Sticky Time.

Here at work, we've been getting rid of a lot of hard drives, and so I asked one of the IT guys if I could have the box full of junkers sitting in the cage. "Sure" he says, and fetches me the box.

Now, he was sick once and is really skinny, so I watch him walk in with this big box and I think 'wow, you didn't have to carry it for me.' Only after I tried to move it did I realize that it must have been a major effort, or he is storing muscle for his arms somewhere in his legs or something, because that box was HEAVY.

Now for the last few days I have been collecting magnets on my desk and worrying about something getting hosed from all these things sitting around. That, and I am worried about getting hurt, because (1) I have already been hurt when these things come together and (2) I got my shirt caught in there and almost couldn't get it extracted. I love magnets.

I had one of these really powerful things on my leg yesterday, and I felt something pull to it in my pocket. I felt around in there and realized it was my phone. 'Crap' I thought, but then realized there's nothing really sensitive in my phone.

Later, I go home and try to call my parents. My phone won't work. It does everything except what you really need a phone to do, which is make calls. It turns on, brings up a list of my contacts, plays music, shows pictures, but no phone calls. I swap out the SIM card with an old phone and voila, it works fine.

So, my phone is hosed. Magnets? I dunno, maybe there is something about RF electronics that getting a magnet near fries them.

IT Madness

Well, I bought some new equipment for the Oldsmobile PC that I have. The equipment is newer than my PC can handle, of course.

I bought a new SATA hard disk and controller card because Mrs. Buddy and I are sharing computers to save frustration costs. I can't remember the original justification for having two computers, but I am sure I will remember sooner or later.

So I went to CompUSA this weekend to find an adapter for the 4-pin power connector for this new SATA drive. They had no clue what I was talking about. One of them seemed to recognize that the SATA power connector is different than an ordinary 4-pin EIDE power connector, but then kind of left while his coworker told me that yeah, if I were going to find them they would be on the wall across from us (where I already looked and failed to find it) and that when they get them in they usually disappear pretty fast, and they cost $30 or more.

Now, I knew he was lying because look. I knew it was a waste of my time going in there, but what bothers me is that they get paid to put together computers. So, do they really ever get them in? Does he know for what I am asking?

I also asked about it at my job, where there are a few pretty savvy IT guys around. But none of them really knew what I was talking about either, and one even handed me an adapter that lets you plug an EIDE drive into a SATA cable. I mean, is it really that uncommon a piece of hardware?

So, I ended up getting a new PSU anyway. Eventually I will upgrade the other hardware in the PC and I will need a new PSU to handle it.

I Have Updated.

Well, here I am, again.

So, maybe this blog post will be about things that annoy me. Like, people who want to be different but are seriously not, or people who say things like "why be normal" or "what is normal anyway?"

I laugh at people a lot. People try so hard to be something that they end up following one crowd or another. Most people remind me of Jean Teasdale.

Tattoos annoy me. I used to want a tattoo, but I grew up. It was bad enough I got an earring. I knew a guy that was close to my age and got a plug in his ear. His goal was to get one of those stupid-looking flesh tunnels. It was sad. I have a theory about most people who modify their outside; they are boring on the inside. That's been the case with most modifyers I have met, anyway.

Boastful people annoy me a great deal. I am not boastful, maybe that's why I never get ahead. Sometimes I wonder if I am boasting about not boasting. It's not that exciting things never happen in my life, but I generally think the exciting things are for me and my close people to know about. I don't like to share because it's nobody's business really, and they don't care anyhow.

I know a guy who, no matter what you say you have done, he's done it better, with more intensity, because that is how he grew up. Lived in a bad neighborhood? His was worse. Just make sure you don't get on his bad side because he is a killer. If he ever caught you stealing even a morsel of old food from the among the dust and grease underneath his refrigerator, he'd shoot you in the brains. He carries an 8 instead of a 9 cuz he can save weight on the quick draw. I roll my eyes a lot around him. I think my theory applies to him as well. I mean, he works in IT for crissake.

It's really late, and our Christmas Ornament Removal System is sleeping with mommy tonight because she apparently has dominion over my side of the bed. It's ok, I know she feels bad because she's getting another tooth to take care of.

Stub

Baby Buddy is getting bigger. For some reason, I thought she would stay small forever. But she's gone and gotten longer and now she's starting to sit up. Soon she'll be crawling. The week after that she'll be in college (after getting home schooled, of course).

Couple that with how there seems to be no future where I work and hey, things are great!

Mysteries and the Nature of Magic

I am a father. Nothing more profoud upon my life has ever been uttered by me or anyone else that I have ever known.

I have a beautiful new daughter, Little Buddy. She and Mrs. Buddy are the things that give meaning to my life, and I am so happy these days that I can't imagine how I got along before. People tell me it only gets better, but again, I can't imagine.

Lately the birth of Little Buddy has inspired me to embark on the knowledge quests of old times, that is my old times, things like I used to do. For a while, I stopped looking for things and stopped trying to learn new things in favor of simplifying my life and other such silliness.

I've come to realize now that there is no reason why I cannot have a simple life as well as a lot of money and lots of varied knowledge. Already I can talk on a wide range of topics with the folks at work, so I have a good start. My boss seems adequately impressed that I can keep up with him on whatever he chooses to talk about (unless it's Civil War history) so I think I am good there.

So with my new vision quest comes many an opportunity to visit the library. That coupled with the fact we've eliminated digital cable from our house means we visit the library 4 times a week or more for DVDs, books, and whatever else we can find there. In fact, there is a vast resource that I believe is untouched by a significant number of taxpayers in our city in that many don't know exactly what you can do at the library.

Granted, I have not taken in a lot of the programs that are scheduled at the library, so I don't really know if they are great things or not. I imagine that anyone who is volunteering their time to hold some sort of event at the library will be doing it either out of love of the subject or boredom, so there could be some wide variance there on the quality.

Still, if you're poor like me, free stuff is free stuff.

Disappointment.

Finding time to post is kind of a difficult task nowadays. First, there was the "24" involvement. Recently, my mother lent us the first season of "24" on DVD, a show which I had never actually sat down to watch until about a month ago, partway through season 5.

So we watched the first season. In five days. Watching one episode was like smoking crack, or what I imagine the addiction of smoking crack to be if it somehow resembled watching a television show. Watching one episode was not enough, and having all the episodes there was instant gratification. No longer did we have to wait for an entire week for a new episode, it was next on the disk.

When one show ended I would look at my pregnant, suffering wife, who would wordlessly nod her assent or denial. We often ended up watching several shows in an evening. I would come home, grab something for dinner or eat what she had already prepared and we would sit in front of the television, DVD remote in shaky hand, ready to feed the addiction. At the end of that we would crawl off to bed until the next day, when I would go to work, come home and repeat the exercise.

Season one led to season two to season three. My mother warned me that season three got a little boring in the middle where Jack and crew were in Mexico, but I liked this part ok. Mrs. Buddy got a little bored with it though.

We finished season three and were ready for more, but we were denied. I knew my mother had all the sets up to season four, but in our relentless mind-rotting we caught up with my parents. They were not finished with season four.

So, we wait. I have no idea whether my mom and dad are finished with it. The newness has worn off a bit and all the seasons have sort of blended into one long show. I can't even really remember what happened when. I may have to go back and watch some previous shows to catch up again. Meanwhile, we record each episode of season five on the DVR. We have five or six now, unwatched until we can get season four.

---

So I think I am getting a promotion at my job. I call it a promotion but it really is more a refinement of what I already do.

I applied for a second level position at the help desk. I already do work that is at or above the second level people who worked there before and do now, so it is not too much a stretch for me to do it permanently.

Now, to know me before i started working at my current job is to know personally an example of someone with a nihilistic attitude toward work. Rather, I did not care about making money for anyone else than myself. In some ways, I still don't. I believe that most people work for companies that bleed dry their talent and ambition, transforming the employee rank and file from excited, caring people to mind-numbed marionettes making the bottom line look better for the executives, who couldn't care a whit about them.

I believe I work for one of those companies. Still, I have retained enough of my pre-enlightened personality that I simply don't take it too seriously, or I try not to. It amuses me when people become so upset at things that happen at the help desk, as if every nuance of the dynamics of the Company computing infrastructure was within our immediate control.

But, I admit to some excitement when I finally thought I found my way up in, if not out of, the level one pit I found myself in. I was one of the first to apply for the position when it opened. I found myself excited at the prospect of finally being paid closer to what I think I should earn, not to mention the challenge of harder problems to solve.

Fuck that.

Sure, the problems are harder sometimes. But I have been doing the level two work unofficially now for over a month. They have not hired me for it, and are not paying me for it, but I am still doing it, "on spec" I call it. I give a little to get a little more.

Trouble is, it ain't all that much more. See, one of the biggest insults to the RaF is the percentage increase. Essentially the Company says "fuck you" to the market and pays you what they think you'll take. Some of us make less than $25,000 a year, some as much as $35,000. So if you make somewhere in there, you can hope for, at most, a seven percent increase above what you make. Never mind paying you what you are worth on the market, you are paid what you are paid because you aren't going anywhere.

Even the "merit increase" is nothing more than a pittance that feels more like a slap in the face given the down talking and patronizing attitudes we endure, the (empty) threats of outsourcing being constantly held in front of us in an attempt by weak-willed middle management, whose fists of mercury scare no one.

---

I once worked at a military contractor that constructed jet engine electronics. This company was slow to move on anything that threatened the health and long-term safety of the people working on the factory floor, but bring a radio in and you could count on a visit from the pit boss.

This place had people who worked the same job for 25 years or more. Twenty-five years assembling electronic parts into a metal case, day in and day out. I can't possibly see how that could be fulfilling, but a look at the people who did that showed me that fulfillment was not a primary concern.

One of the bosses had a sign on their cube wall that indicated exactly how they expected one to feel when working there. I can't remember the exact words, but it was something along the lines of "I feed you, I clothe you, I care for you, who am I? I am YOUR JOB!" That has never failed to scare me shitless.

I like working okay, and I don't even mind working for someone who appreciates hard work and rewards it accordingly. For years and years I have heard of this "work ethic" that people have, people who never miss a day and who strive for excellence in whatever large and small task is given them. Nothing wrong with striving for excellence, but there is a certain feeling of futility and sadness in seeing someone who once had a freshness about them now tired and submissive. To me, work should be a contract between two parties, no matter what size difference appears between either side, and the sole reward should be money. I don't care about what kind of insurance plan a company has. Many times it sucks anyhow. I would rather have more money in my pocket to spend on crappy insurance of my own choosing, if I so choose.

Money is the buffer of a civilization, the thing that separates people from their animalistic past of hunting for food and gathering wood to survive the winter. Trinkets and promises make a poor substitute for that buffer. When you take away my money, you take my power of choice. But, just so you know, I can still make the final decision.

Me Love You Long Time.

So...it's been a while since I posted anything. Not a whole lot different going on that I really needed to post, the mind has been sort of in stasis lately. Mebbe I should post tonight.

I can't stop eating!

Back to the keyboard I sit, hoping something witty and wise flows from my fingers. Nothing of the like has been brewing in the noggin lately.

In fact, the most mind-punishing thing I have been contemplating as of late is what to have my new hellspawn call my mother. That, and I have been enumerating what I have to do to get this place baby-safe in seven months. Trouble is, when I start enumerating, there usually follows a buffer overflow then complete lock up, requiring a reboot. Life pops a DoS attack on my brain.

Also, some realizations have been hitting me. I can't swim in the pool naked anymore, nor can I walk around in the back yard doing the dans le nu, nor can I shower in my open air shower. Dammit!

In the course of all the enumerating I also count the things I want to do to improve the place. Things like; digging up the pool and making it rectangular instead of the "renal failure kidney" shape it is now. Honestly the ugly thing takes up the whole back yard and looks like a thousand-year-old alcoholic's liver.

I also want to build a deck, add on another story, tear out and rebuild the back two rooms.

There's a job. The person who lived here when I was living with my parents next door had three kids living with him when some other kids from a previous marriage decided they wanted to live with daddy instead of being beaten and abused by stepdaddy. Go figure. Anyhow, to accomodate the new arrivals, he converted the garage area into two rooms. The only problem...he was neither handy with woodworking tools, nor was he in any way approaching an electrician.

Well so...I have previously removed some of the more egregious insults to the construction gods well before we moved in here, things like the wooden floor covering the utility room concrete. Not that this was a bad idea, just that the incorrect placing of vapor barrier along with the fiberglas insulation placed in the floor joists in addition to the leak next to where he bricked up the back door led to mold, mold, mold.

I was sick for a week after cleaning that out. I love stachybotris.

The attic space above the two rooms is no better. There are bare wires hanging out of work boxes and all kinds of nasty, dangerous things. I am all about safe, organized and easy to maintain electrical work. I have wired buildings for VoIP and ethernet, including my home. I approach it professionally, with the future in mind. So, eventually I want to rip out the wiring and replace it with conduit for each wall, replace the work boxes and also turn the back room into the nerve center of the house. I already wired the main rooms with CAT5e ethernet as well as coax, so the back room will become my main room/lab/server room/game room. I am giving up the large bedroom for my hellspawn. I'm gonna be a great dad!

The Empire is Born.

Just in time for Christmas we discovered that Mrs. Buddy is pregnant! That is right, you should cower now in hopes that I and my firstborn minions overlook you ensconced in your hiding places, for we shall unleash mighty wrath upon the world!

Hurtling Entropy.

Today is my birthday.

I don't really have much to say that is witty or funny today. In fact, there hasn't been much to say in the last few weeks. Not that there haven't been developments...there certainly have. Just that the nature of the developments are such that there's not a whole lot to say about them, and I am not supposed to mention what they are until later.

Well, so there you go. Birthday, developments...pretty much sums it up lately. Yea, got denied for another job too. This one I was well qualified for, if not overqualified. I applied for a position as "do-it-all IT person" for a subsidiary of Bigass Bank, Inc. where I work. I lost the job to another person in my department who, while qualified, has neither the technical knowledge nor the experience I have.

I don't feel so bad because she got the job...I think she's great and deserves to do something more challenging than what she does. What I feel bad about is the way the interviewing was handled, or perhaps the lack of interviewing would be more precise.

She was the first person interviewed and got the job the day after her interview. There were over fifty applicants in the first day, and I applied as soon as the position was posted. Now, the real problem is that, since she was the first person interviewed and subsequently got the job, it means they chose her within the first two days of interviewing. I was told by Womanboss (who is her boss, not mine) that the normal interview format was eschewed for an informal chit-chat. Not that they did not have their usual targeted interview questions to ask, they simply decided not to ask them. Evidently, Womanboss heard this directly from her.

All of this is simply speculation that leads me to a reasonable conclusion. They liked what they saw in her and picked the first applicant. Hey, it's their prerogative to do so. My thinking is, though, that if they are the sort of department that hires the first applicant and drops the normal interview format for that applicant, then they either knew her and wanted her, knew of her and wanted her, or were either lazy or desperate. Whatever it is, I don't want to be a part of that department, especially if she was chosen out of laziness or desperation. I have worked for companies that hired me on the spot, not even wanting me to give notice at my other jobs, and those were among the worst jobs I ever had. Usually it was because the department I was in was so disorganized or short staffed that I was overwhelmed and/or undertrained.

I've learned though. I know what I am skilled in and I press it. I learn what jobs I really want and what I don't, and if it seems great but I get a bad feeling in the interview, I decline.

On the upside, since she is vacating an "official" tier 2 position, I am likely a shoo-in for that one. At least, thats what Womanboss tells me.

Stan Williams.

Convicted murderer who poked fun at how his victims died, showed only enough remorse to make himself look like a victim. He didn't wanna die in the end. Guess he shouldn't have killed those people. Fuck you Stan.

Like a Tiny Piece of Glass in the Thick Skin of Your Heel.

I was perusing the message boards on IMDB's JFK entry in conjunction with watching a special on JFK's assassination and the theories regarding who was behind it last night when I ran across a discussion between two folks that blossomed into (what seemed) a full on argument between four or more.

I say "seemed" mainly because they could have been the same two people duking it out under different names. Their arguments on either side were very similar in form and structure.

Reading what appears on these boards is frequently an exercise in rhetoric and logic, or rather the novice use of them, and the JFK boards are a fine example of this. There are fallacies aplenty offered on both sides of the opinion fence, and many times the plebian comments appearing here do no credit to one or another side.

**BEGIN REHASH** The next two paragraphs are the only ones I will devote to expressing an opinion on the actual event. Skip them if you don't care.

So, getting to what I think, Oswald was alone in execution but, perhaps, helped with the planning. The only reason I think he may have had even a small measure of help with planning the actual assassination is that he was well known to be sympathetic to Cuba's communist government and its treatment by the United States. To me, even a simple affirmation of "we support you" from Castro's regime would constitute the barest fraction of complicity by them.

In the end it is unimportant why he did it because the argument of those on the JFK boards is that he could not possibly have done it himself. This, to me, is a strong indicator of someone who is on the side of conspiracy and multiple assassins and of someone who would not accept any evidence of anything but multiple assassins.

**END REHASH** You may now read on freely.

It seems a common thread of the really opinionated, woefully untrained people to engage in discussions and pepper them with fallacies. It irritates me almost as much as someone who mistakes loose for lose. It indicates a mind closed to rational discussion and ignorant of the skill necessary to critical thinking. But I am guilty of it too, at times, indicating that it is a skill that must be exercised.

People will often say things during such a discussion as "he could never have managed that himself" or "the Egyptians could never had managed building the pyramids without alien help." This is insulting to me personally as I am a human being who is amazed at what other human beings can accomplish, especially when organized effectively. In my encounters, it's usually the person who is searching for meaning in their own life or who feels some sort of slight or dissatisfaction with their life situation that resorts to mystical causes or conspiritorial speculation. I think it's a desire to be noticed.



Aside from that, there are several other things that irritate me about as much as the title of this post would suggest. So, without further delay, here it is;

Argumentum ad hominem - I really hate it when I am trying to read some board post and someone says "anyone who thinks X is an idiot" or some other nonsense. Makes me stop reading right there.

Appeal to emotion - "That's crazy!"; "Don't be stupid..."; "You're a fool if..."; "you're gonna die if you don't..." Thing like this and others that can be closely associated with ad hominem arguments.

Appeal to authority - while there is no doubt that having studied a subject for a period of time qualifies one to speak a bit more intelligently on that subject, the quality of the commentary is (almost always) directly proportional to the quality of work done when studying that subject.

Have you seen Super Size Me? It's not the best argument against the fast food industry I've heard, but one thing that has always stood out when I watch it is that the doctors predicted first that there would be a slight effect from the consumption of only fast food for a month, and when that was incorrect and there was a significant effect, they predicted that he would not return to normal. The medical consultancy was incorrect on that as well. So, it would seem, at least in their case, that if one were to use these physicians in an appeal to authority argument, it would be folly.

Appeal to n - Essentially, anything other than "appeal to reason".

Non sequitur - For some reason this one really gets me, I think because it shows often that people are lazy, but also that people who are equally lazy buy it as an argument of truth. I mean it can be true but don't use it as a means to get all zealous on me.

Of course, the list of irritations is not limited to logical fallacies. A great many people have lapses in vocabulary that really bother me, or their conversation is comprised of "IM Speak".

loose vs. lose - God that bugs me.

You're vs. your - Yeah.

'puter or puter - Sounds like some sort of disease; "The doctor said I came down with puter when he saw the mess in my pants."

Being (that/a/the, etc.) - Sorry Jenn, we love ya but...stop it :)

Irregardless - Most people mean regardless.

I could care less... - Really? Thanks for that, I think.

Sweet or unsweet? - Ok, I generally consider a place an average to crummy restaurant if you serve sweet tea. It's just one of those personal indicators of crappiness I have. But asking if I want "unsweet" tea is just bizarre. Aside from the fact that "unsweet" consists of the entire set of things that are not sweet (i.e. sour, bitter, etc.), it just sounds wierd.

ME: I'll have some tea please.
SERVER: Sweet or salty?
ME: Ummm...

Someone who relates everything to a movie quote, or who quotes a movie for more than 1-2 seconds - I mean, I remember movie quotes and even long passages of movies that I love. But I don't sit there and attempt to (1) relate to you by reenacting an entire five-minute scene from a crummy movie or (2) be funny by performing someone's entire comedy routine (badly). Hell, it's hard enough to listen to people talk sometimes without having them pretend to be someone else who was not funny.

People who look at you when something funny happens in a movie - I have a friend who, every goddamned time something funny happens in a funny movie (which, if the movie is funny enough, happens often) he stares at me, as if it's not truly funny to him unless he has some sort of confirmation that it was funny. I can see him out of the corner of my eye, damn it irritates me! One day I am going to be in the movies with him, wait for a really funny part and when I see him looking over at me, I will turn suddenly to him and yell "woogie woogie woogie!" really loud while shaking my head.

I know, right? - There is a girl at work who is nice as can be, but every goddamned time someone says something she agrees with (which is often) she exclaims "I know, right?" Hell, she even types it in emails and chats.

Acrosst, dest, and any other time someone replaces a 'k' with a 't' or appends a 't' to a word - Where in the hell did that one come from?

Trying to use a word without at least looking it up in a thesaurus - Now, I understand that some folks think they have a handle on their word usage. But, in the course of my work adventures, I have run acrosst people that try desperately to use a word and either can't say it or have failed to grasp the difference between two words.

I heard a woman once say "it added a little brevity to the situation." Really? How does that happen exactly?

IM Speak - Few things are more irritating to me than reading something written by a teenager steeped in the ways of IM. It's not so much the idea that someone will type "ur" or "u no" to shorten the typing required to get a point across in an IM, it's that these people use this in every written correspondence. Worse, why type something like rilly or noe when the real words "really" and "know" are merely one letter more? The gains by using correct spelling far outweigh the time saved by excluding the letters.

Revenge is a dish best served cold - Ah, the Internet! I have searched high and low for the source of this quotation. Every source I have seen references the "original French" with "La vengeance est un plat qui se mange froid", attributed to Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Only trouble is, that shit is nowhere to be found in the novel.

I have searched several online editions of Les Liaisons Dangereuses in both English and French for the entire sentence in English and French, parts of the sentence in English and French, and the single word "vengeance" in French, with "revenge" in English. Nothing resembling the quote has appeared in any of the searches.

Now, the problem for me is not that no one seems to know where it came from. Hell, attributing it to the Klingons is fine with me. The real problem is it seems someone said "hey it appears here in this novel" and it was parroted without over the Internet without someone taking the time to actually research it. I even submitted the question to alt.binaries.quotations and got the exact same answer.

Could I be wrong? Is there some forgotten French version of the novel floating out there with the sentence in it? I'd like to know, I'd hate to think absolutely no one has verified it. I don't think I am wrong though. Take a look for yourself, though.



I am guilty of a lot of things that I am convinced irritate others intensely. Usually, I am aware of it and do it because it's a part of my character. I say "dude" a lot. I can remember the very day I started using that word. It was a Wednesday, in 1995, and I was working at a local beer-and-pizza movie theatre, and a friend of mine said it in relation to something that I said. For some reason I though it was really funny used that way, and so it stuck.

I am also a know-it-all. The difference between me and the usual know-it-all is that if I don't know it, I will say so. Sometimes, though, that comes after a little playful bullshitting. There's nothing like giving someone a totally fake explanation that sounds like it's the truth!

There is a guy at work...we'll call him Stork. Stork seems to have a talent for coming in on the tail of a conversation between our whole department and asking the question that was just solved or addressed by that conversation. The man pays no attention to what is said in our public chat. Considering that he's been there longer than I have, I find it utterly amazing that he still remains clueless on the simple details of his job performance. Not to mention he is completely rude to the callers.

So, one day I decide I have had enough of Stork's stupid questions and inane comments.

GROUP: (half-hour long discussion ends with)...so that's the solution to the IE error with the branch users.

(2 minutes later)

STORK: I have a user getting an error in IE. What's that about?

ME (fed up): Man Stork, that's tough. It could be the memory activation unit failing in Windows. I would check that, and also the rasterizer.

STORK: OK, I will check that.

Presumably, Stork now goes to the knowledgebase we all have access to and searches for "rasterizer" and "memory activation unit", finding nothing. Five minutes later...

STORK: How do I check the memory activation unit?

It gets too painful after that.