I am become bees, destroyer of not-bees

RD9 thoughts

Okay first of all just the fact that I'm writing about how RD9 went suggests I should... stop playing Radiant Dawn. "9" stands for how many times I've finished the game btw. BUT I WON'T HAHA

Nolan got so strength-screwed, he had 36 pts at 20/20/20, even after BEXPing the last few levels. It was beyond pathetic, that I just gave my only energy drop to Ike because I wasn't going to count on him getting gains in strength at the rate things were going. Soren maxed everything, though BEXP was involved, he still maxed every, single, stat. But his speed cap is so low, that's his only problem. Otherwise him and Ike could solo... pretty much the whole game once they get their A-rank support. They have intrinsic HP-recovery skills that activate fairly often in case they do get hit. That's actually how I deal with Nolan an Zihark, I get them to A-rank support and just have them crawl past hordes of enemies without taking a single hit. Sometimes when I don't feel like using Zihark I give Nolan Savior, have him rescue Zihark, and he runs around the map all by himself, giving Zihark a piggy-back ride and killing everyone.

Jill came out terrible, I tried to level Micaiah and Sothe but they were Micaiah and Sothe as usual. Sothe's strength cap of 28 is pretty much shit. Would love to bring Volke to the endgame someday but generally I can't, because Sothe is there too. I actually have an idea for an "Eleventh Hour Superpower Team" where I only bring to the endgame all the last-tier crutches you're given in case you screwed up and have nobody usable. It's all the laguz nobles (Tibarn, Caineghis, Naesala) and Giffca (with the laguz gem), Stefan, Oliver, Volke, Bastian, Renning, and Elincia kind of counts because I need a healer and she does come in at third tier. I'm bummed Stefan is one of the last-minute crutches because I like using him. Then I have a Couple's Night playthrough where I only bring people who have a paired ending with someone else. Ranulf gets left out though cuz it's him or Soren with Ike. Also I hate laguz. But then it also means I have to choose Leanne instead of Reyson... Hmmmm :/

Nephenee was MVP again but not by much, like 5 kills or something. Haar was 2nd. I'd like to bring his glory back and have him be MVP once more instead of being usurped by the likes of Nolan. For some reason Nephenee has never placed particularly high in kills even though she's pretty much the best all-around unit in the game. I think it's because she's so strong that enemy units ignore her on their turn, and go for whoever I sent with her, instead. Like 3-5, EVERY SINGLE ENEMY went for Elincia if they had a choice.

In 3-5 I pick the 4 units I want to level (usually Nephenee, Elincia, Nolan, Zihark) and have them surround Reyson because the only ranged units are dragons (which aren't common and I can see coming from miles away) and they very slowly make their way to the boss without breaking formation. Then Izuka warps away and I send in Tibarn (who has been lurking far away in case the formation doesn't work out and I need to rescue Reyson) out of impatience.

RD9 sucked, I might go for a gimmicky themed-run next time

The best poke recipe I'm not actually allowed to share or the Argentinian mafia will kill me

Assorted raw sushi-grade fish, cut into chunks
Slivered white onion
Green onion, sliced thin
Sesame seeds
Avocado, optional, cut into same size chunks as fish

Dressing:
1/2 eel sauce
1/2 chili sesame oil
Splash of ponzu

To serve:
White rice, cooled
Furikake
Cilantro, optional

Mix together all dressing ingredients and toss all the salad ingredients together in it. Sprinkle rice with furikake, top with fish and dressing mixture. Garnish with more sesame seeds, green onion, and cilantro.

The dressing is very thick and spicy, so add it to taste or add more ponzu or soy to thin it out.

Any and all kinds of fish is good for this. In our restaurant we just gathered whatever scraps of fish we had, first and foremost. This isn't something you use a beautiful block of tuna for.

Right in the middle of the day, the director of human resources decided to immediately implement a new policy that Friends & Families vouchers require the employee it was issued to to be present when the vouchers are redeemed, with their employee pass. In the middle of the day. Immediately. Apparently people have gotten for too lax about selling them, far too comfortable and brazen. It's one thing to discretely sell/buy from people you know, completely a different thing to put advertisements on craigslist and sales sites. (It's illegal to sell/buy tickets without authorization)

I don't blame them at all for wanting to stop illegal voucher trade, even as one who participated in it plenty of times. I'm tying to take my job seriously though so I don't do it anymore, because the intended purpose of this is to provide employees with a perk they can give to their friends/families, hence the name. Not for people to make cash on the side, some people make a ton of profit off this.

However, I think it's an insanely stupid idea to freak out and immediately implement a policy with zero prior warning, in the middle of the day (it was like 1:30pm) on Monday, after schedules have been finalized and employees can't just skip down to tickets from wherever they work on a whim. This is a stupid way to go about it, they should have accepted their losses for the rest of this year, and implement another system in a more timely, not-insanely-inconvenient manner.

There was an email distributed to Tickets agents basically saying "vouchers were sold by these individuals, please get the guest's name/number so we can take a statement" and every single name on that list was Hispanic in origin so I'm going to guess racism is a factor here, just a guess. They're almost certainly selling them to other employees, not running an illegal vouchers trading ring. Often someone is offering to buy them.

They took back their pay cut starting the 28th because between that and this stupid new policy, everyone and their mum is going to take a dump on a Executive Management. I didn't even think about pay cuts being removed, all I could think of was "stupid new policy stupid new policy over and over. It doesn't even affect me much because I work right behind Tickets and all I'd have to do is pop my head out and wave at whoever is taking care or my guest, but it's an incredibly terrible policy in many ways and s lot of people are angry, mostly at how sudden they implemented it, and told fucking nobody in a tamely manner.

Another day, another (the same) parking lot, another paycheck.

Okay first of all, puppies. A couple came up with these two absolutely gorgeous, gentle, lovable Labrador retrievers and they had to go inside to get some boots but since the dogs couldn't go inside with them, I offered to sit with them. One of the dogs jumped up on the bench next to me and the other just lay down, they were the most laid-back dogs I'd ever seen. When the couple came back the dogs suddenly started wagging their tails and they were obviously stoked, but so calm.

This is a really good way to meet people and socialize. I met this older korean couple who'd moved to america in the 60s, and at first I was surprised that they had such good english because older Koreans are often resistant to change and learning english, but since they immigrated at such a young age, living in a city without a big Korean population, they had no choice but to learn. they were telling me about their kids and where they'd lived and stuff, they were super nice. Their kids are the kind that never really spoke Korean and can barely string together a sentence now, which is a shame. I suppose it's easier to forget when mom and dad can speak English. I always speak Korean with my mom, cuz I don't want to forget. The grandpa's family was also from Ansung, which is where my mom's family all is from too (it's a small city).

Tim came to ski with I think his mom, and I was talking to him while she was in line at tickets, and he was like "did they get you more bank bags?" And I was like "Uhhh I don't know..." But I took a look later and we had only one left so that's a no. I mean, I got one for tomorrow, but on Sunday he'd said he'd pass it on to whoever is around on his days off, and here I am with only one bank bag. I guess the general rule is that if I don't ask Tim himself for something, there's always a chance, however small, that it just won't happen. Psh. I'm still irritated about yesterday. I got a change order coming in too, hopefully two days notice is enough time because I don't want it coming in on Tuesday or Wednesday next week. I'm being very fussy lately but I can't help it, and I suspect stuff like this is why I'm being fussy and nitpicky. I should calm down, or join the gym.

Parker is driving to LA tonight that lucky little duck. No point in being jealous though, I can't afford to take a trip anyway.

My friend Kate got an eviction notice today.

Actually, no, Kate got an "eviction notice" today that had us all in stitches.

So Kate's friend Jeff, who's crashing with her a short while, texted her saying that her roommates posted a hilarious eviction notice on her door after she'd left for work, and that he was going to bring it up to show her at work, because it's slow and nothing's going on anyway. I went outside to talk to Mike so I was there when Jeff came walking up with a couple sheets of notebook paper in his hand. We took them in to show Kate and we had a really good laugh over it all because it was a mess of an "eviction notice."

First of all, it was from her roommates, not her landlord. They can't evict her themselves. It was on fucking notebook paper, written in ballpoint pen. All of their points were past the line of bullshit to just being funny, they ranged from "storing materials in common areas" (she left her board and boots in the living exactly like everyone else) to "subleasing [sic] to another person" (Jeff is staying with her a couple weeks, no written contract, not paying her, not staying in common areas, but staying in her room with her), "having strangers over without prior notification to lessor" (Twadde, Ben, Kristen; my reaction was "LOL STRANGER DANGER").

Reactions ranged from "draw dicks on it and leave it on the counter," to "trace it in crayon and tape it to all their doors," but Kate went with "correct all their spelling, grammar, and factual errors with red pen and give them a letter grade." The whole thing was covered in red. The first sentence was basically "I am informing you that I, (name) must inform you that blah blah blah blah." So much informing. He can't spell "financially" either, we saw where he crossed out the wrong letters and tried to get it right. It was ultimately "finanutally." Then I went at it and nitpicked at a couple more things that people often don't pay attention to in real, practical life but always get noticed in legal, written documents. Capitalization, punctuation, syntax.

It's not a legal document, they didn't say 30 days but until the end of the month (which is not 30 days), they're not the landlord, etc. Absolute stupid shit from a couple of idiots. And Kate is just like "middle finger" over this. What did they expect, that she'd beg forgiveness please don't kick me out? Be like "oh ok" and move out by February?



On a more cheerful note, I've been keeping an ear open around the business office and decided to start a Who Called Who Fat newsletter. Most of it's Jeremy, he calls Kristen "Juicybooty Shockwaves" and I overheard Short Carlie telling someone about him calling her fat on a couple occasions. Tim Gale told Parker to go to the gym, Kate told me to sign up for a fitness group, and I told Kristen she'd crush Parker if she sat on his lap. I think Kristen said I have a fat butt? I called Parker fat today just so I'd have something for the newsletter.

Haha I'm kidding though, I don't think I can actually distribute a newsletter about who insulted who. I told Mike about it just to try and squeeze a laugh from him because he looks so tired all the time. I think he's gonna get a full day off next week because Twadde will work for him on Thursday.

Mike had to get rid of another guy so now he needs two people. He was like, "I'll make it easy for you, all you have to do is wear a jacket and hang around the place. I won't make you bring in all the stuff on snowy days." He pretty much just needs a warm body so people can have a day off. Mary will probably cut my hours at this rate, she wants to get rid of one of us for Monday. And I won't have to worry about whether I'll make 40 hours or not.

Freddy was going to do a private party on Tuesday and Dave Fucktard Morriss was going to do sushi but he dropped out on him with less than a week until the party, and Freddy was dreading that he'd have to tell them that he couldn't do sushi anymore but he decided to ask me if I could come in and do the sushi for his party and I was like "hell yeah". So I'm putting together (already did) a little selection of a few easy rolls, not stealing anything from Fernando of course but just the classic simple rolls that many sushi restaurants have. I haven't gone over it with him yet but I'm thinking a California roll, a salmon & avocado roll, spicy tuna roll with sriracha, and a hamachi roll with jalapenos and ponzu sauce. Plus salmon skin, spicy tuna, and spicy scallop handrolls. Maybe some nigiri too. The hamachi ponzu roll is similar to something I had in LA that I really liked, though the one I had used yuzu juice and soy sauce instead of ponzu. It's a simple, easy menu that nonetheless covers most of the bases, most people should be able to find something they like with those choices.

I'm actually pretty excited about this, I've never had the opportunity to plan any kind of menu before. Freddy is a wonderful chef but he's not particularly versed in sushi, it's a specialization he didn't go into. I'm going to meet with him tomorrow so we can get this dashed out.

It's past 5:30 and nobody has tried to call me so I think I'm in the clear about Max covering me tonight. What I said to Kate was that, I told Cortney about it and Cortney is the one ultimately in charge, and she gave me the OK on it so I'm good here, and Kate said "yeah, that sounds about right." I might go see a movie, tonight is the last showing of the Hobbit movie so I think I want to catch that after all.

So I went to work the day after Fernando quit and there he was again, and he was like, "Are you surprised to see me?" all smirking and shit. He took back his impulse-decision quitting because he thought about it and according to him, it's more convenient to work for another month or so until the place he wants to work at in San Diego opens, because it doesn't open until February 4th, and he can't collect unemployment because he's quitting, not getting fired.

The only thing I'd miss about working at Sushi Rei is more or less hanging out with Fernando and Mariah and everyone, and I'm thinking about that too much. Fernando's going to leave in a month anyway, and I need to take this opportunity to work at the bowling alley while I can. I was talking to Mariah today and I'm 90% certain she'll quit when Fernando does. Sometimes I feel regretful because right now I'm having a good time with Fernando and Mariah still around, but I have to think about the big picture, not the past couple days. That's what I told Kris while we were having our smoke break, and he was like, "No, you're right." We're not supposed to just go and smoke whenever we feel like it, but we've been sneaking out there to have cigarettes and chat.

Bah, I'm scheduled until Friday and I think that'll be my last day maybe. I'm going to try to take a week between starting at the the bowling alley so I can have a few nights to myself, like a half vacation. Working eight hours a day is literally no effort to me at all.

The past couple days have been painful, to say the least. It was Fernando's days off, so I pretty much had to play at doing what he does. Christmas season is in full swing, but we still don't have any people so Danny and Russ are up at the bar helping us all night. I'm sure I spent about 85% of my time doing nigiri and sashimi. It's painful because Mariah, Danny and Russ are all horribly slow. Also Mariah has a burst cyst so she's in pain so she can't work fast even if she wanted to. And I'm the only other person besides Fernando who can make proper sashimi and nigiri. I don't care what Russ thinks about himself, he can't cut fish properly and I don't think they should be if they're going to cut it in the wrong direction every single fucking time. I'm doing the hardest orders, dealing with Erick on expo telling me he's missing this and that, expoing my OWN tickets among the sushi bar, it's a pain. I'm going to talk to Fernando about half-tipping everyone else. I had Erick come back with some handrolls Danny made and tell me the guy refused to pay for them because they were just rice rolls, with only a couple scraps of fish, and I was almost embarrassed because the guest had every right to refuse them (but I wasn't actually, because it wasn't like I'd made them myself). It was 90% rice and a couple nigiri-sized strips of salmon. It was chaotic and I have a giant headache today (the literal kind).

If it turns out I didn't get as much of a raise as I asked for, I'm quitting. Nothing around it, that's a concrete decision I've made. We'll find out later this week.

The sushi bar is also a little high for me to work at comfortably for long hours, so after a while I develop a lot of shoulder strain and they're incredibly tense now. I get a little cramp as soon as I get there. I was talking to Tyler and he was like "Cheer up Judy" and squeezed my shoulder and I was like "WOW THAT FEELS SO GOOD DO IT AGAIN PLZ." He gave me the best 10-second shoulder kneading ever, and I felt much more limber from it. He has some of the biggest hands in the restaurant.

Today I went to Bishop with Kate, we basically ran errands and got smoothies and stuff. It was one of the more productive days off I've had. Tomorrow I'm going to do laundry and stuff. I hate Christmas.

We got a new executive chef, Russ. The only thing that I don't like about him is, he's really big so it's hard to get past him on our little sushi bar. He has an appreciation for simple but well-executed flavors, resolved to get rid of anything that comes in a bottle, and he wants to get rid of those lazy hacks in the kitchen, Edgar and Pedro. The other day he said to me, with Edgar standing right there, kind of more announcing it, that Edgar wanted to learn sushi, and I just blurted, "No." without even thinking about it. It was a knee-jerk reaction, completely from the heart.

Okay, to be honest, I'm an elitist. You can't just learn sushi just because you want to, because you think it'll be fun or interesting. It's an intensely cost-prohibitive skill to learn. Some talentless fuck like Edgar, who has no knife skills whatsoever, no interest in sushi or fish or even food, doesn't speak English (can't serve/interact with customers), absolutely no finesse to speak of, he has no business learning sushi. He only wants to make more money, and that's the wrong motivation. We were hired within days of each other, same general amount of experience when we started, but I have people offer to teach me sushi, because I showed interest in it, worked hard, was helpful, and have knife skills.

Anyway, that Pedro guy put in his two weeks but Russ said, "I appreciate it, but I'm not going to bother, if he doesn't want to be here, I don't want to use him." And I was like, "Well." Because that guy gets on my last nerve, to the point that I don't want to be there when he's around. He's weird and creepy. But Russ doesn't much like him, and this solves my problem, at least. Russ wants to get rid of Edgar too, I think him telling me Edgar wanted to roll sushi was more to see what I thought because when I mentioned that I wasn't joking about my Big No, he grimaced and was like, "No, he lacks finesse." He feels bad for his guy Danny that he brought with him from Palm Springs, cuz Danny's at 10.50 right now and then he heard how much the other fuckers make, aka a lot more. The only cook he likes is Dario, and everyone likes Dario because even if he does lack a bit of natural finesse, he's a hard worker, doesn't have a shitty attitude, and he's solid. He's always working when the other fucks are just standing around like asses.

Speaking of Danny, I like this guy too. He's a real cook. Honestly I might be a little more wary of Russ if not for Danny, because it's one thing for one guy to come in, but you don't have a protege for many years by being a total jerk. It's been nice having someone to help with prep, because I still have that mindset of fending for ourselves and depending on nobody else, so that keeps me on my toes and then I realize Danny can help us.

Mariah's out of town so Russ has been helping us on the sushi bar, and his rolls were pretty awful on Friday but they looked better today. Fernando gave him a couple pointers. The best part is that Russ is a little faster than Mariah, but he doesn't take tips. So me and Fernando made $120 each from tips alone this weekend, which wasn't bad. We weren't even especially busy, both of us were still in good moods at the end of service. Last weekend was extremely horrible, I was talking to Tyler (server) and he said that he thought about never coming back, and coincidentally I'd thought about putting in my two weeks too. What a coincidence...

Fernando had initially worried about his job security, but after he saw Russ's rolls he laughed and said he wasn't worried anymore. I told him, Russ is generally a better chef, but there's absolutely no way he could catch up to Fernando in something he's specialized in for almost 20 years now. I try not to puff up Fernando's ego because it's already too huge, but he's actually a really skilled sushi chef, IMO. He's very detailed and meticulous, and he just has "the eye" for it. That's really what I mean when I say not everyone can learn sushi, some people are just not suited for it no matter how much they train. I think that I am not as suited for it as Fernando might be, but I have more general skills to make up for it.

I was worried that Fernando would absolutely hate Russ and want to quit, cuz I won't be able to stay on if Fernando leaves, but he seems a little more receptive to the idea of someone else taking over. Still not happy, but a tiny bit better. I think he's thinking of putting Max and Mariah on half tips until they can work as fast as us, he was like, "Sometimes you have to push, that's how people learn." I think that's a good idea, because if they're not going to work at the same pace, it's not fair to tip them at the same pace. Me and F get shafted more or less. But I'm really happy this weekend because we split the weekend tips just between us, instead of 3 or maybe even 4.

So I started my other job up at Finance again, as well. Mary had initially said she didn't know if she'd be able to give me more than part-time hours, but then Kevin found a year-round job and Foreman took another job elsewhere, so she said she might be able to give me full-time. I like Treasury and Audit, it's so steady. Things mostly stay the same, instead of constantly being in flux like Sushi Rei. We're getting our new head chef in on Wednesday, so idk what's going to happen. If Mary offers me a full-time opportunity for the winter, I might have to choose between one or the other. On the other hand, I make a lot of money doing sushi.

I've been working with a woman named Suzanne, and I know she's still in the learning stage and it's not like she's making big mistakes, but even though they're little, they look like the kind that become habitual. And I know it's easier to just ask me if I know why a particular department is over/short, but it's just like, come on. That's the last step in investigating over/shorts.

I don't know, on one hand I make much more money doing sushi, what with higher pay rate plus tips, but I would really like a steady 9-5 job that is much more pleasant but pays less. I'd like to have evenings free, and because it's my last year here I don't really care about preserving job opportunities. But I'll want lots of money in the bank for when I move back to LA.