Addendum To: Oh Yeah -- I'm Going To Be Yelled At At Work Today

Well, I wasn't.  Turns out that my new job with the Vikings (new job at least for now ... see below) was a lot less painless than I thought.

So my job was to relay down and distance.  I was doing so from the suite right to the left of the announcer's booth.  That suite, which is bigger than my dorm and a hell of a lot more opulent, was commandeered to enforce physical distancing; I and two other people, each of us at least six feet apart the whole game, had the run of the place.  (The other two guys, I think, were audio people.  The guy behind me needed me to stay seated so he could see the people wearing the parabolic microphones on the field.  Their equipment was strewn all over the granite-topped buffet table behind the three rows of leather seats overlooking the field, just left of the 50, at the perfect height to watch football.)  Of course, we were able to do that because fans were not allowed in the stands because large gatherings remain banned due to the pandemic.  (There were, however, 250 fans, mostly staff and family members of players, couched in, I think, one of the corners in the lower level.  I believe the state restricts gatherings in large venues to a percentage; it's the Vikings which had decided two weeks ago not to allow anybody and then to allow a smattering this past Sunday in the hopes of safely bringing in more people in subsequent games.)

When I got in (a little later than call because I was parking in a lot I had never parked in before, and it was on the other side of where I usually parked, so I needed directions to get around to the entrance) I introduced myself to the Broadcast Assistants to which I thought I would be giving down and distance to.  Turns out that even though other people could hear me, I was speaking to and working with only one person, a guy who was working remotely from the New York City area.  And thank Buddha and God and all the deities above that he was absolutely chill.  He told me what he needed me to tell him and what he didn't, and he seemed to be happy with what I gave him.  He even said after the game that he would recommend me to other crews.  I like that a lot.

One unfortunate thing that I should have realized much sooner.  I had complained from the start that I couldn't hear him.  I thought it was just something I would have to live with because of the crowd noise, which was being piped in and cranked up from the in-house production team even though there were only 250 fans (it was weird to see the Vikings go through many of their pre-game rituals -- the ship, the pyrotechnics, the defensive starters running out onto the field, The Skol Chant, the "blowing" of the horn -- when those mostly stir up a crowd that was not there).  It was in the Fourth Quarter where I realized that the box my headphones were hooked up to had a volume dial.  Moreover, I have used such a device before, even though it had been a long time.  Moreover, I used those boxes back in college, when I was in the journalism program and, when I was helping with production, I had used them.  I totally forgot there I could hear him if I just turned up the volume.  I am ashamed.

Still, if I take this guy at his word, I did a good job, and maybe, possibly this will lead me to assume this post from now on.  Furthermore, I need to understand how big of a break I had with the circumstances leading up to this job.  Assuming I would be as late on the uptake to the volume dial, I would be fighting to hear this guy if he needed to ask me something through a torrent of 65,000 screaming people as I am trying to both communicate down and distance and see where the ball was spotted, probably through a sea of Vikes fans who are standing up while I have to remain seated.  And like I said, guys on production crews usually aren't cool like this guy was.  All mistakes I made were forgiven, and hopefully now that I have broken my cherry doing this, I now know a lot better what to do.  And thankfully so, because I should not need to have my hand held for the next guy, who may or may not as nice as the one who helped me on Sunday.

Bottom line?  Phew.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: United FC (Last Week: -3).  It is kind of sad, although kind of apt for Twin Cities sports, that a team that lost and tied its screening week tops the survey.  Honestly there haven't been too many weeks where a moribund record like the Loons' is good enough for the top spot.  But there are bright spots, or at least non-abyss black spots, that make this side the week's clear winner.  First off, they haven't lost 17 postseason Games in a row.  Second, they did manage not to lose to Real Salt Lake at The Nest on Sunday.  And third, even though they're sliding down the Western Conference standings when at one brief point they led it, they still technically hold down a playoff spot and sit only five Points short of the top spot (although they are only three Points clear of ninth place).

But MLS the previous week laid out the final phase of the revamped 2020 regular season, and it'll be a gauntlet of Matches the next five-plus Weeks to survive.  This week feels like a dangerous one, as they will face second-year club FC Cincinnati at home Saturday night, then visit expansion team Nashville SC Tuesday.  Don't overlook them, MNUFC -- arguably both squads are playing better than the Loons right now.

#-2: Vikings (Last Week: -4).  Yeah, a team that coughed up a 12-Point lead in the Third Quarter sit second in the WMNSS.  I watched the Game and, even though this is damning with faint praise, this is the best they've played so far this season.  The Bastard Houston Oilers may be a paper tiger.  But the ViQueens showed very little competence in the first two Games, and so what I saw (from suite level, just to the left of Midfield) felt like a massive step forward.  Now, the Defense looks awfully raw, especially in the back-to-back drives where Tennessee was able to throw over the middle at will and Derrick Henry was regularly deployed and punched in both scores to take back the lead.  And while the Offense finally started to go -- Dalvin Cook ran for a career high and Justin Jefferson broke out (this is the first NFL Game in history where a team had a player running for 175+ Yards and another catching for 175+ yards -- too bad it was in a loss) -- the team couldn't answer as the Titans mounted their comeback.  And oh, that drive to win the Game late was a clownshow.  The trenches remain a big weakness for this team.

And yet that might not be the organization's worst problem right now.  It was revealed today that several players and staff members of The Bastard Oilers tested positive for COVID-19.  So now the Vikings have had to shut down operations at Twin Cities Orthopedics (TCO) while the whole business awaits coronavirus test results.  And still, as far as I know, Sunday's Game in Houston is on.  Those correct-minded people who didn't think the NFL season would go without a 'Rona-related hitch was afraid shit like this would happen.  And it has.  How in the hell are the Vikings going to prepare if they can't even train?  Well, they're 0-3 -- what difference does it make now?

#-3: Twins (Last Week: -1).  I ... I can't ... I fucking can't with this team anymore.  I just -- can't.  I should talk about the team coming back from losing three-of-four to the White Sox heading into the last week of the regular season and how they were able to win the American League Central Division anyway (although, to be completely honest, the Pale Hose collapsed in the last week and the Twinks didn't win it so much as backed into the division).  But Tuesday's shitshow (and I'm not talking about the debate, which I wisely chose not to watch) was ... fuck it.

This goddamn franchise, the one I should be referring to as The Bastard Washington Senators v.1.0., once again became scared little chickenshits come playoff time and have now set the North American record for most consecutive losses in the postseason, breaking a tie with the Chicago Blackhawks.  Seventeen fucking defeats.  Seventeen.  And for any Twinks fan who dared show loyalty to this fucking team, the way they lost yesterday was frighteningly reminiscent of other down-leg pissings in this goddamn streak; the only change is that the goddamn Yankees weren't the agent of oppression this time:

• The bases loaded jam in the First in which they failed to score a run;
• All the other opportunities this supposed "Bomba Squad" shit their pants and didn't score (I didn't see nor hear this Game after it started during my afternoon break, and thank Buddha);
• Tyler Duffey finally surrendering a Run and letting fucking Houston tie the Game;
• And then ... the fucking top of the Ninth.  With two out, Jorge Polanco wildly throws past Second Base in what would have gotten the Twinks out of the inning.  Instead, the bases were loaded, where ...
• ... fucking Sergio Romo, fucking hothead who gets the team into trouble, walks fucking cheater Jose Altuve with the winning Run ...
• ... and then Caleb Thielbar lets the Game get put away with a two-Run single to Center.
• Oh, and the self-inflicted dagger: With two on in the Bottom of the Ninth, Pinch-Hitter Willians Astudillo grounds into a Game-ending Double Play.

Everybody's to blame for this.  The players, absolutely, at the plate and on the field and on the mound.  Kenta Maeda, not so much, maybe; he threw only five and didn't allow a Run, but got pulled after 91 Pitches.  Rocco Baldelli's overreliance on advanced metrics made he look like a cuck getting shamed by bulls pulling a train on his woman.  Baldelli burned through five relievers, many of who will not be available for today's elim Game and, frankly, looked gas yesterday.  (Meanwhile, old-school Dusty Baker replaced starter Zach Greinke after four Innings and used only one other Pitcher, Framber Valdez, who got the Win.)  Yeah, we might as well blame the Pohlads for not spending any money on a redass Starting Pitcher who will tell the rest of the team to fucking man up and show them how to actually fucking win a postseason Game.

We Twinks fans knows how this ends.  Usually after a playoff Game where they had their chances but didn't have the sack to take advantage of them, the following Game they completely collapse.  Jose Berrios is not the ace this squad needs him to be.  He is imminently capable of giving up, like, four Runs over the first two Innings and eight over three and be pulled as Baldelli has to revert to a bullpen that has no good Pitches left, and so they'll give up another eight.  Today's final Game of the year will be an ugly one, and that will be emblematic of a franchise that has demonstrated so much postseason emasculation that fans would prefer to root for the Pirates, because that team will never raise your hopes just to dash them in such brutal, humiliating fashion.

Fuck The Bastard Washington Senators v.1.0.

#-4Infinity: Lynx (Last Week: -2).  Got swept by the Seattle Storm in the WNBA Semifinals, and the three Games were decided by increasing margins.  Turns out losing Game 1 on a putback with no time remaining really was a series-killer.  Also, not having Sylvia Fowles sucked, too.

Yeah, it's never good when a team finishes the season short of winning the title.  But considering where this franchise was and is, the future does look bright.  Napheesa Collier has backed up her Rookie Of The Year play and become the talisman of this squad.  Crystal Dangerfield, named this year's Rookie Of The Year, has shown she can play the Point and be a steady, even devious wing.  Witness her cold-blooded daggers outlasting Phoenix in the Second Round.  Damiris Dantas has shown herself capable of being a sturdy Big who can rebound and score when necessary.  And I'm fully confident that Cheryl Reeve will know what to do with the, well, Ninth Pick in the WNBA Draft and either select another good player or trade it for a sterling ballhandler or a rim-defending post.  Maybe Fowles will never suit up in a Lynx uniform ever again.  Maybe Maya Moore never returns to the Lynx, or even in the league; she could either retire or order Reeve to trade her to a team closer to her new home with her new husband.  And if they finally put the dynasty in the rearview mirror, that's OK, because there is new, young talent Lynx fans should believe could bring home another championship.

At least the Lynx fucking won a playoff Game this year.  Shit.

"Help Yourself"

So I've got three stories about free and/or found food at work.

First story

A few weeks ago -- maybe this was my first week working second shift -- there was free found lying around at a table.  I knew it was free because there was a sign saying "Help yourself"; I see that note lying around a lot whenever there is free found lying around a lot.

There were an ever-shortening pile of chocolate-dipped pretzels, which were easy for me to just pop in my mouth.  I ate several over the, uh, two days that plastic container was there.  But there were, when at least I first came upon them, a couple of ... uh, bomb pops?  Long sticks with, at the top, a ball, presumably of chocolate, but it was covered in white frosting.  Looked tasty, and it would be something I would totally take to eat.  However, I was late in getting back to work, plus I had other food to consume.  So I promised myself that if I had time after I ate, I would go check back, and if those bomb pops were still there, I would take an extra five minutes, sit down, and eat them.

So it was late one night and I snuck out of work because I needed to clear my head.  I snuck into the break room to look at the container of free food.  I was following some woman who was at the table where this container was.  She left; I looked in, and those pops were gone.  Looking up from the garbage can, she looked at me and went, "Those pops were delicious!"

"Fuck off!" I said.  No, I didn't say that.  But it felt clear to me that she was rubbing the fact that she got to the pop before I did in my face, even though I have no solid evidence she knew I wanted it and was waiting for the right time to eat it.  Nevertheless, my defense mechanism -- and my bitchiness -- roared up to the surface.  And even though I was trying to calm myself, I think what I said -- "You should not be saying that to me" -- still made my annoyance at her petulant behavior very clear.  Well, that and my raised finger.  Oh, and my frustrated tone, too.

And yet, I don't know if that is the smartest thing to do at work.  I'm sure she went back into the lab and told her co-workers, "Hey, I ate the last bomb pop in front of this guy, and I rubbed it in his face because I'm 12, and he's all, 'Don't say that to me, you bitch!' and I'm all, 'What's his fuckin' problem?'"  And now I'm getting the reputation of being a hothead, even though I was confronted by an adult acting like a child.  Fuck me.

Second story

Maybe that same week I saw, on the exact same table where the bomb pops and pretzels were, a pizza box.  And in it (of course I looked because pizza) there was more than half of the pizza still there.  I don't remember the toppings, but I do know that there were some, which is good because cheese pizza is absolutely useless, and that there was no pineapple, which is also good because mixing pizza and pineapple is an affront to humanity.  What I didn't see was a "help yourself" sign.  But dude, it's pizza -- if it's yours, why in the hell are you leaving it out on a table?  Put in one of the fridges if it's yours.  By that logic, me putting it in the fridge means that it's mine.  And that's exactly what I did.

And then, during one break, I look back inside the refrigerator and see that the whole box of pizza was gone.  So either I took a pizza that was "rightfully" someone else's, even though that person made the stupid decision to just leave it out on the table to make people think anyone could take it, or someone saw the pizza, didn't see a "help yourself" note, and decided to take it.

I really, really wanted to eat that pizza.

Third story

For the past several weeks (and this extends before my bit in second shift), someone has left free food, with "help yourself" note, on the table.  And it's been a lot of stuff ... but nearly all of it generic-looking.  First it was applesauce and these nutrition bars which does have a brand name of something called Zee Zees.  Never heard of them, but their food is good, although I don't know how this Santa Claus has procured so many of their food so often.

There has also been cookies from brand names I've never heard of and personal packets of processed, room temperature cheese, both of which I have taken home to eat.  Yesterday (and these drops usually happen on Mondays) was different: There was bread, a loaf of which had a brand name I was familiar with, and single-serving/hotel breakfast-sized packs of cereal.  I was going to take the Rice Krispies one, until I noticed the name was "Rice Crispies" -- ah, you almost tricked me, you generic motherfucker!  But instead I took the last Honey Nut Cheerios one, and I was sure to read the label, and it didn't say "Honey Nut Cherios" or some bullshit like that.

But seriously, where did all this free food come from?

Hottest Babe In The Hooters Calendar: August

For the month of August I did something different: The other day I masturbated to the girls of the month before selecting which of them was hottest here.   I needed to rub one out, and I didn't know when I was going to get around to blog posting about them, so I decided to put the cart before the horse.  And you know what?  It helped me.  It helped me decide which girl is my favorite based on who I actually came to.

First, the honorable mentions.  There are 14 women for the month, and four of them I stopped and lingered on for more than a second because they had sexy qualities but there was something about their photo that was off for me.  Jessica (out of Conyers, Ga., and by the way, in my high school senior summer trip to Europe we ran into a tour group of high schoolers from Conyers, Ga.) and Abbie (from Fort Myers Beach, Fla.) have their arms crossed in front of them, and I find that pose to be distracting.  Kristin, out of Fairview Heights, Ill. (maybe I'll get to see her next year!), has a fun smile, but she's holding this, uh, bubble maker ... maybe?  And Kylie, of Fort Myers, Fla., has a hot body, or at least I think so, but I don't really know because one of the Mall Of America Hooters girls who I had sign this calendar wrote all of her photo.  Sorry, Kylie.

Now, to the women who placed.  I'm going to give fourth place to Houston's Sydney.  I love how she puts her hands on her hips -- total Amazon power move.  And her yellow bikini pops against her black skin.  Love the long hair, too.  Wished she smiled, though.  Third place goes to Kailee, from Sarasota, Fla.  She's wearing an orange two-piece bikini, has big and beautiful boobs, and striking long, dark blonde hair.  But the ends of it is draped in front of her, and I don't like that.  Also, and this is not her fault, but her photo is underneath Kylie's, and the woman who autographed this page (and again, she doesn't have a photo on here, she just autographed wherever) drew an owl whose feet touches Kailee's head.  Totally superficial, but that's bothersome to me.

Second and first place are kind of difficult for me.  On the one hand you have Jessica, out of Ham Lake, Miss.  Long-haired brunette, orange two-piece with white borders for both top and bottom, and a cute smile.  On the other hands you have Samantha, from Dedham, Mass.  Long-haired blonde, a blue-and-white-patterned bikini that seems to separate her boobs, and, well, I noticed just now some underboob in her right boob.  Weirdly, however, she is posing inbetween what looks to be two small-ish tree trunks.  Why?  Is it because she's from Massachusetts?  Is the image supposed to be that she's stuck in there?  I was furtive jerking off whilst exchanging my gaze the two, and honestly, I can't remember which of the two I finally shot over, but I continued to spew while looking back-and-forth.  That probably means that, for the first time of me doing these monthly evaluations, we have a tie for the top spot between Jessica and Samantha.  Congratulations, you two!!

This is where I usually promise to masturbate to the hot women this month, but I've already squared that away.

Oh Yeah -- I'm Going To Be Yelled At At Work Today

I have been asked to do this new job for the Vikings today.  Never done it before.  I think I'm filling in for the person who killed himself.  Have I talked about him yet?

This seems similar to a post I had for the other network.  I don't know the name of that position, but my responsibility was to listen to the official scorer mark where on the football field the ball was and relay to the people in the production truck, "Confirmed."  That is not as easy as it sounds; the official scorer sometimes changed his mind, and therefore you had to tell the people he changed his mind, or the scorer was too slow, in which case the people waiting for you to give the information so they can put it on the TV screen for all of you to watch it is screaming in my ear, "WHERE'S THE BALL AT?!?!?!"

It could be, you know, not like that.  It could be easier.  This could be a cakewalk.  Or, my job will be infinitely confusing and overwhelming.  I have no idea what exactly my job entails until I get to the stadium.  To (hopefully) defuse any problems, I should report to the people who will be listening in to my relays.  Can't yell at a person you just met, right?

I'm gonna be yelled at today.  And it'll take me a damn long time to come down from that, unfortunately.

I Am My Sister's Editor, Again

So last month I blog posted to you guys last month about my sister deputizing me as her editor for a paper she's been working on for school.  Well, she has gotten feedback from her professor, and it's apparently back to the drawing board, because she asked me Thursday night to look over her latest draft.  And she has notes too, from her prof.

I understand my sis' anxiety in getting this paper right.  But as I was kind of freaking out before about how my edits and suggestions could fuck up her paper, I am in even more of a tizzy now.  This goes beyond grammatical and syntactical edits because I think my sister doesn't want me to focus on that.  Instead, she now wants me to step back and see the forest instead of the trees.  In particular, she wants me to look at things like organization and sense -- how the information flows from one paragraph and thought and topic to the next, and whether she says what she means to say, and if she backs up the conclusions with evidence.  That was a main emphasis her professor gave her.  She gave my sister a link, and in turn she gave it to me, and I swear I had never heard of this notion of "signposting" before, but that is a thing I need to apply to her paper now.  It's basically using connecting words to develop your thesis -- you know, "first," "then," "finally," also known as the things you learn in elementary school.  Yeah, my sister's prof told her to tell me to help her with that.

I am somewhat exasperated by that, for competing reasons.  On the one hand, I find the use of connecting words so basic that I have no idea why this concept has to be reintroduced in a grad-level paper.  I am kind of wincing that this "signposting" recommends using "I" a lot, for instance, and I was not trained to use the first person in a scholarly paper.  On the other hand, I am scared that if I hunt and pick for opportunities to put in more connecting words and statements of what my sister is about to say in the next paragraph to make sure the reader knows exactly where she's going with her paper, I am going to totally screw it up.  This may be basic, but "signposting" is so foreign to me that it could be beyond my grasp of comprehension.  And my sister is employing my help to signpost.

Plus I'm in a bit of a time crunch.  She wants edits and recommendations back today ... which is the day I said I could give her paper back to her.  I am tired of seeing her paper now, but I'm not finished with my first pass.  And I need to sleep because I'm helping out with the Vikings broadcast today and tomorrow.  I hope to have enough downtime today to keep my promise and give my sis my notes, but I am far from done.  I hope to pass through with edits, send her paper back to her, and then e-mail her my comments on organization and transitions.  It's the best I can do, but I don't know if I'll have the time to do it, and I don't know if it's good enough.

I shouldn't feel overwhelmed.  But I do.

Second Shift Stint Ends

Will I miss it?  Yes.  I just got used to the adjustment of coming in in the afternoon and working in the evening, and after tonight and I'll have to go back to working mornings and be pissed about not being able to adjust from second shift.

Honestly, some things have grated on me.  One of the guys I had to feed work to was getting on my nerves, slamming folders and brusquely asking me for stuff.  This wasn't the cool dude from days past when I substituted in filing.  But I said goodbye to him on my way out and he was nice to me, so who knows what's up with him?  In the meantime, I continue to hear my ex-trainer talk shit about me because I continue to do things wrong -- but not big things, small things that grate on him so much that, according to the gossip by my co-worker, he is all too ready to complain about these things to our supervisor.  There is a great danger in believing secondhand information.  But I have to admit this guy is really coming off as an asshole now.  As such, being able to completely avoid him these past two weeks has been a godsend ... and that will change once I go back to my regular schedule next week.  I might give him a sarcastic hi if I see him.

One other thing I've noticed: As much of a slacker as I already am, I think I have let things slide a lot more these past two weeks.  When I get up (and my body seems to wake me up just before the morning ends, around 10:30?), I put on Stephanie Miller on Sling and surf the Internet.  I then am roused out of bed by my folks to the dining room for lunch.  I then hop back into bed to surf more.  I rest my eyes in the hopes of getting in a nap; sometimes I have been successful, sometimes not.  I then take a shower just before I hop into my car to begin the workday.

There isn't too much productivity in with that.  No e-mailing, no calling, no scheduling, and certainly no cleaning of my room.  I've been busy some mornings; this week I had to get my tire changed and went to get a COVID-19 test for the Vikings Game this weekend.  But there are a lot of things I usually get around to doing when I work first shift that I don't do now.  Brushing my teeth and looking through my mail are two of the biggest off the top of my head.  I'll think I'll get back to doing those things once I'm back to first shift.  Whether I'm happy doing that, I don't know.

I don't know if I could do this shift for the rest of my life.  There are too many sports and shows on television I want to see at night.  But the good feeling, the relief, the freedom -- that doesn't go away.  Fewer people around me makes me happier.  And I still love, love, love! having that department all to myself with no one (well, besides anybody in the next room) bossing me around.  I should get my act together and find better-paying jobs where I am all by myself.

How Did That Red Sticker Get There?

As part of our new screening policy, a nurse gives us a circular sticker which must stick to our badge (which, I believe, we must wear around work at all times now).  As a guy who doesn't peel off that activation sticker on his credit cards after he calls the number (I'm serious, you should take a look at it), I've let each day's sticker pile up on the previous day's.  Thus there is a series of circles, mostly but not entirely overlapping, taking over my badge like Eurasian water milfoil takes over a lake.

I made the mistake of thinking I could swipe my badge to sign in with that growing mass of stickers.  When I did, I peeled off the leading edge of those circles.  Since then, I've used that day's sticker to try and push down the edge that is now bent and free from my badge.  It hasn't worked.

I got home just now.  I went to the bathroom.  I took off my shirt to take a poop because I have this obsessive fear that my feces is going to touch the inside back of my shirt.  After that I looked down ... and I see a red dot stuck to my stomach.  Red was yesterday's (Wednesday's) color.  Tonight it did come off and stick to my shirt, but I stuck it back on my badge.  Still, how in the hell did it get stuck to my stomach?  I did not take off my shirt at any point while at work.  'Tis a mystery.

Oh, well.  I'm going to leave it on my stomach.  Hey, I leave my stickers on my credit card 'cause it ain't hurtin' no one.  Same thing with the dot!

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -2).  When the Twins dropped three-of-four at the White Sox last week, I thought it was over for them -- not just for their aim to win the division, but also to show that they can still be a formidable squad as the postseason began.  Well, I guess I jumped the gun, because a 4-2 screening week plus Chicago backing up has Minnesota only a half-Game behind them for the American League Central Division as of press time.  Not a bad demonstration of resilience -- and it's more than enough to grab the top spot in this week's WMNSS.

While it's important to look at who's better than them, it's also important to look behind, and this past week has also offered green shoots for home-field advantage for the Wild Card Round, the only round where teams can play at home.  Along the same time they lost the series to the White Sox, the (teeth chattering) New York Yankees was storming ahead to surge past the Twins.  With second place the best Minnesota seemingly could do, and Tampa far ahead of the Yankees in the A. L. East, it looked as though the Twins' Wild Card foe would be those goddamn Yankees.  Again.

And you know what?  Maybe it has to work out this way.  The Minnesota Twins franchise, I am convinced, has an inferiority complex of the Yanks.  And as much as people think the best way to progress through the postseason is to avoid your bugaboo, maybe the only way is through.  Maybe the only way to truly be a championship club is to banish your demons.  You can't banish them if you avoid them.  So maybe a postseason tilt vs. the Yankees is exactly what the Twins, and the Twins fanbase, need, even though it may not be what they want.  If they can finally cast away the team that has bedeviled them for so long, that might be a sign that they're going to win the World Series.  It's kind of like the Boston Red Sox when they suffered under The Curse Of The Babe.  They won that long-awaited World Series the year when they went down three Games to none in the American League Championship Series to their sworn enemy, the Yanks, only to become the first team in Major League Baseball History to win a series after being down 3-0.  Once they did that, winning the World Series was cake.  Maybe that can also happen with the Twins ... although I would prefer having such a three-Game series at Target Field than at Yankee Stadium.

Meanwhile this squad has the end of the regular season, entirely at home, to attend to.  They have the back end of a quick two-Game series against Detroit to finish tonight/Wednesday night, then finish up this strange and unprecedented 2020 regular season with three over the weekend versus Cincinnati after taking Thursday off.

#-2: Lynx (Last Week: -1).  The Lynx precede the Twins in local representation in playoffs.  The team began the postseason staving off the Phoenix Mercury Thursday night in an 80-79 nail-biter.  The Fourth Quarter was absolutely fucking nuts.  Diana Taurasi got not one but two four-Point plays, and the Merc had a chance to tie it up at the end because Damiris Dantas missed not one but both of her free throws with 6.1 Seconds left.  Luckily for the Lynx, Skylar Diggins-Smith's three-Point heave at the buzzer was no good.  They earned that victory, but they gave Phoenix way too many chances.

Surviving that contest didn't instill in me any confidence Minnesota could make their Semifinal best-of-five series against Seattle competitive.  But they did, even though they lost.  In last/Tuesday night's Game 1 (which was delayed from Sunday because a few Storm players test inconclusively for COVID-19) the squad kept it close.  However, the buzzer-beating hijinks went against the Lynx's fortunes; the Storm's Alysha Clark grabbed an offensive Rebound and laid the ball in at the gun to give Seattle the 88-86 win.  You know who's good at collecting Rebounds?  Sylvia Fowles.  Unfortunately, even though it was of many people's belief she would play, she did not, even though she had an extra two Days to rest her calf.

The optimist in me is heartened the Lynx were in it till the end.  The pessimist in me thinks they'll never have as good a shot to steal a Game in this series than they did last/Tuesday night.  They try again tomorrow/Thursday night for Game 2.  By this time next week, this series could go four Games; we'll see if that many Games is even necessary.

#-3: United FC (Last Week: -3).  Only one Match this screening week, a 2-all Draw versus the Dynamo in Houston on Saturday (after being down there only 17 Days before).  I have a rule when it comes to Draws like this: I look at the team that scored last.  In this case, the Dynamo not only had the equalizer, they came back from a 2-0 Halftime deficit.  Too many capitulations by the Loons for my taste.

This week they traded for journeyman Striker Kei Kamara, who now is on his eighth squad.  I appreciate the exhaustive search for better talent.  But hasn't MNUFC traded for, like, 90 players this season?  I swear the side's roster is that long.

Anyway, after flirting with first place, the team currently sits in a tie for fourth.  Eight teams in the Western Conference will make it to the playoffs for Pandemic 2020, but the team is only three Points clear of ninth place.

Tonight/Wednesday night they are playing in Columbus; they then return to Allianz to play Real Salt Lake on Sunday.  And that's not all!  Major League Soccer yesterday/Tuesday released the remaining revamped regular season schedule for all teams, and MNUFC have nine more (and final) Games before the playoff begin in earnest.  This journey is long and it ain't over.  As opposed to ...

#-4: Vikings (Last Week: -4).  ... who, with the possible exception of the New York Jets, may be The Worst Team In The National Football League.  I blogged that I had some regrets over going out on Sunday when I didn't need to, but then I remembered that I thought The Bastard Baltimore Colts were going to kill the Vikes, and when I heard in my car radio in the Second Half that they were, I didn't feel so bad.  I was dreading a loss because the Offense, and in particular Quarterback Kirk Cousins, was so out of sync vs. Green Bay and the Defense, in particular the porous Defensive Line, would be no match for the robust Colts Offensive Line.  And those twin curses haunted the ViQueens yet again on Sunday.

It is only two Games, but the same mistakes repeated themselves, and they deepened.  That should tell you something -- namely that this is a lost, terrible team.  And right now, I don't know where or how they will improve.  I thought this team would go 5-11 this year.  I was being wildly optimistic.  This organization is staring into the abyss that is 0-16.  I'm fucking serious.

This Sunday they're at home to play The Bastard Houston Oilers, another team with a great Offensive Line.  Expect nothing less than carnage, familiar and stultifying carnage.

Another Goddamn Flat Tire ...

... and it's the tire I replaced the first tire with.

Coming home from work.  Getting onto the highway where I heard, "BAM!!!" and the car lurched to the side.  I knew a tire had to have blown, and sure enough, the driver's-side front -- the one I had to replace exactly a month ago -- had a hole on the side.  A fucking blowout.

They'll say underinflation was the problem.  I checked the pressure on it a week ago, and I was going to again today.  Good thing I went on the Internet because seeing someone else go through something like this, I remembered that tire has a warranty on it.  I don't know if the car shop is going to fight me on this.  And I don't even know how to invoke the warranty.  But I have a phone number for the warranty place, and I have to try getting a new tire for free, or at least cheap.

One problem in all of this.  If the replacement tire got blown out, and for the same reason (a side blowout) as my original tire, could it be the rim?  I noticed that the rim right where the blowout is is all scratchy.  I didn't think that was an issue, but if a similar situation happened with two tires, maybe the goddamn thing is bent or something.  Shit, that hit on the train track could have made a fucking number on my rim.

Another Fuck-Up In New Blogger

 Hope you notice this.  Whenever I start with a new blog post, I put the cursor at the top left of the field so I can start typing, of course.  I kind of noticed this issue, but didn't believe it because it is so small that I thought I must be seeing things.  But as I kept doing more blog posts, I kept seeing it.  And now I know it is a mistake, and that it is the fault of Blogger.

Do you see it?  This blog post does not start with the very, very first available space in this writing field.  It starts in the next space.  In other words, there is a space right before the very first letter in this blog post, in this case, "H."  It is as if I started this blog post not with a letter, but a space.  If I want to get this blog post flush to the very beginning of the writing space -- and I do -- I have to hit the Backspace button.  I'm not doing it for this, of course, so I can illustrate the problem.

How did the coders ... well, you can't "miss" this issue, you have to actually put this issue into Blogger ... how did they put this issue into Blogger?  Yeah, I guess I can just hit Backspace before I start every blog post from here on out.  But I shouldn't have to.  Blogger needs to fix this.

Blogger invited us to provide feedback on any problems that might arise with the new format.  But I think it's gone now, or at least I don't know where this is.  Yet another reason New Blogger is dumb, dumb, dumb.

Now My Car Isn't Completely Full Of Gasoline

Was planning on getting a handjob from *****a, but she says I didn't text her back in time so she confirmed her gun-toting license class for today.  She's fucking pro-gun?  What the fuck ever.

That really was my only reason to go out today.  But I went out anyway.  Why?  Well, it was sunny and nice out, even though I didn't really go out and enjoy it.  The reason I went out is because I had a Kentucky Fried Chicken coupon that was going to expire Friday, and today probably was the only day I could use it.  The coupon was for a free order of their new secret recipe fries with any order; I ordered their Colonel Sandwich.  And I sat in my car and ate both as I heard the Vikings lose execrably again.

Tried to make my trip out meaningful by going to storage to look for my old taxes.  Didn't find them, but decided I could throw a few more things in the recycling bin.  Oh, and I also went to a gas station for a Coke.  Man, I'm jonesing for Cokes right now.  In fact, I thought about going out after dinner to get one more Coke because I wanted to buy juice from Target, but there is no room in the fridge because Mother has bought so much food.  Anyway, the point is is that through my whole trip, I probably took the first bar off my 20-bar gas gauge today when I could have stayed home all day.

But if I did stay home, I wouldn't have been outside for the two minutes I was.  And I probably would have spent my time watching the Vikings lose.  OK, maybe I made the right decision.

Tales From The Gas Station, Part II: The Glitchy TV

At the gas station where I usually get my gasoline (it is the one closest to me that has that 10% ethanol blend that is supposedly good for my car and yet is also less expensive) I have a favored pump.  Why?  Don't know.  Just like that one.

But I have noticed, all throughout these years, that the pump television, that thing that plays advertisements and little snippets of information, is very, very bad.  Whenever I start pumping gas, the commercial or informational snippet from some TV network I've never heard of or some other, uh, snippet thing cuts off before it ends.  Sometimes it plays for several seconds before it glitches; sometimes it's just one second.  But as I'm pumping I'm looking, and the TV just goes: "Soundbites ... presented by -- Soundbites ... presented by -- ... treat yourself to ... treat yourself t- ... this week in tech-- ... this week i- . ..." and it would do that for my entire pump.  And it has done that for the past several years.

Isn't anybody going to fix that?  I mean, I guess it doesn't matter, seeing as I'm at the pump for 60 seconds at most, so I don't think other people are bothered.  But this damn thing has been broken for years now, and I thought at some point somebody would go, "Hey, that TV in that pump over there can't play whole segments without starting up another one two seconds later.  Let's get someone to repair it."  No?

Our Neighborhood Is Party Central Tonight

Got back from going out to storage in the afternoon, which was my reward for mowing the lawn earlier in the afternoon.  I saw a bunch of cars on both sides of the street as I approached my home.

Parked, turned off the car, got out and looked around.  The driveways of the three houses closest to us on the other side of the street, including the childhood home of my sister's best friend, were all packed with cars.  I believe all the cars on the side of the street is for one house, in which Father believes there is a celebration for a wedding going on.  Hearing all the ululations from the guests as they roll and walk up, that probably is true.

In the morning, before I started mowing, I noticed that there is a bounce house on the driveway of the house three houses to the left of us.  Kid's party, I presume.

So, there's a bounce house, and a wedding reception, and even though I think whatever was going on in the other two houses closest to us across the street (included my sister's best friend) is over, I have never, and I mean never, seen so much commotion, so much humanity, so much life, on this street.

I just took a look out through the blinds of my bedroom window.  The cars are now parking on the cross streets.  They all have to be going to that reception.  Man, must be one heck of a party.

Push Your Chairs In, Goddammit!!!

Oh, another thing I've noticed this week working second shift, even though it is not endemic only to second shift.  No one pushes in their chairs in the break rooms.  I noticed only this week that, pretty much since I started working there, I have been dodging chairs nowhere near the tables they belong to like my life depended on it.  People get up and just leave, and they don't push their chairs in.  And because these two break rooms aren't that big, my path for, say, getting coffee or getting back from break is fraught with peril.  There literally are chairs right in the middle of my way, equidistant from two or more tables.  Half of my damn break time seems to be kicking chairs to the table I think it belongs to.  It's fucking ridiculous.

Manners is a rumor -- everywhere, but especially at work.  Sheesh, man.

Thoughts On Second Shift, Almost Halfway Through

• I like it.  Yeah, having the run of the place and not being bothered by anyone (well, mostly) is great.  I can play satellite radio through the computer as much and as loud as I want, and there's no one there whose feelings I need to worry about.
• With that being said, I still have work that, at least for this week, I have to take from and have to give to two people in the adjoining room.  It for the most part is fine.  But the one guy there who also works second shift, someone I thought I got alone with OK, is kind of grating on my nerves.  He got to be kind of brusque this week.  He slammed a bunch of folders on the sill of my room, which startled me.  Also, he's been doing this thing where he hides forms in the middle of a folder instead of putting it on top.  If there is this form for a folder I have to deal with at a certain point in filing, that means I need to create another folder, and that takes up a lot of time.  I would rather be able to see it first thing when I open up the folder to check.  (Heck, it's better if I could see the sides of the form stick out of the folder.)  Instead, I approach a folder thinking that all I need to do is check for signatures, and then I encounter a folder whereby a form jumps out at me and screams, "Surprise!!!" and I get all pissed because I have to spend the next five minutes dealing with it.  Oh, and one more thing he does that grinds my gears.  Before, when he needs something from filing, either he would fax it over (I know we're in adjoining rooms, but it's better this way) or he would just come in and get in himself.  He has now taken to calling me.  And I find that pretty intrusive.  I just hate needing to get up just to answer the phone.
• Another thing that frustrated me just today ... well, I'll start from the beginning.  My boss stayed late to check up on me as I came in to work; for this and next week, my shift begins right when his ends.  He wanted to show me one other thing related to my fuck-up on Monday.  He then told me that I had fucked up again on Tuesday, and this was probably related with not remembering in which stage of the "assembly line" the folder I made an error on was.  He told me that the best way to prevent that from happening was to use all four stations and make sure the folder I am working on was at the correct station so as to prevent commingling.  I did not do that on Tuesday because it was just easier for me to stay put in one place.  But I tried it last/Thursday night.  However, that meant that I needed to spread out so I could go from place to place.  And I didn't really want to stand last/Thursday night; instead, I wanted to be on a chair and just roll from station to station.  I was being lazy.  But one chair was in my way.  It is different from the other ones -- the good ones.  It doesn't roll as well and it's just kind of shitty.  But in order for me to roam free from station to station, I needed to finally get it out of the way.  So I pushed that chair to the edge of my area.  I've never done that before, and yet, now that I have done it, I wonder why I hadn't done it sooner.
• Now about after work.  After work is the time when me and my body most acutely has had a hard time adjusting to the new schedule.  A part of me is raring to go and stay up once I get home and am free of labor, yet I still don't quite "get" that it's 12:30 by the time I get home, a tough time to get active.  Another part of me is ready to just fall asleep, and that's a temptation I'm fighting because my plan is to blog post once I get home, like I'm doing now.  So it has been hard to try and look forward to having something to do while understanding you don't have a whole lot of time in which to do it.  Hard to have goof-off time when it starts in the midnight hour.
• But overall, would I mind working second shift permanently?  There would be many things I will miss about prime time, but if I'm being asked a binary question, I'd say yes!

RIP, Legacy Blogger Format, And Hello, Shitty New Blogger Format

Please note that as of today, Thursday, September 17, the old dashboard/format for Blogger, the platform upon which I have build Wailing And Failing, has been changed/tweaked/destroyed.  Blogger has given me a warning for a month-plus (the time in which they first introduced the new format), but up until this point I was given a link to revert to the old formatting.  That is gone as of now, and it sucks because this new configuration sucks because it is not user-friendly.

How so?  Let me count the ways:

1. Each blog post I have, either published or in draft form, is listed, each in a rectangle.  This rectangle is bigger now, inexplicably, and I find it incredibly annoying.
2. In New Blogger, the first letter in each blog post has its own square encased to the left of the rectangular blog post.  Why?  Don't fuckin' know.  I don't think it serves any good purpose.
3. The tags are also bigger, so big that they spill off of the rectangle.  And no, I cannot scroll right to see them all.
4. This might piss me off the most.  I do sometimes go back to look for blog posts, and to do so I use tags.  In Legacy/Old Blogger, there was a drop-down box from which I could sort out blog posts by those I had labeled with, for example, "pissing me off," or "masturbation."  New Blogger fucking has done away with that easy drop-down.  Instead, I have to click on the tag (which I only realized just now means "search by tag") and then use Boolean operators to search for the blog post I want.  This theoretically should both expand the ways I can search WAF and get back more accurate results.  Plus, maybe a hardcore blogger like me should know how Boolean logic works.  But I don't, so when I click on the tag and get confronted with a small window that states, "Separate labels by commas," I don't know what the fuck I'm supposed to do.  Seriously, how do I fucking search through my blog posts now?!?!
5. One complaint on the screen when I'm blogging.  The toolbar used to have icons for bullet points, both numbered and unnumbered, as well as a blockquoting function.  They're still there in New Blogger, but all of those options (plus a few others I don't use) are nested under a "More options" icon represented by an ellipsis.  That brings up a second toolbar from which you can select a function.  That second toolbar sticks around unless you hit the ellipsis a second time to close it.  I guess you'll need that toolbar because you need to hit the bulleted list icon again once you want to end your list, but seeing that stick around still is annoying as hell.
6. Oh, one more thing, even though they'll quickly fix this: There was a special note box Blogger threw up once they switched over to New Blogger where they said, "If you want to use Legacy Blogger, click on the link in the lower left," or something like that.  They still have that box up even though there is no more link.  Pffft.  Liars!

There may be some upsides to this new format.  You can put in special characters for one, and for another it automatically saves your blog post instead of you needing to hit the "save" button.  But ... nyah, this dashboard still sucks.

Oh, About Work Being The Best Part Of My Otherwise Bad Day ...

I went into work yesterday.  As I settle in, my boss comes in with a huge stack of papers.  That stack looks familiar because it had my writing on it.

Not to give all the details on my job, but for this particular task I need to look up where these papers need to be filed.  I did that through this software system we have.  But, I did not write down all the information I needed to write down.  Apparently the first-shifters took care of some of it.  But I estimate there were between 50-100 papers I needed to re-do at the start of my shift last night.  I think my boss said they did half, so I made mistakes on 100 to 200 papers.  Ah, whoops?

This mistake is for something I learned basically on Day 1.  If I go back to my thinking on Monday, I got to a point where I was writing down all the information when I thought, "Hey, you know, it doesn't really matter if I write down this number, so why do I keep writing it?"  Again, not to give all the details that won't make sense, but when I file certain papers -- and not others, which is probably where I got screwed up -- I need to go back into this software system and scan in the bar code on those papers before I file them away because, if someone needs to look them up, they can go on this system and figure out where it is.  Well, I cannot scan in this information without this ... uh, number that I needed to write down on that paper.  That's what I needed to go back and re-do.  Besides getting confused, I believe that my innate impulse to cut corners led me to think that I could go without writing down this information.  The best way I learn is to make mistakes, and boy howdy, I made a huge honkin' mistake Monday night.

I asked my co-worker, who got in mid-morning, if people in the department were mad at me that they needed to clean up my mess.  She assured me no one was, although she said that one guy "had some fun finding errors."  Well, to me, that sounds like that guy was mad, OK?  And this guy ... he was the one who trained me in this department, and he taught me to write down all the information, so I kind of think he's kind of pissed at me.  And ... well, it's a personality thing with me.  I sort-of fear him, and I'm sort-of over him.  He rubs me the wrong way.  So I have to admit that I kind of am worried about what he thinks ... and I kind of don't care what he thinks.  You know, maybe it's best that I don't have to run into him the next two weeks.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Lynx (Last Week: -3).  For all of these teams, things are not staying at a steady and good level.  Moreover, for the rest of the teams in this week's survey, the ground is shifting beneath their feet.  But at this moment in time, only the Lynx can feel good about where they are at and, more importantly in my mind, they can feel good about their future.

It took Phoenix losing to Seattle on 9/11, but with that backdoor, Minnesota sewed up the fourth seed and a single bye in the WNBA Playoffs.  It may not matter a whole lot; they played Saturday (a win over Indiana, two days after getting shellacked by Las Vegas), avoided playing in the postseason opening round last/Tuesday night, and they play Thursday vs. the Mercury, so it may not be much of a rest.  However, Chantel Jennings, WNBA writer for The Athletic, thought the Lynx were going to be the second-worst team in the league.  And now here they are, officially in the playoffs for the tenth straight year.

And their core looks real good.  Napheesa Collier is the next leader of this team.  She already has a wingwoman in Crystal Dangerfield, likely the WNBA Rookie Of The Year.  Damiris Dantas has been a capable role player on the block, and both Odyssey Sims and Rachel Banham (she's One Of Us!) are rotating onto the court with increasing minutes and confidence.  With the possible exception of Sims (and it's not as if she's ancient), things are looking up for this franchise regardless of when the Lynx exit the postseason.  Kudos, then, to Cheryl Reeve; she got the General Manager award last year, and now she's coached up this team to the point where she should get Coach Of The Year.

Now, for this postseason, I think some, but not necessarily a lot, of the squad's chances to go far and spring an upset depends on the health of Sylvia Fowles.  She has been out for more than a month due to a strained calf, but if she's resting it, now's the time to get up from that rest.  She can be a difference-maker down low, cleaning up everything within three feet of the basket and allowing the others (especially Dantas) to stretch the defense.  But I wonder if it's actually a good thing if Big Syl comes back on Thursday.  It is not as if Minnesota has been a world-beater the past month-plus; there is a strict hierarchy in the WNBA this year with the Aces and the Storm towering over everyone else.  But could chemistry in fact be harmed if Fowles now comes back in to play?  Chemistry is hard to find again, and you won't have time to do so in a one-Game eliminator.

#-2: Twins (Last Week: -1).  I had thought about putting the Twins on top of this week's WMNSS by dint of their very important three-Game sweep of Cleveland over the weekend.  They may not have been listing, but there was growing probability the club would finish third in the A. L. Central and thus face either Oakland or Tampa in the Wild Card round.  I think sweeping the Tribe effectively puts that fear to bed.  In particular, Minnesota's 3-1 win on Friday was an extremely important one.  Shane Bieber, probable American League Cy Young winner, got outdueled by Kenta Maeda in that matchup.  Byron Buxton and Ryan Jeffers hit Home Runs off Bieber and the bullpen was able to hold off Cleveland in the final two innings.  (It was Bieber's first loss of the season, and the three Runs allowed were the most he had allowed up to that point.)  It almost feels like two wins.

However, my renewed enthusiasm for this team has now been tempered since they have been similarly humbled so far by the Chicago White Sox, dropping 3-1 and 6-2 decisions.  The Bomba Squad has not come roaring back to life yet, but in both losses they were rendered punchless, leaving numerous runners on base.  Meanwhile, the bullpen continues to look shattered; Taylor Rogers, the club's putative closer, gave up the deciding runs in Monday's defeat.

They have two more in Comiskey, tonight/Wednesday night and tomorrow/Thursday morning, but right now they're three Games behind the Pale Hose, and if they get swept, the Twins' main focus will then have to turn to holding on to the fourth seed and getting home-field advantage for their Wild Card Series which, it was announced this week by Major League Baseball, will be played entirely at the ballparks of the four higher seeds.

After playing the White Sox they stay in town over the weekend to face the Cubs.  On Tuesday they will play the first of a pair of home games versus Detroit.

#-3: United FC (Last Week: -2).  Upon further reflection, maybe things aren't so dire for the Loons.  On Wednesday they outlasted FC Dallas, 3-2, at Allianz.  That put United FC on top of the Western Conference, ever so briefly.  Unfortunately, Romain Metanire got Red-Carded late in the match and thus was not available for Sunday's roadie against Sporting Kansas City.  With him being unavailable and a half-dozen others injured (including Ozzie Alonso and Ike Opara, who's still out for some unknown reason), Adrian Heath decided to trot out a 5-4-1.  And it almost worked, until SKC's Johnny Russell broke through in the 80th Minute to give Kansas City the 1-0 victory.  They had a glorious chance to keep pace with SKC, but right now they are still in third place behind them and Seattle.  It could be worse.

Friday, MLS announced the next "phase" of regular season Games for their teams that will take the league through to the end of this month.  It begins for MNUFC with a date with the Dynamo, again, in Houston, again, on Saturday.  The last time these two teams met was September 2, when the Loons got blanked, 3-0, the Match-winner being supplied by ex-Loon Darwin Quintero.

#-4: Vikings (Re-Entry!).  This year may be the most tumultuous, and possibly the most disappointing, in the Mike Zimmer Era.  After turning over most of the Cornerbacks, Zimmer's forte, the young and green replacements got absolutely torched by Aaron Rogers in Sunday's season-opener.  The 43-34 score (the most Points Mike Zimmer has ever surrendered in his time leading The Purple, by the way) is misleading.  Green Bay led after three Quarters, 29-10, and Kirk Cousins & Co. were allowed to score three Touchdowns in the Fourth (although, funny enough, they went for two after each of those three TDs and converted).  When the Packers actually played, Minnesota got blasted on both sides of the ball.  Cousins continues to malfunction and be completely unable to improvise on the fly, and the Offensive Line continues to be mediocre.  But three statistics stand out to me the most: The Vikings didn't sack Rogers even once, big new acquisition Yannick didn't register even a Tackle; and Adam Thielen did have one Tackle.

I think most people didn't believe the Vikings were bound for the Super Bowl this year.  But even though this is only one season, that team looked fucking lost.  And with so many question marks coming into the season that continue to go begging after Week 1, I think there is serious danger that the season will go south in a hurry.  They are on the road Sunday at Indianapolis, and no one should believe the Vikes will come out of there with a win.  If they start 0-2, do you really believe this team, as it's currently constituted, will be able to turn it around?

Yesterday Was Such A Bad Day

It was a bad day mostly because of sports.  The Bastard North Stars won their Game last/Monday night and their Western Conference series, and thus have reached the Stanley Cup Final.  (The came back from a 2-0 deficit to do that, too -- thanks, Las Vegas, and fuck you.)  And the Twinks lost to the White Sox in the first Game of a critical series in Chicago, even though the Twinks left 15 men on base and had the bases loaded and brought no one in at least once.  Oh, and I lost in both my fantasy football leagues.  Sports is a sadistic mistress.  Never be a fan.

But worse than that?  The assistant for my psychotherapist billed me for my visits and tele-visits for the year.  I should be paying for this, and I had a feeling that I would pay up at some point, plus I don't want to stiff them for money they are owed for their services.  It's just that, when I started out with them, back when I was a temp and I was on government insurance, seeing him was free.  I am an upstanding contributor to society now, but all those visits have been rolled into one massive bill his assistant finally e-mailed me.  And it's a lot.  So much so that, even though I have finally reached the deductible and so visits from here on out are free for me, I have to re-think how often I should see him.  I like talking to him (although calling him over the phone has introduced technical difficulties), and like I said I'm not hurting for money right now, but damn, I'm not made out of money.

I should check my health plan for next year to see what my insurance will pay.  And I hate not seeing my therapist because I like him.  But seeing him is expensive, and I can't continue like this.

Yep.  Bad day.  And this was a day when work actually went very well.

The Second Shift

Today starts two weeks of me working second shift.  I am filling in for someone who is vacationing.  I volunteered initially for the first week (this week), but no one wanted to substitute the second week, so I'm doing it next week, too.

I don't know what to think.  I remember ushering after a temp job on weekday evenings, but the last time I had a stint working from the afternoon till deep into the evening was this information retention company about 15 years ago, and that lasted about a few months, I think.  I liked it, even though the people I was working with were weird and self-absorbed.

The thing I'm looking forward to most, and I've spoken about this before, is having the area all to myself.  Eventually; I get there at 3:30 (so I better not have any issues finding parking where I want), which is when most of the people I work with (especially in my main area) are long gone.  Two people in the adjoining area leave at 5:30, and the other person I start my shift work with leaves at 6:30.  I should have more than five hours with the run of the place all to myself.  And I look forward to doing whatever I want with very few people even knowing I'm there.

With that said, I am absolutely terrified that I'll fall asleep.  I continue to take these after-dinner, early evening naps brought on by the lockdown.  I guess I can time that up with my lunch (well, dinner).  But I wonder if I'll get bored and start to get tired.  The amount of work I get will dictate how alert I'll be, I think.  I have never worked this late there before.  From 1:30 to 10, yes, but not two hours later.  So will there be work from 10 until midnight?  Will there be anyone who needs something from the filing department late at night?  Don't know.

Now, if there isn't work to do (and that includes cleaning, which we need to do more often), instead of dozing off to sleep, maybe I can just go on the Internet.  Oh, or maybe I can finally reconcile my expense list for August!  Or, I can poop after the big dinner I know Mother will pack for me for dinner!  Maybe I'll be resourceful enough to find something to do, even if it's not work.

In the meantime, it's weird to be up for so long before work.  I don't like it because inevitably my energy will dip.  For example, last night, because I didn't get a nap in (I had to mow a lawn and in the evening this college thing was moved up ... I didn't get a nap in), I fell asleep at 11 p.m. and woke up around 2 with the satellite radio still playing.  Too late to take the shower I wanted to take, so I thrashed around in bed while Father was up late at night until, say, 6.  Woke up a bit past 10, and I've been up since.  Now, I think I can take in another nap, and I have to blog post this, and I will take a shower before I go into work.  But while I like not hitting the snooze button twice and fighting my body to get up a half-hour after the alarm first rings, I think being 5 1/2 hours up before going to work will lead to disaster.  But, like I said before, if there's a lot of work to do, I won't be tired.

I think by the end of this two-week stint I'll be unhappy that I'll have to go back to working days.  We'll see.

Another Deceptively Bad Day At Work, Part 3 (AKA I Get To Watch Home Vikings Games This Season ... From Home!)

Unless I recollect something else that happened to work, I'll close with the worst thing that happened at work on Friday, which has nothing to do with work, just that it happened while I was at work.

So I blog posted before about not working as many Vikings Games this season as before because of the coronavirus, even though there was an outside chance I could have worked them all but I didn't because I was too late in replying to the crewer's e-mail.  I was upset that I would not be able to work all of them, but I got over it by forgetting that I felt that way.

In the afternoon (and this was after my boss' boss surprised me by coming into our department while I was not working) work actually did taper off, and so I took the time to go through my personal e-mail -- you know, just in case something cropped up.  I am still getting inundated with political fundraising appeals which I had time at work to clean out.  And there was another e-mail that had to do with this ongoing issue I and others have with the college and the alumni association that I replied to.  But there was an important e-mail dropped into my inbox -- someone from the network e-mailed me about Vikings Games ... specifically this Sunday's Game against Green Bay.  "Something came up in the last minute and I need someone to run for the Game.  Can you do it?  Reply to me ASAP!!!"  It was dated 12:54.

I had to have seen it at 1 o'clock because I replied, "Yes, I can!" and sent it with a timestamp of 1:01.  Serendipity brought me face-to-face with that e-mail so soon after she sent it.  And I learned my lesson back in the summer (even though there was no lesson to learn), so I pounced on that chance.

And she replied that same minute, 1:01, with, "Oops, just filled it!  I'll keep you in the loop for Games later in the season if I need you!"  To which I replied back with, "OK."  Like a cuck.

By the way, I instinctively checked my phone to see if she also texted her request for someone to work the Game, like she did before.  She did text -- at 12:53, a minute before she e-mailed me.  So I guess it took me eight minutes to reply to her.  And apparently when she reached out to me, she reached out to everybody because she was desperate.  And although I tried replying to her ASAP (after I e-mailed her back I texted her back, and in turn she got back to me via both e-mail and text), the wide net she cast reeled in someone damn quick, quicker than yours truly.  And I was stewing in my own fucking juices the rest of the damn day.

Please, don't give me the "early bird gets the worm" bullshit.  First of all, it took me only seven or eight minutes this time around to reply to a last-minute request to fill a job.  More importantly, I don't see this rejection as a failure (or worse, a, ick, "life lesson") to jump on an opportunity to work.  Her spewing this cry for help to everyone, then making a game of it by only rewarding the quickest to reply to her, is instead something more like tossing a piece of cheese onto the floor and getting off on seeing all the rats chase that piece and push each other around just so they can get a nibble of it.

Or, try on this analogy from my life.  Back when I returned from college, when I was just starting to realize I now needed to work to make a living, I decided I didn't know what I wanted to do but I wanted to keep my options open, so I began working as a temp.  Well, I didn't have a cellphone when I started to strike out in The Real World, so I would call in from time to time to ask if they have a lead on a job.  And then I would go out, leaving Grandmother to take any messages any temp agencies might leave for me.  When she told me that someone from this number called, I would call back -- sometimes at home but sometimes I would, get this, find a payphone when I would be out and about.

Around this time I spent a lot of time at the University of Minnesota.  Around the turn of the century there was a computer lab open to students in one of the halls, and I figured out that my student ID from when I took classes at the U. over the summers I was at college still got me in.  That lab was in the basement, and there was a payphone on that same ground floor.  So whenever I didn't feel the urgent need to call back the agency to jump at a job, I would go on Netscape, be on the Internet for a couple hours, and once I was done I would go up to the payphone, put in 50 cents and talk to the temp agency.  And more often than not, when I ask about the job for which they left a massage, they would say, "Whoops, sorry -- already filled it."  And I would be like, "Shoot!" and then I'd be like, "Whatever."  Because I was young and didn't have a care in the world.

That was me in my early twenties.  I am in my mid-forties now.  Although age should not be the sole factor when it comes to deserving things, I am too old to dance like a monkey whenever someone has a need and doesn't offer it to me exclusively.  I no longer want to participate in any type of Death Race where I have to worry whether I'm first to reply to a job.  What I would prefer is if she would know about my seniority with the network and say to me, via e-mail or text or both, "Hey, someone dropped out of Sunday's Game.  We need someone to fill in.  I know you've worked with us for a long time.  Can you do it?  Please let me know as soon as you can; otherwise, I'll have to start asking other people from your area."  That, honestly, would make me feel good.  And it would make me feel appreciated that my tenure spent with this network is understood and not devalued.  She may not know this, and she may not need to know it.  But I have to be selfish here: I felt a bit disrespected by the way all this went down, which happened almost a month after I got burned over the same game of telephone tag.  And, of course, I got bitter that I missed my chance, again, to work Vikings Games like I usually do.  That's what made my bad day bad.

It has been a long time since I haven't been hired on to do all available Vikes homes Games for the two networks that do the bulk of their telecasts.  I grew quickly to resent any date that I for some reason did not work.  I haven't had to feel that way for at least half a decade.  But the pandemic, shifting position needs and the ability or inability to respond to requests instantly has me sidelined for the opening Game of the season -- a season which, I still insist, won't go on as planned, which I think would save me a lot of agita that I'm feeling right now.

But today's Game will be played.  And I will not be at the stadium.  I actually don't think I'll be seeing much of the Game.  I promised my parents I would mow the lawn at one of their properties.  After that, I plan on eating some State Fair food on the far side of town that I've been meaning to eat all summer.  Then, I think I'll try a Target or two to find some disinfecting wipes.  Then I'll come home and probably catch the tail end of what I predict will be a Vikes loss.  Probably for the best.  'Cause I still have my feelings of resentment and bitterness.  So the less time I watch the Game on TV, the less time I'll be reminded that I should be there, and not on the other side of the television.

Another Deceptively Bad Day At Work, Part 2

Let's see, what else happened yesterday?

Uh, my boss' boss came into our area just as I was surfing the Internet.  I tried to switch the screen back to work, but I couldn't get the goddamn Alt + Tab to work.  And it didn't help that I had obvious work just laying at my desk.  I don't even have the excuse that there was no work coming in then -- I had work, I just wanted to read something on the Internet instead.

Oh, and the reason my boss came to my area?  Unbeknownst to her, someone needed something that I was supposed to return to them, but I forgot.  I might have remembered ... if I weren't on the Internet.

I think my boss' boss is cool.  But you never know.  I just hate getting caught, dammit.

Another Deceptively Bad Day At Work, Part 1

Yeah, I kind of knew I would be late when I couldn't get out of the house soon enough to get McDonald's, eat McDonald's, and punch in in time.

Actually ... I was going to lump in all the bullshit that happened to me in one blog post, but now that I think about it, why don't I increase the number of entries I have on WAF by breaking them up?

So I got out of the house about five minutes earlier than usual.  I needed more time than that, and I knew it.  But even though I actually got up out of bed and didn't hit the snooze button two more times, I was still dawdling because, well, morning.  I knew that the extra trip to Mickey D's was another variable that, if things didn't go my way, would jeopardize my chances of getting to work on time.  And yet I was able to drive through McDonald's and order my hash browns and McMuffin (for which I got my large coffee for free through the app -- I think I got my issues with that application ironed out) and get to work at a not-too-bad time.  And I would have been able to eat my food and clock in just in time. ...

... except for one thing.  I was coming in to fill in for someone, and therefore I could come in at 9.  Being able to sleep in is a good thing.  Another good thing, or at least I thought, was the ability to find a parking space at the front, highway-facing side of the building because the department I was working in yesterday, The Third Department, is much, much closer to the doors on that side of the building.  Normally I would park on the other side because there are many more empty spaces back there when I come in at my usual time of 7 ... and I just realized that there is a big blog post I should have written about the new pandemic-related policy for coming into work.

I'm sidetracking myself.  Anyway, I had my Mickey D's and my plan was to drive to the front side of the building, park, eat and go in.  But I was blindsided that I couldn't find a damn parking spot anywhere close to the door I had to go through.  You see (and this goes back to the blog post I should talk about), current work policy tells all employees to pile through one door when they're reporting for work because as of Tuesday, one nurse is set up at that door to take the forehead temperature of everyone coming in.  My theory is that with that change, several people who would normally park in the back and come through the doors in the back (I did that before the pandemic began) now park in the front because it's closer to the door they now have to go through.  Which sucks for me; the spots that would be open in the front -- and there would be by 9 because I'm sure there are at least a couple people who work graveyard shift -- are now all taken up.  The closest ones I saw, in my estimation, are equidistant to the door as are spaces in the back of the building -- which is where I eventually had to park.

I took about five minutes to eat my hash browns and McMuffin.  But if you combine the extra time to drive very slowly to find a parking spot in the area I wanted to park, the extra time to drive around the building, and the extra time to walk back to the front of the building to punch in ... shoot, it was probably three minutes at least and possibly five.  If I had been able to save those three-to-five minutes, I would have been on time.

But instead I was late for a shift when I theoretically should not have had any issues reporting to work because I could sleep in an extra two hours.  There shouldn't be any warning from my boss because it's been some time since I was this tardy and I haven't made a bad habit out of it.  I kind of don't want to take responsibility for this instance of tardiness because I could not process all the changes that I believe occurred because of this new pandemic-related work policy.  But maybe, the next time I get breakfast at McDonald's before reporting to work, I should get out of the house even earlier than I did so I won't be affected by surprises such as the one I faced yesterday morning.

Fall Fatigue, But More Severe This Time

If the Minnesota State Fair were still happening, we would be complaining that the end of the fair coincides with the death of summer, and that sentiment would be buttressed as, like clockwork, Labor Day would feel a lot colder than the previous days, a signal that fall would be settling in very soon, and very hard.

Even without the State Fair, the abrupt and brutal change in season happened on Monday.  It was cloudy and clammy, and it rained.  It's my type of weather.  Well, it should be.  But with it comes changes to my body that I'm not used to.  I should be used to it; with the first sign of autumn my body has, like, a weekend where it basically shuts down in order to fully integrate into "winter mode."  It's kind of like a rental car company sending all its employees off in their cars to drop off in southern destinations because those cars will be used down there by vacationers over the winter.

The weather since Monday has hit me differently.  For one thing, I think the clamminess is aggravating the pain in my left hip and the left side of my neck, which I alluded to in the previous blog post.  For another, I have felt really, really cold these past few days.  My parents have not turned on the heat, but in years past I wouldn't have minded because I would not have felt the cold so much upon fall's first advent.  But it's knocked me on my ass this week.  Temperatures have been in the fifties during the day and the forties at night, but it might as well be below freezing.  That's how cold my body feels.

But the big change in me I notice now is that I am really, really tired.  The cloudy weather naturally does that to me, as it does other, normal people.  But I think sunset creeping up in the evening seemingly by ten minutes every day has made it seem like summer was a century ago.  It gets dark early, and that is a, if not the, predominant factor in me feeling quite fatigued early in the evening compared to even a week ago.  I want to go to sleep right after I get done with this, and not only is that a change from where I would stay up until 3, I don't really need to turn in this "early."  I am subbing for someone today, and her shift is 9-5:30.  I could get a good five, even four hours of sleep in if I wanted to stay up -- which I would normally want to.  But what I crave now more than anything is to just bleepin' pass out.  I blame the weather for that.

If my body is changing on the fly due to the weather, it'll have to change back.  Starting Sunday, it'll get hot and sunny again.  In fact, next week the highs should reach across 80.  Back to summer and not feeling any joint pain and not shivering and feeling like I could stay up as long as a meth addict does!

My Left Hip, And The Left Side Of My Neck

Whenever I get massages, whether it's the somewhat-elicit ones I get from ******a I have gotten on a semi-regular basis or the legitimate ones that I haven't gotten in ages, the masseuses ask if there are any points of concentration on my body.  I have told them for a long time the left side of my neck; I have since told ******a to concentrate on my left hip.

The left side of my neck has bothered me for decades now.  I think I got it when I was a baseball intern at El Paso.  The efficiency that was reserved for me had a mattress but no box spring that lifted it up off the floor, so I slept on the floor, basically.  I have heard that that is actually good for your back, but only if you sleep on your back.  I think I'm a side-sleeper, and with a relative hard mattress that's on the floor, I'm sure it threw off the alignment in my neck.  Ever since I have had this stinging pain on the side of my neck, and no masseuse has ever been able to eliminate it.  Tonight, more than I ever remember doing it before, I have pressed against a part of my neck -- left, front side, near the bottom -- that seems to strike a nerve because I feel a hell of a lot of pain.

In the meantime, I think that old and hard bed threw out the alignment on my back, too.  I remember complaining frequently about my back ever since 2001.  Then, as I made my road trip by myself to St. Louis partly to catch the total solar eclipse back in 2017, I believe my long hours driving started to throw off my left hip.  That side feels so bad now that I don't even know if my back hurts.  I have had physical therapy in order to keep that pain at bay, but I sure as hell haven't been diligent with the exercises I have been given.

Lately I have really started to feel that act up.  Whenever I sit, whether at work on right now, on the bed blogging this, I suddenly feel this dull ache on my left hip that comes and goes.  It might be weather-related; we have had a sudden pinch of cold weather that began Labor Day.  But I have really noticed this pain while I sit for the past couple weeks now.

Pain in my neck, pain in my hip ... I'm one hurting unit.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -4).  Just noticed something as I was constructing this week's Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey.  All three teams here are good, or at least sport good records, and they are in the middle of some extremely tight standings at this moment.

With that being a commonality but not a differentiator, I rely almost solely on what usually is my main criterion for ranking the teams for the survey: Record for the week.  And that means the Twins sit atop this week's perch by virtue of a 6-2 screening week.  They took four-of-five over Labor Weekend at Target over Detroit (even though one of those Games was a make-up of a Game the week before ... in Detroit, which meant that for Friday night's back half of the Doubleheader, the Twins was the road team -- don't worry, they won that one, sweeping both ends of that DH) and split yesterday's/Tuesday's Doubleheader series in St. Louis.  Myriad mistakes, dumb baserunning and a cratering bullpen contributed to the loss Sunday to the Tigers, and Randy Dobnak seemed to have broken down in last/Tuesday night's back-half defeat to the Cardinals.  Otherwise, the competent Starting Pitching, productive if not prodigious hitting, and shutdown Relief Pitching has operated at levels that remind fans of how good this team is supposed to be, even though they're not being wowed right now.

The problem is that in this shortened 2020 season, the American League Central Division has become the tightest of the six in Major League Baseball.  Both Cleveland the Chicago White Sox have caught fire in this part of the season, so much so that as of press time, the Twins remain in third place, behind both above teams, even though it is by only a half-Game.  Unfortunately, jockeying for position in the division might be very important.  If what I hear is true, the eight teams in both Leagues will not be seeded for the playoffs by record.  Instead, all three division winners will be seeded 1-3, the three squads that finish second in all three divisions take seeds 4-6, and finally the two Wild Cards get the seventh and eighth seeds.  It is possible that Minnesota finishes with a sterling record and be set up to face Oakland or Tampa.  Not the greatest first-round matchup for a team seen as a title contender heading into the season.  But I'm just happy that this team seems to have found something resembling its form again; I'll worry about the details of its playoff placement once the regular season is over.

The Twinks have today/Wednesday and tomorrow/Thursday off, and I still think that is extremely weird, even for this pandemic-shortened season.  But once this screening week begins, it'll be a pivotal one.  They host Cleveland for three Games over the weekend at home, then travel to Comiskey for a four-Game series vs. the Pale Hose beginning on Monday.

#-2: United FC (Last Week: -3).  They got rocked midweek in Houston, 3-0.  But they came back to Allianz Sunday and crushed Real Salt Lake, 4-0.  Those four Goals are more than the Loons tallied in their last four Games (three Goals, all losses) combined.  And despite what I thought had to be a tumble down the standings because of a losing streak, I see that MNUFC, as of press time, is still in third place in the Western Conference.  Sure, it's hella congested.  It's a three-way tie for third and they're only four Points above being on the outside looking in on the playoff chase.  But they're only one Point behind second-place Seattle and three Points behind first-place Sporting Kansas City.

The problem for the Loons is that right now they are one hurting unit.  It was announced yesterday/Tuesday aftternoon that Ozzie Alonso (hamstring), Ethan Finlay (knee) and Luis Amarilla (ankle) are expected to be out two-to-three Weeks.  While the absences of Finlay and Amarilla further muddle an already inconsistent attack, it's the injury to rock-of-Gibraltar D-Mid Alonso that scares me the most.

MNUFC hosts Dallas tonight/Wednesday night, then visit conference-leading SKC (who, it should be said, are winless in their last four Matches) Sunday night.  And then ... well, I don't know.  The season isn't supposed to end; MLS has said that they are going to unveil further parts of the schedule around early September (so, now) with the planned goal of having a postseason and an MLS Cup before the year is out.  But there is no schedule for all the teams past the 16th.  So ... ?

#-3: Lynx (Last Week: -1).  The arc is bending downward with the Lynx.  They began the week with wins over Chicago and Dallas, but finished it with defeats to Seattle and Washington.  That loss to the Mystics last/Tuesday night is particularly disconcerting.  Minnesota was able to turn a seven-Point Halftime deficit to a three-Point lead heading into the Fourth Quarter by dint of a monster 29-19 Third Quarter; monster 3Qs have been something this club has gotten very good at this season.  But Washington, who has not played this season with star Elena Delle Donne, outscored the Lynx 22-16 to win, 89-86.

That loss is particularly disconcerting because that drops their record to 13-7 with two Games left in the regular season.  Currently, the Lynx are in fourth place in the league but only a Game up on Phoenix.  That is important because of the stepladder, double-bye format of the WNBA postseason.  Eight of the twelve teams in the association reach the playoffs.  But the fifth through eighth seeds play a one-off against each other; the two surviving squads face the third and fourth seeds in another single Game; then finally the top two seeds face off against those two surviving squads for best-of-five Semifinal and Finals series.  Minnesota should do their damnedest to hold onto that fourth seed so they can get a bye and maybe up to a week off; otherwise, they'll have to play what is tantamount to an NCAA Tournament tilt on Tuesday.  What determines their final fate are Games tomorrow versus Las Vegas tomorrow/Thursday night and Saturday's regular season finale against Indiana.

I Didn't Join In On The Zoom Sunday Night

I talked about my reticence in joining Zoom social meetings before.  I had another chance on Sunday night, even though this was happening on Labor Weekend.  That's because the thing that usually prevented me from joining this Zoom, joining this other Zoom call to work out this issue with my alma mater that meets around the same time, took a much-needed week off for the holiday.

So I didn't have any excuse not to join.  But the thing that actually prevented me from joining this Zoom -- me not wanting to -- reared its damn ugly head.

I had my now-usual evening nap where I fell asleep around 7 and woke up around 8:30 ... I had the United FC Match on the radio while I went unconscious and woke up listening to the end of it (where they finally by breaking a scoreless deadlock at Halftime with four Goals) ... and then, well, there was an NBA playoff Game on Channel 5, and I don't remember the last time an NBA playoff Game in this round (the second of four rounds) was shown on free television.  Sure, I wasn't looking at the TV because I decided to surf the Internet at the same time, but I was watching it.  All this time that meeting gnawed at me -- shouldn't I jump in and at least hang out for, I don't know, 30 Minutes, especially on an occasion where I didn't have my usual Sunday night conflict?

Well ... no, I didn't.  Not until around 9:45 or so, when I hopped on thinking that if they were still going on that late (it's scheduled to start at 7 and last till 9) they would be done soon so I wouldn't have to stay long, but knowing full well that they probably would already be done by then.  I saw no one.  Just for my selfish curiosity, I went on Facebook (where the announcements for these Zooms are posted on our social group page) and asked basically, "Hey, where is everybody?" to which someone who did join replied the next day that three people did meet up between 7 and 9.

So, alas, if I hopped on right after the soccer Game ended, I would've been on for ... well, they technically signed off a bit past 9, and soccer Games usually last a bit less than two Hours, so ... maybe 20 Minutes?  That's not a whole lot of time.  I wouldn't have felt confined or pressured into being social, at least not for long.  And I would have had plenty of time to get back to watching the basketball Game, which was close around the time I started tuning in before The Bastard Minneapolis Lakers surged back to put away Houston in the Fourth Quarter, the surge being the part I probably would have gotten back to watching if I had attended the Zoom.  But I didn't.

The person who replied to me on fb thought something came up.  I replied that something did.  But watching a Game while surfing the Internet shouldn't really count.

Next Sunday I have to go back to meeting with that other group.  I don't know when, or even if, I'll have another chance to make up for deciding I was going to be a recluse and not join in on this social Zoom when I had the unique opportunity to do so.  And I so regret it now, and I so hate myself now.

Sorry, I Just Assumed You Were Homeless And Was Gonna Hit Me Up For Money

I went downtown to walk for Labor Day -- you know, as a treat to myself.

As I was about to get out of my car, I saw a guy who was, well, homeless-looking.  And I was thinking what I'm pretty sure what anyone in my situation was thinking: "Shit, he's going to hit me up for money."

I wasn't going to drive to another parking spot at that point, so I got out of my car and assumed a defensive posture suitable for walking downtown.  And yep, the guy came up to me and said, "Can I ask you something?"  And I know I backed away a little, partly to show fear and partly annoyance, and I'm sure I visibly sighed when he asked me.

I think I said, "What?"

"Do you know where the nearest gas station is?" he asked.

"Oh.  Uh ..." and then I proceeded to try and tell him.  The nearest one is Bobby & Steve's at Washington Ave. on the other side of downtown.  (It's the place where I got my tire replaced.)  He then asked if there was a CVS around.  I thought there was a Walgreen's closer to the heart of downtown, but I just pointed vaguely in some direction, whereby he went (from where he came, I think) after we got done talking.

And shit, I now feel all guilty.  Yeah, maybe he was going to hit me up for money and wanted to prove to me he wasn't that type of person, even though in such a case his motive precisely would be to hit me up for money.  But ... maybe his motives were pure.  Maybe he just wanted to find a gas station or a CVS.  Maybe I shouldn't have prejudged him.

(sigh) Man, I don't know. ...

I Hate The McDonald's App

So I had to fill in for someone at work yesterday/Sunday, and since her shift is 6-2:30, I got up at 5 (well, I hit the snooze button twice, so I got up at 5:18).  I remembered my mistake from the last time I worked this shift and, instead of going to the Mickey D's closest to work and being surprised they are not open that early, I made a point of driving a bit further down to the closest 24/7 McDonald's so that I would be able to drive back, eat my sandwich in my car and report to work on time.

I have recently installed the Mickey D's app on my phone.  I finally gave in to all those offers of free food if only you would download the app!!! and I did so for occasions such as this.  And they do have a bunch of deals, seemingly every day.  They had an offer for two dollars off a breakfast sandwich I decided I would use.  When I brought up the app before I headed out the door, I saw that there was another deal whereby I could purchase a coffee for just 99 cents.  I decided I would use that, too.

So I drove down and, because of the deals, I ordered up the most expensive sandwich (the sausage [?], egg and cheese McGriddle) and a large coffee.  At the drive-thru window (I don't know about you guys, but all the McDonald's restaurants in this area closed their lobbies) I bring up the app and I thought I brought up the deal ... and I was expecting that square Quick Response (QR) code to pop up, and the goddamn code didn't pop up.  I didn't know where to go.  I panicked!!!  And then I just decided I would pay full price because I was wasting my time, wasting the cashier's time, and wasting the time of the person behind me.  I wake up early, looking forward to a sandwich and coffee at a rock-bottom price, and I have to fucking pay full price for it instead?!

After being able to eat my McGriddle at work (and I clocked in on time, thank Buddha) and checking first in my car and again at work, I think I understand what happened, even though I will not take responsibility for it.  When you select a deal, you are presented with two rectangles.  There is one word in each rectangle in bold: Pick-Up in the top rectangle, Scan in the bottom.  Both words have smaller type, basically a subheading, below them.  Those words are not the same between both rectangles, but "drive-thru" is in both.  At the drive-thru, I honed in on the word "drive-thru" in the Pick-Up box.  I hit that so I could get two bucks off the McGriddle.  But instead of a QR code, I think I just put that deal in my "shopping card," as if I needed to checkout and pay for it once I was done with my order.  When I got to that, I had nowhere else to turn, so I think I tried to back up all the way to the two rectangles so I could hit the Scan one.  I then selected the coffee deal.  But then I saw a warning that I cannot use two deals for the same order.  And that's where I got all discombobulated, because it's clear now that in order to get everything done correctly I would have had to delete the deal I selected for my sandwich, and that was something that I couldn't tell while I was under the gun at the drive-thru, and besides all this foofooraw had already taken up too much of everybody's time.

I'm not going to take responsibility for it because I think I should have immediately gotten a QR code once I selected a deal.  You know: Hit deal, get code.  That's what it should be.  Instead, I am presented with the choice of whether I want to order ahead online so I can pick it up once I get to the McDonald's.  But I was already there.  And I swear most people still go to the restaurant to pick up their food.  But this goddamn app is pushing online ordering so much that it's putting that option up first and confusing the shit outta Gen X'ers like me in the process.  Fucking technology.

So I paid ... fuck, I didn't get a fucking receipt ... two dollars plus the difference in the coffee, maybe? more than I should have.  So I need to make that up by not spending that money elsewhere.  After work yesterday I went to Target to buy a few things -- salsa for the chips Father bought, disinfectant wipes (first time in a long time that I saw a shelf stocked with more than one container of them), and tea tree oil for these bumps in the back of my head.  I looked at the price for that little bottle of tea tree oil, remembered that it's been more than ten bucks the last couple times I've bought it, and decided not to.  I would have felt differently if I had gotten the goddamn discounts for the McDonald's sandwich and coffee I was supposed to.