Voodoo Time Dot Com

I’ve just gotten back from a trip outside to see this whole big Mars thing. I’m pretty sure I saw it. I just looked for the brightest thing in the sky that was not a moon. And as that object happened to be in the southeast (as Mars is wont to be at 10:00pm at this time of year), I’m just going to call that object “Mars” and consider it good and seen.

Earthlings have historically had quite a fascination with Mars. To ancient astronomers, Mars would certainly have been significant. Firstly, it is red. Secondly, these astute observers would surely have noticed that Mars moves around quite a lot in comparison to the far-flung stars and galaxies that appear as its neighbors from our vantage. Much later, magnification in the form of early telescopes would reveal the mysterious Martian geography that has made the planet a favorite of science fiction writers and enthusiasts ever since. The surface of Mars is a rugged, pock-marked wasteland of deep canyons and massive extinct volcanos covered in iron oxide, which we Earthlings revile as rust. In short, Mars ain’t no kind of place to raise a kid.

In today’s urban light-pollution, Mars is normally quite difficult to see. Its color and relatively diminuitive size compound to make it a rather unassuming little pink dot in our night sky. So it is no wonder that I never really noticed Mars until my father (from whom I inherited my science and technology geekdom) showed it to me on my 12th or 13th birthday in the telescope he bought me as a present. Even then, the red planet revealed itself only as a glowing orange dot. Still I was transfixed. We spent quite some time out there in the backyard with that telescope, a flashlight, a compass, and a couple basic star charts. We took turns pointing that telescope all over the sky, and laughing about Martians, and dreaming of the possibilities of interstellar travel. My relationship with my father was often tenuous and difficult, but in that moment we were just two earthbound idiots with our heads in the stars.

I have to admit that today I take Mars largely for granted. Even as our closest planetary neighbor passes within a scant 34.6 million miles (merely 3 light-minutes away), I’ve scarsely thought about it. But I imagine that some other kid is out past his bedtime with his dad wondering what all of the fuss is about. And maybe, like me, he’ll go to bed a different person.

Hang on to those moments, kid. They pass all too quickly.

…I think I’m going to go outside for another look.

Bye for now.

I know that a lot of you will disagree with me on this, but I’m going to discuss one of my favorite applications of modern technology. Draw what conclusions you will about this, but I think it’s great when technology means I don’t have to deal with people. OK - so it’s not really that I don’t ever want to deal with people. It’s just that in 2003 I think it’s great that I get to choose when I want to deal with people, and when I don’t.

I love that I can check my bank balance without talking to anyone. I love those automated call systems that let me push buttons rather than dealing with operators. I can plan a vacation without talking to a travel agent. It’s not that I have anything against travel agents, or that they don’t provide a useful service. It’s just that I’d rather do the searching myself and save all the pleasantries. And as for shopping… I almost never set foot in a mall.

Tonight I ordered a pizza… over the Internet. I built my pizza on a web page, and in about half an hour, someone brought it to my home. Until recently, I had to call for pizza using the telephone. Such transactions usually went something like this.

(phone rings several times)
Pizzeria Employee: Mumblemumblepizza, hold.
Me: (holding)
P.E.: thankmumbleholding, pickupordelivery…
Me: Delivery, please
P.E.: (silence)
Me: …
P.E.: …
Me: …
P.E.: yes?
Me: Ah… I have a coupon for a large two-topping pizza for $10.99. I’d like pepperoni and sausage.
P.E.: What size?
Me: Umm… the coupon is for a large pizza
P.E.: Large pepperoni?
Me: …and sausage.
P.E.: Mumblemumblefourteenninetynine
Me: The coupon is for $10.99
P.E.: Coupon?

…and on and on. And as if that is not bad enough, I hear that people once had to order pizza in person and drive it home themselves.

Some people get nostalgic for those times. Apparently there is a section of the population that just wants to deal with people all the time. I can respect that - even though I can’t really understand it. I’m sitting here trying to come up with some sort of receptacle that receives the pizza from the delivery driver, so I don’t even have to open the door. Is that strange? Am I displaying latent agoraphobic tendencies when I consider shaving my head so I don’t have to go to the barber shop? There are only two topics of conversation in a barber shop - weather and sports. I’m no meteorologist. And admitting that I don’t follow sports… I might as well prance into the chair in a pink leotard.

Thank you for calling the barber shop.
For weather-related chit-chat, press one.
For sports talk, press two.
To get nicked in the ear by the razor while the barber is watching college basketball on the black-and-white TV, press three.
To conclude this blog entry, press four followed by the pound sign.

4#

This is ANDi. He’s called ANDi because ANDi is the reversed acronym for inserted DNA. ANDi is mostly a Rhesus monkey. I say mostly because ANDi is the first primate to carry a foreign gene. ANDi carries a protein that occurs naturally in jellyfish. This protein causes the jellyfish to glow a fluorescent green color.

The protein does not make ANDi glow in the dark.

OK, so it’s been a week since my last entry. Yet again, I’ve managed to prove my complete inability to focus on what’s important in life - namely, coming up with inane and irrelevant things to write about and wasting everyone’s bandwidth. As usual, I don’t really have any explanation for my absence, but I assure you it is not related to terrorism.

So I got the news today that I am to pursue my MCSE certification. For the unfamiliar, MCSE stands for Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer. This basically means that I have to spend the next year studying like a medical student for the honor of taking seven exhaustively comprehensive exams. Should I succeed, I get the honor of a shiny lapel pin and a wallet-sized credential identifying me as some sort of Windows guru. In exchange for this, I must promise to be thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent. Also, I think I’m no longer allowed to disparage or malign Microsoft.

In addition to selling my soul, my employer also wants to indenture me for a year following my certification to ensure that I don’t skip out for a better offer once they’ve laid out the $150 per exam to get me certified. This all clearly confirms my assertion that I am less an employee than a well-paid slave. Still, the master feeds me and keeps me warm (if only just barely), which is more than I could claim during my brief period of unemployment last year. So, I shan’t complain… too much.

The problem lies in the fact that once I left college, I promised I would never again take another exam as long as I lived. So, I’m more than a little disgruntled at the idea of spending untold consecutive weekends huddled over ponderous books and tedious practice exams. Still, that shiny lapel pin distracts my thoughts and haunts my dreams. So I shall continue on - taking solace in the conviction that such majesty may - nay - will soon be mine. Buoyed by these giddiest of fancies, I fasten my backpack and propeller beanie and hit the books, singing - tearfully, earnestly…

To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go…

Bye for now.

So a couple of people noticed that I haven’t written anything here for a couple days (more or less), so I’ve been given orders to be funny immediately, or suffer unspecified consequences. Once in college, a friend of mine brought a girl around for me to meet. She was nice, but we weren’t exactly hitting it off. So my friend pulls me aside and whispers,

“Dude, I told her you’re funny. Say something funny!”

Oh… be funny! Silly me, I had just planned on telling her about the tragic lawnmower death of my favorite childhood pet. (That didn’t really happen - I’m just trying to be funny.) So I tried to be funny. I really wanted to be funny. It didn’t happen. Now we’re going to share a similar moment of awkwardness as I fail to be funny on command.

So…

I told you all yesterday that I was a little tied-up with a minor disaster at work. Disasters kind of take away my funny. There is really no non-technical way to describe what happened, but think of it this way. Have you ever tried to put a hat on a baby who didn’t want to wear a hat? The hat is the right size for the baby, and it goes so well with the baby’s little outfit and everything. But everytime you put that hat on the baby, the baby just rips it off and starts chewing on it - or throws it to the ground.

Dammit, baby! Why won’t you wear the hat? It’s so cute, and it keeps the sun off your head, and out of your eyes!

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been wrestling with for over a week. The baby is our web server running Microsoft’s IIS. The hat is an applications server called Tomcat that, among other things, allows IIS to serve Javascript pages. If you don’t know what that means, here’s what happened: The baby took a crap, so I had to clean it up. Then once I changed the diaper, and the outfit was all snapped up nicely, the damn baby wouldn’t wear the hat. The hat was made specifically for the baby, but the baby wouldn’t wear it. After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I found out that the baby will only wear the hat if I put it on in a very unintuitive and complicated way. It took forever to find out all of this, but at least the baby is finally wearing the hat.

This is why I have no children.

Bye for now.

Yeah - I know… I haven’t updated in well over a week. I suck.

I’ve been a little overwhelmed with a nasty systems failure at work, and haven’t had a whole lot of time for blogging. I’ll be back soon though.

In the meantime, you should all visit all of the sites in my links! They’re all very good.

See you soon!