The episodes of 24 I'm watching now begin with Jack saying it's the longest day of his life. Dude, how could anyone put up with all that crap in one day? It's inhumane. And it's not even noon yet. Well, I'm liking it better. Jamey, I'm sorry I spelled your name wrong in my last post, but you're a sucky geek. Now my only choice for a favorite character is that slimeball Carl. He's not in the right role, though. Carl is a geek name. Carl should have been a geek. Bah. While I'm enjoying the suspense and the action of the show, I really hate some of the things these people are doing. Is it really possible to push someone so far that they'll do these things? When has it ever been acceptable to betray someone or kill someone for personal gain? Yet people in the show--otherwise good people--are causing mayhem left and right for, what, a couple bucks? OK, fine, a couple million bucks. What I find especially twisted is that these people will try to justify their actions. It really is a twisted world we live in.

I like the two episodes of season four that I've seen, though. This past Monday's episode was really cool. But I believe that I missed something in one of the earlier episodes that I really won't like. So while I'll watch the first episode, I won't watch the second and the third episodes. Yeah, I'm a wuss.

Work is going OK. I still think now is when I need to be working my hardest, but it's very hard to motivate myself. I really just need to take that first step and get the proverbial ball rolling proverbially.

In other news, my beard is slowly growing. In the meantime, I am looking ridiculous. The poor excuse for a mustache is really killing it. If it doesn't work out though, this will still be an interesting follicle growth dynamics study.

I watched the first four episodes of the first season of 24 yesterday and I didn't really like it. My biggest gripe about the show so far is that the protagonist is not someone I have very much respect for. For one thing, his Machiavellian antics are too over-the-top. Sure, he gets the job done, but the cost in lives and relationships is ridiculous. Another thing that bothers me about Jack is that he seems to have an unnatural ability to know exactly what to do and when to do it. I don't mind a hero having good instincts, but he seems to know it all. Yet all sorts of crap happens to him. I suppose I like my heroes medium rare with a hint of weak sauce. It brings them more down to earth. I won't rant about the whole Kim story. She is getting what she deserves for being stupid. No amount of playing Daddy's Li'l Action Hero can redeem her. That being said, I don't want her to die because that adds unnecessary sadness. But if she turns out to be a cyborg, I woudn't mind if she was deactivated, disassembled, and her parts sold on eBay with no reserve. Finally, I think Jamie, the closest they have to a geek in the show, should get a bigger role. After all, she's a geek.

But Dave and Sri tell me to have faith. So I'll watch a few more episodes today. It'll get better. Everything will work out. It better. That one episode that I saw from the fourth season was pretty good.

Sri disagrees with me on whether or not Boomer from the new Battlestar Galactica series is cute. If she was pointing that gun at me, I'd ask her for her number, then I'd ask her on a date and then I'd ask her not to shoot me. Bah, who am I kidding. I don't have the guts to ask a girl for her number even if she's in a space suit and pointing a gun at me. Actually, I'd probably ask her to shoot me because now that I've been within weapons range of her, anything else that happens to me will pale in comparison. Right.

I was hoping to share my alcohol-influenced views on what happened yesterday but apparently, alcohol significantly reduces my likelihood of saying anything insightful. Or anything coherent also.

Maybe I should explain why I was sloshed yesterday. The announcement wasn't that bad (I still have a job), nor was it that good (I still have a job) so we weren't drinking our sorrows away or celebrating our good fortune. This was actually a planned, scientific experiment. Someone posted a study on filtering cheap vodka through a Brita filter several times until the vodka was drinkable. So we decided to try it. We used a Pur filter instead of a Brita though. Our cheap vodka was some Winner's Cup in a plastic bottle and the control was some Grey Goose. We ended up running the cheap stuff through the filter 7 times before reaching an equilibrium. In the name of scientific research, I took one sip (each one about a shot, +/- a bit) of the material after each filtration, two sips of the unfiltered material (once at the beginning and once before sampling filtration number 4 to recalibrate my taste buds), and a sip of Grey Goose at the end. My personal conclusion are as follows:

1. Winner's Cup belongs in the pharmacy aisle with the rubbing alcohol. It tastes horrible.
2. After filtering once, the FUT (Fluid Under Test) is noticeably smoother and sweeter.
3. After running the FUT through the filter 7 times, it goes down better than the original sample, but the difference between one filtration cycle and 7 cycles is not significant.
4. The smell isn't as strong as it was in the beginning after 7 filtration cycles, although it is still unpleasant.
5. It's still no Grey Goose. The filtered material still has a foul aftertaste.
6. This was very fun. Gimme another shot. I like monkeys.

Please note that these results may have been tainted due to the fact that the same guy who took notes was also drinking. But I think most people agreed with these results. Man, the faces people made after sampling the unfiltered stuff...

So what else? Everyone at work still has their jobs until the end of March. After March? It's hard to say. Partially because after March, it's April Fool's Day. But also because nobody knows what will happen to the company. And anyone who does know can't say anything. In any case, I'll be sad to leave the other folks and to see them leave. They're a cool bunch.

On another note, my first season of 24 arrived yesterday. To hit the $25 mark, I bought a bunch of bookmarks:

From left to right: The Dragon Grimalor, The Dragon Articus, The Wizard Nodor and the Wizard Brandoloff. There are eight more bookmarks with more mighty dragons and more mysterious wizards to join me on my magical journey through the enchanted pages of all those wonderful books I'll be reading. And it was $1.50.

Dude, what a week. Actually, what an end to a week. OK, what a week also. Since I'm still a little bit tipsy, I'll try to explain why.

Three weeks ago, my company decided that we weren't making money (big surprise) and that it would be really hard to make money in our current situation. But on January 21, they ("they" being the people who do "things") were to decide what to do next ("what to do" meaning either "who to lay off" or "who to sell the company to").

This past week (well, past three weeks, but past week especially) has been full of pre-layoff festivities. All of us in my department are pretty cool with each other, so we wanted to spend some quality time together away from the unemployment line. All that fun was to lead up to today's big announcement. Well, it was supposed to be big. But all we said today was that layoffs will come March 31st and employees are really important and deals are still being worked out and oh-yeah-there's-another-LR2-licensee. This gives us two months to look for another job...

Uh, I'm either too drunk or too tired to continue. Better luck tomorrow?

I was lying awake this morning (sleeping habits are back to normal, sort of) and I realized that I was going about this company-going-down-in-flames business all wrong. Instead of sitting around being cynical about our impending doom, I should be working even harder. Not that anything I do at this point will "save" the company. Nor so that I'll be less likely to get laid off. But rather, this could be my last chance to do something for the company. Sort of like a last stand. And if I'm going to go, I shouldn't assume a fetal position and cry about it. (Although it's a good position to cry in. You should try it.) I should take it like a real humanoid. Well, let's see if I can stick with it for the next four days.

So last night, Sri, Dave and I went to Rojoz for dinner. The main topic of conversation, of course, was 24. And I had no idea what they were talking about except that some Jack Bauer guy is badass. I'm going to buy the 1st season on Amazon for $24.99, which means I need another penny for free shipping. What, on Amazon, can cost a penny??? Argh. On, and I saw the latest episode even though Sri and Dave told me not to. I'm a bad boy. It's pretty good, but man, that ending. I wanna know what happens next!

OK...time to work.

I did something this weekend. It's pretty amazing. Actually, it's not much. Most of Saturday was spent writing code. I'm trying to learn Java and programming in general again. About all I can write now are scripts to suck in large text files and spit them out slightly differently. I'd really like to be able to do some system programming, maybe some hacking in the Linux kernel. Oh well, some therapeutic coding is always good.

Saturday night, Allen, Sri, Dave and I went to Krispy Kreme. Man, those donuts were sweet. But good. Then we went to In 'n' Out, and then Dave's workplace. They have an office space with no cubicles or offices. Awesome!

And Sunday, I did approximately nothing. But on Saturday, I did something, and that counts as doing something this weekend.

Sri has answered a very important question: these strange racoon-bear-ewok-whatever creatures from Japan are actually racoon dogs. Interesting...

I'm sitting here still kind of sick and it's about time to start looking for another job. I'm open to jobs other than engineering, so here are some career paths I've been entertaining:

As-seen-on-TV commercial actor
From what I've learned in my research, an actor in the commercials for those as-seen-on-TV products must either be able to show exaggerated frustration or satisfaction. He must also be able to thank inanimate objects. These characteristics all come naturally to me, especially talking to inanimate objects. ("My wife bought one, and now she looks great! Thanks MegaBra®!)

Retail establishment greeter
Many people know that I've been saying "Have a nice day" ever since high school. Little did anyone know that it was all practice for the day where I would need to obtain employment in this field. There. I gave away my biggest secret. ("Thank you for shopping at MegaMart®! Have a nice day!")

Freelance website defacement assistant
I'm nowhere l33t enough to hack into websites, but I can team up with sk1lled hax0rs who've been able to hack into ub3r-secure websites but can't think of how to deface them. I can provide the necessary creative and artistic advice for every l33t hax0r to leave a mark he and his mommy can say w00t! to. ("ph34r t3h MegaHax0r!1!!111!")

Evil dictator and restaurant owner
My naturally evil laugh places me in a unique position to rule my own evil empire. With the immense wealth I've built up (and some help from the guy who wears a question-mark suit on TV), I should be able to afford a good square foot of uninhabited land in the Arizona desert. Spiders and lizards beware! I'd also open a restaurant serving the finest rodents and reptiles Arizona has to offer. ("Would you like MegaFries® with that?")

I think those are all the careers I can think of at the moment. Now I'll go back to being mildly ill individual.

Well I've mostly calmed down from my initial anger at the company announcement. I guess I should have seen it coming, but I never knew they would do it so soon after we got back from the shutdown. I'm sad that the company is going bye-bye. As for my job, I think I might last for a bit longer if they don't sack everyone right away. But it's time to start looking for another failed startup to ruin.

Lately I've been having trouble sleeping. I thought it was due to my jet lag lagging around, but I'm not so sure now. I've been back for 10 days (as Steph pointed out) and I still can't sleep until about 2am. I'm not sure what's going on. In my sleeplessness, I've been watching TV (there is some really wacky stuff on TV at 1am), eating cereal in the dark (don't ask) and making funny noises (really). By the time I'm done, it's 2am and I can fall asleep. Works pretty well aside from the really-tired-when-I-wake-up part.

Lastly, I'm sitting here in front of a computer right now on a Friday night because I have no life. But I do have a bit of a cold. Bah.

Well, my company just released a nice press release that says we're re-evaluating our business model, which is just a nice way of saying, "j00 r pwn3d". What a great way to start off the year.