Archive for September, 2006
I am the bestest drawerer
September 28th, 2006. Published under General. 4 Comments.
I found this fun, yet frustrating applet on Digg today:
The premise: Draw the images shown in 4 seconds to move onto the next level.
The last two images to draw are a bunny and a cat, respectively.
Here’s what the program thought was a damn good representation of the bunny:
And the cat:
Seventy-four percent accuracy for the bunny and seventy-three for the cat?!? Are they on crack?
It seems that scribbling wildly out of frustration is more accurate than making something that vaguely resembles something - for example, on the flower, I did this:
How awesome am I? I should be making millions with my superior drawing skills.
Maimed Happiness
September 26th, 2006. Published under General. 2 Comments.
(Yes, another song titled blog post title - has nothing to do with the content.)
I was taking a look at the ‘ol blog and I’ve noticed that I haven’t posted much of anything since Friday - and even then it was pretty pathetic.
I know I’m ignoring a lot of the routine things in my life since Tim’s gotten to MN and it’s starting to bother me. I do need to workout most days after work, I do need to veg out in front of the TV and I do need to work on my projects. I haven’t touched the site I’ve been paid to complete* since before my vacation and there’s some other site work that I really need to do on other sites of mine.
First off, however, we need to make the office a more cohesive setup and to make it possible for both of us to work on things at the same time. The way it’s set up now is fine for the short-term (and by short-term I mean by Sunday) - however it makes it difficult to work on things, especially with the new developments with the Widget Podcast.
For those of you who don’t know - The Widget is a podcast about “games, tech and whatever” and Tim is one of the creators of it. It was such a success that PC Gamer Magazine snagged it to be one of their “branded” podcasts and up until the beginning of August, they were under that umbrella.
After a short “break”**, they’ve now resurrected The Widget into a new venture which will include Widget Minneapolis, Widget UK and Widget Northeast (or whatever they’re going to call it) - and yours truly is going to be one of the hosts of the Mpls show. There’s going to be audio and video productions and it’s going to be a ton of fun. I’m a bit nervous about it - but I’ve had more than one person tell me that I’m going to be great. So yeah!
I’ll be posting here whenever we get it started so you can subscribe to it!
* * * * *
There’s still turmoil brewing around here at work - but I decided last week that I had a choice in front of me: either do something about it or plan to get a new job. Since I do like what I do and the people I work with, I went with the former.
But I hate the fact that I am getting dragged into the middle of everything now and have to listen to both sides gripe about everything. It may sound sexist of me to say such a thing, but I really hate working with women sometimes (or at least the women I work with) - they take way too many things way too personally when it has nothing to do with them personally. Perhaps I have too many guy-like tendencies to understand it - but it’s annoying as hell.
More on that as things develop.
* - Speaking of that, does anyone have a FREE (Mac) program that will convert a WMA (non-protected, it’s something my client recorded) to a mp3 file? The WMA files are way too big to put up on a website, IMO.
** - They actually ended the show, until G4/TechTV Canada contacted them to air one of their video ‘casts on their show Torrent and it energized everyone into doing the show again. Version 2.0 if you will. :-)
Randomness.
September 22nd, 2006. Published under General. 2 Comments.
It’s been raining and/or drizzling off and on since Wednesday. It’s cold and wet and depressing - however, it could be worse.
It could be snow instead of rain.
* * * * *
I was going to post more, but now there’s no time! Fucking work.
Seriously.
September 21st, 2006. Published under General. No Comments.
It’s one thing to be busy.
It’s also one thing to have occasional days where you’re completely swamped.
However, it’s an entirely different animal to be completely swamped every single fucking day.
When I tell my supervisor that I’m “getting burned out” and that “we’re so busy that we could use another admin” and when my co-worker (who came from a different department) says yesterday that she “can’t believe how much work” she has to do but I “have much more” than she does and when one of the managers I support was flabbergasted that I have to support 12 executives when executive administrative assistants at their clients only have a “maximum of three executives” to support.
*deep breath*
But the best of all, said co-worker is going in for second interviews for another job elsewhere - today, I think.
*blinks*
If she leaves, I’ll not only have my own 12 executives to support - but her 10 as well. It’ll be Thursday every day of the week!
But yeah, I’ve been swamped for the past 2 weeks and nobody seems to give a shit - even when I say something about it.
Then ye best be learnin’ t’ be talkin’ like a buccaneer!
September 19th, 2006. Published under General. 3 Comments.
In recognition of “Talk Like A Pirate Day”, I’m going to make this post in “Pirate”.
* * * * *
Tim ended up drivin’ straight through an’ got here around 5:30am this mornin’. After unpackin’ his car, we both crashed - me on accoun’ o’ I had a hard time bunkin’ after I talked t’ th’ lad’s around low tide an’ th’ lad’s on accoun’ o’, well, he`d been awake fer almost 24 hours.
He had th’ luxury o’ bunkin’ in whilst I had t’ go t’ work. Arrr!
Tonight, I be able t’ get ou’ o’ th’ clothin’ trainin’ - on accoun’ o’ if last night be any indication, I still reckon everythin’ I used t’ know - an’ tonight be th’ base layer an’ outdoor cross trainin’ wear (which be th’ departments I used t’ be in charge o’). I think I be goin’ t’ go homeport, get in a run, go ou’ t’ dinner wi’ Tim an’ relax. Ought be awesome.
Well, aft t’ work!
* * * * *
(And for those of you who don’t want to decipher the Pirate, here’s the above in regular English)
Tim ended up driving straight through and got here around 5:30am this morning. After unpacking his car, we both crashed - me because I had a hard time sleeping after I talked to him around midnight and him because, well, he’d been awake for almost 24 hours.
He had the luxury of sleeping in whilst I had to go to work. Argh!
Tonight, I’m able to get out of the clothing training - because if last night was any indication, I still remember everything I used to know - and tonight is the base layer and outdoor cross training wear (which are the departments I used to be in charge of). I think I’m going to go home, get in a run, go out to dinner with Tim and relax. Should be awesome.
Well, back to work!
Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us.
September 18th, 2006. Published under General. 1 Comment.
Yet another weekend that was entirely too short.
Although I didn’t help matters by playing Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door most of the afternoon yesterday - doing laundry in between.
I’m a gamer that goes through the extremes: I can go weeks without playing any game, then will spend an entire day playing the same game. It’s weird, I know - but that’s how I am.
With Paper Mario, I hadn’t played in so long that I forgot what the hell I was supposed to be doing in the game. Thank you GameFaqs.com! I ended up looking at a walk-through on their site just to see where in the game I was so I could proceed from there. I only use that site when I’m really stuck on a game - and considering that I had no earthly idea what the hell I was supposed to do next in the game, I think that’s a valid use.
So yeah, I was a lazy ass this weekend. I could’ve used more of that too. Nothing like having to go into a pointless 2 hour meeting right off the bat on a Monday morning.
* * * * *
My allergies have been so bad lately - I’m beginning to wonder if they’ve gotten worse, or if Mother Nature is on Xtreem Pollen Berserker Rage right now. ‘Cause damn, my head is stuffed up. Could be my eyes still being irritated too.
When I was at the eye doctor getting an exam to get the sunglasses, he said my eyes were “extremely irritated” and he prescribed me an allergy eyedrop (that’s more expensive than my Allegra Rx) and a steroid (again, more expensive) to get it under control.
At the time, I didn’t have a bunch of extra money to throw at two prescriptions, so I only filled the allergy eyedrop. Guess what? I think I’m allergic to the drop. After taking it, my eyes itch and burn worse than they did without it - so after a few days of that, I stopped taking it. So my eyes are still all itchy from my allergies and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I really wish I wasn’t so goddamn sensitive to chemicals.
* * * * *
Right now, Tim’s driving on the interstate on his way out to MN. The job thing is falling nicely into place and he should be here tomorrow late afternoon/evening.
I’m scheduled for product training at the part-time job tonight and tomorrow night for my department. I fully plan on going tonight - however, I’m going to appeal to the store manager if I can skip the training for tomorrow night. Back when the store manager was a supervisor, he started in my department (the same one I’m going to be working in now) and I did all the trainings for him. I think I know all about the stuff we sell in my department, even after being out of it for two years. Just give me an updated gear manual and I’ll be just fine.
They let me skip the sales and service training the week I was on vacation too, based upon my prior experience, so hopefully my new supervisor will be just as flexible with this. I really don’t want Tim to hang out in my driveway for hours after driving halfway across the country - well, and I would like to see him when he gets here. :-)
Best site design EVER.
September 15th, 2006. Published under General. No Comments.
The Raconteurs website - Jack White from the White Stripes’ side project.
Seriously. It uses key commands and is the most awesome site EVER.
How to Make Friends and Influence People
September 15th, 2006. Published under General. 4 Comments.
I’m pretty excited to see my friend Sarah’s new car - she got a Mazda3 hatchback to replace the car that a roving band of thieving ninjas stole and destroyed.
She got a 2007 and the Grand Touring trim package - mine’s only a Touring S, which is a step down from it.
Should be teh hotness!
* * * * *
I’m so glad that today is not only Friday, but also payday. I’m so ready for the weekend.
I needed to renew my domain names and I also picked up a new domain name for the same mysterious upcoming project that I can’t talk about yet.
I so want to, but it’s Ultra Mega Chicken double secret right now. Soon, my pretties, soon.
After I get in a run, I’m going to treat myself to pizza and beer for dinner and watch some movies. Tomorrow I have quite an extensive to-do list to tackle:
- Cleaning/Vacuuming
- Laundry
- Dishes (I’ve been so lazy with the dishes this week - still need to clean up from the chowder cooking!)
- Reorganizing my closets and storage.
- List some things on Craigslist to sell so I can get them the fuck out of my garage.
It’s hard to ignore the fact that the days are getting shorter. Last night, I ended up having to run on the treadmill because it was getting too dark outside - and I won’t run in twilight/darkness. Last year, with just moving in January and needing to get a lot of work done on the house before I could really clean up and organize the garage, I was never able to park my car in the garage last winter. This year, it’s going to be in the garage. No scraping for me this year!
I’ve been quite lazy this week and have been driving to the park-and-ride to catch the bus to work. I had such a great time on vacation, it was really hard making the transition back to the real world of the workplace and getting up early to do so again.
Next week, I have training for the part-time job on Monday and Tuesday, so I’m going to have to drive and park downtown those days in order for me to head right to the next job after work. Once the store opens, I’ll be able to drive to a different park-and-ride (which is blocks from the store) and take the bus in. But since the store isn’t ready yet, I have to drive to an entirely different location nowhere near 1) my house, 2) a bus line or 3) the new store.
At least gas prices are down.
Speaking of that, WTF?! How can gas go down 70 cents or so over a WEEK?!
It certainly can’t be because Big Oil hasn’t had record profits these past years…nor can it be the upcoming election. Certainly, no!
But whatever it is, it’s nice to see the prices down a bit. Not that I’m going to vote Republican ever ever ever ever EVER!
Heh.
Happy Friday everybody!
RL: 14 September 2006
September 14th, 2006. Published under Uncategorized. No Comments.
Warmup
Time: 3:00
Distance: 0.2mi
Run
Time: 21:00
Distance: 2mi
Cool Down
Time: 5:00
Distance: 0.32mi
Notes: On the treadmill.
Recent Comments