| My contract has... contracted. |
[Dec. 1st, 2009|05:22 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | me, work | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  blah | ] |
The customer hasn't renewed my contract for next year, so I'm a free agent again.
I'm looking for system administrator and application support work in the greater Los Angeles area. |
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| That was a different Friday afternoon. |
[Nov. 27th, 2009|06:13 pm] |
So Bob and his dog Stain got run over by a garbage truck today. Literally, like in a MAD Magazine cartoon.
I found this out because I was reading in the patio when my phone said "DING" and the message was a Facebook update. A few of my friends I have set to text me when they update. Bob's one of them. His update was, basically: "Stain and I hit by truck. No phone. At home. Bloody mess. HALP"
I zipped over there to find them both bloody and shocked. A garbage truck had essentially parked on Stain's front paws and he was licking them mournfully. Bob was a bit of a scratch and dent himself. The kitchen looked, as Bob put it, "like Charlie Manson came over for lunch."
So far, so good. Remains to be seen how badly Stain's paw is injured. Bob appears intact.
This is an example of the power of the Internet, though. With no minutes left on his prepaid phone, the $200 netbook plus some neighbor's wifi plus facebook plus text alerts meant that several people immediately saw an alarm. Daniel turned around and biked back from Seal Beach on that alarm, I went across town here, and half a dozen other people immediately responded.
Here's to a fast healing dog. |
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| SEARSFAIL |
[Nov. 26th, 2009|02:02 am] |
I got this email from Sears today:
WHOOPS! The email we sent you Monday had the wrong TV offer in it! We are not offering a Panasonic 54" class 1080p 600Hz plasma HDTV for $399.99. We apologize for this mistake and assure you that we are taking every step to make sure it doesn?t happen again.
The offer that we currently have is a Panasonic 54" class 1080p 600Hz plasma HDTV for $1099.99.
Some Thad or Tad or Katie or Caitlin "Email Blast Coordinator" didn't enhance revenue today. |
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| Pre holiday work email hilarity |
[Nov. 25th, 2009|12:21 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | ha, work | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | sleepy | ] |
Email thread.
Boss: Everyone can leave early today.
Coworker #1: Awesome! Everyone have a great holiday! Anyone having a turducken?
Coworker #2 [Vegetarian, not native English speaker]: I think I might instead try a Tofucken !
Thread: ended |
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| Annals of Commerce: Holiday Specials |
[Nov. 24th, 2009|01:38 pm] |
My project this season is to collect the weirdest holiday sales pitches, i.e., the ones that have to stretch the most to associate themselves with any of the possible Fall and Winter holidays. So far I have: - Buddhist teacher selling "holiday" cards to somehow assist children in African country
- "Celebrate and give thanks all week in EverQuest® with 25% Bonus Station Cash™ and Increased faction hits all around Norrath!"
- Ham radio tree ornaments from the American Radio Relay League.
Please drop any good ones you find in the comments. I'm sure there will be some winners. |
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| Gruntfish, fang frogs, and microbears |
[Nov. 15th, 2009|12:45 pm] |
From Chuck Shepherd's News of the Weird today:
Among the species discovered recently in Papua New Guinea were tiny bear-like creatures, frogs with fangs, fish that grunt, kangaroos that live in trees, and what is probably the world's largest rat (with no fear of humans). Scientists from Britain, the United States, and Papua New Guinea announced the findings in September, among more than 40 new species from a jungle habitat a half-mile deep inside the centuries-dormant Mount Bosavi volcano crater. [The Guardian (London), 9-7-09] |
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| A Veterans Day Toast |
[Nov. 11th, 2009|01:13 pm] |
This Veterans Day I offer a toast to my Uncle Richard. He was a very young soldier in 1943 when he was called upon to invade Sicily and fight the Nazis there.
On average everyone in his unit was killed three times, so 300% casualties. It's not clear how he survived, although he has a great debt to an older sergeant who looked after him. A lot of things in life have been more difficult than they should have been since then.
Since that time he has maintained a continuous, loyal, and upright middle finger at any kind of authority, without exception. He's a photographer and painter and retired from teaching. I believe he was something of a thorn in the side of university administrators during his career.
Uncle Dick, I'm sorry for the unholy amount of suffering you had to endure, and I salute you for being a model of rebellion and creative success. Bottoms up! |
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| Vocabulary of the day, courtesy Bob |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|05:30 pm] |
Whiskey Car (n). A car which has been operated by a heavy drinker for some time. A particular damage pattern identifies a Whiskey Car. There will be parking lot dents, small ones with a bit of paint from another car or a pole. A distinctive pattern of impacts will be seen on the top of the fenders or bumpers due to angry car-whacking, for example with a pool cue or a hand tool. The inside of the car will smell vaguely bad, similar to the tobacco and old alcohol aroma of its owner at the end of the evening. Any keyhole will be scratched from impaired attempts to get the key in.
The whiskey car is immediately identifiable by observant people who've spent time in bars. |
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| I love California |
[Nov. 6th, 2009|12:01 pm] |
Seen on the 405 Freeway:
Little black Mazda with license plate CRO FLIP and license plate holder that says:
Hrvatica <3 Pinay
Like No One Else |
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| Halloween: What Not To Wear |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|01:34 pm] |
The Halloween costume for women that I call the "Slutty Noun" outfit is now a topic of debate and outrage; I've been complaining about it for years. It's mainstreaming the sex industry, dragging women back into the Playboy Bunny past, and in poor taste. Yuck!
Last year I realized something worse. While the women dress as stereotyped available objects (nurse, catwoman, stripper outfits, little French maid, showgirls) the men have their own roles. They're pirates, soldiers, cops, horror movie murderers, Dracula, barbarian." These roles have something in common too: they're powerfully violent and often depicted assaulting women.
What's the message? Men are rapists and women are their victims. And now every year the men and women dress that way, go to parties and bars and get sloshed, and see what happens.
Anyone is free to explore sexuality and enjoy role-playing I don't like. In this case it would be less worrisome if any if these people knew what roles they were taking on and where that might go. |
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| Holiday! |
[Oct. 30th, 2009|01:19 pm] |
In my father's novel Bull Fire, the four holidays that most cultures share are named as follows:
The Greater Sunstop
The Lesser Sunstop
Pandemonium
The Springing
Happy Pandemonium, everyone! |
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| Whew! |
[Oct. 20th, 2009|12:53 am] |
I sure am glad President [Johnson] was re-elected instead of that scary [Goldwater] guy. Now that [Medicare] is in full swing, the [War on Poverty] can't fail!
I'm worried about the situation in [Vietnam] but you know, someone with this kind of social commitment isn't going to escalate the situation over there. Maybe with an increase in troop levels we can get the [Vietnamese] government back on its feet and not be there much longer!
Jesus H. Christ, we're playing MadLibs with 1965. |
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| A new and disturbing phenomenon |
[Oct. 9th, 2009|05:07 pm] |
Angry internet commenters have grown not only more numerous and angrier, but increasingly incoherent. YouTube comments in particular are so garbled that only an impressionistic haze of rage and sociopolitical obsession can be abstracted from the text.
I theorize that these comments are no longer mostly produced by humans. The mass of anonymous anger has in the last decade grown so heavy and compact that its own heat and pressure has begun to generate new comments in a kind of Chomskyan parthenogenesis, a volcanic language organ that spews semi-understandable confrontation. These almost unparseable chunks of language share key phrases and subject matter, and are uniformly infused with rage. However, they refer only to their own content and don't appear to require any communication from the outside to fuel their growth.
We are dealing with a new and troubling Internet worm; a self-replicating mechanism that attacks ideas incoherently and grows at an increasing rate.
The legendary Jerkov Chain is finally here. |
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