Tuesday, February 27, 2007

more job instability

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More work unstability. The RIM room where I was originally hired for is having meetings yesterday and today with the supervisors. The rumor floating around is that the room will be shut down for two weeks to maybe as much as two months. This is really stunning news. The company made sure to tell us new hires that this room had $22 million dollars invested in it. Now they’ve laid off every single person specifically hired for the room. Further, the company then laid off another 17 people from that room after that. And now, the raging rumor is at least a two week shutdown for the room. More should become clear in the coming days but lately, rumors have been becoming true at an alarming rate.

Work last night was decent overall. That was because I wasn’t doing my normal job of stamping. The only thing that sucked was that I was tired because I couldn’t get to sleep earlier in the day before work. So nearing six o’clock AM, I started getting a migraine. It was because I had about 90 minutes of sleep or less in 24 hours. Considering I did the same thing on Saturday I now realize my sleep has really been screwed up.

Tonight could be decent as well. It is inventory and I have to count. Possibly highly boring but better than stamping.

There are also 3 jobs to bid on. All are the same job and in the same room I currently work in. There is one position per shift making three jobs available. I shall be bidding on them.

Just heard on the news that the Bush administration is inn talks about the Iraq oil. They are working on a draft law that favors the American and British oil companies to control the Iraqi oil for long periods of time. The World Bank (who helped plan the Iraq invasion) and big oil companies are reported to be involved as consultants. War profiteering anyone? That’s all the Iraq war was ever about.

I’m not a big MySpace fan but I searched for my high school and year of graduation. 5 people came up that should be classmates of mine. I recognized the three guys. The two women I couldn’t place at all. If they really were classmates that graduated with me I can’t recall who they are.

I think that’s about it.

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Depression

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I might be depressed. I really dislike my job. A whole lot. Friday night I left shaking with frustration again. I’ve never had a job where I’ve gone home and felt sick like this. Usually my chest and stomach are really screwed up feeling. Sometimes I consider going to the hospital but I don’t think it’s that bad – yet.

What drives me so nuts at work is the machine I work on. The quality control is a joke. I producing consecutive five balls on Friday night, no two looked alike. Only one was the way it was suppose to be. My production numbers ended up sucking out BAD because I kept fighting with the machine. I felt I produced junk all night long but apparently it’s okay to go to the customer. I really feel we produce junk half the time but it’s okay to go to the customer.

This has driven me to think about my job obsessively. It’s also why I think I may be depressed for the most part. If I can keep my mind off it which is really hard, I’m okay. Otherwise, I have no desire to do anything and just sit mulling over my job.

I did bid on my 3rd job since entering the room. I also have the local want ads sitting on my table. I prefer not to leave Top Flite but maybe it’s for the best. The room I was originally laid off from is possibly shutting down for two more weeks. There’s supposed to be a meeting tomorrow about it. It’s not a good thing when a company drops $22 million dollars on a room that produces award winning products only to lay off every single new hire for the room from the past year and a half and then later probably shut it down for two weeks.

Hopefully February will be the last of the almost $300 monthly heating bill. It will alleviate a lot of financial hardship.

I did produce a nice looking picture of Jaina that I will use for either the front or back cover of issue 3 of The Necropolis Chronicles.

I was able to have a fun time with my friends today playing Heroclix at the store. I was pretty down when I first got there but as we played and had fun I lightened up. My buddy and I lost and our big boppers failed miserably, but I had some really cheap guys (11 & 9 points) prove to be real pain in the asses for our opponents which added much fun to the game.

Had a real shit day driving to my parents the other day. I noticed this minivan right on my bumper at the last stop sign near my house. Didn’t really think anything of it until I was two houses away from my own when it passed me in a no passing zone and really caught me off guard. In less than 5 seconds I was making a left hand turn into my driveway. Had the timing been a little different the minivan making an illegal pass would have slammed into my driver’s side door. So I wasn’t happy with that.

I then dropped off the milk I bought and headed to my parents place. I got maybe a quarter mile from my house when I got stuck behind a lady doing 25 mph. So I switched from a speeder that recklessly passes people to a slow poke. So I figure, ‘okay, I take this side route to get around her’ since my whole road is two solid yellow no passing lines. So I do my little deal and get to a major intersection only to find I’m somehow behind the old lady again. In the end, she went 85% of the way I take to my parents. So I wasn’t happy when I got to my parents place.

I had more stuff to rant about but I’ve forgotten. Probably the last thing I’ll add is that I’ve been playing Call of Duty 2 all to hell. I’ve put in a lot of hours this week. I just didn’t have the desire to do anything else. That was another reason I feel I’m depressed.

So what does the future hold? Who the hell knows. I guess we’ll see.

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

So much for President's Day

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So much for President’s Day. I had it off from work but you wouldn’t have known it. I had all sorts of plans to do different things. I got up around 8:15am and shaved. I then got a phone call just as I finished shaving. My brother needed my help at his job. His boss is on a cruise and he needs my help lifting stuff. The sooner the better. Crap. I showered, ate a small breakfast called the answering service to tell my brother I was ready. I called my parents for my sister’s phone number. My niece and nephew need jobs and there was potential scab work to be had. Scab work as in strike busters. Not the best work to be had but I know my nephew is getting desperate. Called my sister and my brother arrived. Oy. Quickly finished the phone call, brushed my teeth and headed out.

We moved a hot water heater out of someone’s basement and he drove me to the parents to get his cell phone. He needed my later in the to put the new replacement hot water heater into the cellar. Also, it turns out that my dad had a huge fit and started a huge fight with my brother over not being asked to help with the hot water heater. I’m going to guess it was because my brother paid me. But my brother didn’t want my dad’s help because my dad is in his 70’s. Not exactly a first pick for potential strenuous activity. So I guess my brother and him really got into it until my mom told my dad to stop and then he got really mad at her. All of this because he wasn’t asked to help. Sheesh. So the tension at the parentals was pretty high. My father pretended to be asleep when we stopped in to get my brother’s cell phone.

The first thing I had planned to do on Monday was get a haircut. I need one. But instead of getting there early as I had planned – around 10am, I got there around 11:30 I think after helping my brother. As I walked towards the place I could see 3 or 4 or maybe even more little kids running around in the place I go. I immediately got back in my car and gave up the idea of getting a haircut that day.

I then went to a Petco in the same plaza. Um,…Petco doesn’t care shit for pets. Birds and fish, that’s it. And ferrets. I want a kitten. So I left rather confused that Petco carries crap for animals. I went to another place about 15 minutes away. It was closed for the holiday. Goddamn it.

From there I went to a big shopping mall about 20 minutes away using highways. Both A.C. Moore and Michael’s art supply stores had 50% off one item coupons. The Holyoke Mall also has a pet store. That pet store only had dogs. WTF?!?!? Doesn’t anyone have cats?! There was nothing even in the local paper’s classified ads that fit my budget. All specialty breeds started at $350.00 and quickly went up. I’m only aiming for a normal cat these days.

At A.C. Moore’s I bought some acrylic paints. It’s a small set of primary colors for painting that normally goes for $18. I also bought a small pack of canvas boards.

I hopped over to Michael’s which was about another 15 minutes because traffic was heavy. I bought a new inking pen there getting it for $13 at half off. The plan is to keep the pen unopened in case my mom needs a cheap birthday gift for my niece in April. While cashing out my brother called but the cashier was so slow I missed the call because I was in the middle of paying for my pen. The cashier was nice but I swear it took 4 minutes to ring out my one item. I wasn’t in a hurry but it was a bit annoying.

I went home and soon after had to drive over to help out my brother again. After that I drove to my parents for dinner. After dinner I drove over to a place with the same brother who needed to drop of his car for repairs. After driving him back to my parents – about 20+ minutes both ways and then another 15 minutes to get home, I finally arrived home for 6:30pm.

Once home I watched The Devil Wears Prada which was pretty good. I’m an Anne Hathaway fan and she looked quite nice the whole movie. I then popped in the Royal Rumble match I got from my buddy.

I think I chewed up about a ¼ tank of gas where a full tank lasts me about 9 days of normal driving.

Today, Tuesday, I stayed in for the most part venturing out only for some quick grocery shopping, a money deposit into my checking account and returning the video. But it was quite busy out there. I was in line behind 5 people at Blockbuster on a Tuesday afternoon about 12:30pm. The thing that kind of stunk there was that I haven’t rented movie in like 8 years. Seriously. I thought I could just drop it off but wasn’t sure. So I sat in line for 5 or 6 minutes just to ask what to do with the movie.

Lunch was a box of Stove Top Stuffing. LOL!

I was able to finish rendering and ink most of another page of the comic. Once I finish inking the main panel which is the only panel left to do, I’ll have 12 pages penciled and inked for issue 3. I also have another page half penciled and inked but I want to change two panels because of redundancy in the images. If I don’t, it’ll be a blah page.

Back to work tonight so that means sleeping from 6pm to 9-something pm. A check of some e-mail maybe and heading out to work. So today’s been a productive day because I also did some wash and paid some bills while Monday I didn’t get hardly anything done.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

The weekend

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Ahhhhhhh,…Sunday. Nice and relaxing. Sort of.

Work’s been better lately and more tolerable. Still, I bid on another company job although I don’t expect to get it.

Saturday was loooong. I got out of work at 7am, played some Call of Duty 2 (I still love that game) on-line for a couple of hours. I tried to take a 90 minute nap but I think it was only an hour or so. I showered and raced to the bank to cash my check just making it before closing. Then I was off to the comic book store to hang with friends. Did that until 8pm and went home. I played Call of Duty 2 again because I was worn out but didn’t want to go to sleep at 8pm on a Saturday. Read two comics until 10pm and went to bed. I woke today with a headache. I was also disappointed that I only slept 7 hours, maybe 8. I was hoping to sleep for 9 to 10 hours. I feel okay now but I’ll probably crash and burn in the afternoon needing a nap. So I was up for about 24 hours with a hour nap tossed in. I was speaking dyslexic all day and both spazzy and kind of in my own world too. Makes for an interesting day.

My old nemesis returned to the comic shop this weekend. I kicked his ass in Heroclix. He didn’t seem very happy about it. He had a couple of asinine remarks but at other times seemed fairly normal. I would say it was one of our more corrigible days to each other. My buddy kicked my ass though in the next game.

I was thinking about seeing The Messengers today and have money budgeted for it but the movie doesn’t start for a couple of hours. I may get into something else and decide not to go. I do have Monday off as a holiday though so I may go then since nobody else really has the day off as far as I know.

I got a letter from AOL saying they couldn’t process my bill. Although I was expecting having changed credit card numbers, I wasn’t expecting it for the account they were talking about. It seems the credit card bandits were trying to use my defunct credit card number to purchase the $25 a month plan. Those thieving bastards. I quickly called AOL and my credit card to let them know what exactly was going on.

My paycheck wasn’t as bad as I feared it would be. This was the check where the company took out the over payment from last week. Still, I could use more money. I will be behind this month and my savings account will take a hit. I haven’t put money in my saving account probably for years. My friends like to say I’m cheap and have all this money in the bank but once it’s gone, it doesn’t get replaced. Of course, I could always stop saving money towards my retirement and my nephew’s college fund if I really wanted to get more money but that doesn’t seem smart. Luckily, most of my hobbies tend to be cheap after an initial set up cost. I think cable internet at $50 a month is my most expensive hobby. Yeah, internet is a hobby. I play games on-line and read several comic book forums. I also use it to communicate and do research on comic book publishing.

I can’t really think of anything else at this time so I guess I’m done.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Dreams and random stuff

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I think I got my humidifier today. My brother and his boss worked in my basement for awhile but I had to go to bed so I don’t know if they finished. I believe they did. And I’m too lazy to run to the basement. But, to get to my basement you have to go outside.

We’re suppose to get 4 or 5 inches of snow tonight/tomorrow morning. We’ll see. There’s nothing so far and it’s 9pm.

Weird dreams today. I had a dream where I beat up two different people. One guy is a dude that rarely, if ever, has anything nice to say about me. He’s a little putz. If you don’t suck his dick in real life, he’s your enemy. I haven’t seen him in months and it might be pushing a year or more. So I’m not sure why I dreamt I kicked his ass. It was at a gaming con or some sort of gathering. Other people were around and we were all sitting at a long table. The kid made one of his usual asshole taunts and I jumped over the table and punched him in the face. I don’t recall all the details but I thought he keep his mouth running and I chased him down and kicked his ass. I’m talking bloody lip/nose and black eye stuff. After I kicked his ass and he kept a good distance from me he kept threatening me as he gathered his books and left.

The other guy I beat up was an old friend. This was surprising. But on occasion he would really treat people like shit including me. He was another bloody nose/black eye beating. Neither guy even got more than a single punch back at me.

Another dream had me driving in a forest like setting. There was a flood and the rising water was getting pretty deep. It never really came into my car but it got over 5 feet deep. Soon I was floating around in my car being carried by the current. I got nervous when I saw something floating in the water. I thought it was a crocodile. Either it or something else was an elephant trying to swim in the deep water. I could see only its trunk, part of its head and maybe an ear. I was scared. I got out of my car through the window and it either sank or drifted off. I could see the water acting sort of like a waterfall with rapids in the distance all the while still in a forest type setting. I was able to get away from the waterfall/rapids area by hanging on to a tree. I only had my clothes and my wallet.

Not sure how things changed – maybe I woke and went back to sleep – but the dream changed. I seemed to turn into a director and no longer starred in my dream. There were two kids maybe 12 years of age using a sort of cart on railroad tracks on the Texas/Mexico border. One portly kid was telling the other – a newbie to the area – how to survive. The railroad turned into a dirt road that was a highway. A small school bus drove by and the portly kid through a railroad switch that told the driver to stop. He did and came out of the bus. He had a map and a sawed off shotgun as he checked the dirt roads he was on to see where he was. The whole idea was to get the driver away from the bus for the kids to steal it and rob the elderly people on. It was how the kids survived in this rural but run down and poor area.

Either the same dream or a later dream changed to a middle aged guy traveling deep into Mexico. I’m not sure why/where he was going. At one point Indians started chasing him but went after a moose that they came across because it was more important to the tribe. The guy ran through a more ritz area including doing something to a house. I think he rang the doorbell and squirted the door answerer with some sort of blue liquid that seemed like paint. He then bolted from the area and keep following a wide stream to get away. The stream and forest area opened a bit more to wide rivers and big pools of water like large ponds. Dinosaurs appeared everywhere but in the water and on land. Tons of different species that I didn’t recognize. It seemed the deep south the guy escaped the more time seemed to go back in time. I want to say he disappeared into the distance to escape to who knows where but I probably just woke up really.

So yeah, weird dreams.

I’ve plowed through the first 100 pages of my new Anita Blake novel. It’s #2 in the series and I’m really enjoying it.

I haven’t heard from the place I applied to but I only applied yesterday afternoon.

My oldest brother was bitching at my parents place the other day. But then I noticed he sort of had a point. Every single surface such as countertop or table was filled. Literally. After a look around I really couldn’t believe it. It was really filth or trash but clutter. It was really from one of my brothers. I just couldn’t believe it. I had to clear off an area just to put my coat down. I feel pretty bad for my mom. If she cleans, the cleaned area is just immediately filled. It’s a losing battle for her. My brother really is a total slob.

I think that’s about it although I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting something again. It’s nothing huge but something I was going to write down.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Bad karma? More job stuff, okay weekend

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Not a bad weekend I suppose. I got another page fully inked for issue three of the comic book and had good chow at the parentals both Saturday and Sunday. Sunday was like Thanksgiving: turkey, (StoveTop) stuffing, mashed potatos, peas, corn, and carrots and Italian bread. It was awesome.

Friday night at work was another disaster. I got to the point to where I asked my boss about taking the lay-off. The problem is, I take the lay-off I ain’t going back to Top Flite. It is a decent paying job. Of course, when on three consecutive days I’m visibly shaking because of frustration I have to consider my health. I think it was Thursday night I felt really faint after my shaking fit. I slept for almost 9 hours and still felt exhausted on Friday. So I can actually say, my job is taking a toll on my health. I was never like this working 12 hour shifts in the RIM room. Hopefully either I can bid out of the room to a job I like more or things’ll get better. I did send out my resume to another company today applying for the job via e-mail. We’ll see what happens.

Does karma nab you for not doing a good deed? I went to the mall today and bought a new Anita Blake novel book #2 in the series. I also found an art book for $6 I couldn’t resist. It’s a huge book on drawing. I already have a ton of art books but this one delved into some color pencil stuff that I don’t think I have seen before. It’s a nice big 200+ book with lots of illustrations in any event.

As I was walking back to my car, I noticed that someone had dropped their keys. I don’t know how this missed this because the thing was like a small mountain of keys. They were by the back tire of a small SUV so I’m thinking the person dropped them as they walked around the corner of the vehicle. And I just walked on by not bothering to pick them and at least bring them into the store that was most likely where the person had gone into. In other words, I didn’t want to be bothered. But now I’m feeling all guilty. I’m feeling guilty because I’m certain the keys had the alarm device on it so that if a less honest person came by, they could just hop in the SUV and drive off. So I didn’t do a bad deed, I just didn’t do the right thing. And now I feel pretty guilty about it.

I almost made an ass of myself at the grocery store yesterday. I almost bought more stuff than I had money for. In the end, I think it would have been $35.94 for everything and I had $36 on me. But I got nervous and snuck out of the check out line to replace my 2 for $5 Instant Quaker Oatmeal back to its proper end cap. So my bill ended up being $30.94. I bought the Oatmeal today after passing the car keys on the parking pavement after having bought my books.

The family’s still a bit cautious with my niece. It seems to me like she’s sick of being alone all the time. Her mother takes night courses and is gone every single week night. This leaves my niece to babysit her younger brother 3 of those nights, my brother gets him Tuesdays and Thursdays. So my niece didn’t really speak up about wanting to be picked up by my brother on Tuesday and Thursday and he picks my nephew up at the daycare on those days. He stopped by the ex’s place to check on my niece but the place was all dark and the car was gone. Turns out my niece was wanting to be picked up that night. It must have really sucked wanting to be picked up but not having it happen. So it seems for now, my brother will be picking her up on Thursdays and Tuesdays along with my nephew. Maybe my niece after 2 years of playing adult (babysitting younger brother, fixing meals, and doing all that stuff while mommy does who knows what) wants to be a kid again before it’s too late. Currently she’s in 7th grade and I think 12.

Somewhat panicked today as I got an e-mail saying it was from PayPal asking for confirmation about the purchase of a $700.00 laptop computer. I called up my credit card company to check and there was no charge. My browser had said the e-mail was most likely a Phish. That’s an e-mail designed to get the recipient to cough up more in-depth information about themselves. The guy at the credit card company agreed. I contacted PayPal about it also. They agreed that they hadn’t sent the e-mail either. So it seems no harm was done. Phew!

Looks like I’ll be making a purchase for the house ranging anywhere from $400 to $700. My brother that use to own my house is a heating and ventilation guy. I was bitching about how it is so dry in the house I wake up almost every night with a completely dry tongue and on occasion, a bloody nose. This is despite having two humidifiers in the house and one is in my bedroom at the foot of my bed! So he said they could put a humidifier in that will go on any time the heater starts filling the house. I said ‘go for it and let me know the bill’. That should be either later this week or next week. My savings account can and will take the hit. In January and February I get really poor. Basically my monthly heating bill takes up a whole paycheck. That paycheck is the paycheck that is suppose to be mine to spend as I please. March the bill usually starts to become cheaper and I get to keep some money for me.

No overly weird dreams lately. I can only remember remembering one lately.

There was other stuff I was thinking about writing about but I’ve forgotten it.

Oh well.

Friday, February 09, 2007

The new job continues to suck

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Yup, the job sucks. I no longer look forward to going to work and on two different days I’ve become so frustrated with the machine I work with I visibly shake. I can do the work but I don’t have the experience yet to problem solve many things on the machine. I try to work it out myself for awhile before asking for help. Unfortunately, this also led to the fits of shaking as my blood pressure must be going through the roof. I feel overly worn out today like I’m ready to collapse.

Can’t recall how much of this I stated before but another round of lay-off’s at work take effect this coming Monday. I would LOVE to be bumped from my spot and forced to choose a new job somewhere else in the plant. As it stands now I have to bid on everything. Because my seniority is pretty low in the company I’ve lost every bid so far. Anyways, the rumor that my old room was going to 8 hour shifts from 12’s has proven true. The rumor was only a week old before it was officially announced and put into effect. Either tonight or Saturday morning the 17 people losing their jobs can either take the lay-off or bump people just like I had the option of doing. If I knew how bad I disliked stamping I really think I would have gone with the lay-off.

The company did way over pay me. They had me working 80 hours. The payroll people hadn’t removed me from my old room or something. So my check was double what it should have been. They would have caught it so I just told them about that day. As expected the extra money in this check will be paid back from my coming check. So that coming check will likely be $150.00 or less. Oy!

Tried this on-line thing called Second Life. Secondlife.com I believe. It’s essentially the popular game The Sims. I doubt I’ll spend much time on it as the Sims is a neat game but gets boring easily. I need violence in my games or strategy and neither the Sims or Second Life has it. Second Life is just that – a second life only on the internet. I have no real interest in having that. So Second Life will die a quick death after another log in or two.

Okay, I’ve been fairly miserable all morning because of my job so I’m heading off to bed. Only one more work day and the weekend is here!

Monday, February 05, 2007

My comic interview at Sequentialtart.com

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My first interview for The Necropolis Chronicles is up at Squentialtart.com. Here’s the link:
http://www.sequentialtart.com/article.php?id=412

and the link for the Squentialtart.com

http://www.sequentialtart.com/home.php

I’m on the front page with the likes of Mike Bullock, Neil Kleid, and Steve Leialoha! Sweet! Thanks for the interview Corrina!

I’m about halfway done with the pencils for issue 3. I was working on the pencils just yesterday.

Today I’ve been running around and doing various things that I can’t keep putting off like paying bills. I did send out more info on the comic for what should hopefully build into a review of the comic and maybe another interview. So slowly but surely the comic is getting some exposure.

Today was clean the bathroom somewhat, loads of laundry, pay bills, change bed sheets, a quick trip to the credit union and post office. I got a little brain dead and forgot to do my grocery shopping but that can wait. I also need to go back to bed for 3 or 4 hours so I can stay awake at work tonight.

I saw my favorite credit union clerk. She looked a little bit like hell today. Maybe she partied over Super Bowl weekend. She had a pink sweater and patchwork pants that made her look like she just got out of bed or something. She’s still cute though. I was helped by both her and a cashier I hadn’t seen before. I haven’t seen the super slow guy clerk there lately. I’m wondering if they fired him. He sucked as a clerk in any event.

Went to my buddy’s place last night for the Super Bowl. I really need to learn to reverse the way I go home from his place. I drive through the city to get to his place because I know it by memory. It takes 25 minutes maybe more in heavy traffic. People were driving insane last night and I was regularly passed even though I was doing 40 mph. I take a different route home and it only takes me 15 minutes to get home. The problem is, I don’t know the street names or area very well when I go home. It’s just left, right at the lights, right at the lights, hit highway. Sounds easy but not knowing street names kills my chances of reversing it.

Big surprise, we ordered pizza. I had woken up at roughly 6pm and had to hustle over. I missed the opening kick off which went for a touchdown. Sigh. I didn’t stop for the ice cream I use to bring with me and that was noticed too. Sigh. I had a decent time. The game was entertaining for the most part. I was vaguely rooting for the Bears because I didn’t want the Colts to win the big game. As a Patriots fan, it’s a lot of fun to hold it over the Colts fans that their team always lost the big game when it mattered. Now I’ve lost that bit of teasing/taunting. Oh well. Peyton’s a great QB and seems like a decent guy in real life and the Colts are exciting to watch. The Colts earned it though if for no other reason than beating K.C, Baltimore (super nasty defensive team) and New England (their person nemesis) in the play-off’s.

With football now over I have a dead period for watching sports until Major League Baseball starts. I skip the preseason stuff and only do the regular season. I’ll be doing another fantasy baseball league again this league. My fantasy team lost in my league’s World Series last year. Not a bad return after something like 8 to 10 years of not doing fantasy baseball.

I finished my second Anita Blake Vampire Hunter book. This one was Circus of the Damned. It was book 5 in the series I believe. I rather enjoyed it. The ending seemed a little quick and a bit unsatisfactory as we didn’t see much happen between two major supporting characters that the story was built around. I’ll probably buy some more. It sort of depends on how lazy I get and if I’ve run my need to read out of my system. I still have around 200 pages to go in The Physics of Super-Heroes. Unfortunately, while interesting, it’s not as fun as Anita Blake.

No weird dreams last night. Maybe later today.

Okay, I’m done here.

Sunday, February 04, 2007

More bad news, weird dream & one good thing

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Super Bowl Sunday today. I’m suppose to go over a friend’s house to check it out. We’ll see because he had a really shitty week in that a family member passed away and he and his dad had to fly across half the country for the funeral. My friend got back and then almost immediately had to go to work for 12 hours. We’ll see what condition he’s in today.

I really don’t care who wins the Super Bowl. I suppose I’m vaguely rooting for the Bears to win so that Peyton won’t have a Super Bowl title and he’ll be behind Tom Brady as ‘best quarterback’ in the NFL. But I don’t mind that much if Peyton wins because he’s a great player and seems to be a pretty decent person.

Had a really crazy ass dream yesterday. I always have really bizarre dreams when I don’t get much sleep. I can’t recall it all but I know I was at my parents’ house. I was in the kitchen looking out and seeing woodland animals all over the yard. Deer and rabbits mainly at first and then something big. It turned out to be a moose! It walked over to my neighbor’s house. She came out and tried to ‘shoo’ it away. She’s 80 something. Then the moose’s father and mother showed up. A policeman showed up and helped usher the animals away. It was more like the moose just went where they wanted which was away from people.

Turns out the cop was an old manager of mine from Toys R Us. He got some people together and they used crowbars or brute strength to literally steal my neighbor’s house by picking it up and walking off with it. The house was big too, not like the cinderblock thing she really house. It was a faded black house somewhat Victorian reminding me of the house from animated movie Monster House. It had a turret with a sloped roof too. It was rather ominous looking. For some reason, I seem to recall them putting the house down in the Big Y supermarket parking lot. Yet, after looking around I found the house in some fields behind my parent’s house. I could see the various rooftops of the house behind the trees separating my parent’s house from the back fields. Then, B-52 bombers suddenly whizzed overhead dropping bombs! But when the bombs exploded they showered the area with stove clothes. I’ve momentarily forgotten what the hell they are called as I went to write this. The things are the small square cloths one uses not to burn one’s hand when dealing with hot pans on a stove. Like an oven mitt. I can’t really recall much else other than that my whole family was around at this time.

Like I said, bizarre.

Got even more bad news the other day. My job still stucks. I’m not sure if they’ll keep me even though I don’t want to lose the job. I just want out of stamping. Supposedly I’m suppose to be a packer and not a stamper but they want to make sure I can stamp first. I can, but it’s so damn boring it sort of reminds me of a sweatshop. I screwed up a lot on Friday because I was so bored I keep mind wandering off and forgetting ball counts and loosing track of how many balls I stamped with logos and whatnot. So Tuesday could be my last day if they disqualify me. Hopefully I’ll keep the job and either switch to packing or bid out of the room.

More bad news. I recently had to reorder payment slips for my mortgage. They said they needed to do my annual review. The consensus is that my taxes went up because I now need to pay $25 extra a month. I also received a bill for $133.00 to bring the account up to date. Sigh. I can’t recall if I mentioned that I also got my Doing Business As form completed. It’s only another $75 to have a clerk log it and then another $20 to have a formal certificate. So January and so far February have rather sucked form the job and money standpoint. I got laid off/bumped people to keep my job, don’t like my new position, and got an additional $270 or so in bills I wasn’t expecting. Joy.

On the positive side, I’ve been in talks with another woman about possibly reviewing my comic. This is a different thing than the Sequential Tart interview. I still have to send some stuff to her but her column is read my many comic industry people so it could prove quite valuable in the long run.

Okay, my brother is finally awake and I can make breakfast without disturbing him. I’m done here.

Friday, February 02, 2007

Me no longer like me job

Nope, I don't like the new area I like in. 8 hours seems to take longer to pass than the 12 hours I use to work. Xustom stamp sucks. Once you set up the machine it's just put the ball in a certain way, take the ball out and place on a rack. Good god, talk about boring. I'm already looking to bid out of the room and I've only been there 3 days.