Moo! The Musings of a Plaid Cow

Q. How do you know it’s Master P on the line?

A. The phone goes “Bling, Bling”

The next time that you think some of the warning labels on your new purchases are inane, remember this sad story and the lesson learned from it: don’t run a gasoline generator inside your house.

I can’t wait for the lawsuit.

When someone at work asks how the project is going, feel free to break one of these out. To the best I can remember, I made all of them up (with inspiration from others):

• It’s all downhill from here, except for the uphill parts.
• Break our duck? We can’t even find it!
• I’m betting on the monkeys.
• I’m still betting on the monkeys.
• Nurse Ratched’s in a straight jacket.

Question: Have you ever beta tested any software (in an official capacity, not by warezing an early build of Photoshop 17 or something)?

Yes, I’ve beta tested quite a few different pieces of software:

• Quicken for two years (Trinity and Dakota). I was even named one of the top beta testers, receiving an Amazon gift certificate and a beta test polo shirt.
• iKey from Script Software is a macro reording utility which allows you to build palettes and menus of frequently used commands.
• idTunes is also from Script Software. Unfortunately, for as good as iKey is, idTunes is that bad. (How long should you have to wait to get help on the official support forums? If I ever get an answer to why I can’t install the program, i’ll post again. It’s been over a month so far and no reply to be seen.)
• Bluebeard (and the follow-up Bluebeard 2) was a newsgroup binary extractor. It still works, though work just stopped on it about two years ago. I was more interested in it before Comcast limited access to newsgroups to som enumber of MB per month.
• ShapeShifter is one of the Unsanity Haxies. I try to do some testing, but one major problem I have is that most of the themes that are available look like crap.
• skEdit is an editor which was originally designed for editing HTML.
• YouControl, by You Software got started off on the wrong foot and may finally be close to recovering. They took a number of free utilities (like Pasteboard) that worked well and merged them in a menuing system that didn’t. And the free utilities went away.

And I will probably continue to beta etst other software, depending on what the future brings. (This is not to say that this is an exhaustive list, since I’ve used other programs that have been involved in extended public betas.)

Ha ha, the Steelers lost. The Steelers had won something like 16 consecutive regular-season games. Looks like the Black & Gold won’t be breaking the 20 game streak by the Patriots’, which was stopped last year by the Steelers.

Question: Do you think quitting school (college) is a “good thing?”

As a holder of three different degrees (BS,MEng, MBA) I think that Wil in the original article is right: if you want to be like him then there is no reason for you to be in college. College will train you for a completely different environment than going out and just experiencing the real world. This shouldn’t be taken to mean that everyone drop out of (or never start) college:

• If you want to work 8 hour days at an existing corporation, you will need to get a degree. (But if you’ve got the drive and the talent to go make it on your own (or with a group of friends), then feel free to skip college.)
• If you want to do something that requires a degree (like teacher, doctor or engineer), you will need to get a degree. (How many people would visit a pyromaniacal family practitioner with no degree?)
• If you want to have mobility between many corporations, you will most likely need a degree.

So why do companies prefer people with a degree? It tilts the odds a little further in their favor that they get someone who is worth his salt, since the interview process of non-professional workers is pretty much a crap shoot anyway. They get someone who has proven that they can start a project and finish it some number of years later without throwing in the towel. They get an employee that has had to work on teams and give presentations. They get someone who has a little bit of an idea about what life in corporate America will be. They get someone, who a some level, has already proven himself.

Slow Dance was written by Dr. David L. Weatherford, who has a beautiful collection of poems and encourages people to use his poems as long as he is given credit for his writings.

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain slapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask “How are you?”
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say “Hi”?

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift….
Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

For quite a while on my static web site has been a section of uplifting thoughts. With an impending reorg, that is going away, so I present a couple of the items from there. The first is a poem by Linda Ellis called The Dash, which was forwarded around as one of those chain emails many years ago.

I read of a reverend who stood to speak
at the funeral of his friend.
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
from the beginning…to the end.

He noted that first came the date of her birth
and spoke of the following date with tears,
but he said what mattered most of all
was the dash between those years.

For that dash represents all the time
that she spent alive on earth,
and now only those who loved her
know what that little line is worth.

For it matters not, how much we own;
the cars, the house, the cash.
What matters is how we live and love
and how we spend our dash.

So think about this long and hard,
are there things you’d like to change?
For you never know how much time is left.
(You could be at “dash mid-range.”)

If we could just slow down enough
to consider what’s true and real,
and always try to understand
the way other people feel.

And be less quick to anger,
and show appreciation more
and love the people in our lives
like we’ve never loved before.

If we treat each other with respect,
and more often wear a smile,
remembering that this special dash
might only last a little while.

So, when your eulogy is being read
with your life’s actions to rehash…
would you be pleased with the things they say
about how you spent your dash?

Questionable Content, a free web comic is…charming, like a badger to the face. When you’ve got a few minutes you should check out this work safe, angst filled slice of modern reality.

Avast ye maties. Doncha ferget that today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day. So grab yer peg leg and hook up with ye mates for a mighty time today.