That was the start of the phone call in which I received the 'hot tip' that resulted in this story.

When he pulled the shaking, nearly lifeless bird from of the marsh, it was clear what was holding it down: A large clam had closed on the bird's foot, and it didn't let go until B.J. pried it off with a knife.

"It felt like there was a huge anchor on him," he said. "That clam was as big as my hand, and this little egret was just a baby. It was the biggest clam I've ever seen."

<pointless rant>These people are messing with natural selection, which really pisses me off. Now instead of the drowning it deserved for being stupid enough to get its foot caught by a mollusk (which has no brain, and last time I checked, was not a predator of waterfowl), this egret is going to get a chance to procreate, spreading it's genes to a future generation of dumb-assed progeny.

This is, incidentally, an excellent metaphor for what's happening in America these days.

I think we should take the filters out of cigarettes, the airbags out of cars, and the warning labels off of everything sharp, hot or potentially explosive. If you're too dumb to figure out that sticking your hand under the deck of your lawnmower may have unfortunate consequences, or that hot coffee may burn you if you spill it on your nutsack, you should probably not be breeding anyway. Go ahead, reach for that twig.</pointless rant>

I'm amazed at how poorly people communicate in the workplace. I blame much of this on email, where a lack of direct contact is coupled with a lack of accountability, and the fact that most people can't read or write for shit anyway, to form a seething clusterfuck of lost productivity and angry coworkers. So, gentle reader, I bring you:

Chris's helpful email tips

1. Email is not instant messaging
   I don't want my inbox clogged with a dozen one-syllable responses from you that appear as soon as I reply to your last grunt. If you want to have a stream-of-consciousness free-flowing conversation, IM me, or failing that, pick up the damn phone (PUDP)! If you get your feelings hurt because I didn't respond within seconds of your last message, you obviously have too much time on your hands. I'm busy. I've sometimes got more important things to do than wait for my email reader to chime with another nugget of wisdom from you.
2. Use Reply-All wisely
   That button is sometimes useful for confirming with a whole group that you read and are dealing with a message. Don't use it to A) Let the whole group of people know that you really are busy. or B) Have an IM conversation with another reply-all misuser that you feel the need to subject the whole group to. Again, PUDP. Got something especially sagacious from that side conversation? Feel free to send THAT to the group. Spare me your brainstorming session.
3. Don't send long-ass messages with the subject "FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:FW:RE:FW:FW:RE:[insert stupid shit here]"
   It's especially bad form to do this when your only comment is "See below" or "Read from bottom to top". For Fuck's sake people, if you don't have time to synopsize what it is that's important about this message, what makes you think I do? Moreover, am I supposed to read your mind to determine what it is I'm supposed to glean from this conversation that's changed hands two dozen times and is indented so far that I'm only seeing two words per line with a million angle brackets to their left?
4. Don't use email lists as a management tool, for people or projects
   I'm sure it seems very progressive to you to have an 'open conversation' on issues or projects, but what you're really doing is ensuring that your 'team' will be confused about what they're supposed to be doing, while assuming that someone else is taking care of whatever needs to be done. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to guess what happens when everyone assumes that someone else is taking care of things. Furthermore, if you're a manager, you should be managing. You control the conversation. Delegate what needs to be done, communicate to the necessary parties and then report back to the group with a summary.
5. Don't use 'we' when you really mean 'you'
   "We" aren't going to write a Perl script, and "We" aren't going to redesign the site and "We" aren't going to troubleshoot the server when you fuck something up. I am. "You" are going to thank me profusely afterward. Unless you're combing through the log files with me, "We" aren't doing shit. Use the inclusive pronoun when you are actually involved in whatever is going on, otherwise it should be "Can you help with this?" or "I seem to lack reading comprehension abilities, can you fix this?" And unless you're signing my paycheck, you really ought to be asking nicely and in a professional manner.
6. Don't expect me to be impressed that you're emailing at all hours of the day and night
   It doesn't mean you're Employee of the Year. It means:
   
   1. You're an addict.
   2. You're an insomniac.
   3. You're that douchebag clicking away on his blackberry in the grocery checkout line.
   4. You're a sycophant trying to show everyone how hard you're working.
   5. All of the above

So if you skipped to the end, here's my email rant summed up in a short paragraph:

When in doubt, PUDP. Also, don't be an asshole.

Sitting on the floor makes Betsy sad.

[flickr:1436/721165654/5af5022847|center|500|1000]

If I'm not mistaken, there used to be a couch sitting there!

But it's not here now, cuz the folks at 24e, purveyors of supposedly 'High End' furniture, and their repair subcontractors took it, after three months worth of phone calls from us.

A quarter inch plastic part on a zipper broke, which apparently required the couch to be carted away by two guys in a truck.

Of course, this happened four weeks ago, leaving us with nowhere to sit in our living room. I'm betting they could have found us a replacement couch by now.

I considered briefly that we might have been couchjacked, but then thought "what the hell would anyone want with a couch with no cushions?"

So if you're heading down Broughton Street on Saturday, stop on by the 24e showroom. I'll be the guy sitting on their fanciest sofa, in my underpants, with a beer in my hand, hanging out until they replace ours.

Update: We finally got our sofa back from the upholstery shop last Friday, but they did shoddy work. Instead of actually fixing the zipper, they decided to sew the cushion onto the back of the couch. Why they needed to cart the sofa off for four weeks to do this, I don't know. They even added a few scuffs to the leather on the back for good measure. Luckily, Elaine at 24e has stepped up and offered us a store credit, and wants us to come down and pick out a new sofa next week to set things right.

And I didn't even have to go down there to lounge around in my Homer Simpson pajama pants.

There are a multitude of trends I wish would just go away - women with giant sunglasses, for example. Another is those silly "sophisticated-narrow-ass-line-art-cartoon-woman-with-no-pupils" drawings that seem to show up on the covers of books the wife buys, in girlie magazines (not that kind of girlie mag, perverts*), and now, apparently on 'prenatal' vitamins.

Dead-eyed mom and brat

And to make matters worse, she's holding her smug little genius baby, whose intelligence is obviously the result of mom taking some quack medicine horse pill.

* Sorry, Aleigh.

335d Touring
38 mpg diesel. 0-60 in under 6 seconds. Room for five and a couple corpses lots of luggage in the back, and kayaks on the roof. 6-speed manual. But BMW won't bring it here, because Americans won't buy enough of 'em.

I guess too many wouldn't be caught dead in a station wagon, and all the cool kids have them SUVs.

Note to Fat Cats in Munich: bring it across the pond, and I'll take mine in white, please.

What do you get for your $46,050 per year tuition to Duke University? Apparently not any classes on public speaking.

I cringed through a longer than necessary interview on NPR with Ryan McCartney, editor of the Duke University student newspaper, on the way home from work yesterday. He was commenting on Duke student's reactions to the announcment that the remaining three accussed Duke lacrosse players had been exonerated.

Every other word was "like", "y'know", "kinda", "sorta" or "um". And "um" isn't even a word, fer christsakes. Y'know is on the borderline, in my book.

Dude, you're on the radio. Think before you speak.

Rant #1: First, don't trust any review you read on Google Local (aggregated from yelp, tripadvisor, et al). Case(s) in point. Yesterday, we went to dinner at an Italian place called La Caterina Trattoria that only got three out of five stars, and was panned by about half the reviewers. As it turns out, the food was quite good, and the desert (tiramisu) was fantastic.

On the other hand, tonight we dined at Salsa, a Mexican/Caribbean joint, which rated 4 1/2 stars, with the only complaints being related to the long wait to get in. That wasn't a problem for us, since we were eating at the positively geriatric hour of 5:30. I thought we'd have to leave immediately when the waitress explained that they don't serve Diet Coke (or Pepsi), but instead offer some vitamin-enriched local hippie cola. Drinks came slowly. Chips and salsa cost $4, and tasted worse than Tostidos. Also, despite the diversity of selections on the menu - quesadillas, fajitas, burritos, tostadas, enchiladas, etc. - everything came out looking identical. What type of burrito would you like? Overall, a D-.

Update: The food at Salsa's made Betsy sick, and I'm feeling a bit queasy myself. Bastards.

Rant #2: I have never in my life seen a greater concentration of surly bums, middle-aged-pony-tailed-fleece-wearing hippies, and pouty emo kids in one place. And I live in downtown Savannah.

Is there even an art school here?

At least Savannah has an excuse for skinny kids carrying flowers, looking despondent and wearing their sister's jeans.

Rant #3: Why can't people yield? Whether they're driving their cars or walking down a sidewalk, people won't show even the slightest courtesy to others on the same route.

Walking around Asheville or Savannah, the wife and I will constantly find ourselves nearly pushed off the sidewalk while others walk three and four abreast, oblivious to those around them.

All I have to say is: watch out dirty hippie, french tourist or sensitive art student. One of these days, I'm not going to step aside. I don't care if you're an oxygen-cart-toting octogenarian or ten year old. I'm just going to lean forward, brace myself, and lay your ass out. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I didn't see you there!"

Oh, give me a home where:

• I can stand on my porch in my skivvies brandishing a 12-gauge, because that tree you just walked past has a sign that says "TRESSPASSERS MAY BE SHOT" in big orange letters.
• I can run a go-kart track, a bungee jumping tower and a biodiesel plant with nary a complaint from the neighbors
• I can hook up my whole stereo, not just half, without getting dirty looks when I walk down the street
• I don't get dirty looks when I walk down the street, because there's no one else for miles to give me dirty looks.
• My wife doesn't have to walk the 15 feet from her car to our door with her pepper spray poised.
• I don't find plastic cups filled with dregs from last night's party on the sidewalk...or is that urine?

Following up on an earlier post with a quote from a slashdot post of similar name.

Here's an interesting observation apropos to my current situation, and I'll leave it at that:

by osolemirnix (107029)

So if this guy complains that their projects back in the days at salon went bad, I'm not suprised. He's not a coder after all, he was a typical clueless product manager - started out as a journalist and suddenly he was responsible for a type of product he knew nothing about: CMSs, in addition to having no other qualification in software development or a related area (UI design, project management).

So am I surprised this project didn't succeed? LOL, of course not.

You wouldn't let a journalist build a space shuttle or a car now would you? But software? Sure, software is easy, anyone can do it. In the end, it's probably not harder than building a car, but not easier either. it just takes proper skills for all roles in the team, is all.

...preferably with the oleaginous innards of plaintiffs in pointless court cases.

I've finally after two days escaped the clutches of The Man, who conscripted me to jury duty with the great state of Georgia's Superior Court, Chatham County. This was especially unpleasant for me, since I'd worked from Sunday at 11:00 am to 5:30 am Monday while we started running our new press live for the first time... then realized I had to report to the courthouse by 9:00 am or risk a wakeup call from a Sheriff's deputy. The fact that I was nodding off during selection didn't seem to weigh heavily on the attorney, plaintiff or court staff and as fate would have it, I was appointed Juror #2 and thusly seated to decide the fate of a couple's divorce.

Here are the highlights in no particular order:

- Possession of the house, the cars, and custody of the unfortunate spawn of the couple in question had been decided long before my 11 compatriots and I were assigned. What's left to fight over? Not much. But that didn't stop them from taking 8 hours on Monday and 10 today to get it over with.

- Sage advice: If your estranged spouse has retained a lawyer, you probably ought to get yourself one as well. Especially if you have a habit of stammering, repeating yourself every two minutes, and inadvertently introducing evidence that incriminates you. This didn't impact the outcome, but it would have been nice to move things along at a faster pace.

- The deputy Sheriff that kept an eye on us looked and sounded like a skinnier Barry White. He refused to sing for us.

- One of the deputies leading us into the jury room thought I was carrying a can of beer (it was tea). He didn't stop me. Interesting.

- The wife's attorney had the most annoying voice I'd heard since Fran Drescher. I wanted to club her like a baby seal.

- I almost cried when the judge sent us BACK to the jury room because our foreperson had confused the defendant and plaintiff on the verdict form.