Swearing gets really old

I like what somebody said about swearing and how tedious it gets to hear someone use profanity all the time:

My husband swears a lot and it's really getting old. S*t, d**n, *ss and an emphatic f**k (she dreamed!) don't bother me at all. But he CONSTANTLY uses f**ker, c**ks**ker and m*th*rf**ker. If you say c**ks**ker or m*th*rf**ker when you drop a piece of bread or burn your finger, you're tapped out. There really isn't much worse that you can say. What if you get hit by a car, or your house burns down, or someone shoots your dog? You've already used up the worst words. Believe me, I can swear like a trucker IF PROVOKED, but overusing curses just makes one sound unintelligent, like you can't think of a smart thing to say. It's like getting into a physical fight (unless you are in danger, someone is attacking you or a loved one, etc.) Gee, I really have nothing intelligent to say, I think I'll just punch this guy or say f**king c*cks**ker because my pills fell on the floor. When you swear a lot, you rob the words of their impact and you just sound like an impatient, short-fused ass. When you hear it every day, it gets old really fast.

This is my Christmas post

This is my blog entry for Christmas Day. I'm actually entering it late, but I'm dating it to December 25th anyway. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

I got to spend Christmas Eve with a delightful family. Sadly, some of the men in that family tend to be way too foul-mouthed. On top of that, I have really serious reservations about the guy that one of these ladies is dating. He's friendly enough, but he just doesn't seem like a quality guy. She could do much better if she really chose to.

Mythbusters

I liked the following comment that somebody made regarding the Discovery Channel's show, [em]Mythbusters[/em].

As far as I'm concerned, the show is good because it's one of the few where what they do is more important than how they look, what their personalities are, how smooth their dialogue is, whether they sexually desirable, whether they are cool, whether the production is slick etc. At it's peak, the show was near unique in that they showed the backroom stuff. They showed not just the slickly performed payoff at the end, but how they built their rig, the scale rigs they built to try out ideas, the fuckups, the deadends, the rigs that didn't work.

It broke out of the mould in which every show must be based slick showiness, to the exclusion of substance.

It is slowly falling back into the boring standard mould, and is getting less and less to my taste because of it.

I learned a new term

I learned a new scientific term recently: HPBMC. I was familiar with the PBMC acronym, which stands for "peripheral blood mononuclear cells." Well then, "human PBMC" is naturally abbreviated as HPBMC.

Some things should be pretty obvious. Heh.

Okay, okay. In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty minor rant.

Lousy website design

I saw this website which had a small "search" function box in its upper right-hand corner. In the same corner, it had the following message:

Use the site's "Search Engine" located on the upper right corner, to list all content by keywords.

The designers of this site clearly had no sense of style or function. Not a lot of common sense, either. Oh, and they could use a good proofreader.

HBD, M.

Happy Birthday, Mother. Happy Birthday.

I don't want to write

I should be writing manuals tonight. I don't want to, though. I am so sick of writing.

Lousy customer service

I once ordered a pizza from this pizza joint, requesting light cheese (half as much cheese as usual). The cashier told me that it would be ready within 20 minutes, but 20 minutes later, they had not even put it into the oven yet. And when it was finally ready, the cashier tells me, "Okay, here is your pizza with EXTRA cheese. That'll be..."

I said, "Wait a minute. I asked for LESS cheese, not extra cheese. You're giving me the exact opposite of what I asked for."

"Well, will you pay for it anyway?" he asked. "We won't charge you anything extra."

I complained rather irately to the manager.

Stuff I want to do.

I'm trying to educate myself on a variety of things. This includes ancient Greek philosophy -- specifically, the work of Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. I also want to brush up on my microelectronics. I would also like to learn more about the chemistry of cryopreserved peripheral blood mononuclear cells.

What else? I need to brush up on politics and current events. I've never been good at that. I also want to read a bunch of classical novels -- or at the very least, abridged versions thereof. I like making literary references, after all.

Would love to read "Don Quixote" someday.

There just isn't enough time though, and I need my sleep.

I heard it through the Crepevine

While on a business trip, I was scouting around for a good place to eat. Normally, I would check out an inexpensive pizza place or some manner of healthy eating (e.g. Boston Market). This crepe place caught my eye though, so I checked it out.

The dining there was wonderful! Loved the potatoes, and the crepe that I ordered was very flavorful. I forget what was in it, but it had some chicken and two types of cheeses.

Hopefully, it wasn't TOO fattening. I've love to try that place again someday.

Annoying people on a plane

I’m not terribly fond of travelling, and I especially hate flying for long distances.

Today, I took a long, long flight from North Carolina to California. The woman seated to my right brought her own meal on board, and it had a pretty strong odor. Sitting beside her was rather unpleasant at the time. I suspect that she was conscious of the odor though, because she seemed to be rushing to finish her meal.

Then there was the fella seated behind me. He was snoring very loudly, and several people kept looking his way. After a while, I discreetly tried tapping his knee in order to wake him up, but that didn’t work. He did wake up eventually, but would then promptly doze back off and start snoring immediately.

He also had a kid who kept kicking the armrest on my left-hand side. I had to keep turning to him and saying "Please stop doing that."

Good grief.

US Airways charges for drinks now?!??! And snacks, too?!?!?

I discovered that US Airways now charges for meals, snacks, and drinks that they serve on their flights. They must really be trying to cut back on their expenses. I can’t really complain, since I know that the airline industry is going through some pretty severe hardships right now.

I can’t help but think about Andre, a commercial pilot that I knew. It’s a safe bet that he doesn’t earn the same kind of salary that he used to command seven years ago. What a shame.

As an aside, I could use a raise myself.

Hailing a cab

I felt annoyed and then chagrined as I tried to hail a cab recently.

While on a business trip, I called this one cab to take me to the airport for my flight back home. The dispatcher said that it would take ten minutes. Well, 15 minutes elapsed, then 20. I called the dispatcher repeatedly, but got no reply. I have a feeling that he decided to take a break, and I was pretty annoyed.

I then saw a red cab park at a nearby coffeeshop, so I noted the telephone number on the cab and called it. Their dispatcher muddled around, talking to some co-workers and trying to figure out if they had any cabs in my area. As it turned out, the cab that I saw was available, so they told me that he'd be at my spot in 30 seconds.

Just then, I got a call from the driver from the original cab company that I called. He told me that he was right there, and that he could see me standing by this tree. At that point, I was tempted to blow him off; after all, he had kept me waiting for 25+ minutes, and I had just arranged for another ride. I decided to just take this opportunity though; after all, I needed the ride.

The driver fella turned out to be this very friendly guy from Yemen. He explained that he drove by my spot earlier, but was flagged down by this woman standing nearby. He naturally assumed that she was the one who called for the cab, which explained why he was so late.

So I went from being annoyed to chagrined. I also felt bad for that other cab company that I called. It was frustrating; I finally got ahold of a dispatcher and arranged for a ride, only to find out that it wasn't necessary anymore.

I'm trying to tell you!

I was kinda short with this one taxi dispatcher recently. I don't think that my reaction was unreasonable, but perhaps I could have been more patient.

I called this cab company, telling them that I was at a Starbucks and needed a ride to the airport. For whatever reason, the dispatcher didn't get what I meant (background noise, maybe?) and asked if I needed a ride to or from the airport. I explained the situation once again.

So he asked where I was. I told him, "I'm at the Starbucks at..." at which point he interrupted, "Yes. Where??!" At that point, I was getting pretty annoyed, and so I shot back, "I'm telling you!!!" and then, in a pique of frustration, hung up on the guy.

Maybe I could have been more patient with him. I do think that he should have at least let me finish instead of interrupting me in mid-sentence, though.

I hate to travel... or rather, to fly.

I hate flying, whether for business or pleasure. I'm not afraid of flying, but I do find it annoying.

Oh, there are perks to business travel. I like getting free meals, for example. I also like being able to rack up some perks on my credit cards. And sometimes, it's nice to see new places. Still, I'd prefer to stay home.

Besides, I never really get enough time to do any sight-seeing on these trips. I blew such an opportunity a few weeks ago, when I returned my rental car way too early. Oh, well.

It would help if I had company on these trips. Going sight-seeing alone just isn't very much fun.

A strange guy at the gym

There's this very strange guy at the gym. He's ambulatory and not obviously crippled in any way. He's overweight but not morbidly obese. Still, even though he looks like he's about my age, he moves like a 75-year-old whenever he sits in on our cardio classes.

I don't know what to make of him. The instructor tells us to march forward, and he just stays in place. We're told to pump our arms into the air, and he raises his hands to the height of his shoulders. He looks like he can move normally, but when it comes to basic exercise, he acts like an old man.

Now, I don't know the whole story here, and I want to be charitable. Still, he does seem like one of those guys who just moves lazily. You know, the kind of guy who's out of shape because he always uses the smallest, least strenuous motions that he can.

It's kinda hard to escape this conclusion. There are a good number of badly overweight people who attend these classes, but even though they're in pretty bad shape, most of them still move with more energy and alacrity. Ditto for most of the elderly people who attend these classes.

In a later post, I'll talk about some of the truly inspiring people who take these cardio classes. Boy, are they impressive!

Want to try these utilities

I need to try a couple of free third-party Windows utilities sometime. I'm talking about PrimoPDF and FastStone Capture. I currently use CutePDF for PDF printing and Paint Shop Pro for advanced screen captures, but these other utilities come highly recommended by PC World.

Speaking of which, I really miss Byte magazine. Too bad it was canned years ago.

Productive time

I like what this human resources person said on his or her blog. I think that the wisdom of what she wrote is lost on so many, especially when they manage people who work in technical or creative fields.

I especially like the following comment:

"I'm also thinking that I had hoped that as an economy we were moving away from measuring performance by face time and hours worked and measuring the value of our employees by the results they produce."

More on "colored"

In the previously mentioned discussion on the use of the term "colored person," one person offered the following mindnumbingly stupid response:

"If mere humans can name the president, a fact that changes far more rapidly, then mere humans can follow what terms are preferred by a substantial portion of the US population--terms that haven't changed in years. The "you can't complain because it all changes all the tiiiiime" excuse is ridiculous.... "

This person was owned by the following reply:

" #44 Yesterday, 11:36 PM
JThunder
Charter Member Join Date: Nov 2000
Posts: 9,624

Quote:
Originally Posted by jsgoddess
If mere humans can name the president, a fact that changes far more rapidly, then mere humans can follow what terms are preferred by a substantial portion of the US population--terms that haven't changed in years.

You can't be serious.

"First of all, the name of the President is an objective fact, easily looked up. The same cannot be said about preferred terminology. Just ask the Trekkers and the Trekkies.

Second, this isn't merely a question about which term is 'preferred.' Even if a term is not 'preferred,' that doesn't automatically make it offensive, outdated, or otherwise inappropriate.

And third, this very thread demonstrates that there is disagreement about the degree of propriety in using the term 'colored.' Heck, as I've pointed out, the majority of the respondents in this thread apparently disagree with you. What does that say about the ease of following whichever terms are preferred?

Again, I've known people to take offense at the term black, preferring the term 'African American.' I've known people who expressed the opposite preference instead. Which one of these groups is more worthy of your criticism?"