Funny Story

I am, basically, a... Level 1 Software Developer.  I was supposed to have been Level 2 by now.  To that end, I am completing the mandatory "self evaluation" where I talk myself up, or whatever.  My company has a number of bullshit aspirations that we are supposed to live up to, in a number of different categories:  20 that are mostly bullshit, and 8 "SDE principles" that are kind of related to being a programmer.  Its mostly the typical stuff:  do good work, communicate well, do lots of work on your own time, etc.

Sadly, after deleting the snarky paragraph I wrote about Eclipse being a little bitch all year, I only have like 1, maybe 1 and a half things in the "strengths" column.  Pretty much all of the other "principles" or "leadership whatever" stuff could go in the weakness column (including "Safety: maintaining a safe work environment," thanks to the bottle of Jack I keep at my desk) but I only wrote two, because I don't want to get fired yet.  So I probably won't be getting a raise.  Oh man, my one project this year was a disaster.  I was so bored.  And I hate telling my boss I'm bored, because its not like managers can ever do anything about it.  I still have the cardboard pieces of my hypercube that I used in my attempts to solve 3-Sat.  Girls have been asking about them.  I need to get rid of them, but I can't just throw them out, because half of them contain soap that I plan to use.

I haven't seriously started looking for another job, but I did email some random dude on craigslist about some startup idea.  The guy wanted a database, but was mentioning things like "visual studio" and "excel" in his ad.  For those of you who don't do computer stuff:  visual studio and excel are both not databases.  I mentioned that fact in my email.  He never replied back.  That totally counts as me searching for a new job though.

In other news:

My car developed a serious steering alignment problem.  When the wheel is centered, the front right tire points straight forward, and the front left tire is turned significantly to the right.  I don't know how it happened, but it must have involved the 4 inches of snow on the ground.  The Subaru place has not responded to my request for an appointment, and I don't even know how I'm going to get my car there, because the snow melted, and this steering problem involves a tendency to suddenly jerk to the left.

I got food poisoning.  It was awesome.

While I was splayed out on my couch in a naseous delerium yesterday, my unguarded mind kept drifting back to the second-to-last time I saw Betsy while she was single, in between feverish dreams about the season and a half of 30Rock that I had semi-consciously watched all day.  Today I looked at her facebook page.  She's still dating that guy.

Tina Fey is hot.

A girl that has repeatedly rejected me for the most unpredictable reasons while always telling me if some condition (that I can't change, or that I can't change without being creepy) were different, she'd want to be with me, asked me to join her in one of those writing things for writers where you write every day.  Naturally, I had nothing better to do.  Here's the good news:  this writing website thing offers like "merit badges" for gay stuff like writing 750 words in 20 minutes 10 days in a row.  I'm going to collect them all.

Alicia seems to have stopped responding to text messages, and I had just thought of an excuse to visit Boston.  Sadface.

Speaking of girls:  went blues dancing tuesday, and had to dance with not one but 2 guys.  I am becoming numb to the unpleasantness of it.

I saw a picasso exhibit recently.  I was not impressed with his work, although a female friend of mine told me it turned her on.

Since I didn't have enough Legos to build even the smallest of castles, I attempted to build a house.  So far, it looks like I don't have enough pieces for a house either.  I have 20,000 bricks and I can't make a damn house (the windows don't match).