Year: 2009

70 minutes is so worth it:
http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/12/17/watch-this-70-minute-video-review-of-star-wars-the-phantom-menace/

I just put A. on my health insurance.

The only other tiime in my life I ever carried someone on my insurance was a long time ago, and, in may ways, was the death knell of the relationship. On some level, I think, cubconsciously, this is why I held off on doing it until the end of the year – we both had health insurance… there was no rush.

Now, however, I’m financially planning for two. A. is horrible at long-term anything, and is very indecisive about benefits assignment and investment. I’m trying to put together a good budget for the coming year, which will be the first year we file joint, I think. I don’t know if it will make sense for us to file joint for 09, though it may – I’d prefer to file together the first year it was planned for, mostly to try and preserve capitol as much as possible.

It is wierd, being responsible for someone else’s health insurance – with all the hubbub out there now, in regards to the importance of health insurance in general, it has caretianly made me more thoughtful on the costs and coverage that we have.

I can only hope that, whatever I figure out in terms of my career in the coming year, I figure out something that makes the insurance decision a sound one.

i have been killing myself, for the btter part of three weeks a month and a half, to make an insane deadline for today.
last week, we got through phase one of the rollout, with nary a bruise.
last fucking night, i was told that phase two and three have been put off until december 17 and december 31 respectively – this news came while i was firefighting a completely unrelated issue from a totally prima donna client, and losing to the flames.

i have to see this project through to the end, but i’m back on the market jan 1, raise or no fucking raise.

i am jack’s ruptured spleen.

The sons of the Prophet were brave men and bold
And quite unaccustomed to fear.
But the bravest by far in the ranks of the Shah
Was Abdul Abulbul Amir.

Now the heroes were plenty and well known to fame
In the troops that were led by the Tsar.
And the bravest of these was a man by the name
Of Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

One day this bold Russian had shouldered his gun,
And donned his most truculent sneer.
Downtown he did go, where he trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

“Young man,” Quoth Abdul,”Has life grown so dull,
That you wish to end your career?
Vile Infidel, know, you have trod on the toe
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.”

Said Ivan, “My friend, your remarks, in the end,
Will avail you but little, I fear.”
“For you ne’er will survive to repeat them alive.
Mr. Abdul Abulbul Amir.”

“So take your last look at sunshine and brook.
And send your regrets to the Tsar.
By this I imply, you are going to die
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.”

Then that bold Mameluke drew his trusty skibouk.
With a cry of, “Allah-Akbar!”
And with murderous intent, he ferociously went
For Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

They fought all that night, ‘neath the pale yellow moon.
The din, it was heard from afar.
And huge multitudes came, so great was the fame,
Of Abdul and Ivan Skavar.

As Abdul’s long knife was extracting the life —
in fact he was shouting “Huzzah!”
He felt himself struck by that wily Kalmyk,
Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

The Sultan drove by in his red-crested fly,
Expecting the victor to cheer.
But he only drew nigh to hear the last sigh,
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

Tsar Petrovich, too, in his spectacles blue,
Rode up in his new crested car.
He arrived just in time to exchange a last line,
With Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

There’s a tomb rises up, where the blue Danube flows,
Engraved there in characters clear:
“Ah, stranger when passing, oh pray for the soul
Of Abdul Abulbul Amir.

A Muscovite maiden her lone vigil keeps
‘Neath the light of the pale polar star
And the name that she murmurs so oft as she weeps,
Is Ivan Skavinsky Skavar.

Hello LJLand!
I’m doing ninhundredmilesanhour pretty much all the time, every day lately, with a minor break (either way) coming tomorrow evning, but with the real prize coming at the end of November when we open our new Discount Ticket Space.

For all the times I bust my ass and save the day, I get a surprisingly small number of thankyous. I’m not in it for the thankyous, honestly, or the paycheck – I do like a little recognition here and there.

Recently, I got an award, from one of the vendor companies I’ve been sitting on the development team for (as a client advisor/community organizer) for over the last two years:

In other words, I just got my own Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in Field of Excellence.

It is heavy, and made of crystal. The top is pointy enough to cut paper. I may use it to kill myself/and/or/boss depending on how the month ends.

I started by day today by almost dying.

Sure, I’m usually full of amusing hijinks on how I nearly maimed/injued/killed myself, but today was actually quite sobering, and a little scary.

I was walking out of my building to the subway, which is less than 1/10th a block from the entrance to my building. It takes me longer to get into the subway than it does to get to the entrance stairs.

This enormously rotund woman wheeling double suitcases comes up to me and starts asking me questions. I pop off my earphones, and calmly direct her to the 4/5 train. It kind of amazes me, how many people ask me for directions, when there are so many other likely culprits about. I know part of it is eye contact. I am always mentally thumbnail sketching people as I walk around, and part of that is trying to take in maximum information in minimum time. I think tourists from niceville mistake that for caring.

Anyway, I give the trudleasaurus her directions, and step out of her way, so I can get by her, and into the normal flow of rapid pedestrian traffic streaming towards the train. I make it maybe four feet, and something which sounded like an M80 going off behind me had me jumping, and spinning halfway around midair. The first thing that went through my head was that it was a package bomb or something, and that there might be more coming around. Instead, I saw a picture frame.

Maybe three feet behind me was a very large picture frame, with solid back-matting, all in black, probably 2′ by 3′. It was one of those multi-picture mat/frame things – it had a bunch of seperate “windows” for pictures, all of which were filled up. The noise, apparently, was when it fell/was thrown out someone’s window, and landed just behind me, face down. This guy right next to me asked me if I was O.K., which I was, bnut I was a little surprised/shaken. He picked up the frame,and it left behind a large rectangle of powdered glass. After showing me the frame, and asking me what he thought he should do with it, I told him to toss it in the garbage, a few feet away. He decided he was going to take it into my lobby, and explain the situation to the doormen – hopefully they could do something about the glass.

It was a surreal train ride – so many things were rushing through my head, not the least of which was if I had paused to re-set my music, isntead of getting aroudn the woman with the bags, I would have probably worn that frame like a helmet, most likely to disastrous effect. How many times a day do we sneak past death, and how many times a day does she grin and bear it, knowing eventually happenstance will work in her favor?

I will shamelessly add that I totally clocked someone with my bag, and nearly knocked them down the stairs in the initial surprise and jump-spinning bit, but they caught the bannister. I bet her livejournal reads “I almost got knocked down the stairs by some giant moron with a ponytail…”

ETA: When I came in the building tonight, I asked the doorman if anyone claimed the picture. He still had it behind the desk, and I took another look at it. This is what it most closely resembles – he wouldn’t let me take a picture of it. Nobody has come to claim it, but he said he recognised one of the people in the pictures, so he assuimed eventually it would be claimed. I asked him to tell me what floor the guy lived on when he fouind out.

ETA2: It was a she, not a he who claimed it, from the nineteenth floor. If we figure that fucker was 5-6lb. with glass in, and it fell between 180-190 feet, it would ahve done some serious damage on impact (I feel like there is a Physics Midterm Problem in there somewhere).

Science, spiritualism, anthropology, philosophy, and a peppering of romance. This story has it all, and not in a trite or cliche package.

Louise Young, the author of The Permanent Press’ upcoming release, Seducing the Spirits covers an incredible amount of ground in a book which deals with a remote and isolated place. Through the protagonist, you are brought into a clear perspective of the trials of a field scientist, both in regards to what they endure, and what they must adjust to in order to survive when not engaged in that test of survival.

Spirits is set in the remote jungles of Panama, and is just as involved in the culture of the indigenous peoples of that region as it is with the wildlife the scientist-protagonist was observing. Like the eagles the protagonist is there to study, the tribe of Kuna natives, whose lands the protagonist’s research takes place on, are imperiled by the effects of the outside world. Young weaves these two themes together with great care, but not in a preachy way – there is no way one can be left missing the parallels.

Young does a good job of fleshing out her protagonist (who seems startlingly semi-autobiographical) in a way that you get to know her better, as the story is beginning to draw you in further. One might think that there is not much in the way of a story, when dealing with the field research of obscure eagles, but, from the way the story is told, I’d say that is pretty far from the truth. Overall, the book leaves you with an interesting set of questions, as well as some startling conclusions about the atomic nature of human society, particularly at the fringe of civilization. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend the book to anyone interested in the travails of researchers dealing with indigenous cultures, and how those challenges relate to field science, and the scientists who make it happen.

I changed my phone provider today.
After 10+ years wth Sprint, they finally pissed me off beyond repair. I hate all cell providers, and I hate big V a lot, for a long time, but they are the only people who will have what I want, I think. Sprint – today, broken phone, horrible service, and complete lack of care or customer satisfaction. I told them they would lose a customer if they did not respond to the problem – they point blank said they wouldn’t help.

I went with Verizon. I’m on a Blackberry Tour until they get the Pre next year.

Fucking Sprint.

New number is 917.720.7434

I just remembered one I heard at Dan’s wake that I wanted to pass on/preserve for posterity.

What is brown and rhymes with snoop?


Dr. Dre

Dan was full of ’em. He was one chuckalarious motherfucker. I think that I will always remember that joke as his best, because he got me with it after he had already passed on.

I don’t normally have a huge amount of patience for gawkers in NY. I don’t care that people do it – we all do it, time and then, even people who live their whole lives here, occasionally, look up or over or around and have a “holy shit” moment. However, NY gawkers have the good sense to have their moment in a place where they aren’t gonna fuck up the rhythms. Not in the middle of a crosswalk, or the center of the sidewalk, or on the stairs or turn style leading into the subway.


Getting to work today was slogging through a celebrity funeral. There are a handful of people who are really impacted and care, and a football stadium of lookers-on, more interested in being able to say “I was there when” than having any actual grief. In the rain. It always fucking rains for funerals, doesn’t it?

There were people, spread thin throughout the cracker-crumb crowd, who were here eight years ago. They stand out in the crowd – in posture, in pallor, and in the sense of discomfort we have at the pageantry. We all had the same look at the people around us. It was nauseating.

I didn’t lose anyone in my family. I’m lucky. I lost a couple friends. Lots of people lost way more than I did. Lots of lives were crushed. Those people were up at the park by Liberty Plaza. Those people were dropping lilies with the VP and the Mayor.

The fucking morgue-fleas I had to fight my way through for a good half hour before I could make any forward traction on the slog into work today? The people with the cameras and the camcorders, who want to film a clip of “the big hole” or get a snap of someone famous or a NYFD in full uniform with a fucking black strap around their badge (both conversations I had to grit my teeth through waiting to get into the subway in the rain)? Those people should be bulldozed into the hole.

I’m reading The Long Walk by Stephen King. Part of my anger stems from the subject matter of that book, which I see reflected around me in the anticipatory look in the eyes of all the fucking tourists from Iowa who want to get a snap of “The Ground Zero on Nine Eleven”. They are no different than the audiences in The Long Walk or The Running Man. This country was fundamentally changed, forever, eight years ago today. For a few shining weeks following that, at least in NY, the fucking world was hopeful. Then it all went back to being politics and shit. Now, the shit draws flies.

The people who gawk, today, are just trying to get a stiffy on the scent of ghostly smoke and the dust of phantom ashes. They find a way to connect it to their lives – to their politics, or their religion, or their xenophobia. To them, two planes killing a couple thousand people (ignoring the deaths over PA or in DC) was an attack on America. It is an ideological wound, which, now festering, drives them to abandon common sense.

To myself, and to many New Yorkers, it was a personal thing. It still is to me, sometimes – more often than ever since moving to FiDi a little over a year ago. That is part of what will inevitably drive me from the neighborhood – I will have to leave it, or I will end up hating too much of humanity. I’ve almost gotten into physical altercations twice as a result of people’s complete insensitivity to the personal nature of this day. To them, it is like asking where I was when the Challenger blew up, or when JFK got shot. Where were you What did you see? What was it like? Who do you know that died? Did they find the body? To me, it is like asking who found the body of their dead grandmother who was murdered in the bath, or how soon was it before you fucked another guy after your husband died?

To them, initially, I say I don’t want to talk about it. That generally draws apologies, and sympathy. But it is almost always cloying sympathy, because now they know there is a scar or scab, and they want to pick at it – to figure out which. They know there is a story there, and I’m being selfish by denying them that moment of sick connection – which they will doubtless regale with authority on some long-off night of beer or spirits – “I talked to this guy who was there and…”

Some people stop at the cloying sympathy. A couple have pushed it. Three times is my limit. I stop being polite after the third attempt. At the fifth attempt, I leave, or take a swing at someone. I’ve already been rude or hostile enough for them to see that coming. Both times I almost got into it (once a night manager in a hotel bar in Buffalo, once in a after-hours joint in a conference in South Carolina – some bar fly with a drawl who probably had a fucking stars and bars bumper sticker, but “understood what I went through”), the bitterness of my rudeness was sufficient to prod the insistent cross-examiner into physical action, before I lost the fight against the urge to smash their face in. Both times, someone else stepped in before things got ugly.

That is a scab, not a scar, and there is still a lot of ugly, ugly puss in there.

I wonder, some days, when precisely the world went mad, and what everyone was so busy doing that the moment escaped notice.

So I get into work stormy and full of hate, ready to chew sand and spit glass, and I start plowing through my email. My dad sent me this gem of a joke:


AN ITALIAN BOY’S CONFESSION
‘Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I have been with a loose girl’.
The priest asks, ‘Is that you, little Joey Pagano ?’
‘Yes, Father, it is.’
‘And who was the girl you were with?’
‘I can’t tell you, Father. I don’t want to ruin her reputation’.
“Well, Joey, I’m sure to find out her name sooner or later so you may as well tell me now. Was it Tina Minetti?
‘I cannot say.’
‘Was it Teresa Mazzarelli?’
‘I’ll never tell.’
‘Was it Nina Capelli?’
‘I’m sorry, but I cannot name her.’
‘Was it Cathy Piriano?’
‘My lips are sealed.’
‘Was it Rosa DiAngelo, then?’
‘Please, Father, I cannot tell you.’

The priest sighs in frustration. You’re very tight lipped, and I admire that. But you’ve sinned and have to atone. You cannot be an altar boy now for 4 months. Now you go and behave yourself.’

Joey walks back to his pew, and his friend Franco slides over and whispers, ‘What’d you get?’

‘Four months vacation and five good leads.’

It is a funny joke, and it made my day. It definitely didn’t clear my head of all the blackness gathered like the thunderheads outside, but it sure as shit poked a hole in them. I think if anyone else had sent me that joke, it wouldn’t have mattered. Because it was my dad, and because of conversations and disagreements we have and had on religion, and conversations I’ve had recently on the subject, it was all the funnier. I wonder if, on some cosmic level, he was on that wavelength when he hit forward. The parent wavelength – ‘kid in trouble – throw a rope’ – I don’t know. That is the power of parenthood though. Pretty amazing shit.

Thanks dad.

The wedding seems like light years ago, and the honeymoon a long-ago (but wonderful) dream.

I have been to beautiful, tropical places before. I’ve seen and been in the Pacific (which, generally speaking, I have not loved as much as the Atlantic). I’ve been on islands, and seen small communities, and diversity both urban and ecological.

I have never seen anything with such a blend as Hawaii.

The first week was great (despite hurricane), and while the travel is grueling, it was totally worth it. Didn’t get to see everything, even after two weeks, which just means I want to go back. A. does too. I got her into snorkeling. She is not the strongest swimmer, so I was really proud of her for trying, and even more excited that she liked it!

Thanks to everyone who attended the wedding, and provided generously for the honeymoon. Two weeks of great living, dining, drinking, and sightseeing definitely wouldn’t have been possible without the love and charity of our friends.

I have returned to a shit show.

Thursday I worked until 4am on a tech problem that came up in my absence. Yesterday was supposed to be a product launch (delayed until today or tomorrow), and this weekend I had a full system upgrade, which led me to work all weekend.

In the midst of last week’s chaos, a friend of mine from high school died.

Dan was one of the funniest guys I ever met. He and I hit it off my sophomore year of High School. Shortly after we became friends, I introduced him to my brother, and the two became thick as thieves. They never lost touch – my brother actually lived with him for a few years in Boston. This was out of the blue – his facebook, and the attendance at his wake was a testament to the number of people affected by his departure. I’d like to think he died the way he lived, with a smile and an an innapropriate joke. I’ll never know if that was true or not.

The downers of last week, the stress of work, and the lack of time off, the highlight of the weekend was defintiely ‘s birthday. This year represents more than half our lives as friends – something I was contemplating tooling around back roads of Yonkers on the way back from Dan’s wake. I have some great friends. I’ve had some great freinds, who have come and gone. I’ve lost some great friends, to happenstance or mortality.

G. is more like family than friend, and I’m not the only one in my family that thinks that. Such a funny world. I never plan much more than five years out (and have been doing so for only five and a half years now), and now I’m suddenly planning for a lifetime. It is an interesting gearshift – not unpleasant, but not light. The clutch isin’t grinding, but it requires a lot of concentration to manouver correctly.

All this stress on the wake of two weeks of chillaxing has set off some heatlh issues – complicated by the fact that my doctors are still in Weschester. I don’t much belive in doctors, and I know much of that is subjective perspective (when I had my arm surgery, I saw some great doctors, but they are a very small drop in a very big lake). The issues that have been flaring up will defintiely require some basic doctoring – getting an appointment for a physical, and getting in to see a specialist is pretty crazy! Not something I really have the time to be doing. I’ll probably just end up going to the ER tomorrow, so I can get the ball rolling sometime before late September.

I got a cold call today from an ex-colleague who works at CU looking to headhunt me. She incorrectly read my Linkedin, and assumed I was out of work. From the looks of the job she was offering me (and her title) I’m better suited for her job than the one she wanted me for, but it kindled a spark in me that I thought was dead – a spark that was very interesting in the contrast of the stress of my life around here. I could go work for someone who would pay me to go to school.

Anyone reading this knows me as an avid lover of knoweldge and learning. It is academics I cannot stomach. The politics and petty plays of “Professional Academics” churns my stomach in ways no other contemplated pursuit ever has.

Despite that, I have always thought I’d make a good teacher, as I have been told by others along the way. It might be worth looking, even if only to have something to fistwave at the unreasonable folks here at work, who see 11pm calls/emails on a Sunday night, after working all weekend, as not going out of the way, but simnply “doing your job”.

If I don’t do that, maybe I’ll just get an aswering service. I’m trying to stay focused ont he good stuff.

Nothing like a good carpet bombing first day back from a two-week vacation to get the juices flowing.

I had a prelim about my new job/title. In addition to the next quarter of transition, this is what has come up _so far_ – more to come, or so I am told.

New Job Responsibilities:

  • Joomla (data integration, database design & development, technical development)
  • jCal Pro
  • Virtumart
  • Streaming Services (Incited)
  • Flash Server Applications
  • EventCRM
  • Community Builder
  • Sharepoint
  • Webhosting and production infrastructure (service levels, certifications, security, maintenance)
  • CRM
  • Special Projects
  • Web Product evaluation, testing
  • Web analytics mantenence and reporting
  • Presto InMagic support for in-house clients

About every four of those should be one full-time staffer’s job. Guess I am gonna earn this promotion with both hands and a colostomy bag.
My resume is gonna look like a phonebook by the end of this.

we’re totally moving here – liquor stores open at 6am, and you can get 16lb of ice (in one bag) for $2.50! some things are surprisingly expensive, others cheap – over all, it averages out to about NYC prices, so long as you cut 90% of the beef intake and become a more voracious pescatarian, which i plan on doing over the next week.

in other news, the flight is long, and there is still a tropical storm, and lots of wind/rain which is gonna ff up all the outdoorsy stuff for the forseeable future, but who cares?

thanks to all for coming Sat, hope nobody died at Johnny’s.

The extracted Windows 7 Ultimate OEM-SLP product key, 22TKD-F8XX6-YG69F-9M66D-PMJBM
http://www.mydigitallife.info/2009/07/29/windows-7-ultimate-cracked-and-activated-permanently-with-oem-slp-master-product-key-with-slic-2-1/

Tip: It doesn’t matter if you have download and install Windows 7 RTM retail version ISO or Windows 7 RTM OEM version ISO. Just use the following commands to convert to OEM version:

slmgr.vbs -ilc OEM.XRM-MS (where OEM.XRM-MS is a valid OEM cert matching with SLIC 2.1 in BIOS)
slmgr -ipk 22TKD-F8XX6-YG69F-9M66D-PMJBM

Both 32-bit and 64-bit (x86 and x64) Windows 7 Ultimate system should and can be activated immediately. For Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Home Basic, and Windows 7 Starter, the OEM-SLP keys haven’t been leaked, thus can’t be OEM-activated yet. It’s expected that various Windows 7 activators, Windows 7 activation toolkits, Windows 7 Loaders and etc are expected to be released by various hackers soon.

http://rapidshare.com/files/261312105/DDlworld.co.cc_CW.W7LD.rar

1.Run the loader.
2.Install it on ur system reserved parition (else on windows parition)
3.reboot
4.slmgr -ilc C:HPQOEMSLIC-MPC.XRM-MS
5.slngr -ipk 22TKD-F8XX6-YG69F-9M66D-PMJBM

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