my frustration today is leading to Tourette’s quality outbursts. i’ve made so many buttons in flash today that out of sheer pent up energy i went “DURRRRrrrr” at my monitor and unconsciously started shaking my hand as though i was holding a tambourine. god help me.
Archive for June, 2008
outburst
Friday, June 27th, 2008car blar
Friday, June 27th, 2008my car has been making a clicking/rattling noise when i throttle in gear, most noticably in third and fourth.
a trip to the dealer revealed two things: 1) the rattling is coming from my clutch/transmission assembly, and 2) replacing the clutch transmission assembly is very, very expensive.
oh, and a third thing: 3) my powertrain warranty, which would have made the repairs very, very cheap, expired two months ago.
the guy at the dealership basically told me i should do nothing about it and keep driving until the rattling either A) becomes so loud i can no longer hear myself think, or B) destroys something else in the transmission and makes my car stop moving. he suspects that a piece of metal may have broken off in there and the sound is it rattling around inside. not a very comforting thought.
if i have to spend the money to get a whole new transmission/clutch assembly, i’m leaning towards just getting a new car. i think that the cost of the repairs is only 3,000 dollars less than the value of my car. in the meantime, you know, before my car chokes on a piece of metal and explodes, i’m thinking of getting a second opinion.
anybody have a toyota transmission specialist in LA?
sick and tired of bein’ sick and tired
Thursday, June 26th, 2008i’m tired of letting people who have insufficient knowledge of the internet dictate to me what their websites should do. there is a big difference between steering your clients towards a functional solution which meets their needs, and pandering to their every whim or picture in their head. it’s like a contractor letting a client determine which walls to knock down in a house.
i’m working on a project over which i’m no longer feeling any control, and it’s frustrating because i still have to work on the design of it. i’m essentially designing an interface, the functionality of which makes no sense to me. it’s like, i can feel the project slipping from my fingers only to realize that it’s inextricably tethered to my leg. so many things are out of my control at this point that i’m worried that i won’t be able to make sense of the project and that we’re going to launch with a need for massive revisions.
make it pop
Thursday, June 26th, 2008i’m tired of trying to make things pop. maybe my head will pop soon and it will all be over.
heatwave
Friday, June 20th, 2008the office is either hot and stuffy or freezing and windy. i’ve been trying to develop a strategy about what temperature the AC should be set to because most of the time i am freezing.
i read somewhere that there is no magic temperature to set your thermostat to, and that a comfortable indoor temperature will depend upon how hot it is outside. i am beginning to feel the truth in this.
for example, when it was around 68 degrees outside, we would put the thermostat at 76, but found that that was too hot, and that 72 would suffice, but now that it’s 99 outside, 72 in here is FREEZING AND WINDY. i swear, the ducts and vents here are all pointed right at my desk because no one else seems to be shivering or constantly rubbing their arms or drinking cups of hot water to stave off hypothermia.
furthermore, set at 72 degrees in 99 degree weather, the AC never stops running, which can’t be good. if nothing else it’s pretty loud and interferes with my poor hearing.
anyways, it just came back on so i can’t hear myself think. i think i’m going to jump on top of a chair and try and adjust the vent.
EDIT: OMG I JUST USED A MOP HANDLE TO CLOSE THE VENT ABOVE MY DESK. IT IS SO MUCH BETTER ALREADY.
a pubic service announcement
Thursday, June 19th, 2008i know that in times of drought there’s the whole if it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down thing, but for the love of god, if any part of anything in the toilet is brown, flush it. poo smeared TP still count as ‘brown’.
also, a lesson i’ve learned about explosive movements: check under the seat when you’re done because sometimes there is collateral splatter between the toilet seat and the rim of the bowl.
upgrade?
Thursday, June 19th, 2008against cb’s behest that a migration to wordpress might better suit my needs than my current MT situation, i just went ahead and upgraded to the newest version of movable type, which has in fact gone up a whole version number since i installed it.
i decided to do this because i’m lazy and thought that the process of switching blog apps all together would be more difficult than just upgrading my current app.
but as with many things in life, the lazy route has proved to be more difficult than it was worth. so many things have changed (such as template names, ugh) that i had to basically redo all of my templates so that i could use the new blog designs and widgets. (i hate hate hate the word ‘widget’ but more on that another time.) i’ve just lost half my day copy pasting the new default templates and default template names into my sad, outdated ones.
it appears to be working now, and i’ve even got these pretty pink trees. huzzah!
judgmental asshole
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008i’ve been trying to pin down the source of my compulsion for reading blogs by total strangers that i find to be simultaneously fascinating and infuriating because of their baffling combination of self importance and complete stupidity.
i’ve been mulling over this in my head, mostly because i don’t want to judge lest i be judged (you know, for my sense of self importance combined with my complete stupidity), but reading these blogs is verging on a masturbation-quality compulsion or mine, so i’ve decided to air it out here and hope to in the process come to some conclusions about it.
i feel as though people are baiting me to go to their websites and become a judgmental asshole. like, “hey i’m going to fill my blog with these theories i have about human existence and pepper them with words like ‘obviously’ and ‘certainly’ to let you know how sure i am of my flimsy and poorly argued ideas. furthermore, the things i describe as obvious and certain will in no shape or form be obvious or certain. i will provide givens for my theories that have been gleaned from my own shortsighted brain and which you will in fact find objectionable. ps. i am awesome.” how am i supposed to respond to that in any other way than to be a judgmental asshole?
you’d think that i’d just stop reading blogs like this, but i find myself fascinated by them, almost in awe of their cluelessness, so i have to keep reading and keep irritating myself, like picking on a big festering scab.
ps. this ain’t about anyone reading this, and hopefully this is enough of an amalgam of enough different targets of my ire that this is about no one in particular.
commenting
Wednesday, June 18th, 2008i’m tired of screening comments, so i turned comment screening off. if you’re dumb enough to click on a spam comment from some viagra provider from russia, then you’re too dumb to be reading this, and too dumb to be my friend.
and if you know a good reason for me to continue screening comments, then i’m too dumb to be your friend. see how that works?
that woman
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008while i’ve supported hillary and really respect her decision to sleep on it, i hope to high heaven she wakes up tomorrow realizing that she gave it good run, it was close, and hey, shit happens. time to call it a day.
i’ll be relieved if she does this if only so i’ll stop hearing her referred to as “that woman” and “that fucking bitch”. though clinton supporters are no angels it’s been disheartening and bizarre to hear people i know personally refer to her in that manner.
this election year has yielded eye opening exchanges to the effect of:
“i can’t vote for her because she’s just too aggressive.”
“is the president not supposed to be aggressive?”
“well, no.”
“is it because women aren’t supposed to be that aggressive?”
“…well, yeah.”
totally weird.
my two personal favorites which i don’t think are going to go away are “that woman ruined democracy” and “if obama loses the general election, it’s that woman’s fault.” i’m getting prepared to plug my ears and bite my tongue until november.
