Now 'Tis the Season

Not working makes me not want to work. The holidays were nothing short of fantastic from a relaxation perspective. Hope it was great for all of you as well.

Now we settle into to prepare for financially affording Christmas. I don’t know how some of these larger families handle this. Do you set up a specific Christmas fund? My gift to myself this year is the reduction of debt. Which will go nicely with the new savings account I gave myself for the birthday. I’ve come to a point where I have all the toys I need and now I’m just trying to find the peace of mind from living as debt free as possible. Damn you student loans!!!

I wish I had more to write about for you but the last couple of days have been nothing but learning tech junk which would provide some mind numbing commentary for this blog.

The bears lost which always depresses me for a while. I'll try to chipper up for you before Friday.

Should I be troubled?

Well another month another senior management staff bids adieu to the company. At this point I have to wonder if I really want to be known as a well paid employee in this establishment as it seems that their average lifespan is but a brief gasp. So now the question looms.. Do I keep reaching for that brass ring or should I cut and run? I am seeing the flaws. The malleable and poor pricing of services. The indecision of new infrastructure improvements. Where does it end and do I fit into this shredded puzzle?

Strangely it energizes me as I feel that the opportunity far out weighs all the klaxons ringing death in the back of my mind. I believe that I am in the midst of some very talented minds but checked out people. I can see this as even minor progression of initiatives is given abundance of praise and regarded as initiative. In example. I should really take the time to rewire the entire joint as it has lived through at least 5 – 6 years of patch work and sloppy networking. I redid one section and was treated as a visionary. Nothing really moved forward no gain was had. But ya know, it looks like someone is actually in control of that section and I guess that comfort is all that’s needed.

Which is an interesting environment as it has recently shown me that once and a while I can still get a chance to slack off. I’m only making future trouble if I do but things change a lot when you come in for a mission critical, everyone must work Saturday and find your Quality and Assurance manager engrossed in a game of solitaire. Ok then, guess I don’t feel as bad when I take the time to update this joint. So now I wait for the next bright eyed visionary to get hired whip people into a frenzy and then realize hes fighting a losing battle against a CEO that does not conform to notions that are lodged in his brain. I will continue to amuse myself by collecting paychecks and knowledge.

Someone’s trying to kill me - the revenge

So for consecutive weeks I have risen on Monday morning to find my front passenger side tire deflated. This can’t be coincidence. Again we need to compile a list of suspects.

1. Mark P. – my boss from my second job. I left him high and dry for the busiest season of the year. Even worse a mini revolt of the “old guys” is forcing him to have to hire a bunch of noobs.
2. Sharon H. – this poor darling has now been forced to pick up all of my client management work in the light of my career change. Oh and did I mention I had completely checked out on that line of work? She inherited a mess.
3. Mordecius – Have been regularly owning his casual raider ass across a message board and I’m not apologizing sucka!!! Owned with easy!!
4. Telecos salesmen – Yes I inquired no I don’t want to hear from you anymore. Broke more than a couple hearts of the last two weeks.

Gaming

Ok so I play wow. Wow is a mmo. It’s incredibly fun. It’s incredibly repetitive. MMO’s always degenerate into more of a social experience rather than a game for me. If you play the game to “win” … Sorry you lose. This is not the genre for you. So too often in WOW I have heard from this group of people that say “I like to play solo” or complain that they should not have to group up to get the best rewards.

To all of you out there who hold these beliefs I now ask. Please leave. Get out! This is not that game. This is not a single player game. This is a game to play with your buds or to make friends with people of the same interests. This is not a genre for solo. It’s in the title of genre. Please stop trying to change my game. Please stop calling me an elitist because I can find 40 people who don’t play the game the same way as you.

Please don’t say its not fair that you don’t want to be social in a genre designed around community. Not loot!! Loot comes with the community!! If you can’t be a part of a new community play a single player game and role play till your hearts delight. Please stay away from my genre. You and the rest of us will all be happier.

Mike Tyson is better than you…

He has somehow managed to restrain himself from killing Don King. A feat the gods dream of when they talk of legend.

Give thanks….

In the spirit of the holidays lets give thanks..

… that I am not married to a scientologist.
… that The Shield will be back on the air soon.
… that the Chicago Bears have won at least 2/3 on their road trip.
… that Shamans will be able to two hand dps.
… that people are looking to laugh so desperately that they started laughing at Michael Richards every time he choked up while apologizing.
… that the over saturation of Sasha Cohen has ended.
… that Barak Obama is here to save us all.
… that Jesse Jackson will be there to stop Obama.
… that Bush will be blamed for it all.

Happy Holidays folks.

This Fire isn't Passion

Typically I start my business day with a nice quiet look around the local newspapers followed by a glance at CNN and Drudge. By the time I’ve satisfied the news appetite the remainder of the office staff has filtered in and its time to go to work. Yesterday, just as I snuggled into my leather desk chair with an ice cold diet coke I was startled by a string of words that would have brought soap to mouth if my mother had ever witnessed me personally recite them. A few more were flung in there that hopefully my mother will never hear nor understand in her lifetime.

So I spring, as quickly as a tired mid twenty year old can, from my chair to look into the disturbance. For those of you in non technical fields I will give you a little history in regards to the subject matter. Computers + No Cooling = Bad. So it appears that the air conditioning that controls the temperature of our server room had given up the ghost. I enter the room and see and hear the flashing lights and screams of a computer roasting itself alive. The room itself gave off a heat so terrible that I almost had to take off my sweater to remain comfortable. The HORROR!!!

So we start popping out roof tiles and I run around the office where strangely enough two ladies keep fans. Ladies any reason why you keep fans in your cubicles during winter? Meanwhile my boss has literally ripped a cardboard box in twain and has begun a quest to personally fan the air right out of the room. A now sweaty and red faced man greets me like a saint as I bring him two floor fans and we get those babies pumping enough to cool the room by..5 degrees. I now am under the firm belief that while home computers use electricity business application servers actually run on molten lava delivered straight from the fiery pits of hell. So once again I have to bring the heating and cooling professionals into my life in order to resolve an issue. It really grinds my gears.

Good times are here again

So it’s a new week. A better week. A busy week that is bringing numerous waves of both paranoia and triumph. Hello all thanks for stopping by.

Divorce

So it was bound to happen. The Democratic Party finally proved that as long as you just complain enough you don’t need to actually have a real vision to come into power. I am both happy and disillusioned with my party. Maybe politics in general, however the Republican Party had to go. Now there is an example of loosing your vision. Maybe they were just missing that under dog scrappiness they had for so many years. I do know that if a ruling representative body promises a variety of topics yet only actually achieves a few it’s only a matter of time before their constituents decide not to make the trip to the polls. Honestly though if the Democrats had not won I think they should have just dissolved the party. If you couldn’t win under these circumstances you truly have been exposed or should I say identified as a party without an agenda. I’m not saying that we actually do have an agenda aside from Republican hatred but I guess we ran under the “its nice when other folks get a chance” motto.

I had a really clever analogy to go along side America divorcing the Republican party and Britney Spears dumping KFed but.. I am lazy so here are some cliff notes.

• KFed knew all along that he was on borrowed time
• Fiscal responsibility
• Britney has not aged well
• War in Iraq
• Who will protect the children
• A leather chaps wearing midget eating ice cream out of his hand
• Text to inform of divorce and the chance of voter fraud
• In the end it will just make some lawyer happy

Bears

Nothing better than a statement game by whupping a good team in their own home. I’ve been stating it weeks but if you are not watching this team you will miss out on valuable high fives and beer. Week 13 is the official last week of band wagon jumping. If you’re not on by then be prepared to have some drunken Irishman call you a poser. That drunken Irishman will be my friend Drew and he’s a mean drunk when he’s sober.

Theater

Have to say Borat is one of the few episodes of life where you could litteraly hear the audience gasping for air. I was also surprised by the makeup of audience. I expected the normal fair of college/post –college crowd that seems to dig the same films I do. However Borat was littered with… the elderly? I didn’t know how to feel and I made sure to observe their reactions during some of the more “risque” scenes. Having been a long term fan of the character I knew there was a lot more than what had been paraded around the local talk show circuit the last couple of weeks. Any who I predicted some walk outs but saw none so kudos to those who are old in the face but young at heart. Unfortunately now we are going to be subject to a host of imitators and comedies that will try to mesh real life with staged comedy.

Mike Tyson is better than you…

He can bite a mans ear off and still be interviewed as a rational human being. Oh and p.s. the man once owned white tigers and now he owns pigeons. All the while he’s still smiling. Mike is a role model for optimists.

Eternal Youth

So this weekend ends the anticipation as the new Nintendo Wii will become available to the retail public. For quite some time I had my leather hands clutched in anticipation for this device. However I had to blow my “fun” money on a new part for the heater which leads us to…

You know what grinds my gears….

You know what grinds my gears? The heating cooling industry. Why is it acceptable that a device that costs so much and that only gets used 4 months out of the year break down ever 3 – 5? My car I can accept I drive that thing to hell and back on a daily basis. But a heater? Seriously you get 8 months off each year how can a fan motor go bad with so little use? And it’s a FAN motor why would that cost me over 200 bucks? If it was that monster hunker that actually sits in the middle of the unit I could agree. That my friends looks like a 200 dollar part. But this fan motor seriously looks like it came right out of the back of a PC. Its mostly made of frickin plastic! How does that cost so much. Seriously I want to Bobby Knight this contraption and tell it to suck it up and get back to work. Thx for letting me get that out.

Final thoughts

1. Your opinion being valued at work has its value and its downside.
2. If you’re going to lunch with programmers don’t expect your sports analogy to ring home.
3. Apparently every thing in the world that you do as a sales man is either a tax write off or a business expense.
4. Never take a lunch without bringing a sales man with you.
5. Giving a dog a hair cut is harder than I thought.

Vote today!

Vote or end up like my Uncle Ralph. He didnt vote and he runs his own business now. Many would consider him a success but not me. Guy never voted in his life what a loser. Oh sure rub the independently wealthy card in my face Ralph. Yeah well at least I made my voice heard ya three button pin striped suit wearing hippy!!

And here is guest star Faith Hill showing how to react when you lose.

Kerry for President?

You have to love this magical time of year. Just how the heck did Limbaugh and Kerry end up monopolizing every moment of my news watching experience over the last few days? If I was a politician on either side I would be pissed. Here you are, you worked and struggled. Fought for what you believed. You need all the attention you can muster. You need all the help you can get. Oh wait, here comes two guys who are not even running for office this year, who ran their mouths and now its all people can talk about.

I know in the hype machine life there is no room for a who cares mentality. My two thoughts when I first heard the commotion for both topics was. Oh, he really said that… well that’s kind of dumb. Now why do we not have any more bottled water in the fridge?

I should consult with the elderly but was there ever a time when political races actually featured the people running? Seriously If I watched my local news I would have no idea who’s even running but by God I should be so outraged that some pundit made an off color comment. I guess I should have followed my own advice and away but I have always been a sucker for hyperbole. Just remember to vote.

The power of the head nod

Is any other non verbal emote more powerful than the head nod. It signals acknowledgement, understanding, agreement, etc… I have been nodding my head a lot lately but mainly because I’m acknowledging understanding and agreeing that I have no idea what is going on. I have lately been tempted to start tossing random acronyms out there whenever I’m in a discussion with someone with whom it’s become clear has lost comprehension of the topic. At least that’s the way I feel sometimes. Man now you’re just screwing with me.

Everybody Party!!!

So it’s with great expectations that we go forward into what may be the last great party of the year. The classic Anna Martini party is an affair with quaint and demure intentions that some how seems to lead to a number of great stories from my collection of friends. Even better is that people seem to always assume that I had attended past events. Often starting conversations with an “oh yeah we met at the Anna Martini party last year didn’t we”. Tragically I had always managed to be inconveniently removed from possible attendance. This year will be different as I actually get to go albeit a little late. But every pleasantry has a clause.

It’s never optimal to be the last guy at the party. If you are placed into this scenario you have both good and bad options to expect.

1. Pros:
1. No one will mind if you have not brought anything.
2. Your initial level headedness will make you appear charming.
3. Drunken friends will scream out hello’s to you like you’re a returning war hero. Instantly elevating your status with the remainder of participants.
4. Tons of free drinks

2. Cons:
1. You’ll probably have a number of drinks shoved into your hand. Immediately high chance of making it an early and uncomfortable night.
2. You’re suddenly the sober responsible one. Guess whos voted to drive cause were out of (item)
3. The angry drunk will likely isolate on you as an outsider.
4. Tons of bummed smokes.

Brandons best music of 2006 awards

Stack Ranked Albums

1. Placebo – Meds
2. Muse – Black Holes and Revelations
3. My Chemical Romance – the black parade
4. The Killers – Sams Town
5. Gnarles Barkley – St. Elsewhere
6. AFI – December Underground
7. Kill Hannah – Until Theres nothing left of us.
8. The Mars Volta – Amputechture

Best Song

St. Elsewhere – Gnarles Barkley

Best use of Mascara in a video (group award)

AFI

Suprisingly better than it should be

My Chemical Romance – The black parade

Possibly written by Mexican Astronauts on a wicked acid trip

The Mars Volta – Amputechture

Blatant ripping off of the Cure vocal stylings (not a bad thing)

The Killers

Best Sing Along

Placebo – Drag

Best Emo Ballad

My Chemical Romance – Cancer

Best imitation of Queen

Muse – Knights of Cydonia

Still not ready for primetime award

Kill Hannah

Life time achievement award

Mozart

Have a good weekend folks!

~B