I’ve been pretty quiet these last couple of weeks. I just haven’t had any thing to write about. I’ve been pretty busy watching Season One of Star Trek and then the Original Star Wars movies. I’ve also over time finally picked up all of the seasons of Futurama on DVD and I just can’t stop watching that show. It’s a shame Fox canceled it.

On the game front I’m still playing World of Warcraft. They just entered phase 4 of beta testing and released a new patch that changed the way tradeskills and regular skills are handled. I finally got the chance to play with a Dark Age of Camelot guildie in WoW. And I look forward for the game getting released so I can play with everyone who will come to the lands of Azeroth.

What else? For about a week and a half I secretly played Sims 2. Now this is a game that I’m embarrassed to admit I play. I played the first one the same way with the curtains drawn and the doors locked. But it’s odd how it grabs you and you just keep playing this damn game. It’s a phenomenon for sure. One that I don’t understand.

I’m also playing the new real time strategy game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and loving it. I never have played the table top version this game is based on. You don’t really need to to enjoy it. The game is very visceral and it’s pretty cool to see the units battle it out. And this game makes the rts genre a little easier to get into. There isn’t a lot of resource gathering to get in the way of the furious combat. This one is a must have for fans of rts games.

The king of no respect died today. I guess the old guy wasn’t doing so well. I’ve always been a fan of his movie Easy Money. Great movie, you can see the trailer here (Needs Media Player). It’s got Dangerfield, Pesci, and the great Billy Joel tune Easy Money in the soundtrack. What more could you want? Here are some Rodney one-liners to give some respect to the guy:

“When we got married, the first thing my wife did was put everything under both names – hers and her mother’s.”

“With my wife, I don’t get no respect. The other night there was a knock on the front door. My wife told me to hide in the closet.”

“With my wife, I get no respect. I fell asleep with a cigarette in my hand. She lit it.”

I hope you get some respect in the afterlife man.

Today I want to talk about browsers. Now I know that the hot browser of the moment is Firefox, because of it’s tabbed browsing and built in popup blocking. And it’s great I guess. But I have honestly never liked Netscape/Mozilla based browsers. I like Internet Explorer. I know that is like a crazy thing to say. But those of you who like IE have a way of getting all of the nifty features of Firefox while using IE. It’s a free browser called Maxthon (formerly known as MyIE2) that is based on the IE rendering engine. Maxthon has just about everything you can want in a modern browser. It’s got tabbed browsing, plugins, and skins, mouse gestures, and a whole lot more. Plus it features a very handy popup blocker as well as content/ad filters.

I also like just some of the ways you can customize the way it works. For example in the options menu in the Maxthon Options there is a Search tab that allows you to do all kinds of nifty stuff. Like being able to setup special searches through the address bar. For example I can preface my text of choice with hb to search my site. It’s all very easy to setup. And I have custom search aliases for the IMDB, Dictionary.com. and the Camelot Herald character search.

Some of the plugins available are also what makes Maxthon my favorite browser. Flash Save is a perfect example. This plugin gives you the ability to view and save Flash files. Another one that is a must have is the Kill Flash Ad and Flying Ad plugin. This one does exactly what it says. You go to a site and one of those fucking annoying flash popups happen you just hit the button for the plugin and whammo it’s gone. Another cool one is for a bookmark script called SiteBar which I have running on my site here. This plugin lets you run this bookmark script in a sidebar. You can get this plugin that works with my SiteBar right here.

There are a lot of rumors going around about who will become the new front desk manager. Of course it just seems like yesterday I was talking about how we had a nice and new front desk manager. But as it goes that nice young lady decided that there are some things more important than working at a third rate hotel franchise. And it really is to bad. Because this lady was one of the better and nicest front desk managers we have had in a long time.

Now I have heard how one ex employee wants to apply for this open position. I’ve written about this topic before and I hate having to repeat myself. The current management will not hire from within the hotel. I know they like to claim otherwise on that subject. But it’s all lies. The last couple of times they hired from outside the hotel. This isn’t going to change. It’s been like this for a long time, with a rare exception now and then.

It’s unfortunate that of all the people that should apply for the front desk manager job probably won’t. And that’s because the experience the last time left such an impression on her I don’t think there is a enough money in the world to get her back. But then I really don’t blame her. For the pay it’s not worth it. The front desk manager is expected to work 50 hours a week. And that’s not including manager on duty shifts. Plus the fact that these poor bastards are salary doesn’t help.

No I feel sorry for whoever they get to fill the position. I don’t think some of these people that want the job realize what it is they will be getting into. And don’t get me wrong. I have a certain amount of respect for them. Just for the fact that I know that it’s not something I can do. I’ve tried it and failed. So anyone who can deal with that kind of bullshit deserves a little respect. But the problem is depending on who is hired the mess they will be coming into. Because depending on who it is, there is a good chance that this future front desk manager is going to have bite off more than she can chew. But you got to learn the hard way sometimes, if you can learn at all.

This bit of news is kinda sad. It’s really fucked up that Superman is dead. To me Christopher Reeve is Superman. I don’t care who else they get to fill the red and blue tights. That guy was Superman. And while I may not really be a huge fan of the DC Comics universe, I do have respect for Superman. I offer the theme song from the classic movie for listening below to honor this great actor (Superman!).

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Now I don’t want to ruin my sensitive guy thing that I worked so hard on establishing through a series of posts that labeled me a “pussy” by Gawain. But this picture below made me laugh my ass off:

And after I was done laughing my ass off I thought to myself stupid bitches.

It sounds like the hunt for my new boss is over with. That is of course if the rumor mill is to be believed and I think this rumor is true. It’s been a long (well not that long) process to find a replacement. There has been a lot of people wanting the job. What kinds of people? People who work here who don’t deserve or qualify for the job. People who used to work here and don’t deserve or qualify for the job. And a person that used to be a good friend who would deserve it and maybe even qualify for it. And of course all of these people that seem to crawl out of the woodwork like cockroaches whenever a management gig is open.

So my new boss is a guy that works at the hotel. This in it’s self is a major achievement. Because despite the hotel saying that one can move forward in rank it never really has been true. It’s one of those fairy tails they tell people to make them think they have a future at the hotel. It has been a number of years and a few management teams ago that anything like this has happened. And the last few front desk managers we have had have never come from inside the hotel.

But this new boss is from inside the hotel. A guy that has earned his stripes you could say. He really is the closest thing to way it used to be. You used start as a bellman and then you work your way up the limited ladder the hotel maintains. And I think these people that have come up that way make better front desk clerks. You get to see more of the place. You know the layout of the hotel from experience and not from looking at a map. You also have a lot more interaction with the guests. Which really is a plus.

As a bellman you kind of drift between two worlds. On one hand your part of the front desk and you see how things work up here. But then your also part of the restaurant and you get to see how that end of the hotel works. You get the opportunity to be yelled at by people in two different areas. Which either proves you can handle it or it shows just how much of a pussy you really are.

And there should be no pussies at the front desk. It can be a horrible job at times. People will tear you a new asshole up here at times. You also have the burden of taking shit for everything that goes wrong in the hotel, thats the way it is. If shit went wrong at the restaurant the front desk hears about it. If some dumb ass maintenance guy couldn’t fix the heating problem you had the front desk hears about it. You need thick skin for dealing with these kinds of assholes (guests) and I’ve seen front desk clerk that have been brought to tears.

All of this really doesn’t matter though. What matters is that I hope this guy remembers where he came from. That he hires and trains people correctly. Because of that happens my job is all the easier. And the less shit I have to put up with the happier I am. But becoming a manager is kind of like becoming a Jedi. There is a good and a bad side. And like being a Jedi the pull to the Dark Side is very strong when it comes to management. It’s easy to forget where you did come from. It’s easy to become one of them. I like to think this won’t happen with this new boss. Now I just have to wait and see.