Carma

This past weekend, I finally got up the outside Christmas lights. I also cleaned the bathroom from top to bottom. Now, that may not seem like a lot of activity, but apparently, it was enough to tweak my back a bit. By Tuesday morning, I was finding it extremely difficult to move or bend.

I must have also pissed off the gods of nature because I was delivered a car-mic blow coming to work. I have about a 35 mile commute which can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour, depending on traffic. Now, I leave in the dark and get to work in the dark, so noticing any potential problems with the car when I leave is somewhat hard. As it was, I didn’t notice anything while driving for about 25 to 30 minutes.

In fact, it wasn’t until I entered the Squirrel Hill tunnels that I noticed something wrong. As I was exiting, the car felt and sounded weird. My first thought was a tie rod went. So, I pulled off to the side of the road and looked. The back passenger tire was flat and smoking. Apparently, I’d been riding the rim pretty good for awhile. Yet, somehow, I never noticed it until then. Realizing I had no room or light to change the tire on the side of 376 West, I limped into Oakland and stopped at a Sunoco. I was hoping to just fill the tire with air. Hopefully, it would be enough to get me to the office and I could deal with it when it was light out.

As I hooked up the air, I could hear it hissing out from somewhere else on the tire. This was not going to be enough of a patch. So, I dug out the donut and jack. Now, over the course of 10 years, I have changed a few tires, using the supplied jack. It’s a pain in the ass, but in a pinch, it gets the job done. However, the jack on my ’05 Malibu Wagon was not one I had ever seen and harder to get disassembled. Realizing I was probably fighting a losing battle, I called my dad (A.K.A. my insurance agent) to ask him if my insurance covered towing back to my place or the local garage I use..

“No.”

So, I sucked it up and fought some more with the jack until I thought I had broke it. Then, if there was any more proof needed that there are still good people out there, I was saved by a random stranger. He was there getting gas and saw me struggling with the jack. He came over and managed to figure it out and we began changing the tire. Unfortunately, the iron they supply to remove the lugs wasn’t exactly great and a few of my lugs felt like they were rounded off, slipping as we tried to turn the handle, probably from over tightening at the garage I usually get tires put on at. My savior apologized because he had to leave and go pick up his wife. He did say that he would swing back around and if I was still there, he’d continue to help.

I struggled with the last two lugs, resorting to smacking the end of the iron with the bottom of the jack to get a snug fit. Stepping on the handle and applying the equivalent of my full body weight in torque nearly dropped me to my knees when the iron slipped off the lug. Random stranger returned and we both worked on the last two lugs, getting them off and pulling the tire. The inside of the tire looked as if Edward Scissorhands had put it on in the first place. The inside was completely shredded and smelled of burnt rubber. We laughed at the sight and I told him that if he wanted a real laugh, know that my last name was ironic. He said something to the effect of “If I was a girl, I’d have a whole pit crew out here changing this thing.” Unfortunately, it was hard for me to get any torque or even bend over to work on the car. My back was making it hard to breathe. The stranger did most of the work, which made me feel like an invalid, but I was thankful.

During the whole ordeal, I offered to buy him and his wife coffee for their trouble. He declined the offer. I then realized I had a $100 bill in my pocket. Our department meeting was going to be at the Casino later and afterwards, I was going to do a little gambling. Hard to fathom, I had been gambling with my life on this tire.

After the donut was on, I thanked the stranger, named Matt, repeatedly and made a last ditch effort to compensate him for his time. I tried to give him my $100 bill, but he declined, again. I tried hard, but he wouldn’t take it.  He was a decent person, selflessly helping a stranger in need. Gave me a good feeling. I hope to pay it forward, as long as someone doesn’t need tire changing help.

As a side note, I drove to work, on the donut, with the hazards on, going around 40 mph. Even with my four ways on, I still had plenty of people honking and flashing me with their high beams. Turns out, the same side as the blown tire had a blown turn signal bulb. So… I looked like that one jackass, driving 40 on the highway with his blinker on for 10 miles. During my lunch, I went to a local shop up the street and got two brand new winter tires. They were probably both due, anyway. Merry Christmas… again. After all, I wasn’t about to drive downtown, to the casino, on the donut and I wasn’t going to just ride with someone else and come back to a donut at six o’clock in the evening, still needing to change out the donut. Then, today, I stood out in the cold and fixed the bulb. Did wonders for my aching back, standing there without a coat.

Pittsburgh Geography By Bruce Willis

I am a self proclaimed excellent navigator. My wife will argue that, yet she’s the one that sent us up and over the mountains of West Virginia on our way to the beach. However, there are times when I will get turned around, believing I am in an area I recognize.

Now, when I was a kid, there was the great rescue mission in Prince Gallitzin. Not really a rescue, more like a search party for one of the kids in our group who had taken a walk and gotten lost in the campground. I took the remaining kids and fanned out into the various loops and managed to find our missing friend. After dark, we found ourselves on the other side of the campground with no sense of direction. Somehow, I managed to lead us to back to our site before anyone noticed we were gone.

However, last week, driving back from work, I realized I would never make it home with the amount of gas I had in the car and the Pirate game just starting. Traffic was pretty screwed up. I knew there was one gas station, just before the tunnels, off of 51 South. From there, I could catch a bridge back over by Duquesne and drop down onto the parkway before the Oakland exit.

I got the gas and managed to screw up and take the Wabash tunnel exit, following a car who seemed to know where I was going. I made a right, then another right, then a climb up a hill and I was lost. I could see the Steel Building and the rest of downtown, but could not figure out how to get down there. So, I just kept driving parallel, believing that I would magically end up on the Parkway East via Striking Distance movie logic. Unfortunately, I didn’t have Bruce Willis in the car with me. I managed to see two places I’d always about but never had been to. I never even knew how to get there; Mount Oliver and Carrick. I did a major detour and managed to come down into the South Side by Primanti Bros. I was home free… or so I thought.

I misread the directions on the bridge signs which said, “Oakland, next left”. I didn’t want to go to Oakland, I wanted back on the Parkway. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t an exit for Oakland but an exit for a road that led to Oakland, namely the Parkway. So, I stayed straight and was forced to turn left because I wasn’t a bus. Now, I was headed back downtown and managed to get turned around and head back the right way. What could have been a 45 minute drive turned into an hour and a half thanks to my sightseeing tour of South Pittsburgh.

Let’s just say, I’m glad I got gas.

I Accidentally The Everything

I’ve been in certification training this week which isn’t an excuse for not posting but the homework I’ve been given at night is.

Anyway, I caused a bit of a moment of panic and disorientation at the beginning of day two. All I did was one simple thing. I changed seats.

We are creature of habits and when we walk into a situation that requires us to live and work in a particular environment, for an extended period of time, we tend to carve out our own space for the duration. We mark our territory. We post up signs, in the form of name card tents and materials that we’ve been given. We huddle in our little bunkers and wait for rescue, or at least a bathroom break.

This past week was no exception and the universe broke, twice.

It started out on Monday. We had training for a certification class and I wandered in at the last minute. Those I know and work with were already flanked by other people, so I was forced to take an end seat next to someone I did not know. At the end of the first day, all was well.

The next morning, I got an Instant Message from a coworker I spend a significant amount of time working with on documentation and other stuff. They asked me to sit by them and I said, “Doesn’t that inherently break some kind of universal law about seating in multiple day meetings?” They felt I was silly, so I complied with the request. It wasn’t like we were dividing by zero or anything, right?

When the guy that was sitting next to my coworker came in and saw the situation it was like ants off the path. There was discussion about the switching between the two of us and the person that I was sitting next to the previous day. It was like an awkward moment. I felt like I had to reinforce the fact that I wasn’t moving because of the person I was next to but because I was asked by the person who I was going to sit next to. It came off like some bad Dear John letter and here I was almost apologetic to a complete stranger.

Then it became a sense of awkwardness for the person who now took my old seat because I inadvertently said, “Oh, she asked me to come sit over here.” I threw my coworker under the bus which then makes it seem like the person, who was there previously, was somehow an undesirable element in the seating scheme. Now, we’ve got two people’s lives in upheaval all because “I accidentally the everything”.  So, after awhile I felt as if it was no longer an issue and went on about my way.

Yesterday was the final day, which included testing. Our once happy outpost of sanctuary was thrown into flux as we turned the tables to face another wall to give us a better spatial format, conducive to a testing environment. Now, in a 90 degree angle difference, everyone ended up choosing different seats and the entire world came crashing down around us. Now, 100 monkeys at 100 calculators were dividing by zero.

BOOM!
And that is why I probably failed the test miserably. I angered the seating Gods with my initial blasphemy of switching seats. By day three, they went all Noah and the flood on us and said, “Throw their world into chaos and have the proctor turn the tables on them!”

OK, so that’s probably reaching a bit. However, when I read that first question and could actually hear a pin drop in the back of my brain, complete with an unending echo, I knew this was going to be a long hour. I don’t want to be the only schmuck who fails the certification. I just want to test in my safe little meeting room compound, under my name card table tent, secure and ignorant of the dangers out there. That scary world where people stab at you with highlighters and mechanical pencils, emblazoned with the logo of whatever company you have there to train you.

Death by schwag!

Never change seats.

Perks in Occupations

I’m a creature of habit. I do not adopt or embrace change in a timely manner. My least favorite book of all, about business, is Who Moved My Cheese? This should tell you what kind of guy I am. Now, get off my lawn.

Having to go to work every day is a necessity. Having free coffee in the workplace is a luxury. Having K-Cups provided to you along with vending machines with free soda is an awesome luxury. Having all that change on you in an instant is enough to make you want to flip the tables over in the kitchen and go Wild Bunch.

When I started this new job a year ago, I was floored at the prospect of having free soda provided to me. I only drink one can a day, with my lunch, but I’ve already saved like $70 over the last year from not having to buy cases of pop for that purpose.

As far as the coffee is concerned, for about six months I was making three batches, consisting of two k-cups per batch, for a grand total of 36 ounces of coffee per day. I noticed that I needed the coffee to keep going and I didn’t like it. So, I actually embraced a change when I got a cold and switched to a two k-cup, 8 ounce cup when I got to work and then drank two cups of tea consisting of three Lemon Zinger k-cups in a 12 ounce mix. What I didn’t realize was that there was no caffeine in the tea and after awhile, I didn’t miss it and was more alert than ever. See, caffeine is a drug, you can become addicted to it, and it can cause you to need more to compensate over time.

But back to the coffee. My work just made a switch over to regular brew pots of coffee and these things called Perfect Servings which dispense all of the cream and sugar automatically.

Not happy. I need a puppy to kick, like now.

First of all, I know the company we switched over to. We had them in my old job for vending and coffee service. They used to supply the muffins and pastries in the cafeteria at the plant and one day, my late mother-in-law was witness to someone breaking open a muffin to find blood in it. Now, of course, this information never made it to the general employees’ ears. She worked in HR and she kept a lot of things secret that would have made the masses occupy boardrooms. I only found out because my wife once said, “Don’t eat any pastries from XXX”. I won’t say who they are but their company is also a file extension for video files. So, I’m a little bit leery when it comes to hearing that this company is now providing us with coffee and is providing us with pastries as an incentive to make the switch.

I know I should not complain. I have a decent job with a decent company and having the perks I’ve had is something that I never saw in my old job. To see them go is a shame but that’s the cost of doing business. Once the bean counters realize that they’re spending x amount of dollars on you and they can save that money by outsourcing that service, streamlining it, and reducing the offerings, they are nuts not to make those changes. Considering the economy, the fat has to be trimmed. But at the expense of morale?

Look, you come into work every day, sometimes with an enormous chip on your shoulder. You’re not getting a raise or seeing promotions come along. Whatever. The one thing you have to balance the mundane requirements is that little perk. Then, suddenly, it’s gone. And the company that provided those perks have now installed these fancy machines that supposedly do all the work (i.e. cut down on people using a lot of sugar or creamer) for you. You have this routine down where it takes you enough time to roll in, make your coffee, get stuff done, and get to your desk in time to get working. You throw a wrench into that routine and devastates some people.

Not to mention that when you come in on the day of reckoning and members from the service are there to stand over your shoulder while you fumble your way through the process. They get that cheery disposition and the ‘We’re going to make it all better’ attitude that is just lip service. The bottom line is, “You guys have had it good and we’re not going to cut you off completely but there are going to be some cost saving changes.”

No one wants to say that, though. Because of all the stigma surrounding those in power who make the decisions, they’re not going to fire that shot across the bow of the S.S. Underling.

“Mongo, you’re crazy. You’re shorts are too tight in the seat. You’re just displaying that old man curmudgeon mentality that you always show.”

Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am just too resistant to change to see the positive. Maybe I just need coffee. Oh that’s right. I couldn’t find it this morning because they moved everything around and there’s a huge ass line because we all have no idea how to work the new machines.

Grrr.

Honestly, It's Not My Bag, Baby!

Last Fall, I had an unfortunate infestation of ants in my home. They poured out of the wall, underneath the baseboards and marched across the hardwood floors of my living and made a condo out of my laptop bag. I immediately took said bag and tossed it on our enclosed back porch. Then, I attended to the source of the problem, setting traps and spraying the gap between the baseboard and floor. Unfortunately, since I am a lazy f**k, I never got around to fumigating my bag, which had now become a retirement community for stinkbugs as well.

In the meantime I had begun taking my wife’s laptop bag to work. She never used it for anything, but it wasn’t exactly the most manly thing in the world. It was a Vera Bradley, solid color, quilted laptop bag. I didn’t have a lot of options. I knew my work was not going to replace my bag and I didn’t feel like buying a new one for a work laptop. I simply just kept using my wife’s and stowed it out of sight for the duration of my stay with my former employer.

Flash forward to this week. I get up and proceed to get for work at my current job, which is an hour drive away. I go out into our living room and see that one of my cats has knocked over my new, company issued laptop bag, possibly to lay on it, as they always do. Then, I realized the horror. One of my other cats has decided to piss all over it, leaving a puddle of urine laying there.

I cleaned it off best I could, using Lysol wipes and hot water. I simply did not have time to tear apart the entire house, waking my wife and daughter at 6:00 AM in order to find a replacement. Besides, after I used the wipes on the bag, it seemed to be OK. That was, until I was driving home and the smell really hit me. I couldn’t take it back to work in that condition.

That night, my wife suggested taking her bag to work, like I had before. I was a little leery. When you’ve worked at the same company for nearly ten years and you do something like bringing a purse to work. They kind of give you the benefit of the doubt if you’ve never done it before. When you’ve been at a company for only six months and do something like that, your coworkers don’t understand your life the same way. Everyone at my old job knew the tale of my cat causing us to have to replace the floor in our basement so this was simply par for the course. At the new job, they don’t know this and will generate their own opinions.

Needless to say, I took my wife’s bag. I knew it was probably a bad move and I should have really considered, putting it in my desk drawer, out of sight. Unfortunately, I had an all day meeting and simply did not have the opportunity to do this.

About ten minutes into the meeting, of which I am sharing my laptop screen on the projector, I receive an IM.

“Where did you get the pretty laptop bag?”

Fortunately, I had moved all of my email and IM screens to my laptop and only extended my windows desktop to the projector. This message was only visible to me. Well, me and the three other people with which my coworker decided to share. Suddenly, the incident took on a life of its own as more people, including my boss and my boss’ boss, were chiming in about my lovely bag.

During a break, I was able to come out and try some damage control, to no avail. People were laughing. I wasn’t sure why. Then I found out. We have nine large flat screen monitors hanging throughout the cube farm which displays stats and various other bits of information for the department. The slide show rotates through different screens and eventually, I noticed what everyone was laughing about. Tucked in between two of the slides was a picture of two or my coworkers modeling the bag in rather funny poses with the title of “The Companion Bag” above the words “MyLastName & CO.”, essentially making this an advertisement.

I couldn’t help but laugh because while it was making fun of me for bringing my wife’s bag, it also put their manhood on the line to have been photographed modeling it. Needless to say, it was all in good fun and if I can’t laugh at myself, I shouldn’t laugh at others. I gave them a “Well Played” and then went back into my meeting. Of course, I had to share and explain the incident, reiterating that my cat caused the situation.

I made sure that I found a suitable replacement for the next day, while I wait until my regular bad dries after being washed. It just goes to show that if I had ever expressed doubts about coming here, they made me feel welcome, even at my own expense.

Bravo, crew.
Now, I must disown my cat.

Grand Theft Oh No

Last week, I had a meeting downtown which required me to drive and park in one the cities fine parking establishments. When I say ‘fine’ I mean that it was a lot and it had parking spaces and they charged me eight dollars to park there. Beyond that, I would say it was one of the worst experiences I’ve had parking downtown.

As soon as I pulled in, the attendant approached me and I had a Ferris Bueller moment. You know the point in the film where Cameron has doubts about parking in the city only to have his fears validated with extra mileage racked up on his dad’s Ferrari?

It’s not to say that I think my ’05 Malibu Maxx is ‘so choice’. It’s because, this is my car. This is how I get to work. If this gets trashed or wrecked or breathed on wrong, there are repercussions within my life that cause a cascading world of fail.

So, needless to say, when the attendant says, “If you want to park here, I need eight dollars and your keys” I feel that this is a time to give him only the actual key and take everything with me, including the car seat. Kidding, I left that but took anything of real value out with me and stuffed into my laptop bag.

After the meeting, I returned to an even fuller lot with cars lined up perpendicular to the parking spaces, effectively blocking my car into a tomb. I approached the attendant who was more concerned with collecting the money from new customers instead of helping those, who had already paid, get out. Makes sense, right? After you have paid, you are essentially at their mercy. They don’t care if you have a 20 minute ride back to the office to actually do work. They want the new money.

That’s when they made their mistake. One attendant tells me that there are 20 other people besides me who want to get out of the lot and they’ll get to my car eventually. I didn’t wear a coat but I had one on my front seat and my keyless entry FOB. I figured the least I could do is drop off my laptop bag and grab my jacket instead of freezing outside in the March weather while holding a bag full of my possessions that I felt held some sort of value as to not be left for stealing. While one attendant tells me it will be awhile, the other one says that my key is on the floor mat. ‘Really’, I thought. So, basically, anyone can just come onto the lot and take whatever car they want. I thanked the guy for the information but told him that my car was blocked in on either end.

Then he returned to taking money from more new customers while the rest of us sat and waited. After another five minutes I figured, ’Eff it.’ I had a plan. On my way back to my car, I noticed some poor schlub trying to sneak through a couple of other cars to get out. He basically scratched the hell out of the bumper on the car next to his. I told him to stop and I help him maneuver his car safely out of the space and saw the damage he inflicted on the neighboring car. Yeah, whatever reservations I had for my plan being a bad idea quickly went away with the thought of someone dinging up my car in order to get out. Because far be it from me to think that the lot would be responsible for any damage to my car.

I made it back to my car and saw that only one car stood between me and freedom, a black Mazda CX-9. It was unblocked on its front and back end. I looked around and said, “Let’s do this.” I opened the front door, grabbed the keys off the floor and sat for a minute looking for the damn ignition.

‘WTF?’

No keyhole. Just a simple knob which I figured out you pushed and turned with no key required. As I started up, I looked at the interior on this car and it was sweet. It was pretty well cared for which made me think, ‘This lady picked the wrong lot to park in’. No matter now. I threw the car into drive and away I went.

I drove it three feet.

Three feet was all that stood between me and freedom. I turned the car off, put the keys back on the floor mat and made doubly sure that the car was unlocked when I closed the door. I went back to my six year old station wagon, decked out in kiddie grime and empty wrappers and dusty dashboard and stained upholstery from spilled syrup due to an ill restrained sticky bun from Thanksgiving of 2006 and the torn ‘Babies R Us’ blinder in the back window, evidence of my kid’s inability to not tear something completely apart once she notices it are all reminders of how badly this car has fallen from grace from the day I drove it off the lot with only 36 miles on it.

Three feet away was a shiny, brand new, more expensive, and larger status symbol. But, I simply saw it as an obstacle. It was a symbol of my confinement. I was quite happy in my little Chevy five door. I just wanted out of the lot.

As I drove out of the lot I ran into the money grubbing lot attendant who attempted to block me in further with another car, but he begrudgingly got out of my way, probably unaware I nearly stole a car from his lot. I was free and this asshole wasn’t about to stop me, now. Out of my way!

You better believe I will never, again, park in the lot on Penn Ave, underneath the Crosstown Blvd. I’ll take my chances with quarters and a street meter. I still hope that lady was able to get in her CX-9. That would have sucked if I would have trapped her there with her keys locked in her car.

WUMF: February Edition

We are finally inching towards Spring, which amazingly we've had a week where it was 60 degrees, followed by six to ten inches of snow, followed by 60 degrees. This can only mean locusts and boils are coming, folks.  I admit I’ve been working on this post for over two weeks. Actually, it’s been more like I spent fifteen minutes and slacked for the rest of the two weeks. In any case, here’s a smattering of WUMF for ya.


1. The Lesser Man Project: Week OHHELLIDON’TKNOW
I haven’t given on update on this in a long while but here’s the lowdown. Still sticking to the game plan but there were days of weakness and I did indulge in the “Cake in the Break Room” practice. This is where I started my downward spiral before. I managed to curb that habit, real quick. I’ve been eating fish at least once a week. Yeah, it’s breaded but sooooo good.

Having gotten over a bad couple of weeks of reoccurring stomach flu, I managed to not gain any weight back, which is good. But, then again, I’ve been hovering around the 20 lbs. mark for a month now, which is bad. With the weather getting nicer, here, It’s in the high 60s and still February the chances for more exercise increased but the opportunities are less because I’m losing an hour in drive time which puts me at not getting home until almost 6pm some days. I’ll need to find more excuses to get into the pool this summer, if just to do circles to help clean it.

2. Happy Time, Peggy!
After eight years I have finally freed myself of the biggest albatross around my neck. I worded my Facebook status to sound as if I had become single or ended a bad relationship, which I have. Just not with my wife, that is. Granted, my wife was involved but it’s more complicated than that.

Right around the time I started thinking about buying a house I was sort of strong armed into doing something I had resisted for seven years. I managed to get buy in life with not having a credit card. I used my check card for everything and if I didn’t have the cash, I didn’t buy it. But in order to establish a good credit standing I needed to have a card. So, I got one. My then fiancée had one. Then I went and purchased something and put it on the card. Then my fiancée did. Soon, I had two cards and she had three. Every time I’d amass a little bit of debt, I’d see another offer for a card that could transfer a balance and not hit me with a finance charge if I paid it off in time. So, I’d card jump and then my fiancée, turned wife would piggy back. Then we found ourselves with a considerable amount of card debt. Then we bought a house, then a car, then had a kid, then another car, then Christmases and vacations followed.

The point is there was always this looming debt that stared me in the face. Now, with the help of some strict spending habits and the shirt shops, I have managed to whittle down that debt into nothing. I still have a mortgage and a car payment and my monthly utility bills but there is no huge stone of debt hanging over my head. As the credit card companies get whacked with regulations, only to come back and figure out new ways to weasel more charges out of you, it’s nice to know I don’t have to play that game, anymore. Now, I can start working on that other pile of debt I have. Parental loans. I owe my Dad some money for the balloon payment on my car. After I hit the five year financing wall, I had a considerable amount still left to pay off and he was nice enough to grab it. Unfortunately, I stopped giving him checks because I had to focus on the other stuff but I’m ready to resume giving him money. I also owe a small bit to my Father-in-law because he fronted the down payment on this year’s vacation house. I could give that to him, easily but he gets funny about it, so I might pay him out of our tax return. That way he won’t think we’re going to go broke from it.

3. WE WILL: Not Compete
The Suckos are back in Spring Training, going for that Grape Fruit League pennant. The stark comparison is the news that Albert Pujols wanted $300 million over 10 years. Can you imagine McCutcheon or Alvarez asking for a ten year commitment for $300 million dollars? Can you imagine Bob Nutting giving more than a tenth of that for the same amount of time? They certainly wouldn’t have put up near the amount that Jose Bautista, former Pirate, is getting from the Blue Jays.

I say it’s time to institute a limit on payrolls. The players union would never go for a salary cap, so don’t think I’m not talking about one. Yes, it would curb the Yankees spending. I’m talking about a limit on how little a player can be paid. That would force the organization to have fund a minimum amount into their players payroll and have to start using that slush fund of revenue sharing from the bigger market teams to do it.

Naysayers will point to the 2010 World Series as proof that you don’t need to have a big bankroll to win a championship. Fine. I’ll accept that you can win on talent grown, not bought. However, the Giants and the Texans were forced to compete to get to that level. The Pirates are not forced to compete as long as the profits outweigh the infrastructure. And if Nutting plans on waiting until the wheels fall off to sell at a profit then let’s beat him to the pass and initiate a hostile takeover of the team. Green Bay pretty much owns the Packers and they just won the Super Bowl. Pittsburgh’s the kind of town that could handle that kind of thing. But if Nutting claims that everything is above board, then open the books and let someone take a look.

The most current news is that Frank Coonley said that they could not, at present, sustain a $70 million payroll and that they could not without a significant rise in attendance. Everyone jumped on this and said, “He’s blaming the fans! They won’t spend money because we refuse to come out and support a crappy product! Eff him and eff Nutting, too.” Well, that’s not what he’s saying… exactly. He’s saying that given the current climate, the club could not put $70 million towards payroll. He’s also saying that in order to get that kind of money, attendance would have to increase. It’s a non issue. The fans are never going to come back just to increase the payroll. They will have to win a pennant in order for attendance to rise that much. He’s not blaming the fans as much as he’s putting the weight of the future of them paying for talent on their shoulders and he’s flat out saying that it isn’t a possibility. So, they either keep floundering and attendance continues to drop or the find the right combination of raw talent that will elevate them into a winning season.

Personally, there is no chance in hell they will ever be able to pay for talent to come here without getting at least one high profile player. Then again, no high profile player would come here. The only scenario I can paint is that the team finally starts to lose money so Nutting bails, still getting a huge profit. The new owners will preferably be willing to spend some money up front and secure a top name player with the promise that they will help bring up and comers around and attract more high profile players. Small incremental steps that will probably cause there to be a few instances of losing money yet fans will believe that the front office is trying, in earnest, to turn the ship around and will come back out. That drives up attendance and payroll and we can start winning again.

4.  Jobby Job.
The new job is going well. I’ve finally taken a huge step into the world of process flow diagrams and learned Visio. It’s like a snake eating its own tail or at the least like playing Sudoku. Once you think you’ve got it all figured out you find yourself having to go back and tweak an early step. For someone who used to spend his time doing the crossword puzzles in ink, as a rule, it sucks.

Now, I’ve gone into some kind of quasi overlay of how to set access levels and tag knowledge with permissions. The finished product gave me a headache and made me wonder if there was a sailboat hidden in the picture. If anything, I wanted to quit smoking and give a complete stranger $50. I don’t even smoke.

5.  Sport or Skills Competition?
As a part of that whole job thing, I am forced to sit in a lot of traffic to and from work.  With one hand on the wheel and one on the dial I am constantly looking for something to keep my mind from psychically blowing up the cars in front of me.  One of those things is usually, The Fan, which is the local sports talk radio station.  The great thing about it is that they do discuss Pittsburgh sports.  The bad thing is that they bait people into debates which drives up ratings and gets people to call in and text.  Something that plays into their numbers, I'm sure.  Anyway, the afternoon show fired a direct shot at Southwestern Pennsylvania, specifically my old homestead of Fayette Nam.   They claimed NASCAR was not a sport.

After switching to a substation for power because of the blackout from too many lights going on with the phones, they took callers who could try and defend the claim, that it is.   Sad to say, not a one was able to convince the hosts, or me for that matter that NASCAR was, indeed, a sport. 

The callers said, "They are the most gracious of people when it comes to their fans." 

So?  That says nothing for athletics or sports.

"They are the biggest attraction for people."

Again, so?

Look, it you want to make the claim then say that the drivers are the most athletically skilled persons, using hand to eye coordination and agility to navigate and make quick decisions.  That would be something along the lines of a positive claim.  Frankly, I have to agree that NASCAR is not a sport, in the definition of what I feel a sport is.  It is a skills competition.  Darts are skills competition.  Golf is a skills competition.  Any activity that does not require some kind of cardio activity is not a true sport.  Olympic Diving... skills competition.  Bowling... skills competition.   Curling... waste of time.

Can drivers burn a lot of calories?  Sure.  There is a lot of tension and muscle flexing that goes on inside the car.  But there is no workout on the level of say a sprint to the warning track to catch a fly ball or a breakaway in hockey.  That's not to say that drivers and golfers are not athletes but when you can count John Daly in your ranks, then you have to think about whether or not it's really a sport. 


That’s all for this edition of WUMF. Be well.

And Now A Word From Our DJ

I gave up on listening to music format radio stations years ago. I do listen to WDVE in the morning on my way to work for the morning show. When they go to a song, I switch the station. Now, if that song is anything by Journey or Warren Zevon or Led Zeppelin or the Doors or… OK there are a lot of exceptions… but in any case, usually, the music means it’s time to go down the dial.
Where I end up is usually 93.7, The Fan. Us old fogies know it as The Station Formally Known As B94. I spend a few minutes there until commercial or they start talking about Pitt. I’m not a hater, I’m an alum. It’s just that somewhere in the last year, The Fan got a contract with the University to air their football and basketball games and even though this is a primarily Pittsburgh based sports talk station, about 50% or more of their discussions and coverage are about Pitt teams. It’s like they have to give lip service to the University every hour or they’ll lose their deal.

But that’s not what really bothers me about radio, these days. I’ve gone on about music and Top 40 and the crap that is out there, playing in heavy rotation every 20 minutes. This is more about what happens on the radio with the individual stations.

Now, let me back this rant up about 30 years. As a kid, I remember driving around town in my Dad’s old Chevy Custom Deluxe pickup truck. He had it tuned to pretty much one station, WCVI AM. It was the hometown radio station, just across the bridge from where we lived. It was mostly news with some middle of the road type music. The news was pretty much read from the newspaper, as you could actually hear the page turning as the broadcaster flipped the page to continue the story. But the real thrill for me was listening to Paul Harvey segments. You’re going to have to go look up Paul Harvey if you are unfamiliar. I could go on another three hours talking about him. I just don’t have that kind of time, right now.

The magic of Paul Harvey was part storytelling and part huckstering. He could seamlessly weave a mysterious tale about a famous person’s background and plug in a pitch for a Coleman Thermos in one breath. He excelled at blurring the line between broadcasting and commercial. Today’s equivalent would be like watching Chuck and noticing that the Nerd Herd “Herders” cars are Toyota’s, not because you know they are a Toyota Matrix, but because in the opening credits the logo is clearly shown. Also, they all love Subway, because there is a Subway wrapper shown in almost every episode. Paul Harvey was a little more subtle in his pitches but after awhile you could see them coming a mile away.

I shed a small tear when Harvey died in 2009. However, nothing burns me more than when I’m stuck in traffic from Wilkinsburg to the other side of the Squirrel Hill tunnels, or trying to frantically get back over to the middle lane at the Grant Street exit, only to hit a wall of traffic due to an accident just outside the Fort Pitt Tunnels, and I switch radio stations looking for actual content and get duped into listening to a commercial because the announcer is the same guy who I listen to during the regular broadcast.

That pisses me off to no end. I land on one station and think I’m listening to the show and find out that it’s a pitch for DirectTV or a car dealership. Now, my friends will be quick to point out that I should get Satellite Radio and hook up my iPod. First of all, I’m too cheap to spend the money on a radio that will have like three channels that I’ll listen to and my iPod has seen better days. Not to mention, the apparatus to hook up my iPod to my radio, so I can listen, is not conducive to me being a safe driver. That goose neck Belkin debacle of an iPod transmitter has nearly caused me more accidents than a teenager with a car and an unlimited text plan, who just got dumped. To sum it all up, I’m a cheap ass who would rather complain about what’s on the radio instead of doing something different.

But back to my tangent. Is it that apparent that no one likes commercials anymore that stations will do whatever it takes to try and work in their ads? Are they trying to be shifty by disguising a commercial by having the applicable on air host do the commercial? Am I just a conspiracy theory loving hater who thinks the world is out to get him? Yes, I know the last one is a rhetorical question.

Maybe this is evolution. Maybe all the tricks the Mad Men have employed over the years are leading to trying to find new ways to sell you something. I for one hate how Google has followed me around for months now on every website I visit. I’ve already paid for my vacation in the Outer Banks with a particular company. Stop showing me their ads when I go to a sports site. I know it’s a cookie thing. I guess they figure that a greater percentage of the population is able to be manipulated versus those of us who are turned away from that kind of advertising. For me, it’s like hypnosis. I don’t believe in it and usually it pushes me even further from whatever product they are selling. The Google thing just makes me want to stop using them altogether. But… it’s like Walmart, more often than not, you end up there because it’s easier.

So, as I develop stronger muscles in my right leg from commuting and a bigger sense of ambivalence towards radio and commercialism I will probably become even more curmudgeonly than I already was. Is that even a grammatically correct statement spell check? There is probably some puppy kicking in my future. And nothing kicks puppies better than my new Nike Cross Trainers… Puppy kicking… Just Do it.

And now you know the rest of the story…

Good Day…

Grrrr.

The Slater Exit Strategy: Quitting With Style

Steven Slater did what most people only dream about. He quit his job. Not only did he quit his job. He did it with some dissident style. Of course, for all his service industry employee heroics, he was rewarded with a trip to jail.

In case you missed it, Steven is/was a flight attendant on JetBlue Airways. On a flight from Pittsburgh to JFK International he reached his breaking point. When a passenger decided to stand up and retrieve luggage from the overhead compartment, before the plane had stopped moving, Steven did what all flight attendants do, asked the passenger to please remain seated while the plane was moving. Varied accounts describe the following altercation but the high points are that the bag swung out of the compartment and hit Steven on the head. Whether it was accidental or on purpose is debatable. This was followed by the passenger allegedly telling Slater to ‘Eff off, when Slater asked for an apology.

Steve, who had been, by his own account, in the airline industry 28 years had finally had it with rude passengers, I guess. He returned to the front of the cabin, grabbed the microphone and gave everyone his two week, er two minute notice. He reportedly said, “To the Mother Effer who just told me to Eff Off, Eff You.” He then recounted his years of service, said, “I’m Out Bitches”, grabbed a couple of beers and left the plane. But the kicker to this story isn’t that he quit. It’s that he left by way of the emergency exit slide. He blew the hatch which inflated the slide and took one last ride to freedom. Later, at his home he was arrested.

You can get Later Slater on a shirt.
Check out my Store blog to find out how.

Now, I guess you could make a case for this being highly dangerous. It’s more than likely that he broke several FAA rules by taking the scenic way out. CBS news reported he was arraigned on charges of criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and trespassing. Charges that could land him in jail for seven years. Not to mention, his stylish exit strategy could have injured someone from deploying the slide.

Should Steven go to jail? That’s a toughie. Unfortunately, we live in a post 9/11 world where the rules of air travel have gone beyond simply being slapped with a misdemeanor. If the courts want to continue to be effective at enforcing rules, he will probably be sentenced to some time. My thoughts are he should be given a fine and probation time and possibly barred from working in the industry, again. Just to set an example, that is. However, what I find irreprehensible is that the passenger was not cited or arrested for anything. By the same token as what Slater did, this was a violation of FAA rules governing the interference of flight crew duties by a passenger. Where is the justice in that? Did Slater’s escape trump the need to uphold those other rules?

Let’s face it, air travel, anymore, sucks. The airlines are grasping at straws to keep afloat, fees are outrageous, and flying generally is not a fun thing to do. Furthermore, because of all these factors, working in the industry is no longer enjoyable. Stricter rules, not that there shouldn’t be, cause more delays. The economy woes make passengers more surly when having to pay out more in fees and service charges which, in turn, creates more confrontational moments with staff. Flight attendants are imagined as these happy as all get out, smile while we ram the drink cart into you, carry-on luggage Nazis who take pride in being difficult and will go off on you at a moment’s notice for not having your seat all the way up. Really, they are just people in the service industry like everyone else. Customer Service can be a rewarding and all together exhausting experience, especially in what can be perceived as a hostile consumer culture, nowadays.

It seems, anymore, that consumers are frustrated with the quality and prices of everything. IPhones that drop calls, McNuggets that don’t get delivered at the drive through and banks that charge outrageous fees are just a few of the game changers that has pushed the norm from “buyer beware” to “seller lookout.” Litigious as we might have been, pre recession, it looks to be a more strained relationship between customers and vendors since everything on Wall Street went out the emergency exit. The atmosphere is thick with stress and heat and the powder keg is set to explode.

Yet, why is Steven Slater considered a hero? Is it because he voiced the plight of the common service industry worker? Is it because he told off a rude passenger? Is it because he defied convention and escaped in style? In this world model of consumer vs. seller, that I just explained, Slater should be the enemy. He works for the company that is causing the consumer issues. However, the manner in which this whole drama played out painted Slater as the victim. He was a guy just trying to do his job in a hostile environment and he had enough of it. Later Slater stood up for the blue collar worker and this passenger, no matter who they were was “The Man.” This wasn’t an issue where a service worker broke the law and caused an incident because they were harassed. This was a “rise up” moment where the beaten down service worker took flight out the exit of a job that they had finally reached their breaking point.

In this scenario, the worker trumped the consumer because he now represented the consumer. He represented those of us who would to tell our cable company to ‘eff off over the price of our service. The desire to stand up and say “Get bent” to the employers and services that oppress us is all rather Freudian. In fact, the Steven Slater Exit Strategy is a perfect example of the Id, Ego, and super-ego in Freud’s structural model. The Id is Steven Slater. He is the primal instinct in all of us to just flip the finger at the world. All of us observing Slater in the media represent the Ego or the part of us that wishes we could be like that but accept the reality of our position. I can’t tell my boss to eff off and then jump ship. I have a mortgage, bills, and a family. I need to keep my job. I have responsibilities. The Id is the twenty year old us and the Ego is the 30-40 year old us. The Super-ego represents the us that says that Slater should go to jail. It’s not a case of “I wish I could do what he did.” It’s a matter of “He was wrong and should be punished for breaking the law and endangering people.” The Super-ego is usually the voice that comes out of us when we are asked by superiors if we think Slater was in the right. The Super-ego comes forth from our psyche as the representative while the Ego wrestles to keep a hand over the id’s mouth.

As a 14 year veteran of the service industry, there have surely been one or two days where I wanted to stand up, give everyone my business finger and pop open a window and slide out to the parking lot. My Id is constantly plotting my exit strategy while my Ego looks as the realty of my situation. My Super-ego is the guy that sits in his chair, all smiles, saying he loves his job. But sometimes the Id can tie the Ego and Super-ego up with duct tape, grab a gun and go apeshit like Omar Thornton did in Manchester Connecticut. Fortunately, in this case, Slater did not go “postal.” He simply exited the plane in the same way most people would probably love to quit their jobs. He used the sentiment of The David Allen Coe, the language of Half Baked’s Scarface (Guillermo Diaz) and coupled it with the style of Carson Kressley. He is a modern day Howard Beale shouting over the in flight PA system, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore." Definitely, RAGE is the new black.

Frankly, barring the safety issues and Slater’s obscenity laden sign off, I think the Slater Exit Strategy could be applied to a lot of situations. So, if Steven does lose his job and have to switch careers I have a couple of ideas for him.

Of course, the most obvious choice for capitalizing on his new found fame would be to go on a reality show, say Survivor. Will he win? Don’t know. However, I think, in either case, he needs to go out with style at tribal council. After Jeff Probst extinguishes his torch he can turn to the rest of the council and tell them to ‘eff off before jumping on a huge inflatable water slide that takes him down to a splash lagoon. If that doesn’t work, I say hire him as a chief strategist in Afghanistan. He understands air travel and can relate to the struggles of having to be the bad guy in cases where he’s just trying to do his job. Of course, as the campaign winds down, he can offer up his exit strategy. Allied forces simply tell Al Qaeda and the Taliban to ‘eff off as we jump onto a huge slide that carries our troops safely into India.

So, thank you Steven Slater for giving all our Id’s a chance to dream. Now, I must get back to work.

I Don't Know Is Not An Answer

Having worked in the customer service field a number of years in both the food industry and corporate office environment I can safely say that once in a while you kind of have to make shit up. I’m not talking total lie about something but you can recognize a foul up or potential issue and while it may be of little impact to fix, the perception by a customer that you’ve fouled up can be devastating.

Case in point. This weekend I spent both days helping my sister-in-law move. It was much my like my own disaster of moving from one place to the other. Limited time. Limited help. Multitude of stuff. I caught lunch on the fly from McDonald’s and ate it while driving on the turnpike from my place to hers.

Now, I already have a prepared sense of “This will get screwed up” with this particular location but what makes matters worse is the fact that it has a double drive thru. Of course I ended up embarrassing my wife during the whole process.

First off, when you get to the speaker to give your order they come on with this, “Thank you for blah blah, would you like to try a Filet O Fish value meal.” I just said, “No.” My wife looked at me like, “Prick, much?” I told her that it’s a prerecorded greeting and that I’m not responding to an actual person. They come on afterwards. Sure enough, the voice taking my order was different than the one asking me to buy a Fish sandwich. In fact, who knows if the real person I’m speaking to is even in this store?

Needless to say, we placed the order and then took turns with the other cars getting in line to pay. The first window took my money and had the right order. The second one was manned by some 15 year old kid who proceeded to hand me three bags. Now, I know we bought a lot of food but three bags full? I said, “Um, are you handing me one or all three?” He paused and then took the bags back in and slid the window shut. “Ok.” He opened back up after conferring with someone and said, “Do you want to just pull into the parking lot and we’ll bring your food out to you?” I said sure, but then felt a little impish and wanted to just joke with the kid, “What happened to my order?” He looked at me and said, “I don’t know. They just stuck me in this window.” My jovial spirit lessened, I looked at him, as he retreated from my minimum throttling distance, and said, “That’s not an answer.” By now my wife was getting peeved  and told me to. “Just park it.” I said, “Come on, that wasn’t an answer. At least he could have lied to me and said the Fryalator was down or the Hamburglar stole my quarter pounder. ‘I don’t know’ is a crap answer. “

“You’re embarrassing me I don’t want them spitting in my food.” My wife said. You have to remember, this is the same woman who worked in a job where she once told a customer to shove a turkey up his ass in front of her boss. This was after he complained about her not being sympathetic towards his plight. Meanwhile, she was doing more than humanly possible to find his Thanksgiving order and eventually figured it out where someone less committed to a job would just say, “I don’t know.” And call it a day. And again, this weekend, she was getting her boots ready to kick the ass of the people her sister were renting the house off of over all these problems to which I said, “They know that your sister has to move in, this weekend, and you are spoiling for a fight that could give them the inkling to say, ‘Fine, don’t live here.’” After a few minutes the manager (aka man with the key to the register) appeared and gave us our order. We were on our way, and I bit down on the tongue of frustration and waited until we were out of the parking lot to press the matter. “Look, you’ve worked in this kind of job. Did you act like that at 15?” She said no although she did have her share of moments where her thumb might have pressed a little hard on someone’s tomato. I said, “You took pride in what you did. If I would give that response to someone at my job, I’d have my ass working at McDonald’s next to numb nuts there.”

Let me clarify something. I am not meaning that my job is all that glamorous and above someone who works at McDonald’s. I am simply saying that if I chose to handle myself in such a fashion I would be in the drive thru hole along with that kid because they were willing to hire him with that level of discipline. I don’t care if you work at Walmart or Wall Street, when you work with customers or the public you conduct yourself in a way that doesn’t make them become a former customer. Saying “I don’t know” is the same as saying, “I don’t care. I’m just here for a paycheck.” You find out or at least you give a reason that satisfies the customer until you can rectify the problem. While I understand the value of having teenagers work in a job that can teach them discipline and respect I don’t think that the management of those companies takes a hard look at how those employees are actually obtaining those habits if they are at all.

It’s hard to have a teen comprehend the value of customer service since they are sometimes working a job because their parents want them to. I used to dread my old company because of the lack of good workers they hired over the need to throw bodies at the job. I would come in at 7:00 AM and do my work and fix their mistakes because they were too busy screwing around at night, more worried about going out to party then actually doing a good job. In fact, one instance where I had worked a 14 hour shift I nearly lost it. I had come in that morning, set up a lunch and took care of meetings, worked the lunch, turned over the lunch into a wedding and then bartended and served dinner for the wedding. After dinner I was supposed to be relieved to go home but couldn’t until a particular person came out to take my bar. Now, this guy was a bit of a slack so I knew exactly where to find him. He was back in the boiler room, in the dark, blazing up and I said, “You want to come take my bar so I can go home.” I then went to my boss and said, “You know why I’m still here? Because (blank) is back in the boiler room getting stoned.” She walked back but dismissed the smell of weed for cigarette smoke. I said, “If he was smoking a cigarette, then why was he hiding in the boiler room, in the dark, instead of going out into the courtyard like everyone else?” Guess what her answer was? “I don’t know.” Now you know why it was my former job.

If anyone under the age of 20 actually reads this stuff do yourself a favor, learn some discipline and some tact. I know it’s not cool to be a company man and play by the rules. I’ve been there. I refused to follow the ambiguous rules that left me open to interpret them because I didn’t want to be considered un-cool. You make more friends with the in crowd of kids if you act all “I don’t give a shit” but what does it really get you? Have you ever seen Falling Down? Exactly. Some people don’t like “I don’t know” as an answer and they’re willing to take their frustrations out on you. Is it worth it to you? Don’t answer that.

McScrewed

Bailouts.. TARPs… Recession… Stimulus… No matter how you label it we’re a little McScrewed. I use that term because that’s probably where I’ll end up working with the way things are going. The government seems fit to throw money at organizations that have shown they can’t be trusted with money. The promise is that the Federal Government is giving IOU’s to banks to stabilize credit and in return they pay back the loan with interest. In theory, there should be a profit.

Now, I don’t know about you, but the last time I used an IOU was when I was a college student and a little short on cash around the holidays. I used my student computer account and Photoshop to create these little “Coupons” for my parents that basically stated that I would clean out the garage or wash the cars instead of buying them a present. That was 15 years ago and I never did make good on those IOUs. So, how do we know the banks will pay back the Government? In essence, the Government just became Fannie Mae and the banks became the American homeowner who bought a sub-prime mortgage.

For the most part attitudes have changed but still people are conducting shady business as usual. John Thain, there’s a guy we’ve all read about in the news, he was the Merrill Lynch CEO that used $1.2 million dollars to renovate his office and gave out billions in bonuses to executives days prior to the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. In his defense, he cited that a lot of the losses Merrill Lynch suffered were due to his predecessor. Ok, the man had a $1400 garbage can in his office. You tell me who is to blame for this? Oh, and his answer for why he gave the bonuses, “if you don't pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise.” Well, guess what, Bucko. You were supposed to be the best and you almost destroyed the franchise.

This type of mentality doesn’t surprise me when you hear about all the rumblings along Wall Street in response to President Obama’s decree that salaries will be capped at $500,000 for executives of companies receiving TARP funds. Now, there is anarchy and bedlam in the board rooms as executives find themselves suddenly in a salary freeze. What to do? What to do? Rudy Giuliani has said that if you take away bonuses and incentives from these people that the rest of New York will suffer from reduced patronage at restaurants and other establishments. Sorry, Rudy, but these guys aren’t going to McDonald’s or even Houlihan's and they aren’t creating unemployment buy losing a few zeroes in their paycheck. They already created unemployment by letting their companies become so screwed up.

Look, if you are a company that is going to the Government and asking for millions of dollars to help keep you afloat then you need to tighten your belts, too. Guess what? Everyone else has to so don’t think we’re picking on you guys. My salary got frozen along with a lot of other folks’. You’re going to have to start living like the rest of us. If you can’t, then you’ve proven our point. You work for a financial institution for pity’s sake. Did you not learn how to manage your money? Now, if your company was solid and didn’t need financial assistance from the TARP, then by all means, do what you want. By that token, you should be acting responsibly and mindfully of the economy. If anyone believes we’ve already seen the bottom of this hole, then they’re just as delusional as bonus backed bankers.

Just like we, as regular taxpaying, nine to five working folks need to realize that everything didn’t change in November. You try stopping a speeding locomotive on a dime. It’s impossible, even for Superman, and sorry to say, Obama is not Superman. No one is. It’s going to take a lot of time and patience to slow this speeding train and get things working properly. Unfortunately, we are an short attention span audience. We want something to happen right now. We want our credit lines to be fixed, our jobs saved, and our President to wave a magic wand and make all the bad people go away. An economic stimulus package won’t solve all the problems. In my opinion, I don’t think I’ll be getting one of those rainbow sherbet looking checks with the Statue of Liberty on it. I think this package is more for the businesses that give us our other checks, the ones we get every other week. That’s so we can keep getting them. This isn’t a hand out. This is an opportunity to create jobs to fix roads and bridges. It’s a chance to upgrade our cities instead of building up on the degraded infrastructure that has been allowed to lapse into the old standards of the 20th and in some really depressed areas, the 19th centuries.

Is the Government doing the best they can for the nation. I hope so. I don’t think you can narrowly point to one man, one company, or one administration and say, “Shame on you.” This has been allowed to go on for years and people figured, it’s only wrong if you get caught. Somebody out there screamed and waved their arms, trying to be heard as the voice of reason and was ignored as is usually the case in any disaster movie. Well, now the economy could be the basis for a new Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich film, in fact they’re probably sitting around trying to figure out how to work in huge explosions to take out their fictional Fannie Mae’s or Lehman Brothers. Be sure that Hans Zimmer is firing up the synthesizers trying to find the right set of chords to play as President Obama, as played by Will Smith or Jamie Fox, slowly stands up with that stern look on his face as the camera pans up and around him in slow motion. This is the moment you’ll be waiting for because that when he’ll get pissed and go on the offensive, taking out bankers left and right without having to reload. Once you wake up and realize that life is not a movie, albeit almost a bad one, you’ll go back to your job, look at other companies’ postings and wildly throw your resume about hoping that one of them is in better shape and willing to hire you.

If you think that throwing money at the problem will make it go away, then all you’ll do is live from bailout to bailout, stimulus to stimulus, and we’ll be right back where we started when this whole mess reared its ugly head. We all need to be aware that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. We need to change our course as individuals whether we make $500,000 or $50,000 a year. We need to realize that when it does get better, it won’t stay that away. We need to be ready for the next big hole or out of control locomotive, otherwise we’ll be saying “Would you like fries with that?” instead, “I’d like to supersize that.”

Get your own McScrewed shirt or magnet here.

Complex Simpleton

There are times when I am so utterly brilliant that I am an idiot. When it comes to technology, whether it be a computer or other electronic device I can usually figure it out in five minutes. There's no need for instructions or how-to's. If it has an on button and some sort of display I can usually hold my own on getting it to work. Now, I should preface that statement with this one. If it's a software related issue, I have a 50/50 shot at resolving it. I am better at the hardware problems than I am at the software ones. Consider it science vs. faith. More often than not, people come up to me at work, not to ask me for my help in my actual job capacity, but to help in something either related to their computer or other electronic devices. It's one of my four marketable skills that no employer ever takes advantage of, along with the ability to do a killer impression of Sam Waterston. I'm sure there's a market out there for it, but I haven't found it yet. The level of my technological aptitude would probably make me well suited to work at an Apple Store as a genius, as long as it involves working with iPods and not Macs.

On the other side of that coin, the frosted side of my aptitude mini-wheat is the ability to be so profoundly idiotic that I should come with a plastic bag warning. Just today, while coming into work, I walked into our break room to drop my lunch off in the refrigerator and make myself a cup of coffee. While that seems a mundane and rather simple task, I managed to place my lunch by the coffee pots and attempted to put my coffee mug in the fridge. Once I realized my error, I quickly looked around to see if anyone had noticed.

Perhaps I need more sleep and less caffeine to function. It's like working in idiot safe mode. You sacrifice functionality in order to operate higher functions in order to discern what causes things to go wrong. For whatever the reason, this week offered a typical situation addressing both my utter genius and downright stupidity.

One of our facilities services technicians, which is PC for office handy man, asked me for help in a couple of items. He's a good guy and I've helped him on occasion in the past. The problem vexing him today was that one of the televisions in the lobby was getting no signal from the dish network. Again, it has a button and a display, so definitely it is in my realm of understanding. Anyway, I agree to take a look and fiddle with the thing for five minutes. While most televisions have remotes nowadays, there are still functional settings on the television itself to handle power, channel and volume selection, and usually some kind of menu. Since he only had the remote to the dish receiver handy, I had to try and figure out the problem with only four buttons on the side of the TV at my disposal. While, I was able to access the menu settings and locate a possible fix, I couldn't select any choices in that menu selection because I didn't know which of the four buttons functioned as a "select" or "enter." After having him track down the actual television remote, within two minutes I solved the problem.

After that, he asked me for assistance in hanging a picture in one of the conference rooms. We had some painting done over the weekend and he needed to re hang all the abstract works of art that really don't say anything in particular. They probably come in a catalog for all office decor items. Now, the picture was a simple item, somewhat flatter than the television I had just figured out, but nonetheless it was a solid object. Two hooks on the wall at the top with one at the bottom, containing some sort of safety latch, gave us our guide as to how to hang the thing. After ten minutes we still hadn't got the damn thing up. Let's see, do we hang it by the top first or the bottom? Does it hang on the inside of the frame or this little track that runs along the frame? Are the hooks in the right spot? Well, they have to be, because they were there before the wall was painted. Round and round we went trying to figure out not what was in the painting, but how to get it on the wall.

Finally, we gave up. I had to actually get back to my desk and do my actual job and he had other jobs to attend to that required more urgency than wasting a half hour hanging a silly picture. So, you see, sometimes even the most intelligent of people can be stupid. There has to be some kind of movie reference here that would be a good analogy. Something that sums up the ability for someone so heavily favored to triumph by skill and technique alone, that nothing could defeat them, but it looks like my coffee cup is nearly empty which means my brain will cease to function in a few minutes. What little time I have left has afforded me to the ability to sum up this entire blog post in one picture.

Taking a Short Recess

Dear 3.5 faithful readers. I regret to inform you that I am taking a small break from blogging. As much as I would love to continue bastardizing the English language and making you somewhat giggle at the things in my brain, duty calls. Between home rennovation, which I detailed the reasons for in a previous post, as well as the impending release of our pride and joy, the knowledge base, here at work I am unable to keep up with the slackery that is blogging.

Don't worry, though. I'm still compiling a few posts in my spare few minutes and will deliver them with much gusto when I return sometime in October. On the docket are a few tasty morsels such as The House That Mongo Bought, My Pick For President and The Greatest High Schoolers On Film: Honor Roll. These with a few holiday themed posts will promise to roll a few eyes if not extort laughter from your souls. Fear not, Mongo will return.

Until then, snoop around at some older posts and have fun. Click on a few ads, buy some Mongo shorts, it's all good. Take care you crazy kids.

Mongo out.

On the Road Again

On occasion, usually once a year, I get the opportunity to do a little travelling for business. It's nothing fantastic but it is a nice little break from the office. The predominant reason for my travelling is for training that relates to my job. Here's a little compendium of recent travels for work and five tips that might help you avoid my pitfalls.

Tip #1 Think about your flight. Are you taking carryon luggage? You might not want to sit in the front row. You have to stow items in an overhead. If it’s a long flight, you might not want to sit in the back, either. You may find yourself with a bunch of people hovering in the aisle waiting for the bathroom. When you check in, take a look at the seat assignments. You may just find an empty row and be able to stretch out a bit.

Now, I am not a huge fan of flying. In fact I can count on Count Rugen's right hand how many times I've flown in my life. All, but two of those trips, occurred post 9-11. It's funny how much air travel has changed in the last seven years. I don't mean that in a way of saying that before 9-11 it was one way and now it is another. I mean that in the last seven years the concept of air travel and security has constantly changed. For one, I have to take my shoes off before I get on a plane. Two, unless I plan on only being somewhere for one day, I either have to pack every toiletry I have into the approved size bottles and hope that I have enough clothes so that I can fit my bag in the overhead, or I have to check a bag and have everything stuffed in there and hope it doesn't get lost en route. With that being said, I will give certain airports a lot of praise. They have done what they can to make the security procedures adequate and seamless. However, there are some places and some flights I'd rather not be on again in my lifetime.

Tip #2for the business traveler. Really decide if getting miles are worth crappy flights. I have a US Airways card and I try to fly with them when I can. However, they aren't the power house they once were. The new thing is Southwest and more than one person has told me to go with them. They offer better flight plans and roomier accommodations. However, I can't wear that revealing tank top I like because they say I'm inappropriately dressed.

At the end of August, I had to go to Nashville for business. With fuel prices and the entire country tightening the belt, travelling became a lot more ridiculous. I had to check one bag which cost me $15.00. I also had a lap top bag as a carry on item. I made the arrangements with our travel people trying to find the most economic and shortest flight. For some reason the major carrier, and coincidentally the one I get points with, did not have a direct flight to Nashville. On the trip down, I had a stop in Washington DC. Let me tell you, that was not fun. First off, the trip to DC was great. The cabin had only two seats on either side of the aisle and I ended up having an empty seat next to me. However, when we got to DC, everything changed. We got off the plane into the terminal and had no clue where to go. Our connecting gate was not clearly marked on the directory maps. Next, we had to take a shuttle. We had to walk down this really awkward and bouncy set of steps down onto the tarmac to load into the shuttle. We then travelled about 500 yards to another terminal. Then we sat for an hour waiting to board our flight. During that time I heard several loud speaker announcements which were intelligible. I would consider Reagan International Airport to be a somewhat high profile and busy place. One would expect a certain level of quality that goes with a major metropolitan airport as opposed to say, Elmira Regional Airport in upstate New York. For the life of me I could not understand what people were saying.

Finally, we began boarding. We were directed down a set of escalators and onto another shuttle bus which took us around the perimeter of the airport terminal. There was a lot of broken concrete in the area. It was a little reminiscent of that scene in Aliens where the marines are driving into the colonists compound. It showed the same sense of desolation and disrepair. After getting to our destination, I realized I was not going to be happy. We were sitting in the middle of a runway. We actually boarded a little plane on the runway. My coworker, who is by her own admission, freakishly tall, hit her head on the ceiling of the cabin. Again, I thought it was going to be a nice trip because I had an empty seat next to me. That idea became short lived as this little stick thin girl came be bopping along and climbed into the seat next to me. Then, came the wait. We sat on the runway for a half hour waiting. It turned out that we were travelling with a group of special needs adults and one of the wheelchair bound members had somehow scraped their elbow while being unloaded from the shuttle. Now, we needed to wait for paramedics to come out to the runway to check him out, clearing him for flight. A half hour later, we were all loaded. The hour and a half flight was one of the most uncomfortable I had ever been on before. This tiny twig of a girl next to me seemed to take up so much space and I spent the trip hanging over my arm rest into the aisle continually being bumped by the flight attendants.

The trip home was just as bad. This time we had a similar plane flying from Nashville to Philadelphia. I thought my luck had changed because I managed to have a seat to myself. That was until the guy in front of me realized he was in the wrong seat. Turns out, so was I. We were in each other's seat and he wanted to change. So, while he got to sit by himself, I was forced to sit next to a guy reading the paper taking up the center arm rest and some of my seat. Again, I was stuck hanging over the arm rest for the hour and a half flight to Philadelphia. Philadelphia International was pretty easy to figure out, but man was it packed. There were a lot of lines for everything and I skipped lunch and just sat in my seat for two hours waiting for my connecting flight back to Pittsburgh. Now we had to deal with Andrew. To describe Andrew you have to remember Bill Cosby's comic bit about flying to California with little Jeffrey who was four years old. Andrew was much the same age and temperament. He ran back and forth through the chairs at the gate and bothered anyone who was sitting near the window. His mother was totally ineffective at keeping control of him and several times he wandered into the busy midway. The more she said his name, the more I was pissed at her. I kept thinking, "Go get your kid. Tell him to sit down and not move." When he did sit, he would constantly ask if it was time to go, "Is it now? Is it now? Now? Now?" While it was annoying, I have the ability to block these things out and not show any disgust. What was more annoying was the level of frustration that was mounting on my coworker seated next to me. I could see the vein start to protrude and steam was coming out of her ears.

When we did, finally get to board, I had the front seat which gave me great leg room, however, my laptop had to go into an overhead storage bin about five rows back. I was seated next to another person, but the ability to stretch out made it easier to get comfortable. Unfortunately, when we landed, everyone was on their feet and in the aisle. I couldn't get out of my seat because of the line forming, let alone get back to the compartment with my laptop. A little miffed, I just told a guy, who made eye contact with me, to open the bin above him and grab the bag in the middle. Hopefully, I would be done flying for a little while. That was the equivalent to about four trips worth of disgust.

Now, once I'm where I need to be, I like to get into a nice hotel and get situated. I'm the kind of guy that likes to get to my room, unpack what I need to and prepare everything for the next day, so that I can just go to bed without worrying if I need to have something ironed or if I suddenly realize that I forgot something. I've been fortunate to be able to travel a day ahead of my schedule, giving me the evening to get acclimated to time changes and geography. A lot of times, I will get in, get settled, and then meet up with my fellow travelers for dinner. Afterwards, if the option is available, I'll make a note of where I need to be in order to maximize my sleeping and morning preparation. It sounds rather organized and I'm usually a fly by the seat of my pants type of person when I'm home but in another state where I am at the mercy of public transportation or lengthy trips home, I'd rather be prepared than suffer.

Hotels can be neat or scary depending on your perspective. I've worked in the hotel industry and even done a stint for some extra hours on the clock helping out housekeeping by stripping rooms. Believe me when I say, there is no five second rule, even on an unmade bed. If you do any travelling which puts you in a hotel, I suggest watching those reports on television where they check out hotel cleanliness. It doesn't matter if it's a Five Star Rated Resort or a No Tell Motel on the side of the interstate, germs are not a discriminating species. I've been in some pretty scary places in the past. I've also been in some small places.

In 2006, I took a flight from Pittsburgh to New York. I checked one bag and took no carryon luggage. Everything went smoothly and all was fine. We caught a taxi from the airport and arrived at our hotel. Have you've ever seen those old Warner Brothers cartoons where Bugs Bunny or another character live in an area that gets overdeveloped and they are left with their little rabbit hole or home in the middle of a bunch of high rises. Yeah, that's what this hotel looked like. We had the option of a few different places but at nearly $300 a night we wanted to be good kids and try to be a cheap date.

Tip #3 for the business traveler. If the company is paying for it, go with something a little more than cheap. While, I'm the first person to yell about corporate spending being out of hand when it comes to depriving the little guy of benefits and the ability to stay ahead of the cost of living. If tithe big boys are going to fly first class and stay in a five star resort, the least I can have is a clean room with a king bed and a view.

First off, we go to check in and I'm standing there with two guys who have normal everyday sounding American names. I'm the only idiot with an ethnic name. Yet, Zamir and Nabil (I'm not making this stuff up folks) couldn't get the American names out without having to sound it out. They came to my name and it rolled off their tongue like it was Brad Pitt. After the hooked on phonics lesson, we went up to our rooms. Each of us opened our doors and fell into the room, tripping over the corner of the bed. I thought it would be nice to see what kind of view I had, so I opened the blinds and there I was staring at a brick wall. All those New York City dwelling clichés were being rung up with every new discovery. I had no dresser so I stood my luggage up on the stand and just worked out of there. I could stand outside the bathroom to wash my hands. This was going to be fun. In all, the trip wasn't bad. I ate good, got to see a little of the town, walking everywhere. I probably lost three pounds just from walking.

They usually rent this room out to a blind dude


Walls in room may be closer than they appear.

Later that year, we had to fly to San Jose, which was a five hour direct flight. I didn't mind having a direct flight, but it was a bit long. Anyways, once we landed we managed to circle the block five times before finding out that our hotel had been bought by another company and had already changed the sign out front. Now, this place was cool. It was a Holiday Inn of all places. It was only a two story complex right next to Highway 101, which in my mind screams motel, but it was built around a courtyard with a beautiful Spanish style theme. The rooms were very nice, although the bathrooms were dated in the sense that they had a pocket door instead of a regular door.

Build a little bird house in your lobby.

Cool Courtyard

Wouldn't it be love-a-lee?

In 2007, we travelled to Denver for more training and stayed in the Double Tree. If you get a chance stay there. First off, they give you a big chocolate chip cookie, which is nice. The rooms were great and the view of the mountains in the background was awesome. By far the nicest hotel I stayed in was the Embassy Suites in Niagara Falls for my honeymoon. We had mentioned that we were on our honeymoon and they bumped us up to a junior VP suite with a fantastic view and gave us free valet service. In November, they must not get that much business, so they figured on just being nice. Our room was a two room suite with a living room in the front, a bathroom with Jacuzzi tub with a window directly above it. If you opened it up, you got a fantastic view of the Falls. It also had an electric fireplace. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

Being in different cities like Niagara Falls, Denver, San Jose, or Nashville, you pretty much have to drive everywhere. I will say, that I have not had a major problem finding my way around different cities, but sometimes directions can be confusing and if you don’t know the area, you may find that landmarks have changed or road work conditions can hinder your progress, greatly.

Tip #4 Before leaving or if you have the capabilities after you arrive, print out some directions to your destinations. I try to carry a bunch of different turn by turn directions so that I can plan any activity based on time and effort needed to arrive.

I had just recently got a new phone and as a promotion I was given a month free of a navigational device which uses your phone as a starting point. I highly recommend using it, because it really helped me out a few times. Call your provider and tell them that you are going on a trip and want to test drive it and they may be possibly just give you a free month in hopes that you will keep it.

Now that you have directions, let’s go eat. This is probably my favorite part of a business trip. I go out to eat about two or three times a week but it’s never any place glamorous. When I’m travelling, it’s no holds barred. I will get the occasional McDonald’s or other fast food if lunch is not provided, but with the company buying and most people abusing the privilege, I don’t feel too bad going to a steakhouse or a Cheesecake Factory one time. In fact, my usual ritual for going out is to hit a Cheesecake Factory and a Hard Rock Café in every city I travel to. Hard Rock’s are a trendy, touristy place. They’re different everywhere you go, so you’re experience is never the same whenever you go to a new one. I’ve been to seven so far and from my experience the best has been New York City. It is also the biggest, in my mind next to Denver and Myrtle Beach, respectively. Niagara Falls and Nashville appear to be the smallest in size with San Francisco somewhere in the middle of them all. Nashville is set up to have its gift shop across the parking lot in a different building. Myrtle Beach is the most exotic, having an Egyptian theme. The restaurant is built inside a pyramid. Pittsburgh is one of the disappointments, unfortunately. While it is very nice inside, there is a lot of wasted space and it doesn’t have that same Hard Rock feel as the others.

Tip #5 Plan out some good places to go eat. Do a search online and check reviews. Remember, unless you’ve been there before, you never know what you might be getting into. Big name franchises are usually a safe bet, however, you may miss out on a diamond in the rough. Also, make sure you check out the expected manner of dress. You are on the road and don’t have the option of pulling out a good set of clothes if you didn’t already pack them.

On our New York trip we wanted to find a little place to unwind after all the walking we did. Next to our hotel was a bar called Desmond’s but we don’t really understand soccer or rugby the way some do. We stuck out like a sore thumb and thought it would be wise to not make a scene as the dumb looking tourist in the wrong place. Instead we ended up drinking at a ESPN Zone or a big name eatery. That can get expensive. So, we hit the streets in search of a friendly little pub. Unfortunately, it appeared that a lot of bars in Manhattan required three forms of ID, a blood test, and a reference from Donald Trump. Thinking we were going to be out of luck, I suddenly came up with an idea. Instead of looking, let’s just ask someone. Let’s find a normal everyday guy, like us, and ask him where he would go drink. I spotted a doorman in front of a high rise and asked him where three guys in jeans could get a drink. He said, “Head down the street and turn left.” We followed his directions and wound up at a little place called Mulligan’s. We walked in and knew we had made the right decision. For the Manhattan Cosmopolitan and Appletini scene, I’m sure it was considered a dive. But to us, it was a diamond in the rough. U2 was playing in the background. People of all ages were sitting around just relaxing. Great place. I highly recommend it if you can find it. I know it’s somewhere in the vicinity of the Empire State Building and Times Square, if that helps.

That’s all I got for you, today, intrepid travelers. All I can say is that develop a system and things can go really smooth for you. If you are a laid back kind of person that doesn’t put much thought into it, that’s fine, too. Just remember, towels on the floor are going to be taken, and to make the trip go a little better, imagine the flight attendants doing their safety spiel to a techno rhythm. That always makes me smile.

Comfortably Dumb

In our third part of the series, Good vs. Evil we explore the effect the Internet has on our minds. Has the Internet made us dumber as a race? When I say race I mean the human race. It’s not like dogs are out there looking up chew toys on eBay. During my look at the Internet as being evil or good, I realize that I may have been too specific in saying that it’s one or the other. That’s like saying a gun or the atomic bomb is evil. It’s not. It is simply a thing. Granted the atomic bomb is not a realized idea unless it’s activated or exploded. Simply being is not its purpose. The intended use of an atomic bomb is for evil. The process by which the reaction occurs is not evil. It can be very beneficial. Such is the Internet. The Internet can be a useful thing. It can also be used for evil as I’ve babbled on over the last few parts of this series. Regardless of alignment, has the Internet made us a dumber species? Are we smarter than we were 15 years ago? Have we put so much reliance on the Internet that if it were gone tomorrow, would we be able to cope? By that token, is the Internet evil?

Think back to 1993. I was a recent high school graduate. If I wanted to know someone’s address I had to look up their phone number and hope that I could decipher the short hand, abbreviated address next to their name. It became worse if they had a last name like Smith, Miller, Jones, or any other common name. Some people had their first names shortened to a single letter and then the problem became exponentially more difficult. You could try calling all the numbers in hopes of finding the right person. That is, if they were home or had an answering machine to give you some kind of clue as to who they were. Today, a few keystrokes and a click of the mouse can give us more information than we ever could find without a friend in the DMV or police department. I can tell you how old you are, possible relatives, and known cities of residence. Then I can use another website to try and locate your address and phone number. With that same bit of information, depending on your city or county, I can tell you how much your mortgage was on your house and who you bought it from years ago. I can then take that information and use it to do bad things. Granted, I’ve gone beyond my point, but the above is a model for how much information is available to us.

Fifteen years ago, I had to type a school paper on a word processing program like Microsoft Word or Word Perfect. I had to be pretty diligent to adhere to writing standards. Granted, spell check was available and some grammar checking was around at the time, but if I wanted to make sure I was speaking in proper English, I had to have some instruction in school. Now, I can write a paper with multiple errors, hit a couple of buttons and whoosh. It’s all fixed. That’s not because of the Internet. However, if I wanted to plagiarize that paper, I have a bigger pond from which to fish. Only in the last five or six years has the education system taken measures to guard against this thievery of prose. Still, the backend dealings of p2p and torrent sites have ways of making you a tidy little profit if you can bypass the search engines and regularly monitored sites. There are various ways to get yourself a top notch paper and you don’t even have to spend any time in the library. That’s another thing. When I had a paper to do for a class, my first stop was the library. I had to look through the card catalog to find a resource. I had to sit at a table, quietly and read, taking notes for my assignment, making sure to cite that source correctly. Now, who needs to even take a step into the library? A simple search on the subject matter can return tens of thousands of results with bibliographies in tow, all without having to even read the book.

Writing in general has become a joke. Do you remember in elementary school when you used to get a pizza party as a reward for getting enough stickers from some writing academy? Our teacher used to take a black marker or piece of masking tape and put a diagonal line on our desks for where the top edge of our paper was to be placed. If you were left handed, I imagine you were screwed. We’d all put our cursive and printed letters in between the lines and hope that the no one would screw up so that we could get that pizza. Then, as we grew older, our penmanship skills started to suffer as educators began to require all papers to be typed. I used to think that writing skills were going to disappear from the face of the Earth. What kid knows penmanship in the computer age? Now, I’m worried about the English language in general. Kids today do not write to each other in full sentences. They use leet speak. Leet, a variation on ‘elite’ was a hacker language. Online bulletin board systems sometimes had ‘elite’ areas that contained various pirated software or instructions on how to construct explosives or manufacture drugs. If you were considered ‘leet’ you could have access to them. Changing letters into homoglyphs was used to bypass text filters which would red flag administrators or system operators of inappropriate behavior. Typing ‘pr0n’ instead of ‘porn’ would bypass early filters. An example for anyone over the age of 30 is Journey’s Escape album which is written on the cover as E5C4P3. Since then, the n00bs have taken over and it is no longer elite. The younger, Internet aged, generation has adopted the stylings of leet for texting or messaging with abbreviations or acronyms such as ROFL, LOL, BRB, and BFF. Soon, I imagine any kid born after 2005 will have no idea how to type on a keyboard. They’ll be lost trying to figure out how to make their thumbs reach the inside keys while holding they keyboard with both hands. In fact even typing has become lackadaisical with spelling and grammar. Since the ‘T’ and the ‘H’ are close together, sometimes they are often switched when typing the word ‘THE’. ‘Teh’ has become known as ‘the’ in Internet Chat and texting. I fear pens will soon be a thing of the past. We are so pwned.

Math… Don’t even get me started. I took Physics during my junior year of high school and the biggest advantage anyone had in that class was either having a graphing calculator or a having a cover for your regular calculator that you could stick a crib sheet with formulas on it. There are websites now that can do graphing for you in flash. Homework can be done online and someone has already done a lot of the work for you. If you can think of a way to get around doing the work, someone already has and it is literally a few keyword searches away.

Now, these examples just cover what happens to us in our formative years. Think about the workplace. As it is, I’m type this blog at work, during my lunch, and anytime I have to wait for a web page to load. My posting schedule is restricted to my free time and that only happens at work. This country probably loses more productivity to the Internet than any other detrimental distraction. For the most part, we shop, read news, and look for other jobs while we’re supposed to be working. But, on occasion we are doing absolutely nothing on the Internet. It’s the equivalent of channel surfing. Maybe I’ll play a game, take some stupid online personality test, or just watch some badger bounce around the screen as a couple of mushrooms pop up, occasionally. People actually devote websites to wasting time. And, email, oh boy email. Wow, how much crap do we see in our inbox that comes from coworkers and friends? I have tried to do my part here at work. Every time I get a forward from someone, I try to be proactive and research it on Snopes.com. If it’s a hoax or a fake, I try to reply to everyone telling them to not pass it on to more people. It’s just my part for bandwidth conservation.

On a side note, here is how bad it really is when it comes to the Internet making us stupid. An acquaintance recently saw an advertisement either through email or on the Internet advertising pug puppies for adoption. In the message, the person was either a doctor or worked for UNICEF and had to move to Africa and could no longer take care of the dogs. For $400, they would ship the dogs to this person. After paying the money, the dogs made their long trek to the U.S. but were stopped and quarantined in London. Another communication was sent saying that more money was needed to clear them. They begged and pleaded on behalf of an animal lover’s good hearted nature. They didn’t to see these dogs mistreated or kept in horrible conditions in another country. Are you seeing the pattern here? There are no puppies in quarantine because there are no puppies. This is a scam and unfortunately, this person and another friend were duped for over $400 by this scam. It’s nothing new. I get tons of emails from smart people who think that if they forward it to ten people something amazing will happen. “Hey. Did you hear? Appleby’s is giving away gift certificates if you forward on this email.” “Bill Gates will give me money, if I send this on, keep it going!” What surprises me is not the amount of people that send this email but the amount of times it keeps coming back year after year. Missing kids, unreal photos, gas pump bans all flood our inboxes with surprising frequency. Just in case you think you should forward on that email about Wal-Mart banning the phrase ‘Merry Christmas’ from employees vocabulary, yes, it’s true, and it’s also been over for about three years now.

Still, as much as I want to say that the Internet is to blame for all of this, I have to believe that we, as humans are dumber because we let it happen. If the Internet went away tomorrow, I would be lost, for about a month. Everything I do at work involves an Internet based application. My banking, my bills, my blog… It’s all done on the Internet. I have all my utilities, my mortgage, car, and credit card payments set up automatically on the Internet. Sure, I won’t be able to see if they’re paid, but does my bank also use an Internet connection to draft those payments? Banks don’t hold my money anymore. They hold ones and zeros in a program and that gets sent electronically from one computer account to another. If a situation like the one in James Cameron’s series, Dark Angel, happened would we be thrown into chaos? We would. Hell we all though that the year 2000 was going to be the apocalypse, not in a biblical sense, but in an economical and technological sense. We spend so much time trying to be foreign oil independent we lose sight that everything that runs this country doesn’t necessarily run fuel. It runs on a server in a room somewhere with cables flowing through every nook and cranny and into the oceans. We could very well destroy ourselves by pushing the wrong button on an ATM.

Verdict
The Internet is Evil
(but only because we made it that way.)

If you find the square root of Deus Ex Machina from The Matrix Revolutions and multiply that by a faked photo of an iceberg and then divide that by the Tron Guy, you get Hansel and Derek Zoolander trying to work a computer.

In terms of being evil, the Internet was created in the image of its maker. We are evil and we are dumb. Hopefully we won't pay the ultimate price for it. Hmm, I better start boning up on my penmanship. I may be writing my blog in ink in the future.