Author: Nick

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I think I found out what my mother has been doing in her spare time lately. Honestly, she was a pretty authoritarian grassroots supporter. I stopped peeing at home because of her ruthless enforcement. Well, that and I started wiping up any stray bits after each violation of the rules.

Nothing better than a naughty pee!

I Do The Watusi

The more I write these posts, the more I realize that they all seem to come with some bad ’80s earwig. The SWMBO’s brother is moving in with us for a bit and what runs through my mind? Howie Mandell. It’s like my attachment to novelty and found music has grown to be about seven feet tall and sports fangs and claws. Either that or it has become a giant shark with a laser cannon surgically mounted to its head.

What?! Where was I?

Oh, yeah, the As-Good-As-Brother-In-Law is moving in for a bit. Which is cool. I’ll have plenty of opportunity to hone my xBox hockey skills if nothing else. But there’s this weird soundtrack running at low volume in the back of my head and it’s just the refrain from that damned Howie Mandell song…

what can you do?
I do the watusi

And that, gentle reader, is what is going to cause me to climb with my trusty sniper’s rifle to the top of the bell tower here on campus. Of course, with my fear of heights I’ll probably make it about ten feet up and then turn around and go home.

I mean I sit here and picture a sillier me (scary!) walking around aimlessly. From my vantage point, the guy is just walking around. Occasionally he stops and shrugs his shoulders and then does a few watusi steps. I don’t know why. All I *do* know is that I’m probably going to be crossing the street to put as much distance as I can between myself and this sillier me if forced to pass him by.

Oh, and I’m waiting for my new install of the Europa edition of Eclipse to install all the nifty extensions I carried on my old standard Eclipse install. I should really figure out a better workflow than to rely on the Aptana synchronize to remote server when moving code to the production environment.

FrogPad

Is is so wrong to want one? Because, even though I know they’re releasing a new version in late winter/early spring that addresses the symbol access issues faced by programmers and that it would likely reduce my typing speed, it just reeks of cool. Besides, it is theoretically better for preventing RSIs and also allows you to keep one hand on the mouse—theoretically making gains on not having to shift your mouse hand back and forth. Believe me, I’m heavily invested in talking myself in to one of these.

Kind of the same way I’ve been heavily invested in talking myself into a new MacPro workstation weighing in at ~$3K.

The irony (am I using this correctly, Alanis?) being that I really cannot afford either but the monthly contribution to my continued existence from my employer is due to arrive at the end of this week and is already burning a hole in my pocket. Also that they’re both due for a significant upgrade in the near term. Also that they’re both relatively useless upgrades from my current computing environment. Well, okay, the dual dual-core MacPro will beat the 450Mhz P3 into such a formless, bloody pulp without even breaking a sweat that the difference between the two CPUs seems entirely ridiculous. No, it’s beyond ridiculous. Ludicrous. The vast difference makes the upgrade seem a little too extravagant to be justified.

The point? Did I have a point other than to link to the current apple (pun!) of my geeky eye in an effort to make it seem more attainable? Is there any other point required? Inquiring minds want to know.

Rerelevant?

Scott Adams, of Dilbert fame, makes a stab a relevance. Then takes a poke at some yet unmeasured portion of his readership. I thought Dilbert got old pretty quick and even voted against hiring someone in part because this person kept reciting Dilbert comic strips as evidence of his good humor during a job interview. Yet, suddenly, I am not so great a Scott Adams hater as I once was.

The Dilbert strip can still blow a pony though. Just isn’t funny any more. Not even sure it ever was.

My Kleenix Overfloweth…

The ragweed / whatever-the-heck-it-is that is making me sneeze and snot on everything, both vertical and horizontal, absolutely needs to stop. Mowed the yard yesterday and got about three minutes into the second bag o’ grass (heh) before the uncontrollable sneezing set in. Thought I was going to blow a gasket. Went inside and grabbed the fake-a-dryl which got me through mowing at least. I started moving the mulch/compost pile neé Brian’s dumping ground into reasonable piles of like materials. Then Elz comes around the corner with some water and talks me into going to the dog park instead. Not a lot of talking needed to happen mind you.

So we get in the Egglet and wrangle the dogs into back seat and strike out for NW Omaha. I swear we’re about three blocks into the drive and Elz is all, “let’s just go around the block and head home.” The goal, apparently, was to keep me from swinging an ax—that which gave me a 14 day stiff neck of biblical proportions.

Instead of the dog park, then, we head off to get frozen custard for ourselves and, in a moment of weakness on my part, for the dogs too. The Toaster knows how to eat off a spoon and was able to get through his custard with nary a drip or spatter. Dr. Salt, on the other hand, was a hurricane of sloppy eating. Dribbles all over the sidewalk and his beard is entirely matted now. Looks even scruffier than usual, which is hard to do.

So then we head home, which is where this story is going ultimately. No sooner do I get in the door than the antihistamines went in to full effect. It was like I was operating under seven to ten feet of cotton balls soaked in ether. I’ve never been so hammered by those things before in my life.

Which scares me. Because I had to take one this morning just to start to feel like I could get to work. I can’t imagine how non-productive I’ll be in about two hours…

En Vogue

Way back in the day I spent many a night in a nightclub necking with some goth chick who, in all likelihood, was probably too young. Then again, I didn’t know enough German to ask and she didn’t know enough English to get that point across anyway. Not that it all matters because what this is so far is window dressing.

Window dressing because all I can think of as I sit here to start typing all blog-like after so many years of false starts and code and real life falling apartness is that stupid song from En Vogue that played incessantly at Le Metropol. You know, the one that hammers “Back to life, back to reality” into your brain over and over so that it becomes one of the more obstinate earwigs in my life.

And, so, yeah. I’m pushing out toward the top end of my thirties and I’m on the upswing after some weird-ass shit going down and all I can do is recite En Vogue lyrics in my head. This is despite the good funk rolling out of the speakers, the two dogs who are fighting over a squeaky toy at my feet (try getting a dog past the ex), and a beautiful woman sitting at the desk beside mine. She Sims while I code.

Yeeaarrrgghh! It’s damn difficult to account for the past few years in a single entry and still sound upbeat. Either there’s a whole lot of saccharine platitudes or there’s a morose, brooding man crying into his beer. Believe me, life is too good for me right now to get in to that. So, this all being the case, I’ll just have to bring y’all up to speed as we go along. Welcome back, campers.

I’m off to get a beer and then I’ll return to play around with WP’s templates a bit. Get anyone anything while I’m up?

Fezboy! detests choral music. "Swing choir" makes him puke. . . violently. Helping out as the coatcheck boy here at the local performing arts center I’ve had to sit through 220 minutes of ear-bleeding pep-pap. The cultural equivalent of unflavored gelatin – that’s what it is. It also brings in the locals and I don’t mean locals in a friendly way. We’re talking Kentucky Waterfall mentality here. They’re so aftraid of being cheated by the Liberal Fraternity of Arts venues that they carry their wet coats and umbrellas into the house with them in order to avoid using the free coat check service. Well, there is tip jar on the counter I suppose, but it IS voluntary after all. No, they just don’t want to take the chance of accidentally supporting some kind of orgiastic, homo-friendly, leftist organization with their dollars.

Of particular note was the character who brought his video camera along in order to tape little Suzie’s slut-o-matic rendition of KC & the Sunshine Band’s Celebration. The sign outside states, "No videotaping of tonight’s performance allowed. Orders are being accepted for copys [sic] of the video being produced at tonight’s performance" or some such gibberish. Regardless, golf-shirt boy seemed to think he could just mosey on in with his camera.

However, the ticket taking folks would not let him through the lobby with the obvious, oversized, 1989 era video camera. His only option being to check it with me, coatcheck boy. Perhaps I did not look trustworthy this evening, or maybe he thinks there is a high demand for decrepit video cameras – who knows? At any rate, he was quite hesitant to leave the camera with me although he finally made the choice to see the show instead of clutch his recording device.

Fezboy! had the thought run through his head that he should, perhaps, have filmed his hairy, bare ass for about fifteen minutes while he had possession of the camera. Caution proved to win the day however, and no ass filming amatuer pornography took place. Fezboy! regrets this error now since golf-shirt-kahki boy failed to leave a gratuity in appreciation for his returned (unmolested) decrepit video recording device.

I like to drink lots of lukewarm, extra-strong coffee in a short period of time. If the coffee is strong enough, you will actually get the shakes. The associated euphoria also sparks some exciting creative thinking. If nothing else – it’s a cheap, easy, and legal high.

Trying to come up with two designs this weekend. Black Fez Productions, Conglomerated needs a new look and a bit of content. Something that can either sell BFP or sell Fezboy! to a design firm here in Flowertown. I’m getting quite comfortable with CSS layout and X-browser compatibility.

I also want to start work on my E-zine this summer. Popular Cynicism will convey attitude and stylings in a cynical manner. Sort of a non-partisan political rag that also points out the idiocy of American/Western culture and lifestyle. However it will also serve as a platform to showcase my abilities as a designer and administrator of a fairly complex media site.

Of course, this is all silly optimism . . .