Yesterday, something at work was worthy of note (and thus it goes on my blog).
Round about six o'clock, I get taken out of shoes and shipped over to "home fashions" to cover a half-hour dinner break. This is all well and good, if excessively boring. There is nothing real to do in home, or more likely, there is something to do, I just don't know what it is. So I'm doing my thing, walking around making sure nothing looks out of place, taking people's money, giving them stuff in Mervyn's bags and such. The usual.
Well, about 6:25, some woman comes up and says, "Okay, I'm ready to check out now." Normally, this would not be odd, however, she was looking straight at a large pile of towels that had been sitting behind me on the wrap desk. "Great, all that is hers. Wonderful," I think. So I smile and start ringing stuff up. I end up piling towels all over the wrap desk so that I can bag them all together later. I get everything totaled up (I think it was around $260) and start bagging it. She pays with a credit card, so I give her the audit copy of the receipt that she signs and gives back to me. Well, I'm busy bagging stuff, so she sets it on the front of the desk.
I finally get it all bagged up, hand it over to her, and realize there's someone else waiting for me. So I reach up to take the first woman's signed ticket, and prick my thumb on a tack or something. Or so I think. I look at my thumb to see if the stupid thing broke any skin, and what do I see? A rather large drop of blood growing on my thumb. "What the...?" I look up by where the receipt was and see a freaking razor blade taped to the back side of the wrap desk.
I was quite incredulous that anyone could be so stupid to think that that would be the perfect place to store the blade from a broken box cutter. It's not like it's odd to have notes taped to the desk, and in fact there was one under the blade. Not to mention, the top part of the blade had scotch tape over it, so it wasn't reflecting any light. Why whoever it was couldn't put tape over the whole thing is beyond me. Maybe that required a bit too much thought.
Fortunately, there was someone else at the desk by this point, and she took over checking people out while I went to the restroom to wash my hand off. By the time I got there, I had a nice streak of blood running down my hand. I mean, it's a cut from a razor blade, it's deep. But at the same time, it's a cut from a razor blade, it's quite painless. So I wash my hand, grab a band-aid from the office, and head back to home. By this point, it's well past 6:30, so I have to head over to men's to cover another break.
Oh, no. It doesn't end there. Apparently, I made a ton of trouble for the GSL (Guest Service Leader, kind of like head-manager-of-the-hour). She had to fill out an accident report, take a picture of the razor blade in the place it was at the time of the "incident," then remove it and put it in a special box or some such thing. In filling out the accident report, she needed some information from me, so she came over to the men's wrap desk and had a short interview with me.
I really hate paperwork. Especially pointless paperwork. I mean, I cut my freaking thumb, I didn't slice it off. It bled. I didn't even feel it. What's the big deal? I'm not upset, except at the genius who thought placing a blade there was a good idea. I'm not going to sue Mervyn's. (Although... *muses*) Freaking corporations and their policies.
As a final side note, I was highly amused this morning by sheer coincidence. I was reading Wil Wheaton's blog, and ran across this short sentence.
This morning, I had to renew my driver's license, (something I didn't realize until yesterday) so I went to the DMV . . . without an appointment *dramatic music*
So it's been quite some time. This was pointed out many times over the weekend. I hadn't been doing anything interesting, so it's no loss to you if I don't post. However, this past weekend has been more eventful than the rest of my summer.
Friday afternoon, I packed up a few things and headed back out to Longview. (One of my friends called Thursday to see if I wanted to do something with him on Saturday. On telling him that I would be in Longview, he asked, "Is school starting already?" No. No, it's not. If any of my readers from Sherman know who this is and mention it to him, I will be most displeased.) You see, I had promised to go to the Texas Shakespeare Festival with the bums who were still at LeTourneau for the summer. Upon arriving to a half-frozen apartment on Friday, I was greeted by both Wheeler and Cynic. After bumming around for a short while, we walked over to the girls' apartment and headed to Bode. I was quite pleased with this, and enjoyed the food and company immensely.
After returning to campus to drop Ardith off, Anna drove us to Kilgore so we could watch The Tempest. Overall, it was very good, even if it was slightly "artsy" for my uncultured tastes. And though this may be alluded to more elsewhere, I say that Ariel's costume could have used... more. Let's leave it at that. If you want a critical analysis of the play, look elsewhere. Try some of those links to your left.
Friday night, I enjoyed another tradition I have been missing: Waffle Shoppe runs. This time, Anna stayed behind and Ardith came along, and the evening proceeded as a fairly normal (if undermanned) Waffle Shoppe run. Friday night (technically Saturday morning, but who's counting?) we finally decided to go to sleep. As the guys' roommate was out of town, I took the top bunk in his room. I woke up around 7:15, wrapped in a sleeping bag yet still freezing. Strange how this happens when one shares a thermostat with Cynic. So I moved out into the living room to a couch and slept soundly until Saturday afternoon.
Saturday, after helping cook (and eat) breakfast, Wheeler, Cynic and I sat around watching Wallace and Gromit. One of many entertaining ways to waste an afternoon. Round about dinner time, we headed over to the girls' apartment to partake of Anna's lovely lasagna. This was when we heard Cynic utter, "I smell girly." Write that down. After that, we went back to Kilgore, with Ardith this time, to watch The Merchant of Venice, which was generally better than the show the previous night. Note my previous remarks about critical analysis. To continue with my weekend of friends, food, and fun, we went to the Harclerode's house to have coffee and various foods which were also absolutely amazing. This was when we heard Cynic utter, "Ireland is like, a big island." We stayed there, bumming and talking for about an hour or so before returning to Longview.
Sunday morning, I went with Cynic and Anna to St. Mike's. I have forgotten how nice it is to have a sermon with no noticeable grammatical errors. And to sing praise songs where actually sound like people are praising. After returning to campus, and after some antics trying to get Wheeler awake, we went to the girls' apartment yet again for lunch. Moore, read this part. Sunday lunch was a wonderful batch of blueberry pancakes fixed by the wonderful Ardith. I would describe how crafty they were in all their blueberry goodness with the fluffiness of The Perfect Pancake, but I don't want Moore's head to explode.
After watching Silence of the Lambs with the crew, I went home. The end.
I've got this friend, Tyler, who's spending six weeks at Duke being smart. Incidentally, he's planning on coming to LeTourneau in 2005. However, as he's at Duke with a bunch of smart, nerdy, high school kids, many of them go to sleep early. Tyler, however, being perfect material for the SC, is up downloading isos of various Linux distros. With the T1 mostly to himself. The gaim conversation went something like this:
(00:05:19) Tyler : just thought this would interest you
(00:05:22) Gallagher: Hm?
(00:05:32) Tyler: i just downloaded all three mandrke iso's in 4 minutess
(00:05:37) Gallagher: Holy...!
(00:05:53) Tyler: i was getting 1800 K on all three of them at the same time
(00:06:00) Gallagher: Can I hate you?
(00:06:08) Tyler: i just about shat myself
He was kind enough to provide a screenshot. (I'm assuming he's using Windows because he either doesn't have a GUI to burn isos and doesn't feel like deciphering cdrecord syntax or didn't build the necessary modules into his kernel. Or he can't find them in SuSE.)
Tyler will probably be coming to a couple of preview weekends (probably Heritage and another one), so I'll be sure he meets everyone (especially the Cynic).
In a surprising move yesterday, the Department of Homeland Security made a very intelligent announcement. "Stop using Internet Explorer!" Indeed, I was as shocked as you are. Not about IE, but about the government speaking against it.
So for you stupid people who follow the government blindly, or those who refuse to listen to the geeks in their social circles, or those who don't want to search for these themselves, I give you links to Mozilla, Firefox (essentially Mozilla without the email, etc.), and Opera. Mac people already have Safari, and Linux people have no need to worry.
"Horray [sic] for the Department of Homeland Security!"
"I feel so....conflicted."
"I know, it's like watching a fight between an IRS auditor and a PETA employee. You just hope it goes the distance."
From slashdot. Duh.
Oh, no grandkids. Or kids. Or wives. Or anything of the sort. Can I see Wilson's talking money?
