Smitty5k, The Definition of Optimism

GM was"too big fail." So the taxpayers had to bail it
out and now own a 60% stake in the "new company"

Here are my questions:

1. Is corporate bankruptcy just a total joke? Something tells me
   if I went “bankrupt” tomorrow I would not “emerge a stronger
   and more viable consumer.”

2. Will GM still be too big to fail after the “restructuring”
   and other bankruptapaloza that goes on? Are regulations being
   created to prevent companies from becoming “too big to fail.”

3. Are all US companies that are “too big to fail” now being
   regulated to reduce their size to that of a “failable” company?

If 2 and 3 don't sound very
capitalistic, I would submit that the the government buying out a
failing company doesn't sound very capitalistic either. I'd prefer to
see us getting out the business of getting fucked by corporate greed
whores. To me that seems like starting to clearly define what “too
big to fail” is and putting a cap on it. I'm sorry if you don't like that anymore commrade, but in States of United, government buys you!

I think the kicker for me will be in
20-30 years when Social Security fails. All of those people our age
will be wondering if we are getting a governement bailout. We can all travel to
the local junk yards where all the now dead GM vehicles of “phoenix that
rose from the ashes of the Bad GM” will be rusting away.

My work day has been very busy lately. As a result of that, I’ve been focusing some of my time on Getting Things Done. I found some posts on using OneNote for implementing GTD, and I’ve been pretty successful in using it so far. I’ve also implemented a Zero Inbox scheme using some macros in Outlook. I’ve been doing this pretty strongly for about a month now and I have to say it makes a difference.

I know it has been insanely quiet here. Many factors, work being the biggest.

So anyway, here's the deal. About 3 weeks ago, I started not feeling real great. I was getting a lot of really pounding headaches and my blood pressure was on the high side. I was also feeling tired a lot. My alarm would go off and I would just not want to get up. It started leading me to the conclusion that it is probably time I go to see a doctor. In truth, I haven't been to see one since college. I suppose in some ways that is good. However, with the wife and I thinking strongly about starting a family, I figured I should get a physical.

So now some background. In truth, I don't like going to the doctor. I'm sure that is true for most people. Most of the times I've seen a doctor it's resulted in batteries of painful tests and procedures and a major surgery that left me with some great after effects. While it beats being dead, its also hard to rationalize going when you feel like nothing is really wrong with you. I also started feeling better last week and started to think, well I'm feeling better again so do I really need to go? The scared kid in me says "no" and the adult says "yes."

So I manned up last week. We have a "health coach" service at work that can help you find a doctor. So I called and got some info, I also talked to someone at work who lives in my area. Based on those things, I found a good fit. So after forgetting at the end of last week, I called today. The doctor operates out of a popular clinical in my town. My wife's doctor is also there. They are also connected with the hospital in town, so it seems like a win. So I call and confirm the Doc is still taking new patients, and get hastily transferred to his office. So I go from a person, to a machine. I pick that I want to setup a future appointment and get told to "stay on the line" for the receptionist. I wait. I wait more. Five minutes later and after the forth "your call is important to us" I hang up.

So of course the little kid is saying "see smart guy, they can't even answer the phone."

Usually I just laugh it off. I have to with my luck. This was just one of those things, I was already anxious about this and a bad first impression just made it worse. Deep sigh…

I heard this on the radio on my way home last night:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29022694/

Apparently, we've gone from "Change (I) can believe in" to "change we can delay to a later date." We want to update the infrastructure of this country and create some fantastic New Deal, but we can't commit to doing a conversion that is already 9 years delayed. What's funny is the FCC site isn't updated yet, but they may be waiting for the President to sign the bill. NPR made is sound like it done.

I guess you could say I've had my ear to the ground lately, in regards to picking up bad leadership traits. I'm willing to bet most people see these on a daily basis in various combinations.

• The combat rule. I picked this up after watching Band of Brothers. It answers the question "Would I follow you into combat." It is comprised of a number of things. Are you cool under pressure? How do you handle chain of command? How do you relate with your team? Is there such a thing as acceptable losses? I really like this one because for the most part the answer is binary.I don't think there is anyone I work for currently that is a "yes" to this question. But I have worked for/with several people in the past that would be.
• Me First. Pretty simple, who is first priority wise you or the team. Are you a buffer between external things are your team, so they can get work done or do you avoid "all the hassle" and let disruptions roll down to the contributors? Do you have to handle everything that is critically important or can you delegate. I would say I have a tendency to want to control the important things so they "get done right." I think strong leaders build trust and knowledge in other people by distributing the work. I'm not promoting giving someone a task they cannot do but if "everything important" is done by the leader, what happens when the leader is not available?
• Blood Gods. Getting results by demanding them. The name is based on the saying "You can't squeeze blood from a turnip." Blood Gods believe they can. There style of motivation is creating unrealistic and or impossible schedules and then expecting contributors to meet it. Usually done without any contributor input. In college we had a professor that assigned a ridiculous work load and at one point a guy yelled out in class "How many hours are supposed to be in a week man?"Blood Gods typically reward good work with more work.
• The Passive Aggressive. This comes in a lot of forms and I usually can't stand it. If you can't be direct, open and honest you probably shouldn't be leading anything.
• Leading By Committee.I'm guilty of this one especially when dealing with friends. I want as many people to be happy as possible. This just doesn't always work. Games have winners and losers.Leaders are there to make the tough calls. That's what it is all about.

There are a lot more but these are the ones I'm seeing most often. I'm sure many folks feel them too.

1.  I was really suprised to see Obama pushing to delay the digital swtich. While I'm guessing his position is related to the fact that the "coupon program" ran out of money, I'm pretty suprised that someone who is planning all this infrastructure work would not want to see this finally going ahead after all the previous delays. I think a party change was due in the government, but given the current financial crisis, his "print more money" proposals have me concerned. I don't think the role of government is to pay for everything for every american.
2. Despite no success in the matter and bankruptcy, SCO still hasn't given up their futile fight. For once, it seems like attempting to litigate the shit out of something has not been successful in America. Holy hell, write it down.
3. I ordered a new video card for my gaming rig this weekend. My x2 6800GT SLI setup lasted me a long time, but I've been seeing a bit of video lag in WoW while running some 25 man content. I'm upgrading to a 9800GT card with 512mb DDR3 memory.
4. I got the game World of Goo for Christmas and it has been very enjoyable. I heard a short on NPR and saw Penny-Arcade discuss Crayon Physics. Amazingly, the author used old school tactics and has a demo out. I have to say though, I was disappointed. While the idea behind the game is great, I broke it a few different times doing silly stuff. I really tried to make more crazy designs, but these didn't really work out.  I think the friction factoring is wrong on surfaces which makes trying to build simple machines fail. For example, I tried to make a simple catapult using a triangle as a base and a line across the top for the arm. Once I would draw the arm it would push the triangle down to the end of the line. I started drawing really big shapes which started to make the models behave in crazy ways, negating gravity at the end. At that point the game crashed out to desktop. Great idea, it just doesn't seem quite "there" yet. At least for how I would like to play with the game.

With the holiday break over, it's back to business as usual. It's been a relatively peaceful transition on work tasks, but it's been hard to get the body back into the grind. I let myself slip back into my "ideal steady state" over the break. Which means staying up until about midnight or one and getting up around 10-10:30. If I didn't work, that is probably the schedule I would run all the time. When I was just out of college I always wondered if running on that schedule would be productive. Essentially aligning what my body wanted to do naturally with the rest of my day. Of course, I find a lot of value in getting to work early. It gives me time to finish any last minute tasks from the previous day and get setup for the day's tasks.

On the personal front, I was hoping to get a little more done over the holidays but I also really needed to just "relax." I had a huge rush of activity the two weeks before Christmas. I like being busy at work it makes the time fly, but I did an unrealistic amount of work in a very short period of time. One of the biggest todo task I have at home is to get the basement measured so I can put together a drawing of it and plan out the office. It's something I am both excited to start and dreading at the same time. Big projects like this are fun, especially when you start off making insane progess. However, these are also the projects that kill you with all the "finishing details." I'm hoping I can get everything measured and drawn up by the end of january.

I did get one major task done over the holiday break. That was to get a new raid planning tool up and running for the WoW guild. I learned quite a bit about Python and Django doing it. I feel pretty good about the tool at this point. It's up and running live and has pretty much met my quality expectations. I figured I would have about 2-3 "major bugs", which I categorize as "we can't really use it like this." I also figured I'd have about 10-15 "minor bugs", which I categorize as "it would be nice if did this." Total, after the launch I fixed 2 majorish bugs and about 7 minor bugs. Pretty good in my opinion. 

I'm sure in 1985 serial communication was fucking cool. I bet it was like "HOLY SNERGZ R JUNK TALKS TO EACH OTHERZ" but its freaking annoying as hell to debug. I've spent a day trying to debug something that, from every view I can see, seems to be working but doesn't and every fucking thing that I could use help has given me shit.

• My brand new "developer laptop" with a 3gHz dual-core processor and 4 gig of memory has blue screened or locked up on me 5 times while I've been trying to fix this problem. 
• Somone or something reset the password on the "awesome" boot protection software on a spare laptop I have for debugging these types of things. Oh did I mention every time you try to access it after the limit it increases the lockout timer. 30 seconds, 1 minute, 1.5 minutes, 3.5 minutes, 15 minutes….eat my ass.
• One of my Linux boxes randomly doesn't want root to run any X applications in Gnome anymore. Which is awesome when you are trying to access devices as the only user allowed to do that……root.
• Either all my Serial and Null Modem cables are shit or serial data refuses to go from my PC to any other PC I have, but it goes to the device I'm debugging just fine….expect for one command.
• Serial needs more configurations and options, the 3500 I've already fucked with are not enough.

I'm stressed, pissed and technology is making me want debug it with a two ton sledge hammer that spews molten rage.

Probably more accurate to say "Game Update" since WoW is the only game I am actively playing. So far the expansion has had some variety in terms of usual grind to MAX_LEVEL. There have been multiple quests that have left me going "That…was….awesome." There has been an equal share of the same old "get 20 bear asses" quests. I will say the instances have improved for the better. We did an instance within the new major city that literally took 15 minutes at most. All of the instances we have done so far have had between 3-5 bosses, minimal trash and none have taken longer than 45 minutes. Overal I think on the instanced content the setting is "just right."

Last night, I reached level 77 which allows me fly around northrend (FINALLY). I think that is going to be a game changer overall. In my opinion, removing the ability to fly for 7 new levels was a big turn off of the expansion. I understand why it was done, but knowing the logic doesn't change the fun factor of being "grounded" after much time and effort was spent in TBC getting the ability in the first place.

From a guild perspective things are a bit in turmoil for me at the moment. Pretty much all of my friends in the game powerleveled to 80. Two of my good friends were 80 within 3 days of the release. My fellow tanking buddy leveled with KT and I for the first two levels and then powered off to 80. The majority of them have started the new 10 and 25 man raid content. They are already collecting the next tier of gear and seem to just want to raid, raid raid. That has been very frustrating for me for a few reasons.

Prior to the expansion our guild planned that we would have at least 2 months before we started raiding again. However, with so many people powerleveling to 80 within the first 2 weeks of the release that plan was altered. While we "offically" (whatever that means) hasven't started raiding for all intents and purposes the raiders are raiding again. It also sounds like the guild will officially be skipping all the 10 man content and doing planning for 25 main raids. The plan I've heard so far is that the first week of Jan we are planning to start those raids. That means if you are interested in raiding you need to be geared up and have the basic requirements met to participate.

I think ultimately that is going to mean that I am going to lose my role as MT for the guild in favor of those people that powerleveled to 80 and have been running heroics and raids with and without the guild for gear. It really puts me in a tough position. Right now, I have so little concern for raiding in the guild that it isn't really a big deal. However, once I reach max level and do get the point where there isn't much to do, I'm sure I'll have some desire to raid again. It makes me feel like everything I did up until now was for nothing. It also has me evaluating my future in the game.

Today's blog is brought to you in part by: This rant from Jay and any game review of Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation.

 Also, there are probably going to be some spoilers if you are like me and decided to wait 2 years to see the "new" Indiana Jones movies. You've been warned.

I guess the best way to end any great collection of movies is make the last one so horribly shitty that the only way you might see more would be to point a telescope directly at your ass and hope for the best. I would imagine you might do that, make the last one so horrible I mean, so that people stop badgering you to make another. Another reason might be that ever since you gained popularity as a movie maker you have been brewing your own moonshine and it has completely killed the parts of brain that created anything good. A third reason might be that you just have a sick fascination with watching the faces of your fans writhe as you prison-shower-gang-rape every good story you ever created in a movie that you let your dog name.

Whatever magic that George Lucas ever possessed for telling a story and/or making movies has long since lost its flavor like some piece of anise flavored gum stuck to the bottom of a subway seat. I question whether he wrote any of his stories originally or if when he wrote them he was in some type of drug/booze/hooker coma that can no longer be reproduced or simulated in the strongly regulated times of today. After his beat down of the Star Wars Trilogy, I thought maybe he could redeem himself with the new Indy flick. I was wrong. So much about this movie is just lame.

1.) We ran out of Germans so now the Ruskys are the bad guys. Our classic "bad guy" has been replace with the Rasputin-like Col. Dr. Major Librarian Detective Insurance Agent Natasha Nogoodnik. She can read your mind d00d, better lock up those fantasies of hot communist sex with nubile commardes! "But see, the movie is real historical like because all the McCarthysim is going on…" as long as you ignore the fact that there are hundreds of heavily accented KGB guys running around the US that no one seems to notice. "Oh, yes Commrade, good with seeing you today?!" 

2.) Shia LaDueche is not and will never be an action star. No matter how much Hollywood tries. Yes he was funny in Transformers, but trying to portrait him like some biker badass just isn't it. I think most people figure out right away that he is the "long lost" kid of Indy and that Marion is his mother. The previews alone give that away. I'm fine with all of that, but once Indy finds out that the superstar *choke* is his son he keeps trying to act "fatherly." It's really corny and as the rolls on with these family dynamics it just makes you go "whaaaa?" I say we just bring back Short Round and be done with it.

3.) The plot line, this is probalby the real back-knifer. My guess is that based on naming things like "Attack Of The Clones" that this movie is supposed to be a throw back to Temple Of Doom rather than the 1 and 3 in the series. While many people did not like Temple Of Doom, I always enjoyed it because it was the first movie of the series I watched. It is much cheesier than the original but it has some decent action scenes as well. Plus, ripping people's hearts out is pretty sweet. All that being said, I think the Bible mythology story lines were the best. I had a feeling the crystal skull was going to mean aliens and once I saw the "artifact" in the movie I knew it was over. My guess is that Mr. Spielberg had a hand in that but I'll get into that in a bit. With the whole aliens story nothing really gets resolved. The movie ends with no discussion about why or what the fuck. "See, cauze it was aliens and then they had to leave." Awesome, personally I think those red assed baboons have been endings. 

 4.)Given the number of his movies that feature them, I'm convinced that the big-headed, small bodied aliens with huge eyes exstinguished their interest in anal probing on Spielberg and him alone. All of his movies about aliens have the same characteristics. The aliens always look the same, they always have this "knowledge" that no one else can know and they all leave with no explaination. I guess it keeps it mysterious after you watch a movie or TV series and then have no idea what the hell it was really about.

If you can't tell I was pretty disappointed with the movie. The only saving grace was that I got to watch it with my mom after Thanksgiving.