Return of the Malaise

My hypothetical readers (and my two real ones) may have noticed that it's been two weeks since I've seen fit to plumb the depths of my geekery or complain about minor irritations here. Not really sure what happened, other than that I've been pretty much uninspired in all facets of life. It happens to me every now and then; It's usually marked by severe insomnia, and side effects include hours upon hours of reading mindless drivel on craigslist. But I've realized that if I read one more grammatically horrifying all-caps post my brain will melt. So without further ado, here are random musings as I attempt to bore myself to sleep (if that doesn't entice people to read this, nothing will)...

2004 called, it wants its buzzwords back

Had a conference call this week with some fellow tech nerds and my manager's manager. She's a good, reasonable boss, but she doesn't have much technical knowledge. We nerds were discussing how to adapt a tool to solve a problem we'd been having getting our information out to people who need it. Someone asked what other tools we were considering, and she confidently announced that we were thinking about using Web 2.0 to fix things. Cue horrified silence as all the nerds had these two thoughts in sequence:

1. Oh my god, she has no idea what she's talking about.
2. I'm not going to be the one to call her out on it.

If you're scoring at home, it only took four years for a meaningless buzzword to worm its way into the consciousness of my huge tech company's upper management. Now all they need is for someone to explain it to them.

Then again, I'm not sure if it's worse to be totally ignorant, or totally enraptured; the slightly hipper, more web-savvy folks in our corporate communications division have decided that since people ignore their work and screw around with social networking sites all day, they'd get really fired up about knock-off company-only internal social networking sites. Blog about work! Twitter about work! Build a MySpace-type page to talk about work with coworkers! None of the productivity of actual work and none of the escapism of actual socializing, all in one inconvenient package! Yippee!

Brief sports detour, NBA playoff edition

New Orleans, the lone remaining team I actually liked, lost in the conference semifinals. Which means I had to generate a rooting interest based on which team I despised less. My rankings, from most loathsome to almost tolerable:

• I hate the Lakers. The whole team, especially Kobe and Phil Jackson, gives off a smug, arrogant vibe. And Pau Gasol just looks like someone I'd enjoy punching in the face.


• I hate the Spurs slightly less. I like Tim Duncan, but Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker have taken the flopping/whining act way too far to be respected. Can't for the life of me figure out why the referees continue to fall for it.


• I was all set to root for sentimental favorite Kevin Garnett and the Celtics, but every time I catch them on TV they're pounding their chests and yelling after mundane plays. Paul Pierce fell on a loose ball and called a timeout the other night, and even though he was the only guy who had a shot at the ball, he let out a victory scream that put William Wallace to shame. I don't even want to imagine the self-congratulatory acts we'd see if this team actually won the title.


• Guess that leaves the Pistons. They're still obnoxiously playing the "nobody respects us" card and strutting around like the defending champs even though it's been four years since they won, but all that is offset by my latest man-crush, Jason Maxiell. A big, burly dude who blocks shots, throws people around, shows zero concern for his own well-being by diving for every loose ball, and is such an intimidating badass that he inspired this? Yes, please.

One final craigslist posting before I go...

Couldn't resist. The Hyperbole Committee has declared this to be the greatest posting of all-time. Ever.