Pretty good day today

Had the day off from work and so I had arranged to run around with Mr.
Myers who also had the day off. We accomplished a lot of stuff.

Been looking for the Tamagochi (tah mah goh chi) Version 3, but the
local TRU doesn't have them in yet.

Myers wanted to check out the Salvation Army megastore that opened up
recently, but found little there. Then we went over to Belden Village
mall for some blank DVD media - I managed to get 2 more TDK stacks of 4X
+R media at $5 each, and an experimental and similarly rated K
Hypermedia (25 disk stack) at the same rate. They work! My recorder
doesn't like the Aldi brand Tevions I got, DVD-R at 8X, and it has
recorded successfully on 8X disks before.

Got some polyester knit fabric to begin work on some outer lining for my
new pants. I got 3 new pairs of pants / trousers (whatever) at Men's
Wearhouse a couple of weeks ago. Only thing is, even though I have the
major problem of wool fabric pants is the crotch - the fabric rubs
against itself on the outside and subsequently wears out. They at the
store offered "crotch lining", but I was to be charged only $7 not the
usual $10 because my sister was going to hem them up herself. However,
when I got to picking up what I bought, the lady noted they hadn't
charged me the full price and asked if they had called me about that.
No, in fact, they hadn't, so she went right ahead and "corrected" the
oversight, and charged me another $9. I feel deceived over the whole
thing and I'm going to get my $9 back. Anywho, the crotch lining doesn't
protect the fabric on the outside. I don't know why they think this will
help.

Eventually, we get over to Hartville Flea Market. Great place. I think
Trader Woody is getting full of himself a bit. Some prices were way too
high. The 2004 expired Total cereal with Protein should be tossed out.
Somehow he even bought out one "competitor" outside selling stuff. What
this guy has is what some people do - go to one of these distribution
places for grocery stores where they get merchandice returns from
stores. The food products likely have some cosmetic dings or dents, but
the product inside is still good. You buy so many boxes at whatever
price and you end up with whatever is in there. Myers knew one place
called Moonwind Salvage run by an Amish family, but that closed up. They
did this as well, and sometimes you could get a heck of a deal there.
Anyway, I liked Trader Woody's because of the occasional deal on meal
kits. I'm careful to buy the dry stuff that's sealed up. Sometimes we
find this stuff at other flea markets. We check the dates. I never will
buy salad dressing ever again that way. oooh boy, just trust me on that
one.

I also had my V.2 Tamagotchi off pause all day, so I got to see him sing
at 1pm, watch a rabbit push a huge egg around at 2 pm (possibly an
indicator Easter is coming), do the Extreme Close Up at 3 pm, sing some
more at 4 pm. Around 6 pm he was taking a bath, and right now he's
brushing his teeth. Bandai engineers put more thought into the program
for this incarnation of their virtual pet toy. I even discovered I'd
been using the Friends list incorrectly - and found the names of all 6
'go-chis I've connected to so far! Version 3 Tamagotchis are also
wireless, so I wonder what they can do. ^_^

The start of something good I hope

Well, Register Training happened. ^_^

I also managed to impress the heck out of people that first week, and
since I seem to be treated better while I wear the white shirt and tie,
I'm going to wear it more often.

I also was able to run register, Express lane, for 1 hour that night,
the first night of training. I am able to demonstrate a high level of
competence and pleasantness (sic) to people as I ring up their
purchases. In fact, I find that time goes much faster as a cashier than
bagging stuff.

The Kia cost me $265 to do an overhaul of the rear end. Parts for Kia
cars aren't easy to find nor are they cheap. Now I should look into
getting the front end aligned. That's $265 I'll never see again, even if
it was well-spent. I so much want to go to Japan while a friend is over
there for his Japanese-government paid Monbushou fellowship grant, and
possibly visit a few penpals.

tonikaku, register training got me reclassified as a Part Time Cashier.
My hours for working for a raise also start over. (damn), but I should
have had one as a clerk anyway, and I asked about that. But I haven't
been on the cashier schedule yet, and I'm going to ask about that, too.
I want to claim hours as a cashier, dammit.

So many people on the front end are so happy to see me get that
training. A few people have even told me if I need to claim hours from
them, I can. Those are people with less seniority than I, and they know
that. I hope when I work with one or 2 of the coordinators, they'll put
me on register the entire time. I even got to run register for one 8
hour shift a couple of Thursdays ago. I've told people I ran register at
Fisher's Big Wheel years ago, and my performance is proving that in
spades.

Also been helping that one girl with her system, and the last problem I
need to figure out are the sudden restarts for no reason. A friend has
given me a lot to check out, so perhaps I've got some ammunition to
solve it for good.

My middle niece got the 3 dolls for the US release of Ojamajo Doremi
(well, they were a gift from my and my mom, her grandmother) for her
birthday and she's been taking good care of them. I'm glad because when
I am able to give her Japanese anime toys like that, and she really
takes care of them, it makes me feel good because then the giving of the
gift was worth it. It also gives us something to share.

I hope I can find more original Ojamajo Doremi DVDs with English subs.
That english dub is absolutely horrible.

There were some girls in checkout this past week who recognized my Mew
Lettuce pin on my name badge. I tried to fill them in on stuff about
Tokyo Mew Mew, and I changed the pins to having Mint and Ichigo on there
in their Cafe Mew Mew waitress outfits. (I don't have pins of them in
their Mew fighter outfits yet.) And I've been able to connect my
Tamagotchi (tah mah goh chi) Connection to other "Go-chi"s, while also
teaching kids how to say the Japanese name right.

Shopping in anticipation of good things?

Vell, it looks like cashier training may very well happened. It wouldn't
have I guess unless one good friend had intervened.

With the recent lack of cashier quitting or getting fired at the store,
they had to do something to replenish this valuable commodity. Oh yes.
Let's take stock in what's happened so far...

1. Brother of one cashier / coordinator quit in November.

2. Just after the holidays, one mean girl and her troll friend got each
other suspended, with that ending up one fired permanently, the other
returned for 2 weeks before quitting at last.

3. One girl just quit suddenly.

4. One guy who got hired just after the promise for me and one guy for
cashier training got hired, trained, and then abruptly got fired or
something. Only a few weeks out of that one.

5. 2 more girls are leaving, well, actually one completely - the other
will be available nights.

6. 2 other minors - one quit, the other will be out until after soccer
is over.

That's about 8 cashiers they need to replace. How do they replace them?

Why, hire 4 others! Gee, if my friend hadn't been there in the
conversation about those 4 being hired, this crap of a promise might
have gone unfulfilled yet again. So me and one, maybe 2 others, will get
register training this coming week. I have this friend as my "kibosh"
alert. I've kept this plan under wraps, because I don't want someone to
put a kibosh on things, as he's been rumored to do.

Anywho, I wrote that to write this:

My younger sister and I went forth into the world of merchandising and
such to find new clothes for this purported promise of register
training. (I think pretty much it's going to happen, because more than a
few people have mentioned it to me and I've been trying to keep it
quiet.)

We stopped at one store, got 3 shirts. Did some checking at a few other
stores. Right after the shirts, we checked the Goodwill in Alliance. Or
rather one of the Goodwills in Alliance. I don't recall if there's more
than one, but we know where one is. As we went around in there to find
something (and we didn't), I did manage to run into a former co-worker
from that hell hole of a restaurant, namely Long John Silver's, run by
PFC, and managed by those miscreants of mistaken illectual identity, Ron
Risher and Bill Gibson, not to be mistaken for William Gibson, science
fiction author. It appears that 2 years after I left, they cooked up
some story claiming the chain got an 800 number call claiming she swore
at some woman and her child. So she got called in, they read the riot
act, and summarily fired her. She remembers the day this lie refers to,
and told me nothing like that ever happened.

If there was ever a strong case for suing due to Appearance
Discrimination, she's got one. She told me they're trying to get rid of
Rena, but in her case that's about not wanting to pay an older worker
who's been there a while and therefore an expensive employee to keep
paying. Both of these women have a good case of discrimination to sue
over. Appearance Discrimination cases, luckily, are very easy to win.
^_^

Please note, that this sort of crap goes on in non-union shops such as
fast food restaurants all the time. It would frost YUM's gears to
unionize their workers at all their brans (A&W, LJS, Taco Smell, KFC,
and Pizza Butt) and stop this sort of abuse that caused unions to come
into being in the first place. It's a shame that Dan Phallen has to be
the ultimate guy who runs a place like that. I've met him, he's a decent
guy - he wouldn't be in his position if he was a tyrant, and he's not.
But the other people working for him, like Joe Feeney and Ron Risher,
(might as well throw Mr. Gibson in that pile) are assholes and deserve
punishment. I'd fire their collective asses and send them out on same.

Anywho, now that I've gotten past that rant...

My sister and I proceeded up towards Belden Village. Saw a new Salvation
Army store have its grand opening, but clothing salvation was not to be
had there. So... over to Target. And Kohl's. At some point, we even went
in to Joann Fabrics. I bought a zipper repair kit to replace the worn
out slider on my jacket, and it works nicely for the first time since I
bought the thing.

The zipper was from my old "Member's Only" jacket which I had for a long
time. How long? It was the last piece of clothing my grandparents bought
for me prior to 1995. At some point the original zipper wore out, so I
replaced it myself. Then the jacket proceeded to wear out, so I replaced
it, and the new jacket had a crappy vinyl zipper that didn't work at all
like a new zipper should. So I transplanted the metal zipper from the
old jacket, then the slide proceeded to not work anymore. Being as old
as it was, it had worn down and the teeth no longer meshed. Easily
fixed. Now to finish restoring my Lum patch and put her back in a place
of glory. ^.^

tonikaku... We ended up arriving at the Men's Wearhouse (sp) on the
Strip. They had 2 pairs, in my size, for $19.99!! "Sold!" I exclaimed,
to the delight and laught of one of the salespeople. ^_^ I ended up
buying 3 pairs, the 3rd being $39.99. They looked great, fit great. I
thought I had lost a lot more than we measured me for, so I guess I will
have to work harder to be able to afford cheap mass produced clothing
from Tanzania, made for people with insanely shorter legs than I have.

I almost bought a Sima GoDVD unit at Best Buy (a store that amazingly
was completely out of $15 DVD sets of Magic Knight Rayearth Season 1),
but I want a better deal than $99. I know they can be had for $60. I
really need it since I got some old tapes that could use some video
fixing magic, and I don't have a couple thou for a Markertek processing
amp. I wish I had that for my trip to Japan. Dang. I don't think that's
going to happen and nobody cares.

Anywho, we got me fixed up, now to get the Kia fixed up.

ja ne nyo deshi punyoun na no da...