Bruce and the extra cheese

Bruce Springsteen played Buffalo last night. The show ended at midnight, not because I knew the schedule, but that's when the phones lit up, preceding the flow of burnouts and cougars. While the smell wasn't as strong, more than a few were high as a kite.

I've never seen so many 45 year olds ordering so much pizza in my life.

The archivist

I've been corresponding lately with individuals I've known for a long time. Ten years, to be precise. What this person might not know, is that ten years ago I kept a journal. A very detailed, complete journal. I recorded... everything. I can tell you the day it all started, the day it escalated, and the day it all fell apart.

But then again, dates were really my thing. You know who you are. Take that thought with you. :p

spoiled

My media-panic overblown illness having beset me a week ago or so, it's pretty much run its course. What this means is that I've been indoors for almost an entire week, save a trip to the doctors office.

Cabin fever vs. Stir crazy. (Only on Pay-per-view)

One unintended side effect of this was my sleep schedule auto-reset itself back to nighttime. I go back to work tonight, and it's not a normal 8 hour shift, oh no.

Daylight saving time.

That's right kids, when you get an extra hour of sleep, I get an extra hour of work. This when I'm trying to fight off sleep. Anyway...

So this illness having run its course, I decided to venture out in public once again. I did so mere hours before this posting - 10AM or so. Such a time is not one where I'm normally out in public. 10PM is more likely. (For perspective, I do most of my grocery shopping at 6 AM)

This is what I mean by spoiled. When I do any grocery shopping, I need only navigate vendors, early risers, stock boys, and the occasional grandma. Typically one or two of each. The pharmacy is still closed. One checkout lane is open. The 4 foot Pillsbury dough boy display at the end of the row my only companion. My cart is one with the floor buffer.

Fast forward a mere four hours. Crowds. Throngs. Masses. HORDES! People everywhere, clogging every spot you can imagine. I couldn't even *see* the deli case! Everywhere I turned there was another fat mom with a cartload of kids spilling over, another old man that can't remember which way to go, and the endless pains of people that leave their cart sideways in the middle of the aisle while they walk away to painstakingly examine every can of whatever is so important while hordes of people get jammed in trying to get around it.

I was always a night person.

p.s. It's Halloween, yet they already tore down the Halloween display, and set up the Christmas display. (it starts...)

After Dark

I'm awesome. I found a working copy of After Dark. It doesn't run properly on Win 7. (Any of you that had it on windows might remember that you didn't configure it from the screen saver menu. It would add a tab to the display properties menu. Win 7 doesn't even have the same menu style, so it's Starry Night or nothing) My laptop, however, still runs XP. Now the flying toasters have graced my machine once more.

Envy it.

sick?

I've been coughing since Thursday. A little nagging cough that wouldn't leave me alone. Monday morning it decided to hit me like a brick gently soaring through my skull.

Sleep it off. Class? Sorry class, you'll have to wait.

Now I'm short of breath. That's bad. I need my lungs. I can't sing opera without my full lung capacity, so I need to nix this bug, now. (Never mind that I can't sing opera, let alone in the shower. That's not the point) I had bronchitis awhile back, feels the same. Doc gave me some nice powerful meds for it, let's see.

"H1N1"

What? I know you came in here wearing a mask, I figured that was standard procedure at this point. You may have poked and prodded me all over, violating me in ways that would make a frat boy blush, but seriously?

The doctor won't let me to go work. Nor will he let me go to school. Ok, not bad. It's like a terrible vacation where all I have to do is get bad sleep and eat the same boring food over and over again. Between coughs. On the bright side, I can still type... between coughs.

Excuse me, I need a cough drop.

The pants problem

Consider fashion for a moment: men have fewer options, women can get away with pretty much anything. This is made up for by mens sizes.

Mens sizes are a measurement. Womens sizes are just an arbitrary number tacked on with no regard for dimension, each being different according to manufacturer and store. Another reason it's great to be a guy, right?

I'm stuck. Trapped. Caught in the middle. Mens pant sizes only come in even numbers. I'm a size 33. Everything is either too big, or two small. Do I get pants and a belt, or do I get pants and a treadmill? The real question is: which way am I headed? Am I losing weight, or am I gaining it?

If stress tells me anything, it's that I'm losing weight. Planning for it would change it. Meanwhile, my clothing doesn't fit.

Football?

They call it football, but it's played by hand. It's not shaped like a ball, either. It's shaped like an egg. American football should be named HandEgg. They stretch 20 minutes of gameplay into four hours of watching and waiting. (Most of that 20 minutes is simply running the clock) They run for 15 seconds, then sit on the sidelines for 10 minutes, likely heaving into an oxygen mask because, lets face it, these fat boys are hauling both themselves and enough body armor to make Iraq sweat.

Ok, so I'm not a fan. I only bring it up because the season started. I only know this fact because I work in a hotel... and the Bills live in town.

Last Saturday night was a world of trouble. On top of the 100 or so guests there for the game, there were five wedding parties and three tour groups. One didn't speak much English, one was nice and quiet upstairs, and the third was 98% drunken idiots.

...really, what do you expect is going to happen when you have one girl so drunk she's shaking, so big she's falling out of her shirt, and 5 guys all trying to trip each other up to try to land her in their rooms? Of COURSE it's going to be a freakin nightmare. Constant noise complaints, the police had to come, and then Travelocity called.

Have I mentioned that I hate Travelocity? Saturday night was sold out. Zero rooms available. Every room full up. Nowhere to put anyone. Checkout is at 12 noon. That means nobody has to leave until the clock strikes lunch. Travelocity booked a room for someone for Sunday night, then called us to tell us they were on their way.

"Where exactly am I supposed to put them?"
"Our inventory says you have open rooms"
"Your inventory is wrong"

That fact didn't matter to him. The girl coming in was doing so under her aunt, who had just made the reservation and proceeded to badger Travelocity into calling us to guarantee that her niece had a place when she arrived at 6:45AM.

Her aunt also called us. First thing she did was demand a first and last name. I didn't realize what was happening until my colleague had already done so. She then demanded to know if a room was open.
What he said:
"We may have a room open, I'll have to check"
What she heard:
"We definitely have rooms open. There will be no problems whatsoever. By the way, you're amazing and deserve the world"

You can imagine how things panned out when she arrived. She also had no credit card. (Hotel policy: must have a CC for incidentals. Even if the room is paid for. Any number of things can be charged to the room, and we need to be able to cover it)

Auntie calls back furious. After the night I already had, I surprised myself by lashing out the rules to her, a very clear explanation of why she wasn't getting a room that very second, and a concise definition of what incidentals are. This strongly conflicted with her fantasy land where everything was 100% perfect.

Most people at this point would accept it, albeit grudgingly. Her indigence was astonishing.

"I know you have rooms, that's what I was told, so what you said - no."

Every attempt to further explain the situation resulted in my getting cut off with her repeating that line, ending with a sharp NO.

I hung up on her and kicked her niece out.