I hate to write code. I really, really hate to do it. However, in my job, such as it is, I am being forced to learn to write in Cold Fusion. It's a trial by fire, as well. Write a program, test it, send it live, and oh, yeah, do it by month end.

I am a fucking graphic designer. My training and experience allow me to take the visual equivalent of chicken shit and turn it into award-winning chicken salad. My life has not prepared me to write code, despite having been sent to Cold Fusion boot camp to learn to do so.

I hate computers. I hate what they did to my profession. I hate that the bogus class I took in high school (touch typing) has become one of my most valuable skills. I miss having ink-stained fingers. I miss the smell of photo chemicals. I miss the room-sized stat camera. I miss the leisurely deadlines (right). Well, compared to today's work schedule where you can get a hissy-gram from someone because you haven't changed their web page within 15 minutes of them e-mailing you the changes, they WERE leisurely.

Half the people I deal with have never heard my voice or seen my face. I am just an e-mail address.

Did I mention that I hate computers?

I find bandwidth poachers just the lowest. It's bad enough that they use one's images without credit and steal one's intellectual property, but to do so by using your own bandwidth is just beyond low. If you like the photo of my glamorous red shoes so much, then right click on your fucking mouse and download it to your own hard drive.

I'm checking my stats and I see a few hundred referrals from a page I can't identify, so I follow the electronic track backwards and find my girlyshoes stuck in the middle of a page of yapping, uh.... well I can't exactly figure out what this particular chat site is about. It may be a room full of yapping perverts, there certainly seems to be enough of them there, but then my shoes are dropped in among a ton of photos of fuzzy little kittens.

I can't tell if the kitten snaps are sarcasm, either, based on what else is on eatpoo.com

Ah well, why should I expect civility from the web any more than I expect it in the meat world.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I hate the living.

There was an interesting poll in the Miami Herald over the weekend. It seems that almost 70% of Americans have no wish to engage in a war with Iraq. Here's a sample quote from the article.

The informed public is considerably less hawkish about war with Iraq than the public as a whole. Those who show themselves to be most knowledgeable about the Iraq situation are significantly less likely to support military action, either to remove Saddam from power or to disarm Iraq.

Granted, it's been a few years since my high school Americanism vs Communism class, but I seem to recall that elected officials are supposed to govern in accordance with the wishes of those being governed. The other way, in which those at the top do what ever they want, is called a dictatorship, or rule by despot. Revolutions are fought to bring an end to those regimes. Or a war against a certain oil-rich nation in the Middle East.

Here's a thought: if the public doesn't want war, and the public doesn't think that the administration has made a good case for war, and the non-partisan UN team of investigators isn't so sure that there's hidden weapons, then why is our "President" steaming ahead with his toy soldiers. Wasn't this man "elected" on the basis of having no foreign agenda, or even reasonable knowledge? So if he was admittedly clueless going in, a mere two years ago, why should the American people believe that he's capable of reason today?

In other news, a headline straight out of a book from my childhood "The Mouse That Roared" it now appears that if we give Korea more fuel (ooh, oil again, and what business is half the current administration in?) they will stop playing with their nuclear reactors. And when did Korea develop all this nuclear potential? Why, during the reign of Bush the First, and Ronald Reagan.

Does this surprise you? No, me either.

Every time the Smirking Chimp talks about jump starting the economy, my portfolio tanks even further. Is it possible to OWE money to a corporation in which you owned what once amounted to valuable stock? Yesterday the SC said he was going to do something and my stocks rose. Today he told the country what he was doing and they sank below sea level.

What can we deduce from this? That Wall Street has no confidence in trickle-down economics in this century any more than the last time the Bushies tried it. Oh, the late 80s. What a fun time that was. I got laid off from Citibank, along with about 20,000 (or was it 200,000) fellow employees world-wide. Yes, you remember those far off days, when yet another Bush (brother Neal, the one nobody mentions anymore) was doing the funky rhumba two-step with Silverado Savings and Loan.... Can you say government bail out of the S&L industry? Sure you can. And then you can remember what it was like going to the unemployement office every two weeks as you tried to find a job in the middle of a recession.

But, never fear. This is going to do wonders for the boys in Bush's smoke-filled back rooms. And while we're on the subject of how to fill the pockets of the already rich, how's about those new cars at the Detroit Auto Show? Bigger, heavier, faster and more in need of Saudi gas and oil than anything in recent history.

Hey, fresh air and water are highly over-rated commodities anyway, right?

Time to go home and drink.

Well, imagine my surprise when I discovered that there is like, a whole web site devoted to the poem in the Chevy Tahoe commercial. You know the one, James Garner doing a voice over, guy standing on the edge of a remote cliff by his glamorous Chevy. And you on the couch, thinking: Uh, did my mother read that to me when I was a child? Is it Robert Louis Stevenson? Is it Robert Frost? Is it Dr. Suess?

Well, the answer is no. It was none of those men, and you never heard it before you saw the commercial for the first time. It was written by a guy named Patrick O'Leary who works for Chevy's ad agency. And as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter that it was ad flak. I love the recitation.

In fact, so many people love it, that if you go to Chevy's web site and go to the Tahoe page, the poem is formatted as a PDF with nice type and a parchment graphic, suitable for downloading and printing out. Which I just did and hung it over my desk, right next to a particularly poignant Dilbert cartoon.

Yeah, right. Think "Gotta Sing!" Who was that, Gene Kelly?

Anyway, the spouse and I had a lovely new year's eve, thanks for asking. We ate meat, and drank champagne and watched a marathon of Monster Garage. I think I like it more than he does. Is it a good thing to be such a gear head? I so want the PT Cruiser to get a hot paint job. The guy who does all the paint on Monster Garage. That's who I want to paint flip-flop flames on my car. And tons of chrome. Yeah. Big Daddy Roth, you ruled.

We spent new year's day in full cocoon watching our own marathon: All of the Evil Dead, Army of Darkness movies. I say that Evil Dead II was really just a remake of the original Evil Dead, and Marc says that it was a sequel. All of my arguments as to why it's NOT a sequel make sense if you allow that there is a plot in any of these movies. If you don't think there's a plot, then my well-reasoned debate is just crap.

Won't be the first time.