accounting

don’t worry about this, there’s another department that takes care of it.

B2B

what we call our business stuff now.

B2C

what we call our customer stuff now.

business need

a term without any literal meaning used as an idiom to say, “My VP is bigger than your VP.”

communications strategy

the written guides for how to write to each other; the longer the better as the more that you can communicate up front, the less they’ll read and the more you’ll be able to say, “I warned you about that.”

deadline

the chance for you to apply the hard won knowledge behind your liberal arts degree to decide how long it will take 5 guys on HB1 visas to finish and debug 250,000 lines of C++ while building it out properly on DEC, Solaris, and Linux boxes.

deliverable

what others are responsible for at such time as the PM indicates; see deadline, your mini-‌Ouija board and key-‌chain Magic 8-‌Ball for more.

dependency

programmer double-‌talk for “I’m too high and mighty to do that for you.”

documentation

the official record of what happened and how it all works; remember that the messenger makes the easiest target so keep it light—you can always assume the bugs and missed features will be taken care of in version 2 so there’s no reason to go into details in the current documentation.

feature set

a fancy way of saying, “We really don’t know what we need so just whip something up and we’re sure it will be fine.”

human resources

protection; job security; keep their senior manager in lunches and margaritas.

kickoff

the initial project meeting; as in football whence the metaphor is drawn, there will be somewhere around 11 huge, angry antagonists trying to take the project away and run it back, right through you.

milestones

successfully reached ones are résumé bullet points, the others are guidelines for personnel changes following the project.

P2P

what to say to hose down the programmers who bring up a partner’s failure to fulfill contractually obligated data delivery.

post-‌mortem

where you get your next raise; during this “20:20” part of the project you must make sure slippage outweighs milestones for other groups and the reverse for yourself; make these points orally! The documentation phase is long gone.

PowerPoint

that thing that whats-‌her-‌name will always help you with right before a presentation.

programmer

serf.

project

15 hours of meetings out of the 40 alotted to do an otherwise straightforward piece of work; fluff; filler; corporate pork.

project schedule

the thumb screws; punitive tightening encouraged.

quality assurance

the group that tests drafts of the project; while you’d expect them to have the most power, they’re actually the least well paid and easiest to replace, hence they are easy to bully.

risk management

the process of minimizing the impact of project set-‌backs and failures by ensuring the project manager is the least responsible for key pieces.

ROI

something to do with money; bring it up when the serfs get noisy about new hardware, adding team members, or extending the testing phase.

security

check the budget—if it’s not specifically paid for in there then this isn’t part of the project.

scope

the limits of the project; make sure to nail down your parts of the scope but remember that the technical managers rarely turn in a good or complete technical requirements doc so you’ll be good for blaming any scope creep on them.

scope creep

hostile feature negotiation.

slippage

retaliation.

software development engineer

what to call the serfs to their faces.

stakeholders’ meeting

the meeting of those who will be invited to the launch party.

status report

a frequently updated tallying of where things stand; like all writing based on actual events, it can be improved with minor dashes of fictionalization.

technical requirements

the badly written (step in immediately if it’s turning out to be any good) contribution to the project outline from the tech group manager; make sure the requirements are suitably vague so you can hang it on the techies if things blow up.

triage

the process of assigning priorities to the missed project goals; it’s best to get the low level stuff first because it makes the project look like it’s progressing rapidly; the big stuff will take care of itself and if it doesn’t, you can just point out that you didn’t have enough time.

user acceptance testing

the phase of the project where the shit can go sour—keep the QA and testing documents terse to help head that off.

UAT

something to do with European tax laws; let the biz dev people sort it out.

XML

what to say to rein in the programmers who start talking their RDBMS/UML mumbo-‌jumbo in meetings.

More at business and project terminology.

The Grithix, as everybody knows, is a Bombanat collector, not a letter collector. He had no use for someone else’s mail, so he did what anybody should do with a lost letter.

He mailed it!

One Monster After Another, by Mercer Mayer

The careful reader will note that the Grithix has just caught a Bombanat. This is not the Pied Bombanat of the sub-continent but a Letter-Eating Bombanat. An animal which subsists solely upon paper mail, and specifically prefers letters from little girls.

The Grithix, on the way home with his Bombanat, disposes of its natural food. The implication is obvious. The Grithix has no use for Bombanat food because the Grithix has no intention of feeding the Bombanat. It is on the way home to go in the killing jar.

My pangolin walker, Cort Fritz, sent me a link and I didn’t have the good sense to round file it. Now we all suffer. Lemme explain. … No, there is too much. Lemme sum up.

Cartel, a new pop rock band, did a Dr Pepper / MTV marketing stunt wherein they were sequestered in a “bubble” to write music Real World style. For this they were hammered by Bob Lefsetz, an independent critic whose self-described “intense brilliance” has kept pace with his hair line through the years. A man who has deep insights to offer young musicians like–

MAKE IT ABOUT THE MUSIC FIRST! Bob Lefsetz, intensely capitalizing music critic

Mr Lefsetz posted Cartel’s singer/lyricist Will Pugh’s response to his drubbing.

The response is made of powerful sincerity and awareness not usually seen in kids–

…the industry and music for that matter is not one iota comparable to an era such as the 70’s… ever since all those bands became popular and started making labels the juggernauts that they are today it’s been a downward spiral to this point in time…

We will gladly accept all the fans that will have us … They only care what’s coming in their ears and that’s what we’re about.

Fuck selling records … We want people to know that we will write rock songs and ballads and shit you probably haven’t heard before … with no strings and no puppeteers doing the work for us. Listen to the record and decide then what to do with us.

Will Pugh of Cartel

This elevated my soul for a moment. I remembered, to a piloerection, what it felt like to be writing music with a band when I was younger. How badly I wanted it. How sincere I was. How much we all knew we were it and there was nothing but a bunch of posers and music hating A&R guys in the way. The response seemed almost to describe a fictional band from one of my best short stories—It’s Just a Spring Clean for the May Queen.

Eagerly I went and listened to Cartel. I read all their lyrics. I watched videos. Now I will, as Will has asked, decide what to do with them… [read more]

You want political power, ladies? Try WAND. Peace, justice, and power flow from it. If you don’t receive peace, justice, and power initially, use WAND repeatedly. You’ll find it just sometimes takes a little longer for it to come. To you.

In this case it is affixed with an org. You’ll want summa that too, I think.

On January 12th [1910] last, Ashley Pond died at his home in Detroit in his eighty-third year. By his death the University has lost one of its oldest and most distinguished alumni… [read more]

Wasp nest.

As part of a settlement agreement with my 2nd ex-wife we’ll be keeping it a bit light around here for a little while. I’m sorry but it’s the only way I can keep custody of the chinchillas and daddy needs them for some weather related Santaría. I’m doing it for you, you know.

Saw a claw on the creek bottom. They lose them all the time so I thought it was a loose one. I tried to pick it up and it pulled back. Fished him out after lifting the rock he was under.

No, I did not eat him. Just another lucky day for him. Just another tricky day for you.

Point! George W Bush 4,000 dead, Osama bin Laden 2,974

As of right now—yes, you heard it here first!³—the military dead count for the anti-terror adventure is 4,000. Bin Laden et al didn’t even reach 3,000. Another gravestone milestone brought to you for your own good by your benevolent leaders. Happy Independence Day! Missed it by that much.

Okay, okay. I know bin Laden can count the World Trade Center bombing, the USS Cole, and the embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. That only brings up the American body count by about 35. On the other hand, if we consider contractors and journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan we can easily add another 250 to Bush’s tally. So let’s not fight in front of the round numbers. Instead we’ll bask in their majesty and magic. The more zeroes queued, the fewer faces of the dead we’ll be able to visualize. Just think about how innocuous 1,000,000 dead Iraqis sounds. And 5,000,000 refugees sounds positively genial in its incomprehensible vastness.

Perhaps the diligent hounds of FOXNews will be so kind as to trot out to Arlington to frottage the name on the gravestone following MMMCMXCIX so we can all thank him or her for dying to protect American freedoms like habeas corpus and the spirit of dissent.⁴

Were you aware that you could get Ann Coulter’s pen drippings for free!? Who would’ve imagined? Such quality, clarity, thorough research, incisive analysis. How could she possibly offer it for free? I’d expect to pay a hundred dollars for a subscription.

Al Gore’s son arrested on drug suspicion

Al Gore III… my, my, my. My favorite of Tipper’s loin fruit. 100 mph carrying a dime bag, some Xanax, Valium, Vicodin, and Adderall.

Drug War’s on the other foot now, eh, Al? Ah, don’t worry buddy. The drug laws are tailored for putting n…, uh, blacks, away. Rich white kids skate the first three or four offenses up to a couple kilos of coke. This is only his second drug arrest, right?

If only Tipper could have got warning labels retroactively placed on track one of Master of Reality this never would have happened. We all know it’s rock and roll that raises kids. Never shitty parents.

Chinese villagers eat dinosaur bones

The story is actually about the healing power of eating rocks. There is a more common aspect of Chinese medicine (disclaimer: it almost killed me overseas so maybe I have a little bias) we should discuss.

I met a kid in Singapore who was on some sort of Chinese prescription and he remarked after reading the chock-full-o’-penis-goodness ingredients–

After taking one I feel like I’ve just given the zoo a blow job.

Traditional Chinese culture is retarded, backwards, destructive, and sexist. Eating rare sea-horses and tiger cocks won’t made you hard, you limp dicked morons.

Actress Emma Watson arrives at the European Premiere of her new film

I can’t do a send-up of Go Fug Yourself because it is itself a recursive parody. Making it seem absurd would be like putting Groucho glasses on Groucho… say, where is he buried? Wait, wait, don’t distract me like that.

I just want to say two things about this photo of Emma Watson.

1. She’s barely 17.
2. Her lower half has apparently taken first prize at the county fair.

Tom Paine’s 4th of July Advice for Congress

This was an op-ed piece at The Nation by John Nichols. Not my Señor Nichols sadly but another.

He makes some moronic puns about King George and George W. And makes some moronic jumps which I hadn’t noticed much before I started drinking the IOZ flavored beverage.

I can clarify Paine a bit for you because I have something in common with him. [That’s how you do a pun, John.]

Paine would not have one fucking thing to say to Congress because they are the tyrants along with Bush. Paine’s advice was, and would be, for the residents of this continent [Ed: this isn’t true exactly, he wanted freedom and reason for the world, North America was just the first field he worked]. And his advice, and Jefferson’s too, was: hate tyranny, be prepared to get bloody for it if you don’t wanna take the yoke.

Honestly. Either shut up and enjoy the slow motion abattoir you’ve built or consider what Paine’s optimism really meant. His intimations of American exceptionalism had nothing to do with America and everything to do with freedom. While there is American aggression abroad and the suspension of individual rights at home, America is neither free nor exceptional.

Paine’s advice might paraphrase today as–

You’re killing the wrong people in the name of freedom.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure. Thomas Jefferson

There are six human lives that have to end to publish the next piece. I expect they’ll all be dead tomorrow.

It didn’t feel ghoulish until six. I don’t know why seven just seemed like a number.

Of course he wasn’t just a number but seven has no name and he’s already, so it seems, part of the big shell game. As he was dead a couple of hours ago and now he’s disappeared from the record.

This is the story—Captain Sean Dolan killed in Afghanistan— as it looks right now, 4 July 2007, 04:28:06 UTC. Click on it to see what it looked like an hour or so ago. Thanks to Google for caching it. Probably won’t be there soon either.

And this is how old she is today–

And before writing or siccing the lawyers on me, Ms Thomas, please be aware that while lying about your age is just boorish, doctoring a US passport is a federal crime.

…better than you.

I think this is the adult form.

Adult Bible study, eh? At last! The gloves can come off.

1. When Cain fucks Eve, his mother, over and over, does it turn you on? Discuss whether you ever wanted to fuck your mother or father and whether birth control would be ethical in that situation.

2. When God impregnated Mary, what physical mechanism do you think facilitated it? Did God, for example, become a sperm? Did He divide like a single-celled animal and turn into a zygote, thus using none of Mary’s genetic material and making Jesus biologically unrelated to Mary? Or did He physically insert His penis in Mary until He ejaculated? (Man made in His image suggests God has a penis.) Discuss whether Mary enjoyed it and if having an orgasm would make her somehow less pure.

3. King Solomon is described as the wisest King of the ages. He fucked thousands and thousands of women. Shouldn’t wise men today get to do the same without any feminist criticism?

4. God told Abraham to kill his son. Abraham obeyed because he was faithful. Would you kill your children if God asked? Or are you too wicked? Are you proud of Deanna Laney for stoning two of her children to death, and one into permanent brain damage, when God demanded it? Do you think it was God’s hand that acquitted her of murder? Do you think He’s mad that she didn’t manage to hit the last baby hard enough?

5. It’s obvious you don’t give a fig for yourself or you wouldn’t be here in Bible study but don’t you care that you’re raising your children to be confused, conflicted, and of sub-‌standard intelligence? Aren’t you willing to sacrifice a little of your terrified ignorance so that they have a chance at achievement and happiness?

When I wrote this a week ago–

Taking responsibility means taking the consequences of your actions, not saying, “sorry,” doing a pro-queer public service spot, and whining it up about how the angry man who has a little trouble with fags ain’t getting no justice. This week in the news #29.2

The first draft said, “…whining it up about how the black man…ain’t getting no justice.” When I proofed it, I said to myself, “That’s easy language but it’s not fair, man. He never said anything about race and his issue seems to be getting riled too easily.”

Now Isaiah Washington says, among other things–

My mistake was thinking black people get second chances…

…I was a black man who wasn’t a mush-mouth Negro walking around with his head in his hands all the time. I didn’t speak like I’d just left the plantation and that can be a problem for people sometimes.

Ex-“Grey’s” star cites racism for firing

What? No mention of the gay mafia that runs Hollywood with the Shlomos? Ah, maybe next week my poor beat down brother. I recommend prefixing the “people” with “some.” Some people have a problem. Thanks to Spike Lee and Louis Farrakhan we’ll all know who you mean.

Speaking of mistakes—besides not being cynical enough to predict Washington would claim racial bias. My mistake was thinking that yelling “faggot” at a co-worker in the middle of the work day was something you got a second chance to do. Or that lying about it repeatedly was the way you take responsibility.

It’s really quite simple, simpleton. You’re not a victim, you’re a bad guy and it’s easy to demonstrate.

If TR Knight had yelled, “Nigger!” at you on the set, we’d see how many second chances queers deserve because when they don’t stay in the closet or the fag quarter of San Francisco where they belong, well, that can be a problem for people sometimes.

Anonymous sources at The Funion say the joke was an unmitigated failure, less funny than a crutch, perhaps only as funny as a Kalashnikov jammed up a nun. Suggest Matt practice what he preaches and stop outsourcing his editorial work to interns in Bombay.

This little lady—guessing, it’s either stuffed or gravid—turned up on my arm while I was giving some horrid stinking California laurel the old Rwanda macheté treatment. Casual glance almost bought her a vicious rubbing out as I thought it was a tick. A double check to see if it had started sucking revealed the pedipalps poking around. I think she was actually finding stuff to eat down there too… skin flakes? Skin mites?

You can click this one to get a high resolution version–

So, I tried to use a certain popular media player on Sedition·com a few months ago and it caused the site to freeze the browser for all users of IE. Boo.

I’m trying a new one based on the superlative jQuery library.

Breakdown from “American Way”

Please try it and let me know if you have problems or can’t even see it.