Tuesdays. The days before the madness day.

Tuesdays have always been one of the weirdest days working for the paper. The calm before the storm of production day.

Six years ago.. when I joined on, it was just hectic. you had a newspaper full of lifers that, aside from J and myself, had never really worked for another newspaper or publication, so they were really used to the idea that if an advertiser came in, blissfully ignorant of, or arrogantly immune to deadlines, they would accommodate. "the client is always right. even when they were wrong", was the motto.

It took me 2 and a half years to shoot that motto down in the face of getting productivity increased and press deadlines hit on time. and by "on time", I mean 4 hours after when they were supposed to be met.

Let me explain a bit. We are a weekly.. and come out on Thursday morning, and this newspaper has had this schedule since 1971. without ever ONCE, missing a press run.

1971. That predated your fucking i-phone, and it predates computer aided digital typesetting, and had a fuckload to do wiyth typeriters and storyboards and waxers and manual paste-ups that were sent down to the press by courier. This is one of the reasons I wanted to work for this newspaper. well.. That and the fact that they didn't throw me out when I showed up for the interview after a 3 JD on the rocks lunch, that they had rescheduled 3 timed over 4 months. I figured I really didn't have much to lose as I had my shit packed to more to Burlington in search of Advertising work once more.

They Hired me.

For good or ill.. they recognized the talent. a bit insane perhaps, defiantly steeped in alcohol, but a talent for cutting through the bullshit, defining time-saving processes, and more importantly, trying to instill a sense of discipline on advertising clients that before my arrival, were treated like ignored , hungry children on Ritalin at an Arby's.

of course it took me over 4 years to do that subtly. imagine steering the queen Mary with a couple of Oars and a bottle rocket.. it would be faster.

Six years ago, we were still building ads on a Wednesday production deadline and not getting out until 11pm.  

Years , and recession later, Between J and I we have cut the time for ad production in half, keeping ad builds to Monday at noon at the latest, and making sure that the blame for getting a paper out the door past 6pm on any given Wednesday would never fall on The Advertising Department. (we prefer to blame editorial for that ;)

Fast forward to today...

My Hours have changed. no longer can I have overtime, Benefits cut. No more Wednesday massages, and no more late night Fridays at the bar with hookers and blow. but alas.. to make up for the extra money that I was making, I am given 3 day weekends. The recession has taken about a third of what I was making, mostly due to my efficiency.

but.. well.. at least I am still employed, and I don't have to go back to diving the snarling agency cesspool of my youth.

Being poor may indeed suck.. but being being rich and miserable sucks even more.

a revival of blogging.

I think i finally found A place where nobody looks. Ia place where I can actually write, without fear of psychosis reply's from weird and strange people. My skirmish with the woodchuck continues. I saw him today.. continuing to dig the hole it started before I ripped the woodpile out. I had the 9 cocked and trained. it just looked at me, with that cute little nose twitching. I couldn't pull the trigger. Instead I gave it a very stern lecture on eating other peoples hard fought crops. he rubbed his whiskers and nodded, but I really don't know if he was just snowing me. I uncocked the 9 and went away.. wagging my finger over my head. There is a reason I keep dropping Facebook. actually.. a lot of fucking reasons. First of all, its an evil bloodsucking whore.. or are those 3 reasons? Facebook is a drug. it really is and you know it. A while back, say 6 years ago, we didn't have it. and it was an insidious technological pill you were given.. thinking " Hey.. what the fuck? its what all the cool kids are doing!".. We even made a generational push. we were not able to get your parents to do a line of coke, but oddly enough, you got your mom on facrbbook. Way to fucking go. A LONG time ago.. we didnt have this. This Social networking. and , I must say, I was the happier for it. I never had someone I hadnt seen in 3 years, who is currently fucking my buddies ex wife, comment on my morning coffee post. Nor should she. Fucking seriously. this shit has gotten out of hand, and if you dont see it, then you are really part of the problem. I am pushing 50. and I am cool with this. I am also cool with the fact that I no longer want to have 129 email messages, informing me of replies on posts, friend requests from people I have no real interest in and scream-fests on political shit I no longer care about. I am pretty much done with this.

BTW I'm Voting For Mccain / Palin

Hello from the Road

My buddy from Iraq.. Justin.

Taste the Convoy

My buddy Justin

Don't Copy That Floppy (HIGH QUALITY version!)

OOh Man I totally forgot about this. Heres one fo da GEEKS!

HAHAHAHAHA

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

Thursdays are my day off, which really confound me, because I HATE time off.

I never know what to do with myself, so I just either fish (which I love) or watch dvd's (which makes me a slug.) sometimes both. you never can tell.

Today, however, I got tons of shit done. in order and completely by accident:

Helped Tiffany , Manager of the vidoe store break down 3 tons of cardboard (not really 3 tons, but you get the point) and take them to recycling.

broke in to a car to retrieve car keys for a stranded motorist. (didn't say to her that I used to do it for a hobby in high school, figured it wasn't the right time.)

helped move bikes for a program for the underprivileged. (My town fucking ROCKS!)

Confirmed My Travel plans for my dads memorial. Including:

Talking to an old HS mate, who I havent seen in 13 years, to pick me up at the PLA airport to drive me . Late night, back to SJ.

Fed a wayward cat.

Helped a friend who was freaking out because she has to move out of her apartment tomorrow, find another apartment.

and helped a bloodworm, that somehow crawled onto the pavement, back onto grass, cuz it was gonna die.

Aint we just big damn heroes.

yes sir we are.

hope your days are going just as well

Stech

stech good day

msj 111 or something like that

Just trying to embed

fucking classic.

Yeah Hillary. I will get RIGHT on that.

people wonder why I am a republican

MSJ 103 - HD Quality

I am testing out this feature of youtube to post directly to various blogs. let me know what you guys think.

Cheers

Stech

The passing of the torch

So Haik commented on the show that I really never update this thing.. and well he is right. I don't.. or at least not as often as I really should, given that most of my day is spent on the computer. So I will make an attempt today, whilst waiting for the production on this weeks paper to begin.

Got an email from Shay this morning, early, letting me know the good news. He will be taking over Peter Freynes Inside Track column over at the 7D. I let him know that I could think of no better choice to replace Peter. Shay's got access, and pith. 2 things you need in stepping into freynes shoes. But he also brings something Peter never really had. and unbiased viewpoint.

So raise yer glasses fellow political junkies. To Shay Totten, the new(old) voice of Vermont
Politics. May his pen never run out of ink, his keyboard never be filled with Pepsi, and his words never fail.

Oh Elliot....

This does not surprise me in the LEAST, given democratic hypocrisy (and yes I KNOW my party has its share, so stop being a fucking dillhole)... but give me a BREAK. How STUPID do you have to be?  Using tracked accounts for hookers? I would have expected better intelligence from elliot.

And given Spitzers support of Da Hill, how will this torpedo her campaign?

Interesting stuff to say the least.

For Haik....

Ok...

Well Haik implied that my blog id not well, read..  And I would have an issue with that. But he may actually have a point. 

So to be scientific, lets have a show of hands. If in the next 2 weeks, this blog gets naught of 15 replies. i will discontinue the blog, in lieu of Haiks comments.

I will of course continue my LJ.. which oddly enough is used much more than Blogspot... which sounds vaguely made up to me.

Reply Away

Obligatory Political post

Well,

Here it is. Prediction time.

Huckabee will surge, but McCain will be the ultimate candidate. he will pick Fred Thompson for VP to solidify Conservative cred.

Obama pulls a slam dunk. chooses Edward's. nothing smells change like a black male prez with a white male VP

Its gonna be a long hot political summer folks. Strap in and enjoy the fucking ride.

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/33364.html

Sometimes Its just too easy

Ron Pauls Skeletons

I was wondering when these skeletons would start falling out. LOL

http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=e2f15397-a3c7-4720-ac15-4532a7da84ca

So. the weekend of hope.

So Have to post about the debates. But I am tired, quite honestly, CSPAN-ed out. I did 73 hours over the last week. fuck you... what did you watch? entertainment tonight?

So I will post a STECH PLUS MINUS METER (with applicable sound-bites)

?/   CANDIDATE VOTE REASON

R Romney N Looks/Sounds like Kerry

R MCAIN Possible Like the new gravitates, better style. very strong on DEF.

D  HILLARY FUCK NO Likes Husbands Girl Skills. Would Bang his Daughter.

R PAUL Possible Likes Isolationist policies. No one has the balls to say what we are thinking save him. and he has gotten all the geeks/weirdoes money. Thats GOTTA say something.

R  THOMPSON  YES I like his style. dont fuck with me on this. Its just a feeling , but I get the sense this guy is the best guy on the field. He seems to be taking the old school approach of telling people what he thinks and where he wants to take the country. No Flash, No advertising. Just your Elder, telling you whats what, and asking you to trust him. I have vetted him. he is solid.

D OBAMA Possible I watched 2 live appearances, 1 live debate, and his wife's speech live on cspan. I am impressed. very fucking impressed. why? sincerity, youth, and change. i get sincerity from Fred. I get change as well. but youth is a possible swing factor. I am 41 years old. and I wonder if my peers are better served by someone younger.

NOT CONVINCED. Just wondering.

those are my thoughts. your thoughts of course are welcomed, but really couldn't care less.

so. Third.

My Boy Thompson comes in third. respectable. I will take it. The race is by no means over. Iowa was worth it just to see hillary punched in the face.