Ennui.

I am the king of procrastinators. All week long I've been putting off my schoolwork, because I've been very depressed and listless. Right now, I'm tinkering with the RSS feed aggregator settings in my Outlook 2007.

I love Outlook, but it doesn't have a newsreader like Windows Mail (formerly Outlook Express). I love Windows Mail, but it doesn't have calendaring and task managing like Outlook 2007 does. Windows Mail coordinate its RSS aggregator with Internet Explorer, but Outlook 2007 doesn't. Outlook 2007 coordinates with my calendars in my Windows Live accounts, but Windows Mail does not.

I paid good money for Outlook 2007, but it's pretty much worthless to me except for task managing and calendering. Windows Mail does pretty much everything else I need, including access my online classes through the newsreader, and Windows Mail was free.

Why can't Microsoft make something that can do email, newsgroups, RSS, calendar, tasks, contacts, and synchronize with Windows Live all in oneapp, instead of dividing it across two? Where's the sense in that?

Dammit.

Hippie Mac Inspiration.

Damn Hippies.

By now just about everyone has seen those PC vs. MAC commercials, with the hapless, frumpy businessman standing beside a hip, Gen-X college-Joe peace-love-dope hippie.

As much as I laugh at them, I really resent those commercials, to be honest. They imply that because I use a PC I'm a frumpy nerd who is out of it. The smarmy, wise-ass hippie guy just makes me want to punch his flower-power lights out.

Microsoft recently launched an ad campaign showing PC users from all walks of life, who are hard-working intelligent people that refuse to be pigeon-holed by MAC's stereotype of PC users. I just love these commercials.

The one that really sticks out in my mind shows a commercial fisherman working hard on the deck of his boat, and he says "I am PC, and this is my office." I used to live in a commercial fishing town, and I have a lot of respect for the people who work in that industry, which is really tough. I have very little respect for goateed slacker gen-x gamer hippies in t-shirts who sit on their ass designing bad advertising for graphics firms with their MAC's.

I believe it was Eric Cartman who said it best:

"DAMN HIPPIES..."

Have At It, Kid.

My four year old daughter has been affectionately labeled as "The Marauder" by her older brother and sister. Anything she gets her hands on, she tears to pieces. It is a continuous struggle for everyone in the house to keep their valuables out of her hands, before she annihilates them. One of her favorite objects to try and steal is Bullseye, my stuffed animal in the shape of the Target mascot dog.

BullsEye was given to me by the HR Team Leader after I had won a customer service contest held at the Target store where I used to work. That little dog meant a lot to me -- it was a symbol to me representing the pride I took in my customer service, service that I received many commendations and good ratings for, service that I tried to keep giving wholeheartedly even in the face of the most obnoxious and abusive jerks ever to drive Cadillacs and Jaguars. All the customer service I conscientiously gave didn't amount to didley when they fired me on December 26th for a mistake I made, when I was so sick I could barely stand up and I hadn't had my mood-meds for weeks.

Today my daughter found Bullseye again. It used to be that I would take it away from her, to protect it. Today, I stopped myself, thought twice, and decided to let her keep Bullseye, knowing that in a matter of days it will be reduced to a pile of cloth scraps and stuffing.

After the screwing in the a* I got from Target, why should I keep the piece of sh*? So I told my daughter, "here you go, sweetums, all yours."