Ahhhhh rain
May. 7th, 2004 07:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisIt has been so dry here and borderline hot (and yeah, my borderline for hot is lower than the rest of the world but they probably don't have Fear of Hot either)... but this morning... cool steady slow Seattle rain. Ahhhhhhh.
The bus takes on a completely different personae in the rain. The windows fog up so you can't see out and all your attention focuses in. I usually read the newspaper in the morning and/or do email. I glance up now and again to check trip progress. But, this morning was a different deal. I had to pay attention to the driver announcements and the people around me - or risk ending up in lordknowswhere. And it seemed more crowded than usual today. The bus life is interesting.
The Mariners won last night. It wasn't easy but they did it. Whew. Yankees tonight.
The staff of TechTV was given notice yesterday that their contracts will end in 60 days. The network was bought by Comcast and is to be merged with Comcast's gaming network. The headquarters is in LA. TechTV HQ is San Francisco. I'm sad to lose these friends - maybe.
As for the other Friends.... I didn't watch it yet or ER. But, Tivo has them ready for me. Oh and I have Love Actually from Netflix. Me and Hugh. I'm saving it.
It's Friday and I'm ready for the weekend. My brother is on his way to Mom's for Mother's Day. He's such a good son.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 08:05 am (UTC)Saw the headline and thought of you
Date: 2004-05-07 10:23 am (UTC)Sweater weather is my favorite, too. But I have to get out in warm weather because if I don't get acclimated little by little I get sick if I caught outside in the heat.
Re: Saw the headline and thought of you
Date: 2004-05-07 10:29 am (UTC)Re: Saw the headline and thought of you
Date: 2004-05-08 12:36 am (UTC)Our sales are off...
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 12:18 pm (UTC)Go Mariners, especially for the next three days.
As for the other Friends.... I didn't watch it yet or ER. But, Tivo has them ready for me.
Since the Red Sox game was over well before 10:00, we watched ER in real time, and I'm glad we did, because Friends ran over about 5 minutes (or something did, anyway), which our VCR would not have coped with. Hopefully TiVo can deal with this.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 12:24 pm (UTC)And, yes, I figured NBC would pull a fast one so I set Tivo to record both Friends hours and then go 5 minutes over on the end of ER. Hopefully I got it all. NBC drives me nuts with this kind of thing.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-05-07 02:54 pm (UTC)Several years ago I was doing a contract programming job, along with several other contractors, for a business. During the course of work, the business was sold. The day before the actual transfer, the owner terminated all of us. The next day, the new owner re-hired all of us. It was simply a bookkeeping procedure.
There is, of course, one big catch to my optimism. Comcast has made it clear that anyone who stays on will have to relocate, probably on their own dime, to Los Angeles. I could see the younger members of the staff, like Kevin and Sarah, etc, doing that, and in fact I hope they do. But I don't think the older more "rooted" members of staff, like Leo, would even consider something like that.
I must admit some sadness here, although I am trying to remain hopeful. I started watching "The Screensavers" with show number 1 when I still lived in Louisville. When I moved here to the sticks, the local cable system did not carry TechTV (then ZDTV). Two days before I moved in, I drove up here and installed a Dish Network satellite system specifically because I wanted to make sure I had unbroken ZDTV so I could watch "The Screensavers".
But no matter what, I'll still have my nudie pictures of Cat :-)
TechTV wind down
Date: 2004-05-08 01:27 am (UTC)The expected schadenfreude is a little disappointing...But then again it's been almost two years since they laid me off. I've long since moved on.
From what I've been told, the next 60 days will be the wind down period for the San Francisco facilities...Then it's lights out.
The current morale at TechTV is obviously hitting the shitter.
The severance package for exiting employees is the same crappy one offered over the last two waves of layoffs: 2 weeks pay for the first year and one week's pay for each additional year.
No information on whether the upper management received golden parachutes yet.
For those back-end and studio support TechTV employees who apply to and accept the 80-100 positions at G4, there is no relocation assistance available. Offering those positions to the laid-off TechTV employees first is also a formality of the WARN act. Unless said employees have a pantload of savings, I doubt most of them have the wherewithal to make the move.
While the jobs situation in San Francisco has improved over the last two years...The market sucks. Expect 3/6/9 months unemployment for low/middle/high-end employees. It's still a nasty time to be unemployed in San Francisco.
The TechTV familiars...Leo, Patrick, et al...Will probably be negotiating new contracts individually with G4: Including moving costs or SF to LA commuting COLAs.
And that's all I've got from the grapevine! ;P
http://blort.meepzorp.com/fenestration/badgerphone.swf
Re: TechTV wind down
Date: 2004-05-08 08:20 am (UTC)But the banana phone website was a fabulous way to kick off my Saturday!! It cracked me up.
It reminded me of an incident several years ago. I was in a grocery store and there was a little boy riding in the cart giving his mother all kinds of crap. And starting to wear on my nerves as well. The Mom whipped her cart over to produce and pulled off a banana and handed it to the kid. He was so happy. My first thought was that she should have peeled the thing for him but before I could finish the thought he had the banana cupped from his ear to his mouth and he was talking into very happily. I saw them at the check out later and he was still on his banana phone call.