Lotsa flotasum
Sep. 6th, 2007 11:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisI've had about 58 different 'that's an entry' thoughts through my head this morning. Most have gone out the other side. But some have stuck.
I wish so many of my friends would make their entries public. I read something interesting and want to share it only to see that dreaded little lock above the entry. Poop. Plus, when I look around for new LJ's to dip into, they are hard to find. I'm not going to request to be added to a friend list if I have no clue what the journal is about or even if I want to read it. Just poop.
Today is the annual Microsoft Employee Meeting day. This affects me in two different ways... The meeting is now held at Qwest Field and so my neighborhood is full of Microsofties and I had to make sure I didn't have anywhere I needed to go in the car. Plus, since all of my work these days is for our Microsoft account, most of my clients are gone for the day. Not all, though. One blew off the meeting and a couple are not actual employees so they don't go.
I was raised on corporate come to jesus meetings the purpose of which is to share the koolaide and mostly I get a kick out of them. For years I wrote the speeches so I even know the words. I only went to a couple of Microsoft's when I was an employee and I remember them as being exceptionally well done. Plus you got food and a take home present. I remember a couple of years ago when I worked across the street - you could see the sidewalk from my desk. That was the year the take home present was a fleece blanket and in the afternoon there turned out a flood of people walking down the street with blankets - it was a bit odd looking.
---
A while back I signed up for the beta program for Oberon Games. I only vaguely remember doing that but today I got a request to try one out. Fun! Their games are all old lady games - match 3's and solitaire and stuff. I'm their target audience for sure.
Unlike Live Journal. I signed up for their survey program a while back - can't remember why. Every once in a while I get an email asking me to take a survey. I answer about 12 pages of questions on a website and then get to the last page to be told I'm not their target audience. I've now started saving them the trouble of delivering me the bad news.
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My financial adviser started - about a year and a half ago - putting my money (this is my retirement you'll-never-have-to-live-in-your-car anti-bag-lady money to hire people to take care of me in my old age money) into foreign investments. Brazil and China and Spain and I forget where all else. He gets the big bucks for remembering, I just have to listen and pretend I understand and occasionally exclaim 'wow! that's wonderful!'. Anyway... he calls me about once every 6 weeks to check in and today was his check in. He's so cute. While he's on the phone, I hurry to the website and log in to check on my accounts so I can better follow along. They are doing surprisingly well. While my little Ameritrade account of sentimental stocks has, of course, taken a recent licking, the stuff he's in charge of has done amazingly well. The money he put into some Brazilian thing gave me an 18% return over the last 12 months. Holy crap. I'm going to be able to hire nurses who have been trained instead of teenagers looking to rip me off. Thank you Brazil.
--
Time to get back to work so I can finish up and then play my new game but first... lunch!
I wish so many of my friends would make their entries public. I read something interesting and want to share it only to see that dreaded little lock above the entry. Poop. Plus, when I look around for new LJ's to dip into, they are hard to find. I'm not going to request to be added to a friend list if I have no clue what the journal is about or even if I want to read it. Just poop.
Today is the annual Microsoft Employee Meeting day. This affects me in two different ways... The meeting is now held at Qwest Field and so my neighborhood is full of Microsofties and I had to make sure I didn't have anywhere I needed to go in the car. Plus, since all of my work these days is for our Microsoft account, most of my clients are gone for the day. Not all, though. One blew off the meeting and a couple are not actual employees so they don't go.
I was raised on corporate come to jesus meetings the purpose of which is to share the koolaide and mostly I get a kick out of them. For years I wrote the speeches so I even know the words. I only went to a couple of Microsoft's when I was an employee and I remember them as being exceptionally well done. Plus you got food and a take home present. I remember a couple of years ago when I worked across the street - you could see the sidewalk from my desk. That was the year the take home present was a fleece blanket and in the afternoon there turned out a flood of people walking down the street with blankets - it was a bit odd looking.
---
A while back I signed up for the beta program for Oberon Games. I only vaguely remember doing that but today I got a request to try one out. Fun! Their games are all old lady games - match 3's and solitaire and stuff. I'm their target audience for sure.
Unlike Live Journal. I signed up for their survey program a while back - can't remember why. Every once in a while I get an email asking me to take a survey. I answer about 12 pages of questions on a website and then get to the last page to be told I'm not their target audience. I've now started saving them the trouble of delivering me the bad news.
--
My financial adviser started - about a year and a half ago - putting my money (this is my retirement you'll-never-have-to-live-in-your-car anti-bag-lady money to hire people to take care of me in my old age money) into foreign investments. Brazil and China and Spain and I forget where all else. He gets the big bucks for remembering, I just have to listen and pretend I understand and occasionally exclaim 'wow! that's wonderful!'. Anyway... he calls me about once every 6 weeks to check in and today was his check in. He's so cute. While he's on the phone, I hurry to the website and log in to check on my accounts so I can better follow along. They are doing surprisingly well. While my little Ameritrade account of sentimental stocks has, of course, taken a recent licking, the stuff he's in charge of has done amazingly well. The money he put into some Brazilian thing gave me an 18% return over the last 12 months. Holy crap. I'm going to be able to hire nurses who have been trained instead of teenagers looking to rip me off. Thank you Brazil.
--
Time to get back to work so I can finish up and then play my new game but first... lunch!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 07:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 07:37 pm (UTC)I understand that some people just need and/or want to shut out the public but I just wish more didn't.
But lovely of you to offer.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 08:06 pm (UTC)I just turned all but the most innocuous entries to friends only, as I'll be looking for a job soon and I don't want prospective employers to think I'm cranky and disgruntled or anything.
Oh, and on the fleece blankies: funny you mention it, we just unpacked our yellow one this morning, where it served us well as packing filler. Now the cats get it, but they prefer darker fleece to sit on for whatever reason. The other one was red--that's long gone. Red fleece just isn't all that attractive.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 08:09 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 08:23 pm (UTC)Sitting in those metal seats at Safeco when it's 45 degrees out was no fun at all!
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 10:50 pm (UTC)Live Journal's target demographic group is 15-24 year old female (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveJournal). (After looking at the the perks of owning a pay account (http://www.livejournal.com/site/accounts.bml), it ain't *my* demographic) A couple of years ago they were encouraging users to add their year of birth to the profile so they could better estimate age.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 11:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-06 11:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-07 01:39 am (UTC)Re Microsoft: They should get their acts together over here with George. Not only do we not get the awesome benefits package we were promised when his company was bought, but he doesn't get the goodies either. They order Papa John's when they're having food in the office. George is very unimpressed. Worse yet, when they say they're giving away a Zoon at the fancy "Welcome to Microsoft part, (is that what you call it? their iPod competator.) they mean one. Which was a door prize type drawing, and went to one of the VPs who probably made 2 million on the deal. Yeah, not impressed.
Re Finances: George keeps telling me now is a terrible time to travel abroad because the dollar is doing so poorly. Apparently your finance guy has been giving George advice.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-07 01:43 am (UTC)fancy "Welcome to Microsoft" party,
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-07 06:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-07 08:05 am (UTC)I was mostly pleased with the thank you for applauding the executives freebies at the Evil Empire. Ones I can think of: logo travel alarm clock, logo wrist watch, non-logo 7×35 binoculars.
I've done some game testing too. I played the open beta of Everquest (tedious), Asheron's Call (crashy), some Age of Empires sequel (sweet!), a train simulator (surprisingly fun), and various others. Most interesting was when I did the close-observation testing (on some space shooter that must have been killed). Besides being an interesting experience, I got a copy of Visual Studio as a gratuity for participating. Eventually it seemed like all that screener calls I got were for shooter games, which bore me, and they scratched me off the tester list.
Our financial advisor has been doing a good job too. He's switched companies twice because of mergers (and changed letterhead quite a couple more times for mergers that didn't displace him). We've stuck with him, since the quality of advice goes more with the advisor than the company.
(no subject)
Date: 2007-09-07 07:27 pm (UTC)