Music, Technology, and Frustration

I am very frustrated right now. It's been 5 days since I posted last. Why? Because I've been spending time online playing stupid flash games. And they are really stupid games.

I did manage in that time to fix the stupid brochures for Sterling Investment. So despite the best efforts of my teammate to ignore everything I said about, you know, her design being unprintable (over and over and over). The design is now done right. It's not as snazzy looking as her design, but it can actually be printed and bound.

Back to frustration though. I have spent the last hour trying to download a song. Probably this is illegal, but since I didn't manage to download it the point is moot. I wanted to download "Just what I need" by Rufus King. The link will take you to the lyrics for the song only. I love this song and have had it downloaded before. It's probably on one of the many CDs that I made back in the days when I did that sort of thing.

I want to download this song rather than buy it for a few reasons. One, I can't get the cd that it's on at Amazon.com. Two, the cd costs $13, and from what I can tell, I don't like anything else on there particularly. Three, I love the movie cut that has the lines, "Torrance, can't stand you cheerleading squad, but I love your pompoms. I'll feed you bonbons all night." Yet I can't download it.

I downloaded three different file sharing programs before I realized that the reason they weren't working was that my firewall wouldn't let them connect. I am too scared of turning off my firewall (and not clever enough to selectively shut it down). So no movie songs for me.

I'm also very frustrated because of how annoying it is to try and download music. On the one hand, I get it. If I wrote music or sang for a living, I wouldn't want people to steal my music. On the other hand, musicians don't get all that much from record sales, they make a lot more from concerts. More than that though, I downloaded tons of music free and then turned around and bought the cds. I had every song from Simple Plan's first cd on my computer and burned to disc, but then I bought the cd. Other people have to be doing that. I bought more cds because I could find music I liked and then buy the cd. When I didn't buy the cd, it was because I only wanted one song and I wouldn't have bought the cd anyway, and I don't buy singles because they're asanine. The music industry should really rethink their stance.

I'm also frustrated because I have a search toolbar at the top of my browser that's to the left of my address bar. I want my address bar all the way over on the left because that makes more sense. It seems to me that I used to be able to drag and drop toolbars so that I could move the search bar up above the address bar. I tried that, to no avail. And I really hate it being there.

Anyway, that's my complaint for the day. I'm agitating for a relaxed stance on music sharing and for drag-and-droppable search bars. Because let's face it, everyone wants to download Scotty Doesn't Know (which is actually a song by Lustra, who apparently perform shows in skirts, which is pretty damn hot). And, again let's face it, I like my bars to stay where they're supposed to.

Oh, sweet Christ!!!

Too cool, I went to The Internet Archive and found my old blog, which someone didn't tell me would not be up any longer before someone trashed a lot of writing that I didn't have other copies of. Now, I have it all again. The lord is merciful.

Ah, boys

The title from this post comes from a comment I left on Chrissy's blog (see left for anyone who hasn't figured that out) which reminded me I was going to write this post. I'll refrain from using names because people from work might actually someday read this blog.

So, I was just thinking that I'm making progress, which I will explain.

I went through most of high school without really having any crushes on anyone. There was a really good reason for that, namely that there wasn't anyone worth having a crush on.

Now a quick rundown of the people who I've had crushes on in college.
(For the record, yes, I'm aware that crushes are things you have in middle school, but the word seems more than apt here.)

1. To start from the beginning, if I'm completely honest with myself, I had a crush on Rob. Which is kind of embarrassing, especially considering that he (along with every other boy for 5 miles) liked my weird roommate.

2. I also kind of had a crush on Dan Young. (Chrissy, you might be disturbed, but at least you know I'm being completely honest). He was a sweet guy who apparently felt that I (as the resident goody-two-shoes) needed discipline in my life. So he grounded me to my dorm room a lot. That most of our conversations. He told my I was up too late (at, say, 2 pm) and then he grounded me. As a matter of fact, I'm probably still grounded.

3. Then, there was Caleb. That was weird, and why did I ever like that boy? He was judgmental, made fun of my music and movies, was socially awkward, etc. Plus, he was a total tool. I can't even explain how much of a tool he was, but not as much of a tool as

4. Again, no name, but he was a tool. Funny, nice, cute (dark hair, pale skin), but a tool.

5. And we're up to date with another no name. This person is the reason I'm writing, because, again, I feel I'm making progress. Yes, I'm still goofy for having a little girl crush on someone that I have no intention of even attempting to attract, but he won't turn out to be a tool.

He may be a bit of an ass, but in a way that I like him the more for it, because he tells off the people that I wish I told off. He's overall nice, at least to me. He's competent, which is very attractive to me. He's cute, not in that Irish boy way that I love, but cute. Most importantly though, he's not going to turn out to be a tool.

So, I'm making progress. Which is good.

Factoids

So yes, I just posted, but I realized that I've got a new number in my life. Yes, that's right, my college GPA.

So here's a run down of some of the now meaningless numbers of my life:
College GPA: 3.842
High School Rank: 1
ACT score: 34
SAT score: 1500

It's weird to think how hard I worked for some of those numbers when no one's ever really going to care. So, I'm throwing these numbers out into the void, where maybe someone will come across them and find them interesting.

Got Culture??

I'm determined not to let this blog fall into dejected and irritated fits as the last one was wont to do. Mainly because that's gotta be boring for my gentle readers, but also because it only makes me wallow in irritation.

So in that spirit, I'm going to tell you all about a movie I watched a few days ago. I got Suspicion from Netflix. It's a great Hitchcock film starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. I believe it's the first of four Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock movies, the last being North by Northwest. Without spoiling too much of the plot (I hope), it's about a rich, sheltered woman who falls in love with a penniless playboy. She begins to distrust him as bodies and lies start to pile up.

The original end to this movie (which tallies with the end of the book it was based on) has Cary Grant posting a letter of his wife's which names him as his wife's killer just after he's poisoned her with a glass of milk. Pressure was put on Hitchcock to change the ending because no one wanted to see Cary Grant, god of the silver screen, as a homicidal cad. The ending was changed to a scene which calls into question all of the evidence against Cary Grant's character. It also implies that he might be learning to grow up.

When I first heard about this movie, I thought it was terrible that they had changed the ending because of Cary Grant's image. Having seen the movie, I now think it's a more interesting ending. It's a good plot twist at the end to find out that really the wife was the "bad guy" for suspecting her husband of murder when he was an ok guy. It also pulls the watcher down along with the wife because they've been thinking the same thing all along.

Now that I've written a long and boring entry on a movie most of you probably aren't interested in, what do you think? Please leave comments. I like comments.

Restaurants and You

Let me tell you something. I made $62 last night (a Saturday night). I sold over $900 in food. That comes out to around 6%. I'm not a bad server, and nights like that are not normal. I've made 20% after tip out a few times. So last night was a bad night. Thus, this entry is to let people know a few tips for dining out without treating your server like shit.

1. Never, ever tip less than 10%. Even if the service was terrible. Servers make $2.15 an hour, and sometimes, they're trying their best even if it doesn't seem like it. Also, you're not making a point if you leave less than 10% because then it just seems like you're a mean person.

2. Try to understand that the average restaurant is intended for families, which is to say that restaurants are designed to have 6 or fewer people come in and all pay on the same ticket. That means that it's not simple to get separate tickets. Applebee's is probably one of the best restaurants about that, and it's still difficult. It takes superhuman memory and a long time uninterrupted on a computer.

3. Please speak up. Seriously, mumbling is ri-goddamn-diculous. And if you're kid is too scared to speak up, please repeat what they said so I can get your order right.

4. If you're in a big party with separate tickets, don't pay with cash unless you don't need change. Getting change for 18 $20 bills for $8 tickets takes me at least five minutes, assuming I have enough change on hand. And I probably don't.

5. Please only talk to me one at a time because I would genuinely like to get your order right.

6. Don't change your order five minutes after you've ordered. Because it's already in the computer.

There are more, but it basically comes down to this: Yes, I do genuinely care whether I get your order right. I care whether you're comfortable and happy. I care whether you enjoy your night out. If it's necessary, I will get your food recooked, even though 5 cooks will yell at me that the food was just fine. I don't want your drink to go empty or for you to have to look around for me when you're ready to pay and want your plates out of the way. I don't mind taking the time to type in special orders letter by letter. But all of that is going to take time and sometimes patience on your part.

I'm sorry if I sound whiny. The truth is I like my job, and I like more than anything when I surprise one of my guests with excellent service, but sometimes I'm not perfect, and it would be nice if my guests were understanding as well.

Sometimes life isn't fair

Right, so I know I'm not starving in Africa or in a gutter in New York, but seriously life can really be annoying. Now, 21 days before I move out of my apartment, someone gets wireless internet that I can steal. These people just do it to piss me off. I know it.

Anyway, I was at the Artisan today. (When am I not at the Artisan, you ask. When I'm at Applebee's that's when, but that's not the point.) As always they had a trivia question that asked what a group of leopards is called. Now, I'm not that one guy from Ghost World, so I didn't check right away, but I looked it up a few minutes ago. The answer is a leap of leopards. I bring this up because there is a very cool site which tells you what a lot of plural nouns are called. This is (1) interesting, (2) probably helpful to Chrissy, who needs to know that it's a skulk of squirrels if they ever start terrorizing Sparkle City like they did MU's campus, and (3) vaguely sad that someone put that much trouble into the website and that I took the time to read all of it.

Well, that's it for now.

New and Improved

I'm brilliant. In the American sense of the word that means I'm a freaking genius. Not in the British sense which simply means that I'm kind of cool, which we all already knew. Why am I brilliant? Because I managed to add permalinks to my blog. Absolutely brilliant.

I've been up to a whole lot of nothing recently. Lots of work. Don't like that place. I love the people. I don't think I've ever been this sad to leave some place I worked forever. Read that again. Forever. As in, the infinite reaches of time will never see me working in the Columbia Applebee's again. That seems unreal to me.

In about 2 months, I'm packing all my stuff up and letting my parents drive it out to San Francisco. Then Ali and I will follow them by plane. I'm going to run away from home. Because Missouri is the only home I've ever really had. Now I'm leaving, and I want to take my mom and my dad and my sister and Chrissy and Tiffany with me. As my mother pointed out (specifically in reference to Chrissy, but the concept can be applied to everyone I know and love right now), people's insistence on leading their own lives can be really annoying.

On that note, I think I'll sign off. Tired, irritated with my alma mater, and wishing everyone would up and go to San Francisco with me.

Let the Truth Ring out!!!

How much do I love AdFreak for this article about Coldplay? SO much that it's not even funny.

Sorry to anyone who likes Coldplay, but you must admit that they made some dumb statements about their new album and were pretty damn pretentious about how they let critics hear their new album.