Author: cheerfulchaotic

special thanks to for suggestions and urls for the development process. Also thanks to and Anthony for being guinea pigs.

I saw this company listed on monster, and thought of : TAJ technologies

Um, what did I do this weekend.

Well, I applied to uchicago (most of the way, still have some letters of recomendation paperwork and grade/gre proving to do). I checked out the requirements for various grad school programs. Oh yes, heat! We have heat! And a working thermostat! =) I had tried to light the pilot light myself, but didn’t know the magic button to press, so it was all for naught. I revised my resume yet again, after I realized it made me sound like a windows programmer (intentional for the attempt to get work with ulrich medical concepts, but so not what I’m looking for in general.)

Met , went out to herbivore, saw his phat pad, watched a really dumb, but amusing, marky mark action/comedy, and generally had a good time, while totally forgetting about ‘s bday party (whoops, sorry Nathan, happy birthday to you). I think I also missed a radical faerie potluck, alas, only so many hours. Also bought bone graphic novels 2 and 3, as well as barry ween boy genius 3 and 4. Ah, commercial therapy. Reading them actually did rather buoy my spirits, but sadly, I’ve finished them and want more now. Cursed hollow consumerism 😉

But probably the biggest thing I’m proud of doing this weekend is teaching myself some significant quantities of css, javascript, and php. (I’m also finding myself confusing bits of javascript and php syntax. Never learn two languages at once, it will fuck you up). All to produce a contact info database. [Let’s just pretend I typed the url right the first time] Please, browse it, enter your info (I do have it connected to a database here. I admit to not having gone to great pains to make it secure, but it’s behind a firewalled nat, with no direct access to the database), play with it, let me know what you think.

Seems like Bush doesn’t want to house any more of those greedy homeless and impoverished people. Oh, and those soldiers we’re supposed to be supporting, well, not so much with the medical benefits.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/04/politics/04BUDG.html?hp

Bush’s Budget for 2005 Seeks to Rein In Domestic Costs
By ROBERT PEAR

Published: January 4, 2004

WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 — Facing a record budget deficit, Bush administration officials say they have drafted an election-year budget that will rein in the growth of domestic spending without alienating politically influential constituencies.

When the going gets tough, the tough cut funding

So, there’s this thing called brainbench out there, which is basically standardized testing in specific skills (say, java, c, linux, balancing a checkbook, whatever). You pay to get certified by them as competent. Two separate job sites have linked to them. At first I thought it was a total waste of time and money. It’s kinda alluring, though. I mean, I know I would kick ass on it, but I kinda wonder if it’s worth the time and money. Anybody out there know anything about it, have any opinions to share?

So, since I got back on christmas, the thermostat’s been broken. As you may recall, I walked into an overheated house. Well, as of new years day, the heater’s broken. Not even a pilot light, as far as I can tell. The refrigerator may well be warmer than my bedroom. And I thought I was a grinch 😉

So, back when I had a shrink, I introduced her to Sandman, and she said she liked it, though I don’t know that she’ll ever read any more of it (I gave her brief lives). I declared that I really liked Delirium, and Death, but that I identified with Delirium more. She said both characters were likeable, but that Dream was the one that I most resembled to her. Probably pretty on target. And this quiz links me up with morpheus. Heh. Mors might have been better from the results. Also, where the hell are aries, zeus, hermes (the greek god I most identify with), hera, and some of the other big names, eh? Since when was heracles (if we’re going to be greek, let’s be greek, not roman) a god rather than a demigod, anyway, hth, hand.

silliness ensues

It has come to my attention that I am a whiny bitch. Total victim mentality. I say this not to disparage myself, but to provide a firm diagnosis upon which to base treatment. Yet there is hope. Though I viewed learning how to do my laundry as an insurmountable obstacle in my senior year of high school, I do it all the time now with almost no whining and no feeling that they sky is nearly falling. While my whiny bitchness may well be a lifelong condition, I have confidence that I can manage it, if I work at it. I will progressively reduce its deleterious impact on my life, by doing the things that provoke the whiny bitchness until they no longer provoke whiny bitchness. Hopefully, before I’m 30 it will mostly have learned its lesson.

18:15:55 : If I’d had a bit more balls at a certain point in my life, I would have my mpp now, from uchicago, acquired while working part time as a math and science tutor at a community college for the arts.
18:16:10 : you need 3 balls for that?
18:16:27 : Uchicago has some very unique admissions criteria.
18:17:04 : hahaha
18:18:08 : I feel the need to lj that.
18:18:22 : heh
18:18:23 : I think this means I really need to get out of this house.

… for jobs.

On second thought, let’s do math. Scary, 3-d, recursive, differential equations. Safer, more secure, easier. Also, less of a personal growth type challenge. <sigh>. The php + mysql stuff is making headway. I got php to play with apache, and from there on out, it’s easy, if tedious. It is somewhat more relevant than the recursive diff eq. But I really need to be talking to people. Networking. Bleh. Don’t wanna. <sulk-n-surf>