Today has got to be the best first day at a job in my history. After the HR orientation I found out I was assigned an IBM T-42 laptop!! One of the thinnest and coolest laptops - PERIOD. You know that IBM commercial about the 2 guys bragging about who is in, and has the coolest lightest notebook? Well THAT is mine! After work we went to a work sponsored dinner that was off the chain. Gotta say my first time ever being to a business dinner, everything paid for, AND still working at the same time. I couldn't really turn business mode off, which was fine too.
The first part of this day started out very cool. We drove over to Maryland (which really wasn't that far) to a U Pick event, where you can pick your own apples, strawberries, pumpkins and I forgot whatever else. To get to the orchard we took a tractor ride, which could have easily been walked to, but it lent to the moment nicely. We all walked out of there with like 15 lbs. apples. Vida and Chantel also made off with a couple of pumpkins, which I am proud to say I picked out! I got skillz...haha.
Later that evening, I think I found myself a slice of home in this Jamaican restaurant near where my new apartment is going to be located. They even have a US Virgin Islands flag hanging on the wall! It's a little desk-sized one, but hey they get crazy points for that. Hugo, Lavida, and I went and we all ordered stuff from back home, but obviously with a Jamaican tilt. Contrary to popular belief Jamaicans don't have the market on all that everything culinary in the Carribean. We ordered jerk shrimp, ox tail, jerk pork, and beef patties. On an interesting note, most Carribean and Latin cuisines have some of 'patties' in their repotoire. There are empenadas in some latin cultures, pate' in some Carribean cultures and the like. Essentially some meat or vegetable filling surrounded by a bread-like casing.
The really sad part of this story is I ended putting some of our friend's homemade hot sauce on my food. This hot sauce makes Tobasco sauce taste like ketchup. So why did I put some of this hot sauce on my JERK shrimp, which was already hot?? Dude. Mwhaha!
My first night back in DE in and we do something cool. It is a beautiful thing. The events that lead to the chocolate overdose are kinda hazy right now because of the chocolate induced coma that followed, but it was all well worth it. One minute we were over at Chantel's talking about our respective cravings. Something sweet was on all our minds. And then I mentioned to Brigid that we should do something baked/hot with chocolate. Then I think Chantel mentioned fondu. Next thing you know we are sitting at the table with a big ass thing of melted dark chocolate, with apples, pineapple, marshmellows, and TWO different kinds pound cake all cut into nice bite sized pieces. Good lord. Talk about decadence. A short time later we are all sitting at the table, with more glucose coursing through our veins than should be legally alllowable. The coupe de grace, was when Hugo decided he needed to try dipping his freshly baked chocolate chip cookies (from a nameless vendor, needless to say they are GOOD) into the chocolately goodness.
Yankees have LOST! I don't really care for baseball, but I freaking hate the Yankees. The team is built on the premise that if you throw the most money at your players, you will have the best team. Yeah right! Ok, the same could be said for my Lakers, but I've been a Lakers fan well before Kobe, Phil, or Shaq.
While watching the game last night at work (one of the great things about working at this particular retailer is watching the game in full on surround sound in front of a 60" plasma) with some coworkers, the thought occured to me that people will assign such great weight when it comes to their loyalty to their sports team. Some people will literally live and die with a win or a loss. People will fight, and in the case of a really dumbass Raiders fan, stab an opposing teams's fan. What the hell people?
Similarly in this country people will go to blows if you disagree on a political issue, belong to a particular political party or subscribe to a certain set of beliefs. Get lives people! It's one thing to care, it's a total other to be a fanatic about it. NO ONE except the players profits from whoever scores the most 3 pointers, R.B.I.s, touchdowns or goals. NO ONE but the players and management, lest we forget the people who try to gouge on you ticket prices, nachos, hot dogs and beers. Indeed, inspiration can be found in a good sports contest. The underdogs prevailing over the 'chosen ones' or some athelete overcoming some personal or physical challenge to rise to the occasion. As far as politics go, if you don't like something get your ass out there and do something to change it.
So shit like people throwing debris onto a baseball field is STUPID. There were a couple of calls during the Sox/Yankees game the fans didnt't like and people took to throwing baseballs, bottles, and shit on the field. One of the plays, the interference play by Alex Rodriguez, the umps called him out for after the fact and was TOTALLY in the right. Were the people madding the score board inable to put how ARod swatted the pitcher's glove on the jumbo screen?
To all of you out there who will go into fits of depression and elation when your teams looses or wins: get lives.
I'm still getting used to seeing leaves turn colors and trees shedding them. On a trip to pick up my cousins, I was blown away by the transformation the area is taking. Elise finds it amusing that all of this is having such an impact on me. Rug rat! I've spent the first half of my life in Virgin Islands, and the 2nd half of it in California - neither place truly suited for experiencing fall.
November 2nd will not come fast enough.
Tonight was QUITE different at work. I worked with this Mom and her son on getting them a computer within their budget and requirements. After wading through many options and what not we decided on a system. They were commenting on how they were late meeting their daughter/sister at Ruby Tuesdays for family night. Totally offhand and sarcastically, I said, could you get me a burger too? The lady goes, with fries and the works? I go, sure why not? Up until this point the conversation had taken many interesting turns so I didn't really think they would take me seriously. One of those interesting turns was the lady was trying to introduce me to her daughter of 19!! I'm trying to explain to the woman nicely, that there would be too big of an age difference, but she wasn't having it. LOL Anyway, so about an hour later, who shows up with a burger from Ruby Tuesdays? The daughter!! How funny is that?!?! Some customers are too damned cool!
WTF is up with MTV milking Real World and Road Rules franchises? Literally almost half of the cast from this Battle of the Sexes, is from previous shows and challenges. You're kidding me right? If this is a money making formula for the producers, I need to buy into that. No wait. Oh yea, all those young cast members are getting old. The boys are becoming men and getting a bit flabbier. The girls are becoming women, and ooops, lookie there, is gravity taking its revenge.
How about some original fucking programming people?!
Usually when I needed head space, I would go to Goleta beach, bogart a picnic table eat some lunch and write in my journal. Well, I am a good 2,300 miles away from the Pacific Ocean and all the bitching and moaning in the world won't bring me closer. So I had to improvise. Which Brings me to today's entry. One of the few blogs I read regularly, written by Jennifer inspired me to pay attention to folks when I'm out, because she makes some pretty interesting observations. Stuff I think, but probably would not say out loud - till now.
So today I went to the gym and got my ass handed to me, cause well I haven't even SEEN the gym in about 4 weeks. Afterwards, I went to Subway and this is where the fun starts. First off, are people totally obliviously to other people when they are on their cell phones. It doesn't matter if you're speaking quasi-softly and/or in a different language, the junk is so annoying. If you need to make/take a call, excuse yourself and do it. It's rude and inconsiderate to the people around you. One date-deal breaker is, if I'm on a date and the date takes or makes a phone call on her cell that's totally unnecessary. If I had to be on my phone, it'd damn sure be important, I'd excuse myself and make it quick. That's if I haven't already put my phone on silent.
Also is it me, or do people's voices get louder as they are on their cell phones. Do cell microphones suck that much? Or may be we should step somewhere we can actually HEAR the person we're talking to.
Today I was in the car and an advertisement for a new movie came on, and the announcer was all, "the funniest movie this year!" And they do this crap even in January. "The best comedy of the year!", and the damned thing was released January 4th. Or my other favorite with movies when they list all these accolades for a movie and then when you REALLY pay attention, you see that those quotes all came from the same writer/paper/whatever. Come on! Who really lets relies on what they go see on these stupid advertisements?
Today I am officially registered to vote and I think it's one of the most important things I have done in a long time. This election I'm not sitting on the sidelines. I recommend everyone to get out there and vote. Do yourself and everyone else a favor and read about the candidates and the issues they are backing. Not saying you should vote Left or Right, Kerry or Bush. Just vote.
Today work could not have gone any slower. I pretty much was zoning out about 2 hours into my shift. Then a reprieve came when a friend from work stopped by to say hi to the crew. Of course I had to give her hell for coming to work on her day off! If I have to get something from work I go straight to the department in question, say hi to my guys, and head straight out the door. Anyway, her and I ended up eating at Applebees and spent an inordinate amount of time talking about work. Which isn't bad per se. The other topic that occupied the conversation was talking about people. Man oh man, there were people to talk about. For example our waitress, who was a total sweetheart and at the same time poster child for a middle aged cheerleader's group had the highest pitched voice I had EVER heard on a human. Literally, as she spoke her voice kept going up an octave. Which begs the questions if humans could hear her voice at the end of speech. On the real, she was really sweet and attentive, but that voice. MAN.
I had this ridiculously huge burger that had 2 full size patties of meat. Good grief. I actually couldn't finish the damned thing.
Today I went over to Elise's and helped her with her basement project. It's still taking some getting used to that just about every house on the East Coast has a basement. On the cool side of things the basement can be used for just anything, so for that it's dope. On the other hand finishing a basement after the fact is a major pain in the ass. I got to play with power tools today and had a blast! All hail Makita! Also set her up with my old router and some cables. All hail Linksys! With a simple firmware upgrade, the router became current in a snap.