Hey, crap! It's Monday and I haven't posted any-damn-thing since this past Wednesday...What a slack-ass I've become, no illustrations, no Photoblogs...Wow, how bad do I suck, huh? As you can tell, though, I'm going to do my best to make up for my absence with what is commonly called a "post" in the world of blogsitethings. GIRD YOUR LOINS! Yonder lies posty doom!..

Every Company Needs A Holiday Party...
...and ours happened this past Friday...Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy working where I work and doing what I do but our holiday parties have fallen into a horrible rut in recent years...There was a time (a time when the company wasn't doing so well, truth be told) when we had our holiday party here at the agency in our big on-site studio and we had food and drinks and karaoke and you know what? It was a Hell of a time...This past party though, and the three parties prior to this past one, have been held at an older golf course here in town. No, smartass, we're not out on the 9th green getting soaked by sprinklers and dying of the hypothermia or anything, they have a particularly well-appointed clubhouse where we can get our "shwerve" on, but it's always the same crap...The same bartender tending the same portable bar with the same painfully limited mixers and the same dry-ass chicken saltimbocca and the same asparagus and the same prime rib (which, so I don't sound like a total whiner, was pretty tasty this time) and the same rice pilaf and the food always makes everyone ill a day or two later (several people are out sick today) and it's always the same cramped dance floor and it's...Well, it's lame. We did have a piano player for our entertainment pleasure this year. The guy plays regularly at piano bars in Denver and Boulder and while I didn't care so much for his overly rehearsed and canned brand of insult comedy (nothing new or original, mind you), he was a very talented musician. Still, his rockin' on the 88s couldn't salvage what the night was and that, my friends, was "typical." Typically boring, sad to say...

To Wii or not to Wii...That's a stupid question...
On Saturday, while the snow piled up outside, a number of us crazy kids recorded podcasts for future postings inside my humble abode. As a welcome addition to the recording session, Justin C. brought over his Nintendo Wii (which he and Collin's brother camped out for the night before it's initial release). Now, I've never done any drugs and I'm only slightly addicted to alcohol, so I really don't have any basis for comparison, but HOLY CRAP, the Wii is like Crack! Man, is it addictive...it's so damned interactive and fun and...And...Wow...Justin let us know that Target was going to have more in stock the next morning and so, like goofy little kids at Christmas, my wife and I got up early that next morning (yesterday morning, if you're keeping score) to go and gets ourselves the elusive Wii but...Well, suffice to say that enough other people got up even earlier that we were "shut out"...No Wii for me, at least not yet...Still, if you want ideas of what to get me for Christmas (and you know you do) I'll take one Wii with extra nunchuck controller and Wiimote, please...And some Wii games! and...and...

But if It Ain't One Thing, It's Another...
So due to the geekery (also: fortitude) of others, I didn't spend my day yesterday playing my non-existant new Wii with utter (non-existant) abandon. Nay, due to bad timing, I did spend my day buying a new garage door opener at Sears (and a stepladder from Home Depot) 'cause, as we were on our way out to try and fail at buying a Wii, the Garage door opener at Maison De Chevalier "crapped out." What I found out later (you know, the later that included being Wii-less) was that the opener system that has probably been in our garage for 10 or 15 years has what are commonly called "moving parts" inside it. Just so you all are aware, there's a "motor." That motor thing, when you press a button, drives a "gear" which turns a "screw-type apparatus" which turns a "large nylon gear" which rotates a "sprocket" at the "top" of the "unit" (what, too many quotes?) that, when everything is working properly, moves a bike chain-type thing that ultimately (you guessed it by now) opens and closes my damn garage door. Sadly, over time, that screw-thing shredded the nylon gear-thing which meant that it wouldn't turn the sprocket and the chain wouldn't move and...and...well...All of that forced me to put up another opener unit when it was somewhere around 8° outside. Despite such factors (and despite my very limited ability to be "handy") I was able to successfully complete the task before nightfall. Looking on the bright side, though, I now have a wonderful new stepladder and, since you can't buy the opener unit just by it's lonesome, I have a whole slew of replacement parts in case anything else related to the damn opener goes to shit...I have no Wii at this time, I feel the need to reiterate that fact, but I DO have a spare bike chain...And some rails...And some other stuff...So "yay me."

So there's that...As always, thanks for stopping by - you kids have a great Monday now...

Labels: geekery, holidays, indignities, lame stories, office supply aggression, stagnation