Thursday, February 15, 2007
Getting Caught Up on 24
My lack of 24 coverage has been appalling of late. A lot of that has to do with how busy I’ve been at work. I just haven’t had any down time to talk about 24 on Tuesdays. And usually by Wednesday, I’ve completely forgotten about what happened. I don’t really remember what happened, but I figured that shouldn’t stop me from writing about it. Enjoy. Just don’t blame me if I screw up the details.
First of all, I was quite a bit upset that they killed off Jack’s brother. He was such a lovable character. He was a complete weenie, but he was also completely evil. So you could never tell if he was being honest or not. You also couldn’t imagine what he’d say next. Nothing was too evil for him to do. Kill the President? No problem. Sell biological weapons to terrorists? Why not? Send my brother to a Chinese prison to be tortured? Of course! A character like this will surely be missed.
Fortunately, his death was actually interesting in that it was committed by none other than his father. In the previews for next week, Jack finds out that his father isn’t such a nice guy. So Jack’s going to go after him. Oh, and he’s being helped by his sister-in-law, who he had a thing for (or an affair with) several years ago. Oh, and Jack’s father is holding his grandson hostage. I can’t remember. Is 24 set in modern day Los Angeles or ancient Athens? If Jack sleeps with some lady and it turns out that she’s actually his mother, causing him to cut out his eyes and wander the world, I’m going to have to stop watching.
One of the plot developments is that everybody’s favorite office worker, Chloe, has her ex-husband (Morris) get kidnapped by the terrorists so that he can build a detonator for a nuclear bomb. It’s amazing what a small world it is.
Terrorist: We need someone to build a detonator.
Terrorist Helper: There’s only one man who can do it. He works at CTU and is married to this really annoying frumpy lady who’s oddly amusing. And since we’ve already established his character, we didn’t have to waste any time bringing in another character and explaining his background.
Anyway, after many capers that aren’t worth explaining, Morris gets delivered to the terrorists. He refuses to help. He gets tortured in quite a disgusting way. I read something on the internet about how people are complaining about the torture scenes in 24. Because they’re not realistic enough. There’s too much blood and the torture would go on for days, weeks, months. Um, hello? The show isn’t called February. We don’t have weeks! We have 24 hours. Torture needs to be done quickly. Because as Jack always says, “We are running out of time!”
These torture scenes always annoy me. If I’m the only guy in the world who can arm a nuclear device and the terrorists have me in their hands, why should I possibly arm it for them? To avoid being tortured or killed? Do you really think that they’ll let you live once you’ve armed the bomb? And even if they did, could you live with yourself knowing that you single-handedly killed thousands to millions of people? Of course, if they did this on TV, it would ruin the show. I’m just saying that it annoys me. Then again, if I knew Jack Bauer was on the case, I’d help however I could because Jack Bauer never let’s the terrorists win!
There was a bunch of political intrigue in Monday’s episodes, which was annoying. I could really do without all the political mumbo jumbo on 24. The President is completely annoying. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, there’s no way people would ever elect a bald President with a wispy goatee. Unless it was a woman.
The rest of the cabinet is interesting though. I like the former Ally McBeal guy (um, I’m too lazy to look up his name) being all evil. Chad Lowe plays his assistant, who coincidentally wants to kill the President so that they can throw all Arabs into detention centers. Or deport them. Or kill them. I don’t know. But he doesn’t like what the President is doing and his natural solution is to take him out.
I really love that solution, by the way. It reminds me (vaguely) of something one of my clients did recently. We’re redesigning their pension plan and it won’t get approval because of discrimination issues. (I’d say that I won’t bore you with the details, but I’m probably too late.) They basically have two options. They can redesign their plan or they can pay more money. They didn’t like those options. So they said, “Why don’t we change the law?” We all had a good laugh at that. Then they started talking about their lobbyists and who should be lobbying whom. You see, they were serious. Apparently, they have a lot of clout in Washington. It seemed like an odd solution, but it was completely viable. At least for them. Not for any of my other clients.
Anyway, on his way to the President’s bunker is none other than that Vice President, played by Powers Booth. I love Powers Booth. (By the way, what do his friends call Powers Booth? They can’t possibly call him Powers. I think I’d call him Booth.) He plays Cy Tolliver on HBO’s Deadwood. He’s got this great deep, raspy voice. He could scare me by ordering a chocolate sundae. (I’d probably wet myself if he asked for crushed nuts on top.) And so now he’s coming to the bunker as an opponent of the President and possibly in cahoots with Chad Lowe. Me likey! It just makes me wonder if I should feel at all guilty for hoping that their plan to kill the President goes through and that Powers gets to serve as President for the rest of the year.
First of all, I was quite a bit upset that they killed off Jack’s brother. He was such a lovable character. He was a complete weenie, but he was also completely evil. So you could never tell if he was being honest or not. You also couldn’t imagine what he’d say next. Nothing was too evil for him to do. Kill the President? No problem. Sell biological weapons to terrorists? Why not? Send my brother to a Chinese prison to be tortured? Of course! A character like this will surely be missed.
Fortunately, his death was actually interesting in that it was committed by none other than his father. In the previews for next week, Jack finds out that his father isn’t such a nice guy. So Jack’s going to go after him. Oh, and he’s being helped by his sister-in-law, who he had a thing for (or an affair with) several years ago. Oh, and Jack’s father is holding his grandson hostage. I can’t remember. Is 24 set in modern day Los Angeles or ancient Athens? If Jack sleeps with some lady and it turns out that she’s actually his mother, causing him to cut out his eyes and wander the world, I’m going to have to stop watching.
One of the plot developments is that everybody’s favorite office worker, Chloe, has her ex-husband (Morris) get kidnapped by the terrorists so that he can build a detonator for a nuclear bomb. It’s amazing what a small world it is.
Terrorist: We need someone to build a detonator.
Terrorist Helper: There’s only one man who can do it. He works at CTU and is married to this really annoying frumpy lady who’s oddly amusing. And since we’ve already established his character, we didn’t have to waste any time bringing in another character and explaining his background.
Anyway, after many capers that aren’t worth explaining, Morris gets delivered to the terrorists. He refuses to help. He gets tortured in quite a disgusting way. I read something on the internet about how people are complaining about the torture scenes in 24. Because they’re not realistic enough. There’s too much blood and the torture would go on for days, weeks, months. Um, hello? The show isn’t called February. We don’t have weeks! We have 24 hours. Torture needs to be done quickly. Because as Jack always says, “We are running out of time!”
These torture scenes always annoy me. If I’m the only guy in the world who can arm a nuclear device and the terrorists have me in their hands, why should I possibly arm it for them? To avoid being tortured or killed? Do you really think that they’ll let you live once you’ve armed the bomb? And even if they did, could you live with yourself knowing that you single-handedly killed thousands to millions of people? Of course, if they did this on TV, it would ruin the show. I’m just saying that it annoys me. Then again, if I knew Jack Bauer was on the case, I’d help however I could because Jack Bauer never let’s the terrorists win!
There was a bunch of political intrigue in Monday’s episodes, which was annoying. I could really do without all the political mumbo jumbo on 24. The President is completely annoying. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again, there’s no way people would ever elect a bald President with a wispy goatee. Unless it was a woman.
The rest of the cabinet is interesting though. I like the former Ally McBeal guy (um, I’m too lazy to look up his name) being all evil. Chad Lowe plays his assistant, who coincidentally wants to kill the President so that they can throw all Arabs into detention centers. Or deport them. Or kill them. I don’t know. But he doesn’t like what the President is doing and his natural solution is to take him out.
I really love that solution, by the way. It reminds me (vaguely) of something one of my clients did recently. We’re redesigning their pension plan and it won’t get approval because of discrimination issues. (I’d say that I won’t bore you with the details, but I’m probably too late.) They basically have two options. They can redesign their plan or they can pay more money. They didn’t like those options. So they said, “Why don’t we change the law?” We all had a good laugh at that. Then they started talking about their lobbyists and who should be lobbying whom. You see, they were serious. Apparently, they have a lot of clout in Washington. It seemed like an odd solution, but it was completely viable. At least for them. Not for any of my other clients.
Anyway, on his way to the President’s bunker is none other than that Vice President, played by Powers Booth. I love Powers Booth. (By the way, what do his friends call Powers Booth? They can’t possibly call him Powers. I think I’d call him Booth.) He plays Cy Tolliver on HBO’s Deadwood. He’s got this great deep, raspy voice. He could scare me by ordering a chocolate sundae. (I’d probably wet myself if he asked for crushed nuts on top.) And so now he’s coming to the bunker as an opponent of the President and possibly in cahoots with Chad Lowe. Me likey! It just makes me wonder if I should feel at all guilty for hoping that their plan to kill the President goes through and that Powers gets to serve as President for the rest of the year.
Middle Management
One of the things that I’m not liking about my new job here at Geeks, Inc. is that I’ve officially entered middle management. For the longest time, my only concern was doing my work. We’d have a project and I had to get it done in a certain amount of time. That was it. Now I’m responsible for monitoring budgets and overseeing junior actuaries (who I will henceforth call Peons).
I like managing Peons in theory, but not so much in reality. In theory, managing Peons is like teaching. You show what you know and try to make them into full-fledged actuaries. You encourage them and get them client exposure. And in a few years, you’re kicking them out of the nest so they can fly on their own. Or something less cheesy that relays the same point.
In reality, managing Peons sucks. The problem is that in theory, Peons are all bright-eyed and eager. And more importantly, they’re competent. In reality, they’re far from it. Well, that’s not fair to all the Peons. One Peon in particular (who I’ve got the pleasure of managing on my biggest client) is vexing me, Peon RJ.
Peon RJ has a bit of an attitude problem. You see, the problem is that he doesn’t have an attitude. He doesn’t seem to care about anything. He’s Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, only with worse facial hair. He’s apparently not the most motivated person in the world, which doesn’t bode well for being an actuary. If there’s one thing you need to be an actuary, it’s motivation. (You also need math skills and a glaring lack of a social life.)
It takes a special kind of person (using “special” in the same way that the Olympics does) to give up about 6 months a year of nights and weekends to study for actuarial exams. And to do it for 5-10 years. Not many people have the motivation to do it. And Peon RJ is not one of the few. (I think a bastardized version of the Marines saying would be great for actuaries. “The few, the proud, the dorky.”)
One of the annoying things about Peon RJ is that he tends to not answer his phone. Or return voicemails. So you can call him all day and not hear from him. Even if you tell him it’s urgent. The shocking thing to me is that his “people manager” told me this. Shouldn’t that be covered in his annual reviews? “Hey, Peon RJ, around here we answer our phones and return messages. Capiche?”
Right now I’m waiting for Peon RJ to get me some reports (no, not TPS reports). I need to figure out what’s wrong our client’s data and send them an email tomorrow. And Peon RJ keeps pushing off when he’s going to give me the reports, which is extremely frustrating. It probably says a lot about me too. I know that summarizing the reports and sending out the email shouldn’t take long. But since I haven’t seen them yet, I have no idea what’s waiting for me. And as Tom Petty brilliantly said, the waiting is the hardest part.
(By the way, I hope you now have that song stuck in your head. I do. Worse yet, it always reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer buys a gun. As he’s waiting for his background check to clear, he sits in front of his house and watches things go by that he’d like to shoot. Naturally, the Tom Petty song plays in the background.)
Anyway, with any luck Peon RJ will get me what I need today and I can be done with this part of the project. But since I’ll be working with him a lot over the next 3 months, you’ll probably be hearing more and more about how much he annoys me. And I know what you’re thinking. “Finally, that dork has found a legitimate complaint about his job! Welcome back to reality!”
I like managing Peons in theory, but not so much in reality. In theory, managing Peons is like teaching. You show what you know and try to make them into full-fledged actuaries. You encourage them and get them client exposure. And in a few years, you’re kicking them out of the nest so they can fly on their own. Or something less cheesy that relays the same point.
In reality, managing Peons sucks. The problem is that in theory, Peons are all bright-eyed and eager. And more importantly, they’re competent. In reality, they’re far from it. Well, that’s not fair to all the Peons. One Peon in particular (who I’ve got the pleasure of managing on my biggest client) is vexing me, Peon RJ.
Peon RJ has a bit of an attitude problem. You see, the problem is that he doesn’t have an attitude. He doesn’t seem to care about anything. He’s Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, only with worse facial hair. He’s apparently not the most motivated person in the world, which doesn’t bode well for being an actuary. If there’s one thing you need to be an actuary, it’s motivation. (You also need math skills and a glaring lack of a social life.)
It takes a special kind of person (using “special” in the same way that the Olympics does) to give up about 6 months a year of nights and weekends to study for actuarial exams. And to do it for 5-10 years. Not many people have the motivation to do it. And Peon RJ is not one of the few. (I think a bastardized version of the Marines saying would be great for actuaries. “The few, the proud, the dorky.”)
One of the annoying things about Peon RJ is that he tends to not answer his phone. Or return voicemails. So you can call him all day and not hear from him. Even if you tell him it’s urgent. The shocking thing to me is that his “people manager” told me this. Shouldn’t that be covered in his annual reviews? “Hey, Peon RJ, around here we answer our phones and return messages. Capiche?”
Right now I’m waiting for Peon RJ to get me some reports (no, not TPS reports). I need to figure out what’s wrong our client’s data and send them an email tomorrow. And Peon RJ keeps pushing off when he’s going to give me the reports, which is extremely frustrating. It probably says a lot about me too. I know that summarizing the reports and sending out the email shouldn’t take long. But since I haven’t seen them yet, I have no idea what’s waiting for me. And as Tom Petty brilliantly said, the waiting is the hardest part.
(By the way, I hope you now have that song stuck in your head. I do. Worse yet, it always reminds me of a Simpsons episode where Homer buys a gun. As he’s waiting for his background check to clear, he sits in front of his house and watches things go by that he’d like to shoot. Naturally, the Tom Petty song plays in the background.)
Anyway, with any luck Peon RJ will get me what I need today and I can be done with this part of the project. But since I’ll be working with him a lot over the next 3 months, you’ll probably be hearing more and more about how much he annoys me. And I know what you’re thinking. “Finally, that dork has found a legitimate complaint about his job! Welcome back to reality!”
