stats (or, how did i get here?)

in

figured out yesterday that my hosting provider actually offers some sort of gratis stats reporting. so, i took a look at my stats yesterday, and saw a few interesting things:

  • everyone who comes to my site that isn't someone i already know is looking for something about either hacking tivo or building a climbing wall. perhaps i should flesh out those sections a bit more. i already went in to the wall page and updated it with a link to the co-op blog.
  • everybody is using some form of ie.
  • i have, on average, about 50-60 "visitors" a day. not too shabby.

oops, part 2 (or, fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck)

in

From: JackieTo: matt CC: Ian (recruiter guy) Subject: application

Matt, We received your application. However, the questionnaire was incomplete and we did not receive a writing test. Please return to http://www.company.com and complete the questionnaire from Question 8 to Question 19 (Part 2) and the writing test (Part 3). If the system requires you to complete the application again, enter your name and address on the first page and then enter "X"'s throughout the application to get to the questionnaire. Please call if you have any questions.

Jacqueline Human Resources Manager Company, Inc.

shitballs. i talked to that recruiter again this morning. he wants me to come in to the office tuesday a.m. to meet with him for half an hour or so. i don't think i can now, after this disasterous auto-submission of my bad, bad answers.

annoyance (or, no thanks, i'd rather...)

in

what an epic this morning has turned out to be already, and not even 9 a.m. yet. i wanted to try and get up a little bit earlier this morning and do a few things and then get to work, but no thanks, i'd rather sleep in a bit more.

i was going to dress up in my halloween costume for work, but no thanks, i'd rather not be the only person in the office who's dressed up and feel like a ninny.

the weather was nice enough that i probably could have ridden the bike this morning, but no thanks, i'd rather be warm than healthy this morning.

i get down to my bus stop, and the bus pulls up a few minutes later, and it's completely jammed; front to back, floor to ceiling. i'd be standing squeezed between two amazingly obese women for the duration of my trip, unless even more got on at the next stop, in which case i'd be completely surrounded. so, no thanks, i'd rather be late than claustrophobic and annoyed.

the recruiter that i emailed yesterday to tell him to forget about the job wanted me to call him this a.m. with my schedule all screwed up because of the bus incident, i tried to call him a few minutes early while on my walk, but got his voicemail. i probably could have just called back a little later on, but no thanks, i'd rather avoid than be confronted.

oops (or, how to burn bridges)

in

started to take that online application this afternoon, and it was.... interesting.i didn't even get to the english part... after you fill out a bunch of personal info (ssn, blood type, etc.), they present you with a long web form with a bunch of general hr questions. i gamely answered the first couple, but then got bored and started to get funny. some of my responses are below (you can see riiiiiight about where it all went downhill):

What motivates you and how do you motivate others? I am enthusiatic about challenging problems and new technologies, and my enthusiasm is infectious (but not in a way that requires any sort of OTC medication).

On what personal attribute would you sell yourself? Friendly. Patient. Enthusiastic. Remarkably non-condescending for a techie.

What would your most recent manager say needs improved (emphasis mine) the most? While I haven't asked her specifically, I believe my manager would say the only problem is that i work too many hours, and my work is too bug-free, and completed too quickly, thereby making my coworkers seem like lazy dullards in comparison.

Where do you see yourself in two years and why? If I haven't abandonded technology completely to live a nomadic life in the deserts of the American Midwest, subsisting on the kindness of strangers and rock climbing every day; then I would imagine I'd be doing pretty much the same thing I am now: going to work every weekday and writing code, although I'll probably have a bit less hair.

i then decided that it was pretty pointless, and just started composing an email to the recruiter i spoke to, telling him that as i was going through the questionnaire, i thought that perhaps the work environment wasn't exactly what i was looking for. i closed the pop-up window that the questions were in, and the page that launched it changed itself to say "thank you"... which made me think they had some sort of javascript onClose(form.submit()); script going on, which makes me a little nervous.... oh well, if i'm not actually going to interview, then i don't think they're going to bother to read my half-filled-in responses, right? right?!?!

wow, vice city is a

in

wow, vice city is a whole lot of fun. the voice acting is superb, the new weapons and vehicles are great... doing wheelies and "stoppies" on a motorcycle for money is awesome. i'm hoping to get a little further into it tonight, and maybe buy some buildings to start generating some hands-off revenue. the Special Lady Friend called me last night from london; 3 a.m. her time and 10 p.m. mine. sounds like she's having fun so far.

i had a short phone interview yesterday. the recruiter was very cool, and i think things went well. one funny moment: at the end of our chat he was telling me about this online application that i need to fill out; one section is just general name/address/phone stuff, one is a questionnaire on work history, things of that nature...

recruiter: last part is a timed english test. don't worry, it's not poetry or anything like that. me: mmmm-hmmm... recruiter: we'll show you some sentences, and you can tell which ones need fixed or don't need fixed. me: *swallows hard and bites tongue*

there is a major grammar problem in pittsburgh (although i hear it's more of a midwest epidemic, really), where people have a real issue with their infinitives. did you hear about the travelling shakespeare company that comes to town once a year? their big scene is "or not, that is the question".

the cat's away (or, panic on the streets of london)

in

the SLF left yesterday for a week of fun and no sun in london. i'm sure that i will miss her while she's gone, but this week is just getting slackier by the minute. i see that my copy of gta vice city has arrived, and a day earlier than i expected, even. gta3 was such a cool game... the non-linear gameplay, being able to beat down hookers, etc. i've been dying for the sequel, and it's sitting on my doorstep waiting for me. that should take up a good portion of the rest of my week. plus, at work today both my mgr. and my boss are gone for the day. i do have a little bit of work that i should be doing, but i'm fairly unmotivated. i'd prefer to either hax0r up this messageboard so i can get automatic comments for the blog (sorry quicktopic, i love you, but i hate manual processes), or just fuck around with the new pontifex2 demo.

jackass (or, the decline of modern civilization)

in

yesterday afternoon, after doing a little bit of construction at the shop, went to the movies with paul and his girlie, and we went and saw jackass. it was disgusting, infantile, cringe-inducing, and a waste of celluloid. it was the perfect example of what's wrong with money-oriented moviemaking in this country, and i loved every second of it. i never watched the tv show, but i knew enough about it to know that i didn't really care if i saw it or not. i was in the mood yesterday, and i'm glad i went. i don't know if i've laughed so hard at crass jokes in my life. i think i lost 20 IQ points while i was sitting there, but it could have gone on for another 2 hours, and i would have happily sat through it. run, do not walk, to go see this movie.

stinky (or, mom always said to wash behind your ears)

in

while getting ready to head out to brunch yesterday, i was taking a nice long hot shower, and decided to clean out my ears. no, not with a q-tip... i mean taking out the eyelets in my ears and cleaning all the sebum off of them. i love my piercings (maybe one day i'll get around to doing a little writeup about my experiences getting them). when i was getting them done, i was really into the whole culture and community of it.

but let me just tell you... there is not a lot out there that is stinkier than that funk that builds up on my ear jewelry.

going pro (or, the winds of change cost 35 bucks these days)

in

ok, screwing around with my templates some more on this sunday morn. having all kinds of problems uploading, but that's ok... i can just save them as draft postings, because i just upgraded to blogger pro(tm)! yes, for some reason i thought that pro had some sort of automatic comments feature, so i wouldn't have to keep manually creating ones in quicktopic, but i guess i was mistaken. it does have some pretty cool features, however. spellcheck, emailing of updates, file uploading, publishing in the future, saving drafts (like this one), and some other cool stuff. i figure i use it regularly enough that i can throw the $35 pyra's way.

wellity, wellity, wellity.... looks as

in

wellity, wellity, wellity....looks as though my little sister has got herself a little ol' blog. i'll have to read up on this tonight... it looks like she has quite a lot to say (not that that surprises me).

what a jam-packed weekend i have ahead of me.... tonight is a friend's photography art opening, followed by a little whine and cheese at a friend's. tomorrow i'm doing brunch with the Special Lady Friend (a friend of hers is getting married), then the bob mould show at rosebud, and _then_ another little wingding with paul. sunday will hopefully be some coopers bouldering.

futzed around with my link

in

futzed around with my link styles a bit this morning... stole the idea directly from rebecca blood. i don't think i'll go back and update my old posts, but from here on out: an external link will be blue or purple, depending on whether or not you've visited it already.. standard netscape stuff. a tan, dashed link signifies a link to something else within feralboy.com, blog or other. links in the nav column will be solid tan.. didn't want the archive listing to look like a big dotted mess.

i like deluding myself that enough people even read this thing that it matters what i do with link colors.

slept like utter crap last

in

slept like utter crap last night... my little nagging cold has exploded into the full-nose-blown variety; stuffy nose, sore throat, etc. i hope i don't have strep throat... i heard someone at the gym last night talking about how they had it recently. anyway, i stopped at cvs this morning and armed myself. in addition to the pseudo-dayquil (which contains pseudoephedrine (which makes me a little psuedo-nutty)), and 500mg vitamin c softgels i already had, i picked up some cold-eze, and some lotion tissues. take that!

as soon as the weather

in

as soon as the weather starts to get chilly, i have a perma-cold pretty much the entire winter. this year it seems to be especially bad for some reason.. lingering symptoms w/out blossoming into a full-blown cold that can keep me home from work, or at least prompt me to take zinc/cold-eze/whatever. i have this constant little tickle in my throat, and i'm clearing and hemming and coughing every 5 seconds, and i'm sure it's driving all my poor coworkers nuts.

if i wasn't sure before

in

if i wasn't sure before that radio consolidation is a Bad Thing(tm), a little incident this a.m. made me 100% positive. i was driving back from the SLF's, where i had enjoyed a lovely evening of homemade thai food and "other" activities. there was a boring story on the local npr station, so i switched over to the rock station to hear some howard. they were in the midst of commercials, too. defeated, i slumped back in my seat, since i was only a minute or two from home, anyway. so, in the middle of all the ads for penis enlargement and drivers license lawyers, they played a "bumper" for the local i'm-not-sure-what-format-we-are-so-we'll-cover-all-the-bases station. it just made me think about some huge octopus-looking computer, like the evil computer from superman III, just churning out "all your favorite hits of the 80s and 90s". makes me sad for the state of modern music, and how the top 5 songs every week sound exactly the same. i also noticed when i was collecting links for this entry that the websites for both stations look almost exactly the same. i guess that makes sense, but could you at least pick a different color scheme for one of them???

i finally got the panties

in

i finally got the panties out of my mouth and rode in this a.m.i had my thin little fleece gloves all set aside to wear, and then promptly forgot them. man, were my hands cold when i got here! my body was totally sweaty, and my hands were freezing.. fun combo. i'll do a better writeup about the weekend and the wedding later, when work calms down, but right now i'm just starting the downward spiral, which is some fantastic angry coding music. i got all motivated on my drive back listening to a nin covers album... picked that up sunday waiting for the wedding to start, along with a johnny cash tribute album.

i also visited gnc and got some psyllium husk, and started taking that this a.m. i'm very excited to have 3-pound poops.