If I Were Songs

A friend had this nifty little thing on their blog recently, a kind of "fill in the blanks" item that I don't normally find that interesting, but this one caught my eye. Thought I'd give it a try. And trust me when I tell you, it's harder than it looks (took me damn near half an hour to work it out).

Pick a band and answer the questions using the band's song titles.

1. Name of band/artist: U2
2. Are you male or female?: Drowning Man
3. Describe yourself: Mysterious Ways
4. How do you feel about yourself?: Stuck In A Moment
5. Describe your ex-girlfriend: Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
6. Describe current girlfriend (wife): I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
7. Describe where you want to be: Where The Streets Have No Name
8. Describe how you live: Staring At The Sun
9. Describe how you love: All I Want Is You
10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish?: Even Better Than The Real Thing
11. Share a few words of Wisdom: Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own
12. Now say goodbye: Exit

It's "Work Horse," Not "Work Whore"

Or at least I'm pretty sure that's the correct term.

I had the weekend off, so what do I do? I went to work tonight. What can I say? I'm a sucker for the cash. I work my ass off all week long (trust me, I have no ass), and you think I'd take advantage of at least a 2 day break from it. Of course not. Am I a dedicated employee, or just stupid? It's probably more like I'm a money grubbing whore. I don't have that printed on my business cards, and I'm sure it won't look great on a resume, but at least I can admit it.

Of course, there are upsides and downsides. The upside, of course, is that my wallet is a little heavier for the effort. I'd like to say that I went in tonight because I'm such a fine employee, but the bottom line is - it's all about me. Cha-Ching!

The downsides are that I could've (and probably should've) just stayed home and relaxed. This week was kind of stressful at work. And I missed a couple more playoff hockey games.

I love the playoffs. Even though Washington didn't make it this year (and we all know they will next year, right?), it's still great fun to watch. I'm totally digging two and sometimes three games on per day. Of course today I only got to watch one before I had to go to work. But it was a good one. New Jersey eliminated the Rangers and swept the series. HA! There are only a few guys at work besides me that are hockey fans. One of the street supervisors is a die-hard Rangers fan, and he's quite smug about it. All season I got to hear about how friggin' great Jagr has been for the Rangers (and we all know he was crap as a Capital). It's unfortunate that I won't get to see that smug little grin on his face Monday. I'll make sure I wear black so that I can show my sympathy for his loss. I'm good like that.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. The other downside to working on a Saturday night. No place to go for a drink afterward. By the time I got home (1AM), there was no point in trying to get to my favorite watering holes. But I suppose I'll manage with a couple bottles of my favorite brew and my trusty pint glass. I can crank up the stereo and it's the next best thing. Necessity is truly the mother of invention. Cheers!

Sprechen Zie Espanol?

When I was younger I thought it would be a great idea to learn German in high school and college. So I did. What the hell was I thinking? I've never really put it to any practical use. Not sure that I ever will (at least not without actually going to Germany).

Over the past several years, it's become an occupational necessity for me to learn Spanish. Look around you folks. No big secret that the Hispanic population in the Metropolitan area has grown tremendously over the past 5 years.

Now, I used to be one of those people that would say "I shouldn't have to learn Spanish, they should learn English!" And I still adhere to that philosophy, but it's just not practical. So I've gone out of my way to learn some Spanish. In some ways it's made my job easier, but there are a couple hang-ups I have with it.

It's been my experience that good old Pedro won't "comprende" when he knows he's in some form of trouble with the Policia. Part of me can appreciate that, but here's my big issue. If I say something to Pedro in English and get the "I no understand" response, fine. If I say the exact same thing to Pedro in Spanish and he still acts like he doesn't know what I'm talking about, that just pisses me off. If you speak Spanish, and I say something to you in Spanish (correctly, I might add), you'd better not look at me like I've got 8 heads. Get past the shock that the big Gringo cop can habla, and answer my question.

Another thing I can't quite wrap my head around is that some of these guys don't know their own birth date. I mean, I'll ask in English, get that look, then ask again in Spanish. And I honestly believe that they don't have a clue sometimes. How do you not know something like that??? They know enough to tell me how old they are, but can't possibly come up with the month and day they were born. Of course, thinking about it now, that's a pretty cool parent trick I guess. Don't tell little Javier what his birthday is and you can save a ton of cash every year on all those cards and gifts you don't need to buy.

Oh, and as an aside - I've seen a number of Hispanic dudes sporting NHL shirts, jerseys and hats lately. That always makes me laugh since 99% of the guys I see wearing that stuff don't realize they're wearing hockey apparel. A couple weeks ago I saw a guy wearing a Flyers t-shirt and I couldn't resist. I walked over to him and said "Hey man, you think Forsberg is going to put up good points in the playoffs?" Yeah, I had 8 heads again.

Viva la Stupido! Guten abend mi amigo.

Exhaustion Is My Friend

OK, so I've been a bit lousy about posting lately. I know this is a poor excuse, but I haven't really had the time.

I've been working entirely too much this past couple months. My "normal" job of sleuthing, detecting crime, arresting the dregs of society has been keeping me extremely busy. More so than usual. In this past week alone we've had to deal with a higher-than-usual number of idiots with guns. I'm not sure how to feel about all that. One the bright side, it's good that we're finding these guns and taking them off the street, right? On the other side of that coin, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't getting a bit nervous about the amount of guns we're finding. Hell, just last night I recovered three handguns. You heard it here first people. Politicians who tell you that crime is down are LYING! Oh, and not that I'm looking to touch off some fiery debate about the issue, but I think it's important to point out that four of the six guns I've recovered in the past week were in the hands of illegal immigrants. Yes, not only are they here when they shouldn't be, they're armed. Sleep tight!

Anyway, I got a little sidetracked there. The whole point to this is that I'm beat. I'm absolutely exhausted. I started my day yesterday at 7AM. I got home this morning right around 6AM. Long day? Hell yeah. Not only has the crime fighting increased, but my boss has been away since early February in a 10 week training class (hope he learned something). He's due back May 1st and it can't come sooner. In his absence I've had to assume some additional responsibilities in the office. I like staying busy at work, but this has been ridiculous. Once the boss is back, I'm taking a few days off to recharge the batteries and get things done around the house. The biggest downside right now to working so much (aside from the level of exhaustion) - my lawn looks like shit. I'd better go work on that.