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
  
• 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.

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.

Fabulous Movie Reviews

Once Upon a Time in America
Wow. Not only is this a great movie, it's also freakin' long. It took me two tries to get through it. It's like reading a great book, impossible to get through it one sitting, but so worth it. I know I recently berated a movie for being too long, but this one is different, nothing could be cut out without negatively affecting the story, plus it's better written and there are no special effects attempting to fill space and make up for lack of story telling ability. 4.0 stars out of 5.


Rambo: First Blood Part II
I hadn't seen this movie since I saw it in the theater at the ripe old age on 10 in 1985 with my friend Erik. Luckily, this time around I understood what was happening because I didn't have Erik to explain it to me. I saw three movies in the theater around that time: Ice Pirates, Dune and Rambo and he had to explain all of them to me. His IQ was my IQ² also.

I like this movie. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. It aged well, plus you got the whole POW/MIA emotional thing going. The thought that struck me while watching it was that in 1985 the Vietnam war was no far removed from the nation's collective psyche than Bosnia or Mogadishu is to many of us now, less so even since it was more traumatizing. 3.2 stars out of 5.



Taegukgi hwinalrimyeo
Subtitled and Korean. Not for the faint of heart, but if you love a good war movie with a good story and plenty of action, then this will fit the bill. 1.9679896712654304185392272042815² stars out of 2.2360679774997896964091736687313².

Urination

I know that I have spokem ad nauseum about the crooked urinal at work. Many people have aksed me (okay, nobody has) why I continue to use that urinal.

Well, the answer is simple, really. There are three urinals in the bathroom. The crooked urinal is the left one. On the far right is what I like to call the Billy Madison Special. You remember that scene from the movie, right? Where he is in an elementary school bathroom and falls over while trying to crouch to do his business and Sideburns is secretly spying on him? I tried to find a picture on the Interweb, but instead I stumbled upon this interesting article.

The middle urinal is ideal except that there is no privacy. Who wants to have another man standing 13 inches away, probably getting spray on you, or silently making fun of your shake technique?

So, you see, I have no choice.

I call the urinals Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Which is fitting because the middle one is the most perfect but it is surrounded by places you would never willingly go to unless you had no choice. The left one is the worst because if you aren't careful it can taint you with its evil current. The right one makes you feel awkward and desirous of leaving as quickly as possible.

I choose to use a stall now, of which there are three. Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia. I always stay to the right, but I don't mind the middle one once in a while.

Noodle D'Onofrio

There's a new cast of characters at work that I thought I would introduce. Unfortunately, I don't really interact act with many people, mostly because my particular job doesn't require me to, so I don't have the level of knowledge of their personalities like a Kip or VeeDub. Maybe in the future.

Ms. Noodle
A woman, mid 30s, who wears baggy wool dress pants every day. Every day. Quite bizarre.










Pvt. Pyle
From Full Metal Jacket. He's got shifty eyes that say don't look at me or I will kill you. He's not very intimidating, due to his pudgy 5 foot 4 stature, but me and my 150 lb body wouldn't mess with him. It's been a while since I watched that movie, I need to again.






And lastly, the incomparable, Barry White.
I think he knows who he sounds like though, as evidenced by him referring to all the ladies as baby doll and sugar.

Solitaire

I just discovered my iPod has games on it. Cool. I miss the Solitaire "competitions" me and 12 Gauge would have at my old job. Of course, it wasn't really much of a competition though because his IQ was my IQ².

Whoa

Its late November and I just ate my meal outside. In a t-shirt.

Reserved Words

A checker

Meet the New Van

So here's my new van. Or should I say my wife's new van. Surprisingly, it's my first Chevy. My dad has owned a 100 Chevys. How come this is my first? I dunno.

Our last van was a Ford. A Windstar. It was pretty good for a piece of crap. Generally speaking, I hate Fords. Unless they are Mustangs or F-150s. I owned a Ford Tempo when I was in my late teens. That thing had everything go wrong with it that could possibly go wrong with it plus a couple of extra things. Replacing the clutch took me a week. A CV shaft, 3 days. Brakes, a whole day. That sticks in a man's mechanical memory.

The Windstar we had was a 5000 pound vehicle that handled like it was 10,000 pounds. The alignment was never quite right and the seats were less comfortable than the vinyl seats in the 1981 Chevy Sport Van my parent's bought after our 1979 Chevy Malibu. The Malibu was cool because they bought it brand new and I remember being at the dealer when we closed the deal. Also, this was pre-"we must save the children" America, and it was cool to sit in the "way back". Nowadays, letting your kids sit in the way back is grounds for a stint in county jail.

If I had to pick the one thing that bugged me the most about the Windstar it would be the doors that automatically locked themselves once the vehicle was moving. I hated that because every time I got out of the van and tried to open the back door to get my kids out I would have to hit the unlock button. Of course, my wife would knowingly hit that button about 1 second before I would. Irritating.

The beauty of this Chevy is, besides not feeling like I was driving a Penske 26 foot rental truck, not only does it lock the doors automagically for you when you start driving, it UNLOCKS the doors for you when it stops.

It UNLOCKS the doors for you??!! That's crazy. Why couldn't Ford think of that? I dunno. I suspect that they worked on the door lock/unlock code towards the end of a long holiday weekend (perhaps Thanksgiving) and then forgot what they had been working on when they came back in on Monday.

So far I have only one complaint with our new Chevy. It smells like cigarette smoke. Mixed with Febreeze. I don't really find the smoke smell offensive, until it is mixed with something else designed to "hide" it.

I didn't notice the odor until after we brought it home. During the test drive, I detected something a little "off". When I asked my son he acted like I was crazy. (sigh) My nose had been recently assaulted by the death scent of my truck. Not to mention that the Petersburg landfill was directly across the street from the used car lot and the dealer himself smoked in his building. So it was useless. Whatever. The smell will go away in the "crisp New England air" this weekend.

Kip Journal 3/25/1999

Kip's a little rusty with CGI


Read the Kip Journal FAQ

Tip of the Day

Always be nice to your IT guy.

Holy Crapfish!

I googled "fishing james river" today and what did I find? Could it, could it be? YES. Haha. It is. Look closely and then compare.

You're famous, Rob.

Blogger Sucks

Yes, I realize it's free. But free is no excuse for suckage. I don't keep using it because it's free, but because I am too lazy to move somewhere else.

Dear Deer

At least once or twice a week during either my morning or evening commute there is a dead deer on the side of the road. One morning, one particular deer looked like it had exploded on the highway, the only distinguishable deer part was a patch of its hide the size of a doormat on the road, but there was blood and carnage everywhere.

Two days ago traffic suddenly slowed down which it does often, usually for no reason it seems, but that day there was a freshly killed deer carcass in the middle of the fast line and a Nissan Sentra in the breakdown lane with its emergency flashers on.

The thought that has been bugging me lately is, how come you never see bucks dead on the side of the road? It always seems to be does. A guy at work said it's probably because people stop and take the bucks for the antlers. Eh, I dunno. Maybe. But I doubt that people would take every dead buck.

This morning on the way to work, I leave my subdivision and drive down a little major road, to get to a major road, which in turn brings me on to the highway, and there a 100 feet from me down the street into another subdivision is a buck with a full set of antlers walking down the street.

Rob pointed out to me that its hunting season. So I assume the buck knew where he would be safe, which leads me to believe bucks are smart enough not to cross a 4 lane highway.

Fabulous Movie Reviews

King Kong
Three hours and 7 minutes! Are you kidding me? This movie could easily have been cut to two hours. Easily. I'm never afraid to watch a three hour movie, but sitting through this was just killing me. Yeah, the special effects were good, especially Kong fighting two Tyranosaurus Rex, and the story was good, but man, it just wasn't good enough to be 3 hours and 7 minutes long. I can't be the only one who thinks that. 3 stars out of 5.





Hotel Rwanda
Great movie. Great story. A mild tear jerker too if you're a woman or a man who is so inclined. Don Cheadle, who I remember most fondly from the movie Out of Sight, is excellent in the lead role. Speaking of Out of Sight, if you've never seen that, you should. It's based on an Elmore Leonard book, and unlike all of his other books it doesn't involve bumbling crooks from Detroit who steal a shipment of drugs in Miami from Colombians. The only downside of Out of Sight is Jennifer Lopez. My wife feels similarly about George Clooney which I can't understand why.

Anyway, the best part of Hotel Rwanda, besides people getting saved, is the fact that it proves that the genocide is clearly the fault of France and/or Belgium. Just like Vietnam. 4.2 stars out of 5 for Hotel Rwanda and 3.99 stars for Out of Sight.

J.D. Screw

Rumors are just rumors in the baseball off season and most never come true. I hope any and all rumors about the Sox signing J.D. Drew remain just rumors. The guys a stiff. And if they would give him 50 million bucks, then why not Johnny Damon? A guy who plays hard every game and doesn't miss half of every season with a groin or hamstring pull.

Here's someone more articulate than me waxing philosphic about the whole subject.

The irony of the situation to me is that I have always kind of considered Jeff Weaver and J.D. Drew to be very similar, wouldn't that be something if they BOTH ended up on the Red Sox next season!! yippee. I won't be watching.

51 Meellion Dollars

That's the number the Red Sox bid to gain the rights to sign a Japanese pitcher by the name of Hyundai Kawasaki. Just the right to bid on him, thats not counting the probable $50 million contract it will take to actually sign him. He might be great, who knows, but there has never been a dominant Japanese pitcher in the Major Leagues. Good ones, yes. Great ones, no. A hundred million bucks or one trillion yen could buy a first baseman, a closer, and two other starting pitchers. Eh. What do I care anyway, its not my money, nor my team since I am a Washington Nationals fan now. Just kidding.

In other news, congratulations to Hanley Ramirez for winning Rookie of the Year. You might remember him from such articles as Red Sox call up Craig Hansen, Hanley Ramirez and Top Ten Prospects: Boston Red Sox. But, oh, I forgot to mention, he won the National League Rookie of the Year. He's not with the Red Sox anymore. I had reservations about that trade at first, but because we got a good, young pitcher in the deal (Beckett) and we had EDGAR RENTERIA who turned out to be edgar renteria and most of us were convinced (or hoped at least) that he had just had an off year and would be a "force" to be "reckoned with" in '06. Then less than a month later, they trade Renteria away.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this crap, but I will stop here. It's just this Rookie of the Year award opening up old wounds and other stuff.

Marijuanahole

Yesterday while listening to a local talk radio show where they were discussing two new housing developments in the county where I now live, a woman called in and said that "Chesterfield county is nothing but a pothole" filled with "drug addicts" and "children who don't know there fathers" and that they should do more to improve the area than just building more housing units like adding an Applebee's.

Fruit Flies

I have fruit flies at work. I don't know where they are coming from, especially since I don't have a garbage can or keep any food in my desk. At my old job, fruit flies reminded me to empty my garbage. I can only imagine what the woman in the next cube is saying when I slap my hands together attempting to kill an elusive fruit fly. "Oh lordy lordy, what is that crazy white boy doin' now."

Smelly Truck Smelly Truck Why Are You So Smelly?

Saturday, it was in the upper 70s here, so on the way home from Rob's house that afternoon, the windows in my truck were down to enjoy the nice fresh air. Unfortunately, I forgot to roll them up and it rained Saturday night. A lot. I woke up Sunday morning to find a one inch puddle on the floor, water all over the dash, and of course the seats soaked up the rain like a sponge.

I've been sitting on towels all week, and now the truck smells awful. Like laundry that you washed but forgot to put in the dryer so it sat in the washing machine. Wet. For a week.

More Potty Humor

My apologies for all of the bathroom related posts, and I promise this will be the last one for a little while. You must understand its been 2 and a half years since I worked at a company that didn't have single sized bathrooms.

Again, the infamous crooked urinal. Today it dawned on me that the floor surrounding this urinal is always damp. Why? I wondered. Intrigued, I decided to hang out and watch the flush instead of doing the "flush and run" in order to see from where the water was leaking. A crack in the porcelain or maybe a leaky flush valve.

It turned out to be neither. The sheer amount of water released and the force of it, not too mention the urinal is not level, cause the urinal to "overflow its banks". Luckily, I was standing far enough away. Here's a diagram for those of you who are imaginationally retarded:

Let's Close this Deal, Right After I Wipe

A man was talking on his cellphone in the stall in the bathroom yesterday.

Wall Mounted Urine Collection Receptacle

One of the urinals in the bathroom at work wasn't mounted to the wall level, so "stuff" pools to one side. I don't know why I would notice something like that. I included a diagram for those of you who are imaginationally challenged.

Two for One Special Part 2

I paid 80 cents for a bag of Munchos today. The bag got stuck on a bag of Cheezits that were in the next slot. I tried shaking the machine to no avail. Faced with either marching a quarter mile to the cafeteria and getting my money back from the cashier or dropping another 80 cents into the machine for another bag of Munchos, I chose the latter. Luckily, I was rewarded with two bags of Munchos.

Please note, if I had been employed longer than three and a half weeks I would have just shook the machine more violently.

Aych Dee Tee Vee

I got a sign on bonus when I accepted my new job. I don't really think it was a bonus, per say, more like they felt bad that I asked for too little money when they asked for my salary requirement so they threw me a little pittance to make sure I stuck around for a year (I have to pay it back if do leave before a year, prorated). Anyway...I took that bonus and bought myself a 42 inch plasma TV. I really wanted a 40 inch LCD, but this thing was the cheapest 42 inch name brand HDTV that I have ever seen. It was a sale at Circuit City. The same TV at Best Buy was $500 more. Anyway...we plugged it in to the cable and lo and behold we get HD channels that we aren't paying for. Yippee! The picture quality is astounding. I flip back and forth between the HD channel and the SD channel and my jaw drops. Last Sunday's Patriots/Colts game was simply amazing. You can really see individual blades of grass. I don't know anybody else with an HDTV so I didn't realize the difference, so maybe I can convince someone else who is on the fence to take the plunge. DVDs look better too and component cables made a noticeable difference compared to the old fashioned RGB (I think thats what they are called, you know the red, yellow and white ones). I wonder what a DVD player with upconversion will look like.

Epiphany

Have you ever struggled for a day and a half with a problem, scoured the Interweb, poured over MSDN, desperately searched for a solution to a problem that you are convinced that someone else has solved and you find tons of stuff that kinda seem like it would help you but doesn't, then you finally give up and hopelessly begin to come up with your own solution which you end up doing within an hour? Yeah. I can't count how many times this has happened in the past 8 or so years. And each time I start this journey into the dark recesses of the Interweb message boards, I convince myself that this time will be different. It never is. I think part of me is afraid that some programming archeologist will come along in 10 years and look at the solution I came up with and laugh at it whilst saying to his colleagues, "Look at this. Can you believe this fool did it like this? What a simpleton."

Screw you, Mr. Near-Future-Programming Archeologist, my stuff works and ultimately I am just concerned with making my boss happy for the next 12 to 24 months, not creating the Parthenon or Mt. Rushmore.

I'm losing my mind.

New Harley

This thing is cool. I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Assuming it's not priced through the roof like so many other Harleys, the Street Rod included.

How DO you pronounce that?

I think it should be On - e - bol not Annabelle like some of the retarded Boston sports writers and WEEI hosts pronounce it.

An excerpt from an ESPN.com article (I'm not even going to comment, you can sense my rage I'm sure):

Here's one number that Suppan's agents, Leventhal and Damon Lapa, will be sure to sell: His 2.39 ERA after the All-Star break was the third lowest by a National League starter after Roger Clemens and Anibal Sanchez.

(Anibal Sanchez is a pitcher the Sox traded away...in case you didn't know)

Another:

Translation: He's a ground ball guy who pitches to contact, so he better have a solid infield defense behind him. And he might want to exhaust his other options before pursuing a job in, say, the American League East.

Yeah. He's tried that already. Let's just say, he sucked.

I love this one:

An American League executive expects Suppan to get three years and $21 million, "minimum." But if Matt Morris could fetch $27 million over three years last winter without Suppan's postseason portfolio, that estimate appears conservative. Don't forget that in 2004, Suppan beat Clemens in Game 7 to pitch the Cardinals into the World Series.

He also looked like a squirrel on the interstate in a game against the Sox in the World Series in '04. I thought National League pitchers had mad baserunning skillz?

This about Jeff Weaver in the same article:

"We first saw him and he was topping out at 88-89 and everybody was like, 'Is he hurt?' " said a National League coach. "All of a sudden, boy, he got stronger. He got the innings under him and started letting it go a little bit."

NO. It's more like, he is already a millionaire, but he got caught up in the excitement of the playoffs and decided to pour his booze down the drain, throw his weed in the fireplace and give his crystal meth to Goodwill.

I am going to SEO a little bit here in the off hand chance Mr. Jeff Weaver reads blogs or Googles himself. Jeff Weaver Jeff Weaver Jeff Weaver Jeff Weaver Jeff Weaver St Louis Cardinals Loser Pitcher Detroit Tigers First Round Draft Pick Who Is A Total Stiff Los Angeles Dodgers Pitcher Who Crys Like A Baby Jeff Weaver Sucks Jeff Weaver Sucks Jeff Weaver Is In It For The Money Jeff Weaver's Brother Is Better Jeff Weaver's Brother Sucks Too I Hate You Jeff Weaver Get A Haircut Jeff Weaver You Look Homeless Which Is Impossible Because You Made Millions For Doing Nothing Jeff Weaver Jeff Weaver

Oh yeah and shave once in a while too, you look like me. An overgrown man-boy who wishes he could grow a beard and look tough. You suck, Jeff Weaver.

Stephanie Root or Millie Waddams

There's a woman at work who is a dead ringer for Milton, the character from Office Space played by Stephen Root. Except for the glasses.

The few times I've needed to speak to her (she's a team leader and one of the data enterers(?) for whom I am building something), the millisecond I step into her cube she immediately minimizes all her windows. Today she was actually typing an email and as soon as I said, "Hello", BAM! down go all the windows before she even acknowledges me. And she doesn't hit the little "Show Desktop" icon either. Every window is minimized individually, and she's fast. A real pro.

Looth Tooth

My oldest son chipped his tooth today. Broke half of it off actually, diagonally from the bottom to the top. We were in the Walmart parking lot walking to the entrance and he walked right into a truck. I heard the hollow thunk of a blunt object hitting sheet metal. As I turned around my first thought was, oh crap, what kind of damage did one of my kids do? Immediately followed by, oh jeez, how the heck do you walk into the side of a truck when I saw the boy with his hand over his mouth. To, oh thats gonna cost me some money when he took his hand away.

I do feel bad for him. It looks really bad. Hopefully, we'll get it fixed early this week, but still, HOW THE HECK DOES SOMEONE DO THAT?!

Development Arrested

I bought all three seasons of Arrested Development on DVD a couple of weeks ago. I was staying at my brother's place and he hadn't gotten cable hooked up yet, so we needed something to watch. My wife and I just finished the last season last night. I hadn't seen the final episodes yet because they were taped and as often happens unlabeled VCR tapes get lost. I was pretty bummed out when the final credits started rolling. I got pretty attached to the Bluth family, especially since I had just watched all three seasons in the span of a month.

Everybody I've made watch this show has loved it which begs the question, why was it cancelled? Because Fox sucks. I loved the show but I missed half the episodes when originally aired because of their half-aced scheduling. How much more difficult was it for the casual viewer of the show to see it?

They seemed to hint of a movie in the last episode. I doubt it would happen, but it would be cool nonetheless.

This rant is pretty pointless, I know, since most of the ranting was done last winter when the show got cancelled, but, whatever.