1st I called the apple store in search of my friggin’ keyboard so I can finally get this computer fixed and the verdict was that they attempted to call me and I never answered/returned their message.  That wasn’t a great start.  Since I neither picked up my phone or returned a message they part was returned?  Not sure why that happened, but in either case I was told I needed to return to the apple store so they could re-diagnose the problem and order the part.  This confused me.  They found the repair request in their system with all the previous notations and need parts, but still required me to come in for formalities sake.  Just seems like a giant waste of everyone’s time really.  The poor bastard behind could have gotten the virus erased from his computer from all the kiddie porn his downloading, but instead they needed to be as redundant as possible.  Luckily, they were able to schedule an appointment for me via telephone.

The rest of the day I spent playing some video games and outlining my next piece for Minus the Beats which is entitled Dr. L’ling.  Should be released Saturday afternoon for those of you following along.  At night I got some dinner with D at Moe’s.  I ate an entire Homewrecker burrito, which sits like a cinder block in your stomach and consequently forces any remaining matter in your lower intestines out…usually without much warning, I digress.  We spent a good amount of time laughing to one another about the people passing by, nothing vulgar, but nothing you’d probably talk about at the dinner table with your grandparents if you catch my drift.  We may be catching the express train to hell nevertheless.  We ended our charade at Starbucks over a coffee and Americano, which i spilled right off the bat.  It was a fun day all and all, but as you have read, slightly uneventful.

Tomorrow I return to work and hopefully the general public with help stimulate my brain stem a little more.

side note:  i hate to say it, but fur coats aren’t in style anymore and honestly, not sure they ever were, moreover, a fake fur coat is even more of an abomination, they should be lit on fire.

I had arrived at work at 9 am and steady all day long.  We went on small waits for both lunch and dinner.  It was great to see so many faces, but then came the evening.  L requested that she be able to leave early and M would close the dining room, but that meant I would have to stay and close the restaurant.  How could I say no?  She stared at me with the sad puppy eyes with the need to return home as quickly as possible to finish a couple mid term papers.  After much debate with myself, in my head, I finally conceded and allowed her to leave.  When the question was posed to me, “Why are you still here,” I froze.  I looked at him and searched quickly for the wittiest answer I could find.  I responded, “Work is my life.”  He just smiled and nodded back at him as if, on some level, feeling bad for me maybe?  I live by myself, so there is no excuse that someone needs me at home.  My girlfriend, for 8 months of the year, lives 4 hours away.  Seeing as how I don’t usually get 2 days off in a row, it is very difficult for me to see her on “the regular.”  I’m paid salary, so no matter if I work 40 hours or 70 hours, I am still making the same amount of money.

It’s a sad day when you realize that you are okay with working 15 hour days.  I actually found myself, around hour 12, doing dishing in the back.  What the hell was I thinking?  Any normal person would be looking for any reason to be sitting on their ass trying to get out of there or making someone else do the work.  Something had come over, I don’t know what.  Then, suddenly, I was in a motivational mood and talked to my staff about being ready for the next shift and “setting up the next guy.”  I checked my pulse at some point to make sure I was still alive, and pinched myself to see if I’d wake up.  It was all real.  I was able to use my Olympic Race analogy from Day 67 to help educate my servers on running a successful restaurant/business.

I realized today, you can’t be real with anyone anymore.  People say they want the truth, but all they really want is to be lied to and be told everything is okay, when the world is falling apart around them.  The world should not work like that.  Professional and Personal opinions are like apples and oranges, one says nothing about the other.

side note: I hate finding out that cool people you know are addicted to drugs.

By Thomas Shaggy
Edited by: Greta Von Voss

The man opened his eyes to the sight of an empty room.  Cold as the coldest winter night he’d ever known.  His teeth shuddered in his mouth as he grabbed his arms. He wiped the tear from his eye.  His limbs were in tact, but his sanity moved farther and farther from himself.

The room began to transform.  The walls bubbled all the way around creating a warm colorful setting complete with a small fire that burned in the fireplace and candles that burned strategically along the bedside.  There she lay, on the bed, naked as the day she was born.  No clothing on, not a stitch.  She didn’t know he was there, he just watched for a moment.  Her perfect body, lying there, catching a small breeze from the sliding door that was cracked open.

He sits on the edge of the bed and looks down her body like his favorite trophy his had just dusted off.  He slides his hand down her leg checking for imperfections.  Her eyes are still closed as he leans over her body.  He reaches over her body and pulls her in closely from the small of her back and moves in to kiss her.  She pouts her lips up at him waiting for his moist lips to make contact.  Their kiss was like the first kiss a man and a woman had ever shared.  That realization of how much a woman truly made a man feel and vice versa.

They embraced harder and harder. Her toes curled and legs bent at the knee to the sensation of his tongue playing with hers.  She pulled his clothes off furiously, but with composure.  Her nails dig into his back and he nibbles her ear.  The low moans of her love for him vibrate his eardrum as he enters her.  A bright light floods the room with each penetration.  Faster and brighter the lights come and go.  Their bodies move in complete synchronization.  They had become the perfect machine.

He opened his eyes to look at her.  Her eyes were still closed, but he whispered to her anyways.  “I love you with all my heart.”  The light blinded him and flooded the room until all had disappeared.  The man was left standing in a room of bright light.  He was fully clothed in his suit, wool jacket and scarf. He called to her.

He ran faster and faster and screamed her name. He hit a wall and his body shattered into a million snowflakes.  He fell from the sky and onto the earth below.  Each snowflake gathering on the ground to compose his body. One…by…one.

Another day trying to get inside the mind of the common man.  What is it that you want?  Why is it that you return? What will make your return more often? Usually it is that simplest answer that is the right answer.  I will tell you that there is nothing simple about trending patterns of eating habits.  When will people go out, when won’t they?  Is it good weather that brings them out or is it bad weather.  Just when you are able  to draw  a concrete conclusion evidence to the contrary becomes apparent and you are back at square one.  Once one problem is alleviated, another presents itself or it resurfaces after being mastered. The odds will always be stacked against you.  Studies show that one someone dislikes something they will tell 7 people about their experience.  When they have enjoyed themselves the number is only, on average, three.  You need to please 3 people for every 1 that you piss off.  Whatever field it is that you work.  Doesn’t seem fair does it.  In a business, the restaurant business, that is measured in the tenths of a second, we can closely relate to the olympic athletes.  First place, the number one provider in the community for food and hospitality, is well known and becomes a house hold name, a lot of respect.  Second place, never heard of the guy, would know him if you saw him on the street.  Even though that “second place” restaurant is only behind, literally by a nose, it still doesn’t measure up to #1, who will forever be known as, The First Loser.

After my 12 hour day had come to a close I sat and enjoyed an ice cold beer, Brooklyn Lager to be exact.  It was the most fascinating feeling ever.  All my hard work and the hard work from the staff had culminated in that moment and I knew that I had earned it.  It slid down my through and cooled every nerve in the process.  My day was over, and when I dropped the empty glass onto the counter, it was time to go home and not a moment too soon.  People, I don’t know where you are coming from, but I love it.  Keep coming, I’ll keep serving.

side note: only in a restaurant does 15 minutes becomes a half hour.

The times of endless working should always be followed up with a time of seemingly endless play.  If not, then you are doing something wrong.  Bring a friend along, or perhaps two, three is sometimes best.  While Thursday night was occupied with a movie, Friday marked the beginning of one the most eventful weekends in months.  Friday night, “J” arrives to kick of the weekend with some beers at the local pub around the corner from my house.  They offer many different kinds of beer here, THANK GOD, so I order the Harpoon Oyster Stout, and mini burgers.  Dinner, check, beer number one, check, good people, check.  “B” decided to come out with us as well.  I haven’t seen him in some time either.  The hostess at this local pub, “D,”  is one of the coolest people I know.  Some number of beers later she joined our little shindig in the corner and contributed to the mindless banter that was our Friday night.  We couldn’t help, but laugh our asses off at all the ridiculous things we all had in common.  It was like old times, back in high school even, when life just wasn’t that important yet.  D left at a time that is now easily forgettable and it was at that point I spotted a good friend of mine that couldn’t walk from her seat at the bar to the front door without falling over.  Her plan was to drive home.  So being the good Samaritan that I am, I tell her that I will be driving her home because I didn’t feel like finding her name in the obituaries the next day.  After a little hassle she turned over the keys to me. She owned a mini cooper, score! It was automatic though…..pussy.  We made our way across town to the lovely home that she lived in, it was now around 2 am.  The roads we needed to travel were all 30 mph roads with cops placed at every corner.

Long story short, 2 hours later we found ourselves back at my apartment with our sanity barely intact.  There is always a benefit to being the only sober person within miles of the party.  1) You get to report back to everyone in the morning and verify that they did in fact throw up all over that waitress.  2) Everyone arrives safely on that trip from point A to point B.  No one ever said it was easy though.  Sometimes the details in the middle can be hard to take.  I found that all those years I spent at the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniels were a fucking joke.  Some of the shit that must of come out of my mouth and thinking that I smooth about it all.  Makes me laugh and cry all at the same time.

The morning after is always the toughest for everyone.  The sober ones just want to get the day moving and the hung over ones just want to prolong the day as much as possible.  I was guilty as the next guy when it came to pushing off the beginning of my days in college.  We eventually started the day around 1030 am or so and made our way to breakfast, B, J and myself.  The rest of the day we spent playing the waiting game.  Tonight was the night that we sunk to our lowest.  We were going to the Gold Club.  For those of you who are not familiar with the Gold Club, it is a Gentleman’s Club near where I live.  The place was wall to wall dude sweat, with dragon tee’s for as far as the eye could see and also a hand full of pedophiles to boot.  Now, I’m thinking that once you cross the threshold of a place like this, you are no longer a normal individual, but if I were to create a standard of normal, it would be J and I sitting relatively quite at the stage with a Guinness and Sam Boston Lager in hand with a handful of singles.  Tonight must have been a special night because two of the girls, they were a pair, spun from the poles on center stage like something of the NC-17 Barnum and Bailey’s act.  at one point they spun around the pole holding on by ONLY their crotch.  And with a tattoo like Ride or Die above their belly button I know she meant business.  Unlike the other girl who made small talk with us about stuffy and dirty it felt inside.  I quickly responded back by saying, “Yea your right, normally it feels so clean in here!”  She didn’t get it unfortunately.

Sunday I spent time reflecting.  All the times spent with these guys, even after high school and all the crazy shit we’d pull.  This weekend was a sign that it didn’t have to end because we had become “adults.”  On the contrary, we had just found new ways to entertain ourselves.  Friendships come and they go, fleeting sometimes, but no matter what we learn from all the people we meet and situations we are in.  All the assholes from our high school class that we are so glad we never see anymore, I can’t help but thank them.  Thank you for making me who I am.  The host or hostess that we see and are friends with for only a day or two, thank you for making see who I really am inside.  How about the poor man at the bus stop that asks for money because he has none, but then answers his cell phone.  Live and learn.

side note: the truth is, you could slit my throat..and with my one last gasping breath I’d apologize for bleeding on your shirt.

Day 62:  Not being entirely prepared.  A Tuesday, like any other, starts off slow, but as the day progresses, it becomes busier and busier.  Now I’m not complaining about people coming in to eat and keeping my job available to me.  It’s always tough when you are not properly staffed.  Two things happen during this time, 1) frustration builds and 2) morale begins to break down.  The frustration is that there isn’t enough hands to complete all the tasks at hand.  At first, that is the reality, but as we continue into the busier periods we find that it becomes a lot easier and we have gotten ourselves into a rhythm. The other part of frustration begins to build from everyone dwelling on all of the tasks that haven’t been completed.  Whether it be from the shift before or the tasks assigned on that shift.  As frustration builds we find that morale tends to break down more and more.  No one is excited to be doing what they are doing and it becomes much harder to motivate to accomplish more.  All managers are charged with this duties, no matter what the profession.

Day 63: Wind in your hair, smile on your face, feeling old. Sometimes we run into the most unlikely of people.  Just when we thought we have been forgotten or have forgotten ourselves someone life has a way correcting itself.  This day took me to back home where I went snowboarding with T.  It was great to get out onto the mountain and cruise through the cool winter air on my snowboard.  We met someone and for the first time in my life, EVER, I felt old.  I have not yet reached the age of 25 and already I feel old.  I saw the sister of one of my good friends from high school.  I haven’t seen either in years, but she immediately recognized me and said hello.  This was a girl that I would see when I would visit her sister every now and again.  But she was young, like intermediate school young.  Life goes on, whether you want it to or not.  She was a little woman now and for the rest of the day I have been reflecting on the past few years wondering all the time had gone.  Realizing that the people we were is not the people we become.  Even though that sounds so obvious, we often make the mistake of believing that we can just pick up the pieces of a life we lived 4 or 5 years ago. We must understand that the people we fell in love with back then have been someone completely different.  It’s not fair to put all the change on someone else either because we have all changed.  Major transformations have taken place, college graduation, drop out, drug abuse, deaths, accidents, etc.

I forgot about something that has been pissing me off as of late.  Kesha.  She spells her name with a fucking $ sign.  Who does that anymore.  Kids did that in like 7th grade when they realized that they could pretend to be rappers and sub the “S” for the “$”  Not only did you manage to come slam of the most typical overused bullshit into one song and call it your own, but you also spelled your name like suburban white kid pretending to be Ma$e.

Am I boring you yet?  I’m done.

Tonight, is a very special night for I have rented Where the Wild Thing Are and plan on curling up with a beer and my blanket and enjoying a good movie.  Phone is on vibrate to ensure maximum viewing pleasure with minimal distraction.  Good day friends.  For a good laugh, head over to buzzfeed.com and check out The 10 Worst Moose Knuckles At The Olympics.

side note:  i wish to remain anonymous the remainder of our sessions.

Backstory: A piece of equipment of ours broke and we needed to find a replacement for the part immediately.  Long story short they received that part on Friday and never called us to tell us it was in, service fail #1.  When I called yesterday to inquire about the part the customer service rep. kindly suggested that we would probably need them to come install a drawer. Quick note, a drawer is a pretty standard piece of equipment.  That being said, they don’t make them impossible to change out.  We don’t need a technition workign at $75/hr, milking the clock, installing this for us.  So I tell her that it would be a problem to come pick up the part because its the next town over and the other manager is off today.  Suddenly, she starts giving me this sob story about how they had jumped through hoops for us to get our part covered under warrentee.  So let me get this straight, you bent over backwards to get our part covered under warrentee only to slap us with unreal labor fee’s for installing a drawer?! No thanks, service fail #2.

Oh, another discussion that came up, rewinding machines.  Remember those?  Quite possibly the biggest scam of the 1990’s.  The entertainment industry telling everyone that VCR’s were ruining your video tapes so you have to buy a seperate machine that does the same exact thing.  What made this machine so magical that it wouldn’t ruin tapes exactly? The only good thing about this machine?  It rewinded tapes at like 1000 mph.  That thing made so much more noise than a VCR, and to be quite honest, scared me more than the actual VCR did when it came to ruining tapes.  Other than that, it just created a hastle by adding another step in finishing your movie getting it put away “properly.” 

side note:  when i walk by trees in nyc i like to think that the world was built around them, rather than trees being built around the world…

So after working all day at one burger place I hop across town by my house and go to “the other” burger place.  There beer selection is phenomenal and their burgers are okay, but nothing to write home about.  D and I share a small high top table in the bar area when these three obnoxious girls come around the corner and play bumper cars with our table and their table and finally sit down.  One girls boobs are falling out of her shirt, the other one has the flock of seagulls haircut, and the third is “directing conversation traffic” with her voice that would be considered too loud for the Super Dome post-Super Bowl.  It wasn’t bad enough that they couldn’t have a conversation of substance by themselves, but they three bro-dudes show up moments later to add to the circus act.  The girls pretend to be excited to see them all.  I offer our table to the guys so the group doesn’t have to cause more trouble by switching tables for a third time.  The fat guy throws himself in the booth seat with the “loud one” and slouches against her, please classy.  They other one pulls up a bar stool AC slater style.  The third guy was closest to me and he didn’t say a word the whole night.  “Flock of seagulls” started becoming louder and topics started ranging from PS3 vs. Xbox and Crackberry’s and iPhones, but the intellegence level decreased exponentially as you went around the table with each passing moment.  D and I couldn’t help, but laugh at everything that was happening.  Then the strangest event of the night happened.  Miley Cyrus, of all the singers, came on the radio and a server ran over said, “YAY!!” and turned the volume up nearly blowing the speakers.  Then without missing a beat turned and said goodbye to everyone.  It was all confirmed when she went and picked up her pink L.L. Bean back pack circa 1997.  Thanks for blasting Miley Cyrus and then leaving, because everyone shares your love for the pre-pubesent offspring of Billy Ray. *smack*

Needless to say, after my make shift ambien I fell asleep rather quickly.  I literally sank into my bed and was swallowed into REM sleep.

side note: the digital underground station on pandora is classic.

The bad news is that time flies. The good news is that you’re the pilot.
- @ihate_you

Simple yet true.  This quote hit me a little bit more than usual today because of my mental state of being.  Time does fly, it never seems that we have enough time to accomplish everything we wish in life.  The comfort comes in knowing that we do have control over what we do.  How we pilot ourselves though the time.    There was an unfortunate accident off the exit near where I live.  It held traffic up for a good few miles.  I sat there thinking of how my day seemed like a walk in the park compared to the poor bastard that just drove his car through the traffic signal control box and into the ditch.  Then not 3 cars in front of me in the next lane one car rear-ended another.  Life’s misfortunes decided to have a party at that very intersection on this day.  I wish I was a fly on the inside of everyones car just to see the endless reactions to each others day or car accident.

So here I am again at the library as I wait for my 630 appointment at the Apple store.  I don’t look forward to seeing how much it will cost to get it fixed.  Bread and water diet for the next few weeks I think.  The librarian thought it would be nice to only give me a 1/2 hours worth of time on this computer.  Apparently, I don’t look like a person who needs to get work done. Little does she know that I’m giving her her 15 minutes of fame right here at tomshaggy.com.  I hit a little bit more traffic on the way back over here for reasons I don’t think that anyone could explain.  They shut down two of the three lanes during rush hour, a few car inside the cones, police everywhere and a shit load of pissed of Americans.  If there is road work, let us know, if it’s an accident, let us know.  Enough with the guessing games when the traffic all of a sudden just lets up for no apparent reason.

side note: sometimes, no amount of make up will ever help. accept who are it will make you so much more beautiful.