Heck Why Not.....................

So I saw that Steve set a challenge to lose some weight on his blog. Tyler and some other people joined in so I said Heck Why Not. I guess the thing is to post your weight every Monday and it is kinda an accountability thing.
So my weight right now is 225 lbs. I don't know what my goal is maybe sub 200. Actually that sounds good for starts.

To All You Small Groupers..................

Here is what you have all been waiting for. Remember this is this Tuesday April 1,2008.

We are meeting at mike and allison's at 7:15, instead of the usual 7:30, for the scavenger hunt.

There will be clues that utilize picture taking, so if you have a digital camera please bring it.

We will be dividing up into teams of 3-5 people, and can decide on those teams once everyone shows up.

Once the hunt begins, teams have one hour to complete as many tasks as possible.

Each task will have a point designation.

At the end of the hour, teams will reconvene at mike and allison's to add up completed tasks and points.

The team with the most points wins!

A New California Law??????????????

" Lawmakers have proposed an illegal new tax on digital products as their solution to California's $8 billion budget deficit. This new iTax would charge sales and use taxes on all digital products, like music and movie downloads on iTunes.

But, the Democrats know that they can never pass a tax increase with 2/3 vote in the Legislature. That's why they have proposed a sneaky, convoluted bill that avoids the 2/3 vote. AB 1956 would require California's tax board, my agency the Board of Equalization, to redefine California's tax code to include more products as taxable."


Now this is a terrible idea. Just because they are stupidly spending doesn't mean we should have to spend money on whole new taxes. It looks like they are gonna try to do this like they fooled people into voting for the phone tax.

Updates..........

Here are some updates on various things:

• Apparently AD Movie is being held up by a single cast member holdout. They won't say who it is, but we do know who it is not so far. Jason Bateman, Jeffrey Tambor, Michael Cera, David Cross. That leaves a lot of people to choose from.
• Also Arrested Development is now on Itunes. All three seasons now on Itunes.
  
• Also AD is on HULU.COM. Just in case you want to watch for free and not support AD.
• I just tried to guilt people into buying AD.
• Apparently The Office will be back on April 10th. Not April 3rd like everyone thought.
• You mean I have to wait another week.
• Yes
• X-Files Movie is tapped to be released in late July. A new one that is. They brought everyone back for a second movie.
• I am going back to The Office. Don't you just feel bad for Toby sometimes.
• I was just thinking. The last thing we saw from The Office was Dwight and Mose playing table tennis.
• David Wallace hates his HR guy too.
• Oh I think everybody needs to check out the show Airline. It is on the Bio channel everyday at 1pm pacific or 4pm eastern. They follow around Southwest Airlines and all the knucklehead passengers.
• Andy it is KIT-KAT BAR!
• 
  
• I just put a blank line in and then told you about it.
• Oh I was noticing last night that Conan has been on The Tonight Show a lot since the beginning of the year. Maybe they are trying to familiarize him with their audience.
• While watching I saw a commercial for Tito's Taco's. I have been kinda craving that for a couple days so that did not help me at all.
  
• I am supposed to post something for small group thing Tuesday but haven't got the info yet.
• I wish that MLB would get a channel like the NFL and NHL have. Cause then I wouldn't have to watch the Eastern Sports Propaganda Network. Except for the sporting Events.
• The Angels open up on Monday in Minnesota.
• Dodgers open up on......... I don't really care
• I have a fourth ticket to the Ducks game on April 6th. If anyone wants it I'll sell it to you for what I bought it $20.00.

If Only We Could Turn Back The Clock..............

"You certainly can't blame Jonas Hiller, who was thrust into net before the game when J.S. Giguere came down with back spasms. By the way, how scary was it when Hiller went to the bench in the third with a cut on his forehead and Giguere clearly not available to go in there? Randy Carlyle said after the game, that if Hiller couldn't go back in, "There was some mention of George Parros" donning the equipment. Now, that would have been a sight."
-Ducks Blog


Oh how much I wish that would have been the case. Only if Hiller ended up being ok. Cause Parros in net would be the funniest sight ever. Now if ever there was a guarantee of a goalie fight. I can't find a video of the shot off of Hiller. Here is a sampling of Parros' work.

Why You Should Let Your Employees Watch March Madness...............

10. Trust me, they're not really working anyway. I'm not kidding. I used to be in an office environment, and boss, you would be amazed at how many different ways your employees find to not work. I used to actually do things that were less pleasant than work, just to honor the principle. I'm not even sure what that principle was, but I felt strongly about it. I worked very hard to not have to do any real work.

9. In the long run, you'll actually get more productivity. If you block access to the online feed, your employees are going to hate you. You think Robert over in human resources is going to bust his ass for you after you've just denied him one of the few things that brings him joy in this life? He's not. And that hate's going to last a long time, and the longer it lasts, the less productivity you get from Robert. Make Robert happy, and then Robert will make you happy.

8. It's either that, or they'll be refreshing this scoreboard every 10 seconds. One way or another, they're going to follow the game. You can make it easy on them, or you can contribute to their early development of carpal tunnel syndrome caused by repetitive clicking. It's up to you.

7. Ask yourself two questions: What would Michael Scott do, and what would Bill Lumbergh do? And then decide which of those two you'd rather be. Michael used to gather his employees to watch Varsity Blues on Monday. Lumbergh made Peter come in on a Saturday. And even with the harsh realities facing the paper industry, I still bet that Dunder Mifflin is doing better than Initech. Unfortunately, I don't have the numbers to back that up.

6. It will foster a sense of camaraderie among your employees, which will facilitate a paradigm shift throughout the office to a more broad-based, results-driven, consumer-focused atmosphere that builds company synergy and gives your employees the freedom to embrace emerging technologies and think outside the box. That means absolutely nothing to me, but you people seem to like that kind of talk, so I hope you found some meaning in there and it somehow swayed you.

5. You've wasted time on less productive things. Basically, I'm talking about every meeting you've ever had. So much of what you make your employees do is utterly pointless. Why not, for one afternoon, be honest with yourself and your employees about wasting time? You might find it refreshing.

4. There's a huge chain e-mail going around right now that encourages all employees who are denied access to March Madness to make Monday, "National Office Supply Theft Day."* Is it worth it? Giving your employees a couple hours to enjoy themselves vs. losing 75% of your binder clips and a couple of laser printers on Monday? Do a cost-analysis on that one, boss.

3. You are threatening the existence of the species. What am I talking about? I'm talking about swarms of men who would rather lose their reproductive ability than not be able to watch the opening Thursday and Friday of the tournament. A generation of men, without the ability to procreate. Thanks a lot, boss! This is the very survival of the species that we're talking about. You want that on your conscience? You want to risk that? Go rent Children of Men sometime, buddy, and tell me how pleasant that world looks. It will be all your fault, and I don't think Clive Owen's got it in him to bail us out of that mess again.

2. There's probably someone in your office who is on the brink of a killing spree anyway. Don't risk it.

1. You're really kind of an ass if you don't. I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but that's the way it is. Do you really want to be the hard-ass boss that everyone hates? You don't want to live like that. It's not a huge sacrifice we're talking about here. Two afternoons where a few employees use up some bandwidth so they're not miserable people who hate waking up every morning. That's it. Do the right thing.




Now I didn't write this. I found it on yahoo. I especially like number 7.

Greatness...............

Here is a little bit of the genius of Monty Python.

S.O.B.'s

I Can't Think Of A Title....................

So for the past couple of days when I went to play a movie I had rented on my AppleTV it kept saying I was not authorized to play it. So every time I turned it on I just clicked it to see if it would play this time. So last night I was going to watch a new pilot I had gotten for free on itunes "New Amsterdam"(great show). Well I went to do my click to get the error on my movie. It was 11:45 at night. Well you wouldn't believe it but it worked. I was like now I got to watch it now. Because you have 24 hours after starting the movie to complete. You can watch it as many times in that 24 hours but after that it disappears. So I started watching the movie. It was "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford." I had heard mixed reviews about this movie, but I had always wanted to see it. It was an awesome movie I seriously think that it may be one of the best movies I have seen. It was about 2 and a half hours long but it did not feel like it. The acting was great, the writing was great. It is rated "R" but that is only because of the violence. A lot of people get shot. I will post the trailer below.

I've Seen This Around Lately................

I have seen these in a few places the past few weeks. So I decided to take the test. Here are the results.

Here Is A Cool New Site..........

It is called hulu.com it is a site that opened today. You can sign up for free and it is an on demand video site. They have tv shows and movies that you can watch for free. I was just watching tv and saw people talking about it so I signed up and it looks like it is gonna be a site that I visit alot.

I haven't really written anything lately..........

and just accidently pushed enter which posted this blank. But I usually post a video or some news article in stead of writing something. Ok so down at the casual hall it has been stuck in the letter S for a week and a half. and was in Q for the week prior to that. So i am hoping to work soon but who knows it could be another week or two. You know sometimes I like to just ramble on. If you can tell by the header which by the way is lame. And i don't really have the skills to make a cool one. Well just watching Seinfeld now it is on MY13. But it is over now. So I might watch The Simpsons. Oh So I recently got an AppleTV. And I love it. It is so cool. I can watch all of my tv shows and movies and stuff from itunes. and if I buy something on the ATV then it automatically copies into itunes. well so long.

You Know When You Are...............

You know when you are looking for something and don't find it but you find something else that is even better. Well a few minutes ago I was trying to get to the PMA site to check the dispatch summary for tomorrow. Well it was down and I couldn't get there. So I googled it thinking I could get around it somehow, and I found this it is a bulletin released back in 2002 about the ILWU work slowdown. I guess it was written to upset people and turn them against the union. But starting on page two it starts to list events that are suggesting a slowdown. and I found this list funny. Here is a portion of the list.

In Portland, ILWU members refused working a grain ship, alleging a safety
concern because a U.S. Customs official, carrying a weapon, was on board inspecting
cargo.

In Los Angeles, the Union failed to dispatch adequate numbers of workers to
terminals, while in Oakland, one crane driver moved three containers per hour when the
three-year average for the vessel being worked is 30.

At the Matson terminal in Oakland today, one crane was moving 12 containers
per hour, despite averaging 30 per hour over the past three years. That ship missed its
sail schedule by at least one day.

The cargo ship, Hyundai Emperor, docked in the Port of Portland, experienced an
average of 5 container moves per hour this morning against an average of 21.68 moves
per hour. During the evening shift, this ship experienced 11.1 moves per hour.

In Tacoma, an Evergreen ship being worked at the MTC terminal is experiencing
10-12 container moves per hour against an average of 32. A K-Line vessel was
producing 11.4 container moves per hour against an average of 26.35. Maersk operations
in Tacoma were operating at 50 percent of normal today. The ILWU failed to dispatch
any labor to unload the ship during the midnight shift.

In Los Angeles/Long Beach, the Union refused to work extended shifts, violating
its ongoing agreement with PMA. In addition, the ILWU also failed to post clerk
positions in the casual hiring hall, thereby violating an arbitration award.

At the Hanjin terminal in Southern California, ILWU clerks stopped working,
alleging that a gear certification on a piece of equipment had expired, even though a 90-
day extension of that certificate was in place. The clerks then alleged erroneously that
the signatures on the extension were forged.


The whole thing after that was just great. PMA sounded like a bunch of whiners not getting their way.