Then the Moose Went GWAAAA!

GWAAAAA!


Gettin' ready for a nother exciting and amazing year of school, by which I mean I've bought an axe....

It is really great to be back with people again. I never fully realize how much I've missed having company until I get back here and get to experience it again. This goes double for my female. As I look at my pile of 24 books I really wonder how many of them I'm going to bother to actually read. I suppose all of them... Of course, of them only 4 are actually textbooks. The rest are novels or story collections. It can't be too bad, right?

(Laughter which slowly turns to quiet sobbing.)

Oh well.

With epics such as "The Blithedale Romance" or "The Innocents Abroad" how can I possibly think this will be unpleasant?

On a more personal note... or probably a less personal note... Or maybe as a public announcement- I am planning to have a bonfire on Pomme De Terre on saturday (which is what the axe was for, btw) so get some sticks and marshmellows and it should be a good time.

And So I'm Back to Where I Belong

WOO!

Yay campus. Yay circles! Yay HBO!

We get free cable with HBO. It is very sexy-like.

Oh well.

So far things have been going pretty good. The guys on my hall seem to be pretty nice, but they are all quiet. It is odd. Very few of them appear to contain the warrior spirit of pine.

Watched Cat House. It was kind of funny because the Johns looked like philosophy majors, or maybe trekkies. They were hairy guys with guts and shaggy heads.

What else... I went Golfing with JM before coming here. I beat him by 36 points. Golf scores similarly to Bowling, right? Right... But it was fun to have a short blurt of summer at the very end. I pretty much missed out on such frivolity.

Some women came into the room, they were trying to round up people for a movie. Apparently nobody is fucking awake on this floor. What is wrong with the freshmen? Freaks. They should be awake still enjoying life and whatnot.

Waiting for glorious leader to return.

I've tasked Russ with giving me a referral, he was very surprised that I hadn't gotten a disciplinary referral before. (I seemed like the type?)

Also, Whizzinator is a cool word.

Don't ask.



Of course, if you are a loyal reader you would know better than to do that anyhow...

A Quick Thought

You know, I think that pretty much everything in the world would be better if it weren't for the fact that stupid people exist.

WAAAAAGH! (The story of Shunt, in the original language)

WAAAAGH! WAAAAGH! Zug daboo grog waag.

Hmmmm?

Zug zug, brog grag kroog. Greeg morg lork gabom. Daboo. Graag! ZUG ZUG! WHAAGH! Shunt! Shunt wagga! Shonk wagguth bogn. Krith maggoth daboo. Brog morg shont wagga! Wagga daboo grog waag mago bladom.

Hmmmm?

Growm squig gornath squiggly gorth. Shmeebaum. Grog shonk? Shonk WAAAGH! Shunt thrakka.

Bagoom grag dagon margoop. Shunt thrakka brog grag dagon bladom! WAAAGH! Shonkmaster. Wagga wagguth krith grag qualmagoom zug. Daboo, gag naggoth. Shelbagoo gakk grag dagon. Shunt gragom babgokt. GAAAG!

Shuggothnak zug dab glakkoth. Gag makorth gorg gog wagga! Mork, Gork Shunt wagga grorgnth.

WAAGH!

Shunt gragkightk grag dagon babgokt konkon kaggath!

GRAG!

Hmmm?

BAGHRAGHTHAGAT!

WAAAAAGH! The story of Shunt, Commentary Track

WAAAAGH! WAAAAGH! Zug daboo grog waag.
This is the traditional greeting of orkish bards. It basically means "Shut up idiots."

Hmmmm?
After calling the audience idiots the bard takes a moment to find if anybody wants to fight with him.

Zug zug, brog grag kroog. Greeg morg lork gabom. Daboo. Graag! ZUG ZUG! WHAAGH! Shunt! Shunt wagga! Shonk wagguth bogn. Krith maggoth daboo. Brog morg shont wagga! Wagga daboo grog waag mago bladom.
In this section the bard explains he is telling the story of Shunt, who was much better than everyone in the audience with the exception of the leader. He also shouts a lot for reasons unknown to scholars. Many believe it is because orks just do that.

Hmmmm?
Again, the bard has insulted the audience and is awaiting a challenge before he begins the story.

Growm squig gornath squiggly gorth. Shmeebaum. Grog shonk? Shonk WAAAGH! Shunt thrakka.
At this point the bard introduces Shunt on his squiggly beast of riding who remains nameless. He also yells some more, then explains that Shunt is a warrior elite.

Bagoom grag dagon margoop. Shunt thrakka brog grag dagon bladom! WAAAGH! Shonkmaster. Wagga wagguth krith grag qualmagoom zug. Daboo, gag naggoth. Shelbagoo gakk grag dagon. Shunt gragom babgokt. GAAAG!
There was a dragon being bad, and Shunt is going to bash it. Yelling. It was a dangerous dragon, so he would have to be the master of bashing. The bard explains that he must bash it good, then yells.

Shuggothnak zug dab glakkoth.
It will be easy, Shunt says.

Gag makorth gorg gog wagga! Mork, Gork Shunt wagga grorgnth.
Calling upon the ork gods, Gork and Mork, he bashes things.

WAAGH!
More yelling, to make sure the audience is paying attention. Apparently the good part is coming.

Shunt gragkightk grag dagon babgokt konkon kaggath!
He bashes the dragon good, then does something that is 'great and orky' to the dragon's skull. Most people who have studied the material have decided that they would rather not know what that means.

GRAG!
Grag.

Hmmm?
The bard is waiting for someone in his audience to proclaim it as bullshit, so then he would have to bash that person.

BAGHRAGHTHAGAT!
I'm done with you weaklings. Traditional ork ending. Obviously, at this point he has beaten up a number of his audience to finish the story and, having survived being the nights bard, has increased his status in the tribe.

Dirty Harry

I was an big supporter of vigilanteism. Then my brain began to work again.

The America of today (as opposed to the America I grew up in, meaning barely America at all) is obsessed about safety. The average citizen feels surrounded by enemies, even in their gated communities. In the aftermath of 911 which nobody will ever forget despite the drastically low number of fatalities in comparison to everything else in the world, everyone's lives were affected, but not mine because I am two time zones separated and don't really give a damn.

I just needed to let that one out. I am the most unamerican patriot ever sometimes.

Anyway, because of our growing fears many other great evils are allowed onto our soil despite things like 'rights' and 'fairness' and 'common sense.' Much of this is hypocritical to boot.

One of the main problems are that Arabs actually live in this country. I'm serious, actual Arabs. What's more, some of them are Muslims too. I asked my dad and he said, "Yep, there are Muslim Arabs living in our great nation." And he knows something about Muslims, I tell you. After 911 Muslims, especially Arab Muslims became the enemy of our nation. Therein lies the problem. Many Arab Muslims are honest, law abiding, and productive members of our society. But evil Arabs exist as well. This means we have to assault them and constantly hassle them as threats to our security until the Struggle Against Extremism is finally over.

When I speak to people about the racial profiling they don't really seem to care taking either, "Well, it isn't happening to me" or "well, most terrorists are Arabs, so it is natural." Then I start laughing.

Think of all the big terrorist actions on U.S. soil. How many of them were actually Arabs, or even people with tans? The unibomber- white. Oklahoma City Bomber- Also white. First attack against WTC- Arab. 911- Arabs. Anthrax Scare- I don't think we actually caught them. Um... Hell, I can barely remember anything else... Lots of embassies, but I'm not counting them because they weren't on U.S. soil.

So terrorism is like, fifty fifty disgruntled whiteys Arab extremist.

Really, I think a lot of this comes from people thinking, "Hey, who can lose out because of this except for the bad guys?" Which is wrong, and not just because Orwell said so.

Which brings me back to how I started this odd and rambling tirade about a tangent.

Many states (Mostly Red states, because that matters, inexplicably) pass laws that allow people to shoot people whenever they feel threatened and or confronted. Some states have reasonable restraints such as "The individual is on your property and poses a direct threat to yourself or your property." In which case I would be more than happy to let them shoot the bastard. I would. Some states are less clear and often just mean 'shoot minorities, or maybe people with really bad tans.'

Sometimes in the news there is a story were somebody goes free after shooting people who raped a family member or something like that when the cops did nothing. I've heard at least two such tales. The masses cheer for their hero.

People usually complain when people don't get convicted, often on a technicality.

Then I wonder why we have such feelings. In the end I have to blame Clint Eastwood. (One of my heros, actually.) Not just his fault, but Dirty Harry pretty much brought the general feeling to a cusp. In TV and movies it is always the renegade good guy trying to fight the system who loves the bad guy more than anything else. Of course, the part everybody forgets is that in the movie of course it is actually the bad guy. Nobody watches the movie and in the end the gritty cop goes, "Oh... Shit... I guess you really didn't do it. I'm terribly sorry! Let me buy you a beer."

And when you go back into the real world it suddenly doesn't work like that. People do actually end up being innocent, or they were on the property as a misunderstanding, or they needed help (mental or otherwise) and now they are dead.

It is nice to have bounty hunters. They are licensed individuals that can be held accountable for their actions and whatnot. A vigilante on the other hand usually ends up being some fool with a Desert Eagle who is simply dangerous because he thinks he is on the side of good.

I think in the end it is that people just forget why there is due process, and that it doesn't fail as often as TV makes it seem. Watch CSI, they get the people without running them down in an alley and torturing them.

Basically, I would support vigilanteism if people weren't so damn stupid all the time.

One bold stride against vigilanteism lately has been a congressional ban on lynching. Because murdering black people with no trial is bad. (Not that murder isn't already a crime, but lets forget that... they need to do some ass kissing for the minorities lately.) But, honestly, whoopdifuckingdoo. (Edit, Nevermind this part, although the whoopdifuckingdoo still applies.)

I think people do need guns to protect themselves and their family and property, but giving them an excuse to start wasting people on the slightest excuse just gets good people killed.

My Only Productive Hobby

He isn't my best work, but I did him as a warm up for my other stuff. Also, he was really really small, so he was hard to do. Honestly, some of the flaws he has I can't actually see except with my camera's ultracloseup.

Here is a picture of the same figure next to a nickle for scale.

Humph... Humph? Humph! ... humph...

HUMPH HUMPH HUMPH!

Why do I humph you ponder? Well, it is simple really but it is a secret, so you'll have to get reeeeal close so's that I can tell ya.

(I am incredibly, monumentously, and undeniably bored out of my tiny little mind.)

Don't tell anybody, they might think of something for me to do.

Also, I have a problem spellchecking on this thing. Most of this problem is caused by the fact that I make up words, misspell on purpose, and type like I would pronouce the word on occasion. What doesn't help is the fact that the spellchecker it has on here is pretty crappy, so many actual words or names and stuff come up wrong and it won't have a right for it.

Um... humph...

Hu-UMPH!


humph humph humph....

Had my last day of work today. It was quick. I pretty much showed up for a bus and got to go after that. It was fairly uneventful. On the fifth I get my paycheck and then I am done with those assholes.

After some light shopping tomorrow I'll have nothing to do but sit around and eat.



Oh, and humph.

Motherfuckers

Did you know that "motherfuckers" spellchecks to "motorbike?"

Today I got fired. Fired is a bit of a harsh word, it was more like "let go" or "downsized" but in my little world fired is fucking fired. I get to work the next two days and that is it. I get all of August to myself. I'm very appreciated and I can always come back next year, but after this shit why would I want to? Next stop, the Radisson.

Interesting day this was. One guy who had left for about a month came back, and nobody likes him. He only got the job because he asked the owner's wife, who is the sweetest lady in the world, and she was happy to give him a job because she didn't know any better. At the same time, the general manager decided that we needed to drop down to three bellmen. Apparently, we are overstaffed... which is why we hired so many people in the first place and worked with that many people for three months... (wtf?) We had five, meaning that work was actually comfortable and there was enough people to do everything. So, we needed to drop two and now a third for the asshole who came back and nobody liked.

They decided to drop the last two kids hired and myself because I was leaving the 15th anyway. I was ok with that really, but I kind of expected that extra paycheck. Oh well. I was more pissed about the fact that they canned the other two guys to hire the asshole and that we only got two days notice. One of them is currently on vacation in Dallas, so he will find out when he comes into work and finds out he doesn't have a job. (I had already scheduled past when he comes back.)

To be quite honest, if they didn't fire me I would have fucking quit to give one of them my job, so that worked out ok. My manager told me who they were letting go very slowly, and told me I was leaving last after saying a lot of meaningless manager babble beforehand. He was scared, I think. But the fact that he is a ass kissing yes man is part of the problem to begin with, he won't stand up for his staff.

Even more baffling is that they did this before the Sturgis Rally... our busiest time of the year when we need the most staff... (wtf? again.)

The owner's wife was in tears because she felt responsible for it. That was sad. She talked to me about it and apologized alot. Basically, nobody bothered to tell her that the guy was an asshole nobody liked, or that we didn't actually need him at all. Oh well. She gave me a hug because she was so sorry.

So now I have all of August to screw around and am going to come up about 600 bucks short of where I thought I would be. Good thing I got that MAP grant.

On the plus side, my friend might quit too out of spite. That would be funny. I actually said it might happen before he even knew about it. That would leave them with two bellmen, and the other might go two because one of the kids they canned is his best friend. That would leave them with the asshole. That would make me laugh.

I thought about just quitting now and not coming in those next two days. But that doesn't really prove anything and just makes everybody else's life more difficult for no reason. So all I really have left is to do my job well and take pride in that. Also, if the asshole owner tells me to do something I get to tell him to fuck himself. (His wife is really nice, he is evil. It makes me sad.)

What also pisses me off is that I don't get a new uniform after all that shit I had to go through to get them. Fuckers.



I guess all I can say is that my staff did a damn fine job, and there was not any of them I'm not proud to have worked with.

A Quick Glimpse into My Life

I go to work, fairly simple day. I wander around, lift things, and generally squander company time.

Some time around five a tour bus arrived. "Tauck Tours." I curse my rotten luck, now I have to work. I summon my lackey and we attack the luggage. It is lots of heavy lifting. The driver gives us his count, 52 bags. Fifty two fifty pound bags of doom. Luckily, my lackey is even bigger than me, so it isn't too bad.

I try to lift a bag with an airport "heavy" tag on it. I applaud their flair for dramatic understatement. After much grunting and a possible hernia I lift the bag onto the cart, the wheels gently slump under the strain.

We pull the luggage laden carts into the main lobby just as the herd of old people hit the elevators. Their greeting took just long enough to cause them to get in our way. Using my strategic bellman mind I declare one of the elevators off limits to guest use until the freight is finished. Surprisingly, it works. Apparently if one acts as though he has authority people assume you actually have authority. So, they got the fuck out of our way and we got their bags upstairs in a timely manner.

On our way out, an old man wanted to know how to work his TV. We didn't have time to answer his questions, so we told him we would help him in a few minutes, as we had other bags to deliver. He refused, and challenged us to a duel. Revealing his vampire fangs, he lunged at me. Luckily my lackey clubbed him over the head with a samsonite, throwing him off balance and into the wall. I quickly stomped his head until a foul black ooze squished under my black work shoe. Not enough to kill a vampire, but I was out of stakes from the AAA membership group that was in this morning. Hoping we stunned him enough we finished the bags and returned to the front desk.

Once there, I started working on the schedules when the front desk girl came back wondering if I could teach her something on the computer. Thinking to myself that the computer would be an uncomfortable place to 'teach her something' because I am a bad person, I came out to the desk. After showing her the required keystrokes to make the computer bend to the will of the user I walked back into the office. I sipped quietly on a cup of applejuice and began to type again. I could not hear the Office Daemon stalking slowly behind me. His shadow loomed above me as I patiently typed out the dates and times my henchmen worked. I pretended not to notice and took another sip from my cold glass. Just before he lunged I spun around in my chair and blasted him with my eye lasers. I laughed as his unholy flesh sizzled and burned under my amazing superhuman gaze. He shrieked and returned to the foul pit of bureaucracy he was spawned in.

This is a bit of an exaggeration, I was drinking from a Styrofoam cup, actually.

Anyway, it seemed that the busiwork was done for the day, so I spun around in my chair for a few hours and then my lackey and I went to Perkins for coffee.

That's how boring my life is, but it is true, I swear.

I GOT NEW BOOTS!

I GOT NEW BOOTS!

From Something Awful

If you were basing your opinion of South Dakota purely on what was visible from the highway, then you would think the entire economy of South Dakota was based around a drugstore, a reptile zoo, and a palace made out of corn. This of course would lead you to the logical conclusion that everybody in South Dakota is insane beyond all measure. But believe it or not, driving through South Dakota you see hundreds of billboards advertising "Wall Drug," a reptile zoo, and the mystical Corn Palace. Somewhere I guess they are hiding Mount Rushmore, but really, what's Mount Rushmore compared to a building made out of corn or a gallery of lizards? Maybe if Mount Rushmore was made out of corn and covered with lizards it would be something worthwhile, but it's not.

I couldn't have said it better myself really. Taken from SomethingAwful.com

The Invincible Wheel

http://www.kontraband.com/show/show.asp?ID=856&CAT=movies&NSFW=5&rtn=search-856&searchstring=tiger

Go to this web address.
Watch the video.
Your life will change forever.

I am the invincible wheel.

My Life Quests

While Jake had an interesting and colorful guess to what one of my life quests would be, here are the actual quests. I was going to put them on my last post, but for some reason it decided it wanted to double space everything and I couldn't fix it so I gave up for the night.

1: Get the correct version of Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries.
2: Obtain the Silver Monkey Idol.
3: Obtain a Ruger Redhawk and become a halfway decent shot with it.
4: Defeat the Frost Giants.
5: Call my granddaughter a harlot, in the affectionate pet name sort of way. Some of you may have heard that story already.

As you can see, my life quests at this point are less than impressive. I thought about having conquering central Europe as one of them, but that seemed unfeasable and I only really want to do that when I'm drunk. Genetics are funny like that.

And Then There are the Days I Just Want to Poop in Someone's Pants...

I'm not sure either.

We are getting an IHOP in Rapid City. That makes me happy. Soon I can stop going to stupid Perkins and their lousy service and start going to IHOP and their soon to be lousy service.

Not much is really going on around here. Made the mistake of trying to go to Borders the day that Harry Potter came out. (I didn't know.) On the plus side they had the right version of Ride of the Valkyries and one of my lifelong quests is now complete.

A little background in the madness.

A long time ago I watched Apocalypse Now and decided that Ride of the Valkyries was the coolest song ever. The problem was getting the song. I got a Wagner CD, but it was only instrumental. The song is good, but it needs the operatic pieces to be truely good. At one point we had Napster, but I could not find a decent recording of the peice on there anywhere. Also, we only had 56k at that point... so I couldn't do it alot.

The process wouldn't be too hard, except nobody really specifies whether or not they have the opera or not. After a few years of searching half-heartedly I got I-Tunes. Unfortunately, none of the 30 second clips on it were of the part with singing, and none of them said if they had a Diva in the ansemble. After buying two deceptively titled versions that suggested they had the opera and didn't I found one that did have the opera. But, because God doesn't like me, it had the wrong divas. Basically, they were sapranos instead of mezzosapranos or altosapranos or something like that. Anyway, their voices were too high, so it didn't sound right, and at some points it sounded downright goofy. (The high notes came out as a yelping WAAAA.) So, again I was defeated. I turned to Amazon and read lots of reviews of various Wagner CDs until I came upon one that said, "I had been looking for the version of Ride of the Valkyries they used in Apocalypse Now and I finally stumbled upon this one, it is the exact same one and I am very happy." (Only longer and more eloquent.) Then I simply sauntered off to Borders and picked it up.

Dana gave me a Silver Monkey Idol. So that only leaves three of my five life quests left to be completed.

July the 10th and the Days that Have Preceded it Since I Last Posted

It is the 10th, meaning I have 48 days between now and the day I get to go back home. (Not counting today or the Day of Much Driving itself.)

Not a whole lot going on. The other day I won the "Justin Mosier Employee Appreciation Award." It was the first of the season. It is the same sort of award I was the first to win last year, only now it has a really long name because of the death of a beloved employee. Last year I got a surplus backpack with "South Dakota" embroidered on it. They got handed out during some convention to guests, and I guess we had an extra. I filled it with gift packs and took it to school with me and was kept in shampoo and detergent all year.

This year it Sandy (the lady who is in charge of it this year because Justin was related to her I think...) asked me what I wanted so I ended up with a $25 gift card and some other stuff on the side. The card she gave me had a puppy on it, and she asked me if I like puppies.

I replied, "I am a human being, of course I like puppies."

I like puppies.

Anyway, this means I have won Employee of the Month, Excellent Customer Service Award, and now the Justin Award. What I have not gotten is a motherfucking raise. Sandy wrote some nice stuff in the card though, and that made me feel good.

I realized that it really helps to work in a place if you feel like you are appreciated.


What else...

Um...

Wow I'm boring.




(sigh)

An Interesting Thought (I Feel Not Like Posting)

"Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebula, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our own universe and our own lives, turning everything yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it's already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up.

"Think how small such a concept of things makes us, gunslinger! If a God watches over it all, does He actually mete out justice for a race of gnats among an infinitude of a race of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see ... what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?

"Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, in a chain never to be completed.

"Size, gunslinger . . . size . . .

"Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met in a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a Room? ...

"You dare not."

-Stephen King, from "The Gunslinger"

And Here I am Again...

So that was fun. Now I'm back here in SoDak livin' it up on the prairie.

Woo.

Just taking an extra day off to dick around before I go back to work. Because I don't wanna go back to work.

Anyway, my brain isn't coherent enough to make up something funny... So I'm just going to go away...

The Wedding (El Weddingo)

Hey Hey It's Wedding Day! WOO!

Oh well, that went pretty good. I ended up being the best man. Nobody told me about it, but I can deal. My brother did the toast at the reception instead of me, so I got off pretty light. (He had one he had been planning... the best I could have thought up on the spot would have been something like, "And may they have many strong, healthy warrior children to fill the halls of Valhalla!")

He quoted his "favorite author" but neglected to mention it was Stephen King. But he picked one of the more poetic quotes from the Dark Tower books. (Fate (ka) is like the wind.) So that was cool. I told the bride's brother that it was King and he was like "Really?" Of course, the Dark Tower series was kind of King's way of saying, " I can do better than evil clowns and dead animals!"

Everything went well and they were happy and the Bellagio was beautiful and yadda yadda. Apparently their family was impressed by my brother and I's wit and tact and stuff like that. I put on a good face.

Anyway, they are happy which is what matters. (Also, the bride Jennifer "Kat" had a really nice dress. )

The Bride's mother was impressed by my ability to push around people. When we were lining up groomsmen and brides maids and all that stuff I the guy in front of me didn't give enough space so I just kept walking so to stand next to my brother and he got the point that I was going to go into him if he didn't git and started to shuffle off.

Here are some pics.