| Pycon 2008 |
[17 Mar 2008|12:39am] |
(written on the plane on Thursday)
So today, I left for Chicago to attend the Pycon 2008 conference. But an hour before I left work for the airport, I managed to delete a whole day's work that I thought was checked in CVS but wasn't. Awesome. I love when I do that. So I spent about 15 minutes reflecting on how stupid that was, then tried to redo all the work in about 45 minutes. I actually got to the point where the code was all written, I just wasn't able to test it, since there was a chance that I'd bork the database for everyone else.
Yesterday I went to a panel on education issues in the public agenda (or lackthereof). The event was held at the Yale Club, a super posh space where I would expect knighting ceremonies to be held. The panelist were all education luminaries and they spoke about pretty standard stuff in the education field: we're leaving behind the poor and the minorities, our education standing in the world sucks, we need to give our teachers more support (read, money), education doesn't get any play from the presidential candidates, etc. I thought it was all well and good talking about this stuff in their ivory tower, but they didn't offer too much advice on how we could remedy this.
Personally, I think that education doesn't get mentioned by the candidates is because the media controls the public discourse, and what the media loves is conflict. There's not too much conflict on opinions on the democrats' side, they pretty much have the same stance. Reform NCLB, better pre-K, make college affordable. Not much for the media to work with there. And McCain, he doesn't even have a section on his website about education. But if he did, he would probably say the same exact things as the dems, because education is one of the few bipartisan issues left. NCLB was a bipartisan effort.
Another thing I observed: ed biz folk can kind of smell that I don't belong at these events. Maybe it's my Adidas fleece in a sea of pantsuits, though it's probably the way I carry myself. As a programmer, I only really care about the opinions of other programmers. So, when nonprogrammers meet me, I'm sure they think, in the words of Lil Jon, if you don't give a damn, I don't give a fuck.
Btw, I'm writing this on a plane. I really wish they had wifi here, that would be so key. They could do a pay-per-flight thing where you'd get unlimited internet for that flight for some price that was proportional to the miles travelled. I'd pay, dammit.
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| Chillin |
[02 Mar 2008|10:15pm] |
On Saturday, I celebrated St. Patrick's day with my sister, her husband, his friends and all of Hoboken. Apparently it's a big deal and every year all of Hoboken gets wasted by noon and parties until they puke green beer. I kind of laid low a little bit, hadn't gotten drunk that early since my days at Spring Fair (mandatory 6am shotgunning of Keystone Lights).
I managed to meet up with my sister and her friends at around 2pm, and when my brother-in-law's friends saw me, they were all business. "Hey!! You're totally coming to my bachelor's party!" Haha, I guess I made an impression on them from the last bachelor's party(!)
Drank a few, BS'd a bit, felt kind of out of place because Hoboken is blindingly white. One of our group blew up the bathroom toilet which started flooding, time to get the hell outta there.
Went to a different house party, BS'd a bit, drank some more. Played this reaction game thing where you have to press the button right after the light turns green. If you press it early or too late, you get a pretty nasty shock. It's surprisingly fun to play when you're drunk. Here's what it looks like:
And here's a video to show that it actually hurts (not us):
The best part is smashing the other guy's buzzer so that he gets shocked. =]
After that, went home at like 9, took a nap, and went out to meet up with the usual suspects in the city. Kinda poorly planned outing, didn't end up getting our first drink until like 1am. Highlight of the night was probably Henry trying to sell crack to a homeless man. WHO THE FUCK DOES THAT??? Good thing the guy declined. Maybe Henry looked like a narco.
After that, the rest of the night as anticlimactic. For the first in the long time, I made it to last call with being utterly wasted. Kind of sucks actually. Aw well, another time.
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| Hello. |
[18 Jan 2008|10:32pm] |
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I'm not sure why I stopped posting on LJ. I think it's mostly cuz I've been happy. LJ was kind of just a place to vent and post silly links. Now I just post silly links on Facebook or Tumblr. And I have nothing to vent about really. On the one hand, I'm really content. But on the other hand, I feel really lazy. No drive to do anything constructive outside of work. I just come home, eat something, watch The Wire or City of Men, read a little, then go to sleep. Kinda boring. No more passion, but at least I'm not maddeningly restless anymore.
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| Flaskin' it hardcore |
[13 Sep 2007|10:07pm] |
| [ |
music |
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Sophomore Slump Or Comeback Of The Year - Fall Out Boy |
] |
In my search to find a nice liquor cabinet to add to my list of awesome furniture for my new crib, I came across this gem:
It just so happened to be posted on my birthday, too. It must be fate . . . not that I get drunk anymore, because I retired from that.
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| Nineleven |
[11 Sep 2007|09:49am] |
So this morning, there were no PATH trains going to the World Trade Center stop. They called it a "switch failure" but I call it a "courage failure". There's nothing to blow up anymore, you bastards.
PS. Buy Kanye's album so that will 50 retire.
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| Vaguely |
[14 Aug 2007|12:53am] |
I keep searching for something. I don't know what it is, and though I'm pretty sure that it's not online, I still stay up, clicking link after link, hoping that the next link will finally lead to that something. That elusive something that's been missing all these years. The something that turns mere contentment into fulfillment. That last piece of the otherwise masterpiece. The cornerstone. The muse. The frame. The sheath. That one, indescribable, inescapable, idempotent force that is just out of reach, even if you knew in which direction to reach.
Perhaps I should write a PostSecret postcard.
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