- I deal very poorly with rejection, and things I perceive to be rejection.
- I have to give credit to the Chicago police for handling NATO really, really well. They made some mistakes, but so did the protestors, and in no case did I get the sense that the cops started the trouble when trouble did arise. And it arose infrequently.
- Metra, however, gets a big, fat F. No backpacks on commuter trains? No coffee? If you’re following TSA’s security model, you’re doing it wrong. And, further, if a guy can take over a speeding train with nothing more than a venti with an extra shot, I say he deserves to.
- The media gets an F, too, for panic mongering and emphasizing the negative. Shocking, I know, but they made my city look bad, and I deal poorly with that, too.
- We went way over the top for Danny’s Harry Potter birthday party, and I am sure all the other parents hate us for it, since we live in the kind of place where people compete over ridiculous things. Ha!
- Speaking of the party: I set up a light bulb with a footswitch. The kids had to cast a lumos spell at the bulb to see which wand was right for them. The 8-year-old boys figured it right out, but they played along in the spirit of it. But apparently after the party, Leah (5) was still trying to cast spells on the bulb. She really believed it was magic.
May 22, 2012
troofuses
March 6, 2012
TT
- When you dismiss someone’s argument out of hand because of their “privilege,” you are engaging in precisely the kind of bigotry you are surely arguing against.
- ‘Tis the season for Facebook unsubscribing. Msg me if you locate your hinges, otherwise see you in November. Maybe.
- Telling me to take my tech support questions to a user forum means I’m only buying from your competitors from now on, Netgear.
- What I do for a living is absurd.
- But I’m having a hard time coming up with a better idea.
- I couldn’t be happier the G8 summit is going somewhere else. I tend to agree with the protestors, if not their tactics, but I didn’t want any of it here.
- I am eating a bowl of pineapple and papaya and pretending I’m somewhere tropical NO YOU’RE PATHETIC.
- I saw a list of all the women Mayer has probably hooked up with and I am feeling ill.
- I got nothing else.
February 14, 2012
VD TT
- Win: I sent my doc a message via his website about my 4 week cold, he called in a prescription for a Z-pak, and I did not have to talk to a human.
- Loss: he called it into the pharmacy where I used to live, resulting in a 90+ minute trip home.
- I am washing the first dose down with a surprisingly not-terrible Sam Adams Latitude 48 IPA. Bosslike.
- I will be at latitude 23 in something like 100 hours, not that I’m counting or anything, but when I get to work tomorrow, I could tell you to the millisecond.
- Only one rule for me in Cabo: NO SAMMY FUCKING HAGAR.
- Work has been surprisingly good the last few days. Turns out that if you act like you’re in charge long and hard enough, people start to think you are.
- I’ve also read that some cultures have almost reverent respect for the mentally ill, so maybe it’s just that.
- I’m gonna be very sad to see my right-leaning friends who describe themselves as “small government libertarians” trip all over themselves to support Santorum if/when the time comes.
- Can I blame Pinterest for this fad of posting pictures of words on Facebook? I want to blame Pinterest for something. Anything.
- I talked to an old friend for the first time in way too long today. His story was gut-wrenchingly sad and he’s not sharing it widely. I’m glad to have been there to listen. I wish I could do something more.
- The people who run my daughter’s dance class made an “optional” request for the fathers to dance with the girls at their upcoming recital. Fuck them and fuck that. I would absolutely rather die than dance in public, and there’s no optional about it if she asks. They put me in a terrible, awkward place—between one of my greatest fears and my own child. Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too, motherfuckers.
February 7, 2012
T^2
- I…I don’t understand what’s happening. Again.
- I think the new Van Halen record is pretty good. Not great; it won’t make me forget VH I or II but it might make me forget Diver Down. (I’ve already forgotten all the Sam Halen records and I never knew the other one.) But goddamn if I didn’t need a band with some testosterone right now. A guy who can actually play his guitar, another guy pounding the drums, and a psychopath screaming out lead vocals: god, yes. ROCK AND FUCKING ROLL.
- I got some news today that made me happy and sad at the same time.
- I went to the gym for the first time in 2+ weeks due to my bronchi being all -itised and I’m typing this fast because I’m pretty sure I’ll have no meaningful use of my arms in a few minutes.
- I have a busy gig calendar coming together for the spring and summer. I expect to see you at some of these shows one of these days. You. Yes, you.
- I don’t care about college basketball.
- All these points start with “I” except this one. Narcissist.
September 9, 2011
- GPOYF con bullets.
- I’m working from home today to write my self-review, which is difficult, especially when there are awesome toys here to distract me, and my job description is basically “bullshit eater.”
- A surprise call from your accountant never goes like, “hey, I found free money for you! Where should I send it?”
- I’m leaving for Davenport tonight to do an early gig tomorrow at a Harley dealer (what else?) and I’m going to miss Danny’s first soccer game of the season. It’s the first event for either kid that I’ve ever missed and I am absolutely sick about it.
- I’m done talking politics, probably forever. I’m also done with reading about them, also probably forever. I’ll keep voting but I’m not sure why.
- I’ve been waiting for 3+ days for some test results from the doctor and it’s getting on my last nerve. I assume there’s nothing bad or they’d have called earlier. Either that, or it’s REALLY BAD and they aren’t sure how to tell me.
- The guy who invented fax machines is surely laughing in hell.
- Next Thursday, the 15th, I’m going to Elbo Room to see warriormcpoet’s band, The Surreal McCoys. Any locals wanna join?
- Count the phalluses in the above picture. Not including me, smartass.
August 29, 2011
bullets, post-chsh and otherwise
- Another fabulous time…I think this was my fifth. Big thanks to the organizing committee (Toni, Dan, Jess, Jason) and to all who helped!
- Except, once again, I didn’t get to spend enough time with some of the people I wanted to see, and there were too many who could not make it at all. Someday we’ll find a way to alter spacetime so a 4 hour party can include 10 hours of socializing, with wormholes to get people here immediately and for free.
That said, I’m gathering from what I see today that there was some undercurrent of butthurt & drama. I wish we had a cure for that. And I hope I didn’t inadvertently cause any.(Update: what I see is mild, and I may be reading more into things than I should. Nevermind.)- I’ll take credit for the weather.
- I’ve never been a hashtag before. I’m flattered. And frightened. Hold me?
- Now playing: The Surreal McCoys’ The Bottle & The Gun, which warriormcpoet was kind enough to send via mrsbadcrumble to the last tweetup, and which I drunkenly left in the bar, and which Dan & Toni graciously hung onto and delivered. Great stuff, Shawn, and thanks again. Does the pedalboard in the booklet belong to one of your guitarists? God damn, them’s some pretty toys.
- One of these days, I gotta do an out of town tweetup, get the full immersion experience.
- Sunday morning, I had to get up at 6:30 with the kids. Went back to bed later for a couple of hours and woke up with a stye the size of a grapefruit. Either that, or a spider laid eggs in my face and the little babies will explode out of it sometime soon.
- Bright side: that should inspire some good rants.
- Speaking of: what’s the deal with putting a $5 jack in a $35K car? DO YOU THINK I’LL BUY ANOTHER ONE AFTER LEAVING AN OUNCE OF MY KNUCKLES ON THE 7-11 PARKING LOT AFTER YOUR SHITTY TIRE BLEW UP, ACURA? IS THAT HOW WE’RE PLAYING THIS?
- I kind of miss the chipmunks I transported to the forest preserve. They were cute and I liked having them around. But goddammit, these tomatoes are delicious.
- I can’t find the hotdog name tag, and the other two I went to were pre-nametag, but I have a nice collection building here.
July 25, 2011
It’s Tuesday in Europe
- Add a plague of flies to the many gifts bestowed upon us by the seller of this house. It’s like Exodus up in here; we kill dozens of them every day. The working theory is that a critter died somewhere behind the basement walls or possibly in the attic and is decomposing like Mozart, but Sharon’s preternatural nose has not detected it, so I’m concluding it’s a curse, along with the ivy, raccoons, insane neighbor, and ionospheric property taxes.
- Google+ has disrupted how I see all social media and not in the way they’d want. For some reason, I’m increasingly irritated by all of it, including them.
- I don’t understand why that is.
- If these racist teabag dimwits and President Hoover fail to raise the debt ceiling, it will create (among other things) a massive spike in volatility in markets of all kinds around the world. Two days before my vacation. Work, especially for my team, will be a ten-alarm fire, 24x7, until it gets resolved. I have no idea how I’ll be able to disconnect. I wonder if they’ll even let me go.
- Yes, fuck the global economy. It’s about me.
- Except where it’s not…my alma mater is hitting me up for my annual donation, but I think I’m sending that money to relief efforts serving Africa instead. Good lord, those pictures.
- I conjure up the filthiest, most pornographic mental images I possibly can right before I go through the TSA body scanners.
- The ability to discern worst-case scenarios and assign probabilities to them has served me well, career-wise, but it really sucks when applied to my latent hypochondria.
- I feel I’m on the verge of a large set of changes and a new era beginning soon.
July 6, 2011
Drunken New York Hotel Room Observationery
- There’s a giant, loud party down in the lobby bar of this hotel, packed with hot, vibrant financial district-flavored New Yorkers. The lovely woman who checked me in encouraged me to just crash it. Instead, I’m sitting in my underwear in my room flipping channels and internetting, and that’s just fine.
- The YES network would make Pravda blush.
- That said: I have a terrible man-crush on Jeter. He is the best baseball player of my adult lifetime, without question, and I want to be him except for the Mariah Carey chapter.
- “Pravda” is “Правда” in Cyrillic and that’s a truly beautiful alphabet that doesn’t get enough respect.
- Having had enough of that, I just watched 30 seconds of some insanely depressing show on some fucking nature channel and I came to the conclusion that we can model the planet according to the following simple state machine:
- INITIAL STATE → there are gorillas.
- TERMINAL STATE → there are no more gorillas.
- I am debating renting some porn only because I’m not sure if it will show up on my credit card or the company’s.
- I don’t have the same conflicted inner monologue about who’s paying for this little bottle of wine from the minibar.
- STM: OMG. YHNI.
- I will not be shamed by the SEO weenises and self-aware Social Media Twitterati into liking google+. It’s ugly and confusing and does not fill a gap for me. Get off my fucking lawn.
- This week feels like a month of kicking a dead whale up a mountainside and it’s only two days old.
June 22, 2011
Listing
- I’ve had an image in my head for about a week, a strong visual memory, of lying in my bed as a kid on a summer night with the window open, the air hot and still, looking at the blinking red light of a radio tower that was a couple of miles away and hearing a rumbling freight train. I remember that night like it was yesterday. This was mindwormed into me by a Bob Seger song.
- Some parts of getting old aren’t as bad as I feared they’d be, others are worse, none are exactly what I thought.
- I was a real jerk to someone at work today, someone who didn’t deserve it. I apologized sincerely but still feel like shit.
- And I was just thinking I’d had a really good few days there. Hubris kills.
- There was a big woodchipper droning a couple of blocks east of here until just a few minutes ago. It probably ran all day—a lot of trees were lost around here last night to the storm. Their natural deaths bother me almost not at all, whereas the one I had to cut down in my back yard earlier this year still haunts me.
- The Sox just executed a perfect suicide squeeze against the Cubs, and I am well pleased.
- When they publish those studies about how the internet has destroyed the ability to concentrate and ruins brains? They are talking about me.
- It’s hard to believe what a 45 pound kid can do to an older toilet. I want to replace them all with the commercial/industrial models that don’t have a tank but use like twenty gallons of super high pressure water per flush and have giant, uncloggable downpipes.
- I mean replace the older toilets, not the kids.
- I have a hundred things I should be doing besides this.
May 11, 2011
Business Writing Pro Tips
- I stopped reading as soon as I saw you use “partner” as a verb.
- One who was delegated to is the “delegate,” not the “delegee,” which is a made up word and had the exact opposite effect on my opinion of your intelligence than what you intended.
- You’re never too busy to type out the full words “please” and “thanks.”
- All current document management/presentation systems support hyperlinks. Most will convert your text that starts with http:// into a link automatically. For you to leave it as text I must copy and paste into a browser means you did it wrong and did it on purpose to irritate me, therefore I will never, ever, ever open that link.
- The little red squiggly lines under big words are your friends. Heed them.
- I play Bullshit Bingo with your memo. Make it difficult or even impossible for me.
April 26, 2011
Truthful Tuesday
- Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo, Coachella, Pitchfork, etc.: I have no desire, nada, to go to any of them. Partly because I don’t care about a lot of the music (get off my lawn), but mostly because spending two days in the hot sun with a zillion strangers, $8 water bottles, and 120º porta potties sounds like exactly how I’d sketch out Hell. Pass.
- The faces and poses that the fashion/advertising industry usually has female models strike to be “sexy”—you know, the “come hither” look—are ridiculous to me, bordering on hilarious. Just stand or sit or walk like a normal person and smile. That’s sexy.
- I shouldn’t complain about my job when so many people don’t have one. But I’m really having a hard time. The role of manager where I work is 100% managing, 0% production, and I’m not used to not delivering at least some stuff with my own hands. I have to find a way to be happy exclusively enabling others to deliver (and to be sure I’m actually doing that) or I’m gonna lose it.
- And since rust never sleeps, this lack of hands-on work terrifies me in an industry where two years is a generation. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll next be mopping floors overnights at a VC-funded dot com whose name is a made up word, or making coffee for kids 1/3 my age.
- It’s possible to love your kids but still hate being a parent sometimes. Right?
- If I had it to do all over again, I’d have gone to med school and been a completely kick-ass doctor. General practice—dealing with people all day and hearing their problems, but not necessarily seeing their inside parts all red and wet and throbby-like.
- Nigel was wrong but only by a half step: C# minor is, in fact, the saddest of all keys.
- I’ve been dealing with a slight case of stage fright here since #chsh, but I’m powering through it. It’s what I do.
April 15, 2011
Those moments
- that moment when someone you work with, someone who is typically cold and mean, and you see her late on a Friday belly laughing while on a cell phone call with a RL friend, and maybe you rethink some things
- that moment when you celebrate monthly equity options expiring with libations at the support desk with some really good guys who are also miserable but fighting through it with you
- that moment when you realize traffic is so fucked you might be able to tumblr while driving on the way home, but not so much that you can download and learn a photo editing app for Fr(eye)day
- that moment when you click Post on the iPhone tumblr app and wonder if the raw HTML you entered while steering with your knees will take
RSS feed: http://scholvin.tumblr.com/rss
