Gunny Walker

  I'm sure that you have heard this already, but a French Goat has contracted mad cow disease. What is going on? When are we going to stop making cannibals out of animals. I learned in music class that "All Cows Eat Grass." Are we to change that designation on the musical scale to the "Guts" note?
  Anyway on a lighter note, a joke...
  There are two cows standing in a field. One cow says to the other, "Boy that mad cow disease is something isn't it?"
  The other cow responds "What do I care? I'm a helicopter."

  Man! what has it been like a week since I did anything real online? Yeah, I guess so. I've gotten on briefly to check on a couple of things, but for the most part, I've done nothing. Working all day on a computer is having an effect on me I guess.
  Heck, I'm only online now because I wanted to watch the stock market. I've just been sitting here playing solitaire, writing down the trades that I would have made. Now you may ask yourself why am I doing that? Well, the truth is that I don't have enough money to day trade, but if I ever do, then I want to be able to be comfortable with it. I could day trade now, but fees to do trading would eat me alive. If I do only one trade a day that's 14 dollars. I pay seven dollars to buy and seven dollars to sell a stock. That's 14 dollars. Now, if I've got 1,400 dollars getting a one percent return per day, I've spent my entire profits on fees. I've also still got to pay taxes on money that I never got to see.
  Now let's say that I have 20,000 dollars. That one percent comes to 200 dollars. Suddenly it doesn't hurt to make five or six trades a day. Right now, I am looking at two strategies. In one I have not made much money and have made seven trades. On the other I have gotten about a percent and have made three "trades." So, I'm thinking now that less is more.
  Of course, I'll still have plenty of time to play around with it before I ever get to 20,000 dollars.
  Of course, this past week has been an exciting one. I've been working a lot. It's been the end of the quarter. I've gotten a lot closer to hitting the close rate that I need to get hired on at Dell. I needed a close rate of 24% to qualify. I got to 21 percent, but I also spend the first two weeks with pretty poor rankings. I'm not sure that I could have pulled it out. After that, I've got to start hitting my margin rankings, but that should be easy. I've got five metrics to hit, and two of them I have down well. If I can get this close rate, it'll be money in the bank.
  Of course, getting a later shift won't be easy. I've got to start going in an hour earlier Saturday. I will also be off Wednesdays and Sundays. I don't mind the days being split up. At least I have Wednesday to get all my running around done. I would also like to have another weekday to watch the stock market.
  It seems like the people I work with want to work Monday through Friday 7 to 4. That way they can be off weekends, but then what if you need to go to the bank? You've got half a day on Saturday to get there. Forget sleeping in. Or get your oil changed or tires rotated? Or just need to get to see a lawyer. You only get to miss eight days a year with Dell. I hope that your kid never gets sick.
  We lost two more people this week from my training class. If memory serves me, that makes eight out of 24 gone. One had missed too many days. She quit before she got fired. That way she can come back in three months. One got a job at the Verizon call center. It's $12.50 an hour and closer to home, but if I get to be Dell badged, $12.50 an hour is chump change.
  There are a couple of other people talking about quitting as well. I plan to see if I get on a Dell first. I have to qualify for two months in a row. The way I see it if I don't qualify in my fifth month, then I can look for a job in my sixth month.
  I've been watching a few movies, but I'll save that for another post.
Later...

  Did you ever wonder why people name their kids like they do? Oh, I'm not talking about names like Shaniqua or La Rosa. I can understand that some parents aren't creative enough to think up names better than John or Ralph. (Much like my own.) I wonder where some people get their names from. There are some pretty bad names once you think about it. I'd like to list some of them here.
  Micah: Very shiny person but mostly flaky.
  Baby: We aren't going to think of a name.
  Amber: Very sweet, tends to trap, kill, and preserve bugs.
  Rod: Well we all know what this means and that may not be a bad thing. Possibly. See...
  Richard: Well this one is okay if you don't shorten it, cause then you're just a...
  Roger: Well, we all know that Roger is a verb.
  Byrd: Flighty
  Cleveland: Land of high cliffs.(I'm not making this one up.)
  Wade: Actually, this is a bit of a compliment. It means that you aren't all wet.
  Earlene: Nobody should name their little girl this.
  Xena: No one's name should begin with an X. Ironically this means hospitable.
  Jade: Precious but mostly green.
  Priscilla: Stay away from any girl with this name. She may as well be named Queenie or Prude.
  Laban: Actually means white, which is ironic cause this sounds like a name that only really white people would give their kids. At least to me.
  I've just had this because I've been taking such strange names at work. I had a guy a few weeks ago named Richie Richey. No kidding. I just laughed and said, "I'm sorry." I just couldn't help it. He told me he had a double name. I thought it meant that he had a hyphenated last name. I'd at least change my name to Richard or Dick. I get to hear interesting names all day. Cwikla, Cfee, Mnoian, Ko. The entertainment never ends when you are as easily amused as I am.
  That's all I've got today. Later folks.

  Who's going to be the first to yell puppet government?
  Have you registered to vote? You can you know. You just have to been born in Iraq or your father could have been born there. That's what you need if you want to vote in the Iraqi elections. It's okay if you are a citizen of another country. You don't even have to speak Arabic. You just need to travel to Nashville or one of other convenient cities. So basically, there will probably be more people outside the country than will be voting in it. Are we doing this because we couldn't secure the place? Are we doing this because then we can rig it easier? If you want to vote you need to register this week. So break out your birth certificates.
  I was wondering if any burka burners will show up.

Okay, so I have nothing to really write about I am going to steal something from Tommy. Of course, two of these are not true. Mainly because I really don't have an answer to them.
Guilty Pleasures:
Dove chocolate truffles.
CD I have in my car that I roll up the windows to listen to:
All of them? I also roll up the windows to talk to myself. Yeah, it sounds crazy, but it's true.
Book I read flat so no one could see the title:
I read this wrong. Apparently, it's supposed to mean that it's a book that I kept flat so that no one could see it. I took it to mean that I folded it back so many times while enjoying reading and re-reading the book that eventually it laid flat on it's own.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy or Summer of My German Soldier. Figure out which is which.
Crappiest song ever sung at karaoke:
I sing all songs pretty crappy. But I would have to say it would have to be I Will Survive
Bad movie I watch repeatedly:
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Article of clothing I love though I know it's wrong:
Underwear
What I order at the bar when no one is listening:
Jaegermeister. Straight.
Fast food item I adore:
What kind of stupid question is this? Taco Bell, duh. Even after working there for three years.
A TV show that is a good example of the downfall of civilization that I love anyway:
That's a tough one. I never actually watch TV enough to see shows regularly. So I have to go on shows that I stop to watch while flipping through channels. Reno 911? The Simpsons? South Park? I got it! It's SpongeBob SquarePants!

  Stolen from Sling Blade, "There was these two fellows on a bridge and one fellow says 'Water sure is cold.' And the other one says, 'And deep, too.' I don't know, but one of those fellows might have been from Arkansas." Classic. That cracks me up every time I think about it.
  I was urinating at work the other day, when I thought. What's up with this urinal? I mean when I go to Wal-Mart, they have those short urinals. I've always called it the kiddie urinal, but why is it a work? It's not like Dell employs little kids.
  Well, not here in the states. Let's not forget about the slave camps in Uzbekistan where the PDA's are made.
  And then I thought, maybe it's not a kiddie urinal. Maybe it's a midget urinal. Yeah! That's it. It's just like a handicapped stall. Every place has to have a handicapped stall. Maybe every place has to have a midget urinal for those that are vertically challenged. I wonder if there are any midgets that work at Dell. I'm going to search the building to see if I can find one. If I do, I'm going to become really good friends with that midget.
  Cause midgets are funny.

  A guy at work sent me an email with a link to Ing's orange account. Basically, for your money you get a annual 2.35% return on your money. He was shocked by how small it was. I had heard about it some time ago. Of course, that rate doesn't even keep up with inflation. It's just silly.
  In other news, I've just gotten a new car. My old Ford died. It was something electrical and I figured that it probably wasn't worth saving. So, I went out and bought a new car. The old one had almost 200,000 miles and this new one has less than 65,000. It's a 2000 Toyota Echo. The only thing I don't like about it is that it is an automatic. Of course, with 35 miles to a gallon, I think that I can get used to that. Hopefully I can drive this thing for many years to come. Until I can drive it into the ground like I did the Probe.
  I saw one of my co-workers wearing a work shirt with his name on it. The former place of employment? 21 and Up Movie Rentals. He told me that he was a manager of the place but his job title on his shirt was "head clerk." I guess that was some kind of joke. He didn't find it to funny. I was just shocked that he walked around wearing the shirt. Well, that and the fact that the video store would have uniforms. Not the kind of place you would expect to find professionalism.

  It's amazing how some things never change. In Dell, there are four basic customers. It's something that I've come to realize. It says something about human nature. Be we short, black, skinny, or wealthy, we all fall into one of those four categories. I can even see which one I am. It's the trick to figure out which one you are in, so that I can sell you a computer. Of course, it's also kind of nice to think that no matter where you look, people are essentially the same.
  It's amazing how some things never change. Woke up early yesterday. Stopped by Wal-Mart to see some folks. Heck, I worked there a long time. I've known some of the folks there better than my own family.
  And she was there. Excited to see me. I only worked with her for two months before I quit. She ran up and gave me a hug. I hugged her back, and then loosened it up and she still held tight. That girl knew what she was doing. I held her in my arms and tried not to inhale. If I had I would have sure sucked in some sweet, intoxicating ambrosia that would have sent me into a haze all day.
  She knows what she is. She knows her power to make men weak by her presence. I must not let her break down my defenses. I see this sort at my new job. They still exist no matter where you go. It's a high that they experience. They know that have power over men and use every chance to exert it. Because it works. Because every contact makes them feel more powerful. Reinforces their offenses. Makes them stronger, weaker sex. And I must fight the good fight at every opportunity that I face it.
  But boy, it certainly FELT good. And still does after 36 hours. Maybe I was just a little weaker yesterday.

  You probably saw this on Fark.com. It's that China has hit 1.3 billion. In theory. No one really knows. They are just guessing at it, but the fact is that a kid was born that makes them think that they finally have 1.3 billion people in the country. That's unimaginable. Of course, the funniest part of this is story is the quote from the grandfather...

"The healthy 3.7kg girl, whose paternal grandfather has been given the honour of choosing her name in a traditional gesture of respect from her parents, was naturally oblivious to her place in China's great population experiment, as were her parents. They were just happy that she was healthy and, according to the Chinese Lunar calendar, born 'at the tail of the monkey and the head of the chicken'."

  They've got monkey and chicken parts in the hospital rooms? What kind of voodoo crap is that? And they have change those bits according to what month it is. Isn't all this unsanitary.
  And just to get a cheap laugh, today's golden quote is, "I'm telling you. It was like a baby's arm holding an apple!" Use your imagination.

  It's amazing how much politics there are at work. I guess it's everywhere you go, but I just can't stand the way that some one can hug some one one minute and then three hours later call them an ass clown. I had to look that one up in the dictionary. It doesn't have a precise definition. It only has a negative connotation. If I don't like you, you can tell. It's that simple. Anyway, it's amzing when you learn that there are some folks you just shouldn't hang around. You start to wonder what they are like behind your back.
  I just need to concentrate on getting my job done. I need to get hired on full time and get paid. One girl that I work with that is still temporary, said that she used her bonus to buy a washer and dryer. It was a thousand dollar bonus. I need to start hitting my metrics. I'm getting close. Hopefully, I can pull it off this month. There are four people in my group that have been there for five months. They say that out of the 35 in their class, only five still work there. The turnover is worse than Wal-mart. Luckily, if I can pull it off, the pay is better. It's not uncommon to make 60k a year working for Dell.

  So, I've decided what my resolutions are going to be this year.
1. I will be eating beef this year, but only one day a week.
2. I will only drink one coke a day.
3. I will not put clean clothes on my dirty body or dirty clothes on my clean body.
  The first one will be easy. The last two will be very difficult. I probably won't make that last one. I also had a terrible day at work today. That might be because I haven't eaten my black eyed peas yet. Or it could be because no one was calling into Dell because they were hungover. Probably the later.