diary of a crumpler

DC

i’m staying in DC this weekend, working at the JayDub, doing the NGA meeting.
i brought my canon ’cause i was looking forward to snapping some night shots of statues, architecture, etc.
But last night i just went out to dinner with my co-workers and then to the hotel bar for drinks with assorted state troopers, off duty Metro PD, and various members of various governors’ security details.  it bugs me that i piss away time that i should be using for creative or educational pursuits on bars, pubs and bullshit.  but we had a good time and closed 1331 down.  oh, and i didn’t pay for a single drink.  i am such an asshole.

tonight should be an early night and i am craving a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on wheat.  i think a banana would be a good sidekick for the PB&J.  i need to find a little market!

the girl is in pittsburgh until at least tomorrow afternoon or so.  i don’t get home until tuesday night – i hate leaving the house unattended for days at the time.  I worry about thieves, vandals and freezing pipes more than i worry about cholesterol or lung cancer.  i am such an asshole.

this show is so tiny, and so slow kraussie tells me to take off a couple hours at the time, but i don’t think i will.  i’ve got i so ingrained, when registration is open, we (meaning “me” your humble narrator) are expected to BE AT REGISTRATION.  Of course i wander, but i don’t usually leave.  Like get in a cab and go.  I feel weird about it despite finding out my peers do it from time to time.  I’ve also convinced myself that as soon as i get somewhere i want to be, i’ll get the phone call, “Jason, the internet is down!?!”

Srsly, our users are average bears, (or as Mike Meer rephrased, “We have a gaggle of Boo-Boos.”) no more.  I received two phone calls this morning prior to making it down to registration.  Both call, from different users, presented the same verbalized problem.  “I can’t boot up my computer.”  Rather than walking the Boo-Boos through the oh-so-very-difficult (no i’m not being sarcastic, it really is difficult for them) process of verifying they’re actually plugging in laptop into AC 120, and powering it on, i tell them both, i’ll be “right down”.

“Right down” actually ends up meaning about twenty five minutes for the first caller and maybe another ten or fifteen for the second.  i’d just gotten out of the shower when the first call came in, and i am incredulously slow in the morning.  i am such an asshole.

When i finally arrive, i was surprised to find, they really did have the exact same problem.  not, mind the problem that either of them indicated, but the same problem, none-the-less.
Neither one could log in.
One couldn’t log into the workstation, the other couldn’t log into our management application.

Prince Harry is set to be deployed in Iraq

Perhaps he should be headed to Iran instead?

YIELDmotherfuckerYIELD!

I had totally written off this movie.

Usually the more positive things i read or hear about a movie, the less i like it. 

Sometime i feel people “like” what they’re told to “like” or what their friends “like”.  Maybe i’m a self righteous prick,  just discounting it heavily, not appreciating what has been marketed as like-able.  See, there i go again.

Anyway.

I’d heard a bunch of great things about this movie.  Not specific, but the general “Funny as shit!”, “Steve Carell is GREAT IN IT!”, and the “We laughed OUR ASSES off!”  type reviews.

Thank god no one blew it for me.

For an hour and a half, it was slow.  Dialogue was very good.  Comedic bits were well designed and written, but it was nothing extraordinary.

The last ten minutes or so…  Oh wow.  As no one ruined it for me, I won’t do it to you.

Go check out Little Miss Sunshine.  You will enjoy it.  It’s a long walk, but a worthwhile payoff.

At this juncture, I’d like to take a page from the book of Larry Miller. (http://larrymillerhumor.com/home/)

Miller wrote a very funny book, Spoiled Rotten America: Outrages of Everyday Life where, among other things, he reminds us how silly we are.

How we too frequently take ourselves way too seriously and freak out over the smallest of injustices.

I enjoyed the book a great deal, and highly recommend you pick up a copy.

 While I feel sufficiently grounded after reading Mr. Miller’s insight, being the red blooded ‘merican man that i am, still feel like complaining, so without further ado, here’s tonight’s topic of frustration:

What’s up with the shoveling?  Last week when it “snowed” i didn’t salt, scrape, or otherwise shovel my sidewalk outside my house.  And boy, did I get the stinkeye for a couple days from the neighbors…  WTF?!?  I’m kinda a “let the grass grow, let the snow melt, and i’ll get more toothpaste the next time I GO to the store type of guy”.  So yesterday it snowed, i shoveled and scraped, because i’m the new guy in the ‘hood.  i apparently want people to like me…  (i’m also the most passive aggressive person that has ever lived, because i shoveled the shit, but then blog in complaint.  point is, i coulda just not done it, save myself the effort, and you the pain of the blog, but, shit, we’ve both got free time, right?  -back to the story.)  I got every bit of ice off my 120 square feet of concrete and it nearly killed me.  siobhan came outside to check the status, and smoke a cigarette with me, and i nearly threw up afterwards.  that was the most aerobic activity i’ve voluntarily participated in for months. 

anyway, why?  why do my redneck neighbors look down on me for not being so hip on the removal of ice and snow?  i mean, i’ve got boots!  that’s what they’re made for!  tromping through snow and ice!  if i just had flip flops or something i might understand the need to have a nice little clear path cut through my front yard and parallel to the street…  but that’s not the case.

I don’t get it.