I kind of got involved in some strange conversation on the intertubes. It involved religion to some degree, and someone said that I have a level of "equanimity" about the universe. I liked the sound of that, as it made me feel less stupid than normal.

(I'm the best there is at what I do, and what I do is pretty stupid.)

I have a big joke that I have been using for several months. That I am a "Militant Apollo Fundamentalist" - that I worship the sun god. There's a reason for this. I figure worshiping the sun - Apollo - is the most productive I can be with my deity worshiping time. Because, unlike other deities, Apollo actually grants shit to you, every day, without thanks:

1) Light
2) Warmth
3) Vitamin D
4) Photosynthesis in plants, which means "food"
3) Sun Tans

That's a lot to be given for free!

Aside from Apollo, you might as well worship Danny DeVito. Because he's the one most likely to hear and answer your prayers.

This makes me sound like an atheist with a bunch of jokes to play.

However, if the truth be told, I best fall into the category of "deist". I believe, through logic, that there is a thing that we might call "god".

How is that, you ask? Mostly, it's Occam's Razor. The most simple explanation is likely the most correct one. I can hear several of my skeptic friends right now screaming, "THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS!"

But it does work that way.

So, yeah. We have this Big Bang thing. Given that, everything falls utterly into what we call "science". However, I have to ask the question: what caused the Big Bang? Well, okay. Many things, maybe? A previous universe collapsing on itself. Or something like that. Who knows?

But what caused that? And what caused the thing that caused that? And so forth, until we have turtles all the way down.

Eventually, we hit the idea of "First Cause". Something existed first. And that's a really fucked up concept. Something existed before time began. Think about it for a second. See if you can wrap your brain around that.

I'll wait.

This is where we start using the word eternal. That word - "eternal" - has been thinned out by our culture. We use it a lot, to be sure. Mostly in Christian creeds, mind you, but even there it has lost its meaning. The word means something VERY specific:

"Something that has always existed, and will always exist, and, through that, becomes its own reason for existing"

Eternal things were not created. There was nothing to create them. They are their own first cause.

That we exist is a given (well, that I exist; I'm not so sure about you fuckers still). Once we have that, it's an (admittedly complex) series of logic steps to find that there must be something that is eternal. And that thing, whatever it is, is the First Cause.

So. To my mind, the simplest explanation as to why the universe exists is that there is something that is Eternal. Occam's Razor.

For lack of a better term, we can call this thing "god."

Now, I am not certain that this "god" cares about us in ANY way, or is even aware that we exist any more than I am aware that there are bacterium swimming in the sweat my skin secretes. We are citizens of 1 planet among 8 (9!) in 1 solar system among, oh, 200 billion, in 1 galaxy among, oh, 10 trillion (easy). Those are some big numbers.

We're pretty much alone, I think.

Further, this "god" is bereft of what we call "morality". I don't think it even cares what "good" or "evil" are. These concepts are things for mortal creatures. I think that ascribing morality to a deity is the height of arrogance. Ants may very well have an idea of what is right and wrong to them but I don't give a fuck. I'll still squash them.

So "god" doesn't tell me what is fine and good or worthy of respect.

Without a deity to provide me with a map to what is right and wrong, I am left with my own, internal moral compass. That leaves me with a set of axioms to live by. They basically break down to a few simple rules, most of which are also driven by logic, and ultimately boil down to "greed is good."

That sounds bad. But let's be brutally honest with each other: you are the most important person that exists from your perspective. Oh, sure, you can try to deceive yourself into thinking "my partner or my children are more important than me" but that's a deflection: the reason they are more important to you is because you place that value on them. You may be willing to die for them, but you do so because you put that value on them.

Everything we do - everything - is for ourselves. This isn't a bad thing! Far from it. Selfishness is good! It's good for everyone.

Why? Because you, me, all of us - we may be individuals, but we are still members of a society. You are a hive creature. You cannot escape being part of the hive: it is part of your very nature.

The stronger the hive, the stronger the individual members of the hive. So, the laws of selfishness dictate that it is to your advantage to make the hive stronger.

These axioms are dependent. If an axiom violates a higher number, you shouldn't do it. Like the Laws of Robotics. Here are mine:

1) Don't be a Dick. Jesus said this, only nicer: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Dude had some smarts until he got stabbed and left to die on a hunk of wood. You're part of a hive. When the hive is stronger, you are stronger. If you're a dick, you make the hive weaker. Thus, you become weaker. Don't fuck over people. This is selfish, but good.

2) Take Care of your Peeps. You have a family. It may not be defined by blood. But you know who they are: the people you trust, the ones who will be there when the chips are down. You have to take care of these people as much as you can within your power. Because one day, they will take care of you. This is selfish, but good.

3) Pick a Brother Up. Your fellow hive members sometimes fall down. They may not be your family, but they are still part of the hive. Help them to become stronger, because as the hive grows, so do you. This is selfish, but good.

4) Scotch is Awesome. Fuck it. We've got very little time. As long as you're not hurting someone (axioms 1, 2, and 3), you might as well indulge in pleasure, since that is what makes life worthwhile. It's better to regret something you did do than to regret not doing something. Love who you love, love what you love. Everything drives to this, which is the ultimate degree of selfishness.

Effectively, as long as you follow 1, 2, and 3, you can engage in #4 as much as you want. 1-3 are the base. That's Taking Care of Business.

I am not saying "this is what you should do." I'm saying "this is what I do". It may or may not work for your personal situations or beliefs.

Given that statement, it hasn't failed me at this point.

I realize I am neither Republican or Democrat. I am socially liberal but fiscally and governmentally conservative. This creates a problem. So I'm going to make my own political party.

Here is the Manifesto of the Antidouchebagitarian Party. I am still working on some of the language and finer points. Feel free to comment.

1) Don't Be a Douchebag. This should be self-explanatory, but for the morons in the crowd we'll spell it out: leave me the fuck alone. The government should only be involved in the lives of its citizens where specific issues affect the society and not the individual. In other words, unless you have a specific legal reason to be sticking your fucking schnoz into my diapers, get the fuck away.

1a) End Governmental Recognition of Marriage. The word "marriage" is not a secular term; it has deep religious connotations and the government isn't in the business of managing people's belief in a wizard in the sky (or lack thereof). The government should recognize "civil partnerships" and afford the rights of what we call "marriage" to those unions; those are legal partnerships. It shouldn't care what those partnerships are for.

1b) Women Get to Choose to be Pregnant or Not. A crazy idea, I know, but we don't live in the middle ages anymore. Terminating pregnancies is a very personal choice, and one that the government has no right talking about.

1c) Fuck Off With Criminalized Prostitution and Marijuana Use. The taxes we could get from the decriminalization of these two things alone would be gangbusters. Plus, we could regulate two industries which are high-crime (and, in the case of prostitution, possible health threats). This also reduces police and court work load.

2) Science Makes the World Better. Ever wonder why no one you know is crippled from polio? Science. Ever wonder why smallpox doesn't kill hundreds of thousands every year? Science. Ever wonder why cancer isn't a death sentence? Science. As a species, we have one biological advantage that allowed us to get out of the trees and stop eating a diet that consists only of bananas: our fuckin' brains. Let's use 'em.

2a) Fund Research. This isn't just about medical research, but scientific research in general. Research brings in all sorts of happy stuff to our lives. We had no real practical reason to go to the moon but because of the research into that we got ball point pens and Tang. Practical science is secondary to research science; it's a result, not a cause. Smart people understand that general research will always make a society stronger (which leads to bullet point 3).

3) Be Selfish and Greedy. Don't take more of my money than you need. However, we are aware that when our whole society is stronger, we are stronger as individuals (since we are members of that society). So the laws of selfishness dictate that we want to enable the bulk of society to be productive, educatated, and protected. This may mean taking a lot of my money, but I also recognize I'll get the value back in other ways.

3a) Universal Health Care is a Must Have. Why? Because if everyone has even basic wellness check-ups, we will reduce our vulnerability, as a society, to interesting things like, oh, epidemics and bacteriological terrorism. Why is this greedy and selfish? Because if you don't get sick, you can't infect me with your cooties, dumbass.

3b) Education Spending Should Be Paramount. Why? Because if the populace is smarter, we do smarter things as a group. That means not passing dumbass laws based on the ten commandments, for example, which makes life better for everyone. It's selfish because a smarter populace ensures my job stability - which, in turn, ensures yours.

3c) Municipal Organization Spending Should Also Be High on the List. I'm talking cops and firemen and paramedics. We need to spend more money on the police force. I don't mean throwing more cops at crime; I mean throwing more money to make better cops (also maybe more cops). A handful of smarter police and fire departments with modern equipment will go further than a mass of poorly trained thugs.

3d) Infrastructure Spending Should Also Be High on the List. Sitting in traffic sucks. It makes my life less fun. Let's make my life more fun. This may require spending money. Bridges, roads, tunnels, trains, planes. Transportation is very important, but so also are things like clean water and power.

4) Lead Through Example and Not Fear. We should want to be our leaders, not fear them or the boogymen they purport to protect us from. This sort of ties into bullet point 1. Actually, it really ties into bullet point one. But I leave it as its own point because we shouldn't be doing shit like torturing people or starting wars over oil.

4a) With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility. If some group in the Congo decides to start butchering another group in the Congo, and we can stop it, we should. Because we can do it, even if others can't. We have a moral imperative to not let people get raped and butchered. This speaks to a global society. I'd like to say we should be isolationist but I can't: we are a global power.

4b) All For One and One For All. Civitas Romanae. This sounds stupid to say under point 4, but here goes: Fucking with one of us is fucking with all of us. This should be our foreign policy. I'm not talking about legal mumbo jumbo; I'm saying that if some stupid crew of fundies in the world decides to declare war on a citizen of our fair society, that we should step up to the plate and lay down the hammer.

4c) Don't be Obstructionist. We are for the people. The people may not often want what we think is best for them (something we can theoretically cure with better education). Be loud, be aggressive, be inflammatory, but ultimately bend to the will of society.

(This is about California state budgetary politics, which is pretty dry reading. However, if you bear with me, I'll try to make this funny while also being educational. Also attempting to foist my political views on you [mostly that I want to get Prop 13 repealed].

Those of you not living in California, feel free to buzz off and pick your noses or whatever. Eat some paste.)

My fellow Californians,

On May 19th, we have a super-exciting Special Election! I love these things. These are the elections where we spend a lot of money trying to fix or undo all the things that a bunch of morons voted into law in previous elections.

This particular special election is based around the Great California Budget Crisis of 2008-2009¹.

Let's start with an overview about why we have this budget crisis. It's quite simple, really, and has to do with the following cycle of madness:

A) The state budget is determined legislatively: the state's constitution says how much we have to set aside for any one program (be it education, super trains, or even government salaries)
B) The state budget requires a super-majority to pass (that's 2/3s of the State Legislature who have to agree to the budget)
C) The state budget is constitutionally required to balance
D) Any fucking lunatic can write any fucking lunatic amendment or proposition and get it on the ballot without much effort, which brings us back to the madness of item A, above

You may be thinking to yourself, "Self, I'm pretty sure the problem is the fault of all those dirty Republicans!" (or, if you're a Republican, you may want to blame the Democrats). You couldn't be more unbelievably wrong!

The roots of our problem lie with Proposition 13, voted into law in 1978 (so it's really your parents' fault, if they are from here). Now you may be asking yourself, "Self, what does a cap on property taxes have to do with our budget crisis?" I'm glad you asked!

Not much.

It's a secondary clause in the legalese that's the killer. In layman's terms (cribbed from the wiki):

"In addition to lowering property taxes, the initiative also contained language requiring a two-thirds majority in both legislative houses for future increases in all state tax rates or amounts of revenue collected, including income tax rates. It also requires two-thirds vote majority in local elections for local governments wishing to raise special taxes."

So this is where we get our utterly moronic "Super Majority" bit from. 2/3rds of our elected officials have to agree to raise taxes - any taxes. And as we all know, getting 2/3rds of a bunch of people who have vested interests in getting re-elected to agree to raise taxes. . . well. It's just not gonna happen.

(Warren Buffet, Ahnuld's economic adviser and like, the richest guy in the world, suggested that it be repealed to help avoid problems like this.)

By and large, Californians enjoy spending money on programs. Some of these programs are smart while some are lunatic and stupid. However, the quality of these programs really doesn't matter because I think that we, as a state, seem to think that money just comes from some magic fountain someplace. A measure says that the budget will allocate seven billion dollars for reforestation? Sure! Who knows where the money comes from; that's the governor's problem. Write it into the constitution, stat!

(This may be why a state of liberal Democrats needs to have Republican governors. We need a father figure.)

So that brings us to the special election, which is a mash of both good ideas and bad ideas. Pete Rates does a pretty good job of laying out the props and which ones are good and bad.

I suggest you familiarize yourself with it (read: don't be a douchebag; understand what the fuck is going on).

I pretty much agree with everything he says though I'm still vacillating on Prop 1A (I may likely vote "NO" on it). As a general rule, I vote NO on everything, especially if it isn't very clear, or it seems like a band-aid on a problem. Voting "No" never makes things worse while voting "Yes" can (small government FTW!).

I should write up a manifesto for my new political party, which I am tentatively calling the Antidouchbagitarian Party.

I definitely agree with his argument against Prop 1F - specifically that it comes across as vindictive and childish.

Anyways. Go vote on May 19th, and don't be a douchebag when you do so.


1. Who knew that there would be a Wikipedia entry about this?

A few tips for aspiring java developers out there.

Let's say I write you a specification and I say that I need a method, public Foo write(Foo f). This means that I want you to write a method that persists a Foo object, f, to the database, and returns me the same object, only with the id set.

Here is how NOT to write it:

public boolean write(Foo f) {
  if (f.getName() != null) {
    // write
  }
  return true;
}

Let's go through what's wrong here, step by step.

First, you're giving me a boolean response. True or false. That's not what I asked for. The reason I want the Foo object back is so that I can reference its ID later in the game.

Second, if the lack of the "Name" field is going to cause the write to fail, TELL ME THIS. Throw an exception. Do not silently simply choose not to work.

Third, if it fails, and you still can't send me the Foo object back, at least return false! In this case, I will *always* think it works. Always.

A better way to do this method is this:

public Foo write(Foo f) throws Exception {
  if (f.getName() == null) {
    throw new Exception("Name is null");
  }
  try {
    // do the write, throw an exception on error.
  } catch (Exception e) {
    e.printStacktrace();
    return null;
  }
  return f;
}

Do it this way, and I'll be far less likely to stab you.

This ad makes me want to beat people to death.

Several sources are reporting that the great, "democratic" and "free" "nation" of Iraq is going to start performing mass executions on prisoners in death row.

Whose "crime" is homosexuality.

Yes. They are supposedly going to start killing people for being gay.

Coming soon to a battle theater near you! Killing people who are Jewish and Romany!

The world needs to stop sucking now.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the phenomenon of social retardation. That is, the inability for many people I know (mostly nerds and geeks) to observe basic manners and, well, interact well with others. This is a long post, and I write it with self-awareness of my own shortcomings (historical and otherwise).

A long time ago, those of us working at Organic in the content engineering department (CE-SF Forever, Foo!) were a very tight-knit bunch. We were also complete and utter failures at interacting with each other - not to mention anyone outside of our circle. We were (are) a bunch of nerds, and (like most nerds) want to think of the world from a pragmatist perspective.

A guy I worked with (his name is Huff) was probably the least socially retarded among us, and he said this once, in all seriousness:

"I work with you guys, and you're all brilliant motherfuckers, but you're all socially retarded."

And he was right. We were (still are, to a great extent).

That comment was very, very important to me, and I'll explain why.

To me, it was a shocking eye-opener. To realize that someone I whose opinion I cared about perceived me in that way. It sometimes takes a friend to tell you the bad things about yourself. I like to think I'm independent and self-aware, but the fact is that we all have blinders on when it comes to our weaknesses - especially in the arena of social interaction.

The first lesson in becoming competent at anything is being able to recognize your own incompetency.

So, I am saying this to you, my friends reading this, those I care about:

You are socially retarded.

Now, your first emotional response upon hearing that phrase is likely a defensive one. Quite possibly you are thinking to yourself, "Hey, fuuuuuuck you. What the fuck do you know?"

This is a normal reaction. I'll allow you a moment to work through it. People will not usually tell you when you are fucking up so it is up to you to be open to the possibility that you have a flaw. If you truly are a pragmatist you'll stop for a moment and rethink your history and actions and realize that I'm right. At that point, we can continue the conversation.


Go ahead. I'll wait.

.
.
.
o/~ da da da, i've got soul but i'm not a soldier... o/~
.
.
.

You okay? Good. Let's move on.

Everyone is on the Short Bus of Social Interaction to some degree or another. Everyone. $DEITY knows I am - though I like to think I've come a long way in the opposite direction over the past decade since he said that to me. I can list off a shit-ton of things I do poorly.

(For example, for the past year I have been keeping a great deal of people who like me at arm's length simply because I'm afraid that they won't like the person I am if they really get to know me. That's socially retarded. It implies that I know more about their feelings about me than they do.)

Here are some things I have learned about this. Things that I have personally been guilty of (and/or still struggle with). Not all of them may apply to you; I am speaking very broadly. However, do not take that statement to mean that you should not hold yourself up to a microscope with regards to any one particular issue: failure to do so is being dishonest to yourself.

Let's do a list.


1) When someone gives you a compliment, the correct response is "Thank you." Do not think that you should respond with a level of humility and downplay the compliment: that insults both you and the person who complimented you (you are basically telling them that they have bad taste). Feigned humility smells like three-day fish.

2) When you ask someone for advice, and they give it to you, the correct response is "Thank you." Even if you think the advice is bad, or unwarranted, or coming from a position of ignorance. Someone else has taken time out of their lives to respond to your request, regardless of its value. Certainly do not downplay their contribution.

This also goes for people doing you favors of any degree. Someone has put themselves out on a limb for you, whether it is as simple as a ride to the doctor, bringing you chicken soup when you're sick, or even as heavy as getting you a job.

Don't think that because someone is a good friend that you can get away without saying these things, either. Taking someone's help for granted is a totally retarded thing to do.

3) When someone offers to buy you a drink, the correct response is "Thank you." (You may also say "cheers".) You are not obligated to accept the drink, but you must decline with taste (see below). You are not obligated to buy them a drink in return: people do this because they like you and enjoy your company.

It may seem weird - that someone may want to spend time with you - but that's why.

4) When someone offers to buy you a drink, and you must decline, do so with grace and thanks. You can say anything: "Thank you, but I need to drive, so I'm on water for now," or "Thanks, but I've had too much," or "Thanks, but I have to get back to work."

There are a ton of excuses, and the only one that doesn't work is "I think you're an asshole."

5) You do not always have to be right, even in your own field, even when you are. It can be irritating when someone talks out of their ass about something you know a great deal about and the first impulse for many people (myself included) is to crush, maim, and destroy. That's testosterone talking.

It is okay not to argue with people, especially if it may put a strain on a friendship.

This is a trap I fall into a lot.

6) Further, you do not always have to be right. Seriously, there are many, many people who know more about the things you think you know than you.

Back when I was a crazy anarcho-leftist in college earning my FBI file, my crew and I attended a speech given by William F. Buckley, Jr. at my school. We were there to raise trouble. During the question and answer period, one of the women I was with stood up and made some stupid accusatory comment or other about conservative economic policies.

Buckley took a beat, a breathe, and then, in less then ten words, annihilated everything she said, everything she would ever say on the subject, and totally destroyed our cause. We had walked into his House, and our arrogance in thinking we knew more about it than him was telling.

This one can also be summed up as "Don't talk about shit you don't know about."

7) Few people wish to hear about your level 17 Paladin. Sad, but true. There are people who do. These people will make themselves known to you. This applies to everything nerdy, not just games: consider the last time you got in a conversation with someone about SMTP headers and their eyes glazed over.

Nerdism finds nerdism. Your braggadocio about your World of Warcraft accomplishments can wait until you're talking with other Warcraft players.

8) Don't make excuses for being a social retard. This just makes you look more socially retarded because it says, effectively, that you do not believe yourself to be bound by the polite rules of society.

There is a difference between a reason and an excuse. With reasons, you take responsibility for your actions; with excuses you do not. "I was drunk," "I have OCD," "I have low-grade Asperger's" - these can be used in either vein.

No one will tell you when you are doing it wrong, so it's better not to bring up a reason or excuse.

9) If you make plans with someone, and then must cancel, let them know. Further, offer to reschedule. Any reason will do except "I decided that I don't like you." Be serious about rescheduling, even if you don't want to do anything. This is just being polite.

There is a further point here: if you are going to be late, let your appointment know.

10) If you decline every invitation from someone, they will eventually stop sending you invites. At some point, you may be stuck wondering why no one invites you to anything and get all wound up and depressed. Well, that's why.

(There is a solution, though: invite people to do stuff.)

11) Be aware that what you do impacts other people. This can be taken very broadly, but I mean it in a more minute sense.

When you light up a cigarette, are there people around? Is the smoke drifting into their eyes? When you leave a building, and let the door swing shut, did you just smack someone in the face with it? When you leave a building, did you just step into someone's way without looking? When you play music in your apartment loudly at two a.m., are your neighbors being forced to rock out with you?

Before you throw ten gangster rap tracks onto the jukebox, see what people are listening to. You can listen to your own music at home; forcing it on a populace just drives people away and makes you an asshole.

12) Everyone wants to be the center of attention. You do not have to be. Seriously. Some people have a "performer" personality (I do) and that's fine, but if you get more than one person like this in a group, what follows is a series of one-up-manships that just irritate people. If you really are as cool as you think you are, you can let someone else take the spotlight for a while.

13) When in a conversation, listen to your friend instead of simply waiting for your turn to speak. This is an art. It takes a lot of practice (lord knows I trip up on it a lot). Over time, though, it becomes easier, and you will derive empathy towards people and learn social cues better.

14) If you are angry with someone, or they have hurt you, and they seem oblivious to this fact, you must tell them. Fact: socially retarded people are not good at giving cues. Fact: socially retarded people are poor at reading cues. Fact: most people are socially retarded.

A week or so ago, I was involved in a conversation with a couple people, and one of them was pretty drunk. In response to something I said about some sort of political thing, he called me "un-American." It was a pretty hefty insult, given the situation, and it pissed me off. At the time, I let it go: he was deep in the sauce.

The next time I saw him, I said, calmly, "the last time we spoke, you called me un-American. And frankly, that pissed me off a great deal." He got this totally surprised look in his eyes, apologized profusely, and bought me beers for the rest of the evening. Things are cool with us now, but if I hadn't said anything it would just have festered for weeks, poisoning our relationship.

People are not able to read minds, even people like me with Batman-level perceptive abilities.

15) Don't be "that guy" who sits in a corner and doesn't talk to anybody. You know exactly what I'm talking about, too. Maybe you're at a party and you really only know one person there. Maybe you're in a bad mood. Whatever.

When you do this - sit in a corner - you exude a passive aggressive hostility. What you're saying is that you are waiting for someone else to come and talk to you - that you are too important to make the first social move. Well, guess what? You're not.

Remember, everyone is socially retarded. Here is the big secret to making friends: 90% of the work is simply introducing yourself. That may seem like a high wall, but it doesn't take much. "Hi, my name is Brandon. I overheard you talking about foobar earlier, and I like foobar." Bam! Heavy lifting done.

16) No one wants to be disliked. Everyone wants to make friends. This is the third tier of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. It is present in every human. With that in mind, it is usually a good practice to assume "good intentions."

Socially retarded people will make dumbass comments. Well intended, but dumbass comments - they'll sound like backhand compliments, for instance. What you do here is take it in stride, recognize it for being a socially retarded comment, and move on.

If they really are trying to be hostile to you, well. That's their problem, and you can safely ignore them. Just back out of the conversation and find something else to do.

17) When you yell at a customer service representative, you are being an asshole. Seriously, you're being a total fucking douchebag. Not just to the person on the other end of the line, but also to everyone within earshot. They're just doing a job, my friend - they are not personally trying to fuck you over.

Shit happens; how you deal with it says a lot about you as a person.

18) Be a good customer. Calculating an exact tip makes you an asshole. Tip well and tip often. The people who work in restaurants and coffee shops? They have shitty jobs. They deal with assholes yelling at them all the time. Don't be the asshole.

When you do tip math, you look like you are unwilling to give them a tip, which makes you an asshole. If the service is horrible, leave a small amount, but if it's even mediocre, go at least 15% (higher for excellent service).

If you have a coffee shop or restaurant you are a regular at, drop a hundred bucks in the tip jar at Christmastime - you'll find that you get more than a hundred dollars value out of that gesture over the course of a year.

Be the good customer - the one they want to come back. The one they smile at when you walk in.

19) Iconoclasts do not get invited to prom. Sure, sure, angst and intentional non-conformity was cool and all when you were 19, but welcome to your thirties. When you rock the boat just to rock the boat, you piss people off and create headaches.

This can be especially fucked up in a job situation: your manager is going to catch hell for your actions and may have to go out on a limb for you (maybe he already has). Now you've made him look like an asshole: someone who was looking out for you. When you create one too many problems, you'll stop getting invitations (or perhaps be forcibly dis-invited from somewhere).

Again: what you do affects other people.

20) Terse replies do not foster communication. Sure, sure. TCIP headers are compressed, and a lot of information can be displayed in a few simple words.

We live in a world of Twitter, txtmsgs, and Facebook updates so we are used to short communication bursts. However, most of the time people like elaboration. Email and the internet are horrible methods of communication because so much subtext is lost. Be aware that terse replies come across as passive-aggressive or even hostile.

In face-to-face communication, terse replies make you come across as a cold fish. Leave openings for questions. Elaborate.

If someone asks you, "Do you like Battlestar Galactica?" they're really asking you why or why you do not like it. Simply saying "yes" or "no" ends the conversation. Even a simple, "yes, I like it because Number Six is smoking hot," will do.

There. That's twenty, which is a nice round number. Many of these overlap but like similar tools in a toolset have subtle differences and applications.

Now, I have to get back to being a surly iconoclast.

Dear France:

It is generally unwise to say that you are going to "smash the Americans". What usually happens is that you get your ass handed to you in one of the most amazing upsets in sports history.

(Seriously: France holds the world record; they have a 2.5 second lead through almost the entire race; they've pretty much got a lock on it. Then we come from behind in the last half of the last length of the last leg and own them by 8/100s of a second. It's phenomenal.)

There is video here, but dunno how long it will last. Oh, and it is the Chinese feed, so good luck understanding them - however, they get REALLY excited at the end.

If I go out of my way to buy you a ticket to see a sold out showing of a popular movie, and you cannot/will not be able to make it for some reason, and there are fifty other people who have asked for a ticket that I could have given it to, here is what you do to AVOID BEING BEATEN TO DEATH BY A CLAW HAMMER:

You call and tell me.

Hell. Just send me a text message!

I could have filled that seat all the way up to 15 minutes before the show!

Grrrr.

KBK and I were talking about this earlier, and I've decided that everyone should read this at least once a year.

Based on some comments I made in other entries, I thought I'd consolidate a single post about Halo 3 multiplayer.

Okay. So, I played a bunch online last night and the night before.

Here are my experiences so far.

First, there are two kinds of online games in Halo 3: death match (where everyone kills everyone) and team skirmish type stuff (capture the flag, bomb the enemy base, hold territories, etc.). They have two totally different kinds of players.

The death match kids are jackholes. And they talk a lot. And by "a lot" I mean "a lot of shit".

I was in a 4 man deathmatch and two of the guys knew each other. Apparently, "Jormosaurus Rex" is impossible to pronounce, so they called me "The Retard." Even though the score was like this:

Jormosaurus Rex: 25
Jackhole 1: 15
Jackhole 2: 6
Jackhole 3: 3

After a while, every time I killed one, I started saying things like, "chalk another up for the retard" or "you got owned by the retard" or whatever just so I was paying them back in kind.

Guys like that are why I don't play the death match games. They were just dicks.

Then I got into some team games. These guys are silent as graves. They never talk. Ever.

The games were fun, but after three or four matches I got kicked by the lobby leader because my ping was bad.

Even though I had earned the MVP award three games running. Sure, I had a lousy ping, but I was plantin' bombs and cappin' jackholes right and left.

(I was also drunk, too. So here I am with a shitty ping, drunk, twice the age of the average player, and I barely play the game. Owning everyone.)

Actually, I think she kicked me because I was "chatty". As in, I was doing things like "telling people where I was going" and "letting my team know my plan for bomb delivery" and "telling people that specific territories were being overrun" and "telling my team that I had taken a position on a territory" and "telling my team that I had found our dropped flag and was guarding it until reset" and shit like that.

You know. Being a good player.

However, here's the thing. You have this sort of online "ranking". You start out as a raw recruit and then earn "XP" for doing cool shit and eventually rise up to like, officers and such. The game tries to set you up with players who have similar ranks: a raw recruit will not find himself in a game willed with lieutenants. This works well in theory.

I suspect that "skilled" players - guys who *aren't* jackholes - are going to have higher ranks because they earn their ribbons faster. Which means that the guys I'll have fun playing with are way up from me.

However, until I earn enough XP, I'm stuck dealing with jackholes. These guys can't play for dick, spending all their time talking shit or teabagging corpses. So they don't earn any ranks. Which means that, until I rise up enough, I'm stuck playing with dicks.

After about an hour, I had hit something like "advanced private" or somesuch term. I expect it will get harder to rise in rank as I go, but if I have to spend much longer in jackhole land I'm probably done.

(Full Disclosure: I was once world-ranked (in the top 5,000) in Team Fortress Classic and my clan used to perform fairly well in the "Big Boy" matches. But that was like, 8 years ago, and I haven't really played competitive FPS games in a long time.)

I am reminded today of a saying my friend Maynard originated regarding project management:

"Projects should be more like Star Wars and less like Apocalypse Now."

Several of us agree that its the smartest thing ever said about management.

Star Wars projects are awesome. Everyone is excited, there is a directed goal, you get to do cool shit like cut people up with light sabers and blow up death stars, and at the end everyone is a hero.

Apocalypse Now projects are plodding hellholes of anguish. It starts out poorly managed with poorly defined goals and poorly applied resources. Then someone steals a surfboard, and then next thing you know you're on a boat in Indochina. Everyone on the team ends up getting killed (fired, quit, shuffled off) in some way or another. MAYBE, just MAYBE, you end up hanging out with a Playboy bunny for an hour (e.g., a hot chick gets hired in QA and then later fired). Meetings will be uncomfortable political bloodbaths, and in the end you're going to pair up with a crazy photographer and be subjected to horrors you can't imagine by insane men with no hair.

I have, unfortunately, been a star in both movies (and more often than not, I'm trapped in the cage listening to Col. Kurtz spout nonsense).

Food for thought.

My post the other day about Back in Black got me thinking about a text file I've been keeping for some time. It's a list of "life rules" or aphorisms or whatever that I have been trying to keep in mind as I avoid becoming a meat smear. From time to time I'd add something to it and promptly forget that the list existed.

Not all of these are originally mine; I thought they were great comments when I first heard or read them and have since adopted them. Where possible, I've included notes.

I keep adding to it.

1) Avoid starting sentences with "Basically..."
This is just irritating. Well chosen words imply this.

2) Change comes from will and will is enforced by symbolism. If you need to change your life, start by changing your brand of cigarettes or the furniture layout in your apartment.
I have found this to be true for close to twenty years now. It came from an off-the-cuff remark from a high-school friend of mine (Mike) when I remarked that I needed to change some things in my life and he said, "start with your cigarettes."

3) If a litigious jerk is threatening to sue you, ignore him. If he actually had a case, you'd already be in court.
This I learned from Lafe Chafin, my family's lawyer (he is now dead). I was being threatened by some asshat and he pointed this gem out to me.

4) Life is too short to smoke bad cigars.
A great bit of advice from Mike Powell. It's about more than simply smoking cigars.

5) Never trust the music taste of a man who does not own a copy of "Back in Black".
Seriously. If you don't own a copy of this. . .

6) If you keep looking behind you while walking, you'll eventually back into a pole and smack your head.
Don't dwell too much on the past.

7) The horizon is infinitely more interesting than your feet. Keep your head up when you walk.
This is a rewording of an old Amerindian saying I heard once. I used to walk staring at my feet. I realized, though, after seeing someone else do that, that you look insecure. Head up = confidence.

8) Keep an adequate supply of band-aids, ibuprofin, and neosporin on hand at all times. Don't bother with acetaminophen; it's efficiency as a pain-killer is overshadowed by its likelihood of causing kidney failure.
Better to have too much and not need it than need it and not have it. I almost killed myself once with an accidental acetaminophen overdose, so I avoid it.

9) When in a leadership position, be willing to make mistakes now and analyze them later.
This comes from bitter experience. Leaders make decisions. That's what they do. If one is constantly questioning one's own decisions, the soldiers won't have any faith in the orders.

10) Make sure to pad your estimates by 2 times. Sometimes you come in early, but managing expectations are more important than being quick.
Well, it's actually more important to do it *right* than *quick*, but that's a whole other discussion. It's a bad habit brought on by desire to appear like a bad-ass to have low estimates - but regardless of how good you are at your job, you will eventually screw yourself.

11) Never say, "I don't know what to say" to someone who is grieving. Of course you don't know what to say. Be a silent pillar; don't be a the dumbass who constantly pokes the wound, asking if there is anything you can do.
It's a reflex. People always do this. It doesn't mean they don't care - they do. It doesn't help, and may hurt - so why take the risk?

12) No one cares about your sexual escapades.
Talking about them just makes people uncomfortable. At best, bragging about them makes you look like you're overcompensating for something; at worst, you're a high-risk sleaze. It's tedious. Don't do it.

13) It's okay to get irritated at bad drivers.
Just mutter "dumbass" under your breath. Better than holding it in and allowing it to fester.

14) Never tell anyone your IQ or your SAT scores.
If they're below average, you'll be seen as a simpleton; if they're average, a schmoe; and if exceptional, you'll come off like an arrogant ass.

15) Biological conditions like alcoholism, ADD, Asperger's, OCD, etc. are not *excuses* for behavior. They are *reasons*. Overcome them.
This comes from some experience. I realized that I was blaming mistakes or dumbassery in my life on things like alcoholism as a way of trying to excuse the behavior - so that I could continue behaving like an ass. That's crap. ADD may be the *reason* why I can't focus sometimes, but it can never be an *excuse* as to why I don't get something done. Everyone has problems.

16) It is more important for a leader to show loyalty to his soldiers than vice-versa.
From experience both as a leader and a soldier. I have always been more loyal to managers who showed a loyalty to me, and I've found that by being loyal to my soldiers - by fighting for them - that they perform better as a team by having trust in their leadership.


17) When sitting down at a game of poker, look around at the players and find the sucker. If you don't see him, get up and leave, 'cause you're him.
Words of wisdom from my father. This is true of many things, not just poker.

18) Never play nine-ball with a man who grew up next to a poolhall.
Something I learned from my dad. I used to think I was hot shit at pool. Then I played him. He plays two games a year, both of them for 200 bucks, against this one guy who fancies himself the shark at the bar he hangs out at. Dad grew up next to a poolhall.

19) Don't try to hand-feed squirrels. They'll bite you and you'll end up having to get a bunch of shots "just in case."
Learned this in college. Forgot everything else.

19a) Raccoons are not cuddly.
Seriously. They aren't. They're vicious.

20) It's easier to just tell the truth all the time than remember the lies.
Again, something I learned a while back, though mostly from observing this guy I went to high school with. He'd lie about *everything*, and the shit just kept getting deeper and deeper until it crumbled with inconsistency.

21) No matter how smoking hot a woman is, some guy somewhere is sick of her.
I forget where I heard this one, but it's absolutely essential to remember when one is faced with a goddess.

22) Let your soldiers do their jobs.
This, too, comes from experience on both sides. A soldier won't trust your decisions if you don't trust his ability to execute them - and doing his job effectively neuters him. Leaders have ten minute tasks; soldiers have two hour ones.

23) Whenever your employers start requiring ID badges, you should start looking for a new job.
A bit of a rephrasing from Heinlein. Small companies are awesome. Once they get to a certain size, though, the culture that made them awesome has to go away. This usually coincides with everyone getting photo IDs.

24) Don't argue with people who have made up their mind. Save yourself the stress.
Advice from my philosophy advisor in college. I would get in these huge, frustrating arguments with other students and he pointed out that I just simply didn't need to continue the conversation once I got frustrated. A choice.

25) Always keep a pair of jumper cables in your car.
More useful than not.

26) There is no value in buying cheap shampoo or conditioner over the expensive stuff. Change your brands every three months.
I learned this from Michelle. I'd buy all this cheap crap and my hair would break and was generally unhealthy. Change is good.

27) Send your condolences or congratulations to someone in a card or letter, never by email.
This just seems like common sense to me. Physical letters - writing - carries more emotional power and importance than just dashing off an email (or worse, a comment in someone's blog). It shows that you actually care and are willing to take time.