Tim recently wrote a post about productivity and organization and this is my response.
GTD
sounds
a
bit
Don
Lapre
or,
at
least
it
does
to
me,
tee
hee
hee.
“The List†is relatively effective so long as it is checked with some degree of regularity and, perhaps more importantly, is “edited”. My problem is I’m guilty of not editing my lists and they often become mazes unto themselves giving birth to baby minotaurs.
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.
I bought this album at the same time I bought Blueberry Goatse. The first time I listened to Jailbreak, I was very pleased. Right after it, I put in Blueberry Boat for the first time. At track 3 of Blueberry Boat, I hit eject and put back in Jailbreak back in.
Listening to this album is like trying to insulate an igloo with wet leaves, a waste of time, energy and effort. Blueberry Bloated blows like a cold case of the blueberry balls, not because it would be more cost effective to heat the igloo with the ignited happening hipster wind and excessive experimental gas released from the album’s punctured guts; but simply because I can’t fathom what would ever possess someone to write the line, “Later at lunch with the taco lettuce crunch crunch” and then sing it in what is possibly the most annoying vocal delivery “EVER”. Listening to the line makes Urkle’s voice sound like listening Courtney Cox climax with a double pronged dildo. If anyone wants me to spend more time with this piece of garbage, then all I’m saying is I’d better get my
Taco-cocko-sucko-ed.
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.”
Brian: “I’m quitting. I’ve lost anyway.”
Mike: “Dude, don’t quit. Quitting is for girls.”
Brian: “Exactly. I’m going to go talk to some.”
Brian vacates the room, leaving only Thom and Mike continue to play.
Thom: “Brian went to look for girls.”
Mike: “Yeah. I know.”
Thom: “Any woman news with you?”
Mike: “Play the game.”
Thom: “Don’t be so touchy.”
Mike: “How about you then? Any women news with you?”
Thom: “Shut the fuck up.”
Note: Contrary to
the fact that Brian generally meets women at the bar, Risk is about the control of all the world’s women.
I just purchased a Presto Pizzazz Pizza “oven” because my regular oven isn’t working. So rather than do the logical thing and get my oven fixed I decided to buy even more gadgetry for my home.
I love my pizza and my pizza loves me – so I was anxious to try the Pizzazz. The Pizzazz claims to cook Pizza from start to finish in less time than it takes for most conventional ovens to pre-heat. I decided to see how true this claim really is so I brought out my Pizzazz and cooked away. I cooked a frozen regular crust Tombstone Pizza in 17 minutes from start to finish. That isn’t bad considering it use to take my working oven over 12 to 15 minutes to pre-heat! Now that it doesn’t work correctly it takes about 2 hours to reach 400 degrees and it sometimes smokes.
I have cooked two pizzas on the machine so far. The pizza cooking quality is great. It browns the cheese and crisp the crust perfectly. I would recommend this product to anyone who is a big pizza eater like me. I don’t like the name though, it’s a bit gay. But then again so is my bedroom. I would change the name to the Presto Pizza Producer X (aka PPPX).
This is just an initial report; I plan to write a follow-up later. I may change my mind when I cook a pizza made from scratch or a rising dough pizza or if it burns my house down. It says not to cook anything but Pizza on the machine due to fire risk. I plan to cook fish sticks on the Pizzazz this coming week. Happy eating Jabba.
-DJ Webb
As we saw our own DJ Webb partaking of the boob tube this holiday season, I also took rare look at TV programming this New Year’s Eve. I caught several movies that I’ve been meaning to look into. These are the first 3 installments of the Death Wish series of movies.
There are men. There are men we look up to, and there are men’s men. And then there is Charles Bronson.
This man’s mustache and overall ugliness could only be trademarked. While Hollywood girly-faced actors are revelling in this metrosexual era, Bronson only had one thing to say about his visage: “I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited.”
The story of Death Wish is a simple fantasy to even the most liberal of us and one which probably started a vein of vigilante stories that, already cult classic, Boondock Saints continues with currently. That is, to issue justice as we ourselves see fit. Bronson plays an average New Yorker family man who stumbles on the misfortune of having his wife and daughter robbed, raped and killed by Jeff Goldblum and his gang of thugs. What ensues over 5 films and 2 decades of filming is Bronson exacting revenge not only on the personal perpetrators, but over hundreds of similar scum.
The height, for me, is in Death Wish 3, when Bronson, already in his 60’s by then, teams up a crew of senior citizens in low-income housing to take back their safety from organized gang members, including Bill S. Preston, Esq.. But Bronson has help from one more source. He has Wildey on his side.
A decade before there was the Desert Eagle, we had Wildey, which fires a .475 Wildey Magnum, a shorter version of the African big game cartridge. Shown above is the 18 inch barrel (I think Bronson -only- used the 12″ or 14″ in Death Wish 3). Fabled to resolve most fights without a shot being fired, the Wildey is said to reduce a cinder block to dust, having the main drawback of not stopping until it has gone through 2 or 3 human targets.
I think this post is done, but it doesn’t stop there. Maybe later I’ll talk about the Death Wish 3 Commodore 64/Spectrum ZX video game which revolutionarily allows you blow through thugs, cops and bag ladies alike with an RPG.