Another post from the backroom

The Star Wars Episode III DVD's have been sitting in Wal-mart stores all across the nation for at least a week now. At least, that's when I became aware that our Wal-mart had them in the back room.

A few days ago, Kacey from electronics, was this close to having a nervous breakdown because the three display cases were buried in a hard to reach area of the backroom.

"You have got to get those things out. I have to have them ready by Monday."

Dan and I looked at her as if she lost her mind. Considering what had to be done that day... we weren't going to mess with it. We didn't take care of it until tonight. But I can see why she was stressing. As you know, Tuesday is when all new music and movies are released. This means that on Monday night, Kacey (It's always her for some reason, and she's a part-timer) will be setting up all the displays just before midnight, when she can finally release the items out onto the sales floor.

Star Wars Episode III has a priority this upcoming Monday. A point that she made clearly this evening.

"I'm telling you, there are going to be people in here waiting at midnight. Hell, there were twenty people waiting when the [Star Wars Episode III] toys came out!"

She speaks the truth. We even have a couple people who camp out by the toy section so they can have a crack at the Hot Wheels toys when they come in at night. And those damn things are like 99¢!
We got a call from the store manager who was making sure that these three displays were pulled out and ready to be assembled. Apparently, the neighboring Wal-mart (It's like 15 miles away--I swear these things are everywhere) has reported that their displays had been broken into. They don't have a full inventory. The manager wanted to make sure that if the neighboring store ran out, we would be able to absorb their customers. Whatever. If they run out, odds are we will too.

Honestly, I think that these three displays will be enough until we start getting the normal shipments of the DVD's. And even if it's not, these geeks need to learn some patience anyways. I mean, I want to get the DVD, but I'm not going to hang around the store until midnight. It'll be there in the morning or whenever I decide to drop by. (I've already found out that I'm working that night, so I'll buying one before I head home at 1am.)

As I was pulling out the displays, I noticed this hole in the display. Uh oh, could someone have been trying to steal from us just like some people did over at the other Wal-mart? I looked in and everything seemed to be there. As a safety measure, I went ahead and called the mangers. I wanted to cover my butt so I wasn't accused of anything.

I'm sorry about the poor picture quality. I never bring a camera with me so you'll just have to deal with these camera phone shots. Look on theb right side, even though they don't look the best, at least you've got something to see. Can you imagine if this post was just text?

[Sartwars? Alright, who got the pirated crap?]

Before the holidays?

As you may know, I bitch and complain about how understaffed we are in the back room. We need a staff that is twice as big as it was. I say was because another one of our coworkers has left. Well, actually he was fired. Granted, the guy deserved to be fired. I'll give the company that. But when you take a pragmatic view on what is going there, you have to question why it had to be don. First of all, there is a hiring freeze. No one is getting hired for a full time position. Second, they are cutting hours for all associates already. Yeah, I've got 4 hours knocked off my schedule this week. Lastly, this is just as we are getting into all this holiday crap. Could they have picked a worse time to fire someone? I'm telling you, they are just shooting themselves in the foot over this one.

Ms. Sally said that he was fired yesterday which was the day I had off. She was pretty pissed because they fired him first thing. That left two big trucks (a 1,900 and a 1,600 from what I hear) to be worked by 4 people. I shudder at the thought of what they had to do to get all that crap into the back and out to the floor by midnight. Ms. Sally told me that they should have fired this guy after the trucks were done. I believe her exact words were, "You don't fire the dishwasher until the dishes are done." If Wal-mart wants to screw him-- fine, but don't screw us as well.

A picture for the day

Oops, I meant to post this yesterday but it got stuck in draft mode. Anyways, this is one of my coworkers. She tends to start the shift quiet and pissy but as the night goes on she gets more goofy. Maybe she puts a little something in her drinks? At the time that this picture was taken, she was bobbing her head up and down to some hardcore music that she was making up in her head. Then she started thrashing her hair about. Just thought it was off the wall so I took a pic with my camera phone. (What a handy little device.)

Movie Review: In Her Shoes

So I called Erin up the other night to see if she wanted to go see a movie. It was the last day of my mini-vacation from work and I wanted to go out and do something relatively cheap. In other words, something that didn’t involve alcohol. So that pretty much left going to the movies. I called her in the hopes of dragging her to “Serenity” or if that didn’t work, “Flight Plan.”

“Oh, I already have plans,” she says.

“Oh, okay. I was just going to see a movie anyways.” I was letting her off the hook.

“So are we! We’re going to see ‘In Her Shoes.’… you’re welcome to join us.”

Us? Who could that mean? Found out that Amanda was down for the weekend. I tried suggesting Serenity and Flight Plan. Shot down. [shakes head] I am such a pushover.

I find out that “In Her Shoes” is a chick flick. Now I like a good chick flick on occasion. Alright, so "Bridget Jones’s Diary" (the first one) was the last one I really liked. But what the hell, I’m sure there are thousands of other guys around the country that are getting dragged to this. I can suffer to be one of them.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this was a good movie. Basically what happens is this. There are two sisters that are pretty much opposites. The younger is pretty much a tramp while the other will cling to whatever relationship that rarely comes her way. So the younger sister (played by Cameron Diaz) gets kicked out of her house and goes to live with her sister and proceeds to make that sister’s life a living hell. After a betrayal of huge proportions, the older sister kicks the younger sister out. With nowhere to go, Diaz’s character heads for Florida to track down a grandmother that she recently found out existed. The two sister’s separation allows their characters to grow. Older sister finally finds true love. Younger sister moves in with her grandmother and starts to mature. Towards the end, the two sisters get back together and reconcile.

What I liked most about this movie was the characters. All of them (with exception of the step-mother) had some redeeming qualities. That makes it more real. You get to go into the heads of the players of what turned out to be a really messed up situation.

I would hesitate to say that this movie has anything to do with being a comedy. It’s not comical but there’s just so much of it coming out of the old folks in the movie that you just can’t help but love it. Especially from that old lady neighbor.

File this under WTF

Millionaire Senator Wins $850K in Lottery

From the Associated Press but pulled off from this site.

20 Oct. 2005

CONCORD, N.H.

Millionaire Sen. Judd Gregg announced Thursday that he won $853,492 in the Powerball lottery.

The 58-year-old Republican was one of 47 Powerball players who correctly picked five of the winning numbers but not the bonus digit that would have qualified them for the $340 million jackpot _ the second-richest prize in U.S. lottery history.

The only jackpot-winning ticket was sold in Jacksonville, Ore. The holder of the ticket did not immediately step forward.

A letter to the editor

I was reading through the South Bend Tribune (18 Oct. edition) and saw a letter in the Opinion Section that I just wanted to share. After I was done with it, I shook my head, relieved that people like her are not in power. We may have a bunch of snakes in office but at least they aren't this ignorant.

Start Over

When did violence ever solve conflict? At best it is like a slap, which forces the underdog to give up, temporarily. America has given aid to all the countries that it destroyed in World War II. That money could have been better spent helping the elderly survive a winter's cold.

If the United States demonstrated that it had no enemies, and instead developed international colleagues, respecting their traditional ways and religions, we might evolve the planet. Everywhere I have traveled, people are all the same. It is the conspiracy of politics to concoct an "us" against "them" concept.

Why is Cindy Sheehan's drive for peace so emotionally moving? President George W. Bush doesn't respect her loss, and families who mourn the losses of their precious children are kicked aside. I think he doesn't know what to say. Or is he ashamed?

I don't want to berate the presidency; I want to be proud again of being an American. Corruption in business and government is embarrassing. How could we make it right? Redistribution of the wealth would be a good start. If we all lose everything, by disasters and nuclear weapons, we will have to start all over again anyway, if survival is still an option.

Marie Lynch
South Bend

1.) How can you realistically argue for the redistribution of wealth when at the same time you suggest that America shouldn't have helped the former Axis countries after WWII? It was recovery programs such as the Marshall Plan that kick-started (West) Germany's growth into the economic powerhouse of Europe. Apparently former enemies aren't good enough for American assistance.

2.) The United States has enemies. It has had them ever since the colonies were charted. Snap back into reality. You can't go through life pretending that everyone doesn't hate you or work against your interest. The fact that America is the lone super power in the world only heightens the threats to it. Everyone wants to be king of the hill. Yeah, that may sound conceited but deep down you know its true. You think China wants to remain a third rate power?

3.) You say everyone is the same and yet at the same time we (the U.S.) is supposed to respect their differences. I don't see how you can claim to travel and actually make that claim. Sure, fundamentally, every person on the planet is "the same." But those cultures and beliefs do come into conflict. It's not just us conflicting with them. It's also them conflicting with others.

4.) "It is the conspiracy of politics to concoct an 'us' against 'them' concept." Not at all. The real heart of the matter is that that people are motivated by self-interest. If the United States can get what it wants by allying herself with another she will do it. American foreign policy is not always zero-sum.

5.) Admit it. You want to "berate" as much as you can.

6.) My God, are you actually suggesting that we "start over?" Are we going to reduce everyone to a common denominator? Are you going to confiscate all private property so that it can be redistributed? Tell you what... you take the first step and give me some of your wealth because I'm willing to bet that the value of my assets are a helluva lot lower than yours. Let's even the playing field!

Relationships

A couple days ago, I made an effort to track down my sister's blog. She has one at MSN spaces. There is a small amount of regret that I did that. She talked about her relationship with her (former?) boyfriend. Here is an excerpt:

I miss holding him... kissing him... his warmth... his scent... his touch... feeling his arms around me...

Eww. Eww. Eww. Suspecting your sister's sex life is one thing, beginning to know about it is well... kind of uncomfortable. Such is life though. It probably would help if my family was more open about relationships but we're not. It's very uptight. Everyone knows that I compartmentalize my life. My relationships (or non-relationships) are never discussed with my family. I just can't go there with them. Now that I'm beginning to get exposed to the realities of what is out there, I am trying to get a grip on it.

I’ve been one upped.

<<--See: Aww, H-E-double hockey sticks

And I thought that I had it bad! Just when I had my own little police horror story to tell, Season decides to go and get herself a better one. I won’t tell you the story because it’s not my place to tell. I will say though, that it involves arrest, lock-up, and crazy people. All because of a minor infraction. So Season, I welcome you to post your story if you’d like.

Coping with boredom

Last night, we had a 17-something and a 14-something truck. With our staff reduced to less than 50% and add the fact that they are cutting our hours, a three thousand piece day is pretty daunting. So far our store has eliminated at least one day from our normal schedules and reduced the rest of our days by an hour. Anyways, it was a rough day so you have to find something to "entertain" yourself.

On our breaks and lunch, we were invaded by flies. It's nothing new, really, as we have been dealing with them all summer but I've gotten so sick of them that I actively hunted them down. Managed to kill off six. Oddly enough, this disgusted Joni and Ms. Sally. But what's more disgusting, seeing dead flies or having them land in your food? I swear that towards the end of the evening, those little buggers got smart. They actually started to keep away.

But the greatest was when I split my sides laughing so hard when we pulled out some dildos from the breakpacks. I waved them over to Joni who laughed so hard that she fell to her knees. This got me laughing so hard that I the muscles in my side started to spasm. It hurt so bad that I had to yell out "Shut up!" over and over again so I could have a chance to compose myself. I tried looking for picture to show you but the closest I could get for you was the ones off to the right. And no, they're not actually dildos but dog toys.

I don't want special privilege...

...but how do you have freedom of the press when the government defines who the press is?

Read the story here.

Carrie and Justin's Wedding

I’ve been looking forward to Carrie and Justin’s wedding for the past month. I haven’t been to one since my Aunt Julie got married and that was a long time ago (sorry Aunt Julie… but it was.) I know that I’ve mentioned it before so finally, here it is.

Since Erin and her sister are in the wedding party, I met up with her parents at their house. Also there were Erin’s Aunt Sandy and Mandie’s date, Carl. Mr. and Mrs. B had to lead Carl and I into South Bend as we didn’t know where the church was. After running a couple red lights, we got to where we needed. The church—First Presbyterian, was very beautiful. Carrie and Justin don’t go to church there but they thought that it was an ideal place for their wedding. We were still a little early, however, as Mr. and Mrs. B were the receptionists. Let me tell you, it’s great to have connections. Because we are the dates of the bridesmaids and because we are associated with Mr. and Mrs. B, Carl, Aunt Sandy and I had reserved seating in pew two. Right behind the Bride’s immediate family. Yes! Ahead of all other family and friends.



The wedding ceremony itself was really nice—and short which is always important. Aunt Sandy and I thought that the mothers lighting the separate candles that will later be used for the unity candle was a nice touch. I guess it doesn’t happen in her church nor in mine. The only problem came with the reciting of the Lord’s Prayer. No one told us which version the preacher would be using. It was a mess. I just stuck with my version of course. I thought that I had majorly embarrassed myself when the ushers were dismissing us. They started in pew one but the bride’s family stayed sitting. The groom’s family left. Then they moved to pew two. This time, no one on the groom’s side got up. Mr. and Mrs. B got up but not the other family members that were in pew two with us. At this time, I had stood up, expecting to go when it occurred to me, maybe they were only dismissing the family member. With an “Oh crap” and a red face I promptly sat my ass down. It took a few moments, but finally the rest of pew two took Mr. and Mrs. B’s lead and we all left, even if we were really dismissed or not. It turns out that there was nothing wrong with what we did (except my “oh crap” remark.)

We made a quick retreat in order to find a parking spot for the reception. We had a while to wait before the wedding party showed up. Carl and I made our way to abuse the open bar. I wasn’t feeling too creative so I just stuck with the beer and rum ‘n pepsis. We spent the time talking with Aunt Sandy and Mr. and Mrs. B. Aunt Sandy is pretty awesome. She even showed us how to make a napkin chicken.

When the wedding party made their entrance everyone used poppers. It was supposed to take the place of the rice that normally is thrown when a couple leaves the church. Big modification, but at least the birds won’t die. Erin had forgotten to bring her speech so she shouted out my name.

“DAVID!” Everyone looks over to her. “Let’s go!”

I didn’t even ask. It looked important. When we got out into the lobby area, she explained to me what had happened and she needed me to come along incase she didn’t make it. A valid concern as we were soon sprinting across main street with heavy traffic. Her doing it with her dress hiked up, added a moment of hilarity to the night.

While making our dash across the first parking lot (because she parked two lots away) I said, “Wow, I feel like I’m in a Julia Roberts film!”

It took quite a while, but she was able to find her speech. Then we dashed our way back up to the reception. I guess she was just in time as the speeches were just getting started. I thought Erin’s turned out well. The Best Man, Jeff, I thought was a little low key. Some humor is nice to have. Jon attempted an impromptu one but it fell flat. Terry, Carrie’s father, was giving the emcee the cut it off sign. We wanted to eat!




Again, with my great connections, we were right after the wedding party and family to get to the food line. I snapped a picture before we went up with Carrie holding her platter. She brought out a huge plate. She justified her special plate as being necessary because she hadn’t eaten all day.

Me, Erin, Mandi, and Carl

Soon afterwards, the dancing started which lasted until the event was over. In truth, there wasn’t really all that much dancing. It started late and by the end, there wasn’t really much of a crowd that would dance. Some of the notables:

• The Dollar Dance
• The Bridesmaids’ strip dance
• Justin and the rest of his frat doing some weird ass dance (which involved dancing on one foot and bumping into each other.)
• Cotton Eye Joe (which involved people making up their own dance moves)
• Cha Cha Slide (shown in second picture below)

When everything was done with, I gave a hug to Carrie and shook hands with Justin as they were preparing to leave for an “undisclosed location” (ahem… Comfort Inn and Suites on 31, Roseland) The rest of us headed for Bee Dubs (Buffalo Wild Wings) for more drinking. I would like to take a moment to say that Bee Dubs in East Lansing/MSU is a helluva lot better than the Bee Dubs in South Bend/Notre Dame. In the photo shown above, Groomsman Jeremy need to have his picture taken with Mandie. He was an escort for the kid bridesmaid and he needed to be seen with someone older. But poor Carl, he had to get up early in the morning to get back up to Grand Rapids by nine for work. It was looking like he may be staying up until 3 in the morning. Luckily for him though, Bee Dubs closed early and kicked us out. People started looking for another bar like Corby’s or the Oyster Bar. We just headed for our hotel room and crashed. Too lazy and tired to drive to some other bar for only an hour.

Amanda and Carl left early in the morning. She had to get to her tournament and he to his job. Erin and I continued to sleep until Aunt Sandy called around 8am. Uggh! We still had four hours left to sleep. But we slowly got up. When we got into the car, we found out that Carrie had left her makeup bag. So we made our way to the “undisclosed location” and Erin tried to drop it off at the front desk so that Carrie could pick it up when they checked out. Erin was told that some guests don’t check out at the desk. They just leave some sort of paper in their room. So Erin tried to call up to the room but Carrie and Justin had left instructions to not be disturbed unless it was an emergency. Emergency—Erin made the call.

When we got back to her house, I was still so tired that I needed to crash. She mentioned about going to the bar that night. Sorry, too tired… and maybe I should give my liver a rest. I certainly made the most of that open bar and definitely drank that $17 worth.

Shutting your eyes doesn't make it go away.

Crap, crap, crap. You know me, I'm a big procrastinator. In fact, there's a wedding in a few hours and I'm still sitting on my duff and blogging. Carrie and Justin's wedding is almost upon us so I decided that I would get my haircut this morning. My thinking was that it would look nice, neat (and... fresh?) for this evening. Uh... no. I think it was one of my worse haircuts ever. Check back in a couple of days and you'll see what I mean. I'm squinting at the thought of what Erin might say (or not say.)

Well, I suppose I should go and get ready.

Good Luck Better Be Around the Corner

I am going to be fired I just know it. This past week and a half have been hell (aside from Friday and Saturday). Last week I had to call off from work and the internship due to a severe cold that I had. Last night, I hurt myself which requires me to claim worker’s comp.
It was about thirty minutes into my shift when I tripped forward on a pallet. I thought that I may have minorly bruised the top of my foot. For the first couple of hours, I limped a little but I soon got over it. Then towards the end of the shift it got worse again. I took a Vicodin pill that I had left over from my surgery when I got home. The only thing that we had in the house was asprin and I knew that wasn’t going to cut it. I woke up early in the morning and I knew that I had to go report this. It wasn’t going to go away.

The first thing that had to be done was filling out the report. I swear it took an hour to do it. Then there was the drug screening which required one of the assistant managers to come with me to the medical clinic. For a Tuesday morning, it was quite busy. It took an outrageous ten minutes before they could allow me to pee in a cup. At least there were only a few minutes to wait before I got treated by the doctor. His diagnosis was a contusion and strain with a possible cracked bone.

So I have light duty, at least until Sunday when I will reevaluate my condition and notify my supervisor if I can return to my normal duties. What I am real worried about is the drug test. I had Vicodin in my system when I took it. I took one pill when I got home on the day of the injury and then another one this morning. Vicodin is a prescription drug and will show up on the test. My prescription for Vicodin has expired. Oops. Hopefully they take in mitigating circumstances rather than adhere to zero tolerance.

But what am I going to do now? I have a wedding to go to on Friday. I got to you know… get my groove on. I’m not sure I can pull it off with my grandpa cane.

Saturday night relax

After picking myself off the floor following MSU’s loss to UofM, I phoned up Erin to see if we were going to do something that night. Yup. We were going to drown our sorrows away. Er, well my sorrows, she couldn’t give a crap about the MSU/UofM game I suspect.

The Apple Festival was still going on. The festival marks the beginning of fall and is the end of the fair season here in Michiana. It’s the last time to get in all that fair food until next summer. We went on Friday night to see Da Yoopers*. They are a comedy/song group that spoofs Yooper living. Hilarious stuff. That night, we were going to drink. Justin and Carrie, whose wedding we will be attending this Friday, met us at the beer tent (which is more like a corral) around 7ish. We had a couple of Miller Lites which was pretty nasty. But hey, after the first one, the rest go down easily enough. Little mini high school reunions were taking place while we were at the beer tent. I felt a little out of place but I did see a few people I knew from elementary. It got better though when we headed for the Tavern.

There I felt more at ease and was actually able to talk to some other people that I didn’t know. One guy, Jeff, just started talking to me like he had known me all this time. Very sociable. Justin was pretty cool too and we teased him about some wedding details. I got my shots of the night for free. I tried something called a Girl Scout. It was so smooth and tasty, it didn’t even feel like it should have been a shot. Then came the Jaeger bombs that Jeff kindly paid for. Good stuff. Good times—especially when Notre Dame beat Purdue. At least one game I was interested in went right that night.

*For those of you outside of Michigan, a Yooper is a person who is from the Upper Peninsula. If you get out a map, you can see that Michigan consists of the Lower Peninsula and the Upper Peninsula. Yoopers are like hill billies or rednecks to the rest of us in the LP. We just make fun of their accents--the fact that they sound more like Canadians than Americans and other things.

Back to the Sofa Crater

And the shows are back! After months of waiting, my shows are returning for the season. Well at least some of them. Wait, actually there are only a few that I’m going to watch. Let’s see, there are CSI and Desperate Housewives. I missed both of their premiers but I am looking forward to starting up. I just got done with a recording of Thursday’s CSI. Based on what some fellow bloggers said about Desperate Housewives, I might be dropping that this year. We’ll see tomorrow. With the departure of Enterprise, JAG, That 70’s Show and a few others, I have quite a few spaces available for new programs. Of course, I could probably get off my duff and maybe exercise or take up a hobby. Choices, choices. Man, I am such a stud er... spud.

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY v. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Holy Crap! I'm jinxing my team. I know it. I got the day off from work. My ass is in the couch with my subs, drinks, and snacks, and there was a pickle on my TV screen. Why? Because it's 14-0 with UofM winning. That overrated POS team is actually winning? Damn. The Spartans need put on their offense and start running over the Maize'n Blue. C'mon guys! We still have three quarters left to do it in.

UPDATE:

MSU ties it 21-21. Are we coming back?

UPDATE:

1:05 left in the fourth. Tied with Michigan reaching for the goal. I'm about to die from asphyxia here.

0:48 To the right! To the right!

....And we are in overtime AGAIN this year.

Oh, we fucked it up.

♫Hail to the Victors... and yadda yadda.