It wasn't me. You can't prove anything.


2010-11-30

Jumpcut commute

This is just me playing around with some jumpcuts. It is my first real attempt at doing something creative on YouTube.

Field Data
Title Teleporting to work
Description Nearly ended up in the ethereal plane of lost socks this morning on the way to work. Tesla was right.
Tags Jumpcut teleport teleportation commute Canon 940 Houston Texas
Link Link

Bad breakup

"Global diplomatic meltdown." Describing the Wikileaks dump by the New York Times I believe. The New York Times was just tickled pink to run a bunch of documents obtained illegally that damage America. The New York Times refused to run illegal obtained documents that damaged the climate change agenda. Hypocritical bastards. Who is your puppeteer?

I chuckle when I read that statement. I shouldn't. It is a mess. This has already blown up in our faces. The whole world now knows the U. S. can't keep secrets. I know what will happen. People who need to send secret stuff back to home base will cut out the official channels. This means the checks and balances mechanism that is listening to the stream is not being utilized. How many times have some third party to a communique gleamed an important bit of information or made a very important connection between two seemingly innocuous bits of information?

The fallout of this will last a generation. The Iranians and others say they didn't want to give the UN information because they can't keep secrets. I have to say that was a smart move on their part. Apparently we cannot. The information pisses off the Chinese as well. There is something about the Chinese slapping Google recently. We need Chinese help to deal with North Korea. This will cascade for the rest of my life.

All because a guy was going through a bad breakup. I almost want to hear from the boyfriend. Was this kid a winy little bitch? Was he a boring bureaucrat? Did he think of himself as a spy? Does the ex boyfriend have any incite? Get his boss on the set and rake them over the coals.

The question on the lips of my circle is "Why are the Wikileaks people still above ground?" Some say it is too late. Some say it is a waist of time. Some say it is a conspiracy to start a war. Some say it is to force the rest of the Middle East to confront Iran. Will the Wikileak people ever brought to justice?

Is this treason? I would say yes. Aren't we at war? Is treason at wartime punishable by death? I hear the treason statutes are vague. He is, I hear, charged with espionage. Personally, I hope it is treason and I hope this asshole is put in front of a wall and shot on global TV.

This situation makes me ill. Here are a few things I've heard are in the reports from multiple sources.

Some things I learned from the leak.

  • Most of the Middle East wants the U. S. to do something about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
  • The German leader's jaybird ass can't backup her alligator mouth.
  • Mrs Clinton asked diplomats to spy on UN officials and retrieve credit card numbers amongst other data.
  • China really was at the bottom of an attack on Google several months ago.

A tale of too many Santas

I want a pony.

Notes:

This just in, WWII reminiscent rationing coming to a western civilization country near you. This all in the name of global climate change. That is all.

It cracks me up how much effort it takes to isolate a bad switch and replace it. You would think it would be easy. Well, re;lacing is easy. Plug it in and swap all the cables. Figuring out where the breaking is happening is the issue. Ping, ping-flood. more pinging. Move to another switch. Figure out where every one is plugged in. More ping-flooding. ...


2010-11-29

Space 1999 on BlueRay

I think the statement "Space 1999 on BlueRay" has a touch of irony. Here is why.

BlueRay did not exist in 1999. It is a more advanced medium that was available at the namesake date of the show. In the same sentence, we were nowhere near as advanced in 1999 as portrayed in the show.

Where the hell are flying cars!!!!!?

Technically, they never ended the first Korean War. There has been some kind of ceasefire for the last couple decades.

There are nukes on both sides. The U. S. has went an aircraft carrier with nukes aboard to the region. The Japanese are flipping out. The Chinese are generally pissed off at every one involved. This part of the world is about to hit the fan.

Obama needs a war. Once a ware is going on, all the taxes and lost pensions will be put aside for watching our troops die every night on the evening news in a war in a place that no one gives a shit about. "Oh, by the way, your taxes are doubled and the government just stole 95% of your retirement and handed it all over to a bunch of banks that technically, don't even exists in any country anywhere. Good night."

Stories are out that talk about how sympathetic South Korean's are to North Koreans. Some believe the situation in North Korea is not the fault of the populous. I disagree. It has been a generation. The people in the palaces are not the one firing the mortars.

So, what do I think will happen next? More bullshit followed by even more bullshit, followed by a war. Sometimes I wonder if the U. S. is provoking South Korea. I can't prove anything. It just smells like Obama's war to me. I really hope I'm wrong.

YouTube

I've fallen in to a group of Australian vloggers. They are foul mouth, but a lot of fun. They would call me a "fucking prude git" or something like that. I don't know what a git is, but I'm sure I deserve it.

The only video I put up this long weekend was a bit of Thanksgiving merriment. I had to cut it up quite a bit. I'm noticing more and more that people are doing less and less editing of their videos. They chop them up to be sure, but there takes between cuts are getting longer. I suppose most people calling themselves vloggers are getting better at their efforts.

I did update the laptop. I got a video to play on it, but have not tried editing or rendering yet. I just ran out of strength for it. I don't want to get too burned out on the video front. Not sure the old girl has it in her to render a video. Even if everything works as it is supposed to, it might have a melt down.

I had entertained the thought of videoing myself while walking in this morning. Just me complaining about the universe at large. The road noise is too high. It would not work on a good day. I would not have had the strength this morning.

There are a couple of vlogs that are more or less exclusively shot in people's cars as they commute or run errands. Most vloggers seem to do this. It gives you a great opportunity to shoot yourself and anyone who sees you talking in your car alone might think you are on hands free. Maybe. This doesn't work when walking. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. I'm waiting for the first lawsuit that blames someone is distracted by vlogging. Just saying

Sick

I'm sick today. My left side is very tender. I did not get a single wink of sleep last night. I feel feverish and weak. I walked in this morning to the bus stop. It was not fun. I sweat more than I should have. I stumbled a lot. My sinuses are freaking out with the abrupt changes in weather. I keep loosing my balance. I did something that I don't normally do. I sat down on the concrete side walk at the bus stop. I normally avoid this because of ants and dirt on the ground. Today, it was not an option.

The shower took effort this morning. When I put on a shirt this morning, I lost my balance. Once I sat down on the bed to put on my boots, I didn't want to get back up. Nat found the thermometer for me. 97.7. What the heck is that about?

Enough wining.


2010-11-28

One handed speed pool

Now do it left handed you [cencored].

Dell, No linux

Dell keeps telling people they sell computers with linux installed by default. When I try to follow through on this drunken boast, I get the following page.

Assholes. Dell is really starting to piss me off.

Un-PC

I subscribe to this guy. He teaches English to kids in Taiwan I think it is. He recently had a cancer scare that is still kind of going on. This may have something to do with a Chevalier attitude of late. He never shows his face in his videos. He is big on riding his scooter and motorcycle around talking about things that make him happy and angry.

Go whatch the video.

The un-pc things

  • Talking about being a woman
    • Women not knowing about vehicles is sexist.
    • The giving head thing is even more sexist.
    • The mocking voice praising the big strong mechanic is ... let me think ... oh, yes, sexist
  • Other people's kids
    • Showing the kids in your class in a video where you were just mocking women and talking about blow jobs is bad.
    • Mocking the disabled is bad.
    • Telling the kids to sit down or you will break their legs is effective, but bad.

Did I miss anything?


2010-11-27

Bad idea

Damn fords.

Ya, honey, we all saw it coming.

Yup. This is my Saturday evening.

VW Pickup

Hey Dad, didn't you have one of these? I vaguely remember messing with one when I was a kid.


2010-11-26

The End is Nigh

It is about time someone whom the ruling class must recognize and must hear, if not listen to, says these things. The end is in sight. When you tell people they cannot have an election, you are stifling democracy. Duh!!! There is no more money.

Obama, please, please can we head down this same road as though it works. I know it has been your dream to be in charge of the entire world and all of mankind. I think someone else needs to stand up and tell you the way things are going. Pay attention.

It is time. Thank god we have clung to our religion and guns. We will need both to guide us and help us protect ourselves through the looming chaos.

Drabblecast

Link

I'm always late to these sorts of things. This is a fiction podcast. There site was a bit strange itself. I had to hunt around for the link that took me to the mp3 feed. I need the mp3 feed because I'm on linux and there for do not have iTunes. Having to hunt for the afterthought of the mp3 feed is nothing new. People who have money and a ton of liberal friends who all use Apple products exclusively tend to be blindingly liberal and use Apple products exclusively. Yes, yes, I know it seems like I have a hooded figure lurking in the all concealing shadows and taking notes, but it is just that all you unique creative types are identical to the last.

I listen. I am a very conservative family man with a 7:00 to 18:00 job in IT just like every one else on the internet.

Still worth a listen if you can manage to track down the proper link.

Gumball 3000 2010 start

Two Batmobiles, one old one new.

It isn't good enough to have a 0.5 to 1.5 million dollar super car. No. One must take it to another level as it were to stand out amongst this crowd.

My favorite is of course, the thumbnail used on the video.

Cat fight

Since I completely missed the dog fight yesterday, here is a cat fight.

I think the birds owe the black cat money.

Thanksgiving 2010

This is Thanksgiving 2010. I had to chop up the smokers portion quite a bit. I hope they appreciate my efforts. I throughly enjoy recording these moments. I hope no one minds me putting them up on the web.

Elle had a blast. We played a game of tag while talking amongst ourselves for about an hour and a half. She was amused. I hope she had fun.

Two dogs had words. I call it a dog fight in the video. That is not accurate. It was a noisy disagreement. The rest of the evening was not so eventful.

The day started warm and humid. Then, a front rolled in. The rain and wind tried to knock you down. I hope no one got caught out without a jacket.

The food was amazing. I'm related to good cooks all the way around. There was this marshmallow pudding thing that was particularly amazing. Everything was awesome. The green bean dish was amazing. If that is good, one can only imagine the rest of the feed.

We came home with no left overs. I'm a little disappointed. I should have snuck some out in my jacket. I'm the only one awake. I'm done editing. I'm just putting some lipstick on this pig and headed off to bed.

Field Data
Title Thanksgiving 2010
Description This is Thanksgiving 2010. Family, friends. You know the drill. It is funny how a little girl keeps us all entertained for an hour and a half with a game of tag.

Blog Entry:
Tags Thanksgiving 2010 Texas Canon 940 playing tag food family friends
Link Link


2010-11-25

Lousy Book

The Girl Who Played With Fire was not a good book. I read the first book The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. It was interesting. Honestly, I'm not sure why I went from one book to the second. There is a third book that I refuse to follow. I'm done with the series.

Spoiler Alert!!!!

The second book in the series is all about getting racked over the coals in the media and the poor treatment of sex workers. It is ultimately about a frigging reporter. I'm sick to death of stories about lawyers and reporters. The next genera that gets me down is cops. I don't dislike any of these people, it is just the stories have been done to death. This one is the whole wrongly accused - your father is the bad guy - your friends will avenge your death kind of crap.

The instant they killed the only character I liked, I simply stopped reading the book. A couple pages later I realized there were no loose ends left that I cared about knowing. I have no intention of finishing it. The story as far as I care is over. There is some hint of a sister coming on the scene. I am just not interested any more.

In case you couldn't tell by the links above, both books have been made in to movies. There are U. S. trailers. The books have a feel like they were written with a movie in mind. Not sure how to elaborate on that point.

Alert! Code Lavender

Homeland Security Drops Color-Coded Terror Alerts
Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that the Homeland Security Department is poised to end its five-tiered, color-coded terrorism warning system, a post-Sept. 11 endeavor that has been called too vague to be useful and has been mostly ignored or mocked by the public. The domestic security advisory system was created in 2002 under then-Secretary Tom Ridge and in 2004, the department began assigning color threat levels to general targets such as aviation, financial services and mass transit. However the Department hasn't changed the alert level in four years, even after the attempted bombing of a flight to Detroit on Christmas Day 2009 and the alert level has only been elevated to red once, on Aug. 10, 2006, when British police disrupted a plot to detonate liquid explosives on airliners. Although it is unknown what, if anything, will replace the color-coded alerts, a senior Homeland Security official, who did not want to speak on the record about a decision still under review, says that 'the goal is to replace a system that communicates nothing.'" Can't we just re-use the big DefCon displays from Wargames?

About time. Mocking is a kind world for what people had to say about this stupid chromatic ranking of terror alerts. I remember the day I saw the description on TV I thought That won't last. Well, it has been a bit less than ten years. It lived well past its sell by date as far as I am concerned.

Man Bag

The original video

Strong language warning

This guys is hilarious. He is in Australia. He makes a ton of videos and he is a bit rude in most of them. I can't stop watching.

My Response

I'm attempting to make a video response to someone else's video. The guy in Australia carries a bag with his entire life in it. He left it at a shopping center and someone turned it in. He got it back, but nearly shit himself in the process. I do not put things like my phone, wallet, keys and other stuff in my bag, but I still don't want to loose it. I fear leaving it on the bus so much that I leave my arm through one of the straps just to remind myself that it is there.

Field Data
Title What's in the bag?
Description This is a quick video of what is in the bag that I carry with me everywhere. It is an attempt at a response video. Wish me luck.

Blog entry:
Tags backpack man bag browbag man purse canon 940 Houston Texas
Link Link


2010-11-24

Notes:

I just listened to a story on Marketplace podcast that talked about the public relation issues of diabetes. Right now people view diabetes as something people have to live with. This does not rake in the donations. They need to sell diabetes as something that makes you sick and then kills you decades before you would have died otherwise. This would open the tap.

Also on Marketplace, a story about teachers getting too much education. The idea is that teachers with masters degrees do not teach any better than those with a bachelor degree. I've known for my entire life that education is only as good as pile of tools that it hands you to use in a career.

More from Marketplace. A few sales outlets are experimenting with video chat for sales people. That is, you have a bank of sales people in India your headquarters and use video chat for people to pick out their products. The example was jeans. Between this and the fast food places using people in other states to take your order, there really are going to be zero jobs for people to perform.

Why would space aliens want to come to Earth to plunder our resources when they can get pretty much anything they want all throughout the universe. The only thing we have here that is not know to be slopping over in the universe is life. If they are advanced enough to fly here from across the great void, what the hell do they want to take from us. No, If the little green men are here, or show up, it will be for the purposes of curiosity and research, or perhaps poaching that they make contact of any kind.

Speaking about a P51 restoration, G. Gordon Liddy related a story about process. The first thing you have to do when restoring a World War II plane is take it completely apart and coat every part with anticorrosion material. This is because the average life expectancy of those planes in a combat situation from assembly line to end of use was 90 days.

There are ski goggles with a sort of heads up display for GPS and other crap. Pretty cool. They say it works. It won't be any time at all before this kind of stuff is one contact lenses. Just like the science fiction novels. They look pretty snazzy too, or so I'm told. Heard on Totally Cool Tech.

I listen to a bunch of fictional podcasts. I also listen to things like Starship Sofa. It is a podcast that not only has fiction, but also talks a bunch about fiction. I do not learn nearly as much from the fiction podcasts as I learn from the news kind of podcasts. I would not give either of them up. I think they are both needed.


2010-11-23

Notes:

Ireland is in real trouble. They have asked for a bailout from Europe. The blame game has started. Not a single finger is left unpointed it seems. I remember the rocket to the top of Ireland. Apple made computers there for goodness sake. A friend of mine had one. "Made in Ireland" I told her to hang on to the sticker. No idea if she did or not. The Celtic Tiger is a bit under the weather.

The SEC must deal with whole new approaches to insider trading. The line between research and inappropriate information floating around is blurring. You would think that talking to someone on the inside of a company is bad. The law is vague. What exactly will get me a good tip, and not get me 20 years?

Companies the first five years of existence, startups, account for all of job growth in the U. S.. From APR Marketplace (from memory).

You do not own the money in your pocket. That is a promissory note. That means, that paper is just a promise from our beloved government that the piece of paper is good for a measure of goods and services. It is not yours. It is on loan to you at the interest rate of inflation. When did this happen? When we ditched the gold standard of course.

The odds of being hit by lightening in an 80 year life span in the U. S. is about 1 in 3000. I don't like those odds. From Dr. Karl. (from memory)

"As subtle as a flying mallet." "Sharp as a sack of wet mice." "Sharp as a sack of doorknobs." "Subtle as a hand grenade in a bowl of oatmeal." -Foghorn Leghorn. Maybe it was "... a barrel of oatmeal." I don't remember.

Title for my memoir. "Sheds of beige" I think it has been taken.

Walking

I've been walking the path next to Westheimer now for a couple years. I've learned nothing beyond my disdain for nature and man made filth long side Texas roads. It amazes me that I still like camping. I have learned a bit about avoiding wet pants.

If I could drive I would not walk. I say that it is the only exorcise I get. My health has benefited from my daily trudge through the wild. I fear the exhaust from the passing vehicles may do me in. That or being hit by a car. Not just crossing streets, but tire tracks from wild drunks above the curb that I must cross tell me of the dangers I face every day.

One might think that the walk gives me time to think, or that I can listen to music. I've tried both of those and neither one seems to work. If I get distracted by thought, I stumble. If I listen to music, I get run over. Simple enough.

When it is hot, I sweat like a leaky bucket balanced on my head. When it is cold, I shiver and jog. When it is dark, I carry a flashlight. When it is bright I ware a hat and sunglasses. When it is wet, I get wet and take all day to dry at work. When it is muddy, I have shoes to change in to at work.


2010-11-22

Dexter season 1

I watched Dexter season 1 marathon style. I worry now that some of my social dysfunction are a psychosis. You can't trust what show tell you about how people act.

Spoiler Alert!!!

Dexter is a serial killer working as a blood spatter expert.

That's it. Thank you for stopping by. ... You want more? That isn't enough? That should be enough.

I'm staring at the screen wondering what to say about the show. The characters are wonderful. The fact that the lead character is frighteningly evil and yet sympathetic is amazing. The flaws and mistakes are excellent. The man who gets Dexter, not the other killer, the cop who is creeped out by him, ends up making sense and being required for the story. The relationship with the girlfriend that ends up helping Dexter become a more efficient killer is appropriate.

There is a bunch of back and forth between the present and past. Apparently Dexter's step dad, a cop, taught him to be a better serial killer and how to avoid being caught as he grew up. Hell of a dad you got there Dexter. Nice having a family watching your back. It did make your sister fight like crazy to catch up. You, Dexter, are a serial killer, but your sister has massive daddy issues. You kill people and she, now a coop like her old man, will spend the rest of her life trying to live up to a dead man's image of her.

What a bastard. I blame the father for all the extra corpses sinking to the bottom of the bay. The father raised, deliberately, a killer, trained him to hide his tells and strip the bodies like a deer. Then he destroys his daughter by keeping her out of the loop. She only sees Dexter's constant attention and hunting trips.

At the end of the first season, Dexter learns his mother was diced to ribbons with a chainsaw right in front of he and his <clears throat> blood brother. This is apparently the lynch pin that sets off all the crazy bits of the child's existence. I can't blame Dexter for being messed up after this. I still blame the step father for keeping everything hidden. So, I hate the step father character.

I can't wait for the second season. How can they possibly top season 1? I'm told it is still a very good series all the way through to present.

Lunch Conversation

  • TSA
    • You are traveling? Which one you gonna choose, radiation or groping?
    • The radiation from the scanner has about the same chance of giving your cancer as you have to get on an airplane with a terrorist on it.
    • A county in California is about to arrest some TSA agents for groping kids.
  • Fried turkeys
    • Fried anything is good.
    • Want to try fried Cornish Hens.
    • I've had good and bad fried turkey.
  • Video Games. I didn't really follow this thread. My eyes glaze as quickly as a fried turkey when they start talking video games.

Adult Learning

What did I learn yesterday?

  • I learned that you can hit the bottom of YouTube and not find anything you really want to watch.
  • Same goes for hulu, but I already knew that.
  • I learned that I'm really glad I didn't go to TRF because I would have killed a mufukea on meth.
  • There is a real backlash against the TSA. There are videos of kids being groped.

What have I learned today

  • Ubuntu Server has no GUI. Well, I knew this, but I relearned it today. It is the first time I really had to deal with it.
  • The size of the print on business cards can prompt changing every email at a company.


2010-11-20

Adblock

For the last several months, I have not been using a plugin called Adblock. All it does is drop connections made to off site URLs. That is, it cuts ads off at the download phase. I hadn't bothered with it because I believe the internet should be ad driven. I prefer that to being charged for every dammed click.

Well, I did install the plugin and switch it on. I did this for one purpose. So I could see the whole video on many YouTube videos.

There was an ad box on the YouTube play screen that was periodically over writing much of the video screen. After installing Adblock, no more troubles. I did notice a side affect that I had forgotten about. Pages load much faster when you kill the ads. You computer does not sit there and chugg like mad either. The internet is a better experience without the ads. This is not how it should work.

This kind of response makes me wonder if the people who make the ads and design the web pages normally surf the net with some kind of ad block software on their computers. Surely if they played with the web pages they design on a regular day to day basis and noticed what kind of crap was out there, they would fix it.

Blur test

I've been wanting to learn how to do the obscure thing for some time. The final straw was this past week and Elle's video. Well, I have one more tool in the box now. With practice will come better results.

Field Data
Title Blur test
Description This is a quick tour of my garage and a first attempt at the "obscure" filter that lets you do those block blur effects to hide things in your videos like license plates and faces.
Tags test blur obscure canon 940 Houston taxes
Link Link

I own several Dell computers

Lawsuit Shows Dell Hid Extent of Computer Flaws
"According to an article in the New York Times, documents revealed in a lawsuit against Dell show that the computer maker hid the extent of possible damages due to a faulty capacitor in the computers it shipped from 2003 to 2005. Dell employees were told, 'Don't bring this to customer's attention proactively,' and 'emphasize uncertainty.' (PDF) 'As it tried to deal with the mounting issues, Dell began ranking customers by importance, putting first those who might move their accounts to another PC maker, followed by those who might curtail sales and giving the lowest priority to those who were bothered but still willing to stick with Dell.' In other words, the most loyal customers got the worst treatment."

I'm trying to decide if this pisses me off and if so, by how much.

Google really is bias

Hard-Coded Bias In Google Search Results?
bonch writes "Technology consultant Benjamin Edelman has developed a methodology for determining the existence of a hard-coded bias in Google's search engine which places Google's services at the top of the results page. Searching for a stock ticker places Google Finance at the top along with a price chart, but adding a comma to the end of the query removes the Google link completely. Other variations, such as 'a sore throat' instead of 'sore throat,' removes Google Health from its top position. Queries in other categories provide links to not only Google services but also their preferred partners. Though Google claims it does not bias its results, Edelman cites a 2007 admission from Google's Marissa Mayers that they placed Google Finance at the top of the results page, calling it 'only fair' because they made the search engine. Edelman notes that Google cites its use of unbiased algorithms to dismiss antitrust scrutiny, and he recalls the DOJ's intervention in airlines providing favorable results for its own flights in customer reservation systems they owned."

I'm trying to decide if this pisses me off and if so, by how much.


2010-11-19

Notes:

I still want to wash my hands every time the name Nancy Pelosi crosses my keyboard.

SEO (search engine optimization) also known as Google-bombing, blows. Most of the software that claims to give you a leg up is malware. They are using your intent to game the system as a gateway in to your site. Then, they jack your life.

There is a Japanese pop star that is really 3D hologram. There is no person. It is a program running on a computer. It is programmed. It is entirely fictional. There are live concerts. She looks like anime come to life. How cool is this?

Photoshop SE would require over 700 3.5" floppies to install.

Control is not evil if you are the one controlling. Control is evil if you are the one being controlled.

I need to learn how to blur a bit of video. Last night I would have loved to use some footage of Elle, but I couldn't because her folder has the frigging address of her school on it. I ended up cutting that video out. It looks pretty simple, once you get the hang of it. I need to get it down. This is not the first time I've wanted this functionality.

Stain on the pavement

This morning I missed another perfect opportunity to catch a video. It was just a guy crossing the street to catch the bus. I have sworn to never run for the bus or cross a street out of turn to do so. I've heard too many stories of people tripping and busting their teeth. Metro is not going to pick you up and dust you off after this happens. You are on your own. It is just not worth it.

So, this guy did the classic cross one lane at a time thing that has gotten so many pedestrians killed and maimed over the years. The wheelchair industry is in business because people tried to cross a street one lane at a time. This guy made it look like he had done this sort of thing many times. Still, the potential is there for something catastrophic to happen right in front of my eyes. I watched him. I preyed for him. I should have grabbed my frigging camera and filmed him. Even making it would have made a video worth posting.

it isn't like the camera is buried. Half the time it is in my front pocket. The rest of the time it is in the first pocket of my bag. I do this for just such contingencies. I thought about it and I would have had plenty of time to grab the camera, turn it on and start recording before he started walking. So, even if I would have ultimately not used the video, I'm kicking myself for not catching the situation as it was happening.

Apparently, I only have one slot available for memorizing the keys for a spell checker. As I flip back and forth between programs and have to use different sets of hot keys, I find myself adding incorrect words and ignoring where I meant to replace. It appears that there is some non American kind of standard. I know Microsoft is loosing ground as the leader of all things computer, but this time I wish someone would put their food down and enforce one set of keys for all English spell checking software. I'll hold my breath.

Lunch Conversation

Angie joined us today. I felt quite privileged. It was a great turnout with a ton of left overs from yesterday's company pot luck. I don't know who brought the deserts, but some of the pies were way too sweet. That means good.

  • Bands
    • Lady Ga Ga
      • is she hot or not?
      • One yes, fifteen no.
      • Have you seen her high school picture? There is a YouTube video ...
    • Baby Ga GA
      • Million dollar idea.
      • Must have been done.
      • Can't happen because LGG is male. (opinion of one)
    • Hanson
  • Good left overs from yesterday's lunch.
    • Haywain rolls.
    • "I wish I liked mashed potatoes."
    • "You don't like mashed potatoes?"


2010-11-18

Homework

Ain't she cute! You would think we were pulling her toenails out through her nose.

Field Data
Title Homework
Description This is my intelligent and lovely daughter Elle doing her homework.
Tags Homework Houston Texas school frustration sentences Canon 940 IS
Link Link

November 2010, the middle

In the years before I was born, people had plans.
In those years the U. S. was optimistic.
There were bad people and good people, much like today.
But, people had plans for a better way for everything.

When I was a child, people were making things happen.
They lead the world in so many things.
The world looked bright. People had plans.
Lots of drugged out hyper busy people.

As a young adult, I was distracted from the world.
Looking back, people were lost.
People wanted things they could not have.
Everything that felt good was killing you.

Where are the flying cars?
I work for a living 45 50 hours a week.
What happened to 24 hour weeks?
We are still at war with ideas instead of countries.

When I am an old man, what will I think was good?
Will the world have cures for what ails me?
Will they have landed? Will we be enslaved?
Will we have flying cars?

Notes:

Science Friday had a quantum physicist on. He misspoke. He said something about Schroedinger's cat that just made me sigh. Surely, he was just nerves being on the radio and all. He said (paraphrasing) We are celebrating the 75th anniversary of this example of a cat that is half dead and half alive at the same time. This is miles off. The cat is both 100% alive and 100% dead at the same time. You don't know which until you observe the cat. Oh, there is more to quantum than entanglement.

Why does having to reboot my phone almost every day make me worry for the future of mankind?

Skipped a free lunch at work today. I ate my weight in leftovers.

The Beatles are finally on iTunes. I've never used iTunes. I like The Beatles, but I'm not nuts over them. Man, some folks are absolutely bat shot over the group. Someone mentioned Metalica as still not putting their catalog on the service. I have no idea.

YouTube has been having partner meetings all over the world. No video allowed. I'm not kidding. A partner is someone who applied for and got an extended account that allows things like revenue sharing (ads) and longer time limits. I am not yet a partner. You have to have 100 subscribers or 100,000 views or something like that. The targets keep moving. I have seventeen subscribers and two of those are Nat.

They had dressed up iPads on Chuck (TV show) last night. It makes me sick. They didn't even try to make them look like anything else. There is nothing wrong with the iPad except the people who are obsessed with them. They are just another tool in the box. They are not the lynch pin

One of the podcasts I listen had a special "What is on sail for Black Friday?" I stopped it and removed it. I'll catch them again next week. I'm just not interested on what is on sale for that busiest sales day of the year.

Kids really do get more tired walking around. It boils down to longer legs. That is it. Apparently, kids use the same, relative, amount of energy per stride. The shorter the legs, the more energy used to cover the same amount of ground. In the future, you may enter your inseam along side your weight on exorcise equipment. (The Naked Scientist)


2010-11-17

Cloud

Short little video calling out a single cloud. Not five minutes after I shot this, the cloud was gone. A couple other went by. They all dissolved in minutes. It looks like the winds were blowing hard enough to simply dissolve them. By late afternoon, there were more clouds in the sky, but the winds kept blowing. Sure wish I had something more interesting to video.

Field Data
Title Lone cloud
Description Short little video calling out a single cloud.
Tags cloud loaner rebble canon work parking garage clear blue sky weather canon 940 IS Houston Texas.
Link Link

Notes:

You can get a replica of Serenity for $2500. Bit much.

Westheimer was a parking lot this morning. Nat said it must be the book signing thing that Bush 2 was having somewhere in West Houston. They are probably blocking traffic for miles. I replied "Frigging presidents!" Got a smile out of her.

Dinner Party Download joke: The tomato family went for a walk. The youngest ran ahead, turned around and shouted "Hey guys, catch up!"

There are too many stories about sadistic psychopaths who get off killing people. They must be the rage of the moment.


2010-11-16

HEB

Last night we went in to HEB for some groceries. Why else does one go to HEB? A couple things happened. Elle danced for no good reason. She had a bunch of energy and was just board and happy. Apparently a board and happy seven year old dances. Awesome.

She and I also had a quick discussion about surveillance cameras. She correctly identified the pods hanging down from the roof as speakers. I suspect they are also cameras and if not, the cameras are simply elsewhere.

The place was a madhouse. Every second person was on their phone. I was standing there tapping away on Twitter and what-not. Nat was looking up recipes for gluten free pie crusts. I asked Elle where her phone was. She said "At home." She said she wanted to ride in the cart. Nat and I as one said no, that she was too old. She was disappointed. I said "You didn't know the last time was the last time did you?" I thought how rude that was of me this morning.

I failed to take in my frigging video camera. Come on Kelly. I thought about it and said heck with it. I thought it would be too much of a distraction. Distraction from what Kelly?

We got out of the place for less than $60. I'm impressed. We got some real food and some gluten free stuff and some little wheel of cheese that a nine foot tall women had free samples of. I do not particularly endorse HEB. Been shopping there for years and had few troubles.

Notes:

Another guy reeked of marijuana on the bus today. People don't realize how much that smell carries to people who do not smoke. The funny thing is, as I walked past the bus stop on my way to the building, I past someone who smelled like pipe tobacco. That was a much more pleasant smell than the marijuana.

Could the U. S. survive a siege? It just seems to me that we do not know how to support ourselves any more. Every one knows how to do marketing and outsourcing. Who still knows how to thatch a roof or mend trousers?

I listened to a British soldier named James Blunt list off the equipment he replaced as a grunt with his own funds. He replaced the 5 kilo sleeping bag with a 1 kilo sleeping bag. That sort of thing. His primary quote that sticks in my mind was, from memory, "The RAF doesn't have the funds to keep it's planes running on the front line." Scary stuff. He averted a British version of The Cuba Conflict some say. He did this by disobeying an order to fire. I believe every bit of what he said.

I've never played with an iPad. I've unboxed a couple. I have only seen a few tablets used in online videos.

I really wish I could create good fictional stories. I wish I were a creative person. I wish I had that magic to entertain with words and actions.

I'm going to swap my good windows box at work out for a crappy one because I do not need a good windows box on the internal network.

What does it mean when you sigh a lot? It worries me that I'm sick. Could there be a real problem when it comes to having to breath heavily between tasks? Is there a good excuse?


2010-11-15

One are push ups

These are the gayest manliest push ups I've ever seen. I just ate 3/4 of a pan of lasagna. I'm going to go weep in to my pillow now. I can't get out of bed in the morning.

Walking Dead

My first impression of Walking Dead is a good one. I believe that the police will be the most likely survivors of any kind of apocalypse because they have the guns. The U. S. government thinks so too because of all the money being poured in to FEMA and Homeland Security being dumped on the local police forces.

Spoiler Alert!

The first scene is is the cop looking for fuel. He hears a noise. He spots a little girl. She is a zombie. He shoots her in the forehead. It disturbs him, but he did it.

The first zombie he comes across has no legs. The zombie claws her way toward him as he mounts a bicycle. He easily takes off to find his family. Later he goes back and shoots this zombie too.

Another survivor cannot shoot his now zombie wife.

The hot showers must have felt like heaven.

The zombies eat a horse.

The whole first discovery scene of a zombie movie is getting on my nerves. "Oh my god! The dead are walking the Earth." "I must save my family." "I must travel." "I really wish I had prepared for a zombie apocalypse before all this happened." It makes me feel like I've seen it all before. At least they show how this guy was left behind so to speak.

The scene where he is talking over the radio, someone else can hear him, but he cannot hear them. I loved that bit. Anyone who has tried to communicate with a CB at any point in their life should do a cartwheel to celebrate that scene.

I watched the show on hulu. I'm not sure how far behind the episodes premiere. I don't care. If it becomes an issue I will pursue other avenues of viewing. I'm not going to pay for the show, regardless of how good it is because I do not have the money. I'm am tapped from one month to the next. This is simply a fact. Figure out a way to make money off me without taking it directly out of my pocket. This should not be news to the powers that be.

As of the first episode, I approve.

Notes:

Staring at a blank page is like being born. There might be an entire life to poor over that page or, there might be pneumonia round the corner.

Google moved most of its revenue from other countries to a company in Bermuda. This dropped their taxes in the U. S. dramatically.

You will find pre-stamped greeting card envelopes. This stamp will cost $0.04 cents per card. The Post Office is taking advantage of laziness. How many companies have gone broke taking advantage of laziness?

GM is about to get bought out by the Chinese. That is, the largest car maker in China is about to buy a huge chunk of GM. Perhaps this is why the Hummer purchase didn't go through. The Chinese company held off for the whole damn company instead.

There was a small car sitting in the far right lane of traffic on Westheimer at Richmond. It was an education watching people maneuver around the little vehicle. They had their hazards on. As I walked by they tried to start the car, but no dice. Someone got out of the car while I was waiting at the bus stop, but I was gone before the situation was resolved. I have helped people in that situation before. Even just a push around the corner to a much less busy street is a help.

They are calling the new Harry Potter movie Episode 7A. I love it. "They" being Mark and Simon on 5 Live Film Reviews. If I think about it, I'll put in a link. Someone said they finished the filming a couple years ago and are just dragging out the franchise. And, why not. The last book was one of the bad ones in my opinion. There is a couple chapters where people are wandering around dodging witch contact for months. I think that is what this movie is from the description. "Lull before the storm" has been put out there. "Mounting sense of despair." "... art film."

Holy crap. Thanksgiving is next week.


2010-11-14

You are in our town now Mouther@$%#$!!

Anti-gaiter kitties.

The cat walks up and pops one of the gaiters. The gaiter falls back to a position of strength (retreats). Two gaiters, two kitties. Sounds about fare. As long as the cats stay far away from the water, I think they will keep the upper hand.

What I learned today

I'm not the only one who is afraid of Oracle owning Open Office.

- Ask Slashdot: Where Do I Go Now That Oracle Owns OpenOffice.org? Posted by timothy on Sunday November 14, @03:47PM
"So I noted that there was better support for my processor in the latest BIOS for my mainboard. After downloading the update, there was a .doc file containing flashing instructions. No matter, I have OpenOffice.org installed on this machine and just opened it up. And, as should be no surprise, there was an Oracle logo splash screen while OpenOffice.org 3.2 started up. At my job, I've had a less than favorable history with Oracle that I'm not going to get into — rather let's just say I never want anything to do with them again. Including installing any of their software on my machine. So I'm facing a dilemma. I've looked into the forked LIbreOffice but that's still in beta and I'm a little wary of depending on that. Has anyone used LibreOffice (it's installing as I type this) extensively? Does it handle complex Powerpoint files okay? Is there some alternative out there that I'm completely overlooking for open source? Can anyone convince me that there's no reason to fear the Oracle OpenOffice.org? Will it remain the de facto standard? Will it eventually lock me into a commitment with Oracle? If you get by without one of these heavyweight monster editors, what do you use and how do you handle doc, ppt, (etc.) extensions?"
SlashDot


2010-11-13

Erl ain't got no pancake mix

It takes something special to get up in front of a crowd and be awesome. It takes getting up in front of a crowd several times and not being awesome. It takes getting up in front of your friends a couple of times and being terrible. It takes not listing to your mother. It takes parents, tolerance, thick skin. No, it only takes practice.

Then they melted away

This is a pretty cool look at combat. Taking fire from one building. It looks like the bad guys moved to another building. By the time our troupes get on top if it, the bad buys split. "Goddammit Spanky!" I love it.


2010-11-12

Notes:

Ties and beards are hazards according to Dr Karl. Once you listen to the experiment, it sounds like an unkempt beard that has been sprayed with bacteria is a biological hazard.

I put up three videos yesterday. One was a bad trip to Faire. The other two were game night at Adam's place. Nat feels poorly and will not go camp at Fair this weekend. This is for the best. She needs to heal. I need to do laundry, the lawn, dishes, everything normal. I need sleep. I am worn out. The week has been long and complicated. Things have happened that I cannot fix. Having to buy replacement motherboards feels like a failure.

My family has no tradition. We have no tie to the past. We have little code. We are all American mutts. This is a good thing.

I want a phone application that I can aim at a police car or other emergency vehicle and tell me where the emergency is. I hear there is one for aircraft. Why not? Surely terrorists will not abuse such a handy tool.

I dreamed a whole new episode of Heroes last night. Too bad I can't remember most of it or I would write it up and post it on a fan site somewhere.

I spent about 90 minutes today figuring out that I had a bad SATA cable. Of course, I complained about this to the engineers. They were not sympathetic. Tim said he had that happen with a fiber channel cable. At least they are expensive. The cable I spent my time on is worth about a quarter.

The shelf in my office was missing one of the little pegs. That shelf was basically useless. Being me, I had stuff on it anyway. I found a whole bag full of the little metal pegs for a set of shelves. No idea why they are not being used on a set of shelves. I nabbed one. It fits the hole. It prevents the shelf from falling out, but it still moves. I have gone from "fall on floor" to "warble a bit". I'm calling that a win.

About 30 Earths would fit between us and the moon.


2010-11-11

Space Alert

I would love to explain Space Alert, but I cannot. There are six positions on the board. There are up to five players. No matter how you slice the pie, you are going to have to share responsibility for defending the ship. You strategies under timed pressure. You plan and attempt to work together to defeat an enemy. Then when the pressure is off, you play out the scenario. At this point, you get to watch your best laid plans dissolve in to chaos before your eyes.

Ken said Space Alert is more fun to watch than play. He also said you have to read the rules for an hour to play a ten minute game. Ken was not pleased. It boils down to working together and planning your moves several steps in advance. You have to make things work in time and in some cases simultaneously several step in the future. Not as easy as it sounds, and it sounds like a bitch.

Adam and I discussed this game after the fact. I wonder if the military put it out in order to find people who are good at it and recruit them for some special project. This board game smells of "The Last Star Fighter" to me.

What cracks me up are some of the rules that say specifically that if two people push a button at the same time, you only get one push of the button. This is spelled out explicitly because this happens constantly without planning. The moves and actions are waisted. You blue your chance. Shut up and do better next time.

Another rule says you can tell people what cards you have, but you are not supposed to show them your cards. At some points in the game people are allowed to hand a person one and just one of their cards. The rules say you must hand the card to that person and cannot toss it to them. Again, this rule came about after playing Space Alert several times.

Both of those rules appear to exist to force people to communicate in a premeditated manor what resources they have and what they need to the rest of the group.

Something I noticed last night is a miscommunication happening over and over. People would say "I'll do ..." There was no leader who decided what needed to be done and then called for people to decide who needed to do what when.

First step should be to scatter throughout the ship. Whom ever can go to specific places on the ship needs to go to those places. This is going to be different people every time. They all need to be able to cover the different tasks.

Next comes a card check. There are a finite number of threats. Those that come from the outside require energy to fire the guns and those that come from the inside need to be handled by battle bots or jamming or whatever. Each person assess the cards in their hands and decide what need to be given away and what you need as an individual to do your job. Be prepared to trade off when the call comes.

When a Threat comes in, be prepared to move, shoot, reload. That strategy counts for all actions. Move, act, prepare for next action. Repeat.

The object of Space Alert is to make it for ten minutes. From what I noticed last night that is about all of this game that can possibly be fun. If you had to keep this up for a couple of hours, you would go nuts. It makes me think of real combat encounters that took a week to fight out. There are plenty of times that two armies have simply stood off from each other and pounded until one or both fell.

it has been a long time since a board game made me think this much about anything. I have to give kudos to the developers for making something highly intelligent and challenging. It is just too bad they couldn't get the two audio CDs that came with Space Alert labeled correctly.

On a technical side note, my camera was acting strategy. The cheap batteries I got heat up pretty bad. It kind of looks like this may be messing with the white balance. The more I use the Canon 940 IS, the less I like it. I had to restart the video a half dozen times last night because of the ten minute limit crap on this camera. There is going to come a point where I just need a real video camera.

Field Data
Title Space Alert
Description I would love to explain Space Alert, but I cannot. There are six positions on the board. There are up to five players. No matter how you slice the pie, you are going to have to share responsibility for defending the ship. You strategies under timed pressure. You plan and attempt to work together to defeat an enemy. Then when the pressure is off, you play out the scenario. At this point, you get to watch your best laid plans dissolve in to chaos before your eyes.
Ken said Space Alert is more fun to watch than play. He also said you have to read the rules for an hour to play a ten minute game. Ken was not pleased. It boils down to working together and planning your moves several steps in advance. You have to make things work in time and in some cases simultaneously several step in the future. Not as easy as it sounds, and it sounds like a bitch.
Space Alert
Tags Space Alert strategy game board game spaceship intelligent frustrating stressful war game night
Link Link

More Game Night

Field Data
Title Game Night 1 of 2
Description This is game night over at Adam's place. They are plying some unpronouncable Japnese tile always end in a tie game.
Tags Japanese tile game Canon 940IS Houston Texas
Link Link

Notes:

It is getting to the point that I do not even feel the walk from home to the bus stop. I remember when I stared doing it, I was winded pretty good and always worn out on the bus ride. Now, it rolls off my back, unless I'm under the weather or a sore toe or something like that. I'm still not particularly happy with it, but I have adapted physically to the challenge more so than I thought I might. Dammit, it is keeping me in shape. Don't tell Nat. I do like getting a ride occasionally.

I just typed in the paragraph above this one all in one shot. I then ran the spell checker. No hits. I then typed in a garbled word and ran the spell checker again to make sure it had not broken.

Wow, I really don't like The Who very much any more. I used to like some of their stuff. Are my tastes changing with age? Am I just sick of them and older Metalica stuff? Did they always kind of suck and I am just now getting around to noticing?

Rocks -> G. Love and Special Sauce - Okay - 07 - Cold Beverages

Rocks -> Korn - Life is Peachy - 12 - Lowrider

Bad time at Faire

I've already complained a lot about this past weekend at TRF so I'll spare you most of it. This is a short video of some camping and me complaining about the boom boom.

Field Data
Title Bad camping experience at TRF
Description I've already complained a lot about this past weekend at TRF so I'll spare you most of it. This is a short video of some camping and me complaining about the boom boom.
Tags TRF 2010 Texas Renaissance Festival gang bangers hoodlums camping hunting season noisy people
Link Link

Lunch Conversation

  • OS installs and the proper use of the boot CDs that come with Dell computers. Coaster vs life saver.
  • Speeding and history of tickets. What will get you taken to jail.
  • The office holiday lunch in a month and the place it is being held.
  • Working over time math.
  • I have these noodles I've been eating for lunch lately. I explained that Nat can't eat them because of the gluten.
  • Lakewood Church and the head preacher.

I was only at lunch for fifteen minutes. Then it was time to get back to work.

First thing

Computer

Last night I kicked off my podcast download right before I went to bed. That is, I thought I did. What I did was kick off a query that goes out and finds what is available. It then pops up a dialog box with a list of things to download. Then the time consuming bit happens where the computer actually tries to download the data. This is a two step process that is ridiculous. It should be a one shot thing. Of course, I walked in this morning to sync my USB key to take the day's podcasts to work to keep me sane while people pummel me with tasks and to do bullets. What do I find? The second screen that basically says "Click next for me to do the only thing I'm designed to do." Idiots.

I use GPodder for some ungodly reason. It is the absolute lowest common denominator for pod catching software. It works, but you can tell the developers don't use their own product. Anyway, left without any podcasts to listen to today. It is music. For some reason, this just doesn't do it for me these days. I'm getting old I suppose.

This was not the only issue I noticed in the five minutes that I was hitting the computer this morning. My server hadn't done anything all night either. I have software running that kicks off and runs in the background. This is what servers are all about. Anyway, I noticed all the entries were set to 'paused'. I have a scheduling plugin for Deluge that is supposed to make life easier by letting Nat run during the time she needs the computer and kick off the Deluge software at specific times. This does not work for shit.

First, the scheduling plugin has a snazzy little interface that makes it pretty easy and intuitive for marking off blocks of time across a week. That part seems to at least work. Second, the meat of the program doesn't work. There are several bugs. There is some combination of actions that place all the entries in to the 'paused' status and prevent anything from downloading. Another issue is that even when nothing is downloading there is some network traffic going on between the server and the internet. It is looking for connections or receiving communications from the outside.

These issues are no big deal. I would rather thing be working at the house, but to be honest, I don't care that much. It is just a lousy way for an IT professional to start the morning.

Traffic

While putting my boots on, I had the local news playing in the background. This is the only TV input I still have in my life. I don't even watch TV shows on the TV any more. They start in with the weather and it sounds like it is going to be a pleasant day. At least I'll get to catch a glimpse of it through a tinted window. Then the traffic comes on. I'm generally not worried about the traffic. I walk and take the bus. Every day is a potential to get run down. Once on the bus, I generally don't care because the driver worries about it. As long as the buses are still running I'm happy.

This morning I hear about an accident smack in the middle of my commute. It is an auto pedestrian at Highway 6 and Westheimer. Actually, a block north on Highway 6. They said something about redirecting traffic through the mall parking lot. That sounded bad. I was thinking there must be an issue beyond a fender bender because of how much traffic was being diverted.

As I was walking in, sure enough, I heard life flight and saw a news chopper fly over my head a couple times. That is what was killing traffic. People were bailing on Westheimer and heading over to Richmond around the mall. I can't blame them. One guy flipped out while I was waiting on the bus and drove around a bunch of people blocking the intersection while blaring his horn. He nearly caused another accident. Not fifteen seconds after he took off, the traffic moved and he would have been able to move the way he wanted without putting any one's life in danger.

Bus

The guy sitting in front of me reeked of cigarettes. I'm getting less and less tolerant of this particular stink. People get on all the time stinking of sweat. That doesn't usually bug me. People have to smell like feces (unchanged babies mostly) to piss me off more than cigarettes.

The male driver was chatting up some woman about the same age while driving. They were complaining about ambulance charges going up and one of them had something to say about their family and the upcoming holidays. I wasn't paying much attention. Neither was the driver. He had to slam on the breaks a couple times to avoid people acting like the jerk above.

Someone gave me a funny look this morning as I read Dilbert. I use a magnifying glass to read my phone. I was chuckling at the dentist joke and just felt the eyes on me. There really must be something to the whole "Someone is watching me." thing. The older I get the more I believe there is some other sensory perception going on.

Conclusion

Then I got to work. Then, I got to start my day.

Notes:

This whole windows update thing is getting out of hand. To bring up a new Vista system based on an original CD takes a half day just to run windows update after install. I use images to help speed things up. They don't always work on different hardware.

Wow, Early Metalica sucks. I'm definitely getting old.

I find so many fools today. A fool is someone to whom feeling is more important than what you feel.

Josh brought in a Japanese grapefruit. Adam brought one last week I think it was. Those things are really good.

Supposed to rain this weekend. Wonder if I can get some mowing done before the wet stuff comes down.

I had to toss a shirt today. Something was on the pocket. It was hard, red, and felt like plastic or gum or something. The shirt was boring and crap anyway. Still, hate tossing an otherwise good shirt.


2010-11-09

On Campus

Lost while walking between buildings at university.
Looking for a roommate to help pay bills.
Political t-shirts. $5 or best offer.
For sale. scooter, not cool to women.

The bookstore sales shot glasses.
You can get a haircut for $3 in the quad.
Don't feed the squirrels, they bite.
You can get free condoms in the dorm, just show your ID.

No loud music.
No pets.
no drugs.
No glutton.

Magneto vs Tank Girl?
Wind turbines should be purple to avoid attracting bugs.
Five years working for the NRA will pay for law school.
Ass god as my witness, I will never eat Roman again!

Lunch Conversation

I was only at lunch for 19 minutes today. I over heard the following and more.

  • Computer games
  • Work
  • More work
  • Sandwich places
  • Mobile phone companies complaints.
  • Replacing water battles in the coolers.
  • Music, but I didn't catch any of it.

That was pretty much it. Boring. I was pretty brain dead this afternoon. It was just a rough morning. Things keep acting strangely at work. I'll put an IP on the network and it will disappear for no good reason. I hate that. On top of this, I had to get back to work and missed my normal walk. This did not make the afternoon pleasant.

Notes:

They didn't mow beside the road. I don't know what I was smoking yesterday. Some of the grass has laid down and someone mowed around a couple signs.

I'm learning about bandwidth shaping. This just might help me at home. I have a server that runs all the time. This machine eats the network alive. It is even worse with the newer router. If these tricks work, I will be more able to control who gets what bandwidth. This means Nat will be able to surf the net day or night without competing with the server. Wish me luck.

I'm not depressed. I'm paying attention.

One of the podcasts I listen to was talking about stem cell research. The rules are finally changing. Religious groups are up in arms. One of the suggestions was that researchers should use ape stem cells. One of the scientists asked "What is in it for the religions?" This person has no concept of fighting on behalf of someone else's life and existence.

Heparin (blood thinner) is made from the mucus of pig intestines.

Still learning how to set up email for archiving. It is an art. PST files die around 2 gigabytes. Once you go over that, something happens at that size and the files tend to deteriorate unpredictably. Stop archiving to that file. Create another PST file and archive to that file. Once you have a couple delete the really old ones. Burn them a DVD, stick it on a shelf and forget about it. At some point, you will not be able to mount the file any more because Microsoft is Satan's proxy in the business community.

I want to shoot a video. I have nothing to shoot a video of. That doesn't stop most of the YouTube people. I shouldn't let it stop me either.

Nat called me at work today. She was at home dealing with a letter from a hospital thinking her for using the mammogram services. The trouble is that she did not use the services. The hospital is looking in to it. The part of the call that got me is her and Elle. Nat and Elle are hitting one of those mother daughter stages where they think they both know the correct way of doing everything at least where it comes to one another. Perhaps all children hit this stage. Elle is just shy of eight. We should have twice this long before she becomes unmanageable.


2010-11-08

When someone dies

I really need to learn what to say when someone dies. I need to learn out to console without sounding like an asshole. I only have one pitch in this play "Sorry for your loss." Someone beat me to it. I cannot think on my feet on this subject. I can't stop and give it long thought and get anywhere either.

Wrong things

  • So and so is in a better place.
  • Hope you feel better soon.
  • The person who died (OK if volunteered by the bereaved)
    • What happened?
    • How did they go?
    • Did you say goodbye
    • Did they have time to prepare?
    • At least they didn't suffer.
  • Anything to do with money.
    • Did they have insurance?
    • Did they have a will?
  • Anything to do with relationships.
    • Were you close.
    • Will you speak at the funeral?
  • Anything about litigation.

Maybe

  • Let me know if I can help with anything.
  • I'm sorry to hear that.

Right things

  • Sorry for your loss.

The structure of this encounter is completely one sided. It is one of the few times that the encounter is supposed to be mono directional. All emotion is to flow basically one way. The hurt party is to receive all positive emotion and supportive statements. Any statement that takes from that will be perceived as incorrect or as some kind of attack. Questions are very difficult. Do you touch the bereaved? There are no set rules for some of this. The best thing would be experience. I do not wish experience of this kind on any one.

Suggestions are welcome. Don't hold punches. I need to have these things to say near the top of the response list so they can be recalled without hesitation. Is there someone I can ask about this kind of thing. I need the kind of help that Big Bang Theory characters need on this one.

What happened at Fair this weekend?

I went out to Texas Renaissance Festival (TRF) camping Friday evening. The place was empty. It was the opening day of deer hunting season. There was one other couple who we hang out with also camping. Tony and Diz are highly cool people. They are both good people. They are both capable individuals. They are great friends. Then there was us.

Friday evening, we roll in and start setting up. Nat criticizes how I'm handling the tent and I stop off in a huff. I put up with being yelled at when I'm getting paid. I don't need it at home. Nat and I constantly fight for dominance in the marriage. It is not a good thing. That ruined Friday evening for me. I went and sat in a campsite not far away and sulked. Walked around for a while and people watched. It was relatively quiet Friday evening.

Saturday, I didn't dress out and go in. I just didn't want to spend the ticket. I was in a bad mood and would just be in a bad mood after walking in the Faire. So, I sat outside. I tried playing with my phone, but that didn't work. T-Mobile doesn't get data connections out there. I may have to walk clean back to the front of the park to get Edge network. I walked around. I watched the cops drive around. And I listened to the gang bangers a couple sites over blast a bunch of raunchy boom boom music. Every other word was the 'N' word and rapping about rape and that kind of garbage.

I hadn't slept the night before. I never sleep well out there. Now, I couldn't nap during the day. They kept booming of course. No one will say anything about it. They are gang bangers and design themselves to intimidate.

I was close to bar rowing another tent and heading for family camping. A bunch of other people started walking through our camp site to get to the gang bangers site. It was a hub for raunchy noisy hoodlums. The people waking up were at least smart enough not to camp there so they could get away from the noise when they finally wanted to.

Nat offered to take me home. I took her up on it. She decided that there was no way she would want or be able to drive back out after taking me all that way so we just packed up and left. I feel bad for leaving the other couple there. I just had to get the hell out of there. We got home and both just crashed. The best part is after I got home. The club behind us had a thing going on outside and it echoed all through the house. I slept in the shooting sound suppression earphones.

This was Nat and my anniversary. I'm not going back this year. I hear Kenny has problems with the place too. Nat will still go out for the rest of the season. She still has fun out there. I can't do it. I'm staying home. I'm not spending any money out there and I'm not going to give much free advertisement to the place on this blog or my other channels to the internet. Too bad. I get good hits on that stuff.

it was beautiful weather. Supposed to rain next weekend. The cops out there are running off the wrong people. The cops didn't give the gang bangers any shit over their fire on the ground that I saw. I did notice the cops yelling at people who looked like normal law abiding citizens. Isn't it great to be normal? Isn't it great that the cops are afraid of the gang bangers?

I'm done.

Notes:

I spent money on this stupid watch that automatically updates the time. That part works but daylight savings time has to be switched by hand. Apparently, the idea of the target moving around is too much to handle. That switch must be thrown by hand. What is the point? It works on my phone. Do I complain about this every time the switch comes around?

They mowed! I think any way. It looks like parts of the side of the road I walk on have been mowed, but not all of it. There are bits that are still over grown. The cross has been fixed, or at least picked up. Sure makes it easier to see all the garbage.

Monopoly is 75. I hate that game. I suck at it because I'm not ruthless enough to win. I'm not ruthless enough to win at life either. I don't know if winning at Monopoly is a good indicator for success in life, but it has caused some rifts in families that have never healed.

The walk in this morning was nice. Even with the time change and the light straight in my eyes, it was pretty nice. I do walk faster when there is light. That is just a natural side effect of being able to see. It is supposed to get warmer over the rest of the week. Then, it is supposed to rain next weekend.

So, the fountain at work has not been running for a while. Is it the windy days we have had lately? Is it the cold? Is it more construction? The readers of this blog may never know.

Dr Karl. - Just watching a video of someone coughing and or sneezing triggers an immune response in your body. I wonder if it is the feeling of revulsion or something completely unrelated to emotion.

Back Track won't boot the first system I tried it on. It is very difficult to try another system after the first one fails. It was so promising too. There is a Chinese word on the boot screen. This makes me cautious. not sure I want to keep trying it.

G. Gordon Liddy show "They should be working for Main Street, not K Street." K street is in Washington DC. It is where the majority of the lobbies have offices. I like that one.


2010-11-07

Wild Target

Link

I'm not normally in to the boring British comedy. I liked this one. I like all the actors in the show. I have no idea why, but I like Bill Nighy. He seems like the kind of pompous ass that I would hate, but he doesn't seem to take himself too seriously.

Plot: An art thief has a hit put our on her, but the hit man falls in love. Aw. ... puke! Still, I liked the movie. I think after that plot has been done to death, someone has finally gotten it right. Now, let it die please.

Terrorists are coming across the Mexico U. S. Border

Found here

Can any one tell me who controls this news organization? I like the data they are coming up with, but I don't know how much of it is backed up with more than pretty words.

Helping the blind see

Science: Chip Allows Blind People To See
"3 blind people have been implanted with a retinal chip that allowed them to see shapes and objects within days of the procedure. From the article: 'One of the patients surprised researchers by identifying and locating objects on a table; he was also able to walk around a room unaided, approach specific people, tell the time from a clock face, and describe seven different shades of gray in front of him.'"

They get tat little bit closer every day. I can't wait until eyes are as easily replaced as verginity.


2010-11-05

I had another kidney stone pass last night (2010-11-04). It really sucked. It was just after work. I had just stopped on the bus for the ride home and noticed the agony on the right side of my body that comes with kidney stones. I went over the symptoms in my head just to make sure it was not my gallbladder or appendix. Not fever, The act of jumping up and down doesn't make it worse. I can push on the area and it is only a tiny bit sensitive. Abdomen is not rigid.

The horror of it being something serious is always warring on your mind as you stand there wrathing while people are trying to get on and off the bus. It hurt to sit. Of course, it hurts just as much to stand, but you feel a bit more like you are doing something. It hurts just as much to push on your stomach. Putting your hands above your head and holding on to the hand rail seems to help for some reason. It probably just relaxes your stomach muscles. My hearing is affected by the pain. It isn't that I cannot hear as well. It is more like my brain stops trying to hear what is around me so much. My hands tingle a bit from the pain as my body reacts by pulling blood in to my torso. There is no point in doubling over, it doesn't help. There is no point in hollering or holding your gut. None of that does any good either.

The thing to do when you are sure it is a kidney stone is to distract yourself. Walk around slowly. Drink a ton of water and pee your brains out. If it goes on for too long get to a doctor. If it starts to burn instead of just hurt get to a doctor. If there is blood get to a doctor. If indeed the pain gets too bad to take get to a doctor. Do NOT take Tylenol. If you have appendicitis, Tylenol or many other pain killers may mask the fever.

A funny thing that seems to help me is to lie on my stomach and gently roll from side to side with my weight really on my chest. This sounds bad, and I'm sure would look even worse if any one had ever seen me do it. This movement seems to help move things along. It still hurts, but it is a new place that the stone is hitting and may very well shorten the over all experience. A good thing.

Bumping along on the bus didn't hurt anything, but sitting at lights was agony. I called Nat and we agreed to meet at Whataburger so she could give me a ride home. I only had to wait a minute or two, but it was long time. It was chilly last night and the breeze seemed to help. I took off my jacket stood there, paced, being cold. It kind of worked. We had the wait the full light at Highway 6. The light took ages for every little movement. I looked around at the other cars and people seemed to get along with their lives. I was sitting crooked in the seat. I wonder if anyone in the other cars noticed.

When I got home, I tried jumping in the shower. This always sounds like a good idea, but the shower just feels claustrophobic and doesn't really help. I tried lying down. Unless it is the stomach thing, it doesn't help. I got up and walked around. I tried to pee every two minutes. I drank a couple glasses of water. ... I waited. I watched TV. Bones and then Fringe were on, but I couldn't tell you what happened. I finished my book "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo". I didn't like the ending, but it was a good book. I can tell you about that. for some reason. The book kept my attention better than TV. I didn't get on the computer. I didn't eat until much later in the evening. Then I found the Oreo wannabe generic cookies.

I was almost giddy this morning. I was worn out, but in a good mood. Even though your basic kidney stone doesn't do much real damage, thankfully, they do give you that "I survived" vibe afterword. Kidney stones suck. I wish I knew how to avoid them in the future. I've asked doctors and he said they have to analyze the stones to figure out what it is in your diet that you can eliminate in order to stop them. If they only happen once a year or so just count yourself lucky and get on with life. disappointing.

Notes:

Our bandwidth at work is charged by the megabit per second. If you go over a threshold, you get the crap charged out of you.

Got a spam email today that basically said "We have people in your area looking for the servers and products you provide." What area are we in? What is our business name? What do you think we do? Nope. They act like they have all kinds of information about our company and they got zip. I hate that. It is not worth my time to Mark and delete these messages.