Updates......finally

Man, there are a lot of things I have let go to pot on this page, as much as I have been around a little more frequently these days, there are some things that I have just been letting slide. Now would seem to be a good time to fix that.

Starting with the ever so famous Joe Random update, barring an injury, it looks like I will crush my previous season bests in just about every statistical category. Last season was my best, with 30 HRs and 118 RBIs, but I spent beginning portion of that season in the minor leagues before catching a break when the starting third baseman went down and I was called up to the major league club. This year I started at the major league level, and after a slowish start, I have just been crushing the ball. We haven't even reached the All Star break yet and I have already hit 26 HRs and driven in 79. Heck, I am even stealing bases, having notched 9 of those.

It's not just me either, as I have the whole Devil Ray franchise just rolling along. In All Star voting I have the #2 and #4 starting pitchers, the #5 middle reliever, the #4 closer, the #1 and #5 first basemen, the #1 second baseman, the #1 shortstop, the #1 left fielder, and the #1 right fielder. It could be a banner year for the whole team if I don't get hurt.

I did knock off two of the three Pogo badges again this week. Technically I won three so far, as I got the bonus 36 badge in Poppa Zoppa, which is awarded if you clear the board on one streak, but since I have already won that badge, it wasn't a real big thing for me. Check that, I have also won the electric eel badge in Squelchies. I am not sure what rank it is, but I chose a Squelchies badge as a personal challenge, activate the blowfish 75 times, simply because I am running out of old badges to play for. At least ones that I want to play for. Thankfully they added Scrabble on Pogo the other day, so I have that to play also, not that I am very good at it, but the token spins kick as, I have hit 2000 and 5000 tokens in there on a spin.

See, we are catching up on some things here, I have updates Pogo and Joe Random so far. Next stop I guess would be the job hunt.

CSI Bentonville has finished with my urine anaylsis and save for trace amounts of bitterness and sarcasm, all came up clean, as I knew it would. Of course, that doesn't mean much as they called me to say that I could start my orientation at 8am Monday morning. The slight problem with that is I will, of course, be at work. Mind you, I made clear on my availability that I work mornings, apparently reading English is not a job requirement for management at Wal Mart. That being said, I continued dropping off applications this week, I would rather have more options than fewer. I sort of had a second interview on Friday. Wednesday while I was out taking a pee Target called me to see if I would be available for an interview. For those that are familiar with the 360 days, yes it was the same Target that I applied to previously. They are still as mismanaged now as they were then. I called thm Friday morning, as they said that they were doing interviews on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, and they had a couple of slots open Friday afternoon, so I chose the 2:30pm interview slot and after I got off at the radio station, I made my trek over to Target for the hastily scheduled interview. I got there around 2pm, so I just kind of strolled around the Waterfront to kill some time and showed up in the store around 2:20pm. I was told to wait in the food area, which was fine as far as I was concerned, I just sat down and read some more of my book, which is really good I might add, and waited. And waited. And waited. After about an hour and a half of no one so much as even acknowledging my existence I left. Who knows, they may have come looking for me for the interview after I left, but I think an hour and a half is more than enough time to either say that you are running behind or ask to reschedule, but to say or do nothing, well, fuck that. I got better things to do with my time.

I actually spent a decent amount of time on buses Friday. First I took the 36D downtown to leave work, then it was onto the 56B Hazelwood to get to the Waterfront, after ditching the interview I hopped aboard a 59U Waterfront - Oakland - South Side Works and figured I would stroll around the South Side for a bit. I ended up dropping off an application at South Side Steaks just because I saw a sign in the window. The next bus I wanted to take was a 54C South Side - Oakland - North Side, but I wasn't paying attention, so I ended up on a 51C instead headed back into downtown. That wasn't to bad, because it takes the number of buses I can take to get home from 1 to around 10, but it was, for the time being, going in the opposite directionthat I wanted to go. Having got into town I got the bright idea of visiting Rich instead of going home, so I hopped a 56E Greenfield instead of a bus back home. After chatting for a few hours and watching an episode of Deadliest Catch, it was back on the 56E to go back to town and while being dowtown relatively late at night (around 10:30 ish) would normally mean that the place was dead, the baseball game had just let out and people were everywhere for a change. Kids were playing in the fountain at PPG place, the restaurants were doing a nice late nite business for them, considering downtown usually pretty much closes up at 5pm, the weather was extremely comfortable, it was just one of those moments that was hard to describe, it was busy, yet peaceful. At least until I hopped on my last bus, a 71D Hamilton back to Oakland, which was packed to the gills with a bunch of kids that went to the ballgame. So much for peace. Still, 7 bus rides makes me think buying a bus pass was a good thing.

I busted out the pass again today, just chasing down a couple more job leads. May or may not lead to anything, after all, technically I have a Wal Mart job if they ever get my schedule straight, but I would rather have many offers than few. So I dropped of applications at Loews and Shootz Cafe, just to make me feel like I had accomplished something today besides sitting on my ass.

Okay, that update is out of the way, but there is more to come. Stay tuned.

I had to do a Leonard Nimoy "In Search Of...." to find my last change meter entry. I hope I got it right. In any event, I am adding .98 to the last total I could find, so the new total is $36.87. The disadvantage of not having a part time gig, this thing moves really slowly when I am not out and about as much. I should note that I did get to cash in another $30 in surveys though, including a big fat $12.50 survey regarding credit cards.

Recently I have been a real smartass. Well, I guess that is always the case, so in fact I have been more of a smartass than usual. Cases in point if you will. There was a news story that came out this week that women live 7 years longer than men. Mind you, this isn't much of a story for people that have even the most mundane understanding of life expectancy. But leave it to me to say that maybe it is because women drive us men to our graves. There, I think I just cut my readership at least in half. But wait, ther's more. Apparently Pittsburgh is hosting the Transplant Games this weekend. Basically it is an athletic competition for those people that in the past have had received organ transplants. Maybe my mind is the only one that works this way, but I just think the games would be better if the competitors were not transplant recipients, but rather people waiting for transplants and the winner gets an organ. It would be so much more competitive if there were say, kidneys on the line or something. And imagine the human interest stories that TV could run. I can see it now, a kid in need of a liver. He is in his living room, struggling to push out one or two more sit ups. Meanwhile his dad dangles a transplant cooler over his head screaming, "How bad do you want this?" That shit would be priceless, certainly better than what passes for TV nowadays.

Before I forget, I am down an Asshat from last week. And really, I can't point the finger at any one person, because so many were responsible, but once again the Asshat crown goes to the media, at least those outlets that bought into the farce of a story that was the man who had a baby. Time out here, I know that biology wasn't my best subject in high school, but last I checked, men do not have vaginas,. Now if this Assclown would have squeezed a kid out ye olde penis hole, then we got a story, but a man with a vagina and a uterus is a woman, much to the media's dismay and every idiotic new outlet than ran with the headline that a man had a baby is complicit in the Asshat Award this time around.

Well, I am going to go do half of the Richard Simmon's workout and Sweat a little, because it is very muggy here, even at 11:30pm. Nite all.