What Can Tags Do For You?

The internet never ceases to amaze me. Why? It’s not because of all the good stuff you can do with the technology. It’s also because of all the bad stuff you can do with technology. See, the internet is merely the tool. The internet doesn’t kill people…people kill people. (When will we need a license to carry wi fi? Oh, never mind.)

What amazes me about the internet is how many freaks are out there. No, I’m not talking about your run of the mill sicko. There are plenty of those types out there, and should have the light shone on them whenever possible.

I’m talking about the wanna-be paparazzi, those who can’t get enough of the “style” page in the NYT or anywhere else. Rome is burning, and these folks just have to find out what’s going on with Lindsay Lohan. I don’t get it.

Actually, I do get it. I posted this entry as one of the first topics of this blog. Who would have thought – and I realize that I’m setting myself up for it again – that the search term “Kelly Clarkson Fat” or some derivative thereof would get this site at least ten visits per day. After her Idol performance last night, that ballooned – no pun intended – to over one hundred hits.

Kids…and adults…get a life! Who cares if you think she’s fat or skinny. Once you get away from Anorexia Heaven (a.k.a. Hollywood) and start living in reality, you’ll notice that her build is no different from the common female…the ones who don’t spend – er, I mean waste – thousands of dollars to look like a beanpole with breasts.

You, too can be human. And you don’t have to find out who is fat or skinny before you enjoy your life. Idiots! You are a candidate for the IOTW award.

Twittering Unintelligently

I guess the last IOTW winner got people all atwitter.  Well, at least one person.  This story comes courtesy of Scott.  Granted, I’m late to the party by almost a month, but this ought to tell us something.

Did Hoekstra go blonde?  I know he’s balding, but did he color the remaining strands on the top of his head?  And he’s a member of the INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE.

Duh!

Granted, the messages identified in the article are decently innocuous.  However, I wouldn’t want my itinerary getting out into the public.  Nothing like setting up yourself for failure.

Duh!  Blonde in a bottle, Rep. Hoekstra?

Now, of course, had the ranking Democrats done this, they would have been championed as great communicators.  Obviously.

How Not To Work Yourself Out Of A Job

Times are tough.  People are having a hard time finding jobs, while others are losing theirs.  One would think that, given the current environment, a person would do all they could to hold onto the job they have.

Many people are told that, to get a better job, you should work yourself out of your current job.  Some times, you can work yourself out of a job in the wrong way.

In IT, what is the surefire way to make sure you are not employed tomorrow, when you are one of the most intelligent, in demand employees on the IT staff?  I’ll give you the recipe.  (Yes, this is a true story.)

• Conduct a significant number of downloads for personal reasons on company servers.
• When the IT manager of security politely confronts you about your personal use of company resources, give the impression that you are actually listening to him.
• Blog all day.  Especially about your teammates and the company in less than flattering terms.  And, just to show how bold you are, don’t do it under a pseudonym.
• After you have been “found out” about the blogging, and basically shut off from blogging any more, set up a method to bypass company security.

Dude, you are a smart guy and all, maybe too smart for your own good.  In this case, I’d rather give the award to a politician or member of the media.  However, in good conscience, I have to call it like it is.  You win it this week.

Records? What Records?

IOTW candidate #2, week of 2/23/2009

Living in an age dominated by lawsuits and Sarbanes-Oxley, I know the importance of good record keeping, and so does my employer.  You would think that those implementing solutions for the federal government would recognize and abide by record retention requirements.

Or, maybe not.   The nominees are neither the Bush Administration nor the Obama administration, but the contractors that implemented the half-baked solution.

Yes, we are assuming this was a contract job.  If it wasn’t, then the Bush Administration will be the nominee.  Either way, some real idiots blew it on this project.

The Season For Change

Ages ago, I wrote this post about my relationship with my ISP (internet service provider).  Some how, some way, the relationship lasted an additional two years.  There have been cycles where I’ve called their customer support and talked to “Bob”, or “Nick”, or “Joe”, even when their accent says their name is really Sundeep or Anup.  The customer support is always the same: check the modem, check the router, reset the modem – “well, what did you change?” – retry the modem, THEN submit a ticket for support and have the problem cleaned up for anywhere from a couple weeks to several months.

We are at that stage again.  If I were to be diligent – which I’m not in this case – I could likely tie each degradation in service to major equipment upgrades.  However, the equipment upgrades did not upgrade my response times (digitally or verbally) or improve my internet service.

So, I called them again yesterday because the service STUNK again.  My wife has been re-setting the modem twice a day for the past week.  Not good, especially during Christmas.  I got in touch with Urai, who told me to reset my modem, try again, blah, blah, blah.  When that didn’t work, I asked him for a new modem.  I could get one, but only if I made a twelve month commitment to the ISP.  Fat chance.  Or, I could buy the modem for a mere $80.    Nah, free works for me, please.

The level 1 support rep could not help me.  Hence, I gently reminded him about the 3-4 tickets I submitted about similar issues over the past two-plus years, and indicated that I will be leaving the service in the amount of time it takes to find a new one.  We are purposely TV-challenged at home, and don’t want cable or satellite, so finding another ISP seemed to me to be a daunting task.  Mostly because I have to change our e-mail address at all the stinkin’ places we do stuff online and with family and friends.

At that point, Urai decided I should talk to his manager, “Nick”.  The dude didn’t help, but definitely sounded distressed each of the times he called back and I was still having problems.  Things seem to be okay now; however, because of word that the ISP is changing their service practices with their residential customers, and the fact my family does way too much online to deal with, we started the conversion to generic e-mail and away from ISP-based e-mail in preparation for us going elsewhere.  Wish us luck!

Earthlink, you are my Idiots of the Week.  You should have won this award many times over.

But wait, there’s more…I’m in the giving mood, being this is the Christmas season and all.

It’s snowing where I live.  No problem there.  People are scraping the snow and ice off their windows.  No problem there, either; a driver gots to do what a driver gots to do.  Something I saw on Sunday morning took the cake.  The driver of a sedan scraped the driver side half of their rear window.  Yep, tried driving like that.  Nothing like adding to his blind side, or making his rear view mirror pretty much useless.  Dude!  You are my runner up.  Congrats!  Next time, maybe you can take the extra 45 seconds and scrape the other side of the window, too.

And last, but not least…the sports team that played in front of 72,000 brown and orange seats – half of them brown because of the jerseys and jackets of their supporters, and half of them orange because no one sat in them – the Cleveland Browns are my third place winners.  They managed to take a city that supports football in good seasons and in bad, and turn its fans apathetic.  Way to go!

On a serious and sincere note:  Merry Christmas everyone!

Sometimes You Get What You Deserve

Rant Alert!

I would like to thank the not-so-Big-Three for proving yet, once again, how dumb our corporate leaders are.  Some of you would say, “Well, that’s big business for you.  What did you expect?  Those greedy SOBs!”  Others will say, “That’s part of the game, you have to be involved.”

I say “hooey!”  I say we got exactly what we wanted.  Actually, I should say that the Baby Boomers got exactly what they wanted.

Folks, these ain’t exactly the Gen X-ers leading the political front or the major corporations, at least not as the rule. As part of the hippie generation – and yes, I’m talking about Democrats and Republicans in politics, and businessmen in the for-profit and not-for-profit business worlds – these Baby Boomers can’t let go.  Remember, these were the folks who said, “You can’t trust anyone over 30″.  Now, they’re all over thirty, and they don’t trust anyone outside of their own generation (talkin’ ’bout my generation…).

Baby boomers, you talk and talk about how selfish the Gen X-ers and Gen Y-ers (a.k.a. the Millennials, I believe) are.  You run the biggest corporations.  You run national politics.  You control the media.   You manipulate our financial markets.  You label everything and everyone, for your own personal gain.

Take a look in the mirror.  You got what you wanted:  it’s all about you!

You whittle everything down to demographics, even things as personal and important as voting preferences.  You look at people as voting blocs, not as individual voters – you didn’t even care to have your Presidential candidates campaign in states where they were projected winner – talk about wasted votes!

And what do you get?  Business owners thinking that giving $50 million to politicians is an investment in their business.

Sheesh!

When I went to college, I was taught that you exchanged cash or cash equivalents for goods or services.  Or you invested in an asset that would increase in value over time.  Well then, tell me:

WHAT GOOD OR SERVICE DOES THE GOVERNMENT PROVIDE BUSINESS? AND WHAT “INVESTMENT” DID THESE COMPANIES ACTUALLY MAKE?

Duh!  They didn’t start selling “political influence” on the NYSE or in the commodities market, did they?

How much money has been thrown down the black hole of politics by Baby Boomer crybabies and all the other folks they’ve convinced (“sold”, “snookered” – pick your word) to believe in their idealistic, ne’er-to-come-true dreams, when those millions of dollars – and probably closer to trillions when you consider all the local, state, and federal political campaigns around the U.S.  – could have been invested in, um, let’s see:

• Plant & equipment improvement
• Product improvement
• Alternate energy R&D
• Oil refinery development
• Clean coal development
• Nuclear development
• Elementary school education at the local levels (wouldn’t need Goals 2000 or No Child Left Behind or whatever Obama decides to re-name it next!)
• Customer retention via lower prices
• Employee training

You know, things that could actually, incrementally improve this country.

How does giving your money to political companies grow the GDP?  Huh?  Bueller?

But, no, the Baby Boomers had to reap what they sowed: idealism.  Idealism is never a product or a service.  There is nothing pragmatic in idealism, not in the corporate or political world.  The starving artist is idealistic.  So is the person who wants to create their own religion…or no religion.  So is the cult of personality, like the one just elected to become the next President of the United States.  Idealists sell you hope, telling you to look at your you-really-don’t-know-how-bad-you-have-it life, and that only they can make it better.  They convinced how many of us to dump our dollars into political parties, polling organizations and special interest groups, gloriously taking it out of the economy for the working class, and redirecting it exclusively into – and therefore legitimizing – the ruling class.  They convinced us that we’re better off marching to Washington D.C. to protest something, than to actually work locally to change it.

And it’s not even idealism; it’s the tolerance of destructive behavior being sold as idealism.

The Baby Boomers – as symbolized by the dying mainstream media, PACs, 527s, billion dollar bailouts and multi-million dollar golden parachutes – can name but only one ideal, product or service they have created that has revolutionized the world – the personal computer.  Outside of that, they have nothing.  Nothing!  Their generation craves that legitimacy that will make them be remembered fondly for making the world a better place.  Hah!

That’s why it was so important for Barack Obama to win the election.  It wasn’t about Barack, it was about the Baby Boomers, trying one last time to wield their power and influence before the younger generations kicked them out the door – figuratively, and in some cases, probably literally.

Baby Boomers – you peace-loving, pacifist, don’t-trust-anyone-over-30 losers – you’re still mired in your egocentrist state.  Karma struck, and it hurts.  You wanted to be in charge of fixing all the problems.  Guess what?  You are.  But you are in charge of fixing all the problems that you created, all in an attempt to create the perfect world.

I declare you all Idiots.

Down Time

Take away, take away
take away this ball and chain
for I’m lonely, and I’m tired
and I can’t take any more pain
Ball and Chain, Social Distortion

You have to give it up to the person that convinced us that we need to go wireless “for all the right reasons”.  You know: never out of touch, easy to reach, able to contact help in case of an emergency.  Yada, yada, yada.

For almost twenty years now, I have been…um…connected.  First, the pager.  Then, the cell phone.  Then the crackberry, only to leave that job and go back to the cell phone.  What the spin meisters failed to mention is that this means anyone can reach you whenever they want.  24×7, 3×5, whatever “all day, all night” jargon you want to use.

It’s the ball and chain.  Sometime, it’s tough to stay away.  Especially when your corporate phone calls on your personal cell phone doubles your phone bill for the month.

I requested and received a crackberry today so I don’t impact my personal finances by going over on my cell phone minutes.  I am again available around the clock – via e-mail and phone.  So much for down time.  Yuck!

We’ll see if I use the crackberry in moderation or not.

Still, I gotta hand it to the marketing folks that convinced everyone to be available all the time.  Look at how well it has improved our driving habits.