Finally!

So I quit my job. Yeah, I really quit my job. After 8 and a half months, I finally quit my job. It was one of those things on my "to-do list". I really don't have a to-do list, but I think I should; as a matter of fact, I should put that on my "to-do list". It would help things function more smoothly. Anyways, yeah...... I finally quit my job.

It should've happened a long time ago. Quitting my job, that is, it should've happened a long time ago. I planned on quitting my job right after I graduated. This was to take place sometime between christmas and new year's. But I didn't. I didn't quit my job right after I graduated. I should've quit my job, but as you know, I didn't. It must have had something to do with my lazyness. But here I was, well into the new year, and I didn't quite yet get around to quitting my job. But as you know now, I finally DID get around to quitting my job.

I figured, surely i'd find a job by now. And surely, I didn't. The point being, I should've found a job a long time ago. So, nearing the fall semester, I decided that there was no way I was going to deliver pizzas to students that were going to graduate out of college in 2010. That's a long time from now. So, as you found out earlier, I finally quit my job.

It's interesting how we are a creature of habit. I don't work alot of hours, so I guess I can't relate with the "grind" that is the 9 to five. But week in and week out, I worked the closing shifts on wednesday, thursday, and friday. I'd have four days off, and then three days on. It was a simple system. The good news was, of course, that I had a three-day workweek. The bad news was, of course, that I didn't have money to spend during my four days off. It was one of those 'catch-22' you often hear about.

But now that im done working that schedule, I have to find a new job to get adjusted to. Not working is great, not having money to spend anything on negates all of it. So, just as soon as I quit my job, or at least the day after I quit, I started looking for work. I've actually been looking for work for the past 8 months. I think I may have something at a couple of places, but they're both at least a week or two away from completion.

It has now been five days since I finally quit my job, and I have yet to find a new one. I'm not crazy. I did plan for this discrepancy. I can comfortably get through this month, and coast through most of next month before I have to start collecting money from a new employer. My ideal situation, however, is that I start work come this monday.

But as far as this week is concerned, im just going to sit back and enjoy it. I think I should just sit down and really enjoy the simple fact which this entire entry is dedicated to, and that is that I finally, after 8 and a half months, I finally quit my job!

Phone Sex and Cingular

Who the hell came up with the idea of "phone sex"? It's a pretty retarded idea, if you think about it. There's no actual sex, just talking about sex, as if merely making sounds translates to sex. It was probably a woman's idea; talking and fake moans seem to be right up their alley. But anyways, that's not what I wanted to talk about (I don't want to smut this bit with filth). You know how Cingular has these new commercials about how their reception is so much greater? Well, in case you don't know, to get their point across, they devise these interesting scenarios that usually involve the dropping of the not-so-important phone call by an inferior rival carrier. This usually happens right when the most interesting part of the phone call is uttered by the person they are speaking to. Most of the time, it's some girls talking about gossip, and who was seeing kissing with whom. Well, I thought it would be really funny if they had one that involved phone sex. It would go something like this.

"So I was sitting there, talking to my girlfriend. She just moved out of town, and it has been a real strain on our relationship. One day, I finally convinced her to engage in phone sex, you know, to bring us together. So everything was going great, but just as I was about to drop my pants, [in caption] MY CARRIER DROPS MY CALL!! .... my girlfriend, who was left embarassed on the other end, did not speak to me for months! So that's why I switched to Cingular. Since then, things have been going great between us. This weekend, we're planning on trying it again.Thank you Cingular!"

Transition Costs

It's been some time since I posted something on my highly popular blog. It really has more to do with my laziness than it does with my busy schedule. Since my last post, I had a few minor adjustments in my way of life. For example, I finally moved out of Athens. Yep, after four and one half years in the classic city, I packed my things and moved as far away as i could -- forty three miles down highway 78 -- and moved in with my folks in snellville (though legal documents will show that it is indeed MY home, but that's for another post).

If you don't know anything about me, you at the very least know that I have a big family -- 10 people in all -- which makes for some interesting housing arrangements. It's hard to find a place that has 7 seperate bedrooms. Therefore, my moving in meant that I'd have to share a room with one of my brothers -- a la the dorm years in college. Needless to say, I started building my very own bedroom in the rarely-used dungeon that is our basement. What started out as a simple plan quickly became a slight hassle.

It sounds like an easy job, building a basement bedroom. I mean, Jesus was a carpenter, and he seemed to have a lot of free time on his hands. I figured it would take no more than a good weekend and maybe $500 in expenses. Boy, was I wrong! It took me practically all of June and the costs stumbled into a grand faster than I could say "how much would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood" five times without messing it up (I finally got it right on july 12, if you're wondering). But I did manage to finish up the basement, save for the minor things.

As June came to a close, I completed two of my three pillars of ultimate "transition". I had moved out of my cozy apartment in Athens, and moved in to my newly built basement bedroom. All was right with my world again. I had finally settled back into some sense of normalcy. No longer did I have to get up at 7 in the morning to hammer nail into wood. I could finally relax. And as I did just that, I couldn't help but think about one minor problem with my plan. I forgot to complete the third pillar of my "transition"-- the one I so cleverly forgot to mention (for dramatic effects, mind you), which was to find a JOB. How could this be?

I graduated in December -- more than 7 months ago -- and for whatever reason, be it my bad B.O. or a tight economy, I could not for the life of me find a non-pizza delivering job. You'd think after all the job applications I filled during my seven months of search, someone would eventually bite. But, here we are, about to enter the eighth month in the calendar year, and not unlike what's happening with my job search, I am still holding out my hand, outside a customer's home, waiting for change. I guess you'd have to chalk all this up to "transition costs", and for whatever it's worth, I am all out of such funds.

Silly little arab

By now im sure everyone knows about the death of that silly arab guy, Al-Zarqawi. With any prominent kill, there's always going to be someone that will question it. The Iranians are already denying it (but they deny the holocaust, so what do they know; and they are also implicated in this incident, as you will soon find out). Im just now waiting for someone to come up with some weird conspiracy to satisfy their existing set of beliefs. Since this is inevtiable, I might as well be the first to come up with a conspiracy. I think Al-Zarqawi already died the previous day (cause of death: AIDS) and when word got out about the funeral, the Iranians, trying to avoid embarassment for their cause (crazy muslim types attacking anything that moves), bombed the funeral site and killed the already dead Zarqawi. They then made a deal with the Americans for them to take credit for the attack and in return they would ease up on their nuclear plans. Everyone is happy as a result, except for the greaving gay partner of Al-Zarqawi (who, in case you are too slow to follow along, gave him the AIDS that eventually led to his death). And they said there was nothing good about AIDS. In yo' face BONO!!

Socialist Football

I don't know about you, but people in America seem to have a love affair with football. It doesn't matter where you go, there's always someone talking about what their team did or didn't do in the offseason, and what their chances are for next season. Think about it: the NFL season only has a 16-game regular season schedule, with only three to four games in the playoffs (if your team were to make it all the way to the superbowl). Including the four game preseason, you're looking at about 23 or 24 games for the best NFL teams and about 20 for every other team. For all the talk and hype that goes into this league, there isn't much action to substantiate it. Don't get me wrong, I love the NFL (especially my Colts and Cardinals) but I just don't understand why it has to be a full year topic for sports writers and fans alike. It should be important when it's appropriate; in the fall. It's kinda like the Fox show "24"; it's on for 4 months out of the year, and for that stretch, it's the best thing on television. But the rest of the year nobody talks about it or discusses the intricacies of that following season.

Some people will argue that the NFL offseason gives shitty teams hope. With the NFL draft and other offseason acquisitions, a team can dramatically change from year to year. Theoretically speaking, a team that went 5-11 or 6-10 in 2005 can turn it around in just one year and become a playoff contender that following season. For that reason, fans think the offseason is important to talk about.

Setting aside my position that the offseason in any sport is a waste of time, I am surprised that the NFL has implented programs that, while very effective, would get any politician out of office. If you were to carefully inspect the NFL, I mean really pay attention to how they operate, you will notice an interesting trend. Haven't you ever wondered why teams in small markets stay competitive with teams in big markets? The answer is very simple. The reason why teams can turn things around in the NFL more so than in any other American sport is simple: THE NFL IS A FORM OF SOCIALIASM.

Think about it, all teams have to abide by the salary cap, which limits certain teams in the league who are more weatlhy from outspending other teams in league. Furthermore, the revenue sharing plan that the NFL uses is a form of economic redistribution. Basically, all the teams pool in their revenue from their respective football stadiums, and they equally dole it out to all the teams.

Baseball, on the other hand, uses a form of capitalism that Americans are more familiar with. Rich teams prospser, poor teams don't. If the Kansas City Royals - New York Yankees series' isn't an example of the 'haves and have nots" then I don't know what is.

Yet despite all this, the NFL has become the most popular league in the country. The most hardened conservatives even love the NFL, yet they fail to realize the irony in all of this. Americans will oppose universal health care and anything relating to economic redistribution. But for some strange reason, they love the NFL for those very same reasons (sans the health care part).

Somalian Wedding Crashers

So im talking to my dad, and he starts talking about marriage customs that silly somalians follow. Now if you know me, you know that im not the best representative of the Somalian community; I probably wouldn't win too many popularity contests. Having said that, I can admit when the Somalian people do good. But, just as well, I can also admit when they do something downright stupid. The customs surrounding somalian marriages are some of the dumbest i've yet to hear.

Let's say you wanted to get married. You're a guy, in your mid-20's and you just got out of college. You got the whole 'chasing girls' thing out of your system (mostly) and are ready to settle down and get married. You meet a girl, you fall in love (aka emotionally attached), and then you get married. Right? .... well, yeah. But if you're Somalian, you better have some money saved up, because in the months leading up to the wedding, you will be bled broke by all the different traditions and gatherings that are involved with getting married. In each of these "gatherings", there will be countless guests that will be attending. Now, most of these guests are part of your extended family network; they're not related by blood, but rather by belonging to the same clan. Africa in general, and Somalia specifically, revolve around tribes. So to each one of the guests that come to the gathering, the groom (that would be you) will have to pay up something, with the amount that each guest receives reflecting the member's stature within the tribe; the closer you are to the guest, the more you receive from him.

You might think that this is nothing but a harmless tradition that many nomadic Somalians would like to maintain. But just recently, as my dad told me, a guy that was just getting ready to wed spent over $2,000 american dollars on guests alone. That is before the actual wedding, before the ring he is to purchase for his wife, and before the honeymoon he is supposed to finance. Not to mention the house and car he is expected to have. Now, keep in mind we are talking about Somalia.... one of the POOREST COUNTRIES IN THE FUCKING WORLD!!

You mean to tell me that having their government in order or even having a government is less important than showing off to some of your family members? I mean, that is pretty artificial, especially for a broke ass country.

But with anything, there is always a bright side. So this had me thinking, couldn't a guy fake his way to all of these gatherings and receive the cash hand outs that the groom is forced to give through this shitty system? I mean, think about it, couldn't there be a "somalian wedding crasher"? It's just like a regular wedding crasher (like in the movie with the same name), but you replace the sex with the money. It's pretty much the same thing. There is an opportunity, why not take advantage of it.

I for one will be sure to RSVP the next invitation I receive. If only I hadn't burned so many bridges with the Somalian community. Damn It!