Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Getting Dumped

There are only 15 more days left until new episodes of The Office start airing. It's an exciting time. Sort of.

I find that this show is somewhat tainted now. Sure, there was a strike. Sure, the writer's probably deserved some more money, but what about me? I'm the one who paid $1.99 to download every episode of seasons 1, 2, and 3 from iTunes. I even switched over to Amazon.com's crappy Unbox when NBC had a fallout with iTunes. I own The Office on DVD. I have the deleted scenes memorized, and how am I rewarded? With months of reruns and crappy reality TV.

I once dated a girl. We got along pretty well. I think we enjoyed each other's company (I know I enjoyed her's). It was a mutually beneficial relationship. Then, seemingly out of the blue, she dumped me. She may have dumped me for valid reasons, and there were no hard feelings involved, but still, I had been dumped. She wanted to stay friends, which was okay. A few weeks later though, she decided she wanted to get back together. We started dating again, but it was different this time. I had been dumped, and those feelings of rejection stuck around. You could say some part of me resented her for tossing around my fragile ego like it was nothing. We quickly broke up again (this time it was my choice), that time for good.

Do you see the parallel? I was good to The Office. I was a dedicated fan. And seemingly out of the blue, it left me. Now it wants to jump back into my life with the promise of 6 new episodes!? Everythings just going to be the same, right Office?! Wrong sucker, too little too late. I may watch the new episodes. I might laugh and find myself hoping Dwight and Angela get together again, but it will never, I repeat, never, be the same.

I hope your strike was worth throwing away the last three and a half years, Office.

I get all my news from The Onion



Monday, March 10, 2008

Sex Offender at Large

As on most Sundays, I rolled out of bed around 2pm, and went to work at 4. Work is a relative term. What I do isn't really work. Although I get paid, and there are certain things I need to do, my job isn't hard at all. Most days, I play guitar hero, xbox 360 or watch movies (all on a big ass, 56 inch TV) for the length of my shift.

What I do, if you don't know, is 'supervise' three mentally handicapped men in their home. They live together in a duplex and buy lots of really nice stuff with their Social Security money (hence the TV and all the other bitchin' stuff I monopolize while I'm there). These mentally handicapped men will be referred to as 'guys, or 'my guys' from now on to avoid directing unnecessary attention to mental health, or the lack thereof.

The guys' ages range from 21 to 45. Gretchen (names have been changed) is the oldest of the bunch at 45. He is the most recent addition to the house that I work at. He moved in about a year ago. I believe he is the only registered sex offender of the three and served some time for his crimes.

All the guys at the house smoke. They each have different rules for being outside alone. Gretchen can't be left outside alone for any period of time. While seemingly unfounded, this rule proved to be an important one in the last month as Mike has ran away several times. It started when one of the staff broke his leg. Mike took advantage of this weakness and would leave knowing this cripple couldn't follow him.

Mike has never run away under my supervision. Until tonight.

I'm not sure how it happened. But here are the facts.

Around 8:15pm, Gretchen asked for his medication, said he was going to bed and went upstairs. Around 11pm, a Provo police officer knocks on the door with Mike in tow. The cop told me he had been found wandering around a condo complex in South Provo. Gretchen told the officer that his girlfriend told him through E.S.P. that he should meet her at this complex immediately. Gretchen has told me on multiple occasions that this girl (with whom he hasn't actually spoken in 30 years) frequently speaks to him through this method.

Because he has an alarm that goes off each time he opens his bedroom door, it's easy to be aware of his location in the house. I'm not sure how he managed to leave without me knowing. I know he left while I was watching '2 Fast 2 Furious' with the other guys, so I couldn't have been too involved with that...

Anyway, now I have a meeting with my boss's boss tomorrow to discuss this. Awesome.