Friday, December 29, 2006

Say Nothing, Please

Say Anything joins the list of bands who make me tear the relatively few hairs out of my face when I hear them on the radio. Oh Yeah!

I also heard an interview with the singer from My Chemical Romance and my impression is that he sounds like a nine year old girl.

I don't have the quotes from that interview, but here are a few to emphasize my point:

I was like wooo, I like killed so many plants.
-Gerard Way

I'm gonna buy whatever shower curtain I want.
-Gerard Way

Gerard: I have a nihilistic attitude so it's like, the new gay...it's popular. You know what I mean?
Frank: Popsicle is the new black.
Gerard: What did I say? Oh yeah. Screaming is the new gay, everybody's doing it.
Frank: I wish it were Popsicle.
Gerard: Popsicles?
Frank: Popsicles should be the new black and then everyone would have one.
Mikey: I like Popsicles...

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Dude....

Today, I released a high falutin' rootin' tootin' Windows Application to my entire deparment which is about 50 people or so. I've never done that before. Any Windows apps I've ever written have been for my own use (I'm primarily a "Web" guy), which essentially means I know the bugs, know how to avoid them, and don't really care to fix them.

After installing the app on two computers I found a bug, on the third I found another. I decided to go back and fix the bugs before continuing with the installs. The program will detect when there are new versions out on the server and download them, but I figured, eh, I've only installed it three times, might as well fix them now.

Ok, I fixed the bug and went back to the three previous installees desks and Voila! when they ran the application it automagically did the upgrade. Genius.

I wandered around my department looking for people who are at their desks, many aren't, so I can put this program on their computers. A lot of people look at me with distaste, because they don't know who I am (because I was never introduced to the department) and assume, I guess, that I am part of the Man's organization trying to beat them down.

"No, no, no, I am your Technical Analyst. I am here to ascertain your computer needs and take steps to alleviate your struggles."

"Can you help me with Lotus Notes?" they sometimes reply. "Hell no," I say, "Call the Help Desk."

Other times they whine, "My internet doesn't work after 3 o'clock."

"Maybe you should come in at 6 am then," I say.

Apparently, they know as little of the duties of a Technical Analyst as I do. Last week I was bored so I wrote a Javascript countdown thingie. When it gets down to a certain number of days it starts to blink. The fewer the days, the faster it blinks. Oh, and the font size gets bigger. No, this was not work related. It was insanity related. I needed to work on something inane. Something that I could just sit in front of notepad and type and test, type and test. I hate the "visual" aspects of .NET.

After about 7 or 8 installations, I notice that the program is taking a freakin' long time to load. A lot longer than a program that uses about 1 mb of memory and makes 3 calls to the database should. Why? I dunno.

"It loads fast on my computer," is what I tell people (which it does), "And it loads fast on hers," while I point epilectily at the ceiling.

I was forced to use an Access database. Puke. I almost considered setting up my PC for MySql or Sql Server, but didn't. The powers that be will take care of setting up our departmental Sql Server. Sometime in '07.

Holy crap. This is my longest post in 4 months. I've said too much.

Bye.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Do you like nachos?















I don't know much about Gerald Ford, because I spent most of my school career in public schools and we never made it past the Great Depression, but I do know that most people consider him a pretty good guy and he was the only President not elected to office. I'm not sure if he liked nachos and beer and football, but I bet he did.

Rest in Peace, President Ford.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

I can't talk with this Ace bandage in my mouth

My youngest son and I were making faces at each other the other day and I got a charley horse in my tongue. It really hurt and was sore for a day.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Make it Stop!

Those Sears commercials are getting freakin' annoying. I start to shake uncontrollably when the first notes of the jingle come on. The other night while watching HGTV those commercials were taking up entire commercial breaks.

Friday, December 22, 2006

Uncanny

There's a woman at work who sounds exactly like Jeff Foxworthy. Same pitch, tone, everything.

I had to work with her recently for a couple of days on a project and if she had ever said, "You might be a redneck if", I probably would have peed my pants.

But, as funny as that would have been, all she ever did was repeat her own personal catch phrases more emphatically (i saaayed don't ever dodatagin, pause 3...2..., i sayed don't EVER dodatagin), unconsciously probably, to see if I would laugh the second time.

I'm a nice guy, so of course I did, but I'm also kind of a jerk, so I posted the experience to my blawg.

Monday, December 18, 2006

Nice Commute

A light commute tonight. Everybody must be on vacation. Man, I wish I was on vacation.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Jones Soda Holiday Pack Taste Test

The Holiday Pack came with little measuring cup such as you would use to give children medicine which I interpreted as being a joke because of the antacid flavored soda. I used this for testing. It holds 2 tbs.

Pea Soda
Smell - Sickly sweet, like opening up an ancient jar of Great Grandma's candy.

Taste - Bittersweet, with an appalling after taste. No pea flavor detected.

Color - Army green

Turkey and Gravy
Smell - slight pepper and turkey skin scent.

Taste - Bland, light after taste.

Color - Storm drain overflow.

Sweet Potato
Smell - Sweet. Almost normal.

Taste - Like Coke mixed with Orange soda.

Color - Like Coke mixed with Orange soda.

Dinner Roll
Smell - Like vomit. No joke.

Taste - Virtually none.

Color - Somersworth, NH tap water.

Antacid
Smell - minty, like those round pink candies, or Pepto Bismol.

Taste - The best of this bunch.

Color - A lovely shade of pink.


My Ratings (Best to Worst)
  1. Antacid - this could almost be sold year round.

  2. Sweet Potato - its not that it was good, it just wasn't as bad as the rest, and it didn't make me grimace when I swallowed it.

  3. Turkey and Gravy

  4. Dinner Roll - it gained points for not tasting too bad but lost all those points plus some for its nauseating smell.

  5. Pea - vile. It was hard to get down. And the aftertaste lingered forever.

All in all, I am disappointed with the Jones Soda Holiday Pack. It's purely just a novelty gift. I fully expected them to taste odd or even gross, but the sodas didn't even taste like the vegetables and meats they were named after. Now someone has to finish them. Ugh.

The Cat

The cat hasn't killed anything, that I know of, since we moved here in October. I don't know if it is a lack of wildlife or that he is in a deep depression. This morning there was a pile of feathers in the yard. Good for him. I hope he's turned the corner. There isn't much time to pad the body count stats before the end of the year.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Christmas Time is Here

Have you bought your Holiday Pack yet?











I went to World Market like the Jones Soda website said, but they didn't have it. So, I headed over to Tar-Mart to get some more Egg Nog soda, and lo and behold Tar-Mart had the Holiday Pack.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

My Point

The point I was trying to make in my post from this morning was: department stores come and go, and I don't give a @!$% which one I shop at as long as it isn't a dump and they have what I need.

If I still lived in Barrington, with the opening of Target across the street, you can bet your sweet bippy I would never step foot in the Somersworth Walmart again.

Fabulous Soda Review


One of the things I miss about New Hampshire, besides the friends and family I never saw, is Squamscot soda.

Well, when I was at Tar-mart the other day, I spied an interesting concoction (1 point for Tar-mart, they sell more interesting stuff) called Egg Nog Soda from Jones Soda.

Besides being the color of urine, it was AWESOME! All the tasty goodness of egg nog without the heart palpitation inducing cholesterol.

I gotta try the other Christmas flavors. See you this afternoon, Tar-mart.

Also, in more limited availability it seems, the Holiday Pack containing Turkey and Gravy, Sweet Potato, Dinner Roll, Pea, and Antacid flavored sodas. Very interesting.

My life has purpose again.

Cultural Awakenings

I shopped at Target for the first time in my life the other day. They didn't have what I was looking for and I ended up going to Walmart anyway. Of course Walmart didn't have what I wanted either.

I did buy something at each store. Walmart only had two lanes open, where Target had about ten. Other than that...eh...it's like it's 1986 again and we are debating the merits of Rich's versus Bradlees. Or Ames and Zayre.

Speaking of Ames and Zayre. In Dover/Somersworth where TJ Maxx is there used to be an Ames and way before that it was something call King's. In Dover next to Hannaford in what is now vacant space there used to an Ames but it was a Zayre before, until they were bought by Ames.

Anyway, I had a dream the other night that King's was reopening in the vacant building next to Hannaford where Ames/Zayre used to be.

Raise your hand if you remember the Siegel's in Dover.

My point. Uh, I dunno. It's early. Need more coffee.

A Challenge

I am posting to my blog before work because last night when I half-jokingly mentioned I was going to do that, my wife laughed at me. Even still, if I hadn't been startled awake by a since forgotten dream, I would still be in bed. It's dark out. Dark is for sleeping.

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

The Color of Money

I had to take some web based training at work. Imagine my surprise when I learned that this dapper young fellow is chairman of the Federal Reserve. Rowwrrr. Lady killer.












Menthos

My right iPod ear bud has what appears to be teeth marks in the screen portion that covers the speakers. Now it makes a high pitch rattling noise which really isn't conducive to listening to music.

Right or Left?

I hate it when I take a drive during my lunch break and get lost. That never happened when I worked in Rochester. Come to think of it, it never happened when I worked in Manchester either, but then there was nothing desirable in Manchester to see during a nice lunch drive.