"sensitivity" training.

I had to undergo sensitivity training at work. it's not like when my dad did (he made a girl cry when he fired her), but rather a branch-wide course about harassment. pretty sure this is because the company is being sued because of some asshole that used to work there... but it could also have to do with a couple of the more crazy womens threatening lawsuits all the time.

anyway, the "training" was ridiculous. mostly it was a stupid video talking about all the different "protected classes" of people you can't offend. it covers the standards (race, gender, sexual orientation, etc) but also covers a ton of other things... military service, obesity, body odour, depression, marital status, being over 40, all sorts of shit like that.

basically, about the only "class" that isn't covered is being a middle class, 30 year old white, straight married male. so basically, I'm one of the few people at the branch that can't claim discrimination for something or another, unless I gain another fifty pounds or you have a REALLY liberal interpretation of "body odour"...

it seems so stupid. they said you couldn't listen to music, talk about politics, religion, movies you saw, or basically have any sort of personality whatsoever. basically, because anyone with a broomstick up their ass could be offended by pretty much anything, you have to walk on eggshells around everyone.

worst part was, they actually told people to talk to your supervisor if you have a problem, and if they don't "respond" to it, you file a harassment claim. so if management blows you off for being a moron, they basically told you to file a lawsuit. how can that be good for anyone?

simple fact is, everyone has to work with an asshole or three. everyone has to put up with people they don't like. why the hell should some people be able to win hundreds of thousands of dollars for whining about the same crap the rest of us just deal with?

I really loathe the human race sometimes. and by "sometimes" I mean pretty much constantly.

when is that comet gonna crash into the earth and wipe out humanity?

I don't get it.

I'll troll the "strictly platonic" section of craigslist from time to time, since we've met a few friends through there and it seems like a good idea to keep an eye out for other geeky types in town.

now I can understand how there's a large number of stupid people out therewho don't understand what "platonic" means... and nearly as many who don't understand what the 't' in "m4t" means (boy are THEY in for a surprise!). there's a near constant stream of really lame attempts to hook up, both straight and gay, from morons who can't post in the right section. there's also the "I'm married but I want to chat with someone of the opposite sex" which is never a good thing... but this kind of shit is normal human nature. people are stupid.

what I don't get is the dozens of posts each day looking for "420"... are these people really that stupid? I gotta figure a full half of those posts are stings set up by the cops, and the other half (legit posts) are likely being answered by cops... I remember in high school when people bought weed, it was always from someone that SOMEBODY knew, even if it's "my friend's cousin's friend's sister"... it's not like it's THAT hard to find someone that can sell you weed. why the fuck would you broadcast on the internet that you want to engage in a crime?

just so you know, you fucking morons, the cops have cracked your little code... they know what "420" means...

rockin' out with my cock out.

there was cock everywhere. it was pretty impressive.

the copy of guitar her 3 for wii I ordered showed up yesterday. I spent a good three hours last night playing it. my second attempt went a lot better than my first last year. that maiden voyage involved about the first forty seconds of "TROGDOR!" and me getting really pissed off.

playing on the easy level without an audience went a tad more smoothly. I got through about thirty songs, only got booed off stage once, and even managed a five star song. my fingers were pretty stiff when I went to bed last night, and my fingertips are pretty damn tender and more than a little numb today.

I don't know if I'll ever get to even the medium level of difficulty. I'm having plenty of trouble with the easiest level. I did notice that practicing on the slower settings increased the difficulty, which seemed counterintuitive. I managed to beat the first two bosses, both on my second attempt. I imagine by the end of the day wednesday I'll have the easy level beaten. I'm going to continue playing it indefinitely however, adding a fourth button would just lead to me smashing the guitar. I have enough trouble with three buttons.

I haven't yet figured out the hammer on and push offs. any time I try to use the whammy bar usually results in my dropping the note. star power ALWAYS results in me missing the next note (or five). and probably the most annoying thing, whenever I hit a fifty note string, it flashes across the screen and I nearly always flub the next note. I get too distracted by the various things on the screen, but haven't figured out how to turn that stuff off (if it's even possible).

I am a bit disappointed that I don't know a lot of the songs on there. a few of the songs I knew, but didn't know the artist or title... but a lot of them I've just plain never heard. especially the bonus songs you can buy: I only knew the kaiser chiefs. there's like ten other songs there I've never heard of. that's not necessarily a bad thing, the only song I managed five stars on was some crap song by AFI I'd never heard...

we also picked up super mario galaxy, so I imagine I'll need to share the wii with miyuki so she can play that. but for now I'm monopolising the thing in an effort to rock harder. it's pretty pathetic.

woooo hypochondria!

I'm going into the doctor later. I've felt like crap all day, and have been really lethargic all week. been going to bed around 9pm and having difficulty waking up at 6:30am. miyuki said maybe I had sleep apnea, since I snore sometimes. it would make sense, my dad has it. but when I pressed the issue, it turns out I don't snore much.

I came home from work halfway through my day because my neck has swollen up. I essentially have no chin. I stopped and picked up a thermometer because I felt warm, and was a little concerned when it showed my body temp is around 96 degrees.

so I decided to look some stuff up to have ridiculous questions to ask the doctor tonight. the first thing I found was hypothyroidism, a condition my mom has. three of the top indicators of this are swollen glands, fatigue and low body temp.

hey, at least it's not leprosy.

this is hilarious...

got this memo this morning:

"CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

You ALL have been volunteered to attend

"SENSITIVITY EDUCATION"
(Harassment in the Workplace)

THIS IS NOT VOLUNTARY
IT IS MANDATORY - ALL STAFF

Tuesday, November 27
1st session 3:30-4:30
2nd session 4:30-5:30
NO EXCUSES, NO NOTHING
MAKE ARRANGEMENTS NOW

Thank you, Management"

so I have two and a half weeks to come up with some good insensitive material to bring up at the meeting... any suggestions?

our little bundle of joy. and circuity. and plastic. mostly joy.

we have our new compy set up. we named him mordecai. he's adorable. date of boot: 11/4/07. 6.5" x 6.5" x 2", 2.9 pounds. he's got a pasty white complexion, like his daddy.

last night we drove around looking for toys for the little bugger. we picked up a legit copy of iwork '08, so we can quit using the trial. we got a new matching keyboard and mouse. it'll take awhile to get use to that mighty mouse. I keep squeezing it in the wrong place and doing something weird to the screen. we also picked up an external hard disk enclosure. turns out best buy kinda sucks for those (they were all over $50, and by "all" I mean "both"), so we drove down to ren-ton to visit fry's, that mecca of electronic geekery. it had been years since I'd been in a fry's, I had forgotten how BIG they are. they had a selection of about twenty enclosures. we ended up picking the first one we saw, despite looking them all over. $35, AC powered (could not find a single USB powered one), not too horrendously ugly.

we got home, and I started playing whilst watching the office. I managed to get the hard drive installed with minimal cursing, and seem to have everything working. I've copied over all of the files from it, but didn't have chance last night to do a format. this weekend I'll wipe the drive and set up time warp (it's just a jump to the left...) and start playing with some of the other goodies as well. I may even go questing for a leopard dummies book, if there's one released already. it's been so long since I've used a mac, and I really never dabbled with os x much, I could use a thorough tutorial... I do wonder if we should have picked up some dvd-r's while we were at the store. I noticed we've already filled 100gb of the 120gb drive, mostly with torrents. I've been deleting the torrents as I buy the DVDs, but some of those torrents just aren't out yet or may never be released (I'm looking at you, "Cupid"!)... would be nice to burn them to dvd. I just need to figure out how. but hey, at least I've figured out how to use the RSS. a little bit. it's linked in my browser as "thegoogle.aol" for shits and giggles. now I just need to find a proper news feed to read. I'm thinking BBC or CBC, since I don't really trust the 'merkin media...

I imagine that will account for most of my weekend. I may come into work for a few hours to pick up some OT, but mostly I'm going to be geeking out. w00t.

gone to stumptown...

we're on our way south this morning for the weekend. taking the nana out to lunch, watching one of the wiener-nephews play a soccer game, have a nice roast beef dinner with the fam...

the highlight of the weekend will be sunday tho, when we go shopping tax free in portland. I'm getting a new compy for the first time in seven years. the fan in our hand-me-down PC from miyuki's work is dying, and while that would be easy enough to replace, we're using it as an excuse to buy a new one. I want the mac mini, the high end one with the dvd burner and 2.0ghz dual core processor. it'll be nice to get back onto a mac, especially since I haven't used much of os X on a compy that can actually handle it. eventually we'll get the wireless keyboard and mouse, but for now we'll just have a mismatched set. I'm okay with that. I will bug jules into helping me replace the fan in the old pc (Der Waffle Haus) so we have a backup system... pretty sure I'll yank out 160gb hard drive out of it and get an external case for it. I do need to think up a good name for the new compy tho... I've named all of my computers. Waffle Haus, Hobbes, Nietzsche, Yossarian, Nebuchadnezzar, I can't remember any before that... suggestions are welcome.

miyuki is also going xmas shopping... we're terrible people. I already bought my xmas prezzie from her, a new montreal canadiens pro rbk sweater, customised with koivu's name and number. it's in my closet. so she's getting a nice winter coat. we're justifying it as we don't really care about xmas, and she needs the coat anyway. I got my jersey when I did because it was on sale and we saved fifty bucks. I've already finished all of my xmas shopping otherwise for my family. mooki still needs to do a little bit for her family, but they're only getting token gifts 'cos I'm cheap and we won't be in canada this year anyway. I like how my family does xmas. we have a $25 cap on spending per person. my mom ignores this because she can afford to, and nana always breaks out the chequebook in a ridiculous feat of generosity, but otherwise we limit our spending. my sister has three kids, and I have $30k in student loan debt. maybe ten years from now we'll spend more. but for now, I'm fine with not getting as much if I don't have to spend as much. bah humbug.