Nerd alert!

As many of you know I am studying for my next certification exam, which will be in networking. I am reading a textbook that is over 600 pages in length, and I have a set of CD ROMs with 12 hours of lectures on the subject... I actually enjoy this stuff!

Anyhow, I understand the logic behind networks, and how they work, but I have no hands-on experience. It's all been theory to me so far. So, yesterday (after months of wanting to do this) I went out and bought some equipment. The first thing that I was excited about was the fact that I saved a bunch of money by shopping around. I did some research on the internet, and then drove all over east Phoenix looking for the best prices. I found them (the best prices, that is) at Fry's Electronics. The router I bought alone was $20 cheaper there than at other stores I had looked in. With the money I saved I bought some additional equipment and $92.00 later came home feeling like a kid at Christmas.

I sat down and read all of the manuals (like the anal retentive guy that I am) and then set it all up. The good news: I got both of my computers on line simultaneously using one NAT IP address, and was able to send/receive and browse the internet. The bad news: I have yet to get my two computers to see each other and communicate. I'm sure it's something simple that I forgot to do, and with a little research I'll get it figured out. But in the meantime I'm thrilled.

The router I bought also came with a wireless access point, so I set up a wireless connection with my ooooolllllddddd laptop (a 2000 model Sony VAIO which originally came loaded with Windows 98, and only has 192mb RAM). The darn thing worked, too! I was amazed. When I was a computer tech half of my calls were from frustrated people who couldn't get their wireless connections to work- I got mine up and running on the first try. That actually surprised me.

So, for those of you who may have been concerned that I wasn't doing enough "geek" stuff lately, rest assured I am getting closer and closer to putting tape on my glasses (I don't even wear glasses) and buying a pocket protector!

Happy New Year everyone.

Merry Christmas to all.

...and to all a good night.

Where DOES the time go?

Well, next weekend is the last weekend of the regular NFL season. That means that the 15 weeks of the 2008 season have come and gone... And I didn't watch a single game. If you had told me back in 1998 that a year would come when I totally didn't watch football- well, I'm not sure what I would have thought, but I would have given you a funny look at least.

I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I guess primarily it came be blamed on geography. As a kid I grew up in Atlanta (Georgia and Virginia both, actually... But Virginia does not have a pro football team) and I fell right into the whole Falcons thing, especially when Jerry Glanville took over as head coach in 1990. That was when the Falcons switched their colors to black, and the Glanville-esque attitude really took effect in a whirlwind of renewed enthusiasm from fans all over, especially as we won all of our pre-season games that year. A few years later the Georgia Dome was opened, and that had all eyes on the Falcons once again, especially with the hype of the upcoming 2006 Olympics, which were to be held there (in Atlanta- with many of the events taking place in the Georgia Dome).

Two years later in 1998 (ten years ag0) the Falcons finally made it to the playoffs, and into the Superbowl the following early 1999. That was an exciting season for me. My parents got me tickets to the final game that year, and I drove down to Georgia for it. My friend Steve drove up from Florida, and we went together. We won that game, and went on to play Minnesota in the NFC Championship game the following week… And we won? Yes, we did. The Falcons beat the undefeated Vikings and went, for the first time in franchise history, to the Superbowl.

Where they were stomped by Denver. *cough*

Anyway, the following year I took a job that moved me out west. And as the years went by, and I moved further and further from the east coast, it just became harder and harder to follow a team from Atlanta. Long story short- I thought that when I moved to Phoenix in 2006 that I might find renewed enthusiasm for the NFL, since I was now in a city that had a pro football team again. But when I got here I found the local fans to be apathetic at best, and I just never got into it myself, either.

So, here we are, 10 years from “The Year” and I honestly can’t remember the last time I watched a football game, much less a Falcons game. Tonight, partly from nostalgia, partly from boredom, I went to nfl.com just to see how the season had shaped up, and I was surprised to see that the Falcons (at 10-5) had clinched a wildcard slot! They will be going to the playoffs again. (And, for those of you here in Arizona with me, so will the Cardinals, by the way). So, if I’d had any enthusiasm this year and watched the season, I probably would have had a pretty exciting time with it! Oh well.

Next Sunday the Falcons host the Rams, and the Cardinals host the Seahawks. It will be the final games of the regular season. Maybe I’ll actually watch one of those games. Anybody feeling it for some football?

"The Most Delightful People of 2008"

I couldn't actually embed this video, so I only hope this link works...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26852192/vp/28257993#28257993

...you just have to watch this. Melissa, especially you, because it has a reference to Gary Busey.

Everyone else, just two comments from me:

1) I was disappointed to hear that the guy who shot his lawn mower was not from The South.

2) I had no idea there were cameras in that Burger King.

Okay... hrmph! Then how about THIS?

Alright, so I'm hearing minimal support for the Natalie Portman thing, and even fewer people care about JD Powers, or discussing great cinema moments. How about Dave's sneezing monkey, then?

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

All of us have those few scenes in motion picture history that really stand out in our heads. They usually sum up the whole movie, and seem to instantly bring us right back into the experience of watching it for the first time.

We all know that Steven Spielberg has made several well known movies (to say the least) that have all done very well at the box office, and left a lasting impression in our minds. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jurassic Park (1993), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Minority Report (2002), and many, many others.

But arguably, the movie that Steven Spielberg is best known for was 1975's Jaws. This was the first film of his that really made people sit up and take notice of him as a director.

One of my favorite movie scenes comes from Jaws. It's the famous "You're gonna need a bigger boat" scene, halfway through the film. Every now and then I think of that line, and that scene, as it seems to come up often in every day conversation.

I remember two years ago I was in a staff meeting at work and our boss was telling us all about the long days ahead as we were about to enter the busy season. There seemed to be a lot more work than the 6 of us could possibly handle, and somebody in the room sarcastically muttered, "You're gonna need a bigger boat." I smiled because I immediately appreciated the line, it's meaning, and it's significance to this situation.

I have often thought how amusing it would be to get screen shot of that scene, and then frame it and hang it up over the desk in a very busy person's office. Surprisingly there are no screen shots of that scene anywhere on Google image search or Yahoo image search. I have tried every imaginable search criteria from "Jaws" to "You're gonna need a bigger boat" to "famous movie lines" to "Chief Brody" to "Roy Scheider"... The list goes on. Every time I sit down and try to find it the results always yield nothing.

For some reason I felt like blogging tonight, and that scene was in my mind. So I got the idea that if I took my DVD copy of the movie and played it on my computer, I would be able to take a screen shot and get the image. But, alas, Microsoft (and other media playing software manufacturers) had already thought of that, too, and the copyrighted data on the disc would not "capture" as a jpeg. Sneaky software writing bastards.

Then, for the first time, I though that maybe I'd be able to find that scene on You Tube. Remarkably it came right up an my first search attempt! Although I was able to capture a screen shot off of You Tube it is unfortunately not a very clear one, but it will have to do.

I'd be curious to hear what your favorite movie scenes are, fellow bloggers, so please let me know.

I'm really sorry to put you all through this.

Faithful followers of Nobody Told Me:

Since the original reason for starting this blog was to vent my frustrations while at work, and since I am now unemployed, I have subjected you to some pretty lame blog entries lately... And here's another.

So, last night I was over at a "friend's" house, and we were watching TV. We had just come back from a big holiday dinner, and I was sitting there eating junk food and staring at the food network talking about Giada De Laurentiis. (Ah, just picture it, ladies. Big slothful Joe all splayed out on the sofa, shoving slim jims in his mouth and commenting about "babes on TV." It's enough to make you drool, isn't it, girls!). Anyhow, I made the comment that she looked just like Natalie Portman, to which my friends immediately disagreed. Then they both proceeded to tell me how crazy I was for making the connection.

So, hurt and belittled I wandered home. This morning I woke up with a renewed sense of energy, enthusiasm, and the need to vindicate myself. After only a few clicks on the Internet not only did I find several photos of Giada De Laurentiis that could easily have been stunt-doubled by Natalie Portman, but I also found another guy's blog who stated "She looks like Natalie Portman, and she can cook! What a woman!"

I present the evidence for your review.

Thank you... and somebody please give me a job!

Okay, is it just me...

...or does it seem like JD Powers is always saying that everyone is always the best at customer service? Kinda cheapens the award when everyone gets one, doesn't it?

Hey, I recently won the JD Powers award for best customer service in the category of "unemployed guys in Arizona who have absolutely no customer interaction with anyone ever."

What? You're not impressed?

I don't get it.

Burger King has this new ad campaign called the "Whopper Virgins" where they go to the remote corners of the world and conduct taste tests between the Whopper and the McDonald's Bic Mac. These are places like rural Romania, Thailand and Greenland, where there are no Burger Kings (or McDonalds). The gist of the commercial is that people who have never tasted either will be able to satisfy the controversy once and for all over who has the better burger.

It seems like there is a basic flaw in this thinking, though. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that one of these two burgers (okay, we'll go with the Whopper for now) gets more votes as the tastiest burger, and "wins" the taste test. What does that prove? Does that mean that back here in the United States if I happen to prefer the Big Mac that I am "wrong" and need to re-evaluate my own tastes?

What do we (fellow Americans) care what some third world country thinks about how burgers should taste? A lot of these places eat boiled dog meat and raw whale fat.

If the Whopper wins out, will Burger King start opening up fast food restaurants in those places? Is this some sort of intimidation technique to prevent McDonald's from moving forward with their top secret plans to open up burger joints on the frozen land mass of Greenland?

What does Burger King hope to prove with this? ...okay, I suppose they hope to prove that the Whopper tastes better than the Big Mac. But what does that prove? If the US Supreme Court established by law that the Whopper tasted better than the Big Mac, what would that even mean? That Big Mac lovers were somehow "wrong?" The only reason that this "experiment" would have any bearing is if there were actually a bunch of Burger King executives sitting around a board room trying to decide whether or not to open up restaurants in Romania. And, when you get right down to it, it actually wouldn't even have any logical bearing on that decision. If there really are no Burger Kings or McDonald's in Romania, who cares which tastes better? Whoever puts a store up first runs the monopoly! There is no competition at all.

Why am I taking the time to blog about this? Two reasons: 1) there is nothing better to blog about, and 2) I'm upset that during this period of personal unemployment Burger King is throwing money away on silly experiments instead of paying me to sit around on my ass (which would be just as productive, by the way).

Can you imagine how many millions of dollars Burger King is throwing into this thing? Come on, BK, throw some cash my way. For a minuscule fraction of what it's costing you to run this ad campaign you could pay my rent for a year (I still don't know where January's rent is coming from, by the way), buy me that new Vista laptop I want, and fly me out to Savannah to see my grandmother for Christmas! Now that's money well spent.

Let's hope something better to blog about comes up soon or this is gonna get really bad.

I guess three weeks is long enough...

...is this the kind of thing you were looking for, Melissa?

Hi friends. Been unemployed for 3 weeks now, and since blogging was something that I did at work to break up the hours of insanity, I have not posted in a while.

Happy Holidays everyone!