Dulles Getting Metro? Thanks, Jesus!

“The Bible describes faith as the substance of things hoped for. This certainly seems to fit in that category,” said Clark Tyler, chairman of the Tysons Land Use Task Force, which has spent years planning for development around rail. “We had faith that Metro was coming, and it looks like it’s going to.”

Washington Post

Yeah, because the Bible was written explicitly to address the regional need for light rail service to the area’s busiest airport. What about the FTA’s decision to fund the project bears celebration of religion?

That shit is completely unnecessary. Fucking fundies.

Oh, by the way, the “Jesus” in the title doesn’t refer to your “savior”. It refers to all the Hispanic men who will be performing exhausting manual labor for the next 5-7 years building the motherfucker… one of which is undoubtedly named Jesus (pron. Hay-soos).

What an Asshole!

“The resolution is clearly working. It is driving down the non-English-speaking portion of the schools and saving us millions of dollars. They’re going to other jurisdictions and costing them money.”

Quote from Corey A. Stewart, Chairman of the Prince William Board of County Supervisors in the Washington Post.

In context: Rules championed by him to (purportedly) combat illegal immigration are forcing Hispanics and/or Latinos to flee from PWCo.

Unfortunately for PWCo., many of those taking part in the exodus are legal Hispanics and/or Latinos.

Granted I have never spoken with the man, but I’m sure Stewart is myopically delighted at the efflux of brown people from his precious Prince William County, legal or not. Hell, his county has always been more red (in both the “state” and “neck” applications of the hue) than the rest of Northern Virginia.

I wonder how he’ll feel when his county draws lower revenues from sales, property, personal property, and proportion of Commonwealth income taxes (which is sure to factor into the state budget allocations).

I also wonder who mows his lawn.

Granted I have never spoken with the man, but I’m sure Stewart is a fucking racist hypocrite.

The Only Thing I can Say without Sounding Shallow

Does this tripe make The New Yorker if Avery plays in Phoenix? Not fucking likely. Also, how does such an egotistical prick pull off sounding kind of “normal guy” while–at the same time–being ultra-pretentious?

You’re an enigma, Sean Avery. And you’re trying too hard to be “interesting”.

Nota bene: I use “enigma” for lack of a better word. My vulgarity currently escapes me.

Any of my 4 readers have an appropriate noun or adjective?

Scoring Attempted Derision

cf. Stuff White People Like

Granted, I’m only 1/2 white, but I’m probably the whitest half-breed Mexican you’ll ever meet… unless you join a bowling league with my brother after he moves to Alabama.

Anyway, the above-linked website (written by a white chick) tries to be “scientific” in her snarky, holier-than-whites commentary about things that white people purportedly like.

At this point she’s listed 66 things, with 2 entries inaccessible and/or lost forever due to an ill-fated foray into dedicated hosting. This particular white person does not like other white people who are ignorant of the intricacies of running a web server attempting to do so.

Let’s see how her superior judgment stacks up:

Rage Maker: Fuck Adobe

Framemaker is, arguably, the best application for producing voluminous documentation on the market. Anybody that argues that Microsoft Word is even remotely capable of handling documents more than 30 pages long is either an idiot, a masochist, or both.

The Company has been using Framemaker for all of our manuals for more than 10 years, all the way back to the good (?) ol’ NeXTSTEP days. We’ve paid for new licenses and upgrades as required throughout the years. Attempts were made (against my advice) to do one of our larger manuals in MS Word. That attempt failed miserably, and we paid a nice chunk of cash to a 3rd-party vendor to convert it back to Framemaker.

Unfortunately, our years-long romance with this powerful software may soon come to an end. In a blog post from Feb. 2007, Framemaker’s Product Manager states:

Adobe discontinued FrameMaker software for the Apple Macintosh operating system on April 21, 2004. The decision to discontinue FrameMaker on the Macintosh operating systems was based on the market conditions for FrameMaker.

This after having declared in a previous post that:

Let me assure you, as the Product Manager of FrameMaker, that FrameMaker is here to stay.

A number of events precipitated the demise of Framemaker on Mac machines, and without going into too much detail, they are:
1. The release of Mac OS X 10.0 in 2001
2. The existence of the “Classic” environment therein
3. Adobe’s porting of Photoshop and Illustrator in late 2003
4. Adobe’s “market conditions” preclude porting Framemaker to OS X
5. Apple’s announced intent to move to Intel processors in 2005
6. The extinction of the “Classic” environment therewith
7. Apple stops shipping PowerPC-based Macs in 2006

I will not attempt to pin the injustice of losing Framemaker-on-a-Mac on either company. But… Aseem Dokania’s hubris in response to Mac users’ comments is personally-infuriating, and belies his knowledge of a customer base that has been loyal to–and perhaps buttressed for lengths of time–the company for which he now works.

… I believe there are some good workarounds available now for using windows applications on Mac. It may be possible to use one of them for FrameMaker.

Fuck you, Aseem.

Update: Apparently Aseem is no longer the PM for FM. It’s now Mahesh Kumar Gupta. Bring it back to Mac, Mahesh! If not, you may be told to go fuck yourself. You have been warned.

The Only Redeeming Stat…

… from tonight’s Caps vs. Habs game in Montreal. (boxscore)

Forget about John Erskine’s monumentally shitty play all night and his subsequent three stints in the box.

He is not the droid you’re looking for.

You can go about your business.

Move along. Move along.

Strange Things are Afoot in the Commonwealth

Dulles Rail Project All but Dead (also)
Are you fucking kidding me? After spending hundreds of millions of dollars already–with construction to begin this coming fall–this bald motherfucker’s gonna’ take his 900-million-dollar ball and go home? So the D.C. area’s largest and most active airport is going to continue operating without rail service from the city? And people wonder why D.C. area traffic is so horrific.

Virginia’s Sangria Ban At Issue in 2 Hearings
Code of Virginia §4.1-324 ¶A.3 states:

No licensee or any agent or employee of such licensee shall sell wine to which spirits or alcohol, or both, have been added, otherwise than as required in the manufacture thereof under Board regulations.

Which means anyone with an ABC license can’t serve sangria. Are you fucking kidding me? One astute gentleman comments:

Two very popular cocktails, the Manhattan and the Martini, are mixtures of spirits (bourbon and gin) with wine (sweet and dry vermouth). Are all restaurants that serve these subject to fines and their bartenders jailed?

Sometimes I forget that Northern Virginia is, indeed, part of the Commonwealth. This makes me sad and embarrassed and explains why–when asked–I say that I live just outside of D.C.

The Most Exciting Game of the NHL Season (so far)

Washington Capitals at Pittsburg Penguins, Monday, January 21, 2008

First period…
Pens go up 1-0 w/ a goal by Talbot from Staal and Christensen
Caps tie 1-1 w/ a falling-to-the-ice backhander by Flash from Gordo and Sasha
Caps go up 2-1 w/ a sweet re by Vikki from Ovie and Backstrom
Pens tie 2-2 w/ a sick “your defensive efforts are all in vain” backhander by Malkin from Malone

Second period…
Caps go up 3-2 w/ a flubber by Ovie from Flash and Backstrom
Pens tie 3-3 w/ a cannon blast from Malkin from Malone and Gonchar (hatred)
Pens go up 4-3 w/ a wide-open backdoor Sykora from Whitney and Gonchar (hatred)
Caps tie 4-4 w/ a fucking Ovie nuke from Backstrom and Jerky
Sabourin gets yanked, Conklin takes the net for Pitt

Third period…
Pens go up 5-4 when Malone finally shoots at the net from Gonchar (hatred) and Malkin
All of the Caps fans take a collective shit…
Caps tie 5-5 w/ Vikki stunning fans everywhere from Princess and Backstrom

Overtime…
Caps go down a man w/ Potty in the box for slashing - 4-on-3
Caps go down 2 men w/ Foreskin in the box for hooking - 5-on-3
Toofless Wonder (Quintin Laing) single-handedly thwarts all Penguins’ efforts at winning on OT

Shootout…
Pens: Miss, miss, goal by Ruutu (who should’ve gotten his ass beat at some point in the game)
Caps: Save, goal by Ovie, goal by Sasha to win the game

Caps take 2 points out of Pittsburg. Yay Caps!

Ovechkin and Malkin are motherfucking beasts! (to use the parlance of today’s youth)
Backstrom? A MOTHERFUCKING BEAST!
Laing? A valuable asset to the Washington Capitals organization. Also a beast of some sort.

Olaf Kolzig? Let in 5 goals on 15 shots. Do the math! You, sir, are no longer a motherfucking beast. You got the win… but at what cost to your pride? Do you have any left?

I honestly believe Gabby (Caps coach Bruce Boudreau) left Olie in net after such a consistently poor performance only to justify his future decision(s) to start Brent Johnson (who like the Caps team as a whole has been hot-shit) in net.

Also: Shame on you, Olie. Step up or reap what you sow. We will always love you… just stop making us sad. Or… y’know… don’t suck in net.

Worst Thursday Night… Ever

The Caps were down 2-0. The Caps tied the game. The Caps lost 5-2.

Fart.

The Bulls sucked cock. Grothe got sacked 7 times. Yup… seven. Huge upset in Jersey tonight. I told Erin that the Bulls were going to lose before the game started. My brother-in-law (Erin’s brother) predicted the upset on his radio show down in Blacksburg. I called him a bastard, but he was right. So was I, but I’m not very fucking happy about it.

Double Fart.

Really, what else you got? What’s your encore?

Do you, like, anally rape my mother while pouring sugar in my gas tank?

Hell, Hubris and Humor

I hold down multiple roles at work. Because I have nothing else to ‘blog about today, I figured I’d give you (few) regular readers a glimpse into the hell, hubris, and humor I experience via email Monday through Friday.

Yesterday - Internal Website Admin.

Auto Notifier: (to me) Error - The site is having technical difficulties with this page. An error has been logged, and the problem will be fixed as soon as possible. Sorry!

Me: (to Sec’y) This should be fixed now.

Her: wow… you’re like the wizard of oz

Me: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

Today - Product Development

Bug Tracker: (to me) Reset / Power buttons broken. Reporter: newkid. Owner: me. Type: defect. Priority: critical.

Me: (to newkid) Running from trunk SVN on my machine — cannot replicate this problem. Let me know when you’re around so you can demonstrate.

Bug Tracker: (to me) Changes (by newkid): Status: new => closed. Resolution: => invalid. Comment: After more testing, found the problem doesn’t lie in the buttons, but with some underlying networking issue on my machine.

Today - Marketing

Me: Yo [Engineer], how about a big glitzy press release for the [huge contract] award, eh?

Him: That’s a great idea!

Me: I’m glad you think so! I patiently await your first draft.

——————

Am I a dick, or what?!