From an early-morning work e-mail chain where naive colleagues asked me questions.

Person a: "For example the /ESZ2.  Is there a symbol code that reflects the extended session stop time for this product?"

Me: “You cannot get much further extended than the current session length of 23 hours and 45 minutes, on the /ES contract from CME.  You’d need a Time Lord and a TARDIS.  So, the /ES would be a bad example of different sessions, because it only has one.  It is the Highlander of futures contracts.”

Person b: “Did you just assume that since {person a} is English he would get a TARDIS reference?  Just curious.”

Me: “No.  I always assume my audience will not get my reference, no matter what reference I am making.”

from the back files: progress?

From:    UIM
Sent:    Monday, April 09, 2012 3:22 PM
Subject: Progress?

Quote from therapy, today:
“And I’m frustrated, because as much as I think about resolving this, I never seem to figure out how.”
(Pause)
“And now I’m annoyed because I seem to be quoting the punk rock song, ‘Institutionalized’.”

-UIM.
The progress part is that I did not start quoting the song. 

from the back files: no idea where I get it from

From: UIM
Sent: Monday, April 02, 2012 11:11 AM
To: Metrocake
Subject: Mom, about retirement.
Someone sent her information about yarn bombing….  (http://www.google.com/search?q=yarn+bombing+chicago&hl=en&rlz=1R2ADFA_enUS377&prmd=imvns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=Os95T-7oHKa42wW6zPj9Cw&ved=0CEEQsAQ&biw=833&bih=824 )

Mom: “I can sneak out and cover things with knitted garments.  I’ve never been arrested before.”

UIM: “Mooommmm…”

Mom: “I haven’t decided if getting arrested is on my bucket list.”

UIM: “Yeah, that’ll be great, asking my boss for time off to go to Hanover and bail my mother out of
jail.”

Mom: “It’ll be fun.”

UIM: “At least it’s not a federal offense.”

Mom: “What if I knit a cover for a public mailbox?”

(pause)

UIM: (growlier) “Ok, Mom, you’re getting the reaction you wanted…”

"Fresh hot cookies" is not a euphemism.

From: UIM
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 7:29 AM
To: Her
Subject: from last night's phone call.

http://www.tiffstreats.com/austin/

Rack: “So, there’s a company here that delivers fresh hot cookies.”

UIM: (5 minutes of laughter) “Of course there is…”

Rack: “You call or web, and thirty minutes later, a tired college student bicycles up with fresh hot cookies.”
--

From: Her
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 7:30 AM

Great, now I want fresh hot cookies .
--

From: UIM
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2012 7:33 AM

Yes, at least a dozen times after that, I told him, “Oh, go eat your fresh hot cookies,” or “Sure, what do you care – you’ve got fresh hot cookies.”

from the back files: early morning physics experiments

From: UIM
Sent: Monday, November 07, 2011 09:31 AM
Subject: early morning physics experiments

You would think it would be difficult to fall out of bed, when the bed is a mattress on the floor.

I proved otherwise, at 4 am this morning, when my phone rang.

-UIM.
The overall moral of the story is, the next time UIM has to do anything with {REDACTED} data, someone should ask UIM, “Hey, will the alternate symbology still work after this change?”

moments of genius.

While otherwise indisposed today, I had time to ponder the flimsiness and moistenability of comic book boxes.
“If only, “ I pondered, “you could apply a lining easily to…”
And then I remembered the Discovery channel show, Smash Labs,  where they sprayed a cement wall with spray-on truck-bed liner and improved the wall’s resistance to explosions…
http://www.rhinoliningsindustrial.com/videos.php
Now, I really really want to spray truck-bed liner (http://www.rustoleum.com/CBGProduct.asp?pid=367 ) on EVERY BOX I have to put in my storage unit.

#FictionalConversations

Female A: “Why are you handing me a green dress and white-go-go boots?”
Male B: “We’re LARPing Power Puff Girls.  I’ve got three sales guys in chimp suits ready to be punched.”

from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind‏

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 6:39 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

When I got in this morning, the bogus symbols again had ISIN values.  I have blanked those ISIN values out again.
=================================================

From: {Cow-orker}
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:33 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

When _I_ woke up this morning, I had myself a beer.
=================================================

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 7:34 AM
Subject: RE: excel spreadsheet - seemingly wrong symbols

Well, the future roots are uncertain, and the end is always near.
=================================================

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, January 06, 2010 8:19 AM
Subject: derail -tbstone head and a graveyard mind

{Cow-orker} does make the excellent subtle point that most of my work-related e-mails take the general attitude of blues song, like:

“Boom Boom Boom Boom, gonna shoot book quotes right down.”

“Vendor files don’t do me no good.  Drop their bogus symbols, I wish they would.”

“Last night in the Ops Room, sitting round with my mates, I fixed daily futures charts, because settles came in late.  Now, weren’t that a man?”

“I write forty-seven miles of e-mails, wear a CAT-5 cable for a necktie.  Got a brand new house on the roadside made of discarded monitor boxes.”

-UIM

As Jedi RobMo said once, “Scuse me, while I kill this guy.”
=================================================

From: Frage
Sent:     Friday, November 05, 2010
Subject:               from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind
You rock.
=================================================

From:    UIM
Sent:     Friday, November 05, 2010 3:34 PM
To:          Frage
Subject:               from the back files: -tbstone head and a graveyard mind
Well, as Muddy Waters once sang, “I want you to rock me, baby, like my SQL database got no primary key.”
-UIM
Blues scholars were puzzled for years about the meaning of this.

from the back files: Halloween / Wrongness in Mah Brain

From: UIM
Sent: Friday, October 29, 2010 9:13 AM
To: Frage
Subject: RE: wrongness in mah brain

I smiled at {cow-orker} today, and asked, “Isn’t it a beautiful morning?”

He looked scared and baffled.

I said, “It’s my Halloween costume.  A cheerful, optimistic man, with a girlfriend.  No one will suspect it is me.”

I always fear Take Your Children to Work Day

From: UIM
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 8:35 AM
Subject: I always fear Take Your Children to Work Day
I am always afraid that HR will tranq dart me, stick me in an observation room, and have you and Cletus (evil cop, slow cop) torture me to show the kids why they want to learn to control their tempers.

--

From: EqSarDev
Sent: Thursday, April 22, 2010 9:09 AM

We just show them archived security footage of past UIM incidents.

from the back files: two time winner of the Buckeye News Hawk awards

From: UIM 
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2008 6:30 AM
Subject: two time winner of the Buckeye News Hawk awards

Yesterday, before the 2:30 meeting, I made a reference to {cow-orker} about Les Nessman taping off the walls  of the office he should have had. In turn, she recalled that last week one of the local radio stations replayed the "Turkeys Away" bit from WKRP.  (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0742671/ )
I felt the need to check YouTube for it this morning.  I can't watch it without feeling nostalgia for my early days at this company.  (There was a time or two, our Head DB Admin  would look at Ops after some CEO-related agony, and say, "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.")

-UIM
I do not feel nostalgia for 1978, however.  I was broke, powerless, and nothing made any sense, then, either.

from the back files: You pull the trigger of my / Spud Gun

From: UIM
Sent: Wednesday, October 15, 2008 11:30 AM
Subject: How does Hasbro follow up the Star-Wars-themed Mr. Potato Heads? What else can they possibly license as a Mr. Potato Head?
Well, when I think toddler toys, I obviously think, 'KISS."
(Another blogger titled his post about these "Spuds in Satan's Service".  Heh.)
http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=106664
-UIM
God of tubers / and rock and ro-o-oll.
--
From: LithoAster
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:14 AM
God help us. 
Guess I shouldn't be surprised.  Gene Simmons is the biggest money whore in rock history.
--

From: UIM
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:19 AM
Only because {someone famous and litigious} is not rock and roll.

And I have to admit, there is a part of me that wants to put a Gene-Simmons-potato-head on my desk.  Fortunately, I have until March 2009 to talk myself out of it.

-UIM
Everybody says she's looking good / And the lady knows it's understood / Spudder.
--
From: LithoAster
Sent: Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:51 AM
Not sure what it says about me that I got both of your lyric references.
--
From: UIM
Sent:     Thursday, October 16, 2008 10:55 AM

Well, even if you didn't know the songs, I would think the idea of twisting KISS lyrics to the current discussion theme would be easy to get.

However, I am only now realizing that this e-mail's tag line should have been the subject line from the start.

-UIM
Nowhere for hiding baby / Nowhere to run / You pull the trigger of my / Spud Gun.

sarcastic beer

From: DBAChief
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 8:02 AM
maybe, MAYBE, drinks today after work.   how's your schedule?
--
From: UIM
Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 8:07 AM
Well, Bernanke and Greenspan have some equations they want me to look over by 1; Britney is penciled in for a lyrics-writing session at lunch; and Lohan wants me to finish the goddamn Herbie 2 rewrite by 7 tonight or she won't ever again wear the Catholic schoolgirl uniform for me.  But I should have time for a Blue Moon or two before I take the conference call from Willis and Statham about the Die Hard 5 pitch to Fox on Monday.
Yes, I'm being sarcastic.  I should be out before 4, I have no other plans.

DETONATION (The last Group W Bench Post)

After a sporadically-filled 7 years and change, I’m admitting my failure at this.
Pretty impressive, to fail at something you had no clear purpose in starting. But that’s how spectacular I am.
In short, the minimal effort that I have been making still feels like too much work.
There’s just been too much change. I don’t get the energy from posting which I got when I started this.
So, it’s time to knock everything down, sow the fields with salt, and move on.

Since most of the audience for this has been people whom I personally know, I’ll try to emit regular e-mails from my hotmail account. On the slim chance that you’ve been a long-time reader of this witlessness, and you never wrote to me before, and you actually want to read some of the future witlessness, please send me a note from your private e-mail address to uim70@hotmail.com . I feel certain that I can handle the Lilliputian flood of e-mails that will result.

I’ll keep the “band names” and “links” and “adult film actress names” sites up a while longer.

I won’t even permanently rule out trying a web log again, sometime in the future. Maybe it could happen around late September 2010. Who knows?

Until you hear from me, may peace and love and happiness fill your life to overflowing.

“… and sweet’s the air with curly smoke / From all my burning bridges.”
-Dorothy Parker

I just want a Valhalla for angry tech guys...

From: UIM
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 7:38 AM

I could have sworn that months ago I disproved the assertion that the values could be changed in the database via the method you propose.   (If someone is still asserting that, I would like to have a quick meeting with that someone down on the loading dock, where I will introduce them to my friend, Mr. Rebar.)
--

From: NotIronMan
Sent: Tue 5/6/2008 7:50 AM

I concur with UIM. It is physically impossible to change it via that path.
--

From: BigCheerfulGuy
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 9:08 AM
Understood, we were always a little hazy on whether this ACTUALLY worked or if we only heard legendary tales about the brave warrior who once made it happen somehow. This is coming up more now with Europe and Asia Support.
---

From: UIM
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2008 9:11 AM
"Brave warrior who once made it happen somehow."  That would look good on a resume.  "I am the Cuchulain of intractable data wars."

Fury (B)

This is the night I would pay anything to undo.

I won't rehash details (pounding a beer while trying to keep my temper, listening to her self-absorbed bullshit because I'm that much of a patsy, walking home four blocks blinded by tears and choking on rage).

I'm just noting this with two appropriate lyrics.

"One punch and you knocked me down.
Tore my defenses apart.
One round took me out of the game.
You did me some permanent harm."
- Rolling Stones, "One Hit to the Body," Dirty Work

"She's a cold hard bitch.
Just a kiss on the lips,
And I was on my knees,
Waiting, baby.
Cold hard bitch.
She was shaking her hips.
And that was all that I needed.
Waiting, baby."
- Jet, "Cold Hard Bitch," Get Born

ABSAROKE (B) (Bad Poetry)

I am the only outcast crow,
Born to serve the Darkest Lady,
But dreaming of the Light.
Corpses' eyes and burning cities
Kept my tribe alive for years,
Soaring on the night.
Flocking to Her as She dances
A blood-step on the smoke-choked air,
Lusting in the fight.
Writhing beats of wings and heart black
Ravening in tears of pain,
Slaked on mortal might.
But in the night of gorging plunder
I have seen the fire flicker
Far from camps of blight.
Flame to cloak Her, Flame to guide Her,
Flame to form Her tools of Healing,
Count'ring Death's despite.
I circle, watching, as I've gyred
A thousand times round fields of gore,
As though I were to strike.
Her fires lift my wings and heartache,
Her brilliance blanches my savage hunger.
I hold a purer flight.
Burn I must in apostate glory,
Severed from my carrion family,
Burning, burning bright.