This is the End, My Friend [or] Holday Venting

Christmas is finally over! Now there are only a few more days left of utter clothing carnage and I'm in the clear. I'm no grinch mind you, I'm just tired of overhyped holidays. Halloween is becoming overly commercialized as well as Easter. I'm also tired of working in a place where people [customers] look down on you, and have no respect for you, or your job.

I'm reminded of an episode of Seinfeld where Kramer's girlfriend [I think] who is Elaine's office-mate heckles Jerry at one of his shows. Obviously frustrated, he seeks revenge by going to her office and heckling her. You have no idea how many times I would have loved to try this to a pompous, aggrivating customer. First, I would "reorganize" their files, call them every five minutes and ask the most obnoxious [and obviously self-answerable] questions, and throw used napkins and latte cups on their desk. Even today we had somebody leave a used tampon in the fitting room. WHO DOES THAT? Gross. Oh and I love walking around the store stepping on cheerios and candy that mothers give their children. Why can't you feed your children while you're not in the nice clean store?

Also, why are people automatically drawn, as bears are to honey, to nice, neat piles of shirts. I have literally had shirts ripped out of my hand as I was folding it! What is with people?!? It's helpless to get them to understand my point of view, especially the person who is ripping through the piles of clothes that I just folded five minutes before close.

I understand that you have a busy life, but it's a lot harder to pick up clothes to take to the fitting room when you have two armfulls of clothes already. What the heck is the hurry? Why do you need to take every-single-thing you want to try on into the room all at once? If you're in the store on your lunchbreak, fine. I'm sorry you've made your life so busy that you can't make extra time to shop when you actually HAVE THE TIME. If you need to come to the store during your lunchbreak, you obviously need to reorganize your priorities. Half the time you people don't even buy anything. You come in to mess up the store when you don't have time and make me run around for you because "you're in a hurry" as you like to often tell me. Telling me that you're in a hurry doesn't encourage me to actually go faster, in fact, I often go a little slower.

This one interview I had, they asked, "Is the customer always right?". To which I replied, "no, of course not." If you've ever worked in retail, then you obviously know that they aren't. Often times, even the customers know they aren't right, they just like to cause a scene. You should read this article about the "customer is always right" mantra and you'll see what I mean [Warning - not entirely safe for young people to read].

That's pretty much all I wanted to say. There's a lot that bugs me during the holidays, mostly attributed to annoying customers. I'm usually not this abrupt, I guess I needed to vent. Don't think that I don't like dealing with customers. On the contrary, I love to help customers that aren't annoying or unappreciatively demanding. You know who you are.

Forever Blue - For You I Cannot Wait

I don't know what it is about this game that really gets me pumped, but it is quickly becoming my most wanted game. Forever Blue is currently in development for the Nintendo Wii, and from what I've seen, it's going to be a spectacular game [if you can call it that]. In the game, you play as a deep sea diver, running into the likes of manta rays, whale sharks, and other undersea creatures. This title is also supposed to have online play so I can swim the great blue depths with all of my friends!

Although the only thing revealed for this game is the screenshot above, among a few others, as well as a short ten second video hidden within a Nintendo promotional video. I am definitely looking forward to this game with unabashed enthousiasm. The reason Nintendo came out with the Wii was to draw in all potential gamers as well as develop unique games that would never be seen on other consoles. Forever Blue is definitely one of those games, and like I said, I cannot wait for it.

Nintendo Wii
Forever Blue

The Nothing

If you've ever seen The Neverending Story, then you are familiar with "The Nothing", an impossible, unforgiving storm whos appetite for all matter in the world is insatiable. I am not a young adventurer named Atreyu and I don't fly around on magical dog dragons named Falcor, but, I have witnessed and [thankfully] survived what I like to call "The Nothing".

Fifty mile an hour winds and an insatiable appetite for...tree limbs is why I call last week's storm, "The Nothing". Pelting rain coming from every direction, cars swerving around the carnage of broken branches and telephone poles, it was sure a sight to behold. When it was all over, millions of cold and wet northwesterners came home to find themselves without electricity. For the lucky few, their power was restored in a matter of hours. For the unlucky few [including me], power wasn't restored for several days.

The day after the storm, I took a walk around the park to see what, if anything, had happened. Several trees were uprooted, including two trees that fell on a house next to my apartment. Luckily, a friend who lives north of Bellevue had power, so I ended up staying at his place for a few days. Of course I took my new Wii and we played WiiSports deep into the night. We actually ended up going bowling too, which was quite fun in and of itself [I bowled a personal best of 148]. Copious amounts of alcohol were consumed in the process. Good fun.

Concerto

Two posts in one night? Is the apocolypse near?

I went to my first Seattle concert a few weeks ago. The Killers came to the Paramount Theatre and rocked my socks. Some junky band from California opened and honestly weren't that good. It was a tad disappointing because they only played a few of their older [my favorite] songs and fresh of a new cd release, played almost all of their new songs. While it's taken me a while to warm up to their new stuff, I definitely enjoyed the live versions. Any Killers fans out there?

This past week I went to see Death Cab for Cutie, the little band that could from Bellingham, WA. I was actually a big fan of them when I lived back home in New York, and now that I live out here, I actually have become an even bigger fan. I always tell people that if you want to experience the Northwest melodically, you can't get any better than Death Cab for Cutie. Not only that, but one of their opening bands, Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, was actually really good. They fluently blended country, rock, and blues [two of my favorites anyway] with ease and Jenny Lewis seemed to be channeling her inner Loretta Lynn during the fantastic stageshow. I suggest all of you check them out, although I hear that this was their last show together, Jenny and the [beautiful] twins are parting ways :[ Death Cab for Cutie was simply amazing. Since they were in front of the home crowd, they played a lot of older [again, my favorite] songs. At one point, they went into 10 minute jamfest during one of their greatest songs, Transatlanticism. I was completely blown away. Amazing. The crowd kind of ruined it for me though, they didn't really seem into it, or as into it as I was. I get annoyed when I feel like I'm the only one having a good time. Anyway, if you want to check out any of the bands, just follow the links below.

What are you're favorite concerts you've been to, or which ones do you really want to go to?

The Killers

Death Cab for Cutie

Jenny Lewis

Some Goings On

Hey everyone, I'm just updating you guys on some things I've been up to. It's almost Christmas, which means my life will get a lot less hectic after December 25th.

I went hiking a few weeks ago up near Snoqualmie Pass, which is about an hour away. I wouldn't even try to get up there now, there's most likely covered in layers of snow and ice. It was really nice going up on the mountain with everyone. I didn't really see much of anything, mostly trees, ice, and trees covered in ice. All in all it was a fun afternoon, and even though it was snowy, it was pretty warm overall. When the weather gets better [i.e. less typhoonish] I'm hoping to get out and check out more hiking spots in the area. Brandon knows a lot of places around here, as well as in Montana, so I'm sure we'll be hitting up the mountains in no time.

Brandon's blog