I need to find some time to make major revisions re the layout, especially now that I've moved to my permanent (web)home. In the meantime, Thanksgiving preparations are taking most of my time. Plus, I have a nihongo exam to take tomorrow. More on that later...

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, in case I don't have time to post before then...

Dear England,

First of all, we want to thank you for babysitting our retarded child, George, these past days. Yes, I know, we shouldn't call them "retarded", they are "special children". Believe me, if you had to put up with him for four years straight, retarded is the least you'd call him. Anyway, your taking care of him has allowed us to do some very necessary housecleaning here, as well as have a few nights free to go out, or read a book, without worrying that Georgie has started a war on the next door neighbor's continent or something. You, better than other countries, will be able to understand the challenges of raising a child such as George, especially since you have had to deal with the same scourge that produced him within your own Royal Family. I speak, of course, of inbreeding.

We also wanted to apologize profusely for any inconvenience George (or the Shrub, as we usually call him) may have caused you. We did see via satellite TV that some of the children over there were calling him names, and booing him. He's got thick skin and is used to this, though, so don't worry about it. We just hope he didn't embarrass you in any way. Didn't start a war or something, did he? And have you counted your silverware? Let us know if we need to pay for any damages. We keep a fund here just for that. We call it "The Taxpayer's Money".

Lastly, you might not want to let your child, Tony, continue to play so much with ours. The Shrub sometimes plays too rough, and the other kids get angry. And you know how kids are, right? They're wont to gang up, sooner or later, against what they consider bullies and turn the tables on them. Wouldn't want you to get mixed up in any of that through the Shrub's fault, so please warn Tony. Oh! Nevermind, we just saw the news about Turkey. See? We'll understand if you don't let Tony come over to play anymore.

Sincerely Yours,

Nicholas, for the USA

necromage.com All Rights Reserved 2003

Michael Jackson's always good for a laugh, isn't he? Poor little man, so obviously trapped in a world that makes no sense to him. It's really not his fault. It's his keeper's fault for letting him go on doing outrageous stuff. Who is his keeper these days, anyway?

But it's like the stories on pet tigers hurting people. Well, duh. Tigers usually do that, left to their own devices, amidst people. Just like Jacko usually puts his hand in kids' pants. The solution is clear in both cases. Don't keep tigers as pets. Don't let kids go near Jacko.

Busy day. I'll write something new and fantastic tomorrow.

Must start planning my Thanksgiving extravaganza... Back when I lived in Colombia, where they are blissfully unaware of Thanksgiving, as well as mostly not having much to give thanks about in the first place, I used to throw a real party. I'd provide the turkey and a good bottle of whisky. The guests, around 20 or so, knew they were each required to bring a particular dish, be it an entree, a side dish or dessert, and a bottle of their poison of choice. I would also mail out at least 50 uninvitations, and I used to keep a list all year long. Anyone who pissed me off would get on it, and I would keep careful score. Only the very best would receive an uninvitation, advising them of where the party was not going to be held, so they could all show up there and enjoy themselves.

We'd then proceed, my guests and I, at the real location, to gorge ourselves on great food and then guzzle down bottle after bottle of booze, until we ended up in a drunken stupor, mostly. Other things went on, too, but gentlemen do not tell, especially when it might make me an accessory, or even an accomplice.

I miss my Colombian Thanksgiving Parties....

I heard a blurb of what passes for news these days, on CNN, might have been Wednesday of this week. They were stating that presidential candidate Dean was opting to not ask for matching funds for his campaign expenses, which would allow him to receive donations beyond current caps placed on these. The matching funds thing, as I understand it, is a mechanism whereby the government matches candidates' funding with an equal amount from the public coffers if and only if said candidates play by a determined set of rules. One of those rules is a cap on the maximum amount a candidate can receive, or something like that.

Anyway, Dean was rejecting the matching funds, which would allow him, according to the newscritter's speculation, to accept more donations (which would have been against the matching funds' guidelines) and so reach Bush's level of campaign funds, which is somewhere around 100 million US dollars. Bush also opted out of the matching funds' thing, by the way.

When I hear stuff like that I can easily understand why so much of the rest of the world hates us and wants to bring us down. These two guys, Dean and Bush, who let's face it, hypothetically combined would not have the approval of even half the population of the US, see nothing wrong with spending an amount of money comparable to some countries' entire fiscal budgets.

Mr. Bush and Mr. Dean, spending 200+ million dollars between the two of you, on a presidential campaign that quite honestly, the better part of this country's population would rather see you out of, in blatant disregard of more pressing needs where that money could be used, is criminal. And I don't mean pressing needs for the money outside of the US. I, for one, see no obligation for the US to bankroll other people, unless it's after we take care of our own. There are many worthier uses for that money right here at home.

May you both lose dismally.

Damn! I know I'm prescient, but in this case I was not trying. Nor was I refering, in a recent post, to the class action suit initiated against my employer yesterday. I was refering to a personal lawsuit, for which I had received due cause, but have to date not made a decision on. But, hey! Class Action Suit as an added bonus! Win-win situation, nyet?

Cover Ronald's face because they don't like clowns??? Ye Gods! I can understand why they cover their women's faces, since most of them are dog ugly, and I don't much like clowns per se, myself, but this seems a bit extreme! Even for the admittedly extreme Riyadh crowd!!!

To my intense (almost orgasmic) amusement, the customer today did two things, and this related to the Insourcing I mentioned in an earlier post. In an attempt to win over the Dr. Seuss crowd, here they are:

Thing 1: Since they have not found anyone to replace the person who used to work for me, got hired by them, and promptly gave notice to them after 1.5 days of employment... They asked me if my team could continue doing some of that work. Since I do believe in crosstraining*, I still have staff capable of doing most of the work that person used to do. And I'll be overjoyed to charge them double for it, too.

Thing 2: They sent an email to one of my direct reports, whose job function is slated to be insourced by the customer in January of next year. They had interviewed him as a possible candidate a month or two ago, and rejected him outright. For one, they thought his salary requirements were outrageous (did I mention they're cheap as sin?), and most importantly, they were hoping to get someone with enough knowledge to do the work of three people, instead of a highly specialized techie such as he is (did I mention they're cheap... Oh, yeah, I did). In the email today, they ask him if he'd be willing to discuss that again. Translation - They've found no one with the requisite skillset willing to work for them for peanuts. And they're starting to get scared. Very scared.

*No, Xus, this has nothing to do with training men to act like women, or women to act like men.

I've recently been thrust upon what can only be called a inadvertent social education attempt by some people I interact with. For years upon years my cynicism has been increasing, rightfully so, too. To the point where I had seriously doubted that any human was capable of altruistic behavior. Now, I know humans are capable of commiting acts of good, I'm not disputing that. What I had ceased to believe is that there wasn't always a quid pro quo of some sort attached. People actually helping me out with no concern for payback in any way is still weird and surrealistic to me. Even when it looks like it's happening right now.

Maybe humanity is evolving. Probably not, but I do concede now that there is a slight possibility.

I am. I always will be. I probably always was, too, but my memory's a bit shot these days.

On Saturday I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. This was a planned trip with a group of people I am hanging out with these days. One of them is an expert on Japanese Culture, and even more specifically, in traditional Japanese weaponry. Our main purpose in visiting the Met was to look at the exhibit of Japanese armor and weapons. As a bonus, there's a temporary exhibit on the transitional period prior to the Tokugawa Shogunate. Our captive expert explained each object we were seeing. I consider myself very well versed on antique weapons, but even I learned a few things, as well as having a couple of questions answered.

The exhibit we had gone to look at was not overly large, so we got through it fairly quickly, as well as the temporary one. We then moved on to the rest of the Met, not covering even a tenth of all they have on display, that place is just too vast to get through it, even in a week's time, much less an afternoon.

The best of the current Art Exhibits, without any doubt, was the temporary El Greco exhibition which will be in the Met through January 11th, 2004. Should you be in the area, this is worth the entrance price. Which was zero for us, by the way. Our captive expert got us all in via his membership agreement with the Met. While El Greco is not my favorite artist from his period, he does rank in my Top 10 list. It had been many years since I last had the chance of seeing so many originals of his together in the same place.

Went to Philly today. Spent a huge amount of time stuck in a traffic jam caused my one hell of an accident that actually happened last night. I was in a hurry, else I would have parked and snuck into the accident spot and looked for body parts. Body parts are so useful in so many spells, but they're getting harder and harder to come by. Unless, of course, you do not mind the meddlesome authorities trying to slow you down and hinder you in myriads of troublesome ways... Ah, for the good, old days when resurrectionists were regular tradesmen...

I've always wanted to sue someone. Just to feel what it's like... Might get a chance to do just that... lol

One of my erstwhile direct reports, whom my customer hired directly as of this past Monday (as detailed a few posts below this one, on insourcing), and whom said customer considers extremely vital to the wellbeing of their business broke a record yesterday when she informed my customer she had decided to quit. After being employed by them for a scant day and a half. LMAO

So much for their thinking that anyone would actually prefer working for them, given any other alternative.

Yesterday, on CNN's coverage of the Scott Peterson trial, they aired a snippet of testimony (or something) given by Amber Frey, Scott's alleged clandestine affair partner. Amber's statements are destined to give plain, drab women the world over new hope for snagging likable men despite said likable men already having ready access to hot, sexy wives.

I just learned that Harry Clement Stubbs died on Oct 29. I'll be missing him...

Lost a significant percentage of my direct reports today in a planned insourcing. Some having left the account, and some having started to work directly for the customer (fate worse than death if there ever was one). For those unfamiliar with the term insourcing, or its more common opposite, outsourcing, let me take a stab at it. Outsourcing is when a company X contracts with a company Y for Y to handle a specific area Z within X. The double premise being that area Z is not company X's main business, but rather a support or secondary function, and that company Y, since its whole reason of being is to handle Z-like activities, is an expert at such. This frees company X to concentrate on the business without worrying about areas where they don't have (or desire to have) the level of expertise required to sustain the business. When that happens, we say company X outsourced area Z to company Y, as in Acme Bomb Mfg outsourced its HR functions to Looney Tunes Hiring Co.

Insourcing, therefore, is when company X which had outsourced area Z to company Y decides to cancel that agreement and directly hire people to do Z-like functions for them once more. This happens when company Y sucks at doing Z-like activities instead of being great at it, as you'd expect. Or for financial reasons, when company X figures it can do things cheaper than company Y and still maintain the required service levels. Or for a few other valid and invalid reasons. The financial reason was what our customer stated for insourcing part of the Z-like work we do for them. I feel they're in for a rude awakening as they don't really understand what it is we were doing for them (much less how), nor do their people have the required expertise for the job, but time will tell.

I'll post any funny fallout here, for the enlightenment and amusement of one and all.

The past month or so, which seems like a year, has seen radical (for me) changes. I have apprenticed myself for the first time in decades, I have started learning a new language and, uncharacteristically, I am engaging in activities in benefit of my community. I've also made more 'friends' in that short time period than I have in the past 30 years. I place the word 'friend' in quotes because friend to me is someone closer than a brother, and I have but a handful of those. These new folks I'm talking about are certainly more than acquaintances, but nowhere near the level of intertwinedness of mind and spirit that must ensue before I call someone a friend of mine.

Strangely enough, though, I am enjoying myself immensely.