And now it's time for another dramatic production as presented by The Eastern Ohio Repertory Players!

APRIL
STARRING:
Andrew Z. as The Disgruntled Ohioan
Polly Holliday as The Woman on the Phone


(Curtain sweeps open to reveal The Disgruntled Ohioan sitting at a desk dialing a telephone on an otherwise blank stage)

(Sound of phone ringing)

THE WOMAN ON THE PHONE: (voiceover) Good afternoon, Mother Nature's Palace, this is Mother speaking, how may I help you?

THE DISGRUNTLED OHIOAN: Hi Mother...I was wondering if you could possibly tell me why the weather is still so horrible even though we have reached the middle of April?

THE WOMAN ON THE PHONE: Why of course! It's because I FUCKING HATE YOU...Mwahahahahahahahahahaha (sound of phone being hung up during evil laughter)

(The Disgruntled Ohioan stares blankly at the receiver as a dial tone buzzes in the background)

(Curtain sweeps closed)

THE END

I had my cable disconnected today since I am almost never home to watch it and I have much better uses for the money. As a reward to myself, I decided to order a new TV on DVD set. I was going to get another season of The Golden Girls (yeah, how gay), but much to my surprise, I discovered that Maude is on DVD! How cool is that? So I ordered the first season of that instead. That show is totally hysterical. Right on Maude!

I just got home a few minutes ago from hanging out with a friend of mine. I'm supposed to be bowling right now, but similar to the past couple of weeks, I am just not in the mood. That's a bit concerning, but I'm sure it will come back. Of course, I'm sure Paul will be trying to hunt me down to find out why I didn't show up again. He stopped in my apartment (he has keys in case I ever am a facefuck and lock myself out) and left me a note that was all "hope I see you there!" Yeah, I'm thinking that's a big old no.

Anyhow, my friend Steve that I hung out with this evening has a channel called Logo, which is a gay-themed channel. Not something I'd normally watch, but hey, whatever. Well, there was a documentary on there about Tammy Faye Bakker. Talk about one of the last names I thought I would be writing about! The thing was, it was so interesting. I was pretty young when that whole scandal broke and I really didn't know much about the whole thing. It was just interesting to see how much there really was to it. And dare I say, she *might* not be as crazy as I would have once assumed.

And that's the way it seems to be.

The 2 weeks in hillbillyville are finally over. And I passed the training class and am now "official." Yee haw. I have to go in and open in the morning. I'm seriously ready for bed right now, but the thoughts of waking up at about 3 AM do not sound very appealing.

1 week of purgatory out of the way!

I have to go away for the next two weeks (minus next weekend) for work for training. To do this, I have to go to Butler, PA, which is about an hour from here. And it is the most BORING PLACE ON EARTH. I've never been fond of Butler...it's labeled a "city", but I sure as hell don't know why. I don't know how much free time I'm going to have in the evenings, but I did make sure to track down a bowling alley so I might be able to entertain myself for one or two evenings. That is of course, if I don't get run over by any Chevy pickup trucks with confederate flags on them while I'm walking across the parking lot.

I really hope this doesn't suck. On the other hand, it's coming at a good time, because I'm noticing I'm shutting myself off from just about everyone. So at least now I have a legitimate reason and hopefully I won't have to hear about it. Of course, the only way I could while I'm there is if someone sends me a message via pony express.

I would have said that being up this early is for the birds, but I doubt they're up yet.

I can not believe that there are a few sick fucks out there that have the video I made where I imitated the Honey Bunches of Oats Lady on their MySpace pages. I guess there are more warped people in the world than I thought!

In case any of you want to watch it again, or missed it the first time! And yes, everyone involved in this production was sober at the time of filming!

Just got back from West Virginia and the Pro Bowlers event. It was fun, even though we ended up with lousy seats that I paid way too much for since the way they seated was a total cluster fuck.

On the good side, it was fun to watch the pros in person after having watched them on TV for so many years. I don't think we made it on TV with where we were sitting, but I haven't watched the tape yet. If we did, it was very brief. But good heavens, I have never clapped so much in my whole life. I never realized how much cheering is involved for something like that.

I got to meet Norm Duke, who is one of my favorite pro bowlers ever. I bought a souvenir bowling pin and he autographed it for me, even though I promptly smudged it. It's not totally ruined, but I felt stupid for not being more careful. I did get to tell him how wonderful I think he is and what an honor it was to meet him, and I also shook his hand. So that was definitely the highlight of the day.

I've driven 700 miles in the past 4 days...yeah, I'm ready to not be driving for a while.

I innocently stood in the cough and cold aisle of the Belmont Avenue Giant Eagle reading the different versions of Sudafed, trying to figure out which one would be ideal for my new-found affliction of my nose becoming annoyingly stuffed up at night. I decided that the maximum strength long-lasting whatever was the way to go. Well, this was one of those "you have to purchase this at the pharmacy" products. Fine.

So I take the little place card over to the pharmacy. There were at least TEN people working...and this is just a grocery store pharmacy! There may have been more, but I counted ten. Anyhow, I told Mrs. Maxine Personality that I wanted to purchase these pills. This is where I will give some friendly advice to those of you that have not done this before. Just wait out your symptoms rather than trying to buy this shit at the pharmacy. She had to take down every bit of infomation from my drivers license and the medicine I was buying, and then I had to sign this book that I'm sure promised my first born to the Bayer corporation or something. What a fiasco...made worse by the fact that Maxine P. must have forgotten to take her polite pills this morning. I mean, with that many co-workers to handle everything, how stressful can it be? So then my new best friend offered to ring up all of my items (of which there were 5 including the ultra-precious pills). So I say, gee, that's nice. Well, of course she fucked it up and only rang up one of my margarines when I bought two and had the hardest time figuring out where she went wrong. I didn't bother to say anything, by this point it was more entertaining to watch the action. So she calls one of her dippy co-workers over, they brainstorm to figure out that I was only rang up for one package, and he explains they have to charge me for the other one. I'm like "well, yeah..." So Maxine rings up the other one, totally flustered. I thought she was going to go ape shit and have some kind of spastic attack.

The good news is that I have my Sudafed...currently, my nose is not stuffed up and I'm sure it won't be again until November of 2008, which is when the sacred pills I bought expire.

Then I came home and stabbed myself in the hand with a sharp knife. Not badly, I just feel like more of a stupid fuck.

And that's the way it seems to be.

I had the chance to run the store I am training at by myself for a while today. Dee had to leave to have her performance evaluation, so it was just myself and the cashier for a while. It went well, but of course this vendor came in during that time and expected me to know stuff. I was all "look I'm new and stupid" and she seemed okay with that. However, some things got shredded that I'm really hoping were supposed to be. But I guess time will tell.

I stopped at my "new" store on the way home. I had been there a long time ago, but I wanted to stop and see if they had made a schedule for next week, or what I'm supposed to be doing. Anyhow, I met most of the staff and they were all very friendly. I hope I end up staying at this store. My prediction is that the person who is on medical leave from there is going to end up coming back, which will screw me. I'm not wishing bad health on anyone, believe me, but they are going to be firing this queen that works at one of the scary stores that I do not want any parts of. So if the person on medical leave comes back, guess who's ass is probably going to end up at Parkman Road? Yeah, that's right! I DON'T want to go there. So hopefully there will be some way I can get out of it.

In the meantime, I'm really enjoying what I'm doing. However, I'm still pretty happy that I am off tomorrow!

Do any of you have extensive knowledge of country music? If so, can you please let me know? Thanks!

I just talked to my friend Missy, who I haven't talked to in over a year. This is a different Missy than the one I just visited a couple weeks ago, obviously. This Missy and I have been friends since Junior High. She now lives in Georgia, so we don't talk nearly as often. I was glad to talk to her again. She and I used to have SO much fun and we would laugh ourselves silly over the stupidest shit, which I love! I miss her.

EDIT: Okay, this is truly bizarre. I have been contacted by two other people this evening. One is someone else I went to high school with. We weren't great friends, but we got along well. The other is someone I went to college with for one semester. I went to Edinboro University (a school up by Erie, PA) for my first semester of college, but I hated it and transferred to the school I would eventually graduate from. Well, I did make a few friends in the time I was at Edinboro and one of them tracked me down. What the hell is this, old home week?

I know I've mentioned a billion times that Match Game is my favorite game show. There is a community here on LJ where you can play Match Game. The people that maintain the community actually seem to have it pretty well together...they post every couple days and you just fill in your answer. The games usually last a week or so, and they post the scores at the end. In this latest game, I came in 13th out of 60! I was pretty impressed. I would have done even better than that, except I gave one smart ass answer that I knew wasn't going to match. Anyhow, if any of you like Match Game, check it out:


Get ready to match the stars!
matchgamelj


I have to be back at work at 7 am...yuck! But at least I get to leave at 2.

Happy Anti-Valentine's Day!

I decided that tonight qualified for the #2 position on my "most hellacious winter driving experiences" list. I was supposed to work 11-8:30 today. Well, the weather was already crap on my way *to* work. This store I'm training at it about 25 miles away, which normally would be no big thing, but in this weather? Hell no. I almost wiped out on I-76 on my way there this morning.

So, the powers that be decided to close the store at 6:45 instead of 8:00. Gee, thanks. Though I was willing to take what I could get. Now, my commute home consists of about 5 1/2 miles on this Route 534 and then mostly interstate the rest of the way home. Well, the 5 1/2 miles was a total nightmare...there was a point where I literally didn't know if I was even on the road anymore. Then when I got to the interstate, my wipers had about a ton of ice on them, so I had to stop at a BP station and clean them off...amazing that they were even open. Since they were, I got gas since I figured it would be good to have a full tank of gas if I ended up stranded in a ditch somewhere.

Well, when I got on I-76, I was passed by two tractor trailers almost immediately, which was nerve racking. However, I was glad they were in front of me, because I followed the first one so I knew where the hell the road was. Without him there, I don't think I would have had a chance. I was thrilled when he continued onto I-80 like I have to do to get home and didn't keep going off onto I-76 (you have to exit to stay on the same road...I don't know why). Anyhow, he was my saving grace until he went down I-680 into Youngstown, but by that point I was only a little over 2 miles from my exit...actually, it's not usually my exit, but I used it tonight, since of course Andrew lives near like the only steep hill in Ohio, and I have to drive it if I take my usual exit. So I figured the other exit, while longer, would afford me a chance to make it on mostly level ground. I almost slid off the interstate about 1/2 mile from my exit...I was like, "please not now after I've made it this far!" But I did manage to get home in one piece, thank God!

Yeah, and I'm supposed to be back at 7:30 tomorrow morning. I've made it clear that there is no way in hell that will be happening...I'm going to try to make it by noon, but if we get the additional 6-10 inches tonight they are calling for, I don't know if I'll even be able to do that. Maybe they'll just shut the fuckin' state down. I hope so.

Yeah, by the way...I HATE WINTER. Thank you.

EDIT: So the truck that was plowing our parking lot just got stuck and had to be pushed out by another truck with a plow. Yeah, I think we have enough.

I don't give a shit if winter didn't start until the middle of January, fuck winter, fuck winter storms, and fuck February!

And that is all.

Well, hopefully this will be the last "first day of a new job" post for a while! I started at 6 o'clock this morning, which was rather brutal, but I did manage to force myself to go to bed EXTREMELY early last night, so it wasn't as hellish as it could have been.

The day went very well. I'm training for the next two weeks at a store in Newton Falls. To give you an idea, Newton Falls' claim to fame is the fact that the zip code is 44444. So yeah, it's the center of excitement. But damn, that store was busy! I know it was Saturday, but I was a little shocked at how many people came in there. But, I guess once they finish writing their zip code, what else do those people have to do?

So all in all, it was good. And even better is the fact that the person who's schedule I am mirroring is off tomorrow, so that means I am as well! So things are looking up...I say it's about time!

I'm really looking forward to bowling tonight...it will be nice to be with people that actually (seem to) like me again!

The past two days have been interesting. Yesterday I hung out with Kristin and we went shopping...I bought new clothes for work and a bunch of other stuff I didn't need. But I kept finding these amazing deals on everything...it was weird, it was like I was blessed with the powers of Monty Hall or something.

( list of shit I probably don't need )

I bowled in the mens league for the first time tonight...and I can honestly say that I did not have one bit of fun. There are 4 other people on the team, out of which one actually treated me like a human being. I thought I was being critcal at first until even people on the other team started saying I was being treated like shit. So I'm either going to just "pre-bowl" for them the rest of the year or I'm not going to go back. I bowl to have fun, not to feel like shit. Although I did bowl a semi-respectable (465) series, which gives me a 155 average in that league for now, should I remain in it. That's 5 pins above the Saturday league, albeit for WAY fewer games.

Well, I think it's time to go rotate laundry.

Thank you to those of you that have given me so many encouraging words over the past couple months with regards to my job situations, first the HORRIBLE one, and now for what seems like will be a very good one!

I can't believe I am up at 7 ass fuckin' 30 in the morning, but of course I have Motorola to thank. I had the alarm set on my POS phone, as I'm continuing my tour of the Western half of PA today and going down to hang out with Kristin. So I had it on "alarm only" so if by some chance a call did come through, I wouldn't be awakened. Well, Barry called me at a couple minutes after 7 and sure enough it rang. So I'm up. Though it's actually not so bad, I'm just going to be PA bound earlier than I had planned on. And it's 5 degrees this morning, so I see I'll need the sunscreen.

Well, I'm going to attempt to finish waking up here.