Viva La Revolucion

Now I realize why I haven’t posted my old writings in the past. I haven’t gotten around to scanning them just yet. Oh well. I do have some old poems saved. Or at least it was my attempts at poetry. I wasn’t really given a direction so they are essentially short stories but with the body of a poem. But that’s for another time. Here is a short story I wrote a little more recently. Around 2006 when I was trying this writing correspondence course. Enjoy and let me know what you think. I was actually a little pleased with how it came out.

Mario surfs the web, switching between windows of various political forums and news

sites, whistling in merriment. His wife agreed to go self-employed full-time as a speech

pathologist and he can’t wait to write off 33% of his expenses as business related costs. My

future is bright, he thinks to himself, now if I can find a way to get fired and still collect a

paycheck.

“Now Mario,” he remembers Jocelyn saying last night, “When I work full-time and leave

my job at the Board of Ed, we won’t have Medical so you need to enroll for it at your job.”

“Pero, Jocelyn!”

“No buts, Mario. We need Medical.”

Mario curses under his breath and opens up the link to Human Resources. After signing

up for benefits, he closes the window, shuts his eyes and leans his head back.

“I guess I’ll be here a little longer after all” he mutters to himself.

Mario’s phone rings and Alan Milchman’s name pops up on the Caller ID. He wipes the

sweat off his brow and picks up the receiver.

“Hello?”

“Is that the proper greeting, Mario?”

“Uhm no sir.”

“Please make sure to answer with the correct greeting from now on.”

“Yes sir.”

“Now the reason I’m calling is that, according to the system reports, your work flow has

been inconsistent lately. Some days you underwrite 10 files, other days only 5. Do you know

why?”

“Well not all files are the same and I guess I have some off days.”

“Well according to corporate it isn’t inconceivable to do 8 files every day. I’ll be

expecting that from now on, understood?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good. You can go back to work.”

“Ok.”

Mario hangs up the phone and buries his face in his hands. The phone rings and startles

Mario. He picks up the phone in annoyance.

“Thank you for calling our mortgage company. How may I assist you?”

“Well it’s so good to hear you’re going by the script.”

Feeling the humor from the other side of the line, Mario can’t help but smile.

“What’s going on Julio?”

“Oh nothing. Just wondering what’s for lunch today.”

“Well I can’t stay out long. I have to keep my numbers up.”

“I’m buying today. Let’s go to the Bengal Tiger Buffet.”

“But I really—“

“Don’t you always say you want to get fired?”

“Well yeah but—“

“And when has this company fired anyone for not reaching their numbers?”

“Never.”

“Ok then. See you in an hour.”

Mario hangs up the phone, unbuttons the top button from his dress shirt and loosens his

tie. Sighing, he continues to look at the credit report of his file.

————————————-

 

Mario savours his second serving of mutter paneer and chicken mahkani. He cannot wait

to top it off with some gulab jamun. Julio himself is enjoying his tikka masala and is

continuously dipping his naan into the sauce.

“So what’s the occasion?” Mario asks.

“Can’t I just treat you to lunch?”

“No something is up. You’ve never treated me to lunch before.”

“Ok fine. The reason I’m treating is because this may be our last lunch together.”

“What do you mean?!”

“I’m going to quit.”

“What?!”

“Yeah. I’ve decided to go back to school full-time, finish my BA and move in with the

in-laws to save on rent.”

“But you’re not going to have any privacy.”

“Yeah I know but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make to change my life.”

“How are you going to pay for school?”

“Well Claudia works there so I’ll be going for free and I’m going to keep my part-time

job to help with minor expenses.”

“Wow. Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

“We’ve been talking about quitting for years.”

“Yeah we have.”

“So when are you going to do it?”

“Well after I pack up my stuff I’m going to email my resignation letter.”

“You’re leaving today?”

“Well I don’t see any point in staying longer, do you?”

“I would leave too if it weren’t for the medical.”

“Just look for another job during your free time and get out when you can.”

“But I’m already comfortable here.”

“At some point in life Mario, you’re going reach that fork in the road and you’re going

to have to make a change.”

————————————-

Mario stares at his computer absent-mindedly. His collar is uneven, his tie is put away

and he doesn’t notice a food stain on the front of his shirt. He gathers his thoughts and looks at

the screen closely again. He puts in the final conditions for the loan, approves and completes it.

Well I’ve done six so far, so I may hit my goal today, Mario mutters to himself. He gets up

to grab another file from the bin across from him. As he signs his name to the Smith file his

computer makes a ping noise. Mario opens up Lotus Notes and sees an email from Julio.

He actually did it, Mario exclaimed under his breath. Mario reads the email a few more times.

Closing the email He stares at Smith’s credit report and thumbs his pen against the table

mindlessly. After a few repetitious thumpings, Mario gets up and storms over to his manager’s

office.

“Hi, uh Alan sir.”

“Yes Mario, what is it?”

“I’m a little under the weather and I need to go home.”

“I’m sorry but you can’t leave until you hit your numbers.”

“No disrespect sir but I’m going home now and if you want to fire me for feeling sick

then go ahead.”

“Don’t exaggerate Mario. No one is going to fire you. Just go home and get better.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Mario closes the door and lets out a deep breath. On my way home I can get the

classifieds and see what job offers are out there.

Going To Start Posting My Old Writings

I’m not sure if I said this before but I’ve been meaning to post some of my old short stories on this here blog and I just never got around to doing it. Well enough is enough. I’m going to start today. It’s about time. It’s not like I’m writing much on here lately anyway so at least there should be some type of content populating on here with those posts, right? I’ll definitely appreciate any feedback on it. Again they’re old writings I’ve done in college so I probably don’t write as good or bad as I did when I did them. I’m definitely a different person from those days. But it’s nice to look at our past works at times. Gives us things to reflect on. Ok then. Will post a short story in the next post.

To Screen Protect Or Not To Screen Protect

Screen protectors seem to be an ongoing debate with me. Since my first iPhone, I was all about overprotecting it and putting it in a case with a screen protector. Then when I got my iPhone 4, something interesting happened. I put a screen protector on it but unbeknownst to me I also had removed it and was none the wiser for over a year. When I did realize, my screen remained relatively unscratched for the whole time that I possessed it (just a few micro scratches near the home button and one or two on the screen itself).

This revelation made me have more faith in the magic of gorilla glass and so when I got my HTC One X I didn’t think about getting a screen protector at all. As has been documented I had that phone for at most 6 months and it had a lot more scratches than I ever experienced on my iPhone 4. So this time around, with the iPhone 5, I decided I’ll at least get a case that has a front cover, very much akin to the flip case that Samsung sells for the Galaxy S III. What currently serves that purpose is the wallet case by Hex. Still, I decided to get the screen protector so that I can have the option to switch cases without having to worry about getting scratches on my screen.

I got the screen protector by Belkin and my attempts to install it were a bust. I ended up throwing away both screens that came with the package. Not only that but ironically my attempts to administer the screen protector on my phone may have inadvertently put scratches on my screen. The thing I wanted to avoid ended up coming to fruition. Now the scratches are extremely minor and can only be seen around the receiver in the right light and only if it has been recently cleaned with a glass cleaner and it’s completely devoid of all smudges. But still there they are. Of course, prior to noticing this, I already ordered another screen protector from Skinomi. It’s one of those wet application screen protectors and I’ve just been told that those type of films can actually cause corrosion to the screen. I never heard of this before and all my google searches to confirm this allegation were moot. So should I just send that screen protector back and leave my screen bare or proceed with protecting it?

What Resolutions for 2013 Will I Plan On Breaking?

Before I blog on any possible resolutions I’d like to make for the new year, I like to look back at previous blog entries to see how I’ve fared. I realized that I didn’t even write one for 2012. Not only that but in 2011 I wrote that I would no longer make resolutions. How quickly I’ve forgotten. It’s true, I don’t fare well with keeping any of my resolutions. But then again most of us don’t, right?

It’s a little fun to do I suppose. To give ourselves goals to strive for and to try to accomplish them. This past year I’ve improved my health quite a bit, made attempts at eating vegan around March and have lost around 30 or so pounds. Towards the end of this year my good eating habits have gone a bit to the wayside but I still try to recover myself and go back to eating vegan.

What I want to do is improve on my vegan eating efforts of course, find a permanent full-time job with 9-5 hours or something close to it, try to move back into Manhattan (Brooklyn is nice but I’m a Manhattan native and that’s where I belong), and change my TV watching habits. I watch a lot of TV, I know I do and I’m not sure if I can quite curb my quantity. The goal is to improve its quality.

One way I intend to approach this is by no longer checking out new shows. I keep adding on the queue new shows to try them. No more. I have enough shows that I watch that won’t be leaving anytime soon. Plus I have a Netflix account. If I want to try a new show, there is a slew of old great shows that I haven’t watched that I can check out there. In fact, I just started watching “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia”.

Another thing I’m realizing is that I’m liking British shows more and more as expose myself to them. Doctor Who is a given but one of my new favorites is Downton Abbey (which will be premiering on PBS on 1/6/13). The Masterpiece Mystery and Masterpiece Classics are great platforms to get acquainted with British programming. There is also a slew of British shows on Netflix as well.

So those are the goals for 2013. I think the odds are about the same on how well I’ll be able to keep to my vegan diet or be able to curb my TV watching. Though honestly the TV goal may have a slight edge. British television is really good. I won’t really be twisting my arm to watch.

 

Pastures Aren’t Always Greener On The Other Side

I’ve come to realize that I am truly fickle-minded. Especially when it comes to gadgets. Not too long ago I said that I was interested in the Nexus 4. However, LG seems unable to keep up with demand and it’s always in a sold-out state. Add to that, my current smartphone, the HTC One X, seems to have more glitches than when I first bought it. Or maybe I’m tired of having to deal with glitches in general.

This experience has definitely steered me away from any and all Android variants. It’s either the Nexus or nothing from here on. Unfortunately, as I just mentioned, it isn’t readily available. In fact from the inception of the Nexus line it alway seemed that you had to jump through hoops to get one.

As much as I am a gadget enthusiast I’m a consumer first and the consumer experience has always been priority for me. And as reluctant as I am to admit it, Apple is tops when it comes to customer service and the customer experience in general. The iPhone 5 is readily available in all their stores and in all carriers’ brick and mortar store as well. Just walk in and buy one. And I know what to expect with the iPhone. Yeah I mentioned that I’m a little bored of the interface as I’ve used an iPhone for about 3 years and with few exceptions I know all the tricks. But on top of knowing what to expect, there aren’t any glitches with the interface and all the apps I use o iOS are pretty consistent and efficient across the board.

That has been my experience with iOS at least. I can’t say the same for my Android experience. And now that Google Maps is once again available for the iPhone. It’s pretty much a no-brainer. I’m back on Team iPhone. At least for another 2 years. Maybe by the then, Google will have the same great customer service backing their Nexus line which will then make it a more appealing device for me because of its customization abilities as well. We shall see.

With Pandora One Expiring Thinking About Slacker Radio Plus Once Again

 So about a year ago I made the decision to choose iTunes Match and Pandora One for my music needs. By December 20th, my Pandora One subscription will expire and I’ve decided to use Slacker Radio Plus this time around. As much as I enjoyed Pandora One, I missed listening to radio stations offline a lot more than I thought I would. Also I’ve noticed that I in fact cannot tell the difference between 190 kbps (Pandora One sound quality) or 128 kbps (Slacker Radio). Since I cannot tell the difference between those sound qualities, Slacker’s music library and ability to cache their stations for offline listening seems more appealing to me than Pandora this time around. Also, unlike Pandora, when I’m listening to a genre of music, Slacker’s music stays consistent within that genre. That wasn’t always the case with Pandora. Sometimes with Pandora there would songs that would be completely out of left field of the genre that I would be listening to.

So Pandora One is out and Slacker Radio Plus is now in. And what about iTunes Match? Oh that’s still in. You can’t beat all your songs backed up for only $24.99 a year.