If ever I think I know everything I spend a little time talking to my eight year old daughter. She's very good at asking questions I can't answer, or at least have to think hard about. The thinking hard bit is important because she cuts through bullshit quickly. When she was five and her mother had been sending her to Sunday School, out of the blue one day she asked me:
"If God made us, and God loves us, why would God let us get sick?"
What would you have said? I squeaked by this one but "ask your mother" has limited effectiveness. When she asks me about my work I have to give her real answers and frame them in a way that makes sense to her. Recently she wanted to know if everyone who worked with computers was a programmer.
"No," I responded. "I'm not, I'm a Business Analyst."
"Do you know how to program computers?"
"Not really, no."
"And it's the programmers who make the computer work?"
"Basically, yes."
"So why do programmers need you?"
"That's what they keep saying to me."
"I'm serious Daddy, what do you do?"
"I write the business requirements. I work with the programmers to make sure the computer ends up doing the right thing."
"Does that mean you're in charge?"
"I wish. First, I talk to the people in charge about what they want. I work out what their requirements are, that's why we call it business requirements."
"Don't they know what they want?"
"Not always."
"That's silly, everyone knows what they want."
"Not always. And people aren't always good at explaining to someone else what they want. How about if I told you I wanted you to buy me a car, what car would you get me?"
"Ummm, a Smart car, they're cute."
"That's too small for me."
"Then I'll get you a 4WD."
That's too big and slow. I want something faster."
"I'll get you a Porsche."
"I don't have enough money for that."
"Well, what sort of car will I get you?"
"See, now you're asking me about my requirements. I want a Volkswagen Passat."
"OK, I'll get you that."
"What colour did you get me?"
"Red."
"I don't want red, I want black."
"Why didn't you say so?"
"You didn't ask."
"Is this what you have to do all day?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"No wonder you're angry all the time."
"I AM NOT ANGRY ALL THE TIME! See, this is what I have to do - ask the right questions. The programmer is like the car dealer, they can get you whatever car you want. All you have to do is be clear about what car you want. It's like in Shrek, when Shrek said ogres are like onions because they have layers. Requirements have layers and I have to pull them off one layer at a time to get to the middle. Then I know what to tell the programmers."
"So the people you work with are like onions?"
"I guess."
"Do they stink?" Gotta love 8 year old humour.
"That's a bit harsh."
"Do they make you cry?"
"Sometimes I come close. Usually they make me want to scream."
"So they really are like an ogre? They're scary!"
Sometimes they are very scary. And I know I don't want to find one of them under my bed.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Angry at the mistreatment of Russell Crowe.
There is a funny article in today's Sydney Morning Herald detailing a journalist's brief flirtation with being Russell Crowe's stooge. The writer, Jack Marx, was approached by Rusty to essentially generate good publicity - be his "mole" in the media. It didn't go flawlessly and now Marx is telling his version of what happened. I think it's funny for what it reveals about both Crowe and the writer.
After reading it, I have to admit I thought it was a bit rich that a "journalist" was worrying about the morality of a situation. I put journalist in quotes because, really, the guy's an entertainment writer. Journalists have questionable enough ethics but showbiz gossip should be about fun, not deep moral issues. Read it for yourself, but my take is the writer really screwed up. This was a golden opportunity. Any job I have ever had essentially involved prostituting myself - taking money from someone to do something I'd rather not be doing.
I probably have this worse than many being a contractor. I jump from job to job chasing dollars - job fulfillment would be nice but most of my focus is simply on getting the next job. I have joked with other contractors before that we should just put "prostitute" on our tax returns to describe our work. We always need pimps; most employers will only deal with agencies rather than hire you directly, so the best we can hope for is a high-class madam like Heidi Fleiss who gives you nice surroundings rather than a street corner pimp who will smack you upside the head at regular intervals.
So yeah, I'd pimp myself out to Russell Crowe in a second. In fact, I've already put the plan in motion: I'm going to periodically say good things about Russell Crowe on the off chance my blog gets popular enough that he would pay me to promote him. That way, when I start taking payoffs, nobody will know the difference. This is almost wandering into urban legend territory - I'm creating the story that I'd be willing to shill for Russell Crowe in the future but I'll start being positive now so nobody can accuse me of selling out in the future. So how would you know in the future is I was being paid because I started writing positive stories about Crowe now? Indeed, how do you know I'm not already on his payroll and this is the start of an elaborate smokescreen?
Have I fucked with your head enough yet?
It's an easy choice to make because he'd be way better than most bosses I've had and the pay and the perks would be good (pretending to be friends with Hollywood stars? Hell yeah!) Besides, I think he is a good actor and I can respect that. So he's not nice to people in public, boo-fucking-hoo. He doesn't want you to like him, he doesn't want to be your friend, he wants you to respect his acting.
And he has been hard done by. That dickhead concierge that he threw a phone at deserved way worse. A self-important prick who is supposed to be helping people getting all uppity and copping an attitude with a star to prove what a wicked attitude he has? Get real you wanker, people paying a fortune to stay in your fucking hotel have a right to get pissed off when you cop an attitude. If I was Rusty I would have paid to have somebody whack you. You got off lucky.
And the bullshit that is the Academy Awards. Crowe deserved an Oscar for Gladiator - seriously, how hard was it to get people to take the whole swords and sandals genre seriously? The downside is he's indirectly responsible for the cavalcade of shit that followed like Troy, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven and Alexander. Then he got totally ripped off when he was nominated for "A Beautiful Mind". I think we all know that the Academy Awards are not really about talent, it's all politics, but the campaign against him that year blew my mind.
Competing films ran a campaign against "A beautiful Mind" saying people shouldn't vote for Rusty as best actor because in real life, the guy he portrayed (who was batshit crazy) said anti-semetic things and cheated on his wife and the film ignored this. If that sort of shit is important, why is the awards called "Best Actor" and not "Best actor portraying a character of whom I approve and in a way that conforms to my worldview"?
This is how Orson Welles got screwed on "Citizen Kane" too. It's all about politics, not talent. "Citizen Kane" is easily one of the best films made in Hollywood but was snubbed at the Oscars because Welles pissed off the wrong people (Hearst and his Hollywood suck-ups). That's right, it's out there - I said it. Russell Crowe is a creative genius on par with Orson Welles.
Now prove I got paid to say that.
After reading it, I have to admit I thought it was a bit rich that a "journalist" was worrying about the morality of a situation. I put journalist in quotes because, really, the guy's an entertainment writer. Journalists have questionable enough ethics but showbiz gossip should be about fun, not deep moral issues. Read it for yourself, but my take is the writer really screwed up. This was a golden opportunity. Any job I have ever had essentially involved prostituting myself - taking money from someone to do something I'd rather not be doing.
I probably have this worse than many being a contractor. I jump from job to job chasing dollars - job fulfillment would be nice but most of my focus is simply on getting the next job. I have joked with other contractors before that we should just put "prostitute" on our tax returns to describe our work. We always need pimps; most employers will only deal with agencies rather than hire you directly, so the best we can hope for is a high-class madam like Heidi Fleiss who gives you nice surroundings rather than a street corner pimp who will smack you upside the head at regular intervals.
So yeah, I'd pimp myself out to Russell Crowe in a second. In fact, I've already put the plan in motion: I'm going to periodically say good things about Russell Crowe on the off chance my blog gets popular enough that he would pay me to promote him. That way, when I start taking payoffs, nobody will know the difference. This is almost wandering into urban legend territory - I'm creating the story that I'd be willing to shill for Russell Crowe in the future but I'll start being positive now so nobody can accuse me of selling out in the future. So how would you know in the future is I was being paid because I started writing positive stories about Crowe now? Indeed, how do you know I'm not already on his payroll and this is the start of an elaborate smokescreen?
Have I fucked with your head enough yet?
It's an easy choice to make because he'd be way better than most bosses I've had and the pay and the perks would be good (pretending to be friends with Hollywood stars? Hell yeah!) Besides, I think he is a good actor and I can respect that. So he's not nice to people in public, boo-fucking-hoo. He doesn't want you to like him, he doesn't want to be your friend, he wants you to respect his acting.
And he has been hard done by. That dickhead concierge that he threw a phone at deserved way worse. A self-important prick who is supposed to be helping people getting all uppity and copping an attitude with a star to prove what a wicked attitude he has? Get real you wanker, people paying a fortune to stay in your fucking hotel have a right to get pissed off when you cop an attitude. If I was Rusty I would have paid to have somebody whack you. You got off lucky.
And the bullshit that is the Academy Awards. Crowe deserved an Oscar for Gladiator - seriously, how hard was it to get people to take the whole swords and sandals genre seriously? The downside is he's indirectly responsible for the cavalcade of shit that followed like Troy, King Arthur, Kingdom of Heaven and Alexander. Then he got totally ripped off when he was nominated for "A Beautiful Mind". I think we all know that the Academy Awards are not really about talent, it's all politics, but the campaign against him that year blew my mind.
Competing films ran a campaign against "A beautiful Mind" saying people shouldn't vote for Rusty as best actor because in real life, the guy he portrayed (who was batshit crazy) said anti-semetic things and cheated on his wife and the film ignored this. If that sort of shit is important, why is the awards called "Best Actor" and not "Best actor portraying a character of whom I approve and in a way that conforms to my worldview"?
This is how Orson Welles got screwed on "Citizen Kane" too. It's all about politics, not talent. "Citizen Kane" is easily one of the best films made in Hollywood but was snubbed at the Oscars because Welles pissed off the wrong people (Hearst and his Hollywood suck-ups). That's right, it's out there - I said it. Russell Crowe is a creative genius on par with Orson Welles.
Now prove I got paid to say that.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Invasion of the Gay Cane Toads
Environmental disasters causes by the careless introduction of foreign species makes me angry. In Australia we have feral foxes, pigs, cats, camels and possibly the most toxic of all - the cane toad. The idea was that introducing cane toads would help the sugar cane crops in the north because the toads would eat bugs that were troubling the crops. They didn't eat the bugs and ever since they have been breeding at a prodigious rate and slowly but inexorably spreading across the entire country.
They kill a huge amount of native animals and many efforts have been made to stop them. The latest idea is to genetically engineer some toad embryos so you end up with an all male toad population - no more breeding. This sounds like a fine idea - genetically engineered mutant poisonous toads; what could possibly go wrong?
My issue with this is that I've seen the movie "Cane Toads - an Unnatural History" and one interesting fact a naturalist pointed out in that movie was that cane toads are incredibly horny. He witness one of them humping a dead one that had been squashed by a car. So if this population is made all male, there's only one possible outcome: hordes of gay cane toads! This ought to push the government into action - they seem to think expending their energy stopping gay marriage is a good idea so I'm sure they won't put up with gay cane toads humping in the streets.
They kill a huge amount of native animals and many efforts have been made to stop them. The latest idea is to genetically engineer some toad embryos so you end up with an all male toad population - no more breeding. This sounds like a fine idea - genetically engineered mutant poisonous toads; what could possibly go wrong?
My issue with this is that I've seen the movie "Cane Toads - an Unnatural History" and one interesting fact a naturalist pointed out in that movie was that cane toads are incredibly horny. He witness one of them humping a dead one that had been squashed by a car. So if this population is made all male, there's only one possible outcome: hordes of gay cane toads! This ought to push the government into action - they seem to think expending their energy stopping gay marriage is a good idea so I'm sure they won't put up with gay cane toads humping in the streets.
Who has the angriest blog?
I've been very happy with the growth of my blog so far. My measure of success (at this point) is that I'm happy with the quality of my writing, I'm maintaining daily posting and I'm getting readers. All of these are going well. Actually, I want to give another thank you to my readers and commenters - I had no right to expect to get such dedicated readers and the positive feedback I receive is both immensely gratifying and a real stimulus to constantly improve.
But it wouldn't be so good for my readers if I was too happy would it? This is not the sunshine and flowers blog, it's the angry blog - Mr Angry want to stay angry 365 days a year. Becoming the number one foreskin blog was a true honour but I was essentially ego-surfing Google and found I don't even figure on searches for "angry blog". This is more than a failure on my part - this is a crime against humanity.
It wouldn't be so bad if the other blogs were actually angrier than me but some of them aren't angry at all. It is clearly my duty to be even angrier. I never actually go hunting but right now I am dedicating myself to a virtual hunting trip. I will hunt down every so called angry blog that doesn't deserve to be called angry, get them in my cyber cross-hairs and blow their virtual brains out. Which is to say two things, I'm going to be focusing on being even angrier and I'm going to spend more time promoting how angry I am.
Because that's the sort of guy I am. Angry, shallow and vain. As John Lydon said "Anger is an energy" and it is my goal to spread the angry meme far and wide across teh internets. One thing that is important to me is also to promote the difference between productive anger and moronic behaviour. One example: railing against how mind bogglingly stupid other drivers are = good. Actually attacking someone in a road rage incident = bad. Stupid. Fucked in the head.
Road rage has apparently recently been diagnosed in some circles as an illness: Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). I am going to sue the people promoting this because they stole it from me. I diagnosed IED years ago but in my study it stood for Idiotic Example of a Dickhead. I had this crazy idea that doctors have enough work but apparently they have to keep creating new diseases because they cured cancer years ago. The real idiocy of this is the claim of how widespread it is - up to 16 million Americans are suffering from IED apparently. Listen, they aren't suffering from an illness - they're fuckwits who need a smackdown. Cut loose Chuck Norris on their arses and give them a sense of proportion.
It's sad when you can't out-parody reality. I keep hoping each of these new "diseases" is an April Fool's joke but sadly that's hardly ever the case. Apparently these idiots are serious.
But it wouldn't be so good for my readers if I was too happy would it? This is not the sunshine and flowers blog, it's the angry blog - Mr Angry want to stay angry 365 days a year. Becoming the number one foreskin blog was a true honour but I was essentially ego-surfing Google and found I don't even figure on searches for "angry blog". This is more than a failure on my part - this is a crime against humanity.
It wouldn't be so bad if the other blogs were actually angrier than me but some of them aren't angry at all. It is clearly my duty to be even angrier. I never actually go hunting but right now I am dedicating myself to a virtual hunting trip. I will hunt down every so called angry blog that doesn't deserve to be called angry, get them in my cyber cross-hairs and blow their virtual brains out. Which is to say two things, I'm going to be focusing on being even angrier and I'm going to spend more time promoting how angry I am.
Because that's the sort of guy I am. Angry, shallow and vain. As John Lydon said "Anger is an energy" and it is my goal to spread the angry meme far and wide across teh internets. One thing that is important to me is also to promote the difference between productive anger and moronic behaviour. One example: railing against how mind bogglingly stupid other drivers are = good. Actually attacking someone in a road rage incident = bad. Stupid. Fucked in the head.
Road rage has apparently recently been diagnosed in some circles as an illness: Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED). I am going to sue the people promoting this because they stole it from me. I diagnosed IED years ago but in my study it stood for Idiotic Example of a Dickhead. I had this crazy idea that doctors have enough work but apparently they have to keep creating new diseases because they cured cancer years ago. The real idiocy of this is the claim of how widespread it is - up to 16 million Americans are suffering from IED apparently. Listen, they aren't suffering from an illness - they're fuckwits who need a smackdown. Cut loose Chuck Norris on their arses and give them a sense of proportion.
It's sad when you can't out-parody reality. I keep hoping each of these new "diseases" is an April Fool's joke but sadly that's hardly ever the case. Apparently these idiots are serious.
6/6/6 Update
No significant satanic manifestations to report although my Wordpress counter did pass 6660 while it was still 6/6/6 in other parts of the world. Does this mean I have 10 times the power of the beast?
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Blogger vs. Wordpress
I was recently asked to help someone set up a blog so I had to decide which tool to recommend to them. This helped crystallise a lot of my thinking on which tool I should be using myself as I have been conducting an ongoing road test by running this blog on both Wordpress and Blogger. Neither of them is perfect and they have different positives and negatives. So to tilt this in my normal manner, the following review covers what makes me angry about each of these tools.
Obviously there are a hell of a lot more blogging options than just Blogger and Wordpress but I don't have the time or energy to compare them all. I started on Blogger because I figured as Google owns it, this would be the easiest one to include Adsense ads on if I wanted to go that way (so far I don't want to do this but it is true, Blogger is the easiest one to put ads on). There are plenty of good comparisons out there, do a Google search on "blogging tool comparison" or try this one that I found to be really comprehensive. This particular review was the one that convinced me to try Wordpress for comparison.
So what good things did I discover upon setting up a blog on Blogger? Well, it's damn easy to set up. You can do a nice profile with photo if you want. My girlfriend likes the fact it puts a date and timestamp at the top of each post. It has an auto-save function when you are drafting a post that usually work (although not always). That's about it. Blogger is a bastard to customise, you have to go right down to html. There are no diagnostic/site visit measuring tools provided. It's hard to find other active blogs you might have something in common with - in the early days of a blog when you're linkwhoring this is important. Broadly speaking, site management tools are shit compared to Wordpress.
Wordpress is slightly more involved to set up but still dead easy. You can't put Adsense ads on a Wordpress blog (although they have pretty good reasons for this) and they don't have an easy profile with photo setup like Blogger. Beyond that, the customisation options provided by Wordpress are awesome. Through the magic of "widgets" you can add all sorts of features in a few seconds (literally - it's drag and drop). You can be a clueless non-techie like me and still have heaps of customisation on your blog. Sadly, it's very easy to over-design and you don't have to go far to see a Wordpress blog where the user has gone way over the top and added so many bells and whistles the site is unusable.
Wordpress include very good site stats monitoring tools, it's way easier to track comments and they have excellent anti-spam protection. I had a doomsayer comment on Blogger a while back that said I needed to introduce word verification and/or comment moderation or I'd be overwhelmed with comment spam. I made a specific choice to make it as easy as possible for people to comment on my blog because that's what makes it worthwhile for me. I figured I'd manage comment spam manually for as long as I could. I haven't had a significant issue with spam on Blogger yet, I've had to delete maybe half a dozen altogether (although one dick posted 3 spam comments in one day last week). Recently on Wordpress I have had about 20 spam comments and the spam protection has worked brilliantly.
Wordpress only missed one spam that I had to delete manually and it only had one false positive. That was the right-wing dork I was arguing with a while back and it happened because he included a lot of links in a comment (classic sign of spam). Or maybe Wordpress agreed with me and decided the fuckwit shouldn't be allowed to comment. Either way, it was a simple job to mark it "not spam" and have it appear.
You might have noticed by now I'm quite a cheerleader for Wordpress over Blogger. And if you look at the site stats you'll see all the traffic is coming to my Wordpress blog (around 6500 vs. 1500 on Blogger). This is largely because Wordpress is way easier to promote, they provide lots of links to active and popular blogs - the bread and butter of shameless comment whores like myself. Oh, and it's way easier to add people to your blogroll on Wordpress. I kept meaning to change the html on Blogger to add my friend to the blogroll but it is a pain. I'm pretty sure it's going to die soon so I'll add everyone to my Wordpress blogroll instead. So if you happen to have a link to my Blogger blog, you'd make me very happy if you changed it to Wordpress.
There is one flaw they have in common - they both have shit spell-checkers. It's churlish to pick on a free tool (you get what you pay for) but one aspect of their spell checkers actually makes me laugh more than it makes me angry. Neither of them recognise blog, blogger, blogging etc. as words. Nice attention to details guys.
Obviously there are a hell of a lot more blogging options than just Blogger and Wordpress but I don't have the time or energy to compare them all. I started on Blogger because I figured as Google owns it, this would be the easiest one to include Adsense ads on if I wanted to go that way (so far I don't want to do this but it is true, Blogger is the easiest one to put ads on). There are plenty of good comparisons out there, do a Google search on "blogging tool comparison" or try this one that I found to be really comprehensive. This particular review was the one that convinced me to try Wordpress for comparison.
So what good things did I discover upon setting up a blog on Blogger? Well, it's damn easy to set up. You can do a nice profile with photo if you want. My girlfriend likes the fact it puts a date and timestamp at the top of each post. It has an auto-save function when you are drafting a post that usually work (although not always). That's about it. Blogger is a bastard to customise, you have to go right down to html. There are no diagnostic/site visit measuring tools provided. It's hard to find other active blogs you might have something in common with - in the early days of a blog when you're linkwhoring this is important. Broadly speaking, site management tools are shit compared to Wordpress.
Wordpress is slightly more involved to set up but still dead easy. You can't put Adsense ads on a Wordpress blog (although they have pretty good reasons for this) and they don't have an easy profile with photo setup like Blogger. Beyond that, the customisation options provided by Wordpress are awesome. Through the magic of "widgets" you can add all sorts of features in a few seconds (literally - it's drag and drop). You can be a clueless non-techie like me and still have heaps of customisation on your blog. Sadly, it's very easy to over-design and you don't have to go far to see a Wordpress blog where the user has gone way over the top and added so many bells and whistles the site is unusable.
Wordpress include very good site stats monitoring tools, it's way easier to track comments and they have excellent anti-spam protection. I had a doomsayer comment on Blogger a while back that said I needed to introduce word verification and/or comment moderation or I'd be overwhelmed with comment spam. I made a specific choice to make it as easy as possible for people to comment on my blog because that's what makes it worthwhile for me. I figured I'd manage comment spam manually for as long as I could. I haven't had a significant issue with spam on Blogger yet, I've had to delete maybe half a dozen altogether (although one dick posted 3 spam comments in one day last week). Recently on Wordpress I have had about 20 spam comments and the spam protection has worked brilliantly.
Wordpress only missed one spam that I had to delete manually and it only had one false positive. That was the right-wing dork I was arguing with a while back and it happened because he included a lot of links in a comment (classic sign of spam). Or maybe Wordpress agreed with me and decided the fuckwit shouldn't be allowed to comment. Either way, it was a simple job to mark it "not spam" and have it appear.
You might have noticed by now I'm quite a cheerleader for Wordpress over Blogger. And if you look at the site stats you'll see all the traffic is coming to my Wordpress blog (around 6500 vs. 1500 on Blogger). This is largely because Wordpress is way easier to promote, they provide lots of links to active and popular blogs - the bread and butter of shameless comment whores like myself. Oh, and it's way easier to add people to your blogroll on Wordpress. I kept meaning to change the html on Blogger to add my friend to the blogroll but it is a pain. I'm pretty sure it's going to die soon so I'll add everyone to my Wordpress blogroll instead. So if you happen to have a link to my Blogger blog, you'd make me very happy if you changed it to Wordpress.
There is one flaw they have in common - they both have shit spell-checkers. It's churlish to pick on a free tool (you get what you pay for) but one aspect of their spell checkers actually makes me laugh more than it makes me angry. Neither of them recognise blog, blogger, blogging etc. as words. Nice attention to details guys.
666 - No Satanic Manifestations Yet
Thought I'd give my northern hemisphere readers a heads-up as my time zone reaches 06/06/06 sooner. So far, Satan's day is not living up to the hype. Although I do have some weird red swelling on the top knuckle of both of my little fingers. Seriously. Weird because I've never had anything like it before, I have no idea what's causing it and it's happening to the same finger on both hands at the same.
I'll let you know if claws burst through at any time during the day. After all, my middle name is Damien. Seriously.
I'll let you know if claws burst through at any time during the day. After all, my middle name is Damien. Seriously.
Monday, June 05, 2006
I wish people who say that people over 30 should be dead would die
Every now and then the same old chestnut gets circulated via email, on a web site or a blog. Normally I ignore them but occasionally one comes along and strikes me as the perfect storm of stupidity: an old joke, not particularly funny and masquerading as insightful social commentary while actually being banal sanctimonious crap.
One such example cropped up on Reddit today and it wasn't really the site owner's fault because they posted in July 2003. It's headed "People over 30 should be dead" and while I won't blame the site owner for its appearance on Reddit, I will blame them for posting this shit and thinking it's funny/insightful/true. And as people still forward drivel like this via email and blogs I think it's worth refuting. To deconstruct it line by line:
"Our baby cribs were covered with brightly coloured lead paint"
I'm sorry, but if you think lead based paint on a baby crib (or anywhere) is a good idea, you're a fucking idiot.
"We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets"
And kids did eat medicine and drain cleaner and get sick and die. How are these things bad?
"when we rode our bikes we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)"
Try comparing head injuries between "then" and "now". I think you'll find helmets have significantly reduced fatalities and disabilities from head injuries. And hitch-hiking? People still do that now. And occasionally get killed. If you think hitch-hiking is all fluffy bunnies and chocolate rainbows, maybe I should introduce you to Ivan Milat.
"We would ride in cars with no seatbelts or airbags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat."
Oh come on! The reduction in fatalities due to the introduction of seatbelts and airbags must be just about too high to count. In Australia it would be hundreds per year. In the US it would be many thousands per year. And you still see utes with kids in the back in country towns around here. And the result is still the same when the ute crashes.
"We drank water from the garden hose and not a bottle."
Who the fuck is saying water from the tap is bad? Obsessive yuppies? If you are in a developed country with no major pollution problems and your pipes aren't as crappy as the ones in my building (I have to filter tap water) then the tap water is probably healthier than bottled water. I think this one is bullshit and doesn't even belong with the other - bottled water isn't a safety issue, it's some bullshit marketing.
"We ate (unhealthy things) and we were never overweight because we were outside playing."
Good point although it's glossing over the increases in processed sugar and fats contained in foods now.
"We shared one soft drink with four friends from one bottle and nobody actually died from this."
Again, WTF? What is the point here? Crap like this doesn't belong in a discussion about safety issues.
"We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!"
This one I agree with. People are too paranoid about constantly staying in contact these days.
"We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt."
We're on a roll here, I agree with this one too.
"We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?"
Still in pretty good territory, I'm not a fan of the culture of blame.
"We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it."
Back into bullshit. This sounds like the words of a psychopathic bully. I had fights too but not everybody got over it. Some people were constantly victimised and brutalised (and this still happens) and "get over it" doesn't really cut it when you are in mortal terror every day at school.
"We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever."
You ate worms? You sick bastard. And what constitutes an acceptable number of eyes being put out? I'm guessing "lots so long as none of them are mine."
"Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason."
Again, I agree here. Although I think that the incidence of kids not being allowed to fail so they don't feel bad is greatly exaggerated by people trying to make a political point.
"Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!"
True story: my older brother got busted for joy riding (also known as stealing a car) with his friends about 30 years ago. Because he had no record, the judge was going to let him off but my dad insisted he pay the price for his crime and sent him to a juvenile jail. Where his three cell mates had all killed family members. That was a real bright idea.
So all of the above is meant to add up to the collective wisdom that anyone over 30 should be dead because safety standards were so poor by comparison in our childhoods. What passes for logic here is "I didn't die when none of these safety standards were in place so therefore nobody's life has been saved by improved safety standards." The fact that this could only be accepted as sound logic by somebody who actually did suffer some severe childhood head trauma is telling.
I think parents and authority figures today do need to lighten up. Learning how to deal with risk and consequences is an important part of life. But saying a risk isn't bad because it only affects one in a thousands kids is glibness born of the fact that the one kid wasn't yours. And spouting mindless claptrap that you think makes you look wise or witty really isn't helping.
One such example cropped up on Reddit today and it wasn't really the site owner's fault because they posted in July 2003. It's headed "People over 30 should be dead" and while I won't blame the site owner for its appearance on Reddit, I will blame them for posting this shit and thinking it's funny/insightful/true. And as people still forward drivel like this via email and blogs I think it's worth refuting. To deconstruct it line by line:
"Our baby cribs were covered with brightly coloured lead paint"
I'm sorry, but if you think lead based paint on a baby crib (or anywhere) is a good idea, you're a fucking idiot.
"We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets"
And kids did eat medicine and drain cleaner and get sick and die. How are these things bad?
"when we rode our bikes we had no helmets. (Not to mention the risks we took hitchhiking.)"
Try comparing head injuries between "then" and "now". I think you'll find helmets have significantly reduced fatalities and disabilities from head injuries. And hitch-hiking? People still do that now. And occasionally get killed. If you think hitch-hiking is all fluffy bunnies and chocolate rainbows, maybe I should introduce you to Ivan Milat.
"We would ride in cars with no seatbelts or airbags. Riding in the back of a pickup truck on a warm day was always a special treat."
Oh come on! The reduction in fatalities due to the introduction of seatbelts and airbags must be just about too high to count. In Australia it would be hundreds per year. In the US it would be many thousands per year. And you still see utes with kids in the back in country towns around here. And the result is still the same when the ute crashes.
"We drank water from the garden hose and not a bottle."
Who the fuck is saying water from the tap is bad? Obsessive yuppies? If you are in a developed country with no major pollution problems and your pipes aren't as crappy as the ones in my building (I have to filter tap water) then the tap water is probably healthier than bottled water. I think this one is bullshit and doesn't even belong with the other - bottled water isn't a safety issue, it's some bullshit marketing.
"We ate (unhealthy things) and we were never overweight because we were outside playing."
Good point although it's glossing over the increases in processed sugar and fats contained in foods now.
"We shared one soft drink with four friends from one bottle and nobody actually died from this."
Again, WTF? What is the point here? Crap like this doesn't belong in a discussion about safety issues.
"We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the street lights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. No cell phones. Unthinkable!"
This one I agree with. People are too paranoid about constantly staying in contact these days.
"We did not have Playstations, Nintendo 64, X-Boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, video tape movies, surround sound, personal cell phones, personal computers, or Internet chat rooms. We had friends! We went outside and found them. We played dodge ball, and sometimes, the ball would really hurt."
We're on a roll here, I agree with this one too.
"We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. They were accidents. No one was to blame but us. Remember accidents?"
Still in pretty good territory, I'm not a fan of the culture of blame.
"We had fights and punched each other and got black and blue and learned to get over it."
Back into bullshit. This sounds like the words of a psychopathic bully. I had fights too but not everybody got over it. Some people were constantly victimised and brutalised (and this still happens) and "get over it" doesn't really cut it when you are in mortal terror every day at school.
"We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms, and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live inside us forever."
You ate worms? You sick bastard. And what constitutes an acceptable number of eyes being put out? I'm guessing "lots so long as none of them are mine."
"Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Some students weren't as smart as others, so they failed a grade and were held back to repeat the same grade. Horrors! Tests were not adjusted for any reason."
Again, I agree here. Although I think that the incidence of kids not being allowed to fail so they don't feel bad is greatly exaggerated by people trying to make a political point.
"Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!"
True story: my older brother got busted for joy riding (also known as stealing a car) with his friends about 30 years ago. Because he had no record, the judge was going to let him off but my dad insisted he pay the price for his crime and sent him to a juvenile jail. Where his three cell mates had all killed family members. That was a real bright idea.
So all of the above is meant to add up to the collective wisdom that anyone over 30 should be dead because safety standards were so poor by comparison in our childhoods. What passes for logic here is "I didn't die when none of these safety standards were in place so therefore nobody's life has been saved by improved safety standards." The fact that this could only be accepted as sound logic by somebody who actually did suffer some severe childhood head trauma is telling.
I think parents and authority figures today do need to lighten up. Learning how to deal with risk and consequences is an important part of life. But saying a risk isn't bad because it only affects one in a thousands kids is glibness born of the fact that the one kid wasn't yours. And spouting mindless claptrap that you think makes you look wise or witty really isn't helping.
Sunday, June 04, 2006
In Praise of Percussive Maintenance
Is anyone else a fan of percussive maintenance? I love it. For those unfamiliar with the concept, it's a technical term that means smacking the shit out of something that doesn't work. It isn't the most productive method for dealing with out of order machinery (assuming your goal is to make the machine work) but it remains popular with people of all works of life. I think there are two reasons people keep doing it: one, because sometimes it actually works and two, because it feels so damn good.
I've just had what I am determined will be my last fight with the laundry facilities in my apartment building. I've previously shared with you how I won't use the washing machines any more because they keep making oily stains on my clothes. As an aside, "oily stains from washing machines" is a popular search term that leads to my blog. To anyone who comes here looking for solutions, I'm not much help - my only solution is to stop using the fucking thing. Well, I was still using the dryer, right up until the bastard machine just took my money and didn't work.
It wasn't a lot of money ($2) but it pushed me over the edge. I kicked the absolute crap out of the dryer which resulted in nether the return of my money nor the dryer suddenly working. But I think I heard some of the machine's inner workings fall out. Which made me feel good. Then I ran away before any of the other residents came in and found me. Won't the next person who uses it get a surprise? There's probably a slowly spreading pool of oil on the ground now from the dryer slowly bleeding to death.
Fuck this, I'm going out to buy my own dryer.
I've just had what I am determined will be my last fight with the laundry facilities in my apartment building. I've previously shared with you how I won't use the washing machines any more because they keep making oily stains on my clothes. As an aside, "oily stains from washing machines" is a popular search term that leads to my blog. To anyone who comes here looking for solutions, I'm not much help - my only solution is to stop using the fucking thing. Well, I was still using the dryer, right up until the bastard machine just took my money and didn't work.
It wasn't a lot of money ($2) but it pushed me over the edge. I kicked the absolute crap out of the dryer which resulted in nether the return of my money nor the dryer suddenly working. But I think I heard some of the machine's inner workings fall out. Which made me feel good. Then I ran away before any of the other residents came in and found me. Won't the next person who uses it get a surprise? There's probably a slowly spreading pool of oil on the ground now from the dryer slowly bleeding to death.
Fuck this, I'm going out to buy my own dryer.
Saturday, June 03, 2006
100 Posts - Where to now?
Anybody who's been reading this blog for a while knows how self-indulgent I am so it should be no surprise that I take time in my 1ooth post to get all self-reflective and think about... me. It's taken me less than three months to get this far (first post on Blogger was March 23rd) but I'm still looking forward to maintaining my original goal of posting at least once every day for a year. One thing I don't think I've ever shared is why I actually started the blog.
The character of Mr Angry (yes, it's a character, I'm not really like this - well, not completely) was originally an idea for a standup performance. I had written some material and was getting ready to try it out on some open mike nights when I started to think a blog might be a lower-risk way to get some feedback on whether or not the material was actually funny. Then I found what looked like a reverse goatse picture in the local paper - something that absolutely cried out to be in a blog. So this was what sealed the deal for me; a chance to inflict my sick humour on the world demanded I start a blog. The fact that nobody apart from me seemed to find the goatse picture funny is an ongoing tragedy in my life.
I used up the first batch of material by halfway through April so I've had to come up with something new every day since then. The funny thing is I've has very little trouble coming up with that new material each day. If I didn't have such good feedback going on with readers I'd probably give up but so long as y'all keep commenting, I'll keep writing. The twist is, I've been so focused on the blog I haven't had a chance to think about rehearsing any live performance. I'm feeling comfortable enough with the blog I might actually start converting some of the crowd favourites into a standup routine. I'll be sure and let you know what happens if I ever get around to it.
The other things about the blog that has changed as I have continued along is that I am not as scared of failure as I used to be. In the early stages I was a wuss. The posts were really short, I was doling out my stored content in constant fear that I'd run out of things to blog. I wouldn't post more than once a day because that would be a waste, I should save it for tomorrow. If I was smart, I'd be writing material in advance now but I guess I work better under pressure. Also, I have come to the conclusion that the world is even more fucked up than I thought when I started - I'm never going to run out of material.
One thing I know for sure, writing is definitely what I want to do for a living. I sort of do that now as a BA but not in the way I really want to. I can get paid quite well as an IT contractor, so it's very seductive to give up "dreams" in favour of the comparatively easy money. I think by the end of one year I can work out how to parlay my blog writing into filthy lucre. So save up your pennies, because as soon as I work out how I'm going to be hoovering your wallets dry.
Hmmmm, I'm getting a vision... Mr Angry - The Movie. The feel good hit of the year. Watch out for it. Step one to this goal: I have broadband now, maybe I should podcast. Would anybody be interested in a Mr Angry podcast?
The character of Mr Angry (yes, it's a character, I'm not really like this - well, not completely) was originally an idea for a standup performance. I had written some material and was getting ready to try it out on some open mike nights when I started to think a blog might be a lower-risk way to get some feedback on whether or not the material was actually funny. Then I found what looked like a reverse goatse picture in the local paper - something that absolutely cried out to be in a blog. So this was what sealed the deal for me; a chance to inflict my sick humour on the world demanded I start a blog. The fact that nobody apart from me seemed to find the goatse picture funny is an ongoing tragedy in my life.
I used up the first batch of material by halfway through April so I've had to come up with something new every day since then. The funny thing is I've has very little trouble coming up with that new material each day. If I didn't have such good feedback going on with readers I'd probably give up but so long as y'all keep commenting, I'll keep writing. The twist is, I've been so focused on the blog I haven't had a chance to think about rehearsing any live performance. I'm feeling comfortable enough with the blog I might actually start converting some of the crowd favourites into a standup routine. I'll be sure and let you know what happens if I ever get around to it.
The other things about the blog that has changed as I have continued along is that I am not as scared of failure as I used to be. In the early stages I was a wuss. The posts were really short, I was doling out my stored content in constant fear that I'd run out of things to blog. I wouldn't post more than once a day because that would be a waste, I should save it for tomorrow. If I was smart, I'd be writing material in advance now but I guess I work better under pressure. Also, I have come to the conclusion that the world is even more fucked up than I thought when I started - I'm never going to run out of material.
One thing I know for sure, writing is definitely what I want to do for a living. I sort of do that now as a BA but not in the way I really want to. I can get paid quite well as an IT contractor, so it's very seductive to give up "dreams" in favour of the comparatively easy money. I think by the end of one year I can work out how to parlay my blog writing into filthy lucre. So save up your pennies, because as soon as I work out how I'm going to be hoovering your wallets dry.
Hmmmm, I'm getting a vision... Mr Angry - The Movie. The feel good hit of the year. Watch out for it. Step one to this goal: I have broadband now, maybe I should podcast. Would anybody be interested in a Mr Angry podcast?
Friday, June 02, 2006
Updates
Well, I'm pretty excited today. I've shared with you before how shallow I am with my shameless pursuit of blog traffic. I hit some new highs this week with my post on Moroccan chocolate. It's been quite popular with my regular readers (thanks for all the comments - as usual, it's the interaction with all of you that keeps me motivated) but the stats went a little wild when it was posted to the Joel on Software Reddit. I hit a freakish new one day high of over 900 hits yesterday and it looks like being over 300 today. I'd say about 1000 of those come from Reddit. Yowza!
This was all on the Wordpress version of the blog, the Blogger version (which I don't promote very much) is maintaining its steady 30 or so hits a day. Blogger readers shouldn't feel bad, it's more... intimate. I was particularly happy that the post was well-received on the Joel sub-Reddit, I've been a big fan of the Joel on Software site for years and I often use his stuff for my work. It feels quite good to have gotten such a positive response from that forum. And now the post has appeared on Wordpress's "Top Posts" listing - I've often wondered what the hell you had to do to get on that listing. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why posts appeared there. I will be interested to see if that provides any sort of boost to traffic.
I remain very interested in what search terms point to my blogs. My gratuitous "Foreskin King" post last week worked far better than I expected. My Wordpress and Blogger blogs are now the number 1 and 2 results on Google for "foreskin blog". Words can't express the pride I'm feeling right now.
I'm also amused with how often searches for "how to hang toilet paper" end up here. I have to thank James and Pirate Jen who used my blog to settle their office argument on the topic. Particular thanks to James for pointing me to the Current Configuration site. More than one person has told me I didn't make it clear which way I intended for toilet paper should be hung (I thought I did) but this site actually uses illustrations:
And Check this out:
I thought I had too much time on my hands. Truly teh internets are wonderful things. Tomorrow will be a big day; post number 100. Damn, that got here fast.
This was all on the Wordpress version of the blog, the Blogger version (which I don't promote very much) is maintaining its steady 30 or so hits a day. Blogger readers shouldn't feel bad, it's more... intimate. I was particularly happy that the post was well-received on the Joel sub-Reddit, I've been a big fan of the Joel on Software site for years and I often use his stuff for my work. It feels quite good to have gotten such a positive response from that forum. And now the post has appeared on Wordpress's "Top Posts" listing - I've often wondered what the hell you had to do to get on that listing. There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why posts appeared there. I will be interested to see if that provides any sort of boost to traffic.
I remain very interested in what search terms point to my blogs. My gratuitous "Foreskin King" post last week worked far better than I expected. My Wordpress and Blogger blogs are now the number 1 and 2 results on Google for "foreskin blog". Words can't express the pride I'm feeling right now.
I'm also amused with how often searches for "how to hang toilet paper" end up here. I have to thank James and Pirate Jen who used my blog to settle their office argument on the topic. Particular thanks to James for pointing me to the Current Configuration site. More than one person has told me I didn't make it clear which way I intended for toilet paper should be hung (I thought I did) but this site actually uses illustrations:
And Check this out:
I thought I had too much time on my hands. Truly teh internets are wonderful things. Tomorrow will be a big day; post number 100. Damn, that got here fast.
Force-feeding good intentions doesn't work
I feel like I should start this post with a disclaimer: I quite like my current workplace. I don't want to sound like a non-stop whiner who can never be happy - I'm only angry at things that are worth being angry over. Like bad toilet etiquette at work. The incident I'm about to relate would make me very angry if I was in a shitty workplace but here, well, it actually made me laugh. The irony of the situation (I've written before about the correct use of the term "Irony" - I'm pretty sure this is correct usage) appealed to me.
This is the third workplace in a row (the life of a contractor means many and varied workplaces) that has undertaken a "Blue Review." It's one of those enlightened business practice dealies (I think it was developed by the university of Illinois at Chicago) where everyone says let's be positive instead of negative. Behaviour is broken down into three colour coded types: Blue is "constructive styles" (good), Green is "passive/defensive styles" (bad) and Red is "aggressive/defensive styles" (also bad). This is one of those almost new age concepts that would really piss me off if it was done wrong.
The good thing is, in the three workplaces I have seen it, it has been done constructively and positively. People (including management) have seemed to genuinely want to honestly assess their shortcomings in these areas and work actively to improvement. The idea is be less Green (things like always relying on others, avoiding conflict, going along with rules to the letter) and Red (being overly critical, a control freak, overly competitive) and try to be more Blue (co-operative, receptive to change, takes on challenges).
The funny/ironic thing that happened involved the IT network people's desire to have complete control of PCs on the network. Before any IT security people jump down my throat, I'm all for stopping users from installing programs or running executables. People are dumb as shit and need to be protected from themselves ("a free screensaver to download from the internet? What could possibly go wrong with that?) But I think stopping people from setting their own wallpaper or selecting from default MS screensavers is stupid. Common but stupid.
Invariably when this is the workplace rules you are forced to have some sort of corporate desktop and screensaver. Like this is somehow going to make you love the company more or some such bullshit. You can't ram corporate conformity down people's throats and expect them to feel positive about it. Well, I suppose you could feel that way but you'd be a dickhead. Anyway, a few of us had discovered we could change the screensaver to be a slideshow of personal photos. A small thing but it was a nice humanising touch.
When I switched on my PC yesterday I discovered that the IT network people didn't think this was a good idea. They had done a network "upgrade" that locked us out of the screensaver controls and forced us to have a corporate screensaver. And what does this screensaver feature? Wonderful, uplifting "Blue" slogans. This made me laugh and yet again I had to explain to my cow-orkers why I was having a giggle fit. If one checks on the Blue/Green/Red chart one finds the following negative behaviour described under "Red":
Has little confidence in people.
Wants to control everything.
That sounds about right. The ultimate workplace irony. Thinking you can inspire Blue values with blatantly Red behaviour. As I like this workplace, it's only an annoyance and it's lightened by the fact I appreciate the irony. In a bad workplace it would make me really fucking angry.
This is the third workplace in a row (the life of a contractor means many and varied workplaces) that has undertaken a "Blue Review." It's one of those enlightened business practice dealies (I think it was developed by the university of Illinois at Chicago) where everyone says let's be positive instead of negative. Behaviour is broken down into three colour coded types: Blue is "constructive styles" (good), Green is "passive/defensive styles" (bad) and Red is "aggressive/defensive styles" (also bad). This is one of those almost new age concepts that would really piss me off if it was done wrong.
The good thing is, in the three workplaces I have seen it, it has been done constructively and positively. People (including management) have seemed to genuinely want to honestly assess their shortcomings in these areas and work actively to improvement. The idea is be less Green (things like always relying on others, avoiding conflict, going along with rules to the letter) and Red (being overly critical, a control freak, overly competitive) and try to be more Blue (co-operative, receptive to change, takes on challenges).
The funny/ironic thing that happened involved the IT network people's desire to have complete control of PCs on the network. Before any IT security people jump down my throat, I'm all for stopping users from installing programs or running executables. People are dumb as shit and need to be protected from themselves ("a free screensaver to download from the internet? What could possibly go wrong with that?) But I think stopping people from setting their own wallpaper or selecting from default MS screensavers is stupid. Common but stupid.
Invariably when this is the workplace rules you are forced to have some sort of corporate desktop and screensaver. Like this is somehow going to make you love the company more or some such bullshit. You can't ram corporate conformity down people's throats and expect them to feel positive about it. Well, I suppose you could feel that way but you'd be a dickhead. Anyway, a few of us had discovered we could change the screensaver to be a slideshow of personal photos. A small thing but it was a nice humanising touch.
When I switched on my PC yesterday I discovered that the IT network people didn't think this was a good idea. They had done a network "upgrade" that locked us out of the screensaver controls and forced us to have a corporate screensaver. And what does this screensaver feature? Wonderful, uplifting "Blue" slogans. This made me laugh and yet again I had to explain to my cow-orkers why I was having a giggle fit. If one checks on the Blue/Green/Red chart one finds the following negative behaviour described under "Red":
Has little confidence in people.
Wants to control everything.
That sounds about right. The ultimate workplace irony. Thinking you can inspire Blue values with blatantly Red behaviour. As I like this workplace, it's only an annoyance and it's lightened by the fact I appreciate the irony. In a bad workplace it would make me really fucking angry.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
It's All About Moroccan Chocolate
I'm a genius.
It makes me angry that this isn't more widely recognised. I should be making millions from book deals and speaking engagements but that will come. It's all part of the master plan. For now I have to convince people of my genius one by one at work and in slightly higher numbers via this blog. The fact that my rantings on this blog probably convince an equal number of people I'm insane is neither here nor there. There a fine line between genius and insanity. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Anyway, on to my latest evidence that I am in fact a genius. At work yesterday I had a breakthrough with the age-old problem of IT workers, how do you explain IT requirements to non-IT people? My role as a Business Analyst (BA) means I have to document the requirements for IT projects which usually presents two challenges. One is the actual discovery process - finding what the requirements actually are is harder than it sounds. Everybody thinks they know what they want from an IT system but once you start to press them on the specifics they realise (9 times out of 10) they haven't thought it through very well.
The second issue is often simply convincing a business they need some sort of formal requirements gathering process. This usually follows on closely from the "we know what we want" delusion. I call it the "just do it" delusion - that might work as a slogan for a shoe company but it's the equivalent of a suicide note for most IT projects. At this point any proponents of XP/Agile development approaches will be calling me an old stick-in-the-mud. Any reader who has no idea what XP/Agile development means can safely ignore that comment. Proponents of XP/Agile methodologies are crazy people (who nevertheless never respond to deliberate troll comments in blog posts).
So we had a team meeting yesterday to discuss our methodology, how to improve it and how to communicate the process to the business. Our System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) involves defining scope first, then formalising the Business Requirements, then a Functional Specification then handing off to the development group. One team member put forward how he had tried to describe the SDLC in architectural terms because he used to be an architect. This didn't work because nobody else used to be an architect. So we decided we needed a simpler analogy, how about describing it like a recipe? Why not indeed. So I took that idea and ran with it.
Forget IT, we're working on something else. There's a big party coming up and our project is to provide a chocolate cake. The first step is to meet with the business and confirm the scope. Do we have to do anything else for the party? Book a venue? Set up decorations? Bring beer and chips? No on all counts. Our scope is confirmed: all we are providing is a chocolate cake.
Next we have to confirm the Business Requirements in some more detail. What do they specifically want from the chocolate cake? Well, it has to be enough for 36 people. Ken is allergic to nuts so make sure it doesn't contain nuts. Should it be a sponge cake or a mud cake? At this point we don't worry about the details of the recipe (that's in the Functional Specification) or the baking process (that's the Technical Specification), we just talk about the outcomes we want. A mud cake that can feed 36 people and won't kill Ken because of his nut allergy.
Then comes finalising the recipe (the Functional Specification). This tells us everything that needs to happen to deliver on the business requirements (the mud cake needs this much flour, this much cocoa etc.) but doesn't tell a baker what to do (the IT development team write a Technical Specification - the equivalent of baking instructions).
If you've ever worked on an IT project you'll know one of your big enemies is "scope creep". This is when the business wants more and more features even when you have previously agreed on the limits of what you are doing. This takes longer, costs more money and makes it more likely that something will go wrong. So what happens when our chocolate cake project is chugging along and a manager sees a lifestyle program extolling the virtues of Moroccan chocolate? He decides the cake absolutely must be made with Moroccan chocolate and comes in the next day to insist the project plan is changed. How do you deal with this?
It depends how far the project has progressed when the manager starts pressing for Moroccan chocolate. If this happens in your requirements stage, you're in luck. The manager declares the cake project will be a failure without this so, by definition, Moroccan chocolate is a core business requirement. This may require some changes to your project plan. Is Moroccan chocolate more expensive? If it is, that means either increasing the budget or cutting back somewhere else. Can you get it locally or will someone have to fly to Morocco? Does cooking with Moroccan chocolate require special training? If so, do the skills already exist in-house or will an outside expert be required. Time and money comes into it again.
The later the requirement for Moroccan chocolate is identified, the bigger the impact may be. If you were already finalising your recipe (Functional Specification), you need to change it. If you want to keep track of why the project changed (and it's a big mistake not to) you need to document this change request. You can use this later to identify why it took longer and cost more. The later you were in your project the more trouble you may have making the change. If the bakers had already started they will have to throw out the work they've done so far. And if they don't have Moroccan chocolate cooking expertise, well, the whole thing's on hold until you find someone with the right experience.
In essence, you can always add Moroccan chocolate as a requirement, so long as the person asking for it appreciates the additional trouble, time and expense involved. And this is harder to establish if you don't document your scope, business requirements and functional specification.
And with that convoluted analogy we had had our solution. Explain to the business: it's all about the Moroccan chocolate. Do you need it? Are you willing to accept increased time and expense? Can you see how bringing up these requirements later causes many more problems than bringing them up earlier? And the funny thing is the business understood what we were getting at. It's quickly becoming a catchphrase, if someone talks about a new or potentially difficult requirement the response is "Is that a Moroccan chocolate requirement?"
And that's how I spend the non-blog part of my day.
It makes me angry that this isn't more widely recognised. I should be making millions from book deals and speaking engagements but that will come. It's all part of the master plan. For now I have to convince people of my genius one by one at work and in slightly higher numbers via this blog. The fact that my rantings on this blog probably convince an equal number of people I'm insane is neither here nor there. There a fine line between genius and insanity. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Anyway, on to my latest evidence that I am in fact a genius. At work yesterday I had a breakthrough with the age-old problem of IT workers, how do you explain IT requirements to non-IT people? My role as a Business Analyst (BA) means I have to document the requirements for IT projects which usually presents two challenges. One is the actual discovery process - finding what the requirements actually are is harder than it sounds. Everybody thinks they know what they want from an IT system but once you start to press them on the specifics they realise (9 times out of 10) they haven't thought it through very well.
The second issue is often simply convincing a business they need some sort of formal requirements gathering process. This usually follows on closely from the "we know what we want" delusion. I call it the "just do it" delusion - that might work as a slogan for a shoe company but it's the equivalent of a suicide note for most IT projects. At this point any proponents of XP/Agile development approaches will be calling me an old stick-in-the-mud. Any reader who has no idea what XP/Agile development means can safely ignore that comment. Proponents of XP/Agile methodologies are crazy people (who nevertheless never respond to deliberate troll comments in blog posts).
So we had a team meeting yesterday to discuss our methodology, how to improve it and how to communicate the process to the business. Our System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) involves defining scope first, then formalising the Business Requirements, then a Functional Specification then handing off to the development group. One team member put forward how he had tried to describe the SDLC in architectural terms because he used to be an architect. This didn't work because nobody else used to be an architect. So we decided we needed a simpler analogy, how about describing it like a recipe? Why not indeed. So I took that idea and ran with it.
Forget IT, we're working on something else. There's a big party coming up and our project is to provide a chocolate cake. The first step is to meet with the business and confirm the scope. Do we have to do anything else for the party? Book a venue? Set up decorations? Bring beer and chips? No on all counts. Our scope is confirmed: all we are providing is a chocolate cake.
Next we have to confirm the Business Requirements in some more detail. What do they specifically want from the chocolate cake? Well, it has to be enough for 36 people. Ken is allergic to nuts so make sure it doesn't contain nuts. Should it be a sponge cake or a mud cake? At this point we don't worry about the details of the recipe (that's in the Functional Specification) or the baking process (that's the Technical Specification), we just talk about the outcomes we want. A mud cake that can feed 36 people and won't kill Ken because of his nut allergy.
Then comes finalising the recipe (the Functional Specification). This tells us everything that needs to happen to deliver on the business requirements (the mud cake needs this much flour, this much cocoa etc.) but doesn't tell a baker what to do (the IT development team write a Technical Specification - the equivalent of baking instructions).
If you've ever worked on an IT project you'll know one of your big enemies is "scope creep". This is when the business wants more and more features even when you have previously agreed on the limits of what you are doing. This takes longer, costs more money and makes it more likely that something will go wrong. So what happens when our chocolate cake project is chugging along and a manager sees a lifestyle program extolling the virtues of Moroccan chocolate? He decides the cake absolutely must be made with Moroccan chocolate and comes in the next day to insist the project plan is changed. How do you deal with this?
It depends how far the project has progressed when the manager starts pressing for Moroccan chocolate. If this happens in your requirements stage, you're in luck. The manager declares the cake project will be a failure without this so, by definition, Moroccan chocolate is a core business requirement. This may require some changes to your project plan. Is Moroccan chocolate more expensive? If it is, that means either increasing the budget or cutting back somewhere else. Can you get it locally or will someone have to fly to Morocco? Does cooking with Moroccan chocolate require special training? If so, do the skills already exist in-house or will an outside expert be required. Time and money comes into it again.
The later the requirement for Moroccan chocolate is identified, the bigger the impact may be. If you were already finalising your recipe (Functional Specification), you need to change it. If you want to keep track of why the project changed (and it's a big mistake not to) you need to document this change request. You can use this later to identify why it took longer and cost more. The later you were in your project the more trouble you may have making the change. If the bakers had already started they will have to throw out the work they've done so far. And if they don't have Moroccan chocolate cooking expertise, well, the whole thing's on hold until you find someone with the right experience.
In essence, you can always add Moroccan chocolate as a requirement, so long as the person asking for it appreciates the additional trouble, time and expense involved. And this is harder to establish if you don't document your scope, business requirements and functional specification.
And with that convoluted analogy we had had our solution. Explain to the business: it's all about the Moroccan chocolate. Do you need it? Are you willing to accept increased time and expense? Can you see how bringing up these requirements later causes many more problems than bringing them up earlier? And the funny thing is the business understood what we were getting at. It's quickly becoming a catchphrase, if someone talks about a new or potentially difficult requirement the response is "Is that a Moroccan chocolate requirement?"
And that's how I spend the non-blog part of my day.
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
How Do Workplaces Get So Bad?
I woke in a cold sweat around 2am last night. I'd been having a nightmare that I was stuck back in my old job - the worst workplace I'd ever been subjected to. In the nightmare it was slightly worse than the reality, I was actually stuck. My chair was made from some sort of goo that was swallowing me and like a tar baby, the more I struggled, the more it sucked me in. My cow-orkers were laughing at me. I wasn't sure if it was because I was being swallowed by my chair or because I had the audacity to think I could do better.
When I woke up I couldn't remember the nightmare at first, then pieces of it started coming back to me. There was an almost overwhelming sense of dread that went with the remembering because what was coming back to me was that the reality of this place was hardly any better than the nightmare. It was almost every stereotype of a bad workplace rolled into one: below average pay, boring work, no future, managers who enjoyed ruling through fear rather than leading, a focus on blaming rather than problem solving, staff with low/no aspirations, people who focused on having a job rather than a career that might lead somewhere, and supposed peers who were more likely to attack you than stand together against bad management and broadly speaking, everyone there had a fucked-up attitude.
Including me.
I was angry all the time there. And not in a good way like on this blog. It was deadening, soul-destroying, spirit-crushing tedium, day in and day out that made me hate the fucking world and hate myself for being there. I always felt like I was in a better place than the other people, I had the saving grace of a more positive outlook than the deadwood around me so things were OK. The trouble with shitty workplaces like this is that you lose perspective. You think "I'm better than these fuck-knuckles so I must be OK." Then you finally (Inshallah) escape and you realise fuck-knuckle+1 is not a very good place to be. In my case, I think it took about a year of working in more "normal" environments to get my proper attitude back.
Two examples to show how low on the aspiration/attitude front these cow-orkers were. One: upon hearing the sort of contract rates it was possible to get and I would be getting once I escaped (about double the rate you got as a permanent in this shit hole) one of these fucktards said "How can you justify getting that amount?"
How can I justify it??? The stars come into alignment allowing me to make a bit of cash for a change and I have to justify it? How about I'll take as much as I can whenever I can because when these bastards have a chance to screw me down, they'll do it without blinking. You're clearly getting what you're worth - what you can "justify". While there are executives out there making (stealing) hundreds of millions I can justify plenty for myself. Stay in your tiny little world and don't waste your fucking breath passing judgement on me. I'm not interested.
A second example: cafes around here often have these free promotional postcards that occasionally have nice images on them. Usually they are advertising some product or event but occasionally they are "art for art's sake." One that caught my eye was the following piece by Sydney artist Nick Bleasel
I stuck in on my monitor as a bit of a lark, you know "lighten up people, have a bit of fun." Most people there actually got it (which surprised me) but one particularly dreary cow-orker took it down when I wasn't there. When I asked what happened she said she took it down because she didn't want people whistling because it would distract her. That was pretty much the only time I totally lost my shit in that workplace and vented at her for quite some time along the lines of "Don't ever touch things on my desk NOT EVER! Not under any circumstances! I don't care how miserable your life is, stay over in your corner! This is my desk and you have no right to touch anything on it ever!"
And she truly didn't see what was so fucked up with her attitude towards "cheerful whistling". I've been out of there for about three years now and every day that passes life seems better. I am still in contact with a former team member who escaped about a year after me and if either of us is ever feeling down about a given situation, the other always says: "Is it as bad as working in the shit hole?" To which the answer is always "No." So it served some purpose.
Nothing else ever seems as bad. I have contracted in a few places since then, each had their problems but none nearly as bad as this place. Upon leaving one place, a friend provided me with the following wisdom that explains quite well how workplaces get so bad in the first place:
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water.
Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.
Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?
"Because that's the way it's always been around here."
And that is how organisational policy begins.
When I woke up I couldn't remember the nightmare at first, then pieces of it started coming back to me. There was an almost overwhelming sense of dread that went with the remembering because what was coming back to me was that the reality of this place was hardly any better than the nightmare. It was almost every stereotype of a bad workplace rolled into one: below average pay, boring work, no future, managers who enjoyed ruling through fear rather than leading, a focus on blaming rather than problem solving, staff with low/no aspirations, people who focused on having a job rather than a career that might lead somewhere, and supposed peers who were more likely to attack you than stand together against bad management and broadly speaking, everyone there had a fucked-up attitude.
Including me.
I was angry all the time there. And not in a good way like on this blog. It was deadening, soul-destroying, spirit-crushing tedium, day in and day out that made me hate the fucking world and hate myself for being there. I always felt like I was in a better place than the other people, I had the saving grace of a more positive outlook than the deadwood around me so things were OK. The trouble with shitty workplaces like this is that you lose perspective. You think "I'm better than these fuck-knuckles so I must be OK." Then you finally (Inshallah) escape and you realise fuck-knuckle+1 is not a very good place to be. In my case, I think it took about a year of working in more "normal" environments to get my proper attitude back.
Two examples to show how low on the aspiration/attitude front these cow-orkers were. One: upon hearing the sort of contract rates it was possible to get and I would be getting once I escaped (about double the rate you got as a permanent in this shit hole) one of these fucktards said "How can you justify getting that amount?"
How can I justify it??? The stars come into alignment allowing me to make a bit of cash for a change and I have to justify it? How about I'll take as much as I can whenever I can because when these bastards have a chance to screw me down, they'll do it without blinking. You're clearly getting what you're worth - what you can "justify". While there are executives out there making (stealing) hundreds of millions I can justify plenty for myself. Stay in your tiny little world and don't waste your fucking breath passing judgement on me. I'm not interested.
A second example: cafes around here often have these free promotional postcards that occasionally have nice images on them. Usually they are advertising some product or event but occasionally they are "art for art's sake." One that caught my eye was the following piece by Sydney artist Nick Bleasel
I stuck in on my monitor as a bit of a lark, you know "lighten up people, have a bit of fun." Most people there actually got it (which surprised me) but one particularly dreary cow-orker took it down when I wasn't there. When I asked what happened she said she took it down because she didn't want people whistling because it would distract her. That was pretty much the only time I totally lost my shit in that workplace and vented at her for quite some time along the lines of "Don't ever touch things on my desk NOT EVER! Not under any circumstances! I don't care how miserable your life is, stay over in your corner! This is my desk and you have no right to touch anything on it ever!"
And she truly didn't see what was so fucked up with her attitude towards "cheerful whistling". I've been out of there for about three years now and every day that passes life seems better. I am still in contact with a former team member who escaped about a year after me and if either of us is ever feeling down about a given situation, the other always says: "Is it as bad as working in the shit hole?" To which the answer is always "No." So it served some purpose.
Nothing else ever seems as bad. I have contracted in a few places since then, each had their problems but none nearly as bad as this place. Upon leaving one place, a friend provided me with the following wisdom that explains quite well how workplaces get so bad in the first place:
Start with a cage containing five monkeys. In the cage, hang a banana on a string and put a set of stairs under it. Before long, a monkey will go to the stairs and start to climb towards the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, spray all of the monkeys with cold water. After a while, another monkey makes an attempt with the same result - all the monkeys are sprayed with cold water.
Pretty soon, when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, turn off the cold water. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and wants to climb the stairs. To his horror, all of the other monkeys attack him. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs, he will be assaulted.
Next, remove another of the original five monkeys and replace it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment with enthusiasm.
Again, replace a third original monkey with a new one. The new one makes it to the stairs and is attacked as well. Two of the four monkeys that beat him have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs, or why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey.
After replacing the fourth and fifth original monkeys, all the monkeys which have been sprayed with cold water have been replaced. Nevertheless, no monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not?
"Because that's the way it's always been around here."
And that is how organisational policy begins.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
It's a Fine Time to be Paranoid
People sometimes make the mistake of asking me what I'm thinking. This is usually a mistake because I'll actually tell them. Very few people appreciate getting an insight into my mind - more often than not it scares them. I have been able to think of two aspects of my mind that cause this way of thinking that I have been repeatedly told is weird.
One is that my brain stores a huge amount of trivia and minutiae and I am quite good at reproducing this "knowledge" in quite some detail with very little encouragement. I have come to think of this as having velcro lining the inside of my skull. This mental velcro grabs stray bits of information and holds onto them for later. You never know when it will come in handy.
The second part is my thinking process tends to involve rapid word/image/concept association so when I think of one thing I make quick mental leaps from a to b to c to end up in outer Mongolia in a fashion that normal people find quite disturbing. So don't ask me what I'm thinking. I'll probably tell you.
What brought this to mind today was a magazine article being passed around at work. It had the heading "Spring clean your life". Many of the people I work with currently are into the whole "self improvement" thing; they don't stray too far into hippie territory (a good idea around me - read some of my back catalogue if you want to know why) but they're always open to ideas. While I approached this article with some trepidation, it was actually pretty good.
It essentially revolved around the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (I won't bore you with details, look him up on Google or Wikipedia if you're interested). The central idea was that if you simplify your life your mental health will improve and you'll be happier. Then I started thinking of mental health and how often then terms paranoia, schizophrenia, bipolar and split personality are used wrongly. Then I thought "don't we live in a perfect time to be paranoid" - as in suffering a mental disorder that makes you think you can hear voices and everybody is out to get you. Which is a complete misuse of the term paranoia.
I'm sure we've all heard the joke that the American Society of Psychiatrists have issued a press release saying that thinking the government is always watching you and listening to your phone calls is no longer a sign of paranoia. That gets truer every day. And who are the real beneficiaries of hands-free mobile phones? The crazy people who walk down the street having conversations and/or arguments with people nobody else can see or hear. They must feel better now that everybody is doing it.
Speaking of which, where have all the really crazy people gone? (Note how I'm avoiding saying they've all joined the Bush administration - except when I said it just then.) I've seen some fascinating ones in the past - guys walking down the street shaking their fist at the sky having full-on argument with God. Now all I see are people with no manners and no common sense using their mobiles to have conversations on really personal matters in really public places. Although it's still funny when they devolve into screaming at the person on the other end, apparently unaware of how many people are watching them.
And while I'm on the topic, don't listen to funny things on your iPod when out in public. You look like some sort of sick freak sitting there with a twisted smile or, worse, giggling insanely. And don't play racing games on your PSP while using public transport. Nobody can resist swinging their arms about when trying to make hard turns (even though it has no effect on the steering in the game) and you'll end up hitting someone. Plus, I don't like it when people are having more fun than me.
But to get back to my previous point, paranoia seems the perfect response to the world today. The US government has made it clear you have no rights and they are monitoring you. All the time. And they'll imprison you for no reason other than suspicion. And keep you locked away for years without charging you with anything let alone bringing you to trial (or, god forbid, actually convicting you of something). And if you live in a western democracy you can spend all your time being paranoid that some insane jihadist is going to strike out of the blue and kill you. If you live in an Islamic country you can be paranoid that the US is going to start bombing the shit out of you.
And if none of that worries you, there's always the next earthquake / tsunami / hurricane / volcano / act of god to be paranoid about. It truly is a fine time to be paranoid.
But I'm not paranoid, I'm angry. But Epicurus tells me I shouldn't be angry, I should be happy. But where would that leave my faithful readers? Stuck with hearing about how happy I am 365 days a year? How much would that suck? So I have to sacrifice my happiness for the sake of my readers. I'm willing to do that.
As it turns out, I can stay angry and still be fulfilled according to Epicurus. Seriously. Epicurus offers five fundamental routes to pleasure and I get all five from this blog:
1. Adventurous Pleasures: explore the unknown, try something new, meet new people. I feel like I'm getting all of these.
2. Mission-Oriented Pleasures: hone a skill, aim for a goal. Well, I'm honing my writing and aiming to post every day of the year.
3. Imaginary Pleasures: awaken the artist within. This blog is the best self-expression I've had in years.
4. Communicative Pleasures: write and create and share. I think this one speaks for itself.
5. Speculative Pleasures: ask yourself "what if?" I'm not sure where this blog is going yet but I sure am enjoying the journey.
So it's all good. I'm angry and fulfilled.
One is that my brain stores a huge amount of trivia and minutiae and I am quite good at reproducing this "knowledge" in quite some detail with very little encouragement. I have come to think of this as having velcro lining the inside of my skull. This mental velcro grabs stray bits of information and holds onto them for later. You never know when it will come in handy.
The second part is my thinking process tends to involve rapid word/image/concept association so when I think of one thing I make quick mental leaps from a to b to c to end up in outer Mongolia in a fashion that normal people find quite disturbing. So don't ask me what I'm thinking. I'll probably tell you.
What brought this to mind today was a magazine article being passed around at work. It had the heading "Spring clean your life". Many of the people I work with currently are into the whole "self improvement" thing; they don't stray too far into hippie territory (a good idea around me - read some of my back catalogue if you want to know why) but they're always open to ideas. While I approached this article with some trepidation, it was actually pretty good.
It essentially revolved around the teachings of the Greek philosopher Epicurus (I won't bore you with details, look him up on Google or Wikipedia if you're interested). The central idea was that if you simplify your life your mental health will improve and you'll be happier. Then I started thinking of mental health and how often then terms paranoia, schizophrenia, bipolar and split personality are used wrongly. Then I thought "don't we live in a perfect time to be paranoid" - as in suffering a mental disorder that makes you think you can hear voices and everybody is out to get you. Which is a complete misuse of the term paranoia.
I'm sure we've all heard the joke that the American Society of Psychiatrists have issued a press release saying that thinking the government is always watching you and listening to your phone calls is no longer a sign of paranoia. That gets truer every day. And who are the real beneficiaries of hands-free mobile phones? The crazy people who walk down the street having conversations and/or arguments with people nobody else can see or hear. They must feel better now that everybody is doing it.
Speaking of which, where have all the really crazy people gone? (Note how I'm avoiding saying they've all joined the Bush administration - except when I said it just then.) I've seen some fascinating ones in the past - guys walking down the street shaking their fist at the sky having full-on argument with God. Now all I see are people with no manners and no common sense using their mobiles to have conversations on really personal matters in really public places. Although it's still funny when they devolve into screaming at the person on the other end, apparently unaware of how many people are watching them.
And while I'm on the topic, don't listen to funny things on your iPod when out in public. You look like some sort of sick freak sitting there with a twisted smile or, worse, giggling insanely. And don't play racing games on your PSP while using public transport. Nobody can resist swinging their arms about when trying to make hard turns (even though it has no effect on the steering in the game) and you'll end up hitting someone. Plus, I don't like it when people are having more fun than me.
But to get back to my previous point, paranoia seems the perfect response to the world today. The US government has made it clear you have no rights and they are monitoring you. All the time. And they'll imprison you for no reason other than suspicion. And keep you locked away for years without charging you with anything let alone bringing you to trial (or, god forbid, actually convicting you of something). And if you live in a western democracy you can spend all your time being paranoid that some insane jihadist is going to strike out of the blue and kill you. If you live in an Islamic country you can be paranoid that the US is going to start bombing the shit out of you.
And if none of that worries you, there's always the next earthquake / tsunami / hurricane / volcano / act of god to be paranoid about. It truly is a fine time to be paranoid.
But I'm not paranoid, I'm angry. But Epicurus tells me I shouldn't be angry, I should be happy. But where would that leave my faithful readers? Stuck with hearing about how happy I am 365 days a year? How much would that suck? So I have to sacrifice my happiness for the sake of my readers. I'm willing to do that.
As it turns out, I can stay angry and still be fulfilled according to Epicurus. Seriously. Epicurus offers five fundamental routes to pleasure and I get all five from this blog:
1. Adventurous Pleasures: explore the unknown, try something new, meet new people. I feel like I'm getting all of these.
2. Mission-Oriented Pleasures: hone a skill, aim for a goal. Well, I'm honing my writing and aiming to post every day of the year.
3. Imaginary Pleasures: awaken the artist within. This blog is the best self-expression I've had in years.
4. Communicative Pleasures: write and create and share. I think this one speaks for itself.
5. Speculative Pleasures: ask yourself "what if?" I'm not sure where this blog is going yet but I sure am enjoying the journey.
So it's all good. I'm angry and fulfilled.
Monday, May 29, 2006
Apropos of Nothing in Particular
My desk calendar notes that today is "Spring Bank Holiday" in the UK. I first read that as Sperm Bank Holiday. Now that would be a special holiday. I think I need to go have a lie down.
Angry at Shallowness
Going through the regular workday morning ritual of ironing my business shirt for the day (sometimes I get it together enough to iron all my shirts at once - but not often) I had a bit of a domino effect happen with my angriness. First I was angry at having to iron a shirt - it's a sucky job. Then I was angry at having to wear a shirt an tie to work. Then I flashed back to how the crappy washing machine had put oil stains on some of my clothes, including a few business shirts. These were the only ones that really pissed me off. With the casual clothes, unusual stains could be written off as "character" but I can't go to work with a stained shirt. Then I realised what I was really pissed off about.
Shallowness.
Specifically, I was thinking about the belief that how you look in the workplace is of vital importance to your work. Admittedly, I don't want to go into a bank and be served by someone wearing stained sweatpants and a torn t-shirt. To be frank, I'd rather not go into banks at all but that's a different issue. When you have a "customer facing" role that's one thing. But when you work in an office where nobody else sees you, what the fuck is the point of wearing a business suit? I've had it put to me before that business dress promotes as professional environment and casual clothes promote a casual (or lazy) environment. Uptight bosses don't want slack staff so they enforce a strict dress code.
Let me offer you this wisdom in return: bollocks! Quality work is the product of a complex range of factors: the quality of workers, the quality of management, the extent to which people want to do their work (as opposed to simply picking up a paycheck), the level of support and security workers feel, the quality of tools available and the clarity of communication regarding what is/should be going on. Nice clothes won't get you anywhere if you don't address the core issues. So why is the dress code so often the focus of a company's management?
My opinion? Doing things right is hard. Telling someone what to wear is easy. Challenging pre-conceived ideas is hard. Supporting the status quo is easy. So much of what it takes to be successful is open to interpretation and/or needs to be adjusted to suit individual situations and people. A business suit is the same in any environment. Measuring the quality of someone's work accurately requires engagement and focus from management, they have to care about what's happening. Telling someone what to wear simply involves looking and pointing.
This shallow obsession with appearance obviously goes far beyond what you wear to work. But like most other manifestations of shallowness, this one revolves around being lazy and passing judgement rather than actually seeing a person as an individual. And it's the one I have to deal with four days a week (casual Friday, woohoo!) so today it's what's making me angry.
Shallowness.
Specifically, I was thinking about the belief that how you look in the workplace is of vital importance to your work. Admittedly, I don't want to go into a bank and be served by someone wearing stained sweatpants and a torn t-shirt. To be frank, I'd rather not go into banks at all but that's a different issue. When you have a "customer facing" role that's one thing. But when you work in an office where nobody else sees you, what the fuck is the point of wearing a business suit? I've had it put to me before that business dress promotes as professional environment and casual clothes promote a casual (or lazy) environment. Uptight bosses don't want slack staff so they enforce a strict dress code.
Let me offer you this wisdom in return: bollocks! Quality work is the product of a complex range of factors: the quality of workers, the quality of management, the extent to which people want to do their work (as opposed to simply picking up a paycheck), the level of support and security workers feel, the quality of tools available and the clarity of communication regarding what is/should be going on. Nice clothes won't get you anywhere if you don't address the core issues. So why is the dress code so often the focus of a company's management?
My opinion? Doing things right is hard. Telling someone what to wear is easy. Challenging pre-conceived ideas is hard. Supporting the status quo is easy. So much of what it takes to be successful is open to interpretation and/or needs to be adjusted to suit individual situations and people. A business suit is the same in any environment. Measuring the quality of someone's work accurately requires engagement and focus from management, they have to care about what's happening. Telling someone what to wear simply involves looking and pointing.
This shallow obsession with appearance obviously goes far beyond what you wear to work. But like most other manifestations of shallowness, this one revolves around being lazy and passing judgement rather than actually seeing a person as an individual. And it's the one I have to deal with four days a week (casual Friday, woohoo!) so today it's what's making me angry.
Sunday, May 28, 2006
In Defense of Being Angry
One recurring theme I noticed in my recent forays into the right wing blogosphere was a questioning of why the left are so angry. The nature of the blogs posing this question led me to put them into two broad camps: those who genuinely didn't understand the anger and couldn't relate to it and those who were simply being supercilious twats who considered they had the high morals ground. To the second group, the obnoxious pricks who couldn't challenge a diseased weasel for moral or intellectual superiority: fuck you in the neck with a butter knife (this copyright term used with kind permission of Sandra). But because some people genuinely don't seem to understand what engenders this sort of anger, I thought I'd try to explain.
The simplest explanation I can think of is that those in power really ought to understand that if those outside the power group feel (rightly or wrongly) they are being deprived of something important to them, they will get angry. You don't have to agree with the disenfranchised masses about what they deserve but if you can't even see what's driving them you don't score very highly on the perception scale. Not to mention the empathy scale. The scale of anger is often (though not always) in proportion with the perceived offence but the level of anger tends to rise with the passage of time if the causes are not addressed and/or new reasons to be angry are added.
That's a little abstract and I could tie it to concrete issues but what's the point? They are political issues and people on the left and right both have a tendency to toe the political line rather than look at things objectively. The fact that: stealing an election; launching an unjust invasion based on lies; continuing to lie; being apparently unable to face reality; trampling on the right of your own citizens when you get bored with trampling on the rights of other countries; repeatedly breaking the law; applying abhorrent double standards to almost everything imaginable; promoting indiscriminate abduction, torture and murder; wasting the lives of your own soldiers and billions of dollars; not even come close to caring about killing tens of thousands of foreigners; are all seen as forgivable because they're done "your guy"... well, I can't think of any sensible or moral response apart from anger.
You know one thing that really bugs me, apart from all the big things? The denial of past behaviour. The consistently pretending "hey, we were completely supportive when Clinton was president." Clinton got heaps of shit for saying gays should be allowed in the army. Bush gets thousands of soldiers killed simply because of mismanagement and conservatives say ex-generals shouldn't speak out. Clinton gets heaps of shit for admitting he smoked dope. Bush gets a free pass for not admitting that he's a coke head and a drink driver even though everyone knows it's true.
There are times when polite disagreement doesn't cut it.
And I'd like to spend a moment defending anger itself. Anger doesn't have to be bad. Anger doesn't have to mean violence. Properly applied, anger is an effective way to reduce stress. If you can lead a life without stress, bravo! Just don't gloat about it to me or I'll punch you in the face. Wait... I think that's bad anger. I'll punch a punching bag. If you happen to be like 98% of the population and have to deal with stressful situations a daily basis, living in denial will make your stress worse, not better.
It'll build up until you die from a stroke. And isn't venting occasionally more fun than a blood vessel exploding in your brain?
The simplest explanation I can think of is that those in power really ought to understand that if those outside the power group feel (rightly or wrongly) they are being deprived of something important to them, they will get angry. You don't have to agree with the disenfranchised masses about what they deserve but if you can't even see what's driving them you don't score very highly on the perception scale. Not to mention the empathy scale. The scale of anger is often (though not always) in proportion with the perceived offence but the level of anger tends to rise with the passage of time if the causes are not addressed and/or new reasons to be angry are added.
That's a little abstract and I could tie it to concrete issues but what's the point? They are political issues and people on the left and right both have a tendency to toe the political line rather than look at things objectively. The fact that: stealing an election; launching an unjust invasion based on lies; continuing to lie; being apparently unable to face reality; trampling on the right of your own citizens when you get bored with trampling on the rights of other countries; repeatedly breaking the law; applying abhorrent double standards to almost everything imaginable; promoting indiscriminate abduction, torture and murder; wasting the lives of your own soldiers and billions of dollars; not even come close to caring about killing tens of thousands of foreigners; are all seen as forgivable because they're done "your guy"... well, I can't think of any sensible or moral response apart from anger.
You know one thing that really bugs me, apart from all the big things? The denial of past behaviour. The consistently pretending "hey, we were completely supportive when Clinton was president." Clinton got heaps of shit for saying gays should be allowed in the army. Bush gets thousands of soldiers killed simply because of mismanagement and conservatives say ex-generals shouldn't speak out. Clinton gets heaps of shit for admitting he smoked dope. Bush gets a free pass for not admitting that he's a coke head and a drink driver even though everyone knows it's true.
There are times when polite disagreement doesn't cut it.
And I'd like to spend a moment defending anger itself. Anger doesn't have to be bad. Anger doesn't have to mean violence. Properly applied, anger is an effective way to reduce stress. If you can lead a life without stress, bravo! Just don't gloat about it to me or I'll punch you in the face. Wait... I think that's bad anger. I'll punch a punching bag. If you happen to be like 98% of the population and have to deal with stressful situations a daily basis, living in denial will make your stress worse, not better.
It'll build up until you die from a stroke. And isn't venting occasionally more fun than a blood vessel exploding in your brain?
Saturday, May 27, 2006
All Hail The Foreskin King!
Well, I won't bore you at too much length with how I've been obsessing over my site state this week but the big news as far as I'm concerned is that if you enter "foreskin blog" in Google I appear in the top five results. I always wondered what I would be famous for and now I know. I'm thinking of getting a t-shirt printed up: "I appear in the top 5 Google results for 'foreskin blog'" Mum would be so proud.
Using sexual terms in blog posts continues to be a good way to be a good way to appear in search engine results and the ever popular "nude sex" remains my calling card. But this week, to my eternal delight, "fully clothed sex" appeared twice in the search results. The disturbing thing is some of these search terms give you too much of an insight into how fucked up people can be. I'm not going to pollute your minds with the worst ones but trust me, they're bad.
I'm probably happiest when people use search terms that I have actually covered in posts, like this week there was "toilet etiquette" (several times) "hanging toilet paper", "drug abuse", "brake lights stay on" and "hippies and crystals". And lots of Stephen Colbert and Daily Show searches. And I do hope the people searching for "what makes people angry", "example of an angry man" and "I am fucking angry all the time" found what they were looking for.
And yesterday I found out what happens when someone puts a link to your blog on reddit and it doesn't really take off. You get about 200 extra site visits. Woo! Apparently if you hit their front page you end up with thousands or even tens of thousands of extra visits. Still, I hit a new high of over 300 visits in a day so I'm happy.
I hope at least some new readers find a reason to stick around.
Using sexual terms in blog posts continues to be a good way to be a good way to appear in search engine results and the ever popular "nude sex" remains my calling card. But this week, to my eternal delight, "fully clothed sex" appeared twice in the search results. The disturbing thing is some of these search terms give you too much of an insight into how fucked up people can be. I'm not going to pollute your minds with the worst ones but trust me, they're bad.
I'm probably happiest when people use search terms that I have actually covered in posts, like this week there was "toilet etiquette" (several times) "hanging toilet paper", "drug abuse", "brake lights stay on" and "hippies and crystals". And lots of Stephen Colbert and Daily Show searches. And I do hope the people searching for "what makes people angry", "example of an angry man" and "I am fucking angry all the time" found what they were looking for.
And yesterday I found out what happens when someone puts a link to your blog on reddit and it doesn't really take off. You get about 200 extra site visits. Woo! Apparently if you hit their front page you end up with thousands or even tens of thousands of extra visits. Still, I hit a new high of over 300 visits in a day so I'm happy.
I hope at least some new readers find a reason to stick around.
Friday, May 26, 2006
Anger Management for Four Year Olds
One of my favourite humour sites is McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Some truly weird approaches to humour on this site, almost dada-ist in nature. Today they hit the mark for me with the story of a four year old entering an anger management class It maintains my angry meme nicely.
Also, in line with my recent political rantings, check out the explanation of why there aren't many right wing observational comedians.
Also, in line with my recent political rantings, check out the explanation of why there aren't many right wing observational comedians.
I'm Still Angry at Hippies
Q1: What's worse that hippies prattling on about "spiritual healing"?
A1: People who form cults built around hippie spiritual healing concepts.
Q2: What's worse than silly new age cults?
A2: Silly new age cults that charge money for "energy conversion sessions"
Q3: What's worse than religious/hippie cults ripping people off via bogus new age crap?
A3: Cult leaders who sexually assault little girls.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/girls-molested-during-sessions/2006/05/25/1148524807764.html
Guess what happens to child molesters in jail dickhead? Get ready for some "enlightenment" you really aren't going to like.
A1: People who form cults built around hippie spiritual healing concepts.
Q2: What's worse than silly new age cults?
A2: Silly new age cults that charge money for "energy conversion sessions"
Q3: What's worse than religious/hippie cults ripping people off via bogus new age crap?
A3: Cult leaders who sexually assault little girls.
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/girls-molested-during-sessions/2006/05/25/1148524807764.html
Guess what happens to child molesters in jail dickhead? Get ready for some "enlightenment" you really aren't going to like.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
You Always Hurt The One You Love
Christian love or S&M fetish? You be the judge. Salon.com is one of my regular reads and they have a feature article on an apparently growing trend among some Christians known as "training up" or more commonly known as corporal punishment. You have to watch an ad to read full articles on the site but I think it's worth it.
Read it here.
Read it here.
Sometimes it's the Little Things
While I've spent a bit of time recently getting angry about political issues on the world scale but it's important not to lose touch with the little things that make me angry. Partly because these are the things I have to deal with on a daily basis and partly because the scale of the big world-wide bullshit oftentimes scares the crap out of me. So a lot of the time I'd prefer not to think about the big things.
I feel compelled to tell you today about how pissed off I usually end up after a trip to the supermarket. The angryfying incidents usually start as soon as I get there and don't stop until I leave. The first challenge is, of course, getting a parking space. Apparently everyone in my suburb gets the urge to go shopping at the same time because I have a bastard of a time finding a parking space whenever I go there. That's bad enough but have you ever noticed how the quest for a parking space tends to turn people into psychos?
Honestly, I'm not that aggressive towards other people in real life, despite appearances on this blog. The parking confrontation is bad enough when it's ambiguous who "found" the space first so it's not clear who should back off. But it really drives me crazy when you have been waiting for a car to come out of a space for a while then some nutjob swoops in and wants to fight you for it. And in many cases I mean literally fight. So you're put in a situation where you have to choose between engaging in an aggressive conflict or giving up a space that is rightfully yours by any standards of public decency. It's a fucking car space, not your ancestral homeland - get over it.
I think the car park thing is universal but the next part may be peculiar to me. I may have mentioned before my addiction to a particular caffeine laden fizzy beverage. Of all the variety of colas available there is only one I will drink out of preference. When there is an occasional special at the supermarket on my poison of choice I will attempt to stock up - get a couple of weeks' supply to save money. But the flavour I like is always the first to disappear from the shelves. This is not my imagination or some weird persecution complex. Maybe some of the other things I say are, but this is the simple truth.
My favourite is always, always the first one gone. And no word of exaggeration, at least 2/3 of the time when I go looking for an advertised special THEY DON'T HAVE ANY IN STOCK! The other four variations of the brand will be there in abundance but not mine. This is some bullshit conspiracy and when I track down the people behind it they are in trouble.
It goes beyond fizzy caffeine delivery systems too. There is a particular bread I like. It's thick cut and by some magical process (probably some evil chemical process) when you toast it, it goes crunchy on the outside and stays soft on the inside. It's totally awesome, fully living up to its advertising hype. And it's never in stock when I look for it. The same breadmaker has five other variations and they're always there. It never fails that my favourite is the only one out of stock. And so the whole trip to the supermarket is a waste of time. Yes, the only things I live on are bread and cola.
And then there's the checkouts. I have some insane, bizarre psychic power that enables me to pick the worst of all possible checkout queues to get in. If there are six lines, I'll pick the slowest. If I notice another line moving much faster and move over to it, after I get there it will slow right down and the line I used to be in will start moving faster. So I stay in one line knowing that changing lines is useless but then I see if I had changed to another line I would already be through.
So I've decided those cameras they have everywhere aren't to stop shoplifters. They use them to see me coming so they can get ready to fuck me over.
I feel compelled to tell you today about how pissed off I usually end up after a trip to the supermarket. The angryfying incidents usually start as soon as I get there and don't stop until I leave. The first challenge is, of course, getting a parking space. Apparently everyone in my suburb gets the urge to go shopping at the same time because I have a bastard of a time finding a parking space whenever I go there. That's bad enough but have you ever noticed how the quest for a parking space tends to turn people into psychos?
Honestly, I'm not that aggressive towards other people in real life, despite appearances on this blog. The parking confrontation is bad enough when it's ambiguous who "found" the space first so it's not clear who should back off. But it really drives me crazy when you have been waiting for a car to come out of a space for a while then some nutjob swoops in and wants to fight you for it. And in many cases I mean literally fight. So you're put in a situation where you have to choose between engaging in an aggressive conflict or giving up a space that is rightfully yours by any standards of public decency. It's a fucking car space, not your ancestral homeland - get over it.
I think the car park thing is universal but the next part may be peculiar to me. I may have mentioned before my addiction to a particular caffeine laden fizzy beverage. Of all the variety of colas available there is only one I will drink out of preference. When there is an occasional special at the supermarket on my poison of choice I will attempt to stock up - get a couple of weeks' supply to save money. But the flavour I like is always the first to disappear from the shelves. This is not my imagination or some weird persecution complex. Maybe some of the other things I say are, but this is the simple truth.
My favourite is always, always the first one gone. And no word of exaggeration, at least 2/3 of the time when I go looking for an advertised special THEY DON'T HAVE ANY IN STOCK! The other four variations of the brand will be there in abundance but not mine. This is some bullshit conspiracy and when I track down the people behind it they are in trouble.
It goes beyond fizzy caffeine delivery systems too. There is a particular bread I like. It's thick cut and by some magical process (probably some evil chemical process) when you toast it, it goes crunchy on the outside and stays soft on the inside. It's totally awesome, fully living up to its advertising hype. And it's never in stock when I look for it. The same breadmaker has five other variations and they're always there. It never fails that my favourite is the only one out of stock. And so the whole trip to the supermarket is a waste of time. Yes, the only things I live on are bread and cola.
And then there's the checkouts. I have some insane, bizarre psychic power that enables me to pick the worst of all possible checkout queues to get in. If there are six lines, I'll pick the slowest. If I notice another line moving much faster and move over to it, after I get there it will slow right down and the line I used to be in will start moving faster. So I stay in one line knowing that changing lines is useless but then I see if I had changed to another line I would already be through.
So I've decided those cameras they have everywhere aren't to stop shoplifters. They use them to see me coming so they can get ready to fuck me over.
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Gutless Wankers
You know what? I've decided I'm sick of making efforts to be even handed. It's hardly going to make the nutcases see reason so I might as well continue to have fun by ripping on people who piss me off. Although I might lay off the politics for a while. At least for a day or two - until I read something else that pisses me off. Maybe that's the answer, I should stop reading.
The specific gutless wankers I refer to in the title of this post are the ones I referred to in a previous post. They made a post on their blog insulting all Muslims calling them apes because of the existence of extremists and murderers. I posted a calm, reasoned comment to see if they could give an intelligent response. Apparently the answer is no. I'm not linking to them because they're not worth it (although I can give the link if anyone's really interested.) When they received a pretty stupid rebuff they ripped into the commenter (as I would) but there's been silence in response to me. At least they didn't delete my comment but they certainly seem to be pretending it isn't there. Here's my comment:
"Hmmmm, so what is your point? What is the resolution you see? The elimination of Islam? No, you didn't say that, you didn't even suggest it I'’m just asking what the end point is for you. My personal view: the vast majority of what you posted is objectively true. The bits I don'’t agree with (for what it's worth):
The specific gutless wankers I refer to in the title of this post are the ones I referred to in a previous post. They made a post on their blog insulting all Muslims calling them apes because of the existence of extremists and murderers. I posted a calm, reasoned comment to see if they could give an intelligent response. Apparently the answer is no. I'm not linking to them because they're not worth it (although I can give the link if anyone's really interested.) When they received a pretty stupid rebuff they ripped into the commenter (as I would) but there's been silence in response to me. At least they didn't delete my comment but they certainly seem to be pretending it isn't there. Here's my comment:
"Hmmmm, so what is your point? What is the resolution you see? The elimination of Islam? No, you didn't say that, you didn't even suggest it I'’m just asking what the end point is for you. My personal view: the vast majority of what you posted is objectively true. The bits I don'’t agree with (for what it's worth):
That it's unreasonable to point out barbarity done in the name of Christianity, Judaism and/or Western values. The fact that in the modern age bad things done in the name of Jesus happen less often and less severely (broadly) than bad things done in the name of Allah doesn't mean they don't happen at all.
That it isn'’t possible for a devout muslim to oppose extremisim done in the name of Islam. I just think is straight out wrong - I don'’t know that it's possible to argue this point objectively. It seems no matter how many muslims I might put forward to state this view you would say they are lying.
Your assessment of the situation in Iraq. Again, I don'’t believe this is possible to resolve objectively - you are stating a point of view as an irrefutable truth. For starters I think your assertions of the views of '“the vast majority'” of Iraqis are at best simplistic.
You rightly point out that a recurring flaw of the left is to support causes simply because they are opposed by the right. But don't you think you have erred a little far in the opposite direction by asserting there can't possibly be anything good about Islam or even individual muslims? That's how your view came across to me, correct me if I'’m wrong."
Should I assume because they didn't respond that's an acknowledgement that I'm right? That's how I choose to take it anyway :)
I'm going to close with a few quotes from Scott Adams' Dilbert Blog. He seems to dedicate most of his posts to saying fairly inflammatory or at least leading things then watching the fun as people respond with comments. I suspect Scott spent a lot of time as a boy poking ant's nests with a stick. I am sometimes tempted to comment on his blog but the signal-to-noise ratio is so poor (hundreds of comments to every post - most of them complete crap) that it hardly seems worth it.
Recently, Scott posed the ultimate taboo question: Why does the US give so much aid to Israel? He asked it as a "please explain the cost/benefit payoff" question rather than a political or moral question but of course all the justifications given were political and/or moral (which doesn't make them wrong by definition - at least in my opinion). He's had a couple of follow ups but yesterday I thought he was showing signs of starting to get pissed off with people. Most of his posts consist of having little digs at humanity in general, like this one:
"I reiterate my belief that all humans can be persuaded to do just about any damned thing. The existence of suicide bombers is good evidence of that, not to mention the plethora of religions that can't all be true at the same time. Most of the world is brainwashed most of the time."
But then he said the following:
"By definition, you'’re a racist if you believe that ordinary Muslims are incapable of acting rationally, unless you believe exactly the same thing about yourself and everyone else. In that case you just have a low opinion of people in general, and that's socially acceptable."
A typical joke at the end but I really got the feeling he wants the racists to shut the fuck up or at least admit they're racist. I will be interested to see if he cracks again or goes back to taunting people until he provokes a response. Nice call on the racism though.
Lies, Damn Lies and Right Wing Idiots With Blogs
Gahhhhhh! I was already angry about nutcase right wing bloggers (and news outlets) and then this verdampt Blogger interface locks up on me and I lose the post when I was 3/4 through. Well I've got a serious head of angry steam going now so stand back! I wouldn't want to spray any on your nice clothes.
So the latest story they're on about, along similar lines to my other post, is these "secret" Saudi textbooks that have supposedly been smuggled out of Saudi Arabia to show us the "truth" about these so-called allies. I think I'll always use "truth" in quotation marks when referring to right wingers because you clearly can't believe a fucking word they say. They won't even concede when you objectively prove them wrong. Case in point: one of the bloggers at the centre of the bullshit storm over the Iranian authorities supposedly planning to make non-muslims wear coloured identification badges on their clothes said this after the story was proved false:
"It doesn't really matter whether or not the Iranian Mullahs have actually passed the law" (note the implication that the law was proposed but didn't pass - this is another lie, the law never existed! How the fuck can you pass a law that doesn't exist"?) "What matters is that they are... perfectly capable of passing such a law".
What the fuck?!?!?!?! It no longer matters if you're telling the truth? It only matters what you think is possible? Fine, I think Bush is perfectly capable of cracking open the skulls of newborn babies to feast on the goo within. It doesn't matter whether or not he's actually done it, it matters that I think he's perfectly capable of doing it. So can we send the fucker to the chair already? That'd be some fine Texas-style justice.
Anyway, that was yesterday, this is today. The Washington Post is feeding the nutjob fires today with its "expose" on the evil Saudi school system. Let me start by saying I don't like or trust the Saudi regime. I think the house of Saud would screw over anyone to protect their own interests. I believe they are capable of fostering violence against non-Muslims to appease Wahhabi zealots and killing and torturing these same zealots to appease the west. At the same time.
In other words, they're politicians.
And of course Saudi Arabia is the home of Wahhabi fundamentalism. For anyone who's not paying attention these are the dangerous ones. Not even other Muslims are safe from Wahhabi hardliners.
The main things that piss me off about this story are: one, it's a hatchet job. They are taking individual lines from entire curriculums, quoting them out of context and saying that proves a point. Second, so far as hatchet jobs go, it's pathetic. Seriously, you could have taken any individual line to make them look bad and this is the best you could come up with? I don't think they're trying very hard. Give me any speech of Bush's and I can make him look way worse by quoting him out of context (and often by quoting him in context). Still, let's look at a couple of lines that they undoubtedly think are the worst. From the year one curriculum:
"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."
Pretty appalling stuff and not something I'd want taught to my kids. But it's exactly what I was taught in Catholic school (with Islam replaced by Catholicism of course). If you can't be honest enough to admit that other major religions preach that unbelievers are going to hell then I have no time for you. And just like the Wahhabi attitude to other Muslims, Catholic doctrine says other Christians are going to hell too. Here's a line from the year four curriculum:
"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."
Does that sound at all like a right wing Christian talking about gays? No, of course it doesn't. When was the last time you heard the religious right saying we should avoid treating gays unjustly? The real doozy comes from year twelve:
"Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the summit of Islam."
Oh my god! Getting them just as they leave school and turning them into suicide bombers! Well, apart from the fact that the central tenet of jihad means internal spiritual struggle; physical jihad (holy war) is regarded as lesser jihad. Now you don't have to convince me that the way the above quote is phrased qualifies as weasel words. Obviously it can be twisted to mean holy war when talking to students while claiming to non-believers that it innocently means spiritual jihad. I said before I don't trust the Saudi regime - I think they're dangerous. I'm sure glad the Bush administration has never given soldiers tacit encouragement to torture and murder people in the name of advancing "western values" but said it in such a weasel way that they can deny having said it later.
Oh... wait a minute.
So the latest story they're on about, along similar lines to my other post, is these "secret" Saudi textbooks that have supposedly been smuggled out of Saudi Arabia to show us the "truth" about these so-called allies. I think I'll always use "truth" in quotation marks when referring to right wingers because you clearly can't believe a fucking word they say. They won't even concede when you objectively prove them wrong. Case in point: one of the bloggers at the centre of the bullshit storm over the Iranian authorities supposedly planning to make non-muslims wear coloured identification badges on their clothes said this after the story was proved false:
"It doesn't really matter whether or not the Iranian Mullahs have actually passed the law" (note the implication that the law was proposed but didn't pass - this is another lie, the law never existed! How the fuck can you pass a law that doesn't exist"?) "What matters is that they are... perfectly capable of passing such a law".
What the fuck?!?!?!?! It no longer matters if you're telling the truth? It only matters what you think is possible? Fine, I think Bush is perfectly capable of cracking open the skulls of newborn babies to feast on the goo within. It doesn't matter whether or not he's actually done it, it matters that I think he's perfectly capable of doing it. So can we send the fucker to the chair already? That'd be some fine Texas-style justice.
Anyway, that was yesterday, this is today. The Washington Post is feeding the nutjob fires today with its "expose" on the evil Saudi school system. Let me start by saying I don't like or trust the Saudi regime. I think the house of Saud would screw over anyone to protect their own interests. I believe they are capable of fostering violence against non-Muslims to appease Wahhabi zealots and killing and torturing these same zealots to appease the west. At the same time.
In other words, they're politicians.
And of course Saudi Arabia is the home of Wahhabi fundamentalism. For anyone who's not paying attention these are the dangerous ones. Not even other Muslims are safe from Wahhabi hardliners.
The main things that piss me off about this story are: one, it's a hatchet job. They are taking individual lines from entire curriculums, quoting them out of context and saying that proves a point. Second, so far as hatchet jobs go, it's pathetic. Seriously, you could have taken any individual line to make them look bad and this is the best you could come up with? I don't think they're trying very hard. Give me any speech of Bush's and I can make him look way worse by quoting him out of context (and often by quoting him in context). Still, let's look at a couple of lines that they undoubtedly think are the worst. From the year one curriculum:
"Fill in the blanks with the appropriate words (Islam, hellfire): Every religion other than ______________ is false. Whoever dies outside of Islam enters ____________."
Pretty appalling stuff and not something I'd want taught to my kids. But it's exactly what I was taught in Catholic school (with Islam replaced by Catholicism of course). If you can't be honest enough to admit that other major religions preach that unbelievers are going to hell then I have no time for you. And just like the Wahhabi attitude to other Muslims, Catholic doctrine says other Christians are going to hell too. Here's a line from the year four curriculum:
"True belief means . . . that you hate the polytheists and infidels but do not treat them unjustly."
Does that sound at all like a right wing Christian talking about gays? No, of course it doesn't. When was the last time you heard the religious right saying we should avoid treating gays unjustly? The real doozy comes from year twelve:
"Jihad in the path of God -- which consists of battling against unbelief, oppression, injustice, and those who perpetrate it -- is the summit of Islam."
Oh my god! Getting them just as they leave school and turning them into suicide bombers! Well, apart from the fact that the central tenet of jihad means internal spiritual struggle; physical jihad (holy war) is regarded as lesser jihad. Now you don't have to convince me that the way the above quote is phrased qualifies as weasel words. Obviously it can be twisted to mean holy war when talking to students while claiming to non-believers that it innocently means spiritual jihad. I said before I don't trust the Saudi regime - I think they're dangerous. I'm sure glad the Bush administration has never given soldiers tacit encouragement to torture and murder people in the name of advancing "western values" but said it in such a weasel way that they can deny having said it later.
Oh... wait a minute.
Dammit
Great. I just lost a draft I'd been working on for 40 minutes. Fuck you Blogger. I'll try again tonight.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
I Have a New Mentor
Yes, I have a new mentor and his name is Guy Kawasaki. He doesn't know he's my mentor yet but I'm sure he won't mind - he seems like a nice chap. For those who don't know anything about him; Guy used to be "Chief Evangelist" for Apple (I think that was his official job title), he's written a bunch of books on startups, marketing and business wisdom, and these days he seems to be a VC. The "Filmloop" technology featured on his blog today looks quite interesting - I'm guessing he's involved with that company somehow.
But none of these are the reasons he's my mentor - I want to emulate his absolutely shameless climbing of the Technorati blog popularity ladder. He's been in the top 100 blogs for a while (he's about number 39 now I think) and he makes no secret of his desire to hit the top 10. I've seen people try and insult him for being shallow in his comments but you can't insult him! He freely admits it's a shallow goal and I love that he embraces that.
Now, a lot of what I write leans heavily to the sarcastic/cynical/ironic end of the spectrum and you'd be forgiven for reading this post in that light. But it's the honest truth - I respect that he's so open about this goal and as anyone who reads my posts about visitor stats will know, I'm also shamelessly obsessed with making my blog popular. My current goal is to reach Technorati's top 100,00. Not a very lofty goal compared to Guy's but he's someone and I'm nobody. I don't mean that in a woe-is-me way or even in a self-effacing way, it's a simple truth. Guy Kawasaki is famous (in his own way) and I'm not. So I'm taking small steps at first.
Beyond the shallow popularity goal, Guy has a pretty good blog, particularly if you're into business/technology/marketing issues at all. It may surprise some readers to discover I have an interest in this area but I work in IT and a lot of what Guy writes has direct application to my day-to-day life. Even if he's a tiny bit more upbeat than me. His "lies" category is particularly good.
So I think I have a holy trinity of role models now (that's my Catholic upbringing coming out). Stephen Colbert remains unchallenged as god, I've decided Ian McKellen can be the holy spirit and Guy Kawasaki can be little baby Jesus.
Clearly I'm going to hell.
But none of these are the reasons he's my mentor - I want to emulate his absolutely shameless climbing of the Technorati blog popularity ladder. He's been in the top 100 blogs for a while (he's about number 39 now I think) and he makes no secret of his desire to hit the top 10. I've seen people try and insult him for being shallow in his comments but you can't insult him! He freely admits it's a shallow goal and I love that he embraces that.
Now, a lot of what I write leans heavily to the sarcastic/cynical/ironic end of the spectrum and you'd be forgiven for reading this post in that light. But it's the honest truth - I respect that he's so open about this goal and as anyone who reads my posts about visitor stats will know, I'm also shamelessly obsessed with making my blog popular. My current goal is to reach Technorati's top 100,00. Not a very lofty goal compared to Guy's but he's someone and I'm nobody. I don't mean that in a woe-is-me way or even in a self-effacing way, it's a simple truth. Guy Kawasaki is famous (in his own way) and I'm not. So I'm taking small steps at first.
Beyond the shallow popularity goal, Guy has a pretty good blog, particularly if you're into business/technology/marketing issues at all. It may surprise some readers to discover I have an interest in this area but I work in IT and a lot of what Guy writes has direct application to my day-to-day life. Even if he's a tiny bit more upbeat than me. His "lies" category is particularly good.
So I think I have a holy trinity of role models now (that's my Catholic upbringing coming out). Stephen Colbert remains unchallenged as god, I've decided Ian McKellen can be the holy spirit and Guy Kawasaki can be little baby Jesus.
Clearly I'm going to hell.
Monday, May 22, 2006
Is there intelligence in the right wing blogosphere?
My brain is overloading tonight so one more post. Zenstar also seems to be in OCD mode tonight so we'll see if he's still up as well :)
So, time to stir some shit. A cursory reading of my archives will show a strong disposition to left-wing politics. Despite my strongly worded opinions I frequently scout around other blogs to see if I can find someone with divergent views with whom I can nevertheless have some discourse. I don't expect to find a right wing blogger who will sway me to their point of view and I don't expect to change them but I want some intelligent debate goddammit!
Some qualifiers: I'm not talking simply about people who are to the right of me (that's probably nearly everyone who reads this blog) and I'm not talking about neo-nazis. I'm talking about people who fit into the mainstream but on the extreme right of the spectrum and have blogs that are mostly dedicated to politics and/or social issues. There's a hell of a lot of blogs that fit this criteria but fuck-all intelligent commentary that I've been able to find. Seriously, if anyone knows of an intelligent right-wing blog I'd really like to read it. Maybe I'll just follow some links from Instapundit (number one right-wing blog on Technorati). Surely they can provide someone whose intelligence I can respect, even if I heartily disagree with them.
Here's on thing that's been setting me off lately: the right-wingers' tendency to say all Muslims are insane Jihadists. They often go beyond saying "they're all the same" to the point where they assert that it's impossible for a Muslim to be opposed to violent extremism carried out in the name of Islam. And they spout isolated incidents, half-truths and outright lies to "prove" their point that Islam is inherently evil. Their latest bullshit is promoting a story that they Iranian regime is promoting a law that will force non-muslims to wear identifying "badges" on their clothes a-la the Nazis in WWII.
I am no fan of the Iranian hardliners and there's no way you'd catch me living in an Islamic theocracy that promoted Sharia law (nor a Christian or Jewish theocracy for that matter) but this story is completely false. One blog that was expounding the "truth" of this bullshit cited about a dozen blogs carrying the story to prove their point. Blogs! For fuck's sake, I can find a dozen blogs that are sure that flu vaccinations are really injecting us with alien zygotes! What the fuck does quoting partisan blogs prove? Try some actual new sources! I found the following:
A copy of the draft law obtained by The Associated Press made no mention of religious minorities or any requirement of special attire for them...
and
Iran's only Jewish MP strongly denied reports that Tehran may force non-Muslims to wear colored badges in public so as they can be identified.
"This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false," Maurice Motammed told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Tehran on Friday, May19 .
"It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain by doing so."
That's 5 seconds on Google, people. It isn't hard to come by the truth if you have any real interest in finding it. Get a fucking clue.
Oh, and on the off chance any right winger is reading this blog for the first time (I left a mildly inflammatory comment on a blog) and wants to attack me for my intelligence or lack thereof, do yourself a favour and look up dramatis personae first. And then come to terms with the concept of humour.
And then wrap your head around the fact I don't give a fuck what you think.
So, time to stir some shit. A cursory reading of my archives will show a strong disposition to left-wing politics. Despite my strongly worded opinions I frequently scout around other blogs to see if I can find someone with divergent views with whom I can nevertheless have some discourse. I don't expect to find a right wing blogger who will sway me to their point of view and I don't expect to change them but I want some intelligent debate goddammit!
Some qualifiers: I'm not talking simply about people who are to the right of me (that's probably nearly everyone who reads this blog) and I'm not talking about neo-nazis. I'm talking about people who fit into the mainstream but on the extreme right of the spectrum and have blogs that are mostly dedicated to politics and/or social issues. There's a hell of a lot of blogs that fit this criteria but fuck-all intelligent commentary that I've been able to find. Seriously, if anyone knows of an intelligent right-wing blog I'd really like to read it. Maybe I'll just follow some links from Instapundit (number one right-wing blog on Technorati). Surely they can provide someone whose intelligence I can respect, even if I heartily disagree with them.
Here's on thing that's been setting me off lately: the right-wingers' tendency to say all Muslims are insane Jihadists. They often go beyond saying "they're all the same" to the point where they assert that it's impossible for a Muslim to be opposed to violent extremism carried out in the name of Islam. And they spout isolated incidents, half-truths and outright lies to "prove" their point that Islam is inherently evil. Their latest bullshit is promoting a story that they Iranian regime is promoting a law that will force non-muslims to wear identifying "badges" on their clothes a-la the Nazis in WWII.
I am no fan of the Iranian hardliners and there's no way you'd catch me living in an Islamic theocracy that promoted Sharia law (nor a Christian or Jewish theocracy for that matter) but this story is completely false. One blog that was expounding the "truth" of this bullshit cited about a dozen blogs carrying the story to prove their point. Blogs! For fuck's sake, I can find a dozen blogs that are sure that flu vaccinations are really injecting us with alien zygotes! What the fuck does quoting partisan blogs prove? Try some actual new sources! I found the following:
A copy of the draft law obtained by The Associated Press made no mention of religious minorities or any requirement of special attire for them...
and
Iran's only Jewish MP strongly denied reports that Tehran may force non-Muslims to wear colored badges in public so as they can be identified.
"This report is a complete fabrication and is totally false," Maurice Motammed told Agence France-Presse (AFP) in Tehran on Friday, May19 .
"It is a lie, and the people who invented it wanted to make political gain by doing so."
That's 5 seconds on Google, people. It isn't hard to come by the truth if you have any real interest in finding it. Get a fucking clue.
Oh, and on the off chance any right winger is reading this blog for the first time (I left a mildly inflammatory comment on a blog) and wants to attack me for my intelligence or lack thereof, do yourself a favour and look up dramatis personae first. And then come to terms with the concept of humour.
And then wrap your head around the fact I don't give a fuck what you think.
The DaVinci Code - "Fiction" Furore Defused
Let me start by saying I don't give a shit about the DaVinci Code. I haven't read the book and I have no interest in doing so. I'd doubt I'm going to go see the movie either. Not out of any pathological objection to the subject matter - I just don't care enough about it. There are about 1,000 books I'll read before I bother.
The ridiculous concept that the movie should include some disclaimer that it's "fiction" is an insult to any rational person's intelligence. Of course it's fiction, it's a fucking movie. The "source material" has been comprehensively proven to be false. End of story. Dan Brown is a bullshitter. Big woop.
And yet some insecure christians insist on giving the movie and book free publicity. Unless it's some sort of elaborate publicity stunt and there are no real christians stupid enough to get worked up about it. I realise that the vast majority of christians aren't stupid enough to fall for this shit but it troubles me that anyone might be. Anyway, Gandalf has saved the day.
Sir Ian McKellan, who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies, is in the DaVinci Code movie. When being interviewed about the "fiction" idea he responded with "the bible should have a disclaimer in front saying this is fiction." Way to defuse the situation Sir Ian.
No more controversy.
The ridiculous concept that the movie should include some disclaimer that it's "fiction" is an insult to any rational person's intelligence. Of course it's fiction, it's a fucking movie. The "source material" has been comprehensively proven to be false. End of story. Dan Brown is a bullshitter. Big woop.
And yet some insecure christians insist on giving the movie and book free publicity. Unless it's some sort of elaborate publicity stunt and there are no real christians stupid enough to get worked up about it. I realise that the vast majority of christians aren't stupid enough to fall for this shit but it troubles me that anyone might be. Anyway, Gandalf has saved the day.
Sir Ian McKellan, who played Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings movies, is in the DaVinci Code movie. When being interviewed about the "fiction" idea he responded with "the bible should have a disclaimer in front saying this is fiction." Way to defuse the situation Sir Ian.
No more controversy.
Kicked Puppy Syndrome
I think I have kicked puppy syndrome. I'm going to explain the term so you know what I mean (and copyright it in case nobody's used it before - that way I can charge a fortune to address seminars on the topic).
You know how if you kick a puppy repeatedly it will end up cowering every time you come near it, regardless of whether or not you intend to kick it? You do? You sick bastard, stop kicking those puppies! OK, I'm sure none of us actually does that to puppies so I'll rephrase: We're all reasonable people who wouldn't hurt puppies but I'm sure we're all intelligent enough to conceive of the scenario where, if some bad person did kick a puppy repeatedly it would end up cowering whenever they approach.
I feel like this way too often in the workplace. I have had to endure some really shitty workplaces and I've documented several aspects of my worst workplaces in this blog. These are all true stories - or at least "inspired by a true story" to borrow a Hollywood term. The worst thing for me is being blamed for something that's beyond my control. Someone asks "when will that be finished", I answer: "I don't know - it's beyond my control, Croc has to authorise it and Croc hasn't given any clear guidelines on what I have to do to get it authorised." The response is then "Bullshit, you're not working hard enough."
It's amazing how common this dysfunctional attitude is in workplaces. As a result, when things are going well (like my current role) I spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for them to go wrong. We are working hard right now on a major milestone and the resolution has been dragging on for about two weeks. The reason we didn't finish two weeks ago is everybody is determined to do it right and not be bound by an artificial deadline. We'll finish when we're done, not when an arbitrary date clicks by. Every now and then I even get complimented on how hard I am working and the quality of my work.
Because of kicked puppy syndrome I'm always a little flinchy, always expecting to be kicked again. The truth is, I feel like a bit of a fraud. I get paid quite a bit as a contractor - I'm no millionaire but I'm getting far more than I could have conceived of even 10 years ago. I lucked into working in an industry (IT) where you can get decent bucks if you play your cards right. People who do important work (health services springs to mind) get paid far less. But then again there are plenty of people who get way more and deserve it way less. I come from a large working class family (cue the violins now) so getting lots of money feels a little weird sometimes. And a spend a bit of time worrying that my fraud is about to be exposed. "Aha!" they will shout, "He's nothing but a big cockroach!" Wait... that's a Far Side cartoon.
I'm good at my job. Things that I find easy are very hard for some people. The central aspect of my job is communication, writing clearly and helping people understand new and/or difficult concepts. The way the job market values my skills, I deserve what I'm getting. In fact, looking at the job market, I can probably go for about 20% more on my next contract. And this is what makes me so angry about bad bosses. They crush people's spirit. They want people to be scared of losing their jobs rather than have them be inspired by their jobs.
It's funny when you read it in a Dilbert cartoon but it's really fucked going through it in real life.
You know how if you kick a puppy repeatedly it will end up cowering every time you come near it, regardless of whether or not you intend to kick it? You do? You sick bastard, stop kicking those puppies! OK, I'm sure none of us actually does that to puppies so I'll rephrase: We're all reasonable people who wouldn't hurt puppies but I'm sure we're all intelligent enough to conceive of the scenario where, if some bad person did kick a puppy repeatedly it would end up cowering whenever they approach.
I feel like this way too often in the workplace. I have had to endure some really shitty workplaces and I've documented several aspects of my worst workplaces in this blog. These are all true stories - or at least "inspired by a true story" to borrow a Hollywood term. The worst thing for me is being blamed for something that's beyond my control. Someone asks "when will that be finished", I answer: "I don't know - it's beyond my control, Croc has to authorise it and Croc hasn't given any clear guidelines on what I have to do to get it authorised." The response is then "Bullshit, you're not working hard enough."
It's amazing how common this dysfunctional attitude is in workplaces. As a result, when things are going well (like my current role) I spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for them to go wrong. We are working hard right now on a major milestone and the resolution has been dragging on for about two weeks. The reason we didn't finish two weeks ago is everybody is determined to do it right and not be bound by an artificial deadline. We'll finish when we're done, not when an arbitrary date clicks by. Every now and then I even get complimented on how hard I am working and the quality of my work.
Because of kicked puppy syndrome I'm always a little flinchy, always expecting to be kicked again. The truth is, I feel like a bit of a fraud. I get paid quite a bit as a contractor - I'm no millionaire but I'm getting far more than I could have conceived of even 10 years ago. I lucked into working in an industry (IT) where you can get decent bucks if you play your cards right. People who do important work (health services springs to mind) get paid far less. But then again there are plenty of people who get way more and deserve it way less. I come from a large working class family (cue the violins now) so getting lots of money feels a little weird sometimes. And a spend a bit of time worrying that my fraud is about to be exposed. "Aha!" they will shout, "He's nothing but a big cockroach!" Wait... that's a Far Side cartoon.
I'm good at my job. Things that I find easy are very hard for some people. The central aspect of my job is communication, writing clearly and helping people understand new and/or difficult concepts. The way the job market values my skills, I deserve what I'm getting. In fact, looking at the job market, I can probably go for about 20% more on my next contract. And this is what makes me so angry about bad bosses. They crush people's spirit. They want people to be scared of losing their jobs rather than have them be inspired by their jobs.
It's funny when you read it in a Dilbert cartoon but it's really fucked going through it in real life.
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Angry at Communal Facilities
I'm having one of those "events conspiring against me" weekends. My original plan was a party on Saturday night and not much else (leaving me plenty of time to obsess over my blog) but there were a lot of last minute add-ons. I ended up having my kids to look after unexpectedly but that's something I always say yes to, then a friend came to town for the weekend so I arranged to pick him up from the airport on Saturday and drop him off on Sunday. But the thing that's really pissing me off is I have to share a laundry in my apartment building.
I'm all for sharing, I'm virtually a communist. So long as everybody gets the fuck out of my way when I want to do something. In this apartment building I have to share a laundry even though I have my own washing machine because there's no damn washing machine taps in my flat. Which wasn't that bad because I figured out something out to my advantage. In my suburb generally and my building specifically there are a lot of orthodox Jews so they wont use the machine on Saturday because of the Sabbath. Ha ha! Organised religion works in my favour for once!
So I never used to have trouble getting machines when I wanted them and life was good. Then some fucker (probably a mechanic) washes clothes soaked in oil so all my clothes get ruined by fucking oil stains when I wash them in the same machine later. I don't have a problem with mechanics but what sort of fuckwit washes oily clothes in a machine that other people have to use? I'll tell you what sort: the sort I'm going to hunt down and kill. OK, well not kill but something terrible is going to happen to them. I haven't decided what exactly but it won't be nice.
With all the busyness this weekend it gets to sunday afternoon and I haven't done my washing and someone else is using the machine so I have to wait and now my stuff is in the dryer which is going to take hours so I'm blogging in the meantime but I have to take my kid's back to their mum's place soon and if I wait for my clothes to dry first I won't be back home from the drive until fucking midnight or something but if I leave my stuff unattended in the dryer some freak might get at them and stealmy spandex g-string I mean my stuff so I'm really stressed at the moment in fact I think I'm getting a fucking migraine.
In the meantime, I'm open to suggestions on what to with the oily bastard who keeps ruining my clothes.
I'm all for sharing, I'm virtually a communist. So long as everybody gets the fuck out of my way when I want to do something. In this apartment building I have to share a laundry even though I have my own washing machine because there's no damn washing machine taps in my flat. Which wasn't that bad because I figured out something out to my advantage. In my suburb generally and my building specifically there are a lot of orthodox Jews so they wont use the machine on Saturday because of the Sabbath. Ha ha! Organised religion works in my favour for once!
So I never used to have trouble getting machines when I wanted them and life was good. Then some fucker (probably a mechanic) washes clothes soaked in oil so all my clothes get ruined by fucking oil stains when I wash them in the same machine later. I don't have a problem with mechanics but what sort of fuckwit washes oily clothes in a machine that other people have to use? I'll tell you what sort: the sort I'm going to hunt down and kill. OK, well not kill but something terrible is going to happen to them. I haven't decided what exactly but it won't be nice.
With all the busyness this weekend it gets to sunday afternoon and I haven't done my washing and someone else is using the machine so I have to wait and now my stuff is in the dryer which is going to take hours so I'm blogging in the meantime but I have to take my kid's back to their mum's place soon and if I wait for my clothes to dry first I won't be back home from the drive until fucking midnight or something but if I leave my stuff unattended in the dryer some freak might get at them and steal
In the meantime, I'm open to suggestions on what to with the oily bastard who keeps ruining my clothes.
Saturday, May 20, 2006
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