No The Idiot Speaks this week. No material, and I've got a nasty head cold. Stay warm, I'll post something once I crawl out of bed.

JT out.

I think all of us, especially gamers and bloggers, are all too familiar with this.

I want you to go in that bag, and pull out my wallet.

Which one is it?

It's the one that says



My wallet is now officially the greatest wallet ever, thanks to Cap'n and his drunken misuse of the labelmaker at the Village Idiot.

For backstory on the origin of the phrase, just go here.

Enjoy what's left of the week, kids.

JT out.

Sorry, once again, short on material. Starting the new day job, I have cut back on my nighttime hours to concentrate for now. This next week should be back to normal, I'm working 4 nights.

At approximately 10:00 last night, a random guy walked up to the kitchen window.

Random Guy: Hey man, I want to throw a party for some of my frat brothers. Is there any way to open a $300 tab and do that?
JT: Sure, you'll need to talk to the owner. When were you thinking?
Random Guy: In about a half hour.
JT: Tonight?
Random Guy: Yeah.
JT: Really?
Random Guy: Yeah, why?
JT: Well...usually we plan things like this out...I don't know...days in advance. Also, we close in two hours.
Random Guy: Really? Is there any way we could pay extra and you stay open?
JT: You do realize that you're talking to a guy working in the kitchen and not an actual manager or owner, right?
Random Guy: But do you think there's any chance?
JT: No.

What was also funny...he had around 50 guys on a $300 tab. They had maxed it out within an hour. And, as always with frat parties, I got to kick plenty of jackasses out.

I know I have mentioned it before, but a lot of USC's offensive line frequents the bar. I have made friends with many of them, because it seems silly to make a 400 pound gorilla an enemy. Especially when they've been drinking.

Last night, one guy in particular got really belligerent. I had kicked him out once, and was on my way across the bar to make him leave again. I could tell that this had the potential to end badly, because he saw me coming and didn't try to hide or leave. Suddenly, he seemed to have a change of heart. His eyes got big, and he apologized before I even said anything. Why the sudden mood swing? As I turned around, I saw about 5 offensive linemen stacked up behind me, ready to back me up. Damn. I thought I had perfected the crazy eyes or something.

Sorry for the short updates, I promise to get back to normal...as soon as my life does. Have a great week, and for more regular updates and quality material, check out a few of the links on my sidebar.

JT out.

As of Monday, I have finished ironing out all of the details of my new job. What new job? Oh, the one I have been all hush hush about and trying desperately not to mention anything about for the past two weeks because I was so damn excited and didn't want to jinx myself and have to buy Pam a Coke.

I'm still slinging wine, but I'm now also slinging beer and liquor. My new wine portfolio is okay, with plenty of room for growth and improvement, which I think is on the way soon. My beer portfolio is smokin'. These are some of the best craft brews, micro brews, and high gravity beers I've ever had...and I drink a lot. A lot. I am now repping my favorite high gravity beer.

I hated to leave my old company, because my boss was awesome...no, beyond awesome. I'll sincerely miss working with him and absorbing his knowledge. I truly hope that we can work together in some capacity in the future. All of my coworkers were fantastic, and I hope we can remain friends when we're not duking it out in grimy back alleys for product placements. Just a warning, I'm not afraid to scratch and bite. I fight dirty.

I'm now on board with a very small startup company. We're scrappy and headstrong with a wealth of knowledge spread across the board, and I feel like I somehow lucked into getting in on the ground floor of something that will be really, really big. My new boss is a veritable fount of beer knowledge, and he's counting on me for wine input. I hope I can measure up. If so...corner office with windows and wet bar, here I come. If not...well, I still work at the Village Idiot.

Wish me well, I'm still nervous as hell.*

JT out.

*That wasn't meant to rhyme...it just did.

I know I said that this would be a regular Monday feature, and I intended for it to be so. However, Blogger kept giving me error messages yesterday when I was trying to post, and I finally got frustrated and gave up, so it's a Tuesday feature this week.

I don't have much material this week, as I only worked two days this past week. A lot of the college kids who had been out of town for winter break came back and wanted a lot of hours on their first paycheck back, which gave me a much-needed break from the bar. I decided I would do a quick rundown of the names and roles of everyone I work with. From here on out, I will only post the names of those related to the stories. Nicknames are used wherever possible to protect the silly.

Brian: The owner/good friend of mine/Best boss ever.
Kelly: Co-owner/Brian's wife.
Moses: Bar manager/bartender
Cap'n: Delivery manager/delivery driver/my partner in crime
E-rock aka E-Slide: Manager/bartender/cook
JT: me/everything but delivery driver, waitress, manager, and owner
Mo: Cook
Mike: Cook
Rusty: Cook
The Nuge: Cook, received nickname of "The Nuge" because he was "New Josh" and we shortened it.
Drew: Cook/Delivery Driver/Waitress (he hates it when we call him a waitress.)Harris: Cook/Delivery Driver/Avid Ron Paul supporter to the point of being obnoxious.
Robert: Delivery driver
Eric: Delivery driver
Twan: Door guy
Wilbur: Bartender/door guy
Chris: Bartender
Stephanie: Bartender
Billy: Bartender
Janet: Waitress
Amy: Waitress
Meredith: Waitress
Randi: Waitress
Susan: Waitress


Now, without further ado...let the Idiot Speak.

I know that I've mentioned that I'm the oldest employee other than the owners. Saturday during the day, Aerosmith's Pink started playing.

JT: Man, I used to love Aerosmith, but I can't stand anything after their Pump album.
E-Rock: Of course you did. You were probably around for their first album.

On Saturday during lunch, it was obvious that Drew had partied a little to hard Friday night. He was staring off into space, not paying attention, couldn't understand what we were trying to tell him, and his hair was standing up in places. There's no real story or conversation to associate with this, we just had fun picking on him by randomly yelling his name and pretending we hadn't, or by throwing mushrooms at him so he could look around and wonder what the hell just hit him in the back.

One of the lids that we use to cover our pizza toppings is loose and occasionally falls backwards onto the floor, resulting in a loud crash. This happened Sunday night when there was no music playing due to football being on.

CRASH! (most of the customers look towards the kitchen)
JT: (looks at Brian) I quit!
Bri: (looks at me) You're fired!
Chris: (looks at a guy walking out the door) And stay out!

Since Brian wasn't actually working Sunday night, and is a Giants fan, he got to drinking a bit more, a bit earlier than usual, which made for a very entertaining night on my part. He was waking around after the Giants victory, telling jokes and introducing himself to any new customers. His standard line after each joke?

Bri: The entertainment is free, but you gotta pay for the booze!
Bri: Hey! That should be our new slogan! Josh - put that on the website! Stat!

I've been put in charge of redesigning the website, I'll let you know when it's done.

A little bit after 10:00 Sunday night, Brian was standing in the kitchen, talking to me. Suddenly he pulled out his phone, and looked distressed.

Bri: Holy shit! (takes off running to the bar, I went back to making pizzas. He returned about a minute later with a beer in his hand.) Here. I just realized it was after ten and you weren't drinking with me yet.

Did I mention he's the best boss ever?

We had a rather odd request in the kitchen Sunday night. A guy ordered a small cheese pizza, but didn't want it hot. When we pointed out that he could just let it sit on his table for a while before eating it, he insisted that we cook it, pull it out of the oven, and sit it to the side until it was barely lukewarm before sending it out to his table. He sent the waitress back after he got it to tell us it was perfect.

I know I'm always bitching about the waitresses never paying attention to our 86 board (the place where we list everything we are out of so that they will know and tell customers when they order so that everyone knows ahead of time.) I decided I would prove a point Sunday. At 9:00, I put "86 Kittens" at the top of the board, and set the message to blink in all caps (it's on the computer at the wait station.)

No one ever said anything.


Enjoy your week, kids.

JT out.

First off, two quick announcements:

1. In an effort to bring consistency to Spork Nation, The Idiot Speaks is going to become a regular Monday feature. I'd like to thank the CDP for this suggestion.

2. I have worked almost 30 hours this weekend at the Village Idiot, on top of the hours I worked last week at both the Idiot and my day job. If this post seems disjointed and somewhat scatterbrained, well...it probably is. I'm abso-fucking-lutely exhausted.

Now, on down to business. Since the last post was on Thursday, I don't have a lot of new material. Luckily, American Gladiators premiered tonight. We were all incredibly excited about this, to the point where we turned off all other sporting events, even those that we had money riding on, to turn every TV in the place to Gladiators.

We had planned on having a minute of complete silence at 8:59 in preparation, but lost track of time. We did, however, create a new shot especially for tonight. Well, Chris did, but I got to make the final approval. It's a combination of Rumplemintze, Gran Marinier, and some sort of blackberry vodka. It packs a punch, much like it's namesake.

In fact, we've decided to start having "Gladiator Sundays" at the bar. Depending on which side wins (red or blue,) there will be different drink specials and food specials. I think it will be awesome.

What can I say? The show was everything I had hoped for, and more. Two final thoughts, and I'm going to bed.

1. Wolf is by far the biggest badass on the show. Brian and I are going to try to buy shirts immediately if they are available.

2. Crush is smoking hot.

Goodnight, kids. Sorry for the short, poorly written post, but I'm about to pass out on my keyboard.

Let me know any thoughts on the new Gladiators in the comments section.

JT out.

This is a compilation of several nights. Also, this is less dialogue and more story-telling than usual.

Because of our holiday schedule, we have run out of all kinds of food for the past two Sundays. We were closed for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day, so we had under-ordered toppings and under-prepared dough on purpose. We just didn't count on being as busy as we were.

The Sunday before Christmas Eve, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra ordered 27 pizzas and 16 salads from us. My mom, who thought this was simply awesome, as she loves their "music," was not amused when I told her that I desperately tried to spell out "Your Music Sucks" in toppings on their pizzas. However, if it wasn't for their order, we would have had a very slow night. Also, they tipped me $45 when they picked up the food. I still think their music sucks, but encourage them to come back next year. Maybe hit me up with some free tickets for Mom? I'll throw in extra toppings, yo.

The biggest problem this caused was that, upon completing their order, we were out of pizza dough (meaning no pizzas, strombolis, or calzones could be made,) out of salad mix, and wings, and dangerously low on bread. This meant we could make appetizers only, so we decided to just shut down the kitchen and do a good deep-cleaning. I even washed my hands for once. (Insert rim shot here) This did not stop one guy at the bar from repeatedly ordering a slice of pepperoni pizza. His main three clues should have been this: The lights were off in the kitchen, we had told him multiple times we were out of food, and I was sitting next to him at the bar.

Christmas Eve morning, I came in to help out with a catering order. Brian (the owner) and I were both very tired and slightly hungover. We were the ones who had made the large order the night before. The first thing he said to me when I walked in?

"Doesn't it feel like we just finished doing this?"

The next thing?

Bri: Hey Josh...do you think people in Nome, Alaska sing "There's no place like Nome for the Holidays!"
JT: blank, hungover stare
Bri: What about people in Rome? Think they sing "There's no place like Rome for the Holidays!"
JT: starts to giggle Hey...how about Mad Max? Think he sings "There's no place like the Thunder Dome for the Holidays!"

It turns out that his wife, Kelly, overheard the whole conversation. She thought we had already been drinking.

Our new waitress is borderline retarded, or incredibly stubborn. Either way, she has yet to learn our menu, and she has been there for well over a month now. Also, we're a pizza and wing joint - our menu is pretty damn simple. As a result, I lost my temper with her Sunday night. It was the first time most of my coworkers had seen me angry. We were unusually busy, I was the only one in the kitchen, and I was having to remake orders left and right because she was screwing them up. If I wasn't remaking orders, I was having to chase her down and explain for the fiftieth time why I couldn't make something that we were out of.

She actually told one of her tables that their pizza was taking too long because it got too hot and melted. I am not making this up. She said the pizza melted. This particular table was full of friends of mine, and they hated her. I actually wound up running food to them because she was too busy texting on her phone at the waitress station. So, when 10 o'clock rolled around, and she sent in a ticket with four separate items I could not make, I lost it. The following conversation may not be exact, but it's pretty damn close.

JT: Randi! Get over here!
Randi: What?
JT: (hands her the ticket) Explain to me why this pisses me off so much.
Randi: blank stare
JT: What are we out of?
Randi: Mushrooms?
JT: For starters, yes. What toppings go on a Bud Man pizza?
Randi: blank stare
JT: Damnit. Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, Mushrooms, Onions, and Extra Cheese. We're also out of sausage, which means I can't make the Village Special, Stromboli, or Barnyard.
Randi: Oh. When did we run out of sausage?
JT: We were out when I got here...four hours ago! Please, please, please learn the menu and pay attention to the 86 board. We're too busy for me to keep doing this.
Randi: Whatever.

As you can all probably imagine, I have a new least favorite waitress.

When I first go to work last night, we were incredibly slow. No food orders in the window, almost no one at the bar. Suddenly, the oven made a loud, deep booming noise.

JT: Ben, you owe me five bucks. I told you babies exploded if we left them in the oven too long.

Finally, towards the end of the night, someone brought up politics. It went from bad to worse.

Harris: So...is everyone going to watch the Iowa Primary tomorrow? I think it's important for Ron Paul to win it.
Eric: Shut up, you rich little Republican.
Harris: Sure, I'm a rich little Republican. That explains why my dad is going to vote for Hilary.
Ben: Your dad is a lesbian???

In an effort to cut this off before people got genuinely mad with each other, I said the first thing that came to mind (which never ends well.)

JT: You know who I'm going to vote for? Hitler.

Unfortunately, I said this quite loudly as there was a lull in the otherwise loud music in the bar. Heads turned towards the kitchen. Not to be stopped, Ben picked up where I left off.

Ben: Hitler, huh? Why is that?
JT: Family values, man. He had a hell of a youth program.
Ben: That is true...you know, everyone always focuses on the negative with Hitler. No one ever talks about all the good things he did.
JT: Exactly. For instance, I haven't heard Mitt Romney talk about looking for the Spear of Destiny, or the Lost City of Atlantis. Who is our candidate for searching out mythical items and places that are rumored to be imbued with magical powers?
Ben: You make a strong argument.

With that, we all went back to work like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

I love this job.

JT out.