noconceptoftime

I had this dream a couple of nights ago – I was walking around in this swanky art gallery watching people look at pieces in an exhibition. Everyone is drinking champagne from ridiculously tall glasses, and they are dressed in evening gowns and tuxedos – though the styles seem to be from vaious time periods. I blame this on the fact that I have no idea what classy folk would wear, so I just picture dudes with tophats and tins of snuff escorting women that look like Marie Antoinette.

As the dream goes on, I become aware that this is some kind of afterlife situation, and all the paintings on the walls are people’s lives. People stop by to examine this piece or that, occasionally pausing to speak to the “artist” if they are nearby.

I make my way through the gallery, and I start to notice that some of the paintings are apparently interactive. Every once in a while, I see someone poke through the surface of a painting to start repositioning elements within the scene. Sometimes the whole painting changes, sometimes it doesn’t.

Everyone is delighted with what’s going on.

I walk down a hallway that is kind of a ramp, and I am suddenly in an arcade similar to Gameworks or Dave & Busters. I look off to one side and I see a dude in something that looks like a skiing simulator – a large, involved looking game where he is standing on two slats that move around while watching his avatar move on a big screen. Hi hands are stretched out in front of him – on one hand he is wearing a Nintendo power glove and in the other he is holding a track ball mouse. He is not using the mouse, it just rests in his open palm.

I feel an overwhelming urge to walk up and start spinning the ball on the mouse. As I move to do so, someone says “No.” I look over and see that a dude dressed as a Klingon is monitoring the guy playing the game. To be clear, this was not a Klingon, but specifically a regular dude in a rather poorly put together klingon costume. He takes hold of my arm, moves me away, points back at the guy playing and says “Those are crucial for maintaining balance.”

And then I woke up.

**EDIT**
Stovokor – Klingon Death Metal Band.

Unless it is already a horror movie. Then it gets rebooted as a romantic comedy.

Anyway, here is a trailer for Gobstopper. And a trailer is all you will ever get, because it is clearly too awesome to ever get made.

I absolutely love Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory, and after watching this, I realize that the original needs little editing to actually be a horror movie. Gene Wilder excels at standing around looking like a serial killer in any event.

The Johnny Depp version really didn’t leave a noticeable impression on me beyond “this is certainly a movie.” Like, I couldn’t even be bothered to hate it. That might just be my opinion being skewed toward the originals though, as I held basically the same sentiment toward the latest versions of both Star Trek and A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Fun Fact:
When I watched Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as a kid, I thought that the grandparents were all in the same bed because their legs were fused together somehow. I guess I didn’t really put together that it was more likely that they were unable to afford more beds, or more rooms in which to put them. Because of the poverty. Consequently, when Charlie brings the ticket home, and his grandfather gets up and starts dancing around, I thought the ticket was way more significant than it actually was. I remember feeling very bad for the other grandparents, because they were still stuck to each other, and there were no more tickets left.

I decided to take advantage of the incredibly beautiful day by busting out the jogging shoes. I got about two blocks before my body cried out “WTF are you doing fatty? You haven’t gone jogging in like a year. Your ass is chair-shaped now. This is too much activity.” I looked to my brain for some motivational assistance, but it was all “Don’t look at me. All I know is your paladin isn’t going to level herself.” However, I was already outside, so I decided to press on.

I believe this was the universe’s way of rewarding me:

So is this ad random or targeted? Facebook definitely keyed in on the face when I uploaded the pic, and became very insistent that I tag tiny metal Buddha head as one of my friends. This happens a lot with t-shirts and posters which depict faces as well. This makes me wonder about the algorithm used to pick faces out of an image. Clearly it looks for features, and probably a general head shaped outline, but likely can’t pinpoint subtler details like skin reflectivity. I find it very cool how much more you can suss out about the internal workings of a flawed system, as opposed to one that works perfectly.

It would also appear to have some issues with context, since this head is just sitting on my desk and not at all attached to a body. Or maybe Facebook is just allowing for the possibility that you do in fact have a severed head sitting on your desk and might want to post a pic of it under “What’s on your mind?”. And that you might want to tag that person. To give their family closure I guess.

Either way, epic(anthic) win.

So, I had a job interview recently at this place: Netsmart. It is possible that I applied at this place just because I feel the name settles in nicely with the likes of TruSecure and Cybertrust, which are company names already on my resume. If I get hired there, it will be like I have collected a set of something, like a trilogy. Or an evolved pokemon.

In related news, I am no longer working at Cisco. I was unhired due to the recent workforce restructuring. Not to worry though, the job offers are already rolling in.

I freaked out for about five minutes when I got an email from my boss saying she happened to be in town and wanted to take the opportunity for a face to face meeting – historically this is the sort of thing which precedes a firin’.

I didn’t really feel much loss connected with leaving the job itself, and I have to wonder if that has to do with the way I worked. I did not go to an office very often, as Cisco is good enough to allow employees the option to work from home. Pretty much all interaction with my co-workers was via email and chat. So not a whole lot has been different, except I have 10-12 hours a day free that I did not before. I have become quite skilled at Starcraft. And by skilled, I mean competent. I’m not ready for the Korean league or anything.

Also, a fat severance package has a somewhat calming effect on the nerves.

I saw a couple of articles like this one encouraging former employees not to sign the general release required for the severance package:

” . . . the severance amount may not be sufficiently paying you for what you are releasing. Consider the resources, the lack of work life balance, the time you have dedicated to Cisco. Is the severance fair?”

Maybe I should have sued?

No, probably not.

While there was often a lack of work/life balance, I imagine there was at least a chance that I could have alleviated that had I bothered looking for another job. I doubt being too lazy to explore career alternatives is reasonable grounds for a lawsuit.

Anyway, job searching is on hold for the week for jury duty, since a job interview is not a valid reason to miss a day. That seems reasonable if you have already been selected for a case, but thus far I have just been taking up space in the jury pool. So, instead of going to a job interview this morning, I watched half of a shitty movie that kinda looked like a remake of The Great Outdoors. It had Adam Sandler and the fat guy from King of Queens in it.

My old phone contract went away with my old job. This required a new number and fresh 2 year commitment to Verizon. It also provided me with an opportunity to snag a new phone. However, any phone that looks even a little bit like it might have a touch screen requires a data plan at this point – except this one:

Everyone seems to hate this phone – and as it was originally marketed, that’s totally understandable. It’s a phone with no apps or other significant smartphone features, but they tried to attach the same data plan required for say, a Droid. It was billed as a smartphone for teens, and so was not supposed to need all the apps. It was instead meant to integrate with social sites, such that you would more often be checking your friends’ Facebook status and uploading pictures with this phone, rather than texting or calling people.

I would not have paid $150 plus data plan for this phone. It did seem to be a pretty excellent deal at $0 and no data plan, so I think they have found the sweet spot, pricewise. And the phone itself has a decent amount of hardware features, it’s just that they are not used for anything in particular. It has wi-fi, which was the biggest reason for getting it. It also has a GPS chip (used for geotagging in one iteration of the OS). Here are the full specs, if anyone is interested: KIN Hardware Specs.

So, it’s like they’re basically expecting you to install a new OS on it, right?

Actually, despite the fact that dolphins are notorious rapists, Putin is probably still in complete control of the situation and was just down for a dolphin three-way.

Given that he has a reputation for badassery and once gave rohypnol to a tiger, I don’t think it is outside the realm of possibility that Putin has just decided to nail one of every species, in case anyone thinks he can’t.

I realize it’s not much of a conquest if you had to use rohypnol, but Putin’s methods vary from gentle to direct. The point is, at the end of the day he gets the job done. No excuses.

I am frightened because this might be targeted advertising, implying that I have searched for some combination of terms which makes Google assume I am looking for an extreme chemical peel.

Facebook is also trying to evaluate my tastes: