On Work

The position I had originally applied for at PetSmart three years ago was cashier. I was applying online and didn't know what to put in the box, so that was my default. It turned out that they didn't need a cashier at the time but Emma called to inform me of an opening available as a dog trainer. Even though I didn't (and still don't) know anything about training dogs I went to the interview. I think Emma and Amy mutually concluded that I was too shy to be a trainer so they stuck me in pet care, cleaning fish tanks and bird cages.

It's good that things worked out like that because I register trained over the last few weeks and I hate it a lot more than I though. I can handle rude people. I can handle people who act like I'm mentally challenged because I work part time at a pet store. I can handle people who take their bad days out on me and throw tantrums when they don't get their way. I can even handle people who launch personal attacks on me for no particular reason. What I can't handle are stupid people.

"Why is my total $95?" Did you see all the shit in your cart? Apparently not.

"Why did my total go from $40 to $185?" The $40 was your that bag of dog food I scanned. That's why it said PURNIA DOG FOOD. Now it says TOTAL. That's your total. Learn math.

"Why does the shelf say $4 if this is really $8?" It's on sale with your store card. You declined a card application and refused to give me your phone number. Learn to read.

"Why does the shelf say $20 if this is really $75?" Someone put it in the wrong spot. Did you honestly expect to get that price?

"Why does everything here cost so much?" Because the corporation takes advantage of stupid people.

Antisocial

I'm feeling kind of antisocial this evening. Exactly why this results in a desire to blog is unclear, especially considering I don't really have much to blog about.

I've been pushing to update the electronics in our house not only to have better equipment available when I need it, but also to be a little more eco friendly. In February I replaced my aging CRT monitor with a new LED backlit LCD and my old hard drive with a Western Digital Caviar Green drive. For Mother's day my dad and I are going to pick up a 65 watt MSI Wind Nettop to replace my mom's ancient 250 watt 233. For Father's day the following month, my mom and I are going to get my dad a new monitor similar or identical to mine. On a side note, I was going to plant a tree today for Earth Day/Hank Green's birthday, but don't get paid until tomorrow.

A lot has been going on at work, much of which isn't really my business to talk about. A few people are leaving for better jobs, which is good because they're getting away from situations that don't work for them and will likely get better pay. On the other hand, it sucks because they were both genuinely nice and knowledgeable people. We've had some people come to my department from other areas of the store, which is good because I really enjoy teaching people things and it's nice to see people on a more regular basis.

I'm looking for a new hobby. Something cheap and preferably something I can use to make a little money on the side. I've considered picking up a small tank (I'd love a Fluval Edge, but it's $99 on sale where I work and up to $150 online) and doing some aquascaping. No fish. Just rocks, dirt, and plants. It's not the cheapest hobby, of course, but with a little effort I could make something really nice. Any thoughts on productive hobbies would be nice.

Tired

Can't type long.
Work all day.
Read all night.
Eat healthy lunch.
Spend money on animals.
Be with friends Sundays.
Pay bills.
George wheezes.
Make more vids.
See Jason sleep.
I sleep now.

Script Frenzy

Instead of making a post about how politics is a stupid topic to discuss because the Internet has brought the fluidity of communication to an extreme level and everyone assumes they're an expert in every subject because they have minimal experience in a small subset of that subject, I'd rather post this:

I'm ready to participate this year.

Untitled

I miss the days when my blog was just my blog. The days when only three people had the URL. When I could talk about whatever I wanted and didn't have to take other people into account. When I could just be honest and not sugar coat every sentence. It's kind of the same feeling one gets of missing the innocent days of his/her childhood. I guess I'll begrudgingly keep at it until I find that I have relevant things to say once again. Until then expect plenty of drivel.

Look at Me Still Talking While there's Science to Do

Jason wants to buy a house sometime in the near future so I've been trying to save money to pay off my debt to save money. That hasn't been working too well because I'm at a point where I barely make enough money to pay all my bills and buy the things I need. People tell me I should find another job, but the market isn't so good out there right now and I'm not going to sacrifice my stable job for one where I'd make more money but might be out of a job in six months. That's just irresponsible. Foreclosed homes are super cheap right now and a lot of them are in an area I'd like to live. I'm also interested in home repair and gardening and think I could really make something out of a crappy little house.

Jason and I went to see Alice in Wonderland last night and I really enjoyed it. It was a lot more interesting than I though it would be and the story was a nice change from a lot of the shit movies that are coming out right now.

Not much else has been going on here. I've been reading The Art of Happiness by Howard Cutler and the Dalai Lama. It's pretty interesting and got me thinking about a lot of things. I've also been practicing proper Zen minimalism and meditating more than I used to. I also started yoga, but am not sure if I like it yet.

This Week's Random Virus

First: I don't know why my header is purple. It looked black on my old monitor and I don't really feel like fixing it right now.

I've have the last 5 days off, but I've been sick for the last 5 days. What a lovely surprise. On Thursday I felt better during the afternoon, but it didn't last long. Needless to say, I didn't get much done this week. I did get caught up on all my podcasts, though. Now, I have to clean.

My Birthday, with no Photos

I had a really good birthday. About a week ago, half way between Jason's birthday and my own, we went to dinner at Leong's with Rose, Sean, Jason, Jennifer, and Sarah. I forgot what I ordered and the waitress made fun of me. Then I had to remind her to bring me chopsticks. Again. Then we hung around Walmart for a while, but ran into one of my managers which was a little awkward.

Jason and I hung out with Steph and her family on my birthday. Steph made me a cake and everyone signed a card for me. It was nice. Then we went bowling at Colony, which was more fun than I thought it would be. Since I ended up on a lane with all the kids, I got a relatively high score. Relatively. Heather won me a stuffed dog from their quarter eater, which we tried to give to Jose because he wanted her to win him something, but the machine wasn't giving another prize. I couldn't stay out too late because I had to work the next morning.

My parents gave me a new 19" widescreen monitor, Jason gave me 2GB of RAM and I used the money my mom gave me to buy a 500GB 7200RPM hard drive. The image from the monitor is beautiful, especially when it's using proper sRGB color. The computer is so much more responsive with the extra RAM, so much that I'm able to do the things I always do without the least amount of slowdown. I'm expecting the hard drive to arrive by Thursday so I reinstall Windows and set everything up before the long hours I'm working over the weekend.

On Valentine's day, Jason took me The Little Bar behind CVS in Marine City. I got Southwestern Tapalia, which was really good. I tasted Jason's long island iced tea, which was also really good. I got Jason a box of chocolates but despite the price, it only came with 6 pieces. He couldn't stay late because he had to work early the next morning. It's a running theme that annoys some of my unemployed friends.

The Future of Lies

We've been trying to orally communicate with our machines for a number of years. We haven't had a terrible amount of success until the last few years. The Google Nexus One will let you perform a number of complex actions with simple voice commands (the fact that the phone transmits the sound of your voice to Google where it is decoded and data sent back to the phone is irrelevant). Microsoft Sync is a similar system, optional in any Ford/Linclon/Mercury vehicle which also works exceedingly well. How long will it take for systems like these to be standard on devices, large and small?

Intel Chief Technology Officer, Justin Rattner, theorizes that as computers become faster, we'll begin programming them to think in the same way we do. This makes sense, seeing as our brains seem to be the most efficient computers in existence. When these computers begin to think like us, voice recognition and synthesis will be completely natural. At this point, the most convenient and efficient way to interface with a computer will be by speech. It becomes not entirely unlikely then, that text and writing will eventually fade and our culture will be orally based, like those that existed thousands of years ago.

The difference is that instead of bards passing down and retelling stories through the generations, we'll have computers recording everything we do with 100% accuracy and perfectly communicating the situation to anyone within reason (Ignore the issues with this right now). Since these computers have all the accuracy of written word, will be easier to interface with, and will be in the hands of everyone, society will still be able to advance in much the same way it does now only much faster.

A great deal of information can be conveyed through speech. Tone, pitch, inflection, loudness, and rhythm together convey the true intent of a message behind words. Our brains interrupt these cues and do their best to determine meaning. We then reply, automatically adding these elements into our speech.

The problem I see is this:

These same elements of speech can also be used to hide the intent of a message. What's to keep someone from creating a nice, sweet, mild mannered program with a pretty little voice to deceive and manipulate us in all kinds of creative ways? And the lies get a hell of a lot more convincing if we add holographic body language to the mix. Human psychology is a bitch like that.

Is it any wonder I used to write science fiction?

That's What She Said

And I concur.

Rennovation

My new blog template didn't quite turn out how I wanted it. I'm fairly happy with my flickr badge (to the far left), but wanted it to align to the left side of the window with now space between the images. I'm also still looking for a grungy image to use for the body background (to the right of the black line). I came across a lot of images I liked, but wouldn't work for one reason or another. Not sure what I'm going to do with the design from here. Any suggestions?

That's Like Something from Science Fiction

I've decided that instead of living on a planet it the Goldilocks zone of a nearby solar system (which has been a desire of mine for some time), I would be content living on a space ship. With a little training I could be an amazing medic or mechanic. It doesn't matter if we ever actually went anywhere because I'd be away from here. As long as I could convince Jason to go along with it, it would be an ideal situation for all.

[THIS PARAGRAPH IS NOT ABOUT PUPPIES OR KITTENS AND HAS BEEN REMOVED]

I've been really bored with my job lately. It's a nice job and all, but it's never interesting. Every week I clean the same tanks, feed the same animals, and talk to the same customers about the same problems. The only time anything interesting happens is when something breaks and I get a chance to fix it. Unless it's something big like the main sump. That just gets in the way of my work.

My bank account and I are currently having a minor scuff, which is normal for the Christmas and birthday rush season. I also need to get glasses that aren't partially opaque with scratches and tags for my license plate which aren't expired. What joy.

Happy Happy Fun Haiku

Life is wonderful.
Rainbows and puppies abound.
Earth is beautiful.

Marriage

If people continue treating marriage as a privilege for people who fit a small set of preconditions, then I propose the following additional conditions:

a)The sum of the IQ of the two individuals must be more than or equal to 280.

b)The two individuals must have a combined annual income of at least $40,000 plus an additional $10,000 for child that is expected.

c)The two individuals must carry no dominant or recessive genes linked to any illness or disability.

d)The two individuals must undergo an extensive background check and have no recorded felonies and no more than one misdemeanor each.

e)The two individuals must undergo psychometric profiling and posses only the traits conducive to raising a family.

f)The two individuals must be virgins.

Furthermore, once two individuals are married, the government is to keep a close eye on them to make sure the following conditions are being met:

a)The two individuals must maintain their annual income.

b)The two individuals must produce children within one year of marriage.

c)The two individuals must not perform any acts of infidelity.

d)The two individuals must not be committed of of any crimes.

e)The two individuals must continue to produce the optimal number of children for the first five years of the marriage.

f)The two individuals must provide proper education for every child produced by the marriage.

Let's send that shit to court and see what happens.

Same Old Thing

I've been having trouble sleeping lately. I don't know if it's because I've been sitting around too much, drinking too much coffee, or worrying too much. Even though it's a new year and I've made a lot of changes, I think my financial situation may take a little longer to fix up than I originally though.

I just need to get back out of here. Much like the dilemma I was in a few years ago, everyone I know is moving ahead in life, but I'm stuck here. Now, instead of simply moving out of their parents' homes, everyone is getting married this year. It's a step I'm emotionally ready to take, but once again, I'm stuck here with no money and no way to get away from the people who hold me back.

Blah. I'm going to bed.

Does My Gerbil Really Need Water?

I really wish people would stop buying pets for their children. Kids have no desire to take care of something, and neither do most adults. Over the holiday season I sold a number of pets and fish tanks. I also had a number of questions such as "Are you really sure I need a filter for my fish tank," "Can't I just feed my hamster old vegetables," and "If it dies can't I just come back and get a new one?" If you don't want to take care of a living animal don't buy one, you miserable people. That's all I'm going to say about that.

I've been transferring the data from my 120g hard drive to my new terabyte drive and I realized that I've been downloading music faster than I can properly tag it. It's a lengthy process, but when it's done my music will be much more organized and I'll start using Winamp's music library again. I originally started weeding out the collection, removing music I don't listen to or no longer like, but I ended up almost doubling what I've gotten through so far. Not my intention.

That's all I have. It's been a boring few days, but I don't want to stop blogging again.

2010

I suppose it's time for me to return to reality. For a moment I contemplated extending my vacation until the end of the decade (at the end of this year, not the beginning), but I think I've had enough time to myself. It's really helped me clear my mind and concentrate on what is really important to me.

I haven't been doing much other than playing games, reading a few Carl Sagan books, and been trolling around the religion and LGBT sections of Yahoo! Answers. I've been listening to a lot of good podcasts, including Are We Alone, This Week in Science, Astronomy Cast, and all of the new content on TWiT.tv.

Connie needed some help pulling up her carpet and refinishing her hardwood floor, so Jason and I helped her with that. I really enjoyed that because I enjoy doing productive projects and it ended up looking very good. She also cooked quite a bit of real food for us and let Jason and I record a few episodes of "Ask a Gay Couple". We all had fun with that.

For the last few weeks I've been having good times just hanging out with my friends. Rose and I have been hanging out a lot since she started working at PetSmart. Last week her fiance, Sean, took us all out for dinner at Outback Steakhouse in Chesterfield, which was tasty, but all too expensive. I plan to return the favor next week with a gift card I'll be winning from our annual sales contest at work. Steph had a New Year's Eve party, which I enjoyed a lot. Jason and I even danced briefly this year.

I've been reading a blog called Zen Habits and am going to start simplifying my life and doing some of the other things on there. There's so much clutter in my life that the tings that I find important aren't really accessible to me. I allow people's negative attitudes get to me, which is getting cumbersome and needs to stop. I'm going to start spending more time enjoying the few things I have instead of working to get things I don't need.

I plan to pay off my credit card debt by June. After that I can finally repay the people I owe money to and concentrate on paying off my auto loan. That should help me get to the point where I can get out on my own again, maybe even put a down payment on a house at some time in the near future. I could then fix it up and sell if for a profit, depending on when the housing market picks back up. I'm optimistic about the economy.

That's all I want to say right now. How is everyone else doing? Does anyone bother checking back here anymore? Please, let me know.

Radio.SETI.org

Since June, I've been taking a nice break from reality. I stopped keeping up with my blog and myspace and have been playing a lot of games. Old ones mostly, because a I'm super broke and can barely afford to keep my car running. But that's not really important to this post. I'll be back next year and will resume my normal online behavior. Until then, check out the emo posts in the archive.

Your Finger is Turning Purple

I was bitten by a ball python today. They're normally friendly snakes and we handle them all the time without hassle. He had just eaten and I had just washed my hands really well so I really don't know why he did it. I stuck my hand in his feeding container to put him back in his normal cage, and he just latched on to my middle finger.

Most pythons are constrictors, so their bite isn't terribly painful, but they have very strong muscles in their bodies to suffocate their prey. I asked Mary what to do and she asked the vet. They told us to put something in his mouth and pry his jaws off my finger, but we couldn't get it to work, so I ended up walking to them, half way across the store, with this snake attached to my finger. The vet had no trouble removing it and I went to lunch.

When I came back from lunch, I wasted 40 minutes on the phone filing an incident report. The bitchy nurse I ended up talking to asked me when my last tetanus booster shot was. I told her it was when I was a child, to which she replied "Was it in the last five years," to which I replied "No, it was when I was a child." Eventually, she demanded I go to Mt. Clemens General ER for the shot. Not only did I was all that time, but they made me leave an hour and a half early for a very minor wound. I still feel bad for not finishing all my work before I left.

The hospital was easy enough to find, and the nurse I spoke with had already sent the paperwork over so everyone was waiting for me. Everyone was really interested in my story and I guess they don't see too many snake bites down that way. I only had to wait a few minutes before the doctor came in with the booster. The shot itself felt roughly the same as the bite, but I didn't react so well to it. I was fine until the lady left the room. Then my arm started hurting really bad, I became nauseous, and passed out. I was awake again when she came back and they let me go right away.

That is my story of the day. Not as fun as going to dinner and the zoo, but much more dramatic.

My Long Weekend

Now that we have our usual number of managers and employes at work, they're cutting my hours, which I half way expected, but I'm not going to be able to spend much money anymore. No more late night deserts and excessive dinners. That's okay because I've been taking in too many calories recently anyway.

I'm also realy wanting to start modding computer cases and selling them online. There's probably not an extreme market for it right now, so I might take a hit on it at first, but I think it could eventually be profitable. That would be really cool because that's one of the things I'm really interested in.

I've also been writing again and might get back into filmmaking. Fun stuff. :)