Hey, why do you think this tree is so sad?
You see it too right?
Why so sad Mr. Tree?
Leave a comment and tell me why YOU think the tree is sad. Are you the sad tree? Can you make the tree smile? Have I been watching too many kid shows?
WARNING: HUMOR RANT AHEAD. Exaggerated, pessimistic, and possibly offensive content ahead. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. MUAHAHAHAHAH.
You find yourself staying at the hotel for a night, or a few nights, it doesn’t really matter. Suddenly that dreaded moment arrives where it’s go time and you rush into the bathroom to put the “finishing touch” on the meal you had yesterday. As you finish, you reach over to find some of the worst toilet paper you’ll ever use.
Why? Certainly you’re overcharging me for this room. On top of it all you’ve offered me some sort of “breakfast” in the morning, free coffee any time, a small coffee maker in the room, free soap, free towels to use, and all sorts of little freebies to make it feel like home. HOME DOESN’T HAVE AWFUL TOILET PAPER FROM A KNOCKOFF OF THE DOLLAR TREE.
Of course, ladies probably discover this issue a lot quicker than the men.
No matter how many hotels you stay at, it seems like you forget about the toilet paper issue until you’re there, on the toilet, at the moment of doom.
I mean, first you have to use too much of it because it’s either 1 ply or a very very very thin 2 ply and nobody wants their finger breaking through in that mess. Am I right? Just say yes.
Nobody wants to wipe with that junk! You’d get cleaner using leaves! Just don’t grab the poison ivy on accident. Give me some Charmin or Cottonelle or something. You tell me to come to (or call) the desk and ask and I can have more pillows, or a toothbrush, or more free things, but you’re handing me a roll of ultra-thin sandpaper to wipe with? At least real sandpaper would do some cleaning!
REMEMBER KIDS! DON’T LEAVE HOME WITHOUT A ROLL OF YOUR FAVORITE TOILET PAPER! The hotel sure won’t have it!
On Tuesday I received a phone call asking for me to come in the following morning (early) to interview for a third shift desk clerk position at a hotel. I fit the requirements for the position and then some! Typing skills, data entry experience, familiar (and skilled) with Microsoft Office, and we all know I’m a night owl… and so on.
I was told after the interview to call on Friday around 2 PM if I hadn’t been called. I waited all day Wednesday, all day Thursday, and until 2 PM Friday wondering if I would get the job. Hopeful, excited, and… nothing. When I made the phone call I was given some crappy message that sounded like she read off of a sheet of paper; some predetermined “let down” message to inform me that somebody with prior hotel experience was chosen for the position.
So I have all of the skills, plus many more, and I fit the position perfectly but they chose somebody else based on prior hotel experience.
WHAT?
Have a little common sense! First, how am I supposed to get “hotel experience” if I don’t get hired by a hotel? Second, if I fit every other requirement for the position and obviously learn new things very easily, why would you not choose me?
I’ve had a lot of great experience, but no I’ve never worked in a hotel. Shame on me.
I’m not being cocky, and I certainly don’t think I’m anything amazing. Lynn is constantly getting onto me for talking bad about myself, but even I’m able to see that this was a poor decision on the part of the hotel.
Whatever.
How was YOUR day? @_@
I have to admit that I’m happy with myself for sticking with Ubuntu even through the frustrating bits. I’ve managed to work out a solution for just about every problem that I have faced so far. With that being said, here is something that is irritating me:
There is not a single decent up to date blog post writer/editor (or whatever you want to call the program type) for Linux. On Windows I was using Windows Live Writer, and yes it has a lot of amazing features – but how is it that NOTHING on Linux even has the basic functions to post properly to a Wordpress blog?
How dare I say such a thing on twitter or I get “helpful” comments about how I’m wrong and how there are some great programs for Linux and blogging. Let’s go over a few, shall we? Remember, I’m talking about LINUX ONLY – Firefox addons and other various options not included in this list.
KBlogger: This one showed promise when I first opened it. Then it crashed. And again. And again. And again. If you handle it VERY LIGHTLY and also remember not to import any pictures, it might not crash for a while. Then if you can finally post with it, IT DOESN’T SUPPORT TAGS FOR WORDPRESS. It also fails to give the option for a custom slug. Between the crashing and the lack of options, no thanks.
BloGTK: This one might have been great back when it was being properly updated and worked on. Personally I can’t even manage to open the program – it crashes immediately. I can get the errors from the console and a quick Google search shows plenty of other people with the same experience. Looking into it, the program is outdated anyway. The next update (BloGTK 2.0) will be available “eventually” and it has been that way for a long time.
Drivel: Another program that showed promise, but when I opened it I discovered that it didn’t have Wordpress available as an option directly. Once I logged in, I quickly discovered that it had no options for tags, categories, or a custom slug. At least this one didn’t crash on me! Another quick Google search brought up the fact that this one has not been worked on since 2006. That would explain the lack of features!
There are some other options available, but these three are the main ones. The other options are a lot more simple (such as gnome-blog and tomboy blogposter) and for that I will cut them some slack – they weren’t designed for heavy usage.
Having typed all of that, let me say that I realize there are some good cross-platform options available. ScribeFire for Firefox is a great example! The problem with that is that there should be something available FOR Linux users specifically. There are tons and tons of great opensource applications available, so why isn’t there just one good one for blogging? I’m not looking for something that is as featured as Windows Live Writer (though if one becomes available, I WANT IT!), and I’m not comparing programs TO Windows Live Writer. I just want something fully functional.
With all of the great programmers making tons of tetris and pacman remakes (among other duplicate programs) for Linux, you’d think somebody would bother to work on a useful (and up to date) blogging application.
I haven’t been posting much – shame on me.
Friday was my birthday… it’s cool, I’ll just pause here for a second while I wait for your reply to that. ;-)
Anyway, Friday was a great day. Fun, family, all you can eat crab legs/seafood buffet for me and Lynn (courtesy of my parents), and more than I could put into one blog post. My family is pretty awesome.
Saturday, Dad’s birthday (notice a trend with my family and July? Me too). Happy Birthday Dad! We mowed the lawn! It was fun and Wednesday’s Wordless Wednesday post will be sort of a result of that. Be afraid!
Was there a Sunday? Let’s skip to Monday.
Monday was BUSY and frustrating, but I’m happy with all that was accomplished before the day was over. Not really up for all of the details, but know that there was much running around town for errands to be done and it certainly was done.
Today was pretty interesting. I woke up to discover I had missed a phone call by about ten minutes that turned out to be for a next day job interview. How awesome is that? I’m very excited! I’ve been looking for a job for a while now and this one is perfect for me. I can’t tell you how much I need this job. Other than that, most of my day was spent cleaning. If you have me on any given messenger you probably noticed that my status had something to do with cleaning all day. I’d like to think that a lot was accomplished today.
What will happen tomorrow? There’s only one way to find out.
I actually have a post saved in my drafts for later today, but I was talking to somebody about this and just felt like posting about it.
People online may use fake names, or go by various aliases, or for that matter may even flat out pretend to be somebody that they aren’t. A lot of people are just honest/open about who they are. No matter what the case may be they are still real people. I read about people talking about their “real life friends” – have they forgotten that the people on the internet are in real life? They may not know them offline but they’re still real.
As soon as we forget that the person on the other end that we’re talking to is real, it’s like we forget how to treat them as a person! I say we because it is something that we all do; as far as I can tell it’s a people thing. Didn’t your mother teach you how to play nice?
People are people whether they are online or offline, and don’t ever forget that. They have feelings just like you do.
Even if you’re a jerk to everybody you meet in real life, try to have a little courtesy online. While you’re at it, try to have some courtesy offline too.
/sappyreminder
Sorry to have been so quiet lately – I normally try to drop an update in, even if it is just some fun pictures or something. I’ve finally done what I’ve been trying to convince myself to do for years: I picked a Linux Distro that works well and went with it.
Which one did I pick? I am now running Ubuntu 9.04 and loving it.
However, I did have to sacrifice Windows Live Writer but it’s okay, I’m surviving without it. I really enjoyed using it, and there just isn’t a suitable replacement on Linux (not that there was on Windows either – they did a good job with WLW). Right now I’m posting from ScribeFire, a Firefox plugin that seems to do the trick, at least for now. I might be setting up XP on Virtual Box and running it within Linux, but that’s work for another day.
So Geek Dad didn’t fall off the face of the earth, but don’t be so disappointed! You never know what will happen next.
For those of you that want to keep track of me outside of the blog, visit my Contact/Me Online page and you’ll find me all over the place. Don’t worry, I’ll be posting here again soon. I just need to finish up with the fun parts of completely backing up your computer, wiping it out, and installing a completely new OS.
If you’ve been here before you probably know that I’m a big fan of webcomics. I’ve been reading them for years and over time many have come and gone, some better than others. Spud Comics is definitely one of the better ones out there! It’s not one of those webcomics that are more like reading a novel; Spud Comics throws one hilarious panel at you (seriously, he throws it at you – I’m still healing from Friday’s update) to start your day off right.
The man behind the spud (or is it the spud behind the man) is Lonnie Easterling, and he’s a great guy. I’ve stalked followed him on twitter and he actually takes the time to not only reply to you, but actually have conversations with you. How great is that? And to top it off for all of you facebook users out there, he has a great facebook group and it really needs you to get in and get active! So join NOW.
So check it out, read back on his archives and see how great this comic really is. Make sure to toss it into your RSS reader so you never miss an update!
See you on the facebook group!
