Things are always darkest.......

Just before the dawn, if you believe the old parable. Lately though things have been looking more and more like Despair Inc's classic 'inspirational' poster. I honestly don't know what's been going on my life but it seems to have been on a steady decline since mid July. I feel like I'm in one of those old Warner Brother's cartoons where you watch as the character slips and falls down the stairs, but instead of reaching the bottom when he finally falls off camera he just keeps going and going. Crash, bam, boom, over and over again punctuated by brief moments of silence where the cartoonist makes you think maybe finally he came to a rest.

I start out each day thinking, "You know what, today's going to be different. Today will be a good day, it can't be as bad as yesterday." By the end of the day however, I'm just left sitting exhausted wondering what happened. I honestly thought things couldn't have gone any worse then yesterday, but then today happened.

Today really takes the cake for bad days so far. I got into work and was immediately told to head to the front of the store for a 'meeting'. Meetings at my place of work are worthless, more so then usual. Most of the meeting is taken up by some inane 'game' thought up by a corporate monkey designed to 'team build'. Today was no different, but after the night I'd had, I just wasn't going to get up in front of everyone, jump around like a monkey, cluck like a chicken, and half a dozen other things I had to do to 'participate'. So instead of perhaps just moving on, I was taken aside, my job was threatened, and told that it'd better never happen again.

There's something, perhaps, that needs a bit of clarification first. When I tell folks that 'my job was threatened', that doesn't mean I was told 'Do this or we'll fire you.' because under corporate policy they can't really do that. What they can do is throw you into this lovely circular logic of theirs. For example:

"Ben do you want to be a member of this team?"
"Yes."
"Well as a member of this team you are expected to dance like a monkey."
"I don't really see what dancing around like a monkey has to do with being a member of this team."
"Well if you don't want to be a member of this team I'm going to have to ask you to do the adult thing here and decide that this job really isn't for you."
"I never said I didn't want to be a member of this team."
"Well as a member of this team you are expected to dance like a monkey."
"Yeah, but I don't really see what that has to do with being a member of this team."
-=repeat=-

This conversation has, with minor alterations, repeated no less then 10 times before. The managers can't actually fire you but they'll try to back you into a faulty logical corner and bombard you with demands that you quit. Attempts to point out the faulty logic only make them more belligerent in their attempts to make you quit. I endured this conversation or forms of it for no less then 2 hours today. First from one manager then from another. The second manager brought me in back to dress me down for not 'respecting' him because I laughed at the name of my department. Lets face it 'Firedog' is a retarded name for a PC Services department, and if the man can't except the fact that most people will take it as a joke he doesn't honestly deserve my respect.

This conversation with this manager lasted at least an hour and a half with him nitpicking every aspect of my performance. I argued but after awhile I realized I was just making things worse and decided to stone wall him until he finally let me go. This worked until I stood up to leave when he said, 'Oh, and I'm writing you up, those pants aren't dress code, they aren't Khaki.'. I almost completely lost it. Not only did the wrack I bought them off of at Old Navy say they were 'Khaki' so do the pants themselves. Not Khaki? Out of all the things he could write me up for? That's like a cop pulling you over because he doesn't like your face and punching out your rear tail light so he can write you a ticket. I blew up and accused him of harassing me because I'd reported him for lowering the price of a computer improperly for a customer. Finally and only after that was the store director brought in. I believe, and fairly strongly, that only because I claimed I was being targeted for revenge did anyone lift a finger to stop any of t his nonsense.

I came home today, and after the various events yesterday, I am completely 100% emotionally drained. I stared at a blank wall for over an hour. I can't keep taking days like this my psyche won't handle it. I want to reach the bottom of the stairs so at least I can pick myself up and know that finally things can start to look up.

Anyways for those of you who bother to read this far, here's a fun little link I know you'll enjoy. Especially you Todd.

My Weekend so Far

With everyone over at Gencon, camping, or visiting with friends I've had a lot of time to myself in the last couple of days. I'm really not looking forward to everyone leaving for college, but I've managed to have a pretty good time amusing myself this weekend. Yesterday I went up to Downer's Grove again. There's an Apple Store there and I figured I'd talk to a salesman about potentially purchasing my first Mac.

First off let me say the guys who work at the Apple Store are just about as clueless as the guys who work with me. In fact it works just about the same. Anyone who knows anything works behind the tech bench, while the clueless sales monkeys try to sell you a 'hip' iPod. I wasn't impressed, especially after it took 10 minutes to finally harpoon a salesman who was amazingly rude to me until he realized I'd actually intended to drop almost a grand right there on the spot. After some conversations though I found out that the Mac I'm interested in, the Mac Mini, just isn't going to be able to do what I want. As a home media hub the thing is simply amazing. If that's what you're going to use it for, buy it right this instant. Unfortunatly because of the shared memory its simply not capable of doing anything but the most basic video editing. I'm kind of glad they didn't push a machine on me that wasn't going to do what I wanted.

After the Apple Store I headed over to Fry's Electronics. I picked up a few things. Star Trek V to finish off my Star Trek movie collection. Full Metal Alchemist 11 because, well, its Full Metal. An octopus power strip for in the house since I've got so many clunky AC adapters in there, and finally an online Cam for Nicky. The Salespeople at Fry's unlike the guys at the Apple store did try to push me into a Mac I already knew wasn't going to do what I wanted by constantly stressing how 'cool' it was. I ended up telling the guy to buzz off and took what I had to the cash register.

Once finished with Fry's I spent the rest of my afternoon and evening hanging out at the Battle Bunker painting. I didn't get much accomplished, I never do, but its nice to socialize with folks there even if many of them are GW fanboys. Also I got to hear a fat kid sing the Gummi Bear's theme song, which I haven't honestly heard since the show was first on when I was a kid. Its given me a strange urge to download old Disney cartoons.

I finally got back home around 9:30 and had just sat down in front of the computer to watch Full Metal Alchemist when Todd walked in the door. We talked for a few minutes but no sooner had we begun then who should show up but Val, Mel, and Mel's roomate Ruth. Everyone headed for the pool while I stayed up stairs and tormented Ruth's little dog. Friday was a lot busier then I'd expected it to be.

Saturday on the other hand was pretty laid back. I started the day off by winning an Ebay auction for a G4 mac. I payed a decent price for it but no sooner had I paid the guy off then I spotted a better deal. I'm kicking myself now, but I figure if the other Mac stays at a low enough price I'll just end up buying it too and reEbaying the suckier of the two.

Other then the Ebay purchase, and the Sam Jackson call though, its been a very uneventful day. I cleaned the entire house, mowed the lawn and did some general repair. I may or may not be going out for coffee later.

I'm tired.......

....of these motherfucking snakes, on this motherfucking plane!!!!!

I've got to hand it to whoever sent me the 'personalized' message from Sam Jackson on the phone. I haven't laughed that hard in awhile. Snakes on a Plane is easilly going to be the best worst movie ever.

Ben VS. The Mac

So here I am thinking of things to keep myself busy when my friends all take off to college again when it occurs to me that I'd really like to get back into video editing. I took a class on it back in college using Final Cut Pro, andreally enjoyed it. I was really surprised to find how easy it was to edit and manipulate video with this program once you began to use it. Of course on the downside Final Cut Pro requires a Mac to use.

I've been thinking about buying a Mac for awhile, especially the Mac Mini. Its nice and small and will fit next to my TV. Its also pretty affordable compared to a lot of Apple computers. Problem being though, is that the Mac Mini isn't powerful enough to run the latest version of Final Cut Pro, but it will run versions older then Final Cut 5. I'm going to shop around with some of my college friends and see if their college book stores have an academic version for cheap [A full version of Final Cut Pro 5 runs about $1,200]. I'm also curious if anyone out there knows where I can get a Mac that'll run Final Cut Pro 4.5 for cheap, and don't say E-Bay.