Den of Coffee Bean Hell

Well, it's been a while, but there is finally a new Foamy which I really enjoyed.

Check it out.

And remember, you're only paranoid if they're not out to get you!

Where Did It Go?

What the hell happened to the last year?!? I was reminded today that Repeal Day (Dec. 5th) is coming up soon. As first, my thought was "That can't be right! Wasn't Repeal Day was just a couple months ago? I posted about it!" But then I went back and looked, and sure enough, that post was from almost a year ago. Somehow, with all the crazy shit going on in my life (and don't get me wrong, much of that is the good kind of crazy shit), this last year has just flown by. It's a little hard to believe that we're already at the end of November. Somehow, part of my mind is certain that it's really still early October. (Check out this PhD Comic - yeah, I'm the guy in the third panel right now!)

Well, That's A New One

I currently serve as the moderator for a graduate student listserv for our department. It doens't really mean much work, but it does mean that I get requests for approval on what are clearly spam messages. Since I don't really have to do anything with them but delete the request, I don't think about them too much. Occasionally, however, something interesting comes through. Each approval request includes the subject line from the message. I just had this one come through:

"Vampire Computer Clown Triangle Crystal Family Family"

This is probably the most bizarre one I've ever had. I only wish I knew what the hell it means!

Bizarre

Know what this is? Yes, I know it's a fence! But look closer, know what the fence it made of?

These are old, surplus medical stretchers from WWI. They have been turned on their sides and used to make this fence around a public housing development in England. I came across a reference to this kind of thing is something I was reading a month or two ago. It was such a bizarre notion that I went in search of some images online, but couldn't find any. So I did some follow up research and ended up emailing the British National Trust (kind of like the US National Park Service). After my request for information got bounced around a bit, I got a reply from someone in London, who said that the specific development I had referred to in my email was gone, but that it had been a common practice. In fact, the Tube line one of his friends takes home goes right along one of these housing developments. He'll ask his friend to stop by and take some pictures and then he'll email them to me.

The next day, I had an email with a stack of pictures. The one above is one of the better ones. This is a closer shot, showing the "leg" of the stretcher.

You Probably Could've Planned That Better

I came across an interesting sounding job today (in Denver, so that might be kind of cool). The application instructions just wanted you to send in a cover letter and resume by email to the HR director at a specific address they provided. So I did.

And I got an auto reply back saying "I will be out of the office until Nov. 16." Now, this job posted today, the 14th. My thinking is, if you're going to be out of the office until the 16th, why don't you just wait and post the job on the 16th? You know, when you actually be in the office? Or if you don't want to have the job be posted on a Friday, wait for Monday.

But maybe that's just me.

---

UPDATE: 11/15, 10:15 AM

Well, I now have an answer - or, at least the question no longer really matters. As it turns out, they have someone else covering the incoming applications while the HR director is out of the office. I heard back from them today, saying they wanted to fill out one of those Affirmative Action survey forms and mail it back to them. Fine, I'll tell them I'm a white/Native Hawai'ian, non-disabled male who is not a military vet. At least I can use one of the department pre-paid envelopes to send it back - the department actually encourages grad students applying for jobs to use these as it's faster, cheaper, and helps with the department's placement rate. Fine by me!

I Wonder What It Means

"Never could read no road map
And I don't know what the weather might do,
But hear that witch wind whinin'
0h, see that Dog Star's shinin',
I've got a feelin' there's no time to lose,
No time to lose!"
~Grateful Dead, "Saint of Circumstance"

I've been listening to the Dead most of today at work. But for some reason, this particular verse caught my attention and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since. I'm sure there's a reason for this, but I have no idea what that could be.

You Must Believe

Before going any further, I will freely admit I'm a little left in my politics. I see the Republican Party as more than a little creepy and weird, favoring the pursuit for money and power over all else. I do not, however, hold any specific feelings for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party has more than itself of nut-jobs and crazies hypocrites who specialize in running around like chickens with their heads cut off (most of Boulder, CO, for example). And I want to stress here that I am talking about the Parties, not specific people belonging to those parties!

All that being said, however, I found this most amusing this morning. I have lifted it from Propsqueen, who I'm sure won't mind me reposting it here (after all, she got it from someone else, plus if she has a problem she'll simply let me know by giving me a smack upside the head next time I see her!).

So, without further ado . . .

To Be A Republic Today You Need To Believe:

1. Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

2. Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's Daddy made war on him , a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

3. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Viet Nam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

4. The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

5. A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational drug corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

6. The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

7. If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

8. A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our longtime allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

9. Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMO's and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

10. Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

11. A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

12. Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

13. The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

14. Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

15. Supporting "Executive Privilege" for every Republican ever born, who will be born or who might be born (in perpetuity.)

16. What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

17. Support for hunters who shoot their friends and blame them for wearing orange vests similar to those worn by the quail.

And, yes, there are any number of posts out there which do the same thing to Democrats, but this was more amusing to me!

Obliviousness

You may have heard or seen that there was a fire at the ASU student union yesterday. It was a 2-alarm fire, which broke out around 12:45PM and forced the fire department to evacuate the whole building - about 5,000 people. The Union is going to be closed for at least today, and likely most of the weekend at the very least, but luckily no one was hurt.

Why did I title this "Obliviousness" if I'm talking about a fire that was all over the news, you may ask. Well, that's because I didn't know about it until about 2:15 - an hour and a half after it started and nearly forty-five minutes after they got it put out! And my office is only about 1,000 feet from the Union!

I didn't notice a damn thing!

I only found about it when a friend who works across town emailed me to ask if the Union really was on fire. My response - "Huh?!?"

I was so wrapped up in what I was working on that, with the exception of grabbing things off the hall printer 3 or 4 times, I hadn't left my office since 7:00AM.

One of the most amusing/disturbing things with this whole thing had to do with ASU's notification system. After the Virginia Tech thing, ASU decided to set up a couple of notification systems to let students and staff know about emergencies. You could sign up for text message notifications, and if anything were to happen, ASU would send you a message. They also would send emails to addy of record for all students and staff.

We didn't get the email notification until 3:15. That's an HOUR after I found out about it! By the time they told everyone there was fire, it had already been out for 90 minutes!

And the sad part about this, myself and the other grad students in the department were too busy or so occupied that the fire was of interest for only about 10 or 15 minutes.

Happy Halloween!

To celebrate . . . Singing ZOMBIES!!!

Music is by Jonathan Coulton.

Quote of the Day

Idiot Box, n.: The part of the envelope that tells a person where to place the stamp when they can't quite figure it out for themselves. -- Rich Hall, "Sniglets"

Courtesy of an email from my father this morning!

Public Service Announcement #2

If you pay attention, and I know that's really hard for some of you, you'll notice that those little arrows on elevators light up. When the elevator arrives, if you look at that little arrow, it will tell if the elevator is going up or if it's going down.

If you do this, you won't have to look like an idiot by asking which way it's going!

A Public Service Announcement

This is directed at those who drive the I-10 in the Phoenix area.

As you drive out of Chandler on the eastbound I-10, you may notice that there are a bunch of Christmas decorations going up on the south side of the road. Let me assure you, you DON'T have to slow down to see what's going on!!!

These decorations are, in fact, a perfectly normal thing around here. They go up every year (although it seems a little earlier than usual this year) and they'll be up until after New Years. You will have plenty of time to see them as you drive by. And please rest assured that what you can see from the road can be seen just as well at 65-70 mph as at 10-15 mph. In fact, in some ways, they are better when seen at 65 or 70. That way it only takes you a second or two to see it all. When you're going 10 or 15, you have to spend most of your time checking on all the cars around you so you don't either get rear-ended or rear-end someone else.

For fuck's sake, they're just Christmas decorations! It's not like they're something you're never going to see again anywhere else in the world. And really, just how interesting are a bunch of fake trees and some over-sized fake packages? It's not like it's a bunch naked people running around, juggling flaming chainsaws or anything really cool like that.

The Art of Being a Bastard

As I have said, I do actually enjoy being a bastard at times. It is not something to be done indiscriminately, however. The whole thing with my roommate the other night got me thinking about the way I respond to problems like this. I have come to conclusion that I will pursue reasonable solutions to problems for only so long. I give people the chance to respond in an appropriate fashion. I will give people multiple opportunities to respond. At a certain point, however, I say "fuck it" and take a more "creative" approach to problem solving.

But there are three forms of bastardness. The first is the kind I used on my roommates. It is very clearly being a bastard, but a slightly indirect fashion. This form has a very specific target, and is applied to a very specific end.

For example, during the course of my first year as a graduate student, one of the grad students did a series of things which angered a number of us. They accused some of our colleagues of being stupid because they did not speak up in class very often, and declared that they did not want to work with these people on a group project (the groups were put together by the professor for the class who is also the director of our program, and he only assigned the groups after observing people over the course of most of the semester - he basically told her "too bad, get over it, go to work"). Both of the people in question here happen to be good friends of mine, who I knew to actually be far more intelligent than this person. She also made some disparaging remarks about the rest of us because most of us because we were younger than her, and since she had "real world experience" and we did not, she was in a better position to tell us how to be grad students (despite the fact that this was her first year, too!) and how to live our lives. Yeah, didn't go over so well with us. The next semester, I had my chance to be a bastard. We had another class with a group project. I ended up being on one of the "committees" with her. Over the course of the project, I found out that she hadn't really done anything for any of the committees she was on. As part of final report for this project, we had to write up a short paragraph on what each of did to contribute to the project. I had assumed editorial control over compiling this final report and had asked everyone to send my their little write up. She didn't. After several requests, I reached the "fuck it, I'm going to be a bastard" point and wrote it myself. I gave her name and said she "reported to be on the following committees". And that was it. Everyone else's write had information on which committees they worked on, what specific duties they carried out, etc. It became very clear to the people we were presenting this report to that she hadn't done jack shit. It took a while, and was done in a fairly subtle fashion, but I was able to play the bastard.

This form of bastardness must be used very carefully, however. It must well planned and carried out in such a fashion that it hopefully prevents further or escalated problems. It also must be done rather sparingly. If you are this kind of bastard all the time, it begins to lose it's effect. People just end up saying "yeah yeah, whatever" and ignoring it. This defeats the point of being a bastard. The entire purpose of being this first form of a bastard is to achieve a specific goal. It is most effective when people don't necessarily see it coming. It lets them know you are serious. When it works, it works beautifully. When it doesn't, things get bad. If you do it sparingly, and plan your approach right, you will succeed without too much fallout or collateral damage.

The second form is really just being a bastard for the sake of being a bastard. There is very little planning involved and it is a response to a specific situation, applied on the spur of the moment. This is blocking out someone who is trying to speed ahead in a construction zone. It's just responding in a bastardly fashion because you can. If you want an example, check out this Anywhere But Here strip. (I hope Jason Siebels doesn't mind me using one of his comics, but it really is just a perfect depiction of my point!)

The third form is is my favorite and most used form. But this is usually only carried out on friends in appropriate situations. Again, it is being a bastard for the sake of being a bastard. There is no real malice behind it. It's just giving your friends shit.

I Win

I have spent much of the last ten hours or so (at least, the hours I was awake) contemplating the Art of Being a Bastard.

A few months back, I picked up some new roommates. And there has be a . . . breaking in process involved. From everything I can tell, based on what they've said and what they've done, this is the first time that either of them have lived away from home. This despite this fact that they are both in their early to mid 20s. Until now, I think, they have always had someone to take care of them.

Well, I'm not their mommy. And I fucking shouldn't have to be. They are perfectly old enough to be able to function as adults in a shared apartment space. Most of the time, the things they've been doing have been fairly minor in the grant scheme of the universe. But it's my apartment - they just live there. I'm the only one on the lease, and they rent from me. I explained my basic rules when they moved in. Things like keeping music/movies turned down at night (that whole trying not to piss off the neighbors thing), putting their dirty dishes in the dishwasher and no the sink does NOT cut it, wiping up spills and crumbs from the kitchen counter, floor, and dining table, if you borrow one of my DVDs return it promptly and put it back in the right spot (not that hard when they're all in alphabetical order). Little things. I do not expect perfect cleanliness. I can't manage that, why should I expect it from them?

Well, they haven't done these things. So, I tried talking to them. When that didn't work, I took to leaving notes. What that too failed, I moved into Bastard Mode. I took to placing dirty dishes and the trash they left out in their doorway (if you haven't figured it out, they are a couple and are sharing a single room). If this didn't work, my plan was to threaten to hire a cleaning crew and charge them for it. Fortunately, I don't think it's going to come to that. One of them confronted me last night about leaving stuff outside their door. My response was simply "Well, pick it up in the first place I won't have to." At which point I explained that the glasses and trash I had placed there that morning (it was now about 9:30 at night) had been sitting on the table for 3 or 4 days at this point.

The mere fact that it has annoyed them to point of confronting me means that they are finally starting to get the message. They now understand that I can be a bastard and I will make sure that do these things one way or another.

I. Win.

It is not that I especially enjoy being a bastard. Okay, I actually do enjoy it, but I do not like being forced into being a bastard. If I am going be one, I want to make it a deliberate choice to do so. And while there is a whole philosophical argument that I always have a choice, I'm not going to go into that. The point is that I hate it when I feel compelled to act a certain way because of the particular situation. It this case, I had the choice of: (1) ignoring the situation - which would have been a good choice because that would just add to my stress level, and I really don't need that and neither do the people around me; (2) continuing to play mommy and leave them notes asking them to pick their stuff - also not a good choice because that will only result in me being pissed off, again not good for me or the people around me; or (3) be a Bastard - it may not really reduce my stress, but at least I'll be having some "fun" in the process. I took option #3.

I actually have a philosophy on the Art of Being a Bastard. But as this post is already getting fairly long, I'll save that for maybe this afternoon or tomorrow.

Priming the Pump

I was just pumped for information!

I don't know if I've mentioned it before or not, but I serve as a commission member for my local historic preservation committee. This is actually pretty impressive, given that I am still fairly young in terms of my professional career. I haven't been at this all that long and I'm already serving on a semi-judicial governing body. Pretty cool, huh?!?

Anyway, recently, we lost our Historic Preservation Officer (HPO) to another city in and another state, which means the city is in the process of trying to hire a new HPO. As it turns out, I know at least one, more like two, of the candidates. And he stopped by my office this morning to "chat".

Knowing this person the way I do, I can say that his intent was not really to try and get information out of me on other possible candidates or on how the committee was going to go about our business. But I can tell that he was hoping I would let something slip! It was a very passive-aggressive approach to the whole thing, really. But still slightly amusing!

Naturally, I realized what was going on and didn't say anything that he couldn't have found out through other means, so I'm the clear there. But really, how oblivious does he think I am? Did he honestly think that I wouldn't see what he was doing right away?

I know I've admitted to being a cynic before, so you can believe when I say that I was rather expecting something like this at some point. While I've not seen an actual list of people who have applied for the HPO job, by keeping my ear to the ground and by simply walking in the circles I do, I've heard of some of the people who were considering applying. And I know several of them. I'm actually rather surprised that it took this long. I mean, I am rather easy to bribe - a beer or two is usually all it takes!

Lack of Posts

I know, it's been almost two weeks since I last posted anything. If I said I really did mean to post, can I be forgiven? Things have just been really bust around here the last few weeks and I simply couldn't find the time to sit down and write for even a few minutes - or at least not when I had energy enough to write.

The reason I've been so bust recently is that last week was the National Trust for Historic Preservation annual conference. As I'm just about the point of needing a real job (now there's a rather frightening thought, me a professional!), I decided that this year would be a good one to attend the conference and network. Unfortunately, since the conference ran all of last week and since I'm still a grad student, that meant I had NO extra time the week before last. I needed to not only get all my work for last week done before I left, I wanted to get as much of my work for the first part of this week done as well. Didn't get all of what I wanted done, but got enough that I could go to the conference with a (mostly) clear conscience.

The conference was fun, so it was all worth it. I got a chance to see St. Paul, MN, which I had never been to before, and the weather was quite nice. I went to some interesting sessions - even if I already knew most of what they were presenting. I had the chance to network with a bunch of interesting people, including the top two people from the historic preservation office I would really like to work for. Handed out a bunch of business cards and even a couple of resumes, which was good. Even if they don't really look at them right now, it means that if I end up applying for a job with one of them at some point, they are more likely to at least recognize my name - and name recognition is a great and good thing!

And best of all, Journey was able to get the time off and come along. I tell you, there's nothing quite like coming back from a day full of meetings to find a beautiful woman waiting for you! And it was really good be able to spend some real time together. We're both so busy that we don't get to spend as much time together as we would like. And even if I was gone for most of the day, we were able to have dinner together every night. And we had all of the weekend together, although a good chunk of Sunday was taken up with traveling.

That was actually one of the things I was going to write about before I left and never got the chance to - traveling. (We break from our regularly scheduled post for this important side-rant.) I have come to the realization that people love to tell you how go about traveling. Even if they have never been where you're going, they'll have some advice for you. And I'm quite sure that I am just as guilty of doing this as everyone else. When I told people Journey and I were headed to St. Paul, I got all kinds of recommendations on where we should stay (I already have booked the hotel), which airline we should fly (again, already done), what the weather was going to be like (that's what weather.com is for), and what it was going to be like. Telling some one what a place is like is kind of like trying to tell them what it's like to hang-glide - talk all you want, but they're not going to really know until they do themselves. And before you ask, no I've never been hang-gliding, and no, I'm not planning on it! (We now return you to our regularly schedule post, already in progress.)

Anyway, we had a good time. The conference was good, the chance to relax some was even better. And we only heard one person say "eh?" or "don-cha-know?" (our cab driver to the airport)!

The Votes Are In And The Winner Is . . .

Well, the votes have been counted and the fate of the infamous home run #756 ball has been decided. It will be branded and sent to Cooperstown! Here's the SI.com story. You can see the final voting break down at www.vote756.com.

I didn't tell you my vote earlier, although, as I said then, if you know me you could probably guess. Now that the vote is over, however, I'm more than happy to admit that I voted for branding it! And not just because it has a very "bastard-like" feel to it and the very idea made me laugh. I voted that way because, by branding it, the ball becomes a physical symbol and reminder of the whole damn mess. It no longer is just about breaking Hank's record. And it's not just about the allegations of steroid use. Or about the media, government, and public reactions. The branded ball represents all of that. It is a messy and unpleasant situation, but we should remember the whole situation, not just a part of it. Then again, I'm a historian, so this is how my mind works in general.

Two Dogs Looking for a Home

Hey, one of my friends here in the department found a couple of stray dogs and has agreed to foster them in an attempt to prevent them from being put down. But her lease won't really allow her to keep them. So, she's looking for some one who would like to adopt them (preferably as a pair, as they hate being separated). If you are in the Phoenix area (or willing to come in from further afield), you can find out some more information on them here. And feel free to pass this on to anyone else who might be interested!

Thanks!

The Irony Is Almost Painful

On Thursday, I posted a short rant on spam. On Friday, someone spammed that post! I almost can't believe it - almost. I have deleted the comment simply because I won't put with that kind of shit on my blog. But, so you can see that I'm not making this up, here's a screen shot of it!

Spam Spam Spam Spam

No, this is not a Monty Python post.

The university recently went over to a new model for their IT support. So far, it's been working out okay, but there have been a few glitches. The particular one which is annoying me right now is the spam filter on email.

Whatever changes they made to the system, suddenly, all kinds of spam is coming through. I can understand my gmail account getting lots of spam because it's attached to this blog and it's listed on-line in a number of places, so it's easy for the spammers to get their hands on it. But that isn't the case for my university account.

For most of the last three years while I've been here, spam hasn't really been a big problem. The university system filtered most of it out and I would only have maybe five or six make through in a week. Now, however, I'm getting five or six an hour! And those are the ones making to my in-box.

I am annoyed.