Archive for April, 2008
caged rats »
Monday, April 28th, 2008
first, I know. No Friday Free For All. I would apologize, but this is a blog and most of you probably didn’t even notice. It was a busy week.
Most of you are educated citizens and generally smart people based purely on appearances, I rarely have thoughtful conversations that would test such things. With that fact in mind, I assume the following will be unanimously agreed with and you’ll share in my joy. Also, like, one of you comments, so if you actually disagreed, I’d never here about it. Ignorance is power. Ask anyone in Minneapolis the first week of September.
Anyway. America, the land of the free and brave and such, has a severe problem. We’re faltering because we don’t manufacture and aren’t putting any moneys toward educating our soon-to-be-labeled-globally-retarded youth. Not good.
To combat this, we’ve started working longer hours, with less enjoyment, less vacation, more stress, less general fulfillment and less productivity than almost all of our industrialized read: rich, white counterparts. Maybe it’s the same part of the brain that approved “No child left behind” that thinks that’s a solid plan for national growth.
Workers have admitted to any pollster that handed them a fill-in-the-circle black pen or #2 pencil please questionnaire that they waste almost 20% of their day. The fact that I’m writing this and you’re reading it probably attests to the truth in that.
The French for those in the south, insert “fucking” before every following reference to the country; I’m trying to broaden my readership are more productive. I’ll repeat that. The French are more productive. They work 35-hour weeks, have five weeks of vacation and are more productive on an hourly basis than we are. Stings, right? Incidentally, we’re being torched by the Dutch who probably look at us and laugh; more because of the weed than the mocking; fucking hippies.
Over the weekend I thought of two things: I should buy a new bike and a multi-function backpack that has nothing to do with work or productivity, so I don’t know why I brought it up and I should see about working from home one day a week.
I figure it’ll be a floating day, depending on meetings, project priority and file access oh, and weather; which would factor in the new bike… I may be stretching that. I have access to all but a shared storage drive and one of our web servers. I should be able to find a way to both.
That I can so easily work remotely is nice, but with an odd dress-code and even odder scheduling blocks around the office, I wasn’t optimistic. The idea festered for most of yesterday though, so I figured I’d give it a shot.
I walked over to my immediate-super’s cube with trepidation and imagined her laughing at my early-Monday-morning humor. I posed the above as a way for me to work on a few projects coming down the pipe that will demand more focus. I can’t really focus here, with all the smaller projects dropped in my lap on the daily.
Luckily, she had just read an article in the latest issue of Fast Company, of which our department is a subscriber. It outlines some of the above facts and poses the possibility of shorter work weeks and more satisfied employees as a way to “go Green” and reduce our overall wastefulness. America still dominates that category! Whoop!
I have my fingers crossed figuratively that we can propose a plan that has me working from the lakehouse once a week. I could say this is a step toward a higher quality of life for everyone and sparks an upturn in the economy. Or that, by working from home, I’m laying the groundwork for peace in the Middle east, a reversal of global warming and an end to oppression in the third world.
Of course, that would all be a giant haystack of bovine feces, but I’m just selfish enough to believe it. Maybe.
time wasted posting this blog: about 40 minutes. I still have almost an hour to post a flick, read blogs and toss blank stares at my screen. efficiency!
reservation road »
Friday, April 25th, 2008
… is a pretty solid drama fueled by some impressive performances and an intense story. With the audience knowing more than the characters for almost the entire film, it generates more suspense and adds to the interaction. The characters have a realness to them and the situation could have been pulled straight from headlines.
It’s a strong story that pulled me in and held my attention easily. The subject matter is emotionally charged, which helped in a lot of ways. The performances by Ruffalo (Eternal sunshine, we don’t live here anymore) and Phoenix (Walk the line, We own the night) are solid. The direction wasn’t stand-out, but everything was well done.
It’s probably too intense for a mass audience, but I think it should have been more widely promoted and distributed. It’s a realistic movie as far as traumatic events are concerned. I liked that it didn’t overplay it, but held true to human reactions.
***1/2
i fucked up »
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
Easy, easy… Don’t pull out the “what the hell is he talking about?” card just yet. It’s not like I’ll admit to an actual mistake. I’m far too infallible and modest for such things. I’m just overstating a slight dip in judgment that somehow worked itself into the pristine corners of my logical mind yesterday.
I decided to ride my bike in all it’s squeaky-brake, gear-slipping, uncomfortable-seat-ed glory up to Girlfriend’s place. It’s about, I don’t know, seventy-two miles. It was nice and I scarfed down two donuts at the office before my brain could get an “uh.. wait a-” in edgewise, so I felt I should burn a few extra calories than my normal seven.
After about forty minutes and a couple miss-turns, I was at her door and sweating profusely. I showered, we made our way to one of my housemate’s birthday celebrations and then we had a walk around the lake closest to her place. The threes of you are likely reading this as a good thing. You’re horrifyingly on the level of dumpster babies wrong. So. So. Wrong.
But why, you ask? Three main reasons.
One, due to a harsh winter of boozing and restauranting and general laziness and probably cold weather, my muscles resemble those of a 3-week-coma victim just starting to twitch a pinky. The exercise was probably good for me, but there’s a dull throbbing from my lumbar to my toes that’s making sitting at my desk impressively uncomfortable.
Two, I haven’t been sleeping lately. Well, I have, but it’s been spotty at best and I haven’t had more than four hours continuous since early last week. When I get to laying down my subconscious sparks up the strobe and crystal ball for an all night dance off. Add that to the muscle trauma and I feel like I’m teetering on the post of a spike-tipped iron fence between jagged rocks and torch-bearing medieval villagers intent on my being torn apart the rocks are mental breakdown and the mob is physiological collapse, if you didn’t follow the metaphor; also, the fence is my inner child; or something.
And third, which is probably the most obvious reason for my idiocy, my bike now sits at Girlfriend’s house and the weather looks like this:
I think you’ll agree that it’s pretty fucking! gorgeous out there. In order to get back to my place, I’ll need to bike forty-seven miles in a thunderstorm or walk a mile in the rain/ask Girlfriend for a ride and have to find a way to get my bike later this week. Suddenly, the exercise doesn’t seem worth it.
I’m not exactly known for my think-through-itivenvess, but this is out of hand. It’s so hard to plan ahead in such a climatically bipolar region he says trying to justify his not having looked at the weather, which takes less than ten seconds depending on the interweb connection.
bicycles »
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
The first man steps into the rail car on the second stop after I did. He’s in his early forties. He wears a windbreaker that looks to be about a hundred dollars, expensive sunglasses and slacks, the right leg of which is pinned with a binder clip. He wears a bicyclist’s cap and helmet on his head.
The bike he’s pushing in front of him is well-maintained. It’s about twenty-four inches, between five and ten years old and has new tires. There is a headlight attached to his handlebars next to an aged bell. His U-lock sits in a clip attached to its frame. A copy of today’s Wall Street Journal is strapped to the rack that sits over his rear tire. (more…)
1408 »
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
… is predictable, pathetic and generally uninteresting except for a couple make-you-jump moments and a thin layer of suspense probably derived almost completely from the confined space of one hotel room. Cusack (High fidelity, being john malkovich) isn’t really that interesting and the story is ridiculous.
Remember (none of you remember) back when I said Stephen King was a genius? Well, he still is, I think, but ever since Dreamcatcher, the movies that spring forth from his pages have been impressively terrible.
The acting isn’t the worst and the effects are entertaining, but the story lacks any purpose. This may be because they were basing their entire plot on a short story by King and couldn’t extrapolate an hour and a half out of it. Still, they didn’t even really put the effort into what they were trying to say. It was just a bunch of ghost story redundancies and vague allusions to a message they all forgot.
If you want to be scared, this isn’t for you. If you want to be challenged, this isn’t for you. If you want to watch a good movie, look for something else.
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