PERSONAL New Apartment, New Topics!
Just as the true test of a quarterback is his arm-strength, or the true test of a Texan how many guns he or she owns, the true test of a microwave--as we all know--is the popcorn button. Yes, nothing more simple for a microwave than popping a bag of popping corn into it and hitting the one magical button... to be treated by wave upon wave of fluffy popcorny goodness. And yet, even though the mechanics of it are simple, there seems to be nothing more difficult for a microwave than popping a good bag of popcorn. The microwave at my apartment on LaSalle historically burned the crap out of a bag of popcorn. The microwave at Chelsey's apartment, on the other hand, neither burned nor popped particularly well. What came out was a truly uninspiring bag of popcorn. The microwave at out new apartment, however, seems to have magically infused each bit with the taste of marshmallows (or some other yummy candy)... because I could swear that I'm eating some kind of candy when I eat the popcorn here *points to new place with no furniture... just a computer and the floor* And it's a good thing that the popcorn's good, because there is no other food in this apartment. At all. Nothing close to food here. There's food outside... and it's pretty close. But there's none here. Why am I here then?

PERSONAL I Can Feel It...
Around this time, every year, I can physically feel football season coming. I know that sounds lame and ridiculous... but it's real to me. I can almost smell the leaves falling off the trees, I can feel my body longing for the cold (and, as a result, sweating more profusely)... and I don't want to watch anything that isn't football related. It's the time of year that ESPN Classic ropes me in by re-playing old college football games. I found myself watching FSU/NCSU from 2001 today (Phillip Rivers and the Wolfpack beat Florida State... I hope Phillip Rivers doesn't win his next game [pre-season against my Packers]) and "Wide Right 1" a few days ago.
It is also the time of year that I get obsessively involved in NCAA Football for the XBox (or, hopefully soon, the XBox 360 or Nintendo Wii). I'm reading an interesting book about popular culture called "Everything Bad is Good for You" (or something like that) and the author talks about how pop culture (like video games) is actually making us more intelligent. His point is that complicated games (his example is a dice-based baseball, my example being the EA Sports Football franchises) have actually heightened our intellectual involvement in aforementioned sports through math and statistics (and a uber sense of realism. So real, in fact, that I can recognize defenses, blitz packages and stunts, zone coverage, and even the occasional odd offensive formation far before my father--who has watched football HIS whole life--can). The author goes on to say that pop culture in general is making our culture more demanding of versatile, intellectual, and interactive media. For years, I've hidden the hundreds of hand-written pages that I keep on video game players' ratings, statistics, and--in the pro games--salary. I have literally spent hundreds of man-hours figuring out who I can/could/should trade for whom... what positions on my team are the weakest... and where I need to draft or recruit for the future over the span of these games (roughly the past five or six years). After reading this book (and seeing the complicated schemes the author came up with just to realistically justify his dice-based baseball game), I no longer feel shame from my pursuits. I can say (almost with a straight face) that what I was doing was recognizing flaws in the system (previous NFL and NBA video games didn't necessarily care who you traded for whom... meaning you could really make un-fair trades and create a super-team) and trying to figure out my own fair way of judging and comparing talent. Even recently with NCAA Football 2006 (last year's offering), I kept very detailed records of all my players over five or six seasons on their ratings, how their ratings increase, how they were recruited, and when they left (as well as a few other categories).
What is my point? I suppose it's only a late-night rambling... trying to sort out what to do with these year's game: NCAA Football 2007. I've rented it for the XBox... but still have it in my mind that I'm going to buy it when I buy my NextGen console. So, should I even worry about keeping statistics for a game I'm not going to keep? Should I even play the game for XBox at all... considering I'll probably spend dozens of hours with the NextGen version whenever I can afford to get the console and game? Am I seriously wasting vast portions of my life while other people I know are getting married, buying houses, and starting families complete with children and everything (i.e. real people stuff)? Are you secretly looking down on me for being "simple... cute and incredibly sexy, but simple"?

PERSONAL I Have a Job!... Mostly
On Wednesday of last week (at around 2 in the afternoon), I was contacted by a temp agency that saw my resume on CareerBuilder and wanted to hire me to temp at another company. I was so shocked that someone actually read my resume and WANTED me to work for them that it basically didn't matter to me what I would be doing. And, even though it didn't matter, I thought I had lucked out. Turns out what this temp agency said that they needed was someone to type up a manuscript for a book. The woman at the agency asked if I could type accurately at 60 wpm (which I can) and she asked if I was an English major (which my lack of money in my checking account proves that I am)... and then she said I was perfect for the position. How soon could I start? was the next question. Tomorrow sounds great, I responded... and I was off to the agency downtown to fill out the paperwork so I could start the job the next day (last Thursday).
Time-out: It should be noted, here, that because of my dress shoes and how often I was wearing them last week, a huge chunk of my right heel was basically torn off my skin. Walking has been painful ever since. Time-in!
I made the drive from Chelsey and my apartment (on the far North side)--dressed to the nines in my best suit--to my new place of employment (on the far South side) in about an hour. However, because I didn't know how long it would take for me to get that far in Chicago, I gave myself two hours to get there. As such, I arrived on the South side with an hour to kill. Perhaps not the right wording. What I meant was... with an hour to spend trying to see another white person.
Sidebar: I don't consider myself a racist person. I don't consider myself someone who prejudges. Sure, I judge people quickly (thanks Mom)... but only after interacting with them. But this experience, if nothing else, has helped me to understand what it feels like to be the only person of a certain race in the area. Back to court!
When I got to the office, a woman who I thought was the receptionist told me--not to take a seat--to look at the pictures on the walls. The man who I would be working with could be seen in pictures with Louis Armstrong; Dizzy Gillespie; former Chicago Mayor Harold Washington; Martin Luther King, Jr; Presidents Carter and Clinton; and many other people who looked like faces I should recognize. An intimidating task to spend time with a man who has accomplished so much.
Then the woman who I thought was the receptionist asked if I wanted anything to drink (to which I responded "Water would be great"), and she came back with a bottle of water and a stack of this man's previous books. He has written something like 20 books (as if I wasn't intimidated enough), and I starting skimming through the first one I picked up. He works mostly in historical non-fiction... so any creativity I have is pretty much out the window as far as helping him is concerned.
After about fifteen minutes, I was called into the inner-offices and given the tour by the woman who would be my supervisor on this job. I found out that the woman who I thought was the receptionist is actually one of the property managers... and the women (plural) who do reception are also property managers and accountants respectively. Everyone in that office has multiple responsibilities (just the way I like it). After my tour, I was told to go into the head man's office and read through the manuscripts he had on his conference table. He had piles of books on the table and hand-written notes and all sorts of things that didn't look like materials for a book (i.e. plaques).
I sat down and read his prologue. It was good, he has an engaging, charming, and knowledgeable literary voice, but it was peppered with some glaring grammar and sentence structure problems. I started making some notes in the margins and on a scrap piece of paper... preparing for what I thought would be my retyping of aforementioned prologue. After about twenty minutes, I was told to go ahead and make copies of the pictures he wanted to use in the book. Apparently, he uses copies of the pictures to lay-out the manuscript and then uses the actual pictures in the actual pressing of the book. So, for the next two hours (at least), I was in the copy-room copying hundreds of amazing (and sometimes candid) pictures of Louis Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, and others.
At 12:30, I took my lunch and called Chelsey to let her know how the day was going so far. When I got back to work, I was asked to cover the phones for an hour. I received instruction as to how to transfer calls and how to let the employees know they had a call being transferred and then I answered phones. The good news for me was that everyone in that office pretty much takes their lunch at the same time... so sans me and the woman who helped me (Kathy... who was very nice to me. She was my helping hand all day), there was no one left in the office. I didn't have to transfer most calls, I could just take messages.
After my hour on the phones, I went right back to copying. But, while I was making copies, the Man himself came into his office and wanted all his book materials back (to work on). He and I chatted for 10 minutes and, for an 87 year-old man, he's a pretty cool cat. He loved the name "Pizza Xtreme" for my SC show... and said he'd like to come check it out. I told him that it was for mature audiences and he said, "Well, I think I'm mature." He then asked if the show was "rated X" and I told him that it was not something I would bring children to, but I wouldn't consider it rated x. He then pointed out that we probably see things differently. "What you think is rated X is different than what I think. What I think is rated X is... probably what you do in your show." I couldn't help but laugh at this charismatic, interesting fellow who simply wanted to talk about me.
But, once he left--taking all his book materials with him--I was left with nothing to do. On my first day, I was sent home an hour early.
On my second day, Friday, I stayed long enough for the Big Boss Man to come into his office and kindly say "What are you doing here?" I was let out at noon.
My third day, I lasted long enough for my supervisor to come into work and say "I called your temp agency and told them we wouldn't need you today." She, nicely, paid me for an hour.
Which brings us to today... Tuesday... day four. I didn't want to waste my time and gas by even attempting to drive down to work, so I called a few times and was told I wasn't needed (again). My supervisor suggested that I call the temp agency in the mornings to find out if I was needed, instead of calling their office. In the span of four business days, I've gone from having a steady 9-5 on a temporary basis, for what they said was a month-long contract... to not being needed (and wondering if I'm ever going to be asked back again). That's got to be some kind of record. I should have at least 28 hours under my belt by now: I have 10. Sounds like I've really made it to the big-time, huh?
I guess one of the things that upsets me most is that I was already thinking about what to do with the money I was going to be making. My gut has been itching for football season to start, and I told myself I wasn't going to buy any football game this year unless it was on a nexGen console. But, after my whopping $150 comes my way, I'm not going to have a lot left to do, well, anything with besides pay bills... or try to get the balance down on my maxed out credit card. What? Didn't know I did that? Well, do I have a story for you later...