Nights are Getting Shorter

No, I'm not talking about the sun setting later in the evening or any sort of idle chit chat about the seasons. I've been yearning to get down to more writing since the beginning of last week. I'm in a pissy mood because it's 1:30am and I'm getting frustrated with Life truly and utterly getting in the way of catching up on e-mails, writing, updating Union Progressive, recording a new set and it goes on and on.

I blame my new commitment to working out (properly) at the gym, which is sort of a stupid thing to blame, considering I want to get in shape in time for su... oh shit, summer's already here. See?

Then there's the extraordinary amount of social activity I've found myself in the past week. Trust me, this is not to brag. This is truly an anomaly. I won't get into it now, except to say it has kept me away, for better or for worse, from my home PC more than I would prefer. And I am positively bursting with things to write about here.

So, that much vaunted Fitness World post? IT'S COMING. God damn fuck it, it's coming. I need a good 20 - 30 minutes to put that monster together and I am simply not in command of my eloquence at 1:30am on a Wednesday morning. Tomorrow will be more of the same. I have a small window between getting off work and going to my parents place to maybe start writing a portion of the Fitness World stuff, after which I'll be tied up until about 11:00pm.

It's a retarded situation, for lack of a better descriptor. When I have time to piss away at the computer, I have nothing to write. Once I get inspired, now all of a sudden I'm Mr. Outgoing with a Social Calendar. Oh woe is me!

Aaaaand the bellyaching stops NOW.

Bye.

Bloggin At Work - Jacked'ness of the Eyes

It's one of those mornings when everyone seems late for work. I just sat down with my coffee and wondering how my eyes will hold up for the rest of the day. My eyes are seriously jacked today. They felt very icky and uncomfortable during the drive over to the office. Maybe I didn't wash up well enough before leaving the apartment. I think I can attribute some of the eye jacked'ness to my lack of sleep again.

I forced myself to stay up another 30 - 45 minutes last night just replying to e-mails and puttering around on the Internet. I was also fleshing out my notes for my long-awaited Fitness World post, Part 2. It's coming! It's closer than ever to being written. Now that I've finally started spending some quality time at the gym again, I've been able to better articulate why the babes are the way they are and what really turns my crank. Only one of my readers has any real interest in reading this piece aside from myself, and I suspect he really just wants to live vicariously through me. They don't quite grow the hunnies in Kamloops the way they do here in the Big City.

Giddy up. Back to work.

Singing and Guitar = Hilarity

It's Tuesday night after a hectic and woefully short Victoria Day long weekend. I'm writing an e-mail to this weekend's blind date and in the background are the sappy strains and falsetto of that insipid James Blunt tune, "You're Beautiful". My roommate is back to practicing his guitar and singing with the help of Mr. Blunt.

Before I go on, I should declare how much he's improved his guitar-playing skills in the past 6-8 months. Without any professional instruction save a few instructional DVDs, my roommate has progressed from his tentative, tinny chicken plucks to pulling off fairly confident strumming patterns. His latest feat is to strum a pop tune whilst singing the lyrics, in key and without too many rhythmic anomalies.

That part is still a work in progress.

There I was typing away at the keyboard. "You're Beautiful" hits its climax, prompting James Blunt to take the falsetto into overdrive. My roommate follows suit, to hilarious effect. I had to keep myself from bursting out laughing. It sounded like he was playing around with the pitch of his voice or trying to harmonize with Jimmy Blunt, but it really wasn't working out. It was a key clashing mess. But it was funny.

Props to my roomie for pushing himself in this direction. At 28, this is pretty much his first foray into musical training and he's been pretty diligent about it. He's had to learn the really basic stuff the hard way, the stuff I take for granted like time signature, counting beats, scales and all that jazz. And the singing... well, singing is one of those things that people seem to be deeply embarassed about. Even those who can belt it out have a strange modesty about it, like it's a talent that should be hidden away from others or the hardwork that went into developing the skill should be downplayed. Well, I'll be the first to say my roommate's singing was atrocious in the beginning in every possible way. Simon Cowell would have had a field day with him.

Lately, however, my rommate's really upped his game. His singing is still a ways off from being pleasant, but he's hitting the notes and learning to keep the rhythm and apply inflection and feeling to his voice. Laugh all I want but the day will come when he'll pick up his guitar for a song, and the voice of angels will emit from his mouth.

Okay, maybe angels is pushing it a little. Even the songs from the likes of Blunt and Jack Johnson are hard enough to swallow when sung by their creators...

Blogging at Work: Acceptance

I had just finished slogging through a logo design at work and popped into my personal webmail. The coordinator from the writing program sent me the results of my application: I'm in!

They had me worried there for a moment. I would have preferred an acceptance letter via snail mail so I could eagerly tear into the envelope, heart pumping furiously as I unfolded the letter. E-mail is so anti-climactic.

But who really cares. I'm in!

Some tough decisions lie ahead of me:

• What do I do about my job?


• How will I support myself during the program?


• Should I save up cash and cancel my trip to Montreal and cancel any plans of promoting a club gig this summer?


• Should I move closer to campus?


• Should I sell my money-grubbin' car... my beloved Camry Power?


• Should I...wait for it... MOVE BACK IN WITH MY PARENTS?

It's decisions like these that bring a little spice to the daily grind... and make me want to distract myself with frivolity so I can hold off on making any of them.

More Nickelback

Just a quick follow-up to my Nickelback rampage a couple days ago...

I found this wonderful video of a Portugese concertgoer taking matters into his own hands with the aid of a rock and sufficient projectile force directed towards Mr. Chad "Poodle Head" Kroeger.

A fellow Blogger has also posted some tasty invectives against Nickelback and MuchMusic. Do you feel the hate? I do, and it's chawsome to the max.

Rock on.

This is What I'm Talking About

For the first time this year, I woke up and I felt uncomfortably warm. I had left my window open through the night and I was still hot.

I climbed into my car and it was baking in there.

This is it. Summer is nigh. Bring on the honey-bronze suntans, capris, sarongs and flipflops.

Blogging at Work Part 2 - Here's Your Nickelback... and a Sword Through the Brain Pan

"Nickback."

That one word was enough to snap me to attention and shake off my headphones in alarm. I play my music loud, but never loud enough to miss what goes on in the office behind me.

I looked over my shoulder and locked eyes with my coworker. "Nickelback?" I wanted verification but was cringing at the thought of advancing this conversation any further than was required.

"Yeah, Nickelback. People think they're from Vancouver but they're actually from Alberta." Uh-uh, here it comes. "They're good!"

Okay, I should tell you know, I am usually not a killjoy in the workplace. I come in, I exchange pleasantries and banter, goof off a little and once in a while, I'll perform the job I'm paid to perform. In essence, I keep any harsh opinions to myself and keep things light and airy with the people I work with. However, a sentence involving the words "Nickeback" and "good" was simply too reckless and callous to be ignored. I don't need to know the context of the dialogue that gave rise to Nickelback. All I know is this conversation had to be deactivated, and quickly.

I immediately set upon my coworker's praise of Nickelback like a rabid timber wolf. I don't quite remember what I said, but I do remember stringing some choice adjectives together. "Generic", "assembly line" and "poodle hair" are a few bon mots I recall from my attack, coupled with henious facial expressions that would indicate I would sooner inhale a bowl of fresh buffalo semen than subject my ears to Nickeback's interpretation of music. I'm far too generous actually. If you are not aware already, Nickelback contructs their albums by feeding potatoes and the colour beige into an industrial-sized contraption known as the Insufferable Mainstream Rock-O-Matic 3000. So in go the spuds and beige, out comes radio-friend rock noise that is more forgettable than last week's dental floss.

Yeah... I let my views on Nickelback be known. Like an expert swordsman dispatching his opponent with a single, graceful sweep of the blade, I silenced all possible happy talk about Nickelback with just a couple of concise, venomous comments. Unfortunately, it was clear my coworker's feelings were caught in the crossfire. My zeal to stamp out Nickelback may have been construed as a personal attack, which was definitely not my intention.

Well it worked: All positive Nickelback sentiment lay in a pool of gore, blood still geysering from the fatal blow delivered by my razor-sharp, musical polemic. My coworker fell silent, stared into her monitor and continued typing. She's a gregarious talker personality, so those few seconds without a peep from her were deafening.

Hmm, yes. I felt like a dick, stomping on my friend's Nickelback love as harshly as I did. So I followed up with a question to soften the mood a little. Surprisingly, it worked, even though it resulted in another lost minute of agonizing Nickelback talk. Oh well, I managed to salvage a potentially awkward afternoon at the office. It was pretty boorish of me to put down my coworker's affinity for the national treasure that is NICKELBACK.

Yet if it was anyone else, I would not have felt any guilt. And neither should you. The next time some mouth-breather decides to publicize his admiration of Nickelback, unsheath your katana and strike quickly. Aim for the neck and follow through with your swing. Youu want to remove the head in one clean swipe.

Of course, my metaphor is long over. Decapitate the tone-deaf idiots! If it's a friend or family member, a caning session Singapore-style or good old-fashioned excommunication should suffice.

I Have Puny Girl Arms

I was visiting Fitness World the other night to have my "service appointment". What this entail is an impressive battery of questions with a cheerful personal trainer after which I am measured, weighed and found wanting. And I get to stand barefoot on that funky machine that sends electrical currents through my body to ascertain my body fat ratio, water to weight ratio and other useful stats that have nothing to do with actually motivating me to exercise.

That statement carries more truth than you'd think since I completed my assessment with flying colours. My body water ratio is excellent, not to mention my body fat percentage, waistline and any number of measurements of worthiness. Despite feeling like a slug most days, I'm actually in fine, fighting form, thank you very much. That's it, I'm done! I'm turning in my membership and retiring to my couch at home. My casual fling with getting fit and toned has truly been a slice of heaven.

But I didn't race out of the gym, waving my results in the faces of all those suckers toiling away on the stationary bicycles, shouting, "Pedal away, suckers! I'm in totally good shape and I hardly ever bother to come here! IN YO' FACE!!". No, that would have been inappropriate. And really, my mania was only hiding one very shameful fact: I have girly arms!

Rewind the tape. My trainer was wrapping tape measure on various parts of my body. I held out my right arm to have my impressive guns measured, as if they didn't speak for themselves already. "Now flex," she commanded.

I flexed carefully, mindful not to strain myself and bust open the tape measure with my exposive muscle contractions. My trainer quickly noted the numbers and exclaimed, "Ah, that's the size of my biceps!"

"Oh yeah?," I started, suddenly feeling a little smaller, "well, that's... impressive!"

Yikes. I appraised my trainer again as she ducked down to write notes onto my worksheet. She was probably in her early 40s and not an unattractive lady, although time has definitely done its work on her face. In my very humble opinion, skin cream trumps make-up, every time. Although the trainer's face was no longer tight, her body certainly was. Her rump was pretty typical of other Fitness World trainers: compact, clinically round and definitely something you could lovingly polish to a dazzling shine before placing it on your mantle to show off to all your house guests.

I continued to check her out, but in a more antagonistic way, not unlike how guys size each other up to see if they would come out on top in a hypothetical scrum. Well, I wasn't entirely confident that I could wrestle my trainer down in a play fight, even on my best day. Just knowing her biceps are as large as mine is a total mind fuck. Who am I kidding? She would kick my ass, and I'd probably enjoy it.

So my service appointment wasn't a total wash. I do have my own set of goals to shoot for, in terms of packing on a few more pounds of muscle weight and trimming down those love handles. I was hoping to get a basic workout program created before leaving, but that was to be saved for a second appointment. Wonderful. How come I get the feeling I will be humbled again next week? And by a girl!

Blogging at Work Part I - Welcome to the Sandbox

My most loyal readers (aka. The Painfully Bored) may remember one of my early 500WPD posts about video games and my infatuation with the now released title, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I bought this game a mere week after its release in March and have played it obsessively for 50+ hours. The game is a resource-hungry behemoth and has long emasculated my humble PC. I've been forced to scale down the detail to a meezly 640x480 screen resolution, with many of the bells and whistled turn down or off. Amazingly, the graphics in Oblivion still knock my socks off.

Despite the eye candy, it's not visuals that have hypnotized me into sinking 3 straight weeks into this game. The world represented within the game is absolutely massive, filled with hundreds of NPCs (non-player characters), thousands of lines of spoken dialogue, a couple hundred quests to undertake and another few hundred points of interest to explore, whether it be an haunted abandonded mine, ancient Elven ruins, shrines, a quiet village stricken with a mysterious disease or one of a dozen major cities. Each of these cities in turn houses its own ruling party, citizens who own houses and follow their own daily schedules... [deep breath]... shopkeepers, inns, guilds, gladiator arenas, gardens and lots of other great shit.

It's essentially a great big sandbox of a fantasy world. To reiterate, I've played the game for over 50 hours and I have barely progressed through the main plotline. The game is grand and huge and complex and really has no definite "End" in the traditional gaming sense of the word.

The sandbox approach to games has been around for years (remember SimCity?) but the trend is gaining traction with mainstream gamers. Some high profile sandbox games coming down the pipe are:

Spore
I could attempt to describe this amazing game by Will Wright, the creator of SimCity, but gaming blog Kotaku has been diligently following the game's development. Check out their sweet videos and E3 coverage.

Grand Theft Auto 4
The grandaddy of sociopathic sandbox games has recently been announced for a October 2007 release. Q4 2007! That is, like, so far away. Unacceptable.

Who am I kidding? I'm still only halfway through San Andreas. I don't know why I ever stop playing that game, it is so naughty.

Actually, if gaming at all interests you, Kotaku is pretty much being updated 200 times a day, now that E3 is in full swing. E3, of course, is the annual tradeshow for the games industry which, in terms of sheer sensory bombast, has been known to eclipse even Las Vegas on her best of days.

My Future in Print

The slapdash preparation of my application and portfolio piece for admissions into the Print Futures program culminated in a 2-hour group interview today.

I skipped out of work early this afternoon. The clear skies and cool spring air made me think I was bumping off early to go rollerblade around the seawall or drink beer on a patio somewhere. What actually happened was a generally pleasant, 45-minute drive to New Westminster. I don't know what to make of this place. It is wedged in there between Burnaby, Surrey and the Tri-Cities districts. It's like this nether region of meh suckiness. Harsh, you say? Likely, but you tell me what's cool about New West!

I've lived in the Lower Mainland all my life and it's a bit surprising that I only have two distinct memories of New Westminster. One memory is of my visit to the Paramount strip club as a giddy 19-year old and the other is of getting lost during Friday traffic earlier this year, trying to find the Highway 1 exit so I could progress towards my weekend ski trip in Kamloops. And today, of course, when I went back to the college to attend my interiew into this writing program I applied for. So 3 memories total. Ok scratch that, 4 memories now. As a child my parents inexplicably took me to some shit-ass discount store to check out clothing. Damn, what fine memories these are. They shall be cherished forever.

Lucky me, Douglas College is right smack in the middle of what must pass for downtown New West. Today was a breezy and sunny day, so under that lighting, the old streets don't look too depressing and were clear of drug addicts. Perhaps they were shying away from the glorious sun and catnapping until their next fix.

The Douglas College "campus" is like any other community college: feels like a high school. Except cleaner and they're missing the regimented rows of lockers in the hallways.

I arrived in that break period between classes, so students were still filing through the halls and milling around outside the lecture rooms. It was a bit disconcerting to lose my way a little, trying to find my room number and seeming to miss it at every turn. Drat, how can 3300 not be here...and if it is here, it's not labelled! You know what, I felt like I was in Grade 8 again or frosh at UBC. FROSH!

Of course I'm older and wiser now, so I was still cool as can be and gingerly retraced my steps to my final destination. No one looked at me funny, which was great, since everyone seemed 6 - 8 years younger than I.

Wait, the irony. It's delicious: I'm just trying to say something about my group interview, for a PROFESSIONAL WRITING program, and here I am prattling away about how I got lost in the hallways and gee willickers, these college students are actually younger than I am. Wow.

Fuck. Let's fast forward through this crap, shall we?

Turns out the group interview was just myself and another fellow I met at the information session held last month. And the interview part was indeed an interview, consisting of me, this other guy and the two program heads. I was under this impression that I'd be meeting a lot of the instructors and getting a chance to talk shop with them about the curriculum and what I should look forward to as a full-time student this fall. Oh the silly ideas I implant inside my own noggin! No, no, THEY were interviewing ME and the other guy, who I'll call Mike because that is his actual name and I'm already tired of defacing him as "the other guy".

Wow, so this interivew was a bit trickier than I expected, mostly because I was completely unprepared and already nervous with anticipation of the grammar and summarization test that they would be issuing to us at the end. For the actual questions, I felt I answered them pretty well. It was sort of cool to do the interview in tandem with Mike, taking turns responding to the same question or variations of. The two matuer ladies interivewing us were also doing a nice tag team with their questioning and thankfully avoided silly job interview-style bullshit like, "If you could be an animal, what would you be?" Now that I think of it again, I answered my questions a lot better than Mike did, although he seemed much calmer and level-headed. I felt like i was the most nervous guy in the room most of the time. True to form, I still managed to inject some humour into my rambling answers, which cracked some smiles but heck if that actually made a difference in the evaluation.

The grammar test was 1 hour long, a bit of a bitch but on the whole pretty manageable. I was so relieved that they merely tested us on identifying mistakes as opposed to forcing us to identify proper terminology. Well, they did sneak in a couple of those. I am kicking myself for not knowing what an independent clause is. I really wracked my brain over that one but it's one of those things where you either know it or you're shit out of luck. I even threw down a guess and was this close to scoring a fluke out. The definition of course, is so simple it's stupefying.

So where does that leave us? It's only going to take them a week to select all the applicants that made it into the program. Getting through that door will give me the power to select from a range of possibiltiies. Going back to school is going to mean dropping my job and assuming the role of the Poor Student. Two years and $7000 later, I'll be a lean, mean professional writing machine. Or rather, I should be. And even if I'm not, at least I hope to be employable.

I'd hate to move back in with my folks. And I'd hate to ditch my car. I could try for a student loan, but spending two years without a full-time job is gonna be a massive shock to the system. I'm going to need to sell drugs, or busk outside the school in between classes.

Yeah, right now at this very moment, I really don't know what will happen. I'll work something out when the time's right. I usually do.

Kitsilano is my new beat

As if I needed more blogging responsibilities to heap onto my plate.

I'm now the newest contributor to another local blog, Kitsilano.ca. Oh boy! I am really screwing myself for keeping 500WPD updated on a consistent basis, eh?

Thankfully, I am not required to write as much as I am for Beyond Robson. Rob L, the site's administrator and main writer, suggested a post every month or so would be enough. That sort of blows my mind, seeing as there's only us 3 writers on staff. The site could benefit a lot from more frequent updates, but... I'm not sure I'd be ready to step up to 1 or 2 posts per week at this point in time.

Giddy up. I have no idea what I'm going to write next for Kitsilano. Because I'm such a lech, I considered doing a Kits "Babe of the Month" type of deal where I interview a fine female specimen who lives in or around Kits. I could select someone who is a businees owner or is prominent in the community to, you know, lend my writing a hint of credibility.

And yes, I would be featuring photos, of course. As they say: Pix or STFU!

Shit Getting Done

I am hooked on the Waiter Rant blog and obsessively reading his older posts that I missed the first time around. It's like a good TV drama. There is a definite continuity to each of his posts but I can jump around as much as I please, reading his very lastest stories and going back 2 years to his very first posts, without missing a beat or getting lost.

Getting lost. That's what I should be doing today. I've wasted so much time at work it's wonder I even bothered to show up. It's a classic Friday for me: most of the tasks requiring the most heavy listing are over with so I'm left to my own devices. Pick away at this, pick away at that. I launched a another new site but it's seriously lacking copy or even photos of property (it's a Hawaiian vacation rentals website). So it's out there, it's live, it's just woefully incomplete. Par for the course, really.

Five years in the web development industry and I can tell you deadlines are bullshit. Granted, I've only worked for small companies with less than 50 staff members. Maybe I should get a job with a Fortune 500 company and see how well I sweat it out. Anywhere else, a deadline is more of a guess or wishful thinking.

As it stands, this is my Friday and nothing needs to get done and nothing will. Life is good.

Communication Breakdown - Right Before My Eyes

How many times can you recall being a witness to incompetence in motion? How many times have you actively watched a communication breakdown take place and recognized the instant a ball was dropped?

Last Sunday started off like so many Sundays. I reluctantly got out of bed at noon. My body felt like the gnarled roots of an old forest tree and the only thing keeping me from complaining from feeling so tired was the knowledge of not having to go to work.

With lunch and coffee on my mind, I got myself ready and trekked out with the intention of visiting my neighbourhood Starbucks, followed by a trip to one of my favourites, Mix Bakery. You can get some nice bread at Mix but their grilled sandwiches are even better. I alternate between their Chimayo Chicken sandwich and the Granny Gobbler, a turkey sandwich that is to die for.

Medium dark roast in hand, my final stop was Mix and I expected to be in and out of there in 5 minutes. I walk in the door and the place is jam-packed. I've never seen the place so busy, even on a weekend afternoon. The store is not terribly large; just a short row of 2-person tables and a counter near the window for patrons who like sitting on stools. Every seat was filled and an impressive line-up to the cash register nearly reached the door.

There was a group of 4 teenaged boys ahead of me with exactly the same idea as me: grab a delicious sandwich to go. Three clerks were attending to the madness behind the counter. One in particular was pretty cute, sort of your prototypical "girl next door". She's all bright smiles and is really easy to look at. Anyway, these guys in front of me order up their sandwiches, which are obviously selling like hotcakes at this point in the day. The last in the group to order requests a Chimayo Chicken, exactly the sandwich that was on my mind too. The Girl Next Door checks the display rack and reports back saying they're all out so she'll have to ask the kitchen to start making some more.

So she heads off to the back, which I should say is wonderful to look at. I tend to like bakeries that have the open view concept that allows customers to see what's going on behind the scenes. It all looks so fine, homey and oddly enough, comfortable. All I can think of when I see stuff like that is "fresh" and "homemade" and "Tastes Great!". I've even felt the urge to get a job as an assitant baker, just to hang out in the kitchen, learn something practical and soak up the atmosphere. Anyway, off she goes to get more of those chicken sandwiches made. It's finally time for me to order and another clerk has stepped in to assist me. Maybe it was not being fully awake or I was just plain being thick-headed, but I ordered a chicken sandwich anyway, knowing full well that I would have to wait at least another 5 minutes. I remember Girl Next Door telling the other guy it would be 5 minutes. Oh well, what's the big deal? It's Sunday, I've got nothing going, so I'll wait.

The new girl helping me out was not so cute. Thin, bespectacled and generally dorky looking. I don't think I really noticed her until now. She seemed slow and awkward so I figured she was a new hire. I order my sandwich and she goes through the motion of checking the display case. Nope, none there. By then the cutie had come back and bespectacled girl finds out there's a new batch being made. I knew this was the case and agree to wait. Normally, I just pay what I ordered and just wait for them to give it to me. I slide on over to the end of the counter where the cash register is. No one rings me up, not the skinny guy with the buzz cut, not Girl Next Door and most surprising, not even the girl who took my order. I look over: the line-up is gone. I was the last one. Still, there are tasks to be done and all the clerks are getting orderes ready and busy bustling.

Sure enough a few more customers come in and I'm still left there at the cashier's desk with money in my hands. The Girl Next Door stops midstep at one point and asks if I've been helped. "Uhh, yeah sort of. I ordered a sandwich and they're making more in the kitchen, right?" She just smiles back and goes on her way. Okay, so now I'm worried that my order never got registered. The dorky girl never took my money, at least not until I got her attention and asked if they wanted my money. Turns out they do.

So after I pay, I settle down with a copy of The Province and wait for my lunch. Ten minutes pass. The kid who ordered the same sandwich is still waiting with his friends, who have all been devouring their lunches. I'm a patient dude. I'm Zen. Another five minutes pass and now I'm getting fidgety. The Province is a bore and I'm worrying about the Starbucks coffee I left in the car. I want to bring my coffee in to drink while I wait but I start worrying about committing a faux pas for bringing in a competitor's product into Mix. I snap out of that line of thinking quickly though. I've been waiting twenty minutes for a grilled sandwich. Fuck them if they don't like my Starbucks coffee.

I get back with my drink and resume my place at the table. A few minuets pass and that kid finally gets his sandwich. He and his buddies bolt out of there. More time passes. Man, I've been a patient S.O.B.

I walk up to the counter. "How's that sandwich coming along?" I think I'm barely smiling. I probably look very bored, borderline grumpy.

"Oh... yeah I'll get that for you." I no longer find Girl Next Door as cute as I did earlier on. A few seconds later, she calls out to me, "Did you want it grilled?" Yeah, now she's just annoying. She had totally forgotten about my order. "For here or to go?" To go... and for the love of all that is good and holy just bring me my fucking sandwich. I could have said something similarly rude, but I'm just too nice of a guy.

I sit back down and look at my watch. Half an hour! Girl Next Door rushes over and serves me my sandwich on a plate. "Um, I wanted this to go."

"Oh, I'm sorry! I saw you sitting here and thought you were staying."

Kill me now. Thankfully, she got the sandwich wrapped up and bagged without any further incident. Leaving that store with my long-awaited sandwich was surprisinlyg anti-climactic. If there was a way I could have walked out of there in slow motion, arms raised with my sandwich cupped in both hands. Maybe add a subtle halo effect to it. Cue the angelic choir music. Over-dramatic? Meh, maybe. It's a delicious Chimayo Chicken sandwich, after all.

I don't know how else I could have handled that situation. I watched the incompetence unfold before me and I had a premonition about it too. I have to learn how to get on people's asses more.