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Yeah... this was basic shit that they were teaching us during freshman year at DigiPen, over a decade ago. I'd assume that they're still teaching this now. Crunch is bullshit. Crunch is counterproductive. Crunch doesn't work. And yet, it's still a fairly common thing in the video game industry (and elsewhere, but mostly the video game industry, it seems). And I think that is simply asinine.
The only time I've worked crunch was for a period of maybe a week or two, tops, early in my time at TT123 while on Google Earth, like the first or second year. (EDIT) It was the second year. (/EDIT) We'd be there until like 3:00am or some shit, some days, then back in at 10:00am or so the next day. Shortly after that, I think, was when Google implemented a "no crunch" policy, so that was that.
Well, unless you count regular course load + game projects at DigiPen. That was pretty much four years of crunch time, it seemed, especially in the last month or so of each semester. ¬_¬ DigiPen didn't encourage it and, in fact, actively discouraged it, from what I remember. And yet, it just always seemed to turn out that way. DigiPen would close the computer labs at, like, midnight or whenever, which was their way of saying "Stop," but then we'd just go to someone's house and work for at least another hour or two sometimes. >_>; And yeah, this is a big part of the reason why I vehemently agree with the opinion that crunch time is horrendous horseshit which doesn't work. (I mean, it probably wasn't nearly as bad as I'm remembering it being now, 10-14 years later, but still... I do recall walking a couple of miles from DigiPen back to my condo at 1:00am at least once, which was... pretty interesting... I guess?)
God fucking dammit.
Welp, guess it's time to start more seriously thinking about finally getting around to deleting my LinkedIn account, if it's in the hands of Micro$hit now. *weary sigh* I hardly ever used the damn thing anyway, but still, this is annoying as all hell.
(EDIT) Also, say hello to my new "microsoft sucks" tag. It's actually kind of amazing to me that I hadn't made one before now. For most of my Micro$hit rants, I was just using the "fuck windows 10," "x-bone," and "minecraft" tags, but none of those apply to this post, thus the new tag. I guess for the most part it will just be mostly an umbrella tag for those other tags. When I was going back through my "xbox 360" tag, though, I found some posts even as far back as 2008 where I was ranting about ways that Micro$hit sucks. And, same as always when I make a new tag and have to backtag older posts like this, I'm sure I missed a few. (/EDIT)
Welp, guess it's time to start more seriously thinking about finally getting around to deleting my LinkedIn account, if it's in the hands of Micro$hit now. *weary sigh* I hardly ever used the damn thing anyway, but still, this is annoying as all hell.
(EDIT) Also, say hello to my new "microsoft sucks" tag. It's actually kind of amazing to me that I hadn't made one before now. For most of my Micro$hit rants, I was just using the "fuck windows 10," "x-bone," and "minecraft" tags, but none of those apply to this post, thus the new tag. I guess for the most part it will just be mostly an umbrella tag for those other tags. When I was going back through my "xbox 360" tag, though, I found some posts even as far back as 2008 where I was ranting about ways that Micro$hit sucks. And, same as always when I make a new tag and have to backtag older posts like this, I'm sure I missed a few. (/EDIT)
Laptop update #2
Nov. 12th, 2015 11:27 amBull. Shit.
So, because I hadn't heard anything at all back from Dell since last week, I sent them an email today, requesting the status on this issue.
I got back a single line response: "Well I am really sorry to inform you that we are unable to attach the warranties as it was already invoiced. In this case I would request you to check with the New Egg people and they will help you in this case."
Again, I say: Bull. Shit.
So now I have to try to contact NewEgg to see if they will resolve this issue. God fucking dammit.
This has taught me to never buy another Dell product ever again, if nothing else, but that still leaves me with a non-functional Dell laptop that I already bought.
(EDIT) I've now contacted NewEgg via their chat thing, and then emailed some additional info to the NewEgg customer service guy, which was supposedly part of a release of info authorization on my part to the manufacturer (Dell) via NewEgg, so hopefully that has gotten the ball rolling on that and they'll be able to fix at least the warranty issue, if nothing else.
Now, however, I am still without a laptop for the upcoming job-related training thing that's supposed to take place next Monday and Tuesday. (EDIT 2) Which ended up not even happening, anyway. *weary fucking sigh* (/EDIT 2) I sent my potential employer an email today to let them know that I'll probably need to use one of their laptops for that, but haven't heard back from them yet. But then, I also haven't heard back from them at all since last Wednesday, when I went out there to do another job-related training/evaluation thing (to which I brought the now non-functional laptop, though it was still functional at the time, even though I ended up not even using my own laptop since they already had one of theirs set up for me to use), even though I sent them a follow-up email on the day after. It's somewhat ominous that I haven't heard back, but hopefully there's no issue with that. Anyway, I'm getting off-topic, so I'll just leave it at that, for now. (/EDIT)
So, because I hadn't heard anything at all back from Dell since last week, I sent them an email today, requesting the status on this issue.
I got back a single line response: "Well I am really sorry to inform you that we are unable to attach the warranties as it was already invoiced. In this case I would request you to check with the New Egg people and they will help you in this case."
Again, I say: Bull. Shit.
So now I have to try to contact NewEgg to see if they will resolve this issue. God fucking dammit.
This has taught me to never buy another Dell product ever again, if nothing else, but that still leaves me with a non-functional Dell laptop that I already bought.
(EDIT) I've now contacted NewEgg via their chat thing, and then emailed some additional info to the NewEgg customer service guy, which was supposedly part of a release of info authorization on my part to the manufacturer (Dell) via NewEgg, so hopefully that has gotten the ball rolling on that and they'll be able to fix at least the warranty issue, if nothing else.
Now, however, I am still without a laptop for the upcoming job-related training thing that's supposed to take place next Monday and Tuesday. (EDIT 2) Which ended up not even happening, anyway. *weary fucking sigh* (/EDIT 2) I sent my potential employer an email today to let them know that I'll probably need to use one of their laptops for that, but haven't heard back from them yet. But then, I also haven't heard back from them at all since last Wednesday, when I went out there to do another job-related training/evaluation thing (to which I brought the now non-functional laptop, though it was still functional at the time, even though I ended up not even using my own laptop since they already had one of theirs set up for me to use), even though I sent them a follow-up email on the day after. It's somewhat ominous that I haven't heard back, but hopefully there's no issue with that. Anyway, I'm getting off-topic, so I'll just leave it at that, for now. (/EDIT)
"Ubisoft Apologizes For Assassin's Creed"
Nov. 28th, 2014 06:22 amI post this not for the article itself, but for one of the first comments underneath.
Someone posted:
"Unexpected technical issues
Really? They were unexpected? Testing didn't bring ANY of these issues up?
I could understand a few bugs might slip through the cracks but I would have thought a game publisher would not have these kind of issues after launching many games without major bugs. (I have no citation on this, by I would figure that most of their games aren't this bad on launch day)."
And a response was:
"You would be surprised at the number of so-called expert testers who ask for the latest, most powerful machines with the latest OS versions etc. as they claim that this will aid their testing. I've seen this in a company where the target machines that actual users were using were known to be older with less powerful graphics cards and some old software for compatibility with some products. I'd imagine the lure of a new machine is eve greater when they don't know what users will be using."
Speaking as someone who worked for a QA testing company for about 10 years, I will say that the second guy is right. If that's how you're doing your testing, then you're doing it wrong. Yes, we did testing on the most state-of-the-art PCs (and Macs and Linux machines) that we could get our hands on, but we also did the same testing on funky, old-ass shit (meaning software such as OS [think Windows 95/98/XP or older Linux and MacOS versions] or graphics software such as DirectX or OpenGL or whatever, as well as hardware such as decades old graphics cards and such) that nobody in their right minds would ever recommend continuing to use in this day and age, because we knew that there were people out there who were still using that old-ass shit. And we'd definitely find bugs on that shit, without a doubt. Sometimes the response of the companies we were testing for would be to, you know, actually fix the issues. Sometimes the response would be to simply post a "no longer supported" section in their ReadMe.txt or whatever for the affected software/hardware. Sometimes the response, disappointingly and vexingly, would be to simply not address (or even acknowledge) the issue at all. On less frequent occasions, we'd find bugs where it'd be broken on the new shit, but work fine on the old shit. Those tended to get fixed more promptly than the other stuff.
Then again, for this Ubisoft Assassin's Creed bullshit, a lot of the horrible broken crap shows up on the consoles as well as (or instead of) the PC stuff, so I don't know what their crummy excuse is for letting that slip through.
Someone posted:
"Unexpected technical issues
Really? They were unexpected? Testing didn't bring ANY of these issues up?
I could understand a few bugs might slip through the cracks but I would have thought a game publisher would not have these kind of issues after launching many games without major bugs. (I have no citation on this, by I would figure that most of their games aren't this bad on launch day)."
And a response was:
"You would be surprised at the number of so-called expert testers who ask for the latest, most powerful machines with the latest OS versions etc. as they claim that this will aid their testing. I've seen this in a company where the target machines that actual users were using were known to be older with less powerful graphics cards and some old software for compatibility with some products. I'd imagine the lure of a new machine is eve greater when they don't know what users will be using."
Speaking as someone who worked for a QA testing company for about 10 years, I will say that the second guy is right. If that's how you're doing your testing, then you're doing it wrong. Yes, we did testing on the most state-of-the-art PCs (and Macs and Linux machines) that we could get our hands on, but we also did the same testing on funky, old-ass shit (meaning software such as OS [think Windows 95/98/XP or older Linux and MacOS versions] or graphics software such as DirectX or OpenGL or whatever, as well as hardware such as decades old graphics cards and such) that nobody in their right minds would ever recommend continuing to use in this day and age, because we knew that there were people out there who were still using that old-ass shit. And we'd definitely find bugs on that shit, without a doubt. Sometimes the response of the companies we were testing for would be to, you know, actually fix the issues. Sometimes the response would be to simply post a "no longer supported" section in their ReadMe.txt or whatever for the affected software/hardware. Sometimes the response, disappointingly and vexingly, would be to simply not address (or even acknowledge) the issue at all. On less frequent occasions, we'd find bugs where it'd be broken on the new shit, but work fine on the old shit. Those tended to get fixed more promptly than the other stuff.
Then again, for this Ubisoft Assassin's Creed bullshit, a lot of the horrible broken crap shows up on the consoles as well as (or instead of) the PC stuff, so I don't know what their crummy excuse is for letting that slip through.
"The truth is that the only way not to feel really terrible is to work.
But sometimes it seems easier just to feel really terrible."
-- Rust Hills, Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular (from the final chapter "Afterword: Writing in General")
( Mountain of text behind cut )
But sometimes it seems easier just to feel really terrible."
-- Rust Hills, Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular (from the final chapter "Afterword: Writing in General")
( Mountain of text behind cut )
So I'm sitting here at work just counting down the hours left (3 to go), probably going to go to the bank after work sometime tomorrow and maybe try to see if I can get something done about my student loans due to pretty much no longer having a job after today, then waiting to kill time until I can go to sleep for who knows how long (I've "slept" around like 11 hours per night for the past two nights or so, with the help of ibuprofen and melatonin, though the amount of time actually spent sleeping has varied), and then finally waiting to sit around tomorrow until it's time to leave for the airport to go back to North Carolina for Christmas. After that, I don't know.
Trying to not dwell on other things, but only partially succeeding at that.
Mostly, I'm just feeling way too fucking apathetic about pretty much everything, in general. It sucks. That is all.
Trying to not dwell on other things, but only partially succeeding at that.
Mostly, I'm just feeling way too fucking apathetic about pretty much everything, in general. It sucks. That is all.
Unlucky '13.
Dec. 18th, 2013 02:20 pmI got a call a few hours ago that my eldest sister is in the hospital with stage 4 intestinal cancer which apparently has already spread to her pancreas and possibly her liver as well. She sounded fine when I talked to her on the phone a few minutes ago, and she said they still didn't know for sure what all the options are, but all in all, after talking to my other sisters, it didn't sound like the prognosis was going to be very good.
She'd already had some surgery related to this a few years ago, and apparently had made plans to have something else to be done later next year related to this that she hadn't been planning to tell anyone about until after Christmas, but it seems like it was much worse than they thought it would be, given that she had to be brought to the hospital about it earlier this week.
In any case, I was already scheduled to fly back to North Carolina for Christmas, leaving out of Seatac at shortly after midnight this coming Sunday morning. Was originally planned to be coming back out here on Dec 31, but there's talk of maybe postponing my return trip (not, I think or at least hope, for reasons related to this, since my sister had already mentioned this possibility back in October when I first told her about the job situation).
And yeah, yeah, there's that whole job thing and all that, too, and 2013 sucks because of that as well, and it was kind of at the forefront of my mind up until now, but whatever. I don't really even care about that right now.
Man... just... fuck cancer.
She'd already had some surgery related to this a few years ago, and apparently had made plans to have something else to be done later next year related to this that she hadn't been planning to tell anyone about until after Christmas, but it seems like it was much worse than they thought it would be, given that she had to be brought to the hospital about it earlier this week.
In any case, I was already scheduled to fly back to North Carolina for Christmas, leaving out of Seatac at shortly after midnight this coming Sunday morning. Was originally planned to be coming back out here on Dec 31, but there's talk of maybe postponing my return trip (not, I think or at least hope, for reasons related to this, since my sister had already mentioned this possibility back in October when I first told her about the job situation).
And yeah, yeah, there's that whole job thing and all that, too, and 2013 sucks because of that as well, and it was kind of at the forefront of my mind up until now, but whatever. I don't really even care about that right now.
Man... just... fuck cancer.
The below is a copy/paste, with some minor edits, of an email I just sent to my sister a few minutes ago:
They just told us this morning that as of December 31, 2013, <company name redacted> is going to be terminating the contract with our company and that, given that we haven't had very many other contracts coming in at all, our company is most likely going to be dissolving not too long thereafter. Meaning that when I come back out here in January from the Christmas trip to NC, the job I have right now pretty much won't exist anymore. They said there might be a small possibility that <company name redacted> could change their mind again between now and then, but I'm not going to be holding my breath on that one, and they advised us not to wait on this possibility. They told us to go ahead and start looking for another job, so I will be redoubling my efforts to do that, though so far I still haven't been doing too well on that generally speaking.
While I like it out here and would kind of like to stay and all, cleaning out the condo and moving back to North Carolina is not off the table either, and honestly, that option does look a fair bit more attractive now than it did an hour ago. I'm not exactly sure what I want to do or can do at this point, one way or another. Going to need a little bit of time to get my bearings and consider what options there are. It's not the end of the world, of course, but I've had this job for the past 5 years (or 8, counting the summer stuff while going to school), so it's definitely going to take some adjusting to the relatively sudden change.
I'm just glad they gave us three months notice instead of three weeks/days/hours (as the lab manager mentioned had happened to him in the past). There is that, at least.
They just told us this morning that as of December 31, 2013, <company name redacted> is going to be terminating the contract with our company and that, given that we haven't had very many other contracts coming in at all, our company is most likely going to be dissolving not too long thereafter. Meaning that when I come back out here in January from the Christmas trip to NC, the job I have right now pretty much won't exist anymore. They said there might be a small possibility that <company name redacted> could change their mind again between now and then, but I'm not going to be holding my breath on that one, and they advised us not to wait on this possibility. They told us to go ahead and start looking for another job, so I will be redoubling my efforts to do that, though so far I still haven't been doing too well on that generally speaking.
While I like it out here and would kind of like to stay and all, cleaning out the condo and moving back to North Carolina is not off the table either, and honestly, that option does look a fair bit more attractive now than it did an hour ago. I'm not exactly sure what I want to do or can do at this point, one way or another. Going to need a little bit of time to get my bearings and consider what options there are. It's not the end of the world, of course, but I've had this job for the past 5 years (or 8, counting the summer stuff while going to school), so it's definitely going to take some adjusting to the relatively sudden change.
I'm just glad they gave us three months notice instead of three weeks/days/hours (as the lab manager mentioned had happened to him in the past). There is that, at least.
I'm glad I don't have to put up with this sort of thing where I work. Then again, the full extent of how it went down where I work was that I happened to mention watching the show once in passing a few months ago during a discussion about television, my supervisor said faux-mockingly "So does that mean you are a brony?" and I said "Yeah, I guess so," we moved on to other topics, and then I never brought it up again. I just don't feel the need to advertise the fact that I watch the show in real life, outside of the occasional mention here (if you consider LJ to be "real life" at all). I'm not ashamed of it, it's just not something that needs to be shouted to the heavens. If I found someone in real life (i.e. outside of the Internet) willing to talk about it, that'd be cool, but it's not a big deal to me or anything. That said, I doubt I'd get fired even if I did wear a brony t-shirt* or bring a toy to work**. Certainly nobody has said anything about the five mostly Star Trek related images that I'm currently using as a revolving desktop background on my machine, aside from the occasional "Heh, that's pretty funny" or "I like your background." But, then, it's more "appropriate" for a guy to be into Star Trek/Star Wars/X-Men than it is for him to be into My Little Pony, so there is that to consider as well.
But, in any case, if what the guy in that article says is accurate, and he actually wasn't being a completely obnoxious douche about the whole thing, then I think he got treated wrongly here as I don't think what he (claims he) did was inappropriate at all, especially if other people were doing the same thing, but with more "manly" interests. That boss and his former co-workers sound kind of like giant asshats, at least judging from what the fired dude is saying about them. On the other hand, even if the guy was being an incredibly creepy weirdo about it, I still don't think that, in and of itself, should have been enough to get the guy fired, at least as long as he didn't do something completely over the top like, say, proposition the boss's 9 year old daughter or something. (Because, you know, all bronies everywhere are totally pedophiles, amirite u gais? But seriously, if he did actually do something like that, I would have hoped that they'd have called the cops rather then merely fire him.) Some people go on and on and on and on about sports or whatever that I would personally like to tell to STFU (but don't, because it would be impolite, so I just tune them out instead), but I don't think they should be fired over it (but again, sports is an appropriately "manly" subject). Actually, that's just a hypothetical, since while I do know some people who sleep, breathe, and eat sports, none of them exist where I work. Most of my co-workers actually tend to share my apathy about sports.
(And then I made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments under that article, which are filled with the typical "durr hurr bronies sure are creepy and weird amirite" bullshit that I should have expected would be there even before I scrolled down, given that it's gawker.)
(EDIT) With all of that said, I get that the guy may have been an at-will employee, meaning that they could fire him for whatever the hell they wanted to. Even so, it's still not cool, in my opinion. (/EDIT)
* - Which I don't own yet, but have vaguely considered buying some stuff while perusing welovefine, but then I don't buy t-shirts for any of my other fandoms so why would I for MLP?
** - Which, as I've said elsewhere, I have very little interest in, even if the toys do now look somewhat more show-accurate than they did back when I originally made that comment. (Though I'm still waiting for them to make a proper MLP:FiM video game most definitely. Come on, Hasbro, get it together. A actual, full-fledged, fully backed, official MLP:FiM video game that isn't a crappy iPhone thing would get you mad bank.)
But, in any case, if what the guy in that article says is accurate, and he actually wasn't being a completely obnoxious douche about the whole thing, then I think he got treated wrongly here as I don't think what he (claims he) did was inappropriate at all, especially if other people were doing the same thing, but with more "manly" interests. That boss and his former co-workers sound kind of like giant asshats, at least judging from what the fired dude is saying about them. On the other hand, even if the guy was being an incredibly creepy weirdo about it, I still don't think that, in and of itself, should have been enough to get the guy fired, at least as long as he didn't do something completely over the top like, say, proposition the boss's 9 year old daughter or something. (Because, you know, all bronies everywhere are totally pedophiles, amirite u gais? But seriously, if he did actually do something like that, I would have hoped that they'd have called the cops rather then merely fire him.) Some people go on and on and on and on about sports or whatever that I would personally like to tell to STFU (but don't, because it would be impolite, so I just tune them out instead), but I don't think they should be fired over it (but again, sports is an appropriately "manly" subject). Actually, that's just a hypothetical, since while I do know some people who sleep, breathe, and eat sports, none of them exist where I work. Most of my co-workers actually tend to share my apathy about sports.
(And then I made the mistake of scrolling down to the comments under that article, which are filled with the typical "durr hurr bronies sure are creepy and weird amirite" bullshit that I should have expected would be there even before I scrolled down, given that it's gawker.)
(EDIT) With all of that said, I get that the guy may have been an at-will employee, meaning that they could fire him for whatever the hell they wanted to. Even so, it's still not cool, in my opinion. (/EDIT)
* - Which I don't own yet, but have vaguely considered buying some stuff while perusing welovefine, but then I don't buy t-shirts for any of my other fandoms so why would I for MLP?
** - Which, as I've said elsewhere, I have very little interest in, even if the toys do now look somewhat more show-accurate than they did back when I originally made that comment. (Though I'm still waiting for them to make a proper MLP:FiM video game most definitely. Come on, Hasbro, get it together. A actual, full-fledged, fully backed, official MLP:FiM video game that isn't a crappy iPhone thing would get you mad bank.)
This is copy/pasted from an email I sent to work a half hour ago:
"Had one of the stupidest dreams I've had in a while last night, which is directly responsible for why I am late. Dreamed I was back in NC in my room at my parents' home, except the bed, nightstand, and clock were the ones from here in WA. People kept waking me up to tell me the most asinine stuff, like hey we're going to such-and-such for lunch or hey there's a TV show coming on in a few hours you might want to see and crap like that. At one point in the dream, I said something like "Well, I'm already awake now, so there's no point to keeping the alarm on" which is apparently when I turned it off irl as well as in the dream. In any case, my alarm didn't come on this morning and I just woke up a few minutes ago. Should be there in 20-30 minutes or so, if the bus is relatively on time."
There wasn't much more to it than that, at least that I can recall. I just remember that I kept looking at the clock and seeing it was around 6-7am and people kept waking me up to tell me the most idiotic, pointless, mundane crap, most of which I don't even remember now. I'm fairly sure that when I was looking at the clock, that was actually me partially awake looking at the clock irl, but which was incorporated into the dream somehow. I know the part with me turning the clock off was part of the dream, but apparently had to have happened irl as well. I was so pissed off when I woke up for real and saw what time it was. I ended up being an hour late for work because of this crap. -_-
In related news, I actually had to run to catch the damn bus, even though I had left early enough that I would have arrived at the stop on time, just because the bus decided to be a minute or two early today. It never fails. If I'm running early, the bus is invariably several minutes late. If I'm running merely on time or a bit late myself, that's when the bus decides to show up early. Ugh.
Needless to say, I have not been left in the best of moods this morning. Oh well, at least it's raining, so I guess it's not all bad.
"Had one of the stupidest dreams I've had in a while last night, which is directly responsible for why I am late. Dreamed I was back in NC in my room at my parents' home, except the bed, nightstand, and clock were the ones from here in WA. People kept waking me up to tell me the most asinine stuff, like hey we're going to such-and-such for lunch or hey there's a TV show coming on in a few hours you might want to see and crap like that. At one point in the dream, I said something like "Well, I'm already awake now, so there's no point to keeping the alarm on" which is apparently when I turned it off irl as well as in the dream. In any case, my alarm didn't come on this morning and I just woke up a few minutes ago. Should be there in 20-30 minutes or so, if the bus is relatively on time."
There wasn't much more to it than that, at least that I can recall. I just remember that I kept looking at the clock and seeing it was around 6-7am and people kept waking me up to tell me the most idiotic, pointless, mundane crap, most of which I don't even remember now. I'm fairly sure that when I was looking at the clock, that was actually me partially awake looking at the clock irl, but which was incorporated into the dream somehow. I know the part with me turning the clock off was part of the dream, but apparently had to have happened irl as well. I was so pissed off when I woke up for real and saw what time it was. I ended up being an hour late for work because of this crap. -_-
In related news, I actually had to run to catch the damn bus, even though I had left early enough that I would have arrived at the stop on time, just because the bus decided to be a minute or two early today. It never fails. If I'm running early, the bus is invariably several minutes late. If I'm running merely on time or a bit late myself, that's when the bus decides to show up early. Ugh.
Needless to say, I have not been left in the best of moods this morning. Oh well, at least it's raining, so I guess it's not all bad.
Well, to be more accurate, they installed one new one and finally got around to refilling the old one in the other bathroom that already had one after, like, a year and a half of it not doing anything at all.
Now, every time you open the doorway leading from our office to the tiny hallway where the bathrooms are, you get a face full of a really strong vanilla scent. For the past week or so now, it has perpetually smelled like someone is trying to bake a cake out there or something. Worse is that the smell is now starting to encroach upon the office itself, rather than just the bathroom hallway. Granted, it's not an entirely unpleasant scent or anything, but it is more than a little bit cloying. >_>
The worst thing about them is that the new one is positioned just above the toilet so that if it happens to trigger while you're in there doing your business (if you're a guy anyway) it will get you directly in the face. Similarly, the old one is right next to the sink, so that it will hit you in the ear while you're washing your hands. The positioning was rather poorly chosen, in my not so humble opinion. It hasn't gotten me yet, but I fear it's only a matter of time.
MFW: http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/File:Pound_%26_Pumpkin_Cake_almost_agitated_S2E13.png
Now, every time you open the doorway leading from our office to the tiny hallway where the bathrooms are, you get a face full of a really strong vanilla scent. For the past week or so now, it has perpetually smelled like someone is trying to bake a cake out there or something. Worse is that the smell is now starting to encroach upon the office itself, rather than just the bathroom hallway. Granted, it's not an entirely unpleasant scent or anything, but it is more than a little bit cloying. >_>
The worst thing about them is that the new one is positioned just above the toilet so that if it happens to trigger while you're in there doing your business (if you're a guy anyway) it will get you directly in the face. Similarly, the old one is right next to the sink, so that it will hit you in the ear while you're washing your hands. The positioning was rather poorly chosen, in my not so humble opinion. It hasn't gotten me yet, but I fear it's only a matter of time.
MFW: http://mlp.wikia.com/wiki/File:Pound_%26_Pumpkin_Cake_almost_agitated_S2E13.png
It's currently 86.5°F in here, according to the little digital thermometer I have on the desk next to me. That's 20° hotter than it is outside, according to weather.com desktop app. This sucks. (Only another hour and half to go... only another hour and a half to go...)
Saw some deer this morning behind Kohl's.
Sep. 2nd, 2011 10:38 amI happened to take the bus in to work this morning because I was running a bit late. As the bus approached my stop, I noticed a couple of deer standing behind Kohl's. After I got off the bus, I took a couple pictures of them with my cellphone.
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I saw quite a few deer during the past couple of weeks that I was in North Carolina while riding in cars and such. I don't think I've seen many while out here in Washington, though, and certainly not from just a few feet away while walking up the sidewalk.
This is the first time I've ever actually used my cellphone camera at all (either on this new phone or the old one), outside of just messing around with it for a bit when I first got the phone to make sure it worked.
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I saw quite a few deer during the past couple of weeks that I was in North Carolina while riding in cars and such. I don't think I've seen many while out here in Washington, though, and certainly not from just a few feet away while walking up the sidewalk.
This is the first time I've ever actually used my cellphone camera at all (either on this new phone or the old one), outside of just messing around with it for a bit when I first got the phone to make sure it worked.
When I was about halfway to work, as I was about to cross a street, I saw a crow on the other side in the yard of one of the buildings. As I went past, it flew up into a nearby tree and started cawwing like crazy. Then it swooped down and flew right over my head. It did this at least four or five times before it finally stopped following me down the sidewalk. It was close enough that I probably could have reached up and hit it or grabbed it, assuming it didn't dodge or something. I'm guessing there was a nest or something nearby.
The whole rest of the time I was walking the work, I'd occasionally hearing a crow calling and I'd look up and see one circling overhead a few hundred feet. Don't know if it was the same crow or if it called in its friends or what.
The whole rest of the time I was walking the work, I'd occasionally hearing a crow calling and I'd look up and see one circling overhead a few hundred feet. Don't know if it was the same crow or if it called in its friends or what.
When I went to bed last night, it was with the telltale fuzziness that usually indicates something bad is on the horizon and, sure enough, I woke up this morning around 5:30 or so with this crap. I just turned the alarm off and went back to sleep, only waking up again about 15-20 minutes ago. Wish it could have waited just one more day before setting in, because I was already looking to have a 3-day weekend anyway (Memorial Day being one of the very few holidays we actually get off where I work), but now it's an impromptu 4-day weekend. :(
And now I have a cold or something.
Feb. 25th, 2011 08:15 amWhen I went to bed last night, I had that sort of general malaise that is a precursor to being sick. Was hoping it was just all in my head as it occasionally is, but sadly that wasn't the case this time. Woke up around 4am with the coughing and the stuffy nose making it hard to breathe and thus sleep. By now I feel like I have the full works. As such, the only reason I'm up now is because my alarms woke me up, so I got up and sent off an email to work letting them know I wouldn't be there. Combined with yesterday, that makes this an impromptu four-day weekend. Too bad I can't actually enjoy that. Heading back to bed now. :/
It's pretty white out there this morning.
Feb. 24th, 2011 08:07 amNot sure how bad it is as far as traveling goes, though. The roads and sidewalks are white, but the roads do look driven upon. I'm going to wait an hour or two before going to work to see what the other guys are going to do, as I don't want to walk the 1.25 miles or so (through back roads and/or road construction areas, no less) and then find out I'm the only one there. For reference, DigiPen won't be opening until 10:30am, and that's what I've used as my gauge for what to do in situations like this in the past.
Current temperature is 27-28°F, according to the three different weather widgets/apps on my computer.
It doesn't seem as bad as last time though, for what that's worth.
(EDIT)
But, unlike last time, this time I decided to just stay in. I went up to the mailbox a little while ago, and on the way back I slipped and fell and slid part of the way down the hill. Arm still hurts a bit where I landed on it weird. That was when I decided I didn't need to be walking in this mess and would just stay home today.
(/EDIT)
Current temperature is 27-28°F, according to the three different weather widgets/apps on my computer.
It doesn't seem as bad as last time though, for what that's worth.
(EDIT)
But, unlike last time, this time I decided to just stay in. I went up to the mailbox a little while ago, and on the way back I slipped and fell and slid part of the way down the hill. Arm still hurts a bit where I landed on it weird. That was when I decided I didn't need to be walking in this mess and would just stay home today.
(/EDIT)
I am having weather issues this morning.
Nov. 23rd, 2010 08:54 amThe weather took a big snowy crap all over everything last night. I checked schoolreport.org and saw that DigiPen was closed, which is what I used in the past as an indicator as to whether it was wise to try to go out or not.
Still, I sent an email to the guys at work letting them know that I would be willing to try to walk the 1.2 miles or so there, even in the snow/ice, but only if I knew for sure that I wouldn't be the only one there. Will also try calling the office itself in a bit (as I don't have any of their cellphone numbers), but if I don't get a hold of anyone, I'm staying at home.
By the way, it is 15-17°F right now (according to my duo of weather apps on my PC). So much for "almost never gets below 40°F" that my real estate agent told me when I first moved out here. ¬_¬
(EDIT)
I ended up going on in anyway, because my supervisor answered my email saying he was here. As soon as I got there, my supervisor (the only other one on this project to show up) informed me that he would be leaving almost immediately to go help some friends of his whose house had apparently collapsed during the night.
So, while there are a couple of other people here today in other rooms, I am the only one of the three here that is working on my particular project. Sucks. Kind of wish I'd stayed home after all. Then again, if I stay home, I don't get paid.
(/EDIT)
Still, I sent an email to the guys at work letting them know that I would be willing to try to walk the 1.2 miles or so there, even in the snow/ice, but only if I knew for sure that I wouldn't be the only one there. Will also try calling the office itself in a bit (as I don't have any of their cellphone numbers), but if I don't get a hold of anyone, I'm staying at home.
By the way, it is 15-17°F right now (according to my duo of weather apps on my PC). So much for "almost never gets below 40°F" that my real estate agent told me when I first moved out here. ¬_¬
(EDIT)
I ended up going on in anyway, because my supervisor answered my email saying he was here. As soon as I got there, my supervisor (the only other one on this project to show up) informed me that he would be leaving almost immediately to go help some friends of his whose house had apparently collapsed during the night.
So, while there are a couple of other people here today in other rooms, I am the only one of the three here that is working on my particular project. Sucks. Kind of wish I'd stayed home after all. Then again, if I stay home, I don't get paid.
(/EDIT)
All using different means to do so (though not all at the same time, of course). One, the Mac, is controlled using Synergy. Another, which isn't even on the same desk as the other three, is controlled using TightVNC. And the third is controlled using a switcher box. The last is the most annoying of the three, because it requires actually reaching up to the switcher box and pressing a button.