Interesting and rude people

A link from a link from a link led me to Heightened Thoughts 'Blog Jesus', which is a fascinating concept. On this blog, people write in to blog jesus and he answers their questions right away. It's interactive and funny and strange, "Damn, why didn't I think of that?".
But, I KNOW the reason I didn't think of that. I blame Jesus for a lot of things.

• If something goes wrong with a computer and the secretary asks me, "Why did that happen?", I say, "Blame Jesus".
• If there's a power outage and when the power comes back on the VCR clock starts blinking and now I have to find the manual I haven't even seen in 6 months and my wife says, "Why are you taking so long to fix the blinking clock?" I say, "Blame Jesus".
• And when, many years ago, my girlfriend got religion and left me because I didn't really want to be a Southern Baptist, I said, "She left me for Jesus."

So, Jesus and me are not on very good terms. He messes up a lot of things for me. And sure, you could use the argument that it might have been good at some higher level. Like, this little bad thing had to happen to prevent that other much worse thing from happening, but I think that's a load of crap.
If this post has thoroughly not offended you, then go read that Blog Jesus stuff. It's pretty funny.

Spam again

SpamAssassin + Evolution is doing a pretty good job of filtering out junk. Of the 100 or so daily emails, about 30 messages get through the filters and of those about 8 are 'real'. I have noticed something consistent about those 22 or so junk messages; they all have bad spelling.
REElY Bid speeling.
So I was thinking that adding one final spelling check on incoming mail would cut down on my spam messages to only 2 or 3 a day. As a side effect, it would mean that messages I received were spelled correctly.
How about that? Is that a good idea? Is this just so mind-blowingly super intelligent that you cannot believe that no one had thought about this before, it's SO OBVIOUS, why didn't I think about that first? Or am I missing a logical step?
You let me know, because I like you. You are a special person.
And you have been approved for a mortgage!

Ruby on Rails

I am a perl programmer. I am a Bishop on perlmonks.org. 'Being a Perl Programmer' is what I do every day at my job. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Perl is the only language on the planet. But the long and short of it is, I haven't found anything that I CANNOT do in Perl.
Lately, there has been some buzz about Ruby on Rails, a MVC framework based on the Ruby language. I have set up a server and have been playing around with it, dipping my toe into the world that is Ruby. So far, I have to say that it looks cool. I'm intrigued enough to keep going, which did not happen at all when I looked into Java.
So, if you are interested in getting your toes wet as well, check out the funny and smart Amy Hoy blog entry Really Getting Started in Rails. If there is a Ruby foundation, they should pay this woman to write their documentation for them. Great stuff!

Days of Flurry

About 10 days ago I got this mad urge to switch Linux distributions while, at the same time, completing three separate projects for work. You know how it is, right? I was just getting annoyed with Mandrake/driva and jumped ship to Ubuntu. To make the whole experience extra special, I did it without burning a CD. I used debootstrap and chroot. No fancy shmancy installation CD for me! I am pretty proud of that.
I have a thousand things that occur to me during the day. I'll have a sudden insight and go, 'Aha! I should mention that in my blog'. But I inevitably forget the insight before getting anywhere near a keyboard, and even if I do, there's sure to be something interrupting me (ie: my compulsive need to see if anything new is on Slashdot.)
The weather is quite lovely here, thank you for asking.

Dune

Every 18 months or so, I re-read the Dune series of books by Frank Herbert. I've been doing this since I picked up the 'God Emperor of Dune' in Frenchtown High School, Montana. Frenchtown was the school district, I was living in Missoula at the time. There's something cleansing about these books, a way to center and reorient my thinking.
The David Lynch's version of Dune always provides the faces in my imagination. Even though, intellectually, I know that most of those faces must be wrong. Paul was much younger than Kyle MacLachlan, Feyd Rautha had curly black hair, not Sting's blond locks. Patrick Stewart is too pretty for Gurney Halleck, but still he stands in my inner theater, reciting Gurney's lines as I read.
If you have never actually picked up these books, you are missing something really beautiful. The next time you are in a book store, pick up the last book "Dune: Chapterhouse" and flip to the end. At least in my edition (and I hope in all editions) the last 3 pages contain a letter where Frank Herbert talks about his life with his recently deceased wife. A beautiful and moving letter that even now, after reading and absorbing these writings for 17 years, brings a tear to my eye.
Whenever I need to be reminded of the power of language (which happens every 18 months or so) I read these books and am fully reminded.

When to bail out of your job

I got this link from slashdot to Christopher Wilson's blog entry about when to quit your job. It got me to thinking about what I would consider to be work place red flags, things that would make me sweat and start updating my resume. So, here is a list:

1. Employee Appreciation Programs are of the Devil The only time a company needs an Employee Appreciation Program is when the culture is so anti-employee that they need to come up with some way to disguise it. EAP=OUT.
2. Metrics Uber Alles Scenario: You are in a phone support position and helping someone out. The call is going long, do you A) get this customer off the phone in the next 20 seconds even though the problem isn't really fixed and that person will call back again even more frustrated and we might lose the customer altogether. OR B) fix the problem in another 3 minutes so that the customer is satisfied, but I go over the 4 minute talk time limit. If you are in a company that would prefer the 'A' solution, run away. When you are paying more attention to metrics than to how real people are interacting with your company, then that company will not last.
3. What's that Sucking sound? If you go into work every day young, full of energy, happy, and leave with a slightly empty and rung-out feeling? Your company could very well be sucking out your soul and piping it to the executive management offices where they feed vampirically on your life force. If you can imagine this scenario occuring in your work place and it makes a strange kind of sense to you, find another job.

Well, that's only three. There are a few more in my head, but the clock is ticking on the job I have now, which I enjoy very much.

Angry Day

Honking horns on the streets, very out of place in normally quiet residential areas. A mother and her son in a face to face yelling match just down from our house, their faces blotchy and red even to my eyes 30 meters away. Angry customers in the line at the supermarket. Rude telemarketers calling during dinner.
It's like the whole of my little corner of the world is pissed off today.
In line at the bakery, I ask the woman standing next to me if she has noticed anything today. She tells me, "No, I haven't noticed any extra anger today."
Maybe it's just me.

Last Rocket Out

This was my dream.
I am 17 or 18 years old, still living with my parents. The world is coming to an end, in just under an hour, an asteroid will crash into the planet killing everything. I have an uncle and aunt, they just happen to have a rocketship ready to lift off. They tell us, "Grab whatever you need, we leave in 22 minutes and we will not wait one moment more."
My parents pack a few belongings and wait in the car for me, it's a 3 minute drive to my uncle's house. I am running through the house, trying desperately to grab only the most important things I have: A stone I picked up a few years ago on a date, a few books that have always comforted me, some journals, my collection of tiny budha figures, a pressed flower held in a picture frame.
My father walks up behind me as I'm shuffling through my things. "We leave here in 2 minutes with out without you. This isn't like being late for work, if you do not get in the car now you will die." He turns and walks back out to the car where my mother is waiting. His voice is unemotional, everyone seems utterly unemotional, as if the shock is too overwhelming to even contemplate.
I hear the engine of the car start, hear the sound of tires rolling slowly over gravel. I sprint out of the house but the car is already pulling down the road, I run. I run so fast that I feel like my heart will explode, sharp knife pain jabs me in the side, but still I run, focus each instant on keeping my feet, getting there in time.
As I stagger into my uncle's yard, I see the rocket before me, no larger than a bus. The door is slowly moving closed and clouds of smoke are pouring out of the back. Through the still-open door, I see my aunt, uncle, mother, and father sitting in the forward-facing seats, already strapped in.
I leap through the door just before it seals itself shut and bang around the interior. Crash back into a seat with my seemingly very heavy possessions perched on my chest. Immediately the rocket leaps into the air and my books and knick knacks become even heavier, will we make it? I start wondering if I've brought the right things. Suddenly I yell out, "How will we live when we get there? Did anyone bring seeds for plants or survival things?" Everyone remains silent, eyes forward.
I wake up.

Now, there are plenty of interpretations for a dream like that. Lot's of symbology to play with, but the main thing on my mind after that dream kept coming back to: Why didn't I get some seeds?