Planning World Cup Viewing Where

I have gotten obsessed with arranging my free time around the World Cup the five weeks it's going on.  I shouldn't, considering that this World Cup is being (mainly) hosted by a fascist country.  Also, it's become even more obvious that FIFA is a corrupt organization that continues to get away with suckering communities into giving them money in exchange for the right to host the biggest sporting event on the planet this side of the Olympics.  No wonder, then, that the president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, gave Trump a made-up-on-the-spot "peace prize" just to kiss his ass, one grifter publicly proclaiming his love to another grifter.  The business side of this soccer festival should make one's stomach turn.  However, since I am plotting how I will watch as much of it as I can proves I have overlooked this evil sausage-making and, in turn, makes me complicit.

Well, my complicit ass is still going to watch, and figure out the best way to watch while balancing things such as my checkbook, the health of my car, going to my storage unit to go through my stuff (which is really chapping my ass right now the more I think about it), and just going home and relaxing.  A part of me truly relishes how to put the pieces together, but a part of me knows this can easily overwhelm me, and another part of me knows I'm capable of just saying "fuck it" and I'll completely forget all of this.

Regardless, right now I'm planning ... but only for next week.  I am trying to do the following:

• Have one day where I go work, then directly go home.  I will watch all the Games from home and eat in, and thus I will not spend any money;
• I will go out and watch at least one soccer Match at a bar or establishment boasting about televising the World Cup;
• I will go out and watch at least one soccer Match at a Mexican or Latin American restaurant that has a TV and may or may not be televising the World Cup;
• I will go from work to my storage unit, where I will spend at least the majority of one soccer Game listening to it on Sirius XM while going through my stuff.  I will not spend any money and instead go straight home after the Match is over;
• Oh, and I promised ******a that I would see her at the strip club one night.

My original guiding principle on which weekdays I'd do each of the above depended on whether I could watch the Match on FOX/Channel 9.  If it wasn't on there, I figured that wasn't a day I should just go home; either I would watch at a pub or restaurant that had Fox Sports 1, or listen to it on satellite radio at my storage unit.  But then I remembered that Telemundo is over the air and is airing every single Match on free TV, albeit in Spanish.  Soccer is universal, so watching any Game from home was back on the table.

But then I saw last/Friday night's South Korea-Czechia Match, and for some dumb reason the audio and video were out of synch.  I'm hoping it's a one-time glitch, because if it's not, I won't watch Telemundo anymore ... which might actually make planning easier because it removes the possibility that I could watch any Game at home.  Fix this, Telemundo.

Another consideration I, um, considered is the quality of the sides playing.  I want to see competitive Matches, and once the final roundelay of Games comes around, the stakes are going to influence which ones I watch and thus where.  But the field for the World Cup has expanded from 36 to 48.  That means a lot of new teams -- and a bunch of teams that are not good and should get easily dispatched in the Games they play.  Also, there is a fifth round of Knockout Stage Matches now, which means 32 teams will advance out of the Group Stage.  Allowing 2/3 of the field into the "playoffs" makes the "regular season" Group Stage Games somewhat less important, even if the final Group Stage Games will determine who comes in last in each Group and thus is automatically eliminated.

The more I think about it, the more I've decided that I want to dedicate my attention to matchups that feature good XI's or countries that appear to be evenly matched.  If there's a Game that doesn't satisfy either condition, I am beginning to think it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to only tune in to it in the middle of the Match, or even, for example, bail on the Game and leave an establishment early.  It is hard to eat out at a restaurant for two hours so you can watch a whole Game.  And speaking of whole Games ... I realized that when I get out of work each day will dictate whether I go home, my unit, or out to watch.  Do I want to go out to catch the back end of a lopsided Match between two nations that have no chance of winning the World Cup?  Maybe, actually, and I'll save the days I go directly home for when I am able to watch a good Game on paper in its entirety.

You can see how I am weighing a lot of things, right?  Yeah, maybe I'm overthinking this.  But I don't want to spend money I can't afford, I want to start eating the food at home that I've bought, I don't want to tax my car, and I do want to start cleaning up my stuff.  So, considering all of that ... I still don't know.  Guess the only really important thing to me is I just want to watch some soccer.

Goddamn, Car Trouble Fucks Everything Up

Man, don't you hate it when you have to stop everything just because of car trouble?  OK, I am exaggerating what happened and didn't happen yesterday/Tuesday, but it's still a pain in the ass.

So I go out to sleep in my car at work for my lunch break.  My paranoid eyes always makes me think I'm seeing something that's not there, but on this day, they latched onto something unusual and, turns out, scary: A bulge/blister/bump on my passenger-side tire.  Honestly, I didn't think anything of it.  I just thought I needed to deflate the air in that overinflated tire (didn't help), and then I went inside my car to nap.  But that bubble concerned me anyway, so I had to go to my cell and Google, "is it dangerous to have a bump on the side of your tire?"  And all the entries in the search said, "Hell yes, it's fucking dangerous!"

(Aside: I seem to have more problems with tires on this car than I ever had with my old one.  Is it because it's a subcompact whose tires are naturally lower profile?  I remember getting one of my tires punctured the Friday before Labor Weekend, and now this.  By the way, that bubble is probably the result of hitting one pothole, or one too many potholes.  Goddamn potholes.)

After making a couple calls to see if I could get a tire after work, I decided that after work I needed to swap out that tire for the spare.  But dammit, my mechanic screwed those lug nuts in so tight I couldn't loosen them.  I did not believe at all that I needed to call AAA, but because I am too weak, I had to.  Luckily, even during afternoon rush hour traffic and him helping me being led astray by his Google Maps, the guy who was about to save me arrived at work after one hour.  The last time I called AAA (and I think it was when I had to stop the minivan around St. Thomas for what was a broken alternator), it was at least twice that long.  And after using WD-40 and a long-handle lug nut remover to get as much torque working, he got the bad tire off.  Roadside assistants are angels, they truly are.

Also angels are, I now realize, the only car mechanic in the neighborhood that's open evenings.  Why aren't there more car shops that are open evenings, or weekends for that matter?  Cars don't break down at night or on weekends?  Anyway, the place I babied my car to was the only one around the area open at 7 at night.  And even though they couldn't get the same exact tire for me that evening, they can do so this morning.  Also, they did what I asked them to: Check the other tires to make sure they're fine, and to check the air pressure on the spare (even though I asked the roadside assistant to check and to pump it up.  I always forget to check the air in the spare).

So I talked about having plans ruined.  Specifically, I wanted to eat at either Culver's or Potbelly, two places where I can get free dessert for my birthday.  I then wanted to go home, look through the mail, call Mother about the mail if need be, then maybe nap before I caught the 8 o'clock showing of Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come.  But after I got everything arranged for the (hopefully) quick tire swap this morning, I got my car back, spare tire still affixed, and I still had time to make the movie.  I didn't feel completely safe that I could drive to the theater to watch when I could, and maybe should, drive back home.  But a mixture of relief that people were able to help me and defiance that I didn't want my car trouble to stop me from the fun I planned on having compelled me to get to the movie.  And I made it in time.  And the film was ... um, bloody and profane, but OK, just like the first one.

One problem after I left the shop and before I went into the theater.  I locked the door with the key fob, but I didn't see the light flicker on indicating everything got locked.  I then noticed that the hood was slightly open.  Now I noticed when I was at the shop, looking through the window into the bay where the mechanics were looking at my car, that the hood was opened up, presumably for the guys to go through their customary check of everything in my car even though I was just there to get a tire replaced.  I didn't think anything else of it, though, because I assumed they would slam the hood shut.  But they didn't.  I didn't drive really fast; you're not supposed to on a spare, plus I used side streets to get from the mechanic to the theater.  But I realized that I drove several miles with the hood open.  The hood of my old car flew open while I was driving to the gym a baker's dozen years ago, and that was the scariest fucking thing that's happened to me on the road ... well, OK, maybe top five.  My point is is that it seems very, very dangerous to drive with the hood open.  I don't think anything got ruined, and yet I feel my car is beyond repair because I drove it with the hood open.  Look, if anything did get damaged, I probably won't know till much, much later.  Fuckin' A, man -- these guys were quick, and they treated me well.  But they fucking forgot to slam my fuckin' hood shut?!

No, I probably won't bring it up.  Again, if there's damage because I drove with the hood open, how would I know?  Oh, well, you take the head-slappingly bad with the good when you're in a jam.  Hopefully they can just get me my new tire and do so quickly and easily.

Venmo Trouble

So I sent ****e* her money not too long ago.  I usually pay her in cash, but since I wasn't planning on using any cash yesterday/Thursday, and since the money I took out Wednesday thinking I was going to spend it on some sexytime with a stripper (which fell through) I am going to use at My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Version) tomorrow/Saturday instead, I was going to pay her through the "fake money" of Venmo.

I actually left last/Thursday night to attend a concert while ****e* was still working on my house.  She was gone by the time I came back, and, like she said before I left, she would request I pay her through Venmo.  I think there was a bit of a miscommunication; I asked for her username, but she thought I could just pay through the app, and I told her I never put money apps on my phone because someone might get in there and steal all my money.  I was able to find her username after I clicked on her request, so all is right with the world.

I have used Venmo a lot, so much so that I need to replenish it more often than I want to.  So after paying off ****e*, I tried to transfer money from my bank to my Venmo.  But I can't.  First, I tried to find the page where I can do the transfer, but there wasn't one.  I swear I've done it before, but I don't know where the hell the page is.  I look up instructions on Google, but first I only saw ways to add money through the app, and then I was told that I had to go to the "Me" tab, but there isn't one.

Finally, I stumbled on a Business Insider article that tells you how to do it.  I saw a URL.  I cut-and-pasted it, and that's when I finally saw the (unfamiliar) page whereby I can send money from my bank into my Venmo.  But then I tried it, several times, but I got an error message.  So I logged out.

Like I said, I haven't quite encountered the trouble putting money into my Venmo like I did last/Thursday night, but I have encountered the occasional trouble from this stupid application.  That thing is difficult to use, yet everyone swears by it.  I don't get it.

The TV Just Up And Helped Me

So the television set in my bedroom, the one that I got for free from my friend's friends, the one that My Father put in my bedroom when My Fucking Parents decided to redo my whole goddamn room ... well, it's been a challenge.  My Father replaced my TV set (and put the one I had, the one I bought, in the den that he would use once in a blue moon) probably because this one I got was bigger than the one I bought.  It has become clear since I started using it, however, that the I bought, even though it's much smaller, is more technologically advanced.  Beyond its old age, there are very small, first-world issues that make me not like this TV as much as the one I got for myself.  It takes more than ten seconds for it to come on, for example.  Also, sometimes the remote control doesn't work and I have to tap it on the back a few times; these guys really took this television through its paces over the years.  Finally, it doesn't have a "recall" or "back" button in the traditional sense.

What it does have instead is a feature whereby you can see up to the last six channels you were on (or fewer; it stores in memory the channels you were watching since you turned on the television).  You hit this TV's version of a "recall" or "back" button and six squares pop up on the bottom of the television screen.  They're all blank, and for a while there it pissed me off that I couldn't toggle between two channels.  But then I hit the remote's down arrow and voila, that's where up to the last six channels appeared in those boxes.  (You hit the down arrow again and the, I guess, "third" row are all the channels you have programmed onto the TV, and you can use the left and right arrows to scroll through them.)  So I finally understood how I could flip back and forth through channels; it's certainly not as fast as just hitting one button, but if I wanted to go through three or more, I can't really think of a faster way to do that.  So, it's a compromise.

Another thing so bothersome about this TV's interface comes from those six squares.  They always appear on the bottom.  If I'm watching a game on TV, the scorebug (the graphic that shows all the pertinent information on the game you're watching, such as score, which quarter/half/period is it, how much time is left, etc.) usually is on the bottom third of the screen.  So when a channel pops up and I want to just quickly see were in the game that game is before I go back to the other game, I can't see the score; instead, I see those stupid six boxes.  Yes, I guess I could wait the five-to-ten seconds to check the scorebug, but like I said, doing that is not in my nature.

Another graphic that popped up at the bottom of the television screen is the channel graphic.  You know, whenever you flip to a channel, you will see graphics that state what it is, like "41-2," or something.  So, if I want to use the "recall" or "back" button to toggle between channels, what happens is you select that channel from one of the on-screen boxes, the channel comes on with these six blank boxes obscuring your screen for four seconds or so, then the channel graphic obscures your screen for another four seconds or so.  Highly annoying, and not very user-friendly.

But then, maybe a few weeks ago, the damndest thing happened.  The channel box, the graphic that first appears when you get onto a channel, jumped from the bottom of the TV screen to the top.  Now, the graphics don't block my view of the score for as long as it did.  I have no idea how it happened.  I played with the settings, but I'm sure I didn't select anything unless I knew I wanted it.  It looks as though this TV, even though I'm sure it predates artificial intelligence, understood intuitively how upset I was that this graphic was blocking the scorebug, so it knew to place it on the top of the screen.  Now, why it couldn't do the same thing with the three rows of six squares, I don't know.

Still, I'll take it.  I'm glad the TV "got" me.  But is it good that it has a mind of its own, like HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey?  Honestly, with the way the country is right now, being spat out into space to die because AI was afraid it was going to be killed isn't the worst way to go.

Don't Ever Be A Sports Fan

Ever since the Jynx choked Tuesday and lost home-court advantage, I have been in a bad mood.  Well, moreso than usual, and that includes the meddling, I-know-what's-best-for-you bullshit I've been dealing with from My Fucking Parents for the last goddamn month.  But I'm upset, and I shouldn't.  Why?  Because it's fucking sports.

Yes, I'm a fan.  But it's not as if these players know who the hell I am.  And I could easily ignore what's going on with the Lynx and live my life in peace.  Instead, I allow this to affect my attitude, my behavior, and my day.  If you step back and think, that is both reckless and stupid.

I have married that seething anger with a fear in anticipation for today.  Game 3 is tonight, and if the Jynx lose and go one Loss away from being eliminated in a season where they were far and away the best team (that we don't celebrate teams for being the best over the course of the regular season is purely an American thing; if this were any soccer league elsewhere in the world, there would be trophies raised and parades on the street for the Lynx already, but that's a blog post for another time) ... man, I will hate the man I will become.  And then I will hate myself further for allowing myself to have my life influenced by the results of a sports team.

These are the times when I curse myself for loving sports so much.  Because if and when my teams lose, the pain and anger that well up inside me -- which is often venerated as a characteristic of "a true fan" -- is something I can't shake for a long time.  You can say that it's worth it when they win a championship, but this is Minnesota -- we don't win championships here.  So it's all just pain and anger.  And I stepped into this realm, and I am too stubborn and/or stupid to step out of it.

I guess you're going to have to save me by winning, Lynx.  See how pathetic that sounds, asking a bunch of people who don't know you from Adam to win so I can feel better?  Don't ever be a sports fan.

Oh, Just Die, You Dumb Bug

Yeah, insects are becoming an issue.  After being afraid of a big ant that wouldn't die and having to change bathrooms to shower because of a lazy damn bug, there was another damn bug, a small beetle-looking idiot, that found itself at the top of my bathroom sink (this was about a week ago) and then sauntered on down just short of the drain (this was maybe Saturday or Friday).

It obviously wasn't a problem while it was hanging up on top.  But now that it was near the bottom, I wasn't able to wash my damn hands.  I opened a trickle a couple times just so it wouldn't drown, and some other times I just skipped washing my hands.  But I tried, man, I really tried to get it to leave the basin by holding an envelope of those, um, floss toothpicks (you know what I mean, right?) out for it to latch onto.  I feel bad that one time it may have gotten its front legs on it and I jerked the envelope away too fast, so it tumbled back into the basin.  Otherwise, it would just avoid the thing like the plague.  I need to use the sink, dammit!

Yesterday/Sunday I kind of had enough.  I opened the faucet a couple times to the point where I may have drowned it.  Then, after I burned my thumb carrying a pan of bread that just got done in the toaster oven, I went back to the bathroom to cool off my hand.  I may have forgotten about that insect, but frankly, I was more worried about putting my thumb under water.  And so I turned the faucet on all the way, and yep, clumsy, cruel me saw the small, dumb thing disappear down the drain.

Maybe I should've given it more of a chance.  And hell, if this beetle is anything like that ant, it'll crawl up the drain and scare the shit out of me.  But frankly, I've had it rearranging my human time to accommodate this lazy and/or dumb bug.  God made a hierarchy for a reason.

Bad Driver: C0NFUSE (?)

Another incel Republican with a white whip cutting me off with only inches to spare without turning on his signal?  And all because I changed lanes in front of him?  Fuck off, boy.  I went to the Kendrick Lamar/SZA concert because I have money while yours is wrapped up in being a prick and letting everybody know it.  And what the fuck is with the license plate, anyway?

OK, I switched lanes after switching over to the left-most lane because it occurred to me I needed to take the cloverleaf exit.  But then this asshole did what I did and I'm all, "No, I'm not gonna follow this piece of shit onto the exit, I'm going somewhere else and I don't care how long it takes me to get to the fast food place."  And then I realized that I could get to this place faster if I passed the exit and took a left and the next light ... which meant that I didn't need to change lanes.  And now I need to stop this line of thinking.  I am not going to scrutinize my behavior because it might have cause another guy's asshole behavior.  That guy is an asshole, and behaved like it.  I did nothing wrong.  Period.  Well, I wish I honked at him right as he cut in front of me and not when he was two lengths in front of me.  I was scared, though.

I hope writing this down is the end of it in my mind.

But really though, that license plate ... I don't know if I have it down correctly, but it sure as hell is stupid.

I wanted to exercise last/Wednesday night.  But I got stopped by Mother asking me dumb questions about their real estate stuff.  And then I went outside and helped Father, who was trying to fix the trunk door of their minivan.  By the time I got done, a quarter after 7 became a quarter after 8, and by the time I got to the community center and changed, I would have had, at best, an hour of working out before it closed.  Wasn't worth it, so I threw the bottle of juice I had back into the fridge and my gym bag back to my room.

I want to help out my parents.  And in particular it was good to have some one-on-one time with Father.  But ... couldn't it wait for another day when I didn't want to exercise?  And can Mother not melt down over another dumb real estate question I don't understand?

All I Wanted Was To Boil Some Fucking Hot Water!!!

So I was feeling sluggish after around lunchtime at work.  I powered through, but after napping in the evening, I realized my body felt like it had this huge build-up of lactic acid.  I remember feeling like this the night before I was supposed to work a Vikings Game, even though it felt much worse then because I really, really didn't think I could go to work the next day.  (I was able to get a power nap in that appeared to help my body fight off whatever I was feeling, and I was perfect, I think, the next day.)

I think one of the things that helped me fight off these, uh, shakes is that I drank hot water.  This lactic acid build-up feeling made me feel cold, and I think that part of my return to full strength was drinking hot water in order to, uh, get things moving in my digestive system.  (OK, I think I pooped a lot before getting that power nap in.)  Couldn't hurt to try it again.  And you know, as long as I am boiling water, I might as well irrigate my nostrils.  Oh yeah -- in case I haven't blog posted about this before, last summer I finally got to see an allergist who gave me this squeeze bottle (not a neti pot) in which I pour in boiled water, this saline solution and this, uh, liquid medicine.  I had used it twice before tonight.  It's a trip to shoot liquid up one nostril, feel it traverse into the other nasal canal, then feel that crap tumble out of your nose and into the sink -- all while hoping to God that you don't swallow that stuff, ick.  I've gotten used to it, I guess, although I will go out on a limb and say it kind of feels like waterboarding.

Anyway, I grabbed the teapot, filled it with tap water, and turned on the stove.  I remember that when I emptied the hot water into the Pyrex measuring cup the first time, I tipped it over so much that the lid from the tea kettle fell over.  I wasn't going to do that again, so just before I was going to empty the whole teapot, I took off the lid.  I totally didn't expect there to be condensation on the underside of the lid ... and that scalding hot water dripped onto the fingers of my right hand.  Dammit!!!

I ran my fingers under the sink, then put my right hand on a few ice cube trays.  (Won't tell my parents I touched them, but don't worry, I had showered just before this, so my hands are clean!!!)  What frightens me is that after I iced my fingers, the pain and heat just seemed to radiate back up to the surface of my fingers.  I still feel them right now, even though it's much less painful and, at least for now, there are no blisters.  But I have to cut open packages at work today/Wednesday, and I'm scared to see how my hand is, and how I feel, once I wake up.  I took two Tylenol to deal with the pain; I might need to take another two in the morn.

Man, all I wanted was to drink hot water to get rid of this oogy feeling I have.  And now I burned my damn fingers.  Hate this, this is stupid.

I Don't Know If I Trust Him Now

I couldn't get myself to go to bed at a decent time last/Friday night because I was freaking myself out over whether or not getting the timing chain fixed, and fixed at the mechanic I brought my car to, was the right thing to do.

See, I've done my own research online -- yeah, yeah, so take this all with a mound of salt -- and I am seeing so much information that points me away from thinking that the reason my check engine light is on is because the timing chain and its attendant parts are wearing down.  Even more worrying (at least to me): What I have looked at, combined with what the mechanic keeps saying, has made me begin to doubt he knows what is going on with my vehicle.

Two things in particular are questions in my mind.  First, the mechanic is not only going to rip apart my engine to replace the timing chain (or have his employees do so), he told me he was going to give the car yet another oil change, one month after changing it when the indicator lights tripped on the first time.  He noted that the oil was black when he thinks it shouldn't be that soon after an oil change.  But I have read online a few people and sites who say that the oil is supposed to turn black that soon after an oil change because it is synthetic (and when he changed the oil around the holiday he said he put in synthetic oil) and the blackness comes from the oil sopping up all the impurities that are in the engine.  In other words, the oil turning black is a good thing, and an indicator that it is working.  And he wants to change it, an presumably charge me for another oil change.

The second source of doubt is simpler but more, well, shocking: He says he will replace the timing chain, but not the water pump.  I'm no mechanic, but I remember having timing belts changed on my old car twice -- with the amount of money I had to spend, I couldn't forget if I tried -- and I got pissed that they changed the water pumps too.  I now understand why they do that as a matter of routine: As long as the engine is undergoing such major repair, and as long as the mechanics are working in that area, you might as well change the water pump.  But he says he won't do it unless the water pump is leaking.  He says what the chain does and what the pump does are two separate issues.  Bullshit.  I keep researching and no one fucking says that.  They're totally dependent on each other.  That's an intrinsic relationship all combustion engines have.  Besides, switching it out now saves me money because mechanics -- either this one or some other one -- don't have to expend the labor of taking out my engine twice.  And at over 100,000 miles the water pump is going to leak.  I am scared as hell to see a red overheating light on my dashboard, and that is what this mechanic chooses to make me risk by not doing the conventional thing and just fucking replacing the pump.

I really don't like this.  I hate shelling out two grand already, and now this maverick mechanic wants to buck conventional wisdom and not repair things properly.  And, again, I'm not totally sure he knows what's wrong with my car.  But he has my car in his garage, and thus my balls in a sling.  All I've got is my wrath if he and his boys fuck this up, either by misdiagnosing the problem or screwing up the fix.

This shit is making me want to find a full-time job working from home.

Yeah, What I Said Totally Sounds Racist

So I was sitting next to this Latino guy for the stupid-crazy MNUFC Leagues Cup Eighthfinal.  As the Loons blew a 2-0 lead (again), I was, of course, dreading the worst.  (They didn't choke; they actually won in Penalty Kicks.)  So I was talking to this guy about the Match, and then the team, and then Minnesota teams.

The Loons were playing Toluca, an historically-important side from Liga MX, the Mexican professional top-flight soccer league.  I don't know this for sure, but when an All-Star team of Liga MX players came up to Allianz Field last Year for the Major League Soccer All-Star Game, I was told by my season-ticket representative that there was a huge influx of Liga MX fans coming here from out of the area, which I assume is the metro area, if not the state of Minnesota.  So, not quite knowing if he is a local, I blurt out, while talking about the sorry knack our teams have of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory: "But ... are you from here?"

And I knew that sounded racist even before he said, "I'm from Woodbury."

Maybe he didn't notice.  Maybe he took it as I intended it, a question as to whether he drove into the Twin Cities, supposedly like other fans who are not United FC fans, to watch.  I don't think he got pissed with me.  But God, am I slapping myself in the head in my mind.  This bad week of self-sabotage continues.

Smart People Can Be Real, Real Dumb

I endeavor to participate in more of this club's events.  This particular sub-group goes out for dinner once a month, and I'm down.  I went to a local Mexican restaurant chain, and it was fantastic.  Well, I got full really quick because I ate my fill of their free chips and salsa, and I kind of regret doing that because I felt full ever since I made myself two cocktails Thursday night.

The company was ... good.  I don't know them well, but we were united in our objective smartness.  But once again I am reminded that just because we're smart doesn't mean we're, like, smart in other areas, if you know what I mean.  If you don't, let's just say that the guy sitting across from me, a very mild-mannered, conservatively-dressed man who was very nice to me, kept spouting Republican talking points about how there should be no minimum wage, there should be fewer regulations when it comes to creating housing (he was joined in agreement by the guy sitting beside me, another person who, when not talking about these issues, was also really nice), and the perils of socialism.  While MAGAts in polos, khakis and masks are terrifying, it's the quiet ones, the men and women who look so normal they will blend into the scenery, that probably hold the most insidious opinions on politics and life.

This club holds a massive worldwide convention every year.  In one convention (probably one just before the pandemic), organizers apologized to attendees after some made allegations of sexual harassment and unwanted touching.  There was a Facebook group with club members who solely told racist, sexist and anti-Semitic jokes; the global board knew about this group but did nothing about them because ... uh, they believed in free speech or something.  That group finally got shut down after some members made a lot more noise about it.  Finally, I remember going out for beers one night with another sub-group, and one of the people there consistently wanted to tell jokes that always included oral sex.  Consistently.

We might be book smart.  We could be intense in our passions, and very probing with our curiosities.  That doesn't mean, at all, that we put the knowledge we have gathered to good use, or draw reasonable conclusions from what we learn.  And it sure as hell doesn't mean we won't say or do stupid things, or that we'll even behave like grown-ups.  I keep falling into the trap that because we are smart when it comes to one thing, we know what to do -- we are "smart" -- when it comes to all things.  You can't be further from the truth, and last night's dinner is a prime reminder of that.

My Father, The Cuck

As much of a domineering bitch My Fucking Mother has been, I haven't said much about My Fucking Father.  That's because My Fucking Father hasn't done much of anything on this trip.  In fact, he has been well nigh invisible all trip.  Only yesterday/Sunday did he contribute anything of value: We used his card to get into Volcanoes National Park for free, and then he helped My Fucking Mother cook.

Every other time he has been a passenger, if not a cuckold.  The only other time I remember him of any note was back in Honolulu while My Fucking Mother was preparing dinner at my sister and brother-in-law's place.  She was riding him for some bullshit, and he had a hissy fit, left through the front door and, I guess, stood out on the balcony and stewed while she finished cooking and setting up the dining room table.  Besides those three instances, it's as if he wasn't even here.

It is infuriating, if not illuminating, to see how My Fucking Mother treats My Fucking Father.  It's a combustible and at times contemptable relationship.  There are many roles I've seen them play throughout my life, but one where she runs roughshod over him feels like a dominant one, and thus a true one.  She has called the shots too many times on this vacation, and has been wrong too many times.  For example (besides ordering me not to drive), she bought so much food that about half of the food we bought will have to be thrown away.  And she has insulted and belittled pretty much everyone on this trip if she doesn't get her way.

So, what does My Fucking Father do about that?  Psychological displacement, I guess.  It was in full effect just now.  After I finished taking a shower and went downstairs, he walked down the stairs too.  He was rummaging around the kitchen and eating a bunch of things -- chips, cake, etc.  This was about four hours after a big dinner in which I noticed that he didn't eat much.  But eating now?  Well, it seems as if he is trying to tell everyone (including himself) that he eats when he wants to eat.

My Fucking Father then runs up to me and lectures me on things I can do to "improve my lifestyle" -- bullshit issues he has raised with me from time to time like "Don't eat so much" and "Use the scale more often."  I don't know why he raises these issues with me, but I might have a theory as to why he raises these issues with me when he raises them: My Fucking Father wants to reassert some control over me because he thinks My Fucking Mother spells out everything I do in my life.  She doesn't -- neither does he -- but I think he sees himself pushed off to the side, and so, in the dead of night, when My Fucking Mother is asleep, My Fucking Father skulks around and tries to plant ideas in my head in an effort to see them bloom into something that he can call his.

Anyway, I hand-wave his entreaties.  After all, I'm eating so much because My Fucking Mother bought too much goddamn food.  So My Fucking Father goes back into the kitchen and searches for more food to eat.  And then he offers me cake!  I say no because, like he said, I shouldn't eat so much.  So he cuts himself a slice of cake, proceeds to sit down on the stairs leading to the living room where I'm sleeping ... and then offers me a slice again!  And this time, because I don't quite believe him when says I shouldn't eat so much (BTW, is he lecturing anybody else here on eating too much?) and because I want him to shut the fuck up, I fuckin' say yes.  It's guava cake, and actually, it takes good, although it feels fattening as hell.  Whatever ... the point is his hypocrisy.

Why is that?  Why did My Fucking Father do exactly what he told me not to do not even five minutes before?  The only thing I can think of is that he doesn't believe the words coming out of his mouth.  That's all I've got.  You know, maybe I shouldn't care about anything he says from now on.

The Deal That Wasn't

So I went to see Blonde last/Tuesday night.  Review: The many critics who say Ana de Armas is revelatory in a movie that fails her ... well, I may have been conditioned to believe that after all the reviews I saw, but I think the critics are right.  It's tough to give a damn about a movie when its lead character has no agency, who does not do things but instead has things done to her.  (That's why I think Sicario is such an overrated film: It's just Emily Blunt's character going through a bunch of shit.)  Also, the incessant and trippy cinematic effects director Andrew Dominik deploys, while dazzling in and of itself, eventually detracted from Blonde and called attention to itself.  Maybe the scattershot wizardry of the film and the passiveness of Marilyn Monroe was mandated by the source material, the 2000 fictional biography of the same name by famed author Joyce Carol Oates.  If that's the case, then Blonde the book is overrated, even though it was universally acclaimed at the time of its release.

(With that said, I just read through a review by Sean Burns of WBUR.  He too doesn't seem too enthralled by it, but makes allowances that the countless episodes of exploitation of Marilyn/Norma Jean is a meta-criticism of celebrity culture and how fans fetishize and then dispose of actors by using their on-screen images for our own lusts.  OK, maybe I'm being a bit harsh on the film.)

Anyway, after my stripper girlfriend bailed on me -- she said she got an hour east of her home out in west-central Minnesota before her car started to poop out on her; I thought she would be in the Twin Cities around noon time, not 5 p.m. -- I made sure on my phone about how long the drive to the theater would be and when the movie would start.  But damn you, Google Maps, you sly bastard, I saw an ad for Groupon where I could buy not just the ticket but also popcorn and pop at a discount.  Groupon, my old friend who I haven't used in a long time!  So I spent five minutes (needed to reset my password) getting on and then buying both deals.  I was going to use cash, but I couldn't pass up this deal.

After I exited the theater, I was looking at the movie posters on the wall.  The last one I saw was not for a movie, but for a deal at the theater: On Tuesdays, tickets are $7.  I bought mine on Groupon for $9.50.

(smacks head)

Hey, I haven't been to this theater in years, so I'm not beating myself up too much here.  Besides, I don't know if I'm going to watch a film there before January, which is when the Groupons (and I used both last/Tuesday night) expire.  But I still feel dumb for basically overpaying for a ticket just based on the day of the week I go.  And this was supposed to be a deal!

And So Ends A 60-Hour Workweek (With An Aside About Paid Time Off)

A combination of staying a bit beyond my shift (something I usually do, and something now permitted nowadays since we're so short-staffed), offering overtime for stuff we're behind on, and filling in for people both last Sunday and yesterday/Saturday, I just worked each of the past seven days at my main job.  And boy, am I tired.

I do want to help out; I don't feel like "quiet quitting," at least not yet.  But a bigger motivation, of course, is financial.  Overtime is at time-and-a-half, which is awesome.  But for last week, knowing that I had the opportunity to fill in not one but two days, I decided to friggin' go for it and work at least 60 hours for the week, because after that point, I get double overtime pay.  Well, I guess I should have researched all of this before last Sunday, because it doesn't appear as though the state mandates double OT (and federal regulations explicitly state there are rules for, uh, "single" OT but conspicuously say nothing about double OT), so maybe I don't get double pay after 60.  But I went past 60 anyway!  Working in excess of 11 hours on Wednesday, when I came in early and left a couple hours after my shift was over, helped me blow past it.  Seriously, I should be up to 63-4 hours for the week.  So if the company provides double OT, I'm in the money!  And if not ... well, I know better now, and I can say that I had the intestinal fortitude to work that much in my old age ... so, yay me?

---

I think I haven't blog posted about this on WAF.  I didn't know till, uh, fairly recently that paid time off does not count toward overtime pay.  I thought I had a big opportunity to rack up the hours one week even with a holiday, and so I worked like a dog.  But because I worked a total of less than 40 hours of, uh, "actual" work, it was just straight time.  I looked at my pay statement once and thought my pay was a bit low, so I dug deeper and that's when I found out about this, well, dumb rule.  This is a disincentive to work; if the only way to get OT in a week where you have a day off is by, essentially, working a day, why not just enjoy the day off?  Maybe that was the intention when this policy was made all those years ago.  Maybe labor pushed for it.  Don't know.

At any rate, with a few months left before the year is over, I can start to compute how much paid time off I have left.  And even with a big holiday coming up around Christmastime, I still have so much that I currently am above a threshold of 40 hours I can carry into next year.  Once 2023 gets here, any paid time off above 40 is lost to me.  So, I am going to be taking an occasional day off here and there till the end of the year.  That includes Tuesday, where I hope to see that hot Hooters waitress, maybe convince my stripper girlfriend to touch or suck my dick, and then see Blonde at the Lagoon to see what gives that movie an NC-17 rating.  Hey, if you have to take a day off, might as well enjoy it, right?

Addendum To: Addendum To: Addendum To: My Meeting In The Morning

Well, this has nothing to do with the meeting I had Wednesday morning, but it had plenty to do with the thing I said at the tail end of it, namely that my outburst would trigger some karma for me when I come in and work in The Fourth Department.  I stayed late by a bit more than an hour, but it was a shitty day, it truly was, for two reasons.  First, I can't remember a day where more e-mail addresses didn't work and bounced back on me.  There were, like, four of them, and so I needed to stay late and think about where else and, failing that, how else and even if I could request the information I need someplace else.

The other reason was one of these stupid goddamn curveballs, a situation where people wanted this test but we refused to give it to them, and I was communicating back and forth with several people about whether we could use this test instead.  Eventually I was told that was this customer wanted, this customer got.  The reason why was explained to me by my former supervisor who has moved to another department.  I don't get it, because if this test was good, and if this customer has always asked for it and always gotten it, why was I told they couldn't get it?  I don't want to even think about this problem anymore, but I know goddamn well this will be the first thing I'll have to re-confront when I walk through that door in the morning.  Fuck.

I really, really want to see this neutral women's volleyball Match between Pepperdine and Washington St. this evening.  But it starts at 5, and I am supposed to get out at 4:30, so getting there by the time the Match starts probably is a no-can-do, and if today is as bad as yesterday, the Match might be half or even more than half over by the time I get to Maturi.  (There's also a good chance it'll rain this evening, and so I'll face another should-I-or-shouldn't-I-go situation like I did last Week with the difference being there isn't a second Match to watch that makes walking through a potential storm worth it.)  And all because I (possibly?) raised some issues in a meeting with my boss and supervisor?  Great.

Jesus Christ, Man, There's Jelly In The Fridge, Too!

I probably have blog posted about this before, but in case I haven't, I will risk repeating myself.

Ever since my parents have come home, Father has packed a lunch for me for work.  As I have said many, many times before, I don't need food at work, but he packs it anyway, and I can't afford my own place.

He has changed it up in the past, but so far, and what I anticipate what he'll do until they leave, his lunch for me is a banana and a peanut butter sandwich.  Not a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but a peanut butter sandwich.  This despite us having a squeeze bottle of grape jelly (which I found at work; once again, someone brought food for us to take) which I know he has noticed.

What's the use of a peanut butter sandwich?  Peanut butter and jelly go together.  In fact, without the other, each of them is kind of pointless.  And just peanut butter on a sandwich is extremely useless.  You need at least two things inbetween two pieces of bread like that.  It's a law, or at least it should be.  Otherwise, you may as well just eat the bread out of its bag and then the PB out of its jar.  There's no use putting them together if they're the only things being put together.

I've been so perturbed by this that I am now just refusing to eat the "sandwich" at work.  But once I get home, I wait until after dinner, put jelly in the sandwich, and eat it now that it is "proper"  It's a good idea for another reason: I am currently participating in a research study at the U., and I am supposed to take this medication with food before I go to bed.  Saving, and rescuing, peanut butter in bread so it can be chased down my gullet with a pill feels very efficient.

But Jesus bleepin' Christ, man, can't you just slap on some jelly!  The sandwich looks so lame without it!!!

A First!

OK, so I dreaded working in the Fourth Department yesterday.  I have to say this: For the first time ever working by myself back there, I got out of there in time.  Yes, my friends, I actually pulled an eight-, and just an eight-, hour day!  Well, OK, I went over by, like, 20 minutes.  Seriously, though, I have not gotten anywhere near leaving after eight hours after a day in the Fourth Department, and besides, I usually stay an extra 20 minutes.  So this is like leaving early!

I was blessed with a light workload in a lot of areas.  I usually am bombarded for requests as to when a result for a test comes in.  Those usually take a lot of time researching and e-mailing people, and that's usually between tasks in which I am waist-deep.  Those tasks are usually faxing and e-mailing people to retrieve information that we need, and there are a lot of categories into which all these forms are separated into, I have to treat each category differently.  I'm usually inundated with so many forms in all categories that I sometimes nudge up to the ten-hour workday limit I have set for myself before I just have to leave and abandon the rest of the work I couldn't get to.

Well, the main reason I was able to leave on time was because I didn't get too many forms in any of the categories.  For example, we have to touch a form when we initially get them; there were only seven forms yesterday when I sometimes get up to two dozen.  After three days, we have to take another shot at contacting people to retrieve the missing information.  This category isn't too bad, and the four here is way manageable.  After five days we take a third and final swing and reach out to anybody who can tell us what the hell is missing.  There were seven of those, which actually is average.  Finally, if we do get responses, we have to process the forms.  That takes time, but I didn't get too many responses back.  That might be the end result of not sending out a whole lot of faxes and e-mails from the start, but regardless, I didn't get many responses back before I got to leave.

Another time suck with this job is just BS that comes up.  There sometimes are issues involving ... something where I am at a complete loss as to what to do.  In cases like this, I have to go to my supervisor and beg for her help.  And by the time I remember to do what she told me to do, I have to regather my bearings and remember where I left off.  That takes a lot of time; I think I likened that to spinning around an aircraft carrier at sea 180 degrees.  I just cannot think that fast or else I will completely miss steps and then sit there for several minutes figuring out what steps I missed, then take even more time to go back and do those steps.  Honestly, there were as much, if not more, of those stupid unicorn cases that it took most of the morning to start dealing with them.  Thank goodness, then, I didn't get as many requests or forms as I feared.  That meant that the time I had to borrow to deal with these special cases I made up by zipping through the relatively meager amount of forms and responses.

Finally, what I dread the most is having unpleasant interactions with prick clients.  There was one back-and-forth with some stubborn woman who would just not give me the code that I needed.  I e-mailed her back saying that the number she gave me was not in our system, to which she replied that I mixed it up with another number she gave me.  I think she thought she put one on me, but I replied that, while I did mix it up, the actual number she intended to give me also was not in our system.  Finally, someone from a different department in my company -- a person who this arrogant nutjob asked to "help me understand" all the wrong codes she gave me -- said that our laboratory did something wrong.  I've been replaying this insufferable woman's crap from time to time tonight, but I don't feel -- feel being the operative word -- as upset as I felt after dealing with this prick because here, a third party dropped in, deus ex machina style, and said a party beside me and this dumb lady made a mistake.  That absolves me of any responsibility.

Sure, she probably thinks I'm stupid.  She's wrong.  I think she's stupid.  I'm right.

---

So, with all that said, karma can be a bitch.  Everything I was spared from yesterday is coming back on me twice as hard and worse today, isn't it?

Three Ways I Was Annoyed Yesterday

1) So my boss needed to plan out people willing to work overtime for another round of Saturdays: The next three Saturdays and then one in September.  Me and one other person are the only workers who can take these shifts.  Makes sense, then, that we each take two.  Well, I had the two I wanted through process of elimination: I preferred not to do this Saturday because the English Premier League begins (technically it begins Friday, but I look forward to the EPL's Gameday 1 9 a.m. Matches the same way I look forward to the first NFL Sunday afternoon even though the season technically begins that Thursday) and I wanted to be in pub to celebrate the new season.  Then, I preferred to have skipped the September date because, it turns out, the Vikings play the next Day and there's a chance I might be called in to help set up the Day before.

Well, because my boss asked the other person to come in on a Friday, a day of the week she usually does not work -- my God, we need to hire more people -- it makes some sense to schedule her for one of the Saturdays that I could work without a conflict.  My boss was going to give me that other Saturday, which is next Saturday, but I would not get overtime for it because I planned on taking a couple days off that week.  Why?  Well, I wanted to go on a vacation, but I chose not to (well, not to leave the state), and yet I still kept the dates.  More on that later.  Anyway, I countered by asking if I could move these vacation dates to early the following week, but he has already mapped out all the assignments for the other days this month, and he preferred that I stick to working the week I thought about being "on vacation."

So, in conclusion, my co-worker gets three Saturdays, and I get only this Saturday, and I didn't really want to work this Saturday, and I would not have minded working the next two Saturdays.  So practically everything is the exact opposite of what I want, and that's annoying as shit.

2) Afternoon break yesterday.  It is rare to see a break room completely empty, but I think the Excessive Heat Warning convinced a lot of workers to ... go outside, or something.  Anyway, I had my choice of tables to sit down and eat the bread Father packed for me.  I repeat: The place was completely empty.  And then some dude, for no good goddamn reason, takes his lunch bag and promptly sits at the same table as I.  The fuck?!  You had three tables from which to choose, and yet you wanted to invade my space?

He also, for some fucking reason, picked up his water bottle, squeezed some water in his mouth, then slammed, and I mean slammed, the bottle on the table, jarring the phone I was looking at.  I was so disgusted at this prick I left the table early, and of course this cringy motherfucker also leaves.  I gave him a passive-aggressive wave, telling him to fuck off in my own personal way without him knowing I was even gesturing toward him.  Maybe he got the message, maybe he didn't.  Maybe he'll never do something as stupid as sitting right next to me with every other fucking table open.  But if he pulled that weird shit on purpose, I hope he knows, somehow, that it didn't go unnoticed.  God, what a creep.

3) I know that these days, wearing a mask will prompt dirty looks and possibly insults from strangers.  It may come more readily if I'm wearing them in a setting where experts believe the coronavirus can't spread as well, such as outdoors for a Twins Game.  But I still wear them -- a surgical mask underneath an N95 mask -- because I don't fucking trust people.  Yeah, I still eat indoors.  Don't care; I still wear them whenever I'm not eating.

Honestly, I kept both masks wrapped around my arm for most of the Twins Loss to Detroit.  But I put them both on on my way back to my car, even though I was walking outside and not loitering around any people for any stretch of time.  Nevertheless, this group of two couples, all of them possibly inebriated, were walking toward me.  For some goddamn reason, one of the guys made a point of getting to the other side of her girl, thus getting into a position to put himself between me and her.  I had to move around him because he was making a beeline toward me.  Asshole.  I don't know why he felt the need to cause a physical confrontation.  Well, I have one guess: His mediocre bitch friend blurted out, "Mask life!"  I think this anti-masker MAGAt boyfriend was scared of a guy wearing a mask and wanted to show strength by protecting his drunk-ass cunt of a girl.  Meh; or maybe I just wish he was afraid.  But shit, man, I really wish I were stronger so that I could've kicked his ass if he wanted to pick a fight with me.

---

Yesterday was ... a day.

My Evenings/Social Calendar This Week Is All Filled Up, Too ... Wait, Maybe Not

I've been complaining about how much I have to work this week.  When I said there was no rest for the wicked, I mean it, sorta.  I can't really catch my breath in the evenings, either:

• Yesterday/Sunday: Had a Zoom, and that saps my energy.  Was also supposed to get a handjob from *****a, too, but she wanted to postpone.  I told her maybe later this week.  But hey, maybe not.
• Today/Monday: Thought about going to the Japanese Breakfast concert.  Sold out by the time I looked.  Just looked now on AXS Resale where there is a ticket that would cost me, with fees, $74.  Maybe I would go at its original list price of $49.50 plus fees, but sorry; I think the singles I've heard are wonderful, and she's cute, but I can't pay that much money.  Also, she's swinging by here a second time on her current tour (she was also at First Ave. back in September), and while she has blown up big time since, I wonder if going through the motions the second time, with basically the same set list, will sap the inventiveness and, well, effort of a show.  Not to say that I will stay home, because I feel I need to exercise instead.
• Tomorrow/Tuesday: I have the day off, which is great.  But in the evening ***e* is cumming over from Wisconsin to give me my monthly handjob.  Actually I guess I could bum around a few hours and actually do some work.  But that HJ, man, that's something to prepare for, you know?
• Wednesday: MNUFC Match.  Could go home and then leave.  Maybe I'll do that.
• Thursday: Well ... now that I think about it, this premise might be an incorrect one.  *****a could probably reschedule and jerk me off this night.  Otherwise ... well, I can eat out at one of the places I want to go to, but the January 6 Committee is holding a prime time hearing.  But I probably do have time to work on chores this night.
• Friday: Yeah, I can stay home on this night, too.
• Saturday: MNUFC Match, and I also work that day.  This day I probably will go out and enjoy myself.

OK, this was a stupid idea.  I'm going to go and work out now, and hopefully I won't regret deciding not to see the cute Japanese Breakfast.