Darren Mckeeman -- The Collected Works

sacred cows make the best burgers

• evil clowns!

  2008 Nov 18

  
  evil clowns!
  Originally uploaded by Darren Mckeeman.

  Thanks to the ubiquitous Michaelangelo Saucedo, I now have photographic evidence of my evil clown partner-in-crime Jan and I on Halloween evening.
  
  We are scary!
  

• The Dr. House Drinking Game

  2008 Nov 13

  One of my favorite TV shows is House. Not only have I always thought Hugh Laurie was funny as hell (I loved him in Black Adder and The Young Ones) but the character does awesome things most people wish they could do, like saying flat out to people "You're an idiot."
  
  I thought that I would create a drinking game, but someone beat me to it. The original of this is at http://bethestory.com/2006/10/10/the-dr-house-drinking-game
  
  * When Gregory House pops a Vicodin, take a drink.
  * If he goes the entire episode without popping a Vicodin, take three .
  * When someone has a seizure, take a drink.
  * When someone goes into cardiac arrest, take a drink.
  * When a patient bleeds profusely, take a drink.
  * When a patient spews fluid from a body orifice, take a drink.
  * When a patient spews blood from a body orifice, take two drinks.
  * When a patient doubts House’s diagnosis, take a drink.
  * When House’s team disagrees with his diagnosis, take a drink for each member of the team.
  * When Cuddy countermands House’s orders, take a drink.
  * When House acts against Cuddy or hospital rules, take a drink.
  * When House insults one of his clinic patients, take a drink.
  * When House talks down to one of the hospital staff, take a drink.
  * When House or his team illegally searches someone’s home, take a drink.
  * When House and his team performs any medical procedure against the patient’s wishes, take a drink.
  * Whenever you find out a patient is fibbing on his medical history, take a drink.
  * Whenever House lies in a patient report, take a drink.
  * Then, when House tells a patient he’ll die unless he cooperates, take a drink.
  * Every time there is sexual tension between two characters, take a drink for every doctor involved. (Borrowed from the Grey’s Anatomy drinking game.)
  * Every time House makes an inappropriate sexual comment to Cuddy or Cameron, take a drink.
  * Every time House makes an insensitive racial remark to Foreman, take a drink.
  * Every time House makes fun of Aussies to Chase, take a drink. (Hey, we can’t leave him out!)
  * Whenever someone makes a current-event or pop-culture reference, take a drink. (Borrowed from the Gilmore Girls drinking game.)
  * Every time someone has mommy or daddy issues, take a drink.
  * Every time it’s not lupus, take a drink.
  * If they think it might be cancer, take a drink.
  * If they have to choose which tests to do, because they’re out of time or there’s some other restraint, take a drink.
  * If they perform every test they can think of on a diagnostic fishing expedition, no matter the cost, take a drink.
  
  
  

• Tribe.net: A short explanation

  2008 Nov 12

  So, I am still working for Tribe.net. I couldn't talk about what was going on for a long time, but now I can probably talk without too much retribution. The website finally has what it needs to survive, and it's probably because of my drastic actions.
  
  If you recall, about a month and a half ago I tendered my resignation to Utah Street Networks, the company that owns tribe.net. I did this just after one of the partitions on the SAN (storage area network) filled up while I was running a repair on the database. I discovered that very nasty things happen to a MySQL database in this situation, and it was the culmination of about a year's worth of frustration. I've been running the entire site (and not very well, I might add) by myself for close to a year and a half. Every time I tried to hire contractors, present a plan for upgrading the site, or actually get anything done that involved more than me or the equipment we had was completely shut down by the CEO. Entropy was taking over -- you try running a badly-written website on 4 year old machines with no support and see how grey your hair gets. I had it and finally lost it with the owner after he got snippy with me in email. When everything came out in the wash and he saw how pissed off both the user and I were, the owner tried to blame it on the CEO. I didn't and still do not buy this -- if you own something, you should pay attention to it. The Buck Stops Here is not just a motto on Harry S. Truman's desk -- it's the way things should be. The owner should not point fingers but should just solve the problems.
  
  My letter of resignation specified that I would be happy to work for Tribe.net as long as they were not involved with the company -- basically a "sell the company or it's going to go under" ultimatum. It's true though -- even now if I quit or get hit by a bus, the site will crash and burn in a matter of days. It seems to be the way the site was written.
  
  Well, as it turned out, the owner had been considering an offer to buy the site for close to two years. My resignation gave him a kick in the pants to actually do it. The new company is run by some tribe.net members who actually have some success in running companies. This makes me happy, because I couldn't really see any reason why anyone gave the old management folks money to begin with. Unlike their new company and many companies I know in the Web 2.0 hoopla, tribe.net actually has a revenue stream that can be grown -- but I can't do it myself because I'm a tech person.
  
  This is all part of a new effort to not get walked on by me. All of my life, I've let things bother me and bother me until I blow up when that last straw is piled on -- and if you were the person loading that last straw, you were in trouble. These days, I have stopped being so quiet about things. I speak my mind a lot more. I always thought that the people I worked for had to be smart because they were in charge, right? Well, I've finally realized that just because someone has money and VC backers and is in charge doesn't mean these people are smart or even that they know what they are doing. It just means that they got lucky once and someone is betting on them again. Well, let them run their new company into the ground is my attitude.
  
  I am so incoherently happy to be rid of the old management that I can't stop smiling. What's even better is that the new management are tech folks (one of them is old dis.org crew) and they actually don't look at me like idiots when I tell them that this, that, or the other has gone wrong. The best feeling, though, is that I know now that someone actually has my back. It's a lot better than working without a net, let me tell you. I can actually go on VACATIONS and not pay attention to the website -- although it's pretty hard to get out of the mode of checking everything constantly and sleeping with my cell phone.
  
  Tribe.net is a bit sick right now. The problems that I have been fighting with have driven off most of the community. Tribe.net has an awesome advantage that I had with gothic.net though -- a really choice piece of web real estate. We get between 500 and 600 new registrations per day due to the work done to place us high up in the search engine results. The thing that the new regime agrees with me on now is that the site needs a complete rewrite to make it relevant again. I already have most of this rewrite laid out, and as soon as I'm done we'll be giving an offshore company the contract to write the whole thing over -- if we do it in PHP. I am still pushing for Ruby on Rails though.
  
  Things are going to get a lot better from here on out. The real problems are gone. Hallelujah! Can I get an AMEN?