It's Movin' Time!

I know the timing on this makes it seem like I'm jumping on the Rock Chick's bandwagon, but I promise this is something I've been thinking about doing for MONTHS. But...I'm moving my blog to my own domain!

It just so happens that the domain "braindungeon.com" was available! Sooooo, I made the purchase and got it all set up today! I haven't moved it over yet, so if you happen to try to find it before I do, you may get an error message, but I promise it won't be long before I get everything moved over.

I know I've been pretty quiet lately, but I have a feeling that's about to change because of some things that have been on my mind. So, if you like my blog, and you wouldn't mind, if you subscribe to my blog here, please visit my new site and subscribe there. Currently the actual URL of the blog is http://braindungeon.com/blog but you can also get there by going to http://braindungeon.com

I hope I see you there!

Energy Drinks

Dear Stacy's friend who works at a convenience store and sent a whole case of energy drinks with her to our office as a promotional thing:

I want to thank you for your generosity in thinking about Stacy and the people she works with. Working in an office all day long can actually be quite draining and sitting in front of a computer all day can literally make people lose all will to actually even move their fingers to type...I think that's why voice recognition software was created. Having liquid energy in 16oz cans sitting in our office fridge is hugely convenient.

Anyway, while I am appreciative of the gesture, I thought I would let you know what happened after consuming my first 6 cans during my lunch hour yesterday.

First of all, I was mildly amused by the moniker of "Earth Shattering Energy" on the can...at first. After the third can or so, I realized that this was no "amusing" matter. Truth be told I am a little concerned that my internal organs may not stop violently spasming. I probably should have stopped after the 5th can as the MRI at the ER last night revealed severe bruising of my brain. They asked if I had been in an accident of some kind because it was like my brain had bounced around in my skull violently for hours. I guess it's a good thing they're low-carb...imagine if I'd had all that sugar too!!!

Also, did you know that one serving of that energy drink has 100% recommended daily values of Niacin (B3), 190% of B6 and 180% of B12? Did you also know that there are 2 servings per can? I guess consuming 1200% of B3, 2280% of B6 and 2160% of B12 in under an hour throws your vitamin balance a little off. I couldn't touch a computer for the rest of the day because my body actually absorbed all the A's, C's, D's and E's off every screen and keyboard I came in contact with. Imagine that! I had the energy and will to work, but COULDN'T!

I did some reading on the symptoms of overdosing on B vitamins, but there is one side effect that I suffered that I couldn't seem to correlate and was wondering if you'd heard of it. After about 2 hours and 8 more cans of energy drink, the two separate hemispheres of my brain seemed to begin operating independantly of each other...and without regard to my willful operation of the finer motor functions of my own body, my right arm ripped my left arm clean off my body and started beating me in the face with it. I ran around the office screaming for help, but no one would come near me. And when I say "ran" I'm using the term loosely. My left leg ran, but my right leg stubbornly stood in one place so really I was just spinning around in circles. Have you ever beaten yourself in the face with your own dismembered arm while spinning in circles and screaming? Apparently others see that is "crazy." The blows must have been pretty forceful too because, although the bruising and cracked bones in my face will heal quickly, I am still having trouble finding the middle and ring fingers of my left arm. I think it is important to note at this point that my right arm was the prosthetic one.

As I can generally be a little crazy at work, it took a while for anyone to realize just how serious a reaction I was having. I must have told them over and over I really needed help, but apparently it was coming out as "FADA BADA BADA BADA BLUH BLUH BLUH FFFF THBBBBBB". While this isn't completely unusual for me in the office, this time I hadn't been on a tech support call for the last hour.

Lastly, I thought it interesting to note that until the final 4 cans yesterday I thought the term "jumping out of my skin" was just a euphimism. Did you know seeing a living human body with no skin can actually make people vomit? Although it probably didn't help that my skeleton wasn't much support for all the meat because it had vibrated to almost complete liquification.

Anyway - sorry to go on and on, but I just wanted to thank you again for thinking of us. Aside from the missing fingers, the doctors seem confident that I will be mostly back to normal after a heart transplant, brain surgery, and after they reapply my skin and re-attach my left arm. I look forward to trying the other flavors of that energy drink!

A Nifty Little Tool

I am sure that this is true for most, if not all, iPhone users - that is that I'm always on the lookout for apps that I can get some good use out of. Early on, one of the things I found myself frustrated with was the inability to post to this blog from the Blogger website in mobile safari. To my amazement, even the iPhone app for Google only opened up Safari which wouldn't allow me to post a blog in blogger (unless I am just clueless as to how it works).

A few weeks ago I purchased iBlogger which would supposedly let me create posts for my Blogger account. Unfortunately, I just can't get it to work. I got it to work on a Wordpress blog, but every time I tried to get to this Blogger blog, iBlogger would just crash. I am confident that the developer can solve the problem, given some time. I only reported the issue last night.

I was going to just wait for a response, but I accidentally came across another app called SkyPetr Lite. I was searching to see what apps existed out there that provided access to Skype. While I found something earlier today that did just that, I was curious what else was out there.

Needless to say, I downloaded SkyPetr Lite (which is free). It's meant for use with MySpace, YouTube, and of course Blogger. I haven't checked out the first two yet, but this post has been successfully and entirely composed using SkyPetr Lite.

The only downside I have seen so far is that you are required to register an account with SkyPetr before you can sign in and access the other items. I am not sure I understand that logic other than a means of getting your email address.

Nonetheless, for now I am ok with it. At least I was able to compose this post on my phone!

Proof Positive!!!

I came across irrefutable proof that an Apple is not always a good alternative to Windows:

Ok...so here was the scenario:

I was working in yet another one of our new restaurants and what you're seeing in this picture is what will eventually be a drive-thru window. The drive-thru windows have not yet been installed, so the wooden structure is the solution to keep the windows "closed".

Anyway, out of nowhere, I had this idea to go buy an apple from the convenience store next door (yes, they sell fresh fruit in this convenience store), set it on the window sill and snap a picture and make a joke out of it.

I had another caption I was going to try. "This is what happens when a construction foreman overhears the technical team discussing the possibility of installing an Apple instead of Windows."

Either way, I really thought this was hilarious...I think I laughed about it all dang day....hope y'all get a chuckle out of it!

The Wall Handle Explained!!!

I showed my last blog post to a co-worker and she used THE GOOGLE to find the mysterious handle...(why didn't I think of that???)

Anywho - here it is, in all its glory!

So what is it? It's a handle that you can put on walls or in showers without the need for drilling or screws! DUH!

If you so desire to check out their website since I did use the image off their website, it can be found here.

Now if only I could get the doggone context of the whole infomercial in order, I might win back some of my sanity!

More Silence - And Then Came the Infomercial

Here I am! I've been busy and busy and busy and well...something came up that I just HAVE to share.

For the past week, I have been visiting several of our restaurants before opening time and at closing time to perform some updates to the databases in their registers. This is a fairly arduous task and has been the cause of some sleep deprivation I've had this past week. Every day I have been up some time between 3AM and 4AM (for those of you who are particular about it, that's Central Standard Time), so that I could be in the stores and have the full process completed before they opened their doors at 6. THEN, I would visit a store at 10 and perform the updates and get out of the stores around 12 or 1 (again, central standard time).

There was also work to be done during the day, and I did my best to catch some Z's when I had some down-time, but 2 things kept that from happening: 1) I have a very hard time sleeping during the day and 2) People have a very hard time calling me without making my phone ring. So...even if I did happen to doze off, my phone would ring within a few minutes and wake me up. Even sleeping at night was tough this week because of all the thinking involved in getting this done right - it was hard to turn my brain off when it was actually time to sleep. So most days I was on less than 4 hours of sleep and even one day I was on 1.5 hours of sleep.

I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this except for maybe it sets the stage for the kind of mood I was in this particular morning.

You see, Friday night was the first night I was able to get more than 4 hours of sleep. I probably would have slept until 9 or 10 had my phone not rang at 7:20. I had also taken my pain medicine the night before so I was pretty groggy. But...all in all, I was in a decent mood because I was going to GO HOME (3 Hour drive from where I was).

So I go down for a continental breakfast and sit down with a bagel, some yogurt and a banana. I turn to the large, flat-screen tv mounted on the wall which has the sound turned down. I am watching what appears to be some kind of shopping network or something. I can't really tell what's going on since there's no sound, but usually, one can deduce what's going on in an infomercial, right? WRONG!

There are two people on the screen. One man and one woman. The man appears to be the informercial salesman and the woman appears to be the infomercial oooooooh-and-aaaaahhhh person. I see the man take something that looks like a large phone receiver and stick it to a wall. When I say it looked like a phone receiver, I mean it looked a lot like the photo to the left, except the color was white, there was no cord, and the round parts were much bigger. It looked like some make shift wall-handle. My first thought was, "Oh, yes - because I've always wanted a handle...ON MY WALL!!!!" Funny, yes, but I thought I'd continue watching to see what the purpose for this phone-receiver-looking wall-mountable handle might actually be.

No such luck. The man moved on to another bizarre task. He took 4 or 5 rectangular and brightly-colored sponges and put them on the table in front of the woman. He then takes a chef's knife (as pictured to the right) and presses down on the stack of sponges. I think "Oh - the guy is going to cut sponges with a knife...but what's with the handle on the wall?"

Patiently I wait for the answer to the wall-handle question and continue to push down on the stack of sponges and nothing happens. Well, the sponges compress but there is no cutting going on.

So the guy reaches over and starts sharpening the knife. I think to myself, "Ohhh....he's going to sharpen the knife and THEN cut the sponges. He's selling a knife sharpener! But what's with the handle ON THE WALL????"

So he finishes sharpening the knife and presses the knife down on the sponges. This time quite a bit harder. I'm thinking "If pressing harder did the trick then how am I supposed to know if your sharpener worked, bright guy?"

But, once again, nothing. The woman is smiling and nodding and saying something, but I don't know what. For all I know she could be saying, "If you keep trying to cut the sponges, maybe people won't notice the large plastic handle on the wall right next to me!"

So the guy starts sharpening the knife again. If it's an informercial for the knife sharpener, this is not going well.

So he takes his twice-sharpened chef's knife and pressed down really hard on the sponges this time he starts sawing at the sponges...NOTHING! The woman picks up the top sponge and looks at a tiny cut in the top of it and looks like she's impressed that he was actually able to cut a small slit into the sponge. I'm thinking "Yay, he sharpened it enough to cut a SPONGE; NOW I can use it to cut MEAT! NOW WHAT'S WITH THE HANDLE ON THE WALL?????"

As if to press my insanity over the wall handle to new levels and confuse everything that makes up my mental capacity, the guy then reaches over and picks up a generic can of cola and a square of carpet. "OHHHHH...", I think to myself, "He's selling SPONGES. He's going to make a mess and clean it up!"

So the guy proceeds to dump the entire contents of the can of generic cola onto the square of carpet that is now sitting ont he counter right next to the sponges in front of the woman. "I called THAT!"

Nope!

He then reaches over and picks up a large chamois and starts mopping the cola up off the carpet. At this point I'm thinking "Ok, so the guy is nothing more than a raving lunatic who wants to cut sponges and when that doesn't work he has to throw a tantrum by dumping his soda all over the counter and then feels guilt-ridden enough to mop up the mess...BUT WHAT THE HECK IS WITH THAT FREAKING HANDLE ON THE WALL?????????"

I am sorry to report that I have no idea what that was all about. I don't know why the guy dumped out the soda and mopped it up. I don't know why he tried THREE TIMES to cut a stack of colorful sponges. In fact, had the sound been on, I'd almost be willing to bet that he tried to cut the sponges the woman remarked "WOW! Those are some TOUGH SPONGES!!!" and then he would have replied, "Yeah...too bad they can't clean for CRAP! So here's a chamois!!!"

And...I.DON'T.KNOW.WHY.HE.PUT.A.HANDLE.ON.THE.WALL!!!!!

Please...PLEASE...one of my readers out there...PLEASE tell me that you've seen this infomercial and can fill me in on what it was all about! My mental wellness may very well depend on it!!!

Another Month Later...

Wow! Where has the time gone???

What a silly question. I didn't intend to start my post by contradicting myself, but I got to thinking about that question as I was typing it and thought to myself, "Time doesn't go ANYWHERE!"

I know - I'm a goof. But it's true, you know. Time doesn't go anywhere. Time "stands still" if you will. Time is one of those things that everyone has and you can't save it or store it. You can just use it or waste it. Hopefully how you're satisfied with how you're using your time.

I really didn't mean to go there. How drab!

Anyway - it's been yet another month since my last post. What's Dustin been doing? Where has Dustin been? What's been on Dustin's mind???

Lots.

I've spent quite a bit of time doing the new-store-opening thing. It can be pretty stressful to work on opening 2 restaurants at the same time. And all I have to worry about is the technical side of things! I did develop a new favorite saying during these last two openings, though. I can't really remember what the circumstances were surrounding my comment, but the conversation was surrounding the completion of the equipment installations and whether the employees were ready for the store to open or how they were handling the opening or something. I made the comment "I only installed the equipment. I didn't install the employees." It elicited a laugh and all was well.

A few weeks ago, I jumped on the iPhone bandwagon as well. I have to admit, I was kind of a nay-sayer when the iPhone thing started happening. I saw the phone, I thought it was kinda cool, but really...what was the big freakin' deal???

It's a heck of a phone, that's what!

Seriously - this thing is fantastic. I have only downloaded 2 paid apps, and everything else I have on my phone I downloaded free. I haven't jailbroken my phone and I don't know that I intend to because so far, I'm happy with what I can do with it.

So, I've been working, iPhoning and that's pretty much it.

OH - except for one thing...I just want to whine a little bit about my xbox 360. It got the Red Ring of DEATH. That's right - my xbox 360 died last week. Well - I'm not 100% sure WHEN it died. All I know is that after about a month of no use (because I've been out of town too much to watch movies or play games), we were going to watch a DVD on it last weekend and got the dreaded red ring. The one that lights up 3 of the 4 quadrants with red light and basically means "general hardware failure". It's not as big a deal as it could be because Microsoft declared about a year and a half ago that anyone experiencing this problem within 3 years of the original purchase date will have the problem fixed at no charge because apparently they screwed up when it came to putting these things together properly.

We boxed it up and sent it out yesterday. They told me it'll be 2-3 weeks before I'll see it again. It could be worse, but now we have to move a DVD player in from a different room to watch our DVDs - and it won't be as good because our other DVD player doesn't have composite video or HDMI so now I'm so spoiled that just watching it with a regular dvd player is going to disappoint me...lol

Anyway, I guess that's all I have to say for now. I just thought I'd check in and let my fans (really, Dustin...fans?) know that I'm doing well and have just been really busy. Hopefully I'll be around a bit more for a little while and you can hear more from me really soon!

Oh - and happy December 21st everybody!!! Today is the shortest day (daylight hours) of the year. The sun will start shining longer starting tomorrow! (Well, for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere anyway...)