…I’m feeling a tad lazy plus I think I can tie it all up into other things I’m behind in. Besides, I can’t come up with a solid concept to implement until April which would be my 15th anniversary with Apple.
Suggestions are welcome.
I need to have a Kurt Vonnegut-like device installed into my head to keep me from forgetting all the birthdays that happen during the first few days of every month!
Well, Nicolas now hits the real teenager status because 13 is the probationary period in my opinion and the majority of high-school freshmen are 14. What’s next? I have no idea. I think he is more focused on living through the horrendous Winter Chicago is experiencing. May this Spring be awesome. I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart and memory for 14. I blame Alamo Drafthouse’s Summer of 1982 film series.
If you know him, wish him well. I will be scrambling for a good card and writing an e-mail asking Nicolas what he would like as a gift.
Hey hey everyone, probably all like three of you readers. I don’t mean to be down though but the Picayune got neglected a tad due to a couple sad events.
Firstly, a good friend and co-worker was unfairly terminated at Apple. I readily admit my biases toward the parties involved yet I sense there was some capriciousness in the decision because the terminator was my former manager. What upsets me the most is that I felt this ex-boss had grown a little plus he transferred to a division staffed by engineers. If you know much about the computer-related fields, engineers need little direct supervision, a micromanager is very unwelcome. Only time will tell. I have warned my friend he won’t necessarily get the outcome he desires due to many HR departments being known for backing a manager’s actions, even when the manager ends up being wrong. Is the manager wrong? Yes. If I weren’t friends with the terminated, I would still have the same stance; based upon the circumstances, the manager did everything to achieve no other outcome, firing. This is unethical. A good leader should do all in their power to assist an employee in “righting the ship,” not taking an indifferent, ambiguous and/or sabotaging position during a stressful situation.
I myself was once on the bubble at Apple about a decade ago. I succeeded by getting help from inside and outside my employer. I also said to myself, no matter what happened, I would never leave under a cloud. Plus I pressed on the immediate manager to assist in keeping me abreast of my progress and I received what I had been demanding for over a year, a transfer to a boss who “got me.” To be fair to the previous manager while in the crisis, it wasn’t all his fault. The person above both of us hobbled numerous professional relationships so there was an aura of venom.
Ergo, I know from experience that what happened to my friend was a railroading, not just business as usual.
The other sad matter happened on the same day.
While driving home I saw a dead cat on the main thoroughfare leading in/out of Pflugerville (aka FM 1825 for locals). The poor stray’s corpse hadn’t been there long based upon his position. I rushed home, grabbed a huge Container Store bag and a towel I wouldn’t miss. Then I went back to put my car in the way to prevent any jerks from running over the corpse (there are some sick people who get off squashing “road kill,” it seems to go hand-in-hand with gun-driven cultures in my experience); well, I hoped no one would hit my car and kill me neither. Being mid-evening, I had to keep the bag in the backyard until the following day.
When work ended, I rushed home to take the unfortunate kitty to White Rock Vet Hospital to arrange his cremation (he was a large male orange tabby with no collar and it was pretty obvious he wasn’t neutered). I had planned on paying for the process but the staff said the county covers it as a good Samaritan act. It’s damned shame yet I hope I gave him a little dignity to his demise. Texas also has vultures/buzzards (can’t remember which) you’ll see occasionally eating dead animals on the road.
My cautionary tale about the cat is a plea to encourage everyone to please, please, keep your pets indoors or contained to the yard. Letting them wander around will often end badly for all parties involved.
A rather schmaltzy synopsis about how the (Western) Allied Forces undertook semi-dangerous missions to recover stolen artwork from the Nazi regime. We also went despite tepid reviews because The Lego Movie was sold out and we had free tickets to iPic, a chain like Alamo but higher end fare.
Putting aside all of Monument‘s inaccuracies, the movie is just TV caliber fare with a bigger-name cast who mostly phone it in…Bill Murray, I’m looking in your direction. I dare say it also has a strong American bias since (spoiler alert) only the foreign characters are killed saving mostly French, Dutch and Belgian pieces.
Such a shame too. What the real people did to help preserve critical works will likely be remembered for years by this rather incomplete film; there were over 300 people involved in the real-world operation and the Nazis stealing stuff was already well known. The alternatives to counter misinformation have died out, especially when the History Channel decided to become the lowbrow redneck reality marathon. There’s always a glimmer of hope via PBS.
I don’t mind George Clooney’s attempts at directing. I think that if he wants to cover a major, historical topic, he should consider a mini-series via HBO like Tom Hanks did.
Jake came by Austin to deliver his wit and wisdom before he headed over to what will be his umpteenth appearance on David Letterman, umpteenth is metric for over 40. He’s an awesome stand-up comedian who can just run with numerous topics. Although Jake isn’t a household name because he’s never had a sitcom, a break-out role in a film or a catchphrase, he is damned funny.
To be fair, Jake has appeared on TV outside of stand-up specials. My favorite role was Kahuna on Weird Science, especially at the end when you discover he’s a genie like Lisa.
I also found out while talking to him that he was friends with Scott Forrest of Apple fame, ergo, he got to participate in the iPhone’s debut and meet Steve Jobs. Makes sense, Jake started in San Francisco like numerous other great comedians in the Eighties/Nineties.
Go check him out online or via Comedy Central. I will be catching up through his relatively new podcast…Jake This!
The man involved a few of the Eighties’ raunchiest and popular comedies passed away after being ill for a while according to the Guardian. Harold directed the greatest movie involving golf…Caddyshack. Even when you have to sit through the scenes with Chevy Chase, it holds up. He co-starred with Bill Murray in Stripes, his dry wit balanced the manic style of its larger star. As for Ghostbusters, it’s OK but I’ve never found it that funny yet I will never deny the movie’s place in the larger history.
Few knew he was an original cast member on SCTV. The run most know was really the fourth season, when it came to NBC. Harold left sometime before then and was replaced by Rick Moranis. The bits I saw were clever.
Farewell Harold. May you get to collect on what the Dalai Lama promised.
One of the funniest parodies or re-interpretations Futurama did was its tribute to the numerous Japanese cartoons brought to America in the last several decades. Not the higher caliber, less-censored stuff now shown on Cartoon Network or available through specialized video stores. When I was kid, these shows were dubbed over, edited and often a bit incomprehensible, especially Battle of the Planets which was really Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. The segment also pokes fun at how things get lost in translation when context or idioms aren’t figured out.
Now I need to have my friend/co-worker Ayako translate what is the word on the left side. Probably a close approximation of what Futurama is in Japanese.
The annual tradition was upheld as the baton has been passed from the former local organizer Chris to Annette recently. Chris is in the process of moving to Chicago, poor guy especially with the brutal winter happening. Annette did a marvelous job making the arrangements despite the original venue suddenly closing days before. I personally was thrilled to go with the Third Base Restaurant closer to work than downtown.
I met some newer people from our alma mater who I hadn’t run into last time. An Army nurse in San Antonio (good for her!), the gentleman with the hat attended a few years before me so he could tell me his war stories of when the beer flowed like water and generally nice people. I guess there’s something wrong my generation, I grew to dislike a good-sized number of classmates. However, when I see their accomplishments in the alumni magazine, I applaud. I don’t wish them any harm, disgrace or failure. Schadenfreude won’t suddenly make me richer or more successful.
Let me get to the game. This year the opponent was Xavier which I think is a lesser, Jesuit rival in Cincinnati. Marquette managed to pull ahead fairly early and controlled the game from then on. Home-court advantage is my guess. Still, I shouldn’t be making any plans with the 60:1 bet I have with the Mirage on the Warriors (not the Golden Showers) winning the NCAA championship. Seems they’re about .500 in both their conference and overall record. They’ll need to with the conference tournament to get an invitation because I don’t think they’re a big enough name like UCLA, UNC or Notre Dame to be wedged in.
Let me assure you though. I haven’t gone soft on my criticism for how the Jesuits run Marquette like a medieval fiefdom. Plus there’s too much emphasis on having a basketball dynasty. If your kid chooses a university based upon its sports team, you’re probably wasting money. Marquette should emulate Northwestern or a school that’s more effective assisting its graduates achieve gainful employment. Not be a more expensive, private diploma factory. I do thank my alma mater belatedly for those mandatory classes I hated taking (Philosophy, Theology, Statistics namely) but they’ve come to my aid in the clutch. I’m amazed how little other college graduates know. I’m even more embarrassed over how few can write a complete sentence.
I digress…
It was a nice afternoon of conversation, fattening food, cold beer and some pretty decent basketball.
Overall the posts have been slow and/or sporadic due to fatigue from the late nights, not the Olympics. It’s a blur even why I didn’t achieve much beyond the Gordon visit and a really killer Stars v. Checkers game.
Running at the gym or Y was one activity I managed not to compromise. Thanks to having a couple late mornings for attending work, I could pound out more miles on the treadmills. Plus I discovered the Y has a couple PreCors which are easier for me to maintain a steady cruising speed. The Matrix brand just gives wears me out for reasons I can’t explain.
So I achieved the year’s first 100 miles in record time, less than two months! I remain a day behind on maintaining the two miles/day average. I pulled it off last month but the cold weather destroyed my motivation. After Monday, I think the freezing trend has finally been defeated. Now if the construction people can fix all the flaws in those new commuter showers, I can walk from the gym to the Deuce (my new building) as a cool down and shave a few minutes off of grooming in a less crowded locker room.
Next milestones?
DeVO is one band I would use a time machine to travel back to see during their prime, namely the New Traditionalists tour. I did get to see them in 2011 which was a make-up date for Fun Fun Fest a few months earlier. Even in their Fifties, the spud boys continued to prove they could still rock.
However, I was growing up in the myopic Midwest and was under 16, ergo, DeVO was weird. Only freaks like them! The cure was more Ozzy, Van Halen and AC/DC.
I’m grateful we saw Bob in the lineup. DeVO will never be the same without both sets of Mothersbaugh and Casale brothers.
Note the addition of another Gordon…Nevin.
The old Sunday Breakfast Crew reunited to welcome back the Gordons! They moved away to New York state (Albany area) a couple years ago. How I missed the wit and wisdom of the two kids but now there’s three. Nevin was born sometime after the move.
They all look great. RC is growing faster than kudzu. Corin is bigger too plus he’s enjoying grade school; he was closer to being a toddler when they departed. Nevin is a hoot, namely when running around the restaurant offering the check to other patrons.
Given the horrible weather in the North and East (compound it), the Gordons had pre-plotted a trip around President’s Day. Seems in New York, kids get a Winter Break in addition to Spring Break. May explain why they’re still in school pretty close the the Fourth of July.
I showed off my “new” car to the kids. We talked about school, comic books, movies and favorite books RC is reading. Afterwards they were bombarded with some goodies: new Chucks due to them growing, reading material for the trip home and a little PlayMobil to add to their growing collection. RC’s new mission is to get pictures of her and the siblings wearing them. I may have to wait. According Tarl and Melia, in New York, Chucks are Summer shoes. Yeah, I do recall salt damage on a couple pairs during my Milwaukee years and their ineffectiveness in Central IL.
How we miss them all. Hope they visit again soon. A trip to New York is a ways off given our cat sitting schedule getting booked early.
It was last Thursday but matters were really crazy recently, especially as we’re finally getting over the cold snap.
Our little celebration for Jeff will be delayed as I get through my ongoing schedule of other obligations but he let me know the big day was enjoyed with the boys Neo and Pearce (his sons).
I am open to suggestions on what us two, swinging Eighties guys should do when we do get the opportunity to party. Keep in mind, we’re now in our mid Forties, we used to rock n’ roll all night and party every day. At our age, we’re pushing it if it goes to 9 PM and every other day.
Two very reviled figures by the Far Right, Teabaggers and segments of the Deep South. They weren’t perfect people but both helped human progress and did what they could to make the world a better place.
Lincoln resided in my old hometown, what a secret. The Civil War definitely did a lot of good toward covering up what could’ve been a rather uneventful, mediocre presidency. However, it takes a crisis to get many to show what they’re made of. To his numerous detractors who like to throw around accusations such as dictator, I ask you this, does the Constitution have instructions on what to do in case of civil war? It doesn’t excuse Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus much like Dubious establishing Gitmo. I think it showed what desperate 19th century thinking gets you. As for the revelations about Honest Abe originally being the equivalent of a corporate lawyer defending the railroads before he took up politics. I say, good job catching up on what many of us who dove deeper to study history long ago already knew. When I was growing up, I learned that Lincoln was a clever guy, kind of a mooch; he often came to visit around dinner time to get a free meal, borrow a book to get an excuse to drop by later, etc. Certainly sounds like the negative stereotype of a lawyer to me. Plus his legal expertise in corporate matters didn’t mean he was necessarily unqualified nor lacking a conscience to govern; he personally found slavery repugnant. Case in point recently? Old Man Joe Kennedy was the first SEC Commissioner and he did it pretty well much to his critics’ shock.
Fellow Republicans shouldn’t be surprised over Lincoln’s initial racism neither. He did join the GOP because the Whigs weren’t doing enough to defeat the Democrats then. In Lincoln’s day and area, the Dems weren’t the party of slavery, they were the party of those job-stealing Irish Catholics and Polish Jews up in Chicago. Explains why the GOP allied themselves with the Free Soilers and Know Nothings, the 19th Century’s Teabaggers and LaRouchites, to get enough votes to be viable. I think there were cracks in his attitudes after seeing how brave the Black American soldiers were and patriotic the immigrants were. Allegedly, my Irish ancestors helped Lincoln campaign around Wapella and Clinton, IL. Mom had an newspaper article to prove it.
Darwin remains at the center of the debate between those who understand Science and the ignorant. Sadly, the latter have been gaining momentum since the coronation of Reagan. Not all religious (aka spiritual) people are in the latter camp because even I agree the contradictory aspects can be reconciled. When the Vatican says they side with Team Evolution, it makes the batty Christians appear crazier.
It is weird how the concerns changed too. The panic over the Scopes Trial’s outcome wasn’t over evolution’s validity. The fear was Darwin’s work being used as a blueprint for a eugenics program. Seems reasonable given how America’s Robber Barons from the previous century hijacked his work to justify the great economic inequality they created, aka Social Darwinism. Some things never change too. Today’s critics continue to practice this pseudo science, they just reworded the policy’s source.
His career peaked long before I was born so Sid was more well known to my generation through his numerous cameos in Mel Brooks’ Seventies movies (Silent Movie, History of the World Part I), a starring role in It’s Mad Mad…World (a staple of HBO for a while), Las Vegas Vacation, Grease and usually playing grandfathers.
Sid’s career on live TV gave rise indirectly to one of my favorite comedies and an early VCR rental at my house, My Favorite Year. The show’s star, King Kaiser, played by Joseph Bologna, was an obvious stand-in for Sid much like Peter O’Toole’s Swan character as Erol Flynn. I can’t praise that flick enough, check it out!
Farewell Sid. Thanks for all the early television work. Your real show gave other great comedy writers a start: Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. Your performances laid down the ground work for live and recorded sketch shows.
Not really. Just the (un)expected overreaction the local governments did again because it was cold with drizzle last night. Never mind the roads being acceptable or better this morning.
It would’ve been nice to sleep in a bit but anything to cut down on the number of idiots on Austin roads is a perk.
