Boogie Men

And no, I don't mean John Fucking Travolta.

I drove my mother's car to work this morning, because she is taking mine to HER work so that my brother can look at it. For those who don't know, my brother owns an auto repair shop, and my mother works there as the secretary. It's good for me, because I can get my car repaired for the price of parts.

ANYway, I'm driving to work and of course don't have any of my CD's and was forced to listen to the radio. And, since it's morning, of course no one is playing any music and I was forced to listen to a local radio show. I guess I picked a good time to send my car to the shop, because the topic of the day was horror movies. My favorite!

The host was reading a list of "Favorite Horror Movie Killers". I forget which website he pulled the list....Rapid-something.com....but some of the choices were weird.

Number 3 was the house in The Amityville Horror. Huh?

Number 2 was Angela from Sleepaway Camp. HUH?!
While I will admit that movie has one of the greatest plot twist endings of any horror movie, ever, the killer herself (himself) wasn't all that memorable outside of that. (For those of you who don't know, Angela was the killer but at the end of the movie she's standing naked on a beach with a severed head and we find out she's a guy cause you can see...ahem...his MACHETE.)

The other ones were all good though. What was interesting about this list was that they provided a sexual orientation for each killer.

Freddy Krueger = Pedophile
Jason Vorhees = Anti-Sex (cause he kills people who are having sex)
Leatherface = Transvestite
Angela = Crossdresser
Michael Myers = Confused
The House from Amityville = Home-o-Sexual (Oh come on, you saw that one coming, didn't you?)

Freddy Krueger was #1 on the list. (How sweet...)

So I guess I'll create my own top 10 list:

1. Freddy Krueger
2. Pazuzu, the demon from The Exorcist
3. Jason Vorhees
4. Pinhead
5. Ghostface
6. Michael Myers
7. Evil Ed (Bonus points if you tell me what movie this is from!)
8. Jigsaw
9. Leatherface
10. Zombies! (Night of the Living Dead, Day of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Land of the Dead, etc, etc, George Romero FTW)

Bad Fido!

When you own a cat, there are certain things you must do that normal people who don't have cats would find bizarre. For example, when I get home from work, I place all the items contained in my pockets (keys, cell phone, loose change, etc.) on top of my refrigerator. Why? Because my cat can't reach them up there and therefore can't HIDE them.

I certainly can't leave my belt laying around either, that thing would be gone before it even hits the ground. I have a hard enough time trying to put it ON with the paws batting at it.

My cat knows he has no claws too, because he makes heavy use of his teeth. I don't nickname him SABERTOOTH for nothing.

Well, I sure hope he likes soup. Cause that's all he's going to be able to eat after I rip his teeth out. Yesterday evening, I came home and see that my headset was on the floor. I thought nothing of it and just placed it back on the desk where it belongs. Later on, after I sat down in front of my computer and put them on, I could only hear out of one ear and soon thereafter realized that the microphone wasn't working at all. Upon inspecting the cord, I found it had been chewed in several places clean through the rubber coating AND the copper wire.

So, now I have to go buy a new headset after work. And a pair of pliers to pull some teeth. And a tranquilizer gun. And those tranquilizers they used on the T-Rex in The Lost World. That might be enough...

Seen Saw?

Saw 3 came out this weekend. I didn't actually go see it, because I have better things to do, but I did read a summarized version of the script. (That's usually what I do when I'm interested in a movie, but not interested enough to actually watch it.)

The writers always make a big deal how the stories in Saw are different from other horror/slasher films in that they have clever plot twists and substance. And, a trilogy in the horror genre (as Scream 3 so eloquently put it) is quite rare. While I will agree that the first movie did break new ground in this regard, it seems now that it's just the same thing over and over again. Honestly -- who is going to see these movies for the story? No one. They're going to see the gore, and to see the creative ways that these poor bastards are going to die. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

But, from what I've read, Saw 4 is already in production. So much for this being a trilogy. Let's see, in what ways HAVEN'T people died yet? Well, most of the traps in the first 3 movies have been mechanical. Maybe they'll go organic in part 4.

How about a tank of piranhas? Someone could be encased within a huge airtight cube of beef jerky, and submerged in a tank of water full of thousands of piranhas. The subject only has until the fish eat through the jerky to figure out how to release a lever somewhere in the tank that will electrically charge the water -- enough to kill all the fish but only seriously wound the subject. Then, after the subject escapes the tank and jumps out, a rabid PUMA attacks him and bites off his head. You taking notes, writers?

Horrors!

For those that know me well, you know that it's not often that I'm left utterly speechless. So when it happens, it's always a story worth telling.

First, some backstory. There's a particular employee that works in my office, who we shall simple refer to as Wookie. I have other names, such as Chewbacca, Sasquatch, Cousin It, Nairwolf, and many others. But we'll just pick Wookie for this story.

Anyway, the Wookie is a piece of work. As you can probably guess by the nicknames, she's got more hair on her body than a French woman's armpits. She can grow a better beard than I can, probably has more leg hair that I do, and as for the other regions...I'm guessing if anyone would want to tap that, they'd have to roll her in flour and look for the wet spot.

All these disgusting traits aside, however, she does provide the office with some much needed entertainment -- because she also has absolutely no idea how to socialize with other human beings. We're talking zero social skills here, people. So of course, when she accidentally runs into the door of the office and then says "Oops, sorry." to it, I can't help but laugh.

The comedy is so golden that this particular co-worker was the subject of issues 3 and 4 of my Uncorporate America comic strip. (You can find the strips here.)

Okay, with the backstory out of the way I can get to the issue at hand. Today, we had a meeting with the big guy, who was announcing several changes coming about in our office. Several people were promoted, including myself, and a bit of restructuring is taking place. Typical office stuff. I'm now the Rate Builder Team Lead, in addition to my Supervisor of Calculable Contracts position. I'm also inheriting the Account Implementation business. Yay for me.

After these announcements, the big guy then explained how anyone interested in any of the new positions should make it known to their managers, and further emphasized that he already had his eye on a few people to eventually assume different roles in the company. He then looked over at the Wookie, saying "And I know for a fact that with your skill set, Steve has you on his list. Right, Steve?"

Speechless. Utterly speechless. I think I may have tried to respond to that, and it must have somehow resembled a "Okay", because he then moved on to the next subject, leaving me standing there with this voice in my head screaming "What the fuck just happened?!"

And of course the Wookie was all happy and excited and bouncing up and down in her seat upon hearing that. It's time for me to take the boss out for a drink and a "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING TO ME?!" conversation. He must be getting even with me for cracking jokes at how he threw his back out last week.


In other news, when FedEx says "2 Day Shipping" they mean "One Week". I got an email from Alienware today stating that they received my PC. It's been 8 days. Suck my pole!

Classic Mom Stuff

My mom is a typical mom. She worries about the most minor of things that happen to her kids, yet doesn't worry about the really important stuff happening to HER. Case in point:

I still don't understand why she feels that she has to keep telling me, "Sorry about your computer." Huh? You're sorry? For what? Did YOU blow it up? I don't think so... Besides, it's a COMPUTER. It's not like I had something amputated.

As a continution of this example, this following conversation ensued last night. She started it.

"Are you okay?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're not sick are you?"
"Nooooo, not that I know of. Why do you ask?"
"Earlier this week you looked stressed out. And you've lost weight."
"Are you on crack?"
"Maybe you should go get a physical."

At this point I was laughing my ass off. But, of course, I had to explain myself thoroughly to get her off my case.

"First of all, I was stressed out earlier this week because the whole damn house was filled with smoke and I had no idea WHY until I noticed it was bellowing out of my computer. Secondly, yes, I have lost weight, because I am 6'2" and weighed 200 pounds, which is above the average BMI for a person of my skeletal structure. I'm now down to 180 pounds, which is a perfectly acceptable weight, although I would like to be more around 170-175."


The long explanations do the trick every time. I'm surprised she noticed I lost weight though -- typically when a person loses anything less than 30-40 pounds, only people that don't see them everyday can notice it.

Joys of a Backup PC

When using a spare PC, it's amazing how many little things you discover that you use every single day. The first time I wanted to check my bank accounts online, I of course had to look up my login information, install a security plug-in, and switch a security setting in my web browser. Making a post on my blog? Again, had to look up my login information, install a java plugin, install an embedded video plugin, and adjust my firewall to allow permissions to publish.

The best, however, was when I went to download something from my newsgroup. First, I had to remember the URL to the site, and my login. After that, I had to install GrabIt, which is the program that interprets the NZB files from the site and downloads the stuff I need. After installing GrabIt, I had to provide it the newsgroup information, which including ANOTHER username and password. This I couldn't remember, and thus had to have it reset and emailed to me by the newsgroup. After getting that setup, I finally was able to download my shit. But, the nightmare just wasn't over! The files were .RAR, and of course I didn't have WinRAR. I downloaded WinRAR professional........and it was packaged up in .RAR files. BRILLIANT!!! So I had to download the free version of WinRAR so I could extract the real version and install it. Then I had to download and install QuickPAR to verify the RAR files before unextracting them.

It took me about 1,837 times longer to get READY to download the little program I wanted than it did to actually download it.

New Backup Computer

Not as beefy as my main, of course, but here are the specs:

AMD 64 3800+
1 GB RAM
250 GB HD
Dual Layer 16X DVD burner with LightScribe

Gonads and Strife

Have you ever seen it? The little flash movie I'm referring to in the title of this post?

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/weeee.php


I think of this little clip everytime a catastrophe happens in my life. I dunno why, really...probably because it makes me laugh. And, you know, strife is kind of appropriate in times like these.

ANYway, on to the topic at hand:

Last night I was minding my own business, playing some WoW. I began to notice a very faint burning smell, which was noticeable enough to make me investigate around the house for the source. Finding nothing, I contributed it to it being the first time the central heating had been turned on. Probably dust in the ductwork making it's way out.

As the night wore on, the smell got considerably stronger. Soon, I noticed a light tinge of smoke near the ceiling, and was now clearly concerned. I went and turned off the heat just to be safe, and began looking around for the cause of the problem. I came back downstairs to find smoke pouring out of the back of my computer, which then immediately shut itself down. Good heavens!

So, after examining the situation, I came to the conclusion that the power supply had blown up. The smoke was coming from that box. Also, before the computer shut itself down, I noticed the temperature gauge read a very normal 97 degrees fahrenheit. Which means that the CPU itself didn't overheat -- good news.

I called the support department for me PC, only to have them tell me my warranty had expired. That didn't change the fact that I need to have the machine fixed, so I packaged up the tower and got it ready to send back to them. Later, after calming down and thinking for a bit, I distinctly remember extending my warranty to be a total of 3 years, which would mean that I have 1 year left. I still need to find my documentation on that, but I'm pretty sure I'm right and will hopefully not have to pay anything. I'll be sure to keep everyone updated on that.

As I was on the phone with customer support, I was installing WoW on my backup PC, which is considerably older. Tonight I came to the conclusion that it will just flat out NOT run the game. It's too old.

Therefore, it's useless to me as a backup, and will be replaced with a new backup computer tomorrow. A vast majority of people will call this any number of adjectives, such as "stupid", "obsessive", etc, etc. Your opinion. It's not the way I see it. Look at it from my perspective:

I have a backup computer for a reason -- to use in the tragic circumstance where my main computer is temporarily out of commission. If said backup computer can't do the things I need it to do, then obviously I need to replace it. I can't think of anything more logical than that.

Besides that, if I ever decide to have another LAN party, I would obviously need a computer that can run the damn games. Otherwise it's kind of hard to do MULTI-PLAYER with ONE computer.

So I'm going shopping tomorrow. Whee!

Fixed!

This stupid thing has been broken for about 2 weeks now. For some reason, I had to switch the publishing type to SFTP from FTP. Why, I have no idea, but it's working now.

Even more fun at the supermarket...

So I needed a few things today, and went grocery shopping. Cereal, some snacks, iced tea....the essentials. I can never find the cereal aisle in that damn store for some reason, and end up reading every fucking sign until I finally find it. As I'm looking around, I pass the personal hygiene aisle and one of the items listed on the big sign was "facials".

I'm pretty sure everyone who saw me laughing hysterically to myself thought I escaped from some asylum.