slackin' at slackin'

It's been a while since I totally missed a week of posting. I've phoned it in a few times, and turned in less than stellar efforts, but an entire whiff? I suck. Dom says I've been slackin' at slackin', and he's got it pegged.

We've been spun up hard these past few weeks in the office. We're within a couple days of completing the gubmint acceptance of the delivery, and most of the stress & tension are winding down now. They've been twisting and turning our tests in dozens of different directions, many of which are completely senseless. A lot of it is to be expected, as most of the testers don't have a very good understanding of what needs to be done. They're good people, well intentioned, but the gub put 'em into a position they shouldn't really be in.

But we do what we do, and shoulder the stress and tension the only way we know how: butt heads with each other a lot, make up creative insults, and sneak out for 3-beer lunches (mmmmmm..... Jimmy's).

The fall semester at school started at the same time as these 3 weeks of gubmint testing. It's a pain in the tail to have to do office-work all day, then do school-work all night. I'm in a pair of IT classes this semester, so the work is actually relevant to my job. An even bigger annoyance is that one of the professors just doesn't have his shiznit together. I think he knows the subject matter, but he's doing a craptastic job of doling out assignments and grading completed work.

So all this productivity is getting on my nerves. It's interfering with my sanity, and interfering with your good time on a Friday afternoon. I need to get back to the slack.

So I bailed from work early today. Me & the first lady are flying out to NYC for the weekend. We've got a full line-up of activities with family and friends. We have 10pm reservations tonight at the Best American Cocktail Bar 2009. It's in the speakeasy flavor, and I'll have much better info to share next week. (Lemme just say our host has me totally stoked for the maple & bacon-infused whiskey!)

Saturday morning, we're hitting up a Soccer bar football pub for a big inter-London rivalry game. I don't know much beyond "sanctioned beer for breakfast", but as long as I avoid the topic of how often they flop & dive, I won't get my tail whipped.

And to put the cap on the weekend? We're walking in the Grenwich Village Halloween Parade!

By the way, if you're staying in for the night, please don't hand out any of these 11 crappy "treats". It's a sure way to make little kids cry, and motivate teens to soap your windows.

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My eyes feel like they're gonna bleed.

The Smoking Gun contest - match the t-shirt in the mugshot with the band. Entries must be submitted by 4pm.

You shouldn't have to think while working, but as long as you're not thinking about working I guess it's OK. Bloxorz.

You could put a lot of thought into this game, too, or you could just blow stuff up.

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I don't know why the anti-vaxxers get under my skin so bad. Oh, yeah, I almost forgot, it's the fact that their space-cadet viewpoint hurts little kids!

The Droid. Oh, please please please Verizon let me geek out soon. Please. Want.




The FaceBook express lane.... lets you keep up with your friends on FB but removes all the other crap. FaceBook Lite.

Owen Schmitt busts his own head open before the game starts:


The best remix of the SuperDrunkGuy vid I've seen:


But wait, there's more! If you click now, you can get your very own ChiaObama, plus one for Laura!

Awareness Fail (from FailBlog)


Musicians who hate the songs that made them famous. Robert Plant calls Stairway "that bloody wedding song".

One more flash of geekiness before I go....


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i'm still not so sure

We're in the middle of a product delivery at work. Anyone in IT knows what that means: crunch time. Anyone working with the gubmint also knows: documentation. We do IT for the gubmint, so we've got the worst of both worlds. Too much to do, and too much to doc, and nowhere near enough time for either.

The first part of the delivery is a whole test cycle. A bunch of (mostly) non-technical people review and evaluate the software. I've been working at a remote site all week, coordinating the test environment, doing docs, and working with the test team.

I've been getting in before sunrise, working in the dark dingy dreary blah government facility all day, and getting out late in the evening. I'm starting to feel like a vampire. My normal too-pale complexion has faded to almost clear. I snuck out a bit early this afternoon, and my arm started smoldering when the sunlight hit it thru the truck window.

Anyway, enough whining. I wasn't sure if I was going to survive the week, but I made it. Everything is in place now, and things should be calmed a lot next week during the actual test process. The biggest worry is that some of the test team really don't fully understand what we do, so we're not so sure they can provide legitimate review. It'll be a pain if we're jammed up over some imaginary issue.

Outside of the office things have been rather uneventful this week. I'm really happy that the heavy workload at the office happened to fall between semesters at school. I've got one more week off before classes start up again. Things should be back to normal by that time.

We did get a chance to hit up the VA State Fair last weekend, and it was a really good time. We met up with my sis and a couple family friends, too. Mother Nature tried her best to send us home early, but she didn't know who she was dealing with. That little bit of a rainstorm didn't do anything but get our socks wet. By around 9pm, we had most of the fairground to ourselves.

There was all sorts of rides, attractions, freakshow stuff, sales shills, and a whole slew of 4H farmland stuff. The most entertaining part of the day was the pig races.... for real. They loaded up a few gates of pigs, then released them to run around the track to the food dishes at the finish line. A few sets were fast & loud, then they brought out these HUGE potbelly pigs that barely fit into the starting pen. The race started, and they barely moved. Two minutes into the race,they were rounding the first corner, and 4 of the 5 had to stop to relieve themselves on the track. A pavilion full of rednecks, moms, kids, and babies got to see pig poo. That's quality entertainment!

We also attended BackToSchool night for Kid4. It's cool to see the teachers face-to-face, and the kids are happy to know they were represented, but the whole evening is rather bleh. The teachers meet 250 parents in two hours, which is completely overwhelming, especially after they've already spent the whole day dealing with 250 students. Each class visit is approx 8 minutes of auctioneering speech about the syllabus and homework and grading structure and overall class direction.

Kid4 is in 8th grade now, high school freshman next year. All the HS BtS nights in the county are held on the same day, so for the rest of their times Kid3 & Kid4 will overlap. This translates to only having to attend FOUR MORE BtS NIGHTS EVER! Ever ever ever!

A science project comic for ya: (click to enlarge)


This weekend I'm looking forward to a bit of grown up time. We're taking my father-in-law & his wife to dinner at the Occidental in DC. Whoooohoooo for dinner in a suit! I'm totally stoked about it; never been before, but it looks awesome. After dinner, we've got tickets to see Jersey Boys at the National Theatre. Not the Jerky Boys, JerZEE Boys. Stage show about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

BTW, since Frankie Valli was one of the four members of the group, shouldn't it have been FV and the Three Other Seasons? I know that sounds 'tarded, but it's bothered me for a long long time.

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Trippy wobbly line drawing stuff.

Max Connect laser puzzles.

Name that Band Logo. I thought I had skillz, but daaaaamn was I wrong. I suck.

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Thanks, Jacob, I really don't like Bono either. Not since he started wearing the buggy glasses. Ugh.


WIN (almost) then FAIL:


More fail!


This may be the most intellectual analysis of why marijuana should remain illegal.

In case you hadn't realized, there are at least 15 basic variances between men & women.

The whole entire internet in 4 minutes:


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