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Today looks to be a nice day for a drive...




to the zoo maybe?

Zoooom!

Earlier today I was outside on a second-hand smoke break with Joe. I frequent the out of doors during the day on ergo-breaks. They help me stay sane. When I've had way too much caffeine (hence Chez Satan is out) and I don't have time to go to the park, I go to the smoking area. The left over carcinogens floating around the area are arousing and it's a great place for rumors. I heard some crazy shit was posted on some financial message board about my company, so I made a mental note to check it out when I had time later. I was quickly bored by the regular shizzle on the site. I'm not into the financial speculation game... especially Fortune 500 trading when the market is in the gutter. I do however, find great enjoyment in the threaded flames that consume the posts of those that are... I snipped one for your viewing pleasure:
"I cannot believe how incredibly stupid you are. I mean rock-hard stupid. Dehydrated-rock-hard stupid. Stupid so stupid that it goes way beyond the stupid we know into a whole different dimension of stupid. You are trans-stupid stupid. Meta-stupid. Stupid collapsed on itself so far that even the neutrons have collapsed. Singularity stupid. Blazing hot mid-day sun on Mercury stupid. You emit more stupid in one second than our entire galaxy emits in a year. Quasar stupid. Perhaps this is some primordial fragment from the original big bang of stupid. Some pure essence of a stupid so uncontaminated by anything else as to be beyond the laws of physics that we know."
Isn't that special?

Seinfeld forever... ahh, the fond memories.

The morning simply couldn't pass any slower. Will this weekend ever arrive? I trust that it will, but fuck all if I know why time has thickened. Last night was kinda unexpected. I received some club level tickets to the Astros/Cardinals game last night and really didn't feel like going, so I offered them to Harry. He and his wife met EL and I at the Outback Steakhouse for the drop. They had time for a drink, so they joined our conversation in progress and the minutes turned to hours as the game played on and the club seats wilted in shirt pockets. It was spontaneous and fun... and we all had a great time just sitting there talking. To me, that's what it's all about... conversation with friends... better than a baseball game any day. EL and I did some late night grocery shopping on the way home. I dig grocery shopping at night because the isles are empty and the only absent minded shopper to worry about cart courtesy with is me. My night was only a blink and this morning I desperately wanted to stay in bed. My Herculean effort to drag my ass out of bed for work these days is a testament to how poorly the conditions are in the office. I used to love to come to work. I loved my job. Now, I still like who I work with and the idea behind what I do, but it has been poisoned by corporate greed and we are all paying the price for someone else's moral decay. Everyday at lunch, I talk myself out of a few pints of Guinness and skipping the rest of the day. All I can think about is going home to sweet EL or how I will spend my precious weekends. It's a sad existence mid-day. On a bright and cheery note, a new baby giraffe was born on Monday at the Houston Zoo. The average gestation period for a giraffe is 457 days. I find that amazing. Anyhoo, I want to go photograph the baby... especially since I've never seen a baby giraffe in meatspace. I have only been to the Houston zoo one time and the most amazing thing about it (to me) is the unbelievable number of rabbits. There are more fucking rabbits running around at the Houston zoo... wild... than I've ever see outside a rabbit farm. Yes, I've been to a rabbit farm.

Steven Wright's mind is definitely where we all need to be...

"I woke up one morning and all of my stuff had been stolen...and replaced by exact duplicates."
"I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize."
"Borrow money from pessimists - they don't expect it back."
"Half the people you know are below average."
"99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name."
"42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot."
"A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good."
"A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory."
"If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."
"All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand."
"The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
"I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met."
"OK, so what's the speed of dark?"
"How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?"
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm."
"When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane."
"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy."
"Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now."
"I intend to live forever - so far, so good."
"If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?"
"Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines."
"What happens if you get scared half to death twice?"
"My mechanic told me, 'I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.'"
"Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?"
"If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried."
"A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking."
"Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it."
"The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread."
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
"The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard."
"The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up."
"The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it."
"Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film."

Yeah. Coffee... coming right up.

Irfan send me this link to a web site that "collects FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework, to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles- anything that gives a glimpse into someone else's life. anything goes..."

pretty interesting and moderately addictive.

I wish I could fill my cubical with bean bags. This has replaced the dream I once had of pinning up a hammock in my office. I'm not any closer to this one than I was to the last one, but you have to dream, right? I wouldn't mind having a few inches of padding under the carpet and a disco ball hanging overhead. Every cube should have an espresso machine and a mini-cooler for Diet Dr. Pepper. We should all come to work in shorts and tees. Everyone would have fast workstations with bleeding edge graphics adapters and be forced to game on LAN for at least a few moments out of their day... mental exercise. Every wall should be mottled with climbing holds (another use for the padded carpeting) and floors should be connected by fire station style poles and stairs with varied leveled steps. Every floor should have an area that is acoustically isolated from the rest of the floor, filled with plants and supplied by a filtered air system, and have some type of water sculpture that is athletically pleasing, providing subtle ambient water noise to fill the otherwise silent room. Every cube should have a live oxygen feed... kinda like an O2 bar at every desk. There should be a smoking area on the roof that is sectioned into three areas... cigar, cigarette, and marijuana. The fitness center will have a lap poop, hot tubs, and saunas. The work week is only four days long in this company in my mind... three twelve hour days and one 6 hour day. There are Golden Tee golf machines in the vending area/break rooms and a half day lab on proper coffee creation is a mandatory part of company indoctrination. Abusing the coffee machine is grounds for termination... no pun intended. All interoffice communication that is not verbal will be electronic. There will be no printers in the building. If you want to apply for a job, your resume must be in an electronic, non-proprietary format to be considered for employment. Office furniture will be regular furniture... not "office furniture". People with be regular people... not "corporate sheep".

It's just a thought.

For about three seconds on the elevator, I couldn't remember what floor I worked on.

Control issues. People here at work have serious control issues. Anyhoo, things are good so far today in the office. I've been productive and it's always good to feel like you've accomplished something. I'm a few shots of espresso up on the crowd and with my streaming NPR just loud enough to annoy my cube neighbors, all is right in the world. I feel almost as good as James did when he sang to his parole and pardon board. I wonder if this dude is going to get pardoned from his "Unauthorized use of a milk crate" charges... it's a strange world we live in.

"Don't mess with the IT department guys. Although their office might look as messy as mine, they are a force not to be screwed with."

STARBUCKS SHOULD DELIVER!

As the engineering staff meeting begins today, already another instance of CYA rears it's ugly head. This make the third or fourth time in the last few weeks that I have actively participated in research and engineering on a project and someone else has taken full credit and not credited me at all. I wouldn't care about recognition if it weren't for the fact that everyone's productivity is under review. I spend a significant amount of time supporting my coworkers in the projects and evolutions they are tasked with and this is the type of shit I get back. Be careful... you might get some on you. I don't believe in pimping myself around here, so the obvious answer is to just stop. Don't ask me for help... ever. On a happier note, I recently discovered that I'm off on Monday. I'm all about the 3 day weekend... one day to decompress, one actual day off, and one day to dread my return to work. Excellent. It's nothing a pocket full of neutrinos can't fix. I find this really cool. I use Nmap regularly in performance of my job duties... excellent tool. Although that schnizzle was nifty, this is actually a much better read. This meeting is taking FOREVER. If it weren't for wireless access, I may be in a coma.

Ah yes. The 6 news truck mystery is solved. Apparently there was some kind of conference surrounding the case of former Enron Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow. News crews are still like starved piranha every time a Enron bloodied ex-exec falls in the river.

What day is today? Where am I?

I still don't know what's up with all the news crews. I'm home now though, so frankly I don't care. It's nice to exhale. The office is stale these days. It's still filled with negativity. Everyone is unsure of the future and that generally puts moral in the shitter. My landlord pulled a smooth one today. When the door dude finished replacing the door, he told EL that he wasn't authorized to give her a key to the deadbolt... something about one less lock the landlord will have to replace when we leave or some such nonsense. I guess the terms of a lease don't apply when you're in the last 30 days, eh? Tis o'tay really. I have a padlock on the outer gate that the landlord doesn't have a key to... it's all the same to me. I just hate being a dick about it. I was especially surprised to hear this after all the work EL is doing around here for the owners of the house... not because she has to, but because she is just a good person that wants to help them. They show no appreciation. Good riddance. Anyhoo, we're about to roll out for some chow chow. Michael and I had dumplings from the egg roll Nazi at lunch. On the way there, we stopped by his pad to upload a photo he did for EL and I to put in our wedding invitations... really nice... anyhoo, I saw a cool flower out of the corner of my eye as Michael and I strolled by and I wanted to snap it. Believe it or not, a security guy started to try to get us to leave! I guess taking photos of flowers is offensive these days... even those bordering public city streets. Anyway, the shot was rushed and didn't turn out as well as it could have, but here it is:





Off to dinner!

Why are there 6 television crews across the street?