I think it's Alex under there.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Beats
I've been glued to my PSP more than usual (which is to say that instead of a face, I have a PSP on top of my neck now) because of a game I downloaded off the Playstation Store. It costs a grand total of $4.99, but it plays like a full featured game, except with mucho customization. In that sense, I mean you can import your own songs and play with it. Like Guitar Hero in a sense, without the big guitar. I play two different songs in two different modes up there. Normal is usually not hard at all, almost leisurely. Hard is exactly that, I don't even make it through half the song without being lost. But it's tons of fun, mostly because I don't get stuck with iffy songs I don't care about, just songs that I like.
So my job status finally went through, and on Monday I'm no longer a contractor with my company, I'll be actually a Team Member. I have orientation on Monday, and the weird thing is yesterday I got an overnight package in the mail, a welcome packet from my company that I could have gotten on Friday or on Monday, but I guess they wanted me to have it yesterday. The funnier thing is that they included huge maps of both buildings - not so much tour maps, but like specific floor maps, including where all the production lines are. And they are all wrong. The production floor and I imagine some of the offices were renovated in the last 4 months so everything's moved. I would imagine anyone following the maps would be more lost than anything, with dated maps that are poster sized. I'm feeling pretty good about being a Team Member, which means medical and for the first time since I had kids, the kids can actually be double covered now. We couldn't in the past because we worked for the same company, and that stupid company got around not insuring two employees if they were married. Nice. Also looking forward to the slight pay bump - pretty proud of the fact that I went back from their original offer (the audacity!) and got my wage bumped up an extra 75 cents (even though I asked for 50 cents). I don't feel too guilty because like a Cover Girl, I'm worth it. Ooh, that's a different metaphor.
And overtime would be more worth it too. The rest of December looks to have more overtime. Yeech.
Getting a little sick, maybe a cold or something, but it's got me fatigued with a dull headache. Hopefully it's short lived.
Anyway, photos.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Miley
I don't know about the name per se, mostly because I don't think it means anything (though I googled it and it's the name of Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter, who plays Hannah Montana, which is evidently really big with tweens) but that's the name of my wife's niece new baby. She's pretty cute, a little one with a lot of squeaks and grunts. We drove to three different hospitals before we found them, but it was nice to see the baby. Our kids are now so big that it's a little odd to think that they were that size for a while.
But seriously, my wife had one hospital in mind, I had a phantom one in mind, we went to the wrong one, and finally just 411-ed and deduced our way to the hospital. One of the times that the numbered streets in Bellevue actually helped.
---
So I've been offered to be an early adopter of Vudu, which is like Netflix of sorts. It's not too bad to try out, spending 99 bucks for the unit rather than the usual 399, and then getting 99 bucks in movie credits, which equals, you guessed it, free. Now I have Blockbuster anyway, and that's doing me pretty good there. So I'm not completely sure if I'm still going to do it or not. All I'm thinking of is how much I can sell the thing for, or whether or not I can turn it into a DVR or media server. Likely not. Probably get me in trouble too.
---
So I heard from my contractor recruiter person dude that I should be a full time employee by next week, which is weird hearing from him rather than a representative of the company. Work's been going a bit rough. I don't mind the hard work, the labor, the repetitiveness and the odd dependency that management seems to put on me solely, probably because I'm more likely to get things done and right at that. What I do mind is that some of the employees excel absolutely at being slackers. Most of the people I gather go there and work, fine. But my group tends to have a rather unhealthy attitude toward work, one especially brings his cell phone, text messages all the time, and I've never seen anyone pretend to work so hard that it could be its own occupation. He blocks his stances like an actor to minimize getting caught. He'll stick his hand and phone into a box to look like he's arranging something. He's probably the worst worker I've ever worked with. But other than seething quietly with discontent, I don't say much in ways of discouraging him. I figured I'll just put in my time, and if a certain rumor and recommendation pans out, I shouldn't even be in shipping much longer. But since that's simply a rumor and recommendation, I'm not banking on it quite yet.
---
So I've been watching a ton of movies on the PSP lately, more so than podcasts, even though those are free. So after "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Million Dollar Baby", I had wanted something a little lighter, so I watched "The Breakfast Club." Yeah, I'm one of those people who've never seen the whole thing, just bits and pieces. And I have to say that it still holds up pretty well after, wow, 27 years. Well, except that the characters are all pretty good looking, and the ending is still very much forced. But it was nice to see a piece of film history as it were. I think Anime's next on the list. But I swear, the PSP has given me a lot of chances to watch movies that I usually pass over due to time contrains. I don't want to watch slower or sadder movies usually, but so far aside from the 2 I mentioned, I also caught "Syriana", "21 Grams", and the very excellent "Zodiac".
But seriously, my wife had one hospital in mind, I had a phantom one in mind, we went to the wrong one, and finally just 411-ed and deduced our way to the hospital. One of the times that the numbered streets in Bellevue actually helped.
---
So I've been offered to be an early adopter of Vudu, which is like Netflix of sorts. It's not too bad to try out, spending 99 bucks for the unit rather than the usual 399, and then getting 99 bucks in movie credits, which equals, you guessed it, free. Now I have Blockbuster anyway, and that's doing me pretty good there. So I'm not completely sure if I'm still going to do it or not. All I'm thinking of is how much I can sell the thing for, or whether or not I can turn it into a DVR or media server. Likely not. Probably get me in trouble too.
---
So I heard from my contractor recruiter person dude that I should be a full time employee by next week, which is weird hearing from him rather than a representative of the company. Work's been going a bit rough. I don't mind the hard work, the labor, the repetitiveness and the odd dependency that management seems to put on me solely, probably because I'm more likely to get things done and right at that. What I do mind is that some of the employees excel absolutely at being slackers. Most of the people I gather go there and work, fine. But my group tends to have a rather unhealthy attitude toward work, one especially brings his cell phone, text messages all the time, and I've never seen anyone pretend to work so hard that it could be its own occupation. He blocks his stances like an actor to minimize getting caught. He'll stick his hand and phone into a box to look like he's arranging something. He's probably the worst worker I've ever worked with. But other than seething quietly with discontent, I don't say much in ways of discouraging him. I figured I'll just put in my time, and if a certain rumor and recommendation pans out, I shouldn't even be in shipping much longer. But since that's simply a rumor and recommendation, I'm not banking on it quite yet.
---
So I've been watching a ton of movies on the PSP lately, more so than podcasts, even though those are free. So after "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Million Dollar Baby", I had wanted something a little lighter, so I watched "The Breakfast Club." Yeah, I'm one of those people who've never seen the whole thing, just bits and pieces. And I have to say that it still holds up pretty well after, wow, 27 years. Well, except that the characters are all pretty good looking, and the ending is still very much forced. But it was nice to see a piece of film history as it were. I think Anime's next on the list. But I swear, the PSP has given me a lot of chances to watch movies that I usually pass over due to time contrains. I don't want to watch slower or sadder movies usually, but so far aside from the 2 I mentioned, I also caught "Syriana", "21 Grams", and the very excellent "Zodiac".
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