April 1

OMG! I ws txting 2 my bff Walt dat i m goin to quit my bl0g cuz it takes 2 much tyme! Latez!

-The0

Placement Agencies are like job hunt butcher shops.

I have always been the kind to think about work while I'm at work, and that may be the reason I'm never the best at my job. Doing so, however, leaves me with revelations and realizations that I carry with me for quite a while, so I may just keep doing it.

One epiphany was that the job you perform is what you contribute to society. The harder you work, the more you produce, the more money you get. You then use this money to get things that you need or want that others have produced in the same society. It's like a standardized, long distance barter system. There was more to it, I'm just paraphrasing.

Another breakthrough that I had recently was that some jobs just don't fit some people. I remember back in college they had these tests which I would have been able to take which would magically be able to read my then-personality and tell me exactly what kind of job I should have been looking for. I think I ended up taking one of them, but never following through.

What I have begun recently is looking for a place where I can take these tests again. While I have been known to bitch about work before, it seems to be coming to a head in which I am losing a lot of my personal life to my job. I'm not very happy with my progress, and what I do was something that for a time, I loved doing. I dread every morning now.

If I had to start searching again, I'd start by finding out if there's a test to find a job I won't hate in 6 Months.

-The0

Annuals

Contrary to my best projections, I somehow not only managed to fall happily in love with someone who is perfectly awesome, but I managed to keep her with me, and myself attached to her, for a year. It has been one year since our first date! Fantastic Joy! Yay!

Has it ever occurred to anyone but me how fluid an anniversary can be? You can celebrate the anniversary of any date you specifically remember. First email, first kiss, first date, first year going steady, first year being married, et cetera. So my question among this fluidity becomes, when a couple starts celebrating a new date of anniversary, does the old one become forgotten? Does it have a new meaning? I'm excited to see what the future holds, and frightened to think of how many special days I'll accidentally and brazenly forget.

Our entire evening started out late. we wanted to make a tradition of having drinks at the place of the previous date, a media/art event, and then finish with a dinner at a new place. Sadly, we barely made it to the Arts event in time. The Fantasticks, as presented by the St. Louis Repertory Theatre. More of a "parents" play. There was a really weird song about rape in there. But it was rape in a classical sense, which made it okay. Somehow? Anyway, we were next to the youngest people there.

Dinner we enjoyed at Brio Tuscan Grill. Great meal. Nice crisp salads, creamy pastas. slightly disappointing desserts, but I was stuffed to the gills anyway.

Enough of this Blather! Happy Anniversary, Dr. Girlfriend! I love you!

-The0

Null Option

Have you ever really thought about what it is to tell someone, "No"? Have you ever considered the effects it has, the conditions it implies? I recently did, and I think I came across something.

It literally can represent the closing of a door. It takes away the option of doing something, regardless of the situation in which it is presented. The Nay-sayer may or may not get his way, but it also shows another attribute.

Strength. The strength of will and character to demand one's own conditions. The clarity of thought or at least the headstrong ambition to desire something in a certain way. An amazing power, to have the gumption to refuse something.

Taking what he can get,

-The0

I sometimes call her Cindy, too.

After a long and harrowing journey through a forest of self-doubt, fiscal insolubility, dirty work and frustrating emotions, I finally get to give some love to the one who has mostly been there for me almost every day. The one who is always waiting there for me after a grueling day of horrid work.

Aschenputtel. My 1999 GMC Yukon. Pewter. SLT trim package. 5.7 liter Vortec V8. At 186,000 miles, she's old, but she holds.

I got her back in the winter of 2006. She was a replacement for my first truck, RosenRot (Rose Red in German) which through poor driving and inclement weather wound up wrapped around a tree. The details of that story will come forth some day. I missed that truck, and my relationship with this new one was rocky at the start. But we came to terms quite well. She cools me down after a hot day, and heats me up on a cold night. She handles well, and accelerates quickly enough. I've gotten into trouble with her, and gotten out of almost as much.

The name was actually the hardest part about this coming to terms. Following in the tradition of RosenRot, I had to come up with several agreeing factors. Itemized with examples from RosenRot:

• German fairy tale character. RosenRot was Rose Red.
• Name matches with color. RosenRot was red.
• Must have a Rammstein track that matches attitude AND has the word or name. Rosenrot, from the album Rosenrot.
• Name shortens nicely into a nickname. Rosey.

Aschenputtel was the German Cinderella, from the far more brutal Brothers Grimm version. Her pewter tones are grayish and ashy. Her track, Asche zu Asche, comes from the fourth track of the first Rammstein album, Herzeleid. And her nickname, Ashley, has a bit of sultry appeal to it.

I've had a couple of accidents with her, and through a malicious claims adjuster (not lying, he wanted to buy my poor girl as scrap and keep it for himself) she is totaled. A rebuilt wreck, a Phoenix from her own ashes. I will never be able to sell her, and I don't want to. She is my baby.

On Tuesday I gave her a beyond-well-deserved detailing. She gleamed, and when you look at it just right, her chrome bumper smiles back at you. Stay strong, Ashley.

Dr. Girlfriend approved this post.

-The0

Money is made of cotton, not trees.

Being flat-ass broke can really suck. Not having the cash to make ends meet is one thing, and with good willpower, it can be mostly avoided. But add in your randomly generated hardships and fines (I think they're called "Adulthood") and you get to a point where you have nowhere to turn.

This is a test of of your ability to dodge, I believe. While you're working up the funds to pay off various authorities and your own misaligned debts, you must learn how to stay out of their contact. When they start sending you the angry letters, that when you call them, and spin your regular bullshit. Next stage is the higher class bullshit. Once you get close enough to the end of the line, usually you can come clean, and at least bargain a very small initial payment.

This is all very bad practice. The good thing to to is to keep a very solid track of your current balance, and try to foresee the payments you will have to pay. One could try keeping a handy cushion of cash about for those little emergencies. But goddamn, if I had that kind of cash lying around, I wouldn't be bitching about not having any.

The hurdles were cleared with some significant help from loved ones. But still, it's a big forest.

Not accepting donations,

-The0

Rammstein & Amerika: Cold Shoulders

So, in my post regarding Rammstein's latest video, I related what it was like to see my beloved Rammstein live. A total joy, of course. The images still burn in my brain, their Mutter world tour. But the sad fact is that was very nearly nine years ago. I'm beginning to fear I'll never be able to afford to see them again.

Why? Because for some reason which I cannot understand, they haven't visited America since then. I might say it's political, or something wrong with their fan base. The simple fact remains that unless I pony up the cash for a trans-Atlantic trip and concert ticket, I might never get to see them live again. Long lost would be the days of smoke, fire, tinnitus, and strange fluids.

There may be a bit of hope on the horizon though. They have a Facebook fan page, which I have of course joined. This fan page endorses yet another fan page. One of those "If 1 million people join, then..." pages that rarely seem to work. Still, it IS the endorsed page, and a man can dream. Won't you help us? Won't you help yourself?

-The0

Yeah, It's exactly what it looks like

Sorry. I needed a cop out. I'm tired.

-The0

'Bout that time again, eh chaps?

Well, in spite of all likelihood, I made it another year. This is the day where every either takes their closest friend and shows him or her the meaning and privilege of that station, or bitches how how their closest friend is either not close enough or non-existent. That's a flowery way of saying: It's Valentine's Day, you're either on a date, or still single.

I honestly had a prediction that I would be single again at this point, but I have been very pleasantly surprised. This year I was of course working on this actual Valentine's Day, but our following day is going to be quite special. We're going to our favorite sushi place, I'm going to give her gifts, and all will be well.

I never did get around to getting the things which have been in my loyal servitude any gifts though. The computer got its upgrade true to schedule, and Ashley, bless her engine, is still churning out the miles. Let's just say it's a good thing I live so close to work. She'll get a treat soon too, I hope

To all of those single out there, I have been through your fire, and I know how it seems. I'm not going to pretend, though. Nothing I can write will really steel you or bring you out of an angry state, or pull you down from your self-made single-seater cloud. If you're brooding, brood. Some women find that sexy. If you're on top of the world, might so well as do what I did last year.

Happy Valentine's Day! I Love You, Dr. Girlfriend!!!

-The0

Money Kills.

Let's get this out of the way first. I love money. I love that these little electronic numbers and green slips of paper get me toys, food, and occasionally out of trouble. This issue is, I have only found one way to make these things accrue.

Working. And for the time being, I hate working. Pains in the ass, forever-irritable managers, stress abounds always. It's like no matter how early before my shift I pop in (free of pay, by the way) there's always some new issue, some other thing which has to be done, or some emergency which will become my responsibility. A lot of the joy from my job has been removed, and the art of it all is feeling beyond dead.

As much as I hate working though, I hate being broke more. I think. It's a definite conundrum, especially in that I don't think i'm making enough friggin' money to get toys AND food AND stay out of trouble. I already got rid of toys for my daily needs list, and food is scarce. Morale low.

-The0

Temporal Fill-In

Where exactly does all the time go? I wake up on a day off or few, and before I'm ready, It's time to cram my nose back into a fucking grindstone.

I have decided to find out where a lot of this time goes, and I am disappointed with my results.

Roughly 45 of my hours every two weeks goes into me escaping reality, and playing video games. This is a fun thing for me, but I am also well aware that there are better uses for my time

This time is usually spent drunk or drinking. They're not mutually inclusive though. I'd say I spent at least 10 hours of every two weeks drinking.

At the rate of 9 ill-planned hours every day off, and 5 hours every day on, I sleep. I sleep very hard, to the point where nothing can wake me except an explosion or the setting sun. Roughly 120 hours every 2 weeks. Yuck.

And then there are good uses of time. 12 hours every two weeks for band practice. Those are fun times, and I'm still usually late to that. Thank goodness they like me. Another good use of my time is, uuh....

Crap. I may be an exemplary case of irresponsible time use.

-The0