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| Monday, October 19th, 2009 | | 3:33 pm |
Not very inspirational, but ought to be in the textbooks
There's two ways a job can go: A) The job will slowly break you. Management will reveal themselves to be a force of dread malice, doing everything possible to extinguish all hope and joy from your life. The clients will pummel you relentlessly with the verbal equivalent a tire iron against your very soul. Every time you wake, you will look at the day stretched before you, and you will shudder. You will experience levels of rage that could actually be considered an aerobics program, and will somehow do so while simultaneously experiencing levels of boredom that would drive your average garden slug to leap into a salt cellar. You will go from being an intelligent and patient person, to a gibbering man-ape, longing for the days of the thrown turd as the primary method of long-distance communication. Or B) Which is the same as A), but replace the word "slowly" with "suddenly." | | Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 | | 5:33 pm |
| | Friday, November 14th, 2008 | | 10:36 am |
How to Succeed in Business
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort. - Herm Albright | | Thursday, October 9th, 2008 | | 8:46 am |
| | Sunday, August 17th, 2008 | | 8:41 pm |
Writer's Block: Your Username
I had been given an assignment in an introduction linguistics class to invent a word. So I picked the sound of a can of stewed tomatoes (or pet food) slowly plopping out of a can into a bowl. Kind of a Shhhhhhhhh-lorp! I thought that X would look niftier than an SH, so there was the word - xlorp. Then I mentally paired it with a cartoon character I developed in college, kind of a one-eyed Easter Bunny with an elephant trunk, wearing a loincloth and carrying a tremendous axe. I then gave him a job as a lasagna-boy (along the lines of cowboy) who cared for herds of lasagna-beasts and branding them with red-hot spatulas. Then I pragmatically realized that it could be a user id name that would never be reserved on any server. Et voila! Much later I found a new meaning during an on-line game of Werewolf / Mafia. My username tended to get me lynched a lot as many folks agreed it sounded like the sound made by a werewolf scooping out and eating a poor villager's brains. Slurp, xlorp! | | Saturday, April 12th, 2008 | | 5:17 pm |
More mathlike humor
Heisenberg gets pulled over by a traffic cop. The cop asked, "Do you realize how fast you were going?" Heisenberg replies, "No. But, I know *exactly* where I am." | | Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 | | 7:31 pm |
| | Friday, February 29th, 2008 | | 10:59 am |
| | Monday, February 11th, 2008 | | 7:41 pm |
IT projects in the workplace
The metaphor currently in vogue with my employer is to say that we are attempting to change a tire on a car while speeding down the road at 60mph. This is strangely apt, considering no one in their right mind would ever attempt such idiocy. Not only that, we're going to actually try to replace all four, one after the other. And for an encore, as a reward for such ingenuity, we'll be tasked with replacing the engine in the same way. The script calls for us to shout; "Ta-DAAAAAAA!!!!" I call it The Aristocrats. | | Thursday, January 17th, 2008 | | 3:11 pm |
Yep, back from the Pluto Expedition. Been good while I was gone?
To All and Sundry. I was kidnapped 6 months ago by Evil Project People at work and set to helping reinvent an entire supply chain replenishment planning process within the confines of a single software giant's product offerings. The only clue to the company name is that they can not deliver anything ASAP. This mission was so super secret I couldn't tip anyone off by neglecting my normal job during the day, and even had to clone myself and appear in parallel meetings simultaneously. To top off my Nobel prize quality work I then smashed the time-space continuum in order to deliver project milestones yesterday, every day. This is only possible in California, where today is always yesterday's tomorrow. Today, I have halved my meeting face-time requirements, but still have deliverables. At least sometimes now I see the light of day and contemplate shedding the Morlock lifestyle. | | 3:09 pm |
| | Monday, April 9th, 2007 | | 9:37 am |
A little late for April Fool's
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/09/bush-almost-blows-himself-up/This story plays wrong on so many subtextual levels, despite the gift-wrapping. 1) alternative energy autos are inherently dangerous 2) hydrogen-fueled explosive devices rountinely occupy the White House lawn 3) The safest place for POTUS and his evil twin is right next to said vehicle 4) Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne, erm, Ford CEO Alan Mulally saves the day 5) After hearty guffaws all around, the alternative energy monster is banished until peak oil is a distant memory | | Saturday, January 27th, 2007 | | 7:38 pm |
There can only be one! Er, two!
The name xlorp is as far as I know utterly unique. It's an onomatopeiaic word I made up for a beginning linguistics class in college. All it meant at the time was the sound made by pouring a can full of stewed tomotoes into a bowl. I liked the word, and took it as my email handle everywhere later. This caused no end of confusion when my sneaky personal account on apple.com became my formal business account when they took away applelink as our official in-house communication system. (For the curious I left Apple about 10 years ago for a much larger tech company that also started here in the bay area, and I have done well there.) Last year I took part in many on-line sessions of a group dynamic game known as Werewolf (originally mafia I think). The word's meaning became known as the sound when a werewolf scoops the brains out of a villager's skull. Still, it's quite short and unique and no one has already taken it on any system or login I need. Fast forward to the present day. I hang out on an MMPORG called Runescape. I run into another person whose handle ended in the string 'xlorp'. Needless to say he was totally freaked out because his real name was Xavier Lorp. We chatted a bit and I added him to my flist and such. Xlorp is offically no longer unique. But I was there first! Current Mood:  amused | | Friday, November 24th, 2006 | | 3:00 pm |
Unscheduled Stuff
How one spends ones waking hours is a series of trade-offs. If economic and household needs are stable, then the give and take can be orderly and even satisfactory. So what if some of the needs don't play fair? Imagine a Darth Vader voice "I am altering the terms of our agreement. Pray I don't alter it further." Outlandish? Not at all; life is full of unscheduled stuff. I use a more pungent and scatalogical term, but stuff gets the meaning across anyway. I deliberately avoid management promotions at work. Why? I've never seen a manager who was happy and working fewer or even the same number of hours as me. As of today, I don't NEED the marginal pay increase in exchange for the greater stress, hours and further erosion of the work/life barrier. My health doesn't play fair. I broke my foot two weeks ago and became very dependent on assistance until I could walk without the crutches. If I catch a Martian Death Flu such that I can't go in to work, I am just as unable to accomplish anything around the house. Tasks pile up; few become safely irrelevant while I convalesce. Work doesn't play fair. I stacked the deck in my favor as much as possible. Individual Contributor with unerring eye for details, deep systems understanding, very happy internal customers and total autonomy in deciding the fate of about $100 million worth of product every week. I can work from home if I want, keep my home and cell #s private and wear nothing dressier than jeans and polo shirt. And stuff happens. I work as many as 20 hours a day, I'm a necessary safety net to dozens of other people who are overworked themselves and send me bollixed data, I know how to tweak my own systems to compensate for other systems' lack of functionality and I provide data analyses up to the VP level. I don't read anymore. Even if I could muster enthusiasm, my brain can't absorb the words. I don't participate in any of my on-line forums anymore. Open ended time commitments with daily 'high-touch' and mental creativity can't fit. Outside of sleep, I work and care for my SO and my cats. If you haven't heard from me or were expecting to see me, I'm not avoiding you. I'm just taken aback by unscheduled stuff. | | Saturday, October 28th, 2006 | | 12:13 pm |
Frack!
Never had a sprain in my life, much less a broken bone. I've come out of over a dozen car accidents as a passenger (6 of them total write-offs) literally without a scratch. Do I feel invincible, you bet! So I tripped in the parking lot after work on Monday and broke my foot (avulsion fracture of the styloid process of the fifth metatarsal, left side). We found out yesterday after finally visiting a doc because the "sprain pain" wasn't going away after three days. The foot specialist got all high and mighty about why didn't I come in immediately. I dunno, doc, maybe because the pain was so minor compared to a compressed sciatic nerve for example. Pain is the body's own Western Union telegram service and all I got was "Wish you were here; send money.PS avoid running for a few days." I really miss walking. When the swelling goes down and I get my hard cast I should be able to do stuff again. On the other hand my coworkers and upper management are so much more bearable when I don't have to see them every day. And I get to continue indoctrinating my three furry little henchmen (henchcats? mini-meows?) in proper lapcat behavior full time. | | Tuesday, October 17th, 2006 | | 10:48 pm |
Corpus foetidum non necessitamus!
AKA "We don't need no steenkin' body!" as declared by our War Criminal in Chief. He did however leave us with a corpus delicti, our Constitution, and if pressed further, could now very well throw you or me on the pile. There's even a clause buried in that paper pile making all pre-signature detentions retroactively legal if judged so by an authorized entity R.I.P. Habeus Corpus If you aren't pissed beyond description, take another look around, and be damned sure you vote! | | Friday, September 29th, 2006 | | 10:59 pm |
Open letter to our representatives
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) morgandawn and I are sending this via regular mail to California Senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein, as well as our local Congressman Mike Honda. I'm under no illusion concerning a reply, but I have to hope that similar letters are on their way all over the country to our elected officials. If you don't know how to contact your national representatives, try these two links: http://www.house.gov/writerep/ http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_in formation/senators_cfm.cfm Dear Senator / Congressperson: It pains me to see such daily debacle and travesty in Washington. I was too young to personally experience the Nixon era, however this year seems as bad or worse now. What have we become as a country that I am afraid and ashamed to see each new revelation? Party politics should be meaningless here. Party affiliation must not become the compass of moral relativism and situational ethics. When have we last expected to hear, and actually heard, nuanced debate, not artificially polarized talking points? But where are we now? • An economy supported by crushing consumer debt. • Ruinous undeclared wars under false pretenses. • Badly eroded checks and balances between the three branches. • Insanely powerful corporations with more privileges and fewer duties than any human. • An unseemly fascination with reducing personal freedoms in all spheres. • The suspicion, mistrust and even hatred of the international community. • A professional, citizen-soldier army bleeding daily with no rational military objective. • Abysmal voter turnout compared to other countries. • War criminals brazenly operating in positions of power, both here and with some of our allies. • Openly operated torture chambers. • 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prison population. • Scandalously high infant mortality rate. I could go on. Yet we are not directing our vast resources and political will towards solving these problems here or abroad. What are our government's priorities? What principles shaped the actions necessary to put us here now? Why should any citizen or resident want to support the government that has made today an abhorrent nightmare at the expense of everything we hold dear? I am deeply ashamed of what America stands for now. Ignore the words, the justifications and excuses; look at what we actually do today. It's wasteful, stupid and even criminal. I speak and vote my conscience, with care to respect basic human needs. I wish I could say I had faith in sufficient of our political representatives to do the same. America has a population of almost 300 million, and a GDP of about $12.5 trillion. What could we not accomplish had we but the will to direct ourselves responsibly. That's your job now; make a difference serving the people, our country and our founding principles, or move on. | | Tuesday, August 22nd, 2006 | | 11:31 am |
Vacation? Time Off? What are these concepts of which you speak?
I reserved a very long time ago a week and a half off right about now to go to WorldCon. I'd researched the quarterly cycles of my business and this would have been a great week to be gone. Key milestones for the Holday sales lifecycle already locked in and the rest would be simple run-rate business for my apprentice to handle in my absence. No, Virginia, there is no justice in the Business World. The milestones were slipped, and base supply data provided to me was deficient to an absurd degree. Normally 99% support levels bring with them an irreducible number of escalations which can at least be explained to the laypeople in sales. This time it was 60%. I can't fake that by any stretch. So I worked all day Saturday and half of Sunday proving that we only had 60% no matter how they sliced it. Monday was spent defending my 60% analysis (no support from the gits who hucked that dead cat over the fence to me) and agreeing that all my weekend work was valid but could not be published to the rest of the company for being so politically unacceptable. Wednesday and Thursday will be spent on grinding over a new dead cat of data analyzing and reporting on it. Friday will be spent defending my work again and then publishing to all and sundry what should have been done a month ago. If the servers can be persuaded to give me decent bandwidth, I may be able to finish publishing Friday night. Otherwise it's back to kicking the server status link every 30 minutes until my end data is processed. I am reminded of the old saw about working for free doing something you love, or being paid to watch your work burned before your eyes every night. | | 11:22 am |
PHP anyone?
I'm a moderator on an on-line HTML game server, despite having little to no understanding of the coding language. The previous developer created an impressive array of moderator GUI pages for modifying some variables but he's pretty much out of the picture now. Now the underlying code is a customized version of a public domain game engine written in PHP. Where oh where should I begin in getting off my duff and learning PHP in a way that I can squeeze between insane work hours and necessary household upkeep? PHP Made E-Z? Thinner Modules in 30 Days? Spaghetti Code the Atkins Way? | | Friday, August 18th, 2006 | | 9:52 pm |
Symantec, thou wouldst stink by any other name
Or, a tale of software licensing woe. I bought a new laptop computer at the end of last year. It came with, among other things pre-installed, a free month trial version of Norton Antivirus. So far this is all good and no one has had their eyes poked out. Yet. At the end of the trial period I dutifully give them money for another year of service; Symantec calls this a subscription. About 10 months later my hard drive upped and died. No warning, no sniffles, coughs and strange grinding sounds, just a black screen upon booting and the dreaded error code: PXE-061. The only way to get data of the drive would have been to open the housing, extract the platter without incident, and re-install it in another housing. Not bloody likely. Very fortunately morgandawn had set me up with a free backup account at mozy.com and finagled just enough quota to get me a FULL DOCUMENT BACKUP three days before the crash. Morgandawn is psychic and resourceful. Memo to self: double her hot fudge sundae quota. HP nicely sent me a new, blank hard drive which I installed and I'm off to the races. I found ways and means to get OS, drivers and other necessary software installed, but I couldn't re-install Norton. So I emailed Symantec and they gave me a ticket number and told me to call an 800 number. The 800 number had a phone tree from hell and no operator support, but a second number got me a live human being at a technical call center who informed me that my choices were: a) buy another 12 months of subscription in order to be allowed to redownload the base program. b) cancel the remaining time on my subscription for a refund. I handled the call with politeness throughout, but refused the offer to pay even more money in order to enjoy what I had already bought. I then replied to my most recent email from Symantec requesting a cancellation and refund. Symantec's prompt reply was an auto-generated form informing me that all emails to that address would be ignored as they had received too much spam and such there. My interpretation of it all is that it feels like greedy stupidity. The word extortion comes to my mind at least. I shall now use google-fu to track down a Symantec VP or two and let them know their company fails at life. Even better than getting my special crankpants on for Symantec is that I work in the very division of HP that sells consumer laptops. And the cube town next to my aisle houses the very nice folks who make software bundling and licensing decisions. Gosh, won't I have a nice chat with them next week. |
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