But Isn't That Just Pointless Busywork? Bullseye... Get Cracking.

A few random thoughts while I ponder how Xander Berkeley made it to the Final Four (See how clever and hip I am, making a joke about a character who died 3 seasons ago on the show 24? Oh, and for anyone who hasn't yet seen George Mason die in season 2 of 24, consider this your official spoiler warning.):

I saw a trailer for a movie called The Sentinel the other day. It had Michael Douglas and Kiefer Sutherland as Secret Service agents protecting the president. Do you think Michael Douglas is upset about his demotion from Commander in Chief to the Secret Service? After all, his Chief of Staff managed to move on and become the President, but somehow Douglas moved back down the ladder.

So, I've mentioned before that our puppy is named Chewie. Not surprisingly, his name often gets shortened to Chew. It's just much easier when you're screaming at the top of your lungs to only have to yell one syllable. The problem with this is that when one of us sneezes, the dog thinks we are calling him. So if I'm sitting in the living room watching TV and suddenly sneeze loudly a couple times, I should pretty much just brace myself for a 35 pound puppy to come flying across the room and leap into my lap to find out what I needed. Since we can't really make the dog any smarter, the solution to this is to try to stifle the sneeze or at least minimize it. If I ever disappear and you never hear from me again, there's a pretty good chance I held in one too many sneezes and my head exploded.

Now that I think about it, did the people who made this Sentinel movie really think that they could make a movie with Kiefer Sutherland running around waving his gun at people and not have us all just call it 24, The Movie? Could they at least work a scene in where he screams, "There's no time!"

I hate it when I have to change my password at work. Our passwords all expire after 90 days. That means that every three months I have to sit around a come up with a new password and figure out how to make it work for each system. It's not like the same one could work for all of them, because we have to have "strong" passwords, but not all systems have the same criteria. I sit there trying to figure out what I could use that I would ever remember and think, "Wait is this the system where I have to use at least one non-alphanumeric character and the only one it will accept is a semicolon or is it the one where I can't use any lowercase vowels and numbers larger than 3?" Once I sort that out, I have to deal with telling my fingers not to automatically type the password I have been using for the past 90 days when I try to log in. It takes about three work weeks to finally get used to the new one. The progression usually goes like this. Day 1: Find new password. Change password. Days 1-3: Log into computer using old password. Denied. Must have been a typo. Log into computer using old password. Denied. Get frustrated. Begin typing old password. Realize what's going on and that hitting enter will lock me out of the system. Backspace. Log in using correct password. Days 4-7: Log in using old password. Denied. Get angry with self for using incorrect password. Log in using correct password. Days 8-11: Begin typing old password. Stop at halfway point. Backspace. Log in using correct password. Day 12-15: Prepare to log in. Feel strong urge to type first letter of old password. Fight urge. Slowly inch finger toward correct key. Log in using correct password. Day 16: Log in properly with no issues then become angry upon realizing that the 90 day period is over 1/4 gone and soon it will be time to change passwords again.

Just to geek things up a bit, I also think it's wrong that there is a movie called The Sentinel, and yet it has nothing to do with giant, mutant-hunting robots.

Those Volkswagen ads with the guy "unpimping" the cars are so strange that I can't decide whether they are the most idiotic ads ever or if they are hilarious. I find myself laughing at them at the same time as shaking my head and saying how much I dislike them. If you ever catch me saying "V-Dub representing Deutschland," you'll know I've made my decision.

On the subject of commercials, there is one for an acid reflux medicine that starts off with a woman saying, "I'm a problem solver. If there's a problem, I solve it." Every single time I see that ad, I wait for her to finish with "Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it." (If "Ice, Ice Baby" or "Under Pressure" isn't running through your head the rest of the day, I've failed.)

I'm actually very bitter that even though it's probably close to 15 years since Ice, Ice Baby, I still know the words, and they won't go away. I'm getting old. Memory is becoming valuable real estate, and those lyrics are taking up room that could be used for something useful. Can I sue Vanilla Ice for doing that? I'd probably have to wait in line behind all the people suing him for making them think it was cool to shave lines in the side of their heads and gel their hair up until it resembled a high-top fade.

That's enough of my random thoughts for now. If I don't come up with something interesting to post about soon, I'm going to lose all my readers. So please, both of you, be patient with me.