Saturday, June 30, 2012

Geeking it up with the fam

Its the last day of June and we're having a geeky good time. We went to Pulp comics with our friend Ryan. They were having an anniversary sale and we got a bunch of comics at a dollar off. Ryan is new to comic collecting and he bought a bunch of stuff. We went for a slice of pizza for lunch. Tonight we are taking the kid to the drive in to see the new pixar movie brave and its playing with th avengers. Its a win/win for me. Tomorrow is July 1st. I get extra pay for working it. Also in July i get to see 2 concerts. Huey Lewis and Barney Bentall. The new schedule kicks in next week. Naps here i come! Ok gang I'll see ya in July.

Niagara Falls comic con

Holy crap its the last day of June. That month flew by.One story i forgot to write about was our experience at Niagara Falls comic con a few weeks ago. It started off shitty but by the end of the day we had a blast.

So a bit of back story. Two people put on the con. Our friend Paul and another guy named Chris. Unfortunately it was Chris we had to deal with. So a few months before the con a website went up for the show. There was a section where you contact contact Chris if you were media and try and  get press passes. We didn't think this would be a big deal because
A) we get press passes to wizard world every year and they are one of the biggest cons in north america. They contact us now every year and ask us if we want tickets,
and
B) we had a table at the first smaller niagara falls con and broadcast a show from there.We were already hyping the new con on our show for a few months

Turned out it wasn't so easy
Chris wrote back with a million questions on what made us qualified to get press passes. He practically made us jump through hoops. He advised us if we were selected than we would only get 1 press pass. This kind of sucked because there was  kath and i and Rob. We got 4 every year from wizard world.  Anyhow weeks and weeks and weeks went by. We didn't hear back from Chris. We wanted to know how many tickets we needed to buy 1 or 2 and this would be determinned if we got our press pass. We ran into Paul at the fun expo star wars show and he was selling tickets. We explained the press pass situation to him. He immediately called Chris who announced that get your geek on was on the media list. So we bought a ticket and didn't question it.

  So the day of the con arrived and we were really looking forward to it. Robert Picardo from Star Trek was going to be there and so was burt ward from batman and  several other celebrities. We never heard back on whether or not we would be allowed to interview everyone and we didn't push our luck. Rob actually volunteered to help out. He was working the front door when we arrived. When we got there we were impressed. It was at a new venue called the scotia bank convention centre. There were lots of people dressed up. It was going to be a great day. Then disaster struck. I made my way to the media booth to get my press pass. Shouldn't be to tough. We were there when Paul called Chris. Chris confirmed we were on the list. Here is the conversation i had with the nice lady at the desk
Nice lady : What is the name the pass is under?
Me: Train rek Radio
NL: sorry its not here
Me: oh it might be under Get Your Geek on,
NL : no sorry
Me starting to get pissed : jason stewart?
NL:its not that one either
So lets sum up. Good  ol' Chris had royally f'ed us and left us off the list. Lucky for me the lady was really nice and still gave us a pass. She had me sign the media list and it was less than a page long. Had Chris screwed other media? I went back to Chris and i was fuming. It took me about an hour to calm down.  What did calm me down was seeing  a lot of my friends, Just about everyone  who had ever been on Get Your Geek on was there. Our friend Kristen was there. She had a booth and was selling her geek jewellery. Kath bought an Avengers one of a kind necklace she had made. Hunter was with her and of course we talked comics and other assorted geeky stuff. Our friend John Bulmer also had a booth and he was drawing some awesome artwork as usual. He was actually handing out our business cards and gygo  even appeared on his banner. At least someone remembered our name.

 We saw a lot more of our friends and soon we were joined by my friend of 30 years John Merry and his son Nick. It was john's first con and that was really exciting.We walked around for a bit. It was at this point that Rob texted me and asked if i wanted to come to the Robert Picardo q and a. I'm a huge stargate fan so of course i wanted to be there. It was really entertaining. He told stories of his days on stargate and star trek voyager. He played some comedy videos. He read poetry and sang. It was so cool. Had a blast. Definitely a highlight.

 I should note that we saw Paul a lot that day. Usually he was running and working his ass off.I know he wanted to make the day a huge success. He wanted to put Niagara Falls on the map as far as conventions were concerned. On the other hand anytime we saw Chris all he did was shake hands and pose for pictures while it seemed that Paul did all the heavy lifting. Despite being angry  at the start of the day we had a fun time and i really hope that the con continues and gets bigger and better. We thank Paul for all his hard work.

Friday, June 29, 2012

ho ho ho

Holy crap. Just looked in the mirror after i showered and my goatee appears to be getting whiter. I'm gonna look like santa soon. Don't wanna shave it though cause then i'll look like i'm 5 years old. I wish July was far away. I don't feel like turning 43. Not cool. No sir.

 I'm off to  take a walk with Diana and maybe play some catc. Days off rock!

Rent a cop parking police

 So apparently we have parking police here at our co-op, and they arent very good at their jobs. They seemed a little drunk with power. So a few months we get an envelope containing 2 parking passes, You need these if you want to park in your parking spot. Ok fair enough. We gave the other one to Rob because he's here a lot doing the show. Didn't think much of it after that. Rachel had told us stories about the parking police. How they handed out tickets and fines to everyone.  So we're about 10 minutes away from doing last weeks show and Kath comes down to the studio to tell us Rob is getting a ticket. He was parked in visitors parking so we didn't see what the big deal was. Kath went out and yelled at  the power mad parking cop. Rob didn't have a pass. He was parked in visitors parking and figured he didn't need one. Apparently there hasn't been  visitors parking in 6 months? News to us. So Rob came back in to do the show. A few minutes later Diana came down during the show to tell us that Rob was about to be towed. Seriously? What the hell? They were also fining our neighbor who had the pass in his car but it had fallen down.  Rach was telling us that thee are neighbors here who have nothing better to do than to call in and report stuff. Snitches if you will. Anyhow no one was towed and Rob is fighting it. Parking cops.

Good mood finally returns

Its Friday morning. Things making me happy.
1) Diana did amazing on her report card. She got a lot of "excellents". So proud of her. She is now on Summer vacation and  looking forward to grade 2 in the fall.
2) Got the results of my shift bid. Its not bad. I don't have to do 10 hour shifts. Thank God! I have my weekends off so i can do my show. I'll be doing split shits. I go in at 11 until 3. Then i get four hours off to nap and what not and then i go back from 7-11. I can totally do that.
3) Huey Lewis next week!
4) I'm off for the next 2 days and i think we are going to the drive in on Saturday night
5) did i mention the kid is off for the summer? I get to sleep in tomorrow and as you know sleep is my friend.
I'll write again tomorrow gang. Have a good one

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

Headache city

 What a day. I'm glad its over/. So much whining. No not from me. I had 2 calls that were an hour long.I seriously got a headache.So much yelling. And kudos to the lady that made me tell her the name of the porn that was ordered. My answer of it was an adult movie apparently wasn't good enough and demanded i tell her the title which was "teens taking 12 inches." Bravo. Ugh there is still 2 days to go until the end of my work week. Man i hope i can make it. Then i get to find out my new schedule. Can't wait for the weekend

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Geeky stag and doe

   Ok time for some happy topics. I want to tell you about a cool event Kath and i went to last Saturday night. We attended the stag and doe of our friends Hunter and Kristen. I've worked with Kristen for a long time. She used to be just someone i knew from work but now she has evolved into a really awesome friend. She's been on our show a bunch of times. Hunter  was in Korea for a year and while he was there he started listening to our show. We finally met him a year later and  and he has evolved from a guy we knew on the internet to the cool little brother i always wanted.Kath and i have a lot in common with them and they are geeks like us. I use that term proudly by the way.

  Anyhow Our friends are getting married this summer so they threw a stag and doe. It was the greatest stag and doe I've ever been to! It was geek themed. People were encouraged to show up in costume. There was a live version of Angry Birds, They had star wars and star trek cup cakes. It was right up our alley. Our friend Ryan also came and he bought me 8 jello shots. I don't drink very much anymore and i am a lightweight. I had a buzz from that and the one beer i drank.  It was a fun time. I can't wait for the wedding. It should be awesome.

Is it a rule that Monday's have to suck?

 What a long ass horrible day. Man it was a stressfest today. It never let up for a minute. I'm really sick of hearing how everyone thinks they should get everything for free. I can't believe the ammount of people that are surprised and pissed off when they get there first bill and see they were charged for installation. I've had cable over 20 years and I've gotten service at different apartments. I've never been shocked to see that i was charged to have a technician come out to install service.

 Anyhow my crappy day disappeared when i got home and got  hugs from Kath and Diana. Kath gave me some good news as well. We heard back from the guy from Buffalo con and we ma have a table there in October. He's giving us a discount on a table and we may be doing a show from there. Kath is already coming up with ideas. I can't wait, It put me in an amazing mood and i needed that after work.

Monday, June 25, 2012

Monday morning musings

Well its the last week in June. I hope it goes well. I hand in my shift bid form today. I'll find out the good or bad news later in the week. Lets just hope i don't get a 10 hour shift so i don't have to murder someone. It's Monday so i'm guessing it'll be crazy busy in there today. Just want to go back to bed. Sleep is my friend.
  Had a pretty good show last night. Kath's friend Kate was on for the first time. She really knows her stuff. Already planning the next show. We are seriously thinking about  getting a table at Buffalo con in October. The tables arent that expensive. Would be cool to put the word out in America.

We got our tickets for Barney Bentall at the old Winery for July 18th. Third year in a row. Can't wait. Of course i turn 43 a week after that. I can wait  for that.
 Thats all i got for now. I'm gonna go eat my pop tarts and get ready for another fun filled day of work.

Saturday, June 23, 2012

One for Andrea

  Howdy folks. So i emailed my friend Andrea recently. I haven't seen her in about a year.  I'm pretty sure that  next year will mark a quarter of a century that we've been friends. Time flies. She is a faithful reader of the blog. I feel like i have been slacking off on the blog for awhile. So Andrea this is for you,
 We have a mutual love of movies and we've seen a ton of them together over the years. I was remembering a specific film we went to 15 years ago in 1997. What made it so memorable to me? Was it the chemistry between Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones? The aliens? The awesome special effects? Nope. It was the fact that i went despite having food poisoning.

  I was working at K.F.C. at the time. The job was pretty bad, I still have nightmares about it from time to time and i stopped working there 14 years ago. Anyhow it was lunch time at k.f.c and i chose to have a macaroni salad. A large macaroni salad. It was to be the only thing i ate that day. Shortly after lunch i began feeling sick to my stomach. I rushed to the washroom and repeated this at least a dozen more times during the afternoon. Despite spending most of the day sick in the washroom, my boss refused to let me go home. Anyhow i had plans to go with Andrea and a few of her friends to go see Men In Black after work, Instead of calling and cancelling i decided to go. Andrea came to pick me up and i was as white as a ghost with really dark circles under my eyes. I'm sure i must have smelled of throw up. So  i insisted that i still go to the movie and when we arrived there even bought a huge bag of sour candy. I probably didn't touch the candy for a few days. I don't remember a lot about the movie. I spent most of the movie shivering. I had the chills pretty bad and i think i broke out in a cold sweat. Good times. Fast forward 15 years to 2012 and i finally got to see the movie again. It was almost like a brand new movie.  Still can't believe how dumb i was going to the movie that sick. Oh well. Until next time, have a great day everyone.

Friday, June 22, 2012

Shift bid wackiness

  Yesterday we got the shift bid forms with 112 different shifts to choose from. Unfortunately there was maybe only 16 shifts i liked. If i want Sundays off i may have to work until 11 o clock at night or worse a 10 hours shift. I did 10 hour shifts a couple of years ago and i was angry all the time. Fingers crossed  that i don't get a 10 hour shift. I don't like being there for 8 hours. I filled out the form and hopefully I'll get something good. Lets be honest though i didn't get anything in my top 90 choices last time. To quote Han Solo i have a bad feeling about this.

Squidward Rose Stewart

 Ok I've been bitter all week. I think i have some more bitter posts coming up as well. Here is something that is making me happy. My awesome daughter has perfected her first impression. She imitates squidward from spongebob squarepants. She really has it down. She has whole conversations as squidward. It's awesome. She's a chip off the ol' block,

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Weekend after the shit storm

 Despite  last weeks shit at work,i had an awesome weekend. Saturday night had dinner with John and Rachel and watched some movies. John was a guest on Get Your Geek on as well. Can't believe that in September we will have been friends for 30 years. So cool. Its always awesome to have John on the show. His tv knowledge continues to amaze me all these years later.

Sunday was fathers day and i got a homemade card from Diana and Kath made me a big Blue Beetle out of perlor beads. Its a new kind of craft she is hooked on. Diana and i took a walk saturday afternoon and got an ice cream at Macdonalds. It was cool spending time with my family. Only 2 more shifts and i get to do it again!

Tuesday, June 19, 2012

F'ed in the a 3: an extra half an hour a day

  Hey do you think  something bad happened  on Thursday to? You're damn right. I started my shift off by checking my break schedule and saw that instead of being off at 7 i was now off at 7:30. This must have been a mistake as i noticed that the day before i was also scheduled at 7:30 but went home at 7. So i called over a manager to see what was going on and was told--oh no one talked to you about this? It appears that everyone at work must now work an extra  half an hour a day-everyday. Way to spring this in the middle of the week and a few weeks before the stupid shift bid. I was asked if this would be an issue and o i mentioned i can't work the extra half an hour on Sunday. I needed to be out at 6 on sunday to get home to prepare for get your geek on at 7. I had an arrangement to get out at 6 and this sucked. An email was sent to our operations manager. Its now Tuesday and I'm still waiting for an answer. Needless to say i had to haul ass out of there at 6;30  on Sunday.

Oh yeah one other  lousy thing happened at work this week. So we now have the thankless task of trying to sell our services to customers. Seeing how we also have a sales department and for 9 years havent had to do sales i am against it. We have small sales we can make like a movie channel. We also have big sales we can make like cable or internet service. We get a little bit of money for each sale. If we don't get 6 big sales during the month we dont get paid for any of the smaller sales. Fair right? It gets better. I was told by my friend Deb that if we don't get the 6 sales we will get written up and catch shit. If it happens a few times we risk getting fired. No one has come to talk to me about this. I suck at the sales. I got 6 sales2 months ago and 3 last month. Its hard man. All the customers are pissed off about their bills already and i hate trying to sell them stuff. Good times. I think i have my 6 sales this month. Fingers crossed.

F'ed in the a 2:No paper for you

 Wednesday came with another awesome work announcement. As of August we will not be allowed to have paper on our desks. So not only will i never get to read at work again  i also will not be allowed to write. I write a lot. I wrute reminders,i write stuff down during calls to remember and i have notes that i have to consult from time to time. I'm screwed. I depend on writing every day. I'm gonna be on long calls all the time now trying to remember stuff. Not impressed. No sir.

Monday, June 18, 2012

How worked f'ed me in the a last week part 1

 A lot of crap was flung my way at work last week. The week started off ok. We got ice cream for free on Monday. Maybe this was to soften the blow of what was to come next. Shitty moment number 1 came on Tuesday where we found out there was going to be another shift bid. Wait, what? Thats right we just had 1 a couple of months ago. You might recall the last one came after i was shipped back to the cable company with the promise of keeping my old shift. Turns out we're gonna have  one every 3 months now. The only good thing that might come out of this is i might get Sundays off again. The worst that could happen is i get a worse shift then i have now. I get to fill out  the paper work this week and i'll know by July 8 what my new shift will be. Not looking forward to it. 

Sunday, June 17, 2012

Happy fathers day

  Happy fathers day to all the awesome dads out there especially Jor-el.   Diana gave me an early fathers day gift. A cupcake made out of clay. It was cool. Weekend is over going to bed. Can't wait for tomorrow night.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

June already?

  Holy crap i think I'm getting lazy. Its now June 12th and just getting around to blogging for the first time this month. Trying to remember what happened  during the first 12 days. We got our muffler changed--Rob was cool and fixed it for us. We got to see Hunter and Kristen on the June 3rd episode of get your geek on. I got new shoes.Watched all 5 superman movies. Merlin the cat has been getting brave and coming upstairs more often.All this and work,work work! I really do lead an exciting life. I'll try to be more interesting next time.