Of course, in actuality, for those of you who fail to dispose of your disenchantment with such a romaniticized outlook on life and how an elder teen could find love and contentment with a newly-formed "groove" despite their differences, it's true, I've been in a somewhat depressive, well, funk, as it were, for the past, maybe, week and a half or so. I'll wholly admit that a good deal of it came from distinctly not looking forward to going to work, and another impending day of failures, only to dread coming leaving afterwards because it only meant returning to a state of stifling isolation far worse than I'd ever experienced while living at my parents' place. Plus, the aggravating republican talk shows, and, well, even the lack of friends online to talk to (and, er, "share the sarcasm," as it were), as I'm sure everyone is good and busy with their own fun activities. Of course, while I'd experienced isolation in a good healthy dose while living with my parents for a good 18 years, that isolation served as a driving force for some seriously fierce creativity, and had always been something I'd embraced with a sense of fondness. I suppose I'd never truly experienced isolation as deep as I've experienced it this summer - away from friends (on either coast), my immediate family (with whom I've definitely had some ongoing turmoil, yet compared to this, they feel like those McDonalds napkins that you find stuffed in your coat pocket when you're sitting in a stall in a deserted public bathroom and suddenly realize that you're out of TP), and any sort of culture or escape for that matter. Immersed above my head in an extremely constricting sort of culture where I essentially can't express myself during normal business hours lest I be, as they say, "let off the job," nor can I really say anything, or do anything, for that matter, when I get back to my aunt and uncle's million-dollar showcase home, save shut myself in my extremely-inconvenient million-dollar showcase living quarters to avoid having to face a hearty helpin' of the asian Soul Food my aunt cooks up, fire up the engines my laptop, and wait with a certain kind of patience and desperation for a message from a friend, or some outside link to the world offered to me, to remind me that somebody out there still loves this mangy pathetic hide. If you're going to suggest "wandering downtown during the evenings and trying to find a decent strip club to take your mind off things," you can for-fucking-get it because I'm in San-Fucking-Jose, in the hideous 2-mile radius urban sprawl of nothing but million-dollar showcase homes full of million-dollar boring people - all without a vehicle in which to conduct my escape. This is the kind of isolation that actually makes me dwell on regrets and situations I have no control over.
And I have to admit... normally, in a situation, I'd do what I do best: act like a raging asshole. And yet, even this, week after week, had gotten to me so much that I'd begun to sink into a sort of depression. The fact that I was failing at work, and then not really having anything to look forward to or cheer me up afterwards seriously put a drain on the well-oiled, assholism-powered machine I like to call "my think tank," to the point where I was rendered even unable to write in the Plague, or explain it to any of my friends - it's the same old same old, only compiled, week after depressing week.
BUT REJOICE! For today, I'd like to declare that I'm officially back on the path to a nice equilibrium again, complete with my normal, healthy foul mouth, creative fission and fusion, and that familiar malice I harbor towards my screeching simian of an asian co-worker.
What, you might ask, has drawn me out of my dangerously increasing depressive recluse, and back to offending the public as usual? Several things, actually - all which have given me hope and reason to believe that there really is a reason to keep on fighting and not giving in to being depressed that I live in such stiflingly suck-tacular conditions during the week.
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1) Money. Needless to say, I've always been a money-grubbing son-of-a-short-order-fry-cook, and receiving my paycheck, despite the usual rip-shittedness at the meaty portion of my hard-earned cash Uncle Sam flounced away with, was a small but encouraging consolation that "hey, at least you're getting paid to feel like shit!"
2) Discovering that "Communication is key." Now, while many of you will immediately jump to the conclusion that I reached some sort of breakthrough relationship-wise, I will assure you that this is not, in fact, the case. Communication, be it with your significant other, or in my case, with your supervisor, is key to ensuring that you do not end up feeling like a stupid cock after expending 3 weeks of raging effort only to continue to find your loom fruitless. Today, I received my clue-dump, as we like to call it at the 'tvte. This morning, I was hustled into a conference room, where my real supervisor, my current project supervisor, and an engineer with an incredible bent for math and a specialty in display technology explained to me the math problem that I'd been attempting to solve by various means for an excess of 2 weeks (see previous Plague entries) before giving up and admitting defeat. After re-explaining to me the entire point of the project, they discovered that I was, in fact, not at all confused by the principles that we were attempting to manipulate, but rather, someone had failed to explain to me that I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE USING A SIMPLIFICATION OF THE PROBLEM ONLY REQUIRING BASIC MULTIPLICATION SKILLS instead of the amazingly complicated "real" solution I was attempting to solve for. I was then told by the mathematician that it, in fact, is impossible to solve for a closed form of the equation I was seeking out by complicated means of "completing the cube" and other linear algebra tactics, and as such, as lazy engineers, they merely fudged it with a bit of multiplication. Once that was complete, of course, it was suddenly made clear to all parties involved that in fact, I *wasn't* simply a dumbfuck with no math skills, but rather, I was still too green in the ways of engineering, and hadn't realized that "the path involving the least work" is in fact always the right one in terms of engineering. And of course, with that clarified, I completed the project in a little under 2 hours. At this point, I believe I've discovered a newfound respect for some words of my beloved deceased grandmother, who once called my father "so lazy that when he shits, he doesn't bother to take his pants off." Since the days of my youth, I've always looked up to my father as an example of a successful engineer, and so, I shall henceforth heed the words of my grandmother as nuggets of asian wisdom.
While we're on the topic of asian wisdom, I received a fortune cookie in my lunch on Wednesday which read "Promote literacy. Buy a box of fortune cookies today."
3) I still hate my coworkers! Week after week of the same miserable failures with my signal generator (which I believe I have finally completed as of 4 pm today! 6 revisions and 5 cooked ICs later...) lulled me into something akin to tolerance and acceptance of the certain people around me whom I'd formerly found fairly hemorrhoidal. If you'd asked me whether or not I felt like I was working harder than my other coworkers this Monday, I would have told you "no..." and sighed and made a sad face. It began to depress me to think that I was just as big a miserable failure as one of the other workers that I'd disdained since the day we met, and that perhaps I shouldn't look upon my coworker with such judging eyes after all. But today, TODAY, oh! I rediscovered that comforting desire I harbor to shoot my coworker right between the eyes with the EMI gun we keep around the lab (though it concerns me to think that the enormous static shock might not have any real effect due to that pocket of air between her ears - and as we all know, air makes a fairly poor conductor).
Today, my coworker (who always seems to have an obscene amount of free time during work hours to sit around and lick testicles, or whatever else will fill up 8 hours in a day), was running the usual routine of pissing time away chatting up the technicians and polluting the neutral intelligence space around the lab with a cloud of "shite no one cares about," otherwise known as "personal philosophy" or, in this case any sentence coming out of her mouth that began with "I think..." Today's enthralling topic of conversation happened to be an exact re-enactment of one of the most irritating doctrines ever argued: Rousseau's Social Contract, though I dare say that both of them looked quizzically at me when I identified the argument's origination from an 18th century philosopher in passing. DAMMIT, the argument's nothing new - old dead guys have been saying the same thing for centuries, and reiterating it does not belie any further brilliance on your behalf. And falling back onto "the quizzical look" when you've just been philosophically winged by some punk slob engineering student in blue who really ought not to be able to have a successful career for lack of the necessary conformity required for "playing the game" according to your standards isn't the soundest of ways to prove a point. Hey, I'm not one of those big name-dropping boners, but you can't assume the dye's seeped into my skull and made it otherwise soft. "What industry can you get a good job in if you've got your hair dyed all red or some wild color and you've got tons of piercings?" Apparently the tech industry, or perhaps I don't actually have this job, and the paychecks and voltages are really a figment of my imagination. Let's not get into any of the other industries, like, say, music, where you're more than free to establish your own style, and financially "successful" artists are often found wading in their own richesse like so many filthy pigs in their own dungheaps. Oh, no offense to my hair, of course. The blue looks nice. Riiiight.
For another thing, "you have to talk a certain way." Oh ho ho... because you know, I certainly didn't leave my foul mouth at home when I came to this job, I just figured out the right environments in which to unleash it (for one thing, it's merely a useful life skill to figure out where the designated swear areas are, lest you make your customer believe you've got Turret's Syndrome). Never mind that the manager with the largest number on his paycheck has a fouler mouth than both myself *and* the technician who manages the lab (if you want to measure success by dollars). No, no, you certainly can't be successful unless you "play the game and lose part of yourself in order to get a job." For one thing "you can't kill people, but I mean who wants to kill people anyways?" Obviously this was a mistake on my part, as I clearly shouldn't have raised my hand like some eager schoolboy in an armpit odor contest.
All philosophical differences aside, however, it certainly isn't the content of the discussion, however, as the fact that it's happening during hours when it becomes a real nuisance and impediment to other people who are actually attempting to do real work. While it's certainly possible to mentally zone out an offensive conversation, it's certainly not conducive to work when the person from whom you require assistance is engrossed in a conversation, and your work is required to wait until they are finished. As my uncle as pointed out, "it's not the actually your co-worker's fault, right? The other guy shouldn't be letting the conversation distract him." My aunt has very cleverly also pointed out "oh, is she pretty? Because pretty girls get special permission to be distracting." Sure. I agree. Pretty girls get special permission - which is probably why more often than not, most "pretty girls" I meet tend to only get so far as to become further acquainted with the business end of my shoe.
Really, in conclusion, this whole segment simply breaks down to the fact that, yes, today I became reacquinted with the feeling that l'm justified in being cranky about someone with whom I share office space, and I don't have to feel bad about it.
4) Emme is a person of "incredible personal caliber." Earlier tonight, I paid a long overdue call to my childhood pal, Emme, who has since moved to Santa Cruz and taken to sending me gag underwear in a banana slug motif as birthday gifts. Those of you may have heard of her as the person with whom I worked on so many masterpieces such as LOAF Magazine, Spamalot, The Ballad of Og the Impaired, and most recently, the "paper mache politician pinata with replaceable butt modules filled with chocolate-covered peanut clusters" as well as so many other get-rich quick schemes cashing in on schmucks who buy into New Age healing (ask me for a free trial of our 12-step program). Yes, one might say that Emme was very much responsible for much of my toilet-fixation over my most formative years, and is probably one of the reasons I continue to be so bathroom-centered to this very day. It's always more fun to engage in the social faux pas of potty humor when you've got someone along for the ride. After over an hour of name-calling, story sharing, and trading tips on "new ways to offend others we dislike," my faith in the fact that there are some really great people out there has been renewed. If you've ever committed some great wrong towards me in the past, I'd watch out at this point 'cuz I've just been armed with an entire new arsenal of awful things to do that exceed even the degree of bacon-bombing. And what's more, if I get the chance, I'll be bringing Emme out to Massachusetts for a visit at some point...
5) Tomorrow's Friday - the day where it's okay to smear mud and fertilizer in a hamburger bun and pass it off as a sloppy joe to somebody you don't like. What's better than Friday?
6) Except perhaps moving up in the world! That's right. According to Emme, googling ubernerd now pops up the Bubonic Plague Luncheonette as the #1 hit, which moves me up from #4, beating out the German guy formerly at #1 with the Uber Nerd website. Fantastic news for my readers *and* for the weight the Plague content carries, as, now google has made it even easier to spread the words that I use to loudly criticize everyone who "greatly deserves it" :-D
7) Lastly, but certainly not least, my Plague readers have done everything within their power to drag me out of that mysterious funk I mentioned earlier. Between the time I last posted in the Plague and now, 5 different individuals have noticed (read: bitched about) the lack of updates in their daily reading. These "inquiries" have really been a touching gesture - as I had no idea just how much people really actually read this mangy web journal and relied on it as a source of entertainment (Carsten even goes so far as to inform me that he wakes up bitter and pissed each morning and requires a dose of Plague to placate him). Were it not for you guys, I'd honestly have little to no impetus to update at all - and one thing's for certain: I'd certainly be in some state of emotional pressure, apt to erupt at any given moment. So please, keep those complaints coming. Emails, posts, and hell, even the occasional phone call are always welcome - though I'm afraid Steve, you did have the unfortunate timing of catching me on the brink of some sort of cold/exhaustion-induced stupor, and so I clearly wasn't making any sense on the phone, though I vaguely recall telling you a story about Mormons... do let me know if that had anything to do with fire-spinning, will you?
As for the rest of you clowns, here's a Plague entry for you. And just to get my requisite html-packed content in here, lemme include a link Max has graciously provided me with, from the good folks at Rum and Monkey - two great tastes that taste great together! Jam-packed with all sorts of great generators perfect for those of you who run your own livejournals and wish to tag in some new gizmos. I personally like the automatic updater, myself. In other news, Maddox has also recently written a long-overdue update on his site (the link to which you can find in the corner of the Plague, simply click on "A Man After My Own Heart" in the bar on the left hand side), and while it's not the best of his works, it's certainly up to Maddox par. Personally, I like his video game "Oops, Look Who Forgot to Read the Demographics Charts" the best, though "Super Slacker Bros." comes in a close second.
Further bulletins as events warrant.
P.S. The following rings so true for the many of the IT folks that I've come across:
Which Office Moron Are You?
Rum and Monkey: jamming your photocopier one tray at a time.
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