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The Daily SlackerThe Daily Slacker

T.G.I.F.

Friday, January 27, 2006

Woo hoo. The week is just about over! Everybody say it with me: Thank God It's Friday. That didn't sound like everyone, I think some of you were slacking off... well I can't fault ya for that ;O)
 
Even the computers around here know it's Friday and don't really feel like working. This morning, my computer decided it didn't feel like letting me read or write emails for more than 10 seconds at a time. Every time I opened Outlook, it closed 10 seconds later. Can we say irritating? :O) Later it decided that after I change a dimension on one part that it would blow the whole thing up. not so much fun.
 
At lunch though, the computers were very much on my side. I grabbed my food, and got in line to pay. The line had been backing up for a bit and I found out it was because the register computers had locked up so they couldn't ring people up. after about 5 minutes they just told everyone in line to walk on through.
 
SCORE! Free lunch!
 
Anyway, I hope you all have a great weekend and get some good slack on. Oh and let me know what you think of the T-Shirt Concept!
 
Later all!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 1:02 PM, ,




Would ya?

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

So has part of the Hump Day celebration started below with the Wednesday Wist and the SML Updates I am happy to announce the unveiling of the Daily Slacker T-Shirt.

Right now this is a first concept. Most likely, the number of colors will have to be reduced to keep costs down. But anyway, here it is, tell me what you think and if you would buy one for say $15 shipping included...

(Click to enlarge)


Lemme know and make sure to check out the Audio Edition for the Wist and Updates! The wist is a good one, the music spurred on thoughts of Slacker's Theories on Life!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 4:20 PM, ,




Happy Hump Day!



Happy Wednesday everyone! Hopefully you're getting over the hump with ease and area heading for a good downhill ride the rest of the week!
 
To aid in your Wednesday Entertainment I present you:
 
Wistity Do Da - This week's Wednesday Wist (Actually on time!) It's a good one, music spurs some of Slacker's Theories on Life!
SML Updates - The newest additions to the Slacker Music Library
 
So, back to working on a design for a T-Shirt for The Daily Slacker! Hopefully I can make one cool enough that you all will want one! :O)

posted by Chief Slacker @ 3:52 PM, ,




Slack or Die!

Monday, January 23, 2006

Some would say that promoting an Ethos of Slacking would really be disservice to the public instead of improving it, but we here at the International Bureau of Slacking now have scientific evidence to the contrary.
 
As a recent article on Med Page Today states, you can indeed be worked to death.
 
That's right all you busy worker bees, you just may heading yourself to an early demise. And by early demise, I don't mean in a I-hate-my-job-so-I'm-going-to-burn-the-place-down-with-myself-inside kinda way. No this is a much more sinister plot. All those little work stresses adding up little by little and next thing you know your metabolism goes haywire and you end up with Diabetes or Cardiovascular Disease. No good!!!
 
Don't let this happen to you or any of you loved ones! If we all slack together, we can beat this! No one deserves to be worked to death! All it takes is a little time out of each day to slack. Spread the word.
 
Slack Daily!
 
Slack for Life!
 
Slack or Die!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 10:38 AM, ,




They Really Are Out to Get Us.

Friday, January 20, 2006

A little tragic humor for everyone on Friday.
 
I knew there was something shady about those squirrels. I just knew it. They always lurk around campus and steal food and other things. Apparently that was just reconnaissance, the real battles are still to come. They've even going kamikaze!
 
--------------------
An article from today's Star Tribune Online:
 
Woman dies after squirrel plugs propane line
 
BEMIDJI, Minn. — A woman is dead and a man hospitalized after a squirrel became lodged in a pipe between the furnace and the chimney, causing propane fumes to enter a rural Bemidji home.

The Hubbard County sheriff said John Bennett and Maxine Tischman, 67, were found lying on the floor of the home. Tischman was pronounced dead at the scene. Bennett, who is in his 70s, was taken to North Country Hospital in Bemidji.

Sheriff Gary Mills said investigators found the squirrel lodged in the three-inch pipe after locating strong propane fumes in the area near the furnace.
--------------------

Have a good weekend! Beware of the squirrels!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 3:09 PM, ,




Being Sick Sucks.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

So yesterday was a day home being sick. My throat has been killing me ever since my demonic snoring episode this weekend. At first I thought it was just dehydration after a night of 13 beers and two shots of jag, but apparently not. You would think that much alcohol would kill any bug, but apparently something was tough enough to survive several alcohol baths.
 
I made sure to come in today because I was supposed to be having a half day. The other half of the day was going to be going back for a second interview at the place I interviewed last week. They wanted to sit down and have me talk with several people in the company and get a lot more formal with the interview process. Unfortunately, I got the voice mail this morning of the headhunter calling to say they had cancelled the interview because they were unsure if they were going to have the position. Since the company was an upstart, still trying to get FDA approval of their device, my guess is they got bad news. So looks like that possibility is gone for now but I keep getting calls, so hopefully something will pop up.
 
I'm off to work on the Wednesday Wist. I brought in 20 more CDs to add to the library, so keep an eye out for updates on the Audio Edition!

**EDIT** The Wednesday Wist is now up over on the Audio Edition and the Slacker Music Library has been updated as well!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 11:50 AM, ,




Strange Parties Rule!

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Ok, so this weekend Big Mike and I took a road trip up north to Bemidji (or as I call it, Brrrrrmidji). Yeah that's right, I come back from the sunny beaches of Puerto Rico and then proceed to travel north, further into the cold. I clearly have issues. heh.

Anyway, we headed up there and the plan was to have a small party at D's place on Friday night with scary movies involved since it was Friday the 13th. Unfortunately most of the female contingent that were invited dropped out so that was a bummer. A little ways into the night, one of the guys there with his girlfriend gets a call from some girl looking for a party, and invites them over. We found out after he invited them that he only sorta knew the girl from the bars, but didn't really remember her. heh. So her and 5 friends show up, hang out for a little bit, and then head out after the drunk guy in the group gets a call from someone and gets agitated. The kinda sorta known girls sticks around for the rest of the movie though. So Friday's party became known as the party of random people.

Not to be outdone though, Saturday had a very eventful night in store for us as well. During the day we decided to be power nerds and played Star Wars Risk. Yeah, that's right, not just risk, Star Wars Risk. And because we had to ensure the complete conversion to the geek side of the force, we had the original Star Wars trilogy playing in the background. I'm pretty sure and geekiness meters pointed toward us would have imploded due to overload. Yes, imploded, exploding jsut wouldn't be geeky enough. So later we had to counter that by doing something non-geeky: drinking and gambling. We headed to one of D's co-worker's place for a party with family and friends. We hung out chatting for a while, then someone suggested they start up a Texas Hold'em Poker tourney. Out came the cards and the chips. The first go round had 12 people so we got two tables going, consolidating down to one once we got to 8 people. I almost opted out since I had never played for money against people before (it was a $5 buy in), but decided to give it a try. My best hand the whole game was Queen Six suited. I bluffed out a couple pots and managed to make it up to fifth before being drained by the blinds. Not bad for a first try.

Seven of the people from the main table (including me) of the first round decided to have a second game. The winner of the first round, a stereotypical redneck, was the first to go out and the girl who finished second to him, a city girl who also happens to be a competitive boxer, was getting pretty lucky. Little did we know these two would become the Main Bout later on. Sometime during the second game the shots started flowing, which The Boxer had avoided earlier stating she would "need a babysitter." Apparently, that actually meant referee. The game continued and eventually the cards turned for me and I got a good bluff and a couple good hands which I slow played to perfection. It came down to me and The Boxer, the flop was two aces and a 6, and she slow played the first round to keep me in. The turn was a King, and she bet pretty big but I came back and reraised to put her all in. She had ace ten, but unfortunately for her I was holding pocket Kings. The result:



That's right, The Chief took out the boxer with a full boat and for the first time ever won money gambling. Yay me.

So game three was organized. At this point The Boxer had been getting pretty chippy, several times challenging guys to go outside and box. And when I say challenging, I don't mean the teasing kind of challenge, I mean she wanted to fight. Well the game starts up and one person is eliminated right away. At about hand five, I must have missed it, but I'm pretty sure a bell rang. Ding Ding Ding. Redneck: "I got a pair of nigger kings." Now, usually in a situation like this it calls for a cringe-move-on. Not for The Boxer. Turns out her ex is black and she's apparently touchy about the subject. She verbally let loose on him, and unfortunately instead of apologizing, he tried to justify what he said. When handfuls for chips (they're the nice, heavy casino style ones by the way) started flying I decided I didn't want to be seated directly between them and that we needed backup and called in the troops. Eventually something was said that pissed off The Redneck's wife as well and she went after The Boxer. Someone blocked The Boxer downstairs (she was pounding on the door) but they got them separated before it came to blows.

Crazy night indeed. I think there was enough evil floating in the air that I got possessed too. When we got home from the party we tossed in The 40 Year Old Virgin and I proceeded to pass out and "snore demonic-ly" as I was told the next day. Apparently it was just like the dog in Little Nicky: A deep snore followed by exhaling that sounds like demonic chanting. I'm usually not much of a snorer, but this was apparently enough that Big Mike even had to sleep on the floor in a different room instead of the other couch. heh. I wish they had a recording :O)

Anyway, so that, combined with watching The Bears lose on Sunday was my weekend. Hope you all had a good weekend and are having a good week! Keep slackin!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 11:39 AM, ,




Damn Internet Goblins!

Thursday, January 12, 2006

So I had  these grand aspirations for what slacking I wanted to get done on the net yesterday and they just plain weren't allowed to get done. The internet gods/gremlins/geeks whatever just didn't feel like cooperating with me.
 
Pictures:
 
I tried to get the rest of my PR and Xmas pictures uploaded so I could post them, but noooooooo. my browser kept freezing up and half o the pictures that did make it were corrupt dammit. Hopefully today or tomorrow I can get them up on the Visual Edition.
 
Blog Posts:
 
I also wanted to do a Wednesday Wist and talk about my job interview yesterday morning, but someone apparently crashed Blogger's servers so when  I tried to log on to post I just kept getting errors that said something like "Error, our servers are hosed, an engineer has been notified but is ignoring the situation." Ok, so maybe I'm ad-libbing. A little.
 
Anyway, the Wednesday Wist is posted over on the Audio Edition along with the current Slacker iTunes Music Library. Check it out and keep the tunes flowing!
 
As for the interview, it went pretty well. The guy I was supposed to interview with wasn't there when I got there because he had flown back from a meeting in Houston that morning and had to fight traffic. Instead I talked for a while with the other director in the company for half of the meeting until the guy I was supposed to talk with showed up. I hate job interviews, I always have the same problem with them as I have with women: I never know the right things to say until it's too late. I'm a natural salesman with the gift of gab. A friend once said he's pretty sure I could talk the bra off a nun. This is fine and good except for the fact that I'm great at promoting everything but myself. heh. Maybe I'm too nice, too modest, too, well, whatever. Anyway it was just a first round interview anyway so I'm not going to invest to much though into it. Sounds like it would be a fun job though, so we'll see how it goes.
 
WoW:
 
I also tried to play some World of Warcraft on my new computer. It had been working, connection wise anyway, just fine until last night. I logged on and it downloaded the weekly patch. I logged back in to play and it refuses to connect to the Wow server. Everything else works fine; internet, wireless, all that. Big mikes comp had no problems, but even when I ran tracert to check the path time to the game server, it said it was unable to get a response. I'm hoping it's an issue on their end. Big Mike was nice enough to let me play on his comp instead of using his character though so I did end up getting another level on my char.
 
Anyway, the net gremlins seem to be letting me get by today, so hopefully it'll stay that way. Hope you all are having a great Thursday!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 12:31 PM, ,




Live Rules



I got most of the pictures uploaded so I'll have em on the Visual Edition soon. Make sure to check back. But while I was doing that I was working on burning my CDs to iTunes and came across a CD I forgot I loved:
 
Live - Throwing Copper.
 
I tell ya, Live <strong>Rocks!</strong>
 
Yup. Hope you all had a good Tuesday and check back fro the Wednesday Wist and hopefully some pictures! :O)
 
Keep slackalackin!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 7:00 AM, ,




The Slack is Back!

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

So after doing some hardcore slacking on the beautiful beaches, bars clubs in Puerto Rico it's back to the normal life. Sitting at work, seeing all the snow outside it makes me wonder one thing: How the hell can people in Puerto Rico work?
 
It must be sad to be so used to having those great beaches and great weather around and not caring. Chicken Paul's mom said she hadn't been to the beach in probably 15 years. They live 3 blocks away. Sad. Maybe it's just one of those "you don't know how good you had it till it's gone" type of a thing. I don't know how they do it, but if I lived there, I would definitely have to find a job that involved sitting on the beach drinking beer. I have to come up with a good pitch for Medalla (the local Puerto Rican beer) and get them to hire me as a beach promoter or something :O)
 
Anyway, I'll have to have another post about living in a place where you actually experience all the seasons, definitely could be a good one. Now I just want to give you all a good Monday hello. Hope you're doing well! I'm working on getting the pictures uploaded, I owe a bunch from Xmas and new years! I tried to this weekend but ended up getting sucked into The World of Warcraft. You'll all be glad to know Thuglas, my Dwarf Warrior (Deathwing Server), gained 5 levels (now 20) this weekend. heh.
 
Anyway, look forward to some pictures, and posts like normal this weekend. Also, keep an eye peeled, I'm working on a t-shirt concept and I want to know if any of you would be interested in them :O)
 
Later all, keep slackin!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 6:21 AM, ,




The Time is Upon Me...

Friday, January 06, 2006

this is an audio post - click to play

posted by Chief Slacker @ 3:37 AM, ,




Hello From San Juan!

Thursday, January 05, 2006

this is an audio post - click to play

posted by Chief Slacker @ 1:48 PM, ,




La Comida

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Hey all, I have a second post for y'all today since we decided it might be good to take one night to rest a little. Don't worry though, as the earlier post today said, the good times are still rollin'.

Anyway, just so when you read the other posts you don't think I'm on a completely liquid diet while I'm here, I thought I would share with you some of the interesting things I've had to eat while I was here. So, the menu so far this vacation was:


Plantains:
I've had these in many forms, baked, mashed, fried and others. If you're not familiar, basically if you mated a banana and a potato, a plantain is what you would get. They look like bananas, but taste much more like a potato. They go well with just about everything, so they're served with, well, just about everything ;O)

Mofongo Rellena:
This is a specialty around here. This is a bowl made of mashed, baked plantains stuffed with some kind of meat. It can be various types for seafood like we had to Rosa's yesterday, or it could be beef like we had tonight at Ropa Viejo or any other meat combination. If you have the chance you should definitely try it.

Pulpo:
Octopus. Yeah, you know, tentacle, swims around and squirts ink. Yeah that. This was served chilled in oil and other spices. Suprisingly, it needs the seasoning since it really doesn't have much flavor on it's own. The dish together, served in a martini glass, was very good though.

Ceviche:
This is a fish dish. Also often served in a martini glass is usually swordfish, but can be lots of combinations of things. When I see the word I think "Keesh" but it's said "say-vee-chay" in Spanish. It's chunks of fish, served chilled and also mixed with oil and spices.

Paella:
This you can find many places but it's usually a good dish. It's rice with Sea Scallops, Calimari (squid), Mussels, and sometimes chicken and other fish. Depending on the stock and spices they use the rice can taste more fishy or more chickeny. The stuff I had was more toward fish, but it was good even though the portion was unfortunately small.

Churrasco:
This is steak with Puerto Rican spices, the name varies depending on what it's served with though. The one I had was various PR spices and olive oil. It came served with Beans and Rice and had an excellent flavor. I thank Chicken Paul's Brother for an excellent choice there.

Costco Rosemary Ham:
This is most definitely not a local specialty since it's from Costco, but DAMN that was a good beach snack. If you have access to a Costco, buy some and be careful not to eat the whole package in one sittings.

I also ate at Fuddruckers and burger king and a few other places, but that's nothing fun. Anyway, time to watch the Orange Bowl. I hope you are all having a good time, I look forward to giving you updated on the rest of the week and I still do promise you an audio broadcast from the beach :O)

Later all!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 7:11 PM, ,




Let the Good Times Roll



So the fun times have continued. I'm sure you're all glad to hear that ;O)

We did go out for some wine and a few drinks Sunday night and decided for Monday we would attempt to hit Isle Culebra. Culebra is a small island off the coast of PR that supposedly has the best beaches in all of Puerto Rico. At first we were told that we needed to be to the ferry to get there by 6am, so that would have meant going home, changing, and then getting together to head to the ferry. Another of Paul's friends gave us good news at the time that the ferry left at 9, an not 6, so we had a lot more time to get there and this also meant we could sleep a couple hours. Sleep was nice, but unfortunately the second report was right as well as the first. Yeah, the boat did leave at 9, but was sold out before 8. Doh.

New plan? We had breakfast at Burger king, stocked up on beer and snacks and headed to Playa Luquillo for 9am mimosas. Yummy. On the way someone in the car joked: "Now watch, the beach will be closed." Heh. Way to jinx us! We stopped for directions and guess what the lady had to say? "... pero la playa esta cerrado." Yeah, the beach was closed. Heh. Luckily though this just meant that the parking lot was closed. We parked in the entrance walked through the pedestrian gate and had basically a private beach for hours until a good amount of other people followed our lead. It did end up raining for a little while, but that just became a good excuse to go swim in the ocean for a while. In all we polished of 40 beers and a bottle of champagne. Definitely a good day at the beach.

After the beach we all headed back and got cleaned up to go out with J-Mo's (Javier's) two friends from New York, T-Boss and Tostadora, who had been hanging out with us for the weekend as well. We went out, got a few more drinks and bid them adieu as they were heading back to NY at 3am. They were both fun, nice women, but I won't lie to ya, I'm not really sad they're gone. J-mo had a crush on Tostadora, Chicken Paul had crush on T-Boss, so guess who was the fifth wheel all too often? Still did have a good time with everyone though!

Anyway I have to run and change quick before going out with Chicken Paul and his gorgeous sister for dinner with her family!

Hope you all are having a good time, I am! :O)

posted by Chief Slacker @ 3:09 PM, ,




A Fresh Year

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Happy New Year!!
from
Puerto Rico!

Hey all! I hope you all had a great end of 2005 and a fabulous start to 2006!!

My new year's celebration was awesome. We hung out on the beach and downed some beers during the day, then headed to Javier's place to ring in the new year. We had champagne and grapes after the clock rang in the new year and had a good time. To celebrate the new year at 1am we headed to a huge party at a club by the piers in San Juan. We took full advantage of the open bar and drank until about 6:30 in the morning. You know it was a good night when you're heading home when the sun is coming up. Very, very good.

Anyway, sounds like we're heading to Old San Juan again to have a few drinks. I hope you're all having a great start of the year!

posted by Chief Slacker @ 6:35 PM, ,