Diregard the last bit

So, they finally had a little chat with me.

Starting Wednesday I'm going to be working at the Market Square store as . . . well, they didn't say the exact title, but I'm going to go with "Day Manager." As in the guy who manages the store during the day.

I gets me a payrise, Same hours, but significantly less work. A new job title to stick on the resume and a greater sense of power to abuse.

As far as I can tell, the basic idea is that I go there and try and get the employees there to stop sucking. Possibly train them so that they're good enough to work at Queen St/QUT should the need arise or failing that, get them good enough to not suck. I can hire people provided they speak fluent English (that is quite literally the only thing that I have to make sure of aside from thinking that they'll be good), and I have to do all the paperwork, which is quite minimal.

The only downside is that until the end of September, I have to work Saturday mornings, so no Friday night fun for me, looks like I have to make up for it on Saturday nights. Oh, and after the end of September, I can decide to stay on as a full manager, part-time manager (and go back to studying), go back to Queen St (although why I'd do that is beyond me) or quit.

Either way, more money, less work.

Oh yeah, and I don't think I'll be able to go to Naked Coffee in the mornings anymore.

Fernando . . . STFU por favor

My biggest irritation at work right now is the fact that they're failed to promote me for way too long. For the last 3 weeks they've been telling me that they'll talk to me about promotion either soon, tomorrow or next week.

For 3 weeks.

And it just gets worse with Fernando constantly prodding me and saying "you'll be doing this banking stuff soon" or pretty much anything implying that I'll be made management very very very soon.

Is it so hard for them to just spend 5 minutes to tell me "congrats, you get a new shirt, now get back to work!"? Or do they need to keep dragging this along. Hell, the only reason I've stuck around so long is because for the last 2 months I've been expecting some form of promotion and the majority of that time they've given me good reason to expect it.

Maybe they'll keep their promise and talk to me tomorrow -.-;;

Probably not.[/emo]

Blag Post

*statement*

*inane drivel*

*topic loosely related to statement by inane drivel*

*nerdy reference*

Gaming Time For Me

A bit over a week ago, I found a copy of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem. A kickass game that it appears many people didn't know about because it's a Gamecube title.

Didn't get around to playing it until just now, and the problem is that it's one of those games you have to get into the mood for. Dark, freakish games can't be played whilst you're waking up, or during the middle of the day. You have to really want to be in that sort of headspace and it's much better if it's dark. the biggest problem that I face with trying to play it is that it's very dark, and glare on the screen just makes it all not shibbeh. Then again, the biggest problem is that I'm more in the mood for Super Mario Strikers Charged.

Which I went and played for a little while, but it's somewhat hard to get to the point where I can unlock Diddy Kong, so I can kick further ass, because I loves the fast captains, and Peach, as much as I love her slutty ass, is just not as good.

Oh, and then there's the whole Pokemon thing, meant to be doing something on that (both Emerald and Pearl), still got to finish a few other Wii games (Eledees and Sonic and the Secret Rings come to mind) and find out when Trauma Center: Second Opinion gets released over here.

It's somewhat sad, with a full time job and modly duties on Gaia, I may have to cut back my gaming time, and I've already been doing that. . . on the plus side, looks like I won't bother buying a 360 any time soon, although the HD TV definitely still appeals. . .

Well fucksticks

You know, with a title like that only one possible thing could have happened.

Actually, many things could have happened.

But today my alarm didn't go off, so I was awakened by my phone making a buzzing noise then going "let's play some Tetris motherfucker. do do de do do dedo dedo do dedo dedo do do do doo." About 45 minutes after I should have been out the door. Thank Christ Jane and I has some sort of system for obtaining caffienation in the early hours.

So I made a frantic call to work telling them that I'd be late, to find out that I was absolutely needed for the opening, because the other two people opening didn't know how to do pretty much anything. Lesigh.

They managed to get someone to come from another store to cover me for the half hour, but it turns out they didn't do anywhere near as much as I would have done, so it took me about 2 hours of frantic running around, bossing peoples and various other things which might be illegal in some countries to get things on track.

Then Luis asked me to stay back until 6 because he wanted to go home early. . . I like money so I said yes. The only problem is that all that running around made me a little buggered. Convinced Jeffer to start half an hour early and bailed.

Coming home wasn't great either, because I came home to a mass of buttons.

I should probably fill in more details and make more sense, but I'm letired. So take a nap, THEN FIRE ZE MISSILES!

Bad Mistake There. . .

The admins at Gaia Online really fucked up this time, normally they make the occasional mistake and people seem to like to bitch about how stupid it is when it's not a huge deal.

But they made a huge mistake today, seriously, something that may result in the site going down like a cheap Vietnamese prostitute.

They made me a moderator.

When will people learn? I'm not good with authority, I like to be malicious, petty and cruel, not to mention thick-skulled, dull witted and probably a few other negative qualities. I also smell, but that might not be a huge issue in this circumstance.

A Lousy Student and Worse Teacher

A while ago I decided to teach myself Chinese. Invested in a few text books, downloaded some useful files (including the full Pimsleur set and a handy book about learning another language with some useful tips).

There's just one problem with trying to teach yourself something, it's always better to be taught by someone who knows the subject.

Seriously, being self-taught has huge disadvantages, the biggest being that you can't immediately spot your mistakes without external references.

Anyone want to bother tutoring me? Because I have all the tools but the most important one.

Also, shortest blog post to date, go me!

I Didn't Know Cars Went That Slow

I'm going to buy myself an Xbox 360 sometime soon, my decision was made final last night when I crashed at Carlos'.

We played some FORZA 2 (I won't buy it, but that's beside the point), and after a series of 3 races, we decided for the last one we were just going to ram the shit out of each other, forget winning, whoever takes the least damage by the end of the race is probably the winner.

I lost dramatically,

It all came undone when I saw Carlos careen into a wall. . . so I lined him up and hit him like the fist of an angry god. Oddly enough, I came off worse in that collision and for the rest of the race (this was on the second corner) my car struggled to get up to 70kph.

The worst part was on the final stretch before the finish line (I assume it's referred to as the final straight or some such thing, but who cares about being correct with racing terminology?). . . where I was crawling along to the finish and Carlos (who had long since finished the race and had the CPU controlling his car) absolutely hammered me.

My top speed was reduced to 12kph, the car would start veering left and then for no reason veer to the right. . . it was fucking hilarious, but the downside was that it took me a further 2 minutes to finish the race, and I was lapped twice after that.

Matter of fact, to prove how fucked I was, I rammed into a wall and my car didn't get even slightly damaged (as far as we could tell, it was pretty fucked up), the downside to that manoeuvre was that I ended up taking another 30 seconds or so reversing away from the wall, and then another 30 seconds after that getting back to my astounding top speed.

Good times.

There's nothing left for me to do in that game.

But now I need a 360 and an LCD TV that displays in 1080i. Looks like I won't be buying a car anytime soon.

Oh, I also saw Ocean's Thirteen, went to Nando's for dinner (Carlos' brother, Oscar, referred to it as a terrorist convention because everyone but us was Muslim), found a copy of Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem for the Gamecube and probably some other minor things, but who cares? The important thing is I destroyed a pixelated car.

The Many Problems With Too Much Time

Another Sonata Arctica related entry today.

I'm a very sad strange little boy, and I feel like sharing a story about this.

My iPod gets constant use, on the bus, during breaks, wandering around, basically any time I'm not at home and not working, my iPod is on and 90% of the time, it's just playing through the Sonata Arctica discography. The reason I mention this? One particular song (White Pearl, Black Ocean from the album Reckoning Night, which is many levels of awesomeness I might add) always reminded me of Pocahontas (also awesome, but mainly because of this section which could never be put into a movie these days, well also because it's a good movie, but I love that song).

Until recently, I couldn't work out why an epic song made me think Disney. . . until I pressed a friend of mine who has similar interests and amounts of free time, told her the exact line which made me think Disney ("Everybody killed me with their eyes." approx 3:30 into the song) and then she trawled through the Pocahontas soundtrack and discovered that (after singing the lines to herself a few times to see how the SA line sounded with a female voice) the whole reason for this mental link was because the line "or ask the grinning bobcat why he grins" (from Colors of the Wind, conveniently linked above) was sung the same way.

There's probably a few other points in the song that are sung similarly too, I haven't actually listened to Colors of the Wind for a while, despite watching Pocahontas every once in a while and tracking down the song on YouTube for anyone foolish enough to read this blockage of intraweb tubes.

All that really matters here is that through wasting my time, someone else's time and listening to various forms of awesome music, I proved that I wasn't completely insane. . . that or that I some sort of ear for details in music. . . or that I have enough time to find this kind of thing out.

Okay, not too sure what was proven, but something must have been.

FRANTIC LAST SECOND EDIT!
Lilly (my friend who did the "research" on this piece, finding the line in Pocahontas that matched up etc) was wrong . . . having just actually bothered to listen to the song, the line "ask the grinning bobcat why he grins" does not match the SA line. Although there are numerous points in the song where she sings a note progression (is that the right term) identical to the one in White Pearl.

I'm not insane, but I think I've finally found what point has been proven. . . that I really need to check this stuff myself before going and announcing to the world that there has been a great discovery.

My New Goal:

Making little children cry.

Come July 8, there shall be a great event in the Garden City shopping center. A Pokemon Connection Tour dohickey.

The important part is that there's a tournament. Some basic rules apply, lvl 50 max, no legendaries (except the sucky ones) and no duplicates (of items or pokemon).

I plan to use this tournament to further my current mission in life, making children cry. I have a slight advantage over the majority of people who will show up, because I imported my copy of the game which has yet to be released here. Also, I can cheat and make my team without effort, but odds are I'll just do it legitimately because I just have that much free time. Or not do anything at all. . . that's more my style.

The important thing to remember is that if I succeed, I will annoy people.

Now to just design a kickass team, make it, learn to use it, then get on with the child abuse. Here's hoping there aren't too many sad cases like myself at the event, otherwise I might miss some of the fun.

Buttsecks?

You know how there are misheard song lyrics? Great fun and can lead to high levels of amusement such as in the case of Nightwish's Wishmaster. . .

Well, I've found something better. Just in a slightly different way.

Don't worry, I've done this before,
It'll hurt like hell and leave you sore.
Those are actual lyrics from Sonata Arctica's Fly With The Black Swan.

Now, completely devoid of context, even those with pure minds should be able to have a giggle at the sexual connotations. For those who are completely depraved, beings such as myself who have been raised by the internet, there's more than just a giggle available for such great lyrics.

For those wanting full context, you're going to have to apply your Google-fu to this one, or go buy the album Unia.

Now for more Sonata Arctica related goodness, because I spent an unhealthy amount of time last night researching them on the source of all knowledge, as well as watching some hilarious videos of Tony Kakko (that's the lead singer) doing an imitation of a muppet.

I seem to have a little thing for insane people. Here's hoping it's not a case of "like attracts like" because my interest in Sonata Arctica, Terry Pratchett and my habit of dating woman who seem to fall under the categories of "batshit insane", "los loco", "jibbawut?" ,or "just plain odd" (in some cases all four), not to mention the amount of time I spend on online forums. . . I'm starting to get worried, a blog post about Sonata Arctica's awesomeness has made me come to the realisation that I might very well be truly insane. That doesn't seem right. I can't be insane, it must be the rest of the world.

Random Quote edited in for fun:
God Squad lady: Praise Jesus! You won't be saved without Jesus! You have to start believing in Jesus to be saved! Jesus will always be there for you!
Suit #1: Would it be so awful if we pushed her out when the doors open?
Suit #2: No. Jesus will save her.

A Temporary Addition

I've been told that I need a blog.

Jane even went to the hassle of making a DS Lite in photoshop for me to use as a layout, but that means I have to learn how to work out how to make a layout.

Give me time, and this place will look pretty and shiny.

In other news, I went exploring today. Well, the bus driver went exploring after arriving ten minutes late, then taking ages to get everyone on board (evidently, he was new, which isn't a good thing when you're doing a busy route). Anyhow, the exploration took place around the hospital, because someone managed to crash their car at the intersection, meaning the cops decided to block off the road the bus is meant to travel along.

It was fun watching the people waiting at the bus stop realise we were turning along Kessels Rd and start sprinting so that they could catch the bus. Then there was the whole navigating around the hospital in a banana bus, which was fun enough for me to put down my book for a few minutes to see where the hell I was.

Eventually I made it home.

One last thing, the new guy at work is a Kiwi, I spent a fair part of my day making him say "fillet" (it's not a challenge, but hearing him say "fullot" hasn't gotten old yet).