blink and you could miss it

NERDS

Oh those wacky webmasters...

http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/news/article/15578.html

Click on the Startrek.com RELAUNCH EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW link.

How obsessive am I?

A few minutes after strolling into the happiest cube on Earth this morning, two people in a cube adjacent to me began a conversation about a completely unremarkable topic.  What was absolutely amazing was the continual interruption of one of them by the other with an overpowering stream of "Uh-huh", "OK", "Yeah" and "Right".  The machine gun like, interruptor blast from this guy was relentless.  So what else was there for me to do while draining my morning cup a joe, scanning Domino server logs (yeech) and being forced to listen to this???  Start doing a little of my own logging, of course.  According to my stats, he managed to spit out

49 utterances of "Right"
85 utterances of "Uh-huh"
24 utterances of "Yeah"
24 utterances of "OK!"

Which, averaged out over the 10 minute collection period, breaks down to

4.9 Rights per/minute
8.5 Uh-huhs per/minute
2.4 Yeahs per/minute
2.4 OKs per/minute

and that adds up to 18.2 interruptions per/minute.  Almost 1 interruption every 3 seconds. 

That's almost as impressive as the guy at my last job who used to chew each bite of his Grape-Nuts cereal 15 to 20 times before swallowing. 

Yes, I am completely insane.

Neat iTunes feature

If you work in an office, use iTunes regularly and haven't noticed that you can access the libraries of other iTunes users, check it out.  Very cool feature.  You have to be on the same subnet to share files and no, Apple won't let you swap files with someone via iTunes, but it's pretty cool.  As long as your co-workers taste in music doesn't suck.  Me, I've been enjoying my neighbor's Boards of Canada album that I'm too cheap to go buy.

BTW - if you're into listening to political podcasts, I recommend Left, Right and Center.  It's a great roundtable discussion amongst some of my fav. pundits.

http://www.kcrw.org/podcast/

Hmm...

http://www.radcompany.net/Storys/NewsStorys/Limozeenz/Limozeenz.html

Overheard at the water cooler...

So, I noticed for the first time today that the building that I work in has a 13th floor.  Yeah, yeah, yeah - I know - some people might be tempted to say that every building over 12 stories tall has a 13th floor, but (as they say in the country) that's exactly where we part ways, friend.  If OTIS don't put a button on the panel for it, it don't exist..  I also strongly object to the practice of labeling the the 2nd floor button as the 1st floor.  I'm not sure if that's a strictly British thing, but I ran into that scheme more than once while there and can't recall seeing it anywhere else.  Back to the story at hand...  I've been here just a touch over a month and upon finding it today, was stunned that I hadn't ever noticed the 13th floor button.  I'm generally on the lookout for such things.  I've only been in a few other elevators where I noticed that a 13th floor was listed as such.  Sadly, I only have photos of this one and one other that I found in Sydney.  (Feel free to send me yours, if you happen to snag one.)  Up until today, I had always assumed that the OTIS corporation had a bad case of triskaidekaphobia.  Perhaps, I've missed a few here and there, but I usually check.  During the ride up, one of my co-passengers and I exchanged a few odd comments about it, but another guy across from me with the greasetastically delicious, McDonald's bag o' grub was not amused or really paying us any mind at all.  He was miles away.  I didn't really think much of it, until I overheard his discussion with a co-worker near the water cooler.  Well, close enough to the water cooler to be properly classified as water cooler chat since that's how I like to think of it...

Cube Dweller #1 - "So, I headed home for lunch today hoping to do some errands and have a quiet meal.  Instead, I find a stolen car parked in my back yard."

Cube Dweller #2 - "In your backyard?"

CD #1 - "Yeah, and it was running."

CD #2 - "What?"

CD #1 - "Yeah."

CD #2 - "How did you know it was stolen?"

CD #1 - "It was missing the seats, so I kinda figured... and it was running.  So I had to wait around for the cops to show up...  Good thing I went home for lunch today.  It could've caught my house on fire or something."

Sweeeeet

While waiting on hold for someone on the help desk to pick up the phone, I had the pleasure of hearing Gilbert Gottfried singing the "Tiki Room" song. 

New Year's Resolution #5

Stay more up to date on all of my friends blogging efforts.  I admit it, I'm way behind.  I have about 3 months worth of catch-up work to do.  Now that I finally put in the Wizz RSS extension to Firefox, maybe I'll stop lagging forever behind. 

How can I ever forgive myself for missing out on this fabulous thread:

TV Dinners

I'm a prepackaged food and vending machine cuisine fiend.  I also have a keen fascination with automats also, but unfortunately, never made it to any of the classic, old ones that were in NYC and other large cities.  I had the pleasure of hitting a small one in Amsterdam a couple of times last year, but it wasn't as grand as I imagine the Horn and Hardart shops were.  (I can't wait to go and check out the automat exhibit in the Smithsonian.)

If I had made it to Justin's thread in time,  I would've definitely posted this link about the Hungry Man All Day Breakfast .  Or perhaps just suggested that he try out the XXL Roasted Carved Turkey Meal next year. 

Here's to catching up.

New Years Resolution #4

Become a falconer.

Ok, sure.  It's just a hawk.  And you probably can't even see it, but my cell phone camera zoom isn't that great, so you'll just have to take my word for it, but! while having lunch at a table in the Disney commissary patio today - a freaking hawk flew up on top of the trellis - roughly 10 feet away from me.  Now, I lived in the country for a long time and frankly, I get rather concerned when wild animals start getting close to humans (it just usually doesn't work out so well for either the animal or the human in those cases).  I've never been so close to a hawk before.  It was quite amazing.  Having just (FINALLY) finished reading the Odyssey, I have to admit that the first thoughts running through my head were wondering what type of omen this represented.  Stupid, but...  true.  The semi-rational part of me doesn't believe in such things, but the other side sort of does.  I digress.  Next, I started imagining how the folks that were staring at the hawk in amazement and awe would react if they saw the bird swoop down, pick up one of the semi-wild squirrels that were scurrying about the patio area grabbing up leftovers and commence with his/her lunch. 

I'm glad it didn't happen, but it would've been interesting.

I had never before realized how cool large birds of prey are and now feel the need to have one rest on my wrist sometime soon.  I can't really explain this desire any better than I already have, so I gotta go do it soon.

New Years Resolution #3

Hang out with the Woz and go cruzing in his Z8 again really soon.

New years resolution #2

Practice folding my shirts more efficiently.  Learn this method and you'll be the envy of everyone in the laundromat. 

http://www.howtofoldashirt.net/

Should cut off at least 10 minutes off of my last Launderland speed folding record.