Friday, June 3, 2005

Where's My Money, BP?

I don't watch it often enough, that zany MTV program--Boiling Points--in which unsuspecting victims are taunted (in front of a hidden camera) by actors whose idiocy is meant to induce fits of rage--spitting, fuming, cursing rage.  If the victim clings to rationality/patience/kindness long enough, s.he wins a hundred bucks.  I think that's how it goes, anyway.  Every once in a while I imagine I must be on the program, like somebody's trying to frustrate me and taping the whole sequence.

On TV lots of folks lose at the game; they rupture temperamentally, letting loose the accumulating vitriol, venting.  I like to believe I could win the prize money, that I could sweat through twenty minutes of somebody's bull-crap antics instigating me to fury.  It's that little hopeful half-lie I tell myself when I'm particularly short-tempered.  Sometimes I'm great at refraining, breathing deeply, etc.; other times, less so.

Take today for example.  I'll leave the personal/family factors aside (they're just small pinches, fast-fading stings--all for which I'm thinking of adopting M.'s twist-tie technique or this and this).  A whole bunch of day-ruining crap-o-la starts caking up.  Now I'm going to have to switch into a certain necessary fuzziness--a cryptic gloss to cover the trails of this certain set of irritations. 

One has to do with systematically broken links.  Um...links matter?
No. two: content locking.  Here, in MD5 format, is what I think about locking: 52FB604B42D39836C4A2179A73CF2A82.  And that's putting it nicely.  Unconditional locking (imho)=distrust.
Three: Customer service phone trees with thousand ten-thousand-forked branches.  And! at the end of the last branch.  Leave a message. 
4.1. A "solution": When dealing with locked content, delete it, then add a new module and paste in the edited contents.

Me?  I'm trying to keep it together, practice my own little satyagraha of the everyday variety.  Voice inside is telling I probably should lay off with this before I wind up getting reprimanded for being vaguely critical.  It's just that I'm almost certain somebody's going to reveal the whole gag any time now, pull out a hundred bucks, and make my day bright again.  Any slow-passing minute.

Meanwhile, I should go back to writing entries on genre theory.

Bookmark and Share Posted by at June 3, 2005 12:39 PM to Slouching Toward
Comments

ah, yes. satyagraha. love it!

hey, can you name the band from the late 80s that played a song called satyagraha? the album title = soul force one. I can't remember it... and google is giving nothing up.

anybody?

the bread tie works. I swear. doesn't do much for memory, though.

Posted by: madeline at June 3, 2005 9:59 PM

Hmm. I don't know the song. Haven't tried the bread ties yet, but it sounds like a good option--better than jamming a pencil in my eyeball, anyway.

Posted by: Derek at June 5, 2005 12:48 PM

D, if writing entries on genre theory is your therapy, you need to take a few days away from the shop. At the very least, up your court time to at least 2 days a week. We don't need our 760 go-to-guy going all "Falling Down" on us.

Posted by: mike at June 8, 2005 4:12 PM

That's the problem, Mike. There is no "away from the shop." But yeah, upping my court time sounds like a good suggestion. I'm needing a new pair of kicks and an ankle brace. Once I have those, I'll be more inclined to get them broken in. Plus hoops has always been a great release for me. Nothing about teaching online follows me onto the court.

Posted by: Derek at June 8, 2005 9:55 PM