LiveJournal Project - Q3 2008

I think I started this LJ recap back in late November of 2018, and it is now February of 2019, and when this entry and the next one are finished, I will finally be able to say that I'm done with the first part - transcription. Then I get to do the second part, which is to go back and read it all from the beginning and see if I've actually learned anything.

Date: 2008-07-01 23:16
Subject: (sur)reality television...
Ok, so, we all know that reality TV sucks the soul (not unlike most forms of television), but at the same time, it's something like a horrible car accident, where you really want to turn away but just can't. I've been known to get sucked into a reality show from time to time, and I recall a few years back during one season of Donald Trump's "The Apprentice, I mused on how absolutely cool it would be for someone if someone could get on that show, take it all the way to the end, have Trump say, "You're hired," and then to say, "You know what? I don't really want the job. Thanks for the offer, though," and walk away.

Tonight, I saw it happen.

Cory has been watching this show on MTV called "A Shot at Love 2 with Tila Tequila" wherein some bimbo with the pseudonym "Tila Tequila" whittles her way through 16 dudes and 16 chicks in what can really only best be described as a cross between Animal House, Survivor, and Blind Date, ostensibly trying to "find love" among one of these people. Who the fuck is Tila Tequila, why does anyone care, and why does she have a reality show on MTV? I have no idea. I think she's like local DJ William "Fucking" Reed -- essentially good at nothing except shameless self-promotion -- and that's how she got to wherever she is (which, outside of MTV, I don't think is really anywhere).

But I digress... The show itself is not all that entertaining, although I have lost a few hours of my life to it over the last couple of months due to the fact that sometimes it just happens to be on while I'm sitting in the living room. The final episode aired tonight, and it came down to a guy from Ohio named Bo and a girl from New York named Kristy. Bo appeared to really have fallen for her, whereas Kristy was expressing some reservations - not about Tila so much as about this potentially being her first serious relationship with a woman. Blah blah blah, filler filler filler, spoiler spoiler spoiler, Tila tells Bo that he's not it and picks Kristy. But that's not all...

Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Kristy turns her down!

FUCK YEAH!

Now, there is certainly the very real possibility that this whole thing was scripted from the beginning, and if we assume that to be true, it does take a large amount of the cool factor out, but if we assume that it was generally legitimate, and that Tila had no idea that events would unfold as they did, then all I can say is, well, FUCK YEAH! I give mad respect to Kristy for doing what she felt was right for her. I'm also happy to see D-list celebrities with an overgrown sense of their own importance get shafted and humiliated on national television.

Tila, you're a moron. You were oblivious to the message that Kristy was trying to send you in the pre-elimination dinner--you know, the one in big neon signs that said, "DON'T PICK ME!" If you had even a modicum of belief that you would find any kind of serious relationship by sorting through would-be candidates on a reality show, all I can say is that the joke's on you. Next time, try eHarmony.
Mood: amused

Date: 2008-07-04 08:57
Subject: jobbity job job
If I don't put in my 2 weeks notice on Monday it will be a miracle.

Apparently, there was a security-related incident yesterday on one of our servers. Said machine is located in our colo environment which I built and am responsible for. The issue is one of client-employee sabotage, basically -- an employee of one of our clients was caught doing things s/he wasn't supposed to with said client's data. It seems that the client called our CTO directly with news of this issue, requiring us to take some immediate defensive action. Said action was taken by one of our technical people.

Only one small problem.

Nobody fucking told me about it. They didn't tell me prior to having the tech retrieve the logs and lock bad employee out. They didn't tell me after he did it, either. The only reason that I know about it is because I'm doing mail server maintenance today, due to it being a holiday, and as part of the maintenance I have to spot check people's mailboxes to make sure that the migrations are all happening without error. Were they not planning to tell me at all? It's not like I wasn't in direct contact with both the CTO and our tech on Thursday.

Hey, shitheads! What the fuck is your fucking problem? I am the goddamn Director of IT! I built these fucking servers, I manage them, and I am the one responsible for their care and feeding. I'm responsible for the whole damn network infrastructure. Why did you not see fit to inform me of the situation?! If anyone should be informed of security-related issues where these machines are concerned, it should be me, not some mid-level technical consultant who's already on a few shitlists due to his incessant whining about his salary. If law enforcement is involved and the issue needs to be kept contained, that's all the MORE reason to keep knowledge of it limited to management.

I'm already pissed off because I didn't get a raise back in April, yet they just gave a raise to someone who didn't really deserve it because he whined a lot. I'm already pissed off because they laid off my sysadmin and now I'm doing all kinds of shitwork that they told me, a year ago, I wasn't going to have to do anymore. But you know, I could have gotten over both of these things, at least in the short term. This, however, simultaneously demonstrates both gross incompetence and disrespect to the point where I just see no point in continuing to be employed by a company where endless asshattery is the rule, not the exception. I have other projects that I could be working on that really are going to require my full-time attention if they are to be successful, and if they become successful, they will be far more lucrative than this shit job could ever hope to. They might flop, too, in which case I'll have to go get another real job, but it's a risk worth taking. I've been waiting for sufficient impetus to help me achieve critical mass to get moving down this road, and it looks like I just found it.
Mood: pissed off

Date: 2008-07-12 06:28
Subject: jobbity job job, redux
Ok, so I haven't quit yet, but the job search is now in full effect.

Phone interview with Sun/MySQL next Thursday for a MySQL Architect / Consultant position. 100% telecommuting with up to 60% travel. Some of you might think that 60% travel sounds like misery, but I actually think it'll be good for me. It'll suck being away from Cory & the cats (this is, of course, assuming that they offer me the job and I accept, and we're still a long away from that), but it'll be a welcome change from what I've got now. I told the recruiter I was looking for at least $120k and he didn't blink, so I guess that means there are no issues with salary requirements.

I may apply at GoDaddy again, too. My friend that works there says that he can probably get me $110-$115 + bonus, and the benefits sound pretty good (3 weeks vacation first year, bonus, and they'll pay for my masters degree as long as I get a B or better in my classes).

I'm sure I'll send my shit to a few other places as well. I'm having my resume professionally rewritten, so I'm curious to see how it comes out.

Date: 2008-07-17 23:31
Subject: jobbity job job, part 3
Had two interviews today, one with GoDaddy(GD) for a Linux Engineer position, and another one with Sun/MySQL for a MySQL Consultant/Architect position. Both went very well. In speaking with the GoDaddy recruiter, it looks like they're going to put together an offer for me early next week. The MySQL guy, though, said that their interview process often takes a few months, and you have to go through 3 or 4 rounds of technical interviews before you get the job offer (he is, BTW, recommending me for the next stage of the interview process - he told me this flat out at the end of our conversation, which I thought was pretty cool since usually your interviewers in these multi-stage deals never tell you that sort of thing).

So here's my dilemma. If GD is going to make an offer next week, there's no way that I'll be able to even get to the end of the MySQL process, because they're not going to give me three months to decide whether or not to take it. In the next week or two, I'm either going to have to:

a: take the GD job and continue interviewing with MySQL on the sly
b: turn down the GD job and continue interviewing with MySQL
c: take the GD job and tell MySQL thanks, but no thanks

The problem is that the two jobs are very different and I think both of them would be cool, so it's hard to compare the pros and cons of each one. In my previous post I said the MySQL job was 60% travel, but in talking to the interviewer, it's actually closer to 80% - I'd only be home one or two days per week. Part of me thinks that this would be cool, and part of me thinks that it would really suck. GD has much better benefits (3 weeks vacation your first year, $5k per year educational reimbursement, etc.), but MySQL likely pays 20% to 30% more. I like the idea of going to different clients and coming in to learn about their businesses and fix their problems (the MySQL job) but I also like the idea of being in the R&D division and building new products (GD). Under normal circumstances, I'd probably take option A, but there's a wrinkle there, too. Indirectly (he'll be two levels above me) I will be working for a good friend of mine who's the VP of technology at GD, and because we're good friends, and he got me the interview right away without me having to jump through a bunch of stupid hoops, if I do end up taking the GD job, I don't want to do anything which is going to make him look like an asshole. Ultimately if I hate the job and I quit, then so be it, but if I do accept it, then I'd want to go into it with the intent of staying at least a year or two because I think I'll enjoy working there.

It is possible that GD might not offer me enough money, though, in which case this discussion is academic. The recruiter said that they can go up to a base salary of 110k without having to get additional approval, but I'm really looking for at least 115k out of this position. I might take 110 if they can sweeten the pot some other way - either a signing bonus or some extra vacation time or something.

Anyway, the GD recruiter is supposed to call me on Monday with additional information, so we'll see how it goes.

Date: 2008-07-22 03:41
Subject: because i know y'all are tired of job posts
But I'm going to make one anyway.

I'll be getting a formal offer from GoDaddy when I get back from the wedding. 110k, but they're waiving the one-year bonus-eligibility requirement. What that effectively means is that my first year salary could be as high as 121k.

I emailed the Sun/MySQL recruiters to let them know what was up and to ask if there was any way to nudge the interview process along a little - the first interview went really well, but the guy told me that it could take up to 3-4 months to go through the whole thing. If it's possible to do the second interview in the week when I get back from the wedding, that would help my decision considerably.

I'm still not really sure which job I'd rather have, but in some ways I think the MySQL job would be a better move, career-wise, and the GoDaddy job might be a step backwards. Sometimes you have to go back in order to go forwards, though, so who knows.

There are going to be more layoffs at my current job, so it looks like I'm jumping ship at exactly the right time.

Date: 2008-07-31 14:09
Subject: jobbity job job job job
Got the offer from GoDaddy. 112k + 10% bonus. Assuming that I get the full bonus each year, that's a 23% increase over what I'm making now, with substantially better benefits and a commute that's a lot shorter (4-5 miles instead of 15). Also, I wouldn't have to start until September 8, which means I'd have 3 weeks off after I quit my current job. Woo to that. On the offensive side, they have a pre-employment drug test (something that I'm philosophically opposed to), and they have a non-compete agreement which might conflict with a contract project that I've been working on lately. Not sure how that gets resolved.

Also, I had my second interview with MySQL last week and should be having the third one any day now, but I'm going to run out of time. I have to get back to GD by next Wednesday at the latest, and there's probably no way that I could complete the MySQL interview process by then, even if the next guy (the hiring manager) loves me. So, while I don't know what I'm going to do yet, I do know that I'm going to have to make a decision based on incomplete information, and that kinda sucks. I don't think I can make a bad decision here (both jobs would be cool) but I would like to do everything possible to make the optimal one.

So what's the plan? I don't know. If I had to put money on it, I'd say that I'm probably going to end up at GoDaddy, but you never know.

One way or the other, though, I'm giving notice at my current job on Monday. That should be interesting.

Date: 2008-08-02
Subject: jobbity job job jobbity job job
3rd interview with MySQL went well. I'll be getting an informal offer on Monday. The guy was really impressed, apparently, with my ability to take a question that I didn't know the answer to and then think my way through it and arrive at the right answer. I don't know exactly what the salary offer will be; I asked for 125, but it's probably only going to be 120, but there's the possibility for a 15% bonus vs. a 10% bonus at GD.

I went to Sun's website and looked through their benefits again and compared them to GoDaddy's, and they're actually a lot more similar than I had first thought. One cool thing is that Sun has a mandatory vacation week at Christmastime - the whole company shuts down. So, factoring that in, I end up with 30 days of PTO per year. At GD, it's 31. Both have tuition reimbursement. Sun/MySQL will contribute up to $6800/year to your 401k, but with GD, it's only $5k. Then there are the travel benefits - yeah, I'd be traveling a lot with MySQL, but I'll be racking up the air miles and hotel points, too, which means that when it's time to go on vacation, that vacation might end up being really cheap.

Cory pointed out another benefit that I hadn't even thought of -- I'll save a ton of money on food. If I'm gone 2, 3, or 4 days per week, my food will all be paid for by MySQL while I'm on site with a client.

So, right now, if you had to ask me which way I'm leaning, it's 65, 25, 10.
65% chance that I'll go to MySQL if they offer me at least $120 (base)
25% chance that I'll go to GoDaddy
10% chance that I won't do either.

Lots to think about.

Date: 2008-08-05 16:21
Subject: The last job post for awhile
In the words of the machine brain from the Matrix (in the third movie)... "It is done."

Got the MySQL offer earlier this afternoon. Still have some formalities to jump through, but assuming that nothing goes wrong, I'll be starting the first week in September.

Factoring in the base salary, the potential bonus, the benefits, and all of it, I'm looking at over a 50% increase in compensation from where I'm at now to do stuff that I like to do. That is pretty fucking cool.

So, yeah, I'm actually pretty stoked about the whole thing. Who needs Google, anyway?

Date: 2008-08-20 07:22
Subject: all the news that's fit to print
Last Friday was my last day as IT Director for rSmart. My former boss has sent me at least one email every day since Monday asking questions, but I'm ok with that - it's not as if they're asking me to think or do any actual work - it's just asking me to remember where stuff is or what XYZ password is or whatever. If they do actually ask me to do some consulting work (which they might) then I'll bill it out at a predetermined rate (basically, about 10% more than what my salary was, converted to hourly). It's pretty nice being away from the job, not having to be anywhere on a daily basis, and just being able to do my thing when and how I see fit. Been catching up on projects that I've been neglecting, which will make both my consulting clients and my pocketbook happy. Still haven't received the formal offer yet from MySQL, which is a little strange since they seemed to be in a big hurry to get it out to me by the end of last week, but eh, whatever. If I don't hear anything this week, I'll send off an email and see what's going on. I was musing last night that if they wait too long, I might decide that I kinda like being back as an independent contractor and don't really want another job. =O

One thing that I had at my desk at rSmart that I didn't have at home was a 30" monitor -- my desk was set up with 2 24" LCDs on the sides with a big 30 in the middle -- yes, I was the only person in the office running 3 monitors. You wouldn't think that there's really that much of a difference going from that setup to what I had at home (2 24" LCDs) but there is - so I used part of my bonus (everyone at rSmart received a bonus on August 15th - so that was a nice parting gift) to buy a couple Samsung SyncMaster 305Ts from NewEgg, so now I've got dual 30-inch LCDs taking up all of my desk space here at home, and you know what? It's fucking awesome. On the left side I have about 8 shell windows open with various bits of code and log tails running, and on the other side, a few copies of Firefox and some miscellaneous crap. Cory wins with this arrangement, too, because that means she gets my 24s. Yes, I'm in technolust heaven here.

In other news, I've picked up my Masters program again. In 2006 I started taking classes via the Harvard Extension School to get an ALM (Master of Liberal Arts - those snotty schools like to do things in reverse - must be a Latin thing, I guess) in IT, but I didn't end up continuing on with it in 2007. But, since Cory's going back to get her Masters, and I'll need stuff to do when I'm stuck in hotel rooms on client assignment once the new job starts, I thought that this would be a good time to get back to it. Besides, Sun/MySQL will pay up to $5250/year in tuition and training fees, so I think as long as I get a B or better in my classes, I'll be able to get them to reimburse me at the end of the semester. So, starting in a couple weeks, I'll be taking "Software Design: Principles, Models, and Patterns" and "Building Web-Based Software with Ruby and Ruby on Rails". I've wanted to pick up Ruby / RoR for awhile now; even though it has been known to have performance and scaling issues (e.g. Twitter) it's still an interesting technology that I could see a lot of use for in the things I do. The design patterns class is another one that just contains information that I've thought would be useful, and it's a requirement for the degree. Hooray for getting smarter. I probably won't be able to finish the degree program in 2009 as I had originally intended, but 2010 should be workable without too much stress.

Totally unrelated to any of that, I've spent the last 6 days trying to achieve ketosis and failing miserably. Or maybe I've done it and the ketostix that I'm pissing on are just expired. Ketosis, if you don't know, is the state that your body goes into when it's burning fat for energy because there's no glycogen or other carbohydrate-based energy available - which essentially means that you're burning fat constantly. This is a Good Thing(TM). This is the basis of the Atkins diet, which I am not doing, and the PSMF, or protein-sparing modified fast, which I am doing. I've done it before back a few years ago when I went from 265lbs -> 240 and then again down to 220-225, and I really never thought I'd do it again, but since I've managed to put on some unacceptable weight over the last year, and because I'm all about seeing result when it comes to dieting, I'm at it again. See, the thing is, if I work out 4 days/week, I can pretty much eat whatever I want and not gain weight. However, between shoulder surgery and back problems last year, I had an extended period where I wasn't exercising, but I failed to adjust my pizza consumption downward to compensate. So, I went from ~220lbs in July of 2007 to ~240lbs as of a week ago. Ouch. So, the last 6 days have been filled with PSMF goodness (basically, eat 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight and as little else as possible), and I've dropped 9lbs in 6 days. Yet the damn ketostix still refuse to change color! (I've read that for some people, they don't, due to the way that their bodies metabolize ketones, but yeah, whatever, I still want to see purple, dammit.) Anyway, I'm turning 33 in 8 days, so I think I'll probably stick with this round of PSMF until then and see where I'm at - besides, there's a good chance that Cory and I will be going on a mini-vacation at the end of August, and it's just not possible to diet and vacation at the same time. If I can make it down to 225 by then (at 232 right now), I'll be happy. At the rate I'm going, it's definitely doable, but we'll see.

In the "are you serious?!" section, last night someone stole my weight vest. Cory and I went out for a walk at around midnight, and since we were only going for a short walk, I decided to put my weight vest on to get a little extra workout. We went from our house to the entrance to the canal, at which point I took the vest off (it was heavy, I was tired - what do you expect of someone that's not eating any carbs) and put it on the railing, with the intent to pick it up after a lap around the canal. I figured that since nobody's ever out on the canal that late at night that it would still be there in 15 minutes when I got back - and besides, who the fuck would want to steal a weight vest? Apparently there's at least one person out there that would - probably the guy on the bicycle that we saw heading back the way we came - but seriously, a weight vest? I wasn't really upset about it - dumbfounded would probably be a more accurate assessment - but I guess that just goes to show you that if it's not nailed down, someone, somewhere, is going to steal it. How bizarre.

And finally, since no update would be complete without something political... It appears that Obama is not picking Joe Biden as his VP (at least if Biden is to be believed) - which makes Obama suck a little less than he did a couple days ago, but right now I'm still voting for Bob Barr. Hell, if McCain picks Tom Ridge or some other pro-choice Republican as his running mate, I might even do the unthinkable and vote Republican. Part of me thinks that maybe McCain only looks like Bush III right now because he's pandering to a certain subset of the Republican party, and that if he gets into office, he'll actually be more like the John McCain of 2000-2004 -- a Republican that didn't suck. I guess we'll see. Either way, though, I picked up a sticker at DEF CON last weekend which sums up my thoughts rather nicely: THIS ELECTION SUCKS.

Date: 2008-08-23 10:51
Subject: Four More Years!
Barack Obama picked Joe Biden to be his running mate. As a result of this, John McCain is probably so damn giddy that he's pissed himself several times over. While it might be true that Biden has a decent set of foreign policy credentials, and at 60+ years old, he's certainly got that experience thing down pretty well, he also has this rather unfortunate tendency to spout Bushisms at the most inappropriate times. Oh, and let's not forget this choice quote, said during the August 2007 debates by Joe Biden ABOUT Obama: "I think that he can be ready, but right now I don't believe he is. The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training." Let's think about this for a minute, shall we? One year ago, Biden didn't think Obama was ready to be President. What has happened in the past year that might lead him to change his mind? Has Obama picked up any leadership experience? Has he picked up any foreign policy experience? HELL NO! He's been too busy running for president to do anything except change his mind, act like a typical pansy-ass Democrat, and disillusion a lot of his supporters. As far as being ready to become president, there's nothing that's any different about Obama today than there was a year ago - either he was ready back then, and he's ready now, or he wasn't, and he isn't.

And as theklute has correctly pointed out, it's our buddy Biden that was responsible for the RAVE act. Not only that, but he got it passed by sneaking it into the "Amber Alert" bill.

Let's think about one other thing here.... Obama has been running under the banner of "change" - he's all about being a different kind of politician, about getting rid of business as usual, and all that good shit. But if that's really true, why would he pick someone who's been in Washington even longer than John McCain?!@#!

I think this is a clusterfuck of a decision on Obama's part. I'd have rather he picked Hillary Clinton, or Bill Richardson, or, better yet, my choice would have been Russ Feingold, but I don't think he was ever up for consideration.

So, yeah, you heard it here first, kids, John McCain is going to be the next president of the untied states. Un-fucking-tied indeed. Here comes the war with Iran!

Date: 2008-08-24 14:51
Subject: obama, biden, pelosi, and the rest of them
One of the things that's been a big deal about Obama during this presidential cycle has been the fact that he's energized a lot of younger voters. This is, by all accounts, generally considered to be a good thing, and Obama probably believes that it's to his benefit. I wonder, though, how many of the 18-30 people that were turned on by Obama are aware of Joe Biden's instrumentality in passing the RAVE Act, and will be turned off to voting for the Obama/Biden ticket in November as a result of it. There's always been at least some semblance of a political undertone in the rave scene - maybe not so much these days, but certainly there was an element to it when I was involved, although ravers around here could never get organized and/or never existed in large enough groups to get the politicians to take notice of anything except flagrant drug use. Wouldn't it be one hell of a turn of events if all of those old former ravers who were so pissed off about the RAVE Act actually voted as a bloc in this upcoming election to vote AGAINST Obama/Biden in protest? I suppose it would be a greater irony for all of us to vote FOR them - here's a guy that declared war on the electronic music scene, pissed off thousands of people around the country who may not even have been old enough to vote at the time, and now here we are former ravers and new ravers alike, potentially voting to put this nanny-state asshole into the second highest office in the land. The whole thing definitely has an element of surreality to it.

Something else that strikes me as bizarre is the fact that, as I noted in a comment on my previous entry, I have yet to see anyone come out and say that Obama made a mistake by choosing Biden. That strikes me as a little odd, and I think it means one of three things. 1- Obama really did make such a great decision that the pundits can't find very much wrong with it, or 2- There's such a cult of personality surrounding Obama that your average media nutjob is so wrapped up in that they wouldn't know an Obama-misstep if it bit them in the ass. I have a hard time believing #1.

femmdraven raised the following question: "How many people do you actually know who voted for Bush (especially the 2nd time)? I don't know one single person...not one. Yet he's president and oddly enough, with everything he's done, he hasn't been tossed. What does that say?"

It says that Nancy Pelosi is a fucking sock puppet and the Democrats need to collectively grow a pair. Dennis Kucinich (who is a nutjob in his own right, but at least he's got some balls) actually did try to introduce articles of impeachment agaisnt Herr Fuhrer Bush, but Pelosi is having none of it. I'd never really paid much attention to her or cared about her all that much until I saw her on Meet the Press this morning. Now that I've seen her and heard her talk (Tom Brokaw pretty much made her look like a complete tool), it makes me think that we're in worse shape than I had first believed. I can't even really explain it in an objective sense - but just listening to this woman weasel her way through the conversation just made my skin crawl. Brokaw showed her poll numbers that said that only 14% of America approves of the job that Congress is doing, and she weaseled around it. Brokaw grilled her on the fact that she's invested her own money in T. Boone Pickens' wind energy plan, pointing out her ability to influence energy policy due to her position as Speaker of the House, also nailing her on her apparent flip-flop on offshore drilling. After about 5 minutes of her weasling around, Brokaw seemed pretty resigned and said, "So I guess we're going to have offshore drilling." Weasel weasel weasel!!! Funny thing, too - Pelosi is apparently from San Francisco, which is filled with liberal Bush-haters - you'd think that they'd be writing her office and telling her to act like a responsible statesman and do what's best for the country instead of just trying to ride it out and hope that Bush goes quietly. Maybe she doesn't want to stir up more bad blood in Congress between the elephants and the jackasses, but you know what I say? Stir that shit up!

I've always been cynical when it comes to domestic politics, but I don't think I've ever been so pessimistic about the future of America as I am today. You'd think that I'd be at least slightly more optimistic because I know Dubya isn't going to be back for another term, but I'm actually not. The difference between Obama getting elected and McCain getting elected is, I think, going to be like the frog in the pot of hot water. If McCain gets elected, that'll be like putting the frog in while the water is boiling - it'll be so obvious that we're screwed right away that we might just be able to do something. If Obama gets elected, it'll be like putting the frog into the cool water and cranking it up gradually. We won't know how badly we're fucked until our goose has been cooked.

And finally, in the, "I voted for what?@!@#$" category, I got a letter yesterday from Harry Mitchell, who is the Congressman from this district. A few weeks ago, Mitchell sent out little flyers telling people about what he was doing, and those flyers had comment cards attached. I filled mine out and sent it back, and in it I specifically said that I was opposed to any kind of housing bailout bill in response to the foreclosure situation in the US. My thinking is simply that if you made a bad decision and you got in over your head and your house goes into foreclosure, well, shit happens, that sucks, I'm sorry, but deal with it. It isn't the government that signed your loan docs. It isn't the government that told you that you needed to try to buy a house that was three times more than what you could afford. And it damn well isn't the government's responsibility (and, by extension, the taxpayers' duty) to save your ass when the house of cards comes crumbling down. The fact is that we've become a nation of pansy-ass softies that always looks to the government to bail us out, and then we get all butt-hurt when the government goes too far and starts telling us what to do. Well, come on, fuckholes, what do you expect? When you demonstrate that you can't handle personal responsibility and making your own decisions and living with the consequences, what do you think is going to happen?Someone else is going to come in and make decisions for you, and you're not going to be in any position to raise a ruckus. BLARGH!

Anyway, I digress. So I get this letter from Rep. Mitchell thanking me for writing him IN SUPPORT of the housing bill that Bush signed into law several weeks ago, which has various provisions in it meant to help out the people in foreclosure. Wait, rewind.... Are you serious? You're thanking me for supporting a decision you made which I didn't actually agree with? When did that happen? Did you even read the comment card, or did you just assume that because I'm a registered democrat in your district that actually bothered to fill the thing out that I must assuredly be in support of your position?!@#! Unfuckingbelievable. I've written my Republican senators a few times, and while I've never gotten a response from McCain's office, I have gotten a response from Senator Kyl both times -- and while we certainly disagree on issues, at least I know by the content of the reply that someone actually read my letter and comprehended what I was saying.

I'll say it again. BLARGH!

Edit -- If you're interested in technology, civil rights, copyright, and all of that, here's a little article on Joe Biden's voting record. Pro-RIAA, pro-FBI, anti-encryption, anti-fair use. Fuck him.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10024163-38.html?tag=newsLeadStoriesArea.0

Date: 2008-08-25 17:36
Subject: Because America is all about mediocrity
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/08/25/pitcher.toogood.ap/index.html?cnn=yes

Here we have the story of a 9-year-old who was told that he's "too good" to pitch in his local baseball league. Apparently his 40-mph fastball is just too much for the other kids in the 8-10 year-old division, with one team just packing up and forfeiting the game rather than face this junior fireballer.

Wow. We already have school districts where competitive games like "tag" have been banned from the schoolyard, lest little Johnny develop some sort of complex at the thought of being "It" or fat little Janey get depressed because she's unable to catch the other kids (most likely due to the fact that her parents let her sit on her ass all day eating McDonald's), and now this? Just when I think the levels of nanny-state stupidity in this country cannot possibly get any worse, something like this comes along to surprise me. For a country that supposedly loves great feats of athletic acheivement (Michael Phelps, anyone?), it blows my mind that the adults in this situation are acting like a bunch of snot-nosed, whiny losers. So what if the kid is better than any of the batters in his league? Too bad for them! They should learn to hit better, and they should be happy that there's a kick-ass player in their division for them to face. You don't get any better by hitting a bunch of softballs.

League officials seem to think that one possible solution to all of this is to put the kid in a division with older children, presumably of an age that can hit a 40-mph fastball, but they're missing the social aspect of the game here. What 12 year-olds are going to want a 9-year-old on their team? The kid might be able to throw a mean 4-seamer, but he won't have any friends on the team, and that'll probably just ruin the experience of baseball for him anyway.

What's next? We tell our music prodigies that they're too good for Beethoven? Tell our math and science geniuses that Harvard only wants the above-average kids, not the stratospherically-smart ones?

Yeah! Give it up for mediocrity! Think of the children! BLARGH.

Date: 2008-08-26 11:57
Subject: for meadelante
Cows point north!

Date: 2008-08-27 19:44
Subject: Legitimizing a third-party candidacy
Third-party candidates have traditionally never fared well in US presidential elections. Even Ross Perot, who received almost 19% of the popular vote in 1992, didn't receive a single electoral vote. Most people won't even consider voting for a third-party candidate because they think, regardless of whether or not they actually like said candidate, voting for him/her is nothing more than throwing their votes away. Also, when compared to the democrats and republicans, with their wealthy donors and well-entrenched party infrastructure, the minor parties are less organized, less funded, and less structured. They don't have the mindshare that the democrats and republicans do. Even if one of them were to field a candidate that could have broad popular appeal, they simply don't have the tools to get said candidate elected to the highest office in the land.

This upcoming election isn't going to be any different. The next president is going to be either John McCain or Barack Obama.

However, I think this election also presents a unique opportunity to start to break the stranglehold that the two-party system has on American politics. There are literally millions of people that would normally identify as democrats but who are planning to vote for McCain -- not because they like McCain, but because they don't like Obama or are bitter because of Hillary's loss in the primaries. Now imagine if the power of those people could be harnessed into voting as a unified bloc in favor of one of the third-party candidates, or, looking past November, into the formation of a new political party. There aren't even 500,000 registered Libertarians in the US - and they're probably the most well-known minor party. 500,000 people in a nation of 300 million doesn't mean a whole lot, but imagine a new party that started off with 18 million members. That would strike fear into party elites on both sides of the aisle, and it would give all of us who are disillusioned and disaffected a viable alternative.

There are enough of us out there that are "mad as hell and not going to take it anymore" that this just might work, and I'm almost pissed off enough to try to start it up myself.

Date: 2008-09-01 19:21
Subject: Vlad the Impaler, meet Sarah the Impalinator
OK, so it was probably only funny for about 10 seconds when I wrote it, but eh, such is life.

John McSame picks Sarah Palin to be his running mate. Got the news while Cory and I were in Vegas for the weekend, and I have to admit, the first thing that came to mind when I heard this was, "Who??" From what I had been seeing in the news, she wasn't even on the pundits' radar, and then all of a sudden, there she is. Before I go into what I think about this, I will say that it's interesting to note that the reaction to McCain's pick from the MSM (mainstream media) was not as overwhelmingly positive as it was for Obama's pick of Joe Biden. Some people said that McCain made a wise choice, others said that McCain was out of his mind, and still others really weren't sure what to make of it. Obama, on the other hand, seemed to get pretty high marks all around (except for people that were concerned that picking a thirty-year career politician might dilute his message of "change") for selecting Joe Biden.

I also found it interesting that there are people who are legitimately suggesting that the disenchanted pro-Hillary voters (the PUMAs, mostly) that were planning on voting for McCain out of distaste for Obama would be more likely to do so as a result of McCain picking a woman to be his running mate. Sorry, kids, but I don't believe that for a minute. Whether or not you believe it to be a valid strategy for choosing a candidate, there are a lot of single-issue voters out there, and for many people, that single issue is abortion. Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, who was thinking about voting for McCain (who has genuinely appeared as slightly less of a right-wing nutjob on abortion in years past, if not so today) out of protest about the Obama/Clinton debacle is going to vote for McCain/Palin. That's a right-wing, anti-choice, overturn Roe-v-Wade, get-us-in-another-war ticket if ever there was one. What makes it worse, though, is that this is such an obvious pandering move. McCain didn't even TRY to pick the BEST running mate ("best" being defined as having experience, credentials, and, well, you know, those kinds of qualities that are important to have in a President), he tried to pick the one that he thought might get him some votes. I've seen some pundits comparing Palin to Dan Quayle, and you know, there might be some truth to that.

Oh, but wait, there's more. Sarah Palin was once a member of the Alaska Independence Party - this is the American answer to the people in Quebec that want to secede from Canada. She has a habit of firing her subordinates when they don't agree with her (sound familiar, Dick Cheney?) Her foreign policy experience is next to nil - she didn't even have a fucking passport until 2007. She doesn't believe that global warming is man-made, she supports ANWR drilling, and doesn't believe that polar bears are an endangered species. Let's not forget her flip-flopping on the infamous "bridge to nowhere."

Next, let's consider what two major Alaskan newspapers have to say about her selection as McCain's running mate. These are the folks that ought to know her better than the rest of us, so their comments are telling (courtesy of Wikipedia): "In an editorial dated August 30, 2008, the Anchorage Daily News wrote "It's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be a heartbeat away from the presidency." (http://www.adn.com/opinion/story/510705.html) In an editorial dated August 30, 2008, the Fairbanks Daily News-Minor wrote “Most people would acknowledge that, regardless of her charm and good intentions, Palin is not ready for the top job. McCain seems to have put his political interests ahead of the nation’s when he created the possibility that she might fill it.” (http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/aug/30/palin-has-much-prove/?opinion)"

And finally, in the ultimate display of irony, Palin supports abstinence-only education in schools. Given that her teenage daughter is now pregnant, I guess we know how well that works, don't we? Palin also believes that it's perfectly acceptable to force a woman who is raped or an incest victim to have the baby, and that we should be teaching intelligent design in schools. Even if you don't support abortion rights, I cannot see how you can possibly demand that a woman who is impregnated against her will should be forced to bear that child. Maybe that's what your god wants, but it's not what the flying spaghetti monster claims as truth, and it certainly does not flow with the Tao.

Maybe McCain picked her because it would make him look like more of a moderate. I don't know. I do know, however, that I'm going to have to retract what I said earlier about voting for a third-party candidate and grudgingly cast my ballot for Obama. I don't like Obama, I don't like Biden, and I don't like McCain, but this woman is downright scary, and she has no business being anywhere near the White House.

Date: 2008-09-08 14:40
Subject: ICQ woes
Blargh. Somebody hijacked my ICQ account - changed the password and deleted my email address so that I can't retrieve it. I wouldn't really care all that much except for the fact that I had a 7-digit UIN and have been using that account for about 12 years. Fuckers. I won't be going back to ICQ, so if anyone wants to IM me, you'll need to either use AIM or Skype. I am ravyn440 on both services. And if you see any messages from UIN 3596422, well, it ain't me.
Mood: annoyed

Date: 2008-09-12 12:02
Subject: there's no lipstick on this pig!
Bet you thought I was going to start off with a rant on politics, didn't you? Surprise! More on that later. But first, an update on the job.

Went out to Cupertino last week for my first week at the new job; my start date happened to coincide with the annual meeting of the database ninja strike force, so they tried really hard to get all of my paperwork and shit done so that I could be there for it. Basically, this meeting is where all of the consultants get together to do intra-team training, and it's all at a seriously high level. I remember sitting there on the first day listening to a pretty advanced talk on sharding and being hit with a pretty bad case of impostor syndrome. Happily, that didn't last; the material on the other 3 days was substantially more accessible, and a good chunk of it was system-related stuff that I already know, so I've gone from thinking that maybe I'm in over my head to thinking that the whole thing will be very cool and that I'll do just fine. The people are really cool, too, which is great except for the fact that I really won't see any of them very often because of the nature of the job. This week I'm at home, using the time to learn about policies and procedures and bureaucracy and how to get my expense reports paid and how to book my travel and all of that other corporate crap that one needs to know when one is a cog inside a 35,000 person global behemoth. Next week I'm off to Chicago for a week-long MySQL boot camp, and then I'm probably at home again the following week, with a four-day weekend due to comp days as a result of the boot camp schedule. After that, it's shadowing and more training, and who knows what else, but right now it's looking like it will be at least two months before I actually do any real work (real work, in this case, is defined as being the consultant that's actually delivering services to a customer). In the meantime, I just need to get my certs and soak up as much knowledge as I can. Not too shabby. Overall, I think I'm going to like the job but I have a few reservations about working for the company - mainly because it is a 35,000-person global behemoth. I'm sure I'll run afoul of corporate policies at some point along the way, but eh, whatever.

My old job continues to email me asking for help, even though I've explicitly told them that they're on their own. I've gone from saying "you're on your own" to a couple of very terse "read the manual" replies to just ignoring them. I'm trying as hard as I can to avoid burning that bridge and writing them a nasty email in which I say that it's not my problem that they're incompetent and that they need to hire someone and stop bugging me, but I've got the torch in hand ready to start a fire. I'm hoping that it doesn't come to that and they get the hint.

In other news... I was at sushi last night with a friend, and he was telling me about how his girlfriend had called him up in the middle of the day spewing all kinds of racist remarks about Obama because of his latest lipstick on a pig remark. I'm not going to get into it other than to say that it's this sort of thing which makes me lament America's future. Rather than try to see what Obama actually said (or noting that McCain said the same thing in the primary season), she just bought into the spin from the McCain campaign and started calling Obama a nigger (and who knows what else). Wow. I mean, seriously, this is coming from a woman who I always thought was reasonably intelligent, too.

There are a lot of viewpoints that I can understand, even if I don't necessarily agree with them. I can understand why some people think abortion is wrong. I can understand why some people think homosexuality is wrong. I can even understand why some people are "racial separatists" and don't want anything to do with people of other colors or that think interracial relationships are wrong. But I just don't get racism as a whole. I can't logically wrap my head around the idea of hating a whole group of people due to their skin color. It just doesn't make any sense to me.

Finally, I have one more thing to say about the election and American politics in general. It's often said that in an election in this country, particularly a national one, it really doesn't matter who wins, because we all still end up fucked and there isn't that much difference between the two parties anyway. Many times the people that make these claims do so with a sort of snide elitism which could only come from the feeling that they've magically discovered the one great axiom in American politics that's so self-evidently true that anyone who disagrees is clearly an ignorant asshole. It's quite amazing, actually, to see so many otherwise-intelligent people demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of both politics and logic coupled with the kind of unending arrogance that can only come from an iron-clad grip on a position that their consciences secretly know to be false but their egos refuse to yield. It does not help matters, of course, that this sad state of affairs is exacerbated by an infinite stream of zombie sycophants nodding their agreement, lest they not be "in the know."

What nobody ever bothers to point out, though, is that the original statement is a logically flawed conflation of individual elected officials with the amorphous entities known as the democratic and republican parties. Let me say that again for anyone that might be slow on the uptake: THE INDIVIDUALS ARE NOT THE PARTIES, AND THE PARTIES ARE NOT THE INDIVIDUALS. A political party is a collection of people that share roughly similar ideologies, but within that group, individual beliefs and psychologies vary WIDELY. There are republicans that will be voting for Obama, and democrats that are against gay marriage. There are democrats who supported the war in Iraq and republicans that are pro-choice. In other words, while it might be the hip thing to do these days to proclaim that elected officials are merely interchangeable and indistinguishable parts in a fucked up machine, it's also a complete load of bullshit. IT ABSOLUTELY MATTERS WHO WINS.

Don't believe me? Ask yourself if you honestly believe that we would be at war in Iraq right now if Al Gore had beaten George W. Bush in 2000. (We might have ended up with other problems instead, but you can bet your ass we would not have gone to war in search of illusory WMDs and a non-existent connection with 9/11.) Ask yourself if you believe that the Holocaust would have still taken place had someone other than Hitler come to power in Germany. Would the Khmer Rouge's genocide still happened had someone other than Pol Pot risen to power in Cambodia? What if someone a little more trigger happy had been in charge of the US or the Soviet Union during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Yes, this all requires an exercise in imagination and a little knowledge of history, but think about it, folks: when an individual has the potential to wield the kind of power that comes with being the leader of a nation-state, the shit that goes on inside their brains is of the utmost importance.

Think about that. Then go read this: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/Story?id=5782924 and ask yourself if you want someone like that to be only a heartbeat away from the most powerful political office in the world. So I'll say it again.

IT ABSOLUTELY MATTERS WHO WINS.

Date: 2008-09-25 16:31
Subject: Shamelessly stolen from t3knomanser
The Economy in Videogames

Americans: What happen?
Banks: Somebody set up us the loan.
Operator: We get signal.
Americans: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Americans: It's You!
Congress: How are you, gentlemen? All your bank are belong to us. You are on the way to destruction.
Americans: What you say?
Congress: You have no chance to survive make your time. Ha Ha Ha Ha ...
Americans: Bail out every AIG! You know what you doing. Bail AIG. For great justice.

.......

All we need now is a video to go with it.