JBot Mania

That’s life, that’s what all the people say.
You’re riding high in April,
Shot down in May
But I know I’m gonna change that tune,
When I’m back on top, back on top in June.

I said that’s life, and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks,
Stompin’ on a dream
But I don’t let it, let it get me down,
‘Cause this fine ol’ world it keeps spinning around

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself, flat on my face,
I pick myself up and get back in the race.

That’s life
I tell ya, I can’t deny it,
I thought of quitting baby,
But my heart just ain’t gonna buy it.
And if I didn’t think it was worth one single try,
I’d jump right on a big bird and then I’d fly

I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate,
A poet, a pawn and a king.
I’ve been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing:
Each time I find myself laying flat on my face,
I just pick myself up and get back in the race

-Frank Sinatra “That’s Life”

A bit serendipitously, I just found this article called  Jeff Bigler’s “tact filter” theory on 43Folder.com. Being a bit of a nerd I found it entertaining. I also realized that I am much, MUCH less than 100% nerd since I NEVER give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

On the other hand, my tact filter, the one that MIGHT be similar to the one shown under “normal”, has a significant manual override that I use almost constantly. In fact, the switch may even be broken.

Holy God, this is ACTUALLY where I work and these are ACTUALLY the kind of people working here.

[Bambi - because she has the IQ of a hamster] is making phone calls to people in Alabama so she’s ending each call with “God Bless” because she thinks that will help her “get through”. You know, because everyone in Alabama is a Bible thumper.She apparently thinks she’s “clever” as opposed to painfully ignorant. She’s now also trying a southern accent. She’s a Jack-of-All-Trades it seems. What do we call those people? Jackasses?

You know, I have NO idea why southerners think easterners are so snooty and condescending.

As you know, I just returned from Walt Disney World this past Sunday. I’ll be posting more about it in upcoming days and weeks, but for now, I want to address a serious problem that seems to be going unchecked at WDW.

The problem: Ducks. Dirty, stinking, lazy ducks.

I have no problem with ducks, and that’s just my point. Ducks are reasonably smart. They can hunt for their own food. Occasionally they might not get out of the way of cars, say, my car, but all in all, ducks have alot to be proud of.

The ducks at WDW, they are the lesser of the duck specimens that you will find. In the great food chain that is WDW (and that apparently does not encompass pigeons), ducks have become the pigeons. They have become the bottom-feeding crackwhores of Disney. Why? How?

There’s a reason they say “Don’t Feed The Animals”. These castrated foul know nothing of fending for themselves. They just lallygag around the tables with their beaks open because that’s how they get food apparently.

I told many of them to “Get a job” or to “Stop bringing down your species. ” But no. None of them listened. They just stared blankly waiting for more food.

What has become of you ducks? You’re nothing but web-footed apes (and we guests—trousered). Next thing you know, the ducks will start a union and demand regular feedings or health care coverage.

Yes Virginia, I’m back. And in case you couldn’t figure it out from my last post, I have returned  from a glorious 7 day / 6 night vacation at the most magical place on Earth. But before I regale you with my many adventures, observations, quips, and longings to return, I’m going to post a Greenie item from my email.

From the Grist List, we have 15 Green Business Founders.

One of my favorites - Newman’s Own Organics. Why? because their wet cat food smells like food, not like ass and death dipped in snot (this is a vague approximation). A majority of the companies are ones that I have not heard of, which is always a great thing to find. The one that makes me the hungriest - Pizza Fusion. The one that makes me want to starve - Clif Bar.

Scheck it out!

and here’s a little hint

I’ve posted before about how I’m not the most avid sports fan. Yet, even I can get disappointed. I can look at Barry Bonds and be disgusted, but not disappointed. I can look at ALL of the doping in baseball, bicycling (the list goes on) and think it is a disgrace to the foundation of sports, but not feel personally let down. I relegate these people, these incidents into some outside world—a world that I can analyze and postulate about without feeling. But today—today I’m having trouble looking past this.

There are some people you count on, subconsciously or not. You say “That Bill Belichick is such a stick in the mud”, and you count on him to be that way. You don’t mind because he’s apparently doing great things with his team. He apparently knows how to get it done. He apparently knows about hard work and discipline. Apparently you were wrong.

What I find so ridiculous is that, like I said, I’m not an avid sports fan and yet here I am, affected. Here I am disbelieving that I can still be shocked by the failings of great people.

I have, for some time, had NO faith in the good of humanity, but in a way where I accept it as a fact, not as a personal condemnation. I look at accepting it as finally giving up on all of the ideals that someone somewhere set forth for humanity. Standards that no one is built to achieve.

In general, I’m talking about religious expectations. I look at religious texts as someone somewhere deciding what would be ideal to have in a human being. Whether from their own mind or from a vision or from God Itself, it never seems to be about whether it’s possible and thereby whether it’s even right to require, just whether it would be nice to have.

I could say “Fine, nice-to-have. I get it. Put it on some vague list somewhere and get to it later.” But with these kinds of goals, you can’t even do that. Just having that list is a condemnation whether you strive to achieve what’s on it or not. The simple fact becomes that you’re not achieving it. Sounds a bit like… what’s that word… guilt.

I look around now and I see so many catastrophic failures when it comes to so many of these basic principles. Steadfast “family values” proponents crashing and burning in such spectacular fashion that it makes me wonder if we’re asking too much. A man may not lie with another man. A man may not lie with another man’s wife. A man cannot seek an advantage through dishonest means.

We ask these things of humanity and yet, we consistently fail. Have we ever wondered if we’re simply not built to be that way, if we were never intended such piousness. Maybe this pursuit is what is, in fact, tearing us apart. Maybe it is this pursuit that is driving us to fail so completely.

I’ve spent quite a long time with someone who has repeatedly said “I won’t change who I am” and in reality, it’s that he can’t. And just the same, I can’t either. No one can. Try spending a day being who you are not and you’ll wake up tired, dead tired. So maybe Bill Belichick and Floyd Landis, Larry Craig and Matt Foley; maybe they cannot be anything but human. Maybe we ask too much? Maybe when we’re asking these people not to cheat and to, for some, not be gay, we’re really asking them not to be basic human beings. I don’t think you can ask anyone to do that.

Either way, I’m still disappointed in Belichick because I want to be proven wrong. I want there to be some decency that I can depend on. In reality, it’s the only thing that keeps us safe in our homes. I’m thinking, though, that it might be more realistic to simply lock my door when I am home and accept that everyone has something lurking beneath.

Now that I have been relegated to editorial duties and away from programming, I have some time on my hands and mental energy to spare. And thus, I sent the following email to the editorial team:

NOTE: Both Pat and Doug work here.

Subject: Problem with question
Message:

Doug,

I found the following:

Pat had 30 jelly beans. He gave an equal number of jelly beans to 5 of his friends and kept none for himself. The number of jelly beans Pat gave to each of his friends is ____.

A. 25
B. 35
C. 2
D. 5
E. 6

The problem I found is that I don’t think that Pat has five friends so he should still, in fact, have most of his jelly beans.

I just finished my somewhat daily stop at 43folders. As I was scrolling, I saw the word “herring” and I clicked on it. Why? I don’t know. I don’t even like fish. In fact, I they terrify me.

The article it led me to was “The Laptop Herring“. This is where my odyssey began. The odyssey was short and satisfying. The result, a momentary literary love affair. Who am I in love with… some guy. I don’t care much for his name nor do I love him beyond the moment of reading his post on corporate meetings, but I must say, he might just change the world. And he’ll do it using words like “fuck”, “clusterfuck”, and “kill”. Oh Captain, my Captain.

The article is, on the surface, about bringing your laptops to meetings. In detail, it is about justifying the very existence of the meetings themselves. I say, they should all be questioned, and so does he. I’ll leave you with a few choice quotes and suggest strongly that you cloister your children away, grab a BIG cup of joe, and take a read.

The problem is that everyone attending this laptop-laden clusterfuck is subconsciously hearing “Hey, in this meeting, it’s A-OK to waste people’s time.”

My question is: “When is it ever ok to waste people’s time?”

The people sitting at their laptops have no incentive to change a thing because they’re lost in whatever has captured their interest on their laptops. This is a lazy meeting full of people who are ignoring the most important question: “How do we figure out how to never have this meeting again?”

A meeting must fight to exist. It must defend its existence to its attendees who should constantly be asking “Why are we here?”

On my way into the ritualistic torture that is my job, I was listening to NPR. Normally I CANNOT stand “Engines of Our Ingenuity”. I am certain that, at the least, it’s the theme music that sends me into fits. Whether it goes beyond that to the content or the announcer’s voice, I am still unsure.

Today’s installment was interesting and reminded me of one of the few psychology experiments that I remember reading about in college — the Zimbardo prison experiment. It seems that Dr. Zimbardo has written a new book called “The Lucifer Effect” which was sparked, in no small part, by the incidents at Abu Ghraib.

Here is a link to the transcript of this commentary.

The one snippet that I took away from it and that I find to be quite accurate is this idea:

The next time we hear talk about a few bad apples, we might remember what Zimbardo learned, that bad apples are not always the problem. Sometimes it’s the barrel that holds them.