Pizza delivery may not be lucrative, but it’s one of the ten best jobs available. If you think there’s something out there that nobody’s done, you’re wrong. “More” is not necessarily “better.” The drapes don’t always have to match the carpet. Any innocent sentence can be twisted into sexual innuendo. They teach more than they let on in Catholic all-girls schools. My medical insurance doesn’t cover the right kind of sponge baths. Some women actually do like sex. “Sexual Healing” is a legitimate thing. The boobs are always bigger on the other side of the fence (or something like that). Anybody can make a web site - anybody. Regardless of what you’re into, there’s always someone into something weirder. If variety is the spice of life, the Internet is very spicy. Skin stretches. I don’t have enough drive space. The guy who invented the pop-up advertisement needs to be shot. Be proud of what you look like - cosmetic surgery doesn’t always improve things.

I am holding in my hot little hands two (2) tickets to American Idol - Live! I’ll be sitting in the company box in the Rose Garden on November 19 watching the top ten finalists. Stoked.

This weekend was okay.

Friday night a couple of our friends, Aaron and Melissa, came over for dinner and a movie. We ended up cooking random stuff on the grill and then watching the Superbit edition of The Fifth Element.

Tiny sidetrack: The idea behind Superbit DVDs is that the extra stuff - the commentary, the behind the scenes documentaries, etc. - isn’t there. Instead, that extra disc space is used to allow for a much higher quality digital transfer of the film. The picture is clearer, the sound is cleaner. Before, I didn’t notice the picture on this sort of thing because my TV didn’t really justify it. With the new TV, it’s a very noticeable difference. I look forward to getting more of the Superbit series.

So that was Friday night. Pretty fun, and it was good to see them again. We don’t get together often enough.

Saturday we were going to head west and visit my friend Jack at the Tillamook Cheese factory. The problem is, I think there’s a bit of a communication gap between me and Jack.

See, Jack likes to call people. He likes to resove issues over the telephone. I think he specifically doesn’t email people because he’d rather resolve things verbally over the phone.

I don’t call people. I hate the goddamn phone. I might be your best friend, but I really don’t have anything to say to you over the phone. The phone, to me, seems like a halfway sort of thing - if you have something quick, fine, call me; if you wanna talk, get your ass over here. Instead, I email people. I like to be able to read what I’m saying, process it, amend it, make sure it’s right, and send it. I like to be able to read what people have to say to me and verify that I understood it. When it’s over the phone, all bets are off. Maybe I misheard what you were saying. Maybe I agreed to something and forgot. You know why? Because I’m a very visually oriented. If I didn’t see it written anywhere, I’m not going to remember it.

That’s actually what I’m waxing philosophic over today. Communications differences in people. Some folks love personal interaction. I fucking hate people. Sure, you could pull out the “but I’m your friend! do you hate me?” thing. Understand that this is a generalization. I don’t hate any individual person necessarily; I hate people en masse. I especially hate personal interaction (and yes, that probably does apply to you.) I like the idea of large gatherings, but I hate people. I like to go to parties with people that I know, but I hate going to parties where I have to “mingle” and “meet people.” That seems so impersonal. I don’t want to meet people.

That makes me wonder - is it a sign of the times that some folks get to be more comfortable with the distance that electronic interaction puts between themselves and others? I think someone at Portland State University was doing a study about that a while ago; I wonder what the findings were.

Regardless, Saturday we didn’t end up visiting Jack. (Sorry, Jack. Email me.) Instead, we finished things up around the house that don’t normally get done, went shopping, did chores.

Jenn got this perfume called Angel that is just the bomb. Interesting story about that: I was at work on Friday and the HR lady here was in the cube next to mine and I could smell her perfume. I liked it; it reminded me of something I can’t quite put my finger on, but it was good. I asked her what it was - Angel. So I told Jenn to stop at the store on her way home from school and smell it. She didn’t get a chance to do that. Then Friday night, Aaron and Melissa showed up at our place and Melissa had Angel on. Weird, huh? Anyway, Jenn got herself some Angel (yummy!) and now she smells like heaven.

Sunday I tried to finish fixing my ninja costume for Halloween, but Jenn’s mom’s sewing machine sucks ass and decided it would rather try to eat my fabric than actually function. I’ve tried using that POS before, and it does this same thing every time. It seems to work for Jenn’s mom, but Jenn’s mom ain’t here so it just chows my fabric. I’ll just have to go use my mom’s fully operational, non-fabric-eating sewing machine.

Sunday evening we went and watched the Hawks break their three-game losing streak and win against Tri-Cities. I was scared for a while, there, but we pulled through in the end.

Before I start this, let me say that I am not a coffee drinker. I probably have one cup every two weeks or so, just because I need that caffeine boost and the sugar in cola-flavored-beverages usually sort of bogs me down.

Today I need to do some serious programming, and the only thing that makes me have a decent time with that is if I’m wide awake - enter the caffeine.

I went to get a cup of coffee this morning, and… the pot was empty. I looked in, and it seemed that I was the first person to try to get coffee because the pot was clean from the night before. Fine. I put everything together and brewed a pot of coffee. When it was done, I got a cup.

I went back out an hour later and the fucking pot was empty again. God forbid anyone else make a pot of coffee but me, the non-coffee-drinker.

I’m thinking I should rig the pots up with some sort of a scale and a digital camera apparatus so that when the pot of coffee reaches a weight approximating “empty,” the camera will take a picture and send it to me so I can bust the asshole that’s not making coffee.

Then again, not everyone knows how to make a pot of coffee. One time I looked in the pot and thought I was getting tea, when it turns out some people are just idiots. Yes, those pictures are real. Unbelieveable.

This sort of reminds me of that movie City Slickers when Billy Crystal’s character, Mitch, is talking to Jack Palance’s character, Curly:

Mitch: Killed anyone today, Curly?

Curly: Day ain’t over yet.

My bad day today actually started yesterday when our email server went down due to some funky computer policy crap that went on. That part wasn’t my problem, but the fact that I formatted and reinstalled everything on my desktop computer on the very day when all the network trauma was going on means that I only had problem after problem getting things to work properly.

My bad day continued today, when all sorts of crap went on. Jenn sometimes pings me during the day via email to see how my day is going. I figured I’d let you all in on the email today so you can see what goes on backstage, as it were.

Fuck my day. Fuck it up its stupid ass. Everything has gone wrong today. My extranet server won’t send notifications to people when it’s supposed to. I don’t know why; had to open a support call for that. Another of my support calls came back and told me that, basically, I have a lot of work to do in order to rewrite this program I’m working on and make it work properly. I gotta have that in to those guys ASAP so they can continue their work. I’ve got people showing up asking for tutorials on how to do really simple shit and people so anxious for the intranet to roll out that they’re riding my back for it even though I told them it’s not going to be ready for at least A MONTH. I’ve got shit to update on some forms that need to go production on our extranet site (the same site that’s all fucked up with the subscription notifications thing) but have to play police and ride people for input on them, even though the forms are THEIRS. I have to fight Microsoft Support to give me files that they say on their web site all you have to do is ask for - now they want me to justify WHY. Everything I’m working on is priority one, and nothing is getting done because I can’t finish one thing before starting another.

So, there you have it. I’ve been running around today sort of in this Age Affected Attention Deficit Disorder haze, doing lots of stuff but getting nothing done.

My baby, however, has gotten some rather high marks on the latest unit in her Pharmacy Technician training program - 96%! That’s pretty good, if I do say so myself. I am very proud.

Another positive item of note: My friend Gerb found this web site that reminded him of me. I read it, and it reminded me of me. I couldn’t have written it up better myself. What do you think?