I should hardly have to mention anymore my glorious walk for free vacation time. The graph has been sitting there up at the top of my blog page slowly counting up to the grand total of 750,000. And today, one week before deadline, I have hit that total. This little exercise has added quite a bit to my life, from friendly competition with co-workers to some much needed think time. Now, to celebrate this achievement, I give you some more photos of my journeys.
As I'd briefly touched upon in an earlier post, my place of employ is currently having a little fitness competition: can you walk 10,000 steps a day for 75 days? If you reach the grand and glorious total of 750,000, you are awarded two free days of vacation. Everybody was provided with company branded pedometers to keep track of our steppings and left to our devices.
Now, I'm never one to turn down an opportunity to make money for nothing, so I'm doing my best to make a firm effort and accomplish this goal. If you take a look at the blog main page, you'll see that there is a graph with my current progress on this mission (assuming you're using an HTML5 compliant browser). As you may well notice, I'm a few thousand steps shy of my quota for this week (shame on myself).
Now, that's the boring part. The cool part (and the reason I'm posting) is the really the graph itself. Back in December I switched the site codebase over to HTML5. Now, this was mostly a change in semantics, using new tags such as <article> and <section>. I'd not done anything special with CSS3 or some of the newer, funner tags such as <video> or <audio>. One major thing I'd really not looked too much into was the new <canvas> tag, with the ability to draw images in the browser on the fly.
That all said, I needed some place to test this exciting new functionality, and making the graph was just the place. To update update said graph, all I do is modify a JSON data file with my step information, and HTML5/JS takes care of the rest. Of course, this leaves people using IE in the dust, but this site was never designed for them anyways.
So, there you have it. A fitness contest spurned my thirst for learning. Now, if IE9 could speed along and summarily obliterate the install base of all previous versions before it, life would be a joy of canvasy win!
I do not go to work today. This is something to be joyous about. However, it was not meant to be this way. Thanks to my wonderful shoes, which have been possesed by the very soul of Satan himself, my foot is in pain. It sucks. Actually, it's sad more than it sucks for today was supposed to be the last Saturday I ever work at Wal-Mart.
This Friday, July 6th, marks my final day there. There is indeed light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. I've already planned a few things I am going to do before school starts. Theyare as follows:
- Attend a "Weird Al" concert
- Start up a new comic
- Practice piano
- Read some books
- Other various sundries
Yes. This will be like the most awesome summer EVAR!
I can no longer in anyway be considered a minor. Now that I'm 21 there's nothing I can't do... except run for president... and pull social security... and get AARP. Okay, some milestones left. I plan on celebrating the situation by getting some Mike's Hard Lemonade tonight after work and doing some celebrating.
It's more than just my birthday, however. It's also the second anniversary of my blog. Several months ago I did a little "look back on stuff I did" type post. However, this highlighted primarily minor things (such as buying an iPod or bowling really well). It never delved much into the major things and when it did it was kind of half-hearted. Today I'm going to reflect on the major milestones.
Applied for Job (October '05) - This would have to be the biggest milestone for me. As much as I hate to admit it Wal-Mart has completely changed me as a person. I'd like to think I'm more mature now and am a more socially adept person.
Became Cashier (January '06) - Had I not ever gotten on a register I probably would be a nicer person now. I know most of my current attitude developed during my time on a register because customers treat their cashiers like crap.
Rediscivered Drawing (April '06) - In this list I've given so far I'm pretty sure this is one of the only positive ones. This may seem fairly minor but it does play a large role in my decision for what I want to ultimately want to do for the rest of my life.
Driver's License (May '06) - That was only about three years too late. Not necessarily a major thing but it did bring me up to two out of three of the biggies (job, license, GED).
Kathleen (March-July '06) - I never said anything in my blog about this but I did kind of almost have a girlfriend. Her name was Kathleen and she was a cashier. It started she'd always sit across from me in the break room and we'd talk and laugh. This began sometime in March right before I went to grocery. I didn't realize it until it was too late. This actually played a significant part in my return to cashiering. When I came back in May I had to wait until her and her then boyfriend broke up before I made my move. I had resumed the conversing during break thing to ease into things again and one day I got the balls to ask her for her phone number and that was the beginning of probably one of the best times of last year. We'd text message each other all the time and we'd chat in the break room and I even bought her lunch once. However, I began to get a little obsessive (and posessive) and she ended it with a simple, yet cliched, message. The text in panel two is an exact quote of what she said. This sent me into another deep blue funk for quite a while. The only good thing that came out of that whole mess (aside from some much needed wisdom) was a new cell phone.
CSM (December '06) - This was something that I had worked my ass off for. I was in my gotta move up the chain phase at this point. It started off a little rocky but I got the hang of all the little technicalities. It was the stress of being bombarded from all directions by everybody that got to me in the end. After I shed the red coat I got complaints from a lot of cashiers saying they wanted me back. It's nice feel loved.
The Future (January '07-present) - As most of you know late in January I got my Mac mini but there's an interesting tale around that that bears more importance than just getting a really cool computer. I called in snowed in the day it came (partially true) because I had to be there when it came. As fortune would have it Full Sail called that day wondering what my plans were. The problem was I had no plans for anything at all. I knew I wanted to go to college in the fall but that was about it. I had talked to Full Sail sometime during the old house rennovation in '05 but I hadn't taken them up on anything. But, anyways, they called and I said I'd like to attend in the fall and I'd like to tour the place sometime in the spring. This was the catalyst. Something clicked and soon after that I got into the GED classes (for me just a formality), took the GED and passed, and finally enrolled into Full Sail. This is where I stand today.
When you look at these events as a whole it's like a very intracite yet well laid out puzzle. I have been a little slow in getting to where I'm headed but I've had a lot of time to get my head on straight and learn essential skills I'll need later. When I get to college I'll be able to fully focus on school because I won't have these things in the way. I know what it is I want and nothing is going to stop me from obtaining that goal.
No offense to the state, just a little thing Dave Berry is always pointing out (you can't spell Florida without the "duh"). If I haven't mentioned the fact that Dave Berry is one of the funniest columnists alive, I will do so now and tell you to go out and get some of his books. The Guide to Guys and Money Secrets are my personal favorites. But, this all really has nothing to do with this blog post so I will move along.
I guess the first thing I want to say is that Guitar Hero II is pretty much the best guitar-based game ever created. I kind of sat on the edge about it for a while because the song list seemed kind of meh compared to it's predecessor, but I decided to give it a chance and GameFly'd it. I was unimpressed for a while and then I hit the boss song. Freebird. All 9 and a half glorious minutes of it. Needless to say I went out and just bought the game the next day and now I rock out on it all the time. Maybe I'll post a video sometime. Oh, and a sidenote, this whole Guitar Hero madness made Chris buy an electric guitar so maybe one of us'll be the next Van Halen or we can form a band and resurrect the glory days of the 80s. Maybe...
I'm back to my old self again and have created a new design for the site. With everybody going "Web 2.0" I figured I'd better jump on the bandwagon and stay current. However, in my defense, the original Tetra design used rounded tables before rounded tables were the thing to do, so I'm a trailblazer there. I'm going to wait to implement the new design until I've gotten a new backend written. Wordpress is nice and all, but all the spam (which you lucky souls never see) is really driving me insane. Besides, I can make a less bloated piece of software to suit my needs. When it comes to web stuff I usually trust my own work over that of others. Maybe I'm an egotistical jerk that way :-P.
Shifting to my public life, things at work ar fairly normal. However, I did drop the CSM charade and joined Robin Hood's Merry Men, or as everybody else knows us, cart pushers. You're probably thinking "Wow! Why did you take that kind of a pay cut just to push carts, a lowly job made for the slime of the Earth?". Firstly, I wasn't actually being paid CSM wages, so I lost a whole .40 an hour. Secondly, that .40 an hour has bought me some sanity and hapiness. The lot is a nice, quiet place to be. The carts don't complain about their credit card being denied, or that something rang up the wrong price, or.... you get the picture. I don't know about people in other towns, but Bartians seem to be a whiny bunch (I'll admit I can be whiny as well).
Well, that about wraps it up for this blog post. Tune in next Friday as maybe I'll make this a weekly thing. It would do me some good to get into some sort of schedule of doing things.
Starting today I'm off hiatus. There'll be a few changes however. Firstly, Jimmy's that guy in the middle. His hair is much easier to draw now. Secondly, that would be Mary on the right. These two things were the main reason I went on hiatus. Thirdly, there'll be a format change. I'm going to do more story arcs instead of weak jokes and sad parodies. Finally, I'll be going with a every Wednesday update. Now that I'm full time at Wal-Mart it's difficult to update twice a week. I figure I should also be able to keep this up once I'm in college in the fall.
The fruit saga is more or less based on real life. I did purchase a Mac mini with my tax refund and, despite my years of rampant Mac hatred, I must admit that it is a nifty piece of hardware. I do have a copy of Vista installed (thanks to bootcamp), but I haven't booted out of OS X in several days. I haven't done much more than piddle around with stuff, but I'm going to start learning the APIs and maybe write a game.
Full Sail, my college of choice, has been "pestering" me lately and I guess I need to call them back and start getting things setup to sail away in the fall. I'm not sure what kind of course I want to take. Back when I heard about them it was game programming hands down, but I do enjoy drawing and would like to do more film projects. It's a real toss up. I may go with game programming yet because, of those three options, it's probably my strongest area. We'll see, though...
As far as work goes, it's pretty much usual. I'm cashier mostly, but since I recieved my CSM powers I've been doing that some too. Just yesterday, in fact, they pulled me off a register to cover for somebody whilst they went on break. I'm sitting in a pretty sweet position in that I can do almost anything in the store from CSMing, to cashiering, to cart pushing, to unloading trucks, etc.
Well, I'll close this blog post with a little piece of my art featuring Basch, my favorite character from FFXII:
So, I haven't really done any updates on my personal life in a while. Let's see, since I last blogged I've gotten married, had three kids, won a Nobel Peace prize and purchased a Wii. Only one of these things is important, but I'll leave it to you to figure out.
Seriously, though, I did buy a Wii and it is a very nice piece of machinery indeed. Wii Sports is just plain fun and Zelda has me pretty muched hooked. I've also played Excite Truck which I'm not overly thrilled with (touchy controls), but this is the beginning and things will get better. Suffice to say it's one of the coolest machines I've purchased since the SNES.
I haven't really said much about work lately (save, it pretty much sucks up my entire life). Over the last few months I've expanded my horizons beyond that of normal cashiering. I can work the service desk, layaway (moot point now, more in a sec), automotive, sporting goods, electronics and something new which I will also get to in just a minute.
For anybody who hasn't read front page news, Wal-Mart has canned layaway, so I was there to see it off today. I went back at 8pm and things were pretty steady up until 9:30 (with two people back there). After the rush I spent the next 45ish minutes doing all the filing for the day. And once I escaped there was when the fun really began.
I've never mentioned it, but I've been hounding the powers that be about becoming a backup CSM (Customer Service Manager, or as I like to call them "Red coats"), but I my progress in getting anywhere close to that goal was slow at best (the biggest caveat being that I didn't pass the leadership assesment back in July when I was stupid). But, desperate times call for desperate measures and when Debbie (who I've erroneously called the "schedule lady" in the past, she's actually a support manager) found herself with next to no CSMs to keep the store going for the night made the call to get my status upgraded. Since this was an act of desperation I'm not sure how permanent it'll be, but it's a start.
Well, it seems to be 4:30 in the morning. Not sure why I get these blog urges in the middle of the night, but eh. I will now relay the words expressed by Tiny Tim: God bless me, and not you weasels :-D
Tomorrow is the day... or rather the day before the day. Tomorrow at approximately 12PM CST I will hike my sad, sorry carcus up to Wal-Mart, that place we all know and love, to get in line for the Nintendo Wii. This would be a long, twelve hour wait but lucky for me I go to work at 7 in the evening at which point my spot in line will be lovingly takn by my brothers (one of which wishes he could wait the entire twelve hours :-P). I'll be sure to snap some pix on my camera phone and give you a complete Wii review on Sunday or Monday. Oh, it will rock so hard!
btw, sorry about the crappy picture in lieu of a comic today. That's just the way life sucks, ya know?
Today's escapade into laziness calls to mind that, yes, I have been working at the mines of Wal-Mart one year today.
And as for keeping the customer's ignorant, it's true. We cater to their every whim and at some point, when they can no longer think for themselves, the cashier's of the earth will rise up and take control and we shall see a new era... an era of peace and prosperity.
I decided that "The Plagiarist" will be a reccurring series instead of blowing the whole thing at once. This'll allow me to do many more comics.
Today's subject, however, is something that has been peeving my off quite a bit lately. Idiots just don't know how to swipe their credit cards and, for that matter, just expect you to spoonfeed them the answers to everything. Little do they realize that soon the only smart people left will be cashiers and we will rise up and take over the earth!!!
The last real missing piece of the redesign is now in place. Just take a look to your right and you'll see what I mean. To save having a really short post I suppose I can give a general update on what's going on.
Let's see... I'm still a cashier/cart pusher. I'm enjoying Halo's online play immensely. I'm almost to the floating continent on FFVI. I enjoy going to college with Elvis on the weekends, and I'm thinking of moving out. Yes, you read that correctly, I'm going to college with Elvis ;-).
Seriously, though, I am making plans for moving out of the house and into an apartment. A couple of hurdles I need to get over are lack of GED and car, but otherwise I think I'm in a finacially tenable position to pull it off. Jeff also wants to move out and board with me, which would be cool. I'm already dreaming of the awesome Smash Bros. game-a-thon parties I could host.... oh, yeah.
No laptop yet. I'd check to see how things were coming on Toshiba's website, but I don't have my service order number or anything (left it at the UPS store :-P) so I'll just have to be pleasently surprised when it gets here. Driving me nuts, though, because my bros' computer is fritzin' out so I'm having to resort to other "activities" to keep me entertained. Mainly drawing. Actually, I'd like to think that my artwork has evolved quite a bit since even the last comic I made (before the Paint Chronicles, that is).
Speaking of the comic, I've got a bunch of ideas lined up and ready to go. I've got the last part to the DB of Life about half colored, another one scanned and a couple others I've drawn over the last few days. Another thing I'm going to do when my laptop gets back is redesign the F5 part of the website. It's kind of bland looking now, and apparently script isn't working (that's supposed to take you to the Paint Chronicles).
I'm planning on going to see Pirates 2 in a couple weeks. Tried to watch the first one the other night, but our DVD is scratched or something so we only got about half way through. While I'm on the subject of motion picture entertainment, I've started watching Lost. Not too bad of a show, really. A little gorey, but intruiging. And finally, they released the teaser for the new Spider-man... I am not amused. Three (at least) bad guys, Harry included which burns me to no end, and it looks like they're going to toss MJ aside like a bag of moldy tangerines. Sam Raimi, ya screwed up!
Work's not going too bad. I got a raise a couple weeks ago, so I'm netting a nice sum of money every other week. I'm scheduled to push carts all next week, which I'm thankful for as I'll miss the pre-4th of July rush. I've also got three day weekends coming the next two weeks so life is good. Gives me plenty of time to do all I've talked about above ;-).
Speaking of money, next week on one of my days off, I think I'm going to trot down to the bank and see about getting a loan so I can get my car. I can't even get a stupid credit card because I have no credit score, so we'll see how that goes.
Well, that should catch everything up for a while (it's been forever since I last blogged like that :-P). I may try to import all my old blog posts to WordPress when my laptop gets back, as well. It would seem fitting as I've now been filling you all in on the useless details of my life for over a year now. It's been one crazy, crazy year, too. House renovation, moving, job, and all of it forever immortalized on the Internet. Cheers!
Save the comic posts and podcast, it's been a little bit since I've written anything. So I guess I'll start by dropping this bomb: Hi.
Yesterday, as many know, I turned the magical 20. I can't even be called a teenager anymore, so basically all my ties with kiddom have been severed. Though, that hasn't stopped me from watching a cartoon I used to tune in to religously every morning: The Super Mario Super Show. The show itself actually isn't all the bad once you get past the fact that Bowser was named King Koopa back then and that the live action stuff oozes 80s. *sniff* It was a golden age.
Back to the present, however, I've been considering selling off my old NES collection and buying a used Xbox off eBay. The way I see it, not only would I be able to play Halo 2, but I'd probably soft-mod the thing and then I could run the stuff on emulator (of games I own, mind you). Also, I could use the all powerful Xbox Media Center (XBMC). The more I read about the thing the more I drool. It'll play basically any video/audio file you feed from anywhere (including the network). Talk about sweet justice.
In work related news, not much new. However, I believe I am going to become a lowly cart pusher. Now I know there are some questions on your mind, namely: But isn't that cut in pay? Won't you bake out in the sun? I wonder if this candy bar I found under the couch is still edible? The answers are yes, yes and you'll probably die if you eat it. Actually, three little words sum things up: shorts and free gatorade (wait, that's four...) But, I digress. I've always had more fun outside than inside and being stuck behind the register drives me insane (mainly the not moving part). I need to be moving and doing something. Take now for instance. My fingers are moving all over the place whilst my lazy butt relaxes in bed.
Well, I suppose I'll get to bed now. I'll try to have the comic finished and posted before I go to work tomorrow, otherwise look for it in the wee hours of Saturday morning.
Today, at roughly 4pm CDT, I return to my old job of cashiering. Am I excited? Am I looking forward to it? I'll just tell you one thing: I've saved out my hawaiian SpongeBob shirt just for the occasian (i.e. hell, yes). I just hope I remember how to work the stupid register :-P
In other news, I got the graphics tablet I ordered up on Wednesday and I must say, it is a thing of beauty (and hance a joy forever). Today's comic was colored and highlighted using it and I have to say it's probably one of the best things I've done so far. About the comic itself it seems that the style is finally coming together (i.e. I'm satisfied with it at the moment). I've already got Monday's comic finished and have ideas for a couple weeks to come. I'm so sucked into this at the moment I barely had time to finish coding the comic viewer. From now on all my updates will be done over there so if you want to keep up on the comics add that to your favorites (I'll add in an RSS feed sometime within a week).
Also, for those who may not have gotten the hint, I am now legally licensed to drive in the state of Oklahoma. The test was brief, but nerve racking and I was only coached on a couple of minor points. So to date I've driven twice on my own: once to take my homies to the library, and last night to take my homies to go bowling (my "homies" being Jeff and Chris). And despite the fact that money keeps slipping through my fingers I've got enough of it stored up to make a nice down payment on a car, so that'll be coming down the road fairly soon (if you'll pardon the pun).
Well, I've been up for way too long now and I need to get some rest if I'm going to be in decent shape for work this afternoon.
