As a follow up to a previous entry, it appears that Gabriel Garcia Marquez's new novel will be available in English translation on 10/25/2005, exactly one year after the original Spanish version was published. At least, Amazon.com says you can buy it and it will be delivered on that date, and Amazon.com is where I go for 99% of my book news.
February 2005 Archives
A friend of mine has recently started a blog, The Good Life, over on blogspot. It appears to be clever, well-written, regularly updated, and not completely inane - everything MixedMetaphors is not.
I'm staring at a stack of books right now wondering what I should read next. I'm afraid that my book purchasing habits have outpurchased my book reading. The current front runners are:
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The Little Friend by Donna Tartt
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
Molloy and Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett
A Kaddish for An Unborn Child by Imre Kertesz
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger
Herzog by Saul Bellow
An interesting mix... plus some books of short stories I haven't finished and a few others that I'm not bothering to list because they haven't made the cut. I'm not sure how I got into this book backlog, this back booklog, but I might have to restrict myself from any more trips to BookPeople until I manage to lessen the unread stack.
Why am I bothering to post this to my blog? Because my blog isn't just about witty rants on corporate politics, but also meaningless rambling about random thoughts and trivial musings about daily nonsense.
This is a really good book. I respect Steve Martin, I think he is a brilliant guy. The whole celebrity worship culture upsets me and I rarely give even a nod of my head to actors, but I make an exception for Steve Martin. And, I suppose that my typical celebrity-revulsion is only for actors: I am awash with fondness for writers and directors. Plus, I tend to think that the comic actors are for some reason not given the same respect as dramatic actors when, in my opinion, it's a hundred times more difficult to be funny, so therefore I'm more lenient to the funny ones. Anyway, Steve Martin is all of those things, good and bad, but if you can forget about his celebrity for a minute you'll find that he writes very well.
"The Please of My Company" is about an obessive compulsive recluse and his claustrophobic adventures in love. He can't step down from curbs and he needs to have 1125 watts of light bulbs on in his house at all times. As I've stated before, I love novels about obsessive compulsive characters, and much of my writing has to do with the obessive, if not the obsessive compulsive. The protagonist is just shy of believable (sometimes he is able to overcome his obsessions just a bit too easily) but quite endearing, and I was definitely pulling for him. The novel took some unexpected turns and did a good job of taking characters you thought were inconsequential (because of the protagonist's somewhat tainted view of them) and then building them into real, kind people.
There were a few red herrings and loose ends (whatever happened to that whole crime show thing?) but all in all it ended well. Perhaps one could say it ended too neatly, but sometimes I want a book where everything is happily ever after.
In Steve Martin's first book (that I know of) "Shop Girl", the first four fifths are great and then suddenly he changes pace and ends the book in about 5 pages of summary. It's as if he had a deadline or got bored and decided to wrap it up and move on. This latest work is not that way and he takes a nice slow almost-biblical journey to bring the book to a turning point, which turns out to be sort of a fake climax, and then eventually the end. Despite a few flaws, I really like the main character and I really like the book. I will continue to read Steve Martin's novels (if he writes any more) even though I hate celebrities.
It took me a lot longer to read "Heart of Darkness" than one might expect, considering its low page count. To be honest, I've been distracted by the highly addictive World of Warcraft game, though I've made sure to set aside at least a little time to progress on the classics.
My girlfriend got me this book as one of many Hannukah/Christmas presents. I expected "Apocolypse Now" and for anyone out there who has seen the movie but not read the book, there really is very little connection except for a guy named "Kurtz". I'm not quite sure what to make of this book. It's interesting, but it seemed anti-climactic. The protagonist becomes obsessed with Kurtz before he even meets him, and when he does meet him its for all of about two pages in the total story. Obviously the events of our protagonist in Africa have deeply affected him for the rest of his life, but I just didn't quite see how (I could understand why... just not how he'd been changed by it). Maybe I spent too much time swapping back and forth between the book and my computer game to really get deep enough into the novel. I'm normally a pretty astute reader and think that perhaps I didn't give this book the attention it needed.
Anyway, maybe I'll read it again one day, though for now I have a lot of books ready to go that I'm excited to read and I'm afraid Conrad will have to wait to get his proper review.
Project Manager: Dev lead, I need an estimate on how long it will take to develop this new project.
Development Lead: I'll need to see some requirements for that project first.
Project Manager: Can't you just give me a quick estimate based on the high-level scope.
Development Lead: The high-level scope provides no information. I need to know what it is we'd be building.
Project Manager: I can't get requirements until the project is approved, for which I need to provide an estimate.
Development Lead: I can't give an estimate until I have requirements.
Project Manager: Then there will never be any new projects ever again because no projects will ever be approved.
Development Lead: Okay, fine, the estimate is ten to one hundred weeks.
Project Manager: What? That estimate is both ridiculously high and ridiculously ambiguous.
Development Lead: That's the best I can give you without requirements.
Project Manager: How about I just say 10 weeks?
Development Lead: No! If any one of a million things is not best case scenario we'll never hit that timeline. How about you just say 100 weeks?
Project Manager: No! The project will never be approved with an estimate that high! How about 15 weeks? This is only an estimate, remember, no one is going to hold you to this estimate.
Development Lead: No one is going to hold me to it?
Project Manager: Of course not, that's why they call it an estimate.
Development Lead: You promise?
Project Manager: Once the requirements are complete we'll have a chance to sit down and fully revise all the estimates.
Development Lead: Okay, as long as you put in big letters above the estimate that this is only an estimate and that we will need to revise it after requirements are complete.
Project Manager: Giant letters. Giant.
Development Lead: Okay.
[FIFTEEN WEEKS LATER]
Project Manager: WHY ISN'T THIS PROJECT FINISHED? YOU TOLD ME IT WOULD BE DONE IN FIFTEEN WEEKS! I COMMUNICATED THAT TO ALL THE CLIENTS AND THEY ARE EXPECTING IT DONE NOW!!!
Development Lead: *Sigh*
Getting resources approved has been very, very difficult lately. It's been somewhat futile, because every time I actually manage to get a new resource approved, there's another hiring freeze and all previously approved positions are refrozen until reapproval. Here's the current process:
Step 1: Submit resource requests to upper management
Step 2: Push resource requests all the way up the chain because everyone needs to sign off.
Step 3: Get approval.
Step 4: Find out there's a hiring freeze and all positions need to be reapproved.
Step 5: Repeat steps 1-3.
Step 6: Locate candidate to hire.
Step 7: Find out there's another hiring freeze, put in place by the same people who executed the first hiring freeze, and all positions need to be reapproved.
Step 8: Repeat Step 5
Step 9: Repeat Step 7.
Step 10: Repeat Steps 8-9.
Step 11: Repeat Step 10 indefinitely.
Step 12: Give up and hire the candidate as a contractor and hope nobody notices the extra expense each month.
Despite the fact that I got distracted by list antics, the point is clear. Getting new full time positions approved is proving to be impossible. But, really, my problem is not that I can't hire the people I need, it's that the whole notion of "approval" is broken. I'm getting approval from the same people who then tell me there is a freeze nullifying that approval. Here's a brief abstracted conversation to showcase the absurdity:
Me: Can I get approval for X?
Them: Yes.
Me: Great!
Them: But there's a freeze on X, so you can't.
Me: Who instituted this freeze?
Them: Us.
Me: But you just gave me approval.
Them: Yes, but there's a freeze.
Me: But you made the freeze! Your approval can bypass the freeze!
Them: True. Okay, approved.
Me: Great!
Them: Wait, there's a NEW freeze on X.
Me: What does that mean?
Them: This new freeze puts all previous approvals on hold.
Me: But you just gave me approval to bypass the freeze, and then you immediately created a new freeze!
Them: Correct.
Me: Why did you give me approval to bypass the freeze if you were just going to refreeze? And why did you give me approval in the first place if there was an existing freeze negating that original approval?
Them: Nobody knows. NOBODY KNOWS!!!
Seriously, nobody knows.
- I'll just take your word on that.
- Are you sure you shouldn't be allocating a little more here, just in case?
- We need to cut out ten million dollars from the total budget, but we'll find that in someone else's group.
- Didn't we tell you that this year your budget was going to be saddled with the annual amortization of these previous projects you with which you were only tangentially involved? Oh. In that case, we won't make you cut two million dollars to cover it.
- Do you mind if I smoke... marijuana? Because, seriously, I need to get into the same frame of mind you were in when you wrote this thing.
- Incidentally, these donuts are coming out of your cost center.
- Don't think last night is going to get you any more dollars allocated to travel and entertainment.
- Do you think glasses make me look nerdy? Seriously.
- We're just going to make up the monthly expenditure report anyway, so, sure, I'll approve whatever you've got.
- But will it save you 15% on car insurance? (Actually, this might be something you hear at one of my budget meetings, but for different reasons.) (You know, I hate jokes that are funny only because they make reference to other pop cultural jokes which are, themselves, not funny. For examples, I can't stand parodies of the MasterCard "priceless" ads. Something isn't funny simply because it mimicks another joke. So I recognize that this list item is unfunny and derivative. But, frankly, this whole post is sort of dumb, so I'll go with it. It's a theme: Unfunniness.)
- Okay.
- Approved.
An interesting site that discusses the change in dating from a marriage-based culture to a hookup-based culture and how that impacts society. I don't necessarily agree with everything here, but I think it is a really interesting and important topic of discussion.
I've been reading a lot of J. D. Salinger in the last couple of years, making up for time lost. (Well, I use the term "a lot" loosely, since there isn't much by him to read). It's hard to read much J. D. Salinger, especially these two novellas, without starting to wonder how autobiographical it all is. Is he Seymour? Is he Buddy? So much of Salinger's writing is obsessed with Seymour Glass that, at the very least, you have to assume he himself is obsessed with Seymour Glass.
The first novella "Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters" is excellent. It has the odd Salinger style of being more like a play than prose. The action all takes place in one or two locations with very little movement and it's almost all conversation. Definitely the sort of thing you'd expect on stage. Despite this (or perhaps because of it) the main character (Buddy Glass) is deep and troubled and intriguing. Every image in the novel seems multi-layered and symbolic, especially the strange, smiling, deaf-mute top-hatted man. If you don't see some sort of religious symbology in that sort of character then you have a very different take on literature.
"Seymour: An Introduction" just wasn't as compelling. It's essentially a monologue about Seymour by Buddy, the younger brother. At first I thought it was a story about Seymour, but as a story about Seymour it's just a rambling description and not very interesting. Then I realized it is actually a story about Buddy and about his obsession with Seymour, which is actually more interesting, because suddenly the rambling prose has a second meeting. But then I realized that Salinger himself is obsessed with Seymour, and that therefore the story actually is just about Seymour. There's a difference between a story about an obsessed character and a story by an obsessed author. Actually, no matter what the reality is, I just couldn't get into "Seymour: An Introduction". It didn't have any of the almost biblical parable feel of his other Glass-family novellas.
I went to do a little research on Salinger, which consisted of me typing "J. D. Salinger" into Google and hitting "I'm Feeling Lucky". (Whenever appropriate I like to use the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, though it isn't often.) I didn't really learn much and then I decided that since I'm a firm believe in the author's life having nothing to do with the quality of his or her work, I left off my quest. I did discover that J. D. is not Buddy, which is what I wanted to know.
There have been a lot of business books published analyzing why it is that various corporate projects fail. But what about all those projects that never even start? Whether it's paying for data center upgrades, building a new online store or expanding the call center, most big companies have some sort of internal review process for new initiatives; making it past that gauntlet of executives to get the needed signatures can be daunting. It should be easy: if the revenue/savings are greater than the expense then "yes", if not, "no". But nothing, nothing, nothing is easy when you present to the board. So for everybody trying to rustle up internal funding for just such a corporate venture you should take a look at common reasons (some taken from actual meeting minutes) projects are rejected.
1a. Too expensive
Detail: The expense of the project is greater than the potential revenue or cost savings.
1b. Too expensive
Detail: While the expense of the project is less than the potential revenue or cost savings, the board doesn't like the look of that number. It looks big. Come back when it looks smaller. Or more round.
1c. Too expensive
Detail: While the expense of the project is less than the potential revenue, everyone on the board knows you made up those revenue numbers at the last minute and no one believes them.
2a. Too inexpensive
Detail: Why are you wasting the board's time with this project? Just buy the damn computer using the normal purchasing process.
2b. Too inexpensive
Detail: While the potential revenue seems enormous compared to the minimal expense, the board feels that it can't possibly be a high priority project if it costs so little.
3. Not our core business
Detail: While it sounds like a great project, this isn't our core business. You shouldn't sell shoes if you're not a shoe store. Yes, I know your project has nothing to do with shoes. That was a metaphor.
4. Too many high priority projects
Detail: The guy before you presented a much more exciting project, and we don't want to start two projects of this magnitude at once.
5. Nine women can't have a baby in one month
Detail: Self-explanatory
Further detail for those who don't take the board's word as gospel: While the project looks appealing, you're trying to build an entire new business process in two months by throwing money at it, but even if you hire 100 people there is a limit to how many resources will be effective at solving the problem.
6. Rome wasn't built in a day
Detail: See number 5.
7. This is how our business has always been done and we're not going to change it now, a.k.a. the crotchety-old-man rejection.
Detail: Self-explanatory.
8. Wait until the senior board member retires
Detail: Self-explanatory
9. No Good Reason
Detail: The board doesn't have to justify itself to anyone.
10. ROI form improperly filed
Detail: Yes, the board is rejecting a high-revenue, low-cost project because of paperwork. The paperwork is for the greater good. Without paperwork there would be chaos. Chaos!
11. History of Failure
Detail: All your projects fail, so no more new projects until you get the last one to start generating revenue. Additionally, for your own welfare you probably don't want to remind us about past failures by proposing more projects.
12. Good Money After Bad
Detail: This isn't actually a new project, it's a subtle way of getting more money for a previous project which apparently costs twice what you said it would cost. We don't want to throw good money after bad. The actual project cost is this new cost plus the money you've already spent, which is too much. Stop trying to fool us.
13. Meta-Rejection
Detail: How come you keep proposing new projects to us? Because we keep rejecting them? We probably had good reasons. Next!
14. De Facto Rejection
Detail: We'd have to start this project immediately to make it successful and we can't make up our minds that quickly. Instead we're going to keep pushing off a decision until the project goes away by itself.
15. Sick of hearing so many projects
Detail: It's been a long day, can't we hear this project proposal at the next meeting? All in favor? Aye! See you next month.
There are, of course, many, many other reasons projects are rejected, but this list should help you get started. Good luck!
I'm sick again. I seem to be getting sick a lot lately. I think it has something to do with the fact that my girlfriend works with children. Children are little incubators for germs. Cute little incubators, I'll give you that. So she has these super high tolerance levels from extended exposure, but she brings all the germs home for my body to experiment with. I just ended a sentence with a preposition, see how sick I am? I have nothing funny to say. This blog is becoming unfunny. And unupdated. The book track section is a lot more active and interesting than the blog, but who really cares about that section? Anyway, I'm just raving because I am sick. Feel better everyone in the world who is sick! Feel better!
It's been a week and I finally got around to fixing my servr. The fixing process took about five minutes. Five minutes I couldn't be bothered to spend before now. I've probably lost all my readers over the last week, but that's okay, because, as you know, I don't like my readers. I find them perplexing and unnerving. Now this blog can finally reclaim its true purpose: lunatic rantings into the void, to be ignored by everyone. Blogs are like the shouted nonsense of insane street walkers, dispersed into what is theoretically a public space for discource, but nervously disregarded by the embarrassed passerbys unlucky enough to be within earshot. Yes, that's me. One day I'll probably be out there physically on the street. When I look back at my MixedMetaphors.net days, pausing to take a break from haranguing pedestrians with hollered tales of impending doom, I'll know that this blog stage of my life was not wasted. No, it was practice.
