All the effort you are making will pay off someday.

So, I'm at the paper right now, finishing my 1A/jump page design shift. Not a lot of news today, so my pages are almost ready, and it's coming up on 9 p.m. Fucking sweet.

On the flip side of that coin, I've been here since 2:30 p.m., and I will continue to come in at that time until Christmas. Those of you who are sports-inclined will know what terrible news this brings: Football season is basically null and void to me. There is a TV at the paper, but no sound is allowed. That's like paying for a lap dance and having a 20-second song come on. Not worth it. Oh, but what's that you say? It's OK, Niko, you can still catch Monday Night Football for a great game. Well, you'd be wrong on that front as well, because I work on Mondays, too, from 4 p.m. to midnight. On the plus side, I get paid for that shift, but I'm still missing most of football, and that kinda pisses me off.

This weekend was, in the best words I have for it, a tease. It had all the makings of a good time: Beer, girls, sports, girls, more beer, etc. But everything just sort of crapped out at the last second. A recap:

• Thursday: Looking back, this was the best day of the weekend. I went to work first, then class, then a shift at the paper, then to the gym with my friend Matt. He was working the door at our watering hole that night, so I joined him in taking people's money/ID's. It was the easiest $40 he and I pulled in. Sit at the door for two hours, charge cover, look over some ID's, finish up around 11:30. We made friends with pretty much all of the waitstaff, which is a very good thing. We started drinking after the shift was up and ended up drinking away our pay, which we expected. End of the night, pick up some chairs, put down some chairs, walk out the door. On the whole, a great evening. Then came...


• Friday: This day would start off well. In our usual rhythm, Matt and I went to the gym, made an appearance at Legends (our bar of choice), and then went to meet a friend of mine from work, en route to a club -- most likely Shattered. After leaving Legends, we went to Trops South (for those of you not in the Columbia area, that's Tropical Liquers, a food/mixed drink place), where we met up with said co-worker. We hung out for a while, when someone I swore I knew walked in. Sure enough, it was my old roommate Dan's girlfriend. She greeted me much more warmly than I expected, then pleaded with me to go to Dan and her new house. I thought, free drinks, girl begging you to go to her place, why not? and said yes. We went over to Dan's drank some Jack and Cokes, and played Circle of Death and Sevens late into the night. Ended up just going home and passing out. Bad news -- no club, so club outfit went unused but still got smoky and dirty.


• Saturday: This is where it all came crashing down. After being turned away from the gym because it closed early, Matt and I skipped that and got ready to go out. This time, he was going up to Legends to learn the regulars for when he worked. While we ate there and chilled out prior to investigating the club scene, he got a phone call from one of the girls he hangs out with. He talked with her for a while, gradually becoming annoyed. I didn't make anything of it, since I was eating. Next thing I know, her friend wants to talk to me. The conversation went something like this:
  
  ME: "Hello?"
  
  HER: "What are you guys up to tonight?"
  
  ME: "Eating right now. Probably heading to the Vu [Deja Vu, a comedy club] later on."
  
  HER: "Cool! That's where we're heading! Why don't you come with us? I'm drunk and I need to kiss someone."
  
  ME (concentrating and carefully choosing my words): "Well, we have to finish here first, then we'll be there."
  
  Now, to any man who's a part of that conversation, that's an open invitation for a make-out session. And I could have said "I'm planning on going to the nearest alley to hassle drug dealers and prostitute myself," and I would have gotten an answer like "Cool! Which alley?" So, Matt and I abandoned our plans for a different club we wanted to try out and head to Deja Vu. When we arrived, we found said girls and said hi, and started dancing. I bought mine a new drink, and then she and Matt's girl went over to "talk." It was at this point that I found out from Matt that a) She is interested only in males of Arabic descent, and (by some curse of God upon me) b) she likes when males she's involved with treat her horribly. This does not bode well for me, mostly because I'm of the crazy persuasion that girls should be treated with respect. I must be nuts. (By the way, if you're still mystified as to the origins of the title of today's entry, the explanation is coming up, I promise.) Needless to say, minutes later, she's all over a guy with slimy black hair in a T-shirt and jeans. At one point, I'm pretty sure she had a quickie with him right there on the dance floor. Inexplicable. I mean, I'm not perfect, but who actively seeks out bastards like him that use them for what they need and toss them away? I just don't get it.

As you can guess, we left empty-handed, both in a female and monetary sense. I went home, alone, having just spent every last penny of the $60 check I received that day. But all was not lost, since Matt got a booty call from his girl and went over to her place later that evening. I guess the moral of this weekend was "Nice guys finish last." Quite frankly, I'm sick of being the nice guy, but it's all I know. There's just something inside me that prevents me from treating people like shit, and I can't help it. It helps me get walked all over sometimes, but there's nothing I can do about it. To quote a great movie I just saw: "Just let it go, man. The Universe will work itself out." Or, as the title suggests, maybe all this bullshit I put up with has a reward in the end. I mean, I did just spend a summer in Florida while being paid to do a job that I hope is my future career. Still, if last weekend repeats itself anytime soon, someone's getting hurt. Bad.

Oh well, at least I can relax on Sunday and watch football. Wait a minute -- shit.

That's it for now, folks. I'll be back -- oh, I don't know when. But sooner than the last time, anyway. Peace out.

The (brief) return

OK, so it's been quite a while since I've posted on here. Quite a while meaning oh, a little more than five months. A lot has happened. For the short rundown, here we go (in convenient list format, if I can remember the code):

• I did, in fact, turn 21, and Hell has been unleashed upon the known universe.


• I left for a Dow Jones Newspaper Fund copy-editing internship in Bradenton, Fla. (just south of the Tampa Bay area)


• I completed said internship, and while I was there, the Lightning won the last Stanley Cup for a good long time, Reagan died, and Hurricane Charley rolled through just as I was leaving.


• I returned to school, and to my old hot spots.


• I started a diet and workout regimen to lose the extra weight I put on not eating right or exercising down in Florida.


• I returned to my favorite bar, and ended up visiting so much in the past three weeks of school that my friend and I have been offered the doorman job on Thursdays and Fridays (we worked together last night, when the Tigers blew a fuckin' tire on national TV and the damn Pats won on a missed Vanderjadt field goal. Read those last four words again. He goes 38-for-38 last season, and can't make a 48-yarder to tie the game. It looked horrible just coming off his foot. Also, my friend's fantasy team, which I have invested time and money in, has Edgerrin James, who scored 0 touchdowns but managed to fumble twice in the Indy loss. Fan-fucking-tastic.)


• I started hanging out with girls (Girls!) at the bar and elsewhere, even befriending one of the waitresses at said bar.


• School started.

So, a lot can happen in five months. Take, for instance, Ken Jennings winning an unprecidented 75 episodes of "Jeopardy!" in a row, and taking home more than $2.5 million after finally falling in a taping this week, to be aired in mid-October. I'm at the point in my life where I need to finish school only because I need the degree. I have all the training I could possibly get from here, and I'm ready to be thrown to the wolves, but I have to go through the motions to make sure I get that piece of parchment with my name on it and a degree and several fancy signatures. Good times.

Class is gonna start, so that's all for now, but I thought it might be good to check in after five friggin' months. So, the return is complete. Now, if the Rams can just beat the Cardinals Sunday and if the baseball Cardinals can keep the cruise control on, this will be one hell of a September. Later.