Bringing the Drama

The latest craze in movies these days seems to be the ability to see movies in 3D. After seeing the new TRON in 3D, I’m not sure the added expense was worth it. I went and saw Toy Story 3 over the summer, and that was in 3D, which was okay. Really though, I would have sobbed when they all looked like they would die in 2D, without needing to see it all in 3D. BTW, where can I find a Chuckles figure? I have seen figures of EVERY OTHER character but Chuckles. I want Chuckles.

The other night seeing TRON, instructions came up to put on our glasses, and then a Norelco commercial came on. Then we could take our glasses off for the Green Lantern trailer. They got us to put on the glasses just for the commercial. That was stupid. Once the movie started, I noticed most of it was in 2D, and the 3D parts did not make me feel the extra $3.50 a ticket expense was worth it. For $12.50, I think I should see Lebowski in TRON and leave the movie thinking I just witnessed one of the greatest graphical experiences of my life. After seeing TRON though, the story didn’t really hold up the entire movie, and seeing a CGI version of The Dude made it a little creepy. I decided that I paid $3.50 for a pointless 3D experience. Someone may as well have peed on my rug.

BTW, Daft Punk and TRON is the greatest music and movie combination ever.

I have a love/hate relationship with Quizno’s. I love it because the one near my house is really convenient, and I hate it because it seems every other location I go to sucks. The last year has brought horrible experiences the last few times I’ve been. I keep telling myself I should stop going. It is SO EXPENSIVE to eat there now. I’ve altered what I order so I only spend $5 or $6, but still. Don’t expect to get out of there for under $10 most of the time, and for that level of food, I think that’s expensive. The customer service also gave me bad experiences. When there’s no one in the store, the answer is not to go outside to have a smoke break. Also, when people pull up, don’t let them beat you inside to the counter. Maybe I expect too much from people. Expecting people to simply do their jobs is too much to ask from some.

I still stop at the one near my house because it’s easy to get to and I don’t have to fight traffic. Even though I’ve had bad experiences at other locations, the local one has not been a primary culprit. Fast forward to after church last Sunday. I found two new corporate policies that are troubling. This starts with a lady who does not know manners. The lady in front of me not only knocked the price marker for the chips off of the rack, she stepped on it and then did not pick it up. She had even looked down when she knocked it over. I picked it up when I shuffled past it. The nerve of her to think she must be better than to pick up something she knocked over. Anyway, the lady asks for salt and pepper on her sandwich, and the girl behind the counter says they are not allowed to do that anymore, but they did have packets over by the straws. Not allowed to put S&P on a sandwich? WHY? Are customers complaining that they are putting too much? Aren’t they supposed to tell the person to stop shaking? When it was my turn, I asked for red onion to be put on my sandwich. I love red onions. The girl looks at me and says “oh, we carry red onions anymore.” WTF? First the mysterious S&P rule and now they have stopped carrying red onions? Ridiculous. I don’t know if it’s corporate telling the franchisee what to do, or the franchisee just being stupid. That particular Quizno’s has probably changed hands 4 or 5 times, so maybe that’s part of the problem. I really should stop going to Quizno’s.

On Sunday I took advantage of the final day of Gap’s Denim Exchange. It had been months since I had bought any new clothes, so this exchange thing where I could get rid of old jeans was able to draw me out. I also hit up the sale rack while I was there and bought two new pair of pants and a dress shirt. One pair of pants was $6. The other pair was a style called Cadet, and they’re khakis. I looked at the label and they were described just like a pair of jeans I had tried on that I really liked, so I bought them. I put them on this morning to wear to work and found out they were button fly. BUTTON FLY! Who wears button flies anymore? Incidentally, when discussing this at work today, I told my cubicle neighbor Kenny about the $5 shirt I tried on that had two buttoned down breast pockets (that I noticed after I tried it on). That jackass designer probably was the one that thought putting a button fly on khakis was a good idea. Anyway, after a couple of minutes this morning I decided to cut off the tags and keep the pants. I like the feel and the fit and the color. I can deal with a button fly, even though I think it’s completely stupid.

Also this afternoon, I got Lady Gaga stuck in my head. I blame the article on CNN about some new video of her’s and how music videos are changing. I don’t really listen to the radio, so I’m behind the curve when it comes to pop music, much to the chagrin of my sister. I heard Poker Face in the gym a few weeks ago, and it was the first time I had heard a LG song knowing it was her. They have video screens now sometimes showing videos, but always telling you what song is playing. Anyway, I liked it, and then later I was able to ID her as the person who sings that song “blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah” or whatever. Today at work those two songs kept getting stuck in my head. I can’t help but like them. I hope that doesn’t lose me any music elitist cred. (I won’t tell you how I now have a couple of Katy Perry songs on my iPod)

I did write this yesterday, but didn’t post it. So really I did write yesterday, but technically it probably doesn’t count. I’ll post something else later on Saturday. The title of today’s post comes from the Paramore song I heard yesterday morning, and also fits with the subject.

Dear People who control the thermostat at my office,
When I first moved to my new desk, it was cold. It was August, and yet it was TOO cold. People would call, and yet you would do nothing. Then more people from my group finally moved over here, and felt the same cold that we’ve been feeling for months. They called and complained, and these people are the kind that won’t let things go, much to their own detriment I think. Anyway, now the past couple of days you have turned the heat up, but now it’s too hot. Can you just do your job? How hard is your job? All you have to do is adjust the temperature for people to feel comfortable. I don’t understand your inability to make this happen.

Searching for comfort in my cube

Dear interstate drivers,
The left lane is for passing only. It is most certainly not for going below the speed limit, talking on your phone, or texting someone. Is there something you fail to understand about the rules of the road, or are you just that inconsiderate? Last night on my way home from the Hornets game, I had to deal with at least 4 people who thought the far left lane was their cruise lane. Also, to the lady in the Toyota, I know you slowed down on purpose, after you had cut me off, so I flipped you off as I passed you IN THE CENTER LANE. I know it was dark, but I hope you saw it.

Frustrated driver who wishes people would just practice courtesy on the road

Dear Congress,
Do you think we are all stupid? Please figure out laws that actually work and don’t cost almost 1 TRILLION dollars so you can check off a box before Christmas. I don’t care if the president has a goal. Don’t be peer pressured into voting for ANYTHING. I know this concept may be very difficult for you to understand. How about granting people responsibility for their actions instead of getting involved? I understand not everyone can take control of their lives, but a lot of people in this country can. If they don’t want to do it on their own, then MAKE THEM.

Anxious to vote out all current senators and representatives

Today ESPN has a 24 hour block of college basketball that they started last night with a game in California. I found it cool at first, but then the closer it got I thought it was a little insane. There was game in New Jersey tipping off at 6 am this morning. SIX IN THE MORNING! Why? So some network fat cats could sell advertising? As much as the NCAA says they are protecting student athletes, they allow this kind of thing to happen, but then suspend a WR for an entire season, effectively ending his college career, for lying.

Anyway, my beloved Clemson Tigers were playing Liberty at 10 am. A ridiculous time for everyone involved. I saw on the Liberty webpage last night, that each student was going to be able to get a stamp on their way out of the arena and be excused from class. Unfortunately for them, Clemson rolled Liberty by 40 points and according to their rules, they had to sit through the entire thing. It was 42-19 at halftime. Not only did the teams miss class and have their schedules thrown off, but the students attending the game too. I thought about it last night if I was still at Clemson, and they had a game tipoff at 6 am would I go. I probably would, just like I went to that Hornets game that started at 8:30. Still though, I thought it was crazy to make players and fans go through that.

This past weekend I went up to North Carolina for a wedding. I was flying, and had probably waited a little too long to book my flight, so I had to get a crazy flight time going to NC. My flight Friday was 6 am. SIX IN THE MORNING! It was on US Airways, an airline I had never flown before but my friend Kari had, and she’s had issues. I figured the 6 am flight was the first of the day, it wouldn’t be delayed, and I was not checking a bag. What could possibly go wrong?

I set my alarm for 3:35 am so I could wake up and have time. I packed almost everything the night before, so getting the final things together wasn’t a big deal. I left my house at 4:25 to make the 45 or so minute trip to the airport. There was no one on the road for obvious reasons, but the whole time I was nervous about making it on time because of that one time 3 years ago when I was late for a flight. I couldn’t be late for this flight. I made it to the airport about 5:15, plenty of time. I parked the car, walked in the terminal, checked in, and made it back to the gate by 5:30. I was wearing a long sleeved shirt because NC was actually cold, so I was a bit warm standing there. At 5:35 am, the guy at the gate comes on the intercom and says “Ladies and gentlemen, the crew got in late last night, so they’re still resting and we’ll start boarding once they get here.” WHAT?!? The 6 am flight is delayed? It’s the first flight of the day! Also, the crew had a late night, so they might be tired? GREAT! We waited until about 6 am, and the crew finally walked up. Freaking slackers, I had woken up at 3:35 and did my part to make it to the gate on time, the crew on the other hand did not.

We got on the plane and I put my stuff away. I had an aisle seat, which I don’t normally get, but they ended up being pretty nice. Everyone straps in and the pilot comes on and gives us some line about the FAA regulating how much sleep a crew gets each night, and they had to get their allotted rest, blah blah blah. So then he says “but don’t worry, we’re going to make it to Charlotte on time, watch this happen!” I thought to myself “he just said ‘watch this happen’”, and looked around to see if anyone else had heard it. I didn’t see anyone notice, because it was 6:15 and I guess everyone was still tired.

I tried to get some sleep, and did get some, but a whiny toddler in the back decided to make it difficult for everyone on board. Sedatives people, sedatives! We did in fact get to Charlotte on time. I did watch it happen. Maybe the pilot wasn’t so bad after all. I still didn’t forget them strolling in late though.

The connection flight to Greensboro was supposed to take off at 9:45 to arrive at 10:40 am. I had arranged for my friend Brandi to pick me up. There were some pre wedding activities she was having to do, so when I heard the connection was delayed 15 minutes, I texted her. Then we sat on the tarmac in a line of planes for another 15 minutes, so I got my phone out, turned it on, and texted her to tell her “we’re still sitting on the runway, I’ll call you when I land.” I thought for sure there was no way we’d make it to Greensboro on time after being delayed half an hour. The pilot didn’t tell us to watch anything, but assured us he’d try to get us to Greensboro on time.

I dozed off and the next thing I know we’re landing. I turned on my phone to check the time and it was 10:41. We were only 1 minute late after leaving half an hour late. How does this happen? Of course, the insanity of this happening caused me to have to chill at the airport for Brandi, which was fine because I was able to read in my grad school book and play in the arcade. They have Ms Pac Man and Galaga machines in the Greensboro airport, and they are only 25 cents! I’m pretty good at those games, so it occupied a lot of time. In fact, I gave one of my four tokens (seriously they had a TOKEN machine) to a guy that walked in right after Brandi texted me because I had no idea how long it would take her to get to the airport, and I didn’t want to make her wait with the excuse “hold on, I’m playing Ms Pac Man.”

Incidentally, this story allowed “watch this happen” to become one of the lines of the weekend. So to the pilot on the NOLA to Charlotte leg of my trip Friday, thank you. US Airways though, you suck, and btw, your $25 one way bag fees are a complete joke.

So I’ve been sitting next to KCOG for a month or so now and it’s been about what I expected. The old man sweater wearing, the simple questions about things he should know by now, the people coming by his desk to just talk, but what I didn’t plan on were the random conversation starters. The way we sit has our cube openings facing each other, so I can see him out of the corner of my eye and vice versa. Recently he has started to turn to me and just randomly say a statement like “I told them I didn’t want to go to that meeting” or “I was in an online conversation with someone from the bank and they kept asking me my name”. He does this so I have to turn and acknowledge him, and then he’ll continue the story. I always turn, because I’d feel bad otherwise, but the whole time I’m looking at him I’m thinking “I don’t care about any of this”. I’ve been able to avoid the random backrubs that I heard KCOG likes to give, so I figure I’m doing okay.

More recently, someone came to his desk and KCOG let him in on a little secret. Apparently KCOG knows about an investment opportunity and really wants to get “Guy who came by” in on it. KCOG was telling GWCB to talk to ‘the boss’ (ie wife) and if she’s cool with it, GWCB will just have to give KCOG his account number, routing number, and some other banking number. I thought “that sounds like a plan with disaster written all over it”.

BTW, I bookmarked a few news stories that I found interesting, here they are:

This lady was late on a couple of credit card payments, the bank jacked up her interest rate because she doesn’t have a full-time job and made late payments. To fight the higher rate, she made a youtube video telling the bank they were being terrible people. The bank eventually had some VP guy call her and lower her rate. Who started this fiasco? The lady getting the lowered interest rate. More of that great “it’s not my problem, someone fix it for me” attitude.

Two teenagers working at Domino’s managed to get everyone at their store fired by being complete morons. They’re being charged with food tampering, but I think they should be more afraid of their former co-workers kicking their ass.

If you ever wanted to track sex offenders on your iPhone, there’s an app for that.

(sorry for the downer post, but i just felt like typing this. more fun update before i leave for Big D tomorrow morning)

A couple of weeks ago I had posted on FB that I wanted a job where I could be respected. It was only partly in jest. They are moving our desks at work, and after a year or so of sitting near BO guy, they’re going to move me next to KCOG. I’ve tried to ask to move, like our manager who set out the seating chart mentioned we could do in the staff meeting. I did what he said to do by going to talk to our admin, who told me there were plenty of other people who asked to move. The seating arrangement doesn’t make any sense. His response to this, instead of just talking to each person, asking them why they wanted to move, and then making a decision, was to just rule out all requests. As if it was too hard to deal with things. Way to energize the team!

The way the desks are set up, the one opening to my new cube will be facing KCOG’s desk. KCOG seems to like to eavesdrop when I’m talking to people at desks around him as it is, so now he’s going to have a direct line of sight to me so he can listen in to phone conversations, what I’m doing on my computer, listening when people stop by. He’s the one person in my entire department I would not want to sit next to. I’d take sitting next to BO Guy (same distance away) because least he doesn’t kind of stalk people. We had reached an unspoken accord where he didn’t bother me much at all, at least directly. The loud phone calls to IT every other day didn’t help, but at least he wasn’t getting into my business. How KCOG wasn’t fired after the Christmas party fiasco is an unsolved mystery.

I’m not sure if any of this has to do with my manager’s belief that I’m a short-timer. The leadership program I’m in requires me to move between departments, which I have done, but I’m done with that aspect of it now. I have been in my current department over two years, and still get stuck working with guys like White Shoes, who do not know how to design. I’ve been the one changing the design of the parts we have a stake in, and I’m not even supposed to be the designer. He’s the manager’s golden boy, so he leads meetings, he gets responsibilities that I think maybe should get. At least someone else should get them so as to put a better face to the department. Whatever, none of that has changed.

The past few months I’ve been applying to jobs in Birmingham, and last week found a job in Nashville. It’s been a dream to move to Nashville for a very long time. There are not many engineering type jobs in Nashville, but one came up last week. The job posting said it was going to be listed until August 18. I went online last night (August 17) and the listing was gone. This was frustrating, because I was actually looking forward to applying for it, and even though I might have not been the best qualified, I would have written a great cover letter. The job I had applied for here to get a promotion got canceled, so it’s almost as if doors keep closing on me.

The funny thing is, a few years ago I hated NOLA, but liked my job. Now it’s the complete opposite. I don’t like going to work and being under-appreciated and undervalued. I want to do something that matters.

I get along with pretty much all of my neighbors. We’re not BFF or anything, but when I see them outside, we exchange pleasantries. This holds true for everyone but the older lady who lives behind me. I have never talked to her, and only see her when she’s out riding her lawnmower or letting her dog outside to do his business. She has lived behind me the entire time I’ve lived in my house. A while back in the early spring when I’d start to cut my grass, I noticed her dog was crapping in my yard. This is something she had to have done on purpose, because when I’m outside grilling or something, she keeps the dog close to the back door. Where my yard starts is pretty far from the back door. I flung everything back into her yard. This would go on the whole summer, and then each spring. She used to have a pine tree and an oak tree in her backyard. After Katrina, half of my oak tree (it was like a big V) kept the bedroom side of my house from suffering the same damage my kitchen side did. A pine tree in her yard fell towards my house, but my oak tree saved my house. I picked up everything from her trees that fell into my yard and hauled it out to the curb. She took care of everything that was in her yard. Her oak tree over the years has since died. It had one measly branch on it that had leaves, but the rest of it was dead. My neighbor and I were outside one day talking about how her family was going to get a fence, and we commented on the old lady’s tree and how it looked horrible and she should get it cut down. I told my neighbor about how the old lady lets her dog crap in my yard, and while we were out there, the old lady came out with her dog. Seeing us outside, she kept the dog close to the back door. She knew we knew. The tree thing though bothered me a lot, because I was always afraid it would fall onto my house.

Fast forward to three weeks ago, and there was a heavy thunderstorm that came through. I looked outside the next morning and the top half of the oak tree had toppled over and most of it landed in my yard. I went outside and threw every bit of it back into her yard. There was no way I was picking up a rotted tree that’s been in her yard for 4 years, esp since she’s never shown me respect on anything. A few days later the rest of the tree fell cross ways across her yard. I wasn’t going to have to worry about the tree falling onto my house anymore. The tree was laying across her backyard. After a week or so, grass started growing up around the tree. She never even went out to pick up the little pieces. This morning I looked out and it appears she rolled the log closer to my yard so she could cut her grass. If she needs help picking up the tree, I would go help her if she asked. Maybe she’s waiting to see how long it’ll take me to get to a point where I just call up one of my friends with a truck and haul the tree off myself. It may get to that point, but I’m going to wait her out to see if she can take care of it herself. It isn’t really helping anyone with this standoff, but she knows I know and I’m sure it’s part of her plan.