People At Work

Reading Matt’s little rant about the people he works with kind of got me thinking about some of the things that piss me off regularly in my own experience. I’m not sure why some people are so annoying especially when they should know better but hey, there they are.

As most of you know, I do a show at a local radio station. I love working there and for the most part, everybody there is pretty nice to me and I can’t think of a single one of them that I can say I don’t like. But having said that, I can’t think of a single one of them who I haven’t wanted to smack at some point for breaking the number 1 rule of radio, that being don’t piss off the guy on air. Maybe that should be don’t distract the guy on air, but one generally leads to the other so bare with me here.

It never fails that at some point during every show I do, people will feel the need to do 1 of 2 things. Either congregate outside of the studio and talk loudly to each other or come into the studio when I’m on the air doing a segment and start fiddling with stuff. This could mean anything from trying to find something on the shelf full of tapes on the other side of the room to opening a package of something behind my head. The worst though is when they try to tell me something when I’m reading to the listeners. I’m not sure what they’re expecting me to do since it’s not like I can just say to the entire listening audience, “hang on a second, something far more important than you people has just come up and I’m no longer worried about the flow of what you’re listening to nor how good it sounds.” And generally what they have to tell me is something along the lines of, “I’ve got a really funny story related to what you’re talking about right now.” Ok, tell me when I put the music back on, it can wait.

It’s not even like I can cut any of them some slack either since each and every one of them work there in some form or another and most of them get involved with the on air stuff. If they were people coming in off the street it would still be aggravating, but it would be a little easier to understand. It’s not that way when you’re dealing with people who should know better and most of whom have more experience than you do.

And it doesn’t end there. To fill up some more of my time I do some volunteer work for a telephone service that takes calls from people in distress. We get calls about everything from people wanting to kill themselves to people who are upset because their VCR didn’t record Friends. You never know what you’re going to get when you pick up the phone and you have to be ready for pretty much anything at a moment’s notice.

So let me set a scene for you. I’m sitting in the room on the phone listening to a caller. I’m taking in everything they’re telling me trying to process it the best I can and get a bit of an understanding of what their situation is. While I’m doing this I’m also thinking about what direction I should be taking things in. What questions should I ask? How should I ask them? Is there more to this story than I’m getting? Is this person in any immediate danger. Pretty high stress stuff sometimes. Then, while the possibly frantic caller is taking the bulk of my attention as they should, somebody who works there, for pay I might add comes in there and tries to talk to me quietly about there being cookies on the table in the other room or to tell me she’s leaving for the day. Shut up! There is a phone attached to my head, and it’s not there for the hell of it!

The only thing worse than that is the overly helpful pain in the ass fellow volunteer who feels the need to tell me who I’m talking to. The person who breezes in to take over for me and either tries to ask me in a whisper who it is on the phone, or manages to overhear the voice on the other end and then franticly tries to explain to me that it’s Bob and you have to ask him about his flower garden to make him settle down. Of all the people who should know not to do that, shouldn’t it be them who has to work the phones and probably has to put up with the same stupid crap from somebody else there? Trust me, it’s not any less annoying when you do it.

Ok, somebody in here just cut the biggest fart in the universe so I have to leave the room now. Yes, definitely have to exit post haste. More later when my nose hairs grow back.

A Lesson In Randomness

Hello, Vomiteers!
Boy. it’s been a few days so I figured I’d throw some shit up on here for you. Steve’s been doing the bulk of the writing over the last week or so, so much love to him for that. My weekends are generally not real inspiring but I’ll take a stab at getting some more stuff up over the next few days.

Well. today is a rainy bitch of a day. The place I work is a construction company. When you put these two together you get some unpleasantness. Most jobs are shut down for the day and for some reason most of the less intellectual members of the crews decide that they should convulge like buzzards on this nice little office/shop facility. Now. This is not to say that everyone on the crews is completely retarded. Quite the opposite. The ones with half a brain realize it’s a day off and go home and back to bed, or to do something fun. The lesser-lights show up here and BOTHER EVERYONE!!!

We are in an office. The rain does not stop our work. DON’T COME HERE AND TALK TO ME! DON’T COME HERE AND TALK LOUDLY BEHIND ME!! and most importantly… DON’T SIT IN MY CHAIR AND MAKE PERSONAL PHONE CALLS WHEN I GET UP TO DELIVER AN INVOICE!!! Seriously. Some dumb fuck sat down in my chair, in front of my computer and called his wife to tell her all about how he had the day off. GO HOME AND TELL HER ASSHOLE!

I was not shy about letting him see my displeasure as this insanity had already been going on for about an hour in the office. Upon my return, this idiot could see me, here me setting things down on my desk and most certaily read the enraged look in my eye and DIDN’T MOVE!!! There was a fucking empty chair right beside my desk. No no. Couldn’t move over there and continue talking which would have, while still being annoying, at least allowed me to continue working. No. He sat there like a fucking prick for another 15 minutes before standing up and walking by me without so much as a “sorry ’bout that,pal.” Some people’s fucking children.

So that pretty much sums up how my day has gone… and to an extent my week. I’ve been off and on sick all week and it’s got me pissed off. I’m feeling a bit better today and I’m sure with the ammount of sleep I generally get on a weekend, I’ll be good as new by Monday.

Ah, yes. The continued pounding has started up again improving my day tremendously and doing wonders for my headache. Right above where I work they are installing now heaters. Now I’m not sure how much pounding and cutting and just general noise it takes to do this job… but I KNOW it doesn’t take 9 hours. Yet, that’s how long they’ve been doing this right above my head. Even if the job itself takes that long, I hardly think that ONE heater above my head should take that long. I’ve been up there, I’ve seen what they’re doing… it’s pretty clear that they just suck at it and I’m not in the mood to shrug it off as a “well, it had to be done.”

Wow, this has been nothing but a big bitchy rant. I feel like such a chick. this is great! Anywho. That will probably be enough for now. Maybe I’ll pop back a little later with something significant to say… or at least something a littleSTOPFUCKINGHAMMERINGDICKHEAD!more pleasant to say. No promises though.

Try and Have a good day, at least a better one than me. Except for Steve who should have a terrible day. I know none of you like him, but try to be nice. He’s one of those special kids.

The Post Office, Technology, Holidays And Much Much More…maybe

I should start out by wishing all of our American readers a happy Thanksgiving. I should, but I’m not going to, Ha! Seriously, happy Thanksgiving. Wherever you are, I hope you’re having a happy one, unless I don’t like you, in which case I hope you choke on your dinner, prick! In fact, choke on it twice just to make sure that it’s a job well done.

I saw on the news today that President Bush went to Iraq to have a visit with some of the troops that he’s sent to their deaths who haven’t quite held up their end of the bargain yet. I’ve gotta say, I’ve never hoped for a terrorist attack in my entire life, until I heard he was there. I want to clarify that I don’t hate the military. I understand that they’ve got a job to do and I respect that. They’re doing something that I’d never have the guts to do, march head on into what could very well be certain death on the orders of rich people who aren’t brave enough to do their own dirty work but wish to collect all the benefits. I just happen to think that your commander in chief is a fucking pimple on the ass of life and needs to be scrubbed, and soon! Whether you vote him out or somebody offs him I don’t care, he just needs to be gone for the sake of the entire world. Ok, let’s change topics now, don’t wanna get overly political here, at least not right now.

If any of you are using the paid version of the pop-up blocking program
Ad Shield,
I wanted to warn you not to install the new multi-media block list they have posted. The thing is way too trigger happy and blocks out pretty much all forms of media that aren’t text or html. I’m talking about everything from flash to mp3’s, however they fit into the advertising spectrum. Flash, yes, mp3’s, what the fuck? I put the thing in, then realized what it did when I couldn’t do a goddamn thing. I then spent the next while trying to clean out all the new entries in the list box. It’s not hard, it’s just time consuming and a pain in the ass. It merges with the regular block list, so you have to scroll through that whole thing and remove each new entry individually. I sent them an email asking them what the hell they were thinking, so maybe I’ll post what they say once they write me back.

I’m not talking about the standard block lists, I’m talking about this new one that is dated November 21st that’s under a different heading. The standard lists are fine, and if you haven’t done so, grab the one dated October 29th and import it, it blocks some cool new stuff. Well maybe cool isn’t the right word, but it’s cool that it blocks what it does.

And if you’re not an Ad Shield user, you should be. It’s the best $29.95 U.S I ever spent on my computer, right up there with the cheap virus scanner I have, but it didn’t cost that much so Ad Shield wins. They have a trial, but you don’t get the sweet block list files which means you’ll have to create your own which would take a long time seeing as it blocks over 650 ad serving sites now, not to mention what it can do without the list.

Enough about that, I said I was gonna talk about the post office, and that I am. I was there yesterday picking up some stuff that I bought online when I got an idea. I’m not sure if I’m the first one to think of this, but I’m gonna call it my idea for now.

Anyway, I was watching people pay to get stamps, and to have things forwarded and all manner of things that they charge for in there when I realized that hey, you could probably send anything you wanted for free. Ok, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch, but I bet you could send letters to your folks this way. All you have to do is either mess up the address on purpose or not fill it out at all. Then, instead of writing the return address as your house, put down the address of the person you wanted it to go to in the first place. In case you don’t know, the return address is where they return stuff when the postage isn’t quite right, like when people like you who will be trying this don’t put a stamp on it, or when they can’t ship to the destination. Then drop it in your local mailbox, like the ones they have in malls and such and let the fun begin. Note: Don’t use your own mailbox, because then they’ll know who you are and that you’re up to no good.

I’ve never tried this because well, I just thought it up yesterday and I haven’t had to send anything at all since then, let alone something I don’t mind losing if they decide to send it to the dead letter office instead. But if any of you have done this before or want to give it a go, let me know how it turns out.

I think that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll be back later, hopefully when I’m in a better mood. I’m not in seriously bad moods much of the time but for some reason I am now. Weird part is there’s no reason for it, none at all. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll go away with time. So until we meet again, happy holidays to the Americans, and mary Thursday to the rest of the world.

It’s About Time

Top UK judge blasts U.S. for Guantanamo Bay

I’m glad somebody finally said something like this and that the media is finally listening. If any Americans reading this wonder why the rest of the world hates you so much, look no further than your government and things exactly like Guantanamo Bay. It’s not all of you we can’t stand, it’s the people that you didn’t elect to run your lives for you, and the members of the public who don’t have the good sense to not stand for what they’re doing.

And please, I beg of you, vote for a change in 2004, or at least try. What these assholes are doing doesn’t just concern you and your country, it impacts the rest of us as well because you are one of, if not the most powerful nation in the world. That’s all from me for now. Sorry about getting all political on you all there but it just had to be said.

Timberlake is Cool???

I just saw this brutal piece of news and thought I’d pass it on as it has left me in a state of shock and confusion. I can’t feel my ears. Can you ever feel your ears? Hmm. Anyway. Here we go….

Justin Timberlake The ‘Coolest Person In The World.’
Posted By Kenny Hammond on 11.25.03

Ok… Someone wake me when hell unfreezes…

Ok… First Eminem and Dr. Dre are the most powerful, and now Justin Timberlake is the ‘coolest person in the world.’

This according to British music magazine NME.

NME describes Timberlake as having a “magic alignment of killer career moves, genuine talent, charm, and good looks.”

Following Justin was Brody Dalle of the punk band “The Distillers” and Meg White of “The White Stripes.”

Credit: Muchmusic

Now, I love Brodie with all my heart (call me, babe) and I got no beef with the White Stripes but Justin Timberlake is the coolest person on the planet????? Makes me glad to be a loser. I just don’t understand how any sane person could say that…. I just…. I ….. I gotta go.

Back Yard Wrestling Game Review. (PS2)

Here’s a lil review of a game I’ve been waiting for for a very long time…

Just to make sure there is no misunderstandings here, I have absolutely no problem with the premise. I review a game on it’s own merits and not based on hackneyed opinion pieces from “concerned’ parents. As a concerned parent myself, I know the difference between playing a game where people are diving off of houses and kids actually diving off of houses, and when my son gets old enough I’ll make sure he understands the difference too.

Now, on with the crappy.

First sign of a problem (and yes, I know I’m doing this on a PS2 so I should expect this, but): ……really……..slow………load………………………times.

Okay, so I’m finally into the game. I decide to give the Create-a-Wrestler feature a spin, first-thing. I mosey on over there, put in a name, and go to edit my appearance. That’s when I find out that there is no editing your appearance in this CAW. No, you have sixteen character models to choose from. No, seriously, that’s it. There’s no modifying these models for size, clothing, hair color, nothing. Sixteen models. Oh, but each model has something like 12 different costumes! Except that the costumes are basically color scheme changes to the same freakin’ model, and some of the models only have four costumes, but the programmers were too damn lazy to change the menu to say four costumes instead of 12 (or whatever. I didn’t write down exactly how many there were. I was in too big of a hurry to get this big, steaming pile of DVD out of my house) so they just repeat the four costumes over and over again. Ta-da! Four costumes become 12. Pathetic.

Okay, so I take my “custom character” and start a single-player game, known affectionately as “Talk Show Mode.” Now, we come to one of those things that made me really look forward to this game. They run a cut-scene, and a really well-done one at that, of this talk-show where this redneck character comes on and gripes about his brother (cousin, mom, whatever) wrestling in his backyard and slamming him into his barbecue grill. Funny stuff. Finally, we’re ready for the first fight. (I’ll assume that, had I progressed any farther in the game, the different stages would have been punctuated by cut-scenes such as this. If I have one regret for returning this game so fast, it’s that I didn’t get to see the other cut-scenes. Had I tried, I’d probably still be trying to get to stage 2.)

Another…………………really………………..slow……………………..load…………………

And we’re off….

GAMEPLAY

I get punched down right off the bat. I get up, but I’m met with a flying tire to my skull. I get up again, and I get a brick in the gut. Up again, and I try to dodge the car battery, but apparently the fat, loser prick I’m wrestling has the throwing control of a young Pedro Martinez and I get clocked again. Next thing I know, I’m knocked out. Game over.

So I try again. Every game has a learning curve, right?

And again.

And again.

And again, and I’m beginning to suspect the A.I. of being a little cheap.

And again, and I’m looking for a difficulty setting. There is none.

And again.

And again.

Repeat until sanity melts away. Then eject, get back in car, and go back to video store to trade in for something less frustrating, perhaps Myst.

First of all, the fat rednecks in this game move with the speed of Rey Mysterio on a cocaine bender. I hit the button to throw a punch while my opponent was ten feet….TEN FEET away from me. I didn’t miss, I never completed the punch. In the time it took my character to punch, the computer character traveled ten feet AND successfully grappled me. Once he performed one of his grapple moves on me (one of EIGHT, count ‘em EIGHT at his, and your, disposal) he ran to the opposite side of the backyard and proceeded to throw all manner of junk at me until I was knocked out. Dodging is not an option, you just try to cover as much ground as possible between foreign object shots. Oh, but I grabbed this long PVC pipe once (actually about ten different times) when I had somehow knocked my opponent down. As he got up, I swung the 8 foot long section of pipe. Apparently, PVC pipe exists in a nearby dimension relative to the computer opponent, because it passed right through him without incident.

It’s not bad enough that the A.I. is cheaper than an NBA Jam game. The collision detection (as described above) derives itself from the Shadowcat school. This is the same feature as in many schoolyard games of Cops ‘n’ Robbers: “I shot you!” “Nuh uh!” And what’s worse, the computer opponents no-sell worse than Hogan. I hit my opponent with a barbed-wire wrapped baseball bat. Actually HIT him this time. Before I could take a second swing, the opponent recovered from the hit, closed the distance, and grappled me. I’m not kidding.

As for the controls, there was a button for punching, a button for kicking, a button for grappling, a button for picking things up and putting them down again, a button for pinning, and a button for the ubiquitous “dash” which didn’t travel at a speed discernibly faster than the normal movement rate of the characters. Handling the controls themselves were easy enough, it’s just that you spend so much of your time on your freakin’ back that 99% of the button pushes you perform are to either try to get up or reverse something.

And here’s a short bit on reversing. This is yet another game that tells you which complex of buttons, pads, sticks, whatever you can use to counter, but gives you absolutely ZERO instruction on just how to counter. You use the directional pad (or stick) and the circle, Square, and X buttons, but THEY DON’T TELL YOU WHICH BUTTON BLOCKS WHAT. If it were JUST the buttons, then you could figure it out pretty easily, but adding the directional aspect, which pretty much cubes the number of reversal combinations, insures that, without a Prima guide, the user will have no idea how to reverse anything for the lifetime of the game.

As for the moves, as I said earlier, you have EIGHT grapple moves at your disposal, and most of them are lifted off of “traditional” pro wrestling or blatantly ripped off of certain WWE characters. I know, what’s supposed to make this game unique is the interaction with the environment. The problem is that it’s pretty damn hard to concentrate on suplexing a guy through a window or slamming them through a table when you’re just trying to avoid getting clubbed with flying objects 90% of the time. Oh, and the only ground moves are stomps or splashes or that kind of thing. No submission moves or even knee stomps or anything like that.

I’m not kidding. The gameplay is basically you getting things thrown at you between periodic slams by one character or the other. Then you lose.

There were supposedly some unique game modes you could play (provided you unlocked them) like King of the Hill. Admittedly, I never played this against another human. Maybe it’s terrific to beat on your friends with, but with the glaring holes I’ve described I see a huge opportunity for just pissing off your friends by exploiting the loopholes in the physics model.

Enjoy, Gamers

I don’t Think So Buddy

Ok, so after seeing Matt try to save this relationship, I too decided to take Karine’s advice and use the Bitch Letter Generator to respond. Matt, you need to realize that this is over and there’s nothing you can do about it, unless somebody can come up with a program that can generate something really nice.

Dear, Worthless Penis

I’ve been putting up with your crap for months, and, unable to verbalize my
feelings in a manner in which you would understand, put the matter
aside until I could conjur up a more focused thought to bear.

In a nutshell, you are worthless.

And another thing, If you ever want to listen to another fucking Howlin’ Wolf record,
then you’d better stop leaping out of the goddamn closet and freaking me out, or
I’ll sell you into slavery. Not that you’ll be any good.

Steve

your ever loving dominator

Salty Ham!

Ok, the wait is finally over and it’s now time to let you know why I’d been bugging you all to help me out and write about music once a week. By the way, thanks to the guy who took me up on that and now finds himself a published internet columnist, aside from his own blog that is. The wait is over,
Salty Ham Is Here!

Yes that’s right,
Salty Ham,
your new number 1 source for all of your entertainment needs. With sections devoted to sports, wrestling, movies, games, life and music, which I happen to be editing,
Salty Ham.com
has something for everyone. Even if you’re not a sports fan, don’t play games, hate music, don’t watch wrestling, and aren’t into movies, you still have a life, at least in the physical sense anyway.

The site isn’t completely finished yet, but it seems to be finished enough for our man Roland who is running the whole shebang over there, and if it’s complete enough for him, that’s good enough for me.

By the way, every section needs writers to do various things so if you’re thinking you might have something to say on any of the topics covered on the site, or if you think you could help out somewhere, have a gander at the
jobs page
and consider applying.

Just because I’m in the whoring stuff out spirit, why not
click here and take a look at my first couple of columns.
They get posted every monday, but be sure to check the music section daily for news, reviews, and other columns as they become available. Heck, just make
a daily helping of Salty ham
part of your complete breakfast.

I’ll go away now and let Matt make his own announcement. Besides, I need breakfast and I have places to go today. I’ll be back with more later, so come back here for more once you’ve seen everything over at
that other place I’ve mentioned once or twice in this post.

I’m Sorry

In response to Steve’s earlier attempt to break up with me (creepy), I have used Karine’s suggestion of using the Apology Note Generator to try and win him back. (the link for this is in the comment board of “Love Gone Wrong”

Dear, Snuggems,

I’m prepared to take my own life for neglecting to be sensitive to your mood. I was on my knees worshipping your shrine,
and thought I’d ask Dave to help me with it tomorrow.

So I’m sitting in the dark, waiting to die, hoping you don’t emasculate me. Please cut it off now, or I’ll do it myself.
My grandma can accept me, why can’t you?

Love,
That guy

Love Gone Wrong

Since I’m all about helping you guys out whenever possible, I thought I would pass on a link to something that I’m sure at one time or another we all wish we had. Hell, maybe some of you could use it at this very moment. So if you’re looking to get rid of that pesky significant other in your life, why not click on over to The Breakup Letter Generator and have it take care of them for you. All you have to do is answer a few questions about yourself and the bastard you’re kickin to the curb and the program will provide you with the perfect kissoff note.

As an example, let’s just say that Matt and I were together and I was wanting to break up with him. The letter might go something like this.

Dear Matt,

Writing this letter is painful, but necessary. By now, you might have noticed that I have left, and I’m not coming back. Don’t feel responsible. We just weren’t right for one another. Besides, my history of bed wetting prevents me from committing to a serious relationship and you deserve better.

You deserve someone who appreciates all of your special qualities, especially the obnoxious way you scarf down two pints of Ben and Jerry’s while watching Friends. Even though we’re no longer together, we’ll always have our memories. I’ll never forget the time you made me lie about my religion to your parents.

They say that time heals all wounds, and I hope that soon, you will be able to speak coherently to a person of the opposite gender. When this time comes, I hope we will be living in different state institutions.

Gotta run,
Steve