I'm Back Bitches!

If you couldn't gather from my complete lack of posting, it's been a hella busy week. My trainees have all graduated to their destined graveyard shift (the one I used to work), and I have no one else to pawn my work off on. I was working so diligently at being lazy too. Now I actually have to yell at customers while trying to juggle reports instead of reading books and listening to mp3's all shift. Although, I did manage to sneak in some 3 player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action on Wednesday after the bosses went golfing. Old arcade games kick ass. I've also decided that company golf league is just an excuse for middle and upper management to abandon their work for at least 1 day a week. Kind of like a senior cut day in highschool.

Not that I particularly care if the bosses want to go play golf, it gives the rest of us the opportunity to hook up video game consoles and royally screw off. Somehow I've managed to still impress somebody at the office as I got a "outstanding employee certificate" with $100 mini-bonus and a $25 gift card just for shits and giggles. I've also had catered lunches several times this week as well. Wally from Dilbert ain't got shit on me. I've been drafted to cover a shift on Monday as we're a 24X7 operation and we have to have someone here in case a dastardly foreigner with no respect for American holidays calls in wanting some product support. I'll get paid double time for it though, and considering that it will be the middle of the night in Cairo during my shift, I will probably just watch DVD's and play video games for 8 hours.

Tonight I'm going to go watch a band with some friends, and tomorrow I have that wedding to go to. My weekend is pretty much all spent.

This post needs more Hasselhoff.


Enjoy the fruit of David Hasselhoff's loins...

Double Booked... The Woes of My Social Life

I've been a busy camper for the past weekend. After purposely filling my weekdays with a whole lot of not much, everyone blew up my cell phone starting Friday afternoon. I was averaging two parties/social gatherings every night this weekend, and I'm paying for it in fatigue this Monday. Next weekend is already planned out for me with a wedding on Saturday, with other party offers starting to settle in. Hopefully everyone will have these graduation/end of semester/just happy it's warm outside parties out of their system. I'm starting to feel a little over socialized and just want seclude myself in my hobbit hole and watch rock documentaries (just got a wicked awesome Flaming Lips documentary from Amazon).

In other news, it's freaking hot outside and my car's A/C insists on blowing hot air in my face. This angers me imensely as I just dumped a little over a grand getting the whole unit replaced. If you hear on the news/interweb of a Kansan beating a mechanic incessantly with a motorcycle chain, it's probably me. I think this newfound facination with hitting people with motorcycle chains is coming from me watching Walter Hill's 70's street gang classic "The Warriors" twice this week. Also in recent happenings, I'm looking at some townhouses this afternoon with a friend. Sweetness.

Pun of the day:

National Masturbation Month nearing climax.

Dear Help Desk

Of all my job duties, taking internal help desk calls has to be the worst. Here's a collection of my favorite beauties from this week:
5. The cell phone reception is really bad in the basement
4. Can someone come down to my cube and teach me how to use my laptop?
3. My computer is broken (no further explanation)
2. The envelope light on my phone is blinking
1. My wireless connection isn't working (when working from home where there is no wireless connection)

It's starting to get to the point to where I look to the horroscopes for guidance. The number of stars for the day turns out to be directly correlated to how many ibuprofen I will have to pop to make the throbbing headache go away.

Teresa (Kendo whatsherface on my sidebar) told me on AIM that she plans on going to the Star Wars premiere tonight dressed in her Princess Leia costume. Methinks she will be swarmed by an army of nerds with absolutely no idea how to please her.
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Rockstar Wednesday will probably be postponed this week as my car is in the shop. So the next best thing for me to do tonight is just fiddle around with the new Hamer guitar.

To answer Larry's previous question, the Hamer is a wonderful guitar. The setup and action is really nice, and the two humbuckers set up for coil splitting add a lot to the sound. The split single-coil sound is nice and bright, but not quite as bright as a Strat or Tele. Still, if you just want to tap one of the pickups to get that H-S config, it's really flexible. I'm going to take some pics of it and upload them soon.

It's Monday and I Feel Fine

I haven't been posting too much, mostly since I haven't been around a computer long enough to post something. Summer is near, and my social life is picking up even more. My brother is finished with his semester today, which means that he's hatched from his cocoon in the basement and should emerge a sociable fellow. He might even post again sometime in the near future.... shocking revelations. That and our craptacular techno-duo, the Dust Bowl Brothers, may release more hideous techno tracks in the near future, aka when I buy a decent mic.

Tonight, we go to Mort's Smokin' Martini bar to celebrate the end of the semester. We are also bringing Adam's friend David, who is having his last final today. We plan on abducting him from his final early, however this might cause some resistance from our hardy Malaysian friend. It will be as dramatic as the ending scene of "The Graduate", only with David being unwilling to get his ass on the bus. I've been doing rows at the gym though, and I think I could take his scrawny ass out if necessary. Sometimes people should be forced to have fun against their better judgement.

It's Rockstar Wednesday Suckas!

So it's Rockstar Wednesday once again. This Wednesday the hotspot will be downtown Wichita since it's Riverfestival time. The Wichita Riverfestival is a locally overhyped event where midwesterners gather to celebrate our heavily polluted river. Typically there are concerts, carnivals, and weird events to entertain bored locals and visitors. My favorite has to be the antique bathtub race. It's entertaining in the Deathrace 2000 sense. Especially when someone takes a spill into the grossosity that is the Arkansas River. Best case scenario, you'll come out mostly unscathed with minor rashing and chemical burns. Worst case scenario, previously unkown micro-organisms swim up your pee pee and they have to amputate before you mutate into a C.H.U.D.

I'm going to be prudent though, and stay far away from the river in the comfort of the food court area. There I shall hopefully dine on corndogs and overpriced beer while I listen to some blues-fusion band. After checking the schedule of events today, this was the least lame activity we could come up with. It was either that or the Rodeo/Nascar event. Fuck that.

The Rockstar Wednesday icon of the week is Flaming Lips pioneer Wayne Coyne, as he is a fellow midwesterner (Oklahoma City), and would enjoy these types of activities. Namely, eating a corndog and drinking a beer whilst telling some Darwinian example not to go in the water.

Feeling Kind of Froggy

I'm too wired to be here today. It's not the coffee, just simply that I have about a zillion things I would rather be doing than working today. Firstly, "The Life Aquatic" came out on DVD today and I want to ensure that I can both purchase and watch it tonight. Wes Anderson films rock my world. Secondly, according to the UPS website, my new guitar has been delivered to the questionable safety of my porch. This makes me nervous as the homeschooled looney my brother and I refer to as "that kid with the helmet" might think it would make an interesting addition to his makeshift skateboard ramp. If so, he might be further referred to as "that speedbump in a helmet".

I think some of this aggression is coming from the fact that I've restarted my health kick this week, and my body is rejecting the grilled chicken and steamed vegetables I force fed it today. It is probably also pissed I'm forcing it to work out at the gym after work tonight.

Pissing off MPH part deux

Ben: So you want to procreate?
Jennifer: Sure

Chance Encounters and Other Random Topics

I'm drinking a gin and cranberry as I write this. At least I think it's gin and cranberry, when I was reaching for the bottle in the liquor cabinet, I didn't have my glasses on, so it might be rum. Anyways, so I've returned from an exciting Thursday night of watching movies with Teresa and Charles. I got to pick out the movie, and being in the weird mood I'm in, I picked out an old favorite, L.A. Story. I kind of dig the vibe of that movie, especially the chance encouters andthe whole surreality/ offbeatness of the surroundings.

We kind of got on the topic of talking about serendipity and how you will find the person for you when you least expect it. That's how I've always stumbled into relationships anyways. I'm extremely lousy at persuing relationships, so the majority of the ones I've been in have just kind of happened. Serendipity can be both a blessing and a curse, though. In the case of our friends Shane and Karey, their meeting was probably not unlike the meeting of the Keymaster and Gatekeeper of Gozer in Ghostbusters. Tragedy is just waiting to happen there.

Well, I do believe I'll be going now to have another mystery liquor and cranberry and strum the guitar a little. I think I'm progressing pretty well considering I've only been playing for a couple months. I'm finding a lot of amusement just in putting together the only chords I know (major and minor open chords) in neat little melodies and chord progressions.

I'm out like Jim West.

*********Work Related Rant Warning*********

I never cease to be amazed at how dumb some systems administrators are. This particular systems administrator I'm about to complain about works for a fortune 500 company and is in charge of millions of dollars worth of our enterprise-level equipment. That said, I just got a call from her that I would understand if I worked for AOL. Here's a brief summary of the call.

Her: Hi, you send host sofware?
Me: Yes, that is a CD image of the version of the management software you needed.
Her: I can no install!
Me: Pardon?
Her: It's an ISO file, what's that? I no can mount!
Me: It's a CD image. You have to to burn it to a CD.
Her: Okay I'll do that.

(She hangs up and calls back about an hour later)
Her: I can no figure out how to burn the ISO.
Me: What are you trying to use to burn the CD?
Her: EZ-CD

(At this point I start to get a little peeved, as I'm predicting she's going to ask me how to use EZ-Fucking-CD creator.... the program my grandma can use. Keep in mind she's a systems administrator for a fortune 500 company and probably makes a factorial of my salary. Not to mention, this is the first IT professional I've run into that has never burned a CD.)

Her: Can you tell me how burn the CD?
Me: I'm really not supposed to. I'm support for the unit you purchased. It's really quite well documented in the application help file how to burn an ISO.
Her: ...........
Her: Can I just download program?
Me: You did, I sent you an FTP link to the ISO file.

The conversation went on for a good time longer than it should have after that. The problem resolution ended up me burning the ISO for her and fex ex'ing her the CD overnight. May the Lord have mercy on my soul, that's usually why I don't post on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Days that begin in T are Tard days, and I didn't want to get in the habit of posting about my Tard Tuesday. Tomorrow is Wednesday though, so hopefully the tards will go into hibernation and I can post something less angry and more meaningful.