Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Not Repeats

Earl, Office, Scrubs and Rock are NOT repeats this week.

Be Nice to Your IT Guy (or Girl)

As a general rule IT people have big egos and the longer they've been in their current position the bigger that ego grows. Just like college professors.

One of the things I've learned being on both sides of the fence is that you don't want to make IT people mad at you. Some examples of how you can make IT people mad at you are:

  • Calling or emailing them directly for every issue that you have when there is a process or a central place to launch an inquiry.
  • Pretending to be smart about technology and/or asking them a hundred questions about how they plan to/or did fix something.
  • Asking questions for which there is no easy answer (why is my computer running slow) and then snorting or rolling your eyes when they tell there is no easy answer
  • Yelling at them.
  • Sending nasty emails to them.
  • Getting your managers manager to yell and/or be nasty to them.

I could go on for days.

Recently I was forced cheerfully agreed to take over the "PC Coordinator" (yes, the title is as demeaning as it sounds (at least in my eyes)) duties for my department. Taking over for an inept man who can now concentrate on his real job as International Mandatory Offers Processor. Exciting.

I like to call this man "Hopelessly Suppressed Still in the Closet Living in Denial Who is Prone to Various Outbursts and Other Aggressive Behavior". Not as catchy as "Kip" but what can you do.

Anyway, he put in this request to get something done almost 2 months ago. Of course, I am cleaning up after him, so I contact the Help Desk who tells me to contact this person in IT, so I send her an email nicely asking whats going on with it.

She replies back shortly telling me that the request was denied on 12/4 because it was on the wrong form. She kindly attached the proper form, and told me that when I filled it out to send it back to her directly and she would get it done ASAP. Cool.

Quickly scanning over the form I realize its all French to me, meaning, I don't understand one word of it other than "Associate Name." Like an IRS form.

Well, who better than to ask for help filling out this ungodly thing than Hopelessly Suppressed Still in the Closet Living in Denial Who is Prone to Various Outbursts and Other Aggressive Behavior, so I forward the email to him, and simply ask for a little guidance in filling out this DMV style form.

He does the unspeakable thing of launching off on a tirade sending her a vicious email about everything from David Beckham's wife's breast implants to how his Diet Caffeine Free Dr. Pepper is flat. He uses the email that I forwarded him, and CCs me. So now I'm horrified because I think that the IT person is going to think that he and I are like the Ambiguously Gay Duo of Corporate Actions. Not only that, but I'm thinking that this request will never get done now and I am going to be black listed from IT and never be able to get a job there or get ANY of these stupid requests done in a timely manner. (IT people have loooong memories).

I told him he shouldn't have done that. When he asked why, I simply said if you have to ask why then you just don't get it, man.

After a few days, I filled out the IRS form by myself, called her, told her a few jokes about guys with chintzy beards who drink Diet Caffeine Free Dr. Pepper and rednecks who call into local radio stations during the morning commute, and said I was forwarding the request to her.

We'll see how long it takes to get done.

Clean as a Whistle

Hehe. I love it when these phonies show their true colors.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/01/31/biden.obama/


It's too bad Biden isn't a Republican because then Al Sharpton would be organizing a posse to demand his resignation.

Access Denied

The Access Denieds I've gotten at work in the past couple of weeks.

  • http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/ Technical/Business Forums
  • http://bigasworld.blogspot.com/ Personal Pages
  • http://kreblog.com Personal Pages
  • http://www.gimptalk.com/forum/topic.php?t=2624&start=1 Personal Pages;Forum/Bulletin Boards
  • http://www.theonion.com Humor;Profanity
  • http://www.someblogs.com Personal Pages
  • http://www.tvsquad.com Entertainment/Recreation/Hobbies;Personal Pages
  • http://www.gimptalk.com Personal Pages;Forum/Bulletin Boards
  • http://www.tqstats.com Games;Sports
  • http://translate.google.com Anonymizing Utilities
  • http://nelbl.baseball.sportsline.com/ Games;Sports
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bluefield%2C_West_Virginia&action=edit&section=3 Education/Reference;Personal Pages
  • http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum47/2406.htm Business;Computing/Internet;Technical/Business Forums
  • http://www.wikihow.com/Feel-Like-Eating-Breakfast-First-Thing-in-the-Morning Personal Pages
  • http://enonhall.com/html/journal0107.html#01272007 Personal Pages
  • http://del.icio.us/ Personal Pages

The Anti-Social

The social committee at work passed around a sign up sheet today for everyone to bring something to the Mardi Gras lunch party thing they are planning.

On said sheet they spelled my name: Andé


Andé!

Meesta Meesta Get Me Outta Here!

Kip Journal 4/13/1999

"Lollapalooza was cool back when they had cool bands, and all those black bra b****s."

[A direct quote of Kip. We had less idea what it meant than you do right now. Ed.]

After his 21st birthday Kip still made it to work the day after even though he had 5 long island iced teas the night before.

I am running a program call Unsecure to crack Kip's password, so I can get into his machine and mess around with it. Subtle stuff to mess with his brain on a constant and daily basis is the best way to go.

Read the Kip Journal FAQ

Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?

There's not enough rednecks around here. I was grossly misinformed. I feel like I am living in Durham, NH.

I hear the Deep South calling my name.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Okay Amigo

I didn't move 750 miles south to be an Administrative Assistant.

I spent the entire day coordinating the arrival of 9 consultants. Not what I was hired to do and not exactly good resume padding material.

The Business Analyst is going to be out for 12 weeks on short term disability, and I've got a feeling I'm going to be doing a lot of her work (whatever that is). I guess I'll just have to suck it up. Wait a minute...why would I want to do that? Hang around doing a job I'm not enjoying, that's not shaping up to be anything like they described to me, so maybe in another 15 months, I might be able to find a job within the company in the IT department? There's no guarantee of that either. Or in 15 months the economy could go south again and then I could be stuck with nowhere to go. Screw that.

Am I ungrateful? Disloyal? A big baby? I don't care. I was stuck in a job I HATED, working for someone I DISLIKED with a passion only reserved for people like Hillary Clinton for three loooong years and that is never going to happen to me again, if I can at all help it. Being within commuting distance of hundreds of companies looking for people like me is an opportunity I don't want to miss either.

Ok, I'm done bellyaching.

Speaking of the BA (or BO, as I like to call her), I was in her cube for an hour yesterday while she "trained" me on some new screens that they are adding to our mainframe. She had some ripe rotting salad in her garbage can that made my nose run. I had to cover my nose with my two hands for the duration.

She has a mustache too. Its really long around the edges, but totally blonde so it can only be seen at certain angles. Unfortunately, I was eating my lunch at just the right angle.

If you've ever seen me eat a sandwich, and I bite into some hard nubule in the meat (you know what I am talking about), I usually have a violent gag reflex. At that point, it is physically impossible to finish my sandwich. My throat will not swallow it. Well, that's what happened when I caught a glimpse of her whiskers. The dime sized mole on her wrist with the forest of black hairs doesn't help either.

Friday, January 26, 2007

Oh, the Places You'll Go!

That's the title of a Dr. Seuss book, in case you didn't know.

If I was single or married without the possiblity of having kids, I would buy one of these four places:

What can I say? It's got a cool garage that looks like a bunker. And is within an hours drive of the Hatfield-McCoy trails I love so much.








This place has 4 rental units. Now, if you've actually been to Gilbert, WV to go riding on the aforementioned Hatfield-McCoy trails then you know that you have to book your lodging months in advance. So let's do some quick calculations. Each unit gets $125 a night. If your unit gets rented 4 nights a week, and we'll be conservative and say that it gets rented 4 nights a week but only for 26 weeks a year, then one unit is rented 104 nights a year. Times 4 thats 416 nights a year. $125 a night. That's $52,000 a year. Not bad. And you don't even have to provide people with working washers and dryers (thats an inside joke).

This place is actually pretty nice, although they skimped a bit on the landscaping. How much will $160,000 get you in Southern New Hampshire? A fancy shack in downtown Rochester. Now that's livin'.







This one is my personal favorite. It's the quintessential diamond in the rough. Every night after work I could hop on my ATV and ride for a couple of hours straight from my back yard. This house prompted Big A to say that "he could never live anywhere that a real house cost less than a 50 yr old mobile in NH". He's probably right. These little towns in West Virginia are a little scary if you're not a local or not one of the "tourists" just spending the weekend riding on their trails. I bet you'd never feel like an outsider more in your life, unless you were from Maine convicted of stealing mail from someones mailbox but you only did it as a joke and you ended up in Federal Prison in Marion, Illinois.

I love West Virginia, don't get me wrong, but I couldn't live there.

I Hate Repeats

From now on, before I get all excited about NBC's Thursday night lineup and on Wednesday think that it's Thursday and then get really depressed because it's only Wednesday, I am going to check the TV listings to see if they are showing repeats.

That really sucked.

Fabulous Movie Review

The Devil Wears Prada
Let me list the things about this movie which are good:

  1. Anne Hathaway is pretty.



1 star out of five.

Lush Bimbo

I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh much anymore, maybe an hour or two a week, mostly because AM radio sucks, but one thing I think is amazing is that he still pronounces "Reverend Jackson" the same way he did 15 years (!!) (!!!) ago when I was a senior in high school and first started listening to him. Thats longevity. Think of all the catch phrases and such that have come and gone in that period.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Almost Thursday

I cannot wait for the Thursday night NBC lineup each week.

My Name is Earl
The Office
Scrubs
30 Rock

When was the last time 4 comedies of this quality were aired in succession? Its been a long time, if ever.

I've never watched more than a couple of episodes of Scrubs but I've now seen 4 in a row and I can't believe what I've been missing.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Fabulous Movie Reviews

The Descent
Seven women go spelunking in North Carolina. One woman, or no women, appear to survive. The claustrophobic caves raise my blood pressure more than the blind albino cave dwellers, but it is still a good horror movie, but not without its plot holes and geeks commenting on the origins of the cave dwellers. 3.1 stars out of 5.






North Country
Right off the bat I noticed that while this movie was set in 1989, she (Charlize Theron) was driving an early 90s Chevy pickup truck. Huh? What? Was something in an early 80s vintage not available?

I didn't know what to expect from this free library rental. After getting hammered on the head for 82 minutes with the secksual harassment she and other women faced while working in the iron mines of northern Minnesota, eh, I was feeling that this movie was a little much.

It finished nicely however, albeit predictably, and while watching the special features they let me know that the actual period of time that the harassments took place was 9 years rather than the 30 days the movie made it seem which made the movie a little more believable. 2.98 stars out of 5. It would have actually gotten another two-tenths of a star but the whole pick up truck issue really bugged me.

My wife beat me at Scrabble really bad during the viewing of North Country. From now on I will only report on game results which involve me winning, which doesn't happen often.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Kip Journal 4/12/1999

Kip was reminiscing about his days on a pit crew and was interested in doing it again.

I didn't actually hear him say it but I have it on good authority that Kip asked Corinne if her husband was involved with racing at all, because Kip used to be in a pit crew and would like to get into it again.

[These were two separate entries by two separate people. Kip must have been really obsessed with joining a pit crew that day. Ed.]

Read the Kip Journal FAQ

Kip Journal 4/2/1999

Is there anyone else who would like to kick the living snot out of Mr. 1-derful? I can't stand it that he thinks that he is so much better that everyone else. Especially since he is "EXEMPT" from ever having to any dirty work around the help desk.

Kip's gonna start buying Phish albums

Read the Kip Journal FAQ

cool not cool

Gas prices falling below 2 bucks. Cool.

The temperature dropping from 70 to 40. Not cool.

Tom Brady and the Patriots beating the Chargers on Sunday. Cool.

The new season of 24. Cool.

Being the guy who has to the "check the status" of the department's help desk "tickets". Not cool.

The juggler kid who cried on American Idol tonight. Not cool.

The juggler kids mother who coddled him for years and probably still shares a bed with him. Not cool.

My son's first 4 wheeler. Cool.

DSC01032-1

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Access Denied

I might start keeping track of the number of Access Denieds, and the URLs that caused them, that I get while surfing at work.

I wish that I could somehow store the URLs that cause Access Denieds and Google wouldn't show those URLs in my search results. I can't even tell you the number of times I have accidentally clicked on www.developerfusion.co.uk/

Belated Wishes

I forgot to wish everyone a happy Lee-Jackson day yesterday. Sorry.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Beef and Lots of It

Went to Fuddrucker's for lunch with Rob today and I pulled the old "Whoops, I forgot my debit card!" trick. Nah, I really did forget it. While standing in line, I lamented the fact that if I still worked at Ctron, I would order a Redhook IPA to go with my giant yummy burger.

Blog at Work Update

I can't get to kreblog.com or bloglines but I can use Google reader, as long as the posts don't contain any images stored at flickr.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Don't Call Attention to Yourself

Remember this guy? Today I had to go to the weekly meeting with the supervisors and manager, and they actually brought up something he did wrong yesterday. They were trying to be sly about what he did in front of me, probably because I am not in the inner circle, but I know what it was because I heard another person, just a regular person, in his cube yesterday telling him how stupid what he just did was. I bet if I wasn't in the room during the meeting the conversation would have been good.

Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. He paid a customer $26,000. Twice. Because after he paid it the first time, it didn't appear in some other screen after he did it. So he did it again. Unfortunately for him, the 42 year old mainframe can be a little slow in updating certain screens. No real harm done, except to his dignity.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Eureka!

I discovered today that I can get to certain blogs if they have their own domain e.g. www.survivinggrady.com. Tomorrow I will try kreblog.com. Must be careful though, I don't want to get too many: ACCESS DENIED's in one day. I may finally put gagknee.com to good use. Reading comments would be about the only thing I could do, but its better than nothing.

Pork Fried Rice

I can't believe they dogged him again this year. I hate the world.

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Friday, January 05, 2007

Currently Watching...

Hurricane Neddy, from season 8 of The Simpsons. The last season before the entire writing staff was fired. This would later prove to be a huge mistake that the producers would regret because as it turned out "they couldn't do this job without them."

The End is Nigh

This weather is insane.

Thursday, January 04, 2007

You Never Know Who Is Listening

There's a guy who sits adjacent to me who was out today. A couple of women had to go through his drawers looking for some paperwork and they started ripping into him, mocking him, making fun of him for about 15 minutes. A 3rd and 4th woman joined the original two and they kept at it for another 20 minutes.

I was shocked. Making fun of your coworkers is so unprofessional.

Speaking of Business Analysts

The one that I work with daily has poor hygiene. Some days she smells so bad that I can smell her coming. I am not joking. This is not some exercise in stretching my imagination. You think I am kidding, but I am not. Or enhancing my story to get laughs. You couldn't be more wrong. Perhaps you have labeled me an exaggerator, or worse, a liar. There is no reasoning with you in that case, and I shall not try.

She doesn't laugh, she barks. Sounds like Patti or Selma.

She doesn't cough, she brays. Sounds like a donkey getting a beating for refusing to pull a cart.

One day I noticed she had pen marks all over her white shirt. She flails her pen all over the place and she must have written all over herself.

That same day she was drawing me diagrams on a piece of paper with the same pen. It was a fine point, but it was worn out so instead of gliding smoothly on the paper, it scraped. After a while it started to sound like fingernails on a chalkboard. I must have looked like a drug addict, all sweaty, and fidgety, my eyes darting from side to side, just waiting to get out of there.

The day after Christmas, she sent me an email telling me she had gotten a basket of "goodies" (her words not mine, shoot me, if I ever say "goodies") and that I could help myself. I went to get some goodies, but I refused to eat anything that the package was already open. Oooh, that fancy toffee covered popcorn looks good! Awww, the box is already open. I guess I will have to settle for these sugar cookies with a dot of stale jelly in the middle.

Today her cube smelled heavily of Slim Jims. Ha! You laugh. Slim Jims are yummy and smell delicious, you say. Not to me. Not anymore. Never again. One time in college I ate 4 Taco Bell tacos. They made me sick and when I vomited, they came up my nose. It was 7 or 8 years before I could eat Taco Bell again.

Sorry Slim Jim. I won't be snapping into you until at least the next decade.

I Hate Tattletales

If you've got a question/comment/concern with the piece of software I just released, just come tell me about it. There's no need to involve the business analyst or the department manager. Jeez.

The same tattletaler is one who also CCs everybody and their grandmother's boyfriend whenever she feels the need to inform people of some "issue". By everybody I mean, the business analyst, me, the department manager, the department manager's manager which is a VP, and for good measure, the VP's administrative assistant.

I know that if I was a VP, which I don't envision ever happening, and I got some stupid email from a team leader in a department that I manage of which there are 10, I would be pretty annoyed. Assuming of course, that I actually read my email, which I probably don't, because my administrative assistant does it for me. In which case, she got two copies of the email, and now she is probably pissed, and the best thing you can do to short circuit your own career is to piss off the administrative assistants.

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

Bodycount 2006

The final tally for Bodycount 2006 was 58 animals for an average of 1.12 a week. If you throw out the 7 weeks of the year we lived in Virginia, it bumps the average up to 1.27 a week. Not too shabby. No snakes unfortunately or squirrels, but plenty of chipmunks.

There will be no Bodycount 2007. The cat's heart just isn't into it anymore, and frankly neither is mine.

Freeze

Today, on the side of the highway was a crew of about 8 men in flourescent orange vests picking up trash. I noticed one man off to the side wasn't picking up trash. He was wearing a flourescent green vest and had a rifle. A little ways up the road was a gray bus with dark tinted windows. Ahhh, inmates.

Work, work, work

I hate when you accept a position at a company and a few months into the job, they reveal secret new duties to you. Always prefaced with the old, "you wouldn't mind..." Yeeeeeaaaahhh, you really feel empowered (corporate buzzword) to say, "Yes, I do mind," don't you?

Ugh.

And to top it off, all this time I was under the impression that I could get a new job within the company after 12 months, but nooo, salaried employees must wait 18 months.

Now I have two more questions to add to the list of questions I ask at interviews when they ask me if I have any questions.

Fabulous Movie Reviews

Alien
The ultimate "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT??!!" movie. I bought this for $4 the day after Thanksgiving. I've always wanted to see it and it would have cost me almost as much to rent it (except I have Netflix). It's good though. And the special effects are pretty good for the late 70s. Sigourney Weaver is not hot though. Not in any decade. 3 stars out of 5.




Click
Good movie, but the ending lasted about 10 minutes past when it should have in my opinion. I won't give it away. I checked the credits to see if it said "David Hasselhoff as Himself", but it didn't. When I think of what he must be like in real life that character is what I imagine. 3.1 stars out of 5.





Casino Royale
I won't go far as to say that this is the best Bond movie ever, but its pretty close. Amazing. For those of you who thought Daniel Craig wouldn't be a good Bond, well, don't attempt to stomp out the flaming bag of poop I am going to leave on your front porch. And if you are my wife, don't attempt to stomp out the flaming bag of poop I am going to leave on your pillow. 4 stars out of 5.