Me likey an open bar

I gotta say, there's nothing like an open bar. I'd already had two vodka tonics by 6 pm. Even tried the apple Stoli. Not real good; it was like drinking a Jolly Rancher. It was okay to my palate (Anita hated it), but then again, I was comparing it to the raspberry Absolut I'd had a few months ago. That had turned out to be the first vodka I didn't like. So the apple Stoli was good in comparison. But it ain't gonna supplant Absolut Mandrin or even Absolut Citron in my book. But that's the beauty of the open bar. I got to try it for free! And you know, there's nothing like ordering a Crown & Coke and plunking down all of a dollar for it ... and even that dollar was only for the tip. The drink was free. Man, an open bar is nice.

Signed,
Me, Director Emeritus of the Department of Stating the Obvious (Not affiliated with the Department of Redundancy Department)

Damn punks...

About 15 minutes ago, I was awoken by a series of booms somewhere outside in my neighborhood. More like the loud pops when a fireworks mortar launches, but without the subsequent crackling of the fireworks in the sky. One every few seconds for about a minute. Of course, by the time I got to a front window, it had stopped. No sign of anything unusual outside, not even anyone going out to investigate. I would've thought I was dreaming, except the cats were also darting about with ears perked high, freezing briefly at attention and looking around like prairie dogs at every sound. They're only just now starting to come off of alert mode. But I'm not; hence, I'm on the computer at almost 5 am.

I can only assume it was bored teens with leftover 4th of July fireworks somewhere. At least, I hope that's all it was...

Beam him up, Scotty

Well, someone had to say it, right? Like I'm the only one who'd write that, let alone think it.

So, I have to do a geek entry here. This morning, James Doohan died. He played Scotty on the original Star Trek. I'm a fan of the original series and movies, so my interest in the Star Trek universe waned and has pretty much disappeared since the last movie with the original cast way back in 1991. But I guess I still harbor a soft spot for the original cast. So although it was no surprise, it was a little sad to learn that Doohan had died. No sadder than it is when any celebrity you don't know personally dies, but still.

So, in honor of the memory of James "Scotty" Doohan, here's an old Polaroid of Doohan with a fan from around 1990 or so that I dug up. I've blurred the fan's face to protect his identity. Just a guess, but I don't think the fan would want the unmodified photo posted for all to see. It's not the proudest moment in his life.

Also, click on the photo and take a close look at Doohan's right hand. He lost a finger on D-Day; he always hid that on camera, but it looks like you can actually tell in this photo. I'd never noticed that in this photo before today, believe it or not.

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ATTN: New parents

Okay. I understand that as new parents, you can go stir crazy. You can't go out to dinner, see movies, all that fun stuff. You need a break. You need to get away for a little while. Fine. That's perfectly understandable.

But why would you decide that the best place to take an infant is a PG-13 ACTION MOVIE WITH EXPLOSIONS AND CAR CHASES AND BOOMING MUSIC THAT ENDS AFTER 9 PM??!?!??!

I saw Batman Begins for the second time Sunday night. A 6:50 pm show, ending close to 9:30 pm. I'm settled in, getting absorbed into the movie, when some late arrivals shuffle in a few seats to my right. And then I get that plastic whiff of a diaper. "You're fucking kidding me," I think. And sure enough, within 10 minutes, the gurgles and shrieks start. We're not talking about a toddler here. This was a baby. An INFANT.

Now, from my experience with friends with infants, it seems you generally try to put babies to bed by 7 pm. I certainly haven't seen anyone wait until 9:30 or 10 pm if they could help it. And we've always had to be quiet when the baby was asleep. Even if we were several rooms away. That tells me that babies aren't usually the soundest of sleepers. And that's perfectly acceptable.

What is not acceptable to me is taking an infant to a movie past its bedtime when it's likely to be woken by loud noises every 10-15 minutes. And then, on top of that, to have the father periodically asking someone in a normal speaking volume, "This is a Batman film, right? When's Batman showing up?"

Sure, after a few minutes the mother took the infant into the aisle to try to keep it quiet. But you could still hear the louder shrieks, since she was really only about 30 feet farther away. And eventually she brought it back to the seat, and there would still be the occasional gurgle and even a shriek or two here and there throughout the rest of the film.

Why didn't I move? I was in the middle, and there were people down both sides of my row. Plus, the movie had started and I was settled in a seat I wanted. Besides, why should I move?? I didn't bring a noisy baby.

Okay, maybe they thought there wouldn't be so many people on a Sunday evening, which is true. Would the afternoon be worse because the baby wouldn't sleep at all? But can you really expect a baby to sleep through an action movie no matter what time of day it is?

I'm sorry if I'm not being understanding of new parents. I would expect and tolerate this more at a kids' flick, especially during a weekend day. But I'm sorry, this annoyed me and took me out of the movie for a little while. If this had been a drama with more quiet parts in the second half, I woulda been really pissed.

Car lengths

Remember in driver's ed when you learned about following distances, keeping a certain number of car lengths between you and anyone in front of you depending on what speed you were going? The theory being that you'd need that much distance to stop without hitting them if they suddenly hit their brakes. Always sounded reasonable, even if most of us aren't always real good about following that to a T.

But why oh why do some people seem to think that applies when you're standing still at a stoplight?!?!? Twice yesterday evening I saw people waiting at a light with a full car length or more between them and the next car. In one case, we were in a short left turn lane, so that extra car length was making the line spill unnecessarily into the main lanes. And to top it off, once the arrow turned green, this driver took forever to start and took the turn really slowly. "Hel-LOO! There's no one in front of you now! You don't have to go that slowly!!"

This isn't a phenomenon relegated to last night. I see this fairly regularly at intersections. Why do some people insist on leaving huge gaps between them and the car in front of them while stopped at a light??

And so it begins...

I guess I could call this Layoff Begins in honor of the latest Batman movie, but that's just silly. So, this new era in my life brings with it a new blog! Yes, that's right, I'm starting a second simultaneous (but hopefully short-lived) blog, The Layoff Times. I was going to blog about my first day of unemployment here, but I don't want that to become the focus of this blog. So, why not start another one? Check it out and see what you think.

And now, a hodge-podge of other stuff:

For no apparent reason, I'd brought home an old and long outdated Tivoli Style Guide from work. This evening, Phoebe threw up on it. Symbolism?? On the other hand, the book has a laminated cover, so it kept most of the cat vomit off the carpet, and the book itself is still unharmed!

However, Phoebe did have me concerned for awhile because her voice got hoarse after that. Her meows were strained. But she didn't behave abnormally in any other way. She remained that way all evening, but a short while ago, after a nice long deep sleep curled up next to me on the sofa, Phoebe got up and meowed in pretty much her normal voice. Whew.

I realized that I spend so much time in my living room that it's kinda weird for me to spend any time in the other rooms. Yesterday, for some reason, I took my laptop into my spare bedroom. (Technically, I have two spare bedrooms, or as I call them, "bedroom-sized closets." But one is actually a functional spare bedroom now because it has both my old bed and a clear path to it). So yesterday I took my laptop, stretched out on the old bed, and surfed and chatted on IM with Babs and Jerry while some welcome rain poured down outside. It was weird; it felt kinda like I was in my childhood bedroom. But I've barely spent any time in my spare bedroom in the nearly 6 years I've owned this house. And I've never slept there. And that room is nothing like my room at my parents' house, aside from the fact that both have Batman posters.

And this evening, to observe Phoebe after her voice sounded weird, I followed her to the dining room. She jumped onto the "new" sofa (which is my very, very old couch covered with my old flannel sheets from my old bed), so I stretched out on it to be with her. Of course, Meeka soon followed. And as I lay there, out of sight of all clocks, with no TV or computer within sight (well, none that were on), it was kinda soothing. Just laying there, staring at the wall, listening to the hum of the fridge and the rattle of the cicadas (or whatever they are) outside. I lay there for 20 minutes, doing nothing, with both girls within reach. It was nice. I'm so used to thinking I need to multitask most of the time, or at least be doing one thing even if it's just watching TV, that doing absolutely nothing was very, very nice.

On a completely unrelated note, I was browsing the Motorola site for cell phones when I was greated by this unexpectedly enticing image. Yowza! Me want that!! The phone, too! (Don't worry, girls, there's an image for you too on this page, but you'll have to hunt for it yourselves. I ain't doing the work for ya).

And finally, a writer/editor test for ya -- here's a couple of oopsies from CNN (the actual channel, not the website) this afternoon. At least they were consistent:

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Avatar history

Last year, Yahoo added cartoon avatars to the IM service. On the PC side only, of course. Yahoo doesn't even seem to be thinking about adding such new features to the Mac client. Stupid Yahoo. Starting Tuesday, I'll be on a Mac when I log into IM most of the time (until I find another job, which most likely will use Windows), so my avatar will no longer be visible. So, on Friday I made one last avatar change for my final 2 days at IBM. Sure, it's a silly, but it's batappropriate. Here's my final avatar for my IBM tenure, along with all those that preceded it:

Last stop on the gravy train

A large weight gently but firmly descended upon my shoulders this morning. The reality that it was my second-to-last day at IBM finally cornered me. The realization that an almost 5 1/2 year era is about to close. A lot of it is little piddly things. Like how I haven't been without access to office-caliber printers and copiers since mid-1992. Or what a pain job hunting will become now that I'll be focusing more and more on it. Just an overall feeling, not of exhaustion or tiredness, but a resigned lack of energy.

I'm not depressed. I'm not going to let this turn into a depression. Not even a recession. But for the first time since I learned I was on the layoff list 4 weeks ago, I'm dejected. Not depressed. Dejected.

Earlier this week I emailed some of the people I've worked with in the Rome office over the years. I only ever met one or two of them in person, as I never got a trip to Italy out of this job like Andrew did, but still, it was a little sad to say goodbye. Cleaned out my filing cabinet yesterday. Now it's just a matter of confirming that my personal files are safely off my computers, and then I can wipe the drives.

Five years and 4 months as of yesterday. That's more than a year longer than I lasted at NI. Blows my Dell tenure out of the water. In the time I've been at IBM, the vast majority of my friends changed jobs at least 2-3 times. Jerry, Andrew, and long-time NIers being obvious exceptions. Those early halcyon days in the Arboretum buildings, at the turn of the 21st century, are like a sepia-toned slideshow, they seem so long ago.

So, dejected and nostalgic. And a little drained. And pensive. That's how I feel today. Most of my stuff is already at home. The gravy train is pulling into the station. Last stop on this line. I don't know what the dawn of this new era will bring, other than a rash of mixed imagery. I hope this works out well for me. I don't think it'll really turn out worse in the long run, but losing the vacation time and pay rate still sucks.

Yet, I know this really is just a minor blip. This isn't really anything to complain about. Shit happens, and this isn't even shit. Tim and Suzanne both lost one parent within the past couple of weeks after long, protracted bouts with cancer. Being laid off is nothing. I have an opportunity to take up to 2 1/2 months off, paid. Hardly a tragedy.

Speaking of rashes, the mystery bumps are pretty much all gone now. There are some dried-up spots here and there that I assume will go away soon. And my foot hasn't had any major pain since the last flare-up.

Funny, I have a short reprieve now. Turns out my last day will actually be Monday, not tomorrow. So I get 3 more days of pay, and I don't have to finish up and say goodbye tomorrow. So, my future begins Monday afternoon instead. Whatever happens next, it should prove enlightening...

London terror headlines

I never thought I'd see the day that Fox News had a more sedate headline than CNN. I guess there's a first for everything. Guess which news website had which headline this morning:

1. TERROR HITS LONDON
2. London Terror Attacks
3. London Is Hit by String of Rush-Hour Blasts



Answers:
1. CNN (in 50-point type)
2. Fox News
3. The grammatically elistist NY Times. Although, with some 40 dead so far, it's not like this story is equivalent to 9/11 or even the 3/11 Madrid bombings yet. Except for the cause of the deaths, the scope of this story is more akin to a terrible train wreck. So maybe this is actually the best headline despite the unique NY Times headline style that I despise. Not that this isn't still horrible news. I'm not trying to say this isn't big news. But maybe Michael Moore had a point in Bowling for Columbine about the media loving to play on our fears and overhyping frightening stories.

You bet your sweet late-night ad

Okay. I haven't been drinking. I'm a little sleepy, but not overly so. I'm not on any medication. I'm completely sober. But a short while ago I saw a new ad for Aspercreme. And, I kid you not, the tagline was:

YOU BET YOUR SWEET ASPERCREME!

New furniture, before

Okay, I guess it's not necessarily clear where my "new" sofa came from. Here's what the room used to look like:

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New furniture!!

It's not like I was on the verge of buying new furniture for my front room (technically it's the dining room, or would be if I bothered to eat anywhere besides in front of the TV). But getting some real furniture for that room, including a bar, all with some coherent theme was one item on my list of "things I'd like to do eventually in the not-too-distant future." Needless to say, since I'm being laid off, I'm shelving that plan for the time being. So, in lieu of actual new furniture, how do ya like my, ahem, "new" furniture?? Phoebe, at least, doesn't seem to mind...

It's new to me!

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Amazing! Diet plan melts pounds!

Would you like to lose 10 pounds with almost no effort? Thanks to my amazing new diet plan, you can! Just follow these four simple steps!

1. Get a stomach virus!
2. Catch a cold immediately after!
3. Turn that cold into bronchitis!
4. Get laid off!

That's roight, it's as simple as that!! Shed those unsightly pounds like magic!!

But seriously, this morning I hit a milestone. I now weigh 10 pounds less than I did on May 1, the day of the stomach virus incident. Ten pounds in 2 months and 3 days. Not bad! I'm actually down 10.5 pounds if you count from April 29, the day of the ill-fated dinner. Granted, I lost 4 of those pounds on May 1 itself, but I've kept them off and lost 6 more since.

I'm sure I could've lost more if I'd been working out. I mean, I did a ton of yardwork in May, so I'm sure that helped a lot, but I've been unable to work out on my elliptical for the past couple of months because of my recurring foot problems. So other than mowing the lawn every couple of weeks, I haven't really exercised in a couple of months.

I'm sure eating at home a ton more in the past month has helped some too. I'm not cutting down on eating out with friends, but I haven't gone to a restaurant by myself, not even drive-thru, since June 9. I'm due for a Popeye's run this month, though, and man, after the way June went, I deserve it...