Feel Free to Leave Me a Message

I had a pretty busy three-day weekend.

And by "busy" I mean I worked (just counted) over 40 hours.

And by "weekend" I mean . . . We'll I guess I don't mean anything by that.

When I was doing my new-hire paperwork here they asked for "Emergency Contact Information" and I provided my wife's cellphone number, knowing that if I fall into the machinery and my shattered body is being rushed to some Emergency Room, Shana would probably like to know which Emergency Room that would be.

What I failed to understand was that "Emergency" as defined by this company is "Any time Garrick fails to answer his own cellphone within 3 rings."

Note: This company pays for neither line. I don't feel obligated to answer my cellphone ever. It is, after all, my cellphone. I do not belong to it.

Then, once I told Shana she needed to not answer unknown callers to her cellphone for the weekend, they started calling my home number. Late at night and early in the morning. While I was connected to email and fully reachable through that means.

My thought is, since I can't undo the damage done by giving out this information, my only recourse is to reduce the value of that information by making it false. So neither my home number nor Shana's cell number works as a way to contact me for anyone but friends and family. Sorry. I don't check that voicemail either.

A while back I declared "Voicemail Bankruptcy" and said I wouldn't be checking it due to the huge backlog. I've decided that I'm purposely not going to catch up on that.

If I miss a call, my phone displays it. There are extra steps in checking voicemail I can skip by returning the call or sending an email. I'd have to listen to over thirty messages at this point to hear the most recent.

This may sound extreme, but I think news of a sincere emergency should never be left in voicemail form. Emergencies are immediate. If the call isn't returned, voicemail be damned, within 15 minutes whatever life I was meant to save is probably gone already.

If it isn't an emergency, I can call back whenever and the information exchanged is immediate with that call. Live sentiment. Conversation in real-time. Speaking in "the Now".

Sure, this makes leaving a voicemail for me about picking up beer on my way somewhere kind of a wasted exercise. Towards resolving that, I've loaded a spare six-pack in the back of the car.

"Did you get my voicemail?"

"No, but I brought beer."

Even if the voicemail was about something totally unrelated to beer, that response works. For $8.99, I never need to check my voicemail again.

I do feel pretty bad that this leak of my personal contact information and my subsequent extreme screening methods to re-falsify that information with my most recent employer may make me slightly harder to reach. If you show up on my caller id, I'll answer. Or return your call if I'm in the bathroom.

I've been over how I feel about talking on the phone in there.

Good news from Macworld

 

I get it. The Macbook Air is thin.

Really, really thin. It weighs less than the Macbook, costs more and has slower hardware specs.

The important thing we are supposed to carry away with us is that it is eerily, spectrally, bordering on death-like thin.

Freaky.

The big news from Macworld came in a small, understated announcement from Dr. Guy (Bud) Tribble, VP of Apple Software:

"With the finalization of our patent process, we are please to announce a new offering as part of the Mac OS X software suite.

"iLolcat will revolutionize the way Mac users interact with cat-based internet memes. Using state-of-the-art Tabby Pattern Pixel Recognition technology, amusing cat pictures are automatically detected and imported into the intuitive iLolcat interface for modification.

"Let's say a co-worker emails this image to your Apple Mail client:

"We can all agree this is completely precious, right? But iLolcat takes this idea a step further and imprints the image with one of over two thousand pre-configured and amusingly spelled text portions. It's as simple as this:

 

"Ha Ha! Of course you can has cheeseburger, you adorable little ball of fluff! You know Uncle Bud can deny you nothing!

"But let's try a slightly less cliche text selection, completely at random:

"HA HA HA HA! That old classic NEVER gets old! Many years in the future, Mac users may want to input custom text instead of these default nuggets of comedy gold. Once cut-and-paste is possible on the iPhone, this kind of wizardry will be possible from anywhere in the world:

"Wow. That kitten has his facts straight, doesn't he? Also, he is so precious I just want to lick him. Don't you?

"iLolcat can also take the base image and mathematically compute ways the graphic can be made more cute than the original subject. This "Cuteness Integer" is controlled by an easy to use slider. By ramping the base image up to 100x the original base cuteness value, iLolcat returns this image:

 

"Spooky, isn't it? Its like iLolcat knows what we are all thinking. Patrick Swayze can act, dance and sing. We can all most certainly agree that he represents the Total Package. Am I right?"

 

 

We here at the Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng Institute of Fact Distribution and LOLcat Appreciation will truly value this addition to our software library and anticipate that if it functions as promised it will reduce our Lolcat creation time by approximately 40%.

-G

I was going to stop

Okay. Seriously.

I emailed a friend yesterday and pledged that I would lay off on touting Mac superiority for a while.

But then, Microsoft comes up with this patent application . . . . And I get all short of breath and twitchy . . . And I know that the technology (If you didn't click through, it monitors employee productivity and mental stability using bio-metric devices and hidden cameras. I can't make that up. Seriously, click the link.) in the patent would totally flag me as "about to punch someone in the freaking neck" . . . And it would be right!

Alright. I just need to calm down and think about something not so soul-crushing. Hang on a second. I'm going to look at a picture of a kitten.

There we go.

Much better.

Adorable!

Okay, so the thing about this patent that scares the absolute crap out of me is that essentially, managers can check some kind of database of behaviors to determine who is slacking and conduct employee stress reviews based on automated email which this system flings out whenever a worker exceeds some kind of Microsoft-established Stabbiness Threshold! Who are they to judge how stabby I can get before I actually stab someone! I can control it! My urges do not control me!

Hang on, please.

 

Ooooo. He's wearin' a lil hat on his lil head.

So cute.

Okay. Pressing on.

The tension levels of employees is something that management should have a handle on. Admittedly, they quite often don't. However a software-based solution of stress-tracking is not a fix for out-of-touch managers. Every freaking time someone goes nuts and shoots up his workplace, his co-workers talk about how they never saw it coming. They never saw it coming, even though he kept a desk covered in tiny clown figurines and if you moved one, just a bit, he'd flip out and email the whole company about someone screwing with ClownLand on his desk and everyone would just stay quiet for a few days. He kept roadkill in the breakroom refrigerator and spent hours everyday naming his pencils, arranging them according to their moods and then singing to them. But no one ever thought he'd snap and launch an assault from the stairwell. Just pay attention, damn it! Software will never correct cluelessness!

Just a minute.

Oh, yeah. That's the stuff there.

Kitten + Multiple Ducklings = Awesome.

Okay. So essentially what I'm suggesting is that technology will never be a substitute for actual human interaction. Not in any meaningful way. I suppose Apple's iGrope robot research division has their own ideas, but I doubt even that no-doubt intuitive interface will ever impact anyone's performance evaluation. Allowing inept managers to further distance themselves from their staff will not improve productivity for anyone long-term. And people could freaking die as a result.

"Oh, our managers don't seem to have any idea what their people are doing! Let's let them monitor everyone by webcam and provide baseline indicators for 'normal' so their ability to deal one-on-one with an actual disgruntled employee atrophies and, when the barrage of gunfire starts, they can be safely stashed away in the inner sanctum of the viewing dome to emerge when the smoke clears to build a new department out of the ashes!"

Sorry. One more.

 

Oh, look! That's not a Pop-Tart! Real Pop-Tarts contain slightly less pet hair.

Okay.

We all have our ways of dealing with stress in the workplace. No automated system can track all of them. If it could, it may as well just be in charge, cranking out robotic minions from some lightning backlit mountain top while using all carbon-based life for slave labor and bio-fuel. It's really the only thing that makes sense.

I'm going to find out if the dust has cleared at MacWorld. Maybe there is some good news there.

-G

Zeitgeist

I've pretty much given up on ever seeing a Nintendo Wii at retail. I'm starting to come to terms with that after a year of looking for one.

I refuse to buy a "Bundle" packaged with games I don't want and I refuse to buy one off the internet after a few websites claimed to have one and offered to let me order something (A token? A Wii voucher?) which would guarantee the Wii would be sent my way in the event anyone ever saw one.

In truth, I wanted (No. Expected.) to walk into EB Games and pick up the console for the price advertised, carry it to the register and walk out with one a few moments later after advising the clerk that the magnetic stripe on my bank card has worn through and he will have to type in the number. This is the way things should be purchased in an ideal world.

Except for music. Music should be purchased from the iTunes Store. Or maybe it falls off a truck.

I'm not sure about music.

I've been in a lot of video game stores in the past year, and my methods have degenerated a bit over time. I once strode in and demanded the precise date and time of the next shipment of Wiis. This information is not given freely to people who wander in from the mall. This information is reserved for those relationship masters who cultivate a friendship with the staff at a game store.

The last time I walked in, I walked up to the counter and requested a Wii as though it was a bag of ice at the grocery store "and I guess I'll need a second controller, right?" Since the staff is still shocked I could even ask, I know that the bitterness these supply problems have instilled in me will eventually prevent my purchase, even in the coming days when the Wii flows like cheap beer at a frat party.

People regularly send me video clips from YouTube or on MySpace which speak to the bliss which can only be achieved through Wii-ownership, yet I remain Wii-less -- Engrossed in the daily struggles of my daughter's Webkinz and threatening anyone who will listen that I'll set up a Second Life account and spend my evenings as a giant, rubber-clad raccoon-man. Don't think I won't do it.

As you may have already guessed, my post from yesterday was not well-received. When I pulled into my driveway in the afternoon my front yard was entirely filled with little killer robots, all powered by Windows CE and Liquid Hate. Fortunately, they were very tiny and slow. They continued to pound away on the doors and glass most of the evening until it started to rain and they departed, damp and bored and in need of the kind of love only an all-night waffle house can provide.

An iPhone-based killer robot would have traveled back in time to kill me before the offending post was ever written and then been elected Governor of California. 

These are not the typical issues of website content generators like Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. No. Issues relating to killer robots powered by Microsoft seem specific to me. It is the path I have chosen. Up until now.

Things have to change here at the Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng Center For Pop-Culture References And Comic Book Movie Review Discount Emporium.

This morning I'm announcing (in my very own black mock turtleneck and jeans clad keynote) that we are rethinking our chosen demographic. In order to avoid another rainy morning of picking robot parts out of the lawn, I need to reach out to a more media-driven reader-base. People who care what Avril Lavigne is doing. People who know the lyrics to Hannah Montana songs. People with Facebook accounts they are looking to migrate to Twitter with a kind of cold dread normally reserved for routine surgical procedures. People who watch TV live rather than off the DVR with the commercials stripped out or downloaded off the internet. People who know the rules to Texas Hold 'Em.

To put it directly: Goodbye "Pasty IT Guy", hello "Slutty MILF".

I hope this transition is a smooth one for all parties involved.

Why now?

Most guys will be able to relate to this analogy:

Ever remember having a crush on a girl in school and being totally ignored by her until you started being interested in someone else?

Now, with me typing away happily on my Mac and all but giddy (in a manly sort of way) about whatever will be announced at Macworld in a few hours, why is Microsoft suddenly interested in talking to me about a consulting position?

I entertained it. I even went to the Microsoft website to enter my information. When I came to the point where my resume could be copied and pasted into place, the instructions on the screen told me that Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V would allow that function. It also told me that if I were using a Mac, the proper keys would be Command-C, Command-V.

I found this odd from the Microsoft HR site. While technically accurate, I would hope the Microsoft site would instead instruct me to use Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V and, if filling out the Microsoft HR form from a Mac, "Screw you. This interview is over."

I suppose it is just part of some "Mac User Outreach" program Microsoft has in place. But seriously. If use of the products sold were a requirement from a software company, I doubt it could be called unfair hiring practices. If I'm supposed to enable corporations to best utilize Microsoft products to make a better IT Life for themselves, shouldn't I actually believe that to be in their best interests? Or at least possible?

Clinging to the Microsoft Corporate Volume Licensing Agreement already in place while asking them to pay Microsoft to update the systems anyway doesn't seem to avoid the possibility of harmful change. It just keeps the harmful change in a state where Microsoft continues to get paid and the user's utilization of technology continues to stagnate.

That said (and please remember I prefer the term "Mercenary" to "Whore") if they offer enough money I'd be an idiot (if a true-to-myself-and-my-core-technological-beliefs idiot) to not take the job. At least that's what I keep telling myself. As I type away happily on my Mac.

Right click? Me? For what?

Cisco Systems (according to their website, though I suspect at least a little marketing spin in this figure) provides the hardware and software support for 80% of the backbone of the internet. Their share of the Corporate VPN market is staggering, a behemoth of remote connectivity which may never truly vanish from the Earth.

The IT staff at my company can't seem to easily locate or produce a VPN client which will work from Windows Vista, much less the "Virtual Vista" I run in a window on my Mac.

The Cisco VPN client for OS X runs just fine.

I can't stress this enough: I lost more applications to compatibility issues switching from Microsoft XP to Microsoft Vista than I did by switching to a Mac. 

And whatever they announce at Macworld in a few hours will be cool. Maybe not revolutionary, maybe not Earth-Shaking, maybe not iPhone-Awesome, but "cool" is a given. Apple has cornered the market on that.

Now what?

Okay n00bs, stop filling Guild Chat with your feeble ideas of how awesome Chuck Norris is and listen up.

You might think it sounds fun to team up with twenty-four other like-minded people to  kill Gruul the Dragonslayer. You'd be wrong, n00b.

This is serious. All twenty-five of us have to have our head on straight, know the strategy, and execute that strategy flawlessly or this is going to be an evening of nothing but long and lonely corpse runs and high equipment repair bills.

This is not The Sims Online. This is not Barbie Dreamhouse Online Fashion Adventure. This isn't even Windows Solitaire, though I know that shuffle sound better than I know the sound of Rick Astley's dreamy voice and if I hear that shuffle noise again over the headset while there is a raid going on someone is getting freaking kicked out of the guild.

This is World of Warcraft, n00bs. See that last word? It indicates that this game is about war and specifically the crafting of that war. And we can all agree that war is serious, right? Right.

Alright, let's take a look at the attached diagram, shall we? That big black dot in the middle of the cave is Gruul himself. Everyone should be hitting him a lot until he dies, except the Healers.

The Healers need to concentrate all healing energy on or around the place on the map designated "K". That's where I, Webinara, will be hanging out as long as I can until Gruul starts throwing us all around like 25 ice cubes in a rented margarita machine. 

Okay, so here is how it will go down:

Everyone steps just inside the door. We all need to argue for a few minutes (maybe 20) until everyone has the right spell effects in place. Then we hang out while someone goes to pee. And then we wait while someone else goes to pee because they missed the first person going to pee when it wasn't a Guild-Sanctioned Raid Pee-Break. Bring a bottle, n00bz.

Finally, the raid leader issues half a dozen ready checks and we find out who has gone Away From Keyboard. We spend another five or ten minutes giggling about what they may be doing AFK until they come back and ask what they missed.

"Nothing."

We renew the preparatory spells which were wearing off.

Then, someone rushes in and starts this thing.

Webinara will dash across the floor, taking an ineffective swipe at Gruul on her way (She's not Specialized to hit in melee, no giggling because she hits like a second grade girl) to take up her position at the back of the room.

Now, you'll probably get raid warnings about cave-ins overhead and standing too close to other raid members for the shatter phase which will multiply your damage and holy-crap-kill-us-all. A lot of guilds will tell you to "Flee" or "Run Away" or "Move calmly away from the other group members until the warnings stop". A lot of other guilds are made up of cowards and losers and ultra-n00bz. What happens if you move right while the guy with a warning with your name on it moves left? I'll tell you what happens: More damage to us and we all die and Gruul laughs his horrible digital laugh while we head back to fetch our corpses.

Do what I do: Just stand there taking the damage. This is why we let Healers in the guild even though their damage is so pathetic. You don't want to put those poor pacifists out of a job, do you? Sometimes healing gear drops and de-enchanting it all is fun but ultimately useless.

Anyway, back to the fight. So Gruul gets more and more angry the longer we survive and there are fewer and fewer of us left standing to do anything about it. Things get chaotic and it gets harder and harder for the Healers to find us to save our lives. This is why it is vital that we stand exactly wherever Gruul chooses to throw us. And keep hitting that guy.

Eventually, he falls down and drops gear someone may want.

So, let's get in there, pull together, work as a team to keep Webinara alive and . . . What?

The Raid is canceled? There aren't enough Healers online?

Now what am I supposed to do?

/pout

In which I voice my rage at the internet

There is so much stuff for me to be upset about . . . Where do I even start?

Maybe it is the ongoing chair situation which has me on edge. In order to "resolve" that issue, I stole a chair from a conference room. But to keep that chair through the occasional trip to the restroom or to get coffee, I taped a sign on the back which reads,"Please don't steal my chair. Seriously. If you do, I will hunt you down and kill you -- Probably by bludgeoning you with this very chair". This accomplished three things:

1. It got people thinking about improvised weaponry in the workplace. In that way, I've made my office a little bit more like a Ninja Training Center. (New Year's Resolution #242 -- Check!)

2. Someone asked me about the sign while I was sitting in the chair and I replied that it was on the chair when I stole it and that the original owner needed more follow through on his weak threats. This last bit I yelled over the cubicle walls as though in challenge.

3. Most importantly, no one has wheeled away with my chair.

Okay. I apologize for not being better about posting my progress about this, but yesterday I broke the 5000 point mark with Diet Coke Rewards. 5024, to be fully accurate, though I still have more to type in today sometime. I think I've actually replaced all my bodily fluids with caramel color and carbonated water.

There is nothing at all worth buying on the Coke Reward Points page. Really. Go look. They had a Nintendo Wii for about 15 minutes last year, but now there is just nothing. Also, the site is Flash-based and annoys the hell out of me. I hate going there and I hate drinking Diet Coke and I hate spending points on stupid sweepstakes. I'm only continuing to drink the stuff now so that eventually I can trade the points in for stock options. Or a replacement liver.

I've been working on some content for a web page a bit at a time. I hate having to test it in two browsers. In Firefox it looks okay, but if I open Internet Explorer and look at it through that it looks like crap. Also, the mere act of opening Internet Explorer probably instantly sends all my banking information to Al-Queda, formats the three closest hard drives and (from fifteen miles away) tells my cat that she has weight issues. I'll admit, the security bulletins about Internet Explorer seem to have melded into each other in my head and possibly mixed themselves with some especially paranoid Wikipedia entries. Here is the point:

The internet has standards. And by "standards" I mean a regular format, certainly not an ethical baseline. A friend talked to me about "Furries" last night and I fell asleep quietly weeping. Note: There is no link for "Furries" intentionally. If you want to look that up, feel free. I'm just not helping.

So, back to my hate-fueled rant, HTML should look the same in whatever browser a person uses to view it. I know there are work-arounds for content-creation people, and I use them. But I shouldn't have to.

AT&T says they will probably filter the internet traffic their subscribers produce, at the very least moving certain protocols up and down the traffic priority scale. Basic web? Sure. Email? Maybe. File sharing? Even the "C0mpl3t3 Pr3++yG33kyTh1ng Masterwork Collectors Edition Digitally Signed Open-Format Archive"? Oh, hell no.

This means, in essence, my right to distribute my personal writings is less important to AT&T than someone's search results on the term "Furries". My right to free speech is at least as important as that. Maybe.

And I'm upset that this news is from AT&T, because that means that the Comcast people (who already filter content in this way) are making sense to some demographic I fear may have the right to vote.

As a final note, my Spell Check really, really wants me to use a capital "I" when typing "internet".

No way, internet. Not until you earn back my respect.