so i'm bouncing off the walls tonight! i'm not sure why exactly, likely it's because it's friday, i'm exhausted from the week, and i've had some wine. whatever the reason, cheryl ( one of my hip roommates!) and i are trying to track people down to go out dancing somewhere with us. worst case scenario, we find no one and go by ourselves. hell, i'd probably even go by myself tonight, i seriously need to cut loose a bit.
ok, a lot. and i intend to! it's been a highly stressful week, with a few exams (including one in accounting that i'm absolutely sure i failed) and little sleep. talk about an ideal time to stay up late drinking, smoking and dancing! BOO yah!!
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Thursday, October 13, 2005
bedtime
i'm sleepy, and i'm pretty sure i just heard two gunshots outside. yay chicago!
damn, i've got a massive exam in accounting tomorrow that i do NOT want to take. partially because it's accounting, and accounting in psychotic, but mainly because i know nothing about the material being covered.
that being said, i suppose since it's twenty after midnight i'll go study now.
damn, i've got a massive exam in accounting tomorrow that i do NOT want to take. partially because it's accounting, and accounting in psychotic, but mainly because i know nothing about the material being covered.
that being said, i suppose since it's twenty after midnight i'll go study now.
Tuesday, October 11, 2005
and suddenly...
IT WAS THE WAFFLE THAT TIME FORGOT!!!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
what is the point of running a business with little or no concern for your target customer? i'm asking rhetorically of course, the answer is money, but it's been shown many a time that that mentality and practice leads to nothing but ruin for finances and reputation both. not only that, but more often than not companies that are run with the utmost concern for their customers (and appropriate supporting processes, of course) have shown far greater success for a far greater period of time than those that are not. TAKE A HINT.
so here's the back story for this rant. my cafeteria. that's it.
no, it's not. first of all, aramark took control from chartwell's this semester. chartwell's was horrific. aramark is not much of an improvement. the food is pretty terrible, but that's to be expected in a college caf, as sad as that state of affairs is. what gets me riled and frisky (in a bad way) is the TOTAL lack of interest in their target customers...which also happen to be, you know, their ONLY customers. there are prices on nearly half of the items sold, the rest give absolutely no indication. that's aggrevated by the practice of never being told by the cashiers what they're charging you. the reason for that is, big surprise, the cashiers don't know the prices either, they just push the corresponding buttons on the register. we frequently are overcharged, and the only way to contend it is to watch the register while they're ringing the items up and ask what the prices are supposed to be if you think something rings up too high. of course, this pisses the cashiers off. oh yeah, and they never give receipts.
right now we're on spring break, so the caf has hours shorter than usual. on ordinary weekdays they close at 7:00pm, FAR earlier than college students with little or no other source of food downtown stop eating. they close at 5:30pm on weekends. right now, they close at 2:00 in the afternoon. on the plus side, they do have on the sign out front that the grill will be open until 3:00. still fairly useless for me as I generally work until 2:30 or 5:00, but that stills means I can get my omelet before going to work, right? wrong. regardless of what the sign says, the grill is only open for lunch. i found this out this morning, when i went in with the silly desire to acquire food. the first thing i noticed was there was no one there. no one. no cashier, no grill guy, nothing. so I stood in the middle of the damn place, set my bag down, and began looking around in confusion/disgust. mind you, this was in full view of the office window, behind which i could see three people, including the manager. not even a glance, though it was impossible for them not to see me. after a while a cashier sauntered out from the back, and informed me of the dire grill news. SO i opted for the only food there: the breakfast-like stuff under the heatlamps. i chose the 2 miniature waffles for $0.70 deal plus a few pieces of greasified bacon at $0.70/piece (no, no mistake was made...they really were selling a piece of bacon for the same price as two mini-waffles). i decided then to be a pain in the ass, and ask if it was possible to take some syrup with me (because I was on my way to work). i was pointed in the direction of the cups that I was allowed to use: the same that fast food restaurants use for in-house transport of condiments. yeah, those white, flimsy little paper cuppy thingies. when i asked for something with a lid, she politely informed me that "we ain't got ones with lids." so I stared at her for a few minutes, then pointed at the styrofoam cups and asked "what about those?" she said i'd have to pay extra for it. FOR A DAMN, SYPHILITIC, CRACK-WHORE STYROFOAM CUP!!!!! fortunately, i opted-in for the cup. without that syrup my waffles never would have softened enough to be cut with my plastic knife and my mere mortal strength.
i understand that it's a school cafeteria, and i know that margins are slim, profit or otherwise. even if nothing were to change in the products that we get, having a staff, especially a manager, that simply does not care is unacceptable.
the problem is one that's fueled my anger for many, many months: lack of competition. students have no choice but to eat in the cafeteria, therefore, no incentive to better the quality exists. i hate that. the same malady sickens the usps. while they do have competition (fedex, ups, etc.), being backed by the government insures two things: they can keep prices lower than everyone else, and they can hire complete jackasses that don't do their jobs and still thrive. and brazilians, of course.
i'm so mad right now, i think i need to go shoot a kitty with a pellet gun.
what is the point of running a business with little or no concern for your target customer? i'm asking rhetorically of course, the answer is money, but it's been shown many a time that that mentality and practice leads to nothing but ruin for finances and reputation both. not only that, but more often than not companies that are run with the utmost concern for their customers (and appropriate supporting processes, of course) have shown far greater success for a far greater period of time than those that are not. TAKE A HINT.
so here's the back story for this rant. my cafeteria. that's it.
no, it's not. first of all, aramark took control from chartwell's this semester. chartwell's was horrific. aramark is not much of an improvement. the food is pretty terrible, but that's to be expected in a college caf, as sad as that state of affairs is. what gets me riled and frisky (in a bad way) is the TOTAL lack of interest in their target customers...which also happen to be, you know, their ONLY customers. there are prices on nearly half of the items sold, the rest give absolutely no indication. that's aggrevated by the practice of never being told by the cashiers what they're charging you. the reason for that is, big surprise, the cashiers don't know the prices either, they just push the corresponding buttons on the register. we frequently are overcharged, and the only way to contend it is to watch the register while they're ringing the items up and ask what the prices are supposed to be if you think something rings up too high. of course, this pisses the cashiers off. oh yeah, and they never give receipts.
right now we're on spring break, so the caf has hours shorter than usual. on ordinary weekdays they close at 7:00pm, FAR earlier than college students with little or no other source of food downtown stop eating. they close at 5:30pm on weekends. right now, they close at 2:00 in the afternoon. on the plus side, they do have on the sign out front that the grill will be open until 3:00. still fairly useless for me as I generally work until 2:30 or 5:00, but that stills means I can get my omelet before going to work, right? wrong. regardless of what the sign says, the grill is only open for lunch. i found this out this morning, when i went in with the silly desire to acquire food. the first thing i noticed was there was no one there. no one. no cashier, no grill guy, nothing. so I stood in the middle of the damn place, set my bag down, and began looking around in confusion/disgust. mind you, this was in full view of the office window, behind which i could see three people, including the manager. not even a glance, though it was impossible for them not to see me. after a while a cashier sauntered out from the back, and informed me of the dire grill news. SO i opted for the only food there: the breakfast-like stuff under the heatlamps. i chose the 2 miniature waffles for $0.70 deal plus a few pieces of greasified bacon at $0.70/piece (no, no mistake was made...they really were selling a piece of bacon for the same price as two mini-waffles). i decided then to be a pain in the ass, and ask if it was possible to take some syrup with me (because I was on my way to work). i was pointed in the direction of the cups that I was allowed to use: the same that fast food restaurants use for in-house transport of condiments. yeah, those white, flimsy little paper cuppy thingies. when i asked for something with a lid, she politely informed me that "we ain't got ones with lids." so I stared at her for a few minutes, then pointed at the styrofoam cups and asked "what about those?" she said i'd have to pay extra for it. FOR A DAMN, SYPHILITIC, CRACK-WHORE STYROFOAM CUP!!!!! fortunately, i opted-in for the cup. without that syrup my waffles never would have softened enough to be cut with my plastic knife and my mere mortal strength.
i understand that it's a school cafeteria, and i know that margins are slim, profit or otherwise. even if nothing were to change in the products that we get, having a staff, especially a manager, that simply does not care is unacceptable.
the problem is one that's fueled my anger for many, many months: lack of competition. students have no choice but to eat in the cafeteria, therefore, no incentive to better the quality exists. i hate that. the same malady sickens the usps. while they do have competition (fedex, ups, etc.), being backed by the government insures two things: they can keep prices lower than everyone else, and they can hire complete jackasses that don't do their jobs and still thrive. and brazilians, of course.
i'm so mad right now, i think i need to go shoot a kitty with a pellet gun.
you know what would be cool and scary and kinda kinky?
so i was on the bus coming home from work yesterday, and these two cell phones rang back to back. after the two people receiving calls were chatting comfortably i thought (and this is paraphrased) "wouldn't it be funny if somebody came up with a way to send some sort of 'pulse' across a cell phone network that caused every phone on said network to ring simultaneously? what a neat joke that would make!" that made me smile.
then i began thinking about what might be possible if the aforementioned cheeky prankster actually figured out how to do something like that. phones are becoming so advanced that they're really more personal computers* than "telephones," as it were. (likewise, computers are moving in the same direction, becoming more sophisticated at using newfangled things like voip [voice-over IP], and eventually will likely just meet in the middle! neat huh?) with phones now operating with their own, cute little on-board systems, i'm amazed someone hasn't yet developed a virus to take advantage of the networks! think about it: someone designs a virus that calls a single cell phone number. the caller id could display anything the author wanted, even a random selection from a databank of displays (internal revenue service, publishers clearing house, chicago il, gary's world of dildos, fr3e_vIaGrA, etc, etc). just like with an email virus, as soon as the person picks up (or opens the email), the virus is installed onto the operating system...at which we're all done for.
once installed, it collects information from the hard drive (specifically the personal phone book), and connects back to the main data warehouse to upload everything. once more numbers are inserted into the warehouse, they're immediately called, starting the process all over again. suddenly everyone's phone would be ringing, nobody would know why, and people would begin to fear picking up their phone! men would long for calls from "the wife" with requests to pick up the dry cleaning and some extra tampons! it'd be communicative anarchy!
the virus even could be sophisticated enough to cross reference the call it's making with the name of the person it got the number from, and display that on the caller id! then, once it had your number in its grasp, it would keep calling, over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. maybe at random intervals just to keep you on your toes. our entire mobile communications network would be crippled! mass suicides would be inevitable.
seriously, it can't be that far off; we already can access the internet and email from our phones. maybe it could begin as that: an email virus that perpetuated itself normally...until that fateful day somebody accessed it through their cell phone, at which point..."it" would begin.
isn't technology neat?
*any and all references made to personal computers, pcs, computers, comps, laptops, desktops, processing equipment, etc., etc., should be taken to mean any system (pick one) other than those owned or affiliated with apple and/or macintosh, as i hate them.
**to all agents of the cia, fbi, and the department of homeland security (snicker), i am not a programmer. i do not know how to do any of this shit. i know how to put together a static web page. not a good one. a crappy one. should this happen, i an innocent, and had nothing to do with it.***
***except possibly giving the cheeky prankster the idea, but then that's giving myself way too much credit. i think you're the only ones reading this blog.
then i began thinking about what might be possible if the aforementioned cheeky prankster actually figured out how to do something like that. phones are becoming so advanced that they're really more personal computers* than "telephones," as it were. (likewise, computers are moving in the same direction, becoming more sophisticated at using newfangled things like voip [voice-over IP], and eventually will likely just meet in the middle! neat huh?) with phones now operating with their own, cute little on-board systems, i'm amazed someone hasn't yet developed a virus to take advantage of the networks! think about it: someone designs a virus that calls a single cell phone number. the caller id could display anything the author wanted, even a random selection from a databank of displays (internal revenue service, publishers clearing house, chicago il, gary's world of dildos, fr3e_vIaGrA, etc, etc). just like with an email virus, as soon as the person picks up (or opens the email), the virus is installed onto the operating system...at which we're all done for.
once installed, it collects information from the hard drive (specifically the personal phone book), and connects back to the main data warehouse to upload everything. once more numbers are inserted into the warehouse, they're immediately called, starting the process all over again. suddenly everyone's phone would be ringing, nobody would know why, and people would begin to fear picking up their phone! men would long for calls from "the wife" with requests to pick up the dry cleaning and some extra tampons! it'd be communicative anarchy!
the virus even could be sophisticated enough to cross reference the call it's making with the name of the person it got the number from, and display that on the caller id! then, once it had your number in its grasp, it would keep calling, over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. maybe at random intervals just to keep you on your toes. our entire mobile communications network would be crippled! mass suicides would be inevitable.
seriously, it can't be that far off; we already can access the internet and email from our phones. maybe it could begin as that: an email virus that perpetuated itself normally...until that fateful day somebody accessed it through their cell phone, at which point..."it" would begin.
isn't technology neat?
*any and all references made to personal computers, pcs, computers, comps, laptops, desktops, processing equipment, etc., etc., should be taken to mean any system (pick one) other than those owned or affiliated with apple and/or macintosh, as i hate them.
**to all agents of the cia, fbi, and the department of homeland security (snicker), i am not a programmer. i do not know how to do any of this shit. i know how to put together a static web page. not a good one. a crappy one. should this happen, i an innocent, and had nothing to do with it.***
***except possibly giving the cheeky prankster the idea, but then that's giving myself way too much credit. i think you're the only ones reading this blog.
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