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Everyone else is doing it (but I can’t)

5 fictional characters with the same profession as me:

I don’t even know *one*.

My job falls between so many bloody stools it’s ridiculous. I’m not an “IT guy” like you’d find in most offices. I’m not a programmer, as is normally understood – all the applications I develop are web based, and rope together a grab bag of technologies. I am not a designer. I am not a user experience consultant or a systems analyst, or a database architect. It sometimes annoys me, because I know there a lot of people out there that don’t take my profession seriously, from the “proper” programmers that look at me funny when I explain that frankly, I have only the vaguest idea what a pointer is (no, please don’t explain) or the DBA’s that assume that because I’d prefer to work in Postgres or MySQL, rather than Oracle, I musn’t be doing anything serious, to the normal people who file me under “web nerd” and do not accord the same level of respect that they would someone with most of a decade’s experience as a lawyer or doctor or or teacher or accountant (and yes, obviously, other IT professionals get that end of the stick, too) it is, from time to time, a little frustrating.

Like I said the other week – the single best definition of what I do is this: I build tools to help people communicate (some of the things they use them for, I like better than others, but ultimately, that’s what I do). I’ve been doing this, in one form or another for the better part of ten years. What I find incredible, to tell you the truth, is that I still have to explain to people what it is that I do. The internet has been mainstream since about the year 1999. And yet, people still don’t understand that the the clever stuff that all these websites do, isn’t the fault of designers (who are very important in other ways), and doesn’t just magically happen because the internet pixies make it work.

(And why, by the way, is it still acceptable for people to be proudly clueless about the basic workings of the internet, as if it were still the provide of the poorly socialised – as if not knowing somehow makes them not a nerd, and confers on them the status of well-adjusted human automatically? I mean, if someone thought that cars just magically went forward, we’d laugh at them. We expect people to at least know words like “sparkplug” and “piston” and have some reasonable comprehension of how they work to produce forward motion, even if opening the bonnet themselves to change anything would be beyond them, don’t we? How many of you actaully know what happens when you type an address into your browser and hit return?)

No, it’s not the sexiest job in the world. But it’s a profession. It requires training and specialised learning. Why the hell aren’t there any fictional characters in my line of work?

I have just read this back. I am clearly on the strong cough medecine tonight, aren’t I? I should probably go to bed, and enjoy my healing coma. Mmmm, medication…

Ugh.

It turns out that the answer to the question “What would my neighbours do if they had a hammer?” is exactly what you’d expect. It’s not even 9am on a Saturday morning, and my (slight) hangover and I are awake, thanks to the ceaseless heavy pounding.

Bastards. If this is repeated tomorrow, I shall have Words. The words will mostly be things like “Die, fuckpig!”.

I Have The Strange Feeling I’m Being Watched

Hello to all the people who’ve friended this journal on that back of all that nonsense about chocolate. I can assure you that I’m not usually that interesting. I’m assuming you’re all grown up enough not to take it personally if I don’t friend you back, complete strangers that you are. You’re not missing much, anyway – I mostly friends lock anything I don’t want anyone I’m trying to impress to see, so if you’re after more entertaining nonsense on y’know, actual topics, you’ll get a (slightly) better content-to-drivel ratio by not seeing the friends-locked stuff. Not much better, mind, because I’m quite willing to talk rubbish in public at the drop of a hat, but slightly.

This evening, I have made myself steak sandwiches, on ciabatta with mixed leaves mozzarella, sundried tomatoes and a little balsamic vinegar, drunk a bottle of pretty reasonable quality french red wine, and am now sipping an oak-aged Macallan single malt. What would make the night complete is a really good cigar, but one can’t have everything.

I assure you that at some point, I will stop taking about food and drink. Possibly when I’m dead.

At some point, I must bore those of you who haven’t seen Boston Legal by going on about how great it is at length. It’s not the first season of the West Wing, or anything, but it’s probably the best TV I’m currently watching, if only by virtue of the fact that it’s a bit less formulaic than House. Which, love it though I do, is just about the most formulaic show (that I’m willing to watch) on telly.

In the meantime: “Denny Crane! Trix are for kids!”

How I Know God Loves Me…

It is nearly the close of a lazy Sunday. I have put in some time on World of Warcraft, I have done a bit of writing, and a little coding – enough to make me feel like I have acheived a few things, even if some of it is only in a virtual world. I have eaten quite a lot of excellent bacon, too (because I bought a lot from the Really Good Butchers Downstairs yesterday) and that’s always satisfying. I have a DVD full of Boston Legal to watch. And I don’t have to get up tomorrow, because I don’t start work until Wednesday.

All of this is pretty good stuff, but it’s not how I know that god loves me.

I’ve been sitting here, reflecting on that fact that all this is very lovely, but what I really want is some cold beer, and alas, I have no spare cash. But, as I was about to put an old pair of jeans into the laundry hamper, I discovered a fiver I’d forgotten about. And thus it was made manifest: I am one of God’s Very Special Children.

So I’m going to go and buy something nice and cold and watch William Shatner being lordly all night. I shall see you all tomorrow.

Pour Him Over Ice Cream For A Nice Parfait

This evening, I spent two hours eating chocolate.

OK, maybe not quite. But I spent two and half hours learning about chocolate, and there was tasting involved. Because zoo_music_girl and I were at a tasting at my favourite chocolate shop in London (and therefore, the world) L’Artisan Du Chocolat, run by the man behind the chocolate, Gerard Coleman.

I’m talking about food here, so obviously, I’m going to go on a bit…

Seven Things I Hate

1) Settling for second. “Settling” full stop. If it’s not good enough to be your first choice, then why are you fucking bothering with it? Are you seriously telling me that despite that fact that you’ve only got one go at this, you’re willing to populate your life with substandard experiences, people or things? Are you seriously telling me that you can’t find something else to occupy you, in another avenue of life that *is* your first choice?

2) Lack of ambition. Related to the first. I don’t expect everyone to be the best at whatever it is they do. But I expect them to be the best they can, and to strive to better themselves, daily. Again: we’ve only got one lifetime. What’s the point of hanging about?

3) People who want to be famous. I have no problem with anyone who wants to be at the top of a profession where fame is a side effect. Acting, being in a band, film-making, writing, being an artist of any kind: this is good shit. It’s people communicating what’s inside their heads. It’s imagination made manifest in the world. It’s what makes us human, rather than animal, and anyone that encourages more of that is a hero in my book. But if you’re just doing it in order to be famous, or because it’ll give you an easy life, then you should fucking stop now, because you’re devaluing the contributions of people who actually have something to say at worst, and at best, you’re taking up airtime/attention span that could be used for something good. (This is why I hate boy bands and the like – these are not people who have something to say. These are idiots who want their fifteen minutes and an easy life. It is not a co-incidence that Robbie Williams and Will Young have both grown on me as time has passed, and they’ve started to speak for themselves, while just about anyone else that’s come in to the culture by their route is still on the “castrate with rusty implements” list. Warhol was full of dangerous ideas, and that whole fifteen minutes business may have been the worst…)

4) People who can’t communicate. If you’re speaking to me, you’d better be lucid. If you’re writing, you’d better be able to spell and punctuate. I don’t expect everyone to be perfect at it all the time (christ knows, I’m not by the time I’ve had a few drinks) but if you’re asking for my attention, you’d better be able to do something with it.

5) Lies. I don’t mean the little white social ones that stop us all from killing each other. I mean big ones of sort that politicians come out with, or like creationism. Again: who has the time to waste?

6) Things Not Working Properly Even After You’ve Given Them A Good Thumping.

7) Thinking about things I hate. Life’s too short. (But I’ve written this now…)