Sleep Clinic - part 1

Roger had a wonderful idea last year.  His parents went on a two week cruise.  They have a very nice 6 bedroom house.  So he was in charge of "looking after things" while they were on their trip.  Roger has never been good about saving money.  He usually needs to borrow money just to buy a taco.  But Roger hit gold.  He setup a fake Sleep Clinical Trial that lasted 2 weeks.  He had 6 "patients" that had their sleep monitored.  Some people were there because they had troubles sleeping.  So to prepare them for deep REM sleep they had various activities that were to assist them in aiding their sleep (lots of cleaning and removing weeds from the garden). 

There were other activities to not lead people on that this was a total fraud.  His parents also have 5 horses.  People were taking care of horses as a way to "connect with nature" and manure.  As to not make it look like people were gardening, cleaning and washing only, Roger put on two yoga classes.  He learned a AM Yoga session and a PM Yoga session from his mom's DVD collection.  He lead the class for 1/2 an hour every morning and night.  It was worth it.  I think @ $3,000 a person for 2 weeks @ 6 people = $18,000 he made out okay.  Plus when his parents came back the house was clean, de-weeded, and better than when they left.  Right?  Wrong.  Roger did blow six grand the last day throwing an all out party after his patients left and holds on checks had cleared the bank. 

So with our boss going on his two week vacation we had the idea to do the same as Roger.

Jake: "So do we break into Jerry's house or what?" 

Me: "Nah.  He's got a serious alarm system and nosy neighbors from what I hear.  Can't get past it.  I already tried with one of our interns to see if we could use Jerry's TV the last time he went out of town.  The intern did make it past the dogs."

Jake: "The big screen?"

Me: "Yeah."

Jake: "Where else?"

Ben: "We could have it here."

Jake: "In the office?"

Ben: "We just need to bring in some beds or cots and hide them during the day.  The sleep patients would only come at night.  We hook some fake monitors up to their heads and kick them out by 7.  People have to go to work any ways.  They probably need to go home and shower and get ready for work just like everyone else in the world."

Jake: "Yeah, we just won't have the whole day spa like Roger did.  We can use Jerry's office to hold the beds.  He'll be gone.  Perfect storage." 

Me: "What is our excuse that we are going to be still here past 5 o'clock when most people know we leave more around 4:30?"

Intern #2: "Leave like normal.  Have a pint.  Come back and check in your patients @ 9:00PM." 

Chief Intern Jim: "What time does the cleaners come by?"

Me: "ooh... good call.  Uh.  Jake you talk to the building manager and let them know we need the cleaners to be done with our office 8:30 because of..."

Intern #2: "Server changes?"

Ben: "Anthrax, err... Construction?"

Me: "Quit sniffing the envelopes with white powder.  No, just say server changes and lots of IT work will be going on at night and we'll have cabling and ceiling tiles on the floor and in the way."

Jake: "On it."

Employee Reviews

Employee Reviews are late this year.  We were supposed to do them in April so that raises could be posted in June.  But since everyone is so scarred about even keeping their job and no raises will be given any ways, reviews have been pushed back a wee bit.


Lurch's Interview:

Boss: "You're not Jake."

Intern #3: "I'm filling in for him today."

Boss: "Where is he?"

Intern #3: "He is in a meeting."

Boss: "What meeting?  This is a little more important right?"

Intern #3: "Its with a customer."

Boss: "So Jake sent you." 

Intern #3: "Yeah."

Boss: "And Jake is comfortable with you hearing about his personal review, salary, performance and goals?"

Intern #3: "He said his performance speaks for itself and that I should model after him." 

Boss: "..."

You can tell at this point boss man is trying to figure out how to handle this and put it to his advantage.  After a half an hour it looks like Lurch now has goals higher than anyone, more responsibility, more troublesome customers than before, and is giving up his every other Friday off. 

Lurch: "Man.  I wonder when they are going to schedule my review."

Me: "I wouldn't worry too much about it."



Ben's Interview:

Boss: "Hey Ben."

Ben: "Hello."

(high five)

Boss: "Good review."

Ben: "Thanks."

Our boss knows how much arsenal Ben has.  Ben is a workaholic any ways.  Don't fcuk with Ben.  He keeps bunnies that are dangerous enough to kill Steven Seagal, not Chuck Norris, but Steven Seagal.

Best... T-shirt... Ever

Silence is Golden

LAN Party results

(ring ring)

"Bob's boat shop, lemme check your hull"

"Bob?"

"Yeppers"

"Can you let me in?"

(buzz)

10 people carrying cables, consoles, computers, stereo equipment, booze, snacks and everything a college freshman hides in his dorm walks into the office. 

(1/2 an hour later)

"I hate to be a perfectionist but we better tape down these cables or we're gonna trip over them later when we are jumping around doing victory dances."

An intern points an electric hand held drill like a revolver.  "Screwing is good." 

"Yep.  But from what I hear from the ladies, you should stick to carpentry."

(another 1/2 hour later)

"These are some freakin' awesome homo cookies."

"There not homo cookies!  I just know how to bake!  That doesn't make me a homo!"

(2 hours later... and a bit of caffeine)

"Get the points!" 

"IswearI'llgetthepoints!  IswearI'llgetthepoints!  FrickfrickfrickFCUKFCUKFCUK!!!!"

(37 minutes later)

"You can not base jump from the inside of an office building."

"Yes you can!  If you blow out a window and open your shute with your back to the window the wind will just jerk you out of the building.  I swear I saw it on Myth Busters."

"You're a fcukin liar."

(40 minutes later)

"I betcha my Corolla could pull a jet ski."

"What good is that if you don't own a jet ski?"

"Well that is if I get a jet ski I won't have to buy a truck to tow it."

"I bet your Corolla couldn't even tow a mailbox." 

"I bet it could tow a car."

"What about sideways?"

(3 hours till people start showing up for work again)

"We're out of fire extinguishers.  We broke into the other offices on 6 and 7 and took all of those.  The rest of the fires will smolder out in another 20 minutes.  The fire department has the car outside taken care of."

"So same time next week?"

"Yeppers."

----

We kinda went overboard. There were small office fires (used to make smores), a broken window (for a base jumping experiment) , a car in the parking lot may have been overturned and lit on fire and some chickens are unexplainably floating around the building.  (Kinda reminds me of the movie The Hangover)

Small Minor Difference

Dave Attell:
"There is only a small difference between cuddling and holding someone hostage."

Geocaching

Got a couple hundred bucks, lots of spare time, walking shoes, keen eyesight and a sense of direction? No? Well... bummer. Then don't check out this website:

GeoCaching

What could be better than running around like a kid and hiding stuff for people to find?

Well, I borrowed a GPS unit from one of our interns. Nice gadget. I'll have to remember to return it to him.

I went in search of one of the items. Supposedly they even rank how easy it is to find this stuff. I went after something that was supposed to be relatively easy to find.

Well the Latitude/Longitude coordinates were smack on top of a bridge in a neighborhood. I said the only logical thing that could explain the possible hiding place of this ... whatever it is I'm supposed to be looking for.

"WTF?"

I check the railing along the bridge. Nope. No magnets holding anything on. I looked around the edges of grass along the road. Hmm... No man holes. heheheh.... man holes.

I finally wandered down under the bridge. And jolly rodger I found it!

A couple of used condoms and a half empty tub of Country Crock. Looks like I missed the party.
I will never do this again. Although I have been hiding stuff under bridges myself.

LAN Party coming up!

Everyone is gearing up for the upcoming LAN party. We are holding it at the office after hours. Of course, everyone has their own job for preparation: bring chips (intern #1), bring Cherry Coke Zero (intern #2), bring Mountain Dew (interns #3-7), etc... But others are preparing in other ways.

Ben is our resident gun nut. He pwns at every first person or third person shooter ever. So his strategy for the LAN party is sleeping a TON. The guy goes to be every night @ 8:00 PM.

Wayne is our resident music/movie/XBox fiend. His preparation is a caffeine driven one. He has cut out all caffeine from his diet in the last week. This way when he has all that Cherry Coke touch his tongue it will highten his senses to a blistering peak.

Lurch has secretly been playing the game of choice for the party like mad. He has downloaded every walkthrough, every hint and known strategy and is currently committing them all to memory. There is only one catch and we haven't told him about it yet.

We do not know what game we will be playing. Everyone is bringing their gear. And randomly we will chose which battle to play. There will be an Xbox, plenty of work machines ready for COD, Wii, and PS3.

Myself? I'm doing the beginner's luck strategy. I do my best when the game is fresh and new. After a few rounds I'll have my favorite spots depending on my game style and I'll own a couple headshots. So I've just been getting tennis elbow with some Wii. Hopefully the complete genre change will benefit me.

Cheers,

Random Observation - Hygiene

There are about 4 dozen people in our office; lots of cubicals, priveledged people get offices, receptionists, sales people, yadda yadda yadda. I'm guessing on average at least 3-4 people brush their teeth at work every morning. There are a couple reasons why. I've fallen into all of them unfortunately.

1. You used up the limit of possible extensions on your snooze alarm and rather than show up 5 minutes late you will take 10 minutes planning and executing a tooth brush run while at work.

2. This is gross. But the sink at work is cleaner than the sink at home. So you prefer to brush at home rather than unclog your home sink.

3. Monday morning meeting, or should I say Thursday afternoon meeting, requires pearly whites and fresh breathe.

Here's to your health!

Methane Gas Arguement

There is an argument going on right now about methane gas. Everyone knows that mass beef production produces a lot of methane. But did you know that the "meat industry produces more greenhouse gases than all the SUVs, cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the world combined." (Steinfield, 2006)

A funny line from Bill Maher said something to the effect: "It is better to eat a salad in your hummer than a cheeseburger in your hybrid."

A popular thing to do right now is to change your diet. Lots of people are urging everyone to eat more of a leafy diet. Of course, doing this in proportion might be the right idea but going full veggie is just wrong and I'll tell you why.

We had a young guy at the office fall for the vegan tattooed hottie at the burrito bar down the street. He changed from eating the triple steak beefuritto to the squash, zucchini, parsley and curry slammer. Poor guy. He went to the hospital a week later after changing his diet. Severe stomach and chest pain. Turns out it was gas build-up from his diet change. Now he takes beano with every meal, burns incents constantly and can't bench as much as he used to.

He's gotten pale. It is funny when a burger crosses his path. He looks insane and is intensively locked onto the meat like some twisted 100 year old vampire that still enjoys going to high school.



H. Steinfeld et al., Livestock's Long Shadow: Environmental Issues and Options, Livestock, Environment and Development (2006).

Unknown Network Located

Woot woot!

While setting up the interns new clos.., err, "office" they discovered a network port in the wall behind an old filing cabinet. When plugged in this takes you to a network not found within our office. Not sure on the details. Greg, or Craig, or whatever his name is, I call him cupcake :), is working on the details. But what we do know is that it has internet.

Short term plans: Turn old receptionist computer into Linux file sharing server of questionable material.

Cheerio,

New Interns

Our last interns didn't last a long time. Funny. I would have thought that not doing any real work would have kept them around a long time. We only made them wash our cars and go pick up lunch. Couldn't have been that bad, right?

Of the new lot of interns, Jim is our chief intern. Not because he is the oldest or smartest. He is designated as chief because he is the first to do any crap work. Jim had the fortunate job of assigning each intern to an actual employee today for the first of many new intern games.

Acidity Test
The Acidity Test is a test of the acid strength in your urine. How the challenge works is that your facilitator or intern monitors or is the caretaker of your individual urinal cake. The facilitator handles the urinal cake. The facilitator puts the cake in the urinal, removes it and stores it until the next usage.

All cakes are measured in size and determined density and mass at the beginning of the contest. At the end of the contest the employee with the urinal cake that has been deteriorated the most is declared the victor.

Prizes!
There should always be a prize at the end of every contest. Whether it is beer, money, a zip file with questionable contents or a razor (long story). This particular contest, being that we just got these people and we do not know much about them, we have decided that the winner gets to pick their intern. Especially if you think that your current intern is a pain. I'm guessing most will not try and pick Jim as he is Chief Intern and usually running errands all phreakin' day long for everyone in the office anyways.