Surprise

I had a nice surprise today, I was given a shout out by Dr Zibbs of That Blue Yak fame. Check his blog out...he'll make you laugh.

When I read about the shout out, I thought to myself, "isn't there a band, or wasn't there a band called Shout Out, or something similar?" So, being a Google cripple, I...Googled Shout Out. Somewhere in my corrupted head, I wanted to post a shout out video totally unrelated to Dr Zibbs' shout out. Not to belittle his kind gesture, but to belittle my perverse sense of self-importance. I mean, after all, he is a blogger Super Star. He's soooooo super, I can't figure out how he keeps up with his daily thousands of comments...and his dashboard must be the ultimate scroll down. He also is prodigious beyond an English comp professor's wet dream. Try as I may, I simply can't keep up with his most recent posts. Don't misunderstand, since I've discovered the doctor, I try not to miss his recent posts.

What I have concluded is, Dr Zibb is actually an Octuplet. His less gregarious Sibs take care of the daily administrative duties of That Blue Yak, such as comment, dashboard reading and research. The doctor does the thinking.



All of that aside, I found that there is a band called Shout Out Loud. And there are several videos of them. I offer the following for your pleasure:


OK, so it isn't the Shout Outs...I didn't care for them. I decided to give you this exciting video of Elvis instead.

Go read That Blue Yak .

Behind in your bills?

The following is a true story. Just one small businessman story out of millions.

Do you think Bank of America is ruthless, non-flexible, and uncaring? Be thankful that you don't live in Nigeria. Pictured here is Jamal bin Gitya and his not-laughing Hyena, Spot, taking a well deserved mid-day break. Jamal and Spot are free-lance bill collectors.

Not shown is Jamal's other co-worker, Bob the Baboon.

Sometimes Jamal takes both Spot and Bob with him on assignment.

Jamal's bad debt recovery rate is very high.

Hats off to yet another small businessman success story of our foreign friends.

Siberian Shuffle

We've had 5 straight days of 50-60 degree weather. I've seen people in shorts. I had to dig out a light jacket and tee shirts. We've only run the furnace very early in the morning. We've laughed and scoffed at the groundhog...I even wrote a piece about it on my blog. There's been no ice on the roads for at least a week...out of sight, out of mind. We haven't had to warm up our cars in the mornings. We've not scraped, or brushed a windshield. We've not pushed one morsel of snow flake down the driveway. We've been in a mental tropical zone, sans palm trees.,..and loving it.

Seen here are some locals taking advantage of this unusual February weather here in Nebraska:


And now this, this afternoon:

WINTER STORM WATCH
Warning Issue Date: 102 PM CST WED FEB 11 2009

The National Weather Service in Omaha/Valley has issued a Winter
Storm Watch...which is in effect from Friday morning through Friday 
evening.

Snow...heavy at times...should begin to overspread the watch area
Friday morning and last through early Friday evening before
tapering to flurries later Friday evening.

Snowfall accumulations of 5 to 10 inches are expected across a large portion
of the watch area...with locally higher amounts possible. In addition
to the
snow...Northeast winds of 15 to 30 MPH would cause areas of
blowing and drifting snow...resulting in reduced visibilities...
and hazardous Driving conditions.

If you aren't feeling sorry for us right now, it's because you live in Canada.

I just want you to know that come Friday night, this will be me...an ex-Floridian/Californian,
displaced and mistaken for the Thing From Outer Space (look it up):


I personally want to remind the weatherman of the fate of the last weatherman
to predict this sort of thing in the middle of February...and ask if he would like to reconsider this ridiculous forecast...

Don't like your job

...irritated with it? Check out this...in China. Meitai keyboard factory in Dongguan City...rules and regulations. Meitai makes keyboards for Lenovo, Microsoft, HP and others.


Big Brother Is Watching

Employees should actively monitor each other.

Infractions punished with the loss of over two hours’ wages:

--Being 1 to 5 minutes late to start a shift.
--Not periodically trimming fingernails, which will affect product quality.
--Not lining up correctly while punching time cards or at the cafeteria.
--Wearing work shoes outside the work room after work.
--Putting hands in pant pockets while inside the factory or workroom.

Infractions punished with the loss of 4 ½ hours wages:

--Answering a personal telephone call in the workroom.
--Not diligently working or raising ones head to look around when guests or cadres come to visit.
--Putting personal objects on the work desk.
--Listening to the radio while on the job.
--Not parking bicycles according to company regulations; riding bicycles in and out of the company in a way not in accordance with company regulations.
--Returning to the dorm after regulated hours [curfew].

Infractions” punished with the loss of seven hours’ wages:

--Switching beds without authorization. Dorm beds are assigned by management.


Infractions punished with the loss of 1 ½ day's wages.

--Workers who arrive one hour late.
--Riding the elevator without permission.
--Plugging in electronics [using electricity] in the dorm room for personal use.
--Using the company phone to make personal calls.
--Producing products of low quality.
--Workers who…go to visit other workers during working hours.
--Chatting at the workstation during work hours.
--Entering or leaving the factory area without allowing door personnel [security guards] to inspect [search workers].
--Treating supervisors with an arrogant attitude.

Infractions punished with the loss of three days wages:

--Leaving one’s workstation without permission.
--Putting up personal notices…or handing out flyers.
--Revealing confidential company or production-related information.

Infractions punished with firing:

--Violating labor discipline…and not obeying the company’s work arrangements.
--Taking part in illegal organizations.
--Not following the procedures spelled out by government regulations on stopping work, slowing work down, encouraging others to stop or slow down work.
--Missing three days of work.
--Disobeying China’s one-child policy.
--Not obeying company arrangements or directions or…collectively causing trouble as a group.
--Any behavior similar to that listed above or helping or colluding in such behavior.

What's Cooking Tonight

I don't think I've ever mentioned here that I love to cook. It all started after I came back from saving the world from...people just like me. Soon thereafter, my wife and I departed company, which ended in divorce. Wasn't her fault. In fact, I really can't say anything bad about my first wife. She was a classy lady. Intelligent...understanding and indulgent to a fault, and well, didn't deserve the likes of me...the me of that period, that is. We have stayed in contact all these years, and are still friends.

But I digress. When I got a divorce, my cooking skills were in the neighborhood of scrambled eggs, mixed with tuna...and Denny Moore Stew. But, I met and dated a lovely young lady from New Orleans. She was a ragin' Cajun, in so many ways, but especially in the kitchen. God she could cook. She basically taught my I-should-not-go-near-the-kitchen chauvinist ass...how to cook. And not just Cajun either. Frenchy...Mexican...and middle-class Amurican. To her I owe my adventurous cooking forays...not to mention eating habits. A tip o' the hat to her.

All of which brings me to tonight. One of my family's favorites. Roasted root vegetables. It is acooking at this very moment.

For those who just might be interested, here is the recipe (done in my macho, rather than Galloping Gourmet) style:

- 2 baseball sized turnip roots
- 2 elongated sweet potatoes...you know, an elongated baseball
- 4 big ass carrots
- 1 zucchini...size comparison left to your imagination
- Sweet Basil...Faulty
- 1/4 cup olive oil...please, no references to Popeye.
- salt and ground pepper to taste...this has nothing to do with Sammy Davis Junior.
- 1/4 cup brown sugar...not the song, fool.
- 1 can, fat-free chicken broth...too many cooks spoil this.
- an undetermined amount of balsamic vinegar.
- X number of boneless pork chops

So now, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Go back to the cutting board, peel and cut up the roots...as a reminder, the turnip, the carrots, the sweet potato...into bite-sized...size. Cut up the zucchini...hold it back. Line your oven proof pot with the olive oil. Mix the brown sugar, balsamic vinegar and chicken broth. Throw the cut up roots into the pot (on top of the OO). Dump the mixed up liquid on top of the root thingys. Put the X number of chops on top and the zucchini on top of the chops. Sprinkle sweet basil over all...a lot of it...I like sweet basil. That's it I think.

Cook for about 40 minutes. Check it at 40...it may need to cook a bit longer, depending on your oven's quirks.

Oh...the Merlot is for the cook, not the dish.

Next time: One kick ass pasta sauce.

Bon you know what.