The Week in Review

First things first, Happy Birthday Mom!!!!!

This past Tuesday there were some pretty powerful strong storms around 6am or so. I woke up, turned on the TV to see if I'm supposed to be hiding in a bathroom or something. Luckily, I was perfectly safe in my bed. During the weather reports there were talks of power outages in Kennesaw (where I work). I had the brilliant idea of calling my extension to see if voicemail was working. It was not! A busy signal! I went back to sleep.

About 7:30 I called a coworker (Monica) to get an update. Stuck in traffic, but she'd update me when she got there. Eventually I got word that there was officially no power in the office and that everyone was to go home and check back around noon. I sent an email to my boss and back to sleep I went!

Slept all the way til 9:30! (sarcasm). Then I remembered it was NHL trade deadline day! Which was to be a big deal for the Thrashers. They had several soon to be free agents to trade, including Marian Hossa who is probably the most coveted impending free agent. I was glued to the internet, waiting for the Thrashers to do something when all of a sudden it was after noon already! I had just spoken to another coworker (JOAN!) who said that the power was back but nothing was working. So I stayed on the couch. Ooops! Got an email from the boss asking where I was. No one told me!!!!! Anyways, went to work. After expecting Hossa to get traded to Montreal all along, out of nowhere came the Pittsburgh Penguins. We gave up Hossa and one of my favorites, Pascal Dupuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis for Erik Christensen, Colby Armstrong, a prospect (Angelo Esposito) and a 1st round draft pick in 2008. That's A LOT! Unfortunately they didn't trade any of the other upcoming free agents. Oh well. The Thrashers are now 0-0-3 since the trade. And Hossa is out with an injured knee. Oops!

Wednesday was another wacky day. Oh, I forgot to do my rant on everyone being pregnant. My good friend and coworker, Beth (the one who actually trained me when I first got to Aarons) had her baby on Feb 19 (Claire Elizabeth Robinson - aka - E-Claire). She was a few weeks early. Another coworker, Lakeisha was due before Beth and didn't have her baby until Tuesday (Feb 26 (Stephen Champion Moore). Then on Wednesday, it was my friend Jill's birthday. She was, what looked like about 2 years pregnant. Met up with her at some Italian restaurant called Il Localino. I had no idea what kind of place it was, I just showed up in my Thrashers hoody and jeans. Apparently it's a somewhat fancy place. Oh well, the owner had a good time with us. He actually told me that a few guys from the team are regulars! I'll never understand the lifestyle of spending $100 on a meal, but amongst about 10 of us, we racked up a $700+ bill! Hooray beer! A lot of that was wine, which, luckily I'm not a fan of. It was a good time, Josh (Jill's husband) has some wacky friends. Josh was wearing a crab? hat the whole time. Another girl (Bonnie?) had a Viking hat. Very strange. But it was a fun time.

Thursday I had my first episode of Beth withdrawal. Usually I make her come with me whenever I have to buy anything at lunch. Well, I needed new work-shoes. I'm a guy, what the hell do I know? I had to somehow choose between brown and black shoes. Beth was nowhere to be found. I called Lauren and she talked me into the brown ones - actually, I eventually realized they didn't have the black ones in my size. My newest problem is, they come with light brown and dark brown shoelaces! What do I do? (Seriously, I'm clueless here)

Thursday night was the first Thrashers home game in over 2 weeks. And it was a mess. Traffic was terrible. I got there in time for the traditional pregame 44oz beer. Met up with Pat and Jeremy. I was waiting on Divya with my ticket, but she was stuck in traffic. And it turned out that the tickets that were supposed to be waiting for her never showed up! Matt couldn't get off work til about 6:45. Erica got there right around 7:00 and happened to have an extra ticket. So in with them I went. I had all kinds of friends there. I stayed with Erica and Peter for the first period (in the good seats). My friend Jason was there for "guys' night" so I told them I'd hang out with them for a bit. Went upstairs in between periods, hung out with Jason, Mike, Adam, Seth and some others. With a few minutes left in the 2nd period (and with the Thrashers losing 3-0) I finally heard from Matt, who was apparently sitting nearby. He called and said to come over, he ran into our favorite usher...Millie! So I ran over. I don't remember if I ever mentioned Millie on here, but she's hooked me and Matt up numerous times, including getting us lower level seats for the 3rd period of the all star game. Anyways, Millie had us follow her. Usually this involves going down lots of stairs. Well, not this time. She had us sit in the very last row of the upper deck. In her defense, apparently she said "wait here, I'll be back". Well, she came back, but we wound up staying there the rest of the game. Oh, as an added bonus of sitting in the last row, I had the bright idea of jumping over the back of the seat and landed flat on my ass. Oops. Oh, the Thrashers came back to tie the game, but lost in OT. Like you care.

Friday, Violet Louise Reiter was born (that's Josh & Jill's). That thing was almost 10 pounds!!!!!
Friday night began my Family Guy marathon. I'd managed to avoid Family Guy for years. Everyone said that I would love the show, but I just always thought there is no way it could live up to expectations. Well, it has. Jeremy got a hold of the first two seasons on DVD. Started watching it right away. Love it!

Saturday, me and Matt went to go visit Jill & Josh & Violet in the hospital. We parked at what we thought was the right place. Oops. Walked around a building that seemed like a hospital for a while. Walked through a parking garage for a while. Finally found the front door of what looks like what used to be a hospital? Still not sure but it became obvious we were in the WRONG building. We managed to get directions from a security guard and jumped back in the car and found the right place. The only thing I wonder about this whole baby thing, both Beth & Jill have cats. How do they know their kids aren't gonna be allergic????? (Cats suck)

After the hospital Matt introduced me to this place called Raging Burrito. It was REALLY good but I found out a little later why I think they call it that. Ok, sorry, that was gross. But the burrito was really good. Two words - Pineapple salsa!

That's about it. This week is spring break. Yippee. Doesn't exactly mean the same now that i'm working. All it means is that I don't have to be awake for an 8am class (which I'm consistently 15 minutes late for, hell, I'm consistently 15 minutes late for anything AM related) Any advice is appreciated!

Why I'm Dumb (Part 293)

It's been a while, I guess that's good!

So, Tuesday night/Wednesday morning I wasn't feeling good. I actually went to sleep early (well, midnight, but to me, that's early). I nyquilled (is that a word yet?) myself to sleep. My alarm went off at 6:50 so I could get to my 8am class (HA!) snooze. 8:15 rolled around, I still wasn't going anywhere. Still felt like crap, still felt drugged. I tried to call my boss, half asleep I stumbled through the Aaron's telephone directory. Wound up getting a hold of some lady who is definitely not my boss. It took me a good 10 seconds but I finally hung up on her. My next bright idea. I was gonna text Beth, a coworker, to tell James, my boss, that I wasn't feeling good so I'd come in late. Those of you who know me, know I'm a speed texter, which can lead to typo's like the following:

Can you tell James that I'm coming in late. I don't feel homo.

If you'll notice, when texting "good" it uses the same keystrokes as "homo". D'oh!!!! Luckily, for whatever reason, I didn't wind up actually sending it. I actually forgot, I wound up calling my boss and telling him I didn't feel good. Later, actually the next day I noticed I had an unsent message in my outbox. When I first read it, I had no clue when or what that was from. Then I eventually remembered.

My last chance to procrastinate!

Tomorrow is moving day!!!! (21 boxes packed at the moment for those of you keeping score)

Alright, so some of you may remember a couple of months ago I had to go and get pictures taken of all my millions of moles. Damn that would've been fun to ask them to count em for me...I paid them enough!!! Anyways, it was REAL awkward, I felt a new respect for models. The worst part of it was the girl taking the pictures (while I'm standing there almost naked, not something I'd wish upon my worst enemy) was actually a young attractive girl. Who dreams of a job of taking pictures of normal people who probably usually have alot of moles. They're not generally the types that you'd want to take pictures of...me included!

Ok, I had a diversion...I just read up on my favorite ESPN sideline reporter, Erin Andrews. She listed her top 5 hot-spots in Atlanta. Now I need to find a way to go to all 5 of them...every weekend. (Kidding!) For what its worth, she says: Rosa Mexicana, J. Christopher's, Noche, and some clothing store that I'll go ahead and skip. But, more importantly, I was debating with Beth why not all female sideline reporter types are just there to look at. Although I could look at her for quite a while :)

Sorry, I was staring. So, as part of the argument, I brought up Bonnie Bernstein, when suddenly something clicked. Bernstein! She's a jew!!!! So she immediately flies up towards the top of my who I want to meet list on myspace :) I was actually watching Mike & Mike in the morning on ESPN2 the other day and she was on there talking about football...and she actually knows what she's talking about. Weird huh? My jewdar is usually pretty accurate, but I dropped the ball on this one!

Wow, that was one heck of a tangent! Anyways, so today I had my follow-up appointment to go over my pictures. And the resident who was helping out my doc was another young good looking girl. Damnit! Its not quite a turn-your-head-and-cough type of experience, but still... the point of this whole story...she had the most rough hands I've ever noticed. You'd think a resident in a dermatology's office would know how to have nice soft hands! Hell, my hands are a hell of alot softer than hers! And I don't do anything to them! (Although if I did, there's no way I'd admit to it:) ).

Private Property BS!

I was at lunch today with my friend Beth (coworker) and we're sitting and eating (at Moe's) and some lady comes in and says, "If anyone here owns a Blue Toyota Camry, it just got smashed up!"

It took a good couple of seconds before we realized...oh sh!t, thats Beth's car!!!

Apparently some korean? (not sure) lady working at the nail salon next door was parked next to Beth and while leaving somehow scraped up against the side of Beth's car. Stopped for a second, then continued to leave the spot. In the process, leaving more scratches and a nice dent in Beth's rear passenger side bumper. She actually had the balls (or lack-there-of?) to start to leave. Some lady who was eating at Quizno's on the other side of the nail salon ran after her! She actually stopped her from leaving the parking lot by shouting out her license plate number. Then came into Moe's to ask if that was anyone's car.

Good for her, and yay for karma!

Anyways, this lady speaks NO english of course. Through her boss (I think) she translated saying she didn't know she hit Beth's car. Which, according to the witness is complete BS. Beth calls the cops who show up about a half hour later. Thats when we got the ridiculous news. The accident occurred on private property. The cop didn't see it, so there's nothing he can do. WTF??????? My jaw just about dropped. I asked him whats to stop someone from just taking a piece of shit car and smashing into every car in the parking lot? His response..."nothing". What the hell?

The cop was about as helpful as the lady who actually hit the car. We even asked him what he suggested we could do, and he said "its up to you".

Hopefully everything will work out fine and Beth can just take an estimate of the damage to the lady and she'll pay, but...life's never that easy!

In unrelated news...we found mold growing on the carpet outside our apartment the other day! Can't wait to get out of that place! 15 boxes packed, 4 days to go!

Jury Duty (AKA - a complete waste of time)

So...I had Jury Duty on Wednesday. I was partly excited (maybe I'd get to be part of an interesting case? maybe I'd get to witness a jerry springer-type environment?), partly absolutely not wanting to be there. I don't know how many of you have had to go, so let me give you the play by play. And it starts off bad, very bad:

6:30am - Wake up (a full 90 minutes before I'd normally wake up)

7:00am - And, note, I'm skipping steps, because it should be noted I did in fact shower (but more importantly, my 2 month-old beard bit the dust too!)...damn tangents...anyways, step 2 is - get on Marta (something I normally avoid at all costs)

8:00am - Walk around downtown trying to find the courthouse. (Beth - it should be noted that I passed at least a dozen homeless people, and none of them bothered me!)

8:15am - Sign in

8:15-12:00 - Do absolutely NOTHING. There were about 250-300 people in this big wairing room. Not a single person got called in to do anything. I entertained myself with only 1 issue of Maxim, my J-Pod, some Sudoku puzzles, some text messages and a few games of Bejeweled on the phone.

12:00 - Names get read off a list, about 40 of them. These people are told to go ahead and go for lunch

12:30 - Next set of names are read...another 40 or so...including mine. We are told to stay, everyone else should go to lunch

12:45 - There has been a mixup, go ahead and go to lunch. When did Quizno's get to be so damn expensive????

1:45-2:30 - Back in the waiting room. of the 300 or so people, still none are called

2:30 - An announcement is being made and some judge is being introduced to everyone. The judge says "thank you all for being here, you've done an outstanding job. We have been working hard in the courtroom downstairs, and, to make a long story short...your work here is done, you are all excused, a check for $25 will be mailed to you."

So lets recap...about 300 people had to show up at 8:15am until 2:30pm (6 hours and 15 minutes) to do ABSOLUTELY nothing. And this wasn't the good kind of sit around and do nothing, this was miserable nothing. There were several TVs that could've been watched, but they were turned off. We were told to keep our noise level to a minumum (mainly because people were asleep, and I must admit, i'm pretty sure i dozed off at least twice)

Anyways, the moral of the story is...avoid jury duty at all costs! I would've MUCH rather go into work instead...and remember...for me...work = Aarons :(

The Most Boring Day Of This Jew's Year

I was prepared for yesterday! I rented 5 movies, and a friend at work (Thanks Beth!) let me borrow Scrubs, Season 1. So yesterday, I watched some pretty crappy movies:

1. Kicking and Screaming (not TOO bad, you've gotta like Will Ferrell)
2. Sin City (what the hell was THAT?)
3. Bewitched (again, Will Ferrell, but it was decent)

After I watched Sin City, I needed a break, so I did what any good jew does on December 25th. Went to the closest Chinese restaurant, got me some take-out. I was STARVING! I walked into that place with biggest damn smile on my face I can remember in years. I couldn't control it, it was almost embarrassing! But that was some of the best chinese food I've ever had. And leftovers today are awaiting. Along with 2 more movies:

4. Sahara (halfway into it, kinda confused, we'll see)
5. Stealth (no idea, but its got a good Incubus song on the soundtrack!)

And in the middle of all this I've been watching Scrubs. I LOVE that show! And now I love that I can watch TV shows with NO
COMMERCIALS!!!!! What a perfect idea! Anyways, back to the movie (and leftovers)!

Happy Hanukkah everyone!