Black Books

So I'm the slowest netflixer ever. I mean they had that heavy use scandal where they'd slow you down if you moved too much product through the system. I wouldn't know. They call me up just to see if I'm still breathing. At least I think it's them on the other end of the line...

I got Black Books a 1/2 hour comedy series on the recommendation of the other Jen a long time ago. Well when Jen was out of town last week and my parents were gone and the kids were at their mom's... I popped in the first disc. It took me like two episodes to warm to it at all, but luckily I was tired and lazy and didn't feel like getting it up to put Halo-3 back in. To be fair it took them like 3 episodes to really introduce the three main characters. I do like it. I mean I'm not going to stick it on my Amazon wish list or anything, but it was good.

The one thing I didn't like and I won't ever like is the laugh track. I'm sorry didn't the UK get the memo that they are sooo late '70's? I mean seriously, obviously location shots with all kinds of laughter on it. I'm not talking polite laughter at one's joke at a staff meeting. I'm talking two pints too many gonna shit yourself laughing. I mean some of it isn't that funny. Tack on a serious laugh track and then at first the laugh track is funny, but then no...

This post really doesn't have any ending so I'll just stop here.

Now that's a fire. Turkey at fault?

Some nights I'm tired and the kids still need to eat. Some night's I've spent all day in and out of the mall and toy stores and traffic. Lots of traffic. This is all just a justification for the next sentence. I was making the kids a frozen pizza. Yes I confess I was making them a frozen pizza. So fine right. The usual sequence goes like this: Pre-heat the oven to 400. Put the pizza in. Set timer. Wait. Remove pizza when done. Cut it and serve it.

Is shouldn't read like this: Pre-heat oven to 400. Put the pizza in. Set the timer. Put the fire out.

Yes that's what I said. I'm standing there and the light starts going on and off in the oven and I look and the element is sparking. Um bad. Step one: turn oven off. Did the fire stop? no. Still burning. Shit. Get the fire extinguisher. OK fine. I'm gonna blast it and then it'll be good. Max stops me, "Dad that's burning metal a D class fire that's an ABC fire extinguisher." Right. Let's call 911. I sent my dad to cut power to it. I'm talking to the fire department. The power to the stove goes out. The element stops burning. I call off the cavalry. The fire dept was very cool on the phone telling me if it sparks at all to call them back. No need.

The power cut was what we needed. Tomorrow? I'll be on with Sears getting them out to fix it. I think we're reaching the end of the appliances. They are almost 10 years old and the builder was pretty clear when he sold me the house that they were not top of the line. So fine. I think Jen wants stainless steel.

Maybe it's cause I ran the mutherfucker all day yesterday roasting that god forsaken bird. Stressed the element? I dunno. I thought I had the last laugh when that fucker was shipped off to the dump via Waste Management disposal, but no I think it got the last laugh fucking up my oven.

He didn't just say what I think he did, did he?

You know your little boy is growing up when he looks you in the eye and tells you to, "shut it!"

Rest assured I did not stand for such an aggression. You're entering a world of pain, smokey.

The dude abides.

Happy Birthday, Jen!

Happy birthday, Jen. Here's to another great year together.

You like me! You really like me!

So my dad calls me up and tells me he's been googling my name (which is also his name). He's all, "Guess what I found!"

My first reaction was something as eloquent as, "ummmm."

It was some dumb patent site and then I googled myself... like ya do... and I found this.

My geek cred just went through the mutherfucking cocksucking goddamn roof. (Sorry, if you were in the industry you'd know you have stick with your genre so I've got to be seriously foul mouthed from here on out.)

All that just because I did something that any pocket calculator can do. Multiply.

You never really know what's going to float your boat until the tide comes in.

Never ever

Let me pick the checkout line at the store...

I'm just sayin' it could be days.

Seriously?

Much as I like a clean keyboard I'm not sure I could do this. They are cheap enough at work when they get dirty I just go to the lab and get another one. Mostly because when we buy machines that are just going to be in the rack and not accessed directly they still come with the cheap keyboards. I am typing on one of the really cheap ones right now. Can you tell?

Nope.

When they wretch it from our bloody fingers

We moved offices over the weekend. We're in an older building with a much lamer cafeteria.


I myself won't complain about the new sucky building just yet. Wait til it starts leaking and the heat won't stop. I've nicknamed our area of the building the greenhouse. It's all glassed in and shit and looks cool, but the maintenance people tell us it gets hot in the summer.

Whatever. I'm not complaining. About the building. I get into my new office and one of my monitors is missing. Um hello. I was kinda pissed, but I tried to take it in stride. They *lost* my good monitor? That thing is valuable. So I go and complain nicely and dude is all cool but he's says "I think that's the one locked to the desk and I can't move it."

Right. Yeah that was me. So good I didn't go in all pissy huh?

I go over there with my keys. Guess what? combo lock. Do I have it. Um. No. Is it my fault. Uh... yeah. Any ordinary man would have given it up by now. But I'm an extraordinary idiot... And it's a bug fuck off monitor.

So I go to the move people on that end ('cause people are moving *in* there as we move out.) and ask for help to "remove" it from the desk. Dude holds up some scissors and says, "These will cut through a penny." I'm all, "score."

We cut. I carry. They didn't ask me for ID or nothing because asking the movers to help you cut something loose that isn't yours is just tooooo balls-y to believe. So they just gave it to me.

So now I have a monitor with a combo lock that has 1000 possibilities and no useful cable. I think I need to take my Dremmel into work tomorrow. Goggles too. Yeah. Eye protection.

Maybe I should rent a facade for my new digs...

If it moo's

So we went to Yarrow bay grill last night to celebrate other Jen's victory over NaNoWriMo and we declared her: "Not a NaNoLAME-o" on an embroidered sweatshirt, but that's not what this post is about.

Nooo. When is a cow not just a cow? Rather when is a steer not just a steer. Maybe when you feed it Sake and give it a massage every day before it's sent to market. Kobe beef according to random links JenM sent me (I'm not posting them because I'm lazy and I think it's funny that if you try and search for beef related links you will get porn you did not know existed. Or maybe you did. Maybe you did and you were just there and you clicked here and now I'm in some beef related porno watching government database. Maybe)

So on the menu was just an awesome tenderloin that both Jen (other not girlfriend Jen.) had. I got the glaze and she opted to not have the glaze due to food allergies. Irrelevant. We both had the $44.00 beef. It was yummy. We wondered, even aloud about the Kobe $75.00 version of the same cut of beef. So at one point during the water fill we asked the bus boy if he'd ever had it. He responded that he'd had a bite of it. Our theory being it was for really stupid, really rich (usually not combined) people. He hesitated before answering and I filled in a very brief version of our theory and reiterated our questions: "Is the Kobe Beef actually that much better than the ordinary beef?" Again with the hesitation like his job was at risk! Hello! Then he just shook his head indicating no just go with the 44 magnum tenderloin with our without glaze or you'll be paying the stupid tax.

Torn like paper

I'm torn. The new year is coming up and I'm feeling like I'm not organized enough. In these cases I have a tendency to blame the tools. The software doesn't do x. The computer is too small. The computer is too big. I think it's OK for me to complain about the software as I was on the team when the first version was released. I mean there are things I like, don't get me wrong, but still it's not perfect. Also, it's not paper.

I think back to when I had a paper planner and a guy at work and I had a talk about what life was like when we used a paper calendar/planner instead of just the software. The software was a communication device and the planner was, well, the planner. It got me thinking. I mean I'm already angling for a new computer at work and I've got it almost on order and yes it is a sweet machine, but it's bigger. It has a keyboard and a touch screen. (Yeah sometimes it's good to work for a tech company.) I know already it's too big. I tried the smaller one and I had all the accessories (if you know me: duh) batteries, power cables, extra storage, docking stations and even a keyboard that was teeny. Yeah the keyboard was an accessory. It was a lovely tablet.

I wasn't carrying the small computer. I just wasn't. I used to carry the planner everywhere. I still have it, it's in the garage and I could go do the whole Franklin planner thing, but with the GTD mentality instead. I could just try hauling this tablet around when I get it with all it's capacitive touch and shit or I could ask for a paper system for Christmas and convert over.

This raises the question (no it doesn't beg anything) as to what was wrong with paper in the first place. OK so I took the job back at Microsoft (right when I started this blog, in fact) and I joined the tabletPC group. I went to the first dev meeting and saw some demo's of what the tablet team was doing. I was blown away by the coolness (in fact my current boss who was not my boss at the time was giving a demo and he was writing the code for the demo as he did the demo, and he didn't crash anything. I still have some stuff to learn from him.) So you might think I was blown away by the whole tablet idea and just had to have one... uh no. What happened was another dev lead went off on a few people there for not using the features of the tablet and thus testing it and understanding it yourself. He went off of them so well I pushed my planner under the table. I mean he was telling them to stop using their keyboards (a good thing for sure when that's what your product does) and here's me with a paper planner and a fountain pen. As soon as my tablet came in I transferred all my stuff into Outlook and put the paper away. Sad.

Was paper that good? Will J.R. go retro and start carrying a paper based planner again? Will Josh see him in the hall with it some day in building 10 and rip him a new one?

The revolution will not be televised.

I could...

I could post about how crummy the weather is.
I could post about how my weekend was.
I could post about how the mall was.
I could post about my lunch.

But I won't.