Does there really need to be a law?

This just in, apparently I have somehow become way  cooler than I look.. Honestly- I had no idea. I mean, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I don’t do drugs, my pants fit, my shirts aren’t too loose or too tight, I listen to music that many would consider to be outdated.  I have no swagger, no hitch to my step and I don’t walk like there is something disgusting dribbling down my pants leg. but the most telling sign of all? I am a 54 year old caucasian male that usually tries to mind his own business. And yet- in spite of all of the obvious clues I still have these strange individuals who like to come up to me on the street and attempt some bizarre kind of Gangster/Rapper/thug life communication with me..

Him/it: “Yo Yo Yoooo.. Suuuuuup?”

Me: “Beg pardon?”

Him/it: “Suuuup?”

Me: “I’m sorry I don’t speak Klingon.”

Him/it: “Say what?”

Me: “Oh good.. delightful- so you do at least in part UNDERSTAND some form of English  then?”

Him/it: “Ummmmmm.. Yeah?”

Me: “Do you know that your pant’s are falling down?”

He/it looks down but doesn’t offer any verbal response.

Me: “Yeah dude, you might want to pull those puppies up.. there are girls around here and your undies are showing.”

He looks up at me and blinks repeatedly but still offer’s no verbal response.

Me: “Dude seriously pull your britches up before they become a trip hazzard..”

He rolls his eyes at me and skips away. forgive me, I’m not cool, I’m a 54 year old white guy whose mother taught him how to dress properly, and to behave like an adult when ever in public.  And in other news-  in Moultrie, GA the city leaders have banned sagging britches in the city limits, first time offenders will pay a $25 dollar fine along with possible community service. repeat offenders can receive as  much as a $400 fine. So at least when in Georgia?  better pull them britches up son, nobody wants to see your dirty under wear. Apparently there are a lot of uncool people living in the city of Moultrie GA as well.

World War Z.. Disaster mixed with Zombie Porn

I have always been a pretty big  fan of zombie movies, ugly- slow assed, slimy, stinky, brain munching zombies. the thing that has always captivated me about zombies is no matter how fast you run, and no matter how slow the friggin zombies run, they always manage to catch up to their prey. then you have the faster beserker zombies like the ones from the 2002 film “28 Days Later” (Fast zombies.. scary shit) and then there are the Zombies like the ones found in this years World War Z. I’m not exactly sure what kind they were, so I just call them “swarm zombies” They’re faster, even more pissed off, and hungry. and there are a bunch of them. Swarm Zombies.. Even scarier shit.

World War Z has Brad Pitt and his family in the opening scene first waking up to start the day, then having some light back and forth family banter over breakfast. Without giving anything away for anyone who hasn’t seen the film,  if you pay attention in this scene, you can clearly tell from the television playing in the background during this scene, that something in the outside world has gone terribly wrong, and by the time they reach the car and descend into the morning rush hour traffic,  all hell breaks loose. from this point on, Director Marc Foster grabs you by the eyeballs  and doesn’t let go. While he does a good job with the films direction, it is the plot where the film kind of bogged down in places for me. the acting is fine with solid performances most notably by Brad Pitt, Fana Mokoena and Mireille Enos.

The action scenes were briskly paced and  didn’t move so fast that you couldn’t keep up with what was going on, and the sight of a whole plethora of angry zombies swarming over and feeding on anything and everything and anyone unlucky enough to get caught up in their path was visually arresting. The one area of the film that was a bit of a let down for me was that there was an obvious lack of build up as to when and how the virus that caused the outbreak was created. They just jumped right into chaos. Nothing- even at closure, was ever really explained to my satisfaction.. Still, aside from a few obvious holes here and there, World War Z still managed to hold my attention for the entire length of the film and I did still enjoy it a lot. If you like your disasters  mixed well with zombie porn, you should still go and see this movie.

 

The Frustration Blues.. Windows 7 or Windows 8?

One of the things that I really wanted to get done with  and out of my hair this morning  was to go over to Carson-Tahoe Hospital’s business offices to pay my doctor bill.. while I was waiting I happened to glance over at the lady behind the counter’s computer monitor and saw the Windows logo on her screen.. I couldn’t help myself..

“7 or 8?” I asked.

“Pardon me?”

“Are you running Windows  7? or Windows  8?”

She said that she thought it was Windows 7  but the look on her face was telling me that it was 8. I’ve seen that look before, Most professional businesses here Seem to want to stick to 7 because its familiar and easy, but a few have turned to the Windows 8..  And much to their dismay the  frustrations that most people feel with W8 is fairly unanimous..  

I had a friend about a month ago that was ready to make the jump from 7 to 8.. He has a Dell machine that was still in good working order that was running a perfectly fine version of  Windows 7 home premium on it, but he’d decided to upgrade before Microsoft decided to force him to. When he decided to ask me what I thought, I told him that he should stick with 7 for as long as he could. Although I'm certainly no expert, I’d seen- first hand,  the Windows metro interface up close during a live demo that they were giving at Best Buy a couple of months ago.. It seemed  confusing and frustrating- not only to the people WATCHING the demo, but as much so to the guy that was giving it. long story short? No thanks.

Against the advice from me and a few others, he decided a week later to make the jump to Window 8,  even though the Dell was still working like a champ. I continued to assure him that nothing but frustration awaited him and that he would be lucky to survive the experience without pulling his hair out by the roots. I did Warn him- several times.  So he bought a new machine with Windows 8 on it, and within two weeks he called to tell me that he was ready to switch back to the Dell with Windows 7 on it.  In conclusion, he’d found the Metro interface to be much too confusing- (Not to mention annoying as hell) There is no start button, no start up menu, (Although I later found out that if you hit the Windows key it gives you something that kind of looks like a traditional Windows Menu.) Anyway, he was done with it within 2 weeks.

Well I can’t say that I didn’t see that coming from six miles away. The thing is from everyone that I’ve talked to, Windows 8 is too drastic a departure from what most people associate with a typical Windows operating system, the tiles on the start up screen were designed- (From what I was told) for a touch screen interface and are just too clunky with a mouse and keyboard on a desk top. for me at least- I think Windows 7 is by far a easier less confusing operating system to learn and I’m sticking with that, it will be interesting to see how Microsoft fixes this. They are saying Windows 8.1 will address and fix most of the problems that most people have been having with the current version. but as with anything concerning Microsoft, I will simply take a wait and see attitude. its ok I can wait for them to fix it.. if they can.

Close Encounter of the Strange Kind

There was a strange sound outside my door this morning when I woke up it was kind of like a rustling noise.. so I got up and cautiously opened the door to see a strange looking cat staring up at me. Cute little thing - but strange. Kinda like one of them damned Pokemon thingy's.
Me: "Are you lost little dude?"
Cat: "meow."
Me: "Sooooo, do you live around here?"
Cat: "meow."
Me: "Soooo. Why were you trying to break into my apartment?"
Cat: "meow."
Me: "Cuz you know if you're just hungry or thirsty I can get you a piece of chicken or something."
Cat: "meow."
Me: "A saucer of milk perhaps?"
Cat: "meow."
Me: "Its 2 percent.. Easy on the waistline."
Cat: "MEEEEEOOOOOOOW!!"
Me: "Geez- You don't have to yell."
We settled for a piece of shredded chicken on a napkin with a saucer of milk on the side. tough negotiator that cat.. Dude, I'm not stupid- I swear . I just don't speak fluent kitty Cat. I need coffee.

I'm a PC and I'm obsolete

I have never been much of a fan of smart phones or texting, neither reading nor writing it, I may as well learn Klingon as learn the ins and outs of text messaging. That’s probably why I don’t now nor ever will own a so-called smart phone. I never had much use for them seeing as how I don’t see the need to be connected to the internet where ever I go 24/7. That’s what I find so attractive about my PC when I have to leave to go attend to the business of my everyday life, I know I have to push myself away from it and turn it off. Maybe I’m just getting old or perhaps simply old fashioned, but I prefer my human connections be done the old fashioned way, face to face or talking voice to voice over a standard telephone.

I did join Twitter a couple of three years ago, and brother what a hot mess that was at first, Twitter, the place where the English language goes to be butchered; 140 characters at a time. I still go there but most of the people that I follow don’t write like they would text, and I can read most of what my friends there write fairly easily, but there still are a few of those pesky Klingons that insist on squeezing every half a word that they can into that 140 characters. Nope, no cell phones, no texting for this guy, no pin sized keyboard that you need a number two pencil sharpened to the point of a light sabre to try to type with. I like having a 19 inch screen with a full sized keyboard to type with, I like having to full sized speakers to listen to. 

Am I old fashioned? Sure am, is my PC obsolete? Sure, as soon as I took it out of the box it was obsolete, technology moves too fast to keep what you buy today from being obsolete tomorrow. Every year Apple, Google, Samsung and the rest of their ilk come out with the next best thing, making everything that you currently own a relic of the past. The Way I see it- people are just going to keep buying and doing whatever makes them happy and that’s ok, just so long as I’m allowed to buy and do whatever makes me happy. Let everybody else chase after the next big thing, I’m perfectly content with my little PC, sitting on my desk in my little corner of the internet.  Now if you’ll excuse there’s a football game on and I really want to watch it now. On my big screen TV, and yes I know that’s probably obsolete too. 

Some people just don't want to work.

I really am beginning to think that I am quite clueless in regards to my understanding of how people think. Given the current state of the economy jobs anywhere are getting quite hard to come by, I personally was unemployed for a little over two years before I found the job that I currently have.  Trust me I was thankful to find it. Companies everywhere are feeling the pinch and in my little corner of the world Production Pattern Foundries are no different. Work in the past three weeks has slowed down to a crawl, where we were going guns-a-blazin, working six and seven days a week, suddenly, the orders for parts that we make are barely tricking in.

Last week they had to lay off 35 people from all departments, there simply wasn’t enough work to go around, so those of us they have been lucky enough to remain have been cleaning, shoveling sand and painting line on the floors to designate forklift areas. Everyone I talked to in our department have been speculating, “they’re going to lay the rest of us off next! You’ll see! It’s not going to get any better!” now, I’m more of a glass half full kind of person, but I listened patiently to people piss & moan about how they were worried that they were going to lose their jobs, how unemployment wouldn’t even cover half of their bills.  Well Friday rolled around again and nobody else got laid off.

The rumors persisted however, “they will probably get us all next week then!”  I must admit, gossipers and naysayers can really piss me off sometimes, but rather than waste my time trying to interject any kind of positivity into the conversation, I decided to go right to the source. I just asked two of the big bosses outright what was going on with the work slowdown, and they told me that it was nothing out of the ordinary that it always gets slow at this time of year for at least a month and then it picks up again,  so not to worry. And sure enough on Thursday morning they fired up the big main molding machine, the boss gave two of the naysayer’s an option, “it’s all the work we have right now so you can either work on the line taking off parts to be cut by the band saws or you can go home if you want.  It’s your choice.”

Both guys elected to go home rather than work on the line, WTF? They complain for three weeks about work slowing down, they fret and worry about getting laid off, and the first time that something encouraging happens and we get a few orders, they turn tail and run home. He only had to ask me once to work the line, in fact I was ready to volunteer if he hadn’t, we did 115 molds the first day and 130 the second day, no it wasn’t a lot compared to the 320 molds a day that we normally do but I thought it was encouraging.  I just don’t get it,  why do people walking around fretting all day and waiting for the other shoe to drop? Jump in where there IS work to be done and do your part, that at least shows management that you WANT to be there, and you WANT to work. If there is another lay off I have a hunch who is going to be next. And it won’t be me, not if I can help it any way. 

The Donut Apocalypse.

I stumbled out of bed this morning a little later than usual; having an unplanned vacation day off from work can do that to you sometimes.  I got up and showered and fell into my usual routine, made coffee, milled through the cupboards looking for something for breakfast, nope nothing, that’s when I decided to do the unthinkable, I walked to the local quickie mart to get donuts.. Yeah I know, that’s healthy isn’t it? Donuts for breakfast, what? Lots of people eat donuts for breakfast and they don’t worry about what kind of shape their in do they? After all; round is a shape. Isn’t it?  So I get about a half of a block from home when I begin to notice something rather peculiar, there were three- count em THREE figures lumbering along the sidewalk in front of me.

I immediately began to take notes of the three ominous figures; now about three quarters of a block ahead of me. They were of average size, shoulders were slumped a little, heads down, their feet appeared to be scuffling along, over all disheveled appearance,  not walking at all like normal people would. I quickened my pace to get a little closer as more clues began to develop. They were making grunting noises, but no legible language that I recognized was being used. That’s when it struck me, I was following three zombies! Three actual walking, grunting zombies!  At that point I began considering turning around and heading home to fetch my camera, but surely they would have gotten away.  I carefully maintained a safe distance of three quarters of a block; I didn’t want to get too close after all, being zombies they might attack even if I hadn’t provoked them.  

I tried to calm myself back down by thinking about my actual mission at hand, I was hungry and I wanted donuts.  Mmmmm..  Donuts, Donuts with powdered sugar all over them, donuts with glaze all over them, chocolate donuts, vanilla donuts,  low fat donuts, donuts with waaay too much sugar,  Kristy Kremes, Dunkin donuts, Hostess Donuts,  yeah, so I like donuts. But I had gotten so completely caught up in my donut quest that I had forgotten about the three zombies walking only a half a block ahead of me now. My fears of being eaten alive by zombies were soon dashed when we reached the stop light and I saw that they weren’t zombies at all, Silly me, they were just three teenagers texting on their cell phones on their way to school. But you could see why I got confused, texting teenagers do kinda look like drooling lumbering zombies don’t they? Now then, where was I? oh yeah, donuts..