Brian Chirls

Race Condition

From Reuters, via CNN, via Jewbacca:

Los Angeles officials have asked that manufacturers, suppliers and contractors stop using the terms “master” and “slave” on computer equipment, saying such terms are unacceptable and offensive.

The request — which has some suppliers furious and others busy re-labeling components — came after an unidentified worker spotted a videotape machine carrying devices labeled “master” and “slave” and filed a discrimination complaint with the county’s Office of Affirmative Action Compliance.

[…]

“We would request that each manufacturer, supplier and contractor review, identify and remove/change any identification or labeling of equipment components that could be interpreted as discriminatory or offensive in nature,” Sandoval said in the memo, which was distributed last week and made available to Reuters.

The memo did not include any suggestions for alternative labels.

How about senpai and kohai?

Get the full story.

The Big Party

The event has officially been announced, and the invitations have gone out. Some of you may not have received the email. Here are a few possible reasons:

1) You have trained your adaptive spam filter on my name and/or any of the countless sales-oriented words in the body of the invitation message.

2) I tried to email you, but I don’t have a recent address for you.

3) You are not invited. Sucks for you that you’re not my friend.

A select few will fall into category 1) or 2). If this is the case, send an email my way, and I’ll make sure you have all the details. The rest of you may send an email with your name, address and social security number to spam@chirls.com.

A Very Special Blog.chirls.com

I was going to post a new Hot List today, but there has been an unexpected development that I feel I need to share. As of last Friday, I have decided to leave my position in the Brooklyn office. It’s not a decision that came easily, but it was helped along by the fact that they kept wheeling my desk chair out of the office with me in it. So the Hot List will have to wait.

Let me be clear about something: this is a good thing. The work was neither interesting nor challenging, and the terms of my employment were increasingly…unfavorable. Also, I was really tired of having my manicure ruined every time the carpenters asked me to carry a box of nails or shake their hands.

There is, of course, a down side. There were two or three people at the Brooklyn office with whom I shall miss working. There is also the matter of rejection. While almost everything about the working environment was completely awful, it still stings a little bit to be told I’m just not worth the money. It’s like being rejected by an ugly girl. You know how sometimes you meet a girl whose best features are her real swell personality and a quirky taste in hats? Maybe you met her at some college party on homecoming weekend or at someone’s gay wedding or something? And you decide you’re gonna be all friendly even though she insists on wearing spandex all the time when maybe she shouldn’t, but you still think her hats are great? So then she comes along and is like, “Hey, Chirls, it’s cool being your friend and all, but I want you to know that nothing is gonna happen between us ‘cause I just don’t think of you that way.” And you’re like, “What just happened here?” My job was like that, except without the hats and the swell personality.

So, I guess don’t call me at the office number anymore. Stay tuned for the Hot List. Good Stuff.

[Edit: Thanks to Jewbacca for expert help with unemployment research for this piece.]

Pocket Zeitgeist

A list of words recognized and not recognized by “T9™” text input on my mobile phone:

Recognized Not Recognized

foodstuffs emirates

encryption sneakily

antibiotic penicillin

vagina penis

ejaculate semen

bronx staten

brooklyn hoboken

lesbian zygote

spam zeitgeist

carbohydrate atkins

verizon uvula

samsung femur

netscape linux

microsoft enron

antitrust helmut

iraq qaeda

hitler saddam

bush kucinich

gephardt sharpton

kerry moseley

dean braun

clark lieberman

modernism postmodernism

impressionism cubism

picasso matisse

christmas hannukah

jesus buddah

buddhist hellmut

hindu bogota

maki sushi

nippon kyoto

icq msn

oscar emmy

A Few Gems

It’s been a busy few days, here at blog.chirls.com. I’m gonna have to give my personal assistant, Missy, a break pretty soon to give her fingers a chance to stop bleeding. But for now, we’re just too durn fulla ass-whoopin’ content to stop. So here are a few noteworthy goodies that popped up today.

Mark had a couple of major bylines over at the New York Times this week, in Education and Circuits. Between that and the narrow win the Marlins managed to fart out, maybe we’ll get a smile and a round of Jameson out of that ornery bastard. Thanks, pal. Where we would be without you to let us in on what’s happening on the web?

A nice little quote in Tony Lane’s review of “Sylvia” in the New Yorker (or is it the New York_er_?):

“the whole point of student jazz, then as now, is that it should sound like two cats beating up a goose.”

What a kickass magazine. The whole Making Movies issue (3/20/2003) was brilliant. I’m still not going to see “Sylvia.”

A package came from Amazon.com today:

  • Directing Actors by Judith Weston. Something I could use a little help with.

  • The Underpants, a play by Carl Sternheim, adaptation by Steve Martin. I saw this one a year or two ago. Brilliant.

  • Naked Pictures of Famous People by Jon Stewart. Smartest and funniest man on TV right now. Let’s see if he can write too. I already read about a third of the way through this one while I was dozing through tonight’s long and boring Yankee [sic] game. So far, mostly hilarious.

  • The Pleasure of My Company by Steve Martin. The big man’s new novel. Haven’t heard much about it. But Shopgirl was great (let’s hope they don’t screw up the movie), and Steve-o can do no wrong. (If he doesn’t already hate me – I’m pretty sure he does – he will if he ever finds out I called him Steve-o.)

I just finished Empire Falls by Richard Russo. Effin’ great. Ditto for Straight Man. I’m quite the reader these days. I rule.

Okay, it’s 3am, and I have to be up for work soon. The things I do to entertain you freakin’ people.

Dream Job

Here’s one more from the same guy.

I’ll tell you a secret, man. Before I started this job, i had a dream that i got this job! Not this job, specifically, but I dreamed that I worked with architects. Ok, there are no architects in this office. But it’s like that.