sleep seems more valuable when you didn't get any

Open letter to whomever is doing the radio commercials...

 

Stop using mock-Arnie voice to shill your cars. Especially one using those catchphrases.

 

I don't particularly want to go to the "loan terminator". Nor do I want to say "Hasta La Vista" to high prices. And, I certainly "won't be back."

 

Just stop.

 

It's not doing you any good, even if I was so inclined to buy a new Chevrolet, I certainly couldn't understand the bad accent enough to figure out which Dealer you were.

 

It's just lame ass. So, knock it off, sh** for brains.

 

Whew. That feels better.

 

D

Sometimes I have HERO boards up and running while I'm getting mail, of course, and frequently I walk away (or am busy) and leave it up.

 

So I get notifications every time someone posts to threads I'm subscribed to, not just one notification until I go back, since I'm "always back".

 

So sometimes I see some 80 e-mails in 40 minutes that all say "D-Man responded to a thread you are subscribed to..."

 

Posting juggernaut indeed!

I was reading that thread in the general roleplaying area about the various pet projects people have that may or may not ever get completed.

 

That surely is an argument for retirment. I don't like the idea of retiring; personally I'd like to be doing some job, even for someone else (in fact preferably so, although I'd like to do something that is more on a contract basis), until I die. I just want it be enjoyable, and, in my old age, light duty (like the equivalent of 4 "serious" hours a day, evne if it's an 8 hour job).

 

However, when I think of all the little personal projects I want to do, I can see the value in retiring and having no work obligations.

 

But the other stumbling block is that I enjoy a rather high standard of living (certainliy way way above that which I grew up under - I grew up in a working class family, at first with a single mom - and now I live a white collar upper-middle class lifestyle, even if I pepper it with more bohemian elements of lifestyle). I don't want to give that up, I admit I am way too materlalistic. Still, for what I want to do ultimately (recording engineering/mixing/production, somewhere in that) I will "never" (barring the success of a Steve Albini or Todd Rundgren or Steve Lillywhite, etc.) attain that level of material success again, so I have to find a way to adjust.

cranky infants are lame

I was browsing the list of topics in the NGD and my eyes blurred 2 together - for a second I really thought I was seeing a thread called:

 

Batman/Superman vs Free Speech

 

!!!!

 

That was just plain freaky and weird.

trying to catch up on various threads after quite a few pints have caught up to you is rather wierd. (And trying to debug an X behaviour at the same time. weeeeee)

 

And our foster cat is going to his home tomorrow yay!

I woke up this morning and thought that it couldn't possibly be monday already. But I think this pretty much every monday. You'd think I'd have learned by now.

Mmm, fighting with blue funks on and off a lot lately, tis the season and all. Man, I hate it when I let me get in the way of me.

Vigorous writing is concise.

Conciseness is a beneficial property.

 

JG

Finding a good Batgirl avatar isn't easy.

 

It's tough being the Master of Bat-Fu.

I'm running a Champions campaign with a group of inexperienced players. Only one of them ever played HERO before, and one never played RPGs at all.

 

So I was kind afraid that running large battles with this group would turn out to be a time-consuming affair. Also, I was afraid they coudn't handle all the number-crunching.

 

Their first real super-battle was a large and involved one, a three-way fight featuring a grand total of 21 supers. The first serious test for the game system. Now they'll either learn to love HERO, or they'll hate it, I thought. Alea Iacta Est!

 

The game was a blast! It ran smoothly and was over in three hours, there were a lot of memorable scenes, and everyone had fun, lots of it!

 

Of course they screwed things up big time, caused a lot of collateral damage, and learned the hard way not to send a mentalist hand-to-hand against Grond. But they had fun a-plenty, and HERO just won six new players.

There are two theories to arguing with a woman. Neither one works.

SCO sucks. This week I get to QA our SCO driver and let me tell you, I can see why SCO can't compete with other UNIX products.

Hmm. There's a guy selling his Mig-21 for $100,000 just south of Portland. Didn't know there were that many privately owned.

It took six months for this company collateral literature to get printed. You'd think it would be easier than that. It's just a folder with four sheets of paper, for chrissakes.

Inner monologues are hard to keep internal sometimes.

 

I had this guy I've never seen before walk into my office and ask: "are you Jewish?"

 

Inner Monologue: "What was your first clue, Einstein?"

 

Actual Words: "Yeah."

 

He says: "I had a Jewish friend in high-school."

 

Inner Monologue: "This is the part where you tell me how you have a deep abiding love and respect for the Jewish people because you attended a bar-mitzva when you were twelve or thirteen and danced around trying to sing hava-nagila, isn't it?"

 

Actual Words: "Uh-huh."

 

He begins to tell me about the bar-mitzva he attended so I cut him off.

 

Inner Monologue: "What planet are you from? I don't know you from Adam. I don't care to suffer through your anecdote so you can pointlessly demonstrate what a quaint, tolerant, swell guy you really are to the world."

 

Actual Words: "Who are you?"

 

He tells me he's Christopher, and oh yeah, he's a mormon, and proceeds to begin his story again - so I cut him off again.

 

Inner Monologue: "Do I care if your mormon? I don't want to listen to yet another person tell me about the bar-mitva they attended in some reform temple somewhere with non-kosher food, live music and dumb toys on the sabbath and how it impressed them of the depths and meaning of the Jewish faith."

 

Actual Words: "I don't mean to be rude, Christopher, but I have a great deal of work to do today. It was nice to meet you."

 

It takes him a minute, but he gets the point. We shake hands with well wishes and he leaves.

Nothing is more dangerous than an executive with an idea.

When someone says "What did you say?" or otherwise wants you to speak up, they seem to speak up rather loudly, as if they need to provide an example. Why?

Dreamweaver MX... it is hard for me to put my admiration and respect for this application into words.

People need to come out and tell you who the heck they are and where they think they know you from.

 

I have an excellent memory for faces and place people very quickly, which brings me to sunny story number two:

 

I get up from my desk to walk to walk the halls and stretch my legs. As I round the corner I run into this extremely pretty and well built (and nicely dressed I might add) young woman who says, with a look of happy recognition:

 

"Hey."

 

I've never seen her before. Trust me. I'd remember. I sort of smile and nod and say, deeply and meaningfully enough.

 

"Hey."

 

She gets this smile I can't quite place on her face and asks: "How ya' been?"

 

I'm still perplexed and I haven't really stopped so I just say: "Good. You?"

 

She seems to want to talk, but frankly, I have this extremely awkward "who is this" feeling. She tells me she's good.

 

Uh-huh. Okay. Weird. I keep going to the kitchen, leaving her looking through her bag. When I come back she's still there, but she's starting to move in the opposite direction. She says: "fancy meeting you here." And there is something very personal in her tone.

 

Uh... who in tarnation is this?

 

I say: "yeah."

 

So she kind of steps into me, tells "me thank you for last week," slips a piece of paper into my pocket and walks - no sashays - off.

 

I'm standing there, agape, not really breathing with my brain screaming:

 

WTF?!

 

Unless I have some weird cassanova-esque manchurian candidate training I don't know about this woman mistook me for someone much more interesting and meaningful than I really am.

 

That would be fine (I used to get "don't I know you?" from strangers a lot before I got all furry and orthodox looking, and I was even slapped once by a drunk woman who thought I was her cheating ex once), but there aren't that many people walking around who look and dress like Orthodox Jews in the Seattle/Bellevue area, let alone on the MS campus. In fact - I know all the bearded yarlmulke wearers on campus and I think it would be a hard error to make.

 

So, anyways, I have this phone number of a woman named Kate who has thanked me for something meaningful that happened with some other bearded Jew last week and I'm wondering - who does she think I am?

 

Ugh.

 

Life is very weird.

I find nothing more relaxing than watching the ocean. Too bad I'm far inland. Need a short roadtrip.

 

Certain smells are quite nice.

Ocean salt spray during stormy weather.

Fresh ground coffee is another one.

Why do people drop their pets out in the country, rather than taking them to the pound?

 

"We don't want kitty to die, and she'll find a good home out there."

 

I live out there. Damnit, I'm getting sick of watching good cats die of Feline AIDS and Feline Leukemia because they caught it from one of the other stray cats in the area.

 

By dropping your cat where you did, you condemned it to a life of pain and suffering, asshole. Unless we can catch it, and try to get it help. Which takes time, that we might not have.

 

Goodbye Charlie. I'm going to miss you. Sorry I couldn't do better by you. I hope we made the last months of your life happy.

 

Sleep well.

 

D

Damn! I´m all out of apples!