Long overdue update (because I can't sleep)
Last Tuesday night (the 17th) I had my Second City Improv level E class. We played a new and improved form of freeze tag, wherein the actors got suggestions from the audience as to what was being held in people's hands AND who the people were to each other. This was a very comforting technique, as it meant that we didn't have to worry about what we were going to do when we froze people... we just jumped right in and where told what was going on. It was also a brilliant teaching technique because we went from the audience telling us what to do and gradually moved towards doing it by ourselves again. It was so helpful... and I don't feel as angry (and hate it as much) when we play freeze tag anymore.
We also played "Jeopardy", which is a game I've never played before. The improv version is basically an exercise in characterization. It doesn't matter what the category is, our character is going to answer based on who they are rather than what is "correct". I got so into my character (Guy Richardson) during the game on Tuesday night, that I actually let fly with a racial slur (for Puerto Ricans) before I could even stop myself from doing it. Whoops! All in the name of realism, I guess?

As much fun as Tuesday night was, it was nothing in comparison to my Wednesday morning (the 18th). I basically wasting my entire Wednesday morning/afternoon at the "new" store on W. North Ave. I waited for the Electrical Inspector, the Batch Freezer inspector, AND the Health inspector. I was told in a meeting the day before (Tuesday) that I needed to be at the store at 9 AM, and I had to bring all this miscellaneous stuff. So I showed up at the store at almost nine, and proceeded to enter the store, whereupon I was met by the electrician who thought I was someone else. He asked me if I was there to open something (in broken English), and I responded that I wasn't the person he was waiting for (for whom he was waiting?). So he did his thing and waited for his person, and I sat and waited anxiously for the series of inspectors who were scheduled to come. An hour and fifty minutes later, the electrical inspector (named John) came to the store. He basically dealt exclusively with the electrician who was there, and some other dude who showed up. They both didn't speak English very well (I'm thinking their native language was Polish... but I'm not sure)... and it was interesting to listen to the inspector talk weird numbers and construction jargon with two men who really didn't speak English. Fascinating to be sure. After a quick conversation and walk-thru with the electricians, the inspector told me that he was going to pass the building, but that there was a LOT of work to be done. 1 down, 2 to go.
A very short time later, Bruce the batch freezer inspector/calibrator arrived. Remember that "LOT of work" I was just talking about? One of the things that needed to be done was a transition from a 'normal' power, to the three phase power needed to run the batch freezer. In short, the batch freezer dude couldn't do shit. He showed up, found out about the three phase power problem, and told me to reschedule when 'I' had fixed the problem. Sweet... thanks dude, I can't wait to do this again sometime. 2 down, 1 to go.
Oh but what a one to be left: the Health Inspector. I got more and more anxious and nervous as time wore on. I've heard stories about the health inspector being a humorless person, who would like nothing more than to shut your food establishment down to make you as miserable as they secretly are. But the Health inspector kept not showing and not showing... and I still hadn't eaten breakfast (or anything) and I got very irritable... and it got to be about 2:30 PM and JD, the contractor, came to the new store. He looked around and told me to go ahead and leave because he was going to cancel the health inspection. Why is that? Because we wouldn't have passed it if they had come Wednesday... that's why. Neat, huh? Um... no... no it's not.

Thursday afternoon (the 19th) I went to the North Ave store to wait for the ADs and JD. The Area Developers were going to be there at noon to do the final walk-thru of the store and approve it for open. This was made difficult by the fact that the health inspector had been called off the day before because we wouldn't have passed. There was pretty much no way in hell we were going to pass the ADs inspection. The ADs showed up and, from what they were saying, it sounded as if there was no way we would be able to open on the 28th. I quickly called Adam, because he's in charge of putting together the Grand Opening. I told him to halt anything he could as far as the GO... and we'd go from there. I then let Andrea know that we might have to reschedule the Grand Opening (again). After a couple minutes she called me back saying her father was going to the store to hear why we might have to delay the GO again. I basically had to beg the ADs to stay to talk to Mr. Johnson... but they did. And, when he showed up, they totally changed their tune. Oh... it is still do-able by the 28th... no, don't worry about it Mr. Johnson, we'll get it all taken care of. Bitches... The Grand Opening is still up in the air, but I know Andrea called Adam about delaying the GO, and he had already done everything he could because I called him first.

I felt so good about how Adam and I handled the Grand Opening situation, that Thursday evening Adam and I went to Dave and Busters. We were asked to take a "10 minute survey" for SBC and, in exchange, we'd get a $15 gift card to Dave and Busters. Adam and I both filled out the stupid survey, and they'll probably contact me (at least) about the different focus groups they're putting together. They want to know if their products will sell, before they put lots of money into marketing... so it's some kind of marketing focus group that meets 6 times a year (or something). It doesn't matter... they'd be willing to pay me $50 for an hour of work, which is almost as good as what I get whorin', but less messy. At any rate, we used the gift cards to buy dinner and waited for Chip, Adam's roommate, to meet us. We then proceeded to "nerd it out" as Adam would say. We love us some shooting games... including an AWESOME game called "L.A. Machine Guns". We called it la machine guns, because that's cleverly spanish. Whatever... the cool part about this game is that you can't run out of ammo... so just just keep shooting everything. AND the whole platform you're standing on vibrates when you shoot... so it felt all funny, and it made me feel all funny... like when a red-head stares at me from across a room. That had nothing to do with anything. And, speaking of, we went and saw Alien Versus Predator. That movie was a total disappointment. Like Chip said, "It's based on something already established... the movie practically writes itself!" Without going in to why it was so bad, I'm just going to say that most of the beginning of the movie is spent "getting to know" all sorts of different characters that you know are just going to die like stupid bitches later in the movie. The movie should've started about 45 minutes into what it actually was... and the movie should have focused on the Predators slaughtering the stupid bastard Aliens. Period.