Ultranormal

  • Speaking of geekgasm…. If you’re

    Speaking of geekgasm…. If you’re using Mozilla or Netscape 6.x, you can now change how lawver.net looks. Go to View -> Use Stylesheet, and you should see the option “Deco” there. Choose and watch the purpleness!

  • Geekgasm

    Why do we geeks get so excited by technology? Why do we go into convulsions of joy when we build something that works? It’s art, baby. I’ve figured it out. Writing code is an artform. Writing good code (where good is defined by each individual geek, unfortunately) is the equivalent of Waterlilies by Van Gogh. It moves me. When something works, it’s like a gallery show of my work. I can tell my family and friends, “Look, see what I have built and the cool stuff it can do.” Even though most of them aren’t geeks, they can look and see that it works and doesn’t break when they click stuff. To them, it is good. To my geek friends, I can say, “Look at my tiny codebase that’s portable to other projects. Look at the thoughtful inside jokes I put in my useful comments. Gaze upon my stellar documentation. Marvel at my valid DOCTYPE and how well-tabbed everything is.”

    The best is when I build something that not only works and looks good, but performs. I can look at it and know that it’s handling several hundred requests a second and standing strong. Nothing’s more difficult or rewarding than building product for large-scale consumption. Almost anyone could eventually write something that will work on a small scale or in testing. It takes a special something to build it to withstand a pounding and stay up. The opposite is building something that I think is top-shelf and then have it come crashing to earth under load. It’s demoralizing. It’s tedious to go through hundreds of lines of code to find variables that might not be unset or data structures that aren’t freed. It takes time, which is usually in short supply. But, once it works again, all is well and triumph is sweet!!

    Thus ends another lesson. Be sure to hug your geek.

  • It’s pretty. It’s not a

    It’s pretty. It’s not a fancy blog, but there’s something very stylish and neat-o about it. Plus, anyone who uses a grainy AstroBoy pic is cool, right?

  • I just realized today that

    I just realized today that they haven’t had Indian food in the cafeteria since September 11th. How odd.

  • Being a Successful Geek

    Here are some tips on being a geek and actually getting paid for it:

    • Learn to be a ‘tweener. You should be able to do actual geeky things. The trick is to also learn how to communicate the uber-geeky concept to the non-geeky boss or co-worker. This will make you the indispensible translator and you will get promoted.

    • Work insane hours for your first year. It will give you the reputation of being a hard worker. After your reputation has been earned, you can start slacking again.

    • Learn to play UT. This shouldn’t be hard for the geeky, but it’s nice to have the skill. This will earn the respect of your co-workers if you can kick their asses. It’s also how we network here. “Oh, you’re MeatKevin? Yeah, you’re a mean killin’ machine. Wanna raise?”

    • Be the expert. Pick some part of your job and become the expert. Know more about it than anyone else in your group. This makes you valuable and you probably won’t get laid off.

    • Be Clean. For Gomer’s sake, bathe. Even if you follow all the other rules, if you’re not clean, no one will talk to you. You’ll be known as that weird dirty guy and being known for something unflattering is the expressway to Layoffville, my brother (or sister).

  • Green Snot

    Oh, look at all the pretty colors in that thing I just coughed up! I see green, a little pink, yellow. It’s like a Paul Klee that got left out in the rain. I hate winter. Yes, I know not long ago I was fantasizing about snow, but this winter has been mild so far. All of a sudden, winter came back yesterday after a week of tempertures in the sixties and seventies. Boom! Thirty-five, thirty mph wind and snow. Do you know what happens to people with allergies and asthma when there’s a sudden temperture change? We flip out. The body decides to rebel against the cold by battening down the hatches of my face with mucous. It’s a never-ending flood. My face fills up with sandbags against the cold. Like the extra insulation is really needed for the five minutes a day I’m actually outside. Damn you, body! Can’t you evolve into a nice housebody? One with a nice, regulated, amount of mucous? I don’t need strategic snot reserves. I really don’t.

    So, anyway, how are you?

  • Hellish Shellfish

    I’m feeling better. No more nausea, and just a little sleepy from staying up too late last night. This weekend was pretty good in spite of my bout with the shrimp. We rented movies for the first time in several months and had pretty good luck with all of them. If you’ve been visiting this site for a while, you’ll remember that I used to do my weekend movie wrapup, but since we got DirecTV and TiVo, we don’t rent movies very often. This weekend, no one was feeling well, so we broke down and made the trip to the video store. Here’s the wrap-up in chronological order:

    • Rockstar: I couldn’t sit through this movie. Marky Mark’s character was too much like Dirk Diggler from Boogie Nights. Earnest, naive and well, dim. The downfall was completely apparent and the only difference between his character in Boogie Nights and this movie was the cheesy ending (I came back in time to see the ending… stupid me). Jason Flemyng did have a nice little part as the closeted frontman though. It was a small part, but he really pulled it off.

    • Evolution: I wasn’t expecting this movie to be as funny as it was. If you liked the Sci-Fi comedies of the 80’s (Spaceballs, Darkstar, Ice Pirates), you’ll love this movie. The sci-fi element of the movie is actually kind of interesting, and well, that’s a shock. I figured it would be a vehicle for a bunch of booger jokes. The cast pulls off the comedy well without making it the focus of the movie. They balanced the “Hey, we’re people fighting aliens” with the “Look at me, I’m that guy from the 7-Up commercials being funny!”. Fun movie – and get the DVD. The deleted scenes are actually worth watching.

    • American Pie 2: I was surprised. I thought this one was funnier than the original. It’s no great film, but it is funny. Allyson Hannigan was especially good in a much larger part than in the previous flick. Speaking of, Jen’s been watching Buffy almost non-stop for the past few months (thank you, TiVo), and I’ve been impressed with Allyson’s chops. She’s got great comedy instincts while still keeping that innocent redhead vibe. And remember, you’re a special boy. The DVD is great. The outtakes and deleted scenes are worth watching, and the original casting tapes are funny just to see the casts initial impressions of the characters and compare it to the final product.

    I guess I should say something about the Super Bowl. We turned on the pre-game stuff at 6, because we thought kick-off was at 6:20. Oh no! We had to watch a bunch of old football players read the Declaration of Independance and then watch a bunch of other non-football patriotic shmaltz for 35 minutes. I can’t imagine anyone sitting through ALL of the pre-game. I was sick of it after five minutes. I’m patriotic, but I don’t need the Declaration of Independance read to me by guys who were probably reading it for the first time. I don’t need everything Hallmark-ized for me. It’s a football game. Once the game started, it was great. The Patriots shut down the Rams like no one has all year. It was amazing to watch. And what happened to the Rams defense? They turned into the crew from last year. It’s like they thought they already had the game won before they stepped on the field and by the time they really started trying in the fourth quarter, they had too far to go and not enough time to get there. Kurt Warner was hurt, and that’s excusable, but it looked like they just weren’t trying very hard. Great game though. Too bad it’s the last real game until next fall.

  • Lessons Learned

    No more sushi for me. I didn’t sleep well (it doesn’t help that Max has a cold and has been completely unpleasant today – waking up at 6:30). My head is swollen, throat is sore and nausea is the general theme. I think the sushi was fine. It certainly tasted fine. I think I’ve developed an allergy to shrimp. It’s the weirdest thing. I love shrimp. I used to be able to eat it all the time and in large quantities without getting so much as heartburn. But, around Christmas, I tried some and got a little queasy, with the same sore throat. With my short memory, I had a shrimp roll yesterday and well, here we are today. Is that possible? Instant food allergies?

    Well, either way, I’m miserable. Max is miserable, and we’re not getting along. It’s really hard to understand a stuffed-up toddler with a pacifier in his mouth when my head feels like a cinder block, and my throat feels like I’ve swallowed one. We’ve watched Blue’s Clues all day, and it’s driving me nuts. Every time I try to watch something else, he throws a phlegmy fit and I give in before my brain explodes.

    Let’s hope one of us feels better tomorrow…

  • The sushi from lunch is

    The sushi from lunch is not agreeing with me. I bet I’ll have some colorful dreams tonight. Here’s a tip for the uninitiated: sashimi is raw.

  • Don’t Say I Never Participate

    Yours truly is sponsoring the Bad Hair Blog category of the Anti-Bloggies this year. Want to see what I’m offering as the prize? You have to go check out the contest to see.