A little something while my shorts dry

No, not the shorts you’re thinking of. My exercise shorts were just washed and are now in the dryer. Since I have some time before my walk to the library and my stint in the gym, I figured I’d blog a bit about stuff.

What stuff may you ask? I dunno, I’m just gonna ramble.

Worst. Transitional sentence. Ever.

Last weekend, the Jets lost yet another AFC Championship game. I’m not the biggest football fan, but I grew up watching the Jets. I also pull for the Giants (some old college buddies had my leaning their way) and everyone who is playing against the Cowboys.

It would have been nice to see the Jets in the bowl, seeing as how I’ve seen the Giants there a few times, Buffalo four times (those were sad days, when I liked the Bills) and those damned Colts once. I think Peyton Manning is a douchebag, but I can’t take away from his skills on the football field.

I’ll still be rooting for the Saints, in deference to one of the few coworkers I respect.

Baseball starts soon. Since the season is so long, I’ve promised Amy that I’ll stick to my usual baseball routine of ignoring everything but the standings until the All-Star Break, then listening to every Yankee game on my iPhone until they’re on free TV in the playoffs.

But hey, pitchers and catchers soon. Can’t wait to see how this new pitching rotation works out.

Speaking of the Yankees, I didn’t get the chance to comment on their World Series Championship. Because I’m lazy, and I was too busy being happy. Say what you want, but the Yankees are another team I grew up with, and it’s always fun to see them play.

They’re coming to Arlington to play the Rangers in August. I plan on taking Amy and sitting in the outfield seats that come with food. Not a bad deal for $40/ticket.

Typically those seats are $35. The two Yankee games are considered “premium games,” which nets an extra $5 for most seats. So even in Dallas, home of the most overrated quarterback in history, they know who people are really coming to see.

Yes, I’m taking potshots at Tony Romo. No, I don’t care.

I’ll Howl again soon enough. Work has become extra stressful. I’m the only team lead on first shifts on the weekend, so I have more to worry about. I’ve also been asked to take more calls, though I thought I’d been managing the call volume successfully.

One of the other accounts just finished up. Nearly all of our overflow agents were with that queue, and they’re all gone now. Including our one Spanish speaking overflow agent. Net overflow agents for the majority of the day: one.

I’m currently seeking better employment. I can do nothing but take phone calls elsewhere for more money. I’m miserably underpaid, more than most people think they are. People I’m responsible for make more money than I do. Which sucks.

What doesn’t suck is exercise. I’ve turned into quite the gym rat. Which has turned my calves into gelatin. New shoes will be necessary, and soon.

Over in the sidebar my DailyMile exercise posts should load. If you follow my Twitter (@attackman) or have me as a Facebook friend, you’ll see them there as well. If you don’t see them for a while, let me know. It means I’m slacking off.

The dryer should be done soon, which means I can walk to the library to acquire the book Flatland, a wonderful science fable. I’ll then head over to the workout room and bust it for 30 minutes on the elliptical.

I would have gone in dirty shorts (eww) but the iPad announcement was this morning. Yes, I want one, but it’s not an immediate must have for me. Not waiting for any features, just the money and maybe a better job so I can consider spending money on things like this.

All morning people have whined about the iPad not having Flash. This will be the last time I say this: Flash sucks. We allowed one company to have control over web content, and they’ve failed to keep up. They continue to make poor software, forcing you to watch your processor melt to watch a video. And it’s not the video that is killing your playback, it’s the Flash container.

I use Weight Watchers eTools on my Mac, which is a Flash app on their website. They have a decent mobile app made in HTML and AJAX, but it doesn’t have all the necessary features. They could implement everything in a nice looking, proper web app, but I gather their devs are lazy.

I looked at the CPU usage for this app earlier. Flash Player, with nothing going on, was eating 5% of my cycles. Anything that requires that much CPU to idle is crap.

John Gruber has a great breakdown of this terrible tech over at Daring Fireball, which is currently pretty trafficky. I guess everyone would rather listen to him, even though he hasn’t said much yet. Here’s the article.

There, now I won’t have to subject Amy to the rest of the rant I started ten minutes ago. Sorry, love. Does Austin have a speaker’s corner?

Time to split. Later cats and kittens.

Life enema

I’ve been cleaning my life out for a while now. I’m getting married. I use an online To-do service. I funnel everything through my Mac and iPhone.

I turn 28 in just over a week. I tend to get depressed when this time rolls around. Couple getting older with holiday stress and a lack of light, you start to see where I’m coming from.

The goal right now is to keep up with my yoga and weight loss and not let another birthday get the better of me. I plan to achieve this goal.

I’ve also decided to put in for a different job at work. I don’t intend to do phone support for the rest of my life. My manager and my primary account’s Service Delivery Manager both don’t want this for me, but they don’t intend to stop me from trying. I’ll keep everyone posted.

It is nearly three AM now. Amy is snoring next to me. I have too many iPhone apps installed. I need to work on that tomorrow.

Just another part of the enema I’m giving my life. More later

Random ramblings

Really just felt like writing a little bit of nothing tonight. It’s been a while since I’ve done one like this, with no real ideas or direction. It’s just me and the PowerBook and some band called Sloan.
Really strange day. I was up early, which I’ve been doing for whatever reason, work or not. I’m more sleep deprived than usual, but my body seems to want to wake up around 8 AM. I don’t know why. It’s baffling me to no end.
Happy 30th birthday Apple. This is from a guy that used to hate you, so you’ve certainly done something right in the last three decades.
My trip to Dallas was loads of fun. I miss Amanda terribly. I’ve gained weight since then, but that’s my own dumb fault. I’ll update you cats on that when I actually make some progress.
Got to see Night Watch when I was out there. Amazing flick. Amanda hears from someone else playing L2 in Russia that the sequel is great.
Strangely enough, a song that Amanda sent me ages ago has started playing. Insanity. Jebus, I miss that girl.
I cleaned my room today. Though you all might like to know. It looks pretty nice. I even got another set of plastic drawers. A lot has actually changed since the pictures I posted to Flickr. I might make some new ones with the iSight soon enough.
I’m on MySpace now. Found some people that I haven’t spoken to in ages, including Melissa and Pat. Melissa, she who provided the aformentioned Sloan music, was one of my writers back when I was an editor on the YHS Voice. That used to be a damn fine student publication. Pat was probably my best friend in high school. I haven’t seen him in nearly five years, which just goes to show what a heel I am. I should be seeing Pat soon. Not sure if I’ll get a face to face with Melissa. Don’t know if I’m “indie” enough to draw her out of her cave ;)
ECWA Super 8 this weekend. Going to be peeping it with Ted and his current squeeze, who happens to be a fan from Philly. Strange frigging world, eh?
Anyone else see Lost this week? That could be the trippiest ending to a TV episode since Twin Peaks was on the air. Won’t spoil it, if you haven’t watched it. I’m nice like that and shit.
Well, I’d like to think I am.
Really, I do :)
I think I’ve done enough old school babbling for one night. Reminds me of the old SlashDot journal days, much of which is now archived here, for your reading (torture?) pleasue (pain?). Enjoy yourselves, but not too much. And don’t splooge on my PowerBook.

Opera, Plague, Queen, Ring of Honor, Starvation

Just not really in that order :)
So here I am, still alive and kicking.  Somehow.  I think bubonic was going 
around at work, so everyone got sick.  Those of us with the decency to suck 
it up and still go to work get hammered by extra calls while sitting in the 
bubonic petri dish for eleven hours.  God, I hate people.
I’m sure it could be worse though.  Not sure how exactly, but I’m sure it 
could be worse.
Oh, and for those curious, it’s certainly not bubonic.  Whenever I get sick 
I just think of the worst possible thing that I could
have.  That’s the disease I get.  When it turns out not to be that, and I get 
better and not dead, I feel a little better inside.
Remember kids: lowered expectations isn’t a bad thing.  Assume each 
night that you’ll be dead by morning.  When you wakeup alive, 
it’s a small victory and self-esteem boost.
Unless you want to die.  I can’t help you at that point.  Best wishes on 
death, though.
In slightly less morbid news, there’s a new Opera preview out.  It’s 
quite good.  I’ve been using Opera since Firefox was merely a 
gleam in the Mozilla developers’ eyes, and have always 
found it to be superior.  Your mileage may vary.
Although, comparing Opera to Firefox 1.5 (with it’s terrible memory 
leaks) is like comparing sex to hitting yourself over the
head with a brick.  Repeatedly.  While a dwarf chews on your testicles.
I digress.  Check out Opera if you’re interested. The current stable version (8.51) is also really good and works on nearly every platform known to man.  And woman, etc.
Queen rock.  I’ve got nearly all their singles neatly organized on my PC now, and the bit they did with the Queen song in Shawn of the Dead was rather sweet.  Nothing like classic Glam Rock.
Okay, fine, you got me.  While I do love Queen and all, I really just needed a Q to fit the title scheme.
I know it’s been a long time since the last posting.  And since I came up with a coherent transition.  Leave me alone, it’s been a while.  I’m sure the five of you that actually happen across this site from time to time want to know what I’ve been up to since September.  After the trip, I started looking for better work. Found it at Time Warner Cable, doing Tier Three Tech support for their busted-ass internet service.  I also ate a lot, gaining back much of the weight I lost.  It was tough
trying to get to a meeting at 10:30 on a Saturday morning.  So I stopped trying. And I started eating.  At CheeseCake Factory.  And McDonalds.  A lot.
The eating got worse after I started at Time Warner.  Working late, all that’s open are fast food places.  So lots of nasty fast food beef went into my body.  A lot.
When I wasn’t eating or working, I was immersing myself in wrestling. I went to a lot of ROH shows in the last five months.
Almost one a month.  Boston in September, NYC in October, Edison in December, Philly in January.  I’ll be headed to Edison
this month and Philly in March.  I’ll be missing a HUGE match in NYC next 
month to travel again.  It’s well worth it though.
My primary entertainment source (outside of WoW, which will be discussed later) has been wrestling DVDs.  I’ve seen almost the entire first year of ROH.  I’m starting to get into Full Impact Pro and Ohio Valley Wrestling.  And there’s a bunch of good looking WWE DVD releases forthcoming (which beats their crappy TV shows any day of the week).
Watching all this wrestling has inpired me in my second quest for weight loss.  Lost 50 pounds last year before starting to binge eat again.  This year, I’m losing nearly 100.  And I’m going to keep it off dammit.  Cruiserweight, here I come!
I’m back at Weight Watchers, doing the Core plan.  I don’t count points.  I eat a bunch of foods that I like, to the point where I’m satified (not bloated).  I can eat stuff not on my list if I ding point for it, up to a total of 35 points per week (which is how I had a slice of pizza tonight).  I lost over six pounds my first week out.  This is better than last year.  Here’s a nifty chart to keep you cats posted on my weight loss:

weight loss chart

Hey, if worms are good enough for the Boogieman, they’re good enough for me too. The chart will become more readable as I lose more weight (my starting weight and my current weight overlap in this snapshot).
I’ll be back soon to talk about WoW, the latest Linux mishaps, work and more weight loss news.  Hasta lumbago all!