Baby Finances

Remember all the great cartoons from childhood? Animanics was absolutely the most amazing cartoon ever. It actually had some learning potential along with being entertaining. It didn't have it's head up its ass like Sesame Street or Barney. It didn't try to force learning on kids - it was just so damn catchy that you couldn't help learning things like the country song. Why the hell do all the "kid" tv shows try to force learning - all it does is seem force and neither entertains well nor educates well. One of the girls at work said that I should be a business analyst for a VC firm. Honestly - that's the best part of my job - doing the research and competitive analysis to try to find out stuff that no one else knows. I'm not sure if I'm so interested in it just so that I know the information for my own well being - or if I want to know the information b/c I'm nosy and like to know everything. Either way - it might be a job opportunity th...

Thanksgiving was fun as always. Eating, boozing, playing wii, laziness, which is a great vacation. At least I had a few days off work. Both my brother and my father have since bought HDTV's. They're great and all - but all the programming isn't in HD yet so it kinda sucks. Plus the HDDVD vs Blu-Ray war isn't over yet. I honestly am not sure if either will be adopted or well accepted b/c consumers where so disillusioned after BetaMax vs. VCR's. I hope everything just moves to the non-disk - and you just download everything. I don't think that will happen anytime soon because the tubes of the interwebs are going to be clogged by all those TV's soon. I think that networks are fast finding ways to make cash off of interwebs streaming. I think that they could potentially make more money if they would do the research surveys and properly use the interweb tracking tools to see who is actually watching their programs - which would give advertisers better i...

I saw a couple of different "interesting" things as I was driving. I actually saw the cops using areal equipment to catch speeders. All of a sudden I saw this blimp hovering over the highway. About three seconds later I saw some speeder pulled over and about 3 miles away I saw another cop. Crazy. I didn't think those signs were actually telling the truth. The second was more tragic/scaring rather than interesting. All of a sudden I saw someone a truck pulled over with their flashers on and someone waving a white light at oncoming traffic. At first I thought it was a hitch hiker or something, then as I got closer the cars in front of me slammed on their breaks. And that's when I saw it. A deer in the middle of the road, it's body in the left lane, its head just over the center line. It's back clearly broken - but it's head didn't know that as it was struggling to try to get up; clearly in pain and clearly struggling with no hope of repair. N...

You don't really think about it - but food make from fresh ingredients really does taste better. Yes it's probably more expensive, more complicated to make, and involves more planning. But, man, is it worth it. The closer it gets to the end of the year - the more excited that I am to start this new job. Work hasn't been very exciting lately - just the same old same old. Though I have been able to do some fun stuff because I don't really have anything else to do - so why not go do something fun. I have to say the lack of things to do is hard. It's really difficult to pretend like you are actually working when you don't have anything useful to accomplish. I'm still really thrown off by the time change too, which isn't helping matters at all. I can't sleep when I need to. So then I'm exhausted at work and want to sleep. But then I'll go to bed early - and sleep too long. Then, the next night I won't be able to get to sleep. It'...

With the new job, and my younger brother looking for a job - the major thought that has popped into my mind is a question of if I really want to do what I'm doing. It's a hard question to answer. I think overall I am happy with the job I have, the industry. I think the things I'm really not found of are the company culture (really what it has changed into) and the location and the fact that I'm really fucking bored with the work and I have to spend more time on politics than actually getting shit done anymore. I think there are a lot of things that I wish I was doing and am not. But there's no time like the present to start changing that. I guess you can't do anything about the past but you can try to change the future. And you can't change anything without action. There's a law of physics or something that says that. It's a LAW in science - not just a theory. They can almost prove it! There's also a law that says for every action there ...

Can I just say that my printer/copier/scanner is the most ridiculous thing on the face of the planet. They try to make these things "user friendly" but in fact by dumbing it down so much for the "average user" it's actually more difficult to use. It took me a good 10 minutes to figure out scan multiple pages and have it automatically include it in the same file. It shouldn't be that hard. Either the software writers were really dumb and couldn't figure out how to do it easier - or some applications developer thought it was a good idea to have less buttons (but not even have anything about it in the DROP DOWN MENUS!!!) So dumb. Still super excited about extra vacation days. I think if they paid me to move to Boston + vacation I wouldn't need any increase in salary. I really value vacation that much. Freaking amazing. I'm on cloud 9 right now. Don't know when that is going to stop. But definitely super amazing.

I got my the formal offer letter yesterday (way longer than I thought it would take) for me to sign. It's better than I thought. What we discussed for a sign on bonus - apparently they gave me the post-tax dollars - not pre-tax. I thought it was pretax dollars we were talking about. ROCK! They also said two weeks of vacation. I thought that this meant 10 days. Apparently two weeks to them - means a full two weeks - like 14 days. OMG. Plus 7 fixed holidays and four floating. 10 sick days if needed. Holy crap!!! Right now I have 10 vacation days, 8 holidays, 4 floating holidays/sick days/personal time. That's 22 days total. Now I'll have 25 days off + 10 sick days if I need it (I think I had to use 2 days in the last two years for being - but it sucks to have to use vacation days when you are sick)!!!! And for every year that you work there - you get an additional day of vacation. My current place you have to be there three years before any additional vacation s...

I would just like to say that I totally support the writers striking in Hollywood. I think that they got totally screwed back with the original DVD deal - and they are trying to screw them again with online media. I hope that the SAG starts to strike too. I'm half temped to boycott all TV and media - but it's really hard. I really like TV. But I hope to god that the big companies lose crap tons of money. I've been watching Weeds. OMG is it an amusing show. It's like an amazing guilty pleasure. And by guilty - I mean arestable. Who doesn't like a drama about a pot wielding mom, a jerk off brother who cares more about being baked and getting fucked in the ass by his jew school teacher, a kid who gets his girlfriend pregnant and she buys him a car b/c the girlfriend gets an abortion, and gets married to a DEA agent. That's right, the pot dealer is sleeping/married to a DEA agent. I'm not sure the writers could make this any better. I'm feeling re...

I was super pissed when I left word today. I asked for a day off - and got an email back saying "I'm not against it - but can you consider only taking half a day?" Um... that's kind of like saying how about you take half a day off on Friday to take a long weekend - but you can't take the afternoon off - you can only take the morning off. WTF? I sent a nice polite email back say "pan for me taking the entire day off." I should not be emotionally blackmailed, or made to feel guilty for taking a day off. I've done my work, I come in the hours I need to, I've even put in extra hours when required. So if I want a fucking day off, and there's not a really really really good reason for it, I'm taking the fucking day off. Screw you guys. I was getting really pissed off and upset about it - almost sent a really bitchy email to my boss - but then I remembered "the pay's the same." I'm sure he's not over thinking this....

Said "Small is beautiful." Which I think is very true in our culture. Right now at least, we like everything small. We want small gas efficient cars, small Ipods, small computers, small bodies, small candy bars at Halloween, and small cell phones. In some cases small is not better for some people. They want big cars, big jewelry/diamonds, and big food portions. It's always the really big or really small things that cost a lot of money. I think for most things I can agree that small is beautiful. Small animals, small efficient cars, small carbon footprints, small amounts of trash, and small compact computers. I'm totally turning green aren't I? Can I just make a quick comment about diamonds before I go on? I really think that it's dumb that the American population has fallen prey to one stupid ad campaign from DeBeers telling us that if you really love someone - that you'll get them a diamond engagement ring. Before that ad campaign started peopl...

I love fall. I don't love the cold. I like when it's cool enough to snuggle in with a blanket (and your favorite someone!) and watch a good football game. (OMG can Notre Dame please start winning. It makes me very sad how bad they've been playing.) I like all the seasonal foods that come with fall. I think pumpkin everything, apply everything, yams (I know not really a fall thing - I still associate them with fall), squash, chicken pot pie, your basic home grown foods. So I totally tried to google myself today (because I clearly have really important things to do on the weekends... really I'm avoiding the things that really need to be done - including trying to find a place to live in Boston....) and there is totally another person with the same name who lives in Florida, is on a local chamber of commerce, and apparently is a "godly woman" much older than I. Let's go over how much alike we are. Me: not godly, never want to live in Florida, and nev...