mental methane: gallic knots in the conversation

(While discussing various pointless things, and waiting for a meeting to start.)

 

 

Developer: "So, you're trying to work on some sort of double entendre?"
UIM: "I'm not even sure it has a single entendre."
Developer: "Well, by default, any word has at least one entendre."
UIM: "I don't know. Nobody seems to ever understand anything I say, so it’s possible there is no entendre."
Developer: "But any word has at least one meaning."
UIM: "I'm sure if you talk with service, they'll provide customer utterances completely devoid of meaning."
Developer: "Non-tendres."
UIM: "Sans-tendres."

when people ask me how it's going, I feel like telling them this.

So, yes, cartoon-watching is still an important part of this relationship.

We caught some of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle series, and the writing is good, so we are catching up on it.  (I never watched any of the old series, so I don’t know how much the writing has improved.)

Shortly into the second episode that we saw together, this conversation occurred:

Her: “Wait, this show seems so familiar.” 
(Pause.)
Her: “It feels kind of like talking with you.”
UIM: “Huh?”
Her: “Each of them is like a different part of you.  There’s the angry guy, and the guy who uses big words, and the guy who thinks he’s in charge, and the guy who just says random silly things.”
UIM: “Okay.  Yeah.  That’s a pretty fair assessment.”

from the back files: another thrilling day

From:    UIM
Sent:     Tuesday, May 21, 2013 7:28 AM

It's another thrilling day of churning through US and Canadian renames, and I'm listening to Morrison Hotel, and I feel this unreasonable urge to answer any and all work questions today with any one of the following:

1)      "Keep your eyes on the road, and your hands upon the wheel."

2)      "The future's uncertain and the end is always near."

3)      "Blood in the streets in the town of Chicago."

4)      "Ghosts crowd the young child's fragile eggshell mind."

5)      "At first flash of Eden, we race down to the sea."

6)      "Waiting for you to tell me what went wrong."

Para-Nerds

Frage: “Well, you know me.  I’m paranoid.”

UIM: “As am I.  Taking a moment to nail down concrete evidence helps diminish the paranoia.”

Frage: “But the evidence suggests that They Really Are Out to Get Us.”

UIM: “In which case, concrete evidence helps us survive, and plan our counter-attack.”

from the back files: I accept that I am powerless, and put my faith in a useless information being higher than me.

(My boss was getting very frustrated at a currently-not-solveable problem.)

My Boss: “UIM? Talk me down from the ledge?”

UIM: “Isn’t that kind of like choosing Charlie Sheen as your AA sponsor?”

from the back files: definitions

From: UIM
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 10:11 AM
Subject: {REDACTED}

This conversation falls afoul of the two differing uses of the word 'support' in this company.
Dev definition of 'support': "If the data source sends the right values, we will create the symbol."

User definition of 'support': "Can I trade it right now this minute and second?"

-UIM

{My cubicle mate} and I just spent six minutes talking about these differing meanings, which then devolved into a discussion of 100-sided dice and gaming groups in general.

collateralized dough obligations.

(After my cubicle mate hands over the Girl Scout Cookies which I ordered…)

Him: “People kept asking me about the delivery date. I was tempted to write some complicated rule, like the expiration date rules for the CME.”

UIM: (laughing)

Him: “Third Friday of the month before the Chinese New Year, or something. I’d have to write a spec.”

UIM: “And we’d have to issue a bulletin of approved Cookie warehouses.”

Him: “Would we use future root GSC?”

UIM: (checking reference database) “GSC is only a root in Sydney. So you can’t trade Australian Girl Scout Cookies. So, there goes our arbitrage market.”

Him: “Dammit.”

On the upside of a downward spiral?

(Frage and UIM are in a Dunkin Donuts at 5:30 am, waiting for the morning commuter train.)
(The radio is playing the song "Drive-By" by the band Train.)
Frage: (glaring at the speakers) "It's just disturbing that this is supposed to be a love song, but in terms of a random violent act."
UIM: "But, it's saying that it's NOT a drive-by."
Frage: "Adding the word 'not' doesn't make it better."
UIM: "Sadly, some guys' attitude for romance is exactly like their attitude for random violence.  Get in, get out, hope the police don't get involved."
Frage: "For a second, I thought you said, 'Hump the police.' "
UIM: "Yeah, that was NWA's first draft.  Same way they originally wrote '911 is a Mildly Amusing Anecdote' before they realized they needed to be more direct."
(Pause, and Frage glares at the speakers again.)
Frage: "It's still just wrong."
UIM: "It's not as bad as 'This is not a conspiracy to commit murder,' or 'This is not a serial killing spree.' "
Frage: "It is, because you're killing my patience."

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.