Michael Piller, co-creator of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, died today.

Regarding the Democrats forcing the Senate into closed session today, Bill Frist said of Democrats: “They have no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas.”

What?

Dick Cheney’s top aide indicted for perjury, as Patrick Fitzgerald’s criminal probe into the White House continues.

Tom Delay indicted.

Bill Frist himself facing possible criminal charges.

The President threatening his first veto (ever) of the McCain Ammendment which would forbid the torture of enemy detainees the Adminstration claims so much to know-nothing-about.

It seems to me Bill Frist should be more worried about the convictions and principles of the current Republican leadership. It also seems to me that if he was worried about those, he would be joining Harry Reid in demanding answers from the White House about the lead-in to the War in Iraq.

DeLay gets his day — the Democratic judge on his trial replaced.

Here’s how I see it - DeLay gets a new judge. New judge is Republican. If DeLay gets off, ain’t no way in hell he’s going to live down talk that the judge’s political affiliation - and not DeLay’s possible innocence - is what got him a walk.

On the other hand, the Republicans could score a political point if he is found guilty, by playing up that same judge’s political affiliation.

It seems lately when I buy a DVD, I pick up the full-screen version. I did this with Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and I just realized I did the same with Revenge of the Sith.

DVDs should not be available in full-screen versions. Grrr. Now I have to deal with the “return/exchange” desk at Target and feel like the total fool I am.

The rumor confirmed by DVD Answers - Serenity will street December 20th.

There are two theories of thought when it comes to attracting a customer’s attention at the door. All too often, one stands outside the front door and can see individuals within a residence, watching tv, reading, cooking, or what-have-you, and all too frequently the volume is too high on the television or radio, or the customer has turned their hearing aide as low as possible. Sometimes they’re in the basement, having completely forgotten that they can’t hear the doorbell down there. Either that or they’re just clueless morons who forgot they ordered a pizza and are upstairs in the shower having sex with the babysitter, or maybe the dog.

So the first theory of thought is the “modern alternative” — the doorbell. I don’t care for the doorbell for a variety of reasons. Primarily, when ringing a doorbell, particularly on houses with newer, thicker doors, it can be difficult to hear the bell’s chime from outside. This presents a challenge as you then don’t know if the customer heard the doorbell, or even if it rang at all. It’s sort of bad form (read: rude) to re-ring the doorbell too quickly, so delivery guys (or gals) can find themselves standing on the porch, freezing to death, while the customer isn’t even aware we’ve arrived.

Personally, I prefer the classic, I prefer to knock. I’ve got what some people have called the … well, let me tell you a story. Few years back, I delivered to a lower-income-level apartment complex. As it happens, I lived in a different section of this same apartment complex (fuckin’ studio). I walked to the door of a townhouse unit and rapped loudly on the metal surface. The noises from inside, before I knocked, was of a rock CD, and some raccous laughing and quite an amount of chatter. As soon as I knocked, all non-artificial sounds terminated, leaving only the CD, and one obviously toked-to-the-moon-guy’s exclamation of: “OH SHIT IT’S THE FUZZ!!!!!” I have, as previously almost mentioned, what some folks would refer to as the “police knock.” It’s firm, it’s heavy, but what I like most about it: when I knock, you generally tend to know I’m at your fucking door (you should hear when I use my MagLite to knock). Anyway, to finish the tale, upon hearing the scared exclamation, and deciding not to test whether pot-heads would be coherent or scared enough to shoot a firearm at the door, I announced in my loudest, firmist voice: “PIZZA GUY!” Sufficient to say, they were very relieved I wasn’t a cop to the degree they first offered me a lot of weed (declined), then settled on tipping me quite handsomely.

All too often, when I use The Knock, customers inquire if their doorbell is broken, then proceed to ring it. I’ve developed a standard answer, which is a total PC version of the above. “Oh, y’know, it can be so hard sometimes to tell if doorbells work or not, I prefer just to do it the old fashioned way.”

(There was one customer I delivered to, I Knocked, she answered, then rang her own doorbell - it was one of those novelty chimes, I forget which Christmas song, but as it faded away I rang it again to hear it a second time, then felt stupid and told her I felt stupid and she laughed and said she felt stupid for getting a novelty chime because whenever she heard that song on the radio she instinctively went for the door).

Gary looks over all applications as they come in. Outside of an incomplete application, he automatically disqualifies an application if the person filling it out has written “USA” in the “County” line, or “Baltimore” in the “country” line.

He finds it saves time and trouble down the line. Like, when they take an order, and they put the slip up, and Gary has to ask them to translate the delivery address because its illegible and the two have the following conversation:

Gary: “What does this say?”
Dude: “I dunno. What does it say?”
Gary: “I can’t read your handwriting.”
Dude: “Oh! Uh. I can’t read it either.”
Gary: “You took the order two seconds ago. What was their address.”
Dude: “Oh! Like, oh! I don’t know.”
Gary: “You don’t know?”
Dude: “I wrote it down so I wouldn’t have to remember it, dude.”
Gary: “But … this is illegible.”
Dude: “Yeah. (Pause). Oh! Dude! Duuuude! I fucked up, dude.”
Gary: “…”

Okay, last night was weird.

Usually, Halloween is busy all night. That’s not how it worked tonight. Seriously, people stopped calling about 6:30 and we had about half a dozen orders after that. I spent an hour playing with E.G.’s rubix cube then finally grew frustrated, smashed it, glued it back together and knocked out my chores in ten minutes.

Halloween this year was really weird. It was busy, first. Like, really busy.

First, someone decided to take four or five timed orders for five o’clock. This was bad for a number of reasons, primarily because we only had two drivers scheduled to be in the store before four, a third scheduled at five, and a fourth to be in sometime between four and five. Long story short, two people can’t deliver five orders all at exactly five o’clock.

P. was in an accident. He was looking to make a right-hand turn out of the southern entrance of the shopping center. As he was looking to the left, a woman waiting to turn into the shopping center was stuck waaaay back in traffic, pulled into the westbound traffic’s lane, and drove for the same entrance P. was looking to leave. P., not looking to his right (who looks for eastbound traffic in the westbound lane?*), began to pull out and crash! Thankfully, no one was hurt, and it was her fault. Also thankful, I had to take his delivery and got a ridiculously huge tip on it. Woohoo!

At that house, I nearly wet myself. I got it there twenty minutes after five, which is when they’d wanted it. I knocked on the door, loudly — more on my knocking habits, shortly — and was quite surprised when a large black spider descended from above. I hate spiders. I’m a wuss about spiders. I see a spider, I run. This was a big black spider and I nearly peed myself until I realized it was a mechanical spider working on some sort of noise sensor. The woman answered the door, explained she knew about P.’s accident, laughed when I told her that her spider nearly made me wet myself, and that was that.

After that delivery, I had a problem (street names changed to protect the innocent). The mechanical spider delivery was on Parakeet Farms Court. My next delivery was to Kitten Circle, off of Parakeet Road. To get to Parakeet Road, I would take Susan Drive. Never having had to go to Kitten Circle from Parakeet Farms Court, I couldn’t remember if Kitten Circle was west or east of Susan Drive. I decided to guess west, and I was right! Really, it’s the small things in life.

This list was totally incomplete. Past Halloweens did not measure up. I did not have to run over anyone’s pumpkins.

I had the best tip ever (not for size, for cause). As the night began to slow down, I had to take a delivery that had been placed over an hour before. I was worried as I hurried to the woman’s house, pulled into her driveway, and run up to her porch. I was worried because the order was super late and I was expecting to get yelled at. She and her daughters were in a great mood, told me not to worry about it, and gave me a ridiculously good tip (ten bucks).

Between my two jobs I took fifteen deliveries. Of those, I had one $37 tip, two $10 tips, and a $7 tip. My smallest tip today was $1 from a guy who works in the service department at a local dealership. I will never buy a vehicle from that dealership, ever. No, it’s not the one Ogre works at.

*Seriously, up here, you have to, because people are fucking retarded. “Oh, I’ll drive in oncoming traffic’s lane. It’s okay to risk a potentially fatal accident to save myself five seconds. I’m so cool.”

George Takei came out of the closet. Big fucking deal … er, I mean, “Oh, my.” All I know is George can helm my starship any day of the week!

Um. That’s not a sexual reference, it’s a testament to George Takei’s skills at the helm of a starship. I mean, let’s face it, I don’t want a blind guy driving, I don’t trust a teenager driving, she flies like a bat out of hell, and he got his starship so lost it took seven years to get back to where they started!

Sulu’s where its at. Plus, things get bad enough, he’s got a bad ass sword. Um. No, really.