A View From Behind

Last day of work for me today, so naturally, last day of my getting-ready-for-work routine. I have three very specific things I do every morning, and in a very specific order. S, S, and S. Let’s play a guessing game. You try and figure out what each stands for, and in what order each happens, and I’ll enjoy all of the creative responses. K? K.

Today is a quiet and purposeful day for me. I found out towards the end of last week, but the holiday weekend kept my mind from really thinking too much about the situation. Yeah, my position has officially been farmed out to an Indian firm. It’s not that my job is hard or anything, or even that stressful at all. I’m just a project coordinator for a large pharma company, where most of my responsibilities are directly related to managing web-presenced technical specifications between brand marketing teams and our in-house software developers. Yeah, I’m this guy. Ok, not really…but it’s close enough. There are 4 PC’s here, me being the newest. I was always the first in every morning, quickly established strong relationships with the marketing teams, and received nothing but positive (even raving) reviews at the end of the year.

So why me? Business, I guess. Maybe I was too efficient. Is that even possible? To make sure work gets done too fast? Would I have been better off taking my time and making sure I always had a full days worth of work so it seemed like I had much to do? See, that’s the reason I was given. Because I had the most “bandwidth” (and AMFG I HATE using the term bandwidth to describe a person’s availability…WERNOTCATFIVES!), I would be the first to go. Maybe if I’d made it look like I was busier…but that’s messing with ethics and it makes me uncomfortable. I even went to my boss about a month ago when work was getting scarce and told him, “I HAFF NO WURK KEN I PLS HAFF SUM?”. I felt it then, when the response was more or less…”YAH K DON WURRIE U CAN HAS THESE SPREDSHIETZ”.

Anyway…yeah, today is quiet and purposeful. I’ve always believed that the last days of a job are the most important. Sure, first impressions are the strongest. And I made plenty of strong firsts, seconds, thirds, and so-fourth-s. I could be bitter right now. I could be angry that those higher-ups who make decisions based solely on proposed (not even CURRENTLY ACCURATE) dollars and non-cents are tooling around with one of the only profitable divisions in the company. I could take this week to sit back and let all of my work slip away, since when I’m gone…who cares, amirite? Thing is, that last impression is the longest lived. Finishing strong builds a sense of character in the eyes of your colleagues that will serve as one of the best networking resources in the future. Letters of recommendation, strong professional reference, even further job opportunities. So today, tomorrow…the rest of this week, my goal is to strengthen the bridges I’ve already built.

So what the EFF do I do at the end of this week? I’m already putting my resume back out there, and my agency is putting together some interviews and such. And if that doesn’t work out right away, I’m not worried. When I signed on with this IT agency, I very specifically chose to be on salaried W2 status, so that if I were to be termed and couldn’t immediately find somethinng else…I could collect unemployment.

In other news, I finally got my huntard to 70 last night! Now I can do like everyone else and bring a severely undergeared toon to Kara for badges and free purples!

Seriously, this is no joke. I’m just going to come right out and say it. Girls…you may be shocked to know, or maybe you are already aware…guys notice boobs first. Its not even a sexual thing. Ok, maybe I should explain. Goes something like this.

Guy walking down the street, on the sidewalk of a major city…say, lunch hour. He is simultaneously aware of everything around him, both consciously and subconsciously. He sees another guy coming towards him and notices three things. Height, width, and arm size. Without really thinking about it, the guy is trying to decide if the other guy walking towards him poses any kind of physical threat. Not in the directly violent sense of threat, as in “does this guy look like he is gonna attack me?”, but more like “if something were to go down in the next 30 seconds, should I fight or run?”. Now, lets say our guy sees a woman walking towards him. He’ll notice her before she notices him. His eyes are seeing everything about her, but his brain is processing the boobs. Size, shape, and weight are being evaluated. Not necessarily to qualify the boobs, but more or less to catalog. Again, this is not sexual. The guy normally won’t think about second base until he has had a chance to decide which is her most attractive feature.

Ok, so…am I completely talking out of my ass here? WTF is my point? I don’t know really, just that sometimes I have these really weird observations about behavior and I find it entirely interesting. I have a really odd fixation on trying to figure out why people do the things that they do. Well then, why do guys notice boobs first? Thinking about that, I realized that maybe I was making a bit too much of a generalization in that ALL guys notice boobs first. Maybe it happens more with guys who were breastfed as infants. Maybe its a leftover mechanism from a more primal existence, sort of like how curvier women are more attractive (healthier and more frequent births). Either way, you women do NOT make it easy for us men.

Take, for example, the low cut shirt and long necklace combination. There, resting gently at the top of your cleave, is a nice bright and shiny object. As if we already didn’t notice the boobs, now there is a lure distracting our attention. Its like that Bert and Ernie sketch from Sesame street where Ernie catches all the fish by yelling “Heeeeeeeeeeeeere fishy fishy fishy!”. Except…well, your boobs are the boat and our faces are the fish. Er…what?

I haven’t really been writing about WoW much lately…because I hadn’t really been playing all that much since the wedding. I kept trying to raid, but it seemed like every time I thought I had time something would come up at the last minute. You know, real life stuff. Coincidence or not, I decided to just take a break from even signing up for a couple of weeks. That way I wouldn’t feel like I had too many commitments pulling me in too many directions.

In the meantime I tried to work on leveling my hunter, Doomtard…to some success. I first stopped playing him a while back when boars had their faces nerfed. The whole reason I chose a boar was for the incredible leveling advantage with the threat that charge and gore generated. Before the nerf to pet aggro, Cyboarg (yes, one of those armored boars from RFK), would easily have 3-4k threat the instant he charged in. Post? 600, maybe 700. QQ, right? I guess, but I still don’t understand the change to boars in that it affects NOTHING in the game other than the players solo experience. Why nerf that? Anyway, I adjusted and got back into it. It’s not so bad now at all…sometimes I pull aggro and sometimes I don’t. Fooling around in Nagrand, I realized that there really is no better class and spec suited for gathering leather than a BM hunter. After netting about 1 thousand gold in just a few days worth of farming the stuff, I realized that I could finally do something I wished I’d done when I first rolled my rogue. Level leatherworking.

When I first started playing my rogue, I chose enchanting and mining…not an uncommon pair for my class. I still do love enchanting, and I wouldn’t drop it for anything. Especially now with the ring enchants. But as I started raiding more and more, I was mining less and less. Last week I finally made the decision to switch over. With the help of TJ, I’ve been able to get to 366 with very minimal AH cost. Soon I’ll be able to make myself a pair of [Swiftstrike Shoulders], and I’ve already begun to do right by all of the elitist jerks out there and bring me some [Drums of Battle] to raids.

Speaking of raids, last night was my first go at Lady Vag. Not Vashj, Vag. As in VAGina. Stinky, fishy, raunchy, disgusting. Vagina. Yes, I am 12 years old. Anyway, the guild has been working on her for a few weeks now. The previous best record was 38%, but last night we were able to get her down to 5%. It was sloppy at times, but by the end of the night we were getting through phase 2 with no problems. Very boring and frustrating fight for rogues, or any melee for that matter. Go over there on the steps and kill a squishy water elemental every now and then. Throw the core to the top of the steps. Blah blah blah. Phase three is infuriating. Use drums! Use haste potion! Pop adrenaline rush! HAHA WTFROOTPWND! Oh wait, not done yet! Improved sprint on cooldown? Check! Cloak of shadows on cooldown? CHECK! HAHA WTFROOTEDONTOPOFPOISONCLOUDPWND! Clearly, unimpressed dungeon boss is unimpressed. We probably would have had her, but our only two warlocks had to cancel due to work related things. Next week, right? Right.

They start around 6am and don’t stop until midnight. I have no idea WTF they are saying to each other, but the noise is almost unbearable. Especially when I’m trying to sleep. It’s not really even a honk…its more like a really high pitched “HA-unk!HA-unk! HA-unk!”. And omFG they crap EVERYwhere. Dark green cylindrical turds that just seem to melt into little pools of stain. I can’t…take it anymore.

They’re called Canadian Geese…but they might as well just be called Pennsylvanian Geese. The mother suckers are here year ’round, but they are worst in the spring. It’s BREEDING time. Do you know what they do at the local state parks this time of year? Find Canadian Geese nests and smear cooking oil on their eggs. No air, no hatch. Apparently thats the humane way to take care of the pest problem. Me? I bought a pellet rifle this past weekend…with a SCOPE!

Look here Mr. and Mrs. Goose. I am through caring if you are ushering your children across the street. You don’t even bother to look both ways first. I’m not slowing down or swerving anyMORE! This is fair warning. I don’t do it for squirrels, I WON’T do it for you either! If you honk near my window, prepare to get some lead in your ass. No, I’m not going to shoot you in the head. I want you to go honk to your friends about the crazy human who’ll plug up your pooper if you bother his ears.

So yeah. I’m not happy. Honk.

Sorry Habs fans…this just wasn’t your year. Your team did play very well for 5 games, probably better than the Flyers did. The series inevitably came down to goal tending, and Montreal’s was just awful. Maybe Price was hurt, maybe he wasn’t. But he let in quite a number of goals that he never should have. I watched game 5 in a crowded south Philly sports bar, cheering all night long as if my favorite team could actually hear me. No different, really, than when I watch hockey games at home…alone…in the dark…sans pants. Except the whole being surrounded by 400 or so of Philly’s drunken finest. The guys I was with? They decided to do an Irish car bomb (3/4 glass of Guiness, 3/4 shot of whiskey, 1/4 shot of Irish cream…drop shot into beer and chug) for every goal the Flyers scored. Final score, 6-4. Thank god I was driving. Bring on Pittsburgh! Flyers in 6. I’ve completely lost my mind.

I saw Iron Man yesterday afternoon. I liked it. The plot was interesting and of course not completely accurate…but what can you expect from a super hero movie? It’s impossible to cram years and years of comic books into one 2 hour movie, so I always expect some amount of the director’s own liberty. The visuals were absolutely unbelievable. Tony Stark was played well by Robert Downey, Jr. The supporting cast was more than adequate. While the credits were rolling, I was trying to decide how many stars I would give the movie if I were one of those lame movie reviewer persons. 3/5? Not enough. 4/5? Too much, by my standards. 7/10? Better. But as I was sitting there mulling it all over, the credits ended…and the final scene played. “…I’m Nick Fury, leader of S.H.I.E.L.D…” That, right there, and who was actually playing the part…8/10. Go see it, stay till the very end of the credits.

If you haven’t yet tried Burger King’s Loaded Steakhouse Burger…get one today for lunch. Just do it. Meat, crispy onions, cheese, A-1 steak sauce, bacon…and MASHED POTATOES! It’s an entire steak dinner between two pieces of (soggy) bread. But, um, make sure you have a toilet within sprinting distance for the rest of the day…

Nope. I don’t do it. You know what I’m talking about here. You’re in a public toilet, dropping a deuce, and you flush immediately after the payload has hit its intended target. It is acceptable and expected to quickly get rid of the excrement so as to spare any co-habitants the fragrance of your digestion. But I don’t care. I won’t do it.

Does a painter tear the canvas from his easel before he has stepped back to view his artistry? Does a sculptor destroy his creation moments after its shaping is complete? Does a rogue vanish seconds after his wonderful DPS has eclipsed that of the aggro holding tank’s TPS? Well, yeah…but, er…thats not the point. The courtesy flush is an affect of a taboo and overly self-concious society. And I will. Not. Do. IT!

In all seriousness, it is actually important to note the health of your stool. Ok, who says “stool”? Poop is poop. General visual inspection can tell a pretty in depth story about the health of your digestion system, and overall if your body is getting the nourishment that it really does need. Take for example this article from Oprah.com. And I quote:

“You want to hear what the stool, the poop, sounds like when it hits the water. If it sounds like a bombardier, you know, ‘plop, plop, plop,’ that’s not right because it means you’re constipated. It means the food is too hard by the time it comes out. It should hit the water like a diver from Acapulco hits the water [swoosh].”

The next thing Dr. Oz recommends is looking at your stool—c’mon, you’ve done it before! You should look twice—look at the shape and then, the color.

“It should be an S shape and you want to make sure the color’s normal because the color of the poop tells you a lot about how you made it,” Dr. Oz says. “You don’t want [pieces]. Food is a medicine for you. It helps you. [If the stool is in pieces] by the time you finished digesting your food, you don’t have enough of it left to poop out in the right way and probably it’s hurt the colon that has to process it. At the end of the day you can analyze your body really effectively by looking at what comes out of your body.”

So…no courtesy flushes. Take a peak. Or two. Just don’t touch it…

I told this story last night during TJ’s BlogTV session. I will tell it again for those who weren’t there.

It was my 12th birthday. A whole neighborhood of kids were at my house…my friends, my brothers friends. Lots and lots of kids. We were all playing Sorry! and Life and Battleship and all sorts of fun board games (remember board games?!). You know how these things go, early 90’s birthday parties were the best. Zubaz, slap bracelets, Z.Cav’s, french cuffs…Hypercolor. I think I may have even had a mullet.

Anyway, this was around the time when I first started wearing boxers instead of regular old tighties (I had some wicked X-men and Justice League pairs). Guys, I know you’re with me on this. It was a big deal.

Ok, so. Yeah. I’m upstairs in my room getting changed (we had been playing football in the muddy backyard) when I hear my mom come into the living room and ask what kind of pizza everyone would like to order. Extra cheese. I love cheese. When I was 12, there was NOTHING better than an extra cheese pizza.

Half dressed and barreling down the stairs in a t-shirt and boxers, I swung open the door. “EXTRA CHEEEEEEEESE!”, I yelled. And there, right in front of me, were no less than 20 of my friends strewn out along the floor in various positions (playing board games), staring blankly back at me. And they started laughing, hysterically.

Confused, I looked at my mom, who was also standing there with a completely blank look on her face. Then she covered her eyes and ran back into the kitchen, cackling all the way. And thats when it hit me.

I looked down, and to my great, great embarrassment…out of the front flap hung…my wiener.

For the next 10 years or so, ANYtime someone brought up the topic of pizza, I would get a chorus of “ILL HAVE EXTRA CHEEEEESE!!!”.