I must admit, I'm kind of bitter about artists. Not that they as a whole have somehow personally affronted me, but because that they get away with so much more crap than the rest of us, and they get paid for it.

Examples: In the windows of the art school I pass on the way to work everyday, there are several new exhibits. One is merely a bunch of individual tulips (I think) in square glass pots, arranged in a big square on the floor. Anybody could have done this while simply decorating their home!

The other exhibit that irks me even more definitely took a little time and effort on the artist's part, but has little in the way of "beauty" and no valuable expression whatsoever. S/he took an old chair, set a handful of coffee cups and saucers on the seat, then covered them with wax drippings.

So why couldn't I do that? I can't draw or paint worth a wad of ABC gum, but I can sculpt and assemble interesting projects, ones that are visually appealing and that, more importantly, speak something. As a kid in Junior High I made some great little humanoid sculptures out of the wire from curtain hooks. In my college dorm's annual art competition, I frequently won "Honorable Mention" or "Most Original" awards for my mixed-media sculptures. One involved a broken and disassembled steam iron pieced together with cracks running through, and was accompanied by an artist's statement about the fracturing of the family. Another noteworthy project included computer parts, a Lone Ranger mask, handcuffs, and a mirror; and spoke to the murky dangers of the Internet.

But because I can't draw, I could never get into art school. And because I didn't go to art school, I could never be respected (and paid) as an artist for making crap like that. Er, I mean, for making art like that.

That's it, I've decided: today I'm having my last Coke. I have been a serious Coke addict for a few months ago. (Coca-Cola, that is—what were you thinking I meant?) I rarely drink any soda at all, but lately I've just been craving and shooting Coke. And it's got to stop.

So right now I'm drinking my Last Coke. And blogging about it. And thinking of all the fond memories I've had while drinking Coke. And humming old Coke commercial jingles to myself. And wishing the bottle was bigger, so I could enjoy it longer.

There are legitimate reasons that Ainsley calls me "Captain Efficiency"... Here's an example:

My new job requires me to wear a tie to work everyday. Since I am tall, the tail of the tie is rarely long enough to fit under the label on the back of the tie that could keep it from flopping about (you guys should know what I'm talking about). Now, I know some people solve this by tucking the tail of the tie inside their shirts, but I find that this leaves an unsightly bulge. Other have fancy tie clips, but I do not own one (yet—it's on the Christmas wishlist).

So my solution is that when I arrive at the office, I use a tiny little piece of clear tape to affix the tie's tail to the back of the tie, where it happily stays all day long. I call it the Poor Man's Tie Clip.

I was frustrated this weekend to hear a friend had been totally pulled in by the McCain's campaign's smear of Obama in associating the Democratic candidate with "known terrorists"—my friend had simply assumed that it meant Obama was part of Al Queda, and therefore this would clearly lead to another 9-11 event! I tried to explain, but he wouldn't hear otherwise.

So, please people, learn about Bill Ayers and the Weathermen before you judge. It's really interesting, and you can even watch the movie.

I was messing around with SharePoint Designer this morning, creating what I thought would be a simple Data View grid off of my Tasks list. However, the GUI tools for filtering the data didn't have any option to use date math—you could specify "[Current Date]" or pick an exact/permanent date, but no offsets. Grr...

It took me some serious Googling to find a useful solution from the M$ SPD Team Blog: Hack the CAML query to filter for items within a date range relative to today. Of course, that article still makes it more complicated that it really needs to be: in short, you just need to locate the '<Today/>' tag in the <SharePoint::SPDataSource> bit and change it to '<Today OffsetDays='15'/>' (that is, 2 weeks ahead, in this example), and it works great. Sheesh.

IMHO, Tab Mix Plus is one of the most helpful Firefox extensions. If you, like me, spend much of the day researching things on the web, then the kind of control it gives you is a godsend.

Case in point: today I wanted to keep one page/tab open all day, as it showed the server monitoring status. With the help of Tab Mix Plus I was able to merge the pop-up window into my main window, refresh the page every 15 minutes, and protect it so I couldn't overwrite it with another URL... very helpful.

Oh, and I learned the difference between the "Protect Tab" and "Lock Tab" options, both of which I used in this case, thanks to this How-to Geek article.

Note to self: remember that when you install WSUS 3.0 to the non-default web site (usually port 8530), it often fails to create the /Selfupdate and /ClientWebService virtual directories in IIS, and this can cause the annoying status of "Not yet reported".

The solution, of course, is to re-create the vdirs. The old way was to run 'Selfupdate.msi' from the "%Program Files%\Update Services\Setup" directory, but now you can run the 'installselfupdateonport80.vbs' from there. And yes, you want them on your port 80 site (if you can). You may have to use the vdir save-to-file and create-from-file features to move 'em around to the right location; see MSKB 920659 for more help.

Last week the NYTimes published a very interesting op-ed entitled, "This Economy Does Not Compute"—highly recommended reading. Not only does the article discuss the present U.S. financial crisis (as you'd expect), but also computer modeling of market psychology. This application of AI is really interesting and surprisingly informative, so it's nice to see it being discussed in a wider venue.

I love how Microsoft Office 2007 helps me pretty-print just about any off-the-cuff document in just a click or two. I mean, I'm all for Open Source software, competition, and all that... but the new features in Office 2007 (like the context-sensitive "Ribbon", the instant previewing, pre-built styles, and more) are irreplaceable; particularly for efficiency-driven, obsessive-compulsive me.

Now the question is: should I sue Micro$oft for enabling my OCD, or should I thank them?

...are apparently condemned to a life in politics.

Lately I've been on an NPR kick, listening to the news and such on the way to and from work. Normally I can't take this too long; after a few days, I tend to think I may just have Considered All Things, and want to go back to ignoring most of them.

But anyway, the news lately has been Treasury Secretary Paulson's proposed "bailout" of the financial industry to the tune of $700 billion dollars. Wow. One NPR correspondent made the understatement about how this "demonstrates a certain lack of understanding how we came to be in this predicament in the first place." Indeed! Why should the American taxpayers borrow this incredible amount just to pay off banks who went overboard trying to get people to borrow money beyond their means? Does anyone remember the Black Monday stock market crash that started the Great Depression? My history book always told me that it was due to too many loans and bad borrowers. And furthermore, why should we be taking this advice from the former CEO of Goldman-Sachs? Seems to me that the bailout really only helps his old buddies in the big financial firms.

In local news, today is my last day at BEK Inc.. On Monday morning I will start at Atlantic Fund Administration in downtown Portland. What a strange time to be joining the ranks of the financial industry!