..: schmeeve / a blog :..

TV Listings [testing]

Disturbing

A room here at the office contains nothing but two knee pads. It's been bothering me for days... so thought I'd share. You're welcome.

Asia

Flying to Hong Kong tomorrow, via Seoul, so the whole adventure will take about 20 hours.

Taking the 30D and a few of the better lenses, planning on trying to find some peace on the weekends and snap off a few. I'll see if I can't find some Chinese people to take pictures of... AHEM.

It's hot, humid, and lacks good bath products. Or at least a belief thereof.

Will probably hit Shanghai, too, before I head home. (I make it sound like I'm on vacation... I'm most definitely not.) I'd love to make it home before Folsom, but don't know if that's going to happen.

Perspective: Last time in Shanghai I got vid of people dancing on the street to Polak Music outside of a McDonald's.

That or Folsom?

Wish me $DEITY_Speed.

"AOL is realigning its resources"

With those words, I was laid off on December 6th. Yesterday was my technical separation date from the company.

So, for shits-n-giggles, I fed "AOL is realigning its resources" into the Anagram Server.

Some tasty results:

1. Uglier, anti-social regressions.
2. Sacrilegious goriness latrine.
3. Irregular, egoistical nosiness.
4. Arousing in soleless geriatric.
5. Stingers or salacious lingerie.
6. Coarse, gnarlier litigiousness.
7. Neurotic as sillier aggression.
8. Ugliness on a greasier clitoris. (Well then!)
9. Arousing costlier lingerie ass.
10. Sore sneering litigious rascal.
11. A sillier atrociousness nigger. (Yikes!!!!)

Merry Fucking Christmas, You're Fired!

I believe it went something like this: "AOL is realigning resources meaning you will no longer have a position with the company."

And with that, so ended my 4 years (and 3 days) with the company.

Now I can go get a real job with a real company!

Suffering at the Gym

One of the last perks here at work is a gym on campus. A decent facility, with shiny new equipment and a wide variety of machines and weights. Clean, relatively uncrowded, and free to boot.

Like most gyms, there's the ubiquitous low-volume radio and a wall of TVs in front of the cardio machines. Lately, it's been some crap techno radio station with "high NRG" remixes of Madonna songs, with the TVs tuned to MSNBC and the Food Network. Slightly ironic, that last one.

Anyway, last night, the benign became the contemptible. The techno had been replaced with easy listening, and the TVs has been tuned to the Christian Broadcasting Network. By the time I realized this, I was several minutes into the cardio routine and didn't want to start over. I was trapped. A CBN vignette actually featured some college-bound chicky taking her Bible shopping at Target. Lordy.

Furthermore, my "complimentary" workout towel suffered from some strange unnatural funk, there were no water cups, and the girl next to me on the elliptical had a wee problem with "gas."

Well, you know what the Bible says: Pain is temporary, vanity is forever.
(Wait, maybe that's just my bible.)

Old habits are hard to break

9.0 is barely out the door, and what more sure-fire way to show the Street you're behind your efforts than through a massive layoff! Rumors abound, and although the numbers seem high, sometime before Labor Day is the generally accepted belief. Why? We were all promised 4 extra days of vacation during said week, so it's a rush to avoid paying out for those extra days, natch.

Memo to CEOs: Do your research -- these slash-n-burn tactics have never proved successful, despite their current popularity. In fact, during an down a economy, those companies which have faired best are those which re-invest in themselves to take most of advantage of the upswing.

I can guarantee you one thing: if there is a layoff, not 1 will be a Washington lobbyist. The greedy corporation and our elected piggies are wallowing in their own filthy corruption like never before, now re-invigorated after the monumental collapse of Enron, Adelphia, and WorldCom proved that voters couldn't care less and a carefully worded soundbite was worth twice that evaporated pension fund! Ain't America grand?

The Arnold factor and our pending name change

So, I've discovered the silver-lining in Arnold: his liberal social politics are at direct odds with the Bush administration and much of the ultra right-wing GOP which Bush has aligned himself with. Arnie's pro-choice, and believes gay couples should be allowed to adopt. When Bush was asked about homosexuality, he astutely replied: "I am mindful that we're all sinners, and I caution those who may try to take the speck out of their neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own." Whatever the fuck that means you coke-snorting boozer. Point being this could cause some serious rifts in the GOP given that California is the world's 5th largest economy and Arnold isn't rank-and-file GOP.

I did enjoy Arianna's display on Friday: every reporter within 500 miles showed up at the Santa Monica records office where Arnold was to file his papers to run. Arianna also showed up, butting her way in front of Arnold and knocking down a microphone stand to give herself some attention. Smart girl. It's really sad -- she gave a full 30 minutes of interviews while Arnold was inside with Skeletina filing his papers, and not one second of that made it on TV -- and she actually answered the questions she was asked! It seems the outcome of this short race is inevitable, given the 1987 repeal of the "equal-time" law. Even though I think this recall is wrong, it would be nice if Arianna got some attention -- sorta like My Big Fat Greek Election. She's obnoxious enough to do whatever it takes, so don't count her out...

Meanwhile, it looks like AOL Time Warner is going back to just being Time Warner, now that the "crown jewel" (I knew that title would come back to bite them in the ass) is not the shining star it was once. In all honesty, AOL could survive on it's own, as it did from 1985 to 2000, but a spin-off or selling of the unit at this point would give the street too much of a "I told you so" satisfaction. I doubt this will do much to save things, as the idioticy that infects the company festers in full bloom on a daily basis, but who knows... point is, I could really care less.

Sucktacular Week

Well, I've put in something like 65 hours so far this week, and it's only Thursday. (Mind you, I'm sallaried.) At least we got our product out the door today. Unfortunately, the Sybase box we're on is shared with another group, whose ineffecient stp's seem to suck up all of the six processors and leave us with latency issues. I've spent 15 hours on conf calls with Ops the last few days working through this, and let me tell you, I'm one unhappy camper.

Of course, the layoff rumors have started considering a client release is imminent. I give myself an 80/20 chance of surviving. Granted, a year ago, I'd of said 99/1... but management suffles have left me scrambling as to what new alliances I have to make.

Anyone want to help me open a restaurant? I can cook, and have the biz plan ready. :-)