Deep Dish UFO

Colbert Report Interview

Imagine that you are a scientist in a highly advanced civilization.  Your specialty is xenosociology, studying alien societies.  You’ve been assigned to an industrial civilization to study their transportation system.  Maybe your trying to prove some obscure theory, you’re a sociologist, after all.  So, you turn on the cloaking device and hover over one of their large transportation hubs.  You want to watch a place where train, cars, buses, and airplanes all intersect.  As you’re hovering over flight UA446 at O’Hare Airport, you realize that people are starting to gather under you and point up at you… you have an OH $#!# moment when you realize that the damn cloaking device has crapped out again.  You step on it and high tail it out of there as fast as you can.

Original Chicago Tribune Article

Wikipedia Article,

So, say there IS some xenosociologist out there who flubbed his assignment and let the subjects see him?  He probably wrote a best seller back home and got on Gorlock-Oprah.  The stars in our galaxy vary wildly in age. There are solar systems out there that are millions or billions of years older than ours.  I’d say we’re pretty early on the civilization curve with only 10,000 years worth of history.  It’s not hard to suppose that a cloaking device would be standard issue on an intra galactic spaceship.  Human nature being what it is, and that nature being the same everywhere, I can see someone doing a shoddy job fixing the cloaking device, and causing an embarrassing incident.

WOW Economics

This is my auction alt. I use him as a clearing house for the things my other characters collect. He wears a Halliscan Tuxedo and uses a fish as a weapon. I still haven’t found a hat he can wear at level 12. You can see in the picture that I’m about to pass 2000 gold. I’m not a WOW millionaire, but I don’t take any shame in my WOW Poverty. One of my favorite phases in any game is the accumulation of wealth and working for that next bit of armor or gun. Inevitably, I reach a point in most games where I’m effectively invincible. That’s usually when I lose interest and move on to the next game. WoW is a little different. It’s actually kind of fun being (almost) invincible. By the time a character hits Level 40 (out of 80) or so, you can start to take on the group dungeons by yourself. By “soloing” instances, you can collect and sell the loot that normally would be split among 4 other players. Besides, you get to wade through a sea of bad guys reigning destruction, all for a couple stacks of wool or runecloth. I’ve found that I can solo instances starting 10-15 levels below my current level. My 72 Hunter can solo any 5 man instance in the old world. You can see that he only has mediocre gear, but I can wade through Stratholme.

Every instance has its own flow, and you can’t use the same techniques for every instance. Gnomeregan is always a slow instance for me. Instead of gathering everyone up and getting a nice neat pile of loot, I take them on 2-3 at a time, and they spread out more. In Stockades or Scarlet Monastery, I can gather up 20 or so mobs and kill them all in one spot. Start with the low level instances like Dead Mines or Stockades and run them until you get comfortable. Instances can provide you with all kinds of things. I’m working on my Gnomeregan Exiles reputation (Yeah, I want a Mechanostrider), so I’m getting my wool at stockades, my silk at gnomeregan, mageweave at Sunken Temple, and runecloth in Blackrock Depths.

Desktop Wallpapers

I’ve had the same desktop on my computer for a long time.  I was thinking about what to use for a desktop, and thought I’d post some of my ideas here.  If you want to use any, follow the link, right-click on the picture and choose “use as wallpaper”

Aging

When I was transferred back in January, I got a new ID from my new district. That picture is on the left. On the right is the picture I got with my new ID last week. I work for an educational cooperative, but I’m assigned to an individual district, so I have two ID cards. Here’s how I’ve changed in the last 4 months. Looks like I’ve gained weight, grayed up quite a bit. I feel more than 4 months older.

I took a sick day yesterday to have my wisdom teeth taken out. I made the thumbnails small in case you don’t like looking at pulled teeth.  The fourth tooth (lower right) had curled roots, so he had to chisel it out.  It’s broken into a bunch of little pieces.  As I was contemplating my sore head last night, I wondered if I would have rather spent the day at work or in the oral surgeon’s office. I can’t say I’d rather do it every day, but yesterday, I was glad to be in the dentist’s chair instead of at work.

McJob

Sterling Renaissance Faire, McJob Wikipedia definition

Well, I still have a job. I guess being transferred for no given reason, no phone or desk for three weeks, and being asked several times if I’m the new temporary guy didn’t mean what I thought. I don’t get it. I was doing a great job last fall, but not good enough to keep my position or get any positive feedback. Now I’m just mailing it in, and they think I’m doing a great job. My contract director said so in the meeting. Then why do I still feel like I failed?

What Happened

My brother has had Borderline Personality Disorder for several years. Over that time, he has confided in several people. Sometimes, those calls have been calls for help, other times, talking through a rough patch. In 2005, he started to call me. I’m glad he did. I’m a real help for him, and I feel good that talking makes a difference to him.

I hadn’t taken many sick days in the 8 years before, so I had almost 90 in the sick bank. I started taking them. In two years, I took a lot of sick days. Last July, I got in trouble for taking so many sick days. My cooperative and district managers came up with an action plan to improve my performance. There were benchmarks and I couldn’t take any sick days without a doctor’s note.

Since then, I haven’t taken one sick day and I’ve worked to meet the goals of the action plan. I really changed in my mind. My brother almost committed suicide in October, but I still came to work every day. My work was improving, too. The two buildings I’m responsible for were the first to have no help tickets after the school opening rush. I was working on upgrading the district’s network. I was interested again.

My parents were making plans to go on vacation in the Dominican Republic in October. Maybe it wasn’t the best time, but they didn’t know all of what my brother was going through. He said that he couldn’t go on vacation, so my parents went ahead with 3 tickets. After an uneventful flight down, we got off the bus at the resort. 10 steps later, mom said that she hated it. Since there where only three of us, they cancelled the second room, and I shared with my parents. Mom was very angry, and sought out confrontations with the staff for the next two days. I came back to our room the second day and found out that we didn’t stay there anymore. We had moved to another room. After two days, she was feeling sick. She took a cab to the local hospital, and stayed there for the rest of the vacation. I think it was stress induced, because she improved rapidly after we met her at the airport to come home.

Do you know the feeling of pressure in your ears when the airplane is landing? As we landed, I found that I couldn’t pop my ears. My ears would stay that way for over a week. I’d caught dad’s sinus infection over the vacation. I was home, though, and I had two days off for New Year’s Day. There was an email waiting for me. It invited me to a meeting first thing on Jan 2. I work as a shared tech, so I have two managers. I work for the cooperative, but I take direction from management in the district that has contracted me. I’ve been in the same district for 11 years. I thought this meeting was another assessment meeting like I’d been having all fall.

The first thing She said to me when I sat down for the meeting was “We’re transferring you to * District, you’ll start there tomorrow.” So, now I work at a new district. There’s more, but that’s all I’m saying now.

The Beginning is Moot

I don’t feel comfortable talking about my transfer here.  Essentially, I work for an educational cooperative that places shared support people into suburban school districts in this county.  For a little over 11 years, my primary district has been in the south east part of the county.  When I returned from vacation last Wednesday, I found out that I’ve been transferred to another district.  It was quite sudden for a person who has valued stability over the last couple years.  I’m adapting.  You may have an interesting read or two on this site this spring.

Symbols

 

Snow Day

 The district has a snow day today, leftovers from yesterday’s storm.  After I dig out, I think I’ll take the dog to a park.

Religion Quiz

Which is a statement from a real Baptist church, and which is from a parody site?

 

“God makes it even clearer that the former Pope is burning in Hell by allowing John Paul to send a horrifying Halloween warning message to deluded Catholics around the world!”

“God has ZERO Tolerance for Wicca!”

“America chose to spit in the face of their Creator, instead of heeding WBC’s warnings, and now it is too late to pray for this nation. “

“These girls were killed by God Almighty like any other typical raised-for-the-Devil, American whores.” re: 5 High school girls killed in Fairport, NY

The first two quotes are from Landover Baptist Church, a religious parody site. The last 2 quotes are from The Westboro Baptist Church.