So I’ve been pretty quiet since I hit 100k words- what’s been going on? Round of layoffs at work Friend diagnosed with cancer Another round of layoffs at work. Jackie became a pampered chef consultant Finances have been wiped out from christmas and getting her PC stuff off the ground. 10% paycut at work Guitar lessons are now done because no one can afford them. Have been reading Manuscript Makeover for ways to improve my book Decided to do an initial cleanup of the first draft of my script, then rewrite the outline before starting draft #2 started yet another opensource project- this time it’s a collection of Nagios Plugins.

My internet connection. SO here’s the scoop 5 days until cutover: I call AT&T, tell them I’m moving and need to transfer my Static IP DSL service on the 30th(Monday). Tech says no problem it’s all set. I am pleasantly surprised at how little of a hassle it was and that it was way smoother than any other interaction I’ve had with them. Saturday, 2 days until cutover: We’re planning on doing the actual moving Sunday morning and plan to spend Saturday packing and planning.

So my father in law has been going on for years about how great Ameritech/ SBC/ AT&T’s new broadband service is gonna be once it was activated. I personally like the idea of having fiber to the curb, so I’ve been looking forward to it for a while. A few months back they sent a rep out to let us know they were offering ‘U-verse’ in our area. I wasn’t home at the time, so Jackie got information and said I’d get back to them.

I do my best to avoid politics on this site because it’ll always piss someone off. I don’t like the bible-thumping direction the republican party has taken over the past decade or two, and I can’t stand the democrats demands that we give up personal freedoms to save the children. I’m gonna talk about politics today because I’ve noticed something happening that’s so surreal I had to say something. I’ll use the names Candidate A, B, etc to represent the players in this little scenario.

I’m claiming the win on this one… remember that the tinyURL that this bot messages is in fact a link to tubgirl. 15:14 -!- Pats-Sox [~no@fw.mdchomes.com] has joined #asp 15:18 we dont want any chowda heads in here 15:25 "chowda head"...I don't know why that just caused a really really bad "yo momma" joke to pop in my head 15:28 I just googled "chowda head" for the heck of it. This site is pretty funny.

Whoops. This happened after work on Tuesday. Jackie was at home. I was on a small service drive that T’d into a 4.5 lane road that was fairly busy. looked left, saw a car with it’s right turn signal on in the right lane. looked right, say a red light. looked left, saw the car with the blinker slowing down as if to turn down the road I was on. looked right, saw the red light turn green, meaning I had about 10 seconds to react.

Did you? Go try, even if you’re not registered.

So I just got hit with a new low… Looks like I’m inelegible for unemployment. Apparently I haven’t been in michigan long enough to warrant helping me out. when I look back on my life, this will be the moment when I said “this is as bad as it got.” I’m hoping it doesn’t get much worse at least. The depression that I’m sitting in right how is the soul crushing type where you lose the will to do anything.

I recently signed up for a form with a bunk email address for something or other… for my name, I put in something amusing rather than my real name because, hell with them, I don’t want them sending me stuff. I even checked the little box so they wouldnt… sure enough, they spammed me. how can I tell? well, the bogus account I used gave it away, but they addressed each message by the first name I gave them…

Today I find myself a little of both. I was called into the confrence room today and told that the company I was contracted to requested that today be my last day. Yes, I am officially unemployed. Fortunately I was laid off, not fired- turns out business wasn’t as good as they were hoping and they can’t afford someone to try and fix their broken infrastructure. Since they fired a developer a few weeks ago, and the lead developer put in his 1 week notice today, I can’t say it’s suprising- if they’re getting rid of me after losing two other people, they must be hemmoraging money pretty badly.

So on our way home from getting the first ultrasound, jackie and I had the unpleasant experience ot driving down 44th street in rushour traffic. What made this different than any other day? Abortion Protestors with giant fucking dead baby posters. Thse are the same people who protested the passion of the christ for being too bloody. The same asswipes that forced Indiana Jones to get the first ever PG 13 because of melting people.

So apparently my problem yesterday with aw_foo.jmorgan.example.com didn’t work because _ is not a valid dns character. Every-freakin-other browser allows it to work except IE. Figures- the one time microsoft didn’t embrace and extend and did the minimum amount of work, it bit me in the ass.

I’d just like to state, for the record, that I will never, EVER, E_V_E_R buy anything from the spam that I get in my inbox. So spammers, if you’re paying attention, you can remove every single account @morgajel.com because they all come to me and I’m not buying anything. So leave me alone and quit sucking my bandwidth.

Yeah you, the jackasses who decided that the middle of a crowded elevator lobby was a good place to stop and chat. While I understand it’s of dire importantance you tell each other about what your coworkers said to annoy your other coworkers, could you please NOT STAND IN FRONT OF THE ELEVATOR CALL BUTTONS while doing it? I know there’s not much space there, with it being lunch rush and 50 other people crammed into this small space, but we all have to make sacrifices.