the corner office

Of course, it could just be coincidence, but I suspect that Tupac is rather an 'advanced' mutt.

I haven't yet mentioned Cerberus (thus named by Ronwen, because we have no idea what her real name is). Cerberus is a jet-black hell-hound looking ridgeback puppy belonging to the tenants in #1. When I say puppy, that's more like 'horse in the making.' In November she was catching up with Tupac in size, by December she was edging past, and by now, she's way bigger. Lovely and friendly, but with her size and lack of coordination, a bit of work. Not the kind of dog that can be left to its own devices, if the sanctity of your dustbins and topplable and chewable goods matters to you.

Judging by the size of her paws, she has a couple of months' growth yet. She's going to be a monster. A beautiful, lovable, klutz of a monster, but a monster nonetheless.

Tupac's life has in this respect, taken a turn for the worse. Whereas life was simple and lazy, it's now a constant horror with the young'un wanting to 'play' with her. Given the size and strength disparity, it's a bit like watching a fat 10-year-old kid picking on a 5 year old on the playground. Tupac's mood is decidedly more strained when Cerberus is around.

Tupac had been visiting us this evening, but decided she wanted out. It gets annoying, because I feel like I'm a yoyo, getting up to let the dog in, and then letting her out as soon as she gets bored, over and over. As it turns out, on a return trip, Cerberus 'found' Tupac, and when I opened the door, both dogs came hurtling in. Whereas we trust Tupac to her doggy blanket in the corner of the bedroom for the night, Cerberus ain't staying over for at least another 6 months. I don't have the heart to kick one dog out and not the other, so after some galumphing and joy (and Tupac getting upset with Cerberus), they both got evicted by yours truly. Tupac clearly wasn't a happy camper.

A few minutes later, another scratch at the door. I opened it slightly, saw both, and didn't open it further, secretly hoping that Cerberus would get bored and bugger off. Cerberus was a bit flummoxed, but Tupac saw. Tupac Understood. She barked, got up, and ran around the corner and down the driveway towards the main gate, letting out a few more half-hearted barks. Cerberus followed. I wondered... and figured I'd stay with the door slightly ajar to see what happened.

Sure enough, about 20 seconds later, Tupac came trotting back, sans Cerberus. I let her in, and she's dozing happily under my desk. No sign of Cerberus who's probably still looking for the bad guys.

I don't like to attribute too much intelligence to animals, but I can't help but wonder :-)

As Ronwen pointed out, perhaps our intrepid Aragorn-worshipper simply wasn't All There. You never know.

This got me to thinking about a real insane bloke who used to haunt the Wits campus, Braamfontein and the Johannesburg city centre in the late 80's and early 90's. This chap was young, tall, dark-haired and unkempt and usually cruised around wearing his underrods on the outside of his trousers, superman style. It wasn't uncommon to see him missioning around town pushing his shopping trolley and hurling obscenities at imaginary people around him.

I remember the first time I saw him was when I was in high school, and myself and friends had come through to Joburg one weekend. We were sitting in a movie theatre, when this bloke ambled into the movie theatre, having a rather animated and belligerent conversation with nobody in particular, and then strolled out again. Either the ushers knew him or were too scared to stop him. Needless to say, us young country bumpkins nearly kakked ourselves, but when I came to varsity in Joburg a year later, I saw him around a number of times. He was intimidating, but didn't harm anyone, as best we knew.

Story had it that he was a Wits student who'd been in a car crash. Brain damage had left him a few sarmies short of a picnic, and he spent his days in the old stomping grounds he knew as a student. We thought he was a tramp, but (apparently) he was cared for by his parents. Just about everybody knew who he was, iirc he was known by name (Rob?). His was always a 'there, but for the grace of God' type story.

I always wonder what happened to him, or what the real story behind his condition was.

I'm an open-minded kind of bloke. I've seen some weird stuff in my time and done some off-the-wall things myself. But tonight I saw someone who took the cat and fscked it so badly that the inhabitants of Middle Earth could probably hear the poor thing wailing.

Ronwen & I went off to Cresta this evening. Quick munch at the new Dros (so-so food), and then went to watch Return of the King, for the second time. Amazing movie, enjoying, great, fun, etc etc. And then, at the end, when they crown Aragorn, some spiked-peroxide-blonde chap, who'd taken a seat way down in the front row of the theatre, STOOD UP and raised his arms to the heavens. He then stood rigid, arms a-praisin', with the sniggering and general mirth in the movie theatre slowly growing, until the point where everyone (on-screen) bows to the hobbits, whereupon he bowed as well, throwing his arms forward and resting his head upon the cheap popcorn covered carpet, prostrated before the celluloid halflings on their perch atop Minas Tirith.

As if that wasn't bad enough, when we got to the harbour scene at the end, our Tolkein fan sat with his arms raised again, hands and fingers lattice-crossed above his head in a real pretty elves-meet-Irene-Cara pose. He didn't take them down until the ship sailed out of the harbour. That's quite a long bloody scene.

On the one raised-up hand, good luck to him and the voices in his head, but on the other Dear-Lord-Frodo hand, I couldn't help but think that this attention-seeking mullet was just plain inconsiderate. No matter how hardcore you're trying to be, why ruin it for everyone else? Sure, it was a good chuckle, but it also punctured the magic. Assuming you could ignore this fool to the bottom-right of the screen, the inevitable sniggers and unrest ruined those scenes and the entire mood for the last part of the movie.

I'm sure he'll sleep soundly knowing that he's proved to the world that he's more of a fan than anyone else.

As for the movie itself, it rocked as much the second time around as it did the first. There were a number of scenes (apart from the crowning and harbour scenes, which I can't remember much of), that I didn't even remember from the first viewing. With a more critical eye, certain parts of the story grate a little more, while other clever, subtle points became apparent. I heard mention that the extended version would be more than 5 hours long. That would be great: there are certainly a few places in the story where things could be fleshed out. First time around you're so busy following the story you don't notice, but this time I noticed a few places where the dialog felt a little choppy.

Once again, the special effects were a marvel to see. Sod becoming a fireman, when I grow up I wanna work on the kind of software they used to make that movie.

Joel Spolsky posted a good review of the Art of Unix Programming where he talks about the cultural differences between Unix and Windows developers. To cut a long but interesting discussion short, he makes the points that Unix programmers write code for other programmers, while Windows programmers write for non-programmers, and that the Unix crowd tend to be snooty buggers while Windows developers are more pragmatic and chilled out.

I'm not sure if I entirely agree with all of his comments, because frankly, many many Windows developers build terribly ugly user interfaces. They use the tools at hand but certainly have no insight or commitment to the end-user. Then again, perhaps command line interfaces are inherently so horrid (to Joe User), that the Windows folks deserve a bit of slack after all.

Either way, I downloaded and read the first few chapters of the book a while back and quite enjoyed it. Many of the concepts have manifested themselves in Linux and open-source literature for quite some time, and I know that many of the principles have affected how I approach development in Notes, even. This is definitely going to become my bedtime reading (if you count reading until you fall asleep at your desk as 'bedtime reading'). I do have reservations about putting money in Eric S Raymond's pocket because I plain don't like him, but I think this book might also be one to get in hardcopy.

I mulled the year ahead on the occasion of my birthday 2 months back, but what would a new year be without some introspection?

Personally, I hope 2004 goes better (for me) than 2003. Nobody dying on me. I'd like to graduate and do it comfortably. I'd like to shed a couple of the pounds I picked up during the year (and the years prior to that). I want to feel like I've made serious progress in new technical areas.

The usual stuff.

My other resolution, if you want to call it that, is to take control of my life. Cult of Oprah here we come... in truth, I just want to be a little more diligent with my personal effectiveness and affairs, improve my time management skills, exert a bit of self-discipline, yadda yadda. I have to believe that I can juggle the various things I'm always itching to do, along with the necessary admin and stuff so that I don't have tons of literal and metaphoric junk clogging up my life and lifestyle. On the one hand I justify the gunk and lack of organisation by saying I'm too busy, but often the gunk keeps me busier and more distracted than I could, or should, be.

And to be honest, it's starting to get on my nerves (that's the family-friendly version). Enough is enough.

So there we go. Lessee in a month's time what I've achieved.

... sweet, chaotic, untidy home. Ronwen and I were on the road by 7 this morning, and managed to beat the majority of the homeward-heading holidaymakers back to Joburg. Seems the N3 got a lot busier during the day.

With that, the holiday's over, and it's back to work and a new year. We've had a nice break though. As a holiday and time away looms, I always get seriously antsy at the prospect of being away, and then once I'm on holiday, I don't want it to end :-) This was more of a working holiday, so I got the best of both worlds. I'm disappointed that we didn't get a chance to get in touch with more family and friends, but hopefully we'll rectify that next time.

I'm also bloody glad to be far, far away from the humidity again.

Ronwen says the folks next door are away for a while as well, and Tupac must be staying with someone else. I'm heartbroken. Man, I'm missing that dog.

I can't let that crappy joke be my last post for 2003. And I'm not yet in the mood to make resolutions and ponder months gone by, because there are still festivities to be had this evening. The self-restraint and all that can wait until next year. Braai and booze up in Westville tonight, so I'd better get moving.

So to any and all who read this, wishing you a happy and prosperous 2004! :-)

Alas, the rain is no more
And now it's hotter than before :-(

...is looking out the window.

This morning, it was hot
But now, it is not
The rain is falling
The heavens, it seems, are bawling

*bow*

That wasn't so bad. Christmas is done and over for the year. Rereading my previous post I feel a bit guilty about my family in moderation quip, but rather than quietly edit it away, I'll just mention that it was a little tongue in cheek and that I actually did and usually do enjoy getting to see everyone in da family (so if you fall into the 'family' category please don't take offense, and if you're not, please don't think me a heartless bastard. I'm not that heartless).

I got some luvverly pressies and my gifts were all well-received (ostensibly, at least). Food was great. So all is right with the world.

Had a quiet weekend, spent mostly in Westville. Ronwen and my mom and I took my gran back up to Pietermaritzburg on Saturday. I'm a nostalgic person by nature and every time I go back to 'Maritzburg, I find myself very strongly overwhelmed with childhood memories, of living there for a short while as a child, and regular visits to my grandparents. So many places have changed, but many have stayed the same. The hardest part is reminiscing about old times, places, events, memories. They're largely 'had to be there' things. Even if it's a loved one who's having a memory foisted upon them, and they're extremely polite, you know from when the tables are turned that nobody really gets excited (and rightly so) about seeing the park you regularly played in, or seeing and hearing about the balcony of the flat your grandparents stayed in. We all have our own parks and balconies that are special to us. These memories are locked away in solitary cupboards, and perhaps shared occasionally with family and people who were there.

Nostalgia. Sad because we miss the 'good times' that we probably didn't even think of or appreciate as 'good times' when we were living them. From that perspective, it's a bit silly. But it's kinda like tax, I suppose. You don't particularly like the melancholy that comes from the memories, but you're glad you had the good fortune to have had the experiences that afforded you those memories in the first place.