I have a theory though it's more of an observation than a theory. Most commercials, through their content, imply that the people who need or use the product in question, are either incompetent or condescending jerks. Or they have poor hygiene. The next time you watch television, watch for what the commercials are really saying.
The current Mac campaign is a great example of this. These would be the commercials where Mac is represented by the young, hip-in-a-nerdy-sort-of-way guy who clearly works for a start-up with an open office layout and the PC is represented by the pudgy guy with glasses and looks like a stereotypical cube dweller. At least the Mac users I know aren't quite as condescending as the ads make it seem like they should be.
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Monday, October 30, 2006
goggles
Some goggles I got at work today had this warning: THIS PRODUCT IS NOT DESIGNED FOR AND SHOULD NOT BE USED IN SIMULATED COMBAT GAMES.
What about real combat?
What about real combat?
Sunday, October 29, 2006
push 2
In the last four days, Thursday through today, I have racked up 900 miles on the road, spent one night sleeping in a pick-up waiting for a pull truck, nearly ripped off a bumper, seen countless deer, a fox, and a bobcat, gone to Utah twice, and yet was on only one job. And you know what, deer are hard to photograph from a moving vehicle.
Monday, October 23, 2006
face
I just love responsibility without authority.
Work last week was essentially a series of near disasters and moderately sized crises. Now it's Monday and it looks like we're poised to do it all over again.
In lighter news, I somehow ended up on some internal e-mail list for recruiting, along with a lot of now unhappy people. The progression is wonderful. First came the original e-mail asking people to sign up if they're interested. Next someone replied all, including the entire list with some recruiter specific matter. And then there was (and continues to be) the landslide of e-mails requesting to get off of the list. About every fifth e-mail is a plea to everyone else to stop hitting reply all with the requisite amount of irony that they are hitting reply all in order to send the e-mail. Then there was the obligatory cheeky reply where the sender asked to receive more of these awesome e-mails. My desired reply which is not at all cheeky:
Dear all:
Listen you ignorant sluts. The next person to send an e-mail, any e-mail to this distribution list will be physically injured by me. I will look you up in the company directory, fly to the city you work in, go to your office, and then beat the shit out of you. That is all.
Or maybe I'll send it only to the people who have already replied to all because they're the ones who have been stupid enough to perpetuate this problem. Sometimes I'm just stunned by the sheer idiocy of, not just people at work, but all people including most of our clients.
Work last week was essentially a series of near disasters and moderately sized crises. Now it's Monday and it looks like we're poised to do it all over again.
In lighter news, I somehow ended up on some internal e-mail list for recruiting, along with a lot of now unhappy people. The progression is wonderful. First came the original e-mail asking people to sign up if they're interested. Next someone replied all, including the entire list with some recruiter specific matter. And then there was (and continues to be) the landslide of e-mails requesting to get off of the list. About every fifth e-mail is a plea to everyone else to stop hitting reply all with the requisite amount of irony that they are hitting reply all in order to send the e-mail. Then there was the obligatory cheeky reply where the sender asked to receive more of these awesome e-mails. My desired reply which is not at all cheeky:
Dear all:
Listen you ignorant sluts. The next person to send an e-mail, any e-mail to this distribution list will be physically injured by me. I will look you up in the company directory, fly to the city you work in, go to your office, and then beat the shit out of you. That is all.
Or maybe I'll send it only to the people who have already replied to all because they're the ones who have been stupid enough to perpetuate this problem. Sometimes I'm just stunned by the sheer idiocy of, not just people at work, but all people including most of our clients.
Sunday, October 22, 2006
car gremlins partially conquered
I conquered one of my car problems today, arguably the most pressing one. My fuse is no longer blowing. While separating the bundle of wires for my license plate lights and trunk light switch as it goes from the trunk to the body of the car, I discovered that three out of five of them were so damaged that they just pulled apart on me and a fourth was mostly frayed apart as well. That might have been the short in the system. The problem has been address, my license plate lights work, my right taillight works, and my dash backlight works. And I now own a pair of wire strippers.
I should also mention that my trip odometer no longer works though. More accurately, I cannot get it to properly reset. I'm afraid to push the button again because it partially resets such that it starts to turn and then clicks back to zero every couple tenths of a mile. The click is quite audible. Very annoying. I finally got it to the point where it just doesn't move and this seems acceptable. And the two tires I ordered should be here tomorrow. One of my rears sprung a leak. I tried to deny it by putting air in every couple of days but it reached the point where I needed to put air in twice a day. Now I'm rolling around on the spare. You could say I should've just gotten it patched, but I say the tires were getting short in the tread anyway.
I should also mention that my trip odometer no longer works though. More accurately, I cannot get it to properly reset. I'm afraid to push the button again because it partially resets such that it starts to turn and then clicks back to zero every couple tenths of a mile. The click is quite audible. Very annoying. I finally got it to the point where it just doesn't move and this seems acceptable. And the two tires I ordered should be here tomorrow. One of my rears sprung a leak. I tried to deny it by putting air in every couple of days but it reached the point where I needed to put air in twice a day. Now I'm rolling around on the spare. You could say I should've just gotten it patched, but I say the tires were getting short in the tread anyway.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
half right
Hilarious little story from a rig a couple weeks ago. As long as you like racial humor. And you know basic facts about me. Otherwise, you might as well go away now.
I was out treating (another word for supervising) a job. The crew I happened to be with was made up of three operators and a HIT field engineer from Angola.
A quick explanation. HIT stands for high intensity training, which is when someone from a district that does not perform many jobs is sent to a district that performs many jobs in order to gain field experience. Principally, this means sending field engineers from overseas, especially offshore districts where jobs tend to be relatively complex (high tier), but happen infrequently (low volume). That's a big contrast from most of the US land work which is usually low to medium tier and high volume. A low volume district might perform as few as two or three jobs in a month whereas a high volume district could potentially do more than 100.
Getting back to the short story, now is the time for the racial part. The three operators all happened to be black and I'm pretty sure the field engineer from Angola is self explanatory. There aren't a lot of black people in Farmington as one can see from this handy census chart so there aren't many at work either. Thus, this was a bit of coincidence that they were all on the same job. The rig crew on duty was all white though I suppose I only highlight this point to make a comment about rig crews. Most of the crew shifts on most of the drilling rigs around here are all white. Non-white crew members tend to end up on the same shift and about half of all workover rigs are made up of all minorities. (If you worked in the business, it might become apparent why that is so, but I'm not going to explain it here.) Anyway, most of the rig crews are helpful and friendly guys (almost no women work on rigs) and this rig was no exception. (I think I've only seen one female rig hand ever.)
While we perform our job on a rig, there isn't all that much for the rig crew to be doing aside from cleaning and watching returns if they feel like it. I need to watch returns during the latter half of a job to make sure we don't have lost circulation because we eventually want to get cement back to surface so we know it fills up the entire annulus. As such, towards the end of a job, all I'm really doing (but don't tell anyone) is watching fluid flow from a pipe that goes from the well to the reserve pit. Anyway, the company man usually watches too and it’s a good time to generally joke around with him and some of the rig hands.
On this job, I was standing a little aside from everyone at one point. I often walk around a lot at this point in a job to check other things as well so I end up coming back to watch returns from different spots. While I was aside, one of the rig hands came up to me and said, "So you're about the only white boy on this crew" or something very similar to that. To which I replied, "Well, you got that half right" and walked away to check something else and laugh a bit.
I was out treating (another word for supervising) a job. The crew I happened to be with was made up of three operators and a HIT field engineer from Angola.
A quick explanation. HIT stands for high intensity training, which is when someone from a district that does not perform many jobs is sent to a district that performs many jobs in order to gain field experience. Principally, this means sending field engineers from overseas, especially offshore districts where jobs tend to be relatively complex (high tier), but happen infrequently (low volume). That's a big contrast from most of the US land work which is usually low to medium tier and high volume. A low volume district might perform as few as two or three jobs in a month whereas a high volume district could potentially do more than 100.
Getting back to the short story, now is the time for the racial part. The three operators all happened to be black and I'm pretty sure the field engineer from Angola is self explanatory. There aren't a lot of black people in Farmington as one can see from this handy census chart so there aren't many at work either. Thus, this was a bit of coincidence that they were all on the same job. The rig crew on duty was all white though I suppose I only highlight this point to make a comment about rig crews. Most of the crew shifts on most of the drilling rigs around here are all white. Non-white crew members tend to end up on the same shift and about half of all workover rigs are made up of all minorities. (If you worked in the business, it might become apparent why that is so, but I'm not going to explain it here.) Anyway, most of the rig crews are helpful and friendly guys (almost no women work on rigs) and this rig was no exception. (I think I've only seen one female rig hand ever.)
While we perform our job on a rig, there isn't all that much for the rig crew to be doing aside from cleaning and watching returns if they feel like it. I need to watch returns during the latter half of a job to make sure we don't have lost circulation because we eventually want to get cement back to surface so we know it fills up the entire annulus. As such, towards the end of a job, all I'm really doing (but don't tell anyone) is watching fluid flow from a pipe that goes from the well to the reserve pit. Anyway, the company man usually watches too and it’s a good time to generally joke around with him and some of the rig hands.
On this job, I was standing a little aside from everyone at one point. I often walk around a lot at this point in a job to check other things as well so I end up coming back to watch returns from different spots. While I was aside, one of the rig hands came up to me and said, "So you're about the only white boy on this crew" or something very similar to that. To which I replied, "Well, you got that half right" and walked away to check something else and laugh a bit.
Sunday, October 15, 2006
slides and a song
You know this looks like fun. More pictures.
To harken back a couple months ago, the name of that song was Crazy by a duo called Gnarls Barkley. However, you'd have to know what I'm harkening back to in order to understand entirely, but I really like the song. Of course the music video is on YouTube. Speaking of which, Mark Cuban was wrong but perhaps he's right now. Nothing like building up a record against weak opponents to get a chance for a title shot to make a mediocre boxing analogy.
To harken back a couple months ago, the name of that song was Crazy by a duo called Gnarls Barkley. However, you'd have to know what I'm harkening back to in order to understand entirely, but I really like the song. Of course the music video is on YouTube. Speaking of which, Mark Cuban was wrong but perhaps he's right now. Nothing like building up a record against weak opponents to get a chance for a title shot to make a mediocre boxing analogy.
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