I try to be an easygoing and friendly customer…

D'Arque Bishop4 Comments

.. but ignore me or treat me with disrespect, and you can forget it.

Right now I’m sitting in a Friday’s off 290. I hadn’t planned on eating here; I had actually planned on eating at Chili’s. However, after I arrived, a host said he would get a table ready. Then a hostess walked up, and sat three groups that had arrived AFTER me. I think she gave one of them my table.

Then she got to me and said, “It’ll be just a few minutes.”

At that point I said, “Why don’t I go elsewhere, then, as I was here before those people you just sat down?”

She gave a bit of a half-hearted apology, saying she didn’t know. I just turned and left.

I don’t like to think of myself as harsh or impatient, but that irritated me beyond belief. At least right now I’m eating somewhere where I was seated immediately and treated well by the waitress. :-) So, for those keeping score, it’s Friday’s 1, Chili’s 0.

F is for FAIL.

D'Arque Bishop

I was downstairs earlier tonight having dinner with Dad (Mom wasn’t feeling up to eating), and Dad had the TV on showing Wheel of Fortune. Now, granted, I realize that Wheel of Fortune contestants are frequently not braintrusts. (Those make their way onto Jeopardy!.) However, I happened to witness a display of utter stupidity the likes of which I had not seen in ages.

The category was “FOOD AND DRINK”. The answer was blindingly obvious very early on, especially before this woman wasted money buying all of the vowels. The end result was the following: “-ERMAN CHOCOLATE CA-E”.

She asked for an F.

While I winced at the gaffe, she used a free spin she had picked up, and spun again. This time, she did ask for a G, and got it. She then asked to solve the puzzle. I figured at that point that it was a slipup due to nerves or something.

She then said, “… German chocolate cape?”

I damn near choked on my drink. So much for it being a one-time slipup. Fortunately, the next contestant solved it immediately.

I don’t know. I realize it’s bad form to mock others for their stupidity, but Jesus… that took the bloody cake. And people wonder why I have little to no faith in humanity…

If this is an omen for how 2008 will go, maybe I should sleep through the whole thing.

D'Arque Bishop1 Comment

I woke up this morning at around 9 AM or so. I had a headache, my body ached, and overall I felt like death warmed over.

No, Merrie’s New Years party wasn’t that wild of a night. Well, it COULD have been, but I have no knowledge either way. I’ve got a pretty nasty flu bug right now.

I knew I was coming down with it on Sunday night; as much as I wanted to spend yesterday resting and recuperating, I knew it was not to be. We had just migrated our new acquisition’s main location onto our network, and I had to be there for any firefighting and get some additional printers set up where they could be printed to from our network. It didn’t help that Jesse was out due to his grandmother dying over the weekend. Fortunately, I had some Theraflu during the day, which made the afternoon somewhat bearable. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go to the party, though, so I emailed her and explained the situation. She replied back saying she understood and thanking me on everyone’s behalf for not infecting them. :-) I ended up leaving right at 5 PM.

As soon as I got home, though, that was it. I got extremely cold and tired, so I took some NyQuil and went straight to bed at around 7-8 PM. I didn’t sleep too well, though. At midnight, I was semi-woken up by Misty calling my cell phone; she wanted to wish me a happy New Year and was concerned about how I was holding up. After talking to her for a few, I went downstairs, where Dad was sitting watching TV with Chase and Star. Both dogs were scared due to the fireworks, but had taken a sedative earlier in the evening to calm them down. The poor things were lethargic and Star couldn’t even stay on her feet. After about 40 minutes of that, I went back upstairs, called Misty, and went straight to bed.

As for what I have planned for today, I’m just planning on sitting, relaxing, beating this bug. I have to go back to work tomorrow morning, so I need to relax and beat this as best I can. I’ve already taken some Advil and Theraflu, so hopefully I should be okay. Still… I’m hoping this isn’t an indication of how 2008 is going to go.

Anyway, happy New Year everyone. I hope yours is going better than mine is at this point.

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…

D'Arque Bishop2 Comments

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.