Wall-E is one of those movies where, from the moment the teaser hit theaters, I fell in love with it instantly. There was just something magical about this cute little emoting robot developing a a personality and roaming around a deserted planet exploring his curiosity. With every new clip that showed up on the internet, I fell even more in love with this film. Within no time, it became my most anticipated film  of the year. Now that it’s out and I’ve seen it, the question remains whether or not it lived up to my hopes and expectations.

When I walked out of the theater Saturday afternoon, I was torn between being completely in love with this movie and being somewhat unimpressed. The problem with Wall-E is that it suffers from ‘we’re trying to say something’ syndrome. Read more

Have you ever noticed how irrationally overprotective we are over new possessions when we get them? It doesn’t even seem to matter how expensive or how fragile the object is. For some reason during the first few days or weeks, we act as if that new toy or gadget, is made of glass. The strangest part about this condition, which I am dubbing “The ‘Oh no, it’s new’ Effect”, is that after a short time the protective nature is replaced by an almost negligent behavior towards the possession. Take for instance, my new MacBook Pro. Read more

I’ve decided it’s time for a little detox. For the next few weeks I’m going to give up Coffee, Beer, Wine, and Hard Alcohol. I’m not really sure why or where I got the idea, but I figure it will likely be good for me. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’ve become dependent on these things, but they’ve definitely become a regular part of my daily routine. Read more

This has turned out to be a super busy year for me. Besides my main job, where I’m putting in 36 hours a week, I have three other companies that I do a lot of contract work for. Unlike my main job, the contracted work doesn’t yield paychecks on any kind of regular schedule. As I drove to the bank today to cash my ‘real job’ paycheck, I realized that being an independent contractor is a lot like being Charlie Brown around Valentine’s Day.

If you’ve seen the movie ‘Be my Valentine, Charlie Brown’, you’ll remember that one of the huge gags in the movie was that Charlie Brown was constantly checking his mailbox hoping that someone sent him a Valentine’s Day card. Every day he’d truck his pathetic self out to the mailbox, peak inside, and be completely disappointed to find it empty.

This is exactly how it feels to be an independent contractor. Read more