Retirement Mar 8, 2006
I work with a lot of old people who are all on the brink of retirement.  I've noticed that there are 3 different ways people look at retirement. 

1.  "I can't wait to get out of here."  This is the mentality I think would best describe me in 30-70 years.  It's the same feeling as graduation:  I'm ready to be done with this; I want to move on. 

2.  "I won't be gone long."  A lot of people at my job come back as contractors/consultants.  They get to collect their big fat pension checks while simultaneously getting paid more money as a contractor.  These are the people that aren't yet ready to give up on working. 

3.  "What am I gonna do with all this time?"  These are the people I don't understand.  They've been working for so long that they can't fathom not working.  What a sad mindset.  I don't envision myself having this same mindset. #business
Planned posting (2) Mar 8, 2006
I've noticed recently that planned posting doesn't usually work as well as stream-of-consciousness.  Planned posting is a term I coined 4 seconds ago that refers to the act of thinking of something to write about, writing myself a quick little note as a reminder, then writing about it when I have some free time.  It usually happens like this:  I'll be watching TV at night and I'll get annoyed at something, so I'll write myself a little note about it and plan on writing about it when I have some time at work.  But when I get to work 12 hours later, I'm no longer in the same mood and I don't have the same feelings concerning the topic I wanted to write about.  So I'll put it off for a few weeks then write some stupid thing about it just to get it off my to-do list, or I just won't write about it at all. 

Some of my "best posts" happen out of the blue.  I'll be doing some work and something will happen that makes me want to complain a little bit.  Or I'll think of something randomly and write some huge, life-changing post about it.  It's basically like stream-of-consciousness writing, which (as I understand it) is just a flow of words and thoughts without anything necessarily linking them together.  But my stuff is usually somewhat coherent and mildly linked together, so I have that going for me. #psychology
Loud walkers Mar 8, 2006
Some people can be classified as loud walkers:  They walk so loud, you can hear them coming from a mile away.  I work with several loud walkers.  There's a woman who works in the office next to me who wears heels every day (yes, every single day).  I have no idea what these heels look like or how big they are or where she got them.  I'm not observant; I've never seen them.  But I know what they sound like.  I always know when she's walking by, and I can hear her all the way down the hall.  She used to be my semi-boss, so I learned to dread that sound.  Now, whenever I hear her, my heart starts beating harder and I have to remind myself that she's not coming to boss me around anymore. 

Sometimes men wear shoes that sound like women's heels.  That's always weird.  I'll hear the "click-clock" of heels on a hard floor, but the sound is coming from a man.  That doesn't make sense in my head, so I usually just collapse on the ground and convulse.  My brain can't handle that type of input. 

Unfortunately, I might be a loud walker too.  It's not because I wear heel-like shoes.  It's because my shoes squeak.  I try to keep them quiet, but it's just too much effort.  But hey, at least I don't have heels.  Buncha nancies. 

Collection of other Seinfeld-esque terms for people:  Loud gum-chewers, weird noise maker, long talker, loud breather #psychology
1and1 Mar 8, 2006
Last year, I registered a few domain names through 1and1.  The process was pretty easy and I was relatively pleased.  Since my registrations with 1and1 are about to cancel, they sent me an email that said, "Hey man, we took it upon ourselves to automatically renew your domain name because we know that's what you wanted.  You're welcome."  (paraphrased).  The thing is, I don't want to renew.  So I tried to navigate through 1and1's complicated system to try to figure out how to cancel the automatic renewal.  It would be too easy for them to make a big button that says, "Click here to cancel the automatic renewal", so I eventually ended up finding a link in some obscure FAQ:  http://cancel.1and1.com/.  Canceling was the easiest part of this whole process.  I just had to log in, select which domains to cancel and when to cancel them, and that was it. 

Since registering with 1and1, I found out that Yahoo registers domain names as well, and they do it cheaper and easier.  One point for Yahoo. #technology