Agent Cooper's LiveJournal Entries [entries|friends|calendar] Agent Cooper [ userinfo | livejournal userinfo ] [ calendar | livejournal calendar ] [ milestones | livejournal highlites ] [ photos | some of my photos ] "I am easily satisfied by the very best" - Winston Churchill "Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined." - Albert Camus "Best not talk too loud; you're not as smart as you require of them." - Built To Spill "They talk by flapping their meat at each other." - Terry Bisson

Rorschach [08 Mar 2009|02:58pm] [ music | Touch It/Technologic - Daft Punk ] I looked at the Rorschach ink blots (actually, just the outlines; thanks lara7), and here are my interpretations (you may want to view them yourself first): ( Read more... ) 6 comments|post comment

Hood [27 Feb 2009|10:13pm] Tonight after work I swung by the disappointing-neighborhood-grocery-store ($6 hot dogs that expired two weeks ago, for example). The clerk who rang me up asked if I heard the gunshots today. "Again?" She thought that was pretty funny. Apparently a guy was shot on the street around 3pm, and the shooter hid in the grocery store. The checker (a young, 6-month's pregnant woman) saw him run in with a gun. "I almost dug a hole in the floor!" The cops caught a suspect, for once. None of this made the local news, as usual. Also today, the East Precinct fired their community outreach officer. Cost-cutting. The other precincts keep theirs. Because, God knows, Queen Anne and Wallingford need more police/citizen interaction than the CD. 6 comments|post comment

[08 Jan 2009|03:30pm] This comment at Mini-Microsoft's blog is a very fair description of the difference between Microsoft and other tech companies: The problem is that every Microsoft employee is much too "empowered." Everybody is a little dynamo of chaos. There can be no overarching architecture or design of a product because any employee is "empowered" to rewrite a spec or a feature's code as they see fit, and if nobody complains strenuously enough, the change just stays put. Not only is this behavior allowed, it's required. Being good at your job and doing the work you're assigned is a quick way to get fired (Kimmed). You have to keep increasing your "scope" and "influence" and "impact"--meaning make a bunch of decisions and changes to stuff where you're probably not the best person to be doing so. Every Microsoft product is a result of everybody on the team just doing "whatever" for a few years, and it shows. 3 comments|post comment

Operation: Hamburger Airdrop [27 Dec 2008|01:22pm] Jesus, Mary, Mother of God. Witness Burger King's pathetic P.R. hunt for people on Earth who have not yet tasted a hamburger. 4 comments|post comment

Care Packages for Troops [23 Dec 2008|12:23pm] I'd been wanting to send care packages to troops, but realized a couple weeks ago that it was too late for Christmas. But then Michelle Obama sent email linking to the E-Z donation page for our USO Care Package program. This is an on-going program that hands out mini-care-packages to troops (mostly when they deploy overseas or come back from R&R). Calling cards, toiletries, snacks, playing cards, reading material - sometimes toys. Not exactly a Red Ryder BB Gun on Christmas morning. But I remember how much I appreciated a care package my girlfriend's family sent me in college. I was dirt-poor and struggling, and getting a box full of Pringles, peanuts, soap, and quarters for laundry made my year. Unfortunately, disgustingly, the DoD no longer permits sending hand-packed items to "Any Service Member." Because, you know, weaponized anthrax is so easy to come by. Imagine the loss of human contact, just to prevent a theoretical death or two. For people fighting a war!!! Go Team Obama. I'm Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (MC2) Matthew Leistikow. I received one of your care packages from Operation USO Care Package. You have no idea how much it means to the Sailors at sea to know that people support what we do. Two things mean more to me about my job than anything else, knowing how what I do helps our nation, and knowing my nation appreciates what we're doing. I truly love what I do every day and even when it's not so fun, knowing we have your support is a LARGE factor in helping me get through my day. MC2 Matthew D. Leistikow USS Dwight D. Eisenhower I just wanted to take the time to tell you and your staff how much we appreciate the care packages handed out to us. They sure do come in handy with everything being useful. SFC Rodriguez I just wanted to thank you for the USO care package. I received mine at Christmas and I appreciate the gifts, especially the Gatorade! Thanks again, LTJG Melissa Huska CGC MIDGETT post comment

The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers [22 Dec 2008|06:09pm] [ music | Electric Avenue - Eddy Grant ] I'm seeing someone, and it's gotten pretty serious pretty fast. My first thought was, "I've gotta get into therapy, before I fuck this up!" I'm cautious, but happy. She's smart, pretty, outgoing, snugly, and cheerful to the bone; a Tigger to my Charlie Brown. She's a doctor; well-developed compassion paired with clinical pragmatism. She once messaged me from the O.R.: "I'm so in love with you! Perhaps my happiness is inappropriate; I'm doing an organ harvest right now. It's a fascinating procedure! Can't wait to tell you about it." A keeper, for sure. Her cheerful agreeableness is juxtaposed with my neurotic angst. I worry it'll cause friction, but she seems to like my faults. I think I spew uneasy disquietude; she thinks I'm complicated and frank. Maybe we go together like sugar and salt? Anyhow, between us both there seems to be enough willingness, joie de vivre, intelligence, patience, and love to go around. Half-way through our first date I had decided it wasn't going to work out. "Smile and make conversation, grab the check, get on with life." I had a list of little reasons: she was too stable and "good" (drugs: never; running: daily), a church-goer (Unitarian), wanted kids, not my type. I've always seen myself with a driven, conflicted woman with caustic attitude. Dorothy Parker meets Jennifer Jason Leigh, with a splash of Tina Fey? Also she seemed to be probing me, and I judged by her body language that I wasn't satisfying enough check-boxes. But there was never an awkward silence. That's key, I think. After enough wine we both relaxed. She offered me a ride home. "A drunk-driving-doctor - that's a good one." "I'm not drunk!" "OK then. Well, if we die..." and I slid my arms around her waist and kissed her. She said, "...squish!" Seven weeks later we went to Maui together. Rented a Mustang convertible (named "Rose") and a condo on the beach. We swam in the ocean every day; she taught me how to say "humuhumunukunukuapua'a" ("triggerfish with snout like a pig"). Life is good. 8 comments|post comment

Googly-Eyed [11 Dec 2008|06:36pm] Well, Google clearly has too much money. They Street-Viewed my home town in bumfuck, Montana. Here's the house I lived in during high school (much the worse for wear). The shed where I had my first kiss is gone. The house behind us seems to have burned down. My family, of course, is scattered and changed in ways unimaginable at the time. How very, very far I've come. I suppose it's good to be reminded from time to time. 12 comments|post comment

Agent of the apparatus [10 Dec 2008|11:37am] The majority of my job, now, is providing tech support and guidance to engineers in India, who have taken over everything I used to do. But what really blows my mind is their insane bureaucracy. They needed an SD memory card, like you'd use in a digital camera. To bring one into the building they had to email my boss in Redmond for permission. Then they needed permission from their project manager. They had to register the SD card with an "intake manager." They had to indicate they'd be using it for approximately one year. They're subject to regular search on entry/exit to ensure the card never leaves the building. Un-fucking-believable. I have my own sordid involvement in the gumming of the gears. I am an apparatchik. I spend most of my time double-checking their work. Which means quickly, deeply, and simultaneously understanding five or six technical investigations. Just so I can have the background to judge their decisions as correct or needing improvement. I could do all the same work for LESS EFFORT. After six months, I have no confidence that I can allow any of them to touch our product without supervision. They work very hard, they just don't have adequate problem-solving and decision-making skills. They don't make progress. Or they provide bad quick-fixes. My boss flew to India for a tour. "Outsourcing is what their company does, their bread and butter." 100,000 employees. Each person gets three months of post-university bootcamp and has to pass aptitude tests. "They're young; they don't have families; they work crazy hours; they're married to their jobs." He doesn't understand why they're unproductive; he shoots a glance at me. 4 comments|post comment

Instincts [16 Nov 2008|12:12pm] Well, at least my photographic instincts seem to be "correct." As judged by comparing my photos to what ran in the Seattle Times and the Post-Intelligencer: 10 comments|post comment

Pix [16 Nov 2008|11:49am] Two more photos from the protest march yesterday: And a possibly-NSFW nude behind the cut. ( Read more... ) 3 comments|post comment

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