Tag: work

Click

Reviews

Openning today is a new Adam Sandler film, Click. Last night, the wife and I went to a Sneak Preview of it.

Click is about Michael Newman, a typical guy with a wife and two kids who spends a little too much time at his job working to provide a life for his family that barely shares with them. Frustrated when he can’t even figure out which of his dozen remotes turns on the TV, he sets out to find a universal remote to replace them all. The only store open is Bed, Bath & Beyond, and wandering into the Beyond section he meets Morty who hooks him up with a truely universal remote, one that controls his universe.

If you’ve seen the trailers then you know he does some silly stuff with it, but the movie isn’t all about the jokes. There is also the story about deciding what’s more important: work or family. Michael keeps picking work, and soon enough the remote’s built in intelligence starts skipping moments in his life for him base on the decisions he’s been making… and everything spins out of control.

I wouldn’t recommend this movie if you want slapstick comedy. If you are looking for a Wedding Crashers or a 40 Year Old Virgin, this one isn’t quite as balls out funny. But, like Robin Williams “Bicentennial Man” from 1999, this movie is funny (riotously funny in moments) with a sentimental undercurrent that surges to the surface as the story unfolds. And if that is the kind of film you want to see, Click is an excellent movie.

Moving On Up

Pictures

This cube is actually to the East side of my old cube.Yesterday, not only did I get a new house, but I also got a new home at work. If you dig back through the Phone Photos you will find a dismal picture of my cramped old little cube, the one with a server on the desk. So now I have a new phone photo of my new cubicle. Just one cube over from my last home, but this one is much nicer. Its probably actually the same size, but with 3 less filing cabinets, no server and a better desk orientation, it is all around a much improved use of space. The only things it lacks is a window view of downtown Atlanta and a door.

So things of looking better from this side of Sunday (I’ll tell you what happened on Sunday later)… I’m moving on up! To the East side! (This cube is actually on the East side of my old cube.) To a deluxe apartment in the sky! (No! No more apartments!)

And with the job calls coming practically non-stop, I think I’m finally getting my piece of the pie.

Fluke

Reviews

Another Christopher Moore book down, and once again he had me laughing out loud. Soon I’ll simply be known as “the crazy reading guy” on public transportation.

So, Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings, is about guys who study humpback whales trying to understand why they sing. They don’t know why, only someone must think they are getting close because their office gets trashed. But their work continues on… and things get wierd.

Its a good book. Nice message in it too, sort of the same way I felt after reading Lamb. Now on to Practical Demonkeeping…

Special Treatment

Random Thoughts

One of the things I have come to hate over the years is “equality”, mostly because people just don’t use it right. To me, equality means equal opportunity. The door is there, whether I open it and go through it is up to me, but the door is there. Too many people, however, see equality as meaning true equality. If there is a door, and I make the effort to open it and go through it, they should be allowed to go through it too, even if they don’t do the work.

Tied in with this is the concept of trust. Trust is something you earn by being consistant, and when you are trusted, you will be given benefits that less trust worthy people don’t get. Lots of people see those benefits as being “unequal” because they don’t grasp that if they work and become trustworthy, those benefits will be given to them too.

My rent is due each month by the 5th. If you are late, you have to pay a late fee… fair enough. There is a deadline, you miss it, you are penalized. However, since in the past they have run into deadbeats who bounce checks when they are late, my apartment complex requires that late rent must be paid with a cashier’s check or a money order. I’ve lived there for three years, and in three years I have never missed a payment until now. I’m perfectly willing to pay the late fee. I’m late, I don’t deny it. But I asked if, given my payment history, I could be allowed to just write a personal check. They said no. I asked why and they said it was policy, no exceptions. I could totally understand if they demanded all rent in certified payment, but its only the late rent. I tried to pursue it, since I’ve made the last 36 or so payments on time and never bounced a check, but she cut me off, said no again, told me to have a nice day and hung up.

On the other hand, I went to the bank to get myself a cashier’s check for the late rent and the bank manager said that since I’d been a loyal customer for over ten years, they would happily wave the fee for the cashier’s check. Meanwhile, the guy next to me, who was also getting a cashier’s check and was paying the fee, said he thought it was real nice the bank rewarded loyal customers and he looked forward to doing business there for a long time to come.

So today is a loss and a win. More loss than win though, since the late fee on the rent is much much larger than the fee for the cashier’s check. But hey, I’ll take my wins where I can get ’em.

The Definition of Insanity

Random Thoughts

The clinical definition of insanity is the repetion of the same task expecting a different result. Like, if you have a button that turns on a red light, pushing it over and over again expecting one of those times for the light to be green instead.

So, at work, there is a woman who asks me to create an entry in our database. She does this about once a week. Every week she provides me with the name of the record. Every week, I ask her to send me more information and list about twenty fields that need to be filled out. Every week she replies with the information I need and says she forgot.

The question is, is she insane because she keeps sending me one piece of data expecting me to be able to create the record or am I insane for expecting her to learn and give me all the information in the first email?

Simon Green`s Nightside

Reviews

While skimming through the Fantasy & Science Fiction section at my local Books-A-Million one day, searching for new stuff to read, I stumbled across and interesting series of books. At least insteresting in their cover are and book jacket description, and by an author I hadn’t heard of, so I thought I’d give it a shot. That book was Something from the Nightside. It was a fun little noirish detective novel type tale with a bit of magic and demons thrown in to the mix. The first book was good enough that I picked up the next two (Agents of Light and Darkness and Nightingale’s Lament), both of which have been better than the first and good enough that I’m going to keep picking up the rest of the series, of which there are two or three and more on the way.

They make good short reads, and I definately recommend them. Now, stop reading unless you want spoilers…
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The Music of My Youth

Gaming

Okay, so this is going in the Gaming category, but only because it didn’t really fit into Random Thoughts, and it does actually have something to do with games. I’m not normally one to post about crap I see on the internet, but this I just had to put up.

Nintendo Choir.

Its only not safe for work if your PC is loud, but even then most people under 40 should laugh when they hear this. Its a choir singing songs from popular Nintendo (and other) games… Mario, Zelda, Mortal Combat. And they do a pretty good job of it too…

Enjoy!

Everyone hates the new guy

Random Thoughts

Its just a simple fact of working in the Information Technology field. New guys suck. One, they introduce change into what may be a well oiled machine of work. Two, they never know enough of the specifics to be much help for a while, and the slow you down asking silly questions. And three, they get a better computer.

See, technology moves pretty fast. What was a standard computer last year is this year’s slow model. And this is really what bugs tech guys more than anything. A new guy comes in, and he gets a better PC that the guy who’s been here a while.

Me, I’ve never been the new guy. I’m always the replacement guy. I’m much worse off than even the old guys because I’m replacing someone who has quit or been fired, and I get his junky busted equipment. So, not only do I not get the new guy benefits of a spanking new PC, but when the company does decide to spend some cash and buy new stuff for old guys, I’m not high enough on the totem pole to get one.

Bah!

Hey You!

Random Thoughts

Yeah you… look, I realize you’ve probably had a really tough day, perhaps even a really tough life, but one of the things that makes a revolving door work so well is that the work of pushing it around is shared by all the people moving through it. If you are going to get in, you have to do your share. My day hasn’t exactly been a big bowl of happy either, but you don’t see me just strolling through the doors with my arms folded making some other schmuck do all the work. If it hadn’t been for my desire to actually get to lunch, I would have stopped right there and kept you trapped until you shouldered your share… jackass.

Let the hunting begin!

Random Thoughts

No, this isn’t a review for some game or anything like that. Jodi and I are looking for a house. Well, we’ve been looking… today was the first time we had the real-estate agent actually take us to a house to look at it first hand. It was pretty nice. Good house, nice yard, 1.2 acres… a bit far from work, but hey, I like the bus and there is one out there too.

But the house hunt has officially begun! Cry havok and let split the puppies of peril! (The dogs of war are stuck in Iraq, so its the best I could do.)