a little longwinded, so I'm gonna wrap it up for the time being.

"Carpe Diem!"
"What's that mean?"
"Seize the Carp!"

~Out Cold

Wednesday, October 5, 2005

Girl you can pick a field full of daisies......

.....but he's always gonna be my baby.


Ok, so the song is written by a girl, but I still like it. The song's called "He Loves U Not" by Dream. I picked the song because the dream I had last night was so strange, I felt compelled to write about it in my blog.

It starts with me Rachel and me having an argument, something that rarely happens in real life. We were arguing about what movie to see. I was adamant that I would not see any movie with the word "boys" or "girls" in the title. I was spouting off crappy movies such as "boys on the side," "for the boys," "boys don't cry," "girls don't cry, they get even," and so on. Nevermind that Bad Boys is one of my favorite movies. This was my logic. So she got mad, and went to see some movie with her Asian friend that she doesn't have. So I went to the mall. I have no clue why. While I'm at the mall, I run into my buddy Vince. We're talking, and I'm like "hey I'm going to meet Rachel, and she's with an Asian girl." Vince has always had a thing for Asians (he married one) so he's like "alright let's go!" So we go meet Rachel and her friend at the friend's house. She has a dog the size of Scooby Doo with a little pug dog's head. Anyways, we all pile into Rachel's car and drive to the Colorado Rockies game in Denver. And she's making U-Turns in the middle of Harrison Street and driving like a swarm of bees just flew in the window. Anyways, the trip to Denver only took about 6 minutes. Somehow, once we get to Coors Field, I'm all alone. I don't really seem to care though, probably because I'm at a major league baseball game. Well there's a bench clearing brawl that involves Preston Wilson slapping Jeromy Burnitz at second base. How two outfielders ended up at second base at the same time is beyond me. Anyways, the game is called due to the slapfest, and as I'm exiting the stadium, I run into these two girls. One of them is Heidi Peters, the other one I don't know. They're asking why the game was called off. I say "because they were afraid Burnitz was going to retaliate." This other girl goes "ohhhh, I thought it was because that girl over there is stuck in the salsa." I turn around, and there's a concession girl waist deep in a garbage can full of salsa. As I'm trying to figure this out, a guy that looks like Jonathan Silverman walks up and taps me on the hip and asks if he can get the time. I say "7:30, now give me back my wallet." The guy is already walking away at a fast rate. So I start chasing him through the concourse. He takes off, then stops and goes "alright you caught me, here's your wallet and keys." and throws them on the ground at my feet. I'm like "thanks man, I'm glad you saw the light." So I bend down to pick up my wallet and keys, and it's an empty wallet and someone else's keys! I look up again, and the guy is long gone. I got suckered by a pickpocket (who looks like Jonathan Silverman no less) in my own dream!

Who dreams of themselves getting scammed?

Monday, October 3, 2005

Bring on the rain..

Fall is officially here...it's rained pretty much constantly since Saturday. Not that I'm complaining....it's an excuse to wear sweatpants and sweatshirts and curl up on the couch and watch tv or play Xbox. Not that I really need an excuse to do any of those things, but it's easier to justify I guess.


I'd like to point out that before the Baseball season started, I picked who I thought would make the playoffs. I'd like to point out that I got three AL teams, and two NL. 63% ain't bad. I'm sticking with my Angels-Cardinals World Series. My ALCS is going to be Red Sox and Angels and my NLCS is Cards and Braves. So there ya go. And high five to Fox for scheduling the Angels game at 5 tomorrow night so I can watch it.

JR came down for the game this weekend. It was a lot of fun to hang out with him. Joel get's minus 100 points for calling in sick with a hangover and missing a great game - not to mention a rare chance for the three of us to all hang out at the same time. He can redeem himself by going to Seattle with us for the Husky game next month.

I'm still a little bitter about this whole car situation. I'm still driving Brown Sugar to work everyday, and I'm the only one making payments on the credit card for the Mustang. It doesn't so much bother me that I don't get to drive the Mustang, but it'd be nice if Grant and Dad would help me out a little bit. It's a little tough to pay for student loans, credit cards, rent, bills and a wedding. But hey, I guess i just gotta do what I gotta do.

Happy Birthday to Rachel's sister, Colleen. She's 22 today. And, she got an internship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. Pretty cool.

My fantasy football team took a nosedive this weekend. After torching everyone for 71 points last week, my team has produced a meager 43 points yesterday, leaving me down 11. That means I pretty much need Brett Favre to throw 4 picks and the Carolina Defense to pitch a shutout tonight on MNF for me to win. The one catch is that the guy I'm up against has Stephen Davis on his team, so he needs to either get hurt, or fumble about 3 times. Yes, I'm a geek, I take it personally when my team loses. I'm not complaining, but if Cadillac Williams didn't have to shut it down with a sore hammy yesterday, and Terry Glenn had caught Bledsoe's throw for a TD on the last play of the game yesterday, I'm sitting pretty. But those are the breaks, and why we play the games.

The wedding locations are now set. July 7, 2006 at 6 pm at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Corvallis, with a reception to follow at the Corvallis Country Club. The guy at the country club told us that they had room for 250 people, which is more than enough, but when we got there, a sign on the wall said "Maximum capacity for this area 111 persons." We questioned him about it, and he said "oh that doesn't pertain to this WHOLE area, just a part of it." Whatever...it might be a little cozy, but we'll make it work. Might make it easier for the single people at our wedding to hook up. We'll see.

Saw the movie Robots the other day.....not the best movie I've ever seen, but it had some pretty funny parts. At the end of the movie when all the robots are doing (what else) "the robot" I just about lost it. Now that's comedy folks!

Props to ABC Family for showing "Flight of the Navigator" yesterday.....classic classic movie. Although I remembered Max as being hilarious when I was younger. Now his voice just annoys me. He was more enjoyable before he scanned Davey's brain and talked like the emotionless computer he was. And who knew that Sarah Jessica Parker was in that movie?

Ok I'm out...enjoy your Monday night. And if you get a chance, watch "How I met your Mother" on CBS. Pretty interesting show.