A comedy of loyalty, betrayal, sex, madness, and music swapping
Art is an up-and-coming interface designer, working on the management of data flow along the Massachusetts Turnpike. He's doing the best work of his career and can guarantee that the system will be, without question, the most counterintuitive, user-hostile piece of software ever pushed forth into the world.
Why? Because Art is an industrial saboteur. He may live in London and work for an EU telecommunications megacorp, but Art's real home is the Eastern Standard Tribe.
Instant wireless communication puts everyone in touch with everyone else, twenty-four hours a day. But one thins hasn't changed: the need for sleep. The world is slowly splintering into tribes held together by a common time zone, less than family and more than nations. Art is working to humiliate the Greenwich Mean Tribe for the benefit of his own people. But in a world without boundaries, nothing can be taken for granted - not happiness, not money, and most certainly not love.
Which might explain why Art finds himself stranded on the roof of an insane asylum outside Boston, debating whether to push a pencil into his brain...
-----
That's what it says on the back of the book I'm going to take to work today, Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow. How could I resist?
In other news, Serious Sam 2 is about to be in my hot little hands, and if it's as much ridiculous fun as the first two games were (Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter), many hours of co-op blasting fun will be had.
Hot on the heels of that is Age of Exploration, and sometime after that (can't remember and too lazy to look it up) comes Quake 4. Whee!
And speaking of game, the WoD I'm in is winding down into its final chapter, and a new one (new world and concept) will be hot on its heels.
While looking for some inspiration for my character, I stumbled across a song that nailed it for me. Nailed the character, nailed the game, nailed the atmosphere.
And it got stuck in my head. For weeks now.
The funny thing is, interpersonal relations with people haven't been this good in quite a while, and I suspect that the relatively benign tune that's constantly echoing through my mental corridors might be influencing my mood enough to be making the difference.
The song? Prepare to laugh.
Twilight Time, by The Platters.
Yeah yeah, all funny. But I'm as calm and patient as a Zen spider sitting on its web. So there!
The Sleeper has to go. He's managed to get himself scheduled for the extra stat shift (on Thanksgiving, i.e. today) and is also taking next weekend off.
No problem about the stat, although I'd have preferred to know about it, but the time off is kind of a pain.
See, company policy is three months advance notice to take time off. It can be shaved down sometime, but you can't just decide spur of the moment to piss off unless you have someone agree to cover you.
So why is it that I learn he's taking off eight days in advance, and only that because I received the new payroll schedule?
It means that, since we have no extra people who are trained for the site, that either I have to take extra time to train somebody (which is lame anyway because you can't do the site properly with only a couple of days practice, plus guards who know they're only temporary tend to be insane slackers, worse than regular guards), or else do the shifts myself. Which are two sixteen hour shifts in addition to what I already do.
The client had advised me that they're happy to see him go, but since he's not as bad as Barney was they're not raising a stink.
But the moment I get my authority made official, I'm going to make that request that he be replaced with two other people.
I get to see him today too. I'm debating whether I should mention that I know he's been trying to undermine me to our superiors or not. Of course, such debating turns into various mental scenarios (all underscored by Twilight Time of course), and then you get such gems coming from me as "You may be bred in India, but you're just a crumb on this site." and the like.
Yeesh.
In other news, has anybody found a site where you can view the Unicef commercial where the Smurf village is bombed? I'm dying to see it, no pun intended. Also, a nine year old girl has plead guilty to stabbing her eleven year old friend to death. Funny, all I can remember doing with a knife at that age was shaving curls of wood off of sticks, wondering why old men seemed to enjoy it so much.
Ah, the Ig Nobel prize. Read the article here, but I'll list the winners below anyway.
Medicine - Gregg Miller from the US for his invention of Neuticles - rubber replacement testicles for neutered dogs that are available in varying sizes and degrees of firmness. "Considering my parents thought I was an idiot when I was a kid, this is a great honour," said Mr. Miller.
Peace - A UK team for pioneering research into the activity of locusts' brain cells while the insects watched clips from the Star Wars films.
Physics - John Mainstone from Australia for his part in an experiment that began in 1927 in which a glob of black tar drips through a funnel every nine years. Mr. Mainstone shared the prize with a late colleague who died sometime after the second drop.
Biology - The University of Adelaide for "painstakingly smelling and cataloguing the peculiar odors produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed."
Chemistry - A University of Minnesota team who set out to prove whether people can swim faster in water or sugar syrup.
Economics - A Massachusettes inventor who designed an alarm clock that runs away and hides when it goes off.
(note: I included a link to an article about this very clock months ago, and I thought it was a hilariously great idea. I tell you this now just in case it sounds familiar and you wonder if in my senility I've begun repeating myself.)
Nutrition - A Japanese researcher who photographed and analysed every meal he had consumed during a period of 34 years.
Literature - The many Nigerians who introduced millions of e-mail users to a "cast of rich characters... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled."
Agricultural History - A study entitled The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy-Farming between the World Wars.
Fluid Dynamics - Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh - Calculations on Avian Defecation.
Teacher mistakes boy's insulin pump for phone, and rips it out. Need I say more? Apparently the teacher is quoted as saying that his is an unfortunate situation. I'll bet.
Why? Because Art is an industrial saboteur. He may live in London and work for an EU telecommunications megacorp, but Art's real home is the Eastern Standard Tribe.
Instant wireless communication puts everyone in touch with everyone else, twenty-four hours a day. But one thins hasn't changed: the need for sleep. The world is slowly splintering into tribes held together by a common time zone, less than family and more than nations. Art is working to humiliate the Greenwich Mean Tribe for the benefit of his own people. But in a world without boundaries, nothing can be taken for granted - not happiness, not money, and most certainly not love.
Which might explain why Art finds himself stranded on the roof of an insane asylum outside Boston, debating whether to push a pencil into his brain...
-----
That's what it says on the back of the book I'm going to take to work today, Eastern Standard Tribe by Cory Doctorow. How could I resist?
In other news, Serious Sam 2 is about to be in my hot little hands, and if it's as much ridiculous fun as the first two games were (Serious Sam: The First Encounter and Serious Sam: The Second Encounter), many hours of co-op blasting fun will be had.
Hot on the heels of that is Age of Exploration, and sometime after that (can't remember and too lazy to look it up) comes Quake 4. Whee!
And speaking of game, the WoD I'm in is winding down into its final chapter, and a new one (new world and concept) will be hot on its heels.
While looking for some inspiration for my character, I stumbled across a song that nailed it for me. Nailed the character, nailed the game, nailed the atmosphere.
And it got stuck in my head. For weeks now.
The funny thing is, interpersonal relations with people haven't been this good in quite a while, and I suspect that the relatively benign tune that's constantly echoing through my mental corridors might be influencing my mood enough to be making the difference.
The song? Prepare to laugh.
Twilight Time, by The Platters.
Yeah yeah, all funny. But I'm as calm and patient as a Zen spider sitting on its web. So there!
The Sleeper has to go. He's managed to get himself scheduled for the extra stat shift (on Thanksgiving, i.e. today) and is also taking next weekend off.
No problem about the stat, although I'd have preferred to know about it, but the time off is kind of a pain.
See, company policy is three months advance notice to take time off. It can be shaved down sometime, but you can't just decide spur of the moment to piss off unless you have someone agree to cover you.
So why is it that I learn he's taking off eight days in advance, and only that because I received the new payroll schedule?
It means that, since we have no extra people who are trained for the site, that either I have to take extra time to train somebody (which is lame anyway because you can't do the site properly with only a couple of days practice, plus guards who know they're only temporary tend to be insane slackers, worse than regular guards), or else do the shifts myself. Which are two sixteen hour shifts in addition to what I already do.
The client had advised me that they're happy to see him go, but since he's not as bad as Barney was they're not raising a stink.
But the moment I get my authority made official, I'm going to make that request that he be replaced with two other people.
I get to see him today too. I'm debating whether I should mention that I know he's been trying to undermine me to our superiors or not. Of course, such debating turns into various mental scenarios (all underscored by Twilight Time of course), and then you get such gems coming from me as "You may be bred in India, but you're just a crumb on this site." and the like.
Yeesh.
In other news, has anybody found a site where you can view the Unicef commercial where the Smurf village is bombed? I'm dying to see it, no pun intended. Also, a nine year old girl has plead guilty to stabbing her eleven year old friend to death. Funny, all I can remember doing with a knife at that age was shaving curls of wood off of sticks, wondering why old men seemed to enjoy it so much.
Ah, the Ig Nobel prize. Read the article here, but I'll list the winners below anyway.
Medicine - Gregg Miller from the US for his invention of Neuticles - rubber replacement testicles for neutered dogs that are available in varying sizes and degrees of firmness. "Considering my parents thought I was an idiot when I was a kid, this is a great honour," said Mr. Miller.
Peace - A UK team for pioneering research into the activity of locusts' brain cells while the insects watched clips from the Star Wars films.
Physics - John Mainstone from Australia for his part in an experiment that began in 1927 in which a glob of black tar drips through a funnel every nine years. Mr. Mainstone shared the prize with a late colleague who died sometime after the second drop.
Biology - The University of Adelaide for "painstakingly smelling and cataloguing the peculiar odors produced by 131 different species of frogs when the frogs were feeling stressed."
Chemistry - A University of Minnesota team who set out to prove whether people can swim faster in water or sugar syrup.
Economics - A Massachusettes inventor who designed an alarm clock that runs away and hides when it goes off.
(note: I included a link to an article about this very clock months ago, and I thought it was a hilariously great idea. I tell you this now just in case it sounds familiar and you wonder if in my senility I've begun repeating myself.)
Nutrition - A Japanese researcher who photographed and analysed every meal he had consumed during a period of 34 years.
Literature - The many Nigerians who introduced millions of e-mail users to a "cast of rich characters... each of whom requires just a small amount of expense money so as to obtain access to the great wealth to which they are entitled."
Agricultural History - A study entitled The Significance of Mr. Richard Buckley's Exploding Trousers: Reflections on an Aspect of Technological Change in New Zealand Dairy-Farming between the World Wars.
Fluid Dynamics - Pressures Produced When Penguins Pooh - Calculations on Avian Defecation.
Teacher mistakes boy's insulin pump for phone, and rips it out. Need I say more? Apparently the teacher is quoted as saying that his is an unfortunate situation. I'll bet.
posted by Rimmy at 10:46
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