Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

coffee shop

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So, i’m all hooked up on my PC away from home here at work … my email is even routed through the dreaded Outlook. Yuck. But, anyway, my job here in Admissions rocks; there’s plenty to do, but there’s always a chance to sit down and check your email as you shuttle between one task and another. Having only ever really worked at the coffee shop, and also for Orientation, i’ve never really been aquainted with the concept of a job where there’s a bit of downtime here and there. It’s cool. Catch ya later.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2942424/

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I walked the distance from my apartment to my house today without ever actually getting to my house. This is not a short walk: it basically spans the entire width of Center City and cuts north and south into more residential neighborhoods. It was sunny when i finally made it out of Drexel’s campus after multiple interruptions. Two blocks from picking up my last paycheck from the coffee shop i thought i saw a spot of rain on the pavement. When i left the shop it was drizzling. When i left the first music store i had on my itinerary it was drizzling, and by the time i crossed over Market street it was pouring. The whole time i shopped on South Street it was miserable and i was damp. I regretted that i had decided to walk all the way there and prepared to catch the subway back to Drexel.

As i left the last store on my shopping excursion, the rain halted as if someone hit an off-switch. For the entirety of my walk to Market street to catch the El i felt as though the sun was a follow-spotlight that was tracking me from block to block; everything around me was lit up brighter than it was across the street or further down the block, and my shadow was thrown huge against the sidewalk. The sun actually seemed to be pointing itself right at me. I was glowing.

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/03/2768572/

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You really know your brand name is totally proliferated when any similar product is referred to by the general populace by your trademark. For instance, on my last day at the coffee shop my co-worker Sara asked me for the Windex. Now, we’ve never had Windex for the entirety of my time there, and we didn’t have it that day either. What we did have was bluish-green glass and surface cleanser in a squirt bottle, which basically equates to Windex. I got it for her without missing a beat, and didn’t even think about it until later.


My personal favourite example of this phenomenon is in tampons. When i was growing up the only brand of tampons ever to be seen in my house were Tampax tampons, and to this day i honestly don’t know that i could name any other brands. In conversation, i refer to singular “tampon” as “tampon,” and small groups of “tampons” as “tampons,” but any significant grouping or package of tampons is referred to as Tampax – because that’s the only way i ever knew them growing up.

Wow… now there’s a story about condoms and about tampons on the main page at the same time. Search engines are gonna love me….

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2418824/

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Did i think i’d win? Well, i’m not sure, but i was sure at one point that i would be among the first to go. My personality isn’t too magnetic, i’m not too agreeable, and i’m not quite as incessantly chatty as all of the other contestants. What turned out as my experience on Survivor2 wound up being wholly influenced by the real life relationship that had blossomed the weekend before sBlog2 began. And so, where typically i might have been a character more like Ryan – loud and abrasive (but loveable!), i wound up immediately sympathizing with the gals (especially Alayna and Jess) as we opened up about our personal lives.

I decided very early on what my voting order would be and why, and i stuck to it with only two corrections. At first i was wholly prepared to give Benjy the boot at the first opportunity, because he seemed to be coming on to randomly talk about something and then disappearing. Then i realized that i was only having such an issue with him because his style of logging was so similar to mine, and after i realized that i softened up and i only wound up voting against him in the tie-breaker against Serra. My other bad call early on was on Bertie, who i just didn’t get. In retrospect i just didn’t have enough attention to pay to her at the beginning, and after we weeded some people out she became one of my favourites.

But, you want more gossip, don’t you? Very well, let’s start out with Tribe two. I would’ve voted off Brad in a hot second because i have Brad issues, so that was a no-brainer. Next would have been Josi, who just didn’t catch my attention. Then would be Marcus, then Dave, Steph, Bertie, AJ, and Serra. I was never voting against Serra and as a result of that i threw her tie-braker into an extra round of tie-break when i voted against Benjy (knowing that Tammy would tie-break against Serra). Steph was a sweetheart, and i wanted her around because she was easy for me to talk to. AJ makes me laugh out loud every day, and i only ever voted against him defensively. Dave is probably the person i wanted to kick off the most; he has a lot in common with me, but i just never felt as though i needed to keep him around to feel like the blog was complete. I wound up curbing my campaign against him because no one else would vote for him.

But, then, i was rather boring too, wasn’t i? Forgive me for being a full-time student working 14 hours a week and rehearsing over 15 hours, and with a brand-new full-time girlfriend. I’m actually surprised that i seemed to be as well liked as i was… but you don’t care about that; you want dirt, right?

I hated Erik. I don’t know why; he just didn’t do anything that piqued my interest. I almost put my fist through the wall when he won immunity for his parody page; he obviously would have been given the boot before Serra or Benjy would even be considered. [Did you know that Erik would have had even more votes against him in his final stand if it wasn’t for the fact that we were trying to break up the Tribe2 Trio? All of us other than Erik who voted for AJ wanted to kick off Erik more!] While i won’t dispute who’s parody was the best, many of the IC’s were decided in truly lackluster fashion by our Peanut Gallery, who never have once collectively lived up to their duties. How many of them read the parodies? Ditto on the Banal-Blog acceptance speeches; Ian’s statement that he thought they were all dull just proved how worthless he was as a peanut [as if we hadn’t figured it out already]. Big appreciation goes out to MJ, Ken, KevRock, the G-man (who i owe a song), Tony, and all the others who actively got in on the action. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Benjy would’ve been the next person i would have voted against, just because i wouldn’t have had the heart to vote off any of the girls. Sorry Benjy! Next off would’ve been… um… well, let me go backwards. I would have never voted against Alayna – i decided early on that she was my favourite logger and i would never vote her off, and told her as much early in the proceedings. Alayna is one of the nicest most genuine people i’ve ever met and i intend to stay friends with her long after the blog ends (though it’s obviously over already for me). The only real alliance i ever formed was with Alayna; that i wouldn’t vote for her and we’d try to protect each other. I don’t know if she would’ve kept following up on her intent, but i certainly would have.

As for the other four – C, Jess, Tammy, and Ryan – i’m just not sure. I think i was very attached to C and Jess, but i never had much time to get to know either of them. Ryan and Tammy are a different matter entirely; i find Tammy entirely amusing and i love the way she fends off attacks on her person, but at the same time i never felt like we ever had any sort of connection other then when we haggled over who would step in for the infamous game of Chinese Checkers. Having said that, i’ll also say that i probably would’ve stuck up for her for a long time. Ryan was the opposite; totally easy to get along with, but his content bored me to tears most of the time. However, Ryan had the uncanny ability to actually tap into his emotions every so often, which Tammy didn’t do much that i noticed. I think when it came down to it, i would have booted Ryan rather than Tammy (, but i might have hung on to Bertie over either of them).

Final words? I had fun! I love all of you people! However, you all managed to vote off more and more of the interesting and opinionated people, leaving us only with the middle of the road. Voting off Serra, who had challenging things to say about love, sex, and relationships, as opposed to Dave, our resident Mr. Nice? Voting off Benjy with his quirkiness and programming skills rather than Ryan, who’s just got the lewd sex stuff going for him? Maybe i come off sounding a bit harsh, but it seems i was the one of the last people consistently attempting to make valid and continuous conversation. Was it mostly about my girlfriend and totally irrelevant? Yes. But, did it always respond to everyone else and try to say something new? Totally. I started the first deep conversation we had; I wonder if we’ll see any more of them.

Ok, that’s enough dish. Good luck to all, and if you vote off Alayna i’m coming to your house with a crowbar.

xoxoxox!

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2379789/

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Today is my last day at the coffee shop; just another tiny end-parentheses in the string of open ones i’ve managed to create in my life. The funny thing is, i open a lot more things than i close. Maybe it’s just the packrat within me, but being the drama-king that i am i always thought that i really did sever as many ties as i’ve made. But, i haven’t. I don’t end friendships, or memberships, or hobbies, or anything. Sometimes some of them get put on hold for a little while to make room for other things, but nothing ever goes away; i still have boxes upon boxes of comic books at home and a years-old saved campaign of StarCraft on my computer. So, the feeling of something ending is strange to me – powerful and relieving and bittersweet. No more free bagels. No more trying to entice customers with free music. No more coming home with the scent of ground coffee and too-sweet pastry ground into my fingerprints.

Off to work i go…

https://www.crushingkrisis.com/2001/02/2358316/