Dell has announced that it's re-relocating its technical support for corporate customers from India back to the US. Chuck and Byron are all over it, as are their respective commenters.

I don't have anything to say about outsourcing at the moment, but I do have something to say about technical support, Dell and otherwise.

I hear a lot of complaints about Dell's technical support. I've heard complaints about the India branch's work and more people saying that it sucks over here, too. Some blame the corporations for going cheap on it and they're right. The blame lies not with the computer companies, but the end users.

To use the cliche, you get what you pay for.

I build my own desktops, but when it comes to laptops, I am a loyal IBM customer. Why? Because IBM takes care of me. My IBM customer service agent calls me every three months to make sure that my computer is still working okay. At one point, when I reported a problem with the mouse, they had a tech support person call me the next day with the solution in hand. I didn't know that customer service like that still existed. When I had to buy my last laptop, IBMs cost a couple hundred more than its Dell and Gateway counterpart, but it's worth it to me.

When pushed against a wall, most people disagree.

It used to be that the price difference between a company stock PC and a home-built one was huge, sometimes as much as 2-1. Over the years, stock PC prices have fallen considerably and today the difference in price is negligable. Not only that, but stock machines today are better computers with better parts (even adjusted for Moore's Law). I still build my own because I like the flexibility of interchangable parts, but others would rather have the convenience of a restore CD.

Regardless, the money saved to consumers had to come from somewhere and can anyone be surprised it came from something intangible like customer support? Packard Bell and Compaq tried to skimp on parts and they were called on it: Packard Bell is out of business and Compaq was consumed by higher grade Hewlett Packard. Customer service, on the other hand, seems to be negligable.

On top of that, trying to fix a computer over the phone is like trying to fix a car on the phone. To say the least, it's not the ideal venue. No matter how skilled the person on the other side of the line is, they're not there to look at the machine and things it would take then two minutes to check out themselves it takes ten to do over the phone. It's frustrating for both involved and believe me I've heard as many complaints about tech support callers as I have agents. With costs being cut to make the PC cheaper (since prices are all that's important to a lot of consumers), even the best technician has to read from the same automated system, dumbed down to the dumbest tech support person there.

If you want good customer service, you're going to have to pay for it. I've been more than pleased with IBM's service, but there are other options available. Gateway has a Gold Service Plan where all you have to do is take the computer in and they'll repair it for you with a pretty fast turnaround. Easy, simple, and expensive.

Or you can do what I do: build your own. It's cheap, but when there's a problem you know better how to fix it because you're dealing with parts that you bought and installed. This only works if you know what you're doing, but in my (biased) view even if you're not a professional, the more you know about computers the less frustrated and expensive maintenance will be.

If you're not willing to learn more about computers and you're not willing to pay higher prices for someone who knows more (and/or can communicate it effectively), I lack sympathy.

In Idaho, a medical resident thinks to herself "Wow, it feels really nice and warm out."

Sure enough, she discovers the temperature gauge has nearly hit forty degrees.

In Texas, a professional computer nerd thinks to himself "Wow, it feels really nice and cold out."

Sure enough, he discovers that the temperature has actually fallen below sixty degrees.

My name is Missy. I'm a ten year-old purebread Collie who's staying with the Whitlock family for a while.

They're nice people and all, but sometimes they get on my nerves. Take for instance today during the UT-A&M football game. Now, I was raised by an Aggie family and would bleed maroon if I ever let myself get down and dirty enough to get a cut. Oh, and I look like the Aggies' mascot.

The Whitlock family is a Longhorn family. Uncles Ray and David went to UT and uncle Ray owns season tickets. Watching the game was hard enough, but enduring their hooting and hollering was more than my delicate constitution could bare. I hid in the other room when it started to get bad.

When Uncle Ray played his Eyes of Texas CD after the game, it was more than I could bear. I started to bark and howl as loudly as I could. Since I couldn't share the many reasons why Texas A&M is the superior university with the cutest mascot in the world, it was all I could do.

They started laughing at me! Uncle Alex commented how interesting it was that an Aggie dog would howl at the Longhorn anthem. Well duh!!!!! What did he expect me to do?! They all found it very funny.

But they're wrong.

There's nothing funny about a 46-15 Longhorn victory.

Harrumph. I'm going to go pout now. Or see if I can beg off some dinner from their plates. Whichever.

[Ed. note: Theme blatantly ripped off of Sugarmama]

Dear Those UT Alumni That Said The UT-A&M Game Was an Automatic Win,

I just heard about you idiots on TV.

Regardless of who is the underdog, it's never automatically in the win column.

Sincerely,
Non-UT Alum And Author of the Blog You Do Not Read

It's a fifth leg, actually. From Warliberal comes this interesting article about a dog born with an extra leg.

The Maltese-and-terrier mix named Popcorn created quite a stir in the local dog-lover community when she was found near Umstead State Park, northwest of Raleigh. Experts said it was unheard of for such an animal to live long past birth.

Popcorn is believed to be between 9 months and a year old.

The extra, or supernumerary, leg was removed because it was hampering the dog's movement. The more fully developed leg was also removed because it was rotated at a 90-degree angle, rendering it useless as well.

Looks like the dog is going to be alright. Great!

There's something seriously wrong with this town when Mom and I are wiping sweat off our brow during our T-Day meal.

Dear Lord,

Remember that incident in March of 1999? Of course it's in Your database somewhere, but I figure there are a lot of records in there, so I'll just go ahead and remind You. I was driving down I45 when out of nowhere the pickup in front of me changed lanes at the last possible second to avoid an HL&P service van that had stopped right in the middle of the freeway. Luckily (or by Your grace, whichever), there weren't any cars around me so I was able to swerve much as the pickup had.

Remember how I wasn't wearing a seatbelt?

I was on top of the world. Thoughts of law school were just entering my mind. My relationship with Anna was at its height. I was 6'5" and weighed under two-hundred pounds. I'd never picked up a cigarette. If I had died then, I would have died on top of the world.

Things have changed a lot since then. They've become a lot more difficult. I'm never going to be a lawyer and make a million dollars. I broke Anna's heart and then Elciem came along and broke mine. I'm twenty-five, unemployed, living with my parents, and in a state of elongated flux. I hate flux.

The long and short of it is that life hasn't been easy. Then again, that's all part of the grand design. In fact, those that have been born into wealth and influence are often the most unhappy of all. I'm just as guilty of this. I was born into the middle class. My college was paid for by two parents that didn't get a free ride. I was born in a state that claims me as its own no matter where I go, raised in a state that doesn't care that I wasn't born here, and a resident of the most prosperous nation in the history of the world.

More than that, I have a family that loves me. I have better friends than I could ever ask for or deserve. I'd like to think that I've become stronger and wiser in the adversity I've faced, however small it is in the greater scheme of things.

Naturally, there have been times where I've been unhappy; When I scream, cry, and am too red to do much of anything at all... when I'm heartbroken, sad, hurt, angry, and hopeless...

life is still good.

Thank You,

Author of the Blog That You Probably Need Not Read

The Detroit Lions are playing Green Bay on the tube. Last I checked, they were pulling off an upset.

It took me a bit to realize that it was, in fact, the Lions playing. I thought it was yet another retro day (Green Bay's mask is silver instead of modern-day green). Turns out that the Lions have a tradition of wearing a unique uniform for Turkey Day. Not a throwback as the helmet was never worn regularly (though they had a similar one from 1952-60), just an alternate alternate uniform.

Between the Texans special red uniform, throwback week a half dozen games a year, and things like this, one gets the feeling that some day they're just going to be done with it and wear a different uniform each game.

Oh well, at least it's better than baseball.

Kevin links to a disturbing article about some sore loseritis at Texas Christian University.

TCU was unable to land a spot in the Bowl Championship Series. Now it appears the Horned Frogs may turn down the next best thing.

The school is planning to decline an expected invitation to the GMAC Bowl because of academic considerations, athletic director Eric Hyman told The Washington Post on Wednesday night.

TCU had its sights sets on a BCS bowl, but those hopes were dashed by a loss to Southern Miss on Nov. 20. As a result, the Horned Frogs will likely finish second in Conference USA and earn an invitation to the GMAC.

However, Hyman says the school will likely decline the bowl bid because the game falls in the middle of their exam period (Dec. 18). The bowl could have pitted a pair of impressive mid-majors (TCU and Miami-Ohio) against each other.

Something tells me that if a BCS game fell that weekend or the Kiwi Fruit Bowl or something, they'd not be declining the invitation. I do feel some sympathy for a team that was aiming for the stars and hit the front lawn, and the timing of the game isn't incredibly desirable, but give me a break.

Kevin hits the nail on the head:

Let me translate that: Since we didn't take care of business and beat Southern Miss, we're going to act like a bunch of crybabies, and angle for a bowl we really like (Hawaii Bowl) instead of the bowl we agreed to go if we finished in second place in our conference.

The C-USA commissioner should make it clear to these whiners that if they screw the conference on this deal, they won't be representing C-USA in any bowls, ever. He won't, of course, because he's scared TCU will bolt to the Mountain West. But if this is the sort of conference member they're gonna be, I'll take Louisiana Tech, thank you very much.

I wonder if this might be a signal that they would have sat out the bowl season if they'd not been invited to a BCS. When they lost to Southern Miss and lost any claim to a BCS-bowl, their plans were obviously thrown off.

Oh well, at least if they won't embarass the C*USA and pull a West Virginia.

I definitely want TCU to stay in the C*USA, but they're making me bite my cheek with this one. The C*USA is blessed (though probably not for long) with five bowl alliances. It's one of the draws to our conference, provided that you don't think you're just too darn good for any of out piddly bowl games.

Maybe the Mountain West bowls are better (I honestly don't know), but this demonstrates a lack of commitment that must be grabbing the MWC's attention. If they switch to the MWC, they're going to be sacrificing a lot of "study time" on plane trips two time-zones away.

Maybe the good news is that this means they're not going to make that jump.

I guess that's good news.

This site has great stats on weather in towns all across the country, large and small.

I swear that I didn't intend for this to be an ongoing feature and I swear that when it stops being interesting, I'll move on to something else, but it doesn't appear that it's going to stop being interesting any time soon.

More observations:

Tense muscles are nothing new to me. What is unusual is when they get so bad that I have to do kalesthenics... several times a day. That's what I'm doing every chance I get so far. Kinda weird. Weirder still, I felt perfectly fine until I pulled on to the road where Gattaca is. Out of nowhere, while driving, my entire body tensed up.

My job largey consists of checking, double-checking, re-checking, and double re-checking the same data over and over again. It's the perfect position for someone with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. As such, I've named my department OCD (short for Operations Coordination Department).

Apparently, now that I've finished the first ten quizzes on the corporate bureaucracy, there are another 528 waiting for. They range from Bank of the Northern Hemisphere ATM Service & Warranty to Understanding Fin, Frm, Spc Keeper Features to Advanced Features to Flagging Labor to an ATM Repair Order.

I was relieved when I found out that I wasn't expected to take all those tests.

On days before a holiday, it's casual day. That meant that I got to take off my tie. Ooooh. Ahhhh.

Some dude has the same name as a character in one of my novels. It's not a very common name. I got it from a dream. Weird stuff.

Being a lowly OCD techie, I don't have my own phone line, of course, but "my" phone (I call it "my phone" despite the fact that I don't have any designated work area) rings with the rest and when no one is there, I'm supposed to answer it.

I'm afraid to answer the phone. Not because I can't handle people or the phone, but because I'm afraid I'm going to slip up. As a precautionary measure, I've decided to start going by my first name professionally. It's the only safeguard I have against a potential employer googling me. I respond to Rayford, but when I introduce myself, I tend to introduce myself by my more oft-used middle name. When I answer the phone, I go on to autopilot. Once when I was at my ex-girlfriend's house after having answered phones all day at work, I answered her telephone "Thank you for calling the McLoed House, this is Alex speaking, how may I help you?" I'm doomed.

I've discovered that in the advent of a fire alarm going off, the OCD is expected not to leave. We have a meeting area where, in the midst of smoke and fire, we are to devise a plan for saving as much data as possible.

These people are crazy.

I read the entire employee handbook today. It's the scariest document I've read in a long time. I kid you not, it reads like a jilted teenage lover swearing off romance forever. "Our feelings have been hurt by employees before, so we'll not give you the freedom to ever hurt us ever again."

Program 5515 is the program that monitors where we are. I type in someone's name, I immediately know where they are and where they're going.

The handbook actually addresses the entire "big brother" issue, saying essentially that those who have a problem with the company knowing where they are at all times with the touch of a button are lazy at best, trouble-makers at worst.

There is an entire page dedicated to "rotten apples" and how they spoil an entire barrel. It says under no uncertain terms that anyone with what they deem an "attitude problem" will be terminated.

They've been hurt in love before... I mean, they've had employees screw up their barrel.

Personal items in your workspace are heavily regulated. However, big gaudy trophies for various Gattaca Extra-curricular activities are everywhere.

Speaking of the term extra-curricular activities, a phrase usually associated with schools, they call their facilities a "campus."... given the meal cards and their desire for people not to leave during lunch, it feels a lot more like a high school campus than a college one.

I'm not saying that my new job is boring, but I read the entire handbook manual and department manual today.

I'm not saying that my new job is boring, but I read 600 department memos dating back eighteen months.

Twice.

I'm not saying that my new job is boring, but during lunch I noticed that after taking off my tie, I hadn't buttoned the collar buttons. I debated internally whether I should button them during lunch or wait until my shift started again so that I might have something to do.

I spent ten minutes asking myself whether or not I should button my durn collar.

I eventually decided that I would wait until my shift started so that I could scrape off fifteen seconds of work time with actually having something to do.

But I was still pissed at myself. The whole question could have been asked while I was on shift, thus giving me something to do for a whole ten minutes.

I'm not saying that my new job is boring, but I pondered the curious way the english language spells the word maintenance... why is it maintenance and not maintanence?

I pondered it for twenty minutes.

I'm not saying that my new job is boring, but for the last half hour of the shift, you have nothing to do because the next shift has already replaced you. All you can do is stand there and watch the clock. Second. After. Second.

I'm not saying that my new job is boring, but at UFC I often ducked my boss who would tack on assignments at the last minute that I didn't have time for. At Gattaca, I offered to walk across the building to find someone. I knew I was going to get lost. I was hoping for it.

Of course, Program 5515 would find me anyhow.

My desire to get lost could be proof that I'm lazy like the handbook suggests. They accuse naysayers of 5515 of wanting to get "lost" in a big organization to avoid work. Me? I wanted to get lost cause it would give me something to do.

I'm not saying that my new job is boring, but I scored a 93.3% on the Advanced Features to Flagging Labor to an ATM Repair Order test.

Note: I've changed Gattaca's mission from its real one to ATM machines. I'm not going to divulge much about the company itself, though if you're dying to know you can email me.

Note: My first name is not Rayford. I am sorta giving myself a pseudonym. I'll explain myself later.

Note: Everything else is pretty true. Including the 93.3.

When I interviewed for this job, I interviewed with four people. First it was an HR person, then some IT head, followed by the VP of IT, and ended with an independent consultant.

Yet, oddly, I never interviewed with the man that is now my boss. It was like interviewing with a fifth person, except that I am guaranteed the job.

"So tell me Mr. Whitlock, why aren't you with your former employer anymore?"

Gah!

I also took a number of tests to get this position. First it was a standard IQ test. Then I had to take a mental acuity, current events, mechanical aptitude, and personality profiling test all rolled in to one. Then, of course, was the drug test.

Since I've started, all I've been doing is taking more tests. As I read about the company's bureaucracy, I have to take quizzes on what all I've learned. If I fail them, I have to read it again before I get another crack at it. I've literally spent two days reading procedure after procedure (TPS report after TPS report) studying this company's bureaucracy. Two days and I'm still not done yet.

I've memorized my passcard number by now. It's a good thing because I have to punch in my code for everywhere that I go, plus an additional two numbers to indicate where I'm headed. You type in a six digit number 30 times a day, you memorize it pretty quickly.

I also found out today that I'm only four promotions away from scoring a position as a junior technician. Woohoo!

They like lists at Gattaca. For instance, they make a list of the people that take the most incoming (and make the most outgoing) personal phone calls and post the list for all the world to see to encourage you not to make phone calls unnecessarily by humiliating you if you do.

My "Let's all welcome the new employee!" picture is the worst I've ever seen of me. I look like I weigh 400 pounds, I'm slouching, and my tie is way crooked.

While some companies strongly discouraging dating in the work place, they take a different tactic. They want you to cut off all communication with former employees. If the employee happens to work for a client, you are instructed to deny them any of the help their employer pays for. They have a list of the meanies that left to work for a client posted everywhere and they inform you that helping these people do their job will get you fired.

Today I read a fifteen page document on the history of the company (and of the many companies that they've picked up along the years). I'd tell you about it, but I fear if I do they will have me killed.

These people are crazy.

Four months... four months...

Mom was doing her Turkey Day price-checking and commented that a lot of the best deals on turkey came with unwanted side dishes. "Unwanted side dishes?" We asked. Surely one of us will eat most any dish that comes our way.

"Green Bean Cassarole," she said.

"What cassarole?!" we replied.

We'd never heard of it. Dead serious.

"Well, I've never made it because I know you guys wouldn't like it."

"We appreciate it," we replied, "but there is such a thing as 'green bean cassarole'? In the name of all holy, tell us it is not so."

"Well, you've never eaten it because I don't make it for you."

"We understand, but not only have we never eaten it, we did not know it existed! Not only would we never have eaten it, we would not have imagined it in our worst nightmares."

"My, my, I've kept you sheltered," she lamented.

"We love you."

Since this happened a month back, green bean cassarole has been everywhere. Campbell's is actually selling it. As if it were a good thing! As if it were something somebody might want!

I could understand if it were some sort of New Years tradition. After all, most of us get plastered on New Years and we already down cabbage and black-eyed peas that we'd avoid the rest of the year, but T-day is supposed to be the day of (giving Thanks and) good food.

Good food and any cassarole including green beans are mutually exclusive.

Mom has a consultation this Friday. No tests, I think it's just going to be to decide what tests to run.

Things in the Whitlock house are slowly returning to normal. My brother and my brand-spankin'-new sister in law have spent the last couple of days over, mostly watching football and doing their laundry. Dave moved back to Houston this past week. He's coming as I'm going. I'm tempted to feel gypped, but I'm glad that at least one of us is going to be down here. Plus, I get three more months or so of hanging out with them before I do head on out.

The move-out date has been changed to next week, so I'm commuting 2-3 hours a day this week. Hiatus is over, but posting will remain sporadic until I'm up there most likely.

I was looking up information on college name changes for a future post when I ran across the Handbook of Texas Online. It's a great source for anything related to Texas. It has universities, people, and about every town imaginable (including my father's tiny town of Enloe, population 113).

The search function is mad-wack. Type in Texas A&M and Texas A&M will appear on page four million and certain queries (without any special characters) will turn in errors. Beyond that, it's an invaluable resource that I'll be taking advantage of a lot in the future.

University of Houston
University of Texas
Texas A&M
Texas Tech
Texas State
Texas Southern
UTEP
North Texas
Sam Houston State

Stephen F. Austin State
University of Texas at Arlington

Baylor University
Texas Christian University (TCU)
Southern Methodist University (SMU)
Rice University

Southwest Conference


Houston
Austin
Dallas
San Antonio
El Paso


Republic of Texas
Sam Houston (General, President, 1836-39, 42-45)
Stephen F. Austin (statesman)
Mirabeau Lamar (War hero, President, 1839-41)
Anson Jones (President, 1842-45)
David Burnet (Interim President, 1836)
Edward Burleson (War hero, vice president)

The University of Houston Cougars have been pretty much blacked out of television around here. Their contract with channel 55 lapsed and oddly no one picked it up. Even Rice has a local contract, but not our Cougs. I've groaned this before, but it's a rather irritating thing when Rice (2-7 at the time) and SMU (0-10 at the time) are on TV and UH (5-4 at the time) aren't.

But I digress. Or I did digress until this weekend. They were blacked out again as Rice was televised playing UTEP (1-9 or so). I was willing to forgive it because Saturday afternoons are a competitive college football market. Except that Saturday was a half-day and there weren't a whole lot of good games on. Yet instead of the Cougars (in a large media market) and Louisville (a team once ranked), I got to see... I-AA Stephen F. Austin vs. Northwestern State.

That just hurts.

My first day at Gattaca:

The traffic from Seabrook to Jersey Village was surprisingly not very bad. I got up early enough that I missed the morning traffic and since I get out at 4:15, I missed most of it on the way back, too.

You wouldn't think that such fuddy duddy employers would have a workforce predominately in its twenties. I suppose they are largely in the same position as myself: Young and desperate.

IT rooms are funny things. Nova, my employer during college, had it practically in the basement. They eventually moved it up to the third floor, equally out of the way. Part of me resented that they kept us hidden, but UFC showed me the error in that thinking. My office at UFC was more prominant... so prominant that I couldn't have a workbench because it was "unsightly." Well, Gattaca takes it a step further. The IT room is surrounded by windows and lit up as if it were on display. I'm told this wasn't an accident. I glibly called it the Fishbowl, but was informed that it was already the place's nickname.

I got a college degree for this?! This job is a whole lot like my old $8/hr job a couple employers back. It's busier, but it's something I easily could have done a couple of years ago. They start most non-programming IT people out at this position, but still! Luckily, this job pays a lot more than $8/hr.

There were a few jokes about how UFC, my former employer, was Office Spacesque. UFC has nothing on this place. I swear I almost mistakenly said TPS Reports about six times. This place was Initech, except a lot larger and with a lot less leeway.

Say what I will about the place, the take care of their programmers. They get the solitude of an office so that they can do what they needed to do. Since I my database programing was constantly interrupted by people walking through, I can definitely see the wisdom in that. I'm glad that they do, too.

I love the cold weather. I do not love driving in the cold weather at 6:30 in the morning in a car without heating, however.

They have a cafeteria from which we are expected to eat lunch. Our lunch breaks are 30 minutes long, so there isn't time to go out. Biggest. Burritos. Ever. Well, next to the Jaliscience. But it's close. Good price, too. Unfortunately, when I get on night shift, they won't be open. It's a bit dangerous though because they don't deal in cash. It comes straight out of your paycheck. That's dangerous for the same reason college mealcards are dangerous and how I managed to spend $650 in ten weeks at UH. Fortunately, when I get on night shift, they won't be open.

I get Thursday and Friday nights off! Woohoo!

I get five, count'em five, polo shirts out of the deal. Navy blue polo shirts. I like navy blue polo shirts.

Gattaca is everything I thought it would be. More.

It's only four months... it's only four months... it's only four months...

For personal reasons, I'm taking some time off. Since I never take as long off as I think I will, check in Monday evening or Tuesday and if I'm taking longer than a few days, I'll let y'all know.

Flannery O'Connor wrote your book.
Not much escapes your notice.


Which Author's Fiction are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Brought to me by Owen.

My first reaction to the test results were probably an overreaction. Mom had been joking about how sure she was that she had cancer, but it was as clear a defense mechanism as any. Waiting is always the hardest part and possibly the worst part of the response is that we have to wait all that much longer, except this time with more justifiable fears.

Our reactions were all pretty different. Mom called everyone she knew that might have some advice for doctors. She said "I tooooold y'all I had cancer!!" a few times. Outwardly, she took it exceedingly well. Of course, so did I outwardly until I had to utter the words on the phone. My response was a fifteen minute delayed reaction followed by running to get on the Internet and look up "adrenal gland" and "cancer." Dad's response was to look up on the Internet, too, though he more optomistically typed in "adrenal gland" and "disorder," though Google's ads put the words "cancer treatment" everywhere.

Most of what I found is pretty positive. As positive as one can be while googling with the word "cancer."

The first bit of good news is that the worst part of the cancer (comparitively speaking, of course) is that the symptoms generally show up late. Since there aren't any symptoms, it means that if there is anything we've already dodged one of the pitfalls of it: awareness.

The second bit is that Mom doesn't fit the profile. It tends to occur in younger adults.

The third bit is that there are a lot of non-malignant growths there as well, so there's a very good chance that this falls into that category. There's a solid chance that it is malignant, but until we know more, I'll take the half-full glass, thanks.

The wildcard is that if she does have it, where she has it makes a great deal of difference. If it's in the medulla (inside) then there's a 95% survival rate in the first five years. If it's on the cortex (outside) then the rate is 10-35%, presumably because it's in a better position to spread.

What exactly it is and where it is remains pretty unknown, but there is still much cause to hope for the best.

To say 'I love You' You must first know how to say the 'I'," -Ayn Rand

In retrospect, one of the more interesting aspects of my dealings with Elciem was how much in her I could see that she couldn't. Her recent letter involved a lot of admissions in regards to things that I could see at the time (and warned her about) that she completely ignored.

I told her that she wasn't acting like someone who really wanted to be happy; I said that nothing was going to change in her life until she did; I told her that she was using superficial rationales in order to avoid confronting aspects of her life. I told her all of these things and she now sees that they were right. Now, I was probably the worst messenger for all of this, but she can't say that thought hadn't crossed her mind because I was waving it like an American flag on July Fourth as I stood right in front of her... and as I was left.

I wondered how she could be so dim to miss what I so clearly saw. She isn't dumb by any stretch of the imagination. She ought to have known herself better than I did, having only really known her a year. Yet she didn't and screaming until I was hoarse didn't change that.

Though I didn't know her as long as she had known herself (obviously), I could still see it all more clearly because I was looking straight at her. I was watching what she did, looking at patterns, and evaluating her more closely than I probably have anyone else in my entire life. I could see these things because I could see every inch of her. I was on the outside looking in.

She, on the other hand, was on the inside looking in. Or maybe on the inside looking out. While I could see all of her, she was blind to certain parts in the same way we can't see our lower back without mirrors. She was too involved with herself to evaluate herself. She was twisted with questions she could never ask because she couldn't bear to hear the answers.

Me too.

One of the interesting aspects of looking back at that time in my life was that I was just as blind. I could see her clearly, but I couldn't see myself clearly. If I had, I would have left a lot sooner, or I never would have left, or I would have done something other than what I did, which was the best I could do at the time with all the available information I had but without the blindspots I can now see two years later with 360 degree hindsight.

I was on the inside looking in, too. There were things that I couldn't admit and realities that I didn't want to face. My problems were on the whole less severe than hers - or maybe they were just more subdued and that's why it took me longer to gain the perspective I needed to realize that while she was sabotaging what we had, I was an entirely seperate stick of dynamite.

When it was over, I blamed her for things not working out. I had felt that we were perfect for one another and if she would just get her act together, things could have worked. She blamed it on the stars. Maybe we were right for one another but everything just seemed so wrong for us.

Looking back, I think she was more right than I was. Everything was wrong and no matter how much things should have worked, they didn't and they were never going to. We needed in each other what we didn't have.

"We're not that alike, really," she pondered on the evening of the collapse.

"We're alike in more ways that I wish we were," I replied.

With nothing left inside us at that point, we were two people that understood each other but not ourselves. In that way, I was right. We were like.

The Houston Livestock Show & Rodeo has released their schedule for the 2004 year. They're still on their quest to dehickify the event with a diverse set of artists, many of whom have little or no relation to country music or Texas. Going to the rodeo to see Jessica Simpson or John Mayer would strike me as nothing less than bizarre. Don't get me wrong, if Counting Crows were to make an appearence I'd still go if I could to see the artist, but bullriders on one minute and Adam Duritz the next would send my system in to whiplash (and Duritz has more connections to country music than do some of the others listed).

I have my complaints about the country musicians invited, of course. I'm sure Kevin is going to pre-order tickets for Kenny Chesney's appearence on the 17th. However, even Chesney and Alan Jackson are likely to bring in the people who, you know, might like to watch barrell racing or some other event. One would think that they'd use artists that people in Humble and Baytown are familiar with to bring them in to town. If there's not enough people in Houston (4.5 million in the area) to support a rodeo then why continue the charade? Why not call it "March Music Diversity Concert Season" and ditch the bullriding entirely? Were ticket sales so bad when the rodeo was country that they really have to resort to this?

My guess is not. My guess is that the HLS&R board are more taken with themselves than the show they purport to represent. They want to be a part of something grand and glorious so that they can have a big giant plaque on their wall that says they were on the Rodeo board and can assure people who notice the plaque that it ain't all hicksville while they pride themselves on soluting their Texan heritage as they move the Rodeo as far away from Texas as they can in every way except geography.

Oh well, at least they don't have any boy bands this year.

I'm in the process of considering possible redesigns, restructures, and different ideas for the blog and I have some questions. Since you are the ones that come in day in and day out and read my stuff, I'd like to know what you see and what you think. If you could all just take the time to answer the questions in the observations or in email, I'd greatly appreciate it:

1. My browser is:
a) Internet Explorer
b) Netscape 6.0 or above
c) Mozilla
d) Opera
e) Netscape 4.x
f) an abacus
g) Other

2. The item titles on the blog appear:
a) Thin
b) Basic non-serif font
c) Basic serif font
d) Basic, but what the heck is a "serif"?

3. The italicized item author on the blog appears:
a) Smooth
b) Jaggedy

4. In the last month, text has bled in to a picture and has been a pain to read
a) True
b) False
c) It doesn't matter because I come here for the pretty pictures anyway

5. In regards to the front page, I would rather
a) Have more items even if it takes longer to load up because I frequently have to go to the archives to see recent posts.
b) Keep the front page lean, mean, and small because I visit frequently enough that I don't miss posts and would rather it load up quickly.
c) Why should I care? I'm only here because I go to Texas Tech and wanted to find out more about the Ten Percent Rule.

6. I have actually tried to use RAWbservation's poor excuse for categories to skim through the archives:
a) True
b) False
c) Oh please, it's painful enough to read what you're writing today. Why would I, or anyone, want to see what you've written before?!

7. I have trouble sometimes telling bolded text from a hyperlink because of the way my browser displays the information.
a) True
b) False

8. I come here mainly:
a) For political posts
b) For personal posts
c) For variety
d) For philosophical posts
e) For Texas country music opinions/news
f) Because I know you offline and want to keep up with what's going on with you.
g) For melodrama
h) Because I'm Lisa and I'm stalking you
i) To cure insomnia

9. When you're writing a series of posts (Intersections, Happenstance, Eighth Step, etc.), I:
a) Enjoy them
b) Skip over them because they're too long

10. This blog:
a) Remembers my name and URL when I try to comment.
b) Does not remember my name and URL when I try to comment

11. Nucleus has a feature where you can pick a month and view all of the posts in a category during that month. Unfortunately, it only shows the most recent posts and there is not (at least I don't think there is) a "next page" feature, so special features (such as Letters To or Cooking Show) older than the most recent 10 posts or so have to be found by scanning the entire month archives. This means that utilizing the category/month option would mean that irregular special features (Letters To, etc.) would be impractical and they would have to be folded in to broader categories (Current events, Life, Relationships, Funnies, etc.). I would rather
a) Have broad categories even if it means that there isn't a single place to look up special features or
b) Keep the special features where they are, don't implement any category/month option, and figure out something else.
c) Oh please, it's painful enough to read what you're writing today. Why would I, or anyone, want to see what you've written before?!


Optional essay questions:

1. I'd like to know what your opinion is on ________.
2. I'd like you to post more thoughts on ________.
3. I'd like you to stop posting on _______.
4. I wish you'd change _______ on the blog's design.
5. I really like ________ about the blog's design.

I'm not sure if I should be rooting for TCU this year. On one hand, they're a Texas school and a Conference USA school and I typically root for teams of both stripes. It makes the C*USA look good and we'll be needed that when the TV and bowl packages are renewed after the big reallignment. Losing Louisville and South Florida (not to mention top notch basketball programs) we probably won't get as sweet a deal as we have now even with the addition of Marshall, but the more the better, in my view.

On the other hand, TCU has been talking about ditching the C*USA in favor of the Mountain West Conference, the most competitive non-BCS conference (C*USA is second in my estimation). The better that TCU does, the more likely they'll believe themselves to be too good for the C*USA and want to trade up. I think it would be bad for TCU, but it would also be bad for the C*USA.

For one thing we'd be stuck with perpetual losers SMU. I was mildly in favor of bringing SMU (and Rice) to the conference because of old Southwest Conference ties and their rivalry with TCU (which I suspect played a pretty heavy hand in the conference's mind before bringing them in). If we're not going to have TCU, I don't want to mess with SMU and would rather have Louisiana Tech or North Texas or some school that can at least win somewhere against somebody. I'd most like to bring Baylor on in, but they seem to have gleefully traded away the frivolous desire to win every now-and-again in favor of the money that comes with being in a BCS conference.

The bigger issue is Conference viability. We're presently (again, in my estimation, Kevin can correct me if I'm wrong) the second most competitive non-BCS conference and will likely remain so, but when it comes to bowl games and so on, whether we're closer to the WAC or the MWC makes a great deal of difference. Bringing in Rice and SMU hurt (though bringing in Marshall helped) and having to bring in Louisiana Tech or North Texas to replace the TCU would hurt even more.

If TCU ends up undefeated and doesn't get invited to a bowl game, they'd (not unjustifiably) partially blame that on their conference alliance and think that MWC would make it less likely to happen the next time around (which may or may not be right). They'd possibly even be willing to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of spectators in order to correct that percieved problem.

However, if they were to lose to Southern Miss, it would bring them back down with the rest of us and hopefully they'd take a more sober look at the situation instead of making one based on the drunken bliss of being undefeated. TCU has a good program and will, year in and year out, be among the best in the conference. On the other hand, they won't always have seasons like this (and if they did the Big 12 would probably find a way to bring them in).

On the last hand, if they do go undefeated and get into a BCS game, it will open up an extra slot for the University of Houston this bowl cycle to get into one of the C*USA's five bowl games.

Decisions, decisions...

It appears as though some Texas Tech professor has assigned a major project on the Ten Percent Rule. I know this because I get probably two or three hits a day from Texas Tech people who googled "Ten Percent Rule" and are referred to my post on the matter. That or I have some stalker out there from Texas Tech that wants to read my post two or three times a day. Somehow I doubt that.

The doctor called back about Mom's tests.

There's an abnormality. The doctor wouldn't say much of anything else and dodged the question on whether or not it's cancerous. He said that she needed to consult a surgeon. The surgeon that the doctor recommended said that she needed to call the original doctor to get a number at MD Anderson. Mom got the number and called, but no one answered.

Even if I weren't on a 14.4 modem, the Internet cannot possibly move fast enough for me to get all the information I'm looking for.

I like Fox News. Not necessarily for its political biases (I don't typically watch their "personalities" and prefer Keith Olbermann to Bill O'Reilly) but rather because it makes the news punchier. If I want dry reporting, I won't go to television to find it.

I'd like them a lot better if they could take a joke. Between this and the threatened lawsuit against Al Franken, they strike me as someone that can dish it out but can't take it.

Update: Boy being stuck on this modem is killing me by being out of the loop. Apparently Groening was joking and the AP (and I and Dean Esmay) didn't get the joke. Thanks to Mike for the tip.

James Wright writes some of his thoughts on the responsibilities of being an IT person:

My issue isn't with reclusive, stubborn or even fed up IT people. Not at all. It's with an attitude prevalent within IT that certain rights are ours by the very nature that we are IT guys. Years of cultivating a geek image have left the industry with a one-hand two-hand image. On the one hand are the backoffice guys who have no social skills (apparently) and no desire to interact with real people. On the other are the managers who, while they properly represent IT to the masses, actually have no idea what's going on.

Apparently there is no in-between. So, if you get a 'manager' 'in the pits' you'd better promote him. If you get a 'geek' in management you'd just better learn to live with it. Which is kind of what Stu is having to do: be a bit of a buffer. Not a lot, but a bit.

All of those excuses would work perfectly if he wasn't in management. If he wasn't in charge of IT. If he wasn't, in fact, the forward-facing face and persona for IT for a multi-million dollar company.

But he is.

It discusses both the responsibilities of being in IT as well as the nature of being the solo technician (which I was at my previous position). I agree with him.

In fact, coming out of college I thought that one of my strengths was going to be the way my IT skills combine with interpersonal skills. Those of you that know me in person would agree that I'm not the most charismatic person around, but after talking to me for an hour you wouldn't necessarily guess that I work in IT at all if I didn't mention it. In addition to that, I've always been better at business relationships than personal ones because the parameters set (okay, so I use the words "parameters" and that might be a giveaway).

Like James, I think that it's important that the IT person make others feel at ease. There is a classic series of skits on SNL with the ugliest, snottiest IT guy on the planet. Funny stuff in part because it hits close to home. At the last job I worked I was dealing with an office of people that didn't know a whole lot about computers. It would have been easy to correct every misconception that they had and to try to spend my times making them IT competent, but IT competence for an IT guy is vastly different for an end-user and so when they said something that was probably incorrect ("Word keeps asking me about the normal.dot, I think my Java's broken!"), I'd correct the problem ("let's replace the normal.dot file"), detailed explanations that they'd obviously never use ("Java was founded by Sun in blah blah blah blah and is primarily a web-based blah blah blah") until they needed such information. A standoffish IT person is one that isn't doing their job.

My people skills may still be one of my strongsuits, but it probably won't help me a whole lot down the line. A couple jobs back I worked under a guy named Jimmy and a guy named Rick. Jimmy was the lead technician and was very good at what he did. Rick was in between Jimmy and the Vice President of IT. Rick had back problems and would be out for months at a time and frankly, we'd never notice the difference. When Jimmy missed so much as two days, the entire IT department was in shambles.

Jimmy was good at what he did, but his people skills were often lacking. Part nerd, part former mechanic, part jester, Jimmy never really learned how to interact with people. Watching him belittle the end user was often fun from an IT perspective, and he was too important to be fired, but it's unlikely he ever would have been promoted. So someone like Rick, who didn't really seem to do anything except know how to talk to people, will always have the leg up.

It's like James says, there doesn't seem to be much of an in between sometimes. I was hoping that my niche in that regard would be helpful, and it could down the line when promotions come up, but so far it really hasn't.

TBS has shown Ghostbusters twice this evening and I've watched substantial portions both times. It's amazing how well that movie holds up. The special effects are lackluster by today's standards, but the genious of the movie is that it was among the first special-effects comedies, and since it was a comedy the story didn't rely on special effects to carry it the way most movies back then did (and many today still do). The special effects were just part of the backdrop. Well done.

A few stupid questions that popped in to my mind as I watched.

I wonder where or how the Ghostbusters got the permits for their flashing lights on the hearse. That sort of thing is tightly regulated and non-government agencies are generally only supposed to have flashing yellow lights. If you see a security car you'll generally see a yellow lightbar on top.

Considering that the Ghostbusters were celebrities, why weren't they bombarded with applications from every nutbar that wanted to be famous? If they were there but not chosen, what specific qualifications did Winston haveto get hired?

I find it odd that the Catholic Church would take no position on ghosts rising from the dead.

How is it that Bill Murray lost weight, Harold Ramos became blond, Dan Aykroyd gained weight, and Ernie Hudson became twenty years younger in the Ghostbusters cartoon?

How in the world did Filmation get to make a cartoon named Ghostbusters right after the movie without the rights? Or if they had the rights, then why in the world did the original movie company sell them? Didn't it occur to them that they might want to actually produce a cartoon with the actual Ghostbuster characters in it? I always found that whole thing very, very odd.

What happened to Peter, Ray, and Winston during the Affirmative Action Ghostbuster... I mean "Extreme Ghostbuster" years?

What I forgot and/or did not know:

That cute blond girl from Peter Vankman's opening sequence was on Charles in Charge for a single season as Charles's girlfriend.

The voice of Peter Venkman in the cartoon is Uncle Joey from Full House.

When someone asks you if you're a god, you say YES!"

The Great SUV Debate continues.

Jim Henley (Pro), Kevin Whited (Pro), Ginger Stampley (Con), and a vigorous debate in the commenters of Roger Simon's blog all take sides on the issue.

Kevin's non-SUV post on the abysmal weather we've got outside and its comparisons to Tropical Storm Alison reminded me to chime in. Don't get me wrong, I have no grand argument to add to the debate that hasn't been pointed out by someone above. Rather, just a story.

On a dark and rainy night a couple years ago during Tropical Storm Alison, the University of Houston did not see fit to cancel classes (as a side note, I couldn't help but notice that they didn't this time either, despite that TSU across the street did). So I made my way up to UH and it so happened that I had my parents' Aerostar. Good thing, too, as on my way home I passed a graveyard of Cavaliers, Neons, and Escorts. They actually guided me to avoid all the ways not to go. The usual 35-minute drive took in excess of three hours, but I wouldn't have been able to do it at all in the Caprice I was driving at the time.

I'm not an SUV person. I'm not a minivan person, either. I don't like being so high up and I don't like my vehicle being so large (I had the same problem with the Caprice, though it was more width than height). I also almost had a rolling incident in the Aerostar on a different occasion that tends to make me more fearful of that than of running into a powerline poll or some other collision where having an SUV would come in handy.

I may or may not own an SUV or van some day, but if I do I hope that I am not the one driving it day in and day out. If I wasn't scared of heights, though, I'd definitely want a car that I wouldn't have to worry (as much) if it flooded.

Which brings me to my real (very unoriginal) position on the debate: To each their own.

Dad has Longhorn season tickets, so he was there for the Texas-Texas Tech game and got the whole experience (whereas I was left pacing back and forth in the living room to see how it would turn out). Nonetheless, Dad likes to record replays of the games so that he can watch them with the sportscasters and see plays closer that he missed in the nosebleeds.

Last night at 2am, the UT-Tech game was replayed and he set the timer to record it. I made sure that it recorded when I went to bed. We weren't sure the VCR worked properly, so I started scanning through the game and found some problems with the recording. I told him about it when we got home.

RAW: I watched the recording today. It cuts out here and there.
Dad: How bad is it? Does it at least come back to the same channel? [note, it doesn't always, a problem with the satellite box or dish]
RAW: Yeah, it just cuts out here and there. It'll cut out, come back flipping, seemingly fast forward a bit, and then everything turns back to normal.
Dad: Did the Longhorns still win?
RAW: You bet.
Dad: Then I'm sure the tape is just fine.

I must confess that I once again broke down and smoked again.

It was at the Firehouse on Friday. I wanted to get a picture with Texas country musician Mark David Manders. We took a picture and he wanted to have some fun. So he put his hat on my head, his beer in my hand, and his cigarette in my mouth.



I took about four puffs.

It's all his fault.

I start work at Gattaca Monday morning. I may have misunderstood, but I think I get Thursday and Friday nights off. Now all that's left is the paperwork:

Work authorization (social security card or whatnot)

Health insurance history (glad I'm not sick often)

College transcripts (despite the fact that a college degree was not required for this position)

Though most of you know about my plans to sadly leave the Great State of Texas, I've been pretty silent as to what exactly my plans are. Until the Gattaca situation got resolved, I've not been entirely sure myself. Now that I know when I'm going to start, I can say with more certainty what the plan is:

A couple weeks ago, I moved out of the apartment and back in with my folks. This wasn't much of a departure from what I had already planned to do pre-Eel if I couldn't find work. The main effect it had was letting me know that the move would only be for a few months. Now that I have officially accepted the position with Gattaca, I will be moving out of her by week's end and with some friends (including my former roommate JD). When I informed JD of my plans to go to Idaho, he accepted an offer from his former roommate Lyon who was buying a house just down the road from Gattaca (where JD presently works). Gattaca is located on the northwest side of town and I'm on the northeast side of town, so staying here would not be saving me all that much money a month when gas, tolls, and the like are taken in to consideration. Lyon's very generous rent offer also makes moving up there financially viable.

I plan to work for Gattaca for four months or so. However, since it took them upwards of two months to hire me, that may be whittled down to three months. My original plan was to stay through the next Ushicon, which is in the last week in February and leave the first week in March. I'll still be leaving in March, though I'm not sure what part of that month and won't be until I know my financial situation.

There are five reasons that I did not leave immediately:

I wanted to save up some money.

I wanted a last Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family.

I wanted to make sure that I was doing the right thing.

I wanted to see my far-flung friends a couple more times and spent more time with Kevin, Callie, and other friends in Houston.

I wanted to see some more country music shows and appreciate them as my last for a while.

Once I get up to Idaho, I'll be moving into the general vicinity of where Eel leaves that has a total population of about 125,000 people or so all townships included. Unfortunately, the job prospects up there in IT are not very good right now. It also means that assuming things work out I will be out of the IT market for about three years, which is pretty much a death knell without some increased education. If things work out money will not be the issue once she finishes her residency and I will be able to explore all sorts of options. If things don't work out, it will be the extra push I need to get out of a field that I'd already determined I don't want to work in indefinitely.

At this point I will take just about any position that I can find in Idaho that will pay the bills. I expect it to cost at least $750 a month which would require a job paying at least $6.50, which ought to be obtainable even outside my field. I already have a friend up there who could hook me up with a job that pays $8.50.

Her residency finishes in the summer of 2006 and beyond that I have no idea what will happen. It may involve returning to Texas (but not Houston) or we may land somewhere else. She has the option of doing rotations in different places to find a place that suits us and once our roots get planted, I'll start figuring out where I'm going to go professionally from there.

The news is almost surreal. Mostly cause I'm used to down here being the most flooded place of all and instead people elsewhere are getting hit the hardest. My old apartment complex (not the last one but the one before that) is next to that stretch of Beltway 8 that has only a couple feet below the traffic lights.

Kevin has a load of good pictures of his neighborhood, which apparently got hit pretty hard, too.

Last night over dinner:
RAW: Formatting and restoring is like going to the dentist. It's something you should probably do every six months or so, but it's really inconvenient and not very fun, so most people - myself included - put it off until the last possible moment.
Dad: Speaking of dentists...
RAW: I knew I shouldn't have used that metaphor!
Dad: How long have you had that cavity?
RAW: Six months, possibly a year.
Mom: And when do you plan on doing something about it?
RAW: Well, the way I see it I don't know when Gattaca is going to actually finally hire me. My first two weeks will be working during business hours. Since I don't know exactly when that is, it seems to me that I should wait until I'm hired before making an appointment.
Dad: Or I have a better idea. Why don't you call tomorrow morning. You can make an appointment. Then, if Gattaca does hire you, you can cancel and reschedule.
Mom: I like your father's idea.
RAW: Yeah... but... you see... that's... uhm.... two unnecessary calls! Yeah, that's the ticket!

Late yesterday evening on the phone:
RAW: Dad's pressuring me to go to the dentist.
Eel: Didn't you say you had a cavity?
RAW: Well yeah, but since I'm not sure when Gattaca is going to hire me, it doesn't make sense to make any appointments until I know I'll be able to show up. The first two weeks there I'm going to be working during the week. Once I'm put on graveyard, then I can make the appointment.
Eel: Why don't you just make an appointment and if Gattaca does actually finally hire you, you can reschedule.
RAW: That's exactly what Dad said!
Eel: ... and?
RAW: And y'all are throwing monkey-wrenches into my logic here.
Eel: I'm looking around and I'm not seeing any logic here.
RAW: Stop that! You're ruining my plan!
Eel: I don't think you have a plan...

One of the things that I've been thinking about in regard to Elciem's letter is objectivity. After a couple of years, she's finally recognized what I saw for most of our time with one another: She didn't particularly care to be happy.

It sounds crazy when you think about it, but once you see it in one person - as I saw it in her - you see it's a lot more commonplace than you'd imagine. People forsake contentment all the time. In fact, in some ways society induces us to aim higher and higher and higher to the point that if you aim for the sky all you notice is the footprints on the Moon. This is true financially foremost. One of the effects of capitalism is a society where we are expected to continually earn more to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. As the lesson goes, no one ever goes to the deathbed wishing they'd spent more time at the office. It's a lesson usually ignored.

Since moving back in with my parents, I've been watching a lot more television than usual and the commercials run are often comedic and often depressing. The comedic ones are pretty easy to figure out, but the depressing ones are more than a bit depressing, if only to me. Car commercials are the worst of it, in my view. It's one thing to show all the neat things a car can do (I will own a car with an on-board computer display one day), but most of them appeal to our sense of vanity. Get this car and you will be an individual! Get that one and make an impression!

Don't settle. Don't compromise.

And in that sense I believe our culture is being misled. Compromise is presented as though it is spiritual suicide. Faster, better, more powerful, prettier. If you accept anything but the utmost in these categories, you are selling yourself short. Aren't you worth it? You don't want to be average, do you? No? Then buy that new plasma TV!

I'm not attacking capitalism here because it transcends beyond that. Our media has set an impossible standard for perfection into our lives. Nowhere is this more apparent than physical appearence. There is, of course, the waif look that most women are not meant to have. Feminists like to pin this on men, but take an issue of Playboy (for men) and an issue of Cosmo (for woman) and the magazine with the female audience will be thinner. Nonetheless, that men generally put greater weight on appearence than women do is not news or, in my view, even contestable.

I was out of the state recently and met a young man and a young woman. He was a charismatic big fellow and she was a delightful girl with light blue eyes and a nice smile. She wasn't as hefty as he, but as near as I could tell (she was wearing a sweater) she was probably a little bit soft in the tummy, but had a nice enough figure. I'd assumed that they were a couple, but after I left I was informed that though they acted like a couple in a number of ways, he was reluctant to get into a relationship with her until she lost a few pounds.

A few years ago there was a brilliant film released called Beautiful Girls that explored the issue of attractiveness. Uma Thurmon was an outsider that everyone was falling all over, Lauren Holly was the "other woman" and it juxtaposed committed guys and the choices they have to make between what they have and what they'd rather have (Thurmon, Holly, etc.). I call it brilliant because it brought to light something that mainstream media often misses: Guys are victims of media-derived perfection in women, too. They were confronted with women more attractive than their current partners and the temptation of trading up weighed on them heavily.

Don't settle. Don't compromise.

For women it's often a little bit different. It's part about the guy and part about the relationship as a whole. In the same way that entertainment media glamorizes that unattainable woman, it glamorizes the unattainable relationship. It glamorizes the kind of relationship where the guy always knows what to say and how to act. It glamorizes a relationship that is a permanent wellspring of passion. The fights are passionate, the love-making is passionate, and things work out in the end.

This is the trap that Ora and Elciem fell in to. Not necessarily because of popular entertainment, mind you, but it probably played a part and human nature played the rest. Ora, in sixteen year-old fashion (she was 16), had a little knock list of desirability of guys. It started with the unavailable and worked its way down to the moreso. But once she got to the more available, she would see the way that they didn't measure up to others. Instead of taking the person that was right for her (which was me, naturally, and there was this other guy too that would have been good), she finally ended up with the guy that wouldn't take 'no' for an answer. She hasn't been the same person since (for worse initially, for better more recently).

Having witnessed it all with Ora, I could see it pretty clearly in Elciem. Elciem didn't have an intricate knock list, but she nonetheless made the perfect the enemy of the good. She latched on to the wrong guy and when that broke off, I found myself competing with the ghost of perfection. It was a competition I was bound to lose. Michael brought out all these emotions in her. Good emotions, bad emotions, a lot of emotions. Next to that kind of intensity, I couldn't measure up. Even when he was out of the picture, that was clearly what she was looking for.

But there's the catch. Michael was far from perfect. When confronted with this, Elciem readjusted her definition of perfection around what she had with him. In the same way that Ford tells us we are incomplete without a Mustang, she was incomplete without Michael at most or at least someone that brought out the same intensity from her. The search for that level of perfection because more important than the happiness it supposedly promised to bring her, much as we make ourselves miserable working to afford the things that are supposed to make us happy.

Don't settle. Don't compromise.

Would-be President Howard Dean takes great pride in being a doctor. He also takes pride in being a scrappy straight-shooter. This is, in fact, one of the things his boosters say that he has in his favor. I'll also admit that his stubborness and tenacity is why I fear him more than I do John Kerry (though if either of these two were to get the nomination, Bush couldn't ask for anything more). It appears, however, that scrappy Howard and Dr. Dean are a bit at odds. Medpundit, who knows what she's talking about, points out that he has perhaps been less than honest about his career history:

Dr. Dean is guilty of just as much exaggeration, but he isn't getting any of the scrutiny he deserves. As Dean himself acknowledges, he's an internist. And internists -- despite his touching story of teen pregnancy and photo-ops with babies -- don't treat children. They treat adults. Dean's claim to have treated patients ages five to 105 is dubious at best, and it calls into question the rest of his story.

For those of you unaware, this distinction is not analogous to the "not certified by the board of specialization" often heard in law schools. Medical training is very specialized and if Dean has treated children, it's either been rare (in a sense of emergency) or he's been regularly practicing medicine that he's not qualified to be practicing. The distinction is very clear to Dr. Smith.

Update: Post has been mildly edited. Catching a bit of grief in the observations sections (and it's not unwarranted), so check it out.

Instapundit links to Washington Post writer Jennifer Howard, who takes a swipe at blogs. She calls them too self-congratulatory and inbred.

Yawn.

Instapundit also links to Ralph Luker, who puts for a rivetting defense of... dropping a bunch of blogger names and self-congratulating the 'sphere on the Trent Lott matter.

And here I am with links to bloggers that link to bloggers that comment on an article about blogging.

Heh.

An interesting article about a study that suggests that gays can be taught to be straight (or behave as such, anyway). It'll be accepted or dismissed according to ideology, but I found it interesting nonetheless.

John Hawkins calls out Mark Byron in regards to something Byron wrote about how one would violently turn the nation Republican. Byron was just pontificating and stated as plainly as possible that he's not going to do it and not advocating it. Hawkins is a bright enough fellow, so I can't help but feel he's trying to solidy his reasonableness bona-fides. Byron has been bombarded with comments to the point that he had to close his comments. I found the comments section of Hawkins (in which "General Patton" takes Byron's idea somewhat seriously) more disturbing than anything Byron or Hawkins had to say on the matter.

I wanna be an airport skycap.

An interesting back-and-forth between James Joyner and Director Mitch about genetic predestination. The main question being: What happens when we can link any and all misbehavior to one gene or another?

Michael Williams links to a list of things that only happen in the movies and provides his own great list:

1. Any computer system can be hacked in 60 seconds.
2a. Phones always ring during a break in conversation...
2b. ... and the call is always relevant to the scene...
2c. ... and there's no call-waiting.

20. Animals are invulnerable.
21a. Kids are smarter than adults.
21b. Kids can drive cars.
21c. Kids can beat up adults using karate.
21d. Kids are always good judges of character.
22a. High school students are 25 years old...
22b. ... and still wear their backpacks on one shoulder.

I'd add:
1. Apartments in New York City are always at least 1,000 square feet, no matter how poor or unemployed the occupant."
2. The unemployed are wise.
3. Between the East and West Coast are only Chicago and a bunch of people that speak funny and hate minorities and gays.
4. Texans always wear cowboy hats.
5. Southerners are always uneducated.
6. When someone confesses that they are an alien or from the future, his allies are really surprised at first, but then accept it unquestioningy without further thought and/or mental ward incarceration.
7. School is half-spent in the hallways and half-spent in class.
8. Rebels are clean-shaven, clean cut people that wear a black leather jacket.
9. Intricate superhero costumes to not impede vision or movement at all.
10. 1/2 of all sales of rubber faces of former presidents are sold to bank robbers.
11. The local authorities almost always have the situation at hand and the purpose of the FBI is to come in and be wrong every step of the way.
12. Weight is in direct proportion to sass.
13a. At least 1/2 of cops have been promoted out of the uniform, even if they perform typically uniform duties.
13b. ... even if they perform uniform duties such as survaillance...
13c. ... and they spend most of their time outside the office...
13d. ... and paperwork is solely the product of people that want to get in a good cop's way.
14. 1/2 of all single parents are fathers.
15. The term "world famous secret agent" is neither ironic or paradoxical.
16. Cops don't have dress codes in regards to hair length, ear-rings and keeping facial hair trimmed.
17a. If you are related to a cop...
17b. ... or are partnered with a cop...
17c. ... or are dating a cop with long hair, an ear-ring, perpetual stubble, and other real-world cop dress-code violations, your life is in danger right after you see them or right about when you plan to.
17d. If you know a cop with long hair or that always has stubble, your life is perpetually in danger right after you see them (or right about when you plan to).
18. Strong vocal chords are the key to advancement to sergeant in any metropolitan police department.
19a. When a bunch of mis-fits, old-timers, and losers join a team, they always win the last game...
19b. ... and the player that is in the best physical condition will be the one to get hurt.
20. It never occurs to evil, greedy businessmen to contact their lawyer when a scrappy band of misfit kids pull pranks that incur property damage.

Okay, okay, my list isn't near as good as Michael's

I recieved a letter from Elciem last night. I haven't seen her in over a year and I haven't talked to her in over six months, so it came as a surprise. Hearing from her wasn't half the surprise as was what she had to say. She said nine magic words: I'm, sorry, I, was, wrong, you, were, and right.

Things with Elciem didn't end the way either of us would have liked. It ended too late for my tastes and too bitterly for hers (these two were connected). She's shuttled a handful of olive branches my way in the past, but they always contained a caveat, a "however" or a "but" or usually a "isn't it just a tragedy what happened to us" as if it were an incident of nature. I outwardly accepted her apologies, but still truly haven't. She could see it. It wasn't hard to.

As is often the case after a break-up for a falling out, the issue was largely one of assigned blame. I pride myself on my ability to forgive. The thing about forgiveness is that it first requires penitence. Penitence requires an understanding of what all transpired. In her world, hurt is something that just happens. A wandering heart is not a sin, but a tragedy. In my world, things happen because we make them happen and behind every tragedy is a sin. In her world, what transpired between us was a tragedy. In my world, the entirety of our time together was one mistake repeated after another.

As long as we were living in these two different worlds, there wasn't much to say to one another. I'm honestly not angry anymore (and haven't been for a long while), but a reconciliation into friendship was never really a consideration. This has always disappointed me because Ora and I have become friends, Anna and I never stopped being friends, and she was the only one that I felt so much love once upon a time but have been indifferent (at best) to seeing or talking to ever since.

Two years ago, she had nothing of value to say. Last night, she wrote me a letter. She said she was sorry. She explained rightly what it was she was apologizing for. The closest to an excuse she gave was that she was at a point in her life where she wanted passion and not happiness. Two years ago, I could have told her that. In fact, two years ago I did tell her that.

Two years ago I would have given the sun and the moon to recieve this letter. I've needed this vindication. No matter how right you think you are about something, if nobody agrees on the basic set of facts that created the circumstance, something will always gnaw at the back of your mind. The Ghost of What Might Have Been. The feeling that no matter how much evidence you have observed, tagged, and inventoried, it may have been your fault. There may have been something you could have done, somewhere long the way, and that all of the anger you feel, the sadness, and the hurt is the product of your doing.

Two years ago I would have hyperanalyzed every line of the letter. I would have tried to find what she wanted from it, what I could get out of her because of it. I would have had passing thoughts if there were any way that I could use this against her, if I could use it to hurt her the way that she had hurt me. I'd be lying if I said the thought hadn't crossed my mind last night, two years later.

Two years ago the thought of romantic reconciliation would have crossed my mind. I gave her a second chance, but I'd decided before the collapse that I wouldn't give her a third. Would I have held true to it? I'd say there's an 80% chance I would have. If I'd gotten this six months ago, I'd say that there's a 95% chance I would have held true. With Dr. Eel in my life, now there's only a miniscule fraction of a percent. One of the many things I have to thank Eel for.

In the two years since, I've become more confident than she gives me credit for in the letter. I've moved beyond her in ways that I'd lied and said I had two years ago. Her shadow does not loom over me. I no longer approach relationships keeping in mind that the longer I'm single and she's not, the more she was right. The longer I'm single, the more proof that I needed her more than she needed me.

In the two years since our time together, she's had two boyfriends and hasn't been single a day. She's defied my heart-broken predictions of her loneliness. Only sort of. The same problems that she had romantically before she has today. She's proven that she was right: she didn't need me. There's nothing I could have done about it regardless of how things turned out.

In the two years since, she's become a happier person. I've become a happier person. We've become happier people away from one another.

Two years later, it just doesn't hurt so much anymore.

I decided that I would spend the day immersed in college football. It's one of the benefits of living at home where we got satellite and a multitude of games to watch.

So what kind of games have I seen?

Penn State 52, Indiana 7
Wisconsin 56, Michigan State 21
Iowa 40, Minnesota 22

In addition to this, the UH (5-4) game is nowhere to be found, but the Rice (2-7) game is being showed.

The undefeated TCU? Can't watch'em.

The Virginia Tech game that went in to overtime? Not on.

Ahhh well, I can just watch the Michigan Northwestern game, 16-3 less than five minutes into the second quarter...

Update: Well, I asked for an exciting game and I got an exciting game.

Texas 43, Texas Tech 40, settled on a missed field goal on the closing seconds of the clock. I'd post more on that or on something else, but I need to find my heartbeat, first.

Gattaca called and have started talking salaries. They're offering about halfway between what I'm making on unemployment and what I made when I started my previous job. Considering it's an entry-level position that doesn't require the experience that I have (my roommate got the same position there with less experience nad no college degree), I suppose that's to be expected.

The only issue now is when I would be working. I figured I'd get my former roommate's days and hours (Sun-Thur 12:15am to 8:45am), but apparenty not all graveyard jobs are created equal and I could get different days of the week. Sunday through Thursday is good, leaving Thursday and Friday nights for me to go out. She mentioned that there's a Tuesday to Saturday schedule, which wouldn't be as good but would still give me Saturday nights off. If they've cooked up something else where I get Sunday and Monday nights off, I'm going to have to put some serious thought into whether or not I would accept the position.

The Texas Workforce Commission doesn't seem to realize that my benefits should have ended with today's call. Twenty-six weeks and all that. They told me to call again for more money in a couple weeks.

I've already decided not to apply for an extension, but it looks like I might not need to if they keep sending me money. Perhaps they'll ask for it back at a later date or maybe I don't have to shuffle any paperwork to get an extension (which I suppose means I should just stop calling since I don't want an extension?). In any case, it's kinda weird.

Earlier this year, I had to have a relaunch of the database ready by Monday morning. I came in Sunday afternoon and it became obvious pretty early on that I was going to have to work through the night, and that I did.

At UFC, staying late or coming in early does not allow you to not be there between business hours, which meant that I could not leave when I finished, around nine or so. I had to stay until five. That meant working over 24 hours, which I did without complaint.

My boss got in on hour 15 or so, saw me all raggedy and red-eyed. Knowing full well that I had been there all night, he said that while he appreciated the effort, my "desk was not presentable for a Monday morning.”

Skip ahead a week. The same thing happens. This time, I didn't realize till 12 or so that I'd be there all night. So I was dressed in casual weekend clothes, since I figured I'd just be going back and changing anyway. Even when I realized I wasn't going home, there wasn't much I could do about it. Theus got in, saw me all raggedy and red-eyed, and only said "That is not acceptable business attire."

I literally couldn't make it to the end of the day that day. I was tired and worn out. My eyes were bloodshot and it looked as though I'd had the stuffing beat out of me. My cheeks were read, the areas surrounding my eyes were black. I could barely stand up. So at lunch I went home.

I don't have an excuse for being late on Friday as I was. That just happens sometimes.

Except that it happened on a time where I left early on Monday. That's two times in one week where I wasn't at work during the 8-5 hours that I have to be.

So the next Monday I processed payroll and discovered that I had 140 hours that two-week pay period... and then I got written up for inconsistent attendance the week before.

It really hadn't been my month. I'd worked 80 hours the previous week and 65 hours the week prior to that and I still seemed to be falling further and further behind. There was so much to do and so little time to do it. I was in the process of getting ready to launch the next restructuring of the database, fixing our office's fleet of old Pentium 166s, and recovering mass amounts of data that had been lost when the new Production Manager wasn't inserting the codes right.

Stressful doesn't even begin to cover it. I even had to take a break from blogging because my hours had gotten so insane.

In the middle of all this, my boss visited me and plopped a huge maroon covered paperback book on my desk. It wasn't just a book, it was a megabook. A manual. A megamanual.

“What do you know about telecom?” he asked.

“Next to nothing.”

“Well good then. I bought this book for you. I'd hate to think I wasted the money. We need you to hook up phone and Internet into the (previously abandoned) offices upstairs. LBH is going to be moving in there in two weeks and I expect it to be done by then.”

“Wait. Why me? Didn't Juan used to work at Southwestern Bell? In fact, didn't he used to do cabling for them? I'm pretty sure that he did.”

“Juan is an engineer. He has better things to be doing.”

“Can he at least help me with this? I mean show me how to do it at least?”

“I'll tell you what, if you need some information that isn't in the book I bought for you, you can ask him about it. But don't bother him unless you have to.”

And that's how I learned about telecom and installed phone service in my upstairs office in just over three weeks. I was quite proud, but my boss noted that I was a week late.

Is it me, or is the female Dell intern in the newest round of tell ads kinda hot?

It's probably me.

She doesn't quite compare with the woman from the Ex-Lax commercials or the TMBG "Guitar" music video girl in the housedress.

Not everyone can be the Guitar music video girl in the housedress, though, and future ads and video girls shouldn't be too offended.

I can't wait for the next Ex-Lax commercial.

I miss that woman from those van commercials. The one in that dress.

5:00pm: Get back from the store. I think I'm going out so I park on the street.

7:30pm: I discover that I have to get up early in the morning and can't go out.

9:00pm: Mom reminds me to move the car because if it's on the street from 2-6am, I'll get a ticket.

9:45pm: Dad reminds me to move the car because if it's on the street from 2-6am, I'll get a ticket.

10:30pm: Dad goes to bed, reminds me to move the car because if it's on the street from 2-6am, I'll get a ticket.

11:15pm: Dad comes out to remind me to move the car because if it's on the street from 2-6am, I'll get a ticket.

11:45pm: Dad comes out to remind me to move the car because if it's on the street from 2-6am, I'll get a ticket.

12:15am: I see Dad and before he can say anything I said "Go to bed, I'll move the car."

"It's okay, I trust you," he told me. "But can you do me a favor?"

"What's that?"

"I was wondering if you could help me sleep."

"You're not going to be able to go to sleep until I move that ca