So today is my day. In 1998 on this day I got shit canned from the same hotel that I work at right now. This day has become a pseudo religious holiday for me and I will never work this day again. This is a time I use to give thanks that my friends and family keep pulling my ass out of the fire. I would not be nothing with out them. This is six years now since that day. I’ve done this “Year In Review” every year since that day. You can read those by clicking the following links: 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, and 2003.

I mostly like to refer people to the one from 1999 because it still holds true to this day. Fortunately my friends have stayed constant. And as I say it’s not the quantity its the quality. The people on that list from 1999 are as I said the ones that keep me grounded. I just don’t have the words to properly thank all of them.

And as I mentioned last year I’m also glad my friends here on the net are there when I do need them. The great group of guys and gals in the Dark Age of Camelot guild the Acolytes of Destruction have been just as good as my “real life” friends. A few of them in particular I owe money and I can’t say thanks enough for the few times I’ve been bailed out.

I’m keeping it short I don’t want to run on and on. But as always I glad I made it another year. And I look forward to what comes in the year ahead.

It’s that time again when the bosses decide it’s against the rules to smoke in the front desk area. Which everytime this comes up I find it funny for a number of reasons. First off to my knowledge it has always been a no no to smoke at the front desk area. Secondly this whole issue of not smoking in the building is all bullshit. It’s against the rules for me to smoke in the building. Yet it’s ok for the “assistant general manager” to smoke in his office and any where else he chooses? Here is the memo bellow:

To: Front Desk
From: <Name Removed>

Per the Ninja Management Company we are no longer allowed to smoke at anytime in the Front Office area. From here on the designated area for people to smoke will be outside door #3 when there is someone available to watch the Front Desk. There should be NO employees outside of the Front Desk and/or on the benches out front smoking anymore. For Audit you will be allowed to step outside the front doors as long as the desk is in view and only when there are NO guests around. These changes will take affect immediately. If there are any questions please ask.

The rules should apply to everyone. At least that’s how I feel about it. And of course this is not the way it is. Just for reference check out these following articles (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) to see how the rules apply to everyone.

I’m sitting here at work freezing my nuts off while I type this. This hotel has just about hit rock bottom. It’s a shithole of the highest caliber. I’m thinking about calling the Department of Health and narc these fucks out. I’m sick of it. They want me to smoke outside? Fuck them. I freeze my ass off good enough inside thank you very much. While this “assistant general manager” continues to smoke like a goddamn chimney in his office. Someone explain to me how this is fair?

Management is nonexistent at the hotel. They are as clueless as they come. Morale is at the lowest I have ever seen it. Everyone bitches to me about everything. Not once have I heard anyone say something good about the workplace. Which just goes to show just how little these “managers” really care about their employees. These managers even like to try to bully the peons whenever they can. For example one front desk clerk told me about how the general manager told him that we do not get breaks and that they did not have to give us breaks. This gm went to tell him that the hotel industry is special and that it doesn’t have to follow the law. What law you ask? This law:

(820 ILCS 140/3) (from Ch. 48, par. 8c)
Sec. 3. Every employer shall permit its employees who are to work for 7 1/2 continuous hours or longer, except those specified in this Section, at least 20 minutes for a meal period beginning no later than 5 hours after the start of the work period.

Now I’m not sure where this gm gets his info. But I’m assuming this law even applies to poor hotel employees. So the question is what can the poor employee do about it? It’s quite simple. Narc on them. I’m going to fill out this form (you need Adobe Reader to view and print this) and send one in every day I work. And I suggest everyone else do so as well. The address is on the form. Or you can call the Illinois Department of Labor at (312) 793-2804 to get the form sent to you. You have rights people. Stand up for them. Just remember that knowing is half the battle!

Now you will have to excuse me as it is time for me to smoke a cigarette in the back office here while I blow my smoke on that stupid memo.

Look at this, a post with no work hate. I’ve upgraded the poll system that I use. I’ve dropped the old perl version for a slicker php version. There are a number of advantages to this new system. The poll that appears over in the side there is random for one. Also the page listing all the polls (past and present) is cleaner looking. Another nice feature is the ability to limit voting by ip address and just by a cookie stored on your pc.

Eventually I will switch the whole site over to php. But I’m picky about way things are displayed. For example it took for ever to find a php poll script that automatically displayed the poll after voting instead of the poll choices. So by the time I do find everything I need php will have been replaced by some new trend. Of course I’m in no hurry to change.

I made a purchase the other day that I still can’t believe. I bought every issue of the comic book The Amazing Spider-Man for about 50 bucks. Sure these comics are on 11 cd’s in the pdf format. But 500 comics for 50 bucks? Tell where else you can buy 500 comics for 50 bucks? The product is called 40 Years of the Amazing Spider-Man and it is a must have for anyone that likes Spider-Man. These are not reproductions. These are the actual comic books scanned. You get the art, the, adds, the covers, and the letter pages. I can’t stress enough just how geeked out I am about this.

It’s so bad I haven’t had the time to log in to World of Warcraft the last few days. WoW can wait. I have 500 fucking issues of Spider-Man to read. And this is the good stuff people. The movies got their inspiration from the stories in these 500 issues.

I’m also pretty damn impressed by the current run on the comic. I’ve never read them till now and always thought the new stuff was inferior. Boy was I wrong. The current writer (J. Michael Straczynski) may be known to some of you in the sci-fi world as the creator of Babylon 5. It’s a Peter Parker that I hadn’t seen in a while. Straczynski has made me forget all about the retarded clone saga. I’m going to add the comic to my subscriptions at the local comic book store.

So I’ve been playing Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords (developed by Obsidian Entertainment) on the Xbox these last few days. It’s not what I would call a sequel, it’s more like a expansion pack really. Not that it isn’t a good game. It’s just more of the same with some new feats/force powers/prestige classes thrown in with a new story. You can sway your party members to your side of the force, which opens up a whole new angle on the game. But it loses some of the immersion that I loved about the first KOTOR.

I’ve only made it to the second planet so far and I’ve yet to feel any of the Jedi Guilt that I experienced in the first game. You know the stuff I’m talking about, those conversations with Bastila where she nags the shit out of you for doing a bad dead. I miss that. And sure it was probably all scripted sequences in the first one. I just find myself missing that here in this second game. I just don’t feel like my party members care if I am good or bad in this one. I don’t notice them questioning me if I’m bad.

And I’ve done my fair share of bad deeds in KOTOR:TSL. My favorite evil moment so far was using the Jedi Mind Trick to force two thugs in Nar Shaddaa to give me their money and then jump off a ledge so they plummeted to their deaths. The lack of nagging is making it so much easier for me to be evil. I find it refreshing. I’m looking forward to embracing the Dark Side like the way a fat guys craves candy. And I don’t consider myself evil really. It’s just that I relish the fact I can do the evil things I would like to do in real life but can’t because of the those pesky laws we have in these kinds of games.

There is a down side to playing this game. It’s cut into my World of Warcraft play time even more than the 500 issues of the Amazing Spider-Man comic did. And don’t get me wrong. I have no intention of quiting WoW. I’m just taking a minor break is all. Anyway this time away from WoW insures all my friends in the guild will be a higher level than me and thats the we it should be.

I find these kinds of things funny. The hotel’s anti virus license has expired. The place is cutting back anything they can to save a buck. For example as of today when someone checks out only one copy of the bill will be printed. Usually you need two copies. One the guest signs that the hotel keeps and one you give to the guest. So now the front desk has to add to the time it takes to get a guest out of the hotel when they check out. Granted it’s not a huge amount of time involved in printing an extra copy of a bill. But when a line of people are in front of you every second helps. So with all of this cheap ass tactics I wonder how the hotel will fix this problem?

And yeah I won’t be surprised if they try to do something illegal. Like install a freebie program like AVG. Some of the software on the work computers are not exactly legit so I wouldn’t put it past them. The place continues it’s downward spiral at this rate I won’t be surprised if some major changes will happen.

Also the hotel management are in the process of doing reviews on their employees. I’m of course interested in this because of the very slim chance I’ll get a raise. Of course I’ve yet to receive any review of any kind in a number of years. So you understand when I say I’m not holding my breath.

Also a few days after Christmas the very generous hotel owner gave all of his employees a 10 buck gift card for Walmart. And after all it’s not the timing of the gift, it’s the amount on the card right? And I’m sure everyone remembers the colossal cluster fuck it was the last time these cheap fucks gave the hotel employees a present like this? Hopefully this Walmart gift card will be easier to use than that Visa gift card they gave us that year.