you figure it out

2004-04-30T00:09:00.000-04:00

Sweet mother of pearl! I gotta get me one of these!

.

2004-04-29T23:53:00.000-04:00

hmmm.... *sigh* it's spring and I'm very happy. I've even done some spring cleaning.

But I'm feel like I'm drifting. And not the good drifting either. Listless. Bored. I have to keep checking every once in a while to see if I still have a heart beat.

I made a wrong move somewhere but I don't know where (or maybe I just don't want to figure it out). I don't know how to move forward and I have absolutely no interest in moving backwards.

Dang! so sick and tired of this endless soul searching. I better think of something soon before I become invisible and otherwise just fade away.

ever get the feeling that your a non-entity in your own life?

you wake up...blah
you go to work...blah...
you wander the streets...blah
you have a couple drinks...blah
you go home...blah

I've taken to just saying "wheee" and "yee haw" at random just to further delay the slow creep of insanity.

2004-04-29T23:44:00.000-04:00

My true face in the Takeshi universe.

Which Takeshi's Castle Character are you?

2004-02-15T13:36:00.000-05:00

Here's a great list of Google tools.

Google Tools

2004-02-15T13:32:00.000-05:00

This is kinda funny and useful too. It's a quick way to discover most used common phrases used on websites indexed by Google.

Google Fight : Make a fight with Googlefight

2003-11-21T00:51:00.000-05:00

Did I mention that I LOVE the eighties? mainly because it's the only decade that i can remember. the world hasn't made sense to me since...

84.15% ... scooore!

2003-11-20T19:01:00.000-05:00

so my new job is with the gov't. it's just a crappy clerical gig but i was luvin it for the first couple of months.

if i tell you what a relief it was to get up in the morning knowing i didn't have to go back to that hell hole. i just laughed and laughed all day. i couldn't help it.

now after three months i can't stand it anymore. i'm bored senseless and the manager is an effin' maniac. i swear. she stands in the middle of the office watching people. it's fckn freaky!

there is a strictly enforced no thinking allowed policy. any signs of independent thought are immediately and mercilessly crushed. and she'll start keeping an eye on you. she'll come right up to your desk to see what your doing. i'm just stapling paper lady! get a fckn' life!

the worst part is that some of the staff are just such fckn morons! they run to her with every little thing. i mean something as simple as what stamp pads to buy for the stamps they use has to go by her first. the worst part is these same morons are her little stool pigeons b/c they got the job without going through the hiring process.

she just brought on some punk kid that is apparently some kid of her friends. we are already overstaffed. there's not enough workstations for everyone but there's room for some damn nose-wipe. gimme a fckn break!

2003-09-20T18:39:00.000-04:00

so having "been there and done that" with the whole layoff and scaling back thing. i left sy in August.

the week after i left they layed off a supervisor, a couple of the product leads and one of the tech support staff.

three weeks after i left, they dropped the hammer on another supervisor, more than half of the tech staff, some of the customer service staff and two more product leads. and it turns out that the director of the cs/ts will be leaving in december.

all i have to say is FINALLY one for me.

i tell ya i would have been super pissed off if i had hung around there and then got the heave-ho. nuthin worse than sticking around someplace and being treated like shit and then not even get a little of your own back by giving 'em the big F.U.

so i'm chitchatting with a couple of the people who had an in with the supervisor that got laid off and one of the current supervisor and they're tellin' me that apparently how the higher-ups determined who they should keep was by answering the question "Who is too stupid and unqualified to get another job and quit on us?"

nice.

now that's the kinda support u want fer ur bread-and-butter .

2003-07-10T22:35:00.000-04:00

Hey I saw Hulk this weekend. That was sooo much fun! Just watching the Hulk vent made me feel better.

HULK SMASH!!

2003-06-29T19:05:00.000-04:00

I knew Grover and I were sympatico. You'll have to answer the questions "just right" to get this cute and cuddley Super dude.

Grover on Ecstasy

You're funny, you're loveable, you're entertaining,
you like to call yourself "Super
Grover!"--You're obviously on ecstasy.
But that's why we love you. Be careful, ok?

Which Sesame Street Muppet's Dark Secret Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

2003-06-29T16:27:00.000-04:00

Cruisin' through Jump the Shark and reminiscing about some great TV shows I'll loved.

I must admit that I'm a comedy ho'. WKRP - "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!" And for years I would laugh at the very thought of "Chi Chi Rodriquez " Oh my achin' sides...

2003-06-29T14:18:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice bit of reading I came across today. It's a study of the different dialects across the U.S.

I find question 65 rather interesting because in Jamaica answer (d) is what is most common. I didn't know that that was used anywhere else in the world.

2003-06-29T14:10:00.000-04:00

Let's take a look at the business decisions of sy over the last 6 months.

1. Hired 30 analysts in 4th call centre (this is where I come in...)
2. Launched new version of popular product...heavy call volume ensues
3. Sold a somewhat popular product for a few modest millions
4. Closed a call centre...heavy call volumes increase
5. Closed a second call centre...call volumes now punishing
6. Changed user support entitlement to 1% of what was previously available...call volume suddenly non-existent.
7. Closed a third call centre...no change to call volumes
8. Fired 6 analysts and a supervisor in last call centre standing.

I've manage to survive this first cut. The story is, of course, the same. "No further cuts. Yada. Yada. Yada."

So, where do you think sy is heading?

2003-06-19T19:48:00.000-04:00

hey didja know the new MSN messenger is out. Get on that!

Check out this mess for some customizin' action.

2003-06-19T19:42:00.000-04:00

So they had me doing reverse shadowing with a bunch a new guys this week. All went fairly well until today, the fuckin' guy is a fuckin' know-it-all. Of course, he has never used the product. Doesn't know any of the issues but he fuckin' knows-it-all.

Turns out he was yellin' at the trainer during the training and tellin' her that she doesn't know what she's talking about. She finally had to get one of the reps to come into the session and explain the shit to his dumb fuckin' ass.

I pity the poor users that talk to this shithead...

2003-06-17T21:46:00.000-04:00

My favourite Bob the Angry Flower cartoons:
quantum physics
time paradox

Ah, the beauty of the flower. He freakin' knows where it's at!

2003-06-17T21:00:00.000-04:00

The transcript between Neo & the Architect

Commentary:
blogs.salon.com

AND....

The Matrix Online...In 2004
thematrixonline

2003-06-17T20:53:00.000-04:00

OK, I am forced to admit that my life has no direction. Where the HELL am I going? This damn job is trying to drive me nuts.

OK, I'm too damn lazy to do anything about it.

2003-06-17T20:37:00.000-04:00

Well, it's been 4 months since I've been at sy. One thing I've discovered about myself is that I'm impatient when it comes to poor mgmt and planning on the part of the "leaders" of an organization.

The "flying by the seat of your pants" thing is all well and good when you're a small startup but when you're supposedly an international corporation and can't manage a relatively small call centre it does not inspire confidence in the employees.

The supervisors need some mgmt training. They appear to make decisions that have a big impact on the employees but don't solicit feedback from the people most affected. When they do solicit feedback "after the fact" and the employees try to respond they tell them to "take it up with your supervisor".

"But you're my supervisor..."

2003-02-16T19:01:00.000-05:00

Hmmm... I guess they're breaking two stories at once.

2003-02-16T16:54:00.000-05:00

I was just checking out the Pyra - Google story. That was linked from slashdot. I was already on the yes side of the Long Bet because Google is just so darn useful. I don't think that Google will try some kind of proprietary junk with the blogs. I think they'll make use of the ad space that they will now own. Maybe they'll add a new search feature called Bloogle?

2003-02-16T14:26:00.000-05:00

Well the two weeks training is done at sy. We're going on the phones next week. This is a new release of the software so there's no knowledge base. There's precious little documentation. They've just moved the helpdesk so none of the people who supported the previous release will be supporting this one. The supervisor and the trainer are new and have only the training that the analysts have. And of course they say even after all the QA and beta testing they don't know what kind of calls to expect. What's their response to all that. "We hired you guys. You're the best of the best that we interviewed. We have every confidence that you'll be able to handle this."
Purrrrr! Stroke my ego, big boy! You know how I like it!

2003-01-28T00:33:00.000-05:00

Well, I got news and news. I moved on from "Big Blue" and have landed a permanent position with "small yellow (?)". Believe it or not I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it. I mean it was necessary...and my job with BB wasn't going to go anywhere after the contract was up. And sy did offer me a nice package and I do like what I've seen and heard so far...but I still feel "discombobulated". Outta step. Outta sync. It feels right but yet... I dunno, weird somehow. Oh well, I'm sure it'll all work out in the end... Yah, that's the ticket... it'll all work out in the end. Who's end? Now that's a different story.

2003-01-03T01:59:00.000-05:00

See Brain Gain? Those are the things that I'm messing around with at the moment. I bought the BYO Robot Kit and will eventually assemble it. It's very small actually so it should be fun. Especially since it's upgradeable. Hooray for upgradeable! I've tried to install RH about 6 times and it just tells me to go to hell. So I've bought the RH bible to get the disks. I downloaded the ones I currently tried. It's the first distro that's given me problems to install. And after I went out and bought a hard drive just for it. How ungrateful. As for the A+ cert. I've been threatening to do that for a few years. Not that it's worth anything but *wow* that sense of accomplishment I'll feel. Yah, Right!

2003-01-02T23:04:00.000-05:00

Biology, my favourite science. (Cheeky!) Someone asked me which blood vessels carried blood to the heart and which blood vessels carried blood away from the heart? Yes, we do have conversations like that on a helldesk. Especially when you work those overnight shifts. Anyway, I couldn't remember so I asked Google. Check out The Online Biology Book. Ah, the joys of high school biology. Those were the days...

2002-12-25T01:30:00.000-05:00

Ho! Ho! Ho! By which I mean HelpDesk Ho! Who else would be working Christmas Eve cum Christmas Day!
Anyway, Happy Holidays! May your days be merry and bright and may all your Christmases be problem free...

2002-12-15T00:09:00.000-05:00

So now that I'm on helldesk and have to deal with the ever so sweet disposition of humanity, I need more than ever to keep my sense of humour. Let me share with you the hell that is helldesk. Listen to these calls on Tech Comedy. It would be funnier if I haven't had to live some of this crap.

2002-12-12T03:16:00.000-05:00

This is a great site. I admit it. I spent a couple hours messing around on it. What else is there to do at 3am on a 24 hr Help Desk that gets maybe 10 calls between 10pm and 6am.

2002-12-11T04:37:00.000-05:00

Know what I want for Christmas? This or this
or
or .

2002-12-11T04:26:00.000-05:00

Well, since I'm at this place. I decided to get all team-oriented and participatory so I volunteered (another word for sucker) to help out with the department news letter. I've been here for 6 months (somebody shoot me!) and am just beginning to really find out what's what. Turns out that the Editor of this little rag is a complete moron. Of course, no one mentions this to me until after I've opened my big mouth. QFD

2002-12-11T04:15:00.000-05:00

So, I'm doing the call center thing and they decide that they need to re-org the shifts. So what shift do I end up with for a month 3:30 am - 12:00pm. Best Shift Ever! Let me tell ya, I did it for a week and after 4 days I didn't know if I was coming or going. I was seriously saying to myself "rent or no rent" this crap is just not do-able. Lucky for me the new shifts don't give adequate coverage for the weekends so I got a new and improved shift 10:00pm - 6:30 am. After 3:30 in the morning, this shift is like heaven. Call Center - prepared for the devil and his angels - and suckers like me. QFD!

2002-10-01T21:18:00.000-04:00

Ok, so I've been back in the working world for a couple of months now. I'm slaving away (er...working) at Big Blue. Shouldn't something like that be the highlight (or at least *a* highlight) of a tech career? Why do I feel like shit then? Because I'm in Call Center Hell, that's why. QFD.

2002-06-30T00:40:00.000-04:00

so after much 'hemming and hawing i finally got off my ass and got a router last saturday. i bought it from factorydirect. as everyone in my neck of the woods clearly knows when you shop their "ya gets wat ya pays fer". The router didn't work. I fiddled. I faddled. I fiddle-faddled. I cursed. I brought it back this saturday and being a glutton for punishment exchanged it for another one. Luckly the new (refurbished) one works. But now the win95 box won't connect to it. Why? the nic card's dead. QFD.

2002-06-30T00:24:00.000-04:00

- planning to start game development. I'm torn between c/c++ and java. decisions decisions
- planning to use this to learn ms project, visio and pm techniques as well as improve my dev skills
- came across this site www.gamedev.net. it's a good first times guide in the right direction

- think I'll take down my other site and use a blog instead.

2002-06-30T00:23:00.000-04:00

so you sit around for half your life waiting for shit to happen but when shit happens it isn't the shit you were waiting for...QFD, Quelle Fucking Drag

2002-05-16T01:30:00.000-04:00

I went to see Spider Man on the weekend. I loved it! They were really able to capture the essence of Peter Parker and his life. Namely being loserly and pathetic.
I get super powers but my uncle gets killed because I want to use it to earn some cash, QFD.

2002-05-15T21:37:00.000-04:00

I learned a new acronym today.QFD: Quelle Fucking Drag.
Yet another day of being unemployed, QFD.

2001-12-11T00:15:00.000-05:00

I was born. I live. I'll die
...eventually.

I like to dance
...on the graves of my enemies
...before they're dead.

I walk up to the front of their place of abode
and stick a post with their names on it into the ground
...then I dance.

When they come outside, I tell them what I'm doing.

They get pretty violent. I remind them that I know kung fu
...at which point I'll hum them a few bars ("everybody was kung fu fighting").
That's usually enough to deter them from any further action.

I dance until I've slaked my dancing thirst.

Then I go off and slake my alcohol thirst.

Oh, blessed alcohol...nectar of the gods.