March Madness

I’m sure that if you’re reading the title, you’ve thought that I would write about how much I like one team or another… or how I am doing well/poor in my office bracket gambling event.

But no. I’m writing to say that I hate college and professional sports. Not because I hate the players, because I don’t. I think many of them are incredible athletes and I’m glad that they have a way to do something that they love to do (and be paid well for it).

What I can’t stand are the fans.

Especially now that I live in ACC country, I am simply amazed at the quantity of time people spend thinking about basketball, dreaming about basketball, watching basketball… and getting completely over-worked about their team(s). And yes, I’m probably talking about you, too.

What amazes me most, however, is the level of seriousness taken on by the fans. It’s like their own personal lives hinge on the outcome of the game! Really! They take it as a personal affront if their team doesn’t win… and as a personal “win” if the team does well. And what I really think annoying is when the fans get sad ON BEHALF OF the players.

Why?

I have to believe that they realize that the players are going to (or already do) make more money in a single year than many do in a lifetime. I have to also believe that the players don’t really care about the fans… (you wouldn’t have things like a hockey strike if fans were the reason for playing). And to top it off, fans PAY MONEY to see the various teams play.

Don’t fans realize that they’re taken advantage of? Don’t they realize that their hard-earned money is going to pay for it, too? And that when they get emotional, they’re paying for that, too?

Crazy.

politics

Jim Crow laws were wrong. They are wrong today and they were wrong 50 years ago. Arrests made under those laws were just as wrong. Rosa Parks (and the many men and women who came before and after her) are heros because they stood up and announced to the world that those laws were wrong.

Today, some folks are still looking to apologize in some way (as we should – and oh, btw, as long as we’re talking about this… let’s just say it all… we have to start with a very obviously missing “We’re SORRY!”). And the latest attempt is pardoning those people who were wrongly arrested, starting with Parks. For those folks who are still alive and for whom the pardon would erase their “criminal” history, that’s great and they should receive one. In many cases, however, the pardon comes 50+ years TOO DAMN LATE!

For example, Lillie Mae Bradford (now 75) has suffered the effects of an arrest record since 1951. Yes, she wants a pardon and should be granted one. But that’s still not going to undo the injustice suffered for the last 55 years. It’s not going to make her career better now (she had trouble landing government jobs because of the record). All we (and I’m speaking for the average white citizen here) are doing is trying to appease our conscience.

And if that’s what “we” want to do… start with a sincere apology. Then fix the friggin’ problem (which STILL exists in many parts of this country).

For an “advanced” society, we’re still pretty messed up.

complaining

I don’t want to make a habit of complaining… it just doesn’t ever seem to solve the underlying problem.

But why in the world do people think that being pissy is going to somehow be manageable, especially in the workplace?

I had a thought today at work… researched it, had a possible methodology… and then took it to the person who was responsible for maintaining the existing process (keeping in mind that this person doesn’t actually own the relationship… they’re merely a middleman).

This person then proceeded to rain on the parade. It won’t work because… We’ve already looked at things similar to that… If we ever did anything different than what we are currently doing, it wouldn’t be that…

I just don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you just listen?

time to change

“Today, we celebrate the first glorious anniversary of the Information Purification Directives. We have created, for the first time in all history, a garden of pure ideology. Where each worker may bloom, secure from the pests purveying contradictory thoughts. Our Unification of Thought is more powerful a weapon than any fleet or army on earth. We are one people. With one will, one resolve, one cause. Our enemies shall talk themselves to death and we will bury them with their own confusion. We shall prevail!”

So I’ve moved my domain to just be a blog. About time, I know. And to mark the occasion, I’m going to try to attach a photo for the first time, too.

HomeOwner

Well… we did it! We finally bought a house. And in the last few weeks, I have actually cataloged ALL of my books.

This might seem trivial to most people, but I needed library-quality software to accomplish the task… and Delicious Monster did the trick. Granted, I’m still waiting to get the barcode scanner (which would’ve made the initial upload faster), but overall it’s a really cool tool.

Boxing 20 boxes of books and hauling these heavy suckers up into the attic, however, was no easy task. My back hurts, I have trouble breathing from the stuff in the attic, and Tina’s afraid that the stuff is going to tumble down on top of us. But it’s all up there. And anytime I need to go get one, the boxes (thanks to my extreme anal retentiveness) are numbered so I can go right to the box that contains the book I’m seeking.

Then we had the toilet in our bathroom decide to not really flush. And the toilet downstairs run constantly. Oh, and the heating system had a bad blower wheel which wasn’t covered under the home warranty purchased at the time of sale because it was improperly maintained. But hey… the joys of homeownership.

Next up? Fixing the automated sprinkler system that the prior owners said didn’t work (but we’re pretty sure they are idiots)… reseeding the lawn (cuz’ they didn’t do any yardwork either)… and cleaning the carpets (because they let their two full-sized goldens run rampant through the house).

God I love my house.

Building Nicknames

The Raleigh, North Carolina city council approved the building of a brand-new 480 foot tower building near Crabtree Valley Mall, to be named Glen-Tree Tower (Glenwood is the road it’s on). This mall, however, is about 3 miles from the center of town (where all the tall buildings are). Of course, this new building is going to be the tallest building in the city.

Now, this happens to not be the first time that a city in this area has tried such a thing. In fact, if you’ve ever visited the Durham area (especially near Duke’s campus), you might have seen a tall, out-of-place building with a large spire on top. Technically, this is the University Tower. It’s more affectionately known, however, due to its size and shape as the Durham Dick.

In the last 24 hours, however, just since the announcement of the new Glen-Tree Tower, I’ve heard THREE other nicknames for the Durham Dick… none of which I (or my NC-native wife) have EVER heard before. First was the Green Pickle. Now, this was uttered by a City Councilman. So I initially thought that perhaps he was going to say Durham Dick and then realized at the last second that he was being recorded for radio and TV and that Green Pickle was the first thing that came to mind as the building does have a sort of green hue to it given it’s mirrored facade. But overall, I dismissed this name as just stupid.

Tonight I get home and my wife tells me that she heard two other names…. Duke Kook (insert REALLY puzzled look here), and Green Weenie (which, again, I think I can understand).

So… I was sitting here trying to think of a name for the new Glen-Tree Tower. Something catchy… something alliterative. And I stumbled on it pretty quickly. The Captial Cock.

I just wanted to be the first to publish it. Cafe Press logo items will be for sale shortly. 🙂

Birthdays

Uh-oh. I’m in trouble. I was going to write about something else… then all of the sudden, I’m asked if I read a book from the library.

“No”, I responded.

“Well, what about the Disney book?” my wife asks.

“No…” I say.

And then came the crux question… the one that changed the outcome of this entry.

“Did you send the thank you note?”

Oh crap. I KNEW I had to do it… remember even being REMINDED to do it. But didn’t do it.

I feign horror.

“No.” Thinking fast, I add “Can I send one from Disney?”

“No!”

Hmmm… guess I can’t blog about random stuff today because I have something I actually have to go write in the physical universe.

A thank you note for a beautiful birthday gift. And in case she reads it here first: “Thank you, GrandMa (on the Albright side)!”

long hours at work

When I was a teenager, my folks didn’t want me working. They thought that my attention should be spent on homework and they did a really good job of always providing me with whatever I needed from a material perspective.

But when I was 16, I finally got a job working for the local Burger King. My parents were NOT happy with me – they even refused to TAKE me to work – even when the weather was incredibly bad… and I remember one particularly nasty day of walking through the snow, slush and blowing wind just to get to work.

Of course, the job was not exactly easy – food service isn’t a cakewalk (don’t let anyone tell you any different). I didn’t like touching raw food (still don’t), especially condiments that I would NEVER even eat. And the pay is even worse.

Federal Minimum Wage when I first got a job had just been raised to $3.15. I remember this clearly from the big poster that was required to be placed in the BK breakroom. Even if I worked EVERY available hour between when I got out of school at 3pm, until I went to bed around 11pm (8 hours), I would still only be able to make $25.20/day.

Flash forward to now. I make well more per hour than I did per day back then. This is a good thing (and would be even better if inflation didn’t exist). But now that I’m no longer an hourly employee, I have to work until the job is done. I don’t get to stop when the clock strikes 5pm every day. And on most days, I have several hours of work to do each evening.

And it appears that these days, it’s even longer. With one negotiation, I’ve been working until 7-8pm every night for months. Which dilutes my “per hour” equivalent rate.

So these are the days where I long to be an hourly employee again…. and let’s not even start the conversation if I feel like all my time is well spent. 😉

I love Bloop!

OK… time to coin a term.

“Bloop”… as in “Bloop, Bloop, Bloop”… the sound a TiVo makes when it’s fast forwarding through all of those crappy commercials.

I loving having Bloop. And I’m very sad when I have no Bloop but have a commercial staring me in the face.

I’m even more sad when I’m in real life and I have no Bloop.

Bloop.

hehe

~J

Tracking me…

More and more people are worried that governments and private corporations will soon have the ability to electronically track you for every moment you’re breathing. Satellites already have the ability to read newspapers from space… all it takes now is the ability to quickly locate a specific person.

Are you going to knowingly agree, then, to have something on you that will make that location possible?

No?

Are you sure?

Well… let’s check, shall we?

Do you have credit cards? Do you use them? I’m guessing that folks do so at least once per day on average. That card can give an exact street address the moment you use it. (Whether you’re talking about a generic Visa or MC, or whether you are using store-specific cards like a JCPenny card or a Sears card, it’s all the same.)

No credit cards you say? OK, how about an ATM card? Same situation there.

OK, so somehow you live “off the grid” (as was most recently stated on the TV show “Committed”) and pay for everything in cash? You think you’re clean then?

Hmmm… what about loyalty cards? You know what I’m talking about. The Kroger Plus Card, the Food Lion MVP card, the Suncoast Replay card, the Eddie Bauer “explorer” card… again, every time you use it, someone, somewhere, knows where you are and what you’re up to.

Alright… so let’s just assume you don’t have any credit cards or loyalty cards at all…

Do you have a car? Have you taken it for service recently? Did you notice that JiffyLube knows your car and you… and the last time you came around for an oil change?

You didn’t? OK, what about calling for pizza? Didn’t Dominos or Pizza Hut call you by name when you spoke with them? Didn’t they already know where you lived?

No? Really? Wow… I’m impressed.

Alrighty. What about a phone? Do you have a cell phone? You DO? Game over. And here we reach what I really wanted to talk about… my new PHONE! 🙂

Yeah, I finally got the v710. It’s cooler than I thought. But it has a pretty scary feature. It allows you to enable its own internal GPS system. If it’s so enabled, and you call 911, they can remotely flip on the system and instantly know where you are (even if they didn’t have the time to triangulate your signal – which is already a possibility for non GPS phones).

But hey… I already have credit cards, loyalty cards, my car, and I order enough pizza to support a small country. So this feature shouldn’t scare me too much.