Yeah, You Told My Ass This The Day Before Too, I'm Sorry

I struck a defiant tone when I apparently screwed up at work on Thursday.  But I did not tell you that I made another mistake around the same time.  That one I definitely did fuck up, and with that I had no issues of being told I've done this four or five times before.  It was my mistake ...

... which I apparently repeated, to my utter disgrace, at work yesterday/Friday.  I did something I should not have done, to be slightly more specific.  And because my supervisor told me not to do this on Thursday and I did it again the very next fucking day, my boss had to step in and ... well, I hope it's not a verbal reprimand that's going on my permanent record, but he had to put in writing via e-mail that I did this mistake again and that this is what I'm supposed to do instead.  I have to admit that getting a warning that way is a good way for me not to make that mistake again.

But there are questions that abound from this.  The defensive side of me wonders how this mistake got back to my boss.  Did someone tell, and is that someone pissed that I did this two days in a row?  If so, who is this person, and does that person not respect me anymore?  I hate that, but I have to admit that if the roles were reversed, I totally would think that person is stupid and untrustworthy.  But the other side of me is wondering (after apologizing, which I did to both my boss and supervisor in replying to that e-mail) after years of doing it correctly (or at least I think), what is going on with me that I would fuck up something this basic on back-to-back days?

And to think I get to do this all again today/Saturday because I get to go back to work!  Yippee!!

You've Told Me Four Or Five Times My Ass

OK, goddammit, I get the message at how ... let's just say "perturbed" you were when you accused me of making the same mistake at work four or five times.  But first of all, let me say that I don't ever remember you saying that.  Second of all, even if have told me before, it sure as hell wasn't four or five times, I can guarantee you that.  And third of all, lady, I am fucking inundated with bullshit the minute I sit my ass in that chair, and I can't stop until at least, at least ten hours pass.  That's how it has been since Boxing Day, and that my co-worker helped me with my job and I still stayed an extra two hours to catch up on work should give you an indication of how ragged my day is now.  So forgive me for forgetting, even if my fuck-up kind of rippled through the company.  Sorry.  Damn.

(As an aside, this was my first day in The Third Department this week, and I have noticed that even though I have been rotating through tasks for several years now, I am kind of, well, "off" the first day I move into a position after a few days away from that position.  As much as I want to say I remember everything I do, and I can easily switch my brain to the work I need to do at this job or at that job, I kind of forget parts of those duties if I've been away from it for a few days, and I think that's the case here.  This might continue to be a problem if all I do is rotate from position to position.)

Maybe I need to sleep.  Wake up and put this day behind me.

Lost Hooters Coupon

There are a dozen coupons in the Hooters calendar, one for each month.  A few I can't use, either because it's a discount on merchandise or, if you want to a discount on your meal, you have to spend so much, but drinks don't count.  But the others I do use, and so that means I'm going down to the MOA once a month just so I can use that month's Hooters coupon.

I was going to do that for April back on Sunday.  I was in the area because I was mailing my taxes, and the only post office open on Sundays is the one at the airport.  Once I parked my car at the Megamall, I had to check and make sure I had the coupon with me.  Alas, it was not.  I thought I had put the coupon in the back pocket of the pants I was wearing all week.  But it must've fell out somewhere.

Will I go to Hooters this month anyway?  It's 50/50.

The Definition Of Best Laid Plans Ruined

So I got out a little late because Mother wanted me to help her out at Walgreens for some reason.  I get to the stadium in time, but I get lost, and then I decide I really want to eat and drink something while there, so I decide to miss some at-bats while I get food and a beer.  But then the Game goes slower than I thought, and then it goes into extra Innings (Griffin Jax blows a three-Run lead, goddammit), and I only got metered parking for four hours, so I make plans to leave early, but then the Game ends quickly in the 10th Inning (Twins win!  I was wrong in the WMNSS!) as I leave the bathroom and go downstairs to see my friend, who's ushering the Game.  And then I tell him I have to leave before my parking expires, even though I promised him as I was walking into the stadium that I would talk to him for a bit before I leave.

Also, I was hustling because this bodega close to where I parked sells these supposedly awesome breakfast egg sandwiches, but they close at 3:30.  I get there at 3:32, but it looks like everything is closed.  So, to sum up: I missed big chunks of the Game including the Game-ending play; I had to buzz past my friend even though I told him I wanted to talk; and I was too late getting this egg sandwich I want at possibly the only time I will be downtown on a weekday all year.

Damn, man, I need an HJ so bad.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Timberwolves (Last Week: -3).  I am faced with a conundrum this Week: How do you acknowledge teams that have reached the playoffs, a notable achievement, against a team that isn't having a good season but has been on fire as of late?  In the end, I am eschewing what usually is my first (and often only) factor in ranking the local teams here in the WMNSS, record for the screening Week, in favor of the overall picture.

That's not to say that I think the Timberwolves are coming in hot.  They did, however, not only make the playoffs but reach the goal that is important to them, namely avoiding the Play-In.  They needed help from, of all teams, San Antonio, who beat The Bastard Philadelphia Warriors this Week that put Golden State a Game behind the Wolves and thus in seventh place in The Western Conference's final standings.  But the T-Wolves had a finishing kick, defeating The Bastard Vancouver Grizzlies in Memphis before coming home and beating Brooklyn and The Bastard New Orleans Jazz to finish sixth in the West.  Those are enough accomplishments to give this squad the top spot in this Week's survey.

Now, expectations were higher than sixth (although a huge caveat to that is that only two Games separated the teams that finished between third and eighth place, my goodness me).  They also draw the third-seeded Bastard Minneapolis Lakers and Luka Doncic, who scored at will against Minnesota in last season's Western Conference Finals.  He doesn't have Kyrie Irving, but he does have LeBron James.  Also, the Timberwolves don't have Kyle Anderson, the man who defended Doncic the most in last Year's series.  Maybe that's a good thing, considering The Dallas Mavericks eliminated the Wolves in five Games.  But I'm afraid that's what The Team That Was Stolen From Us v.1.0. is going to do in this series, dammit.

#-2: Wild (Last Week: -2).  Similarly, the Wild also (finally) clinched a playoff spot.  Their finishing kick, however, wasn't that impressive.  They started off the Week holding off San Jose in Overtime at the X (BTW, the X won't be called the X starting next season ... Xcel Energy will let the contract the utility signed at the opening of the arena a quarter-century ago expire without extending it ... the arena will have a new name, and so we will have to call the Wild's place where they play Matches something else, and this is why I hate naming rights for arenae and stadia), 8-7 of all scores.  In what shaped up to be a very crucial late-season showdown, The Bastard Atlanta Flames handled the Mild handily in Calgary, 4-2.  The Flames, however, wind up as the last team out (so to speak), because Minnesota collected OT victories at Vancouver and over Anaheim at home to finally sew up a postseason slot.

It is kind of pathetic how they crawled over this finish line.  The Mild were down to the Ducks last/Tuesday night, 2-1, and Joel Eriksson Ek tied up the score on a scrum in front of the Anaheim net in the final Minute of regulation.  That tied it up at 2, and once the Game hit zeroes, Minnesota got that Point they needed to officially qualify for the playoffs.  Of the four Games they played this screening Week, three of them went to Overtime, but the Wild won all three.  The Game previous to this Week went into OT, and they won that, beating The Bastard North Stars at home.  Stretching back a bit further, six of their past eight Games went to extra time, but the first two Overtime Games, at New Jersey and at     the Rangers, wound up in Losses for Minnesota.

What I'm saying is that this club isn't exactly rounding into form.  Also, they have drawn The (Las) Vegas Golden Knights, a team that has bedeviled Minnesota after the Golden Knight's first regular season because they have been allowed to both amass player assets and violate the spirit of cap rules under the implied blessing of Commissioner Gary Bettman ever since they were born.  Also, the Wild are very mid.  This is playoff hockey, so upsets can and frequently do happen.  But I can't see it happening in this series.

#-3: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -6).  So this is the team I'm alluding to.  Believe it or not, they're the hottest team in town right now, even more so than the Timberwolves.  The Gopher Nine are riding a six-Game winning streak that began last Tuesday, continued with a 12-2 drubbing of St. Thomas at home last Wednesday in a Game mercy-ruled after seven Innings, got extended even further over the weekend with a surprising sweep of Ohio St., by far The Worst Team In The Big Ten This Season, at Columbus (!!!), and is still alive after last/Tuesday night's 9-2 Win over North Dakota St. at Siebert Field.

And that winning streak gets the U. to 17-17 overall and 5-10 in the B1G.  I doubt this streak will last a Week from now: After playing South Dakota St., the team they beat to start this streak, tonight/Wednesday night at home, they travel to Rutgers for three.  But these guys are playing as well as they probably will for the rest of the Year.  Moreover, I usually want to recognize long winning streaks like this by proclaiming that they've "won" the survey for the Week.  But the overall record is so-so and the conference record is still bad.  And this is the Week where the Timberwolves and Wild clinched playoff spots.  So, I had to rank those two teams higher than these young men.  Sorry.

#-4: United FC (Last Week: -1).  Buried in all the playoff-clinching hoopla in this state, and as befitting the plight of professional soccer in the country, is that the Loons are somehow second in The Western Conference right now.  Saturday they "fought" to a scoreless Draw at Toronto.  I was listening to the Match at the library while I was doing my taxes, and frankly, it was a Game that haters of the sport would use as a reason why they think it's boring.  But still, hey, second place.

Host Dallas Saturday night.  I have already given my ticket to my friend because I plan on seeing Kendrick Lamar and SZA kick off their stadium tour.

#-5: Twins (Last Week: -4).  A 3-4 week where they lost series at Kansas City and home to Detroit, and the bitterness baseball fans in town have felt since their team's collapse at the end of last season has, by all accounts, curdled into apathy.  Monday's attendance of 10,240 is the lowest number in the history of Target Field (besides, of course, restrictions because of The COVID-19 pandemic).  And that served the Twinks right, because they lost to The New York Mets, 5-1.  They now sit in fourth place in The American League Central Division, already 4 1/2 Games behind Detroit for the lead.

And yet I am planning on going to this/Wednesday afternoon's baseball Game anyway.  It'll be the first time I've been there in two Years.  My boss asked me to come to work on Saturday, and in exchange I have today off, and it just so happens that there is a baseball Game in the afternoon, and there are worse ways to spend a day this side of the ground than at a baseball Game, especially one on a weekday afternoon.  Now, I just have to find my scoring notebook.  Oh, and since the Twinks doubled up the Mets last/Tuesday night, 6-3, I am under no illusions they will win today; they have won only one series so far in 2025, and that was the second series of the season when they took two-of-three at the White Sox.

#-6: Gopher softball (Last Week: -5).  And now we get to the Goofer softballers, who got swept at home over the weekend by Oregon.  They lost honorably Saturday and Sunday afternoons by matching 5-4 setbacks, but they got blasted out of Cowles Stadium in the opener on Friday, 13-0 that was halted after five Innings for the good of the women and children who witnessed this horror and for the good of the concept of decency.

This team is not good.  They are 3-13 in-conference and 14-26 overall.  They are tied with Maryland for the second-worst record in the Big Ten.  And thankfully for them (and mirroring the good fortune the U. baseball team was graced with last weekend), they face The Worst Team In The Big Ten This Season, Rutgers, for a three-Game series, even though this is on the road.

I Am Going To Work A 24-Hour Day Soon

OK, the guardrails are off, and even I am gobsmacked at how I no longer mind them.  The work keeps piling up, and to make sure it gets done, I have to stay late.  And now, I'm staying very late.

As I began doing overtime at my job, I kind of thought that two hours was the max.  If I knew then that there was a stated, ironclad reason why, I don't remember that now.  Since the New Year, when my longtime co-worker retired and no one has been hired in her place and (maybe) work has ramped up, staying ten hours simply has not been enough to get through all the work.  The changes recently made to The Third Department (and I might go more in-depth as to my thoughts about them, but they still haven't been fully formed) have so far been cosmetic.  There hasn't been much we no longer have to do, and while there has been a de-emphasis on what work is a priority, we who work back there still run into the problem of the work needs to get done.  We can leave early and leave work for the next day, but it still needs to get done, and if more work the following day is waiting for us as well -- well, we would just need to stay much later the next day to prevent carryover work to snowball.  So, why in the hell don't we just stay late the first day -- which is what we're doing now?

I was working The Fourth Department yesterday/Monday.  I think that, overall at least, shit hasn't hit the fan when it comes to that department as opposed to The Third Department, but while there are times when the workload actually is manageable, there are times when it goes absolutely haywire, like yesterday/Monday.  There is someone on Sunday who can do some of the work, but she is working other departments on that day, so she is doing all she can and leaving the rest to the person working that department on Mondays.  That was me, obviously, and I was hit with several dozen forms that hadn't been touched yet.  Compound that with another, oh, 18-20 forms that came in new yesterday/Monday (which is an exorbitant amount to come in on Mondays, but the lab has been backed up all year as well), and I had, well, a lot of work.  I will not say the number of forms I had to do is a daily record; I have roughly the same amount of forms I have had to do a few times before.  But I found it so damn difficult to get through all of them for some reason that I knew by around 3 o'clock that I was staying an extra two hours ... at least.

Once I realized the enormity of work that still needed to be done, I had to decide when I was simply going to give up and leave work.  I think my objective was to simply touch every single form that came through.  Once I did that and performed my very important end-of-day tasks, I had stayed 10 1/2 hours.  I have been creeping past two hours of OT several times lately.  But the work hasn't gotten done and, frankly, I'm getting the sense that my bosses are permitting that because even he knows it's a lot of work.  So, ten hours and a minute became ten hours and five minutes which became ten hours and 15 minutes which became, well, now.

And still I have a lot of e-mails that provide the information I need to "finish" a form, and I usually try and stay late to get through all of them, but I was staying so late to work on new stuff that I didn't get to them, at all.  When I come into work today/Tuesday, I will have at least two dozen of those types of e-mails to get through.  That, to me, is yesterday's stuff, and that will delay the point in time when I can get to today's stuff.  The later it is, the more likely (obviously) I have to stay late, and this is Tuesday, when we usually get the most work in the week because that is when most of the forms from the weekend get here.  So I am already mentally preparing to stay 11 hours at work today/Tuesday, knowing full well that I still might have to leave work for the next day (which I have off, but I don't feel like being a dick and leaving a bunch of work for the person following me).

It is getting ridiculous.  It does feel as though I could, and I might have to, work 24 hours straight in order to get my job done.  But as I have alluded to before, I am trying to do my job, and it looks as though my higher-ups are letting me.  I am at peace with my ten-hour-plus days, at least for now, because the workload ain't changing anytime soon and, yes, I need the money.  So I will keep doing what I need to either do my work completely or not go insane.  If my boss puts his foot down and tells me to leave after a certain point in the day -- well, I probably will object, but let's just cross that bridge if and when we get there.

Why I Prefer Self-Checkout

OK, calm down, cashier.  What I meant to say was that are you OK if I take my shopping cart, go back to get the packs of water that is on sale and just walk through and past the checkout line.  You obviously didn't let me finish because after I said, "Leave the waters here, take the cart back to get the correct ones ..." you had to jump in and say, "Yeah, that's why I told you to leave the waters there."  You really think I was just going to leave the cart and drag the bottles of water on sale from the back of the store to my car?

Maybe I'm wrong about his tone.  Maybe I shouldn't take things so defensively.  But maybe I need to reconsider where I do my grocery shopping because, once again, I had a bit of a run-in with someone there.  Shit, man, please don't make me go back to Target just because I can go check out myself.

Why Do I Still Go To The Auto Show?

I have been going for a long, long time.  I loved how I could see all these fancy new cars.  Also, I could see the ones that are, shall we say, much more attainable (although I would have to bust my butt and look for a higher-paying job).  I loved getting all the brochures, and I would tell myself that I would lie down and look through all of them and maybe be inspired when the time came to purchase one.  And the bags.  Oh, the bags -- you gotta get one to put all those brochures in, you know?

Well, that was then and this is now.  I went to the auto show yesterday/Saturday, and in keeping with how the trend is going, I stayed there far less than when I did when I first went to the show.  In fact, I looked at my watch when I thought I had seen everything and there was still more than an hour before the Frozen Four Final, for which I decided to stay the whole day and night in downtown to go to our alumni group's bar and watch.  I eventually found stuff to look at -- I went to the classic and antique car rooms, separate from the main room where all the new cars you can buy are -- but things are dramatically different, from both my perspective and the show's.

It's clear to me now that, as an adult, it doesn't really pay to aspire anymore.  There is one thing I have done for some time now: Find the most expensive car in the show that I can get into (that means no show cars, no prototypes, and definitely no classic cars) and take a picture of the sticker price and the front of the car.  I get a kick out of that not because I hope to one day be able to buy it, but just to note the price.  (Aside: The add-ons of nearly all the cars I looked at ballooned the base price of the car to an exorbitant amount.  I cannot believe that the size of those add-ons were typical of previous years.  If not, there's one explanation: That Fucking Guy's dumbass tariffs.)  For the record, a Range Rover clocks in at $158,370.  But beyond that, I did way less getting into cars than I used to when I was young.  Oh, sure, I saw some that I liked.  The new and colorful Volkswagen vans, called the ID Buzz, were a splashy hit, for example.  But all the other two dozen or so cars I checked out were interchangeable to me.  Also, I wouldn't be able to buy any of them.  That's another (sad) similarity.

Parallel to this, the show has changed.  I think it was the pandemic.  The auto show has gotten smaller.  I see fewer brands on the showroom.  The convention center is a huge space, but in the years since (and I really want to say it started in 2022, two years after it was cancelled and a year after it went to the State Fairgrounds), more of the floor was ceded to an area for test-driving cars, which is cool.  But, this year I saw a corner of the center dedicated to jacuzzis.  You can't drive jacuzzis, can you?

But the big difference in the auto show now: No more brochures.  The pandemic accelerated the push to make all papers digital in an effort to cut costs.  I have gotten way fewer brochures since the pandemic and, for the first time ever, yesterday/Saturday I did not pick up one single brochure -- and I did not see a brochure available to be picked up.  The days of bringing home a car-branded bag of pamphlets I probably won't read are now gone.

But hey, at least Toyota is still offering bags.  I filled it with the auto show brochure (which in itself was cut down [and shrunken] to the size of a fold-open pamphlet -- it even had a coupon!) and some salesman's business card.  The salesman wasn't there to give it to me.  No, there was a stand, and in the middle was a pile of business cards, and I took one.  I didn't even look at the cars of the dealership he works for.  I just picked one up so I could throw a second thing in my Toyota bag.

I really am just going to these auto shows now for the bag.  That's the only free thing they're offering ... well, besides fantasies, I guess.  And fantasizing that one day a beautiful car I scoped out at the auto show will wind up on my driveway?  Heh!

Maybe I Should Get Serious About My Doing Taxes

So it was last week when I started my taxes.  No, I don't think I should have procrastinated like I did.  But, I have my reasons.  Work is kicking my ass (I stayed an extra two hours last/Friday night -- let's see if my boss is OK with that -- and after dinner I went to bed from a bit past 7 until just before 12:30) and, yes, there is a sameness to my sources of income from year to year that I think I have much of it down, which allows me to procrastinate.

Of course, with procrastination, and me being, well, me, that is not necessarily wise.  I have fucked up my taxes before, especially with that mistake which I am still too ashamed to bring up now.  I'm also lulled into thinking that since I have to fill the same forms and schedules year after year, I know which lines I need to automatically plug in because I think they're the same every year.  That would be the case if I actually remembered which forms and schedules and lines I have to fill in every year.  But like most things, if I don't do them on a ... well, if I'm being honest, a daily basis, I will forget.  And who even wants to remember tax season?  That made me write down a list of schedules and forms I need to print out every year.  And even then, I don't remember which lines I have to fill in on each schedule and form.  I keep the rough drafts of every tax form I figured out my taxes on for years now.  It would make sense for me to, say, reference what I did last year in order to remember how to do it this year.  I'm sure the copies of last year's forms and schedules are in my storage unit.  And with basically the weekend for which to do it, I don't think I want to go out there just to rummage through all my stuff to find it.

So no, maybe I'm winging it, and maybe that's not a good idea.  On top of that, my 1099 from my stock portfolio added a new line item I apparently got money from.  It has taken me this past week to figure out where to report it and what I need to do with it once I find the line for it.  That necessitated a brand new form, which initially shocked the shit out of me.

So with the new form and my brain doing a self-wipe on how I did my taxes last year, I guess I have taken a nonchalant attitude to my taxes when I shouldn't be.  But, I spent a couple long nights over the past week (after I took evening naps) to power through, and I had the time to go over my work.  I'm glad I did, because I have found mistakes.  Problem is that I'm scared that I haven't done my due diligence to make sure I haven't made more mistakes.

Tuesday is Tax Day.  I have a bad memory of standing in line for a couple hours at the post office just to mail my forms, so from that point on I have given myself a deadline of doing it the weekend before.  However, like I said, I slept for five hours last/Friday night.  That would have been time I could have spent giving my taxes another once-over, but alas.  I am going to at least try and do my final tax drafts at the library this/Saturday afternoon, then go to the post office at the airport tomorrow/Sunday afternoon to officially file.  (By the way, I still don't trust the government, and I especially don't trust this shitty and probably illegally-installed government, so I will not file electronically.)  Is that enough time to ensure I've done my taxes correctly?  Have no clue.  But as I lie on my bed to blog post this, I have no desire to work on them now.

My taxes are going to get more complicated starting next year, so I have thought that I should give up doing these myself.  At the very least I thought about using tax software, but from what I have seen, my situation is too complicated for any of the free ones out there, so that gives me pause.  Maybe I need to go to a preparer, but the first thing I gravitated to when I searched for it are local preparers who have been disciplined.  Shit.  Maybe it's still worth it going out on my own, even if it costs me money.

It's Like I Fucking Forgot How To Do My Job

Goddamn.  First time working in Third Department since "the changes," and I had it in my brain that I need to leave at a decent time.  That time was supposed to be a half-hour over.  With some of the stuff being allowed to be held over (even though I have reservations about that still), and, more importantly, a relatively light workload, I could do it.

But then I realized that I missed a rudimentary task, and I had to go into this other room to grab the forms in order to re-do them all.  That made me scared that I forgot to do this other thing, so I had to grab those forms from the other room to make sure I actually did do it (which I did).  And then I remembered that there were some other things I needed to do, and all told, that pushed me past 45 minutes over.

There are two very bad things wrong with that.  One, I kind of told my supervisor that I would help key once I got done with my stuff.  I thought I would get done with my stuff, but my inattention to doing my job prevented me from doing that stuff.  I could have stayed and did data entry for an extra-half hour, but I don't know if my boss would be happy if I stayed that late.  Better to take the hit for not doing what I sorta promised my supe I would do.  Two, even with all that said, I fucking forgot to do one thing, which is the very last thing I am supposed to do in The Third Department before I leave, something that has been fucking drilled into me since I first started training.  I fucking forgot to do that.  I was so discombobulated over what else I forgot to do and in a rush to do all the things I had to do before I needed to go at the time I told everyone I was going to go and worried over how I was going to explain that I was going to key when I didn't that I forgot to do this basic goddamn thing.

Oh, it'll be embarrassing for me to come into work today.