Wednesday, my old adversary! We meet again!
I know how you work, coming back again and again, week after week. You think you can get in my head, don't you, Wednesday?
Well, I've got news for you. Even if you manage somehow to wear down my defenses the inside of my head is a dark and cold and lonely place. Enjoy your stay!

This morning (in the next few hours, actually) it will have been 48 hours since my last cup of coffee. Symptoms include slight twitchiness and an urge to choke people 15% greater than my normal urge to choke people.
Yesterday I worked on some assorted junk. If pressed, I could probably come up with product names or details. They'd be made up, but I could come up with them.
I also made the decision to no longer answer my desk phone. No one calls me there with good news, so I unplugged it and placed it under my desk.
I've also been leaving my cellphone in the car, having "lost" it as far as work is concerned.
I'm still a little upset about that. The phone number was peeled right of my resume and pasted into the official contact list for work without my being asked. They don't pay for my phone, they just call it. I'm not answering anymore. No sense wasting minutes. Someone else will just have to sober up and fix something.
And that, my friends, is how I go about apologizing if I miss calls from you while I'm at work. I'm not screening you, I'm screening them. Not that anyone called me yesterday. Or the day before. Damn. Now I need a drink.

My big MyCokeRewards.com project is chugging along. In the past few weeks, I've gathered 206 of the required 850 points. This averages out to over 100 ounces of Diet Coke per day. The big question is, "Will I get my Playstation2 before or after my kidneys shut down?"
Maybe we should start a pool. I want the square that has me playing "Ultimate Zombie Ninja Cyborg Pirate 2006" while on a dialysis machine. I'm in a hurry, since 850 is a lot of points and I have no idea when the promotion ends.
I was looking for an awesome thermometer graphic to chart my progress, but everything measures by time, not Coke Reward Points. Keeping on their schedule would have me peeing constantly.
Plans for the day include working on that project I found out about Friday that was due on Monday and generated a whole new batch of sales lies Tuesday about why it isn't done but they should still pay us for it.
I'm also going to drink a sick amount of Diet Coke.

Returning to work after a three-day weekend seems to naturally turn my thoughts to zombies for some reason. The eternal question (Which is more awesome, Pirates or Ninjas?) is largely a matter of debate, though if one of the choices is prefaced with "Zombie", the answer is clear.
Unfortunately, this leads to the inevitable follow-up question . . . Which is more awesome, Zombie Pirates or Zombie Ninjas? In that case, you are in for a lengthy debate and if you aren't up for it I suggest reposing the question with the word "Cyborg" in it somewhere, then running out of the comic book store as quickly as possible.
There seems to be a nearly limitless number of choices when it comes to zombies in gaming.
Someday, when confronted with the typical grown up after dinner board game, I'd love to unleash Zombies!!! The game starts when the players take turns drawing map tiles, which are placed on the table as they are randomly chosen so that the game is different each time.
Each player then chooses a different colored "guy with a chainsaw" figurine. The goal of the game is to get your chainsaw wielding little guy across the landscape to the heli-pad.
Awesome, right? It gets freaking better!
There are zombies who move about the board. If you kill a pre-determined number of them (simple opposed dice roll) then you win. If you lose a zombie combat, you go back to the beginning.
But Garrick, why is this a suitable dinner party game for adults?
I'm glad you asked!
Because rather than fighting the zombies, it is much more efficient to just spend a turn telling the zombies where the other players are to let them fight the zombies for you. In that way, 'Zombies!!!' is a lot like High School.
There are also expansion packs for the game including Zombies!!!2 Zombie Corps(e) with military base tiles, new rules for more powerful zombies and six "radioactive" glow-in-the-dark zombie pieces. I also like Zombies!!! 3 because it is set in a mall, as all the best zombie sagas tend to be.
Admittedly, these games would require a person to come out of the "Zombie Closet" and admit, among other adults, that zombies are awesome. Some people may have issues with that. If that is the case, you can always just find a nice quiet online game like Urban Dead. I've played a little. It runs on just about any computer with a web browser and I tested it on the mail server at work. I made it through 50 actions without getting eaten, but I used up my flare gun and dropped my medical kit. The game is totally free and browser based. My character is a 'Consumer' currently hiding in a warehouse. If you create a character and try it out, be sure to say "hello" to SoccerGrrrl1991, and please share the medkit.
In addition to learning vital survival information, there is enormous potential for personal development and education in zombie games. As usual, Americans are behind the rest of the world. I found a Japanese-only PlayStation 2 game that teaches typing through anti-zombie combat. Your character can destroy the zombies shambling around aggressively by typing the words they display. The slower you type, the closer they get. Eventually, if you don't type fast enough, they catch you. I'm not sure what zombies you can destroy by typing would do with a person they captured, but smart money says it isn't pleasant. As a possibly interesting side note, the zombie typing game is a sequel. Some other zombie typing game made enough money to justify making a part two. Or maybe there were just too many unanswered questions.
The tried and true Dungeons and Dragons Role-Playing Game includes all kinds of zombies for use in a zombie-centric game series. In addition to the normal shambling undead, there are 'good' zombies powered by positive energy, plant zombies which are vegetarian, characters who can create and control zombies and and a zombie 'template' which can be applied to almost any creature (as in the pirate and ninja example above) for added awesomeness.
The zombie template is pretty fun. Zombie dragons, zombie manticores, zombie unicorns and zombie pixies are all creepy and awesome in their own way, but all are united in their love of yummy tasty brains.
So maybe this is all too much. I'll admit that zombie games are not for everyone. Everyone does need some kind of zombie experience, though.
David Wellington writes some pretty awesome horror stuff. More importantly, he releases most of it in serialized 'blog format. Having never read a zombie novel, I can say I'm really enjoying Monster Island. The novel is set after an epidemic wipes out most people and causes zombieism (blah blah blah) but then it quickly breaks out of the mold. The audience is introduced to a medical student who became a zombie but saved his brain function in the process, a UN weapons inspector and a group of Somali schoolgirl soldiers. Wellington has the decency to let the reader grow attached to the characters before they get eaten.
Monster Island is part of a trilogy. An awesome, twisted trilogy.
He has another book, Thirteen Bullets, which is a vampire novel. To keep this on topic, there are "half dead" creatures which are kind of like zombies only less brain hungry.
To close out this sick and evil post, I have to share some other news. I've been called to jury duty for the first time ever. In filling out the paperwork, I noticed the date I'm to appear is 6-6-6. The jury duty of the beast, my friends. It's almost like they know me.

I'm not at work at all today. Of course, almost everyone else can say the same thing.
I'm going to light things on fire in the back yard again, partially to celebrate the holiday and partially because fire is awesome.
It takes three bags of charcoal (plus wine-soaked wood chips) to fully fire up the new grill. There is nothing less awesome than a grill not fully fired up.
Lately I've been reading quite a bit and thinking about upcoming role-playing games.
Eventually the saga of Eric "Windstalker" Moore (Hi, Pam and Andrew!) the underwear model werewolf will come to an end (or more likely a pause, which is the way we transition between games) and we have to play (or at least half-assed try to play) something else for a while.
I'm really enjoying the new RPG based on Joss Whedon's Firefly series. It seems like a really well crafted games system with a lot of room for story telling.
At the same time, less than a full season of TV and a movie (plus a couple of comic books) doesn't really give us a bunch to build a campaign from.
With Darrell's current game, we have known geography (the local area) and an established mythology (the World of Darkness campaign setting, or at the very least all of werewolf myth) so deciding on a course of action for our characters is a lot easier.
In the Serenity 'verse, how far can you go on a tank of fuel? How big does a settlement need to be before you can get parts for your busted McGuffin device? Does this gun hold six rounds or sixty?
Even the Star Wars RPG draws on a rich well-known set of "rules" for how things work. Sure, it helps if you've seen all six movies, the TV specials and all the varied cartoon series multiple times. It helps more if you've read every published book and comic book and spent countless hours researching the setting online and participating in lively online debates about it. By the way, Han Shot First.
I found a pretty cool (or at least interesting) campaign setting put out exclusively on a message forum. It's called "Vegas After Midnight" and it is the oddest post-apocalyptic setting I've seen since Gamma World split off into all that crap with the spell-casting.
Basically, Vegas is isolated during some kind of world-ending event (nuclear war, nasty virus, invasion from space) and years later the survivors are split into factions based off the various casino themes. There are Roman wannabes at Caesar's Palace, Circus Circus freaks, Arthurian posers in the Excalibur, Mercenaries crashing at the Hard Rock Cafe and Skinheads for some reason in the El Cortez. There is even a freaky religious group called the Presleyans.
All in all, it is a very well-developed setting.
This setting is being released for some open-sourced rules which are being beta tested by the forum users, but I think it could be run with regular D20 Modern rules.
I've also been collecting the Coke Reward Codes from the caps of 20oz Coca-cola products and 12 pack cases in the hopes of eventually acquiring my first video game console since the Atari 2600. If you aren't using yours . . . I have a long, long way to go.
I'm going to start the burnination now.

Today the whole family went to a delightful film. We rarely attend movies in the theatre, but felt compelled to see a well-recommended film which premiered at the Plzen Film Festival earlier this year.
The story follows the adventures of a little girl named Pavka (played by precocious newcomer Marla Yojáková) who has quite an adventure after her uncle (portrayed with his usual flair for the understated by Swedish film staple Hans Alfredson) misplaces his apple cart after a visually disturbing late night drunken run in with a pair of meth-addicted prostitutes.
In tracking down the cart, little Pavka meets the most amazing and delightful characters in and around the beautiful scenery film-makers return to again and again, the ecologically protected Zdar Hills.
First, she meets Pablo the Spanish runaway (played by none other than Madrid's new darling celebrity Agapito Balduino who is unfortunately starting to look his age) who agrees to help her find the cart in exchange for her used socks. That's an odd request, but I guess it leaves room for a sequel.
Pavka then meets the Gypsy Queen Madame Corinna (played by Abegal Movoskava, who obviously needs the money) and her band of hooligans, kept off the streets by putting on shows of contortionism.
Finally, what I can only assume is an angel or fairy or something returns her Uncle's cart. The angel is uncredited and for some reason appears in backless pants.
Throughout Pavka's journey, there are cinematic statements that I found refreshing, if a tad overdone. The Director (Polish genius Andrzej Wajda) loves shots of insects so there are random scenes where the dialog (of course, subtitled) is in the background while he chooses to focus on a spider eating some kind of worm. The random shots of raw meat hanging out of bird baths is a tad pedestrian. Time to find a new hook, Andrzej.
The title of the film is Smultronstället, which is translated (roughly) to Dude! Where is My Cart?

Last night I can only assume my subconscious was trying to scare me.
I normally don't remember dreams, but last night I dreamed about participating in a public debate. Knowing that public speaking easily beats out death as the #1 fear people have (just not personally I phobia I have) I'm a little offended that my subconscious would try that and not, say . . . spiders? A dream where I'm covered in spiders would be much freakier for me. I thought the subconscious was supposed to know everything about what gets to me and on some level even why it gets to me.
My subconscious totally phoned in a canned nightmare.
C'mon, subconscious! You can do better than that, little fella!
Remember when I was little and you used to give me nightmares that were really scary?
Did you know (of course you do) that one of those still makes me shudder even as an "adult" when I see a certain fast food character?
You've got potential, subconscious. You used to be much, much more frightening.
Here's the plan:

I'm going to Netflix some scary movies, you know, to kind of kick start your creative process. Then, I'll have a bunch of sugar-free candy just before bed to make it a little easier for you.

This is a one-time offer, subconscious. If you miss your shot I'll have to seriously consider replacing you with a magic eight ball.

Friday! Friday! Friday! I'd mention the 'casual jeans' part but I haven't bothered dressing for work in months.
This is the post where I swing the content-sensing ads at the top of the page (which use awesome Google technology) back around to coffee, hopefully. When they start displaying anti-depressant links, I know I've gone too far.
This morning I stopped at my 24-hour Starbucks to get the Breakfast Blend I've been using as a breakfast substitute all week.
As I've mentioned, the 24-hour Starbucks is different from your average free-standing Starbucks, and miles away from a Starbucks in a mall, grocery store or Target. Architecturally, its freaking round. The drive through snakes around the building in an actual curve because there are no corners. It hugs the covered patio area and exits into a parking lot instead of the busy street. Not that any street is bust at 5:45am.
I've talked a bit about the crowd that wanders in. They have the expected "drinking coffee to sober up even though no one still thinks that works" bunch, some students using the wireless internet and nursing a cup of coffee for hours (I did the same thing in college, but without the illusion of study materials), people on their way to (or maybe from) work (a minority), some probable vampires and a random element which changes day to day.
This is also the most adequately staffed Starbucks I've ever been in.
They just added a Starbucks in Lake Charles, Louisiana and I've been there a few times. As is the standard, there are always three people working at that Starbucks. One takes the orders for Vanilla Bean Frappachinos and the other two divide the Vanilla Bean Frappachinos by size and distribute them. I'm pretty sure Vanilla Bean Frappachinos are all that Starbucks makes because I ordered a regular coffee on my last visit and I think the cashier hit the silent alarm.
The 24-hour Starbucks has three people just working the drive through. There is a swarm of activity behind the counter and someone is always polishing the pastry display to an almost wet-looking shine. The 24-hour Starbucks also has one of the "Black Apron" employees. Recently, "Black Apron" was used as a name for their designer coffee blends which sold, unbrewed only, for premium prices. The "Black Apron" employees themselves go through rigorous training to attain special knowledge of coffees from around the world. Everything from optimal brewing temperature by coffee region to taste mapping varied blends to compliment specific foods, these employees are the rock stars of their industry. And the guy is generally there when I'm there before 6am. Of course, with access to that much coffee I'd never sleep either.
Watching the employees interact with the "Black Apron" employee is interesting. He is not, from what I've seen, a manager, but everyone defers to him about everything because he is just the "guy who knows". As a side note, I hope to be the "guy who knows" at my next job.
In a sense, it is a lot like all the junior stylists consulting with the guy with long hair and attitude who works in the same salon.
This morning I asked for a Breakfast Blend (more caffeine) and actually heard the lumpy pour.
So did the "Black Apron" employee. But he heard it from the office area in the back.
Before the regular green apron employee could even turn around, the "Black Apron" guy was at the counter, looking horrified. "It seems the Breakfast Blend has grounds in it, sir."
Um, ok.
In order to prevent what I assumed was bound to end in ritual suicide, I responded, "That's fine. The grounds are where you hide the heroin, right?"
In case you run across one, you can't joke with the "Black Apron".
"Can we offer you a Verona instead? It has a slightly acidic yet smoky flavor and I set this pot to brew myself. It is a personal favorite of mine."
How can I turn that down?
"That sounds good. Thank you." I smiled.
"Yes, the Breakfast Blend would be gritty and unpleasant with grounds in it," for some reason he continued the sale, "You'll be much happier with the Verona."
"Thanks." My face started to hurt from my uncomfortable pre-coffee smile.
And so, I saved someone's life this morning by accepting the Verona. That "Black Apron" guy would have totally gone on a spree.
On my way out, clutching my acidic and smoky coffee, I spotted the random element for the day: Two white guys wearing business suits were sitting in the patio area. Both had dreadlocks down to their waists. Those guys would drink coffee with grounds in it.

edit: During the spell check for this post I learned that the closest thing in the spell check dictionary to "Frappachino" is "Propaganda". Insert your own random conspiracy theory here:

Yesterday I spent about eight hours combing the HP message forums looking for scripted solutions to problems that should just be fixed by clicking something a second time or even just creating a policy. If we don't want the help desk people to click the "acknowledge" button then is time better spent training them to use other mechanisms or developing a complicated application modification to hide that button, which (in my opinion) does nothing but encourage the user to find new ways to slack?
Since I started in this role, it seems my function has been to automate several routine maintenance tasks. I'm no Luddite technology hater, but I'd rather spend five minutes a week deleting temporary files from a server than spend forty hours developing a script that compares file modified date, greps for content duplication, and then off-loads and deletes temporary files once per week. Do we need an automated script for something that can be determined with a mouse-over?
Is the net gain more time to drink at lunch and something cool to post on internet forums?
The best part for me was writing the text for the confirmation email it sends:

"Dear Lazy People,
Since I'm obviously the only one who does anything around here, I have completed the file deletion for you. Not like you had anything better to do. If there is anything else I can do to make your lives easier, please write it into my code.

Asleep again,
The Script"

In the event of an error, it emails:

"Oh, crap.
Something screwed up but I'm not paid enough to care. You might want to look at it.

Whatever,
The Script"

I'm a little sad at what little it takes to amuse me these days. Sad, and a little bit giggly.

Plans for today include more message forum hunting for "time saving" solutions to imaginary problems and trying (desperately) to either contract some illness or find something pressing enough for me to skip the operations meeting on Friday. That's right. I'm dreading meetings 48+ hours in advance, now.
You know what would be an awesome scripted solution? A program that (at system log on) accesses Monster.com, logs in using stored credentials, edits my resume by moving the last word of the title to the front and then logs back out of the site. I'm pretty tired of doing that myself 4+ times a week for the same crappy, not-enough-money job offers.
Right now I'm fending off depression with a venti Breakfast Blend. It may not sound like much, but I'll use whatever I've got at this point.