You can read it.
I mentioned to my girlfriend that I had to go downstairs to work last night because sitting up in bed with a thousand-degree laptop burning through your pajama bottoms is uncomfortable. I also mentioned that while I was downstairs I took some pain medication for a cramp and joked that between the melted thighs and aching body she almost had to search for a new boyfriend along with a new job.
“So,” she replies, “I’m unemployed and my boyfriend’s dead on the couch.”
“Do I get his TiVo?”
An American Idol Contestant was whacked by a folding chair last night when another competitor jumped into the ring after being tagged by their partner. Camera crews caught Simon Cowell ripping the chair out from under Paula Abdul and passing it through the ropes while Randy Jackson was adjusting his new “Dawg” latex mask.
Officials from the WWAIF (World Wide American Idol Federation) report the contestant only suffered a broken nose and it will not affect the quality of singing brought to the mat each week.
In a related story, the WWWF (World Wide Wrestling Federation) is continuing to pursue legal action against American Idol for this season’s blatant copying of their format. Hulk Hogan - rumored to have challenged Randy Jackson to a grudge match for possession of his judge’s spot - declined to comment on any legal action.
My brother says he’ll know when I’m officially living with my girlfriend because I’ll move my TiVo to her house.
2 o’clock in the morning. Staring into the bathroom vanity mirror in the dark. Unkempt hair and a two-day beard staring back wearing a brown t-shirt with a faded Batman symbol. Even in the dark, there’s grey in the beard. I can’t see my own eyes. There’s a reflection from the hall light on my glasses. I don’t want to look there anyway. I know what’s inside because that’s where I am. My daughter is sleeping in my room. My neck hurts from laying on the couch without a pillow avoiding sleep and everything else and watching a month’s worth of backed up television drama on the TiVo. I want to see what happens to these people’s lives. These fictitious people who go home from their jobs and cash their checks and worry about things like product endorsements and network executives putting their show up against another network’s runaway hit of the season. I’ve got to work tomorrow while my daughter is here, before she goes home to her mother in two days. This week is special. She has to give me first dibs on watching her while she’s at a conference. That’s what the court says. I get first dibs. And every other weekend. And alternating holidays. I get a house full of drawings and toys and no echoes ten out of fourteen days a week. It takes about twenty minutes for the Advil to kick in they say. I can’t wait. The pain shoots up the side of my neck and sinks it’s fingers into the tops of my eyes and pulls backwards trying to open me up. Another couple minutes is all I need.
Gas prices this winter have been horrible. As a result people are pulling the “gas belt” tighter to conserve money. There is a shared kitchen in the building where my company is located. An employee of another company fixes Chicken Pot Pies for lunch in the gas oven. The owner of the company she works for told her not to fix her Chicken Pot Pies in the gas oven anymore because of high gas bills. Word of mouth carried this story through the entire building within an hour.
Lets just say the company owner - for all his trying to be fiscally responsible - didn’t come off looking so good. That’s a lot of negative press caused by a little Chicken Pot Pie. So, I started thinking - How much did he really save and was it worth the negative backlash in the employee community?
A quick unscientific search led me to a website from the Gas Foodservice Equipment Network. I’m sure this isn’t exact but I’m willing to bet it gets me into the ballpark. The quote I found is, “Looking at it from a “pure cost” view, the gas oven costs during the one hour test ranged from $0.15 - $0.43 cents per hour…”
We’ve got an old gas oven in the shared kitchen. Assuming it’s not very efficient let’s boot the gas cost up to $.050 cents per hour. I think Chicken Pot Pies take about 45 minutes to bake. Figuring some fudge factor and time to warm up the oven, let’s just call it an even hour. If the employee in question ate Chicken Pot Pies cooked in the gas oven every day of the work-week, we’d have the following:
5 days * 1 hour * $0.50 cents/hour gas cost = $2.50 per week
So, this employee - worst case scenario of being a total Chicken-Pot-Pie-aholic - can assume she’s not worth an extra $2.50 per week to eat her half-hour unpaid lunch onsite where she is available to her coworkers if needed.
To be fair to the company owner,figuring a 40-hour work-week, that comes out to $0.0625 cents per hour raise. Not to mention (but I will) that if a person eats that many Chicken Pot Pies a week, there’s probably an extra cost in water for toilet flushes. (Do I really have to explain this part?) I didn’t do the cost-sleuthing to determine this cost (but I did find an odd site about cats on the toilet if you’re interested).
Since we’re talking about postive/negative opinions, the company owner is also notorious for visiting a coffee shop in the morning before work and carrying in a Starbucks midday. Let’s just guess about $4-5 a coffee on average. That’s about $20 to $50 a week. Not to mention (but I will) the extra cost in water for toilet flushes. (I’m still not going to go into detail on tihs part.)
Conclusion:
Disgruntled, hungry employee. Negative community opinion. Going down the road to putting in pay toilets.
Bad move on the owner’s part.
Let’s just say this… I do *NOT* plan to move to the next Microsoft operating system. Come hell or high water, I will figure out another way. I’m not mister anti-Microsoft at all costs but the last move I had to make was just downright painful - Windows XP on my new laptop coming from Windows 2000 on my last laptop. I mean, really, my laptop freak’n rocks - it’s a Sony VAIO VGN-A600P with a 17″ widescreen truebrite screen. Geeky techie techie, but some of you will salivate reading that. However, after uninstalling all the CRAP that comes preinstalled and trying to get XP configured, well, let’s just say, GRRRRRR. I still have some problems. I should just reinstall *everything* but I don’t enjoy spending a considerable chunk of my week reconfiguring my workstation and not getting any work done. I work for myself so I’m not taking any money out of “the man’s” pocket. It directly affects my bottom line.
Anyhow… Here’s a press release I was jazzed about. I’m sure they won’t mind me copying it here. It’s free press, after all. 
—begin free press for somebody else—
ST. PAUL, Minn., and SAN DIEGO, February 8, 2006 - CodeWeavers, Inc., the leading Windows-to-Linux software developer, and Linspire, Inc., maker of the easy-to-use desktop Linux operating system, today announced the release of CrossOver Office 5.0 for Linspire. Linspire users who purchase CrossOver Office can run dozens of Windows applications, including Microsoft Office 2003, Adobe Photoshop and Intuit’s Quicken and Quickbooks, natively from their Linspire desktop Linux operating system. For more information about CrossOver Office 5.0 for Linspire, visit www.linspire.com/crossover.
“Businesses tell us they want to switch to the desktop Linux operating system to reduce total cost of ownership or improve security, but it’s the thought of losing one or two software applications - like Quickbooks or Microsoft Project - that holds them back,” said Kevin Carmony, CEO of Linspire, Inc. “CrossOver Office is genius because it removes that hesitation from the equation. Yes, you can still use Quicken or Microsoft software on your Linspire machine, but you don’t have to overpay for a Windows operating system license to do it.”
CrossOver Office allows Linspire users to install popular Windows productivity applications and plugins in Linspire without needing a Microsoft operating system CD or license. CrossOver Office includes an easy-to-use, single-click interface, which makes installing Windows applications simple and fast. Once installed, the application will integrate directly with the Linspire environment - users just click the application icon or name to launch, exactly as they would in Windows. Any documents created using CrossOver Office applications may be opened and edited with other native Linux programs, such as OpenOffice.org or GIMP.
CrossOver Office has become the essential productivity utility for millions of Linux users around the world by supporting the seamless, dependable installation and operation of scores of top-name Windows applications natively within Linux. Microsoft Office, Outlook, Visio, and Internet Explorer, as well as Adobe’s Photoshop and Dreamweaver, Intuit’s Quicken and Quickbooks, and Lotus Notes, are just some of the many popular applications that can be used on Linux desktops via CrossOver Office.
“Linspire’s power and ease of use, combined with its easy retail availability, has puts it among the leaders in the fast growing Linux operating system category,” said Jeremy White, chief executive officer of CodeWeavers, Inc. “CrossOver Office for Linspire will make it even easier for potentially millions of Windows desktop users - enterprise and individual alike - to make the switch to Linux.”
—end free press for somebody else—
*SNIP* Okay, they don’t have to have me copy *everything*.
Photoshop… Dreamweaver… Hmm… that covers the most important stuff for me.
I’m activating this anti-crime technology into everything I own! This Superbowl ad from Sprint will show it to you in all it’s glory.
Freak’n hilarious. Of course, I still think it’s funny when someone gets poked with a stick…
If the video doesn’t load below (there’s been some trouble with this) then here’s a link for you. CLICK HERE IF VIDEO DOESN’T LOAD
Found these. Don’t ask. Just thought I’d share…
I’m Batman! No, I’m Batman!
How about, I’m saving myself! Eek.
I had a dream that you and I were coming out of a store - grocery I think - and I was in the parking lot ahead of you waiting by the driver’s side of the car. The car in our dreams was a much nicer black SUV than the beaters that we drive now. I turned my back to the car and your brother Darrell was leaning up against the car beside ours. He had sort of an annoyed impatient look on his face. Or since I don’t know your brother Darrell extremely well and I’ve seen that look before, perhaps that’s just the way he looks.
In any case, I think he and I talked but I don’t remember the conversation. I do remember turning back around and you were in the driver’s seat of our car - even though that’s the side that I was waiting to get into. I briefly thought “I usually drive” quickly followed by “how’d she get into the car without me seeing anything”. Oh, to be more self-aware that you’re in a dream.
Anyhow, before I could walk around and get into the passenger side of our spiffy black SUV, Darrell - who’s car had magically turned around 180 degrees and who was now in the driver’s seat and somehow I was now on the other side of his car instead of right beside ours - backed up at about forty miles per hour. I don’t know if your brother really drives like this, but you might want to mention to him that it’s not very parking lot friendly. I was smashed up into his rearview mirror and pinned against the side of his car - painlessly, much like something out of a cartoon. I remember thinking in the dream how odd that was. I was less annoyed with Darrell and more worried you were going to be upset that I hadn’t gotten into our car yet.
Now, suddenly, I’m in the back of a small single engine plane and your brother Darrell is flying with his young son Braxton in the passenger seat. As we are taking off, I’m like, “Excuse me, but I’m in your back seat.” It’s not weird to me that we were just in a grocery store parking lot and now are in an airplane taking off over what appears to be Colorado wilderness. I’m actually a little annoyed that if he doesn’t land that I’ll end up going to their house and you’ll have to drive all the way (I don’t actually know where but it felt like it was a long way away) to their house to pick me up and somehow the whole incident was going to be my fault.
Your brother doesn’t bother replying but instead seems to think this would be the perfect opportunity to scare me and he points the nose of the plane skyward and does a full loop. Once the horizon returns to normal I say, “That was fun.” Now he’s challenged and somehow manages to defy all physics and “skid” the plane in a one-eighty like some airborne version of the Dukes of Hazzard. I’d swear little gravelly pieces of clouds went flying into the tops of rediculously high pine trees we were flying toward. Just as things were getting interesting, I woke up. Of course.
I can’t wait for leftovers tonight so I can see what happens next!
When I worked at [nameless souless big corporation] I remember a conversation I had with a guy from the business development department. I was working in one of the computer departments and he was telling me what he was promising to a potential client to woo their business to our company. I told him what he was promising was not possible. His comment back to me was, “My job is to catch the bear. It’s your job to skin him.”
Years later, now I’m in my own company. You do what you have to do to catch that bear. I just wish I had someone else to skin him.