Monday, April 14, 2008

Environmentally friendly

If using paper bags kills trees, and plastic bags aren’t biodegradeable, then it’s been suggested you bring your own tote bag to the grocery store.  I actually do this (when I can remember to get the thing out of my trunk).  But what I wanna know is what do I use to pick up dog poop? I am not picking that shit up in a reuseable bag.  Gack.  I’m not that dedicated to the environment.

Actually I’ve been told that paper is really made from sawdust, not actual trees.  This makes sense because you don’t need slabs of wood to make paper, just the little fibers.  Just a side note.

But anyway, until I figure out this little dilemma, I’m just going to keep on using plastic grocery bags from my stockpile to pick up the dog poop.  What do YOU use? 

Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Convergence

Take a deep breath, hold it, let it out slowly… that’s what I have to keep telling myself.

April is being very mean to me.  Too bad April isn’t a person.  This month seems to be an unexpected conglomeration of numerous blows against my financial well-being.  Allow me to summarize:

• I’m getting a modest refund from my federal taxes, but I owe state taxes double that amount.
• We have to pay the tax lady for doing our taxes.
• Car registration due on two vehicles.
• My sweety’s unemployment checks just ran out, and nobody seems to be hiring.
• There are still monthly payments to be made for one car, three credit cards and a fucking mortgage that just won’t go away even though we got rid of the fucking house (we sold at a loss).
• Oh yeah, and rent too.

I started to panic this morning.  It’s very rare for me to have any kind of anxiety attack, but the thought of being financially destitute can do that to me sometimes.  Or maybe I was just due for an attack. I don’t know. I was just made aware of some once-a-year bills, all magically due within a one-month time frame. It’s an uncanny convergence of events. Had I thought about these things earlier, I wouldn’t have bought those plane tickets to go see my sisiter.  I went to refund them this morning, but because they were a discounted special price, no refunds allowed. Fuck fuck fuck you Southwest.

Take a deep breath, hold it, let it out slowly…

My heart was just sinking as I drove in to work this morning, all this shit on my mind. I’ve always been horrible at managing money. I just figure if I’m a cheapskate then I’ll be fine. Doesn’t work like that. You actually have to plan things. Ugh, financial planning is one of the most distasteful tasks in the world to me. I wish somebody else would do it. But then I’d have to pay them. Bah.

Luckily I recognized my anxiety and the irrationality that tends to accompany it. So I sat down and added together all the things that needed to be paid this month.  Do I have the savings to cover it?  Luckily, yes, I’ve been doing all right saving up since the house fiasco. Okay, transfer funds then.  Next I added up all the month-to-month bills that we get and compared that to my income… am I covered? Why… yes!  With some extra to spare. So we’re in no danger of being financially destitute after all.

So why did I panic? I’m normally a calm, rational person.  All I had to do was think it through instead of going off the deep end. I guess it was the sudden realization that I was standing on the edge of what seemed like a shit storm with no umbrella. I tend to live in the here and now, only occasionally glancing at the future. So long as I don’t have to worry about being able to buy what I need, I’m happy. I guess this time I pulled my head out of the sand to look around and found that security threatened. I don’t like being off-balance. I’m a stable person, who likes stability. Sounds boring, doesn’t it? I’ve never denied it. I’m a boring person. That was established years ago.

But anyway, I’m okay now. I just needed to vent what was left of my frustration here so I could get my heart rate back to normal. And maybe do some work too. These people expect me to earn my paycheck, imagine that.

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Big Ass Fan

The gym I go to is pretty decent. It rarely smells funny because they keep the air circulating well. I remember the first day I ever went in there, I was taking stock of what equipment they had and happened to look up. There, bolted to the high ceiling, was the biggest fan I had ever seen in my life. It was bigger than any airplane propeller. I remember commenting, “Whoa… that’s a big-ass fan!” It wasn’t spinning that day, so I got a closer look at it. In the center of the monstrous thing was its logo, “Big Ass Fan”. It was the funniest thing, it really was a big ass fan. Check it out for yourself: http://www.bigassfans.com.

I’m not posting a commercial for them or anything, I just love it when companies take risks with their name. Not everything has to be so spine-stiffeningly professional.

Monday, March 31, 2008

*sniff*

My sweetheart is gone for an entire week to attend a wedding and see relatives in Miami. I have to work, so I couldn’t go.

All I have to say is

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Don't invite other houseguests when it isn't your house

My mommy did a faux pas.  I got an email from her on Sunday. She said my sister (who lives in Houston) had sent her a plane ticket to go visit her and the kids, and would I like to go too?  My first instinct was, “Nahhh, plane tickets are expensive.” However the email went on to tell me about a deal that Southwest was having, which was ending that day. Curious, I looked up this special, and found that it would only be $81 each way. Nothing like a hard-to-pass-up deal to make you go visit your relatives.

We’ve been meaning to go visit her and her new digs, but the occasion just never came up.  So why not?  It’ll be like a reunion of some kind.  Plus I’ve never been to Houston and it’ll be nice to see a new city.  So I went ahead and bought the tickets to arrive the same day my mom was arriving, so they could pick us both up at once.

The next day, my mom calls me to tell me that she suddenly remembered that my sister’s in-laws were also going to be arriving that day… and staying at her house. Oh geez. She may have a large house, but it isn’t a mansion. “Oh, and by the way,” she said, “I havn’t told your sister yet that you’re coming, so you should call her.” Doh! Mooooom, how could you invite someone to stay at someone else’s house without even consulting them?? I wasn’t going to go if I was going to have to shell out for a hotel. I’d rather visit Seattle instead.

Lucky for me Southwest makes it easy to change your flight plans online. I changed it to arrive the day the in-laws left. Hopefully nothing else unexpected will come up. And for anyone else out there who doesn’t get it, when a home owner says, “Mi casa es su casa,” don’t take it literally and invite people without telling them. That’s just rude.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Dominique needs some humbling, and other Top Model comments

Isn’t it funny how I have a bunch of posts about laptops, and suddenly I switch gears to talk about America’s Next Top Model? Despite my geeky tendencies, I guess I do still have a few girly vices. I am totally hooked on this show. Anyway, I watched my Tivo’d episode from Wednesday yesterday. I just have to ask, why is it that the more arrogant a person is, the more they refer to themselves in third person? Dominique has definitely been taking annoying bitch lessons from Jade (from Cycle 6).

Another thing I find annoying is how a lot of motor-mouthed arrogant fools, who just happen to be a person of color, will toss up the race card whenever they are being challenged by a white person. In this case, Whitney (who also likes to run at the mouth at times) was telling off Dominique. I honestly can’t recall what the argument was about, but it certainly wasn’t anything race-related. They were basically two brick walls squaring off against each other (you can tell all the other girls are bored to death of this same conflict over and over). When Dominique ran out of comebacks, she decides calling Whitney a racist would be a great retort. Really it just made her look like more of a fool because there wasn’t a single remark made about her skin color or her cultural background. Well, her education was challenged, heh. But you can be a college graduate and still be an idiot.

Anyway, good show. Poor Marvita. Shouldn’t have given up on herself so early. Though she was a little mouthy too. Good riddance. Go Claire. Peace out.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

A few tips for future laptop shoppers

It’s been about 8 years since I last bought a brand new laptop. In researching for my recent purchase, I learned a lot of things. The best brands will always be up for debate, but there are a few universal gems of information that might come in handy for you when it’s time for you to go laptop shopping.

• If your laptop is going to come with Vista whether you like it or not, make sure you have at least 2GB of memory on there, otherwise the thing is going to crawl.
• If you don’t feel the need to shop for bargains or clearances, special order your laptop so you can specify all the hardware you’ll need, as well as which OS you’ll prefer. This way you’ll end up with a laptop you love instead of one you have to get used to. I know you can do this with Dell, not sure where else.
• Many of the laptop-producing companies offer a consumer line of laptops and a business line. Not sure why they think consumers needs wimpier, less reliable equipement, but you’re better off ordering from their business line if you can. Toshiba’s Satellite line is for consumers, while their Tecra line is aimed at businesses. My last laptop, which I got used, is a Tecra and I had no problems with it at all.
• If you plan on replacing Vista with XP, make sure you have all drivers available for the model laptop you are buying. Many manufacturers design their hardware to work with a specific OS (dumbasses).
• If you’re considering purchasing an open box item (like I did), do a thorough check for dead pixels. Many LCD screens, regardless of brand, ship with pixels that display incorrect colors or no colors at all. Look at the screen with an all-black background, then an all-white background. I forgot to do this and found that against black there is one pixel that stays red. However it works correctly for most other colors. I decided I could live with it, especially for the price I got it at.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Wrestling with Vista

Though I was extremely reluctant to have Windows Vista on my new laptop, it’s kind of hard to avoid. All the new laptops come with it. If I wanted a different OS, I’d have to install it myself. I was a bit too hasty about it.

The first thing anyone notices after using Vista for a little while is it prompts you for permission to do every. little. thing. Are you sure you want to visit that site? Are you sure you want to rename that? Are you suuuuure you want to use Vista?? Seriously, what a pain in the ass. Everyone hates it. Luckily it’s easy to turn off. You go into the Users item in the Control Panel and uncheck the checkbox for User Access Control. I had to research online to find it. I also had to research online about how to turn off all the other annoying features, because Vista doesn’t exactly make it intuitive to figure out.

Perhaps it would be somewhat intuitive if I’d had no experience with Windows at all. But coming from a Windows XP and Windows 2000 background, I expect things to be in certain places. So when they aren’t, it’s frustrating. They completely scrambled things around. I’m getting used to it now, but it took awhile. At one point I said screw this, reformatted the whole thing, and installed XP on it. It was easy. Unfortunately I completely forgot about drivers. It booted up quickly like a dream, and then I found the screen resolution was crappy, it didn’t recognize the wireless hardware, or any of the other special features the laptop came with. Crap. Stupid me. Luckily the laptop came with a recovery DVD and I was back to factory settings in 15 minutes.

The moral of the story here… If you’re going to flatten Vista in favor of XP, make sure you have two important things:  1) All the drivers necessary to make your machine fully functional in XP, and 2) a way to revert back to Vista in case you completely botch the XP job. I decided it was way too much work to make this thing fully functional in XP, so I’m going to stick it out with Vista for now. It actually isn’t so bad now.

Afterthought: One thing I really like about Vista is I can now plug and unplug USB devices without having to “stop” the service first. Plug, unplug, and all it does it beep to let you know about it. No more annoying popups telling you that you “unsafely” removed a device - sometimes it has consequences and sometimes it doesn’t. It was so annoying and weird. So glad they fixed that. Finally.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Shopping for a new laptop

I’ve been shopping around for a new laptop because the one I have can only display a maximum resolution of 1020x768, and the colors look washed out at numerous angles. Not sure how much time I’ve spent moving the screen up and down trying to determine if the color displayed is actually the one I want… not very helpful for web design.

I take good care of my stuff and tend to keep things for many years, so I wanted to make sure the laptop I got was reliable. Needless to say I also needed the screen to show colors accurately and at multiple angles. I also hate the super-shiny screens that most laptops seem to come with these days. The ability to display brilliant colors is great, but having the screen double as a mirror is not. I don’t want to see what’s behind me while I’m working. Finally, it has to be affordable, like under $1000 if possible.

Those were my requirements. My “nice to haves” include a volume knob (I hate pushing buttons to adjust volume), and Windows XP (I’ve heard awful things about Vista and have no need for it). Not a whole lot, really. Unfortunately I got neither of them. Oh well, on to my shopping research and decision…

At the start of my shopping around I immediately ruled out Dell laptops. In one of my past jobs, the bosses and sales people had Dell Inspiron laptops. Those things had nothing but trouble. There was always something wrong with them, and they were always being sent for repairs. I hear AlienWare is nice, but they’re kind of expensive and I’m not using it for gaming. 

At first I thought Toshibas were among the best, but after doing a lot of Googling it seems the Toshiba Satellite models, their most popular line, seems to have a lot of people complaining about problems. Even worse are the stories about the awful customer service. Very disappointing, because most of the Toshibas have the volume knob I like so much. I decided that a Toshiba non-Satellite model would be great. Unfortunately all the electronics stores I went to—Circuit City and multiple Best Buy locations—all the Toshibas were Satellites. Phooey.

Sonys also seem to have a good reputation, but all their screens are ultra-shiny, I hate ‘em. Acers were often recommended by people as a good value, but there were also some complaints about hardware reliability. A lot of people love their Acers, and there seemed to be an equal number of complainers with bad Acers. Asus is a brand I had never heard of, but a lot of people seem to think they are really good. They’re supposed to be pretty reliable laptops, however I’ve never seen any of them in any of the stores. I could order them online easily enough, but I need to see how the screens are before buying. I’m very particular about that since I rely on that for my web design work. Lenovo and IBM were mentioned as really reliable laptops as well. Those two brands confuse me because I’m not sure if they are the same company or not. Whatever the case, I never saw any Lenovos in the store, and IBM Thinkpads are a bit expensive (like Sony).

I started to lose hope that I would ever find one that would fit my requirements, because I was limited to the ones I’m able to see and test out in the stores. Finally today I went into Fry’s Electronics and browsed around there and ran into multiple Fujitsu laptops. I’d totally forgotten about that brand because I hadn’t seen any in the other stores. These laptops looked good, and when I compared them to some of the Sony models, which are well known for their vibrant colors, I thought the Fujitsus were better! The screens weren’t so shiny. They were glossy, but not to the point of distraction. I found one Fujitsu Lifebook that was red-tagged at $699, with 2GB of memory, DVD burner, 120GB of hard drive space, and a bunch of other goodies. It sounded like a really good deal.

I was unsure of Fujitsu though, I hadn’t heard anything about it. Is no news good news? So I went home and did some research. Turns out most of the user experiences have been very positive, with glowing reviews. Apparently Fujitsu is one of the few laptops that are still built in Japan instead of China. Not just assembled in Japan with parts from everywhere else, but I think the whole thing is manufactured there. This translates into a more rock-solid product, and may be why there aren’t as many of these as there are Toshibas and Dells. Actually I have no idea where Toshibas are made, but that’s beside the point. So even though it had no volume knob and came with that bastard of an OS (Vista), I decided to go for it. I went back to the store and said I’ll take it. They had one left! Lucky me!

So here I am testing out this thing. I spent most of the day and all night fiddling with it, which is a whole other story. Windows Vista… what a time-suck.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

I'd like to propose a new law

Anyone wearing enough cologne to choke a rhinoceros should be banned from entering an elevator. Seriously.

Monday, March 10, 2008

How I completely missed Daylight Savings Time

I woke up at 7:30 this morning, like I’m supposed to on any workday. Then I thought I woke up at 6:30.  Then, after some Googling, I realized it really was 7:30 and that I had missed the switch to Daylight Savings Time altogether on Sunday. Here’s how it happened…

Most Sundays are stay inside and spend quiet time with each other days. It’s my favorite time of the week. Most of the time I hear some word on Friday from coworkers or the radio or something about the upcoming time shift. Not this time. Saturday was my sweety’s birthday (I got her the Best Cake Ever, also known as “Berries and Cream” from Lido Bakery in El Segundo). Family showed up and we chatted and watched movies, and time was never really an issue. Sunday came around and I took her out to breakfast, then we came back to snuggle in front of the DVD player. Again, time was never an issue. It felt good.

The first bit of strangeness occured at bedtime. We watched a movie until 10:45, then I had to go to bed since it was Monday the next day. We did the usual puttering around, brushing our teeth, moving things off the bed, and other night-time before bed things. We snuggled and talked some, and then I happened to glance at the time on the ceiling from the projection clock. I was astounded to see that it said it was 12:15am. I was all, “Wait, what? How on earth did we manage to waste an hour and a half doing what we normally do??” It was so weird, but I never thought about Daylight Savings.

This morning when I woke up, the clock said 7:30, so I thought, “Well, time to get up.” I took a shower, got dressed, and as I was heading to the kitchen, I glanced at my watch to see how I was doing on time. I was baffled when it read 6:50am. Believe it or not I still hadn’t thought of Daylight Savings. Instead, I thought, “Dammit that stupid clock shifted time zones again.” The bedroom clock is one of those digital things that stays in tune with some atomic clock somewhere in the country, and it also has a button to change what time zone you are in. That button is all too easy to hit accidentally, and that’s what I thought had happened.

Then I glanced at the big clock in the living room, but it was agreeing with the bedroom clock. I looked from it to my watch several times, feeling like my brain was moving in very slow motion. It was kind of pathetic actually. That living room clock also stays in tune with the atomic clock… sometimes. It’s not as responsive as the bedroom one. Finally, it clicked. Sort of. I was still in disbelief. Was it Daylight Savings already? I don’t know why I found it so hard to believe. I went to the computer to Google it and find out exactly when it was supposed to be. Second Sunday in March, it said. Was it the second Sunday of March? After staring at a calendar for much too long, I finally decided that yes, indeed it was, and it really was time to spring forward. Damn, and here I thought I had an extra hour this morning before work.

Friday, February 29, 2008

Dirty vs. Messy

I think everyone falls into one of two categories: neat freaks and non-neat freaks. I’m not saying the non-neat freaks (such as myself) live in filthy pigstys, but they definitely have lower standards of what they consider “clean”.

The difference is in how you define “clean”. Neat freaks define it as spotless surfaces - no clutter, no dust, no smell. To them, “dirty” and “messy” and indistinguishable. My sweety will look at the living room one weekend and declare that it was dirty. I would look at it, see the few cups and tissues laying around, and reply that it was only slightly messy, but not dirty. Had there been mud tracked onto the rug or spills on the table, then I would have called it dirty. Messy means things are a little disorganized, but generally still clean - you won’t get dirty by hanging out in that living space.

In this case, I think tidying up a bit is in order, but not necessarily cleaning the house. Not so for my sweety, who is quite the stickler for neatness. Whether it’s messy or dirty or whatever, it doesn’t matter. You clean the house. It used to be a point of contention because she would always see dust and I would, admittedly, always turn a blind eye to it. I can’t help it. Dust doesn’t bother me. It always comes back, so why fight it?

The way people define “dirty” and “messy” occurred to me this morning when a coworker said her desk was dirty and then went off to find the Simple Green. I looked at her desk and only saw a bunch of papers and folders. For me, stacking them all together would have solved the problem, especially since she already Simple Greened her desk a few days ago. The funny thing was, after she cleared off the papers, I saw the big, pink strawberry juice stain in one corner. Turned out her desk was dirty after all, even by my standards.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

The seedy underbelly

Most companies want you to see their rosy exterior—everything’s peachy keen, everyone gets along great, and it’s a well-oiled machine. It’s not until you’ve been there a few months that you start to learn about the seedy underbelly of that company. The real truth comes out.

So I’ve been at my new job almost seven months now. I didn’t realize it had been that long already! Lucky for me I still enjoy the work (most of the time), and the people I work with are all right. But the thing that I find most alarming about this place is the number of people leaving. I found out the other day from a coworker that, between people quitting and being fired, the turnover rate around here is 70%. Seventy percent! That is incredibly high! I don’t know where they got their information, but I believe it. Only one other person besides myself remains of the original design team. Everyone else either got canned or couldn’t take it anymore. The web designer who’s been here the longest started one week before I did.

I think it’s the way the company is run. Communication is a little off. I didn’t find out that the most senior member of the design team (who started 3 months before I did) was leaving until two days before his final day. He says he gave two weeks notice, and it was never announced. The receptionist, who was always busy and seemed to have really cared about the employees and did her best to accommodate their needs, got fired inexplicably. There was an announcement via email, but no explanation was given. Everyone was baffled and shocked. We prodded the HR assistant for information about why this happened, but she was tight-lipped about it, stating she wanted to maintain the woman’s privacy. A week later she quit too. Only I didn’t find out about it until two weeks later when I asked if she was on vacation or something.

Why are people so eager to leave? Why are they so eager to fire people? I’m not a gossip, so I’m usually the last to find out about these things. Maybe it’s just as well that I remain oblivious. Ignorance is bliss, right? If I don’t feel like I’m being wronged, I’ll still be happy at my job. Lucky for me (and I mean that in the most sarcastic way possible), the one web designer left on my team is Chatterbox.  Mr. Nonstop Blabbermouth who would be the most amazingly productive coder if he would just shut up. He bugs me, but the upside to the incessant chatter is that he chatters with everyone else, and it’s how I get most of my information about the goings on around this place.

So far, from what I can understand, most of the trouble stems from a few key individuals in upper management who are more interested in job security than in a well-oiled company machine. They promise the moon to the clients and then make us lackeys take the fall when we can’t meet their unrealistic deadlines. I don’t know. It’s what the last web designer who quit said. Maybe it’s true. If it is, some people around here need a swift kick in the pants and a vigorous poke in the eye.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

I haven't been to the gym in 3 weeks

But it’s not out of laziness! Hey wipe that knowing look off your face. About three weeks ago I came down with the flu—a really nasty strain that had me bed-ridden for 3 and a half days. I could trudge around the house and stuff, but it was really uncomfortable to do so. I can’t recall that last time I’d ever been that sick. Shivery, achey, chilly, sniffly, phlegmy and whiney (these must be the dwarves that didn’t make it into the movie). Going to the gym was out of the question.

But why for three weeks? Isn’t that just some silly excuse? Oh ye of little faith. My sweety’s brother-in-law had the flu too (his whole family did!) He would stay home for a couple of days, then go back to the store he owned to work. And not just walking around here and there selling things, he would actually make deliveries of extremely heavy mattresses. He got sick all over again, with aches and a fever and everything. So he stayed home a couple more days, then again went back to the store and did the same thing… and he got sick again!

I guess this flu virus is quite tough to fight off, because any strain you put on the body can cause a relapse. No way I want to get that sick again, so I’m taking it easy until I stop coughing up this nasty phlegm. I feel fine, except for this persistent cough. I figure if there’s still phlegm, then there’s still a battle going on inside. No sense in diverting energy away from it to exercise. And if it means I get to play video games during my lunch break instead of lifting weights and running nowhere on an elliptical, then oh well!

Monday, February 11, 2008

Wii-ly big disappointment

Fellow video gamers have told me that the downfall of a really great systems have usually been a lack of really great games.  Like the Sega Dreamcast.  Sega Game Gear was also really good, I thought, although it ate through batteries like some kind of monster. They just never really caught on. Maybe it was bad marketing. I don’t know. The point I’m actually trying to make is my Wii-playing time is suffering a lot because there needs to be more great games for it that really take advantage of the unique wireless controls.

Wii Sports, which comes with the Wii console, is fine example of what Wii fun is all about. Simple to learn, fun to master, and great either alone or in groups. When Winter Sports The Ultimate Challenge came out, I thought this might be another fun title to have. The reviews I read on Amazon seemed generally positive, almost glowing, so I thought this would be a great addition.

Boy was I wrong. It’s so boring. The speed skating you just swing your arms back and forth. Is there some kind of strategy to it? Do you just pump the controllers as fast as you can like in some minigames? I don’t know, there doesn’t seem to be any kind of training mode that tells you. The ski jump has even fewer instructions. After the fourth time landing on my face I had the sinking feeling this game was a loser. The bobsledding seems pointless after you run and jump into the sled. What are you supposed to do, lean or something? Two minutes of leaning back and forth with no visible difference in the action gets quite tedious. The figure skating is a rhythm game, which I tend to be sort of good at sometimes, provided they’re simple enough. The cross-country skiing was weird in that your skier kept losing stamina and and pretty soon everybody else is miles ahead of you because they can inexplicably ski harder than you can. There’s just nothing giving me tips on how to do it right. I stop moving and your stamina goes up. I start skiing and he immediately loses steam. What a loser. I’m sure it’s probably me, but what kind of a stupid game doesn’t have tutorials?

There were other games built in there, like the luge and curling, but I couldn’t bring myself to try them after being bored to death by all the other events. I’m going to try poking around some more to see if there really isn’t a training area hidden somewhere in the game. But more likely than not I’m just going to put this thing up for sale and get rid of it.