So I’ve been reading some blogs for a bit now. Many of these blogs are about various bits of Mac nerdery, partially because I’ve been doing some searches on Mailsmith and my new favorite program, OmniOutliner (more on OO later).

For one reason or another, many of them mention GTD. GTD, or Getting Things Done, is some system created by David Allen that helps you organize your thoughts and life in order to be more productive. This is all good and fine, but I don’t think I am ready to organize my life to that extent, or at this point in time, even pick up the book to check out the GTD system.

This doesn’t mean that I haven’t tried to be a bit more productive. As nice as it is to lazily sit around the house, being lazy only ever feels good topping off bouts of activity. There are several key components to achieving this goal of doing more with my time.

Continue reading The Road to Productivity →

It’s in! It’s final! The list of the 10 worst properties in Salisbury, MD. Why the city of Salisbury feels the need to list this online is beyond me. Somebody should nominate the Salisbury web page the Top 10 worst web pages…

I just got off the line with Verizon. I called the customer service number 1-800-427-9977. I started following the commands, got fed up, and just asked for an associate. Mr. Jones comes on the line and asks me what the problem is in his overly helpful manner. He then kindly informs me that I have the wrong department and he’s going to transfer me to the right one. For future reference, he gave me the phone number to the “right” department, which is 1-800-427-9977.

I go on hold for a minute, then Mr. Davis comes on. Mr. Jones hands me off to Mr. Davis:

“Good morning Mr. Davis, this is Mr. Jones from the Long Distance Billing Dept. I am on the line with Mr. Gray and he has some questions about his Verizon Freedom plan.”

Funny stuff. Now, the reason I am calling Verizon is because we are have the Verizon Freedom Extra pack, which is a good deal for $59.95, since it gives you unlimited local and long distance, and a ton of features including voice mail. However, I was perusing the Verizon site the other day, and noticed the [Verizon] Freedom Unlimited plan was only $49.95. “Unlimited” sounds better than “Extra” in my book, and $10 cheaper is pretty good too.

So I called Verizon to see what was up and to change my plan. As is evident by Mr. Jones, Mr. Davis, and their handling of me, they must be trying hard to have “good customer service.” To me good customer service involves calling the customer service number and getting who I want, not being transferred to the same number I called. Oh well.

For those who care, the Unlimited package doesn’t have voice mail or unlimited 411. The other funny thing was when Mr. Davis tried to sell me Verizon DSL. He went on for about 5 minutes telling me how much better it was than my current Comcast cable internet, all for only $29.95. Finally he asked how much I was paying for Comcast, to which I replied, “$23.” That’s $23 with 3 computers on the network and including the cable modem, which Mr. Davis made me point out to him. He then quickly said, “Well, DSL still has advantages over cable modem, and at only $24.95/month, its only $2 more.”

Three and a half months ago, I posted about the dead mouse that was down in the basement of my place of employment, PPPL. At the time, the mouse was there for an estimated 2 weeks.

Today, I was sadly informed that I had to pay my respects to the mouse, for it would be leaving us for the second time. You see, the dead mouse was discovered on the safety walk through, officially written up, and must be removed.

Safety Action Item:

Remove dead mouse from north side of hall.

It’s a sad day for all of us, but I managed to go down and snap a picture. Someone decided to build our friend the mouse a little “house.”

Every once in a while, when you’re snacking on a bag of Cheetos, at the bottom you might find a little nugget of death. I’m not sure what causes these little guys, but they are pure evil. Brownish orange in color and denser than a normal Cheeto, the “Burnt Cheeto” tastes pretty foul. We got two of them in this bag of Cheetos Crunchy.

On a Cheeto related note, I also recently bought a bag of Cheetos Twisted. I thought I was just getting a bag of normal “puffy” Cheetos, and in a way, I did. They had the same consistency as the “puffy” Cheetos, but instead of a curl, they are cork screw shaped. The first one I ate caught me off guard, as I put the whole thing in my mouth, not realizing each one is a good 3-3.5″ long and 1-1.5″ in diameter. I almost choked on the thing. These are big honkers.

Typing this post made me realize how stupid the names “Cheetos Crunchy” and “Cheetos Twisted” are. I guess “Cheetos Puffs” kind of makes sense, but wouldn’t you much rather say “Crunchy Cheetos” or “Twisted Cheetos?”

Let me tell you a little story. It’s called “Dr. Brown’s Cel-Ray Soda Sucks Raw Ass.” I saw it in the store and figured I’d try it out. Unfortunately, they only had a six pack, which means I have 5 cans of this crap left over after I got done dumping the first one out.

When I first cracked open the can and smelled it, all I thought of was vinegar. Others backed up my opinion. Its lightly colored like champagne, lightly carbonated, and tastes vaguely like really sweet, really weak ginger ale. Or something. The point is, it’s fucking nasty. I have no idea what this guy is talking about. Of course, his website is called “Peculiar Pops!
The Michie’s Exotic Soda Site,” yet there is not one carbonated drink on “The Best” page.

Steer clear.

The other day, we were about to cook some Pillsbury butter flake crescent rolls to complement our dinner, when the recipe on the side of the canister caught my eye. Crescent dogs sounded like a good idea. We had the hot dogs. We had the cheese. Sounds like a winner.

The recipe is simple. Cut the dogs, stuff some cheese in, and wrap them with the crescent roll dough. Two tips:

1. When you cut the hot dogs for the cheese stuffing, don’t cut them end to end. If one makes a “pocket” in the hot dog, the cheese won’t melt out the end.
2. Flatten the dough triangle with your fingers some to make it wider before wrapping so you can get better coverage on the dogs.

Thats it. Throw ’em in the oven and you’re finished. I found they needed to be cooked a good deal long than the directions stated so that the bread cooked through. Though if you eat this stuff raw sometimes like we do, its no big deal if they are a little undercooked.

On a side note, I searched the web briefly to see if anyone talks about eating Pillsbury dough raw and all I got were sites about eating cookie dough. The first site is some blog. The post about cookie dough has an interesting comment (3rd one down). I never thought of eating lard…