Over heard at work

I missed the first part but it had something to do with sending messages to Canada. The reply was

"Your assuming Canadians can read... I mean they probably have maple..."

He then trailed off.

Inside the Loop

Wanna make downtown Memphis the epicenter of the city? Ok here is how you do it. Get FedEx and International Paper to move their offices inside of the I-240 Loop. More explicitly get them to move all the way down town. If the city had a huge Fedex Services, Fedex Express, Fedex Corporate, and International Paper office to pair with AutoZone, I promise you that downtown would be the most amazing place ever.

Of course the more plausible idea is to get some other large company to move their IT, Sales, and Marketing shops here.

On Sporting Events

I try to make it out to a number of live sporting events every year, and there have become three constants whenever I go to a Memphis Grizzlies game.

1) I will feel extremely awkward during the National Anthem.

2) I will feel even more awkward when I am expected to stand and applaud some random person who has recently returned from Iraq.

3) I will want to throw something very large and very heavy at the person singing yet another breathy Whitney Houston inspired version the National Anthem.

Let's address these events in reverse order.

During my teens and early twenties I listened to a band called Lifetime with a shocking amount of regularity. I still smile from ear to ear whenever one of their songs comes up on the ole mp3 player. However I can't help but feel like they did the world a disservice. A friend of mine once remarked that he wished he could go back in time and talk to "Jersey's Best Dancers" right as the finished recording "Hello Bastards." He said the conversation would go something like this, "Hey guys, look your new record is amazing. You are about to see levels of success you didn't think possible. I need you to give me all the DAT tapes so that I can distribute them to the correct people. See you are about to inspire more shitty bands then I can shake a stick at." I feel much the same way about Whitney Houston, except I would simply ask her to never sing again.

The second issue is a bit more complex. Due to this I shall talk about it rather quickly. I find it very strange to stand and clap for someone who was part of a group that invaded a sovereign nation under false pretenses. While it is by no means that persons fault that this happened, it happened. I am glad they are home safe, but over all I find the process a bit disconcerting.

And lastly the first point shall be tackled. How in the holy hell did we screw up so bad that I am now ashamed to be from this country?

Things over heard at work.

The corporate work place is one of the more amazing melting pots a person can ever experience. My job often leads to me associating with a great many people I normally wouldn't. They are all truly great people, but our lives are just drastically different, and if not for work I can imagine the situation where I would have ever meet them. This often leads to me hearing several things that I find more or less jarring to my sense of the world around me. I shall attempt to post these things with some amount of regularity.

11/12/2007

"Allowing all these guys from Open Wheel racing is really hurting NASCAR. You get all these guys who's name no one can even pronounce. It's simply not good for the sport."

Please feel free to leave some of the more amazing things you hear at work.

Hollywood we need to talk.

Hey man, how's it going? Really? Good good. Glad to hear your dog's feeling better. Look I don't know the best way to tell you this, so I am just going to come right out and say it. Please for the love of God, Allah, Brigham Young, Confucius, Shiva, and Buda stop writing about computers in your TV shows and movies. You suck at it. You do plenty of other things really well, so this is nothing to be ashamed of. We all have our short coming and faults. You need to believe me when I tell you that you have no earthly idea what your talking about when it comes to computers. The way you write about technology reminds me of a drunk uncle during Christmas. Completely and utterly unintelligible, and just not terrible fun to be around. Some of my favorite examples of your bad writing include, but are by no means limited to:

1) The movie Hackers. I mean wow...just wow...since when is surfing the Internet even remotely like that?

2) Sword Fish. While I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the topless Halley Berry shot, can you please explain to me what a Hydra is exactly, and how getting several cubes to line up a certain way remotely effects whether or not a virus is going to work?

3) The Last Die Hard Movie, it seems they are hacking all of the Internets again...

4) Any movie where the computer screens contents are being projected on to a persons face. Now your just breaking simple laws of physics. For more on this please visit XKCD.

5) While I never saw Firewall, I can only assume it was god awful.

So please in the interest of our on going relationship stop writing about technology. Stick to great movies like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Hot Fuzz.

Home

Long ago my parents inherited the farm that my father's parents raised him in. I remember being a kid, and getting shipped off to the farm to spend a few weeks hanging out in the country with my grandparents. I was decidedly a city kid. There were all kinds of things that I simply could not stomach while I was there. Be it the smell of the pigs outside, the lack of cable tv, the utter lack of children to play with, or the grotesque slop bucket that sat in the kitchen corner, I simply couldn't stand being there.

A few weeks ago the farm house burned down. The authorities believe that it was due an electrical fire. When I alerted my brother to this news he seemed to be taken aback a bit. I didn't really think much about his reaction. I assumed he would handle the situation the same as I. I was stunned, and then realized that I never went to this place, and had no real connection to it anymore. His subsequent reactions were in direct opposition to mine.

We stood in front of the burned down house taking it all in and taking a moment to reflect on what had happened. When I looked over at my brother he had a look as if our grandparents had just died all over again. Once we were back in the car, he said how it was official, "we have no where we can go home to anymore." This struck me as very very odd. I never really considered the farm house to be home. I spent a fair amount of time there, but I never considered it some place that carried all the traits of home. This lead me to understand a fundamental difference between my brother and I. For me home consists of the people in my life. My home is wherever my friends are (though lately they are all spread so damn far apart). I base everything off my experiences with my friends, while my brother bases them off of his childhood memories of family. Personally I think he has the better approach.