but our princess is in another castle

a middle's beginning

2009-02-10T15:57:00.004-07:00

‘Yo we have to go to von’s and use papi’s discount, Be Beast son’ remarked my sister as we cruised around USC’s college town perimeter. The road is slick with a days worth of downpour making the it look like some street racing video game we were all to excited to play through. We had been trying to decide what to do on this night of nights after last call at the bar. ‘Vons it is’, I acquiesced.

It was 2am Saturday morning, Gabi and I had left our perfectly good beds some 1400 miles and 42 hours ago and we hadn’t stopped. We looked too good to stop. The bar had been some sort of loud dimensional warp, the fact that it was a place called Medusa's where women in no pants served us drinks and the bar itself looked like Hogwart's had proven to me that this trip had taken a first trembling step into the realm of the Legendary. I swore I just saw professor Snape slink back behind the bar drink in hand, booming techno and Johnnie Walker was the only think keeping me moving at this point. I was almost overwhelmed and lost in that place behind my eyes, my ear canals long since numbed by the bone rattling bass.

Outside in post-rain Los Angeles I was struck by how close this supermarket rang true to our beloved Safeway’s in Colorado. My father has been employed by this supermarket giant and most everyone in my Denver family benefits, any discount is a good discount. It’s a comforting feeling you get when your near the familiar, in this case this oversized bodega, but the complete opposite effect ensues when your whole world gets turned upside down…

‘Where the hell is the club soda and tonic water?!’ I comment as I walk back to an increasingly perplexed birthday girl. ‘We need mixers for all that gin sitting in your apartment’. We had spent the better part of the last 5 minutes trying to figure out why in the carbonated drinks and water aisle you couldn’t find carbonated water. Carolina and I decided on some Perrier knockoff to just get away from this irrational situation and we turned a corner into something close to a Dominican rendition of Nirvana.

In this climate controlled food mecca we stumbled into an aisle of wine and beer as far as the eye could see. The pacifying fluorescent lighting reflecting brilliantly off the California-grown red and white spirits to our right while 6 pack after brightly colored 6 pack started whispering in their perfectly cold and crisp voices ‘drink me, I am perfectly chilled and refreshing’ on our left. Like the sailors of old I had to resist these devilish sirens, I needed some godamn tonic water.

A feeling of exultation washed over me as we made it to the end of this fiendish aisle and we were rewarded for our grand efforts with simply labeled and perfectly serviceable bottles of Tonic Water and Club Soda. A sensation only heightened by the timely arrival of Gabi and Gracie. Gabi and I looked equal parts fly and exhausted but ready to ride this train off the tracks. With that in mind we set off towards the cashier with our spoils from this battle in hand. Ready to face whatever lay in store a few short hours away in Mexico.

in times long passed

2009-02-10T11:37:00.002-07:00

joey 'what would happen if you focused the suns energy in to a big ray?'
conrad 'there would be a very big hole somewhere'

dedication

2009-02-10T11:21:00.006-07:00

thank you carola for giving us the reasons
thank you gabi for driving by my side through it
thank you karla for letting me record it
thank you nataly and kari for checking in
thank you chrissy for helping me sweat the details
thank you LA for showing us a great time
thank you Mexico for giving us VIP.

Foreword

2009-02-10T11:19:00.005-07:00

No, its not that serious... just recounting my compi and mines trip through the desert to visit my beloved sister and our adventures since

hey you

2008-07-02T20:02:00.002-07:00

i've decided that my long winded posts aren't really where i want to take the blog,
micro blogging is more my thing i believe...
you can keep tabs on me and what im up to by checking my twitter feed twitter.com/saint0z

i'll post here on occasion, but twitter is really feeling more like my thing

im headed to nyc in 24 hours for a whirlwind tour, very exciting stuff

Updates

2008-06-26T17:12:00.002-07:00

Small post today, I'm finally going back to NYC and nobody has died!

Going to be there the 4-5th of July and leaving early(probably drunk) the morning of the 6th.

Friday the 4th I hope to be up in CT visiting my bff Mike at his estate, I haven't been there in 6 years and I can't wait to be back. Should be down in Brooklyn to bbq some before going bar hopping w/ primos.
Saturday will start w/ breakfast at Tasty Donuts (a premium establishment) then whatever the primas in NYC can come up with for saturday night, culimating on drinking until we get on the plane sunday morning.

As a side note, I'm almost done cleaning up my Gmail account, I've deleted like 4k e-mails so far...

NYC in a week!

Driving Doña Guillermo Pt. 2

2008-06-24T14:12:00.004-07:00

Well its been a while since I've blogged and the ridiculous amount of free time my job affords me now gives me no excuse.

So instead of continuing my previous story (no offense Karla), I'm just going to pick up and fill everyone in on various facets of my life with a small story tacked on the end.

So Spherion and I parted ways 1 week before GTA4 came out. Its only significant because for some reason my job changes revolve around major game releases. Back in '04 I left MCI 1 week before World of Warcraft came out, and anybody who knows anything about me knows how that turned out. Spherion ended up dumping me because of 'Excessive Internet Use'. They had an issue with me leaving a browser window opened but minimized while I was performing other duties. Its unfortunate because I had no such issues (my manager agreed) in the position I held before going on the phones for Agilent. I had put multiple requests in to get transferred off of the phones, I asked for MORE work to do (which they obliged but was no where near enough work to keep me occupied), and I applied for a position that was made for me at Agilent. Thats another story but the gist is that Agilent cancelled the requisition for the position AFTER they did all the interviews.

So since the last week of April and up until recently I've been unemployed. I had enough money saved to be able to live comfortably for a couple weeks, bills were paid up, etc. But I needed to be on the job market sooner rather than later. After setting up the Monster.com resume I began networking. Asking around etc. That first week of unemployment was enjoyable, its quite jarring going from waking up at 7:45am every day to moving at your own pace again. But then GTA4 came out, I played the bejesus outta that game. I think the longest amount of time played in one sitting (reported in the game mind you) is about 15 hours, for the non gamers that read this feel free to contemplate that. 15 hours. In a row, only bathroom breaks/food reheating. Needless to say my opinion of the game is pretty high, that stretch of time isn't even the longest that I've devoted to a single experience either.

Well after engrossing myself in GTA and playing some City of Heroes for a time, it was back to the job hunt. I did find a couple really interesting opportunities, one of which was at Safeway which unfortunately didn't pan out, I ended up here at DMX Music. I would just like to say that comparing DMX to Spherion can be best described as comparing a week on a sandy beach to 4 years at Guantanamo w/o being charged with a crime. While working with Spherion was pretty similar to my experience at MCI, it was much more oppressive. While MCI was clearly more corporate, everyone knew everyone's business at Spherion/Agilent. Not to mention my Agilent manager was a self professed 'Agilent Cheerleader'. It made meetings and discussions mind numbing. I wasn't a fan of the corporate culture there either. It was something akin to a nanny state. Everything needed to be cleared/oked. We had to put a sign up when we were at our desks and on break so nobody would be confused as to what we were up to. Visitations to a peer's desk were scrutinized all the time. I certainly see the effectiveness of such a strategy at a corporate level, but for a Generation Y individual like myself I found the operation oppressive. Here at DMX the culture (at the small denver uplink office) is MUCH different. While at Spherion lunch and break times needed to be clearly defined and you needed to be able to refer back to your lunches for the previous week, my first day my boss (Jeff) sent me off to lunch, I asked for how long, he replied 'as long as you need'. To be fair I was considerate and took about 20 minutes for lunch (sandwich packed in the car) that was quite a refreshing change of pace to be talked to and regarded as an adult.

More about the position, I'm a Network Operations Technician. What is breaks down to is that I have 3 offices, 2 satellites and 1 server farm I need to monitor. To break it down even further, I surf the internet, watch TV, and send out an all-clear e-mail every half hour. Its definitely a bit mind numbing but its paying the bills at the moment. The big news is that its not permanent, I could let my mind rot away here for the next 10-15 years but I would be doing myself a disservice. I more than anyone know what I'm capable of and to that end I'm leaving Denver behind for NYC by next summer.

To be frank, I miss the city of my birth desperately and I am looking for an opportunity to go back. It was quite jarring back in '03 completely leaving everyone I knew behind in NYC to hanging out with pretty much family only when we moved out here. I have a lot of friends in Denver through work, but it was lonely leaving all my long time (4+ years) friends that I had grown quite attached to on the eastern seaboard. I love the friends I have out here, but I didn't go to school with anybody here so its harder to relate my pre-'03 experiences (which are very unique) to anyone out in Denver.

Which brings me back to the title of this piece, Driving Doña Guillermo.

It was a Saturday like every other, bright, relaxing, placid. Gabi was out on an errand when I get the call, Doña Guillermo is on the way with a delivery. Let me relate one thing to you all, whenever any of my aunts comes to visit, every little detail about the apartment is noticed/inferred/extrapolated/checked in the stars. So immediately after getting the info that she was on her way I sprang into action. Never in my life had I cleaned this fast. I jumped up, set everything on my desk/dinner table in order. I leaped over into the kitchen and did 3 days worth of dishes (why oh why do i like to cook so much). I set all the pillows our couches in order. I picked up and made both my bed and Gabi's. It was a flurry of organization and tidying because Doña Gisela was on the way.

15 minutes later, I get the call that she's outside. I put on my sneakers, comb my hair and rush out to greet her. She's rocking her normal style, big sunglasses, immortal makeup, and hair thats seen more hairspray than anything west of New Jersey, the works. She's also carrying three shelves out of a bureau (chest of drawers). I say my greetings, 'cion Tia, she responds in kind. I reach out for the drawers and clumsily grip the set of 3 she had in some kind of monkey grip. She tells me to meet her back here. I then sprint back into the apartment and leave the first set on Gabi's bed.
I make my way back through my apartment building and lo and behold she's at the exact spot halfway between the apartment and her ride that we met at earlier. 2 more trips later I have all the drawers inside and its all bureau time. After working the bureau out of my aunts little CRV this 5x4x2 foot beast is sitting roadside and we have to figure out how to get it into the apartment. At this point I expect to be lugging it in myself so I proceed to bear hug it a couple feet. Tia quickly reprimands me and tells me to grab a side. Now picture this, I'm 220 lb's of dark man and my aunt is a little over half my weight and we're gonna grab this thing like movers. To my bewilderment she lifts her half effortlessly and we glide this bureau up and down stairs and through door after door to where my apartment is. After getting it into position, she jokes about taking her sun glasses off in the darkness of gabi's room. We then begin talking about work/etc, I mention my hours and she remarks that she's looking for work for me as well... Apparently the tia's aren't impressed with what I'm doing currently w/ DMX (I'm not either) and they are actively networking with people to find a better place for me. I graciously thanked her for the thought but it was definitely awkward as I'm not looking for something to tie me down with my NYC move pending next year.

So forgive me, I didn't actually drive around w/ Doña Guillermo last saturday, but the time I did is a different story for another day...

Driving Miss Guillermo Pt. 1

2007-04-30T17:23:00.000-07:00

So Saturday was a long and busy day. Started off a little earlier than normal and started getting ready. It was a big day, Karla was going to accompany me during my car shopping escapade.
I finished getting ready and then checkbook in hand, i proceeded to storm out of my apartment ready to tear up any car salesman that would come between my dream car and me. I had originally gone to the dealership on thursday and scoped the place out with my dad; i had an image of what i wanted ready and was prepared to charge into the car lot.
After arriving at Karla's home, the nerve center for the Torres familia's move to Colorado, i was in a conundrum. I was locked out and it was early, knocking on the door proved no use, and I did not want to wake up the whole house so I avoided the door bell. I turned to my trusty cell phone, ringing up Gabe i let him know that i need an entry ASAP. Gabe grumbled something and then obliged, coming downstairs to open the door for me not even having wiped the sleep from his eyes. After exchanging a greeting, he mumbled something about "Karla is still getting ready, I’m going to go finish sleeping" and proceeded to trudge back up the steps back to his still warm bed.
I found myself in the TV room seated mindlessly flipping through the channels when I hear Tia Gisela (Karla's mom) making her way to the kitchen. She started saying that she was surprised to see me up so early and then promptly apologized thinking was that I was Karla. While this was the first time I've been mistaken for Karla, I took it all in stride and let out a chuckle and said my greetings. I let her know that we were going car shopping this fine Saturday morning and that we were going to check out her beloved Honda dealership. And after checking out Carmello Anthony's penthouse on Cribs it was time to move out.
We both jumped into the minivan with me at the helm and we rolled out. I queued up some easy listening and we started catching up on things. I hadn't spent any significant time with Karla in a while so the time was much appreciated to see how life was marching on. The road was long, but I had miles to go before I slept.

To Be Continued…

first 6 minutes of the pick of destiny

2007-01-31T10:56:00.000-07:00

tenacious D ftw

omg survey

2007-01-22T09:58:00.000-07:00

1. What is your middle name?
none needed.
2.How big is your bed?
twin
3. What are you listening to right now?
i haven't put any music on my ipod yet, just podcasts.
4. What are the last 4 digits in your cellphone number?
9779
5. What was the last thing you ate?
beer
6. Last person you hugged?
Mami
7. How is the weather right now?
just right, minus so much snow.
8. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?
Mami
9. The first thing you notice about the opposite sex?
their countenance
10. Favorite type of Food?
NYC Pizza
11. Do you want children?
yes, they've been named.
13. Ever get so drunk you don't remember the entire night?
never, on my list of things to do however.
14. Hair color?
Badass.
15. Eye color?
brown
16. Do you wear eye contacts?
used to, i need to get new glasses though.
17. Favorite holiday?
any which afford me a 5 day weekend
18. Favorite Season?
winter
19. Have you ever cried over a boy/girl?
negative
20. Last Movie you watched, Who was it with?
i'd have to say Battlestar Galactica fills my movie needs currently, it was with Nataly

*as an aside, where are questions 21-28?*

29. What books are you reading?nothing atm

*30*?

31. Favorite Movie?
the Godfather
32. Favorite college football team?
i don't follow college football
33. What were you doing before filling this out?
at work, and afterwards i will continute to work
34. Any pets?
i wish
35. AIM?
yeah
36. Dogs or cats>
both
38. Favorite Flower?
none
40. Have you ever loved someone?
it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all
41. Who would you like to see right now?
i don't have a good answer unfortunately
43. Have you ever fired a gun?
ya rly
44. Do you like to travel by plane?
yes planes and I get along since i was but a little lad
45. Right-handed or Left-handed?
right
46. If you could go to any place right now where would you go?
to bed
48. Are you missing someone?
course
49. Do you have a tattoo?
not yet
50. Do you still watch cartoons on Saturday mornings?
if i didnt have random stuff to do i would so be there
51. Are you hiding something from someone?
good question
52. Are you 18?
couple years ago
53. What is the wallpaper on your cellphone?
my badass celly phone doesn't beleive in wallpapers
54. Did you get enough sleep last night?
lol
55. First thing you thought about this morning?
im hungry
56. What do you have handy on your bedside table?
clock, laptop, nintendo ds
57. Grilled or Fried?
fried, its the dominican way
58. What makes you unique?
i am a mover of men
60. Are you afraid of the dark?
never
61. Favorite hangout?
my desk lol
62.Things you cant live without?
things to do
63. First thing you will buy if given $1000.00?
only a thousand? nothing probably, just put it in the bank
64. Favorite song?
talib kweli, get by, favorite music video queens of the stone age - go with the flow, who doesn't like some hypersexual
65. What are you afraid of?
being forgotten
66. Are you a giver or taker?
a little of both, you have to give to take
67. What are your nicknames?
goofy the ghost
68. What is your dad's middle name?
eugenio
69. What is your mother's middle name?
esperanza
70. Stuck on a deserted island & could bring one thing?
i would declare it my own country and attack Sealand
71. Favorite TV commercial?
anything witty
72. Who is your cell phone provider?
virgin mobile, 10 bucks a month for phone service
73. First thing you'll save in a fire?
myself
74. Favorite color?
Badass
75. What is one thing you always bring with you?
a comb that belonged to my late grandfather
76. What did you want to be when you were a kid?
an astrophyscist or a paleontologist
77. What do you usually do when the clock reads 7:00am?
nothing, im asleep
78. The color of your bedsheets?
navy
79. Who do you want to meet?
no joke, on the scale of interesting people it'd probably be Hitler
80. What do you think about before you go to bed?
tomorrow

punch them fools in the face

2007-01-18T10:45:00.000-07:00

( 9'_')9 ('. ' )
( 9'_')--o(x, x )
d=(`_' )z (;. ; )

not mine, but i love it anyway

supersonic, electronik

2007-01-15T21:03:00.000-07:00

fear the ninja omnideuce

2007-01-08T13:51:00.001-07:00

QUICK NINJA ANSWER AS MANY QUESTIONS AS YOU CAN

great philosophy on life

2007-01-05T14:11:00.000-07:00

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!"

something for the ladies this christmas

2006-12-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

you've gained skill in balloon animal

2006-12-09T12:53:00.000-07:00

well i got a new job recently, its badass, but other than that fridays are very laid back, casual if you will. on one of these casual fridays i decided to make use of the time before i left and started working on learning how to make balloon animals,

Yep im that awesome, i'm fully versed in making dogs/horses/giraffes/reindeer(with antlers)/geese... yeah im eleet

a little bit of internet history

2006-12-06T22:40:00.000-07:00

a gift for you all, here

and another thing kids

2006-11-14T19:54:00.000-07:00

don't smoke crack, here's why

Photos of New York from the 1930s and their 1990s Equivalents

2006-10-18T22:55:00.000-07:00

this is why nyc is the best fuckin city in the world

read more | digg story

looks like someone is about to get pwned

2006-10-07T23:27:00.000-07:00

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend... if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second...if there is one."
Winston Churchill, in response

fantabulous five redux

2006-10-01T23:40:00.000-07:00

im evil, mwuhaha

they do thriller much better in india

2006-10-01T21:01:00.000-07:00

and on a side note a buddy of mine in home theater at my best buy passed away today from a car accident the night before, RIP Bao

jon stewarts wins at the tv

2006-09-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

the easter bunny hates you

2006-09-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

i've decided since i don't really write too much i'd just share some awesome youtube/googlevideos i find....

me in a couple years

2006-09-01T20:42:00.000-07:00

im all about doing a little shuffle while hot women dance around me...

If Drugs Were Legal

2006-08-21T22:13:00.000-07:00


A must see docu drama about what would happen to the world if drugs were legalized its an hour long, i hope your sitting down

also if i had a million dollars what would i do?
i'd open up a game cafe and own/manage/operate it, i've finally decided

drunk post zomfg

2006-08-12T01:08:00.000-07:00

well i must say i love my ladies,
atm carol natalie and karla and designing me my new look, we're talkin cream 3 piece suit and pink shirt, and cream borsalino hat with a pink feather, with joe encrusted in silver on the vest....
im down.
and im all about chrissy, i just wish i could spend some more time talking with her, been rough the last week not being able to talk at all because of training etc,
just wanted to let her know im thinkin about here even after 8 beers...
drunk post ftw...

The trouble with quotes about death is that 99.999 percent of them are made by people who are still alive.

2006-07-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

- Joshua Bruns

i originally planned to get a really deep quote about death, but this one really stood out to me, everyone could use a little humor in these trying times...

i had just come off the cell phone and sent chrissy a text to the effect that i try to be as level headed as possible like my father... then no sooner than an hour or so afterwards as i was getting ready to head out my father comes down and tells me that he's died.
it didn't really hit me like a ton of bricks it was more like a jenga game, the tension slowly building until my mom walked in and i had to tell her that he had passed 5 minutes after the point. then it all came crashing down. i cried.
my dad started making calls almost immeadiately until he took a slight pause and all 3 of us embraced and we cried together.

i don't have much more to say yet, i'll post more as it comes to me

Did you know that...

2006-07-16T21:37:00.000-07:00

In 1971, a cartoon character named Milton the Toaster was introduced to promote Pop-Tarts. William Schallert from the Patty Duke Show voiced him. The campaign ended when a commercial showed a child hugging the toaster, leading to complaints that children might imitate the commercial and burn themselves.

Discuss.

hardkore

2006-07-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

guns are cool

also, long distances relationships are a challenge

and
i lean a little more to the right than the Dalai Lama on the political compass
feel free to take the test

Most badass kid names you ever laid eyes on

2006-07-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

Haziel de jesus Torres
Isabella Magarita Torres
Theodore Eugenio Torres
Mercutio Reynaldo Torres
Demetria Amankaya Torres

2006-06-15T21:02:00.000-07:00

Yarrr
that was quite a weekend, as don't really feel like drafting it all into prose, i'll refer you to my sisters page ...carolina's blog... yarr a pirate's life is rough

2005-12-10T00:18:00.000-07:00

yeah im still alive and i moved out into my own apartment,
pics;
here
and an experiment in chops
here

2005-09-30T21:25:00.000-07:00

Woosh, there goes this last week.

Time to tell you all about my jizzob.

well i must back track a bit because i didn't update last week, but after calling the hookup at the lab i went back on friday and basically pushed the process through. had best buy call in to get the results and finally got that shit pushed through. thankfully jeahana (gina) the hr lady i was working with turned to me and said i passed and asked if i could start tomorrow (sat). i elatedly responded yes and asked what time. she told me that orientation from 1pm-5pm and come in a white polo and khakis. it was time to roll

well after a nervous nights sleep i start getting ready for day one. well it's been a while since i've done any work, and so i took it upon myself and meditated. now i haven't meditated in about a year, but it just felt good. im not devoutly religious being raised catholic never made much sense to me. in my later boarding school years i began ready a lot of buddhist texts and a lot of the ideas started sticking on me. most of which was meditation and the search for enlightment (being a different path for everyone). i have a shrine set up in my room with my buddha, and my car has a shrine leading me off wherever i go. so while i can't say that im buddhist (i don't believe in any sort of ceremony) i sometimes refer to myself as a practicing buddhist, i read some of the literature and use what i feel works. so i meditated, i did lotus position for a while then i switched to a more comfortable open position and it helped clear the mind and get ready for a new chapter.

so disregarding that side track, after meditating did a last check and got my shit together and went out the door. arrive at the front door, talk with loss prevention (the guys that stand at the front and check reciepts) they pointed me at where to go and i arrived, sadly 10 minutes late because of crazy construction on my route. but all was well they hadn't really done anything. the first part of orientation was held in big breakroom. so i walk in and theres about 12 other people of various sorts all sitting around a table with gina just running through some basic paperwork. well as it turns out because my drug test took so damn long i timed out of the system and i wasn't able to fill out any paperwork (tax forms n shit). so i got to spend the first hour doing nothing while 11 other people got their shit taken care of.

that hour creeps by and then the big guy comes in. general manager for store 217, paul. big jolly lookin fellow with a huge gut and slightly shaded glasses. doesn't look to friendly but he's very talkative. we move from the breakroom, turns out employees like to break in there, then we all crammed in to a 8x30 meeting room with a long table in the middle, im down at one end, everyone else fills in the side and paul is at the far end. this part of training is pretty much straight lecture, he tells us about general rules and the employee discount. he then pops in a dvd, and we get to watch random videos about best buy for the next hour and a half. whole bunch of crazy shit, like they have their own internal tv show with a whole bunch of crazy hosts like the benevolent beagle (a triumph ripoff and just as raunchy).

that over paul starts some more lecture and before i know it the day is done. i find gina afterwards and get my schedule for the next week. im doing midday on monday, closing on tuesday, opening on wednesday.

now as another sidetrack, my computer still sucks, but after that first day of work. the guild i lead on world of warcraft, HoZ on mannoroth horde, finally decide to turn down the suck and turn up the awesome. we killed ragnaros the final boss of the molten core making us the 6th guild to do it on our server horde side. it was the fruitition of 6 MONTHS of work and a huge guild milestone and really the biggest guild accomplishment i could have ever dreamed. i really thank everyone who spent hours and money putting in to this encounter and im glad to say that we came out on top. link to our page

so after a great weekend monday rolls around and after taking papi to pick up the landrover from the mechanic i get to work like 45 minutes early. now i know the geeksquad area isn't that big so i don't really want to stand around in the closet while im not on the clock, so i spend about a half hour just chilling listening to a trance set in the car waiting for time to pass. 1:45 rolls around and i step out the car, get presentable and march in for my first real day of work. i get in and find a spot out of the way behind the customer service desk about 5 feet from the geeksquad area and start scopin it out. watching interaction and the like, coming from customer service at mci i know what its like to talk to people, but working with someone face to face is slightly different. after a couple minutes a guy i will come to know as tarek comes up and introduces himself and the odyssey begins. i meet a whole bunch of people that work in the geek squad area and i start up a conversation with mike. mike is one of the managers who general takes care of closing and he seems like a pretty cool guy. about a half hour of me being there he calls everyone over to a computer in the back, and shows us all a clip from robot chicken of voltron getting served. good times. apparently all these guys are game players hardcore, love family guy, play wow, go to lan parties, get drunk, play games, have fun. so needless to say it seems i've found my niche. well mike says im going to get some register training today because everyone has to do it, but it never pans out. i wasn't really assigned any work, so basically i found a couple computers in the back and started fixing shit.

so the geek squad is pretty damn chaotic, there are a couple things in place to try and keep it moving forward, but you pretty much take it as you come. there are a couple backed up computers, a lot of computers that are fixed but they haven't picked them up yet and a lot of random crap back there that i haven't completely figured out. but its all in good fun and while i don't really get anything done my first day, i learned alot about how it works and how it should work.

the biggest thing we do at geeksquad is fix all the goddamn spyware. good god, some of the crap thats out there on the internet blows my mind. pretty much 70% of the shit we have to deal with is somebody chosing the wrong porn site and their computer gets laden with so much crap it should be illegal. windows loves collecting this crap, i used to think that cleaning my uncles computers was enough, but looking at some of the computers that come through the geeks squads hands would put lili's and arlene's work to shame.

so geek squad is fun, learning a lot and getting my shit together getting ready to move out. today i got my next week schedule and im going to be at the store's opening for 4 days next week and it looks fun. best buy looks like its going to be a good place to spend some time and im happy for now. can't wait for the first paycheck, gotta bank most of it, but i also gotta get my computer working again for as cheap as possible. thankfully i came up with a fix that lets me not install windows every time it crashes, but my computer is still crashing a fuckton.

and in closing i spent some time perusing other peoples blog and i decided to take this godforsaken color quiz, was fun, the results i guess are pretty spot on considering whats going on, im going to busy myself with the lightsaber game while you read this,

saint0z took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Wants to prove to himself and others that nothing ..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

until next time, carry on, i'll post an update whenever i feel inclined.

I am a Jedi knight... BZZT

2005-09-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

(description from digg.com)
Heres a fun little lightsaber game. Rotate your lightsaber to deflect the lasers back at the droids and, oh yeah, reach out with the force and stuff.

digg is a cool little site, its kind of like fark, but people control what makes it to the front page. plus you can blog links right off their page, im really just trying this out, be do enjoy the game

read more | digg story

2005-09-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

boo hiss, my computer sucks, the past week or so i've had a problem starting it up and wanting to do anything, whenever i load it up and say, load up world of warcraft immeadiately, the harddrive makes a series of loud clicks, then my whole computer locks up.

now if i start up my computer, load up counterstrike, no problem, if i play counterstrike for like 10-20 minutes then try to load up wow? no problem, wtf.

well monday night i had my computer basically on all day, was getting kinda late and julie logs on, i help her out some then my comp just flat out locks and i get a blue screen of death, joy.

well trying to start windows after that proves fruitless, every time windows loaded i would get a brief bluescreen and then a restart, angered i went to bed.

woke up the next morning to the same problem, resigned i tried to repair my windows installation. after taking forever and a day (hour+) i load up back into windows and breathe a sigh of relief, knowing what i had to do i started playing counterstrike and BOOM, blue screen and hardlock. restarting windows again i was stuck at bsod after bsod. really pissed i took a nap.

after my hard earned nap i woke again and got back to work on it. sadly the only option seemed to completly wipe my harddrive with a full format and start anew again. le sigh, sadly i wasn't able to save any of documents so im starting from scratch again. after reinstalling windows fully i decided to not deal with my shitty connecton at home and took my computer to gabe's house. i jacked his internet for like 3 hours and redownloaded all the patches and redownloaded everything from steam still waiting for the drug test back, im going to go buy on wed again and see if there is anywhere else i could go because this is being slow as ass

until next time, hopefully with some better news.

2005-09-14T14:43:00.000-07:00

bah,
sorry for the lack of updates, nothing really has happened

went back to best buy today after taking gobble to his drug test and wanted to see what was up (they hadn't called me back since then). turns out the lab where i went is backed up. joy, get to wait on someone else to start working.

other than that life continues just as it had for the past several months. hope to be working this weekend once the gdamn results get in.

2005-09-07T21:51:00.000-07:00

im badass,
proof:
starting pay for a tech was quoted to me from the manager as 10.50 to 11.00. well apparently i impressed that manager and his manager so much so that they see fit to start me at 12.00.
WTFPWNED
the start of a new day i guess, i accepted the position. gotta go pass a drug test (atm easy) and then pass a background check. everything works out and i can be working on saturday woot woot.

and apparently im not cool enough for a uniform right off the bat though, i gotta start with a white polo and khaki's cause im just a noob trainee. once i don't suck in the stores eyes i get the

God im such a dork, oh well at least im excited about going back to work. plan is to move out early december, i should have enough saved to furnish my first apartment fairly decently. also david is on board to come whenever, he's got a good amount saved and is ready for a change. julie has run into a bump so far due to a housing situation she's going through now, but we can only hope for the best.

tomorrow i finally get my car's emissions done (we swapped out the low profile tires to the original stock ones) and i can finally get license plates, woot.

also in line with moving down the line i started looking at apartment prices and it looks so feasible it hurts, we can get a 3 bedroom for like 800 easy and in aurora.

stay classy

2005-09-07T01:13:00.000-07:00

day two,

long day today, didn't get as much accomplished as i would have wanted. papi wanted me to go early to get emission done on my car but i was up till like 6am working on my blog so that fell through. was woken up at like noon with him arriving from work and i set into motion.

went to the emissions place but after waiting in line for like 20 minutes turns out my car is too low to the ground to actually take the test. good game. so i turned and got the hair cut taken care of, great timing going early afternoon tuesday's, walk in and im the only one there, in and out.

got my shit together and was out the door for the job interview at like 5:30, had a good ride (love my car to death) and got there about 5 minutes early. walk in and the only thing of note was a big sign saying that we're hiring a lot, and listing like 7 different positions they were looking for, /shrug right place right time i guess. so i walk up to the geek squad counter and ask for mike as instructed. couple seconds later this 23ish scrawny white guy comes walking out clutching a paper pamphlet and motions me to an employee only room.

inside is farily non descript, its just a room with a long table, a couple pictures of 'employees of the month' i assume and a big whiteboard with scheduling shit on it. i sit down accross from him and he bascially asks me to introduce myself, i start teh schmooze and by the end of the interview im giving the manager of the geek squad department tips on taking the a+ test which he hadn't even taken yet (3 weeks out).

2nd interview tomorrow, i get to meet the store manager, lets see how this one turns out

random picture,
after a lan party i threw for me nat and mike, i had a picture of us we took in the hallway,
late one night nat asked me to make the devil tell him to do evil things and have mr clean shove a fork into mikes ear,
what follows in teh result

2005-09-06T04:00:00.000-07:00

It came from the Depths

born out of upcoming changes in my life, i decided that it was time to blog. the next couple months bring a couple huge changes into the system. but first i guess i should bring you all up to date;

alright, november '04 fed up with life and the way things were going, i decide to rob a liqour store (/shady off), but yeah after being called back to mci to help set up a new segment, i decide i had enough when they started going back on a couple promises they made at the start. mostly i just wanted to move into a leadership position off the phone. but sadly due to people leaving it wasn't a possibility. so i went my separate way and cut my ties to mci. oh well. since then though my life went through quite the long chapter. unemployed since nov 04, i haven't worked a day.

the biggest blow to me was losing my car mid jan. no source of income=no insurance=no right to drive. so at my father's insistence we dumped the car at my godmothers house, hoping to pick it up a couple weeks later after finding a new job (lol). quick note about me, there were 5 things i cared about in life: my family, my computer, my car, the motorcycle, and the future. losing my car was losing a part of me, and i hope that i never have to feel that kind of loss again. well days went by, World of Warcraft came out at the end of november, and guess what, i found something to do.

made my avatar, Akar (Orc Hunter, Mannoroth) and basically lived day to day busying myself in another world. to date i've logged 60 days played on that one character. think about that if you could for a moment, (btw i took a moment and added up the time between all my characters of note and i have spent 89 days total, so 3 months) for the past 9 months i've spent 3 of them sitting at my computer desk toiling away. you spend a third of your life sleeping, i've spent a third of my life playing wow. addicted? no. but its an enjoyable experience that's easy to come back to. the reason its so enjoyable, is that it provides an easy to see metric of your sucess. time played=advancement so when your unemployed, you have a lot of time, so you can advance. the general philosphy of a game like this is that your always working towards something. you have to get level 10, level 11, lvl 20, lvl 40, lvl 60. you would think that once you finish getting to 60 that its over. but no, there's always a better bow, a better set of gloves, a cooler horse to ride. its a great time waster for the player, and a great money maker for the company. gotta keep those subcriptions payments rolling in.

as much as people would say that games won't take you anywhere. i will say this, the experiences and the friends that i have made these past 9 months, i wouldn't trade them for the world. i've met people from around the world, and all we wanna do is log on, kill a dragon, get a shiny sword and call it a night.
as with everything on the internet, you have to look at things with a certain amount of detachment. your talking to people you haven't met face to face and thusly you don't have the sort of inhibitions necessary in a real social situation. with that in mind, the past couple months have been a ride to say the least. i have a great circle of friends online and of course, there are cliques just like any highschool cafeteria, jocks here, goth kids there, etc. its greatly magnified by the fact that you don't need to interact with anyone you don't feel like, you just shut them off. well thats all fine and dandy, but when people want to destroy everything that others have built up because their gloves aren't as shiny as the guy next to them? well it causes a bit of strife, luckily that bit is all over and life goes on.
now i have a couple friends which i went to highschool with up in CT, much love to mike, david, ted, & stahl. they definitely keep my grounded into reality. and more than that, these are friends that i will hope to keep for a lifetime. with that in mind im bringing my game obsession back to a more sociable level. mid decemberish i will be moving out of my parents house. 21 years is good for me and its time to start moving to my own beat. i will be moving in with the root of all my evil, david carter roach. (one can congratulate david on being the man who sparked my lust for all things logical and entertaining, starcraft ftw). now david and me go way back, first day of westminster, skinny white boy living the next room over, doesn't have a computer, but has starcraft, wants to try it out, next thing i know im pulling a 12 hour bender in the computer lab playing startcraft until my eyes dry out. but alas, my decent into madness is best covered in a different post. but he brings with him the last vestige of my former life at westy (which were undeniably the 4 biggest years of my life (another time)) and a will to game.
and thankfully not all will be lost on mr carter's next foray onto american soil, julie comes this way as well. ahh julie, if there was ever a woman i would ask to marry based on principle it'd be you. gotta find a girl that will join me in what i love most /shrug. julie comes from 'bumfuck nowhere minnesota' but thankfully we share many common threads. general outlook on life being the biggest one. college degree is super, but i'll pass (for now) thanks for asking.

so after my huge sidetrack into the future, the weeks dragged on. being trapped in the house was quite the experience. you never realize something until you've lost it. and losing my car was huge. i don't need a lot of money to be happy, but freedom is something that you can't really buy and that was the hardest part about getting through the past couple months. but thankfully that time is over.

there was no bigger surprise than last friday morning being woken up by my mom and the news that follows. papi is going to reinstate your car insurance because gas is way to expensive on his trucks. well as it turns out my dad figured it out, and it would be cheaper for him to just pay insurance and gas on my car that to pay gas on his 2 trucks. so that same day i started a policy and got the car registered again. and you better believe that that sunday afternoon driving my old friend back from middle of nowhere was the best drive i could have ever asked for. i spent 4 hours handwashing my car and cleaning it the fuck out and with that i bring you these

so fresh and so clean, clean

man i wish i studied some more poety, but words cannot describe how it feels to look outside my window and see my car out there again, as i told mami, thank you for giving my part of my life back.

tomorrow starts another chapter in my life, this one is finally ending. job interview tomorrow for the geek squad and if all goes well (i'm good at making it go well) then the apartment search begins!

know this, the games will never stop, its as much who i am as carol's music collection is a part of who she is (im still so sorry i deleted your songs off my computer many moons ago). but alas all thing in moderation, so we'll see how chapter plays out.

i'll leave you with a poem, i read a lot of robert frost when i was a little more crazy back in freshman year, and one poem really stuck out to me, take from it what you will

Robert Frost, Devotion.

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.

i hope you enjoyed my blog, look forward to many more, i'll keep going for that next shiny sword...