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Bitter and Pissed-off
Sep 28, 2000

The subject fairly well sums it up. That certain object of my affection finally decided to talk to me, although it's more of an attempt to be friendly I suppose. It's infuriating to know that despite the fact that we hit things off wonderfully, talk for hours, and in general seem to enjoy each others company that she chooses to date my friend, who (to put it mildly) really is a complete ass.

Why? That is my only question on the subject. Why do women set themselves up for failure like that? She tells everyone that she wants someone who will help her take care of her child, help her get out of her current situation of living at home, someone to love, so on and so forth, so she chooses the guy who hops from one relationship to the next, does not want commitment, does not want a serious relationship, and in general ignores his women once he gets what he wants. What the hell?

Of course, I make my friends sound great, don't I? It may be simple jealousy, but that's not my call to make.

What really pisses me off is how she continues to dodge any subject where we talk about anything useful. We used to talk about all kinds of things, including emotions. The last e-mail I sent her was a tear-jerking apology for our last argument, and in reply (two weeks later) she sends a message to the extent of, "Hi, sorry I haven't written you in awhile, just wanted to say hello"

Sorry to rant on and on, but this is truly frustrating. I'm in love, that much is true, but I don't want the pain anymore. There's far too much hurt in loving a friend, especially when they know it and don't return the emotion.

I'm starting to think that it's time to run for awhile, a few weeks maybe.

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Boxing, Teen Angst, and Customers from Hell
Sep 24, 2000

Another exciting day here. First I get up at about 8 am to go to work. Get there, and it turns out that the individual that I called to check the schedule read the wrong page and I wasn't supposed to be there until 5 in the evening. No biggie, my uncle came into town for the Formula One race, so I went out with him.

Got back to work about 5. Some insane customer had been in there previously and screamed at all of my fellow technicians and a few managers. No one could ever figure out why she was so upset, but the only thing we could figure out was that she was evidently tired of being "put down" by "The Man". Basically, she was having so many problems with her current computer that we decided to go ahead and give her a new one. Evidently this upset her for some reason, and she went flying into a rage at one of my tech brethren, demanding that he transfer all of her data from the old computer to the new, including some programs that she'd installed.

Now as anyone who is technically literate knows, many programs don't transfer too well. It has to do with the way Windows installs software, but basically when you install a program, little pieces of it are scattered throughout the hard drive, and entries are made into the system registry. This makes it damned hard to tranfer the programs themselves and have them work. Data is no problem, but programs are not bloody likely.

Seeing as how I've taught my fellows well, they told her this, and she once again launched into a tirade about how we will transfer her program, and that it must be done and so on. Eventually a manager comes up and starts taking the verbal abuse, deciding shortly thereafter to just give away as much as possible to make the customer happy. He gave away a DVD-ROM, and installation, but the labor for the data tranfer was to be paid for by her.

To make a long story short (too late!) once I got this unit up on the bench, I found about 50 different virii on it, and found that the majority of the files that she wanted saved to be videos from some obscure 80's rock band. I forget the name. And the program that she wanted tranferred was an old version of Print Shop that she pirated off of a friend. Wonderful people that we share our oxygen with, no?

For the angst portion of this segment, I bring you a question. Is it better to accept love freely offered from a heartsick girl that you don't really love, or to quest after the unobtainable woman?

To exemplify this, I have on one hand, a nice girl who is a few years younger than I who is in High School. She's not particularly amazing looking, but she's friendly. The conversations we have are lacking, but she's always around and always offering physical affection. On the other hand, we have the rest of the women whom I do love, who only desire friendship.

Part of me says to take the physical end of things while I can, but I really can't see myself doing that. It just seems like a horrid thing to do, using the poor girl like that. Maybe if I made it clear that I like being her friend, and that if she wants to mess around physically that's fine, but I'm not really interested in a serious relationship with her... But no, I can't do that to her. I remember how women were in High School, and I would be a very cruel person to do that to her psyche.

I almost forgot to mention that I love my punching bag. It helps ease the tension almost more than anything else, plus it's a reasonable form of exercise. Lately I feel as if I could take down anyone around me, thanks to hours of wailing upon this foam-filled bag. Now only if I could find a guide to boxing techniques to try out...

Well, that's about it for today, more next week.

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Random Thoughts and an Apology
Sep 19, 2000

Some things were said the other day in a conversation that didn't need to be said. I have this bad feeling that I hurt the person who I was talking to with my words, and regret them deeply. If only I could find some proper way to apologize. But no, once again words fail me when I need them.

The conversation was where I got the basis for my previous journal entry. I still maintain that women are confusing as hell, but no less than some boys who are old enough to be men. It would be nice to be able to discuss my feelings openly with everyone instead of concealing them, but it just was not meant to be. If only I could make people understand that...

It still amazes me how silly some people are. I get customers in all day who are bitching and complaining, but the minute I start telling them to calm down and listen to my solution to their problem, they either immediately back down and calmly accept the situation, or blow up more. I know a better way to handle these people exists, but damned if I can find a peaceful resolution. I do try though.

Funnier still are the people who buy the cheapest items they can find, yet still somehow expect them to work as wonderfully as if they spent their "good money" on the highest end equipment out there. I can understand this view up to a point. You paid money for something and expect it to work how it was designed to work, but at the same time you must realize that there's a reason that this product is a quarter as much as another. I had someone today buy the cheapest video editor card and program she could find, and she wanted to run a video editing business with it. When I explained that she would need to do a little more research on the subject, she started going off about how we sold her a piece of crap.

It's hard to explain to someone who is irate that they can't rationally expect a product manufacturer to teach them everything there is to know about a subject. It's even harder when they've already spent all the money that they had saved up printing up big ads and business cards, leaving nothing for the equipment. Why someone would ever start a business in a field they know nothing about still confuses me.

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