Because everyone needs a laugh – chickenhead.com
I’m an active blogger today…
I’m an active blogger today… but we’re all waiting around for the ax to fall, and who wants to work on something when you could get escorted out of the building at any minute? Here’s random thought of the day #3:
My wife is a college graduate with a degree in political science. This means she gives bad news very well. She can also get me to agree with her on just about anything. Recently, she let me in on a little secret that she probably shouldn’t have told me. If she doesn’t agree with something I say, she’ll say, “I don’t know what I think about that…”. The ellipses is intentional because she trails off at the end and waits for me to change my mind, which, because I’m a man and not a political scientist, I usually do. The funniest part is, now that I know about the trick, you’d think that I’d see it coming. Nope! She pulls it on me all the time and I still fall for it… what does that say about me?
It takes all kinds… This
It takes all kinds… This halfwit in the North Carolina legislature forwarded an e-mail to all the members of that hallowed body stating, “Two things made this country great: White men & Christianity.” Ok, nice thoughts there, my man. Way to bring people together. And, the lunacy continues: “Who came to this country first – the white man, didn’t he? That’s who made this country great.'”
It makes me wonder how far we’ve really come. We like to think we’re enlightened and progressive. We think maybe we’ve got this race-relations thing handled and everyone’s happy. Still, every day, we see people like that moron slapping us in the face with the fact that change moves slowly.
It’s taken over 150 years for evolution to become mainstream, and for it to be grasped as a viable scientific theory. It took several hundred years for people to come to terms with the earth not being the center of the universe, and then a couple more to grasp the shape of it. It’s been 35+ years since the beginning of the civil rights movement, and 134 years since the 14th amendment was ratified.
How can we expect everyone to come to the realization that we’re all equal, and probably all related a lot closer than we ever thought? How can we, when people like the “honorable” Mr. Davis refuse to open their eyes?
It’s frustrating, and it gets worse the more I think about it. Real change takes generations, not laws. It takes slowly tweaking society and ideas over decades and sometimes centuries. I honestly think we’ll get to a place where color does/doesn’t matter and people are treated equally at least in the eyes of the law. I’m just not holding my breath.
It’s official. It’s not 500
It’s official. It’s not 500 or even 1000, it’s really 1700. That’s 1200 from right here in lovely northern VA, and 500 from the west coast from iPlanet. I don’t really know what to say. I’ve done this three times before, all at AOL, and well, it sucks. I think it sucks worse this time because of the overwhelming number of my friends who are sure they’re going to get the boot. That, and the fact that these rumors have been swirling for the better part of three weeks with no official response. Yes, we live in interesting times, my people…
I was here at 7:45, a full hour before my normal start time because I got all of three hours of sleep last night. You know, every time I think I’ve become this Clint Eastwood hardass meanie, something like this happens. I’m one sensitive quivering bowl of jell-o who doesn’t handle this kind of stress very well. No matter how much I put up this front as the-guy-who-acts-like-clint, I think everyone knows. I’m not really fooling anyone. I’m Stuart frickin’ Smiley – and dammit, I’m good enough, lucky enough and stupid enough to admit it.
If I didn’t feel like
If I didn’t feel like working yesterday, I really don’t want to do anything today. I think maybe I’m coming down with something. I can’t seem to get rid of this headache, and I slept for 10 hours last night and I’m still tired!
Weekend Movie Reviews
This weekend, we saw American Pie (me for the second time, Jen for the first), State and Main, and I finally finished watching my new copy of Akira.
Before I get into the reviews: Yes, I know these movies were in theaters months ago. That’s what happens when you have a kid. You watch movies on video instead of going to the theater. So, shut up.
American Pie: This movie was really funny the first time I saw it. I’m not sure what happened with the second viewing. It just wasn’t that funny. Jen didn’t even laugh all that much. It still had its moments, like the scenes with Eugene Levy, the Pie and Finch’s toilet adventure… it just didn’t ring true like it did the first time.
State and Main: I love David Mamet. I adored The Spanish Prisoner and Vanya on 42nd Street. Now you know where I’m coming from here, and won’t be disappointed. I really liked this movie. It wasn’t terribly deep nor did it have an important message to share. It was funny. William H. Macy was great as the producer, coddling, tough and an ass when he needed to be. The whole cast was fantastic. But, my favorite part of the movie had to be the relationship between Rebecca Pidgeon and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It wasn’t overtly sexual, and just rang true for me. It was nice to see Mr. Hoffman in a non-gay role (hello, Talented Mr. Ripley, Fabulous… anyone else paying attention?), and he really pulled it off. Ms. Pidgeon played her attraction to him very understated, and I just loved it. If you’ve ever hit if off with someone, you’ll recognize the feelings there. It was great fun.
Akira: I saw this a long time ago on a bad VHS copy, and didn’t really like it, but remember the animation as something special. SO, I bought the DVD at Price Club for $14. This is a very Japanese movie. If you like Anime, you’ll love it. If you don’t, you’ll probably hate it. Could you sit through Princess Mononoke? Yes? Then get Akira. If you couldn’t, don’t bother.
I would love to get
I would love to get some work done today, but I can’t. I keep starting things and then putting them down. I’ve written a couple hundred lines of code that is just shell for something that will actually do something. I started something in PhotoShop, and it’s just sitting there, half-started. I have a new page in my text editor sitting there waiting for me to bring it to life.
Well, it ain’t gonna happen today, folks. If something NEEDS to get done, it will. Unfortunately, I have nothing that HAS to get done today. I have a lot of stuff staring me in the face that I can’t start on yet, but nothing I can do RIGHT now except clean-up and documentation. Clean-up and documentation suck, so they never get done.
Maybe I’ll start something else…
Six Feet Under
So, it’s 9pm on Sunday night, and my favorite show of the summer is starting. I bought a 25 ft. phone cord last night so I can sit on the couch in the sunroom, watch TV and be signed on. Yeah, baby. This is my substitute or wireless networking, my friends. I would love to have DSL, a wireless gateway, wireless network cards and other cool tools, but hey, that costs money. The phone cord was $2.99. Here’s dreaming.
My computer downstairs isn’t even connected to a phone line. It’s three years old, starting to breakdown, and there’s no replacement on the horizon. Yeah, baby, this is the highlife.
Why do I bring this up? No idea… just rambling. I’m the only one I know of my friends at work with a wife, a kid and a mortgage, well, with a wife that stays home. (take your meds, Billy… sorry Six Feet Under moment). I love my life, but I sometimes watch my friends and wonder what it would be like to be able to go out on the weekend without worrying about Max and if he’s all right. To be able to go out and spend money without worrying about the mortgage. Yep, responsibility… it’s a bitch. But, I really (and I mean it this time) wouldn’t have it any other way. Max only gets more fun. He’s hilarious. He’s not saying words, but his babbling is becoming more intoned and animated. It’s too funny to listen to him babble away.
It’s funny. We make decisions with no real idea what the consequences will be. Thankfully, most of the time, things work out. We make it work. I’m glad that when I got married I knew what I was getting into. I knew what I wanted out my marriage, and I think we’re doing a pretty good job as a couple and as parents. So, that’s the state of the union. Now, back to the show… and Sweetie, I’m sorry. I hit the record button @ 9, but it didn’t start. I’ll fill you in when you get home.
Let’s see if this works
I’m using Mozilla to write this post. We’ll see how this goes.
I love other peoples’ photos. Why? I’m not really sure. I like seeing what matters to people I don’t really know. It takes some effort (a lot less than it used to) to post photos. You have to either suck them off your digital camera or worse yet, scan them, create the pages for the photos and then upload the whole mess. Yup, that’s effort. So, what makes people do this? Other than people who post just for family members, which makes perfect sense, why would people post their vacation photos from their trip to Boston or who knows where and then tell everyone where they are? It’s fascinating to me. I love looking at this window of a moment in someone else’s life and seeing what I can learn from them.
Usually, not much. But, sometimes, there’s that perfect image of a party with smiling faces, arms around shoulders, drinks in hand. A picture of a family, doing normal family stuff in the backyard. Kids smiling. Parents smiling. It’s just great.
What is it about accomplishment
What is it about accomplishment that’s totally re-energizing? After my brilliance this week, I feel like working again. I don’t feel like doing nothing, and grudgingly doing my job. I feel like doing it in new and fantastic ways, with plastic spoons. No, really, I’m amped. I think this new “get cool results by getting idiots to learn just some html tags” is really cool. It should save me from having to do things all the time, and I’ll really only have to write the tags once, make sure they work, and then unleash them on an unsuspecting world. Sure, I may be writing myself out of a job, but I’m tired of doing the same thing every day anyway. Without giving away too much, I’ll try to keep y’all updated on my quest to replace myself with HTML. It’ll work, I swear on Tim Berners-Lee’s shiny bald spot.