A while back in the My Job post I mentioned that the naming of my department at work was still up in the air. The leading contenders were:
I don't know about you, but I think anybody that would use RoboForm has to be out of their minds! Maybe for casual "fan site" sort of things (e.g. Slashdot), but not for serious usage. Turn my passwords over to a third-party I don't know? Wait, I'll have to stop laughing before I can tell you NO!
Checkout this linear clock.
A while back I mentioned in my post "Roadkill is animal cruelty?" that it reminded me of another story. This is that story…
Lets hop in the wayback machine and turn the dial to I believe 1984. I worked that summer at an amusement park where I was a "Grounds Lead" on second shift. Basically I was a working supervisor with a 8 man garbage clean up crew. We're not talking about walking around picking up stuff with a poker or claw. Nope, we're talking about turning 8 guys with moderately heavy machinery loose on a 200 acre site. Bear in mind that all but one of these guys were in the 17-22 age range. Life was about fun daring adventure, not safety! And scarier yet was that yours truly was in charge! Our primary job was driving tractors to pickup these roughly 5x5 foot solid steel dumpsters on wheels that were located at the various restaurants and shops through out the park. These could be hitched together into what basically amounted to a rolling death train. I could tell many very lengthy stories about this four year adventure, thus today it's the short story of "dead bird"…
Unless we were really busy we would generally get together in the early evening for dinner. We'd gather at the compactor "pad", pile in a pickup truck and head off to dinner. After dinner it was back to the pad and back to work. Because there was lots of garbage scraps strewn around the pad, there were always lots of birds. Generally blackbirds and seagulls, but a reasonable contingent of robins. They were quite annoying and persistent about getting a free meal, and we were quite persistent in harassing them. We would chuck rocks at them, run after them, chase them with the tractors, etc. It was a common accordance for us. One evening while driving back to the compactor with the full crew there was a robin picking at something in the road. So my natural instinct was to scare it off… So I yelled "Dead bird, dead bird!" and swerved at it. But unlike the countless number of times that I had done similarly before, this one didn't move. Nope, not an inch. And as such its fate was reduced to dull POP! "I didn't mean to run it over!" I said. But it fell on deaf ears as I endured an endless litany of verbal abuse from the boys for heartlessly killing this unfortunate and obviously stupid bird.
I don't rent a lot of movies —maybe 1-2 a month, but it's pretty much become a must on Saturday nights lately as there is absolutely nothing on to watch. (Bear in mind that I only have basic-basic local channel cable.) The past three weeks have been a brutal marathon of running around for my wife and I because her mother has been in and out of the hospital…another story unto itself. So in an effort to spend some time together and decompress I figured I'd stop and get a movie on my way home from the hospital Saturday evening. I figured I'd find a comedy as we could certainly use a laugh right now. With the weather being as shitty as it was this weekend, the video store was pretty well tapped out of all of the new releases. It was somewhat comical to listen to people groan about there being nothing to rent. No, there's plenty to rent it's just that you've been renting to often! So for me it was just a matter of cruising around and picking something because there's lots that we haven't seen. So I'm looking around for something "just right" and heard a couple of people commenting on how funny Napoleon Dynamite was. I kept looking and finally found something…which must have been a good choice because I don't recall what it was that this point. So as I was making my way to the counter when I heard another guy who appeared to be a few years old than me raving to an employee and another customer how hysterical this movie is. So instead of staying the course, I returned the movie I had an went and grabbed a copy of Napoleon Dynamite. Yeah, a relaxing evening of movie fun!
Once the kiddies were all settled in for the evening it was on with the movie. I told my wife basically what you just read, but that I was still concerned that I was going to regret my choice. And the verdict? Well, it had a few pretty funny moments, but all in all I'd just assume have that 90 minutes of my life back! ARGH!