How Easy Is It To Be A Renaissance Man?

Recently, I was called a "Renaissance Man" by somebody at work. During the slower periods, all I can think about these days is the next semester of school. It's so close I can almost taste it! In spite of my excitement, almost all I can seem to talk about in my non-student life is either Doctor Who or what I've done and will do in school. On top of that -- regardless of how inefficiently I actually utilize the time available to me -- I cannot stand to waste a single skill in life. I gather them up through short intro courses, during procrastination hours, in my free summers, etc., and then I try my best to practice and improve in each area. Admittedly, most of my time is spent wishing that I could practice more and so I simply have a lot of half-assed hobbies. But I do like to think that I have the potential to learn anything at all, I am just pressed for time. Yes, I do waste quite a bit of the time I do have in the first place. Basically, I'm just very jealous of Rachel Weisz's character in The Brothers Bloom (Definitely look it up if you haven't yet seen it). Anyway, at some point, I must have reached critical levels of hobby-brandishing, because a woman I work with said (without sarcasm, mind you) "Geez! Is there anything you don't do? You're like a Renaissance Man!" Of course I had a split second of pride after that one. But then it got me thinking about something I often ponder: Is it at all admirable to simply enjoy doing lots of random things? In other words, should one be proud that they enjoy a scattered array of hobbies and activities? I do so fully believe in the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of it, but because I am extremely far from disciplined, I have to operate under the belief that my knowledge will be of use to me someday. Sometimes it's in the sense Patton Oswalt or other modern nerds would, in that after the apocalypse, I'll need to know how to blah blah in order to get blah or survive the blahs. Other times, I feel I can utilize the skill for financial gain. Then still other times, I use the skill to improve different sectors of my brain or thought process, i.e. critical thinking, problem-solving, etc. And still other times, I work with the more abstract concept that my learning will be improving me in some way or another. In short, my pursuits are not noble, nor are they selfless in any way. I don't brag about them, but I do like to talk about what I enjoy. Another question that I feel relates to this, though, is one regarding the ease with which we acquire abilities these days. Leonardo Da Vinci was no doubt an amazing person, but -- in doing what he seemed to enjoy doing -- was he noble or should he be placed on any pedestal other than one of intellectual greatness? Possibly discipline and perseverance since it would have been much more difficult for him to obtain the requisite knowledge to inform his further contemplations. But nowadays, I can watch a video on how to do almost anything. I can read countless articles on the subject and I can look up step-by-step tutorials. Honestly, maybe it's all akin to going to the gym. Improvement and achievement are at the heart of why I like to learn, along with fairly vain and slightly self-centered desires to look good, in a sense. On rare occasions, I will work with the thought that acumen improvement is better for society as a whole. And I do challenge myself quite often under the influence of all the aforementioned learning concepts. I guess, in the end, I just wanted to put this out there away from my mind and if I get a comment on it, that's a bonus.

a nice return to familiarity

So, yesterday was rough. It started fine, but by the time I got to the three hour mark, it was all shit. First, in the movie theater we went to, some obnoxious dirtbag preteens threw popcorn at us like some dumb ghetto assess from a a shitty.early millennium movie in the samecategory of Malibu's Most Wanted or something. Then, I got cut off by an idiot in a giant SUV. After that, my girlfriend's bank.wasn't open in their lobby, and since the drive-thru has such limited hours on Saturday, it was packed. But I was trying to just fucking calm down. Anyway, the day basically went like that -- either shit would happen right on top of other shit, or it would just remind me of things I can't stand.

But luckily today was nice. That's all.

Realizations

I've realized that the goal I had previously set for myself was much too ridiculous an expectation. But I have long recognized the need to export my thoughts into written form -- especially when they become too much to handle all alone.
So, if practice makes perfect, then I might as well give it a try. I'll not completely abandon this blog, but I won't try to commit myself to one whole blog a day, either.
No, my nature is devoid of such extremes. Instead, I will post blogs when I fucking well feel like it.

Thank you.

a blog a day...(part II)

I failed. *sniff*

A Blog A Day...

...keeps the mental latency away. So I've decided to write a blog post every day for some-odd amount of time just to see what happens. Obviously, since no one reads this, I don't have to worry about censoring myself. I'll just write freely and that will -- in some way -- be good. Plus, it'd be nice to keep my mind fresh for a little while longer.
On that note, here's the first post:
I guess that since I rarely use this.blog anymore, I have a lot today. Well, I'be.been.working at.a restaurant for over a year, and I've recently started school full time. I enjoy tennis these.days and fantasize about becoming a combination screenwriter-tennis champion-author-british panel.show guest that pioneers.new green technology with my own hom3that has a windmill and waterwheel.as well as other things I'll come up.with at a later date. Also, I'm typingthis on.my phone and It's a pain in the ass, so you're lucky I fixed.all of the.mistyped words I've.noticed.

Can't Sleep

...sucks... have to get to work early tomorrow and Sunday.
Not much to write, though. Just felt like updating this thing.
And yes, I am aware of the irony of the blog title and the title of this particular post. ...buncha smartass muthaf*$%ers...

BBC's Life On Mars was a fantastic show, but...

...What the fuck happened over here??
I know I'm a little late to be talking about it, but I only just saw the first and last episodes of our own version of it, and I am absolutely flabbergasted. I am nearly speechless. I really just can't believe how fucking ridiculous it all was. If it were condensed into a single episode, it would be akin to a storyline on The Outer Limits. It was so bad!
I won't spoil anything in the original, because it really should be watched more by U.S. Americans (late joke?), but I don't mind spoiling the remake to prove a point:
Sam wakes up in a SPACESHIP and they are LITERALLY going to MARS. What the fuck? Was this all because of an assumption that we Americans are too stupid to get the very unambiguous metaphor that 30 years ago may well have been mars to us? And all of the puns at the end just killed me. I must've been a strange sight to someone watching me while I watched it. At times, my face was all screwed up trying to understand what went through the writers' heads as they came up with this. Other times, I was giggling uncontrollably at how fucking dumb it was. Still, other times had me looking pained to see this wretched remake of something great come to a wretched ending. It probably looked like I was watching a bunny in a tutu hop around while, at random moments, he would be smacked in the face with a nerf bat.
BUT EVEN THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN A BETTER ENDING!

But definitely check out the original (BBC, not ABC) version of Life On Mars. Top notch, and such. Really a great show. Ashes to Ashes is also a fantastic sequel. I love 'em both. And this isn't just some kind of bias because I watched the original first. I gave the ABC version a chance, but it was just awful. And to see that ending just... God it was so pathetic. You really should check it out. Just the ending, though. Watch the original BBC series, then watch the ending to the American version and you will laugh your fucking ass off!
Of course, there are a million other things I can bitch about with that remake, but I'm going to leave it here.

Why is Dolph Lundgren one of my new heroes?

Well, this is why:



Now, I promise I'm not making fun. This is just so fucking cool!

Yeah, yeah, the whole karate thing in the middle seems strange and out of place, but still, fucking bitchin'!!

So...

I guess it's been a while. I was beginning to lose hope that anyone actually cared about my e-ranting and raving, but then I received a very kind message from someone about it, so I'll try to post more often. Let's see if I can become something big like Cute With Chris.



...I am verily grateful to any readers I may have.

...Annnnd HE'S BACK!

Well, it's been a very long time since I've posted, but I figure as long as I'm sitting here waiting for my laundry to finish, I'll write something bloggish:

Work sucks. People are irritating. Music is awesome. Only MY music, though, not yours. Movies are pretty cool, too, but they have too much to do with work for me, so they're also annoying. Channing Tatum is a moron and can't act. I need to catch up on a lot of artists' albums, but I've been away too long. Last.fm is pretty nifty, still. I don't frequent it like I used, though. I'm bored with everything.

Alright. See ya.

President-Elect OBAMA!

Yes, I am a little late in posting. Sorry. I've been quite busy. But I am so happy to be saying "President-Elect Obama!"
I can't wait to see how we fare in the world in the years to come!

So,....

Any ideas yet? I'm waiting for a good get rich quick scheme! Haven't you been paying attention??!

I need something...

I need to find a new job.
I'm tired.
I can't wait for this day to be over.
I might just walk out and put work on hold indefinitely.
I need something.

Yes. That, and some moolah. And a bit of lazy time.

I finally got registered to vote today!

I've been trying so hard to get myself registered, but the stupid pdf file registration form kept printing off with the text all encoded in some weird way. So, it ended up looking like I had written it in a combination of Russian and Wingdings. But oh well. I got it printed properly and in the mail. Now all I need is for Dell to finally refund my money so I can get my account fixed up. ...That is, if JP Morgan Chase doesn't have some stupid problem with rescinding my overdraft fees like Wamu told me they would. I'm gonna be so fucking pissed off if this stupid ass crap messes with my money. I shouldn't get fucked over just because Washington Mutual execs are incredibly irresponsible. I can't believe I'm still working through all this Dell crap, though. Their customer service is just uncannily awful.

Okay, bye.

Oh, and my adsense made about a buck fifty today! That's 45 bucks a month if it happens consistently! Pretty nifty! I wonder if I could make more...

So, I had to open my ravioli with a hammer...

Today, I brought some ravioli in a can to work and I forgot to bring a can opener. I thought it was just one of the tops that had a pull ring on it, but I was wrong. I spent most of the morning staring at my computer, pretending to type, and thinking of different ways I could get my food open. Could I use a spoon? My keys? Could I bang it against the counter until it came apart? Well, none of those ideas sounded so great to me, so instead, I grabbed the hammer out of the tool kit (good thing I'm Inventory Manager, or I wouldn't have even thought of that.) I took it downstairs to the building's break room so my own coworkers wouldn't think I was a nutcase. Luckily, the room was empty and I was free to hack away at the can with the nail-remover side of the hammer. That thing dug in like a pickaxe! It was awesome! But then I heard some footsteps and I had to hurry and clean up my mutilated can before someone called the local mental health institution. I was a little creeped out by myself standing there, in the corner by the microwave, wiping the red stains off my hammer. In retrospect, I'm sure that made me all the more conspicuous to the confused onlookers, but oh well. And people just KEPT coming in! I NEVER see anyone in that break room because most of the business suites in the building have their own kitchenette areas. It was just my luck that I had to look like a freak in front of half the building.
Anyway, that was pretty funny. I felt like a moron, but the only person who actually said something to me about it was the girl I rode the elevator with. She seemed somewhere in between amused that I had a hammer and a broken can of ravioli, and frightened that I might be an insane man with a dangerous weapon.
So, let this be a lesson: If you are ever near a guilty-looking individual with red stains on the cuffs of his shirts and he's carrying a dirty hammer, don't automatically judge him. He might just be hungry and broke for the week.

I believe in something!

I was recently dragged through two stores at the mall the other day, and I wanted to shoot myself the entire time. The first was a little Hot Topic rip-off store with an adult twist that played screamo the entire time, and the other was Hot Topic itself, which, ...always plays screamo (although, you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who likes the music in there and actually refers to it by that title.)
Now, the first store really gave me high-hopes. When we walked in, David Bowie's Fashion started playing. That was a nice surprise. But some time while looking through the quirky halloween costumes, the beer pong playset, and the erotic novelties, things had become much worse and much more pathetic. The singer was screaming something that I was completely unable to understand, and, incredibly enough, his loud, moronic voice was drowned out by the simple guitar power chords and high hat drum slamming.
....In order to keep this short, let's just say Hot Topic was nothing too dissimilar.

So, I've set up a petition here:

Give Peace!

It shows that we are in favor of ear plugs being handed out at the door to any of these places. If you walk into a store and someone's playing My Chemical Romance, you should be able to kindly accept the ear plugs from the nearby short girl with the choppy haircut and fake thick-rimmed eyeglasses.

So...

I wish there were some sort of Monster.com-ish thing for people who want to write stuff. I want to write stuff. Better yet, there should be some Monster.com-ish thing for writers and it should be primarily directed toward me.

That would be nice.

I'm an idiot...

So, earlier today, I was having trouble logging into my google adwords account. I reset my password and sent them an email detailing the problem. I even included a screenshot of the error page. .......then in their help email, they said one of the reasons it wouldn't work would be if I had two separate usernames for adwords and adsense. ......I don't have an adwords account. I have an adsense account and I finally figured that out at about 11:00 tonight.

I repeat: I'm an idiot...

My Misadventures with Dell - Chapter 438

Well, after countless efforts on my part to get things straightened out with these idiots, (I've talked with them through email in different departments, on the phone through different departments, etc.), it's all gone way past the point of ridiculous. In case you don't know (and actually care), I made an order with dell. The order didn't go through, so I called to make another order. I specifically told them to make sure the first order wouldn't be accepted so I wouldn't get charged twice. ....I was charged twice. So, I got home the next day and found two packages at my door. I was angry, but was also somewhat relieved that I'd gotten what I needed. I opened the first package. It was the wrong item. I opened the second one. It was the same wrong item. I sent off an email to two different departments in the company telling them how inept they are and that they need to fix the problem immediately. They tried to offer me credit, which, seems like forcing a sale on me, considering the fact that they charged me double. When I told them that I would only accept full refunds and not credit, I never got anything back confirming that I would get my money back.All I got was a UPS shipping return notice that said they would pick up my packages. ...But it said that UPS was expecting a THIRD item. So, now there's the item I want but didn't get, then there's the item I received (x2), and then there's the item they're expecting to have returned to them. I've emailed back and forth to no avail, and I've called as many departments as I can. Of course, I can't be talking to a representative who lives here, though. When I got a hold of someone in the country, she was very nice, but told me about Dell's dumbass policy that only government issues are to be handled in country and that ALL customer issues are handled in India. Now, I knew that a lot of things were handled over there. I've had to call tech support a million times anyway. But I need to speak with someone way above customer service by this point and I know that the executives are in this country. I'm fine with the outsourcing of tech support because every time I've had a tech-related issue, it's been solved promptly and with great courtesy shown to me by them. But when it comes to customer problems that haven't been fixed, I should be able to talk to someone who, first of all, knows what I'm saying. Second, has the power/authority/ability to fix the issue. And third, I shouldn't be ignored by the people running things. I work for a web development company, and if Dell's stupid enough to piss us all off, they're losing a ton of money. My boss just bought two new, fully-equipped Gateway laptops just for the hell of it and he said he was on the fence about whether or not to order from Dell later on. We buy new computers in this office at least once a month and they're always over a thousand dollars. Plus, we buy servers, monitors, other peripheral devices, and cpu towers for our network and hosting needs. I would estimate our hardware spendings to be upwards of $5,000 a month and that doesn't even come close to the totals after we tell all our clients about how much shit you have to deal with when buying from Dell. We have quite a bit of sway in the technical community and Dell can't afford to pull this shit without fixing the issues. It's an incredibly stupid move on their part and I hope it brings about the end of the company (there's certainly potential for it.)

Thank you for letting me rant. I'm incredibly angry and I don't see an end in sight to my problems. I just want to warn others about this so they don't go through any of it.

In My Continuing Efforts To Blog More...

I'm putting in something really pointless:

I'm at work. I'm doing lots of lame Data Entry stuff right now. I'm almost done with a big project, though. That's pretty sweet. I feel like a glorified secretary sometimes, though. I can't finish copy/pasting crap because I'm the primary phone-answer guy, but whatever. I used to be a writer here. Maybe I'll finally get back to writing stuff. Those were the days. I mailed out the checks to our freelancers, too. It made me sentimental for the days when I just sat on my ass at home and wrote stuff while trying to keep from roaming about the internet as my thoughts roamed, themselves.

I don't know if any of this makes sense to anyone but me, but oh well. I'm just trying to update this thing regularly. I feel like it's such a waste because I like the look of the page and I handpicked the title/url. Alright, I'm gonna get back to work.


By the way: HOLY CRAP! I forgot I got this blog in MAY! I've only posted a handful of blogs and I've had it for four and a half months! That's insane!

Ok, bye now.