Yup. More spammers.
Gunner B. Succession
Waifs U. Airworthiest
Transfinite H. Contracted
Unforeseeable L. Waned
Ion H. Ingesting
Peered H. Geritol
Perseveres J. Avatars
Tong G. Hafnium
Cannonade B. Lifelong
Musicologist A. Knocker
Intrust R. Eskimo
Leasing O. Schmaltzy
people who sent me spam this past week:
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Shrinking H. Pawnee
Frankfurter M. Grouchiest
Rehashes B. Dirty
Smothering T. Inopportune
Coddling B. Fucker
Dispensaries F. Rationalization
Blacked T. Beachcomber
Prefect I. Unbiassed
Typewrote E. Jeanie
While using it to help one of my cow-orkers discover the fate of a colony of bats in her hometown, Google led me to an interesting and amusing site called The Journal of Manly Arts. No, this is not a sex magazine; rather a collection of articles about “European and Colonial Combatives, 1776 – 1914”; the supposition there being that fighting (as opposed to dueling) became a Gentlemanly thing around the time of the American Revolution, and became, well, kind of beside the point once Europe began to eat itself 140 years later.
Most of what I read was not new to me. All of the arts – quarterstaffs, various forms of boxing, Savate , I have heard of, if not actually seen in person. There was one, however, which stopped me for a moment: purring . Two contestants stand facing one another and, not to overcomplicate things, kick the bajeezus out of each others’ shins. Last one to give up wins. Apparently this fine tradition was abandoned in the late 1800s, although it is still seen today in schoolyards throughout the country.
Oh: And should the opportunity arise, never get in a fight in pre-Revolutionary Virginia :
I would advise you when You do fight Not to act like Tygers and Bears as these Virginians do – Biting one anothers Lips and Noses off, and gowging one another – that is, thrusting out one anothers Eyes, and kicking one another on the Cods, to the Great damage of many a Poor Woman…
Something woke me up at around 4:00 this morning. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I got out of bed, worked out for an hour or so, then sat down to do a little work on version 2.1.0.4.6.9b of the Flash Photo Album application. This will be, I think, the fifth time in the past year that I have started to rebuild it. I won’t bother posting a date when it will be ready because, frankly, I just don’t know.
Last night after teaching the Kendall class (in which nobody cried) I stopped out to the local book merchant and picked up the new Neal Stephenson book, The System of the World. It looks quite beautiful on my bookshelf next to the first two volumes of the Baroque Cycle, Quicksilver and The Confusion . It was my intention to only pick up the one book but I stopped past the remainder tables and there, in their shiny hardcover glory, were Baudolino and The Collected What If? , which brings together What If? and What If?2. So much for saving money. So much for sleep.
So I will be at work for a little while longer. The boss and I had a long talk after work today, and it put things in perspective. Enough perspective, anyway, that I will not just up and quit without having another job lined up.
You will notice, however, that I did not say I am not interested in finding another job. Time to start fleshing out my resumé.
So here is the question: From where comes the dissonance? Is it my personal life invading work, or work invading my personal life? Does the line need to be re-drawn in a more permanent color?
Time will tell.
Effective immediately I am looking for a new job. So if you have need of a web developer with many years of experience, I can be reached at john at eccesignum dot org.
Today I am/was/will be absolutely buried under work at my day job, so I cut the Kendall class a little short. To make up for this I gave my students their first homework assignment.
I got a few heartfelt (hah!) “Awwww”s about my workload, so I told them to use me as an object lesson, if any of them are insane enough to want make a career out of web development. Long hours, burnout, and the joy of watching project after project march off into IT Department oblivion, said I.
Well, honestly, whattayagonnado? It’s a living. It’s a steady paycheck. If you are not too burned out to care, you can learn something new with every project. And if you are too burned out, you will learn how long you can work without falling to pieces or killing your co-workers.
But you know…there are times when a week of rest feels more important than all the clients in the world.
I was feeling bored nostalgic bored at work today so I spent some time browsing around the int0rw3b. As luck would have it, the first site I surfed to, The WikiPedia , had some interesting stuff in it. Specifically, a link to an entry on Harun al_Rashid . He was the Caliph in the Thousand Nights and a Night , and more recently he was the central character in issue 50 ( Ramadan
) of Neil Gaiman‘s Sandman comic book .
After looking up a few other random words I typed in “elite”. This returned a variety of possible results, one of which was subtitled “computer game”.
Could it be?!? YES! An entry on the greatest computer game of the 1980s!
Doing a Google search brought up a great BBC article on the people who created the game, all those years ago. I am still in the process of looking for good ports of the original to a PC platform. They are surprisingly, frustratingly, few and far between — although this one looks promising. I say “surprisingly” because there is nothing about the game that could not be easily done in Flash.
So if I don’t find any good results in the next few weeks, I guess I will have to quit my job and build it myself!
Selah
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Lugosi D. Teammates
Implicit T. Doorstepping
Reformed J. Industrialize
Vacuously S. Callously
Questionnaire K. Spaniel
Hick K. Parodying