Okay, first up, check out the fat gut there. How come nobody ever told me I was such a fat fuck? Maybe I should start binging on Subway so I can be a skinny fuck like Jared. This just goes to show you that I definitely need to work out. This is just disgusting.

Okay, so I went to SQL Server administration training last week. I learned lots of stuff, but here’s the primary set of stuff I gained from going to training:

First, going to training is like being on fucking vacation. Not having to go in to work, not having to deal with bitchy users all day, not having to troubleshoot crappy products or fix things I didn’t break and/or have nothing to do with… it’s brilliance. It’s like a nonstop party. Maybe I should be paid to go to training all day.

Second, while I absolutely hated school - both high school and college

• I dig the whole technical training gig. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m learning something I see value in, or maybe it’s that I’m learning things that I find interesting. Maybe both. The fact of the matter is, training classes are so vastly better than school I can’t begin to explain it. They should offer training classes instead of school. That’d rock.

Third, there’s a hell of a lot of stuff I have no idea about regarding database administration. There’s a lot of cool stuff out there that would make my day loads simpler, and I don’t know a damn thing about it. Going to the class was like this epiphany - all sorts of cool stuff I can implement that will make things run generally smoother and possibly shut some of the whiny users up. It just doesn’t get much better than that.

So, besides training, what’d I do all week?

Well, Jenn and I rented The Ring and Rocky on Friday night. The Ring was pretty good - more a psychological/image-oriented horror film than a slasher flick - and it was sorta freaky. Jenn’s sister called us at exactly the wrong moment in the movie and both of us screamed. I had only seen small clips of Rocky, and after talking about it with a friend of mine at the hockey game, I had to rent it to see for myself. How was it? Hmmm… Well, it won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1976 and I reflected on that for a while after seeing the movie… where were the standards in 1976? Best Picture, for crying out loud! Heads up our asses, man, heads up our asses.

Went to the last two Winter Hawks games of the regular season on Saturday and Sunday. I’m really glad the season’s over; I’m not going to go to the playoff games because I’ve been waiting so long for this season to end - I’m glad to finally have some free time to do stuff again. I’ll miss my hockey friends, but hopefully we’ll hang out during the off-season. I gave my friend Jerry my email address and phone number, maybe we’ll get together and watch the other four Rocky movies. Who knows?

Bought a couple of CDs in my off-time: Garbage - beautifulgarbage and Quarashi - Jinx. Both are good in their own right, though I’m sort of listening to them and hoping on a level that they grow on me a bit more. The Quarashi disc reminds me of Rage Against the Machine, which is fine, but I like them better because they’re not so politically-oriented as Rage is. The Garbage disc… there are a couple of really good ones on there, but for the most part it feels like they’re trying too hard to “be original” or some crap and rather than putting out good music they’re focusing on liberating their artistic creativity. Eh. If you do get that one, check out the remix program for your computer that comes on the disc. It’s really cool.

Got a call on the Friday before last from my mom telling me that my grandfather (mom’s dad) was in the hospital after having another heart attack. I rushed in to see him laying in the ICU, telling jokes and flirting with the nurses. He was out a couple of days later. In the scheme of things, as heart attacks go, it wasn’t that big of a deal. I’m glad he’s okay; I think he’s pretty well indestructible, and I like it that way.