GreenEye Wire

I found this to be absolutely fascinating. I’ve always wondered what English sounds like to non-English speakers. Adriano Celentano, an Italian, has made up some gibberish to sound like American English. The kicker is, when I first listened to it, it sounded so much like English to me that my brain was desperately trying and trying to figure out what they were saying.

And…since Adriano is Italian, he decided to put a good beat so you can dance to it.

The Girls Guide to Homelessness is one of the most positive written blogs I’ve seen. It shines a light on the fact that the homeless are not always the stereotypical bums you see laying on the street.

I can’t even do a write up to summarize this properly.  The article is so dead on that every person who ever has to manage an IT person must read it.

Some good — and dead on — quotes

IT pros are sensitive to logic — that’s what you pay them for. When things don’t add up, they are prone to express their opinions on the matter, and the level of response will be proportional to the absurdity of the event. The more things that occur that make no sense, the more cynical IT pros will become. Standard organizational politics often run afoul of this, so IT pros can come to be seen as whiny or as having a victim mentality. Presuming this is a trait that must be disciplined out of them is a huge management mistake. IT pros complain primarily about logic, and primarily to people they respect. If you are dismissive of complaints, fail to recognize an illogical event or behave in deceptive ways, IT pros will likely stop complaining to you. You might mistake this as a behavioral improvement, when it’s actually a show of disrespect. It means you are no longer worth talking to, which leads to insubordination.

and

Good IT pros are not anti-bureaucracy, as many observers think. They are anti-stupidity. The difference is both subjective and subtle.

Read more:
The Unspoken Truth About Managing Geeks

Apparently, the Local Pot Dealer has moved out of the apartment complex because I’ve had many a visitor come knocking on my door. This apartment was vacated last year because the guy who was here before me was dealing. Thankfully he was dealing only pot…I’d have flat refused the place if it was anything else — pot heads are fairly mellow. That being said, I do keep a Beecher’s Bible — 45 pocket testament edition –  if the need arises.

I was tempted to put up a remote camera and take pictures, but honestly just want to keep people away…no need to piss them off.

Instead I put a sign on the door clearly stating in English and Spanish that I do not sell the product they are looking for.

Thank god the lease on this place is over at the end of the month.

I’ve started to learn German. Then I stop. Then I start up again. Then I get bored and stop again. But I’ve found a site that I think will inspire me to learn German once and for all. (Shameless SEO link right there…but these guys look to be cool, so they get one.)

Give boring German the middle finger: Pukka teaches popular German idioms, the best slang words, funny German sayings and useful German phrases.

No idea how good this site is, but the finger on the front page gave me a good laugh. Although don’t Germans use two fingers instead of their middle one? I’ll have to ask my friend Boris if it is two fingers or it is the middle one. I love Boris because he’s a German guy who looks American. And since I’m the American who looks German, it makes me smile when we walk together and strangers in Germany speak to me, not him.   And, Boris is a hell of a guy…genuinely a good person.

There’s also a very active ‘Speak German’ meetup group here in the Dallas area, so if I learn enough ‘clever sayings’, I might have to go test them out.