Holiday Workaholic

I don’t know about you, but since a week before Christmas, I’ve been the only one in my home to go to bed at a reasonable hour each night and wake up each day to regularly head out to work.  Not that I’ve been envious or anything (more like scathingly green), but the fact that I have had to work throughout this holiday vacation while my family has been at home luxuriating in the nothingness that is their daily schedule has been more than a little grating on my work-strained nerves as of late.

Realizing this, the Big Girl asked me yesterday if she could go to work with me to “help me out.”  Of course, her idea of going to work with me in the past has usually consisted of wanting to stop for breakfast, roaming the halls of my office while chatting it up with my colleagues, drawing on my whiteboard, photocopying her drawings, wanting to take a 2-hour lunch and then beginning her “head-home-watch” around 3pm.  This time however, I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and told her I’d let her tag along if she promised to do my bidding.  She of course countered with the addition of 2 square meals to which I agreed, and we shook on it.

True to her word, the Big Girl made copies, stamped all of my outgoing mail and performed the services of my own personal inter-office courier and in appreciation I treated her to hearty meals and yummy snacks throughout the day.  As we were leaving the office a little after seven that evening, she buckled her seatbelt and let out a booming yawn:

“I see why you come home tired everyday mommy.  People are always bothering you and calling you all day here, and then as soon as you come home, we want you to do things for us too.  I bet the only time you get any peace is when you are asleep.  And probably not even then cause daddy must want things and is hogging the bed too, and even I want to sleep in your bed sometimes.”

Oh, to have had her document these sentiments on paper in the presence of my attorney and a notary!

 

 

Let Them Eat Cake…er, S’mores

Whether debating the proximity of Russia to the state that she was once the executive of or encouraging the masses “to stand with our North Korean allies,” Sarah Palin can always be depended upon to scavenge furiously throughout her annals of idiocy to produce the sort of head-scratching foolishness that regularly leaves me wondering if she and Todd sit around their fireplace sipping absinth from mason jars while making up the next fantastical Palinism guaranteed to secure her a place in history as one of the most unapologetically misinformed politicians of our time.

It should really come as no surprise then that 1) a cable network would see these idiosyncratic catch phrases as fodder for Reality TV gold, thus providing Mrs. Palin with a medium by which to project her daily wrongness to the multitudes and 2) she would use that conduit to take pot-shots at a woman who’s intellectual competency clearly elicits a severe case of cerebral envy within her.

In a recently aired episode of TLC’s “Sarah Palin’s Alaska,” the spokeswoman for frameless eyewear and up-do’s took a dig at the FOTUS and her youth anti-obesity campaign while preparing S’mores:

“[These are] in honor of Michelle Obama, who said the other day we should not have dessert.”

The fact that Palin had again opened and spewed falsehoods from her orifice before bothering to fact check was shocking to no one (Obama has never said that sugary confections should be forbidden from American tummies, only that as far as she is concerned, dessert is not a right for Sasha and Malia, and that the foods they eat be balanced with fruits and vegetables).  What is surprising however, is that this family values touting, otherwise health conscious mother of five would somehow find fault with an initiative designed at helping this nation’s children to live more healthy and active lifestyles.  Hmm, now who’s being un-American?

In reality, it is obvious that in her quest to be the first woman and most mis-educated President that ever lived, Palin’s election strategy has been to disassociate herself with all things common sense Obama, including a program designed to save the lives of America’s youths from the inside out.  But amidst the snottiness, I imagine that what Mrs. Disagreeable did not count on were the (grudgingly) glowing accolades that GOP heavyweights like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and Mississippi Governor-slash-likely-2012-GOP-Presidential-contender Haley Barbour bestowed upon Mrs. O and her efforts to transcend party line politricks and implement an agenda that would actually serve the (young) people of this country.

As it stands though, since Mrs. Palin has never really given off the impression of a student of change (or of anything else for that matter), I wonder if it’d be safe for one to assume that her modus operandi for her 2012 presidential run will be to remain hypocritical, delusional and contrary; convinced herself, and convincing all who opt to drink the Tea that adolescent health and physical fitness are simply means for Big Government to further embed itself in the lives of real Americans families?

You betcha!

Love Hurts

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Although I had already seen this  traumatic and frankly, rather disturbing episode of Intervention earlier this year, while on a router run with me this evening (because my internet router gave up the ghost in mid-blog post), my nephew almost had me wreck my vehicle twice when he queued up this remixed version of Chewbacca’s Salute on his phone for me.

Watch your back Antoine Dodson, this dude is coming for your viral crown do-rag.

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Christmas Eve Negotiations

Twas the night before Christmas and The Pack Kids have been seeking the assistance of their father to arbitrate their denied request to open presents at midnight on Christmas morn. Now as much as I am looking forward to their eager faces and them frantically unwrapping their gifts, I cannot in good conscience allow them to open all their goodies without having first gone to bed. Let’s just say that by relenting, I’ll be doing my neighbors (and my frazzled nerves) the greatest favor!

…Until 6am at least.

Merry Christmas!!!

Holiday Entertainment: Baby Child and a Rowboat

Although I got an immensely early jumpstart on my loose-end Christmas Shopping today, having the babychild in tow for the majority of the day proved to be a rather interesting ordeal to say the least.  While he demonstrated exceptional resolve for a toddler amidst my hustle and bustle and daily to-do’s, by hour three the babychild was completely restless and required entertaining (and french fries) to remain even remotely behaved.  One such entertaining moment came when he decided to serenade me and my fellow department store passersby with a special solo:

Row, row, row your boat,

gently down the stream,

merry me, merry me, merry me, merry me,

light my butt a dream.

GASP!

Oh no mom-ma! I don’t want to light my butt!!!!

If the snickers and chuckles coming from the shoppers in line behind and in front of me were any indication, then they found the notion of the babychild’s lit butt as equally amusing as I did.

There’s No Such Thing as a Free App

I can clearly remember having first discovered Pandora at work after a friend recommended the website as a way to help pass the monotonous workday with customizable streaming music stations, and the toe-tapping joy that instantly washed over me.  Within a few weeks however, my employer started hating and made Pandora inaccessible from company workstations.  As a result, my musical jubilation was unceremoniously replaced with seemingly longer work hours and daily doldrums.

Then as fate and technology would have it, the folks of the Music Genome Project got wise and developed Pandora as a smartphone application.  And just like that, with the use of a Bluetooth earpiece and phone charger, I was back in melodious workday business!

But for as convenient as Pandora is while on the job, at the kids’ practices or while grocery shopping, it has crossed my mind on more than one occasion how Pandora has been able to provide such user specific music at practically no cost to the listener.  I mean sure, I do realize that the advertising spots during the brief intervals between musical sets pays the Pandora bills in a big way, but that still has done nothing to negate my feelings that Pandora has always seemed to be one of those sites/applications that was simply too good to be true.  Well, according to a recent Wall Street Journal Blog article, it is:

More than half of the smart phone apps tested by the Wall Street Journal found that they were sending users personal information such as location, age, gender, and a phone’s unique identifier to advertisers; often without user consent. Among the worst offenders were popular music streaming service Pandora and text messaging app TextPlus 4 from app developer GOGII.

The Journal tested 101 apps that run on Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android mobile platforms, and found that 56 of them sent a phone’s unique identifier to third parties without user consent, 47 transmitted a phone’s location, and five sent out user demographic information.

TextPlus4 sent a phone’s unique ID (UDID) number to eight different advertising companies, and also sent a phone’s zip code and user age and gender to two of them. The app is only available for iOS. Meanwhile the Android and iOS versions of Pandora sent information to eight third parties, included location data to seven of those, a phone’s unique ID to three of them, and demographic data to two.

The makers of TextPlus 4 and Pandora said that information sent to third parties is not connected to a user’s name, and that personal information such as age and gender is offered by users. However the most transmitted bit of information was the phone’s unique identifier, a number unique to every phone that can be used by advertisers to track each phone owner’s behavior.

“We use listener data in accordance with our privacy policy” a spokeswoman for Pandora told the Journal. The policy states that the company will share “non-personally identifiable information.”

The biggest recipient of user data was Google, through its AdMob, AdSense, Analytics and DoubleClick subsidiaries. And apps on Apple’s iOS app store were chattier with advertisers than on the Android marketplace, despite Apple’s more rigid approval process.

Now, unless you’ve been living under a dial-up modem, it is common knowledge that many third party apps, social networking sites and even ad supported webmail programs that require some sort of login credentials and user profiles share the information that is provided to them with advertising companies who pay for such data to target users who fit within a certain promotional mix they may be seeking.  Still, the idea that sites like Pandora may be collecting user trends, activity and other information, then providing it to third-parties without user consent is just a bit unnerving.  Although for the most part, this sort of data collection is designed to be processed anonymously and in batches so that advertisers can’t identify one user from the other, it only takes one cyber ne’er do well with no friends and too much time on his hands to develop some sort of archived database that links UDID and other personal information together (that a user submits through sites and apps who’s fine print relationships with ad companies are direct results of their profitable bottom lines) to really put a glitch in the matrix!

What’s funny is that I’ve oftentimes joked that with the directions that society and technology are rapidly taking, how imperative it would be for me to learn to live off the grid, but who’d have ever thought that Pandora’s privacy policy would be pushing me closer toward Morpheus and the red pill?

 

 

It’s Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas

In the face of the customary holiday shopping swarms, mall traffic, out of stock empty shelves and hours of gift wrapping, it has really been difficult for me to get into and remain in the holiday spirit as of late.

And although I readily accept and remind my children of The Christ’s birth as the reason that we embrace this holiday each year, between my unrelenting work schedule, the nasty consumers who have no qualms with fussing and grappeling over the last Crayola Glow Dome and some notoriously attitudinal service indistry members, I must admit that it has proven to be most difficult to be in festive spirits this December.

Now, with all these factors at play, I can certainly attest to feeling this way for the past few weeks, but a few days ago, I do believe my icy holiday heart began to melt. Hopping into my car after having been out in the elements and long lines to finish up my Christmas shopping, I turned on my radio and couldn’t help but be moved by a story that the evenings on-air DJ was telling.

Hosting a Holiday Toy Drive in a local grocery store, the DJ began to share how a father and son had entered the store with a jug full of coins and made a bee line directly for the coin machine. As they passed, the DJ inquired of the young boy how much he thought he had in change, and the kid said that since he’d been saving his allowance for almost a year, he thought he might have $52.00. Making a little more small talk, the DJ ensured the young boy that $52.00 was an impressive savings amount and quite the boon with which to buy something awesome for himself.

A little less than a half hour later, the DJ saw the boy and his father heading his way as they were leaving the store. Asking him how accurate their guess had been, the boy smiled and confirmed that his savings had totalled a little more than $53.00. As the DJ wished them well and for the boy not to spend all his cash in one place, the boy looked up at him and unflinchingly articulated that he planned to donate his allowance to an orphanage so the children there would have a Merry Christmas.

Much like the DJ who emotionally shared this story, I was simply floored having listened to the tail; so much so, that I began to cry at the sheer selflessness of it all.

I guess you could say that thanks to this simple reminder of what holiday spirit should feel like, my Whoville Grinch Card has been confiscated…and I couldn’t be more happy about it.

Mickey D’s Is Not For Me!

Although I can be preachy at times and can come across as highly opinionated, I really try not to use this blog as a vehicle for frivolous complaining and misplaced rage.  On this here day however, McDonald’s Corporation has really forced my hand.

Anyone who knows me can attest to the fact that while I don’t eat fast food that often, there are occasions when I’m running too late in the morning to brew my own cup of coffee at home, that I’ll swing by the McDonald’s drive-thru for a large cup of coffee.  And although I don’t stop in every day, I do go with enough frequency that any of the four regular morning shift cashiers shouldn’t have a problem filling my order of a large coffee, two creams and six sugars on the side.

Well clearly there was a glitch in the matrix this week, because not only did I go to McDonald’s for three straight mornings in a row, but they also hosed my order on each visit.  Take for instance Wednesday’s order of a Sausage & Cheese Biscuit Meal with a Large Coffee.  The McDonald’s translation: Sausage Biscuit and a small coffee (right, no cheese and no hash brown).  Of course, by the time I got to work and discovered that I’d been swindled, it was far too late to return to the scene of the crime.  Thursday’s visit was for a simple large cup of coffee with my customary two creams and six sugars.  Leaning back in my ergonomic chair at work for my first sip of the day, I discovered that nary a coffee accoutrement was provided for my drinking pleasure. Today of course, was the last straw.  Bellowing my order into the speaker, confirming it at the window and then checking the bag to ensure that my large coffee and large orange juice came with the necessary cream, sweeteners, stirrers and straws, I drove to work pleased that someone at Mikey D’s finally decided to go the extra mile and perform an impromptu quality control check on my order.  But my satisfaction was short-lived when I took my first sip and realized that my coffee was actually a cappuccino sweetened with Splenda.  Bleck!

C’mon, what is really going on!?  It’s like Dollar Bill told DJ Blue in The Player’s Club, “all you do is spin records!”  McDonald’s, all you do is serve fast food.  No one is asking for sterling silverware, five courses or wet naps.  An accurate order and a few complimentary napkins are all I ask for.  No bells, no whistles, no stock options.

So to avoid tomorrow’s return trip and subsequent hot beverage drive-by splashing into the second drive-thru window, I am going to give the Golden Arches a break for a month or two.  Perhaps by then, they’ll have gotten their act together…and keep me from having to dip into my Bail Bond Savings Fund.

 

Not Even Usher Can Make Head Trauma Look Segzy

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I know that it’s part ego, part fan appreciation, but I still take serious issue with performers bringing audience members onstage to be “worked” over.  I mean really, if I’m paying 50 plus dollars to see one of my favorite artists in concert, I can guarantee you that the last thing I’m looking forward to is watching he or she pull some squealing simp onto the stage who is going to wail and waterworks so uncontrollably through my favorite song, that I won’t even be able to recognize the lyrics.  Not only that, but the hysterics that the fanatic goes into while on stage oftentimes end up with security personnel having to peel the lusty individual off of said favorite singer and ruining an otherwise decently choreographed stage show.  From a bare chested Bobby to a gyrating Trey…they’ve all extended the invite to that one lucky fan, and each time, the fan came away with anything from an article of clothing to an unsanctioned lip lock to the singers’ “stunned” surprise.

But as far as concert onstage fan shockers go, Usher and his booted beauty at Madison Square Garden definitely take the cake.  During his recent performance in New York, Ursher did his perfunctory audience trolling for some “lucky” lady to grind up against while he serenaded her (clearly he is still of the mind that dry humping in E minor is swoon worthy).  Once on stage though, it became apparent that Usher’s muse was determined not to be forgotten by him…or anyone else.  In what can only be described as a “straddle fail”, the young lady decided that she was going to be the one wooing; up until she opted to swing her leg over Mr. Raymond’s head and connected smack-dab with his temple.  And try as he might, there was no salvaging that one. Homegirl basically kicked the next lyric right out of Usher’s mouth and all he could do was take a second to shake off the embarrassment and imminent concussion.

Ever the showman however, Usher was gracious in accepting boot chick’s apology and didn’t even call for his bodyguards to throw her back into the throng of laughing onlookers.  Still, I imagine this incident has certainly gotten Tameka’s ex reevaluating the whole idea of crooning to random women in the audience at his next show. Let’s be real, who needs the headache (zing, LOL).

Over The River and Through the Lake Effect Snow to Detroit’s Ford Field We Go!

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What do you get when you cross a powerful weekend weather-system wreaking havoc from as far west as Illinois to as far east as Pennsylvania and a weatherproof athletic facility that in such conditions has proven to be not-so-weatherproof?  I give you the Minneapolis Metrodome.

Amidst wind chills dropping to a bitter 30 degrees below zero and as much as 23 inches of snow falling all over the Midwest, the Metrodome became an causality of winter (well 8 days and counting) early Sunday morning when it suffered a roof collapse under the pressure of the accumulated snow that Minneapolis had received at the hands of this weekend’s wintery conditions.  And while thankfully the breach occurred during none peak hours as opposed to during the Vikings-Giants match-up scheduled for later that day with a stadium full of spectators, one has to wonder where the buck on this season’s latest NFL stadium failure fiasco will stop (New Meadowlands Stadium, anyone?).

Now before anyone calls for the heads of the structural engineers to roll in what would appear, at least from the video, to be serious substandard structural designs of a building which should have been equipped to withstand the winter walloping common to this part of the country, let us not forget the Cowboys Practice Facility Collapse just last year, and the implications that cheap(er) materials and “short cuts” led to the structures failure in a windstorm of merely 55 mph, significantly less than the 90 mph wind speed the facility was believed to be able to withstand.

And while I am purely speculating and admit that my knowledge base with regard to engineering and construction ends with NatGeo and Discovery, I am sure that in the days ahead some serious conversations will be had with those professionals who can provide concrete answers as to what went wrong this weekend and why.  Let us just hope for the sake of all involved, that materials cost savings (you know, that whole “awarding the job to the builder with the lowest, not necessarily the safest cost” decision) was not a part of why this multi-million dollar complex is now unusable indefinitely.

But hey, on the bright side for all those Vikings Fans who prayed for a Brett Favre preparedness miracle, perhaps the additional 24 hours was enough time to get the old coot codger the extra rest needed before flying out to Detroit to be abused by an unforgiving New York Giants Defense in the rescheduled matchup between the two teams tonight.  And although I don’t know how “neutral” Ford Field is for Minnesota (I think it’s safe to say the Lions faithful aren’t embracing the Vikes and greeting them at the airport with a prayer for Odin’s blessing and favor), I believe it was a suitable solution on short notice and makes for a great double-header Monday Night Football evening, so you won’t hear any complaining from me!