v3.5: December 2005

Saturday, December 31, 2005

Last Post...

Raise your glasses, your glasses, your glasses to the sky
This is the last call for alcohol, for the..
So get your ass up off the wall
-- Kanye West "Last Call"

... for the year.

For the first time - possibly ever, but at least in a really long time - I beat a video game. Yes, that's right, you heard me correctly, I BEAT a game. X-Men Legends. The reason I've most likely never beaten a game before is because I typically get bored about half way through them and completely lose interest. This time, I stuck to it. I was hooked and am looking forward to getting X-Men Legends II. According to the time meter, it took me 103 hours to beat the game. I really don't think this 100% accurate considering I left the game running on a couple of occasions overnight after I cleared a mission and I spent a good deal of time doing some Environmental Cleanup after all the bad guys were handled. By that I mean, once I discovered there were a number of rooms I could completely obliterate, I would see how much of the map I could destroy. Man, this was a really fun game. Frustrating at times, but fun nonetheless.

I guess its time to come up with those gawd-aweful resolutions again. I see no reason in beating around the bush (you'll get to the pun in a second) so I think my New Year's Resolution will be simply to have more sex. Yeah, I said it and its the truth. I'm looking for more poon this coming year! Does this mean I am going to whore around? Nah, It means I will need to be more attentative to M and her needs. I am going to have to try harder outside the sack to make it easier for her to get into it :)

At any rate, 2k5 was good to me, I've seen numerous sunrises and sunsets, quite a few back to back, and I made it through with all ten fingers and toes (ten a piece that is). The Things are well and M is almost happy (just a little more work to make her completely miserable :P), I am blessed with work and am going back to school in two weeks. 2006 ought to be an even better year.

I got my collegiate transcripts together and created a little journal with my own comments regarding the classes and I will continue to update them as I progress through school. Go here to read it or take a look at the link in the sidebar, it'll get you there.

So... Happy Hogmanay!!!

Sunday, December 25, 2005

Merry Christmas

Ho ho ho
-- Santa Claus

What a day. Last night M and The Things went to her fam, I went to mine. Later we met in the middle. I tried reaching other members of my family last night after we got home (my dad, my uncle, etc...) but made had no luck so I guess today won't be so stretched after all.

Even without Santa, Thing One was still pretty happy today. Thing Two squeaked when he opened piece by piece his Thing Dress-Up-Set with Hands and Feet. And Thing One went nutts when he opened his World Industries skateboard with Chopper 2 Mid deck and 54 mm Flameboy's. So, all the anguish and peril of this past week have paid off, now I am going to bed.

Debugging Christmas (part five)

Leroy The Redneck Reindeer
Hooked to the front of the sleigh
Delivering toys to all the good ol' boys
And girls along the way
He's just a down home party animal
Two Steppin all across the sky
He makes jingle bells with the rebel yell
And made history that night
-- "Leroy The Redneck Raindeer"

OK, so we didn't get everything we needed, we still had a couple people to shop for so, not wanting to go too far from home, we stayed local and managed to get everything we needed. I also rented a steam cleaner. One thing I've learned about these rental steam cleaners is that they don't actually generate any steam, or even significantly heat up the water in it. Why call it a steam cleaner if it isn't even going to steam the damn carpet? You know, I asked them about this, and they claim this is how it works - but you are supposed to use "hot tap water" for it to work properly.

Whatever, I boil the water. If residule wisps of steam are not dancing in the wake of the machine, it isn't working right. Needless to say, my carpet is clean! And this is good to have when you are going to be crawling around, shredding paper, cardboard, and twist ties. After having wrapped about 750 presents, I am happy to announce, this year I did not get a single paper cut. Hooray bandaids.

This is Thing One's first year without Santa and I think he misses The Magic. He doesn't really say anything about it, but he does seem a little sad that there is no such thing a reindeer with a Nose-That-Glows. Its hard seeing your little ones discover that they will grow up and will never learn to fly. Its hard because while I'm watching them go through this, I am reconfirming it for myself - I'd always kinda hoped my mom was wrong about this stuff...

Saturday, December 24, 2005

Debugging Christmas (part four)

I'm just a product of my raising
I say, 'hey ya'll' and 'yee-haw'
And I keep my Christmas lights on
On my front porch all year long
-- Gretchen Wilson "Redneck Woman"

Well, here it is, the day before the day before Christmas and all through the house, not a single person is stirring, what a bunch of lazy jerks! M is taking a break and some much needed rest, and The Things are off to Grandma's house. I however, am finally able to enjoy a game I've had so long I'd forgotten I'd bought it until the other day: X-Men Legends. What an awesome game! This game is hot and I am totally addicted to it. We called it quits last night around 11, The Things were fast a sleep and M was exausted - so I fired it for the first time. I was quite simply amazed. No, the game does not sport the latest in graphics technology but the game play I fell is excellent. Needless to say, I made it to bed by 4 this morning. I am having to forcibly put the controller down so we can get back to that Christmas thing.

[Updated later that night]
OK, we went to The Mall, Play It Again, Sports Authority, Target, Jo Ann's, and some other places I can't quite think of. It was all a blur really; lots of people, lots of traffic, lots of money. My eye is twitching just thinking about it. But we got everything we needed to get so it looks like a great night.

Thursday, December 22, 2005

Debugging Christmas (part three)

The twelfth thing of Christmas that's such a pain to me:
Singing Christmas carols
Stale TV specials
Batteries Not Included
No parking?!?
WAAAAAAAAAAH! WAAAAAAAAAAH!
Charities!
Gotta make 'em dinner!
Five months of bills!
I'm not sendin' them this year, that's it!
Shut up, you!
FINE! YOU'RE SO SMART, YOU RIG UP THE LIGHTS!!!
And finding a Christmas tree
-- Bob Rivers "12 Pains of Christmas"

I did my presentation last night, it went like crap. Bottom line, I just was not prepared enough. Though my employer feigned enthusiasm, I know he was disappointed with what he saw. Luckily, he realizes that life just gets in the way and that he is not my number one priority. I've taken next week off however and have assured him that I will be focusing on his site and that we will make the January 1st time frame. So, in a week or so, I'll be unveiling here the site that has been my off-peak hours tormentor.

I may have mentioned before that every year we cage The Things and schlepp over to the family matriarc's house for Christmas, on Christmas. People would come from around the globe to pay homage to the head of the family. This worked out great for us as M's family always found purpose in Christmas Eve and she would shuttle The Things to engagements with her people. Well, this year one of my rather self-realized family members opposed centuries-old tradition and The Entire Family decided (which means, we were told) we would meet on Christmas Eve. I, for one, did not like this but as a low-level nothing in The Family I had little say. Well, two of my favorite aunts spoke up and now we are meeting on both Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day. And I'm still not getting a PSP!

I discovered last night that a strand of lights that I'd just Hung With Care© has burnt out.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Debugging Christmas (part two)

Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the trailer
Not a creature was stirrin'
'Cept a redneck named Taylor
-- A Redneck Christmas

M, being the oh so wonderful, kind, and generous person she is, wanted to give something special and heart warming to her employer. Something that would let him know just how much she appreciated him as not only her superior, but also her check signer. Despair, Inc. had exactly what she was looking for. Upon placing her order she received the following message:

From: "Despair Inc." (through Yahoo! Store Order System)
Date: December 20, 2005 9:02:27 AM EST
To: "M"
Subject: order XXX from Despair Inc.
Reply-To: unfulfillment@despair.com

Thank you for your recent order from Despair, Inc.

I'd like to personally welcome you to our growing body of
Dissatisfied Customers(tm), but to do so might evidence
some actual concern for service and protocol. This might
then lead to customer satisfaction, which would defeat
the purpose altogether. That is why you have received
this generic, form-generated email, written by some
nameless lackey in our marketing department.

Having established that any pretense of consideration
for *your* needs would be counter-productive to our
raison d'etre at Despair Inc, let us now ponder a
subject of greater interest to those among us who are
worthy of both of our collective attentions - that
person being me.

While you sit there wincing in disbelief at these
bons mots of authentic insincerity and vexed by the
intrinsic contradictions, I find I am beside myself
with awe at the specimen of unparalleled angst that
is our most recent Despair Catalog. Hardly a man
given to superlatives, I must nevertheless assert with
David-Lee-Rothian boldness that we are demonstrably
without peer in the Art of Demotivation®.

And speaking of "The Art of Demotivation", my
management treatise of the same name is finally
available for purchase, and in three unique
editions (four if you count the... oops, I've said
too much already).

While I could praise the book and by extension myself
without end, I will instead, in the interest of
at least some pretense of humility, simply note
that no less a journalist than Lucy Kellaway of
the peerless Financial Times of London wrote of
the book, "The Art of Demotivation is the most
daring, funny and subversive management book ever
written".

In short, I'm the best.

For those eager to learn more about this landmark
work, pay a visit to the delightful guided tour that
is offered at our exclusive book website:

http://www.demotivation.com

Those ordering Chairman editions of the Art
of Demotivation are reminded that each necessarily
entails a slight shipping delay. Each one of these
signed and numbered objets d'art is handbound
upon the receipt of your order.

At long last, after this lengthy exploitation of your
attention for purely selfish marketing purposes, let
us move on to yet another advertisement for our
company.

Despair is ever consumed in the product development
process. In fact, as we speak, the small cabal of
dispirited creators have thrown themselves back into
the further development of a new content series
wholly unrelated to Demotivators(R), which are slated
for release next year.

What this is, I can not yet say. I can allow however
that members of our opt-in e-mail newsletter
"The Wailing List(tm)" will receive not only a
sneak-preview of this mysterious initiative when
it nears release, but may also even be granted an
opportunity to participate in an unprecedented way in
the work itself. So join the list now- don't
make us come get you.

http://www.despair.com/subscribe.html

If any of the information shown below is inaccurate,
please notify us immediately using our new Troubled Ticketing
system.

http://www.despair.com/troubtic.html

We will rectify your error immediately, and on some occasions,
without snickering.

It is the least we can do, which, as a matter of policy,
is the most we can do.

Sincerely not really writing you this email,
E.L.

E.L.Kersten, Ph.D.
Founder & COO,
Despair, Inc.

100th Post

Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
-- Pink Floyd "Time"

You know, I should have planned better for this momentous ocassion. This centurial post for an empty place should be one of reflection and contemplation and offer foresight into the direction I am headed. Bah. I don't have time for all that. I have a presentation in two days, one day, something like that and I am trying to get my gear set up so I can go out there Wednesday night and stick it.

On the Mac I have the latest Ruby and Ruby on Rails set up, as well as Mono, PHP, MySQL, and Apache server. All of these, save for Mono, come preinstalled with OSX 10.4 - just not the latest code bases, so I upgraded them all a while back. Most of it however, never got installed on my new PC so I've been spending the evening intalling everything and sync'ing the files to get everything the same on the PC, the Mac, and the off site 64-bit CentOS server.

I also fiddled around with trying to get Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 to recognize RoR syntax and files to no avail. Ruby Garden has an article regarding MX, which helped just enough to get me started. And BDC had an article that helped moved me along just far enough for me to quit screwing around with it and try an alternative IDE: RadRails. Bonus is, they have Windows and Mac versions of their IDE (Its Eclipse based so it is pretty portable).

RadRails would be awesome and wholely useful if it worked out of the box. I should take that back, it does work out of the box, but you still have to use the command line to actually set up your Rails project. If you download your Windows installer from the RoR download page, you can install rails on your system. Here's what I did, just to speed things up a bit. Ruby is installed at C:\Ruby\, so I installed Ruby on Rails at C:\Ruby\Rails\. Very convenient for me. Now, because the way rails gets it groove on is all scripted, all you need to do is copy the contents of the install directory (C:\Ruby\Rails\) and paste it into your project directory, then (with the ruby/bin directory in your path (PATH=C:\Ruby\bin) you can type in the console (within your project root) C:\Project\Path> ruby script/generate scaffold ModelName ControllerName and then hit enter, you'll see the magic happen. But don't take my advice as The Gospel, go pick up Agile Web Development with Rails. It is well worth it.

Once you get Rails to build your project, you can then get RadRails to rebuild your project, and then you can start using it. And it is a very nice editor with proper syntax hilighting and intellisense. And, once I use it and get myself more familiar with it, and maybe even read the documentation, I'll know what I did wrong when I first tried to use it.

And, my Rails tut picks for the night: (24)slash7

Friday, December 16, 2005

I've got NADDz

Still I'm sitting alone again
I feel I'm riding the same thing again
And if I want to I can just shut up
Now I know that I've got
Nothing to prove to you
-- Goldfinger "Nothing To Prove"

Rands in Repose has an old article describing one of my major afflictions: NADD.

"Folks, I'm a nerd. I need rapid fire content delivery in short, clever, punch phrases."

He comments on how much he has going on at once and stepped back and looked at what I had running. Right now, as I type this, I have several things happening: two instances of Visual Studio with active projects loaded up in them; Firefox with 11 tabs open to different pages (three tabs are pointing to articles about the differences between Python and Ruby (Ruby Garden, Solarvoid, and this one), one is to Google, two are on humorous coding blogs (Coding Horror, and The Daily WTF), and the others are to MSDN and other unrelated blogs); two chat windows open to co-workers, Xml Spy (with several XML documents and configs, and XHTML scratches open); Microsoft Word 2003; SharpReader (I seriously thinking of switching up on this one, performce blows when you leave it open for "Too Long"); IE is pointed to Sharepoint and my list of work items; and of course, Windows Explorer and Yahoo (Windows) Media Player (playing Goldfinger at the moment). Its a slow day.

Thursday, December 15, 2005

Debugging Christmas (part one)

On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me...
Twelve-pack of Bud, eleven wrestlin tickets, tin of Copenhagen, nine years probation, eight table dancers, seven packs of Red Band, six cans of Spam, five flannel shirts, four big mud tires, three shotgun shells, two huntin dogs, and some parts to a Mustang GT.
-- "12 Days Of A Redneck Christmas"

Alright, here it is something like 10 days 'till Christmas and we are just now putting up the tree. A few years ago M bought this artificial tree so we wouldn't have to deal with upkeep of a live one. Only, this tree is pretty sweet (as far as trees go), it has the lights already secured to it and unfolds like an umbrella. Every year, both of them, since it arrived it has been a snap putting the tree up. Its been great. And of course, when you put things off, it only gets worse. Of the three sections of the tree (in case you were curious, FauXMasTrees typically come in three or more pieces to make storage easier - the left, right, and the top) the middle of the tree has bulbs scattered throughout it that lack brilliance. Depending on the way it is turned, the left side and the top are completely burnt out.

I fiddled with individual bulbs, plugged and unplugged the stands, tried to find the mysterious fuses. M fiddled with individual bulbs, plugged and unplugged the stands, tried to find the mysterious fuses. And then I fiddled with individual bulbs under M's direction. The not so well received solution is to restring the tree with working lights. M doesn't think that is such a hot idea. I don't either but it will cost more to purchase enough bulbs and the time it will take to probe the tree.

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

Catching Up

I'm just a child
With tears in it's eyes
I am holding this gift
That is broken
What do I have left now
-- Korn "Seen It All"

There really hasn't been a lot going on lately, I haven't really felt like blogging about anything, and have only today caught up on a couple month's worth of feeds. You know what, there are some amazing things going on these days. From Knucks-N'da-Chest to chimps smarter than your kid (sorry, reg req'd). But, my favorite so far is today's article on CNN where Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad donnes his tin foil hat and discredits The Holocaust. Not even the Hollywood of today could find enough Skinny Ass Jews to play the roles populated by films of the death camps during WWII. OK, so let's just say for a second that the photos, film footage, and mass eye-wittness accounts are inconclusive, the mass graves are misunderstood, the "showers" were misinterpretted, and the sudden decline in the Jewish population was a math error. Without all this proof in front of you, how can you say plain and simply that it never happened yet turn and fight for a God you've never seen?

Thursday, December 08, 2005

Fine Literature

18 I was guaranteed.
I would lose my teenage dream.
But it's so funny how I got to look.
Like all the people in my comic books.
-- Blondie "Comic Books"

In about 12 minutes the phones will start ringing and the day will begin anew. This project has been pretty difficult and I've been reading a lot lately about so many things regarding it. But mostly, I've learned [again] that authors are dicks. They have something to tell you, something that will make your life easier and that something is what you want. But rather than simply telling you what they have, in as concise a way as they possilbly can, they weigh you down with anecdote after anecdote, story after story. I am reading approximately two pages a day of intended fiction (at the moment its Bruce Sterling's Snow Crash) and about 50 pages of crap from tech manuals and online articles. Get to the point people!

Here's a tip, when reading a tech book, skip chapter one. There will never be anything useful in it. Here's another tip, thumb the chapter before you read it, if there are a few pages with no or barely relevant examples on them, you don't need them. There will usually be anecdotal pseudo code about the author's dream car and how it works in Code Theory. Who gives a fuck?! I don't read dork books for pleasure, I read them to learn about something or to solve a problem I am facing. The bottom line is, nerds should not be allowed to write tech manuals with more than 50 pages of actual text in them and novelists should not be allowed to write manuals.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Kettle Bandit - Dead

Karma karma karma karma karma chameleon
You come and go
-- Culture Club "Karma Chameleon"

'Nuff said

Sunday, December 04, 2005

GAACK!!!

It's the death of outrage
I want to turn a new page
I mourn the death of our age
the obituary's on the front page
-- Papa Roach "Tyrany of Normality"

Here I am, feverishly pounding out code to get this project out the door. M and her sis are at the show, they sold my ticket 'cause I couldn't make it. Fucking sucks. I stay up all night Friday to get this shit done so I can go to the show today and had been pounding out code for a good ten hours straight. In my own arogance I thought I would have been able to make it. Then Visual Studio crashes and takes my project with it. I'd been coding and researching for a good 10 hours. That's pounding on the keyboard, popping Runts and Smarties, and slamming Coke after Cofe for 10 fucking hours - I did pee a couple of times in there. Ten hours though! Gone. Fucked. All of it. I was furious. Still am really. I should have known better though, I should have saved my shit several times. I have really poor work habits.

So here I am, repeating history, an hour into working this morning and the power goes out. Once again, everything is gone. I am very pissed at myself right now, I am so focused on getting this shit done that I don't think about what I should be doing. So now, I've gotten into the ROTE habit of keying CTRL+S every time I press Enter. Yeah... Loser.

Friday, December 02, 2005

This little piggy went to market

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well... How did I get here?
-- Talking Heads "Once in a Lifetime"

I think I broke my big toe. Its swollen, discolored, and hurts. I think its broken. It's probably just strained but, you know, it hurts so I'm gonna go with "its broken" until proven otherwise. I have no idea what I did other than use it like I do every day. Its been hurting for quite some time now but nothing like this. Oh well, it'll have to wait, I have a tremendous amount of work to get done by 10 am Sunday morning so I can go to a concert and blow off some steam. We'll see how that pans out won't we...

I've got to say, there is nothing exciting going on right now. I am working so much I barely have time for anything. What time I do have I spend with M, Thing One, and Thing Two. One of my three best friends (the four of us were like brothers) moved back into town a couple of months ago and I've seen him once - last weekend - since he and his newly acquired family moved here. It really sucks but over the years we just fell out of touch with each other. Of the three of them, Khan is the only one I've really kept up with - the other I haven't heard from in years and honestly don't expect to any time soon. Funny how that works, you spend a few years completely inseparable with a group of people (aside from the "friend of a friend" or the supporting cast) doing regular things on regular occasions and then somebody moves, serious relationships turn up, somebody has a baby, and the next thing you know you're looking around wondering what happened.

an empty place v3.5