I've been following the Powerball, multi-state lottery for quite a while, mainly to see how large the jackpot gets and who wins it.
Well, last night's drawing was what I think is the biggest jackpot ever. It was up to $340,000,000.00 -- three-hundred and fourty million dollars!
Turns out, one individual in the state of Oregon won the full thing. One person. $340mil. Oregon...
I hate the fact that I have to change my passwords every so often, and that they have to be so "secure". Don't people know that there's no such thing as security?
I was just browsing www.pastebin.ca, and I came across this entry:
Dancing: worthless, illogical and loathsome. Therefore I abstain from it. I have, and will continue to do so. There is no rational purpose and use for it, specifically in my scenario and application. And who is to blame but themselves? I fail to see their puzzlement over my stance. They have themselves to blame that I disdain such an art. They can look to the prophetic mirror on the wall, and ask all the questions to please their rationale, they point the fingers of blame seeking to lay it on another, shirking from the pallid face of responsibility and consequence, yet as the queen before them, they cannot change it. They are the ones whom blame will lay the charge at their feet. They are the ones, who when I was young in age, indoctrinated concerning the evils of dancing and how it should be abstained, shunned an abhorred. So I have. And what logical soul sent argument could convince me otherwise? There is no use for dancing! What would I, a nineteen year old male do with such a knowledge? The limitations upon me force and abduction from any use of dancing. Empty and hollow they say I shall dance with siblings. Bah, empty like the promises of Delilah, insidious. What use is that? The festivity at which this art-so-called, is the wedding of my sister. The parting, So that is to be the landmark of this fantasy? The point with which we mark and celebrate is one tinged with abandonment? The one arena in which I maybe convinced to dance, is a floor, with me and a girl I love, and who is not yet my wife. I would not mind learning with her. I will not stoically contravene that I would love to hold a women, in a grip of love. To have a special lady in my life, willing me to love, live, die, care, protect and cherish her. I will not deny the presence of those emotions. However, I will deny the fact that my family would permit in any partition of that in, a dancing arena, much less any arena. This haunted and cursed form of dancing, there is no use for it, practical or impractical. They will not permit me to. Even if it be the disgusting practice with sisters. Sisters are useful practical and wonderful, However, they are not for dancing with. So I have been taught, so will I adhere to. Cursed and damned be those who try to plead otherwise. I am untouchable, your pleas fall not only on deaf ears, but a spurned heart, so begone, enjoy the man of your fancy, forget those who where once captured by yours. Do not pour the salt and bile of embittered memories into wounds inflicted by neglect and forsake. Do not ask us to leap and dance, in hand with joy. We cannot, we are dead to those who have forgotten us.
As of this morning, "Dude" is no longer employed at the shop. I'm not sure if he quit or if he got fired, but either way, it means a little less headache.
Move over, Geek Squad. I've got an idea.
Offer short-notice support sessions for small businesses and home users, helping out with hardware and software issues.
Exmaple: Joe Blow, small engine repair shop owner, has a computer in the shop. He is in the process of making up new price sheets in Microsoft Word, but can't figure out how to align the tabs on the right margin. Joe calls me up, explains the situation, I hop in my (t)rusty ride, drive over to his shop, assess the situation, then show him step-by-step how to do what he's wanting. During the process, I jot down notes, and have him do likewise, so in the future he can pull those notes out and do the task again. The session takes about 45 minutes, so I charge him for an hour. He tips me, asks for cards to hand out to friends and family, and I'm on my way.
This project, relatively simple, will be a lot like a blog with a few exceptions:
1) Instead of the entire posts being displayed in a list like the blog, only the titles and ratings will be displayed. Possibly, an additional "Brief Description" field will be added and displayed with the title and rating.
2) The rating, mentioned in #1, will be the result of a ranking system. The ranking will be based on fields such as "Physically Important" (such as lowering cholesterol, etc.), "Something I've always wanted to do", "Assumed Impossible", etc. Once the rating of a goal reaches 100, the goal will be completely possible.
3) If the goal requires financial support, an "Estimated Cost" field will be added. In addition, virtual [finance] accounts will be created for each goal. As money is added to the account, the project's rating will be increased.
4) When a goal is reached, it may be marked as such. This will be the result of a simple field being toggled, such as [SQL]goal_reached ENUM('y', 'n') DEFAULT 'n'[/SQL].
I plan to add more to this in the not too distant future. If you would like to contribute anything to the planning of this project, feel more than welcome!
I got a call from "Boss Lady" a little bit ago. She had a little story to tell me...
She said that this morning, first thing, she came down to the shop here in town, but she parked across the street where she couldn't be seen from the shop. She then walked across to the McDonald's that is right next door to the shop, and sat there watching for about half an hour. After half an hour of watching "Dude" sitting around and doing nothing, and "Big Dude" doing a little bit of work, she decided to call them up from her cell phone.
When she called, she asked Dude how things were going, and he told her that they were busy cleaning and such. She asked him what he was doing right at that instant, and he said he was busy cleaning, but didn't go into detail. She then told him that it looked to her like he was just sitting around doing nothing, and hung up on him.
As she walked across from the McDonald's to the shop, Dude told Big Dude that he didn't need his mother watching him work. When Boss Lady got there, she told Dude to clock out. He clocked out and stormed out the door without saying a word, got in his vehicle, and left in a big hurry.
Boss Lady told me that she doesn't expect that Dude will be back to work, and that this is "the beginning of the end." She told me that I will be getting my title of "manager" very soon, and that I will be in charge of Big Dude an New Dude.
I only had to work from 12-6 today, which is a common occurance.
When I got to the shop, there had only been 5 cars prior to that. The shop was a mess! There had been a small shipment from our filter supplier come in, and it had not been stocked. There were open boxes of oil filters all over the counter. There were air filters scattered across the shop floor. There were several jugs of used oil sitting in the middle of the floor in the second bay (which hardly gets used).
As soon as I got there, I noticed "Dude" and "Big Dude" were standing in front of the window. As I walked in, Dude had made his way over to the shelf of bottled oil and acted like he was doing something productive. A car came through almost right after that, and it took them for-ev-er! After it left, Big Dude loaded up some boxes in his car and headed towards the north shop. Dude then went over to the radio and began his usual act of flipping through each and every channel.
The whole "slow car, radio flippage" thing went on all the way until about 4:30. At 4:30, a lady brought her car in for an oil change (big surprise!). I went down in the pit to drain the oil and change the filter, but I had a bit of a problem: The drain plug had been rounded off and was VERY tight -- too tight. I had Dude come down in the pit to give it a try, and after 5 minutes of him not being able to do it, I explained the situation to the customer and called Boss Dude. Boss Dude said that we should try as hard as we could to get the plug out, and if we couldn't, have the customer come back Friday before noon.
Ten minutes later, I told Dude to give up and explained the outcome to the customer. She, luckily, wasn't too upset about it, and agreed to return later this week. After she left, Dude went over to the counter (which was now clean, thanks to your's truely), laid out his cell phone and a piece of paper, and began transcribing his "Phone Book" entries. After he was done, I asked him what he was planning, and informed him that I would make sure his life was a living Hell if he messed with my day off. He said he wasn't planning anything, and that he'd get fired before he quit.
At 5:00, I told him to clean the bathroom, since he enjoys it for some odd reason. At 5:40, I had told him several times to get the job done, and he still hadn't. He finally gave me a response: "To be quite honest with you, I could care less if that bathroom ever gets done and it won't get done tonight." I made sure he was aware that I would be hearing about it if it didn't get done, and informed him that it was to be done tomorrow first thing.
The shop wasn't in too rough of a condition when I left tonight, granted, the trash needed to go out, the windows needed washed, and things needed wiped down. There's only so much that I can do during the day, especially when I have to clean up after lazy co-workers, so there was quite a bit of the little things needing done yet.
At 8:00 tonight, less than an hour ago, Boss Lady called me. She said that they had stopped in at the shop just to check in on things, and they were not happy with what they saw. Personally, I can't blame them! I was blown away when I got in the shop today, because with only 5 cars in a 4 hour span, a lot of cleaning should have been done already, and it wasn't. It was all left for me when I got there, and they knew that the afternoon would be busy and not all of it would get done.
The bosses have not yet told anyone at the shop about my new managerial position, so I've not taken the steps that I should be as a manager. I would very much enjoy it if they would give me the power so that I can make sure that this kind of day won't happen again. I'm really hoping that after the crap today, and the crap that will happen tomorrow, that I will be able to start calling the shots. Without the title, I can only go so far with the orders. I need to go further. I need to have less of the discussions with the bosses being of the matter they were tonight. I want to be able to have good discussions with them.
If so, would you be able to translate this word for me: Skudd.
From what I've been able to gather, it has something to do with fire, but i'm not exactly certain.
For me, it was just a name I came up with a long time ago for my pilot in the game, "Descent." It started as "Skuddmuffin", then was shortened to "Skudd" not long after. Now, it's still "Skudd", and has no real meaning for me.
Well, I was right, again.
I got a letter from the place I interviewed for today...
Dear Tim: Thank you for your interest in COMPANY NAME. We appreciate your time and enjoyed the opportunity to talk with you. Upon further review of your qualifications we have determined that another candidate will more closely meet our needs for this position. In the event another position would become available that would meet both our needs you will be contacted. We appreciate your interest in employment opportunities at COMPANY NAME and wish you success in your career search.
First of all, I really HATE the fact that they cut into my schedule, left me hanging for so long, and hit me with this. The entire time, I have been stressing out because I was really hoping that this was my break -- I was wrong. Also, they required me to call off work one day for 3 hours of testing, and didn't even offer to pay for my gas to get there and back! I mean, don't get me wrong, I do understand that this was my choice to try for this job, yadda yadda yadda, but with the gas prices being > $3.00 per gallon at the time I went down there (TWICE!), it's pretty inconsiderate that they did this to me.
And another thing, look at the punctuation and whatnot in the quoted message above ^^. I'm not perfect, but man! "In the event another position would become available that would meet both our needs you will be contacted." WTF?! That's like... ARGH! USE A COMMA!
After I take the time to cool down a bit, I'm going to send them a letter and ask them how I wasn't qualified. I'm getting really BLEEEEEPing tired of getting these stupid letters.
My sister, known as MysticStartLite, and her husband officially suck.
Why? THIS is why.
Jerks. I'm jealous.
Last night, I had to stay up until about 12:30, because my uncle dropped in unexpected and Mom and Dad both refused to stay up past 10:30. I had planned on sleeping until about noon today, but I woke up right at 8:00AM because my headache from last week is still with me.
Since I have been awake, Mom and Dad have found it necessary for me to do little stupid things for them throughout the day, even though I explicitly stated that I was doing nothing today since it is my only day off between last Sunday and this coming Thursday.
I spent most of the day sitting right here, in front of the computer, because I'm less likely to be told to do anything when I'm here. About 20 minutes ago, I went outside with my camera and tripod, with the intent of watching the storm roll in and taking pictures of it.
As soon as I sat down and started mounting my camera to the tripod, Dad kept telling me that I needed to do this and that and whatever else I wasn't doing at the time. I flipped out.
I said, "No, I am trying to sit here and relax, which is something I've not been able to do all day." His response was something along the lines of, "I just need your help with this part of it, but I'll do the rest." I came storming into the house to put my camera and tripod in my room, and Mom asked what my problem was. I told her that I just wanted to relax, and that I've not been able to today. I went on to tell her that every time I sat down today, shortly afterwards I was asked to go do something else, and that while I did sit still for a little over an hour, I've not been able to sit for much more than 10 minutes at a time.
They ended up leaving to take care of the things that Dad wanted me to do, and to leave me alone so that I can relax without being interrupted. However, it's 6:00PM and there's only 4 hours left in my day, then I'll be off to work about 8 hours later.
I don't get it, at all. What is it about me, my work, or my attitude that says that I don't need rest? Why the BLEEEP can't I be allowed to sit and do nothing more than what I want to do? Why do people find the need to make me work during every waking hour?!
I admit, I'm not the most social person in the world, and that I spend a lot of time here in front of the computer. What people don't realize, though, is that I work 10 hour days, up to 6 days a week, doing hard, manual labor with an added twist of customer support. Yes, customer support, the kind of employment that makes Hell look like a winter playground.
Am I whining? OF COURSE I AM! Do I expect things to change? No, but I would sure hope that one day they will change so that I can at least sit and relax for a couple hours each day.
I love my family and friends to death, but nobody, and I mean nobody, can seem to grasp the concept of me having time to myself. So PLEASE, leave me alone when I ask, when I say I want to relax, and when I appear to be worn out and stressed out.
1) It is not to scale 2) It is way out of proportion 3) There's a lot of missing "features"
