Ramblings of an Anonymous Coward

Take Five

i'll post something again in may.

but will leave you with a short poem today.

explanations are just words,
with no more substance than the ghosts of my own failures
left tucked within the shell of my world.

Baby Got Quotes

i like big quotes and i can not lie; you other brothers can't deny; that when the words float in with all that taste; puts a smile right on your face; you get sprung...

alright, i'm being silly, but i did want to share some quotes and tidbits; however, for fun, i am not going to directly attribute them to their authors. not becuase they don't deserve the credit, they most certainly do, but because it's more fun to track them down and learn as you go. well, for those so inclined. i assure at least one of these quotes comes from a source that most would be surprised to hear me quoting.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment.

Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood.

We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

It is better to have not known me than to have known me and turned away.

But he did not understand the price. Mortals never do. They only see the prize. Their heart's desire, their dream... But the price of getting what you want is getting what you once wanted.

From The Desk Of

slowly but surely i'm knocking out some of the small things i've been wanting to accomplish for some time. my desk, nay my home office, has become extremely cluttered and is quite frankly driving me nuts. on the bright side, it's quite interesting the stuff you find buried here and there. the notes scribbled to remind you to do such-and-such, the upc for the finger eleven cd you want which is supposed to have a dvd with it (first print), old bills, pay stubs, photocopies and print outs.

one of the things i sometimes wonder when going through this cleaning process is why did i keep this to begin with? one thing i'm going to try harder to do is understand that question and have an answer for it. here's an example of what i found, a print out given to me that read...

Please understand. I care for someone who is having an affair because they are trying to find something -- like all of us. The problem: their way of finding that something is really misguided. Anyone who chooses to trade one set of problems for a worse set, or really beliees that another person can make his life better or "complete" obviously isn't thinking straight.

He is either lost in his empty neediness or his life is run by his glands. Choosing an affair is temporary insanity. Affairs have absolutely nothing to do with love -- everything to do with personal neediness and the narcissistic need for intense flattery. An affair is NOT the answer. Affairs don't pan out.

This is backed by over two decades of professional experience, study and research. Here are the stats:

• 80% of those who divorce during an affair regret the decision.
• Over 75% who marry partners in an affair eventually divorce.
• If an affair replaces the marriage, it is subject to the same emotional stresses as the marriage but twice as likely to fracture.

my best find, aside from a few little things, is a check for $477.78 that still needs depositing. now that is what i'd like to find more of!

Filed Under WTF

i'm really not sure how i feel about this. i remember some years back where you could turn an old missle silo into a home -- a much more interesting idea imho, but a 727 ?!?

taking it somewhat easy today, i stumbled across a link called -- the good wife's guide. ya know, even as a guy, i just don't find the appeal here in these suggestions. ok, ok, i'm sure i could deal with it once or twice, but lets be real.

had this been in text, i think i'd have had to provide a running commentary on some of this crap. you know, like...

Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a life and one of your duties is to provide it.

ahem. now if by a little gay is a reference to lesbianism and getting two hot chicks for the price of one (so to speak)... i might be able to support that idea. and for the record, i am in fact kidding.

i find it amusing that passage references his boring day while others talk about his world of strain and pressure. so which is it?

i suppose i'll take solace in the fact that this was printed nearly 50 years ago. i wonder what a "good wife's guide" circa 2004 would read -- and where's the "good husband's guide"? was one not written because men generally don't read the manual or ask for directions? or is it because we'd read it and ignore it?

Just A Few Words

well, despite not being at the top of my game, the san jose sharks still managed to win, defeating the colorado avalanche 1-0 in denver. the team has been one game away from advancing to the conference championships before, so i'll reserve my "woo-hoo" until they manage to win one more game. regardless, there will be at least 2 more games in san jose, i'm hoping they are both round-3 games, though my wallet isn't as pleased at the prospect.

at a recent san francisco giants game they had a mini-bachelorette contest. eventually the guy who won had to choose between a buxom brunette named jordan (well, a date with her, expenses paid) or a sony playstation-2. decisions, decisions...

just when i think my motivation is at an all-time low, i find myself feeling pretty crappy and with more work than i know what to do with. and i don't mean fun, interesting, research or hacking code work. i mean dealing with e.mail bullshit and pointing out obvious problems in proposed solutions that i shouldn't have to be wasting time on.

and i'll leave you all tonight with a quote...

He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

Word Association, Week 64

1. Elastic:: band
2. Intervention:: required
3. Risk:: reward
4. Junk food:: candy
5. Arrogance:: invites ruin
6. Responsibility:: of one's actions
7. X:: rated
8. Marshall:: penny
9. Kill:: bill, volume 1
10. Brother:: where art thou

Three Answers

alrighty then! some of you took the opportunity to fire questions over at me. i must admit i was a bit nervous not knowing what sort of questions might get asked. sure, i could always not answer, but what fun would that be? so instead, i'll sit here and listen to some music and tap out my answers.

and aaaawaaayyyyyyy weeee gooooo!!

well, thank all of you for your questions. hopefully my answers quenched your curiousity and/or gave you some insight into who i am. if you are seeing something like a cold, dark spot when thinking of me... yup, you've got me right. until next time... i'll leave you with the tune i'm listening to as i'm finishing this up...

Heaven -- Los Lonely Boys

a nice, fairly upbeat tune.... give it a listen if you can.

quick bonus insight -- am i the only person that noticed that the first questions where numbered with parens following the number (e.g. 1)) then the second set had numbers followed by a dot (e.g. 1.), and it alternated back and forth. weird!

ac out

Curiousity Costs Me A Buck

so i'm at blockbuster today -- returning haunted mansion and looking to pick up master and commander and the following conversation occurred...

blockbuster chick: hi! how are you?
ac: fine. thanks. do you have master and commander?
for you? sure we do.
heh. i guess it doesn't have anything to do with that guaranteed in stock thing then huh?
oh? is that one of those movies?
i think so. there is like a 5-foot sign on the front glass that says it is.

...she's fiddling getting my other movie checked in and this one checked out when i just had to ask...

so, what does that CIABAMBSYCMNH mean on that button? (or something similar to that)

...she and the other employee had these bright yellow buttons on their shirts with this on them. i figured seeing as i was staring at it for about 30-45 seconds, and it was on her chest, i thought it only polite that i ask...

laughing aloud (LOL for your IM'ers): well, your curiousity is going to cost you a dollar. see, if you ask about my button, you have to pay a dollar.
huh? why is that? or is that going to cost me another buck?

ok, ok, enough with the dialog -- in short, if you see this button and ask them about it, they are encouraged to get you to donate a dollar to the children's miracle network hospital and you get a balloon to write your name on and they stick it up on the wall, the glass wall in my case. "so how high do you want it", she asks. looking at the few others put up so far, i note that someone named blake was the highest. "oh, it doesn't matter as long as it is higher than blake's", i responded.

so this little chick at blockbuster makes a run for the window, leaps up and smack! leaving my balloon a good 6-inches higher than 'ol blakey-boy. yeah, i'm da man! of course i just fucking know that i'll go in there tomorrow and see some balloon marked "carol" way above mine. but for the moment, mine is the highest.

and thinking about this more, i really should go back tonight... my curiousity was never fully resolved. i found out i got to buy a balloon for a decent cause, but i never found out what the hell those letters meant. what a dumbass i am sometimes. this is why curiousity killed the cat i suppose.

Fifth In Line

how i sometimes get from one thing to another even i may never know. i did however stumble across this wonderful quote today. it certainly goes into my list of favorites.

Everyone carries with them at least one piece to someone else's puzzle.
-- Lawrence Kushner

now i certainly know how i ran across this, i followed a link from braincrayons over to a penny for your thoughts after it was mentioned there was a great quote there. and i wasn't disappoined.

but somehow after that i ended up getting to this passage from an unwritten novel by virginia woolf and felt the need to share it. why? dunno.

SUCH an expression of unhappiness was enough by itself to make one’s eyes slide above the paper’s edge to the poor woman’s face—insignificant without that look, almost a symbol of human destiny with it. Life’s what you see in people’s eyes; life’s what they learn, and, having learnt it, never, though they seek to hide it, cease to be aware of—what? That life’s like that, it seems. Five faces opposite—five mature faces—and the knowledge in each face. Strange, though, how people want to conceal it! Marks of reticence are on all those faces: lips shut, eyes shaded, each one of the five doing something to hide or stultify his knowledge. One smokes; another reads; a third checks entries in a pocket book; a fourth stares at the map of the line framed opposite; and the fifth—the terrible thing about the fifth is that she does nothing at all. She looks at life. Ah, but my poor, unfortunate woman, do play the game—do, for all our sakes, conceal it!
-- Virginia Woolf   link to source

Ding, Ding: Round Two

face it, you know you wish you were there! well, unless you were a colorado avalanche fan. the sharks out-hustled, out-hit, and simply out-played the av's tonight and routed them by the score of 5-2 and frankly that score doesn't indicate just how lopsided the game was.

my buddy yb went to the game with me -- for the rest of you, there are pictures and the espn write-up. i'm told by bmw that yb and i were on the espn feed after marleau's third goal. i'm the one in white. heh!

Back To The Future

man! if that car really worked -- not as in being drivable, but as in allowing time travel -- i would so bid on this auction at ebay.

link found at boingboing.

Mental Break

thanks to those that have offered up 3 questions, i plan to answer them in a couple days -- hoping some more come in as well. in the mean time, here are some links -- something for everyone.

• 35 years with Jennifer is one of the more romantic things i've seen on the net. not the pictures, but the story too. sure, they may be one in a million, but they are proof it is possible. A quote from the first page caught my eye...

  We married in September, and somehow, she came up with only one rule for our marriage; no matter how angry or mad we might get with each other, we must always sleep in the same bed together, no sleeping on the couch or in the guest bedroom. I don't know how she came up with it, but for a very simple rule it was very effective. She said we had to learn how to fight. Never personal, never hurtful, always on the issue and the issue only. Finally, she taught me to never be a scorekeeper. Never count the times I went out or how often she might do something. Instead, be happy and glad that the other has the opportunity. We've kept the belief in these simple things, and a great life together has resulted. It amazes me to this day that a 19 year old girl would have the wisdom, vision, and confidence to embark upon such a journey, passionately and unafraid.

  
  
  
• get your message on the chandeliers with crystal SMSs. it's an amusing idea, but [ahem] way out of my price range, not that i'd even have a place for such a thing.
  
  
• geek alert. simon captured this comment/response off a slashdot.org post. very funny!
  
  
• ever need to do a flash slideshow with crossfades? if so, follow the link. if not... move along.
  
  
• is it an arse or a finger? i found this how-to make your finger look like a butt quite amusing. reminds me of the old arse/elbow quiz which has since gone away. funny stuff, and as he says, some are quite.... um... well, go look for yourself.
  
  
• MTV's cribs. i found this link on ernies mini-blog and it was quite funny. it will help you know what to do if your place is ever featured. perhaps there needs to be a blog version. heh.
  
  
• i forgot all about the q & a: the photographic interview. you've got until the end of april. i wanted to do it when i first saw it, now i've got a reminder to kick me into gear.
  
  
• want a low erdös number? you can now, for all intent and purpose, get a 5 on ebay -- item #3189039958. i throw this into the i wanna be in mensa bin...
  
  
• Email Stress Disorder -- just what i needed to know. i wonder what the doc will prescribe for this one? how about medicinal lsd? whoa man, i was like just spammed and now i've got the munchies.

What Flavor Are You?

I taste of Death. Doesn't everyone want a taste of death? Well they should. Most people deserve death. Keep away from me unless you think you're better than that. I probably won't like you. What Flavour Are You?

originally seen over at enigma's

Three Questions

seems this has been going around -- i last saw it from asb's answers. of course she should have entitled her answers too much information, but it was an amusing read. ok, ok, i give her kudos for having a nirvana album in her top 3.

I want everyone who reads this to ask me 3 questions, no more no less. Ask me anything you want. Then I want you to go to your journal, copy and paste this allowing your friends (including myself) to ask you anything.

i, of course, reserve the right to remain silent. sure, it can be used against me, but i retain this right none the less. there are questions i won't answer -- oh, like name, address, social security number -- those sort of things for sure. there are others too, and i'll deal with those when/if they arise. i am, afterall, an anonymous coward.

i'll close down the comments to this post after i've gotten enough questions (ha!), things get out of hand (double-ha!), or have begun to post the answers.

Miscellaneous

i'm tired. here are some links. then go away.

in these matters the only certainty is that nothing is certain.
-- pliny the elder

• i scored 41 on dr. phil's test, how did you do? my results mean:

  Others see you as fresh, lively, charming, amusing, practical, and always interesting; someone who's constantly in the center of attention, but sufficiently well-balanced not to let it go to their head. They also see you as kind, considerate, and understanding; someone who'll always cheer them up and help them out.

  and you wonder why i think dr. phil is a quack?
  
  
• The Men Commandments. it's an oldie, but a goodie and this has a few more than i recall seeing the first time it crossed my path.
  
  
• now here is an interesting question. if they were to recast the A-team, who would you pick for the characters? seen here and here.
  1. Hannibal Smith :: James Gandolfini
  2. B.A. Baracus :: Michael Clarke Duncan
  3. Face :: James Spader
  4. Murdock :: Johnny Depp
  
  
  
• iTunes for all. Jason Rohrer created a perl script which lets you access information from Apple's iTunes store. Read about it at downhillbattle.org.
  
  
• Sticking with programming and perl for a moment, here's some information about writing an AIM or MSN bot. I wrote a simple one about a year ago, but never finished it off. wiredbots' tutorial almost makes me want to revist that project. alas, other work projects still have greater priority.
  
  
• hey! put some fancy encoding into your blog. you'll ♥ it.
  
  
• ever wonder if your favorite actor/actress had a death scene? this may not be osh, but the information is out there and in this particularly odd case, it can be found at cinemorgue.com.
  
  
• speaking of death, i watched kill bill, volume 1 last night. this is definitely a tarantino flick! speaking of quentin, could you imagine spending an afternoon with this guy? christen nelson apparently had the pleasure and wrote about it.
  
  
• going from movies to music, keep an ear out for sam bisbee. he's released a nifty stop motion animation video for the song you are here. i don't know what it is about this tune, but i like it! hopefully it will be on iTunes soon. the record (ha! they still use that term) release party is 4/22 at the mercury lounge for those able to go, apparently it's open to the world. 3000 miles, my general dislike for people, and my discomfort in social settings will keep me away... but it was nice to be invited. haha!
  
  
• with sound in mind... remember morse code? well internet culture has invaded it's space too. they have added a new character to the code list. guess which one? give? ok. it's the "@". funny huh? operators were apparently tired of typing "at" all the time. to me, the funny part is that the at-sign code is longer than typing the two characters. so much for effeciency eh? clive tells the story better, so go check it out there if you are interested.
  
  
• tapping and music leads me to the bedroom and get your mind out of the gutters. metafilter provided a link -- Bedroom Music for Bedroom People. I plan to give one or two a listen.
  
  
• music to words -- the 2004 Lyttle Lytton winners were announced. In case you were wondering, the premise is simple: write a terrible opening line (of 25 words or less) of a hypothetical novel. i'd enter, but really want to give others the chance to win ya know. ;-)
  
  
• hockey news -- 2 game 7's tonight. go B's! go 'nuks! leafs and sens battle their game #7 tomorrow. oh, on a side note, igor larionov announced his retirement today. the entire KLM line has not retired.
  
  
• stumbled across this link -- On break from Quiznos. this cracked me up.

  Total Number of sandwiches made: 327
  Number of sandwiches made out of spite: 326
  

thanks for coming. here's a coupon as payment for your time.

Word Association, Week 63

1. Virginia:: beach
2. Soft:: ware
3. Carol:: o'connor
4. Vanity:: plates
5. Feminist:: movement
6. Alias:: a.k.a.
7. Coward:: anonymous
8. Beer:: belly
9. Chance:: community chest
10. Honest:: ly love you (ONJ)

brought to you by LunaNiña

Mike Jefferson Danton

if you follow hockey at all, by now you have probably heard about the arrest of mike danton. a pdf copy of the complaint is here for those that really want to delve in, but the hoo-haa going around is whether danton was gay and that the person he hired a hitman for was his [male] lover. quite honestly i could care less -- meaning his sexual orientation (to me) has no bearing -- but it sure seems to keep folks interested. a recent thread on a mailing list of san jose sharks fans, one person wrote:

I'm willing to concede that it's POSSIBLE that this was not a gay relationship, but look at the alleged facts here. ...

not to pick on the poster here, but doesn't that just sum things up nicely -- alleged facts. they aren't facts. they aren't allegations. they are alleged facts. maybe i'm just nitpicking the semantics here? i've been known to do that, but this one just cracks me up. i really should post like...

ticket to sharks playoff game #5: $67.00
sandwich and lemonade: $12.50
towel to wave at the game: free
getting the alleged facts: priceless

while hitmen don't take credit cards, for everything else there is mastercard. it's where you want to be. allegedly.

and for what it's worth yes, danton is the "mike jefferson" which was mentioned in the robert frost craziness back in the late 90's. the guy has been through a lot... let's allow the authorities to sort this one out without the is-he or isn't-he gay media storm. geez!

iSuck

sorry folks, but this movie is in quicktime format. it's called iSuck and is a commercial for a virtual girlfriend. jeremy calls it the best quicktime ever, i'll have to disagree, but it is funny.

Friday The 16th

ok, it's friday. yippie. and yes, that was a rather sarcastic tone. while i continue to consider what the hell i want to do with this blog, i'll continue with the all too stereotypical blog posts. you know, like letting you know i had taco bell for lunch and that i just finished listening to a tune by m.e.s.t. for whatever good that does.

• first, please click on this link to get to jane's. for her birthday she wants to reach the 50,000 hit mark. while i could secretly amuse myself and generate the remaining 5k hits she needs, i suppose it's only right to follow the rules now and again. so if all 3.14159 (irrational i know) of you click through it would help.
  
  
• live journal now has a feed of recently uploaded images, and jwz plugged it into his webcollage. take a peek.
  
  
• remember that yeti that was batting penguins. well, apparently now there is yetisports where you can find the seal bounce and orca slap.
  
  
• while as headphones i'm not terribly impressed, the idea of having a device that plugs into an audio jack and records as mp3 what is played through it is in fact quite interesting.
  
  
• use mt? ever want to edit a comment seconds after you submitted it? scriptygoddess has a solution.
  
  

On To Round 2

i've been to nearly all of the sharks playoff games [ever], but tonight's 3-1 win over the blues provided me something i hadn't seen yet in person. the end of a series where the sharks won. happy handshakes for the home team! i picked the sharks in 5 in neal's pool which should give me a few minutes of glory near the top. now, if only some of my other picks would follow suit. GO SHARKS!

Face Recognition

over on ernie's mini-blog there was a link for face recognition^*. his results proved... um... very inaccurate (his words, not mine). of course, that didn't keep me from trying it out. after selecting the picture, it pops up in your browser and you have click on your right eye, followed by your left eye. after submitting, it takes a few seconds and then boom, you get your results. imho, my results were no more accurate than ernie. it said i look similar to:

• Noah Wyle
  nice lookin' fella, but we look nothing alike.
• Takeshi Kaneshiro
  who? and no, not even close.
• Enrique Iglessias
  why must i be insulted this way?

interestingly enough, none of them had long hair (i do), none of them were sporting any facial hair (i currently am), and quite simply i see no resemblences at all. none. if they wanted to stroke my ego, they could have at least tossed up a picture of johnny depp as captain jack sparrow or something. geez!

^* i had to use msie to make this work. strike two.

Now What You Hear Is Not A Test

credit goes to beer mary for this link. she got it from someone named kristy. it's quite amusing, hop over and give it a look-see. (requires flash)

Are You Californian?

jane thanks henry for this... dunno any other origins. some of it is so true!

you might be californian if.....

1. Your co-worker has 8 body piercings and none are visible.
2. You make over $300,000 and still can't afford a house.
   that hits very close to the truth.
3. You take a bus and are shocked at two people carrying on a conversation in English.
   heh. and he doesn't mean the queen's english either. it's not limited to the bus either!
4. Your child's 3rd-grade teacher has purple hair, a nose ring, and is named Breeze.
5. You can't remember . . . is pot illegal?
6. You've been to a baby shower that has two mothers and a sperm donor.
7. You have a very strong opinion about where your coffee beans are grown, and you can taste the difference between Sumatran and Ethiopian.
8. You can't remember . . . is pot illegal?
9. A really great parking space can totally move you to tears.
10. A low speed police pursuit will interrupt ANY TV broadcast.
11. Gas costs $1.00 per gallon more than anywhere else in the U.S.
12. A man gets on the bus in full leather regalia and crotchless chaps, and you don't even notice.
13. Unlike back home, the guy at 8:30 am at Starbucks' wearing the baseball cap and sunglasses who looks like George Clooney really IS George Clooney.
14. Your car insurance costs as much as your house payment.
15. Your hairdresser is straight, your plumber is gay, the woman who delivers your mail is into S & M, and your Mary Kay rep is a guy in drag.
16. You can't remember . . is pot illegal?
17. It's barely sprinkling rain and there's a report on every news station: "STORM WATCH"
18. You have to leave the big company meeting early because Billy Blanks himself is teaching the 4:00 pm Tae Bo class.
19. You pass an elementary school playground and the children are all busy with their cells or pagers.
    this is so true! i noticed at a recent sharks game, during intermission, how many people and kids were playing games on their phones. *sigh*
20. It's barely sprinkling rain outside, so you leave for work an hour early to avoid all the weather-related accidents . . .
21. Hey!!!! Is Pot Illegal????
22. Both you AND your dog have therapists . . .hey! pups have issues too!
23. The Terminator is your governor.
    
    then jane adds...
    
    
24. Everyone around you is in therapy, on drugs and driving.
    note: she uses and not or. i take issue with that! i wouldn't call some of what is done on these highways "driving".

He Called!

i wrote last month about a chick named laura which ended up getting chris rock's old cellphone number. she referred to the calls as chris calls and tied up a few weeks of observation into a cute little story.

there has been an update, a part deux if you will, and while not nearly as amusing, it does answer a number of questions that floated through my head after reading it.

Art, Poetry, Math

Art outlives the artist; Poetry predates the poet; Math exists even without us.   -- Unknown

Foamy The Squirrel

foamy still rocks! that is all.

Grant Me Clarity

don't ask for the moon -- we have the stars.

I can forgive, but I cannot forget, is only another way of saying, I will not forgive. Forgiveness ought to be like a canceled note -- torn in two, and burned up, so that it never can be shown against one.
-- Henry Ward Beecher

Start 'em Young

i guess toys do reflect life. playmobil now offers an airport security checkpoint with a conveyor belt to screen luggage and a metal detector. it even has a little security person with a metal detector wand.

Half Dozen Quotes

before taking my next round of meds and letting them take me off to sleep, i stumbled across a number of quotes that i thought were worth sharing.

in no particular order...

Life is like an onion; you peel off one layer at a time and sometimes you weep.
-- Carl Sandburg

---

If you want what you have never had, you must do what you have never done.
-- Eastman Curtis

---

Poetry is not a turning loose of emotion, but an escape from emotion; it is not the expression of personality, but an escape from personality. But, of course, only those who have personality and emotions know what it means to want to escape from these things.
-- T.S. Eliot

---

You know you love someone when you want them to be happy even when their happiness means that you aren't a part of it.
-- Unknown

---

Music is, after silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible.
-- Aldous Huxley

---

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.
-- Mohandas Gandhi

Phone In Pictures

send pics directly from your camera-phone to pics@mobog.com and within minutes they will appear on mobog.com. beware, there are pictures that aren't work safe and/or can offend the easily offended. you have been warned.

I Am Not An Animal...

... i am a human being. the swelling in my face right now makes me feel the the elephant man. thankfully i'm not that disfigured... i've joked that the upper lip/gum swelling give me more of a turtle look -- perhaps i too should try and join the turtle club.

in an effort to gain some karma points -- i'm running really low, i gave up my ticket for game #2 in the sharks v. blues series so my seatmate could take his son. it's a noontime game and i'm sure the boy will have a blast and be something he remembers for a long time. besides, my seatmate will be out of the country starting monday and i'll have both tickets for a game #5 (if necessary) and/or the first game of the second round. hmmm, i probably only get a half of a karma point for that. oh well.

seeing as everyone apparently has a little lebowski in them, i took the "which big lebowski character are you?" quiz.

According to the "Which Big Lebowski character are you?" quiz:

Why don't you check it out? Or we cut of your Johnson!

Friday Five

1. What do you do for a living?
   i'm a geek and do what is every necessary to make sure my servers, networks, phones, ... are up and working. my second hat is writing software, typically the behind the scenes sort, like library or maintenance things. i hate having to write anything with a significant user interface! my third hate is doing whatever else will make our company successful.
   
2. What do you like most about your job?
   the flexability i have while still being paid reasonably well.
   
3. What do you like least about your job?
   being a small (start-up-ish) company, we don't have all the resources one might like to have. career growth is also quite limited and should the company not succeed, i think it will be a bit of a career setback.
   
4. When you have a bad day at work it's usually because _____...
   either someone has unrealistic expectations or makes it difficult if not impossible to meet my goals.
   
5. What other career(s) are you interested in?
   i wanna drive the zamboni. heh. seriously, i'm a technology geek and can't imagine doing much else. my father always said i should be a lawyer because i like to argue. i disagree, i only argue when people are wrong OR i can derive some level of pleasure getting their panties in a bunch.
   

It's Been A While

the work move is finally over. today was the first day in a while that i haven't had to commute back and forth (including saturday and sunday). long tiring days, lots of last minute changes and the stresses to go with it. some of those stresses spilled out and were spewed upon other people, and for that i really am sorry.

And everything I can't remember
As fucked up as it all may seem
The consequences that I've rendered
I've stretched myself beyond my means
-- Staind

i haven't posted a blog entry in a while, though that might be a good thing. i've been up and down quite a bit lately and i suspect anything i posted would have been dark and dreary and quite frankly caused me more grief than the benefit derived from posting it. however, here are a few pseudo-random things in stereotypical blog fashion. heh.

writing is how i bleed, in words that stain the page
for this is how i deal with the residual of rage
writing is how i bleed, just pick a wound and you will see
and each time i do, i lose some more of me

my abscessed tooth has recently become uncomfortable -- actually, it fucking hurts right now and the prescription ibuprofen (left over from my knee injury) just isn't cutting it. i may have to [gasp] go to the dentist again whether i like it or not. regardless, i really should be going back to take care of the remaining dental issues i have; however, the exorbitant cost has been quite the demotivator. the toothache certainly adds to my crankiness i'm sure.

while the stresses of work and life have taken their toll, yes, i purposefully have not commented on it being ten years since the death of kurt cobain. everybody has their opinions -- i'm keeping mine to myself.

playoffs! first game is tomorrow night. oh, i'll be there with bells on, that is for sure as well as keeping tabs on some of the other series. i'm in neal's playoff pool again this year. my picks for the first round were as follows -- dallas over colorado, vancouver over calgary, san jose over st. louis, detroit over nashville, toronto over ottawa, new jersey over philly, boston over montreal, and i'm on record with the upset -- islanders over #1 seed tampa bay. yes, i really do think so; however, round-2 will spell doom for the boys from long island.

Don't Look At Me

this is stolen from chris. i liked it enough that i had to copy it rather than just link to it.

don't look at me, because I don't want you to see me this way.

It's not that this isn't how I really am and that's the problem. see who I am is the sum of all the bad, ugly, messy, sad, pathetic, and useless parts with the thin camouflage of the residing good to hide discovery from the casual glance.

don't look at me, because I don't want you to see me this way.

i'm a small insect trapped in a glass jar who can see the blue skies above, but cannot climb up the invisible walls to meet it. life speeds by, blurring one day from the next and it's getting harder and harder to breath freely.

don't look at me, because I don't want you to see me this way.

it's getting late, and I don't mean the time. I spend my time playing out the inevitable oncoming headlights which will take me away or at least leave me alone. it's way past last call in the empty hall as I dance by myself in a pool of regrets and vomit.

don't look at me, because I don't want you to see me this way.

I don't want you to see me cry,
I don't want you to know how much I want to die,
stay away everything I say is a lie.

maybe tomorrow will be different, the sun will come up and I will apply my happy make-up to walk out onto the stage again.

The Benefactor

so... what would you do for a million dollars and what would you do with the money? these are two questions asked on application for the show. the money is being given away by dot-com billionaire mark cuban.

I Had To Do It

by the time you read this, i will have tendered my resignation at work, possibly sold the house, and broken the news of a move to texas. my biggest hope at this moment is that i don't have to explain it all too many times.

yes, folks it is indeed true. april fools day is here again. i've had so many ideas on things i could do ranging from stupid, to silly, to... well, downright cruel. this year i just couldn't bring myself to push the envelope, but have shared some of my ideas with others just for the giggles and to get it out.

others seem to be having a lot of fun! perhaps some of them will even get into the top 100 or just be notable on the net. on site is keeping a running list of links of pranks this year. some are quite funny... some, sadly enough aren't pranks. b² did a 6-panel comic of ill-advised pranks that was quite amusing.

funny thing is... like howard's prank this morning, one day it might be true. one of these days i will resign and i will sell the house. i might even do it on an april 1^st -- that way i can get some distance between me and then when they figure out i wasn't kidding.