Damn that Batman!

I haven't been forced to take a Myers-Briggs in years. And that wasn't even my fault, I swear. Some people had trouble dealing with my manager, so we had to do some group dynamics crap for two or three days. Mind you, I got along great with my manager. He was a competent, brash, insensitive MIT grad. That team need much more brutality from above, crying from below.

Anyway, I believe the last time I took the M-B I came out as an INTP. I retook one online this morning to see if I've changed. I haven't. Then I checked my results against The REAL Myers-Briggs Personality Types Made Relevant:

The Egghead

The typical INTP is a logical, abstract thinker whose intellect is ideally suited to understanding pure mathematics, linguistics, formal logic theory, and other pursuits unsuited to making a real living. The INTP can often understand even the most subtle nuances of lattice quantum chromodynamics, but cannot perform more concrete tasks such as dressing himself, operating a motor vehicle, or opening a door. An INTP may be able to tell you how to construct a nuclear reactor from a coconut and two pieces of string, but may be completely incapable of fixing a hole in a boat.

While I'm pretty strongly typed as INT, I only weakly express a preference between Perceiving/Judging. So if one more of you bastids pisses me off, I'm likely to become the outside contractor and build that damn Death Star.

via Mind Hacks

Should have written, didn't write. Must be Monday.

Another evening without writing. Very depressing. Especially since I'd started to mentally outline a short pulp story on my drive home from the shit-job. I've been meaning to repurpose a character I created a while back into something frothy and fun to submit to Astonishing Adventures and was making some real headway into the story, but then there was dinner and afterwards I got caught up watching tv instead. Since there's only a half-hour I care about on Mondays (HIMYM) and an extra half tonight to try the pilot of Aliens in America, it should have been easy to put in a few hours. Instead, there was a lot of junk watched for no good reason.

Maybe tomorrow.

Who knows? Maybe I'll work on that AND the bible for the web cartoon AND the pilot spec that needs refinement AND that DAMN 30 Rock spec I keep putting off. Or I'll download porn. You know, for research.

They really should play more Bjork here!

There's video above, FeedReader.

Brian's right. I have been blogging way more about tv than anything else. So in honor of the politics I've been leaving off the blog for awhile (I'm just too tired to focus on it most of the time) here's a little tribute to Iceland's lonely coalition troop, going home.

Chuck wore Chucks

Didn't get a chance to watch Chuck on Monday night because of a conflict, so I recorded the Saturday night replay. NBC has really done something right this time, because after an hour of high-octane television watching I can guaran-fucking-tee I will never have to waste my time with this piece of over-hyped shit again. NBC: Bringing you the worst over-hyped garbage EVER! What's that you say? You liked Chuck? Well, retard, go to another blog. You obviously only got here searching for naked pictures of Maria Sharapova (there aren't any: I don't like steroid junkies) or "sex with teacher" or the health benefits of blow jobs.

How many ways did Chuck go wrong? Let's start counting. I'll try to organize the points as well.

Techno-bullshit

1. The single magic computer with all the combined secrets of the NSA and CIA. In a room straight out of an IBM server ad.
2. The awesome vid screens in said server room.
3. The fact that the room was in a basement in an almost completely unsecured building in what was, I imagine, supposed to be Georgetown or downtown DC.
4. Umm, no backup?
   
5. The data that took, what, a full minute to transfer over a USB or FireWire connection but emailed from a wireless device in about three seconds.
6. Let's discuss the data itself: how is it more efficient to "encode the secrets in a series of pictures" than in, you know, files and words and pictures and video and normal ways? Look, steganography is cool and all, but its purpose is obscuring a message's existence, not encoding information.
   
7. The super-virus that makes a computer blow its brains out in mere seconds.
8. The NSA-super-ninja-lady doesn't grab the hard drive on the computer after it crashes to the floor? It would have survived the fall.
9. Oh wait. Apparently, that hard drive was constructed from Pringles, so it actually broke from the fall. It's a shame there aren't techniques one could use to recover data. Then again, I would not have expected the Nerd Herd to possess that knowledge or ability. They're buffoons, in real life and the show. I'd hope the CIA could afford to contact one of the many services that exist to do that, however.
10. Back to the data, again. Chuck gets the intel that the general is going to be killed, by bomb, in the Bonaventure. So that data was encoded in the pictures. Who put it there? Presumably, some agent had to receive the intel, process it, encode it, file a WI-912 form in triplicate, and enter it to the super-computer (I assume at the terminal since it appeared to be detached from the network.) Maybe right after his coffee break, he might have mentioned to someone the fact that he just entered information about a terrorist/assassination plot that was going to occur within the week.
11. This isn't really a technical quibble, but one about intelligence gathering: his accumulated knowledge is going to be stale and useless in about...three months. Also, the historical data...did it get destroyed in a warehouse fire right after being encoded by that guy up in (10)?
12. Again, this isn't exactly a technical quibble, but it fits best here. When did the NSA start assigning weapons with LED sights? Because that wasn't a laser Ricky Linderman was holding. Lasers don't spread when they hit a surface at an oblique angle.

Casting

13. It's pretty clear the studio or producers were looking for a Christine Taylor-type. Anyone who's seen the pilot for Heat Vision and Jack knows what I'm talking about. In fact, anyone who's seen that Ben Stiller/Jack Black bit of television genius knows that Chuck is a sad, sad shadow of that unproduced classic. So we're looking for a Christine Taylor-type. In Hollywood. Where every girl is blonde, pert, and beautiful (except the ones who are brunette, pert, and beautiful because they want to stand out from the crowd.) So they reach to the antipodes to find an actress. To her credit, only once did her piss-poor American accent really shine through, so she's doing a lot better than the male and female leads on Moonlight (the only new show this fall that compares to Chuck in terms of suckitude.) However, little miss bottle blonde has the blackest, coarsest eyebrow hairs I've ever seen on a lady. And that was not in HD. I'm very afraid for the poor people who had to see her in HD. Sure, she's cute. Sure she's got a cute body. She also appears to suffer from hypertrichosis. Of course, only her waxer knows and she's not talking.
14. Sidekick. There are, surprisingly, people out there who continue to compare this show to the excellent Reaper. Technically, they are similar. Here's an SAT-style analogy:
    Chuck : Reaper :: AM/PM burger : Steak at Morton's.
    Some of those people further discuss the Battle of the Sidekicks. Many don't like Tyler Labine's channeling of Jack Black, preferring the "style" of Joshua Gomez. Please see the analogy above and substitute "Joshua Gomez" for "Chuck" and "Tyler Labine" for "Reaper" for my thoughts on that.
15. Chuck's sister. So, they cast a wax-addicted werewolf as the super-sexy spy, and uber-hot Lisa the Gift Shop Girl as the sister? Oh. Okay. Smart. It's like a clever feint. I get it now. Cast the actual hot girl as the hero's sister and not the romantic interest. Genius.
16. Adam Baldwin. Actually, Jane's awesome here. I would definitely be watching this show if it were Adam and Sarah Lancaster as a young married couple trying to make it in...wait. That's a different show. But it does include two people from the cast of this abortion.

Random Thoughts

17. Bryce goes rogue. He emails all the ultraviolet, top secret, code red, mountain dew combined secrets of the NSA and CIA to his slacker buddy (presumably because he didn't have time to pick the correct recipient before Jane cut his parkour career short with a shot through the heart. So the CIA doesn't think it might be a good idea to bench his gal pal and see if she's an enemy of the state?
18. Chuck's been working alongside an insanely hot potential slayer and hasn't found a way to get over getting dumped five years earlier? Yeah, well, if I worked with Julia Ling day in and day out, sweating and slaving to fix the computers of the terminal stupid, I'd have forgotten my ex's name. Open your damn eyes, boy!

So there. It's not so bad. Only 18 items on my list. Of course, I've left out all the times I yelled at the screen because of the three women in the pilot's cast, the one cast as the "hot one" is the one least hot. I left off all the times I yelled because the CIA/NSA agents did something inane. I yelled because of misused and misapplied technology. But mostly, I just seethed for an hour because this was the best new show the Peacock could give me. Put on a fucking sitcom, you jackasses. Oh wait, just call Leslie Nielsen's agent and pick up Lipschitz Saves the World. If you do it for mid-season, I think the Man in Red will be free from his commitment to FOX.

By the way, about the title of the post...I played tennis in Chucks once in high school. Ripped my feet raw. I don't recommend it. So I wouldn't say Chuck wore tennis shoes, no.

Craft-ed with Love

I think everyone needs one of these.

Stop- and Start-ups

Work has been an absolute joy of late. Why, this week I put in a good six or eight productive hours!!! Valuable life lesson: when considering employment with a software or web startup, part of your due diligence should include asking the principal her familiarity and comfort with software or the web. It's one thing to work for someone green, someone who's never run a company before. It's entirely another to build a website for someone with a singular vision who has no use for the site when completed.

"It must look exactly the way I see it in my head, but you're the experts, so just go do it!"

I'm reminded of John Larroquette in Stripes. Striding proudly and confidently about the mortar range he orders a recruit to launch a shell. The soldier, beholden to the old ways of the reality-based community, asks for coordinates. Capt. Stillman will have none of it. He tells the soldier the Army has paid a lot of money to teach him how to shoot that mortar, so shoot it.

Poor Sgt. Hulka. "Blown up, SIR!"

I work for Capt. Stillman. Only she looks better in heels.

When I came on board, I expected to work long, hard hours until right around now getting the site built and launched. That's because I was led to believe the requirements had been gathered and analysis performed. Hoohah! They tricked me!

Tomorrow is the last day my buffer - the bastard who sucked me into this job - will be around, 'cause he's pulled up stakes and moved to California, following his wife to school. He gets to drive an hour each way to Oxnard for his new gig while she gets the cushy commute putting her Juris Doctorate to good use at USC film school. And I'm stuck with the crazy boss, her vapid sidekick, the project manager who doesn't manage the project, and my buddy. Thank Ba'al for him; I'd go completely insane if we couldn't work on our pilot spec for Bob Newhart's next huge hit while we wait impatiently for a requirement, any requirement to make it over the transom.

Then again, if Stephen Fry would post a little more often (but at the same length,) I'd just while my time away reading his glorious blog.

Dreary Woman

There's video above, FeedReader
This new season sucks. Bionic Woman was k-rap. Alright, maybe I shouldn't judge everything on a show I already knew would suck. After all, Reaper rocked, people say Chuck was good, and I'm really looking forward to Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money.

But 'sblood!!! Bionic Woman was awful. It's hard to put it out of my head right now. Hence the real Jaime Summers above to cleanse the palette.

Shadowdance

There's video above, FeedReader

His hand's strong, Armstrong.
via Gaiman

My Loony Bun is Fine Benny Lava

There's video above, FeedReader
As if Bollywood flicks weren't awesome enough on their own...

Marcia, Marcia! Oooh Marcia!

I've been saying for years that Jan was the hot one, but everyone disagreed. Well, now we've got confirmation that even Marcia thinks she was the hot one!!!

Octobunny

There's video above, FeedReader
Huh. It's been awhile since I've checked out any of the Bunnies parodies. This Bond medley's a perfect cure for the Friday doldrums.

You're in the game now

There's video above, FeedReader

"You don't have to look like a criminal to live like one."
Jack McBrayer

Get off my lawn, you schmendrick!

Kids these days. That's what "Marvin Marks, the retired furniture store owner" from Dallas was saying the other day between bites of blintz. The 86-year-old gentleman from Dallas was mistakenly suspected of being involved in the accidental discharge of a concealed weapon during Temple Emanu-El's New Year's services last week. I say mistakenly, because it was actually his equivalently named doppelganger, Marvin Marks.

In person of course, no one could mistake the strapping 81-year-old former police officer for his elder, but apparently some early news reports failed to indicate his extreme youth - a fact that should have easily been inferred from the nature of the accident. What mature, wise man of the world like Marvin Marks, 86 of Dallas would bring a gun into temple? None of course. Only a reckless youth like Marvin Marks, 81 of Dallas would be so brazen.

via a thoughtful commenter on Ken Levine's blog.

Take your lovemaking into the station bathroom like the rest of the cops

CoyoteSqrl Watched a bunch of those videos of Andrew Meyer getting tased...tasered...what's the right verb form here?
Thick Rick Teased. He really needs a safety word. When my girlfriend and I play with sparks, we're always sure to have a safety word. Ours is "asparagus".
CS Right. Anyway, he's going to be a crap journo.
TR He goes to UF. He was going to be a crap *something*.
CS True.
TR His website is sure getting a lot of traffic.
CS And that's the problem. He's getting a lot of traffic. Man, he's not good. I mean, at 22 I wasn't particularly in control of my, um, word things, but this kid...here. This should put him into perspective as a budding journo:

I wanted to acknowledge that yes, I read Bill Simmons. He is in fact my favorite sports writer. But let me be clear: I am not stealing his opinions, and I never will. The reason I like him so much is that he thinks much the same way I do.

TR Ouch.
CS So anyway, the kid might have been shooting for more attention than just answers to his questions three.
TR Blue.
CS Whatever. He might have been looking for a bit of confrontation. What's pretty clear from all the reports, however, is that a sitting US Senator told him to ask his question (he was immediately behind the last person who was supposed to query Kerry.) And while he did ramble on and had three questions and not one, he did ask the Senator two interesting (and one slightly inane) questions.
TR Agreed. I wanna know if Kerry was a member of Balls and Shaft.
CS And then he's assaulted. An unwanted laying on of hands by some douchebags with badges.
TR Asparagus! Asparagus!
CS As Kerry's answering!!!
TR Asparagus!!!¹
CS If there's anything dumber than a UF student, even dumber than a UF student-athlete, it's a UF pig. Apparently also quite weak and unfit, as it takes four? five? six? of them to subdue a pasty Simmons fan. Of course by subdue, I mean sit on, handcuff, and only then taser. Tase? Goddamit, what's the ruling on that?
TR So you think the police went too far?
CS I think they didn't go far enough. I mean, why not put on the brass knuckles and beat on his face? No Louima treatment in front of the crowd? Show those punk kids who's the boss.
TR Mona. No, really. Watch it again, you'll see.
CS Uh, are you even listening to me?
TR Not really. You're ranting again. Cops bad: blah, blah, blah. It's not new. You've been singing the same refrain for two decades.
CS It's not like they've gotten any better in the intervening years.
TR Maybe, but you've certainly gotten more bitter. Lighten up, dude. Come down to the dung...basement rec room and play...ping-pong with me and my lady friend tonight. You'll forget all about your cares and woes. At least you won't be thinking about his pain for a little while.
CS Uh, maybe another time.

---

¹ What's worse than being beaten by cops? Listening to John Kerry drone.

The devolution of the soft top

I've owned convertibles all my adult life. No tintops. My first was the first car I bought with my own money, a jellybean blue Geo Metro that I bought in '91.

Piece of crap? Tiny little engine? Sure. But it also weighed about as much as a Barbie Jeep so it was quick. Plus, the wee wheels and chassis arrangement made for a lithe, if slightly skittish car. You'd be amazed what you can do with something that small if you're fearless when driving.

I drove the Metro into the ground, putting about 85K miles on it in five years. As it was beginning its very rapid death spiral, I traded it in on the next convertible - a '96 Jeep Wrangler.

Now, the Jeep's a fun ride, but for someone who likes high speed and agility it's a bit of a challenge. Don't get me wrong, I used to bob and weave with her, but it just wasn't the same. And the top's a pain in the ass. The Metro's manual top I could put up or down at a stop light without getting out of the car. The Jeep...that took considerably longer. Still, it was a manual operation, so it wasn't going to break on me.

A few years and several Bay Area job hops later, my salary had gone up just a skoch. Time to trade in and trade up. So I satisfied my childhood dream of owning a Porsche by paying *way* over Blue Book for a slightly used Boxster.

Let me tell you, there are few cars that handle quite like a Boxster. It's quick - though not super fast - and with the mid-engine design it hugs the road like week-old roadkill. Did I mention the mid-engine design? Because of that, every repair costs an arm and a leg and takes an inordinate amount of time. Ever pay $1500 to replace a clutch? If you've owned a Boxster you have.^* Ever pay $2500 to replace a windshield? Alright, I didn't pay that thanks to glass coverage, but I could have. And the Boxster had the first power top I'd ever owned. A "clever" two-clutch design: one for the soft top; one for the hard cover. The wife and I got to know our mechanics really well, because that shitty, over-engineered design meant it was broken about every nine months.

Last year I got a chance to pick up one of my dream cars. An amazing deal on an '01 Esperante with only 7K miles on it. I jumped. Now, the Roadster is cooler, but the top on the Roadster is a snap-on affair reminiscent of the Jeep. The Esperante's got a nice power top to go with its sleek lines, high power, and great handling. Well, it has great handling now that we've replaced the shitty deep dish rims and low-profile tires with proper wheels and performance tires.

(That one's actually mine, unlike the other photos I culled from the web.)
Oh wait. Did I say a "nice power top"? My mistake. The Boxster should have prepared me. Last week, the top broke. A few days in the shop and it's been repaired. Well, that's what the mechanic says, but I know better. You see, you can't actually repair a power top. You can patch it so it keeps working for a little while, but it'll give out again. That's what they do. My $9K Metro with the manual top - the top that I could put up or down in thirty seconds including the top cover - that never broke. It also weighed a lot less because it didn't need hydraulics, or electrics, or gears. It was just a hinge mechanism with a canvas top and plastic rear window. Cheap, right-sized, and easy. The Esperante, like the Boxster and all other power soft tops is over-engineered. I believe they do that for old people. The wife thinks it's just for the congenitally lazy.

So now, I don't own a convertible. I own a car with a rattly cloth top. I picked the car up this afternoon with the top up, and up is where it'll stay until I sell it. The only way I'll put it down again is if we can get the good folks at Panoz to retrofit the top and make it a manual. Since it's highly unlikely they'll do so, the car will soon be someone else's problem and I'll be looking for a manual top. Of course, since the only new car on the market with a manual top is the Wrangler...and since they've ruined the Wrangler by giving it a suspension built for soccer moms...I'll definitely be forced to go used. And that really pisses me off.

Manual tops are pretty much extinct, as manual transmissions will be within a decade. Idiots.

Remember: technological advancement to solve a problem that doesn't exist, and is prone to failure, is no advancement at all.

---

^* No, I didn't burn it out. The previous owner had ridden it.