Boraxing the various nooks and crannies has sent the roaches off to tastier climes. Worked at Allegheny Center, works here - or seems to be so far.

The new problem is centipedes.* While the roaches got in from various holes in the base of the east wall, the centipedes seem to be coming in from a crack next to a vent (or worse, through the vent) on the base of the west wall.

mdxi recommends DryDex Spackle, which is probably a lot less potentially flammable than the sealant I already have on hand.

The holes in question are mouse-capable, so I do need to patch them at some point.

* Since I boraxed I've seen one roach and stomped the bastard. Given the results (white gunk as opposed to the usual roach-colored gunk), I'd wager it had a stomach full of the stuff. Since I vacuumed I haven't seen any.... and since I've vacuumed I've seen two centipedes. One "regular" sized, and one finger-sized battleship centipede that was likely out looking for the scout. The fact that they like to waltz around on the walls and Stop when the lights are turned on makes 'em a lot easier to swat.

Originally posted as a Facebook Note. Post started life as a facebook update/comment/post/whatever, though that input blank started to choke after the first paragraph.

Previous, SPELLED CORRECTLY WITH A REAL KEYBOARD**:

knows that talking about work on FB is roughly equivalent to telling all of your sig. other's friends and family how they perform in the sack. Not only does it abbreviate the relationship, nobody wants to hear about it. You want to talk about work, use LinkedIn. You want to *bitch* about work, use IM or IRC. Your career will thank you. *I* will thank you.

(end that bit)

Seriously.

Back in '69, I didn't have a care.

On the one hand, reports are trickling in about people getting fired for facebooking. That's bad. On the other hand, anything you tell the world with regard to what you're doing oughtta be framed in the context of just how awesome this particular moment of your life *IS*. Doesn't matter how you feel about it- you cant the camera at the right angle, almost every job is Crucial.

You wouldn't be paid for it otherwise.

On the gripping hand, the morale in my workplace is so poor that reading work opinion - even INFERRED work opinion - outside of work is just TOO MUCH. What I'm doing is one thing. The projects I'm working on are one thing. The noise I'm required to filter out in order to accomplish my tasks.... well, through facebook, they've bled out of the workplace and into my browser. That I feel compelled to rant as a result should serve to underscore the severity of the issue more effectively than griping about the situation itself ever could.

I'm not specifically referring to coworkers in this context - I'm referring to the general concept of pissing and moaning about work through Facebook.

My coworkers aren't the only guilty parties here - I read friends bitching about work on FB, I think two things: first, "you idiot." and second, "the 'ignore' button is riiiiiiiiight there.....".

FB IS NOT PRIVATE, PEOPLE. Everything you say here, you say to the world.

Act accordingly.

I'm not a case example - not by a long shot - but for frack's sake, that isn't the point. Who you are IS NOT who you THINK you are - To the world, you are what you TELL the world.

And I'm telling the world that The Job implies a certain amount of professionalism with regards to these so-called "social networks."

LinkedIn and your Sig. Other are the entities you inform about Work. Exalt to the former and unload on the latter. Facebook is the focal point for the entities you tell about everything else. Your cat. Your new video card. You cut yourself shaving this morning. The mailman left your mailbox open and your bank statement is mush. The girl (or boy) you wait for the bus with might have looked at you That Way but you're not sure- advice?

Repeat after me :

This is my rifle, this is my gun. One is for killing, the other's for fun.

IRC, instant messaging software, social networking web applications - they all have some kind of equivalent of "/ignore" - and the thing is, that command is invoked by the offended party. Not the world. Not your boss. I can willfully cease to listen to you on Facebook (or AIM or IRC or any other digital medium), but that doesn't stop the people that you don't want hearing your angst from turning on, tuning in, dropping by.

This is the internet. Everything you say Can And Will be used against you.

Keep that in mind, please.

For your sake... and for my sanity.

Separate the planes. Keep your work at work and share the rest with whomever you choose to - these days, making a clear distinction between the two is healthier than eliminating any number of vices from your diet.

Compartmentalize. The 10.5+ OS X Dictionary.app states a particularly vivid example - an example that is particularly applicable in this instance.

End rant.

Resume bed prep.

* Qualified : I am - and am likely to remain - deeply foolish. I just happen to have a good amount of sense with regards to the Method of Separation of Church And State and a basic concept of how that extrapolates to the Separation of Social Life and Work. My ability or inability to move on said planes has no relation to my ability to perceive said relationships.

In some ways, it's a lot like being able to perceive the merits of Renoir's sketchbook, with my own capabilities comparatively restricted.

** This orgy of exhausted pretension (sp?) started life as a horribly-spelled iPhone post. Transition to real (tactile) equipment and the rest of the post results. The horror, the horror.

Finally sneezed until I broke something. Around sneeze 220-250 on Sunday, shooting pains down the left and right arms, across the shoulders. Every sneeze since (many, explosive) feels like multiple jabs with thousands of dull pins. Right arm is perpetually "off" (not pins and needles, but feels like it's just come out of it... only it's felt that way all day).

This has happened before, though it's been a very long time - last year or the year before, possibly.

The internet is full of "OH THAT HAPPENS TO YOU TOO?! WHAT THE HELL IS IT?!" with no clear indication of what the problem is beyond the possibility of a pinched nerve. The proposed disorder is a wash, as I have none of the other symptoms (notably - headaches).

When I sneeze, it's with all the force and gusto of a small hand grenade. The force equivalent of being punched in the head, only without the bruising. This used to be a voluntary choice - I found in my teens that going for maximum effort would reduce the number of sneezes from half a dozen to a dozen "hah-choo!s" to two or three "GUH-FFFFFBLAAARH!s" so I stuck with it. I don't think I could "baby sneeze" if I had to these days - an allergy-related sneeze is a full body convulsion.

Allergies have by-and-large left me alone this year, until yesterday. I'd had a couple of bad days in June and July, but the 23rd seemed bound and determined to make up for the weeks-long pleasure of unoccluded sinuses. A weeks worth of regular sneezing in three or four hours, after which the pain started.

Given that kind of perpetual involuntary physical abuse, it was only a matter of time until something went blooey.

This should abate with the pollen count - if it gets worse or starts to accompany regular garden variety daily sneezing, then something's definitely busted.

Yes, I have health insurance. No, that doesn't mean I can presently afford the co-pay for a doctor's visit... especially when I'll probably walk out with at best advice to buy some claritin and at worse an MRI or something. My ability to work is not impaired, just... irritated.

22:07 <@solios_> anyone here ever drank a pickle shot?
22:07 <@solios_> (if it involves gatorade, you are excluded)
22:20 <@ralfiboy> solios: no to pickle shot, but i have these in the freezer. http://www.bobspicklepops.com/
22:22 <@solios_> O_O
22:22 <@solios_> whoah.
22:24 <@ralfiboy> they're interesting - i dunno if i'd say they were good.
22:25 <@solios_> my thoughts on the pickle shot
22:26 <@solios_> my boozaholic frontier has been pushed further back... but it's kind of like the spanish conquistadors discovering New Jersey.
22:27 <@ralfiboy> nice. :)

"Watchmen" would be 310% better without the "soundtrack." I'm hard pressed to think of a movie with a louder, more relentless, even less appropriate and more shoved-up-your-nose song "selection," and I'm drawi...ng a blank. I might have been able to swallow it if Manhattan hadn't sounded like HAL 9000.

That said, it's clear Snyder knows how to handle Rorschach, and doesn't know what to do with Manhattan. The relative satisfaction is... polarizing.

Points for improving the ending.

Strike that. Points for seriously improving the ending.

Points off for the soundtrack, the sex scene(s) (one faithful to a point, the other so relentlessly pointless that it deserves to be its own isolated DVD chapter - you can drop a couple of minutes right there without affecting the plot at all). Points off for not casting David Bowie as Ozymandias.

Points off, again on the soundtrack, for using Wagner for the Vietnam sequence. It was good once, and only once. That scene was so definitive that Flight of the Valkyries is used to specifically evoke that scene (see Rawls using it to humorous effect in season three of The Wire). It has the effect of watering down the entire segment, the same way Nina and Hendrix-covering-Dillon effectively piss all over the scenes they've been slathered over.

There are, to my ear, some serious pacing problems with Manhattan's backstory - things drag when they should zip and zip when they should drag... this is more obvious with the monologue than the visuals. Manhattan's "re-manifestation" made a permanent impression on me, and I've always seen it a certain way. A way that bears no relation to the rapid edits and bored monotone soundbite the movie reduces it to.

Points off for the really horrible Nixon makeup. The FX department can give us a wooden Doctor Manhattan 9000 and a great Rorschach mask, but instead of an Old Nixon we get some kind of Nixon Caricature Deathmask. All of io9's whining about Watchmen's budget vs. gross and they forget to mention that the production apparently spent more on Max Headroom's weird ears than they did on Nixon's face. Hell, they could have hired Frank Langella and saved themselves all kinds of embarrassment... while snagging an actor with the requisite gravitas in the process.

So.

Watchmen?

Points for casting, by-and-large. Nixon's makeup artist being a notable exception. Dan Dreiberg, Rorschach, Rorschach's shrink - all slam-dunks. Ozzy works but that come-and-go accent* and body language just screams David Bowie, which in turn makes me wonder why David Bowie wasn't cast.

The age makeup sucks, the sex sucks, the soundtrack is as horrible as it is inappropriate, I skipped the intro sequence after suffering ten seconds of it, Rorschach rocks and the ending is a massive improvement over the original. Assuming we accept the ending as existing in the same relative spacetime as it does in the book, and assuming we overlook the reappearance of the Wooden Nixon Deathmask, the unnecessary sex and the horrible, horrible soundtrack.

One of the things I love about comics - I can head-score them however I like.

Is it the book? No. Not by a long shot. However, Watchmen-the-movie ejects many of the sludgier, more awkward parts of the story entirely, drastically improves the ending (they had to do something after The Incredibles swiped the entire plot, didn't they?), and is reasonably well cast.... I'd say exceptionally well cast, but that would imply every character nailed, and that isn't the case.

Worth watching once? Sure. Especially in a user-controlled format that enables you to skip the completely superfluous and/or irritating bits (the aforementioned title sequence, sex sequence).

Second time around? Read the comic. Use your imagination to give it the movie ending.

All of the win, none of the fail.... and more importantly, you'll be left with a vague sense of satisfaction, instead of a screaming urge to gib whoever okayed the soundtrack. The horrible, horrible soundtrack.

If you're going to watch a recent Hero Movie a second time, I'd say go for Iron Man or The Dark Knight. They're shorter, there's nothing left out (relatively speaking), and more importantly, Iron Man saves its offensive audio for the end credits and (if memory serves) TDK is completely lacking in fingernails-on-chalkboard "music."

Probably thanks to a rider in Michael Caine's contract.

Final verdict: Of the various Alan Moore works to be adapted to The Big Screen, Watchmen has suffered the least.

Which is not to say that it hasn't suffered, mind you.... but it's no LXG, and it isn't the steaming pile of autofellating bullshit that is the movie "version" of V For Vendetta. Watchmen is fairly entertaining... and with some quick, surgical razor work to the so-called "soundtrack," that "fairly" would be a "very."

Still, hoping I don't get an angry call from my aunt for loaning my 15yo cousin the trade paperback. Hell, the movie was gorier - by a long shot - and he's seen that, so.

* I may not have been paying the strictest attention but I swear that accent disappeared for an entire scene. Confused the hell out of me, that.

12:10 < mdxi> awwww, spacex. don't tell me abot who you're *hiring*
12:10 < mdxi> tell me about penis-shaped things on pillars of flame