Metaplanar Babel

Apparently, I am Giddy and Confused (@_@).

Thanks to the bored cruinh for the linkie to a fun quiz.

Librarians come up with some fun stuff sometimes. Go check out this list of Monty Python shorthand. Awe and amaze your fellow IMers with your favorite MP lines, now available in this cute, incomprehensible packaging!
ANFSCD!

As of yesterday, we have an unfilled position in my department at work. It’s full time, with benefits. It’s dealing primarily with an aspect of our department that I haven’t done much with, though that doesn’t take up a full 40 hours per week, so there would be plenty of things that I already know how to do. I’ve been somewhat encouraged to apply for the job, though another girl in our department who already has a full time position has been as well.

I’ve also been led to believe that, if I could get a portfolio put together that shows my (maybe minimal?) web development skills, I might be able to get a position where Jon works doing something that I might enjoy (lot of ifs and mights there..). However, putting together a portfolio when you never ever thought you might go into web design/dev field is a very daunting, time-consuming task. I have the potential of being ready maybe sometime early next year, by which time the job where I currently work will probably have been filled.

The question then, is do I apply for the opening at my current workplace, knowing that it’s possible (slightly) that I might be leaving again in 6 months or sooner? If I don’t apply here, and don’t get the web dev job, then I’m stuck in my current part time job indefinitely. If I apply and somehow get both, then I’m sort of leaving my department here in the lurch. Is that kosher? It feels kind of slimy to me; maybe that’s just how things work, maybe I just need to look out for myself, but it feels funny. And I’m ignoring the possibility that we might move to Austin sometime soonish, too.

Any thoughts?

I hate people. There are any number of individual people who are great and whose company I enjoy, but people as a whole suck. They’re loud, obnoxious, don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, and it drives me crazy.

Why am I up at freakin 12:30am bitching about how people suck, you ask? Well, sit a spell, and I’ll tell you. I’m up at 12:30am right now, because the people across the freakin street are having a party, with music so damn loud that I can hear the bass - all the way across the street, through the entire width of my townhouse to the master bedroom in the back! We’re talking at least 200 yards of sound coverage, through multiple insulated walls.

It’s bad enough that Jon’s joint problems cause him to twitch at least one or two times every 5 minutes or so, shaking the whole damn bed and waking me from the brink of slumber. I can deal with that; we have other beds in the house, so I usually just go sleep on one of those. However, both of those other beds are on the front of the house, where el ghetto rap partay across the street rings out loud and clear. I wish I had a set of good earplugs, so I could actually get some sleep tonight. Unfortunately, I don’t, so I’m sitting here at my computer, without my contacts in (and my face about 2 inches from the screen so I can actually read what I’m typing), bitching into the soundless void of the internet because I’m too lame to bitch at them or call the police. I’m hoping that by the time I finish ranting, the party will be over or turned down or something but I’m afraid my hope is in vain.

Thank you so much, all you freakin college students and other assholes who blast your car stereos or throw loud parties and ruin a good night’s sleep for the responsible among us who don’t stay up until 3am anymore. In the immortal words of Mr. Garrison (of South Park fame), “You go to hell! You go to hell and you die!”

Edit: I guess I’m going to be sleeping down in the basement tonight (where our computers are), because it’s the only room in the entire freakin house where you can’t hear the bass from across the street. I can’t even fully articulate how infuriated I am. I’m sure it doesn’t seem like all that big of a deal, but I do *not* sleep well without silence. The slightest bit of bass is like a fly buzzing around my face; I just can’t relax enough to fall asleep. It’s stupid, and it sucks, but that’s how it goes. Besides, if I open the front door, I can hear their music perfectly clear, words and all, and that is too freakin loud. It’s kind of funny, Jon’s mom wanted us to buy the bloody townhouse a while back, and I am so thankful that we didn’t take her up on it. This used to be a very quiet, respectable neighborhood, but things are going downhill pretty fast. This is only the most notable incident; there have been many more. *growl* Anyhow, hopefully I’ll manage to get some sleep tonight, despite sleeping on a carpet-covered concrete floor. >.<

From Quotes of the Day:
“In a mad world only the mad are sane.” - Akira Kurosawa

Best. Cute Kitten Site. Evar!

In a recent Time interview Moby said: “I think the world is so complicated that I can’t be so presumptuous as to justify pessimism or optimism, so I’ll stay agnostic. But I like waking up every day, and I think breakfast is a fantastic thing.” Sounds like a good way of looking at things to me.

Well, Jon and I have been married for 2 years today. It’s kind of funny, when I think about it, because in some ways, it feels as though it’s been much less time than that, but in others it feels much longer. I guess some of it is that we lived together for a few years before getting married, so he’s been a pretty big part of my life for longer than our official 2 years.

Still, we’ve had our ups and downs, just like any couple. I find it somewhat strange that many of our worst flare-ups have been over relatively trivial things like whatever video game we were playing at the time or Magic: the Gathering (he’s a perfectionist and can be brutal in competitive games ), but overall, I think it’s good that we don’t have to argue about the major things.

cruinh said something once about not really being able to imagine one of us without the other. I guess that’s a good thing, because I can’t really imagine myself without Jon either. It’s hard to know these days if feeling that way is just romantic and good or indicative of some psychological disorder, but I’m going to go with romantic and good and be happy with what we have.

Anyway, here’s to our first 2 years, and hopefully we’ll have many more to come.

I think I’ve finally managed to find a media collection application. It’s a little web app called Listal that’s currently in an open Beta phase. Like so many other social tagging collectives, Listal allows users to compile lists of DVDs, books, music, and computer games that they own or wish they owned. Each item links to a summary, pertinant stats, and links to other people who have included that item in their list. Unlike another app I looked into, Listal also allows sorting, custom lists, and some other neat little features that I haven’t run into yet.

Because it’s still in beta, obviously there are some quirks left to iron out, but thus far, I’ve been pretty impressed. The only thing I can really complain about at this point is the fact that sorting and display settings aren’t saved anywhere and default to a list of items, sorted by date entered, which isn’t very useful to me. This has been mentioned on the forum once already, and I added my voice to it as well, so we’ll see if anything gets changed in the future.

Anyway, one of the neat features that I really like is the “frequency cloud” of directors and actors that is available on the DVD Home page. I really can’t tell you why Keanu Reeves tops our actor list, but .. there you go, an interesting tidbit about our movie collection. Another neat thing is the ability to display your collection with emphasis on the DVD cover image (kind of reminds me of the output from Delicious Monster, which Brendan had suggested before). Also, supposedly there are some bookmarklets out there that take advantage of some Amazon API functionality to easily add items, but I haven’t been able to find them yet. A couple of bookmarklets are available that you can use, while browsing Amazon, to take advantage of Amazon’s search capabilities.

I’ve only been signed up for a day, but this is the slickest social media collection management application (oi what a mouthful) that I’ve seen thus far (I have to rule out delicious monster only because I don’t have a Mac, and I couldn’t find anywhere that it would run on anything but). The interface is clean, relatively intuitive, and pleasing to look at. The navigation generally makes sense, and adding items is pretty easy, even if you have a large-ish collection. I haven’t played much with the rating or tagging stuff yet, but both ideas seem to have potential. Creating custom lists is really simple as well, and you can easily add descriptions for each item within the list as well as specify the ordering (I think). There aren’t currently any hooks to display data in another site (like a blog), but there are rss feeds available, so I think it shouldn’t be too hard to work something up. My only regret currently is that I didn’t find it sooner - Listal’s been up since August 29!

Take a look at my collection if you like, and let me know if you start one of your own!

I wonder if the title on this DNR article was really the best thing they could come up with. Somehow, I don’t think the people organizing the Virginia Anarchist Gathering really want to be connected with the Anarchist Cookbook.