latest archives guestbook about me links

email

03.05.2003 - 7:26 p.m.

Wednesday

At Workplace, we're launching a new version of one of our products soon, so there's all kinds of scurrying on my part to get new stuff written about the product ("Version 3.0 - now with a smooth, creamy filling!") and, more poopily, to get new pricing details figured out. I hate doing that. I am hopeless with numbers and would much rather consult a Magic 8-Ball to set product pricing.

Customer: "How much is your product?"
Me: "Umm....wait a sec....ok, 'Outlook Not Good.'"
Customer: "What the fuck does that mean?"
Me: (cryptically) "'My Sources Say No.'"

The writing part isn't so bad, because at least we do develop software that I can conceive of someone, somewhere, actually using. That wasn't the case with my last job. It is a fact that I never fully understood what the hell our products actually did, and thusly churned out vats of the worst sort of jargon-heavy copywriting that was constantly studded with the word "extensible". The job before that was even worse, because the technology was essentially vaporware. I used the word "scalable" a lot at that place. ("This bug-ridden software doesn't do much more than crash your browser, but it IS completely scalable!")

Writing about software is basically what I've done, jobwise, for the last six years. Prior crap which I have had to write compelling reasons to purchase:

- DOS-based system that tracked collateral insurance for credit unions (DOS! Like, in 1999! There was no excuse for this!)
- Cheesy method of delivering streaming media that looked and sounded like complete ass
- Giant crufty reporting system that gathered and analyzed massive wads of data from streaming servers
- Horrible, terrible 3-D web browser
- Avatar-based pornographic cyberworld complete with hardware genitalia-stimulation devices

Heh. Just kidding about the last one. I could SO enjoy writing about that.

:::

Tonight I went to that appalling kickboxing class again, because apparently I am completely and utterly insane. Man, I suck at that class. Just - oh, the suckage, there is so very much of it. I'm uncoordinated, I do not have a cute matching gym outfit, and I am presumably the only person in the class who requires OXYGEN to survive.

I'm going to try and describe the Most Awful Thing Ever to you, the thing that kicked my ass and took my name (then wrote it in a book called "Massive Wusses"). Ok, do a lunge. A really deep lunge where your legs are very far apart. Left leg forward. Now, lower your upper body and stretch your arms out - you're going for a plank effect. Got it? Feeling very uncomfortable? NOW, pull your arms in and your right leg in to sort of crunch in the middle then go back to the lunge/arms outstretched. Do this really, really fast, over and over, and DO NOT straighten up or a tiny little ripped woman wearing a headset will scream in your ear.

Once your entire body has burst into flames and your heart has burst from your chest, Alien-style, repeat the whole process with your right leg forward.

So I plan to spend the rest of the evening weeping softly yet steadily and clutching my shredded muscles.

:::

Ok, seriously. This? Is the funniest thing ever.

go back ::: forward

0 comments so far.

I have moved. - 1.03.2005
Obviously, a work in progress. - 12.27.2004
Happy holidays! - 12.24.2004
Listen, I am not a complete dick, it's not like I want Joe to die alone surrounded by cats or something. - 12.23.2004
Plus I am convinced my butt is extra big when it's upside down. - 12.22.2004

yay, diaryland