So today I made out this list of things that I wanted to tackle in my .plans. Subjects that I think I can write a few pages on, and mostly stuff that other people wouldn’t think of, or at least wouldn’t admit to.
But I left it on my desk at work. D’oh!
In lieu of the one of the other things I was going to talk about, I’ll talk about forgetting.
I forget alot of stuff. Usually only when it’s important for me to remember it. If it has no bearing on the events at hand, ask me and I’ll know it. I’m a wealth of useless information.
But back to the subject at hand… forgetting.
My main question here is “How far are you willing to forgive forgetfulness in others?”
Me personally, I usually forgive until the cows come home… and usually for farther after that too. But some situations, where more than just the forgotten fact may be on the line, how much should a person be willing to forgive?
I haven’t figured that one out yet, but I know it has to do with another theory that I have had for a long time: the difference between an ‘excuse’ and a ‘reason’.
If someone has a ‘reason’ for forgetting, like, “my father died”, or “there was an emergency and I got stuck at work and in the crisis it slipped my mind to call”, it’s much better and easier to forgive than an ‘excuse’ like “I lost track of the time” or “I just forgot”.
I guess it boils down to that I’d be willing to go that extra mile for a ‘reason’, where an ‘excuse’ may just be a waste of time. But in either case, honesty is better than anything.
Tag: work
8 October 1999
Moments of Personal Shame.
Everyone has them, even if you don’t know what they are.
It’s those moments where you are deeply embarrassed, and even though no one saw it and no one will know, you still somehow feel ashamed.
Let me give you a quick example. One day at work I was feeling uncomfortable, couldn’t figure out why. Just kept shifting in my chair, getting up and walking around, fidgeting. When I got home that evening, changing out of my work clothes I looked down and saw that I had put my boxer shorts on backwards. So I stood there looking down at the tag sticking up out of the front of my shorts, embarrassed.
That is a moment of personal shame.
Now to the meat, and another moment of personal shame.
Last night, a Thursday, I went out for the usual evening: to Rio Bravo for drinks and food before something else (if something else happens). And so I’m there, I have a couple of beers and a couple of shots. I’ll admit it, I got drunk. But an hour of not drinking and a glass or two of water and I felt fine.
So I’m in the car heading home, totally okay. Until the last drink I had, a shot – an Oatmeal Cookie to be exact, just must have hit some particularly sensitive spot of my gullet. I quickly pull off the highway and into an office park, but I don’t get the door open, and… yep, you guessed it, puked in the car. On the window and door.
Well, I open the door and most everything spills onto the ground, and a quick wipe down with a few tissues cleans up most of the mess. This is not the moment of personal shame.
I drive the rest of the way home, put my clothes in a plastic bag for washing tonight, get a shower, drink a couple glasses of water, take an aspirin and hit the sack.
This morning, I get up (late) and get ready for work. I head out to the car. Mine is the only car in the parking lot, everyone else is already gone to work. I open the car door, and look at the mess. But it really isn’t too bad. I head back in, get some paper towels, cup of water and the air freshener. A few minutes later and its all clean. Still smells a little, but that’ll go in a day or two. This is not the moment of personal shame.
I head to work. Stopping at the gas station for gas, I get a carwash, and about a dozen of those little green trees for the car. All signs of the incident appear to be gone, or going. I get to work and as I get out of the car I see, just under the edge of the seat, a small spot that I missed. This is it.
I cleaned everything up, and if I didn’t write this page, no one would have ever known about this. But seeing that small spot on the floor board, I felt it. Embarrassed. A Moment of Personal Shame.
So now I have given you two of my moments, and believe me, this is only the tip of the iceberg. But personal shame can be a good thing, you can learn alot. I always double check my underwear when I put it on, and I won’t be drinking Oatmeal Cookies anymore.
Have a good day. And don’t laugh at me too hard. 🙂
25 February 1999
WARNING: Job rant to follow.
I work for a software company. I work in tech support. (No. I have never had someone ask me about their coffee cup holder. It’s not that kind of support.) I deal with a GUI Development Software package, and I support the programmers who use it.
So all today I have sat in a training class on the newest features of our latest release of one of our products (all of which will be integrated into all of our products). And I’m in awe. With all these new tools and functions, knowledgeable developers will be able to do some really cool stuff. And not only that, they will be able to do large amounts of work in a short period of time. If someone takes a good month or two and develops a nice set of templates for our product that use all the little features we have made available, the programmer will be able to do a one time pass through of the automatic GUI building procedure and be left with only minimal changes, those minor things we have yet to incorporate, to make before they have a final product. They just need to sit down, read all the instructions and then they’ll be set.
So why am I really not looking forward to all this?
It’s that last line. It turns out that 98.5% of all programmers don’t feel they need to read instructions. They know they basics, and they should be able to “feel out” the rest of it. Boy, is that a complete load of bullshit.
When our new product comes out, I will spend the next 3 to 4 months “recovering” people from their “feeling out” the new features. People will manages to irrevocably delete entire projects without making backups and blame me. People will accidentally invalidate data and even the Windows registry playing with things that they have no idea what they are doing, and in the end they will blame me. Every step, every tool, every piece of information they will ever need is within their reach. And each one of them will throw it in the trash because they are “programmers” and they don’t need “handholding”, they aren’t “children”. But they will cry. Each and every one of them will cry when I explain, “Well, you shouldn’t have done that. It says so in the manual.”
So if you ever learn anything from me and my postings here it is this… RTFM. Read The Fucking Manual. Every page. Every word. Every step of every tutorial and example. And don’t blame the support guy for your mistakes. He’s just doing his job.
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Theater Review:
none.
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Today’s Song:
Overkill by Lazlo Bane. This is originally a Men At Work song, but I picked up this CD from Lazlo Bane based on someone telling me that if I liked the original I would love the remake. Well, I loved the original, so I snagged 11 Transistor by Lazlo Bane and popped it in the CD player. Man, I was totally blown away by this version of the song. Where the original was kind of bubble gum poppy like most of Men At Work’s stuff, this version is smoldering fire. It builds up, starting with one man and a guitar, and ends with Collin Hay himself guesting in the final verse. Truly worth my money, ’cause the rest of the CD isn’t too bad either.
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Today’s Movie:
For some odd reason, I’ve had quotes from Real Genius floating through my head all day, so I’m making it my movie of the day. If you have never seen this Val Kilmer classic, you must. Go to the video store now and rent it. Some of you might have to wait because someone else might get to it first, but that’s okay. Go tomorrow. And the next day. And everyday until you get it. And Kent, stop playing with yourself.
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TV Highlight:
(sarcasm)
RERUNS!! I love it when I get to see shows that I’ve already seen, especially if I have seen them 2 or 3 times before. But one step even better is when they preempt reruns so they can air some movie (edited for television) that made hundreds of millions in the theater guaranteeing that 99% of their audience has already seen it, and probably rented it too. Titanic will probably be a good one to run on TV (over 2 nights even!!) because NO ONE has seen that one. And NO ONE has rented or bought it yet. I mean, can you imagine all of the people (all 6 or 7 of them) who will finally be able to see Titanic!!!
(/sarcasm)
20 February 1999
Nothing worthwhile was ever easy.
That’s a great quote. I’ve always liked it, and I see its truth. But does it mean that if something is hard, it must be worthwhile? I met this girl, you see. I met her on New Year’s Day, but then she had to go back to school. I liked her alot, but the distance between us and a few other things were killing me. I’ve always believed that a relationship, while it may actually be work should never FEEL like work. The work you do for a relationship should feel good, you should never mind what you have to do. So when things started feeling like work, and I start censoring what I said, I ended things.
Then I meet this other girl. I already knew her, but it was like turning around. Bang. There she was. I like hanging out with her, everything seems so cool. I’d love to hang out with her more, but I get this feeling, and she has told me, that she isn’t totally over the last guy she dated. I want so much to help her, but here is another quote I heard once that I also see the truth of: “You can’t hire contractors for a broken heart, it’s a Do-It-Yourself job.” You can talk and listen, advise and sympathize, but in the end, only the person with the broken heart can know when to move on. When they have healed enough to dare again. And therein lies my problem… I like this girl, and while I’m not looking to get married, I’ve never been one to just “date”. But I’m afraid to get too close for fear she isn’t ready and I know she doesn’t want to get too close for the same reason, but I can’t help but want to get closer.
“Nothing worthwhile was ever easy.”
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Theater Review:
Varsity Blues. It’s a high school football movie. That just about covers it. But I have to say, it’s done really well. At the end of the movie, during the final game, I was on the edge of my seat. I really got caught up in the emotions of the situation. I have to give this movie a thumbs up.
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Today’s Song:
“If I Can’t Change Your Mind” by Sugar. In a bizarre sort of way, this has to do with everything I said above. The song rocks, but it’s the lyrics that bring me back to it again and again.
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Today’s Movie:
Total Recall. I got this on DVD. It’s just a good movie because sometimes, don’t you just wish you were someone else only pretending to be in your current life and that actually you were part of something bigger, something better, something.. important. I know I do sometimes… not all the time, but just sometimes.
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TV Highlight:
It’s been here before and it’ll probably be here again, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This show is still one of the better things on television. If you don’t watch it already, you should.
4 July 1998
We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We’re going to live on! We’re going to survive! Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!
Sorry, had to do it. Today is the 4th of July. Meant to watch “Born on the 4th of July” the other night, but I missed it. Now I think I’ll have to rent it.
Lots of little things going on ’round here… nothing to fantastic though. I start work on Monday. I got tired of sitting on my ass at home while unemployed, but now that I have a job… I don’t wanna go, I wanna stay at home and sit on my ass.
Ever get one of those weeks where you sleep alot, but you don’t seem to be getting any rest? I’m having one.
I’m thinking of redesigning my whole page here… the front anyway… making it a gate to all my other stuff… and linking the pages together better… now that I’m at Xoom, I can make subdirectories, and if you have ever made a webpage before you know how much subdirs help organize the mess.
Well, I still have that rant in the wings… but I’m gonna hold off until I get a chance to properly write it up, when I come home angry from work one day next week… :p
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Theater Review: Black Dog. This is a gem. Patrick Swayze, Meat Loaf, Randy Travis, and a mythical truck driver road legend of the, you guessed it, “Black Dog”. This is not a movie to see alone. Take friends who know how to throw a good one-liner MST3K style and you will have a blast. My personal best was finding ways to work in every one of Meat Loaf’s songs into his scenes, and I almost didn’t work in one of his most famous, Bat Out Of Hell, but he returned in the end (since he is one of the bad guys) and presented the opportunity as one of the actors says “What was that?” after getting rammed by Meat with a truck, “That’s a BAT OUT OF HELL, baby!!” This was a sad, sad movie… we were able to work in all of Patrick’s movies too. Not to mention all the Smokey and the Bandit jokes flying. I’m glad I only payed a dollar to see it, because in the sarcastic words of Kelly, “This is the best movie ever!”
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Today’s Song: First Cool Hive by Moby. It’s on the Scream soundtrack and they used it in some of the early previews for the 5th Element. It’s just a groovin’ tune.
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Today’s Movie: A Clockwork Orange. This is a sick, disguesting, demented film. But I love it anyway. And with Warner Bros. re-releasing new digitally mastered versions of movies for their 75th, I’ll be able to get a new copy of this (mine being worn out of course, I bought it previously viewed).
2 July 1998
Hrmm… I’ve got that rant waiting to go up but I think I’m gonna hold off for now…
I’ve been making alot of progress on my web page… the Pavilion is looking better (graphics still need a little work)… and I’ve been working privately on my North 5 page… but until I can iron out my new work schedule and all that I’m not putting too much into it. But I will.
Short .plan today… this weekend (or next week after work) I’ll rant anew.
I do have a new section that will appear periodically, but will mostly remain empty…
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Theater Review: Armageddon (or as pronounced by a friend of mine, Ar-Mega-Don… he must be fighting Godzilla). This movie kicks some serious ass. If you saw Deep Impact then you know the plot, only without the underground caves to “save humanity”. In DI they had quite a long time before the comet would hit and they trained and stuff. In Armageddon they get 18 days. And I still hold to my original “before viewing” opinion of these 2 movies… DI had better plot and character developement, but Armageddon was a wild ride with better effects and action, and it wasn’t as much of a downer as DI. Armageddon has you cheering at points, but DI never let you get out of the “we’re all doomed” funk until the happy speech at the end. But back to the movie at hand… Armageddon just kicked ass… it was a ride… edge-of-your-seat, eyes-plastered-open film. See it on the big screen in full Dolby Digital Sound… it’s worth it at twice the price.
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Today’s Song: How Soon Is Now by too many people to name. I borrowed some CD’s from people and some of my own and listened to a bunch of different versions of this song, and it’s all good. First there is The Smiths, the original… then I had the Love Spit Love version from the Craft soundtrack… and there is a version by Everclear on compliation CD that I can’t recall the name of at the moment. I know there are more but I just can’t put them all down in my head. Every version of that song is cool.
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Today’s Movie: No movie today… I saw Armageddon last night, what more do you want from me?!?!