It's over!

Today was my last day at the ol' job. Still waiting to hear if my employment will continue with them in St. Louis.

As lame and boring as my job was, the people I worked with were awfully nice. They were very accomodating and really did their best to sell me to the folks in St. Louis for a job that I'm not actually qualified to do. If it works out, it'd be pretty cool, though. A lot less lame. And boring.

Now begins the cleaning/packing phase. It's times like these that make me wish one could fast-forward TiVo-style through a week or two and get back to the good stuff. But I'm still super psyched about coming to my hometown. To wit, I had a crazy dream last night that I was at a meeting with a bunch of people I went to high school with. Among them: L'il Shieh, Nishant, Joe LaManna (by cell phone), Ms. Mynx, and Todd Kosloff. I don't know if you remember him -- big guy, talked kinda funny? He was asking me to explain his 1099-R form. For those of you not in the know, that's a tax form you get when you take a withdrawal from a pre-tax retirement plan.

Weird thing about the Joe LaManna appearance...at some point, Nishant's cell phone rang. He answered it, "Hey, Joe!" Ms. Mynx said, "Which Joe is that? LaManna or Tucek? (remember him?)" Nishant replied, "LaManna." Ms. Mynx then exclaimed, "Good! I HATE Tucek!"

My subconscious is friggin' weird.

I'm getting verklempt

This conversation actually happened yesterday. The important thing to remember about the lady in this is that she's not joking -- she's just wicked stupid. Oh, and Mom: this lady is different from the one I'm trying to teach Yiddish to.

Lady: So, do you have a girlfriend waiting for you in St. Louis?

Me: Nope.

Lady: Why not?

Me: Heh, well, you know...

Lady: I've heard Jewish men make good husbands.

Me: Um...wha?

Lady: That's what I heard. Jewish men make good husbands.

Me: I'll have to tell girls that the next time I'm trying to pick them up.

On a completely unrelated note, I was watching Jeopardy yesterday, and I was very proud of myself for knowing the answer (question?) to this question (answer?). It was in the "Nym Dropping" category (all the questions were about words that had -nym in them...antonym, synonym, etc.). Here it is: "Guillotine and sandwich are examples of these." Do you know? *cue the Final Jeopardy music* Here's a hint.

How awesome is Jade Empire? It made me re-evaluate KoToR. I now like it. Maybe because I figured out how to use the level-up glitch.

Life imitating dream

I had a super weird dream last night that I must share.

I dreamt I was hanging out with this guy I went to elementary (and high) school with, named Matt South. I always kinda hated him 'cuz he made fun of me in elementary school. Anyway, we were hanging out (with other people as well), and we were listening to some old song. I said, "You know what would be cool? If this song was covered by Cold Play." I don't know why I said this. I don't have any love for Cold Play. But there it is. Matt proceeded to look at me like I was an idiot and make fun of me. I was quite distressed by it. Then I went home and blogged about it.

Well, far be it from me to defy my own prophecies.

Aw hell no

Once again, I break my own rules to discuss something both political and ridiculous. This is kind of old news, it turns out, but I've only just heard about it. Here it is. I actually first heard about this on the news, but this'll work, too. The way it was presented on the news program I was watching was as follows: Rep. Gerald Allen, a state rep. in Alabama, is trying to get a bill passed that would prohibit the use of public funds to purchase books by or about homosexuals.

Let me say that again.

He's trying to ban books by or about homosexuals. Langston Hughes. Tennessee Williams. Even some Shakespeare (Comedy of Errors, anyone?). Gone. History. Burned. Set the oven to 451 degrees Fahrenheit and let 'em fry. Or, as the Right Honorable Rep. Allen says, "Dig a hole and dump them in it."

Now, look. It's one thing to be one of those people who thinks the gays shouldn't get married or have kids or be scout leaders. I'll make fun of you just the same, but at least we can go out and have a drink afterwards. But this crosses the line. This hits me where I live. You're gonna ban TENNESSEE FUCKING WILLIAMS and LANGSTON FUCKING HUGHES because they liked having sex with other men? And WILLIAM FUCKING SHAKESPEARE?!?! What the fuck is the matter with you?

Now, in all fairness, it turns out that the bill is still in review, and there have been some ammendments to it. Apparently, a provision has been put in place to "protect the classics". Of course, "the classics" aren't defined, so Langston Hughes and Tennessee Williams are still in the Hole.

I think literate people in Alabama have a choice to make. You can either move to another state that isn't as insane, or you can write this silly son of a bitch and let him know that you don't want him preventing you from reading some of the best literature ever written because the authors happened to be gay.

Stop the madness. That is all.

Don'tCommentThis

Well, looks like CommentThis is dead. I'ma give it one more day, then I'm just gonna get rid of 'em and replace 'em with Blogger's comments. It'd be a shame to lose all the snazzy comments people have written, but what're ya gonna do?

I've been thinking about all the stuff I wanna do when I get back to St. Louis (besides the obvious stuff like unpack). Here's a preliminary list:

1) Hang out with the Mynx.

2) Go to Crazy Bowls 'n Wraps. My apologies to the Mynx for liking this place (I know you hate it for personal reasons), but goddammit, they make one fine Caesar Wrap.

3) Go the City Museum, get drunk, and slide down the big ass slides.

I am super psyched.

I can feel the distance

There's a new love in my life. And her name is Jade Empire.

Quite simply, it is the best game I've ever played. It's like Knights of the Old Republic, if KoToR was 100 times better and had a combat system that didn't suck. I won't go into a geekly amount of detail on why I love this game, but I'm serious when I say it's the best game I've ever played. But check this out: there's a constructed language in the game called Tho Fan. It was created by a Ph. D. student in Linguistics named Wolf Wikeley.

Point #1: Wolf Wikeley is a cool name.

Point #2: This once again proves that Linguistics is the field for me. I don't know how Wolf got my dream job, but I want it. Making up languages for video games? *geek drool*

By the way, the title of this post is a reference to the fact that Jade Empire takes place in a fictional mythologized version of ancient China. And the only person who will understand why that makes sense is Ms. Mynx.

Life imitating art

Remember how I said that The Office always struck me as being a bit too on-the-nose to be funny? Well, I just got an email from the main bosslady of the building that seems like something lifted straight from that show. If every unit does well this month ("doing well" defined as this one stat being good which I won't explain because it's boring), our names will be put into a drawing, and the winner gets...

...To throw a pie in the bosslady's face.

Um, why? How is this motivating? The only way it could possibly be motivating is if she were an evil bitch to begin with, but she's not, and even if she were, she probably wouldn't be doing this. It reminds me of the episode where the Steve Carrell character is sitting in his office trying to think of ways to improve morale, so he tells everyone he's going to give them a big surprise, but all he can come up with is ice cream sandwiches.

Here's an idea: if you want to motivate us, give us more money!

Back in the saddle

There's this one system we use here at the job that nobody seems to understand except me. So I've been asked to teach my fellow CSCs how to use it during my last two weeks. I just did my first little training session. Man, did that bring back memories...although, it's a lot easier (and more fun) to teach adults something they know they need to know than it is to teach a bunch of 15-year-olds who like to heckle you. So there's no real comparison, I guess, but it was fun to write a "lesson plan" and make little handouts again.

That being said, screw the damn 15-year-olds.

Enterprise: Worse than Star Trek IV?

There's another TV show I watch regularly, but I don't count it in my weekly allotment of TV time because it sucks. That show is Enterprise, the final Star Trek series. It's entering the last few episodes, and I had been hoping that it would at least try to redeem itself on its deathbed. So much for that.

As I was waiting in Midas this weekend for a pre-cross-country-trip checkup (they found $450 worth of shit to "fix", which I immediately sensed was bullshit and walked out), I read a TV guide article about the grand finale of the Star Trek franchise. Apparently, the Enterprise cast are less than pleased with how the final episode goes. Jolene Blalock (a.k.a. T'pol a.k.a. The Hot Chick) apparently gets the cringe-worthy line, "I never thought I'd find something more important than following orders." Jesus. The final episode somehow involves a flash-forward to ST:TNG time, and Riker & Troi are on a holodeck simulation of Archer's Enterprise and blah blah blah it's gonna suck.

I had always been secretly rooting for this show, hoping it would somehow pull itself out of the pit of awfulness they had written themselves into. Even with the god-awful theme song, the retarded dialogue, the lame plots, and the goofy nods to future Treks, I kept waiting for some glimmer of hope. But no, they're going out like a bunch of bitches.

I'm telling ya, they should've just brought back DS9.

Strike that; reverse it

Remember all that stuff I said about video games? My quest for the Awesomeness formula? Forget it. I've come to the conclusion that my taste in video games is flawed. Too flawed, in fact, to be of any use.

I'm basing this on the fact that a bunch of games that I like get really crappy reviews on Gamespot. For example, Sudeki, an action-rpg for the XBox. Gamespot gives it a 6.5, which they say means "fair", but in reality means "piece of shit", since they rarely go below 6. I actually kinda like this game. The combat system takes some getting used to, but it's fun, dammit. Also, Enter the Matrix. Gamespot: 6.4. Me: Best hand-to-hand fighting in an action game ever. Yes, I'm serious. If only you could play as Neo, this game would've been teh r0x0rz.
A final example: Constantine. Gamespot gives it a 6.4. Yes, it's a movie tie-in. Yes, it's not particularly original. But dammit, it's fun! Plus, the whole switching back and forth between Hell and Earth thing reminds me of Legacy of Kain, which even Gamespot agrees is a damn fine series. Although, they didn't like the last one (6.9), and I thought it was the best in the series (except for the first Soul Reaver).

Conversely, I've also discovered that the games Gamespot thinks are great, I hate. A few examples:

Morrowind. Gamespot: 8.5. Me: Played it for a half hour, then gave up after the futility of trying to beat it enveloped my soul and spit in my face.

Knights of the Old Republic. Gamespot: 9.1, plus the Editor's Choice award. Me: What am I missing here? You take the coolest element of Star Wars, lightsaber fights, turn it into some jacked up Dungeons & Dragons thing, and this is "innovative"? Combat consists of hitting "go" and hoping for the best. This is not my idea of fun.

Doom 3. Gamespot: 8.6 Me: It's a first-person shooter. It's the same as every other first-person shooter ever made. In fact, it's almost exactly the same as the first two Doom games. But with better graphics! Ooo, look at the amazing lighting! The detailed textures! The realistic physics! WHO GIVES A SHIT?! It's boring and repetitive.

Like I said, apparently my taste in video games is flawed. I guess I just need a certain level of crappiness to really enjoy a game.

Hook me up

I knew there was a reason to be proud of my alma mater. Check it. An alarm clock that measures your brain activity and wakes you up at the lightest point in your sleep cycle so you don't feel groggy. That is the awesomest idea evah. I would totally preorder one now if I could. And if I knew how much it cost.

I have a request for you literate types out there. I saw that episode of the Simpsons last night where Krusty decides he's going to quit showbiz because he can't be funny anymore. So he calls a press conference and starts to read a poem that includes the line, "Runners whom the race outran..." My question: what the hell is that poem? I tried googling that line and got gornischt (are you proud of me, mama, for using Yiddish?). But "The race outran" got four hits, one of which seems to indicate it's a poem by Houseman, but I can't find the actual text of the poem. Help me out, peoples. It sounded like a cool poem.

UPDATE: Nevermind. Found it. Actually, the line is "runners whom renown outran," which is far less interesting.

The hottest nun on TV

So I got suckered in by the hype and decided to watch that new show, "Revelations". It was actually pretty good. Although I'm a bit sick of the whole "your concept of 'god' is illogical and unscientific" thing. I'll be glad when they get past that and into the really spooky shit. Oh, and I especially loved the nod to Terri Schiavo. They actually used the words "persistant vegetative state". Oy. One thing I was particurly fond of (in a non-sarcastic way) was the soundtrack. They went with the creepy-orchestral-instrumental thing instead of trying to throw in random bits of modern music in a totally inappropriate context.

Oh, and Natascha McElhone? Hawt. I wouldn't mind gettin' into that habit, if ya know what I mean.

So it seems I'm moving from a video game geek to a TV geek. I'm up to 3 shows a week, people. This is bad news.

The Role of Emily

Two words: Plot object.

She doesn't even speak except that one time she prays to Diana, and then she gets flat-out rejected. The rest of the time she's just ... there. I love how Palamon and Arcite fall in love with her after looking at her for five minutes through the prison tower window.

The Knight is lame. Give me the farting Miller's tale anyday.

Tricksy Brain

Did you ever have a song pop into your head and have no idea what the hell it was? Isn't that annoying? I've had this song in my head all day, and I have no clue what it was or where I heard it. If it had lyrics, I'd google it, but it's instrumental. Goddammit. If one of you people who has access to my brain could please tell me what this song is, I'd appreciate it.

First impression of "The Legend of Good Women": shut the fuck up about daisies already. Although, I am glad to now know from whence the word "daisy" is derived ("day's eye"). See, this is why I want to study linguistics. Y'see how modern english makes sense if you know where it comes from?

Seriously though, it's off to an interesting start. I can see how, Ms. Mynx, you'd find this especially interesting, what with the whole discussion of how we have to rely on books for truth because we can't see everything.

Homeward Bound

You may notice some weird spacing and indentations in this post and the previous one. That's because blogger's servers are b0rked and won't let me log in. So I'm posting this via email.UPDATE: Thanks, John, for telling us how to fix this. But onto the business at hand...

The reservations are set. The tickets are bought. May 5th, 2005. I'm comin' home to you, St. Lou.

Sooner than you expected, wasn't it?

And once again, I can't sleep.

My new thing is that I feel guilty about leaving my job. Can you believe this crap? I guess I wouldn't be Jewish if I didn't feel guilty about something. Maybe I'd feel less guilty if they didn't give me a promotion only a month ago. But on the other hand, what kind of retarded promotion was it? They pay me more to do the same stupid shit? No additional responsibilities? It's like I'm ripping them off. They should be thanking me for leaving.

I guess another part of my guilt has to do with the fact that two other people in my unit are leaving as well. Things may get a bit short-staffed. But 5 new people also just joined the unit, so I guess it all evens out. Well, 4, actually ... one of 'em didn't pass the Series 6. But maybe he'll pass it when he takes it again in a month. And I assuage some of my guilt by reminding myself that some other poor sap will surely rise to take my place, providing another poor soul with a steady -- albeit soul-crushingly boring -- job.

I keep thinking about the final episode of M*A*S*H. Hawkeye and Hunnicut kept saying stuff about how torn they felt about leaving. On the one hand, they really hated being in Korea. On the other, they really liked each other and probably would never see each other again. So my situation is kinda like that. Except without the war stuff. And the doctor stuff. And Korea. Oh, and I am indifferent towards everyone I work with.

Okay, so M*A*S*H was a bad analogy.

I don't think I'd feel nearly as bad if I didn't know I was doing the right thing. That doesn't make any sense, does it? But it's true. If I didn't know that I had to get out of here, I wouldn't care what I was doing. But, as the voice in my dream said, "It's time to move on."

So, hopefully, I'll be able to go to sleep now. Thanks for listenin'.

On the nose

I've watched a couple of episodes of the new (in America, anyways) comedy series, The Office. The first one didn't do much for me, but the successive episodes have been a bit better. Although, sometimes I find myself wincing more than laughing. The humor's a bit too true to be funny.

For example, in the first episode, when there was talk about the branch being downsized, the secretary lady (sorry, don't know the characters' names yet) said something like, "You know, if I lost this job, it wouldn't be so bad. I've always had these other things I've wanted to do..." Now, admittedly, this probably wasn't intended to be funny, but this was one of those points where I winced. I've thought
that to myself at least 10 times a day.

Another (more humorous) example. In the most recent episode, when Jim (I think that's his name...the guy who puts stuff in jello and who has a crush on the secretary lady) was talking about why he didn't want to be given additional responsibilities, he said: "See, right now, this is just a job. If I move any higher in the company, this will be my career. And if this were my career ... I'd have to throw myself in front of a train." Wincing galore.

So, I just realized my blog has been around for almost 2 years. Shouldn't I be an internet celebrity now? What's that you say? You have to be interesting? Well, shit. That wasn't part of the deal.

Dancin' with Myself

If you look at the timestamp for this post, you'll notice it says 3 AM. That's local time. It's not a mistake; I can't sleep. I'm hoping that if I just type out some of the stuff going through my brain, I'll be able to doze off for a few hours before going to work. I'll try to be entertaining.

The reason I can't sleep is because of an epiphany I had about a week ago. It went like this:

GIVEN:
A) My current job sucks, and
B) I have no connections to Rhode Island;

THEREFORE:
A') I should quit said job, and
B') Leave Rhode Island.

NEW GOALS:
1) Move to St. Louis.
2) Pursue a degree in Linguistics.

Why Goal #1? Because I do have connections to St. Louis. I've always thought of it as Home. It's where all my friends are. And by "friends", I mean parents & Ms. Mynx.

Goal #2 struck me as odd when I first thought of it, but here's how I arrived at the conclusion that Linguistics is the field for me. There's always been a part of me that thought that I should have pursued computer science. I even tried it a bit in college, but it didn't really stick. So I started thinking about it, and I wondered what it was about comp. sci. that interested me. I can tell you, it's not object-oriented program or bubble searches or any such crap. It was programming. Coding. The act of learning and using a new language to make a machine do stuff. It's the language of computers that interested me, not so much the computers themselves. Then I thought about it some more, and I realized that it's always been language itself that interested me. In high school, I memorized the first 15 lines of the Canterbury Tales because I thought they sounded cool and were fun to say. In college, I studied Old English because it made Modern English make sense, because you can see what life was like for the Germanic-tribal folks before the Romans showed up and wrecked the party. And because it sounds cool and is fun to say.

So I've been doing some research into pursuing these goals, and it seems that, even though I didn't really study Linguistics as an undergrad, I could still get into a grad program. One aspect that kinda worries me (besides the whole GRE thing) is the letters of recommendation. See, my whole undergrad career was based around the assumption that I was gonna be a teacher. So all my letters of recommendation talk about what a great teacher I'll be. Not sure if that'll be cool or not.

Oh, and there are two other little snags. There are no colleges in Missouri that offer a degree in Linguistics. And I've pretty much missed the deadline to apply for this year.

This is what's been keeping me awake all night. But I think I've finally managed to wrap my head around it. This was accomplished via the following dialogue with myself:

A: Given that you can't apply to grad school this year, what's the plan for 2005-2006?

B: Well, the way I see it, there are two options: stay where I am, or move to St. Louis and hang out for a year.

A: Staying where you are would be simpler than moving.

B: Yes, but that goes against Conclusions A' and B'. Current job sucks, Rhode Island sucks.

A: True. But given that there are no schools in Missouri that offer a degree in Linguistics, what's the point in moving there?

B: To get the hell out of Rhode Island, obviously. And out of the aforementioned sucky job.

A: But then wouldn't you just have to move again in a year?

B: Yep, but so what?

A: Hm. I guess you have a point. But a year seems like a long time to wait. I wanna study linguistics nooooowww!

B: Listen, Veruca. Linguistics will still be around in a year.

A: Yes, but then you'll be 25, almost 26!

B: Your point?

A: Tick tock, tick tock.

B: Shut the hell up.

So. New plan:

1) Move to St. Louis.
2) Hang out for a year.
2a) "Hang out" is defined as getting some job and saving money. Pretty easy to do in St. Louis since apartments are ridiculously cheap.
3) Apply to grad school for the 2006 school year.

Based on fiddling around with Gradschools.com, it seems there are many schools that offer a degree in Linguistics. Unfortunately, like I said, none are in Missouri. But one of the schools that caught my eye that does have a Linguistics program was U.C. Berkeley. Hey there, brother o' mine.

So, folks, what do you think?

Memory Lane

I was just playing Stinkoman 20x6, and I suddenly had a flashback to when I discovered the joys of NES emulation. I was in high school, and the family compy was kinda old (486 power!), so it was the most fund I could get out of it. Coincidentally, this was around the same time that I discovered Tori Amos (thanks to Ms. Mynx). I used to play NES games with the sound turned off and Tori in the CD player. Lemme tell ya something... Rygar + January Girl = awesome.

Speaking of nostalgia, I've started playing Final Fantasy VII again. Man, that's a damn fine game. Although there are a helluva lot more translation problems than I remember. And an awful lot of questionable content that makes me wonder how it got past the censors. Here's an example that illustrates both the translation issues and the questionable content:

In the first area, one of your female characters gets kidnapped by a pimp (named Don Corneo, by the way). The main character, Cloud (a guy), has to dress up like a woman to sneak inside his house and rescue her. There are optional sidequests that involve you getting additional feminine items to better fool Don Corneo. One thing you can do is go to a whorehouse and get the hos to give you lingerie and makeup. So Cloud and Aeris (another female character) go to the whorehouse. Aeris waits outside. As you enter the whorehouse, Cloud turns to look at Aeris waiting by the entrance and says, "Hm, so that's how you fooled them." Um, wha?

Yeah, this is a Final Fantasy game, not Grand Theft Auto.

Let me whisper in your ear

I'm usually behind the curve when it comes to discovering cool web memes, and this is no different. It's called PostSecret. The premise is people (anonymously) send this guy secrets, and he posts 'em. It's a really amazing art/sociology project. Lots of tragic and heartwrenching stuff, but also lots of funny stuff. This is one of the more amusing ones (click on the pic to enlarge it, if you have trouble reading it), albeit simultaneously disturbing.