The Xbox is Dead, Long Live the Xbox! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

2005. May. 7th. Ariesna and I were joined in wedded bliss. Unfortunately with her just finishing her degree and paying for a wedding money was tight so we didn’t have the cash to go some place exotic and we couldn’t really afford to spend more than a night away. So I picked a B&B just a few hours drive away. A helpful friend had recommended it as the most romantic B&B in the area. After the ceremony & reception, we drove out and enjoyed our one night there.

2006. Ariesna and I went back to the same B&B for an entire weekend. We ate out at a couple of nice restaurants, did a little shopping and hit up an art museum while we were there. It was a grand time, but by the end of it we were both tired. We got home, chilled for a while and eventually went to bed. Blissful slumber was interrupted at 4:30 AM by me waking up feeling like I was choking and/or drowning. I ran into the bathroom and spent the next 15 minutes or so kneeling in front of the porcelain throne. After getting myself cleaned up, I tried going back to bed but woke up a while later with the same problem. Again, I eventually got cleaned up and tried going back to bed. Later, I got the intense fun of making a trip to the doctor on what was supposed to be the last day of my vacation. I got weighed¹, poked, prodded and a q-tip was shoved down my throat². The doctor confirmed I had the flu combined with a sinus infection. However he was worried that I was severely dehydrated and wanted to put me on an IV to get some fluids in me. Alas after much poking (in both arms), they realized I was too dehydrated for the needle to go in properly. Eventually, they gave up on the IV and let Ariesna take me home. Though they did tell her to keep pushing fluids down me and recommended she get me to drink 2 liters of gatorade that day and keep pushing the fluids at me the next. She did so, continually waking me up from some of the best sleep I’ve ever had to drink, drink drink. And I don’t even like gatorade! *sigh* I mean the fruit punch version isn’t too bad but the rest.… yeck.

Anyhoo, I ended up spending the entire week home sick and now the night before I finally go back to the office I am feeling much better. I’m just not at 100% yet. My sinuses throb (and continually drain down my throat) and on top of that I’ve got an evening cough³ which feels like it’s going to rip my throat in half. But I’m still taking the anti-biotics the doctor prescribed and I’m hoping when the pills are gone so will be the last of my health problems.

Oh yeah, if you’re wondering about the title on this post that’s pretty much all the food I’ve eaten in the last week. It’s been thrilling. :(

¹ No, I’m not repeating what that lying hunk of metal claimed was my weight.
² Apparently, that’s part of the test for strep throat. Only nobody warned me in advance. Incidentally, the test came back negative but it has a 15% chance of failure.
³ It only happens after 5. No idea on why that is, but there you have it.

Banana, Crackers and Gatorade… Oh my! © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

• Things Hagrid the Half-Giant Would Say If He Served Jesus Instead of Harry Potter.
• Con as in Convention!
• Ding!
• Regarding New Orleans
• Badger Badger Badger
• Coffee So Strong.….…. [Editor] I don’t know seems like it’s kind of weak coffee to me if you actually have to drink it to wake up from the Matrix. With truly coffee, smelling the aroma of it should be enough to do that.
• Exploring Communities, Questions and Concerns of Lesbian Video Gamers

Not from Pukka

• Scone recipe: how to make/bake/cook fruit scones
• President Bush: Sell the Ranch
• Reader² [Editor] It’s kind of like del.ico.us or Flickr but for books.
• iTunes Tip: The “Perfect” equalizer setting [Editor] On the off chance that this blog is your sole source of news; Apple released a new version of iTunes this week. Along with the first iTunes enabled cellphone from Cingular/Motorola and more importantly, the iPod Mini replacement.… the iPod nano. Yum!
• Escape Key
• The Signal [Editor] This is a podcast by fans of the cult favorite TV show, Firefly. Firefly came out back in 2002, quickly gained a devote following but the dorks in charge of FOX killed it after showing only 11 of the 14 produced episodes had been made. The Singal’s goal is to pump up support for the movie follow-up to the tv show, Serenity. I just started listening to it this week and have nearly caught up to the current shows. Probably my favorite one so far is the one where they interview Gina Torres. Although the interviews are cool my favorite segements are the “learning chinese” bits; they lend a whole new insight into various scenes in the series. All the more I have to say about that is 易爆的大象腹泻 ¹.

Oh and in case you’re wondering about almost total lack of posts this week… We’re going into our next beta at work (much extra crudola to deal with). Additionally, I’ve been trying (and pretty much failing) to write an online, registration form for a local sci-fi con² that captures the data we need and accepts payments via PayPal. *sigh*

¹ Explosive elephant diarrhea (chinese translation obtained via Babelfish).
² ICON 30

Pukka’s Links of the Week © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Instant-Failure Stealth Levels. Ack. This brings back horrible memories of a Goldeneye level where if you tripped an alarm, an infinite number of bad guys poured forth. We knew a man who failed that level 37 times, then got the Infinite Health cheat for it and came back. He intentionally tripped the alarm, the guards rushed out. Laughing maniacally, he proceeded to shoot those fuckers for four hours, killing 1,183 of them — 682 with groin shots — before his thumbs cramped up. Your game should not create this kind of bitterness.

Amen to that!

A Gamer’s Manifesto © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.

Employee Self-Appraisal Form

Instructions

To complete electronically, use the Tab key to go to the next field. To complete analogly: print this off, pull that pen out of your ass ear and scribble in your answers.

Name: Mark
Enslavement Date: 02 June 1997
Department: Crappy Code Catchers
Job Title: Intensification Whiz
Appraisal Period: From — Then, To — Now

Objective

This form is designed for you to explain to management how you’re screwing the company out of it’s money. It’s your chance to step back from the day-to-day pressures of your thralldom, and take an honest look at where you’ve been, where you are and what other company you might want to go to in the future.

Appraisal Procedures:

1. Complete this Self Appraisal Form, print out, and return to your manager via CONFIDENTIAL Interoffice envelope. Do NOT send your via diskettes or Internet email! Do NOT save this form to either the corporate LAN or your corporate PC hard drive! If you must save the document, please do so on a floppy disk. This way we can be sure that the original copy of your review can never be recovered should you decide to disagree with management’s assessment of your worthlessness.
2. Your supervisor will complete his appraisal of you. Most likely, this will take next to no time at all as they’re just going to blow you off exactly like they did last year. Management will then review your self appraisal and your supervisor’s evaluation to develop a GOALS & PERSONAL IMPROVEMENT PLAN for you to review before they fire you.
3. Supervisor meets with you to give you your termination notice. During this exit interview, you and the supervisor will discuss each appraisal topic, areas that need to be addressed, your career path, and the steps that need to be taken to get you on your way to your next employer. Specific goals will be set for the next review period; if you are so fortunate as to be staying with our company.
4. The original form must be signed and then placed in your permanent record. That way when your mind finally snaps; we can turn it over to the NSA.

Elements of your Job:

Describe your primary responsibilities and duties — your job description, as you understand it. While we’ve changed your job description approximately 8 times in 6 months; if you get this wrong, you will be fired.
Avoiding as much real work as possible.
Maintaining the illusion that I’m doing real work whenever under direction observation by either a supervisor or a manager.
Collect paychecks.
Eat the free donuts.

Accomplishments:

List your major accomplishments and contributions during this past review period. If you didn’t have any, don’t expect to be getting another pay check from us.
Avoided being downsized during reorganization.

Improvements made since your last appriasal:

What have you done to make it worth our while to keep you around instead of hiring a chimp to do your job?
Photographed company CEO “boinking” his secretary, but haven’t given copies of the images to his wife.

Self-Management:

Face it, you’re a screw up and we know it. So be honest and tell us exactly how you’ve been screwing up this year.
Failed to find another job.

Job Satisfaction:

A) What part of your job interests you the most?
Payday.
B) The least?
Coming to work every day.

Training:

Is what part of your job do you feel particularly inferior?
Coming to work.

What got in your way:

Find something (or somebody else) to blame for your shortcomings this year.
It’s all Wally’s fault.

Fully Utilitized:

How can we more fully exploit you?
I plead the 5th.

Personal Influences:

Note any personal factors that you feel should be considered in your present assignment or future jobs.
Do you mean beside that bong I smoked after chugging down my martini lunch?

Leadership/Employee Development

List for us all the ways you were able to bully your cow-orkers and/or underlings into doing your work for you.
See my answer to “Improvements made since your last appriasal:”

List project goals you are currently focused on:

• Collecting my paycheck.
• Building up vacation/sick time.
• Calculating the maximum amount of belly-button lint that will fit in an empty Coke can.

Personal improvement goals:

Since we know you’ve spent the past year screwing around on company time; can you list some things you could do to improve your productivity (if you were still working here next year)?
I could try actually working for once.

Where do you want your career to go:

What company do you want to be working in one year? In three years? In five years?
Screw all this, I just wanna win the Powerball and be independentally wealthy for the rest of my life.

General management comments:

Since we all know you’re going to be fired; here’s your one real shot to blame management for your failures. Note to secretary: Please cover this section in white-out before passing on to management. Thanks!
You’re all a bunch of bleepards!

Additional comments:

Any parting words?
Piss off!

Self-Evaluation © Mark McKibben, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.