GeePawHill

GeePawHill, 3 days ago

@Lizette603_23 NumNumSoon!

GeePawHill, 4 days ago

@impactology Possibly a weird thing for me to say: this is almost exactly how I feel about computer geek pedagogy, too.

So much didactics, so little feel for the joy of free association, exploration, curiosity, experiment.

GeePawHill, 4 days ago

@impactology When I'm teaching in code, some of the phrases I use:

"Mad sexy, yeah?"

"How fucking cool is that?!"

"Can you believe some bozo just thought of this?"

"Lemme just fuck with it for a minute."

Sometimes I tweak code, and I sound like an optometrist: "This lens, click-clack, or this lens? A, click-clack, or B?"

GeePawHill, 4 days ago

@impactology Cool! I will check it out.

GeePawHill, 5 days ago

@skinnylatte I certainly enjoy your food threads, TILs by the dozen, and also your photography threads, TILs by the dozen.

As a content creator myself, I have to say, I have come to believe there is almost no way to do it that doesn't imperil right livelihood.

I have seen some people do it, but they are very rare, and very gifted, and very lucky. I once thought I could, and now don't think I can.

GeePawHill, 5 days ago

@RickiTarr I coach software development teams, am reasonably well-known for it, and have a certain record of success.

People ask me why I'm good at it.

I have certain knacks, to be sure, organic shit I don't really control.

But the key, usually, is just this: I am the only person in the room who doesn't give a shit about deadlines, or projects, or emergencies. The only thing that matters to me is the health of the team.

Software orgs rarely go out of business because of an "emergency".

GeePawHill, 6 days ago

@RickiTarr The Jerk. Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A Fish Called Wanda.

Virginia's go-to is Time Bandits.

GeePawHill, 5 days ago

@Peternimmo @RickiTarr Local Hero is one of my best-all-time.

I recently started a dinner'n'a'movie with the gee-kids, I gave them three choices of film, they picked one (The King of Hearts).

But the second one was Local Hero. (Third was The Coca-Cola Kid).

All movies about what I think of as the second coming of age, not first love and charming dorkiness, but real adulthood, the transition from 25 to 35.

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

I have many cool bar stories. Most of them don't center on substance abuse, either.

I've loved bars since I was a kid in the local beer taverns of Parsons, KS. Though I drinks a bit -- channeling Mr. Bojangles here -- I haven't always, and my love for bars isn't my love for alcohol.

I spent many a night downin' diet cokes, reading my book, hangin' with strangers, talkin' about whatever came up.

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

One night, I joined my boss at a gig he'd been at for a while. I'd arrived Sunday, worked Monday, and it was Monday night.

We go to the hotel bar, bartender says, "Hey, Mike, neat Scotch and a Diet Coke?" I nodded, then he took the boss's order.

Boss leans over to me: "How the fuck do you do that?!?" I've been here six fucking weeks, and he doesn't know my name or my drink."

The secret: servers are almost like real people, and if you interact with them that way, they notice.

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

Another time, somewhere in the Valley, I think(?), I was at a bar watching a basketball game. And two stools away sat a beautiful young woman.

And she watched the game, too, and she talked to me about it, and she knew her b-ball.

She scooted next to me, and she was charmin' the fuck outta me.

So she goes to the bathroom.

Bartender leans over, he says, "Dude, uhhh, she's workin'."

I was so shocked. "No shit? I thought I was just really in the zone."

He said, "Yeah, I could tell."

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

I came home from a gig with a sad big toe. Sad enough that I asked Virginia to take a look at it. She cluck-clucks, and as she touches it, the toenail comes off in a nasty bloody mess.

No choice, I had to confess: "Bar fight."

I wasn't in the bar fight, mind you. I'm not that kinda girl. But when the fight started, I stood up to go, and the guy in front of me scooted his barstool back, and the leg landed on my big toe, just as he got knocked back onto it.

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

I once had a hard-drinking acquaintance in a bar tell me that he was dying of untreatable cancer, and that he didn't want any of his friends or family to know. He said I had always seemed like a nice guy who could keep a secret.

I could, and did.

He died, walking down a country road in a blizzard, when his best friend, driving down that country road in a blizzard, ran him over.

I still don't know if it was an assisted suicide.

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

One night, at a place where I was regular -- the worst year of my life, to be honest -- a patron started shit-talking the little 5' tall female bartender who had cut him off.

She told him to leave. He said, "Who's gonna make me, you?"

Musta been 20 of us, all got off our barstools, all just turned towards him.

He was wasted, but he wasn't too wasted to walk away. :)

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

Once, arriving in Detroit, on a Saturday, I grabbed my bag and caught a cab, and he took me to the hotel. I told him to wait. Came back out, and said, "Hey, take me to a nice quiet bar, where I can have a drink and read my book and it'll be okay. No clubs, just a bar."

He nodded.

(Detroit has business venues on alleys rather than main drags.)

He takes me to this place, the alley is dark, and he points me towards this fence. "There."

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

I'm, you know, I'm a country boy, and I read me some stories, and I'm like, "Wait, what? That's a bar? Are you sure?"

He nodded.

So I put one foot out of the cab, but not my full weight on it.

Just then, some guy opens the wooden gate and comes out clearly wasted.

I asked him if it was legit bar. "Sure," he said, right through there."

GeePawHill, 7 days ago

So I strapped on my genitalia, got out the cab, and went through the wooden gate.

It was a wonderful bar.

Gay bar, very quiet, homey, chatty. The bartender loved classic movies. I read my book, drank very slowly, and watched the movie.

An absolutely charming place, I stayed for like six hours, and would go there any time. But I was never able to find it again.

GeePawHill, 8 days ago

@mekkaokereke You're a badass, my friend. You got a spotter there?

GeePawHill, 8 days ago

@mekkaokereke Cool, good.

I am not a person who knows much about these things, so I wasn't doing knowing shit.

GeePawHill, 8 days ago

@mekkaokereke Just, you know, you're my Mekka, and I care for you.

GeePawHill, 8 days ago

@StillIRise1963 If Black Americans had ever given up, America would not be all the things so many Americans, even white supremacist Americans, take for granted.

To pick just one, imagine American music -- you'll have to imagine it, because we have zero exemplars of it -- without Black Americans refusing to give up.