Category: diary-x.com posts

I Hate Javascript So Much

September 5, 2004 / / 0 Comments

I’m getting very frustrated and angry.

For those of you who don’t know, JavaScript is a programming language used in web pages. It can do little things like move the cursor to the next text field after you type in your credit card number, or it can do things like open new windows based on a user’s input.

Or it can be a miserable pain in the ass that won’t work no matter what you try to do.

For some reason, no one can agree on how to implement JavaScript in their browsers. Things that work fine in Internet Explorer won’t work at all in Navigator, and vice versa.

Most of the time, the browser will give me a message to the effect of: “Something is sorta wrong here, but I won’t tell you what it is. Have fun spending the next half hour searching for a missing comma, sucker.” The really fun ones don’t have messages. The browser just sits there, doing nothing and explaining nothing.

I’ve run into two of these so far today while trying to finish up my cousin’s website, and I have no idea what to do about them. A lot of the times, there isn’t anything wrong with my code! The browsers themselves are the problem! I don’t know that there is any other way to go about what I’m doing.

At this point, all I can do is stare at the damn screen, wonder what the hell is wrong, and attempt to squelch the urge to chug a bottle of whiskey.

I’m Back

August 29, 2004 / / 0 Comments

I’m finally back.

After moving out of Nick’s place, I didn’t have access to the Internet for a couple weeks. It’s been a busy couple days, but I finally have time to blog.

I realize my last couple posts have been kind of dark. I’ve been on a bit of a self destructive streak for the last couple month and a half: smoking pot virtually every day, chain smoking, and drinking. Well, this is the end of that. I’ve decided, starting the first of September, that I’m going to stop smoking cigarettes and weed. I’ve said this sort of thing before, but I think stating it publicly will help me stick to it.

I realized that this was necessary over the last couple of days. I got into my car and found that it held the stale reek of cigarette butts from the ashtray. I can’t sing worth shit anymore. When I try, I’m off key and can’t control my range or tonal quality.

The most telling part was today: I sat down at my computer to attempt to write a bit of code for my cousin’s website only to find that I couldn’t remember what I had been doing when I left off far too long ago. Not only that, but I couldn’t even concentrate enough to do any work. The best I could muster was a blank stare at the screen while re-reading what I had started over a month ago.

If I want my business to work, I’m going to have to be able to concentrate without any chemical distractions.

So that does it. I’m going to finish the pack of Parliaments I have, and that’s it. I’m not going to say I’ll never smoke again… I’m far too weak-willed for that. But I’m not going to have another drag or toke for the month of September. After that, I’ll see how I feel and play it by ear.

Wish me luck. It’s going to be difficult living with a chain-smoking pothead.

My New Job Sucks

July 22, 2004 / / 0 Comments

I like to think of my titles as very brief executive summaries. If you don’t want to bother reading the whole blog entry, you can usually read the title and get the gist of it. This post is just going to be a lot of ranting about how my new job sucks. Feel free to skip it.

Anyway… yeah. I’m not liking my new job too much. I graduated from college in May with a BBA, and a friend and I have decided to start a web design company. I can’t really work at a real job programming or something because it would almost certainly require me to be there around 50 hours a week. (That’s the way most entry level programming positions work, I’m told.) This wouldn’t give me enough time to devote to my web design business, so I’m going to be working a crappy job for the next year at least.

So I signed on at Gordman’s. It’s a department store similar to Kohl’s, but with better prices. I’m going to be the shoe department manager. Right now, however, we’re putting the store together and it SUCKS.

I have to be there each morning at 7:00am. I have no idea why this is. It’s stupid. There’s no reason for us to need to be there at that time. Gordman’s schedules when the trucks show up, why not schedule them a bit later? Like even 8:00, maybe? Since I live an hour away, I have to get up at 5:15 to make it to my car pool on time.

The construction workers are two or three weeks behind schedule. They were supposed to be completely done by last Friday. Yeah, right. Like anyone actually expects union workers to get a damn thing done on time or under budget. They didn’t even have all of the interior walls up when I left on Monday. We’re working around them right now, and it’s a pain in the ass for everyone.

We usually have about three scheduled trucks show up each day. However, we also have about the same number each day that just appear whenever the hell they feel like it. We unload them and then later count the pieces to make sure that we have everything. Since my counts are rarely, if ever, anywhere close to what the sheet says, it’s beginning to make me doubt my ability to count. There’s nothing quite like fucking up a very simple task to make you feel like a complete idiot.

So, to sum up: when my job isn’t backbreaking and menial, it’s endlessly repetitive and mind-numbing. At the end of the day, I come home drenched in sweat, exhausted, and smelly. This job sucks.