Distorted Cerebration

WTF, things were looking up for a minute there, then boom can’t get anything accomplished today. Having enough issues that I’m contemplating hiding under the covers until tomorrow. I don’t think I’ve gotten 1 thing accomplished today. And even though my foot’s on the gas, I don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

Thought I’d play some WoW to ease my mind. Wait who are we kidding, I was gonna do that anyway. But now instead of my cable modem which has been dying randomly for the past month or so, it’s now something completely random that keeps disconnecting me… while I’m fighting a mob.

/le sigh , /le bitch, /le sigh

(omg, I’m having deja vu of writing about having deja vu of this post… yeah brain hurts)

So I visited some friends that I haven’t seen in a while this past weekend. Strangely enough I spent a good deal of time during the party talking to the “new” people. People we play WoW with but had never met in real life before then. During this trip it became clear that this past weekend may be the last time that whole lot of people get together. Strictly for location reasons nothing morbidly serious for that group.

Anywho, it was that realization that gave birth to another realization. They’re the last group of friends that I hang out with somewhat regularly.

All my other friends, still see each other but it’s done in more of a spontaneous nature not in the “I know I will see them again” like it was with this group.

So between this sad set of realizations, my third smoke of the day and pleasant sunday afternoon I decided it was time. Time to stop making excuses and finally start making moves on something I wanted. A relationship.

(Though I have to admit, part of this motivation was sparked by one of my friends new girlfriend. Awesome little woman).

So I go to the same online hangout I’ve been to a hundred times before, and a hundred times been disappointed. This time I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. So I made a move. And surprisingly I got a favorable response.

Now what?

I have no clue what to talk about. I don’t talk, I listen, and respond. I interject when it’s appropriate. But now I’m in the driver seat and I haven’t a fraking clue where I’m supposed to drive to. Oh I know where I would like to end up, but it’s not somewhere that has a specific destination. If that makes any sense.

Many times before when I was in the driver seat, I ended up driving into brick walls, or the dreaded part of town called the Friend zone. Oh what a nasty place that is.

But now I need to keep my bearings, and drive true… if only I knew how to drive.

Sheesh.

So I’ve not been right for awhile, moreso in the past week.  (Mentally it’s been forever, I’m talking physically).  So much so that I’ve been contemplating if these are my last days.  If the body was gonna give before I thought I was ready.

And I realized that when thinking of the choice,  letting the end of all things of my world, end, or fighting tooth and nail… I was torn.  Continuing on like I am doesn’t seem that powerful of a thing to fight for.  Nothing jumped out at me other than the general fear of death itself.

Have I ever been happy?  Dunno.  I recall my mother stating how happy I was once.  Once.  That’s when I was dating the last chick, the one with more drama than any man should have to be a part of, and was still oblivious to the level of drama this chick generated.

Only time I seemed to of exuded happiness.   So other than drama filled curly haired (damn beautiful) women, what else is there to fight for?

I still don’t have an answer for that.

But then something happened today which makes me lean more to the fighting side. Something so benign but yet so powerful it made me smile.

It rained.

Not just rain, it poured.

That sound is just so fantastic.  I dunno what it is that is so uplifting about the sound of rain.

I only can think of one movie quote to explain it.  May not match up 100% with where I am right now but it still kinda fits.

“God is in the rain”

It’s bad when you can’t even think of something to buy as a means of Retail Therapy . I remember a day when retail therapy took all about the time it took to drive down to Best Buy and pick out the thing I wanted. Nowadays I can’t think of something I want to buy. Even as a toy.

“When all the smiles are out of town, your placebo is too weak. You’re in the Syndrome.”

And today, a day when I could use a bit of retail therapy to take my mind away from whatever it is that bothers it so (which I truly have no clue what it is), I can’t think of anything to buy.

Ok, I can think of things to buy but I know they’re not even going to last an hour of use. I would get past opening the box and then become bored with it.

le sigh.

Ok, so I’m stubborn. Most people know me as laid back and such, except for when it comes to my job. Then the asshole in me comes out in tsunami’s. But despite how stubborn I can be, and like to do things my way, I am not so blinded by my awesomeness that I can’t see the bigger picture. (yes that does parse correctly. I can see the bigger picture ;-P ).

So when I am fucking pissed off at this person at my job, I can do so cleanly. Without any hypocrisy. OK… so maybe I did some things at the last job that has some hyprocatic components to it. But that’s behind me now.

Anyway, this person, refuses to do things the way “the group” does it. Individuality, I’m all for it, except for when it adversely affects the way other people who are responsible for the same things you do. Especially when ANYTHING in the chain of things we are responsible for can quickly become the weakest link.

We as SysAdmins are the gatekeepers, we need to be on the same page. And for you to go off and do your own thing… giving reasons like “Oh that’s too hard for me to remember”… is going to leave holes in the gate and WE as a team are going to pay the price for the thieves in the night.

“Oh it’s just a test box” you say. So the fuck what. It is live on OUR network, it is a link, temporary or not, that can become a threat to everything that is production.

And it’s not your primary responsibility. That system you are working on is not what your skills were brought on to do. And quite frankly I worry about those supposed skills sometimes. You’ve proven me wrong here and there, but not enough to take you out of the ‘watch closely’ column.

I heard you mention that a lot of your skills are going to waste. Err… no. Those supposed skills you supposedly have that you think are going to waste were not contracted in the first place. If I hire you to drive me from point A to point B, why would you complain about not being able pilot a fighter jet? I don’t care if you think you can fly better than Maverick, I just want to get from my house to the train station.

And why did this all come up? Cause I was gonna help you figure out what was going on on your test system, but I couldn’t. Cause you couldn’t be damned to learn a password you went off and did you own thing. And me asking you to set it to the standard was me telling you how to be a sysadmin.

You sir, blow as a sysadmin.

Prove me wrong.

POSTSCRIPT:

Apology accepted…..

Captain Needa.

Apparently I am:

http://www.reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSEIC35670320070803?feedType=RSS

This is not a spoiler.

So the latest Harry Potter book came out recently. I can’t even fathom what else has been this big that it’s affected the world like this. But what I just saw takes the cake.

While getting ready for a raid, the council of my alliance decides, “Spoil the latest Harry Potter and you’re raid banned”. Maybe a little overboard but understandable request. I don’t want to hear about a movie that I want to see other than “It was good” or “It sucked”, so it’s the same as a book.

So someone announces in vent “Council just passed. No talking about the Harry Potter book or you’re out of the alliance/raid banned”. Now if you haven’t been under a rock for the last 10years it’s a common sentiment when the Potter book is released. However one player states this (paraphrasing) in raid chat:

“I can’t stand for the limiting of free speech in any form. gl”

And then leaves the raid. And signs off.

HOLY SHIT BATMAN!

I am all for free speech, but we’ve all been there where we’ve wanted to smash someone in the face for revealing information that we wanted to discover on our own. Like in a book, or a movie. So to get uppity about a request like that is just beyond all comprehension.

Someone getting like that for book information being said. Ok, I kinda get that. For the possibility of not being able to ruin someone’s enjoyment of a book, for the sake of ‘free speech’. OMG “Lighten up Francis”.

Once more I’m here trying to decipher myself, to explain to others (in the hopes, that I finally understand myself )

It seems to me that I have a power problem.  Not a struggle for power. I’m not building a fighting force of extra-ordinary magnitude.  I have no technological terrors that are completely operational. We’re talking more interpersonal power.

And it’s really odd one.  Would love to hear your comments on it.

You see I seem to ‘give’ power to those who I don’t know, and (just about) demand power from those I know very well.  Ironic eh?

You would think it would be opposite.  That when they met me they would soon learn who’s “the baddest mofo low down around this town?”  (Sho’nuff).  But instead my ego disappears. Completely.  I become an empty shell in the shape of Funk.

I just seem to blindly obey those I don’t know.  Ok, not completely. Ask for money and I don’t have it. But other than that I will seriously consider “obeying” if not just doing it.

And those that get that far of requesting things of me, have made it past the “don’t fuck with me” aka the expressionless face I usually have when near people I don’t know.

But for people I do know, I can be pushy. I can be a down right asshole sometimes.  Not so much an asshole that people hate me. Instead people seem to like me. Alot.  (They told me so ).  I always get invited back.   But still that bossy attitude is there, with people I know.

Why does any of this matter?  Well meeting women is kinda hard when you turn into souless Mr. Roboto who hasn’t uploaded the conversation software yet.

Really need to find away to meet new people and know that “I am the master” at the same time.

Sho’nuff.

I’ve been a so called leader a few times in my lifetime. I’ve had good times and bad times. All in all though I will actively try not to be a leader ever again. The stress part of it aside, the real bane of leading is the “then I’ll quit” people.

You know those people. The ones that disagree with something and then make some suggestion that when not praised as the saving grace of whatever the current ailment is state “then I’ll just quit”.

I use to try and keep the peace. Try to make them understand that yes there comments are welcomed. Now… GTFO if you’re gonna be like that.

It’s a tactic that I’ve seen way too often, typically from people that do nothing but complain but don’t do any of the work. Moving forward in anything is so much more of a chore when you drag people like that along.

Now to up the ante on the level of annoyance of these people, they also do the whole “that’s not what I meant” thing.

You know what I mean. First they say “This sucks, I hate it”. Then when you call them out on it their response is “I never said it sucks. You misinterpreted what I said”.

Umm… no you said “it sucks”. In fact this situation happens a lot on message boards, so you can quote them:

Annoyance wrote:

This sucks. I hate it.

To which their reply of course is ” That’s not what I really meant”.

Bullshit. If that’s not what you meant, then don’t say/type it. Mean what you say. Say what you mean (“and as always, England Prevails!”).

Honestly how hard is it to take a minute, 60 seconds to review what you write for tone and how others may perceive what you’re saying.

Ugh.

The only thing that could top this crap sundae, is those people who say whatever it takes to get people pissed off (following the “this sucks” mantra), and then when others get pissed off, they act like the victim.

“Bullet in the brain pan. Squish.”

This is something I wanted to get off my chest, not something I want anyone that isn’t the person I talk about to do something with. If you do, do something and are not that person I may have to hurt you, just cause.

So following that whole F for Failure theme:

There’s this beautiful woman that alights my [ space not to be named ] from time to time. Any man would be crazy not to try and start a relationship with her. Accordingly I am slightly crazy. I definitly would like to hang out with her at least once, but I for some dumb reason I kept coming up with reasons not to do it.

• She’s too beautiful not to have someone already, so why bother?
• I don’t want others, that are unavoidable because of who she is, to be in my business. Not that she would go telling everyone, everything but there’s a possibility that things wouldn’t be underwraps so to speak
• I don’t want to fail
• I don’t want to fail and have things uneasy for time to come because of who she is. (yes that’s two different entries).
• I have a small anxiety about a certain policy that exists at [space not to be named].

Now I have spoken to her, she does know I exist. Hell she saw me around before I saw her. We were at Marist at the same time. But with my panic about the Sexual Harrasment policy I tried not to pay attention to the female students. It helps keep your job to do something like that, but has you dying a little bit inside each time when you fail to not notice.

So we spoke once. “Once!” (movie quote). But I didn’t persue right then and there. Why? Apart from the reasons above, I was in a bit of shock. As aware as I usally am about my surroundings, to not commit this woman to memory is just a travesty to being a man. Yeah I was trying not to notice, but still it’s the principalities smokey.

I am not obsessed with this woman. Obsessed is knowing what car she drives, the license plate and her arrival and departure times. I don’t know any of that and I don’t seek it out. Hell I don’t sit all day contemplating what she is doing. But I really would like to know her.

Chalk up another lost cause. Things might be different than what I perceive themt to be. It would be wonderful if things are different than what I perceive them to be.

But for now I just have to realize that I got another F.