Home Inspection

We had the home inspection yesterday. Nothing out of the ordinary except for a couple of faulty light switches, but those are like a buck each at Lowpot.

I got to get out of work early which is always nice, although I did fib a little and tell my boss I might be back.

No pictures yet. I probably should have brought my camera yesterday.

There's a creek in the backyard that turned into a rushing, um, whats in between a creek and a river? Well, it was pretty high with the torrential downpour we had all day yesterday. No danger of it flooding my house or anything but the back third of the yard was pretty soggy. Probably don't want to locate my shed back there.

I can't wait to hang my TV on the wall.

Television Seen Before and Not Seen Ever

That was one of my favorite episodes of The Office, and had 30 Rock been on tonight (nbc sucks) it would have still been ranked #1.

I'm not sure about the Andy Richter show. It wasn't bad, but unless it's in a time slot where I am already watching TV after this one episode I wouldn't be seeking it out just yet.

The Andy Bernard character on The Office is great, but I, and several other people the I know, didn't know what happened to him after this episode. He kind of vanished. Little did we know that we had missed the little epilogue telling us that he was in anger management. Looking forward to his return.

In other news, in French class in high school my French name was Bernard. My first name is Andy.

Benefits

One of the benefits of working at my company is a cheaper mortgage. In theory that sounds great, but in reality when you compare what they offer an employee to what other banks offer any dope off the street, you realize that there is no benefit to getting a mortgage through your employer, and one more supposed "benefit" is crossed off the list.

Continued

What I was trying to say in this post was that I can never find a car or truck when I am actually looking to buy one, and I was in the midst of a similar situation since we had just started looking for a house. After a few duds and less than stellar prospects I was just a little discourage because it always seems like there are tons of good houses out there, except now.

But that is all moot now because after looking at 8 houses in two nights we put an offer on one. We had 3 that we really liked. Or I should say, I had one I really liked and my wife had one that she really liked. The third one was our compromise house. We both would have been okay with it.

Unfortunately, that house went pending after three days on the market and before we could put an offer on it.

So, we put an offer on the house my wife liked, and it was accepted. It was only on the market for 2 days and there was another offer on the table.

My house was prettier and had better curb appeal, but her house was 15 grand cheaper, completely remodeled on the inside and had a much bigger yard.

Plus, her house has some really sketchy neighbors that I will be able to use for blog content. I miss Lurleen and Butch sometimes.

Funny thing my wife said: "Maybe we can get the county to make them clean up their yard."

My retort: "This is Virginia, not Marblehead, Mass"

And God bless the Commonwealth. Of Virginia. Not Massachusetts.

Twunny Fo'

It was good to see the return of Rick(y) Schroeder to network television last night on 24. To this day my favorite season of NYPD Blue was the one he was in. Good stuff.

As far as the rest of the episode goes...that show should be 2 hours long. Give us 12 episodes a season. Better yet. Do it American Idol style. Three episodes a week. You bass turds.

Television That Must Be Seen

It's hard to form an opinion when most of the lineup was repeats. I'll do a better job next week regardless.

This week, there were 6 episodes. And in my opinion I guess it should be ranked something like this:

1. Office Episode 2
2. 30 Rock Episode 2
3. 30 Rock Episode 1
4. Office Episode 1
5. My Name is Earl
6. Scrubs

Today

I got to program from 4 until 5:30. It was beautiful.

Hmm, You Don't Say

"Hey, did you know that your last name is French?" said the woman at work.

Many Hats

I know that I said I was too tired to finish the last post, but I need some angst release.

Currently my duties at work include:

1. PC Tech - my computer is slow, my drives aren't mapped, hook me to that printer, etc.

2. PC Coordinator - (similar to a PC tech, but lower on the totem pole, like Help Desk without phones) getting new user accounts, getting people access to a multitude of crap, getting new hardware

3. Business Analyst - (while the current BA(BO) is out.) Determining the business, automation and technical needs of the department and determining how to meet those needs.

4. Project Manager - Getting the requirements and scope of any of the previously mentioned needs and coordinating with vendors and IT or the technical analyst (Me :)) about those needs and creating the schedule for development and testing and release.

5. Programmer - Working with the BA and PM in determining feasibility and timeline and scope for development of software projects (unfortunately I can never agree with myself or myself) and then creating prototypes, testing and release.

5a. I have 6 projects on my plate from 5 different supervisors/managers. One is almost done. The other 5, in a perfect world where I could actually work uninterrupted 4 or 5 hours a day, are at least a month's worth of work each. Of course everybody wants their project to be the highest priority and with no real higher authority above me to dictate priority I have to pick "who I want to piss off the least".

6. Liaison with the (I CAN'T CALL IT BY ITS REAL NAME) Expensive Software Analysis team to stay abreast of the $5 million software project for the department since I've been informed that I will be one of the system admins for it.

6a. The Expensive Software Analysis team consumes three hours of my day. Every day. 9 to 12.

Going to California

My entire life, most of it anyway, I always had the philosophy that when you are actually looking for a car there are none to be found that fit your criteria, but when you currently have a car that either runs or you owe too much on it, then it seems like there are a lot of "good" deals out there. With one exception, my 1982 Buick Regal. I was driving the Ford Empo at the time. Not looking for a new car, and no intention of buying a new car, I happened to drive by the Hilltop Chevrolet lot and I spied way in the back the most beautiful car of all time. A two tone '82 Regal. After whipping into a frantic u-turn I found a sales guy, hoping that it was a trade in or something. The first sales guy I found said that it was his and he had just bought it at an auction.

I test drove it. A week later I had begged, borrowed and stealed the thousand bucks I needed to buy it. (Remember when a thousand bucks was almost impossible to come up with?)

Best. Car. Ever. I wish I could have kept it.

Anyway, back to raison de post. It seems like whenever you aren't looking to buy something there are tons available, but when you are ready or desperate to plunk down cold hard cash (or credit i.e. many years of your life) the market vanishes.

(to be continued, I'm tired)

For Sale by Idiot

I don't get the whole For Sale by Owner craze. Yeah, you are going to save yourself 10 or 20 grand or more in commissions, but when you put an ad in the paper and it says, "House for sale. 3 or 4 bedrooms. Must see. Call XXX-XXX-XXXX", you are not really doing a good job. I wouldn't call. You could be a man-rapist for all I know. You didn't specify a price, address, subdivision, style of the home, or a picture. How do I know you aren't some crazed lunatic who is going to pick me off with a 30 aught 6 when I come up the driveway.

But besides the fear of crazies, it's hard for the prospective homebuyer to find your house. I don't even bother. Occasionally I might pull up a few of the FSBO websites but its a pain, there are many and none of them have all of the same listings. It's so much easier to pull up a realtor site that is on MLS. You know you are getting the same listings that someone at some other realtor site is getting (usually). Also, it seems that a lot of FSBOs have a greatly inflated sense of what their house is worth, which is discouraging right from the start.

I love the FSBOs that just have a red and white "for sale by owner" sign in their yard with nothing else but a phone number. Ooo. I can't wait to get home to call that number...How about a price? Or maybe a listing sheet from a little box by your sign?

One of the great things about the internet is being able to search instantly for home s in a wide area with any conceivable criteria. See a picture, check the price, get the address and then drive by it to get a look see. If you like it, make an appointment, if not keep going.

Basically, I'm just annoyed because I am afraid that I am missing a good deal on some FSBO out there, but in deep down I know that I am not.

Carouselambra

Do you ever feel guilty when your boss gives you a pep talk and he asks you if you have any issues that you want to talk about and you say, "No I'm all set", but deep down you just want to spill your guts about the big black guy who harasses you whenever the printer farts, or the scary hillbilly chick who sweats on your desk when her mapped drives mysteriously unmap themselves, and rant how about how you used to do this kind of crap 10 years ago for 11 bucks an hour and the benefits that seemed so good on the surface really suck (adoption assistance??), and your boss is talking about long term plans for you (i.e. 18 months +) and how he believes the entire department and the $5 million software initiative depends on you and all you can think about is "if i can make it 6 months and only have to pay back half of the lousy 2g's (before taxes) they gave me to come here."?

Fabulous Movie Reviews

I'm a little behind in my Fabulous Movie Reviews® so I've got four. Luckily, they all left me speechless in some degree or another so it should all be pretty simple.

The Da Vinci Code
Huh? 1.9 stars out of 5.

The Time Machine
Ohhhhkay. 2.3 stars out of 5.

The Departed
Whoa. 4.71 stars out of 5.

American Haunting
Whaaa? 2.49 stars out of 5.

P.S. I thought accents in The Departed were good, except for the trollop psychiatrist-type person. She sounded baaad. A combination of Rhode Island, Bronx, Long Island, Minnesota, Maine, and North American Slut.

P.P.S. Recently we watched a video of a wedding from 1987 and I was in it reading scripture. I was surprised to hear my own accent. Yeesh. Not to mention the leather tie I was wearing.

See, TV, Must

In order of good to bad, with 1 being the best, in my opinion of course.

1. 30 Rock
2. My Name is Earl
3. The Office - This was a repeat. The other three shows might have been repeats too, but I had never seen them. If I had never seen this episode of The Office, I would probably bump it up to #2.
4. Scrubs - it was funny when he poked fun at sitcoms that are lazy and do flashbacks. That didn't save it from the 2nd straight week at #4.

Warm Weather Is Good, Says I

The nice thing about warm weather is that I can sneak out of work early because I don't have to put a jacket on. I can just quietly slip my keys into my pocket, lock my computer (but leave the monitor on), and just saunter out like I am just going to the bathroom.

In other work news, I found out my boss lives in Bumpass. That is cool. I should move there.

This guy gave his notice today. No matter how much I hate a job, I NEVER want to be the guy who people rejoice, literally dance in the cubicleways, about when I quit.

Another work week completed another 2 hours of programming performed. So thats 5% of my time spent programming. Yay. I am getting so tired of the headhunters calling me at all hours of the day.

Hell

My day at work.

It's a good thing I got a good night's sleep.

Within 5 minutes of arriving:

"I need my java plug in upgraded to the version that is compatible with the new daylight savings time"

"Theres a new hire who started yesterday and she needs access to everything. and a phone. and a computer"

"did you start working on that database for death puts?"

"i hate you"

On the bright side, my boss did say I could move to the other cube that I wanted.

I got ridiculed twice today by two separate people. Once by the other half of the ambigulously gay duo and once by some other doofus on the phone.

My head is too stuffed up to elaborate, but suffice to say both incidents were similar to Kreblog's Ya think incident.

Ok. I will elaborate a little. The first incident with AmbiGayGuy involved the new person who started yesterday. She had previously worked at our company up until 5 months ago and now she is back. I asked AmbiGayGuy, "Where is she now, in orientation?" To which he replied, "She's like, she can write her own ticket. She's been here for like 20 years. She doesn't need orientation."

In reality, she's 29 years old.

The other incident was over the phone and was pretty much "how can you be so stupid as to not know every nuance of the 17 stages of getting a person access to proprietary software written by a contractor for a company we bought out in 1999."

In theory, neither statement should really bother me, but of course they did. Probably due in part because my head is stuffed up and I am relegated to the mouth breather social class, it is hard to talk and come up with a snappy retort. Hence, I feel powerless.

Sprung

Man. I walked out my door this morning and the birds were singing, the squirrels were squirreling, the sun was shining, and the air smelled of fresh clean dew. I felt like I should have been camping.

I love spring. And its nice not having to wait until June to get it.

Dr. Yes

This has just been declared healed a couple of days ago. It was a painful ordeal drawn out by dry forced hot air heating and windy weather.

I stand by my pledge to never eat Pringles again, but...the new Mini Pringles (the site is in Flash so it's not a direct link) are a great substitute. Although, I do agree with this guy that they don't taste quite the same as the original, which I attribute to the chips being made a little heavier duty to withstand the trauma of being packaged in a bag rather than a can. And I wish that they came in a normal sized potato chip bag rather than the small single serving bags that they are currently packaged in.

TV: See, Must

I missed the Thursday night lineup, which leads me to rant about a major point of contention between myself and the NBC network. Why is only The Office available on iTunes? Hmm?

Get out of here you lousy....season

I thought that I was going to make it through a winter completely unscathed for the first time in my life. Adult life, that is. It's hard to imagine winter scathing a child. "Ohhhh no school today? Aww man."

No ice dams, dead batteries, transmission replacements, accidents, strandings, shoveling, frostbite, or running out of oil in the middle of the night.

But alas, it was not meant to be.

We left NH last night at 6 pm. No sooner than four hours later after leaving the friendly confines of New England, the snow started to fall in the Evil Empire State.

It never occurred to us to check the Weather Channel before we left.

I made it to Fishkill and turned off the highway and sat in a Tarmart parking lot listening to AM radio weather reports. I knew instinctively that if I could make it to Wilkes-Barre and past the mountains everything would be alright.

The forecast said 2 to 4 inches and there were a lot of reports of accidents. Ugh.

What to do. What to do.

The snow was coming down pretty hard.

Eh. Let's get back on the highway.

I kept driving. All white knuckle-like over the Hudson river and promptly pulled over in Newburgh and found myself and my family a room at the barely Quality Inn. It was 11:30 pm.

It was the sensible thing to do. It's one thing to risk your own life which you've wasted, but with three young'uns aboard, who have barely even gotten a chance to taste the bittersweetness of life, I decided it was best to swallow my pride and wait till morning.

Of course, it didn't hurt that I reeeeeallly didn't want to go to work on Monday after being up all night. Although, it would have been funny.

"Hey, Andy, my computer is slow today"

"Oh really? Did it ever occur to you THAT I DON'T CARE?"

Kip Journal 4/16/1999

"The best way to keep you wife inline is to beat her now and again"

[Kip humor. It's as painful to read as it was to hear. Ed.]

Read the Kip Journal FAQ

TV: See, Must

I am going to start rating them. No fancy pants type review, not that I have ever been fancy pants, just a simple ranking. 1 through 4 with 1 being the best. Tonight:

1. 30 Rock. Jeez. What a show.
2. My Name is Earl. A very good Earl, but 30 Rock was just amazing.
3. The Office. This doesn't happen often in my mental rankings from the past year.
4. Scrubs. Its a good show but how can it compete with that ^

I Wasn't Knocking It

I wasn't being sarcastic about pork rinds. I ate a bag tonight while watching Must See TV.

Fabulous Movie Review

Talladega Nights
I wanted to love this movie. Really, I did. But I didn't. It was good, I laughed a few times, but like Anchorman, taken on the whole, it wasn't awe-inspiring, more yaw-n-inspiring.

Will Ferrell, I think, can't carry a movie by himself, he's better in the type of role he had in Old School, or Wedding Crashers, although I will concede that Elf is pretty freakin' funny, but that could just be because of Bob Newhart. Call me blasphemous, you Ferrephiles, but I shall not waiver.

What to rate it? Since it was just an average movie to me, I decided to determine its rating by calculating the average of every rating I've giving to all of my Fabulous Movie Reviews. 3.114656769 out of 5.

Ooo. Gee. On second thought, thats too high. 2.6 stars out of 5. And that's probably a little generous. 2.4 stars out of 5.

Mmmm, Fried Skin

The vending machines on the first floor of my building have beef jerky. It's expensive though, which beef jerky tends to be anyway, at $1.25 for three quarters of an ounce. My only question is, which building/floor do I find the pork rinds?

There's a Blue Bird on My Shoulder

This morning outside my window, I heard a bird singing. How wonderful! Spring is right around the corner.

Refreshment Extinguishes Thirst

I was perusing the soda selection at my local 7-11 (of which there are three) the other day, and lo and behold I came across Garci Crespo Refresco Apaga Sed Toronja Bebida con Sabor Natural. It's the yellow labeled green bottle in the picture.

Grapefruit soda. Similar to Half and Half from Squamscot Soda, but it's not half grapefuit. It's all grapefruit. Ay, there's the rub. It's good and I like it, but it could benefit from a generous portion of lemon.

Colt Sh**t

I'm not going to complain about my job anymore. It is what it is. I do however reserve the right to complain about and/or ridicule individual people.

Shave already, or at least trim it

In the absence of warm weather or a Patriots game I must have watch 6 episodes of Mythbusters and 3 episodes of American Chopper yesterday. It was a good day. Going riding or fishing would have been better though.

Quit It. Quit It. Quit It. Quit It.

For three straight days, my right deltoid has been twitching. Not the whole thing, but just one small section. The same section every time though. No pain. Just a twitch. I should search on WebMD. It's probably a zinc oxide deficiency or something stupid like that.

Here's a short video to prove it. No laughing at my freckly peach fuzzy arm. Click on the picture.

Never Say Never Again or Dr. No

I swear on my cat's life that I will never eat Pringles again. The corner mouth sore, I just can't deal with it again. I tried to take a big bite of my lunch today (I was extremely hungry because it was 3 pm), and while opening my mouth wider than an python devouring a goat, the corner of my mouth tore.

Blood and mushrooms. Not exactly the most enticing of pizza toppings. Unless you are French-Canadian, which amazingly enough, I am...they don't call me gagknee for nothing. But I still didn't like it.

Hot Dog

The title means nothing.

It amazes me how Red Sox fans will continue to follow a player's career after he's moved on to another team.

That being said, what's up with Bronson's hair? He looks like David Spade.

Thursday

Per my tradition (what tradition, you boob?), I will review Thursday night's Must See lineup.

Great.

A few jokes I would like to reminisce about: Michael telling the story about Phyllis being called "Easy Rider" in high school. Lemon saying "This would have worked on Ugly Betty."

Good stuff. Err, great stuff.

Delayed Reaction

I know we are almost a week removed from the Super Bowl, but I've started using the phrase "Stupid Colts" whenever something bad happens, like a swear. Please, feel free to do it also.

Stub your toe on the coffee table, "STUPID COLTS!"

Boss makes you work late so he can sneak out with his mistress, "STUPID COLTS!"

Someone cuts you off in traffic or is going 60 in the fast lane, "STUPID COLTS!"

You get the picture.

Seagull Walk. Seagull Run.

I hit a seagull during one of my commutes this week. It was all so surreal. He didn't try to fly away. He was just walking across the highway and never made any attempt to get away. I couldn't stop or slow down or swerve (not that I wanted to, stupid sky rat) because of heavy traffic. It all happened in slow motion. One second he was waddling across the highway, the next I hear the dull thump of his head against my undercarriage. The next day he was still there in the middle of the highway, frozen solid (stupid dump dove) one wing up in the air.

Today at lunch, while eating my Kung Pao Chicken, I thought of my friend, the flying vermin, and shed a tear. Poor little fella.

You Always Hurt the One Who Loves You

I love Pringles. However, sometimes when I eat a whole can, it creates a sore at one of the corners of my mouth, due to a combination of the salt and the chafing action of the edges of the chips.

A sore at the corner of your mouth is annoying for two reasons. One, every time you open your mouth it splits open and two, people think you have herpes. I get tired of telling people I don't have herpes.

Worst. Week. Ever.

Luckily it went by fast. I can't even begin to describe all of the assinine, mind numbing tasks I had to complete this week. It's going to get worse too because BO is out for 8 weeks on disability.

I did about 4 hours of programming this week, and half of that was an Access application and VBA. Again, not what I signed up for.

There's an empty cube that I want to move to. It's more private plus I could look outside (oh glorious windows!), but I can't decide if I should just move there and suffer any consequences or ask permission first. What are they gonna do, fire me? Oh, um, maybe :)

Here's a map of where I currently sit.



















There's a lot of traffic. It's noisy. I don't like people staring at the back of my head all day. I'm a baby.

House Hunters

I'd like to create a TV show called House Hunter Hunters. It would be about a man who hunts down all of these weiners who appear on the show House Hunters complaining about not having a 2nd guest bedroom or a master bath that doesn't have a tub and a separate shower, or being forced to use their exercise equipment in the same room that the computer is in, kidnaps them and forces them to live in a 1300 sq ft 1970s ranch with (egads!) pine kitchen cabinets and faux wood countertops, a master bath with only one sink, ONE!, and berber carpet throughout. Or he would just slap them around and make them cry.

Pansies. You wouldn't last a day.

Fabulous Movie Review

The Lady in the Water
I was excited to see this much maligned creation of M. Night Shadklsjfkasdjf. I've enjoyed all of his movies and this one was no exception. Yeah, it's a little weird and disjointed at times, but so what. It's imaginative.

A more adult (calm down) version would have been better though. The scary parts are just hinted at and don't really come to the forefront, just like a true children's story.

Two complaints. One, Mr. Night, while doing a cameo in one of your movies is entirely acceptable, taking on a starring role is silly. Second, a scene, and I won't give anything away, involving a kid who interprets, was stupid. STUPID.

A few other moments were silly too, even for a fairy tale, but taken on the whole, it's worth watching. Three stars out of Five.

24

In a sidenote, actually its more like a prenote, wife and I got sucked into watching Jack Bauer in The Vanishing on TBS or something last night. It was pretty bad. Jack only killed one person and Chloe wasn't in the movie at all.

This episode of 24 was greeeeeat though. Honestly, I didn't see the ending coming, but what's the deal with the world's most evil man, Powers Boothe, (have you ever seen Deadwood? He's great in that) as the Vice President? Not knowing how Wayne Palmer became President, I can't speculate on what would possess him to choose this guy as his running mate, but it could only be blackmail.

President Palmer is also big into speaking barely above a whisper for emphasis, someone should inform him that it doesn't work.

Why do I speak about this show as if it was real life?

Kip Journal 4/14/1999

Kip said Jared was an easy target to make fun of.

In college, Kip got good pot. he used to know this guy who would drive to NYC to get it.

Read the Kip Journal FAQ

Label Me Not Impressed

I thought Must See TV was a little mediocre this week. Like the producers of all four shows got together and decided that each would air their worst episodes of the season.

No Thanks

$250 for the full version! No thanks. I've never had a problem with XP. I'll just wait another year or two until I buy a new computer.

I Want One

My latest obsession. Dirt bikes with street tires, also known as Super Moto bikes.

I just remembered one of them

A 32-year-old city man is accused of assaulting...

My first thought when I read the first line of the article was that maybe I knew him, since we are in fact the same age. I'm glad to say I did not know him. Then I saw his picture and I thought that he is the oldest and ugliest looking 32 year old man I have ever seen.

I can't believe we are the same age. Three cheers for aging well! Hip hip hooray...

Dagnubbit!

I had three posts written down on a piece of paper at work and I left the paper on my desk. And I can't remember what they are.

Let's see what I can come up with.

The BO at work has an unusual facial structure that reminds me of something that I haven't been able to put my finger on until now. A rotting jack o lantern. You think I am kidding or exaggerating but I'm not.

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
  
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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Please Help

Sign the Petition!

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Nice Commute

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

First Time at Lowe's

I've been in the local Lowe's before, when I helped Big R pick up his dryer, but I've never shopped there, until yesterday.

I needed to pick up some odds and ends. When I say odds and ends, I mean that I have no idea what I need. I have something to fix and an idea in my head of what part or parts could be used to fix it. This is one of the reasons why I hate it when hardware store guys insist on helping me. If I don't know what I need, how could you possibly help me? Plus, if you let me wander around undisturbed, I'll probably end up buying something I hadn't even planned on.

Anyway, whenever I had one of these little projects to do, I avoided Home Depot like pictures of Lindsay Lowhore's crotch on the Interweb. They just don't stock all the little doodads that you might need only once in your life, like a turnbuckle, or things that you probably won't ever need in your life, such as a Woodruff key. Those are the kinds of items you could only get at a small hardware store. Even if Home Depot did have what I needed, there was always a 50 percent chance they didn't have it in stock. Or it was on a top shelf in a box and I couldn't find an associate to help me. And the one time I climbed up the shelving unit to help myself I got caught.

I didn't go to Lowe's because I thought it was going to be any better than HD. I figured it was probably the same, just all blue. Just like Target is red to Walmart's blue. I went because it's about a 1/4 mile closer to my house than Home Depot which even that is only a half mile away. A funny thing happened though. Lowe's, to my amazement, had all of those little doodads, and every kind of nut and bolt I could think of. Even metric, which I vaguely remember the orange home improvement center not having. A half hour was spent (wasted?) just browsing through the hardware aisle.

So, what did I end up getting? A 3/4 inch galvanized clevis hanger, a 4 inch hook and eye latch, and a 4 inch eyebolt.

Kip Journal 4/1/1999

Kip is a fool every day.

Kip tried cocaine. Its overrated.


Read the Kip Journal FAQ

Don't Patronize Me

I see the irony in the "Reduce Speed Ahead" sign when I am only traveling 5 miles an hour on the interstate, yessir, I do.