Are you deaf, you wanna hear some more

As I walk around cubeville I note that most of my coworkers have headphones on. I use my speakers because I can't wear headphones all day. I have enough frequent interruptions it becomes more of a hassle to wear them, and I don't find them particularly comfortable anyway.

I have told everyone many times that if my music is a problem, just let me know and I'll turn it down. It rarely happens. I wonder if I piss people off and they are just too nice to tell me?

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I got 99 problems

Friday is supposed to be a slow day. Though one of our major subsystems usually has a crisis around 3 or 4pm every Friday, we usually at least have a mellow day up until then. I have Friday-brain with various Monday level crisis going on.

Plus my cell phone keeps crashing.

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The small fame that you've acquired

br />Back in the early 90's Faith No More had a hit song called 'Epic'. I heard about it, saw the video on MTV and figured "Yea, sure. Red Hot Chili Peppers knockoff, but it's a good song. I'll pick up the single, not waste my money on the whole album." So I got the single. The second track on the single was 'Edge of the World'. I was completely hooked. I couldn't help liking a band that went to two such different genres on the same album. In my frequent trips to Berkeley and San Francisco and L.A. to go used record store hopping I managed to pick up all their previous albums, several promo only releases, magazines with interviews, and all the ephemera associated with being a collector.

A similar thing happened when I discovered Joe Jackson when he released 'Laughter and Lust'. Only about 10 years after everyone else discovered him. I am a completist. I've got it under control, mostly. But when I get into something, I'm all in. I would spend hours and hours tracking down rarities, obscurities, and peripherally related items. I must see every episode of that show, I must read every book by that author, I must hear every song by that band, I must read every post on that blog.

When I was younger it was much much worse. Trying to fit in in high school and college, trying to 'prove' I was cool, hip, indier-than-thou. I had to know all the more obscure things about whatever new trend was going on, I had to have stuff that no one else did, limited edition memorabilia, I had to go to all the coolest shows to prove that I was cool.

Now I'm an adult. I have a job. A house. A wife. A daughter. I spend my time on things that are actually important instead. But I sure wish I'd had TiVo and iTunes and eBay back in the day...

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So what's so what's the scenario

I've been enamored of the idea of scenario dioramas of late. I tried to resist, but when the two hour weekly priority meeting turned to storyboarding a part of the next phase I couldn't resist suggesting dioramas instead.

Our SA of course had the best comment when he said "Just what this project needs: a craft hour."

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Stupid Girl

Saw a girl wearing an awesome shirt at the mall this weekend:

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If I had a hammer

Part of being prepared is having the right tools for the job, and part of it is doing your planning ahead of time. One for two this weekend, I suppose that's not horrible. For many many years I got by with a hammer, a drill, and a handful of wrenches and screwdrivers. Since we bought a house I've had the space and the money to get more specialized tools.

We bought some framed pictures at Target a few weeks back, but the mounts were all off center. Really tiny mounting hardware with 1/16" screws in them. I tried to imagine trying to fix this with a handheld drill, then considered that an old fashioned hand-powered drill would actually be easier. I don't have one. Though I did recall that hiding under the radial arm saw was a drill press. Now that's the ticket. Smooth as salmon pudding. All three pictures were remounted in under 5 minutes.

Planning ahead can sometimes be tougher. I took Boo out for a morning with daddy while the moms gossiped. And let me just say I'm glad that people took my longstanding dictate to heart: If you're going to talk smack about me, have the decency to make it more interesting than my actual life. We made the long trek out to West County so I could go to Rockler, after I checked their Sunday hours, and pick up a few things. It's about a 40 minute drive all told to Page and 270. As I turned the corner I was surprised to see that the parking lot at Woodcraft was empty. Woodcraft and Rockler do not have the same Sunday hours. Good to know.

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Workin up a black sweat

Review of the new Prince album, 3121, is now up.

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When I decide which road to choose

I asked a lot of questions as a child. So much so that my best friend named me "Question Creep". As Jaded has started this meme, go ahead and ask the Question Creep anything you want.

Answers to questions:
A-go-go - Can I raid your vault of unreleased music? When will you start playing nicer with iTunes? You and Michael Jackson were competing pretty hard in the 80's to see who was weirder. You clearly lost by a long shot, are you disappointed?

Kat - I actually was on track to go into teaching when I got into computers after college. I think I will eventually go into teaching History later in life when I burn out on IT. Both paths have their ups and downs, IT works better for me now but I would probably just as happy/frustrated as a teacher :)

Lily -1) What draws you to another's blog?
Someone who write things that are interesting. I read different blogs for different reasons. I read Andrew Sullivan because he writes well, even though I disagree with the majority of his views. I read Christopher Witt because he's hilarious.
On the beach with my family

3) If you could change 3 things about St. Louis, what would they be? If you could keep 3 things the same forever, what would they be?
No tornadoes, add some mountains, and an ocean. STL is really a great city. Once you get outside the city it starts getting a bit too conservative for my tastes, but I have very few complaints.

4) How many bloggers do you know in RL whose blogs you read? How many did you meet after first reading their blogs?
That's a really tough question. I've met in person probably 40 or 50 of the bloggers I read/have read regularly. I wouldn't say I actually *know* more than about 7 of them. There are only five bloggers I know that I knew before I read their blog

5) What are your favorite films of all time?
Office Space. Spinal Tap (and everything else by Christopher Guest). The original Star Wars trilogy. Brain Donors. Shakes the Clown. The Marx Brothers catalog. I'm sure there are dozens more I'm not thinking of, but any media that lasts more than about 20 minutes is outside the scope of my available time right now :)

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They say I might as well work in a bank

In a fit of pique this weekend I went through the pile of credit card offers waiting to be shredded. In the past month I've gotten more than 30 of them. The big winner was Capitol One, with 8. Chase and citibank followed with 7 and 6 respectively, and a few others with 2-3 each and then several with one.

Are they really that desperate for new customers?

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It's a lovely trip

Going through random work notes looking for unfinished action items, I came across this gem from another team lead.

"They say how the Use Case starts, but I guess we have to wait for the movie to see how it ends."

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Where hungry people like to eat

Sqwires near Lafayette Square has excellent food and a great atmosphere. We had a company lunch there today and I really enjoyed it.

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As we relive our lives in what we tell you

Got two new reviews up, hopefully I'll plow through the backlog of all the others soon...

Queensryche - Operation:Mindcrime II

Public Enemy and Paris - Rebirth of a Nation

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Security personnel, security personnel

I've known Herr B since the day he was born. When I think about having a rough day at work or get frustrated with the social problems in our country, I can look at the emails I get from him and it all gets smacked right back into perspective.

"Oh, I was evacuated from Ramallah yesterday with our security guy at CARE. It was kind of fun because I've never been evacuated from anything before. "

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The sky is falling all around

br />I get very very paranoid about tornados. I don't like strong winds in general, and tornadoes are the extreme expression of strong wind. I take the tornado watches very seriously, and I won't venture out if there is one. Most people who grew up in the midwest look at me as though I'm crazy for worrying that much about them. These are people for whom tornados are just a regular part of growing up here.

I understand this, and I realize that my fears are likely out of proportion to the actual danger. But you only have to be wrong once. I grew up in Silicon Valley. I don't have the slightest concerns about earthquakes. I was in CA for the both of the big quakes in the 80's an 90's. I lived in Santa Clara during the Loma Prieta, and Brentwood during the Northridge. I drove past the destroyed buildings, I saw businesses I frequented reduced to a pile of bricks in Santa Cruz. I saw the freeway I used several times a month gone. And yet earthquakes don't scare me. Familiarity breeds apathy.

On a totally unrelated note, I think there is something seriously wrong with me. I am obsessing over logical inconsistincies and continuity problems in an animated movie about talking animals...

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Thanks that was fun

Just got a missive from LAN Support that they will finally be upgrading our machines to XP Service Pack 2 (because leaving our computers wildly insecure for the better part of a year was SUCH a good idea) over the weekend. They also helpfully advised us to back up our machines to the network beforehand. To paraphrase:

"We're pretty sure we'll screw up at least some of your machines because we usually do. We won't do any backups before we start work, so cover your own ass."

Not that they include any information on what should be backed up or how to do it. I don't need that hand holding, but 80% or more of the people in the building don't know the difference between a computer and a monitor. I expect the next month or so to be a beautiful ballet of trashed machines, as happens every time they try to actually do anything.

Note that there are some very very competent people in LAN Support, but there are also quite a few who are so bad that inept would be a compliment.

Update: Not SP2. But "upgrade 2" from the internal technical group. So they are SO paranoid about security that you cannot install ANYTHING on your computer that hasn't been explicitly approved by them (which means we can't use any of the development tools we have to use), but they're OK with leaving us exposed to known serious security holes for over a year because they haven't had time to test SP2 adequately yet.

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Little bag o bones been out all night

There are few things I find as funny these days as watching boo chastise the cats. "You're a bad kitty" she'll say as she follows one of them around wagging her finger. "You ate my pretzel! Bad kitty! You go sit in time out!"

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Jesus Christ Pose

So one of our more enlightened state legislators would like to declare Christianity the official state religion. Well, that's a tad misleading. He would like to take the first step towards doing such would be more accurate. In his brilliant logic this is not a violation of the separation of church and state.

I for one will be contacting my Representative to voice my opposition to this, and I will keep his actions in mind when the next election comes as well.

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It's a matter of opinion as a matter of fact

've been thinking about music a lot lately as I am wont to do. Penn was talking the other day about how "nobody likes ALL music" which ties in nicely to my comments about the subjectivity of musical taste. I think it's important that not only can you say "band x sucks", but I think you SHOULD. Make people think about their taste in music.

As with any other subject I think it's important to challenge. You may end up reaffirming your opinions on a topic, you may alter them slightly, or you may change them completely. Regardless of the specific result you will learn more about yourself. Which is always good.

"Don't just question authority, question EVERYTHING! Even me!" - Jello Biafra

And as I've been remiss on reviewing music for the past year I have just a few quick observations. I hope this will trigger a steady flow of book and music reviews, more than a dozen of which I have already half written.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club is way more tame than you'd expect. Some nice guitar work, but largely forgettable.

Brightwood is emo crap

Broken Family Band is too. What the fuck is "alt country"

Fallout Boy is not as bad as Brightwood, but it's depressing to hear music this boring and realize they're incredibly popular

Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins - I think Lewis has a good voice, but her style is very affected. Like many indie darlings, the "art for art's sake" pose seems like just that: a pose.

The Go! Team - mediocre spirit squad rejects

Sons and Daughters - interesting modernization of folk music, worth listening to.

Stellastar - They would like to be the Cure. They're not bad, but they're not the Cure.

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He's got a router and a table saw

My wonderful wife gave me a day to myself, taking the boo off to grandmother's house. I am not the sort to idly while away the day watching tv or reading. Instead I spent the day whittling down my todo list. An assortment of small and medium sized jobs to make our house a better place, as well as laying the groundwork for some bigger jobs I plan to tackle once the weather is warmer. That's my idea of a good day to myself.

This was a weekend of firsts. The first time I built a jig. Which didn't go so well. My table saw isn't so good at the square and true thing, and the sooner I accept that the easier it will be to focus on rough cutting there and cleaning it up with hand tools. I also worked with pocket holes for the first time to make new footers for the kitchen cabinets. That was not only easy, but fun as well. I think I'll use pockets a lot more now. And they look great as well, which is just a bonus.

I also fired up the 6" jointer for the first time. It needs a tune up but otherwise worked like a champ.

Finally I remembered for the first time to paint before assembling. So much easier and cleanerThe new craft storage unit now just needs the outside to be painted. I really hate painting. For some reason the wrist motion I use to paint really hurts. The muscles from the bases of the thumb and first finger all the way up to the wrist start to protest within about 10 minutes. Which is why I've always had trouble painting rooms as well.

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This is for all my players our there ridin

So glancing out the window of the bus on my way to work I see a fairly stock black SUV (I think it was a Jeep) with spinners on it. I thought it was a little odd for such a stock vehicle to have those. Then the real incongruity caught my eye. The driver. If central casting were looking for someone to play a midwestern middle class whitebread suburban soccer mom, they would have stopped looking when they found this woman.

If it had been some hipster dude or hiphop wannabe I would have laughed at the spinners. But suburban soccer mom? You go!

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So we've let this happen all along

It is now the calm time. I expect all hell to break loose around 12:01pm, when we start the production deployment.

I wonder about the coincidence of the first song on my party shuffle this morning being "Slash 'N' Burn". And now I will check the list of items to be deployed against the list of problem reports for the 27th time.

UPDATE:
I was only off by ten minutes. "Hey, let's throw out all the CM controls we've put in place to protect ourselves, it'll be fun!" Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable.

You do all you can to mitigate risks and yet somehow the things out of your control go wrong. Spectacularly, horribly, tremendously wrong. There will be collateral damage.

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