Life

[elmuerte]

I was just in a traffic accident. Some old geezer jumped from behind a truck and drove his bike into mine. And now my front tire is totally fucked up, going to cost 70 euro.

There were body parts all over the place, although those parts were still attached to the people. So it wasn't really a massacre. Still, I'm without wheels for over a week, which sucks with grocery shopping.

[SiN]

They want to censor porn sites in Jordan. They think they morally corrupt youth.

Wait, they don't do that already? In Dubai, internet porn was censored from day one. I assumed it was the same all over the Middle East.

(not like that stopped the morally corrupt youth from finding workarounds )

[elmuerte]

they should censor comments instead, like a government mandated shutup.css

[Twig]

A world without porn is not a world worth existing.

[MrHoatzin]

This is the second weekend in a row that I am at work. I have easily been doing 12-hour days for weeks—not every day, bit prolly two thirds of them. I am so tired, you guys.

I just had a quintuple espresso and a small fistful of racetams, and I'm still nodding off.

Godawful work too. I've stopped caring some weeks ago. The client doesn't seem to know what a brand is, keeps throwing new site features and colors at us and reworking random laboriouis and meaningless shit at the 11th hour.

[syntheticgerbil]

Gah, I hope they decide at some point what their brand is. Do they pay for all of the revisions and backtracking?

[Twig]

That sounds horrible.

I don't really mean to be That Guy, but man I'm liking my new job. It feels good to 1) be done with school and 2) not sit around on my ass all day at home doing literally nothing constructive. Everyone here is pretty awesome and friendly. I'm being asked to do legitimate work (even if it is small-scale for now, it's stuff that's actually making it into the final product), unlike my previous work experiences (both internships, one of which was in Japan). They don't take shit too seriously. They know how to have fun even while working, again unlike my previous work experiences. Everyone seems legitimately into their work.

It's great!

Although I continue to worry that I will prove myself unworthy somehow and get fired.

[MrHoatzin]

Gah, I hope they decide at some point what their brand is. Do they pay for all of the revisions and backtracking?

We're somehow miraculously still within our original estimate. Which is great as far as the company is concerned, but means little to me. As for the brand, I don't think they'll ever realize. They're not changing colors, just ADDING NEW ONES.

[brkl]

Neil Armstrong died

[subbes]

why I hate it here

is it because you're a psychopath

[Nachimir]

The client doesn't seem to know what a brand is, keeps throwing new site features and colors at us and reworking random laboriouis and meaningless shit at the 11th hour.

Sorry to hear that Kingz

I guess there's some disconnect between you and management on this? The freelancers and small web developers I know seem to find their lives and business immeasurably better after firing their shittest clients, and becoming very assertive with the worse ones.

I once worked on an Olympics related project, with a client who did a lot of similar things. When challenged on asking the web agency to completely violate branding guidelines of the notoriously litigious LOCOG, they said "Oh don't worry, we've been getting away with it on the print stuff for a year". Also, in a heated discussion of it, pointing at the logo and stating "But that's not a logo". It only improved after me and the agency drew a line for them. Regardless of budget and time, we told them they had to stop behaving the way they were, and while they still sucked as a client, it at least meant the scope didn't change every few days.

[Thyroid]

Now they're passing laws that say you can't talk about Jordan on the internet without proper licensing (meaning you say what they want you to say; oh glorious Jordan, best country of all time, past, present and future, if you had an ass I'd kiss it). I'm not sure if I'm depressed or angry.

[Sal Limones]

Kroms, wow. That is just... terrifying.

[MrHoatzin]

Every time you post something like that, my first implulse is to emphatically ignore it so that it doesn't get you in trouble.

Last night I tried to clothesline a fencepost with my side view mirror. The fencepost won. That will learn me to carelessly back into my own driveway.

We went inside and found that The Puppo and Ada had gotten a hold of some slip of paper and torn it to shreds. Turns out it was the You Park Like An Asshole citizen’s ticket I got in Austin a couple of weeks ago. Thanks dogs for trying so protect my honor by destroying evidence, apparently it cannot be helped.

[subbes]

I think clotheslining the fencepost might be replacement evidence of your car abilities in the absence of that YPLAA ticket.

Are you a habitual line-straddler, or a butt-sticker-outer, a three-feet-from-the-curb-parallel-parker, or did they just think you took their spot?

[Gormongous]

I just passed my doctoral exams with distinction. It was especially weird, because I remember having no clue about my performance during my masters exam, but this time around I caught myself in the bathroom mirror during the break and just knew I was nailing it.

Of course, I'm going to maintain that I got lucky, that they happened to ask me questions I actually knew. If I'd been pushed about the development of scholasticism or post-1212 Spain, I would have looked like a total fool. Still, feels good.

Turns out it was the You Park Like An Asshole citizen’s ticket I got in Austin a couple of weeks ago.

Oh man, totally printing out some of these. My current city is full of madmen and idiots.

[Orv]

You Park Like An Asshole citizen’s ticket

Wait, what?

[Salka]

My boyfriend's ex is mental. Genuinely mental. I think she has paranoid personality disorder kind of mental. Genuinely batshit insane.

When I barely even knew my boyfriend (we'd met once at Glastonbury through friends of friends) and I'd never met her, she saw me in photographs with him (not even standing together in any of them if I recall correctly) and apparently decided to belittle me and scorn me out of insecurity. When he refused to engage in this behaviour (she used to do it to all his female friends, not just me) she then became convinced that the reason he was defending me was because we were sleeping together. They ended up breaking up a few months later because she found out he was at a party that I was also at (we shared the same friend group), and she accused him of only going to a party that all his fucking friends were at because I was there (also his friend). The whole time this was going on I had no idea because nothing was happening between us, and also I had a boyfriend.

Something like two years after they broke up we did actually end up getting together, which I guess confirmed her suspicions or something. So now it's maybe three or four years later, I don't know, and I found out she got with another guy who is 18 and a friend of mine (she's 33) who dumped her after a week because all she did was bitch unrelentingly about me, in between telling him that she wanted to marry him and that he was better than her ex boyfriend (why would you say that to someone, I don't know).

So yeah... finding out that she's a fucking mental case who hates me and always has since she first set eyes on a photograph of me was pretty weird. And after half a fucking decade or whatever, I'm still on the forefront of her mind all the time for something I never did. Bizarre.

[Nappi]

You should be proud. Not many people have an actual nemesis.

In all seriousness, though, that sounds pretty fucked up. Have you ever had the pleasure to meet her face to face?

I've had a super stressful month between a conference presentation, a very tight project schedule, my Master's thesis and moving out. Luckily and to my surprise, I have entered a sort of fuck-it mode which enables me not to worry too much about work on the little spare time I still have left and which allows me to sleep relatively well at night. Basically, I'll do my best to meet each deadline, but I will not be too hard on myself if I don't. After all, I didn't set or even agree on any of those.

[dibs]

The rivers in switzerland are blue because they are made of glaciers. Also, I was in a glacier today weeee.

[Hermie]

So. Life then? Okay.

You might (or might not) remember this, in which I had to make a grand, binary decision that usually only happens in video games, except the only achievement that popped up was called "Consequences", and it didn't even give me any GamerPoints.

I went with option B:, pursue the girl. Since then I have finished my bachelors degree (barely), packed my bags, and moved my entire life across the border from Norway to Sweden. My girlfriend had gotten a job as a packaging designer for an electronics retailer, in a small-to-medium sized town a little away from Gothenburg. I had applied for a Norwegian language customer service job at the same company, but when I followed up they hadn't gotten my application, and then it was too late.

But after my girlfriend had started, she mentioned this to the secretary, who realized they're looking for a Norwegian in the mother company of this one, that also have their customer service hosted in the same offices. So, they call me up, and the day after I arrive in Sweden with my bags, I go to the interview, and they call me a couple of hours later to tell me that I got it.

So now I take calls and answer emails from Norwegian people complaining about their laptops not working. It's not the best job, but not the worst either, and I seem to have impressed my boss by how quickly I mastered it, and took on more and more challenges. The worst part is doing a Norwegian job for a Swedish salary (I earn less working 80% in an office here, than I did at 18 working 60% in Burger King). Actually, scratch that, the worst part is people yelling at me for things other people did wrong, and then expecting me to fix it, when my only tool for that is "call someone else that hopefully can fix it". But, the people are cool, and I feel like I can move up the chain if I play my cards right.

We've been through a lot of worries (getting an apartment, making sure her visa/green card is okay, fixing the apartment once we got it, all kinds of bureaucracy), but the pieces seem to have fallen into place, one by one. There's still a million little things to get in order, but I guess that's what adult life is all about?

So now I'm sitting here, with my laptop on a brand new Ikea desk, with a new job, a new life, in a new town, in a new country, and watching the life I left behind start again after summer through everyone's Facebook updates. It's a strange feeling, but hearing her behind me on our new Karlstad two-seat couch, tapping on her keyboard, it's a soothing, reassuring sound. I think I made the right choice.

[toblix]

Sounds sweet. I'm interested to know what brand or provider of laptops go to the xtreme lengths of providing a custom Norwegian person to talk to for Norwegians. Except for Microsoft, every time I've had to call customer service I've spoken to a Swede or a Dane. Hilariously, there was this awkward exchange between me and the Epson Dane wherein he spoke to me in English, and I, in my weird Norwegian dialect, tried to explain I wasn't English for too long, but he just kept repeating «Speak English, please!» in that cute Danish English* until I gave up. ANYWAY sounds like you made the right choice, and even if everything goes to shit, which I'm not saying it will, you'll still be left with the better life story.

*

[Hermie]

Ah, it's a retailer chain, but the two sister companies have their own brand, that basically buys cheap things from China and sells them with a new brand, thus the need for packaging designer. But I'm on the retail end of things.

(*Makes a note to look up Toblix to see if he bought anything*)

[toblix]

Can't look me up if you don't know my name!

[Hermie]

http://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/8064-apple-event-september-12th/#entry204202