Fear the Crab

I think Meeth was hanging around the goldfish and corys for too long, because he’s starting to act like a bottom-feeder. The little punk even ate from the sinking tablet that was meant for Poppy³. I tried feeding him a small bloodworm, but he ignored it. Maile tried the next day and he ate it up. It’s said that angels recognize people, so maybe Meeth hasn’t become familiar with me yet.

Today I bought a backing for the tank, one of those photo-realistic paper things with plants and rocks on them. I got it because it seems as though my fish all try to swim towards the back of my desk and are surprised when they reach glass. Plus, many of them try to use the plants towards the back as cover when they feel threatened, but ram the glass so hard I can actually hear it. I figure the picture backing will hopefully “block” them from trying to swim through the tank and just cruise where the plants are. They had some nice ones at Coral Fish; even Maile bought some.

I’m finally finished with my ICS 413 class. We just had the final and peer evaluations today. I’m not sure how well I did on the final, though I’m pretty comfortable with some of the answers. Now I just have to concentrate on IS 330, which so far is going pretty well. I’m still a bit apprehensive about that 10-fuckpage paper I’ll have to write.

Before I put Meeth in my new tank, I had to get some more things. Namely stuff like plants and decorations. I went looking for the peppered otos, too. Turns out not too many stores here even carry the regular otos. However, one store did carry regular otos, and whilst there I also saw pygmy corys. Pygmy corys barely get longer than an inch, and like most corys they are sociable bottom feeders. I bought three pygmy corys, plus some live plants, and two small bridges to decorate the bottom.

The air stone I got is nice, but the valve I bought to regulate the air flow sucks. It’s supposed to let me turn this knob to have more or less air, but it only has on and off. I’ve asked Maile to see if she can get me a better valve when she passes by the pet store today.

After acclimating the pygmy corys, I decided to name them Poppyⁿ, with n=3 in this case. I considered giving everybody an individual name, but since I can’t tell them apart, and they like to school, I chose one name to apply to all of them.

When I got to Maile’s house, I was finally able to observe Meeth in the goldfish tank. I was also able to finally observe how abused he was in there. Meeth would hang out on one end of the tank (left side glass, specifically) and just cruise. Meanwhile, the big fat goldfish would waddle-swim from one end to the other, and in their never-ending quest for more stupidity would try to swim through Meeth. Maile says that in the beginning Meeth would get pushed around, but at that time he had learned to keep an eye out for the lumbering oafs. Still, it must not be very calming to have to do 3-point turns every 10 seconds.

I felt so terrible that I left Maile’s house early, with Meeth. I acclimated him, and now he seems okay. He spent the first hour swimming around the tank, trying to discern his surroundings, I guess. Meanwhile, Poppy³ would occasionally check Meeth out, but for the most part stayed in a corner Meeth wasn’t exploring.

Towards the end of the night, all the fishies seemed tolerant of each other. It’s still early, though, so I’ll have to continue to observe them to make sure everything’s cool. I might need another plant to give these guys a greater sense of security

Looks like I will have custody of Meeth, one of Maile’s angelfish. Apparently he (or she, I can never tell) has taken to bullying Kylie around, so Maile had to separate them to prevent all-around miserableness. But while Kylie seems better, Meeth is not having the good times in the other tank, so Maile is experiencing pangs of guilt. She somehow got me to agree to take care of Meeth at my house, and I now have a 2.5 gallon tank sitting on my desk. So far there’s only water and gravel in there, and today I plan to go somewhere that sells live plants (must remember the broad leaved plants). I may also try to pick up some peppered otocinclus, maybe two, for the algae eating. I think I’ll need an air stone, too.

I was reading some articles online, and I never knew there was so much to be involved in having an aquarium. Granted, most of the articles concerned themselves with long-term care and breeding of various fish, but all write volumes about water balance and proper conditions and other little tidbits to take care of. It’s rather overwhelming to the beginner.

As far as the peppered otos go, it shouldn’t be too hard to take care of them (provided the stores around here have ’em). They eat algae, and will scrape it off the glass or the plants. If it seems like my tank is algae-free, I can put cooked veggies like zucchini or something for them to eat.

The angelfish can eat the flake food, with the occasional live morsels for variety.

The big question is whether or not I want to breed these fish, or just shell out the monies for new fish everytime one reaches the end of its aquatic life.

I will never again say that someone in a shit job needs to just go and find another job. Someone in my online class posted that kind of response on the discussion board as we went over the trend towards outsourcing and problems with companies like Wal*Mart. The person who wrote that statement is young, and pursuing a first degree, so it’s a bit understandable to have that perspective. Maybe in ten more years this person will understand a bit more.

This is what I wrote in response:

It’s not that easy to just up and leave one’s job. Maybe because of youth, we feel we have endless possibilities ahead of us. Yet different circumstances apply to different people. A student fresh out of high school may not warrant a high income, but for some the extra income is necessary. I know of people that have had to work full-time in order to afford attending schools like LCC or KCC. They had the crap jobs, they were abused and taken advantage of, but if they didn’t work they couldn’t go to school and wouldn’t get that oh-so-important bachelors.

We continue to think of the US as a land of opportunity, but the freedom to change things often requires a solid support system in back of us, whether it be financially, or emotionally with a strong family. Some people don’t have access to that kind of luxury, and must deal with the lot they’re dealt here and now. One of my best friends lost his parents (one to a murder-robbery), his relatives are unable (or unwilling) to support him, and he is now responsible for paying a mortgage. He can’t afford to attend a community college; he can’t afford to even buy a car. He works in retail, as a waiter, and for a time as a delivery driver just to make ends meet. To deprive him, and others, of at least a fighting chance is hypocritical and callous.

I used to feel that if someone didn’t like their job, they should quit and find another. I was fresh out of college when I thought that. 7 years working in retail taught me just how shallow my perceptions were. I was able to get out because I had support. My friend is still working there. I try to help him out when I can, but there’s only so much that I can, or should, do. Of course, going further into that delves into a different topic (you know, the whole man and fish adage).

Still, it’s something to think about. The next time you see your waiter, say please and thank you. The next time you see the stockboy or sales clerk, say please and thank you. Don’t think that because they’re miserable with their job that they’re just lazy they haven’t found anything else. If anything, you’re the one that made them miserable. Going further into that delves into a different topic (you know, the whole unto and other adage).

For more, visit Waiter Rant. Much credit goes to this writer for forming the words to the concepts many of us can’t seem to express. I know this writer has opened my eyes to a much wider perspective; even though it was always in me, these writings brought it into focus.

I write from Nat & Big Mark’s house. I am housesitting, and by association I am also dogsitting, because the dog came with the house. Maile has been here for the past two days, whilst I have only been here one.

One of the first things I did when I got here was establish my territory. That meant turning on Nat’s computer and putting my name into her Minesweeper. Considering how no one in this house seems to play Minesweeper, my name(s) have a good chance of lasting for a long time.

The second thing I did was figure out where the bathroom was. The house is in a state of remodeling, which means that floorspace is a premium, which means that normal walkways are now filled with stooff. And it’s hard to tell what’s been temporarily placed there, or just what is actually supposed to be there. Not only did I have to figure out where the bathroom was, but I also had to figure out where the dog’s bathroom was, and I really wanted to avoid that area.

Still, after a while I couldn’t shake the Cheesy withdrawals. I tried the client that runs via cheesymud.com, but that kept disconnecting after 15 minutes. I tried the telnet client, but having no local echo gets tiring fast. What to do? I couldn’t take it, I HAD to get onto Cheesy! So I brought out my laptop, disconnected the cable from Nat’s computer and slammed in the sweet sweet connective delights.

Turned out nobody else was on.

I ate the pizza for dinner, thanks to Galbraith. It was a good option because there’s not much of a stove left, and Maile and I weren’t in the mood for anything microwaved. We also didn’t want to leave the house alone for long by eating out, especially with nothing but a plywood board for a door. Actually, that’s not entirely true, but my paranoid tendencies sometimes kick in.

I have no idea where I’m going to sleep. That should have been the third thing I did. Meanwhile, I’ll take pride in using the three common font formatting tags in this post.

I was attending a Japanese school, replete with uniformage, except I was granted some exemption because I was in jeans. Probably because I was a foreigner. I still had to wear the jacket. I was in a mixed classroom of boys and girls, probably younger than me, and we were going over some kind of philosophical question. The problem was, while I could gather that it was a philosophical question, I had no idea what the question was nor what anybody was saying. I couldn’t read the questions, I couldn’t read the responses written on the board, and I sure as hell couldn’t read what people were writing. My teammates seemed to be moving along pretty well despite my lack of performance, and I was overcome with a sense of guilt.

For some odd reason, class was dismissed, and I felt I had to catch a school bus because I had to attend another school (maybe a cram school?). During the bus ride, then the walk to this new campus, I kept thinking that everybody was talking rather badly about me. Like, why is this foreign idiot here.

I never made it to the new campus, but the neighborhood looked oddly familiar, like the back streets of Kaimuki.

I just spent the whole day moving things. By moving I mean moving boxes of stuff into other boxes of storage. Then moving storage boxes to a big storage box across town. I ache.

Last night I had trouble sleeping. It was too hot. Now I pay for it. Especially tired from watching Maile’s fish swim around in their tank.

Supposed to do more reading on info tech and the socio-economic implications. Figure I’ll do that tomorrow.

My allergies have been kicking into overdrive these past two weeks. The common theory is that because I quit smoking, my body is trying to detox itself. Oh yeah, I quit smoking.

It constantly feels like someone is pulling the little tiny hairs in my nose, and the drippy drips are annoying.

In other news, I’ve just recently learned how to make those little confirmation dialog boxes that pop up asking if you want to continue. I learned it for my project. They’ve been around forever, but it makes me realize just how much I don’t know when I come across things like these.

I almost forced myself into an infinite loop when I was reading the assigned materials for my Info Tech/Culture class. We’re covering capitalism and the shift from the rigid Fordism business models to the new flexible production systems. In formulating my response to the readings, I envisioned the division of labor to the nth simplest degree, the rise of labor unions to combat this seemingly oppressive regime. I envisioned the rise of flexible production and then the outsourcing of labor to foreign regions for lower costs, and the increasing rise of the division of SKILL to the nth complicated degree, a direct opposite of the Fordism model. I envisioned the division of labor to the nth foreignest region and the rise of foreign labor unions to combat this seemingly invasive regime, and I just kept going and going until I became as confused and loopy as the preceeding paragraph.

I have a headache.

The subject is a tad misleading. I’m here, but I haven’t been here here, if you know what I mean. My last post was almost a year ago, and that was during football season (UH won 7 games and went to the Hawai’i Bowl, btw).

Nowadays I’ve been continually working at The Office and The Lab. I am still taking courses in ICS.

Where to start?

My project at The Office has gone beta. We conducted a loadtest on the server, and ended up overworking the poor database. Thankfully the problem wasn’t caused by what I had done, but what someone else did a long time ago. We went from 9 student employees to 3, including myself. That means there are other miscellaneous tasks to be shared by everyone.

The Lab is The Lab. Usual politics, usual work. At least the parties are cool, and the snack area is filled with the delectable bounty of fattening goodness.

School is nearing the end of its stint. I can expect to graduate in March of 2006, provided I don’t turn into a Senior and neglect my work. This summer I’m taking a software engineering class that doesn’t seem to be engineering software. I’m also enrolled in a rather interesting class, Information Technology/Culture, which looks at our lives as it is integrated with technology, be it computers or cell phones. We’ve discussed the rise of computers and networks, the virtual communities created by multiplayer games and MUDs and things like Xanga, mySpace and LiveJournal. We’re going over the Panopticon right now.

Oh, I got me an iPod. It is musical.