Stuff That Is Happening/Has Happened

Yesterday, following the loud ringing of a bell, the people who share my office area and I were given the news that our company had closed a pretty major deal.

While I can't disclose the exact amount of this deal, I can say with absolute certainty that we would have enough chairs to go around if some of that money were allocated towards seating.

In fact, I asked management if anything would be done about the the disparity between the number of asses in the office and the number of chairs.

The matter is under review.

In other news, my media player ran out of power in the middle of an audiobook. Before you rush to judgement, please be aware that I also spend plenty of time with actual "paper-style" books. Books in audible format merely allow me to use my commuting time to wedge more literature into my brain.

But anyway, the media player needed a charge. I brought it inside and plugged it into the wall charger overnight, only to discover that the power levels had not changed at all the following morning. This made me very sad.

I was forced to listen to sounds recorded onto these archaic foil disk things encased in hard clear plastic. Someday my grandchildren may ask about these things and I will claim that they were before my time. In spite of the ancient media, Carbon Leaf still rocks. It should be noted that I liked them long before I heard them played over the sound system at Office Max.

In a final recent observation, there are little TV screens in the elevators in my office building. Rather than playing re-runs of The View all day, there is a dedicated network of advertisement delivery, news, advertisements, current weather and advertisements which simulcasts to all of the elevators in this building. Someday it will do so in all of the elevators in all buildings. It features some old headlines and blurbs which make no sense because they have to edit out verbs to fit the space and half the screen is taken up with messages about getting a BlackBerry or taking a cruise.

The name of this network?

Please know that I am not kidding when I tell you the name of the network is "Captivate", presumably a semi-clever play on the fact that anyone not watching their screen in an elevator is staring at another human or having a conversation -- Both things apparently impossible in elevators.

I do not think flashing the passengers of a tiny metal box with a word which brings to mind being trapped in a small space is the wisest move to make in the world of marketing.

It does go a long way towards explaining why those elevators smell of primal fear and urine so very often.

My Chair!!!

Let me show you it:

What, I ask you, the crap?

There is some kind of manager's meeting in the office today. I got up to grab something off the copier and my wheelie spinny office chair got ganked and dragged into a conference room.

Then, the two stacked boxes of copier paper I was using as a seat were returned to the copy room on my next coffee run.

So now, my only seat is the empty husk of a Dell Dimension XPS R400. There is a sticker on the top which lets me know that the device is ready for Y2K.

That sticker does not comfort me.

In fact, my ass has been asleep for the past 20 minutes and I'm having some trouble feeling my feet.

Note to Management: You can go ahead and put a minus sign by the "Team Player" bullet point on my next review. I want my freaking chair back.

Technically Complex

Remember my highly advanced yet broken and then replaced old-lady phone?

It seems to be handling the whole "inbound and outbound calls" process now, so I've moved on towards playing with testing the multimedia functionality for review purposes.

While I could connect via Bluetooth, I don't trust that weird wireless junk. Instead, I use a cable which has a USB plug on one end and a weird thing that looks kind of like a shovel that plugs into the phone.

I replaced my ringtone with a MIDI file of Madonna's Material Girl with no difficulty. You know. Just as a test. For science.

What bothers me about the whole process is that there is no Mac client for my phone. In order to move files on or off the device, I have to launch my virtual Windows machine from deep within the bowels of OS X.

But wait, it gets better:

Ok, so I start my laptop (careful to not plug in the phone before the virtual Windows starts, lest OS X freak right out and shut down) then launch the Windows Vista virtual machine, let it initialize through the part where it has access to the USB ports on the laptop, then I plug in the phone, launch the Samsung application, and drag files around like USB bandwidth is free. Oh, wait! It is free.

This phone will record video until the internal memory runs out, which is nice since I don't have to time the cool stuff to within a 15 second video. This limitation of my old phone left me with dozens of clips of nothing followed by an explanation of how awesome the next thing that happened was except I missed it while slogging through the stupid save/delete/send menu.

And I can take these videos off my phone and put them on the Vista desktop or whatever.

Windows Vista has no idea what to do with these video clips. The file format is not supported and (it is implied by the constantly launching Windows Vista Help Menu) I'm a pretty lousy person even for asking about it.

So, Windows Vista is the only way to access these files created on my phone -- Even though Windows Vista has no idea what they are.

You know what it turns out I can use to decode and playback and edit these clips?

The Mac.

Apparently, the weird phone video format is just fine as far as Apple Quicktime is concerned. I appreciate that.

This isn't a big deal, anyway. I can use Windows Vista to drag videos to Quicktime on the Mac itself. I just found it odd and needlessly complicated.

However, the only true issue remaining is in finding something worthy of video documentation and online presentation. It isn't like my workday is filled with a near-constant stream of ninja attacks and zombie invasions.

Whenever those happen I've generally left my phone on the charger anyway.

Like a Big, Rude Force of Nature

It isn't bad enough that people walk around here in cargo shorts and flip-flops in January, spoiling the illusion of a Winter in my mind which allows me to wear a sweater now and then.

No. Here in Texas, we leave our Water Parks open all year. The only problem with that is that people in the southern half of Texas have grown soft when it comes to actual cold. To mitigate this, the Water Parks are actually indoors with heated water and a bunch of climate control equipment which keeps the air a fairly even temperature equivalent with mid-Spring.

While I fear that my internal seasonal clock will be forever damaged by the trip, yesterday the family went to see this freak show firsthand.

What I think is probably a pretty standard Water Park most of the year is covered in plastic in the winter, allowing in some sun and trapping the heat from the water and millions and millions of space heaters.

Some of the larger rides are closed as there is no way to shield them from the natural process of the Earth's unending journey around the sun, but a surprising number of tube slides, wave pools, splash pads and lounging pools are open and eerily warm in January.

Gwynyth's favorite was the Lazy River, in which a person sits in a giant, air-filled donut and . . . Nothing, I guess. That's about it. The whole course makes a blissfully warm, enclosed circle around the park and the water is directed so that no effort is required or, in fact, appreciated.

Most of the "river" is pretty calm, but there is one corner which houses the main jets for the attraction and it gets quite turbulent there. I tried it sans tube and got bounced along the tile bottom for quite some time.

We'd take breaks from it to do other stuff, but the Lazy River was Gwynyth's favorite and we were often dragged back there.

While we had lunch in the beach area, I pulled on my Dumbledore's Army hoodie. When I later removed this hoodie, I discovered that my entire torso was coated in black fuzz. This broke my beach illusion and replaced it with one in which I mine coal, so the only reasonable thing to do was drag Gwynyth to the river and to abandon Shana to shuttle our stuff to the locker area. It was all I could do. I had stuff on me!  

Gwynyth and I started our trip around, her in a floating thing and me dragging that floating thing by the handle while rubbing the fuzz off my arms underwater. There was a lot of fuzz. My Dumbledore's Army hoodie is a warm one.

Having been around this ride a few times, I knew that the corner just before the biggest jets tends to trap the riders and hold them in place when they hit that area on the left side. I decided to avoid that fate by hugging the right side, with the idea that we would be joyfully bounced across the rapids area and out the other side, laughing and enjoying our fake summer while pointing at the noobs stuck in the corner on the left. It was a good plan. It was a solid plan.

But then, on the first bounce, it all went horribly wrong.

We were hurtling towards a woman and her small child. He was wearing a life vest and they seemed to be having a pretty difficult time crossing that area with no floatation tube. They were moving slowly. Too slowly.

I struggled to gain some purchase on the slick tile river bed and pulled back on the tube Gwynyth was riding to slow us or even just push us to one side, with the only result that I was pulled under and rolled across the bottom, where I saw this small child (apparently hit from behind by our raft) also tumbling along. He did not seem distressed, though, and when the river spit us back to the surface he was laughing. His mother was not as amused.

And that is the story of how Gwynyth and I almost drowned some kid with Down's Syndrome at a Water Park.

If you laughed at all about this, you are a horrible person. I'm looking at you Joe, Darrell and Adrian.

When the four of us get to Hell, we should have coffee.

A Post Filled With Win

Ah, the artificially sweet taste of victory!

That highlighted line denotes that I was able to purchase and then enjoy a Sugar-Free Cinnamon Dolce Latte, ladies and gentlemen. I recommend you all do the same. The Breve part of the order moves it from the realm of "Drink" and firmly into the area I like to call "Primary Food Group". It is optional for most, but we at the Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng Institute of Relevant Social Change and Discount Sarcasm Emporium have made it mandatory for all employees.

This is a copy of he actual receipt, since a person with a worn-out bank card has to generally sign for everything for some reason. This morning I realized, given the time of year, that it has been over 18 months since I signed my name on the bottom line of a receipt for anything even though I've been asked to do so multiple times a week.

I decided a while back that if it were my job to process those things I might check ID (that happens) and I might examine the bank card to see if it were fake (perhaps made of cheese) but I would never, ever look at the scrap of paper after it had been signed by the customer. Why would I? The transaction is complete and I'd probably have stuff to do.

I've learned that my theory about this is correct, as no one has ever called me on it. In addition to rushing out to buy anything flavored with Sugar-Free Cinnamon Dolce syrup, I recommend you try having fun with the signature lines.

When I first started this experiment, I drew a straight line across the signature area, as though I were crossing it out. Variations in my muscle control could produce a wavy line, though, and I decided a person looking at it might decide the wavy line constituted a name.

I switched to a bold "X" and I used that for a few days, but then I started thinking about how that was a legitimate signature for people who are illiterate, or it used to be years ago at least.

Note: I do not use the term "illiterate" in a derogatory way, but I'll offer apologies in advance if I've offended any of my no doubt many illiterate readers.

So, for fear of having the clerk/barrista/attendant/waiter think me unable to write my own name, I switched to real words.

For over four months, all I wrote on the signature line of anything involving my bank card was the phrase "STOLEN CARD" in as neat a text as I could produce. I anticipated calls from the bank where I would explain and we (the bank employee and I) would have a good laugh and they would have a story to tell their friends.

That call never happened, and I began to be concerned for the state of my financial security. Rather than address the issue with retailers or my bank, I switched my signature again.

"Not My Name" became a pretty solid contender for my signature of choice, but the combination of differently angled vertical lines combined with my keyboard-related reduction in writing proficiency made that take too long and I feared that might give the game away.

For over a year now, I've signed everything with the words "ChimP Ass". Now I write it better than I write my actual name and I fear that it looks close enough that I will never, ever be caught. I'd switch again, but it still makes me giggle when I write it and even that act of laughing while signing has not evoked an even cursory examination of my "signature".

For Great Justice,

ChimP Ass

Making a Difference

I believe that in every life there is an opportunity to make the world around us better. Sure, sweeping social reform or a repaired education system or a reasonable and sustainable healthcare program for our elderly are a bit out of reach for the regular reader of Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng, but there are other ways to improve society which present themselves to us every day.

I guess I never really believed that until yesterday, though I thought I did. One has to really see that kind of opportunity happen before the concept crystallizes and crosses over into reality, becomes a part of a person, a new-found core belief that there is work to be done and that in the end, all the work will be worth it because people's lives will be made better, and the world will make more sense. Like the butterfly in Brazil which flutters and causes the powerful storm across the planet, effort will translate into result.

Side note: Why doesn't someone kill those butterflies? They cause billions of dollars a year in damage across the globe and gave us an Ashton Kutcher movie. Do I have to do everything myself?

Okay. My opportunity:

Every day I mostly wake up, stumble into some pants or something and then drive to work. I park on the third floor and walk down two flights of stairs, then across a breezeway and into the lobby. I select the correct elevator bay and climb in the first one with an up arrow, then ride up to my floor.

You may have seen the flaw in this plan already. There is no coffee in it.

I spend the first hour of consciousness every day with no coffee. At all.

Side note #2: Avoid me early in the morning like I have some kind of nasty disease which turns people into brain-devouring zombies.

So yesterday I got most of the routine correct, except that the elevator door opened a few floors below mine and I reflexively stepped out.

As one would expect, my office was not there.

But now I know what is there. 

The regional headquarters for Starbucks Coffee is there. And now they know me.

Apparently, all the Baristas come to my building for training and the cafe downstairs sells beta-version Starbucks coffee you can't get anywhere else and, most importantly, I can stop by every day several times until we get back our freaking sugar-free cinnamon dolce syrup!

This, my friends, will be my contribution to the world, my kindness, my truest hope for meaningful change in our lives.

- G

Never Be The First To Fall Asleep

Monday night we were invited to watch 2007 go away forever with some friends.

Gwynyth was sleeping over, so we figured we would too. This was partially to avoid all the drunks on the road after dark and more to avoid being two more drunks on the road.

And to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and protect our fragile eco-system. On that note, one of our many resolutions as a family is to reduce our carbon footprint in 2008. I've ordered us all smaller carbon shoes from Ebay. You, too, can Buy It Now for the baby seals.

So anyway, we drank and played games and drank and visited and drank and stepped outside from time to time to complain about how cold it was and how Texas should just be warmer. We also, if I remember correctly, drank.

A short time ago I established my status as "Lightweight", since I never drink and four beers in one evening has me wearing a lampshade on my head and absolutely nothing else. Drinking poorly is what I do. I've come to accept that.

Monday night I drank a few more than four beers, though only about that number if the count stops where my memory does.

And I'm also sure that I was the first one asleep.

Did anyone else play that game at summer camp where the first person asleep has their hand filled with fresh deer droppings and their nose is tickled with a feather? Or their hand is put in warm water with the idea that they will suddenly lose all bladder control (even though I've never personally seen that one work)? Or one eyebrow is shaved off and horrible things are scrawled on their foreheads with Sharpie markers?

Those pranks apparently follow us into adulthood, as it seems that shortly after I went into my 12:30am "Power Nap" some comedian (I still haven't figured out who, though I have my suspicions) removed a chunk of the front of my brain and replaced it with, I think, a hedgehog.

And that little guy spent all day yesterday flailing around in my skull looking for the exit, doing that cute little thing where he rolls up into a little ball and then stretches out to chew on the back of my forehead.

I think he found his way out around 8pm, which is good since I had no idea how to get Hedgehog Kibble to him.

Either way, well done guys. You really got me.

News for 2008, people: Be careful where you pass out. Who knew?

Aside from the incident which we have now filed under "Hedgehog 2008", we had a great time. We played Taboo (which the guys "lost" even though it was obviously rigged -- I mean how does one indicate "Denzel Washington" without using the word "Actor"? He defines the word!) and something called Buzz Word, in which we redeemed ourselves while making a token effort to be good sports about it.

As for my other resolutions, I'm still working on those -- Though I think one for 2008 should probably be "Come up with a list of resolutions before 2009 actually starts". I keep meaning to be better about this procrastination thing but there never seems to be enough time to make a real effort at it.