This weekend, thanks to my first day of paid vacation on Monday, I'm making the 4 hour pilgrimage back to my old stomping ground. From what I hear, they haven't made much progress on the Metrolink since I left, so it'll be fun to see if the city has fallen apart in my absence. Now that the Apartment 12: The Movie franchise has wrapped up and left town, the St. Louis economy must be hurting. At least they still have the music videos filming on Lindell.

Bad language is amusing, because everyone's definition of "over the line" is different, so somebody's always being offended. While most people agree that you shouldn't use "fuck" in civilized conversation, others are all aghast when you say "hell". Apparently the afterlife destination of sinners should be known but never spoken of, like Harry Potter's nemesis He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named (both of which are equally ludicrous).

My second day on the job, I went out to dinner at a company-sponsored-but-not-funded gathering at a famous barbecue restaurant in downtown Kansas City. It was a time for that week's new-hires to meet each other and socialize a little away from the workplace. One of the women there was 30 years old and accompanied by her husband, who has worked at the company for a few years. While everyone else ordered a drink or two and socialized, this woman was already tipsy when I got there, ordered 4 or 5 more glasses of wine as the night progressed until she was completely lit up, then tried to get everyone to go to a bar with her afterwards.

But the worst part was, all throughout dinner she made completely inappropriate comments to everyone else, saying that one coworker (who was sitting next to her at the time) looked like Frodo from Lord of the Rings and asking another coworker and her husband if they were going to "go home and do the nasty".

Her husband, who was visibly embarassed, told us how she had come with him to other corporate social functions like holiday parties and such and inevitably got drunk and made a fool out of herself in front of important corporate folks (begging the question of how she got hired in the first place). One example he gave was when she started "dropping the f-bomb" in front of his boss and wife.

At the mention of this, she became very indignant and swore that she never ever "drops the f-bomb" (although she went on to do just that on numerous occasions as she got drunker). How is it that she thinks it's perfectly ok to ask a coworker (who you've known for 2 days) and her husband about their sex life in front of basically a bunch of strangers and on the other hand think it's the worst thing in the world to swear?

The guy who sits behind me at work listens to the radio without headphones. This might annoy some people, but personally I like a little background noise while I code, and I'm often too lazy to bring my own music. It's also turned down so much that I'm the only one who can hear it besides him.

I'm not sure which particular station he listens to, but it goes above and beyond the usual Top 40 pattern of playing the same new songs over and over again until you want to shoot yourself if you hear it one more time. Oh it does this also -- I often hope that I'll hear Jet's Cold Hard Bitch early in the day, because I know that means I won't have to hear that abomination again for at least 24 hours -- but it does the same thing with *old songs*.

Apparently the station has a very limited catalog of early 90's alternative songs such as Creep by Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam's Jeremy, and Them Bones by Alice in Chains. The catalog is so limited that they also play these songs every single day, making sure that I not only suffer through the Limp Bizkit song with the Speak and Spell in it, but that I also get tired of songs that went out of regular rotation more than 10 years ago. I'm all for bringing back the "classics", but these bands had other hit songs too. Don't ruin my childhood memories dammit!

Today, one of life's great mysteries was finally solved. No, they didn't discover the cameraman's Bigfoot suit or the elusive alien autopsy evidence, but I finally know why Tony holds a logoed sign in front of his face and whispers "PTI" at the end of each episode of Pardon the Interruption.

I know that by revealing the answer here I am spoiling your sense of curiosity and wonder, like telling you that David Copperfield didn't really walk through the Great Wall of China, but I feel it is my civic duty. At the close of today's episode, after the screen went black, the logo came up on the screen and a female voice whispered "PTI". This is apparently their "closing credits" screen that they never show. So because they never show it, Tony impersonates it by holding up the sign and whispering the letters himself.

As excited as I was to discover the truth, I was also naturally saddened and disappointed that it wasn't something crazier and more elaborate, like a coded message or a communication with a dead relative in the great beyond. Sometimes we are better off letting our imaginations do the explaining...

In my haste yesterday to point you in the direction of the nut across the pond (make sure your sound is turned on), I forgot to mention the must cooler thing that happened: an even crazier guy flew a rocket plane into space.

Well, kind of into space. Officially it counted since he was past the agreed-upon height that all nations agreed was no longer their airspace, and M&M's were reportedly floating around like Homer's bag of Ruffles on the Simpsons, but at 62.5 miles up he wasn't even *close* to being able to knock my TV satellite out of orbit (which I guess is a good thing).

It is really cool though, and it brings to mind all those crazy contraptions that people built in the late 19th century in an effort to fly (my favorite being the one in the bottom left of this poorly-designed page). I'm hoping we see a renaissance in the form of goofy doomed-to-fail experiments in space flight with people strapping jet engines to their cars and driving off cliffs. What an age we live in.

In a story straight out of an episode of Boston Public (literally), a wonky British teenager is trying to sell his virginity on the internet for $16,000. I don't know where to begin with this guy. He's a nerdy 19-year-old who claimed that he "had not had time for a girlfriend due to various multimedia projects", yet women are lining up for a "once in a lifetime opportunity". If women all over the world are really guillible enough to think that it's worth paying $16,000 to have sex with a computer geek, send them my way. Not for the sex, but I have $35,000,000 (Million) that I obtained from various investments that I need to move out of Nigeria and into a US bank account before the new military leader takes my family hostage, and I could use some help...

Today was an especially busy day at work, so I had a quick lunch at my desk and surfed the web. After visiting my normal array of weblogs, I attempt to catch up on the northeastern adventures of Anime Amy. Much to my surprise, I was thwarted by our corporate content filter. Unlike last summer's filter at Stifel, Nicolaus, this particular one gives reasons why the website you're trying to visit is blocked. The reason it gave for Amy's was: "Filtered: Tasteless".

I thought maybe she used the word "tasteless" somewhere in her post about C2, but she didn't. The only conclusion I can draw is that this program used some sort of advanced -- dare I say "futuristic" -- AI algorithms to analyze the content of Amy's posts and calculated using Bayesian statistical methods that Amy has no taste.

Ha ha, just kiddin' Amy. If anyone has any idea why Amy's site is tasteless while this site, -273, Rubidium, Ouranophobe, and Smackie are not, I'd love to hear your theories.

I've discovered that there's another one of me at work, and it's causing sitcom-esque mixups. My doppelganger doesn't work at world headquarters with me, but he's right above me in the email directory. So to differentiate between us, he is "Chris Hill" while I am "Chris R. Hill". Unfortunately, when people hear my name at a meeting, they only hear the "Chris" and the "Hill", so when they go to email me something afterwards, they often send it to my inexact double.

For awhile, he was on the email distribution list for my team instead of me, and today he almost got the brand new white board for his cubicle that I ordered for myself. So I've started introducing myself as "Chris R. Hill", even going as far as to use that name on my voice mail.

I think this is a sign that I should finally take the plunge and change my name to Aloysius Spectacular.

Jim's link bar of wonder has been positively dead lately. It's time to liven things up a bit, people.

Today I had 3 meetings in a row, all fraught with corporate buzzwords. It's not an assignment, it's an "action item". It's not a report, it's a "deliverable". I wonder who the first management-type person was to think of these? He (and I say "he" because there's about a 99% chance it was a lame, old white guy) probably published them in some book called "10 Key Steps to Highly Effective Management Styles", since we all know that high-powered management types have nothing to do except write advice books for other high-powered management types. That and play golf.

Once upon a time (about a month ago) in a galaxy far, far away (St. Louis), our hero (me) set out to order utilities for his new apartment. "That's ridiculous," he said upon seeing that due to a virtual monopoly, the local cable company was charging $43.95 a month for cable service that didn't include local channels, "For only $34.99 a month I can get a satellite dish with local and cable channels as well as a Tivo-like device."

And so, upon arriving in Kansas City, our hero went to Radio Shack and ordered service from the Dish Network (which was probably the cheapest thing in the store) and scheduled installation for June 3rd.

Things were going smoothly until, a few days before installation, the apartment property manager (boooooo) tried to spoil the fun. "You need one million dollars of liability insurance to get a satellite dish," read the lease addendum, "and you can't drill any holes to get the cable in." Undaunted, Chris went down to the leasing office to talk some sense into the property manager. Four other people on his side of the building alone had dishes, and a million dollar policy is the kind of thing that neighborhoods and small businesses have, not individual people. Unfortunately, the property manager was always busy, and the people in the office became increasingly rude. To this day, he still doesn't have a straight answer about the insurance.

But one part of the addendum he did take seriously was the hole-drilling clause. Flat coaxial cable is available (approximate internet price: $3. approximate Radio Shack price: $10), so when he talked to the installation company the night before, he cleverly told them to bring it to save time.

June 3rd rolls around, enter the most incompetent installation person you could possibly imagine. "It says on my work order you need a flat cable," he says, "but I didn't bring one." He also goes to to claim that there is no possible way he can install a dish on the balcony railing. Upon being informed of the other dishes nearby, including one directly below him, he commences knocking on doors asking people how their dishes were installed. After standing outside and staring at the other dishes for a good hour and feverishly calling up other installers to see if they had either a) a flat cable or b) a friggin' clue on how to install a dish, he tells our frustrated hero to reschedule the installation. The next available install date turns out to be June 12th.

The days move by ever-so-quickly, as our hero begins a new job and is instantly buried under a pile of paperwork and things to remember. But his TV-watching is restricted to snowy local stations, depriving him of the delight of watching Tony and Wilbon laugh at the people who bet tons of money on the stupid horse last weekend. Finally, the morning of June 12th, he wakes up early in anticipation of waiting for attempt #2 of dish installation, scheduled for sometime between 8 AM and noon.

The hours go by and nothing happens. Noon rolls around with no satellite dish, then 3 o'clock. On the warpath, our hero fires off angry missives to the powers-that-be at Dish Network in the hopes that they'll extend some token of monetary apology. Finally, at 3:30, salvation arrives in the form of the installer. ESPN! Comedy Central! Local Channels that are visible to the naked eye! Tivo-like capabilities!

But due to ridiculous storms, the dish has now lost its signal.

Is anyone else bothered by the fact that in all the commercials for the upcoming "Garfield" movie, the title cat is shown jumping, dancing, and/or singing? The whole point of every single Garfield cartoon since the beginning of time itself is that Garfield is fat and lazy. Garfield sleeps most of the day and only ventures forth from his bed to eat lasagna or punt Odie off of a table. These same jokes have been used day after day for years, but being American moviemakers they've managed to completely change these very basic characteristics. In effect, they're just cashing in on the Garfield name to create a movie about whatever they want. No movie based on, named after, or including Garfield could ever be a good movie, so at least they could've tried not alienating the comic strip's fans by tailoring this time-honored character to the latest trends.

And I won't even go into the butchering of I, Robot.

I know my first day of work was Monday, but today felt like my real first day in the corporate world. Today I was issued my swanky new corporate laptop with built-in wireless so I can do my programming wherever I go. I also got access numbers so I can use VPN to connect to the company network from anywhere with a broadband connection or phone line. Come to think of it, I should be working right now...

Today was my first day in the corporate world, although I didn't do much in the way of corporate work. Being a first day, it was mostly spent learning about the company and filling out paperwork.

I almost thought I wasn't going to make it to work this morning when I turned on the traffic report and it said that highway 71 northbound was closed due to a truck spilling hazardous materials on the road. Luckily the part that was closed was much south of here, but it seems like just yesterday that I would wake up and watch Slimer! and the Real Ghostbusters at 6 AM rather than a boring traffic report. I think tomorrow morning I'll go back to cartoons.

In the next 30 days I have to decide what benefits to get, and by "get" I mean "have money removed from my paycheck to pay for". I'm not a big fan of insurance, as you probably know. Our system is a vicious circle, since health care providers and car repair places can charge a lot of money for services since no one pays for them out of pocket, and then insurance premiums go up, and then we are more likely to commit insurance fraud to get some of our money back. Insurance is like playing blackjack where if you lose the dealer takes your money, but if you win the dealer pays you and then cuts off one of your fingers. You never really win.

I get issued a company laptop on Wednesday, which means I will have to finally break down and use a laptop. I've been avoiding this day for years due to tiny keyboards, uncomfortable pointing devices, and itty bitty screens that hurt my eyes. I guess I should sign up for the Vision plan...

I'm typing this post in WordPad, as my DSL has been hooked up but I still have no modem. Hopefully by the time you read this, I will have rejoined society online. I've spent most of my time here spending lots and lots of money on things like furniture and insurance. But the excitement of last Friday was registering my car in Missouri (pronounced Mizzurrah), which required 2 trips to the courthouse, 2 to the insurance agency, and 3 to AAA which also has a license service.

I had to make multiple trips to the license place because I did not arrive the first time with my social security card. It seems that although it says right on the card not to use it as idenfitication, our own state government requires it. After taking an easy eye test and identifying a few street signs (although without GPS coordinates), I finally obtained a license that doesn't say Under 21 on it. Of course while I was hassled about the social security number, they didn't seem to care too much about whether you were a competent individual when handing out licenses. While I was there waiting, they gave one guy a license who couldn't walk up to the counter under his own power, nor could he see where he was going. Then was the real doozy.

A woman walked up to renew her license who was quite old and had glasses thicker than the car windshield. For the eye test they asked her to read line 1 of the chart, which had letters approximately the size of the Hollywood sign. After stumbling through the first half of the line, she stopped. "Go on, do the right half," said the attendant. "That's all the letters, isn't it?," replied the woman. Her vision was so bad, even with her glasses on, that she couldn't see half of the letters, which I'm pretty sure could have been seen from space. So the attendant, who apparently gets paid on commission based on how many license she gives out, asked her to identify the signs. Now the point of this exercise was to insure not only that you could see the signs but that you knew what they meant. But this woman identified the signs as "that's an arrow pointing to the right", or "I see an arrow going up and an arrow going down". When prompted by the attendant to say what the signs meant, she was unable to do so. So instead of revoking her license, the attendant identified the ones she missed (including -- but not limited to -- no U-turn, merging traffic, and divided highway) and took her picture. This was a test that a 5 year old could pass, and this woman failed it, yet she still got a license. And people complain about Florida drivers...