Over

Finals are over. They kicked my ass.

Finals Week

Let the late nights and cram studying begin!

On Tips and Tippers in Kirksville

(I enjoy stereotyping as much as the next guy, so I will.)

Working as a waiter in the small college town of Kirksville, I've found that there exist five kinds of tippers (keeping in mind that I'm assuming the following groups received average service under normal conditions):

1. Fogies usually come in in the mornings, stay for several hours, drink eight cups of coffee (Decaf, mind you; they don't want to be up all night), and leave between 5 - 10% tips, mostly because that was the industry standard back in 1952 -- the last date their Alzheimer's-riddled brain can remember.
2. Bible-Thumpers come in after church with their families. One shouldn't expect too much of a tip out of them because after all, they only tip their God 10%.
3. Townie Families consist of at least two parents, one grandparent, and twice as many children as there are adults. And there is usually one child that cries, spills his drink, can't control the volume of his voice, or (if you're lucky) all three. Despite the price of the food purchased, townie families usually leave about 50c to $1 per head.
4. Townie Businessmen think they are very important, but being the biggest fish in a puddle doesn't make you any more significant than any of the other fish stupid enough to be trapped, floundering in a puddle. They often treat servers like shit and cocktail waitresses like whores. They know how to tip well, but usually look for an excuse not to.
5. College Students are often thought to be poor, and it's a common perception that they don't know how to handle money. But the best tips one will get in a night will be from college students that know and understand that you are trying to make it through college just like them.

Extended Archives

I used to have a blog called Z-Gar's Last Big Mistake, before Cynical McBastard came along. I decided to add the archives of that blog to this one. So, go exploring through the archives, and discover what Mr. McBastard was like during the end of this freshman / beginning of his sophomore year of college.

Anxadry

I don't know what emotion it is that I'm feeling today, but I don't like it. I would much rather be confused, depressed, or complacent (like I usually am) than this. It's a blend of Anxious and Sad with a sprinkle of Angry. It's like I'm anxiously sad and angry, or angrily sad and anxious, or something. I'll call it Anxadry.

Sick Blues

I've been sick recently and I don't like it. Over the past two weeks I've been living on DayQuil, Unisom, "Zach's Happy Pills" (ibuprofen), and NyQuil.

I think I'm addicted to NyQuil. Last night I chugged half a bottle of it. The cherry flavor is delicious.

Favorite Ancient Greek Vocabulary Word Thus Far

(hye RAY on)

sacrificial vicitim

Bets

It seems that I lost most of my money last night on the bets I made.

Placing My Bets on this Election

I'm going put $5 on a parlay (with 4 to 1 odds) of Missouri-Florida-Hawaii going to Kerry.

I also want to put $2 on Nevada going to Bush, $1 on Virginia going to Bush, $1 on New Hampshire going to Bush, and $1 on Pennsylvania going to Kerry.

I voted

Today is election day. Unless you're a useless tool, you voted. I voted. Voter registration troubles were cleared up at Cynical McUniversity thanks to the tireless efforts of Rock the Vote. Man do they rock...the vote. Tonight=drinking and CNN. Ahh, democracy in action.

Voter Registration Troubles

The following story ran today in the Index, the campus newspaper of Truman State University, located in Kirksville:

Lost registrations jeopardize votes By Index Staff Published: Thursday, October 28, 2004

Misplaced voter registration cards might leave some students ineligible to cast their ballots Nov. 2.

Students who filled out voter registration forms to vote in Adair County through on-campus organizations and have not yet received a verification letter should call the Adair County Clerk's office immediately to make sure they are registered, Adair County Clerk Jon Cook said.

"Unless they have received that verification notice, we may not have their card," Cook said.

Senior Evan Montgomery, president of College Democrats, said he registered with the College Democrats, who gave their forms to Rock the Vote. He said he called the county clerk's office Wednesday and found out he was not registered to vote in Adair County.

Montgomery said he decided to call and request an absentee ballot from his hometown because his voter registration was not canceled as it would have been if he had successfully registered in Adair County.

"I feel bad for people who find it out right now and can't vote unless they make a trip back home," he said. "What are they going to do?"

The last day to register to vote in Missouri was Oct. 6, and Wednesday way the last day to request absentee ballots.

Junior Renee Taylor said she also had problems with her registration form. She said she received an incorrect verification letter after registering through one of the campus political groups. The letter bore the name of another student who shared the same first and last name but had a different middle name.

Taylor said she then called the county clerk's office to verify her registration.

"[Someone at the clerk's office] said, 'Well, we don't have your form,' and they weren't going to let me vote," Taylor said.

She said she called junior Sarah Saheb, Rock the Vote midwest regional coordinator, who helped her talk to the county clerk.

"I was actually really upset because the election is really, really close, and this is my first time voting," Taylor said.

Taylor said she had to fill out a new voter registration form, and she is now registered.

Saheb said Rock the Vote tracked voter registration forms at all times and made a copy of each card before giving it to the county clerk.

"Everybody who manned tables was trained by us, and we made sure everybody knew how to register people to vote, and they knew the laws," Saheb said. "It's not a difficult process to help people register to vote."

She said those who volunteered to sign people up to vote were each given a packet of voter registration forms. When the volunteers turned the packets back in, all of the forms had to be accounted for, she said.

Saheb said that anyone who registered to vote in Adair County through a student organization and has not received a voter verification letter should call the county clerk at 665-3350 to make sure they are registered to vote.

If someone goes to the polls on Election Day and is told he or she is not registered to vote, he or she should request a provisional ballot, according to Rock the Vote's Web site.

After the polls close, the state will look for any mistakes with the person's voter registration and then inform the individual if his or her was vote counted.

So, who is at fault for this mistake? I spoke with Megan Gibbard, a member of Rock the Vote in Kirksville; she said that it seems unlikely that the Rock the Vote organization is at fault; they made copies of every registration form that they collected before turning them over to the County Clerk. Gibbard says, “[The County Clerk’s office] says they never got the forms.” So, perhaps some registration forms were lost in transit from the Rock the Vote Headquarters to the County Clerk’s office. It is a volunteer organization made up of college students. Surely it was Rock the Vote that made the mistake and not the responsible elected officials and paid, trained workers at the Adair County Clerk’s office. Then how do you account for me?

On October 4, I went to the County Clerk’s office to change my registration from my Livingston County (containing Chillicothe, where I sometimes call home) to Adair County so that I did not have to vote via absentee ballot. The woman behind the counter asked me for my current local address and other cursory questions, typed on the computer for a while, filled out a voter registration card for me, and dated and stamped it with a seal before handing it to me. I asked her if there was anything else I needed to do. She told me there was not. Apparently, she was wrong.

Hours ago I received a phone call from Gibbard informing me that I was not registered to vote in Adair County. She informed me that Rock the Vote had obtained a list of all people registered to vote in this county and were comparing it to the list of 1400 students that they had registered over the past three weeks on campus. “We’re to the ‘M’s and we’ve already found 200 missing registrations,” she said. I was very confused because, although I had been registered through Rock the Vote, I had also physically gone into County Courthouse, up the stairs, and into the Clerk’s office, and spoken directly with someone whom I believed to be a responsible county employee. I had watched as my registration information was supposedly entered into some database. I had physical evidence that I had been there on that day: a handwritten, dated, and seal-stamped voter registration card. How could it be possible that I was not registered to vote in Adair County?

Furthermore, many other students who may or may not have registered in person at the County Courthouse but did receive voter registration cards are missing from the registered voter list, according to Gibbard. With this information it seems unlikely that Rock the Vote is responsible for the hundreds – how many, is still yet to be determined – of missing voter registrations of students on the Truman State University campus.

There have been several cases of apparent voter registration fraud occurring around the nation recently, in Florida, New York, Nevada, and Oregon. There even seems to be something fishy going on around the St. Louis area. New York, Las Vegas, St. Louis: These are all important places where important things happen. But in the quiet, small college town of Kirksville, Missouri, who would have guessed that something similar may be going on?

It may be a bit early to start shouting “scandal” and “voter registration fraud,” but no one can deny that there have been suspicious goings on recently in the Adair County Clerk’s office in Kirksville. There are voters who thought they were registered, received registration cards, but are not registered. There are hundreds of students’ registration forms that seem to have vanished. Should we chalk this one up as incompetence, or is it possible that someone misplaced the students’ forms on purpose? Jon E. Cook himself, Adair County Clerk, said recently that some people do think that students should not be allowed to vote in Kirksville because they do not pay taxes there, according to an October 14, 2004 article in the Index. Does this have something to do with the disappearance of 200+ student registration forms? Or is that just a convenient coincidence? Either way, there is going to be a large mob of angry students come election day if we are denied our right to vote, and I will be one of those angry students, and we will be heard.

Dizzy Dance

Even worse than dancing to hip-hop am I at dancing with young interested ladies.

"You have pretty eyes," she says.
"I know," I respond.

I make a much better wallflower.

The instructor professes, "Gentlemen, pull your partner into your cradle."
"Get in my cradle, bitch," I say playfully. I receive a displeased punch in the stomach for my crude words.

ES 159 - Social & Country Western Dancing (1 credit hour) is one of the most fun classes I've taken. Kelly is one of best dance partners I've ever had.

"Are you still my partner?" I ask, almost as an apology.
"Yes."

I can get the moves; I can do the pretzel and the jitterbug and the pull-bys and all that, for the most part.

I'm not sure what happened, but Kelly ended up dancing with Chris, and I with Shayna. We were both confused.

After class she said, "You can be Shayna's partner if you want. I'll dance with Chris."
I nodded and let out a disappointed, "OK."

I can do all the moves, but the hardest part is making the moves look good, using flow and grace.

The teacher assigned Jordan as my new partner.

She leaned over and whispered to me, "I thought you were going to be partners with Shayna."
"She already had a partner," I whispered back.
"Oh, sorry." She looked perplexed. "I guess I was just confused."
"Me too."
"Do you hate me now?"
"Oh yeah, I do," I say jokingly. Sometimes I don't think my humor goes over well; she just stares at me.

I'm also not very good at leading. I'm either too forceful or too timid.

Non-Traditional

I'm convinced: Non-traditional (old) students have lost all creativity, intelligence, and humbleness from being out in "the real world."

Overdramatic(It's My Blog and I'll Cry if I Want To)

The image of myself that I've created for you is the one I thought you'd want to see, the one I thought would please you. It wasn't perfect, and I knew you didn't expect that. But it was mostly "good" or mostly "cool" or mostly "strong" or mostly something that I thought you'd like.

Silly me.

Apparently people don't want to see an image of me, no matter how pleasing the image. It could be perfect or perfectly imperfect. Either way, they want to see the parts of me that I've kept out of view, the parts that I don't even like, and the parts that I hide even from myself.

So, I'm going to try to do that for you; show everything. Not really for your benefit, but for mine. Because by the end of this thing (post?, weblog?, life?) I won't have to be the hundreds of different me's that I've been being, one for everyone I know. I can just be the one and only Zach, if a single one does exist. I guess that single one will be discovered here. Stay tuned.

Bad Taste in Music

I have bad taste in music. Tell me some good songs to listen to.

Quothe StellarMel

"You can't jack up a car and steal the tires in the span of one Captain and Tenille song."

Overheard in Baldwin Hall

"Beef jerky is not a vice!"

Robot Wishes

I am a robot
that wishes. For death
and closure affect me not.
I am a robot
that lives, as it seems is my lot,
long past my love's last breath.
I am a robot
that wishes for death.

Minimum Rage Job

INT. - CHECKOUT COUNTER OF A SUPERMARKET

Mark rings up item after item, bored with his menial task. He doesn't smile, talk to, or even acknowledge the presence of the customers. Like a zombie moonlighting as a cashier, Mark is emotionless except for the unrelenting desire to crack open the skull of the next annoying, nagging customer in his seemingly never ending checkout line. The customers fly by in fast motion, stopping for some highlights:

MAN 1

I think you scanned that twice.

Fast forward.

WOMAN 1

Oh, wait. I have a coupon for that.

Fast forward.

MOM 1

Writing a check while her young crying child tugs at her shirt

Pick out some candy. Pick out some candy. Pick out some candy. Nicolas, pick out some candy. Pick out some candy.

Fast forward.

MAN 2

Oh hell! I left my wallet in my car, can you hold on a second?

Fast forward.

WOMAN 2

How much?

MARK

$103.54.

WOMAN 2

How much?

MARK

$103.54.

WOMAN 2

That can't be right....

Fast forward. A smiling Old Woman stands staring at Mark, watching him scan her items. The register beeps with a slow and steady beat.

OLD WOMAN

Out of nowhere

Why don't you smile, young man?

MARK

Because I don't want to.

OLD WOMAN

You're not a very personable young man. And kind of rude.

MARK

Looking up from the scanning mechanism at the Old Woman for the first time.

I don't get paid to smile. That costs extra.

OLD WOMAN

In a huff.

Well!

MANAGER

Walking by and seeing something is wrong

Is there something wrong, ma'am?

OLD WOMAN

You're cashier here was just rude to me!

MANAGER

Mark?

MARK

What?

MANAGER

Gives Mark a stern look

MARK

Sighs. Deciding it better to avoid a conflict, turns to Old Lady

I'm sorry, ma'am. I was rude.

OLD WOMAN

Well, you've almost ruined my day. How much do I owe you?

MARK

Your total is $32.91.

Old Woman hands Mark several bills, and in turn Mark gives her change. All the while Manager watches.

OLD WOMAN

I hope you don't treat all of your customers like this.

Walks off perturbed.

MANAGER

I'm sorry, ma'am. I'll have a talk with him.

To Mark

Mark, what was that?

MARK

She told me to smile, and I told her I didn't want to.

MANAGER

Mark, part of your job is customer relations. You are the last face that the customer sees before he leaves the store.

MARK

What about the greeters at the door?

MANAGER

Mark, focus. You can't be negative, or the customers will leave here with a negative impression of our store.

MARK

OK.

MANAGER

You have to smile, Mark. And you have to talk to them.

MARK

Like what? I don't have anything to say.

MANAGER

Small talk. Talk to them about the items they're buying. Anything. Just make them feel comfortable, and they'll walk out of here wanting to come back. And hopefully soon. Do you understand, Mark?

MARK

I guess.

A customer puts her items on Mark's counter. Manager looks at Mark and gives him a nod and points to his smiling mouth. Mark puts on a strained smile. Manager nods in approval, then motions for Mark to continue.

MARK

As he begins to scan the woman's items, he holds up a bag of apples

So. . . . Buying apples, huh?

WOMAN 3:

Yep.

MARK

Mark looks to Manager for help. Manager looks at Mark as if to say, "Keep going."

Well, uh, you know what they say about apples: An apple a day keeps the doctor away.

Manager smiles in approval

WOMAN 3:

Smiles

It's true. I love apples.

MARK

Struggling to continue the conversations, he looks to Manager and then to the next item in his hand, a box of douches.

And you know what they say about douching: A douche a day keeps the . . . uh. . .

Woman 3 looks at Mark disgusted and embarassed. Manager shakes head and releases a deep sigh.

Computer Teachers

Cynical McBrother: I'm going to sub tomorrow.
Mr. McBastard: for whom?
Cynical McBrother: an elementary computer teacher
Mr. McBastard: they have computer teachers now?
Cynical McBrother: yeah
Mr. McBastard: what's next cyborg guidance councilors?
Cynical McBrother: *beep boop beep* you're good at math, Mr. McBastard. *beep beep boop* you should be an automechanic boop