Well, I missed yesterday’s grind but my ever-ready second in command filled the void.

The reason I missed it was a little interesting (to me anyway). After 9 months of "evaluating" whether my group at work should be outsourced or not, the CIO today made it official. We are not going away. This is both good and bad since my bosses have made some pretty agressive promises in exchange for us staying around. But, I am employed for awhile at least.

So on to the rest of the world and the Daily Grind…..

15 Minutes of Fame through ebay: Seems this poor fellow just wanted to sell his ex-wife’s wedding dress on ebay. Now he is a minor celebrity. His responses to all this attention are pretty amusing.

Despair.com does customer service their own way: Counter culture is great isn’t it? If you’ve ever visted a Successories store and been sent into diabetic shock by the over sweetened schlock they peddle then you probably know about Despair.com which is the Yin to Successories Yang. Now they’ve opened an online help desk where you can submit trouble tickets about your order.

In an effort to further reduce our personal interactions with customers, we’ve added our revolutionary Troubled Ticketingï¿œ system. If you would like to report a problem, simply click the link below, and complete the accompanying Problem Report. After firing the responsible Little Person, their replacement will get back to you as soon as is convenient for us.

Click on "Report Your Problems" for even more amusement. And be sure to report a billing problem using the "You Undercharged me" option.

Star Monopoly, its addictive: From the folks at Absolutist.com come an online version of Star Monopoly. Now, I am not normally a money grubbing cut throat but this game just brings it out in me. My current highest winning score for a two player game is $16 billion. Donald Trump eat your heart out!

Beatallica takes the classics to a new level: Two guys, one brilliant idea. Remaking classic Beatles tunes as they would have been done by Lars and the boys. I am a praticular fan of Blackened the USSR.

Well, that’s it for the mid-week grind. Stay tuned tomorrow for….. well, just stay tuned.

The Daily Grind is a great addition to the site, Tamarin. I don’t expect to have daily additions to make, but from time to time I shall sally forth with a few random thoughts of my own. Here are the musings that aren’t fit to print for Wednesday:

The Chiefs Are Smoking Something. I don’t know what happened here, but my beloved KC Chiefs apparently passed a joint around all weekend when they should have been making intelligent draft picks. They have been given (generously, in my opinion) a grade of D for their efforts.

Dungeons & Dragons Turns 30! While I haven’t played D&D for a number of years, it sparked my interest in all the games I’ve played since, including the 7th Sea group I’m part of today. Gaming in general has sparked a number of good friendships, and I still remember some of the more interesting sessions years after the fact. Thanks to latharia for this link.

Explorers Looking For Noah’s Ark. Didn’t they watch Raiders of the Lost Ark? Nothing good can come of this.

And finally, proof that someone watches out for stupid drunks. Some dude fell asleep on a set of train tracks, got run over by a train (literally, it ran over him) and didn’t get a scratch. Better to be lucky than good, I suppose.

The weekend was long but fun. Its nice that the kids are old enough to go to a night baseball game and enjoy most of it. Plus, since the Royals got 12 hits our ticket stubs are worth a dozen Krispee Kreme doughnuts each. Free sugar, always a good thing.

Also this weekend, the NFL Draft! This is your official Mel Kiper Hair warning. That guy is amazing. I love the fact that football is a year round pursuit for so many folks. Gives me something to enjoy while KC tanks the baseball season.

And now onto the rest of the grind……

Here’s Hoping it gets better: 1340 AM – All Comedy Radio

An idea who’s time is long overdue. Unfortunately, they are struggling along right now as all new radio stations do. I just hope they last long enough to get more advertisers. It makes a really nice change of pace during my commute.

The music industry doesn’t know what to think now: London Booted

On the heels of the Grey Tuesday support for DJ Danger Mouse there is now a compilation on the web of folks doing remixes of the Clash classic album London Calling. I’m all for it! Perhaps if enough of this type of things takes place the recording industry will wake up to the fact that CD purchases are not the only viable revenue stream. Hey, I can dream can’t I?

Without the Internet would we have this?: Turbo Tanks

I love old video games. And with programming languages on the web being what they are, the old games are pretty easy to replicate. This one is a throwback to the Atari days and will keep you happily nostalgic and entertained for quite awhile.

Everyone Needs their 15 minutes: Mr. Irrelevant begins his one year celebrity

Each year, the last player taken in the NFL Draft is dubbed Mr. Irrelevant. As such he gets to enjoy all the perks of being a low level celeb including his own week. Now this is a type of fame I can aspire to.

From the "Its fun to read about, but I don’t want to meet him" category: Jawa – Vengeful Wrath in a cute candy shell

I first saw this gentleman posting on the Chronicles of George forums. Well, someone convinced him to start a blog. The most recent entry (a two parter) is a story of revenge that falls somewhere between college frat house prank and a Navy SEAL hazing. I’m not sure whether I should belive him or not. I’m just glad I’m not in his blast radius.

There you have it. Stay tuned for more diversion and destruction in tomorrow’s grind.

Ahh, the first of the daily grinds.

To recap the day for me personally. Met with the ex for lunch. That is a good news/bad news item and the details are boring to anyone not living with me (and she already knows about it). Work continues to drag on as we wait to see whether or not we will be outsourced. Its been a year since they started looking into this. My fear long ago turned to apathy. Tonight, its the kids’ school carnival. How can my own genetic material enjoy something that I loathe so completely? The world may never know.

Anyway, read on to see what The Grind has brought to the rest of the world today….

News item everyone should read: Pat Tillman reported killed today.

Pat Tillman tunred down a 3 year $3 million cotract with the NFL to join the Army Rangers after 9/11. Today it is being reported that he was killed in action. There are a lot of people you might respect and some you may not. But Pat Tillman deserves all the respect in the world. Regardless of your opinion on the war, let’s all pause a moment tonight for someone who truly valued priciples over money and showed us all what it means to be a patriot.

Pop Culture is all atwitter: Doonesbury character seriously wounded in Iraq.

This week readers of Doonesbury have met the injury of longtime character B.D. with a very mixed bag. But author Gary Trudeau has once again sent a powerful message through the simplest of mediums. I highly recommend reading the entire week’s strips and I know I will be following them closely. Aerie from Queen of Wands offers an interesting perpective from a life long Doonesbury fan on why this is having such an impact on folks.

Today’s Obsession: Something Positive, the comic that laughs at you.

Great comic strip! Thanks to Jason for sending me the link. I managed to read 3 years worth of the strip in two days while getting nothing done at work.

Something for Geeks to Giggle At: The whole Silmarillion in 1000 words.

Bravo! Having read the whole thing myself I can attest that this version is much more pleasant and won’t leave you cross-eyed.

So that’s it for today. Look for more daily grind on Monday. Because really, weekends are never a grind