I’m bored, and don’t have much to write about. Office Depot has been alright…not too busy, but that still doesn’t mean I want to be there. Here are a few places I’d rather be than Office Depot:

- Death Valley in July
- stuck in traffic on Interstate 10, with a broken CD player and nothing but Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity on the radio
- a Toby Keith concert in (insert random southern state here)
- seated next to several crying babies while on an 11 hour trans-Atlantic flight
- New Jersey

My work schedule for next week is pretty messed up. On Monday I work 6pm-2:30am and from Tuesday – Friday I work from 9pm-5:30am (and yes, you read that correctly). We are “remerching” the tech department which basically means that we are moving everything around and we can only accomplish this when there are no customers in the store, hence my crazy work hours. My sleep schedule is going to be extremely whacked, but I suppose it will be similar to the all-nighters I would pull during finals week…but instead of cramming my head full of facts about the Cold War, I will be moving merchandise around.

When I was in Moscow last year I purchased a map of the Soviet Union (along with a few trillion souvenirs). I finally got around to having it framed…now it hangs on my wall like so:

Have you ever wondered how rich people protest? In their limos, of course! Exiled Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky organized a protest against the Russian government by attaching signs to 100 limos and parking them outside the Russian Embassy in London:

The limousines drove up and down Park Lane in West London before parking outside the Russian Embassy adjacent to Hyde Park. There, Berezovsky displayed dozens of placards and banners, whose slogans included “Free Khodorkovsky,” “Russian Business vs. Police State,” and “Russian Business vs. KGB.”

Moscow has been named as one of the 5 finalists for the 2012 summer Olympic games. The other finalists are New York, Paris, London and Madrid. Honestly, I don’t think Moscow stands a chance against the other cities…I’m guessing the Olympic committee just named them a finalist in order to boost the self-esteem of Muscovites….or, better yet, a Russian mobster bribed a few of the committee members (hmm remember the figure skating scandal?)
Russian border guards have been ordered to deal politely with travelers. Apparently, the guards now have to smile and greet you…wow…can’t wait to see this.

Dell is also running some amusing ads in Russia…I didn’t know Dell sold computers in Russia, but it turns out that they certainly do.

The ads for Dell computers go further still. One features a cartoonish anti-globalist babbling something about the power of the multinationals. In another we see a no less cartoonish intellectual complaining about the vulgarity of advertising and the corruption of the Russian language by Americanisms. Both characters then open their Dell notebook computers and the breezy announcer reminds us that whatever we might think about America, the quality of its computers is beyond doubt. You can’t help noticing that these ads provide no information about the computer itself and are prepared to sacrifice the product and even the brand to promote a more general message. Indeed, the point is that these ads are not about computers. They are intended to convince us that the system all around us is good, and that its critics cannot be trusted.

It’s a shame that the Russians never had an equivalent to the “Dude, you’re getting a Dell!” commercials that we had here in the U.S.

GWU was mentioned again in The Onion. I think this is the third time that a fictional character has hailed from my alma mater. Hmm is a GW alum writing for The Onion? If so, one thing is for certain…they must not have been a member of the Hatchet’s writing staff…those guys wouldn’t know “funny” if it ran up to them and pummeled their pathetic existence into the ground…they throw a few dirty jokes and poorly Photoshopped pictures in the April Fool’s edition and proclaim themselves to be masters of humor. (If you didn’t notice already, I am not the biggest fan of the Hatchet).

Enough rambling for now…

My Earthlink DSL has been down since last night and was just recently fixed. Apparently, the entire Southern California area was affected. How annoying.

Anyways, I uploaded all my photos from graduation week in DC. You can find them here.

Website is back up and running after a few problems yesterday (it was as if my site reverted back to how it looked on May 2nd). Web host fixed everything. No Office Depot today, sweet.

Ryan suggested that perhaps Office Depot corporate headquarters had something to do with my missing entries, which included several Adventures in Customer Service volumes…well, I wouldn’t put it past them.

If you have a website, blog, Xanga, Livejournal, etc, let me know so that I can add you to my “Comrades” list. I know I’m missing some people on the current list…my apologies.

I just felt like deleting the useless links page from my website and instead adding my friends to the front. I mean, does anyone really care that I have links to the Washington Post and The Onion on my links page…who DOESN’T have those links on their website? So yeah, out with the links page.

That is all.

I’m back in Palm Desert…unfortunately. I wish I was still in DC…I told that to a few of my friends and they laughed because all past semester, and the year before that, I complained about DC. Well, it turns out that I really like being in DC when I’m not in school…you don’t get to enjoy the city when term papers and massive amounts of reading take up a majority of your time. When you’ve got some time on your hands, though, it’s a pretty nice place to be. I think I’ll be moving back there after grad school. I love California, but not as much as I used to…

Laura, Cindy, and I visited our old freshman dorm, the Hall on Virginia Avenue (HOVA). I haven’t been back there since the day I moved out at the end of freshman year. It felt very odd to visit HOVA…not much has changed…we got to see our old room, #419…had the same sagging ceiling, chipped paint, and wonderful view of the Watergate.

On Saturday I attended the Columbian College graduation ceremony (since I was a PoliSci major…and yeah, we were definitely the rowdiest of the majors there). When I started at GW I was originally in the Engineering School as a Computer Science major, but my first programming class made me realize how much I hated CS (I also failed the course, which added to my frustration with the major I had chosen). I thought that I wanted to major in business with a concentration in information systems, so I took business classes for a semester, and what a mistake that turned out to be. The subject matter was boring and absolutely useless, and our assignments consisted of group papers and multiple choice tests (yes, I felt like I was back in the 5th grade). So I switched to Political Science and loved every minute of it. Maybe I should be thankful that I failed that computer programming course…

Graduation on the Ellipse was nice. (For those who have no idea what the Ellipse is, it is the “backyard” of the White House where various Presidential events are held). It rained in the morning, but by the time the Commencement started, the sky cleared up and we had a good amount of sun. Some might say too much sun, but don’t mind them – they are just whiny New Yorkers. One of our speakers was General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He remarked that studying in Washington DC at this time would be similar to studying in Rome at the height of the Roman empire, which I thought was an interesting observation. There were a lot of students with anti-Bush and pro-Kerry slogans taped onto their graduation caps…gotta love that. Trachtenberg also threw in an amusing statement at the end of his “Charge to Graduates”: “And you may now turn your tassels from right to left, as I hope happened to your politics in the last four years.” My mom said that some parents sitting behind her were a bit angry over that statement…leave it to SJT to stir up some controversy.

Overall, this past week was great…won some $ in Atlantic City, got to see all my friends, had a few rounds at Lindy’s, ate at Old Ebbitt, met up with one of my favorite professors, and finally graduated on the Ellipse. Pictures will be up soon…

My flight back to Palm Springs was delayed for a few hours…typical America West (aka America Worst). Another thing the really annoys me is when people bring those mini-rolling suitcases into the plane…oh, excuse me, you can’t wait 10 minutes for your luggage to come out of the carousel? I sat next to a lady today on the Phoenix to PS flight that had one of those bags. We were on a small plane, so the bag wouldn’t fit in the overhead compartment and of course she didn’t want to check it, so she put it under the seats in front of us but she took up my space too and told me I’d have to put my backpack in the overhead compartment…what the hell…well maybe I don’t want too! Ugh, those people piss me off so much.
Tomorrow I go back to work…not looking forward to it. Volume IV of Adventures in Customer Service is on the way…got quite a few complements this past week in regards to my previous entries…good to hear people are actually reading this blog.

Last night we went to Atlantic City…left the GW campus at 4pm and returned at 6:30 this morning. The trip was organized by GW and it was $32, but when we got to AC they gave us a voucher for $17 in chips to gamble with. I went to the slot machines and put $5 and the first time I pulled the bar I got three 7s…wooo $50 on my first pull. So I cashed out and took my $50, thank you very much. At Trump’s Taj Mahal I put $5 on the Jeopardy slots and worked my way up to $19, so I came home from AC with some cash.

Oh, and I got funnel cake…awesome. AC can’t come close to Vegas, but wasn’t as ghetto as I was expecting.

Today we are going to visit our old freshman dorm, HOVA! Oh, and also attempt to pickup our cap and gowns.

Well, my flight was 2 hours late into DC, so I got into National (NOT REAGAN) Airport around 12:30 at night. We skirted the Potomac when we were coming into land and had an awesome view of the monuments at night. We were landing and were literally 10 feet above the runway when the pilot decided not to land and instead climb to a few thousand feet and give us another scenic flight of the DC area…must have been a pilot in training. When I finally got to campus, Cindy, Rian, and I went to Lindy’s.

This morning we went to get Cindy some boxes and UPS Store was out so we went to the next nearest supply store…guess which one….OFFICE DEPOT. Well, I at least had a chance to put my employee discount to use. Tonight all of us are going to Atlantic City…never been there, but I know there is no way in hell it can top Vegas.

“The age-long struggle of the Slav nations has ended in victory. Your courage has defeated the Nazis. The war is over.” – Josef Stalin, radio address – May 9, 1945.

May 9 marks the official observance of the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, a conflict in which over 27 million Soviets lost their lives. In Russia, World War II is referred to as “The Great Patriotic War” and no Soviet family was left untouched by this terrible conflict. Since 1945, May 9th has been recognized as a national holiday to honor the Soviet citizens that fought to repel the Nazi invasion and crush Hitler’s Wehrmacht, an event which is considered to be a great source of national pride for many Russians. As such, Victory Day is recognized as one of Russia’s most meaningful holidays.

May 9 is also my birthday…my friends in Moscow thought it was pretty cool that my birthday was on one of their national holidays.

On Monday I’m flying to DC…going to Atlantic City with my comrades on Tuesday…Columbian College ceremonies on Saturday…and the big finale…graduation on the White House Ellipse on Sunday…back to Palm Desert on the 17th…

I should have Volume IV of Adventures in Customer Service posted after I get back from DC…oh, and Office Depot put me on next week’s schedule…umm yeah, too bad I’m going to be 3,000 miles away…oh well, whatever.

I received my Canon A80 digital camera today…wow, I love it already.

Vlad and Tony pose for a picture

Here’s the first pictures I took with my A80:
- my dog, Katie
- my backyard

I’m looking forward to using it in DC…got a 256 MB CompactFlash card to go with it. Actually, Amazon.com gave me a free 64mb card, so I’ve got that one, too.

Now I am in search of a new laptop to take to graduate school. I have been using the same Dell desktop since 1998, and the laptop I bought in 2000 has just about had it. So if you have any suggestions as to which laptop I should buy, let me know…I’m looking for a minimum 512MB RAM, 60GB hard drive, and a DVD-RW. Processor doesn’t matter as long as it’s not a Celeron.

I’m seriously considering the eMachines M6809: 15.4″ Widescreen, Mobile AMD Athlon 64 3200+ processor, 512MB RAM, 80GB hard drive, DVD-RW, etc for $1549. Yeah, an eMachines…never thought I would consider buying an eMachines, but I was impressed with the reviews that the previous model, the M6807, received.

I’m definitely staying away from a Dell, though. My Dell desktop has served me well, but I’ve got three friends who have had failed hard drives with their Dell laptops, and that’s something I’d rather not deal with, thank you very much.

I didn’t have to go to work today and I also have tomorrow off…plusgood.

I’ll be in DC May 10 – 17 for commencement. No work for an entire week and I get to see all my GW friends…doubleplusgood!

I watched part 1 of NBC’s “10.5″ (about the big earthquakes that rock the west coast). Methinks tomorrow we shall see the Coachella Valley wiped off the face of the earth…be sure to tune in!