Nobody tells me anything.

So, I've had a couple of extremely disorienting experiences in the last ten hours or so.

Number one: I got to work, signed in, and saw two of my coworkers who are also third shift folk. So I went home.

... I know, I need to explain that one a little. The third shift is sufficiently boring (or at least, it's supposed to be sufficiently boring) that only two lab assistants are assigned to it; it used to be just the one, but a couple of years ago we took over phlebotomy, so now we have an overnight "processing" person and an overnight phleb. And when I walked in, I saw our person who only does processing, and one of our people who only phlebs. Didn't leave a heck of a lot of jobs for me to do, so I checked the schedule, and sure enough, I'd been taken off of Sunday nights. Everyone from second shift who was getting ready to head home suggested I head off to the bar. I opted to rent a movie instead.

Which brings us to disorienting experience Number two: I woke up. I didn't have much clear memory of getting ready to get some sleep; it just sorta happened. So I woke up, and checked the clock, and it said 8:00. Now, when I checked the schedule last night, I knew it said I had to work tonight. Also, I keep my shades drawn to prevent light sneaking in while I sleep. So I jumped out of bed, and started cursing and running around, trying to get ready for work, when I happened to take a peek outside, and saw that, although the light matched my recent memories of waking up at 8:00, the shadows all didn't.

See, I've now woken up so many times at 8 PM that I'd forgotten about the possibility of an 8 in the morning, as well. (Okay, not forgotten, but I'd just woken up; my brain hadn't yet shifted out of second.) So now I have the whole day to deal with, but I do get a chance to watch the movie I rented last night.

Also, after I'd calmed down a little, I started reflecting on time management, and have come up with some good solutions, I think. Starting with this blog entry, I'm going to write to my blog as I like, but since internet requires a special trip into the world they call "outside", I write them in a text editor and, when I get within range of a network, I copy and paste. And most of my online activity includes reading comics, so I can try to make a program that will act like an RSS feed; just go to various websites and pull out the latest strip. My brother did something like that a couple of years back; a little tweaking, and I can get a half-hour's worth of browsing done in thirty seconds. (I read a damn lot of comics.) Which then leaves me time to have a little more flexible fun online, and take some stuff home with me to peruse at a leisurely pace.

None of which, of course, offsets the fact that I have just been (effectively) handed a 20% pay cut. I checked next Sunday on the schedule; it would seem I'm down to four days of work from five per week. It would've been nice of someone to tell me or something.

The suck.

I wanted to see a production of Doctor Faustus this weekend. It turns out the run ended last week. Well, damn.

So I'm on campus, hanging out and using their wireless network. I saw a guy who was asleep. When he woke up, he seemed upset, and walked away. Now he is back, with a cop, describing his stolen property, including a MacBook, and a Logitech mouse. He cannot pronounce the word "Logitech". Ouch.

I just thought you all should know: don't fall asleep on campus.

Recent events.

Somebody started a fire in my apartment building last night, because of a cooking accident. Nobody was hurt (at least, not by the fire; those alarms and sirens didn't do a thing for my sleep-deprived self). It was kind of nice to get to know the neighbors, though.

My uncle, who (like several people who are/were my uncle) is a pilot, crashed his plane yesterday. Neither he nor his passenger was hurt, but the plane looks pretty banged up. Details can be found here.

It turns out, "fair use" may have different meanings to a scientific publishing company and a pretty grad student. C'mon, people! This is supposed to be the ivory tower! Why let petty little financial concerns creep in?

I am reading a book called, for lack of an umlaut, "Goedel, Escher, Bach". What's it about? Itself. That would be a hilarious joke if you'd read the first couple of chapters of the book. Really, why do I read anything that doesn't allow me to make horribly obscure, unfunny jokes?

So that's it for now. It's been an eventful day, and I haven't even checked the headlines on CNN yet. Here's hoping for no news.

Out at the cafe.

My neighbor's internet failed me. I still get TV, but they cut the internet at my place almost immediately, which is the exact opposite of how I was hoping it would go. So here I am, out at a coffee shop, using their internet. But I bought coffee from them, so it's not like stealing. Which disappoints me, a little.

I discovered a fun new toy, by which I mean this website. It tells me that I blog like a girl, because I use words such as: "with", "not", "be", and "and". To be fair, I only looked at the post immediately preceding this one, so other posts may be more manly. But I doubt it; I'm awfully fond of some of the most damn common words in the English language. Incidentally, some words it listed as masculine: "as", "who", "are", and "is". Oh, that verb "to be"! Conjugated by women one way, by men two others! Ha ha! Seriously, who comes up with this?

Madness.

So I'm going into a little bit of TV withdrawal. Checking again, it still works; I could clearly hear an Enzyte commercial when I flipped it on. I didn't wait for the screen to warm up before cutting it back off. It's a healthy reminder of why I'm getting rid of that crap.

I IM'ed my brother George last night, and he supported my decision, saying, "Great! Now you can be one of those people who works the fact that they don't have cable into every conversation!" I wish I were the wit of the family. I guess I'll have to settle for being the fop.

But my impending lack of any TV hasn't stopped me from being bitter; I thought we were about forty years beyond this crap. Seriously, Georgia, catch up with Europe. You know, the place with all the castles and Lords and Ladies and shit? Yeah. It's one thing to ask for baby steps; it's another to ask for any damn bit of progress at all!

Only a few hours now until my semester is over. And then, self-imposed summer school! Yay! At least I'll be learning on my own, instead of sitting in a classroom trying desperately to stay conscious. I keep telling myself that this will be good for me; is that a sign that I don't quite believe me?

Off the grid.

It turns out that I am now disconnected, and in more ways than one. Not only is my cable service going to go away (I just checked; they still haven't stopped sending me the TV), but my cell phone is out. I am on my parents' plan, and they haven't paid their bill in a while, so I can't really call anyone.

... Or can I?

Maybe I will spend part of the money allocated to next month's cable bill on a Skype phone number, so that other people can call me, as well. It's nice to have $100 a month to not spend on commercials.

Pulling the plug.

Today, I killed off a constant companion in my life. I went down to the cable company and discontinued my service. No more TV, and only borrowed internet. This may well be an interesting summer.

The last thing I watched today was an episode of the original Star Trek. I had not seen it before, but I knew it must have existed, because once (ten or twelve years ago) I saw an episode of Star Trek: TNG in which the crew caught a disease that makes you drunk, and they only figured it out after pulling up files about how the exact same thing happened to the last Enterprise. So this was the episode about what happened to the last Enterprise. I have to say, George Takei had a very nice body. Way sexier than William Shatner.

And yes, I am going to miss television. I watch too damn much not to. I might go into withdrawal without Jon, Steven, Jean-Luc, Aang, Danny, Fry, Peter, Stan, Homer, Lorelai, Buffy, Angel, Omi, Yugi, Fox and Dana, Sydney, J.D., Alex, Adam and Jamie, George Michael, Dorothy, Rose, Sophia and Blanche, Will, Grace, Frasier, Phoebe, Paige and Prue, the Professor and Maryann, but let's face it: they're crowding me a little. Besides, how many of those people do you know well enough that you know who I'm talking about, even without last names or any other context?

Really? I would've thought you would score better. Still, that's a lot of names, isn't it? So now I'm off on this crazy-ass wild adventure they call real life. And I've gotta say, it can't possibly be any more boring to watch me sit around not watching TV than what has come before. So at least the evil government agents who oppress me through constant remote observation won't be harmed by this decision. And we must always think of the evil oppressive government agents.

Dinner.

So I went to this sandwich shop that just opened up. It was called (and in the style of Dave Barry, I swear I am not making this up) Kazoopie's. It looked exactly like a place called Kazoopie's would look like. But apparently, they make a chicken sandwich with onion rings on it. It was good.

So I placed my order, sat down at a table, and waited for the guy to bring me my sandwich. He was an exceptionally cute guy, too, but I figured the three earrings in each (visible) lobe were purely decorative, and I don't really hit on people at work, anyway. Well, not since I was seventeen or so, anyway.

While I was waiting for my sandwich, three black guys walked into the shop. These were young guys, late teens to early twenties, and they were wearing clothes and haircuts that are, according to all of the Law and Order episodes I've seen on the subject, favored by (and possibly designed by) graffiti artists. One guy had writing carved so elaborately into his hair that I didn't realize, at first, that I was supposed to read it.

And here's the part where I start to lose any self-respect I might have gathered this week. As soon as they walked in, my heart rate picked up. My muscles tensed, and I became aware of their movements in the shop, even when I wasn't watching them out of the corner of my eye. In order to avoid undo notice myself, I focused intensely on the Sudoku game I had going. They walked up to the counter, placed their own orders, and, like I had done, sat down to wait. Eventually, they got bored and wandered around the shop a bit, looking at the news article that was on the wall declaring the place open for business. My sandwich came, and I switched from focusing too much on my game to focusing too much on my dinner. Visions ran through my head of possible violent outcomes to the scenario: What would I do if they started harassing me? What if they were armed?

And then, all of a sudden...! Nothing really happened. They got their dinner to go, and went. They didn't bother anyone, they just walked out and on with their lives, leaving me to deal with the foul stench of my own ingrained racism. Admittedly, some of it was their style; if they'd been dressed differently, I would have reacted differently. But if they'd been white (or Asian or Aboriginal Australian or whatever), I would have reacted differently, too. Three white guys dressed like that? I would have dismissed them as posers and not given it a second thought. I'd like to think I judge people based on their behavior, not their outward appearance, but if I'm honest, I just can't. I don't know if everyone actually is a little bit racist, but I guess I can't say no one is.

P.S. I suppose something positive should come out of this whole experience. I think I'll go down to the cable company and cancel my service. I watch too damn much TV.

Sinking lower and lower.

I recently expressed concern to a coworker that, based on my own experience, I can no longer consider "rock bottom" to be a useful concept. Obviously, any person who asks, "How can this get any worse?", will be immediately punished with an answer. But one imagines that, after a certain point, things are so bad that they cannot actually get worse. And one is wrong for thinking that.

I did not so much develop this belief as get reminded of it; over the course of my last work week, each day got noticeably worse than the day before it. But enough about me; let's look at an example from the outside world. I am reminded here of an awful variation of the "Candy Man" song (well, not so much reminded as inspired to create):

Who can take a killing,
and sprinkle it with crap...
who inspires hatred with a quick nod of his cap...
the evil man!

Seriously, what is Phelps' motivation these days? I know, I know, he's a crazy-ass attention starved amoral bastard who will do anything to get a hug from mommy, but let's face it: you pull enough crap like this, without some kind of justification that somebody else can get on board with, and you're going to be taking your coffee with two sugars and a lethal dose of cyanide. I'm surprised his kids haven't already murdered him six or seven times over. To say nothing of God, whose name this bastard is smearing 24-7.

And he really is a powerful argument for atheism. I mean, what kind of God would just quietly accept blame for every massive tragedy that Phelps hears about? It seems like a kind and loving God, with access to a Hell of neverending horrors, would have taken this guy out about a hundred years ago.

I need a bumper sticker that says "Phuck Felps."

Prophetic it ain't.

Last night, I slept. This was highly unusual; I no longer sleep most nights. What's even more odd is, I had a dream. It was about my CS class. I dreamed I was all behind because I skipped last week, when we were supposed to start a new topic in the class. So when I woke up, I was a little nervous about coming to class. But hey, it's better to show up and be behind than not at all, right?

As it turned out, no. No it isn't. Because, while most of the students showed up for class today, the teacher didn't. Some people left five minutes after class was supposed to start, others fifteen. I, however, had a powerful yen to actually learn this stuff, so I stayed for a full half-hour. Okay, I also had a Palm Pilot with a Sudoku program and nothing better to do, but the desire to learn was in there somewhere, too.

Today's unfortunate headline: "Beautiful, clever, talented students honored." When I clicked on it over at CNN.com, it led to a story whose new headline was "Promising, extraordinary lives cut short.", but still.

Here's today's conversation starter: The word "ubiquitous" is generally applied to things that are everywhere: air, neon signs, the hate, etc. But can it be applied to things that are always found in conjunction with something else? I ask because, whenever I go to my CS class, I always have a cup of coffee, because I'm usually just coming off of work and need to stay awake for another hour. Is that cup of coffee "ubiquitous"? Discuss.

Grah and other gutteral noises.

I'm tired of blogging about work; it's too depressing. Suffice to say, every day is worse than its predecessor, and I understand Office Space on several new levels.

Anyway, I'm stealing my neighbor's internet. Wireless is great, when it works. I will soon invest in a better wireless router; everyone I know who has a Linksys router seems happy with it (and one person I don't know, but whose generosity and lack of a keyword-encryption is bringing you this post). My D-Link router is just not pulling its weight; I may have to put it down. Or, y'know, sell it on Ebay.

Wow. Without the miracle of the internet, none of the preceding paragraph would have been possible. Okay, obviously, since this is a blog, but you know what I mean. At any rate, I have found a website which is probably more useful than my computer science class, or at least cheaper. I'm not taking classes this summer, so I'll probably start learning various programming languages from websites, and become overly prepared for my newfound major. Then, onward to greatness!

In the news today:

1. Prince William's breakup attracts media attention. That's right: the story is not about William's breakup, but about the stories about William's breakup. That's some meta-news shit right there.

2. Kasparov, the chess champion, was arrested at a Russian political protest, where protesters were beaten. Good to know that the Russian political landscape resembles that of your average American high school.

3. A coalition of three high schools from across the country took home first place at the US FIRST robotics competition. This wasn't a three-way tie; these groups of kids worked together to get the prize. It's being called the "Super Bowl of Smarts"; imagine if the real Super Bowl worked that way. "And this year's Super Bowl is won collectively by the Broncos, the Lions, and the Bears, oh my!"

Work has been truly horrific this week. It's not bad enough that they can't get enough people to work on weekends, so one of the three leads has to come in to cover; but this morning, the lead who was supposed to come in called in sick. Up until recently, the understanding had been that, if you are scheduled to work on a weekend, and you have the ability to get to work, you do it. Death is really the only excuse for not coming in on a weekend (preferably yours, though allowances are made for those with family members that are also mortal).

Also, it seemed we had quite a few new people working in the hospital last night. This is inherently bad; you don't want too many inexperienced people at a hospital (for obvious reasons). But last night was particularly annoying, since both a computer programmer and a doctor expected me to do their damn jobs for them. I am not a fucking doctor. I can read off test results from the computer, but I cannot interpret those results. Please do not ask me.

Similarly, if there is a problem with the computers, do not ask me to fix them for you. If your job is to identify and fix various problems with either people or computers, do not ask a $10/hour flunky to do these things for you.

And for the love of God, don't drink and drive. Ever. Maybe it doesn't end horribly for you, but there's about three people for whom it did end horribly last night, and now they're not people anymore. Other things to avoid: getting shot, falling on glass tequila bottles, and working in hospitals.

Plagiarized!

It turns out, when you poke a webcomic artist, the whole community pokes back. Todd Goldman, author of "Boys are dumb, throw rocks at them", had faced legal action a few years back. I remember reading about it in the paper. Apparently, some men's rights group didn't like his style, saying he was being a sexist bastard. I guess those guys couldn't handle the occasional thrown rock, and decided to sue instead of being less dumb.

Now, he's on the other side of the evilness tracks. Here's a link to a comic from 2001. Here's a webcomic that decided to point out the similarities between that comic and Todd Goldman's more recent take on the matter, and another, and another, and another....

Now, I freely admit that basically everything I write here is owned by Google, everything I do on Myspace is owned by Rupert Murdoch, everything I do in WoW (when I ever get a chance to play it) is owned by Blizzard, etc. So naturally, if someone plagiarizes me, they're plagiarizing a big company with lawyers and more time to fight these kinds of things in court than I have. But when a young webcomic artist starts putting out their fares, they should have some kind of legal protection of their own. In fact, I'm pretty sure they do.

Guh?

I like a website called "Bloglines", which tracks some of my enjoyable, but less-than-vital RSS feeds. One of my feeds there is just a list of CNN.com's latest headlines. Today, I saw a straight-to-the-point kind of headline: "Easter celebrated." It's good to know; I had been wondering.

As I was getting off work this morning, one of my superiors took me aside to have a little chat. He mentioned that, as I was getting off work yesterday, I didn't pass along information about the state of the lab to my replacement; I just left. "Have a good day and I'm outta here", I believe, were my exact words. Outstanding orders, specimens without orders, any kind of chaos; I just let them figure it out on their own. Clearly, I'm a horrible person. What I said out loud was, "Sorry." What I neglected to mention to the person who was giving me this little chat was that (wait for it)...

He was the person I was supposed to be giving all this information to.

So why didn't I pass the info along to him? Because, at 7:00 am, when I was leaving work, he was nowhere to be found. No idea where he'd gone, what he was doing, or when he'd be back. And after getting trapped into overtime the day before, I wasn't about to spend a bunch of time tracking him down. Everyone has had bosses like this, I know. This is simply my boss like this.

But, from his perspective, he had an issue with my performance, and he sat me down to talk about it. No big deal, no fuss, no muss. Problem over. At least I hope that's where he's at; I would have a few things to say if this incident becomes a matter of record.

Oh, wait. This is a record. But I also said a few things in it. Don't you love it when things work out?

I hope that today brings another CNN headline: "Easter ignored until next year."

More with the creepy.

So, it turns out I was wrong. The creepiest commercial I've seen in a while was not, in fact, the Burger King possibly-exposing-kids-to-naked-Dad commercial. It is, instead, an ad I hadn't been thinking about at the time; it is a spot for a "collectible coin". This coin "commemorates" the World Trade Center by selling people its image on a small, circular piece of metal. There is a silver inlay of the towers, set against a gold coin. The inlay can separate from the coin and stand up on it, like a little display of what once was.

Memorials are nice. I don't think anyone is going to forget about 9/11 anytime soon, but if you need that little reminder in your home, staring at you every freaking day, good for you. That's not my objection. What bothers me is that the coin is advertised as being struck from metal scavenged from the vaults beneath the smoldering ruins of the twin towers. (Okay, maybe not in those words.) It seems we have a few words for people who grab precious metals from sites of horrible tragedy: vultures, graverobbers, Thenadiers, etc. Seriously, think about it. How did they get the metal for those coins? Did they purchase it, or go down there themselves, pickaxes and shovels packed next to their unbridled greed? Ultimately, it doesn't much matter; somebody had to do the deed, whether as an employee of this coin company or an independent contractor.

Maybe I'm overreacting; maybe it's not such a horrible thing. I mean, it's a bunch of subterranean gold and silver, just sitting there and of no use to anyone. It belonged to somebody on September 10, 2001; presumably, that party (or parties) held onto that ownership the following day, and had a right to transfer it how they liked. And if it was bound to be sold, there are certainly worse things to do with it than making a few thousand reminders of how things used to be. Maybe everything is on the up and up. But whenever that commercial comes on, I still feel a little dirtier for being an American.

Bleccchhh.

The creepiest commercial I have seen in a while comes, not surprisingly, from Burger King. What is surprising is that it does not, at any point feature the King. *shudder* What happens is, this guy is taking a bath, his wife is doing something in the bathroom mirror, and the kids are bugging them to go to BK. The kids disappear, off to play or some shit, and the dad gets an idea. "Hey Honey!", he says. "Who am I?"

At this point, with a yellow sponge on his head, he stands up out of the bubble bath, and declares that he is "SpongeBob Nopants". His less-than-decent bits are covered in bubbles, but still: it's a naked man, with a sponge on his head, with kids running around somewhere, and not behind closed doors. Bubbles are not clothing!

On the plus side, I recently figured out how to play the "Super Mario Bros." theme song on my cello. There's this one bit that kept throwing me into a lower key, but I got all the kinks worked out. Let's hope I can remember how to do that in the future; I should've written it down somewhere. But wait! My Mac has Garage Band! I'll toy around with that later. Hooray!

Denied!

As I delve more into my inherit (and inherited) geekiness, I took a huge step today: I edited Wikipedia. Specifically, I changed the entry on Martin Heidegger's influence on cinema to include a reference to the fact that the movie "Being There" derives its name from the philosophical concept of Dasein, which was proposed by Heidegger. Damn, that was a long sentence. Anyway, it's a movie, it gets his name from Heidegger; I figured it was a little factoid that belonged there.

It turns out that Wikipedia has a very active community, to say nothing of efficient. I made the change this morning at 9:30; at around 4:00 this afternoon, my reference was deleted. Gone. Vanished into the ether. I cannot help but feel a little disappointed; my first contribution to a massive reference source, and it gets killed within a day.

On the other hand, I can see the point this unknown person may have been making; Heidegger's works have, on occasion, actually been translated into movie form (although I am probably the only person I've ever met who would enjoy such a film). "Being There" is not based on a book by Heidegger; it just gets its name from his idea. And several major themes. And Peter Sellers' first role outside of a comedy (though it is kind of a funny movie). I thought it belonged there, someone disagreed, and I'm willing to let that be the end of it. Maybe next time I'll be able to make a more lasting contribution, but for now I'm just pleased that I know something that, as of 4:00 this afternoon, Wikipedia does not. (By the by, I've checked the entries for the movie, the book it is based off of, and the author of said book. Nothing is said about Heidegger, though it is suggested that the author plagiarised another work in Polish.)

If you are curious, you can find my version of the Heidegger entry compared with the current version here.

Nothing happened today.

So why am I blogging about it?

Anyway, I just sat around all day and watched a "Stargate SG-1" marathon on SciFi. I am only now getting into this series, and of course, it's about 10 episodes from never happening again. Here I was, denying my nerd heritage this past decade or so (albeit poorly), and all the while I should've just given in to the things that make me happy. Truly, there is a lesson in there for all of us.

As a switch, I am borrowing some money from my parents. Usually, they borrow from me; I just thought I'd preempt them this time. Also, I need it for food. I'm not too worried; I looked ahead at the schedule, and it looks like I'll be getting extra paychecks during the months of June and August this year. Hopefully, my new degree will lead to better paid jobs. I mean, how could it not?

And now, I'm going to pull some spare change together and hop down to the 7-11 for a Mountain Dew Squishee (Slurpee? Freezee? How does one categorize these things, anyway?). That is what I'm doing right about now. I'm telling you this here, so that I don't get compelled to join Twitter.

Oh, the foolishness.

So, today is April Fool's Day. Other than a few harmless lies at work, I didn't get much of a chance to join in the festivities. This is not a huge disappointment this year; the usual internet shenanigans didn't seem to be happening this year, either. For instance, Google just seems to be Google this year. No hilarious pranks like mind-reading or special drinks. The comics page seems to have similarly ignored the day; usually, you'll get some artists swapping characters or even strips for a day. It is always strange to see "Pearls Before Swine" done in the style of "Dilbert", but it's a little sad to not see it today.

I did get to see two pranks: I decided to visit the BitTorrent website, and found myself looking at (what appeared to be) a MPAA propaganda machine, instead. Very funny. Also, check out Wikipedia's article of the day. Also fun. Both of these pranks took me a minute to get. I feel dumb.

But I also feel smart! For today, I have finished my computer program that has been quasi-due for a couple of weeks. Fun. I love having a teacher who is even more of a slacker than I am. It's all kinds of cool.

Fnord!

(Addendum: It turns out that Wikipedia was not actually pulling a prank; they just had an ambiguously named article. Weak!)

Eecchhhh.

As I left work this morning, I noticed that it had rained at some point during the night. I also noticed that the rain had lured worms out into the open. Now, I'm no stranger to Michigan or rainy days or insects, but I wasn't prepared for the sheer volume of the little bastards. When I looked out across the sidewalk in the dark, I saw dozens, possibly hundreds of worms, oozing over the very sidewalk I had intended to use. I briefly considered walking on the grass, instead; there simply couldn't be any worms left on the natural ground.

Then I walked under a lamp. Which was, it turned out, a mistake. Because, in the harsh light of synthetic day, I made a horrifying discovery: the whole time I'd been gingerly avoiding stepping on any visible worm, I had failed to take into account the possibility of (wait for it...) baby worms.

Good... God. *shudder* So many worms...

The baby worms were everywhere. They outnumbered the adult worms by about ten to one, and once I saw them, I realized the amount of carnage I'd already caused during the thirty-foot or so walk from the door of my hospital to the street lamp. I cannot accurately describe how disturbing this revelation was; suffice to say, even Calvin & Hobbes would have been made ill. Not a good cap to the night.

Oh, god. I just realized the volume of worm guts that must have accumulated on my tires during the drive out of the parking lot. I may never eat again.