A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito.
Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High. The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapeños and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt. After the lockdown was lifted but before the burrito was identified as the culprit, parents pulled 75 students out of school.
The burrito was part of eighth-grader Michael Morrissey’s extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product. “We had to make up a product and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos,” Morrissey said.
I have absolutely no comment. I’m laughing too hard to say anything. Although, as one of my co-workers said, “The Oddly Large Burritos” would make a great band name.
In other news, I watched Star Trek: Enterprise tonight, and they showed an episode that featured that evil mirror universe—you know, the one where in the old original Trek series, we knew they were evil because Spock had a goatee, hence earning anyone with a goatee the nickname “Evil [insert name here].” So here’s my thing about the evil mirror universe: They were so evil and constantly plotting against each other to gain power and assassinating leaders in order to get promotions… how do people live long enough to actually get to power? I swear, in this two-episode arc alone, they killed two captains and two admirals and overthrew the Emperor of the Earth Empire. At the rate the people in the evil universe are going, 10-year-olds should be running the show because everyone old enough to pick up a phaser and kill their superior officers is going to do it in order to get promoted.
It’s going to be a very music-intensive weekend. Saturday, I’ll be at Coachella all day, then I have to drive back Saturday night so I can perform with my singing group on Sunday afternoon. So it’s in that spirit that I do this usual Friday thing.
10 random songs from iTunes:
1. “Driven Under” - Seether
2. “Brand New Lover” - Dead Or Alive
3. “Still” - Geto Boys
4. “These Days” - Alien Ant Farm
5. “I Love You Period” - Dan Baird
6. “Manic Depression” - Jimi Hendrix
7. “Stayin’ Alive” - N Trance
8. “Gigantic (12” Mix)” - The Pixies
9. “Cracklin’ Rosie” - Neil Diamond
10. “Freak on a Leash (Freakin’ B Mix)” - Korn
And what would any music-related entry be without an actual song for you? Right-click and save as, yo.
I really need to stop torturing myself.
Yes, I’m attracted to Irish women. Yes, I’m attracted to women who sing and can play guitar. But Lord a-mighty… seeing Irish women sing and play rock guitar on stage tonight… well, yes, I proposed marriage to one of the bandmembers. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me by. So at least when I’m 80 years old, I won’t look back and wonder what could’ve been.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The worst part about insomnia is not the lack of sleep (although that is frustrating and debilitating in its own way), it’s not the fact that you get tired and suddenly wake up as soon as your head hits the pillow. The worst part about insomnia is the fact that when you’re up at 1am—or later—it really seems like there’s no one else out there awake, and the one thing you really want to know is that there’s someone else up, sharing your burden. But unfortunately, the middle of the night is that weird in-between time when it’s too late for my West Coast friends and too early for my East Coast friends.
It’s not that I specifically try to stay up this late anymore, because there was a time when I did. I’m getting to that point where I appreciate having the 8+ hours of sleep under my belt, so to be asleep by midnight or 12:30am is stellar for me. But then I lay down in bed, close my eyes and my brain immediately shifts to warp speed, and I start thinking about all the things that I have to do for work, all the things taking place in my life, all the things I pray will work out and the all the things I’m pissed at myself for or frustrated or worried about.
Yet there’s no one to share them with. And it’s like that rant Lewis Black does about people saying stupid things to you—if you have someone there to share the stupid thing with, you laugh about what a dumb schmuck the person who said it was, and it’s gone. But if there’s no one there to share it with, the stupid thing goes in your ear and enters your brain, which immediately screams, “LET’S FIGURE IT OUT!” and devotes way too much processing power to it, and then your friends find you three days later passed out in your bathtub.
Sadly, I have no friends awake to share it with and let it all out of my head—all I have is my laptop and the warming glow it illuminates me with. And that will have to light my way to morning.
Faith ‘War’ Rages in U.S., Judge Says
The Stamford Advocate quoted Brown as lamenting that America had moved away from the religious traditions on which it was founded.
“When we move away from that, we change our whole conception of the most significant idea that America has to offer, which is this idea of human freedom and this notion of liberty,” she said.
Oh no, you di’int. Didn’t anyone teach you in school that America was founded on the principles of freedom from religious persecution, or that there’s a clear separation of church and state in this country? The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” which means that religion cannot factor into any laws that are handed down. To put someone into a legal position of power who believes that we have to get back to the religious principles the country was founded on… well, that’s just plain uninformed of her and dangerous for the rest of us, especially since who knows which religious principles she wants to enforce? Hell, she might be a Puritan! After all, Puritans were some of the earliest and most notable settlers in America.
I may not agree with our government to the point where I am vehemently opposed to our current administration. But I will never leave the U.S. based simply on that principle. I believe too steadfastly in the principles upon which this country was founded to abandon this land, and if I believe that something is wrong, it’s my job—as it is of every American—to stay and voice our opinions that something is wrong. Otherwise, we’re just running away from a problem that it’s our responsibility to call attention to.
Oh, and by the way? The official U.S. weapons inspector says there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Anyone want to tell me why we’re there, overrunning the country and costing thousands of American lives? Anyone from our government want to give me some kind of explanation?
Right-click and save as, fellow Constitutional warriors.
Above The Law - “Freedom of Speech”
Okay. So, as many of you probably have been noticing over the past couple of weeks, there’s been some… well, issues… behind the scenes here. Basically, MT was letting through so many comments and trackback pings that my host’s server was getting overloaded. So they suspended my account. Then I got them to unsuspend my account, and they insisted I upgrade to the most recent version of MT. One problem there—I already had the most recent version of MT installed. And they didn’t believe me. I somehow convinced them that I was right (which is simply amazing considering I know about enough HTML to bold and italicize words in entries and comments), but they still disabled my comments until I made certain modifications. So is this a big enough modification?
I’ve been hearing about the wonders of Expression Engine for a while, so here I am, and I hope it works out. By the way, many thanks to Nox for setting up this whole shebang, even if she did give me this flower-oriented template to work with. Yes, that will change in the near future, but I’m still a little cautious and feeling EE out at the moment. [Ed. note: I said feeling it OUT, dammit! Get your mind out of the gutter.] Stay tuned as changes occur. I promise I won’t break the Internet again. Well, not intentionally.
So welcome to Reality Remixed, v3.0. Same jackassery, same asinine attitude, same stupidity—different blog software.
And, of course, what this site be without a tasty tune to kick off your day? Right-click and save as, or I’ll ban you! (Ahhh, I know what you’re thinking—I don’t know how to do that with EE. Ha! I actually do!)
DJ Tripp - “We Will Rock Beverly Hills” (Weezer vs. Queen vs. Joan Jett & The Blackhearts)
Michele‘s recent tale of past job woe reminded me of a story from my own past. I’d just graduated from college, and I was worried about scoring a job to pay the rent, as I had little money saved up. I’d sent my resume to a place that advertised “promotions! marketing!” in the Boston Globe classifieds, and they called me back for an interview—I was ecstatic, since the job market for beginners at the time wasn’t that stellar. Oddly, they told me to prepare for an all-day interview, so I did.
I show up at this place’s offices at 9am—they’re not in Boston, they’re way way out in some suburb. I walk into the office—and there’s about 30 other people there. Oh boy. I figure at this point, the reason why they wanted me to prepare for an all-day interview was because they’re going to sit there all day going through people’s resumes and interviewing them. Not so much. After an hour or so of all of us milling around the room, they tell us we’re going to split into groups and head out for “evaluation.” I get assigned with one other interviewee (who’s kind of a jock-lookin’ guy—not much upstairs and eager to please… almost like a drone) to this slick 20-something, who drives us 45 minutes to some random suburb way out in the middle of nowhere. On the way, he’s telling us all about the great company and all this great work we’re going to do and how much money we could make.
It’s a sales company. The representatives go door to door, selling something along the lines of Entertainment Books, where people get discounts at local restaurants and things. Mind you, I am not a salesman, but I figure a day of tagging along with this guy and seeing how he does things is not a total and complete waste of my time. So we watch him do his thing door to door for an hour or so, and then it starts to rain—but he keeps going, so I’ve got to stay with him. Finally, he decides to get out of the rain so we break for lunch—we go to some random pizza parlor in the area, where the guy makes us buy our own lunch while he again proceeds to tell us about how much money we can make, and the other “trainee” I’m paired up with is eating it up almost as hungrily as he’s devouring his pizza, already regurgitating the company lines back to him. Oh yeah! Big money! Hell, this guy is getting ready to open his own branch office in Lowell, but he could transfer anywhere in the country! (For those of you not familiar with Boston geography, Lowell is a small town about 40-50 minutes outside of Boston.)
We return from lunch… at which point, the guy tells us that me and the other “trainee” should give it a shot. Instead of us watching him, now he’s going to watch us. The other dude tries valiantly—he’s way into the sales pitch. Thankfully for me, most of the houses we go to where he tells me to try to sell, no one’s home. I breathe a sigh of relief. About 3pm (mind you, we’ve been on our feet all day long walking around this neighborhood), he tells us to split up—he thinks we’re ready to try selling on our own. Holy crap! I couldn’t believe the racket this company had set up—they get a bunch of suckers looking for a job, then they get them to sell their crappy product for free! Unpaid labor! Again, thankfully, most of the places I hit, no one’s there, but I do have to hit up a few poor souls with this coupon book thing.
Mercifully, around 6:30pm (6:30!), our manager guy decides it’s time to head back to the office. Thank God, because I’m tired from being on my feet all day, I’m still slightly damp from having been rained on earlier, and I’m hungry since it’s getting past my dinnertime. Plus, I had made plans to meet up with my then-girlfriend around 7:30 that night, figuring an “all-day interview” would last 9-5… normal business hours. We get in the car and start making the 45-minute drive back to the main office, during which time I call my girlfriend to let her know I’ll be late since this thing is still going on.
So we get back to the office, and a reception is in full swing. Punch and a single bowl of chips for everyone, woo hoo! As this is going on, one by one, people are being brought in to a side office to discuss the day with the head of the office. 8:30 rolls around. 9pm. Every 45 minutes or so, I call up my girlfriend and push dinner back a little farther, then finally tell her if she’s hungry to eat, since it’s obvious I won’t be home for a long while. Finally, around 10pm, I get called into the office. One of the first things they say is, “So, we’re a little worried about your commitment. We saw you making phone calls.” WTF? I reply, “Yeah, I was calling my girlfriend since I had made dinner plans for after this interview was over, but I wanted to let her know I was still here and to push dinner back—but I finally told her just to go eat since I didn’t want to make her wait this late.” There was much harrumphing on their part—didn’t I know workdays could last this late? (Yeah, I do now—I work until 11pm every Tuesday night at the job I’m at now, but at least they told me that in advance and they give me dinner.) They question my commitment—I showed a lack of enthusiasm for the product, according to my supervisor. Well, I didn’t know all that much about it, I got a two-minute explanation and then he threw us into the field, so I couldn’t answer some of the questions people had about it. But I’d spent all day with my supervisor! Yes, and all I got out of him were all these grand speeches about how much money I could make and how he’s going to Lowell, so look at the advancement he’s making. I didn’t get much about how the company actually works.
They grill me for another 10 minutes—which I think was basically a test to see if they could beat me into submission, and there were disapproving noises made throughout the “interview.” Meanwhile, I’m starving since I haven’t had dinner, I’m exhausted, and I’m not feeling well from being out in the rain, but of course they didn’t care. Thankfully… thankfully, they finally let me go around 10:15, and I got home around 11pm that night. Worst. Interview. Ever.
10 random tracks from iTunes on a Friday morning just before a staff meeting:
1. Faith No More - “Falling to Pieces” [Ed. note: How apt...]
2. Frankie Valli - “Beauty School Dropout”
3. Box Car Racer - “I Feel So”
4. R.E.M. - “Strange Currencies”
5. Urban Dance Squad - “A Deeper Shade of Soul”
6. Nirvana - “I Hate Myself and Want to Die” [Ed. note: Yes, this is a real Nirvana song that Kurt and company did before his death.]
7. Billy Talent - “Try Honesty”
8. MxPx - “Chick Magnet”
9. Archers of Loaf - “White Trash Heroes”
10. LL Cool J - “Around the Way Girl”
To the person who preached “acceptance” (and who shall remain nameless):
To hell with that. I’m not the kind of person who will just roll over and take it. If there’s something I believe in or a certain constraint being imposed that I don’t think is a good thing, I will protest. I will not just stand idly by because that’s the Way Things Are or because important people are saying that’s the Way Things Are. Might I remind you that, as an American citizen, you are enjoying the freedom of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because a bunch of people over 200 years stood up against the monarchy of England and shrieked, “We’re not gonna take it!” (Okay, Twisted Sister may have come a little later, but still...)
Change is a good thing. If all we do is just accept what’s happening, there is a good chance that life will just turn into one giant dictatorship.
I beg to dream and differ from the hollow lies
This is the dawning of the rest of our lives
On holiday...
-- Green Day, “Holiday”
So, last night at work. We work late on Tuesdays every week, but for some reason, building maintenance decided to unexpectedly and suddenly schedule repair work on our bathrooms last night. The problem being, of course, that there were still 20 of us or so in the office, and we were going to be there for a few hours and quite probably need to use the bathrooms at some point.
Our building also has pretty tight security for some odd reason, so we have elevator keycards that we swipe that only clear us up to our floors so we can’t get to any other floors. And the stairwells are locked too, so if you take the stairs, it’s an express walk all the way down to the street-level.
Thankfully, they told us they unlocked the doors on the 40th floor, so we could go down one floor and use their bathrooms. However, they failed to mention they only unlocked the stairwell near the women’s bathroom. The one next to the men’s room? Not so much with the being unlocked.
Yeah. Guess who was standing in the stairwell pounding on the door for five minutes, trying to get let in on the 40th floor? Guess who figured he was going to have to hike all the way downstairs? Did I mention that I work on the 41st floor?
Thankfully, the door on 34 was slightly open like someone hadn’t closed it properly, so I managed to pry it open and wander through the law offices there, asking people where their elevators were so I could get back up to my floor. And I didn’t even have it as bad as one of my co-workers, who apparently did have to walk all the way down to the street-level—she said it took her 15 minutes and, even though she’s a runner, her legs were all rubbery and shaky after she got downstairs.
So if there’s ever a fire or an earthquake and they shut down power to the building but we have to evacuate, I am so screwed.
Given the day I’ve just had, I’m actually kind of surprised that I made it through the entire day without putting someone’s head (maybe even my own) through a wall.
Who needs a drink?
I think there’s something weird going on inside my head, because my subconscious has been coming up with some pretty strange dreams lately. Check out these dreams I had over the past two nights (without the aid of drugs, even!):
1. Jimmy Fallon was following me around, trying to hang out with me because he desperately wanted to be my friend, even though I’m not so much a fan of his. He kept trying to push me to put his cell phone number in my cell phone, and I was making up excuses and changing the subject because I didn’t want to. Finally, he followed me to Starbucks, where he tried to buy my drink for me and also buy all these Starbucks pastries for me even though I kept telling him I didn’t want the pastries, I was trying to lose weight.
2. I was in the CIA… but it was the Alias version of the CIA. I was working with Agent Vaughn to try to save the world (as usual), and he was communicating with me via text messaging—which I suck at and I hate doing. He’s blitzing away, sending me these superfast messages, and I’m trying to relay the information to my fellow CIA agents at my position, but when they tell me to respond to him, I keep screwing up the text message and having to start over. I was getting really freaked out because, well, I didn’t want anything to blow up and I didn’t want Vaughn to get killed or anything, and I knew that if anything went awry, it would be my fault for not getting the info out quickly enough.
Oy. I think the lesson here is, stay away from Jimmy Fallon and the CIA. They will do me no good.
Work is still being done behind the scene to fix comments and other adjustments. Sit tight. In the meantime, may I offer you this tasty track? Right-click and save as, or I’ll send my CIA brethren after you.
Friday started with the abject annoyance of being sick and being late to an appointment because of traffic. And then a friend at work dropped the bomb that he’s resigned and next Friday is his last day.
And then my day got infinitely better. A very old friend, one who I sang with in college and who I hadn’t seen in 5 years (he was in Belize with the Peace Corps), was in town for one night. I got together with him and another old friend from college, and we had one of those nights containing deep drunken conversation that only comes with knowing someone for 10 years. It was exactly what I needed to close out a bad week.
And now it’s Sunday, and I’m headed back into the trenches in just a little over 12 hours.
Beer + Nox = Yay!
That’s what we have learned tonight.
Also, as much as I love comic book movies and really wanted to like Elektra, it sucked. Sucked hard.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I believe there are some cold Pop Tarts in the kitchen with my name on them.
Ohyeah, Keith rules!