Work Busy-ness
The past couple days at work have been by far the busiest I have ever experienced since I started working. Normally, my days are pretty calm, I just do stuff at a leisurely pace. And that's usually enough get everything done without any problems. But for some reason, I have been flooded with phone calls and emails this week, most of which represent a new task for me. I'm really starting to hate that sound Microsoft Outlook makes when new mail arrives.
The bad part is, at the end of the day, I've worked over 10 hours, leave feeling exhausted, and still have a ton of stuff left to do the next day. The good part is, between all of the phone calls, emails, running between offices and labs, I barely even noticed the time going by and it's already Wednesday. I just want this week to be over, and I'm glad the end is somewhat in sight.
Another positive is that, at least in theory, since I haven't really had much of a chance to read peoples blogs and stuff in a few days, there will be many new and interesting updates awaiting me when I finally have time. Well, hopefully my theory will be correct.
Earlier today I got a "good job" from one of my managers. It was unexpected because he is usually one of the tougher guys to deal with, and he always grills everyone (including other managers) on things. The way he asks questions tends to make you feel like you are being interrogated, and it's hard to read his reaction, so usually I figured that he just wasn't possible to please. Thus, to hear a compliment from him was all the more fulfilling.
This makes me consider changing the way I treat people. Maybe if I gave everyone hard looks all the time, threw out insults, or just acted like an overall badass, people would be twice as impressed when I acted nice. So I'm thinking I should go around and say stuff like "dang, you're fugly" or "you are dumb as wood" all the time, and then one day if I happen to compliment someone on their shoes or something, they would be ecstatic.
On a side note, one of my guilty pleasures at work is listening to people get yelled at. It hasn't really happened to me, so maybe that's why I can be so sadistic. But there's something wildly entertaining about hearing people get ripped a new one by their boss.
Well, considering how much stuff I still have to do, it probably wasn't the best idea to write a blog. Looks like I might be here late again. Oh well.
Wednesday, July 23, 2003
Monday, July 21, 2003
Fun Times In Palatine
Earlier today, around 5 pm or so, if you happened to live on my street, you could have witnessed a pretty entertaining scene. Some dumbass was washing his car in his driveway, and all of a sudden it started pouring rain, hardcore style. Then instead of just packing his stuff up and going inside right away, the idiot decided to try to finish washing. So while it continued to pour, you would've seen this guy scurrying around with a sponge, head down, and furiously trying scrub his vehicle as he got progressively drenched.
By the way, the dumbass of the story was me. To be fair, no weather reports I consulted throughout the day had even mentioned the possibility of rain. This episode further intensifies my scorn for the weather forecasting industry. They are so worthless. The thing is, it was really sunny and nice all day, and then in a matter of about 2 minutes, it got dark and then the clouds decided to unload on me and my car washing gear.
Anyways, the reason I decided to try and finish washing was because I only had one side done, and I figured it would look too retarded if only half of it was clean and the rest was dirty. As it turns out, I didn't exactly do the most thorough job finishing up the job in the rain, so there are still a bunch of parts that are dirty and my car looks retarded now anyways.
Meanwhile, I got pretty well soaked. I thought my days of getting soaked with my clothes on had reached its end with the "fountain incident" last month, but apparently this was not so. I must say that having all your clothes be plastered to your skin is one of my least favorite feelings. Not quite "catheter-level" of discomfort, but it still sucks.
*****
Currently playing on my Winamp: Velvet Revolver - Set Me Free
Dang, I haven't written blogs at home in a long time. This song is good, Scott Weiland hasn't done anything good lately but this almost brings me back to the early STP days.
*****
Some pics from BLU, as requested:
Sorry if it takes a while to load, or if Imagestation is messed up. Maybe in the future I will just post a link to an Imagestation album, but for now I'm just gonna try to keep it all on this page as much as possible.
Earlier today, around 5 pm or so, if you happened to live on my street, you could have witnessed a pretty entertaining scene. Some dumbass was washing his car in his driveway, and all of a sudden it started pouring rain, hardcore style. Then instead of just packing his stuff up and going inside right away, the idiot decided to try to finish washing. So while it continued to pour, you would've seen this guy scurrying around with a sponge, head down, and furiously trying scrub his vehicle as he got progressively drenched.
By the way, the dumbass of the story was me. To be fair, no weather reports I consulted throughout the day had even mentioned the possibility of rain. This episode further intensifies my scorn for the weather forecasting industry. They are so worthless. The thing is, it was really sunny and nice all day, and then in a matter of about 2 minutes, it got dark and then the clouds decided to unload on me and my car washing gear.
Anyways, the reason I decided to try and finish washing was because I only had one side done, and I figured it would look too retarded if only half of it was clean and the rest was dirty. As it turns out, I didn't exactly do the most thorough job finishing up the job in the rain, so there are still a bunch of parts that are dirty and my car looks retarded now anyways.
Meanwhile, I got pretty well soaked. I thought my days of getting soaked with my clothes on had reached its end with the "fountain incident" last month, but apparently this was not so. I must say that having all your clothes be plastered to your skin is one of my least favorite feelings. Not quite "catheter-level" of discomfort, but it still sucks.
*****
Currently playing on my Winamp: Velvet Revolver - Set Me Free
Dang, I haven't written blogs at home in a long time. This song is good, Scott Weiland hasn't done anything good lately but this almost brings me back to the early STP days.
*****
Some pics from BLU, as requested:
Sorry if it takes a while to load, or if Imagestation is messed up. Maybe in the future I will just post a link to an Imagestation album, but for now I'm just gonna try to keep it all on this page as much as possible.
Friday, July 18, 2003
Things That Piss Me Off
- Being tired all day, then not being able to fall asleep at night. For some reason I always feel like passing out at work, where I'm sitting upright, it's loud, it's bright, and people are all around. Then I get to my bed, turn the lights off, with peace and quiet, lay down with my 3 pillows and comfortable blanket, and then toss and turn for an hour and a half.
- White Sox losing to the stupid Tigers. Yes, let's lose to Mike Maroth twice this year, who is 5-13 and still on pace to lose 20 games for the season. Let's sweep the Twins and then get owned by the two worst teams in the AL. Let's make 2 big trades and then fall 8 games behind 1st place. This team makes me mad and sad at the same time. I know Hawk knows how I feel.
- Little black beetle-looking bugs that are all over the townhouse. Where do these things come from? I seriously kill about 5-10 a day, and I'm not even around the house for that long.
- Birds. I know I've complained plenty of times about them crapping on my car, but I just hate them that much. What good do they serve to the ecosystem, or to me? Shouldn't they be eating insects? Like those black beetles that keep getting in the townhouse somehow? Shouldn't they be singing and making beautiful summer sounds? No, the ones in Palatine wake me up in the morning with irritating noises. There's no sweet chirping to be heard.
- Ben Affleck and J. Lo, I saw some of them being interviewed on NBC last night, and man... I don't know exactly why, but they just piss me off. And it's not just "annoyed" anger, I think it's rage of unhealthy proportions.
- That 86-year old guy that drove through the marketplace in Santa Monica. The man went three blocks, killing at least 10 innocent people along the way, before finally stopping his car. THREE BLOCKS! And police who went to his house found that he hit his own garage numerous times while trying to park. Why in the hell was he still driving?? It's just plain disgusting.
- Baseball players that just take the day off without telling me. Barry Bonds, Hank Blalock, Troy Glaus, all you punks. Man, just say something, that's all I ask. You wanna be home with your family, fine. Need a little time to rest a sore shoulder, fine. But at least give me a holler beforehand. You're wasting valuable starts on my fantasy team.
Things That Make Me Happy
- UPS online tracking. I'm a converted fan. And right now, with 3 packages on their way to follow, it's pure bliss.
- Express jeans. This is unexpected for two reasons. One, Express used to be Structure and I swore off buying clothes at Structure. Two, I am not a woman, and I am not gay, so a pair of jeans shouldn't get me excited. Ok, well maybe I'm not really that excited, but ever since ripping a hole in the knee of my best jeans last year, I have lacked a nice, comfortable pair of jeans to wear. Well, I decided to give the store another chance, and the jeans void seems to be filled. Now I'm definitely "looking tasty, really scrumptious".
- Simpsons and Friends. The two best long-running TV shows ever, in my opinion. I know a lot of people have complained that they aren't as good anymore, but I'm still entertained. Also, every show is entitled to have a few bad episodes, and I haven't seen more than a few bad episodes out of either series. I just recently discovered that they show syndicated Friends on TBS every day, so sometimes I'll see like 3 or 4 episodes in one day. It's interesting to watch the really old ones, while thinking about how "years later", all the stuff that happens with Ross/Rachel, Chandler/Monica, and then Joey/Rachel. And they all started out looking so plain and kind of ghetto. But through the seasons, they eventually developed some fashion sense along the way, and they obviously started working out too. I must say Rachel has very nice female arms.
- Microwaveable White Castle. Tastes just like the real thing. Well not like it's hard to make cheap, ghetto hamburgers that you can cook in the microwave, but still nice. My only complaint was that it cost too much. So what did I find in the box? That's right, a COUPON for my next purchase. 75 CENTS OFF BABY!! Pure genius, now I am definitely a repeat customer. Someone at the corporate headquarters must have been using his/her noodle.
- Listening to the song "Paranoid Android". Always been one of my favorite Radiohead songs, always will be.
- Being tired all day, then not being able to fall asleep at night. For some reason I always feel like passing out at work, where I'm sitting upright, it's loud, it's bright, and people are all around. Then I get to my bed, turn the lights off, with peace and quiet, lay down with my 3 pillows and comfortable blanket, and then toss and turn for an hour and a half.
- White Sox losing to the stupid Tigers. Yes, let's lose to Mike Maroth twice this year, who is 5-13 and still on pace to lose 20 games for the season. Let's sweep the Twins and then get owned by the two worst teams in the AL. Let's make 2 big trades and then fall 8 games behind 1st place. This team makes me mad and sad at the same time. I know Hawk knows how I feel.
- Little black beetle-looking bugs that are all over the townhouse. Where do these things come from? I seriously kill about 5-10 a day, and I'm not even around the house for that long.
- Birds. I know I've complained plenty of times about them crapping on my car, but I just hate them that much. What good do they serve to the ecosystem, or to me? Shouldn't they be eating insects? Like those black beetles that keep getting in the townhouse somehow? Shouldn't they be singing and making beautiful summer sounds? No, the ones in Palatine wake me up in the morning with irritating noises. There's no sweet chirping to be heard.
- Ben Affleck and J. Lo, I saw some of them being interviewed on NBC last night, and man... I don't know exactly why, but they just piss me off. And it's not just "annoyed" anger, I think it's rage of unhealthy proportions.
- That 86-year old guy that drove through the marketplace in Santa Monica. The man went three blocks, killing at least 10 innocent people along the way, before finally stopping his car. THREE BLOCKS! And police who went to his house found that he hit his own garage numerous times while trying to park. Why in the hell was he still driving?? It's just plain disgusting.
- Baseball players that just take the day off without telling me. Barry Bonds, Hank Blalock, Troy Glaus, all you punks. Man, just say something, that's all I ask. You wanna be home with your family, fine. Need a little time to rest a sore shoulder, fine. But at least give me a holler beforehand. You're wasting valuable starts on my fantasy team.
Things That Make Me Happy
- UPS online tracking. I'm a converted fan. And right now, with 3 packages on their way to follow, it's pure bliss.
- Express jeans. This is unexpected for two reasons. One, Express used to be Structure and I swore off buying clothes at Structure. Two, I am not a woman, and I am not gay, so a pair of jeans shouldn't get me excited. Ok, well maybe I'm not really that excited, but ever since ripping a hole in the knee of my best jeans last year, I have lacked a nice, comfortable pair of jeans to wear. Well, I decided to give the store another chance, and the jeans void seems to be filled. Now I'm definitely "looking tasty, really scrumptious".
- Simpsons and Friends. The two best long-running TV shows ever, in my opinion. I know a lot of people have complained that they aren't as good anymore, but I'm still entertained. Also, every show is entitled to have a few bad episodes, and I haven't seen more than a few bad episodes out of either series. I just recently discovered that they show syndicated Friends on TBS every day, so sometimes I'll see like 3 or 4 episodes in one day. It's interesting to watch the really old ones, while thinking about how "years later", all the stuff that happens with Ross/Rachel, Chandler/Monica, and then Joey/Rachel. And they all started out looking so plain and kind of ghetto. But through the seasons, they eventually developed some fashion sense along the way, and they obviously started working out too. I must say Rachel has very nice female arms.
- Microwaveable White Castle. Tastes just like the real thing. Well not like it's hard to make cheap, ghetto hamburgers that you can cook in the microwave, but still nice. My only complaint was that it cost too much. So what did I find in the box? That's right, a COUPON for my next purchase. 75 CENTS OFF BABY!! Pure genius, now I am definitely a repeat customer. Someone at the corporate headquarters must have been using his/her noodle.
- Listening to the song "Paranoid Android". Always been one of my favorite Radiohead songs, always will be.
Thursday, July 17, 2003
Design Review Time
Yes, it's that time again. Design Review, otherwise known as the meetings that never seem to end. So if anyone needs to find me for the next couple days, I'll probably be in some conference room in Rolling Meadows, waiting my turn to present everything I've been doing for the past few months to the bigshots.
Well, at least there will be copious amounts of food and bottled beverages.
Yes, it's that time again. Design Review, otherwise known as the meetings that never seem to end. So if anyone needs to find me for the next couple days, I'll probably be in some conference room in Rolling Meadows, waiting my turn to present everything I've been doing for the past few months to the bigshots.
Well, at least there will be copious amounts of food and bottled beverages.
Wednesday, July 16, 2003
Blogs - The Next Generation
As I've been reading through some of my old blog archives, I was struck with the thought of how much it would suck if one day, Blogger suddenly went under, and all of my stuff was lost. Well, maybe other people wouldn't care about my old stuff, but at least I would be kind of pissed.
So, an idea that has been floating around in my head for a while now is to move my page to an independent server. I'd have to look into how much it costs, but if it's only a couple bucks a month or so to get a fast and reliable host, I think it might be worth considering. And especially if other people who write blogs/xangas wanted to share the server, then it would definitely be worth it.
Some benefits I can think of:
- When Blogspot or Xanga servers are down, our pages would still work. When their servers are slowed, ours should have plenty of bandwidth to be running fine. Basically, it would be nice to not have to depend on their servers so much.
- No banner ads. Unless you want to try to earn a few cents on the side, our pages could be ad-free.
- Easy to back up your archives. Also, I think it's pretty easy to set up Blogger to post to a 3rd party site, so people who use Blogger now (like me) wouldn't have to change a whole lot.
- Easier to host files. You don't have to fool with Imagestation to put up pictures, Comcast to put up music, etc. Everything would hopefully be simple to manage on one server, with everyone given their own directory to organize and stuff.
- More flexibility for expansion. This might be a stretch, but I can kind of envision bigger and better things in the future for the little blogging community we have among us right now. Not just being connected by a "blogring" or something. But for example, maybe we could maintain a page where different people just post up reviews of the latest movie they saw. Maybe dedicate a page that lets people share links to entertaining websites they found, or post funny videos for other people to download. Between the people who read this blog, their friends who have blogs, and their friends' friends, there's a lot of room for growth, and plenty of possible ideas to pursue. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here.
- More flexibility for creativity. Like if people wanted to add flash to their page or something like that, it would probably be more accessible to do it on a less limiting host than Blogspot or Xanga. Maybe someone could try to program a more reliable commenting system than Haloscan, and share it with everyone on the server.
Anyways, a lot of that might be wishful thinking. But I'm just trying to use my noodle here. If we can get a good host for like 5 bucks/month, and 5 of us get in on it, that's like $1 a month, which is pretty cheap. Of course, I'm sure no one wants to pay any money for something they can get for free. So I might have to sabotage Blogspot and Xanga (just kidding). It really depends on how much people think they could realistically gain from among the benefits I listed above.
Oh well, if I get around to looking up more info, it will be posted here on this blog at a later time. Or if anyone already has info to share, feel free to leave a comment too.
As I've been reading through some of my old blog archives, I was struck with the thought of how much it would suck if one day, Blogger suddenly went under, and all of my stuff was lost. Well, maybe other people wouldn't care about my old stuff, but at least I would be kind of pissed.
So, an idea that has been floating around in my head for a while now is to move my page to an independent server. I'd have to look into how much it costs, but if it's only a couple bucks a month or so to get a fast and reliable host, I think it might be worth considering. And especially if other people who write blogs/xangas wanted to share the server, then it would definitely be worth it.
Some benefits I can think of:
- When Blogspot or Xanga servers are down, our pages would still work. When their servers are slowed, ours should have plenty of bandwidth to be running fine. Basically, it would be nice to not have to depend on their servers so much.
- No banner ads. Unless you want to try to earn a few cents on the side, our pages could be ad-free.
- Easy to back up your archives. Also, I think it's pretty easy to set up Blogger to post to a 3rd party site, so people who use Blogger now (like me) wouldn't have to change a whole lot.
- Easier to host files. You don't have to fool with Imagestation to put up pictures, Comcast to put up music, etc. Everything would hopefully be simple to manage on one server, with everyone given their own directory to organize and stuff.
- More flexibility for expansion. This might be a stretch, but I can kind of envision bigger and better things in the future for the little blogging community we have among us right now. Not just being connected by a "blogring" or something. But for example, maybe we could maintain a page where different people just post up reviews of the latest movie they saw. Maybe dedicate a page that lets people share links to entertaining websites they found, or post funny videos for other people to download. Between the people who read this blog, their friends who have blogs, and their friends' friends, there's a lot of room for growth, and plenty of possible ideas to pursue. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself here.
- More flexibility for creativity. Like if people wanted to add flash to their page or something like that, it would probably be more accessible to do it on a less limiting host than Blogspot or Xanga. Maybe someone could try to program a more reliable commenting system than Haloscan, and share it with everyone on the server.
Anyways, a lot of that might be wishful thinking. But I'm just trying to use my noodle here. If we can get a good host for like 5 bucks/month, and 5 of us get in on it, that's like $1 a month, which is pretty cheap. Of course, I'm sure no one wants to pay any money for something they can get for free. So I might have to sabotage Blogspot and Xanga (just kidding). It really depends on how much people think they could realistically gain from among the benefits I listed above.
Oh well, if I get around to looking up more info, it will be posted here on this blog at a later time. Or if anyone already has info to share, feel free to leave a comment too.
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