the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker

still somewhere.

2014-12-23T13:18:00.002-06:00

i'm not blogging much about crack smokers anymore, as is pretty obvious from the lack of posts here for almost two years. they are still around, and still smoking crack...but, i guess i've gotten a little distracted. still, i'm writing.

my writing is slightly less random than it was here: it is focused on horse racing. if you stumble across this corner of the internet and are curious where i've gone, why don't you visit Blinkers Off?

Crack Quiz!

2013-05-23T14:48:00.002-05:00

imagine you're the mayor of a major North American city. imagine that instead of unwinding by drinking a beer, going for a swim, or going out dancing with your friends, you liked to unwind with a little crack. quick, what would you do?

lay off the crackpipe for a few years while you're in office, and set aside that money for lots of wonderful, wonderful crack when you've left office.
arrange for a trusted friend to be your crack mule, and hope they are loyal enough not to rat you out if they get caught for being bad at hiding your crack.
buy crack from the most fashionable dealers you can, and appear in a video starring your very own crack-addled musings.

if you rolled your eyes and said that none of these options are good options at all, congratulations! you're either way too smart to be a crack smoker, or way too smart to be a politician.

if you chose 1, you have far more restraint than most crack smokers.

if you chose 2, you realise it's a tough situation, but you also realise that running a major city is pretty difficult without a way to relax -- and, for you, that way is crack.

if you chose 3, congratulations. you're in that elite group of crack smokers who is too stupid to take refuge here at the Last Refuge of the Persecuted Crack Smoker.

sure, sure. do i know for a fact that it's Rob Ford in that video? no. do i think it's likely him? yes. Rob Ford was already a complete laughingstock; i have enough acquaintances from the Greater Toronto Area to know that. still, i'm holding out hope that the Crackstarter does its job, and the internet at large can satisfy its curiosity.

Vogue: Crack Smoker Edition

2012-01-07T16:24:00.006-06:00

dearest crack smokers,

i am aware that you are generally more focused on your crack smoking than you are on your fashion choices. however, you must at times exercise a bit of discretion when choosing your outfit for the day. for example, let us consider this jacket:

this jacket lays out, in friendly pictorial form, how to make your beloved crack. as such, it has probably made its way onto the fashion plates at all of the local crack houses. you probably either have one already, or envy some fellow crack smoker who has this hot, new winter style. it is a lot of fun to wear when you are smoking crack in the privacy of your own home, or possibly even the privacy of your friend's crack den, depending on how much you actually trust them.

however, when you have been haled into court for drug trafficking, we may suggest a slightly more conservative fashion choice. a suit is best, although if you do not own a suit, try wearing to court any kind of clothing that does not reference crack. keep in mind that even though you are guaranteed a jury of your peers, the law defines "peers" as a group with slightly broader scope than "fellow crack smokers". there is a high chance that most (if not all) members of a jury will frown upon a jacket that demonstrates how to cook crack, especially because your fellow crack smokers are likely to be too busy smoking crack to show up for jury duty.

for this fashion faux pas, our as-yet-anonymous drug trafficking defendant must join the roster of crack smokers too stupid to take refuge at the last refuge of the persecuted crack smoker. please, dear readers, if you must ever go to court, please put your crackpipe down long enough to choose an outfit that does not immediately single you out as a crack aficionado. this will increase your chances of going home afterwards to smoke your crack in peace.

love,
the persecuted crack smoker

join Dreamwidth...

2011-12-30T21:13:00.003-06:00

apparently, you can join Dreamwidth this week, without an invite code. the week runs through tomorrow, but i just found out about it today, so i'm passing it along.

i've got a copy of this blog on there, at username faceless_wonder. if you're on there, or end up joining, let me know. the best way for me to describe DW is that it's like Livejournal without the spam. i'm an old luddite who loves her Livejournal...but it's really nice to not get spammed incessantly. sadly, LJ has become a cesspool of spam comments in the past year, so much so that i cancelled my paid account there.

my one complaint about Dreamwidth is that the communities aren't as numerous or active as they are on LJ, but having more people migrate there should fix that, right? ;-)

...on occupy

2011-11-15T13:31:00.003-06:00

over the last two months or so, since they started, i've been doing a lot of thinking about the Occupy protests, but very little talking about the phenomenon. i still can't say i have a coherent or fully fleshed-out opinion or narrative about them, but these are the ideas that keep reoccurring in my mind most often.

i'm annoyed about income and wealth inequality, but i know it's a fact of life. yeah, it sucks that there are a few people with absurd amounts of money, whereas i'm going to have a subzero net worth for the rest of my life. it's a warm and fuzzy fantasy to imagine a world without a huge gulf in wealth, but i don't think there's anything that can actually be done about it. i blame human nature. people are greedy bastards at heart, and the vast majority of people can't meaningfully fight that. this is the crux of why i don't think Occupy, or any similar phenomenon, is going to change a thing. if "everyone else" wrestled the wealth away from Joe, Bob, and Jen...it would eventually fall into the hands of Rick, Sue, and Ann: the people with the best combination of acumen for gaming whatever system has been put into place, and pure dumb luck. it's something we're stuck with, and something i have to live with while trying to carve out whatever little corner i can in which to live.

i get really emotional and angry whenever anyone tries to talk to me about Occupy, because the protests rub a really sore spot about my own past. it reminds me of the time that i was naive and misguided enough to think that such things would make any improvement in society. my first year of college, i would have been right out there, waving a sign and screaming at the corner of Jackson and LaSalle. i was a protestor, a college activist, a sign-waver. i saw things in society that pissed me off, was naive in thinking that hanging out in public and trying to notify passers-by about all these outrageous things going on would get them to care, and even more naive in thinking that there could be some kind of fix. not that i was actually doing anything about a fix...even though i believed in some abstract sense that problems of insufficient wages or insufficient health care or terrible working conditions or an insufficient social safety net could actually be fixed. i had no idea how to implement anything i wanted to see, and as best as i can tell eleven jaded years later, i can only imagine that i envisioned a day when enough people's eyes would be opened to what was going on, some switch would flip, and government would start passing laws that gave anyone a chance to live comfortably no matter their current socioeconomic status. that's the same outlook i get the feeling most of the Occupiers have...that they are part of a movement, and their movement will eventually garner enough support that Society Will Improve.

i'm pretty sure the reasons why Occupy really frustrates me are very similar to the reasons why anything political really frustrates me. maybe i'm the problem, and it's wrong that i've completely given up on the idea of meaningful economic change. as much as i wish we could, though, i don't see any kind of way to meaningfully legislate around or structure a government to circumvent the fact that we inevitably want to grab whatever we can for ourselves. we're screwed, in this way, and it's a far better use of my time and energy to try and build whatever little life i can for myself in the midst of this than it is to focus on my anger over a suboptimal situation that i cannot change.

i'm an idiot.

2011-10-07T07:34:00.001-05:00

so, i looked in the mirror a few minutes ago, around 7:30am.

there were Security Justice stickers on my shirt, right over my boobs.

i turned around, and sure enough, there was a Secure State sticker on the bottom of my shirt, right across my bum, that said "When was the last time you were penetrated?"

i put this shirt on at 4:30am.

i got to work at 5:45am.

i had looked in a mirror at least three times before 7:30am -- and this was the first time i had noticed that various salacious locations on my body were covered in stickers.

this is why i am not designed to get up at four o'clock in the morning.

what a drag.

2011-09-05T16:16:00.003-05:00

over the last week or so, i've been watching absurd amounts of RuPaul's Drag Race. *ABSURD* amounts of it. i've already blown through Season 3, and i've started watching Season 1. if you haven't watched it...go over to logotv.com and watch it, since all three season stream for free in their entirety. it's compelling, it's entertaining...

...but it's not really what this blog entry is about. this blog entry is more about the gender-related thoughts that have popped into my head while watching it.

i've never actually done real drag performance before. the extent of my drag experience is going to a few drag dances over the years. every time i've gone to any kind of drag dance, i've dressed as a drag king: bound my boobs down with an ace bandage (or ten), used some makeup to put a five o'clock shadow on my face, and gone out that way. problem is, except for the makeup and the boob-binding, there really wasn't any difference at all between nicky (who i am day to day) and larry (the drag king persona i was trying to be). i didn't feel like i was playing a character. i felt like myself, albeit with a few cosmetic additions to accentuate the masculine. i wore the same kinds of clothes day in and day out, and didn't feel the need to change much of anything about how i presented myself, since i tend to present myself in a rather butch fashion as a matter of course. that's just who i am.

compare that to how i feel if i'm going to a formal dance. i'm not explicitly trying to create a character, but i feel like something different than what i am day in and day out. the protocol of the event demands that i be something formal and feminine, so i'm costuming myself in a manner that's nothing like my usual, daily wear. i'm wearing a dress, heels, makeup. such trappings worm their way into my brain, and i subconsciously start to act in a way that's far more prim, proper, and feminine than the way i act day in and day out. i'm not myself--and that's fun, for a night here and there.

this is the kind of thing that watching RuPaul's Drag Race makes me want to do. it makes me want to bend my gender. it makes me want to put on a long-haired wig, makeup, a dress, and maybe even some heels -- go out, and be something that is nothing like who i am every day. it makes me want to do a supercharged version of what i do if i'm preparing for a formal dance or event. it makes me want to play around with formulating and portraying a character with a completely different gender expression than the person i am day in and day out.

and, yet, i feel a little weird about the fact that this makes me want to try being a drag *queen*. it isn't all that logical, since drag is supposed to be about finding a way to creatively portray a gender you aren't day in and day out -- and being a drag queen would do that for me in a way that being a drag king never could. even though, to me, being a feminine "queen" is a lot more of a transformation from my day-to-day existence than being a masculine "king", i still have this little voice in my head that tells me that it would be somehow belittling to male-bodied drag queens to go out as a female-bodied drag queen.

do i have any resolution to this? not really. these are just ideas that have been bouncing in my head for a long time, and have been bouncing closer to the forefront now that i've been watching many hours of Drag Race on TV. maybe i'll make a bit more sense of them in the future, maybe not. but, this is where my brain has been hanging out lately.

...on livejournal

2011-08-24T21:37:00.004-05:00

my paid livejournal account runs out on Friday, and i'm not renewing it this year.

i've had a paid account for the last three years...i know, i know, i was late to the paid livejournal account party. the fact that i wanted to be far more of a usericon whore got the best of me, and i upgraded. it was cool, but i don't think i want to keep paying them for that privilege -- especially when it's getting DoSed as often as it is, and when i'm getting as many spam comments as i've gotten over the last four to six months. i'm not paying for that kind of experience anymore.

...and, if i want to keep being a usericon whore, i'll upgrade to a paid membership to dreamwidth.

i've been copying all my entries there for about a year, and i like it. the communities there aren't as vibrant as certain ones (most specifically, the gaming communities and

the world is not your flock

2011-08-11T19:09:00.003-05:00

sometimes i know i'm going to get angry if i click the link to a news article...then i click the link, and then i get angry.

a large local church, Willow Creek, has been getting some publicity lately after the CEO of Starbucks cancelled an appearance there, due to pressure. people were pressuring him not to show up there because of what they said was the church's anti-gay stance. he finally decided not to show up. the article quoted the head pastor, Rev. Bill Hybels, as saying the following as part of his argument that the church is not anti-gay, or "not anti-anybody":

"We challenge homosexuals and heterosexuals to live out the sexual ethics taught in Scriptures, which encourage sexual expression between a man and a woman in the context of marriage,” said Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek. He added that the Bible prescribes “sexual abstinence and purity for everyone else."

thanks for undermining your own argument. that's an anti-gay outlook...not to mention, an anti-several-other-kinds-of-anybodies outlook.

in saying that your church only encourages sexual expression between a man and a woman in the context of marriage, you are saying that consenting adults of the same sex should not sexually express themselves. you are saying that consenting adults who choose not to marry for whatever reason should not sexually express themselves. you are saying that consenting adults who choose not to be in a committed relationship should not sexually express themselves. you are saying that consenting adults who choose to be in a committed relationship that involves more than just one man and one woman should not sexually express themselves.

is that illegal? no. the members of your church have a right to believe, and live out, your chosen sexual ethics. there's nothing i can do to stop you from believing that your way is the right way to live out your sex life.

however, there is also nothing you can do to convince me, or many others who disagree with part or all of your outlook on sexual ethics, that your way is the right way to go. do you have a right to speak publicly about it, or to try and convince others that it's the right way to live? of course! but, freedom to speak does not mean freedom from any consequences of your speech. after your church so publicly casts aspersions upon the legitimacy of how queer people, unmarried people, and nonmonogamous people choose to conduct their sex lives...don't expect sympathy when your church loses publicity, or gains bad publicity, as a result.

music squee

2011-07-10T10:28:00.002-05:00

"Diminish Me" by Imperative Reaction recently started popping up on my Pandora station.

given that the song is nine years old, i am wondering why Pandora (OR ANY OTHER RADIO STATION ANYWHERE, EVER) didn't play it for me sooner. it's gorgeous.

i just wish there were a youtube video of it that didn't have talking at the beginning. i'm probably going to end up buying it off of Amazon, so i can put it on my iPod. seriously, it's the best new-to-me song i've heard in a while.

yet another Casey Anthony trial rant

2011-07-07T00:36:00.005-05:00

the next time i see anyone on the internet whining about where the justice is for Caylee Anthony, i'm going to scream.

we have a procedure in place for meting out justice.

it involves the defendant being considered, under the law, as innocent until proven guilty.

it involves the state having an attorney to fight zealously for it.

it involves the accused having an attorney to fight zealously for him or her.

it involves twelve members of the community deciding whether the state proved its case against the accused beyond a reasonable doubt.

nothing in the law says that this is any different because the victim was a toddler, or any of a million other generally sympathetic things. nothing in the law says that this is any different if the accused is a party girl, or a million other generally frowned-upon stereotypes.

Casey Anthony was innocent until proven guilty. the prosecutor busted his ass for the state. her lawyer busted her ass for her.

and, in the end, twelve of her peers found that the state did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt.

it's awful that such a young kid lost her life, before she really got the chance to live it. however, if the jury didn't believe that the state proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, it would not have been justice for anyone for them to lie and say the case was proven to such a standard, just to give the public what it wanted to see, or just to give some measure of explanation for a tragedy.

but, justice doesn't mean finding expedient closure in the wake of a premature death or other unfortunate event. justice means making sure that both the accused and the state have their day in court, and letting the jury thoughtfully weigh the facts against the burden of proof.

justice isn't a question of whether we could bring Caylee Anthony back from the dead, or make the people who loved her or felt sympathy for her feel better in the wake of her death. the question wasn't justice for Caylee Anthony at all. the question centered around justice for Casey Anthony...whether the case against her was strong enough in the eyes of her peers to support conviction. the jury was not convinced beyond a reasonable doubt -- and, in that case, justice was done by not convicting her.

DEFCON!

2011-06-24T20:14:00.002-05:00

just over a month until Defcon...and i finally booked my travel!

i get in really late on Tuesday night, and leave late on Sunday night. this is awesome, since i can hit all of B-Sides and all of Defcon.

(i'm also flying out late enough to be able to make it to musical theatre class on Tuesday night before i leave...yay!)

i'm not staying at the Rio, because quite frankly, it's REALLY FUCKING EXPENSIVE. i can't justify staying at the con hotel if the one right next door is, on average, almost $100 less PER NIGHT than the Rio is...especially since it's not like i spend much time in my hotel room anyway when i go to cons.

anyway, i just feel a huge weight off my shoulders now that i've gotten all my Defcon ducks in a row.

now...T minus 39 days until i'm on my way! <3 <3 <3

"we were never alive, and we won't be born again"

2011-06-16T17:53:00.001-05:00

...if i were to compile a mix tape to tell the story of my past, i'm pretty sure this would be on there.

i haz a bukkit

2011-06-11T10:05:00.003-05:00

i've been awful...i've not only been posting infrequently, but i've really not even been reading anyone's blogs lately.

my personal computer time has been cut way short over the last two months or so. in mid-April, i was caught in the middle of a rainstorm, and my computer (six years old, poor guy), got wet through my bag. it still booted, but the hard drive was fried. so, i've been booting it from a liveCD since then. it was getting to the point, however, that it wasn't even doing that properly...it would take three times to even boot right from that anymore, and then just sometimes decide to freeze. basically, my poor little guy had become unusable.

it did have a good run. i bought it in August of 2005, and it had been doing its duty ever since, despite the fact that i had been beating the stuffing out of it. the spacebar had been superglued on since 2007, the V key was only working one out of every two or three times you hit it, and the case was getting all cracked, but i love that thing. it's also covered with excellent stickers.

however, it was not doing its job very well anymore. as a result, my only time on a reliable computer was while i was at work...and i've been doing almost no personal internet stuff from work, especially since my new responsibilities and my new (happy shiny nine-to-five) hours have been keeping me so busy from the time i show up to the office to the time that i leave.

however, this has been fixed. i now haz a bukkit...a new bukkit. and, yes, i did name the new lappy "bukkit", same as the old one. as weird as it is to call my new laptop the same as the old one, it would have felt even weirder for my primary laptop not to be called bukkit, especially since the old one is pretty well nonfunctional.

...and i really need some awesome hacker stickers for this new bukkit. stat.

Augustus Scavvie

2011-05-10T13:28:00.002-05:00

i spent this past weekend doing the University of Chicago Scavenger Hunt. it's one of my favourite times of the year...four days of madness, insanity, and abject absurdity. i come back to campus every year to compete with GASH, the Graduate/Alumni Scav Hunt team, and i always love seeing old scavvies again, meeting new ones, and doing ridiculous items together.

this year i did mostly writing and song-writing items. i did a lot of items i thought were fun (many of which i may post here over the next few days or weeks, since i wrote some pretty cool stuff...), but my favourite by far was item #21:

Augustus Scavvie was a little boy
Who thought that everything was a toy:
Glue guns, glitter, hammers, and nails,
Dry ice sitting in big white pails.

When Scav Hunt came, he saw the List
And after reading, got the gist
Of items involving dare and spunk,
Of items made of nought but junk.

He decided he should try his hand
And join one of the merry bands,
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which you'll now relate...

Today it is your job, my friend
To spin a yarn from start to end.
Now, Belloc's poems were cruel and torrid--
Weave a Scav poem just as horrid. [4 points]

that's right...the item on the list was written in verse. the key was in the last two lines: this item alluded to Hillaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children, a book of verses about children who either die horrible deaths because they disobeyed their parents and caretakers, or led their friends or family to horrible deaths because they disobeyed such authority.

of course, this is a perfect suggestion for an absurd scav-related poem. this is what i wrote:

*****

Augustus Scavvie, who attempted Scav Hunt at a too-tender age, and unfortunately lost his head while working on a showcase item alone.

Augustus Scavvie seemed quite alright.
He knew he had a future bright.
In his name lied his destiny:
To hunt the Scav at U of C.
His first decade he obeyed rules:
He kept his play to plastic tools
And wooden blocks that he would use
To craft the most elaborate views
Of anything he thought would build
His nascent Larger Projects skills.

But when li'l Scavvie got to ten,
He thought that he could run with men.
He begged his mom and dad to please
Let him attend the List Release.
They turned him down, but he did fight
Then disappeared in dead of night
By waiting 'til his mom dropped guard
Then borrowing her transit card.
By midnight's hour the naughty boy
Had found his way to Ida Noyes.

He tried to find a team who'd roll
Such a young boy into their fold.
They all told him to head on home.
He would not go. He must still roam.
Augustus had not reached his dream,
For he had not yet found a team.
The stubborn boy did keep his spark,
He kept on wandering Hyde Park
Until he spotted as he walked:
A team with its HQ unlocked.

The only scavvies in his sight
Were sleeping, so the time was right.
Augustus tiptoed in to find
A wooden frame seven feet high.
A metal sheet with sharpened edge
Hung from the top, upon a ledge,
And to the blade a rope was tied,
Then pulled around, and down the side.

Augustus planned his scav debut
But knew not what the thing could do.
He walked around to take a look
And still its purpose hadn't took.
Too excited to desist,
But too impatient to read a list:
He thought to leave mark with his name
By hammering nails into the frame.
He missed a nail by just a shade
And bumped the rope that hung the blade.

There was an issue unforeseen:
The project was a guillotine.
Soon as young Scavvie touched the rope
The blade fell down; there was no hope.

The other scavvies in the room
Awoke to a scene of extant gloom.
The showcase zone now had a flood
Of Augustus Scavvie's drying blood.
His head gazed out with plaintive eyes
Too late to stop his sad demise.

The funeral fell on a sunny day
During the second week of May.
His mother and his father came,
His aunts and uncles cried his name.
The pastor's eulogy began
With happy tales of the poor young man.
But slowly it became a screed,
A warning dire for all to heed:
Wait 'til eighteen years you have
Before you Hunt the Mighty Scav.

who's your mama?

2011-05-06T11:38:00.004-05:00

Mama Shaq, Mama Shaq, Shaq's your mom, that's a fact.

need i say more?

BEST. OS. NAME. EVER.

2011-04-28T22:31:00.002-05:00

...in honour of the new ubuntu release today:

my, what natty narwhals.

...yet again, having one of those Bullet For My Valentine kind of months.

2011-04-28T01:55:00.004-05:00

"all these things i hate (revolve around me)"
by bullet for my valentine

once more i'll say goodbye to you
things happen but we don't really know why
if it's supposed to be like this
why do most of us ignore the chance to miss
oh yeah

torn apart at the seams of my dreams turn to tears
i'm not feeling the situation
run away try to find that safe place you can hide
it's the best place to be when you're feeling like

me...me...
yeah...yeah...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap

once more you tell those lies to me
why can't you just be straight up with honesty
when you say those things in my ear
why do you always tell me what you wanna hear
oh yeah

wear your heart on your sleeve make things hard to believe
i'm not feeling the situation
run away try to find that safe place you can hide
it's the best place to be when you're feeling like

me...me...
yeah...yeah...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap and you'll see
me...me...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap

torn apart at the seams of my dreams turn to tears
i'm not feeling the situation
run away try to find that safe place you can hide
it's the best place to be when you're feeling like me
it's the best place to be when you're

me...me...
yeah...yeah...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap and you'll see me
me...me...
all these things i hate revolve around me...me...
yeah...yeah...
just back off before i snap

...because i totally buy all my nukes from spammers.

2011-04-08T04:32:00.003-05:00

i have seen the pinnacle of email spam. nothing i can say can make this spam more perfect, so just keep reading:

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Our clients, it and Osama bin Laden, Abu Musa Azzakrakui, Halifa bin Zaed
And many other dear people.

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11714
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and, the links? they go to some Ukrainian news site.

very punny.

2011-04-07T22:33:00.002-05:00

it's the return of the sea anemone enemy!

i <33333 Pearls before Swine.

rant

2011-04-02T01:38:00.003-05:00

oh, internet misogyny, how i love you.

and by love you, i mean i think you're pretty obnoxious.

but, i'm resigned to it, since calling misogynists on the internet out on it usually ends up being interpreted as troll bait.

two years, already?

2011-04-01T00:40:00.005-05:00

yesterday marks two years since my last day ever working as an attorney.

i knew then that it was the best possible thing that could have happened...i was not happy there, i was already secretly laying the foundation for making my exit, and getting laid off (as opposed to leaving on my own) gave me the one thing for which i was planning to stay in that job for a few more months: enough money to confidently face the near-certainty of a prolonged period of unemployment.

when i was laid off, i hadn't decided for sure whether i would be working as an attorney again. i knew i wouldn't be returning to the large law firm environment...it works for some, but it had become painfully obvious that it wasn't my thing. my heart was already leaning toward forsaking law entirely and figuring out some computer-related career path; a few weeks before i was laid off, i remember spending an entire day on the couch, on the verge of tears, cursing my job and looking up computer science graduate programs as a way out. however, my head wasn't quite so sure yet...some of it was fear of the unknown, some of it was was some lingering sense of obligation to follow through with my degrees, and some of it was not wanting to admit to the world that my career path up until then had been a long, stressful, and expensive path to a depressing dead end.

all i knew was...when it happened, i felt free. i wasn't sure what was next, but at that point, it didn't matter. i'd be able to figure out on my own time where "next" was, without the stress of spending forty or more hours a week in a place where i never quite fit.

two years later, things are much better. i get to play with servers for a living, and i'm learning a lot. as much as i did to shore up my computer skills in the fourteen months between when i was laid off from the law firm and when i started my current job, i've learned so much more--and gained far more real-world context for my computer knowledge--in my job. i like my co-workers, and feel like i belong at my company in a way that i don't think i've ever felt with any job i've had up to date. i've been there for ten months now, which is longer than i spent practicing law.

my life isn't perfect by any means. i still have my freak-outs. i frequently stress out about how little i feel like i know about computers compared to how much i want to know, and compared to how much my friends know. i even more often get bent out of shape about what a terrible decision going to law school was; i regret it every day, and can't believe how naive i was, thinking i'd be happy as an attorney. given my amazing talent for seeing the worst in myself, i doubt either of these stresses will ever subside, no matter how far i make it in my new career.

still, the fact remains that i'm in a much more satisfying place than i was when i woke up on March 31, 2009.

bring me...a shrubbery!

2011-03-31T02:21:00.004-05:00

if News Crack Smokers Can Use has a mantra, it's this: Hide Your Crack! if you keep your crack in a place where other people can easily find it, someone is going to find it. and, when someone finds it, at least one of two things will happen: they will steal it, or they will trace it to you and have you busted for being a crack smoker. therefore, it is key that you keep your crack in a place where you -- and only you -- have access to it.

secondly, if you are a crack smoker, it is a bad idea to also be a crack dealer. first of all, both selling and smoking crack would make it far too tempting to break Biggie's infinitely wise Fourth Crack Commandment: never get high on your own supply. furthermore, running a successful business is difficult, and doubly so if you not only have to worry about the difficulties of the market, but also about continuously staying one step ahead of Officer Friendly.

what is the moral of this story? basically, it's a terrible idea to stash tens of thousands of dollars worth of crack and cash in the communal shrubbery at your flat.

although, this may explain why The Knights Who Say Ni are so insistent that people bring them shrubberies.

lamentations on the lack of women in information technology

2011-03-30T23:51:00.002-05:00

whenever a ticket comes into our support queue in the middle of the night, and the sender's name is a female name that i don't recognize as belonging to a customer who often sends tickets at such an hour, i always end up muttering to myself, "ugh, this is probably another spam email in our queue."

and, every single time, i'm right.

i don't know which of these two things is worse.

"crack prosecutor" doesn't mean what you think it means.

2011-03-25T00:03:00.004-05:00

here at News Crack Smokers Can Use, we've suggested several times that it might not be a good idea for lawyers to smoke crack. competent legal work requires critical thinking, a sharp intellect, and an ability to put your job first in your life. all of these are capacities that crack smoking tends to hinder. if you enjoy law-talking, awesome. if you enjoy crack smoking, awesome. but, your life will be far less complicated if you choose at most one of those two pursuits.

imagine you're a prosecutor. if you aren't a crack smoker, you'd probably notice a pattern in the cases you've worked on, and the evidence you've used. you'd have picked up by now that the local departments of law and order are quite enamoured with finding and prosecuting local crackheads. when someone is identified as a crack dealer, the police like to keep tabs on them in the future, because it can not only lead them to further evidence against the dealer, but also in the general direction of crack smokers they can arrest.

what i'm trying to say is...if you prosecute high-profile drug cases, you should really know better than to smoke crack. and, even if you insist on smoking a little crack once in a while, it may be a good idea not to take your crack dealer for a ride in your Beemer.

otherwise, you may become the laughingstock of crack smokers and prosecutors alike. and, that's never a good thing.