Master Blogger

Julia -- [noun]: A master blogger 'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Summer sucks

Summer Is Gross.

I hate being sweaty and sticky.

Hot is miserable.

I used to live in Arizona (currently in Illinois). It was not nearly as gross there for some reason. Sigh.

Humans are soft and weak. It's 87 degrees and I am all bitch-y and moan-y. It's probably 130 in Iraq.

but now i must dash off to mi madre's to do my laundry!

Ta ta

Reasons why NOT to be a hostess

So, I am a hostess at a big chain restaurant here in my town. It is my second hosting job, even though after my first I swore I would never host again (i took my current hosting position because they told me if I did good at the door they would let me serve... two months ago).

That being said, here is advice (warnings) for anyone considering this line of work;

Reasons why NOT to be a Hostess!

1. You must smile CONSTANTLY!
   
2. you are 'required' to hold the door for every customer
3. A lot of people have their own ideas about where they are going to sit, the customer is always right, put them wherever they want; but what they don't tell you is that when the server gets double sat or skipped (because the fourth customer in a row doesn't want to sit next to a party of 10), you get yelled at for skipping/double seating them like you did it on purpose to ruin their night.
   
4. The money sucks. (no matter how busy the restaurant is, you will not make shit for money, the sooner you accept this the better.)
   
5. It's 60 degrees in your restaurant and EVERY table wants to sit outside (75 degrees) and there is only one patio server. (see number 3)
6. Clean the bathroom periodically. (because you don't have enough to do already)
   

Those first five are typical for every hosting job anywhere. These next are specific to my current position and REALLY SUCK;

7. You are responsible for rolling silverware. (I was at work 1 hour and 50 minutes after we closed at 10pm rolling silverware last night)
8. You must make sure the kitchen knows how many tables there have menus on them. (so seat every customer, stay on top of sorting and rolling silverware, smile, and count menus every 10 minutes, for barely a living wage)
9. When you seat a table; tell them a) the soup of the day, b) the drink feature and c) their server's name; which is different every night (yes, even when there are 6 tables waiting to be sat).

It is safe to say that servers underestimate the amount of responsibility that hosting entails. I've seen a server try to do for one night what i do every night, and refuse to host again. At my current job, we lose hosts left and right. Which means that it will be ages before I can move up to a Server position (and actually make money).

Medicine makes me drowsy

So someone asked me to update on my success and failures with Lexapro which is an anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medication. I kind of wanted to wait to post anything until the drug has had it's say, which usually takes 2-3 weeks. I have, however, noticed a particular side-effect that is annoying. Really annoying. Drowsiness. I'm serious, about 2 hours after I take it, for about 4 or 5 hours I can't stop yawning. It's ridiculous. I take the pills around noon, (which is MY morning) and then when I'm going to work between 4 and 5 I am yawning at all of the customers. It's really lame. The yawning makes my eye's fill with tears and my nose drip too, which is really inconvenient as well, because I don't have a desk with kleenix on it. I work with the public in food service and cannot possibly be wiping my nose all the time. After a bit the yawning subsides and I am able to stay awake until 2 or 3am. If this side-effect doesn't go away in a week or so, I will have to start all over with something different. Fun.

i phone, wii, the future of technology

So I have been seeing a lot of hype about apples new iphone which seems to be revolutionizing smart phones. It can anticipate what you're trying to type which minimizes errors on the touch screen, it's selling like hot cakes and it's got the letter 'i' attached to it. There are a couple of marketing hooks I have noticed that no matter what they're applied to, they will increase sales. One of these is the color pink. Examples include the Zune, RAZR, ipod NANO, Kodak camera, and Nintedo DS Lite. The other is adding 'i' to it. Apple has been throwing their copyrighted letter all over the place. So now everything has an i attached to it or it comes in pink. Even Nintendo's new and super popular Wii has an i. It has 2!!! No wonder it is selling so well. It is just unusual that America is so caught up by two random marketing strategies that even a kindergartener would understand. Color, Letter. I admit, I like my pink RAZR, mostly because it is pink, and I like the pink case I have for my sansa. I also use igoogle over my yahoo. I must have fallen prey to the marketing ploys of corporate America. Shame on me

Making time to blog

Well I just started playing Diablo 2 and I am a little addicted right now! It is really fun and fairly straight-lined game play which I like. I refuse point-blank to begin playing World of Warcrack... um.. that is World of Warcraft I mean, sure I considered jumping on the MMORPG bandwagon, but seriously, how much of my life to I want sucked away by a stupid game?!? There are 6 million people who play WOW and 70% of the people I know play regularly. Diablo 2 is like the gateway into warcraft, it's less time consuming, easier by far, but still has enough game-play variety to foreshadow what one can expect from games like WOW. Diablo is to WOW like pot is to crack. I'm not saying I am going to be diving right into WOW when I lose interest in Diablo 2, but at least by playing Diablo 2 now if I ever do decide to cave to the peer pressure to play WOW, I will be better prepared.

As I am standing on the threshold of Geek, so too am I on the threshold of Gamer. I LARP (live action role playing), I play a Dungeons & Dragons table-top game, and now I play Diablo 2. I'm not hardcore by any stretch of the imagination, but I am diversified and expanding my skills in the gaming world. I am becoming a gamer because I like hanging out with gamers. Similarly I don't party because I don't like hanging out with 'partyers.' But to be able to carry on a conversation with a gamer you have to know the jargon. I tried to find a good site with all the jargon Gamers use (especially the cross-over types I kick it with who play MMORPGs, LARP, card, dice, etc.) which all have separate but similar jargon, if anyone knows a good resource for a broad umbrella of gamer jargon, please let me know... So to learn the jargon and understand the conversations, one must immerse themselves into the games. It is a fascinating sub-culture.

More important than blogging or gaming is real life. Jobs, boyfriends, social lives, family and your health should all come before blogging and gaming, but it is really easy to get caught up and forget to prioritize. Gamers frequently lose jobs and girlfriends because there life IS the game. It is a dangerous hobby that can easily overwhelm. The risk makes it all the more fun though. :)