What Ryhmes with Gunpowder?

Everyone has something that they do to clear their mind... or release some frustration. Some people do martial arts, some people exercise, some people smoke weed.

Well, I'm about as coordinated as a retarded baby colt with three legs. So, martial arts is out. I don't find exercise therapeutic...rather a necessity, so scratch that... I think I'd be entirely way too scary high... so drop that one to.

"Well, *V*... what IS it that you do to relieve stress or clear your mind?"

The answer is simple:



















I shoot shit.

Oh, I'm not picky. Anything will do. Most of the time I just shoot targets, but I'm really pretty open... as long as my target isn't breathing. It's often great to just make a quick sweep over all local garage sales. You can spend $5 and have hours of entertainment.

Just don't tell people that you're going to go blow massive holes in their stuff. Sometimes that offends them.

Anyways... I bought a Ruger GP-100 about 2 months ago. It's a .357 Magnum. For those of you that aren't familiar with guns... it sometimes is referred to as a "big ass gun."

Anyway, I like it a lot. It's opened a whole new world to me. I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that will say, "OMG *V* That's totally dangerous, you shouldn't own a gun."

Well, tough... Guns are fun, and ....

That rhymed... woot.

Ya, so I'm enjoying it... and I actually wanna get another one. Maybe something significantly smaller, as the bullets for this sucker are like .40 cents a pop.... or loud bang... depending on how you wanna say it.

It's pretty fun to take to shooting ranges. People are always asking me about it, cause it's SUPER loud, and shoots about a foot of flame every time its fired. Fortunately it shoots both .38 Special ammo (smaller), as well as the full powered .357 ammo. The smaller stuff is significantly cheaper... so if I'm just going to blow some holes in paper... then I usually use that.

Well, that's it... Everyone should try it. At the very least... find something that you find therapeutic.

What do you guys do to blow off steam?

*V*

Thanks for your work, You're FIRED.

Most of my readers know that DirtyScurty is a good friend of mine in RL. In fact I work with him.

Let me tell you about this bastard. He's super hard working, totally focused, and often comes across pissed off, cause he's sorta scary lookin.

Anyways, he got laid off at work yesterday. It was totally unexpected. Even worse, the manner in which it was done was easily the most unprofessional, awkward, and totally insulting way I've ever even HEARD of.

Our boss walks over, and says:

BOSS: "Hey, didn't you send me an email the other day about some cable management you've been researching?"

Dirt: "Ya."

BOSS: "Come show me what you were referring to."

So, they take off. This is a prime opportunity to give you a little background.

Dirty and I just recently finished a building remodel. It's totally not part of our job descriptions. But, we did it with smiles on our faces... and we did an AMAZING job. We also saved the company about $10K.

After that, I was a little worried about Dirty's position at the company. Mainly cause he didn't really have one. He was just the "guy that did the odds / ends that no one else has time to do." But, he did it REALLY well. Because of the flakiness of his position, I warned him that he should probably spruce up his Resume, and keep an eye open for another job, cause this one wasn't lookin' super hot.

Well, then our work-load totally exploded. We had a meeting with our boss, and he explained to us that we're going to be SOOO busy in the next 6 months. He specifically requested that Dirty attend the meeting. During the meeting he referred to Dirty as being responsible for a lot of shit that was comin' up.

Well, after that, I told him, "Well, man... Welcome to IT." It was lookin' pretty good, and we've been swamped since then.

Well, I needed something from the DataCenter, which happens to be the same location that BOSS and Dirty we're talking. I walked in, just in time to hear the following:

BOSS: "Well, it looks amazing in here... you've been workin' really hard, and we appreciate that. But, this Friday is your last day."

Then he started walking out....

Dirty: "What?"

BOSS: "This Friday is your last day with the company."

That was it. He was given a 2 day notice. No reason, no explanation, no hesitation.

That's how you fire a slacker that hasn't done ANYTHING for months, and is rude and condescending to his/her superiors. That's NOT how you lay someone off that has been nothing but, on-time, smart, approachable, and gets his job done quickly, efficiently, and correctly.

I was in such shock, that I just stood there. I just stared at Dirty. Suddenly, without notice, I snapped into action (LOL).

I ran down to BOSS's office and I unloaded on him. I was saying everything from,

"You just got done giving us a shit load to do, and you fire Dirty?"

to

"If he had quite, he would have been expected to give a two weeks notice... you gave him 2 days. WTF?"

to

"We just essentially invited him to IT, to the point where he was MUCH more comfortable with where he sat in the job security situation, and then you drop him?!"

I means, seriously... I can understand if the company needed to cut expenses, shit... I can understand if they needed to let him go. But, only giving him 2 days? To find a new job?

How many of you could have a sudden cut off of income and be totally ok?

I just think it could have been done with a little more tact, considering what an amazing employee he was.

Oh well... nothing I can do.

Workplace politics are a joke.

V

Bang, Bang

So, in case you hadn't heard there was a horrific shooting today at Virgina Tech University.

WTF?

My buddy DirtyScurty made an interesting point. It's seriously getting to the point where taking online classes seem to be way to go. Who knows what's going to happen when you go to class today?

I mean, High-School is a time of hormonal changes. There's often a ridiculous amount of drama and over-reacting. People are constantly picked on. They're poked and prodded until they're about to snap. It's almost understandable that this kind of thing happens in High-School. But a University? Come'on...

Don't misunderstand me... there is no excuse for this. None. Zero. But, I guess I sort of thought that by the time you make it to college, you've developed enough to have a little more self control.

I've heard rumors that this shooting was over a girl. *Sigh* This dude shot 30 people and then himself... possibly because of a chick?

Wow.

This was a horrible occurrence.

Our thoughts should be with the families and friends of the victims. I thoughts should probably be with the family and friends of the psycho that did this.

V

Burn Microsoft, Burn

Ok, I'm not the typical computer nerd that thinks that all things Microsoft is of Satan, and that Bill Gates is a blood sucking bastard. I actually believe that for it's purpose, Microsoft has done quite well. I mean, really... what's the purpose of MOST companies.

Simply put: They're there to make $MONEY$.

You can't blame them for doing whatever it takes to succeed in that goal... can you? As far as creating a massively-widespread operating system that has become the overall compatibility mark for nearly ALL software development. And yet still maintains compatibility for every pieced of hardware out there.

Woot - Microsoft PWNs

BUT, I'm sick of it. Because of my recent exposure to Linux... (My last 3 jobs), I have to admit, I think that Microsoft has a serious problem. I think that people are getting sick of spending money on Software, sick of viruses, and sick of the fact that customization is so limited with Microsoft products.

MS Windows Vista is anywhere from $100 to $600.... WTF? Linux? FREE

MS Office 2007 is nearly $700! Or at least it was when I scoped it out like a month or two ago. Are you kidding me? OpenOffice does the same thing... and it's um... Oh, yes, FREE.

MS Windows - Despite what they claim, is still pretty limited in what you can do to customize the look of the operating system. Linux? Are you joking? In addition to the fact that there are hundreds of different distributions (flavors) of Linux, you can do ANYTHING you want to it.

So, I've completely removed my Windows off of my machine at work, and even here at home. I generally alternate between two versions of Linux. I'm still not sure what I like better. But, if you're feeling adventureous, and you're sick of paying for software, you should seriously consider trying out these types of Linux. They're actually very easy to use, once you get past that learning curve. If you're pretty savvy with computers, give yourself about a month of frustration, and then you'll be good to go.

Kubuntu - The often overlooked sister of the hugely famous "Ubuntu." Kubuntu is KDE based, which means the desktop has more Eye-Candy. It's very smooth and very complete. There is a LOT of support, and a HUGE community to help you through any issues or problems.

http://www.kubuntu.org/

PCLinuxOS2007 - Much smaller then Kubuntu, but very polished. This distribution is relatively new, but many details have been thought out. The support and community are signifcantly smaller then the "buntu's" but frankly runs so smoothly and has so many applications installed by default, you may not need a lot of external support.

http://pclinuxos.com/

So, this is my geeky post of recent time. I'm currently downloading the newest version of Kubuntu, and thought I'd rant a bit about how cool it is, to have an Operating System that does EVERYTHING Windows does, and more but doesn't cost a dime.

Woot!

-V