After a long pause

I am more or less back. As always, RL has a tendency to jump at us shouting "Aaargh!" when we least expect it. For the last few weeks I have been wrestling with increasingly bizarre series of incidents that strengthened my dogmatic convictions about human stupidity (vaster then the Universe), evils of multinational companies (IKEA as Satan's servant on Earth), incompetence of various home repairmen (the law of conservation of broken things in the house), office space (staplers as the ultimate tool in office wars) and general theory of disorganization (number of levels of hierarchy is proportional to the number of levels of confusion at the bottom). But more of that later! :)

I am glad that at least some chose to ask me things about blog (such as: Who am I? or: why are there no new posts?), since I like knowing that people read it. So, thank you! :)

My thought of the day revolves around the new book by famous Elbonian Admiral Baado, ex chief of military intel, in which he explains in great detail the connections between Americans, New Atlantis, French Revolution, Bolysheviks, 2nd meeting of AVNOJ in Jajce and coming of the Antichrist. A must read for those who are "in the know".
The book's name is, of course, "The Attack of the Clones".

Sleep disorder induced thingie

Elbonia is having another grey rainy day, which means that my Net connection is almost as slow and patchy as my morning mind. In vain hopes of finding a brain stimulant, I stumbled through the stairwell to the coffee machine, dodging boss-creatures and ignoring door-waiters, but to my surprise and horror, the coffee machine was spectacularly out of order, with pools of slowly congealing brown liquid spread all over the carpet. A horrified witness gibbered something about coffee exploding through the paper cup jammed just inside the machine dispenser while someone was shaking the whole machine, probably caught in instant coffee-deprivation rage when he discovered that his hard earned coins did not produce immediate gratification. Dodging boss-creatures and ignoring door-waiters, I stumbled back to my office.

Dejectedly searching for some other way of waking up, I found out that fatherhood affects dendritic spines and vasopressin V1a receptors in the primate prefrontal cortex, through the mechanism possibly connected to either its diuretic properties* or modification of male sexual behaviour and aggression, while also finding out that arginine vasopressin is present and active in suprachiasmatic nucleus, part of our brain that regulates circadian rhythms. I also found out that DARPA is spending about 100 million $ a year on sleep-related research, in hopes of finding a way to make soldiers "less dependent on sleep", while also contemplating civilian spin-offs for people "who need an edge". Methods used to achieve that goal range from low-power DC pumped through subject's head, changing magnetic fields from a MI, to certain legal and experimental drugs (Modafinil, Ampakine CX717 ). On the way I also stumbled on an ethical questions arising from afore mentioned research - namely, if poorer cognitive environment actually diminishes our minds (or stops their development), then such poverty is not only a social dimension, but also a condition that undermines our biological basis of being. Should we not then spend more effort on changing such conditions?

At approximately this point in my readings my boss came in and asked me to go and get him some coffee from nearby caffee, since he accidentally bumped the coffee machine in the morning and it mysteriously stopped working.

Quote of the morning:

"The viability of postsingularity economy of scarcity is indicated by the transition from an indirection-layer-based economy using markers of exchange of goods and services to a tree-structured economy characterized by optimal allocation of productivity systems in accordance with iterated tit-for-tat prisoner's dilemma."

7th Sister of Stratagems of the Clade of Critics, Criticizing a leader of a rebellion.



* A very bad attempt at a peeing joke.

The Day

.. since today is exactly two years from the infamous "Breasts" incident, I want to thank Red Verne of Doom for saving me from fate worse then (some) death(s) by unforgettably pointing the right direction to me. Thank you! :)

P.S. This may be considered a public way of saying the dreaded words* by some of the more acute readers.


* "I love you"

Friends again

When I was first expressing thanks to all my friends, I thought I would just list the first few that were floating in my mind's temp.reg, but that produced some unwanted problems. Some of you wanted to know which of the listed names corresponds to you, some wanted to know whether they are on the list, and some wanted to know why they aren't on the list. Since it was not my intention to publish an actual complete list of my friends (almost impossible, not in the least because I can never remember all of them at the same time - some of them are such memorable characters that my mind floats back to "reset" mode whenever I think of them :), I was baffled by the response. It seems that in order to calm the spirits I shall have, after all, to atempt to list all my friends (that I can currently remember) and that I dedicate this blog to :
(in no particular order)
Mary Shelly, Strom, Big Ktulu, Princess K, Bloodhimir, Amandanmanregge, Gorak, Tsushima, Monacococo, Red Dwarf, Mika the Coyotte, Bukva the Terrible, Morning Twinkle Star, Tango Beast, The Wife of the Tango Beast, Toma the non-Aquinus, Toma's Legs, Birch the Petrodollar, NetAtommathethician, 90days of Hell, Various Majas, Mario Pilatus, Calligraphy Mario, Ana the Tooth (not faery), Wishy the May, Princess Faith, Princess Adriatica, Jean the Gun, Pretty Juanita, their awesome parents and family, Nicko the Music Acid Barbarian, "Excuse my French" Sasha, Furious Orlando and his pointy shoes, our saintly Kathy the Shirt Maker, Download Sasha the Dwur, The Airing Monster, her Calvinia, Denis the UberAccountant, his MiniMe, Sergei the Potato, Marko the ATO king, Black Anne de Fiume, Ogloolga the Smile, Mon the PolPolice, Maruxa the Invincible, that girl that once told me that I was pretty, her sister, the german girl I once met in an airplane, Exploding Mountain Yan, Laconic the Winnipegian, absolutely hyperactive New Zealander and his yellow car, Pretty Sailboat port and her Ivan the Bowling Master, Thomas the (rustic)Wolf and his Estonian crew, Aleksandar of Tashkent, that tango girl from Prague, the whole Slovak tango scene and their beer, French Canadian Bean Soup, Beamy the Scott, 7 virtues of Naomi, remember Rachel, cute tall blonde Dakotan girl who went to medical experiments with me but whose name I forgot, Denise the brasilian pelusch, the Red Verne of Doom, Ewa From Another Dimension, Ana the extremely competent handler of Denis, Hadgina Hadjiya, Velvety Michele (who is, despite his name, a very hairy guy), Bruno "the Grampa", Hrvoje "Birds strikes from behind", Hetero Materialbitch and his close followers, $s, Gliding Luka the Incurable Romantic, Krešo "But, I love you!" God's gift to women, Paula the Blonde, Lucky Oma the Multitasker, Blonde Physics Chick, her Norwegian roomate, Sam Teacher of Croatian Blonde Pilots, Dogsled Amanda, Fluffy (mmmm), all the wonderful UND professors led by unforgetable Granny Lang and prof. Pooch, ND groundhogs (sorry for the machetta incident! Really!), Capt Allen (of Space Command), all the unfortunate Grand Forks children who had to listen to my rambling descriptions of Elbonia as a land of easily available alcohol and topless chics, all the religious missionaries that I terrorized into submission with my impromptou physics lectures, Father Ty, Gorak's red car and its smelly milkshake incident, Green Mill and it's free chicken wings Long Island Tea Thursday specials, Yasmine the chinese florida chick, my amazing blonde sister Didi, all the Native Americans from the Turtle Mountain reservation who taught me ice fishing, horse riding, potato gunning, pretending to be Russian while they shoplift 50 pound bags of dog food despite having no dogs, rabbit hunting, tax evading, wonderful native cuisine and trading anything not nailed down, and once again this wonderful ND family who took me in as if I were one of their own despite my obvious religious shortcomings and abysmal chess skills.

Now you know why I didn't want to make a complete list!

Tuesday(s)

Today is an actual work day in Elbonia. By late yesterday afternoon, all the bosses have gotten a clue about things that were supposed to happen last week, so today they charge hither and thither trying to make their unwilling subjects perform various onerous duties. Since no one has an "it is Monday for Higher Power's sake!" excuse today, and it is still too early in the week for kids to get sick (thus granting sickness leave to their parents), people actually do have to work. It is depressing. Even local weather detects Tuesdays, and rains most often on them*.

To prove my thesis, today I phoned to my colleagues working in the wonderful country of Jerka Jerkastan (which is about three and a half hours ahead in time, and thus perfect for finding out about weather, but not far enough that it could be used to find out the winning lottery numbers), well known for its nice and sunny climate, amazing beaches that go on forever, and local inhabitants who are almost as religious and almost as well armed as average North Dakotans. I asked my colleagues questions about the weather, and of course, it is raining there too. They said that it was raining there for the whole last week, and that it felt like a really really long Tuesday. Not even the occasional rocket (launched by the well meaning locals who sincerely believe that this is the fastest way to find out the Truth about their religion) could dispel the gloom of the long, dark, world-wide Tuesday, they complained.

Them being true Elbonians, rain did not stop them from a having a traditional light lunch.

*When it doesn't fall on Rain God (Rob McKenna), of course.

More Office Space

As you might have gathered, the organization of which I am a small and insignificant part, is not really known for its great management. For example, I work in an office of about 12 people, 3 computers, 4 desks and exactly 3 chairs. Whoever arrives earliest grabs the free chair, while the rest of the bunch then dejectedly wander around the office, pretending to work. This is, understandably, quite difficult, since most of their work requires computers. Some of the more adventurous go out for coffee, but that means confronting the infamous door problem, and because of the positioning of the coffee machines, braving the accidental encounters with the boss subclass*. This is to be avoided at all costs, since all the bosses have chairs, and thus suppose that everyone else has them too, and therefore that everyone else should be working and not drinking coffee. Needless to say, most of the bosses come from Crotoboltavia.

If you think that this situation is absurd, heh, you also need to know that my office has a small storage room at the back. This storage room is completely filled with expensive looking red leather chairs. Of course, we are not allowed to use them, since they arrived without anyone signing any papers, and therefore, they do not exist.

*Boss subclass is also recognized by their more expensive but less well tailored suits and mirror glasses with expensive writing on them.

Monday Shmonday

Life in my home country of Elbonia is strange and mystifying, especially when it relates to work habits of us, native Elbonians. If you listen to us speak, we spend enormous amounts of time working, usually for incompetent bosses imported from neighbouring country Crotoboltavia (world famous for its ancestral Elbonian wild mountain tribes and such fashion statements as white socks with suits and black shoes). If you actually visit Elbonia, you are going to find that all the coffeehouses seem to be full of the people, all the time, and that all of them claim to be on a short coffee break from their incompetent Crotoboltavian bosses. Of course, although incompetent, Crotoboltavians are crafty montagnards and quite often spend the whole day searching for their employees - usually by going from coffeehouse to coffeehouse themselves.

Some of us are lucky, and work for government companies, agencies, departments and the rest of the metastasizing kafkian apparatus of state. For us, the whole work question is quite irrelevant, especially when compared to really important issues like whether the weekly allotment of toilet paper arrived, who bought which of the daily newspapers (and of course, coordination issues for prevention of duplication of effort when buying or reading the same), whose turn is it to spend time and patience convincing the corner coffee machine to produce some liquid almost totally, but not quite, different then the coffee you asked for, etc, etc..

For example, I recently transferred into a new office, quite a bit higher up in the hierarchy of government. This office is part of a highly secretive and paranoid part of state apparatus, witch uses staggering security measures (quite alien to our easy-going Elbonian ways) such as security cards for opening doors, no coffee machines* in hallways and actual internal camera system. Because this is a secretive state apparatus, all the employees are required to wear suits (or for women, whatever haute mode is current) and black mirror glasses, which makes them highly inconspicuous in the middle of the military complex where the offices are situated. It also makes them highly inconspicuous on any public event which they, by the nature of their job, have to attend. To remind my foreign readers, in Elbonia men traditionally wear sweats, white socks and black leather jackets in public.

There also seems to exist a slight problem with the security cards for all the exterior and interior doors. These were part of a system inherited from previous inhabitants of that office building - a local HQ of an UN peacekeeping mission. This ancient technology (early 90s) in the meantime lost all of its accompanying manuals, most of the security cards themselves as well as the means to make new ones. So this secretive group of government officials is forced to wait around entrance and interior doors until the lucky card-bearer appears, all the time, of course, acting inconspicuously. Some enterprising individuals have in the mean time discovered alternative means of opening doors - it seems that card readers sometimes react positively to various pieces of colored paper, personal ID cards, and in at least one observed case, a briefcase.

You can imagine the scene: a small group of suits waits around entrance to an old building, pretending that they are just passing by or smoking a cigarette, while all the time watching actions of an unlucky individual who tries to open the door by waving various implements at it. When the door opens, everybody rushes in, while from the opposite side their mirror images try to rush out. Confusion ensues, confusion resolves, the doors close with ominous click, while one last unlucky late individual (running at breakneck speed) hits the door and slides down semiconscious, starting the whole cycle again.
Repeat the scene on every interior wing door.


* This problem was solved by putting all the coffee machines in the stairwell. Of course, that solution just compounded the problem with doors.

Friends

We all do weird things for our friends. For example, we wake up at 2 a.m. in the middle of North Dakota winter, ride out 40 miles to the nearest "Danger: Moose Crossing" sign and then proceed to take it off with your trusty Swiss knife, all the while contemplating the joys of -40C local temperature, just because your crazy Russian friend has his birthday tomorrow, and you know he appreciates little things like that.

Since I am going to do similar things for my friends here in the wonderful Klein bottle space of blogosphere, and because taking signs off the Internet highway can be dangerous, I decided to take liberty with their names and just plain invent them all over again. Also, I am not going to be consistent with them, since lying is difficult enough without trying to remember exactly what we lied about and when and to whom. So, hello to Mary Shelly, Strom, Big Ktulu, Princess K, Bloodhimir, Amandanmanregge, Gorak, Tsushima, Monacococo, Red Dwarf, Mika the Coyotte, Bukva the Terrible and the rest of the vociferous and highly brain endowed bunch that I am privileged to know and call friends.

Introduction

Everyone who knows me, knows that I like to talk. A lot. Actually, quite often they refer to me as "The voice that we hear in our heads whenever certain subjects are raised", much to their annoyance. Since being a disembodied voice in the heads of other people is usually reserved for God(s), Demons and Voice of the Wife/Mother, I concluded that a new method of communication is in order.

I envisaged that new method as something that would connect pictures from my mind with the voice of David Attenborough, while having the same impact as Richard Dawkins would on a religious conference. Unfortunately, Google still isn't capable of giving me such an aid - their tech support claimed that it was a good idea and maybe they'll think about it sometimes in the next century. Dang it, foiled again, I thought! But of course, as we all know, evil geniuses never give up! I shall use this inadequate tool to plot the destruc....er, express my reasoned opinion on various issues that conform to my master pl..er, various issues that I like to comment on. There.