Month: August 2005

Phenoix-Vegas Excursion

Phoenix was fun. Laboss, Mardigan, and I, packed a lot in for just a 3 night excursion.

Poker:
Thursday night was a big Texas Holdem tournament with a dozen or so strangers. It was a “just-for-fun” poker game, our chips weren’t backed by actual money or anything– kind of like the Canadian Dollar.

The Road Trip:
Friday morning, the three of us got up very early (11am), and went to Vegas, which is only a 6 hour drive from Phoenix. An interesting road trip to say the least.

Vegas:
In Las Vegas, we stayed at the Hilton, because it was a Star Trek themed hotel (we’re all geeks). The city was very interesting: glitzy and scintillating on the surface, but shallow and depressing up close. But Star Trek: The Experience on the other hand, was quite amazing. Dinner was at Quark’s Bar.

Saturday at Vegas:
Mardigan and I spent the morning hunting for a place to have breakfast. I couldn’t help but notice people already hitting the bottles, and this while pulling on slot machines and steadily losing their savings, quarter by quarter, and all without betraying the slightest hint of having fun.

Halo:
When we got back to Phoenix, we visited Dave and played Halo 2 till about midnight– an awful lot of fun. Later that night, Mardigan and I wrestled in front of a large group of hippies at ASU at 2 in the morning– I was egged on.

Well, that’s the trip in a nutshell. Overall, it was very fun and I’m glad I went.

The 11th Hour

The following takes place between 11 pm and 11:15 pm

My roommate is watching that show 24; he bought one of the seasons on DVD. I’m sitting in my room so I can’t see the TV from here, but I can hear it way too clearly. And you know, the show sounds so corny and melodramatic, and just plain bad, when your hearing only the audio.

The following takes place between 11:30 pm and 12 am

So, the two of us are leaving for a flight to Arizona tomorrow morning–early morning. We’re going to visit a mutual friend, Mardigan (who’s a tool).

The following takes place between 12 am and 1:15 am

We have to wait till 12:01 to print-out the Southwest boarding passes. Sigh, Southwest, “where every seat is cattle-class.”

The following takes place between 1:15 am and 1:30 am

Okay time to bed. Off to Arizona in the AM. Will take plenty of pictures! Goodnight.

The following takes place after 1:30am

A thought: someone shoot the man that put 24 on DVD.

Venting Frustrations

So now that I’ve given my two-weeks notice at my current place of employment, I can finally unleash all my repressed work-place frustrations onto my website, with impunity. Now who will be my first victim?

Let’s see. Well, there is this one guy that sits near me from a different department who has a very irritating artifical laugh. But he’s actually one of the friendliest people here, so I can’t with good conscience make fun of him. And then there are all my other colleagues… who also are actually quite nice. (Hmm… this may be more difficult that I had imagined.)

But alas, the chilly office misanthrope who sits 5 feet above my head, sealed to the ceiling, has just kicked on. It bellows a windy suspiration of icy cold air, making my arms goose-up uncharacteristically in the hot August month. Outside, the air is a balmy 80 degrees, but inside this office, it’s always a frigid 60 — making the need for refrigerators in the office almost superfluous.

This pernicious vent! I can’t turn it off. I can’t adjust the temperature control. And no one knows why.

Denis, the IT Manager, and I, were discussing crawling in, past the drop ceiling, and deactivating the vent. But that was riddled with problems, one in particular being: we don’t know how. Our final decision, was to take heavy folders and stuff them into the vent, in effect to block the path of air from exiting it. The result: a still frigid office, with a vent stuffed with heavy folders in it. No effect! The vent laughs that evil villain laugh.

Eventually, the strength of the air that flows out the vent caused the folders to shift around in place; now the folders are off to the sides, jutting out at the wrong places; two are threatening to fall down at any moment. People that stop by the office to visit feel it their duty to throw out a comment about it. One lady, Rosy, after seeing the disheveled folders hanging off the vent said “What the….? What’s that a RISD design?”. It sure could be.

I haven’t taken the folders off the vent. That would mean letting The Vent win. I’m too sore a loser and ruefully stubborn to let that happen. Withdraw my folders from what I know is a losing battle, regardless of the escalating casualties, and non-existent exit-strategy? I’d rather die trying.

So until then, I guess I will just continue to wear a sweater in the office (in summer), and continue to make the periodic trips to The Outside, where the climate is less harsh and tolerable and where it feels less like the setting from March of the Penguins.

Two more weeks, and one reason why I’m counting the days.

A New Post

So. What’s new with me?

… what’s that?

You didn’t ask?

That’s okay, I’ll tell you anyway.

I just got a new job! Starting August 29th, I will be a programmer for a Travel Firm in Pawtucket. Alright alright, it’s a Travel Agency (it just doesn’t sound as cool).

August 29th is also my birthday–quite serendipitously. So, if you feel that ineffable urge to get me a gift or anything, please whatever you do, don’t fight that urge. Embrace it! Here’s my Amazon wish list. You know what, why don’t just go ahead and bookmark it! This is normally where I would insert an “I’m just kidding” as a way to mask the overt narcissism

But I’m not.

Happy Day 🙂