If You Really Loved Me You'd Let Me Eat Your Brain

It looks like The Reverend's employer is being acquired by a Fortune 500 company for $175 million in cash.  With 820 employees that makes me worth $210,336.54.  I've been reduced to a number.  How dare they!?  On second thought I really have no problem with that.  But I would like more of that $210,336.54 to come my way, because I sure as hell don't earn that much.  Looks like time to ask for a raise.

They say nothing will change with regards to the culture or management already in place here, but don't they always?

Too bad I'm not working for a bloated relic of the manufacturing age, because I could probably squeeze $140,000 out of them to get me to quit.  I love it when employers pay people to go away.  Nothing says sound fiscal management like paying your employees to leave because you've promised them too much and pissed away all your money building things people don't want.  Creative destruction rocks.

I watched a news program on ABC last night about mean girls and how technology makes them extra mean.  One segment was about girls posting sexually suggestive photos on their MySpace accounts.  My wife put her hand over my eyes at that point.

The funniest segment was when a group of college researchers divided a dozen 14- or 15-year-old girls into three groups and put them in separate rooms with cell phones and computers.  The girls were only able to communicate with the other groups of girls in the experiment.  Things got very nasty very quickly.  The funniest insult I saw in the IMs flying back and forth was Fruitty McGay Gay.  Hearing Diane Sawyer ask the girls in a very serious voice what "Fruitty McGay Gay" meant made my wife and I laugh until our abs hurt.

I hereby declare Fruitty McGay Gay to be the preferred insult between now and 12:01 AM local time on September 18, 2006.  Take it to the street, Fruitty.

Be sure to stop by 2 Minute Sidebar and wish Dr. Fruitty McGay Gay a happy birthday.

Today the programmers where I'm working found out they're getting a new boss next week. Their response? Take a stuffed bear, write the name of the boss on a Post-It note, and hang the bear from a three foot long noose attached to the ceiling. Every once in a while I'd hear someone punch the bear hard enough to make it smack into the ceiling. "Take that, Larry!" They don't actually know the name of their boss-to-be, so they called him Larry.

And they wonder why they have to hire high-priced consultants to get anything done.

Sometimes it can be fun to sit back and let people talk.  One game I play is to see how long someone can talk without completing a sentence or expressing a complete thought.  It would be impolite to stare at my watch while playing so I don't have scientific measurements.  I think the record belongs to the president of the company that spawned Unemployo the Klown.  He had to have rambling on for about three minutes before I interrupted him.  Moron.

Another variant is to listen to someone talk for a long time and, when it's my turn, summarize their point in as few words as possible.  The polite speaker will confirm that the message has been received and is understood by all.  The motor-mouth will launch into another rambling steam of consciousness, the length of which is inversely proportional to the length of my summarization.

The least fun variation is listening for an overused word, phrase, verbal tic, or filler sound.  That's a game I play only when I'm in the very best of moods, because it tests my patience.  Last week on NPR, home of the elliptical, multi-branching thoughts and points which are to be gotten back to later (but never are), I counted over thirty "aaahs" in one dude's jet of verbal diarrhea before I hit the flush lever.

So today…much was spoken, little was said, and I got to play with some very nerdy aspects of SQL Server.  And I didn't have to use my AK.

I have returned from my long wanderings in the wilderness.  My sabbatical is over.

NOW THE COMPLAINING WILL BEGIN.