10 posts tagged “idiocy”

OK, yes, I finally saw Cloverfield.

It sucks.

Didn't I see this movie already?  Whiny 20-something idiots running around getting lost with a video camera?  I'm sure I did.  I think it might have been called the Blair Witch Project.

For the entire movie, Ladybug and I were hoping Hog, or Hap, or Hud, or whatever the camera guy's name was would be killed just so we wouldn't have to listen to his moronic voice-over any more.  Yes, we all have emotionally stunted, needy, jerkoff friends like that who are good for little more than getting us all killed with their incompetence.  I stopped calling mine some years ago.  And then you kill the only character I gave a crap about, Milena, or whatever, the one who told Haphudhog he's a fucking idiot with his Superman commentary.

And you want to talk about an idiot plot?  Here's a dollar's worth of free advice, hipsters: when the rats are running from something, you don't fucking stop to figure out what it is.  All you're doing is proving that you're dumber than a rat.  If you've just been attacked by a large bug, and have found refuge behind a stout door with a viable water and air supply, what do you do?  Go back out into the dark?  Or hold up until morning?  I guess if you're a love-struck moron, you go back out in the dark.  Miranda, or whatever her name was, the cool one, she was dead anyway from that bite, with no real medical attention (and you didn't even think to try to get her some - even after you ran into the military).  Just freaking stick it out.  Hell, you were underground as well.  If we've learned anything from recent history, it's that bombs, however huge, don't kill people hiding in caves very effectively.

When Hoghaphud turned the camera on himself and said, "If this is the last thing you see . . .", I said, "then thank your lucky stars the moron is dead!"   I cheered when he got eaten.

And this magic camera of theirs.  Night vision?  A floodlight?  And with a battery and casing that will last for hours of recording and being knocked around, dropped, chewed and still record?  Yes, please, sign me up for one of them.  I can't get a battery for a video camera that lasts for 12 hours sitting in the camera doing nothing.  You're running a near IR sensor and a floodlight and recording all night long and into the morning.  Suspension of disbelief indeed.   We were waiting for them to engage the "alien blood trail detector," or "damsel in distress sensor," or, my personal preference, the "turn-this-into-a-movie-I-want-to-watch-o-meter."

And what was the point of the first half hour?  If this is suppsed to be a military recovery, why are we subjected to 30 minutes of MTV's The Real World?  Apart from making me loathe Hudhaphog and wanting him to die in the first attack.  And explaining why the main idiot wants to get all his friends killed to save some bit of tail he had a one day fling with.

OK, yes, I'd go back in to save my kids or my wife.  But I wouldn't take a video camera.  I'd take weapons.  Loot an electronics store for a phone battery?  Hell no, loot a gun store for some bad ass shotguns or automatic rifles.  And then steal a car.

Lily got out (amazingly, the ethnic minority survived), so at least we have a surviving character for Book of Idiots: Cloverfield 2.

So, the neighbors on both sides of me have tween boys.  When they're not out playing baseball, they're playing football, or basketball.  Since we're between seasons, somewhat, right now, they're out riding bikes.  All good, healthy activities for a young lad which don't bother me in the slightest.

I really don't worry too much about these boys.  They generally do their thing, and it's no skin off my back.  A few months back, they were playing basketball on my hoop (or, rather, the previous owner's hoop) and knocked out one of my floodlights.  Apparently, one of the parents caught them at it, because they showed up the next day with a replacement for me.

Why do I say one of the parents caught them at it?  Because since then, they've been running amok.  They live on either side of my house, so, it started simply enough with them tramping across my lawn to get back and forth.  I don't mind that.  It's a lawn, not a Picasso.  Then it was bikes across my lawn.  Less happy about that, because it resulted in a couple of broken sprinkler heads.  The skid marks in my driveway didn't impress me much either.  The various balls and trash in my lawn?  I just threw that back on to their lawns and left it at that.

One day, I came home to see them hanging from my basketball hoop.  The last thing I need is some sort of lawsuit because one of them falls from my hoop, so I took the hoop down.  I don't use it, so it really didn't matter to me.  Frankly, I was happy enough to let them use it, until they started using it irresponsibly.  In the end, they both have their own hoops, but they're not embedded in concrete like mine, so they tend to blow over regularly.

Evidently, though, this state of affairs didn't meet with the approval of these kids, so, on Saturday, they decided that a little game of "ring and run" would be fun.  The sad part is that they're not bright enough to plan their escape properly, so they'd run past my front window where I could see them.  Morons.  At least when I'd do it, I'd do it with a proper escape planned.  How to deal with this?  Ignore it until they get bored?  Not really an option.  I don't want to have one of my own kids napping when one of these pests decides to ring my doorbell.

Pests.

Ah, there's the key.  So, I did what I'd do when any other unwanted pests were fornicating around in my yard: I went out and turned the hose on them.  Then I told them that running past my front window was stupid.  And that the next time my doorbell rang and no one was there, I'd take it to their parents, even if it wasn't them.  Did I mention I was still in my karate clothes?  That my hair was all up on end?  That I looked, to put it mildly, like a psychotic chainsaw killer?

In any case, I later saw them pass my house on the other side of the street, so I think I got my point across, and also put it into their heads that they were dealing with a crazy adult.  So, I might have solved all my problems in one insane rant.  Certainly, their parents didn't come round asking why I turned the hose on their kids, so I imagine the kids are pretty clear where the line is drawn now.

So, as you may know, our main family ride is a Dodge Magnum.  This Magnum is cursed.  Since we bought it in August of 2005, it's been hit three times.  No.  Wait.

Make that four.

Last Wednesday, Ladybug went out to CVS to get a refill on a prescription.  I expected her back in, oh, 15 minutes or so.  No dice.  She calls, and asks me not to freak out. 

My whole day had been going lousy.  I spent the whole day fixing errors in code that should never have even existed if I was working with competent people.  I couldn't get the timing right on anything.  The drive home from work was monstrous that day, with every avenue of escape from downtown Phoenix restricted in one way or another.  My usual route?  A police car sirened his way past me only to cut off access.  I tried Washington, no dice, it's half closed for construction of our light rail system.  Van Buren?  Looked good until it turns out that a Denny's chose that day to burn down (not by itself - every fire needs a little bit of help), and the road was closed with everyone being routed back down to . . . you guessed it . .. Washington.  By this point, I couldn't get up to the 202, or down to the airport to try to bypass the mess, so I was stuck in it.  For 40 minutes.  My whole commute takes less than that.

I got home, and Ladybug was bringing the kids (I had called her because there was no way I could get them in time).  She was running late as well, but not as late as I was.  Anyway, we had a Disney Character Call scheduled, part of our package.  Minnie was going to call at 7:30 Mountain (the time listed on the website where I set it up) to talk to Lotus.  I had it all planned.  Google reminder and everything.  Then, at 6:30 our phone rings.  I pick up.  It's the damn call.  Ladybug isn't home yet.  There's no way for me to reschedule now, and nothing I can do but hang up.  The phone rings again almost immediately.  Nothing to be done, I sadly hit 1 and listen to Minnie's invitation.  I hang up.  I take my hand off the phone and I hear . . . the garage door open.  I'm not sure how Ladybug didn't hear my excruciating howl of defeat.  We'd been hinting at this call with Lotus for a week.  She was looking forward to it, and now, because the designers of the Character Call website don't really know what Mountain Time means in Arizona (where, you know, the area code was), she'd missed it.  By seconds.  Seriously.  I guess it's my fault, right?  I mean, I should have put in Pacific time or something.  Why the hell do we even have Daylight time any more?  They've expanded it so much that now most of the year is on Daylight.  Just set everyone's clocks forward an hour, redefine the time zones, something, just leave it alone.  All this clock changing just screws with those of us smart enough to live somewhere where it doesn't happen.

Anyway, Ladybug calls from CVS and asks me not to freak.  An idiot in a Civic backed into her.  Driver's side door.  No one was going very fast, but it really banged up the door.  It still opened and closed, but the window wouldn't go down more than an inch, and the door will likely have to be replaced.  The Magnum is the only car I trust to make the journey to California and back, as my Buick is old, and at the moment is suffering from worn tires which, eventually, I'll either find the time to replace, or have a blow out on the freeway.  And now, some idiot wasn't watching what he was doing, and backed into it.  7 hours before we're set to drive to California in it.  I was incensed, and it's probably a good thing I wasn't there, because if I had been, there would have been bloodshed.  In the end, it was still drivable, but I made the 6.5 hour trip with a whistle in my ear because of this guy.  The door doesn't really sit flush at the moment, because of this moron.   And now, we have to deal with insurance, and rental cars, and be without our main family conveyance because this blithering idiot doesn't know how to use a rear view mirror.

Why?  Why do idiots keep hitting our car?

Programmer nerds, read this.  Especially if you're working with typical offshore resources.  What's got me set off today?

DeliverPricingInfo pricingInfo = null;
// 3 lines of irrelevant logging code
//Save the Pricing delivered
pricingInfo.save(pricingInfoContract);

What kind of rookie writes code like this and thinks it will work?  And who allows it to be delivered as working code?  This can result in only one outcome, and would be caught easily during even the most rudimentary testing.  Like, say, a simple peer code review.  Clearly, no one is awake in our offshore development center.  Code like this is going out to ride your bike, seeing that it has no wheels on it, and thinking, "Yup, this will work."  This isn't square wheels, or triangles, or a broken chain, or handlebars turned the wrong way, or some funky recumbent design that no one's ever tried before, or an uncomfortable seat designed for a baboon's ass, this is no fucking wheels.  And thinking it will work.

You're doing it completely wrong.

So, I finally figured out how to eliminate the DHS, and, by extension, the TSA: ladies, cut them off!  Want a reason?  Here, read this.  I'm sure it's not the first time some disgruntled ex-boyfriend who happened to have security clearance at a federal agency with over-reaching and unregulated surveillance powers used the very expensive, tax payer funded assets to stalk his ex-lover.  This is just the latest one.  Of course, this is just another reason why you might want to request that dossier the DHS is filing on you.

Anyway, it goes like this: don't date people who work for the DHS.  You now have a very good reason not to.  How many of your relationships ended amicably?  Are you sure they ended amicably?  Are you absolutely certain, given that you've gone from a state of trust with this person to a state of non-trust, that this ex-significant other wouldn't stalk you?  What if they could do it under the auspices of a police state?  Even if you marry this DHS drone, can you be sure he won't spy on you anyway?  See?  Don't date DHS employees.  This makes it less likely for them to be able to mate, except with their own co-workers.  Government jobs, just lately, have seen a huge rise in nepotism.  So, the parents will hire their offspring, thus further reducing the gene pool.   A few generations from now, the DHS will be entirely manned by 12 toed hillbillies, or possibly members of the Royal Family, at which point we won't have to dismantle it, just rename it: Diseased Hereditary Simpletons.  They won't even have to change the letterhead.

Here's a quick primer on how to spot trouble on the freeway. 

1. Is the person in front of you able to see you in his rearview mirror?  It's easy to tell.  You should be able to sort of spot the driver's eyes in their interior mirror.  If, however, the mirror is completely askew, such as might be the case  if the driver were, oh, let's say, fixing her hair while driving, that's trouble.
2. Are you able to see both of the driver's hands?  And further, are neither of them anywhere near the wheel?  Like, say, one is teasing out her hair, and the other is operating a hair spray can?  That's trouble.
3. Are you driving behind this person at rush hour on the freeway in the carpool lane?  While that's not trouble in and of itself, it's certainly one of the worst times to be doing your hair.
4. Would you like to compound the problem by taking a photo of this person's car so you can remember it for later?  Make sure to wait until she swerves back into your lane, so that you can get a good shot.
   

And I'm still pissed off about it.

Another architectural review.  Another rehash of the same old processes.  Yet more new issues with our processes that were approved of less than 2 months ago. 

I really can't take it any more.  Clearly, my expertise is worth nothing.  Clearly, my track record with the review board counts for nothing.  Clearly, there is no point in continuing to fight these stupid fights.  I can't even get support from the client on  most things.

So what is the fucking point of continuing to engage with this project?  I'm not even there, I'm hearing things second hand, I'm trying to take training, and now I'm just fucking pissed off about the rampant idiocy that seems to have taken root at the client like some sort of more-evil kudzu.  You can't kill it, you can't get rid of it, it just moves in and infects everything. 

Vogons . . .

That's it.  I'm disengaged.  I don't care.  Fuck it.

This past weekend, I drove up to Sedona for a little break from the realities of life in Phoenix.  Sedona is a strangely other-worldly place.  Possibly because of the mystic significance all the hippies have attached to it, since it's biking distance from Flagstaff, and all the mystics going to school there to get their degrees in psychology and English literature can't afford cars.  But enough about my college years. 

The one problem with getting to Sedona from Phoenix is that you generally end up on Interstate 17.  I-17 is the fastest route from Phoenix to Flagstaff, so it's always somewhat busy.  Since the recent addition of Anthem (e.g. Scottsdale North), the road has seen a huge increase in traffic, without the associated increase in the number of lanes.  It's essentially two lanes in each direction from just north of Phoenix all the way to Flagstaff.  In recent years, I have come to terms with this issue, and have developed a lot of (but not limitless) patience when driving up I-17.  I also try to avoid traveling I-17 during daylight hours, to reduce the amount of traffic I have to have patience to deal with.  I know my patience is limited, so I try to manage what patience I have in the best way I can.

The main issue that tries anyone's patience on that road is passing slower traffic.  The advent of cruise control has not helped this issue.  Most people set their cruise control to just over the speed limit.  However, everyone's idea of "just over the speed limit" is a little different, and no two speedometers are accurate in the same way.  This results in cars passing one another at a difference of maybe one tenth of a mile per hour.  Which means it takes a lot of time and distance for a car to pass another car.  Often times, said car may not be paying attention to the line of cars behind them, and thus not be inclined to move back into the right lane in a timely fashion as well.  Throw into this mix a pair of vehicles that have failed to notice that the speed limit has increased from 65 to 75, and you end up with a long line of fuming drivers.  I was in just such a line on Sunday, but I was not, as yet, fuming.  I could see that the two vehicles in question were slowly passing one another, and that soon, we'd all be able to move on our merry way. 

At this point, we were just coming up on Anthem Way, the eponymous exit to the planned community of Anthem ("Welcome to Anthem, here's your SUV.").  Three Corvettes were just getting on the freeway at this point.  I thought they might be caravaning up somewhere, which I was correct about.  I also remember thinking, "You three had better step on it unless you want to be stuck in this line of traffic."  It would have been simple for the three of them to zip down the ramp and cruise in front of the two car blockage in front of me.  As I said, the two car blockage wasn't even going the speed limit at this point, and it's easy for a Corvette to hit 80 or even 90 on an on ramp that slopes downward.  So, they could have jumped the whole line.  And I would have been fine with that.  After all, if I was getting on the freeway, driving a Corvette, and I saw a backup like that, with a huge area of no cars in front of it, I'd be stomping on the accelerator like an elephant on a mouse.

I should mention that my wife rented a Corvette for me on my birthday, just before we were married.  We had a great day.  I also can speak from experience when I say that there is a certain swagger about the way you drive a Corvette.  Maybe it comes from knowing that there are very few production cars that are faster than your car, and that most of them cost both an arm and a leg to own.  So you know that, with few exceptions, you are the fastest car at the light, on the road, going through this intersection, cruising up this highway, etc.  It gives you a lovely warm shiver inside.  But even I didn't cross the line these guys were about to.  It's the line between self-assured swagger and self-important arrogant entitlement.

To continue, all three of them ended up cruising onto the road behind the slow vehicle in the right lane.  I don't see how they couldn't have seen the line of cars in the left lane, all queued up behind the not-quite-as-slow vehicle.  But the third Corvette in the line, a red convertible from the late 90s, cut off the Taurus in front of me (who was about the fourth car behind the aforementioned slow car), causing him to break suddenly.  I wasn't following that closely.  Indeed, if the Corvette had barged in between me and the Taurus instead, I probably would not have even had to slow down.  The convertible then proceeded to slow down, causing the Taurus to have to break further (and now, me as well), so that his two compadres could jump the queue as well.  OK, so, fine, this is just some bunch of idiots, let them go.  The bunch of idiots grew by two more Corvettes before much longer, both of them zipping up the right lane, passing the queue of cars waiting patiently, and cutting into the makeshift holes the "gang" would create for them.  Well, the traffic started moving along a bit, finally, but the clog was still there.  I guess both slow vehicles figured out the speed limit was up to 75 at the same time.  The Taurus, and I don't really blame him from the provocation he was suffering, decided to return the favor, so he zipped up the right lane, and cut back in front of the lead Corvette.

At this point, I learned two things.  First, this gang could dish it out, but they couldn't take it: they all clenched up when the Taurus went past to try to prevent him cutting back over.  And second, if the Corvette you're driving is your own, you're more protective of it: the Taurus just moved over, and expected the Corvette to back off, which he did.  Wouldn't you?  I mean, it's a $45K sports car, do you really want it scratched by some jerk in a thousand dollar family sedan?

The Taurus cleared the clog, and continued on up the road.  Now, you'd think at this point, the slow vehicles might have noticed the hullabaloo, and tried to maybe, I don't know, clear out of the lane?  No, they just kept going as they had been.  So, I was still stuck.  With no prospects for this getting better any time soon, and with a bit of a vendetta forming against these morons, I decided to emulate the Taurus, and see how far I could get.  So, I put the hammer down in the Magnum (not even the Hemi, I should point that out now), and passed four of them, cutting off a blue Z06 (the previous model, not the current one), and sliding in behind the brand new silver hardtop.  I knew the Z06 would back off.  That's a $70K car!  So, in this line, we inched forward.  The silver 'Vette in front of me had ample room to move to the right, and pass the lead slow vehicle at this point, but he didn't.  Then, I cleared the right slow car.  I considered moving to the right and passing, but I thought the slow vehicle (a full size Ford F-350, quite possibly diesel powered, which might be hard to see around from a 'Vette) in front might figure it out.  The Ford still hadn't figured it out by the time the Z06 was just clearing the slow right car (which I think was an H2, again, if it matters).  So, the Z06 went to change lanes.  Well, just at that point, I wasn't going to allow that, so I swung the fat ass of my Magnum over before he could hit the "Go Baby Go" and pass me on the right (for a second time, might I add). 

Yeah, it was a dick move.  It was a total dick move.  But in a row of dicks, who's going to notice? 

So, I put the hammer down again, and passed the Ford, I cut back to the left lane, and the Z06 came up on me, sort of.  Now, how a Z06 can only sort of come up on me is confusing.  I mean, I have a 3.5 liter V6 that makes, oh, 250 horse, in a heavy station wagon.  He's got a supercharged V8 making well north of 400 horses in, let's face it, a thin fiberglass shell designed to cut through the wind.  So, for whatever reason, he wasn't able to pass me on the right.  Probably also due to the other slow vehicle in the right lane.  So he was forced back into the left lane, behind me, to pass the slow car.  I passed the slow car, but didn't bother getting back in the right lane, because I knew, knew, this guy would pass me on the right.  Which he did. 

He drew level, but I wasn't about to make eye contact at the speed we were going on a curvy road, so I just opened my palms on the wheel as if to say, "Go ahead, buddy, I know you're loads faster than me, and want to get in front of me to prove your penis isn't the size of a Li'l Smokie, so just go, because I don't care about you at all."   After he passed me, I moved back to the right.  But I guess this guy wasn't done (can dish it, but can't take it, remember?).  So, he decided to play some more.  Well, I can play with the best of them.  When I had to move back into the left lane to pass another car, he decided to slow down.  Maybe he was waiting for his buddies.  Anyway, I ran up on him to about 6 inches, before cutting right, and sling-shotting around him again (yes, with my V6).  I could see, as I ran up, a moment of fear as he thought I might rear-end his precious Z06.  So I knew he wasn't about to break-check me.  Anyway, I got back in front, and decided to stay there a while.  We went about 4 or 5 miles.  His buddies caught him up, and they formed their little gang again, all in the left lane, all behind me, a little close maybe, but I'm not easily intimidated, as I know exactly where my bumper is.  I was also fortunate that there was a steady stream of cars we were passing, so they were prevented from doing anything too stupid, like trying to block me in. 

As we were going along, I noticed something.  Cars were moving to the right for me pretty consistently.  I really never had to disengage my cruise control for the whole time I led the Souvenir Jacket Men, as I think of them now, up I-17.  Even a Camry decided to get out of the left lane for me, and that's got to be a miracle.

  Maybe it's that evil cross on the grill, coming at you like Pontius Pilate.  Maybe it's the fact that there are police forces that use the Magnum now, so I might be a cop.  Whatever it was, we reached a stretch of clear road, and I moved, politely, to the right lane.  The five of them went zipping past me (gad, that must have taxed their engines, roaring past my station wagon), and I thought, well, that's that, they're gone, wherever it is they're going.  I watched them head on up the road, noticing with some satisfaction that other vehicles in the left lane weren't moving aside for them with the ease that they were doing so for me.  Could be luck.  Could be people know jackasses when they are clustered like that.  Other cars came past me.  A Hyundai Sonata, a Chevy Impala (late model), and some other nondescript cars.

I didn't see the Souvenir Jacket Men again until the climb out of Black Canyon.

The Black Canyon run (no, we don't bullseye wamprats or anything ) is a long, steep climb.  My Studebaker can just about make it up, not at any kind of speed.  Semis routinely overheat on the climb and end up at the side of the road.  The road is also still only two lanes wide, so there's always a hassle somewhere along the line with one slow vehicle passing another slow vehicle.  And of course, I ran in to the hassle.  The Hyundai was in the left lane, and not moving very fast.  The Impala was right behind him, and driving a little, shall we say, close.  Then, we completed the turn and I saw the real issue: the SJM were there, in both lanes, not making way for faster vehicles, quite clearly having a laugh about blocking the whole road and inconveniencing slower cars who would not be able to pass on an uphill grade without some momentum.  There wasn't anything in front of them.  Why were they taking up both lanes?  Because, as I said, there's a fine line between swagger and entitlement.  These guys were arguably the fastest capable cars on the road, so they felt they didn't need to move for anybody.  Except that the Sonata could have passed them, as could the Impala.  As could I, if I cared to (and had already proven).  But the SJM figured, "Hey we're clearly the fastest, so we're entitled to be here."  The same sort of reasoning, it should be said, as the lady in my prior post employed to block two lanes of traffic.  

I didn't really care any longer, as I was making good time at the speed limit, and I'd already "vanquished" the SJM to my own satisfaction.  But I kept within visual range to see what would happen.  Well, we crested the Canyon, and they went back into line in the left lane.  The Impala gave up first, and passed the Sonata and 3 of the 'Vettes on the right, cutting off the red convertible (who backed off when he saw it coming) to get past a slow moving semi.  After they all passed the semi, the Impala appeared to wait again, to see if the two lead 'Vettes would move for him.  No dice.  It was, after all, the Z06 and the silver lead 'Vette, no way their arrogance was going to let an Impala have right of way.   So, he just passed them on the right again, and moved on.  The Sonata was next, same sort of deal, they wouldn't move, so just pass them on the right.  Every car that came to them had to pass on the right, sometimes encountering a slower car (but not much slower than the 'Vettes) in the right lane.  I mean, really.  Call that being a courteous driver?  These guys are, plain and simple, jackasses.  I'm glad I was able to mess with them so successfully for a while, because they richly deserved it.  Frankly, I was hoping for one of the more seedy class of motorcycle gang to roll up on them, because that would have been hilarious.  Anyway, they just went along like that, never really needing to be in the left lane, ignoring all the signs that read, "Slower Traffic Keep Right."  The next time I saw any of them in the right lane, after my opening fiasco, and the Black Canyon blockade, was when they went to get off the road at Verde Valley.

Probably had to hit Denny's for the Senior Grand Slam and 7 dozen cups of coffee, because, dammit, they're entitled to sit there and make everyone else wait for them.   If this is what you spend your Sundays doing as a Corvette driver, I don't think I want one any longer.

Most days, around here, I have to contend with self-important idiots with no concept of social responsibility.  It was my good fortune that, the other, day, one of them decided to do it right in front of me, while I was stopped at a stop light, and able to snap a photo with my crappy little phone camera, which, fortunately, doesn't have enough resolution to show license plate numbers.  Or faces. 

Let's imagine, for a moment, that you've just dropped your kids off at a private school.  Where are you going next?  Is it urgent that you be there?  If you ask me, the likelihood is that, if you're dropping them off at 10 in the morning, you've got nowhere else to be, except maybe at home, seducing the pool boy.  So, given that, what do you do when leaving the school?  Do you make a reasonable right turn out of the lot, into a travel lane, and then, perhaps, make a left at the more easily accessed next opportunity?  Or do you cut across three lanes of traffic to barge into the left turn lane?  You know, so you can get on to the street you really want to be on, which, if you had thought a little harder about it, you could have done much more simply if you had dropped your silver-spoon brat off behind the school, where the road is easier to access.  Of course, going in the back is what servants do, so that's a no-go for your foul offspring.  When cutting across these three lanes of traffic, do you ensure, quite easily, that you get your SUV at least mostly in the turn lane?  Or do you just drive straight across, leaving your fat ass hanging out across one of the travel lanes, because you're too busy to give a crap about who you inconvenience in the pursuit of your sordid little affair with the back-door servants?  And while you're doing all this, are you paying attention at all?  Or are you ensuring that Eduardo the buff pool boy is going to be on time today by calling him on your non-hands free cell phone?  I submit to you that this is what you do:

Yes, she's on her cell phone (I mean, really, at least hold it in your right hand so it's not so obvious).  And in point of fact, I wasn't able to take this photo until she had managed to move a little more into the turn lane.  It would have been simple for her to swing out a little wider to make the turn completely into the left turn lane.  There's no one behind me (at this point).  She had plenty of opportunity to make this turn in a fashion that wouldn't inconvenience other motorists.  She's just completely oblivious.  She drives one of the most expensive SUVs which, while more capable than any American SUV except the Hummer H1, will never be off asphalt (look at those rims, those aren't for driving off-road).  And despite her husband's good fortune, has decided that a hands-free headset would muss up her immaculately coiffed hair too much, so she's got one hand on the phone, and one hand on the wheel.  Maybe.  If she's not fiddling with the stereo, or the navigation system.

Welcome to Scottsdale.  Me, judgmental?  Never.

So, it's been a few months, and of course, we're back on the same old ground at work.  In two cases.

Case 1: our testing database went down on us last week.  This happened to us back when we were testing the last release, last August.  Contacted IBM to resolve the issue, was told it would take 24 business hours (yes, three actual days - five in August, because the issue spanned a weekend).  What can we do?  Escalate it?  To the Principal?  Yeah, sure.  What we can do is just wait it out, and say, "Whoops, we lost some testing time, we'll have to make it up on the weekend."  I know it sucks.  I know it also doesn't affect me if we have to make up three days on the weekends, because I'm not actually doing the testing.  But trust me, as someone who saw this happen before, there's nothing we can do about it.  IBM has control of the servers.  The only way to get faster resolution is to engage the DB team specifically on our project, and that would be prohibitively expensive.  Maybe we should extend our time lines to take into account the fact that so far, during testing, we are batting 1000 with delays due to DB failures.  But no, again, we have to get on a stupid, useless phone call with IBM to discuss the issue.  Oh sure, we have some different ideas now, like making sure we engage our IBM PM as soon as possible, but that won't fix the underlying issue, which is that the IBM DB team collectively couldn't care less about our little DB2-on-Solaris system.  Never mind the fact that the client's DBA, who opened the issue, opened it for the wrong reason.  It wasn't a password issue at all, it was a server restart that was needed.  The fact is, it's pointless to argue with IBM about their SLAs.  They'll do what they want, when they want to, and we'll pay them for the privilege.  The very idea that IBM needs to provide us with some sort of service just because we give them money is laughable.  Have these people never worked with IBM?  Accenture's rapid development model and IBM's thumb-up-the-ass model aren't compatible.

Case 2: the estimation model we've been using is going to be hashed out again today.  The only sad part about this is that I wasn't able to avoid being drawn into the stupid process, after successfully avoiding it for 3 months.  I wrote the estimation model, back in September, as part of the Analyze process for one of our current projects.  Of which, by the way, there are three, and, essentially, me to manage the processes for all.  So, given 6 weeks to write the model, with a major install which required dozens of calls with, you guessed it, IBM, and two other projects concurrently pulling me in all directions for the client's governance process, you can imagine how good that model was.  It was crap.  I know it was crap.  I wrote it.  There was no way it was not going to be crap.  I told everyone I could the facts of the matter.  And yet, here we are, 6 bloody months later, going over the same stupid ground because the client doesn't like the numbers it spits out.  Here's the saddest part of it all: we took the crap numbers from my crap model which I know are crap, and compared them to two other models.  The Accenture estimation model came up with a number of hours slightly higher than my model.  The other estimation we did was to take every file we'd have to create or adjust, sum them up, multiply that by 30, and call that the number of hours.  Based on the extra effort of testing, creating documentation, the governance process, 3 layers of code reviews, and everything else, that was about average during our past projects.  The number that gave us?  Slightly less than my model.  In both cases, we're talking about a deviation of less than 4%.  So, this week, while I'm trying to handle a governance process for yet another project, I have to take time out of my day to explain my crap model again.  How it works.  Why we get the numbers we do.  And so on.  And for what reason?  So they can question the numbers again for the next project?  Because I already know that they're never going to be happy.  And, frankly, when we have changes in project scope even after we've started the Build phase of the project, how can anyone even expect a simple Excel spreadsheet with some poorly written functions based on our best actuals from prior projects and estimation factors that don't apply to many of the components being written to be in any way accurate?  These people have clearly never read The Mythical Man-Month anyway, so why do I bother?  Because they're paying me?  They're not paying me enough to fight this losing battle any more.  So, my meeting this morning will consist of me basically saying, "Hey, if you've got a better model, give it to us like we asked for back in October."  The damn model has, this week alone, wasted 20 hours of my time.  Most of it OT, because of calls to India to discuss it.  But 20 hours that I could have spent moving other things forward (like, say, the next phase of the governance process for the current project, or getting some feedback on the outstanding issues we have for another current project which I have been waiting on for 4 weeks, or dealing with IBM's new plan of moving our mostly dedicated high-load servers onto massively shared servers), instead of, again, moving backwards.