ADD day!

So - after the posting about coffee, I was dismayed to discover that the people I was lunching with don't drink coffee! One even had the effrontery to state that he'd never had a cup in his life! OMG - have you been living under a rock?! But wait - while my friend doesn't drink coffee, he is addicted to energy drinks... and what is the primary component for providing energy? That's right! Our good friend caffeine!

Another of my favorite chemicals starting with "C" is capsaicin - the stuff in hot sauce that burns! Recently (well - sort of recently, Feb 2007) a new "hottest chili in the world" was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records - the Bhut Jolokia. Rated at over 1 Million Scovilles (the measure of capsaicin and therefore heat) - your average jalapeño is somewhere between 2,500 and 10,000 scovilles - the Bhut Jolokia almost doubles the scoville rating of the previous world record holder. Sounds fantastic no? :) I'm going to have to see about ordering some and growing them at home... use them to frighten small children and stop those damn llamas eating my grass..

It's ADD day here at Adam's Allegory - was mutually assured destruction ever a good idea? Remember the cold war? well - maybe not "remember", but remember hearing about the cold war? Stock piling weapons because everyone thought if several major super-powers had enough ordinance to destroy the others several times over, noone would want to risk attacking anyone else? stupid idea - all it would have taken was one mistake, one misunderstanding and the whole world could have been wiped out. Morons.

In keeping with the theme - when will the bottled water fad finally end? How many people realize the vast quantities of waste this is producing? I'm all for having good tasting water in handy containers, but when you're throwing away 30 of those containers each week, you're really not helping...

Environmental rant over - more amusing things next week!

Coffee, coffee, coffee

I love coffee - not just like - true, deep, sweaty, slightly disturbing love. I, along with many similarly addicted people around the world, do not do well without atleast 3 or 4 cups of coffee each and every day. I start the morning with a giant tub of the stuff that I usually finish before I reach the interstate - a good thing for all other motorists I'm sure.

I sometimes wonder where we would be without coffee - people being people, you know there would be another source of caffeine that everyone would be addicted to. The only one springing to mind being tea. Tea is not a beverage for the impatient. A good brew takes at least 2 minutes - way too long for your average addict - while coffee can be done in seconds (espresso even faster!). Would that make the world a calmer place, or would we simply leverage all of our technological advancements into brewing tea quicker? Would an espresso machine work well with tea leaves?

I've always wanted to try Russian tea - hot from a samovar - concentrated, strong, enough caffeine to put hair on your eyeballs. But, I'll never give up my coffee addiction. Coffee seems to enhance ADD - I like pie! Look! A bike! Let's fly kites! (fun!) There is serious argument for coffee being the most addictive substance on earth - it doesn't hurt you, gives you a buzz, makes you 9,000% more productive and is served on pretty much every street corner thanks to delightful capitalist enterprise from small mid-western towns!

I can type so fast, I can't see my fingers - but only after my 5th coffee (after the 9th I start moving backwards in time).

Coffee video:

Positive tracks...

Well - after a slew of reviews from the two of you who actually read my blog, I am amazed to discover that people agree with me about the whole bathroom privacy and anonymity issues! This shocking development further emboldens me to continue waxing lyrical about all manner of salubrious happenings and turn this blog truly into an allegory of monumental proportions! (how many times did I refer to a thesaurus for that last line?)

Let me pull us away from contemplations of a scatological nature and steer us instead towards an incomplete and wholly biased consideration of bluetooth earpieces. A more asinine invention I have yet to experience (with the possible exception of the lap-pillow) - who in their right minds wants to wander around looking like they are talking to themselves? How do I know if you're talking to me or on your phone?

Then there are those who insist on wearing them even when they're not using them! I was out for dinner with my wife last week and bore witness to a bridal shower where the bride and several of her (presumable) bridesmaids were wearing the things! Is it that important that you be ready to answer a call before it has reached the end of the first ring?! Can the person calling you not wait the extra two seconds for you to pull your phone from your pocket / handbag? I'm sorry, but the 'bling' value of these chunky, flashing, distracting hunks of plastic crap is right down there with the chromed spinners on daddy's new SUV.

Rant over - bring on the morphing kitties:

I'm told it gets easier...

On my second coffee already and it's not even 9... I foresee a future of many many bathroom breaks - should help break up the day at least. Always interesting in the men's room - most people don't even seem to think about it, but you can tell a lot about a person by their bathroom habits... For instance, what does it say about a guy when he's using a urinal and grunting every two to three seconds? Who spends time actually washing their hands, and who just rinses? Does anyone in the stall actually make noise while someone else is in the room? (I for one do not - something obscene about others listening to your bowel movements... maybe if I was French)

Bathroom visits are an almost clandestine event - you don't want anyone to see you go in, hear you while you're there, or leave behind any evidence that you've been there. The whole ninjitsu training system may well have been developed by embarrassed Japanese warlords in their paper latrines.

Then there are the obnoxious few who apparently don't feel any need to be quiet or private about this mid-day ritual - talking to others in the room, letting loose with painful sounding grunts and groans, or making phone calls. Who the hell wants to get a call from someone on the toilet?! Can't you wait? Is it really that important? Then they're not only embarrassing anyone else who comes in the room, but they're making the people on the other end of the line uncomfortable too:

Obnoxious one: So do you want to go out this Friday?
Victim: I'd love to...
...flush...
Victim: Where the hell are you?
Obnoxious one: erm.... at church?

WTF?!

In the beginning was the word...

I never know how to start something like this... I'm not one for sharing my innermost thoughts with anyone and everyone, so why did I start this blog? I recently started a new career track, Project Management - maybe that accounts for it!

The wonderful world of Project Management! I've been heading in this direction for a while and now that I'm here, I'm not entirely sure what I should be doing! My organization has been great - they've sent me on training courses, are providing me with on-the-job training, and are easing me into my new duties slowly but surely... but I can't help thinking "am I missing something?". It could just be my newly-developed OCD, but I keep thinking they're paying me too much for the amount of work I'm churning out right now!

I'm spending my days reading about the various and sundry PM methodologies and trying to envision their use in our organization... A few of my favorites so far (in no particular order):

• Agile (yes, i know this covers a gamut of methodologies, but I like the overall feeling)
• Rational Unified Process
• Critical Chain Management
• BRUF (Big Requirements Up Front) with Charrettes

But how to use them in our organization and business unit...?