It appears to be that time again...

I'd like to say that I have planned this out so that every two years or so I start up another blog, but it isn't so.

I just wake up one morning, take a look at the blog and think to myself. Yeah, it's time for a change.

Just so you know where to go:

The Sequel to Pronouncements

Surprise, surprise...

What you see above is a representative image of something that hasn’t happened in about 5 years, a Dallas Stars NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Round victory.

Bask in the warm glow.

So now having been pleasantly surprised by the performance of this team against the defending Stanley Cup Champions I’m officially in “Icing on the cake” mode, meaning literally nothing that happens from this point can do anything to ruin it for me.

Stars get swept in Round 2? That’s ok.
Stars win Round 2? Great.

Whatever happens, they basically gave me the only thing that I had wanted from this team since it became apparent the perennial Cup contender of the Ken Hitchcock/Ed Belfour era was over: Consistent performance and a playoff round.

Seriously, all I wanted from those post-Hitchcock teams was generally a round, maybe a third round appearance and I would have been content.

They only managed to deliver that once before this season and it was starting to get disheartening to watch them bounced early year after year.

This ladies and gentlemen is what generally happens when your favorite teams fall on some disappointing/underachieving times.

My desires for 2008 as per my teams:
Packers – Make the playoffs, they did, they made it to the NFC Championship game and despite a terrible game by Brett Favre they lost on an overtime field goal. A simple turn of fate here and the Packers would actually have been in the Super Bowl, where they would probably have been crushed by New England, but nonetheless it would have been amazing. As it was, Carlos was pleased overall with the outcome.

Stars – Win a freakin’ round. With 16 teams making the playoffs in hockey, simply making it is insufficient. All I asked was for one round. They have thus far delivered. Anything from this point forward is a pleasant surprise and time will tell if they can deliver anything else.

Blue Jays – Make the playoffs. This is currently in progress as the season is still merely in its infancy. However this will very much depend on such factors as health, getting some hitting with runners in scoring position for God’s sake, and the continuation of the impressive pitching that they have thus far been receiving. Should this also come to pass this year, it would mark the best of the three and would be nothing less than glorious.

GLORIOUS!

Anyway, I’m going to await the conclusion of Round 1 before I officially overview my predictions from that round (read: admit much wrongness) and try again in Round 2.

Quick note on work, plus What the F*%$%% is this shit?

So I managed to survive the final day of the aforementioned sale today, despite all the efforts of those “customer” people to drive me nuts.

Honestly… you know Murphy’s law is in effect when after a long, long, long day you sit at the cash, look at the clock and see 4:58pm (shift ends at 5pm) and then of course have the pleasure of seeing a person come to the cash with not one, but two FULL buggies of items that must be scanned individually.

That is one of those moments where you can truly say, “Are you kidding me? Now?”

Seriously, had it not been me I would probably have died laughing at the incredible timing of this woman.
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Now that I’ve addressed that, here is something that I would like to address.



Incase you’re wondering what the hell this atrocity is, that’s the “Miley and Mandy Show.”

And yes, that is Miley Cyrus of Hannah Montana fame, and… some dancer you and I really never heard of.

There are actually so many things to say here, but I’ll keep it short and sweet:

First, I would comment about the fact that the “Mandy” on her is 20 or 21 and Miley is like 16, but I don’t care nearly enough to even pose the obvious questions about why she is hanging around with a teenager.

We’ll actually since I brought up. Why is she hanging out with a teenager? Doesn’t she have 20 something friends her own age? Can’t she find anyone to hang around with that can legally drink… anywhere? Or maybe… just maybe, hanging out with Miley, her Hannah Montana money making empire and her father who also made a buck or two in his day is quite a sound reward for “friendship,” not that I’m implying anything but the purest of intentions. Moving on…

A world in which a “star” of music and television can go on YouTube with her friend and post videos (even an “intentionally bad” one) to annoy us all is a world which sucks. Sadly this is in fact a world that we live in.

For all the good that YouTube has done in order to bring interesting things to the masses through the ability to share videos and allow people to see various things they may otherwise not have access to unless they were fortunate enough to view it the first time, this is the unfortunate downside of the whole deal.

The greatest tragedy here actually is that now we have absolutely no recourse or counterargument against people who wished to hang out with their friends, a camera and make some crappy, painful videos, post them on YouTube and draw some kind of an audience.

You might argue that there never was, but you see there was always a small argument to be made that nobody who was already famous and/or notorious actually wasted their effort pandering to this internet audience. In fact most of them for a long time made great efforts to try and keep their material off such websites in order to protect their reputations and/or intellectual property.

BTW, before I continue I just want to say that I blame Billy Ray Cyrus for this. You brought this into the world and you will forever be responsible for this. You cannot and should never be forgiven either.

Despite the fact that we’re probably doomed, I can always take solace in the fact that we have yet to see the “Tom Cruise Scientology Webcast” although now that I’ve brought it up, I may have in fact doomed us to it.

For that I am sincerely and eternally sorry.

As a token of amends I give you the following which shall hopefully ease the pain somewhat.

Amends

There, you’re welcome.

mmmm.... Bagel Sandwich... and stuff...

As I sit at the computer completing the last of a delicious bagel sandwich I created for myself a number of random thoughts cross my mind:

- The Dallas Stars are actually up 2 to 1 in their series versus the defending Stanley Cup Champions. I am equal measures shocked and amused.

I have no ridiculous notions about this being anything more than one team being ready at the sound of the bell while the other was caught sleeping, but it should be interesting to see if Dallas has at some point, while no one was looking actually learned how to kick another team when their down and go for the kill. Time will tell on this one.

- The Masters came to its conclusion; another relative no-name came out from obscurity to secure one of the Major Championships of the sport… and the biggest story? Tiger struggled, struggled and struggled some more, still had a shot at putting pressure and coming close despite not being able to make any clutch putts for the majority of the Championship and somehow managed to fail on nearly every important putt down the stretch, be just that far off line on most critical shots and finish in second. Clearly the man didn’t bring his “A” game and it cost him.

Who knows? I’d expect him to bring something to the US Open. I’ll “boldly” predict some redemption for him and likely a tournament win there.

- I’m scheduled to work tomorrow.

Significance? Tomorrow happens to be the last day of a sale the story is having. Generally these sales tend to bring out large numbers of customers which generally means yours truly actually has to give “customer service” to these people. This is most unfortunate.

Not surprising though given that last week I was called in when somebody was sick on Wednesday (first day of sale) and was scheduled for Friday which is pretty normal (any day of a weekend + sale = fun for retail) and of course after being pretty much designated to Friday’s this week somehow I ended up on Monday (last day of sale). Cunning… very cunning.

I’d applaud the evil of the Managers were I not the direct victim of it.

The upside? I’ll be done work for the week most likely tomorrow. This in turn gives me likely a fair number of days to plot back in my office, which is never a bad thing.
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With all that addressed, what is upcoming?

I think this week will be devoted to surfing the job postings somewhat, avoiding message boards as I tend to read too many of them, which takes up WAY too much time, get some reading done and perhaps take in a few Jays games as they make their way back into town mid-week.

Done correctly these things should more than occupy me as I seek the answer to one of life’s great questions: So… what now?

Yes… it is profound.

A first for me indeed...

In the ever present category of things that I never thought I would say, I actually had something occur at work that left me both amused and perplexed simultaneously.

Consider that I’m presently working part-time in a standard retail setting and you can imagine that since everything in that world as a whole is simplified to begin with, it’s incredibly strange to have anything that happens there come even close to being perplexing.

So here’s the scenario:

We have first one of the Assistant Managers, a decent enough fellow who is almost exactly a year older than me (one of the many ways at which I roll my eyes at work), calls in as he has to speak to the main manager (who is about 2 years older than me by the way, just thought I’d point that out). He comes in, speaks to the manager and then seemingly leaves with an annoyed/disappointed look on his face.

It was somewhat peculiar given his general demeanor but I didn’t think much of it at the moment as I was stuck playing cashier.

Fast forward to my lunch and the manager asks the people at the back into the lunch room to explain something. Turns out that the Assistant Manager was terminated for undisclosed “issues.”

Ok, vague, but whatever, it happens, and effectively explains what I had seen earlier in the day.

So in the interim one of the other employees is promoted to Supervisor in order to help fill in the sudden management void.

Anything unusual about that? Certainly not, given the circumstances.

What I found kind of amusing/perplexing about it was that the person chosen was a girl who was hired the same day as myself.

Amusing for obvious reasons: gotta love getting a “battlefield promotion” while you’re technically still on probation at the job.

Perplexing because… well… 2 reasons

1) There are actually people there who are not high school age (thus pretty much part-time by default) and have some actual seniority at the company. Including a guy who knows the store more or less inside and out, is 32 (thus a full adult) and has been there for a few years.

2) If we eliminate those people from the equation (the ones with some tenure who aren’t in high school) that essentially leaves her and… wait for it… Carlos, which makes you wonder what the folks in #1 did wrong to get us to #2.

Now I have nothing to complain about here (nor do I intend to) as I actually haven’t actually worked in retail at any capacity before this job while I assume she has done some of that before (thus making her a more “qualified” candidate to fill in the role technically), but you can’t help wonder what the heck is going on when a girl who celebrated her 20th birthday today is actually the best remaining candidate left mainly because the folks who seemed the obvious choice were eliminated (for some reason) and the only other one in that category was… well… me.

I’m almost flattered to have been fictionally and theoretically in the running. It would truly have marked the height of my slacking career to have somehow been promoted to a management position without actually having done anything more than being in the right age range/school status (as in, not in school).

I really think this is a missed opportunity for the company, they could have made history.

“You promoted WHO? To WHAT? WHY?”

Three questions in less than two real complete sentences man… that would have been something.

This folks in a nutshell are the ways in which I can entertainment myself even with seemingly mundane occurrences.
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What should prove interesting in the next while is what my own status at that job is, as I’m presently waiting on a temporary gig which would limit my availability for it for about a month.

Given the temporary nature of it, I would prefer to keep both jobs as one would end after about 3 weeks, then I could have the option of continuing to look for more permanent, consistent work while keeping some steady income flow (even if it isn’t much to write home about).

Tentatively, I would really, really like to have some kind of stability in the work department by my birthday in July.

Hell, maybe if my company is handing out promotions for people’s birthdays, maybe I could get Assistant Manager for my 25th.

I don’t think I’ll hold my breath though.