B365V2.98 - Definitely a me kinda day

Well, all I can say about today is that it definitely turned out as a me kind of day.  I woke up around 10am, did the shower thing but still couldn't get the goop out of my eyes, they felt wet for the better portion of the morning.  Still, rather than sit there and be distracted by my iPad all day I got myself moving and decided to once again take in a Kelly O's breakfast.  It has been far too long since I made a Strip District run and with the weather being gorgeous and an influx of students in Oakland, it seemed a fine time for a morning relocation.

I get over to Kelly O's around noon and they hand me a new menu.  I didn't spend all that much time checking and rechecking to see if they made any changes, it felt like an eggs kind of day, so I got the OMG breakfast, which is two eggs, sausage, ham or bacon, shredded potatoes or hash browns and toast.  Yes I am fat, what of it?

After a delicious breakfast and washed down with two cups of coffee I went about exploring in the Strip, stopping first at Grandpa Joes candy shop.  It is one of those places where you can pick up lots of old time and novelty candles and they have a large selection of glass bottle sodas as well.  So I was doing my homework, seeing if they had anything that might be worth carrying in our store.  Some items they had we had previously, like Bawl's soda and Cheerwine, others we already have like the Bruce Cost line of ginger ales (which are delicious if you don't mind having real ginger floating in the bottom of your bottle) and stuff from Natrona Bottling, which is made locally.  We had reps in our store when they first came out but I took a pass on their product line.  We do have limits on our space, so the things I want are the things I know I can sell.  Natrona may have the best tasting sodas on the market, but they will never beat Pepsi or Coke, nor will they flatter us with an offer like 7 up did to get space in the store.

Anyway I did my snooping in the candy store and then left to go on other adventures.  I stopped in a couple of the Pittsburgh centric clothing stores to look at Penguins hats, hockey season is approaching after all.  After that it was a trip to Scratch and Dent, the grocery liquidator place in the Strip.  Trips there are hit and miss, it depends on what they can get their hands on that is either past its sell by date or was overstocked items that they could get on the cheap.  Some times the store will have plenty of things, other times it will be completely empty.  Today was one of the good days.   I bought some fixins to make my crock pot chili (2.5 lb bag of chicken breasts $6.00, kidney beans 2/$1, and fire roasted tomatoes 1.49 a can).  I also snagged some other things that I like, the family size box of Chocolate Toast Crunch ($2.99), and two six packs of candy bars (.99 each).  I almost bought the mint chocolate chip cookie dough, but my apartment is warm enough without firing up the oven.  If it is anything like the red velvet cookie dough they had earlier this year though, that shit was yummo.

Then I got home and checked my bank account and I had $50 more than I thought, which is always a good thing.  Plus I managed to finish a book, hopefully I will have it on the shelf to the right before you read this.  Who am I kidding, I don't even read this so I am safe on that front.  And today was the first fantasy football draft of the year for me, I have one more later in this week.  Today's was for my work league, the one later this week is for the Pittsburgh bloggers group I am in.  The results of the first draft I already posted, overall I think I like my team.  Getting Tom Brady late because everyone is worried about his pending suspension was huge for me, when he comes back he is going to be one pissed off hombre.

Anyway I better get my ass up off of this bench before I leave an ass print here.  But all in all, it was a pretty good Sunday.

B365V2.97 - Rough drafts

This is the blog entry for my first fantasy football draft of the year, this is the league I am in at work.  I have done no research leading up to this, I haven't picked up a guide or magazine, nor have I visited any of the numerous fantasy sites where you can get tips on players.  Just checked the online draft client and my laptop is compatible so no need to download anything, that is good.

Looks like I got the 8th spot in the draft this year.  That's good for me because I don't know who the hell I would have taken if I went 1 or 2 and by the time the draft snaked back around to me all of the good players would have been gone. Each week you have to field a team consisting of 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 TE, 1 K and 1 DEF and one player that can either be a WR or RB.  There are bench spots as well, mostly to cover bye weeks.    Draft begins in 20 minutes and I am the first one in the draft room.  Fashionably early you might say.  So I will play some MPQ while I wait.

I should have went to the bar to do this draft, then it would have been just like old times when I ran the fantasy league for the bar for almost a decade, but then people moved away and grew up (the horror!) and the league slowly fell apart.  Those were the days.  I think a couple of our seasons are still on the web some place.  I found them here and here.
It was Argonauts in both those leagues, it is a name I use for all of my fantasy sports teams.

1st round  Antonio Brown WR PGH
2nd rd  Dez Bryant WR  DAL
3rd rd Emmanuel Sanders WR DEN
4th rd  Frank Gore  RB IND
5th Ameer Abdullah RB DET
6th Matthew Stafford QB DET
7th Rashad Jennings RB NYG
8th Larry Fitzgerald WR ARI
9th Tom Brady QB NE
10th rd Arizona Cardinals DEF
11th rd  Owen Daniels  TE DEN
12th rd Ryan Matthews RB PHI
13th rd  Mike Wallace WR MIN
14th rd Darren McFadden  RB DAL
15th rd  Sebastian Janikowski  K  OAK

B365V2.96 - Saturday night's all right for what?

Back in the park downtown again, it is a little late to be feeding the birds, so I had my dinner all to myself, a turkey and provolone sandwich with a side of potato salad.

Wow, there is this really tall girl standing by the fountain. She is either wearing very high heels or she has got the Apache Chief thing from the Superfriends going on something serious.  There I go again, dating myself with obscure cultural references that the audience (what little of one there is) will have to look up in order to understand.

Work was a long day today, made even longer by my lack of motivation to be there.  I hadn't even made it in when the phone started ringing, "Matt, the atm isn't working right", so I let out a subtle groan to myself and made my way in.  Fixed the arm, fixed the instant ticket machine, it jammed on a $20 bill on the overnight shift, loaded the milkshake machine with milkshakes straws and spoons.  I don't know what the fuck Sammy is doing there on Saturdays but if I have to come in and do his job then I don't need him clogging up payroll an extra day.  And with Ed leaving for Florida this coming week, those will now be my calls to make.  When I spend a good hour pulling shit out of the basement upstairs to be sold, then I am doing someone else's job, and if I have to do that, then I don't need them.

I also had to make chicken, tuna and egg salad for the deli, break down two weeks worth of invoices for our accountant so people can get paid, go through a bunch of shelf tags and update prices, and place three different orders.  On top of which one of the toes on my right foot feels like I am starting to get an ingrown toenails or something.  It isn't a permanent pain but maybe every five minutes or so it feels like someone is jabbing a pin into my toe.  So once I got to the park tonight I kicked off the shoes and socks, just to take some pressure off of it.  If there is an ingrown issue, I can't spot it with my naked eye, or a fully clothed eye for that matter.    So it will be one of those annoying pains that I just learn to live with for a while.

I did see something today at work, something which I at least thought was funny.   Was outside having a cigarette, just minding my ps and qs when a couple walked past the store.  Anyone who knows anything about our location knows there is a porn shop directly above us, sex toys, blow up dolls, DVDs, and video booths.  Apparently the male of this couple was looking for a job and said something to the female because she looked at him and said, " You want to be a cum scraper?" In reference to what takes place in the video booth portion of that business.  Trust me, if I had that job, you better be giving me a fucking Hazmat suit to clean the porn booths.  That is more than windex and paper towel duty there.

I complain about my job but there are worse jobs out there.  Then again I did work at the Original Hot Dog Shop for over 6 years, so I have had worse jobs.

Really though, I don't get it, I hear people complain about a lack of jobs, yet every day at work I have companies coming in that can't keep good people.  I am not talking about small independent places like mine either, Coke and Pepsi both have said that they can't get drivers.  Mind you my Coke order 3 weeks ago came in a Ryder rental truck.  Why, because they didn't have enough of their own drivers.  I know of at least one other vendor that is also short handed in that department and another vendor who needs quality sales people.  So when I get off of work and people start trying to bum money off of me, I am almost always like, "No fucking way".  I am ready to make a swap with Mexico where we take able bodied Mexicans who want to work and trade them for lazy pice of shit Americans who don't.

Oh well, it is getting late and I should be making my way home now.  Besides, as I am walking to the bus stop I am realizing how many places downtown smell like piss.  America's Most Livable City my ass.

B365V2.95.- TGIF

I can't explain, and I am really not sure I wasn't to.  I just know I went to sleep last night shortly after my trip to the park and posting my blog entry and I slept rather peacefully.  This is not the norm, usually I am up and down a couple of times a night.  But whatever was happening, and I remember nothing about my dream, I woke up happy, if somewhat irked that what woke me up was the phone, work calling to ask me about an order to be, but whatever it was I was dreaming about, the only feeling I can recall was that it was somewhat funny, like I was laughing a lot.

And it felt pretty good I must admit, been a little while since I was in that frame of mind.  With that mindset I crawled back into bed for another hour, then got up and got about the business of tackling the day.  

Everything at work went off like clockwork, just how things are supposed to go.  And now, rather than think about big things I am sitting here feeding birds potato chips and typing, just trying to keep my focus as narrow as possible and remain in this good mental place as long as is possible.  It is one of those days where I am glad I don't work in radio, because God knows the jabbering would have been all about gun control again.  You know the party line around these parts, dead people are just the cost of doing business.  I've said it after Sandy Hook, after VA Tech, after the Giffords shooting and now after the shooting of a reporter on live TV, dead people are just the cost of doing business.  For those that think the NY Daily News was tasteless for their cover the other day, which included images from the shooters body camera that he posted online shorty after his rampage, well I am sorry the world isn't sanitized for your protection.  Images such as those need to be everywhere and not censored, just so that we may someday get a better understanding of just how far down the rabbit hole we have already gone.  None of this out of sight, out of mind cramp that we peddle as being sensitive, the images the NY Daily News ran on their cover need to be plastered on billboards everywhere, at least until we get a clue that we are the only nation that puts up with this shit.

Radio would have made for a very easy three hours today, but it would have just been the same repetitive drumbeat of nonsense that it always is.  Thanks but no thanks, I will stick with my current job.

Speaking of the current job, Ed is leaving next week sometime.  He broke the news to me today, he is headed back to Florida for the winter.  Last year at this particular moment I was nervous and doubting my ability to run things, but now not so much.  I will miss Ed, but I have no doubt that I can run this place by myself if I have to, though I am sure Brian will be more hands on once his dad leaves.  Plus without Ed I will have to work more hours, which means more money for vacation and getting the hell out of here.  I have got about 1/5 of the money put away I think I will need, of course I haven't paid for my passport application yet, or my passport photo for that matter.  I figure I have time for that stuff, tenatively I would like to go in Feb, missing a week in Pittsburgh in winter is not a bad thing after all.  I would just have to train someone to do what I do in my absence.  

The only problem I see with a vacation is what I would call the " cocaine" problem, once I get a taste of not being here I will not want to come back.   I managed to not develop a cocaine habit, not because of any particular health reason, but simply because I would see it costing me too much money long term.  Otherwise I would be a junkie.  I admit it, it felt awesome.

At some point remind me to retell the cocaine story, just not today because I have prattled on long enough.  Time for me to go home and make something to eat. 

I almost forgot to mention that the former home of the 110 (Smithfield employees drinking bar of choice because it was right across the street from us) is about to become a Mexican restaurant.  I suppose it would be too much to ask the gods that control such things for a return of the Sexican as well?  Dare to dream, Matt, dare to dream. 

B365v2.94 - Fixations

We start today's entry off with an update of sorts, adding another $2.26 to the change meter to bring the total to $635.10.

With the bookkeeping out of the way it is best I go about the business of blogging from Schenley Park tonight.  I tried blogging in the park downtown earlier, but just couldn't get into a vibe for it.  Truth be told I am still not in a vibe for it, this place is missing the peace and quiet of Elderton.  Tonight would be one of those nights where I would just lay out in the grass of the back field of the trailer park (spoiler alert, I am trailer people) and just sit there and look up and at the stars and think.  Pittsburgh and my life these days doesn't allow for that type of introspection, far too many noises and distractions get in the way.  When your bus on the way to work nearly holds as many people as your entire hometown then you get the difference between here and there.  There you are a quick walk into the woods away from getting away from all of the noises and distractions, here that is not quite as easy.  It's one of the reasons I need to get that vacation I have been planning, I need out of here in the worst way.  I need time away to clear my head,recharge my mental batteries and come back a new person.

Plus I need to get out of the funk that I have been in.  I can't sit here and say I am depressed because I am not.  And there enough good things going on that I can't complain too much, but still I have been trying to put a finger on why I am so off, for lack of a better word.  On my bus ride home from work and my trip to the park downtown I came across a revelation as to what may be my problem, I get fixated on things too easy.

Prime example, today Brian scheduled an audit for the Pa lottery.  Basically they come in and count the tickets and what not and give us a number as to what we would owe the lottery if we were to shut it off today.  The last time they had done an audit was as far back as a decade ago, long before I even started working with the company.  Still I take responsibility for anything that has happened since I have been in charge, so to say I was shocked when I heard how the audit turned out, I was nonplussed to say the least.  The number came up as over $17,000.  The rest of the day I was stuck on that number, almost to the point that I forgot everything else. Ed tried to reassure me, saying it wasn't my fault, it was a problem from before I got there, but I kept running through my head places where I might have screwed up.  I can't think of anything that I have done over the last year and couple of months that would constitute a 17,000 fuck up.  God knows if I had made off with that kind of cash I wouldn't be living in an efficiency apartment in Oakland.

In my heart of hearts (if I have a heart) I do know Ed doesn't blame me and I am worrying about nothing in the grand scheme of things, but I think of the people that had my job before me that I worked with and I can't say that they would strike me as people that would make that kind of mistake either, nor would I expect them to steal that amount of money.  So I don't know what happened, but it just eats away at my brain.

Likewise there are some other things that I can't push to the back of my cranium, which is where they need to reside as opposed to front and center.  It was one of the reasons I was looking forward to lunch with Debbie this week, so I could get some good advice that I eventually would not follow and regret afterward.  But Debbie's mom fell down this past week, her mom has more health issues than mine and her stepdad has health issues as well (Alzheimer's if I am correct) which means that Debbie has her hands full so we had to postpone our lunch outing.  What can I say, there are only a handful of people who I trust with my inner workings, and I will not spew those forth on the page.  Sorry, but not for public consumption.

B365v2.93 - A love affair of sorts

I'm back baby.  I just got back from picking up the repaired iPad from the fine folks at IbreakuFix in Bloomfield (unlike those fuckers at Cellhelmut, who inspired me to join yelp just so I could write a shitty review about them) and everything seems to be running very smoothly.  

My relationship with my iPad has been a hate/love one.  At first I thought I would have no use for it, but as time wore on, well I was mistaken.

Back in my early Facebook days I was prone to liking all kinds of stupid things and making friends with anyone I shared using an app with.  So while I have 800+ friends, not all of them are real, honest to goodness friends.  There are people on my list who use Swagbucks, there are people who used to use the now defunct app Scratchix (where you got more scratch off tickets based on the number of active friends you had) being the two largest places where I met some like minded people,my hat being people who like free shit.

I also liked some local businesses and what not and entered contests on their sites.  Isaly's was one where they had a trivia contest, the first 5 people who could answer three trivia questions correctly would win two tickets to a Penguins - Coyotes game.  Apparently I google faster than most people because I was one of the winners.  I don't even remember the questions, I know one of them had to deal with Sidney Crosby's first NHL game, and what other significant thing happened that night (It was Michel Thierren's first game as coach for Pittsburgh).

Along the same line, while I was busy liking things on Facebook, I liked Mrs T's Pierogis.  Most likely because I love pierogis.  In fact if you are ever courting me (which anyone who reads this blog would concur would be a very bad idea) bring me pierogis and you have a big chance of winning over my heart.  Anyway while I was on their page one day I saw something about a Digital Utensil contest.  Apparently if you listed a way you like your pierogis done as a comment it would enter you into a contest to with a 6 month supply of pierogis and an iPad mini, which was presumably the digital utensil of which the contest was named.  Perhaps they expected me to be standing over my stove with the iPad in one hand cooking with the other some unique pierogi recipe I found online, I don't know.  

But low and behold, I was one of the winners.  I won the pierogis and the iPad.  Honestly when I won, I was more geeked about the free food, which turned out to be 6 coupons for boxes of Mrs T's.  Hardly a 6 moth supply for the likes of me, but appreciated nonetheless.  The iPad was a nice throw in, but I had my laptop and thought, what the hell would I do with an iPad anyway.

So my prizes came, albeit I had issues with the claim form, it got lost in the mailbox at Kinkos/Fedex and spent an inordinate amount of time exchanging emails with the PR firm that was managing the contest.  In fact they received my claim form late but but because I had done my due diligence on my end of things they held my prizes for me rather than reaward them to someone else.  So I had in my grubby little paws an iPad mini and 6 coupons for free boxes of pierogis.

I used the coupons at work (you don't know me very well if you think I would not stock a store without pierogis to begin with) but the iPad sat in its box for months before I finally took it out and started playing with the features on it.  Once I do however I fell in love with it.  It took the place of my laptop at work, it went on trips with me and acted as my camera, I was downloading podcasts to listen to while at work or on the road,  because I have wireless internet in my apartment, it became my de facto laptop at home as well.  Sure I still used my laptop, but with the apps I had downloaded I was able to watch TV via Crackle, watch the cameras at work via logmein and start my addiction with Marvel Puzzle Quest.  The iPad went from something I expected to never use to a tool I couldn't function without.  

Then the unthinkable happened, I cracked the screen when I dropped it.  I took it to Cellhelmut in Oakland.  After all they were one of the businesses featured on Shark Tank (one of my favorite TV shows) certainly they wouldn't be scam artists would they?  Well I will leave that for you to decide, I don't do reviews here after all, but if I did I would warn you to stay the fuck away from them.  I took the iPad in on a Friday looking for a screen replacement.  I demonstrated for the clerk at the counter that it worked by logging into it and what not and they told me because I brought it in on a Friday and they didn't have the glass on hand to fix it, it would be Monday or Tuesday until it was back in my hands.  Monday rolls around and because they are in Oakland I stopped by on my way home from work, I thought I would check to see if the repairs were done.  They weren't which caused me a little concern because of my reliance on it, but I figured it would be done the next day, so I went home empty handed but hopeful.  On Tuesday again I stopped by their store, this was the outside estimate that they gave me originally, but again it wasn't done, they claimed they were short staffed and didn't get to it yet. So I stop by again on Wednesday, this time I am told they are fixing it, but it is apart on the table and wouldn't be ready until Thursday.  Finally I go in on Thursday and they tell me the motherboard is broke. Mind you it worked fine when I turned it over to them, not it doesn't work at all.  They tell me I can have it back if I want at no charge, to which I replied what charge you took a functioning machine and now it doesn't, you are handing me the proverbial box of rocks.   They offered to look online for me for a replacement motherboard, which they expected me to pay for, to which I said no, you have done enough already.  Instead I went online and bought a new iPad mini off of Amazon.  Simply because I had gotten to the point where I couldn't function without one, I was keeping notes for work on mine, like passwords to bank accounts and the multiple safes we have amongst other things.  

So I am on my second iPad and the other day I am sitting in Mellon Square doing my blog or playing an app, just relapsing after work and the iPad slips out of my hands and lands face down on the concrete.  The glass spider cracked everywhere, to the point that if I used a finger as opposed to my stylus to go from screen to screen I risked putting a splinter into my hand.  Another repair was called for, but I knew better than to trust the assclowns in my neighborhood (Cellhelmut) so I looked online and there was an outfit called UbreakiFix and they had a store in Pittsburgh that wasn't to inconvenient for me in Bloomfield.  So I took it in on Tuesday afternoon and by today I had it back and all is good. I got new glass with a warranty and all of the bells and whistles see to work as well. And so I am back to blogging on it as well, this is actually an iPad note that I will mail to myself and copy and paste from my email (blogger is not tablet friendly, and I have made that complaint to the fine folks at Google about that) but rest assured the love affair between me and my iPad continues.

B365V2.92 - Timing

Okay, so I managed to get my ass up and meander over to the park. This is more of a challenge than it would seem, what with me being sans tablet and all. But tonight I opted for one of the picnic tables under the pavilion and my laptop. It is my first ever out of the apartment sojourn for the laptop, so lets all give it a great big round of applause, shall we?

But knowing I was going to be sans tablet, I didn't want to try typing with my laptop on my lap, that was how I dropped the tablet for goodness sake, so I wanted to wait until I knew the pavilion would be cleared out so I could use a table. The tablet hopefully will be fine, it was working when I dropped it off today, which is a story unto itself, but the glass was all kinds of spidery cracked and I didn't want to put a splinter into one of my fingers so I figured best get that issue cleared up now than leave it continue unabated.

Anyway, I was out after work yesterday sitting in the park downtown, as opposed to now when I am in Schenley (no wifi here, boo hiss) and I was looking at places to do replacement glass for an iPad and I stumbled across Ubreakifix, and they had a local store in Bloomfield. For those not in the know of the region, Bloomfield is Pittsburgh's Italian section, Yes, Pittsburgh is just like most other cities in that the populations back in the day segregated themselves. Bloomfield=Italians, Polish Hill=Polish, Squirrel Hill=Jewish, etc, etc.

Enough with the geography already, though I do wish someone would do a story about Pittsburgh's Chinatown at some point, it got lost in the annals of our history, all that is left is a few architectural remnants in downtown but unless you knew it was once there, you would never know. But anyway, I digress, I was telling a story here. So I find the company and I find their website. On the site it allows you to make appointments in advance, though you are also allowed to just drop things off. I see that they have an availability for 2:30 on Tuesday, and I think to myself, if I bust my ass I might be able to pull that off, so I go ahead and make the appointment.

Then today happened. I get two more orders thrown at me on top of the one I already have to do, no surprise there, they didn't slow me up all that much. But this secondary wholesaler that Ed wants me to deal with is a giant pain in my ass. There trucks are always late, they don't have half of the shit I need, their item book for what they do have is so mislabeled that you can't tell if you are ordering a single piece item or a case of them. Around 1pm have all of my orders done and all I have left to do is the sales numbers. Simple right? Well, no. The rep from the new wholesaler comes in and starts hogging Ed's time, so I can't give him the sales numbers to finish until this bitch shuts the fuck up. Bad enough her delivery driver still haasn't shown up yet, now they are making my day even worse by getting in my way of finishing things.

She does leave (finally) I give Ed the sales numbers to be reviewed and he gives them back to me with some adjustments he made and I start doing my math to complete the process and get out of Dodge so to speak. I have finished balancing everything and am just ready to put the money into the deposit bag for the bank when I get a message from upstairs, “Do you have any change we could by?', so I have to riup apart the one deposit that was done, pull the fives and ones out of it and sell those back to the store, replace the money and put the deposit back together. Then I make the trek to the bank, which is a few blocks, nothing major, but until I get there it is already 2pm.

Now I am familiar enough with the transit system here that I can get the right bus to go on to get from point A to point B, but I have not nor will I ever, internalize the bus schedules for each and every bus in town. I know I have to catch an 86 Liberty, I rode it before when Amanda and I went to Tessaro's (great burgers if you are in the area by the way, also awesome ribs) before a hockey game, and the next bus to leave downtown was at 2:15pm. Well till I got out of the bank and walked across town to get a bus stop for the 86, I had missed that one and they run every half hour, so I was going to miss my 2:30 appointment. Plus it has been a long time since I lived in Bloomfield, one day we should do an apartment tracker of all of the places I have lived in Pittsburgh, so while I know Liberty Avenue well enough, I don't know where the business is located on Liberty. Technically Liberty Avenue runs all the way into downtown and the bus runs along it for most of its route (thus the Liberty in 86 Liberty, us Pittsburghers are clever people like that) .

Uh oh, the drug truck just pulled up, don't know if he spotted me since I am not on my normal bench. But a person got out, I should start praying to my Tanuki God that this will not be my demise.

Anyway, I find the business okay and drop the tablet off, then catch another 86 back into town. All told the trip to and fro with the bak run thrown in was maybe an hour and a half. But I still have the bank deposit slips in my pocket, I need to file away the lottery deposit and finish my paperwork at the store. Except when I get back the Coke rep is waiting for me, no one thought to walk him through and do an order so they left him there for me to deal with. And the order I was waiting for arrived, again the number of people who bothered to check it in could be counted on zero fingers. I often wonder why the hell we pay these people to begin with.

S there is a pile of work waiting for me when I get back, first I take the Coke rep through and do his order with him. Sammy deals with most of the beverage ordering when he took over my old job, but ever since the great Coke mishap which he was party to, I now handle that particular vendor. See, Ed likes to get his way and if he doesn't get his way he will shut a vendor off entirely. Well many moons ago after I got promoted there was an issue with Coke pricing, certain items were changing in price, we weren't granted access to other particular items which we believed would sell in our store. I don't know what went into that particular contract, I haven't negotiated very many of them for the store but apparently it goes into the classification of the store and tiered pricing structures and elemenst that aren't part of tiers and yada, yada, yada. Add to the fact that Ed was once again led astray by a female who helped create the clusterfuck, and Ed got pissed off enough that he said fine, no more Coke orders. After a bit cooler heads prevailed and we were once again allowed to order Coke products. Mind you there coolers at this point were practically empty and the issue of getting us an order so we could go back to being where we need to be fell to Sammy. In retrospect I should have done it and saved us all a lot of aggravation, but there was a lot of shit on my plate at that time, I was running our Oakland store (Gus Millers for those of you who have no recall) and helping Dee run Smithfield, so I let Sammy handle it. After the Coke rep came in and left Sammy came into the office and proclaimed that placed a really big order, 300 cases of product. My first thought was this is going to end very badly, and it did.

At the time Pepsi was our biggest supplier and we would get anywhere between 150 and 200 cases a week from them, most of which would be .99 1 liter bottles of Brisk teas (our clientele goes for the cheap stuff I have learned) so to order 300 cases from a secondary vendor seemed to be a little much. And it was. Which started the second great Coke fight, when they would take back all of the out of date stuff we had when we never sold all of the giant order Sammy made. He blamed the rep for it, and she should share some of the blame, she had a history on her handheld unit for what a typical order for us would consist of, so 300 cases should have set off alarm bells in her head and when the product didn't move for weeks on end they should have made an effort to take it back and possibly resell it elsewhere. But to this day Sammy thinks he did nothing wrong and hates dealing with Coke, so that falls on my plate till the end of time.

So when I get back from Bloomfield, there is the Coke rep sitting, waiting to have someone walk through an order with him. So I do that, then I deal with the order from the wholesaler, which nobody even bothered to check in. If they would have shorted us on any item there would be no way to fix it, because someone signed off on it without even checking to see if we got everything. So after finishing with the Coke vendor I put the truck away that came in in my absence.

Next up was something Ed wanted me to look into regarding the new smart cards that banks are issuing. I guess they are putting micro chips in debit and credit cards and I had to contact our register people and see if these new cards would be a problem with our registers, since our car swipers (Swiper, no swiping) are on the terminals themselves. And Ed wanted me to look into getting text to pop up on some of the cameras, so that when a person was run up at the register, the text of the transaction would appear as well. Why he want me to do this I don't know, his computer in Florida can't watch the store. Mind you I can, I can even do it on my tablet, but Ed has no computer skills, His knowledge of how to operate a computer would be on par with my knowledge of thermonuclear dynamics. But if he says he wants something, then I should at least make a feeble attempt to make it happen, so I fire off an email to Art over at Roth cash register and he is apparently still in the office because he gets right back to me via the phone and we start talking and what not, he starts working on his camera issue as well as a reporting question I had. So I have ll of my ducks in a row, I finish my paperwork and I get out of work around 5:30, a good 3.5 hours after when I wanted to be done for the day. Ah, the joys of management.

I go outside to catch my bus to go home, it is only 15 minutes late just to add to the fun of my day. I get home, eat a sandwich and watch DOOL on the computer and fall asleep listening to Spotify (The Alarm to be precise, more proof that I am old). To think there was a time when it was curious which band would be bigger coming out of the UK, U2 or The Alarm. But I closed my eyes, put a fan next to me and climbed under a blanket right there on my apartment floor. So getting up and trudging to the park with the laptop in tow was a bit of an exercise for me because usually once I lay down I am off duty for the rest of the day or night.

Anyway I should have the tablet back either Wednesday or Thursday and I ave lunch with Debbie and the kids to look forward to this week, which is good, because I need things to look forward to, because this week is off to a shitty start.

B365V2.91 - Christmas in August (Hopefully)

The blinking cursor on the screen is taunting me again.  It is saying, fuck you, I know you have nothing to say but I am just going to sit here and keep blinking until you actually type something.  But today was pretty much an uneventful day.

Work went about as smoothly as a Monday can, now that Ed added another order day for me to the schedule. Thankfully that order doesn't have to be in until 6pm, so it waited until I have everything else done before I placed it.  Not that I ever need much on Monday to begin with, I place an order on Saturday that comes in on Monday so the only things I could possibly need are whatever we may have sold out of between Saturday when I placed the last order and Monday, provided I didn't order those missing things on Saturday to begin with.  It is basically an exercise in futility, but as I often say at work, "it's another fine day serving the Empire."  I really do need to get that one a T shirt, preferably with the visage of a stormtrooper.

Still waiting on my hockey tickets, though single game sales haven't even started yet and the game I am going to isn't until December.  I am just far more comfortable with tickets in hand than to be at the whims of others.  I shouldn't worry though, in theory 7 Up owes us the seats, based on our contract with them.  All I have to do is keep Ed from pissing them off between now and December and we should be good to go.  We have already pissed Pepsi off, so there goes my chance of scoring tickets for the Steelers, Stage AE or Kennywood for the foreseeable future.  Thankfully they haven't done anything with the Pepsirewardsplus account.  Check that, I can't get that to work either.  "Fuck me, bend me over and fuck me."  I quoted that because that is another line I am fond of using at work, either that or "Bend me over, ride me like a carousel."  I think you get that they both mean the same thing.

Anyway, provided 7 Up comes through, and they most likely will (but this is hockey and hockey > life) the view from the seats will look like this

Yes, they have little TV monitors every other seat, so you can watch different in house feeds or you can watch regular cable TV if you so desire (though why would you watch TV at a hockey game?) and provided Brian McGee is there (he almost always is) then 7 Up pays for everything, But even if he isn't, it's not like I am going to turn down hockey because I have to buy my own nachos and Labatts.  Hell you don't even have to go and get it in the box, they have servers bring it to you.  All you have to do is sit up there all Emperor of Rome like and offer a thumbs down to anyone you want fed to the lions.

There, I found a picture on Facebook of the view from the seats as opposed to the artist rendering of said seats.  I am so geeked for this game.  December can't get here soon enough.  Hell, I may even call it a Christmas present to myself.  Besides, as I learned from yesterday's post, pictures increase blog traffic. 

B365V2.90 - Picture pages revisited

Yes I took the camera out today on my venture to Heinz Field to watch the Steelers - Packers preseason tilt.  I had no real desire to go, the game doesn't mean anything, the real starters would play maybe a half and I am all kinds of TLC when it come to watching scrubs  . But I figure it is a free ticket and if I have free anything, hell, I will go watch cock fighting for a minute at least, just because it is free.   Bobby had another of the free tickets, Sammy and his girlfriend Lisa had the other two, so I told Bobby I would meet him at work and we could go over to the stadium together.

Of course I get downtown early,  so I head over to my spot in Mellon Square and play some MPQ, just to see if I couldn't score another good cover or two, which I didn't, my roster is very much the way it started the day.

                                         My spot, you can't have it.

So we meet up and start the walk over to the stadium, we took a route similar to getting to PNC Park, where meaningful games are being played these days, unlike preseason football

Then we followed the Riverwalk down to the Heinz Field

Where I learned we had best get ready for the invasion of our avian overlords, which is coming soon to a metropolis near you

Lots of people out today, even if the stadium seemed empty for a Steeler game, perhaps some people had the same idea I did regarding scrubs.  Instead there was lots of tailboating, or boatgating or whatever you call the process of drinking on a boat.

                                          Those people in the river better have their tetanus shots.

                                           Still others came by car

                                      One family even made their dog swim to the game, how fucked up is that? 

But we made it to the game after trekking to the gate that would get us closest to our seats, having had the company football tickets before I knew where we were going.

The seats were good, but the free is always good, but still here is a few views from the company seats at Heinz Field

At some point we must have scored, I wasn't really paying attention, I was trying to keep my eyes open after another sleepless night.  I stayed up and watched a documentary on Big Star, because I am a nerd like that and you most likely aren't.  But they put this on the scoreboard, and they don't usually do that for any old reason.

I actually had to get up after three quarters, if I didn't I would have fallen asleep, and the public does not need to hear me snore.  The crazy Canadian taped me snoring one night, but trust me the best time we had together was usually when I was sleeping anyway.  If it kept her awake, then bonus points for me and I am keeping score.

 So I meandered as only I can do, and took some more pictures, because I had my camera, why the hell not?

The Great Hall, because forget the French and Indian War, or the Revolutionary War, or our role during the Civil War, the only history that matters in this town is the Steelers won 4 Super Bowls in 6 years some 40 years ago motherfuckers. If you're not down with that I got two words for ya (insert DX crotch chop), suck it!

They played hockey here once too, and as we all know hockey > football.

Okay, some helpful advice for the guys out there, does you manhood ever seem like this

And you want it to be more like this

Well then stop by Smithfield News and and try one of these bad boys right here

If your erection lasts longer than 4 hours, let people ride it like a pogo stick before calling a doctor.  Might as well enjoy it while it lasts, right?

Finally I was getting hungry and thought about taking a quick trip through Market Square to La Gondola, only my favoritest pizza shop in all of downtown Pittsburgh.  Back in the day (a phrase us old folks are allowed to use with reckless abandon) they had one of those old school jukeboxes with vinyl 45s in it.  I would always go in and play "World Shut Your Mouth" by Julian Cope  but kids today and their music, don't get me started.  Anyway the jukebox is long since gone and as I could see here, the pizza shop was closed.

So I settled for a keilbassa from work, which hit my stomach like someone was poking it with a dagger, and walked back to my blogging spot to reply to some comments on this page.  Yes, honest to goodness comments.  I had to do a double take myself.  But I answered most of them, I do not ignore anyone who takes the time to write something on here, in case you were wondering.

And that was Sunday in picture form. 

B365V2.89 - Tuxedos and travel plans

I don't know what I am doing here.  I have been sitting in Mellon Square for two hours now.  I know this because I can tell time.  With a clock and everything.

I have this numbing pain in my head right now.  It has come from one of two things, or a combination of them, 1) I have smoked too many cigarettes today.  Save me the lecture of how one is too many, I am living and dying on my own terms, not yours. 2) I haven't eaten enough today.  That doesn't mean I am starving, I am not some malnourished kid in a ditch with flies buzzing around him while Sally Struthers tells you, "You know, for just .30 a day, Matt could get all of the food he needs."  Great, so if three people donate, that means I get my .30 ration and that bitch is living large on .60.  But I am closer to "Fat Camp" contestant than I am to dying of starvation.

Remind me some day to do a glossary for you kids so you know just what the hell it is I am talking about.  For the record "Fat Camp" is what I call "The Biggest Loser".  Mind numbing reality television at its finest, where everyone can sit at home and feel good about themselves because they aren't as fat as the people on TV.

A school bus just pulled up outside the hotel here and a wedding party is getting out.  Yes I remember riding B19 to Elderton High School thinking if we tricked this ride out it would be the perfect thing for my wedding some day.  Some spinnie rims and a pissed off driver who has been slamming coffee since 4 am, that would make my day all kinds of extra special.

Lots of girls in very nice looking gowns and guys in tuxedos.  My tuxedo days are over, so if you got to see me in one consider yourself lucky, it won't happen again.  I have been in a tux 4 times in my life, two times for weddings (not mine rest assured, you don't get to be 46 and single by running off and getting married) and twice for trips to the ballet, one I have written about on this very page, it was one of my Hope moments, and once with Jen, which was about as anti-Hope a moment as one could get.  Verbal sparring is no more elegant in a tuxedo than it is in flip flops and shorts.  Speaking as a person who has done both, I would like to think I am an authority on the topic.

Okay, headed home now, I left the park and walked back to Smithfield News so I could pee, then grabbed a sandwich for dinner so I don't end up on one of those Sally Struthers commercials, and I grabbed a coffee, because it makes all kinds of sense to be drinking coffee at 1 am.  My plan is to go home and watch Friday's episode of DOOL on the computer (is it just me or has Abigail gotten hotter since she has been so trampy, and Serena is still the hottest on the show in my opinion, curves plus red hair and the bonuses that go on charisma checks with that).  Anyway, my bus is nearing its destination and no, I would not book a PAT bus for my wedding.  Anyway I am outtie, like a belly button.

B365V2.88 - 1980 revisited

Time to pack up Peabody and Sherman kids and once again revisit the Wayback Machine for a blogging story I have never told, at least up until this point.

The year:1980 The place: A little town called Elderton, located almost halfway between Kittanning and Indiana PA.

Other things from 1980: John Lennon is shot and killed, Ronald Reagan is elected president, TV viewers were stuck with the mystery of who shot JR Ewing on Dallas, movies to come out included Friday the 13^th, Blue Lagoon, Airplane!, Raging Bull and The Empire Strikes Back.

So why the focus on 1980 you may as? Well yours truly also did something that year (I keep telling you all I am old) as I passed a note to Lynn Meyer who sat diagonally from me (Carol Finelli would say catawampus, insider radio joke there kids) in Miss Elgin's 6^th grade class. For some reason that note has been stuck in my head verbatim since I was a kid, probably because I thought so much about what I was going to write. The note, in my best 6^th grade voice, went something like this........

“I love you with all my heart. Well time to get to the point. I want to know if you will go with me? Yes No P.S. Take all the time you need to decide.”

The note made its way back to me, probably because we didn't use the US Postal Service, and she circled yes. Yes boys and girls it was my first ever girlfriend, or what passes for a girlfriend in 6^th grade. I still recall being so nervous passing the note to her. Obviously I had no courage whatsoever because I didn't just ask her and instead put it in note form.

Not that we ever did anything, we didn't go on dates or spend time together outside of school, much like many of your relationships today I might add, but I would walk her to her bus every day after school, holding hands and what not. She rocked a mole on her cheek, way before Cindy Crawford made such an item cool, and on one of our walks to her bus I stopped her for a second and said, “I think there is something on your face” then I slyly kissed her cheek. My first ever kiss in a relationship. Damn did I have moves back then or what?

What brings this all up you may ask? Well I went to check Facebook on my phone after leaving the park tonight and I saw that today is Lynn's birthday. Not all of my relationships ended disastrously, just most of them. Seeing her name on there just brought back a rush of memories and put a smile back on my face.

I now return you to your present day lives, already in progress.

B365V2.87 - Economy of thoughts

It's Tanuki time.  Yes I am back in Schenley Park, late at night, seeing if I can't muster a blogging idea or three.  I brought an offering for the gods, some tortilla chips.  I tossed a few out as bait, now to sit here and type and see if I lure any out.

You know, Tanuki time would have made a fine segment of Gorgeous Tiny Chicken Machine Show.  To get my fascination with that you have to have been around the page a very long time.

I have my snack, my beverage and my cigarettes, I am all kinds of locked in place here.  Nowhere to be until tomorrow, when I have to work and then Sunday for the Steeler game.  Ed almost gave me a second ticket today, but I find asking people to go someplace last minute, by last minute I mean anytime I don't have at least a week's notice, always turns into a futile exercise for me.  The people I want to go with by then have plans, and it ends up spending a lot of my time and energy with questionable results at best.  Some times I get lucky, like the last baseball game, but far too often I end up eating tickets and I am sure that would have happened again with an extra Steeler ticket.  It's a preseason game, it doesn't count and I wouldn't even think of going if I didn't have a free ticket.

So I was sitting in the park downtown today after a rather shitty day at work ( at least the second half of it was) and scientifically speaking our brains are wired to remember the first and last things in a series of events.  So my wiring had me remembering the end of my day.  It started to fall apart right around 1 pm or so.  I was shown a leak in the basement ceiling.  I instantly had two ideas where it was coming from, so I told Sammy to check the back freezer upstairs and if that was fine, then check the air conditioning room across from the deli.  About an hour and a half later as I am finishing off the bank deposits, I am told the roof is still leaking, so I go and check this out myself.  Sure enough it was the air conditioner, the filters hadn't been changed since the last time the repairman was in.  It is a process that takes about two minutes to do, but if it isn't done every couple of weeks then the filters clog, condensation builds up in the units and they start sweating so to speak, which is what was dripping through the floor upstairs and down into the basement.   So now I am doing someone else's job for them, after I had asked them to check the very same thing a couple hours sooner.  So I finish with one set of air conditioners and go to check our other set back by the dairy coolers and they had one filter jammed so far underneath the unit that I had to get a pair of pliers just to pull the filter out to be replaced.

Now it is after 3 pm, the bank closes at 4 pm and I have to lug the weekend change back from the bank, which involves getting $525 dollars together and buying a box of pennies and a box of quarters.

Sorry, I keep hearing something across the street from me in the woods, I am hoping it is Tanuki or one of his underlings.  If it is I will try to get footage.

Anyway, so now I am rushing to put my deposits together, I had all of my numbers balanced at least, when I throw my bank deposit bag into my +1 bag of wholesome goodness and head off for the bank.  My lottery deposit was fine, as was my change order, but my sales deposit was off.  I left two checks to be deposited sitting on my desk.  So now I have to lug the change order back to the store, grab the checks and go right back to the bank.   I fucking hate when I make stupid mistakes like that.  I probably wouldn't have made it if I didn't drop everything to deal with the air conditioners while I was in the middle of doing the deposits to begin with,  but still I have to do better than that.  Well I suppose I don't have to, but I expect more from myself than that.  I wasn't given control of the store a little over a year ago to make dumb mistakes all the time.

So I have that going on in my head when I sit down in the park downtown.  I try not to write out of anger, so if anyone gets my squirrelly wrath on this page, then they most likely earned it.  It is not a mindset that I like to write in, even if the words and profanities would flow pretty easily.

Okay, one of those drug trucks just went by me and stopped further down the turnaround.  It's now 12:26 am, if you are parking in the park now, you are either fucking or getting high.  There isn't a blogathon taking place here tonight, I am assuredly the only person here doing any writing.

Anyway, back to our story, so in that mindset I started thinking about wasted energy.  Mental energy that is.  Like I started wondering if the people I think about think about me.  Not that there has to be a one to one correlation, if I think about you for one minute you owe me one minute of your time.  Nothing stupid like that, but you would like to think that the people you think about at least think about you at some point in time.  Otherwise what is the point of wasting your energy on them.  Because I am sure there are people who do think about me whom are probably on the wrong end of that equation as well. If only there was a way to tell, to focus your energy on those that focus on you.   Anyway that was where my head was, not a place that was fitting for blogging where I was angry and contemplating how much of my focus is misplaced.

By the way, nobody on here got the $25 Amazon gift card, instead a friend on Facebook got it.  She said she was going to put it towards a new dress.  Hey if someone can get use of it, then the effort of working my underground economy wasn't wasted.  The underground economy as I call it, is a bunch of different outlets that allow me to get free things, some of which I keep, some of which I giveaway to deserving coworkers ( you bust your ass for me and I try to take care of you) and some of which ends up on here where I give it away, usually by making a game or contest of it.  The underground economy consists of Swagbucks, My Coke Rewards, Pepsirewardsplus, and Foodservice rewards.  The last two are not open to the general public, but rather to retailers, but the other two anybody can do.  I am not even a serious Swagbucks user and I can tell you since I have joined I have probably racked up over $500 in gift cards. My Coke Rewards I have been doing just about as long as I have been blogging.  From there I have given away vegetable steamers, web cameras, photo albums, MP3 downloads, movie passes on top of the things I have kept for myself.  Foodservice rewards and Pepsirewardsplus I found out about at work, and they were opportunities no one else there was taking advantage of, so who knows how much potential stuff we threw away before I started using the stuff at my disposal.

Okay a second vehicle just went down the road and stopped alongside the first one.  I could be witnessing a drug deal going down, if my vision weren't so shitty at night that I would be better off as a bat.  Just screech at stuff and if the sound waves bounce off of it, it must be an object, because I am too blind to see it at night.  Well they both just left after a very short rondevous, so I am back to having the park to myself, and any critters that may show themselves.

I took some time tonight and shaved down to a goatee again.  I call it my "Mirror Mirror Matt" persona, in an offhand tribute to the Mirror Star Trek Episodes, where they encounter their alternate timeline selves, except everyone is evil.  And usually with a goatee.  So what evil can I bring forth this evening, besides this long pointless blog.  If you have gotten this far, congratulations, so have I.  But now is a good time to stop I think, I have prattled on way too long.

By the way, Public Image Limited is coming to Pittsburgh soon.  I should buy a ticket, but if I do I am not sure what that means for the future of the band.  I passed on The Church tonight, so they are probably still together as of this typing.  Besides, if I am saving for a real vacation, sacrifices must be made.  Just not my morning coffee at Crazy Mocha.

B365V2.86 - Because I am an idiot

This is where I am supposed to tell you how things went today. Well.........

We learned I am a fucking retard.  So there's that.  And that even I need to sleep eventually, so there's that too.  But let's begin by taking ourselves back to where this all began, and where the last entry left off, with me finishing up my laundry.

So I walked back from the laundry mat, dropped my clothes off and proceeded to do the shower and greet the day thing, sans any sleep.  I took my tablet into the bathroom and fired up some Pandora.  The sign it was going to be a good day was when the first song that kicked over was Alex Chilton by The Replacements.  Oh how I wished they would have played some Big Star right after that.  But it wasn't too be, nobody but nobody plays Big Star.  Anyway I have really developed a love/hate relationship with the Replacements.  During there heyday they had a habit of playing shows fucked up.  I know some people consider this a cool thing, or how they were fighting against mainstream by not selling out.  I am not one of them, if I buy tickets to a show and the band turns out to be all fucked up and can barely get through a song, then I want a refund on my ticket.  Well as the band continued to spiral out of control their career together seemed to come to an end following a concert in Chicago, where inexplicably, they broke up depending on accounts, either right there on the stage or immediately thereafter.   I figured that would ruin any chance I would ever have of seeing them play, but then a strange thing happened.  They got back together earlier this year and were planning a tour and Pittsburgh was one of the dates.  Needless to say I rushed out and got me a ticket, just one, this was a venture I could do solo, no need having someone there messing with me reliving my teen angst riddled years, or as much angst as one can have while growing up in the sticks.  You can only build up so much anger in an area where the biggest concern is " Did the corn get high enough this year?"

So I found a ticket for the show after checking a few different ticket scalpers online ( the Pittsburgh show sold out rather quickly)  and the ticket I got was only about $10 over face value, even with the added processing fees and what not.  Then the day of the show gets here, I get a call on my cell phone and I don't recognize the number, but I take the call.  It is the ticket company telling me the show was cancelled.  I hop onto Facebook because nothing is true until you read it on the Internet, I go the Stage AE Facebook page and sure enough, they have one of those apologetic notes saying someone in the band was sick and the show date would have to be rescheduled.  If I did emoticons this would be big frownie face time, but I figured I have a ticket for the rescheduled date at least, perhaps Pittsburgh could be snuck in on a day before they left for the European leg of their tour.  Well, that didn't happen and they didn't come back from Europe as a band either, they split up again. So any chance I have of ever seeing them in up in smoke and with that the hate portion of the love/ hate thing was born.  To literally be within a few hours of seeing my favorite band as a kid ( I say kid, I was in the ballpark of 17-20 years old at the time) and have it snatched away because a bunch of alcoholics couldn't get their shit together for more than a few months before falling back into the same old habits and bullshit.  There, that is me going off on a shower tangent, fuck you Pandora.

So I climb out of the shower and most mornings I would have buckets of time.  It is about 7:15 am, there are days where I do not roll into work until 10 am ( I wield my management power with impunity after all) but those days almost always result in me being there a good chunk of the day, but with me needing to be free for lunch I figured I best get a jump start on the day.

I catch the 7:30 bus into work, and after I stop for a coffee at the new Crazy Mocha on Smithfield, where they have a cute red head working mornings and as we all know, red heads get bonuses to their saving throws versus charisma in my book, we parted with her saying she would see me Friday morning and I say you could bank on it, I trekked the other block to work and I was going through things like clockwork.  By 11 am I already had one of my two deposits done, placed 5 different orders, met with the Pepsi rep, met with the Everfresh driver and worked my inner office politics like a true statesman in securing hockey tickets for December.

See, the other day Ed asked me to pick out a hockey game I would like to go to.  We have and allotment of tickets for events at Consol ($2000 a year) as part of our 7 Up contract, but hockey tickets are not cheap, especially if they are in the 7 Up box, where they run $200+ per seat.  So when Ed placed the call into 7 Up for my requested game, he requested 4 tickets.

Now this is where my sly thinking comes into play, if 4 tickets to a hockey game show up in December, Brian is going to think they are his, by that point in time Ed will be in Florida and probably would have forgotten my request anyway, so I got in front of this today by tipping Brian off about the tickets and how I only need two (not 4 and not the parking pass) so when they come in there will be two extra seats.  As it turns out it was perfect, Brian does not have his kids on Mondays, they are with their mom, so the game I picked fits everybody's schedule perfectly.  What can I say, I got this shit on lockdown.  Now just need Brian McGee over at 7 Up to deliver the tickets and we are good to go.

Now we are approaching lunch time, I still have not heard anything about my lunch plans. I keep myself busy with bull shit work and keeping myself fully infused with caffeine, I had been up better than 24 hours at this point.  The clock keeps ticking, it is now almost 1 pm, still nothing.  Now I am thinking, maybe I dreamed the whole lunch thing, that the conversation never took place to begin with.  I check messenger on Facebook, I hadn't received a message there from Debbie since June for my birthday.  Now I am thinking I really did make this shit up in my head and I am turning into my mom or Brian Williams or something.  So I start backtracking in my head when this conversation may have taken place.  It wasn't on the phone, because I hate talking on the phone, it wasn't on Facebook messenger, it wasn't via email because Debbie has never emailed me about anything, that just is not a line of communication we use.  Then it clicked, she responded to a message about Steeler tickets my boss was trying to sell.  I scroll back to Monday on my feed and there is the conversation.  I would be such an easy stalking victim, just throwing my plans out there in public like that, but as I am reading the conversation the lunch date was the 27th, or  one week from today.   All of this for nothing.  Because I am an idiot.

By the time I left work and relaxed in Mellon Square for a minute or 30, I walked to a bus stop and caught a 65 Squirrel Hill to go home.  I sat down on the bus and closed my eyes and slept right through my stop.  I missed it by a good mile or so, my eyes popped open again just as the bus was leaving Schenley Park and entering Squirrel Hill.  So it is an additional 40 minutes or so till I get home, where I order pizza rather than attempt cooking and stay awake long enough for the driver to get here, and eat some pizza and breadsticks and then pass out until I started this little blog entry.

B365v2.85 - Social larva

4:45 am, do you know where I am?  If you guessed doing laundry, you get a cookie.  Actually I was sitting at home, thinking I would take a day off of blogging, but once the motivation hit me to wash some clothes, I figured I might as well bring the tablet along to keep me company.

The social calendar keeps filling up.  Not sure how I got to be in such high demand.  Whatever the reason, I was playing around on Facebook the other day and.............sorry just became a little distracted there for a moment.  A drunk girl walked by across the street.  Remind me to never have kids, but a drunk girl walking alone, inebriated at almost 5 am, on the bad side of Blvd of the Allies is just asking for trouble.  I kept an eye on her till she got to where she was going ( I think), just in case someone might take advantage of such an opportunity.  I just don't get stupid people some times.   Anyway, as I was saying, I was on Facebook the other day and my friend Debbie shot me a message about doing lunch on Thursday, which for me to pull off means I need to drag my ass into work early enough that I have my shit done by noon.  I have known Debbie for 30 years now, and when I quiz you peeps later about which of my friends climbed through a bedroom window the first ever time I was having sex with someone, Debbie would be the answer to that question.  I should have taken it as a sign and stopped what I was doing, instead I endured two years of a bad relationship where we did the two F's very well ( fought and fucked ) and not much else.

See kids, I am a boatload of stories waiting to be told.  But she is bringing her kids down to Pittsburgh for a dental appointment and wanted to meet up.  Me being the anti social butterfly but    now all of a sudden social butterfly said sure.  I cleared it with my boss to duck out for a moment or three Thursday afternoon, so a lunching we will go.  Debbie and I never dated, though we were there for each other through some shitty times in relationships we both had.  And had we taken each other's advice during those times I am sure we would have been better off.

I am hoping these plans do not fall through, I have stuff in my desk at work for her.  A while back the bank that the store uses was selling tickets to the Pittsburgh Zoo, so I bought 4 of them, one for me and three for her and her kids.  I have already used my zoo ticket moons ago, but I would like to get her her tickets so this would seem to be a prime opportunity.  The zoo trip for me was part of my personal reclamation project, where I went all of the places I took the crazy Canadian, to build brand new Matt-centric memories in those locations.   There are still a few places on that list that I need to check off, the biggest of which being Kennywood Park.  The thing is as much as I brag about doing things on my own, whether that be going out, or to dinner or a movie, I can't do an amusement park solo.  So at some point I am going to have to find someone cool to hang out with and get the bitter taste of that place off of my mental palate.  And trust me, it was bitter.  A day of bitching and whining, with intermittent rain showers thrown in for good measure.  And as soon as we left the sun came out, which just irked me even more.  When I go to an amusement park, I want to be there all day, otherwise why by an all day ride pass.  We got there about 11 am and left by 4 pm, just to shut her up.   So anyone that I do go with, the bar is set really low in topping that disastrous encounter.

Ow, I have this zit or something on the back of my neck.  The thing is I always where my keys around my neck and the strap keeps rubbing into it.  It is one of those annoying pain type things, as opposed to a torn ACL or something far more serious.

Anyway, as for my social butterflyishness so far, I went to the Pirate game with Sammy and his girlfriend Lisa and her two daughters on Wednesday.  They asked me if I wanted to bring anyone, they had an extra ticket if I did, but baseball is one of those things I can do solo, and I didn't want to impose on their ticket allotment, I didn't know how many they had.  Turns out they had like ten that weren't being used.  They got them through a charity walk they did earlier this year, they must have had like 20 tickets, but since the tickets weren't mine to begin with, I felt a little squeamish about asking for more than one.

The Pirates won 4-1, making them 5-0 in games I went to this year.  Now if I just went to all of the games they would never lose.

I am thinking I need a crack habit.  All of the fucked up guys I see downtown, and there are plenty of them, seem to have women.  And quite a few of these women would be really attractive if they too would get off of the crack.  So I am thinking if I ever find that this McCauley Caulkin thing I have going on is just a little too much, all I need to pick up chicks is to be a junkie.  Then again, Caulkin's life pretty much hit the skids too and he never complains about pulling a Matt Pritt every night.  Just saying is all.  But me and drugs don't mix.  Check that, me and some drugs don't mix.  Marijuana does nothing for me besides give me a headache.  But me and cocaine, that my friends is a dangerous pairing.  I have only done it twice, but both times I came out in the back end of it feeling fabulous.  Then again, people that know me, know that I am a high strung type of person most of the time, feeding me an upper like cocaine just has my head going a mile a minute.

Okay, laundry is almost done so I might as well wrap this up.  I still have to go home and then caffeine up for the rest of the day.