Not according to plan

I had three priorities for the day, and I was only able to devote about thirty minutes to them. None of them got done. I couldn't work late tonight because I had a date. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

Why? Because I had to set up artwork for a billboard. Had it been just text, a logo and a solid colored background, it'd take me thirty minutes. Unfortunately, the client wanted to use a photo in the background, and with his instructions I had to do it in Photoshop. The client told me the specs from the sign makers said it needed to be 1440 dpi. 8' X 4' at 1440 dpi would make the file over 5 gigabytes. Turns out I could get away with 200 dpi, which made it just small enough to fit on a CD. Bad news is it took 45 minutes to save the file each time.

I got it all put together and burned to CD for the client just before he showed up. He took one look at the color printout and said, "Oh, I was afraid of this. I gave you the wrong number." This was 4:30. So, in thirty minutes, I had to change 888 to 800, save the file and burn a new CD. Resetting the type would take too long, so I used the clone tool to sample a 0 from elsewhere in the document, It saved in 15 minutes (thank God) and burned in ten.

However, my date sent me a text message saying dhe had a family thing come up, and wanted to reschedule for tomorrow night. No biggie. I was too stressed out to fully decompress before the date anyway. And I was too burned out to pull overtime. So, I'm at home, alone, and catching up on my TV shows.

The Word

Today, I began my new year's resolution to join the cult of the Franklin planner. It takes a little getting used to, because in order to get in the habit of marking everything down means you have to mark EVERYTHING down. Even daily rituals that don't require a reminder have to get written in the schedule. I'm drawing the line when it comes to smoke breaks and bowel movements, even though I'm pretty sure they ask you to jot those down. It's a lot like being in a life-long meeting and you're required to record the minutes.

This all sounds pretty ridiculous when you walk into work to find a light workload. For me, this means tackling the really big projects that are coming up on us, even though a job ticket has yet to be written for it. This means lighting fires under the asses of my bosses to get me said work order, and dealing with the clients, which in these cases are about a couple dumb questions away from being deemed completely clueless. Can we get a full-color 8-page catalog insert to you by next Tuesday? Yes. Even though you don't know exactly what you want in the catalog? Maybe. And I won't know until the end of the week? Improbable bordering on impossible.

Meanwhile, our other artist got to surf the net all day, doing further personal research into bible scriptures...even though she has two separate kinds of bibles on her desk. One of which is called the Amplified Bible, which begs a smartass like me to scream, "IN THE BEGINNING, GOD CREATED THE HEAVEN AND THE EARTH!!!"

I can't help but respect her level of faith, though. I grew up way to cynical to believe like that. You see, I am the son of an escaped Baptist and a recovering Catholic. Go ahead, try and convert me. I do believe in God. Hey, man could not create something like Double-Stuf Oreos without divine intervention. But I cannot consider myself a Christian.

I believe that Jesus Christ did exist, however I cannot accept the idea of the son of God when the first written record of the man was centuries after his death. I believe he was a great man who wanted to change the way people treated one another, but I cannot buy the miracles when the stories had been passed down for generations before being written down.

But here's my real beef with the Bible:

1. How can it be considered the one true word of God, when there's the Koran, the Torah, the Communist Manifesto, Dianetics...hell, you could turn the Cat in the Hat into a religion if you had enough people put blind faith behind it.

2. I just don't understand how one man can read the Bible and want to live a peaceful and harmonious life with his fellow man, while another man can read the exact same words and say, "See? This is why gays and Jews are evil and must die!"

I think George Carlin said it best, "Religion is like a lift in your shoe. If you need it to walk straight, fine. But don't ask me to wear your shoes if I don't want to, and please don't go nailing lifts to the native's feet."

New Year's Fallout

I got an email from Other Guy today, wherein he apologized for overreacting and explained his side of the situation. I wrote him back telling him I was finding out about all this stuff after the fact, and that had I known, I would've done things a bit differently (though I really couldn't make any promises to that effect). He seemed to offer a no-hard-feelings olive branch, but I have a sneaking suspicion this might just end up being a General Hospital-type cliffhanger towards more drama down the road. However, this will not sway me from my present course.

I'm gonna try to take her out to dinner sometime this week. She and I were probably gonna do something tonight, but she text messaged me letting me know she had to go help out a friend tonight. No biggie, I've got some stuff to tend to at the house.

Currently, I'm freeing up some space on my MP3 player. It's got 15 GB capacity, and I've been running with about 300 MB free space for the good part of the last year. Tonight, I backed up everything I knew I wasn't gonna be listening to anytime in the near future. Over 4 GB of one-hit-wonders, single songs, and stuff I only kept around in case someone complained about what I was playing..."Oh, not a big fan of Coldplay, huh? How about the theme from the Fall Guy over and over again?"

This afternoon, I was suffering from cabin fever, so I went to catch a flick. My buddy Nate came through town on Friday, and he highly recommended Munich, so that was what I went to see. Not exactly the feel-good movie of the season, but it is one of the most powerful films I've seen in years. I've heard about a lot of the controversy surrounding the film, from both sides of the Palestinian/Isreali conflict pissed off that the film portrays their enemies in a sympathetic light. I seriously think they're missing the point. The point of the film is an eye for an eye only makes the whole world go blind. It's a powerful message in these times, where we as a society we are torn over our feelings about the war. The film demonstrates that no matter how justified you think you are in bringing violence towards your enemies, it only brings more violence...that if you cut the head off the monster, a meaner, nastier head will appear in it's place.

One of the film's flaws, and I understand there's no way to fix this without being preachy as hell, but it really offers no solutions, only the consequences for shooting first and asking questions later. Oh, how I wish that in this new year, we can come at least a step closer to figuring it all out and a step away from blowing each other to smithereens.

How to talk to a woman after a fairly bizarre New Year's Eve

There's this girl...a really great girl. It was New Year's Eve at Arnie's. From the time I arrived there last night I was wondering how I would possibly make my move for a kiss at midnight. By the time the countdown started, I still hadn't figured out how I was gonna do this.

Complication #1: I volunteered to help out the bartenders pass out champagne in time for midnight. Handing free booze to a group like this was no easy task. As many times as I reminded these poeple to hold onto their champagne for midnight, I ended up handing out refills to at least 25% of the people in the bar. In the end, I walked around with a full bottle and made sure everyone was topped off. I kept the last of the bottle for myself. This whole task kept me away from the table (and the girl) for over 45 minutes.

Midnight came and went, and the only kiss I got was one on the cheek by a this one guy deep in the I-love-you-man stage of drunk and really needed to shave. In an act of mild desperation, I mentioned to the group at the table how sad it was that that was my only kiss. I got a couple more kisses on the cheek by a couple women at the table. Better, but the one I wanted to get a kiss from the one I really wanted one from.

A little past 12:30 I went for broke. I whispered in this woman's ear that I was gonna step outside for a smoke and asked her if she'd like to join me. She said yes. He he he...

I decided to go with honesty. I told her that I've been wanting to ask her for a midnight kiss all night, and I know the moment had past, but was wondering if I could get a belated one. She blushed and said okay.

The initial kiss was brief, leaving us both to look at each other and say at the same time, "We can do better than that." The next kiss was a little more enthusiastic, but we were both convinced that practice makes perfect. The third kiss was...was...beyond description, and led to two or three more. Um, wow.

We tended to break it up as people came out of the bar and waiting for the coast to be clear to go at it again. We decided to stop when a larger group of people left the bar. Then out came the dude that gave me that kiss on the cheek at midnight. He saw me and this girl together, and we were quick to say we were just talking.

Complication #2: A little side note about this guy...Let's call him Other Guy. I see him all the time at the bar, and in the year or so that I've seen him there, I have yet to see him anything close to sober. The trouble is, apparently, he's had a huge crush on this girl for a while, and according to my friends, she's had a crush on me for a while (Cue melodramatic organ music). He seemed a bit upset, but fortunately, it wasn't because of this little triangle. As far as we knew, he didn't suspect a thing.

The rest of the night played out rather drama-free. I talked to this girl off and on until last call. She was planning to go to an after-party at this other girl's apartment, a girl whom I dated briefly a couple years ago and I had no desire of going over there (I've been in her apartment before, at the very least I was risking a staph infection).

At the end of the night (for me at least), we exchanged numbers and she walked me to my car, where we made out some more. After a while, Other Guy came around the corner and saw us kissing. We tried to play it off, but he knew what was going on. Still drunk off his ass, he went back inside and got his keys (telling the person holding on to them that he was just getting something out of his car), and proceeded to peel out of the parking lot and drive off. I should have stopped him. He was waaaay to drunk to drive.

We said our goodbyes and she said she was gonna go to the after-party and see if Other Guy made it there safe. I told her to call me if there was any trouble, or if she wanted to talk, or...just call me regardless because I really didn't want to stop talking to her.

I got home and Candy had already gone to bed. She came out to talk to me and tell me about how bad her evening was. The guy she has half-way been seeing pretty much blew her off, and she was very upset. I'm talking tears here. When she and I were together, I never saw her in tears...not even during the break-up. I consoled her, saying she can do a lot better, all the while amazed at how weird it is that she and I can talk about things like this and have it NOT be weird.

So, I step outside to call the girl and see if everything was okay. I wound up leaving a message. I stayed up a while and surfed the internet, crashing around 4:30.

The girl was working today, and I had told her I'd stop by for a coffee and see her. I ran into my friend Kelly, who works with her and I asked her to help me find a book called "How to talk to a woman after a fairly bizarre New Year's Eve"...I can't recall the author.

She said the girl's been waiting fo me all afternoon, and had borrowed some hair products to look pretty for me (damn, she knows how to flatter me). She was running inventory in the DVD section and didn't see me looking at the new releases. I approached her and grabbed the closest DVD I could find by her and opened the conversation with "Oooh, the Elvis comeback special!"

We talked for a few minutes, mostly shuffling our feet and blushing. She found Other Guy and he was being a bit of a dick about the situation, telling her that maybe they shouldn't even try to be friends. I'm so not looking forward to the et-tu-brute shit I'm thinking he's gonna try to pull next time he sees me.

We ended the conversation so she could get back to work, but she told me to call her later tonight. She get's off at ten, which means I have three hours and 52 minutes to go. He he he...

Goodbye mustache, hello NyQuil

My boss is growing out his beard. I commented on it today and that led to a discussion of the beard I've been trying to grow/been too damn lazy to shave off. Every year on New Year's Day, I shave off my facial hair...I like to start the year with a clean slate. However, I kinda made up my mind not to do it this year.

I was forced to change my mind on my way home from work, when my cigarette lighter got a little over-zealous and singed half my mustache off. Once home, I got out the trimmers and tried to even it up, but was left with just stubble on my upper lip. So I shaved off the mustache leaving the rest of the beard, which made me look like an Amish hipster. A little edging and pruning, I went with the soul patch/sideburn combo. I can now work at any record store or blend in at any frat party in the country.

Today, I used up all of my Christmas gift cards. Overall, I was practical about it. A pair of jeans, day planner, office supplies...about the only entertainment expense was the new Weezer CD, which kicks all sorts of ass. Every song of theirs reminds me of hearing a really great song during the end credits of a movie and makes me want to sit in the theater until it's over. Man, that was a long way to go for that analogy.

My cold is getting better, but I want to back to 100% by New Year's Eve. That's why I picked up some NyQuil, the nighttime-sniffling-sneezing-how-the-hell-did-I-end-up-on-the-kitchen-floor medicine. It makes a great party drug, as long as the party is only gonna last four minutes. I used up the last of my supply last night, and generally I can't take it more than two nights in a row, otherwise I get the opposite effect. I'm up until dawn, hyper as hell and alphabetizing everything: Movies, books, CDs, pets, etc.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment for a cherry/death flavored cold and flu killing trip.

Christmas, home and history

Overall, Christmas was pretty good for Fritschie this year. Having lived the past few years on next-to-bare necessity, my wants are fairly few and far between. About all I really wanted was CSI: Season Five on DVD, and for the first time in years, my mom actually got the exact one I asked for...The past three years she'd gotten me the most recent two-disc Lord of the Rings, even though I told her I wanted the four-disc special edition (because of which she now stresses the importance of gift reciepts). Holy shit, am I really that much of a geek?

There was something screwy with Christmas dinner. Not in the people sitting around the table (I'm used to them) but I was having stomach problems all night. I'm thinking a side dish was to blame, because I felt fine after a leftover sandwich the next day.

I will soon need to have a nice long talk with my sister-in-law. Every time I speak to her, she tells me of someone she knows who is looking for an art director, and every time I have to tell her I'm not interested. It's the same shit my mom had tried to do for years before she accepted that I don't want to move down there. However, now my sister-in-law's got my nieces trying to lay a heavy guilt trip into me for living so far away from my family.

Is my life in Tulsa perfect? No, but it's my home. My parents moved to from my hometown of Fort Smith to Little Rock while I was in college. My brother and sister-in-law moved into the house we grew up in. They kept me a room, but it just wasn't the same. After they had to give up the house, they moved to Little Rock. So, no place really felt like home anymore. So, I had to make my own, and it just happened to be in Tulsa. Sorry, folks, but I have a steady job, lots of friends and lots of people who depend on me. Plus, if I were to even consider moving, it would be back to Northwest Arkansas where I lived last, where I know more than six people, where I can feel a little more at home.

Months ago, at a charity auction, my stepdad won a silent auction on a guided tour of the Clinton Presidential Library. Monday afternoon was the day that all of us were finally able to go. Even Clinton's most hardened critics would stand in awe of how important Clinton was to history. There's even a display covering the impeachment preceedings. It really spoke volumes (no pun intended) about his legacy as president, warts and all.

All throughout the tour, I couldn't help but to imagine what the Dudya library will look like years from now. I have a feeling it won't have the same progressive feel that the Clinton library does. I'm sure it will cover 9/11, the war in Iraq, and all the other problems Bush has faced...howeve it may just gloss over the bad parts, much like the LBJ library has no mention of Vietnam, or the Nixon library talks about Watergate as if was a mere footnote. If they do happen to show the realities of Bush's decisions, I bet you anything they'd have tour guides ready to usher people on to the next exhibit, or at the very least distract the visitors by coughing loudly or faking a seizure.

Dead animals

Yesterday was the easiest day of work I have ever had. All I did was surf the net and backup our file to CD. My boss got us all Rib Crib for lunch. That, combined with dinner at my grandmother's in Fort Smith, meant that I had five different kinds of meat in one day. I've been paying the price for it today, though. Ugh.

After losing ten bucks in poker, I hit the road again to my parent's house in Little Rock. I got there a little after midnight and stayed up until 2:00 just talking with my mom.

Today has been a lazy day. The only thing I really HAD to do was feed my brother's dogs. The rest of the day has been spent hanging out with the folks. Almost every TV in the house is on at the same time, so if I get tired of CNN in one room, I would move to the next room to watch football, or the Hunting Channel, or Fox News...My theory is that my parents lost all the remotes, so they just set each TV to different channels.

The Hunting Channel is kinda freaking my shit out. Not only is it the same scenario over and over again ("It's frolicking, KILL IT!", but they also try to add the element of humor to it with goofy music as the animal is running around after being shot. The scariest thing to me is that this is in HDTV. Apparently, they got enough complaints that it didn't look real enough, so they started filming it with higher clarity and in 5.1 surround sound.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for outdoor activities, and as a carnivore I do enjoy the fruits (ha ha ha) of the hunter's labor. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that most of these guys keep a list of every animal on the planet as a "to do" list. They're just waitng for the day they can say, "Today, I bagged myself a lemur and a koala bear!"

Too buzzed to think of a proper title

I've been slacking off on the past week or so, by my standards. I started this thing to try and post at least once a day. Given that I haven't posted on my fictional blog in a month and a half, I feel like I need to get back on track...I smell a new year's resolution in the making.

Tonight, I went out with a couple friends for dinner, thne went back to their place to catch the end of CSI. I made it through half of Without a Trace and left for Arnie's. No one I knew showed up, so I sat there alone for a couple hours with a large group of young people at the next table. I had to come to term with my age when I found myself loathing these people simply because not a single one of them could speak a sentence without the words "Oh my God!". I really am getting too cynical for my own age (see last post). I found myself thinking things like "I could get them all to leave right now if I told them there was a sale at American Eagle." or "I bet they're gonna order a round of Car Bombs any second now." When they, in fact, ordered a round of Car Bombs (shot of Bailey's dropped in a pint of Guinness and chugged), I tabbed out and went home.

So now, I'm still fairly buzzed, I still have laundry to do for my trip, and I'm overtired. Good times, noodle salad.

Cynicism: It's what's for dinner

In a true I-wish-I-had-my-camera moment, I just witnessed the most screwed up tactic in military recruitment...ever. It was a recuiting van, with full color graphics from top to bottom of men and women in uniform (nothing out of the ordinary), but with SPINNING RIMS on it! Are new enlistments down that much that they have to impress them with rotating shiny items?!? "Oh, so you don't want to go to Iraq? That's okay...say, did you check out my rims? You like those? Sign on this dotted line, please."

I hear the Catholic church is taking notes, and teaming up with Rockford Fosgate for a "Bass for Jesus" campaign to be launched sometime next year.

I have a client who's driving me nuts. He's in his sixties, he barely has a clue as to what he's doing, and I've seen calculator watches with better memory than he does. Today, he tried to talk me through a stock photo website over the phone. I just about lost it when he asked me, "Do you have to have an account with these people before you can log on to their website?"

Anyway, I'm on my third complete redesign of his project, and I'm anticipating a fourth and a fifth, until I finally tell them that if they come back with another change, I'm gonna kill a kitten. Of course, I'm bluffing. If he happens to call me on it, I'll just threaten to hit him with a fish instead.

I know I'm breaking a cardinal rule of blogging by bitching about my work, but there's little chance of repercussions in this case because this guy not only forgets everything within five minutes, but also has proven to me that he's a real wiz with the internet.

Not what I ordered

Today I stopped by McDonald's for lunch. I was five miles away before I realized that they got my order wrong. The first clue? Going for a drink of Dr. Pepper and getting a swig of vanilla milkshake. Instead of my McChicken sandwich, I got a Double Quarter (Royale) with cheese and an extra cheeseburger. Oh, well...It was an upgrade, so I ate it.

I generally don't try to return drive-thru fast food. Not because I'm prone to settling for whatever crap life deals to me, but because I'm always miles away before I realize I'm screwed. Was a crappy McChicken sandwich really with the gas money to go back and get the order right. Besides, I like to think about the guy that mistakenly got my food. Maybe he drove back and complained about his wrong order. Then the McDonald's employees are left with the burning question: "What the hell happened to his food? No one brought it back...could it still around here somewhere?"