For those of you who care about such things, and that should be ALL of you, it’s been a great couple of days.

Firstly, the opening ceremonies were just plain awesome. I don’t mean the sheer scope of things, although that in and of itself was amazing, but it was just… fitting. China has over 3500 years of recorded history! They’re not going anywhere and our generation is the first that’s truly been able to experience their culture and peoples. The TV was calling it “China’s coming out party.” I’m inclined to agree.

Phelps, expectedly, picked up his first gold and slapped his own world record down by ~2 seconds.

Misty and Kerry, goddesses each, had a slow start but ultimately showed why they are the best players in the world with an easy 2-set win in their opening match. The men’s team, slightly less dominate, got just spanked by Latvia. It was painful to watch, they had nothing going at all.

Katie Hoff just took the bronze in the 400 IM. It’s her first loss in that race in some amount of time, I guess. But the winner (and silver) were both below the old WR. Australia has great swimmers. This is not news. I <3 competition. Oh, and the Aussie who took gold is a little hottie. Must be the accent. I’m weak, sue me.

I watched the crew semi-finals. Or skulling or something. I have no idea. People in boats. It was boring. I made lunch. The US team (both from New England) got spanked anyway.

The men’s gymnastic team his hella-good. So is China’s. The finals promise to be amazing.

The olympic commercials have been wonderful. Morgan Freeman’s narration for Visa has been poignant, inspirational and just plain good. We’ll call that tasteful commercialism.

That, of course, is the segue to the campaign ads. What the motherless fuck is wrong with the McCain camp? I realize that the Republican party can’t help itself but dissemble these days but come the fuck on. There’s an old tradition called the Olympic cease-fire. It would have been nice for the nominees to read that memo. The Obama ads have been tamer, but not by much. I’m just curious as to how stupid one has to be to fall for this shit? Seriously. Are you so stupid that some narrator guy saying “raise taxes” 5 times in 30 seconds makes you want to give Bush the 3rd a seat in the oval?

[youtube yGIqGaWZOo0 McCain - Debunked]

So…. That. Just. Happened.

The NYJets.com store already has replica #4 jerseys on sale - if you could load the thing anyway. The packers.com store, as you might expect, loads just fine.

I don’t know the real story. We probably won’t hear it until Brett’s ghostwriter pens his memoirs. But we “know” what happened. Thompson’s first decision as the Packer’s GM was to draft Favre’s replacement. That was 4 years ago. That was also the first time the organization and media started talk of retirement. Coincidence? Yeah. No. Thompson has wanted Favre off “his team” since day 1. But how can you fire a legend who is not just one of top players in the league but also still playing MVP-caliber ball? Answer: You can’t. So you wage a media war. All nice and clean through the back-channels so no one knows it was you.

You’re a douche Ted. A giant smelly steaming shit-sandwich-eating douche.

So Green Bay loses a legend and becomes the footnote in one of the greatest careers in NFL history. And you get … Aaron Rodgers. Grats. Asshole.

Guess which games I’ll be watching on Sunday?

Update: I still can’t get to the Jets online store. Hell, I can’t even get the page to LOAD half the time.

Tell me again how playoffs in college football would be bad?

Blowouts are not good football. Blowouts are clear indications that one of the two teams was in the WRONG FUCKING GAME.

Of all the games I could stand to watch the only one that was an actual game was the Outback Bowl wherein my Wisconsin Badgers and the Tennessee Volunteers were actually a good match-up. Wisconsin lost (21-17), unfortunately, but it was at least an appropriate game. Those two teams were in the right game together and the game was still up for grabs until the 2nd-to-last play.

Illinois had no business being in the Rose Bowl against USC. Period. It was embarrassing to the program and to the Big 10 and only fuels that idiotic “we can’t compete” nonsense.

Georgia vs Hawaii in the Sugar Bowl. Another what the fuck? Having an undefeated season in a glorified high school conference doesn’t put you in the same league as a team that probably SHOULD have been in fighting for the Championship.

Fiesta Bowl. WVU completely outclassed an Oklahoma team that is, in and of itself, quite good. Doesn’t that just mean that the BCS works and 2 good teams played and one was just better? No, actually. It means that the math behind the BCS selections has very little to do with quality of the team that shows up on gameday.

The Virginia/Kansas game is tonight, it SHOULD be ok. I’ll buck the trend and pick Kansas in a 20-point victory. And yes, 3 TDs is a blowout.

Why are playoffs better?

Simple. You win, you advance. The best teams in football, the true champions, are champions from top to bottom. Part of being a champion is showing up on gameday! Part of being a champion is doing your homework and preparing for each and every new opponent properly!

Example a: The NFL Playoffs + Super Bowl.

On Sunday (or whatever day) I watch the Packer game. If it doesn’t conflict with said Packer game I watch the Colts and Pats play. I like Peyton Manning. In 5 or 6 years he’ll be what Brett Favre is today and probably breaking all of his new shiny records. I watch the Pats (this season) because it’s history in the making. That’s not that many games, really. When the playoffs start (this weekend!) I’ll watch just about every game that’s on. It’s GREAT football.

The NFL players frequently say that once they’re in the playoffs everyone starts at 0-0. May be the best team of the day win.

Example b: March Madness.

I don’t enjoy college basketball, but I watch a TON of it during March. The games during the playoffs are just plain great.

There are 12 conferences and (this year) there were 32 bowl games. There is PLENTY of time and teams that could play. Even something simply like a 3-week playoff would be tolerable. You still get to have the $$$ games, but in the end you actually have a real champion.

THE HORROR!!

Multiple plugin fuckery, editing, site re-organizations, etc. are now “complete”. Apparently I’m still doing things wrong, so we’ll see what breaks in a week. The new mod-rewrite stuff is ridiculous - and I’ve been using it in “regular” Apache setups for years!

I’ve been tagging/re-tagging everything that appears on the front page as of the last post, which populated the new cloud. Still no connection to technorati, but that’ll get in there eventually I hope. I’m still working on getting the categories/tags set the way I want them. Shit happens, I guess.

I added links to two new special pages, accessible via the menu bar (top right) or the sidebar. Unimpressive stats, to say the least, but I’m a nerd.

edit: As referenced by this post, Technorati support has returned!

As chronicled here and here I, on occasion, make bad choices when it comes to my own personal web stuffs. For reasons that escape my current understanding I upgraded my perfectly tuned and working Wordpress 2.2.3 install to the “eagerly anticipated” 2.3. I followed the preflight checklists the the letter and even used a “preflight” plugin that verified everything I intended to use was on the compatibility list.

Result? The db failed to upgrade on the first, second and 3rd passes. A db/file restore got my old stuff back up and running again tried again after reading some of the troubleshooting instructions. Huzzah, the db upgraded cleanly…sort of. All my categories were deleted and the new cano-rewriting engine sent my crap into infinite loops for a solid hour until I moved things around. Apparently trying to redirect “www” traffic AND having my blog in a folder called “/blog” was an unforeseen function. Oy.

I made the assumption that eventually I’ll have to deal with this crap so I chose to do it now. I just finished re-categorizing every post I’ve ever written. Of course all my old technorati tags are gone now as well and the native tagging features are … whatever. I don’t know at this point. I was under the impression that I would be able to (finally) just use tags instead of categories but there are still two blanks. Color me confused, I guess.

Anywho, bear with me. I’m searching for a 2.3 compatible theme that doesn’t suck so I can re-mod everything to get back to where I’m happy. If shit is broken blame THESE GUYS and not me, ‘kay?

Also: It seems that 2.3 is dogshit slow. Sorry. If it really starts to be an issue I’ll launch a ticket with dreamhost and see if there’s something they can tell me.

edit (11:25pm): After a few hours of hax0r I think I have this working somewhat reasonable. I really like the theme, which means that it’s already in use on 99.9% of all blogs ever. Such is life. This theme is actually plugin/tag aware so everything seems to be kosher. I’m using about half the plugins now that I was before. a) in an effort to speed things up and b) because they’re broke.

edit, part the second: technorati reconnected!

You and my condo association both, pally.

Yes, my roof still leaks. Needless to say, that makes the recent weather patterns especially troubling. I wrote a pleasant letter to the “administrator” over a year ago when the leak first appeared. I’ve been attempting to follow up via phone on and off since then. Best line from all the conversations: “I didn’t receive a letter.” But the check for my dues that was stapled to the letter got cashed, so that statement seems… improbable, to say the least.

So I realize that my next door neighbors are the V-P and Secretary of the board and during one of the typhoons last week I asked one of them to come take a look at my waterfall. She was rather disturbed and called the administrator immediately demanding action…of her answering machine.

I missed her initial call whilst driving to my parents home for the weekend and returned it about 3 hours later. Three guesses as to where this story goes… I’m on my 4th call-back-back-back-back so far and I have yet to speak to her directly. Best line of day, from a post-it on my door. “Diane said she hasn’t heard from you, please call her cell phone and you’ll get her right away.”

I, and my neighbors, pay this woman, btw. We PAY her to treat us like shit.

We have the annual board meeting in early September, my statement to the association promises to be colorful, to say the least.

Upside, it’ll be winter soon, and it doesn’t leak during the winter.

I love how the only real god is the retarded {Jew|muslim|gay|black} hating one. I don’t seem to remember that being in the pamphlets growing up. The fact that the “guest chaplain” didn’t tell these d-bags to go fuck themselves is a testament to his self-control and tolerance of those with significantly lacking mental and spiritual reserves.

It’s one thing to go fanatical zealot freak-o with the whole “thou shalt have no other god” thing in your personal life, but this is the Senate. This is the group of men and women elected to uphold the constitution and to serve the whole of their country. Not just the Christians. Not just the white, male land-owners. The whole god-damned country.

I can scarcely fathom how far one must have their head up their own (or a friends) ass to not embrace what actually makes this country worth a damn. America is and must be a plural society and our leaders must reflect that plurality - even if only once and a while.

Freedom of (and from) religion is important. The same rights that let you pray to baby Jesus implicitly protect the rights of others to praise Ganesha or no one at all. This should not be a difficult concept.

[youtube EZ9To30Hz7A]

edit: added a suitably ridiculous title as I somehow forgot last night…
edit 2: welcome to the reference.

As of Friday last week I am unemployed. While it was not something I initiated, it’s for the best. I haven’t been happy for a looooooong time. My stock answer when people ask me about my job has been “I hate my job, but I love the work.”

Anywho, I got up at the crack of 11:30 this morning and was summoned to a local eatery for lunch with a few of my former former co-workers. One was let go on Thursday and the others left a year+ back. We had a nice meal and a fun bitch session about our former employer. Good times.

Promises promises, but I do intend to keep some content up here. It’s not like I have anything better to do…

Nothing to report, specifically, yet. Stay tuned. If the site goes away for a few days just give DNS time to catch up. When I know more, you’ll know more.

Until then…

postscript: I posted this using the Windows Live Writer Blog-o-matic tool thing currently in beta.

postscript, part the second: The aforementioned Windows Live Writer Blog-o-matic tool thing is teh sux and has been summarily sacked.

Inspired by ComputerWorld, courtesy of membox

As someone in the industry who would be considered a techie vs a business analyst or other “soft” role I LOVE hearing how unimportant my existence is to any given project. I LOVE hearing how I need to be more flexible and that I need to learn how to make the system fit the user and not vice versa. Of course they’re absolutely right - computers and technology at large must, ultimately, serve the needs of the user. This is what one would call the “No shit, Sherlock” principle. That said, you have to know how to use/fix/change the shit in the first place in order to properly and effectively mold it into something useful.

There is much more emphasis on the business domain and on project management skills than on the technical skills,” says Kate Kaiser, an associate professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee. In September 2005, Kaiser led a Society for Information Management (SIM) study of 104 CIOs to determine their skills needs through 2008. She expects the top 10 skills identified to remain in the top 12 by 2010.

er… yeah. Because CIO’s are well-known to be intelligent, tech-savvy, forward-thinking people and not just the only person in Senior Management who can make a pivot table in Excel.

IT professionals who will survive and perhaps thrive in 2010 will expand their knowledge base and stretch beyond their comfort zones. Those who don’t will find job opportunities in niche areas.

I concur. Assuming you define niche as “any job that requires knowledge of technology or the implementation thereof.”

The ComputerWorld article even lists what will be the hot and cold career paths for budding technolites in their slack-jawed little world of tomorrow. Among their “hot” jobs are Systems and Network Design - both of which are skill-intensive careers assuming your goal is to, you know, be good at your job. I don’t disagree that those particular jobs will be in great(er) demand in the future, but keep in mind the premise of the article. Either they have no clue what those jobs actually entail or they just contradicted themselves. The incongruities don’t end there, mind you, they list programming (twice), QA, Support/Help Desk and a nebulous “operations” career in the cold category. I’m not sure, exactly, how they think organizations are going to operate in this magical future, but it obviously doesn’t rely on people who are experts in servers, workstations, hardware or software.

… Revelation! That must be the point of their little ego stroke masquerading as journalism. There’s some amazing new technology that will become mainstream between now and 2010 that will completely eliminate computers, software and the people who know how to make them work!

If only that was the joke.

These are the same small-minded “big thinkers” that brought the ruin that is dot.bomb on the industry. I’m sure they truly believe that there’s some one size fits all solution to every computing task ever. It’s the same kind of dogmatic bullshit you find with Apple and Linux die hards that extol the cure-all virtues of their particular cult.

Don’t get me wrong - business acumen isn’t a BAD thing to have, nor are business people the red menace threatening the very lives of the skilled professional. I take offense to the slant of the article and I firmly believe the conclusions drawn and the experts considered in its writing to be off their rockers. You know what actually will be the hot employee of the future? People who can tear down and rebuild a standard PC (or mac, as they’re almost interchangeable now), cap a CAT5 line correctly AND explain those processes to a layperson with a complete transfer of knowledge.

That’s less business-skill and more people-skill. Knowing everything is great - being able to teach someone else everything? That’s pretty much the greatest thing ever.