So, I just went through my archives, and two things happened.

1. I was generally impressed by what I found there

2. I was disturbed by the number of posts that begin with "So,..."

So, had another drug test at work the other day. That makes two in seven months. I'm seeing some kind of trend here: Store Director leaves (the first for incompetence, the second for screwing the Bakery Manager (rumor, tho widely repeated)), Area Supervisor holds an Emergency Store Meeting, we meet the new Boss Man, pizza is served, then we are all asked to share a few ounces of our urine with the nice man from Occupational Health Services.

It's the last part that gets me.

Now, I have smoked pot, as have large portions of this country, though never regularly and not in several years, so passing the test was not an issue for me, but it still bothered me that they wanted to screen my urine.

{I would like to take the time to mention that pot is fun and enjoyable [if it wasn't, would people smoke it?] and if given the opportunity, I would probably do it again.}

A couple of reasons:
The first is a trust thing. There has to exist a certain amount of trust between employer and employee. I have to trust that my employer will give me the hours I need with respect to my class schedule, will pay a more or less (emphasis on less) fair wage, not intentionally endanger my life, etc.

The Employer should trust that I will execute my duties (more or less) faithfully, show up for work ready to work, not (wantonly) steal from the store, respect the rules and policies in effect, etc.

I have worked there for, as I said, seven months, and have, so I thought, proven myself to be a willing, capable, and trustworthy employee. I have never given them any reason to doubt my sobriety on the job, unlike one or two employees I can think of. So when it comes time to see which peons are tweaking after work, they should say to themselves, "He is a trustworthy employee. We do not need to test him." But they don't. I'm equally suspect as anyone else, which is annoying. What is the point of trying to be a mostly scrupulous person if no one ever believes you?

My soul mate says it not about trust, that it's about all the other people who came before and have ruined for me. But that's exactly about trust. It's not that they are unable to trust me, they are unwilling to.

I don't like not being trusted, especially when I feel I've gone out of my way to be worthy of trust.

The second reason is for broader, political reasons. Some of you may find it strange that I take the time to connect a simple piss test that I'm in no danger, whatsoever, of failing, with national policy, but this is a way that larger issues manifest themselves directly in our lives (or mine at least).

Certain drugs are illegal, others are not, and I find the distinctions arbitrary.

Pot is illegal. Tobacco is not.
Pot is, insofar as I know, not chemically addictive.
Nicotine in tobacco is. I have never heard of any one getting emphysema from pot, though I suppose it's possible with heavy use. Cigarettes kill something like one in three people who use them. See what I mean by arbitrary?

Another fun fact: of all the varied and sundry substances you can become addicted to, alcohol is the only one that can kill you with withdrawal symptoms. That's right, the delirium tremens (DTs) are the only commonly fatal withdrawal out there. Many withdrawals, heroin and cocaine notably, may make you wish you were dead, but only alcohol can kill you if you're an alcoholic and try to quit. And alcohol is the legal drug.

My point to this is, there seems to be no logical reason why some things are illegal, and other are not.

Let's suppose, for a moment, that I'm a HUGE pot-head. Let's say I have trouble paying the bills and am failing my classes for all the time and money I spend on pot. Or Cocaine, or heroin, or meth or pick your drug. Has that effected the company in any way? No. I'm still a reliable person, who keeps his habits at home, and does his job well. Why should they care if I get high after work? I really don't think it any of their business, so long as my personal activities do not interfere with my ability to do my job.

I am not the world's best employee. I slack off like most people, cut corners when I'm feeling lazy and think I can get away with it, and sometimes simply sit behind the register and stare for a while, so don't think I'm coming from some kind of holier than thou stance, but I see a lot of inherent contradictions in this policy.

For example, almost every time I show up for work and one of the Smokers is working, as soon as my till is ready to go, they go outside have a smoke. Often for ten minutes or more. They're outside puffing away, and stuck inside with the customers. I don't mind when there's nothing going on, but frequently, I have a line of three or four people and my coworker is nowhere to be found. As an estimate, I would say that the smoking population at my store loses one-half hour per person per shift due to smoking. Assuming five shifts a week, that's two and a half hours a week per person! Assuming that they make at least as much as I, the math works to approximately $217.50 a month that the company is paying to have people smoke.

And the company is worried that I may be smoking pot.

Testing.....

So, occasionally, blogger dumps my post in to the ethernet (that strange, misty realm of lost data packets). I find this frustrating, as I rarely remember what I was posting about a few minutes ago, let alone a few days ago. I can't complain though; It's not as if I have a lot riding on this little blog. Most recently, it tossed out some thoughts I had on blogs suddenly becoming hot shit, and everyone, including politicians, seem to be getting one these days. Ah well.
I'm stopping now to make sure it'll post before I waste too much time....

So, I don't want to sound like I'm some kind of technological elite, like I'm in on the ground floor of all the latest and greatest that's online, but I do want to point out that I have had this little blog nearly a year now. I point to this only because, suddenly, blogging is hot shit. It seems like everybody has a blog, and everybody who doesn't is in line. I read an article the other day in what passes for a local paper around here that blogging is becoming the tool of choice for businessmen and politicians to reach out to their customers/consituants in a more informal, personal way. Also, not ten minutes ago, someone was cited in another article as a "columnist/blogger." Does this mean that I can put "student/blogger" as my occupation in job applications? You see, the reason I think blogs are popular, is that they *are* (Damn my utter lack of HTML skills. I would love to be able to italicize words). informal and personal. If someone had a blog, you could read it, learn a lot about how they are as a person, in a fairly raw way. I fear now that busisnesswomen and (especially) politicians are in on the act, that will disappear, or at least diminish. Politicians, by and large, don't even write their own speeches; why should we believe that they will bother to publish their own blog.

(An aside to talk about speech writers: I find it disturbing that our most powerful civil servants will read something, on a live feed to the entire planet, that they didn't think up themselves. Consider it for a moment. Whenever Bush hold a press conference, or makes a statement, chances are good that he didn't come up with the words he's speaking himself. He becomes, almost literally, a puppet for his speech writers to play with.)

I don't mean to imply that my little pile of electronic logorrhea is somehow purer than anyone else's. Certainly, a businesspersons/politico's blog will probably kick my blog's ass in terms of purpose and coherence..... Sorry, my wife came home and I forgot where I was going with that thought.

Anyway, that's about it for now. One final note, I just ran the news spell checker her at Blogger.com, and it dosent' know the words 'blog' or 'blogger.' Go figure.

Wow. Seven months between posts. If this little blog was something more than the self-flagellation it is, I'd be worried. I simply enjoy wirting about whatever come to mind, and this method provides for the possiblity that someineelse will read it, and maybe enjoy it. How my little ramblings could be enjoyed by anyone outside my circle of friends is beyond me, but that's the writers paradox: firmly believing that all your work is complete shit, but still hoping that a few out there will like it. Anyway, enough self-pity.

So, I have DSL now, which is awesome. Too bad it comes at a time when downloading music is becoming dicey. I think I'll take a moment to talk about the recent RIAA lawsuits. First of all, it boils down to people being punished for breaking the law, or in many cases, parents being punished for not more closely monitoring their childrens online activities. That being said, I still can't shake the feeling that this is a massive, powerful corporation shitting on the little guy. These are my thoughts:

1. It won't work. Personally, the RIAA lawsuits have caused me to consider my online activities, it hasn't stopped them. Nor has it stopped any of my friends- I'm looking at you Darkwater, Oracle and Tsurai- and with an estimated 6 million people sharing music I doubt a significant number have stopped. It boils down to the almighty dollar. the suits will continue until a) it becomes cost-prohibitive to contine or b) someone comes up with a solid plan for making money with online music. There are a few sites out there, such as the Apple Music Store, that have worked deals the labes to sell mp3s. I sincerely hope they're successfull. In the case of Apple, 99 cents a song might be a little steep, but $9.99 an album is very nice indeed.

2. The copyright laws are outdated an ineffective. The core of our country's copyright code is more than 200 years old. It started with books and newspapers, and as new mediums emerged (phonograph, movies, tv, etc) they simply expanded the language to include these new forms. They did that with CDs and their digital counterpart, mp3s. I don't think this will work. With the internet growing, espically broadband, by leaps and bounds, we need an new way, a new paradigm for dealing with electronic intellectual property. To be completly honest, I have no suggestions for a new standard, but I can't help but think that old laws and thinking will become less and less applicable as time goes on.

3. They're suing their fans. Don't forget that fact. People download songs because they like the music. The vast majority share files because they're music lovers; very few do it to spite the RIAA and almost no one makes any money for themselves. KaZaa, LimeWire and most of the others are freeware, the developers certainly don't make much money off their work. The key word, for me, in file sharing is 'sharing.' Not selling. Maybe I'm suscribing to a false digital ethic, but I see a difference between people who share the new Hot Hot Heat single and people who sell bootleg DVDs of the Matrix:Reloaded.

Well, I think that's it for now. BTW, the phone line is working and we have a new manager who is much more responsive and competent than the old one. ;)

It's been a while, and I'm sorry, but my life has been non stop for the last month or so. Wake, Class, Work, Home, Sleep, Repeat has been my entire existence for too long. I'm feeling, very acutely now, some of the more sublime aspects of Marx's theories of worker alienation

I finally did get the apartment, I'm writing this offline so I can't check to see if I've mentioned this or nor not, and it's been nothing but trouble since. First off, my own management company towed my van. You see, no one bothered to mention that there was assigned parking and someone was upset that I was in their spot. Once I explained this to the manager, she was remarkably indifferent to the whole affair. I had to go over her head to get the towing fee refunded.

Next, I tried to get my phone hooked up. I called Qwest out to set it up. They left me a note saying the box is locked up and I would need to set up a time with the management to have it unlocked. Something else they forgot to tell me. I get that hooked up, Qwest says there's a dial tone at the box, and that all the wiring after that is my problem. There's no dial tone actually in the apartment (another reason I haven't updated), so I call Qwest to set up an appointment, and they say that my management company should take care of it. I call them, from a pay phone, and she says, "I'll look into it," which is Parklane Co. code for "Fuck off and quit bothering me." I say screw it, I'll bite the bullet and just pay to have Qwest fix things. I'm on the phone with the repair people, after entering my semi-nonexistant phone number twice and listening to three separate canned ads for Qwest long distance, "Now available in Idaho with very attractive rates!" and I ask the guy how much it might cost. "Err, depends... it's uh a $25 house call fee, $35 service fee, $25 for the first half hour and $20 and hour after that."

!!!!!!!!

Eighty five dollars! Minimum! And that's assuming they fix it in a half hour. I said no, thank you, and invited my father, who has quite a bit of electrical experience though mot much with phones in particular, out to have a look.

We poked around in my apartment, then poked around in the creepy-in-a-horror-movie-caliber-kind-of-way basement. We never did find my phone line, but we did find a disused meth lab in a cardboard box tucked away in one corner, which was nice. I called the cops.

So here it is, February (when spelling "February" in you head, how many of you say to yourself "Fe-bru-ary?") and I still have no phone. To top it all off, I just got a $60 bill from Qwest for a line I'm never going to use. Tomorrow, I call to cancel it. By the way, if any Qwest people are reading this, you guys are at the very bottom of a long list of people I owe money to. If you see a check from me this year, consider yourself lucky.

Next I try to move in a friend. She is planning to try to attach herself to my lease, but her parents are kicking her to the curb and needs a place to stay. No problem, she can stay with me, get on the lease and we're golden. Even if she doesn't get on the lease, I can have a guest for thirty days, according to my lease, just please let us know. So I call to mention this, out of courtesy. The guy on the phone says, "You've got seven days."

"The lease I signed says 30."

"Well, yes, but because it's section 42 housing [Partially subsidized. Like section 8 lite.] you're subject to state housing laws, and state housing laws say seven days."

THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU HAVE ME SIGN A PIECE OF PAPER THAT SAYS 30!!!! (Note: That's what was in my head, I didn't exactly put it that way. Also, it's something else they forgot to tell me.)

"Well, we don't go into all the section 42 detail on the lease. The lease would be three hundred pages long if we did."

I'm thinking they could have had a paragraph stating that the terms of this lease may superseded by state law, see you manager for details, or maybe included some of the more salient points, like occupancy rules, or at the very minimum excluded things that are directly contrary to they way they actually are. I realized at this point there is no arguing with this man, or indeed this company, so I just mention that the key I was given does not fit the back door. I wrote this on my move in form and was told it would be re-keyed.

"If it can be re-keyed."

"What?"

"Some of the doors are very old and not all of them can be re-keyed. [Something else they didn't tell me.] I'll make a note of it and look into it." This, of course, being Parklane Co. code for, "Fuck off, motherfucker, and quit bothering me."

Other than that, there's been a lack of things on my mind. Mostly a lack of money and a lack of food, as one follows the other. I had a small episode of fiscal mismanagement. A few unexpected expenses, missing a few days of work, and not keeping right on top of balancing my checkbook contributed to a financial climate that might be described as "tense." I truly thought I was screwed, big time. The budget I had worked out has, as yet, failed to gel, and my outgo exceeded my income by a fair margin. I tried to get a line of credit at the bank, but was denied. I refuse to go to any sort of payday or title loan place; I've had far too many friends and acquaintances get in over their heads with those things. I see those places as just hairs above loansharking. My father just got laid off, so the First National Bank of Dad is not lending right now, either.

I was at an absolute loss of what to do, when I came home and saw my salvation lying in a pile of mail I'd dumped on the table weeks ago: my taxes. Lets ignore, for a moment, that the federal tax withholding system may, in fact, be unconstitutional, or at the very least dishonest, and just be happy that I'm getting about $367 back in a few days.

Before I go on, a couple of points about taxes.

1. It is NOT a refund. The check you receive from the federal and/or state governments is money that they took out of your paycheck that you did not owe them. You have, in a very literal way, provided the government with a short term, no interest loan out your own pocket. If they had not taken that money from you, you may have been able to buy something with it, or at least stuck it in a savings account and gotten a little interest on it. Next year, try asking the feds for $367, interest free for one year, and see what kind of response you get.

What's more, unless you point out to them that you do not owe them this money, they will not give it back. As analogy: I take $367 out of you bank account. You say, "Hey, that's mine! Give it back!" I say, "Prove to me that you don't owe me this money."

2. I encourage everyone who's tax situation moves even a little beyond 1040EZ filing to look into TurboTax, by Intuit Software. It's a fabulous program, and available everywhere, even for Macs. It'll run you $20 to $50, but it's updated every year with all the new tax info, will roll over your old tax stuff automatically when you use it for a second time, checks the returns for errors, supports electronically downloading W2s, looks for deductions and credits you haven't even heard of but qualify for, uploading financial information from Quicken (also by Intuit, also highly recommended), electronically filing your taxes, and they have versions for all fifty states. You can even have your return direct deposited to your account. As my father put it: "You could be drunk and half stoned and still come out with a decent return.

3. Every college student should know about the Hope Credit and the Lifetime Learning Credit, two new tax breaks this year for higher education. Under the right circumstances, it could mean a $1,000 credit on your takes.

Back to the main point of things.

Who would have ever guessed that my personal financial savior would be the IRS? Weird. So they money is winging is electronic way to my checking account, but may not be here for several more days, but there are bills due last week. In the interim, I'm going to go to the First National Bank of Grandpa, the parent company of FNBoD, to get a short term loan.

I really don't want to do this.

Asking for money for money from family members is always embarrassing, but for some reason, the idea of going to my grandparents is doubly so. Hopefully though, I will only need there money for a week or two before I'm able to pay them back.

Even better, by this time next week, I should be able to buy groceries! Now, I'm not facing malnutrition, I have my parents to thank for that, but I'm closer to starving than I ever wanted to be. My food supply, as of today, consists of:

1 box white cake mix
1 box yellow cake mix
1 can baked beans
1 can tomato paste
1 packet alfredo sauce mix
3 cans of tuna
2 cups rice
5 sleeves if saltines
2 cups pancake mix
2 cups corn flakes
1 pound white sugar
3 pound brown sugar
various condiments and spices
2 pounds ground beef
And my ace in the hole: 1 case of creamy chicken ramen.

Don't get me wrong, this is not some "I'm so destitute, please come and pity me!" I'm very aware that this is a temporary problem, but being this close to the edge is uncomfortable; it give you a new perspective. I have no idea how people live with this problem for months and years at a time, and have a lot more respect for those who can hack it than I did two months ago. It's scary to realize how quickly you can go from no worries to begrudging every penny you spend, every bite you eat.

I'm going to make it a point to donate to the food bank, when I can.