Bacon Talk: Cell Phones

Good morning, Haycomet. That’s a very nice bonnet you have on! How’s your bacon? I’ve been really enjoying these little Friday-morning Bacon Talk get-togethers. It’s a great way to start the day, and I always know my weekend will get a little bit better jump start.

Well this morning, I’ve been thinking about connectedness… again… And I started getting a little uncomfortable. Again. Yes, every time I think about how connected we are as a society and as a people, I get a little sad inside. And it’s not because I fear technology, but rather, I fear our dependence on it. Gone are the days when I could leave the house without a phone and access to my six email accounts, facebook, my website, my bank account and my stock portfolio. And just being sad or uncomfortable about it doesn’t seem to be enough. It won’t spur me into changing my ways and leaving the house technologically naked. And for good cause, too. I’m expected to be connected for work as well.  So how connected are you?

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End Stupid Construction

As I was driving back from the clinic today, I came across a few things that made me frown a little, tilt my head to the side, wrinkle my nose, and quite possibly quote the phrase that started the now world-famous acronym you all know as WTF. You see, I have to go to the clinic an average of two to three times a week. That’s how bad my genital centipedes have gotten. Oh wait. No, no, you see, I work for a company that has 22 clinics. Phew. Thank God it’s that. So maybe I don’t have genital centipedes after all.

Anyway, as I was driving I saw a couple of things that I thought I should let you guys know about, and see if you have the same reactions I do. Since I’m what some call an ‘intellectual’, and I’m terribly smart, I catch some things most people don’t. For instance, you know those concrete barriers they line up beside highways? They’re about 20 feet long and weigh like 40 tons. Yeah. Well, I thought about something, guys. Before they rebar those things together on the side of the highway, they just leave them all stacked in grids over on the grass, usually near the starting section of where they’re going to install them. I mean, no fence, no guard dog, no security cameras… Dude, we could totally just walk away with a couple of those. And who couldn’t use a twenty-foot concrete barrier to toss in his driveway? See? Told you I was smart, guys.

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Pusher Robot No Longer Moves Air

Part 2 of the Shover Robot Saga

After many calls to my father-in-law, I am now a certified Master Electrician. I’m also a certified Master Air Conditioner Repair technician. Siege is now also certified in these departments. So when I left you at the end of the last column, my air conditioner was not turning on and my microwave was out. It works fine, it just has that extra feature now that my red-haired wife found to be pretty shocking. Our new status here is this: my microwave is still out, my water heater is out, but my air conditioner is blowing cold mountain air, fresh from the Rockies.

I won’t go into details about how we got to that status, but – wait. Who am I kidding? Of course I will. That’s what I do here. I called an air conditioner company here in SpaceTown, and the dude told me I had either blown a fuse or a transformer on the air handler. I know how much a fuse is. But how much does a transformer cost? And I don’t mean one of the gay autobot types, but rather a Decepticon, like Megatron, Shockwave or Thundercracker. “Well we charge about 200 bucks for it.” Whew! You guys are proud of them puppies! I wasn’t happy about that, but I was determined to find out what was wrong myself. And not pay someone else to come out here and fix this shit for me. I like to be handy, you know. Just ask my red-haired wife how handy I get under the covers. :perv: Oh wait. That’s handsy

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Truth in Advertising

I’d like to talk with you about radio commercials. Well, I don’t really want to, but rather, I think we need to talk about it. Specifically, I think a message needs to be sent out to these radio advertisers. And the message doesn’t need to be long or complex, or deep. I just want to say a couple of words. Namely, “I don’t give a flying AIDS-infested skunk’s ass what your damn name is!”

Wow, it feels really good to get that off my chest.

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Why SpaceBrew Was Down

Another good title for this column would be “Why You Should Never Host With HostMonster”. Or even another good one might be something like “HostMonster And The Incredible Display Of Incompetence, And How They Are So Disinterested In Their Customers That They Would Rather Cancel Their Accounts Than To Make Money, So I Don’t Know How They Even Stay In Business, But They Should Probably Be Shut Down, Bombed, Or Both”. That would be a pretty long title, but it gets the point across. So let me tell you what happened.

Now this is pretty high-tech stuff, and I have to admit, I wouldn’t understand it if I hadn’t been in IT for fifteen years, and spent four years as an Internet Systems Engineer. So I don’t expect you to get it all, but I’ll try to use some awesome analogies. But I absolutely must write about this, because they pissed me off so bad I almost went postal on them. Through Live Chat. Yeah. It was that bad. Read on, dear friends, loved ones and enemies. Come with me on a little journey of customer disservice, ridiculous policy and guarantees of dissatisfaction.

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Seriously, dudes. Save the trees.

Does anyone read the yellow pages? Okay, that’s not what I mean. I know no one reads it! Haha! That would be a boring ass read, amirite? Yeah. Seriously. But yeah, no, see, yeah what I meant to say was, does anyone use the yellow pages? Yeah, see that’s what I thought.

I used to use them all the time. I’d pop one in Callie’s seat so she could reach the table. But I haven’t actually opened the yellow pages since – well, shit, I don’t think I ever have. Why would I? I have an iPhone. I have google 411. I have the Internets. That’s all free. And faster. And last I checked, no trees had to die to support the internet. So please, Southwestern Bell, save the paper. Save the trees. And stop sending me the stupid yellow pages.

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The Art of Taxism

Happy Friday Morning, Brewists. Today is not only the last Friday of the month, it’s also Arbor Day. And my sources are also telling me that it happens to be National Oatmeal Cookie Day. I hope it’s a good day for all of you. For me, it’s one of those mixed emotion days. For today, as you’re sitting here reading this, I am in the hospital by my wife’s bedside as she undergoes surgery. She’s having her bladder replaced by a whoopie cushion (so she can hold more pee) and she’s finally having a computer chip put in like the one I got. That way we can text each other, keep track of where we are in the supermarket (what’s so super about the market, anyway, amirite?) and various other important tasks so many of you take for granted. But yes, she’s getting some new stuff put in and some maintenance done on her CPU, so keep her in your prayers.

In other news, it is indeed April 30. The Last Day of April. How many of you just had to touch your knuckles to verify that? I sure did. Thank God our knuckles were made like they are so they line up with the months. But being April 30, you know what that means. It means it’s time to start getting all of our stuff together to get ready to file our taxes. Because tax day is coming up soon. Now we’ve discussed several holidays here on the Brew here lately. Trash Day Eve, Camping Day, National Period Awareness Week, International 14″ Monitor Appreciation Day, etc. You remember them. But notice I did not capitalize tax day. Number 1, it is NOT a holiday. And B, the IRS is the only group who celebrates it. The rest of us hate it. (The IRS, not tax day.)

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Keep On The Grass

Well for the last two months I’ve been away from Geek Squad, settling into my new job, and loving it. No more people approaching the counter demanding refunds for the laptop that just “stopped working” with the promise that there’s “no way in hell” they dropped it, and oh, what’s this crack in the LCD? Well that stuff just happens. Or it came like that. Or software did that. :rolleyes:

Anyway, it’s nice not to have to deal with the brunt of society’s idiots on a daily basis. Now I provide desktop and server support to all the clinics for the company for which I work, but really there are no stupid people here. There are those who have no idea what’s what in the world of techmology, but they’re sensible people. This is, after all, the medical industry. And I love it. So why am I writing? Ah, you know me. I don’t write about things when I’m happy about them.

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A Real Local Celebrity

I was listening to the radio in the kitchen Saturday morning (because we have one of those kick ass radios that mounts under your cabinets and plays your iPod and stuff…) when the most interesting thing happened. I got annoyed. Yeah I know, it’s not seldom that happens. Anyway, this guy called in and was making a joke about one of the disk jockeys, so one of the hosts goes, “Tell him who you are!” to the guy on the phone. So of course our ears perk up and we get all excited, because there’s someone who is obviously very important on the phone.

It was the corny dog eating champ.

So this guy ate twelve corn dogs in like ten minutes and is obviously very proud of himself. And the hosts were asking him questions about eating corny dogs and whatnot. He’s answering them like he’s an authority on something. Get over yourself! You ate a dozen corny dogs at the state fair! I bet there are three people on my street who could beat that record, but you just happened to show up to the fair. And enter the contest. Fag.

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Interview With a Feminist

For a long time, I’ve been friends with Stella, who is a true, bona fide, self-proclaimed feminist. But we’ve never really talked about it. Most of what we talk about is about more important things, namely, things centered more around manly things. So what exactly is a feminist, and what do they believe in? Do they really honestly expect people to believe that women should be treated as man’s equal? Ha! Oh. Yeah, apparently they do. So we here at SpaceBrew, in the ever-endeavor to get to the bottom of humanity and its insane ways, have decided to do a little research into one of the biggest problems plaguing our civilization: the women’s liberation movement. (Sorry, Stella, my shift key broke there, or I’d have capitalized all that.)

So I sent some interview-like questions to Sean and she replied, myspace interview style, in an effort to better educate us. Ever the good sport, she didn’t get terribly upset at the insults I hurled at her. She just accepted that she is a woman, and therefore, my inferior, and sort of just took it in good spirit. Before posting this column, I actually allowed her to read all my parts as well as her answers, all in context. At the bottom of the column, I gave her a ‘final word’ area, where she can comment on anything that didn’t appear in the questions I sent her.

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