Dichotomy...

Corporate America can suck my cock. I spent my whole day in meetings about restructuring the company. This has no relevance to me whatsoever. I'd like to care. I'd like to just think it's intersting from a neutral observationist point of view. I'd like to at least not be bored out of my mind over things that sound pretty on paper but really don't mean shit in the real world. But no. I accomplished nothign today becasue of these meetings. You want to know what affects the company's bottom line the most? Making everyone agitated over losing their jobs and having meetings. Nothing gets accomplished that way. I know I said I wasn't going to badmouth Coke this semester, but christ... By the time I gave up on work today and left at 3:45 I just wanted to go up to Tom Moore's office and punch him in teh face then drive downtown and have a little palaver with Doug Daft and a baseball bat. The things they want to "fix" by restructuring are things that should have never happened in the first place. I mean, why do you need 8 separate marketing departments when one marketing department can't even put out a decent ad? So basically 1000 people are going to lose their jobs becasue the upper management at Coke has been sitting on their asses twidlling their thumbs instead of actively guiding the company. Today I added at least 50 reasons to my "Why I won't be getting a co-op degree b/c I can't handle another full semester here at Coke" list. That's the most productive thing I've done all day sadly. Fuck. At least 1 month of this semester is over and I got paid today.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments

We've all heard of legalese right? Well, I hereby coin the term executivese, or maybe managerese. You decide. I'm just tired of reading things like this: "As we do so, you will have more opportunities to succeed and greater accountability. You will be rewarded for performance, and our operating culture will be more innovative and dynamic, speaking with one voice." and this: "This will make our North American business simpler in process, sharper in strategic focus, and more competitive in the market. Resources will be targeted at the areas of highest potential for our entire business. We will strip complexity from our operations and enhance efficiency. As we become faster, more innovative and more responsive, we will strengthen our relationship with our customers." Speak English!! On the other hand, maybe speaking in executivese is the reason Doug Daft gets paid 20 times what I do.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments

So Coke apparently has some great new busienss plan that it's implementing effective Monday. And new business plan means firing people. Accordign to the Executrive Office Memorandum, 1000 people in the North American group (which includes my department) will be laid off today, including 500 from Coke's Atlanta offices. Am I worried? No. I don't get paid enough to be worth firing. You'd have to fire 3 co-ops to equal the savings from firing one middle-manager. And I'm pretty sure we're more useful. On the other hand, having the rest of the semester off would be pretty nice. Here's to unemployment benefits and severance packages... I'm keeping my fingers crossed I'll be one of the 1000.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:08 AM | Permalink | Comments

It's at least twice as hard to get out of bed when it's raining...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 9:30 AM | Permalink | Comments

IamLygos: I would be glad to own a Hojillion dollar bill
XchaosdawningX: that'd be fucking sweet.
IamLygos: even if I did have to use it to get my bread in the bread line
XchaosdawningX: a wheelbarrow-full of them in fact.
IamLygos: with bush's picture in the center with two thumbs up
IamLygos: ive decided after careful introspection that he is an imp
XchaosdawningX: and Buddy Jesus on the back with our new national slogan "kill the heathens" in a halo around his head.
IamLygos: i think when he's not giving speeches he hobbles around the white house like gollum cackling to himself about the tender meat of children

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:32 PM | Permalink | Comments

Oh, and speaking of war, naturally, plenty of people are protesting it, myself included, but there are effective ways and ineffective ways of protestign war. This is probably the least effective thing I have ever seen. Kristin poitned it out to me. It's like they didn't realize the irony of their idea. "We're going to protest Bush's spending all this money on war instead of education by willingly removing ourselves from the learning environment instead of making use of the time we have there That'll show them how important we think school is!" Stupid stupid stupid.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments

I gotta give W some credit for his speech last night. The last thing I expected him to talk abotu was the environment. Even if he only did it to pander to the democrats who would hate the rest of his speech, at least he mentioned it and I'm glad to see him pledging 1.5 billion to hydrogen cell research. And since when is teh GOP compassionate or sympathetic to drug addicts or people with AIDS? Again, pandering to the speaker's right left side of the room, but hey, when half your speech is "justifying" a war on Iraq, you gotta put all the flowery stuff up front to butter up the liberals right? In fact, I'm not sure why it was called the State of the Union Address. The first half deserves that title. But the second half should have been a separate speech entitled, "Why We're Going to Bomb Iraq. Again." Oh well. Frankly, I'm sick of all this posturing. If we're goign to go to war, let's just do it and get it over with. All this sabre rattling is accomplishing nothing and we all know that it doesn't matter what the inspectors find or don't find, we'll find a way to "justify" a war one way or another. Oh well. But yeah, so props to the W for the environment and AIDS parts.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments

You know how sometimes when you're really tired, time passes without you even realizing it? Like, you blink and all of a sudden it's 15 minutes later... I'm not sure what happens in those 15 minutes. Maybe you get abducted by aliens. More likely you just fall asleep right where you are and for whatever reason you don't fall over. You know what I'm talking about? Or have you ever been driving somewhere and all of a sudden you realize you're at your destination but you don't remember how you got there? I think these two events are related. Hopefully you're not driving in your sleep, although that's certainly possible if you're driving through dirty dirty Texas. (Until the retaining wall suddenly meets the side of your tour van.. er, i mean, um, nevermind...) I'm just saying that your mind turns off for a short period and yet yoru body continues to function perfectly well. For example: this morning I left for work. I remember getting in the car and driving out of my apartment complex. I remember the big van that was blocking the road near the Texxaco. I knwo I got onto 75. Then I was in the first floor of the parking deck. Now, it's not like my commute really changes very much on any given day. I rarely even change lanes on the highway. So it should come as no shock that I can't remember anythign specific about my commute. The weird part is that I don't remember commuting at all. It's like I got on the highway and entered a rift in the space-time continuum which deposited me at the office 20 minutes later. Now maybe I've just gotten so used to my commute that I don't even think about it anymore. I block it right out of my memory. But isn't it more likely that an elite group of terrorists has foudn a way to alter our consciousness with some sort of new futuristic weapon given to them by aliens from 2613 who can time travel? Yeah, you're right, that's not very likely at all... Oh well. Maybe Bane was just too loud and it temporarily disabled my short term memory while I was in the car. Who knows.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:27 PM | Permalink | Comments

can you tell I'm bored? I'm trying to kill time until my 2:00 meeting...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments

So this whole worm thing that shut down BOA's ATMs? Annoying as hell. All I want to do is give BOA my paycheck for nearly $1000. But no. It'd be nice to get some cash out of it as well, cause I have $4. Yes. $4 in cash. Mmm mmm, Wendy's. So now I have some assorted change. Hooray. "Well why don't you just go to the bank when they're open Adam?" I'm glad you asked. Have you seen what hours banks are open? I'm at work all those hours... The closest BOA to my office is at about 15 minutes away. So pretty much my entire lunch break could be depositing money. Wouldn't that be grand? *sigh* So maybe the ATM will be fixed after the Simpsons tonight so I can deposit my paycheck. Stupid hackers. This is one of those things that makes you go, "why would anyone want to just make the internet really laggy and not actually damage anything. What the hell is wrong with you people?" Then I remember that this is one of those things that's hilarious when it doesn't happen to you and something I would have attempted in high school. Of course, back then the internet was so laggy to begin with that any impact I made would be barely perceptible.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

The worst part about a Pentium 75 with 24Mb of ram isn't that it's slow and crappy. On the contrary it would be a perfect machine for old school DOS-based games. The worst part is that it's so damn old that the BIOS doesn't support bootable CDs. Which of course makes it damn near impossible to install any sort of recent OS. Despite my 4 hours of attempts last night, the best I could do was a mangled win98 upgrade install over an win3.1 install over a DOS bootable floppy disk. Yuck. At least I have a really snazzy paper weight right now...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:23 PM | Permalink | Comments

I've decided the thing I hate most about working is having to look presentable. I mean, my version of presentable just conflicts with our dress code policies... As far as I'm concerned, jeans, tennis shoes, and a shirt that doesn't say anything controversial on it sounds good enough to me. And the worst part of this whole presentable thing is shaving. I mean, who decided that that was a good idea?? I can usually get by with shaving every other day and not look "sloppy," sometimes 3 if I wear high neck shirts and shave at night... If I go to class and haven't shaved for 3 or 4 (or 10) days, no one cares. That may be the reason I never get any action, but at least I'm comfortable. I dunno, maybe I'm just lazy. It's not like shaving takes very long or is particularly hard. It just sucks. On the other hand, 5 years ago, Coke was all suit and tie, black or navy. So I guess I'm lucky that I at least can wear khakis and a polo shirt... But on yet a third hand, if the whole company was still suit and tie, they probably wouldn't have hired me, or I would have foudn a different job on my own. Cause I'm definitely too poor to work in an office that requires suits. Either that or everyone would have to put up with my $5 thrift store suits that are in decent condition but just look bad on me. Cause I'll be damned if I'm goign to go out and buy 3 or 4 decent suits to wear to work and then have them dry cleaned every week. Fuck that. But back to the first hand, shaving still sucks.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

Props to Courtney, who got her Monroe (aka Madonna) piercing yesterday. Nothing says "I'm sexy" like a hole in your face. Except that I actually do think off-centered upper lip piercings are sexy as hell...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 12:05 AM | Permalink | Comments

Atlanta's weather is restarded. We topped out in the low 30's last weekend, then the last coupel days it's been in the upper 50's and maybe even broke 60 on Monday. Today it's probably goign to only hit 45 and tomorrow the projected high is 29. What the hell is going on?? Stupid weather.
On the plus side, I slept with my bedroom window open last night and it was the best night's sleep I'd had in weeks. Cool fresh air is so much easier to sleep with undfer my nice big comforter than the air that's normally in my bedroom. Our heater sucks, so to keep fromdying of hypothermia when i gets realyl cold, I use a space heater. Only that produces very very dry ehat and I always wake up so dehaydrated that way, so I have to run a vaporizer whenever I run the space heater. (Between the two of them, they almost overpower the sound of my computer fans. Almost.) So yeah, with a wide open window and no other noises, I slept so much better. I actually feel rested for once and I don't feel like I need a nap at 11 am like I usually do.
*Sigh* I guess I'll have to wait until March to get another good night's sleep with open windows. Or maybe just next week. With this crazy weather, who knows...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments

Staring Back is so rad. They sounded so full and big tonight even in the small club at Swayze's. I dunno. I was stoked to see them again and they didn't dissapoint. KEVIN WADE!!!!!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:53 PM | Permalink | Comments

of all the sharp jagged metal things I could have cut myself on while installing the power wire for my sub amp, i had to catch my left ring finger on a staple securing the rear seat to it's metal frame. not the ripped up metal in the wheel well from when I had a blow out. not the jagged metal in the door sill. not even the rusty screws. no. a damned staple. ridiculous.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 4:42 PM | Permalink | Comments

so it definitely sucks when you can't fall asleep until 4:30 am and have to be at work at 9. good god it was hard to force myself out of bed this morning. all i want to do is go out to my car and take a nap...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments

And how about that new Children of Bodom album? In the words of Ryan Mendez from Staring Back: "Dude...."

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

I had some messed up dreams last night... wow. i mean, like, seriously messed up. I haven't had dreams like that since high school. i wonder if that's a bad sign...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:08 PM | Permalink | Comments

Sub box finished. 8g power wire run from battery to trunk. RCA cables run from head unit to trunk. Everythign installed for fit and function. Now all that remains are the finishing touches to make it look good. Cause it already sounds so damn good. Mmm, bass.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 8:59 PM | Permalink | Comments

So i've been attempting this new "diet" if you will. Since I'm back at work, I can't seem to wake up early enough to eat breakfast and I never feel like cooking when i get home. So I've been eating breakfast foods at dinner time and so far it's been pretty successful. Let me explain what food I have in the house:
-milk
-orange juice
-grapefruit juice
-wheat bread
-bagels (blueberry, cinnamon raisin)
-pop tarts (wild berry, chocolate chip, strawberry, cinnamon apple)
-cereal (Cheerios and Chex)
-eggs
-pancake mix
-yogurt
-fruit (peaches, apples, pears)
The theory here being that breakfast is pretty healthy and provides a lot of good nutrients. It's easy to prepare and requires little cleanup. So all in all this is a great thigns during the work week. Here's the problem: weekends. See, breakfast is awesome, but I can only eat so many bowls of cereal or bagels in one day for every meal. Alas, it seems I will ahve to return to Kroger and pick up some more lunch/dinner appropriate food for the weekends. Oh well.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments

*sigh* my AIM block list gets bigger every day.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:17 PM | Permalink | Comments

XchaosdawningX: I'm just sitting in my room building speaker enclosures and listening to Mozart.
BLONDLEGALLY13: OMG, you are so gay!

I wish someone had told me sooner that classical music made you gay... Perhaps watching Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blond would make me straight again? That seems to be the obvious implication.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

BLONDLEGALLY13: I've decided that you are an asshole who should be shot.
XchaosdawningX: Yeah, probably.

Am I really that much of an asshole that the first thing strangers think of me is that I shoudl be shot? Hmm... Learn something new every day I guess.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:10 PM | Permalink | Comments

is it time to go home yet? this 3 day weekend won't arrive fast enough...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

Once upon a time I would have cared about sitting in a dentist's chair and having him cut wisdom teeth out of my jaw on Valentine's Day... But since my girlfriend, I mean computer, has made other plans, I am available all day. So instead of being lonely and depressed I'm going to be bleeding and in pain. A minor difference, I realize, but at least the physical pain can be combated with our good friend codine.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:05 PM | Permalink | Comments

Have you ever had that feeling at work? You know, the one where you just really really need to take a nap? The one where if you don't put your head down on your desk RIGHT NOW, your head is going to do it anyway when you pass out? But on the other hand you know that if you do close your eyes, you won't be able to open them again under your own power for a couple hours. So you get up and walk around hoping that the moving blood will give you some energy, cause that pint of orange juice and a strawberry pop tart sure didn't... Except that standing up makes you so damned dizzy that you feel like you're falling over even when you're standing perfectly still. Just turning your head feels like falling down a flight of stairs. Yeah, that feeling. Have you ever had that feeling? Cause I've been having it all morning and I just want to go to lie down and wake up next week...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments

So I was assaulted today at lunch. By this crazy black lady. Who wanted me to buy cologne. At a mexican restaurant. It was very wierd. I was just sitting there with Scotty and the Yhapster enjoying my taquitos and my spanish rice. And she came and sat down with us and asked what cologen we wore. I was like "I put on my Old Spice deodorant every morning, does that count?" She kept pestering us to try her various colognes adn to buy some for our girlfriends and mothers. We eventualyl managhed to convince her adn her two giant bodyguards (i guess) that we weren't intersted in her high pressure sales promotion. On the way out we informed the manager, who we all know pretty well cause we've done a lot of work with him putting in experimental dispenser equipment and he had her thrown out. So at least we spared a few other people the annoyance. Damn near ruined my lunch too with her dirty perfumes overcoming my delicious mexican food smells. Oh well. Every day is a new adventure. In stupidity apparently...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments

You know you've got a problem when: you refuse to live in a really nice moderately priced apartment based solely on the fact that the name of the floorplan is The Elite and you'd be livign at The Pallisades...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 3:42 PM | Permalink | Comments

I definitely have a case of "the Mondays..."

Posted by Rev. Adam at 1:18 PM | Permalink | Comments

mmmm, chocolate chip pop tarts...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:35 PM | Permalink | Comments

WOOHOO!!! Let the 3.5 month countdown begin!! Brian went to look at some more apartments today and found a great place, so I went back with him this afternoon and loved it, so we put down out deposit and application fee. And since we did it within 24 hours of our initial showing, teh deposit was $100 instead of $400. booyah. The place looks fantastic and is in a great area righ tnext to all soerts of good stuff liek Sears, Best Buy, the movie theater, and most importantly, Wendy's. And the girl who showed us around lives there, which is always a good sign. Anyway, it's a little farther from campus than I would really like, but still an easy 15-20 minute trip. 1150 sq ft, 2 big bedrooms, a good sized living room, nice kitchen, W/D hookups, a sun room, car wash area, beautiful terraced swimming pool, wooded area, lake, gazebo, picnic area. You gotta come visit me and check this place out. Anyway, you can see some pics and floorplans and such on their website. We'll be living in the Dogwood stlye, which is actually listed under 1BR for some weird reason. So yeah, basically I'm incredibly excited! No more Rob!!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 7:56 PM | Permalink | Comments

Went apartment hunting with Brian today. I can't WAIT to get the hell away from Rob and Jonathon. They're nice enough guys, but Jonathon's too religious and Rob's not only stupid but also a slob. We saw some pretty nice places that are within our price range, so it looks promising. I don't realyl feel liek moving again, but maybe gettign a fresh start in a enw place isn't such a bad idea. Get away from Rob's red juice stains in teh livign room and Jonathon's paint stains in the dining room and all the holes we've put in the walls for our ethernet cables. Ratty worn down carpets, dirty walls, clogged sinks (thanks Rob. you suck.). On second thought, I definitely want to move.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 6:41 PM | Permalink | Comments

I hereby resolve to make my best efforts not to bad mouth corporate america or complain about why big compaines ignore the individual in exchange for higher profits. As long as I'm working at Coke it seems only fair. It's going to require a hell of a lot of will power, but that's my goal. Feel free to scold me next week when I've completely forgotten I said this.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 9:36 AM | Permalink | Comments

Slipped my mind in my 'excitement' to be back at work again, but my flight back to Atlanta on Monday morning contained a couple nice surprises. The first was that Mrs. Krider was a flight attendant on my flight and the second was that I ended up getting a seat in First Class somehow. I'm quite certain the two are unrelated since my seat was unchanged from the time I checked in 1.5 hours before the flight. But man oh man, first class, even on Airtran, so much more room than economy. Slouched comfortably in my chair, my knees weren't even close to the seat in front of me. Definitely worth waiting a day and not fighting the snow and being delayed 3 times liek my original flight was. Plus I missed a bunch of work! Yea!!

Posted by Rev. Adam at 11:51 PM | Permalink | Comments

Is it a bad sign when you start your second week on the job by looking up how to claim unemployment benefits in case you "get fired" somehow? I'm pretty sure it's a bad sign.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:04 PM | Permalink | Comments

I am so not into this whole work thing...
It's 10:15 and I already want to go home and take a nap. I can't wait for lunch...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments

So I like snow and all, and usually i get really excited about 6+ inches of snow cause it means school gets cancelled. At least in Fairfax. I think 6" of snow in Atlanta would result in the national guard beign called out to deal with panic-stricken citizens. But somehow when there was so much sno at 5 pm when i wanted to go to the airport to fly back to Atlanta, I just wasn't very excited anymore. Something about a taxi driver dealing with conditions that i really don't trust anyone to deal with makes me nervous. I can usually handle the snow by myself when there's no other traffic, but people in general are retarded when they drive, and anything slippery only amplifies it. Anyway, so I'm snowed in here in DC. Kind of a bummer, but at least it's that much less work since I don't get in until noon tomorrow now.

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:42 PM | Permalink | Comments

Apparently Caryn's birthday and I aren't compatible... I'm not sure why I always get sick on Jan 2, but it happens like clockwork. It's not like I've been up all hours of the night every night or ODed on caffiene this time. I just don't get it. *sigh*

Posted by Rev. Adam at 2:31 PM | Permalink | Comments

I really gotta stop looking at BME and body jewelry stores before I do somethign stupid and get myself fired. Stupid faceless, soulless, evil corporations and their well paying jobs with moderate dress codes...

Posted by Rev. Adam at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments