I wasn’t able to catch Maxed Out in theaters, but you can be certain that I’ll be buying this one on DVD. After all of the trailers I’ve watched and reviews I’ve read, every person in America should be watching this documentary.
This is a clip form the government’s elected official math study course – required for each incoming elected official.
A Romanian news site is reporting that a Audit Manager for Ernst & Young’s Romanian branch died – allegedly from overworking.
The woman, Raluca Stroescu, was 32 years old when she was found dead at home at the end of last week after not showing up at work. Although the exact cause of her death is not yet known, colleagues say she worked herself to death.
According to www.evz.ro, coroners do not exclude the possibility, saying the most probable cause for her death is the combination of stress, lack of sleep, and exhaustion.
The last one to see her alive was her doorman who said he helped her climb the stairs. “She could barely walk, she could not even carry a plastic bottle”, the man said.
But the saddest part of this story? The only reason she was found is because she didn’t show up for work on Saturday morning, and her boss came looking for her. I’m quite certain her boss came looking for her, not to see if she was ok, but to find out why she was slacking off.
Hmmm…
Makes me think twice about my future career in public accounting… and working at Ernst & Young 
For those who know me, and might actually read this, I am the proud father of twin girls. They can be a handful at times (just ask my wife) but they are also the biggest joy in my life.
Today, K (I’ll call them K and M) woke up from her nap early and managed not to wake up her sister, with her usual, “Wake up sissy! Wake up!” routine. So I decided to take K with me to run a few errands – shop for some hiking shoes, stop at Costco, and run by the grocery store. I love the little outings like this because it allows me to spend time with the girls one on one and they are also usually more well behaved when the other is not around to scheme with
After the stop at REI we drove to Costco and I put K into the cart.
“Where sissy sit?” she asked.
I tried to explain that M was still at home sleeping, but she just didn’t get it. She kept asking, “where sissy sit?” It wasn’t until then that I realized how little time they spend apart from each other. And K, being the older sister, has always been concerned with “sissy” – wondering where she’s going to sit, if she has something too, etc.
Then, as if to drive the point home ever further, after we were done with Costco she turned to me and said, “I miss sissy. I miss sissy so much”
I about died! I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry!
I always think of the girls as “normal” and never really think about the unique situation they’re in being twins. I guess if I spent every waking moment (and sleeping ones too) with someone, I would probably miss them after 30 minutes apart. Or maybe I wouldn’t, and that’s what makes kids so much better than us adults.
My friend just introduced me the my new favorite messaging app – Meebo.
Because I’m never at the same client location for very long, my web proxy settings are always changing and I never have very good luck running AIM behind the myriad of different firewalls. Enter Meebo.
Meebo is different from other messaging apps because it’s completely web-based. Simply login to Meebo.com and a web-based instant-messenger appears that you can then pop out of the window to behave just like any other messaging client. And, if you have multiple IM accounts, you can sign up for a Meebo account (free) and then login to AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, Jabber, and Google Talk all at the same time! This concept isn’t new, but the way Meebo has allowed anyone to login to their favorite messaging client (or all of them) form anywhere in the world with an internet connection is just brilliant!
Oh, and I almost forgot! If you’re worried about security, or your company’s local IT guy spying on your conversations, simply login to https://www.meebo.com (the extra ’s’ stands for “secure”) and you’ll be connected to a secure version of the client which keeps your conversation on the Meebo server instead of yours. Simply brilliant!
As Adobe announced its new lineup of CS3 flavors, I couldn’t help but feel a little confused. The myriad of options reminded me too much of the dozens of flavors of Vista that Microsoft came out with recently. I’m all about choices for consumers… but there’s a point when too many choices just breeds confusion. So since Microsoft and Adobe seem to have adopted the same business model, I figured why not join together and combine Vista with CS3 – offering consumers 4,232 configurations of vista flavors and CS3 versions.
But straw that tipped the scales in my little theory was my attempt to use Adobe Acrobat Professional during work today. After a lengthy boot time, I was prompted (again) to update the software which had accumulated 4 updates from the last time I had used it… yesterday. It was then that it hit me how bloated and heavy Adobe Acrobat was. Similar to many Microsoft products, the software started out great – useful, fast, innovative, small – but then grew in features and menus and widgets to scare any normal user.
So with both companies offering too many product options to count and both companies offering about a dozen updates a week… their combination would be a match made in heaven, wouldn’t it?
I never watched Battlestar Galactica until about 4 weeks ago because, well, it was for geeks. But not just for any geeks – because everyone knows I’m a geek myself – but for the nerdiest of the nerds. In fact, when other TV shows need to illustrate just how geeky someone is… they include a reference to Battlestar Galactica. But I can’t make fun of the show anymore… because I’m hooked.
While browsing through iTunes about a month ago I came across a season “recap” episode for free – which outlined everything that had happened in the show up to that point, and I became totally hooked. In fact, I immediately downloaded the rest of season 3 and frantically caught up.
I think the show appealed to me because although it’s Science Fiction and deals with aliens and spaceships and all that – it’s not really that futuristic and doesn’t get too deep into the science fiction part of the show. I would describe it, instead, as a soap opera for guys. The show is really about the drama and struggle of what’s left of the human race trying to make their way to a planet called “Earth” after their world was destroyed by the Cylons – an alien race. It doesn’t get into the details of how the ships function, or how they are able to “jump” from place to place. This is much different from Star Trek, for example, which spent a lot of time describing how the warp coils worked or the transporter functions.
Anyway, I watched the season 3 finale today without even knowing that it was the season finale.. but it did not disappoint! In the last 10 minutes there were a ton of stuff that was revealed but enough questions left open to make it a great cliffhanger. I don’t want to reveal anything for those who haven’t seen the show… but I would highly recommend you give the show a chance. Go download an episode or two on iTunes and give it a shot – I think you might like it!
It was only a few months ago that I changed the design of JasonGuthrie.net, but I am already tired of it – so it’s time for a new outfit!
Not only is this a new look and feel for the site, but the main focus is going to be this blog. Although I am still actively blogging at BeancounterBlog.com as well as The Apple Blog, I’ve needed a place lately where I can put my “random” thoughts down.
So now I’ll be able to write about everything from my thoughts on politics to my feelings about this week’s episode of The Office. But the best part about this new blog is the fact that I’m writing it for myself, so I don’t really care about who reads it. I don’t have to worry about search-engine optimization (SEO) or advertising, because this blog is for me. I’ll be able to practice my writing skills and talk about things that I really want to – and at the same time avoid studying for the CPA exam
