August 2004 Archives

I have no idea what's up with this-- one of the first things I saw at the zoo. Grilled cheese, anyone?

It's been several years since I've been to the zoo. Went for the company summer party and it was surprisingly enjoyable-- a change park without lines or rides, just appreciating nature and pitying the caged animals.

Can't complain about getting paid to bowl for a couple hours. Always remember, there are no prizes for the mediocre. Only for the losers and the winners. The losers / worst scores got free movie tickets, as did the best team/ bowler. Nothing for us average people, doh. But I still got free pizza and paid for being gone for 3 hours.

So I took a moment at work today to visit a couple blogs and was quickly reminded of one of the reasons I first started reading them: Insights into complete strangers minds and lives, even if completley mundane. So excuse me while I spill my evening onto this blog. (Bet you’re already yawning from reading that intro, heh). Read on if you’re extremely bored.

At the gym:

Man, half the people here at the gym (well, at least half the women) must just be here to show off their bodies. Not that I mind the eye candy, but really—you’re already super skinny. Is it really necessary to wear that little clothing to work out? Is it really necessary to work out? Try eating some food!

Leaving the gym:

I turn south out of the gym parking lot onto 700 E. and get in the left lane, since the right lane ends shortly after crossing the next intersection. Of course the light turns red and I’m stopped at the intersection, waiting to go through, when this kid pulls up next to me in the right lane in this excessively large and jacked up truck. Obviously compensating for something, this kid. But I don’t really give it a second thought until the light turns green. As I accelerate I notice he’s trying to get ahead of me. The primal being in me of course says “uh-uh” and hits the gas. No way some truck is acing out the 2002 sloanie-mobile. So I race the kid and of course beat him and he’s forced to merge left behind me. I was only doing 65 in a 40 zone. I laugh from the belly at this idiot.

Just before the next intersection the right lane reappears and he of course gets in it. After a moment I casually turn my head to look up at the kid and he’s turned his body fully in my direction showing me a dollar bill of some sort and taunting me like he wants to bet money he can beat me this time around. I again laugh at him and turn to face the light.

It turns green and I wait a moment before accelerating. He does the same, like he really wants to race. Of course, I’ve had my fun and the satisfaction of smoking him, so I just casually accelerate, and he’s off. I let him just fly away and laugh again because I KNOW it’s not fun when someone lets you win, heh.

Does Marie Osmond know how big of an idiot she is?

I’m continuing on my way to Costco. My CD player has crapped out on me in my car (thank you Bose for making such a sucky head unit) so I was relegated to the radio. All the usual trendy stations were as usual on never-ending commercial breaks. My channel flipping takes me to 98.7, playing “yesterday’s hits”. This time in particular a Back Street Boys song. Oh well. The song ends, and Marie comes on and starts blowing smoke. “Well, that’s a depressing song if you think about it. I mean really, ‘Show me the meaning of being lonely’? What is THAT all about?”. She begins to try to analyze this meaningless pop song. “I mean I’ve heard a million songs, but what’s the deal with this song?”, as she invites her listeners to call in if they can explain it to her. Of course then she throws out a statistic that 1 in 4 adults is lonely to try to further the analysis before going to commercial break. I gather from this that a) she’s an idiot and b) she must just like to hear herself talk. Silly Marie.

Costco:

They don’t have any Clementines. Damage. So I buy a bag of apples and stop to get a hot dog for dinner. I sink to an all-time low and get diet coke for my drink, since you automatically get a drink with the hot dog. Hey, it’s not bad if you just keep swallowing. But if you stop you get that nastiness that is diet soda. Good enough to wash down the hot dog. Of course I more than made up for the diet drink’s lack of calories by eating a cinnamon and sugar-covered pretzel. Mmm… just like a giant piece of cinnamon toast, only better. And probably much worse for you, heh. Baked goods are the main reason why Costco is so evil. Those double chocolate muffins I love so much? 690 calories per muffin. Ouch. Heaven knows how many that pretzel had, but hey-- $1 for a big huge tasty cinnamon and sugar pretzel… can’t beat it.

Besides, Costco is an interesting place to people-watch. Like the husband who tries to ignore the fact that his wife is walking over to look at the Nissan Murano that’s on display there. After several feet he stops and pretends to wait patiently as his wife inspects the car. He’s really thinking “geez now she’s gonna harass me about getting a new car and I’m the one who’ll be footing the bill. Yay. It’s not like we didn’t just spend a couple hundred bucks on nothing at Costco.”

A PhD in BS

So I pull out of Costco and the entertainment just gets better on 98.7. By now the Dream Doctor is on analyzing someone’s dream. Some chick says she has had this recurring dream of a cowboy in a hat looking at her or something. Is the cowboy good looking? Yes. Do you like cowboys? I’m not generally attracted to cowboys. Do you like country music? Yes I do. When did the dream start? Two weeks ago. Did you meet any new men about that same time? Yes I did, this guy Steve (or something). Are you attracted to him? Yes. Is he a cowboy? No. Does he like country music? Yes. Well there you go. This guy is your new love interest. But he’s not a cowboy. Well silly he only looks like a cowboy in your dream because he likes country music which obviously equates to cowboys. Oh, ok. Keep your eye on him.

Oh Dream Doctor, why can’t you explain my dreams? Probably because they mean NOTHING, heh. By now I’m being amused by some sappy Celine Dion song when I pull up behind a black SUV at a 4 way stop. Several cars go from the other directions, yet the black SUV stays put. Other cars keep going because BBSUV isn’t moving. So I pull into the right turn lane, go through the intersection and give her a look like “what the?” Seriously. If you’re lost, pull over. If your car is having problems, put on your hazards so people can avoid waiting forever behind you. By all means please just don’t sit there and hold up traffic like an incompetent driver.

But since I'm in a pretty laid-back mood I’m only slightly annoyed as I drive up the hill. Celine Dion is still amusing me as the sun is going down and I quickly forget the weirdo in the big black SUV.

I take a more round-about way to get home because I’m feeling relaxed and don’t really want to deal with major intersections at this point. Celine stops singing. Commercial break. Change the station to the next frequency down—a rap and hip-hop station.

Shugah shugah how’d you get so fly?

It's things like this that separate me from the truly hardcore Star Wars fans. Of course, only a Star Wars fan could appreciate this enough to take a picture of it and post it on his blog, heh.

There's a piece of cake sitting at my desk. Anyone care for it? ;) Not only does it not fit with my daily limit of calories, but I'm just not much for coconut in my chocolate cake. So I probably won't eat much more than a bite.

p.s. I love having a SD card reader at work.

Yesterday I went with some co-workers to an xpedx reception up at Red Butte Gardens. On the way, Christina mentions that she attended a reception there once where they had a chocolate fountain. Surprise, surprise-- when we arrive we too find a chocolate fountain with all sorts of things to dip in it. Being the master of self-control that I am, I was the first to dip in (of ALL the guests at this reception, hehe). It was easy since there wasn't yet a line for lunch, I went straight to spoiling mine.

Actually I did only have one strawberry dipped in chocolate. After lunch, my co-workers, along with a most everyone else I saw, chowed down on some serious chocolate drenched treats. The funny thing is, I found it relatively easy to avoid going back for more. Counting calories as I do it was a no-brainer... but then, I don't have the addiction to chocolate that so many women seem to be afflicted with.

Of course, there were a couple of guys at our table who put my female co-workers to shame by going back for seconds, maybe even thirds of the chocolate dipped madness. The subject at the table found it's way to the Melting Pot, which none of the women at the table had been to-- they'd only heard stories like "yeah bring at least $50 a person". Well this guy at our table, probably in his early to mid twenties, pipes up with "well, it's more like $60 a person", describes his visit to the Melting Pot, and then ends by relating how evil women are: the girl he had taken on a date there, he found out, had a boyfriend already.

Women, where are your priorities?

Despite the fact that more budget issues have come up, thus delaying indefinitely the purchase of a new G5 for this poor designer, I do now have an SD card reader that I will carry with me to work.

This means-- updates while at work. I'm not longer handicapped trying to get pictures from my camera to my old G4. Woot!

That's what this summer has felt like.

So anyways, lately I've felt more inclined to write, but I hesitate to write without photos to post. Solution: I have a SD card reader in the mail, hopefully it will be here early next week. This means that when I'm bored out of my mind at work, I'll actually be able to get into the pictures on my memory card, upload, edit, and post them.

One thing I've been waiting for all summer is a new machine here at work. The old 466mhz powermac G4 is just putting these days, it's definitely overdue for an upgrade. The wait may be worth it though as it sounds like there's a possibility that along with a new G5 Powermac that I may also get a 20" Apple Cinema Display. Most of you probably could care less about either of these things but as a tech geek these 2 items rate seriously high on the drool factor:

Couple that hardware with Mac OS X (beats the crap out of this outdated Mac OS 9.1 which has almost zero software support these days) and the Adobe Creative Suite and I will have some serious design power at my fingertips.

Now, about a month ago I convinced my boss I just needed an upgrade hardware/software-wise. An OS X upgrade was in the works for everyone on Macs here, and those with crappy machines needed to be upgraded as well, but I.T. was dragging their feet because of the expense involved. (Let's face it, Macs aren't cheap.) So the boss was going to get the ball rolling on my machine, but then some more factors came into play hardware-wise in the department, and suddenly it was on someone else's plate.

For the last couple weeks it's been on the Art Director's plate to work things out with the budget-- lots of phone tag with the corresponding director in I.T. But hallelujah, they stopped playing phone tag, scheduled a meeting and MET today to discuss this and get things taken care of. Man I hate bureaucracy, it's such a hassle to get such simple things done.

In any case... I'm HOPING that they came to an agreement and that my stuff will get ordered next week, and that I'm up and running by the end of August. It's hard not to get my hopes up-- if I do I'll certainly be disappionted. But like I said-- since before I wasn't expecting a Apple Cinema Display ($1300 retail for the 20" model), and if I DO get one, it'll be a little bonus for having had to suffer with this POS for so long.

Crossing my fingers...