Get Rich Quick

I've got this cube neighbor who literally has a different get rich quick scheme every day. All of these plans include eBay as a secret to his success. His goal is to be a "platinum-seller" on eBay which means you have to have sold like 150K/mo. online.

I don't think he'd mind too much if I told you some of his plans: He started out selling air conditioning compressors that he took from junk yard cars. He would go also to estate/yard sales of rich, Frisco/Plano housewives and buy a bunch of junk and re-sell it. He'll list it for 99c and sit back and watch the suckers bid against each other.


But his biggest scheme that he's been working on is becoming a online used car salesman. He's already got a deal with one used car salesman to sell cars using his lot. Apparently, people pay a lot more online for used cars than in person. He's already went to the car auctions to see how it is done. The margins on these used car lots are ridiculous.

Used car salesman really are scum. But my cube neighbor calls it maximizing the power of your mind or some such bull shit.

So I ask myself: "Self, how come you aren't out there selling close-out Fry's equipment on eBay? or how come you don't open a Subway franchise?"
Well self, it's because

1. I'm not that ambitious.
2. I don't know jack about business. (engineer drop-outs become business majors)
3. I have a steady paycheck at the moment.
4. and even if I didn't, the word entrepreneur is not in my vocabulary.


But for now, I'm just content making fun of my cube neighbor and telling him he's a sleazy, dot-com, used car salesman. That's about as ambitious as I'm going to get.

The Standard of Cleanliness

Roommate R is going on a trip to NY thursday. The question is, will he clean his detritus left in our kitchen/living space or not before he leaves? I haven't seen talked to him in a couple of days, so I haven't been able to give him the usual, "clean this shit up" speech.

It is quite interesting though how different people have different standards of cleanliness. I have a co-worker that will re-wash dishes that his wife washed if he deems them not clean enough. Does his wife really have a different standard of cleanliness? or does she just have him so well trained to eventually do everything around the house because of her "inability" to properly clean things?

At any rate, I'm giving roommate R a chance to clean before he leaves. I don't want to give the wrong impression that I'm a neat freak -- I've got pleanty of clutter in my room. But I am bothered by the mess in the "shared living area". And I have time to clean it right now and throw all the crap in his room, but that's not the point.

Obviously, we have different standards of cleanliness...

The "Khakis Refresh"

Since we were unable to play our first softball game due to the lack of female participation, I decided it was finally time to do the yearly "khakis refresh". All you cube-dwellers and techno-geeks of corporate america know what I'm talking about. They only last so long.

And, the ultimate cube-dwellers only go for the classic, no-wrinkle, pleated, Levis Dockers. Yes, you heard me correctly: pleated.


So I went to the nearest generic-but-not-quite-ghetto-yet mall where they have a JCPenny's. Unfortuately, I had to bump up the waistline by an inch this year. Although dark colors are prefered, I am at the mercy of availability. So the three pairs that I bought are in the three colors that they had in my size. Us cube-dweller geeks do not especially care about color, just pleats.

There are a few of my fellow cubies that try to break the mold and go with the stylish flat-front. These guys also tend to buy shirts with stripes that go diagonally or use hair product. Sell-outs. They are denying who they are. Be proud! wear plaid! be PLEATED!!!

Blogs in Space

Does your blog lack visibility? Are the grituitous Harry Potter blog entries not attracting enough readers?

If so, maybe you should broadcast your blog to the entire galaxy with Mind Comet





Not to be confused with the best sci-fi show of all time Pigs in Space.

They'll broadcast your blog from a "powerful deep space transmission dish" free of charge.

The Brits are making fun of us again on this one. And rightly so.

Team Building

You know, there are days when corporate america actually attempts to invest in their employees. These occasions are few and far between, but today my department at work had a "Team-Building" day. Which translates to playing games during worktime instead of actually working.

In the morning, we were given a "desert survival simulation exercise". Imagine that you were returning from your vacation to Acapulco, and your 6-seater plane crashed in the middle of the Mojave desert. Your pilots have tragically burned up in the smoldering plane reckage. You and your fellow unassuming planemates are now alone in the 130-degree sweltering heat.

Anyway, I was then given a written test of survival skills (slightly reminiscent of the Iowa-standards test). I was given a series of possible actions to take such as:

A. Immediately leave the reckage and head for civilization
B. Send some of the group out to find help
C. Stay put and sit on hands
D. Stay put for 2 days and then head out for civilization

And then you are supposed to evaluate various items as to their possible uses and rank them in order of importance. Such items included: water, shotgun, compass, cheese, motor oil, tequila, etc. Once you've completed your individual test, then you must come together in a group, gather consensus, and then complete the same test as a team.

It seems my individual score wasn't that great. I thought that the best course of action was to immediately run randomly out into the desert after finishing off half a bottle of tequila.

As it turns out, that isn't the right course of action. And no, it doesn't even matter what kind of tequila it is.

But, as a team, it seems that by our corporate decision making and consensus-building, our collective chances of survival increased by 56%. (In case you are wondering, the correct answer is to stay put and you'll most-likely be saved in 2-3 days)

The moral of the story? If you get stranded in the Mojave desert, you don't have to actually work that morning and apparently, tequila cannot solve every problem. Who knew?


Oh, and then after lunch we all went bowling at Main Event.

Eminent Domain

Although this event is no longer current, I was extremely irked by the supreme court's ruling on eminent domain. I can't believe that redistribution of land from a relatively poor person to a large developer is what the writers of the fifth amendment had in mind. O'Connor put it succinctly:

"specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

I'm wondering if this was one of the straws that broke the camels back for her.

The article also sited the conservative Thomas as siding with the NAACP and O'Connor against this ruling as well. He pointed out that usually urban renewal just means that elderly/minority/poor people just end up being pushed out so that rich people can come in and live, shop, and play on their land.

I realize I don't know all the details about this ruling and the ramifications, but owning property is one of the main reasons about what makes America so great. And now it seems that the rich and powerful private business (no doubt with local tax incentives) can take over private property whenever your city counsel says they can.

You never know, your house just might now become a walmart next month...

Anger management

I'm continually amazed at how angry a lot of people are. I had an incident of Road Rage today that reminded me of when I was in a parking garage in downtown Dallas a couple of months ago. Incidentally, I talked with the security guard there that used to work at my building way up in Richardson (outside of the loop).

Anyway, the nice security guard told me that I was in the wrong spot and I needed to go out of the parking garage and drive to the other side of the building. But I had to stop at the exit gate and hand the attendant my ticket.

Except there wasn't an attendant. I waited for a minute or two until one car was queued up behind me.

Still no attendant. Then another lady in a white van pulled up behind that car.

That's when it got ugly. She had not waited for more than 30 seconds before honking her horn and screaming at my old security guard, "what the hell are you standing there for? I know you can open that damn gate!"

The attendant finally got back and was totally distraught. The poor little old lady had to go get some change from the safe and no one could relieve her. She proceeded to get cursed out by the lady in the white van about how she was terribly inconvenienced, blah, blah, blah.

I tried to tell the attendant lady not to worry about it but she was already shaken. Why did the yelly lady have to be hating? Was she having a bad day and taking it out on the nice little old parking lady? This is not a life or death scenario and the yelly lady had to wait maybe an extra minute. Did it really matter that much? We don't just have Road Rage, we now have Parking Rage as well.

I guess I realized how important it is to get outside of yourself and always consider your neighbor's POV. And I know that anger can be useful at times, but I think no one would question that this kind of rage just ends up ultimately destroying ourselves more than anyone else.