journal

Magnolia Hi-Fi and Me

3
5 years ago
by bangbang023 in

Back when Best Buy changed it’s company design and molded each store around the needs of the surrounding community, I was upset that my store missed the high end home theater mark and was converted to a store aimed at the 18 – 30 year old video gamer who wants all the gizmos and gadgets he can get. As a home theater salesman, I would have much rather preferred to see Magnolia Hi-Fi brought into my store so I could possibly work with some nice high end equipment. Maybe I should have just waited.

News came around today that, come August, my store will be getting a small sized Magnolia Hi-Fi added into it. The people who work the section would start off at $15 an hour (as opposed to my $9.65/hour now) and would ditch the Best Buy polo and kakis for normal dress attire, up to and including a suit. Needless to say, I’m excited about this. With my reputation of knowing “everything” (it just seems that way, I don’t), many people seem to think I’m going to have a very easy time getting the promotion into the Magnolia section once it’s up. I hate to get my hopes up too high, but I really do pray I get one of the spots. It would make my job so much more enjoyable. First, I wouldn’t have to sell crappy Insignia products. Second, the people who shop for what Magnolia carries are the people who want to spend money. I won’t have to deal with people trying to get out of paying tax on a $40 Cyberhome DVD player, anymore. I’ll get to sell to people who have money, want to burn it quickly, and want the best out there. In simple terms, I’ll go from selling Kia’s to selling Mercedes. Now, THAT’s a job worth being proud of.

I hope I get that job. I know I need more hours and I know full time at Best Buy is something I should look at, but I just couldn’t deal with it where I am right now. I’m a guy who appreciates and loves the technology and I hate working with people who know less than me and selling to people who don’t give a shit about what they buy. I want to be put into an environment where I have to play catch up. I want to be challenged. Magnolia would give me that.

So, between cursing me out and wishing I get eaten by an abnormally large salamander (I really hope no one seriously wishes that on me), maybe just say a small prayer for me. It’s a few months away, but it could be something to really get me rolling again.

Year After The Year of Music

2
5 years ago
by bangbang023 in

Last year (2005) was an amazing year in music, for a guy like me. System of a Down, Korn, Limp Bizkit, Staind, Seether, Fort Minor, and Smile Empty Soul all released albums. This year? Right now, the only albums set in stone are Godsmack, Linkin Park, and Metallica. It’s such a drastic change and kind of puts a damper on things. Last year, I always had an album just over the horizon to look forward to. It’s completely the opposite this year and, honestly, it sucks.

So, why is this hapening? I guess a lot of it lies in the fact that general rock has shifted from agression and anger and hard hitting music to the more pop sounds of bands like Yellowcard and Fall Out Boy. While these groups have their place, it’s just not for me. I want to hear Johnathan Davis screaming when I’m angry and Aaron Lewis singing a ballad when I’m sad. I don’t want to “Dance, Dance” or take in the “Lights and Sounds”. I prefer my music to be pure emotion.

Alas, I wait. This year, I’m most anxious about Godsmack’s album as they are always good. Linkin Park is cool and all, but I don’t get overly excited about them like other people do. Metallica is cool, too, but nothing amazing. So, Godsmack, I await. The single “Speak” is great so I’m hoping the rest of the album follows suit.

Motivation, My Son

2
5 years ago
by bangbang023 in

Life has been so unfulfilling lately. I’m not sure how I got into this funk, but I hate it. I want to do things, but I just can’t get my ass to do them. It drives me insane as I sit here or there or somewhere and try to convince myself to get up and go.

Oddly enough, I don’t think work is the root of my problems. It’s been okay there. My hours are slowly (and I mean slowly) starting to get back within “acceptable for now” range and the holday madness is fully over with. The slower pace of things really helps me focus more and sell better. The past few months, I would spend most of my day being baraged by questions from everyone, customer and employee alike. Eventually, that really wears down on a guy. You can’t get a chance to focus on one thought long enough to know what it actually is. This slower pace is definitely refreshing, in that regard.

However, work still doesn’t fill that emptiness. Sports isn’t doing it either. My basketball game is as bad as ever and I’m completely unmotivated to fully test out my ankle and actually play a few games.

Then we get the nonstop mass confusion stemming from Maria’s little corner of my world. Does she still like me? Did she ever like me? Why can’t I get her to stop being so cold (this is coming from me, ironically)? One minute we’re as close as can be and the next we go a 1 – 2 weeks without talking at all. That doesn’t really do much to inspire or motivate a guy. I’ve taken a lot of risks to make things work with her and it would suck to see it all fall apart now. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

Really, the thing I want to do most, is go biking. I need to order a new bike and then probably build it myself (since it’s cheaper buying online), but then I’m making it something I do at least once a week. Not only will it help out my horribly dyfunctional legs, it’ll give me time to thing and burn some excess energy. Strangely enough, I think biking could really help me get back on track and get my life moving again. It sounds weird, I know, but it definitely helps to be in better shape and more in tune with yourself again.

I’m sure my parents are freaking and I’m sure some people think I’m a loser for being so slow to launch, but so be it. I’ll get this right, I promise.

My Neck Hurts

2
5 years ago
by bangbang023 in

I have been putting off writing a journal entry for a while, but I know the world is waiting for one and I’m not one to disappoint.

As the title suggests, my neck is causing me a bit of pain for the past two days. Thankfully, it’s a pain that’s derived from a good experience. Some crazy kama sutra position? No, but from the next best thing: Head banging like a maniac at the Korn concert this past Tuesday. I still haven’t figured out how I hurt myself more when I’m in a seated section instead of on the floor, but such is life. Let’s talk about the show, though.

10 Years opened and they were decent, at best. I actually wound up deleting them from my Winamp playlist when I got home because it all seems a bit forced and uncomfortable for them. The lead singer sings and writes like he wants to be the next Incubus, while the band looks like they’d be more comfortable with a burning cross above their heads. It’s just blended so poorly. I couldn’t help but be disappointed.

Mudvayne was next. I don’t know what people see in them, but damn they suck. I’m all for some screaming and grunting, but when every song sounds exactly the same and none of it is understandable, you no longer interest me. This time was spent eaves dropping on the couple next to me and discussing, with Joe, the fact that the couple next to him was ready to do it right there in the arena. Nothing like rabid screaming to turn a girl on. I could only imagine how wild she’d get if she heard a moose in heat.

Finally, Korn hit the stage. Now it was my time to explode and I did. I screamed and headbanged for almost the entire performance. They had a really great set. They even played my favorite Korn song, “Dirty”. The way they transitioned to it was amazing, too. Munkey had a good 3 or 4 minutes alone on the stage playing a solo and then Davis came back out in his trenchcoat and they went into the song. I honestly don’t think many people recognized it, but I went nuts for it. Later on in the set, Davis solo’d for “Tearjerker”. The song is beautiful, but I was a bit disappointed in the crowd. Only a few people had their lighters or cell phones up. Overall, though, the set was amazing and I had one of the best times in a long while. My neck is sore, but I felt so alive that night. I wish I could feel like that more often.

Red tooth? Green tooth? Bluetooth

1
5 years ago
by bangbang023 in

Yes, the title is as gay as can be. It loves other titles of the same gender.

So, I finally gave in and bought myself a bluetooth headset. I bought the Motorola HS850 using my discount at Best Buy. I made this decision yesterday after spending over an hour straight on the phone with Maria. Besides the fact that I couldn’t get much done while holding a phone, I also have this obsessive concern of catching brain cancer from my damn cell. This headset solves both problems nicely. Brief review? Sound quality is pretty good and the design is very sleek looking. The ability to shut off the headset by closing the boom and then quickly re-enable it by opening the boom again is an excellent feature. The only downside is the loose fit it has on my ear. This has been a common complaint, so I half expected it.

Speaking of Maria, things seems to be picking up speed again and I’m, obviousy, happy about that. I’m not sure if it’s legit or just jealousy over things between me and Alyssa, but I have time to figure that out. I’m just going to enjoy it, for now.

Straying off topic a bit, I’ve been playing basketball a little more often again and I’m starting to slowly get out of this funk I’ve been in. My turn around jumper is better than it’s been in a long time and helps compensate for my apparent inability to hit any easy wide open shots. I just have to keep playing and I know I’ll get there. I’m confident my play can be better than it ever has been if I can just dedicate enough time to it.

Along with a basketball funk, I’ve been in a bad rut with my writing. I got a few songs out, but my rhyming flow is shot to hell. I had something tonight, but after 16 lines, I hit a wall. It’s a shame because the first 16 lines were pretty good, too. I just have to be patient, I guess. It’s been a lot harder to write since I’ve become so complacent. Feeling like shit has always been a good inspiration and there are times I wish something horrible would happen so that I could get a few pieces out, you know?

Anyone else excited about the warmer weather due to hit us all weekend long? Have any plans?

What does it take?

3
5 years ago
by bangbang023 in

This week, at work, I only had 12.5 hours. Next week, I have a total of 5.5 hours. Yes, 5 and a half hours for the entire damn week. I’m not the only one having my hours cut, either. Antonio has 1 hour and someone else (I can’t remember who) has 3.25 hours. Apparently, Best Buy plans on making money simply by not spending it anymore because they sure as hell aren’t planning on selling much without people there to sell it.

This has always been a battle at work. Best Buy is notoriously stingy with hours and it’s only getting worse. I don’t understand it and many people are shocked that they would cut the hours of me, of all people. Now rarely do I gloat or talk about myself in a positive light, but I’m one of the most knowledgeable people in the entire store, not just my department. If there’s a question, I either have the answer or know how to find out quickly. For all of the little pricks who work in the company and lie to the customers, I work just as hard to set thigns straight and be as brutally honest with each customer. I have enough answers and enough reputation to have people from other departments send their customers to me for help. Yep, I’ve helped sell cordless phones, mp3 players, air conditioners, computer accessories and some basic car audio product. All that said, I still have 5 hours next week.

My old senior, Bill, is now working in appliances and keeps asking me to come with him. He’s always liked me and even jokes that he’d ask my advice no matter what the hell he was buying. I talked to him today about possibly coming over there if my hours remain this pathetically low and, it turns out, there may be a position opening up soon. I really don’t want to work in appliances, but I know I need the money and I really don’t want my parents on my back for something I can’t really control. If the next schedule isn’t better, I think I’ll let my home theater manager know that he’s going to lose me unless he steps in and fixes the issue. I’ve been there too long and have done too much to deserve this. I’m not being conceited, I’m simply being honest this time.

What do you guys think? Tough it out and stay in the department I love or suck it up, deal with the agony and head over to appliances?

Price of Publicity

2
5 years ago
by bangbang023 in

So, I want to write, yet I don’t have a flow. I guess that means you people are going to be stuck reading a journal entry.

Let’s get all the usual stuff out of the way, first. Yesterday, I became extremely ill. In a 4 hour time period, starting at 1:30am, I vomitted 10 times. It was like a slot machine that just keeps giving you quarters. One quarter went in and about 6 million came out, each time. That is, until my body ran out of quarters, then I simply had the lovely pleasure of dry heaving. I was bed ridden almost all day until about 8pm, or so, when I finally decided to deal with the swirling world and get up. All this, mind you, was accompanied by extreme back pain and the return of my good old friend, the back spasm. The back pain is still lingering about today.

In between losing my stomach and twitching/screaming in pain, I had some time to think (TV made me dizzy, so I was forced to think). This site is kind of funny, in a way. When I first started, I was pretty blunt with what I said and who I said it about. No one read it and no one seemed to care. Times change, though, and the site gets a decent amount of people stopping by now. The problem is, those very people are the ones I wish to talk about sometimes. Who pissed me off? Who did something incredibly stupid? All things I need to vent at one point or another, but I can’t. People get upset and complain and complain and then complain some more. So what does that leave me? I have to use my poems and lyrics to disguise who I’m talking about while still getting it out. Hell, most people don’t realize a poem is about them until I explicitly tell them it is. The thing is, it’s not as satisfying. That, or I’m just not creative enough. How do I write about someones minute abnormaility? Sure, it’s easy to pick out a huge flaw and go on and on about it, but the small ones never give enough body. Say, for instance, you’re trying to speak and someone just randomly bursts into song? How do you write about that for more than a few lines? You can’t or, at least, I can’t. I want people to stop by and hear what I have to say, yet I don’t want them to all the time. That’s a bit retarded on my part. Go figure.

Oops, I did it again. It doesn’t rhyme this time, though.

Emo? Maybe before.

5
6 years ago
by bangbang023 in

Recently, I’ve heard a lot of people mention how poetry writing and such is something only “emo” people do. It’s really stuck in my head and I started wondering if I was also emo. Looking back at my old pieces, maybe I was, to some degree. To be fair, though, it was real depression and the Zoloft only seemed to worsen things at times. Once I got off the pill, things actually started to improve simply because I was able to get a better grasp on life again.

My late teens was spent, most of the time, feeling really depressed and alone. Once I started writing, I wrote a lot of dark pieces in which I discussed no longer wanting to live and all of that happy material. It was repetitive, but it was honest. I felt like crap. What else should I have written? If I wrote something else, I would have been called “fake”. By being honest, I earned an “emo” label, instead. Catch 22 it seems.

My writing has, undoubtedly, changed over the past year, year and a half. I fought through my depression and moved on to other, larger things. Anger is one of the subjects that I continue to write about. Feeling completely pissed off and wanting to smash your fist through the wall is such a powerfu and pure feeling. While depression often leaves you with nothing, or a scattered collection of too many things, anger helps focus the mind. Considering the stage I’m at in life, most of my pieces now get into the anger somehow. Sure, I have a few poems, here and there, that go into relationships with other people in my life, however, my anger is the demon I always come back to. It was a long battle through my depression and I’m insistent on making it through my anger, also.

So, what does this make? Am I emo because I write about feelings and not things? Maybe, but if that’s the label I have to accept in order to be able to do what I love, then so be it. My writing has been a crutch, a friend, a shield and a helping hand. It’s my passion and my joy. Perhaps I’m terrible at it, perhaps I’m not. Nonetheless, I love it. Call me emo, call me ghetto, call me a wigga, call me whatever you want. I’m okay with it now.

I Need a Thing

1
6 years ago
by bangbang023 in

What’s up my loyal bitches? I’ve bene putting off writing this journal entry all weekend long, so I figure it was best to get it in with an hour left in the weekend lol.

Things have been a little chaotic lately in the sense that my brain is completely scattered. Work, basketball, CCD, Neowin, The Elders (Day of Defeat: Source clan I’m in), Maria and everything else just makes me feel like I have a severe case of A.D.H.D. Right now, for instance, I’m fidgety and bored, but thinking of a thousand and one things at once. My thoughts are sort of like the basketball team I coach when they’re on the court: running around with no sense of direction or purpose. It’s almost as though I want to scream at myself, “Chris, shut the fuck up!”.

Work has been retarded lately. My hours keep getting cut back. I only have 13 hours this week. Then, when I’m there, I’m bombarded with customers who get dumber and dumber. Example of a conversation:

Me: Hi, welcome to Best Buy, can I help you?
Customer: No, it’s okay.
Me: Okay. If you have any questions though, let me know.
Customer: Actually, yeah, I need a wire.
Me: Sure. Do you know what wire you need?
Customer: No, I don’t have a clue.
Me: Hmmm, well, what are you trying to connect.
Customer: My TV.
Me: What are you trying to connect to your TV?
Customer: To get a picture.
Me: What? What device are you trying to get a picture from?
Customer: Don’t ask me *chuckle* I don’t have a clue about this stuff.

Seriously, I get customers like that way more frequently than you think. Or I get the customers who insist something exists when it doesn’t. Like a composite video to coaxial wire. I show them the RF modulator box we have, but they insist it has to be a single wire. Even after I explain that such a wire doesn’t exist in direct conversion form and that the small modulator will do just that, they still insist on leaving without buying anything. Gah! I just don’t understand how anyone could go shopping with no basic knowledge of what they are looking for. Anytime I go out to buy a product I don’t know much about, I do my research to make it easier for me and anyone who may wind up assisting me. Why doesn’t everyone else do this, too? It’s fucking common sense.

To get a better sense of how I feel, read shockz blog entry from Neowin. Same frustration, different product.

Joe and I have been playing basketball a little more lately. It feels good. We actually played a game from 11:30 – 12:30 Friday night, at the park. It felt good. The park was empty. The lighting was good enough. It was a fun experience. It’s also a great stress reliever and, obviously, a good enough work out.

I don’t know what else to say, so I’ll leave you with two prolific quotes from “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle”:

Harold: Did Doogie Howser just steal my fucking car?
Kumar: So, she’s kind of fucking cute. Let her touch your penis. (my personal favorite)

Where’d It Go?

1
6 years ago
by bangbang023 in

You know what I miss in my life? Passion. Even as short as 2 years ago, I was passionate about things and had a determination to find something in my life to make me happy, regardless if it was accepted by others or not. Now, well, not so much. It’s the same hum drum routine day after day. There’s no driving motivation, no passion and vigor. I really miss the youthful ideals that used to fuel my life.

Coaching is getting less and less fun. These kids have no ability to listen and work together. It’s always the same thing over and over: Fancy pass, overly fancy shot, other team gets the ball, break away, and we go down another 2 points. No matter what I do, I can’t drive it through their thick skulls that they need to change the way they play the game. It also doesn’t help only having one real guard, but that’s something I could work around if the others did what I asked of them. I don’t want to give up, I try not to, but it’s hard when I seem to be the only one that cares.

I’m not sure what I’m doing, anymore, in terms of going full time at Best Buy. While it can be an okay job, I’m not sure I’m going to find happiness (or a decent income) working there. While I’m sure this will piss everyone off, I don’t care anymore. I have to stop worrying about what other people think and really figure out what I want in life. I’ve actually had a few crazy ideas that sound lame and unaspiring, but they seem to work in my head. Mail man? Hey, you work alone and can bring your headphones with you. Cop? Great benefits, though it is a bit dangerous. In the end, though, I really think having my own business would be best for me. I don’t care what it would involve, as long as it meant me working for me, proving to everyone that I can do it.

That brings me to my next point…….Shut the hell up about college. Yes, I dropped out. I know, thanks for reminding me. I also know that it’s a decision that will make my life a bit more difficult, but it’s one I have chosen to live with. When I look at my life, I don’t see happiness in a class room and, even if I did, I couldn’t afford it anyway, so leave it be.

I wish I knew what the hell was going on with me and Maria. It’s no secret that I like her and I’ve been trying to get time with her, but things always seem to backfire on me. Maybe it’s a hint to give up, but I guess I’m choosing to be stubborn. I’m sure most of you would prefer me not to be so stubborn in this case, but, I have to do what I feel is right.

All this crap has really hurting my writing. I need that previously mentioned passion to really get out some good works and it’s simply not happening. Sometimes, it feels like I’m writing simply for the sake of having something to post here. That’s a terrible feeling.

This has been another bitchy journal entry, huh? I apologize guys and girls. With confusion at work, stress in my writing, more stress from Maria, and every thing else, it’s gotten a little gloomy around here, lately.

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