The Wandering Geek

The Ellipsis Rant

By Ashley May 18, 2013 Rants No Comments

There aren’t a lot of things in the world that truly enrage me, aside from a few political topics, people who brake going through green lights, my student loans, how hard it is for me to eat crab legs, etc. But I digress. There is one thing that literally makes me quake with uncontainable rage: the ellipsis. That dot-dot-dot that drives me insane wondering what the hell this person is actually trying to communicate to me. Let me provide a very short example email string:

Me: Is that meeting time ok with you?

Jerk: 10 am should be fine…

WHY. WHY THE ELLIPSIS. Are you disagreeing with my meeting time but don’t want to tell me? Do you hate me? Do you disagree with all of my life choices? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!

Here’s another that I get fairly often in our inter-office instant messaging program:

Jerk: Ashley…

WHY THE ELLIPSIS. Did I do something wrong? Do you want to tell me I’m fired? Did somebody die? Is there a ham sammich in the cafeteria for me? WHY?!

 Jerk: (after I answered their question) Thanks…

Did I not actually help you? Was my answer insufficient? Do you think yourself superior to me and must speak in ellipses so I will be reminded of my diminished position on the ladder of life choices after our conversation is over? FOR THE LOVE OF GOD JUST TELL ME.

The ellipsis sounds immediately condescending to me in all of these examples and I can’t shake that. Am I the only person who becomes paranoid in this situation? I literally can’t help thinking why they decided to dot-dot-dot the end of that sentence or word. This happens at least once a day. Then you have the second example, which doesn’t happen often, but when it does, I instantly think I’m in trouble. Why else would somebody put an ellipsis at the end of that? I immediately think “oh god what now.” But it has never once been something bad. There are plenty of correct ways to use an ellipsis, but all these people succeed in doing is making me paranoid. It almost always sounds passive-aggressive to me. Please just hit the period button on your keyboard one time and leave it at that, like a decent law-abiding citizen, instead of dot-dot-dotting all over my brain!

Two Recurring Dreams

By Ashley April 14, 2013 Life No Comments

I’m not sure if everyone has recurring dreams. I recently realized that I have two. One is a pretty typical waitressing dream. I worked at this Italian restaurant nearby for several years at the end of high school and first year of college. This particular dream puts me back there again, and I’m in the weeds, backed up with orders and tables and my brain is a scrambled egg. Apparently a lot of people who have served in restaurants have this sort of dream. I know I still dream about being there because it holds this weird place of honor in my heart. My time there consisted of the sort of things you would find in a novel.* We were a family. A messed up, backstabbing, gossipping family that molded me into the first glimmers of adulthood. If I’m nostalgic about anything in my life, it’s my time in that restaurant. It was ripped apart and revamped last year though, and I haven’t gone back yet. No more green sticky carpet or cash registers circa 1980. No more slippery, crusty bottles of dipping oil or cracked green booths. Everything is bluish now, apparently. And clean. I’ll go back someday.

My other recurring dream is possibly the worst nightmare I’ve ever had in my life. The second worst nightmare I’ve ever had involved a T-Rex chasing me down the main street of a town nearby. I ducked into a side alley and flattened myself against the wall as it stuck its head into the alley just far enough to snap its teeth inches from my face. Yes, that is only the second worst nightmare I’ve ever had. The first is being young, alone, and pregnant.

I have a pregnant dream at least a few times per year. It’s absolutely mortifying. Every time, I’m always younger than I am now, and there’s never a guy around. Just me and my belly. Normally 25% of the dream is me being pregnant, 5% is some hint of a birth, and 70% is me with a one year old kid all alone and reflecting on how all my hopes and dreams for myself are now over. That is how I feel every single time. While I’m sleeping, I’m thinking about all the things in life that I won’t be able to do now, all the places I can’t go, how my life is no longer mine. My brain has somehow regressed into this 16 year old girl’s, and I just cry and cry until I finally wake up, laughing with glee that none of it was real.

I decided to look up the interpretation of pregnancy dreams after I had one last week. I really don’t believe in dream interpretation, but I figured why the hell not? I guess these dreams are more common than I thought. I ran across this Huffington Post article on the topic:

“At its core, this dream is about creativity,” [Ally] Mead says. “Women literally create new life out of their bodies. If you dream of being pregnant, you are likely craving time to be creative, or ‘dreaming up’ a new and exciting creative project that will come into existence down the line…Pregnancy dreams are often multi-layered and speak about something inside — represented by the fetus — that has not yet been acknowledged or presented to the world,” Mead says. “I find that people who have disowned goals and desires often dream of pregnancies. For example, someone who might have wanted to act, but chose the safe path of being a lawyer, may be plagued with pregnancy dreams until he or she takes steps to at least connect with that earlier passion.”

Despite all of this being completely subjective, it’s still fun to think about. Let’s pretend that I have these dreams because my inner creative urges (to write books forever and always) are very suppressed and want to break free like a chest-burster from the movie Alien.**

Do any of you have recurring dreams? Do you think there’s some explanation as to why?  Send me a tweet or leave a comment!

 

* – I’ve considered writing a novel based on it, but I have never written anything longer than 15 pages that wasn’t some sort of fantasy/sci fi. It would definitely be a challenge.

** – If you are unaware of the Alien chestburster, go ahead and Google it, but you might be traumatized forever.

Vintage Star Wars Awesomeness at Mom’s House

By Ashley July 15, 2012 Art, Finds No Comments

I’ve known that she had this somewhere for awhile now. She bought it for my dad, for $10, in the early ’80′s. She showed this to me years and years ago, probably around the same time she showed me the album of pictures from my dad’s little foray in the ‘Nam. And while that album is just as awesome, it is not one bit geeky (unless you count the shots of my incredibly skinny father in combat gear with ginormous nerd glasses on), so let’s just focus on the Return of the Jedi portfolio.

It had never occurred to me before the moment that I saw this item again, but Ralph McQuarrie is obviously the artist who did the iconic movie poster mash-ups for the original movies. For some reason I had never put that together before. He designed so much of the films and I had no idea. From what I’ve gathered, he designed C-3PO and R2-D2. He suggested the breathing apparatus for Darth Vader. Not to mention all of the other things he designed. And I don’t remember ever looking at the prints before either, so when I started to pull the pristine sheets of paper out with all of this new knowledge, magic ensued.

Pizza delivery for a Mr. Jabba the Hut?
I about peed myself when I saw this one.
Almost peed myself yet again.
These were my favorites. I also enjoyed the picture of Sy Snootles and Droopy McCool, and if you think I’m making these names up and they can’t possibly be Star Wars names, look them up. And you’ll know exactly who they are if you’ve seen Return of the Jedi. In fact, go to this Wikipedia article, because the exact art drawing that’s pictured at the top is the one that’s in this portfolio. I’m just too lazy to take a crooked picture for you and post it.
Nevertheless, as I was leaving mom’s, she bestowed these prints to my care forever and always. All is well in my geek world.

I Do Not Want to Hear Your Opinion

By Ashley July 1, 2012 Gadgets, Rants, Tech No Comments
I know I’ve said this sometime before, and I think I need to print it on t-shirts and bumper stickers or something: Say what you want about me, but leave my gadgets out of it.
 
I realized just how true this is of myself the other day when I was at the mall with a friend. There are a ton of malls around here, but the super high-end one has an Apple store in it. Surprise surprise. It also has all these ridiculous stores like Juicy Couture and Tiffany & Co., and you get treated to about six judgmental stares per square foot of mall space. It makes sense, I’ve done the equations.
And then there’s the Apple store. A happy place of laughter and rainbows. Where it’s always 15 degrees hotter than out in the mall. Or maybe you’re just sweating with anticipation. But you don’t care. You’re treading on holy ground. You should have to leave your shoes outside and go in barefoot.
Aaaanyway. My friend and I walk in so I can show him the MacBook Pro I’m considering once the new OS drops. Naturally the new retina display Macbook Pro is on the first table. I cavort over to it and move the mouse pointer around on the screen and gaze up at my friend, who is standing a little behind me with his hands in his pockets. “Isn’t it just beautiful,” I swoon, wondering if the screen would taste good if I licked it.
And he peers at it for a moment, shrugs, and says, “It’s not that impressive, really.”
Suddenly there’s this churning rage in my middle. I turn on him, incredulous, “Are you nuts? Look at it! It’s so crisp and the colors are so bold and–”
“It’s not mind-blowing or anything. My VAIO is HD and probably looks better.”
My fists are clenching and unclenching at this point. “THIS IS THE HIGHEST RESOLUTION LAPTOP ON EARTH YOU FOOL.”
 
“Just doesn’t seem that great to me. I’d pay $600 tops for this.”
I storm off at this point, livid for no reason whatsoever. Literally no reason. You are entitled to your opinion. That’s perfectly fine. But your opinion enrages me. I do not want to hear your opinion.  I feel like I can very logically argue the case of Mac vs PC. I have owned and used PCs for 90% of my life. But then things changed. I could afford Macs. And I bought them. I bought all of them. And I am never, ever going back. It’s so much more than the gadget. It’s the stuff it’s packaged in. Remember when I opened my new iPad? It’s an experience in itself. Apple knows this. Nothing is shoddy with them. They don’t cut corners. Their products aren’t littered with garbage programs (like the 6000 apps that come on Android phones, most of which are complete shit) and error messages. Some people whine that they hate it because it’s not open-source. Or that it’s too expensive. Some people could care less about the whole experience and just want a decent, cheap computer. Well that’s fine, you can think that way.
But I don’t want to hear it. I am fully aware of my fangirl geekdom. I will not speak to you for hours. I will hold a grudge for days, depending on the offense. In fact, this is literally the single quickest way to piss me off. I know it’s irrational and childish. But I can’t help it. In fact I think the worst kind of people who blast Apple products are the ones who have never used them, or used them once 18 years ago and that was the day they found out their wife wanted a divorce, so all Apple products suck. This is why I feel perfectly justified when I blast PCs, because I’ve used them since I was taught the alphabet on a keyboard. I’d say it would be the same for Apple fanboys who have never used PCs, but I’m fairly certain everyone has used a PC. You can’t go through school without using one, because Windows 95 machines were the only thing available in the stupid computer lab and that’s where you played games on Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, which you excelled at, and all the other kids were like “What the hell is a semicolon and why must I type it?”
So now that I’m done ranting, I’ll probably be making something stupid soon with my new life motto on it. I’m considering a coffee mug.

Moving (Mostly) Complete: Initiate Enjoyment Phase

By Ashley June 18, 2012 Life No Comments
Seriously, bless my mother and her Doctor Who t-shirt for attempting to make sense of this madness, but NOT EVEN I CAN MAKE SENSE OF THIS MADNESS.
Anywho, I haven’t posted in a month because things are finally becoming less HAJKDHLSKJAK around here. Just a few days ago I finally got to actually sleep in the bedroom, on my fully-assembled bed. Where, as you’ll see below, I spent three weeks sleeping on the mattress in the middle of the living room floor. And then there’s the matter of the whirlwind romance I had with the LG plasma TV from hell. I parted ways with that asshole after fighting for several weeks to save our relationship. But it, quite literally, just wasn’t working.
So here’s my basic setup for those three weeks:
  1. The LG plasma TV from hell, probably on the only night that it actually worked.
  2. Where I laid on my back listening to ten thousand tractor trailers rumbling past on nights when I had the windows open, while my cat sang songs to the walls.
  3. “The Beast.” This a/c unit comes very close to hitting absolute zero, and on several occasions I’ve been tempted to call a scientist because I’m fairly certain I’ve broken a record.
  4. Four hundred boxes of useless shit.
But all that aside, my living room floor is now clear, and I adore where I live. I already have a route I take when I go on walks in the evenings. I hit up the library (the first thing I gave up in order to save money was buying books, because I buy way too many) and check out what’s new, then sit for awhile on the stone wall outside the library just relaxing. Then I hop down and go up the street past all the little outdoor cafes and pick up a coffee beverage at Starbucks. Sometimes I sit outside there for awhile too, just people-watching. I’m completely thrilled that I moved where I did. There’s also a Wines and Spirits within walking distance. I don’t need to elaborate any further.
So this coming weekend I get to buy me a couch and proceed to become one of those people with an apartment full of Ikea furniture. Who meets a guy named Tyler Durden on an airplane and then finds out his apartment full of Ikea furniture has exploded, except he actually did it himself, but you have no idea until later, and I just ruined the movie/book for anyone who hasn’t seen it/read it. But seriously who the hell hasn’t seen it/read it? You’re all losers.
I also have a feeling I’ll be indulging in a Macbook Pro in a couple months. Because you know, I need it and stuff. For all the professional geeking that I do. On my future couch in my living room.

The Terrors and Joys of Moving

By Ashley May 13, 2012 Life, Love, Random, Rants No Comments

I’m moving in less than a week. I don’t take change well. It could be great, awesome change, but I’d still be all nerves and worries and little fits of heart palpitations. In fact I’ve actually been counting down to this day for almost two years. And now I’m dreading it, dreading it like a visit to my cousin’s house on Thanksgiving to see the 99% of my family who are basically complete strangers to me. I knew it was going to happen. I knew without a doubt that I’d be freaking out at this point, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

Take last night, for instance. I spent all day getting things together and starting the awful process of packing. I won’t even get into how much moving sucks, because you know it does. If you’re reading this, you’re nodding and thanking Jesus that you aren’t moving yourself. Unless you are, in which case, my heart goes out to you.

Anyway, I haven’t slept well in days. Last night I just laid in my bed and cried for no good reason. I’m expecting this to be a trend for the entire week. Perhaps even into my first days or even weeks at the new place. I’ve been wanting to live by myself practically since I had any sort of inkling about moving out back in high school. I’m sick of fighting over what stuff belongs to who. Over who should be scrubbing their toothpaste remnants off the bathroom sink. I’ve had roommates, and I’ll never live with a girl ever again. Women are really horrible things. I lived with a boyfriend too, and let me tell you, trying to decide what shit is yours when you’re moving out is absolute hell. The next person I live with will be, god forbid, the wandering soul out there who decides they’d like to marry me. Until then it’s just me and my cat and my gadgets, thank you very much.

Every single item in my new place is going to belong to me. The toilet scrubber, the awesome original art prints, the Iron Man blu-ray, the 50 inch plasma TV. All mine. And nobody will be there to give me disapproving looks when I just want to sit on my ass and watch hockey or something instead of fold my clothes. I can make as much noise as I please when I stumble in at 2 AM, and nobody will be there to ask “Where have you been? Where are your shoes? Weren’t you wearing a bra when you left?”

That’s where my worries start, though. There’s this thing with anxiety. I worry about everything. I’ve made my peace with that fact because it’s never going to change. I’m already thinking ahead months when I potentially realize how completely and utterly alone I am in this place with my cat as my only company. Then I’ll probably get another cat, because that’s what lonely people do or something. And there’s a negative correlation between how many cats one owns and one’s chances of obtaining and keeping a boyfriend. But I’ll worry about that when I actually start to worry about it. At this point I’m just excited to be able to leave the door open when I go to the bathroom, and I don’t expect the novelty of that to wear off for a really long time.

Internet Speeds of the 90′s Would Kill Me Today

By Ashley April 21, 2012 Good Tunes, Rants, Tech No Comments

I had some sort of 90′s flashback yesterday. I was trying to download this ungodly large file. Like, double-digit gigabytes large.* The download feels like it’s dragging. I feel inordinately impatient. The speed is going at 2 mb/s or something. The percent downloaded goes up by one every five minutes or so. I want to smash watermelons with a sledgehammer. I want to die.

Then I have my 90′s flashback. I remember sitting at my crazy old corner desk back in the day (that thing is STILL in the same spot, but now it’s got a bunch of junk on it, and occasionally I gaze in at the poor thing like a long forgotten toy from my childhood). I grew up during dial-up. I knew the tune of the dial-up modem like I knew all the words to every stupid Britney Spears song. I could’ve sung the aria of the “Dial-Up Modem Opera” true and clear, if it was possible for human vocal chords to actually make those sounds. As soon as the modem made a funny noise during its song-and-dance ritual of connecting to the internet, I froze, like a deer in headlights. I loathed that moment. When the modem finished its beeping, whooshing tune and I found myself connected to the world wide web, all was right with the world.**

I remember trying to illegally download the newest Backstreet Boys song, “Larger than Life.” I couldn’t buy the CD because I was a freaking kid and nobody would buy it for me. But I needed that song in my life more than I needed all my posters of Zac Hanson taped to my closet doors. The file was probably a few megabytes in size, unlike songs now with their epic sound quality weighing in at 9 mb or more. So let’s say it was a 3 mb song. It took hours. Literally two hours at least. I bet that was one of the happiest moments in my life, when that song finally downloaded and I listened to this stupid song that was for some reason my only key to happiness.

So I’m looking at this 30 gb file I’m downloading now. It has 30 minutes or so left. It’s going at about 2.5 mb/s now. That old Backstreet Boys song would have downloaded in a single second today.

ONE. SECOND.

* No it’s not porn you fools.
** I’m not like, obsessed with the internet or anything. Like, come on, guys.

The Dumbest Moment of My Entire Life

By Ashley April 10, 2012 Life, Random No Comments

It’s Easter Sunday. I walk out to the kitchen to survey the progress of the ham in the oven, because a good ham is the way to my heart. Forget diamond rings. Can you make a good ham? Maybe we’ll end up alright.

Anyway, I peek at this ham like the dad in A Christmas Story. I actually stick my hand in the oven in order to pry off one of the end slices, and my mother’s pork senses activate in the other room. Just as the skin is melting off my fingers and I’m about to dislodge a delicious slice of sweet honey ham, I hear “ASHLEY GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF THE HAM.”

Then I look up at the oven. It says 2:33 left, and I cry a little inside at having to wait another two and a half hours. The turkeys that are usually running around through the backyard are probably laughing their asses off at me. I trudge dejectedly out of the kitchen.

I come back later in search of a crescent roll, and I happen to glance at the oven again. The display now says 3:17. I stand for a moment, crescent roll sticking out of my mouth, completely flabbergasted. I chew the last of the crescent. I take a step out of the kitchen to find my mother’s eyes already on me, just waiting to yell at me for getting at the ham again.

And then it happens. The confused expression is still on my face. I glance back at the oven. Then I say the dumbest thing I’ve ever said in my entire life.

“Why does the time left for the ham keep going up?”

She stares at me. Then I get it. Instantly I get it. But it’s too late. The damage is done. This is normally something that would happen to my mother. Normally she says something ridiculous and I get to make fun of her for the next hour. And she’s not about to let this go. Not now, not five years from now, not when we run into my boss in public, not when she meets whoever it is that I end up marrying.

“Ashley, that’s the CLOCK.”

Just shoot me now. Ah well, at least the ham was a salty sweet meaty dream of juicy deliciousness.*

*Don’t even say it. I know what you’re thinking. Barbeque ribs, am I right?

Impulsive iPad-Hunting

By Ashley March 18, 2012 Gadgets, Penguins, Photos, Pittsburgh 1 Comment

Obviously you know what this is about already, but I like to tell really long stories, so you’ll just have to suffer through. This weekend started off really well and only snowballed from there. My Pittsburgh Penguins extended their win streak to 11 yesterday. I terrified my cat on more than one occasion by leaping out of my chair in elation. I ignored all of the St. Patrick’s Day reveling because I despise it*, but that’s an entirely separate story that, to be completely honest, I will never tell you, and you probably don’t care about it anyway.

I was refreshing my iPad order status page every half hour, as I’ve been doing for about a week now. Since I waited entirely too long to order it, the ship date read “April 3,” which was unacceptable on all sorts of levels. But what could I do? I could get it at an Apple store or something, but they’d all be sold out. Right? RIGHT?!

Wrong, apparently. I found this shady website that tells me possible stock levels of the new iPad at local Targets. Don’t ask me how I find these things, because I literally have no clue whatsoever. I’m like an internet bloodhound. I’m a drug-sniffing K-9 unit, and this shoddy website advertising iPad stock levels was like a big bag of cocaine.

Anyway. I don’t know what came over me. I suddenly saw a clear path to my destiny. My destiny being the local Target, where there may or may not have been a 32gb white iPad waiting for me. My order from Apple could still be canceled. So I got up and went to Target. I was fully prepared to be let down. I mean maybe not fully; I still had a whole lot of hope that the world would not lead me astray.

I should’ve taken a picture of what I saw when I got to the aisle with the iPads and e-readers and whatnot. They were locked in a glass case of course. But there were three iPads directly over the price tag for the 16gb white, which I didn’t want, and three iPads directly over the price tag for the 64gb white, which I also didn’t want. Nothing over the 32gb. Undeterred, I approached one of the electronics department employees, a skinny kid with long hair that he had to continually toss out of his face. It was actually distracting, even in my hyper-focused state. I wanted to brush it. It looked tangly. And give him a damn hair tie.

So he opens the glass case and shifts through the other iPads nearby, just incase somebody pushed it into the wrong spot or some stupid shit. Honestly put the iPads where they belong, don’t be giving poor twenty-something girls heart attacks by making it appear that you’re out of stock. Anyway, he pulled one of the iPads out after looking through them and scanned it with his little scanner thingamajig and said “Yep, this is it. Very last one.”

I spent the entire 15 minute drive home trying my damnedest not to actually throw up from excitement, and also attempting not to push the speed limit. You see, the last time I’ve been that excited driving home from any purchase was when I got the seventh Harry Potter book at midnight, after which I got pulled over for going 80, laughed at by the cop as I bawled my eyes out and clutched my book, and sent on my merry way with barely even a warning. I just wanted to read, officer. I JUST WANTED TO READ.

Unboxing was, of course, weirdly enjoyable as always. It’s these little things that make Apple’s products so great overall. Then I spent the rest of the night setting up and restoring from my old iPad. Then I fell asleep in a gadget-happy coma, with visions of retina-display icons dancing in my head. MERRY APPLE TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD IPAD.

* Yes I realize my shirt is green in that picture. I didn’t do it on purpose and didn’t realize until I was already in the car. I give no shits whatsoever.

New iPad vs. New Couch

By Ashley March 10, 2012 Gadgets, Life, Penguins, Pittsburgh, Tech No Comments

I want the new iPad (I almost typed “iPad 3″ here, but that just wasn’t meant to be). But I’m moving in two months and the option to get one was never really an option at all. Just a far-fetched dream involving sipping pina coladas in the Bahamas while reading an article on my iPad. Or waiting for a flight to Italy while reading an article on my iPad. Or having somebody take a picture of me meeting Sidney Crosby, then them probably running away with my iPad, and me being very upset for about two seconds before I realize I’m standing next to Sidney Crosby and this would probably be a good story to tell our children someday.

So me getting a new iPad was obviously farfetched. Until my dad told me someone was going to offer me $400 for my original. I had an idea that this was an astronomical number. So I thought about it for about twelve hours, ten of which I was fast asleep for, and I’ve decided to do it. Now the only problem is that I’m moving in two months, need tons of furniture, and really shouldn’t be spending any single bits of money on gadgets.

But I mean who am I kidding? I’d rather spend a couple hundred on a new iPad than have a couch. People can sit on the floor. Nice comfy floor.