Category: general

As I was making my agenda for the day, I thought, “Don’t plan too much. If you don’t get some of it done, you don’t want to get disillusioned, and then never work on any of it.”

Well, I didn’t do any writing, photography, or studying of Japanese today.

I did get the laundry done, and the dishes done.

I spent most of the rest of my time websurfing, most notably reading the Boy Meets Boy archives. (Snerk.) I also made dinner, which is good.

But I’m thinking, it would have been nice to have at least done one of the important projects. So, for tomorrow, I will resolve to work on one of them, and not worry about the others. That at least will limit the excuses I might have for not starting any of it, like “Oh, it’s 9 pm, I don’t have time to do all that stuff I was going to do today, so I’ll just write a whiny post about it and go back to reading about gay boys.”

To be fair to me, Sean is working his 6 to 3 shift this week, and that means he gets home at an ungodly early hour. Right now he’s asleep in the bedroom, which is where I’d planned to do my writing. He’s been there pretty much since we got back from doing our taxes. I know that I could write in here, but I’d rather do it in a place without all the usual distractions.

Also, my Japanese materials are in the bedroom.

And it’s too dark for photography. At least, photography with my current camera.

So I’m going to give up on it for today, and resolve to start one of my projects EARLY tomorrow when I get up.

Check out this story on BoingBoing.

A Boing Boing reader […] designed a website for a restaurant called Windows On the Bay. The client had not yet given him the copy for the site, so he filled the page with what he describes as “incredibly overblown, remarkably pretentious text.”

He says the client ended up using the copy!

I feel sorry for Windows on the Bay. Not only are they dumb enough to use ridiculous copy, but they are stuck with the most hideous website known to creation.

Seriously, that thing breaks pretty much every unwritten rule of web design! It has a wave file on autoloop, the background image interferes with the text, and it’s in frames for god’s sake! Also, the site is extraordinarily ugly–all one color, so there’s no focal point; menu graphics with backgrounds that don’t match the page background; graphics disingenuously incorporated with text in a boring font; a strip of green (grass?) along the bottom for no apparent reason…the list goes on and on. (And to make matters worse, there are typos in the copy!)

All in all, a sad situation for Windows on the Bay.

Yes, “Seven Up”. That’s how they spelled it.

The email is a newsletter called “THE HIZZY”.

I am not making this up.

Laundry: One load in the dryer, one in the washer. Not long now.

Dishes: Put away.

The Three Most Important Things: Not done. Not even begun.

Things That Got in the Way: Sex, and taxes. And websurfing. Writing this post, for that matter. All done.

Yes, you can see how close I am to treating the three things I want to work on professionally ;P Shape up or ship out, me!

1. Laundry
   Status: 1 load done, 1 load in dryer, 1 load in washer, 1 load waiting.
2. Dishes
   Status: Washed and waiting to be put away.
3. Writing
   Status: Planning to spend a professional amount of time (e.g., as long as I can go strong before I start to lose my steam) writing. In The War of Art, Steven Pressfield states that his time is about four hours. Mine will probably be less, since I’m not in the habit of doing it every day yet.
4. Japanese
   Status: For today, I’m going to spend equal time organizing materials and studying. I’ll start with the organizing, because I love organizing, and I’ll time myself. However long I spend organizing my study materials will then have to be spent doing actual studying.
5. Photography
   Status: I want to get more pictures of the spring blossoms before they’re all gone. I plan to bike down Walton Way and the residential side of Wheeler.

Hmm. Is that too much stuff? It’s already 2:15…

I dunno, I’ve only been to his site like twice, and I didn’t spend much time there, but from what it appears, he does a lot of linking.

Just as I am about to do now!

Slashdot stories

Sony Patents Matrix-Like Game Technology

Daylight Savings Change Proposed

Home Theatre PC Guide

Google Delivering Factual Answers

EFF Guide To Blogging Anonymously

I was thinking that this would have been useful this past week.

Detecting Speech Without Microphones

As a person with a degree in linguistics (I hesitate to ever call myself a “linguist”, firstly because I’m not actually working in the field, and secondly because the working world seems to think “linguist” means “translator”), I find the idea of capturing the shapes of the mouth and throat in order to determine the intended speech at once fascinating and logical.

Hole Drilled to Bottom of Earth’s Crust

Revenge of the Sith Officially Rated PG-13

You’re sending us mixed signals here, George.

Actually, I can see what he was trying to do. He was trying to establish Anakin’s innocence and appeal with the first movie, which its overly simplistic rendition of events that were actually so subtle and complex that it was a struggle at the time to understand why they were relevant. (Now, of course, that’s obvious too: Palpatine had to come from somewhere.) The second movie, which I have at times claimed is better than Jedi, was the transition between this cartoony (actually, I hate that adjective, but you know what I mean) nothing of a film and the bleakness to follow. So, by contrast, Revenge has to be extraordinarily evil.

Maybe the series will hold up in a marathon viewing.

Router Built for Gamers

Okay, this is bad news for me. I mean, the description text says “Ping times suck? Too much lag? If your loved ones are hogging all your bandwidth with P2P and torrents, you’ll want to checkout the D-Link DGL-4300 Wireless 108G Gaming Router.” Yes, if Sean sees this, I’m a goner…

…which of course makes linking to it on my website pretty stupid, eh?

BoingBoing stories

Plane Crazy: Musical about golden age aviation and the Pill

I would actually like to see this.

High-rise structures for ashes of Hong Kong’s dead

I wonder if something similar is in Japan’s future. Right now there isn’t much land in Japan that isn’t in use for something, and their graveyards are pretty tightly packed. I have some pictures of a graveyard in Kyoto that is so vast and dense that it is like a sea of thin gravestones. Maybe I’ll get those pictures uploaded someday. In the meantime, here’s a really interesting description of Japanese funeral traditions.

(There’s a lot of other information on that page; click here for the index. Of interest right now is hanami, the viewing of cherry blossoms. A highlight from that article: “The restroom facilities at Japanese parks were never designed to handle the huge numbers of people that descend upon them for cherry blossom viewing. Due to this, it is inadvisable to go traipsing through any low shrubbery or foliage borders that may be lining the area.” :D)

Yahoo! News: Oddly Enough stories

Confused Cops Swarm Woman After Birth (AP)

This woman is awesome. Just read the story.

Jailed ‘Killer’ Freed After Wife Turns Up Alive (Reuters)

Oops.

Physicists Write Microscopic Paragraph (AP)

Woman Photographs Swan, Finds Hand Stuck in Ice (Reuters)

It’s so difficult sometimes to get the meat of the story into a tiny little headline…

Wash. Lawyer Suspended for Sex With Client (AP)

I just like the first paragraph:

The state Supreme Court on Thursday announced a two-year suspension for a lawyer caught having jailhouse sex with a triple-murder defendant she was representing.

So I guess you don’t have to be particularly smart to be a lawyer…

Man Drives Into DMV’s Wall, Renews License (AP)

Students Use 125 Steps to Change Batteries (AP)

Two words: Rube Goldberg. :D

Local news: Louisville, KY

Official: ‘Mistakes were made’ in felon’s escape

The incompetence here is pretty impressive.

Local news: Aiken, SC

Schiavo decision worries supporter

This perspective on the Schiavo case by a woman who was held at a Yugoslavian starvation camp is worth going back on my word that I’d “washed my hands” of it. But this will likely be the sole exception.

Japan news

Guidelines planned for correct use of honorific Japanese

I really wonder if television isn’t at least partly to blame for the widespread “misuse”. I’ve noticed all kinds of sarcastic uses of honorific Japanese in anime.

The article itself states:

The subcommittee will check on the use of honorifics and polite phrases deemed to deviate from perceived standard usage, including phrases commonly used by sales clerks.

What, no more irasshaimase? :(

The secondary story in that article, that the joyo kanji will be reevaluated, is good news. I’m not sure that the language will have changed drastically in 24 years, but there are surely new prominent words that need to be considered.

747,000 households refuse to pay NHK subscription fees

Gov’t keeps tight grip on textbook descriptions of Iraq war

Gov’t OKs nationalist text; sex slavery glossed over

‘Comfort women’ not suitable for junior high textbooks: Shimomura

Japan seeks dialogue with S Korea over textbook issue

China says textbook issue not Japan’s internal affair

Massive anti-Japan protests spread to Guangzhou, Shenzhen

Lots of furor over those textbooks.

Koizumi speaks out against Expo bento ban

Koizumi wins Expo bento battle

Go Koizumi! (And boo to Mainichi for its horrible archiving system…where the hell’s the permalink? I’m afraid these links will turn sour as soon as another article with the word “bento” in it is published…)

Okay, whew, I have now emptied out my saved Bloglines stories, except of course for the 100+ Language Log entries I have yet to read. I feel (mostly) better now. And hey, that apparently only took an hour!

Two posts from yesterday have been posted to Blogger. Now, will they actually appear on my site? Let’s find out!

:P

My last day of work was actually good, with both productivity and some nice surprises.

Robert didn’t come in until, like, 10:30! I got so much accomplished ;> He gave me a few other jobs, and I did them. Then we had the following conversation:

“Do you have anything else?”

“No….But I’m going to have food here at 4:00 for you.”

“You are?” This completely shocked me. “Wow.”

“Yeah. I mean if you want to do that.”

“Sure. That’s so nice!”

“I didn’t know if you would want to, since yesterday you were a little irritated…”

“I was. I was a lot irritated.”

“But yeah, I want to do that.”

“Okay, cool.”

Robert got his dopey smile and said, “I’ll keep you busy!”

This was another surprise, as I had interpreted his earlier “No” to mean that he didn’t have anything for me to do, so I would be leaving and then coming back at 4. “Doing what?” I said.

He seemed to pause before going into one of his elaborate explanations of why he’s doing something. It didn’t really bother me this time, I guess because of the idea that he wanted to throw me a goodbye party. Finally he got around to the point: he wanted me to purchase and install some software and figure out how it worked, then train him on it.

“Okay.”

I don’t know if he was expecting more resistance from me or what, but he seemed relieved.

I got to work, buying and downloading and installing, and then I played around with the software some (it’s really easy), and then it occurred to me that he must have come up with the idea to have a goodbye party just to convince me to stick around until 4, so he could get me to do this work.

The incredulous laugh came back. I mean, I would have done the work anyway (he obviously didn’t understand what had made me angry yesterday). But it also would mean he wanted someone* to train him that much. That he didn’t trust his own ability to learn.

*(Not just “someone”, but me. Ah, ego.)

But I laughed mostly to myself–he was in the other room–and kept at it. Because, hey, I was wooed by food. And also, it was my last day, and I was happy.

Well, it turned out that he had actually proposed having some sort of party last week. I do think he mentioned the party before he mentioned the work in the hopes that I wouldn’t reject the work…but I can’t think of him as completely evil, knowing that he’d planned in advance ;> (And also that he didn’t change his mind after yesterday’s hissy fit.)

He bought sushi(!), and Audrey brought a cake(!), and we–me, Audrey, Kim, Teri, and Robert–sat around eating and talking. It was actually a really nice time :) Bob stopped in to eat some cake, and he gave me a hug and kissed the top of my head and said, “We’ll miss you around here!” (I promptly felt like an asshat.)

They gave me a card, too…and Robert wrote some really nice stuff in it, including that I should ask him if I ever need anything. Audrey wrote that while they will miss my knowledge and expertise, they will really miss me.

I don’t know if I ever felt that appreciated at 2go-Box before. It was a nice way to leave.

I’m not an expert on personal security, but I do know that computers can tell other people a lot about you, if you let them. The best option, of course, is to not do personal stuff on work computers, or to do personal stuff via the web so that nothing is stored locally (except perhaps in the cache). However, that’s a perfect world scenario; in reality, there are plenty of reasons why you might visit some websites you like while you’re at work, and log in to them, or go check your webmail, or run a chat program.

So, here are the steps I’m taking to erase my existence from the office computers.

First, and most obviously, I’m removing my logins. This will delete any files I’ve saved (I tend to email myself files rather than save them locally, but this will catch anything I’ve missed), plus it will destroy my bookmarks, visited links, and Internet cache.

Since my work email contains a few exchanges that may be helpful to my boss, I am leaving those in and deleting all the other messages–both in the Sent mail and in my archive folders. I am moving the email pst files out of my login so they will be saved when I delete the login.

I have uninstalled all programs that I installed for my own use. This includes AIM, a couple of FTP programs, and the GIMP. The purpose of this is to remove any identifying information that may have been stored in those programs (not the GIMP so much, but one of the FTP programs was storing a login of mine even after I told it not to). This also cleans up the computer for the next user, who might have no idea what all those programs are for. It’s a nice thing to do.

I am also deleting the Cookies, Temporary Internet Files and History on other users’ accounts if I have ever used them to access my own stuff. (I really haven’t done this much, because I was thinking ahead, but sometimes for the sake of time I would just leave the computer logged in as someone else while I was using it, so they could easily start work when they came in.)

Finally, I’m removing my mp3s. No one listened to them but me, anyway.

Update 2005/04/11 12:25pm! The comments on this post are nothing but a Duncan discussion. For ease of later searching, I wanted to mention that fact here in the post text.

(Nobody came in to say, “Wow, Heather, thanks for the tips!” Maybe because the tips really aren’t all that amazing…)

So Blogger has a recover lost posts feature now. Given the fact that their site is down all the freaking time, this is handy. I guess I may find out if it actually works or not soon enough. (Unless I finally manage to shift to WordPress this weekend. If not this weekend, I definitely plan to get it done while I’m in Kentucky.)

Blogger was down all last night, and it seemed to be down this morning. I have a vitriolic post I want to put up, and I will as soon as I’m able. I don’t have it with me so I can’t post it now. When I do post it, I’ll back-date it to when I wrote it, which was yesterday at 4:30 pm. Watch for it ;P

As I got out of the car this morning and put my key card in my mouth so my hands would be free to grab my stuff and open the car door, I thought, “This is the last time I’ll put this key card in my mouth.” Aww.

:P

Actually, I think it is really cute that I put the key card in my mouth. It brought me a certain measure of delight every time I did it. It reminded me of little anime girls with huge eyes and small mouths delicately nibbling on stuff.

Speaking of cute things, there was this little girl last night at the restaurant (Brooke and I went to Boll Weevil) who said “Ma-Maaaa?!” with this rising intonation that turned into a squeal. I cannot express to you how utterly repulsive that was. It was like they had trained her to act cutesy or something. Every time I heard it it was like ice picks being jammed into my ears.

Maybe she is just naturally cutesy. Maybe it’s part of her personality. Regardless, it was freaking annoying.

This is the last day. God. I can’t believe it.

It couldn’t have come sooner, that’s for sure.

I wish I could. Damn stupid overeating.

I’m going to bed.

I was tasked yesterday with creating a phone survey using some web-based software. I did so this morning. A great deal of time was then spent tediously going through everything with Robert so that he could add in changes by proxy. In other words, he watched over my shoulder and told me what to do. This is very similar to yesterday, when we cleaned and sorted my computer’s file structure.

Then, he wanted to record all the prompts. But instead of just, you know, doing it, he had me click “Record” and “Stop” and save the file in Sound Recorder. We made three files for a test, and determined that the microphone sucked.

It was about time for my lunch, so I asked him if he was seriously going to have me sit there and hit record for him, when it was easily a one person job. He said, and I quote, “The point is to get it done today, and I don’t have any experience with that application.”

Experience with that application.

It’s fucking Sound Recorder!!!!

I didn’t know you needed a fucking doctoral degree to hit “Record” and “Stop” and “File” > “Save As”, but Jesus, I guess I better go back to school!

I literally stood there, leaning against the doorjamb and laughing at him. It was a quiet kind of laugh, an incredulous laugh that shook my entire frame. All he did was studiously ignore me.

I left everything open on my computer so he could mess with it, but of course he didn’t. After lunch I got back and nothing had been accomplished. I started working on a different project because he didn’t have a new microphone yet. He left to run errands and to get a microphone.

When he came back he plunked the microphone down cheerfully. I said, “So you seriously want me to do this recording for you.” I was near to losing it. He said yes. “You know, tomorrow’s my last day,” I said.

“I know,” he said.

“I could just leave right now.”

He paused and responded, “That would be bad,” and didn’t elaborate.

I went into the phone system to get the scripts. He told me to pull all the text out and put it in a Word doc. I did this, and printed it. I guess the busywork didn’t calm me down any, because as I handed the pages over and he said, “All this? This is a lot!” I started to close all my applications, save my files, delete personal stuff, etc.

“So you’re really going to have me sit here and hit ‘record’ and ‘stop’ for you?”

“Yes. And save the files–“

“Jesus God!” I grabbed my head in both hands. “I can’t believe you want me to just sit here and hit ‘record’ for you! You know what, I’m going to just leave, instead. This is ridiculous.”

As I spoke, I was rising and grabbing all my stuff. I stalked to the bathroom and cast what was left of my water into the sink. Realizing that it was my cup anyway, I held onto it and didn’t bother going back into the office. “I’ll come in tomorrow and finish uploading those files,” I shouted, and slammed the door behind me.

I didn’t even put my seatbelt on until I had charged out of the parking lot. If I were the type to squeal my tires, I would have.

I don’t know if he will want me to come back tomorrow or not. He might, if he’s really so incompetent that he can’t figure out how to upload things without me being there to point and click. Jesus fucking shit. I don’t know if I would want to go back at all anyway. Actually, I do know. I don’t want to go back at all.

I feel bad because I didn’t say goodbye to Audrey. But saying goodbye to someone while you’re throwing a temper tantrum would lessen the effect. :P

Obviously I’m at fault here. A better person would be able to suck it up and just do the ridiculously demeaning work of pointing and clicking, computing by proxy. I’m sorry. I can’t. I can’t have someone leaning over my shoulder telling me exactly how to do what I’m doing. I want to be given a task and allowed the freedom to complete it without the fucking micromanaging.

Jesus fuck shit fuck.

I’m going out.

BoingBoing linked to an article about the latest incarnation of the mall. I found the conclusion interesting:

The lifestyle center is a bizarre outgrowth of the suburban mentality: People want public space, even if making that space private is the only way to get it.

I’ve had that kind of feeling before. Where I wanted to just buy a bunch of land, and put everything I needed on it, and be self-sufficient, because I didn’t trust other people to treat me right, or to make the products I wanted, or not to kill me when I went out for a walk. It’s an outgrowth of our do-it-yourself mentality, I think, the one that has turned us all into islands.

1 egg	1 tsp. salt
3/4 c. milk	1 lb. ground beef
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese	2/3 c. ketchup
1/2 c. cooking oats	1/2 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 c. chopped onion	1/2 tsp. mustard

Mix egg and milk. Add cheese, oats, onion, and salt. Mix in beef with your hands. Form beef into 8 loaves and place into a greased 13X9X2 pan.

Mix ketchup, brown sugar, and mustard. Spoon on top of loaves.

Bake at 350° for 45 minutes, or until the loaves reach an internal temperature of 160°.

These are really, really, really good. I’m making them for dinner tonight.

The other day I biked to work, and when I left to go home I had a bunch of mail to take, so I rigged it all up in a trash bag in my bike basket and headed out. I decided to go down Old Petersburg instead of taking Martinez Boulevard to get to the post office. This was actually a mistake, because it’s much longer that way, and Old Petersburg has some nasty hills. But I didn’t know that at the time. Oh well.

Anyway, while I was on Old Petersburg I saw some really pretty flowers. I also saw a home for sale. It is probably way too big and expensive for me and Sean, but it looked really great. Unfortunately I can’t find a listing for it anywhere, so I have no idea what it’s going for, or even if it is still on the market. It had a two car garage and a nice yard, and I think that would be a nice and convenient place to live. It probably costs a zillion dollars.

The interminal week continues.

Apparently, if you clear a flat surface, my boss will have it covered with his crap by the next morning.

Meanwhile, some people, rather than, oh, I don’t know, emptying the trash can when they put their stinky leftovers in it, instead continue piling garbage into the can until it’s overflowing onto the drinks sold to customers. Because god forbid they should have to clean up after themselves.

In other news, drivers who tailgate you down two streets when there was plenty of room to pass and when you’re going the speed limit are shitheads.

Also, even my bastion of light and hope, R. Gabriel’s, dropped the ball this morning by 1) making me the wrong smoothie; 2) not putting the lid on correctly, so that it spilled all over my shirt and pants. The only upside is that it is a delicious smoothie, but that’s to be expected.

Things that have been said to me:

• I resent you, because you get paid and I don’t, yet you get on your blog at work sometimes, which means that obviously you don’t respect the fact that you get paid. But, as a businessman, who are you going to employ? The team that can do the job in a week, or the one drug addict who can get it done in an hour?
• I can’t afford to pay you a decent salary, or give you decent hours doing the things that need to be done. Oh, look, I bought myself an Aeron chair!
• Ooo, want to hold hands?

(That last when our hands brushed as we both went for the same drawer in a filing cabinet. I said, “No thank you, I’ll pass!” with such fervor that he didn’t say anything else.)

Three more days of this shit. Jesus.