true or false (or, worst....test......ever)

moving forward with the interview process for a certain company (hint: they sound like a former presidential candidate, but they're not). last night i did another online questionnaire. this one was a personality profile. they are fairly stupid. they just keep asking you the same true/false questions over and over again, sometimes in a slightly different way, hoping that you'll screw up and put different answers for the same question. anyway, i culled some of my favorite questions and broke them down by category: the "how stuck on yourself are you?" category Others seem to find me attractive. No one ever got ahead by being modest. I am very good at almost everything I do. Other people recognize my talent, although they may not always say so. I often fantasize about being famous.

the "how suicidal are you?" category I am a moody person. Nothing seems to matter to me anymore. I can't do anything well. I'm always tired. I feel like life is just passing me by. I often wonder how I got to be the way I am. The future seems hopeless to me. I frequently have headaches. My life often seems to have no meaning. When I was young, there were times when I felt like leaving home. Sometimes I feel like a failure. Sometimes my problems seem too much for me. Sometimes I feel like I'm falling apart. I sometimes feel irritated without any good reason.

the "how much of an asshole are you at work? category It doesn't bother me to criticize or contradict the persons who are above me at work. People often disappoint me. In a group, I don't mind expressing unpopular opinions. I could do a better job if I weren't interrupted so often.

the "how militia-style paranoid about government/authority are you?" category If I wanted to, I could disguise myself as someone else. I get nervous if I think someone is watching me. The average citizen has no idea what our politicians are up to. If you want justice in this world, then you must be ready to fight for it. Some laws were just made to be broken.

the "how insane are you?" category People can often sense my power. If I were in charge, I could get this country moving again. I have some powerful enemies. Because of my unusual gifts, few people are close to me. Sometimes I feel a kind of power around me. In time people will recognize my importance. I know who my enemies are. Sometimes I know what people are going to say before they say it. People with my special talents don't need many friends.

the "how much of a party animal are you?" category In my view a person who doesn't drink can't be trusted.

to quote lecter: "oh, agent starling... you think you can disect me with this blunt little tool?"

fun flight

so, made it back just fine wednesday night, although my flight back was interesting for several reasons: 1. there was a guy on the flight who looked exactly like bilbo baggins from lotr. he had really tight curly brown hair, was amazingly short, and had all these amazing lines/wrinkles in his face. he was wearing loafers sans socks, very miami vice. i almost asked him to take his shoes off to see how hairy his feet were. 2. i had a window seat right over the wing (row 13, as a matter of fact), and i don't think i ever noticed before just how much the wings have a tendancy to flex when you ride through turbulance. 3. there was some sort of high-pitched whine in the cabin that led to all sorts of psychoacoustics for me. i kept imagining i was hearing things; my phone ringing (mozart's sonata #11 (rondo alla turka)), "swanee river", and all your favorite hits.

ft. lauderdale = prefab hell

so, i'm down here in florida, in hollendale. we're all done with work for the day, but because we have discount flight tickets, we can't get on an earlier flight without a penalty.... so, stuck until 7. flying in last night wasn't as bad as a thought. there were about 50 security people at the pgh airport checkpoint, but i breezed right through. guess all my planning to pack light paid off. flight was uneventful; i even managed to sleep for about an hour, which is pretty unheard of. i'm not a nervous flier, but i just find the seats so uncomfortable that it's hard for me to drop off. ft. lauderdale/hollendale is a weird area. it's very industrial; lots of low-slung concrete buildings, pawnshops, check-cashing places... in general i think it's a pretty depressed area. i don't know why anyone would want to come here for a vacation. everything is bleached by the sun, and looks very old, even if it's not (this includes the local populace).

i'm almost done with cryptonomicon, which i have enjoyed immensely.... i'm sad to see it end, but apparently it's the first of 3 books in a series, although the other two aren't written yet. i should definitely be able to finish that off tonight at the airport, and maybe get most of the way through this bike messenger book i picked up (link coming later), before i start neil stephenson's show crash.

mmmm... tomatoes....

mmmm... one of my coworkers brought in a big thing of fresh cherry tomatoes today. i don't know if they're home-grown or from a farmer's market or what, but they are tasty! i opened up a free account on brinkster yesterday. they let you do .NET stuff, so i'll be hacking around with that, trying to do some fun stuff. i put together the counter that you see over on the right using that... it's a web page that's generating a graphic on the fly.