up from the hole

I've been stupid busy with school and work this week.  4-day week, but I had 6 days of work to try to squeeze into it.  I'm just scratching out a couple thoughts here during the football games.

I'm doing my 'senior seminar' this semester at school.  It's pissing me off something fierce.  I burned 11 hours on this project yesterday instead of running around in the sunshine.  Something sucks; it may be the professor, may be the curriculum, or it may be me. 

I've spent a few years studying IT stuff; software architecture, programming languages, other geekstuff like that.  The problem I'm having with this class is that the project is decidedly less-than-geeky.  12% of my grade is based on a huge proposal document, intended to sell my project to a business.  It's a heavy dose of creative writing (I'm soooo not an ENG major) paired with a boatload of business writing (again, not a BUS major).  Bleh.

So school jammed my weekend so far.  Not happy.  10 more weeks before I get this class behind me, and I'll be a very happy boy.  Hopefully, the prof will have us getting geeky soon.

I'm taking off work Mon & Tues, and heading down to KY to see Joe & Celeste at their new apartment.  For both of them, it's their first time living on their own.  They've got a lot of learning ahead of 'em.  I've got a truckload of furniture & other stuff to help get 'em started.  I'm pretty excited to see the place and visit with the kids for a bit.

Go check out my buddy Jon's 'Friday for the Foodies'.  He writes for Glide Magazine's HiddenTrack every week.  This edition is all about a top-notch butcher shop near Alexandria.  The shop is called "Let's Meat on the Avenue", and can hook you up with all sorts of fun stuff.  They carry buffalo, true kobe beef, wild boar, and even kangaroo!  I'll be grilling the whole wild kingdom soon.


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Dom is the source of all our shoot-em-up fun.  TropicalDragonSlaughter!

Rescue the miners! (timely, but sucks)
Be a miner! (playable)
Miner 2049er! (old school)
Protect the minors! (best of the lot)

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(Credit to BarstoolSports)

Guys, pay attention.  She will judge you based on your email provider and your ability to drive a stick shift.

I worked software dev w/ Eddi for a while, but back then he didn't have computer skills like this!



Kat's Dueling Banjos redux, with fire.


Stop!

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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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