You know what term I've never fully understood when applied to alcohol? "Dry." "Yes, I do believe I'll have a dry vermouth." Yes, yes, I can recognize when something is "dry," but that really should be the last term anyone is using as a descriptor.
How the fuck can an alcoholic beverage be dry? I mean, by its very nature, anything you drink is wet. I've never gone to the liquor store and picked up some powdered vodka before. As soon as you can pick me up some dehydrated gin, then we'll talk "dry."
I think referring to alcohol as "dry" is just some bullshit that was completely made up by lame, rich, pretentious fucks so that they could seem hip, cool, and "with it." I also think that this is how the entire French language came into being.
Friday, December 05, 2003
Star Track
You've heard me bitch about Star Trek before. As we all know, I'm a big Trekkie. Not a "Trekker," by the way; I don't need to make up some sort of bullshit moniker to try and hide how big of a fucking loser dork I am. Anyway, this article got me thinking about the sorry state of the franchise yet again.
I really wish Paramount would give Trek a rest for the time being. After the most recent two series, we're not in a good place. Voyager, with the exception of the Holodoc and Seven of Nine when she first arrived (and no, not just because she was hot, but that was part of it), was total shit. Enterprise isn't much better. Like I said in that linked post, a couple of characters are cool, the rest of them are not. Besides, when one of the best characters is the hick, that oughta tell you a lot.
Star Trek, as a franchise, has lots of problems with it. One of the biggest, I've always felt, is Rick Berman, the man who took over after Gene Roddenberry died. Berman really doesn't give a shit about anything other than doing what he wants and what he likes. This was never more evident than with his comments one time about the atrocious opening theme of Enterprise. This fucking opening song is nearly universally reviled as being the worst piece of shit ever, anywhere, at any time. But will Berman do anything about it? No, because in his words, "I like it." Nevermind what might actually be pleasing to fans. If ol' fuckhead Berman likes it, it goes.
It isn't entirely Berman's fault, of course. Sure, it's real easy to pick on him, but there are plenty of other issues. Like the fact that Star Trek is fucking old. I mean, nearly 40 years. That's a long time for an entertainment franchise. Shit has been hashed, then rehashed, and then rehashed some more. There's only so much that you can do before you've run out of unique, interesting ideas, but they're trying to pretend to do it with a total of 10 movies and five TV series thus far.
That last set of figures points out another problem: overexposure. We've been bombarded with so much shit, with a good deal of it being actual shit (like, Voyager). Part of the problem there is that a lot of the overexposure has come well past Trek's prime. The franchise hit a peak in popularity back in '94 when The Next Generation was going off the air (at least as far as I've seen in my lifetime). I mean, even mainstream media was paying decent attention to Trek, which doesn't happen all too often. Liking Star Trek almost wasn't as nerdy for about six seconds.
Since '94, we've been hit with the last several seasons of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and four movies. That's a decent amount in 9 years coming mostly from just one team.
Even though we'd still be close to where we are now, things wouldn't be so bad if not for poor execution. Take for instance the end of DS9. DS9 was decent for the first five years, even though it lost my interest for awhile, but then was pretty good the last two seasons. And how do they reward us? By wrapping up waaaaay too much shit (like a fucking war) in the last half hour of the series. This was followed by Sisko leaving his son, new wife, and unborn child behind so he could hit the pub with his buddies, the Prophets. Oh, yeah, and a bunch of other fucking people packed up and left the station, too. That disunity just left me with a real sour taste when I though of how Next Gen ended: with the last shot being the main cast sitting around a poker table playing cards. "All Good Things..." is how you end a fucking series, my friends. "What you leave behind" is not.
Okay, the lack of unity amongst the cast sorta makes sense if the rumors that they all hated eachother and wanted to get the fuck out of there was true. Still, it doesn't change the shitty pacing of things, nor does it excuse making Sisko look like a total dick, even if he was going to hang out with gods.
Speaking of bad endings, that brings us to Voyager's last episode. I liken this to sitting there being fucked in the ass for seven seasons, and then just as you're getting used to that unpleasant feeling, they shove a big juicy cock into your mouth for you to choke on.
Even though I mostly lost track of Voyager after a couple of seasons, I watched on occasion up to the last episode. Then there were people who were there for all seven fucking years. Seven years of watching this ship and crew trying to get back home. And how are we all rewarded? With a big fight against the Borg for most of the last episode, with the ship getting back to Earth at the very end of the episode, and then... We're done! No "welcome home" celebration, no getting an idea as to where the characters' lives will go now that they're back, nothing. Just a shot of the ship in orbit of Earth superimposed on an image of Berman giving you the finger, then the credits.
As another point of poor execution, let's talk about the Borg for a minute, and how Voyager ruined them. Remember how they Borg were once really scary, and you were like, "fuck, how they hell is the Enterprise going to get out of this one?" when they showed up? Then Voyager came along and totally pussified them, driving them so low as to bringing them to the level where they could be bargained with. Shit, thanks to Voyager, I almost feel that if the Borg walked into my office right now, I could fucking take them. Oh, yeah, then there's the whole "we rehabilitated Seven of Nine after years of being a Borg," which just made Picard look like a total cold-blooded killer in First Contact.
These are just a few of the lowlights, of course, but we might as well get Enterprise into the mix. I already mentioned some problems with the show in that earlier post (shitty, apathetic writers, lame characters, no concern for continuity, etc.), but one huge one, for me at least, was the whole fucking premise of the show. "A Star Trek prequel! Neat!" Not neat. Out of all the ideas I heard being thrown around for a new series back when Enterprise was in the planning stages, a prequel was the worst one. I hated the idea of going backward, when one of the principles of the whole goddamn franchise was about looking forward. And it wasn't just going backward, it was going backward in a manner that could potentially trample on all sorts of shit that was already well established. Plus, the dork in me wanted to see something further in the future just so we could see cool new shit, instead of a goddamn ship that doesn't even have shields. Makes me wanna polarize someone's hull plating, alright... Whatever the fuck that means.
Clearly, if Trek was going to continue, they had to move out of the 24th century. Three series set in the same time period had fucked the life out of that time period. But why the hell did that have to go back in time? This isn't a fucking Huey Lewis song, goddammit, no matter how much I happen to like Huey Lewis.
In the end, what all this amounts to is that no one cares about Trek anymore. They're burned out, they're fed up, they're gone. Yeah, there's some hard-core fans out there who still support the franchise. There are some people who will never leave, because they'll eat whatever shit Paramount shovels at them so long as it has Star Trek written on it.
This to me is just sad, that the venerated Trek saga has just become an old, abused whore. It's sad because Trek was more than what most people knew it as, namely, a sci-fi fest that nerds wet themselves over. Yes, the cool technology and the outer space shit is neat to all of us, but to me, Trek (the good parts of it, at least), has always been so much more.
Ask any dork why he likes Star Trek, and you'll probably get some variant of this: "It represents a positive view of the future of humanity!" God, I get so sick of that bullshit, overplayed, canned response. It's partly because of people like this (who are often at cons in pointy ears or a full-on Klingon getup, or, worse yet, fucking know the Klingon language which, yes, they have actually made up) that Trek has such a bad rep, one that people never get past.
Yes, the "positive view of the future" stuff is true - but that barely scratches the surface. Star Trek's roots are in the sixties, the time of the peak of the Cold War, Vietnam, Civil Rights, and what have you. A good deal of the original series, Next Gen, and even DS9 is pure social commentary. Each episode is more than just people in spandex running around space; each episode is like a mini-morality play. The show has always been more about that than being a sci-fi show; it's commentary which is merely packaged in the futuristic setting. Probably surprising to many is that I really don't like sci-fi as a genre, but Trek really appealed to me because it offered more than just spaceships and aliens.
Again, of course, even I get a hard on for phasers and warp cores. I'm pretentious, for sure, but not so pretentious that I won't cop to that fact. Fuck, I own theStar Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual; I know how warp drive is supposed to work. I couldn't run from that nerdiness even if I wanted to.
An entertainment writer once questioned as to whether or not The X Files was "thinking man's sci-fi." Yeah, for a stupid man, it is. This is nothing against X Files, because I really liked that show, before T1000 (AKA Richard Patrick's brother) showed up, of course. X Files, though, was pretty low-common-denominator stuff, and didn't really require a lot of thought to figure out what the hell was going on. It was still fun, nonetheless, but I would have to say that Trek long ago took the role of "thinking man's sci-fi" if ever a series deserved it.
Despite this proud history, nowadays Star Trek is not just a sci-fi fest that nerds wet themselves over, it's a sci-fi fest that nerds wet themselves over that's a piece of shit. This lousy situation has me wishing that Paramount would quit raping Roddenberry's corpse, cut their losses, and just let things die out already. Maybe in ten years or so do another movie at a time when people might be excited about the prospect of new Trek, maybe even craving it.
This, of course, won't happen. And I understand why; Paramount is in business to make money. Even if I can understand the pragmatism behind the drive to keep Trek on the air, I still think it sucks.
I really wish Paramount would give Trek a rest for the time being. After the most recent two series, we're not in a good place. Voyager, with the exception of the Holodoc and Seven of Nine when she first arrived (and no, not just because she was hot, but that was part of it), was total shit. Enterprise isn't much better. Like I said in that linked post, a couple of characters are cool, the rest of them are not. Besides, when one of the best characters is the hick, that oughta tell you a lot.
Star Trek, as a franchise, has lots of problems with it. One of the biggest, I've always felt, is Rick Berman, the man who took over after Gene Roddenberry died. Berman really doesn't give a shit about anything other than doing what he wants and what he likes. This was never more evident than with his comments one time about the atrocious opening theme of Enterprise. This fucking opening song is nearly universally reviled as being the worst piece of shit ever, anywhere, at any time. But will Berman do anything about it? No, because in his words, "I like it." Nevermind what might actually be pleasing to fans. If ol' fuckhead Berman likes it, it goes.
It isn't entirely Berman's fault, of course. Sure, it's real easy to pick on him, but there are plenty of other issues. Like the fact that Star Trek is fucking old. I mean, nearly 40 years. That's a long time for an entertainment franchise. Shit has been hashed, then rehashed, and then rehashed some more. There's only so much that you can do before you've run out of unique, interesting ideas, but they're trying to pretend to do it with a total of 10 movies and five TV series thus far.
That last set of figures points out another problem: overexposure. We've been bombarded with so much shit, with a good deal of it being actual shit (like, Voyager). Part of the problem there is that a lot of the overexposure has come well past Trek's prime. The franchise hit a peak in popularity back in '94 when The Next Generation was going off the air (at least as far as I've seen in my lifetime). I mean, even mainstream media was paying decent attention to Trek, which doesn't happen all too often. Liking Star Trek almost wasn't as nerdy for about six seconds.
Since '94, we've been hit with the last several seasons of Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and four movies. That's a decent amount in 9 years coming mostly from just one team.
Even though we'd still be close to where we are now, things wouldn't be so bad if not for poor execution. Take for instance the end of DS9. DS9 was decent for the first five years, even though it lost my interest for awhile, but then was pretty good the last two seasons. And how do they reward us? By wrapping up waaaaay too much shit (like a fucking war) in the last half hour of the series. This was followed by Sisko leaving his son, new wife, and unborn child behind so he could hit the pub with his buddies, the Prophets. Oh, yeah, and a bunch of other fucking people packed up and left the station, too. That disunity just left me with a real sour taste when I though of how Next Gen ended: with the last shot being the main cast sitting around a poker table playing cards. "All Good Things..." is how you end a fucking series, my friends. "What you leave behind" is not.
Okay, the lack of unity amongst the cast sorta makes sense if the rumors that they all hated eachother and wanted to get the fuck out of there was true. Still, it doesn't change the shitty pacing of things, nor does it excuse making Sisko look like a total dick, even if he was going to hang out with gods.
Speaking of bad endings, that brings us to Voyager's last episode. I liken this to sitting there being fucked in the ass for seven seasons, and then just as you're getting used to that unpleasant feeling, they shove a big juicy cock into your mouth for you to choke on.
Even though I mostly lost track of Voyager after a couple of seasons, I watched on occasion up to the last episode. Then there were people who were there for all seven fucking years. Seven years of watching this ship and crew trying to get back home. And how are we all rewarded? With a big fight against the Borg for most of the last episode, with the ship getting back to Earth at the very end of the episode, and then... We're done! No "welcome home" celebration, no getting an idea as to where the characters' lives will go now that they're back, nothing. Just a shot of the ship in orbit of Earth superimposed on an image of Berman giving you the finger, then the credits.
As another point of poor execution, let's talk about the Borg for a minute, and how Voyager ruined them. Remember how they Borg were once really scary, and you were like, "fuck, how they hell is the Enterprise going to get out of this one?" when they showed up? Then Voyager came along and totally pussified them, driving them so low as to bringing them to the level where they could be bargained with. Shit, thanks to Voyager, I almost feel that if the Borg walked into my office right now, I could fucking take them. Oh, yeah, then there's the whole "we rehabilitated Seven of Nine after years of being a Borg," which just made Picard look like a total cold-blooded killer in First Contact.
These are just a few of the lowlights, of course, but we might as well get Enterprise into the mix. I already mentioned some problems with the show in that earlier post (shitty, apathetic writers, lame characters, no concern for continuity, etc.), but one huge one, for me at least, was the whole fucking premise of the show. "A Star Trek prequel! Neat!" Not neat. Out of all the ideas I heard being thrown around for a new series back when Enterprise was in the planning stages, a prequel was the worst one. I hated the idea of going backward, when one of the principles of the whole goddamn franchise was about looking forward. And it wasn't just going backward, it was going backward in a manner that could potentially trample on all sorts of shit that was already well established. Plus, the dork in me wanted to see something further in the future just so we could see cool new shit, instead of a goddamn ship that doesn't even have shields. Makes me wanna polarize someone's hull plating, alright... Whatever the fuck that means.
Clearly, if Trek was going to continue, they had to move out of the 24th century. Three series set in the same time period had fucked the life out of that time period. But why the hell did that have to go back in time? This isn't a fucking Huey Lewis song, goddammit, no matter how much I happen to like Huey Lewis.
In the end, what all this amounts to is that no one cares about Trek anymore. They're burned out, they're fed up, they're gone. Yeah, there's some hard-core fans out there who still support the franchise. There are some people who will never leave, because they'll eat whatever shit Paramount shovels at them so long as it has Star Trek written on it.
This to me is just sad, that the venerated Trek saga has just become an old, abused whore. It's sad because Trek was more than what most people knew it as, namely, a sci-fi fest that nerds wet themselves over. Yes, the cool technology and the outer space shit is neat to all of us, but to me, Trek (the good parts of it, at least), has always been so much more.
Ask any dork why he likes Star Trek, and you'll probably get some variant of this: "It represents a positive view of the future of humanity!" God, I get so sick of that bullshit, overplayed, canned response. It's partly because of people like this (who are often at cons in pointy ears or a full-on Klingon getup, or, worse yet, fucking know the Klingon language which, yes, they have actually made up) that Trek has such a bad rep, one that people never get past.
Yes, the "positive view of the future" stuff is true - but that barely scratches the surface. Star Trek's roots are in the sixties, the time of the peak of the Cold War, Vietnam, Civil Rights, and what have you. A good deal of the original series, Next Gen, and even DS9 is pure social commentary. Each episode is more than just people in spandex running around space; each episode is like a mini-morality play. The show has always been more about that than being a sci-fi show; it's commentary which is merely packaged in the futuristic setting. Probably surprising to many is that I really don't like sci-fi as a genre, but Trek really appealed to me because it offered more than just spaceships and aliens.
Again, of course, even I get a hard on for phasers and warp cores. I'm pretentious, for sure, but not so pretentious that I won't cop to that fact. Fuck, I own theStar Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual; I know how warp drive is supposed to work. I couldn't run from that nerdiness even if I wanted to.
An entertainment writer once questioned as to whether or not The X Files was "thinking man's sci-fi." Yeah, for a stupid man, it is. This is nothing against X Files, because I really liked that show, before T1000 (AKA Richard Patrick's brother) showed up, of course. X Files, though, was pretty low-common-denominator stuff, and didn't really require a lot of thought to figure out what the hell was going on. It was still fun, nonetheless, but I would have to say that Trek long ago took the role of "thinking man's sci-fi" if ever a series deserved it.
Despite this proud history, nowadays Star Trek is not just a sci-fi fest that nerds wet themselves over, it's a sci-fi fest that nerds wet themselves over that's a piece of shit. This lousy situation has me wishing that Paramount would quit raping Roddenberry's corpse, cut their losses, and just let things die out already. Maybe in ten years or so do another movie at a time when people might be excited about the prospect of new Trek, maybe even craving it.
This, of course, won't happen. And I understand why; Paramount is in business to make money. Even if I can understand the pragmatism behind the drive to keep Trek on the air, I still think it sucks.
I know that it won't fly with anybody, but I don't even need fucking statistics or tests to tell me that things like the Texas program is a stupid idea.
Standardized testing as the basis for education is a bad fucking idea, and I know this from experience. In high school, I was in the International Baccalaureate program. It was usually referred to by its acronym, IB, although that was often expanded into things like "It Blows." That oughta give you an idea as to what the program was like.
IB was a lot like AP, only with a bunch of extra bullshit. The program was more structured and basically ran all four years of high school. In addition to classes and shit we had to do 250 hours of community service (mandatory volunteer work) and a huge fucking research paper at the end. Finally, we had to take several tests similar to the AP exams in our last couple of years.
IB pretty much stifled any sort of creativity or desire to learn, because we became ultra-focused on the IB exams. I can't even count the number of times that a teacher was trying to cover some material, or was thinking about covering some material, and a student asked "Is this going to be on the IB exam?" If the answer was "No," we either convinced the teacher to change the lesson plan or we just ended up ignoring what we were taught since we had exam-related shit that we needed to get down.
This isn't because we were stupid or lazy. Okay, we were lazy, but we were still the "smart kids." I'm not trying to be too elitist here, but there were some fucking bright kids in there, along with some medium-smart kids (where I could be found), and then some kids who actually were kinda fucking dumb. Anyway, the problem was that we knew that we had to do well on the IB exams; passing those was paramount. As such, we ended up learning just for the exam, whether by design or student selectivity in what he studied.
To this very day, I have trouble (and sorry for the cliche) thinking outside the box. Yeah, I know, that goes for a lot of people. But it doesn't really carry well in the engineering field. I can trace my difficulties when it comes to problem solving and creativity back to IB, when there was nothing beyond the exam with its one single right answer to be prepared for.
Something similar happens with these stupid programs like TAAS. The results of those tests are so important for funding, recognition, and whatnot that teachers end up doing what our IB teachers did - they taught students what they needed to know so they could pass that exam. Students learn nothing more, and nothing less. This isn't just a guess on my part, either. Here in Colorado we have a similar program, the CSAP tests. I've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggests teachers teach material designed solely for higher test scores, leaving them with little or no time to teach anything beyond the CSAPs.
In doing this, of course, exams scores do tend to go up. Of course they do; how could they not, when teachers were gearing the curriculum specifically for taking that test? The real question remains, are those kids any better off, or will they be any more prepared to meet real-world challenges?
I contest that those kids are no better off, and in fact, they are probably worse off. Shit that's on standardized tests is just not applicable to real-life situations. Focusing so heavily on the exams detracts from other things the students could be learning. Things that could be truly enriching, and helping to foster a love of learning. Standardized testing closes off an entire world, because that test becomes your world.
The problem, though, is those rising test scores. They look good on paper, and that's good for the politicians. As such, these programs are allowed to continue. Unfortunately, though, the numbers don't really mean anything when you look at true child development. Unfortunately, this is yet another instance where politics takes precedent over improving people's lives.
Standardized testing as the basis for education is a bad fucking idea, and I know this from experience. In high school, I was in the International Baccalaureate program. It was usually referred to by its acronym, IB, although that was often expanded into things like "It Blows." That oughta give you an idea as to what the program was like.
IB was a lot like AP, only with a bunch of extra bullshit. The program was more structured and basically ran all four years of high school. In addition to classes and shit we had to do 250 hours of community service (mandatory volunteer work) and a huge fucking research paper at the end. Finally, we had to take several tests similar to the AP exams in our last couple of years.
IB pretty much stifled any sort of creativity or desire to learn, because we became ultra-focused on the IB exams. I can't even count the number of times that a teacher was trying to cover some material, or was thinking about covering some material, and a student asked "Is this going to be on the IB exam?" If the answer was "No," we either convinced the teacher to change the lesson plan or we just ended up ignoring what we were taught since we had exam-related shit that we needed to get down.
This isn't because we were stupid or lazy. Okay, we were lazy, but we were still the "smart kids." I'm not trying to be too elitist here, but there were some fucking bright kids in there, along with some medium-smart kids (where I could be found), and then some kids who actually were kinda fucking dumb. Anyway, the problem was that we knew that we had to do well on the IB exams; passing those was paramount. As such, we ended up learning just for the exam, whether by design or student selectivity in what he studied.
To this very day, I have trouble (and sorry for the cliche) thinking outside the box. Yeah, I know, that goes for a lot of people. But it doesn't really carry well in the engineering field. I can trace my difficulties when it comes to problem solving and creativity back to IB, when there was nothing beyond the exam with its one single right answer to be prepared for.
Something similar happens with these stupid programs like TAAS. The results of those tests are so important for funding, recognition, and whatnot that teachers end up doing what our IB teachers did - they taught students what they needed to know so they could pass that exam. Students learn nothing more, and nothing less. This isn't just a guess on my part, either. Here in Colorado we have a similar program, the CSAP tests. I've seen plenty of anecdotal evidence that suggests teachers teach material designed solely for higher test scores, leaving them with little or no time to teach anything beyond the CSAPs.
In doing this, of course, exams scores do tend to go up. Of course they do; how could they not, when teachers were gearing the curriculum specifically for taking that test? The real question remains, are those kids any better off, or will they be any more prepared to meet real-world challenges?
I contest that those kids are no better off, and in fact, they are probably worse off. Shit that's on standardized tests is just not applicable to real-life situations. Focusing so heavily on the exams detracts from other things the students could be learning. Things that could be truly enriching, and helping to foster a love of learning. Standardized testing closes off an entire world, because that test becomes your world.
The problem, though, is those rising test scores. They look good on paper, and that's good for the politicians. As such, these programs are allowed to continue. Unfortunately, though, the numbers don't really mean anything when you look at true child development. Unfortunately, this is yet another instance where politics takes precedent over improving people's lives.
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Did I shave my legs get a Master's for this?
So I spent the day today helping lay insulation in someone's house. The obvious question is: What the fuck does that have to do with Electrical Engineering? The obvious answer is: nothing.
Yeah, things are still slow at work, so one guy who does the same work I'm (maybe someday going to be) doing decided to take the day off to insulate his house, and he tapped me to help. Since they were willing to give me a paid day off at work, I was like, what the hell. I'll do it.
Mistake.
If you've ever laid insulation in a house, you know how badly the process sucks. If you've never done it, don't. And don't contract any of your friends to help, either, because you won't have friends for long if you do.
Okay, it wasn't all that horrible. I just rather would have been sitting on my ass at my desk instead. My job today was to feed the insulation spraying machine with insulation while my co-worker was upstairs actually spraying the shit. So I'm sitting there in the cold garage with a runny nose and fogged up goggles staring down 40 packages of fiberglass insulation. 40 packages might not seem like so much. Except that it is. As if just the sheer number of packages wasn't enough, they pack this shit tighter than a 12-year-old girl. So, when you split open a package of insulation, it accordions out to about 2-3 times its original volume.
Then there's the fact that fiberglass is about the most evil fucking shit ever created. Where the hell are the HVAC engineers? Why can't they come up with something less fucked up than GLASS in FIBER form that's effective and cheap as a home insulator? Couldn't they just make the whole goddamn house out of Thermos or something? I mean, even with some safety glasses and a surgeon's mask, that fiberglass shit is bound to find its way into your eyes and onto your skin at some point. This left me, for awhile, feeling a bunch of little pricks on various parts of my body. And for once those pricks weren't the penises of 10-year-old boys.
About halfway through, I realized the guy would probably take me out to dinner, so it wouldn't be that bad. And I decided immediately that we would be going out forKroff sushi dinner. There's this place here in town that I've been wanting to hit ever since I moved in, and so I decided to take advantage of things if given the opportunity.
So, yeah, I got paid for doing something nowhere near related to my job, and I got a free sushi meal out of it, so it's okay. Still, though, it's only adding to my feelings of being fucking worthless at my job, which already puts me where I was at my last two jobs. So at least I've been here before. As I've been bullshitting for weeks, however, things should pick up at some point and you'll eventually hear me complaining about how I'm working too much and feeling a little too useful. In essence.
This also had one other intangible benefit, as it shows that my job has one thing I love: scheduling flexibility. Since I've been showing up between like 10 and 11 AM most days with no one giving a fuck, I was pretty sure things would be okay on this front. Today's activities cemented that feeling.
Oh, and hey, I think I totally deserve an award for slipping in not one, but two pedophile jokes into this post.
Yeah, things are still slow at work, so one guy who does the same work I'm (maybe someday going to be) doing decided to take the day off to insulate his house, and he tapped me to help. Since they were willing to give me a paid day off at work, I was like, what the hell. I'll do it.
Mistake.
If you've ever laid insulation in a house, you know how badly the process sucks. If you've never done it, don't. And don't contract any of your friends to help, either, because you won't have friends for long if you do.
Okay, it wasn't all that horrible. I just rather would have been sitting on my ass at my desk instead. My job today was to feed the insulation spraying machine with insulation while my co-worker was upstairs actually spraying the shit. So I'm sitting there in the cold garage with a runny nose and fogged up goggles staring down 40 packages of fiberglass insulation. 40 packages might not seem like so much. Except that it is. As if just the sheer number of packages wasn't enough, they pack this shit tighter than a 12-year-old girl. So, when you split open a package of insulation, it accordions out to about 2-3 times its original volume.
Then there's the fact that fiberglass is about the most evil fucking shit ever created. Where the hell are the HVAC engineers? Why can't they come up with something less fucked up than GLASS in FIBER form that's effective and cheap as a home insulator? Couldn't they just make the whole goddamn house out of Thermos or something? I mean, even with some safety glasses and a surgeon's mask, that fiberglass shit is bound to find its way into your eyes and onto your skin at some point. This left me, for awhile, feeling a bunch of little pricks on various parts of my body. And for once those pricks weren't the penises of 10-year-old boys.
About halfway through, I realized the guy would probably take me out to dinner, so it wouldn't be that bad. And I decided immediately that we would be going out for
So, yeah, I got paid for doing something nowhere near related to my job, and I got a free sushi meal out of it, so it's okay. Still, though, it's only adding to my feelings of being fucking worthless at my job, which already puts me where I was at my last two jobs. So at least I've been here before. As I've been bullshitting for weeks, however, things should pick up at some point and you'll eventually hear me complaining about how I'm working too much and feeling a little too useful. In essence.
This also had one other intangible benefit, as it shows that my job has one thing I love: scheduling flexibility. Since I've been showing up between like 10 and 11 AM most days with no one giving a fuck, I was pretty sure things would be okay on this front. Today's activities cemented that feeling.
Oh, and hey, I think I totally deserve an award for slipping in not one, but two pedophile jokes into this post.
I find it amusing that someone showed up in my referral log as being from "newchurch.edu" while doing a Google search for "hard core pussy fucking.'
I say this with no ego, but I think I've gotta have one of the most interesting/disturbing referral logs out there. I definitely need to submit some of those searches to this site, which was suggested by a reader.
I say this with no ego, but I think I've gotta have one of the most interesting/disturbing referral logs out there. I definitely need to submit some of those searches to this site, which was suggested by a reader.
Wednesday, December 03, 2003
Here's a pointless Google search:
+"barbie doll" +"twin sister" +doll +list
Couldn't you just buy two of the same Barbie and achieve the same effect? Oh, well, I suppose it could be fraternal twins, or twin brother and sister. But where's the fun in that? They should be identical twin sisters. And hot. And not dolls. And... Um, forget it. You know where this is going.
+"barbie doll" +"twin sister" +doll +list
Couldn't you just buy two of the same Barbie and achieve the same effect? Oh, well, I suppose it could be fraternal twins, or twin brother and sister. But where's the fun in that? They should be identical twin sisters. And hot. And not dolls. And... Um, forget it. You know where this is going.
Here's yet another 'blog that linked me somewhat recently: EvilChristian's blog. This one didn't show up on Link Cosmos recently since the link to FE is now buried somewhere in his archive, and the LC will only tell me about front-page links. But fuck it, we'll link 'im anyway.
So, yeah, sorry for all these late link-backs. I don't know why I'm apologizing, since it's not like I'm obligated to do this, I just like to do it since I'm a nice guy. Okay, I'm not a nice guy, but oh well, I do it anyway. I've been A) lazy or B) busy the past month, as some of you know. And, yes, more lazy than busy, but for once I've got, or had, actual shit going on, so quit riding me unless if you're planning on migrating to 'riding' in the happy fun sexual way.
So, yeah, sorry for all these late link-backs. I don't know why I'm apologizing, since it's not like I'm obligated to do this, I just like to do it since I'm a nice guy. Okay, I'm not a nice guy, but oh well, I do it anyway. I've been A) lazy or B) busy the past month, as some of you know. And, yes, more lazy than busy, but for once I've got, or had, actual shit going on, so quit riding me unless if you're planning on migrating to 'riding' in the happy fun sexual way.
This is just fucking stupid.
I'm real sure that when GTA:VC says "Kill the Haitians," the game isn't implying "Kill the Haitians [the group of which we're currently fighting]" but instead really means "Kill the Haitians [every last one of their kind, no matter where on the globe they may be]."
I'm real sure that when GTA:VC says "Kill the Haitians," the game isn't implying "Kill the Haitians [the group of which we're currently fighting]" but instead really means "Kill the Haitians [every last one of their kind, no matter where on the globe they may be]."
After the whole master/slave bullshit from last week, BBspot has come up with a great list entitled Top 11 Other Computer Terms Banned by Los Angeles County which includes some suggested replacements.
A post over at IHNL reminded me that it was time to go check for next year's Demotivators.
These are great for anyone who's pissed off like me, anyone who hates those stupid fucking motivational posters, and disaffected college students. The 2004 collection is pretty good, which is cool since the last few years have been kinda lame. Amongst others from this year and years past, I think I really need to get "Power" and put it up in my office.
As a bonus, they're re-releasing the calendar from their first year, which is fucking neat. Time to finally get on that shit. Or not.
These are great for anyone who's pissed off like me, anyone who hates those stupid fucking motivational posters, and disaffected college students. The 2004 collection is pretty good, which is cool since the last few years have been kinda lame. Amongst others from this year and years past, I think I really need to get "Power" and put it up in my office.
As a bonus, they're re-releasing the calendar from their first year, which is fucking neat. Time to finally get on that shit. Or not.
Oh, and fuck, I knew there was at least one more 'blog that had linked me but wasn't showing up in Technorati's Link Cosmos. Good thing I've got my trusty SIteMeter referral log as a backup to help me obsessively check for new inbound links.
Be sure and check out Indiscretions, a great 'blog with fun post titles like "Why I Feel As If I'm Being Anally Raped With a Steel Rod Right About Now."
Be sure and check out Indiscretions, a great 'blog with fun post titles like "Why I Feel As If I'm Being Anally Raped With a Steel Rod Right About Now."
Someone got here doing a search for the following:
the dirty part of love hina never publish and uncensored
Okay, so there's a decent chance that this guy is just looking for some LH hentai doujinshi or something. That, or he's just confused, because "the dirty part" really isn't very specific. I mean, the whole LH series is fairly dirty. Sure, it's not Onegai Twins dirty, but the LH manga is the only place so far where I've seen a line like "Get your face out of my ass!"
If this is something legit, however, I NEED to know what the fuck it is and where I can find it. No pathetic LH fanboy such as myself could ever go on living not having seen some material that's out there. Well, with the exception of the last OVA, which I own but is still shrinkwrapped because I don't want to see the end of the series and have it be over.
Yes, I know I have problems.
the dirty part of love hina never publish and uncensored
Okay, so there's a decent chance that this guy is just looking for some LH hentai doujinshi or something. That, or he's just confused, because "the dirty part" really isn't very specific. I mean, the whole LH series is fairly dirty. Sure, it's not Onegai Twins dirty, but the LH manga is the only place so far where I've seen a line like "Get your face out of my ass!"
If this is something legit, however, I NEED to know what the fuck it is and where I can find it. No pathetic LH fanboy such as myself could ever go on living not having seen some material that's out there. Well, with the exception of the last OVA, which I own but is still shrinkwrapped because I don't want to see the end of the series and have it be over.
Yes, I know I have problems.
Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Okay, so it's been way too long since I've acknowledged all those people who have linked to this piece of garbage, so we'd better get to it before I completely give up on doing this.
This guy is not taking any shit from you.
So anyway... is a 'blog run by someone who hates people, and as we all know, I am so down with that. Also, don't worry if you see the 'blog changing colors - it did that to me, too.
There are monsters to be found at fidgeting wildly.
Despite the fact that she's too old for me, Mary's 'blog Naked Furniture is good times. In case if you're wondering about the "too old" comment, you can check this out.
As always, thanks to those people who linked me, and sorry you're now associated in some way with this 'blog.
This guy is not taking any shit from you.
So anyway... is a 'blog run by someone who hates people, and as we all know, I am so down with that. Also, don't worry if you see the 'blog changing colors - it did that to me, too.
There are monsters to be found at fidgeting wildly.
Despite the fact that she's too old for me, Mary's 'blog Naked Furniture is good times. In case if you're wondering about the "too old" comment, you can check this out.
As always, thanks to those people who linked me, and sorry you're now associated in some way with this 'blog.
I am so fucking pissed off right now. You're probably gonna be pissed once you get finished with this post, so you've been warned. Two reasons for why I'm pissed. Why you'll be pissed will soon become apparent.
First off: fuck Mozilla, fuck Java, and fuck Flash. More of the latter two, but Mozilla deserves some fucking. I have three versions of Mozilla installed on my machine: 1.3, 1.5, 1.6alpha. I cannot get a version of the browser that works with both Java and Flash. 1.3 works with Java, but not Flash. 1.5 and 1.6a work with Flash but not Java.
God, I hate any site that uses Flash for its interface. Amusing games and animations are okay, but your UI in Flash is fucking bullshit. Why don't you just find a way to make your entire site out of PowerPoint, you dick?
Fuck Java. Java's a stupid language. Portable code, neat idea. Still stupid. Fuck OO programming.
Second reason: if you do a search for "man fucks dog," guess who's number one? That's right, Fuck Everything. How do I know this? I know this, because Tyler knows this. Actually, I know this because SiteMeter knows this.
I'm not actually pissed for the reason you might think. Initially, its disappointing that I get so many hits for people looking for bestiality porn, because I really wish those people were finding their way here for political wit and insight. When I realize that there is no wit or insight here, I get over it. Also, I don't mind the dog fuckers like I do the pedophiles. In an opinion that's sure to scare everyone off, I'm not really bothered by people who are into sex with animals. Even if it's disgusting to 99.9999999% of the population, bestiality is fine by me as long as you're not hurting the animal and not forcing anyone else to do it. So fuck a dog, fuck a goat, I don't care. Fuck a child, and you should die. This, too, is probably a post for another time, where I will lose more readers than I just lost.
No, the reason why I'm pissed off is because initially, the post that turned up in the Google results was the one where I quoted the "man-on-dog enthusiast Rick Santorum" line from Al Franken's book. Do you know how fucking cool that was, to have people searching for men fucking dogs, and the first thing they see is Rick Santorum's name? Maybe it's just me, and I know that it didn't really do anything, but I still took some pride in it. Which says a lot about me. Now, though, I'm still number one, but it's not the Santorum post that shows up in the results. God effing damn it.
So, yeah. Fuck Mozilla, fuck Google, fuck Flash, fuck OO programming. Fuck everything, while we're at it.
And now, for your reading pleasure, are some dog sex related jokes:
"Red rocket! Red rocket!"
- South Park
"So the vet tells me that I have to take our dog's temperature rectally. The problem is, you really need two hands just to steady the dog. So what I did is I tied the thermometer to my dick with a rubber band, freeing up my hands. So I position myself behind her, and... No, no, the dick doesn't go inside, just the thermometer! So anyway, I'm doing this, and my wife gets home. I tell her 'Honey, I think the dog's pregnant' and she says 'Yeah, keep fuckin' her!'"
- Robert Schimmel
"You know what else I'm getting sick of? Guys who put music on their outgoing answering machine message. Since this guy's busy in the basement jacking off his dog, I have to listen to sub-standard music."
- George Carlin
"Uh, sorry dude. David Cross is a dog fucker. You've just been Crossed my man."
- David Cross
First off: fuck Mozilla, fuck Java, and fuck Flash. More of the latter two, but Mozilla deserves some fucking. I have three versions of Mozilla installed on my machine: 1.3, 1.5, 1.6alpha. I cannot get a version of the browser that works with both Java and Flash. 1.3 works with Java, but not Flash. 1.5 and 1.6a work with Flash but not Java.
God, I hate any site that uses Flash for its interface. Amusing games and animations are okay, but your UI in Flash is fucking bullshit. Why don't you just find a way to make your entire site out of PowerPoint, you dick?
Fuck Java. Java's a stupid language. Portable code, neat idea. Still stupid. Fuck OO programming.
Second reason: if you do a search for "man fucks dog," guess who's number one? That's right, Fuck Everything. How do I know this? I know this, because Tyler knows this. Actually, I know this because SiteMeter knows this.
I'm not actually pissed for the reason you might think. Initially, its disappointing that I get so many hits for people looking for bestiality porn, because I really wish those people were finding their way here for political wit and insight. When I realize that there is no wit or insight here, I get over it. Also, I don't mind the dog fuckers like I do the pedophiles. In an opinion that's sure to scare everyone off, I'm not really bothered by people who are into sex with animals. Even if it's disgusting to 99.9999999% of the population, bestiality is fine by me as long as you're not hurting the animal and not forcing anyone else to do it. So fuck a dog, fuck a goat, I don't care. Fuck a child, and you should die. This, too, is probably a post for another time, where I will lose more readers than I just lost.
No, the reason why I'm pissed off is because initially, the post that turned up in the Google results was the one where I quoted the "man-on-dog enthusiast Rick Santorum" line from Al Franken's book. Do you know how fucking cool that was, to have people searching for men fucking dogs, and the first thing they see is Rick Santorum's name? Maybe it's just me, and I know that it didn't really do anything, but I still took some pride in it. Which says a lot about me. Now, though, I'm still number one, but it's not the Santorum post that shows up in the results. God effing damn it.
So, yeah. Fuck Mozilla, fuck Google, fuck Flash, fuck OO programming. Fuck everything, while we're at it.
And now, for your reading pleasure, are some dog sex related jokes:
"Red rocket! Red rocket!"
- South Park
"So the vet tells me that I have to take our dog's temperature rectally. The problem is, you really need two hands just to steady the dog. So what I did is I tied the thermometer to my dick with a rubber band, freeing up my hands. So I position myself behind her, and... No, no, the dick doesn't go inside, just the thermometer! So anyway, I'm doing this, and my wife gets home. I tell her 'Honey, I think the dog's pregnant' and she says 'Yeah, keep fuckin' her!'"
- Robert Schimmel
"You know what else I'm getting sick of? Guys who put music on their outgoing answering machine message. Since this guy's busy in the basement jacking off his dog, I have to listen to sub-standard music."
- George Carlin
"Uh, sorry dude. David Cross is a dog fucker. You've just been Crossed my man."
- David Cross
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