A bucket a day

So KFC is going some promotion that if you buy a Pink bucket of chicken, they will make a donation to the Susan G. Komen foundation.
There is way too much out there that is pink and "For the cause." It has become a little much when I can buy pink razors and cereal and inner tubes where a portion of the proceeds go to finding a cure.
But if an organization decides to do it, I'm not going to give them grief. I will however avoid the product if I so choose. I think people and companies are having their hands forced to an extent, but I digress.
So of course, some people inevitably are complaining. Peta because chickens are, or in this case were, alive. Obesity because if you eat a bucket if chicken a day you will get fat. Some cancer group because they are jealous that they won't get the money.
Look all I need to hear from these people is a "Thank you" to KFC for contributing.
By the way, KFC could do away with everything except their new Kentucky Grilled Chicken. Have you tried it?

Teaparties

if only it were just republicans at these rallies, if only there were just white people, if only they would get violent, heck if only they would litter then we would have something to use against them! Curse you for not cooperating!!!


If any one makes the stupid mistake of calling any of these folks a "tea-bagger" all they have to do in response is say "Open wide" and it will backfire. If you have been living under a rock, look it up, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Behold! The end is nigh!

Have you ever been in a relationship that you knew was going to end soon? I have on several occasions known when I was about to lose a job. I could just feel it. So I always tried to find an escape route. Sometimes I was able to move on other times the axe fell before I could make arrangements.
I could tell you some of the stupid reasons I’ve lost jobs, but that is for another day.
In my present assignment, I felt it coming. I am in a unique position being a subcontractor employee, if I close out an assignment, I will be sent somewhere else. So over the past couple of weeks, I have noticed unusual treatment. I have been actively avoided. I mean to the extent of people refusing to make eye contact. Things are weird here anyway, but this was an overabundance of strange.
So I figured the end was near.
So what’s the problem? Well, they couldn’t leave well enough alone. Instead of just making a business decision: Guy A is more expensive than Guy B. We want to extend our limited funds. So, we will let Guy A go.
That is simple and a completely non personal decision. That wasn’t the way it went down. They had to make something up. Guy A is not a good match, he does x, y and z. But, similar to the kid that has used too many grandparents’ deaths to get out of tests; this excuse was used 12 months ago. My supervisor's boss knows it is a non issue, and my company management knows it is B.S. but, a letter still goes into my file.
Look it is not and never has been personal. They want you to pretend like this is some kind of family/home away from home, so you know be friendly and have fun. But don’t you dare be friendly and have fun. I never knew what they wanted from me on a personal level so I tried to just do my job. Sure I was friendly and sociable, but I never pretended that I was anything more than a temporary extra set of hands. But because they couldn’t make a break like grown-ups they had to make up some justification.
Sad.
But, at least I’m out of there.
So what is my new assignment? Working from home 75% of the time. Yeah, quite the punitive result.

525,600 minutes

On this site on March 18, 2009 my first rant was posted.

Some people have talent

Some people have talent, some don't. I want to direct you to two who do:
Video 1
Video 2

Warning!

Just a small disclaimer:
If you check in to a hotel at a late hour after a long night of hockey and beer, and allow your 8 and 9 year old darlings (minor children) to set up field hockey nets in the hallway after 11pm and wake up a short fat bald guy (hereafter: Guy) in one of the rooms, he takes no responsibility for the appropriateness of his comments to said minors.(The guy does not do well when woken up by drunken strangers E.G: after a late night post football game drunken brawl in the parking lot, after a late night alcohol induced domestic violence incident in the room above his or two 3am fire alarms when a drunk guest tries to microwave a frozen pizza because he thought it was a toaster oven.)
And if the mother of one of those minors comes back and knocks on the fat guy's door, and tries to chew him out for the afore mentioned language, the Guy will win the argument by pointing out the time. There is no way your minor child's feelings will justify the continued playing of hockey in the hallway, because it is now 11:15 pm. Also be aware the Guy reserves the right to close the door in your face and leave you screaming "never do it again" to the peep hole. (I wouldn't have had to do it the first time were it not for your inaction. Did I overreact? Yes, but if you are too stupid to realize that your kids need to be contolled in a place like a hotel, you are too stupid for polite.)
Calling the front desk to demand a free night because your minor child woke up another guest and he yelled at you won't work, and may get you threatened with expulsion from the hotel, because there are a lot of people in town and the hotel could easily rent the room to another guest.
The weekend is still young. Oh goodie.

Slings my Hash

What happens when Debbie, Debra and Deborah all work in the same office? You get the runaround until you decide to forgo phone calls and show up in person. By the way hilarity ensues when they realize who you are and that the game is over.
So Debbie the pregnant one, Debra with the large boob tattoo that extends beyond her collar and Deborah the office manager, are now our "good friends", but they sure didn't want to be.

I've about had it with people bringing their bad home life to the office with them. I'm sorry your husband is a jerk and all, but when you get mad and interrupt everything I say, I begin to understand the communication problems in your marriage. He doesn't tell you anything? Gee, I wonder why.

Don't you just hate it when you find two jobs in the area you want to be in, and in the field in which you are trained, but can't afford to take either one? Yeah I do too.

But the US is in the lead for Olympic Medals.

I'm good at charades

As most of you know by now, I tend to play the contrarian. I will like something often because you don’t. The colts are in the Superbowl and there is nothing I can do about it.
On the news today the police department is warning of a crackdown on rowdiness and property destruction. I was just commenting the other day that we don’t have enough sports riots in this country, so we will see how that goes.
It also seems that some folks were working on having the game affect the next school day. They anticipated a high absentee rate among students, so they wanted to delay the start of school by 2 hours to let all the kids recover from their hangovers. The school board won’t let them do that so they compromised on one hour late, but then extending the school day by half an hour. They accidentally let it slip that this entire charade was because they don’t think their bus drivers will show up. They are worried that the people who drive 30 children to work won’t be fully about their faculties. And for this they want to disrupt the thousands of parents lives who have set schedules and will have to get to work late to accommodate these people.
How about the school districts make the bus driver job attractive to dependable folks by making the salaries a little higher and having a little bit more challenging hiring process?
When the revolution comes, organized sports are the first thing to go.

Sick Day

I am officially tired of:
Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien. Leno was gonna retire, but then decided against it. If I had been promised the old guys job but then he decides that he doesn't have anything better to do,I'd want $45 Million too.
Kasasa. What is it? I don't know but I'm tired of the commercials.
Pants on the Ground. It has been like 9 days and it is already the most over used thing of the year.
iPad. So it is better than the segway, penicillin, and hula hoops, and will SAVE THE WORLD, but couldn't they have come up with a better name?

So I don't know if any of that contributed, but I'm going to put myself on the transplant list. I need a new GI tract. What is my condition? I don't know for sure, but it sucks. I have recently discovered the joy that is heartburn. Oh yeah the deep seated pain that wont allow you to sleep at night? Fantastic!
That combined with the intestinal damage from drinking the water in a foreign land lead to a midnight rondezvous with greatness.
What is the antithesis of Nirvana? I'm not sure but it is a mystical balance of the pain, suffering and noise of sitting on the pot while holding a trashcan on your lap to contain the explosive evil trying to rip you in half from both ends.
My stomach ought to be charged with violating my constitutional rights.
I normally fight off the urge to vomit, but last night I decided to be zen like and go with the flow (I was going to lose the battle anyway).

what grinds my gears

The Cowboys stunk it up on Saturday. I gave up in the 4th quarter and turned it off. I'd been thinking about it since the 2nd quarter. Yes they won a post season game, but look, if someone gave me a billion dollar stadium, I might try to earn it.

Potty training is a necessary evil. It isn't going too badly, but trying to use logic with a 3 year old is pointless.

I had an instance where I was sent a thank you but we found a more qualified candidate e-mail. Ok that is fine, but to get that letter before I was even interviewed? It seems to me that If I am watching TV, I could be OK with my current station, or i could look around and see if there wasn't somehting better. You know? I mean I had a scheduled interview for the next day. Hey why settle without kowing whether there is something better.

So I am being squeezed out of my projects. And actually I don't know if it is intentional. The communication poblems here are crazy. And If I try to get information, I get in trouble. Look, if you want me do do busy work at a high bill rate, ok. You are the one who said you wanted me to learn some of this stuff, so if you do it by yourself, you haven't really trained me, have you?

I am a duck. (remembering to be a duck is hard)

Of course on the bright side, my 3 year old son now knows the proper use of the phrase "get a haircut, Hippy." I swear I'm not the one who taught it to him.

That's not exactly what I meant

I'm working on some old grant files at the office. I am going through them to check for completeness as they get ready for audit anc closeout.
I stumbled across some thing that mad me want to laugh and cry at the same time.
Have you ever heard some one say "Take a screen shot of that"? I have and it comes in handy when trying to describe a visual to someone. You take a screen shot, then paset it and e-mail it.
Well in this casee there was a series of pictures of a document. The person taking the pictures actually used a camera to take a shot of the screen. They then printed the picture and put it in the file.
The real kicker? they used a flash and the glare whites out the center of the screen.

It's not that kind of Movie

If you are at a theater and watching a classic movie and are the only people shouting the lines, you will be the least popular person there.
Audience partici-pation is reserved for the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Too much of a good thing

I might have been listening to a little too much Christmas music.
I called some one this morning and got a busy signal. I swear the tone beeped out in the rhythm of "Jingle Bells."

The Complete Exhaustive Top 12 List of Worst Christmas Songs that I Am Familiar With, ver. 2009

I love Christmas songs. I have been listening to them all day on Pandora. I have the car radio set to the Christmas station. I have stuff on my Ipod and have been downloading new stuff. I will even get a hankering for it in June or July. In my family we don’t really decorate all the much but we collect Christmas albums.
I am very open about my Christmas music. I will listen to just about any kind: Religious to Secular, traditional, Punk, Heavy Metal, Cabbage Patch to Surf guitar, I love it all. If Shatner had a spoken word Christmas album out I’d give it a whirl.
I have a couple of new favorites: Los Straitjackets and “Must be Santa” by Bob Dylan.
I reconfirm that Karen Carpenter and Nat King Cole are some of the best singers of all time. And the Time Life Treasury of Christmas is one of the best albums.
I thought I’d gather my thoughts about Christmas music and compile the definitive list of worst Christmas Songs. I tried to limit myself to mainstream songs (if we got into novelty songs, we’d be here for weeks), and to focus on individual songs not just bad recordings (Dean Martin’s “Rudy the Red-nosed Reindeer,” or the Andrews Sisters “Jingle Bells”).
So I present for your consideration:
“The Complete Exhaustive Top 12 List of Worst Christmas Songs that I Am Familiar With, ver. 2009”
1. Happy X-mas (war is over); Stupid protest era Lennon song. This is the Yoko influence and just stinks to high heaven. I also hate “Imagine” but that is screed for a different time
2. Feliz Navidad; it only has 19 words I the whole song, it isn’t in English, it isn’t in Spanish, but it does suck.
3. The 12 Days of Christmas; this song makes no sense, is it supposed to be about Hanukkah? If so they can’t count. Is it about slavery? I mean who gives someone another person for a gift? The only redeeming part is the Five Golden Rings.
4. Baby, It’s Cold Outside; Look man, no means no.
5. Santa Baby; I realized Santa is married, but I don’t want to think of him as a sexual being, alright? And the whole sugar daddy thing is creepy.
6. Christmas Don’t Be Late (The Chipmunk Song); One might think this is a novelty song but it won three Grammy Awards, and was a number 1 single. Why? I don’t know. I hate this song so much it should be on this list twice.
7. Christmas Time is Here {from A Charlie Brown Christmas (Vocal version)}; the tune is good but the plodding dirge like vocals! Seasonal Disaffective Disorder anyone? Come to think of it, the instrumental version makes me want to stick pencils into my eardrums as well.
8. Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer; I used to like this song when I was a 12 year old smart ass.
9. Christmas All Over Again; this was written by Tom Petty and while I normally like him, this is a poor piece of work. What is Christmas really that tedious? Get into the spirit of it man.
10. I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus; Apparently the Catholic Church got worked up about it when it came out. I don’t get worked up. I hit the skip button.
11. Wonderful Christmastime; I think he released this because the other fab two (Ringo gets no respect) had holiday songs out, so he kind of had to do something.
12. Peace on Earth (the version with Bing Crosby and David Bowie that is combined with Little Drummer Boy); yes I am breaking one of my rules. And since they are mine, I’ll break them all I want. This song in addition to the hey we don’t know each other lameness, has lyrics like “Every child must be made to…” What? Some sort of leftist forced education? Dude, it is the holidays give it a rest.
Honorable Mentions
13. Do they Know It’s Christmastime by Band-Aid; This is one of those mid 80’s social movement songs, and while I kind of like it, many people don’t.
14. Blue Christmas, Elvis Presley; It is such a uniqe recording that no one else should even try. So other versions are bad. But even the King's annoys people. I guess it is too stylized
15. Little Drummer Boy; Apparently this song gives people headaches.
16. Manheim Steamroller; They are fine for a while but it just becomes too much after about 3 times. They are overplayed, because people think it is a neat alternative to the more overplayed stuff. Problem is people have thought this for the last 20 years.

How hard can it be?

I mean I must be missing something.
My wife had to drop off some prescriptions. She went to one of the big box stores around lunch and asked if she could wait. She was told it would take a couple of hours since it was just a couple of days after thanksgiving and they were swamped with new prescriptions.
Ok I can kind of understand that, but if a customer is going to wait, wouldn’t good customer service dictate that you help them first? So, she decided to leave them and come back the next day.
Fast forward 26 hours. She goes back. And was told it would be about 15 minutes. She goes back to the counter. “Just a little while longer.” So after playing this fun little game for 2 hours she finally complains. “Well, we are busy.” “But, you said if I dropped them off yesterday, they would be ready today. That was 24 hours ago.” “We aren’t a 24 hour store.” “What does that matter. You still had like eight business hours.” “No, you dropped them off after 5pm.” “No, I dropped them of at noon.” Then the girl at the counter rolled her eyes and scoffed.
At this point, I pause to tell you how I would have handled it. I would have said “Excuse me but how hard is it to reach up on to a shelf, grab the jar of pills, count out 20 of them, pour them in to a bottle, and print the corresponding label? I want to talk to your boss. Today is what a Tuesday? That’s all it is for me, but for you this is the most important day of your year.
I would have proceeded to get another notch on my belt. I would not have left the store until she was fired. But then again I am a duck, and I try not to let things affect me.

You can't bring me down

The past few months have been pretty rough. Some of it you have read here. But last week I took a trip out of town.
Let me tell you, that was a great decision, because I have decided to become a duck. No, it is not a career move, but a stance.
I will not let things bring me down, they will roll of my back. I had been unhappy with work and had let it affect me. I was starting to feel like a prisoner. I am in this hotel, because I am at work. I am in this car, because I am at work. I am at this restaurant, because I am at work. Every decision is dictated by the fact that I am stuck in Indianapolis for work.
So the family and I went to visit some friends over thanksgiving. We got a little R&R, and feel recharged.
So everyone else is stressed out for work. Not, me. You can't bring me down.
People getting mad at me. OK, but you can't bring me down.
I have to go to two stupid company Christmas parties, but they won't bring me down, because I AM A DUCK.
I've got Christmas music on the headphones. The "a Christmas Story" movie showing at a local theatre this week end. I am taking vacation for a couple of weeks at the end of the year. I will not let anything bring me down, no matter how hard you try for these next 17 days.
I hope you had a good Thanksgiving, I sure did.

Is this healthy?

I have never been to a professional football game. I have never lived close to a stadium. So this has been an eyeopening experience.
The hotel I have been in all these months overlooks the Football stadium here. And Sundays have become insane. The hotel fills up the day of a game and downtown gets crowded. The people come like it is a holy shrine. They engage in what appear to be almost religious ceremonies. They have pre-event festivities, don special garb, consume vast amounts of special liquids, and generally behave like idiots.
I imagine that this is the type of thing that ticked off Moses when he came down off the mountain.
These people start all their celebrations about 8 hours before each game. and take up all the parking spaces. they have bands playing, big screen TVs, pigs roasting on spits. All for the average game.
So last week was a night game. They started all the tailgating about 8 in the morning for a game that started 12 hours later. They were loud all day. They were loud all afternoon. They were loud all night. OK not all night but at least until midnight. I have never heard such loud people. It was scary and I was driving around during the LA riots.
I must say the behavior has no equal to anything I have ever experienced. This is a devotion. This is a pagan religion.

But that's cool

I needed new headphones. I have broken 3 pairs in the past year, so I was looking for quality. I called Radio Shack. (They call themselves "The Shack" now. and I find that annoying. I'm not sure if it is the love shack or the sugar shack, but it is probably similar to Mc Donald's calling themselves Mickey D's, but i digest.)
I called to the local store telling the guy what I wanted. Yeah they have those. So I went. When I got there I asked the salesgirl who came up to me what I was looking for and she pointed the way. I looked over the product offered, and selected two that were in the range I was willing to pay.
I then went to the counter and asked which of the two were better. The girl said to go with the cool brand because they were the cool ones. The manager actually looked at the product and showed me the technical specs and explained why the other pair was better.
I was glad that the guy had remembered me and realized that i couldn't care less about fads or what was better looking. I wanted the better product. (Any one who knows me can tell you I don't give a rip about appearance.)
It is nice to know that there are still people in the world who have the customers desires at heart. I wonder how many people still buy an inferior product simply because it is "the cool one."

The week in review

1. The two time-sheet issue is back. Someone mentioned that this subject is taking up more than its allotted two minutes. Yeah, I really wish it were not.
2. 80 year old men, ladders and roofs don’t mix
3. “We don’t have time to be organized” is probably going to be a bad approach.
4. It might actually be your concern over your daughter’s disease ridden boyfriend, and not related to anything I said that makes you think everything I say is wrong.
5. Photographers at national chain studios don’t seem to like it when you schedule a setting and tell them you won’t be buying anything, and just want to have the photos that the company arranges to have taken.
6. The movie 2001: a space odyssey is one of those things we are supposed to like. It makes us look smart. That movie is a decent homicidal computer in outer space story bookended by pretentious self-indulgent crap. The garbage in this movie is the type of stuff only the filmmaker had any idea what it meant. And It is Stanley Kubrick. He made a few movies, that have good moments but he is not the fantastic director all the film students want him to be. If anyone tells you that Kubrick means so much, they have no idea what he is saying. Loving Kubrick and especially 2001 is like having a complicated coffee order: it is directly proportional to the size of jerk you are.
7. Please no more "Christmas Carol" movies or rip offs. That is a dead horse that is not just beaten, but jumped up and down upon until the gunk bursts out.

A really bad idea

I have a cold. I am pretty sure it it not the Hamthrax or the Aporkalypse, but I hate it either way. I don't do well when I am sick. So in my quest to quickly defeat this thing I have been using everything I can get my grubby hands on. The Zicam nose swabs aren't made any more, something about losing one's sense of taste. The other stuff they make is horrible. And it messes with your sense of taste too.
The effervescent taps that dissolve in water are good, but don't seem to work.
I have been using Muscinex. That stuff works. So does dayquil. And if they work well independently, they must work well together.
Not so much.
Do you want to know what happens when you mix Muscinex and Dayquil? You miss church, that's what. As a matter of fact, I couldn't remember my own name until about mid-morning today. I couldn't tell you what we did Saturday, it has been erased from my memory banks.
Another piece of advice: Do not watch "The Maltese Falcon" while mixing medications. It will make zero sense. But I did have a vision of scuba diving the streets of Venice. Do they allow that?
I think I should stick to the traditional medicines of my people: Sprite, Chicken Soup and Dayquil.