As Bushie's World Turns (The Update Thread)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

While your rule there is certainly a good one, $150 is over 13,000 Kenyan shillings.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Oh so this might worth reading again it appears.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Normally I'd say having the protagonist move to Kenya would be a gimmicky event and a likely shark jumping event, but maybe the writers can get this one to work.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I see the writers have decided to take a darker turn.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Update has hit the big time! Npr noticed.
http://www.npr.org/2012/04/09/149394987/when-god-talks-back-to-the-evangelical-community?sc=fb&cc=fp

Ha funny, I go to a Vineyard church. The article doesn't make it sound like it's as full of hipsters as it is, but the reporting is otherwise pretty accurate. Plenty of people do indeed act like that, and no it doesn't come across as creepy or weird, I'm not surprised she was charmed and endeared by it. Having read it a bit more in-depth, that's actually one of the most accurate articles I've seen, it's really awesome how she both noted the focus not being on the fire and brimstone stuff and the wide range of opinions that exist, including liberal ones. Kudos to that researcher.

Oh and this is a unique new arc. The writers kind of came out of left field with this one.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I do, but my boss and I talked yesterday evening that she wants me to be able to talk to the doctor from the privacy of my own home instead of blaring my medical history to my coworkers and be distracted by background noise. 

Ever heard of ducking into an unoccupied conference room for privacy?  ...I would highly advise not to miss any more work, seeing that you are new there and all.

BushOklahoma's aversion to doing things that are simple common sense is hardly new.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I do, but my boss and I talked yesterday evening that she wants me to be able to talk to the doctor from the privacy of my own home instead of blaring my medical history to my coworkers and be distracted by background noise.

Ever heard of ducking into an unoccupied conference room for privacy?  ...I would highly advise not to miss any more work, seeing that you are new there and all.

That's next to impossible in a call center environment.  

What? I work in a call center and we have private meetings all the time. Your center seriously has no separate rooms or offices from the main floor?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The funny thing is looking at it from a charismatic perspective, the people who put the most emphasis on God talking to them (see memphis' link a few pages back, as noted my church belongs to that movement), I think most would conclude that God is actually talking through us to BushOklahoma to save him from his own reckless, bad decisions. This is something talked about at my church a lot, listen to your family and friends because it may be God speaking through them. Imagine if he listened to us in regards to all those scams in 2010. I mean if you believe both that God exists and is involved in human affairs, as BushOklahoma clearly does (and I do too), that's a more logical way of thinking than his way of simply that he should do whatever his first inclination is and God will make things work for him.

I mean I try to avoid saying anything comes from God or someone speaks for God always because of unfortunate implications and obvious reasons (as one of the pastors put it, "anyone who claims that they always know the voice of God speaking to them is probably a sociopath"), so I won't say that's what happened (there's one recent event in my life where I don't have any doubt God was speaking to me through someone, but that's a completely different situation), but it does make more sense if you accept that theology than what Bushie believes. So it is all the more amusing how he continues to ignore all the advice given despite the fact that we've basically been right and he's been wrong every single time.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So what if you don't end up going?  If you heard God physically tell you to go, and the direction of what you think he wants you to do, how will you justify it?

He'll say that God's instruction to move to Kenya was metaphorical or something.  Either that, or he couldn't quite make out what God was saying because of the accent.

No offense Bushie, but given how many of your previous schemes fell apart, and how quickly you moved on, I'm estimating a <5% chance that a move to Kenya will ever happen.  And I predict that by the time it becomes obvious that the move isn't going to happen, you'll have largely lost interest in it anyway, and won't really care.  Just like you moved on from your last broken engagement without it seeming to phase you much.

In six months, I'm guessing that there'll be some new Update storyline that has nothing to do with Kenya.

That's pretty much the pattern for all his little plans, yes. And not his last engagement but all of them essentially.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

1. I still can't get over the fact that this guy's username is actually BushKenya. Love it.

I thought the RomneyKenya was even more amusing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I finished my first 9 hour work day today and have 9 more like days in the next two weeks.  It will be nice to get 5 hours overtime each of the next two weeks.  10 hours total on this pay period (the pay period just started Saturday, 21 April).

I am 124 hours from turning 30 years old and I am trying to get my house clean so I can start off my 4th decade with a clean house.  I've cleaned the kitchen so far tonight, and will finish it off through the evening and I'm doing my laundry.  I've been very busy the past two weekends so I've let the laundry pile up, so I've got several loads just in terms of sheer volume.  I'm going to do 3 loads tonight, which should get me nearly done.  If I can do two more loads tomorrow evening, I'll be fine.

Have we ever covered such minutiae?

Go and find the posts about his calendars.

Well those are at least part of a greater narrative of organizing himself, but this seems to have nothing to do with anything.

Laundry planning was about 35% of the original Update. It's a recurring theme to underline the protagonist's obsessive personality. In a way it serves as an illustration to the audience that there really has been no progress or evolution whatsoever. Laundry is the final symbol of the Update's hopeless universe.

You have to go back to the published prequel material to find this, but it reminds me a lot of when he posted his schedule for election day 2008, and basically had his entire day organized into 15 minute intervals and already had it planned what he was going to eat for breakfast, etc. If only he had put such effort into researching job offers (Grumps' point about his claim that he does so extensively too is quite amusing.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Bushie should join a charismatic church, not Southern Baptist.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Bushie should join a charismatic church, not Southern Baptist.

Yes. He should form a hipster church in Kenya.

Someone should, but Bushie doesn't strike me as the best choice.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What the....

Apple has a hell of a lot more than three call centers.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

What I find most amusing is that after being fired from three call centers Bushie is now expecting a fourth one to not only work out for him but that he might get PROMOTED in it...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Bushie, having worked at a call center for four years and seen the things people have managed to do and get away with without being fired I can assure you you were NOT fired for following your manager's instructions. Unemployment insurance is expensive, and companies try to make sure anyone employee being let go is not going to win a claim for unemployment against the company (which if everything you say about Convergys is true you probably could've unless Oklahoma's laws are even more messed up than I thought.) Some middle management drone might've used that as a dumb excuse, but it was obvious something else was going on, and you never implied any condition improved since Sprint.

And yes, it was your fault you were fired from Dell. Just because Dell took advantage of Oklahoma's ridiculously anti-worker laws doesn't mean they didn't have a reason to do so.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

They had a reason to let you go. I'm not in Dell's HR department so I don't know what it is, but it's not like management were just playing a "Oh let's just throw a dart at a board and fire the random employee whose name it lands on just for kicks" sort of thing.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Call centers basically never downsize unless they are losing a contract or whatever. The attrition rate is so high it's not worth it and the demand is fluid, if they lay a bunch of people off and then need to hire a bunch more three months later it's a bunch of waste money in recruitment and training. It's cheaper just to overstaff over those three months.

Bushie and the rest of those folks were clearly doing something really wrong. If he was truly let go "for no reason at all" then has no excuse for not filing at the unemployment office for now until June 18.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

...45 minutes early? At my call center the doors aren't even openable until 30 minutes before we open. And the only people who show up 45 minutes early, or more than 15 minutes really are the people who carpool with people who start sooner.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Let me see if I have this correct:

So you did not want to claim unemployment, something you actually paid into, because that would be mooching, but you show up for a few hours to a pow wow and you are entitled to free health care in perpetuity. 

I can't speak from direct experience but I know most of these tribes and those on reservations are pretty desperately poor and have a dearth of resources.  Some white guy with 3% and very distant ancestry  taking up resources doesn't seem right to me.

I'd be interested in BRTD take on this- didnt he live on a reservation as a youth?

Yes, Sioux County, ND. But I don't have any experience with their medical care because my parents would commute 80 miles to Bismarck whenever me or any of my brothers had to go to the doctor, and also when all three of us were born. Which probably speaks to the quality of it. Please note this even applied when I fell into a window well at age 4 and knocked out some teeth and was bleeding from the mouth. They still took me on the 80 mile drive instead of seeking medical attention on the Reservation.

But as poor as many of the individuals on those Reservations are (Sioux has the 8th lowest median income in the US), I think it's a mistake to consider the tribes themselves poor, anyone who's visited a tribal casino can tell you they certainly aren't barely scraping by (and consider all those profits are tax-free...)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Again... you started your JOB at Xerox today... each job change within the same field is not a new career.

Yeah the way he keeps saying "career" is pretty comical. This also means that he's on like his 7th "career" in the last two years, no one would consider that positive...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Bushie, do you ever go to things in downtown OKC and walk to them? I started a new policy of walking to anything I wanted to go to in downtown Minneapolis and lost 15 pounds in a couple months with basically no change in my diet whatsoever.

Also you should look up where the shows are in OKC. The moshing and dancing is a big workout. I once did an experiment and found out that I lost six pounds after going to Dude Fest, despite the fact my diet the whole time was an utter disaster (it was basically nothing but McDonald's, potato chips, ice cream, and alcohol.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Bushie, do you ever go to things in downtown OKC and walk to them? I started a new policy of walking to anything I wanted to go to in downtown Minneapolis and lost 15 pounds in a couple months with basically no change in my diet whatsoever.

Also you should look up where the shows are in OKC. The moshing and dancing is a big workout. I once did an experiment and found out that I lost six pounds after going to Dude Fest, despite the fact my diet the whole time was an utter disaster (it was basically nothing but McDonald's, potato chips, ice cream, and alcohol.)

I don't do much in Bricktown or Downtown OKC very often, mainly because I don't have anyone to go with, hardly.  I would love to experience a little of the "night life" in Oklahoma City which is pretty bustling, I just don't have very many people to go with who I would like to hang out with.  Most of them either stay home or have their own families or drink, smoke, swear, and are "naughty" to a degree.  Things I don't need to be around being a clergyman.

What? I know clergy who hang out with people who do those things/frequently do them themselves. I even once heard an anecdote where some guy talked about how he had to get up at 9AM to speak at some church despite being hung over. Oklahoma really is that backward and messed up after all.

Bushie, would it actually be a scandal at your church if it was found out that someone who goes it to regularly used weed?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm glad Catholics (at least in that respect) aren't crazies.

Considering that they don't even let their priests get married...

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So wait. This place just offered a job to Bushie in SLC without interviewing him or anything? Just agreed to hire on this guy from a bit far away like that? Does this sound rather familiar to anyone else?