9 posts tagged “uncertain uncertain yeoz”
I went to an optometrist today, and had an eye exam today for the first time in years, since maybe high school or so. I haven't really needed glasses for my normal day to day stuff, but, I've decided that I want to learn to drive, and being able to see is probably a prerequisite. It's been a small hassle a couple times, traveling to wherever, and needing to bug a coworker to drive me places, or, calling a taxi to go anywhere. Even bigger hassle explaining all the taxi charges to the people who handle my expense account.
I've gone years without glasses, and will have a new pair in 7 to 10 days. Glasses always felt in the way for me, and, even though the frame that I selected seems comfortable enough, I'm not sure I could wear them regularly. So, I'd probably only wear them when driving. I should probably apply for a learner's permit though, and then figure out what I need to do after that.
Oh, and my Equifax FICO score hit 700 today. Just a couple more points away from an optimal interest rate on a car loan, according to myfico.com. I would like to buy a new car, but, that might not be the smartest idea...
(edit: minor edit cuz i'm stupid)
What character in a book can you connect with or relate to the most?
Submitted by Eating A Book.
I haven't read any actual books in a couple years, despite spending thousands of dollars annually at Barnes & Nobles and Borders. So, I'm probably not qualified to answer this QotD. Although, oddly enough, I did pick up my first novel in years just two weeks ago. (I had a Border's personal shopping day that was going to expire...) I picked up a bunch of new manga releases, and on the way to the checkout, walking past the science fiction section, I noticed "Variable Star" and decided to pick it up. I saw it mentioned on Slashdot a while back, and probably wouldn't have even noticed the book otherwise. I'm not a big Heinlein fan though, so, I don't really care at all that it's a book based on a dead man's notes. (At least it's not Frank Herbert's kids merely cashing in on Dune.) I did read a lot of Spider Robinson's work as a kid though... Anyway, I don't actually feel like giving any reasons why I feel I have a particular connection to Joel Johnston, the main charcter, as, they are particularly embarassing. So, I'll just dodge the question and say I won't say anything at all as it would be a spoiler. Go pick up the book and read it yourself. :-(
Show us change.
Submitted by quornflour.
What? You wanted change right? Wrong kind of change? Well, if you don't want it, I'll just keep it. Í can always just get myself a coke and a bag of chips from the vending machine.
I should really start working on that other kind of change. I should get my resume out there, and really start looking for something that suits me, or at least follow up on the pings from monster and dice. A couple of people have been really pushing me on it, including coworkers and my mentor, who I've been having drinks with after work every other day. He's busy as heck with his new position, so it's surprising that he can still find time for me.
And if there's ever a good time for change, it's right here and right now. I'll start right on it, right after I've finished my coke. Which, is to say, soon. I promise.
How do you eat your pizza: folded, flat or with a fork and knife?
Submitted by danimass.
Depends entirely on the pizza place and it's pizza. If it's fresh out of the oven and extremely hot, I always eat it flat with my hands. The burning sensation is part of the whole experience! Otherwise, I typically fold it, and eat it that way. Typically you don't have a choice when it's no longer fresh out of the oven, because, it'll just crumple under it's own weight. :-(
I've only done the knife-and-fork thing once, but, it was at at an event where it was expected of me, so I didn't really have a choice. And, I hope I never have to do it again, as it was both surreal and unnatural.
As an aside, no matter where I go, out of town, the pizza is always absolute crap compared to new york (or brooklyn) style pizza.
Windows, Mac, Linux - What's your preference and why?
Submitted by ramblingsbymark.
Windows. My workplace is mostly a Windows shop. 85% Windows, 15% Other (mix of Solaris, Linux and others). I use Windows on the desktop because most of the apps I use are Windows apps which I'm familiar with, and it'd be troublesome to move over to their Linux counterparts. (edit: And by 'apps', I mostly mean Outlook. I do crazy crazy things with rules, alerts, flagging and calendaring that I haven't been able to replicate on anything else. And since my Inbox/Calendar is my life, I can't use anything else. Entourage for Mac isn't even close, btw.) I don't really think Linux is ready for the mainstream desktop yet, although, it's getting closer and closer. If I ever buy a Mac, I'd probably just stick bootcamp on it and run Windows. At home, I do run OpenBSD on my little firewall device, and FreeBSD on my file server, but, I rarely ever touch those boxes. They just chug and chug and do what they do quietly. No Linux though. There hasn't been anything in Linux that's worth migrating my existing stuff for. Although, VMWare ESX runs on Linux, so if I ever get compatible hardware (read: HP servers), I'd might just run Linux.
What's your favorite radio station, past or present?
As a kid, I used to listen to a lot of Talk Radio, in particular 77 WABC. I don't exactly remember why. Pretty much stopped listening after getting internet access though. Although, with the advent of internet radio, we've been listening to a lot of G Rock and 97x at work. Don't really listen to anything at home or on the road, since, iTunes and the mp3 player do the trick. (edit: noticed after saving, there's no qotd submitter? where did the question come from?)
What would the title of your autobiography be?
Submitted by princesskasren.
I've already known what the title is going to be for some time now: "Square Peg, Round Hole".
...
I saw the Borat movie in Brooklyn today. I had bought tickets online on Fandango for a matinee showing, but, the idiot who wanted to see it with me ended up oversleeping and late. Every single later showing at the theatre was sold out and I wound up trading the tickets to a couple who wanted to go to an earlier showing. And I ended up wandering around Cobble Hill waiting for my buddy to show up for the next showing. Very nice neighborhood though, so it wasn't time wasted.
Anyway, the movie itself was awesomely funny, but, I didn't like some of the cuts, including a few missing Jew jokes. Quite a few of the really obscenely racist scenes were cut out, including "throw the Jew down the well" and "Borat hunting the Jew". (edit: Yes, I know Sacha Baron Cohen is Jewish. No, I'm not a racist.) I figure they were cut for time or because the early screeners didn't react positively to those scenes...
The best scene I think is probably the naked wrestling one, which is one where I really laughed hard with straight through. Even though I had previously read about it, the scene still pretty much took me entirely by surprise, and as such, I won't spoil any of the hilarious details. Although, it is a little disheartening that the best scene in the movie is one that was probably entirely scripted unlike some scenes (and the HBO show) which are based on Borat/AliG saying outrageous things to people and getting unscripted and equally outrageous responses.
I will probably ended up buying the DVD release just to watch the movie in it's entirety assuming an uncut version is released. Well, if anything, most of the cut scenes are on youtube, and I'm sure someone on the internet will eventually figure out which scene goes where, insert them digitally, and release the result as a torrent. Hopefully.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you live? Why?
Submitted by abcdefg81.
You can probably guess where this is.
(edit: I wanted to see the Borat movie today. All showings through midnight were sold out at the handful of movie theaters I tried in Manhattan. I ended up buying tickets for tomorrow on Fandango. Sucks! At least I would've had a topic to write about. Oh well.)
It's been a bad month for me at work.
Well, a bad couple of months, which have all pointed towards this, the inevitable; but, me, in denial, I've chosen to just ignore what was going on around me. Well, everything just came crashing down the past couple days, and with my panic attack this morning, I think I'm slowly coming to my senses.
I should've known that something was up when my manager left six months ago. We later surmised that he was already aware of the changes ahead, but, we would never really know. In his absence, my closest friend there, a person I think of as a mentor, would move up to fill his role. My mentor's involvement also led to my own promotion, which I think was 'good enough' for me to just ignore everything else that was going on at the time. In the preceding months, the company would get bought out, and a series of major changes would begin in the name of 'cost-savings'. That was probably the point at which I should've just walked away...
Because of these new initiatives at work, I ended up traveling quite a bit, being sent to various remote offices to assist with server virtualization and migrations. Every server I touched was doomed to a fate of being moved elsewhere, to a service provider or datacenter elsewhere, in the name of consolidation and cost-savings. I knew that eventually they would turn to our office too, and I would be asked to do there what I was already doing elsewhere. Everything would eventually be moved elsewhere, essentially putting myself out of a job. After all, a datacenter without servers is no datacenter at all.
Of course, I stubbornly refused to believe any of this would actually affect me. Even as I and sat through meetings after meetings discussing the inevitable, and filling out spreadsheet after spreadsheet of documentation related to my servers, so that consultants could be able to migrate or move them without our help. And, I just ignored all of it. What could happen to me? They were even still willing to spend money on me, sending me to training among other things.
It all came tumbling down this past month though. My mentor left to pursue a good opportunity which fit him perfectly -- he had told me unconditionally what he thought would happen and why it was prompting him to leave -- and I chose to ignore him -- probably my biggest mistake. With him out of the picture, everything else just fell apart. The backup environment, *MY* backup environment, fine-tuned to perfection after months of work, would be junked in favor of a cheaper solution -- the overhead was not needed with the reduced server footprint. A decision to move the SAN offsite was made -- the very backbone of everything would be moved elsewhere -- the storage was more useful elsewhere, they said. Still months away, but, it was a sign of the end to come.
And this past week, they (consultants!) moved the first batch of servers out, to their new home, a datacenter elsewhere, in another state. This served as a turning point for at least one other of my colleagues; who gave his two-weeks-notice today regarding a new position he would take elsewhere.
With the sudden (or not-so-sudden) departures of my colleagues and the actualization of servers physically moving out of my datacenter, things finally clicked. And clicked badly they did. I did a couple of things in panic that I probably should not have done.
But, what's done is done.
