Month: December 2007

Back to work, and the same old grind…

D'Arque Bishop

Well, the four day weekend is over. I probably could have done with a couple more days, though.

Right now I’m sitting at a Chili’s on Westheimer at Greenridge, waiting on some dinner. I’m making this post from my phone; I figured now was as good a time as any to test the new plugins on the site which made for writing posts and site administration via a mobile browser easier. Otherwise, not really too much going on here at this stage of the game… heh.

I can say that it was a very productive day at work today, though considering how much needs to be done before Friday, I’m kind of wondering if I’ll have time to finish it all. Ah, well…

I ended up buying Paul Anka’s Rock Swings yesterday using my iTunes Store credit. It’s a pretty good CD; it’s Anka singing rock songs in a swing/big band style. I’ll probably end up getting the latest Loreena McKennitt CD, a Tull CD, and Guns N Roses’s Appetite for Destruction tonight. After that, who knows…

Anyway, food’s here, so it’s time to eat. :-) Fun fun..

God bless us, every one! (Certain restrictions apply.)

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

Well, tis Christmas morning. I hope everyone who might be reading is having a merry Christmas, or enjoying whatever particular holiday you might be enjoying. :-) It’s been a good Christmas here, for the most part; we’ve already opened presents, and I’m just relaxing and catching up on the day’s news (such as it might be) before we have Christmas dinner down in the kitchen. This year it’s not going to be anything special, as Mom couldn’t decide what to make. We’re just going to go ahead and have pasta, which is perfectly fine by me. I’ll put the Christmas (so far) in review behind a cut to spare the friends pages of my LiveJournal friends.
Read more “God bless us, every one! (Certain restrictions apply.)”

Trying something new with business travel…

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In about half an hour to an hour from now, I’m going to go pick up George and then head on over to the first of two Christmas parties I plan on attending this weekend. It’s been a long week, and I’m glad it’s over. The highlight of it, if it could be called that, was a trip to Amarillo/Perryton Thursday to get the company’s location in Perryton up and running on our network. This time, though, I decided to handle it a bit different than I normally do when travelling.

Normally, when travelling on business (or travelling in general), I carry two cases. I keep my clothing and toiletries in a carryon suitcase, and my laptop, paperwork, and other electronic equipment go into my laptop shoulder bag. This time, seeing as it was just an overnight trip and I didn’t have to carry a lot of stuff with me, I decided to minimize my luggage, so to speak. I took my laptop and the equipment I thought I might need (power adapter, notebook surge protector, notebook laser mouse, retractable network cable, AirPort Express, cell phone charger, and HP/Cisco serial console cables) and moved them to my backpack. I also found space in there to shove a change of clothes (except for jeans and shoes) and the needed toiletries. The end result was a single bag with the bare minimum I would need. It was effective enough and got the job done, though I admit that I was feeling a bit bare, so to speak. I wasn’t used to carrying one case with everything I needed in it when well away from home. I’ll just have to remember to keep that in mind for future trips. :-)

Then again, Perryton was a special case as it’s a very small facility with one workstation and printer. Most times when I travel to set up facilities I have to set up multiple workstations and printers, which invariably means it’s best if I spend a full day there (which leads to spending at least two nights there). Still, it was a good learning experience. In retrospect, I realized I could have gone with even less equipment. The AirPort Express and mouse could have been left behind, for example.

Ah, well. Considering my next business trip could very well end up being an international trip, I don’t think the minimal packing philosophy will work too terribly well. Still, for other trips and personal trips, it’s given me a good perspective and given me something to think about.

Another meme. Blame a certain snarky Navy wife.

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

As Kerri put it in her blog…

I got tagged merely by reading a post, so consider yourself tagged, too! And you can blame the culprit here. Five things you might not know about me….

  1. I didn’t seriously drink alcohol until I was around about 29 or so, and I went straight to scotch and heavier beers like Guinness. I only drink in moderation, though, and have NEVER gotten drunk.
  2. One of my eyes is far weaker than the other. Until I was in my early to mid 20’s, I only wore a contact lens in my right eye, and the left lens in my glasses was clear glass. For that matter, unlike a lot of people, I didn’t start wearing glasses until I was around 20.
  3. I have Asperger syndrome. However, I was not made aware of it until a couple of years ago, when my friend Malia (whose oldest son has Asperger’s) realized I had it. I later found my parents knew, but kept the knowledge from me so that I didn’t think there was anything “wrong” with me.
  4. Despite the fact that I’m seen as a gamer and have an Xbox 360 and a gaming-quality PC, I actually play more classic games than anything else. The games I’ve played most often recently on my 360 have been Asteroids, DOOM, and Cyberball 2072, and I often play Pac-Man and Nethack on my cell phone.
  5. I was born with the beginnings of a sixth finger on both hands, resembling a small wart on the outside of the pinky finger. The one on the right hand was removed when I was VERY young, but you can see where it was. For some reason the one on the left hand was never removed, and I have no intention of doing so. It was tiresome in school, though, having to convince people repeatedly that despite what it looked like, it most certainly was NOT a wart…

I’m kind of curious as to what those who continue the meme have to say… :-)

The downtime between two trips.

D'Arque Bishop

In some ways, the travel thing is getting really old. Last week, I had to go to Grand Junction CO, and either later this week or next week I need to go to Perryton TX. Grand Junction wasn’t too bad, but I already know Perryton will be a bear of a trip. There isn’t any sort of a direct flight there, and it’s located far enough away where I can’t just drive up. What I’ll likely have to do is fly up to Amarillo, and then drive from there to Perryton (which is at the top of the Panhandle, right about at the Oklahoma border). I’m really hoping that this is the only time I have to go up there.

As for how this past week went, I’ll go ahead and be kind and put it under a cut. :-)
Read more “The downtime between two trips.”

Now introducing Brawndo, as seen in Idiocracy… wait, what?!

D'Arque Bishop

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/12/for_editors_the_view_why_fox_w.html

Your guess is as good as mine as to how far off the scale of the irony-o-meter the following is, but we should first establish a few facts. 1) Early last year, Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, made Idiocracy – an erratic but often wildly funny account of the final triumph of the congenitally stupid, set in an all-too plausible future America. 2) Judge directed the film for Fox, despite previously having been badly scalded when the studio allowed his fine corporate satire Office Space to sink without trace, unpromoted and abandoned. 3) Late last year, Fox allowed Idiocracy to sink without trace, unpromoted and abandoned.

And now, let’s hurtle back to the present, pausing only to note that in Judge’s movie, the end of civilisation was hastened by energy drink Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator – a toxic-green swill whose popularity eventually made water redundant, leading to the collapse of American agriculture. Because, while Idiocracy now languishes in unwatched semi-cultdom, Brawndo has become a reality – thanks to none other than Fox, which has joined forces with drinks retailer Redux Beverages to launch this lemon/lime flavoured confection of caffeine, guarana and electrolytes, the whole sorry process having been documented by pullquote and Spout Blog, with the website available here.

In summarising, I gladly defer to Spout Blog’s Karina Longworth: “So, to recap: Fox wouldn’t support a film about Brawndo, the energy drink that destroys plants, debases the human race, and makes those who drink it ‘win at yelling’, but they are now putting wholehearted support behind the actual drink.”

Words fail me.

Well, not really… there’d be no point in this post if they did. Seriously, though, I’m wondering what the hell went through the minds of the braintrusts at Fox who came up with this idea. It’s like they completely missed the point the movie when they decided to market this product. The only other thing that makes sense to me is the fact that they DID get the point of the movie, and are hoping that those who buy the real-life Brawndo DIDN’T get the point of the movie.

The thing that scares me is that it occurs to me that both scenarios are equally likely.