That tap-tap-tap-tap noise is the sound of me NEVER SLEEPING AGAIN.

Creepy factor aside, this is one of the coolest toy-sculpture-things I’ve seen in my life and I kind of want one. I’d take it to parties with me*. It would be my new best friend.

I’m posting this at night because if I’m not sleeping, then neither are you.

*especially if brownies had been ingested at said party.

I found the following fortune in a Panda Express* fortune cookie tonight: “You are a connoisseur of fine food and drink.”

No. No I am not. I’m eating (against my better judgement) Americanized Chinese food in Palm Desert and drinking Dr. Pepper, a beverage that contains exactly zero ingredients found in nature. I ain’t a connoisseur of shit.

On a related note, my Dad once told me a joke about this German-Chinese fusion restaurant. He said the food’s great, but half an hour later you’re hungry for power.

*Or as my Dad calls it, “Panda On A Stick.”**
**Don’t ask.

My archaeology lab exam has just scientifically proven that I’m an awful person.

BONUS QUESTION #1: Write down the hierarchy of Linnaean taxonomy. Must be in correct order.
ME: Aw hell, that’s easy. (scribble scribble)

BONUS QUESTION #2: Name five people in this class.
ME: … FUCK

If you take away the hideous purple prose and appalling implications regarding female sexuality, one of the Twilight series’ major failings is that its main cast is a parade of equally unlikeable people. Your female lead is so vacant that if you looked in her ear you’d see daylight, your male love interest is an emotionally uninvested non-character who needs to match his foundation more closely to his actual skin tone, and all the other vampires and werewolves are defined by singular character traits (“Compassionate!”, “Maternal!”, “Muscle-y!”, “Wears pants!”, etcetera).

Less the case with the book version but more the case with the movie version: I find myself more emotionally invested in the lives of the peripheral characters, Bella the Reader Proxy’s classmates, than I am in the central love story (also Charlie, who is a total badass and made of moustache). This is not a good thing. If you’re spending 400 pages/2 hours fixating on the least interesting part of the story, you’re taking the exact wrong approach with the plot.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Twilight would have been a much better book if written from a plural first person perspective, the collective “We” of the student body, bewildered and fascinated as they observe these two self-created social outcasts, Bella and Edward, drawn together by sex and hate and obsession, orbiting each other, spinning faster and tighter until they’re both found dead in a meadow, eternally bound together through a mutual suicide pact. End with a description of the memorial shrine outside the couple’s lockers at school.

Sadly, the publishing world has yet to take my advice on what makes good fiction and keeps on churning out vampire novels instead while Stephenie Meyer rakes in metric shit-tonnes of cash. Such is the universe.

From an English paper I wrote last year on the similarities between Beowulf and Superman:

Since his inception in 1938, Superman has become a cultural icon, especially in the United States; the only thing more American than an obscenely powerful yet restrained superhuman in a red and blue suit would be a statue of Ty Cobb made of hot dogs and apple pie.

PHOTOSHOP CONTEST

My buddy Nathan Scott recently escaped from a job at Wal-Mart. He wrote the following on his experience there:

Many injustices go unspoken in this world. That is a given. From AIDS to cancer, multiple problems are constantly voiced. People walk for these causes, raise money through various stereotypical ways, or Facebook groups are formed. I am not writing this to rant or attack (well, maybe a little bit), but merely to shed light on something we are all aware of, but rarely actually get detailed information on.

I am talking of the giant supercorporation known as Wal-Mart.

We have all heard the tales; they pay low wages, they abuse their employees, they provide low quality service. And yet, we continue on with our day.

Allow me to start with the fact that every negative thing you have heard about Wal-Mart is almost 100% true. The blatant mistreatment of employees, the poor training offered, and the top heavy management system all lends to an incredibly venomous working environment that no human being should be obligated to tolerate. I am writing to shed light on this corporation, for I feel that not enough is voiced when it comes to a matter such as this. How are they allowed to survive as a company? This is an answer that I do not know, but will explore in these paragraphs. Hopefully it will aid you in making a formal decision for yourself.

The first part of any new job is training. Ah, the fresh breeze of opportunity, smelled only when you’re a newbie. Everything seems so bright and shiny, you’re anxious to please your new employers and be the best you that you can be, and go in and tear the place apart with your shining smile and go-getter attitude. This is the feeling that is instilled during training; the idea that anything is possible at Wal-Mart, from a fruitful career to a peaceful work environment that allows you full range to utilize your personal skills. The feeling is quickly broken.

I was trained along three other women – a small group, they said. This much is true, for I have seen at least a dozen people in the training room at a time, and sessions occur at least bi-monthly, if not more. I often compare them to cattle being lead to the slaughter.

It stared with a board game. We were given little characters to move around the squares, and had to roll some dice. As we moved along we learned little facts about Wal-Mart as a corporation, how its founder, Sam Walton, was a humble man of humble beginnings. The training room was laden with plaques containing inspirational quotes from the man himself – the usual ‘try until you succeed’ tripe that any monkey could make up. We were given booklets, had to watch videos, the usual that’s to be expected, but one feeling came over me that I have never felt at any other workplace: The feeling of propaganda. All around, in every single text I read, every poster I noticed, every video I watched, all had such a sickly pro-Wal-Mart attitude to it that it was almost suffocating. Wal-Mart was a shining beacon of hope, North America’s greatest retailer, without a fault or scruple to be seen. How quaint.

After initial training we were plopped in front of computers to do CBL’s – Computer Based Learning. They were basic flash click-through educational segments that taught you everything you needed to know through the most patronizing and condescending fashion possible. You were obligated to complete them; one could not log onto a till until they were finished. No one found them very enjoyable.

And then, the final part of training: What goes on at the sales floor. I walked on for my first day, expecting to be walked through all that one needed to know to operate in the Electronics department, my head expected to be brimming with knowledge at the end of the day.

Disappointment ensued.

I was provided with no comprehensive training whatsoever, not a soul walked me through what I was obligated to do, and I was forced to learn everything from the seat of my pants. This may come to no surprise to anyone reading this, but every job offers at least some time and energy into actually equipping employees with the right tool for the job. How are they allowed to get away with such contempt for their employees? Does it really come as a surprise to them that the ‘revolving door’ is always moving? Does this just not seem asinine?

And then there were the employees themselves. Not a single grunt worker I ever talked to enjoyed their work at Wal-Mart, and most were looking for new jobs. In fact, the hatred we felt towards the company was almost an inside joke – a bond between us that we hid from the management. But in the end, that bond turned on itself and other people, creating a toxic environment that was impossible to professionally work in. I had no real problems with a majority of my coworkers – save for one. Let’s name her B, which can stand for many things, like Bitch, Bag, Bully, Braindamaged, or a slew of other words you are a free to make up. She was the bane of my existence, and made me anxious to the point of acute nausea and unwillingness to go to work.

It started on the first day, when I forgot her name. In an effort to be off the wall, while trying to call her by name, I stated, “Yeah, you, uh… person! Um… er… Homo Sapien!”

And thus spelled my doom.

Her main grudge, over the course of 3 months, was that I called her a Homo Sapien. As if it were an insult.
Aren’t we all Homo Sapiens?

A small amount of other newbie mistakes was the icing on the cake, but for the entirety of my employment I was faced with her cold, patronizing, and immature attitude towards me. Every single day I was forced to endure her constant barrage of negativity, and anyone who has ever had to deal with bullying can understand how demoralizing it can get. Eventually we had to have a sit-down with an assistant manager and told to smarten up, but it is hard to hide one’s loathing for another when you are forced to work together.
And then there was management.

The word the predominantly comes to mind is segregation. There was a seemingly large rift between the upper and lower tiers, and therein lay a majority of the problems. The company in of itself is incredibly top heavy; the assistant manager gets paid fifteen dollars an hour, and the stock associate gets paid nine. Yes, there is more responsibility to management, but if eating at McDonald’s and picking your nose qualifies management then I’m a shoe in. They generally treated the lower staff with ambivalence or contempt; no warmth was to be seen or had. My department manager had a bad habit of hoarding the work for herself then disappearing for 45 minute long ‘coffee breaks’. This drove one of my other coworkers to eventually quit. I had management dangled in front of my face more than once; but I was severely disappointed on multiple accounts. It seemed to be the carrot on the end of the stick, but my illusions were quickly shattered.
Wages were a large issue as well, and many felt that if they were paid better, they would in all likeliness perform better. I made it known upon hiring that I was in need of full time hours, and yet they hired me on part time, starting at $9.70 an hour. I had around thirty hours a week, thus allowing them to abuse the system as much as possible. Even if promoted to full time, I was told that I would not see a raise.

Their main safety net seemed to be the fact that they always had a long lineup of people applying. It’s a bad economy, you can’t find a job anywhere else, why not work at Wal-Mart? Therefore, if an employee shows any sort of lackluster attitude or does not perform to company standards, instead of rectifying the situation, they let them go. Meat goes bad, and when it does, you replace it with new meat. You don’t try and revive the old meat back to edible standards, right? Human beings are not steaks.

I often visualize the situation as a massive tangled web, with stacks of vicious cycles intertwined. The manager is abusive towards the employee. The employee, in turn, fairs on a poor level, thus providing less customer satisfaction. Sales lower, customers are dissatisfied, and home office contacts the branch, giving flak to the management. The management, then, in turn, abuses the employee, and the cycle continues.
On a more personal note, the reasons behind my being let go were the biggest kick in the pants. I admit I got sloppy; I was late by 5 – 10 minutes on a usual basis for a few weeks. I simply stopped caring, and judging by the fact that others have gotten away with much more heinous crimes I thought it would be simply overlooked. That was not the case, for a few weeks ago I was called into the office for a written ‘coaching’. That is my favorite term that Wal-Mart uses, a sugar coated and dumbed-down way of saying ‘harshly reprimanded’. I was told not to be late again, because if my manager can get to work on time, then I can too. And so, while having the flu the other day, I was a total of 8 minutes late. That was strike one. Strike two was the fact that I left early for a shift, even though the schedule itself stated I was to be off at that specific time. The manager had told me a few weeks earlier that the schedule was prone to errors and to generally disregard them, but others were taking advantage of the misprints as well. It is the job of the employer to provide accurate scheduling for the employee to adhere to, not the job of the employee to be psychic. And finally, my working at Dollarama on the side was deemed a conflict of interest. Even though no statement or guideline has ever been provided, I was shown a small poster that stated, in tiny writing, that conflicts of interest were not permitted. As if it is Wal-Mart’s business what I do in my spare time. And thus, I was told I no longer had a future with the company. I gladly handed over my nametag and vest, wished her the best in life, and headed out the door.

All in all, the blatant abuse that went on during my employ was something that I would wish on no one. It is impossible for me to really convey the pervasive negativity that went on through simple words. We’ve all had crappy jobs that we’ve bad to endure. But this is to depths uncommonly seen.

And so, my final question is: How are these people allowed to get away with this? How is this corporation allowed to survive, and constantly commit the atrocities that it does? Why is it that they make billions of dollars yearly, yet provide one of the lowest known wage rates for its workers? I believe the blame lies on the laziness of humanity. Wal-Mart formed the perfect niche – an all in one store created for maximum convenience. I cannot answer these questions, and don’t believe there is any tangible answer. Take from this what you will, whether you disregard the message entirely or take it to heart. But ask yourself this, the next time you shop at your local Wal-Mart: Is this something you really, as a human being, want to support?

(I slapped this together as a minor assignment for my Creative Nonfiction class. The prompt was “the worst idea you ever had.”)

My brother Mac and I were born eleven months apart.

Please hold all comments on the biological implications of that fact until the Q&A portion of the evening.

Because we grew up so close in age, there was very little one of us did that the other didn’t. There was also very little one of us could do that the other couldn’t, except that Mac could throw a ball farther and I could lift a chair while bent perpendicular from the waist and then stand up still holding the chair because I’d been watching “Bill Nye the Science Guy” and decided to cheat using physiology.

It was with this “Anything He Can Do, I Can Do Better” attitude that I joined Mac’s U-10 mixed junior soccer team.

This was a terrible idea.

I became increasingly aware of this idea’s terribleness over the next few weeks as I learned that I didn’t like running unless something was chasing me (this is still the case) and that nobody was impressed by my chair trick and broad repertoire of veterinarian jokes (also still the case). As our first game loomed ever closer, in my desperation I asked to be put in goal since the position didn’t require any running or knowledge of game strategy (what little there was when the median age of the team was nine years old).

I considered this a fantastic idea until the opposing team scored their first goal. Through my leg. Not through my legs, as is the case with many goalies; the ball literally knocked my leg out from under me. Our team scored the next goal, but the scorer was eight years old so that goal was also scored on me. The next time the other team shot at the net it hit me square in the face. As I lay on the ground, to add injury to more injury, somebody stepped on my hand with their cleats.

I quit the team the next day. My parents were very understanding. They had been at the game.

Since then I have avoided team sports whenever possible, much to the dismay of a long line of junior high and high school gym teachers. My brother can now do many things I can’t, but he still can’t pull off the chair thing.

I’ll give my new next-door neighbours some credit: the apple tree in the backyard probably seemed like a fantastic idea when they bought the place. I can imagine it myself: apple blossoms in the spring, a playground for the kids and cheap applesauce anytime you want.

However, the thing is huge. And a mutant. And it hangs over the fence. So instead of Larry the Previous Neighbour inviting us over to pick apples, we have this:

They explode, too.

Yay.

My thoughts on G.I. JOE:

Dear Hollywood, every time you say something like “nanomites,” I hear “magic wizard powers.”

I got up at 6 this morning. I never get up at 6. I will tell you why it was so vital I get up at 6: we had two panels today. And while that is the laxest daily panel schedule we’ve had to date, they were the ones we were the most excited for: Doctor Who and Being Human/Torchwood.

And Doctor Who started at 10. Which means that in order to get in, and also to get decent seats, we had to start lining up at 8. Yes, we are that dedicated. Notice I use the word “dedicated,” not “obsessed.”

The panel itself? Let’s put it this way. When I clap my hands, my right pinkie bangs against the jade ring I have on my left middle finger. By the end of the Doctor Who panel, my pinkie was swollen and bruised from the impact. I won’t go into too much detail about the announcements made during the panel, since I’m sure you could easily find those elsewhere on the internet, but I will say that David Tennant’s sparkly Stormtrooper t-shirt was awesome but I wonder if he ever wears shirts that don’t ride up when he lifts his arms. Amber wasn’t complaining about the view, though.

Doctor Who ended at 11, and Torchwood wasn’t until 2:15, so Amber and I popped down to the convention floor and I picked up a copy of Nick Simmons’ Incarnate for a coworker who’s nuts about him. I read the thing myself while waiting for Torchwood to start, and I have mixed feelings about the thing. Incarnate has some pretty good ideas behind it, and the comic had a few moments of win (“Quit being dramatic, I only shot you once”), but the artwork is a little too anime-styled for my liking and the panel layout is a bit clumsy. Also the dialogue can get very clunky in spots, especially since conveying maniacal laughter is so difficult in a soundless medium, and Nick Simmons commits the cardinal sin of overwritten first-person narrative, which is the reason I can’t watch Dexter. With a little more polish and some time to establish itself, it could be a really good comic. If not nurtured and edited properly, it could become one of those comics that’s all concept, no execution.

To make sure we had good seats for Torchwood, Amber and I sat in on three short movie panels: Paper Heart, Mystery Team, and Alien Trespass. I already knew about Mystery Team, and had failed to get into a screening, and I’d distantly heard of Paper Heart, but Alien Trespass was new. I want to see it so very much now, it looks beautiful and hilarious and awesome.

The Torchwood panel was a composite of itself and a panel on Being Human, which I watched back in January via slightly illegal means and enjoyed thoroughly. There was nothing new in the panel, since they were previewing it for the BBC America crowd, but Russell Tovey was adorable nonetheless. Poor guy.

You can also probably find out more about the Torchwood panel elsewhere on the internet quite easily, but my pinkie finger got even more bruised and my throat is sore from the shouting. Seriously, I sound like a pack-a-day smoker right now, Amber won’t stop making fun of me. John Barrowman’s shirt was quite hideous, too. Not in an awesome way. A bad way. It’s a shame, he’s always dressed himself so well in the past. Barrowman was trying really hard to be good this year, but Torchwood fans find innuendo in everything so really he was trying to bail out a submarine made of Tulle with a Pepto Bismol cap.

The Torchwood panel ended pretty close to closing time for the convention centre, so after it ended it was down to the floor to grab some merchandise. I prefer to do all my convention shopping on the last day, since vendors want to move product more than anything else and I can pick up plenty of goodies on the cheap. I’ve now got a 10-piece Doctor Who action figure set from series one, the Dalek of which will be a gift to my boss so she’ll stop playing with mine at work. Also I grabbed the Optimus Prime Mighty Muggs figure and won an auction for a wonderful painting by Michael McCaslin. Pictures forthcoming (I forgot my camera charger at home).

After we got kicked out it was dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory (again), where Amber and I lamented the fact that the convention was over while simultaneously agreeing that if it were even one day longer we would probably collapse from exhaustion.

Now I have to pack, which I don’t like at all. It’s like I’m admitting defeat. But tomorrow I will be home and will be telling stories about this trip for six months, at least. Really, just tune me out if I start going.

I hope I arrive in decent condition. I do not fly well.