Rant

I now have 72 channels, ranging from news, sports, human interest, travel, cooking, learning, and not-too-recent movies. It takes me 20 minutes to flip through them all, comprehend which channel I’m watching, and discern why I really don’t want to watch that channel at that second. I just spent the last two hours trying to reaclimate myself to cable. I have a headache. I can feel my attention span shortening, my life wasting away, and a strange desire to buy airwick air freshener. Things have changed somewhat in the time I’ve been away from cable. News is now NEWS, DAMNIT! “News” is the presentation of current goings-on, possibly with human interest stories and some weird stuff to give flavor. NEWS, DAMNIT involves 3-4 blonde anchorpersons, a crawl going across the bottom of the screen, a rotating “FOX NEWS” banner in the lower corner, and snazzy graphics proclaiming the latest UPDATE regarding the president’s digestion or Alan Greenspan’s incontinence. ...

There are few experiences to equal being at work at 8 o’clock at night replying to email from your boss’s boss, explaining why your crack team of developers didn’t deliver on the function your reported was “done” two days earlier. You know what? I take it back. I’m GLAD I got her fired; we’ll be lucky if she’s the last, given how cavalier everyone’s working these days. So yeah, here we are, knee deep in code, with my normal unitized team, decomposed into two halves, each working on a significant chunk of work. I had a meeting, told them deliver me three things in 4 weeks: Code, Running unit tests @ 80% coverage, and Documentation. ...

…no amount of money can make you enjoy a job you don’t like. I’ve bellyached to everyone that will listen, and they’re (apparently) very tired of it. Everybody has problems, and whining about a job that pays you an obscene amount of money to (literally) twiddle your fingers all day doesn’t get much traction with most people. I don’t blame them. It is getting kinda sad that no one sympathizes with me in the least…doesn’t help the crushing loneliness I feel every night when I go home to my empty house, that’s for sure. ...

Preface: I’m sore, I’m tired, and I’m fasting in preparation for my dr’s appointment @ 12. Take that into consideration for what it’s worth. I hate the fact that an adult male cannot talk to a colleague who’s an attractive female (even though she does nothing for me) without people gossiping about them. May I just shout this: I LOVE MY FIANCEE! She is the only woman for me. I can’t generally stand other women, and this woman, in particular, over long periods of time. I marvel each day that I’ve found a woman that I not only can stand, but actually ENJOY being around and sharing my life with. ...

No control, all the responsibility. Everyone complains to you, and you control absolutely nothing. You can’t hire anybody to help out your situation, you can’t fire poor performing team members, and you can’t make a decision that your manager can’t override. And yet, all the downside is yours, because managers make sure to CYA on everything. All the responsibility, no extra pay. I get paid an obscene amount of money for my age, education level, and experience. But when I got this loser position of team lead, did I get any extra scratch for my trouble? Nope. However, unlike my days as a grunt, I can’t take off random days to achieve personal sanity. ...

(This blog brought to you by coffee, the never-ending source of stimulation for the programmer mind.) Though I own two of the coolest cars in existence today (a MINI and a GTO), there are several cars out there I’d love to have, but the practicalities of life infringe upon it. My list, in no particular order: A Saab 9-3 Viggen Front Wheel Drive Hatchback 260 horsepower turbo 4 cylinder. MMMM….practical. ...

This is as blown as I’ve been since that time in College where I wrote my ‘History of the South’ term paper in 30 hours, from the start of the research to the completed, bibliographied, 20 page work. I’ve been overseeing the translations workshop, trying to use my damn product along with the translators, and it’s been a revelation. We’re 4 weeks from release, and the product doesn’t work. Not even close. ...

Why were American cars from the early 90’s so crappy? Specifically, I’m speaking of the the Chevy Lumina and Ford Taurus. Granted, these were cars of the (now non-existent) cheap, mid-size, soft suspension class, but where’s the quality? Drive a 10 year old Accord versus a 10 year old Taurus, and the Honda is a revelation. Why is it people at autocross keep trying to kill me? I was 10 feet away from 3 spins this weekend, one of which saw a guy in a Mitsubishi Evo sliding at me WITH HIS FOOT STILL ON THE GAS. Also, got to watch a 4000 lb Volvo S60R slide right into a patch of grass I’d been standing in just 10 minutes before. ...

This week, our software departments gets the rare pleasure of having an on-site consultant. I say rare in that this happens once every 5 years, and such visitation sparks a flurry of new products. It’s a “Big Bang,” if you will, without the follow-up munchies and stinky bedsheets. Anyway, the guy, C, is a unapologetic Canadian ass with a golden-hammer attitude towards the product he’s advocating. “It can do everything well,” he says. Thankfully, the product is free (they make money on consulting), so at least we didn’t have to listen to a hard-sell on the software. ...

I hate our firmware guys I hate our firmware guys I hate our firmware guys I hate our firmware guys I hate our firmware guys I hate our firmware guys I’m not letting this ruin my day or anything (it’s almost over, come hell or high water), but things like this get on my nerves: Firmware and us agreed upon the behavior of our protocol 2 MONTHS AGO, and now it comes-out that both sides misunderstood the requirements. ...

Great entry over on Josh’s Blog about how my puny hometown made it into the New York times as a counterpoint to New York’s education reform efforts. I’m one of the few people who liked KERA, but then again, I like to write. I feel KERA works well, if applied to students from 7th grade onwards (as it was with me) by teachers who are motivated. Unfortunately, the teachers from my hometown are lazy and complacent, with those who believed in students and their education moving “up the hill” to the now-bankrupt Independent city school. ...

Incredibly incisive New York Times article on how America is losing to foreign nations because of our lack of focus on innovation. We’re doomed, folks. Enjoy it while it lasts: While America is the elephant, a million gnats in the form of India, China, and East Asia are nipping away at our effectiveness. Sure, our vast natural resources and productive economy have enabled us to be the big dogs for comming-up on a century, but times change. While we might churn-out 100k top-level engineers in this country per year, China can output a million. ...