entropicon’s Neighborhood

hello friends. i am on an epic quest of indiana jones/he-man/tenacious d proportions.

as a kid who grew up in florida, i often enjoyed when my dad stopped at gas stations because that meant i got Nehi soda. what is this weird beverage, you ask? oh, it's fucking heaven. that's what it is. it came in sooo many flavors - peach, strawberry, orange, grape, blueberry, chocolate, wild red, cream, etc. etc.

but the two best flavors were strawberry and blue cream. yes, i said BLUE CREAM.

strawberry in cans.

by the power of grayskull!

been super busy again today. lots to do. the printer on the GPS computer is being stubborn, and although it makes like it's printing, nothing comes out on the paper. really fucked up a project i needed to finish.

but why am i pissed? oh yeah, because corina is a stupid fucking bitch. that's why. i'm so sick of her attitude. she cusses at the sales guys, and everyone's just like, "oh, well that's the relationship she has with them, and they don't complain"...oh, and that just makes it okay? to cuss your superior out? the person that puts money in your shitty little pocket? whatever. she has a shitty attitude, and i'm sick of it. i'm sick of her getting away with it. i'm not here to make friends, but i believe that there is a certain level of civility required in an office environment.

we often get telemarketing or sales calls, and you can usually tell when it's one of either because they'll say the person's name really wrong, or they'll ask for "the person that handles blah blah blah". well, yesterday, i posted about how this guy was trying to sell me printer cartridges and i couldn't get him to shut up. the reason i got that call? it's corina's week to answer the phone. it's her job to screen calls. when someone calls and they say they're with whatever company, and it doesn't sound like someone that usually calls (and these bitches have been here for years, so there's no excuse, especially if i've only been here a few months, and i already know the usual people that call), i always ask "what is this in reference to?" or something to that effect, because then they're sort of forced to tell you that they're selling you shit that you don't want.

well, corina doesn't do this. if someone calls for me or anyone who is not one of our bosses, she'll just call us up and say that "so and so" from "such and such" is on the phone. and then we get shitty sales calls.

so yesterday? i got that sales call from that guy that wouldn't shut up. today? the SAME company calls me again. she calls my phone, tells me the company that's on the phone, and i tell her, "i have no idea who that is" -- meaning, if i don't know who it is, you need to find out what they're calling for, and if it's a sales call, you need to pretend to take a message or hang up on them or whatever you do to get rid of these jerks.

her response to me saying i had no idea who the person and company was? "well i guess you'll just have to find out then. answer line 3." and she just hung up before i could say anything. she was really fucking rude about it. i'm sick of her being able to talk to people that way. i'm sick of her not doing her job.

i GUARANTEE you that if she were to do that to barbara, jim, jeff, or bob, she'd have her fucking ass HANDED to her.

fuck that fucking cunt. i swear to god. she's on my shit list. period. end of story.

i need a drink. like, right now.

i'm totally pretending to listen to this guy trying to sell me printer cartridges that he says will print double what the lexmark cartridges do, and will cost half the price. he's sending me a black toner cartridge and a 10 dollar target gift card, and i'm trying to tell him not to send me shit. but he keeps talking over me. it's ridiculous. and now he wants me to mention his name to the verification person tomorrow so he can win some stupid sales contest.

so i get here this morning, and our tech guy had installed windows xp professional. yes, we were still operating on '98. lol. something happened with the quickbooks program, though, and i didn't get it running until about 30 minutes ago.

i ran a couple of errands for work - had to get a new toll tag for paul, and then had to run by the post office for my boss. it was pretty nice to get out.

favre filed for his first unemployment payment today, which he would get on saturday or monday (because of the holiday, i imagine, or else he'd normally get it on a friday when he files on a wednesday every 3 weeks), but he fucked it up. i TOLD him to ask me if he had any questions concerning the filing process. i filed for his unemployment myself, but you have to file for each payment when they tell you to (mine was once every two weeks). he went online to file for the payment today. when it asked about the last week he worked (which is the time period they're paying him for now), they ask how many jobs he inquired about. you have a minimum you have to put on the form. my minimum was 4. i often lied and said more, just to look like i wasn't full of crap. he put down "ONE". wtf?

i told him if he had ANY questions or ANY doubts, to ask me. but he didn't. so when he submitted the payment request, it said that his payment is on hold. he called and spoke to someone at the workforce commission. she told him that because he put down "one" in regards to how many jobs he inquired about, his payment is on hold. he explained that the week it asked about was the week in which he was still working, so he did only look for one job (which is true, but haven't we learned that when it comes to the government, you have to sweeten things up a bit to get anything from them?)...

so the lady says she has to call his previous employer to verify that he was working on those days he says he was, and once they respond, he can file again on the 13th. i'm a little confused by all of this. he's supposed to file once every three weeks. and she said that he should receive the money from this payment request between the 11th and the 13th. and then she says he needs to re-file on the 13th??? favre doesn't explain things right sometimes. he acts like i was there when he talked to her or something.

on top of that, he's stressing because his phone bill is due on the 11th, and he doesn't think he'll get his payment by then. i had already told him if that was the case, i would personally pay for his bill, even if it puts me a little in the hole. i told him to stop worrying about a fucking phone bill because a lot more money is hanging in unemployment limbo right now because he didn't consult me about his fucking payment request.

add to all of this that i'm really concerned because he's supposed to start work with dad's company in the next week, and the apartment complex he'll be temporarily working at is almost an hour away. it costs him just about 20 bucks a day with current gas prices to get down there and back. i can't afford to pay for his gas until he starts getting these payments.

so now i'm fucking stressed out as hell.

congratulations, universe. you win.

Critics Fear Collider Could Doom Earth - AOL News

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/critics-...

i can haz apocalypse?

so apparently, the peaceful swedish people have created this giant contraption called the "collider" (hey, don't they have colliders at smoothie king?), made up of 17 miles worth of magnets. the machine is an atom-smasher that will hopefully reveal dark matter and alternate universes. critics fear that it will create mini-black holes, which are still powerful enough to royally fuck up our planet, if not swallow it whole.

stephen hawking says that the black holes will travel faster than the speed of light, and will pass right through earth, if they occur at all. hey, if the robot says we're okay, i think we'll be okay! no really, stephen hawking is super smart and talks like a robot.

and it's switzerland. they're peaceful. why would they destroy earth?

critics say there is a one in 50 million chance that the collider will cause a global catastrophe - the odds of which are similar to that of some lotteries. global catastrophe = one trailer park family. so essentially, the odds are one trailer park family winning the lottery that the earth will get swallowed by a black hole.

science. science has sooo many directions. so many answers to one question. just because one group of scientists believe one thing, it doesn't mean that it's true. i mean, basically it all boils down to what you believe, right? what evidence convinces you? you have 3 groups of scientists in front of you. each one has their own theory on why dinosaurs went extinct. each group has evidence to back their claim and a very compelling argument. but what it all comes down to, is you.

so here we have this giant atom-smashing machine with 17 miles of hyper-cooled magnets that sub-atomic particles and protons and what have you are going to pass through and create a collision - one that, according to some scientists, has been occurring since the dawn of time and the earth has been just fine. according to other scientists, the resulting energy will be akin to cosmic rays bombarding the earth, which, as they say, is very bad. one group says that the miniature black holes that could be created could either get stuck in our earth's insides, causing magnetic issues (previously..on LOST!) and eventually leading to our demise in various ways, or the black hole could swallow the earth up (where would we go? could we live through that? anyone? bueller? bueller?)...other guys say that the black hole would travel too quickly - the speed of light or faster - and would pass right through us, that is, if it even occurred at all.

testing begins in august, but it will take several more months before the collider is fully functional. after that, they would run it each year to gather more information.

sooo...what do you think? do you think we're in trouble? or do you think we're okay? do you even care?

discuss.

apparently the period gods were quite angry with my questioning of their intentions because it's officially shark week. i vow to never question them again.

favre got what i am assuming is his last check from the job he was laid off of last week - 577 bucks. his normal bi-weekly pay was a little over 900 bucks. this check is MIGHTY short. even if this check is actually for the last week and a half that he worked, he had overtime from being on call (and lots of it), and he still has a week of vacation pay to be compensated for. this is fucking bullshit. he has 688 bucks in his account - just enough to pay rent, and leave him broke. i have 450 bucks. 200 of that is supposed to go to my parents for my car payment (actually, it's usually 300, which also covers my insurance), but now i don't think i can give it to them this month.

fav found out last night that his unemployment is going to pay out a total of 5990.00. he puts in for his payments every three weeks, and gets 318 bucks a week - making the tri-weekly payments 900 dollars. 1200 a month! i told him to lie when he starts working in the next week, and tell them that he's working part time. they don't ask where you work - just the hours per week. he can put 20 per week down, and they will pay him slightly less than the 318 per week, but it's still extra money we can put to good use. he files for his first payment on the 2nd (next wednesday). it then takes about a week for him to get his unemployment visa debit card with his first payment on it. he should get about 550-600 bucks on that first payment. sadly, we won't see that until the second week of july.

we really need money, like, yesterday. say hello to all those packages of ramen noodles i've been stock piling in the pantry. every time i go to the store, i buy 6 packages of ramen. this equals out to about a dollar. i buy it and put it in the pantry, and we never eat it. situations like this are exactly why i buy all that ramen. because we're going to hit a speed bump at some point, and i don't need an extra expenditure, like food, to worry about. we'll only be in the hole for a week or so, which is great, because i hate eating ramen for more than a week. i get sick of it pretty quick. after that, it might take a couple of weeks to get back to where we need to be.

if you guys want to donate to the cause - send me your love and ramen and any change you find in your couch cushions! it's greatly appreciated!

LOATHE

• that psycho girl i replaced at work, that i hung out with a few times and hitched a ride to austin with? yeah, so on her LJ (which she has no idea i read) she posts about me, saying that my boyfriend is an "anti-social loser that dictates" my life. wtf? my boyfriend is FAR from controlling. anti-social? for the most part. loser? no way. just because i don't like going out and wasting money on gas and overpriced activities in favor of staying home with cheaper alternatives and avoiding driving home completely plastered, putting myself and more importantly, others, in danger, does not mean that i will only hang out if my boyfriend is involved. obviously, she did not get to know me very well because any of my other friends will tell you that everything this psychotic bitch is saying is fucking false. she FAILS at life. why am i getting so defensive? i think part of it is because i have been in controlling relationships (teenagers are dumb, what can i say?), and i couldn't go anywhere without my boyfriends, and they were anti-social losers. there's a reason i've been with favre for 4 years. he's awesome and he rocks my fucking socks. fuck off, psycho-twat. might i also add that this girl thinks ouija boards are real and that she can communicate with the dead. she takes zoloft, xanax, sleeping meds, anti-seizure/bi-polar meds, wellbutrin, and pain pills. yeah. and she supposedly has prescriptions for all of them. her therapist wants to lock her up in a mental hospital. i say go for it.
  
• dear period: WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? i ended my pill cycle on saturday. it is now thursday. please explain why you haven't so much as given a hint of your existence? DO TELL.
• my tattoo is peeling. dead gray skin clumps. yuck. and not attractive.
• spaghettios. my sister was eating some last night. it's like watered down ketchup with noodles in it. ketchup should not be warm. unless you put it on a burger and the burger makes it warm. but that's okay, because it belongs there.
• being sort of broke. we've been spoiled lately, and now to go back to being tight with our money SUCKS.
  

LOVE

• smelliott might be coming this weekend! this coworker of his is coming down here to visit friends just north of us, and mentioned that it's very likely smelliott could hitch a ride with him. i've offered 40 bucks for gas. *keeping my fingers crossed*
• shear genius on bravo. the hosts are great - jaclyn smith, kim vo (made britney spears have normal hair again, gay ken doll), and rene fris (what fucking country is this guy from? his accent is so hard to read. i think he took the christopher walken conversational english class. lolz.)  i looooove daniel (he's from dallas, uses lots of hairspray, and is super gay), gail (awesome hair cut, cute as a button), charlie (the bitchy one), and nicole (reminds me of that older lady that almost won last year - tabatha). last night they made the stylists cut hair BLIND FOLDED. and who's the new bitchy judge from allure magazine? what happened to sally "I GAVE MEG RYAN HER SIGNATURE HAIR!" hershberger????
• my tattoo.
• my boyfriend who is not an anti-social loser dictator.
• my sister staying with me for a couple of days - she can EAT when she's stoned. example: last night she ate spaghettios, little chicken nugget things, two sausage biscuits, and a pot pie. she might have eaten more when i went to bed. i can't be sure. ah, the days of smoking pot.
  

so today i'm watching access hollywood during lunch. there's nothing decent on at that time, and i like gossip, sue me.

at one point, they're discussing portia de rossi and ellen degeneres' upcoming wedding. barbara (evil boss lady that singled me out and told me i couldn't smoke, etc.) walks by and says, and i quote, "oh yeah, that's such a great example for our children". and yes, she was being sarcastic.

this woman is a VIOLENT republican, as are the rest of the people i work with. it's sort of ridiculous. i'm just about terrified of commenting on anything they say. i'm mortified that one day they'll ask my opinion on something, which is why i've made it a point to keep my mouth shut. i don't think that personal opinions on religion, race, sex, sexual preference, and/or politics should be discussed in a work environment....at least not in one like this. now, if your job demands that you discuss these things for the sake of your paycheck, then sure. or if you have that sort of relaxed environment filled with liberals that want to fight the man, then go for it.

and i especially don't want to bring further discrimination upon myself at work just because i believe different things.

what barbara said today really upset me. i'm not gay, and she's damn lucky i'm not because i'd bring a lawsuit down on her ass so fucking quick (speaking of which, i've been posting on a law forum to get legal advice about all the bullshit they've done thus far, including refusal to pay for the overtime i work)...but even though i'm not gay, it still pissed me off when she said what she did. i think gay marriage is a fantastic example to show our children. showing them that freedom and justice are still alive and well. showing kids that are terrified of coming out that it's okay. i think these are great things. i think we should teach children to be free, always, and accepting, above all.

i'm just feeling really alone in this office. all the anti-gay remarks, the "bomb all the brown people" talk, etc. yes, because what they're saying is so much better to teach our children: prejudice, racism, violence, elitism, sexism. these are better?

i think i went over this a couple of weeks ago: i HATE that i have to label and/or hide my food at work. hate hate hate.

aren't we adults? didn't we learn in kindergarten that if something isn't yours, you don't mess with it unless you ask or you are invited to (the latter being the preferred method as the former is pretty intrusive).

my homemade cookies that my boss helped herself to without asking. my V8 smoothie that someone over the weekend decided they wanted to drink OVER half of. and now, my chemical worker (i'm the chemical department. i have two salesmen and a worker) wanted to thank me for putting up with him - basically, he's been turning time sheets in late, and putting down the amount of things used and the cost per unit, without calculating the total - so he bought me a box of miniature frozen eclairs. just thaw for a few minutes, and bam! flavor orgasm!

i wasn't here friday afternoon when he brought them for me and put them in the freezer...but he did say they were for me. liz knew they were. but kathi, my cookie-stealing boss, couldn't keep her hands off even though when she asked who they belonged to, liz told her that joe brought them for me. and she still took some.

and then today, again, she just kept going in the freezer and taking them. puts me in a weird position since she's my boss. so i just put a bright pink sticky note on it saying "britt's. hands off!"

hopefully that works.

anyone else have stories of office thievery? any creative solutions?

abc13.com: Boy, 3, drowns in apartment complex pool in west Houston 6/23/08

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?sec...

Police say the toddler's family was in the pool and had the boy in a floatation device. The person watching the boy became distracted and turned away. The child slipped through a hole in the flotation device and went into the water. The family later noticed he was missing. When they went to look for him, they found him at the bottom of the pool. They called 911. Paramedics were not able to resuscitate him.

okay. i hope you guys read that. anything look wrong to you? a relative had him in a float and was with him in the pool. they got distracted and turned away - not for a second, not for a minute - they LATER NOTICED he was missing.

LATER NOTICED?!?!!? how do you LATER notice a 3 year old is missing? and how do you not see them at the bottom of the pool until you look for them LATER? notice "THEY WENT BACK to look for him". wtf?

ever notice that most of the fucked up shit that happens in america happens in texas? you know who's from texas? george w. bush. yeah. coincidence? i think not.

anyway. that story really bothers me. especially since they're saying it's "accidental". i think that if you can't watch your children properly, you shouldn't have them. i know kids are squirrelly. i know you might accidentally drop them when they're slippery little babies. it happens. that's not abuse, that's just what happens.

but neglecting your child to this extent is fucking criminal. accidental my fucking ass. someone still needs to be reprimanded legally here.

i have several angry thoughts in my head right now.

• we need a system where you have to take a test to be able to have kids. i think you should be financially stable, have adequate housing conditions, have health insurance, and have a steady job that you've held for more than a year. you should have to get a license to have children, srsly, and there should be a limit to how many you can have. 3 kids is cool. 4 even. but i think when you pop out 8 or 10, there's something fucked up there.
• ever notice that it's always the lower class communities that have several children (either the people in the story above are a lower class or mexican (no racism here, just sayin', it's houston, it's a lower class area where these people live, and a large number of mexican families like to have lots of kids - just fact). they always procreate the most when they have the least. which goes back to my first bulletin point. driver's license? procreation license. for realz.
• were these people fucking stoned or drunk?!?!?!? wtf? once again, testing in order to have kids. it's the only way. it may sound fucked up, but if you think of it realistically and logically, it makes sense. plus, we're overpopulating this planet (especially with stupid people. my god. stupidity breeds more stupidity. poor breeds more poor. get with the program.). either we have another plague, or people start getting licensed and registered to have kids. 
  

another thing, semi-unrelated, that is starting to annoy the bejeesus out of me: i know i live in little mexico, aka houston, aka the asshole of texas....i know there is LOTS of illegal immigration business going on around here. and before you tear me a new asshole over my opposition to illegal immigrants, let me set something straight: we are a country founded on immigration. we often like to be hypocritical in this (anti-anything that isn't christian, white, and filled with carbs), but it's what we're founded on. i think the process for gaining legal residence is way too lengthy and ridiculous. i think the enforcement on the procedures is extremely fucked up. i remember watching something on the news in the 90's about classes immigrants had to go through, where they had to know basic english and basic american laws, etc. that isn't happening right now. how do i know? because i live in the mexican capital of america (save for southern california, i'm told). and even the legal immigrants do not speak english. period. be proud of your heritage, but like i've said before, if i move to france, i don't expect them to learn english just for me. i should know the BASIC language of where i am living. period. end of story.

i know it's hard, and it's a long process to become legal. i know some would rather not become legal because of taxes and what not. i don't blame them, in that right.

but here's what i'm getting at..this is the thing that is starting to annoy me: when i go to the gas station off of any major highway, and the parking lot/surrounding area/under the overpass nearby in the shade is FILLED with 30-50 mexicans standing around, hoping for someone to drive by needing work that they can get paid under the table for. i know they need to make money. everyone does. i know this is what is easy for them because most of them MUST be illegal, otherwise they could get any old job. and they couldn't be getting THAT much work because i've sometimes passed these areas several times a day to see the same amount of people. the SAME people are there. they haven't moved.

can we at least make some sort of out posts for this? like bus stops? only you have illegal immigrants looking for work-stops? i'm serious. they walk through traffic, between cars. they yell at pretty ladies. it's all very distracting. i'm not saying they can't do their thing. but can't we put them somewhere that won't cause a distraction, somewhere safe? and with shade? at one particular gas station i frequent, if they cross over a certain line and sit anywhere on the property, the gas station owner gets on the intercom and yells at them to move. obviously they do this tom and jerry bit where they sit when he's not paying attention. why don't they go somewhere else? wtf?

and please, get fucking legal, man. taxes suck, and if obama gets elected (fuck that, WHEN he gets elected), he's got a brand new shiny plan to make becoming legal better for immigrants....get a job. quit standing on street corners, dammit.

discuss.

okay - time for quick reviews on things we watched this past weekend:

Semi-Pro (Two-Disc Unrated "Let's Get Sweaty" Edition)

this was OKAY. it was not awesome. it didn't totally suck. it had some pretty funny moments (mostly from will arnett and rob corddry), but overall it was definitely lacking. my theory is that will ferrell is under some sort of studio contract to do so many films, and i'm guessing this was just leftover material he was trying to make work somehow...it was okay, it just wasn't great. if you have cable, you should just wait until it comes out on HBO or something. i know i should have waited, but i had a free rental at the movie store, and curiosity killed me.

Chaos Theory

now THIS was really awesome. great cast (ryan reynolds, stuart townsend, emily mortimer), great story - bittersweet and darkly funny. i love what ryan reynolds is doing now. he's really breaking out of that douche bag comedy mold, and it's working to his advantage. there was no promotion for this film, and i guess it played the festival circuit, since it is a small indie film. i just saw it on the shelf at blockbuster and thought, "that looks interesting". definitely see it.

Be Kind Rewind

best movie we watched this weekend. i love michel gondry. he has this talent to create a specific setting, with people you would actually meet, but their universe is just slightly out there, you know? he also lends this childlike quality to his films, giving them wonder and excitement. all of those elements in kid movies that captivated us, that pulled us in and made things feel magical - he does that for adults, and it doesn't come out hokey or stupid. he still speaks to you as an adult, but catches your imagination. and the way he edits his films! omg, i love it. the added effects and sounds really give certain scenes that extra punch, to where you feel like you're a part of the story. like you're RIGHT THERE.

the story itself was fun and hilarious. if you haven't seen it, you really should.