Sunday, September 30, 2018

Perl blog post #58


This week, I return to my Other Blog after a brief absence.  If you know Perl, and you’ve ever wondered what a good use for the local keyword might be, head over there and check it out.  And, if you don’t know Perl, then I’d be very surprised if you’d ever wondered that.  But, hey: stranger things have happened.  Probably.










Sunday, September 23, 2018

All the people in the dance will agree


This week we had our annual summer party at $work.  Yes, yes: calling a party held just 3 days before the autumnal equinox a “summer” party is pushing some boundaries.  But in this case our party got delayed so that it could coincide with an announcement.  I’m not actually allowed to discuss that (yet), as it’s not public (yet), but I suppose I agree that delaying the party in this particular case made sense.

The party itself was quite lovely.  The company rented a big house right on the beach at Playa Vista, and we drank and played beach-type games, then we sat around and drank, and then we danced for a bit.  Oh, and drank ... to be honest, I mostly drank during the dancing.  I think my dancing days are mostly behind me, at this point.  Shitty knees, weak ankles, a herniated disc ... plus, realistically, I was a pretty crappy dancer even before all that.  But it’s still fun to watch other people dance.  And, did I mention the drinking?  That part was nice.

But mostly it was nice to hang out with my peeps from work, the vast, vast majority of whom are amazingly awesome people who are fun to hang out with on a beach with a cold drink in hand.  I’m glad we got to do that again this year, and I look forward to doing it again for many years to come.

Next week, a proper post.









Sunday, September 16, 2018

An Open Letter to Judge John Hodgman


I am sending this open letter to one of my favorite podcasts, Judge John Hodgman, so I thought I’d also share it here with you guys.  The version below is a bit more fleshed out than the one I’m emailing, because a) when you’re writing to busy famous people, brevity is to be commended, but when you’re writing on your own blog you can be as verbose as you like, and b) I can do a lot more crosslinking here on the blog.

While the letter makes more sense if you’re also a fan of the podcast, I think you can probably manage to eke out some amount of enjoyment even if not.  And perhaps it will inspire you to give the show a listen.  There are worse outcomes, certainly.

Anyway, here’s the letter:



Your Honor,

I’ve been listening to your excellent program for a few years now—certainly not your oldest fan, but a faithful one.  One of the main reasons I keep listening is that your decisions are always right ... or nearly always so.  Of course, even a sage of jurisprudence such as yourself is only human, and can occasionally make a mistake.  At only one or two mistakes, I could overlook them.  However, some months ago, the number of such misstatements (all completely unintentional, I’m sure) reached a staggering three, and I felt I could no longer remain silent.

#1: Why all the hate for electronic cigarettes?  I’ve written about this on my blog before, but the executive precis is, e-cigarettes got me off smoking—and off nicotine altogether—after over 25 years of frying my lungs.  Now I’m consuming nothing more than water vapor and I still have to listen to people giving me shit about it.  It’s a little disheartening, to be honest.  I just cannot fathom what the complaint is: I’m not exposing you to second-hand smoke, nor even to secondhand nicotine.  Are you complaining about my second-hand water vapor?  Well, I hate to tell you, but you were breathing that anyway, even before I pulled out my e-cig.  I just feel that, instead of being congratulated on making a positive change for myself and my health, I’m being told I’m still scum because ... well, I’m not entirely sure why.  But I’m definitely still scum: lots of people have told me so.  Your Honor is not alone in this attitude, of course.  Many other people whom I respect greatly have also taken this stance.  Perhaps it’s just cool to hate on vaping, like dissing Nickelback or Keanu Reeve’s acting ability.  But Your Honor is generally not a joiner, so I’m not sure what the source actually is.

#2: I was also pretty discouraged by your discussion with your bailiff about how all us poor people in the tech business are forced to “dress down” because that’s the social norm in our industry.  Do you really think that I’m waking up every day and going, man, I wish I could tie a strip of cloth around my neck and be half-strangled all day, but I guess I’ll put on these horrible jeans with the holes in them so I can blend in with all the other guys at work?  Is it perhaps more likely that people who prefer to be comfortable in their clothing rather than fretting over how good the clothes look tend to gravitate towards jobs where fashion sense is not used a substitute for competence?  I know that you and the bailiff are natty dressers (and purveyors of fine clothing, even, in the bailiff’s case), but this discussion somehow reminded me of what a wise man once said about the difference between hipsters and nerds:

The definition, as we have discussed before, of a hipster, more or less, is someone who has enthusiasms like a nerd, but uses those enthusiasms to gain—to cudgel others with their taste, and to gain status because you like the wrong thing, or you don’t know what the right thing is, or you learned about something the wrong way, ’cause you found out about it once it became popular or whatever.  Whereas a nerd is someone who also has enthusiasms, but just wants to share the enthusiasms.

    — John Hodgman, “All Laws Are Off”

  
I never thought anyone could accuse Your Honor of being a hipster, but let’s just say I felt a bit like a clothes nerd when I listened to that episode.

#3: The coolest Delta fraternity brother is Otter?  C’mon man: D-Day.

I do continue to enjoy the show, however, and have even started sending a (very small) monthly stipend to Maximum Fun (which is something NPR never managed to convince me to do), because you were right when you pointed out that when artists you love do work that you appreciate, you need to show your support for that.  You’re right most of the time, really.  And I want to support that.









Sunday, September 9, 2018

Another Virgo birthday season successfully concluded


Well, it’s the second weekend of our Virgo birthday season, so my eldest has been in charge.  We kicked off the weekend by hosting the kid’s crew for a marathon roleplaying session, to which we weren’t invited, so at least that made it easy.  And the kid had to work on Saturday—apparently being an adult means you have to work on your birthday sometimes.  Who knew?  Today has been more chill, with animal fries from In-n-Out, Chinese food, and an extended horror movie night featuring the original version of The Thing and The Return of the Living Dead.  With all that excitement, is it any wonder that I couldn’t manage to put together a full blog post?  You know, it’s weird, but back when I was trying to do a full post every week, missing two in a row during the Virgo birthday season never seemed that bad.  But, now that I’m just shooting for one every other week, missing two in a row seems unforgivable.  Weird, eh?

But, unforgivable or no, that’s the situation.  Tune in next week to see if I get it together.  Or not.










Sunday, September 2, 2018

Entering the Virgo birthday season once again


This is The Mother‘s birthday weekend, but we’re primarily taking it easy, with activities such as swimming in our pool, going out to pick up Mexican food, and watching the new version of Tomb Raider (decent, although nothing to write home about*).  Hey, whatever The Mother wants, The Mother gets, right?  That’s what we’re here for.

The Smaller Animal is back from camp and had a lovely time.  The Mother and the sprite are back from beach camping and had a ... well, a time, at any rate.  I took a couple of days off and tried to catch up on a few tasks I had, but mainly what I caught up on was sleep.  I dunno why I’ve been so exhausted over the past few days, but it’s been nice to be able to just fall asleep whenever I felt like it.  Next week, back to work—for four days, anyway.  Then another birthday weekend, but hopefully a full post for the blog anyway.  We shall see how it goes.



__________

* Or, perhaps I should say: nothing to write blog about.  Get it?