Alright - You, who reposts that same post from the Buterblog, dear God - Stop! I hear your pleas for me to post, and your crazy attempts to force me to. Seriously, please, I beg of thee, just text me next time or tell Meghan as you walk in the door and she'll tell me. But in the name of the holiest of holies, do not force the readers of this blog to endure another repetition of my last post from a completely different blog and era. Thank you.
On that note I have many discoveries -
1. Being a part of something is more than doing your part.
2. Infatuation and love are completely different. Love isn't work, but to show your love requires understanding your loved ones' "language of love." There are five - acts of service, gifts, words of affirmation, physical touch, and quality time. Read Gary Chapman's "The Five Love Languages" for enlightenment.
3. I am not searching for love from somebody else, I am searching for how to love myself.
4. Wanting a dream and fulfilling it are two different ball games.
5. Never give advice you wouldn't take.
6. Merlot is good, champagne is better.
7. Practicing homosexuality is not in accordance with God's laws. None of us are living in accordance with God's laws.
8. I will drag Casey to the beach for his birthday this year. Like, nothing will stop me.
9. As of right now, there are two things I want out of my life: a great dane named Condor and a house.
10. Meghan, don't judge me: a Hello Kitty tatoo was and is a perfectly splendid idea.
11. Best Quote Ever = Having a Kid is like getting a tatoo on your face, before you go through with it you should be sure you are committed.
12. It is okay to let someone go. To stop trying to be the glue, the fix-it family-man. Sometimes its better.
And now that the wine glass is empty and I am slow at spelling words...I am going to leave you with all of that.
Sincerely,
Happy Valentines Day,
Sarah
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Jasmine: pValac
So today I have a presentation in my biology lab. We were to choose an article from somewhere and then present that article so that people with very little biology knowledge could understand what was being talked about. Finding the article was simple, trying to make words like adenalation and transfection into humanspeak is slightly less so.
So my article was called a new plasmid vector for DNA delivery using lactococci. after reading the article I find that this title is actually a very accurate summary.
The purpose of the researchers was to find a safer way to deliver specific DNA sequences into human cells. They targeted "mucosal epithelium," which means the lining of the digestive system and other various organs. They chose this because it is usually the first thing in the body to come into contact with various illnesses, and their ultimate goal is to use this DNA carrier as a vaccine that your own cells will produce.
Plasmids are what bacteria use to deliver DNA between eachother, sort of a little pod of DNA they send off into the world. Previously when they used bacteria they used somewhat dangerous ones like salmonella which could suddenly give you salmonella. Lactococci causes the fermentation of cheese, and in humans lactic acid build up. less dangerous. Other things they used to make their plasmid were herpes and E coli...
They tested it using a gene origionally found in jellyfish that glows green when placed under blue light. and it worked great in the lining of pig kidneys, somewhat less great in the lining of human intestines. but it worked well enough to warrent further experimentation.
I thought this was pretty interesting and so I shared it with all of you guys.
So my article was called a new plasmid vector for DNA delivery using lactococci. after reading the article I find that this title is actually a very accurate summary.
The purpose of the researchers was to find a safer way to deliver specific DNA sequences into human cells. They targeted "mucosal epithelium," which means the lining of the digestive system and other various organs. They chose this because it is usually the first thing in the body to come into contact with various illnesses, and their ultimate goal is to use this DNA carrier as a vaccine that your own cells will produce.
Plasmids are what bacteria use to deliver DNA between eachother, sort of a little pod of DNA they send off into the world. Previously when they used bacteria they used somewhat dangerous ones like salmonella which could suddenly give you salmonella. Lactococci causes the fermentation of cheese, and in humans lactic acid build up. less dangerous. Other things they used to make their plasmid were herpes and E coli...
They tested it using a gene origionally found in jellyfish that glows green when placed under blue light. and it worked great in the lining of pig kidneys, somewhat less great in the lining of human intestines. but it worked well enough to warrent further experimentation.
I thought this was pretty interesting and so I shared it with all of you guys.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Meghan: lists...
Fun facts I have learned from psychology and wished to share:
WARNING: the content viewed herein contains violent and/or sexual references. You are warned.
Fact 1: If you sever a cat’s brainstem from the rest of its brain the animal will still live, breathe, run, climb, and groom. However it will not purposefully run or climb to get food. If you perform this same fun experiment with a human they will only maintain their ability to breath and maintain a heartbeat.
So how do you tell a common housecat from one whose brainstem has been severed?
Fact 2: When humans go into the REM cycle of their sleep males will experience an erection and females will experience increased vaginal lubrication and clitoral engorgement, regardless of whether the dream’s content is sexual (Karacan et al.,1966) That’s right, I have references.
Fact 3: Psychologists have performed some terrible experiments with cats
Fact 4: Individuals who have had their Corpus callosum (fibers that connect the right and left sides of the brain) severed to prevent seizures end up with essentially two separately functioning brains. They occasionally find their left hand unbuttoning a shirt while they are trying to button it with their right hand.
Fact 5: During daylight savings time the frequency of vehicular accidents increases on the day when everyone gets one less hour of sleep and decreases on the day when everyone gets an extra hour of sleep.
Fact 6: one in twenty people who snores is actually suffering from sleep apnea. Basically these poor people stop breathing during sleep and after a minute or so decreased blood oxygen will wake them up enough for them to snort in a small lungful of air. Sleep apnea often makes the sufferers irritable or depressed from lack of sleep. Fortunately there are wonderful snorkeler-looking devices that a doctor can prescribe to keep your airway open at night.
Fact 7: fish do not dream
Fact 8: Horses can sleep standing but must lie down for REM sleep
Fact 9: Dolphins, porpoises, and whales sleep with one side of their brain asleep at a time.
-M
WARNING: the content viewed herein contains violent and/or sexual references. You are warned.
Fact 1: If you sever a cat’s brainstem from the rest of its brain the animal will still live, breathe, run, climb, and groom. However it will not purposefully run or climb to get food. If you perform this same fun experiment with a human they will only maintain their ability to breath and maintain a heartbeat.
So how do you tell a common housecat from one whose brainstem has been severed?
Fact 2: When humans go into the REM cycle of their sleep males will experience an erection and females will experience increased vaginal lubrication and clitoral engorgement, regardless of whether the dream’s content is sexual (Karacan et al.,1966) That’s right, I have references.
Fact 3: Psychologists have performed some terrible experiments with cats
Fact 4: Individuals who have had their Corpus callosum (fibers that connect the right and left sides of the brain) severed to prevent seizures end up with essentially two separately functioning brains. They occasionally find their left hand unbuttoning a shirt while they are trying to button it with their right hand.
Fact 5: During daylight savings time the frequency of vehicular accidents increases on the day when everyone gets one less hour of sleep and decreases on the day when everyone gets an extra hour of sleep.
Fact 6: one in twenty people who snores is actually suffering from sleep apnea. Basically these poor people stop breathing during sleep and after a minute or so decreased blood oxygen will wake them up enough for them to snort in a small lungful of air. Sleep apnea often makes the sufferers irritable or depressed from lack of sleep. Fortunately there are wonderful snorkeler-looking devices that a doctor can prescribe to keep your airway open at night.
Fact 7: fish do not dream
Fact 8: Horses can sleep standing but must lie down for REM sleep
Fact 9: Dolphins, porpoises, and whales sleep with one side of their brain asleep at a time.
-M
Jasmine: goslave
putitthereputittherenoherehereyesyesyes
I saw, more than felt my hand pick up the smooth white stone. A quiet voice in my head giggled and clapped its hands together.
notdoneyettakethemTAKETHEM!
The hand, my hand? moved again gathering four black stones, leaving behind an empty hole on the board. It was a go board. Why was I, or someone else using my body, playing go? I couldn't remember getting here, the last thing I remembered was feeding Loki a piece of cheese from the sandwich I had been eating. Now I was a marionette for an invisible go player.
A man I didn't recognize sat across from me visibly dismayed by his loss in territory. He scratched his head and then bit the ends of his fingers. I wondered if there were tasty lice in his hair and if I was safe from him as long as I stayed on my side of the board. Eventually he reached for a black stone and placed it on the board.
theretheretheregothere
I wasn't sure where there was, but my hand seemed to know and I watched fascinated as it once again retrieved a white stone from the bowl on my side and placed it on the board carefully begining the enclosure of another pod of black pieces.
Me and the lice man went back and forth. at times I tried to take back control of my arm but I simply couldn't. There was no sensation, no tingling like it had fallen asleep, no vague sense that I might have an arm somewhere, like an amputee. I basically had no arm, and yet it continued to move to and from my bowl of stones, and what's more, it was winning.
Giving up on regaining the mastery of my arm for the moment, I began to take joy in the gross lice begotten fool who decided he could beat us. I figured the faster we won the faster I might possibly get my arm back. And slowly the board filled with white.
almosttherealmostyes!
The last possible excisement of black pieces was performed. It had been obvious some time ago that black had no chance against the marvelous team that was made up of my arm and some unknown go god, and black had begun to play more and more poorly, towards the end taking no territory for himself at all. And now it was done. I rejoiced even though I'd really had nothing to do with the victory.
I woke up on the couch laying with my right arm beneath my head. I stretched the arm, it tingled and burned as sensation and blood flowed back to it. Loki stared at me guiltilly from the coffee table, pieces of my sandwich strewn across the surface with little kitty nibbles taken from each piece except for the spinach which was eaten entirely. He made his little meh meh sound that he only makes when he knows he's been bad then staring longingly at a piece of cheese stuck to the surface of the glass table with cat saliva he jumped down and ran down the hall to hide in the bedroom.
I saw, more than felt my hand pick up the smooth white stone. A quiet voice in my head giggled and clapped its hands together.
notdoneyettakethemTAKETHEM!
The hand, my hand? moved again gathering four black stones, leaving behind an empty hole on the board. It was a go board. Why was I, or someone else using my body, playing go? I couldn't remember getting here, the last thing I remembered was feeding Loki a piece of cheese from the sandwich I had been eating. Now I was a marionette for an invisible go player.
A man I didn't recognize sat across from me visibly dismayed by his loss in territory. He scratched his head and then bit the ends of his fingers. I wondered if there were tasty lice in his hair and if I was safe from him as long as I stayed on my side of the board. Eventually he reached for a black stone and placed it on the board.
theretheretheregothere
I wasn't sure where there was, but my hand seemed to know and I watched fascinated as it once again retrieved a white stone from the bowl on my side and placed it on the board carefully begining the enclosure of another pod of black pieces.
Me and the lice man went back and forth. at times I tried to take back control of my arm but I simply couldn't. There was no sensation, no tingling like it had fallen asleep, no vague sense that I might have an arm somewhere, like an amputee. I basically had no arm, and yet it continued to move to and from my bowl of stones, and what's more, it was winning.
Giving up on regaining the mastery of my arm for the moment, I began to take joy in the gross lice begotten fool who decided he could beat us. I figured the faster we won the faster I might possibly get my arm back. And slowly the board filled with white.
almosttherealmostyes!
The last possible excisement of black pieces was performed. It had been obvious some time ago that black had no chance against the marvelous team that was made up of my arm and some unknown go god, and black had begun to play more and more poorly, towards the end taking no territory for himself at all. And now it was done. I rejoiced even though I'd really had nothing to do with the victory.
I woke up on the couch laying with my right arm beneath my head. I stretched the arm, it tingled and burned as sensation and blood flowed back to it. Loki stared at me guiltilly from the coffee table, pieces of my sandwich strewn across the surface with little kitty nibbles taken from each piece except for the spinach which was eaten entirely. He made his little meh meh sound that he only makes when he knows he's been bad then staring longingly at a piece of cheese stuck to the surface of the glass table with cat saliva he jumped down and ran down the hall to hide in the bedroom.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Doug: Shh
08:14 AM on a Saturday is a weird time. Not many people have work, so the streets are mostly dead. No one else in the house is up, not even the guy I’m supposed to take to Kirkland to get his car fixed. It’s raining, the drizzly, Seattle rain that doesn’t quite soak you, but is still an annoyance. The sun isn’t really up either. I know sunrise is sometime around 0730, but it doesn’t matter, the clouds hovering over the city add a hazy unreality to the light of my universe, and it seems like I’m having trouble focusing on any one thing.
Still, it’s quiet. An almost foreign state for our house. Usually there’s a million and a half people here, all of them talking, laughing, watching movies, playing games, cooking, studying. Living. Right now it’s just me, the silence, and the house. I like it.
In a few minutes I’m going to have to take Anthony to deal with is jacked up car. But right here, right now, it’s quiet.
-Doug
Still, it’s quiet. An almost foreign state for our house. Usually there’s a million and a half people here, all of them talking, laughing, watching movies, playing games, cooking, studying. Living. Right now it’s just me, the silence, and the house. I like it.
In a few minutes I’m going to have to take Anthony to deal with is jacked up car. But right here, right now, it’s quiet.
-Doug
Friday, February 4, 2011
Jasmine: Perfume
like to eat angels
They make you love forever
such a good perfume
or
Who could that man be?
What's he dumping on his head?
Lets eat the angel!
Does it make sense to you? If it does then watch the movie and decide if it still makes sense. If it still makes sense give me a call.
Earlier tonight Meghan and I watched a strange, very long movie. Perfume: The Story of a Murder. It's more like fourteen murders, possibly fifteen, I'm not sure about one of them. It's graphic in a lot of different ways, some of them enough to make me cringe if only for a moment before I check to make sure that no one saw my wide shocked eyes. Because nothing shocks me. I don't want to describe it any further because I want you guys to watch it. It's on netflix for an instant play. Two and a half hours long. Maybe it's too long, but I don't regret having watched it.
(I credit Abe with the inspiration for the poetry at the beginning of this)
They make you love forever
such a good perfume
or
Who could that man be?
What's he dumping on his head?
Lets eat the angel!
Does it make sense to you? If it does then watch the movie and decide if it still makes sense. If it still makes sense give me a call.
Earlier tonight Meghan and I watched a strange, very long movie. Perfume: The Story of a Murder. It's more like fourteen murders, possibly fifteen, I'm not sure about one of them. It's graphic in a lot of different ways, some of them enough to make me cringe if only for a moment before I check to make sure that no one saw my wide shocked eyes. Because nothing shocks me. I don't want to describe it any further because I want you guys to watch it. It's on netflix for an instant play. Two and a half hours long. Maybe it's too long, but I don't regret having watched it.
(I credit Abe with the inspiration for the poetry at the beginning of this)
Thursday, February 3, 2011
That guy: Climate Survey
You want a post? I got a post for ya'll right here.
Every year, my company conducts what is called the yearly Climate Survey. It's 51 multiple choice questions asking us how we feel about our managers productivness, and wether we like the new color scheme for the fucking bathrooms, or some shit. As you people may or may not know, I feel rather strongly about this company, and many of the decisions they've made have not been ones I would have made. So without further adeu, I present to you my copy and pasted response to the only actual question on the survey. Enjoy.
-That guy
What would you recommend to make FedEx Office a better place to work?
---------------------------------
Less corporate bullshit. Dallas is a corporate fucking clowncar. Its a fantastic trick the first time you see it, but after that, you realize its the same shit spewing forth over and over and over. For the sake of brevity, I'm only going to cover a few points.
1.
According to http://news.van.fedex.com/fedex_office, FedEx spent a mind boggling $891 MILLION dollars to rebrand FedEx Kinkos to FedEx Office to somehow get the message across that we offer both printing and shipping. Whoever was responsible for this terrible decision should be forced to stand outside in the current -12 degree temperature outside my store to sell fucking cookies and hot chocolate in an attempt to earn this astronomical sum back for the company. At the height of a recession, corporate FedEx decided that instead of sticking with a product label that everyone and their mother were familiar with (Kinkos), we should try to change it up on people to change their vision of the company. Just like Q-Tips, Kleenex, Coke, ChapStick, Band-Aids, Tylenol, Spam, Bubble Wrap, Taser, Jacuzzi, Rollerblades, Velcro, Frisbee, Clorox, and any of the other hundreds of products that are brand names synonymous with the products they cover, Kinkos changed to Office. Oh wait. Not a single one of those products changed their names to better represent what they are. BECAUSE THE NAME ALREADY REPRESENTS THE PRODUCT. The dumbshit corporate think team that pushed this fucking brilliant idea to strip people of recognition came at the best time possible, spending more money that I would have if i won the current Powerball lottery 17 TIMES. Not only was I forced to answer the inane question 'FedEx Office? Do you guys still make copies?' well into the hundreds of times a day, but the extreme cost of this extremely retarted manuver took many other things from me as well.
2. Just because corporate bigwigs think a rebrand is the answer to more and more people doing everything digitally and desperatly hanging on to a dying paper based industry does not mean I should suffer as well. While it is true I am an employee of this company, just because the powers that be wasted more money than I'll see in my lifetime, my 401k shouldn't be matched, me and my co-workers should be required to be janitors as well as copy monkeys, and inane buisness plans should be thrown at us every step of the way. Everyone is feeling the effects of the recession. When I don't get a bonus on my paycheck because our largest contract client only wants $70,000 worth of copies instead of the usual $80,000, my morale and self motivation do not go up, as seemed to be belived by corporate. No. I get pissed that I don't get a bonus. I'm sorry the corporate bottom line is messed up because we didn't make an aditional $10,000, but my bottom line is messed up as well, which means instead of spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, I get flash frozen mac-n-cheese with 'textured beef patty crumble.' I'm sorry the CFO doesn't get a new yacht. I'll sell more over priced flash drives to make sure it doesn't happen again.
3. The inane business practices I mentioned earlier. Clean and Bright was a pile of hippo shit. In order to make every store the same, we had to strip the store down, modify everything that had been in the store working as is, and build it back to a specific corporate guidline, in order to make everything uniform. In addition to my normal center, I cover shifts at 4 different centers in the city. I'm not even going to touch on the lack of staffing. At these 5 centers, with the Clean and Bright process, I should be able to navigate each store with my eyes closed. Instead, I can't find a fucking thing. Each store has an individual floorplan, layout, and specific services they do more of. This means when I work at another store, I am flying blind. I look like a fool stumbling around thinking everything should be in the same place, when I couldn't be more wrong. And how bout that Blue Book? Dictating what needed to be done every month for the center. Even kindly breaking it down by week. We had specific tasks, spots to sign off, and more and more and more shit to print and waste supplies on every month. This asshole idea floundered for a year or so and has finally fizzled out into the aptly titled 'New Publication: Team Member Edition.' It contains no more information than the emails my district mananger sends and the Front and Center Newsletter that comes through from our beloved CEO. The delicious catch is that we get to name the Publication, carving our fantastic wit into the memories of all team members to come, making us famous forver. I think it should remain 'New Publication' for the sole reason that upon the next brilliant brainstorming session corporate has, and the next brilliant concept that replaces the current New Publication, the name can stay the same, and no money gets wasted on designing a new product, and forcing it down our throats.
4. New machinery. This one is gonna be short. How about instead of changing every god-damned copier in the store, you simply replace the ancient ones we have, run to the ground, new parts going in twice a week with brand new versions of the same machine. No more learning curve. No stupendous change in quality for those customers foolish enough to think they're gonna get a reasonbly similar experience each visit.
5. $891 million dollars. Really? And now you're spending even more money to put up window signs because "Our customers feedback revealed that many still connect 'Kinko's' with copying and printing? How about catching yourself in the middle of this clusterfuck instead of slogging forward? Too late. How about next time when you want to spend $891 million dollars you give me and my co-workers more than a sickingly low 2% max raise? Better yet, start by NOT cutting salaried employees paychecks past a district level, and then spend the $891 million dollars to give us all 'Sorry you had to put up with our idiocy' bonuses so I don't have to work two jobs to make sure my girlfriend and I still have food to eat and a crappy overpriced apartment while she recovers from her double ankle surgery while Fred Smith makes $8.67 million a year.
To sum all of this up, since employee contributions are clearly getting through to you guys, I see a very bleak future for FedEx Office, and a better place to work would mean making it a very differernt place to work, and that might cost money, so forget it.
Good day.
-------------------------------------
If you actually made it all the way through that, they do ask one other question after that one.
What do you most enjoy about working at FedEx Office?
My response?
Free coffee.
Thanks for reading.
Every year, my company conducts what is called the yearly Climate Survey. It's 51 multiple choice questions asking us how we feel about our managers productivness, and wether we like the new color scheme for the fucking bathrooms, or some shit. As you people may or may not know, I feel rather strongly about this company, and many of the decisions they've made have not been ones I would have made. So without further adeu, I present to you my copy and pasted response to the only actual question on the survey. Enjoy.
-That guy
What would you recommend to make FedEx Office a better place to work?
---------------------------------
Less corporate bullshit. Dallas is a corporate fucking clowncar. Its a fantastic trick the first time you see it, but after that, you realize its the same shit spewing forth over and over and over. For the sake of brevity, I'm only going to cover a few points.
1.
According to http://news.van.fedex.com/fedex_office, FedEx spent a mind boggling $891 MILLION dollars to rebrand FedEx Kinkos to FedEx Office to somehow get the message across that we offer both printing and shipping. Whoever was responsible for this terrible decision should be forced to stand outside in the current -12 degree temperature outside my store to sell fucking cookies and hot chocolate in an attempt to earn this astronomical sum back for the company. At the height of a recession, corporate FedEx decided that instead of sticking with a product label that everyone and their mother were familiar with (Kinkos), we should try to change it up on people to change their vision of the company. Just like Q-Tips, Kleenex, Coke, ChapStick, Band-Aids, Tylenol, Spam, Bubble Wrap, Taser, Jacuzzi, Rollerblades, Velcro, Frisbee, Clorox, and any of the other hundreds of products that are brand names synonymous with the products they cover, Kinkos changed to Office. Oh wait. Not a single one of those products changed their names to better represent what they are. BECAUSE THE NAME ALREADY REPRESENTS THE PRODUCT. The dumbshit corporate think team that pushed this fucking brilliant idea to strip people of recognition came at the best time possible, spending more money that I would have if i won the current Powerball lottery 17 TIMES. Not only was I forced to answer the inane question 'FedEx Office? Do you guys still make copies?' well into the hundreds of times a day, but the extreme cost of this extremely retarted manuver took many other things from me as well.
2. Just because corporate bigwigs think a rebrand is the answer to more and more people doing everything digitally and desperatly hanging on to a dying paper based industry does not mean I should suffer as well. While it is true I am an employee of this company, just because the powers that be wasted more money than I'll see in my lifetime, my 401k shouldn't be matched, me and my co-workers should be required to be janitors as well as copy monkeys, and inane buisness plans should be thrown at us every step of the way. Everyone is feeling the effects of the recession. When I don't get a bonus on my paycheck because our largest contract client only wants $70,000 worth of copies instead of the usual $80,000, my morale and self motivation do not go up, as seemed to be belived by corporate. No. I get pissed that I don't get a bonus. I'm sorry the corporate bottom line is messed up because we didn't make an aditional $10,000, but my bottom line is messed up as well, which means instead of spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, I get flash frozen mac-n-cheese with 'textured beef patty crumble.' I'm sorry the CFO doesn't get a new yacht. I'll sell more over priced flash drives to make sure it doesn't happen again.
3. The inane business practices I mentioned earlier. Clean and Bright was a pile of hippo shit. In order to make every store the same, we had to strip the store down, modify everything that had been in the store working as is, and build it back to a specific corporate guidline, in order to make everything uniform. In addition to my normal center, I cover shifts at 4 different centers in the city. I'm not even going to touch on the lack of staffing. At these 5 centers, with the Clean and Bright process, I should be able to navigate each store with my eyes closed. Instead, I can't find a fucking thing. Each store has an individual floorplan, layout, and specific services they do more of. This means when I work at another store, I am flying blind. I look like a fool stumbling around thinking everything should be in the same place, when I couldn't be more wrong. And how bout that Blue Book? Dictating what needed to be done every month for the center. Even kindly breaking it down by week. We had specific tasks, spots to sign off, and more and more and more shit to print and waste supplies on every month. This asshole idea floundered for a year or so and has finally fizzled out into the aptly titled 'New Publication: Team Member Edition.' It contains no more information than the emails my district mananger sends and the Front and Center Newsletter that comes through from our beloved CEO. The delicious catch is that we get to name the Publication, carving our fantastic wit into the memories of all team members to come, making us famous forver. I think it should remain 'New Publication' for the sole reason that upon the next brilliant brainstorming session corporate has, and the next brilliant concept that replaces the current New Publication, the name can stay the same, and no money gets wasted on designing a new product, and forcing it down our throats.
4. New machinery. This one is gonna be short. How about instead of changing every god-damned copier in the store, you simply replace the ancient ones we have, run to the ground, new parts going in twice a week with brand new versions of the same machine. No more learning curve. No stupendous change in quality for those customers foolish enough to think they're gonna get a reasonbly similar experience each visit.
5. $891 million dollars. Really? And now you're spending even more money to put up window signs because "Our customers feedback revealed that many still connect 'Kinko's' with copying and printing? How about catching yourself in the middle of this clusterfuck instead of slogging forward? Too late. How about next time when you want to spend $891 million dollars you give me and my co-workers more than a sickingly low 2% max raise? Better yet, start by NOT cutting salaried employees paychecks past a district level, and then spend the $891 million dollars to give us all 'Sorry you had to put up with our idiocy' bonuses so I don't have to work two jobs to make sure my girlfriend and I still have food to eat and a crappy overpriced apartment while she recovers from her double ankle surgery while Fred Smith makes $8.67 million a year.
To sum all of this up, since employee contributions are clearly getting through to you guys, I see a very bleak future for FedEx Office, and a better place to work would mean making it a very differernt place to work, and that might cost money, so forget it.
Good day.
-------------------------------------
If you actually made it all the way through that, they do ask one other question after that one.
What do you most enjoy about working at FedEx Office?
My response?
Free coffee.
Thanks for reading.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Doug: Awesome Dreams are Awesome
White House, Washington, DC.
“Sir! We have a situation.”
President Barack Obama glanced over his reading glasses at the man in front of him. The White House aid was flushed from running from one end of the building to the other. Sweat dripped from his brow and his tie was loosened. His breath came in wheezing gasps as his lungs tried to compensate for the taxing he had put them through. It would have been faster to call, but one does not simply call the President to inform him of things; even news of this magnitude.
“Go on.”
The aid paused, unsure of how to put this delicately, then decided there really wasn’t a way. “Sir, the Joint Chiefs are on their way here, but there isn’t much time. Six minutes ago several massive objects appeared in near earth orbit. Three minutes ago they launched a series of smaller ships, each roughly about the size of a Ford class aircraft carrier.”
The President blinked, looking vaguely like a deer caught in the headlights of a Mack Truck. “What?”
“It appears Sir,” the aid gulped down fear, “that we’re being invaded by an alien force of unknown composition and origin.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“No sir.”
“Shit.”
“Yes sir.”
Obama leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in thought. After a moment he looked up at the aid. “All right, deploy all our forces to meet this threat. Call in the reserves, pull in everybody, I want our full combat capability to be up and ready to fight as soon as possible.”
“What if they’re friendly?”
“They’re not.”
Presidential Bunker, ½ a mile below the surface
Six hours later, it was all over. The alien aircraft carriers had released hundreds of smaller ships to destroy all weapons systems brought to bear, while the fleet in orbit had used massive lasers to reduce military bases worldwide to ashes. The Chinese had attempted to bring nuclear weapons to bear early on in the game, but when the dust cleared, they had simply succeeded in irradiating a large portion of the atmosphere. France had attempted to surrender two hours in, but the Aliens had responded to this by using their laser systems to level the entire country, burning it out of existence. Similar things had happened to Iran, North Korea, and the Alien force was currently in the process of burning Russia out of existence.
The President watched all of this in high definition, wall to wall big screen in the bunker located beneath the White House. As he had six hours earlier he leaned back in his seat and folded his hands. “Well. Shit.”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs muttered something into a red phone, then hung up and turned to the President. “Sir, the fleet that destroyed Western Russia has begun to cross the Pacific. They’ll be over American soil in an hour.”
Obama nodded. “Well then. I think it’s time we stopped fucking around.” He leaned forward, staring at the carnage in front of him. “Initiate plan PATRIOT.”
There were gasps around the room. “But sir, the American people won’t stand for it!” the Secretary of the Army said.
“We’ve no choice.” Obama’s voice was grim. “All true Americans will understand.”
There was a long silence and then the men gathered in the room all picked up their respective phones, moving the machinery that would initiate America’s last ditch defense, only called upon in her most dire of hours…
Seattle, Washington State.
The government Witch Doctor added a few more dashes of powder to the cauldron in front of him. Special Agent Robert Johnson of the Secret Service watched with some skepticism. “Is that really going to work?”
“Yes.” The witch doctor was covered head to foot in tattoos, clashing horribly with the suit and tie that all governmental agencies required their employees to wear. He didn’t bother to look at Johnson, his attention was totally focused on the evil brew bubbling before him.
“It seems kind of ridiculous.”
“So does Aliens dropping from the sky and invading the planet. Shut up. If I don’t get the mix exactly right then the summoning will be less than complete. I might even raise the entire cemetery.”
Johnson glanced around at the graves that surrounded them, thinking this was a terrible idea. Even if this worked, there was a less than ten percent chance that the individual they were about to raise from the dead would be actually useful. Still, it was their last option.
A few minutes later the Witch Doctor stood up. “It’s ready.”
“Should I say a prayer?” Johnson asked.
“NO.” Firmly. “It is unwise to call the attention of the Gods when you seek to defy their laws.”
“Right. Just do it then.”
The witch doctor muttered a few dark sounding phases in a language most people never knew existed, and then kicked over the cauldron onto the grave. He then took a few careful steps back. “You might ready your sidearm. We may or may not have just started the Zombie Apocalypse.”
“Great.”
The earth heaved and a rotted hand burst out of the ground in front of the tomb stone. The two government workers looked around frantically, but this was the only grave whose occupant had awoken. The hand felt around, then began to pull the body out behind it. A head and then a torso appeared, and after a minute or so, the entirety of the body was above ground. The half rotted skull looked trough sightless sockets, head cocked ever so slightly in what seemed to be confusion.
“He’s not trying to eat us.”
“No.”
“So it worked.”
“It looks that way, yes.”
Johnson took a deep breath and stepped forward, addressing the corpse directly. “How are you feeling?”
“Who summons me man?” The voice was that of a young African American man, though the vocal chords had long rotted away. “I was sleeping all peaceful like.”
“Mr. Hendrix, I’m afraid to tell you that you’ve been drafted… again. Your country needs you, son.”
Installation 04, Colorado Rockies two hundred feet below the surface.
“Are we prepared?” Air Force Colonel Jack O’Neill asked the tech before him.
“Yes sir.” The tech replied, double checking his control console. “All boards read green, give the order and the equipment will be raised.”
“Very well, do it.”
“Yes sir.” The tech flipped a few switches, and the ground began to rumble.
Two hundred feet directly up the top had begun to slide off the mountain they were inside. Several minutes passed as the massive piece of earth moved out of the way, revealing a secret hidden from the public eye for nearly forty years.
The tech flipped a few more switches, and massive speakers the size of aircraft carriers rose into the cold mountain air. O’Neill nodded in satisfaction, glancing over at the map of the United States that showed all the other installations raising their speakers simultaneously. Hundreds of lights winked from red to green all over the country, each signifying massive speakers rising from the ground, only a small, but key part of plan PATRIOT.
Presidential Bunker
“Sir, all pieces are on the board.”
Obama nodded, he seemed lost in thought. One of his aids leaned over and said. “Sir, it’s not too late to call this mad scheme off.”
The president shook his head violently. “A great man once said that “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”. He clearly did not have to deal with Aliens falling from the goddamn sky. Initiate plan PATRIOT.”
***
All across the country Americans looked up to the skies in alarm, knowing their doom was coming. But suddenly, as if from everywhere, a sound arose. The faint strains of an electric guitar, an eerily familiar tune rising in volume and tempo, until it seemed to fill the whole world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_3uHYd7pV0
Hearts round the country swelled as people began to recognize the tune of their great nation’s anthem. But this was not the familiar Francis Scott Key version, this was the true glory of the tune, the mad dream of that Master of the Axe, Jimi Hendrix, raised from the dead in the time of his country’s most desperate need.
And as all these Americans listened to the anthem of their great nation, expressed in the voice of its greatest musician, they began to glow as if filled with an inner light, and they began to float off the ground. Their muscles grew as if by magic, and all of them were filled with the urge to bring battle to the certain doom bearing down on them.
Feral grins broke out, suburban, urban, and rural Americans became the predators they were meant to be, and raced forward to fight the invaders of their planet. Streaks of light filled the sky, the people of lesser nations looked up in awe as the American people brought down their enemies with their bare hands, punching holes in spaceships, hurling ships into the sea, and kicking the alien menace into the next solar system. In mere minutes, the hidden power of America brought quiet to a battle thought hopeless mere moments before.
As the last strains of the Anthem faded into the sunrise, the Americans came home, settling back down, accepting once again the surly bonds of earth. There was rebuilding to be done, but the power that had filled them before had faded, as it was only to be called upon in times of most dire need.
***
“Why did we not do that six hours sooner?” The White House aid asked, incredulous. He personally had destroyed a hundred alien ships, but his hands showed no sign of it. Nor had he even broken a sweat.
“Because it was a terrible thing to do, son.” Obama hung his head in shame.
“That wasn’t terrible, that was fucking awesome!”
“It was awesome,” The president paused, “and a terrible, terrible, sin. You see, now that we’ve raised Jimi Hendrix from the dead to motivate the entire country to go Super-Sayan to battle alien invaders, we’ve peaked. The world will simply never be that awesome again.”
-Doug
This was a dream I had. It was indeed, very awesome.
“Sir! We have a situation.”
President Barack Obama glanced over his reading glasses at the man in front of him. The White House aid was flushed from running from one end of the building to the other. Sweat dripped from his brow and his tie was loosened. His breath came in wheezing gasps as his lungs tried to compensate for the taxing he had put them through. It would have been faster to call, but one does not simply call the President to inform him of things; even news of this magnitude.
“Go on.”
The aid paused, unsure of how to put this delicately, then decided there really wasn’t a way. “Sir, the Joint Chiefs are on their way here, but there isn’t much time. Six minutes ago several massive objects appeared in near earth orbit. Three minutes ago they launched a series of smaller ships, each roughly about the size of a Ford class aircraft carrier.”
The President blinked, looking vaguely like a deer caught in the headlights of a Mack Truck. “What?”
“It appears Sir,” the aid gulped down fear, “that we’re being invaded by an alien force of unknown composition and origin.”
“This isn’t a joke.”
“No sir.”
“Shit.”
“Yes sir.”
Obama leaned back in his chair, folding his hands in thought. After a moment he looked up at the aid. “All right, deploy all our forces to meet this threat. Call in the reserves, pull in everybody, I want our full combat capability to be up and ready to fight as soon as possible.”
“What if they’re friendly?”
“They’re not.”
Presidential Bunker, ½ a mile below the surface
Six hours later, it was all over. The alien aircraft carriers had released hundreds of smaller ships to destroy all weapons systems brought to bear, while the fleet in orbit had used massive lasers to reduce military bases worldwide to ashes. The Chinese had attempted to bring nuclear weapons to bear early on in the game, but when the dust cleared, they had simply succeeded in irradiating a large portion of the atmosphere. France had attempted to surrender two hours in, but the Aliens had responded to this by using their laser systems to level the entire country, burning it out of existence. Similar things had happened to Iran, North Korea, and the Alien force was currently in the process of burning Russia out of existence.
The President watched all of this in high definition, wall to wall big screen in the bunker located beneath the White House. As he had six hours earlier he leaned back in his seat and folded his hands. “Well. Shit.”
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs muttered something into a red phone, then hung up and turned to the President. “Sir, the fleet that destroyed Western Russia has begun to cross the Pacific. They’ll be over American soil in an hour.”
Obama nodded. “Well then. I think it’s time we stopped fucking around.” He leaned forward, staring at the carnage in front of him. “Initiate plan PATRIOT.”
There were gasps around the room. “But sir, the American people won’t stand for it!” the Secretary of the Army said.
“We’ve no choice.” Obama’s voice was grim. “All true Americans will understand.”
There was a long silence and then the men gathered in the room all picked up their respective phones, moving the machinery that would initiate America’s last ditch defense, only called upon in her most dire of hours…
Seattle, Washington State.
The government Witch Doctor added a few more dashes of powder to the cauldron in front of him. Special Agent Robert Johnson of the Secret Service watched with some skepticism. “Is that really going to work?”
“Yes.” The witch doctor was covered head to foot in tattoos, clashing horribly with the suit and tie that all governmental agencies required their employees to wear. He didn’t bother to look at Johnson, his attention was totally focused on the evil brew bubbling before him.
“It seems kind of ridiculous.”
“So does Aliens dropping from the sky and invading the planet. Shut up. If I don’t get the mix exactly right then the summoning will be less than complete. I might even raise the entire cemetery.”
Johnson glanced around at the graves that surrounded them, thinking this was a terrible idea. Even if this worked, there was a less than ten percent chance that the individual they were about to raise from the dead would be actually useful. Still, it was their last option.
A few minutes later the Witch Doctor stood up. “It’s ready.”
“Should I say a prayer?” Johnson asked.
“NO.” Firmly. “It is unwise to call the attention of the Gods when you seek to defy their laws.”
“Right. Just do it then.”
The witch doctor muttered a few dark sounding phases in a language most people never knew existed, and then kicked over the cauldron onto the grave. He then took a few careful steps back. “You might ready your sidearm. We may or may not have just started the Zombie Apocalypse.”
“Great.”
The earth heaved and a rotted hand burst out of the ground in front of the tomb stone. The two government workers looked around frantically, but this was the only grave whose occupant had awoken. The hand felt around, then began to pull the body out behind it. A head and then a torso appeared, and after a minute or so, the entirety of the body was above ground. The half rotted skull looked trough sightless sockets, head cocked ever so slightly in what seemed to be confusion.
“He’s not trying to eat us.”
“No.”
“So it worked.”
“It looks that way, yes.”
Johnson took a deep breath and stepped forward, addressing the corpse directly. “How are you feeling?”
“Who summons me man?” The voice was that of a young African American man, though the vocal chords had long rotted away. “I was sleeping all peaceful like.”
“Mr. Hendrix, I’m afraid to tell you that you’ve been drafted… again. Your country needs you, son.”
Installation 04, Colorado Rockies two hundred feet below the surface.
“Are we prepared?” Air Force Colonel Jack O’Neill asked the tech before him.
“Yes sir.” The tech replied, double checking his control console. “All boards read green, give the order and the equipment will be raised.”
“Very well, do it.”
“Yes sir.” The tech flipped a few switches, and the ground began to rumble.
Two hundred feet directly up the top had begun to slide off the mountain they were inside. Several minutes passed as the massive piece of earth moved out of the way, revealing a secret hidden from the public eye for nearly forty years.
The tech flipped a few more switches, and massive speakers the size of aircraft carriers rose into the cold mountain air. O’Neill nodded in satisfaction, glancing over at the map of the United States that showed all the other installations raising their speakers simultaneously. Hundreds of lights winked from red to green all over the country, each signifying massive speakers rising from the ground, only a small, but key part of plan PATRIOT.
Presidential Bunker
“Sir, all pieces are on the board.”
Obama nodded, he seemed lost in thought. One of his aids leaned over and said. “Sir, it’s not too late to call this mad scheme off.”
The president shook his head violently. “A great man once said that “there is nothing to fear but fear itself”. He clearly did not have to deal with Aliens falling from the goddamn sky. Initiate plan PATRIOT.”
***
All across the country Americans looked up to the skies in alarm, knowing their doom was coming. But suddenly, as if from everywhere, a sound arose. The faint strains of an electric guitar, an eerily familiar tune rising in volume and tempo, until it seemed to fill the whole world.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_3uHYd7pV0
Hearts round the country swelled as people began to recognize the tune of their great nation’s anthem. But this was not the familiar Francis Scott Key version, this was the true glory of the tune, the mad dream of that Master of the Axe, Jimi Hendrix, raised from the dead in the time of his country’s most desperate need.
And as all these Americans listened to the anthem of their great nation, expressed in the voice of its greatest musician, they began to glow as if filled with an inner light, and they began to float off the ground. Their muscles grew as if by magic, and all of them were filled with the urge to bring battle to the certain doom bearing down on them.
Feral grins broke out, suburban, urban, and rural Americans became the predators they were meant to be, and raced forward to fight the invaders of their planet. Streaks of light filled the sky, the people of lesser nations looked up in awe as the American people brought down their enemies with their bare hands, punching holes in spaceships, hurling ships into the sea, and kicking the alien menace into the next solar system. In mere minutes, the hidden power of America brought quiet to a battle thought hopeless mere moments before.
As the last strains of the Anthem faded into the sunrise, the Americans came home, settling back down, accepting once again the surly bonds of earth. There was rebuilding to be done, but the power that had filled them before had faded, as it was only to be called upon in times of most dire need.
***
“Why did we not do that six hours sooner?” The White House aid asked, incredulous. He personally had destroyed a hundred alien ships, but his hands showed no sign of it. Nor had he even broken a sweat.
“Because it was a terrible thing to do, son.” Obama hung his head in shame.
“That wasn’t terrible, that was fucking awesome!”
“It was awesome,” The president paused, “and a terrible, terrible, sin. You see, now that we’ve raised Jimi Hendrix from the dead to motivate the entire country to go Super-Sayan to battle alien invaders, we’ve peaked. The world will simply never be that awesome again.”
-Doug
This was a dream I had. It was indeed, very awesome.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)