Vacation and Ipods...

Well the spam seems to have stopped now that I added those squiggly words to the comment section. Guess the robots aren’t as smart after all.

Been at work for over 3 hours and have yet to do a single thing. I have read a bunch on FARK and played some on Wikipedia (which is like one of the best sites ever), but I haven’t gotten any work done. I’m kinda boycotting it. I don’t want to be here so I am just going to do nothing until they realize that they don’t actually need me. And then hopefully I will be able to go back to the main office rather than being on site. Plus, its like Friday anyway. I am headed out of town tonight for thanksgiving break. Taking Wednesday and Friday off for a 5 day weekend. That should be nice. I am headed south for the break, hopefully it will be warmer down there – checked the forecast and it looked like only in the 60’s. booooooo.

Lately I keep reading about the Ipod thefts on the Metro… one piece of advice given was to not use the standard white head phones… Do the people stealing these only go after iPods? One would think that any mp3 player would do. Yeah, the iPods are like the big thing or whatever, but are thieves really that picky? I don’t have an iPod… I just have a normal mp3 player. It wasn’t cheap when I got it, you could have gotten some iPods for cheaper. Wouldn’t a thief want one like mine? I don’t think that just using non-white headphones is going to stop anyone from getting robbed. If someone wants my mp3 player badly enough, I guess they are going to get it. Whatever though, I’d rather someone take that than my cell phone or PDA. All they would get from taking my mp3 player is some music, but I would feel violated if they got something with peoples phone numbers and addresses… oh man that would suck.

That’s all I got for now.
-DCR

Holy Spam

wow. I haven't had the chance to post in a while. I come back and like every post has spam comments. awesome... Do people actually think that these comments are real and that this person just happens to have a link that they may enjoy? What the hell? At least I know the spam robots are reading this. ha. Don't have much time to type anything now. I really gotta work on posting more. I will do that tomorrow.

-DCR

Work Internet: I hate you.

So just started at a new fed agency... they have even more rules than the last. At this new one I can't even check e-mail. Nothing besides my gov account works. blah. I would like to be able to at least check my company email. Oh no, can't do that. I just hate the damn gov rules. Whatever, while I am working there (which shouldn't be for more than a week longer) I will follow their rules. Even though I am depressed everyday when I wake up and realize I have to go to work. At least this weekend I am going on vacation till Monday night. So I don't have to work on Monday. And then Tues I have to give training to the rest of my office because I am the only one that knows how to use this retarded program. Its so easy, but its such a pain to use that nobody ever bothers to learn it. But having people in the company other than me knowing how to use it -- that would be a great selling point and would help us win some more contracts. Guess I'm the lucky one who gets to teach everyone... whatever. At least I won't have to do all the work with the program once I teach someone else. So 3 days next week at the job I hate. I can deal with that.

OK enough complaining for tonight. Bed time.

- DCR

A month later...

Holy it’s been a while since I have posted on here. I guess I’ve been really busy at work, and I don’t really think to post when I am home. I’m going to try and start posting more… Here are some random thoughts:

• I wonder what happened to the homeless lady on the corner? There used to be this homeless lady that was always on the corner down the street from me, she hasn’t been out there in a while. Wonder if she found a better home.
• Went to Clarendon day this past weekend – good times. Like blocktoberfest but better. Less people, but still fun stuff and beer.
• Blocktoberfest was a good time. It’s a fun challenge to see how many girls numbers you can get. Got 5, but only called one back. Whatever.
• Whats up with the 4 car trains on the metro during rush hour? Ugh, I hate being so squished in that I can’t move.
• Do I look like I know where I am going? About twice a week I get stopped and someone asks for directions. Chances are I have no idea how to get there. Plus I have my headphones on, these people actually stop the person listening to music, and not the other people who don’t have headphones on… oh well, I’m sure I’ve given someone the wrong directions
• 3 times this past month there have been lots of cops outside my apartment. Once was for a murder. The guy died across the street from me. The other 2 I don’t know what they were for, but lots of cops and the street was closed one night.
• I love Peapod. I order groceries online during work, they deliver them to your door the next day. Can’t beat that.
• I’m not too happy that its getting dark early now. Yeah, I know its gonna happen, but doesn’t mean I have to like it. I think when I’m rich I’m going to switch hemispheres in the winter and summer.
• Bought a Washington post the other day at a news stand. Paid with 50 cents. Got back 13 cents. I didn’t think there was tax on the news paper. Didn’t notice it till I got home though. I just figured the lady was being a bitch and giving me change in pennies cause she knows I hate them. Ha.
• I have too much cereal. Whenever it goes on sale at CVS I buy it. But I don’t eat it as fast as I buy it. I need to stop.
• I shop at CVS too much in general.
• LOST is the best show on TV right now.
• Commander in Chief is pretty good too.
• Kinda cool to see things in DC on TV. (been here only a year)
• Saw a trivia question the other day asking where the Pentagon was located. VA, duh!
• Powerball is $340 million now, shoulda played today. I would retire if I won. I wonder who wouldn’t retire if they won that much? Hell, I would retire if I won 10 million.

Craigslis... Again

OK, so I was giving away something on Craigslist the other day and I got a whole bunch of e-mails. This didn't surprise me cause hey, its free. who doesn't want free stuff. I offered to meet people downtown if they wanted or they would have to come pick it up in Crystal City. Some people said they wanted it and then backed out for some reason or another. But some of these people were askin me to like meet them 20-30 min from my place. I'm like I'm not gonna drive an hour out of my way to give you something FREE. I hate to be a dick to people that don't deserve it but these people are asking me to take a lot of my time to give them something for free. The way I look at it is that I am doing them a favor by offering something for them that they can use. I could sell it, I could throw it out. But no, I am trying to help someone else out and give them something that I don't need anymore. Would it be that hard for them to come meet me in downtown. I might add that downtown is totally out of my way home, but its not too far out of my way, if its close to the metro its cool. I don't mind going a few min out of my way during my commute, but to drive like 40 min isn't worth it to me - id rahter throw it out. ok anyway thats all I got.

If someone is giving something out for free on Craigslist don't expect them to do you a favor to deliever it to you. They are already doing you a favor by giving it out for free.

Im kinda drunk so this post prob makes no sense and has a lot of typos.

-DCR

Bathroom Etiquette

I read a post this morning about talking on the phone while in the bathroom and it got me thinking about all the things that people do in the bathroom that bother me.

- People who talk to you. It's one thing to have a conversation going when you walk into the bathroom and just keep talking a little, but the people who come in and start talking to you while you're pissing... just don't do that.

- The people who can't seem to shut the water all the way off. Its not difficult, turn the knob till its off.

- Leaving paper towels on the floor. If one falls, pick it up. Don't cause your laziness to make the bathroom look like shit for everyone else.

- How hard is it to stand close enough to the toilet so you don't piss on the floor?

- What’s up with the people who just rinse their hands off and don't use soap? Are you trying to trick people into thinking you wash your hands? At least the people who walk right out aren't faking anything.

- OK, I realize that you may not like your job, but don't leave for 20 min everyday and go sit on the toilet and read. (A guy I used to work with did this)

- When there are other options, don’t use the urinal next to someone. That’s like off limits.

- Don't touch someone while they are peeing. (this hasn't happened to me, but I'm sure someone has done it)

- When you finish reading your paper after you shit please take it with you or throw it out. We don't need your newspaper making the bathroom messy.

- FLUSH. Especially when you take a shit. Its not tough, and its fuckin gross not to.

- Don't talk to the person next to you in the stall, and don't carry on conversations with people outside the stall when you're takin a shit.

- Please stop making those weird noises. Gross.

-DCR

Random Blog

I found this blog today on DCblogs.com. It is one of the best and funniest blogs I have ever read. It's tough to read it at work and not laugh my ass off, but that might be a dead giveaway that I',m not doing work considering the shit that I have to do today isn't funny at all... I think I'll have it all read by the end of the day. Whoever writes it is one funny fucker.

Craigslist

I recently discovered the Rants and Raves section on Craigslist. It is one of the best time wasters I have come accross. Its almost better than FARK for wasting time. OK thats all I have for today.

Addition To My Apartment

When I was a kid I always remember wanting a pool table, but never really had a room big enough for it. Or I guess enough money to get one either… Just recently me and my roommates rearranged the apartment and found that we had a lot of free space in our living room and we thought it would be a good idea to get a pool table. Within a week, after lots of browsing on Craigslist, we had a pool table. Its pretty nice one, 3 piece slate, about 7 ft long. The only problem with it is that 3 of the bumpers are kinda dead – Which isn’t a big deal because it’s not all that expensive to replace them. We’re having a “party” towards the end of September so we’ll need to get them replaced before then, but they don’t hurt play that much for now.

I have to say though that even after having the table for a few weeks – I still haven’t gotten any better. I know how to play, where I need to hit the balls and all that, I just can’t seem to carry it out. That’s ok because I can play for free whenever I want. Someday I’ll get better…

This past weekend me and one of my roommates played about 12 games of 9-ball and then decided to go out to the bars. Got to this one place which has a bunch of pool tables – sure enough, we played pool. Not really sure what the point of going out was if we just did the same thing that we could have done at home. For free. I guess that playing new people and just hanging out in a bar is more fun that sitting home playing pool. It’s just so damn expensive to go out. $3 for a pint of Miller Light, while not awful, isn’t a great price considering you can get a case for $15. Just the price of going out I guess.

One of my favorite places to go out is this place in Adams Morgan called Asulym. It’s a really laid back place (no dress code at all). But the best part of it is that you can go on Sat nights at 5 and get a pint of High Life for 25 cents. It goes up 50 cents every hour ‘till it reaches $3. But by the time that happens I’m usually drunk so I don’t need much more. I enjoy going there to pregame and then heading somewhere else. It’s like the only place I know of that its cheaper to go out and drink than it is to stay at home.

On a totally unrelated note – the stores around me seem to have stopped carrying Coke Zero. This is kinda disappointing to me because now I’ve gotta either drink Diet Coke or go around and find a store that sells my Coke Zero. I think I’ll find a store that sells it, cause Diet Coke tastes bad.

-DCR

Best Of Craigslist

I haven't had any time to post lately. But here is something I read on Craigslist today. It was on the best of Craigslist. There is some funny stuff on there.

-DCR

Just Trying To Read My Book

Alright, well I'm not at work today so therefore I don't have much time to write anything. Weird how that works - I'm not at work and I have less time. It's fine though because this post here from Blackberry Debutantes pretty much sums up what I was going to post anyway.

I was on my way home two days ago and I get the Metro Driver mentioned in the Blackberry Debutantes post. This wasn't the first time I had him as a driver. It was the 3rd. Now, the first time was OK, kinda interesting. The second time it was like OK, OK, we get the point. Now please shut up and let me read my book. And this last time - Oh man, I like to just enjoy my metro ride home and read my book. But I can't with this guy yapping the whole time. I feel bad for the people who have a long ride. Mine is only about 12 minutes so its not too bad.

I'm just glad I don't get him everyday. I used to get the same driver every day when I rode the yellow line, but now that i ride the blue line to work its a different person all the time. Even though I catch train at the same time every morning, and pretty much the same train on the way home too.

Alright, that’s enough for today. I’m going to write something where I don’t complain the whole time on Monday…

-DCR

Next Stop… Ballston

So I’m in a meeting today and we start discussing a workshop that is going to be held at some office right off the Ballston metro stop. OK, that’s fine. Then this guy I work with takes over and hands out the directions to the office building and begins to explain where it is. I read over the directions he handed out and immediately get annoyed at him for giving out stupid ass directions. This is what his directions said:

“Metrorail – Orange Line

Travel to Ballston-MU on the Orange Line (towards Vienna-Fairfax not New Carrollton)

If you travel on a different Metro Line, go to Metro Center, (bottom level) and get on the Orange Line to Vienna.”

There was more after this – the direction to the office blah blah blah – but those don’t matter. What pissed me off is the parts above.

Let me break it down line by line:

“Metrorail – Orange Line”

OK this line isn’t too bad, but we’re not idiots. We CAN read, and we know what color orange is. You didn’t need to color code the word. Thanks.

“Travel to Ballston-MU on the Orange Line (towards Vienna-Fairfax not New Carrollton)”

Travel to Ballston is fine. Orange Line is fine (except for the damn color coding again). Towards Vienna… uh… what if I’m coming from West Falls Church? Dunn Loring? Do I still go towards Vienna?

I realize that most everyone coming to this workshop lives in or around DC and knows their way around the Metro system. They’re not the people I’m worried about. It’s the few people that are coming from different parts of the country for this. And it wouldn’t be such a big deal, except for the fact that he really stressed the “not New Carrollton” (bold and italics).

OK, so I travel in the morning of the workshop. Land in Dulles, take the Washington Flyer to West Falls Church, and head towards Vienna. Um. End of the line, no Ballston along the way. Yeah, good directions. Idiot.

“If you travel on a different Metro Line, go to Metro Center, (bottom level) and get on the Orange Line to Vienna.”

I live in Crystal City and therefore will be riding the Blue Line and transferring at Rosslyn. But if I were to follow his directions I would have to ride all the way back to Metro Center and then out on the Orange Line.

What if I was coming in on the Yellow Line? Green Line? What the hell, neither of these go to Metro Center. Now I’m lost. If you’re going to give directions, either give simple ones:

“Take the Orange Line to Ballston. Walk to building blah blah blah.”

Or give detailed ones, from each line, at different points on the line. Don’t do this half very specific “(towards Vienna-Fairfax not New Carrollton)” shit and half leaving out ways to get there from 2 lines. Especially when the information you give is wrong. Holy shit you’re stupid.

-DCR

Coke Zero - So Good

About 2 months ago or so I saw this new Coke in the store. Coke Zero. Had never seen this before so naturally my curiosity got the best of me and I decided to check it out. Turns out it’s basically Diet Coke that tastes good. Now don’t get me wrong, Diet Coke is perfectly drinkable but it just doesn’t have as much flavor as regular Coke. This new Coke Zero stuff is 0 calories and tastes like regular Coke. I can’t complain about that.

It’s funny though, because most Diet Coke drinkers that I have talked to that have tried Coke Zero say that they don’t like it because it’s too sweet. It’s like they drink Diet Coke because of the flavor and not the lack of calories. The lack of calories was always my main reason for drinking Diet Coke over regular Coke. I know, I know, people say it’s just as bad to drink Diet Coke (and now Coke Zero) as it is to drink regular Coke because of all the artificial stuff in it. This doesn’t make too much sense to me and for now I’ll choose to stick with the 0 calorie drinks.

The only problem I have found with the Coke Zero is that now whenever I go somewhere that doesn’t have it, I have to get regular Coke because I am no longer used to drinking the less sweet Diet Coke. If you drink Diet Coke for long enough you eventually become used to the flavor – or should I say lack of flavor. But if you switch off Diet Coke and go back to regular Coke you need to go through the whole process of getting used to Diet Coke again. Well, at least I do. And since I don’t plan on switching back to Diet Coke anytime soon I would rather not drink it anymore. Even if it is only a few times a week. Right now I'll stick to my 2 (OK, 3 if I'm really tired) Coke Zeros a day and enjoy the flavor.

Yeah I just realized this sounds like an ad for Coke. Whoops.

-DCR

Stand To The Right

Another day and another thing to complain about. I don’t think it ever ends… One thing that drives me nuts every. single. day. is the people who ride the damn escalators. I just don’t understand this. Have so many people in DC become this lazy that they can’t walk up the stairs. I mean seriously, it’s not like most of these are very long. So many people ride up the single flights just getting up to the fare gates above track level.

Yeah, yeah, I can kinda understand the people that ride up the long ones like Adams Morgan, or Rosslyn. But the people who ride AND insist on standing next to their friend – oh man, that drives me nuts. Get out of the way. Just because you are lazy doesn’t mean everyone behind you is. Some of us walk up all escalators, even the long ones.

The other day I got off at Adams Morgan, and only 2 escalators were running. The middle one was stopped. My friend and I look up and see that nobody is moving on the right one. Everyone is just standing there riding it. Its not a fuckin ride, it’s a way to get to the top faster. Talk about a serious waste of 5 minutes of time. Standing there and riding to the top when your legs would work perfectly fine to walk you up faster.

Yeah, so my friend and I decided we weren’t going to ride the whole way, and we certainly wouldn’t be able to make our way through all the people. So we walked up the middle one – the one that wasn’t moving. Made it up a hell of a lot faster then if we had ridden it. So what if it makes you a little tired and out of breath. It’s not the end of the world, a little exercise would probably help a lot of you people anyway.

The people that ride the escalators really don’t bother me all that much – as long as they stand to the right. I guess if you want to be lazy that’s your business. What bothers me the most is the damn tourists (and residents, but mostly tourists) that not only ride, but don’t even move when you come up behind them and politely say “excuse me”. They turn around and look at you like you have 3 heads. I can just imagine what they are thinking; “What the hell is this? This person wants to walk up these stairs? That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of.”

If you insist on being lazy then fine, whatever. Just GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY. It still bothers me that you are riding the escalator, but at least you’re not preventing me from walking up it.

The thing that doesn’t bother me as much as it boggles my mind is all the people who ride DOWN the escalators. Holy hell, it’s going down. It doesn’t require much energy at all. If you are seriously that lazy or out of shape that you can’t ride down the escalator then you probably need to see a doctor, because there must be something else wrong with you. Pretty soon you people are going to be asking for moving walkways between escalators and the trains so that you don’t have to walk at all. You’re probably the same people who ride the bus for 4 blocks. Almost every time it’s faster to walk those short distances than it is to get on a bus and sit in traffic. But whatever, it’s your money and time that you’re wasting. At least you’re not on the sidewalk walking slow in front of me and getting in the way.

Wow that’s a lot of bitching. HA.

-DCR

Sour Milk

So the other day I go into the kitchen at work and the fridge in there is making this awful noise, it sounded like there was a sick dog caught in it somewhere growling while throwing up. I thought it was going to die. After a few min this stopped and it appeared to be back to normal.

But then a few days later I notice that my milk is very warm in the morning and my soda is no longer ice cold. I figure someone must have not closed the door all the way, so I look for something blocking it from closing… nothing. It closed fine and closed every time. OK, well there are a lot of people that use the fridge, it must just be that it’s opened too much and it doesn’t get a chance to cool down. I found this to be wrong too when I checked the temperature first thing in the morning – it was still way warm. I’m one of the first people into the office so I know it hadn’t been opened more than 2 or 3 times before I checked it.

So the next day I bring in a thermometer to see for sure if the fridge was actually warm or if I was just imagining things. Sure enough – the temp in the fridge ranged from 45 F to 50 F. WAY too warm to keep anything that you don’t want to spoil. Oh good, now I get to throw my milk out.

OK fine no big deal, I’ll use the fridge in the kitchen down the hall. They won’t mind. So I use that one for a few days, and then this morning I go get my milk out of it and its like that fridge was too warm too. My milk was rotten. I had 3 more days before the sell by date, so I don’t think it was too old. I guess leaving it over the weekend in a fridge that apparently is too warm did it in. I wonder what the hell is going on with the fridges in this place – none of them seem to work. Grrrrr.

I can deal with warmish soda, I just throw it in the freezer – which works great (-10F) I might add – a little while before I want to drink one. But I can’t exactly freeze the milk, and it goes rotten if I leave it in the fridge at 50 F. Kinda annoying.

There isn’t anything that I can do about it either. I talked to a guy that works in my hall, and he said if we were able to get a replacement it would take months to get it anyway. And well, I leave this office in a few weeks so it’s not worth it anyway. Nobody else seems to care that their food goes bad, they just don’t store anything in there, but they haven’t tried to do anything about it. Oh well, hopefully someone important will put something in the fridge and it will go bad, and they’ll get something done about it. I guess until then I’ll just bring milk with me everyday or something… oh well.

-DCR

Pennies Pennies Everywhere...

Alright. Well I guess its time to finally start writing on this thing. I don’t have anything useful to share, but I feel like having a place to just put down random thoughts and to complain about things that I don’t like or that bother me.

Today I open my desk drawer to put some change in that I got at breakfast, and I look at my penny stash. Holy, I have too many pennies. I never spend them. I just put them in the drawer to sit there and collect until I have enough and then I guess I’ll cash them in or something.

To me, pennies are worthless. Who wants to carry around a pocket full of change to equal the same as one piece or light, small paper? I sure as hell don’t. Yeah yeah, I know there are a lot of people that like to get back even change when they buy something, and thus use the pennies for that. But the whole reason that you would want to have the pennies is to use them… so that you don’t end up with pennies in your change.

So why not just eliminate pennies all together and just have the nickel or hell, even the dime or quarter as our smallest detonation of money? Seriously – you can’t buy shit for a penny. They probably cost more to ship then they are worth. If I see one on the ground I don’t even bother to pick it up because it’s just not worth it.

I guess I’m biased because I don’t like change in general. There isn’t much that you can get for less than a dollar so why carry change? So you can use change when you buy something so that you don’t get change back… I see a pattern here. Yeah it would be impossible to get rid of change. Many things would be more expensive. But just getting rid of the penny wouldn’t cause prices to change a lot. Some prices would go up, some would go down. Leaving the average price of things unchanged. Plus the advantages of not having to waste time dealing with pennies would possibly be a benefit to everyone.

Also, it would get rid of all those damn $19.99 things you see on TV. Now, instead, they would be $19.95. See, right there is a $.04 savings! Things are looking better already. They know they can’t make it $20.00. It just doesn’t have the same look/appeal to it.

OK. Well I guess that’s it for now about pennies. I’ll post something useful some other time.

-DCR

First Post

Just some random thoughts and rants about my time here in DC.