frissonic

tell me about it. i was really hoping that the canada/usa game would generate a metric sh##-ton more interest than it has. it generated practically 0 interest.

i don't remember the game--might have been last season, might have been a couple of years ago, but i do remember playing the pats hard and well and JUST coming up short. a win would be most excellent, but realistically speaking, even if they keep it within 10, i'd be "happy." a loss is a loss, and it will look ugly in the columns, but keeping within 10 of new england ... would that count as a moral victory? something to build on for the rest of the season, you know. meh. we'll find out on sunday.

don't i wish there were a location that played hockey games out here. no bar around here gives two sh##s about it. it's irritating. basketball is about all we get anywhere. blah.

i've worked for smaller companies. definitely a different vibe. our owner was the opposite of tight-wad; he kept our break room stocked with a ridiculous amount of candy, snacks, and drinks. no lie--he's the one who got me hooked on rockstar. :) however, when the budget needed a trim, those were the first perks to go. 90% of the time, if i had an illness or a sick child at home and my wife had to go somewhere, i could work at home with no one batting an eye. i didn't abuse it, which helped build trust, which in turn helped when i really needed to use a week of telecommuting. i hit the jackpot with this company. guaranteed 4% raise every year, 40 hours of sick leave, 10 paid holidays (4 of which are floating holiday days, used at my discretion), 4 weeks of paid vacation a year (earned at 4.6 hours per pay period, but still--excellent!) ... it's just ridiculous how well this company treats its employees. and they encourage management to work for and with their "underlings." it's night and day different from what i'm used to.

there is no compensation that can replace happiness at work. period. i took a 22k hit to come work where i am, and i couldn't be happier. i have a sense of accomplishment, camaradarie, appreciation, and i thoroughly enjoy working for my boss. at my last gig, i hated my boss to the point where i had a secret calendar counting down the days until she retired. i had literally no support from software engineering to accomplish my doc writing tasks. i had precisely 2 friends, both of whom were in QA, neither of whom had any pull with anyone in software to get what i needed. management was a joke; their idea of managing was switching from a waterfall environment to an agile environment "just to shake things up." they had no idea what the software was capable of doing, yet they made all kinds of promises to customers who hadn't even signed a PO yet. it was just a mish-mash of stupidity from the top level down, and it sucked ass. so i quit. landed this gig for a lot less of money, but a LOT more job satisfaction and sense of corporate worth, and i love it. take that for what it is--advice from a stranger. :)

make her/him wait until s/he is 24 to go to college. then they can apply and your income isn't a factor. ;) FAFSA. ugh. those things read like a russian operation and maintenance manual for nuclear warheads. good luck.

she's working a straight 40-hour week, right? does she understand that she's making minimum wage as a professional? i can understand her gratitude at simply having a job, but she really needs to stand up for herself. they obviously trust her with projects and want her to stick around. why not be paid what she's worth? even if she's just starting of, they should at least be paying her about $40k. graphic design is a pretty lucrative field. if she needs/wants to move on, i'd be happy to help polish up a resume. i have a template that i've doled out to dozens of friends and family members. it's never failed to land at least one interview.

200 a WEEK? dude, that's not just ridiculous; that's highway robbery. i guarantee you the reason they haven't brought her on full time is because she simply hasn't asked. it's hella-lot cheaper for them to pay her the pittance pay she's not complaining about than to take her on full time, yet they're still milking her for all she's worth as an illustrator. i don't know about wages out there, but our graphics illustration team out here clear about $60-70k a year. at $200 a week, she's barely clearing $10k a year. how long has she been there?!

while you have the stat book open, can you see when the last time was they opened the season on the road with a win? or, for that matter, how about the last time they actually won an opening day game?

the devout mormon in me wants to not laugh at this ... but i'm losing the battle. :)

suicide. now ... before everyone goes bat#### psycho on me for "complaining" about it, let me explain. our good friend and neighbor across the street lost her daughter yesterday to suicide. she--the daughter--was in her late teens, done with high school, and from all accounts getting ready to go to college. all of a sudden, she decided not to go. a week later, she killed herself. no indicators, no signs. generally happy go-lucky outward appearance. the more i thought about it, the more depressed and overwhelmingly sad i became at not understanding why. she left no note. she exhibited no signs. her mom and dad had no idea. and these are not inattentive parents; they're on top of things. they keep tabs on their kids pretty closely. not to the point of hovering over their shoulders, but enough to know be able to recognize any signs of suicidal tendencies, were any to have been exhibited. but that's the problem--she exhibited precisely none. i guess this isn't really a complaint so much as it is a vent. our whole neighborhood is reeling.

our time keeping system is completely down. keep getting the "Server Error in '/apps/XXXXX' Application" sql server error yellow screen. "IT is working it, but we have no idea when the **** this is gonna be up and running." meanwhile, i have to sit here and wait for them to fix it. i'm not coming in tomorrow because i'm ripping out our kitchen and dining room tile floor, including the backerboard. i have to have all that removed by saturday morning when the new flooring installers show up. obviously i can't remove cement board while i'm sitting at my work desk. problem is that i cannot leave until this stupid time keeping system is fixed, so now i'm just twiddling my thumbs ... and reading sh** on here. fun.

guy on the left looks like kirk hammett of metallica. i'm betting it's not though. nice! i went through a vivaldi's 'four seasons' phase for a while a few weeks back. classical rules.

Your poor mom! I'm sorry to hear about that man. It's gonna cost me about 5-6k just to fix the downstairs bedroom/office. Pulled some paneling off the wall a few months ago to start looking at redoing the room. HELLO termite and water damage. I mean all the way down to the studs. The main water shut-off valve is in the closet, and apparently it caused a ton of damage to the frame. Thankfully, the foundation is intact, but I'm still going to have to rip that room down to the studs and redo the whole thing. IF I do everything myself, it'll be about 6k. If I contract it out, it's gonna be closer to 13-14k. Home inspection. Can't beat it.

GET A HOME INSPECTION. I know that sounds like common sense, but I didn't, and if I had, I would have never bought the house I did. 7 years later, and I'm *still* finding ###### that the previous owner jerry-rigged. My favorites so far is claiming secondary water when in reality he siphoned it off our neighbors for his sprinkling system. That set me back about $1800 to get my own secondary line run to my yard. The other is how our ceiling fan receives its electricity: it's hooked to an extension cord that runs into the carport shed and gets plugged in to a regular outlet. Fan-effing-tastic. Bottom line: home inspection. Best $300-400 you can spend on buying a house.

i have absolutely zero to complain about right now. i have an incredible family, awesome job, the sabres are kicking ass all over the place BEFORE tomorrow ... sorry--wish there were a "non-complaint" thread, but this is what we have, so ... there it is.

actually, that might be how she ended up pregnant in the first place ...

as a full-fledged mormon in utah, i'm pretty sure i can safely speak for all of us when i say NONE OF US want more than a single wife. those polygs in texas and arizona can have 'em. not to mention the fact that actual mormons long ago gave up the concept of plural marriage. probably for a damn good reason.

thanks to you, my monitors were covered in coke back-wash and burger king. the good news out of this is that my screens are now almost factory fresh.

job satisfaction. if you're not happy where you are, move on. life is way too short to spend x number of years not liking the job or company. i did that for almost 5 years. the day i quit, it felt like there was a weight lifted off my shoulders that was indescribably awesome. the day i started my new job was even better. if ya ain't happy, bail.

here's my complaint. it's april. i live in a ****ing desert. it's snowing, and my sat dish is inoperable. 8 years of never having a problem, yet "bones" is new tonight for the first time in 3 weeks, and my crappy provider's equipment gets bogged down by a dusting of powder. 7.5 years with dish network and we *never* had an issue. 6 months with DTV, and i've had nothing BUT issues. damn you, two year contract. damn you to hell.

not to get all geographical and stuff, but .... the islands formed from the interacting of the asian and pacific plates. there have always been massively large earthquakes/tsunamis in the region; i think the reason we're so shocked by the last month's events is the fact that we actually have front-row seats due to the leaps and bounds jumps of technology that brings instantaneous news feeds from literally anywhere in the world. even when egyptian government had shut down their entire internet infrastructure, people were STILL getting the message out about what was happening in tahrir square. we had real-time, instant news feeds from various vantage points in japan; virutally real-time video of the devestation of the earthquake and tsunamis. BUT this isn't new to them. sitting in the ring of fire as they do, and specifically japan because of its geographic location on the asian/pacific plates ... they're going to get hammered with earthquakes and tsunamis. what's different is our ability to get notifications and the depth of that coverage from practically anyone at any time.

assuming that this is for the time machine tour, i don't know what your circumstances are of course, but i would do everything legally possible to get out of whatever it is you have. fake a cold. claim a family death on your significant other's side and need to "be there for moral support." if you don't have one, fake it. ;) i'm really not trying to rub salt in the wound if you can't go, but this show is one of their best ever. geddy hasn't sounded this good in years. AND they play 'carvan' and 'bu2b'. seriously ... fake a hospital visit or something.

he's not. unless the angry chair is in that hole.

today being 31 march, i was unprepared for the ramp-up of practical jokes in anticipation of april fools day, of course being tomorrow. my brother and i swapped my 80GB ipod for his 16GB touch. he got to work, tested it, and immediately started firing texts about how it doesn't work, the video looks scrambled, so i recommended a battery of troubleshooting possibilities. he claimed he tried all of them and that his wife was gonna be pissed as all hell because it was HER 16GB touch that he traded (auspiciously for her). he even went so far as to claim marital issues and that this was suppsoed to smooth things over ... all of which i fell for hook line and sinker. THEN he slams me with the final line about wanting to take enough pills so he can "sleep and not wake up until tomorrow, when it actually IS april fools day ..." to summarize, early april fools day jokes suck.