Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Contagion MMV.
Aye de Eff- Firstly, I'm plagued by both so that technicality doesn't really matter to me in the least, lol.

Next, I'm glad your Christmas was awesome! Californication rocks. Burning your thumb does not.

*hug* ^_^

Lea- Hallo. =) *poke*

Bastard nation.

Why was there no lotto on Monday? Well, I'll tell you why. I had the pleasant experience of going to the DMV on Monday- three hurrahs for that fucking escapade. The line was out of the door by about twenty feet. I wasn't exactly flabbergasted, but I realized the chances of me losing most of my sanity within a few minutes were high. We were standing behind a guy who was moving here from Oklahoma to work at the new Toyota plant- bit of local news, but Toyota is rush-building a production plant on the South side of San Antonio, giving a ton of new jobs to people in the area. When I say rush job, I mean rush- I talked to one of the head engineers who is working on building the plant and he said he was working five days a week, 17 hour shifts. They are paying great overtime apparently, people are making like a couple thousand dollars every week. ANYWAY, this guy was going to work building the plant and hopefully afterwards become some sort of manager of one of the welding lines. He was pretty cool, mid-40's had a braid and tattoo- typical craftsman, I suppose. The dude behind us was this fat, nerdish guy in his 30's who was the size of Violet in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory after she eats the gum. He had his wallet stolen so he had the dubious honor of taking a tour of all the government buildings in town to get everything straight- he was headed to the Social Security office next, heh. It was quite an entourage of characters, to be sure. I think we spent about an hour and a half in line, as it slowly snaked into this little hovel of a building that could barely pass for a gas station let alone a government office. I have a serious aversion to bureaucracy- the inefficient, bloated mass that most of our government is choking on and will continue to choke on for who knows how long. But this was just really irritating my senses.

The snaking line finally comes out at this little desk that has an overworked looking pair at the helm, rushing about like the ants they are. There is a black line on the floor about three front from the font of the desk that says "please wait here". To add to this, there is a yellow sign over the desk states "please stand at the black line until you are called over". Unbelievably, underneath the sign is another sign, which says "Please read the yellow sign". It was all rather humorous, really- maybe something out of an animated fairytale or something. Alice in Bureaucratland perhaps. The guy with the braid is called up- he is there for a Texas I.D. card so he can go for the job interview tomorrow at the plant site. He needs three pieces of proper identification- the knucklehead somehow doesn't have his Social Security card with him. Duh. He goes through his entire wallet looking for a last piece of accepted identification, but can't find anything- so the guy at the desk hands him a list of identification pieces they accept and sends him on his way. I felt sorry for him- an hour and a half in line just to get owned by more rules and regulations. I was next. I was ready- I had a small file folder with the required items, a smile on my face and the confident thought that I had survived the line without losing more than 90 percent of my sanity. I walk up, tell him I'm there for my provisional license- he asks me for a few forms from the Driving School I took and such, I have them. He hands me a clipboard and a number, tells me they will call my number when it's time for me to come. I was about to walk away when all of the shit in the folder slid out and was about to scatter itself across his desk, but thanks to my occupational skills I caught them all before they scattered to the winds. It was jarring, but I survived the folder's attempt at screwing me over.

I sat down in the myriad of chairs there- most of them were full of people sitting around, attempting to look occupied when they were really bored shitless. I glanced up next to the shoddy, 80's style television and saw next to it was a "Now serving: #" sign- I was even more amused, but I had a form to fill out. The form was full of questions that were somewhat irrelevant. "WOULD YOU LIKE TO DONATE MONEY TO THE TEXAS BLIND FOUNDATION"; "HAVE YOU EVER HAD A SERIOUS MEDICAL CONDITION"; "HAVE YOU EVER GONE $%)_*$@ING CRAZY AND BLOWN SOMEONE UP"; "ARE YOU SERIOUSLY GOING TO FINISH FILLING OUT THIS FORM, YOU SILLY BASTARD"; "ARE YOU A COMMUNIST TRAITOR THAT NEEDS TO BE PUNISHED"; "DO YOU LIKE DONUTS"; etc. After the questions, there was a small paragraph that, to paraphrase it, asked me if I was who I was saying I was and to swear that the person I am saying I am is loyal to Texas and not going to break laws, not filling this out with a revoked/suspended license; etc. I looked up to the person I was saying I was- Kenneth Andrew Howell. Now, to my knowledge, that person is who I am so I was sure that saying I was that person was a-OK. Signed, printed, put my phone number, address, was done.

They called out my number, number 10- great, away we go. Got up, walked into another mini-line that lead into this row of desks- four desks, 3 cameras between each clerk. There had taped white lines in front of the cameras where you were supposed to stand when they were taking your picture- ok, yeah. "Next in line!" was the call, and up I went to this woman in her late fifties who was clearly preoccupied in talking office gossip. She asked for the form I filled out, another form and the five dollar processing fee- no problem. There was alot of typing at her computer, and alot of her whispering to her co-workers- so I stood in awkward silence, fidgeting a bit. Asks me to step to the line, blinds me with the flash from the camera- no problem, no problem. She asked me to sign my name on this little electrical machine- you know, the signature that they put on your real license. Then I had to depress both my thumb on another machine, and I was done. That was that- my time in dante's inferno was over. Hallelujah. I went outside and was happy to see daylight for the first time in eons. I had arrived there at 12:50. I departed at 3:05.

I got home and pissed on the lottery, sitting down to relax for the rest of the day. But, thankfully we now have the results of the lottery- the winner isssss.. IDF! The method I used for the lotto was a hat- put all the names into it, swished it around for a good 10-15 seconds, pulled the name out. So, good job IDF! I just need your name/address so I can mail you your prize. Thank you for participating! As a consolation, if you so desire, you can get a SNAIL MAIL LETTER from Ken! This letter will be complete with ranting, raving and lunatic rhetoric- it will even by signed by Ken himself! If you wish to have your consolation prize, do remember to give me your name/address.

Revokers of light, bane of all existence, fought with claws against the stars.

Once again, thank you for participating- until my next crazy idea, good night to you all!

P.S.Pay your respect.

P.P.S. Balance of power.

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