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...