Lazy and/or Stupid

Music: TKK - Jet Set Sex || Radiohead - Just (Live)

What is it with people? And by people I really mean the younger generation who are just entering the work force or have been for the last couple of years? I've found over the past couple of years that they just are not the reliable as employees or students for that matter. I've gone to school with people fresh out of high school who had a hard time focusing on the task at hand, let alone trying to figure out what they wanted to get out of the course.

I've had to work with people who are alot younger than myself, and trying to teach them things gets to be a big chore when you discover that they can't listen to the things that are important to their job. Instead they twiddle their thumbs in their mind and nod every 45 seconds to make it seem like their paying attention.

Its like everyone from their generation, age range, small genetic pool has undiagnosed ADD. Or they've been experimenting with Ritalin as a recreational drug and its messed up their attention span. In either case...

Are they stupid? Or just lazy?

• Who calls in sick an hour before their shift? And then quits when asked to come in or find someone to cover.
• Who calls in sick twice during their first week of work?
• Who quits on the spot when they get flustered that there's going to be an inspection?
• Who spends a good portion of their day on their cell phone in class or at work?
• Who spends most of their time programming their laptop to turn off when they should be answering the request thats in front of them? (At least if I'm doing personal stuff I try to do it on my work computer. :)

And that brings me to my final point: when did I turn into such a bitch?


Onto other things. I got my awesome glasses on Friday. I'll post a picture sometime. The important thing to remember is that they're black frames with "racing stripes" down the arms. So. F*cking. Cool.

Holy mother of frost

Dear Diary,

Today started off to be quite the shitty morning. I discovered the evening before that the remote car started we had installed last year was no longer starting the car, which caused a huge headache this morning when taking my wife to work.

• 5:35am, I took the puppy out to pee. I near froze my nuts off.
• 5:37am, started the car since the remote starter wasn't working.
• 5:38am, went upstairs to get the car shovel and scraper from the closet.
• 5:40am, began scraping the frost from the windows.

Anyone else see the problem with this picture? Its OCTOBER! I shouldn't be scraping the car, not until after the American Thanksgiving.

Screw you mother nature. And I would like for you to end your relationship with Global Warming, you're really starting to f*ck with my perception of the "seasons".

Sincerely,

Me.

F**king Oil Industry

The price of oil is currently hovering around $70 a barrel, somewhere it hasn't been since the summer of 2007.

I'm currently paying $1.10 a litre for gas (about $4.19 a gallon) which isn't reasonable, but a nice break from the $1.30 we were paying a few weeks ago.

I have a very efficient car (42/32 mpg highway/city) but I'm still finding myself filling up the tank and cringing everytime that I do because its slowly destroying my budget.

I'm all pissed off now. (I would like to thank the charting feature at GasBuddy.com)

The last time that Oil was this price I was paying $0.95 a litre for gas. Thats alot of money when I fill my tank, almost $8 extra I'm paying when I fill my tank from empty.

How fucking fair is that? Asshole regulators are screwing me.

Agony

For the first time in well over a week and a half I'm in utter agony because of my stupid foot.

It doesn't matter what I do with my foot, whether its up or down, turned slightly to the right or angled a little towards the ceiling. It just hurts and makes me uncomfortable.

How does it (my foot) expect me to get through the rest of the day when I'm unable to concentrate as it throbs to the beat of its own drum. I've even popped a few advil today (since that was the perscription that the Doctors gave me.) but that doesn't seem to help much at all?

I'm left with only a few choices:

1. Donate my foot do science a-la Saw.
2. Beg and plead with my muscles and tendons to give me just a little bit of a break.
3. Ignore it and hope it gets better. I've been doing that alot lately and it doesn't help.

Now that I think about it, I have been a little bad recently. Since this past weekend I haven't been wearing my brace at all while I'm at work, driving, or taking the dog for a walk. That might have something to do with it.

Whoops, my bad.

New Windows Coming Soon

Microsoft officially announced today the name of its latest Operating System since it debuted Vista on the market just over two years ago.

In keeping with the latest trends (well trends that have been in use for years by Linux and Apple), Microsoft is going to name its latest offering with a number for the first time since Windows 2000 was put on the market in 1999.

The latest name.... Windows 7.

The article above cleverly paints both a positive and negative with the number 7. I'll mention the fact that they used "Seven deadly sins" as part of the negative since it made me smile.

Fergus the Giant

Or Fergus the Annoying.

(I find that lately when I'm updating this I have a hard time keeping my thoughts together and writing in coherent sentences. Which is strange for me as I'm normally a decent author, while not in vein with "professionals". Today is just a little different than normal. I have written the post below abour 4 or 5 times with numerous revisions in order to get some sense made.)

Our dog absolutely loves everyone and everything. From cats and squirrels to strangers and garbage. Well, thats not exactly correct. I found out the weekend that he doesn't like cows. We went for a drive along the river valley to take some pictures of the fall folliage [which coincidentally sucks right now.] when I came across a patch of cows grazing on the grass. I got out and took some pictures of them before returning to the car. When I sit down the dog immediatly jumps on my lap so that he can see out the window, otherwise he can't see out side. He turns his head to the right and sees the cows.

He went ape shit. He totally lost it. This is coming from a dog who normally barks once or twice during the run of the day. He was barking for about 2 minutes after I pulled away from the farm and he couldn't see them any more. Its like he was barking just for the sake of barking. I made him sit on the floor the entire time as "punishment" for barking like that. I don't mind a single bark to tell me that there's something there, but when he does that for so long in such an enclosed space, it starts to hurt your ears after a while.

I've also come to discover that he doesn't like people when its dark outside and they're not walking in a light. I was out with him the other morning at 5 (because he woke me up by licking my arm pit) when a man was walking down the side walk and Fergs barked at him.

This weekend was a very "expressive" weekend for the puppy. He got to do a whole lot of things that he normally doesn't get to do:

1. Playing with my MIL's dog Max, who is 12+ years old and normally just barks and growls at Fergs. This weekend marked the first time in 3 months that the two played together.
2. He played with children, there are a few kids who live in our building who are just... assholes. And as a result, never really trusted Children much, but my wife's cousins were over and he was just great with them playing and running without biting them.
3. He received a visit from his best puppy friend Harley, the Aust. Cattle dog. Our friends recently moved out of town and we never see them much any more but the dogs had a great time while they were together.

This is probably a good time to mention that I've also done a few things with the dog that I said I would never do, and some that are still good.:

1. Never Sleep on the Bed: The dog started waking up at 4am to pee (really, he was just lonely) and would stay awake until 5am whining in his kennel. [Now you know how he ended up licking my arm pit to wake me up.]
   Period lasted: 3 months.
   
   
2. Never Give Him People Food: I hate it when a dog sits beside you and wants what you're having. This will probably be the only thing that I'll stick to.
   Period lasted: Still going
   
   
3. Never dress him up: My wife has a wierd fascination with wanting to dress him up in sweaters and stuff. I caved and let her buy him a halloween costume last month. The XS is still TOO BIG for him.
   Period Lasted: 4 months.
   

A girl in our building saw Fergus running outside at 11pm while she was smoking and mentioned that she wished she had his energy.

I told her: No you don't. You would never sleep again and you'd hump anything that that you could get your hands on.

Two times a week, thats a new record....

... a very sad record.

Music: Slipknot - Liberate (Live) & Freezepop - Starlight (Karacter Re-vision Remix)

A few things happen the other day and paragraphs require thinking, and comprehension early in the morning. F*ck that.

• I had an eye exam the other day.
• It was the first time since moving to New Brunswick.
• Which is 10 years ago.
• And it was probably 8 years before that since I had one. :)
• Found out that my right eye is weaker than my left.
• Discovered that myself after the first test involving the spoon.
  
• I need glasses now.
• I'm going to find the coolest dork glasses that I can find.
• I'm going to sport them like they're going out of style
• even after they've gone out of style.
• I didn't realize how expensive some of the frames really are.
• I can't wait to go back and pick them out. Its going to be so sweet.
• I might even put them up here.
• Its friday, but I keep thinking its Thursday.
• I've been doing that all week. Every single day.
• Except for Monday, I thought it was Tuesday.
• Then Tuesday was Wednesday
• Apparently I have something against Tuesday.
• This is by far the best way to post stuff.
  
• I can be as random as I wasnt. Sweet.

Cheerios

7 Weird & Strange things about me

Rose over at Writing is my Therapy wrote a post and didn't tag anyone with this, so I'm taking it upon myself to write my own response. Here are the 7 things about me that might scare little children and the faint of heart.

1. I'm shy. So shy to the point where I won't talk to someone if they're in the elevator with me. I am currently employed as a Customer Service Technician for a software company and give training to corporate customers and goverment officers. I hate every minute of it.
2. I've got a terrible short term memory. I have a hard time remembering what a colleague and I spoke about while I'm returning to my desk. Often I ask them to email me what I'm supposed to be looking for or researching so I don't have to get them to do that later.
3. I dislike the crowded feeling while being in a big city. I hate walking around trying not to bump into people, or waiting 5 minutes to get onto the highway from the onramp. That just annoys me to no end. But I have dreams of living and working in a big city in the near future to further my career.
4. I've got a strange liking for heavy metal music that involves things called "death growls" where the singer basically growls into the mic. Don't know why, but it intreagues me.
5. My monitors at work are guarded by a troll, a knight and 4 ninja turtles (that i got at McDs). My desk at home is guarded by ugly figures that I've picked up on trips (or family has gotten for me.)
   
6. I spent many hours practicing folding my tongue in high school. I managed to get it to fold in threes, but I never could top Jenn's ability to get 5 folds. I will continue to try.
   
7. This is the 5th or 6th blog that I've ever had. And the only one that I've kept for longer than 4 months.
   

This is much, much harder than I thought. I almost gave up and turned this into "the 3 wierd things about me because I'm too lazy to come up with 4 more."

I won't "tag" anyone to do this because, well, I don't know who reads it. So, do it on your own and tell me about it.

Our Puppy

20080823-IMG_1732
Originally uploaded by yatessolutions

This is our puppy, Fergus, and his best friend. He's a ... uh... character. He gets overly excited when he meets people on the street, and tried to follow the mail man to his next delivery.

His favourite things include plowing through tall grass and peeing on the floor (though he's almost over that). Oh, and I can't forget to mention chewing on the cat at every opportunity.

Where the hell were you?

Music: Donna Lewis - Shout

What happened to the month of September? I seemed to have skipped over it completely. Guess that happens sometimes.

I probably lost my entire community of readership (all 3) in that time.

Let me summarize September in 30 (or less) bullets!

• Had a job interview in my hometown the first of September. My interviewer was a guy I went to High School with.
• Didn't get the job because the economy sucks there and they didn't want us to face hard times until my wife found a job.
• I don't like programming in .NET anyways, so its a win-lose situation.
• There was a dramatic decrease in the number of puppy accidents in the month.
• While having my interview back home I was able to see my sister and brother-in-law, whom I haven't seen in a couple of years.
• My BiL gave me some files and a list of things that he would like me to do for his company. I like having work on the side. This should keep me busy for 5 or 6 months.
• Introduced the puppy to them and they loved him way more than they wanted to see us. They had no problems with us leaving him there with them while they were home on their vacation.
  
• Fergus (puppy) now can walk down three flights of stairs all on his own.
  
• He can also get down off of the couch, on of our last safe havens where we could leave him and he couldn't get down. (Stupid sister)
• Making plans to drive to Ottawa to visit my sister since I haven't been there in a few years. Plus they want to see the puppy again.
• I think they like him.
• And I'm doing work for my BiL that weekend too.
• I sprained my ankle. Really bad.
• Almost broke it.
• Roommate came home and I went around the corner to find my pants since he was early getting back. Went around the corner and popped it out of place.
  
• That was embarassing.
• I shouldn't have put that there.
• Too late.
• Went to the hospital the next day, after walking around on it for a bit and got x-rayed.
• My very FIRST x-ray.
• Work has been busy. They brought in a former employee to go back to Brunei since I told my boss I never wanted to deal with that project, the 2nd phase sure.
• It was a little miss-managed on our end.
• I'm sucking up because I'm certain an employee from there reads this occassionally.
• I didn't count my bullets.
• I bought IRON MAN! Its an awesome movie.

There that about finishs that list off. I missed about 20 days worth of important things.... meh.

On to more important things. Like tomorrow.