I used to watch TV. Of course, I couldn't watch regular broadcast TV, because the reception is bad. So I had to get Cable. Now, Cable TV is interesting. With broadcast TV, the shampoo manufacturers pay for your TV programs, you pay for the shampoo, and you get shampoo commercials on TV. For premium cable, you pay for the shampoo, and you pay for the programs, but you don't get shampoo commercials. And with regular cable, you pay for shampoo, you pay for programs, and you still get...

I've recently revised my thoughts on surviving the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland (PAW). I'm convinced the key to not just surviving, but thriving in the PAW, will be resource management. I figure, there will be four key resources in the PAW: 1. Food 2. Fuel 3. Manpower 4. Knowledge Of these four resources, I believe that Fuel will be the most critical in the short term. Even though civilization will have collapsed in the PAW, the world will still be full of civilization...

I've recently revised my thoughts on surviving the Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland (PAW). I'm convinced the key to not just surviving, but thriving in the PAW, will be resource management. I figure, there will be four key resources in the PAW: 1. Food 2. Fuel Manpower 4. Knowledge Of these four resources, I believe that Fuel will be the most critical in the short term. Even though civilization will have collapsed in the PAW, the world will still be full of civilization's m...

So S has a fantasy. No, not that kind of fantasy. Well, she has that kind, too. But that's not important right now. What is important is, she gets depressed, sometimes. It's like her kryptonite. We all have our kryptonite: that little radioactive rock we carry around with us. Every so often the shielding slips, and we get a big does of our own greatest weakness. Hers is depression, and when it comes on strong, she escapes into this fantasy. In the fantasy, I wake up one ...

So I had another crazy dream last night. I won't go into all the details. Suffice to say there were dirtbikes, biker gangs, pirates, boats (not at the same time as the pirates), a complicated and life-threatening mission, Lindsay Lohan, and my mom getting on my nerves. It was a very stupid and aggravating dream-montage, and not just because my mom had a cameo. I tried several times to get the dream onto a more pleasant track, or at least a more productive track, but had no luck. It...

Had another dream last night. This one started out on a desert island, with vague undertones of Gilligan's Island. Don't ask why; I don't know. It's not like I've watched Gilligan's Island in, like, the last twenty years or so. Maybe it's a Lost thing. But then it turned out that I had Learned Too Much about the Conspiracy. Goons promptly abducted me into the underground complex (on the island, so it probably is a Lost thing). At this point in the dream, things were going pretty ...

With Network Television, you pay for shampoo, and the shampoo company pays for your television entertainment, and you get shampoo commercials. With Premium Cable, you pay for shampoo, and you pay for your television entertainment, but there's no shampoo commercials. With Basic Cable, you pay for shampoo, and you pay for your television entertainment, and there's still shampoo commercials.

So yestreday was a Lab Day, in class. Which is pretty fun. Only sometimes? Not so much. Anyway, the instructor unlocks the cabinets and hands out handfuls of equipment: routers, "consoles" and enough cabling to put on a good tentacle monster hentai scene. The "consoles" are ancient Toshiba laptops, good for nothing more than running Windows 95 and Hyperterminal. The cabling? Well, there's the serial cables (one for each router), the console cables (one for each router), the ethe...

I had an extended dream last night, about zombies. The dream was vaguely reminiscent of Day of the Triffids , I book I have read but a movie I have not seen. In my dream, the zombies would suck out your soul, turning you into one of them. They accomplished this by raising up their arms in the classic zombie pose, extending their fingsers, and drawing out your soul as thin black and red wisps of... ectoplasm, I guess. Don't ask. Dream metaphysics. Anyway, they could do this from s...

So I watched the new War of the Worlds movie this weekend. Spoilers! As far as I can tell, the best part of the movie comes at the very beginning. Tom Cruise is working in a shipyard, using a crane to move giant shipping containers around. It's hard, exacting work, and he seems to be incredibly good at it. When his shift ends, at the end of the scene, his foreman pleads with him to stay and work another shift, since he's the only crane operator that can keep up with the workloa...

One of my favorite LiveJournal communities is Customers Suck! . It's often a fun and exciting read. It's also really helped me to better understand, respect, and help the clerks who handle most of my real-world business transactions. I strongly recommend it to anyone who works in customer service. Or anyone who sometimes needs customer service. Seriously. Anyway, if there's one thing I've learned from the C_s community, it is this: If the customer is wrong, but refuses to...

This is just a note to myself that I've promised kingbee I'd revisit the question of women's rights in Afghanistan and Iraq, once the Iraqis have ratified their new constitution. He thinks women's rights have not improved, nor will they improve, as a result of recen U.S. foreign policy in these countries. I think he's being impatient, and that these things take time. I also think that over time, women's rights in both these countries will continue to improve, and that most of bee 's...

The Founder and President of my company is uveiling a new product today. He's been working on developing this product for quite some time, and is incredibly enthusiastic about its potential. This product will require a "seed" database of opinions, prior to its public release. He has called a series of meetings, in which he hopes to motivate us employees, and encourage us to seed the database and stay actively involved with the product as it enters the world. This product is about as f...

The main problem with the Multi-Ethnic Workplace: Your co-worker's lunch always smells really good... to him . Chernobyl is open for business... as a tourist destination. So is an old prison in Sri Lanka. As usual, Lileks says it better than I ever could.

Behold the published agenda for my department's next "All Hands" meeting: Introduction - Department Director and Department Vice President (30 minutes) Work Simple Session - VP of Work Simple Department (2 hours) Strategic Direction - Department Director (45 minutes) Demand & Delivery - Director of ... Some acronym nobody can expand for me. (1 hour) Now, from the top: I'm sorry, but it shouldn't take thirty minutes of my life to say "Hello, I'm the director of this department,...