So my mission seemed accomplished, as I waited patiently by my mailbox for further instructions from the Office of Utter Chaos. Two weeks passed with no update via mail. As instructed, I called the office. I talked to a gentleman who I assumed was a gym teacher in his spare time. Given the fact that I spoke with someone almost immediately, I had an expectation about the level of phone service I would receive that I soon learned would never be met again.

Mission #3: Figure out how to derive money from utter chaos

Location:  Headquarters of Evil
Time:  Morning

The gentleman on the phone notified me that my “call day” (in other words the day I call the automated system to tell it to give me money) was the day before.  There was a tone in his voice that suggested I should have known this, but given the lack of info I was supposed to receive in the mail, I had no idea, and inadvertently called one day late.  If I wanted to get that all squared away, he informed me I would need to travel once again into the very heart of evil.

Unfortunately, the only time I had to go into the office was on the same day I needed to travel out of town, so I decided to arrive early, certain that my early bird arrival would be awarded somehow.  The office, I had learned, opened at 8:30am.  I arrived at 8:34am.  Knowing the drill now, I walked straight to the table manned by a now disgruntled female security guard, who sat perched atop her pomp like the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland.  I confidently grabbed my piece of paper with a number on top.  I looked in horror as the number read “68″.  I gasped.  At this rate, they would be on number 8,670 by the end of the day.

I regained my composure, assuming that they must have started at a number other than 1.  I walked up to the nice gentleman behind the desk right in front of me who was clearly in charge of helping people.

….

I’m sorry, I misspoke.  I walked up to the fire breathing gargoyle who was in charge of separating those who would be killed by hanging, and those that would be drowned along with bags of puppies.  I inquired as to what number he was on.  He responded with “nobody gets to see the wizard!”  After which, he informed me that they were on number 2.

Poop jokes aside, I was clearly going to be here for a while.  I blended in with the masses once again, prepared this time with a book to read.

Now I want to take an opportunity to point out the lack of complete logic in this kingdom.  While the domain of the Secretary of State had as many sensors and displays with which number was being called as could be powered by the city grid, the Office of Utter Chaos did not fail to live up to its name.  Here’s how the process works:

1)  Enter, confident in receiving help from the Federal Government
2)  Take paper off of table where security guard sits.  In the upper corner of said paper is a number.
3)  Fill out piece of paper with Social Security #, various trivial bits of info, and a description of your problem (which the Unemployment Office employees view just as trivial as your life).
4)  Place piece of paper on a stack of unattended papers with everyone else’s social security number like a delicious identity theft buffet.  Quickly memorize your number so you can figure out when the hell your moment in the sun will occur.
5)  Wait for employee behind the desk to call your name (note, not your number!  They will call your name).
6)  As you approach the desk, enjoy what little pride you have by looking around the room smugly.
7)  Watch the remnants of your soul float away.

So a few observations I noticed while sitting for hours upon hours:

a)  Considering the fact that they mispronounced my name twice, why are they calling peoples’ names?  At least 80% of the people in the room weren’t exactly from around these parts, and had names that are difficult for scholars to pronounce.  And over and over I witnessed the man butcher a name two or three times, shrug, and move on to the next name.  Some of these people had been waiting for 2 and a half weeks, only to have their moment come and go in a matter of seconds.
b)  It’s not like the employee behind the desk is using your little piece of paper for anything other than calling your name, so why am I leaving my social security number out in the open?
c)  While waiting, I figured it would be fun to also call, to see if I could get phone service faster than face service.  The phone number for the unemployment office is either busy or directs you to a voicemail box that is full on 99.5% of calls.  However, if you replace all instances of “please call your local office” with “go fuck yourself” the whole process gains an amazing amount of clarity.
d)  To find out what number they were currently serving required timidly approaching the desk to ask the soul eating demon what number he was currently on, or even just lean over the desk to steal a glance at the number of the sheet he was looking at.  And it would take far less than a photographic memory to also memorize a social security number at the same time.
e)  I estimate it costing TOPS $200 to install an entire number calling system where a number is grabbed from a turnstile number dispenser from the front, and a display monitor above the desk clerk indicating the number currently being served.  Fucking Ice Cream parlors use this technology, how has it not made it to a state level yet?!
f)  The employees evidently never feel empowered in their day to day lives, so they take it all out on the people needing help.  And what way to feel more empowered then to treat everyone like they’re an idiot for not knowing how to fill out the most convoluted forms in existence.  I don’t understand how the most confusing forms are used for the situations in which the majority of people needing to fill them out are underprivileged and therefore uneducated.  I was minutes from turning into an Unemployment Office Che Guevara.

Even my powerful resolve was being slowly chipped away by this seemingly insurmountable mission.  However, I was determined to emerge victorious.

I sat until about 9:15, and they were on number 12.  I decided that I would leave for a little while and pack up for my trip out of town, as clearly this was going to cut it closer to my leaving time than I initially intended.  I returned at 10:30, where they were on number 38.  At this pace, they would get through the number of people there just in time for the Sun to engulf the Earth.

But I stayed strong, and friends, my moment came.  My glorious glorious moment arrived at 12:45pm, 45 minutes after I needed to leave, but I was determined to resolve my issues that day.  I informed the man that I did not receive anything in the mail, therefore missed my call day, therefore was out a couple weeks money that I desperately needed at this point in my life.

However, the office that already proved to be an unbelievably formidable opponent would not be defeated so easily.  The brain kerploding lack of logic attacked again as the man behind the counter informed me that all would be resolved if I simply (and I quote) “call back next Friday……wait……. Thursday…….. no Friday…… call Friday.  That’s your make up day.”  Apart from being flattered that a “make up day” had been set aside just for me, I wanted to insure that I was hearing him correctly.

“So the machine told me to call you, and you’re now telling me that my problem will be solved by calling back the machine?”

“Yeah, you have to call on Friday.  That’s your make up day.”

“So that’s just for the two weeks I’ve missed because I missed my initial call day?”

“…….. yeah sure.”

Who wouldn’t leave an office brimming with confidence at this point?  My cup overfloweth.

Mission Result:  Accomplished?

Mission #4:  Call Machine Back

Location:  Robots can love too
Time:  p.s. Always

So as instructed, I picked up my phone and called a machine.  Following the instructions given by the machine, I answered the questions as asked, and was eventually told that my next call day was 2 Mondays from then, and if that was a problem, to call the office back.  Clearly the machine had not been informed of my special “make up day” and didn’t even bother to wish  me a happy make up day.

Seems I had not successfully exited this loop just yet, so for those of you keeping track, here’s what it looked like so far:

Machine –> Human –> A different Human –> Machine –> Human

Mission Result:  Giant fucking failure

Mission #5:  Drag rotting bag of flesh back to the den of screaming and eternal pain and wish for the sweet sweet sting of death

Location:  The remaining threads of my soul
Time:  have we been left behind?

The only remaining pride I really had was that I had done this before, so the pain would be dulled.  I arrived at 8:32am, and strode in with bloodshot eyes like a junkie following a two week bender, and gruffly grabbed my piece of paper.  My number would be 58.  I filled it out, dropped it in the pile, and walked immediately out the door to head back home.  I was nobody’s fool.

Now since the last time my number 68 was called at 12:30pm, I got a little cocky.  This time instead of just packing for a trip and heading right back, I took my time.  I played some video games, did some laundry, went for a run, pondered what it would take to open a brewery, toasted a biscotti or two, laughed with all the joy of the vacationers on the Poseidon, showered, and eventually headed back.  I strode confidently up to the desk to check on what number they were on currently.

—

70………………………..shit.

“Oh shoot, I think you may have already called my number.”

“What number were you?”

“58″

“What time did you get here?”

“8:30″

“Why’d you leave?”

“…. does it matter?”

“You’ll have to get a new number.”

I returned, utterly defeated, to grab a new number.  165 was my new number.

Well at least now I knew I had some time.

So I ran back home to grab my laptop, headed to a coffeeshop (checking what number they were on on the way.  94), and worked for approximately 2 hours.  I decided that was more than enough time.

Evidently during the time that I was gone one of three things happened:

1)  The employees at the office all took some industry grade speed
2) 40 to 50 people in line ahead of me died, spontaneously burst into flames, or started up a country of their own that did not have such a thing as “the unemployment office.”
3)  A second clerk decided to help out some people.

As I checked the number currently being served, my heart dropped as I saw both a 1 and a 6.  The number was 162.  Words cannot describe the relief I felt at this point.

I approached the man and the dialogue went something like this:

“I called the machine, it told me to call you.”

“Hmm, it looks like you started your claim over.”

“Okay, I don’t know how that happened or what that even means.  I just answered the machine’s questions.”

“You entered a confirmation number didn’t you?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Okay, well you’ll need to call back on Wednesday, that’s your last make up day.”

“Is there even such thing as a ‘make up day’?  Or are you making that up?”

“You’ll need to call on Wednesday.”

Those of you keeping score, that’s now:

Machine –> Human –> A different Human –> Machine –> Human –> Machine

Mission Result:  Does it matter anymore?

Mission #6:  Destroy all of existence

In a far too fitting ending to this tale, I called the machine back as requested, and the machine told me that my next call day was two Mondays from then, and if I needed to claim previous weeks, call the local office.  I wish I was making that up.

I decided that two Mondays from now worked with my schedule just fine, and I would forget that the last month ever occurred.

Mission Result:  Unemployment filed on 11/25/2008.  First weeks of unemployment received - 1/5/2009.

Much like the ending of Seven, though I may have earned some sort of victory, the damage was already done.  I would have liked to salute my most formidable opponent with a malatov cocktail, but instead, I dragged my ragged and almost destroyed soul from the battle, hoping to never fight again.

You may recall the previous adventures of our hero and his attempt to procure an Illinois Driver’s License.

Government Offices Part 1

After successfully conquering the Secretary of State and receiving an Illinois driver’s license, our hero was now given a new task, one to be carried out in the domain of a new and vicious enemy, the Illinois Unemployment Office, better known to the natives as “The Office of Utter Chaos.”  The challenge would be great indeed.

Mission #1 - File for Unemployment

Location:  Internets
Time:  Time just before reality hits

Upon investigating what my first plan of attack would be, I noticed that there was an option on the Illinois Employment Security website to file for Unemployment online.  This was surely a trap meant to ensnare the weaker of us recently laid off.  I was determined to not fall for the trap so easily, so I proceeded with caution.

Unfortunately, this option closed almost immediately when I noticed a warning flare spelling out “if you have worked out of Illinois in the last 2 years, you must file in person.”

Seems my journey would not end so quickly, but never did I know the dark and terrifying depths I had just dipped my tow into.

Mission Result:  Failure

Mission #2 - File for Unemployment in Person

Location:  Unemployment Office on Lawrence Ave in Chicago, IL  (wish you were here!)
Time:  Mid-day

As I approached the Unemployment Office (or what I would later call His Satanic Majesty),  I knew that it would not be easy to slip past the defenses, so I needed to make myself blend in with the masses.  My unkempt hair, meatball stained shirt, and Guiness pajama pants might just do the trick.

I entered the building with all the determination of a paratrooper, only to discover that my rules no longer applied.  This place was indeed governed by pure and utter chaos.  I looked back outside to make sure I was not in a make shift bomb shelter filled with people just trying to survive, but indeed the permanent structure that the Illinois Employment Security office called home.  It appeared to be as sturdy a structure as the pure rage and confusion that governed it.

The room itself appeared to be sectioned off into three basic parts, though the random rugs, cubicle walls, and computer desks did not split the room into any sort of pattern, but rather confused the whole floor plan.  To the right and left of me were rows of chairs, and a couple tables, filled with people of all shapes, sizes, and clothing.  I described the people at the Secretary of State as the huddled masses yearning to breath free.  If that was so, then these were the huddled masses arriving at Ellis Island on a slave ship.  Directly ahead of me were reception desks, which seem the very logical place to go, though the lack of a line was startling.  Nevertheless, I ventured forth.

Before I could make it 6 steps from the door, I hear that all too familiar sound of someone who has allowed a tremendously small amount of power go to their head.  It’s the elderly security guard, who asks what I’m there for.  “Yeah, I was wondering if you were hiring” I replied.  His confusion clearly indicated that he didn’t get the joke, so I came clean.  “Yeah, I just need to file for unemployment.”  He points to one of the seemingly random piles of paper sitting on his table like some sort of demented bake sale.  I take the paper, and he instructs me to sit on the other side of the room, and my number will be called.

I look to the other side of the room, and I notice a couple extra seemingly randomly placed desks where one man with long stringy hair all too reminiscent of a corpse sits.  I gather from those around him that he is apparently in charge of new claims.  I head to his general side of the room, though there is no clear division between those with new claims, and those with questions on current claims, so I try to sit as near as I can.

I fill out my form and prepare to wait.  As I’m filling out my form, I hear a mousy voice like that of a cloud in a very pleasant dream.  I look up to discover that this faint sound has originated from the mouth of the corpse-like man, and the words he uttered with all the volume of a ball of yarn being dropped into a pasture of pillows and butterflies, were apparently the numbers we were supposed to be listening for.  I think I heard a “sixty…” in the words he mumbled.  I arrived at 1pm, assuming that 4 hours would be enough time to file a new claim.  I look at my number - 119.

Number after number passes, the man attempting to say the number in both English and Spanish, laughing at his own joke when he said that 90 was “Nintendo” in Spanish.  Any chuckle from his little joke was soon passed, when he decided that it was time for a lecture.  He turns to all of us, and suddenly finds that with the proper breath support, the voice can actually carry further than 3 or 4 feet.  He instructs us all how to fill out our forms, making it very clear that we have all filled out our forms wrong, and there were not words to describe how stupid we were for doing so.  But our corpse like savior is here, and thankfully now our forms will be filled out properly, so as to not upset the delicate chaos that ruled all that around us.

The clock ticks by, and I notice it is now 4:15, and he is on number 96.  Terror and panic course through my vains as I realize I’m not gonna make it.  However, through the dust and smoke, a figure appears.  A gentle eyed cross between Mr. Wizard and Mr. Rogers emerges, and says “anyone with a number between 105 and 125 come with me.”  It takes all within me to not voice my relief in the tone of a Southern Belle in distress, but instead I stand up, and follow him to a back room.  He had garnered so much sheep like trust from us, that he could have easily led us to a back stairwell and shot us all executioner style.  But luckily, we were taken to a cramped conference room instead.

I sit for 10 minutes, my form is “processed” (which means it is looked over by the gentle eyed man, then given to someone else in another office somewhere), I’m told that I will receive something in the mail with further instructions, and to call in two weeks if I haven’t heard anything.  Surely that couldn’t be all, I thought.  The kind man assured me that was all, and I left with a skip in my step.

Mission:  Accomplished!

Now surely two weeks is more than enough time to process a form right?  And I would hear from them with further instructions as to what to do next right?………..

TO BE CONTINUED

- A plea to performing musicians, if you cover a song, please don’t change the gender in the lyrics. In other words, don’t change the lyrics of “Misery Business” by Paramore from “got him where I want him now” to “got her where I want her now”. If you sing the former, I won’t necessarily think “I bet he likes to bang other guys.”

- When using a cutting board, make sure you wash it when you finish, as you don’t want the next thing to taste like the previous thing (ie you don’t want strawberries to taste like onion). The one exception I feel is limes. What doesn’t taste good with a hint of lime?

- Everytime I get a haircut, I never really like it, and then I realize it’s because my hair has not fundamentally changed.

Non sports fans can stop reading.

NFL Draft (as per Mark’s request)

- I like the Matt Stafford pick by the Lions, but I do not understand the Pettigrew pick.  I thought for sure they would go for O-line or a defender with that pick.  Just seems like tight end is not a necessity for a team, so it seems odd to drop a first round pick on it.  Like I said before, the Lions had so many day 1 picks that they could really turn their franchise around in this draft alone.  I really hope they didn’t blow it (if only for the sake of my bro-in-law Dave)

- Al Davis is an idiot, but that’s no surprise.

- The Bears appeared to have a pretty good day 2, but obviously the draft was relatively un-exciting for me as they didn’t draft at all on Day 1.  But Mel Kuiper seemed to like our day 2 picks, so I’ll trust him.  Plus Angelo has proven he can find some day 2 gems.

I didn’t get a chance to watch any of the draft, so I don’t have much more to add then that.  If any of the receivers the Bears drafted turn into starters this year, then I think it’s a success.  But I don’t care.  I’m still so excited about Cutler, I don’t really care about the draft (I probably should though).

So you who know my political views can probably figure out that I’m not exactly a fan of Fox “News”, however, I have to say that what has happened with them since the election is just amazingly humorous.

First off, I had predicted (granted, this was an easy prediction) that after Obama got elected, FN would completely revert everything they’ve done in the last 8 years. I’m sure you’ll all remember that for the last 8 years, those like me who didn’t really like the Bush administration, disagreed with what was done, and made it known were all labeled as traitors, and FN continued to ask us to “just support your president”. I will say that though I didn’t agree with the Bush administration, I tried my best to do just that. For the most part I granted them some slack while disagreeing with just about everything they did, and though I still made my opinions against them known, I didn’t buy any t-shirts that said “International Terrorist” or anything like that, and I even found myself standing up for G dub against my extremely liberal friends.

I realize that not many of my liberal cohorts did this, but I just want to make it known that I tried, dammit.

Now I obviously didn’t expect Fox “News” to meet me halfway on this, but the 180 degree turn around that they made has been even more so than I could have imagined. It’s like they’re trying to give the Daily Show fodder, with Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly almost word for word contradicting their “4 month ago” selves in the midst of their gas bagging, Glenn Beck having completely lost his mind, and all culminating in the FN sponsored and supposedly “spontaneous” teabag parties.

Sidenote, anyone else as amused as I was by the fact that FN avoided ever saying “teabag” and MSNBC referred to the parties as nothing but “teabag” parties?

But honestly, the hypocrisy of all the anchors is just stunning. Jon Stewart’s quote of “I think you’re confusing tyranny with losing” pretty much sums it all up. Anyone who honestly watches Fox “News” and doesn’t realize this hypocrisy needs to either have their head examined, or they have no interest in having a true democracy in this country.

And I’m sorry if this is a little too aggressive, but to anyone who watches Fox “News” and takes them seriously, just stop it. For the good of yourselves, our country, and everything in the cosmos, stop.  If you’re someone who honestly does not like what the Obama administration is doing, and you want to make that known, please please please do.  I support dissent now just as much as I did in the last 8 years, but the blatant ignorance of our media should not be tolerated, by the right or left.

You may have all been wondering, what the heck ever happened to that Morgan guy? Well here’s what happened. Back in late January, my friend Bethany said “hey I noticed your rss feed isn’t working.” To which I responded “oh, I’ll fix it.”

And now 3 months have passed, and I’ve finally fixed everything I broke. I figured I’d go ahead and change the whole design of the site too. Thoughts?

So expect to see much more regular posting from me now, next one coming in the next couple days. In the meantime, while you’re waiting, please enjoy this hold music I got to experience the other day when calling a credit card company. I dubbed it the worst hold music ever.  I recorded this on my laptop speaker from the speaker phone on my cell phone, so the quality isn’t exactly great, but I assure you that listening to it through the ear piece was no better.  Note the part where it cuts rather abruptly, then starts again.  It was so bad, they couldn’t even write an ending.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Well, we are just minutes away from the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States.  When I first started really following Obama in his podcasts and speeches about 3 years ago, I often thought he would make an amazing president, but I never thought it would actually happen, and that it would happen this quickly.  It kind of feels like a friend of mine got elected president.  I was at Grant Park when he was elected, and I would have loved to be in DC today, but unfortunately I must watch from my couch.  Nevertheless I feel a unity with everyone there and everyone watching.
Regardless of how you feel about Barack Obama’s politics, this is an amazingly historic day.  Emmet Till was murdered in 1955 for whistling at a white woman, and that is often credited as the event that sparked the civil rights movement.  That was 54 years ago.  To have a country with that much racial tension elect an African-American president 53 years later is really quite amazing.  It’s hard to think of another country in the world where that would honestly happen.
I’m very proud to be an American right now.  Godspeed, President Obama!