A Phenomenal Week

Those with good memories will remember a few months back when I wrote a series of blogs about groups that I am in that have matching shirts. The keenly observant will recall that I said there were 5 such groups, but I only posted blogs about 4 such groups.

I was waiting until the final group had earned our way into being "blog-worthy". That group made that leap from anonymity to greatness on Sunday night. That was just the conclusion of what was a phenomenal week.

The week started out to be not particularly great. On Monday morning I was nursing a nagging foot injury in my right heel from Sunday night's brutal basketball doubleheader.

Then several great things happened. In no particular order (chronologically or in magnitude of greatness):

• Bowling was cancelled so I got to nurse my foot injury, watch Hoarders and start on my basement sorting project.

• Visit the Baiers and Andree.

• Have lunch with Shannon at Dublin Bay.

• Talk to Jill on the phone, twice.

• Have three nights to work on my basement sorting project that allowed me to make major head way. Including creating lots of garbage, finding many an old artifact worth treasuring and creating a burn pile.

• Have supper with Nader and seeing Extraordinary Measures. An extraordinarily average movie.

• Made it to the gym twice, both times with the new fitness king Jesse Howard.

• Ate my favorite meal in the world, sauerkraut casserole.

• Visited Derrick and Dennis at work, where I got to listen to Derrick talk about guitars (one of my favorite things in the world to do) and where Dennis gave me a great description of what happened in the Personal Photo Project of the Week that I will publish on Friday.
• Ushered at church. This was a bonus because I love the extra legroom I get when I usher, plus I spent time before church discussing my backup religion (ISU athletics) with Angie's grandpa. It isn't rare when my two religions merge, but usually it is the other way around. I'm at an Iowa State football game saying a prayer like this: "God, I know that you don't interfere in the outcome of sporting events, but please let us make this PAT. I know that you are a Cyclone fan and isn't there a limit to how much you will allow your people to suffer?"
• Had lunch at Pizza Pit with Frank, Clarence and Derrick. Knocked down a substantial amount of drummies!
• Talked Willy into posing for my Personal Photo Project of this week. It involved breaking a mirror and that is always fun!
• Had FNSC with Willy and Jay at La Carreta.
• When I went to the flower shop to buy flowers for a subject for RWPE, they had exactly the type of flower I wanted.
• Took Nader to see Iowa State erase a 14 point deficit to beat Colorado on a miraculous finish.
• My RWPE project turned out very well and has a few different interesting variations.
  
• Introduced Jay to some of his old art that I found in the basement during my sorting.
• Got a company profit sharing bonus that was easily large enough to cover my recent furnace repair.
• The raise I gave myself (by canceling AFLAC and changing insurance plans) was on Friday's paycheck.
• Got an email from Sara where she quoted her instructor on how to do a pap smear. I won't repeat it here, but it was a hilarious description of where not put your thumb. I will share that her instructor likes to compare the vagina to a self-cleaning oven.
• Found out that I get to provide Jen with a tool that will help her with her stained glass projects.
• Saw a bald eagle.
  
• Came up with a new idea for an entertainment center for my living room. My Grandpa Bennett's old workbench. I know this idea is pure unadulterated genius because my mom hates this idea.
• Found out that I was born special and learned some family history to boot.
• Made a beard shaving pact with Tony and Corey. If we lost our Ames Rec League basketball game, we all agreed to shave out beards.
• Got some ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY, phenomenal news from Jill.

My week concluded with my Ames Rec League basketball game. Our team, The Little Dribblers, has struggled mightily season.I We hadn't won a game yet this season. I had walked around the workplace guaranteeing victory, but Tony took my guarantee up a notch and suggested that we shave our beards if we lost on Sunday.

Based on how amazing my week had been, I was supremely confident that I wouldn't be showing up for work on Monday as a dirty naked-face. I pledged myself to the pact.

My week kept getting better and better after the pact. When I walked into the gym on Sunday night I had no doubt in my mind that me and my Little Dribblers brethren would be walking back out of that gym 60 or so minutes later with our heads held high for the first time all season.

I should point out that when I say that we haven't won a game this season, that doesn't mean that we get close and lose it in the end. We have been on the wrong end of some fairly brutal blowouts. It is not an exaggeration to say that we have obviously become the girlfriend game for most of the foes in the league.

Maybe I should explain the concept of the girlfriend game to those that aren't familiar with it.

The girlfriend game is the game where you force, bring or allow your girlfriend to attend. It is a game where you are fairly certain that you will win by a healthy margin. You will look impressive and it will reassure your girlfriend or wife that she made a wise choice in selecting you from the herd.

This is the way that men think. I'm pretty sure most women would rather be at home watching Gray's Anatomy or whatever it is that women like to do on Sunday nights. Either way, it is not paranoia that forces me to make the observation that when teams play us, there are lots of lady friends in the other team's cheering section that aren't there when they are playing other teams.

For the record, only Donner has ever brought his lady to one of our games. She came to our first game and hasn't returned since. Yes, the Little Dribblers have been sans female fans since our first game. It is a sad state of affairs, but it is understandable.

That isn't to say that we are devoid of fans. Both Doug and Joe have brought their sons to our games. Thankfully they are both too young to lose respect for their fathers based on what has transpired on the court before their innocent eyes.

Based on how awesome my week had been, I warmed up with extreme amounts of confidence. The only thing that gave me cause for pause was the fact that Tony did not show up. Why had Tony suggested a beard growing pact and then failed to even show up? Did he know something that I did not?

We still had plenty of firepower. Firepower we didn't have the first time we locked horns with our opponents. A game where we fell in OT after running out of steam because we only had 6 players.

This time we had 9 guys. 9 guys with a wide range of talents.

The game started out with the Little Dribblers jumping on our opponent. We opened up a quick 7-0 lead. But our opponent didn't show any quit. They rattled off 9 straight points to grab the lead, but an old-fashioned 3 point play by Donner put us up for good.

The game turned into a defensive struggle with neither team able to score much against the other team's tough defense. The Little Dribblers settled into halftime with a 19-16 lead. Not a comfortable lead, but we were clearly in control of the game and it was our first halftime lead of the season.

During halftime I collected my thoughts and sent out a score update text.

The third quarter was all about defense for the Little Dribblers. Our tough 2-3 zone suffocated the paint and our quick guards closed out quickly on their outside shooters to prevent any open looks.

We held our opponent without a single point for the entire third quarter. We were forcing our will on them, but there didn't seem to be any quit in them. It wasn't until the final few seconds of the third quarter when you could finally feel the air come out of the gym.

Memory is a funny thing and I can't swear to every detail that I'm about to describe, but it is not the exactness of the details that is of the most importance. It is the general idea of what happened that is of consequence.

With about 7 seconds left we missed a layup. Our opponent rebounded the ball and headed up court. A little in front of the three point line, Chad knocked the ball free from the man he was guarding. The ball bounced to another one of our opponents, but Corey was there playing in the jersey of his man. Corey knocked the ball free and start dribbling towards our basket. I saw that there wasn't much time left on the clock so I sprinted towards our basket and called out for the ball. Corey, with his legendary court awareness, spotted me out of the corner of his eye and burned a pass through 2 (maybe 3) defenders. Despite the smoking velocity I caught the ball and took a dribble and went up for a layup on my weak side. The ball left my hands and banked off the backboard and through the hoop. As my feet (still nursing an injured foot) landed on the court the buzzer sounded signifying the end of the third quarter. The Little Dribblers bench jumped up and celebrated in pandemonium. Our opponents lowered their heads and walked back to their bench. There was still 10 minutes left to play, but that play effectively ended the game. We had crushed their spirits.

The last quarter played out. The buzzer sounded (after a strange player where one of their players came completely across the court to foul me, while I was just dribbling out the clock after securing the final defensive rebound of the game) and the scoreboard shouted, "Little Dribblers 43 Other Team 23". End of losing streak. End of frustration. End of being the girlfriend game, well maybe not the last one.

We sat on the sidelines and soaked in the feel of victory for awhile. I grabbed my phone and fired off a few texts to interested parties. Perhaps they weren't all that interested, but they got a text message any way.

It didn't take long for the accolades to come streaming in:

"WOW!!! U guys creamed them! CONGRATS 2 U, UR TEAM, AND UR GOATEE!!!"

-Jill Gorshe

"You really 'dominated' them!"

-William McAlpine

"Awesome! As it happens peggy didn't end up getting the tickets."

-Shannon Bardole

"Congrats!"

-Jen Gorshe

Jay said something cool as well, but I accidentally deleted his text message. Sorry Jay.

Jesse asked very kindly if he could touch a Little Dribbler jersey so he could know what it feels like to touch a winner. I obliged him in this request.


Now that the Little Dribblers are winners, until we take the court again on St. Valentine's Night, I can post a picture of the Little Dribblers jersey.





I'm sorry, the jerseys are not for sale to the general public.

Throwing Apples

Sometimes when I'm driving to the Computer Mine in the morning I eat an apple for breakfast.

When I get out of my car I like to throw that apple into the woods before I descend into the Mine. I do this because I figure that the apple is better used by many of the woodland creatures that scurry around out there than it would be sitting and rotting in the garbage can next to my bench.

Today when I threw the apple I disturbed a crow. I love crows.

So I watched the crow fly up and out of the woods and into the Ames sky.

As I tracked his flight I noticed an abnormally large brown thing perched on a tree behind the mine. Then I noticed its white head.

I didn't bring my camera to work today but I was able to borrow the camera of a fellow miner to snap off a few shots of the beast.











This is the first time that I have seen a bald eagle in Ames.

Life, Partly

There is an old Oscar Wilde quote that goes, "True friends stab you in the front." This has and always will be the friendship philosophy of Christopher D. Bennett. But there is a better quote by a different writer that best encapsulates what happened to me on a morning a few weeks back:

"Life is partly what we make it, and partly what it is made by the friends we choose."

Tennessee Williams

I have a few rituals I perform every morning when I get to work. But the most important is when I walk past Corey Schmidt.

I stop and I say, "Good morning friend."

He answers back, "Good morning friend."

I have to admit that this simple act of acknowledging a friend has made some people confused, angered and jealous.

Steve for example is jealous that I do not stop by him every morning to say those 3 simple words. I have pointed out to him that I always stab him in the front, but that wasn't enough for him. So now I make time during his lunch break to listen to him regale me with stories from the old country (Mason City).

For example, he told me the story of when his dad took him to visit his grandpa at work. Only it isn't a heartwarming story. His grandpa worked on the kill line in a slaughterhouse. You can imagine what watching cattle get strung upside down and having their throat cut can do to a small child's psyche. It is why Steve is the way that he is.

But this isn't a tale of jealous or killing floors. This a tale of friendship.

One morning I came into work and stopped and said, "Good morning friend."

Corey retorted back, "I have something for you." Then he handed me a grocery bag.





It was no longer a good morning. It was a great morning!

Arizona Day 6

Day 6 in Arizona was more work. At the conclusion of the work day, we were bused out into the "middle of the desert" for a "western roundup" party.

If you could get away from the cheeseball band that was lip syncing and playing to backing tracks, it was a pretty good time.

This was a costume party and I had made a deal with Jesse that if he paid for a costume, I would wear it. Well as it turns out, the costume did not fit, unless I desired to become a eunuch.

I do not desire to be a eunuch. Fortunately, no pictures of me in this costume currently exist.

Jesse's bull costume, did fit and it was a smashing success.


















Jesse bull riding.



Jim



Eric



Frank



Jennifer


After the party, there was only a half day's worth of work left.

Muskrat Carcass

This is just a random image. I thought you might find it interesting and you might want something interesting after the story below.

On Tuesday a few of us miners went to Pizza Pit for lunch because a new employee allegedly loved chicken wings, but as it turns out, he didn't love chicken wings enough to show up for work.

After we returned from Pizza Pit we noticed about 20 (not an exaggeration for effect) crows in the back of a co-workers truck.

When I went into the mine I found the owner of the truck and asked him what he had in the back of his truck that would attract a murder of crows.

To know the answer, read the subject of the entry again.

Here is the weird thing. It didn't even phase me. It just made sense to me that somebody where I work would have such a thing in the back of his truck.

No Good Deed...

From the Clare Boothe Luce Files:

Monday was the annual Computer Mine Thanksgiving. The Mine brings in a healthy spread of food and the meal is supplemented in a potluck manner by various employees.

In my time at the mine, I've never once contributed to a potluck. This is connected to the fact that I don't cook all that much and because I don't really want to.

On the Friday before the Thanksgiving I was having a conversation with newest member of the mining team. He had signed up to bring a wide variety of food and through the process of the conversation I somehow agreed to lighten his load by bringing rolls.

On Monday I brought rolls, butter and homemade apple butter. The apple butter is made by a woman that works with my mom.

After the meal was concluded, the people that run the Thanksgiving loaded the leftovers (including the apple butter) into the company fridge.

The next morning the following email was sent out to the entire company.

To whomever had a jar of homemade applesauce/butter in the refrigerator, I regret to inform you it fell out and busted on the floor. Sorry.

I think this is the universe telling me not to contribute to any potlucks in the future.

Spoiled

Last week was National Customer Service Week. I don't know if this is a real week that exists in the real world, but it is a pretty big deal at the Computer Mine.

This year we got 75 dollars in gift certificates, a travel mug and a 4 port USB hub. Despite all of the goodies, the one aspect of Customer Service Week that I couldn't wait for was Friday's lunch. The calendar indicated that they were bringing in the Hot Dog Station to serve us lunch.

The last couple of years that they did this all employees got 2 free hot dogs. I was pumped all week for a Superdog.

Then on Thursday I got an email indicating that the Hot Dog Station wasn't coming, but the gyro stand was coming instead.

Truth be known, I prefer gyros to the hot dogs, but I was a little saddened.











Perhaps you can't tell, but once I bit into my first gyro of the day, I immediately was able to turn the switch and I was 100% all about the gyro.

I've said before that my job is a lot like The Office. There are some days I can sit at work and figure out exactly what episode I'm living out. Gyro day reminds me of an episode called Initiation. In that episode the company brings in a pretzel cart and every employee gets a free pretzel.

In that episode, one employee said the following:

Stanley: I wake up every morning in a bed that's too small, drive my daughter to a school that's too expensive, and then I go to work to a job for which I get paid too little, but on pretzel day? Well, I like pretzel day.

I don't really relate to that, but I relate to what Stanley says in a depressed voice at the end of the episode:

Stanley: Only 364 days until my next pretzel.

Only 364 days until my next gyro.

No More Mental Trophies

Last year I won both of the Fantasy Football Leagues that I participate in. This week I finally got what was coming to me, a trophy for the tremendous accomplishment of winning the Fantasy Football League at work. A physical trophy.

The trophy was given to me by League Commissioner and Ortho Bowl loser Jon Dewaard. Luckily for you, fellow Computer Mine employee Mike Vest was on hand to record the moment for posterity.








I have cleared away some space near my work area where I proudly display what I am going to call The Dewaard Trophy.

Some of you might be wondering why I'm displaying a trophy I barely earned in a competition that I hardly give any effort and put my more earned awards in a trunk in a basement. I don't have an answer for you.

More From Friday

Duff flooded a few hundred feet from the Computer Mine on Friday. The woods behind the Computer Mine flooded as well. I think all this water caused some of the animals from the woods to be a little more active near the building.

Earlier this year I figured out that Steve the Groundhog (as opposed to Angry Steve that works in Software or Steve the Hardware Plant on Dan's desk) is in actuality a Stevie. A Stevie like Stevie Nicks, not like Stevie Wonder. I figured this out because I saw a few baby groundhogs hanging around the entrance to their hole a few weeks back..

On Friday I saw 4 baby groundhogs. I was able to get these heavily cropped pictures of some of the baby groundhogs.

They really blend in with their natural surroundings so they make for less than spectacular photos, but believe me that they are cute in person.

I also ambled down to the flood with Vest during my lunch break and snapped off a few pictures.

While we were over by the flood the water rose rapidly enough to close us in. We had to cross the water just to get back to the dry land of the Computer Mine.

Just Another Computer Guy

It has been over a week since The Great Insult. I have yet to fully recover.

To recap The Great Insult.

It was during a break in the fast paced action of the Ames Jaycees Sandbox Fill. I was sitting in the backseat with Jamie. We had been getting along famously, even exchanging the occasional high five. Then things turned ugly.

Somewhere along the way the discussion turned to vocations. It is possible that Shannon had asked one of her favorite questions: "Do they know that they pay you to do nothing?" I can't remember the exact events that transpired before The Great Insult, but I know how The Great Insult went down.

Jamie asked, "What do you do for a living?"

"I work for a small software company that makes software for child torturers. I work in the hardware department building computers and such."

"You seemed like a Computer Guy."

What? I immediately took offense to this statement. It was pointed out to me that I work for a computer company and by default that makes me a Computer Guy. Especially when I work in the hardware department. I can't argue that my job might make me a computer guy. I accept that fact. I embrace it.

On the other hand, it is an entirely different ball of wax to be putting out the vibe that I'm a Computer Guy. This is the way the conversation should go:

"I work for a small software company building computers and such."

"That surprises me."

"Why is that?"

"I would have guessed that you were a fighter pilot or stunt motorcyclist or snake handler or tortured artistic genius. I never would have guessed in my wildest dreams that you were just another computer guy."

It is one thing to be a Computer Guy. It is entirely a different thing for people to look at you and think that it makes sense that you are a Computer Guy.

This is a Computer Guy to me:

• Owns more than 1 guitar for Guitar Hero
• Took the day off that GTA 4 came out
• Own multiple video game systems

Maybe I'm thinking of a Video Game Guy and not a Computer Guy. Believe me, they are not the same. Video Game Guy doesn't have any useful skills. Darn it! Now I'm sticking up for Computer Guy. Let me try again:

• Can't put together full sentences.
• Doesn't own a clean shirt.
• Doesn't bathe all that much.
• Can tell you jokes in binary.
• Can't sustain eye contact.
• Laughs nervously at own attempts at humor.

I am very fluent, hilarious, always smell great (thanks to Little White Lye Soap), sustain eye contact when I want to and own numerous clean shirts. So you see, I'm clearly not a Computer Guy. I just play one at work.

A Couple Computer Mine Thoughts

I'm not the type of person that grouses about their job all that much. That is mostly because I enjoy my job and I have only a modicum of responsibility. Plus for the most part, very few people can screw me over in my job. So the co-workers that I find annoying I can still view at a comical level because they rarely actually interfere with my job. They just annoy me on occasion.
Yesterday was May Day. It is a holiday that I thought only school children were forced to celebrate because it came near the end of the school year and most teachers were ready for summer vacation and had given up on teaching the current lot of savages in their classrooms.

When I opened up Outlook when I got to work there were already two e-mails wishing me a Happy May Day and a third e-mail wishing me a Happy Beltane. I'm not a grouch. I don't get mad on certain holidays. Particularly when I get free food because of the holiday, but it did make me wonder why there was no love for International Worker's Day.

International Worker's Day is the holiday I celebrate on the First of May every year. I think next year I'm going to beat the other holidays to the punch. I'm going to show up with some communist themed food right at 7 am and have the first Happy International Worker's Day e-mail out by 7:02. It will be a victory for the worke's of the world.

I discussed this plan briefly with Lowell. By the time I got back to my desk there was a third Happy May Day e-mail waiting for me. It is this e-mail that actually kind of annoys me. Not because somebody had sent me a generic "Everyone" e-mail wishing me a Happy Holiday that I'm sure if I questioned the sender they couldn't tell me the first thing about the origins of that holiday.

It was the style of the e-mail. I really should have done a screen capture of this e-mail, but I'm sure that would have been a violation of some kind of proprietary information agreement I might have signed at the beginning of my employment at The Computer Mine.

The person that sent the e-mail is no Hemingway. They aren't even a Faulkner or a Kerouac. They aren't even a Dan Brown. When the President of the Mine sent out an e-mail requesting that people in the company make their e-mail signature more professional, she changed her signature so that her phone extension is not listed next to the company phone number, but by her e-mail address. Last time I checked, e-mails don't have extensions.

I know that she tries. The Computer Mine publishes a company newsletter that is just rife with the type of quality journalism that you would expect to see in such a publication. I have no doubt that some day this newsletter will bring home a Pulitzer. Last quarter there was an enlightening article revealing that this person had recently completed a class in Business Writing.

After reading just a handful of her e-mails on International Worker's Day, I now want to meet the teacher that taught her that it is completely ACCEPTABLE to substitute smilies for punctuation, because you know what? It isn't acceptable. Not even in non-professional e-mails. In fact, smilies are never acceptable in any situation or any circumstance.

On Another Note

I spotted Steve. However, I wasn't able to get a picture of him. Well, I got this really lousy picture of him that looks like the type of picture that people crack out when they are trying to prove the existence of some cryptozoological creature like Bigfoot or Nessie.



Steve the Groundhog


I'm sorry it is such a terrible picture, but it was I could do. Steve is quicker than he looks and he made a mad dash for his hole when he saw me standing outside. I hope to get a better picture of Steve sometime this year. It will be a personal mission.

SCSI 29160

There are a metric ton of people out there that think that I have an easy job. They believe this because I have told them that I have an easy job and it is a well documented fact that I don't lie. However, yesterday I was unpacking a SCSI 29160 to test and ship out when I found this slip of paper sitting on top of the card.





Now those people that complain about my job can know to a high degree of certainty that I am out there on the front lines risking it all for my paycheck. I think I might start putting in for hazard pay.

Computer Mine Woods

The deer that live in the woods behind the computer mine have become braver in the last few days. Today I actually got a few pretty decent shots of one that was looking for food about 75 feet from the back door of the mine.
















The good news about this year's crop of deer is that it does not appear that any of them have any injuries. They all seem to be able to use all 4 of their legs.

The Lost Quarter

Yesterday while I was slaving away in the Computer Mine, I came across something curious. While it is true that I frequently come across something curious in the Mine, this seemed to be a different kind of strange.

When I get to come out of the darkness of the mine and out into the light at work, it is frequently related to shipping. The 2 company vending machines are located next to the shipping area. As I was getting ready to ship out a freshly mined credit card reader I noticed a note taped to one of the vending machines:



What?


I concede that very few people at the Computer Mine are getting filthy rich, but I doubt that anybody that works here is in such dire financial straits that they desperately need that one quarter.

It turns out though that my initial inclinations about this note were wrong. I thought Judy had found an extra quarter in the change slot of the vending machine and taped it up, in case somebody came back looking for their quarter.

In fact, Judy just posted the note because the vending machine had stolen her quarter. Jesse saw this note, went back to his office, grabbed a quarter, went back to the vending machine and taped a quarter to the note.

I guess in the future, any time that gas prices are making me feel pain in my wallet, I'll just post a note on the vending machine asking for like 50 bucks. Maybe somebody will tape up some cash for me.

Although there has to be an easier way to financial security. If only there was some church out there that would send me a prayer rug that I could use and then fill out exactly how much money I want God to give me and then send them 50 bucks and then God would just give me that money. If only there was something like that out there.

Even When You Win

Saturday night was the Computer Mine Holiday Party. The Computer Mine is overly generous with the prizes that they give away at this party. I'm not sure there really is a need for these prizes after all they already give us quite a healthy Christmas present. This year I got 100 dollars in cash, 100 dollars on a Best Buy gift certificate and a digital picture frame. I attend the Computer Mine party for the camaraderie of hanging out with my fellow pick swingers. Not because I desire a prize.

Last year I noted a number of people complaining about the prizes they had won. I remember thinking that these people were dreadfully spoiled. When they walked into the party they had nothing. When they left the party they had a prize. Why should they complain about the prize. How ungrateful can a person be?

This year I found out that there are times that even when you win, you really lost. I don't have a strong affection for video games. I think they are a nice diversion for small children and teenagers, but after the time when a person gets a driver's license it is time for them to stop simulating life and go out and live life.

As an example of my loathing of adults playing video games, I will now publish part of a lost blog that I never published. The blog was supposed to be a parody of an exhibit Becca, Jay and I witnessed at the Des Moines Arts Festival. The blog was supposed to be capped off by a collection of pictures, but in the end I might have lost some nerve and I was never entirely satisfied with my parody pictures. Here is part of the introduction of that "lost blog" Dirty Donuts:

The thing about euphemisms is that they are symbolic. The words themselves are completely innocuous, but what they represent can often disgust and/or make people giggle.

I bring this up because it wasn’t until recently that I discovered that adults play video games. I always thought when I heard my contemporaries talking about video games they were talking about sex or sexual allusions or the cousins of sex.

“What were you doing last night?”

“You know I was up late last night playing the Xbox.”

OR

“Any plans tonight?”

“The way my social life is going, I’ll probably sit at home tonight playing Nintendo Wii.”

OR

“What are you giving your wife for her birthday?”

“If things break just right, I’m going to be giving her the PS3.”

Now none of these phrases by themselves sound sexual. In fact, whether or not “playing the Xbox” was a reference to sex or actually playing a video game would be distinguished by the tone of the person saying the phrase.

In art, tone isn’t so easy to distinguish. You have to really look at it to see if this is just a plate of donuts or is it meant to suggest something else.

I have a long standing history of not understanding people who have the means to do something with their time, literally wasting it playing video games.

I won a prize on Saturday night. I didn't walk into the room with anything. I walked out with a prize. However, I don't think you could have designed a worse prize for me. Take a look:





You see, even when you win, sometimes you really lose. The good news is that I think I'm going to be able to unload this monstrosity on a co-worker for like 20 bucks. I can use that to buy something like a haircut.

Film School: Calm Down

This episode is devoted to a movie made by a co-worker's cousin. There is a prize for any person can figure out what word has been censored.

Tales from the Computer Mine

I am a person who despite appearing outwardly chaotic, is very much a person of ritual. There are several websites I check daily:

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks


Mustaches of the Nineteenth Century


Horror Movie A Day



However it is one website in particular that has made me think that I should start a daily blog about things that transpire at the Computer Mine:

Hobo Teacher

I'm not saying that I'm going to do such a thing, but if I ever get my FTP problems straightened out and a website suddenly exists at www.thecomputermine.com with a cool clip art graphic of a computer wearing a miner's helmet, you just might know the anonymous blogger. In fact, I might make it a group effort. There are so many stories about this place that I might need some co-conspirators.

When I explain the Computer Mine to most people they without exception compare the place to The Office or Office Space. I will tell you a story that could a story about something that happened to me yesterday that could have literally been lifted from The Office.

When I first began my tenure at the Computer Mine I was immediately told who the people were that it was socially acceptable to like and who it was socially acceptable to dislike. At the time I was somewhat of a subhuman and didn't really care to talk to anybody any more than was absolutely necessary.

As I have returned to the world of the humans and become a person with adequate social skills again I began getting to know and learn about the other people in the mine's employ. For the most part I learned that the socially unacceptable people weren't really that bad. They didn't belong to certain social cliques and were less than socially gifted, but they weren't necessarily bad people. It seemed more of a case where other people didn't take the time or energy to get to know that person. They found out enough to make a cognitive shortcut and make their judgment about that person so that they knew how to deal with that person as a type rather than as an individual.

However, (not counting the middle aged shrews) there was one person that I have never been able to converse with at any meaningful level. Literally every time that I have had a conversation with him, it has ended poorly. Most people around the mine call him Chode. I have refrained from using this term because I don't think most people have taken the effort to know what a chode is and what it is definitely isn't the type of language that is thrown around a professional work atmosphere. Click "HERE" if you have a burning desire to know the definition of the term. I don't recommend it.

I will call him D-Squared for the purpose of this story.

I feel sorry for D-Squared because I don't think anybody ever taught him what it means to be a man. I mean to really be a man. I think he has cobbled together an image of what a man is supposed to be through images from television, movies, video games and men's locker rooms.

Two examples of past conversations with D-Squared. On his work anniversary he brought puppy chow to work. I asked him if he made the puppy chow himself. He told me that he did make the puppy chow himself, while wearing an apron that said, "Suck the Cook".

I was having a conversation with a co-worker about going to see Hairspray. D-Squared piped in and tried to run down my manliness for going to a musical. The co-worker pointed out that he was a hypocrite because he had went to see Rent. He countered that Rent was cool and perhaps manly because it had a stripper and she did a sexy dance.

To yesterday's painful encounter.

I was shipping out a loaner computer. The shipping area in the mine is located near the vending machines. As I was printing the packaging slip, D-Squared came around the corner and said, "That's what she said."

I ignored him because I was quite certain that he was talking to Paul (who sits nearby) and not to me. I did not know that people actually used that joke in a way that wasn't sarcastic.

I got down on my hands and knees to tape up the box because it is easier than bending over because I'm something like 64% torso.

From behind me I hear D-Squared: "You look pretty natural in that position, you have lots of experience like that?"

I finished taping the box up and stood up. I cut him off before he continued strolling down Gay Joke Avenue.

"When you were coming around the corner you said, 'That's what she said'. What had the person said; that made you think that such a thing would be a hilarious retort?"

"You had grunted."

"Wow." That was all that could escape my lips. I pushed the loaner computer over to the pickup area and walked away wondering if I would ever have an experience with D-Squared that wasn't so painfully awkward. I am beginning to doubt it.

Calm Down

I work with this guy that has a cousin that makes movies. He recently loaned me a copy of his cousin's most recent epic. It is about vampire and a gang of high school kids killing the vampires. No matter what prism you look through, it just isn't very good. I have in turn loaned out the movie to a few people here and there with the caveat that if they watch this movie they can then read this thing I wrote about the movie. The thing that I wrote about this movie is a list of my 10 favorite things about this movie. I didn't go into much depth and I wrote the thing in about 45 minutes. It definitely isn't a masterpiece, but it is certainly mean spirited.

The guy I work with was asking me today what I thought about the movie. I told him that I find that the movie was an allegory. It wasn't really about vampires, but about how people choose to percieve the world and how if you see things from somebody's perspective you may start to have empathy for them, even if they are evil. I wrote this theory up.

He insisted that I e-mail my poorly written theory over to him so he could e-mail it to his cousin. I thought that this was a poor idea because even though his cousin hadn't succeeded at any level in making a coherent film, he was trying and didn't really deserve to have somebody he didn't know just bash on him. I sent it over to him any way. When the filmmaker read my piece he thought it was awesome. He considered it to be a great compliment. He was particularly thrilled about being compared to Uwe Boll. Being compared to Uwe Boll is not a compliment. However, I'll leave it for you to decide if my piece was compimentary or mean spirited.

Also if by reading this it somehow piques your interest, I'll loan you a copy of this bad boy.

My Favorite Things

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of my favorite things

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver white winters that melt into springs
These are a few of my favorite things

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I'm feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don't feel so bad"

My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music

I just feel that it is necessary to reference a decent movie before delving into Calm Down. However, I should throw out one disclaimer. I am not going to touch story structure in my list of my favorite things from this movie. I am a firm believer that the most important thing in a movie is story. You can get away with bad acting, poor production quality and the occasional poor line of dialogue if you have a great story.

A friend who knows that there are times when I fancy myself a writer once asked me the following question: Do I consider prewriting an important part of the writing process?

This was a loaded question. The person really wanted me to backup their supposition that real "artists" just did. They just sat down to their parchment or canvas or word processor or block of marble and created.

I told her, "There is an old adage that rewriting is writing. It is my belief that prewriting is writing. When I am done writing something I usually hate it so much that it takes me a little while before I can even go back and begin the process of rewriting. Therefore if I relied heavily on rewriting I would never accomplish anything. I need the prewriting process. Otherwise I have no clue where I'm going."

She didn't like this answer, but it is the honest truth. Without a basic structure to tell you where you are going, you aren't going to get anywhere. Therefore I can't in good conscience spend much time railing on the story structure of Calm Down when it is painfully evident that they didn't do any prewriting. They didn't do any rewriting. It is a debatable point to claim that they did any writing at all.

So rather than going down the paths of completely unnecessary scenes (almost all of them, but in particular the "car borrowing scene" and the "lost my pants" scene), completely unexplained motivations (such as are the cops working for the vampires?), or what the point of any of this was supposed to be; I'll limit myself to my ten favorite aspects of this movie that aren't related to story structure. I will include my favorite moments of dialogue.

--> -->1. The "sexy" blonde vampire that shows up in the background of two scenes with the leader of the vampires. I don't know if she was in reality good looking, but it seemed important to them to include her with her funbags hanging out in the background of the first two scenes with the vampire leader. It makes me wonder if they hired a stripper for the night.

--> -->2. The vampire leader was wearing light colored shoes. I don't know why that cracks me up, other than the entire vampire wardrobe consisted of wearing black. Maybe when you are the leader you get a pair of white Keds. It might even be the symbol of the transfer of power.

3. The scene where the main character gives his speech about "walking away". He calls the vampires "jerks". Whoa tiger, just because they killed your brother doesn't mean you have to start name calling. That whole speech is priceless. Including the fact that the "track girl" (that they don't use for bait even though one character points out that she is the fastest in the group during the scene where they discuss who should be bait) points out that they have gotten this far with him. Is he the leader of the group? He wasn't even in it at the beginning of the movie and now he is the leader. I also think they missed a golden marketing opportunity by not giving this group a name.

4. There is vignetting in almost every single wide angle shot. This is caused by putting the wrong filter or hood on a camera lens and is something that easily could have been edited out or fixed after they watched the dailies after the first day of shooting.

--> -->5. They used that hatchback car to shoot the scenes of people walking down the street. The scene with the brothers at night and later with the main character's emotional breakdown sequence. I know they did this because the shadow of the hatchback is clearly visible during these sequences.

--> --> ---6. How the hell did they get so many people to make this movie? There are at least 15 vampires in one scene. I like to consider myself a good organizer of people, but I could never get 15 people to do something like that. In fact I would be too embarrassed to ask. "I'm making this vampire movie, but it isn't really a horror movie, it is more of an action movie with lots of gore. Kind of a tribute to Uwe Boll if you will. Would you be interested in being an extra? The vampire costume consists of any black clothing that you have. No don't worry about teeth. They aren't part of the new vampire mythology I'm inventing."

7. This movie really makes me think about other movies in a strange way. The first 15 minutes of the movie really made me think of Brokeback Mountain. Only there is lots of foreplay. I'm not quite so certain that there wouldn't have been a little man on man action if the vampires wouldn't have broken it up. Perhaps that is in the subtext of the movie, perhaps the vampires are homophobic. Not that being homophobic makes you a good person by any stretch of the imagination, but it might explain why they attacked and killed the "cool" brother. It might also be because of his horrible impersonations. I know what you are thinking. They are brothers, not lovers. To that I say there is a kind of incest subtext to another scene in the movie. Although I am not a user of pornography, I know that a movie exists called Taboo. The scene where the mom sits on the edge of the main character's bed reminds me of this movie. I get the sense that while she is playing with the drawstring on her pants she is trying to work up the courage to ask him if he wants to have a "go" at her. In the end she decides to return to her husband's bed and see if he can finally quench the burning sexual desire that he hasn't been able to extinguish since he only began caring about "getting his". I'm telling you it is all in the way that she is playing with those drawstrings.

8. The scene where the characters get their weapons. The fact that they don't use guns could have easily been covered with a line like "Guns only piss them off." or "Guns only slow them down." or "Guns don't kill them." Instead of a line about having used guns in the past, but two of the characters aren't responsible enough to be trusted with guns. My real favorite part of this scene is that the characters have never tried holy water, garlic, or crucifixes. They haven't tried anything that would be consistent with vampire mythology. This is covered up (by the guy with the grappling hook I believe) with the line that when you are in battle with a vampire, you want something that will do some damage, "not a glass of water". Yeah, you wouldn't want something that would actually be able to terminate the existence of the undead. At least two of these characters have ridiculous weapons. A grappling hook? A tent pole (I think) with a knife pushed through a hole? Then one guy goes off and gets two camp axes. Wouldn't want to use an ax as long as you have that grappling hook. Although I will give credit to the filmmakers. This is undoubtedly a clever tip of their hat to the scene in Friday the 13^th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan where they pile a bunch of weapons onto the deck of the ship and the guy that picks last gets the shotgun. Kudos!

--9. The entire last battle scene is in slow motion. Good to know that there are still fans of Richard Donner out there.

10. I claimed that I wasn't going to tackle story structure. However, I think I do have to tackle one aspect of the story. Is it possible that this whole movie is really a clever way to get you to root for the bad guys? There is not one scrap of evidence to suggest that the people the CD5 are killing are vampires. This whole premise is held together with one line of dialogue. "There were bite marks found on my brother's neck." Other than that one death, the vampires aren't responsible for the deaths of anybody else. When the vampire leader has his chance to kill the CD5 he doesn't. He kicks their ass then walks away. In the final battle sequence he doesn't kill anybody. He puts one guy in a sleeper hold. Another guy he might be trying a figure 4 leglock on. When he takes out the girl he must have made the effort to miss every single vital organ and then he throws down the sword. It is as if he is saying, "Hey guys, why are you killing all my buddies? I don't want to kill you, so I'm just going to incapacitate you so you can't hurt anybody else and when you wake up, we can discuss this like rational adults. Have you seen my girlfriend? She was wandering around out here with her funbags hanging out."

Even when he gives his speech he never really mentions murder. Only that they need to feed and that could mean that every time these guys are trying to go down to Dairy Queen, the stupid CD5 keeps attacking them. He also mentions the CD5 trying to hold onto their pathetic lives. I don't think that means literally. Since it is my belief that he is a Youth Pastor, he could be referencing the fact that these guys probably do have pathetic lives. Do you doubt these guys play Magic on weekends? He could also be referring to the belief of some Christian sects that you have to be "reborn" as a Christian.

To me this movie plays more like a gang movie. The CD5 are just a bunch of Star Wars nerds that claim that the rival gang consists of "vampires" because this whole thing probably came about when they starting taking their Friday night D&D game a little too serious. At least a couple of them already had weapons from their Saturday trips to the renaissance fair. That is why the cop is always chasing them. They are murderers.

What is the rival gang? They aren't vampires. My best guess is that they are members of a radical church group. The type you might have seen in the movie Jesus Camp. Since a few of the characters in the CD5 are homosexual, they probably initially tried to capture a few of them and tried to educate them about the "evils" of homosexuality. I believe that the label "vampires" was attached to the rival gang as a reference to the Christian sacrament of Communion: drinking the "Blood of Christ". Clearly this is what happened the night that they attacked the brothers. They were trying to capture them and then reprogram them. They must have gotten a little too rough with the one brother and accidentally killed him. The mark on his neck wasn't a bite. It was just a little love mark from his brother, but his brother couldn't let the general public know about his incestuous relationship, so he went along with the cover story that it was a vampire's mark.

Need more proof that the main character is gay. He never once makes a move on the track star girl when he is in her bedroom. I don't believe that she was gay though. She was a track star. They never mention playing softball or volleyball.

At least 2 other characters of the CD5 are lovers as well. Are you telling me that you believe the cover story of my pants came off because they got stuck on a motorcycle? They were clearly about to get intimate (they had their weapons because I'm sure they were engaged in some kind of role playing where one was Batman and the other was a dwarf) when the Jesus Camp church group busted in on them and tried to capture them and take them in for reprogramming.

This is the only interpretation of this movie that makes sense to me.

Curious

So I've begun the task of creating the Photography 139 calendar. I printed out a few test images and hung them on my wall at the mine. I took some sticky notes and numbered them 1 through 12. Then I thought about my very general rules for selecting pictures to go with certain months and began placing the sticky notes on the pictures to indicate what month they could represent. After changing my mind and the order of the pictures I felt that I had a pretty fair idea about where each picture was going to go and what pictures had been eliminated from contention. I finished this part of the process on Monday.

I left my rough outline up on my wall. It hung there unmolested.

I left work on Wednesday at about 6:15.

I came into work this morning about 9 am.

The pictures were still there. The sticky notes were gone! I mean, really?

At this time I'm just going to chalk this up as just another one of the incredibly stupid things that our cleaning crew has done and I have put the sticky notes back up.





New Sticky Notes


Me and my two maybe three man crew hope to have the grand majority of calendars churned out on this Saturday. If you would like to order a 2008 Calendar, you may e-mail the address below:


Christopher D. Bennett


The price is a little bit different this year, but if you have ordered calendars in the past, you have been "Grandfather Claused" in at the old rate.

HP Laserjet 4100

I've learned a few things toiling in the computer mine. The most valuable bit of new knowledge I have gained is how completely worthless UPS is as a shipper. I've learned that if you have an option other than UPS, be it Federal Express, DHL, Speedee Delivery, or a crackhead with a mule, you are better off with the crackhead and their mule than trusting anything with the boys in brown.

The most recent thing that UPS has managed to smash into little tiny bits was an HP Laserjet 4100. No small feat considering that this printer is mostly made out of metal. No cheap feat either considering that this printer used to damage a guy's wallet to the tune of a thousand bucks.

The latest destruction by UPS did allow me to test myself. You see back when I used to work nights at the Dasher Mismanagement dive in Boone I was the master of Milk Crate Toss. I could throw a milk crate into the corral from 70 feet, easy. Nobody could top me for distance and accuracy.

This skill has not come into play much in the last few years, but once I got my hands on that LJ 4100 I knew I needed to see if I still had it. I had Jesse snap some photos of me testing me. It was dark, so these pictures are what they are:



















It makes me wonder how I would still fair in events where I was competitive but not dominant. Events like Jug Kicking, Ditch Hockey or Playplace Tag. I already know that if Jeff Vickers and I were ever to walk onto a Paper Towel Football field we would still dominate the competition.

I'm sure I would be remiss if I failed to point out that my near infinite range with the milk crate did lead me to once hitting The Edge in the head with a milk crate from about 50 feet. Although I felt bad and did take him to the emergency room to have staples put in his head, I still have to admire the throw.