I Just Work Here

So I got out of the office at 6 p.m. today; I'll be working 3 p.m. to midnight tomorrow, and probably 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. Sunday/Monday and Monday/Tuesday. Then Gustav makes landfall, and then things start to get crazy.

It's been a long, long week, and there's no weekend in sight.

Not that it's really so bad. (Ask me again in a couple of days.) This is the un-fun part of the job, but every so often there aren't any hurricanes; it's meaningful and helpful; I'm not facing it alone; and I'm pretty certain that my bosses are happy with me and that their happiness with me is in direct proportion to how good a job I'm doing - which is a darn sight more than I could say at some places I've worked. And the rest of the time? Fun!

But the forecast models predict a very low possibility of going on break any time next week.

We have this 1-800 number you call for road conditions information. We've been working on finding a new vendor for the system; my cow orker who primarily deals with it is a former employee of a major phone company, and really knows his stuff. There are a lot of features we're looking for that my cow orker feels the new vendor might not be able to address adequately. Like the hearing-impaired line.

How, I asked in our meeting, is this such a problem? They just call the special number and hear: "HELLO!!! WELCOME TO THE ROAD CONDITIONS HOTLINE!!!!! IF YOU'D LIKE TO BE SHOUTED AT IN SPANISH, PLEASE PRESS 1 NOW!!!!!!!!!!"

Yeah, SNL already did that.

It's time for a nap; if somebody would send me an economy-size spray can of Gustav-B-Gone, I'd be grateful.

Good vs. Evil: Sleep Edition

Ever notice how there are good naps and evil naps? Good naps, you drift off quickly and wake up about an hour or so later feeling refreshed. Evil naps, you kind of lie there feeling woozy and not quite asleep and restless. Occasionally you wake yourself up by drooling. Then you feel like a zombie until bedtime.

I like the good kind better.

It was a good one today, thanks principally to my dear friend Tony who took me to IKEA and fed me Swedish meatballs and macaroni and cheese. Ambien can bite my ass: Swedish meatballs are the shit! And I needed it, because tonight is the opening night for our version of "The Bucket List" at the Alamo South. They've broken up the contest entrants into groups, and our group airs this evening. My brother-in-law, Baby Jeffy (aka Jack Nicholson) is up from San Antonio for the occasion. Man, it's so loud in here!

Naptime is certainly over, at any rate.

So anyway: After checking out some of the competition, I don't think we're very likely to win the contest, but I do think we ought to make it to the finals, which is plenty good enough for me. I'm really looking forward to seeing how a theater audience reacts to our movie, which was finally submitted on a DVD, and looks and sounds a lot better than the one online.

"Looking back," says Baby Jeffy at the moderate shout which passes for an inside voice in my in-laws' family, "I didn't do all that good a Jack Nicholson."

Looking back, I think the worst mistake we made was picking "The Bucket List" to remake, because it's not even advertising anymore, and hardly any theaters are now playing it, and I'm wondering who will even know what the hell our remake is about? So maybe newly-opening, star-studded crapfests are not the best picks for this kind of contest.

I have to work in the morning. I hope I'll have slept off tonight's effects by then.