Hold onto your hearts ladies as you take a gander at these three hotties.
The elusive blue footed boobie.
In a recent meeting my technical lead on the MonsterOfAllProjects told me "It's not important that you know what you're doing. It's only important that you do it correctly." He was referring to my numerous questions about HOW THIS THING WORKED.
The shift from Quality Assurance to Project Management is a bit weird in this. I'm going from needing a full understanding of the process in order to bugger the hell out of it expose its weaknesses to needing to know absolutely nothing about the process. It was explained to me thusly:
Tech Lead: "Tell us what you're putting in and tell us what you want to come out. The rest is ours."Me: "Wait a sec. 'The rest' is what I'm used to dealing with."
Tech Lead: "Not any more. Mwah hah hah hah hah!!"
The evil laugh might have been a tad shorter but that was essentially how the conversation went. So now I have to change my wall sign from "If you build it, it will crash" to "Garbage in, garbage out".
3 points to the first person who can correctly identify why this is a shocking drink order. Specifically, why is it shocking that Bond orders a martini this way?
This is the year for me meeting bloggers. Last year I met one fellow blogger - Trey Givens. That worked out so well you'd have thought I'd have been jumping in front of cars just to meet some more. Or just for the adrenaline rush. Things didn't turn out that way though. Most of my online friends live far, far away and it turns out my insurance has a problem with the whole jumping in front of cars thing.
This year is turning out very different.
I've already met Elizabeth and Clancy and had a blast with them. In just a couple of weeks I'll be in the presence of blog queen Margi. This summer we'll be barbequing with Boudicca and her three boys (And sister? She's invited too, Bou.) Later this year I'm hoping very much to be able to get together with Simon, RP and my very favoritest blogstress in the world Helen.
And all of this without attending a blogmeet. How's that for awesome?
I had a long meeting scheduled today. It is for a program asset database - a central location for all documentation, references and all information on every program we own, build or use. The idea started small and has been growing daily as more and more departments think of information that they want to store.
Today's meeting was to go over the high level requirements and get a basic development strategy. This way a decent development estimate could be made and we could take that to the Legion of Doom executive review board for cost approval. It was going to be a hellabad meeting.
I got there a few minutes early as usual. I set up the laptop, got on the network and hooked up to the overhead projector. I even plugged into the wall since the meeting was probably going to go longish and I didn't want to deal with any battery issues or that incredibly irritating screen-dimming.
People started arriving. The Vice President of Development. A Director of Application Development. Another Director of Application Development. The Vice President of Product & Quality Assurance. It dawned on me that I had all of the top people* responsible for all of our product development together in one room**. That's how big the scope for this program had become. I would have been nervous but my flight/fight reflex had landed firmly in fight mode.
Conferences are business meetings taken to the ultimate level of inefficiency.
April 26, 2005
Gwinnett County
Board of Assessors
75 Langley Drive
Lawrenceville, GA 30045
Re: Appeal of Gwinnett County Board of Assessors Property Reassessment
Dear Sir or Madam:
I received a "Notice to Taxpayer" regarding the appraised value of my home. This notice shows that you have reappraised my home at [$Governor's Mansion] compared to the prior year value of [$Single Family Ranch]. While I would certainly love to have a home that raises in value this quickly my unfortunate reality is that my home has not increased in value by 16% since the time I purchased it less than a year ago.
If an actual inspection to assess my property were to reveal this startling increase in value I would be more than happy to sell it and realize a tidy return on my one year investment. Judging by the house on the next lot that has remained unsold for over two years as well as the frequent utility outages in the neighborhood I fear that my dreams of a quick profit are for naught.
Please accept this letter as my official appeal of the County assessed value of my property. I apologize for any irregularity in my missive but the phone number provided in the Notice has been constantly busy since I first received it so I have been unable to verify exactly what is needed in this letter. Perhaps other taxpayers are taking exception to their own reassessed values?
Sincerely,
James R Peacock
In three weeks the Peacock Clan (Atlanta Division) will be traipsing off to Spokane, Washington to attend my Lil' Bro's wedding. We've (by "we" I mean "Lovely Wife") been preparing for the festivities, including buying clothes to wear for the ceremony. Well, no clothes for me as I've got my Fabulous Interview Suit(tm) but outfits for the three boys and Lovely Wife. This shopping was completed just this past weekend.
Yesterday my Lovely Wife IM'd me that she was thinking of bringing back her skirt and shoes. She's got an old skirt and old shoes that could still be serviceable and she really, really wanted to pick up Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events on it's Tuesday release.
Let me rephrase that: I am married to a woman who would rather have a Jim Carrey movie than a new skirt and shoes.
So I ask you again: Am I the luckiest guy in the world, or what?
Postscript: I surprised her with the movie last night for a birthday present so don't y'all worry about her taking those shoes back.
The rules:
- In the extended entry are quotes from 13 movies. Your job is to identify the movie that each quote came from.
- Guess as many times as you want, just don't get silly about it.
- First person to correctly guess each entry gets a point. If there are any left after 24 hours they are worth 2 points.
- As people guess the films I will strike out those entries and note who got it first.
- NO cheating!!! That means NO: Google, IMDb, searching my archives etc.!
UPDATE: Holy crap on a stick! I accidentally posted the unedited final version instead of the edited correct version the first time around. If you saw the first version with the answers included please be a sport and sit this one out.
Sounds dirty, doesn't it? Well it is!
I found the Draw a Pig Personality Test over at AAAVelociman's joint.
Meet SnoozePig!
You are a realist. You believe in tradition, are friendly, and remember dates (birthdays, etc.)You are emotional and naive, care little for details and are a risk-taker.
You are secure, stubborn, and stick to your ideals.
The size of the ears indicates how good a listener you are. The bigger the better. You drew large ears, you are a great listener!
The length of the tail indicates the quality of your sex life. And again more is better! You drew large tail, WOW!
It's frightening just how accurate these things are.
The good news is my inbox is down to 19 items.
The bad news is that 14 of them are flagged for follow-ups. Yuck.
Write a caption for the picture. Win fabulous prizes!*
The contest will be open until some time next week.
* Best caption gets 5 points with another handful thrown around to the rest of the best.
The Good: I had a conference call about the project I went to Denver for. At the end of the call I received kudos from two Senior VPs and the Product Owner. It's a good thing I don't normally wear a hat because there's no way it would fit right now.
The Bad: Remember The History of Sales and Technology? A meeting earlier today took that it one step further.
Cave Salesman: And by the way, we'll need that club perfectly balanced.Cave Techguy: Perfect balance? You're talking about technology we don't even have yet!
Cave Salesman: What's so hard about balancing a club?
Cave Techguy: Well to get perfect balance on a club I'm going to have to invent the lathe and to get a lathe I have to invent gears and to get gears I have to invent the freaking wheel. You're talking about technology that we are three generations away from!
Cave Salesman: Okay, as long as I get the club by Tuesday.
The Ugly: My email inbox is bloated like Michael Moore at an all you can eat Twinkiefest.
It looks like PayPal is finally getting some competition. GreenZap is now taking pre-registrations for their Summer 2005 launch. Pre-register now and your account will start with a $25 balance.
Better yet, pre-register through the link above and I'll get a $5 referral bonus too! Woo hoo!
Even without the free start-up and referral cash I'm keen on a non-eBay-owned money transfer system. And since they're just starting up there's the side bonus of 100% less phishing, account theft and fraudulent emails compared to your eBay account. Can't beat that with a stick.
In this post I posed the following question:
Once is luck,Twice is coincidence,
Three times is a charm,
What is four times?
The clues I gave to the correct answer were that it was work related, I came up with this in a business meeting and that the answer could be gleaned from my previous posts about work. The correct answer is "Four times is a process".
I was hired here as a QA Specialist and the vast bulk of my first months was spent designing and implementing processes for Development. For the last month I've been designing and implementing processes for Project Management as well as taking on my own Business Analysis and Project Management tasks. I came up with this little saying during a meeting on those processes to make a point that it isn't enough to say what we are going to do and how we are going to do it. We actually have to DO IT like that and we can't consider it a success process until it has been verified by actual repetitive successes.
If anybody has any experience with change management (getting people to do something differently than they have been) you probably have a fair idea of how difficult it can be to get people to "follow the plan". It's where the term "herding cats" comes from.
Anyway, there were some great guesses and points shall be awarded!
Third Place (1 point): vw bug Four times is... one partner too many.Second Place (3 points): Oorgo
Four times is... repetitious.First Place (5 points): shank
Four times is... the fine line between persistence and harrasment.
And a bonus point each for the folks who tried to find the business angle:
vw bug for ...only good for brainstorming.knpepper for ...a project plan complete with willing project sponsor;
a real budget with real money; and real target audiences.Wendy for ...a contract.
Helen for ...a promotion.
The aftereffects of SnoozeBob Day will last for months. Or weeks maybe. Days? Okay, the aftereffects pretty much fizzled away mere moments after SnoozeBob Day ended.
But the points remain!
Here are the points awarded for the many guest posts:
1 point for Most painfully honest post goes to Lovely Wife for "Have I?"2 points for Most blatant link whorage goes to Rob for "Do I still have time?"
3 points for Best impersonation of one of Jim's posts goes to pylorns for "Movie Quotes Time"
1 point for Post exposing the truth about French culture goes to Rob for "Because I always do as Jim orders"
2 points for Funniest depressing post goes to shank for "While the Cat's Away..."
-1 point for Post causing Jim the most real pain goes to dafyd for "Annoying German Pop"
1 point for Best combination of high tech and reprodutive organs goes to Dave for "C'est l'Oorgo, oui!"
5 points for Post exposing the most mangina goes to diamond dave for "Always wanted to ask this..."
My thanks to all of the guest posters!
Yesterday's meeting in Denver was a Technology support effort for a current partnership arranged by Sales and Marketing. Our initiative is to exploit utilize our partner's services while they do the same with ours. This meeting was about them using our technology.
Did I mention that this business relationship was built by Sales and Marketing?
As in, the only knowledge of our products and services was from salesmen.
It was an interesting meeting and it brought to mind an ancient anecdote about The History of Sales and Technology.
Cave Salesman: Hey, what's the deliverable on one of those new clubs?Cave Techguy: Two weeks for the standard model. Three to five for customized models.
Cave Salesman: Two weeks?! No way. It's only a club.
Cave Techguy: It's only a club? Look, I've got to locate an appropriate tree, chop it down, cut off an appropriate limb, shape it, fire harden it...
Cave Salesman: Well I already sold it and delivery is next Tuesday.
Cave Techguy: I told you - it takes at least two weeks!
Cave Salesman: I don't see why. It's only a club.
Things worked out well once we clarified a bit of what we can and can't do.
When we took our walk through Millenium Park in Chicago we saw one of Chicago's finest. On a Segway. With a bright orange reflective safety vest, like the crossing guards wear.
You pretty much lose all of your Cool Cop points if you are on a Segway.
Update: Thanks for playing! SnoozeBob is back in his cage.
I'm off to Denver today so I've brought Snoozebob out to play!
Snoozebob comes around when I am especially lazy am so burdened by other committments that I can't attend to my normal bloggish duties and he throws the doors open for y'all to abuse the Snooze guest post. It's easy as pie. Just go here and log in with username and password "snoozebob".
The door will be open until tomorrow morning. You can post just about whatever you want as long as it isn't spammy or overtly francophilish. There are a couple of things to remember though:
- Don't do something so stupid that I or one of my proctors will have to ban your ass.
- Put your name in there so we know who wrote what. In the title is the best place, as a header or in closing work too.
- If you have a blog don't forget to
whore it out hereinclude a link. - For the category, please choose "SnoozeBob".
Enjoy!
(This post will stay at the top as long as open posting is enabled.)
POINTS: When I close guest posting I'll hand out some points based on which posts I thought were the funniest/most meaningful/bestest. It might be in categories or an overall list - not sure at the moment.
To make ammends for my earlier posting?
No?
Well then let me tell the world (or at least the 60% of the world that reads Jim's site) about the amazing eBay challenge. Anyone can enter (provided you have an Bay seller account) and the closing date for entries is the 26th April.
Basic intro can be found here and you may wish to peruse the rules.
Rob (XSet.co.uk)
Have I also mentioned lately how annoying I find some of you?
Not to mention obnoxious and irritating??
Yeah,needed to be said,sorry.:-)
LW
What movies have made you hyper-macho manly guys cry (since the age of 12 or so, besides Old Yeller)? Or at least watery-eyed, if not out-and-out bawling?
C'mon, don't be shy, let's show the ladies that there really are sensitive men out there!
And ladies, if your men are too ashamed to admit so, how about enlightening us with some of your hunky mate's tearjerking moments?
I'll tell you some of mine if you tell me some of yours:
Ok, fine, I'll stop with the French.
Do you ever wonder what people are thinking when they steal someone's cellphone and then stick it up their vagina? Yeah, I do, I also wonder what happens next... do they then whistle to try and cover up the *bring* from their no-no region?
What were they going to do once they got home with the thing, were they going to use it to call their friends? Sell it? Give it as a gift? Let their friends borrow it and then say "You're talking into my twat!" then laugh hysterically?
I could probably go on for hours in this vein, but I'll let someone post, and just sign off saying "Happy Snoozebob Day!".
Oh, I almost forgot the inevitable whoring
Technically, this isn't francophile - more germophile (hmm... I like that word).
I just want to make sure that everyone gets to share in the phenomenon that is Schnappi - the small Egyptian crocodile that's taking Germany (and Rob) by storm!
Check out his single, and then the remixes...
NB: Dafyd* does not claim any reponsability for any loss of sanity incurred by listening to Schnappi. Listen at your own risk.
*Here there be whoring
I had one of those days yesterday where, if it was a movie, you would have laughed your ass off. Instead, it was real and you came this close to turning off the safety on that AK you keep in your bottom desk drawer.
I came into the office at 7am. Got situated and walked out my door to get a drink from down the hall. As soon as I step outside my office, the woman who ALWAYS bugs me about my ID badge is standing there: "You GOTTA wear that badge." I push out something resembling a laugh, but really, I wanted to cry - the blasted water fountain is fifteen feet from my door. It was the equivalent of the observation that somebody's got a case of the Mondays.
I get back to the office and realize I don't have the keys to unlock the file cabinet under my desk. Crap. I walk to the car, no keys. Check my shoulder bag, no keys. I sit there for a few minutes and decide to break the lock on the filing cabinet. The cabinet is one of those modular deals that slides out from the desk, but it sits on a little wooden frame. So I pull it out from under the desk, and it slides off the wooden frame. Crap. The thing weighs like 80lbs, so I have to squat and lift it fromt he floor back onto the frame. In all the heaving and hoing, I eventually get it back on the base and under the desk. Which is when I realize that in all that grunting, I had COMPLETELY forgotten to pop the lock off. Crap. Again. And it's not even 8:30am.
So, I pull it back out and it of course slides off it's base. Incidentally, it sliced my finger at the cuticle too; insuring that I was indeed completely awake at this point. So I wrap my wound in a napkin and secure it with a little scotch tape (office first aid, I earned that merit badge at the management retreat last fall). I pull the panel off the top of the cabinet, remove the cotter pin that holds the lock in place, punch the lcok core out, and release the lever locking all the drawers in place. With all this racket, I was beginning to draw the attention of a few passers-by.
I lift the heavy bastard back on it's base and slide everything under my desk. I'm sweating. That's when I get a call from one of the nursing units. Apparently a pipe above them in the hematology room had busted, and salt water was leaking through the ceiling onto people, computers, and filling light fixtures. It was like that all day yesterday.
And so I have tried very hard to ensure this post is neither french or spammy ...
(Rob from XSet)
Results: Pylorns has posted the answers. The only one that nobody got was #3, Gold Finger. Here are the folks who won points (1 per each correct answer):
Helen: #5 and #9
Tiffani: #4
tommy: #2, #6 and #8
Rob: #10
Clancy: #1 and #7
Ok I'll let Jim award the points when I get back. 10 movie quotes for your guessing enjoyment. And don't google them or I'll come to your house and take a dump on the hood of your car. Name the movie, and preferably the actor th