Illinois government has a long way to go yet. I’m happy that Pat Quinn is in the office now, and I hope he can indeed pull off his desire to clean up the government. He’s going to have a rough road ahead of him, but for all of our sakes, I hope he sticks to his guns and really does fumigate the state government.
I was shocked to hear that Rickey Hendon was brazen enough to be caught on CBS news saying, “The biggest challenge that I see for Pat Quinn is to overcome the do-gooder, reformer image. Pat has to know that you have to grease the wheels — that’s the way it works — to get things done around here.”
Holy carp… Has this man not been paying attention to what just happened to Blago?!?!?
Governor Quinn, I think you found your first cockroach to exterminate. As a citizen of Illinois, I do NOT want him to overcome the do-gooder image, keep it up!!! Reform away mon’ capitan! We need it!

I found this to be really funny…

“A New York woman told a court she couldn’t serve as an unbiased juror in a cop-slaying trial because she had once been a murder victim.”

Read the full article from UPI, here.

I’ll take $20,000,000 to not play football. I’ll take that to not do just about anything…

I just happened to glance at my keyboard on my laptop, and noticed that some of the most heavily used keys are starting to have some of the lettering wear off. The funniest one is the right shift key. the final t is completely gone, as is the curl on the top of the “f”, leaving me with a “Shit” key…

Today as I was leaving the library I noticed one of the simple little yellow “Wet Floor” signs. The strange thing about this one, was that it appeared that some of our crack janitorial staff added a message in magic marker to both sides of the sign…

It appears someone else had the same question I had… “Remob?”

I was looking over some server logs, when I noticed a search that had been performed in our catalog that set me to laughing. No granted I realize I have no place to criticize ANYONE for spelling errors, but cut me some slack here, as I found this search quite funny…

Search Term: DICTIONARIE
Results: 0
Search Term: DICTIONARIE
Results: 0

At this point the user must have noticed the catalog tried to fix the spelling for them because the next search did have the word DICTIONARY spelled correctly. Again, I’m the last person who should point out spelling errors, but damn is that funny!

It took me an hour and a half to get to work today, that is approximately double my normal time. The reason for this is I took the long way after hearing on the radio that most back roads were between 100 and 75% unplowed. EWW… One advantage to the long way, is that it takes me past a Dunkin’ Donuts. So, after 50 minutes of driving at a snails pace on roads that were pretty well plowed (ok, probably 40% clear) I pulled into the drive-in. I personally wasn’t really in the mood for donuts, but I order an assorted dozen for work. I then order a “sausage Omelet Bagel Sandwich”. The voice on the other end of the speaker then asked, “Did you want that on a coissant or a bagel?” I blinked imagining a bagel wrapped inside a croissant… “Bagel please” “Do you want sausage or bacon?” At this point I became even more confused, and began to question my sanity. What part of a sausage omelet bagel sandwich would not cover whether or not I wanted sausage or bacon, and croissant or bagel?

Ok, this just happened to me… Holy recursive loop batman…

I dial a support number, the auto attendant answers, “Thank you for calling ____ our hours of operation are ___, please dial your party’s extension, or wait on the line for support”
I wait
The phone rings…
The phone rings…
The auto attendant picks up “Extension ….0…. is invalid, please press 0 to speak to an operator.”
ok… I’ll bite… I press 0
The phone rings…
The phone rings…
The auto attendant picks up “Extension ….0…. is invalid, please press 0 to speak to an operator.”

I’m not falling for that one again…

A quote:

“(s)he doesn’t speak in stream of consciousness… (s)he speaks in retention pond of consciousness”

Thinking about it, a stream tends to imply they are going somewhere with what they are saying… This conversation was definitely not going anywhere… therefore retention pond… hehehe I like it…

Last night while driving back from NC we stopped to fill the gas tank at a Pilot gas station outside of Indianapolis. The station appeared to be clean, and well lit and well maintained. As we pulled in I noticed a maintenance person for the station out at one of the pumps cleaning the pump. I was mildly impressed… at first. I stepped out of the vehicle and glanced over in the direction of the maintenance worker. As I did I thought I saw him flick a cigarette butt onto the ground, but I realized how stupid that had to be, and assumed I must have just imagined it. Still, I commented to Harold, “hey was that guy smoking?” Harold and I both glanced over to see the maintenance worker reach into his pocket and pull out and light a fresh cigarette and then resume his cleaning of the gas pump. “That would be a yes!” Harold quickly finished filling the tank while I grabbed some water and we got the hell out of there before there could be a BOOM.

People scare me.

I just received a rather insane phone call.  Company names have been omitted to prevent me from getting sued, the callers name was the name he gave me in classic telemarketing fill in the blank format.
When I answered the phone I was greeted in a very thick Middle-Eastern type accent.

Caller:   “Good day Mr Wohlers, my name is __jim__ from *really big software company*”

Caller:   “I am calling to see if I can help you with anything related to *really big software company’s flagship product* in your business today”

I found myself thinking, ‘Huh, a new twist… ok, I’m game…’

Me: “Uh.. Ok…”

Caller:   “I show here that you do already use *flagship product* in your business”

Me: “Yes, it’s an embedded product licence provided by our library vendor”

Caller:  “oh yes very good… yes the *flagship product* embedded license, very good…”

silence…

Me: “Ok… Um…”

Caller: “yes, so is there anything that I may help you with?”

Me: “uh…. I don’t know that there is…” (Quick John think! think! think!) “oh wait, Yes… Can I connect to the embedded *flagship product* using *whiz bang technology*?”

Caller:  “ok. Yes very good. Thank You.”

HUH?  what wait… huh…????

Caller: “So is there anything else that I can help you with today?”

Me: “uh… I guess not no…”

Caller: “ok, thank you”

At that point I hung up, slightly confused and yet chuckling to myself…

Have you ever woken up to what appears to be a perfectly normal day… where things seem to be going rather well, and then have something happen that makes you completely question the fabric of reality or at least the state of your mental health?
(more…)

Today I was at Wal-Mart.  I really hate spending much time there on an day.  They are now remodeling the store.   While waiting for a ride on cart to become available for Palley I happened to notice a sign.  “The vision center is temporary located at the grocery side entrance We are remolding the vision center for you.”

How many errors can you count?

Don’t believe me?

(more…)

The more I deal with banks, the more I wonder if it is a requirement for them to be STUPID when technology is involved.

A few months back I switched banks to another bank, the new bank has handeled our mortgage , etc for years with out any problems, and other peopel I know have had no problems with them.   Great!

Yesterday I was informed that they were considering putting a bad mark on my credit report because the loan payment has been late for the past three months.  Huh? Late?   What?  The payment is due on the 15th, I have the payment setup using their banking sstem to automatically pay on the 1st of every month. How could it possibly be late…   In a panic I double checked all of my e-payment options, and re-downloaded all my statements and checked and every one of them was correct as far as I could tell.   Today after speaking with the bank I find myself questioning the sanity of programmers in financial institutions.

It turns out that when a payment is due the 15th of the month, I can not pay it electronicaly until after the 5th of the month.   If you pay your payment to early, the system will automatically assume (key word there) that your payment is not really the normal payment, and in their reality it is actually an additional payment.  So, It seems that I have been paying extra on the principal of the loan only to turn around and not make the monthly payment.   So I am making an additional payment on a non existant primary payment only to have the additional payment end up taking the place of the unpaid primary payment.  Confused yet?  I know I am…
So, the simple solution is.. that on the 7th of this month, I need to change the automatic bill payment fromthe 1st of the month to the 6th of the month so that on July 6th the payment will be made and counted as a payment NOt as an additional payment to a non existant payment…   If I change the payment date now… then June 6th, I will truely make an additional payment for the month and well thats not really in my plans…

Now supposedly the bank has gone and corrected the records and removed any fines or black marks from their system, they also supposedly have not sent anything on the credit report agency yet.  I don’t beleive that and will have to request a copy to be sure…

The moral of the story I guess is don’t trust computers, banks, and electronic payments…

Well I have returned to work, which will hopefully return some sense of normality to my life. I arrived to a number of fires, as expected, but so far thigns are working out ok. In true crazy fashion… I’ve been here half a day and the staff are proving to be thier typical source of humor.

Co-Worker (In timid, understanding voice): “So…. How are you doing John…”
Me: “Well, you know I’m coping, and I’m back at work… So things will get back to normal…”
Co-Worker: “Oh… yeah… ” (Excitedly trying to changed the topic) “Hey, Have you lost weight? ”
Me: “Considering I havn’t really eaten much since last Thursday, I would assume yes… I probably have…”
Co-Worker: “Oh that’s great, keep it up! You can tell.”
Me: “Ok, thanks…”

Snicker… Uh… 2 + 2 = 3 right?

FYI: Death and greaving are NOT acceptable Diet plans…