To: Snay, M
From: Boss
Subj: Meeting

Hello Mr. [Snay]. Do you have any topic ideas for next Monday’s presentation? -Boss

To: Boss
From: Snay, M
Subj: Re: Meeting

To: Snay, M
From: Boss
Subj: Re: Re: Meeting

I don’t understand?

To: Boss
From: Snay, M
Subj: Re: Re: Re: Meeting

To: Snay, M
From: Boss
Subj: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meeting

Two things:

1. I don’t need your permission to use the restroom.
2. Am I to understand your topic idea involves cats? Our topic needs to involve technology.

To: Boss
From: Snay, M
Subj: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meeting

To: Snay, M
From: Boss
Subj: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meeting

You are the reason I have gray hair.

To: Boss
From: Snay, M
Subj: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meeting

To: Snay, M
From: Boss
Subj: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meeting

To: Boss
From: Snay, M
Subj: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Meeting

To: Boss
From: Snay, M
Subj: Does the term NSFW mean nothing to you?

I scare easily. Not as easily as some. There’s a guy I work with who, if he doesn’t see you come up behind him, and you tap him on the back, will scream and jump around for as long as it takes him to realize he isn’t being attacked by a giant man-eating spider. Then he’ll glare, get over it, and go back to normal. I don’t scare that easily, but it’s easy to startle the living whatever out of me. In any case, I usually stay away from horror movies because, y’know, I’d be jumping all about looking for someone to hold me.

Anyway, back story time:

Usually, my Friday nights are planned for me: I go to work, and by the time I get out of the Bookstore, having an eight-hour day at the Office beforehand, I somehow summon the energy to walk home and collapse promptly into bed, where I usually get a pretty decent night’s sleep, waking up somewhere in the six-o’clock hour on Saturday.

However, due to some strange quirk of fate, last Friday? I had the night off.

What to do, what to do! I suppose I could’ve gone out for a night of drinking, but the truth is, I’m pretty lame broke and I already had some boozin’ planned for Saturday. So practical matters sapped my time: I did three loads of laundry, I washed my dishes, took out the trash, and cleaned the litter box. I moved some furniture and vacuumed — there’s nothing like dark-furred cats, a light carpet, and shedding season to make your carpet look absolutely dirty.

And when all this was done?

I watched The Exorcist.

Let me say this: I am not a fan of horror movies.

Oddly, I don’t mind horror books — I own a couple of shelves worth of Stephen King mass-markets. I think this might be because a lot of books classified as horror aren’t really scary, and also because a lot of books that are supposed to be horror really aren’t. Off the top of my head, I can think of only one book that actually filled me with horror — like, as in, while reading it during high school I refused to go downstairs to the kitchen for a snack because it was two a.m. and I couldn’t help but think the creature was going to kill me halfway down the stairs — was The Relic by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Childs. It was made into a fairly shitacular film, but the book was terrifying.

Top five scariest books? I have a limited selection, but I’d say The Relic, Stephen King’s IT, Cujo, and The Shining. Fifth? Keep reading.

I have also never seen The Exorcist before. For some reason, a few weeks ago, I decided to pick up the Bookstore’s only copy, by William Blatty, and it scared me. It’s a damn scary book: not quite so much in the vein of, “Oh my god, there’s a woman going around blowing shit up and kill us all!” like I might describe Carrie (which, honestly? not that horrifying), but because, I mean, okay, the mother’s a famous actress, but it all seems so normal, and then here’s this girl who may or may not be possessed, and there’s all this freaky stuff happening, what I think is so scary is Chris’ lack of control and options over what’s happening to her daughter and what can be done about it.

So, I decided, fuck it: I’ve got the night free, my apartment is relatively clean, and it’s either this or reruns of CSI: Miami on A&E. I mean, honestly, right there, I’d rather throw myself out the window.

And you’re goddamn right I watched the movie with the lights on.

And, really? Not that scary. The only point I jumped was when Regan spiderwalks down the stairs and barfs blood. There were certainly some spooky, spooky scenes, and the movie captures a lot of the psychological torment from the book, but in terms of actually jumping and screaming and diving under my futon looking for safety? Yeah, not so much.

It helps that Tippy was sleeping right next to the TV. Kind of hard to be scared when there’s a furry little calico snoozin’ away to her heart’s content.

Last night, out at a bar celebrating a friend’s birthday, a cute lady told me I had “luscious lips.”

Which is a nice thing to hear — back in middle and high school, I was relentlessly teased for having large lips. “Apoca-lips”, and stuff like that.

I like “luscious lips” about a thousand times better.

(The lady in question was married, so I’m not entirely sure why she was telling me this … which is the downside to being, y’know, drunk).

It’s nice when the bus drivers knows you, because he’ll stop even if you forget to pull the cord. Not so nice when you pull the cord because you want to get off a block early, and he thinks you’re an idiot who pulled the cord early by mistake and keeps going …

Oh well.

Sometimes, I’m not so sure.

A little over a week ago, I blogged about how angry I was that the Bookstore was ripped off by professional thieves, and how impotent I’d felt. A regular commenter then took me to task for bragging about infiltrating Marriott’s employee cafeteria.

Alan wrote:

Yet it’s OK to sneak into another company’s cafeteria, right? Hell, that was thrilling, right?

Don’t you even wonder why that meal you had yesterday was so cheap compared to your cafeteria? That’s because Mariott subsidizes it FOR THEIR EMPLOYEES.

So it’s not “like: if someone I work with found out I was… stealing…”. You DO steal. Just from Mariott. Both posts today painted you as some kind of saint, which you’re not. You’re human and you have flaws.

I’ve certainly never considered myself a saint, and I don’t think one has to be seen as a saint to take a stand against torture and people who break into cars. I’ve certainly got my flaws, and here are some of them:

1. I download music. For free. Yay, BitTorrent!

2. I jaywalk — usually only in the early hours of the morning (like 6am), dashing across Connecticut Avenue so I don’t have to wait for the light. Yes, I’m very careful.

3. If it’s raining out at the Bookstore, I will take an abandoned umbrella from our lost and found.

4. I use the discount I get at the Bookstore, sometimes, for purchases that are for coworkers from the Office, or for friends. Technically, this is a no-no.

5. I curse. A lot. I curse at the Office, I (quietly) curse at the Bookstore. I curse in public, and in private.

6. I’m extremely judgemental, although I try not to be. Also, I tend to give myself a lot of breaks that I wouldn’t for someone else doing the exact same thing.

7. I tend to speak without thinking. For example, a friend’s birthday celebration is this Saturday. I bumped into her randomly Monday, and blurted out, “I might not be coming.” Which is true, but I should’ve clarified: “I found out that my hours were increased on Saturday, and I might be too tired to come out after work. But I hope to at least stop by and buy you a celebratory booze.” Because, really, sometimes I’m just a jackass.

7A. In fairness, at the end of a thirteen hour day, I can be kind of non-coherent.

8. I’m a little creepy. Case in point: guy got on the bus last night, sat in front of me. Wasn’t sure if I knew him, e-mailed who I thought it was this morning, no response, I’m sure he thought: “Wow, what a creep.”

On the other hand, I pay my taxes, throw my garbage in the dumpster, and will return your wallet if you lose it. It’ll even have all its money in it. Also, if I work with you, I’m not below smuggling in some Natty Boh so you can have a “pick me up” at lunch.

(I’m not sure if the Boh works in my favor of not).

And then, as fate would have it, feeling in the dumps, I opened my mailbox half an hour ago to find a letter in it from the gentleman whose wallet I found on Sunday, and mailed on Monday. He received the wallet on Tuesday, and was quite generous in his praise.

I don’t know if you can read all that, but he says: “Godly richly bless you in your day to day activities … all things were intact. You are really a man-of-God.” He goes on to write that he works at the National Zoo, and says, “I would be grateful if you could visit me at zoo one day.” I’ve really got no excuse not too, although all this flattery in the letter is embarrassing enough (I mean, it’s been a rough week at work, and a particularly rough day, so I need the boost).

Which is really flattering, and sort of puts to rest my own questioning: y’know, so what if I download music for free? So what if I take advantage of Marriott’s employee cafeteria? So what if I jaywalk? If you lose your wallet, I’ll pay the shipping out of my pocket, because, dammit, I’m a good person.

And someone wants to be my friend! That makes me very happy.

Aziz Ansari is an idiot.

Let me just say that upfront.

But he’s got a point.

Here’s the quick low-down, but I’m sure you know it already: AMC and Regal and some other theaters wanted to make extra cash out of Star Trek, so they worked a deal with IMAX where they could call some of their screens “IMAX Digital” or some such. Misleading? You betcha. I mean, I know in a perfect world, people can distinguish that IMAX and IMAX Digital are not the same thing, y’know, proper research — one would think the fact that you’ve been going to said movie theaters for years and years and never saw them advertise IMAX before, and didn’t notice them building a new addition would’ve been enough warning — but, let’s be bluntly honest here, I had no idea there was a difference there.

None, at all.

So, anyway, Ansari went, paid $15 for a ticket, realized it wasn’t an IMAX screen, then sat and watched the whole movie before demanding his extra $5 back. And that is why Ansari is an idiot — if he wanted his money back, he should’ve walked out of the theater, demanded a full refund, and gone to see Trek somewhere else.

It’s like, when I used to work in the pizza business, the people who would call in and tell me that I’d made the wrong pizza for them and they wanted what they’d ordered but, oh yeah, they’d eaten the wrong pizza. “You mean a slice or two?” No, the whole thing. Well, sorry dude, I’m happy to fix your pizza, but if you ate the pizza we sent you, there’s really nothing I can do for you: I mean, clearly, it was edible. (Also: clearly, there’s no way for me to know that I didn’t make the right pizza to begin with and you just want a free pie and do I look like I was born yesterday?)

So, Ansari: thank you for alerting me to the fact that Star Trek is not really playing on a lot of IMAX screens (it is, in fact, playing on the Smithsonian’s IMAX in Chantilly, VA). And screw you IMAX and Regal and other movie-chains for some dubious “IMAX approved” rating that enables the theater to charge an extra few bucks. Meanwhile, I’ve been perfectly happy catching the film (twice!) on a normal movie screen.

Also: on his blog, Ansari says that he did not, in fact, actually threaten the movie theater manager with posting negative comments on Twitter if he wasn’t given his money back, but, er, would that be Twitt-rorism?

***

I didn’t get a chance to get out to HBO’s Screen on the Green last summer, but I was looking forward to making my way over to the Mall a few nights this summer, and alas! No more Screen. This makes me sad.

(Don’t worry, I’ll get over it).

As much as I like and even admire our justice system, sometimes I just want to take blunt objects and crack skulls open. In this particular case, I’d rather shatter some kneecaps:

But police said they weren’t stumped very long. On Thursday, officers pulled over the driver of a vehicle matching the description of a stolen one.

It wasn’t the stolen car, police said, but inside they found 19 parking placards.

A Temple Hills man, it turned out, had been selling the placards — which allow drivers to park near entrances and in some areas without feeding meters — for $50 apiece, said Cpl. Clinton Copeland, a police spokesman.

“People were using them to park, while [disabled] people, unfortunately, were being left out of luck,” Copeland said.

The kneecaps not just of the thief (other local news sites say there were two others involved in the thefts), but also, of the low-down scrum-sucking cockknobbers who were buying these placards. I mean, what kind of a slime shit ball do you have to be to use a handicapped space when you’ve got two perfectly good legs? Walk the extra distance!

This is why I’d like poetic justice: smash kneecaps, refuse to issue these newly disabled scumbags placards, and let them hobble from the parking garage to their destination. Serve ‘em right, it would.

However, since that would be considered extreme: when one of the stolen placards is being used, tow the vehicle.

Liz Cheney on CNN:

In an interview on Fox News, the daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney sharply criticized the new administration for agreeing to release photographs depicting alleged abuses at U.S. prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush administration.

“I think it is really appalling that the administration is taking this step,” she said in the interview. “Clearly what they are doing is releasing images that show American military men and woman in a very negative light.”

Maybe Liz Cheney should stop to consider that it wasn’t President Obama who put American military men and women in the position to be portrayed in a negative light, it was her father. And maybe, before she runs her mouth, she should consider that people understand very well that these images are the direct result of a series of decisions made by the previous administration — why should a man who campaigned on “change” cover them up?

Because it portrays our military in a bad light? That was something to consider well before these photos were taken, not after.

I find it hard to believe that the Cheneys and their defenders don’t understand this.

It’s like: if someone I work with found out I was fudging my numbers, or stealing, or whatever, and then a whole bunch of people got mad at them for going public, or going to management, with tales of my misdeeds, instead of being mad at me for fudging my numbers or stealing or whatever.

Bullshit.

Tired with eating Kraft Easy Mac, or leftovers from home, disdaining the expensive (and food-poisoning prone) cafe in the lobby, myself and two of my corporate co-cogs decided to slip out of the Office’s half-floor office, out of the building, and make our way across the street to the corporate headquarters of Marriott, where, rumors tell, there be good eatin’s to be found in the employee cafeteria.

The kernel for this adventure was planted last summer, by a guy we’d all worked with, a brash team lead from New York who could seemingly talk his way into or out of any situation, and bragged about how he had free access to Marriott’s HQ gym: simply, he just walked in, did his work out, then showered and came to work. (Also, he was a jerk and I was glad when he went on to brighter pastures).

Part of me was super excited and eager for our attempt at food-espionage (foodnage?). On the other hand, part of me was worried that big hulking guys wearing shirts labeling them SECURITY would beat the crap out of us and leave us on the sidewalk for the police to collect. But we walked across the road (nearly got run over, because we weren’t in the crosswalk and the light turned green, and suffice to say we all knew better), and walked up to the rear of the building, walked up to the loading dock and into the doors.

How many people issued us a challenge? How many people asked us for our IDs?

None. And none. And in addition to the assorted delivery people wheeling carts of food and sodas and supplies around, there were some middle-manager looking folks out there, too, just not any who thought, “Hmm, these don’t look like corporate hotel cogs! They look like IT startup cogs!”

In fairness, there is an actual Marriott hotel next door, so I’m sure a lot of the in-house hotel staff stop over for lunch, which might explain why no one thought it odd we weren’t wearing IDs. I don’t know.

Let me say this about the Marriott: their cafeteria? Gorgeous! I mean, like there and then, standing, I thought, “Wow, I want to work here.” It was like a miniature food court: there was a grill station, a sushi station, a fish station … I opted for a bacon cheeseburger and fries, and while the burger was small, it was also tasty — and cheap! A similar sized burger in the cafe downstairs would run me twice as much.

After we’d paid, and were seated in the dining area, all three of us just sort of marveled at how simple it had all been. It was like that time, back in 2000 or 2001, when I delivered a lot of pizzas to a defense contractor, AAI, in Cockeysville, MD. I was required to have an armed escort to the meeting room, and I walked past a ton of UAVs (this was before they were front-page news on CNN). After delivering the pizza, the guy with the gun asked if I could find my way back out, and then trusted me not to steal a drone. Trust me, if I’d known what they were, I would have!

I guess we looked like Marriott’s corporate cogs, although I was wearing cargo pants and sneakers. We all agreed we would have to sneak over more often — I mean, really, the food was really good — and on our way back (we left through the main entrance), even remarked on how easy it would be for one or two people to sneak in the backdoor, come up the stairs as the group tried to enter, and then wave them through, “Oh, it’s okay, they’re with us!” Then blend together, and if questioned in the cafeteria, just all go with, “Oh, I don’t know — who set this up? Mary? Mary with Marriott, I think? Oh, I think Bill was the contact person on our end — where’s Bill? He’s not in today? Well, poo.”

I think my job would be a lot more fun if my LinkedIn profile said: “Snay is a senior research analyst tasked with investigating how to sneak into areas where he is unauthorized to be”, as opposed to: “Snay is a senior research analyst tasked with boring himself to death five days a week.”

Let me tell you — this Marriott adventure? Made my week. Next: how to sneak into the White House!

I usually work at the Bookstore on Sundays, however I’d requested the 17th off because my Office Wife and I had made plans to go see the butterflies at Brookside Gardens in Wheaton. Sadly, her godfather died, and our plans were canceled.

I suppose I could have asked for hours on Sunday, but I’m actually really looking forward to having the day off. Hoping that the weather will duplicate last Sunday’s, I’ve plotted a rather aggressive urban hike out for myself, and I plan on getting an early start (so that if the day is too hot, I can escape the heat).

Over the last month or so, I’ve been walking a lot more than I ever used to: I walk regularly from the Bookstore to my apartment, and vice-versa. On days when it’s too cold or too rainy to walk all the way home, I walk the five or so blocks to Franklin Square for the Circulator. However, even with the steep incline of Connecticut Avenue, these walks, at two miles each way, are pretty tame compared to my plans for this weekend: 13.5 miles, with an estimated walking time of 4.5 hours (better make sure my iPod has a full charge!)

Leaving my apartment, my first stop will be the Exorcist Stairs in Georgetown, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen. For that matter, I’ve never seen the movie, but I read the book last month and it scared the bejesus out of me.

From the Exorcist Stairs, I’m going to head east to GWU, then head south to pay my respects to Abe Lincoln, and Tom Jefferson. After that, I head east again, up to Capitol Hill to the Library of Congress. From there, it’s north by northwest to Chinatown and Adams Morgan, followed by a stiff hike uphill through the National Zoo.

If Google Map’s estimated walking distances are correct, and if I’m able to leave at my hoped to departure time (6:30am), I should be in the Zoo by 11, which means peak tourist time. Thankfully, even though uphill, and against the crowd, once I’m in the Zoo, it’s all (not literally) downhill, and I can spend the rest of my Sunday soaking my feet in salt water, drinking lemonade, and watching old episodes of Classic Trek.

I was running late for work yesterday, so instead of walking, I jumped on the L2. I made up for it walking home, though — 17th Street north to U Street west, and then home through Adams Morgan.

In any case, as always when I pick it up, the L2 was pretty full. People started getting off at the Metro stop, and in Adams Morgan. It was in Adams Morgan that two passengers, both departing, waved to me as they passed and pointed at the floor. In retrospect, I wish I’d kept my self in my seat, but I was curious, so I looked over the seat to see a black wallet on the floor of the bus.

Inside the wallet: a Maryland ID, a Chevy Chase bank card, a few member cards (Safeway, CVS), a SmarTrip, and some cash. I thought to myself: no big deal! I’d get to work, call Chevy Chase, and ask them to call the customer and inform him of where he could pick up the wallet. This plan lasted about as long as it took to get a representative from Chevy Chase on the phone: “Well, we’ll cancel the card, but we can’t contact the customer.”

What do you mean you can’t contact the customer?

It’s against our policy.

Well, what the hell am I supposed to do with this wallet?

I mean, it’s a nice wallet, I could dump all his stuff into the trash and replace my old, worn wallet. On the other hand, what do you mean you can’t contact the customer? You’ve got his phone number and his address, is it really so difficult to pick up the phone? “Sir, a gentleman found your wallet and it’s being held for you at the Bookstore at this address.”

Rationally, I expect there’s a reason — and a good reason — why they can’t contact the customer in a case such as this — perhaps I’m staging an ambush against him when he shows up, or maybe I’m just fishing for information, or something.

As I saw it, I had two options:

1. I could take the wallet to a Chevy Chase location and trust that, when they have the wallet in their possession, they are more lenient about the whole “contact the customer” thing.

2. I could mail it to him.

Since I don’t want to take the chance that I’ll walk into a Chevy Chase to be told, “Oh, sorry, we can’t contact him for you” and hand me the wallet back, it’s currently in my messenger bag, in a sealed puffy envelope, with the address from his ID written on it. I hope he still lives there — directory assistance was useless in identifying a phone number for him. Everything is intact, although not necessarily where he’d had it — I took everything out looking for an e-mail address or a phone number.

Meanwhile, I’m still a little pissed at Chevy Chase. I can only imagine how upset I would be if I’d lost my wallet — forget whatever money I had in it, I’d be more concerned about my check card being used fraudulently, and replacing my driver’s license. Not fun, I can imagine. I hope that when he realized he lost his wallet, he called Chevy Chase — hopefully, they told him, at the very least, that a third party (me!) had called to report the wallet found, but I imagine there’s a pit in his stomach right now.

It’ll be in the mail to him tonight. I kind of wish I’d put a card with my e-mail address on it so that I would know when he received it.

JJ Abrams sure knows how to mix up a franchise.

I saw a matinee of the film this afternoon at the Regal in Gallery Place. The theater was not sold out, but it was quite packed. I was a bit ticked off at the guy in front of me who kept fiddling on his blackberry throughout the movie — seriously, what is with people who can’t put down their phones during a movie? A movie they paid money for? Even matinee pricing was still nearly ten bucks.

I know, I know – you don’t care. You want to know one thing: was it good? Was it worth leaving work early and getting in trouble with the boss for? Is it something you’re going to want to see over and over again? Or is going to be like Indiana Jones? A lot of excitement and build-up, and then misery and disappointment?

Well, here’s my verdict: it was awesome. No, it was fucking awesome. Y’know what? Words don’t describe it. So I’ll let me money talk for me: I will most likely go catch another screening of it first thing tomorrow before I go to work.

The production design is fantastic, and beautiful, but I’m not to talk about the special effects, or the set designs, or the nicely updated uniforms, because, honestly? You could build sets out of cardboard and re-dressed Marriott hotel halls, and as long as you had the characters right, you had Trek. And y’know what?

The story is decent, and well thought out. Fan worries about messing with the canon are assuaged by old Spock’s reveal that Nero’s return to the past has created a reality alternate to the established time-line. Meanwhile, although Scotty seems a bit more exuberant than I would have thought, the characters are well-treated, and of the secondaries (Uhura, Scott, Sulu, Chekov), everyone gets a moment to shine.

Some of the development is really expounded upon: Nyota Uhura (finally, a canon name for her!) has more development in a C-plot than she did in 80 episodes and six movies. Kirk is an aggressive go-getter, just like we know from classic Trek: of course, here he is not the captain. Well, not yet, anyway.

Now, if you don’t want to be spoiled, I would highly recommend you not continue reading. (more…)

I hate calling out from work. At the Office, I hate doing it because I don’t like using my PTO. At the Bookstore, I hate doing it because it usually means that the store will be short-handed.

I have missed, maybe, four shifts since I started working at the Bookstore. When you figure that I work five shifts a week there, that works out to missing one out of every seventy-five shifts. It’s not a bad ratio, I guess — how many sick days do you use over the course of fifteen weeks? However, I still feel I called out too much this year.

Of course, given some of my colleagues at the Bookstore, I’m an angel by comparison. I really have a hard time understanding how some of them are even still employed, especially given that they call out so frequently that it’s really no surprise when they don’t show up. My philosophy on calling out is pretty simple: unless I’m in severe pain, or I need to stay within a quick dash of a toilet, I’m going to go to work. Someone calls with exciting plans and I can’t find someone to cover my shift? I’ve got to go to work. Someone told me about plans but I forgot to request off? Work.

Really, the whole point is just responsibility. I wanted a part-time job, and I’ve worked in retail environments enough to know that it does, in fact, take a commitment. Yeah, in a lot of ways, I’m just a minimum wage slave (actually, the Bookstore starts everyone out well above minimum wage), but I still take the gig seriously.

I’ve been thinking about this in regards to the Office. I don’t know how yours works, but at my Office, my work, and most of colleagues’ work, is largely independent. If they miss a day, it doesn’t affect my output. If I miss a day, it doesn’t affect theirs. People are largely free to set their own hours.

It isn’t that way at the Bookstore — there are weekly schedules which show who is working what days and when, and daily schedules which break down hour-by-hour where employees are expected to be: I look at the daily schedule and know if I’ve got a night on the register, or a night at Info. Last night, I was running between the register, information, and media information.

It’s weird, because when you talk about “employment” and “responsibility”, in a lot of ways, the Bookstore requires more responsibility. Any retail operation is like a finely oiled machine — one cog disappears, and stuff starts to break down. And when I say “disappear”, I mean “call out.”

It’s not that I don’t sympathize with people who call-out: there are emergencies, I can’t fault someone whose kid injures themselves, or who is sick, or who is stuck in traffic or on a broken down Metro, even those who suddenly find themselves facing a last-minute deadline at their other job. That happened to me, once. But I really can’t — like, really can’t — stand those who decide they’d rather go to a bar and drink then go to work. Want to know something? I’d rather go to a bar and drink, too, but at some point, we all decided we wanted to work at the Bookstore, because we needed health coverage, or we needed some extra money, or because we needed books, or whatthefuckever. We’re all adults. We all knew what we were getting into. I don’t think any of us started working there because our parents wanted us to learn responsibility.

Like me, a lot of my coworkers at the Bookstore have other jobs, most full-time. A few, I think, look at the Bookstore as simply a paycheck — if they have something more fun on the horizon, they have no problem calling out because they feel that the extra $24 bucks they’d put away for a three-hour shift is something they can afford to do without.

That’s a pretty disgusting attitude, especially last night: the store was busy, all day, and all night. A lot of people from the day shift called out. The recovery cart was still mostly full when we finally called it quits at 9:30. To make matters worse, one of our evening shift didn’t both to call to warn us that she wasn’t coming in. To be fair, she might not have known she was scheduled. On the other hand, the weekly schedule had been posted for two weeks. And I have not a lot of sympathy for people who don’t keep track of when they’re supposed to be working.

Her brother works at the Bookstore, he tried calling her — repeatedly. He was worried about her.

Got home a little after ten, the rain had cleared out and I wanted to walk. Logged into Facebook. Where had she been? She went to a 7:00 Star Trek showing. A movie that I’d wanted to go to. A movie that I’d tried to find someone to fill my shift so I could attend. A movie that I’d literally rearranged my weekly schedule for so that I’d be able to see it opening day, today, before I knew it would be playing at 7pm at some theaters yesterday. But when everyone I called yesterday either already had plans, or was already working, I didn’t fake a cough, I manned up and I went to work.

Because, me? I keep to my responsibilities.

And that’s why when other people are grumbling about how their hours aren’t what they used to be, I get more hours than I can shake a stick at.

And now? I put in a dozen hours at the Office Tuesday, and I got here at 7am. That means it’s 11, and it’s quitting time. I’m off to see Trek. And I’ll enjoy it a lot more than if I’d been watching it, while knowing I’d left my coworkers — my compadres — in the lurch without me.

CNN.com:

Credit cards are as much a part of the American economy as $20 bills, but a fervent subset of consumers has sworn off plastic money altogether.

I did this. I haven’t used a credit card since late October or early November. At first, it was hard. It can be tempting to look at credit cards as a stop-gap measure, a way to make the ends meet. Now, it’s so hard to imagine using them.

Often, people talk about freezing their credit cards in cups of water placed into the freezer. I didn’t do that — they’re piled up in a lock-box in my closet — but the thing is, I never feel any temptation to use them. As I wrote this, I had the momentary wonder, how would I feel if I had one in my wallet? And it almost made me sick to my stomach.

But not for more cowbell. And it’s got nothing to do with pigs.

Nope, I’ve got Star Trek fever.

Confession time: I was a huge Trekkie back in middle and high school. I went to conventions. I read the books. I never missed a first-run episode of The Next Generation or Deep Space Nine. I freaked when I realized I would have to wait the whole summer to see what happened after Riker told Worf to fire, I even read the autobiographies of the cast members. Family vacation in California? Meh. Getting to see some extras in Star Trek uniforms on the Paramount lot? Made the trip. Posters, cardboard cut-outs, toys? You know it.

I never actually owned any uniforms, never dressed up as a Klingon. Today, I’ve got a Star Trek poster hanging in my kitchen, a die-cast model of Kirk’s Enterprise on a bookshelf, the DVD sets of TOS, TNG, and DS9 on a shelf. I even kept a few of the tie-in novels, they’re somewhere lost among the piles of books.

JJ Abrams’ vision of Star Trek hits theaters in two days. I’ve been trying not to get excited. Over the last year, there have been so many movies that I have been so disappointed by, that I’m afraid I’m going to walk into the theater with the excitement of a 12-year old, and walk out bitterly crushed, like I did with Indiana Jones or The Dark Knight.

I set my laptop to download the soundtrack as I slept. I’m listening to it now, and I listened to it on the way in. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up when Michael Giacchino’s score paid tribute to Alexander Courage — the tracks “To Boldly Go” and “End Credits” at the end of the album.

I am off from the Bookstore Friday night, and last night. So I did what any self-proclaimed dork would do: I stayed late at the Office yesterday (sadly delaying my arrival at the Cinco de Patrick celebration at Mackey’s) so that I can leave early on Friday, and either catch a matinee, or bone up on some old classic Trek episodes before viewing the new film.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t apprehensive. I don’t want my spirit to be crushed. I want to be a bundle of energy jumping, running, skipping, out of the theater on Friday.

Meanwhile, I’m astonished by the reactions of people like a guy in my Office, who when I asked if he planned on seeing Star Trek, opened his mouth to respond, then looked perplexed for a second, then replied: “You know what? I think I am! Actually, I really really want to see it!” He further elaborated: “Dude, if you’d told me I’d want to see a Star Trek movie heck, a year ago, I would’ve called you a dirty liar.”

To share my enthusiasm, I dug through my archives for some of my favorite Star Trek related posts. Enjoy:

Star Trek: Zombie Planet. Kirk & Zombies. C’mon, it’s pretty self-explanatory, I think. I really should finish it.

How Do You Define Klingon Culture? “Hulk Smash? Fight?” Eh, Close Enough! A group of DC bloggers attempt to answer ten basic questions regarding classic Trek. Their failure is massive win.

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield At its best, Star Trek was a show which allowed its writers to address contemporary issues in a science-fiction setting. At its worst, it was all about how many hot alien chicks Captain Kirk could get nekkid with. If someone who’d never seen a single episode of Star Trek asked me what episodes to watch to get an idea for the ideology of the universe Gene Roddenberry created, this would be that list.

A lot of the episodes from the above list are available on YouTube, here are the links for your work-place time waster:

Arena
Devil In The Dark
Day of the Dove
The Corbomite Maneuver
The City on the Edge of Forever
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
Obsession
The Doomsday Machine
The Trouble with Tribbles