Saturday, December 13, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
random picture of the moment: toaster fail
it should be noted that I TOOK AND EDITED THESE TWO PICTURES TOGETHER.
but some asshole friend of mine took it upon himself to usurp my picture for his own use.
moar funny pictures
Friday, December 05, 2008
public service announcement
for anyone doing online shopping this holiday season, Dealhack has a nice list of deadline dates for shipping stuff.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
random pictures of the moment: Atlantic Death Knell
the other day i commented on the closing of Atlantic and the request for a few shots of the carpet were made so here you go. not the greatest, but i was trying to do it quickly without drawing too much attention to myself.
it's carpet - really! (outside the bakery)
more carpet! (outside the former fresh fish case)
the produce section
the large empty space on the right used to be where the yogurt was (more carpet!)
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Sunday, November 30, 2008
how depressing
overall it has been a quiet month, which has led to few posts by me as i can't say i have had many overly profound thoughts or doings.
after an irritating day at work on friday (someone who had planned to take the day off decided not to, so i could have had the day off, but didn't find out until i got to work), i stopped by atlantic to pick a few things up (milk, etc) and was surprised to see the parking lot packed. usually it gets pretty full during rush hour, but i managed to get there long before that rush so i wondered what was going on. after wandering into the store, i noticed the sushi bar was closed and wondered why that was, but at this point the 25% off total purchase print outs didn't register. after a few more moments, i realized that the little supermarket with the full liquor license that i liked going to was closing. there's no indication of when it will finally close, but at the rate people were attacking the shelves, i don't think it will be much longer.
so yesterday, M & i went back to do a more thorough browse of the wine aisle. 25% off booze is pretty good. on friday, people were practically fighting over the large bottles of vodka and the like, and the wines had been pretty well picked over. but we started looking and decided that if we saw something that looked interesting, grab it. for a supermarket, atlantic had a reasonable selection of wines. some cheap, some more expensive, but certainly a better selection than some places, so we looked and grabbed 9 various bottles. 2 of them were an El Coto Rioja which we had tried earlier this month and enjoyed. but the rest were this or that. afterwards, we did something i had yet to do since i started shopping there - we went up and down every aisle looking to see what else might be of interest. there wasn't a whole lot left that was of interest, but we were able to find stuff that we needed. and with heavy hearts, we paid for everything. 25% made a pretty big difference, knocking just over $50 off the bill, and to our delight, the $20 gift certificate was still valid, so we saved just over $70. not a bad haul.
on friday i gave it some thought as to why they were closing on the way home, and my suspicions were confirmed when i found a few articles on the closing.
more competition, the economy and energy prices. in the last year, both stop & shop and market basket opened in town (right next to each other) and they have pulled business away. i knew this would happen when they opened, but i obviously didn't know how much business was being pulled away. according to one of the articles i found, it costs atlantic ~$300,000/year for energy costs. that's a ton of money. in part it was due to their equipment, but with rising energy costs, increased competition, it made it harder for them to stay afloat. they still are, but the question would be 'for how much longer?' would they keep their heads above water.
for me, it means i have to plan my shopping trips a bit more. no longer can i just swing over to atlantic to grab milk or pistachios (that really depresses me - i liked their pistachios). both MB & S&S are out of the way for me. and i'm now kind of in the middle of the surrounding supermarkets. i've always had several choices, but i really did like the ability to literally roll down the hill to atlantic for when i needed something. plus it was easy when M&i were cooking if we needed something, i'd just run out and get it. no longer.
i don't know if i'll be back in atlantic before it closes. i may make another attempt at a wine run later this week, but i wouldn't be surprised if it was finally closed. i'm not sure if i'm mourning the loss of a friend, or whether i'm mourning the loss of convenience.
i am certainly going to miss the ability to buy beer & wine there. there are so few supermarkets that sell beer and wine in this state (talk about your draconian liquor laws, i voted yes to wine in supermarkets when it was a ballot question a few years back). the 3 trader joe's that sell wine are all out of my way (cambridge, framingham and i forget, but i've been to it). whole foods doesn't sell wine (have seen it tho in sonoma).
oh well. there isn't anything i can do about it, but i guess this means that market basket will be getting more of my money. even if it is a pain in the ass to get out of their parking lot. (light at the main entrance does not allow for left turns which i need - goes back to long before they moved in and the town (surprise) does not appear to want to change that)
farewell my friend. farewell to the first supermarket i had ever been in that had genuine carpeting.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
dear people,
obama is a politician. please keep that in mind. presuming he wins the election tomorrow, the world isn't going to change. if you believe so, then ask yourself, is this woman being realistic?
all i see is stupid sheep playing follow the leader.
do we need a change? absolutely. is obama going to be the change we need?
i doubt it.
he is a politician.
and politicians don't change.
i spent part of the day trying to figure out how to write out what my feelings about tomorrow are, but all i can offer is a simple warning.
regardless of who wins, we all lose.
not much will change. republicans will hate democrats. democrats will hate republicans. all will throw stones at each other. all will call each other names. and where will it get us?
i will vote tomorrow. but it won't be for them.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
oh for crying out loud.
HILLARY DUFF IS A FUCKING WHORE!
it's one thing to write a song and pull samples from other songs, but when the ENTIRE FUCKING SONG is nothing BUT samples of a reasonably WELL KNOWN song.
i like Personal Jesus. it's one of the Depeche Mode songs that really hooked me. but this is just an abomination. to put this in perspective, i have no issue with cover versions. i love cover versions, good or bad. my preference is for the artist to take the song and make it their own, but there are some perfectly good straight forward covers out there.
example: i like manson's take, even if it is fairly straight forward cover. (similar in some ways to the lollipop lust kill version which came out 2 years prior) some people like johnny cash's take which isn't bad (again, fairly straight forward). i've never heard of Metamatics, but their take is interesting (in the good way). vegas lounge act? one man version?
but to BLATENTLY take and bastardize the song like this.
i'm furious now....
see you auntie.
fuck you.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
caller of the day so far.
i would like to preface this with the following statment, shamelessly borrowed from Opie.
PRANK CALLER! PRANK CALLER!
with people in our department taking the day off, RB & i are the only ones here, at least until CC gets into the other office and can help out.
JMcMenace just called asking for CL (who usually takes the bulk of the help desk calls) and the conversation went something like this:
JMcM: hi, is CL there?
Mol: no, she's out.
JMcM: did she take the day off?
Mol: no, she broke her hip.
JMcM: really? you're kidding me.
Mol: yup.
JMcM: how did she do it?
Mol: do what? i was kidding.
JMcM: oh (laughs). i could picture her doing jazzercise and her little legs giving out.
Mol: no, i think she just took the day off.
apparently, when JMcM wants to go out for a smoke with CL, rather than calling CL's number directly, she just calls the help desk instead. so who knows what important help desk call we could have missed because RB & i were both on the phone at the time. there could have been a fire in the other office and we might not have known until it was too late.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
well, no surprises there
as an update to last nights post about the idiocy of certain people at work, i spoke with the wreck of a train this morning about her rather cryptic response to my request for clarification.
it turns out the work that i did earlier this summer, won't go to waste. but it took me explaining a few things. as it turns out, she decided that the 2 general boxes i had set up were going to be repurposed, but had neglected to tell anyone.
so i explained why i didn't want to change their purpose and suggested that i set up 2 separate boxes which then took several explanations on my part why i thought that would be a good idea. i think she understood my thinking and then twaddled off.
at some point in the future, the boxes i set up months ago may actually be used. but we'll see. i'm sure the end of this will be full of confusion.
and in an unrelated note, i'm going to guess that someone who works for verizon IS A MASSIVE DUMB FUCKING IDIOT.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
that figures
part of me feels used, but then this is typical of our office.
we have a fancy faxserver (running gfi faxmaker 12) at work that is SORELY under utilized. we are barely scratching the surface of its capabilities, mostly because people at work are your stereotypical technophobes.
the idea of removing archaic technology (fax machines) and replacing it with new hotness tech scares the shit out of people at work. so it's always an uphill struggle.
so rewind a few months (like march) when i was approached about actually utilizing this new fangled tech. so several boring (and semi-pointless for me at the time) meetings, a plan was drawn up.
faxes would come in, CI would sort them and then pass them along to the appropriate team and support staff. for this, i set up a mailbox for each of our teams (~10) plus the 2 general boxes for each office. i then set the permissions and tested things and it all worked as advertised.
and then nothing.
on monday, i received an email that when i sat and analyzed it, realized that everything we had set up was going to waste, so i asked about it and sure enough, i got a reply confirming my analysis and a simplified revision.
and the worst part is the simplification should it get off the ground will make it harder for us to actually implement the original plan which itself was pretty simple.
so, those semi-pointless meetings i attended?
yeah. completely pointless.
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