B365V2.69 - See, my life isn't all that exciting

Just trying to enjoy myself on a lazy Sunday, hanging at the pool after an early morning trip to the Strip District.  Okay early may be a bit of a stretch since I didn't leave my place until after 10 am, but I got there thinking about doing some breakfast, but as I checked out my three breakfast options ( Kelly O's, Deluca's and Pamela's )  there were lines outside of all three of my breakfast joints.  Opting to not be a Soviet citizen waiting for bread to be handed out to the masses, I went to Carhops instead and grabbed an early lunch.

It was my first visit, I kind of knew what to expect based on their signage and name, a sandwich shop with an auto theme.  I was not disappointed in my guesstimate.  So I grabbed a menu and all of their large sandwiches were like $20, mind you that is for two feet of sandwich.  As fat as I am, me pounding two feet of anything would be a stretch, so I got a small ( only one foot ) Cajun chicken and fries.  It was okay, nothing to write home about, or to write here about either, perhaps a little too much salt in the seasoning.  Imagine that, too much salt coming from the guy who crushes the blood pressure meter @ Giant Eagle.

Still I didn't rush through lunch, I had my book with me and it has been a long time since I sat down and read and relaxed over some food.  Amusement parks are about the only places I hate going alone, dinner or breakfast by myself doesn't faze me at all.  Nor does going to the movies by myself, then you get to see what you want without any distractions.  Concerts, usually most of my friends, if they even like the same artists as me ( a big if there ) are the types that want to get fucked up before a show.  I think that after I dropped serious coin to see something it might be nice if I remember it after the fact.  I guess I am a killjoy in that regard.

Okay, I am away from the pool now, though I have not changed out of my swimming trunks yet. And not the one I flashed the Pittsburgh Grand Prix with either, rather my green Hawaiian trunks.  I don't know why I like Hawaiian apparel so much, it looks positively garish on me, but then if you came to this blog looking for a GQ model, well " I've got some bad news for you."

I did sign up for my first fantasy football league today.  Yes that means you will be annoyed once again with details of my fantasy team's exploits.  It is a new league for me, one from the Pittsburgh Bloggers group on Facebook.  I have not received word from the league commissioner yet as to whether I have to maintain this little blog of mine ( I'm going to let it shine ) in order to remain in the league.  Not that I plan on stopping blogging, my being an annoyance to some warms the cockles of my heart, and that is good enough for me.

I finished the book I took to breakfast/lunch with me earlier.  Unread some at the pool, and when I got home from the pool.  Not too shabby, I started in on Friday and am already done.  It helps that I was looking forward to reading it, as opposed to my other book, that I have been working in for weeks now, but unable to find the energy to finish it.

I did see a dumpster diver on my way to my park bench tonight.  I told you this was prime diving season for us dumpster folk.  I wasn't looking for furniture or anything for my apartment, rather I snagged a Coke code off of a 30 pack of cans (25 Coke reward points there), but I am not sure what I want to get.  I saw there is a Keurig machine at 3500 points, but I am still in the 600s.  And there is a whole tier of prizes I haven't unlocked yet.  If anyone follows me on Twitter ( and if you do, may I ask why ? ) and sees a bunch of Coke related shit on my feed, it is simply me trying to get to gold status.

I have no use for Twitter, the only reason I signed up was to make better Coke prizes available.  Do I read like a person who can keep posts to 140 characters?  Hell, my farts are longer than that.  Twitter to me is for people who have a gnat like attention span.  Yes I know that certain "journalists" use it when breaking stories, and usually on Twitter they get shit wrong.  Take a deep breath, relax a little and get your shit straight.  Even if it does take more than 140 characters.

I am sitting on my bench listening to a Talk Is Jericho podcast, he is interviewing Dennis Haskins ( Mr. Belding "Saved by the Bell ).  I download a handful of podcasts to my tablet for such occasions, Talk is Jericho, Petros and Money, and MLW radio.  Enough stuff that my podcast feed updates regularly enough and anything is better than the blandness of Pittsburgh radio.

Well apparently I am not the only one with a park bench plan tonight.  Someone just came into the second park and took a seat a few benches down from me.  Mind you it is after ten at night.  There is that and there are three cars parked on the road behind me, but that could be because they are showing a movie over on Flagstaff Hill tonight.

I haven't looked in the mirror yet to see if I cooked my flesh while at the pool.  I think next time I go I am going to rub some garlic salt and pepper on my skin before I go, season myself up for the upcoming zombie apocalypse.

Anyway I have babbled enough and probably bored you to tears in the process, so I should head home and leave you fetch some Kleenexes to dry your eyes.

B365v2.68 - Karaoke Friday - The reference collection

Firs I would like to thank anyone that read my guest post over on Erin's page this past week.  For those of you that did, you know I dropped an obscure musical reference in it.  Rather than leave the masses in suspense and I know people's desire to look shit up on the internet that doesn't conform which their previously held beliefs, I will do the legwork this evening.  The singing along is still your responsibility though.  


I wake up in the morning and I feel like a king
Make love not work I can do anything
Can rule my own world and never have to listen
I'm living like there's no tomorrow
You know there really isn't
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
Every day's a thrill when you're living like me
Don't read Baudelaire's poetry
And I don't need no Ph.D.
'Cause I'm ten times smarter than you'll ever be
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
Now listen all you peoples to what I have to say
Every night's a gas if you want it that way
All you need is money and a little bit of luck
I ain't greedy baby all I want is all you've got
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so
'Cause I said so

B365V2.67 - Goodbye July

I hate when the calendar falls this way, when a month ends on a weekend.  It usually means more work for me, I have to go in and do numbers to keeps the months separate.  It is even worse when people fuck up and I have to get all Inspector Closeau on them and find out what went wrong.  Today it was Western Union, or more precisely Western Union money orders.  The numbers on my report were not matching the money orders that we printed.  So I had to run the money order report first,then run a system report for any money orders we sold, compare the two report to find the missing money orders, then take the time the missing ones were sold and run another system report on all of our sales during that time period and see if the missing ones were actually rung up.  Because once we print a money order we are responsible for it.  Western Union will come calling to our account Monday morning, looking for the cash.

As luck would have it I was able to find the missing amount, first we had a vendor who was paid with a money order, that one was never rung through the system as a money order sale or a paid out ( both should have been done ), then there was a second issue where two money orders were rung up as deli items rather than money orders.  So now I have to alter the sales report to reflect this change. On top of all of this, Friday turned out to be our busiest day of the year.  No rhyme or reason behind it, it just was.  But it did make for some interesting if unexpected numbers when putting together the sales report.

Of course it was Saturday, so I did my normal thing of making tuna, egg and chicken salads for the deli.  I think I have the hard boiled egg timing thing down now.  I know what you are thinking, how hard is it to boil an egg?  Well the process is trickier when you are indirectly boiling them, via a pan of water set inside a steam table.  If you over cook them, shelling the eggs becomes a problem, you rip the eggs to shreds in the process.  You end up with more egg in the garbage can still attached to the shell than you have for salads.  But today I was damn near spot on.  The eggs came out great, when I shocked them ( the process of dropping them in ice water after boiling them, it helps in removing the shells ) the shells were almost sliding right off the eggs.   I used different chicken for the chicken salad, using chicken strips rather than the deli chicken I had been using.  I heated those up in the same steam table I used to do the eggs.  Lauren diced onions and celery for me yesterday, which saved a step in the process.  All in all the salads kick ass.  I did my ordering for Monday as well, probably the easiest part of my day.

Now I am sitting in Melon Square again, just goofing on my tablet and writing this blog entry.  I have one of my new books with me, "Blossom" by Andrew Vachss.  I wasn't sure if I had read it previously but I am a few chapters in and nothing is ringing a bell.  Which is good, I needed some reading material that I was into, my brain feels like mush the longer I stay away from reading.  The fact I was out drinking the last two nights didn't help in the mushy brains department.  I might have something for the Shelfari list in the near future after all.  It has been too long since I added a book.

But as I am sitting here doing my thing, I am taking time out to play some MPQ, I have been letting my alliance members down recently with my lack of commitment to the game.  I still am doing okay in the most recent season, but not as good as I did last season.  Usually I am happy with getting 4000 points and the 10 pack of cards that comes with reaching that plateau.  Right now I am at about 2200, mind you there is still plenty of time left, but I am not going at it at a break neck pace either.

Instead I am watching people come and go from the William Penn Hotel across the street, making up personal stories for them as I spot them.  I just saw an older guy come out with a girl about half his age.  Father daughter maybe?  No, in my mind it was an escort, though I hear in West Virginia those can be one and the same.

Thankfully Starbucks never shuts off there WiFi, so even though they are closed I can still steal their signal from here.  I could go and buy one of those data plans for my iPad, but those things cost money and I enjoy being cheap.

Well it is getting late and I should probably get out of here.  The creepers are out and about and that is reason enough for me to escape my downtown blogging spot.  Toodles.