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Friday, June 30, 2006

Reinforcements

Suddenly and without warning (as usual) management dumped three new bodies into the fray back here. I haven't complained to my boss directly about what a useless piece of shit Greasy Guy is, but I kinda get the feeling the reason why they are finally giving us some more man power in the environmental lab is because management is quietly conceding defeat. Maybe they are waking up to the fact that Greasy Guy isn't as wonderful a worker as they believed him to be. I mean, fuck. I can't hold down the fort all by myself and expect to meet deadlines while Greasy Guy is off chasing tail in the engineering department or looking at online personal ads all day long. That crap has been going on for months.

I'd like to hit Greasy Guy upside his bald head with a torque wrench. Really I would.

So the new people we have assigned to us are: a bloodshot bug-eyed ex US Army special forces electronic warfare technician, a four foot nothing female technician that is in such bad health she shouldn't be here doing this kind of work, and a loopy Mexican guy. Both the ex-Army guy and the Mexican hombre are currently enrolled in the ETAP program which I have mentioned before, but in case you missed it ETAP stands for Electronic Technician Apprenticeship Program. It used to be a sweet deal to be in that gig however nobody in management supports it anymore and those poor bastards end up being glorified testers. Nothing more.

I like the ex-Army guy. I've been yapping with him a bunch since he showed up. Funny fucker he is. I have started calling him Mr. McConvict. I'll explain why later.

Sunday, June 25, 2006

The Backstabber

There's a manager in our department I refer to as The Backstabber. He's a real piece of work, that one. In order to keep climbing upwards on the corporate ladder the Backstabber tells his superiors whatever he thinks they want to hear and when things don't work out like he said they would, he finds a way to place the blame on his peers or subordinates. Sometimes both. Recently he sabotaged a personal friend who also is in management here by going to his boss and cooking up a bunch of bogus dirt about the guy. Unfortunately the boss man bought Backstabber's garbage and demoted that other manager back to being a line technician. I was disgusted when I found out what happened especially since the Backstabber frequently invited the other guy and his family over to his house for dinner.

Dog Boards are something we constantly struggle with in the test area. A Dog Board is a failed circuit board. Usually technicians are so buried in instruments that they don't have much time to troubleshoot boards down to the component level. When an instrument fails in test the guys isolate it down to a microcircuit or PC board, swap it out, and get the box back to test as quickly as possible. Because there is a significant dollar value on each dog board we hang onto them with the idea of troubleshooting them later on to save them from the scrap bins. Over time those dog board piles start to overflow. They're still considered usable inventory though and they have to be counted just like brand new PC boards. So, eventually hardly any brand new boards are delivered to the product line from stores and techs are forced to repair as many dog boards as possible.

It's a constant juggling act between making monthly shipments on time and reducing inventory by fixing those dog boards. Backstabber had one of our supervisors fired over this dog board stuff. He was told by his bosses to get the dog board inventory under control immediately. Being the yes man that he is, Backstabber said no problem. He then delegated the responsibility to a peer, told her she would have all the necessary technical resources to make it happen, and then pulled the rug right out from under her. He pulled the techs away from repairing boards and kept them focused on instruments for a few months. As a result she couldn't get the dog board job done in time. When upper management came back on Backstabber and asked why the dog board inventory hadn't been effectively reduced he pointed at the other supervisor he promised to help and said, "It's her fault." Without questioning the Backstabber's story, they fired her.

Everyone here thought that was totally fucked up.

Now I have a problem. Even though I'm stuck back here in the lab cleaning up after Greasy Guy all the time, Backstabber hit me up for a new batch of instrument test racks. He wants more stations built up yesterday and like a bad re-run of syndicated television he's not willing to spend any cash to buy the equipment I need to put these racks together. Looks like I'm going to have to go into Super Scrounge mode again. The thing that bothers me though is I don't trust this bastard at all. I'm going to have to watch him like a hawk to make sure he doesn't try to burn me somehow.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Work Shirts



My sense of humor is rather warped. The people I have to work with here pretty much all know this by now, however I do take pleasure in pushing things further from time to time. Usually at least once a week I like to wear a politically incorrect shirt to sort of rattle the cages, so to speak. When I first started wearing offensive shirts to work I was actually a tad bit nervous someone would complain to a manager and I'd get hauled off the shop floor to a conference room for a good talking-to. Funny thing is, it's never happened. In fact much to my surprise most employees don't even notice what's written across my chest when I'm standing right in front of them. Goes to prove that most people are asleep at the wheel and just aren't paying attention.

There's a really messed up shirt company called Bounty Hunter. I like their stuff. From their demented series I purchased "I Love A Parade" and "Revenge Is Easy." Nobody, and I mean nobody at work has said a damn thing about that M4 carbine shirt. That really surprised me. I figured at least one dingbat housewife would freak out and fink on me. Once in a while a random employee in a hallway will stop, look at the sniper peeking over the edge of that building and say to me in a normal tone, "I really like parades too. They're super." At first I thought people were just fucking with me but then I realized they were being serious. Now when I get a response like that I usually tell them in a retarded voice, "I rEaLLy LIkE cL0wNs t00. HURRRRR HURR HURRRR." And then I walk away.

Across the hallway from our department there's a group called Sub-Assembly. Their job is to supply our various instrument lines with pre-built front panels, micro circuit decks, rear panels, etc. On occasion I have to walk over there to their group to return damaged assemblies or run down a problem or other. I didn't know it, but their supervisor is one of those weirdo cat ladies. You know, the kind of person that lives alone with like fifty feral cats and all the filth that goes along with them. I made this shocking discovery by wearing a shirt with a cartoon of a rotten kid about to run over a cat with a push mower. Walking over to their supervisor's desk to ask a question she read the caption on my T-shirt and proceeded to completely flip the fuck out. It was fun. She shrieked at me "WHY DON'T YOU LIKE CATS!" I told her that I just simply LOVE kitty cats to DEATH. That woman hasn't spoken a word to me since. Heh.

As they say there's two things you don't talk about at work. One is politics, the other is religion. While I'm not the most politically active person in the world, I am particularly anti-Bible thumper. My parents forced my sister and I into private Christian schools when we were young and it was a truly terrible time in my life. Deplorable people. For years we had to put up with mentally ill hypocrites that couldn't follow the most basic teachings of the religion they professed to believe in. It was a unfulfilling, oppressive experience. I did become a fairly adept Bible scholar though, and to this day I love beating beady eyed Christians over the head with scripture because the honest truth is the overwhelming majority of them don't know a damn thing about the book. Anyway, I have a Jesus shirt that pretty much sums up how I feel about Christianity these days.


Interestingly some people look at the shirt and give me a thumbs-up. Smiling, they'll say, "Gee it's great to see a young man such as yourself walking with The Lord." Hey, read the fine print there chumps!

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Bad Mixture

Girls and video games don't mix together well. It's sort of like combining oil and water in a pint glass. Every girlfriend I've ever had has hated video games and anything associated with them. There's only one thing that will make women's eyes roll back into their heads faster than gaming stuff and that's car talk. Conversations about cam shafts and pistons will really force the females to bug out and run for the hills. So I try to avoid getting involved in discussions about cars or gaming when ladies are present. I mean, I understand how uninteresting those subjects are to ninety-nine percent of all women in the world. To be honest I feel the same way when girls start yapping endlessly about interior decorating, houseplants, tea parties, or whatever other girl stuff they get uppity about. All I want to do is escape and hide in a garage or a basement.

Women aren't impressed with how skilled a guy is at a videogame. They don't care if you found a bonus item, finished the map in record time, or located a secret level. Beating a videogame is never going to get you laid. Girls do however care when you waste their time. If you have made your significant other patiently wait on the couch for hours as you thumb-burn through your favorite console title, that's going to make her think twice about dating you. When you're girlfriend is around keeping you company the expectation is you focus your attention on her and little else. I know this all too well, so I try to keep those automotive and gaming hobbies far away from the ladies. Things are better that way.

During the week Autumn and I are apart doing our own thing. That will leave me free to involve myself wholeheartedly in Urban Terror. As long as she doesn't have to see it or hear much about the game everything should be cool. Out of sight, out of mind. Besides there's plenty of worse things I could be doing with my down time. In this case it's harmless but completely nerdy fun. Weekends however will be a problem. Saturdays and Sundays I always spend with Autumn. Clan matches are scheduled mostly on weekend evenings so that is going to cut into my time with Autumn. She probably isn't going to be too happy about this. I admit I am somewhat embarrassed having to explain to her what I'm up to with Urban Terror and being in a clan. Autumn doesn't like being around any videogame shit, but she will tolerate it to a limited point. I hope.

Monday, June 05, 2006

Founding A Clan


The six of us have started kicking around ideas for what to call our Urban Terror team as well as deciding on player nicknames. Dave has chosen Baal, which I guess is some sort of reference to the Devil or a demon. The oldest guy in our group has taken the nick Dalor which he says is a Greek word that means "fierce." The OCLI guys are Jackslap, Senor Biskits, and Butcherbird. Biskits got his nickname in high school. Butcherbird is a reference to a nickname given a German fighter aircraft during WWII. I forget which one. I have no idea why Mike wants to be known online as Jackslap. I didn't bother to ask him about it.

Mean is the name I've chosen to be known as. Back in high school I used to hang out with a crowd of deathrockers and punks. At parties I used to fuck pretty hard with drunks that had passed out and forgot to take their shoes off before heading into inebriated slumberland. It's an unwritten rule at shindigs that if you're gonna pass out you have to take off your shoes before going unconscious. If you don't, you are fair game to mess with.

Placing matches between a passed out drunk's fingers I'd light them up and watch with a smirk on my face as the victim would subconsciously feel the pain from being burned and flail about putting their fiery hands out on themselves. Other times I'd scour the party host's house for random items and turn the drunk into a piece of living art. Some of them were truly epic and a number of photographs were taken. I'll never forget one particular chump I set up. I went over to this girl's house, I was dating her for a short period of time and she had a gig at her place one night. A guy that was obnoxious to everyone had conked out on the couch and he had neglected to remove his footwear. After slapping him around a bit to make sure he was duly wrecked I proceeded to put a doctor's headband with reflector on it on his noggin, tucked a full celery stalk behind each ear which looked like insect antennae, added a construction worker's helmet for extra weirdness, covered his chin in shaving cream and cigarette butts, and handed him a waxed cucumber. He was stylin'.

God damn I wish I had some of those photos in my collection these days. Unfortunately I never was given any pics of my work. One of my favorite things was to light cigarettes and place one in each nostril of the drunk person's nose. Watching with delight as cherries glowed I laughed at every inhale. Some partygoers said I was a mean person for doing shit like that and soon afterward some of my close friends started calling me Mean. So that's who I will be known as online. Might as well go with it.

We've been brainstorming names for the clan. Here's the list so far:
BWB- Big Work Boot (thanks for the idea Castro)
fT- Fake Tits
CCC- Concealed Carry Clan
999- (this is a reference to a lost connection resulting in a server ping of 999)
DSD- Drug Sniffing Dogs
.223- caliber of the M16/AR15 series rifle
WRA- Winona Ryder's Army
LWG- Losers With Guns

It's still up for debate and a popular vote on which name to take.

Online I usually play as a ski-masked thug. My preferred weapon loadout is the M4 Carbine with a H&K UMP.45. Backup sidearm is a 9mm Beretta and just for causing extra trouble I bring along two high explosive grenades. Those are good for jump-tossing onto the roofs of three story buildings and blowing up careless snipers. Heh.

VK14




I've been playing Urban Terror on Public Servers for a while. Dave got me hooked on this stuff, it's like smoking Quake 3 crack rocks. Since we're going to be brawling competitively online soon I decided to hang out on a public server known for attracting a crowd of skilled players. The server is called VK14 and there's a bunch of lethal motherfuckers on there most of the time. The only way to improve is to play against people that are better than you are. And, the only game they play there is Team Survivor. Normally I like the team play aspects of Capture The Flag but Team Survivor requires more ability in order to stay alive long enough to win.

In Team Survivor there are two teams that have one simple goal: eliminate everyone on the other team before the clock runs out. You only have one life to live so as soon as you get popped you have to sit out the duration of the match. It ain't easy. For me it's sort of like playing 9 ball on a billiards table instead of shooting straight pool. Just like in 9 ball you have to make every shot count. One of the levels in heavy rotation on VK14 is called Revolution. It's a themed map built around a secret underground US Air Force ICBM silo. I really dig the atmosphere and heavy amount of realistic detail the Urban Terror Development team has been able to pack into this game. Truly impressive.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Urban Terror



Dave and I have been talking for quite a while about starting an online gaming clan of some sort or other. Nothing has come of it until recently. Sometimes when we've been drinking beers late at night after work the subject of online gaming comes up. We finally decided to stop talking about it and actually put a group of gun-toting maniacs together to rip shit up. We've gone ahead and organized a team to play Capture The Flag in tournaments online. After discussing this with friends here at work and with a few buddies over at OCLI (Optical Coating Laboratories Inc.) across town, the game we've chosen to play is a Quake 3 mod called Urban Terror. Basically Urban Terror is a total Q3 conversion that uses real world weapons and environments in a paramilitary vs. terrorist scenario. In order to play on CTF ladders we must have a minimum of 6 players. So, there are three of us here and three from OCLI. This should be pretty cool, although entirely nerdy.

Autumn is probably not going to be impressed with this shit...