DarqByte

I’m such a nerd that I put the word iteration in my post title, even when I’m updating my infamous (is it really infamous??) list.

It’s that time of the year folks, when I update my list of famous women that I can sleep with and encounter no repercussions with Laura. The whole point of this list is to be some funny, fantasy thing that will almost assuredly never happen because I’ll never meet these women.

One of these days I’ll make my “Man List”. One of these days… I already know Robert Downey Jr. resides on it, but that’s all I know. Anyway, that’s a topic for another time. At the end of this post I’ll give you the reasons that anybody who might have been dropped was.

Honorable Mention: Michelle Trachtenberg

Michelle Trachtenberg

She gets an honorable mention mostly for a sidenote I’m going to make at the end. But she’s pretty and back when I first watched EuroTrip, she would have qualified for actually being on my list.

Number 5: Michelle Rodriguez

Michelle Rodriguez

She wasn’t even in consideration for Iteration2 until probably a few weeks ago. I’ve always thought she was attractive, but for some reason I decided she belonged on the list after I saw her in Avatar. I mean, she is pretty hot. Although as Laura points out, she’s “too dominant for me.” As if that’s something that matters when we’re talking about a fantasy list. But she’s pretty hot.

Number 4: Jessica Alba

Jessica Alba

Really, she belonged on the list in the first place. The only reason I never added her was because just about everybody else probably would have placed her on their list, and I’m not one to follow a crowd. But oh well, this is personal preference here, so screw everyone else and if I’m just one in the flock here! Jessica Alba is pretty damn smokin’ hot. I mean, what else is there to say? Wondering why she’s not ranked higher, perhaps?

Number 3: Rachel McAdams

Rachel McAdams

Rachel never appeared on my list before simply because I kinda forgot about her. See, I don’t fantasize about myself being with hot famous women all of the time, so I can forget when I see one and think to consider them for my list. Hell, even when I think about considering them for my list, I’ll have forgotten later that I wanted to make that consideration! And Rachel McAdams was the unfortunate recipient of such forgetfulness. She should have been on here from the get-go. Can’t break into the top two, though.

Number 2: Jenna Fischer

Jenna Fischer

She very nearly well broke into the top spot. I mean, she was really close. Hell, even a few weeks after I first posted my list, she was pretty much going to get it. But I’ll explain why she didn’t here soon. She’s still hot and still a nerd magnet, so thus she retains her spot as #2.

Number 1: Amanda Bynes

Amanda Bynes

I almost knocked Amanda Bynes down to #2. I mean, she dyed her hair pretty damn blonde right after I made my list and I actually didn’t really like that look on her. She looks good with darker hair. But alas, two things saved Ms. Bynes. One, she switched her hair to highlights, which looks much better on her than the blonde, and I daresay might even look better than when her hair was basically just one cohesive color. And the second? She posed in Maxim, and got to prove that she’s indeed as hot as I thought she was. In fact, that’s just what the photo I have of her above is from, her Maxim shoot. Hot indeed.

Notes

Ok, so I mentioned Michelle Trachtenberg earlier as an honorable mention, in part because I wanted to make a note here at the end. I’m not too keen on how she looks much anymore, I think she’s too “plastic” looking nowadays. But Laura and I were talking about my list earlier this week and she was suggesting people to consider for my list. She mentioned “that girl from EuroTrip.” I mentioned that I thought she was pretty hot back when that movie was made. And then I realized…

Both Michelle Trachtenberg and Amanda Bynes were stars on Nickelodeon, back when I watched that kids channel when I was a kid. It appears that I haven’t outgrown the actresses that were on TV as kids when I was a kid. I wonder if that’s part of the appeal, at all..  I’m not convinced, though. I mean, Michelle Trachtenberg is only an honorable mention, mostly because I thought this was an interesting side-note, and I nearly knocked Amanda Bynes down for Iteration 2. None of the other ladies on my list were kid stars that I watched as a kid.

In fact, had Amanda Bynes not grown up to be so damn hot, she wouldn’t be on the list in the first place.

Dropped

You may notice there is 60% turnover on my list! Dropped from the ranks are Scarlett Johansson, Keira Knightley and Hayden Panettiere. These three ladies are still quite attractive, but I was putting my initial version of my list together without the full breadth of thought that it required. Really, lists require a couple iterations to get them right from the get-go, and from thereon out they’ll always be living documents because tastes change, people change and whatnot. So those three are dropped because they are unworthy when considered against my three newest additions. No offense.

Robert Entertainment, Musings Amanda Bynes, Hayden Panettiere, jenna fischer, jessica alba, Keira Knightley, michelle rodriguez, Michelle Trachtenberg, rachel mcadams, Scarlett Johansson

34 inches? I know what you’re thinking about but no, I’m not talking about that. 34 would be selling myself way short anyway.

The latest chapter in my whole “make myself look and feel better” thing has arrived. I’ve been putting off getting new clothes mainly because I wanted to complete my weight loss first. I didn’t want to have to buy a bunch of clothes in a stopgap fashion. Unfortunately, my last two pairs of jeans bit the dust, so I was forced to replace them. They were Levi’s, and they were built rather well. The only problem was that it was tough to find 38-30s that weren’t below my heels. They weren’t truly 30s so I kept stepping on them and wearing down the bottom of the pant legs. For the record, I really needed 37s, not 38s. They don’t make 37s.

Now I’m in 34s! 34-30s and they aren’t too long. This makes me a very happy person. I’ve lost at least 30 pounds and 3 inches off of my waist. Good stuff. I’ve recently begun making progress again and I anticipate hitting the 175 mark by the end of this month or early February. That would be 35 pounds off since I started nearly a year ago. I think my target is 160, but I won’t really know until I get there.

I recently looked at photos of me when I went to just the mustache, the Robstache. Wow I’ve lost weight since then. I do look better. Still got further to go. Additionally, I’m going to try to start running in the mornings with Pepper (and potentially Laura). I was supposed to start this week, but being excessively tired when my alarm went off put the kabash on things. Hopefully I’ll start tomorrow.

And if I do start tomorrow, wow what a day it will be. Today I start my next semester of MBA courses. In 50 minutes, actually. I’m in Lied Library right now. But because my classes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I’ve signed up to play soccer on Wednesdays. I was originally waffling on the decision, but Laura’s support for me switching days and the fear of getting really out of shape spurred me to sign up. In any case, tomorrow’s my first Wednesday day of soccer on a new individual coed team, and for some odd reason we have two games tomorrow… What the fuck. Two games? A doubleheader? I’ve done it before, but by choice not by facility scheduling. Running in the morning plus two soccer games in the evening. Wow.

And that’s not the end of it! I told my Thursday soccer team I’d make the games if they were late enough, which is basically 9pm or later. So the 9:10 game this Thursday? Yup, I can make that. And I’m hoping to run on Thursday morning as well. Which would make three runs (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday) and three soccer games from Wednesday morning to Friday morning. Wow. See why I think I’ll hit 175 this month?

In other news, I wish I had endless time to do everything I want to do. Not only am I trying to find time to work on OMGN 4, I want to write a memoir about my video game life until, well, now. I think it would be very interesting because I don’t think there’s much of anything like that out now. And I’m a pretty good example of someone who gamed a lot when they were a kid and make the transition to being a responsible (well, at least I think so) adult with a married life and a job and other normal responsibilities.

This brings me to another subject: video games. Specifically, the original Atari joystick. See, my friend Jonathan recently got a tattoo in Elvish from Lord of the Rings. He loves it and I’ve always wanted a tattoo and I’ve always loved video games. I wasn’t 100% set on what tattoo I wanted but I knew I wanted a video game-related one, especially after seeing Anne’s roommate Ed’s “Mario 1up” tattoo he’s got. See, I didn’t want a tattoo that was system- or franchise-specific, I wanted one that represented video games as a whole. Now I know the Atari joystick is still Atari, but it represents so much more than that these days. And I’m asking Jonathan to give me a nice illustration of it so I can verify I indeed want to get it permanently marked on my body.

Laura’s been making sure I really want one, and I do. I am, however, curious to know what you all think of it…

Anyway, that’s it for now. Chat at you all later when I know more about my spring courses and I can let you know if I think I’ll be on track to continue my pursuit of a 4.0.

Robert Athletics, Life, Musings, School soccer, unlv, Video Games, weight loss

Despite Thanksgiving being my favorite holiday of the year, I do still like Christmas quite a bit. Once you get through all of the commercialization of the holiday, it’s quite nice. Colder weather leads to more snuggling between couples, the wreaths, lights and other decorations are nice and if you live in a snowy area, snow can be excellent so long as it’s not a massive snowstorm. And despite the massive chunk of money (and potentially, stress) required, getting gifts for people can be very fun and rewarding.

Christmases past saw Laura and I practically crumble under the financial pressure to get people gifts, and there are a few Christmases sprinkled throughout where we were highly stressed out on the gifts. Sometimes you just don’t know what to get someone, or you’re worrying too much on whether or not someone will like what you’ve gotten them. Really, Christmas isn’t supposed to be about the gifts anyway, it’s supposed to be about family and Jesus.

Yes, I’m talking specifically about Christmas here, not the holidays in general. I’m aware that Hanukkah is this time of the year, as is Kwanzaa and other religious holidays. Being Catholic, I don’t have much intimate knowledge of those holidays, so I’m sticking to what I know best. But no offense to those that subscribe to other faiths. I totally wish you a great insert-your-holiday-here!

Anyway, this year has been better on us regarding gifts. We’ve limited the people we’re getting gifts for because we just have way too many friends, so the financial burden isn’t as bad. And for the most part, we’ve been able to get people to tell us things they want for Christmas, although my Mom & family up in Michigan took awhile to get their lists to me, so I hope their gifts arrive in time.

One person I’m really excited about opening their gift from me is… Yes, you probably guessed correctly… Laura! She never really gives people much of a list to people for Christmas, so this year I’m trying to shop for her based on what I think she’ll like. I initially settled on one particular item I thought she’d really like, but after researching it more and talking with people about it, I ended up wavering on it and wasn’t solid enough in my opinion to get it for her. I considered close alternatives but couldn’t settle on them either. Having given her gift a lot more thought, I wrapped it up yesterday for her and it now sits in our dining room, waiting for the moment she will tear into it.

I’m confident she’ll like it, and I can’t wait for her to open it. I’m really looking forward to her face and (hopefully) joy when she sees what I got her. That’s one of the most fun things about Christmas, is the happiness that a gift can bring. But like I said, temper that enthusiasm for gifts with the knowledge that people should really be happy to spend time with you over Christmas. Money is not necessary.

Really, I just like getting Laura gifts year-round. It’s fun and I love the look on her face when I get her something out-of-the-blue and she doesn’t see it coming. I don’t need Christmas to get her gifts and treat her right. Hell, I bought her a MacBook Pro this year with some extra side money I made because her old laptop was becoming decrepit for what she needed it for. Of course, now I want an MBP, so go figure… Haha.

Hmm, something else I’m thinking about regarding Christmas… I like to say Merry Christmas. Most people have reverted to Happy Holidays and rightfully so — most people don’t want to greet in a religious manner and offend someone. That’s fine, but I still prefer Merry Christmas. Christmas has more meaning to me than the generic “holidays,” so when I tell someone Merry Christmas, I mean it. I don’t mean to convert to Christianity, I’m just wishing them well. And if someone told me Happy Hanukkah, I’d take it as a nice compliment because they’re telling me to enjoy their holiday even though I’m not Jewish.

There’s this big backlash among a lot of Christians to put Christmas back in the forefront for the holidays. Some are upset at the government, media and retail over the usage of holidays over Christmas. Really. Those people come across to me as thinking their religious holiday is more important than others. It isn’t, folks. It may be to you, but not to someone who celebrates Kwanzaa. You can say Merry Christmas all you want and truly mean it, that’s fine. But don’t force your religious holiday on other people, even if you think that the US was founded as a Christian country. We’re supposed to be tolerant here. Just wish someone a Merry Christmas from your heart, rather than a Merry Christmas because you think it should be that instead of Happy Holidays.

Oh, and something you can get me for Christmas — a jacuzzi!

Robert Musings christmas, gifts, hanukah, holidays, kwanzaa, thanksgiving

So it’s the end of the year, and you know what that means! Yes, it means final exams at the end of my first MBA semester and self evaluations at work!

Food Poisoning

Unfortunately, it also means I got food poisoning… Not that it happens every year around this time. The last time this happened, Laura was either a Copy Editor or the News Editor for The Rebel Yell back when we were both in our undergrad studies at UNLV. That time was really awful, this one was just as bad.

To be truly honest, I’m not sure 100% that it was indeed food poisoning, just as back then I’m not sure what it was either. All I know is that I couldn’t keep any food or water down for very long and there were times (specifically, when I wasn’t keeping said food or water down) that I felt I was going to die. Not the most remarkable experience ever. Thus, I had to stay home from work yesterday, which I didn’t want to do, but hey… Not much I could do about it. I was pretty incapacitated.

Hell, I even considered playing some Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that Laura got for me as a just-because surprise gift (She rocks! Love her!), but I couldn’t focus or concentrate enough to even do that. So I just laid on the couch, intermittently sleeping and “watching” TV and trying to eat and failing.

Today, though, I’m mostly back to normal. Still don’t feel quite right, but I can eat & drink and operate like a regular human being again. I anticipate tomorrow being 100% again.

Final Exams

So enough about food poisoning! Let’s address final exams. Rather, final exam. Just one this time around.

My Organizational Behavior class was structured with an optional final. This means that if you ended up with a decent grade, you shouldn’t take the final simply because if you do worse on the final than the grade you had going into it, you could seriously damage your grade. Thus, I checked my grade. Yeah, with that big beaming A staring me in the face, I’m not taking the final. Boo-yah!

So I only have one final then, and that’s Stats. Ugh. Not the class I want to be taking a final in. I’ve been doing alright in there and I have a shot at an A, it seems, but my group project needs to be pretty solid and I need to get roughly a C or so on the final to get the A. I think I can do it, and I really want to. I’m aiming to have the best grades of my educational career in the MBA program. So far I’ve accomplished bettering my grades at every level, having gotten a 3.4 (unweighted) in high school and a 3.56 in undergrad. If I can better that getting my MBA, then you could say I get better with age.

Self Evaluation

So it’s the end of the year and self evaluations are floating around work. That doesn’t really make me the happiest man on the planet, as I get to sift through an entire year’s worth of work to figure out what I’ve done well, what I haven’t and to note any accomplishments. That, and I’m not particularly good at being assertive and promoting myself very well.

These are things I’ve been working on improving in myself lately, with some mixed success. I figure this self evaluation will be one of my first opportunities to be more assertive and sell myself better within the company. I still haven’t moved up and I want to, so this is a prime opportunity to voice that.

I’m also never really sure how to rate myself. I never have been, really. Like when asked what my level of experience is with different technologies, such as HTML, CSS, PHP, Java, etc. I never know what to say beyond Intermediate. I want to say Expert, but when I say Expert, I take that as meaning I’m leaps and bounds better than your average programmer with those skills and technologies. When I say I’m an expert at something, I intend to convey that I’m THE FUCKING MAN.

Indeed, that feeds into my assertiveness and self promotion. I really should give myself more credit than I usually do. I know that I’m an integral, vital part of my department here at work and that a lot of the stability here is due to me (and my tremendous boss Randy Kochis, to be sure).

I do feel that since I’ve got such an effective boss that I’m a bit overshadowed and get pigeonholed too easily. I just feel that it’s difficult to really shine in my department here at work because Randy is so good at what he does and can take on more and more responsibilities easily. He’s actually one of the people I’m trying to model some of my career after, not a bad example if I do say so myself.

So yeah, my whole point here is that self evaluations are around again and I just hope I don’t over- or under-value myself too much this year. The first year I did these I undervalued myself pretty badly when compared to my superiors’ evaluations of me, and last year I overvalued myself just slightly…

Maybe I’m just destined to be a code monkey the rest of my life??

Robert Life, Musings, School, Work assertiveness, final exams, food poisoning, mba, self evaluation, self promotion, unlv

Unfortunately, OMGN has languished over the last couple years. Really, it’s been in the doldrums since the summer of 2005 when we hit up E3.  That was a fun time, let me tell ya.

I’ve been working on a new database structure and recoding for OMGN over the last 4 months. I still have a long ways to go, but I’m hoping that OMGN4, which is what I’m calling the new system, will work very well. The new codebase is much better and more modern, the database design is also much better and streamlined. And the new design in the works is shaping up nicely so far.

I’m really at a crossroads for what to do with the existing content on the site. I keep flipping back and forth on whether or not I want to retain existing content when migrating to the new site. And if I do retain existing content, what to retain.

See, I’m transitioning OMGN to a more fully-fledged video game information website. No more exclusive focus on small-market games, more professional writing and content management systems, better design, etc. A lot of the stuff in OMGN that exists now is either outdated, not even real video game content or just plain bad. The URLs are all going to change and I’m stripping the new site of a lot of functionality that existed before.

I’m just not sure where to go. There’s some content on the site that I kinda want to retain, such as some of the newer reviews of games, like Shadow Complex. But there’s just so much junk in the old data and issues with old URLs to new URLs and functionality lost, I think the new site might just be brand-new and clean. I’m just not sure what I want to do yet.

Please, this time I want your feedback and ideas.

Robert Development, Life, Musings, Technology omgn, omgn4, recode, Video Games

I know I haven’t talked much about my college courses for my MBA, save to say I’m doing well. Well… Here’s one for you. Communication. In-person.

Some of you know my disdain for getting into a long-term discussion using text messages. Laura certainly knows. Well, for those of you that don’t, here’s the scoop: I prefer to use text messages for short communications and not for longer-term discussions. There you have it. If you need to use more than a couple text messages to communicate with me, then I’d generally prefer a more effective form of communication, such as a phone call or even an email. Or, my favorite: in-person communication!

By the way, this goes for stuff like game score updates… If I’m not watching the Titans game and you are, I’d prefer to not get a text message every couple of minutes saying the Titans have the ball back or just got an interception. It doesn’t really do me any good. If I’m not watching it, then there’s a really, really good reason I’m not. Likely I’m busy, probably with schoolwork, so I may not want to be distracted all of the time. Besides, if I’m not watching the game, I can wait until after the game to read a full recap, rather than get up-to-the-minute updates anyway.

Not ranting here. Just communicating. Via a blog post. See, this is something that would likely be better said in-person! But I can’t disseminate this kind of thing to everybody that reads me blog in-person. And if I could, it would be very time consuming and just not an effective use of my time.

See, this is one thing I’m trying to get at. Effective use of time. It isn’t an effective use of my time to send multiple text messages to have an extended conversation. I have to unlock my phone, read your message and type out a reply. And 99 times out of 100, I don’t keep my phone in-hand, unlocked and in SMS to get your next reply and to respond back. I lock it and put it down, going back to whatever I was doing (probably at work, actually). So it’s time consuming for me to hold such long discussions over text.

But I don’t want to focus on text messaging here. I want to focus on all forms of communication. People are really bad for choosing the wrong medium for communication. Text messages is one example, but email is another. If you need to email me something really important that needs to be addressed right away, then that’s not the right form of communication. You should probably call me, as that is a more immediate form of communication.

Really, people need to choose the most appropriate form of communication, and usually electronic forms don’t convey everything necessary. For instance, I get emails from people I work with on various subjects. Sometimes these emails are really long and they’re only to me. You know how long it takes to type up a long email? Or, for example, how long it takes to type up this blog post? Awhile. Time would almost assuredly have been saved if we talked in-person, because we could have had back and forth and speaking is faster than typing, and listening to the spoken word is faster than reading it.

See what I’m getting at here? Effective and appropriate forms of communication. So let’s address phone communication. Should I just call my coworker rather than talk to them in-person if they are available to talk in-person? No, probably not. Because by calling them, they cannot have that physical interaction. They can’t see my facial expressions and I can’t use hand gestures. That really, really adds to communication. Additionally, being on my work phone locks me down to my desk and in my seat, and takes a hand away, so I’m limited in what I can do.

So why did I mention my MBA program? Communication is a topic we recently covered in my Organizational Behavior class. It was very interesting to me and really solidified my position on in-person and more immediate communication. I’ve felt for years that communication via text message was ineffective save for short messages and conversations. I’ve always preferred to talk in-person here at work rather than other IM or on the phone. Loads and loads of research, according to my class, suggests that I’m on the right path. Boo-yah!

There’s just so much that can be lost in translation over electronic forms of communication. We might be shorter or more succinct in email, so not as much information might be passed. You cannot see the body movements when talking on the phone, so you might not get as much context.

There’s this thing called the “human moment.” It happens when two people communicate and occupy the same space to do so. Really, I won’t explain it here, but go read this article (it’s a PDF). It’s a very informative article that explains why it is so important to communicate with someone in-person. I totally agree with it.

So there you have it. Not sure what else to say at this point, because I’m sure you get my point. Or do you? Would this point have been conveyed more properly on the phone, or in-person? Just imagine me trying to explain all of this to you via text message, or even via Twitter!! Although this post is linked on Twitter, but imagine my trying to type the whole thing out in 140-character bursts on Twitter… [shudders]

On another note… I didn’t look down at my keyboard very much while typing this post, I noticed. And I still don’t use the home row. :p

Robert Musings communiation, email, phone, sms, text message

list - noun: a series of names or other items written or printed together in a meaningful grouping or sequence so as to constitute a record: a list of members.

Alright, so that defines a list. What list am I talking about? Well, see, just about all of my married couple friends, and Laura and myself included, have these 5-person lists of celebrities that if we ever actually met them and they actually wanted to have sex with us, it would be cool. Come on, if you’re married, you probably have one of these lists anyway, and if you’re not, you’ve likely heard of them. It’s all in fun anyway, I’d never cheat on Laura in a million years.

That being said, I’m posting about this because I’ve never really built a list before. Laura’s had a list of two for some time now, and this subject came up last night and we were talking about it with Andrew. At the conclusion of the discussion, pressure was basically applied to me to come up with my list. I’ve been procrastinating on it for a variety of reasons, such as “Well maybe this person doesn’t really belong on the list…” etc. But to hell with it, I’m making my list. Subject to change, of course. And now, in order:

Number 5: Hayden Panettiere

Hayden Panettiere

She’s the most likely to get bumped from the list should someone else come along… Well, obviously, because she’s #5. She’d probably be fun… lol. Can’t say much more about her, I guess.

Number 4: Keira Knightley

Keira Knightley

For the longest time, Laura thought she should be on my list. And for the longest time, I always said she was too skinny. She still is, but lack of better candidates allow her to make an appearance on my list. There have been quite a few movies where I thought she looked hot and/or gorgeous, so I can’t really leave her off. I guess rather than debate whether or not she belonged on the list, I should have been debating her rank on the list.

Number 3: Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson

At first she wasn’t even on my radar, but then Andrew mentioned her as a candidate and suddenly it was like “Bam! She’s on the list!” Why not higher than third? You’ll see, my top 2 are most definitely on my list. They’re very secure. But Scarlett is indeed pretty hot. I can think of quite a few movies she’s, well, pretty hot in.

Number 2: Jenna Fisher

Jenna Fisher

It was very, very difficult to place her second and not first. Really, I’m serious. She’s every geek and nerd’s fantasy, at least I bet she would be. She’s the cute receptionist on The Office and occasionally she plays these odd-yet-sexy roles in some movies. And she totally plays it up too, hiding her sexiness & such beneath her “mundane” roles.

Number 1: Amanda Bynes

Amanda Bynes

“What the eff, Robert? What the hell are you doing putting Amanda Bynes #1 on your list? Nobody else would declare her #1!”

That is just a snippet of a long tirade that Ryan Goodman would launch into if he read this. He doesn’t like her. But for some odd reason, I do. She was originally on Nickelodeon shows, like All That, and I didn’t like her when she and I were both younger. But I don’t know man… She’s funny, so that’s a plus, and she looked damn good in Hairspray. So yes, Amanda friggin’ Bynes tops my list.

Wait… Hold on a moment. I think I may have forgotten someone… See, this is why I always procrastinated in building a list, because inevitably, I thought, I’d find someone to put on the list and would have to bump someone off and it would end up being more brainpower than I want to spend, trying to figure this damn list out… So my omitted woman is…

Number 0: Laura Ludwick

Laura Ludwick

Hot damn! My wife tops the list?! Wait, doesn’t the number zero mean not on the list? No, the number zero trumps the list!

Alright alright, so Laura doesn’t really belong on the list because she’s not a celebrity. But she still tops it without being on it. That’s how hot my wife is!

And actually, that photo… Is pretty hot.

Robert Musings Amanda Bynes, Hayden Panettiere, Jenna Fisher, Keira Knightley, laura ludwick, Scarlett Johansson, the list

So the H1N1 flu is off running around the country, making people sick. I don’t think anybody at my work has gotten it yet, but some people have been out sick so I may be wrong on that.

In any case, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my health and the health of those around me. Specifically, diseases, illnesses and viruses. I’ve always felt very good about my immune system. When I was really young, I think I got sick more than your average child, and I had ear infections from here to kingdom come. But nowadays, I just don’t get sick much.

I get four sick days at work per year, and I tend to use all of them. I’ve never had to use two in a row, and usually the reason I’ll use a sick day is because I’m worried about getting my coworkers sick. When I get sick, it’s not very bad. The worst I’ve been in the last few years was food poisoning, and that’s not even a virus. I just don’t get hit hard at all, really. My concern is usually with spreading disease at work, so I’ll stay home to save my coworkers.

Whenever Laura gets sick, it’s worse than me. Usually she’ll get hit first, and I’m not entirely sure why. But she’ll get hit and it’ll be bad, and when I get it, it’s about half as bad and half as long. Sometimes she’ll get sick and I won’t. Hell, for nearly a week until very recently, I thought I was getting sick because my throat felt like it was on the early stages of a cold, but it never materialized and now my throat is back to normal. Maybe that wasn’t a virus, maybe my throat was just irritated at something, but you get the point.

Anyway, all of this immune system introspection has brought me to wonder why my immune system is strong despite my storied medical background. Honestly, I think it’s because I was exposed to all sorts of crap when I was a kid.

I got sick a lot as a kid, thus I was exposed to all sorts of viruses. Perhaps I’ve built up a tolerance as a result. I also got into all sorts of outdoors trouble when I lived in Clovis, New Mexico. I’d get cuts, I’d do all sorts of dumb crap, you name it. But one thing I’ve never been is a clean freak. I’ve never been totally afraid of getting a virus or sick.

When I was younger, Purell didn’t exist, but if it did, I still wouldn’t have used it. I don’t know. I don’t see the point, I’m not a germophobe. In fact, when I was younger, I never washed my hands when I used the restroom (I do now, thank you very much!). I think stuff like that contributed to my stronger immune system. I also think the fact that my family had a lot of pets over the years helped too.

So this bring me to my conclusion: I’m not going to over-worry about illness with my kids. Sure, I’ll take proper precautions and have them get their appropriate shots. But I’m not going to be a germophobe parent, because I think exposure to things here and there actually helps us when we get older.

Robert Musings h1n1, illness, immune system, sick

I began my technological career with a job in technical support. I used to work for CSN (called CCSN back then, for Community College of Southern Nevada). I was a lab assistant, where I helped college students with their computer issues. Scanning a picture, email not loading, basically anything that a paying college student needed help with on the computers.

This is a similar start in tech support for just about any techie. Almost all of us have a job doing tech support at some point, and it’s usually one of the first jobs that a techie will have, since it’s an entry-level-type position.

I moved on from that job after about 2 1/2 years to start my first programming job. So I’d progressed in my career to doing what I really wanted to do, and I didn’t have to do tech support anymore. This made me very happy, as tech support isn’t something very many people enjoy. In fact, a lot of techies hate it. I’m now in my second programming job and have been programming for over 5 years professionally now, 9 years personally. I’m also pursuing my MBA.

So why do people still consider me their tech support? Most of the people these days that consider me their personal tech support never knew me in my lab assistant capacity, although Robert Silas (a friend of mine) first met me when I started as a lab assistant, and I still help him with computer things from time to time. I did earlier this week, actually. But he’s an exception because I’ve known him so long and have been helping him for years.

But seeing as most people that ask me for tech support these days never knew me back then, it stands to reason that they assume I’m good at tech support because I’m into computers and am a programmer. Fine, in my case, that’s a valid assumption. But it doesn’t always hold true. I’ve known plenty of computer-savvy people that weren’t good with the people side of tech support. And there are some programmers that really just aren’t very good at general tech support.

So this is starting to irritate me. I apologize if you feel that you, the reader, are the reason I’m posting this particular post on my blog, but this feeling has just been accumulating within me. I really don’t like the fact that friends and family will often just assume that if they have a computer issue, they can call me up whenever to ask me to look at the issue or run things by me in a call. Often, this advice I give is free, and sometimes the actual work on a computer I’ll do is free.

But do you really think that a professional programmer and MBA student wants to do tech support all of the time? I get paid well as a programmer and tech support does not pay nearly as well, especially since people come to me because they don’t want to go pay the outrageous fees that Geek Squad charges, which means they’re expecting me to cut them a deal. My time is worth money, and doing tech support is underpaying me for my time.

Really, what bothers me is people asking if I’m busy on any given night because they need tech support help. I had that asked of me today, actually. And yes, I am really damn busy today. Today is a mega-busy day for me. I have a doctor’s appointment, work, an MBA career services appointment, Julia’s birthday dinner and, depending on how long dinner goes, indoor soccer (unlikely, unfortunately). So yes, I’m busy tonight and cannot be at your beck and call to fix your computer issue, the third one you’ve had this year.

I’m not trying to come across as a jackass here, but I just want people to understand that techies get irritated at being asked for tech support all the time, especially if that’s not their professional field (like me), and especially if they’re busy. I’m curious to see what happens when I’m a technological manager someday (yes, I’m assuming it will happen, but hey, I will get my MBA!).

That’s like asking some manager at a GM plant to come over and work on your car. Seriously folks, that’s what that would be like.

In any case, I’m not averse to helping friends and family with tech support issues, especially not averse to helping family. Just don’t assume that I have all this free time lying around to help you get that virus off your computer, and don’t assume that I have to help you out of the goodness of my heart and get paid very little. It’s not fair to me.

[Update 1]

After a comment from Andrew, I need to amend this article. Well, really, just make sure to read the comments!

[Update 2]

Some people are confused as to what I’m talking about in this post. Don’t be alarmed! If you’re a totally cool person that appreciates any help I give you and tries to pay me back in some or other (even if it’s just, say, lunch), then I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about people that take advantage of the fact that they know me and that I know technology, yet never really offer me anything in return, despite repeatedly asking for help.

Really, I’m just irritated at people that use and abuse my kindness. Most people don’t.

Robert Life, Musings, Technology tech support

I figured at this point I’d have something nice and meaningful to post about, such as the fact that I’ve completed the first two of five days of MBA orientation at UNLV. But Bar Louie has stolen the show, folks. And it wasn’t pretty.

Last night, Laura texted me to meet her and Julia at Bar Louie at 9:30 after I got out of orientation. So I headed on over there and we sauntered on in to the place once they got out of a movie at Rave they were watching.

At first, the hostess wasn’t sure where we would be sitting. She offered a booth and we accepted, but had to back out and ask if a table was ok. Not sure what was up with the whole booth thing. So anyway, we went and sat down at our table. All three of us pretty hungry. I hadn’t eaten since 11:30, so by the time we sat at the table at 9:25, it’d been 10 hours since my last meal. I had a couple of snacks during that time frame, but nothing substitutes for a full meal.

Very soon after we came in, a group of five ladies dressed for a night on the town (or, perhaps, a night at Town Square, which is where Bar Louie is) were seated at a table next to us. A couple was seated at another table on our other side.

Laura, Julia and I had sporadic conversation about various things to spend the time waiting to get our order in. Julia and I checked our iPhones for various reasons. I glanced at the TV a few times because they were talking about the ludicrous return of Brett Favre to the NFL.

Soon we realized it was 9:40 and we’d been sitting at our table for a full 15 minutes with absolutely no communication from any of the staff. We began to get more and more irritated and upset at the ignorance being thrust in our direction. By this time, one waiter had already spent a great deal of time at what we’ll call “the ladies table.”

We were speculating on whether or not we would just leave and go someplace else to eat, which in retrospect would have been a wise choice. Right as Julia and I were about to get up to walk out, Laura wanted to try to stay there since we were there for dollar burger night… A very, very cheap way to eat in Town Square if you’re there on a Tuesday anytime after 5pm.  A buck a burger and then added charges for whatever you put on it beyond the bun, patty and lettuce.

Laura got up and looked around for a server, waiter, bartender… Anybody. She didn’t end up traveling very far, because the waiter that was still at the ladies table had finally gotten up to go do something else. He started walking by ignoring us, but Laura got his attention and let him know that we’d been sitting for 20 minutes without anybody having done something so simple as take our drink order.

Very quickly, a different waiter came by our table, who’d also been working some of the other tables in the vicinity. Interestingly enough, he’d also been to the ladies table a couple of times. According to Julia, both of the two waiters that visited their table had flirted with them the majority of the time they were there. I can’t verify that because I wasn’t close enough to that table, but I 100% believe that. They were there for too long.

So he took our drink order and said he’d be back to take our dollar burger order soon. Laura and I are usually forgiving when it comes to bad service, so long as they appear to be striving for good service, so we both were giving him another shot to redeem himself. Although it didn’t help that we really didn’t get an apology from him when he came by. He said, mostly rushed and pretty quietly, “sorry, I must have not seen you walk in.”

And then we sat some more. For another 15 minutes we waited with just our drinks while our waiter tended to nearly every table but us. All we needed was for him to take the 10 seconds or less it would require to pick up our crayon-marked dollar burger orders. But no. He spent the majority of his time at the ladies table.

Now you might notice that I mentioned a couple being seated to the other side of our table from the ladies table. Well, pretty soon after we got our drinks and started waiting another 15 minutes for our food order to get picked up, the man at that table went up to the hostess and complained about the lack of service as well. I have no idea what he said, but he was obviously complaining, as they had been in Bar Louie a few minutes shorter than us and still hadn’t been seen the first time.

So 15 minutes later our waiter finally picks up our food order and we’re left to await the food. By this point, we’re expecting them to take another hour to prepare and deliver our food for consumption, or something close to that time frame. Really pissed off.

The food actually came quicker than we were expecting. Unfortunately, it was not without an issue. See, there were 2 add-ons in the burger menu that related to blue cheese. One was dressing, the other crumbles. I ordered dressing, which is 25 cents, as opposed to crumbles that were 50 cents. Yeah, they mixed it up. Because of the terrible service we’d had to that point, I did and at the same time, did not want to send it back. Who knows how long that could have taken to fix, let alone what they might have done to my burger in the meantime. Oh well, it was close enough to what I wanted.

We were pretty much ignored the rest of the time we were eating. Our drinks had all expired for quite some time by the time he came by to drop off the bill and asked if we wanted more to drink. By that point, none of us did. We just wanted to pay and get the hell out of there. He did continue to spend inordinately large amounts of time at the ladies table. He also visited the couple seated next to us about as often as he visited us.

The food wasn’t even that great. The burger wasn’t, at least. Since that was the only time I’ve been there, I’ve never had any other food. It might be better. For $1.50, my burger was worth the money, but it wasn’t anywhere near worth how pissed off I got over the whole situation. Average food, I’d dare say a little below the quality I was expecting from a place like that.

Laura and I are by nature good tippers, at least I think we are. We tend to tip in the 18-20% area if the service was good. If there was shaky service, we still tip around 15%. If the service left a lot to be desired, we end up in the 10%-15% area.

Last night, we left a 7% tip. That’s the lowest tip we’ve ever left on a bill. Julia left no tip at all. Laura also complained to the hostess about the issue. Looking back, we should have asked for a manager, because maybe then we would have gotten somewhere, but… What can you do.

I’ve had better service at Buffalo Wild Wings. BW3 is my prime example of a place that I always get bad service at. Well, not necessarily bad service, but severely lacking. We expect it and get it, save for the few times recently where they’ve picked things up a bit. Maybe they’ve noticed a deficiency and are taking steps to correct it. But the service issues at BW3 aren’t so bad that they can’t be overcome.

Bar Louie is completely dead to me. I will never eat there again. I know that many of you have had good experiences there, but maybe boycott them for awhile in my memory. Maybe someone from Bar Louie will contact me and profusely apologize, and actually be able to convince me that they’re sincere. Then we’ll consider them again in the future. But based on our experience last night… Never again. It was the single worst dining experience in my life.

Even worse than the time a waitress constantly reminded my table to tip her. At least she paid attention to us.

[Update]

I’ve gotten in touch with John Polizzi, who left his contact information here on my blog (which was removed in the publicly-posted comment). He’s offered to bring the three of us back in when it’s convenient for us so he can “show us what Bar Louie is all about.” So I’ll keep you all updated as things progress.

Robert Life, Musings bad service, bar louie, restaurant, waiter