Random Thoughts

So the plan was to go to work, have dinner at Pop-Pop's, meet up with gabe before the game, hang out/drink, maybe get a little sleep then head to the airport.

Everything was going according to plan until game, when I found out that Gabe had to back work after so no drinking. Now, I'm all alone at Gabe's (the other two are already in KC). Well, at least it gives me some time to write a blog entry.

Ever notice how there is like one week in people's lives when they actually want to get carded for beer? Think about it. Before you're 21, you don't want to get carded b/c a) You're not going to get served b/c you don't have a card, b) You're going to lose your fake, c) you're going to be worried about b. Then right after your 21st, you want to get carded because you can actually produce one. Shortly after that it just becomes a nuisance. It becames even more annoying after spending four months in Europe and they'll serve you if you look 16.

I thought of this tonight at the game when I saw the guys walking around selling beers. I asked my dad, "Do they card here?" I got my answer a couple innings later when my dad gave me the six bucks for a Miller and the guy carded me. I don't know if it's because I was in Europe and didn't get carded at all, but it seems that I've been getting carded a lot lately.

Last week, when I went out lunch with Dan, the waitress didn't card us until i decided to order a drink. Then I get carded tonight...

Ok, I just realized I'm nuts because I also didn't get carded at Applebee's (although I was with my 'rents) or at Famous Dave's.

Well, this long weekend should be fun, especially if I'm not tired the whole time. We have to be at the airport around 5am, and then meetings start at 1pm (12pm EDT).

Another Pilfered Survey

This one was stolen from Duff...


There are some pretty random questions, so i was amused...


1. Where were you 3 hours ago? My house

2. Who are you in love with? no one

3. Have you ever eaten a crayon? nope, by april has

4. Have you ever been drunk? I went to college for four years, you figure it out

5. When was the last time you went to the mall? a couple weeks ago

6. Are you wearing socks right now? Nope, I never wear socks in the summer

7. Do you have a car worth over $2,000? yup

8. When was the last time you drove out of town? A couple weeks ago for Jay's Pigroast

9. Have you been to the movies in the last 5 days? no

10. What are you listening to right now? Counry Mix

11. What was the last thing you had to drink? coke

12. What are you wearing right now? jeans and my "Top 10 Reasons to know your are Temple University Biology Major" shirt

13. Who do you think you are? wtf??...I'm gonna go with a carbon-based life form with two X-chromosomes

14. Last food that you ate? Macaroni

15. Where were you last week at this time?

16. do you like someone? surprisingly, no

17.Does anyone like you? how should I know?

18. What's the last sporting event you watched? in person: US vs. Slovakia Olympic Ice Hockey

19. What is your favorite animal? I'm gonna agree with Duff: Cow---Steaks are good

20. Your dream vacation? Traveling all over Europe/the world with someone else dealing with my luggage

21. Last person's house you were in? my grandfather's

22. How old are your parents? 55 and 52

23. Have you been in love? yes, and it's a motherfucker

24. Last disappointment? well this survey is getting depressing

25. Any pictures around you? My best friends, friends from Rome, Brothers

26. What do you think about james blunt? who?

27. What jewelry are you wearing? PSP ring, my grandmother's ring, two earings, necklace, belly ring, anklet (wow that sounds like a lot)

28. What are your plans for the day? It's 10 pm, so probably just talk online and read 'til I go to sleep

29. Are there any sharp objects around you? Do you consider nail clippers sharp?

30. Ever go to camp? My mom made me go to asthma camp

31. Were you an honor roll student in school? In middle and high school...damn I miss being smart

32. What do you want to know about the future? If I'll be happy or I should just shoot myself now

33. Are you wearing any perfume or cologne? it's the weekend, i'm not even wearing make-up

34. Favorite Starbucks drink? Mint Mocha Frap--it's the only thing I'll buy from there

35. Where are your best friend(s)? Becky, April, Celie

36. What are you angry about right now?nothing...

37. Do you have a tan? Yes, thanks to the Alumni Convention being in Puerto Rico

38. What are you listening to right now? Still the country mix

39. Any new bands you've been listening to? nope

41. Where do you wish you were right now? An island

42. Have you ever drank your soda from a straw? yea

43. What does your last text message say? from me: I would see superman or da vinci code to me: yea i wanna see those also

44. Do you like hot sauce? as long as it's not in my liquor

45. Last thing you said? blue eyes and bouncing curls

46. Do you need to do laundry? Yea, i always do

47. What is your heritage? 100% Italian

48. Are you someone's best friend? yea

49. What do you think of rice crispy blocks? You mean Rice Krispies Treats?? They're good

50. What do you think of the person who took this survey before you? Love him like a Brother

Credit Cards

The reason credit cards have the white strip on the back for a signature is that when you (or the person using your card) try to purchase something, it is compared with the signature on the receipt. This doesn't work if the stores don't check the signature. And I don't mean the employee doesn't compare, I mean s/he doesn't even have you sign anything. Stores save receipts (or they're supposed to), so if it really came down to it, they could check the receipts for the signature.

When I worked at Express, I had to compare the signature on the credit card to the signature on the receipt. I was told that I had to compare both, even if I saw a driver's license, that technically wasn't good enough. In case you live on mars, driver's licenses have names and pictures. I personally think it's a lot easier to compare faces than written names.

Since I'm bitching about this, you've probably figured out that I've had some experiences with I was not asked to sign.

First, when you pay at the pump to purchase gas, there is no way to verify your signature. I've always thought this was a little fishy, but even if your card is stolen, how much gas can a person buy before you'd notice your card was gone (of course with the cost of gas these days, $100 is very probable)?

Last week, when I went to the UA movie theater in King of Prussia, I was not asked to sign. The same thing happend at the the Regal (which is under the same company as UA) in Edgemont. What pisses me off even more is that they give me the receipt with the signature line that says "customer copy" (possibly even the one that says "merchant copy") as well as a regular receipt. Why are they giving me useless shit? This makes it even harder to find and determine which little piece of paper is my damn ticket to get into the movie.

I Hate My Job

Warning: This is an entry of bitching, which is also probably difficult to follow, so: read at your own risk.

I have pretty much been doing the same thing since I started working here on May 8. Right now, the company has two (actually more, but I only deal with the two) programs that store customer information. We are switching over to a different program that can everything all the other ones can. This way we only have to use one program instead of multiple crappy-ass programs.

My job is to make sure the names of the companies are identical on the two programs, so that multiple accounts are not created. This is tedious and it drove me nuts at first, but I finally got used to it. It started out with 4,000 companies that to had be corrected. After I finished (or thought I was finished) the query was run again to see which companies did not match. I was shocked when there were still 1,000 companies. I realized that this was because that when I fixed one program to match an account, it no longer matched the other account. This might help:

Program 1......................................Program 2

Account#..... Name : ....................Account: ...........Name:

......1 ..............ABC ...........................Z.............. ABC Corp

......2 ..............ABC Corp ....................Z.............. ABC Corp

Both accounts 1 and 2 are linked to account Z. I would receive a spreadsheet with just 1 and Z because 2 and Z are identical (and I would not even know about 2). If I found out the correct name is just ABC. I would change account Z. Since I did not know about account 2, I would not be able to correct. So, when I thought I was finished, I really wasn't because when the spreadsheet is created again, I would see this:

Program 1.............................. Program 2
Account# .....Name : ...............Account: .......Name:
......2 ............ABC Corp .................Z........... ABC

This time I'd change account 2 so that it would match Z. Now both 1 and 2 match Z.

Today I came across another problem: Sometimes when I made changes in Program 1, they didn't show up in Program 2. This was the point where I emailed the IT chick and said (to myself), "Screw this shit. I refuse to work until I figure out what the hell is going on." (Un)Fortunately, my boss came by and I asked him what the hell was going on. It turns out that if the customer hasn't paid s/he is coded as "ind" instead of "mem" and only "mem"s appear on program 2. Luckily, this doesn't really affect what I've been, so it hasn't been for nothing (yay!). It does just make my job more frustrating. I spent the rest of the day going through the spreadsheet checking which inconsistencies were due to the "ind"s. There were a shitload. On the positive side, it means I don't have do research on all these companies to see which is the proper name.

Europe Pictures!!

I finally posted my Europe pictures on webshots. There are about 600 pics on three different accounts.

If you're interested:

Christmas-Begining of February:

http://community.webshots.com/user/JacMic1104

Feb--March (Geneva, Florence, Olympics, Spring Break, and more):

http://community.webshots.com/user/2JacMic1104

March-the end of April (Siena, Florence, Northern Italy, Easter, and more):

http://community.webshots.com/user/3JacMic1104