If you're like me, your interests come and go with the tides and what keeps your attention is highly dependent on what looks the shiniest or where the jingling keys are at any given time. On the grandest (and most expensive) scale this is demonstrated in my choice to go back and take classes to get my Computer Science degree after initially going to college intending to study it but then switching to a History and Latin double major. Although class takes up a good chunk of time and could constitute a hobby at this point, there are so many things I would like to do but just don't find the time for.
Blogging
For those who aren't aware, you are currently reading what is called a "blog." I'm not going to give you a Webster definition for that word, but according to a book I once picked up it has something to do with there being conversation about the topics being written. I suppose that is what a comments section at the bottom of a post is for. This particular "blog," (and now that we're familiar with the term I will continue use without quotations) is basically a cheap mix of what I would ultimately like to be individual blogs.
A Venn Diagram
A blog needs a purpose, a drive, a sort of....... milieu. Ultimately it needs limits and parameters. The pretense for this blog is that it is for people who are "like me." Although I am not a huge fan of the "everyone is a special and unique snowflake" idea, it does sort of hold when it comes to interests. Sure, we can match up almost the entire Venn Diagram (see image) of two people but at some point the we will diverge. Of course posts on a blog about a particular topic will not always be engaging to the all of the readership all of the time, but a more narrowed sense of purpose would give someone who doesn't know me personally a potential reason to read it.
The problem is I think doing this would be fun, but it is not a true passion of mine. A food blog about Minneapolis? That would be a blast except: A. There are likely dozens out there, B. I don't eat out that much, C. I don't have a good camera to document visits, D. I have no experience in the food industry (though my first job was as a busser), E. I keep coming up with reasons not to do it. E, as in multiple choice tests, covers the "all of the above" for nearly all ideas about blogs for me. If it was a passion, I would push through. However, since it is a fleeting jingle of the keys, I am reduced to offhanded comments on a webpage with a .blogspot after it.
Aside from food, I would love, or I convince myself I would love, to have a Computer Science blog to document my learnings and share them with the whole wide world; a Video Games blog to share my love of the about 3-5 games I actually play; a TV Show blog to comment on shows that have already been released for years and I now find on Netflix; a Netflix blog to show my comments on TV Shows that for years released have been; a Podcasting blog, again with the review of maybe a couple I actually listen to; a Book blog to showcase the weird titles for books I come across each day; a Latin blog in which I could break down the lines of the Aeneid and help struggling Latinists cheat on their earliest homework; and dozens of others that come to me during my walking commute and have left me by the time I make it to my computer. In the course of writing this paragraph two more have dawned on me but I feel the point has been made.
All of these are ideas, all ideas that would take time, time that, history has shown, I don't have or don't go out of my way to have. Why would I want to blog? It sounds "fun." But as with many things the idea of something is often more potentially satisfying than the reality, unless you really kick ass at it and know enough about something to educate people on a topic in which you are passionate. Do I feel better for having written this? Yes, but this is the sort of blog I don't really like to write. It is a rant, a chance for me to impose my ideas upon you, the reader, without giving any hard evidence or any reason for you to believe me. Even better, it's about a topic that you can, at best, relate to, but really have no reason to care about. Not that you don't care about me (perhaps you do, but likely you don't), but this is not the place for me to trumpet every idea I have about every thing that.......
Blogs tend to lead to rambling sentences and paragraphs that make less and less sense as they go on. Having said this (perfect passive participle, thank you Latin), I think it is time this one ends. So many ideas, so little time... and that is just on blogging. Ugh, I won't subject you to my other fleeting interests......... in this post.
If you're like me, real time strategy games (RTSs) are a large part of your gaming heritage. For me it was Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations, Empire Earth, and other cheaper games I picked up for 5 bucks at Target. One that I never got into was StarCraft.
Photo from Wikipedia
Although my RTS strategy doesn't work well in competitive online gaming, I was a fan of building up a big force, a strong economy, and only after a good 30-50 minutes would I make my move hoping for an epic sally from my fortress (my college roommates can attest to my love of walls). StarCraft just seemed too fast paced back in the day. I had installed it, tried it a bit, and never got into it. Perhaps it is unfair of me to judge it so harshly on just one 20 minute experience, but based on the title of this post I think you will realize I have not shunned it forever.
When StarCraft 2 was announced and I started seeing screenshots and hearing news about the upgrade to the decade's old RTS I will admit I was interested. Perhaps at this time (years after my first experience with the game) I would have enjoyed the first iteration, but I had other things going on. Initial impressions of watching others play the game definitely had me intrigued. StarCraft 2's Starter Edition, which allows you to play through the first few missions of the campaign for free, took me from interested to fanatic. What kept me from it? The $60 price tag. Amazing how that can temper excitement. I have been waiting and waiting for the price to drop, and as you can guess this has finally happened!
Aside from some initial deals at the game's release, the price has not budged from the $59.99 starting point more than once or twice. With Black Friday on the horizon however, Blizzard is once again throwing a bone to the players and is now selling StarCraft 2 for only $20! This is extremely tempting, and I think people should take advantage of it. Unfortunately I don't get a commission if anyone buys it from that link, but still.
The only thing holding me back this time is the same thing that prompted this sale: Black Friday. Without a doubt Steam will have some sort of Thanksgiving Sale that basically gives away games in a way that you can spend $100 without even realizing it. My budget for games is very small this year, and quite honestly I shouldn't be buying any. I still have a good chunk of things I haven't even touched from the Steam Summer Sale.
Having said that, I hope you all have a great gaming season and take advantage of some of the deals that will be out there.
Happy ThanksGaming!
If you have any deals I should know about or you'd like others to, please post a comment and ruin my social life that much more.
For those of you who don't know, Grohl previously drummed for QotSA's album, "Songs for the Deaf." He has also toured with them a few times and was drummer for my favorite version of their song "Avon." It also consistently competes for my favorite QotSA song at any given time.
"Songs for the Deaf" had some of my favorite songs and I really hope getting him back on the drums will mean a killer next album. Thank you for your work Joey Castillo, but Dave Grohl is back!
If you need to sate your hunger for either Homme or Grohl (or John Paul Jones for that matter), check out Them Crooked Vultures if you haven't. I had a lot of fun listening to that album and would be happy to get some more of those vibes in the unnamed upcoming album.
If you're like me, keeping your blog with up to date with timely news is of the utmost importance (see my rant about bad DQ commercials only about half a year after they were released). The problem is, without my own reporters I have a tough time staying on top of things and making this blog the go to place for all your Science, Sports, and Lifestyle news.
As a Google nerd I am embarrassed that I did not know about the featured product in this article earlier. In fact, I was told about this from an entomologist who used it to stay on top of all things insects. But better late than never I always say, so without further ado I give you:
Google Alerts allows people with G-Mail accounts to get a Daily, Weekly, or even "As-it-happens" digest of news from across the internet on different topics you are interested in. You simply enter the search terms you would normally put in Google to find your news on a topic and voila! E-mails of all new hits on that search sent to your inbox.
I have only just gotten started with this but I see real value in this for anyone who actually needs to stay on top of things. The afore mentioned entomologist gets alerts for bed bugs and dutch elm disease. Not my cup of tea, but you understand how that could be valuable for someone who makes a living being an expert on such things.
For me, it is how I get my news on my favorite Doctor:
-"David Tennant"
News on upcoming games:
-"Dust 514"
-"Rome 2 Total War"
-Steam Valve
and upcoming TV Shows:
-"Arrested Development"
Since it is a Google search, you can have quotes to search for a phrase, or just enter in all terms you want covered. My initial digest for Steam was a little much, but I've thrown in Valve and so far I don't get many results dealing with water pressure.
There are more options and I would encourage you all to experiment with this. My only concern is that if I don't check my e-mail for a few days I am going to come back to an inbox filled with these, so far though I've kept it under control.
Got anything you think I should add to alerts or are you already using this? Feel free to comment below!
If you're like me, you never read the comic book but loved the movie V for Vendetta. Having Elrond dawn a mask and kick a bunch of guys with guns using only knives was pretty bad ass. It is interesting that this year a day noted as a day of bucking the government (November 5th), falls on the eve the United States Election.
As a Minnesota resident, there is something that, to me, seems more important than the vote for president. Don't get me wrong, the presidential choice is a big one, possibly the biggest in our nation's history, but I am not going to change your mind about that, there are TV and YouTube advertisements to tell you who to vote for (all sarcasm aside I hope you are smart enough to think about the issues and make an informed decision). Anyway, there are two amendments to Minnesota's constitution on this year's ballot and I urge any Minnesotan reading this to Vote No on both. I'll quote myself here from another site where I posted about this:
I generally prefer people make their own decisions and avoid using social media to express my political views. However, with tomorrow's election there are two amendments to the Minnesota constitution on the ballot that I would regret having not done what I could to prevent if they were to pass. Regardless of who you are voting for, President, Senate, or House I urge you to put politics aside and Vote No on both of these amendments. This is not a matter of political affiliation, this is a matter of human rights. I cannot endorse passing a voter ID law that targets a specific demographic and creates barriers to citizens trying to exercise one of their human rights in this country. A barrier that would cost local and state governments millions. I also cannot endorse passing what amounts to a government repressing basic human rights for some of its citizens. For those who say marriage between two individuals of the same sex should be called a "Civil Union," sure, as long as they are for all forms of union, including man and woman. "Separate but equal" has not worked in the past and it will not work now. If you say Marriage is a matter of the Church, that's fine. There is a separation of Church and State in this country and until we have a civil institution that covers traditional marriage for couples of the same sex, we have no right to limit it. No one is making your church allow gay couples to get married and voting No on this still does not allow gay couples the same rights as heterosexual ones. A vote yes is a vote to ban same sex marriage, a refusal to have a discussion about the rights of a significant portion of our State's citizens. Personally, I do not want to forever be from a state marred in a history of limiting human rights. I want to be proud of a state that took a stand and was willing to have a discussion about human rights before we ignorantly snuffed out something that maybe... we just did not completely understand. Minnesota, please Vote No, on the amendments to the constitution tomorrow. A constitution should be about civil liberties and what we stand for as a State. I do not want to stand for intolerance and injustice against those who might happen to be just a little bit different than me, but are human beings trying to gain life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Just like myself.
Now, I do not want this to become a political blog and other than this post and maybe one once the results are in, I am 99% sure you will not have to read another for 4 years. I just think this country is in transition and I am afraid of becoming known as the equivalent of one of the deep south states and slavery in terms of gay rights. There are more important things than building an economy at a time like this. I will not trade civil injustice for a bigger paycheck.
Until these two days have passed and we can move onto lighter things, have a good night.
If you're like me, you've always had a little writing bug in you. You read profusely as a child and you got lost in worlds much more fascinating than the one in which you lived. But it did not end there. You wanted to not only experience but create those worlds. Hours were spent day dreaming about magic, intrigue, and even romance if you are honest with yourself. However, your dreams of being an author are just that: day dreams.
In a day and age where self-publishing can be a legitimate way to get your work
out there, it is becoming harder and harder to have excuses as to why
you haven't wrote that novel you've been working on. I feel the biggest block to most people is starting. Even if you don't think you have the time, you really do.
I once was at a banquet where Jim Lehrer (which by the way Google wants me to spell check to Fuehrer) was the speaker and someone asked him "How do you have time to write so many books?" He said that he gets that question a lot and that he makes a point to write every single day. He might not have time to sit down and just write a book every day, but he makes a point that whether it be 10 pages or some notes on a napkin, he write every single day. "Could you write one page a day?" he then asked. Many people in the audience nodded or made some noise that indicated he should continue with his point. "What do you have when you do that every day for a year?"
Photo taken from Wired.com
This idea has really stuck with me, and although I enjoy writing, I have to admit I have not actually taken this advice. This blog is about the best manifestation I've come up with, but if YOU want to get going on your novel there is no better time than now. November is Nation Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). That means starting today you have one month to write, write, write. The goal is to write an entire (if imperfect) novel from beginning to end during the month of November. I feel this is a good alternative November activity for those who can't grow epic beards. Even if you can't write a whole novel, it's a hell of a start.
If this idea intrigues you, I would encourage you to visit the official website for this event at: http://www.nanowrimo.org/. You can track your progress and join a community that is there to support you and help you get that novel done. So go out there! Do it! You can be an author! Just think, you write just one and you can always introduce yourself that way. The name's Bond. James Bond.... author.
If you're like me, that little counter at the bottom of your webpage gives you seconds of amusement every day. For some reason in our base 10 world we celebrate numbers with zeroes after it. In according with this social convention I am here to say thank you 3 times over for each zero you have put after that little 1. It is you, the fans for whom I write. Well that, and my sanity. Hope you have had a laugh or two. Here's hoping I can give you up to 2 more laughs over the next 1000 views.
If you're like me, you've been getting your paycheck sent directly to your bank via direct deposit since you got out of high school. Over time it is easy to just have payday come and go, note that it's time to pay your bills, and have a net gain of $0 once a month.
Now, I'll try to keep personal gripes about my life out of this blog and make this about things that are actually interesting, but this thing has been bugging me since I found out about it on Monday. For some reason payroll had "issues" processing my check this week so I am receiving a hard copy instead. I have mixed feelings about this. Since the bank branch that was literally up the stairs from my work has since converted, this means I have to walk out of my way to deposit this check. This is rather annoying considering I have bills to pay. It's October 31st, I have rent and utilities due tomorrow!
At the same time this presents a unique opportunity. It has been a while since I have had to deposit any check at a physical bank so I have the chance to take some cash out. In the past I had to go to an ATM, but now that I'm at a bank I can withdraw whatever I want. I can get $20 in quarters and then $17 in cash if I so choose. Ah, freedom! Maybe I should take it in pennies. I should also walk through the drive-through so I can use that cool tube system.
Still, very few pluses to offset the minuses. I find this whole thing very in-convenient. Not only do I have to go out of my way, I "get" to look at everything that has been taken out of my checks. I'm sort of a out-of-sight out-of-mind kind of person when it comes to money. It is also the reason I keep little cash on me when possible. What's a $1.25 for a soda when I've got $100 burning in my pocket? I tell ya what it's a lot more when you've got 30 cents to get you to the next check.
Aaaaaaaaaaanyway. I think direct deposit is a good thing and hopefully
does not go away any time soon. If it does, I'll have to gold to the
old store and smash piggy-bank system. Although this post may be about
10 year late to be relevant, I feel better and so should you!
Have any other modern conventions you'd be lost without (not including
toilets), leave a comment below and feel grateful for the modern world
in which you live.
If you're like me, the mere idea of space is mind-blowing. The infinite vastness of the cosmos is often more than we can put into words. Lacking words, several companies have made television shows, movies, and video games which take space as their stage. The game that probably encompasses the scale of space best is the MMORPG (World of Warcraft type games) EVE Online.
Wikipedia calls it "...a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates. The star systems can contain moons, planets, stations, wormholes, asteroid belts and complexes."
Dust 514 is a Playstation 3 MMOFPS (Massively Multiplayer First Person Shooter). The gaming site, IGN, has an entire page dedicated to the game. You can view videos there that explain an ambitious project that seeks to integrate mercenary combat with the goals of EVE Online's players. Corporations will be able to hire mercenaries to take the fight from space-side to planet-side. This brings together two typically polarized gamer types (MMO and FPS) to create what could potentially one of the most engaging gaming experiences in existence.
I would encourage anyone with a PS3 to check it out. Currently it is in Beta, but websites seem to be giving these out left and right. All I had to do to get my own was search "Dust 514 Beta Code" in Google and limit the search to results from the day and I had mine before I could even get home from work. I haven't had much time to play it but this is the first time I have been excited for a shooter in .... well.... ever. Check out CCP's (company which makes EVE) YouTube Video below and get very, very excited.
If you're like me, your music tastes ebb and flow with the tides of Saturn's moon system. I tend to binge on a band for a few weeks to a couple months and then tone it down and fold them into my regular music interests. My favorite band has been and continues to be Queens of the Stone Age. Since they are recording a new album! I need something to distract me until then.
As much as I enjoy listening to music, I tend to know very little. Music trivia is probably my biggest weakness in "pop culture" terms. I can sing along with all sorts of music, but don't ask me to identify the singer or discuss who the greatest drummer of all time is. Since I am so naive I rely on friends and/or happenstance to discover new music. I randomly discovered Hot Hot Heat off a soundtrack from a video game, and Black Veil Brides was an opener to an Avenged Sevenfold concert.
The song that has been stuck in my head (besides Gangnam Style, damn that song), is "Like a Stone" by Audioslave. Still, one song only lasts for so long. As such, I reach out to you, the masses that are the Internet. If you know of any lesser-known bands that I should listen to this week, leave me something in the comments below. I think I'm overdue for a new music phase and what better time to start than a Monday.
If you're like me, you spend the majority of your days sitting at a desk, staring at a computer. As we all know there have been studies which say that sitting all day increases your risk of dying from 10-200%. Now, I have not read all of the reports, but so far none have them have considered one symptom that is rampant across worldly office spaces: boredom. At some level or another your desk job is just performing repetitive actions. There is not always a project, always a meeting, always a creative outlet for your work ideas. When this happens you sit, sit and type, or sit and click.
While I'm sure you could change your diet or buy a $1500 machine that would combat some of the physical health risks, I am here to help you "survive" the risks that come with that mental void that seems to grow when there is either no or not interesting work to do.
1. Drink water....... a lot
It is a fact of nature that if you ingest things your body needs to either utilize or expel them....or die. Since we are trying to survive however, we are going to take advantage of the digestive system and overflow it with water! I grew up being told that I should drink 8 glasses a day. At least that's what school said, my dad said I should support the company and drink Coke products, but this was back when Google didn't exist so I can't blame him for not realizing the effect that might be currently having on my blood pressure.
Anyway, not here to play the blame game. If you have a water fountain or a water cooler in your office, make liberal use of it. Doing so will make you get up to refill your cup or bottle and then drinking large amounts of water will ensure that you have to get up to rid your body of the water it does not need. I feel like I heard somewhere that drinking too much water can be bad, but as long as you avoid breathing while drinking I am going to say you should be fine.
So we've got a way to cut out some of that straight sit-time, a change of environment is good for the boredom. This movement is especially effective if you only have 1 toilet for a whole office since you will have to dance to pass the time while you wait for the person in front of you to finish. Burn those calories!
2. Listen to music
You can type in time to the music. Perhaps you are working in a spreadsheet entering number after number from a stack of papers. Not very fun, but turn on the Game of Thrones theme, position your input box and you've got a rocking rhythm of 9.............6............269..........0..........97enter! Go on, rock out! It might seem like you aren't typing as fast as you would otherwise, but if you make yourself keep pace it is better than entering one number then taking 15 seconds to move the sheet to another pile and refocus your eyes on the next one. If you want a challenge try doing it to a Metallica guitar solo or something.
3. Learn to dance with your feet
Unlike construction workers, the movement of your fingers on your keyboard does not burn the calories quite like moving heaven and earth shovel by shovel.To compensate for this, we are going to wrap my first two steps (Moving and Music) into a third.
While you are tapping out the tune to your favorite song on the keys, be sure to bring your feet into the action. This relatively low-volume (unless you sit on a metal floor of some kind) exercise is much less conspicuous than getting up in your cubicle and doing jumping jacks. Save face and burn up to 500 calories a day fidgeting at your desk. You might switch to some techno for a post-lunch power fidget to get that digestive system going and bring it down to a nice waltz fidget to wind down from your day before leaving the office.
4. Listen to audiobooks/podcasts/lectures
Words distract me. But sometimes work activities are fairly mundane and can be done with less than 100% brain capacity.This is the sort of task that increases the risk of boredom to over 9000! It is also the sort of task that is most conducive to doing something else while you are doing it. I would not be so brash as to put a movie in the corner of your screen (unless you are in a particularly well situated cubicle), but advances in technology have given us a way to make these tasks more... productive.
Need to catch up on reading? This is a perfect time to get into an audiobook. Whether you buy them (through amazon, audible, or some other service) or check them out from your local library (which is an under utilized resource I may do a separate post on) this is the best way to pad your Goodreads account and wow your friends with how much reading you do. Whether you listen to historical biographies, political ... stuff, or your favorite fantasy/sci-fi novel, this is something I personally take full advantage of.
Another form of ear stimuli is podcasts (are podcasts?). If you have a Zune, like myself, you can look for these on the Zune Marketplace and almost all of them are free! I think iTunes might also have these, but I tend to avoid Apple products. This can be a great way to keep up on current events, learn a foreign language, or just get a laugh. If you're like me and I had to suggest two to get you started I would go with Stuff You Should Know and Hypothetical Help. A lot of radio shows also release their episodes as podcasts such as NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me.
When I am forced to use iTunes, my favorite feature is their iTunes U. This service has several classes listed and you can download lectures (both video and audio) and learn that foreign language or take that ancient history class you have always wanted. I am all for the movement to open education and as more Universities get on board with this I think this will be a legitimate way to round our your resume (albeit in a non-official capacity).
5.Catch up on video games
Now this one may not seem too intuitive and there are definitely some caveats to this, but I have recently descended into a lower circle of Nerd-damnation and started watching what are called "Let's Play" videos. For those reading that would actually enjoy this, I am guessing you already know what "Let's Play" videos are, but it's my #5 thing so I have to fill some space.
If you go to YouTube and search for Let's Play, you will get thousands of results. These are essentially videos of people playing video games and commenting on them as they do.
"What fun is that?" you might ask.
My answer: nostalgia. If you are at home or in a place where you can visually watch until your heart's content, this can actually be a good way to experience games that you might not have A. time for. 2. a computer good enough to play. or C. desire to buy without seeing what it is like first. In the office, however, this is not what we are trying to get out of this. For the at-work Let's Player, as I said, we are going for nostalgia.
"How can we experience a video game we can't see? After all 'video' is Latin for 'I see'!"
Well you are full of good questions and know some basic Latin vocabulary!...ok I'll tell you. If you're like me, you have restarted video games over and over again. Whether it is deleting your Madden Franchise when you win the Super Bowl once or forgetting where you are in an RPG story and starting it all over again, you become familiar with games you end up playing through them 10 times. I'm not sure Madden would work for this, but for a game like Final Fantasy VII, I could probably talk you through the first 10 hours of that game without visual aids.
We are going to channel that last claim into an audio walkthrough of a game you know inside and out. When you find yourself a good commentator (I like HCBailly) it's like having inside jokes with someone all day. You totally thought Cid was a little over-excited to have tea served in Rocket Town and "Wow, the main character is named after a weather phenomenon. Let's hope that doesn't become a pattern..."
I am over halfway through the FFVII playthrough and as the game goes on I'm finding myself having to peek a bit more, but the whole experience still brings me back to the innocent days of my youth. So if you have games you know better than you know the presidents just search Let's Play ____ and get some gaming in at work!
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There are probably many more ways to combat the monotony your desk job may entail, and I'd love to hear of more ways to pass the day. If you've got a suggestion please post in the comments below!
If you're like me, you have yourself a blog that you have neglected. Perhaps you started a photography blog but then your camera broke (not me); perhaps you started a personal public journal then realized maybe people shouldn't know that you are having troubles coping with the fact there are no more episodes of Firefly (more like me); or perhaps you simply got high and sort of wandered off (more like Towelie).
Either way, you have felt as though you are neglecting your little corner of the internet and it needs some TLC. Unfortunately it's been a while so this will probably be more like some Rough LC, but hey, this isn't a company... it's not a person or anything, it won't mind.
So here I am, picking up the pieces of this little blog, partially completed posts and all. And I swear by the hairs on my chinny-chin-chin that I will commit to writing posts for this blog on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly frequency, or 2 more, whichever comes first. After that all bets are off.
I feel most blogs are just chances for people to rant, a "soapbox" if you will, but speaking stands are not relevant in digital discussions and I personally don't like being yelled at all the time. Occasionally, sure, but I think things that are amusing or cool would be much more worth coming back for. So I leave it to you, my faithful 3 subscribers...what would you like me to write about? I'm open to any and all topics.
Leave a comment below and it might just be the subject of a not-rant.
If you're like me, you do a lot of internet surfing. Despite this experience, you couldn't stand up long on a surf board laying down in the sand cause that ya know... requires balance... or patience.
Surfboards aside, I guess my point is, there is almost too much out there now (how this transitions, I don't know). Too many celebrities, websites, products out there and it seems impossible for anything to be original or unique anymore. Even if something does a really good job, I find myself picking it apart for simply imitating something else. Don't get me wrong I love how much we can access now...no... hate, I'm hating in this post. Well maybe it is just that there is something out there for everyone now.. Hmm.
So fine, my main point, then, is this: I hate Dairy Queen.
Cookie dough blizzard is superb do not get me wrong... but have you seen their commercials lately? (and by lately I mean about 5 months ago when I initially started this post and am only getting around to posting now.) Well specifically this series of commercials.
Observe:
Honestly that commercial might have been hilarious. Ya know... if it hadn't already been done before...
Hats off to Old Spice, this commercial was so LEGEN...... wait for it...... that almost anyone in America and probably some people in other countries has seen this commercial. The whole lulling you into a false sense of security with a strange muscular man in the shower and then BOOM! you are on an emotional roller coaster ride of joy and fear that can only end when you are safely on a horse... or have bought some deodorant... awesome.
Unfortunately, being reDQlously over the top has just lost its appeal now, at least in this idiom. Old Spice has cornered this market and anything else just comes up short or seems catty. The only way to even get close to touching Old Spice is in a non-commercial sense, parody if you will.
Ok, so maybe this is not the end of originality, but in the corporate world, it is just so disappointing to see something so blatantly and poorly ripped off. That series of DQ commercials just really grinds my gears and I needed an outlet. This post was long overdue but I feel better for finally writing it.
DARY!
Have any commercials you hate with a passion? Throw it in the comments below and we can all cry together in the fortress of solitude of togetherness.
If you're like me, you are not a fan of Mondays. But instead of whining about it, I have adopted a new practice to help me ease into the work week. It is known as the Casual Monday.
Some people feel refreshed after a weekend. That may be true, but honestly I am not going to feel that refreshment until about 2 in the afternoon. I just got done sleeping in until 11:30 two days in a row, and now I am supposed to get moving a full 4 hours earlier and drag myself into work. I don't know about you, but I prefer to eek out every second of sleep I can on Monday mornings. Getting up in time to shave, make breakfast, pick out matching clothes... It just doesn't sound like fun after a weekend of reckless abandon.
My guide to starting this unavoidable part of your week:
Hygiene:
A shower is still essential. I have been blessed with hair that completely greases over if I sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time. Plus, if someone forgets to change the setting on the shower, that cold water on your back wakes you up with a scream and a dance that proves you are still more limber than you thought.
As far as brushing your teeth... you did that last night. Bring a toothbrush and bit of toothpaste to keep in your desk and work it into the first 5 minutes of your work day. Mouthwash should tide you over if you feel the need for an emergency chemical wash.
Shaving? Ha! Best part about Casual Monday. You and your 24 o'clock shadow are going rugged today. Stay in your cubicle and stay out of well lit areas. No one will notice or care, and you won't cut yourself trying to get that silky smooth chi..... CRAP! Missed a spot... and it is the first thing you noticed when you sat down at your desk. The 24 o'clock shadow does not miss spots.
Wardrobe:
The public face of Casual Mondays. Hopefully you don't work in a place where you need a suit. Also, I feel most meetings land in the Tuesday-Thursday range, so chances are you don't need to impress anyone today. As you finish drying off, try to land the towel on something where it can hang for the day and not clump in a ball. You could take the 5 seconds to put it on its hook, but that is 5 seconds of sleep you just can't budget for.
A pair of dark jeans and the first shirt with a collar in your closet will do today. Every color goes with jeans (or so I am told) so it doesn't ultimately matter what you grab. The collar does class it up a bit over the classic t-shirt and you might even fool someone into thinking you spend more than 5 minutes getting ready this morning. A pair of shoes and you are done. Dressed in 50 seconds... make that a minute flat, let's put some underwear on.
Breakfast/Lunch:
The most important meal of the day should be filled by the most important food... grain. Everyone eats it, and bread has a few grains in it, sometimes as many 12. If you can time it right, drop this in the toaster on your way back from the shower. If you have some cinnamon/sugar prepared, some pb, or some j, you have yourself something to keep your stomach busy until you can hit the vending machine or secret stash of snacks at work during your morning break.
If you are going to prepare a lunch, you better have done it earlier. Something you can grab out of the fridge and throw in your bag is about all there is time for. I like using those containers that Chinese food comes in. Not the real paper folded up and you can hold like a bag a 2 year old girl would skip gleefully around with, I mean those black plastic containers with the clear top. Those things are amazing, and microwaveable to boot. Don't have anything prepared? I think you can justify eating out one day of the week.
So you and that now 25 o'clock shadow are out the door and on your way to a week of work. You aren't looking sharp and ready to go, but no one is looking for or wanting that sort of enthusiasm at 9:00am on a Monday morning. Drink your coffee, slam that energy drink, and take Monday to start revving your engine. When you squeal the tires it takes a while for the car to get up to speed. I find I am more productive as the week goes on and my wardrobe reflects that. Fridays are great and if there is any day to look great why not make it the end of the week? Hit the bars in style or just take joy in the satisfaction of throwing those dress pants in laundry, knowing you have two days that are all yours.
Care to refute, repudiate, or refrigerate my argument? Leave a comment below and suggest your friends do the same.
