Boo
Boo is my friend's cat. Bo is a special kitty. She isn't heroic. She does not have a cornucopia of tricks. I means special as in stupid. She knows where the food comes from and she knows where outside is. That is about it. We joke that she has a three bit mind. Her actions are a dial tone "dooooooo" followed by a "ping" and that is when she turns her head. Everything else is instinct. She has this one thing she does. She will scream as loud as a panther in the middle of the night. My buddy says it will make your skin crawl.

The little green eyes winking at me.
Day and night they stare off into space.
In my darkened living room they watch.
They watch me type.
They watch me think.
They keep an eye on the place when I'm gone.
I can read them.
I wonder if they can read me.
My living room is well attended by the little green eyes.

Social Interaction.
A buddy of mine is trying to convince me to join a social club to get out of my apartment. For example, I only left the apartment yesterday long enough to run to the local stop-n-rob to get some Dr. Pepper and a snickers. I walked, so it doubles as exorcise. She sent me some links, one of which is a nudest enthusiast site, but I like SlashDot's idea better.

Google News.
I've noticed a troubling trend on Google News. They put up links to pay news sites. I don't subscribe, so all I get is a screen that says "pay up or piss off." I wish Google News would give me the option to block these sites from their page when I show up. ... I noticed about an hour later that that particular link was removed and that other "The Street" links did not lead to a pay site. I wander if it was a fluke.
Notice the use of ellipsis points. This is still not the proper use, but it works here.

Grass Root Ethnic Cleansing.
The latest attacks in Saudi Arabia tell me the targets are foreign oil workers. It says in the article that the attackers separated Muslims and non Muslims. As the attackers searched the apartment building, they killed non-Muslims and let Muslims go. This sounds like ethnic cleansing to me. The only difference is, it isn't the government doing it (I hope). I know there are War Criminals who are wanted by the UN and their member nations no matter where they go. I think it is time for a World Criminal. No matter where the wanted one goes, all nations must do their best to hand this person over to the UN/whomever or face excommunication from the member nations.

4 GB Micro Drive.
Have you seen this? The deal is that Creative has an MP3 player with 4 gigabytes of memory. The dirty little secret is, the memory is a standard CompactFlash card type 2. There are all kinds of instructions available to gut the device. The links to the how to are in the link above. It doesn't look that hard. The modified players, the ones that have had the large drive replaced, are on eBay. If you ask me, Hitachi should lower the price of the drive and clean up. They obviously make money on the drive by selling it to Creative at a low enough price for them to wrap an MP3 player around it and sell the whole thing for less than the cost of the drive by itself. I can't find a link to the drive for sale.

Friendly Fire.
Remember that guy who gave up the NFL contract to go fight in Iraq? Well they say now Pat Tillman may have been killed by friendly fire. Man this is depressing. He was defending a convoy. I've read that convoys are th number one thing to get nabbed in Iraq. Some one said every road is thick with highwaymen.
I play allot of video games and friendly fire deaths are common. I know this is hardly comparable, but I have noticed the confusion effect in video games. When you feel surrounded, you become desperate and make poor decisions

Ellipsis Points <note to other blogges>.
Five words ... followed by ellipsis points ... then dribble .... followed by ellipsis points ... then a bunch of .... random rhetorical vomit .... followed by a bunch of ellipsis points .... do not get your point across, it makes you look stupid.
Lay off the incomplete sentence separated by ellipsis points.
Telling people what you had for lunch is a blog, but not very interesting. Telling people about the cute girl you saw while at lunch is OK. Telling people about the politics surrounding lunch is sometimes interesting. Don't read off a laundry list. Say how the situation made you feel. Talk about the history behind your opinion. Support you bullshit with links. To quote Ren, Say something intelligent!"

Basement.
I was watching the Simpson's. This is the one where Homer is a superhero named Pie-man. His lair is the basement. They have the washer and dryer down there. I miss basements. I remember walking down the steps to the basement. It was stone and the walls were large stone. My grandmother's house had ugly fake-wood paneling and a tile floor. There was a whole another house down there. I live in Houston. We cannot have basements here. The water table is too close to the surface. You would just end up with an indoor swimming pool. I had a bunch of adventures in basements. We have slabs in South East Texas. Slabs are no fun once the house is built.

Terrorism.
It is going to happen. I bet it is not going to be a huge bomb or another plane. I bet it is going to be a series of suicide bombings and maybe some kidnappings. So far this kind of attack has been in other countries. I fear it will start in the U. S. soon. It is so very cheap and difficult to prevent. you can't protect everyone all the time. There are any number of ways to fill the hearts and minds of Americans with terror. Kidnapping doubles as a revenue source as well.
I'm sitting here reading news, looking for stories that will compliment my paragraphs above. There are so many, it is depressing. Every news agency has multiple stories on the subject.

Why I cannot go Linux on my desktop.
I have become highly reliant on software that reads to me. My favorite at the moment is ReadPlease. There are many for MS, but  i can find none for Linux. Nothing even close as a matter of fact. It is how I read the large news  stories I link in my blog. It only reads text and is quite finicky on what it accepts from the clipboard.
When I cannot read something using the program above, I use the magnifier in MS. It moves automatically with the mouse and follows you as you type. It is pretty useful. The Linux equivalent is not the same thing at all. There is a program called XZoom, but it cannot be compiled on a modern distribution.
It is only a matter of time before this stuff is addressed. I use Linux as a server every day.

Crabby <from email>
I'm in a crabby mood today. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around anything. It is 10:00 and I've been at work for four hours. It is a Friday. The two people who tell me what to do all day are gone. It is a three day weekend. Yet, I'm in a bad mood. It is stress. This time it it evening job stress. When I get home, I just want to collapse. i haven't been able to do that lately. The only bit of fun I have lately is griping at everything and every one in my blog. I'm off to lunch in a bit and I hope my day will pickup (my attitude anyway) after that.

Ferocious.


Three day weekend
Today is the Friday before Memorial day. I have friends going to the beach. I can't imagine taking on the beach. It is supposed to rain this Monday. Houston is like that. Some other friends are headed to Chicago in a week. Another friend is headed to Big Bend park (actually she is there as I type). She should have a blast. Big Bend is not crowded at any time. My parents are headed to a park Wet of San Antonio for the weekend. I have some work i would like to get done. I may not leave my apartment this weekend. A bunch of people took today off. I have a hundred hours of PTO (Paid Time Off), but nothing to do, nowhere to go, and no one to go with.

Lunch
Who am I supposed to go to lunch with? Here the last couple of weeks I've felt the sting of politics at my office. There is a group of people I have been going out to lunch with for a while. Not every day. I enjoy getting out of the office. I need the interaction to be honest. I don't get enough people time in my day to day life. I've recently started coming in a half hour earlier so I can take the full hour lunch. Many tell me that it doesn't matter. The time at lunch is forgiven. I will not allow myself to give in. I have to make up the time  That is a different story about office politics.
This story about office politics involves two companies. I finally have a conflict between the two groups of people I work with. The funny thing is, I don't think either set of people really cares. it still bugs me. I am paranoid about social stuff.  I have no idea how to handle the situation. I've been splitting my time. The only reason I go from one group to the other is a need to spread myself around. Play the social butterfly. I will start to limit the number of days I go out to lunch to about two days a week. This will not only save me some social trouble, but some money as well.
A third story about office politics.
Today at lunch I had a disaster socially. it wasn't that bad, but it makes me really uncomfortable. It is one of those situations where you confide in some one and they think you want them to do something to fix the trouble. I told person one that I didn't like person two. Is that not how all of these things start. Why do I tel any one anything? We all had plans to go to lunch. Person one was off to pick up her boyfriend and person two was supposed to give me a ride. Now I have a serious conflict. Person one insists on taking me and making her boyfriend drive himself. Ironically, we end up in a booth and, naturally, I end up sitting next to person two. It isn't that I hate this person. I just find her annoying and cant look her in the eye without wanting to turn and walk away. This is another good reason to stop going out to lunch.

Monday Number Four
Lately every day feels like Monday. I've taken to numbering the days as Monday(1), Monday Number 2, Monday Number 3 and so on. I carry on writing programs. I carry on testing. I carry on the paper work. I would say I need a change in my life, but I fear change. I'm terrified slightly more by change than I am at things staying the same.
This bleeds over into my every day life. Work is my everyday life. I want more than that. I want to let some one into my life, but again, I fear change more than I fear the status quo. I need to embrace change. Pretty heavy stuff for a Monday Number Four morning.
So, what do I intend to do about it? Well, I intend to get out of the apartment a bit more often. I intend to force some changes upon myself that I know I need to make.

War
There is a debate on the BBC (Five Live) today about the many wars around the world that are forgotten. There is a show on this evening in England that covers 16 wars on one specific day all around the world. On of the countries is Laos. A woman plants a device at the side of the road while her fellow soldiers protect her carrying muskets. The army they fight has armed attack helicopters. Yet, they fight. There was a quick debate if humans (men) are predestine to make war. One of the issues is the definition of the word peace. as the absence of war. This implies the default is war to some.

Groundhog
My day job has a fence all the way around the complex. There is no real way for pedestrians to enter the place except through the vehicle gates. That is another issue. There are apartment complexes on both sides of the property. One of the apartment complexes actually built buildings right up to the edge of the property. The fence is only between the buildings. One wall of the buildings is on our company's side. A result of this is people's windows open to this company's property. Some air conditioners are open to the parking lot and must be accessed from this company's property. It floors me that this company let this sort of thing happen. It is a blow to safety and security. Whatever.
Anyway, as a result of having these apartments so close, a buddy was walking through the parking lot and saw a domestic groundhog/hedgehog/rodent of some kind washing itself in a puddle. He mentioned it in passing about a year ago and the image in my head is still there, bright and clear. I don't even know which parking lot he was walking through, but I can see and hear the little animal splashing around in my head. I wonder if it made it back home.
This is the same guy with a story about raccoons that will put in stitches when he tells it  He and a bunch of buddies went camping at a state park. They didn't realize it, but they were near the campground dumpsters. This didn't faze them until, late in the evening, the raccoons walked through their camp toward the dumpsters. I wish I could  properly describe the sound he makes when he tells this story.
He will say something like "We are sitting around the campfire and we hear this rustling in the bushes. Then, we hear this sound like irrirreeerrirreeeer ..." He describes being besieged by raccoons on their way to the dumpster. The sound he makes will kill you. (You should hear the computer read that. It is pretty close.)

Cool Stuff
I've often wandered if i could find my way around Springfield blindfolded (as long as Maggie is not on the road). Now some one has gone through and put together a full map of Springfield USA. That is so cool. I wish I had the time and gumption to do stuff this cool. All I do all day is work and ... ummm .... watch the Simpsons. I plan on having this thing open the next time I watch an episode so I can follow along with my finger and find out what kind of job these guys did.

Buddy's new car
My buddy got a new Audi Allroad.  It is basically an A6 with a bunch of extras. Sweet machine. I like it better after he had the bumpers painted. We went to lunch this afternoon. It has nice pep. the air suspension adjusts all the time, but you can't tell.


500 Megapixel
I'm a photo nut, or I would just let this one slide by. They are going to strap a bunch of camera receivers together and get a single picture together that can be scanned and compare the light given off from stars. The experiment is supposed to prove the existence of dark matter. Well, well, well. Are they finally going to give up on the concept of dark matter when it is prove to be crap, CRAP, CRAP!?

Friend's Mail this morning.
It is 7:30 AM and a friend of mine who will remain anonymous (Anna)  just sent me the following email.

ahdjfk lh luguyf tytyd urt drxjvkgf iu foufgluf.

I think it is a bit early for this one. (the green was my idea) I prescribed three cups of coffee, stat. The spell checker doesn't like that line one bit.
Anyway, I haven't heard from her again all day. I hope this wasn't some stroke induced cry for help.

More on GMail.
I've found a couple of solutions to my previous troubles.

• You can type in names in the To field to get multiple entries. It has an auto-complete feature that kind of works. I have a hard time remembering people exist thought. I really need a checklist. My opinion of this work around is "eh!"
  
• The address book (that still does not let you select many people for one email) is sorted by name again. My opinion of this fix is " ... "
  
• I got an email from staff that basically said I'm stuck with the sent items just sitting in the sent mail folder. My opinion of this work around is "muueeeheuuuuuheeeekkkh"

My overall impression is good. I still want some features. The performance of the mail is great. I've only noticed twice when it took me a couple of tries to get in the system. Honestly, Hotmail has done worse in the same period of time and it has been out for years.

Large, Large Format  Photos.
This camera is pretty sweet. Here is the real link. This is an invention that was brought into being by an artist. Read the article for descriptions of the resolution. They said you can count the shingles on a barn at 1.2 kilometers. I can't imagine taking a portrait with this thing. It is too much for that. You would literally be able to count the fine hairs of your eyelash.
I can also imagine dragging one of these to a party. What kind of flash do you use with this thing, a  nuclear bomb? It needs gobs of light I'm sure. Daylight is probably required. I hope this guy makes money off his invention. It normally happens that some one, in marketing or sales, steels the idea and patents it before the real inventor can work out the bugs.
I've heard of a camera that took a one meter by one meter (yes, meter as in 3.x feet) negative image. The camera was designed to take pictures of a one meter by one meter piece of artwork. The Sistine Chapel used it to record the art before renovation. The camera was purpose built for that use.
I've looked at the Canon Digital Rebel
This is the Canon 1Ds, the real deal. The resolution is 4,064 x 2,704 (11.0 million pixel). If you dig deep enough you can find the sample photos. Nice. One problem, it is $7500 to start. That doesn't include a lens. I've never considered a life of crime until I read about this camera. I downloaded a sample picture and it was 5 megabytes. There is a system in place to digitally sign the photo when it is taken to prove it has not been edited. I got to get me one of these.


Seventeen Years
The Cicadas are back. Some sports guy wen through some stuff that happened in the same year as past Cicada upheavals. The Sox did pretty good in 1919. They would consider an every seventeen year win a streak.

Server <geek speak>
So, I'm trying to set my server machine up so people can store pictures there. I have to figure out how Apache rights work. The glitch I'm hitting is allowing people to log in via FTP and dropping off pictures with the appropriate group settings and rights so Apache can read everything. I don't want to start a business or anything. I just want to learn how to do it.
I did figure out how to get Samba to default to a specific group on a file share. The trouble is, my user name is listed as the owner of every file. Apache either needs to own the file, or have he apache group associated with the file. I haven't had a chance to test my adjustment yet. I may gripe about it again later.

Work
I was looking for some code to swipe from an old project to use in a new project this morning, when I discovered all the files from the old project were gone. Wait a minute, that project has not been distributed yet. I emailed the people responsible for distributing the files and ask them WTF? "Oh, that is how we do things now. We are cleaning up after ourselves." He gives me a link to the files on their distribution system. Hey, that's great. I'm poking around. Poking around. ... Where are a bunch of the folders? Oh, they are in the wrong place. That will not due. Just about now, I start getting the phone calls "Hey Kelly, that package that came in this morning doesn't work, WTF?"  I stop answering the phone and settle in trying to fix the problem. I end up getting the files pulled from tape. They were back in place in a couple of hours. That has got to be a record for our IS people. Hopefully, the project is winging it's way to the Philippines for distribution. That is where the IS people work for beads.
Actually, they are very good at what they do. Of course, what they do is bill the company for everything they can get away with. I may be mistaken, but it sounds like the company still pays them even if they don't fulfill what they said they were going to do. One side effect of this is they will never tell you no.

Blimps, In Space?
Apparently some one figured out how to simply rise to orbit with a blimp and a light bulb. Remember those laws of physics I was talking about in a previous post? This is the way to do things. Not this specific method, I mean using the things around you to your advantage. Now, if we could figure out how to float on top of gravity.

I'm proud of myself
I actually walked in on a Monday morning and wrote a non-confrontational email addressing unsatisfactory answers to questions I've had for weeks/months that were now being given to the fourth person.  That is an accomplishment. Normally I want to rip some one first thing on Mondays. I was not in a particularly good mood, but I controlled myself and simply responded.

Coffee
I went to a Starbucks with a friend yesterday evening. It was nice to get out of the house. I have those days where I will just sit there and surf the net avoiding anything productive. I didn't write in the blog yesterday because I was in a crummy mood until my friend called. I get a call "You want to get a beer or coffee?" I opted for coffee. We spoke of our thoughts on relationships, business, and cars rubbing on the pavement on the way out of the parking lot. When I got home, of course, I was hyper until well after my bed time.

Conquering the night
I can't believe it, I ordered a night vision monocular last night. They had a really cool one that was powered by a hand crank (no batteries). How cool is that?!? I opted for one that was even cooler, because it is (wait for it) WATERPROOF!!! Yes!!! I can take it on the boat. I can use it in the fog. I can use it in the rain.  I have no real use for a night vision device. It is just cool. I can't wait to get it. I'm sure you will hear more on the blog in the future. I don't think I can take pictures through this model, but I will try. I could find practically no information on how these things work. There is a drastic lack of information on comparison shopping. This one had the same numbers as a bunch of other devices comparably priced and was waterproof on top of it all. That is the one I went with.
I even have an excuse all ready if some one gets upset by my being in possession of a night vision device. "Hey, I'm legally blind I need this." It is kind of the truth. I wonder if I can blog from jail?

Capturing Images
I was watching the Simpsons on the computer and saw the one where Homer comments on the kids having pink skin and five fingers. They show the three kids for a second as real people. I tried for an hour to capture the image from the frame, but the system would not let me. What happens is the image you see is separated from the rest of the screen. The window the stream is displayed in is really just black, or actually a magic number that looks like black to the user. If you try to capture the image using Alt-Print Screen you get a black box when you paste it into a program. The funny thing is, when you drag the image program past the display of the stream, the stream shows in the frame. This is because the 2D screen (the user interface) only sees the funny black color. The MPEG engine generating the stream on the screen is just looking for the proper funky black color inside the appropriate area of the screen to display. Bastards. I may have to break out the digital camera and snap the shot manually. I hate that. This happens even when I use the "capture frame" function in the software itself. The really annoying thing is, this isn't even for copy protection or anything like that. It is just a messed up function in the software.


(Photo of the screen shrunk and brightened)

SCO, still
Slashdot has a link to an article about the SCO affair. IBM claim it is put up or shut up time. This effort by IBM is supposed to put the ball in SCO's court. I've heard it before. It looks like many of the other companies have basically told SCO that they are going to wait for SCO and IBM to settle their differences before they take SCO seriously. I don't know where any of this will lead, but I wish it would end. I've been a dreamer when it comes to open source. I want the open source movement to work. MS says it is un-American, or anti-capitalistic. It is not an American thing. It is a world community thing. It is quite capitalistic, because the people make money off the software. Open source may not be wonderful for big companies like MS, but it works out great for individuals and independent contractors.

More on the Middle East
I'm getting sick of the nations of the middle east griping about what's going on. Why are the Arabs not enraged about what their people are doing to the west? Remember 9/11!!!? Powell was pissed about the same thing a couple of days ago. I wonder if he caught shit for saying it on TV? (I can't find the frigging link). Israel is in trouble for firing on a crowd in the Gaza Strip. I heard in one of the articles that a tank fired on an abandon building to scare the crowd into dispersing. The trouble is, the shell went threw the building because it was a barrage of 4 armor piercing shells, and hit a bunch of people on the other side.
This brings back memories of Tiananmen Square. You remember. One lone guy standing up against a column of armor. The only reason that guy wasn't smooshed without a blink is because the guys in the tank were not threatened by him. Tanks may have thick armor, but they are not impenetrable. I'm sure it is possible for a person to open a hatch if they know what they are doing.
I remember one of those cop shows where some nut had stolen a tank and the cops chased him all over town as he reeked havoc running over cars and knocking down telephone poles. He got stuck straddling one of those freeway dividers. It turns out those things make decent tank traps. hmmmm. Anyway, a cop crawled up on the tank while it was rocking back and fourth and managed  to open a hatch. The guy inside would not stop and the cop had to shoot him. There was one kind of funny thing. The police had to write a ticket on the spot just to comply with some ordinance (paperwork).
Going back to Israel. I can only imagine how a tank commander feels when a thousand seriously pissed Palestinians surround your tank. Suddenly you don't feel very safe behind ten centimeters of steel, a couple of machine guns and a cannon. Remember, it has been proven that many Palestinians are willing to both kill and die for their cause.

Complaining
One of the guys I work with at my day job told me that people wonder what he does for the company. He says to me "I do this and that and know one seems to know."  "I keep logs and I know no one reads them." We are required to keep these log things called  highlights. I fill them out every month. I know no one reads them for me. I'm the low man on the totem pole. I let him in on my secret. Constantly complain about how busy you are to everyone. Make sure you walk by people's cubical and mutter to yourself "OK, what's next?" as you walk off quickly. I didn't come up with this, it was a Dilbert business tip.
I am actually very busy at my day job. There are 40,000 employees and yet, I have no support. What i do for the most part is called software packaging. That is not really the point. The company has a support structure for this very thing. The trouble is, each department has to pay for the support company to do the packaging. It goes on their budget. I don't work for support. I work for a specific department. I'm sure they save a fortune by doing this because our department has dozens of software packages to package. My department doesn't charge for the task. Thus, I get work from other departments and it just piles up. I suppose that is not a bad thing.

Useful Robot
Now, this is an awesome idea. This is a small robot that is tough enough to throw around a corner or off a moving vehicle. It is designed to look and listening around corners. Once it lands, it can drive around under it's own power. I'll bet you've seen the robots for bomb disposal. Now they are looking around corners. I bet it isn't that long before they are serving you in restaurants and even pumping your gas at full service stations. Remember full service stations?

My dad's advice
My dad gave me some advice many years ago about women. First of all, it has been scientifically proven that men are better at focusing on a single task. Women are better at multitasking. This article has a much better description of what happens. Men rap their head around things and disturbing them will throw them completely off. My father will routinely go to the garage and start taking something apart to fix some little problem, or building a piece of furniture. He says that without fail, my mom will come out to the garage just as he is getting his head into the task and want to talk to him about whatever. He said to me "Son, you have to stop. You have to make sure they know you love them and that you are willing to drop everything to hear their thoughts." That is a difficult task. Think about it women. Would you want to stop in the middle of your first viewing of Steel Magnolias to talk about monkey wrenches and reverse thread die sets? Remember, he is in the middle of an adventure. he is learning. He is becoming one with the wood, car, bicycle, clock, or whatever he has strewn all over the garage floor.
It is so difficult to get back into what your are doing. I just experienced this. While I was typing this entry out a minute ago, I accidentally blew it away. It took me ten minutes to get back to where I was. This is because I had to start the whole thought process over again. I just know it was better the first time. I am no expert on relationships. I should not hand out advice.

SWBell email
I just tried to mail out the article in the above paragraph. South Western Bell only lets you send to so  many people at a time. I think it is to discourage spammers. You don't get a warning. You just get a return error. That is a good article and I hope people read it. There are about thirty people I can think of who need to read it. Unfortunately I have lost the will to send it to them. Let them stumble across it like the rest of us. (no it doesn't have anything to do with the strike.)

Bookmarks
I wish there were a way to synchronize your bookmarks across browsers and computers. If Yahoo or Google would give me a way to access my bookmarks across platforms and browsers, I would opt in. I use Mozilla and FireFox (a cut down version of Mozilla). I do use MS Internet Explorer on occasion, but only when pages don't support Mozilla. (Yahoo Launch).

VMS
In my day job we still use VMS on a couple of systems. I support an old database software that tracks a bunch of accounting crap. One thing I've noticed is the up time. These old 90 MHz systems are routinely up for over 200 days at a time. I had the two servers I use go for over a year without a reboot.
I heard that the NT kernel was actually written by the same team that developed VMS (VAX hardware). It turns out this was accurate. MS originally wanted to call NT OS/2. Creepy..That article says MS paid Digital between $60 million and $100 million for the use of the kernel to settle any lawsuits. Sounds like something MS would do.

Engines of our Ingenuity
This site is amazing. The site is the text version of a radio show produced for the University of Houston. I listen to NPR on the way to work in the morning. This show plays on that same station later in the morning. I miss it every day. I cannot receive radio in my dungeon.  I use internet radio to take up the slack. I suppose they have to pump sunshine to me as well.
Engineers will love this style, because it is straight forward fact on top of interesting presentation. The site has one advantage over the radio show. The site has pictures and diagrams.
Here are some I like.
No.10: The Medieval West
No.16: Homo Technologicus
No.18: Poets View the Ind. Rev.
No.35: The Influence of War

Syria and a wedding party
It is common practice in the middle east to fire guns off in the air during a celebration. This includes weddings. I have to say, it is a war alone. If you fire a gun off, even in the air, you should expect to get smacked. Remember, this is an area between Syria and Iraq (on the Iraq side I'm told) that has been called "the wild west". If you lived in an area with no real law, and a bunch of cheap rocket launchers, would you carry a six-shooter? I doubt it. You would have a chop-stock AK with a flip-clip and a telescopic laser site. I think the tradition of firing off guns in the air during celebrations must be addressed.

Yeesh
I used to work at a print shop. I hated it. There was this woman there named Bee-bee. I'm not sure how she spelled it. It is difficult to describe her. Think, a Mexican version of Me-me on the Drew Carry show. One year for Halloween, she took a bunch of the green highlighters we sold, broke them open and came as the Hulk. The year I remember she came as a bum with a sandwich sign that red "will work for tequila" on one side. I don't remember what the other side said.
Anyway, I had a dream about her last night. I bumped into her on the street. She didn't turn in to the hulk, She didn't try to hit on me or anything. What sent me with a start into a waking cold sweat? She remembered me.

HTML
I'm going to try a new editor. This is being typed by the editor in Mozilla (Composer). It meets my criteria, a spell checker, WYSIWYG interface, inserts image links and doesn't piss me off the first time I use it. So far so good. Spell check seems to work. Formatting seems to be OK. OOOO It has "Paste without formatting" yes! SWEET!! It has "Remove all text formatting". I think I may have a new throw-down HTML editor. Yes, you can start composer straight from the command line. This is looking better and better. You can tell people who needed exactly what I need designed this thing.
Normally I use Star Office, but it has been driving me nuts lately. It doesn't handle bold very well. The line spacing is at best a stab in the dark. The stiles are meant for a word processor and don't always translate. It is a fine office tool, but I need a quick HTML editor. Besides the spell checker grayed out the choices once you started typing in the answer. I force myself to type in the proper spelled word in an attempt to make myself a better speller. It scrolled funny too.

Frozen lake
I did something when I was in my early teens that not many people can say they have done. It was a cold, overcast and rare day in South East Texas. A buddy of mine, Bryan, whom I grew up with, and I went to the local park down the street to see what kind of trouble we could get into. We fell upon the little pond the city had put in a couple of years before. We lived in Missouri City Texas in a huge subdivision called Quail Vally. It was big for the time. Just thinking about that neighborhood brings back a flood of memories. I swam that pond once. It was about eight meters across in the narrowest place. It was only slightly over my head in the middle, and frigging cold in the Summertime near the bottom. Anyway. My buddy Bryan and I found this little pond frozen across the top. Can you imagine. Two young guys in South East Texas looking at a frozen pond? I had to try to cross it. I don't remember if Bryan crossed it or not. I remember slowly walking across the ice and listening to the cracks as I walked. I could hear the cracks creep across the surface all around me. It seemed that standing still or moving didn't affect the number of cracking sounds, so I pushed on. I hit the ice in front of me with a stick to tell if it was thin. Bryan staid on the shore, at least long enough for me to cross in case I fell in. That is a brilliant triumphant memory..
There is no trace of that lake now. The City removed it. I suppose too many jackasses like me tried to cross it in the winter time.

Paperless office
My day job says it tries to be a paperless office. There are copiers and printers every three meters. They do much better than in the past. This company has been around for several decades. Sometimes.I wonder what it was like to do the kind of office work I witness today, in the late 1800s. I imagine they had the same pile of rules and just used hand-written memos instead of emails. When was the typewriter invented? (so that is where Brazil got their typewriters) It looks like there have been typewriters in some form since at least 1868. Cool. I had no idea. The only things I print now are my time sheet (my job requires two prints), and some emails. I only print the emails by mistake. The print icon is right next to the save. I suppose I could edit the tool bar, but you know me.

Year
I forgot to mention something. It's been over a year since I started my blog. The first date in my history is 2003-03-09. Wow, A year. I spoke of my fears over both my jobs and why I started a blog in the first place. I noticed several misspelled words. I also noticed a choppy style. I still have the stile. Choppy, but effective.

Start a blog
I use, incase you've gone blind and can't see the adds all over the place, Blogger for my blog. They are OK. I've heard there are better services. I'm kind of glad I started using Blogger because that is how I got invited to Gmail. Anyway, I find myself typing away at my computer and just letting the thoughts flow from me. That is probably why they are all over the place. Writing in the blog helps me relax. I had a friend listen to me describe my experience and he told me that writing in my blog sounds like a hobby. I suppose it is the only thing I have consistently enjoyed doing on a daily basis for, ... well .... ever. I cannot remember the last time I did anything for a year. Soon my blog will have lasted longer than my marriage did. I have to tell you, I like my blog more than I liked my marriage, but that is another entry.
Cynthia loves having a map-pin-thing to tell where people are snooping from. She also start the comments trend that I picked up on. She pays attention to the number and origin of people who visit her site. I can't stand thinking that no one is reading my blog. I do it because I enjoy it. However, I'm afraid I might loose interest if I actually know how many/few people are reading.

Gas
CNN had a cute picture (see Cynthia's blog(she beat me to publishing it)) that poked fun at how high gas prices are. That story just quoted people bitching about the prices. I'm interested in what people will do in the voting booth this Fall. We Americans love blaming some one. We love smacking around a scapegoat instead of fixing the trouble.
At my day job, we work with Europeans on a daily basis. They laugh at $2.50 a gallon. They routinely pay $4.50 (adjusted from liter and converted to dollars) per gallon. They say it is about time the U. S. government stopped subsidizing gas, even if they don't call it a subsidy. Europe has been paying the real cost of petrol for years. I don't want to go into Japan.
I'm glad I don't drive. I ride the bus, and I'm afraid they will raise the price of a bus trip from $1 to whatever. I suppose it isn't that big of a deal. It is still far cheaper than a car.

Dark Energy, BAH!!!
This article talks about dark energy. Now, it is dark energy. First it was the big bang. Then came string theory. Then came dark matter. Now, they resort to dark energy. They call it dark energy because we can't see its affects on other stuff. They can't get today's theory to work, so they make up another one. I suppose that is how science works. I lay my money on the properties of gravity are just plane not known. At some point gravity repels to balance the attraction up close. All human observations have been from, or near, Earth and the Sun. We don't have any data on what happens farther away from the Sun. What is next? They will blame glowing star elves before they stumble over the truth. The truth is, it is something we haven't even noticed yet. Think back to the days of yore where people thought there was a God for every occasion. I feel like I'm in the dark ages.

Angel
it is the last episode of Angel tonight. I miss Buffy. I miss Farscape. I miss Futurama. I will not miss Friends. I don't miss MASH. I don't know how I'll feel when they eventually cancel the Simpsons.
Geeze. That was lame. They have had better thanksgiving episodes.

Test test test and retest
There is a debate in Britain about standardized testing in schools. All I hear is the government adding more tests on top of kids and piling on the assessments of schools and teachers. Then, in the same breath, they say don't teach to the test, teach a well rounded education. Wait a minute. If the kids do lousy on the tests the teachers and schools loose money. The kids don't progress. So, the kids need to pass the test at all other costs.
The same debate happens at the state level here in Texas. I've had friends move from one area to another and told me the level of teaching is directly related to how many of the kids have problems passing the standardized tests. If an area is high in non-English speaking students, the curriculum seems to be "test test and retest" until they pass. One friend said her daughter comes home every night with practice sections of the assessment tests all year long. Even in history class, her daughter has to read a random paragraph about history and instead of being tested on what that piece of history meant or its significance to other events, she is tested on the direct content, just like the stile in the standardized tests.

L337
I completely missed L337. I've found out recently that emoticons are passé. I'm always a decade behind on this stuff. I've never been near the social cutting edge.

The aliens are coming
I have wild unfounded speculation why the European Union and NAFTA are trying to get one currency and a centralized government for the whole world. (Give me a break, it will be the whole world! eventually.) I'm a huge Star Trek fan. I imagine a universe where there is a Federation and a fleet of science ships peaking around corners and trying very hard not to ruin budding civilizations. I imagine, though, we humans are not the ones on the ship. We are the ones who seem backward and primitive to the researchers.
Now, lets go back to all those old episodes of Star Trek where captain Kirk spoke to one person from the whole planet. it was never a consortium of nations or a committee. If I were a powerful Federation of Planets, I would not want to deal with a thousand little piss-ant countries, each with its own agenda. Some of the countries on this rock only exist to keep a tyrant in power. You cant walk down the street in the Middle East without falling over Al Qaeda a operatives. The Federation would want one entity to deal with. There will only be one embassy. There will be one ambassador. In order to join the Federation, we will need to get all people of Earth to follow one voice. Or perhaps, obey one voice.
So, keep an eye out for ties between the U. S. Dollar and the Euro. This will be an early sign of coming invasi- - I mean, our joining of the Federation.
Europe already has a constitution. Europe is not a country. It is a treaty, an agreement between nations. Why do they need a constitution? Why would they need a bill of rights? Why do they need to ban the death penalty? Because, that is what the Federation of Planets requires. One voice. One focus. No death penalty. China and Texas may have a hard time throwing their hats in the ring. Why no death penalty? The Federation is made up of many cultures. It has got to be easier to ban the death penalty than to force it on new in comers. I imagine problems like abortion, immunizations, birth control, weapons in the possession of regular people, and any other root issues limited to intelligent life and I ponder what the Federation will have to do in order to solve each.
So, where are all the UFOs coming from, and why all the abductions? One word, poachers. And, maybe some illegal tourism. Hence the order from the UN, I believe, that says any space alien caught must be immediately killed. At least, that's what the X-Files said. Then there is oil. How do you get a bunch of independent nations to agree to use your currency and play by your rules? You take a key commodity that spans borders like food, communications or energy (oil) and jack the price up to the point no one can do business without controls. Small countries cannot bend OPEC over a barrel (so to speak) for lower prices. Larger countries can take the hit from higher prices on energy. Smaller countries cannot absorb the loss of jobs and a despair over a slowed economy. Then, swoops down the EU to save the day. Ten countries were added recently. England, though part of the EU will not partake of the Euro. They will succumb eventually. The Pound is over a thousand years old, but it will fall.
I don't know where or when it will all come to a head. Lets face it,if Russia and the U. S. join in the EU in some (or any) fashion, there will only be China between them and a Single World Order. The Middle East will lie fractured. and festering on it's own collection of fear and hatred, thus controlled. Africa, ravaged by disease, racism and political turmoil will also fall from any attempt to challenge the mighty SWO.

I'd make a pretty good conspiracy nut. You think? Actually, all the above stuff doesn't prove aliens are coming. It only proves that the rich are getting richer and the poor are helping.

OOPS
I had to remove some links. Everything is still fine. My blog was rated higher than it should have been. I don't know how long the search engines keep things in cache. Wish me luck.

Big Brother
Of all the useless inventions. This thing takes a picture and video of people as you speak to them. It detects eye contact and records the conversation without interruption. This thing was obviously invented for the CIA, or some variant in another country. If it is making the open market, then it has been around for a while. The next time you speak to a bank teller or a police officer, remember these things are out there.
I remember a note about a device for police that sounded just like this thing. It detected people's eye and automatically ran their iris against a database. The article mentioned walking down the street and every one who was in the database would pop up on a little heads-up display in the glasses with personal information and a picture. I think it was the same article that said recording where people are and when is important even if you don't have their information, because they will eventually enter the database. The systems have trouble with contacts and polarized sunglasses.

Gas
I'm reading story after story about the economy. Is it like this every election year? India's stock exchange has tanked. (11% in one day) and the U. S. will have to up the rates to prevent inflation soon. The world is making just about as much oil as it can. With all the turmoil in the Middle East and elsewhere, any disruption will trigger a catastrophe. I bet by next Summer Gas will hit $3.0 a gallon. SUV and truck sales are down, but only slightly. It's about time. Watch the trucks on the road tomorrow and count how many have something in the bed vs the ones that have nothing, or only a toolbox or something permanent in the bed. It freaks me out how many Ford Excursions have only one occupant all the time. These are the same old arguments. I look in to my life and I ask why I have four computers. I ask why, and do nothing about it.

Fire
A friend of mine emailed me this afternoon. It's funny when you get an email from some one you talk to all the time with just small talk, and then you get one that strikes a cord. I read her email and leaned back from the screen. Looking over the top of the screen I remembered when I was a young man, watching a house in my old neighborhood burn. The firefighters ran inside and grabbed furniture and personal items to leave them outside on the lawn. The people were out of town. The neighbors were trying to find a phone number or a relation to call. You know how people are about their neighbors, I'm sure. Since the seventies, no one knows their neighbor. No one had a number. I never found out any more than that. I went on with my life. To this day, I cringe every time I hear about an apartment fire on the news. I fear them.
The email from my friend said the house behind hers burned to the ground. It was struck by lightning this afternoon.

Gothica
I'm watching Gothica. Don't waist your time. It is one of those movies where two people kind of change places. The one person (Dr. whoever) ends up loosing all the respect she has earned all her life. She is treated like one of the people she once treated (argh - blah blah blah). It is a story as old as dirt. She searches for the truth and, per formula, every one thinks she is crazy. The ending is predictable and disappointing.
It doesn't help that I have a think for Goth chicks.

One more day in Iraq
Wow, things look bad in Iraq. The future “president” (chair of the governing counsel or whatever) of Iraq was killed today in a blatant attack targeting him. It was right outside the green zone and really should not have happened. This throughs a huge monkey wrench into the self-governing plans for Iraq.
A nerve gas bomb went off From what I'm reading, it appears someone did not know how to make the mortar shell work properly (thank goodness). Some speculate whoever set up the bomb in question did not know what kind of shell they had. Well, now they do. Thanks to the story making headlines all over the planet.

Gun Running
A buddy of mine asked today where all these rocket launchers and AK47 rifles are coming from. We were talking about Iraq and Afghanistan at the time. Well, there are holes in the borders patrolled by Israeli troops. I bet there are holes in the borders patrolled by afghans. Syria is just plane blowing the curve (pretty damning article). it is a real chance they are next on the list of the Axis of Evil. It is only fair. Syria got a bunch of the materials from Iraq just before the war. Syria is the primary way into and out of Iraq for those who have questionable intentions.

Ball Lightning
Well, Thank goodness they figured This out. Another friend of mine sent a link late last week that described several lights following a drug enforcement plane around in Mexican air space. I can't find the link, but the movements of the lights are kind of freaky on video. They do seem to follow. the jet as it maneuvers. The pilots either did or did not see the objects. The video is infrared and was taken either from another plane, or the ground. The guy who made this whole thing a “thing” is a UFO nut.

Pictures
Cynthia figured out how to automatically put photos on the blog without much trouble. I know how to do it by hand, but that is annoying and time consuming. Now she wants donations for a $500 camera. It looks like a good one, but over priced. I couldn't find any examples of pictures taken by that model. That scares me. Good luck Cynthia. Get some snapshots on that blog.

Sorry for the book.

Some people
I just had a conversation with a buddy of mine. He is a product of the public school system, same as me. He didn't know that Utah was a state. He thought it was a City. I think he was thinking of Omaha (Nebraska) or something. Utah is a state. Salt Lake City is the capitol. I know this because I've been there We landed in Salt Lake and drove a mini-van to Yellowstone. We stopped in a store on a hill to get sandwich stuff and batteries for the trip. I understand not knowing the provinces of another country. I understand going through the public school system and missing out on some pretty basic stuff (like spelling and grammar), but it is difficult to think that some one can grow up watching TV every day and not hear the state of Utah mentioned a couple of times.
This guy's big clam to fame is that he stole a dozen cases of those little bottles of liquor they put in hotel bars a couple of years ago. I wander what happened to all that liquor. It filled the back of a pickup truck.

News
Everything in the international news is all about people blowing each other up. It seems people all over the world want to kill one another. I wonder if people are killing each other more these days, or if it is getting better coverage. There are atrocities left and right. Chechnya vs Russia. Israel vs Palestine. Thailand vs a bunch of monks. I feel like I'm the only American who is reading the news. I remember reading somewhere that if you read the newspaper from front to back you would have had a good idea what was going on in Nazi Germany before and during WW II. Its all quite depressing.

Stick
I have some friends who refuse to learn to drive a stick shift. I don't get it. I can drive a stick for goodness sake. The truck I learned on was a '73 Chivy with a straight six (a tractor motor) and a granny gear. When you dumped the clutch, the front end just jumped even if you didn't give it any gas. Well, I did ride motorcycles before that. Oh, and I drove a Fiat in a parking lot once. That's not the point. It freaks me out that people refuse to learn something that is not difficult. If they are afraid of driving, they shouldn't drive in the first place. There aren't even many hills in Houston. All it takes is a couple of ride-em-cowboy stalls and you are a pro.

Guest author
This is a periodic email from my Aunt Judi. She and my Uncle Ron, on my father's side, are retired and live in a boat. The cruse around the west side of Mexico finding adventure where they can. Let me identify the names. Marri, Kerry and Matt are my cousins. Jenny is Matt's wife.

Hi

Just an update, we are working on the boat.  Ron pulled the generator and
took it to Costa Mesa, when he got it out found out the hot water heater was
rusted out at the bottom so he pulled that and also checked the
refrigerator unit and it needs coolant.  So he has been busy working and
trying to get everything cleaned before he puts the new stuff back in.

Our weather has been beautiful... warm days, cool nights.  I have been
cleaning since I got back and still haven't got everything under control.

We are meeting my cousin from El Paso on the 29th at Sea World and doing the
tourist thing.  We have to pick up the generator the first of June... God
willing.

Kids are fine and busy, we took care of Mark and Luke last Saturday while
Matt and Jenny went to a wedding.  I think that we will have them again for
a few days in June.  Matt and Jenny both work to hard but I guess that's a
family trait.

Kerri was home from Hawaii and working on her new company Red Raptor.  She
is going to republish her book and then the second one under her own cover.
Should be interesting to see how it does.  She also has started her own
Accident reconstruction company.  She works over the internet with her
partner who lives in Lancaster, CA.

Merri is almost finished with her house remodeling, she completely replaced
the carpet in the house with tile.  It is beautiful.  She painted everything
and redid the bathrooms.  The kitchen is last, and next.  We are all going
together and buy her a new refrigerator so she will be set.

Talked to Sarah last Sunday and she was fine, she is keeping busy.

I think I'll close and start on my next email... my family. :) Hope you are
all well.  Love Judi and Ron

PS  I am still healed... Praise the Lord!

Homer
Homer Simpsons's jobs according to season 13 episode 22 “Poppa's got a brand new badge.”
Boxer
Mascot
Astronaut
Imitation Crusty
Baby-proffer
Trucker
Hippy
Snowplow driver
Food Critic
Conceptual Artist
Grease Salesman
Carny
Mayor
Grifter
Bodyguard for the mayor
Country and Western Manager
Garbage Commissioner
Mountain Climber
Farmer
Inventor
Smithers (Impersonator I suppose)
Poochy
Celebrity Assistant.
Power Plant Worker
Fortune-cookie Writer
Beer Baron
Quickie-Mart Clerk
Homophobe (not an occupation)
Missionary
And in this episode we add Private Police Officer and cammercial producer. Wait a minute. Homer made a cammercial in that snow plow show.

Lunch
I went to lunch with my Mom. We wandered around the Memorial and Dairy Ashford area for about ten minutes and ended up at this barbecue dive. They had water leaking from the celling right over the tray sliding thing in front of the register. It was a ticket waiting to happen. The food was great. The fries were greasy and the meat was juicy. Tune in tomorrow for the medical fallout.

Day Off
So far, the day off has been exactly what the doctor ordered. I've been watching some episodes of the Simpsons and kicking back listening to my neighbors play video games all day. What do they do for a living anyway? I haven't decided weather or not I'm going to turn in PTO (Paid Time Off) for today or just eat the hours. I've heard rumors that some of the contractors at my day job have gotten their six percent back because a bunch of people quit. Other companies are hiring. I need to get my resume together.
One of the guys from work just emailed me asking a question about a script we were working on yesterday. It turns out he fixed the trouble without my help before I even replied. That felt good. He is the other guru at my day job. He knows what is up. He and I have similar complaints about the place. My main complaint is the classic managers tell me what to do and define how much I'm paid. There for, managers are the ones who will make all the money and get all the benefits because they understand what managers do and how hard it is. I know what I do. I understand how much work it is. I am learning that managing is difficult too. Soon, I will be on the management end of things. I wonder how I will react.

Way of the Gun
I went through my movie archive and dug up Way of the Gun. It is a kidnapping movie with a couple of twists and kind of a moral. I've seen this movie a couple of times. It is not one of those movies where you get more out if it every time. I get the same thing. I really like the last line. It is a true irony.
Quotes from the movie.
“These days, they (bad guys) want to be a criminal more than they want to commit a crime.” In other words, people are more after the glammer than the money.
“The longest distance between two points is between a kidnapper and the ransom.”
I was looking for Office Space. I need to view that seen with the copier. I need to bone up on my pop culture because there are a couple of different groups I hang out with who use this movie as reference.

Flying Tank
The future holds a wondrous bounty of new ways for us to kill each other.
I'll tell you what would sell. A flying tank would meet our needs. If we could come up with an anti gravity drive that would allow something hover like a tank, or even a distorter, to float over the battlefield and simply pelt any enemy with bullets non stop without fear of taking a hit, there would be no more war. At least, not like we have seen in the past. Can you imagine a battleship flying over your neighborhood. Would you steel a car if the cops have flying tanks that can catch you and pull you from the car with big jaws of life like pincers? Those guys who barricade themselves in a house and shoot at everybody walking by would simply be smooshed by a flying tank disassembling their sanctuary. An incoming plane could be caught up with and taken apart or simply forced to crash land with powerful robot arms. High-rise building rescues would be a snap with a firefighting-tank that could land on the side of a building and allow people to be pulled from smoking windows, or float just over a collapsing roof and pull people to safety.
After the system becomes cheap enough we could replace the trucking industry with oil tanker sized barges full of goods floating around and dropping off stuff place to place. Of course it will all lead to flying cars and skateboards.
I ran through some Anime forums. The idea of a flying tank is so absurd that people shoot down the idea when people put flying tanks in some movies. It sounds like people think flying tanks are just unfair. That sounds like the weapon of choice for me.
There are so many things to overcome. The whole issue of no anti gravity drive is a problem. Then, comes how to power a vehicle that will be massive. Something tells me we are going to have to find some law of physics to help us out. For example, a boat expends no discernible energy in order to float on water. I think our tank will have to find some similar method of propulsion.

Go Poo
There is a guy running a dairy farm put a Methane system in and uses the smelly brown gold to make electricity. The farm generates more electricity than it uses. California has a law that no one can be paid for adding electricity to the grid. They can only save money.
I learned a dairy cow puts out 125 LBs of waist a day. Yee-gads.

Advertising for fun and profit
A guy on the radio talking about alcohol addiction just said advertising was great for addictive personalities. He said a common saying in advertising "If you don't work on Sunday, don't come in on Monday." He also said he rarely went home before 10:00 PM. He would work fourteen hour days on a regular basis. "It was great. I could immerse myself in my job and get away from myself." He never took vacations. He mentioned it was not unique to Americans either. "The Brits in advertising were pretty crazy too." It sounds like a field I do not need to get into.

Free Kelly Support
I had a buddy of mine ask me about some CD burning stuff. He has a BIN and CUE file. He wants to burn the image, but he gets errors. I told him to use Daemon Tools to mount the image and then do a copy with the software. That usually works for me.
I did give him a bunch of crap about asking me a tech question. Just general attitude. With the Free Kelly Support you get the attitude. We struck a deal. If he burns me a copy of the CD he was after (not a music or software CD) I would drop the attitude. In order to help the attitude at work, I'm taking tomorrow off. I need to get some R and/or R before I jump someone at work. I plan on sleeping until noon, listening to the rain hit the window, emailing my coworkers and laughing, then, maybe, take a nap. That should round out my day.

By the way
Whomever said they had a hard time reading the blog due to the text running off the screen, please send me a frigging email instead of posting an anonymous comment.

Tragedy
I really want to get out of the whole middle east and hose the place down with nukes. Then we send in robots and milk what is left of the oil. We might as well go after the drug cartels in South and Central America while we are at it. There should be a one time per century Fix-it day where we go hog wild and make things right. The trouble is, it will never work. That is why they hate us already. I suppose that is why I'm not the guy in charge. I know I would not be able to keep my finger off the trigger when crap like this happiness.
The guy was Jewish. I wander how much that had to do with it. Wouldn't it be great if we all had the same color skin, same language, same culture, worshipped the same God ...? No, I like the diversity do not like the hatred. I cannot imagine true hate. I'm full of talk about nuking countries. These guys picked up a big knife and cut a guys head off. That is hate.
The father of Nicholas Berg said something extraordinary. He blames the American forces for holding his son without do course and says the loss of rights over terrorism is no better than a witch-hunt. I hate to say it, but it is easy to blame the people standing in front of you. It is far more difficult to hod someone who may never be caught responsible. The American forces deny holding Nick at all. The media has already begun digging into Nick's past.

War with Syria
Round and round and round she goes... Which country is next to go?
Now, America is putting pressure on Syria. I've heard speculation that weapons of mass destruction ended up in Syria. At some point the U. S. was buddies with Damascus. North Korea is not playing ball on nuclear weapons.
Libya is looking for a World Cup bid. This is probably why they are playing nice with Europe and the rest of the west lately. Qaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam, is on an Italian team at the moment. He is caught up in all the European glitz and glamour. There is a story about five nuns who have been blamed for infecting hundreds of children with HIV in Libya. The nuns say they are innocent and are being made into scapegoats. Seif seems to be on their side.  I wander if Qaddafi is setting his son up to look good to the rest of the world by allowing him to save the Nuns.

Hyperlinked editorial
I've had a couple of people comment on the hyperlinks in the text on my blog. I remember having to site stuff in a research paper. It was a pain listing where you found everything. You knew the professor was not going to go look anything up. This is much better. If I were writing a research paper today, I would insist on using hyperlinks for my citation.
Google News is awesome. You can search on key words and get back a list of news stories. How the heck can you find out what soccer team on which Qaddafi's kid plays? Type it into the search at the top of Google News and hit enter. That is my secret.
There is one thing I've noticed. Since I started writing this blog and quoting news stories, I hate it when I hear something cool on radio news (either NPR or BBC or so on) because I can't grab the link at the top of the browser and quote the story in my blog. Normally I can just hit Google News and be done with the matter. It is not usually the same story though. My opinion was formed by the first place I heard the news. Now things are a bit tempered. It still works out though.
What are your thoughts?

Athens Olympics
The Olympic people are saying Athens will have their shit together in time. The contractors on the ground are saying they will be working the morning of the Olympics. The Athens locals admit they pissed away the first three years. They have also admitted to a huge coverup plan. It's pretty bad, because this is the place where the whole thing started. The path of the original Olympian was supposed to be taken, but I don't believe it complies with the rules. Go figure.

Frustrating stuff
Who the hell invented the PS2 keyboard and mouse ports? They will plug into each other, but they will not work if you get them backwards. Useless git. This is someone who needs to be smacked.

Ya-hoodily-doodily-do
To be a man. Men are not supposed to be men. Men are to be gentlemen. Men are to be soft and kind. Men are to be smart and reliable. Men are to be relaxed with pep. Men are to love children and listen to women's problems with genuine concern. It's just too bad men like this are not what women want. Women don't really care about any of this. Women fall for guys who melt their butter. Women want men who make their knees shake. Women want a man who is a man, not a gentleman. Looks, wallet, attitude, none of these are what makes a woman's jaw drop. It is raw magnetism. I know, bitch bitch bitch.

Buddies
A friend of mine stopped by and said he recognized some one from the photos on my web page. That is so cool. He walks in and says "is that guys name Chris? I used to go  to A&M with him." They caught up. That is awesome.

A better product
It does not matter how good a product you have. It does not matter how much better it is than all the other products out there. What matters, is how much money you make off it. Remember Tucker. He had a far superior product. Rather than compete with him and improve their own products, the other car manufacturers squashed him. The same thing happens every day with Microsoft. Right now Microsoft is patenting processes in their new operating system to make sure no one else can make compatible or comparable products. It makes me sick.

Art Car
I missed the art car parade. I slept until three in the afternoon. I wanted to get a bunch of pictures too. I suppose it was too much to ask for. To be honest, I hoped to run into Anna. I can't win for loosing.

Shame
This whole thing with the soldiers and the prisoners and the pictures is a disaster. It is a public relations nightmare. People have been saying for years that the U. S. is a hypocrite. The first trial starts soon. I wander if some one can plead the fifth in a military court. I'm sure this first trial will only point to other parties. I've read some speculation that the CIA instructed the guards to act the way they did. The CIA apparently wanted the prisoners to be softened up for interrogation. I can't find the story, but I read that the CIA wanted a woman to perform the humiliating acts and for pictures to be taken. I can believe this. When you think about what an interrogator would be after, it makes sense. Yes, this is all humiliating. Yes, it shocks even weathered Americans (some of whom pay to be treated like this (you know who you are)).
Here is a semi-related story. Disturbing. It isn't just Americans.

More on the Chech president's murder
It was a mortar shell. I'm not the only one asking who had access to such a high security area. I've heard both that it was a timer and that it was set off by remote. The president was Muslim and had called for jihad against the west. He was hated by the people who elected him. His son is in a position to take control, and is as hated as his father. The Russian government is screwed, because the president was basically helping settle the area down. Remember that theater incident in Russia in 2002? That was Chechnyan rebels. Those may have been the same one's who did this.

Listen to the experts
There is no such thing as herbal Viagra!!!! For the love of email, stop clicking on the spam adds that say you can get it for pennies a pill. I bet half the spam out there is selling Viagra. After a few horror stories from friends, I will not even try the real stuff on a bet.

Shaving my back
I made the mistake of shaving my back. Or, I should say, I attempted to shave my back. Every time I ran the clippers over my skin more hair came off. I gave up and there are still logs sprouting off my upper arms just shy of the shoulder blades. Where do you stop? yeesh. What have I begun.

Picture of me
Every one complains that there are no pictures of me. Well, here is one that Lillian took from work. This was taken late in the game. I was logy from ice-cream and sitting in the sun. Love it or lump it, that's me.

Chechen Presedent
There was an explosion at a stadium that killed the president of Chechnya. The bomb was placed in a cement column months before the event. That is scary as hell. That means years of planning. That means a cover up, a plot, a conspiracy.
Some one had to sit down and think about to what event the president would appear. Then they had to plan where the event would occur. Then they had to predict where the president would stand. Then they had to plant the device. Then they had to set it off. I wander if they just had a timer. That would mean knowing that this historic date would happen on the same day, and that they always have the ceremony at the same time in the same place. Maybe some one involved in the choreography of the president's moves was in on it. It boggles the mind.
I suppose they were renovating the stadium for this specific event. I bet they published the date and time of the event before the renovations were complete. I bet it was obvious (a podium next to a pillar) where the president would stand during some speech. I wander if they used a timer or if they set the device off with some kind of remote.
So, all you project engineers out there, be ware. The bad guys are watching your schedule. Make sure you think about what terrorists might do with your plans and schedule information before you hand them over to the contractors (who bid amazingly low) who hate your client enough to kill them.

Amateur Photographer
You have heard, I'm sure, of those pictures of U. S. soldier in charge of Iraqi prisoners. Those photos were not taken by a photographer. Those photos came out of some one's digital camera. Some grunt had a camera and access to the internet. The shot heard around the world. To view the actual pictures click here. Note, they are extremely graphic.
Those photos of the coffins that came back from Iraq were also taken by an amateur. The lady who took the photo of the coffin's coming back from Iraq was fired. There is plenty of talk of banning cameras in all kinds of places. Ban them on the streets of America. The government has cameras on every street corner. I cannot get access to them if I get in trouble. Only the government can use them against me. My company has ordered all cameras off the property for years and just recently ordered all picture phones away.
If you think about it from the company's/military's point of view, they know stupid stuff is happening. They know there is nothing they can do about all of it. They also know that an eyewitness is not nearly as damaging as a photo. There is an old saying that a photograph is worth a thousand words. That comes from early days of publishing with photographs. The impact of a story is far more potent when you have a photo or video footage.
I remember a buddy of mine getting backed-into by a woman in a parking lot. She was ready to sue until I broke out the camera. Her attitude completely changed the instant I started taking pictures. There are any number of times in my life I wish I could have taken a picture of something stupid that would get some one in trouble. I would love to put a camera on the front of every bus I ride and catch those assholes who cut off the bus. Don't they know the bus can't stop? Don't they know it will not be a free ride if they are smooshed by a bus while trying to turn right in front of it? I would like to get every single car that passes on the right on this street out front of my apartment. Maybe I'll set up my camera on a tripod and start catching idiots passing on the right. I'll write my congressmen (oh, and make sure to CC the media) and find out what happens.
I've thought of hiring myself out as a party photographer. That would be a cool career. It would all end with my murder after taking one of those photos that gets people killed.

Lazy Saturday
I didn't make the Art Car parade. =[ I was hoping for some nice pictures too. Oh, well maybe next year. I can't believe I slept until like three this afternoon. I went to bed at five thirty the previous day. I've been doing that allot lately. I did get the ball game pictures up. That is the sum total of my accomplishments today. I did watch about fifteen episodes of the Simpsons that came in. That was quite a challenge. I have seen them all. There isn't even one that has parts that I don't remember. It's funny, the guys and I quote the Simpsons all the time. Every time I run across one of those amazing quotes I get a bit nostalgic. It was a beautiful day, and yes Anna, I sat inside in front of the computer all day.

Matter of time
Is it just a matter of time before Iran is added to the list of countries the U. S. is at war with? Who put us in charge? I suppose some one has to be the big kid on the block. This country is great, but it can not stand alone against the world. We need allies. We need people on our side.
Politicians keep saying it is not a war against a religion. Religion is what binds these people against the U. S.. Politics is what holds the U. S. together and focused. Why do they hate us so much? I'm watching Peter Pan and I'm reading this web page. God help us. Where are we going? Why did I grow up.