Friday, January 27, 2006

Friday Fragments

Fifty million visitors can't be wrong, unless you ask them something they don't know

  • On Wednesday it was snowing sideways in Reston for about thirty minutes. The temperature is all akimbo and fluctuates between 20 and 50. It'd be nice if there were beachy weather so I could go to the beach. I would walk eight miles down the beach, steal a little boy's scooter to get back, take a nap in a hammock, and then dig a hole. That would be my Monday. Anna, have you started looking for beach houses yet for the summer? Get on that.

  • See how I used that last fragment to ask a question of a reader that should have been done by e-mail since no one else cares about it? That's called an effective use of Internet resources. It's almost as cool as people who "accidentally" click Reply To All on mass mailing when they have something witty to say and think people care. Last year, one of the managers at my company solicited the company at large for suggestions on an acronym for a new project. For the next three days all the clowns who failed out of advertising school spammed the list with what they thought were the cleverest acronyms in the history of acronymity.

  • We also had a guy who would keep the entire company updated with up-to-the-minute news on what he was doing on his days off and why he was working at home. Mere weeks after he bought and remodeled a house, his business area codified the rules about working at home. Of course I could be wrong about the cause and effect, but there's something telling about the line, "It is also expected that if you are allowed to work from home, that you are actually working. Sending an email stating that you are painting your basement today and therefore are working from home is not acceptable".

  • Having worked from home a solid six days this month because of issues pertaining to the oral expulsion of phlegm, I'm going a little stir-crazy. I can't wait for the Spring to get here so I can at least have the option of going outside, even if I choose to ignore it. I came to work today just to get out of the house, even though I'm still coughy. This morning, a lady down the hall said she could hear my cough from her office and that it sounded like I had bronchitis.

  • I registered for the Sun Java Developer Exam last night, which is the second part of my two-part certification effort. I download a list of requirements for a programming project and turn it in whenever I'm ready. People say it generally takes twenty or more hours and that the grading is very strict. I actually like programming though, moreso when I have strict guidelines I can't deviate from, so I should be all over this one.

  • I decided I would take this certification last summer, and got approval from my company in October 2005 (they will repay my $400 if I win!), but didn't actually sign up until I was bored last night. This is actually pretty good time for a task I decide to do. The only task I ever do with alacrity is the "buy stuff you don't really need" task. That task is fun.

  • I got a pizza stone for Christmas from my sister and her husband and I've been making all my Totino's pizzas on them (by the way, Kathy, Totino's Supreme Pizzas are now discontinued). It does a good job making the pizza crispy, but it makes my kitchen smell funny for a few hours afterwards, and I can never get all the burnt bits off the stone, so I just leave them on. As a sidenote, I actually guessed that it was a pizza stone before I unwrapped the gift -- I have no idea how I did this since I wasn't expecting a pizza stone in the least bit.

  • I remember when I was a kid I ate nothing but Celeste Cheese Pizza-For-One's. You popped them in the microwave on that round cardboard crisper for two minutes and forty seconds and had a delectable treat. A meal for me back then was either two pizzas, two Banquet Chicken Pot Pies, or a box of macaroni and cheese (the powder kind) I wish my stomach were still that big and my metabolism were still that fast.

  • Also for Christmas, I got the book, Bugs Potter Live at Nickaninny by Gordon Korman. This was the sequel to Who's Bugs Potter? which I never had as a child because it was out of print in the U.S. by the time I could read. I read it in about an hour and it was pretty decent despite its horrible Canadian cover. In a strange balance of the cosmos, I can no longer find my copy of Who's Bugs Potter?, which I had planned on reading first to refresh my memory.

  • I wanted to do something innovative and new with my page last night, but then I got lazy and just added eleven new pictures to the rotating calendar centerfold on the upper left. Maybe you will show up in it!

  • Happy Birthday Bob Shrimp and Jaime Williams! Happy Birthday Jack Wilmer tomorrow! Happy Birthday Jaood on Sunday! This concludes the January-birthday-wishing portion of today's update.

  • The bulk of this weekend will again be taken up by work, since I am one heck of a leave whore and need to save it up for that vacation I will never take. Saturday looks ripe for dinner and a movie, and Sunday looks ripe for starting on my Java certification. Once February rolls around, maybe I'll start up on some house tasks again, but I like to plan that by ear and do things whenever I have the time. Have a good weekend!

  • The real Sammy Jenkis
    Woman killed by falling banana
    Del Pino said he decided to show the film after a student brought it to class and said it "was very funny"

    tagged as fragments | permalink | 9 comments
    day in history


    Previous Post: Untitled Post


    Next Post: Untitled Post

     

    You are currently viewing a single post from the annals of URI! Zone history. The entire URI! Zone is © 1996 - 2024 by Brian Uri!. Please see the About page for further information.

    Jump to Top
    Jump to the Front Page


    January 2006
    SMTWHFS
    1234567
    891011121314
    15161718192021
    22232425262728
    293031
    OLD POSTS
    Old News Years J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    J F M A M J
    J A S O N D
    visitors since November 2003