Fashion Test

Brainy Student 61% Tastefulness, 46% Originality, 42% Deliberateness, 38% Sexiness

[Tasteful Original Random Prissy] Your style is classic but not glamorous. You don't concentrate on clothes an awful lot, preferring to spend your time on more interesting matters. You don't want to look like everyone else and your probably take care to have a unique element or two in your outfits, just to emphasize your personality, but, on the other hand, you don't need too much attention paid to your looks. Believe it or not, fashion says some things about character. You're probably quite an intellectual and somewhat reserved. But your style is not bad. The opposite style from yours is Sex Bomb [Flamboyant Conventional Deliberate Sexy]. All the categories: Fashion Enemy Bar Cruiser Kid Next Door Sex Bomb Hippie Kid Fashion Rebel Fashion Artist Catwalk God(ess) Librarian Sporty Hottie Office Master Uptown Girl/ Boy Brainy Student Movie Star Fashionista Glamorous Soul

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 52% on Tastefulness You scored higher than 34% on Originality You scored higher than 15% on Deliberateness You scored higher than 13% on Sexiness

Link: The Fashion Style Test written by mari-e on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

Sick

Good news: They changed my days off to Monday and Tuesday from Thursday and Friday.

Bad news: I have a horrible cold just in time to enjoy having while working Thursday and Friday. Dealers seriously need to be given sick days. Nope, we get written up if we are sick.

I'm just drinking some turkish coffee trying to wake up enough to go to work.

Help with Amnesia

I need fictitious city names. I have to name the Homestead where everything is happening to distinguish it from other city's Homsteads. I could only think of Springfield, but that makes me think of the Simpsons. Any ideas?

Also, I'm trying to name things as horribly as I can, ie. Homestead, Home Corporation, Golden Ranch Round-up preshift, and the paper to mimic the way companies try to make things seem more comfortable and easily accessible. I think I'm doing a horrible job of it, which is too bad, because I find it so insidious. Any suggestions there?

Castle Trick

I had a dream in which I was in bricoleur's house and there was a man in their bedroom looking to confront her and her husband. Apparently, they were hired assassins and were required to complete a "castle trick". A "castle trick" is six murders and they never completed the sixth.

I just like the term "castle trick". It really should be "rook trick", because in my mind, I was thinking of the chess piece. The "trick" part, comes from the term, "hat trick".

Thank you, you young what-you-call-its....idiots!

So, I applied online at a new casino opening up in 2006 to be a casino host. A casino host basically just has to be the friend of a bunch of rich jerks and give them comps, travel arangements, etc. The online application was easy as online applications can be. At the end, it has you schedule an HR appointment. This is very common in Las Vegas. I think it is just a hassle. Here I am on my day off, I have to drive in the worst rush hour traffic in the Nevada heat. I get there and sign in. I see the people get called before me and 15 minutes later I get called in.

"Could you verify your phone number, please?"

I say my phone number and then the HR person goes through my application. Then I'm done. The stupid appointment was just to make sure there were no errors on my application. One of the people that was called in 15 minutes before me is still talking to HR and I can hear them correcting mistakes. I had to take time out of my day off because idiots don't know how to fill out their application. Why do I have to suffer for other's stupidity?

The other thing that gets me is the way people arrive. OK, I knew it was an HR appointment, so I dressed business casual. I didn't come in a suit, too over the top, and I didn't come in shorts and a t-shirt, too casual. I also didn't bring my 5 kids.

World's Worst Vegetarian Improvement

Thanks to hazelwindows I now have to remove another meat item from my diet. Actually, I only have lamb chops about three times a year, but then I read this: http://www.farmsanctuary.com/adopt/hilda.htm Apparently common practice, I decided it wouldn't hurt to cut that three times a year food out of my diet.

That leaves my meat eating at:

Bacon
Pepperoni
Seafood
Maybe Spam

I guess the plight of pigs doesn't bother me.

Family Reunion

I had a really good time at the Family Reunion in Camarillo, California. I know bricoleur wanted to hear stories of crazy, wacky people running around threatening children, but that didn't happen. My mother's side is rather sane. Even my Aunt Maxine, who suffers from Alzeimer's, was rather "with it". Her communication skills were not what they used to be, but she was quite adept at getting her points across.

At the end of the reunion, my cousin, did some henna tatoos for the family. She does it for a living, so how generous is it to do it for free for a big mess of people. Greg said (Greg didn't go) "how would you like to go to the reunion and deal blackjack?" He has a good point.

Family Reunion

I'm out of here for a couple of days for a Family Reunion. Hopefully, it will get me a good post. Back on Monday.

My Twenty-Third Job

Well, it comes to this, does it? I'm up to date with my jobs and I don't have a new job, yet. Of course, I can only blame myself. I got discouraged and gave up looking when no offers for even an interview came in.

This journal was started when I was working at the Golden Nugget. It pretty much is about working at the Golden Nugget, which makes it odd, that this story isn't in it:

I had been at the Golden Nugget for about a week when the shift boss got another dealer for the game I was on. He said, "I like the way you deal. I'm going to try you in the high limit room....You don't care if someone swears at you, do you?" I said, "that I didn't mind at all." Actually, being the girly man that I am, I did care, but now I'm as calloused as a whore at a shriner's convention. (Is that already a saying. Damn, it's a good one. It's inappropriate. I've got to remember it.) He took me into the high limit room and put me on a game. There was no one playing at my game. It made me nervous to be in there. Someone was going to come in, bet large amounts of money and I'm going to make a mistake and be instantly fired. Little did I know, the worse thing that was going to happen was that I was going to be punched.

I noticed a "reserved" sign on my table. I asked the floor supervisor, who it was reserved for. He said, he didn't know. I went on break and people were talking about



"The Sopranos are coming in".

"I'm sorry, by Sopranos, you mean some of the people in the show."

"I don't know."

I get back from my break and it is still dead and still reserved. I was getting really nervous. It was my first time I was on a high limit game and it is going to be celebrities that I've seen once, but other people worship.

It turned out they were coming to my table and it was 5 of the male supporting cast. ("Tony" played the next day, but not on my game.) They were allowed to play anywhere from $5 to $15,000. Luckily, they were $25 players. As they were playing, a crowd formed around me. There were people crammed at the high limit half-gate, gawking at the actors. I think security was given the orders to let one snapshot be taken before the tourists were told they weren't allowed to take pictures. There must be hundreds of pictures of me, pale and nervous, in strangers photo albums.

Inside the pit, a crowd was forming as well. Besides some onlookers, there was two floor supervisors, a casino host, the shift manager, a pit manager, and one of the casino owners, Tim Poster (pictured on the right).



I felt like someone in a traumatic experience, like I was outside of my body, just observing. I did manage to make a wisecrack, which I don't remember. One of the cast said that I sounded like "fat" someone from Jersey. Seems like everyone has the surname "fat" when they are from Jersey. I was destroying them. This was the time when everyone would have liked to see someone win, but no, I was killing them. They couldn't win a single hand. The fat actor to my right dropped his bet down to $5 and made some comment. The actor that plays a heroine addict, said it wasn't my fault, it's just the cards. He turned out to be a really nice guy.

Tim Poster decided that I needed some help. Thank God! He came and took my spot for a couple of hands. He was a horrible dealer, but dealt the cards in a special way. He told all of them to bet big, stacks of green. They did. Tim then took one green chip off of each bet and put them in the dealer's tip position. He then dealt out the cards. He, as the dealer was showing a ten. He took that card and put it in the discard rack and now was showing five. He told them to hit. One of them had a thirteen and took a hit as instructed. It was a ten, so Tim moved it to the next player that could use a ten. I think, you get the picture. He did this for a couple of hands and had me take over the game.

I came back the same way that I left. I was destroying them. After a particularly nasty hand, my hand was flat on the table and one of the fat actors took is fist and rammed it down on my hand. OK, so it really wasn't being punched and it only hurt a little. I also felt it was a little bit in jest. I learned later from one of the security guards that maybe it wasn't in jest. They were talking about me for a day after dealing to them.

A month later, an officer from Nevada Gaming, came in to interview me regarding that night. It turned out that manipulating the cards into wins is a gaming violation. The interview basically consisted of how I felt about it. I said that I felt alright. Apparently, the right thing to say was that it was wrong and I felt something was going on. I figured that it was Tim Poster's money and he should be able to basically give it to the Sopranos if he wanted to. The result of this interview and other interview's with other dealers was a $150,000 fine and a letter of apology to the dealers admitting that it was wrong.

I've since dealt to sports celebrities without knowing it. Other people spotted, but not dealt to are: Alyssa Milano, Cheech Marin, Patrick Swayze, Justin Timberlake, and others I can't remember right now.

Further tales of the world's worst vegetarian

So, I've decided to take the next step in becoming the world's worst vegetarian. This next step actually includes excluding meat from my diet. Isn't that a funny sentence, "includes excluding"? One exception is seafood, which I don't really eat very often anyway. I'm also allowed to eat lamb chops, which I never get, but love oh so much. I can eat pepperoni, because it is part of my favorite food in the world. The other item I can eat is bacon, delicious, good-for-you bacon.

I'm sick, so last night I had chicken noodle soup, but ate around most of the chicken. When I've tried to become a vegetarian before, it always meant doing away with all meat and eating any minuscule amount of meat meant failure. Now with my new "worst vegetarian" program, I don't care. I've reduced meat intake greatly and that's good enough for me.

"But why?" you might ask or maybe you won't ask and are rather just reading along, bored out of your mind, thinking about how much longer this post is going to be, wondering if I know how to use a comma, and if you should even bother adding a comment at all. So, let's say you didn't ask. I'll ask for you, "but why become a vegetarian at all? Is it health reasons? Is it ethical reasons? Is it environmental reasons?" The answer is "yes and also because I don't really like meat that much". The only think I'll miss terribly is tacos and burgers and I think you can see the health benefits of not eating those items. I've also cut out deep fried foods, because I've eaten one too many french fries and I'm very sick of them. They're everywhere. Every single meal, anywhere in Vegas, comes with French Fries. I've eaten enough of them to satisfy me for life. (The exception to this is that I can eat tempura, yum).



On my rampage to become a mediocre vegetarian, I bought a Burt's Bees sample pack. (I know it seems unrelated, but there is a loose association there. You gotta admit that.) I tried all of the products and they all smell great, but I think some of them are pretty useless. For example, the cuticle creme, I just don't understand why I need to keep my cuticles moist. I guess it's a girl thing. Also, I think the hand salve is a waste of space. My favorite item is the citrus facial scrub. It smells like orange pekoe tea with roses and my face feels coated with moisture after using it. We're all about moisture here in Las Vegas.

My Twenty-Second Job

Welcome to the fabulous Luxor Hotel and Casino where the only curse is fun!

Not really, the curses available at the Luxor are many and varied. One of the curses is working there. The thing that bothered me the most is that when they wanted you to work overtime, they didn't bother asking you or telling you. They just left you dealing on a game. So, 4:00 AM would roll around and you would still be there...waiting. I hated it. Also, let's say you left at 4:20. They wouldn't give you any money for that extra twenty minutes. They would only give you money if you worked til the half hour. That's pretty tight considering they pay dealers $5.15 an hour and dealers are the biggest money makers in the casino as far as employees go. Also, they can't be fired for stupid reasons like being unlucky. It's hard to be part of a group that was too stupid to unionize. Bartenders unionized and they made pretty much the same as dealers in wage and tip. Now, they get decent vacation, a better health plan and make over $14.00/hour plus tips. I should have become a bartender. The employees at the Luxor did try to unionize, but they got threatened by an unknown source through a letter circulating saying that their windows would be smashed if they did and other such nonsense. It worked. Still no union.

The last straw came when I was dealing craps. A man bought in for $60 and I gave him the money saying, "There you go sir, $60, good luck". I was the only dealer that did talk to the players and wish them good luck. All of the other dealers were pretty much depressed zombies waiting to die. The shift manager was behind me and said, "you didn't wish him good luck and say the amount." This upset me, because I did and I'm the only one that ever did. I just said, "I did though." He replied with a childish, "No, you didn't." In effect, he was calling me a liar. That really gets my goat. It turned into a little fight with a back and forth: "I did", "You didn't" and ended up with a "then be louder next time". I did. After that, I always yelled when someone bought in. I have to be pretty pissed to do something so blatant. All of the other dealers, thought I was crazy and the boxman would say that I didn't have to yell. i would explain that apparently I did have to yell. A month and a half into the job, the Golden Nugget called me and I quit happily.

On the quit sheet, there is a section called "rehire" with three boxes: "Yes", "No", and "Review". The shift manager checked "review". Of course, I will never work there again, but now that MGM owns them, I will probably never be able to get a job at any MGM property. That's more than half of the big casinos in Las Vegas.

My Deadline is Approaching

My hope was to have another job by the time I finished my list of previous jobs. I only have two to go. This is rather upsetting to me.

My Twenty-First Job

I moved on over to Primm Valley, which is right across the highway from Whiskey Pete's. The tips were better, I got better at dealing craps and the people were great. One of the major problems there was on the weekend the craps table was basically right by the band. What idiot thought of that? I had to yell my fool head off to be heard when doing the stick calls. Conversations with the customers were hard. I went home every weekend with a sore throat.

I had to get a job in town though. The drive was too much.

I guess this is time to bring up the person dying at a craps game story. One day, I wasn't there unfortunately, a man had a heart attack and died at the craps game. They were not allowed to move him so they put a sheet over him and kept the game open. The players didn't seem to mind. Another day, a woman in tears came up to a man playing and told him that their son just died. He played four more hours before going to bed.

I'm paralyzed

I don't know what to do. It's my day off and I have too much I want to do and not enough energy to do any of it. My options include:

1. I was going to make pizza from scratch. Instead of regular pizza though, I was going to make my own recipe which also included a pie crust instead of a pizza crust. I've had pizza like that before and it was great. My hope was that my recipe would be a success and then I would get into the pizza business, creating a fabulous moderately-priced restaurant lacking in the Las Vegas area. The reality is that I'm a horrible cook and it would undoubtedly be a disaster.

2. Look for work. There are no good jobs that I can find. The only good jobs I do find, don't ever respond.

3. Write to RadioShack. The District Manager was suppose to call me today for an interview. The circumstances behind this are confusing. Perhaps, they've decided not to pursue me any further. Oh my god, I've been rejected by RadioShack. There is no hope for me. I was going to actively pursue this job by sending a "Thank You" e-mail with underlying excitement about a possible career with RadioShack. Who am I kidding? I should be thankful that they are dropping me. Alas, I hate rejection.

4. Housework....it's never ending.

5. Apply for a job at the Golden Nugget. Wait, I work there. I mean a transfer. My grief is with my current position, therefore I could apply for another position that is open like "Special Events Manager" or "Special Events Coordinator". I'm pretty applied out though.

When I have so many things overwhelming me, I tend to get paralyzed and do nothing. I'm just sad that my days off have gone by and I have nothing to show for it. I didn't even really relax. I'm a fool.

My Twentieth Job

Well, we are winding up my tour of jobs as you can see. I'm now up to my first dealing job at Whiskey Pete's. Whiskey Pete's is on the California Border in a little casino town called Primm. It is about 50 miles from Las Vegas. I started working the graveyard shift. I was a zombie. I never slept properly and I never ate properly. They only had breakfast food available. For everyone working at night, it was their daytime, but for some reason, we were only given scrambled eggs and french toast, etc. I lost a lot of weight quickly causing my ears to close up because of ear fat loss. Sounds silly, I know, but it happens. So, I couldn't stay awake, I couldn't hear and I was dealing craps for the first time. It is a complicated game and the boxman was a complete jerk. He just loved to yell at you for anything, making me more nervous than I already was. I couldn't stand it.

One night, a man came in and told the shift boss that he had a bomb wrapped around him and that he would set it off if we wasn't given $60,000. The shift boss told him for that amount of money the guy would have to fill out a form with his name and address. The guy did. The shift boss then told him that it needed to be cleared first. The guy got nervous and left, where security jumped him. They found something tied around his waist, but it wasn't a bomb. I want to say that it was hot dogs, but I think I'm confusing this with a movie. All the while that this was happening, I was completely oblivious. I looked up and saw a lot of security guards and thought it was unusual. Other than that, I only learned about it after the fact. That's how sleepy I was. Other dealers knew what was going on. It was nice to know that the shift boss would play foot loose and fancy free with worker's and customer's lives by not alerting us to a possible bomb and also pulling the stunt with the form. Oh well, it was all in good fun and nobody got their eye poked out.

Eventually, I transferred to the day shift. Better hours, better people, nicer boxman. It was much better.

Reusable Casket Ad

My Nineteenth Job

I worked in admitting at Mountainview Hospital as a temp job. My job was to tell people to wait for the next representative for regular suregery admitting procedures as well as aid people with their check in at the walk-in ER. To check into the ER, people had to fill out a small form with their name and what was wrong. I would aid them if necessary. Then enter the information into a computer, print out a couple of "official" sheets and a wrist band. I would put the wrist band on the patient. I was told to alert the nurse if there were any serious conditions like chest pain. One time, a guy came in and was having violent seizures. The person with them was in a panic and very upset. I went in to tell the admitting nurse and she got mad at me for bothering her. Then it seemed like she took extra long to get to the patient. The whole place was really unprofessional and the systems that they had in place were very inefficient. Of course, they asked me to become full time and I said "goodbye suckers".

It seemed like their were theme days in the ER. For example, one day we would get a lot of head wounds. Another day, we would get whiny people with the flu. There was open wound day and my personal favorite, missing digit day.

My Eighteenth Job

This really wasn't my eighteenth job. It was probably my fourteenth. I forgot to stick it in. I knew I would forget something.



I was an extra for Touched by an Angel on several episodes. I'm way in the background being a parent of a little gymnast, a cop, a person in a park, an office worker, and a lawyer, etc. Being an extra doesn't pay well, but it sure is easy work and they feed you. Anyway, my biggest role was when I was a lawyer. I'm walking down the steps and the rapist is walking up the steps. It was my biggest role because you could tell it was me and not a blurred image of me or just my arm or just my butt. What a sad, sad, claim to fame. 

While I was walking down the steps, Chris Noth, the rapist was walking up the steps.  On one take, he rammed me with his shoulder.  I just kept walking like nothing happened.  In hindsight, I should have "acted" and turned around in anger or something like that.

My Seventeenth Job

No, I wasn't in the olympics. I worked security for the 2002 Olympics. I worked 12 hours a night for 18 days in a row. That sucks the life right out of you. You would think that with the overtime, that I would have been rolling in dough, but I make more now. I had to sit in the Hallmark Pavilion overnight to make sure that the heater in the trailer with the snow globes did not turn off. They were afraid that the snow globes would freeze and break if the heater turned off. Of course, snow globes usually have a chemical in them to keep from freezing, but I wasn't going to tell them that. It was cold, but I managed to sleep for a couple hours every night. I was the worst security guard ever. I got to sit where Kristi Yamaguchi sat and signed autographs and I got to throw away her lipstick stained coffee cup. That really was the highlight of my life for about a week.

My Sixteenth Job

I worked at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center in the Pulmonary Division as a Faculty/Clinic/Academic Coordinator. Wow, that's a mouthful. This was a really good job with two problems. First, it didn't really pay very well, but the benefits were good. Second, I worked in an office with a very annoying woman that spent her days chatting online on LDS singles chats. She drove me crazy.

The head of the division was a genius that didn't believe in a lot of support staff. Basically, it meant that there was me, the annoying woman and an Administrative Manager to run the whole division of a lot of doctors. It kept me busy and the doctors were all really nice. I lucked out there. It turns out that Pulmonary doctors are the nicest of any type of doctors. Neurologists and Cardiologist tend to have god complexes. GI doctors tend to be very money conscious and would sell their grandmother for profit. I never knew that doctors' personalities could be divided by what their specialty was, but you learn something new ever day.

My Fifteenth Job

I-link was a horrible job, too. It was a small company that offered long distance services through individual salesmen that then try to get more salesmen under them. In my training, they kept insisting that it wasn't a pyramid scheme. It was. Modified pyramid schemes are completely legal in Utah. I started answering the phones and helping people with long distance service. I then became the evening supervisor and then the day supervisor. At this point, I fired a couple of people. They were warned not to call each other while at work, but they kept doing it. I was mad because everyone else was going through hell and they would talk to each other on the phone all day about how great the mormon church was. On top of that, they knew that we could listen in to their conversations. So, they were idiots as well as lazy. I don't know if I had the same situation today if I would have fired them. Probably, they were pretty bad. This is where I met demridawn, who has a few choice words about I-Link.

I then became the wholesale account manager. I worked with companies that bought long distance from us that were not part of the pyramid scheme. It was horribly disorganized and everyone that I went to for demands from the wholesale accounts had the last name of Edwards. The owner's last name was, you guessed it, Edwards. I learned that the "Edwards" referred to me as "the queer" behind my back. That didn't really bother me, but I knew advancement was not going to be possible. On top of that, the company was going to crash and burn. It was clear. And on top of that, I was suicidal every Sunday night because I knew I had to go to work the next day. Quitting this job was really one of the best things I ever did.

My Fourteenth Job

It really wasn't Direct TV that I worked for. I worked for a company that did customer service for Direct TV. This was really my first taste of how horrible a corporation could be. When I was hired, I asked if it was incoming or outgoing calls. They assured me that it was incoming only. I told them that I would only do incoming calls. They said fine.

Now, to get to work, you had to park a mile away and take a shuttle in. You had a small window of time to clock in. When you were on the phone, the second someone would hang up, there would be a beep and the next call was put through. That's fine, but you weren't allowed more than the standard 1 hour total of breaks for the day. In other words, you couldn't use the bathroom unless it was an emergency. So, it was constant calls. They also just raised their prices, so it was a solid 8 hours of people yelling at me for something I had nothing to do with or had no control over. I don't know why they think yelling at a customer service representative would help, but they tried. (Interesting side note, it didn't help. They never lowered their prices again. So, don't bother calling). This was all fine. I could handle all of that.

One day, they took my team and said that they were going to make it a collections team. In other words, outgoing collections calls. It was horrible. I hated collections and as soon as you were off a call you were to call another person. We were required to make quotas and the person with the highest calls would get a prize like a bar of "Dial" Soap for "dialing" the most. Isn't that fun? In other words, you made the company the most money in the hell of a crappy job, here's a bar of soap. I requested to be taken off of the collections team saying that I was told I wouldn't have to do outgoing calls. They refused saying that I didn't have anything in writing. I wrote an angry but intelligently written letter, suggesting that they would keep a valuable employee by simply keeping their word. I delivered it and never got a response. Goodbye Direct TV.

My Thirteenth Job

Coming back to Japan, I decided to settle in Salt Lake City. I had a group of friends there already, all in one place and I was familiar with the area. I needed a job fast, so I went through a temp agency.

I worked for Lab Corps (at least I think that was the name). It was just a room with tons and tons of boxes. All I did all day was go into specific boxes looking for specific lab reports. That's it. Not very efficient on their part if you ask me, but it was a job. They asked me to go full time when I finally did leave because I showed initiative by suggesting changes to their system. No thank you, I was ready to try another horrible job.

My Twelveth Job

This picture really reminds me of the feel of Sapporo.  (Link missing.  It was probably of a lot of snow).

I taught English in Japan for almost two years. I tried to get a job before I went, but everywhere insisted that I come to Japan first. So, I flew in without a job and without speaking a word of Japanese. It was relatively easy and I got a job at EC, Inc. EC stands for "English Circles". Training was by this jerk from Canada who made it his personal mission to make every trainee cry before training was over. I never cried and I think that made him harder on me than a lot of teachers. Word of how he treated me traveled all over Sapporo and when he quit to find another job, no place would hire him. Such a perfect example of Karma.

It really was a lot of fun and very interesting. I learned Japanese a little, which I have now all forgotten. One problem though was that they fired a couple of guys while in training for being gay.

The snow in Sapporo is amazingly deep. The siberian winds come down over the Sea of Japan and really cool of the place. It would be a lot better if they didn't have such inefficient heating. I had a little kerosene heater that I would have to keep filled. Ever so often a little alarm would go off to remind you to open a window to let out the fumes. It really seemed to defeat the purpose of heating the room in the first place. Their water heaters, however, are the most efficient things I have ever seen. You never run out of hot water, because it heats it as it goes through.

I met the top drag queen of Japan. She was one of my students. Yep, "she". She was a cute little lesbian with the drag name of Luciano. It was a real Victor/Victoria situation. She was pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. I was told to keep it secret. I also participated in the first ever gay and lesbian parade in Sapporo. It was pretty sparse. Drag queens were in the back of pick up trucks with a boom box. Perhaps 75 people showed up and there were very few spectators and even less spectators that knew of the parade.



The sign says "Mother, your son is gay". It was from the parade.  (Another link missing.  I look great though).

Looking for a new job.

I'm taking time off. Well actually, I have Monday-Friday off this week and next week. I've used up all of my vacation. I just wanted to find another job and "live" during the day. I'm sick of working nights and going to bed at 5:00 AM. The closest I've gotten to a job is being a management trainee at Radio Shack, ugh. I've tried to get ahold of job counseling services that charge a fee, but none of them will give me a call. Am I that bad? Ugh. I'm not going to be a dealer much longer, damn it.

Funeral Director Magazine

I've always wanted to get my hand on a trade magazine for the Funeral profession. I finally did through, of all things, ebay. I got it in the mail today and I must say I'm disapointed. Apparently, these trade magazines used to be about how to get more money out of grieving families and how to mark up caskets by huge percentages. So far, I haven't seen anything that good.

New Hobby

I'm doing a hook rug. They are small and it is my idea of "craft lite". Greg got me to do it. I don't know what to think of it though. When I tested for career aptitude in High School, I scored well on everything but fine motor skills. Actually, I ranked just above mentally and physically handicapped people. So, you can imagine this is quite a challenge for me as was being a craps dealer. I'm up to the challenge and it will be almost perfect. Of course, I'm going to have to work in a flaw so as not to anger the gods.

This also got me thinking about business ventures that someone should take up. Imagine hook rugs of skulls and other "goth" things for sale at Hot Topic. These young folks need to keep their hands busy.

My Eleventh Job

This was in the field that I went to college for. I got the job before I even finished college. It was the perfect opportunity, right?

My job progressed like this:

Camera operator for the evening news
Audio/Chiron
Floor director
Technical director
Director
Director/Technical Director
Production Coordinator
Production Coordinator/Ad writer/Extra
Production Coordinator/Morning News Director/Technical Director

I was in an ad for Auto Parts Express. My wife was pregnant, in labor, and our car was broken down. I say, "I'll call Auto Parts express, they DELIVER." Then a guy in a gorilla suit comes and gives me an auto part. I rub my wife's tummy and look satisfied. This was aired constantly over late night to the point of me being recognized as the Auto Parts Express guy. It was slightly embarrassing.

Reasons for dissatisfaction. It paid about $17,000 a year. I felt it had no future. I had to get up and be at work by 5:00 AM. I had no window. The florescent lights disturbed me. The highest paid News Anchor was paid $24,000 a year. I was depressed. It was actually in Springfield when they passed the law allowing you to be fired for being gay. One of the producers would look at the TV monitor and say "fags make me sick" whenever a gay person was on. People knew I was gay, don't they gossip. Do I have to tell each person individually. Damn it, it's not a secret, please gossip.

I had to quit.

My Tenth Job

Pietro's Pizza. Their cheeseburger pizza was the best ever, working there, however, was horrible.

Great New Fetish

For just about $13.00 a month you can look at models smash cell phones with their heels. Wait, there's more, they even have models smashing laptop computers. As well as models smashing cell phones under a car tire while driving barefoot. Finally, a modern day fetish for everyone.

My tip

Last night, I had a group of gypsies playing at my $25 blackjack game. There was a father, wife, daughter, and son. The women were not allowed to play, but were just allowed to watch. Yep, gypsies are sexist. The father asked, "where are my cigarettes?"

The mother replied, "I thought you got them from the bar."

Father, "I thought you got them. I didn't get them."

Mother, "I didn't get them, they are your cigarettes. I'll go check the bar" Minute later. "There wasn't any there"

Father, "Any what?"

Mother, "Cigarettes. I couldn't find your cigarettes."

Father, "Why would I need cigarettes? I have some in my pocket." I laughed pretty hard at this, so did the daughter.

Couple of minutes later....the father asked, "Where are my cigarettes?"

Mother, "I'll go buy you some cigarettes."

Me..."You can get free cigarettes from the cocktail waitress, just ask for them."

The mother kept trying to go get cigarettes and the father said he had plenty a couple of times. Meanwhile, the daughter, the only sane was urging her mother to stay to get cigarettes from the cocktail waitress. The daughter lost, but the cocktail waitress brought back cigarettes before the mother came back.

Now, the son ended up playing by himself with his father watching. He did all the hand gestures that gypsies do and put himself into a little bit of a blackjack trance. He turned his $400 into $4,000 very quickly. When he lost a hand, he looked up at me, looked me in the eye and began speaking in a foreign language. He repeated what he was saying twice. I recognized it as a romance language that wasn't spanish or french. The only word I caught was "solamente". I grasped that and put it into my internal romance language translator and interpreted it as "only". Indeed, it is spanish for "only". I don't speak spanish, this just shows the power of my internal romance language translator. All bow to me. Anyway, I'm certain that it wasn't spanish. I just looked at him bewildered as I translated "solamente". He said, "Don't worry. It's a good thing." So, my tip was a gypsy blessing. No money. It better work or I'll be mad.

My Ninth Job

Yep, I was a sandwich artist at Subway. Really, not much to report here except that the store owners were really cheap. We were required to count the cups when we closed to make sure that we didn't give away any free drinks. We were only allowed to put two olive slices per six-inch sandwich, because "olives are expensive". Most of the time, I worked there by myself late at night, serving sandwiches to drunk people.

My Eighth Job

Oh my, I think that is the first time in my life that I have ever written out the word "eighth". It doesn't look right at all. I had to look it up and everything. Wow, what a strange word.


I worked for Olson Family Studios for two weeks. It was horrible. I had to call people and get them to come in for their "free" 8X10 family portrait. Whether or not they would fall for that, I would then have to try to get the names and numbers of 8 people they knew. We would then call those people saying that "so and so" referred us. Talk about an intrusion.

They had old generic beige phones. We sat at long fold-out tables and were not allowed to put the handset down. We were required to keep it on our shoulder and press down on cradle to hang up. This saved precious time in order to keep us dialing. I just didn't go to work one day. Oddly enough, they weren't surprised.

My Seventh Job

I wasn't sure if I should include this or not, but I did get money out of it. It was, however, voluntary.

First, a little background. The previous school year, I volunteered for the University of Oregon Cultural Forum by ripping ticket stubs and hanging posters. I did it so much that I became like an unofficial member of the Cultural Forum. My only payment was in the form of some dinners. I met documentary film maker, Ally Acker and cartoonist, Bill Plympton. I would be dropping names if anyone knew who these people were, but few people do. M.K. Hobson was also a member of the Cultural Forum. Overachiever that she was, she announced plans to start another film showing group on campus, Catalyst Films. This, I think, angered the Cultural Forum. They kicked her out stating that she would be spread to thin if she did two groups. I was also kicked out, basically for not doing anything besides being the best ticket ripper you ever saw.

M.K. was hell bent on revenge. She wanted to blow the Cultural Forum out of the water. She asked if I wanted to help. Of course, I actually was only in the Cultural Forum because I wanted to be around her, so of course I said yes. She made me the Co-director of Catalyst Films. We did just as she planned. We showed gems like "Pink Flamingos" and Pink Floyd's "The Wall". We were a little more "low-brow" than the Cultural Forum, but we knew what the students wanted. The film that pushed us over the top was a surprise. We had a packed theater for two shows for "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". I mean packed. More people than I ever imagined. I was happy about that, too. I spent a while on the poster for that one, which was just a picture of Willy Wonka looking at a bubble with the title of the film in it. It was cute. The Cultural Forum was appropriately jealous. M.K. got her revenge.

I missed the last term though when I was shot.

My Sixth Job

OK, so my sister worked here first, too. I didn't work for Paul Mitchell. I worked for a distributor of Paul Mitchell products in Ventura, California. It was called Cylected Products after the owner, Cyl. Anyway, I was a warehouse worker for a summer. Really, a laid back job. The boss was one of the friends of Paul Mitchell and John Paul Dejoria and that's why she got to be their distributor in a small, insignificant area. It really wasn't run very well. Such a shame, she would take us to lunch and not really work us very hard. My sister would have to take her home from the hospital after plastic surgery.

I met John Paul Dejoria. Most people think he is Paul Mitchell, but the real Paul Mitchell died. They sprinkled his ashes on a awapuhi farm, so when you wash your hair with a Paul Mitchell product containing awapuhi, you are literally washing your hair with Paul Mitchell.

My Fifth Job

I worked in the cafeteria at the University Inn, a dorm for the University of Oregon.



Such an easy job to do in my first year of college. I would wake up and go downstairs and work at 6:30 in the morning. I cooked a lot of eggs and everyone said that my eggs were perfect. When they ordered over easy, they got over easy without the runny white mess.

My first customer on my first day was a volleyball athlete. She came down looking tired and cranky and asked for scrambled eggs. I put some on a plate and she looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world. She said, "IN A BOWL" again like I was so dumb for putting it on a plate. So, I put them in a bowl. Other people also wanted their eggs in a bowl. You know what? That's how I like them too. God, I was such an idiot.

When the students would come down to eat they had to have their card run through a machine to determine if they are eligible to eat. One time, a football player wanted to eat a second lunch and tried to get through again. When the person running the cards said that he couldn't, the football player punched him in the eye.

How funny. My story includes two athletes that were jerks. It's not a scientific study mind you, but I see a correlation.

My Forth Job

Memorial Medical Center
This was the perfect job to work during the school year. It catered to students to come in after school and work for a few hours. All you had to do was pull and put back medical charts. How easy is that? It also had minimal exposure to other people. Ah, my dream job if it paid well.

We found one chart that had "Private...For the Doctor's eyes only" written in big, black letters all over it. The other file clerks and I knew an invitation when we saw it. We looked inside. We found a picture of a stillborn baby that had one eye with two pupils.

My Third Job

I also got this job after my sister started working there as a cashier. Not much happened here. I worked there during the school year as a Customer Assisstant Representative or CAR. It involved straightening the shelves and helping anyone with price checks or item locations. The craziest day to work was Christmas Eve. This was, by far, the busiest shopping day that I had ever seen. I had worked the day after Thanksgiving and it was nothing in comparison. When I went outside to get the carts after the store closed at 6:00, people would drive up incredibly mad that the store had closed. How could we close so early on Christmas Eve? It was as if the rest of the world should cater to their needs and screw the people working at Fred Meyer.

Pomeranian Dream

I had a dream where I lived in a foresty area. I was in the backyard with some friends looking out over the trees when I saw a fuzzy blur of a pomeranian being chased by a bear.

My dilemma was not whether or not to save the pomeranian from the bear making a bite-size snack of him. I was more worried about my friends belittling me for saving a pomeranian.

CNN Headline News

My problems with CNN Headline News are many. I'm not even going to go into how they focus on the latest white woman being kidnapped or the trendiest court drama. It usually is McNews. I have no problem with that. I watch it sometimes just to see if anything big is going on that I should know about before work.

No, my problem is with their format. Sports? They have a section on sports? What the? Aren't there a couple of sports stations already? Then here in Las Vegas, they show the "Local Edition" on weekdays. If I want local news, I'll watch the local station. On top of that, CNN teases a story coming up on the national channel and then it switches over to the Local Edition which, as of late, has been a simple interview format of recent Nevada Legislature activities. Wanna be bored? Follow local Nevada law. I know that I should be interested, but I'm just not.

So, there's 8 minutes of Local Edition, 5 minutes of Sports. That's 13 minutes out of their 30 minute format. On top of that, I was just watching and they repeated stories that they had at the top after 15 minutes. Man, who tunes in at 15 minutes to get the top of the news. What a joke.

And now, they are also having "Showbiz Tonight" and the "Nancy Grace" Courtroom show. Arrrgh. This is even too "Mc" for me. Where can I get my McNews in a hurry? Damn you CNN!

Images from Sisters Chicken

My Second Job

Now 16 and legal, I got a job at Sisters Chicken the summer after Peter Piper Pizza. The chicken chain owned by Wendy's until it was sold. It was quite good from what I understand. Of course, I don't like chicken.

They had a sexist policy, cute girls worked in the front and ugly boys worked in the back. I hated it. The worst part was when you were working the fryer. You would bread and fry the chicken in these large fryers. You would get constantly burned from the oil splattering up. When you went home, you smelled like oil. I preferred working the biscuit station.

I don't remember the hats being so stupid, but who knows.

The manager and asst. manager were using and perhaps dealing drugs in the backroom. They would always come out of the back room with a renewed interest in their job. At one point, I was filling a bucket with water. Roger, the manager, came over, waited for a second and said "Jesus, why does it take so long for this bucket to fill up with water". He then found a hose and a sprayer. He used those to aid the filling of the bucket. Needless to say, it took two seconds. During that two seconds, he managed to yell "come on, come on!" at the water.

Doing the dishes was horribly unsafe. The managers had a habit of throwing knives across the kitchen to land in the sink. It didn't really matter if you were there.

To clean the place, we would scrub everything down and end up with a couple inches of water on the floor to scrub up the oil and flour mess. The place was always sparkling when we were done.

My first job

I was 15 and wanted to work for the summer. My sister worked at Peter Piper Pizza and although it was illegal for me to do so. I applied there as well. I started out as a dishwasher/busser. I did my job well, or so I thought. I did everything that I was suppose to. One day, my sister came to me and said that she was embarrassed at my performance. I said that, I did everything that I was told to do and that I did a good job at it. She then told me that when I had extra time to come and help in the kitchen and other areas. This actually started my personal work ethic (Thanks Sis). Never stop working...always keep looking for something to do to help out co-workers. I had no problem with that. I wasn't lazy, I just didn't know that I could do that. Anyway, it turned out to be a lot of fun. One manager we called "Mom" and another manager was called "Uncle Sauce". The customers started to think it was a family business.

I also ended up making pizzas and running the oven. I was terrible at running the oven. My pizzas always came out looking like footballs. I also, occasionally had to put on the mascot uniform. What was it? A friendly bear, I think. What a horrible job that is. Kids look into your real eyes through the black mesh and they know what is going on. It is also really hot. I was told that if I got too hot to go into the walk in cooler to prevent passing out. It's that hot. I feel sorry for the mascots at Disney.

I gave my two weeks notice and ended up walking out on my last day. There was a new manager who sent everyone home except me. We happened to be really busy and I knew that closing would take forever and I had enough of the new guy. Nobody liked him, which at 15, makes it easier to be mean. I wrote I note that said "I quit" and left in the back and left. I later found out that he didn't find the note for a long time and thought I had been kidnapped.

Hummus

I love hummus, but I don't like the dried hummus mixes that you can buy in the store. I also don't like the pre-made hummus that you can buy in the store. I like my hummus nice and thin and they prefer the thick hummus with strange flavors. So, I decided to make my own hummus. Lo and behold, there are a ton of recipes for hummus and they are all different. I'm really a freak about recipes in that I can't deviate from them one iota. That makes me a horrible, meticulous cook. I ended up creating my own hummus recipe and dare I say, it's a keeper. Here it is as follows: (I'm actually posting this so I don't lose it. Although, it is pretty easy to remember)

1 can (15 oz) garbanzo beans (put the "juice" aside for later)
1/2 tsp. Cumin
2 Tbs. Lemon Juice
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 cup tahini
Olive Oil

Put everything beside juice and olive oil in a food processor. Mix it up. Add "juice" to get desired consistency (nice and thin). Put in a dish and drizzle olive oil over it. Yummmmmmmmmm.

Why did I do this?

I got another e-mail address for the novelty of it. I will not be using it though. The new address is:

Xix@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com

I guess it's good if you want to annoy your friends. Here's some of the persuasion they use to have you sign up:

How could I not sign up?

My Fascist Eating Experience

So, Greg's parents were very kind in taking me to the Tournament of Kings at the Excaliber Hotel and Casino in beautiful Las Vegas.

This was a belated birthday gift and I really did appreciate it. The tickets are $55 each and that includes dinner. Let's talk about the food first. Actually, let's talk about Greg's mother first. I call her the dairy queen. Before leaving, she made sure to put a ziploc full of butter in her purse as well as a ziploc full of ketchup. She heard that butter was not provided and being that she occasionally eats just plain butter, well that is just not acceptable. Who thinks of things like this before going out to dinner? This isn't the first time she's done it either.

So, dinner consisted of a small serving of tomato soup...oops I mean Dragon's Blood soup served in a little plastic bowl that you drink out of. Next comes a cornish game hen, cold broccoli, a slightly stale dinner roll, and three large freezer burnt potato wedges. All of this you eat with you hands. The cornish game hen was actually not bad and I don't like cornish game hen.

The beginning of the show consisted of Merlin and a small man showing the audience the proper way to cheer. I hate audience participation, let alone participation the requires pre-determined cheering. We were required to yell "Hazaa!" and raise our hands. We were required to pound the table with our hen-greased palms. We were required to raise our drinks, say "Hear, hear", take a sip and then say "ahhh". We were also required to cheer whenever our section was mentioned. We were sitted in "Hungary". Each section was given a king. Everyone cheered when their king was presented. When France was presented, the rest of the crowd (not in France) booed. I personally don't like Parisians, but the people that I met from Lyons were quite nice. I think the France-hating thing is old. A lot of people don't even know why they are suppose to hate France. Next come the wenches, obviously all former cheerleaders. They would stand in front of you and "encourage" everyone to cheer the correct cheers. It was like having your own private Nazi watch over you. If you didn't cheer, you were singled out and given a stern look. Then the kings had a tournament that included jousting. Interesting to note that the King of Russia was a cheater. He would hit people when they were down and pull dirty tricks. The winner was the King of France, to my personal satisfaction.

The kings whenever they rode or walked by their section would try to get their section to cheer. Our king, the King of Hungary, would just smile and shout "Hungary". I noticed that the King of Austria would look at his subjects and simply glare at them and wave his hand upwardly to get them shout louder. We had a good king even though he performed horribly in the tournament.

Then there was the King of Dragon, who wasn't in the Tournament. He could shoot fire from his hands and therefore was my favorite. He of course ended up being killed. We were reminded by our Nazi Cheerleaders to "boo" him at the appropriate times. Secretly, I was cheering for him though.

Then there were acrobats, a coronation, and some indoor fireworks to round the deal off.