The October Sexperiment and Blogger's Rules, Part Deux

I should warn you- it's been my experience that sequels are generally not as good as the originals. I share a home with at least 3.0 videots... um, the math and logic get really fuzzy here, as I am video-challenged in comparison to the others in our home. Our oldest son is truly "the little professor" when it comes to all things video; his areas of expertise include anime, action films and the weapons in these movies,  as well as soundtracks and is an almost on a par with The Oracle of Bacon when it comes to connecting actors, actresses, producers and directors. Jennifer's film knowledge is more mainstream, and includes a lot of small-screen (television) knowledge as well. Mr.T reserves his Sunday nights for video entertainment. In selecting his video entertainment, he will consider suggestions from his interwebz posse as well as the three of us. He has one overriding rule: if it's a series- movie or television-  he will not watch it out of order.

Me? I want to enjoy a movie- I like explosions, gunplay and special effects, as well as clever dialogue. I love parodies, and every time I say "Part Deux", its my homage to Hot Shots! Part Deux, which was probably the finest sequel ever produced. Period. Hot Shots! was an excellent example of a parody, but somehow Part Deux eclipsed it. In the realm of movies that had only one sequel (that is, not being a trilogy or a "franchise"), Part Deux stands head and tail feathers above the rest (*movie reference). Of  movies which were trilogies, Part Deux  blows away The Empire Strikes Back, steals the thunder from Back to the Future Pt 2, and ... The Two Towers? Really! I'm a Tolkien fan, and while the movie is beautifully done, it is STILL a second. Our daughter was reading the trilogy, and I asked her what book she was reading.  "The Two Towers," she innocently replied. Nonchalantly, I swooped in for the kill and asked, "Are you at the part where they're walking through forest*?" "YES!," she replied, "how'd you know?"

(*For those who have never read it, it seems that approximately 50% of this book is spent walking through the forest).

So here I sit, writing a Part Deux to a blog.

The original blog did quite well, but it strangely enough was actually a commentary on an earlier blog. I just took a look at the numbers, and the last two blogs are getting slightly better numbers than previous blogs, and I've received a relatively disproportionate number of hits from China and France, but to be painfully honest, I've never written a blog before about implied sexual escapades, and I'm not sure I could even do a reasonably entertaining sex blog. The only stab in the dark I can make about the increased views from China and France is that sex sells bigger there, Or not... after all, this IS the interwebz,

It's a good thing for me that this blog's unifying theme is data.

On the blog side of data, I just wanted to reiterate that sex does seem to work. In all honesty, I did enjoy the wordplay, but I don't see  myself writing another piece like that anytime soon.

Getting back to data, it's autumn here in North America, and Jennifer and I separately came to the conclusion that some cleaning and organization were long overdue. A couple weeks ago, I moved some file cabinets from the basement to a more strategic location, and yesterday we discussed updating our filing in earnest. We picked up some additional supplies at Sam's, and are now officially loaded for (filing) bear.

In the database part of data,I just finished updating the Media_Title table with a couple shelves' worth of data, bring the Media_Title count to nearly 1K. That's not hugely impressive by most standards, but I'm pleased for a couple of reasons. First, I'm getting back to putting time into the care and feeding of the database, and second- the database is helping me to better organize the physical media that I'm cataloging. I've cataloged approximately 40% of our known digital video titles; once these are done, I'll tackle the VHS, and then its time for music, and then Daniel's anime.

And then games. Ugh. To paraphrase Kurtz' most excellent soliloquy in Apocalypse Now, "I've played games, games that you've played. But you kave no right to call me a gamer." 

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.

My night in a cage with a hot woman

My life is pretty conventional- boring by some standards, I suppose. In a few weeks, Jennifer and I will celebrate our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary (yay, us!). Well, all things considered, maybe we're not conventional in that sense. Conventional more in the manner of Bilbo Baggins: no drama, no adventures. We mean what we say and we say what we mean.

This past Wednesday night was different, though- at least for me.

I work nights, of course. I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but the "double-wide in the sky" is a secured office. Our entire facility is secured, of course, requiring credentials just to enter the building, but because of the nature of the work and the data that is handled in my department, there is additional security. I naturally can't go into the specifics, but only a small percentage of employees in the plant can simply walk in.

Chloe (not her real name, but in certain circles it might be thought of as exotic and sexy) came up to the office Wednesday night and knocked on the door. As she is well-known in the plant, she was admitted.

I should also mention that our plant is quite noisy, and I have a rather large fan on my desk because the HVAC in our office is challenged, to be polite. I was engaged in a project, and between the noise of the factory and my fan, I didn't hear the short conversation that took place between Chloe and Hagar (also not a real name- he asked to remain anonymous!), even though his desk is barely 15' (~5M) away  from mine. Out of the corner of my left eye I thought I saw something apprehensive in his face, and then he gestured toward me. She seemed to sashay  over from Hagar's desk to mine. She was casual but comfortable in her walk. The clap of her dust spotted, stained, steel-toed black boots seemed to accent her faded, form-fitting blue jeans and ink-stained t-shirt. I looked up, and she explained what she needed in her been-around-the-world alto voice. I looked up at Hagar, and he gave me that all-knowing "a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do" look. I said to her, "Sure."

I pushed my work aside, and we went off to the cage. This was the first time in my life that I'd ever been alone with someone of the opposite sex in any cage, and this one was watched 24/7 by cameras. In the harsh fluorescent  lighting, I could see the glitter of the gold pixie dust on her face mixed with sweat which accented her plaintive eyes.  When we arrived, she showed me her problem: her box. I hoped no one was watching (remember, there are cameras everywhere). I grabbed the box, and gently blew on it. Some- okay, a lot of dust came off, but the LED on the front panel continued to flash yellow. Paraphrasing the spokesperson from a popular Dell commercial from several years back, I said, "Dude! You got a Dell!" Even though her problem was not fixed, she laughed at this.

I'm not an A+ technician... in the real world where I work, HR doesn't even know what to do with me and my coworkers, so I like to think of myself as semi-I.T. On a good day I'm not too bad at problem-solving, so I thought this through: if I had a PC with a flashing yellow light under the power button that wouldn't boot- what would I do? The best answer that came to mind was this: untangle the spaghetti mess in the back of the PC: USB, power, Ethernet, and monitor cables all snaking around each other like in an Indiana Jones movie.

However, in the real world of home and church, I do provide technical support, so I did what anyone would have done: I got rid of the spaghetti mess. I unplugged EVERYTHING from the back of the PC, and then, after untangling the cable mess under the table, I blew on the all of the I/O ports and reinserted each cable.

I was not surprised when the PC booted normally.

She thanked me, and I returned to Data Services and my waiting project.

It is said that "sex sells". Well, to be perfectly honest, I don't really know how to write about sex- this little true story was my first foray into "off-color" writing- I hope a few laughs came out of it.

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.