Right?
And so castles made of sand melts into the sea, eventually
-- Jimmy Hendrix "Castles Made of Sand"
A little trivia before we begin. The American Southwest is very historical and very rich in its Spanish and Indian cultures. Just like Taco Bell will always taste like Taco Bell, Christian (Catholic) religion will always be a strong part of the American southwest. Let's look at the names of some of the towns:
Santa Fe in English means
Holy Faith;
Los Angeles means
The (City of) Angels;
Sacramento tanslates to
Sacrement; and
Las Cruces in Spanish translates to
the crossings,
the crossroads,
the crosses. Not to mention any of the bazillion towns and cities with
San and
St preceding the name - Catholic Saints anyone?
Now for the bullshit. Paul F. Weinbaum is at it again, only this time, instead of trying to get rid of a
statue he's
suing his town to change their logo. Las Cruces has for their logo, a sun burst with three crosses and this guy has been trying to get these images wiped from the public's eye for quite some time. First off, in my opinion Mr. Weinbaum, you're a dipshit. Before there were Christians, there were Jews, before there were Jews, there were Pagans. And all this time through religious change, Romans had been crucifying the lot of them; Pagans, Jews, and Christians alike. Mr Weinbaum has even written an
article for the
Freedom From Religion Foundation where he throws the gloves down and makes his points milky clear.
The local police were photographed on February 26, 1970, with three crosses on their shoulder patch. Now they wear two shoulder patches, right and left, while riding in their vehicles, which sport crosses on both doors and on both sides of the rear window. (The last pictures of police wearing crosses that I can recall were Nazis.)
It's a shame, but that might be the truth, but what Mr. Weinbaum neglects to mention are the police badges that are five-pointed stars set in a circle (oh the humanity), the ambulances with their cross-adorned vehicles, crosses littering cemetary landscapes, and the green-backs in his own wallet. If you are going to point out the adulteration of a religious symbol (the swastika, aka hakencruz (broken cross) was originally a religious symbol in Buddism as well as Orthodox Roman Catholicism) for the purpose of illustration, be thurough.
And then you have the great Attorney General that has spent a great deal of money and time focusing our attention on the #4 item in The List: Obscenity. More specifically, deviant pornography. Let's think about this for a moment, they are trying to make illegal now for an adult to opt into viewing BS&M porn. The key words here are Adult, and Opt Into. This isn't stuff that is forced down the throats of children, this is stuff that Adults (you know, the tall people that are supposd to be responsible enough to make decisions for themselves and their children - and the elderly but this is for a different topic) are voluntarily purchasing for the sake of sporting a woody while oogling boobies in weird ways. Apparently, the Conservative Fundamentalists would have us believe that if an adult is interested in such things, he/she cannot be trusted to make The Right decision. Thats interesting because this particular topic is #4 on The List whereas violent crimes against children is much further down.
Doesn't porn fall under the same rights Mr. Weinbaum is fighting for? I wonder if he would agree. What do you think Mr. Ashcroft (
look closely)?
Still hurts
You've got a new horizon it's ephemeral style.
Melancholy town where we never smile.
And all I wanna hear is the message beep.
My dreams, they got a kissin, because I don’t get a sleep, no.
-- Gorillaz "Feel Good Inc."
Head still hurts though the throbbing is on the other side. Still getting crap for sleep, eyes burning, shoulder's hurting, my shit's just falling apart; and I still haven't gotten Fedora installed successfully. I downloaded the four install iso's and the four SRPM iso's and tried and tried but no luck on a positive install. First attempt, it failed trying to partition the virtual drive. Second attempt, failed during format. Third attempt, failed during install. Fourth attempt, locked up during install. Fifth and sixth attempts, threw an exception during install. Seventh attempt, installed successfully but crashes during reboot. I am downloading Slackware 10.2 now, so we'll see how that one goes.
Hopping on the scale this morning I was mortified to see where I was headed again. A few years ago I topped out around 240 and at 5'10 on a good day, we're talkin' tubby. My lowest about six, maybe nine months ago I was 168 and feeling great. This morning however the magic Meaning O'Life meter put me at 197.4 pounds and 24% body fat. Damn. I mean, DAMN! That's about 47 pounds is fat. Blubber. I'm not even going to think about that right now (do I sound like a chick yet?). Having done quite well in the past with diets and with a good understanding of my body I am going to hit it pretty hard this week and see where I land. So, I'm food fasting today to jump start things and I am going to be doing cardio two - three times a day. I ran for 30 this morning and plan to do a hardcore routine when I get home either at lunch (if I can make it) or this evening and then run again tonight. The faster I can deplete the quicker I can start dropping the weight. Besides, I really want to start training again anyway. Sitting around working all the time is really getting to me.
My head hurts
Oh, the power to be strong and the wisdom to be wise
All these things will come to you in time
On this journey that you’re making
There’ll be answers that you’ll seek
And it’s you who’ll climb the mountain
It’s you who’ll reach the peak
-- Phil Collins "Son of Man"
Well, let's see, severely interrupted sleep Tuesday night, no sleep Wednesday night, severely interrupted sleep Thursday night, in bed by 3a Friday night/Saturday morning. My head is killing me. I should be working but I'm burning out, I need to take a break but I can't seem to do it. Did I mention my head hurts? Right behind my right eye all the way back to my neck. Last night my chest hurt really bad, like I'd been stabbed the pain went through my chest to my back. The was almost unbearable with each breath I took but it went away.
I'm starting up a new VPC on my Mac to install a Linux distro on by I just can't decide which to use. My first exposure to Linux was with Slackware version 3.2. I remember spending several days downloading disk images, formatting floppy disks, and raw writing the images to them. I recall the frustration of having a third of the disks go bad. At the time I was the shipping department manager at an engineering company (where I was later promoted to
The Lab and my professional software development career was born) and because I was good at my job I had plenty of time to kill. Those were the days, there were only a few "major" distributions of Linux and was fairly simple to get on board with them. Now, the list goes on with new ones poping up everyday and old ones dying off along side them. I don't really get why there are so many distros, I
know why, but I still don't get it. They are all basically the same; the same packages on the same filesystems, running the same servers, and the same window managers.
I really dig
Linux From Scratch and even built a minimal distro once, but I don't have the time to do it again though I wish I could. So, which distro do I want to play with? After visiting a number of the sites I'd frequented in the past (
LinuxHQ, Linux4Newbies,
Linux Gazette, etc...) and discovering that some are no more, I think I've decided to go with the latest
Fedora Core distro. Firing up the FTP client I've started the downloads and within the next few days start the install...
Restless
The fever, the focus.
The reasons that I had to believe you weren't too hard to sell.
Die young and save yourself.
The tickle, the taste of...
It used to be the reason I breathed but now it's choking me up.
Die young and save yourself
-- Brand New "Sic Transit Gloria...Glory Fades"
Tuesday night, M went to bed early nursing a migrain hang-over and stayed up to get some work done. I made it to bed around midnight and was promptly woken up at 1:30 by the dumbass dog barking in my ear. Just about every hour after that she woke us (me) up for whatever reason. Needless to say, Wednesday I was pretty dead. I got home and decided to liven things up with some video games while M was out touring a hospital with her sister. After about an hour I proceeded to work through the night and dipshit hardly made a move. Thursday rolls around and I am dead on my feet but I make it through the day and am in bed and fast asleep by 9p. In bounds the dog yelping and barking at midnight, at 1:30a, 3a, and again at 5a. I hate this dog. And though I have been vocally against it, I am getting a crate this weekend - a big one, that locks.
Things are going to be shaking up here in the Cube Village over the next few months. We have a new version of our flagship product that needs to get underway and we aren't even done with the current version yet. Personally, I think the whole thing could have been handled better, the transition of leadership seemed a bit underhanded, or at least sneaky, but I don't have enough invested to get my feeling hurt (I only have one) so I'm still good. I am still concerned with getting my current piece into today's build. There is just way too much to do in such a breif cycle. It was assigned to me on the 7th, but then I was refocused on several other issues along the way and have had only had since this past Tuesday to make any progress.
XIII
I rarely have time to play games but I did take the time this evening to give
XIII another go. Thirteen is a unique game with
cel-shaded graphics, a crappy A.I., a weak plot, and cut scenes you just can't skip; seriously, most of them you can't skip, its lame. There are scenerios that will leave you wandering around with no direction and nothing offering hints. Then suddenly, you happen to walk over the trigger point and bad guys pop up out of no where - in exactly the same place each time. If you can tollerate the tedious maps with exactly the same number of bad guys that roam in exactly the same patterns with every pass, this game may be worth an evening. Yeah, this game is pretty bad, but hey, it looks cool.
Social to the ism to the U.S.A.
There's a loser in the house, and a puppet on the stool,
And a crowded way of life, and a black reflecting pool,
And as the people bend, the moral fabric dies,
The country can't pretend to ignore its people's cries.
-- Bad Religion "You Are (The Government)"
Yesterday,
Richard posted about
his OkCupid! Politics Test so I decided to take my own:
You are a
Social Liberal
(70% permissive)
and an...
Economic Liberal
(20% permissive)
You are best described as a:
Socialist
You exhibit a very well-developed
sense of Right and Wrong
and believe in economic fairness.
Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid |
Socialist huh? What the hell is a Socialist anyway? I mean really, does it really mean anything these days, do any of the political parties really
mean anything at all anymore? This is what
Wikipedia says, which looks an aweful lot like a hive mentality supressing the self for the many. Just hearing the word "Socialist" brings a 50's circa knee-jerk reaction with
"better dead than red" echoing in the rafters. Is this really me, right now, a Socialist? I think not, but maybe. I don't really pay much attention to politics, though I know I should, but I always thought of myself as a Democratic with Republican tendancies. I believe strongly in the individual, big business, big government, and the basic precepts of freedom; though they all have their limits.
All I want is to be able to keep my private life private and my family safe, and fed, with a roof over my head. And a new car, a plasma TV, an XBox 360, a swiming pool with a slide, my own personal clown that can juggle and make baloon animals, a dog that will fit in my shirt pocket and poke its head out and smile on command. And most of all, free porn.
... And I Feel Fine
Uh oh, this means no fear - cavalier. Renegade and steer clear! A tournament,
a tournament, a tournament of lies. Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives
and I decline.
-- REM "Its the End of the World"
Please tell me humanity is not going to be reduced to that of a B-Rated off-Hollywood Sci-Fi flick that's gone straight to video. Between
Evil-Dust clouds,
plague infected mice, the
bird flu pandemic, and the
movement to turn off the Internet we're DOOMED!!!
In other news, advancements have been made in the field of
shirt folding.
Teen Angst with Tips
It's just past 8 and I'm feeling young and reckless
The ribbon on my wrist says, "Do not open before Christmas."
-- Fall Out Boy
"Our Lawyer Made Us Change The Name Of This Song So We Wouldn't Get Sued"
I think parents should take notice, acording to
this article,
The School Board is making available to the public the 10th grade FCAT tests on Wednesday (9.21.05). Take the test, then take it with your kid, so the next time
this happens to your kid, you'll know why.
Every 20 years something happens to repeat history. In '85 it was
New Coke, this year it's
New Math. Let's see if this hits the nerd palate the same as it did in the 80's.
There's a nice article on
Tips of the Trade follwed up with an inspiring
forum for user contributions; some of my favorites:
Software Tester
Because developers don’t expect testers to read through their code, doing so is a quick and easy way to find possible bugs. Look for comments like “// HACK” or “// fix this crap later.”
Clergy
If you are performing a funeral or burial and are unsure of what happens next or where it might occur, just remember one simple rule: always stick with the body.
Stoner
If you have a glass pipe or bong and are out of weed, wet the tip of a q-tip and scrub the inside of the bowl. Then peel off the cotton ball, stick it in your pipe, and smoke it.
Masters of the Universe
And I try, oh my god do I try
I try all the time, in this institution
And I pray, oh my god do I pray
I pray every single day
For a revolution
-- 4 Non Blondes "What's Up"
HeMan was one of the really big shows I watched in my youth. I think that is true in most men my age. When asking around my cube and our neighbors, none of us could come up with all the names of all the HeMan characters. Then, one of my cube-mates found this
site listing them all. Problem solved. We can all go back to work now that the crisis has been averted. Fast forward to this weekend when I found
this and you'll see that it has only just begun. Just go there. Do it. Do it.
I got nuttin...
Is it edible?
Spam, Spam, Spam, Spam
Hormel's new miracle meat in a can
Tastes fine, saves time
If you want something grand, ask for SPAM.
-- Pre WWII SPAM commercial
Justin, you suggested I start using the "word verification" filter to help weed out the spam. I vaguely remember Mike saying something about that too. Well if I did that, I'd never get any comments here. Sure, maybe they're promoting porn (hooray porn!) or some multilevel pyramid marketing product giveaway scam thingy (hooray porn!), but they are still my friends. And so are you Justin, that's why I took your advice (and Mike's) and got off my lazy butt and looked through some of the settings on this blog. Thanks guys, I just limited the amount of attention I was getting (my last post scored big!) but maybe its true what they say, quality over quantity and all that.
Postal Toiletries
Monk: The pathway to salvation is as narrow and as difficult to walk as a razor's edge. -- The Razor's Edge
I laughed my ass off when I read about it in the
Onion, then again when reading the article in
CNN and again later in
Wired. But, according to
MSNBC, this new bastard quintuplet of a razor has been "unveiled". WTF? Who gives a shit? OK, casting stones and all aside, is there any reason for it? Any reason at all - other than soaking customers that is? Not long ago I received one of those four-bladed contraptions in the mail. I thought to myself,
Self, do you really want to press four razors against your jaw that have been through the mitts of the postal service? So I tried it out. I gave it a couple of weeks and with its enormous blade-stocked head I nicked the hell out of my chin. I did not get a closer shave. *If* I am going to shave, I want it to be a very close, very nice shave. And while the end result is very important, the experience of the process in its entirety is equally so. The head on the
Schtick Quatro was just huge, so what's the new
Gillette Fusion going to be like? One can only imagine. To be clear, I have not performed intensive surveys of these razors and I have not tried a four or five-bladed vibrating lotion oozing razor with an extra moisture strip on my balls, I wonder if
Michael Schaffer has...
Ghost Rider
He's ridin' through town with his head on fire!!
head on burnin' eyes all tired
Ghost Rider
keep ridin' never stop ridin'
don't forget to burn
-- Henry Rollins Band "Ghost Rider"
Pretty big day yesterday, lots of work and little time for blogging. Who cares, I was just put on to the new
Ghost Rider (as opposed to the circa 1999 TV show Ghost Rider that never quite made it, this one will be in A Theater Near You in 2006)
trailer. I'll tell you righ now, you'll need
QuickTime 7, which is in beta; and at 24 megs it is no trivial download. Well, OK, so maybe it is.
Reporter: Could you tell us about the "Good Samartian"
Hottie Punk Girl: He had this rad chopper, it was all flames and suff... His face was a skull... And it was... On fire.
Reporter: On fire?
Hottie Punk Girl: Like {making hissing fire-esque sounds waving her arms}
Awesome.
A pal of mine that never leaves comments asked me "where do you find all this crap you write so
unintelligibly about?" Seeing as there are so many people interested in a behind-the-scenes look at a typical post on
an empty place v3.5, I decided to give the public what they wanted: Twinkies. While reading
Jason Looney's blog, I followed a link of his to
The Hulk's Diary That Is On The Internet. After wetting myself I followed a link there to
Dial B For Blog. After a bit I dove into their blogroll in the right-hand column (that's if you're looking at the monitor, on the left if you are looking from the monitor at me - if you are, would you mind not doing that?) of the page and picked the first one that jumped out at me (otherwise known as The Fifth From The Top theory):
Broken Glass. From there, I followed a link to an old post on
Gearcritech (July 29th) covering this trailer. That about sums it up kids, I am going to get some work done now.
Typical day at work
Maxxx Orbison: Look, I get a lot of people auditioning all the time. What makes you think that you'd be good enough for porno?
Sancho: I am Sancho.
-- Orgazmo
I just had to share this conversation I had with a co-worker of mine; that sits about twenty feet behind me. I've changed the names to throw off my co-worker in case he thought I was showing the world the conversation he and I just had. It isn't you Ron, this came from a conversation with someone else.
The part of John will be played by Sancho.
[15:29] Sancho: Hey, you ready to meet with [mutual supervisor] in the morning?
[15:30] Sancho: How's little Rufus doing BTW?
[15:33] Coworker: not really ready, but hopefully our conversation will help. Rufus is doing well - although we have some eating issues we have to work out. Otherwise he's a very calm, sweet little dude.
[15:33] Sancho: Well, you guys just have to remember, he eats like normal people: in the mouth, out the butt.
[15:34] Coworker: damn, I thought we might be approaching it from the wrong end...
[15:35] Sancho: maybe, here's a tip: gurgling is not always a good thing
[15:35] Coworker: how come?
[15:36] Sancho: well, my kids didn't come with the usual set of gills, I've written the manufacturer about it and many other things, but they have been nonresponsive. 'nother tip: don't threaten to put the kid back
[15:37] Coworker: they don't buy it, do they?
[15:37] Sancho: that one's a really hard sell
[15:43] Coworker: probably for the wife too
[15:45] Sancho: The real kicker is when she catches you eyeballing the dimensions of the return package to the male slot
[15:50] Coworker: I don't think the math exists to make that return work
[15:52] Sancho: damn, maybe that's how my taxes got screwed up
thwapp! Their aim is getting better.
Gamey
Inspector: Dust the colon and the backslash key! Only geeks use those keys.
-- Antitrust
"Family game night" is the one night a week we all get together and play a board game. I am thinking about proposing some new games because the usual
Life,
Mouse Trap,
Trivial Pursuit: Star Wars, and
Clue are getting old. Seeing as how I am a geek married to a closet geek and raising two more geeks, this is what I propose:
And there are so many more.
Walmart
In the Carhart flannel and dusty jeans baby
I never was cool with James Dean
But I be hanging tough with my man Jim Beam
-- Kid Rock "I am the Bullgod"
On my way home I stopped by Walmart to pick up some Protein, a new coffee grinder, and some labels. You see, the past two times I bought protein I picked up the wrong kind. The first time, I see the chocolate and vanilla side by side. I grab the chocolate and read its contents. Somehow, I ended up with the vanilla by the time I got home. That was alright, mixing the vanilla with my existing chocolate makes for an excellently flavored shake. Yum. Last time I looked specifically at the name,
Chocolate, and still managed to bring home the vanilla flavor. This time I triple checked it at the shelf, then again several times in the line at the checkout, on the way out the door, and again in the car. Finally, after two months, I was able to defeat the product switching gremlins and brought the chocolate protein mix home. Too bad I don't use it anymore.
You see, Walmart is a special place. It is the ONLY place you can go and be equal with everyone else. There are no kings at Walmart, there are no proud and beautiful people. Walmart brings equality to 'Merica for we are all brothers and sisters, we are all... Trailer Trash. Walmart is the best place on Earth. Think about it, what other place can you go and pick out 10 $10 uniform shirts, all of the same cut but in different colors. 10 spiral notebooks with same color scheme as the uniform shirts. Matching pens and pencils, and 10 different magazines and coloring books. Then go pickout 10 different flavors of ice cream and sit them on top of all that stuff - you don't even have to match the flavors to the colors. Then spend another hour waiting for your car to get its oil rotated while the ice cream melts. Then change your mind about the whole damn thing.
I have an idea for a project that will be the next Zodialogical revolution. Hmmm.... Stay tuned for more details.
Behold... The Power of Cheese
Jerry was a race car driver
22 years old
Had too many cold beers one night
And wrapped himself around a telephone pole.
-- Primus "Jerry was a Race Car Driver"
Cheese is one of the few things in the world that can smell like shit, taste like shit, and look like it's covered in shit, but people will spend tons of money for it. Personally, I don't really have a favorite. All I know about cheese is that Colby and Monterey Jack together, make Colby Jack. And then there's White American, and Cheddar, and the old standard, Yellow American. I like them in blocks, wheels, wedges, sticks, slices, chunks, and shredded. I like them in a boat, I like the from a goat, I will eat them from a cow, I really don't care how. I like cheese.
It's like you're dreamin' about Gorgonzola cheese when it's clearly Brie time, baby. Step into my office.There's only one thing better than slinging a giant koosh at a guy hiting him in the back of the head. Doing it at work with a flat koosh ball. Periodcally through the day the wooshing sound of a giant deflated kooshball can be heard as it quicly approaches and zips right past your head. Immediately following are the muffled, yet manly giggles and the clickety click of keyboards. You see, we work in a cube village. Four people to a hut, or rather, cubical; three cubes to an adobe - only, with less literal mud. We share our desks with each other like good communists should. We also share our pain. Along with the free flowing growls and curses, a sting here or there from the mighty blue deflated koosh comes the job description. Actually, I found this thing - fully inflated - at the flea market and just had to have one. After about five minutes with it in the car the novelty wore off and I took it work with me where we first played catch with it. Then it started to be used as a polite tap on the shoulder (we sit with our backs facing each other - brave aren't we) to get someone's attention. As all things 'Merican, it degraded into what we have now... vvvvffffffFFFFFRRRRAAAPPP! ouch cocksucker! clickety clickety click.
More on the dog
Too many puppies are being shot in the dark.
Too many puppies are trained not to bark.
-- Primus "Too Many Puppies"
Well, Santa's Little Helper is doing well, she finally decided it was OK to get comfortable and get some sleep. I was up with her until about 3:30 this morning while she lay, uncomfortably, on her belly. Trading with M, I went to bed, and not being a "night person" she crashed on the couch. I got back up at about seven listening to the mutt whine in my ear (my bed is so high I feel like a five-year-old dangling my feet off the side and she can rest her head on the bed - I'm not used to having such a big dog) to let her go outside and make with the pee pee. After that, practically all day she's been lying around - on her side - and slightly wagging her tail. She's finally starting to be happy. I've never seen a dog nervously mope around like this one has done for the past 24 hours.
These are some of the things I've learned about this dog so far:
- She has no concept of sliding glass doors
- She loves to look at herself in the mirror
- She does not like being pinned up
- She will pick a person and follow them around until she gets bored with them then she'll follow someone else around for a while
- She will tell you when she's ready to go out
- If you don't listen to her, she will piss in the hallway in front of the bathroom like she's doing right now! Dammitall!!
- She will hide in Thing One's bottom bunk when you yell because she is pissing in the hallway
- I didn't yell at her, I just made a lot of noise because I, unlike all of you that would criticize, don't like people or animals pissing in my hallway
- She will come back and appologize after she gets back in with Thing Two after you've finished cleaning up and Febreezing the piss in the hallway
- She doesn't bark
- She is very lovable
- Unfortunately, I've gotten instantly attached to her and its gonna kill me if this doesn't work out. I hate dogs.
- She is aerodynamic and her snout is shaped like the tip of a dart
- I wonder if she shoots after a squirl and nails the fense if she'll stick
- She has no clue what fetch means
So far, she has ignored all of the other dogs in the neighborhood and hasn't bolted yet but we'll see. So far so good, I mean, its been 24 hours and we've had two "accidents" in the house and she's bounced off the sliding glass doors a dozen times or so. But she's learning, and so are we.
A By-Product of the TV Industry
We've got nothing better to do, than watch TV and have a couple of brews
Don't talk about anything else, we don't wanna know
We're dedicated to our favorite shows
That's Incredible, Hill Street Blues, Dallas, Fridays
-- Black Flag "TV Party"
DVR r0x! I really love it. Being raised by the television I hate it with every thread in my immortal soul (no, I do not believe that we are just meat, and I'm OK with that; besides then cannibalism would become an option and I'm not quite OK with that just yet) just like all good
Generation X'ers loath their parental units. I hate that the values it gave me were thinly veiled marketing and that the better tomorrow is a crappy today. It was February 26th, right about this time - making it the 27th I guess - that I quit smoking. Again. I'd been smoking since I was 18, though I'd obviously smoked before this, I don't count it because it was not as regular as when I could buy it on my own. I've quit a few times over the past 12 years, once for almost two full years. I don't remember what it was, I think I went out clubbing or maybe just to a friends, had a few and didn't stop again. I'd quit for a few months to shut M up, but then I'd start sneaking them and once I got caught I'd just go back to a pack-a-day or so. I was always a curteous smoker though, I'd never do it around people that didn't like it and would go to great lengths to keep from smelling like it.
In two weeks it'll be seven months and I still get cravings, bad ones. But I can't blame anyone, and I won't; I lit my first joint and I stomped out my last cigarrette. I have no one to blame for it. But when I am feeling really tense inside I just have to have an outlet and always used to be a smoke. Especially this late at night. Nah, it ain't smack, nothing that really does anything for you, I mean, come on, after a few packs you don't even feel different after you have one. But there is something. You don't feel it in your veins, it doesn't crawl up your neck and tickle the backs of your eyes. I don't even remember what it was, but I want one.
And when there's no time for anything else and I just want to veg in front of the tube, I can watch all the shows that come on when I'm never able to watch them. DVR is awesome. It could be better. It should be better. They have the ability to do so much more, why don't they? Are the developers just lazy? Too scared to reach for the cookie for having their hand slapped? I just can't tell you how many times my hands have been slapped. When I worked at L-3 I butted heads with the all-mighty in marketing all the time because we both believe our ways were the right way. I learned a lot there. I miss the people I worked with there. But I work with good people here too. I think this place is a good fit for me, these guys are really great people. And I've had my hands slapped here too. I only it'll happen again. If we don't reach for more, we'll rarely see it.
When I go through Bright House's IControl movie list, why can't I check off specific shows to make a smaller list to choose from? I have the attention span of a carrot. Its not like it would be that much extra code to creat a sublist or sorts. And in their onscreen guide, when I am looking for shows deep in the bowels of their crappy index, why can't I sublist there? I want to know when anime is playing on any channel, why can't they tell me that? Why do I have to know the name of the show I am looking for? I don't know the name, all I know is there are guns, big eyed girls with big tits that giggle a lot. Who cares what the name is. If its animated, has robots and boobies, its for me. I'd also like to be able to see when the next fight is coming on. I don't care who's fighting, I want to see grown men beating the shit out of each other and real blood (WW-whateverthefuckthenextletteristhismonth sucks donkey dick) for heavan's sake! Is that too much to ask? So far, this season of
The Ultimate Fighter is full of pussies. Brad Imes got
teabagged by Rob MacDonald; and he was whining like a little bitch the whole episode!
Why can't I pause one tuner and switch the pip without my paused channel resuming? I first fell in love with DVR with our
Scientific Atlanta 8000. Boy did it suck. It was quirky all to hell and that's why I loved it so much. The newer model, the 8300, fixed most of those quirks but seemed far more unstable. We are on our third box which needed to be reset already and the one in the bedroom just lost all of its scheduled recordings. Why can't I cancel a single recording before it starts without losing all of them?
ADD anyone?
Santa's Little Helper
Like to tell you ’bout my baby, you know she comes around,
Just ’bout five feet four a-from her head to the ground.
You know she comes around here just about midnight,
She make me feel so good, lord, she make me feel all right.
-- Van Morrison "Gloria"
Well, we got her. She was named Gloria at the SPCA but we've (everyone but me that is) decided to name her Bella. To me, she looks like
Santa's Little Helper.
It was one of the most bazaar things, she has not sat down since we got her here four hours ago. I put the Things at the table for feeding and desided it best to pin her in the kitchen. Trying this earlier she freaked out and bolted. This time, I tricked her. Yes, that's right, I outwitted the dog. I am documenting it as fact. Once in there she decided all was fine and decided she could eat and drink. And cry. And whine. And eat a little, drink a little more, whine a little more, cry a little more.
While M was at
PETsMART she told one of the clerks there she'd adopted a greyhound and he went totally nuts along with several other people in the store as they gathered around her. She described the experience as if she'd just rescued a baby from a burning house. Aparently, the clerk helping spend her money was familiar with the dog as he helped deliver her from the "bad kennel" she was being housed at. By
bad he was saying they were broke and unable to take care of the dogs - he, among others, were donating them food every week.
A woman at the SPCA mentioned that while you are supposed to see a couple of ribs and vertibrate, you are not supposed to see them all. Gloria (Bella) is so skinny I can count the pieces of kibble she just ate. She also said that she was a losing dog, which is why she was being retired - if you can call that being a loser.
Dogs
And in the end you'll pack up and fly down south,
Hide your head in the sand,
Just another sad old man,
All alone and dying of cancer.
-- Pink Floyd "Dogs"
M and I are not pet people. We don't really like animals either. Sure, they're cute and cuddly but the shine wears off as soon as they deside to piss some where and you don't find it until you find yourself in a drowsy stooper at the butt-crack-o-dawn trying to figure out if the water cooloer is leaking or if you just pissed yourself but your own crotch doesn't feel wet and the cooler is in a different room.
Our recent attempts failed with the delivery of two dogs to the pound and me exclaiming that not another animal would be brought back into this house. Not to worry, I've been informed by my mother-in-law that Sadie and Sophie (no, we did not name these evil animals) had been adopted. You see, my mother-in-law likes animals more than she likes people so when she gives advice about animals, I take it, and when she says something about the placement of animals, I believe her. I bet she would make a killing training animals, that's how good she is with them. Too bad she isn't as good with people.
Thursday, M finds "Lawman" on the
SPCA website and falls in love. In her defense, she has mentioned several times over the past hundred years we've been together that she really liked
Greyhounds. After trying to convince her via email, phone, and in person that we do not want to get another pet, I lose.
This is what the SPCA had to say about Lawman:
"This gentle giant is already a retiree! Lawman is a 2 year old Greyhound that retired from the race track this year. His beautiful and distinct features are common of Greyhounds, and his short tan coat is very soft. Lawman is housebroken and walks well on a leash, but has not had much training outside of the track. The free obedience training at the SPCA would be great for this big boy! He is very friendly and great with children over 10. He doesn’t get along well with other dogs or cats, but his sweet natured disposition will warm you over in a second! Come and see Lawman at the SPCA today!"
But what they don't tell you is that he's not available for adoption because he is going to be on TV. So bad so sad bubye.
Well, M saw another one that she just fell in love with. But, they tell her she can't have this one either because it just got there and hasn't been processed. They tell her if she comes back tomorrow (meaning yesterday) she check to see if she's available. Well, Friday comes and M goes. Gloria, as the dog was named, had been checked in but hadn't been spayed yet so we have until this afternoon to get her. I hate pets.
No phone
No phone no phone
Shaking quaking
Waking me when I'm asleep
Never lets me go too deep
Summons me with just one beep
The price we pay is steep
-- Cake "No Phone"
My phone got disconnected. I forgot to pay the bill this month and it got disconnected. Apparently I neglected to pay it for a couple of months and Verizon just hates when you do that. So, they called their little man and he pulled the plug or flipped the switch or whatever he does in his little room full of plugs and switches and my phone service goes bu-bye. So yesterday, the day it happened, I payed the bill online. Its real easy, I even paid for the next month's bill. Today I get home and discover the phone is still out. I check my bank account and there's nothing going on there and I check my Verizon account and see that my account has a negative balance (in this case, that's good). Knowing that I can call anyone at this point on the house phone and I'll get Verizon I do so and I get redirected to a special message they made just for me:
"This is a special message from Verizon, the service to this telephone has been temporarily disconnected, you can still reach emergency services by dialling 911, if you are calling from a touch tone phone, please press 0 to be connected with the next available service representative or dial 1800... from another location at your convenience."
I pressed '0'
"Thank you for calling Verizon, if you are calling about your residential service please press 1..."
At this point I was thinking to myself, sweet, I'll get this handled in no time
"The office you are calling is closed, our business hours are Monday through Friday, 8am to 6pm, thank you, goodbye." Click
WTF? Guess I don't have to deal with the phone this weekend.
Awesome Keyboard
Looking at keyboards yesterday got me on the track of
this little gem. I can't wait until it hits the market.
Art has several other amazing projects there too, so give the whole site a look.
We're in the movies
Stevo: Where were we going? I mean, really, what was happening? This life, it was crazy. I felt tired. I mean, halfway through the season, I just felt, inside, I was so tired. And I had this wave of melancholy just like sweep through me.
-- SLC Punk
Motorola is having a
competition regarding mobile technology with a theme centered around mobility. According to the site and
Boing Boing, basically its a shot at a $10K scholarship, a car with blueteeth, and an apprenticeship with Motorola's CTO. I would first like to say, I could really use the scholarship and though it will only cover some of my existing loans with hardly any of my upcoming scholastic expenses (classes, books, weed, porn, booze; the essentials) being touched, it would be great to be able to fund this habit. And seeing as how I am still a college student and undoubtedly will be until long after Thing Two graduates, I think I just might qualify. So, here's the reality of it all, I won't enter because I do not have the time to dedicate to the task and I won't win anyway.
Fading from black with soft industrial music in the background the scene would open with me in bed, just waking up (the Hollywood way, not the way I really wake up, which is rather violent and disturbing). I flick the speaker phone next to my bed and miraculously there's a dozen or so messages from cuties waiting to hear back from me (yeah well, its a fantasy). As the music ramps up and the siren's voice fades I head to the bathroom. The music, now obscuring all other sounds, provides the tempo and rythm for the rest of clip. In the bathroom, a small corner (the bottom right let's say) of the medicine chest's reflective surface, the message changes to another cutie and she prattles on. I splash my face and while patting it dry I tap the mirror causing her image to shrink a bit revealing a ticker across the bottom. Next, as I enter the living room, buttoning my shirt (covering an incredible chest of course), I stop at the couch and the picture hanging on the wall behind it changes to include yet another girl's message and the ticker scrolling. Putting on my watch I notice it automatically synchronize the time with the house, grab my phone and head to the car. Now the shot moves inside the car, we see it downloading podcasts and recognize me approaching. I get in and the time synchs with either my watch or my phone and we head out. The messages now playing on the small monitor in the dash. As I pull up to a light, a notification pops up telling me that someone I know is nearby. I text them a message, they respond, and two cars up a podcast I (my car) just downloaded gets transfered to them (my pal won't be nearly as great looking as I am). At the office (by now the fan-mail will have subsided) ... I'm bored now.
Wicked and crafty yet so ergonomic
Fingertips have memories,
Mine can't forget the curves of your body
And when I feel a bit naughty
I run it up the flagpole and see who salutes
(But no one ever does)
-- Harvey Danger "Flagpole Sitta"
Patricia Waller has an awesome
knitting site. Its a must see for all young aspiring needle diddlers out there. Warning, its in a foreign language, don't be scared.
Icky blue origami rhino
I'm not as ugly, sad as you
Or am I origami?
folded up and just pretend,
demented as the motives in your head
-- Eve 6 "Inside Out"
This morning I had a great deal of trouble waking up. Yesterday, I got up at 5:30a and realized I'd forgotten to set my alarm. How cool is that. Last night went ahead and I set the
butt-crack o'dawn alarm in the living room so I will be forced to get up, out of bed, to turn it off. This morning it sounded and I turned it off then proceeded to climb right back into bed. It was a hell of a morning. Looking for socks Thing One walks up to me, "what is this blue stuff?" He asks while holding an
ice cooler with a seeping bruise of deep blue ooze.
Hey, that rhymed. Still in a drowsy stooper I took it from him and carefully examined it to determine if the sticky blue stuff getting ready to drip on to the floor was from the obvious puncture in the dented corner or if was from the yummy
Teen Titan Hero Pops that seem to be perpetually melting in my freezer. Now I have blue shit all over my hands and have to buy a new ice cooler.
Origami kicks ass. Plain and simple, being able to create something like a
penguin or a
duck or even a
rhino out of a sheet of paper (or get this, a
puppy from a business card) is simply amazing. Every once in a while however, I am reminded that my stubby fingers were never meant to properly crease paper. Sure, every once in a while when I get it in me to try, I'll make one or two wicked paper sculptures (then of course they need to put to the elements (fire, water, giant smushing palm attach, you know, QA stuff) but then its papercut city from there on.
Project Sleepy Weasle
Frankie: I wish I was like you, easily amused.
David: Ouch! Kurt Cobain.
-- Dream For an Insomniac
Brown University and
The University of Michigan did a joint (hehehe) study on the effects of
sleep deprivation and medical students. In the past, similar studies have been done on
truck drivers and
farmers, but why not software developers? People in this industry often find themselves in a situation requiring long hours, so why hasn't a study been performed on the effects of SD and competent application development? Think about it, programmers wrote the software (and the firmware) used in every embedded or otherwise device on the planet (I'm sorry if this offends, but if you write code to control something, even if its a DSP, you're atleast part programmer). If the people involved in the creation of the code we use in life treatening situations were sleep deprived, should we be worried? Should we then assume some - if not all - of the operating systems we currently use on our desktops today were developed one pot of coffee at a time? That would answer a few questions now wouldn't it.
Today's heros
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
That's how it goes
-- Leonard Cohen "Everybody Knows"
Well, here we go, today is
humpday and while
Bob Denver, the actor that played Gilligan and Maynard G. Krebs passed away and
Leonard Cohen has something else to croon about, several thousand other people in our own country are living in worse conditions. There are some that stand out among the masses however, and these are today's heros.
Huston Chronical - 6-year-old becomes a hero to band of toddlersReuters - In New Orleans, human spirit overcomes horrorReuters - Americans opening homes, lives, to flood refugeesPensacola New Journal - General roars into action in New OrleansBoing Boing - Katrina: survivor first-hand account from Charmaine Neville
Windows, Macs; a Grimm tale
Angelika: Show us the way, Grandmother Toad, and I'll give you a kiss.
Will: That's just not right.
-- The Brother's Grimm
One of our other guy's is joining our project team (or has joined, whatever) and will be working on a subsystem I designed. This module is rather complex and multifacetted and requires some background before it can be used properly. From the beginning of its inception I have been keeping notes scribbled in a modified five subject (I took two five subject notes spiral note books, took out their nifty yet utterly useless dividing mini folders and put both books' of paper back on to one of the spring binders) spiral. The legible parts I transcribed into various design documents organizing my thoughts, adding diagrams and all kinds of "if I were hit by a bus and no one knew how this works" kinds of tech.
Because our "new guy" (he's been with the company longer than I have) has recently had a baby (actually, his wife
had the baby though I'm sure he played a part somewhere in there) I thought it would have been a nice gesture to compile all of my notes and make his transition to my nightmare a but easier and this being a long weekend I could leisurely get things together for him. So Friday, I copied over my docs and the project and off I went. Over the course of the weekend I pecked out some good notes, added more comments to the code, and even considered some design revisions that I would discuss with him.
This morning I came in and copied over the changes I made. You see, in the Windows world, when you go to replace a folder with another folder of the same name, if the contents do not match, the only contents that are affected are those that overlap with the new being copied in and the old ones remaining if they did not change. With Macs however, if you replace a Folder, that's what you do, you replace it and
all of its contents. And, if you are in a hurry and you manage to copy the wrong folder (same name but from an alternate path) over it, undo is not an option. Period. Well Ronco, looks like you're in for some fun. Sorry pal, I tried.
In other news, I saw this weekend what may end up being the absolute worst film of the summer:
The Brothers Grimm. This movie's delivery was just horrible. I expected far more of this film, it just could have been so much better. Hardly even worth a rental fee in my opinion.
I am thinking about throwing a dinner party but have no idea who, what, when, where, or for. I can tell you though, the
napkins will look great.
Where have all the hero's gone?
In a town without a name, in a heavy downpour
Thought he passed his own shadow, by the backstage door
Like a trip through the past, to that day in the rain
And that one guitar made his whole life change
-- Foreigner "Juke Box Hero"
20/20 hindsight will do nothing for a mother cradling her dying infant or a father having to find the strength not to breakdown in front of his kids. All the questions of why are moot until everyone is safe. I would have thought someone would have risen above the chaos and organized the people abandonned, knowing they were not forgotten. As for the rest of us, sitting in our air conditioned cubicles and in front of our computers, all we can do is watch. I would have also thought the obvious needs of this city would have weighed heavily on our government's brow and forced a quicker response. You can certainly wager if these ignored were the wealthy and elite the sun would have never set on them that first day. And for me, when I just can't stomache it anymore, I will change the channel and and my world will all better. It's the 'Merican way.
