I FEEL PRETTY! OH SO PRETTY! FEAR MY PRETTYNESS!


I am very pretty...

Anyway...

Today I wondered what happened to my debit card...

Oh well. I guess I have to go to my credit union tomorrow.

That silliness aside, I bought the Black Eyed Peas CD, "Monkey Business." It is pretty good I think. The thing I really wonder is how they got together. Their setup seems very contrived (or is groomed a better word?). I dunno, I just wonder how they got together. I mean, you have 1 Hot Chick, 2 Black Guys- one slick and one kind of goofy, and a some Mongolian looking guy (probably wrong on that last assessment, but I have no way to quantify that statement.) Add a level 5 cleric and you have a complete party.

I guess they appear to me like a music company created them. I like their music, it just seems odd to me.

Oh well.

Not much going on around here. Mostly just work and sleep. I'm slowly learning to hate my job more than usual. I think it is largely because we got a new manager from last year, and he sucks at his job. Nice guy and all, just mostly useless when it comes to the managering. It makes my life hard.

I wonder if I can get a job at the Radisson next year. That'd be nice.

I mean, the job wouldn't be too bad, but it is hard when nobody else can do their job and me and my guys get stuck fixing it or getting yelled at for it. Examples:

Housekeeping does not clean a room, solution- Bellmen clean the room. Usually there aren't enough supplies in any one place to get everything you need at one time.
Front desk fucks up the room blocking, solution- Bellmen run the luggage around the Hotel for extra mileage. We also get yelled at because it is *our* fault that the luggage wasn't delivered right. Combine this with housekeeping not cleaning a room and even worse things happen.
Sales office sells a special package and doesn't tell anyone, solution- Bellmen make a mad dash to find all the parts to a gift pack which are kept in four different places in the Hotel and/or drive to Wallmart half an hour before they arrive... or afterwards and apologize a lot.
The owner is too cheap to keep the place up- Shit breaks constantly, usually after maintenance leaves. Guess who gets stuck half-assing trying to fix it... Also, the desk promises guests things we don't have, like hair dryers or pillows, because there are not enough to go around... Who gets yelled at for not having them? Bellmen.

Compound the stupid shit I have to fix being a Bellman with the fact that I am the most experienced front desk clerk with exception of Rusty and maybe the useless manager. So I get dragged over to fix the front desk's fuckups too. I've decided I'm not going behind the front desk unless I have to until they give me a raise (laughs).

But this has so far been bitchy and depressing... mainly to me...

On the plus side, we hired a new night auditor. She went to school with me and my mom works with her mom, so we've met. It is nice to see people I know... there are so few of them left out here.

At work I've been stuck scheduling the bellmen, so I've decided to have fun with it. I have to print off two different schedules, the one I turn into the bossman and the one I post for the bellmen. The main difference it that I've begun to put up thoughts for the week. They are often along the lines of, "We sold Boxer to the knackers, we can do the same to you!" Or other odd quips.

Right now I just got to get ready to go to Las Vegas. My brother decided to get married at the motherfucking Bellagio... have I talked about this? I forget. Oh well. Anyway, his logic was that the girly-type's family is in L.A, and we are in Rapid, and they both have family on the East Coast... So Vegas is right in the middle, right? Geography wasn't his strong point. Oh well. If they had waited for a December wedding I would have been able to have fun in Vegas too, but as it stands the best I can do is find a good restaurant and camp out.

But I bought a nice cream colored suit, it is spiffy. I have lots of dress clothes, surprisingly, and I never actually wear them. In theory I can use them for work at some point in my life, but as it stands I am never scheduled in a position that can survive wearing much more than a polo and slacks. So it just sits in my closet.

I bought a neat shirt that has a odd fabric that is a cross between light blue and lavender or orchid purple or some similar crayon. It shows both colors depending on how the light falls on the fabric and how the fabric is wrinkled. I feel secure enough in the fact that I like pussy to wear it. It is really pretty.

I have spent quite a bit of money since I got back, and sadly quite a bit of it was on clothing, and largely dress clothing at that. Odd. Usually I waste it on shiny things and food.

I thought of something else to type about... but I forgot what it was...

Oh wait, I tried to see Big and Rich in concert up in Deadwood. That didn't last long. Their venue was the street, and we didn't get there very early (not my fault.) so there was no room. I basically decided that fighting through a herd of people to listen to something I had the CD of was not my idea of fun, so I took the two friends I have out here to a nearby steakhouse instead. It was much more enjoyable. Sitting in a comfortable place with good food and good people is probably my favorite thing to do. I think.

Recently a church group of some sort has come to the hotel and they weird me out. They always do things like make eye contact and refer to me by my name and act like I am a human being. But in the "I actually care and am not trying to be pleasant" way. I find it off setting. Most people are willing to engage in banter and whatnot, but they seem much more serious about it. One lady even introduced her child to me formally, "Stephanie, this is Patrick." Sort of thing... she didn't drag the kid out to find me, but the kid was with her when we were in the elevator so she made that special effort. I thought it was odd.

Either way, I have been caused to think about Christianity lately. They actually left us some books about having a purpose to your life because of God or something. I read the chapter names and my bitterness forced me to either laugh or editorialize.

You know, things like, "You were created to be like Christ, only get alot more." or "You were designed to please God, because he likes it when you suffer."

I don't know. I guess the set of God is ultimately powerful, knowing, and loving combined with the idea that evil exists in the world and that God has a plan for everybody taken together seems to come up with a whole lot of contradictions. One of them has got to be false...

But then again, having met certain so-called Christians in specific have tinted me somewhat against Christianity in general. I guess it seems to me like a lot of people have decided to forget the "love the sinner hate the sin" and instead have taken the stance of "condemn thy neighbor for thou art more righteous than they."

Many people I have met since leaving high school do not embody this spirit, but then again there are also republicans... :-p

I guess to me it always seemed to be more important to be a good person (insert "try" in somewhere) than it is to be a religious person and there are lots of people who have used their religion as an excuse to be bad people.

I guess I've figgered I'll just shoot for "virtuous pagan" and call it a day. And no, I don't mean Wicca. It has always bugged me. It seems like a teenage angst religion. Honestly, the people they are trying to emulate haven't been published for some time, so anything they come up with gets pulled out of somebody's ass at some point along the way. If there was somebody who actually had some sort of Celtic or ancient Germanic resource to go from I would find it more credible, but as it stands it is usually some middle aged woman who has changed her name to Mother Moon and couldn't figure out what to do with herself once the hippy bandwagon broke down.

I think in the end I am best suited for Universal Unitarianism. As far as I can tell, (and I have not done a whole lot to come up with this one) their point is that everybody makes basically the same point when it comes down to it, so wtf is everybody arguing about?

I guess my thought on the matter is that, given a God who knows everything and loves everyone, what you worship should not matter so long as you live a good life. From that thought there are a lot of things that are generally considered sins which don't really make a whole lot of sense given a such a supreme perspective. (For example, why would God give a damn what we eat on what day, or why would he hate homosexuals so much?)

Of course, God isn't very nice in the Old Testament anyway. I remember seeing a performance of the Elijah and thinking that God was the bad guy in that one.

One thing I happen to be reading about now is Gnosticism. It is (in short) the belief that "God" as we know him is in fact an evil god who uses the flesh to trap the soul and prevent it from progressing. Only the path of knowledge will allow a man to transcend this hell. There is a true god of good who is not Yaweh, the evil god of the Jews. In theory this was an esoteric message that can be construed from the teachings of Jesus. For example, "The truth will set you free," isn't about honesty.

Anyway, take the blue pill.

It is an interesting topic, but not something I could get into. It is very aesthetic due to the necessity of denying the appetites of the flesh. Vegetarianism and chastity were big. I don't do so good on either count. Of course, it is a sin to have children to be trapped by Yaldaboath (no, I'm not sure if I spelled that right) in this world.

Take a look at that stuff though. If the Catholic Church felt the need to mass murder people who believed it is must be something worth looking into, if only for scholarly intent.

Where was I? Um... Oh yea. I'm pretty much going to hell and I reject the divinity if not the wisdom of Christ. Really they are two pretty paradoxical thoughts if you think about it enough.

And, as a philosopher, all I have to do with my time is think about things.

And, if life has taught me anything it is that thinking about things is usually a bad idea...

I Got a New Toy

Once again I have found a way to get rid of money quick. I bought a digital camera. It is a Fuji FinePix E500. It was on sale, so I got it just short of half off. Today was the first day I really got to play with it because I actually had some of my afternoon off. Oh well. It takes pretty good pictures.

I just walked outside and chased a bird from perch to perch hoping it would get in a good position for pictures. Did I mention red winged blackbirds are my favorite kind of bird? I think I did...

Oh well. Here's some of my favorites. I also have one of my dad shaking his underwear-clad ass at me. It is rather odd, but in high definition. I think I'll spare you guys that one...


This one is probably the best pic of a red winged blackbird I could get. They are fast and don't let you get close.


Here is a bird I walked around pissing off to try to get good photo ops.


Here is one I took with "Macro" mode. He is small.


I ambushed my dog, Cody, when I first got it.


And this is Cody's head. He was interested.


This is Angel.


I'm not really sure what this is other than a really big dandelion.

Joe Camel (My Hero)

A long time ago in a place that takes about fifteen minutes to get to, my brother created an image that inspired me. That image was crafted for "Life Skills" (read Liberal propaganda), a class required in high school to make sure you know that drinking is bad, smoking is bad, date rape is bad, men have no sympathy for pregnant women, and so forth... Anyway, for his "smoking is bad" project he decided to create a poster of Nancy Reagan striking off the head of Joe Camel with a lightsaber. It was cool.

Anyway, after watching my billionth "Truth" commercial I decided I was very sympathetic to smokers. Basically, they are shunned in America for a choice they have made that barely (if at all) affects other people. At worst a person has to smell a puff every now and again. Most smokers I know are very considerate about that sort of thing... Basically, I figger that it is their choice, and although it does probably lead to all sorts of health problems later, it is their choice.

I am a libertarian, btw, just without the odd neo-Nazi bent...

Anyway, I decided that Joe Camel was one of my personal heros. Really, I always thought he was cool. That didn't make me want to smoke. As far as I care, only really stupid people are suckered in by ads. In my experience most people (by the time they can legally smoke) have already decided if they will or will not smoke. Any smoking that happens before that point (I.E. in the teen/child years, when you are stupid and easily swayed by commercials) is already a crime. In come a bunch of self righteous bastards decided that smoking was evil and that Joe Camel is also evil... So the natural thing to do was force the government to ban it... Anyway, a bunch of lawyering later Joe Camel is the enemy and Tobacco companies are paying shitloads of money to people...

It is all very depressing... Particularly when the same logic got used against fast food...

Anyway, often in my life (particularly in school) I have felt that the bad decisions of my peers and some really stupid bastards have made it necessary to create bad and constraining rules that only make my life more difficult.

Basically, the connection I try to make is that Joe Camel got fucked by the system, I got fucked by the system. Also, Joe Camel is cool.

Now, for the pictures below I figgered that Joe is cool, and Jedi are cool, so Joe as a Jedi is super cool. Now to go dick around on Ebay for some memorabilia.

Also, I need to get around to finding some better source images for lightsabers... freehanding them sucks. But I did buy the new Paint Shop Pro (version 9), so I get to have fun.

Here is another one, only this was put together on PSP 3.0... (Image quality is lessened.)

Joe Camel is much better as a Jedi.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Nut...

Sometimes I don't...

Did you know that old people like to travel with luggage so heavy they are physically incapable of moving it? It is true. It is also the sole reason I have a job. Here are some things that I speculate they carry:

Lots of Clothing (at least 20 outfits, plus cold weather outfits for every day they are traveling, plus dress clothing.)
Souvenirs (Stupid shit, usually has the name of a city stamped on it in bold.)
Crap that Tourists buy (Stupid shit, changes by location, usually gaudy, anything that doesn't qualify as a souvenir or also makes the tourist look like an ass.)
Next of Kin (Just in case, also, they need to know if the crap they are buying as gifts will fit.)
Lead Bricks (Actually, this did happen once. The fucker had a lead brick that he said was lucky.)
Nazi Gold (They are probably smuggling it to the Mormons. I will only explain this upon request.)
The Kitchen Sink (Only they need the banquet kitchen sized one, often stainless steel.)
Rocks (They pick them up at Crazy Horse as Souvenirs, and yes, you can do that. There is a pile in the info center's lobby of rocks blasted off the mountain for people who want to donate... I'm not sure if any of them have 'actually' picked one up.)
More Clothing (just in case a blizzard happens or the bus gets sucked into the cold depths of outer space.)
Children (They need life essences to survive.)
The Necronomicon (Not especially heavy, but its evil always gets on my pants.)

Anyway, they will usually act like their luggage being nearly unliftable to people without my Herculean strength is a joke. Sometimes the apologize. It is always more than they need.

The other day I got a woman in who was absolute obsessed with the idea that the hotel would burn down. She was pissed because she was on the seventh floor, but we couldn't move her to the fourth. When I told her that this place use to be the tallest building in the midwest she jumped on me with, "And then the top floors burne down, right?!

Actually, I think it was that they build the Sears Tower. Her husband was pretty irritated by her. He gave me a five buck tip, I think it was mostly as an apology.

Oh well.

Not much new going on around here. I just got back from walking my dogs. The birds out there are funny. We have a drainage ditch behind our house, and we walk our dogs along it. It is a pretty big field, and we just try to ignore the houses that are being built on the other side of it. Anyway, this is the perfect habitat for Red Winged Blackbirds (my favorite kind of bird, ask me why!). Anyway, I'm pretty sure they have nested by now, and the males are getting territorial. So, when my dogs walk by a hotspot the male birds will fly above them and do little faux dive bombings. They line up and just swoop down, but always miss by about a foot. It is a very odd display. I guess it is their way of saying, "Go away, but because I can't actually fight you I'm just going to irritate you and try to draw attention away from my home." Of course my dogs never look up, so they miss the whole aeronautic display. Only one managed to get any attention, and it damn near ran into the dog.

I should go buy a camera.

Anyway, I'm just watching time go by. I am working on a logic textbook for one of my professors (a hefty fee was involved) and it is pretty dense. I really liked the one we used in class better. Oh well.

Right now I wish I could find some people to play DnD with. Honestly, only one of my friends is left out here, everybody else either moved away or died. I'm getting bored. Luckily my friend works at the same place I do, and I control the schedules... Have I talked about this before? I think I have... Nevermind.

Anyway, I really need to find something to do.

Also, as a side note, my brother is getting married. He decided that the girlie's family is in Los Angeles (mostly), my family is in Rapid City, and the extended families of both sides are on the East Coast (mostly). So, Las Vegas is a good spot to get married in because it is right in the middle.

My brother did not get good grades in geography.

Anyway, I have to be a groomsman or something like that, so I ordered a tux. I'll see how that goes.

Also, because the girlie-type's family is loaded, they are getting married at the Bellagio. The fucking Bellagio Ocean's Eleven super hotel Bellagio. I think he forgot that we are white trash. Oh well. (Inaccurate, we are the step above white trash.)

So, that should be interesting. They were going to get married in December, but moved it to July. Of course, that means that I won't get to have fun in Vegas because I won't be 21 yet. If they had only waited...

Anyway, the point of the story is that my life is boring. At least the pay is good.



Oh wait... the pay sucks too...

Work... work...

Some people say, my love, cannot be true... Please believe me, my love, and I'll show you... I will give you, those things, you though unreal. The sun, the moon, the stars, all bear my seal...

Sorry, good song (double points if you know what song and who sings it!) and I kind of got carried away.

My life has pretty much revolved around work. (As depicted by the scheduled outlined below.) Recently, I have been made manager of my department. Well, mostly anyway. I am manager in the sense that I don't get any extra pay or authority but I do have to do extra stuff anyway... But, on the plus side, I do make the schedules now. So, if I want a day off I fucking get that day off. (YAY) I'm thinking about making up a day for myself where I do an "Administrative" shift. By this I mean I go do all the stupid paperworking shit (like schedules) and dress up nice for no reason.

Right now all I wear is a red polo with our logo on it with black slacks and black shoes. I do have several suits and some other button up with tie outfits. I might as well. Also, fuck them if they don't like it. I dress better than the motherfucking drunk ass womanizing owner of the shit hole and if it weren't for me lots of bad shit would happen. Or do I sound a little bitter about work? Meh. I've just gotten so use to being yelled at for stupid shit that is neither my fault nor my responsibility (or doing stuff that is my responsibility but either taking a break during a lull or not doing some asinine thing that the manager decided was the better way despite the fact that it is not the better way and he didn't actually tell me he had decided it).

Anyway, the asshole owner and the asshole night manager have been on vacation, so everybody has been happy at work. Unfortunately they both come back this week so quality of life will take a major plunge... Apparently actually being finished with the work I have to do is a sin, so I have to keep up the constant appearance of working despite having nothing to do. Often the owner will point out some microscopic smudge on a peice of glass in the far corner of the lobby that somehow (probably by magic) I was supposed to have seen and cleaned... I really wish I had a radar collar on him...

The night manager is a little power Nazi. Hitler was a power Nazi, so the night manager must be evil too. He pretty much decided that because he is the night manager, he gets to tell me what to do, and if I don't do exactly what he says then I am bad. Of course, he then goes and tries to make bellmen do things that aren't actually our job in any way, shape, or form (often while we are needed for our actual job). He is very nice about doing our job while we are away, however (and getting the tips for doing so...). I think there are two people who don't hate the night manager...

Those two being the night manager himself and the guy who never met him.

I really like my job. I think I just hate the hotel it happens in...

Oh, and housekeepers are a bunch of assfucking losers who couldn't do an honest day's work if the life of their families depended on it. I hate them all. Except Margaret.

Anyway, the evils of this place are subdued because I make a shitload of money doing it. Also, all of my friends who live in Rapid also work at the hotel. Either I met them there or I got them a job there. In fact, there was an entire season of bellmen who worked in the hotel that got their jobs through me. Cool, huh? Of course, the problem with that is that all of my friends work on the same schedules in mostly the same departments. So, coordinating a time when we all have off is a pain. Luckily, I now control the schedule, so as long as I can maneuver the shifts properly I can get at least a day a week we both have off.

Anyway, I actually do enjoy the job. I like the exercise (lots of running, jumping down stairs, and lifting heavy things with my Herculean strength) and I enjoy interacting with the guests. Also, we get half off at a three star restaurant. They have really good food. It ends up costing about as much as a similar meal would at a Perkins or a filthy ass Denny's, only I have trouble deciding which one is the best meal I've ever had... Also, they have little sherbert dishes to cleanse my palate (whatever the fuck that is).

I realize that parts of this rant don't make sense for people who are not my coworkers, but oh well it is my blog.

It is always funny to do a spellcheck... they really should put "assfucking" as a word on that thing.

I AM THE WORLD'S GREATEST COWBOY- PT 3!

I rode New Tex along my faint and dust blown trail in hope of finding that Indian village I saw. My leg hurt awful bad. It was a dull, throbbing pain that slid up my ankle and into my hip. I could almost feel my veins ripenin' with whatever filth that ghoul touched me with. The wound was a tawny yellow color, and I could see a strange brownness spreading out under my skin. The scratch the thing left on me was weeping foul pus.

I asked Bitchy Tex what would cure the wound, but she didn't feel like talkin' to me too much. I had to get to that village. It took a day or so of travel to get there, and my ankle was already becomin' a strange green color. I wondered if I should just cut off my leg before it got past my knee.

I got into the Indian village just before sundown. I felt like I was just about dead. I think I vomited at least once, sorry New Tex. A few men and a woman ran out to help me, as they were a gracious and welcoming people. When they got close they recoiled from me, however, because of the state I was in and probably because I had a vampire stuck to my ridin' cow. At the time I didn't quite understand, but in retrospect it makes a whole lot of sense. Of course, I was use to this sort of thing and at the time I wasn't in a very good state of mind.

Anyhow, somebody of authority came up to me and helped me off New Tex. I didn't land so good and manged to bonk my leg on the way down. A whole mess of pus slopped out of there and I screamed like a little girl. They got me laid out in a hut and tied New Tex up somewhere. I passed out about then.

Well, I came two who knows how much later with some old man lookin' over me. He seemed right interested in me. He said something I didn't understand and one of the other men in the hut grabbed me by the shoulders and stuck some bit of wood inbetween my teeth. The old man then stuck a knobby finger deep within my leg which caused me to thrash quite a bit.

You try it. It fuckin' hurts.

Anyway, after about three minutes that seemed like eight hundred years the man took his finger out and pulled with it some big ol' peice of ghoul talon (I'm not sure how I missed it, wasn't that big a scratch) that had been workin' its way around my leg. They put some sort of cream on my leg that made it feel good.

After a short while in their simple but funtional hut a new man came in wearing an ornate headdress of feathers and beads. We talked, and the man explained that only a very sacred ritual could fully cure my cursed wound, and while the tribe was happy to accomodate me they would need to test my worthines.

Of course, because my writer can think of anything at the time and the production budget could afford one of them cute little asian stuntment, this would be a ritual combat trial. I took a deep breath and accepted their challenge.

(More to come... I'm just lazy and needed to post something.)