Content-Type: text/glossolalia

Where have the years gone?

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:53:10 GMT

After reading this post by Richard Bartle, I figured I'd do some math...

As of Tuesday, I'm 35 years old. Thirty-five years before I was born:

Mahatma Gandhi began a hunger strike to protest autocratic rule in India;

Batman had his first adventure;

Auckland, New Zealand had its only recorded snowfall;

The Einstein-Szilárd letter set into motion the atomic bomb program; and

Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

Bloody 'ell, that's an interesting thing to think about...

Well, that's not a good sign...

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 19:14:16 GMT

So, I'm home for the weekend from the place I'm house-sitting, and have just discovered that... my little stress-ball dude suffered a blow-out while I wasn't here.

That seems like a bad sign.

Okay, I think this means I like it...

Tue, 13 Nov 2007 07:33:58 GMT

Since noone's going to be around to pester me for a couple of weeks, I figured I'd try the EVE Online two week free trial. Around about four.

It's half past midnight. Half past midnight? Yikes.

Ooh, that inspires confidence in their products...

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:32:36 GMT

Verbatim quote from the White Paper for an Enterprise Content Services package I'm doing some research on:

Web Services uses a new HTTP over XML protocol called SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol).

HTTP over XML?

Well, there's your problem.

Alas, even the BBC wants me to notice her jail term...

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 20:16:29 GMT

Even worse, I feel the urge to sing... Sing... SING!

Eris preserve me, it's even to a Manilow tune...

Her name was Paris, She was an heiress,
With no talent we could see except "no fear of sodomy,"
She would Blackberry, and would make merry,
And while she tried to be a star, she'd get drunk and drive a car...

Caprica's known for its incredibly vicious rabbits, you know...

Mon, 21 May 2007 07:19:11 GMT

So, the Canadian "if you click your heels together three times, we might accidentally show some Sci-Fi" channel has started showing the new Battlestar Galactica from the beginning, at a time of the week where I'm actually near a TV. Yay!

I do have one question though, based on the second episode:

Boomer stole seven bricks of G-4 and detonators. From the Small Arms locker. What in Hephasteus' name have the colonies been dealing with that explosives capable of breaching a warship hull are considered small arms?

Update on the Pet Food recall

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:52:36 GMT

The site had gone down when I posted the original message, but here's the supplier's page on the recall, including complete lists of affected cat and dog food products.

Cat &Dog Owners---Pet Food Recall Notice

Sat, 17 Mar 2007 04:48:57 GMT

Just saw this on the evening news, figured I should spread this as quickly as possible.

Menu Foods has just announced a recall of wet cat food products of multiple brands from a couple of its plants in the US.

Here is how to check Iams & Eukanuba products. I don't have the relevant information for other food brands handy.

Wow, that's an obnoxiously bad example...

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:32:42 GMT

Following up on some things mentioned in a potential job listing, I've found myself on the page for a 4GL RAD language/web platform. As per usual for these sorts of things, it advertises a list of benefits nigh-indistinguishable from those you'd get from hiring competent programmers, but (since it's a Trade Sekrit) provides no actual examples of their language/platform.

Then I get to their comparison with other tools. Their benchmark? The Java 2 Enterprise Edition Pet Shop demo. So, what they end up comparing is:

Developing an application in a general-purpose language/platform (the Java solution);
Porting an application from one general-purpose language/platform to an equivalent language on a slightly more restricted platform (the .NET solution); and
Porting an application from a general-purpose language/platform to a single-purpose language/platform (their solution).

Guess which one fared the worst? <rolls eyes>

You shovel 16 tons, what do you get...

Mon, 12 Mar 2007 17:52:56 GMT

Ah, the excitement of the job hunt. Today's schedule:

~~Compose cover letter 1;~~
~~Send application 1;~~
~~Compose cover letter 2;~~
~~Send application 2;~~
~~Compose cover letter 3;~~
~~Send application 3;~~ Aborted (I don't care if it's good work, you lied about XHTML 1.0 validation. DIAF.)
~~Compose cover letter 4;~~
~~Send application 4;~~ Aborted (They appear to have removed the entire careers section of their website over the weekend.)
~~Check first job listings site for appropriate new listings;~~
~~Check second job listings site for appropriate new listings;~~
Rewrite resume into a sales-accentuating version, to go out looking for a "pay the bills" job tomorrow;
Get some work done on one of my secret projects.

Job hunting; 150% the work of employment, for 0% of the pay.

Post Script: Also, I watched Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan last night. I have no idea why, but it still astounds me there are people parochial enough to fall for that. Thankfully, it also amuses me greatly. Also, I want that swimsuit. =)

Post Post Script: While nothing has happened yet in my "put TOON and Nobilis next to each other, and see what sort of bizarre offspring they have" experiment, I don't actually know what the gestation period of RPG books is, so there's still hope.

A tale of two women.

Mon, 05 Feb 2007 22:34:37 GMT

So, against the better advice of my peers, I watched the Dungeons & Dragons movie last night. They obviously had my best interests at heart, although to a certain extent the movie does a better job of representing the majority of D&D campaigns then our subculture would like to admit.

However: While watching it, I had the strong suspicion that I'd seen Zoe McLellan (the apprentice wizard) in something else. Except&emdash;I haven't seen anything else that she's been in, according to the IMDb.

Also, I called to set up an appointment for a follow-up job interview with a company (having already made it past their testing), and after asking if I preferred the long or short version of my name, the HR person I spoke to mentioned she'd had a friend with my name in grade five (which, for me, was twenty-two years ago.) After I hung up the phone, I realized that I may actually have known someone with her name back then.

Because, you know, my job search isn't giving me enough stress, so I need to drive myself nuts wondering about things like this.

A thought.

Sun, 14 Jan 2007 06:45:44 GMT

The relationship between most software specifications and the resulting software strongly resembles the relationship between the Golden Rule and the Canadian Criminal Code¹.

¹ Formal title "An Act respecting the criminal law, R.S., 1985, c. C-46, as amended", but that musses with the flow of the thought, no?

Thar she blows!

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 21:42:32 GMT

So, last week I found a really good job offer, for my skill set, at a really good company. After going over the listing with a fine-toothed comb, looking for anything that would disqualify me, I sat down and wrote a cover letter.

Returning to the job site to submit my application, I found that the listing had been removed. A week before applications closed. Unhappiness ensued.

However, I've found the original listing again! On the company's website.

Adventures In Online Job Application Systems

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 21:52:18 GMT

So, I'm searching the on-line job sites, looking for programming¹ jobs, and I find one that appeals to me, and that I have all the requirements for. Behold, the set of steps to apply:

Find the job listing on the on-line job search site;
Click the "Apply Now!" button, which sends me to the company in question's website;
Find the same job listing, on the company's site;
Click the "Apply Now!" button, which sends me to the company's HR department job list;
Find, yet again, the same job listing;
Click the "Apply Now!" button, which (you can probably imagine my shock at this point) began the application process;
Complete the application process.

Based on my experiences with HR people, I shouldn't find this all that surprising, but I still have to ask, why? You could, just as easily, have put the link to the application process on all three links.

Here's hoping that "tenacity enough to search for the job three times" was actually an intentional filter.

¹ <Waits for standard audience response.> I said programming, not IT. This, of course, is part of the problem.

No Gaming Is Better Than Bad Gaming

Fri, 17 Nov 2006 21:19:23 GMT

I've decided to give up on my Friday night RPG group.

The group in question is one of the ongoing ones at the FLGS. It's been going, with the occasional campaign reset, for close on 15 years. When I joined up, it was a Gardásiyal campaign on Tékumel, run by a GM who had played in Dr. Barker's game. So that was cool.

Sadly, ever since Third Edition D&D came out, the game has been in a slow slide. Having just finished a story arc, the group jumped ship, and started anew in Generic D&Dland without the players, and more importantly, without the DM taking time to learn the system. Especially the "monsters are complex now" bits.

Then the OGL happened, as did Star Wars d20. And the campaign suddenly became Quantum Leap, only more random. Oh, and the GM tried to add the skill trees from Star Wars Galaxies, for no readily apparent reason. And the teamwork mechanics from the GoO Tékumel game, as written, despite the different resolution systems.

Finally, after several years, the game managed to break far enough that it had to be reset. So, we reset into a Forgotten Realms campaign. And it looked like it might work! WotC D&D books only! Everyone needs character back-stories! No random incursions from Greyhawk or Eberron!

Except, since he still hasn't really learned the system, the GM's trying to run combat on a grid of 10' hexes instead of 5' squares, without changing the rules. Oh, and the Dwarves appear to have hit us with some sort of steam-powered deprotagonization ray, since despite it being the last thing my character would do in the situation, he's following the Dwarves on their dragon-killing rampage across the Realms.

Oh, and there's a Mary Sue GMPC. Who is an Aspect of Kord, despite Kord not being a Forgotten Realms god. Who looks like a harpy, what with the wings. And she's carrying the Axe of the Dwarven Lords, despite being only 1/32 Dwarven (and the Dwarves are okay with this). And...

Also, the group is somewhere around ten people, and it shares the space with the final rounds of the Friday Night Magic tournament. So it's a tiring, headache-inspiring session even when everything accidentally works.

Birthday Meme

Fri, 07 Apr 2006 18:53:48 GMT

Yoinked from chadu...

Events

455: The Vandals enter Rome, and plunder the city for two weeks.
1897: Mark Twain, responding to rumors that he was dead, is quoted by the New York Journal as saying, "The report of my death was an exaggeration."
1953: Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, the first to be televised.

Births

1740: Marquis de Sade, French author (d. 1814)
1743: Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Sicilian Occultist (d. 1795)
1941: Charlie Watts, English musician (The Rolling Stones)

Deaths

1941: Lou Gehrig, American baseball player (b. 1903)
1998: Sylvester Ritter ("Junkyard Dog"), American professional wrestler (b. 1953)
2003: Fred Blassie, American professional wrestler (b. 1918)

Observances/Holidays

The Greek Orthodox Church commemorates Saint Nicephorus' death.
Italy's Festa della Repubblica (Republic Day), which commemorates the birth of the Repubblica Italiana and the end of the monarchy.
Xenia name day in Slovakia.

Angry.

Fri, 17 Mar 2006 09:44:51 GMT

Well, isn't this a lovely story.

The worst part is, I've had the displeasure of meeting the guy in question. I'm about 95% sure I know the girl in question. Even if I'm wrong about the girl, I am still obliterating-planets-with-The-Force-level angry about this.

And not just at him, at the jerk who provided him the tools.

There are many things I don't like about D&D. This is not one of them.

Sat, 25 Feb 2006 09:32:12 GMT

I beat Faerûn. The last boss fight is hard.

I did get hosed on the XP, though. I mean, that's an entire universe, Gods and all. And I only got one level? Yeesh.

For something so obviously silly, it sure knows its stuff...

Wed, 15 Feb 2006 01:02:24 GMT

Now that's a mysterious mumbo-jumbo assessment I whole-heartily endorse...

<td align="center"> Christopher Clark --
[adjective]:

Sexually stunning

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com</td>

On the other hand...

<td align="center"> kitanin --
[noun]:

A person who falls into an outhouse and dies

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com</td>

Ze goggles, zey do nothing!

Tue, 24 Jan 2006 19:50:14 GMT

I vaguely recall hearing about this a while ago, but I still wasn't quite prepared for it.

Wherein our intrepid hero gets much done, just not what he thought was important...

Mon, 23 Jan 2006 22:24:19 GMT

Kitanin:: What a wonderful productive day! Get up, get some breakfast, sit down at the computer to fire off some more resumes...
Kitanin's Cat [to Kitanin]:: Play with meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! [stands in front of monitor]
Kitanin:: Fine. We'll go clean the bathroom.
: ...
Kitanin:: Okay. Now I can get some job sear...
Kitanin's Cat [to Kitanin]:: Play with meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! [stands in front of monitor]
Kitanin:: Aargh! Okay, I'll go clean another room.
: ...
: [Repeat this for oh, about six hours at this point...]
Kitanin:: Okay. Perhaps now...
Kitanin's Cat [to Kitanin]:: Can't! It's election day! You have to go vote!
Kitanin:: ...

So, yeah. Much done, very little of it likely to get me employment. Whee.

Apparently, my GM is getting paychecks from Wizards...

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 18:41:57 GMT

...to push additional purchases on his players.

I'm there to have a bit of fun on Friday nights, and what does that get me?

I'm a Dwarven Monk (Not a problem, I've got the core books);
Who has reached level 25 (Whaaaa? Now I need the Epic Handbook...);
And become the bearer of a Weapon of Legacy;
And, this weekend, I achieved apotheosis, so I need Deities and Demigods.

And this is without trying.

Your New Dwarven Monk God, Thorven Andensson, demands offerings of D&D books! Bwa-hah-hah!

I promised myself I wasn't going to acknowledge the election, but still...

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 22:46:23 GMT

Canada is currently in the middle of an election, brought about due to the fact that the government (which was a minority) couldn't pander to the third party candidates hard enough.

One of the major issues in this campaign has been that, since the last-but-one Prime Minister ran a crooked campaign to promote Canada in Quebec, obviously the entire Liberal party is horribly corrupt, and even thinking about voting for them will give you scoliosis, put hair on your palms, and make you go blind. Therefore, you should vote for the Conservatives, since they're a party of incorruptible beings of pure light, and it's only a coincidence that the last time anybody with a stare as vacant as their party leader was on television, it was during a broadcast of Children of the Corn¹.

So imagine my complete and utter shock when it turned out that the Conservative candidate for the riding of B.C. Southern Interior is facing charges of smuggling, and lying to customs officials during the investigation.

1. Seriously. The guy is creepy looking.

There has to be a word for this. If there isn't, one should be created.

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 00:18:52 GMT

A quick word for those who compose IT job listings:

SQL is a language used to generate queries for relational database management systems;
SQL Server is a relational database management system produced by Microsoft.

If you ask for someone with SQL skills in your ad, it is entirely possible that the people who respond to your ad will have either never worked on an SQL Server system, or will have done only enough to determine that SQL Server was not an appropriate choice for the project they were working on.

It feels like there should be a term for this situation. It's not trademark dilution, like with Aspirin and Kleenex, where the trademark has become the generic term. It's not even really the opposite, since SQL is but a small part of what's involved in a RDBMS.

It is, however, very irritating.

Edit: Ah-hah! "Synecdoche" and/or "metonymy." Also, I meant "trademark genericisation," not "trademark dilution." I blame the pulsing, throbbing waves of misanthropy that seem to appear with great regularity whenever companies call back about my job application.

Behold, the power of cheese-powered gut instincts.

Thu, 17 Nov 2005 00:03:53 GMT

About a month and a half ago, I mentioned a job listing that I suddenly realized I wasn't interested in applying for, after hours of trying to write up a cover letter. Checking a new job board today, I scrolled back a few extra pages and found a listing from them, advertising their careers open house on the eighth. Posted on the ninth.

For bonus points: The company develops time sheet and project planning software. (Which, as a field, is fascinating—hence my surprise at not being interested in the job in the first place.)