Useless Conversation

[ghost]

You're not giving me my due, JC.  I'm pretty goddamned frightening.  Well, at least when I had the mustache I was.

[Xanthippe]

My wee girl's growing up.

Can't we stop it ?

I think this all the time and then she goes and gets even more amazing.  So maybe not stop it completely but slow it down so I can enjoy each phase to the fullest.

I am really not feeling that today. I've pretty much had it with know-it-alls and complainers. 13 and 15 can be real pitas some days.  Why don't they just go complain to each other and leave me out of it?

[Merusk]

A co-worker made this comment yesterday and I'm looking for comment from our Canadian folks and those very familiar with Canada to comment:

"Alberta.. it's like the Texas of Canada.  Boots, oil and belt buckles all over the place."

[Johny Cee]

A co-worker made this comment yesterday and I'm looking for comment from our Canadian folks and those very familiar with Canada to comment:

"Alberta.. it's like the Texas of Canada.  Boots, oil and belt buckles all over the place."

Yes, exactly.  I've made the same comment.  It pretty much is Canadian Texas, including big hats... the immigrant labor is provided by Newfies, though.

[Lantyssa]

It's true, especially Calgary.  Except for the cold, it'd be an easy transition for me if I went up there.

[murdoc]

A co-worker made this comment yesterday and I'm looking for comment from our Canadian folks and those very familiar with Canada to comment:

"Alberta.. it's like the Texas of Canada.  Boots, oil and belt buckles all over the place."

Yes, exactly.  I've made the same comment.  It pretty much is Canadian Texas, including big hats... the immigrant labor is provided by Newfies, though.

There's apparently 250,000 people born in Saskatchewan living here now, too.

Alberta is the Texas of Canada in a lot ways. I like to think we're a little less redneck up here, but who knows.

The worst for boots, belt buckles and cowboy hats is the Stampede in July. It's ridiculous what happens to this city for 10 days. The whole downtown core basically shuts down, beer gardens spring up every where and companies start having a policy that if you're too drunk to come to work, just take a vacation day.

I've also never worn Cowboy boots OR a big belt buckle, but have on occasion donned a Cowboy hat.

[Chimpy]

Cowboy boots are actually surprisingly comfy.

[Sky]

I do have a Stetson and a big buckle. Haven't had cowboy boots in years, though. And my buckle is a big Alfred E Neuman.

[Nebu]

Even when I lived in Wyoming, the closest thing I had to cowboy boots was a pair of high tops.

[Paelos]

When I lived in Texas, I had a pair of steel-toes, but Cowboy boots on city folk are ridiculous.

People like that are what coined the phrase "All hat, no cattle"

[Minvaren]

I keep getting told that I expect too much from people.

...is it too much to ask for people to read more than the first sentence of an email you send them? 

[MuffinMan]

I think people pass out before they even finish reading the subject.

[Bzalthek]

Even when I lived in Wyoming, the closest thing I had to cowboy boots was a pair of high tops.

A hah!  Now we know you're a deceitful spy!  Wyoming doesn't exist.  It's just a conspiracy of cartographers.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I keep getting told that I expect too much from people.

...is it too much to ask for people to read more than the first sentence of an email you send them? 

My manager at HP was like that.  In fact, another PM told me a rather deceitful way of getting the guy to answer questions (he never would).  Put the questions right at the beginning of the email and all the explanation afterwards.  However, if you worded it properly, you could get the guy to agree to something he didn't even know he was agreeing with and then you could go on your merry way doing whatever.  Sadly, it worked pretty good, which just made me wonder how he ever got to be a manager in the first place and how he would then have the balls to complain I never kept him up-to-date on projects he wasn't responsible for if he never actually read my emails. 

Oddly, he was from Houston as well.  Maybe it's that city, Minvaren?

[Nebu]

A hah!  Now we know you're a deceitful spy!  Wyoming doesn't exist.  It's just a conspiracy of cartographers.

Foiled!

[Lantyssa]

Oddly, he was from Houston as well.  Maybe it's that city, Minvaren?

He was probably an old Compaq worker who transitioned into HP.  Their headquarters was here when they were bought out.

[Ingmar]

It isn't just Houston, not reading past the first sentence is standard executive practice in my experience, and it is bleeding down to middle managers now too.

[Sky]

Foiled!

It isn't just Houston, not reading past the first sentence is standard executive practice in my experience, and it is bleeding down to middle managers now too.

I use the Jeopardy method and read from the bottom up and have a Canadian read it from the top.

[Nebu]

I think I may have found something to cheer everyone up. 

I present to you, the Jim Gaffigan Special

[Lantyssa]

 

[murdoc]

I think I may have found something to cheer everyone up. 

I present to you, the Jim Gaffigan Special

We have a burger place here that has the Fat Elvis Shake. Peanut butter, bananas, and bacon. Sounds terrible, tastes unbelievably good.

[luckton]

Ok, our fearless IT people switched Facebook, Twitter, and all the other social media websites to the black list, along with all flash-based video media streamers.  Not just YouTube, but anything that would call for video streaming.   

Anyone hiring?   

[Yegolev]

We are looking for contractors who can read documents and put up with my budding project management skills. Also AIX, EMC, VPLEX, TSM, Oracle, DB2, SAP BASIS, and who don't really want a lot of money.

[Merusk]

We are looking for contractors who can read documents ...

My first reaction was   

Then I realized you probably meant contract workers.

[Salamok]

It isn't just Houston, not reading past the first sentence is standard executive practice in my experience, and it is bleeding down to middle managers now too.

I have always blamed blackberry for this, basically they only read what fits on the screen w/o scrolling.

[Lantyssa]

That would explain so much.

[JWIV]

That would explain so much.

Yes it would.  As well as the inability to do something as simple as to look up any god damn thing, including phone numbers, on the corporate intranet.

[Chimpy]

It isn't just Houston, not reading past the first sentence is standard executive practice in my experience, and it is bleeding down to middle managers now too.

I have always blamed blackberry for this, basically they only read what fits on the screen w/o scrolling.

The amount of stupid shit we had to put in the subject line of 'outage' emails when I worked at the ISP simply so that the execs could skim things on their blackberries was ridiculous.

[Tale]

Fell asleep reading A Clash Of Kings last night and *THWACK* my iPad gave me a fat lip. Haha.

[Cyrrex]

Why were you holding it direcly over your face?  Anyway, I have to read on my stomach, and my head is resting on top of my arms, which are on top of the pillow.  Falling asleep in that position really sucks, so I try to avoid it.

[Paelos]

I read with my book propped on a pillow which is on my lap while I'm sitting up.

[Viin]

I read while strapped in my gravity boots and doing inverted crunches. Sucks to fall asleep like that too ..

[Tale]

Why were you holding it direcly over your face?

After a while on my stomach, I had rolled onto my back, with my head on the pillow, and my iPad standing upright on my chest. When I dozed off, the iPad fell forward and the top of it smacked me in the mouth :)

[ghost]

So my wife just bought this thing called a Cricut Expression 2, which is apparently some sort of die cutting machine that will get you your etsy cred.  She brings it home and I get the inevitable, "I hate computers.  Can you come make this thing work" request.  So I trudge in to do my computerific duty.  I plug it into the mac, won't work.  Update mac, won't work.  Plug it into windows machine, won't work.  So I get on the company's website and visit the forum only to see a million posts from a thousand angry craft dorks about why their machines won't work.  Apparently there is a firmware issue which has been known for months.  This one's going back to the store.....It's amazing the putrid shit that gets put out by some companies.   

The most unfortunate thing about the entire incident is that I now know what a die cutting machine is and it'll probably be me that gets to take it back to the store tomorrow.   

[Merusk]

Heh The Cricut.  They had infomercials about those a few years ago and I remember wondering "wtf" even then.  I don't see how it's better than an X-Acto knife and a computer printer so long as you're under 70 and don't have the DTs.  Particularly with the cost of some of those die patterns.