Category: Uncategorized

My apologies for the formality of my writings as of late. I just finished Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, the English translation for which, over the entire course of the book, tends to be quite precise while at the same time, quite disjointed on account of its being written in, recursive comma fragments, like these, that kind of makes reading the narration, after a long hard day’s work, a bit tedious and, depending upon my attentive capacity of that particular day, exacting. Consciously or not, I now find myself, after reading the great work, writing, haphazardly, in the same, ridiculous, fashion. Cheers!

“…my name is Tawnya and I’m nearly peeing myself in excitment at the distinct pleasure of taking your call! And just how may I satisfy your fax, printer, and/or copier accessory needs today? What’s that? You’re not used so much enthusiasm from an office supply specialist. Well mine is not your usual office supply company. You see, all of us here at CE are required to take part in an extensive personal optimization program (POP) so that us real employees can become at least as attractive, and chipper as the folks who are depicted on our extensive line of superior office products.

Please call us first with all of your office supply needs… we promise you nothing short of WOW! service. As you can tell from my picture, I never tire of my callers’ clever quips and crazy office hijinks.”

[This post is for a limited time only; that is, until CE catches wind of it.]

The height of lameness was I this weekend. On Friday night, Jane and I fully readied ourselves to go to the Sasquatch Music Festival the following morning. I’ve been stoked about it for months. Several bands responsible for, if you’ll excuse the corn, today’s hottest and hippest music were playing all in one venue.

Saturday morning I woke up hating the shit out of life. My weekly fatigue hits on Fridays; Saturdays I usually sleep in to catch up. I guess I hadn’t realized, until this past Saturday, how much I NEED sleep on Saturday mornings. We woke up at 5 am, showered, dressed and finished packing. We were driving to meet our friends when I caught myself snoozing for an instant at a stoplight. This event, a mere two minutes a self-induced shouting fit, for which Jane heroically endured the brunt of my frenzy, was spurred by my not being able to find my belt and hat.

It was obvious that my mood would not improve without sleep (and the likelihood of my getting sleep during the drive, sometime during the day, or while camping out that night would be slim to none). I was certain that I would not have a good time and I worried that my mood would detract from everyone else’s good time; so the van left without me. Much to my disappointment.

A friend of mine, who I haven’t seen in probably a year :(, sends me mass emails with funnies attatched every Friday. These amused me:

I was wondering if anyone listens to the looped samples that I’ve been posting weekly under “RACKET!!!”?

Also, have any of you tried to play the samples when viewing this blog with a Mac? Do they play?

My feelings will be hurt if I receive any comments along the lines of: “I would listen if you put up samples of better songs!”

Thanks,
The Thugster

[Warning: What follows is a rant!]

I get on an average of four different buses a day. There is no parking for lowly staff at my job so I’ve gotten quite tri-met savvy as a result.

This morning I boarded an 8 bus in downtown. As the bus pulled away from the stop, I found myself trudging up the aisle to my standing place, using the full strength of my legs. Then, the driver suddenly let off the gas and I shot forward, catching myself only by grabbing the bars beside me. Every friggin’ stop, and stops are frequent on the way up to the hill, everyone on the bus was thrown forward when he braked, and shoved into their seats (or had to hold on for dear life if they were standing, like I was) when he slammed the accelerator.

Giving him the benefit of the doubt I thought, “it’s a bus full of people, it’s not going to handle like a car.” But then I reasoned “no, I’m on buses ALL THE TIME and I don’t commonly experience rides as rough as this one.” I really would have preferred to walk. Also, back in my drilling days I drove a Freightliner on dirt roads, loaded with 1200 gallons of water and scores of sticks of drillpipe, and I, a truck driving novice, managed to handle that rig better than he handled his bus (no more than one quarter of the weight) this morning. That fucker needs to learn some finesse, plain and simple.

Whenever I setup a new study that involves tests that are uncomfortable or trying for my subjects, I sit myself in the hot-seat beforehand (as long as it doesn’t do me harm) so I have an idea of what they will be feeling when I ask them to endure such torments. Bus drivers should be riders on occasion. They should have to wait 15 minutes later than their bus’s posted time and then have to pack themselves in like sardines when it finally arrives. They should be forced to occupy no more than 2 square feet of space while the bus they’re riding winds down Terwilliger at 50 mph. After all, that’s a typical 8 line ride, both on and off the hill, for me. Perhaps that would cue them to be a bit more conscientious.

As further proof of the exceptional patience and kindness of your typical Portland citizen, nobody hollered at his inept ass. With my typical all-talk-and-no-action way, I stopped myself from climing up to and driver’s seat to say “move over and let me drive; obviously you can’t.”

Last night at the Boiler Room:

1) George Strait’s Ocean Front Property
2) Dwight Yoakam’s Guitars, Cadillacs

Fun, it was. Everyone was too ploughed to heckle or criticize.

I fell asleep last night 20 minutes into The Matrix. That’s not to comment on the entertainment value of the movie; I do enjoy it, even the twentieth time around. Anyway, when I awoke at 3:30am, there was this autobiographical documentary on B______ K_________ [a popular political writer] on the tube. I watched in my sloggyness, not knowing where was to be found, and not wanting to look for, the remote.

I’ve read nothing of hers and, prior to the documentary, knew of her only by name. I learned, in my boredom, that B_______ trained in biology cuz she thought it was practical. She wrote poetry in the margins of her textbooks throughout school as a sort of guilty pleasure that she kept hidden. After many years, she mustered up the courage to send a poem of hers to a publisher and the rest is… [Yeah yeah, like I give a rat’s ass!]

When I nearly could not stand any more, she voiced an opinion of hers that interested me, with which I, reluctantly, happen to agree. She said “there is a sacred tenet in our society that holds: ‘as long one works hard enough, and is smart, then one will get what one deserves’; that I, incidentally, happen to believe is bologne.”

I, myself, have voiced this same view as well; just not as eloquently, and usually, with a great deal of profanity. I was struck by the rare humility she must have as a writer. She must recognize that she, herself, is lucky to have a gift with words that enables her to evoke emotion in her readers. That it is not necessarily the political attitudes in her works, many of them fictional, that inspires her following.

So… I was like “ok”. Maybe I can identify with her. Of course, I totally took for granted that she actually applies that same philosophy to her own accomplishments. Because all of the sudden she starts copping this holier than thou attitude and spouting off social and environmental policy dogma. “Hold the ef’in’ phone” I thought, “where was that exemplary attitude of a few minutes ago. Just cuz you researched some shit and poetically slung a few words together about it doesn’t make you an expert! And, just cuz you metamorphose your thoughts into print doesn’t make them Truth.”

Fortunately, there was only about ten minutes of the documentary left. The one that followed, “Beating the Odds; an Introduction to Statistics in Society” motivated me to get the fuck up and get on the bus to downtown — to pound on something, my drums to be specific.

I’m thinking of changing the title of this blog so it reads: Daily Record of the Most Whineyest Man on Earth. Any thoughts…? All comments are welcome. Especially ones from my favourite blogspot user, Shay.

Shay… I need advice that only you, through your extensive life experience and thorough philosophical enquiry, can provide.

… why is it that Wednesdays I’m pummeled with demoralizing spreadsheet work? My mood goes from chipper to frothing at the mouth with rage in 2.5 hours! The worst part of it is, all of this torturous tedium will most likely be in vain. My boss has not the time, fortitude or inclination to even attempt to search for findings in the plethora of data, that I, and my peers have labored several hundreds of hours to generate and organize. These efforts were made for a particular study that he, years ago, went to great lengths to design.

Up until about six months ago, I never regretted my decision to take this job. But now, knowing that none of my effort on this study, will probably ever come to fruition, coupled with my boss’ refusal to defend my conduct before our institution’s internal review board (that I should be dismissed for making an error in a study advertisement), I very much do.

Well, why did I take this job in the first place? To gain experience conducting research and to publish the findings we uncover. It’s the second part of that statement that is the cause of my frustration. This job has been very heavy in setting up, and collecting data for studies… and very light in analysis and publication. I did not train in college the way I did so that I could waste time fixing equipment and babysitting (babysitting is harsh, meeting and working with subjects is one of the few things that remain in this job that I actually enjoy doing). It is not as if there are any other perks to this job. The pay is insulting and the demands are difficult and frequent. I remember saying explicitly to my boss that I would take this job only if the above conditions would be met; both of them! He assured me “publication in scientific literature is very likely.”

HORSESHIT!

Okay, what is keeping me here anyway? My pay. And, my word that I would leave things in order for my replacement. Perhaps I could live with myself if I broke that promise, considering that my boss has not upheld, or even tried to uphold, the significant promise that he originally made to me.

It looks like I have not maintained my resolution of being-happy-no-matter-what that I made to myself earlier this week. Here’s to better times!