I love Easter weekends

Yesterday I got my pay check and was having a decent night. Gerry let us out at 8:30pm. I was hearing we were going to work until 10pm but I kept on hearing this voice in my head that this was April fools day. I got my check as right as usual but still no bonus money. Last year I made an average of $25/week in bonus money, now I’m down to about $16/week. In this line of work where its sales related you need a bonus structure of some kind to keep the staff motivated. Gerry’s been giving out $20/night in cash but of course we have heavy hitter Patrick who gets over $200/night in cards. I was lucky to get 2 cards last night for $45. But the $20 isn’t just for the night shift it’s for the whole day. But if you know how to get into the lists on the computer in the back, you can skim through the source and pick out the large taps that pay on card. That’s why I see so many blanked out names. Somebody’s been tampering with the lists to get the large credit card taps. You write down the information on an off sheet and then erase the name and then during the shift you use the land line phone to call the customer back and then you get the credit card # write everything down and then the next call you get on the computer say a 2006 $10 tap, you erase the screen info (F6=edit) insert the new info phone numbers etc and enter the credit card. I don’t have the capability to accomplish this back end stuff but I know the people that do.

After work I took my bag of empties and went into Audrey’s and couldn’t find Trevor. He special orders my books for me. Apparently he left Audrey’s for other opportunities. I was in shock but I picked up C.S Friedman’s Book 2 of the Magister trilogy. I still have my Fantasy Rich Horton anthology there, nothing else came in for me. I also noticed a huge tick hardcover: George RR Martin’s “Warriors” anthology. I’ll wait until it comes out in Trade. Also, SF Signal released a table of contents Jonathan Strahan’s new anthology “Wings of Fire.” I guess Russell taking over for Trevor will order my books for me. He’s pretty good at doing this. Sigh, it’s the end of an era.

This weekend promises to be a pretty good weekend. I‘m off today as it‘s a paid stat holiday as long as I work tomorrow, which is penciled into my calendar anyway. Tonight the Oiler‘s have a pay-per-view game on TV in Dallas but Saturday night the boys will be playing in Phoenix. They have 6 games left to wrap up a disastrous season that (mercifully) ends Sunday April 11th on the road in Anaheim.

So, we‘re getting ready for bed earlier this morning. It‘s 4am and am I hearing this right? I already had one shocker yesterday and at the and on Coast they were talking about a major format change to a radio call in cooking show. WTF, am I hearing this right? I‘m thinking it has to be an April fools joke. So I went to bed with that. This morning in my Inbox I scanned for the Coast Zone email newsletter I get every morning that recaps the show from the night before. Apparently George said in the last hour of the show, he reminded everyone that it was April 1st. Relief. That was a pretty good April fools joke. I love this show and I’d really feel empty inside if the show was dropped or changed in any significant way.

Over the next several days Coast has some great shows: Tonight they are going to be discussing the return of “V” the TV series from the 1990’s. Saturday Ian has another boring show: Man’s brain vs. Women’s brain. Yeesh. Sunday: The Shroud of Turin. I love stuff like this Monday: Xenothon returns about spirituality 2012 black holes etc. Tuesday: TBA Wednesday: The economy and military hot spots: Thursday: Science and the Cosmos, Friday with Art Bell life on other planets. So Coast is pretty decent this week. Of course when we go to bed we listen to the first hour where we get the news of all things strange, weird and great.

And finally, say, if you need a laugh check out today’s SF Signal. There’s a funny YouTube video “Advice from Aquaman.” Lots of fun. Anyway, that’s about all for now.

I'm having some modem technical support issues with my ISP but I hope to have them ironed out in a few days.

Last night Super moved 3 of us in the back to do taps. I had a slow beginning and very few cans and bottles were up for grabs. I learned the Oiler’s/Kings game was on PPV. Lovely. Their last game at Rexall place of the ‘08-09 season will be Friday night with the Flames and of course I’ll be watching that. Since I had a slow start I got few sales. It was me, D and JT. In the first half I got a CC sale and bout $245 in sales doing CBF. In the 2nd half I got another CC sale and a $100 sale and I closed out with a $75 sale. I love closing on money. Apparently we’re supposed to have some of the people from the DNC list to make sure we’re doing our jobs properly and they will be joined by some of the people from Vancouver. The boss is on a 1 week Easter break and it’s drying up out there. Some bad news though on my way out the office the Oiler’s were losing 2-1 in the 3rd. There could still be a slim chance. I knew LA would do this. I headed out to catch my train with a whole whack of bottles and cans I got during break. I read from my book before the train and on my way home as there were extra cars on the train tonight due to the Oiler game.

When I got home there was still no Internet activity. I called Shaw to find out what’s going on and they pulled my service because of a slower modem. I’ve had this thing since August 1999. There’s nothing wrong with the modem except since then Shaw’s come up with an even “faster” modem. My modem is helping to slow the network down I guess is what they were saying but all I have to do is bring the modem and cables to any Shaw outlet and swap it for a new one at no charge to me. Anne confirmed all of this when she came in from her outing from across the street as I was talking with tech support getting the address for their West End location. Anne said she’ll do it for me Thursday on her day off. I should be back online Thursday night if all goes well.

But we have a Wednesday 6/49 ticket for tonight’s draw and we might win the big draw of $9M! Yeah right I usually like to check the numbers at their online site from my list of links but there’s a machine that checks for winning numbers, the guy scans in.

Hype for the new Star Trek movie “Academy” is revving up its gears for the big release May 8th. From the trailer’s I’ve seen the film looks really good.

Tonight Anne is on the job and tomorrow we get our cheques as usual. They might even come in for tonight, hard to say. But I owe DC $10 from about the first of march to see if the Oiler’s would get into the Playoff’s. I owe him $10. I was in the running. Last week the copper and blue were in 7th place. I’m in for Thursday off Friday and in again on Saturday. So Saturday I’ll go in and get my book

But it looks like my service provider is giving me a bit of grace here. So if I’m offline for a few days, you’ll know why.

Anyway gang, that’s all for now

e. Jim