My Own Hero!

09:48 am - Hey - no forgetting...

"The financial crisis is nothing compared with the environmental crisis," the deputy head of IUCN's species programme, Jean-Christophe Vie, told BBC News.

"It's going to affect a few people, whereas the biodiversity crisis is going to affect the entire world. So there is a risk that because of the financial crisis, people are going to say 'yeah, the environment is not that urgent'; it is really urgent."

Wall Street: trashing your economy AND your environment! Man, I hope people keep that eye on environmental concerns. All this time, people that try have been thinking, "Just get Bush out of office. Just get Bush out of office and we have a chance..." And now, the economy is listed as the top priority for some insane number of voters. Ugh! Oh well, it's not like China is going to cooperate any time soon. They'll happily nuke the globe to better themselves, IMO.

09:19 am - Random Current Events...

Who the hell winks at a debate? Even more so if it is of the gravity that a debate between candidates for the Vice President of the United States of America carries! I realize that vast quantities of people in my country voted on "charm" and "values" to put the current moron in office, and it infuriates me that so many people are returning to that formula. Despite much hue and cry, Sarah Palin isn't a pig in lipstick, a "hockey mom" in lipstick, or a barracuda in lipstick; she's George Bush in lipstick. And attractively packaged with a pair of breasts! Now, not only can easily charmed men want to have a beer with one of our highest officials, they can want to bang selected official! (You know, gay dudes what fancy 'W' aside...)

The financial collapse is also hysterical to behold. One of the guys I play volleyball with is a professor in Duke's business school, and his whole take has been pretty funny as we've seen this whole thing evolve. Eminently practical, he sets up a chain of either/or choices that demonstrate how ridiculous the situation has become, and further point out the fact that a "bailout" is pretty much inevitable. I cannot recreate it here, because I don't remember it all and it would be belittled without the non-"verbal" communication that's so hard to include in a journal. The real sticking point is HOW the money is going to be used, overseen, etc. A very real factor in this whole mess is the obfuscation of who has what money and assets, and dumping 700 BILLION dollars into a pit of confusion is unlikely to solve the problem in and of itself. Lastly and also, Americans want blood. No no, I'm not talking about Iraq - most folks have had enough of THAT kind. What I'm talking about is almost assuredly a scapegoat. IDEALLY, we could systematically find and prosecute those whose financial practices were SO reckless that they cheated their business partners and investors - but I'm not naive enough to believe that this has a chance in hell of happening. So these financial "gurus" are boggling at the fact that they're not getting their massive check instantly and without question, JUST because people are bitter about ever single living American being on the hook for vaguely 2 grand. I'm not normally vindictive when it's not practical (and plenty vindictive when it is) ... but I totally agree. The financial professions have ALWAYS bugged me, and to a certain extent I appreciate some sectors crashing and burning. Maybe it'll get the rest of them back in line. Haaahahahaha, that was a good one.

It's interesting to me, though, that ACCOUNTANTS were taken to task in Jane Jacobs' book Dark Age Ahead as one of the primary examples of failure in the self-policing of the learned professions, as well as a factor in the failure of "transparent" government. An excellent read, here's a short summary that agrees largely with what I got from the title. Excellent book, though by no means perfectly written. I highly recommend it for substance, if not style.

I also find it somewhat mind-boggling that we have the following news coverage...

Vice Presidential debate: 4,133 articles in Google News.
Financial news regarding the "incident": 2,776 articles.
"Hey look - Steve Fossett's plane!!!": 4,318 articles.

WTFJournalism? I guess fluff and human interest is a lot easier to write than something that might involve "research" or something. Whoah!

Oh well, back to Waaaaaagh!

12:21 pm - Resume!

I was poked and reminded that I haven't written here in forever. It's not that I have nothing to say, it's more that I get distracted and don't feel like typing it all out. I will typically change my mind and think of side-points as I go, and it makes a journal a daunting task for me, because I have issues "summing up" and stopping any given post. I've considered a whole heck-ton of posts, including:

Steroids, and how we're truly seeing how prominent they have been in sports.
Nice days, and how they cause INDOOR gyms to become packed with people.
The NBA, and how awesome the Western Conference race has been - not to mention the upcoming playoffs. Go Buzzards!
T&A - the greatness thereof.
Video games, and a few ideas I had that I wish someone would address.

But I figure the one that pops up in my head the most these days is, sadly, a minor rant on a particular sin. It's not one of the 7 Deadlies - well, I guess it's a form of one - but it really bugs the shit out of me, and it is:

Reproductive Gluttony.

No joke. I can't stand reproduction way beyond sanity. I mean, why don't people see that there's really a finite amount of resources on Earth, and that each person consumes a portion of those resources ... Americans amazingly moreso than most. Why do we make reality shows out of these idiots rather than viewing them with a certain measure of disgust? They need multiple honkin' SUVs to drag around their little brood, and seem entirely focused on just "getting by" because they 8 kids. If more were like them, the world population would almost quadruple in a single generation - and all of those new people would need cars and food some slice of energy that we haven't yet figured out how to produce without melting our planet. Idiots!

Ohhh, but wait - they had fertility treatments! That's the only reason that had 8! Uh huh ... they had them AFTER the first set of twins. Hey - you had two, that's enough - stop it. No no, don't do tha ... great, 6 more. What about religious issues and the bans on birth control by God-types? Ouchy, that's a tough one. You know, though, if Godly people were really responsible, abstinence is a great birth control. Look at overpopulation and your required lack of sex as a modern trial, straight out of the old texts! I know I know, I'm being slow - God will provide for us.

Lack of perception regarding this problem staggers me. I love people that note how the price of gold keeps going up -- well duh, there are a ton of women out there that all want wedding rings ... they have to come from somewhere, and we can make people way faster than we can find new places to mine gold. That's just one concrete example- but ALL resources are exactly the same.

Places like this give me some hope:
http://www.edu.ue-foundation.org/index.html

They seem to have the same ideas that I do, even if they haven't moved on them a tremendous amount. I'm sure these things have a lot of inertia.

Well, whatever. I suppose that's enough apocalyptic anxiety for one day, I just really hope that things like "the food riots" manage to hold off for a decent while. In the meantime, I'll continue to be disgusted by the morons with 12 kids.

See? I started strong, and then got too much to write. I started chopping bits up and using "short versions" and it doesn't come out right. Oh well.

03:23 pm - 3 things of note...

Firstly, what's better than summer? INDIAN summer. It was close to 80 degrees, today, as it was this past weekend. I was out playing volleyball ... in November. The kicker is that the sunshine made it nice and toasty - so there were sunbathers out, women were playing ball with us in bikini tops, the works! So, when it's 77/78 degrees in the summer, do you see this kind of thing at all? Heck no! Somehow a baseline of 90 and up means that 78 isn't worth the skimpy outfit, but a baseline in the 50s means that when the weather hits 78, it's time to go outside and shed clothing. w00t!

Next up - my wife has a new goal in genetics. She's declared that she's going to isolate the na-nanny-boo-boo gene. I'm typing on the internet, but you know exactly what I mean. Na-nanny-boo-boo is universal, understood by all! Why is that? These are the questions that drive her - so she's making it a research project. I theorize that this will involve lining up tons of different people, calling them into her office one at a time, yelling "na-nanny-boo-boo!" at them, and taping their reaction. Then she sequences their DNA and looks for correlations!

Finally, the writer's guild strike. All seriousness aside, we were discussing what TV will look like in 8 weeks if they stay struck. All reality TV all the time, of course, but what NEW awful reality shows can be inflicted upon us? Then it hit - of course they can't be NEW reality TV shows, that would require creativity. They'd have to be remixes of OLD reality TV shows, just slightly different. Easiest way to do this? Crossovers! Reality show genres I can think of...

Survivor type shows.
Physical abnormality shows (fat people, midgets, etc)
Lifestyle abnormality shows (holy crap we have 8 kids! Bisexual bachelor, etc)
Dating/marriage shows (The bachelor, who wants to marry ___)
"Talent" shows (So you think you can dance? American Idol)
Home improvement / surprise shows (Trading spaces, While you were out, etc)

It goes on, but it's enough to give you a part of our list...

"Who wants to dance with a millionaire?"
"John and Kate Plus 8 ... and Flavor-Flav!"
"Little People, Big World, Beauty, AND the Geek!"

You could also do Trading Spaces between midgets and fat people! This is a gold mine, people. A gold mine of HORROR!

It's gonna be GREAT!

Current Mood: cheerful

02:02 pm - What the NFL needs to learn...

I guess, more specifically, what every media outlet that deals with the NFL needs to learn... Here, let me find my fonts and stuff so it's in big lettering and a bright color:

NOBODY ROOTED FOR GLOBO GYM.

The Patriots this year seem to be wallowing in their "villain" role, and Bostonian Fanbois are frothing at the mouth, foing to great lengths to justify the vitriol, and simultaneously trying to forget every parallel to criticism that they've levelled against OTHER sports teams in the past decade. Remember a few years ago when Peyton Manning broke the touchdown record for a single season? I sure as hell knew some NE fans that accused the Colts of running up the score for stats. That same person just gives me a blank look when I bring up the scores of New England games this year.

OK, so ... *pause*. Getting off track, Dan. How does this relate back to my main point?

Everybody watched and cheered Average Joe's when they beat Skillz That Killz. Somehow, I doubt that Globo Gym beating The Kamikazes was huge news. Lance Armstrong cheered for Peter LaFleur when they took down the Poughkeepsie State Flying Cougars (well, Gordon saved them - but you get what I'm saying). I can't imagine Sportscenter on The Ocho devoting a lot of coverage to White Goodman and Globo Gym's making mincemeat of the Las Vegas Police Department.

But -- what happens in real life?

The coverage of the NFL is ridiculous this season, what with Globo Gy -- I mean the New England Patriots and their current run. In an amazing CONTRAST to Dodgeball, 3 of 5 days this week showed "Pardon The Interruption" running TWO segments on the Pats, even though the show is all about doing a whirlwind tour across ALL of sporting news in just a half hour. It's a plain fact - watch football coverage, and you are force fed the Patriots. Everyone knows that the Pats are going to blow through the crap that is the AFC East, and everyone knows that they CAN run up the score if they want to. That's all that needs to be said - and it has been said. A lot. STOP COVERING FREAKIN' GLOBO GYM AND GIVE ME SOME AVERAGE JOE'S!!! I don't have Direct TV - so I'm stuck with what the networks show me unless I go to a sports bar or something, and every week I have to watch the Pats. EVERY WEEK. It has made me make Sunday plans other than football. I have watched less football now that I have in the past decade, and it's absolutely 100% because I'm sick of the Patriots. They are good; more weeks than not they're playing a team that is significantly less good (especially since 3/8s of their schedule is conference games) ... I don't want to see it. There has to be a competitive game around somewhere. If you make me watch the Pats, apparently I will go elsewhere ... because I have!

I know people like me. I know people who are watching less football because of this. We are watching less because it's boring. What you are showing us is boring. There has to be "not boring" out there. Show us Average Joe's versus Team Blitzkrieg, please give us a break from Globo Gym - because The Ocho didn't even show us their first round matchup!

Please?

Current Mood: aggravated

04:09 pm - I give in

Back in February I wrote:

"You guys have missed out on such winners as 'weddings are the most worthless creations ever vomited forth onto our plane of being' ... "

OK, you're not missing out on this one anymore. I hate them, I hate them, I hate them.

First off, I do not have a "symbolic" mind. I don't see the beauty in pairs of people that walk in step and light candles at the same time. I don't see why people that can put their butts in chairs perfectly well when it comes to lunch SUDDENLY need ushers to seat them in a half empty church. I don't get teary when someone sings a love song in the middle of the ceremony to represent the devotion that the happy couple feel for one another. The list goes on, but you get the point; I'm not an emotional enough soul to be touched by the final product that a wedding puts on the table.

Once you consider that the impact is lost on me, let's consider how the impetus was generated.

1) "Wedding" anything is twice as expensive as non-wedding anything. Pictures, flowers, candles, dresses? Prepend "wedding" and watch the pricetag soar! The money you spend is ridiculous compared to what you get back, all because the wedding industry is such a racket.

2) Never are expectations higher, and never are the people in charge (generally) less experienced. The way people bug out when anything goes wrong with a wedding is fucking phenomenal, and stuff ALWAYS goes wrong unless everything is absolutely professionally done - you can refer to point 1 to imagine how often that happens in real life. Seriously, it's the difference between a professional symphony orchestra and a group of locals that are good musicians. There are GOING to be wrong notes, and nobody will really care; in fact, most people won't even notice. Make that concert a wedding, however, and all of a sudden every wrong note is the Apocalypse.

3) Never are people more opinionated for less reason. There are a billion traditions that may or may not be exercised. There are a billion different ways that a ceremony can go down, from entrances to recessionals and right on through seating of various guests. Some are logistical, some are artistic, all are equally valid, and people never agree. Can you work out a good solution? Not logically. You may as well put a group of people in a room, and tell them that it's REALLY important that they pick their collective favorite color. There really isn't much way to talk someone out of "I like green" - the best you can do is to take a vote and hope for the losers to be mature about it. Weddings are like having that experience over and over and over.

OK, so what finally comes out? Generically, tons and tons of people put in hours and hours to reduce the cost of the wedding. Even so, you're spending a ton of money to put together a ceremony that will (let's be honest) seem faintly ridiculous (in the best of cases!) to the male half of the attendees. Those intimately involved with the ceremony will flip out whenever anything goes wrong, and often do so in a way that defies logic and common sense - which may present themselves to try and "solve" problems.

Dude - none of us deserve it. Having witnessed several weddings that are likely comparable to mine when it comes to cost and manpower involved, I certainly didn't. The people whose weddings I've been involved with certain don't/didn't.

So why the heck are weddings still so rampant in society? Because they make the honorees the absolute, monumental, unbelievable center of attention for a whole day or so. These days, it's more like a whole damned weekend. It's like the most expensive, day(s) long session of masturbation ever. We deal with weddings because we know we'll get our own, and then HOLY COW will we be godlings for a day. Already had your wedding? In part, I suppose you're repaying humanity for yours, and in part you probably deal with weddings because they remind you of your own.

As someone that's grounded in the present, it's SO not worth it for me.

My wife has two siblings. The combined cost for their weddings (all three, not just the siblings) was easily 30 thousand dollars. Holy cow, the party that could have been thrown for 30 grand. Not wedding - party. Parties are every bit as varied as weddings, and people are generally a LOT more conciliatory when it comes to parties, because they view them as fun rather than "important". Yeah, it would have required three couples to get married at the same time - but 30 grand is like "Charter a heck-all big yacht in Hawai'i" money!

Ugh, whatever. I'm sad that my own wedding has been illuminated so harshly in my mind, but I'm glad I've finally ranted out loud to, like, all both of you. Later!

(Dude, the little "exhausted" face doesn't look anything LIKE exhausted! It just looks pouty or some crap!)

Current Mood: exhausted

03:01 pm - It's the little things...

OK, so sometimes I get overly amused by life - but really it's when things happen that I'd never have predicted. I just had such an event today at lunch, and really it makes me want to go to Jimmy John's more, simply to give them money in exchange for the joy I got. Anyways...

There I am, chowing on a sub and reading a book (I was over at the bank running errands, so while I was out I figured I'd get some lunch and enjoy the sunshine) when a woman sitting just across the dining area from my heads to the register and asks if they have any plastic utensils or anything. Now, the Jimmy John's menu is entirely comprised of subs, chips, and drinks - so there's really not much call for utensils of any kind. The guy at the register says, "Ma'am, I honestly don't think we have a fork anywhere in this building." She laughs as she's leaving the counter, and the guy actually assembling subs holds up his hands and does kind of a "jazz hands" thing while yelling "YOU GOTTA EACH WITH YO' HANDS!!!" in a very playful way. It's hard for me to describe the good-natured vibe without going all authory-formal on my Livejournal - which I just won't do - but trust me, it was pretty funny. So the lady goes, "Can I have some gloves?" and the sub-guy realizes that he's assembling gloves with those little disposable plastic gloves that sandwich makers tend to wear and he laughs. Then, the register-guy notes that he's sure that the places next door have silver/plastic-wear, and one of the other customers suggests staging a raid to liberate some supplies. Things then progressed to an evaluation of the probable defenses that local restaurantiers could bring to bear, along with a lament for the lack of local French cuisine - as that would make for the perfect, minimal-resistance raid.

Eventually, the joke wound down - but I was very highly amused and remembering it still brings a grin. The ham sub was good, too. Hooray!

Current Mood: full

02:27 pm - Oh the funny.

It should be no surprise to people that I am not a fan of the "Hallmark Holidays". I far prefer to celebrate the "big" holidays and then pass on affection, presents and such as I'm struck by good avenues through which to do so. (This opposed to following the plan set forth for me by the holiday-centric businesses) Even so - I don't tend to disLIKE things like Valentine's or Mother's Day or anything.

A did, however, have an amusing realization this weekend. Hearing the Mothers Day plans of many of my friends, it struck me how often those plans were (in essence) a negation of the typical "Mom Duties". I shall use the most striking example...

"Oh it's great! We (dan_oz: the couple in question) got a room in a hotel for the weekend and we're gonna spend the whole time relaxing together while our parents keep the kids." So ... you're celebrating Mother's Day by dumping your kids off? And, amusingly, by dumping the kids with one of your mothers? Ha!

That got me thinking though, what the heck IS Mother's Day about these days? Gender roles are blurred enough, now, that the role of "mother" isn't really a solid concept. I think that the point is simply to show appreciation for those caregivers that saw you through your early life - which is a worthy sentiment - but the whole thing is so hijacked by businesses looking to capitalize that it's not worth acknowledging.

I'd much rather go shoot virtual zombies with Mom at an arcade sometime than worry about carving out specific time on May 13th to make sure that she knows I love her. Really, if she's not sure I love her then I was doing something wrong - and if Mother's Day appreciation ... stuff ... was going to be enough to make the difference, then she's incredibly fickle!

Whaaaaatever. I'm rambling now - but like I said, it struck me as incredibly funny that the so many celebrations of mothers seemed to revolve around relieving them of that stigma.

Current Mood: amused

12:35 pm - I Am Jack's Tech Support Curse

First off, I suppose that it's impossible to completely avoid the subject of the Virginia Tech killings if you bother to blog your feelings, even occasionally. Allow me to say that events of this magnitude strike me as oddly uncommentable. You're either saying the obvious, using the issue for a personal agenda, or working preventatively ... which tends to get tangled up in that second part. Examples:

1) "This is a great tragedy and I'm sorry it happened." Obvious. Who says anything else? Who's GLAD that random people were gunned down for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Does random sympathy from a random guy on the net really help anyone in Blacksburg/Christiansburg? Personally, I don't see where sympathy ever accomplishes anything - but I realize that that is a personality quirk.

2) "This horrific event just shows that our gun control sucks" or "This is a great tragedy - and it's amazing that we react so strongly to this while when more people are killed every day in Iraq." Both examples of spin. Give it some time before using the event to champion your pet political cause, folks.

3) "Terrible events like this make us wonder about our public areas and what can be done to address increasing incidents of violence/suicide." Preventive, and looking to accomplish something. Useful, if it didn't inevitably devolve into things like gun control, privacy rights, and complex excercises in civil engineering.

But enough of that. This is a great tragedy and I'm sorry it happened, however nonproductive and obvious that is. On to more amusing pastures.

I've been documenting network issues within my apartment complex for a few reasons. (1) I do actually work there, and I want to make sure that network suckitude doesn't get in the way of my being able to accomplish things. (2) My complex charges a mandatory fee for network service in each apartment, and I want to be able to clearly show what network issues exist and why they are bad if I decide to get a cable modem and contest the network service fee.

First step - inform the office on the off chance that they're actually going to be useful. The first lady I spoke to gave me a look like I was speaking Martian as soon as I dropped the first technical detail. I tried NOT to use technical terms and explain generally - but she pretty much asked for it. She hurriedly pushed me onto another guy who realized that I was speaking over his head also, but had the wherewithal to USE my skills. He gave me the account information for the complex, and suggested I talk with Time Warner directly to see if I could figure out what our issue was.

I had a sneaking suspicion that I KNEW what the issue was, but I agreed because that's a pretty forward-thinking thing to do for an office dude.

So I call up Time Warner and manage to speak Tech-Supportese in the appropriate way. You know - the particular dialect that says "I realize I have to go through the front line stupid questions, but I assure you that I know what I'm doing and have taken care of checking the obvious stuff ... there really IS a problem here". The TW tech guy (Eddie, who was swell to deal with) quickly gathered some basic information and told me he'd put me through to engineers for a higher level ticket.

Next up was Ari - who was also pretty swell to deal with from a tech support perspective. He quickly realized that I was technologically savvy and had me run some internal network tests while he ran the same externally. The bottleneck was clearly at the uplink from our complex, and indicated that we were maxxing the connection. It's what I had figured, really, but it's nice to get confirmation.

So now I have to ways to go. Ari said that TW was contacting the leasing office to inform them that residents were experiencing > 10% packet loss at prime time due to network flooding, and that TW would, of course, propose a solution. I can wait on that, but my hopes are not high. I can also get my own connection and challenge the mandatory network fee based on the fact that I (literally) proved that the service is not adequate. What to do? I hate dealing with red tape, but I likes my intarweb ... especially when this issue screws with my ability to game online.

The important part here is that I was given our complex's account information so I could do tech support. Ha.

09:50 am - Times to suffer in silence

I have the most difficult brother-in-law ever.

I know what you're thinking - "My inlaws are insane and they tried to stab me and they never approve of anything and they sell drugs and are vampires and SOCIALISTS!" ... or something like that. That's not a problem for me. When people devolve, I tend to write them off and move on until they show some sign of being swell again. Additionally, the problem isn't ACTUALLY my brother-in-law, it is the rest of his family. Allow me to explain a little further, and don't think too hard on why I went with the splashy one-liner opening instead of saying something complete and useful.

It is forever a curse in this world that we won't hear how other people talk about us when we're not around. You can get the gist of it through proxies and contextual clues and such, but it's not something that you'll ever really get the chance to eyeball and evaluate unless you have surveillance equipment or invisibility powers. In this case, I'm one of the people that gets stuck in conversations where my inlaws go down their checklist of "who lives where, who's doing what at work, who married whom or had kids, etc" - you know, the kind of stuff usually reserved for small talk between acquaintances but that some families turn into an endurance sport? Anyways, when they get going on my brother-in-law it gets a bit out of hand.

This guy is nice, he's funny, he's a hard worker, he has a nice wife, he's actually managed to escape the insane gravitational anomaly that is "my inlaws must all live within a 4 hour's drive of their hometown" ... I like him a lot! But when his family speaks of him, the tones get hushed, the lighting shifts, and they start breaking out the superlatives. The funny part is - it's superlatives both ways! He is simultaneously King Midas and Job, and there's nothing more annoying than someone who is simultaneously more accomplished and more long suffering in all things than you could ever hope to be. (note: I realize that Midas is a tragic or cautionary tale, in essence, but I figured people would get my drift)

Seriously, it gets out of hand. You can mention that your friend just won $500 playing blackjack in Vegas, and next thing you know you're listening to how this guy just won a poker tournament where the final table included Jesus, Einstein, Charles Barkley, and Merlin. Are you sick, did you turn an ankle? This guy just got over the bubonic plague and had his arm wrenched from its socket, reattached only through the miracle of modern medicine and because Jesus owed him one from the poker tournament. Did you just finish a long weekend/drive? Actually, that won't fly because you can't compete with any of my inlaws in matters of sleep deprivation or marathon work sessions mostly caused by poor planning or lack of time-sense.

I can go on, but I think it's not needed - my point is clear. I like my brother-in-law a lot and I think he's a good guy. The problem is that he's starting to irritate me through ABSOLUTELY no fault of his own. This irritation is not rational, and is inspired wholly by either (A) the complete and utter rose tinted lenses through which his family views his every act or (B) a natural tendency for family to overstate all things relating to their loved ones, and my inability to groove with this vibe. After all, there's nothing saying that others don't get the same dose of surreal storytelling about my wife when she's not there.

If there's one thing that I can speak authoritatively to, though, it's the story about this guy's engagement. Or rather, the story about the story about this guy's engagement. See, he did it at Christmas when he and his wife (then girlfriend) were driving from his family to her family (6 hours! Every visit they drive straight through! Uphill both ways in the storms and snow, with a flat tire and ninja hot on their trail!). He fakes a breakdown and stops at a scenic overlook where he pops the question and out springs his friend to shoot photos of the whole thing. I heard the plans and the original story. By the end of the weekend, when his Mom was telling that story? There were fireworks, the Blue Angels did a flyover, Elvis came out of hiding and sang to commemorate the occasion, and the US mint designed a coin that said "Will you marry me?" which he arranged to get as change from the Coke machine at the rest stop ... ... said machine dispensing "I love you so much!" cola, which Elvis liked a lot.

I honestly think that hearing that story 13 times across the holiday and WATCHING it get grander every time is what started this whole thing - it's just taken years for me to vocalize it. Or ascii-ize it. Whatever.

Current Mood: guilty

03:10 pm - "Lemme tell you about my character"

OK, no, not me. But in that same vein is "lemme tell you about my guild" - and if you'll indulge me for a moment, there's a bit more value in what I'm pondering than the usual crappy "lemme tell you about" stories.

So, we're a pure democracy and to the best of our knowledge that is unique in online gaming groups. All matters of consequence to the guild are voted on, with a supermajority required to do anything that would change the status quo. All matters not of consequence to the guild are expected to be handled by the involved parties as adults. As a nod to the real world, we've realized that certain circumstances require a "guild voice" and to that end we created a Council of members that are elected to a 3 month term. These members have no power beyond any other, but their voice is used in those circumstances when people expect to deal with us as a group rather than a group of like-minded individuals. Thusly, we tend to try and elect members who are good with people, or are socially adept at handling conflict. A side duty of this Council is to mediate disputes between members of the guild when said members ask for intervention to figure out a difficult situation. Like I said, in theory the Council are members who are skilled in this sort of thing, so it seemed like a natural growth of the duties.

Boy did being a Council member used to SUCK. It sucked HARD. Who wants to be involved in nonstop crap - even if you're good at slogging through said crap?

So what happened? As games became better designed, the opportunities for conflict decreased. Council became a secretarial position more than anything, but it still had that stigma of sucking hard. Eventually, that stigma kind of sloughed off and now it's almost completely drudge-work, but that work is so little and so widely spread that being Council isn't a big deal at all. As such, members started to be elected for availability and general amiability - because when you want something annoying and administrative done, you want it done quickly and you don't want to have to deal with a grouch to get it finished.

I'm sure you, fast-minded reader, see where this is going?

And you are correct. We have an old-school problem going, and no old-scool Council to take care of it. The potential for drama is hyoooooooge, involved personages don't shy from it, and the whole thing is fairly stupid. I'm not saying there isn't a problem - in fact there most certainly IS. I'm just saying that what hints I catch of the situation's handling? Oh God, it leaves a lot to be desired. I'd go so far as to wonder if it could be handled worse - but I'll refer to my statement of mere moments ago and note that I'm only getting hints and shadows of "The Deal". This puts me in a position of ignorance, and I make no firm statements until I'm de-ignorantized.

What the hell is your point, dude? My point the hell is that being in this guild is unique and has pushed me to deal with people and situations that I'd not have bothered with. This is enlightening. I have seen and enjoyed people I'd not have met or experienced if it weren't for the unique nature of this group - and I have several cherished relationships that I owe directly to my participation in this guild. It's a really cool thing.

But damn, talk about a pain in the ass, sometimes. Lemme TELL you.

Current Mood: blah

10:32 am - A fine turn of phrase.

I don't know why this struck me as so hysterical, but from Jeff Lindsay's novel "Darkly Dreaming Dexter", where the protagonist describes morning traffic in his typical dry and detached, yet perceptive and amusing manner...

At the LeJeune on-ramp, a huge dairy truck had roared onto the shoulder and hit a van full of kids from a Catholic school. The dairy truck had flipped over. And now five young girls in plaid wool skirts were sitting in a huge puddle of milk with dazed looks on their faces. Traffic nearly stopped for an hour. One kid was airlifted to Jackson Hospital. The others sat in the milk in their uniforms and watch the grown-ups scream at each other.

09:50 pm - Time, place, activity ... problem?

OK, folks out there with gaming groups - how in God's name do you manage it?

I find people to be so singularly unreliable that I haven't the slightest bit of faith in anyone's ability to keep an appointment for gaming purposes. The inherent chaos in the universe simply means that there's always SOMETHING that fucks with your plans. I used to think that this chaos would be mitigated by the brilliant onset of network gaming - because it eliminated the geographical factor and meant that people merely had to manage "on ass, in front of screen, at appointed time" - but even that is too much!!!

There's always:

My computer fried itself.
My kids are _______.
My laundry needs doing.
Power outage.

Simply put - SOME factor in a person's life will go wrong and prevent them from making their gaming appointment, say, 50% of the time. So, if you want a gaming group of 5 or 6 you need 10 or 12 people on tap. And then what the hell do you do for the random weeks when 10 or 12 ACTUALLY show up???

I don't blame people - I really don't. I know what it's like to have THINGS happen and the last thing you want to think about is being cheery and playing games and doing stuff. I don't want anyone to have to fight through Hellfire and Brimstone to play games with me - that sucks! At the same time, why aren't I afflicted? I can keep a weekly appointment. I can be on my ass at X time in front of my gaming screen of choice ready to play. Why am I so rarely the one saying "My poodle needed surgery and on the way home there was a high-speed chase and the cops threw out a tire strip and blew up my tires and I could have hitchhiked home, but my thumb was sprained in a session of furious masturbation the other day ... so I didn't make our game - sorry." ? Am I just lucky? Should I be thanking God that I CAN make gaming sessions without "Shit Happening"?

How do you folks do it? Because, I can't even get 4 other people together to play online video games anymore - and it's about to drive me nuts. I miss all my friends, and I have this constant hope that the wonder that is the Internet will help me connect with them - but when "Shit happens" I'm constantly thwarted, and I'm starting to take it hard.

Anyone? Bueller?

Oz

PS - if you're reading this and you think I'm talking about you, I'm not. I'm just into the Abita and musing in a moderately depressed state because my gaming evening ended early. NBA Street will fix things...

PPS - this is why MMO's are so dam successful. There are SO many people in game that you always have people around that want to game with you. Bunches of people fall by the wayside? WHO CARES? There are more here ... and playing with me! Problem in this case becomes TOO many people, so you have to deal with assclowns. *sigh* Damned either way. Such a fine balance!

Current Mood: confused

01:30 pm - Bad restaurant ... hurt stomach!

I have resisted many, MANY postings to this journal over the recent months - mostly because I don't wish it to be an "I hate ____" repository. Oddly, though, I'm most compelled to write when something really aggravates me. You guys have missed out on such winners as "weddings are the most worthless creations ever vomited forth onto our plane of being" right on through "why those traditional, bad-weather football games suck".

I've finally found the intervening happy-post worthy of writeup, though, and I'll attempt to give my experience a just treatment even through my food-addled haze ... hour #16. And so: the Churrascaria.

HOLY MEAT, BATMAN!

I've heard people go on about Brazilian steakhouses, and I always wanted to try one out - but for some reason, it just never fell into place. Well, we've got a good one, here in Durham - and it was declared that last night we were giving it a go. Off we went, to Chamas (http://www.chamas.us/about_us.php).

Unsure of the dress code, we dolled up a little (OK, I manley'd up a little - you get the idea...) and headed off. After navigating the downtown Durham area (always a challenge) we grabbed a spot and walked in. The dress was typically "upscale casual" so we chose well. Go us! The place looked like a very nice choice for a quiet birthday dinner, so even more "go us" back-patting ensued. Then we noticed that they have MAYBE half a dozen tables for two - and we got stuck next to the other pairs that were there. It wasn't a big deal, and turned out not to bother us - but it was amusing that in a mostly empty (Thursday night...) restaurant with a huge hall, we would wind up RIGHT next to two other pairs of people. Heh heh.

Out came our waiter-guy and he explained how the place works. First up, you head to the buffet table and sample lots of goodies. Goodies include cheeses, some cold seafoods, salads, and bread. I tried a half-dozen cheeses, including honey-nut brie and a spiffy asiago. A clam or two, some salad with raspberry-bleu cheese dressing, and various other fresh veggies and peppers. When that's done, you flip your personal "ready" card to green, and onwards come the meat dishes. Flank steak was first, a garlic steak followed, chicken and sausages after that, sirloin in a house glaze, herbed lamb, bacon-wrapped filet mignon ... good grief! Onwards it came, and though I stuffed myself stupid I always wanted to try some of what was passing by. I made note of what I missed out on, and next time we go back I'm going to finish the collection, as it were. I was taking part in the Pokemon of steak dinners. When I finally gave up, I was basically vowing to never eat again - and also expecting to need about 200 hours on the basketball court and in the gym to burn off the critters I had consumed.

In terms of pace ... I know my eating has slowed in the decade my wife and I have been eating together - but this was ridiculous! I couldn't wolf down my dish fast enough to keep my plate clear, so you basically couldn't be shy about saying "no, thank you" to the wandering Gauchos. More than once we flipped our cards to red while we finished off our cuts, cleansed the palate with some cinammon fried bananas, and took a quick breather. The back to green to catch that guy with the lamb!!! We were saying how everyone that talked about Chamas seems to have gone in a group - and we see why. It's the perfect place to go when you expect conversation to be limiting the pace at which you're consuming food, and more people means more carousing when you have to flip your card to red and recover for a minute.

The whole experience is $30 a head, so for $60 plus tip it's a great "special occasion" meal for my wife and I. I can't imagine anyone having room to order dessert, but it all looked good, and the wine list was extensive - so it could be more for others.

Anyways, I now know the joy that is the Churrascaria. My new life's goal is to take my Dad to one, so I can see if he'll actually explode or not. My money's on "yes".

Current Mood: full

12:37 pm - I Hate Wreaths

Seriously, symbolism and good cheer aside - they're incredibly dumb. Allow me to describe them me-style:

"I know - let's hang a large plant arrangement on a swinging verticle surface. Let's make it several INCHES deep, and let's do it at the time of year that we're most likely to be going in and out of our home with our arms full of luggage and gift bags."

That's right, not only are you impeded from coming and going - you also feel bad every time you crash into them. It's good to have nice things ... I don't put nice things in places where they get in my way and are likely to get bashed about.

I don't hold it against the person that thought up wreaths - in fact it calls out to me as something that has quite probably been misinterpreted and made dumb over the years. What gets me is the people that look at wreaths how they exist NOW and think that they're a good idea. They're not.

09:53 am - Things I won't do!

At least not under normal circumstances. I'll do a whole lot when there's a gun to my head.

1) I won't post a link from a website in a place where I know that anyone who cares already READS that website. I'm waiting for the day that someone posts a link to slashdot.org (no, I'm not linking it you jerks - you won't catch me that easily) ON slashdot.org and the resulting recursive clickfest tears a hole in space/time.

2) Watch cricket. I'm sorry, people, I tried. At various times I've watched all KINDS of sports on tv and figured out their rules. Heck, I've even considered paying the $60 and subscribing to the Aussie Rules International Pass! Cricket is just too painful.

3) Watch dubbed porn. Why on earth did someone think it was a good idea to have a voice "actor" stand in a booth and try to make the right noises at the right time while the performers do their thing? It never works! Really, you don't need a translation for nooky (nookie? nookey?) sounds, you don't need a translation for a lot of the things they're saying to each other, and I think it's funnier when I can't understand the rest of what they're saying!

4) Drink bottom shelf liquor (anymore). There's a time when quantity has a quality of its own, but that's never worked for me and the demon rum (I call him Jorgé). If I must be cheap, I'll go with industrial beer. I've learned that (for the most part) better liquors have less pronounced aftereffects in addition to being superior taste-wise, so at this stage in my life it's worth the extra money.

5) Pirate stuff and keep it without buying. In the age of digital entertainment, we're currently at a stage where theft is easy - so it falls to us to do the right thing. I have no problems torrenting an album, listening, and buying it if I like it (deleting if not). Additionally, I have no issues torrenting something that you just can't find anywhere else! If it can't be bought for less than an obscene price - but someone has managed to digitize it (I'm thinking of some rare books, here), then I think squeezing out middle-men is OK. In fact, I'm all for that. The more we reduce to producers and consumers (disregarding service industry), the happier I am.

That's enough for now. Whee. :)

04:40 pm - Dear moronic politicians

So, I kept meaning to address the election results in Virginia - where "marriage" is now defined as a union between 1 man and 1 woman, and the government is prohibited from creating any kind of situation that mimics marriage (IE, no civil unions). This is something that I sort of revile. And thusly, I present the following...

My Dear Moronic Politician,

First off, I want to say that I'm delighted our legislators are spending time "defining words". Not since you decided to investigate the usage of steroids in baseball has the time of our country's lawmakers been so well spent. One would think that getting a state budget out on schedule would be an important thing, but why start now? Especially when we have important things like gay marriage to head off at the pass.

Moving on to your defintion, I'm disappointed that you stopped where you did! I mean, if we're bringing marriage to a point why not bring it to a fine point? We could define marriage as a union between a white man and a white woman! You look horrified ... what did I say? We should also address age! I mean, isn't it an atrocity when a lecherous old coot robs the cradle and marries a delicate young flower? And money! Marrying across socioeconomic brackets really just leads to more trouble than it's worth. What? Now you're really looking at me funny. I don't understand. Race and age aren't worthy categories to filter marriage on? But gender is? Hmmm, ok.

Moving to the impact of your definition, we should get tremendous side benefits! With our state's homosexual population unable to marry, their tax rates will stay at the single entity rates. No "couple" tax rate breaks for them! Ha! This might make that whole budget thing easier, too... Additonally, hospitals have been relieved of numerous potential burdens. Now they don't have to worry about troublesome visitation policies for polygamous families. Whew!

In conlusion, I salute your valiant efforts to save the morals of our state. I for one feel safer knowing that Congress in on the job, as they are the paragons of virtue that we can only hope to emulate.

Smooches if you're female, and manly handshakes if you're male,
Me

-------------------------------

No ... seriously, why can't we make marriage "decisions" that discriminate against black people? How can we justify forcing certain taxation realities on a particular SOCIAL segment of our population? The only conclusion I can reach is that Virginia has declared homosexuality to be a choice, and thusly you're bringing this situation onto yourself. (whilst melanin surplus is genetic and can't be helped) But ... are we sure about that? Really???

I still can't figure out why the heck are our legislators dealing with this in the first place. Clearly they don't have enough to do ... except for all the stuff they fail to accomplish year in and year out. Sheesh.

01:10 pm - Ticked Off

At what point is it the right idea to chew someone out, even when doing so is completely nonproductive? When is a cathartic release of anger worth the confrontation and hurt feelings, even when it can't hope to accomplish anything? I'm often unbelievably frustrated with the way things shake out, especially when I'm dead right about some negative situation that's developing, take steps to avoid said situation, and am eventually thwarted and confronted by that situation anyways.

Professionally, these things aren't as big a problem because I'm generally clear about how I feel and what I think should be done. If "bad things" happen, I'm in the clear if I was right and don't wind up responsible for dealing with the mess. Personally, however, it's a much shakier thing. Once the badness has arrived, it must be fixed - and there's nothing as simple as "this is what we pay you for" to dictate how that happens. What happens then is that people who are problem solvers inevitably wind up tackling the situation, and life goes on. If you're a problem solver, though, and you don't want to deal with a situation - in fact taking steps to AVOID the situation - and still find yourself stuck in it ... what then?

There's no question that you (the problem solver) will wind up digging out of the hole again, and you'll probably resent having to do so. This fills you with the desire to have at the person who dropped the ball, but what if that just won't fix anything? It's too late, you're already stuck fixing things. "It could prevent future happenings!" cries the Peanut Gallery. Quite true! This would be tremendously useful ... if it had a pan pizza's chance in a dorm of actually happening. Sometimes you just know that a certain person is a certain way, and they aren't changing.

So - if it doesn't help current times and it won't help future times ... is it worth unleashing? I've always been of the stance that it is not. I try to roll with the punches and wait out the worst of my anger by doing stupid things like updating my LiveJournal. Generically, that timegap combined with a bag of potato chips (a true vice for me) are enough to make me grin and move on.

Every once in a while, though, good gravy - I'm ready to pull on the gloves and go 5 rounds in the octagon. (this despite my utter lack of continuing training, and only vague memories of sparring "back in the day")

Ah well. Cheers.

Current Mood: angry

10:32 am - Oh yeah...

I suppose I should note that I've decided to keep my current job. That came about because I inquired on working remotely, and everyone quickly agreed to keep me on staff. This is kinda cool, because I'll get to see what it's like with no commute and with some more time to cook - things like that. It also becomes harder for the doofuses of the workplace to find me and bog me down. When they have to write email, they have to have their thoughts at least a LITTLE composed, instead of just walking up and saying, "I have a problem, can you fix it?" ... and that's not much of an exaggeration.

It also presents the fun of remote staff meetings. We have someone that does teleconferencing and things like that, so she's having fun setting up the way for me to ring in with a webcam. This brings in lots of ideas like sock puppets, backdrops, sitting my bunny in front of the webcam... you know the type of thing.

The good part is that this secures our second income, so I can move even without our house being sold. It will suck to have to come back into town to do anything the house requires having done - but whatever. It's better to be with my wife and have to worry about travelling for real estate that to be dealing with real estate by myself and travelling on the weekends to see my wife. That's an easy one.

10:57 am - An interesting interview

Long have I scorned those that say "I can solve *some problem* I just can't explain how I did it", or any variation of this that includes "showing your work". This situation is most often resultant from a limited number of data bits or variables, a limited number of potential configurations, and a clearly intuitive answer or solution. If you can't explain what you did, you didn't solve the problem, you just combined the given bits until you got something that looked right - which is why the best tests that I took in college would yield numerically similar answers if you were just plugging and chugging with data bits and didn't understand the problem.

Thing is, I now believe there's another slant to this problem: vocabulary. Someone may understand a problem, be able to solve the problem, and could explain to YOU how to solve the problem - but they might not have the vocabulary to do so. I happen upon this thanks to an interview I had yesterday.

I walked into Duke's OIT building and asked for someone in a department that I'd seen posting some noteworthy jobs. They were nice enough to talk to me and even sat down with me for 45 minutes or so for an impromptu interview. There's a manager type and a tech type. We discuss what I'd created for UVA, what systems I was familiar with, so on and so forth. Things seem to be going pretty decent. Finally, the manager type looks at the tech type and turns him loose.

"So I see you use Object Oriented Programming - tell us about how you got into that."

Vague. I'm not sure what he wants so I describe some of the objects that I've developed and used doing webstuff. At one point, I mentioned how I create objects to handle all of the tasks relevant to certain bits of data. I include an example where I go to a "People" object and nab database ids for all of the "Groups" that they belong to. He asks, "Why couldn't you return an array of Group objects instead?" Well, I certainly could. Is it called for? Do I need to load up an array of group objects that have all their data set, or do I just need the ids? What am I trying to do, here?

"Most of what you've talked about so far has been from a Domain standpoint. What about Controllers and Views and such."

Alright, here is where I don't know what to say. I don't know the theoretical abstracts for these terms. I know that controllers handle requests from the users - they DO things. Views are essentially display templates. But what's the guy asking? I decide to short circuit the conversation. I say something to the effect of,

"I'm not sure what you're looking for, really. I don't have a CS degree and a lot of the theoretical background to Object Oriented programming was never presented to me in any way but the practical. I've heard both of those terms, and even worked with them when considering things like small 'Ruby on Rails' projects, but I can't say that any project I created from the ground up has dealt, specifically, with things like 'Controllers' or 'Views'."

The tech-type responds with:

"Yeah, for the position we have open we need someone who has this stuff as a second nature. We've written code that would have you lost in a heartbeat, and we've got junior level people that are learning about it - but I'm already working with them. For this position we need someone who understands all these concepts."

At this point, I like to flatter myself that the manager type threw a "What the fuck are you SAYING?" look. The tech type lamely follows up with, "Don't get me wrong - you've got valuable skills that we don't want to lose, I just don't think that this position is the one that you're looking for."

They then went on to tell me about a position in THEIR networks group that they're going to try to get me in on. I guess. I'm (re)learning on this job search that your unemployment isn't as important to anyone as it is to you, and tons of people would LIKE to help and INTEND to help - but actual followthrough is a rare and precious thing.

Back to the topic at hand, though, I suddenly felt like a baseball player with a high batting average that can't explain how I hit a curve ball. Well, I COULD if I could just articulate what it is that I do, but I plainly didn't speak the same language as the guys that wrote the baseball book. So, yeah, I was on the flip side of an issue that I'd always considered annoying. At least I clearly knew that the problem was vocabulary and terminology rather than experience, skill, or poor results.

Oh well, I hope they find what they want. In the meantime, I'm redoing my resume. It now reads like this:

*****

Dear potential employers. I am, essentially, an IT application developer. I have been given numerous tasks by my current employer and have completed all of those tasks in a satisfactory and timely manner. Occasionally on short deadlines! I have also identified problems on my own, and created tools that solved those problems. If you don't believe me, ask my current employer.

If you would like an independent problem solver in your business venture, let me know.

Word.