I'm trying to keep from delving into all the gory details of my medical misadventures (as promised a while back), but this is worth mentioning – after my last BKA (below knee amputation) of my remaining leg, I am up, at 'em, back at work for more than a month now, and rocking my new prosthetic without crutches!
This was a timely thing in many regards. Firstly, I managed to avoid all the grunt work involved with my full-time gig, Exam Editor here in New Zealand. I got healthy enough to get back to work just after Oct. 1, our big deadline to have all the exams done, dusted and at the printer.
And onwards rolls summer! So I avoided any potential unpleasantness of a Wellington "winter" (we've covered this before. This is a concept much like the Loch Ness Monster, the Jersey Devil, and common sense and civility during USA Elections – a myth. It does not exist). And now that the days are longer and the weather warm enough to convince attractive women to don slinky and sheer summer attire, and the pub patios are under full steam – I can only say, 'Bring it on!'
Lyin', cheatin', no-good, oily-hided, swindling snake-oil salesmen
Yep, the US election came and went. And in spite of the usual nonsense spewing out of the mouths of the two candidates (moreso Robo-Romney, the clueless anti-personal billionaire who, among other things, professed to have "Binders full of women!" when confronted on his record of not really caring much about women in the workplace, or their rights).
But the sub-head up there is more directed at the media. Much like an episode of daytime TV, where the hosts often resort to goading people on to get them to argue about their insipid problems ("OK Maria, maybe you didn't hear Shaniqua – she called you a WHORE and a PUTA and a CHEATING CUNT! And, you're FAT! Go on, attack her!")
To listen to the media, as the Big Day approached, this was going to be a crazy-scary, tight election. Obama might lose. Or he could win by barely a one or two Electora Vote margin. Or, there could be a TIE! – which would result in a strange procedure, where they (whoever's in charge of US Elections) would march up to the House of Representatives (predominantly Republican) and ask them to pick a President. Clearly that would be Robo-Romney in this scenario. Then they'd stroll on over to the Senate (a den of Democrats), and ask them to choose a VP. That would no doubt have been Joe Biden. Would this weirdness transpire? Well, the MEDIA sure hoped it would!
Then election day went down. No such weirdness ensued. No tie, no close one. Robo-Romney was Chuck-Norris-Roundhouse-Kicked back to the primordial ooze from whence he crawled (a weasel making billions on the backs of millions). He was reamed, steamed, and dry-cleaned. Put butter on his forehead, he's TOAST.
But hey, he needed to get back to his billionaire gig, figuring out ways for how to not pay taxes.
It was pretty much over when it started. Obama locked up the entire north-east coast, and a few other states bordering Canada. Included in this mix were "struggle states" where it could go either way, said the MEDIA.
Nope, not even close. Obama got almost all of those. Including the much-vaunted Ohio, a bit later in the evening.
That was pretty much it, in a nutshell. He wasn't going to lose, and it wasn't going to be a tie. He was going to win. And, handily.
Then the rest of the mess unfolded. Robo-Romney was beaten like a rented mule ... like a red-headed stepchild living in the attic, who owes you money. He even managed to lose Florida (crazy, can't-count-for-shit, Florida!) Even the stooges and mush-heads, the swamp-heat addled, and the certifiably insane weren't buying Robo-Romney's bullshit.
And a week later, when the cretins, mutants, trolls and CHUDs in Florida finally got their votes counted, Obama won that state too. In the end, there wasn't much difference in the vote count than when Obama totally caned "Stiff-Neck" McCain and the mutton-brained Sarah Palin in a landslide.
Thanks for a good show, though, Media Pundits. And of course you're all safe from prolonged scorn, as no one in the US has a memory that lasts longer than a text message.
Now, Mr. Obama – you have four years to get it right. Let's pull out all the stops and get some shit done. And done right. OK?
Rock star incumbent voted back in. Now, crank it all the way to 11, good sir!
Ah, the plaintive wail of the uneducated, the stupid, and the banal.
Short answer? No. Long answer? Nooooooooooooooooooooo, you jackwagons!
Take a civics course, read a book and maybe learn something about how your own election system works. Or Canada will have to drop by and burn down the White House AGAIN.
And in the end, Obama won the meaningless "popular vote" too. Now sit down and shut up.
Catchin' a cab
One of the fun little bonuses of being a double amputee is, I got a discount cab card – all taxi rides half price! Not a bad thing. I eventually want to get walking the whole way to work again, once my fitness level comes up ... and once my new stump can take the abuse of many, many pounds of ME walking on it.
But until then, I'l avail myself of this little gem of a cab card. Makes life mucho easy.
So most days I catch a cab to work. And home again at days' end. But this one day coming home, I got into a cab and noticed this fun little sign on the kleenex box perched on the dashboard:
Clearly this guy had a guts-full of ... something?
A reasonable request I guess ... then again, you're in the taxi drivin' business, Bub. People are prone to chatting. If you're unique or unusual, questions may be asked. PERSONAL questions. So suck it up, buttercup ...
Oddly though, 'Buttercup' had no issues with rambling on endlessly about some sort of mystical complexities involved with luck, and his lack of same. And how a guy he knows must have some sort of Wizard-like abilities, because he predicts a lot of (obvious) things. And how ... oh, we're here at my home! Thanks Bub. See ya.
Hops – so many hops - hops as far as the eye can see ...
The sudden and wonderful movement here in New Zealand to have heaps, loads, scads, and shitloads of micro-brew (aka "Craft") beer available is great! Here in Wellington, we now have no less than 6 really good pubs that are exclusively devoted to providing the many and varied beers from all sorts of local brewers. One even brews its own!
And yet lately, it seems, there aren't enough hops in the WORLD for some of these brewers. We've gone so far beyond a traditional IPA-style beer on so many fronts now, that the only way some brewers can get more hops into your face is to provide a side-order of raw hops to chew on as you chug down their ale.
Don't get me wrong, it's mostly a good thing. I loves me some hoppy beer, properly made. I have a few favourites now too – Epic's "Hop Zombie" is, I think, my #1 ... however Tuatara's APA is an exceptionally close second. And because it is much more available than Hop Zombie, there are days that – when I have a Tuatara APA in hand – it is in fact #1.
I love the idea that gone are the days of the "yellow fizzy beverage" that passes for beer is the only thing available. For so long, in so many places (I'm looking at YOU, USA, and primarily the swill and bog-water foisted on a foolish public in Canada, from Labatt and Molson's) this was the case. And I'll admit it – as a young and uninformed drinker in Canada, I soaked that crappy stuff up like it was a cure for ... something ....
And before anyone writes to yell at me saying that there are great micro-brews in the US and Canada ... yes, there are. Yet the lion's share of the beer biz belongs to the nasty providers of the crappy beer-like faux stuff. Which proves two things: Marketing works, and flooding the market with the shit also works. Oh, three things – keeping the public uninformed for many generations since Prohibition also works. But thankfully people are learning ...
Jumping the 'beer event' shark
My biggest issue now with certain pubs is ... just how far are they going to go in attempting to whip up frenzy for a "beer event", and not actually provide any event-like atmosphere?
Last Friday I discovered that one of the good pubs in town, The Malthouse, was having an IPA Challenge. In the cryptically uninformative snippet of info from FacePlant, we were meant to storm on down and get ready for an IPA event, where many local brewers would have on offer their various takes on this iconic beer style.
Yeah, about that – I got there just before the "event" started. As did many other people. And the witching hour of 6 pm came ... went ... and when I finally asked a bartender what was involved in this "event", he essentially said: he would tell me all the types of IPA they had on tap, and I could buy them and try them.
OK. So it was essentially an "event", much in the same way that my waking up every day to prepare to go to work could be billed as "The First Annual Shaking Off of the Night-Time Doldrums, and Waiting for Morning Wood to Subside, so I can Jet Out The Door and begin my day of Contributing to the Nation's Education System" festival of ... that.
Note that this is the first such shameful advertising of a non-event as an event that I've noticed so far. But beware, pub owners and brewers: don't try this again, unless you have something event-like attached to me buying beer and swilling it. Many, MANY people will tell you – this does NOT qualify as an event. This is SOP (standard operating procedure), and/or business as usual.
On the plus side, earlier in the week I discovered one of my favourite overall beers – Captain Cooker Manuka* Smoked beer – was on TAP and REALLY CHEAP at a cool little place called Meow. Heretofore I had only been able to find it in bottles. Now this was progress! (*A kind of wood here that imparts a subtle yet tasty flavour, when the smoke is applied to things like meat and beer.)
Tasty-as! And hey, a piggie on the label. So it's fun, too!
LinkedIn ... to what, exactly?
So, the big social/work/network/thingy website LinkedIn went "public"a while ago. And now it has shares and shit. So you can buy them. This is supposedly important. The guy on the TV news said so.
And so, suddenly, we're besieged with daily email updates as to who on my list of LinkedIn-ners did what. And maybe I want to LinkIn to some other people. And now, Endorse some of these folks! says my latest barrage of LinkedIn emails.
OK. So then what actually happens? Should I lose my gig, can I just LinkIn to anyone on my list, and they'll hire me? Or will they gleefully wax on poetically about my dazzling abilities, as some sort of reference – even though I've never worked with most of them at all, ever?
Just wondering what the fuss is all about. It seems like a really overt way of tracking us, of getting us all in a nice tidy pile, where we provide all the info and coordinates ... but then again, so is FacePlant, Twitter, Google+, et al. If anything bad comes of any of this, it's all self inflicted. I just hope once we're all together on all these sites, there is no "Chef" out there to call in the air strike ...
"Mangoes, man! Just imagine Raquel Welch naked and rubbing mangoes all over you ...
What? Oh, sure, I'll call in the air strike. I'll stay with the boat, and call in the air strike!"
Men At Work
As I charged out the door to start my 2nd week back at work, I noticed a flyer in my mailbox informing me the city was about to launch into tearing up my narrow, dead-end, winding, death-defying road to replace some water drainage gear. And upon reaching the road, there they were! On the case ...
Exactly what sort of case, I'm not sure. They started with the dig-a-hole, put-stuff-in-it, and fill-it-back-in routine that Monday, right outside my house. Then over the course of the week, they edged down the road, repeating, rinsing, wiping hands on pants ...
Then the next Monday – they were back. Right outside my house again. Doing exactly the same thing. Again.
This routine was repeated FIVE TIMES ... starting over outside my house, digging the road up, monkeying around, filling it in, moving on down the road a bit.
They finally and miraculously picked up the last of their 8,543 road cones on Wednesday this week, and had buggered off into the mist – leaving the road looking like a mad patchwork pavement quilter had been on the loose.
Or ... have they? Only time will tell. It seems like these "make work" projects are common around the city, especially when more than one thing needs to be put in the hole under ground. I've witnessed three different work crews come around to a location, each one tearing up the road, installing whatever, and covering it up and paving it ... only to have the next crew show up, a day later, and repeat the process with whatever it was they deemed necessary to bury underground.
It's good that the city is providing boundless opportunities for hordes of large, unshaven, sweaty men in orange vests to lean on shovels while smoking cigarettes all over the city. But this is pushing the envelope a bit, methinks.
Pumpkin-off 2012
Sometimes impromptu contests are the most fun. Myself and my friend Don suddenly found ourselves embroiled in a 'pumpkin off' on FacePlant, leading up to Hallowe'en this year. In a nutshell, we would post up a daily net find of an unusual, creepy, funny or weirdly carved pumpkin we found on the net ... along with some trash talking to taunt the other fellow into attempting to best that one.
What it really was, at its essence, was who could Google better with the most obscure/strange phrases (thereby turning up the oddest and goriest of pumpkins). In magnanimous fashion, Don ceded the contest to me. I think it might have been the image of him, naked save for a pumpkin diaper, in the middle of a pumpkin patch, that edged me on to victory.
Now that is comedy gold, no matter WHO you are.
Also, he who commands Photoshop, wins the war!
Also, he who commands Photoshop, wins the war!
(Hint: That's not really Don).
Ah, the old "Philandering and emailing about it and hoping not to get caught" trick!
First time I fell for it ... today. Sorry about that, Chief ...
What is up with these fools, cretins and poltroons in the public eye, who keep getting caught with their pants down online/on video? Especially the famous ones ... and REALLY especially, the ones in charge of shit. Like keeping big US State secrets.
Yeah, I'm looking at you, Petraeus. And whoever that other dimwit General is. Not satisfied with your wife? Divorce her. Then go rent a hooker, and don't TELL anyone about it. And don't tell the hooker you're famous, or that you have a really big gun. Or are in charge of lots of guns.
Indeed. Cut it out. No one's impressed. And you look like an idiot.
Once again, the mystery and wizardry of thermostats eludes Kiwis
As great as this place is, there are of course a few things that make me shake my head ... like how to control the heat in an office building.
Apparently, that concept is Holy Grail-ish here. Unattainable. Impossible. IT CAN'T BE DONE.
After moving floors to have our floor (and office space) renovated, and new duct work and thermostats installed ... I'm back in my original chair, in the same spot I was before ... only sweating WORSE than I ever was.
And this time, the new, improved thermostats are sealed up and can't be monkeyed with! So yesterday I ordered a desk fan ... at least I can move the hot air around me a bit. That might help.
Or it might drive me out to the sunny seaside patios even sooner (the patios with a whisp of sea breeze to keep me cool) ...
Hmm! OK, maybe this whole "too hot in the office" thing is a GOOD development!
The good with the bad
OK so I shouldn't be whinging. This was mostly self-inflicted. I knew what was going on. But I got caught up (once again) in thinking a phenomenal-looking woman might actually, maybe, possibly be interested in me, when reality and all things logical should have schmecked me upside the head and said: "Who are you kidding, you legless lummox? LOOK at her! Now ... look at you. Yeah. Go home and lie down."
Yes she was jaw-droppingly gorgeous. But apparently she just liked to play "Look at me. LOOK AT ME! No, not over there. LOOK AT ME!" with guys. A lot. But in the immortal words of the funny TV show Arrested Development: "No touching!"
And the other tagline: "I've made a huge mistake". Oh yeah.
In spite of being engaged to someone far, far away (she claimed), and in spite of me being warned by mutual friends about what was up in 'crazy-lady land', I plodded on. But what the hell. I went for it and had a bit of fun thinking maybe, just maybe, the right combination of my humour, and alcohol, and weed, and duct tape, and ether, would make me the first lucky winner in these Lunatic Sweepstakes ... ha ha. Nope.
But hey some GOOD things have happened of late! I have reconnected with heaps of old pals on FacePlant over the years, and two of them (Jo and Ian) are going to be here in NZ visiting me early in January '13! I'll take two weeks off, and join them in a casual mosey about the country, touring around to many places I haven't been to myself. It's going to be a blast – I've known Jo since Grade 5. Earlier this year their lovely daughter Elly came through Welly on a trek of her own. It's fantastic to reconnect with old friends – people who matter!
And just lately I've made a more solid e-connection with a 'casual acquaintance' I only just knew online from being on a news forum (Fark) a few years before (hi Kellas!) She's cool and funny and artistic. A great new friend! And another old amigo (Kari-Anne) reconnected online, with some good news about a couple of really positive things happening in her life in Norway. So it was good news all around!
Honorable (and late, sorry guys!) mention goes to my newfound Russian (and vicinity) friends – who I met via the Wacky 48 Hour Movie Competition from earlier this year. There are a bunch of them (Alex, Olga, Olga II, Marina, etc) and they're all really fun and REALLY like to drink and party. (What's that you say? Russians like to party?) Yes, indeed.
Too much, too soon, too fast – slow down, dudes, we can't take the pace!
I'm an Apple customer. I have been since the fateful day I got my first gig here in Welly, which involved me getting to use Macs on the job. I had played with them a bit prior to this ... and yet, since being capable of getting my own computer, it was Windows machines for quite a few years. The cost of getting a Mac was the key issue. I was a broke-ass putz. (Now, not quite so broke-ass).
Then one day in the mid-naughties, I took the plunge and got my first iMac. This was after session # (hmmm, I lost count how many) of reformatting my POS Windows machine, after trying to make it work like something resembling the promise of how computers were supposed to work.
It was like I'd crossed a threshold, and now I spent all my time actually USING my computer, and not trying to find out ways to make it work/go faster/stop crashing/what the fuck is WRONG with this goddamn fucking stinking thing?!?! ad nauseum.
Since that first iMac (the "monitor on an arm over an igloo" looking one) I am now on my third iMac (big honkin' 27" screen beast that's only about 1.5 years old now). Nothing was ever wrong with them to force me into replacing them – computers (even good ones that work) get old, fast. It's the unavoidable obsolescence of computers – two years into the fray and they're well past the capabilities of the latest software. I also have a MacBook Pro laptop (purchased on a lark, when I was making obscene amounts of money at the silliest job I ever had – I wanted a laptop to take with me on my trip to visit Erin in Brisbane!) and of course an iPad (version 2), and an iPhone (the 4S, for those keeping track). There's also an AppleTV hooked up to my big-ass (not Apple!) Panasonic home theatre system.
I list the years and model numbers here, because, in just a BLINDINGLY short period of time for each toy – since I got it – new versions have been unleashed on us. Faster, and faster come the releases ... seemingly only a few months apart now.
So fast, in fact, that now I have to say – well, have a look at the subhead up there. SLOW DOWN you bastards. We don't need a new whatever every 4 to 6 months. Wait a year, put all your latest slam-bang advancements into the thing at once (don't trickle them out 1 or 2 at a time), THEN foist it on those of us who can afford to upgrade.
Case in point: the iPhone 5 (the model just out now, after my 4S was released) emerged not long ago. And word down the pipe yesterday has it that the 5S is in production. Fookin' 'ell!
And when they released the iPhone 5, they also released a shrunken iPad (mostly just a bloated iPhone without the phone guts), and a new-ish regular sized iPad, making it v. 4 (I have the v. 2). And of course a new, sleeker, faster iMac. This one's 3 versions newer than my one, which as mentioned, is only 1.5 or maybe 2 years old now.
I'm a regular reader of a couple of weekly columnists, Robert Cringely, and Bob Lefsetz. Both have recently opined that we have hit a 'tech wall' with all these gizmos – not just Apple, but everything. In short, all the amazing levels of technology we now enjoy with the "new" gear has been attained for some time ... nothing new has emerged right now.
The jump from 4S to 5 with the iPhone was just ... slightly better versions of the toys the 4S had. And some don't work in New Zealand yet. So, no point in me getting a v. 5.
Same with everything else. Nothing jumped up from the latest releases of the iPad or iMac that made me go "Wow! Must have!" It was just marginally better/improved tech in the existing stuff (more intense looking monitor image, slightly faster operating speed, a few more megapixels in the cameras). And slightly thinner. And a touch longer, but not wider. Yawn. Nope, not gonna upgrade. My current gear does that, and it's not worth another big chunk of change to just go a wee bit faster.
Indeed, we have hit the "Wow Wall". These mavins and geniuses and wizards at Apple need to come up with something radically new to draw in a jaded (no, make that complacent) public, to spark up a fever pitch for the next "new" thing they whip out for us. We love the stuff. It's amazing. But you've WOW'd us over the head so often with actual new and cool stuff, we're not going to fall for a snake-oil salesman claiming a few more pixels on a screen is WOW-worthy.
Granted, Apple has done nothing BUT innovate since Steve Jobs returned to take over Apple in 1997, and started making gear that made us go "Wow!" every year. (Not only just saying "Wow" but forcing terms like iPod and iPad and iPhone into regular daily conversation faster than any other term has ever been absorbed).
And Micro$erf, as mentioned in a previous blog, has done nothing except parrot and mimic ... it has just sat there like the big, dumb, uncoordinated (but rich – due to being lucky, in the right place, at the right time, many years prior) neighbourhood kid who sucks at everything, hasn't got an original thought in his head, and no one likes him – who jumps up well after the game has been going for a long time, to shout: "Hey I can kick the ball too!" And then he does it ... badly ... and the ball's up on the roof now.
For the slow kid, and Micro$oft, the game was over before it started.
So now the only solution to making more and more stacks of cash for Apple seems to be falling back on the lame 'rapid-fire' idea ... releasing minorly-improved gear at us faster and faster, machine-gun style. Pretty soon they're going to have to get back into the WOW business, because people are going to stop buying the only-slightly shinier toy.
Well that's about all the rumpus I can think of / got up to recently. I'm at work right now writing all this, so after a beer or two after work I may think of other stuff.
But that's another Blog entry.
Yours in absurdity,
Stevil
