The second day of Shawn’s birthday.

Though I tried planning things early in the week, planning things ahead of time around Shawn having a preference is just silly. Ryan and I harassed him for a good twenty minutes, trying to get a movie or activity preference for tomorrow out of him. It was like pulling teeth.

On Monday, I came up with this idea to see ‘Land of the Dead’ and go to Phil’s on Friday. Since then, things keep going poorly. Mainly, the problem is that the movie stops playing at most places today. That screws over plans of seeing it tomorrow.

I’m working Saturday morning so we wanted to catch an early show and then head to Phil’s and I’d leave around 11 or so. It does play at a theatre in Guelph, but at 9:10pm and after torturing Shawn to give an actual answer on his preference for the night’s activities, we discovered he really does want to head to Phil’s, so the late show won’t work.

So we could catch an early show of ‘Dark Water’ or ‘Fantastic 4.’ I’ve heard the latter is bad and have as big a desire to see it as I did ‘Daredevil’ (which I still have yet to see, though the purchased DVD is up in Ryan’s room at present should I ever have need of seeing it). Unfortunately, for me, Ryan and Shawn would rather see it and since it’s a low-key birthday thing for Shawn, he wins.

Right since Monday, Laura’s been interested in coming. She isn’t all that interested in ‘Fantastic 4′ but hopefully she’ll come anyway and make fun of the movie with me.

It’s strange, but people seem to have all kinds of names at work. I seem to have three: Jerome to most, Geronimo to Marvin (but it comes out Heronimo) and Dave to Grant (Laura’s boss) who couldn’t be bothered remembering Jerome and gave me a name he could remember.

There’s this cool little Asian man I work with some times. His shirt reads Vain but I think people call him Varn. They also call him either Bamba or Mamba - I’m not sure which. Oh, and Kim calls him Bubbles.

Then there’s New Guy, who is also Newb, Fred, Rick or Fredrick. Usually just New Guy, which is weird since he’s been there for a couple weeks now.

I had a shitty morning today. Stuck working with idiot girl again today. I wanted to give her another chance and in the beginning things were going well. She was actually doing work, being helpful and we were having actual conversation (sparse, but conversation nonetheless).

Then I thought I heard something weird coming from her gun. Probing into it, I realized she was screwing in the screw and still holding the trigger so it just spun in place and stripped the hole of any support. Frik. How long had she been doing this? Who knows? Then Marvin found a stack of desks we had to fix because of her over-screwing. Took like twenty minutes. Thanks for your shitty work, girl.

Near the end of the morning, I was put with Ratana, which was a lot better. He worked at Heidt years ago and is a good worker.

Lunch, however, made up for my terrible morning. In fact, it might just be the best lunch ever. We were outside on the grass eating our lunches and Marvin walked by saying he had to charge his car battery. He drove past us in his car, blaring salsa music, did a burnout in the dirt driveway and then passed us again, turned around and started ploughing into a bush, driving over a giant fallen branch that looked like it was a small tree, all the while salsa music blaring and windshield wipers going with him leaning out the window bobbing his head. He looked like a friggin’ fool who didn’t know how to operate a car - it was hilarious.

Then he came out, left the music blaring and car running and came and danced for us. You know, one of his stripper dances. We laughed ’til we cried and then he tried to convince me, again, that I could be a stripper and earn $300 a night, 5 nights a week for 5 hours of work. Heh, if only.

When I got home from work, Ryan and I headed out to McDonald’s for something to eat. We were debating what to get while waiting in an unmoving drive-thru line and I figured I’d grab a 2 cheeseburger meal, two extra cheeseburgers and a flurry. Ryan made fun of me for all the food I was planning to get but by the time it was our turn to order, he knew it just sounded too good to not get himself. So he ordered the same thing. So much food, so unhealthy and so good.

When we got back, Mike was here returning our vacuum. He leaves for Europe tomorrow and will return on August 25th. I get to check his mail in his absence and alert him of new bills he has to pay. He got his hair removed and currently looks… weird. Hopefully I can catch him when he returns for an “After Europe” picture.

The end of this week is turning out pretty good. I’ve got something to look forward to each day. Today is payday. Tomorrow is a shorter work day, a free BBQ and there are plans to go out and see a movie and drink. Saturday is an even shorter work day plus I’ll go out again.