I like Thanksgiving, and my reasons for liking it are quite simplistic. I like any holiday because it means a day off from work, and I enjoy days off from work. When it comes to Thanksgiving, I get exactly the same amount of days off as I do for Christmas. Christmas, however, takes exponentially longer to prepare and organize, whereas Thanksgiving is a simple dinner. It's less work for the same reward. How can I not possibly see this as superior?

That being said, I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving and the two days off I will have from work. Oh, and the dinner too, of course. I also really like how the actual holiday is on the very first day off, meaning that the next day and the weekend to follow are just a bonus with absolutely nothing to worry about. Rack up another bonus point in Thanksgiving's favor.

All that's left to do is survive the remainder of this work day.



Can we call it day?
Now would that be okay?
Can we just go our own separate ways?
Cause I'm cold and I'm wet,
And I'm willing to bet,
That you constructed this maze.

Call It a Day by The Raconteurs

It's performance review time here at my office. This year, my hatred of these reviews is at an all time high because of all the bullshit my company is putting into them. The thing I hate the most are the acronyms. The front of the review states that we are ONE LEARNing TEAM, and it breaks down each letter to mean something, like this:

One
Networked
Enterprise

Listen
Educate
Articulate
Research
Network

Transparency
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Accountability
Metrics focused on results

Give me a fucking break.

But alas, I can't just not do the review, since my job depends on it. But I can protest the stupidity and pointlessness of these things in my own subtle way. And I shall use their own methods to do so.

Section 1: Here I need to list the goals that were established for me last year and report on their progress. I had 4 goals from last year. Re-wording them a bit:

Convert PCTB calculable contract accounts and any other new accounts into Rate Builder.
Organize and expand the conversion team.
Create protocol for the transition of DRB conversion accounts into publishing maintenance accounts.
Keep gaining experience with SQL.

And using the first letter of each of those, it spells COCK.

Section 2: Here they have provided a list of 8 competencies, and I must rank myself and provide reasons for such ranking. So...8 of them. 8 letters. Take the first letter of each of my comments and you get ASSHOLES.

Section 3: Here I must provide examples of how I have developed additional competencies. I listed 4 examples, and they spell WANK.


This was the most fun I've had writing my performance review, ever!

Cool, the WoW servers are down for their weekly thingie. I can actually take the time to blog!

We had our first snow over the weekend. I like snow when I don't have to drive in it, but there's one other thing about it that is kind of annoying. When I wake up in the morning, my eyes are typically pretty sensitive. This is a completely normal occurrence. So, the last thing I want is the sun reflecting off a horribly bright white surface outside. I actually hit the floor this morning when I went upstairs it was so fucking bright.

It reminded me of Brad's frost traps in Scholo. My eyes!

I haven't said a word about Proposition 8 on here yet. I tend to dislike discussing a topic capable of causing such division. But, I recently saw a video of a Keith Olbermann commentary on the topic, and it prompted me to post it here. If you want to know what I think about this topic, watch the video. That's EXACTLY what I think.

And now, by popular demand, a Wookie story.

I have probably mentioned this before, but it is worth mentioning again just in case because it is quite relevant to the story. The Wookie is not only very hairy, but she's also (according to her) very frail. Hypochondriac is more the appropriate term, if you ask me, but that's beside the point. She claims she is allergic to a lot of things -- including certain food additives, hand lotion, perfume, and smoke. Judging by her appearance, she must also be allergic to soap. Yes. Ew.

That being said, I will first share with you what she had for lunch yesterday, as witnessed by a horrified co-worker of mine who then had to come tell me about it: Chef Boyardee ravioli with popcorn on top. I'm still shaking my head over that one.

Anyway, some time last week I was at my desk talking to Mark. I think it was actually work-related for once, which is amazing in and of itself. So we're standing there, and all of a sudden we hear a sound that quite resembled the Pamplona Encierro. (The Running of the Bulls for you uncultured twits.) We turn around and see the Wookie go running down the hall, through the kitchen, and to her desk. As she was running, she had her right hand planted on her neck.

Mark and I looked at each other with bemused confusion, and I said, "I need to find out. I'm going to regret it, but I need to find out."

So I went in the direction from which the Wookie came, which was our Publishing Department. Apparently, this woman over there named Cheryl touched the Wookie's hand after applying hand lotion to herself. This is what caused the Wookie to run away in a panic. As far as I have learned, the Wookie did not actually get any lotion on herself whatsoever. She simply knew Cheryl used it and reacted accordingly.

I know what you're thinking, and I was thinking the same exact thing: "It puts the lotion in the basket or it gets the hose again."

As utterly disturbing as this is, I'm a pretty rational guy. I know this woman (thing? it?) is insane, and I accept that. But as I strolled back to my desk to let Mark know what had happened, my mind started to wonder. She ran from the Publishing Department and past my desk, where there is a door leading out into the lobby where the bathrooms are. If she was truly having an allergic reaction to lotion, she could have gone there to wash her hands. But she didn't. Also, she ran through the kitchen/break room. There's a sink there, where she could have washed her hands. But she didn't. Instead, she just ran back to her desk.

My guess is that she needed to be in her "safe, happy place" after being "traumatized" by the lotion.

And these are the kinds of people I work with. Actually, I won't even say I work with them, because I don't. They're in different departments. I just get to observe, but that's scary enough.

As a result of Blizzard's epic fail with their servers last night, I loaded up Doom 3 and played it for a few hours. Games like Doom 3, at one time, were the epitome of what a computer game was supposed to be. But in this day and age, it's all about the realism. Any shooter you pick up today will undoubtedly be tactical in nature, requiring you to play with a bunch of NPC team mates, give them orders, develop a strategy, and execute that strategy to complete your objective. I am not opposed to these types of games in the least -- I think they can be a lot of fun, and also rewarding. But for me, sometimes there's nothing better than playing solo and just blowing shit up. This is why my list of favorite shooters is topped by Half-Life (all incarnations), Doom (all incarnations), Max Payne (all incarnations), and Quake (most incarnations). While the stories of all these games are all quite different, one thing remains the same -- you're just one guy in that game world, and you get to shoot, blow up, ignite, run over, and slice up everything in your way.

I feel this type of game is a lost art, and I will lay the blame on two different sources:

1. I blame crappy game developers. You created too many shitty first-person shooters.

2. I blame the critics. You keep pounding your chests for MORE REALISM, MORE REALISM, MORE REALISM. Shut the hell up, you're playing a guy in a nano-suit who can jump 40 feet into the air while invisible and head-shotting aliens 300 yards away. Oh yeah, that's realistic.

All is not lost, however. My niche games still do exist, and they are still being made. And they are being made in such a way as to garner very favorable reviews from critics. You've got the Gears of War series, which has been very successful. Additionally, you have such games as Dead Space. That is one that I really think I need to play. It's your classic "sole survivor on a spaceship filled with killer aliens" game. And let's not forget that Wolfenstein is being remade.

The following information would have seemed disturbing and bizarre to me, if it weren't for the fact that I work in an office that has its own Wookie. As such, this really doesn't come as any surprise to me at all.

I was reading my PC Gamer magazine last night, and I came across an article about Spore. If you're been living under a rock for the last year or so -- Spore is a computer game released quite recently that allows you to create a little single-celled organism, and evolve it up to a space-traveling intelligent life-form. You can customize everything about your little creature -- how it looks, sounds, moves, eats, etc.

Back on track: It seems that the modding community went a little overboard with their...ahem...creativity. Apparently, a lot of people have been creating porn with their spore creatures. The community has dubbed this as Sporn.

Yes, Sporn.

Now, as I said, had I not been exposed to the types of individuals I have thus been exposed to, I would have shaken my head and said, "There's no way anyone would enjoy something like that."

But now I can actually name a few who probably would. I think this falls into that "furry" category, if you want to get right down to it. If you don't know what I mean by "furry", go Google it. There's no way I'm getting on that topic right now.

So there you have it. If you're bored with porn, there's always sporn.