I dropped LDriver off at his house after our soul-sucking commute (complete with highway death) and was heading home. It was a very pleasant evening, so I had the windows rolled down and the stereo cranked. After a stop at a red light, I set cruise control at 40 mph. As I was driving through a school zone, I looked in the rear view mirror and saw the red and blue flashing lights of a sheriff’s deputy behind me. Goddammit, not again! What the hell did I do wrong? I looked at my speedometer, and I was at exactly 40. I had my seat belt on, and with the exception of one of three bulbs in my CHMSL tail light, I know my lights are working. Fuck! I hit the turn signal and pulled over to the side of the road… only to watch the deputy speed by me on his way to someplace else. Excellent! Pass the pipe!

If you read my previous blog update, I was whining like a liberal about Philly cheesesteaks on the west coast. Sick Tech “Ditech” Jake suggested I combine and sell Philly food with domain hosting. Only priests molesting young boys at church is only slightly more stupid. Tina, however, came to my rescue with a suggestion of porn and Philly food. I was laughing with LDriver about Tina’s idea on the way home last night, and I told him I’d come up with some pictures. After some surprisingly easy Photoshopping, I came up with several cool-yet-NSFW pictures that you might find funny… or slightly disturbing. You can find those pictures here, here, here, here, and here. And you thought Ron Jeremy had a lot of meat.

Last weekend, I took my truck to have the oil changed. I’ve been going to Jiffy Lube since I bought the truck last summer, but Jiffy Lube always wanted to sell me 700 other services from new wiper blades to rusty trombones to flushing every drop of fluid in the truck. On top of that, the last time Jiffy Lube changed the oil, their dumb-ass grease monkey stripped the oil plug. They told me they did it, and even replaced the plug with a new one, and took $40 off my final bill. Fast forward to last weekend. I decided to try Wal-Mart‘s Tire & Lube Express Center. I didn’t want to take it to Jiffy Lube again after reading all the shit at jiffylubeproblems.com. I know other people that go to Wal-Mart without trouble… so why not?

After shopping in the store, I made my way back to their waiting area. Fifteen minutes later, a female tech came in and told me the plug on the oil pan was stripped, and she could not drain the oil. Fuck. I immediately thought of that dicked oil plug at Jiffy Lube. Wal-Mart put on a new filter and topped off the oil for free. I offered to pay for what they did, but they said because they couldn’t complete the service, they couldn’t charge me. Now I can’t get the oil changed until I get the oil pan replaced. The cheapest price I could find for just the oil pan is $60 plus shipping. That doesn’t include the gasket or labor. Goddamn Jiffy Lube.

Well, that’s all for now… I’m too tired… and, uhh… buzzed to keep writing.

Let’s start with a little story. A friend of mine related a tale that I find somewhat disturbing. He works for a Bank in Portland, and they’ve had some commotion with a fellow co-worker. He tells me that this co-worker (whom I’ll call Pam for reasons of anonymity) has performed her duties satisfactorily, but her reliability is in the porcelain funnel o' shit, as evidenced by this list:

• One time, poor Pam slept off a bender in the bank (with the alarm off) because she was too drunk to drive home. Ho-ly crap!
• Another time, Pam requested time off because she needed to cry over being dumped by her boyfriend. I guess Pam isn’t known for crying, or shouldn’t cry because she’s the manly type, or something. Sweet Jesus.
• While talking to co-worker, Pam called a customer a “cunt.” It wasn’t in earshot of the customer, but the female co-worker was highly upset. Poor misguided Pam was called to the bank president’s office for an ass chewing.
• Pam also messed up a customer’s bank account which ended up costing the bank about $1000.
• On more than one occasion, Pam has been caught sleeping at her desk. Could it be all that crying that’s keeping her up at nights? Maybe. I don’t know.
• And twice, Pam didn’t show up to work on time. No big deal if she was only five or so minutes late. Poop occurs. But my friend said it was four and a half hours one time, and just recently it was more than two hours! Apparently, Pam has a position at the bank that requires her to take… loan application calls from the East Coast starting at five in the morning. If she’s not there, a loan may not get processed, and the bank can’t have that!
• She went to a customer’s house to help them with their banking needs, and was dressed like it was laundry day in Pamsworld™. Instead of going in banking attire, she was wearing a t-shirt with a worn out Trans-Am iron-on. Her ratty jeans were held up with a length of sisal rope, and she was wearing sneakers!

Worst. Employee. Ever. The only thing Pam hasn’t done is play Windows Solitaire all day long when she should be working. Wow. If we had an employee like that in the company I work for, she would surely be fired. That type of behavior simply doesn’t fly in the IT industry. Our managers won’t stand for such piss-poor work ethics, and you would be shown the door. I’ve seen it happen to several sysadmins. Funny thing however, Pam still retains her job at the bank! Can you believe it? Color me dubious, goddammit! If that list of shit is true, Pam works for the most lenient company in all of Oregon, possibly the entire West Coast! Can you imagine the perception other employees of that bank must have? “Hey, we can dick off without fear of being fired, because Pam’s still here.” I wouldn’t bank with those people if you paid me. Who knows what would happen to your life’s savings?

Continuing on the line of co-workers… If you’ve read this collection of nonsensical bullshit in the past, you know that I’m in a carpool and we have a soul-crushing 200-mile-a-day round trip commute. In our carpool, we worked out a simple solution to buying gasoline: rotation. We each take turns buying tanks of fuel. This has been working well for us, until recently. Yesterday, when it came time for one of our carpoolers to fill the tank, he complained that he only had $25 in his account. Jesus-fucking-Christ! So, an arrangement was made where I would pay for this tank, and he would buy the next tank on Monday. I may be a cranky motherfucker by nature, but I’m flexible and understand being strapped for cash.

We stopped at Costco in Mount Vernon for gas, where I spent thirty dollars even. As we left the gas pumps, we made a detour to EB Games, where the carpooler — who claimed to only have $25 in his account — chasséd his rotund keister into the store and bought an expansion pack to The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. What in the Spic and Span hell, man? We can buy games, but not gas? I didn’t throw the bullshit flag until today, ’cause I was too busy stringing an unnecessary number of angry exclamation points together in my head. That shit ain’t right. Gas, grass, or ass, bitch! Nobody rides free! And trust me when I say no one wants any of that ass.

My segues are working out well tonight, as I have another nugget about ass. Have you ever had one of those moments where you suddenly have to shit? It happened to me yesterday, and I’m here to tell you about it. I was at work yesterday, as I frequently am, and had just come back from lunch. I was doing just fine at my desk, when all of a sudden my body said, “hey gallbladder, we need some bile,” and sadly there was no response. My gallbladder went AWOL in 1998, and this behavior is normal at times. Any-way… I clenched my whale eye tighter, and beat a path to the rest room down the hall. I’ll be a sonofabitch if both stalls weren’t occupied. Screw this! With my colon in distress, I headed for the elevators to use the toilets on the third floor. Ten fucking minutes passed before the elevator doors opened. It may have been closer to 30 seconds, but the space-time continuum gets all fuckered up in situations like this… so I just don’t know.

Two floors down, and in unfamiliar surroundings, I start bombing. Then, I hear the restroom door open. I don’t know about you, but I always cough a little fake cough or clear my throat to let the newcomer know that they are not alone. I don’t need some whackjob baby talking to his “little man” at the urinal, or whistling a little tune while taking a piss. “C’mon lil’ buddy. Time t’come on out and do your bidness.” Goddamn I hate public toilets.

Back to the story… In mid-drop, the intruder decides to try the door to my stall. But it’s not a simple little tug, or a knock. No. It’s full-on yanking and rattling like he’s trying to un-stick his garage door after it jumped off it’s tracks. The attempt startles me, causing… the bomb bay doors to close prematurely. Motherfuck!!! I shouted out “Occupied,” probably loud enough for the people at FiberCloud on the 19th floor to hear. All I heard back was an irritated sigh. Excuse the shit, literally, outta me! Holy shit, man! What makes a person think that a closed shitter stall is an invitation to rip the door off it’s hinges? I listened as Mr. Door Shaker used a urinal to take a piss then leave… without washing his hands. I spent the next five minutes going through half the roll of paper to return my sphincter to some resemblance of it’s pre-shit self.

Okay, that’s all for now. All that talk about coming up with a title, and I stuck to work-related topics, and managed to slip in a little bit of corporate toilet humor, too. So, I changed the title from “Miscellany” to “Work Strife.” You probably don’t care, do you?