Author: NiteMayr

Before:

Kevin was born on the mossy hills of Scotland and lived for a while in West Lothian before the mores of pre-Thatcher and REALLY pre-Oasis Great Britain sent his family across the ocean to North America. They moved here and there and Kevin did the same when he was old enough. Now he lives in London with his family and a Dog.

Kevin Wardrop is an amateur writer, amateur photographer and professional pain in the ass. He has worked in the PC support business for most of his adult life and has been accustomed to simply answering technical questions as a matter of fiat, it was his career choice after all. Now he herds cats and puppies for a living as well as babysitting the web enterprises at the heart of western industry.

Damn Stomach

Published by NiteMayr on August 27, 2006

It look slike I gave myself Food Poisoning on Saturday.

I’ve been sick for the past 24 hours or so and I don’t feel that much better, I emptied my stomach and all, so all that was left was liquid. I still feel prety lousy and my chest,etc hurt like hell.

Today was the longest day in history for me though, I kept gapping out and waking up, but the day never seemd to end. It’s 11:10PM now and I should go back to bed (the couch) until I feel better, but it’s so hot n here now.

On a side note, drinking Green Tea stopped the vomit. I’ve been drinking it all day and I stopped throwing up once an hour.

Go Green Tea!

Funny Stuff

Published by NiteMayr on August 26, 2006

Yet another person who calls me by my Co-Workers name!

A former team mate of mine “Jared” who hasn’t worked with me for around 2 years now, just got name checked. It used to be a pain when someone would call me Jared, he had about 6 inches in height on me and long hair. I keep my hair pretty short and don’t wear glasses. We’re both heavy white guys, that’s where the resemblance ends.

I just got a call from someone who has found a cell phone at a garage sale and called “Jared”, which was my number. I explained who I was and who’s phone that probably was. They laughed and I hope they will turn the phone in to my Work’s lost and Found.

I'm such a nerd because…

Published by NiteMayr on August 23, 2006

What’s the nerdiest thing about you?

I took a survey of my cube farm team, It’s the Comics and the Toys.

I have thousands of Comics and Toys on my walls.

I maintain that I’m more geeky than nerdy as I’m not that nebbish.

The Nerdiest thing is the Comics, apparently. There you have it.

Interview

Published by NiteMayr on August 23, 2006

Yesterday we had a mini crisis along with a group project all at once. An issue that affected whole groups of customers cropped up at the same time as an important group project: create an interview for someone who has never seen your business before.
On its face, creating an interview isn’t too hard; make up some relevant questions and weight them. However, we need to gauge the skill level of our interviewees without asking them about our products (all 20 or so of them). This wouldn’t be an issue if they were interviewing for a front-line position, but these people are interviewing for a senior position with no experience with the actual products. Which makes the bar that much higher.

Oh well. We’ll see how the whole thing comes down today.

EDIT: June 2008 — This Post marks the start of an interview process that ended when we hired Karl and Jeff

Teacher's Pet

Published by NiteMayr on August 22, 2006

What was (or is) your favorite subject in school?

I think while I was there, in school I would have chosen Computers or Creative writing. But when I look back, I enjoyed history with Jim Dales the most.

Jim Dales was a large, obnoxious bully of a man, with an overbearing demeanor and a strong distaste for ignorance. He was very close to retirement and a strident patriot. As my oldest teacher, he also had a firm grasp on world history, having been alive since Moses was a boy.

His classes were great for someone like me for two reasons; I was quick-witted and could think on my feet, he would accept any answer as long as you sounded like you were sure of it. If you EVER answered “I don’t know” you were instantly treated to the two-minute hate, otherwise he’d smile and accept whatever claptrap slipped from your mouth.

Great Class.

in heavy rotation

Published by NiteMayr on August 21, 2006

What albums are in heavy rotation for you right now?

“Nerd Rage” – Brian Posehn
“Stadium Arcadium” – Red Hot Chilli Peppers
“The Downward Spiral” – Nine Inch Nails
“With Teeth” – Nine Inch Nails

The Snakes on a Plane Drinking Game

Published by NiteMayr on August 20, 2006

Players: At Least 2, don’t be a loser.

Setting: House or Bar with a Big Enough TV and enough table space to hold at least a pint of beer each or multiple good spirits type drinks (Rum and Coke, Vodka and Orange that type of thing)

[spoilers in white]

Rules (Basic):

Every time someone swears, take a swig
Every time you see an exposed breast/nipple, big swig
Every time you see a splash of blood, take a big gulp and burp. Failure to burp means you have to chug.

Rules(Advanced if you are sober still):

Every time an unamed archtype dies, finish your drink (Fat Lady, annoying guy, yappy dog, burnt out cop). Last one to finish their drink starts and drinks half od their next drink.
Big Gulp when Sam Jackson makes a big speech.
Chug if a named character dies.
Big Gulp when Sam Jackson tells the guy to stay safe/listen to Sam/repeat something Sam said.
Big Gulp when Sam shares a moment with the Flight Attendant.
Finish your drink when turbulence throws someone around.
Finish your drink when someone opens the door without the special code or when the special code fails.
Everyone drinks as much beer as they can when the
windows are blown out and the snakes are flying out the window, stop when the cockpit door is closed, the person who drinks the most beer is the winner (or loser)
Extra Rule: if you are still totally sober, chug for every failed hand slap and any time the annoying rapper complains or winces due to germs.

The Snakes on a Plane Drinking Game was originally published on Local Blogger Writes the World

The Snakes on a Plane Drinking Game

Published by NiteMayr on August 20, 2006

Players: At Least 2, don’t be a loser.

Setting: House or Bar with a Big Enough TV and enough table space to hold at least a pint of beer each or multiple good spirits type drinks (Rum and Coke, Vodka and Orange that type of thing)

[spoilers in white]

Rules (Basic):

Every time someone swears, take a swig
Every time you see an exposed breast/nipple, big swig
Every time you see a splash of blood, take a big gulp and burp. Failure to burp means you have to chug.

Rules(Advanced if you are sober still):

Every time an unamed archtype dies, finish your drink (Fat Lady, annoying guy, yappy dog, burnt out cop). Last one to finish their drink starts and drinks half od their next drink.
Big Gulp when Sam Jackson makes a big speech.
Chug if a named character dies.
Big Gulp when Sam Jackson tells the guy to stay safe/listen to Sam/repeat something Sam said.
Big Gulp when Sam shares a moment with the Flight Attendant.
Finish your drink when turbulence throws someone around.
Finish your drink when someone opens the door without the special code or when the special code fails.
Everyone drinks as much beer as they can when the
windows are blown out and the snakes are flying out the window, stop when the cockpit door is closed, the person who drinks the most beer is the winner (or loser)
Extra Rule: if you are still totally sober, chug for every failed hand slap and any time the annoying rapper complains or winces due to germs.

What a letdown, not enough swearing

Published by NiteMayr on August 20, 2006

007Ben and I went over to the GateWay mall to see “Snakes on a Mutha-F’in Plane”

It was a good ride, it hit most of the notes you would expect from a thriller-horrer B-Flick. It had grusome death, gratuitous sex and implausibly bad plotting. All good right? Excellent scares, big snake death scenes, the english dude kacks it. (Spoilers to the left here).

I loved that the guy from Keenen and Kel was named Troy; it was such a whitebread name for his character, the video game nerd-cum-bouncer. A cast of real young hollywood stars would have ruined this flick, so the girl who played uh, the girl from Clueless, was a good choice. There is a song that name-checks myspace in the second act, listen for it.

The only thing it lacked was swearing, it really fell down there. Why didn’t the young couple use more colorful language? Why so little “Holy S#8#” when bit? Why so much screaming? After a while it was just scream scream scream. I don’t think anyone swore in the 30 minutes before Sam Jackson spoke the immortal line.

I was kinda let down by that.

The scares were great and the shocks were real, especially the last ones. Good job on this one. A drinking game would be great for it, make X person chug when they jump, etc.

My First Car

Published by NiteMayr on August 20, 2006

Tell us a little something about your first car. Do you have any photos you can share?
Submitted by tamara.

I do have pictures of my first car, when it still looked okay.

It was a midnight blue 1988/89 Ford Tempo.

However, you don’t care about that, seriously. It drove my up and down from Toronto to Kincardine to see my friends and carted me to work and school during the week. All of which is pretty standard stuff.

You want to hear about why it had a two-tone hood; which I wish I had a picture of.

It must have been February 1995 or 1996, I was driving home from Toronto on a snowy February morning after working at RPS and being away since the morning before. I was excioted to see my “friends” and get the weekend started. I was also driving into the sun and really tired.

As I crested a hill in a small town on highway 9 I ran right into the back of a snowmobile trailer. The only thing I rememebr about it is seeing the hood of my car buckled up in front of me.

Dazed, I went to the nearest store to call my ‘rents and tell them I had had an accident. The police showed up and almost charged me with reckless driving, but instead gave me following too closely. I’m sure I was crying about it or something, I was so out of it.

I drove home, freaked out and hoping the car would limp home. I was promptly informed that the car was to be taken to the Jones house, as they had a garage and I was going to be without a car all weekend while we found a replacement hood. While driving there, the hood flipped up and bent out of true, a total write-off.

I noted up there that I was there to see my “friends” as none of them made the slightest effort to come see me. Which proved to be the nail in the coffin for a number of relationships for me. Too bad for them.

We eventually found a hood from a similiar car (a white taurus) that har wrapped it’s rear passenger side around a pole, killing the passenger that was there. Nice huh?

We got the parts back to the garage and used a come-ahead to pull some of the kinks from the body and set about attaching the bone white hood to my midnight blue car. It fit with some elbow grease and I had a driveable car again.

With some other work (lights and cosmetic work) I was back on the road to Toronto and school and work.

I wish that this was the end, since the white hood looked stupid, but not challenged.

I tried to paint the hood. I bought some matching paint from the local Canadian Tire (spray cans) and set about trying to cover the white with the proper midnight blue. I had no illusions that it would be perfect, but I never thought that I would use more than 6 cans.

So I had a hood with white on one half and blue on the other. For about 6 months. I was pretty poor.

Once I finished the paint job it still looked bad up close, but from a distance it was deal-able.

I ended up driving ther car almost into the ground, and with the help of a crooked garage I was constantly funnelling money into it. SO in March 1997 I gave it away to my Sister and Borther-in-Law to sell.

I loved that car, and have a number of fond memories attached to it, losing it meant losing a great deal of freedom. Oh well, I have a new car now. Bon Chance!