& WERE BAK! + Antics

So things got quiet all of a sudden. No, it wasn't a dramatic pause. It was the HOLIDAYS.

Good news is that they are rapidly approaching and I get two weeks off for good behavior and living in a totally hypocritical country. Really, our church and state are about as separate as the protons and neutrons of an atom.

2009 is totally around the corner. EXPECT BIG THINGS.

As for antics, It is great having a cheeky co-worker. I know the budget is tight and I know I am really low on the totem pole, but when I switched workplaces I brought certain expectations with me. One of those what that I would be kept in the technological life style I had become accustomed to.

Not so much as it turns out. I have to fight tooth and nail for everything, and pretty much lose most of the time. I do finally have a laptop on which to do development and testing, but only because I scrounged up 3+ year old laptops that no one wanted because Winbloat runs slow. Ubuntu + 3 year old laptop = pretty decent.

Unfortunately, because these were older laptops our stock of power cables was rather low and of the two that I was able to acquire, one now has a short. I try to keep exactly two for a very good reason: plugging, unplugging, wrapping, unwrapping, packing, and unpacking tends to wear them out over time. I like to have one cord for the desk so it is tucked away and convenient, and other in my bag. It IS after all a laptop.

I know I give my coworker flack, and it totally isn't her fault that she has difficulty procuring what I need to do my job. So after I asked her last week to order me a replacement power cord, I got the following IM this Monday:

Cheeky Coworker In Charge Of Supply Orders
hey! Remind me about your need for the power adapters

Me
you mean give a justification?

McCheeky
yesh

Me
formal or informal?

McCheeky
for me
informal

Me
BECAUSE THEY HAVE A SHORT THAT IS PUTTING OUT HEAT AND COULD BURN DOWN THE LIBERRIES
i.e. they are unsafe
and we don't have any others
and that is my development environment
so if you want me to code, and not burn down the library it is kind of crit

It is a good thing my department head has a sense of humor, because she saw fit to share this exchange with him verbatim.

I fully expect my replacement cord soon.

Unedited

Dear Sci Fi Channel

Honestly, I don't really care anymore when anime gets edited or censored, so long as it's not excessive.  I can understand alot of stuff.  Really I can.  But your crap with Gurren Lagann is just ridiculous.  The cuts that have been done to the English dub showing on your channel are beyond the scope of stupid.  Now I could be saying this because the cuts hurt the flow of the episode, or because they have - on several occasions - removed important moments or dialogue.  But here's the bottom line:

You idiots are making cuts to fit in more commercial breaks.

No one can tell me otherwise.  I refuse to believe that there could be any other reason for the cuts to the dub.  The cuts certainly can't be done for violence or sexuality, because if you were actually concerned about that, you wouldn't be showing Gurren Lagann in the first place.  If you idiots are really so desperate to get extra time to advertise your own shows, why do you bother showing the opening?  Why not cut out the 2-3 minute recap that occurs at the beginning of nearly all the episodes?

I'm just glad the DVDs are already out.  Yay for unedited, subtitled-only DVDs.  In the end, I hope this isn't going to be the norm for your anime block, SciFi.  But then, judging from your promos for it, I'm getting the impression your idea of cutting-edge anime is stuff that was produced back in the 90s.  So I don't exactly have high hopes, but who knows.  All I know is that if you keep making unnecessary edits just to stick in another commercial for your crappy made-for-TV movies, then I'm not going to bother watching.

A reason for using vacation time!

http://www.ffxifestival.com/

Very happy to see they are doing this again this year. Was getting late enough that I was worried it would not happen. And Hollywood is a definite improvement over last year's choice of Anaheim.

Everything you wanted to know about the Bible,

But didn't care enough to spend more than a minute to learn:

Is there a White Mage in the house?

Maybe someone should tell him that TV Marketing isn't in the prerequisite chain for the Samurai job class...

http://failblog.org/2008/09/02/samurai-fail/

As always, the Failblog continues to be a valued source of lolga for the entire party.

niki niki waki waki

Gotta love streaming video to your XBox 360. Been using it to watch subtitled videos of Jyuken Sentai Gekiranger (Super Sentai series from 2007) and it works like a charm. Fantastic series too, and I may try getting GoGo Sentai Boukenger (2006) too, as it looks like a good one as well.

Omnigraffle, and the history of JOBS

Job Ontology Boundary Systems, JOBS for short and Jobs to avoid annoying ALL CAPS, have been around since the first multicellular organism. In the early days the "Us vs. Them" approach worked pretty well, but as soon as life forms had more than one type of cell it became problematic. As is apparent by the abundance of multicellular organisms, this new trend of "differentiation" was a hit and thus the Heteroparty Superiority Complex (HSC) was born (and continues to persist to this day).

Thanks to the technical marvel of Omnigraffle, we can now illustrate the history of Jobs through the ages.

The origin of Jobs is intertwined with the origin of life itself. Living things do stuff, and in the beginning everyone pretty much sucked the same amount. At some point, a mutation occurred and some one sucked just a little less than the rest. Thus the Superiority Complex was born. Obviously, it went right to their head and ever since the strong have attacked the weak, the weak died, those that didn't die sucked less, creating a vicious cycle.

It's not all bad though, at some point the weak decided to join forces and thus the Party System was born. These early parties, called Homoparties were comprised only of organisms of the same kind. None of the party members did anything special, but power in numbers proved to be a powerful tactic.

Then at some point a Party formed with one member slightly different than the others. This was perhaps the biggest single evolution that would happen until years later, when someone dropped a Bagel in Cream Cheese (BCC).

SO, with the evolution of Multicellular organisms, different cells were better at different things. Even though some cells made out like bandits, while others got the short end of the stick despite superior merits, the arrangement was sufficiently mutually beneficial that the status quo continued for quite some time.

The next major change in Jobs didn't occur until the Male Mutation. While the Job system was a hit at the cellular level, multicellular organisms were just not getting the hint that Jobs worked on multiple levels. Then Man Happened. Counter to the popular trend, Man sucked more than everything else at the time. By cruel fate, or perhaps shrewed observation it had become apparent that aptitude (sucking less) didn't actually guarantee success in the party system because of the Short Stick Effect. One party member always gets to mooch off the hard work of other party members, and usually reaps more benefit than the hard working members.

For whatever reason, Woman bought it hard. Not really her fault, years of experience with the party system taught her that different is good. While Woman was better suited for practical things like art, communication, and resource acquisition, Man was mostly good at useless or counter productive stuff like games, wasteful demonstrations of physical or mental prowess, blogging, and war. Not long after this first differentiation at the macro-level, other Jobs emerged. Some Men realized the superiority of Woman, and formed the early predecessor to the modern day Drag Queen job class, Slag Queen (the tools and skills required for a proper Drag Queen would take centuries to refine). Similarly, early Feminists started out as Tom Boys, because they didn't really have a reason to hate Men just yet.

Meanwhile other more productive Job Classes also came about, such as Hunters and Gatherers. Superficially, these might seem like to very different job classes, but they are actually the same thing. Gatherers are obviously the more effective of the two, producing more food with less effort. Hunters were none the less a more prestigious class because, let's face it, meat is Teh NOM (not an acronym).

Over time the classes branched out and specialized. Gatherers begot other effective job classes: Healers, Craftsmen, and in time various forms of Defensive Types. Hunters further devolved into less useful classes such as: Traders, Leaders, and later a variety of Offensive Types.

Not long after that, a Job Class Boom (JCB) occurred. During the time of magic, (the start of which probably coincided with BCC) the major division between classes transitioned from Useful vs. Ineffectual classes to Magic vs. Non-Magic classes. Once magic became extinct this distinction didn't make much sense any more, but fortunately people realized that the Job Class system itself as a means to stereotype people was pretty ridiculous. It works pretty well at the cellular level, but most people are more sophisticated than a cell, and the definition of their aptitude and abilities pretty well defies simple classification.

Still, Jobs provide a convenient way to think about related skills sets, and to a large part still exist today. With the loss of Magic, some White Mages returned to their Healer roots with professions like Doctors, Candy Stripers, and Baristas while others moved on to other social support functions such as Social Workers, IT Support Staff, and Librarians.

Sure, most people defy strict definition into one Job Class or another, but Jobs are more than just about segregation. They are an affirmation of the human spirit, the drive to work towards a goal until either one reaches it, or gets tired of it, or decides it is just too hard, or finds something better to do. Without jobs, we'd all be the same single celled organism. Here's to Jobs, and the pursuit of trying to suck less than everyone else.

Senseless violence

Rather reluctant to admit this, but I have to say that I actually enjoyed Death Race. I was expecting an absolutely awful movie, but it surprised me by being pretty enjoyable. Of course it is still a bad movie, but it's a fast-moving, death-filled guy-flick of a bad movie, so overall I would say it's worth matinee price.

The very attractive leading lady certainly helps, of course.

About: Face

Pretty good avatar generator. Much better than Yahoo's

http://www.faceyourmanga.com/

Procrastination

OMG, can I get a Time Mage to case Haste on me? Easier than Slowga on the world.

Anyway, I did finally figure out blogger templates, at least enough to restyle the CSS.

One thing I'm pretty sure White Mages like is Lolcatz, aka Icanhascheezburger. Especially true when said lolcatz are wearing the official garb of the profession.

Premonition of Death

Something I'm sure any FF job would dislike. Checking out a webcomic when suddenly the page changes to a yellow pages type search for tombstones of all things.

So yea, totally thrilled to have the internet just randomly give me local listings for funeral homes...

shiromadoshi suki ja nai

Definately more inclined to Dark Knights...

Final Fantasy IV DS
Progress:
- Tower of Babil, first time

Current Thoughts:
- Doctor Lugae is a total cheap-ass...

Blogger Templates....

One thing I'm pretty sure white mages don't like it blogger templates ._.

Still trying to wrap my brain around it, but maybe this weekend I can replace this converse sneaker wanna be look with something more appropriate.

Candy with a toy inside on the other hand, is something white mages most definitely like! Looks like they have been hitting the Ethers a little too hard there.

All aboard!

Inaugural post. Let the inappropriateness begin!