Frustration frustration frustration.  This lady at work frustrated
the hell outta me for her idiocy and her holier than thou
attitude.  She complains that she hurt herself in one of our
transportation vehicles, and said she should have been warned to watch
her head. What, was she deaf and blind?  We got nothing but
warnings to watch your head.  So when I told her that, she goes
off a tangent and says that we were being unprofessional by finding her
situation humorous.  She claims we laughed, pointed at her, and
(her favorite description) SMIRKED at her situation.  I didn't
have a mirror in front of me, but I was NOT smirking at her, and just
looking at my co-workers I can tell that they looked more upset at her
accusations than "smirking" at her.  She even said that if we
worked under her, we would have been fired right on the spot. Really?
Well, I feel sorry for the people that work for her, since she's
obviously such a  idiot. Oh, she
proudly announces that she works for Warner Bros, and I won't be
surprised then if she was involved with that fiasco of a movie called
Catwoman.

Lady, if you or your son who was cursing a storm for being an idiot too happens to read this, well be a dear and
off and realize that this is what I would have said to you right there
and then if I wasn't on the clock. You even took time away from my
break because I had to write a statement about your idiocy! 
arrgghh, idiots can be so frustrating!

If there's one thing that really upsets me, it's being accused of something that I did not do. You don't question my integrity!

It's kinda sad, but at work they are cutting down the work hours. 
A majority of the lower seniority employees are feeling the burn the
most.  One of them was even in tears at one point, when she
realized that she is going to get screwed in having to pay bills when
her pay check is going to get cut short.  Changing your lifestyle
to accomodate for having less money isn't a great feeling.  In
fact it's downright depressing.  If only it were easy for all of
us to get better paying jobs, but looking for a new job nowadays just
isn't that great.

Luckily, I'm more or less not that affected by the cut backs....
kinda.... It makes my job harder when I have less people to boss
around.  

So I had another event to go to yet again.  My parents threw a
belated birthday party for my brother.  Ironically, it's at the
same time one of my friend's is throwing a barbeque at his place. 
Being that it is a family thing, I had to ditch my friend's gig. Sorry
buddy.

I started going through some pictures for my new set of avatars and I
think I'm going to like my new ones.  There's a lot more variety
on them, and I'm probably going to change them every week. The avatar
that I have up right now here in xanga is going to be one of them.

My oldest brother showed me how to do a "hammer" on my guitar
today.  I can do the first riff of my favorite Metallica song
now.  Maybe I'll finally get motivated to learn how to play.

My girl's PC went kaput last week.  Through my recommendation, we
went ahead and decided to redo her whole computer. Format, re-install,
etc...  In fact I'm doing that right now, just taking a break to
post here...so back to work for me....

Today is going to be a long post, so I chopped them up to "three chapters"

CHAPTER ONE - "It started off good, but not for long...."

So I left for San Diego at about 3:45PM to pick up my girl's
brother.  I figured that since I have to pick him up by 6PM, that
should be enough time to get there even if there was traffic. 
Boy, I was wrong. 
FYI, it takes roughly a little over an hour to get to San Diego from
where I live, and it's about 110 miles of travel.  This is how my
drive went based on the miles and how it took for me to cover that...

First 20 miles = 3:45PM - 3:55PM (10 minutes)
Next 30 miles = 3:55PM - 5:20PM (85 minutes)
Next 10 miles = 5:20PM - 5:30PM (10 minutes)
Next 40 miles = 5:30PM - 7:05PM (95 minutes)
Last 10 miles = 7:05PM - 7:10PM (5 minutes)

For 110 miles it took me 3 hours and 25 minutes of driving because of friggin traffic!!!

CHAPTER TWO - "something else goes wrong"

Based on the map I looked prior to driving there, I figured I would
exit "Camino del rio" to get to the hotel he was staying.
Well....the exit : "Camino del rio" DOES NOT EXIST! As soon as I realized this, I
exited the nearest exit and "hoped" to find the streets I need to get
there.  No such luck.  With no map of that area, I called my
girl to get online, but she herself is also on the road.  I then
called her brother, but all he knows is the cross street.  I
talked to the hotel desk clerk, and all she can tell me was that I was
suppose to exit "Rosecrans" from the 5 freeway.  She couldn't tell
me how to get to the hotel from where I was calling at that time, and
kept insisting I head back for the freeway.

Rosecrans, Rosecrans, Rosecrans....why wasn't Camino Del Rio the exit? I mean, just look at the map... maps.yahoo.com or mapquest.com

So I drove around some more for about 20 minutes before I got to my
destination.  Took a quick run to the restroom, and by 7:45PM we were heading back for
home.  This time though, it's closer to what it should be; 110 miles
in 1 hour and 25 minutes.  We would have gone back sooner but the
freeway was going an average of 65mph (I want my average 80mph!).

CHAPTER THREE - the thing I originally had friday planned for

The concert that I'm going to that night already started at 7PM. 
By the time I got to the concert, it was already 9:40PM, and I was
praying that "Killswitch Engage" hasn't come on yet.  Luckily,
they haven't, although I missed the first two opening acts
completely.  The third act; "36 Crazy Fists," were still going
through the middle of their set when I got there.  I decided then
to go buy that KSE t-shirt I always wanted and went inside the crowded
room. 
By that time I was pretty much pretty darn tired for driving
practically SIX hours straight.  But for Killswitch, I was okay to
go.

Killswitch Engage played only for about one hour (10:25PM - 11:25PM),
which is kinda disappointing to me.  I'm used to bands like
Metallica playing over two hours of material, although that Shadow's Fall conert, they too only played for about an hour, but I digress.
One thing about KSE shows, for whatever reason, there are hot chicks
everywhere I look! Well, smooshed up  in the crowd together with
all the guys in the black shirts. Hot chicks here and there, and
dressed so nice. When
I'm in the crowd, there are hot chicks "accidentally bumping" into me
with whatever body parts it was, because there is no room to really
move
around in.....

This is actually the second KSE show I attended this year, with the
first one being this past spring. Between the two shows, I think I
liked the previous one better, but there are things in this gig that I
liked. The previous gig had a good set list but they didn't include
many of their new songs, while this gig they did which I like. The
previous gig Adam Dutkiewicz had funny short interludes between songs,
this gig they weren't as funny and they lasted too long (eating up time
for songs!). The previous gig I had the privacy of my own seat to go
headbanging, this gig I had to stand next to the mosh pit in the thick of
the crowd (I haven't been "the mosh pit wall" for a long time). 

All in all, this has been one tiring day for me.

Random Random Random Links!!! Lots of stuff today.

Blast destorys camera, flash card survives (article)

Mario mishaps (flash)

ahem...yeah...Carl's Jr commercial (video)

Get the car to the other exit (flash game)

For Newbies : what to bring to College (article)

Cat emoticons (pix)

That's one tough lady (video)

Pepsi's Breakout Max (flash game)

the 10 ridiculous Black Metal pics (article)

Eurotrip's "Scotty doesn't know" (flash)

Cartoon Reality TV (video)

Whatcha Got? (flash game)

404-Porn Not Found (html)

Fan made Robin movie trailer (video)

Panda pang!!! (shockwave game)

Go to concert or Please my woman : Take two

Truth be told, I am practically whipped by my girl, and I was this
<-> close to just giving in and tell her I'll do it.  I did
talk to her about it in our initial conversation, and she knows what it
means to me, to the point
where she said that'll she pick him up herself.  Which kinda sucks
for her because it's realistically more of a hassle for her (because of
her work) than it is for me (it's my day off). Obviously I felt
guilty about that, hence the conundrum and the xanga post.

But there's light in the tunnel here.  I checked again online to
see if it's still sold out, and I was lucky enough to get a "will call"
ticket for the concert.  The band I want to see itself doesn't
play 'till about 9pm (there's three opening acts), so if I pick up her
brother at 5pm - 6pm the latest (or earlier), that should give me time
to get back here just for them. I should be back to drop her brother
off at 8pm, which will then give me time to possibly get gas, drive,
park, and get the will call ticket for Killswitch Engage!  I guess
I'll just have to eat a nice lunch, 'cuz I'm not eating while driving.

I hope traffic doesn't kill this plan too much...

Right now I'm in a moral dilemma.  For quite awhile now, I've set
my sights on attending the Killswitch Engage concert on Friday night
(8/27).  Just recently, my girlfriend asked me if I can go pick up
her brother from San Diego on Friday.  If it was any other day I
would quickly say "sure," even though it's about a 210 miles round trip
drive.  But why does it have to be friday? why?  So far I
haven't commited to an answer yet, but I'm leaning towards "no," or
"can he wait until after the concert ends?" 

Sure it's easy to tell me to forget about the concert and help out the
girlfriend, but to me it's not that simple.  My taste in music for
one is not very similar to the people I know (like my girlfriend), and
I usually do not have an outlet to share that with anybody else
really.  Going to these concerts has always been a good release
for me, and I'll really be disappointed if I couldn't make it friday
night. 

But here's also the thing, I was not able to get a ticket for the
concert as it has sold out already.  I'm hoping that they have
tickets at the door for me to buy, but if I was to go to San Diego, I
wouldn't even be able to give myself that chance to try.  I want
to at least have that chance to try and get the ticket.  If it turns out that it is completely sold out,
then I have absolutely no problem picking up her brother.  But
then that's the thing isn't it?  I'll be able to pick him up as
early as 7:30pm or as late as 1am, depending on that.  I will
further think about this....

At work next month, we are having an awards event in the vein of the
oscars. What it basically does is give out awards and recognition to
the employees and their specialties.  Surprisingly enough, I've
been nominated in the Lead category for my department at my
company.  I've got to say that I'm really flattered that I've been
nominated, along with the four others for the Lead category. 
We'll see next month if I win.

speaking of leadership, check this out!!!

Maybe I'll try and do this again and see what happens....

Normally, I'm not a fan of big gatherings, but I always thought it was
simply because I was just selective to which gatherings I like to be
in. The past long weekend I had makes me second think that
explanation.  The first excuse was that I'm just quiet around a
large group, but that isn't entirely true either.  The second
excuse is that I don't have anything to say really, which I suppose is
a half truth.  My girlfriend even said that she can't shut me up
sometimes, so there's more to it than that.

In the past, I've been told that I can be too direct and callous about
my opinions at times.  I've also noticed that I tend to have
unpopular opinions about somethings, and I've been in conflict with
others because of that. I try and consciously refrain from speaking my
mind too much unless provoked to do so, because I quite honestly would
rather not get into heated arguments.  I suppose because of this
thinking I'm not into conversing in large crowds and it's kinda holding
me back a bit.  I'm pretty much in a "speak only when needed to"
mode when I'm around people. 

I guess I simply just need to find that proper balance to solve this "problem"..... that doesn't involve alcohol. We'll see how it goes, as I still have lots of events I need to attend to in the next weeks. To be continued....

The evening sky of Los Angeles, California.  aarrghhh the bloody sky of doom!!!!!

SRC="http://www.readingforresults.com/rating/pg13.jpg">
My
life is rated PG-13.
HREF="http://www.readingforresults.com/rating/quiz.htm" target="_new">What is your
life rated?

After watching Transformers 'till 2:30am, I was going, damn I need to
wake up at 6:30am.  So I went straight to bed. Unfortunately,
around 3am when I was already asleep, we get a black out. Damn frigging
black out!  So ofcourse I was up and about checking on stuff and
the dog to make sure everything is okay.  I think I ended up
actually sleeping at 4am.  I ended up waking up at about 7:30am,
and then half asleep 'till 8am, so forget my minimum 4 hours of sleep
rule.  The reason I needed to wake up early was because we were
going to shoot a video for my brother's wedding.

A couple of the sample videos that we could have done were "the matrix"
(uhhmm, no, too cheezy), "the Bachelor" (I'm NOT dressing in drag), and
a music video (we chose that).  The girls decided they wanted to
do "summer nights" from the grease soundtrack, but noone had the
CD.  By the time we bought the CD, it was already about 11:30am,
pretty much the time we figured we would have been done by.  So
much for lunch ey?  So we did our song and dance numbers (if you
would call that dancing) and we were done by about 2:30pm. 
Personally, I would have done things a little different, but hey, it's
not my wedding.