RobHolecko.com

Tweeting is the new blogging

[originally posted at RobHolecko.com]

Okay so from 2002 to 2005 or so I was active here on RobHolecko.com, and I would post articles, and they'd be funny and people would make comments and they'd be funny.  Usually I'd complain about something or make a witty (or as Bill O'Reilly would say, "pithy") remark about something that was on the news, or more usually, I'd complain about the people I'd encounter working my job...

And I later added the watercooler, where others could email me stuff and I'd post it up there and we'd all comment on it, and we'd all laugh, and then we'd get back to work.

Then after awhile I got tired of doing it.  I didn't run out of things to say, (in fact I had a great observation about Rachel Maddow about a month or so ago but I'll just leave that for another time.) but I did get kind of tired of saying them.  I mean, what was the point?  Everybody's got their own opinions.  Was it just a mere exercise in egotistic futility to post them on an eponymous website?  Was I just another attention whore on this here internet, wanting to grab my shiny little piece of everybody's attention?

Why should anybody care what I had to say anyway?  Who am I, just another underachieving loser, looking to grind my axe of public outrage, making observations that anyone else could make, the only difference being that I was such a loser that I'd actually take the time to sit down and write them and post them to the web?  Was I narcissistic?   Self-absorbed?  Egotistical?  Delusional?  Egotistical with delusions of grandeur?  How about obsessive?  Obsessive-compulsive?  Obsessive compulsive personality disorder?  How about social anxiety disorder?  How about....uh, wait a minute...I was talking about RobHolecko.com, not all of the other things that are wrong with me.  I mean allegedly...

Australian Andrew Keen made that exact argument, that today's culture has been ruined by so called amateurs:

"On today's self-publishing internet, nobody knows if you're a dog, a monkey or the Easter bunny. That's because everyone else is too busy ego-casting, too immersed in the Darwinian struggle for mind-share, to listen to anyone else. But we can't blame this sad state of affairs on some other species. We human beings hog the limelight on this new stage of democratised media. We are simultaneously its amateur writers, its amateur producers, its amateur technicians and, yes, its amateur audience. Amateur hour has arrived and the audience is running the show."   - Andrew Keen, The Australian link

Amateur!?! How dare he?

I was picturing the Niles Crane 'How Dare He!?!' reaction from the episode where Frederic was in the spelling bee, but I could only find this one.

But long before he made that comment, I had quit writing at RobHolecko.com anyway.  (okay "blogging".  It's not like I'd introduce myself as a writer.  Ahem.  Well, only once.) I also quit working at Domino's in the last couple months.  I wasn't really making a lot of money there part-time and really over the last year or so my main reason for going there was to have an audience, but the whole "Rob" routine was starting to get old.

But on Facebook, as well as the new twitter fad (and that's what these are, fads) people make short little snippets of observations.  They don't sit down and write long articles like this one.  They 'tweet' or 'blurb.'  "It's raining and I'm getting wet!"  "Go Celtics! Can't wait for tonight's Game 7, they're going to kick the Magic's butts."  (sorry, Stan)  But nobody blogs anymore.  Blogging is so 2004.

But so now it's 2009 and we've got Facebook, and everybody can post their own pithy comments about life...and we can each comment on each other's pages, it's sort of like everyone's Facebook page is their own RobHolecko.com.    I can even RSS feed my RobHolecko.com posts (assuming I start making them again) right here on my wall at Facebook.  It's like RobHolecko.com 2.0.

I don't even have to rely on people finding RobHolecko.com on the internet, they can have RobHolecko.com come right to them on their Facebook.  (No, sorry I don't twitter, yet.)

I feel like I was a pioneer, of sorts. 

It took 34 years, but I see now that I guess everyone just wanted to be me...

"Yeah, I'm from New Orleans.... so what."

Do you remember the millions of dollars that was raised to support victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita?  ( You know on the telethons like where Kanye West started improvising about how well George W. likes black people)  Well that money is going to the Red Cross, and one of the ways they are utilizing it is by paying for accomodations for 'displaced evacuees' at hotels.

Check out Kevin's posting at the watercooler for more details on how this is working out.

In the meantime, however, we have a few of them staying here at the one hotel -- he calls down and asks if I can print up a flyer for him, I tell him that I'd see what I could do, he comes down to tell me he wants to have his driver's license blown-up and he wants it to say, "I'm from New Orleans.  So what!"

So I do it for him, he looks at it and says, "How about, 'yeah, I'm from New Orleans.  So what.'  you know - so what?!"

I add the 'yeah' and print it again.  "How about 'Donations'."

Donations.  O.K. I add 'Donations.'  "You know 'Donations accepted here.  Tip jar."

So I make the changes, and print it out for him. 

"I've been up here working at the jazz fest.  Volunteer work.  I'm glad to do it.  You know they don't pay to do that, I sit up there and sell water.  I must've sold a lot a water today.  They don't have real jazz here in Clearwater.  It's not like New Orleans.  It's bluegrass, really.  They call it jazz.  Hah!"

"You know, I'm from New Orleans.  Hah!  I know jazz music.  I had pictures up on my wall.  I...uh...I don't have no wall now.  I don't have no house.  It's all gone.  It's all.....gone."

"Yeah, donations accepted here."

While I was talking to him, an older man in a room had broken his leg and the guy with him had come down and wanted to know how to get to the hospital.  I asked if he wanted an ambulance, an he said no, but wondered if I could give him directions to a hospital.  I told him I could, but he didn't know if that's what they were going to do or not.  So he went back up to the room and eventually they called an ambulance themselves.

Mr. New Orleans says, "I don't need no more excitement in my life, I'm getting out of here." 

Taking the Good with the Bad

Looking back over some of the previous posts that I've put here on the website, I realize that it may appear to the uninformed reader that I dislike my job, that I am sometimes overly critical of some of the guests that I encounter.  It may even appear that I downright hate my job.  I would like to explain that the vast majority of the time, I do love my job.  I like the people I work with, at both hotels, as well as at the Domino's that I work at.  And sometimes I even like the customers, or guests.

While the goal of RobHolecko.com, as the tagline goes, is: "Striving to be the internet source for information for, by, and about Rob Holecko" the medium that I use to reach that goal is humor.  In all of the articles, both the full length feature articles as well as the random postings, such as this one, the underlying tone of them all is meant to be funny.  Certainly anyone reading the Sept. 18 posting, "Pete & Shorty's" could detect that I took a slight amount of liberty in the writing of it, for amusment's sake.  Do you really think that I hate the guests at the hotel so much that I couldn't even stand to wait there while they chatted to me?  I couldn't get up each morning and try to do my job if that was the case.  Do things like that annoy me?  Yes.  But do I really need to exert so much energy in letting it bother me?  Maybe not.  Should I devote my spare time to trying to "get back" or "get even" with these fools, by putting it here on the "internet"?  Probably not.  Is that a foolish endeavor, a waste of time, especially when everyone else at the hotel can live with things like this, or else they woudn't be in the business?  Probably.

This is Debbie Downer, not Rob

The fact of the matter is 95% of the time I do love my job(s).  It's just that its the other five percent of the time that provides the encounters that are worthy of documenting here.  There's not really that much that I can do with a smooth check-in to make it funny enough to detail it with a "humorous antedote."

The other day, I was working at the beach hotel and I checked this couple into one of our "cabana" rooms.  At the time they were really excited about it, they had heard the description of the room, particular happy about being able to walk right out onto the beach.  I explained how the rooms' patio was separated from the common pool area with the planters, and as I was checking them in, I also mentioned some other amenities, as well as how the rooms are a little larger than the other rooms, and the two king beds.

Well they got to the room, and they came back down to the desk about five minutes later and said they were disappointed.  "It just wasn't what we expected."  We talked for a little while, and after hearing them out, hearing their concerns and their thoughts about the hotel and their expectations, I offered them to move to Room 223 - this is a unique room that has a jacuzzi and a king size bed, and I thought that they'd be happy with that room.

Not only did they call me and tell me how much they loved the room, on Friday morning I stopped by the hotel - not in uniform, no name tag on - and passed them in the lobby, and they stopped me again and said, "Rob, again, we just wanted to tell you how much we love that room.  Thanks again."

Yes, I do get a little satisfaction out of that sort of thing - I'm only human.  And, yes, I probably have as many of those type of moments as I do negative ones.  It's just that the negative ones are a whole lot easier to write up into a funny little story here for the website.

I understand that it may appear to those reading that I dwell on the negative, but the truth is lately I've been busy.  Between the three jobs, I worked 71 hours last week and 66 this week.  I'm not whining about that, it's been purely my choice.  I just haven't had as much time to update the website as I'd like. 

If I did, I'd put more on here than just complaints about hotels guests and my football picks.   We all went out on Tuesday to celebrate a friend's 21st birthday - sang some karaoke, etc.  Last week the front desk staff at one of the hotels I work at had our "Outing" - we went to Sam Seltzer's and drank Apple-tinis, and on Monday I finally got to play some golf (with my own clubs for the first time since July), as I went out with Chad and Leo.  All of these events managed to sneak under the radar here at RobHolecko.com simply because I haven't had time to sit down and write as much as I'd like.  (Not to mention I still have plenty of pictures from my various travels this summer to get on here.)

Sunday, however, I'm going to sit down and with one eye on the Bucs beating the Packers, I'm going to try to get some quality computer time and get this whole thing updated as far as past events and photos go.  Also, I'm going to try to finish my media project and have all of my DVD's listed so you all can take a look at my collection and see what movies I have that you don't.

And I'll also, in the future, I'll try to balance out the negative stories with maybe a few positive ones, although I'll warn you in advance, the positive ones won't be as funny.

Pete and Shorty's

So when I come in to work last night, Saturday night, it's written down that this one room is requesting a 2:30 AM wake up call.  So later on, I go ahead and go to enter it, but it says this guest already has a wake-up call set, so I go to set another, and, uh, you know, I just don't have the heart to continue this rant.

You know all along I start complaining about this and that, this guy with the orthopedic pillow, this guy over here with the "no, I want to know what you're gonna do about it," and this lady with the roach, etc.  What good does it do?  Nothing.  My heart's just not into dealing with these people anymore if I can't even complain about the ones that annoy me.  I mean what's the point?  Everybody's like "Don't let it bother you, Rob.  Don't take it personally." 

This recommedation went a little too well

Well, I do take it personally.  But I guess I shouldn't.  So fine, from now on it'll be like, "Oh, you want an extra towel.  Fine.  Here, take it."  "You want a restaurant recommendation?  I don't know, there's a McDonald's down the road." That's another thing - they want to know where to eat.  OK, so fine, I sent these people the other night over to Pete & Shorty's - they were looking for something casual, you know, a burger or something, so I sent them there, and they loved it.  Great!

But that's not the end of it.  They come back, and tell me how much they loved it.  "Oh it was so good!  That was perfect!  Thanks, Rob!  Good job!"  But it didn't stop there!  No, they had to hang around the next twenty minutes --- "Since you know the area, Rob.....tell us about this, uh, Channelside, what do they got there?....How about a good seafood restaurant....Is there a baseball game this week?  Now, the Devil Rays, they play down in St. Pete, right?  How about movie theaters, are there any around?  We heard about that 'Busch Gardens' what is it like, a gardens, or something?"

Eventually, (and I think they may have started to take a hint when I began shuffling my paperwork) they said "Well, we need to get to bed, thanks again for recommending the Shorty Pete's.  That was great!  See you tommorrow, Rob."  Yeah, see you tommorrow.

So just a little heads up, the next time you think about recommending a restaurant, be careful, don't recommend too well, or you may wind up with new, unwanted friends.  My opinion is, if they get to know your first name well enough that they can come through the lobby and greet you by name without having to look at your name tag, then you've probably gotten too close.  Mark my words, if I was working tonight, they'd probably come through and say something like, "Rob, what do you think of, oh, such-and-such restaurant"  ("I mean since you were to able to so deftly recommend Pete and Shorty's, I guess you're the 'restaurant expert'.  I wouldn't dare think about getting a grouper sandwich without your approval.")

But luckily, I'm off tonight, so, they'll probably come down to desk around midnight-12:30 or so, and they'll see Kevin, they'll probably start jaw-jacking with him..."Oh, is Rob off tonight?  We were talking to him last night, and he recommended Pete and Shorty's.....(and so now we're best friends)....blah-blah-blah-blah-fricikn'-blah....."

I mean what's the big deal, I sent them to a restaurant.  Fine.  I didn't cook the food, you know?  Fine, Pete and Shorty's was good.  Whoop-de-doo, I'm happy for you.  But, it's not like I'm going to be sitting around the bar later on with the guys, and this guy's over here is going be like, "Yeah, I'm a brain surgeon, I was operating on this guy and he started to hemmorage, and we saved his life, I skillfully was able to stop the bleeding by using the Grayson technique, a procedure I developed."  And this other guy says, after a sip of his beer, "Well, I'm a fireman, and yesterday there was a burning orphanage, and I personally made six trips into the burning building and we saved every last one of those kids.  How was your day, Rob?  What do you do?"

"Uh, I work at a hotel, and I recommened a restaurant to this guy.  In the grand scheme of things, you know, it's not much, but boy, that look on a guests' face when they come back from a restaurant that they enjoyed that you recommended to them.  Wow.  I mean, it just gets you right here." (I pound my heart)

Doctor: "I hear you man."

NFL Week 2

Last Week: 1-3 (.250)      
Upset Special: 0-1 (.000)

Season: 1-3 (.250)
Upset Special: 0-1 (.000)

click here to look at the NFL Pool picks

I looked at this week's slate of NFL games, and I saw a bunch a games that I had absolutely no idea about.  Patriots-Panthers, Broncos-Chargers, Dolphins-Jets?  Come on!  Even both Monday night games, Saints-Giants (or is it Giants-Saints?) and Redskins-Cowboys are toss-ups.

Well, I've got to start somewhere.  If it wasn't for the Bucs, I would've gone 0-for-last week, so I got to stick with them (-2 1/2) against the Bills, in what should be a good game.  Also, I like Atlanta (+1) on the road at Seattle, and I like the Eagles (-13) to bounce back against the 49ers.  Also in bounce back games, I like the Packers (-6 1/2) against Cleveland, and my upset special, the Titans (+4) are underdogs at home to the Ravens, and to me that just doesn't look right.  You wouldn't think that the Ravens would start 0-2, but then again I wouldn't have thought that the Rams and Broncos would've looked so bad last week, either.

"I Don't Think You Should Have To Pay For Your Room"

Here at the inland hotel, it's become a little catch-phrase of ours that when we decide to not charge a guest for a night's stay, for whatever reason, we generally say something like, "That's correct, I agree with you, I don't think you should have to pay for your stay," or something to that effect.  We didn't "keep our promise" to them.

Last night, a lady came down at about 1 A.M.   She had been out all day, she claimed, and she got back to the room, got into her pajamas, and she claimed she had found a roach.  She brought the roach down to me, in a cup, and stated that she would be leaving and staying with a friend here in Clearwater for tonight, the second of her two night stay.  I offered her the option, of course, of moving to a different room, but she would have none of that.  Her mind was made up.  She had already changed out of her pajamas and into street clothes, and had her luggage with her and was ready to leave.

		So I posted tonight's room charges to her bill and checked her out.  She looked at it, and said, "You mean, I'll have to pay for tonight?"  Now I know that in the end (and I probably knew it already, at that point) that when it was all said and done, that she was going to wind up not paying, but I'm going to at least make her work for it, a little, right?
The guest said, "say hello to my little friend"		If I thought she was really totally distressed by the presence of the roach, then by all means, I wouldn't think she should have to pay.  But in this situation, I see a woman who is trying to get out of paying for the second night.  I may not be as much of a student of human psychology as some night auditors, however, in my opinion, she was just too nonchalant about the roach.

I'm guessing she was with her friends today - including the one she's now going to stay with tonight, and they said something like, "Aw, you should've stayed with me.  Why waste $100 staying at a hotel"  "Well, I can't check-out now, they'll charge me."  "Just tell them you found a roach in your room.  Here, we can get one in my back yard."

So I tell her, "Well, check-out time was 11 A.M., and I can't sell the room to anyone else."

"But I wasn't even in the room all day,"  (As if that made a difference) "and now I'm leaving because there are roaches in your hotel."  Now there's more than one roach!

"Well, I did offer to move you to another, presumably roach-free, room."

"I just want to leave, please let me...."

"That's fine then, I'll take tonight's charges off of your bill."

She replied, "I should hope so," incredulous that I would even suggest that she should have to pay.  I couldn't bring myself to say, 'I don't think you should have to pay for tonight's room,' although I really had to bite my lip to keep from saying, "Although I do think you should have to pay for tonight's stay, you won't."

The NFL is back

I have been very lazy about updating my website, and I know many you of out there just waiting for the latest unique opinions and insight that you really can't get anywhere but here at RobHolecko.com.

So I apologize about being so derelict although the President has come to my defense. (see picture)

I do have a lot photos and stuff to put up here on the website, and a lot of news and such (the major revamping of my media collection, both DVDs and music, Jury Duty, the trip to Washington D.C., the trip to Pennsylvania, the great guests I've been dealing with at the..uh..Fairfax Inn, etc.) , but in the meantime, I do want to take a minute or two to announce my football picks for this weekend. While I really did like New England Thursday and Notre Dame against Michigan earlier today, it's really hard to establish any credibility if you keep picking games that are overwith already.  So I'll stick to tommorrow's games.  I like Denver (-4 1/2) at Miami, St. Louis (-5 1/2) at San Francisco, and of course I'm going to go with the Bucs (+6) at Minnesota.  For my upset special, I'm going to go with another road team, the N.Y. Jets (+3) at Kansas City.

President Bush and Rob Holecko, Director of RobHolecko.com, look over future plans for the development of RobHolecko.com. Bush later told the press that rumors that he was looking to replace Holecko in that position were unfounded, and that Holecko was "Doin' a fine job!"

Walken 2008

Christopher Walken's running for president in 2008.

http://www.walken2008.com/index.html

Oops, no he isn't -- it's a hoax:

http://news.com.com/2061-11199_3-5833740.html

That's a shame, I would've voted for him.

Speaking of politics, here's a couple more George W. Bush excerpts, from March 2005, courtesy of Josh Lockman's Typepad blog, The Spectacle.

On Lebanese elections:

....I like the idea of people running for office. There's a positive effect when you run for office. Maybe some will run for office and say, vote for me, I look forward to blowing up America. I don't know, I don't know if that will be their platform or not. But it's -- I don't think so. I think people who generally run for office say, vote for me, I'm looking forward to fixing your potholes, or making sure you got bread on the table. And so -- but Hezbollah is on the terrorist list for a reason, and remain on the terrorist list for a reason. Our position has not changed on Hezbollah.....

On the decision to join European diplomatic efforts regarding Iran's nuclear program:

And we just started the process -- we just had the discussion. How long ago was I in Europe? Maybe 10 days, or so? Two weeks? About two weeks? I mean, it takes a while for things to happen in the world, David. I mean, I know there's a certain impatience with a never-ending news cycle. But things don't happen on -- necessarily overnight the way some would like them, you know, solve this issue and we go to the next issue. There's a certain patience required in order to achieve a diplomatic objective. And our diplomatic objective is to continue working with our friends to make it clear to Iran we speak with a single voice.

The Penguin Game

I was checking out PaulKatcher.com, a website by this guy who makes RobHolecko.com look weak. If I had the time and inclination (not to mention the interesting life) that this guy has, PaulKatcher.com is what RobHolecko.com would be.

Anyway on his site, he's got a link to The Penguin Game which is a fun little way to waste an afternoon at your computer, if you have nothing better to do.

So far my best is 319.9, see screenshot to the right.

To play, simply click the link above.  It's very simple, just click once to get the penguin to jump and then click again to whack him.  The trick is to get him to go just the right distance on the fly, if he goes too far, farther than 190 or so, he'll stick in the snow, and won't bounce.

I'd keep playing this all afternoon, except I have to go to a meeting at work to go to...

DVD Copying

Here's the link I told you about showing a quick way to
copy....err....back-up a DVD.

(click above)