Fun with Google

I thought the Internet was slooooooow. Figured I was going to ask Google about it.

I’m nuts.

Saw that at Poppy’s place. Tweaked it a bit. 😉

You Are a Brazil Nut

To most people, you seem exotic, unusual, and even a bit scary.But you’re really quite normal. You’re just hard to get to know.If people leave you alone and let you do your thing, you really shine. But you tend to get lost in a crowd, especially if it’s filled with big personalities. What Nut Are You?

Quit my day job, yes?

I have decided to quit my day job, and I have the perfect get-rich-quick scheme. 

I am looking for oil, right in front of my old office.

Chuck does not agree with me, but I am the boss. Look at my old boss in the background.

 Apparently, we will only find this much oil. I am not pleased.

 Maybe we should be looking near the cafeteria then?

I’ll be rich soon. Very soon.

Edit: Apparently, the nice “caption” features on the pictures were breaking some part of the code. I hope it’s fixed now.

Prison Break

They’re breaking IN! How crazy is that. It’s what they did in the first 20 minutes in the first season, but extended to 13 episodes. Rejoice!

I apologize, I was wrong. This is not blog worthy.

Unless there was a “Prison Break meme” somewhere on the Interweebs. There is!!! According to this, I am:

Hey, what would you like me to talk about? Feel free to suggest anything.

Last minute: Look at that! I can’t wait for my iPhone to get here…

Sweet!

I need some fresh air

You might think this is related to yesterday’s entry, and in a way it is.

You see, had I known that the rest of my day was to be decided as soon as that guy farted on me in Starbucks, I would’ve just returned home and slipped under the covers for the rest of the day.

I got to work and was met with over 3,000 tasks pending and a crashed script. No big deal. we can take care of that. Turns out some of our lovely clientele can’t follow simple directions like “do not use that button”. Hey, I got a shirt for that!

 I’m borrowing this image from Dave at Blogography. Go say hi!

If that wasn’t enough, it was now time to apply the bimonthly patch to our main application. Don’t even get me started about having to deal with a patch, an upgrade or a hot fix of some kind every 59 days or so. It took forever to do, since the instructions are somewhat less than brilliant, and the maintenance on our system is less than stellar. I’m not feeling too bad about the lack of proper maintenance, since the power to access our systems was never granted to me or my team.

I had to run from there to a “lunch informal meeting” to talk about customer service. I think it’s a good thing to talk about customer service, but I disagree with the way it was introduced and the recommendations given. Of course, you can’t be against virtue (to an extent), but I can express my doubts about the absent “winning conditions” to get to those virtuous goals. Everybody knows what good customer service is, but to expect us to offer “above and beyond” service with “under and below” work conditions is asking a lot. It’s fine and dandy to talk about using listening skills, empathy and mirroring of emotions, but it takes years of practice to master these skills. How about offering some training? One of my teachers used to say “you can’t pull on a flower to make it grow”. Anyways.

The afternoon was filled with a slight manipulation error that caused some of our data to become corrupted. No big deal, we have backups, we can rebuild him stronger, faster, better. But it still takes time.

And then right on cue (that means 15 minutes before closing time), the button pusher called in a bit of a frenzy about not being able to push the button. When I explained to him that he agreed, one year ago, in an e-mail that I have on my desk right now, to not push the button, he agreed that he was the one responsible to fix this and make it work. I could hear the protests of his team in the background. Not cool.

I thought I was done for the day, but I got home and was met with stories of misbehaving children, fighting and time-outs. It would seem that the rest of my family is affected by the thought of going back to school today (Wednesday). In Lovely Wife, this altered state manifests itself in the form of not listening, paying a ridiculous amount of attention to the smallest details without ever making a decision (unless I pick a side, then the other side is the right choice), and just questioning the validity of everything I say.

All day, I felt like I was being crapped on. I expect this from the office – to an extend – but from my wife? There’s nothing I hate more than being crapped on. Should I really put up with this?

I really hope today is better. How can it be worst really? Sigh.

I promise to come back with a lighter subject tomorrow, like Prison Break. Those guys are BREAKING IN this season. Now that’s something that’s blogworthy.

Is that what they meant by “Venti”?

Some guy just farted on me while waiting in line at Starbucks.

Seriously.

I can’t stop laughing.

Kill! Kiiiiiiiill!

Spent most of Sunday catching up on my Order of the Stick reading. I can’t believe I had stopped reading around #300 (it’s up to #587 now).

Then Lovely wife watched “Genius Child” and I wanted to kill one FRAKIN ANNOYING LITTLE BASTARD. That kid apparently has an IQ of 170, but can’t chew with his mouth closed.

FAIL.

You can have all the smarts you want, but if you can’t FRAKIN CHEW WITH YOUR MOUTH CLOSED you start with a huge minus 5,000 on your IQ test.

And I recognize that I’m partly at fault here. I just can’t stand people chewing with their mouth open, or making those smacking sounds as they chew. I’m serious, I’m certain ths is some part of an OCD that I have. When people eat that way, I become really angry, I can feel the adrenaline in my arms, I start sweating and most of the time I have to leave the room before I say something I’ll regret or punch someone in the face.

Just writing about this makes me feel really angry.

Am I alone in this?

Epiphany in the produce section

One more proof I’m getting old.

Today I went grocery shopping and I realized that I knew all he oldies playing in the store. I was even humming them as I was shopping.

Damn.

Starbuque

Ze Frenchies are leaving. Sylvie and Didier have been with us for a year, and they will be sadly missed.

Since Sylvie can’t say “Starbucks”, I decided to offer each of them a one of a kind Starbuque cup instead. 😉 I replaced the woman with the Mighty Beaver, symbol of all that is noble in Canada, on a background of snowflakes falling on gray snow. I replaced the stars with Maple Leafs. The “the way I see it no 257” little stories have been replaced by a nice little goodbye message.

It was a hit. I rule. But I’m sad.

On the flip side, I now have a place to stay if I’m in in Nantes. 😉

One bullet short of a full gun (2)

• I don’t know what to post about. Yesterday we had mexican food for Zoé’s birthday. Because it was her birthday they put this massive sombrero on her head. It was pretty funny. I didn’t bring my camera. This is why I need an iPhone.
• On an unrelated note, some people at my workplace are friends. I guess some are not. I told you I was going to put secret messages for you on my blog. These are not them. Or are they?
• I mentioned I got this wonderful graphic tablet for my birthday. I can’t use it because my home computer is out of USB 2.0 ports. I shopped for a computer and I could get a quad-core for 1,200$ Isn’t that crazy? I paid twice that for my current AMDK6 machine. Wow!
• I really, really, really want to go to the Neverwas Fair. Ha ha! Never was fair. That cracks me up.
• I’ll eat fries today.

In pure Call of Cthulhu tradition, I’ll keep the last bullet for myself for when the actual madness comes.