AUGUST 2014 4th Amendmant Collection

Guess what? I made some new shirts for my Zazzle store last night.

Check them out and let me know what you think. Here is a brief description of each as they came into my head:

Another in an apparently LONG line of ‘My Other T-Shirt’ shirts. I couldn’t find anything exactly the same, but only mildly different already on the nets, so we’ll see if  I have blatantly ripped off  someone else when the DMCA notice lands in my inbox.

My other T-Shirt was at the dry-cleaners on Alderaan… so yeah.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I get a LOT of help desk tickets daily. Approximately 2/3 (ish) of them are so vague, i have to wonder if these people even know what the real issue is. I’ve wanted to start answering all emails and phone calls with a paraphrase from Star Trek: Please State The Nature of your IT EMERGENCY (because they are ALL emergencies, right?) now i have a t-shirt that says it for me!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ROBOTS! we love robots here at the Assorted Robot Meat Company! obv. So, this is a new-old design. Was first posted back in like 1978…. or later probably.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A couple more one-offs, because t-shirts get boring sometimes. You need a hoodie and a mug of coffee on a cold day in Seattle to do the deep thinking required to under stand the #NSA…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The last thing is just a self-indulgent crap-shoot. Like MC Front’s glasses, I don’t actually expect anyone to BUY this, but just knowing that i can put it up for sale makes me feel good about myself:

House of the STFU!!

Co-Worker: singing House of the Rising Sun

Me: annoyed, Who sings that song?

Co-Worker: The Animals

Me: LET THEM SING IT!

—
“…There are man made objects on the moon, put there by a member of a species that only 60 years before had just invented the airplane.”

-Sheldon Cooper

The future is here. It’s just not widely distributed yet.
– William Gibson

Breakdown Number One

I bummed a cigarette from a co-worker about an hour ago. Wasn’t worth it. Menthol Marlboro 72. A light, crispy, SMALL cigarette. Almost like a toy. Weird.

The only good advise from the smokefree.gov site so far has been to keep busy. I’m trying, but there’s not that much at work to keep me from getting bored. Meh.

If I was at home trying to get the homebrew dvr/pvr working I’d have a better chance.

Day 1 (sort of)

OK, I’m doing it. Last night I decided that THIS is the day. Boom.

I smoked my last cigarette before I came in to work. Checked out smokefree.gov and it didn’t really have any helpful info. For example, if you smoke while you drive, try listening to a new radio station, or YOUR FAVORITE MUSIC. Are they just making shit up? Both suggestions are mutually exclusive, and neither one is that good of a suggestion.

Another suggestion is to hang out in places where smoking is prohibited. IE: a mall or a movie theater. Interesting, but there are always parking lots. It also suggested staying out of bars. Interesting, since (at least in AZ) smoking isn’t allowed in bars anymore. But they usually have parking lots too!

But, like I said in my previous post, the world is increasingly unfriendly towards smokers. So it should be pretty easy right?

Especially if I blog on my work breaks instead of lighting up, right?

Stats.
Cigarettes smoked: 4
Last one smoked: 9:15 am.
Cups of coffee: 8 and counting

Smoking, and boredom.

From the “bad-habits” dept.

Kinda-sorta trying to quit smoking. Have cut back quite a bit (1/2 to 3/4 of a pack/day), but not nearly enough. Thinking about investing in ‘the gum’ this week rather than a carton.

Smoking at work will be the hardest thing to cut out. Sitting at a desk for 8 hours is almost painful. At least when I worked at the video store I had something to DO every minute of the day. Helping customers, stocking shelves etc. I wasn’t just sitting and staring at a monitor the whole time. I imagine that I could just wander around the parking lot for a few minutes every hour instead of lighting up. This is because I’m not so sure its a nicotine craving, but the need to get up and stretch, move around a bit.

Which is another problem. I tend to smoke more when I’m bored. The other night I was tearing down and putting together a couple of computers (using my new CyberTool 41 SAK – Happy Birthday to me!), and didn’t feel the need to smoke for several hours at a time. But then last night, I was installing Ubuntu and some other software (on the same machines), I was just bored during the install process and ended up smoking half a pack in 5 or 6 hours. Not trying to make excuses or anything, its just an observation.

The more I think about it though, the more I DON’T want to smoke. At least in the long term. When I imagine myself as a nerdcore, diaper-messenger bag carrying, video-shooting, picture-taking, middle-earth-story-telling, GEEK DAD, I do NOT see myself smoking. I tried to imagine it this morning on the way into work, and the image just did not fit.

Its like those times I’ve taken my son out to events with other parents and kids. I feel like the insane oddball of the group when I step aside to fill my lungs with noxious fumes. I don’t like smoking around kids. Never have. I always try to hide around a corner or something, but that just makes me more of the misfit. So out of place as a smoker in this world. Everything these days has been altered to a non-smoking environment. Which is not to say that’s a bad thing. YES, smoking is bad for you, yes it causes cancer, etc, etc, etc.

Next week I’m planning on being more pro-active with quitting. Thinking I’ll start with the gum, because i LIKE gum. We’ll see how it goes.

OK, back to work! these spreadsheets won’t create themselves 🙂

Today’s stats so far,

cigarettes smoked this morning: 6

coffee drank: 10 cups (and counting)

miles driven: 22

minutes spent writing this: 75

minutes spent working: 15

minutes spent on gtalk with my sister-in-law: 21

 

Captions anyone?

The IT dept at work has set up a little clone bank of time-clocks. Reminds me of something from the matrix, or an electronic nursery.

Another pondering, and a hapilly filled lighter.

The test was a success, my word-smithing on the go is up and running… I wonder if I can pull a Twitter feed through??? Hmmm… (probably)

Still not sure what I’m actually doing with any of this technology. I mean LOOK below. 3 whole posts prior to tonight! And the last one was the day after Thanksgiving. My twitter account languishes. MySpace and Facebook go unused for weeks, NAY! Months at a time. Am I too old for social networks? I don’t know.

I guess one thing I will be writing about in the coming months are my preparations for the LPI Junior Administrator exam (part 1 of 2). I started studying for the first exam a month and a half ago. Almost through the first of 5 tutorials. Man!

Ok, one final thing before I have another cigarette and head to bed. I did end up finding my lighter fluid in a box in the garage… used the lighter 2 weeks straight. Left it in my pocket when MyLittlePony did the laundry. Probably needs new stuffing and flint and wick. Oh well.

-Good Night, Web2.0!

It’s all fun and games

Until a Walmart employee is trampled to death by crazed consumers.
Seriously. How bad does it have to get? How many lives must be lost before our rampant consumerism takes complete hold of this planet and turns it into a combination of Mad Max and WALL-E?

Yet another reason to stay home on ‘Black Friday.’

My empty lighter

I have a Zippo that some one gave me years ago. I like it, and used to use it all the time. It’s been empty for quite some time. Since I moved back in May, I haven’t been able to find the huge bottle of fluid that I bought for it. Its in a box somewhere in the garage. One of these days I will organize all that crap piling up in the corner. Need to get some shelves or something.

Its a nice lighter.