Chris Meller

OK, so it wasn’t the most productive day ever, but for a Sunday, I think I got a good bit done. The fact that I was up before 4:30 alone made it my most productive weekend in quite a while, excluding picking Michael up at the airport last Sunday, since that was a special exception to the rule.

Incidentally, I just checked Michael’s blog, and he managed to make an update yesterday, saying he was shipping out to Amsterdam today. If he’s not in Baghdad yet, I’m sure he will be very soon. Since they only land planes in Baghdad at night, he’s probably already there, given the time difference.

Anyway, this is about my life, not his, so back to the anti-climactic boring day that I had back here in South Carolina.

The damn cat woke me up about 10:00 this morning, but after being up until after 5:00 this morning, I rolled back over and went back to sleep. At about 2:00, I finally woke up and decided to get on up, or I’d end up sleeping until 5:00 again. It was a really nice day (67 degrees when I got up), so I headed out to run a few errands.

First stop was the old bank, since they’ve been spamming me with 10 notices a day that I have less than $20 in my account. A few minutes and a $40 lighter wallet later, and I was off to Liquid Highway.

I really need to move somewhere where I can drive around with the windows down all the time. It’s one of the greatest sensations ever, rolling the windows down, opening the sunroof, and feeling the wind in your hair. Yeah, I think I’m ready for my midlife crisis and my sports car already.

Anyway, there were a lot of people in line at Liquid Highway. Maybe they all had the same idea I did with the nice weather today. When I got to the window, there was a new girl working, with a Riverside High t-shirt on. Yummy.

Anyway, after getting my iced Mocha, I ran over to CompUSA to see if I could find some cheap Dual Layer DVDs. Unfortunately, not only did they not have any cheap discs, they didn’t have any expensive ones either, so I left empty-handed, which is probably for the best, since my credit card now has a new laptop on it.

Which brings me to the most exciting part. The laptop. I ordered a new Inspiron 9300 last night, maxed out on most everything. Sure my credit card is screaming for mercy, but how can you put a price tag on happiness? My new 17” baby should at least get me out of an afternoon of work when it gets delivered the first week in April. Oh well. now we wait. I feel like a father, waiting outside while his wife is in the delivery room.

Oh, back to CompUSA. Whenever I go there, I try to avoid traffic by going around the back of the mall. Well, at some point recently, they’ve put in these killer speed bumps back there. The speed limit is actually 15mph, but you can’t do more than 2-3mph over those bumps, and they’re every few feet. Aren’t speed bumps supposed to make you go the speed limit, not 1/3 it?

Oh well, I just won’t go back again. That mall is dead anyway.

Akk, I just remember that this week is going to be a mess. It’s Spring Break for the entire county, which means there will be little rug rats (and sweet sweet high school ass) everywhere.

I swear eventually I’m going to learn to write shorter entries. Really, I’m trying, it’s just not working.

Just as the title explains, today was just another Saturday. Horribly unproductive and lazy. Even though I went to bed at like 10:30 last night, I stayed up until after midnight watching Collateral, and slept until 2:30 this afternoon.

Even after I woke up, I didn’t accomplish anything until I got dressed to go see Matt play at this little coffee shop I’ve never heard of. It’s odd for there to be a coffee shop, only a few minutes away from work no less, that I have never heard of. He and Ret were good, and I had a lot of fun, and coffee. Which is why I’m still awake and writing this.

Anyway, that’s about it. Just like I said, nothing interesting or new.

Let’s see, nothing really of terrible interest today. This morning I ran about an hour later than my normal 30 minutes late (that’s an hour and a half for those of you who are mathematically challenged).

On my way in, I stopped at Liquid Highway for a little liquid breakfast. The happy Hippie was the one to come out and get my order. She was surprised to see me.

HH: “Hey, you’re early. and you’re driving. and you’re alone!”
Me: “Yeah, just on my way in to work and thought I’d keep you on your toes.”
HH: “Oh, well, it’s working.”

And then when I got to the window, it was the iHoe, who is very nice really. This was the first time I’ve ever actually talked to her. She asked if I was off today, and I told her no, I was on my way in to work.

Of course, this brings up the inevitable question of where I work. How does one describe the place they’re currently employed? If it’s not a chain or other large name, it’s not as if anyone is going to know the name, so why bother? And if I actually describe what we do, it’s not like anyone really understands.

Ah well, anyway, she said it must be nice having flexibility to go in this late. I kinda laughed and said “nah, I’ll probably get yelled at for this one.” We laughed and I left.

After that, not a whole lot interesting. On the way home, I saw Jackie. She was vacuuming her car. She’s such a rip-off. She wanted a million dollars to do my car next. We talked for about 5 minutes. She was wondering where I was just getting home from, and said I’d never told her where I work (y7eah, this brought up the work question for the 2nd time today). I was going to ask her if she wanted to go see Matt play tomorrow, since she said she was single, but then she said she had a date tonight, and it kinda quashed my ambition. Yeah, I’m not really up for being rejected by yet another girl (that would have made 3 in 2 weeks for those keeping count).

I also asked Carrie if she wanted to, but she has to work from 8 to 8, but said if she had the energy after work, she’d try to stop by.

And so the list runs slowly dry. The chances of me seeing Jackie again tomorrow in time to ask her out are slim, and slimmer still that she won’t already have something else to do.

And so it looks like I’ll be going to Matt’s gig alone.

The weird part is, now that I look back on it, the conversation with Jackie seems like she might have been hinting at something. First, she says she’s enjoying being single, then she’s saying she’s got a date tonight. Was that a hint that she’s fishing for one tomorrow?

Blah, time to turn off the brain and finish Collateral. the first guy just fell on the cab.

Daily Rating: 7

All-in-all, not a bad day. Thankfully, things have greatly clamed down at work over the course of the week. I’ve actually gotten in some good laughs with Ron, which used to be fairly common, but as of late had become scarcer. They went to see “The Producers” last weekend, so Ron and Karolyn and I sat around talking about it for several minutes the other night.

Ron appears to be a little more laid back now, although I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s just wrapping up all the end of the year stuff, but he seems to be returning to the old Ron that we all have come to know and love. That’s really good. I don’t think it would be good for the company if he were to start flaking out on us. He’s like the equalizing force that levels out everyone else. Without him, all the VPs and managers would slowly tear everything apart trying to gain “power”.

Aside from that, nothing terribly interesting to report. We’ve all but decided Alecia’s taking off work from Liquid Highway to plan her wedding. She used to be there every day, and now we’re lucky to see her two times a week. Argh, enough depressing thoughts. In all reality though, I still wouldn’t mind getting to know her on a friendly basis. Like I’ve said, she’s just really sweet (at least as far as I know thus far). Blah, it’s just so hard to make any headway at all when you only see a person for 2 minutes at a time. Oh well, it’s time to take a test I’m totally unprepared for. Wish me luck. Ogg (erm, God) knows I’m gonna need it to have any prayer for passing this.

The only really interesting thing that happened today was the visit from the ISP Nazi that controls all of ACS’ hardware.

I know the only reason that I was selected to take him back in the server room was that Ron and Lee knew he was going to rant and rave about us messing with his equipment again. They just didn’t want to have to put up with it, so I was the chosen sacrifice.

Turns out, as expected, it was all our fault. There was apparently water in the radio, and it had turned itself off, rather than fry. Yeah, I don’t believe it either, but they got it working, with a limited amount of profanity and complaining and lecturing.

Any who, after work, I came home and finished burning the DVDs I still owe Raptor. The Paypal shipping system was really great. I’m surprised they didn’t come up with this earlier. The only thing that could really make it any easier would be if they let you order supplies like boxes and wonderful shipping peanuts online. I guess that has already been done other places but it would be nice to centralize the system for those of us hermits who don’t like to go out in the sunlight to order all the stuff you really need to ship crap.