The Black Mood Descendeth

...and when the Black Mood arrives, ain't nothing to do but wait it out.

From whence doth the Black Mood come?

I'm sure part of it is giving up on J. She reiterated that she's not over the ex, that they still talk regularly, and that she can't date until she's resolved those feelings. I thought I was being fairly low-key, but I guess not. So, now, of course, I feel like a shit for trying to insinuate myself into her circle of friends. And, looking back, all of our communication was initiated by me. Not a good sign.

Another big part of it is continuing to realize that L is systematically removing me from her life. She's big on "mental adjustments", and I'm sure this is a mental adjustment. She mentally adjusted herself into letting her ex-husband move back in (even though he's pretty much as big a dumbass as ever), and she's mentally adjusted herself into thinking that makes her happy (I guess not actively being UNhappy counts?). So, all that's left is to mentally adjust me out of the picture, and everything's cozy again.

Still another is that my ex is pursuing yet another Lucy & Ethel plan. This one involves buying land and manufactured home about an hour from me. This will mean Daughter will go to a different school, and I won't see her as often. The primary draw seems to be that they'll be next door to friends of my ex.

Oh, and I TOTALLY suck at the diet. By now, I was supposed to be down to like 295. Still at 323+.

And to top it all off, everything about this one-off DJ gig is turning out to 50-100% harder and more hassle than I'd planned.

So, let's summarize...I'm still fat, still not getting enough sleep, still fundamentally unlovable.

I think the only question left is, why didn't the Black Mood descend earlier, and what reason does it have to leave?

Teach a man to phish...

Compare the above to the phishing effort here. It seems that when it comes to impersonating Chase, the technology is devolving. The giveaways here:

• "from company": atrocious Engrish.
• "service(s) listed below": ummmm...what services???
• "you will have to use your Social Security Number": whaddaya wanna bet I'd show up as not enrolled for Internet Banking? Good plan to snag the SSN twice, though.
• "not changes": we spreak Engrish velly goodry.
• "to staff": marginal, but probably should be "to our staff" or "to customer service"
• the URL doesn't even try to look safe this time, and it goes to http://access-ssl.com/..../
• Sincerely, who???
• usually, Customer Service in that context would be capitalized
• "Please do not 'Reply'": well, duhhhhhh...although typically, the warning is more like "this Alert was sent from an automated service that cannot receive messages"
• "internet banking account Financial Group": such a lack of self-esteem
• "All rights reserved": that made me laugh out loud...what rights? The right to hoover up my identity and go on a spending spree?

It does occur to me that by pointing out the shortcomings, I'm inviting phishers to build a better phishhook, but then I checked my site access logs and realized that the world is safe. :-)

Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot.

So, in this post, I mentioned the mortgage ads that feature the bloated, stretched animals. Something like this:

Man, that is one fracked-up wolf. But ya know, at least you can tell it's a wolf.

What the HELL is this:

There's a lot of crap going on here. First of all, it looks like some sort of weird cross between Shrek, the Genie from Aladdin, and Satan. It's got a rose in its teeth and a guitar, so it looks like a flamenco guitarist. But, it's naked. Thankfully, it's also fat, so the belly hides the (presumably) male bits. And, you can't see it well here, but it has wings (the brown blob over its left shoulder is one). The screengrab I got is one frame, but this fellow also dances, with little percentages (like 2%, 3%) emanating from his guitar like notes.

Okay, so 10 out of 10 for getting my attention, but I stand by my original observation. Who sees either of these things and says to themselves, "hey, I need to refinance my house"?

At least the True dating service ads include gorgeous women with a lot of exposed cleavage. I think I know the lure there.

The People You Meet In Software Engineering (#1)

Welcome to a new semi-regular feature of Something Else to Bitch About! My goal is to document the different kinds of engineers, managers, etc. that you are likely to encounter in the software engineering field. This will pop up whenever I feel like it, and will feature whoever's pissed me off the most recently.

Without further ado, I give you:

#1: Davey Deepdive

Davey is the kind of guy who can't stand any uncertainty. Davey wants to know exactly how something is going to work, down to the individual bits, before going forward. If Davey is participating in requirements definition or preliminary design, you'll want to extend those efforts by 3x, just to account for the disruption that he'll cause. Any meeting Davey is in will come to a grinding halt as soon as you try to move to the next item without having exhaustively specified the one you were talking about. No detail is too small, no issue too trivial to be sliced, diced and julienne-fried to death. Davey can be shouted down by a large enough group, but just because he's down, don't count him out. He'll remain uncomfortable with the whole process, certain that you're walking the path to ruin, and if you need complete consensus, rotsa ruck.

Coming soon:

Wally Wrenchtosser
Billy Beancounter
Chris Clueless
Jerry Justintime

and many others...

What part of "catch me" didn't you understand?!?!?!

Brief update, because I'm tired. The title of this post is a quote from Michael Waltrip in today's race. T and I were listening on a scanner to his conversations with his pit crew during a caution for a different wreck. He reported to them that he had no brakes and when he came in, he needed them to look at the problem and see how severe it was. He also told them that because he had no brakes, he'd need them to be ready to catch him (already going slow under caution, and having to slow down further on entering pit road, this wasn't as dangerous or silly as it might sound at first).

So, he enters pit road, and manages to (presumably by downshifting) get down to pit speed. As he pulls up to his pit, the crew did not seem to take his request to catch him seriously. As T and I watched his car roll into, and then out of, his pit, we suddenly heard Waltrip yell, "what part of 'catch me' didn't you understand?!?!" We both just burst out laughing, and ended up having to explain to some of the fans around us. They seemed to get the brake problem fixed, because he was able to finish the race fine, but I imagine there will be some discussions before tomorrow's Nextel Cup race...

I wanna put on, my my my my my boogity shoes...

Thanks to a timely boot purchase, my brother T scored tickets to the O'Reilly 300 Busch Series race at Texas Motor Speedway Saturday, and he invited me along. Allow me to share a few thoughts:

Yes!

Woo-hoo!

Frickin' A!

I can't help but be a little jealous, since a buddy of T's has a spare ticket to the Samsung/Radio Shack 500 on Sunday, so T's going to both major events this weekend. I probably owe Daughter a trip out to the Fort Worth 400, since she missed the dirt track race and thought it Monumentally Unfair that I couldn't take her to this race, but I told her I'd try to snag a picture of Michael Waltrip's #99 Aaron's Dream Machine done up in Texas Longhorn colors for her teacher (who's a UT alum).

Clearing the cache:

Not-a-date update: J's uncle passed away last Wednesday (unexpectedly), so she's been naturally dealing with that. Still, we've talked a lot, and I've tried to offer the help and support I can. Nefarious plans to woo her are, of course, on hold.

Diet update: So far, so good for the past two days. We'll see how it survives NASCAR.

Guitar update: We were actually able to take some time to do a lesson on Sunday. She's picking it up pretty well, but her fretting could use some work (when she develops the calluses, that'll help).

Wild, crazy-ass idea update: I'm trying to learn to dance, at least two-step, by S&J's wedding. Hoping to use Daughter as a practice partner, since she's tall, and much more graceful than I am.

General update: Signed Daughter up for Taekwondo. She really seems to be responding to it. Perhaps she does better at more solitary sports, where it's just her versus the sport, and she doesn't have to have the same dedication as her teammates. She never seemed to be into the sport of soccer enough to continue in the cutthroat world of AYSO, though she did like being part of a team. The TKD classes have plenty of students to socialize with (though, I am very impressed with the no-nonsense approach they demand-and get-from the students during class) but her progress is at her pace. We'll see how long she sticks to it. I might even join a class. It looks like fun.

My new favorite diet term

Rationalie

For an accidental typo by a friend of mine, this pretty much perfectly describes the things I tell myself to make non-diet food seem okay. Rationalizing is almost by definition lying to one's self, but rationalying makes it that much more obvious.

Rationalie: "I've blown it by having xxxx, as long as I have yyyy before bed and be good tomorrow, my body will forget the extra calories"

Rationalie: "100 calories worth of popcorn won't affect the diet"

Rationalie: "Adding bacon and parmesan to the salad won't hurt"

Rationalie: "I've only had 500 calories today, but my BMR is over 2800, so anything less than 2300 calories will be positive"

Damn, I'm a sick puppy.

Any meaningless milestone in a storm

Okay, it's trite and stupid, but it'll do. As of 01:02:03 (PM) 04/05/06, I'm re-dedicating myself to the Medifast diet. I went off it completely for the Springfield weekend, and since then, I've been playing very fast and loose with the rules. I still managed to pretty much use the products during my work day, but dinner has become more of a free-for-all, and obviously, any weight-loss has stalled.

S's wedding is in 24 days. I'd like to get down to 300 by then.

I have in the back of my head a worry. Last April, I had to have some suits rush-made to support some business meetings. I don't ordinarily have to "suit up" that often for my job, and as it turned out I didn't need them specifically then, but I did look pretty spiffy for Midnight Mass this year. These suits were tailored to my 350+ pound frame, and they were pretty expensive ($1500 for two suits, 5 shirts, 5 ties, 6 pair of socks and a pair of shoes). I think(!) that the suit I owned previously will fit me at 300-315 lbs, so I should be covered for the wedding, but I'm thinking there's only so far these expensive suits can be tailored down (particularly as I near my goals). I guess that's part of the price of weight-loss, but it seems a shame.

Then again, remaining unhealthy and unattractive for the sake of a couple of suits is stupid. If nothing else, maybe I can get by with having the jackets and shirts tailored (I doubt my shoulders will get much less broad) and purchasing new pants.