July 2004 Archives

There may come a time in your career when you are expected to train your own replacement. These past few days I've noticed that there is a very simple defence against this self-destruction.

Make your replacement feel stupid.

Not nice, certainly, but it seems to be effective. People obviously don't want to look dumb, especially at a new position (your position). If you preface everything you tell them about your duties with one of the following phrases, you can be sure that they won't bother you with a repeat question:

• "This is trivial"
• "I can do this, and I don't even have a degree in it"
• "There's nothing difficult in this part"

As an added bonus, if you use the right tone, it actually sounds like you're being reassuring and supportive.

I found a couple things this week that I keep telling people about.

• A wooden mirror. Picked this one up over at everlasting blort.
  
• Tall buildings, via Metafilter. Fun little flash app with a lot of information. Since I live under a rock in many ways, this was my first look at the new World Trade Center.
  
• Death Star!. Any bets on how long that moon takes to reveal itself as the ultimate weapon of an advanced society?

I lost my title at cards tonight. That's right, I am no longer Supreme Super-Loser of the Universe. Apparently I can hold my own a little better in cribbage.

Also, 80's Retro fun for the evening, via Ars Technica: Transformers. Breakdancing. Yeah. The whole 80's nostalgia thing is a little weird. Cartoon trivia can be useful though, it won me an argument about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a week ago. In case you're curious, Leonardo's mask is blue, not purple.

I saw a couple of very old RVs driving down the road today. My first thought: "Hey, it's the Antiques Road Show!"

Yeah, nobody else laughed either.

Great commercial from Audi, via Metafilter's gwint. gwint also has a cool page with some nice photos and Flash do-dads. Good stuff.

Yes, that would be me. I was defeated in 4 of 6 games of 500 last night, granting me that auspicious title. Hopefully next week I can pass the crown to one of my worthy friends.

Despite this crushing defeat, there were a couple bright spots. I won the biggest bid possible, netting myself 520 points. The irony: the bid required that I lose every trick, so even my major victory made me a loser.

Also, t-shirt idea: "Condoms are for Weenies". You saw it here first, folks.

I was standing outside my apartment with a friend tonight listening to the neighboor's yappy dog bark, as it frequently does.

Me: Will you kill that dog for me?
J: I sure will.
Me: I'll pay you. Really.
Neighboor, to dog: Shut up!

If I end up in jail, at least you know why.

Documentary - Presenting facts objectively without editorializing or inserting fictional matter, as in a book or film.

If it weren't for that little bit about editorializing, I guess the movie I just saw might be a documentary. Luckily for me, the internet is full of people willing to provide exhaustive fact-checking reviews of Fahrenheit 9/11, so I can just make a few comments on what I thought about during and after the movie.

Definition:

metric fuck-ton (fk-tn) - Unit of weight. Defined as the weight of the volume of water required to extinguish the sun's fusion reaction. For further reference, see Spiderman 2.

Conversation at work today:

IT Guy : So, you have a Computer Science degree?

Me: Yeah.

IT Guy : Where'd you go to school?

Me [struggling mightily to avoid looking at massive UMD logo on my t-shirt, succeeding] : University of Minnesota Duluth.

I hardly know the guy, it would've been a shame to laugh at him right off the bat like that.

I decided it was about time to get myself a weblog. I'm going to lay most of the blame for this at the feet of my good friend MrAirbear. He's developing into quite the nerd and I can't let him have one up on me.