Sunday Evening Musings

*sigh* I am happy.

I played drums today at church for the first time in a couple years. I don't know how well I did (I think I did awesome actually, but I don't know if I was just hearing what I wanted to hear or what), but it was sure fun to get back up there and beat on the skins.

No, not the forskins. Ass.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun. We didn't have a bass player, which kinda sucked, but we did have a good sound guy who was able to make up for it (as best as you can - you really don't want to be stuck without a bass player) in the EQ. I dug out my trusty snare drum and put a new batter-head on it, and took it for a ride. I love the drum - it's a Yamaha 14' X 4' copper-shelled picolo - got a great crack to it with nice warm overtones, but that's assuming I can tune it properly. It's been a while and I was never very good to begin with.

I'm going to talk to an instructor and see what kind of tips they may have to offer.

Another friggin' night

The highlight of my night so far is a customer to remain nameless (it starts with an "I", ends with an "M" and has a "B" in the middle) calling to change back some minor temporary changes to a couple of circuits, finding they didn't work, getting their shit in a knot and escalating all the way to hell and back (removing my escalation prime from his birthday celebration), only to find out that it was their own problem to begin with.

Typical. I hate some of our customers. Especially these guys.

Other than that, "A League of Their Own" is on TV, so I'm watching that. We'll see what else happens in a few hours.

Random 2AM ramblings

So, I'm working this morning. Yup, a graveyard shift. They suck, mostly because there's nothing to do. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm keeping myself occupied (at last count, I'm watching "The Shawshank Redemption", tooling around on Facebook, scratching out this blog entry, testing a T1 for Bell Mobility and waiting on Telus to give me some test results for a PRI), but even though that sounds like a lot, it's really not and it doesn't leave me with much on the go. I have my iPod, so I can listen to music, but no one's calling me for anything, no tickets are showing up in my queue. There's really not a lot of "test centre" things to be done.

That's what I do now, by the way. I work in a network test centre. I take data circuits (mainly T1's, but some 10/100Mbit and fractional T1's) for customers and troubleshoot them if there's a problem, trying to find faults in the physical continuity of the cable.

Anyway, back to this. The worst part about being on a midnight shift is that I'm the only one here. There's not enough to do to justify having two people on, so there's only one. And it gets quite lonely.

Doesn't make for much of a social life either, and that's the worst part. I'd love to be able to say that the company I work for recognizes I have a life outside of work, but I can't. Not in my experience. Because of this stupid shift work I can't make plans based on any kind of consistant schedule, I have to make sure that all my plans revolve around whatever shift I may be working on any given day, and I'm not able to do the things that my friends are doing on their days off because I'm usually working.

For example, this weekend, my roommates and friends are going out to a cabin to celebrate a birthday. I would have loved to go, but I'm working. Yup, I'm working three graveyards in a row and tonight's the first one. I won't be off until Sunday morning.

I have to find a new job.

So, yet again, I'm not able to make myself available for a social occasion because of my job. I hate that. I'm not the most social person to begin with, and this isn't the best way to change that.

Whatever. I'm looking at possibilities. We'll see what happens.

What the hell, people?!?!?!

I go all the way down to the church for a meeting tonight, cut through downtown in the middle of rush hour, going all the way from 32nd Ave NE and Edmonton Trail to Glenmore Tr. and Elbow SW, and find the friggin' place empty. If you're gonna cancel something, at least let us peons know!

What a waste of time and fuel. Now I'm pissed off.

Grindhouse

Saw Grindhouse tonight - it was friggin' awesome.

I liked the concept for Death Proof (maniac kills with his car) better than Planet Terror (generic zombies-take-over), but PT was done better than DP. Good movie all around though. Great kill scenes.

Things I hate...

Here's an incomplete and random list of things that I hate in this world:

Environmentalism

You just KNOW that someone's set to make a metric ass-tonne of money off this whole thing. Hypocrites.

Athiesm

Come on, are you that arrogant? Don't call me closed-minded, you're the one who claims human beings are top of the heap. If that's true, what a sad and sorry heap it is. Naive bastard.

Terrorism

They've won. Get over it.

Windows vs. Mac

When it all comes down to it, whatever works for you is the better operating system. People who try to tout one's features over another, and then make you feel inferior for not going with their choice should be lined up and shot. Elitist bastards.

Future Shop/Best Buy Salespeople

They don't know their asses from a hole in the ground. The sooner you realize that they have just as much, if not even less, knowledge than you about the product they're advising you on, they better off you'll be. Trust me, honesty is not an employable trait that they're looking for.

That's all I can think of right now. I'll post more as they come.

Blog Changes

Made some changes to the layout, as well as the name. That one always sounded weird and forced to me, so I changed it to something more befitting a cynical a-hole like me.

Don't know how often I'll be updating, but at least it's on my radar again.

New Post

It's been over a year, so I thought I'd post something.

Post.

Operational Performance 2: Electric Boogaloo

So I got hauled into my bosses office this afternoon to talk about OPR's. Apparently the numbers are in, the bonus' have been calculated and the payouts are set to go out on the 24th of this month.

I ended up with a bonus of just over $1700. This is mostly because I wasn't working for the company for half the year, so it would have been a lot higher if I was there since January. Oh well, more to look forward to next year, I guess.

I also got a raise, and apparently it's quite high. I guess I had to be brought up to the same level as a lot of the other people in the department because I was still the new guy. This works out to another $3500/year, so I'm not complaining.

I'm happy about that.

Dumb as a sack of hammers or greedy attention whore - YOU DECIDE!!!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060202/ap_on_re_us/apple_ipod_lawsuit;_ylt= Ap7U6rigmcDUtUP.acXPhwus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3cjE0b2MwBHNlYwM3Mzg-

Did you hear the one about the guy suing Apple because iPods can cause hearing damage? What kind of friggin' moron doesn't know this already?

Here's a tip, fuck-o: any loud noise, regardless of the source, will cause permanent hearing damage if you're exposed to it long enough. It doesn't matter how close to your ear the source is. If it's loud enough, you will eventually suffer hearing loss. Everyone knows this. It's common knowledge. Given that, it would also be common sense to turn the friggin' thing down if it's too loud!!!

Are we going to start suing General Electric because staring at one of their light bulbs can cause eye damage? No, because everybody with half the IQ of a small bush knows not to stare at one. It's not good for you.

This genius goes on to stipulate in the lawsuit that Apple should put warning labels on the iPod packaging stating this blindingly obvious fact, but that's such overkill it's sickening, especially when someone finds, to their shock and awe, that the very warning he's talking about is printed clear as day in the fucking instruction manual!!!

I don't know, my admittedly naive 27-year-old mind has trouble understanding something as fundamentally stupid as the thought process that must have gone into this decision. "Wow this is loud. Wait, I can't hear as well as I used to be able to. Curse you Apple! I'm going to SUE you!!!"

What. A. Fucking. Moron.

But that all brings us to an interesting point - I don't think he's actually that stupid. Think about it: Apple's a big company, the iPod is at the top of it's class on almost every front, it's almost a perfect product that has undoubtedly earned Apple untold millions of dollars. Why shouldn't he get his share of that money? He's obviously entitled to it. I mean, after all the time and money he spent buying and using the product in question, he should get at least some of the money that somebody else invested into it's research and development.

Well, why not? He did nothing for it. That's how people like to make money these days, right? By whining and moaning like a bitch until someone cuts them a check just to shut them the hell up? I mean, God forbid that they should actually work for a living.

Ok, I'll retract my previous statement.

What. A. Greedy. Fucking. Moron.

Worst. Birthday. Ever.

Holy shit today sucks.

I'm 27 today. I'm slowly approaching the inevitable state of mind that is Getting Old. I wake up at 6:30 to go to work after being asleep for a meager 5 hours. I hate that shit. I was watching TV last night and without even realizing it, it was already 11:30 and I had to put my bedding back together. I got new bedding from my parents for Christmas and after spending some time getting it ready, I was finally able to put it on my bed.

New pillows, too. They were about a cock-hair too big for the pillow slips that came with the rest of the bedding, so this made the pillows friggin' huge. Needless to say, after staring at the ceiling for almost an hour and a half, I got up and got my old pillow. After that, I was asleep in about 5 seconds flat.

So I get to work and find that there's next to nothing to do. It's still Christmas holidays and hardly anybody's in. I have two users and they're both doing fine. With that in mind, I decided to start building a sandbox environment for one of our applications. Halfway through the install, I ran into problems and had to open a ticket with the vendor to get their help. Right away, they called me back and we started going through it. At one point he said he was going to speak to one of the developers and get back to me in five minutes. That was two hours ago.

So now I'm sitting here with nothing to do, thinking about how I'm going to celebrate this "momentous" day in the history of Dave. One of my roommates is working tonight and the other one is a no-show after saying he was going to be home last night from Saskatchewan. Looks like I'm going to be spending the night in front of the TV again. Maybe I'll get a pizza...

I ordered Star Trek: The Next Generation from Amazon the other day. All seven seasons on DVD in one box set. Cost me $650. I looked around other online retailers and found this to be the cheapest by far. Chapters Indigo has it on for $825 and Future Shop has it for $900. I even posted this fact on Future Shop's comment section, although they preview all of their comment submissions before posting them. Something tells me this one isn't going to make it. Suckers.

It should either come tomorrow or next week, depending on how fast Canada Post is this week. I hope it comes tomorrow. I have a four-day weekend over New Years and that would be a perfect time to lose myself. At the very least, it's a great excuse to not put on pants for more than half a week.

Hold on, lemme check Canada Post...nope. Still in Mississauga. Oh well, doesn't look like it's going to happen in time for the weekend.

Story of my life.

In case you forgot...

Random thought of the day

Every time this guy at work sees this chick who works on our floor, he always looks at me and says "That chick has huge nuts!" Of course, we all know what he's really talking about, but that is NOT the mental picture I want in my head when I see this chick.

Fuckin' newfies, man, I tell ya...

Weekly

I don't really have anything to say, but I thought I'd post something anyway.

BOOBS!!!!!

Operational Performance

I hate review time at work. Since this is my first one at this particular company, I got to see whether or not the past six months have been worth my while. I guess it went ok.

The shit-kicker is, my boss has left the company. Today was actually his last day, and one of the things he wanted to get out of the way before he left was the reviews for the whole team. He wasn't really doing the whole review though, he was just prepping the person who was going to take over for him. Kind of like a mid-year review, even though it's the end of November. So I go into this meeting with him, flush from running back and forth from the printer for the last half-hour (all first thing in the morning, mind you), carrying an armload of paper 3/4 of an inch thick thinking I have to prove to him, with hard copies, that I'm a good hard-working employee and he shouldn't have any reason to doubt that.

So after all that, after sweating bullets all night and all morning, after the months of agonizing self-doubt thinking that I'm nothing more than a hack and I'm not going to prove anything to him and he should just fire me and get it over with - AFTER ALL THAT - he only looks at one document. Not only that, but we spend more than half-an-hour talking about all the things I have to get done before the end of the year to properly meet my performance objectives. Because in another three weeks, I'm going to have to do this all over again before my reputation will be finalized.

See, I didn't get this job the old fashion way - well, maybe I did in this day and age - but I didn't just apply and rely on my natural charm and expertise to beat out hundreds of other applicants and wow the shit out of my boss. No, my dad set this interview up for me. At the time, he was VP of Operations at this company, so I was a bit of a shoe-in.

So all the time that I've been here, there's been this nagging thought running through the back of my mind: "Do I really belong here? Would I have been able to get this job without my dad's assistance? Or are they all just humoring him by letting me play IT monkey for a little while? I should just get out of this industry altogether." Well, today I was going to find out, one way or another. I wanted to ask them for some real feedback - not just a cursory pat on the back and a thumbs up with fingers crossed behind their back. I guess I really didn't have to, because as I was listening to my boss discuss with me how I was doing on some of the more obscurely-worded points of my OPR, I realized that maybe I'm not doing so bad after all. At one point, my boss even said he was "pleasantly surprised" at how I just kind of hit the ground running.

Understand, when I talk about the people at the company humoring dad by letting me play IT monkey for a little while, I wasn't serious. Nor do I really think that's what's going on; rather I've just been so wracked with self-doubt over the last few months that I've almost convinced myself it's the truth.

Maybe that means it's time to strike out on my own. Hmm...

More on the radmobile

So Tyler got word back from the cops that the CSI-ification of his car is done. Now he has to wait for the insurance company to assess the damage and cut him a cheque. He gets a courtesy car in the interim, and because the car was stolen, he doesn't have to pay the deductable. I'm glad that everything is working out.

Ok, maybe I should explain

I got into work yesterday morning and was just starting my day when I got a call. It was my roommate.

"Did you see my car this morning?!?"

"No."

"For fuck's sake. Somebody stole my car."

Now, you gotta understand the history this car has. When my roommate turned 16, his dad promised to restore him a car. Nine and a half years later, he finally delivers. A month later, I get the above phone call. And all this time, this car has had the crap hyped out of it. I mean, there's been so much publicity on this car that you'd think it was the second coming of Christ. Well, if Christ were a '78 Monte Carlo at least...

Anyway, I told him to call the impound lot before freaking out, just in case it got towed for whatever reason. Turns out it actually was stolen and he had to call the cops. So I promised I'd buy a bottle of something on the way home and then got on with my day.

After I got home and we got into the bottle (hence my grammatical difficulties below), we watched some more episodes of Scrubs and toasted the radmobile. A little while later when we were good and toasted and Tyler had gone upstairs to pass out, we got a call from the police.

It seems the radmobile was involved in a high-speed chase with the cops. They didn't say what the people in the car were on their way to do, but what they did find in their possessions were four bellaclavas and a handgun.

Apparently there wasn't a whole lot of damage to the car, but the police wanted to keep it for a bit while they CSI-ify it. After that, the insurance company wants to get their grubby little mitts on it while they assess the damage before cutting Tyler a check.

Stay tuned...

My roooommate got his carr stole and now were drukn

That is all

Introducing Benjamin James Mant

Isn't he cute?

I'm a friggin' uncle!!!

My sister gave birth to my first nephew this morning. He weighed in at a healthy 7lbs., 9oz. After an intense 36-hour ordeal, both mother and baby are doing fine. I'll post pictures as they come.