Perfectly Evil in Farbucks!

The lady at Farbucks thinks I'm insane. See, we're having a gift exchange at The Company today. Our Admin suggested I buy a giftcard. So, I went to the nearest Farbucks and the following conversation took place:

Me: May I purchase a gift card in ANY amount I wish?
Farbucks: As long as that amount is greater than $5.
Me: PERFECT! I'd like a gift card in the amount of six dollars sixty-six cents.
Farbucks: Ok, if you want it for that amount, I need to know why.
Me: Caucasian Pachyderm Gift Exchange.
Farbucks:Um...... What's that?
Me: Oh, in non-PC terms, White Elephant Gift Exchange.
Farbucks: Ok. Would you like anything else with that?
Me: Peppermint Caucasian Hot Chocolate.

I love being crazy!

Six million years in jail!

I'm possibly violating some rules from The Company about posting something like this, but I'm going to stay as a high level about this.

The Brian Nichols case has just come to a verdict.

He was sentenced to a total of a thousand years and 11 life sentences without parole (I could be wrong, I wasn't paying full attention and keeping a tally). Each count he was convicted of was given the maximum sentence served consecutively.

The judge made a comment about how every count is as important as another due to the counts being against different people. Each person wants their count to come to completion. I admire that. But, there's also a point where adding another 20 year sentence becomes moot point. He's only going to live a certain number of years. What's the use in sentencing some obscene amount of time that is incomprehensible?

When Computer Geeks Attack

Yeah....

So, I apparently started at The Company at the right time. A couple weeks into my tenure here, we got new laptops!

Quick sidenote: The chick who apparently had my current laptop was an interesting character, I can tell. There's some weird stuff with the laptop, and the "second" laptop we have started doing something the other day and I managed to see some of the sites she visited. One was xtube. I have issues with people visiting that (and similar) sites on a company laptop, but I digress. I didn't want to touch that machine again for fear of cooties.

So, back to our new laptops. They're cool lappys. And the bonus is we're getting dual 19-inch widescreen monitors!

That being said, software has to be installed on these new laptops. IT has to do that for us. Something about them not wanting to give us the installation locations to install more copies than we have licenses for. I understand that.

My boss (I need a nickname for him at some point) provided IT the list of software to install.

The request was for 15 pieces of software installed. Five of those are completely missing. One is the wrong version. One is missing a component. Two I'm uncertain about (PeopleSoft always confuses me). And one he says he can't find the install for. That means he correctly installed FIVE things. And, one of those five is automatically installed with another of those five. So that means he TECHNICALLY installed 4 correctly out of 15. That is SO not Six Sigma.

I sent an email to him saying he missed a majority of my software. He thought I was playing. Nope. I don't play around like that when it comes to my computer! I informed him of how I ripped the IT people at The Previous Company when they insisted my mouse settings kept getting reset because it was a policy in place "because the mouse has more power than the keyboard." I think he's scared of me now.

Christmas Music!

Ok, we've all heard them -- and if you claim you haven't, you're lying -- those pesky holiday songs that are played constantly from Thanksgiving until Christmas.

The problem is I only like them when it's NOT the holiday season for some reason. I think it's more because they're forced on ya. I decided this today when I was working and someone had their speakers turned up to the point where I can BARELY hear it and I was annoyed. Yet I had no problems turning on Pandora to a holiday station and I'm happy.

But, I digress. That's not the reason for this post. I'm confused about a few songs.

First, we'll talk about "Winter Wonderland." The song goes:

In the meadow we can build a snowman,
Then pretend that he is Parson Brown

He'll say: Are you married?
We'll say: No man,
But you can do the job
When you're in town

Now, if you read a little into that, apparently the singer wants Parson Brown to do things that a married person would normally do. Follow my logic here -- one has sexual relations with their marital partner, so we'll jump to the conclusion that the song is talking about extra-marital sex!

Then there's "The Most Wonderful Time of the Year." Follow these lyrics:

There'll be parties for hosting
Marshmallows for toasting
And caroling out in the snow
There'll be scary ghost stories
And tales of the glories of
Christmases long, long ago

Now, where are these "scary ghost stories"? That is VERY Halloweenish! Now, I understand "A Christmas Carol" has ghosts in it, but it's not particularly "scary" -- at least as long as you're not a Scrooge. But, it also is plural... so that infers MORE than just that one. *shrug*

What Would Jesus Do?

OK, Jesus Chicken people are out of Peppermint Chocolate Chip milkshake mix. I was distraught. I stared blankly at cute dude behind the counter.

I said, "In times like this, I have to think, what would Jesus do? -- I know, he'd turn the chocolate mix into Peppermint Chocolate Chip mix like he did with water and wine... now, you go back there and do that!"

Cute dude behind the counter wasn't particularly amused.

"I'm sorry, she died in a freak blender accident."

In case I haven't informed my vast three readers (or any future people who may venture across this blog), I'm gay.

Yes, I have just officially come out of the closet! Or something like that.

Now, we'll get to gay marriage. I can't decide which direction I am on the fence regarding this. On one hand, I love the concept and how it could help things in the gay community be more "stable" -- but then there's the idea that some sugar daddy is going to have to pay gay alimony when his twink boy leaves him. That's going to cause a bigger stir.

Anyway, that "marriage" conversation leads into a conversation I got to have yesterday -- not once, but TWICE!

Caller: "Is there a Mrs. ?"
Me: "I'm sorry, no. *Sniffle* She died last month in a freak blender accident. I can't drink margaritas without breaking down anymore."

Now, the caller -- whether they be a salesperson, telemarketer, or whathaveyou -- naturally goes "Oh, I'm sorry." Then you can hear them clicking back and forth wondering "Is he for real? I really want to know how someone could have died in a freak blender accident!" And, of course, they cannot ask for fear of being insensitive.

At dinner, I got a fortune cookie that said something like "Your sense of humor was greatly appreciated today." -- I found great humor in that one!

Blah Blah Black Friday

It's the thrill of the fight, rising up to the challenge of our rival, and the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night, and he's watching us all with the, Eye of the Tiger...

Oh wait, not quite in the Rocky kinda way, but Black Friday is a huge adventure for die-hards.

That is, when there's good sales.

Like a lot of people on the Internets, I wasn't very impressed with this year's sales. But, like any avid Black Friday shopper, I went investigating things out there. Because, obviously, Black Friday is shopping for ME ME ME!

Since my current laptop has some problems with it, my first inkling was that I wanted to buy one of the laptops from Bestus Buyus. They had one for 379, an upgraded model for 479, and a cheaper model with a printer for 350. All appearing decent prices for laptops... Until I did further research... I found these models were just as cheaply made as my current laptop. Not to say it's a bad laptop, but if I'm going to spend that money, I want to have something that may last more than a year or two. I'm seriously lucky I got three years out of my current laptop. So I went around further. I found this pretty cool Acer laptop for 499. Then I had $20 in Best Buy RewardZone certificates, making my final price 479. Same price for the "upgraded" laptop. Except, it wasn't particularly upgraded with memory -- but it DOES have a BluRay player within it! Something all the other lappys didn't have!

Now, forgive me while I go out on a tangent here. The laptop prices didn't sound impressive. Then I realized the deals of $200 laptops came from an AOL instant rebate they gave if you signed up for a year agreement. AOL has since gone free, so they can't quite convince people to pay for their service to give said rebates. And the probability of the high-speed internet providors giving out these discounts is probably minimal -- especially because people probably use said providors and providors aren't interested in giving rebates to keep customers.

Thursday was spent at my friend Dave's for Turkey Day. I had a lot of fun. And I got to go through the physical sale paper ads. Yes, they've all been leaked on the Internets for a while, but there's nothing like the physical looking at the papers to compare. I didn't find a thing.

But, Amazon.com has (had?) Nintendo DS packages for $5 more than just the base console. Brain Age and Mario. I ordered the Brain Age version, along with some BluRays on sale. Completing most of my Black Friday shopping... without staying out all night in the cold.

Then I saw a Sony Home Theater Receiver that I thought I wanted to get. Bestus Buyus for $199. Except I did a little research and found it on Sony Online for the same price.

I understand the concept behind Black Friday doorbuster ads. They're to get customers into the stores and make them buy other things because they stood in line all night and they don't want to have a fruitless endeavor. Retailers get more money in because people go in for one thing, end up buying something else, see something else they want and buy that, too! A win for (almost) everybody.

I don't know what kind of help this years ads are doing for sales yet. I think they sucked, but my opinion of what I want is different from everyone else's ideas. I got my deals online, and saved my buttkus from greuling Black Friday lines. I didn't even go by and see what kind of lines were out there.

I know people went out to battle for things they want for Christmas gifts. I am proud of them. But, as I said before, I'm dissapointed in the sales this year. I think retailers need to start beefing up their ads.

So, what's my advice? Don't assume what's in a Black Friday ad is the cheapest you can get. Shop around still. Spend a couple more dollars and you'll probably get something a LOT better and will last longer.