Taffy is delicious!

How is it environmentalists don’t know about environmental disasters?!?!? I’m by no means a greenie, but I know what’s going on. GMO, falling fertility rates, untested chemicals used enmass, genetically modified animals, I’m at least aware of all this noise. So turns out the average environmentalists only knows about carbon emissions, that’s it! No interest in the fact that fertility rates in men has fallen by 50% in the last 50 years. Not concerned about really aggressive bio engineered species into the wild. It’s all about evil carbon. Of course when I explain the 0 growth model to them and what would need to be done, you would think I’m explaining calculus to Labrador. Sure the eyes are on you but really they are hoping to see something shiny or for you to toss a ball for them to fetch. Hey guys, if you are worried about jobs then carbon taxes will not help!

It's a simple fact that just about no one thinks. I'm starting to get the idea that the vast majority of the population is simply incapable of forward projection. They will take the soundbite they are given and hold it up as if Jesus himself came down to give it to them. A society that completely trusts the "experts" despite the fact their track record is pure garbage for proper forecasting.

To top it off one of the greenies was from MIT with an engineering degree. Shit what does it take to get a degree now? Wander into a class and utter “Taffy is delicious!” walk out a college graduate. On the plus side this is my future "competition" in the world. Feeling strong.

Space Age, Stone Age

So being the bloated fat man that I am, I have decided to get into shape again. Those of you who know me notice this trend...I don't have success for the ladies for a while and all of a sudden I care about my appearance. It's like magic.

I've had some success with the low carb thing in the past. Managed to lose a big chunk of weight, enough to lure the ladies in with what I pass off as humor and the deception that I'm a cool successful guy. (Yes I've lied to hook up with girls. What am I going to do, explain my nerdy ways and ask them to a GURPS game?) Well I was looking at the low carb thing again and I was enchanted by the Primal Blueprint. It's a lifestyle plan to try and mimic out caveman ancestors.

Now I'm sure my ancestors were bad ass. Shameful Caveman doubtlessly dominated the hellish winter wastes, killing sabre tooth tigers with nothing more then his club like dick, and capable of running like a gazelle from a hoard of angry men, a stolen women on each shoulder. Now I don't expect to match such manly feats (and yes killing a sabre tooth tiger does make you a man), but I figure I can at least work out as well as go low carb.

This post goes out to Caveman Shameful! I salute you, and will try to at least look like you (from the waist up). If it was good enough for the stone age then it's good enough for the space age. After all I work in IT, and I know in the future nothing works.

A Shameful Recap

Due to heckling I have returned. My excuse for my long absence...my retarded ass schedule I have subjected myself to.

Lets see. My roomie left. He decided that he wanted to move to hippie land and go to the worst school in the state. I responded with all the charm and grace one would expect from me. So now I find myself living in as my father put it "the barrio". On the plus side it's cheap and close to my place of employment...the downside I only hear Spanish. So far have not been robbed...

Managed to hack my way through another year of school and I see light at the end of the tunnel...the train barreling down on me. Started another semester and already comfortably behind. Indeed right now I should be reading or sleeping instead of my rambling.

On the job front, going great! Almost all of my work has been scraped, but I provided deliverables and then the user had a problem not related to me. I care not, so long as the pay keeps coming in. I ended up being that guy, crying out to hand off stuff to the consultants. Let them suffer, I get paid no matter what.

So another year of the good time of full time/full time. Can't wait!

No code, no process, no problem

Today was another meeting. Another meeting about a project I have no information about. The situation from last week is unchanged, no access, no code, no information, no problem.

This week a panel is assembled to talk about their grievances, their wants, their desires, and their disdain of the current product. I created documents describing the project as I understand it, and they are promptly ignored. They will not be tied down by documentation or the need to file out paperwork, this is strictly an off the cuff demand list. As they go through the demands I point out that they assume that I know their process, and I don’t. The demands continue. They begin talking about ANOTHER database that I’m supposed to be building, of which I had no knowledge of. After hitting me with that and Boss giving no support, they finally relent and talk about their process.

The process is largely nonsensical, which is no surprise. The one I struggled to get my mind around was how the preliminary report would magically turn into the first supplemental report. Especially since I will be force locking down the preliminary report and according to their definition the supplemental report is brand new…I accept this and decide just to carry over the preliminary to the supplemental despite the fact it makes no sense. I also quickly come to realize that this will be a very email intensive project, which is a problem.

See the network is awful. No that’s not a good way to describe it…Apocalyptically bad, so rancid that it melts your face off, terrible beyond all measure. It’s the kind of network that Hell would have, as the devil locks you into a code sweatshop where you are forced to debug Fortran written in pig-latin, as bloated tick like managers critique every keystroke. I could shout the 1s and 0s faster over a phone line, and in some places they still use old school modems so I might have to. In addition they have stripped away all the tools I could use to send via email like wevdav. My option is to dance the dance of the dead with exchange and then pray they don’t touch the exchange server…a futile prayer.

Most of the actual talking in the meeting is about deleting fields in the DB and removing data tables and pruning old data. This blows my mind, as they want to be able to archive the data but still use it actively, in effect creating two separate databases running alongside each other but complexly separate but covering the same business operation…or as I like to call it database hell. I plead with them to not force to take such an action and I earn a temporary reprieve. They still wish for me to go in and play Jenga with the tables…removing fields that are foreign keys…did I mention the code is outrageously out of date, not commented, and not in a language I know? I have one week to solve the puzzle or call it quits for this nightmare game.

I have a meeting again next week and another the week after. I’m glad it happened today, all I could think of after the meeting is having a tall cold glass of vodka and staring at my wall till the darkness overtakes me…

...and thats how I met Lord Valain

Have you ever had a friend that you can link most of the oddities in your life to, and most of the major life decisions? That if you look back you can see a clear line where you’re life turned upside down because of them.

It was years ago. A fresh faced kid out of high school was in a game store looking to get a new game, a new old west game I’d recently heard about. He was standing there and we struck up a conversation, and this is how I met Lord Valain.

It’s important to note at this point I was both working and going to college, believe it or not I had aspirations to be a productive member of society, a mechanical engineer. While I was by no means Mr. Popularity, but I was in shape and I was dating a few girls. All in all life was great. Then I discovered something, like other people fall into drug addiction or drink their lives away I got hooked… on Romance of the Three Kingdoms 6.

Like many addictions it started off small and I though “Hey I can handle this”. I began hanging you with Valain, and falling into addiction and we both got hooked on ROTTK6. Valain was between jobs and I wasn’t…so I started to cut class. At first just ones I thought that weren’t important and then it slowly spread to all of my classes. I still managed to keep my job but I kept finding myself in a situation where I would play through the night at the game de jour and then go into work for the day. And like most addictions, ROTTK6 served as a gateway drug, I found that I had become a gamer. I remember one weekend in particular where I didn’t sleep, and showed up for work in the same clothes 2 days in a row. Yeah I was an addict.

So the natural course took over and I quit school and bounced around the job market and Valain moved out of town. Eventually I pulled my life together after getting a talking to by my old man. I was back to working, back into school finishing my degree, back in shape and dating again…and who should come back into my life but Valain.

Now Valain had set himself up as a computer programmer, something I had dabbled in, but only in an amateur way. Valain started telling me about a job opening he had. I finished up my degree and in the job hunt Valain offered me the most money. At this point I had a life, a girlfrierd Redhead and friends and family in the town I was in. Of course I ended up getting talked into moving by Valain, packed my bag and moved in with him.

My life changed but a lot of things were not immediately noticeable…I was still talking with Redhead a lot and she had family in the new town. There was even talk of her coming down to go to school here to. That all fell through when she felt that I was too distant and had to hook up with an old boyfriend. After that my appearance started to suffer and I went through was affectionately known as my hussy phase. I was looking at law school and Valain talked me into going to the local one. I had better scholarships, to higher rated schools…but he talked me into it. I can still remember his words “Come on Shameful, you’ll only save $30,000! It’s only $30,000, that’s nothing!”

Then after deciding to hang out and go to law school here, Lord Valain moved once more. So I’m stuck here in a town I don’t much care for in a school that I’m more or less indifferent to, waiting to graduate. And once again I have Valain talking to me “So I think I can get you a job up here. Come on you’ll love it here!” He might be right in most ways Valain and I are essentially the same guy; same tastes, same likes, same opinions (expect I’m more “liberal”). I’ve realized he’s been involved in most of my life decisions, all from the fateful day at the Nerdatoruim. But how could I be made at what is essentially me? I love me!

They say you hurt the ones you love, well it works both ways.

So is this like the 2nd seal of the end times?

After my day I came home looking to settle in for my glorious 1 day weekend. A day that is all about this guy, but I pull up to my place someone is parking in my space. Odd Roommate never has anyone over, he's a hermit...

So turns out as I'm going up to the door a cute girl steps out...and behind her Roommate. To say I was stunned would be an understatement. Now I had suspicions that he was seeing a girl but no proof, my only thought was no one could be working out as much as he claimed. I'm greeted with a stunned look on Roommates face.

"Oh high Shameful....this is Girl" and after a brief introduction he leaves her and follows me into the house. "Shameful what's up, why are you home early?" He's clearly a little shaken. I explain that today is my short day...so I only get home very late instead of insanely late. "But Shameful...I didn't expect you for another hour..." and he scurries outside and they take off. Which is great because Girl was in my parking space, and I'm a busy guy who hates to walk.

Roommate is no ladies man, hell I'm glad he's with a girl but that was yet another kick to the old ego. Here I am, broke, out of shape, tired, and nerdy. All alone on a Friday night when my equally neckbeardy pal Roommate is out with a girl.

I might have to look for the party liquor... On the plus side I owe Roommate for inviting his mom over when I was trying to put the moves on one of my old girlfriends, maybe he was worried that I'm the vindictive type. So is walking around with you're balls out taboo when you're roommate has a girl over?

The programmer is always wrong

So today was my first meeting with the big client. I was in no way prepared, how could I be? No email, no code, no access…I was ready to rock and roll!

I return from my classes to find that a meeting was going on. I was initially dismissed because it was not my time, to be displayed to them to be verbally abused. I take the opportunity to contemplate what I will say for myself…but mainly I surfed the net.

When the time came I painted on a big smile and went notebook in hand to the jackals. One of them I had met before Big Wig 1, and the other boss Big Wig 2. With a smile I introduce myself and exchange handshakes. But before I can even sit down Big Boss 1 hits me with “So Shameful, what are you going to do for us?”

Through my fake smile I reply “Well I guess that depends on what you want and what and when you want it” She looks angrily at my boss and beings to talk in broad generalities how terrible the product she is using is. The last programmer here built it for them, and she HATES him. “OldGuy never fixed anything that we asked for!” As she is detailing her distain for the program I write it down, since I know I’ll have to addresses these concerns later and they are shockingly minor but then she spits out a nugget of pure gold. OldGuy’s program would not let them rewrite their history logs.

See it turns out that they have process they have to work through, by law if I’m not mistaken, that is built into the current program. Once a record is generated it is not altered and subsequent reports have to me made to amend it. After all it prevents people from going in and changing records after the fact. Turns out obeying the law is painfully inconvenient for Big Wig 1 and her staff. Trying not to be overly confrontational I point out that the system is one based on the permission structure they provided our office and it’s in accordance with the design we were forced to implement. Not to be dissuaded Big Wig 1 continued to rail against the unfairness of obeying the law. To my utter amazement my boss actually supported my stance, but could not stop the tirade.

An idea struck me, to hell with it, let them violate the rules. I’d implement a design change that would let them violate the rule but would keep a paper trail that any investigator could follow. The Big Wigs seemed quite pleased with my suggested change. Though I’m not sure they understood that what I meant about keeping an ongoing record of the transactions including the altered and deleted ones. I don’t really know their real motives, but that’s their problem not mine. After all I can claim ignorance of the law, I’m just a law student and we don’t know dick.

Onto the next issue, I explain that since the code they are using is about to be made useable by Windows 7 I advocate a change to a whole new system. This is greeted by open hate “Well how fast can you get it to us?” Now I have no data to work no process structure, no code, no help, not even basic email, so I lie and estimate 2-3 months “Well OldGuy promised us stuff for years and we never got it, we have been waiting since 2001 and he never got around to it!” The tirade continued and I continued gave assurances. I wonder if she thinks I’m stupid, the first version of the program they are using wasn’t even rolled out till 2003.

The conversation continued and Big Wig 1 threatened my boss with doing business with the same consultant my boss had given our code out to. It was all I could do not to break down laughing. I mean seriously he just gave away our code base to the competition…what’s next will he actually the consultants be sitting in my office behind me watching my screen so he can steal code on the fly? I made a new vow, from now on my comments will be pure garbage. If I have to give my code away to some random asshole consultant then it’s going to be hard to understand…maybe I’ll code my comments in Mandarin. Is it wrong I hope he the consultant gets the contract? All he does is subcontract out code to Indian programmers, and we all know how quality that work is.

After Big Wig 1 was done insulting me and OldGuy, another meeting was set for next Friday because as it turns out the person who actually knows the process and can give me the data to start the database is not around. So I have the pleasure of doing this again next week. I’ve been promised the process data, a log of the reported errors, and the source code by then…So I’m taking odds on if I will have any of that before the meeting. Currently I’m estimating that at a solid 1-2% chance of happening. Thank God it’s Friday, maybe tonight I can drown my shame in vodka, or Old Spice.