God is Not Cruel
So, why do I feel so miserable? It has to be my own doing. The limited
free will God has granted me is an illusion. It is just to prove that
there is no such thing as free will. I believe that is what I was
here to learn. I'm done now, thank you. Everything that happens from
now on is purely God's will. I surrender. I don't know just how to do
this, but it should be fun finding out.
There is no reason for me feeling like this. My life is pretty good. I
can't shake it. I don't understand. It is all I can do to tread water.
My insurance does not cover psych. I feel like I've been broken, like
torture victims or something. Now, I'm just waiting for everything to
fall apart.
I whine allot about not having a relationship. The first six or so
weeks of a relationship is the only part that is worth having in my
experience. Everything after that is a pain in the ass. I hope I'm
proven wrong.at some point. Truth, I know, is a relationship is the
last thing I need right now. It would be more trouble than it is worth.
I look forward to going to work. It is an ordered environment. I know
what to do next most of the time. I sometimes get a sense of
accomplishment there. I think that is why I have such a hard time with
my evening job. I don't know what I'm doing there. I'm supposed to be
the decision maker and to be frank, I'm not very good at it.
Yet, I have no idea how to proceed. I'm lost. Well, that's OK because
I'm letting God handle it. I'm going to put one foot in front of
the other and know that I'm walking where I'm supposed to.
(Please don't give any advice. I'm just venting.)
Another Point of View
This is Cynthia's comments on my personal profile I put up a couple of
days ago.
<Cynthia
Start>
For your dating profile, let's try this instead:
--------------------------
I am 35, 5'10", 200 lb (last Doctor's visit).
I enjoy computers, the outdoors, and intelligent bantering
conversation. I have had plenty of time to sort through my career
and what I want in a relationship; all I need now is somebody special
with whom to share my days. You will find that I am passionate
about the things that are important to me and cannot easily be bothered
by the things that aren't.
The woman for me is independent but open to letting someone like myself
into her heart. She understands when I lament that Farscape was
canceled for political reasons, and even if she doesn't identify with
the first thing about my interests she is as willing to learn about
them as I am about her. If you have ever wanted to have someone
who would respect you as a person while showing you the love you
deserve, I'm the man for you.
--------------------------
Better? It's the same stuff, put differently.
<Cynthia
End>
2004-10-04
Tank Play
This photo is an Israeli tank. It appears to be parked deliberately to give the soldiers cover. This is a precarious position. The tank below appears to be an M1-A1 Abrams. A big, wide tank.
This is a smaller tank that may have very well been performing a similar maneuver. This is a smaller and thinner tank. The caption said workers had to dig the crew out.
BBC
I listen to FiveLive on the BBC nearly every day at work. They are in Houston this morning. Simon Mayo is at Rice University asking people about George Bush an the politics in general. They have some people on who seem to know Texas. He was saying "whoston" a minute ago. Some one finally corrected him. I think they are in Austin tomorrow.
I had to stop listening. They kept talking to these liberal college students.
Palestine
I have to say, I can't find Palestine on a map. not even a map from many moons ago. I'm trying to find historic reference. Were there other names used? I've met at least one person who calls her self a Palestinian. I want to know more.
France
It's starting to look like France is getting a bitter taste of terrorism. I've heard several sources say that thee insurgents, terrorists, kidnappers, or whatever you call thee evil criminals, only respect strength. The French are having a tough time using diplomacy with people who pay a year's salary for an AK, the country is a wash with RPGs, yet, there is no choice, no freedom of the smallest kind. If these people had their way women would be property, with no vote, no choice, no rights. These are the people you are trying to reason with. One of the media jocks in Iraq said people on the street say things were better under Saddam. They would trade freedom for order in a minute. I can understand. These people were broken by Saddam long ago. Twenty five years, any individual thought, any individual action could lead you to a death sentence and your family to ruin. Things must change. Will they? Not as long as countries like France and the Philippines won't show one ounce of courage in the face of adversity.
This photo is an Israeli tank. It appears to be parked deliberately to give the soldiers cover. This is a precarious position. The tank below appears to be an M1-A1 Abrams. A big, wide tank.
This is a smaller tank that may have very well been performing a similar maneuver. This is a smaller and thinner tank. The caption said workers had to dig the crew out.
BBC
I listen to FiveLive on the BBC nearly every day at work. They are in Houston this morning. Simon Mayo is at Rice University asking people about George Bush an the politics in general. They have some people on who seem to know Texas. He was saying "whoston" a minute ago. Some one finally corrected him. I think they are in Austin tomorrow.
I had to stop listening. They kept talking to these liberal college students.
Palestine
I have to say, I can't find Palestine on a map. not even a map from many moons ago. I'm trying to find historic reference. Were there other names used? I've met at least one person who calls her self a Palestinian. I want to know more.
France
It's starting to look like France is getting a bitter taste of terrorism. I've heard several sources say that thee insurgents, terrorists, kidnappers, or whatever you call thee evil criminals, only respect strength. The French are having a tough time using diplomacy with people who pay a year's salary for an AK, the country is a wash with RPGs, yet, there is no choice, no freedom of the smallest kind. If these people had their way women would be property, with no vote, no choice, no rights. These are the people you are trying to reason with. One of the media jocks in Iraq said people on the street say things were better under Saddam. They would trade freedom for order in a minute. I can understand. These people were broken by Saddam long ago. Twenty five years, any individual thought, any individual action could lead you to a death sentence and your family to ruin. Things must change. Will they? Not as long as countries like France and the Philippines won't show one ounce of courage in the face of adversity.
2004-10-03
Something I learned today
I actually knew this already. I just ran across it today again and had to sort of re-learn it.
"The data looks good." is incorrect.
"The data look good." is correct.
"Data" is plural. "Datum" is singular.
I ran across this in a news story about the Space Shuttle and the space station. It just didn't sound right (I had my computer reading the story to me). But, I ran over it in my head a couple of times. It is one of those brain cells you have to wake up every couple of years.
Israel Targets Hamas Leader.
You know, they should just leave that headline up 24/7. Israel seems to be on a mission. To be honest, I hope the get ever last one of the fuckers. Yes, I've chosen a side.
Writer's Block
I don't have much to say, Lets find out what other's opinions are today.
My GOD!!
A sane person in high school, and they have a blog. It's a miracle. Behold!! the one "normal" among us bloggers.
Mt. St Helends
Here is a blog of some one who lives there now and lived there then.
I'm not the most conservative bloggers.
I like this bloggers. This person proves I'm not the most conservative blogger out there. I'll be checking back to this blog for further details.
I actually knew this already. I just ran across it today again and had to sort of re-learn it.
"The data looks good." is incorrect.
"The data look good." is correct.
"Data" is plural. "Datum" is singular.
I ran across this in a news story about the Space Shuttle and the space station. It just didn't sound right (I had my computer reading the story to me). But, I ran over it in my head a couple of times. It is one of those brain cells you have to wake up every couple of years.
Israel Targets Hamas Leader.
You know, they should just leave that headline up 24/7. Israel seems to be on a mission. To be honest, I hope the get ever last one of the fuckers. Yes, I've chosen a side.
Writer's Block
I don't have much to say, Lets find out what other's opinions are today.
My GOD!!
A sane person in high school, and they have a blog. It's a miracle. Behold!! the one "normal" among us bloggers.
Mt. St Helends
Here is a blog of some one who lives there now and lived there then.
I'm not the most conservative bloggers.
I like this bloggers. This person proves I'm not the most conservative blogger out there. I'll be checking back to this blog for further details.
What a crappy weekend. I didn't see a girl I have a crush on. I was in
far to bad a mood to go to Jen's CD party. I've ordered food twice. I
haven't ventured outside long enough to drop off my rent check. I
can't wait until work tomorrow.
2004-10-02
New Money
This is a story in CNN about detouring counterfeiters by adding code to hardware and software. The code prevents scanners and some digital editing software from manipulating images that look too much like American currency. The U. S. government is understandably keeping a lid on how the system works exactly. I have a few questions.
* What if I scan/printing at an angle?
* What if I manipulate the colors of the bill first?
* What if I have an ope source scanning software?
* Do other countries do the same thing with their currency?
Jen's Gig
Jen Rathbun's CD party is tonight. Her second CD. This one is jazzy. I like the sound. It's at a place called JP Hopis House on Highway 6 near Westhimer. Starts at 9:00 C'ya there.
SWEET
I have been looking for theses. My mouse gets gummed up and the little pads on the bottom ware out after a while. Why buy a whole new mouse? Get these and repair dozens of mice.
This is a story in CNN about detouring counterfeiters by adding code to hardware and software. The code prevents scanners and some digital editing software from manipulating images that look too much like American currency. The U. S. government is understandably keeping a lid on how the system works exactly. I have a few questions.
* What if I scan/printing at an angle?
* What if I manipulate the colors of the bill first?
* What if I have an ope source scanning software?
* Do other countries do the same thing with their currency?
Jen's Gig
Jen Rathbun's CD party is tonight. Her second CD. This one is jazzy. I like the sound. It's at a place called JP Hopis House on Highway 6 near Westhimer. Starts at 9:00 C'ya there.
SWEET
I have been looking for theses. My mouse gets gummed up and the little pads on the bottom ware out after a while. Why buy a whole new mouse? Get these and repair dozens of mice.
2004-10-01
Karry
vs Bush debate
I did not watch the debate because I refuse to watch Bush make an idiot out of himself. Kerry is charismatic. Bush is a terrible public speaker. I like Bush as a president, to a point. The Republicans made me angry with opt-out. I am also angry over the outsourcing problem in this country. I do not believe in most of the democratic agenda though. I just can't bring myself to vote. I live in Texas, I know who is going to win.
I've spoken with some friends who watched the debate. The candidates said exactly what every one expected them to say. They had all the same strengths and weaknesses every one expected. The resounding opinion is that there were no surprises. I just don't care. I just don't care.
Mouse
I gave up on mechanical computer mice a long time ago. I have dry skin and they get clogged up pretty regularly. I have all optical mice now. I find it is best to use some kind of moue pad. The fake wood grain of my desk at work blows the sensor's mind. The pointer jumps around on the screen.
Work emails
I just sent an email to 736 people. It was for this program I support at work. I sent out a note about how to point it to the new server. I think that is a personal record.
Vitamins
Come on. Where is it going to end? Taking vitamins kill you. What are the scientists going to tell us next? Breathing causes death in 100% of those who breath.
Keywords
I have a buddy who's kids are surfing the net every day. They look for information on school assignments and they talk to their little hoodlum friends. One of the searches lead to a nudist colony web site. They had naked old people right on the front page smiling and inviting web surfers to join them somewhere in Europe. There is no way to tell the Internet that you don't want your kids to see that stuff. He swears he verified that the search words were innocent enough. He says they are headed off to camp next year and now he will have to make sure the net access there has sufficient oversight. He tells me he never would have thought of that before his seven year old stumbled across a nudist site without really meaning too.
When I have children surfing the net, I hope they have an easier way to guide them through the cyber world. While they are still young and impressionable, I don't want them stumbling across porn or other adult material without my control. Fortunately, I'm not the only one who feels this way.
I did not watch the debate because I refuse to watch Bush make an idiot out of himself. Kerry is charismatic. Bush is a terrible public speaker. I like Bush as a president, to a point. The Republicans made me angry with opt-out. I am also angry over the outsourcing problem in this country. I do not believe in most of the democratic agenda though. I just can't bring myself to vote. I live in Texas, I know who is going to win.
I've spoken with some friends who watched the debate. The candidates said exactly what every one expected them to say. They had all the same strengths and weaknesses every one expected. The resounding opinion is that there were no surprises. I just don't care. I just don't care.
Mouse
I gave up on mechanical computer mice a long time ago. I have dry skin and they get clogged up pretty regularly. I have all optical mice now. I find it is best to use some kind of moue pad. The fake wood grain of my desk at work blows the sensor's mind. The pointer jumps around on the screen.
Work emails
I just sent an email to 736 people. It was for this program I support at work. I sent out a note about how to point it to the new server. I think that is a personal record.
Vitamins
Come on. Where is it going to end? Taking vitamins kill you. What are the scientists going to tell us next? Breathing causes death in 100% of those who breath.
Keywords
I have a buddy who's kids are surfing the net every day. They look for information on school assignments and they talk to their little hoodlum friends. One of the searches lead to a nudist colony web site. They had naked old people right on the front page smiling and inviting web surfers to join them somewhere in Europe. There is no way to tell the Internet that you don't want your kids to see that stuff. He swears he verified that the search words were innocent enough. He says they are headed off to camp next year and now he will have to make sure the net access there has sufficient oversight. He tells me he never would have thought of that before his seven year old stumbled across a nudist site without really meaning too.
When I have children surfing the net, I hope they have an easier way to guide them through the cyber world. While they are still young and impressionable, I don't want them stumbling across porn or other adult material without my control. Fortunately, I'm not the only one who feels this way.
2004-09-29
My Personal Ad
I am 35, 5'10", 200 lb (last Doctor's visit).
I enjoy evenings of surfing the net for hours without uttering a word with the only exception of ranting for five or ten minutes about something that pisses me off to nobody. I have issues with relationships. I have fear of commitment. I am lost when it comes to what is important to others. I get stressed out over just about everything. When things go wrong I clam up.
I would like to hook up with a woman who doesn't give a shit about that stuff. There has got to be one out there. If you like sitting around and reading while some one in the house mutters to himself and complains about how Farscape was canceled for political reasons, I'm the guy for you. If you have never cared what your man is thinking. If you have always wished that guy would stay out of your shit, I'm the man for you.
I am 35, 5'10", 200 lb (last Doctor's visit).
I enjoy evenings of surfing the net for hours without uttering a word with the only exception of ranting for five or ten minutes about something that pisses me off to nobody. I have issues with relationships. I have fear of commitment. I am lost when it comes to what is important to others. I get stressed out over just about everything. When things go wrong I clam up.
I would like to hook up with a woman who doesn't give a shit about that stuff. There has got to be one out there. If you like sitting around and reading while some one in the house mutters to himself and complains about how Farscape was canceled for political reasons, I'm the guy for you. If you have never cared what your man is thinking. If you have always wished that guy would stay out of your shit, I'm the man for you.
Here we Go
The Russians busted a guy trying to sell weapons grade plutonium to somebody. I'm glad to find that some one is on the job. This is the first story I'm aware of where the plutonium is real and the whole thing was not a sting. Is it inevitable that some one with an agenda will end up with nuclear weapons?
Why I Cut My Hair
Years ago I was paranoid about my hair falling out. I thought I would look like this guy from Weird Science when it all was over. He looked just as strange when he was not making that face. I've been told by people who have no reason to care that my head is appropriately shaped.
It has been a couple of weeks now and I like it. Once I got some sun on the old noggin it wasn't so bad. It is shiny. I need to find some wax stuff. I understand they make goop specifically for shiny bald heads.
Programming
I got to write a script today. Actually, I finished the script It was simple. The boss (one of eight) who is currently telling me what to do is on vacation for the next two days. I had intended to work on the script.
'Pseudo code
'Open Dialog box
'Define file shares
'Define data files to gather and their zip file names
'create zip files
'compress data files into zip format
'distribute zip files to proper shares
'lose dialog
'Alert user of errors
'Procedure:
' logging
'Procedure:
' Compress data file with WinZip
' Be sure to use full paths
'Procedure:
' Copy file with verify and some error checking
Jokes
Doctor, "I'm sorry son, You are not going to make it."
Patient, "That sucks, How long do I have?"
Doctor, "10"
Patient, "Doc? Ten what? Weeks? Months?"
Doctor, "9 ... 8 ... 7 ..."
Why was Dorthy lost in the land of OZ?
She had three men giving her directions.
Why do men have bigger brains than dogs?
So they won't hump your leg at a dinner party.
There is a new bear warning out in Yellowstone. The rangers say to make sure you wear bells on your cloths and carry pepper spray. You should also be able to tell the difference between black bear and grizzly bear droppings. Black bear droppings are small and have rabbit fir and buries in them. Grizzly bear droppings have bells in them and smell like pepper spray.
Dumb Jokes
What do you get when you have a deer with no eyes?
Noideer.
Why do gorillas have big nostrils?
They have fat fingers.
Why do cows have bells?
Their horns don't work.
Why do humming birds hum?
They don't know the words.
What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?
A stick.
What is brown and sticky?
A stick.
Why did the cookie go to the doctor?
He felt crummy.
What is the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?
Beer nuts are $1.49 and deer nuts are under a buck.
Big guy.
I've seen this guy on the bus a couple of times. I've wanted to take a picture (rood as hell, but necessary), but I never got a chance. Now, I caught him sleeping. He may take up three seats in this photo, but he normally takes two. This guy should have to pay double fare.
The Russians busted a guy trying to sell weapons grade plutonium to somebody. I'm glad to find that some one is on the job. This is the first story I'm aware of where the plutonium is real and the whole thing was not a sting. Is it inevitable that some one with an agenda will end up with nuclear weapons?
Why I Cut My Hair
Years ago I was paranoid about my hair falling out. I thought I would look like this guy from Weird Science when it all was over. He looked just as strange when he was not making that face. I've been told by people who have no reason to care that my head is appropriately shaped.
It has been a couple of weeks now and I like it. Once I got some sun on the old noggin it wasn't so bad. It is shiny. I need to find some wax stuff. I understand they make goop specifically for shiny bald heads.
Programming
I got to write a script today. Actually, I finished the script It was simple. The boss (one of eight) who is currently telling me what to do is on vacation for the next two days. I had intended to work on the script.
'Pseudo code
'Open Dialog box
'Define file shares
'Define data files to gather and their zip file names
'create zip files
'compress data files into zip format
'distribute zip files to proper shares
'lose dialog
'Alert user of errors
'Procedure:
' logging
'Procedure:
' Compress data file with WinZip
' Be sure to use full paths
'Procedure:
' Copy file with verify and some error checking
Jokes
Doctor, "I'm sorry son, You are not going to make it."
Patient, "That sucks, How long do I have?"
Doctor, "10"
Patient, "Doc? Ten what? Weeks? Months?"
Doctor, "9 ... 8 ... 7 ..."
Why was Dorthy lost in the land of OZ?
She had three men giving her directions.
Why do men have bigger brains than dogs?
So they won't hump your leg at a dinner party.
There is a new bear warning out in Yellowstone. The rangers say to make sure you wear bells on your cloths and carry pepper spray. You should also be able to tell the difference between black bear and grizzly bear droppings. Black bear droppings are small and have rabbit fir and buries in them. Grizzly bear droppings have bells in them and smell like pepper spray.
Dumb Jokes
What do you get when you have a deer with no eyes?
Noideer.
Why do gorillas have big nostrils?
They have fat fingers.
Why do cows have bells?
Their horns don't work.
Why do humming birds hum?
They don't know the words.
What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?
A stick.
What is brown and sticky?
A stick.
Why did the cookie go to the doctor?
He felt crummy.
What is the difference between beer nuts and deer nuts?
Beer nuts are $1.49 and deer nuts are under a buck.
Big guy.
I've seen this guy on the bus a couple of times. I've wanted to take a picture (rood as hell, but necessary), but I never got a chance. Now, I caught him sleeping. He may take up three seats in this photo, but he normally takes two. This guy should have to pay double fare.
2004-09-28
More on search words
Goodness, if you want a bunch of random hits on your page, put the word "nudist" somewhere in the text. I've mentioned it in passing in one of my posts, and received several hits from it.
I didn't get any hits on Saturday. I suppose that is a good thing.
Rebels and Oil
In Nigeria, the majority of people live in poverty, yet the ground is rich with oil. Who can figure out these guys? They are declaring war on their country's primary source of income. They say they will not target the oil pipelines to prevent the spread of pollution. I think they will avoid the pipelines because if they do win, they want to make money off them.
The news of this trouble in Africa and hurricane Ivan are the straws that send the price of oil over $50 a barrel. I've heard that things are not really going to change until oil hits $80 a barrel. I bet it would not take as much as you think to boost oil that high. If one center of oil production experiences enough trouble to just slow down, the world will suddenly freak and a cascade of hording will run the price through the roof over night.
Lets say oil hits $80 a barrel. What will come of it? Well, large economies will suffer pump shock. Many people will loose their jobs because the company they work for will not make any money on whatever it is they do with oil that high. The genuine problem will come in the third world that now depends on oil will tank instantly. Think about it. The only thing holding the rebels in Nigeria at bay is the money coming in from oil. If the money disappears, the rebels all over the world will make their move. Further oil flow disruptions will occur and the problems will cascade on a more expanded scale. The way to head this off is to slowly, predictably and methodically reduce the need for oil and provide non-oil jobs to the third world. As it stands, many oil producing countries have rebel groups with their eye firmly planted on the money and power gained with the keys to the oil production.
A buddy of mine says he saw a seismic crew testing some land in South East Texas this past weekend. I had read somewhere that exploration was not keeping up with demand. It is good to know that there are people looking in the U. S. again.
Alternative Fuel
I have a theory about alternative fuel and the price of oil. I hope I haven't said this before. At the moment oil is the most economical method of doing the stuff (like drive around) that we do. Until the day when the alternate fuel is more economical than oil, it doesn't have a chance. When oil hits $80 a barrel, people will start switching to alternate fuels and feed stocks. The trouble is, the moment they make the switch, the price of oil will drop. Thus, the alternate must come down to stay competitive.
Picture of Security
I'm not sure why, but I really like this photo. The old guy in the bad over coat who looks like the president of a piece of ground that is not a country yet is the president of Afghanistan. Look at the looks on the security guys faces. They all have the most intense look on their face. The guy in front has a goatee. The guy in the back to the left has a full beard. The guy in the back right looks like he is giving instructions of some kind. These guys look like American or European types. They are carrying American standard rifles. If they are U. S. soldiers, they are special forces. You can tell, because of the facial hair. If you look close, they are waring body armor under their cloths.
Cool
Finally there is a PDA That will keep up with my life. This is tough enough to handle a day in the life of Kelly. The fact that a PDA costs so much prevents me from taking it anywhere. This one looks like it would put up with the first drop of rain.
Go Cannon
This is basically the same camera I had on my blog about a year ago. The difference is this model is 16.7 megapixel. The camera I have now is nice, but it is not professional grade. Most photographers I know have gone totally digital. The only exception is medium format and up. As these things get more and more powerful, that will yield as well.
A buddy and I spoke of how Kodak and Fuji have weathered the digital storm. Both companies adapted and are doing pretty well. Kodak has devoted most of their resources to digital photography and imaging. Fuji has always been into just about everything imaging anyway. The music industry could take some notes.
Goodness, if you want a bunch of random hits on your page, put the word "nudist" somewhere in the text. I've mentioned it in passing in one of my posts, and received several hits from it.
I didn't get any hits on Saturday. I suppose that is a good thing.
Rebels and Oil
In Nigeria, the majority of people live in poverty, yet the ground is rich with oil. Who can figure out these guys? They are declaring war on their country's primary source of income. They say they will not target the oil pipelines to prevent the spread of pollution. I think they will avoid the pipelines because if they do win, they want to make money off them.
The news of this trouble in Africa and hurricane Ivan are the straws that send the price of oil over $50 a barrel. I've heard that things are not really going to change until oil hits $80 a barrel. I bet it would not take as much as you think to boost oil that high. If one center of oil production experiences enough trouble to just slow down, the world will suddenly freak and a cascade of hording will run the price through the roof over night.
Lets say oil hits $80 a barrel. What will come of it? Well, large economies will suffer pump shock. Many people will loose their jobs because the company they work for will not make any money on whatever it is they do with oil that high. The genuine problem will come in the third world that now depends on oil will tank instantly. Think about it. The only thing holding the rebels in Nigeria at bay is the money coming in from oil. If the money disappears, the rebels all over the world will make their move. Further oil flow disruptions will occur and the problems will cascade on a more expanded scale. The way to head this off is to slowly, predictably and methodically reduce the need for oil and provide non-oil jobs to the third world. As it stands, many oil producing countries have rebel groups with their eye firmly planted on the money and power gained with the keys to the oil production.
A buddy of mine says he saw a seismic crew testing some land in South East Texas this past weekend. I had read somewhere that exploration was not keeping up with demand. It is good to know that there are people looking in the U. S. again.
Alternative Fuel
I have a theory about alternative fuel and the price of oil. I hope I haven't said this before. At the moment oil is the most economical method of doing the stuff (like drive around) that we do. Until the day when the alternate fuel is more economical than oil, it doesn't have a chance. When oil hits $80 a barrel, people will start switching to alternate fuels and feed stocks. The trouble is, the moment they make the switch, the price of oil will drop. Thus, the alternate must come down to stay competitive.
Picture of Security
I'm not sure why, but I really like this photo. The old guy in the bad over coat who looks like the president of a piece of ground that is not a country yet is the president of Afghanistan. Look at the looks on the security guys faces. They all have the most intense look on their face. The guy in front has a goatee. The guy in the back to the left has a full beard. The guy in the back right looks like he is giving instructions of some kind. These guys look like American or European types. They are carrying American standard rifles. If they are U. S. soldiers, they are special forces. You can tell, because of the facial hair. If you look close, they are waring body armor under their cloths.
Cool
Finally there is a PDA That will keep up with my life. This is tough enough to handle a day in the life of Kelly. The fact that a PDA costs so much prevents me from taking it anywhere. This one looks like it would put up with the first drop of rain.
Go Cannon
This is basically the same camera I had on my blog about a year ago. The difference is this model is 16.7 megapixel. The camera I have now is nice, but it is not professional grade. Most photographers I know have gone totally digital. The only exception is medium format and up. As these things get more and more powerful, that will yield as well.
A buddy and I spoke of how Kodak and Fuji have weathered the digital storm. Both companies adapted and are doing pretty well. Kodak has devoted most of their resources to digital photography and imaging. Fuji has always been into just about everything imaging anyway. The music industry could take some notes.
2004-09-27
Commercial Space Flight
This is a great day. It is the first commercial link between an airline and a spaceship maker. In 2001, A Space Odyssey, people are ferried to orbit by an airline. The security on the airline in the movie is not as much as we have on the ground these days. I might consider hiking on mars some day, if the terraforming goes well. I'll need tickets. Let's see, www.MarsOnABudget.com.
Hurricane
That is (was) some one's house. Every time I go back to the CNN site they have a different picture of destruction. This one is some one's house that has had the roof ripped off. The one before It was a garage that had the roof collapse on all the cars inside. The one before that was a boat that had crashed into a house. The one before that was a woman towing a boat down a street that was full of home goods and some kids. I have to say, that I've been blessed when it comes to hurricanes. I've lived through a couple and a couple more tropical storms with little damage to my family or myself. I think the biggest damage we had was a lost aluminum shed in the back yard. It flipped over the fence and was basically lost. The next shed my dad added some wooden skids that added some weight and could be staked to the ground when needed.
Renaissance Festival
I have been invited a record four times to the Texas Renaissance Festival this year. Five if you include my parents. I haven't been in a couple of years. I really get a kick out of the festival. I enjoy going allot. The trouble is, I don't want to go this year. I have even been invited to camp, with a girl. It would just be a friend thing. Honestly, if I could drive myself and leave when I felt like it, I would go. I'm going to be tied to others and tied to their whims. This is one of the times it really sucks to not be able to drive. I'm going to sit this one out.
This is a great day. It is the first commercial link between an airline and a spaceship maker. In 2001, A Space Odyssey, people are ferried to orbit by an airline. The security on the airline in the movie is not as much as we have on the ground these days. I might consider hiking on mars some day, if the terraforming goes well. I'll need tickets. Let's see, www.MarsOnABudget.com.
Hurricane
That is (was) some one's house. Every time I go back to the CNN site they have a different picture of destruction. This one is some one's house that has had the roof ripped off. The one before It was a garage that had the roof collapse on all the cars inside. The one before that was a boat that had crashed into a house. The one before that was a woman towing a boat down a street that was full of home goods and some kids. I have to say, that I've been blessed when it comes to hurricanes. I've lived through a couple and a couple more tropical storms with little damage to my family or myself. I think the biggest damage we had was a lost aluminum shed in the back yard. It flipped over the fence and was basically lost. The next shed my dad added some wooden skids that added some weight and could be staked to the ground when needed.
Renaissance Festival
I have been invited a record four times to the Texas Renaissance Festival this year. Five if you include my parents. I haven't been in a couple of years. I really get a kick out of the festival. I enjoy going allot. The trouble is, I don't want to go this year. I have even been invited to camp, with a girl. It would just be a friend thing. Honestly, if I could drive myself and leave when I felt like it, I would go. I'm going to be tied to others and tied to their whims. This is one of the times it really sucks to not be able to drive. I'm going to sit this one out.
2004-09-26
DnD
I had a blast Saturday with my DnD buddies. One of the guys brought a ton of junk food and nearly killed us all. I'm going to attempt to describe some of our adventures. Please be aware that if you are not into DnD, you should not read the following paragraphs.
When we met up.
The first thing that happened was meeting the other characters. Normally this sort of thing is mechanical and not much attention is paid to detail. The group tried to open a portal to another place, and instead, I popped out. At that moment, a Time Elemental popped out and we had a battle. I spent most of the time trying to put on my armor. In the process I nearly got waylaid by one instance of the Time Elemental., oh, and I got aged by nine years. To a half dragon , that is not too big a deal.
Adam (the DM) and i made up this story about how I was from a Parallel universe and a tryst one of the current characters had with a dragon lead to, well, me. I bribed some genes to
"Dad!"
"Son."
A teary scene.
That was it. No more was said about it. I suppose DnD is like reality that way.
Pack Ice and Legions of Undead
We are in an arctic area looking for a dragon we have been trying to kill for a long time. This is due to Adam getting a book that has all the rules on freezing to death in it. We meet the evil Half Orc horde. They want to kill a bunch of humans in some settlements. We are fallowing them to find the settlements. We are trying to establish trade routs. Meanwhile, we are freezing. Not me, I’m a half dragon of the white (as in snow) kind. This orc we are following has a dire bear (poler) that we are going to have to kill. I just know it. The term Dire means it is about three times bigger than a normal bear. Think the size of a school bus.
We are hauling a sled around that is made of gold. Solid gold. We are on a “sea of ice”. We have a group of dragon ken flying around, trying to carry it for the group of traders we are working with. They are tethered to the sled and trying to stay out of the way..
Well, you just can’t trust those damn half orcs. Our guide turned on us and is throwing us all in the icy sea. He summons a group of sperm whale to attack us. I have to say, I've never fought a sperm whale before. They swim below the ice and come up through the sheet under us to attack. It’s amazing, we have to make a listen check to be in the first round. The glacier is cracking all around us, so how the hell are we supposed to hear these things coming?
A group of killer whales shows up. The orc ranger must have summoned those too. It is pretty rare to have a random encounter in the middle of a planned one, but sometimes the DM will try to keep you on your toes. The debate is weather or not the killer whales would be able to come through the ice, attack and then descend back under the ice in one round.
Did I say dire bear, the orc ranger just enlarged it to, get this, gargantuan in size. It is the size of a house.
Another debate springs up. Is dimensional door a standard action or a full action? Dimensional Door is a standard move, so you can move after, not attack.
Bryan’s slaad will zap the gargantuan bear with a lightning bolt. It will hit two of our other members. That’s OK, he is distracting the bear so we can kill the caster. The bear is an animal companion, so it will fight to the death for it's dead master. The enlargement will stay in effect for the same amount of time regardless of the caster being alive.
The gargantuan bear has a 5 touch AC. Can you say broad side of a barn? The gargantuan bear has a +43 grapple check. Basically, this thing can grab people at will. Then, walk around with them in it's clutches, fighting other people.
I just did my first damage. I did 39 points of damage to the half orc cleric. Hopefully the whales will go away. This is my first damage inflicted with my new character. Not bad. It looks like the whales are sticking around for a while. The haven’t had a chance to escape yet. Maybe we can feed the bear to them and escape.
We are trying to decide if the Druid was able to communicate to the whales before he died. There are a bunch of jokes floating around about the Finding Nimo scene where the fish claimed to talk to the whale.
Slaads can cast identify at will. I did not know that.
Our Paladin is stingy with the healing. It is an issue. I have got to figure out how to heal myself. I cannot depend on the whims of the lawful good, but stingy paladin. (she’s not lawful good, she’s an incarnation of Jubalex! That comment was from Alexis. I must lock the laptop when I go back for more Twinkies.
We find our way off the ice flows in a couple of days wondering around. In Dungeons and Dragons high level characters don’t get any experience points for low enough level encounters. We just bypass several bullshit encounters. Now, we are being hit by some undead snow monster of some kind. They have a cold-suck-life ability. They are eating our pack characters. These things suck your dexterity away. That makes your AC go down and makes you less likely to live as long. For the next several hours we battle about half a dozen random encounters. The majority of them are either karibu, or undead dexterity sucking frozen waste bunny rabbits.
It is not even 10:00 yet. I'm already tired. I'm a light weight these days. We have only been playing for eight hours. I blame the ho-hos.
We got a Apparatus of Qualsh. The thing is, we don’t have a use for it. One of our party has been contracted to find a bag of demis-litch eyes in some cave somewhere. She is a thief and tried to steel the Qualsh thing. She got busted and told she must complete her task in eight months.
We hit another random encounter. This time we are fighting some ghost type creatures. You have a 50% chance of missing them every time you take a swing. It is depressing. You have to have a ghost touch weapon to bypass the miss chance. Not silver, not magic, not blessed ... It seems like you need a special weapon for every monster in 3.5. Even fireballs have a 50% miss. If you don’t have ghost touch armor, it is a touch attack when they come after you. (that means you are allot easier to hit). It seems like we never fight people any more. We need to stock up on remove curse and neutralized poison. I suppose it is all part of DnD. I miss first level. It's all about killing Goblins at first level.
We keep rolling the undead monsters. This time we are up against some kind of frozen warier.
I have to remember to keep my eyes open for boots of speed.
The House with a Mirror
So, we are in town looking for trouble. We find this guy in a bar who says "The eye of Veckna is in the house down the street. You should go check it out." We are instantly on edge. The Eye of Veckna is a classic adventure in DnD where you are tricked into placing your hand into a device, thinking your are going to receive some great reward. Instead, you loose your hand.
We head over to the house the whole time getting snickers from the crowd of people following us. Somewhere the whole town has found out about the group of outsiders in search of the <echo> Eye of Veckna. </echo>
We enter the house with the guy in tow. as we round the first corner there is a room with double doors. the guy says "Go for it!" Two of our party do. The doors swing open and the party members see ... themselves staring back. It is a mirror . Not just any mirror. It turns out to be a Mirror of Opposition.
Mirror of Opposition: A device that appears to be a normal mirror in a frame. When a character looks into the mirror, the reflected image takes life and climbs out of the mirror hell-bent on killing the character that is it's opposite. The reflected image will attack other party members as needed.
In this case, it was really a joke. The town had rigged the building to hold any reflections inside and if your reflection killed you (the original) you became the reflection. As it turns out, my character dove out a window and bought a hot-dog to watch the events along side the laughing towns people. There was no point on him staying because two of the characters there had dragon as their favored enemy and might have killed him over their reflections. I'm not sure how the magic would have worked if you are killed and you had no reflection. No point in finding out.
So , how was that? Does it make you want to play?
My character's name is Azile. He is nothing special, but fun to play. Now I have to level him up one. Hopefully that will be a trend.
I had a blast Saturday with my DnD buddies. One of the guys brought a ton of junk food and nearly killed us all. I'm going to attempt to describe some of our adventures. Please be aware that if you are not into DnD, you should not read the following paragraphs.
When we met up.
The first thing that happened was meeting the other characters. Normally this sort of thing is mechanical and not much attention is paid to detail. The group tried to open a portal to another place, and instead, I popped out. At that moment, a Time Elemental popped out and we had a battle. I spent most of the time trying to put on my armor. In the process I nearly got waylaid by one instance of the Time Elemental., oh, and I got aged by nine years. To a half dragon , that is not too big a deal.
Adam (the DM) and i made up this story about how I was from a Parallel universe and a tryst one of the current characters had with a dragon lead to, well, me. I bribed some genes to
"Dad!"
"Son."
A teary scene.
That was it. No more was said about it. I suppose DnD is like reality that way.
Pack Ice and Legions of Undead
We are in an arctic area looking for a dragon we have been trying to kill for a long time. This is due to Adam getting a book that has all the rules on freezing to death in it. We meet the evil Half Orc horde. They want to kill a bunch of humans in some settlements. We are fallowing them to find the settlements. We are trying to establish trade routs. Meanwhile, we are freezing. Not me, I’m a half dragon of the white (as in snow) kind. This orc we are following has a dire bear (poler) that we are going to have to kill. I just know it. The term Dire means it is about three times bigger than a normal bear. Think the size of a school bus.
We are hauling a sled around that is made of gold. Solid gold. We are on a “sea of ice”. We have a group of dragon ken flying around, trying to carry it for the group of traders we are working with. They are tethered to the sled and trying to stay out of the way..
Well, you just can’t trust those damn half orcs. Our guide turned on us and is throwing us all in the icy sea. He summons a group of sperm whale to attack us. I have to say, I've never fought a sperm whale before. They swim below the ice and come up through the sheet under us to attack. It’s amazing, we have to make a listen check to be in the first round. The glacier is cracking all around us, so how the hell are we supposed to hear these things coming?
A group of killer whales shows up. The orc ranger must have summoned those too. It is pretty rare to have a random encounter in the middle of a planned one, but sometimes the DM will try to keep you on your toes. The debate is weather or not the killer whales would be able to come through the ice, attack and then descend back under the ice in one round.
Did I say dire bear, the orc ranger just enlarged it to, get this, gargantuan in size. It is the size of a house.
Another debate springs up. Is dimensional door a standard action or a full action? Dimensional Door is a standard move, so you can move after, not attack.
Bryan’s slaad will zap the gargantuan bear with a lightning bolt. It will hit two of our other members. That’s OK, he is distracting the bear so we can kill the caster. The bear is an animal companion, so it will fight to the death for it's dead master. The enlargement will stay in effect for the same amount of time regardless of the caster being alive.
The gargantuan bear has a 5 touch AC. Can you say broad side of a barn? The gargantuan bear has a +43 grapple check. Basically, this thing can grab people at will. Then, walk around with them in it's clutches, fighting other people.
I just did my first damage. I did 39 points of damage to the half orc cleric. Hopefully the whales will go away. This is my first damage inflicted with my new character. Not bad. It looks like the whales are sticking around for a while. The haven’t had a chance to escape yet. Maybe we can feed the bear to them and escape.
We are trying to decide if the Druid was able to communicate to the whales before he died. There are a bunch of jokes floating around about the Finding Nimo scene where the fish claimed to talk to the whale.
Slaads can cast identify at will. I did not know that.
Our Paladin is stingy with the healing. It is an issue. I have got to figure out how to heal myself. I cannot depend on the whims of the lawful good, but stingy paladin. (she’s not lawful good, she’s an incarnation of Jubalex! That comment was from Alexis. I must lock the laptop when I go back for more Twinkies.
We find our way off the ice flows in a couple of days wondering around. In Dungeons and Dragons high level characters don’t get any experience points for low enough level encounters. We just bypass several bullshit encounters. Now, we are being hit by some undead snow monster of some kind. They have a cold-suck-life ability. They are eating our pack characters. These things suck your dexterity away. That makes your AC go down and makes you less likely to live as long. For the next several hours we battle about half a dozen random encounters. The majority of them are either karibu, or undead dexterity sucking frozen waste bunny rabbits.
It is not even 10:00 yet. I'm already tired. I'm a light weight these days. We have only been playing for eight hours. I blame the ho-hos.
We got a Apparatus of Qualsh. The thing is, we don’t have a use for it. One of our party has been contracted to find a bag of demis-litch eyes in some cave somewhere. She is a thief and tried to steel the Qualsh thing. She got busted and told she must complete her task in eight months.
We hit another random encounter. This time we are fighting some ghost type creatures. You have a 50% chance of missing them every time you take a swing. It is depressing. You have to have a ghost touch weapon to bypass the miss chance. Not silver, not magic, not blessed ... It seems like you need a special weapon for every monster in 3.5. Even fireballs have a 50% miss. If you don’t have ghost touch armor, it is a touch attack when they come after you. (that means you are allot easier to hit). It seems like we never fight people any more. We need to stock up on remove curse and neutralized poison. I suppose it is all part of DnD. I miss first level. It's all about killing Goblins at first level.
We keep rolling the undead monsters. This time we are up against some kind of frozen warier.
I have to remember to keep my eyes open for boots of speed.
The House with a Mirror
So, we are in town looking for trouble. We find this guy in a bar who says "The eye of Veckna is in the house down the street. You should go check it out." We are instantly on edge. The Eye of Veckna is a classic adventure in DnD where you are tricked into placing your hand into a device, thinking your are going to receive some great reward. Instead, you loose your hand.
We head over to the house the whole time getting snickers from the crowd of people following us. Somewhere the whole town has found out about the group of outsiders in search of the <echo> Eye of Veckna. </echo>
We enter the house with the guy in tow. as we round the first corner there is a room with double doors. the guy says "Go for it!" Two of our party do. The doors swing open and the party members see ... themselves staring back. It is a mirror . Not just any mirror. It turns out to be a Mirror of Opposition.
Mirror of Opposition: A device that appears to be a normal mirror in a frame. When a character looks into the mirror, the reflected image takes life and climbs out of the mirror hell-bent on killing the character that is it's opposite. The reflected image will attack other party members as needed.
In this case, it was really a joke. The town had rigged the building to hold any reflections inside and if your reflection killed you (the original) you became the reflection. As it turns out, my character dove out a window and bought a hot-dog to watch the events along side the laughing towns people. There was no point on him staying because two of the characters there had dragon as their favored enemy and might have killed him over their reflections. I'm not sure how the magic would have worked if you are killed and you had no reflection. No point in finding out.
So , how was that? Does it make you want to play?
My character's name is Azile. He is nothing special, but fun to play. Now I have to level him up one. Hopefully that will be a trend.
2004-09-24
Weekend
Tomorrow is DND. i will probably not have a post on Saturday,but Sunday will either be a sleepy bulk of my character and blow by blow, or another rant about how miserable I was the whole time. I hope the former.
Lunch
Lunch is an important time at my day job. It is a time of social meetings and a time to get the low-down on what is really going on around the office. This is where I learned such important things as where my group moves in a couple of weeks. We are going from the first floor to the third floor. The move will also include going from offices to cubicals. This is where you hear about the real job announcements. This is where I first heard about the 6% pay cut a couple of years ago.
Normally people take a thirty minute lunch and work an eight hour day. I recently changed my work hours so I could take an hour lunch. The thing is, I still only take a thirty minute lunch most of the time. I'm just an honest person. I would rather get ripped on hours than rip the company. Lets see, 6% of 40 hours is 2 hours and 24 minutes. That is just about the amount of time some one would use of the company's time if they just took the long lunches and didn't adjust their hours. Damn, it really doesn't pay to be honest.
You might be a Red Neck
If you take your dog for a walk and you both use the tree at the corner...
If you get your 4x4 stuck in your driveway... (mine, not Foxworthy's)
If you have ever taken a six-pack to a funeral...
If your daughter's Barby Dream House has a cloths line in the front yard...
If you wife has ever said "Move that transmission so I can take a bath."...
If you think fast food is hitting a deer at 70 mph...
If an episode of "Walker Texas Ranger" Changed your life...
If you have ever worn a strapless blouse with a bra that isn't...
Game Distro
I don't know how many people I have discussed this with. I read a time back about game manufacturers using a "live CD" to distribute games. A Live CD is one you put in to your computer and boot off of. Like a game box. You don't have to mess with compatibility with your OS, un-installing problems, crashing when someone IMs you, or even driver version conflicts when you do it this way. Well, this is the first game I've heard actually doing it. Oh, I've never heard of the game. It has apparently been in existence for bazillions of years (thus out of copyright) so they can test the market with it.
Speaking of games, here is a site with some not so rood suggestions for video games.
Tomorrow is DND. i will probably not have a post on Saturday,but Sunday will either be a sleepy bulk of my character and blow by blow, or another rant about how miserable I was the whole time. I hope the former.
Lunch
Lunch is an important time at my day job. It is a time of social meetings and a time to get the low-down on what is really going on around the office. This is where I learned such important things as where my group moves in a couple of weeks. We are going from the first floor to the third floor. The move will also include going from offices to cubicals. This is where you hear about the real job announcements. This is where I first heard about the 6% pay cut a couple of years ago.
Normally people take a thirty minute lunch and work an eight hour day. I recently changed my work hours so I could take an hour lunch. The thing is, I still only take a thirty minute lunch most of the time. I'm just an honest person. I would rather get ripped on hours than rip the company. Lets see, 6% of 40 hours is 2 hours and 24 minutes. That is just about the amount of time some one would use of the company's time if they just took the long lunches and didn't adjust their hours. Damn, it really doesn't pay to be honest.
You might be a Red Neck
If you take your dog for a walk and you both use the tree at the corner...
If you get your 4x4 stuck in your driveway... (mine, not Foxworthy's)
If you have ever taken a six-pack to a funeral...
If your daughter's Barby Dream House has a cloths line in the front yard...
If you wife has ever said "Move that transmission so I can take a bath."...
If you think fast food is hitting a deer at 70 mph...
If an episode of "Walker Texas Ranger" Changed your life...
If you have ever worn a strapless blouse with a bra that isn't...
Game Distro
I don't know how many people I have discussed this with. I read a time back about game manufacturers using a "live CD" to distribute games. A Live CD is one you put in to your computer and boot off of. Like a game box. You don't have to mess with compatibility with your OS, un-installing problems, crashing when someone IMs you, or even driver version conflicts when you do it this way. Well, this is the first game I've heard actually doing it. Oh, I've never heard of the game. It has apparently been in existence for bazillions of years (thus out of copyright) so they can test the market with it.
Speaking of games, here is a site with some not so rood suggestions for video games.
2004-09-23
Search Words
OK, I have to be careful. Some one found my blog by typing in the following search words on Yahoo. "a beautiful Korea girl" Note that Korea was misspelled. That's my site all right. I bet they were quite disappointed. I looked, and I do talk about girls, Korea and beautiful things. I also got a hit on the following words "2004 BMW330i interior". I was talking about Josh's BMW.
Iran is Next
I said this before, but with all the nuclear stuff going on involving Iran, I think there is more to it now. If you read the international news daily, you will catch the scent in the wind too.
The storm formally known as Ivan
What is with this storm. It ran over Florida twice. Once over the lower part and again over the panhandle. It has traveled across the states to the Atlantic ocean. Now it has rounded the horn of Florida and is about to lay waste to the Houston Area any minute. It is actually going to hit the U. S. for the third time. That has got to be a record. Here they call it "Son of Ivan". Sheesh.
There is another hurricane in the Gulf called Jeanne (I think it was her) just flattened Haiti. They say there are 1100 people dead, and much of the flood waters have not receded to show all the damage. I can just envision this tropical storm pulling the same crap that another storm did a couple of years ago named Allison. This one should hit in the middle of the night instead of the middle of the day..Allison caught a bunch of people off guard. I remember watching the animated radar image. It looked like a fan centered right on top of downtown Houston.
OK, I have to be careful. Some one found my blog by typing in the following search words on Yahoo. "a beautiful Korea girl" Note that Korea was misspelled. That's my site all right. I bet they were quite disappointed. I looked, and I do talk about girls, Korea and beautiful things. I also got a hit on the following words "2004 BMW330i interior". I was talking about Josh's BMW.
Iran is Next
I said this before, but with all the nuclear stuff going on involving Iran, I think there is more to it now. If you read the international news daily, you will catch the scent in the wind too.
The storm formally known as Ivan
What is with this storm. It ran over Florida twice. Once over the lower part and again over the panhandle. It has traveled across the states to the Atlantic ocean. Now it has rounded the horn of Florida and is about to lay waste to the Houston Area any minute. It is actually going to hit the U. S. for the third time. That has got to be a record. Here they call it "Son of Ivan". Sheesh.
There is another hurricane in the Gulf called Jeanne (I think it was her) just flattened Haiti. They say there are 1100 people dead, and much of the flood waters have not receded to show all the damage. I can just envision this tropical storm pulling the same crap that another storm did a couple of years ago named Allison. This one should hit in the middle of the night instead of the middle of the day..Allison caught a bunch of people off guard. I remember watching the animated radar image. It looked like a fan centered right on top of downtown Houston.
2004-09-22
Yay me
I added a site meter. Ironically, from site meter dot com. I've been resisting it because I'm not sure I want to how few people visit this site. I've been worried for the longest time that if I notice no movement, I will want to stop adding. I will treat it as an experiment for the moment.
I used to have a web page many moons ago that no one ever came to visit. Well, there is no wonder. I didn't keep up the content.
I added a site meter. Ironically, from site meter dot com. I've been resisting it because I'm not sure I want to how few people visit this site. I've been worried for the longest time that if I notice no movement, I will want to stop adding. I will treat it as an experiment for the moment.
I used to have a web page many moons ago that no one ever came to visit. Well, there is no wonder. I didn't keep up the content.
Microsoft Sucks Again/Still
The LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) shutdown a week ago was caused by a Windows 95 machine crashing. Instead of fixing a known problem in Windows 95, they had a technician reboot the system every 30 days. Well, some one went on vacation, or something because the system failed. Everybody knows Windows 95 locks up after 49.7 days. Basically the computer counts off .001 seconds until it crashes - 2 to the 32nd (2^32) / (60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours * 1000 milliseconds) = 49.7102696 days. There has been a fix on Microsoft's web site for eight years.
How many of my tax dollars have gone to pay a technician in multiple airports across the country to reboot a system every thirty days for eight years? Probably not nearly as much as the one time the system failed.
Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence
I thought the first one was preachy. This show has an awesome visual feel. The action scenes, though not often enough for my taste, are well done. The story is based loosely on a fable from Japanese lore about a doll that becomes a human. It turns out the doll never wanted to be a human, and is no Pinocchio. In this case the people have cybernetic brains that go cur-flewy at times. he robots develop self awareness. The lines between Man and Man's creation blurs. . . . and so on. I'm sure there are tons of nuances I missed. Thank God whomever translated the subtitles also gave some notes on what the hell the characters were talking about a times. I know I still lost most of the symbolism. Still, it is worth watching if you like Anime. I would not recommend it to mere humans though.
Song
Song
Two good ones in a row.
Rant from James (via YIM)
You know I really don't care that my password is expiring in 10 days. Nor am I going to want to change it until it DOES expire. So why does the machine feel as if it has to keep reminding me ALL the time. Like it is some monumental event that I must prepare for. You would think it was my anniversary or something. Should I bring flowers on my password expiration day or something....have a party....take my computer out for dinner?
The LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) shutdown a week ago was caused by a Windows 95 machine crashing. Instead of fixing a known problem in Windows 95, they had a technician reboot the system every 30 days. Well, some one went on vacation, or something because the system failed. Everybody knows Windows 95 locks up after 49.7 days. Basically the computer counts off .001 seconds until it crashes - 2 to the 32nd (2^32) / (60 seconds * 60 minutes * 24 hours * 1000 milliseconds) = 49.7102696 days. There has been a fix on Microsoft's web site for eight years.
How many of my tax dollars have gone to pay a technician in multiple airports across the country to reboot a system every thirty days for eight years? Probably not nearly as much as the one time the system failed.
Ghost in the Shell 2 Innocence
I thought the first one was preachy. This show has an awesome visual feel. The action scenes, though not often enough for my taste, are well done. The story is based loosely on a fable from Japanese lore about a doll that becomes a human. It turns out the doll never wanted to be a human, and is no Pinocchio. In this case the people have cybernetic brains that go cur-flewy at times. he robots develop self awareness. The lines between Man and Man's creation blurs. . . . and so on. I'm sure there are tons of nuances I missed. Thank God whomever translated the subtitles also gave some notes on what the hell the characters were talking about a times. I know I still lost most of the symbolism. Still, it is worth watching if you like Anime. I would not recommend it to mere humans though.
Song
| Artist: | Art Of Noise [ Search RP ] |
| Song: | Peter Gunn |
| Album: | single [ Search RP ] |
| Last Played: | Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:47 am |
Song
| Artist: | Stevie Ray Vaughan [ Search RP ] |
| Song: | Pipeline |
| Album: | The Real Deal [ Search RP ] |
| Last Played: | Wed Sep 22, 2004 10:50 am |
Rant from James (via YIM)
You know I really don't care that my password is expiring in 10 days. Nor am I going to want to change it until it DOES expire. So why does the machine feel as if it has to keep reminding me ALL the time. Like it is some monumental event that I must prepare for. You would think it was my anniversary or something. Should I bring flowers on my password expiration day or something....have a party....take my computer out for dinner?
2004-09-21
Iran vs Israel
Israel is after some of those bunker buster bombs made famous in the first Gulf War. The bombs are 1000 lb conventional explosive bombs. The way they hurt these under ground bunkers is to penetrate the earth above the bunker and explode at the upper levels of concrete of the bunker itself. Generally, the advantage of placing a building under ground is that the ground will disperse the explosive force of a large explosion to the side (along the ground) instead of down toward the underground building. This bomb penetrates the earth, and uses the ground above the building the other way round to sandwich the layers of concrete together causing vast damage to the bunker. The early versions of this bomb were four thousand lb. It turns out they don't need nearly the explosive force to do the damage. This bomb is laser guided.
Israel bombed the nuclear facilities in Iraq in the eighties. There is no reason to think they would hesitate to take out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. The Russians are helping Iran build a civilian nuclear power system. I'm curious how that will work out. Covert means of overthrowing the Iranian government has failed in the past.
The IAEA is the source for most of the information and materials to build nukes. They are supposed to prevent it. Honestly, once you build a reactor for generating electricity, building a bomb requires running the fuel through the purification process a few more times. There is definitely a double standard from the U. S. government on who gets the information and access to materials for refining nuclear fuel. I'm not sure I mind it. Refining the fuel seems to be the bottleneck. That is the process every one wants to limit. Generating the fuel must be the more difficult. Remember, the bomb came before electricity in the nuclear field. I bet the bomb is easier to make.
Software Packaging
I setup software to install automatically from the network. Sometimes software has patches that need to be installed automatically as well. All kinds of stuff needs to be done to the software before it is good enough for the corporate network. I would love to know why software companies don't write software that is ready for corporate networks considering none of the software I deal with would be installed on a home PC. The main thing that has to happen is testing. Before we inflict this package (bundled up software and patches, custom links and instructions, custom code for databases, custom ODBC ...) on the users, it must be tested. This can take anywhere from an hour to weeks. It depends on how many problems we run into and how complex the system is. Here is a conversation I've had with managers on several occasions.
Me: "The package is ready for testing."
Them: "It looks good. Let's distribute it to the users. Oh, by the way, there is a new patch."
Me: "That will require making changes to the package and starting the testing faze over again."
Them: "We can't wait for the testing faze again. We need the users to have the package."
Me: "I understand, but we cannot release a package without testing. It may cause damage. You have some choices. Distribute what we have and start a new package with the new patch for testing. Or delay the distribution until we get testing done on the package with the new patch."
Them: "We can't wait for the testing faze again. We need the users to have the package."
Me: "I understand, but we cannot release a package without testing. It may cause damage. You have some choices. Distribute what we have and start a new package with the new patch for testing. Or delay the distribution until we get testing done on the package with the new patch."
You get the idea. I am a contractor and I have absolutely no authority to tell these people they need to follow the rules. We have found really damaging errors during past testing fazes. The rules are there for a reason.
BAH!
BBC
I'm listening to the BBC Five Live. They keep talking about Cricket, and reading out scores. Cricket takes a couple of days to play a test (not a game) and they have scores like 212 to 2 with 12 overs remaining 50 not out, or something like that. I'm so lost it isn't funny. I don't want to understand it.
Israel is after some of those bunker buster bombs made famous in the first Gulf War. The bombs are 1000 lb conventional explosive bombs. The way they hurt these under ground bunkers is to penetrate the earth above the bunker and explode at the upper levels of concrete of the bunker itself. Generally, the advantage of placing a building under ground is that the ground will disperse the explosive force of a large explosion to the side (along the ground) instead of down toward the underground building. This bomb penetrates the earth, and uses the ground above the building the other way round to sandwich the layers of concrete together causing vast damage to the bunker. The early versions of this bomb were four thousand lb. It turns out they don't need nearly the explosive force to do the damage. This bomb is laser guided.
Israel bombed the nuclear facilities in Iraq in the eighties. There is no reason to think they would hesitate to take out the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. The Russians are helping Iran build a civilian nuclear power system. I'm curious how that will work out. Covert means of overthrowing the Iranian government has failed in the past.
The IAEA is the source for most of the information and materials to build nukes. They are supposed to prevent it. Honestly, once you build a reactor for generating electricity, building a bomb requires running the fuel through the purification process a few more times. There is definitely a double standard from the U. S. government on who gets the information and access to materials for refining nuclear fuel. I'm not sure I mind it. Refining the fuel seems to be the bottleneck. That is the process every one wants to limit. Generating the fuel must be the more difficult. Remember, the bomb came before electricity in the nuclear field. I bet the bomb is easier to make.
Software Packaging
I setup software to install automatically from the network. Sometimes software has patches that need to be installed automatically as well. All kinds of stuff needs to be done to the software before it is good enough for the corporate network. I would love to know why software companies don't write software that is ready for corporate networks considering none of the software I deal with would be installed on a home PC. The main thing that has to happen is testing. Before we inflict this package (bundled up software and patches, custom links and instructions, custom code for databases, custom ODBC ...) on the users, it must be tested. This can take anywhere from an hour to weeks. It depends on how many problems we run into and how complex the system is. Here is a conversation I've had with managers on several occasions.
Me: "The package is ready for testing."
Them: "It looks good. Let's distribute it to the users. Oh, by the way, there is a new patch."
Me: "That will require making changes to the package and starting the testing faze over again."
Them: "We can't wait for the testing faze again. We need the users to have the package."
Me: "I understand, but we cannot release a package without testing. It may cause damage. You have some choices. Distribute what we have and start a new package with the new patch for testing. Or delay the distribution until we get testing done on the package with the new patch."
Them: "We can't wait for the testing faze again. We need the users to have the package."
Me: "I understand, but we cannot release a package without testing. It may cause damage. You have some choices. Distribute what we have and start a new package with the new patch for testing. Or delay the distribution until we get testing done on the package with the new patch."
You get the idea. I am a contractor and I have absolutely no authority to tell these people they need to follow the rules. We have found really damaging errors during past testing fazes. The rules are there for a reason.
BAH!
BBC
I'm listening to the BBC Five Live. They keep talking about Cricket, and reading out scores. Cricket takes a couple of days to play a test (not a game) and they have scores like 212 to 2 with 12 overs remaining 50 not out, or something like that. I'm so lost it isn't funny. I don't want to understand it.
2004-09-20
Something I learned today
8000 people die every day from HIV/AIDS. 4000 die every day from TB. Africa is the worse hit by both.
Joke
Did you hear the the UN is going to impose sanctions against Jamaica?
They found aluminum tubes that could only be used to build an atomic bong.
Sweet Subaru
Reuters is going to send a hit-man looking for me for posting all these pictures.
I've always liked the racing stile of Subaru. They are great rally cars. Audie makes a better all wheel drive system, but cannot approach the price of Subaru. These cars are tough, ugly, and scrapping for a fight. I like them. I think if I were a wealthy person, I would own a Subaru instead (or in addition too) another more expensive vehicle so I can rag the hell out of the Subaru and not care. They are capable sport cars.
8000 people die every day from HIV/AIDS. 4000 die every day from TB. Africa is the worse hit by both.
Joke
Did you hear the the UN is going to impose sanctions against Jamaica?
They found aluminum tubes that could only be used to build an atomic bong.
Sweet Subaru
Reuters is going to send a hit-man looking for me for posting all these pictures.
I've always liked the racing stile of Subaru. They are great rally cars. Audie makes a better all wheel drive system, but cannot approach the price of Subaru. These cars are tough, ugly, and scrapping for a fight. I like them. I think if I were a wealthy person, I would own a Subaru instead (or in addition too) another more expensive vehicle so I can rag the hell out of the Subaru and not care. They are capable sport cars.
2004-09-19
That's how you pack a truck.
This picture was taken in Africa. That is corn according to the Reuters by line.
Sunday
Didn't I say last Sunday that nothing happened? Well, This is two in a row. Robin was supposed to call, but that didn't happen. I thought long and hard about going for a walk. That never happened either. I did wait until about nine to shave. That way I have the least stubble tomorrow. Lets' see, what else? I tried to track down some graphic novels I want to read, but they just want too much money. I cannot even find them used. I suppose I'll stick to reading what I can find online for now.
Next weekend is D&D so I hope to have a good entry on Sunday. I hope my character is ready. I'm going to have to run it past Adam one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything.
This picture was taken in Africa. That is corn according to the Reuters by line.
Sunday
Didn't I say last Sunday that nothing happened? Well, This is two in a row. Robin was supposed to call, but that didn't happen. I thought long and hard about going for a walk. That never happened either. I did wait until about nine to shave. That way I have the least stubble tomorrow. Lets' see, what else? I tried to track down some graphic novels I want to read, but they just want too much money. I cannot even find them used. I suppose I'll stick to reading what I can find online for now.
Next weekend is D&D so I hope to have a good entry on Sunday. I hope my character is ready. I'm going to have to run it past Adam one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Some Books
Bulfinch's Mythology, The Age of Chivalry
This guy would have made a hell of a Dungeon Master. I would have loved to play D&D with him. I recommend this book to any one who plays. It is a historic view of the age of Chivalry. I bet several parts of D&D come from this collection. I imagine though that this man was not himself creative, but a great taker of notes and researcher. He would have been a magnificent gamest.
The author runs through several real people and draws some lines to literature. I like the line "... Then came a line of Kings of little note. ..."
Thee is a chapter on Arthur. Timely, only because I just watched the movie King Arthur.. In the story of Merlin, also chapter three, the whit dragon wins. Remember that.
Bad Black Market
The two flights that were blown up a couple of months ago in Russia proves that abandoning the rules leads to far worse than a loss of taxes. Two women paid a bribe to be lead to a plane each that night. The bribe was about $17 each. The practice has been in place for a long time. One of the women was scheduled on a much larger plane the next morning, but opted to take the earlier flight because there were police around.
Bulfinch's Mythology, The Age of Chivalry
This guy would have made a hell of a Dungeon Master. I would have loved to play D&D with him. I recommend this book to any one who plays. It is a historic view of the age of Chivalry. I bet several parts of D&D come from this collection. I imagine though that this man was not himself creative, but a great taker of notes and researcher. He would have been a magnificent gamest.
The author runs through several real people and draws some lines to literature. I like the line "... Then came a line of Kings of little note. ..."
Thee is a chapter on Arthur. Timely, only because I just watched the movie King Arthur.. In the story of Merlin, also chapter three, the whit dragon wins. Remember that.
| Nice |
|
 |
I saw this picture on Reuters. I
fell in love. One of these days I may make it to Europe to partake in
the positive side of travel and world discovery. Her smile looks a bit forced, but if you had to server drunk Germans, you would be a bit worn as well. |
| Not
Nice |
|
 |
That's a toy gun in the child's
hands. This is the side of world travel that keeps me at home. The fact that a child is flouting a toy gun behind a foreign soldier sends shivers up my spine. This is so staged it makes me sick. The kid looks sever paces behind the soldier. |
Bad Black Market
The two flights that were blown up a couple of months ago in Russia proves that abandoning the rules leads to far worse than a loss of taxes. Two women paid a bribe to be lead to a plane each that night. The bribe was about $17 each. The practice has been in place for a long time. One of the women was scheduled on a much larger plane the next morning, but opted to take the earlier flight because there were police around.
| The
Crew When we play D&D we use miniatures made of plastic. There was a day they were made of lead, but that isn't smart. There is a spot on the character sheets to put your character's picture or drawing. I've never been a good enough artist to follow through with a picture. I can just see myself putting a horrible scrawl on a perfectly good character and wanting to rewrite the whole thing. I need some practice yet I think. |
 |
2004-09-18
Song
Artist: Jem
Song: Come On Closer
Album: It All Starts Here.
Nader for President
I don't like the idea of Nader being president. I love the idea of him running. right now I think every dollar given to Nader's campaign is two given to Bush. Four years ago the liberals in Florida kicked themselves because they realized if they had voted for the democrat, Bush would have lost the presidency. Something like 5000 votes separated who won last time. Your vote does count, if you are in Florida. I'm in Texas. Guess who is going to win this state. I would almost like Bush to loose Texas just to see the look on his face. It isn't worth it though.
Texas is not a "battleground" state. I'm sick of that turn. It should be against the law for news organizations to tell people which way a state is going to vote. You wonder why people are complacent. They know, or think they know, who is going to win. I for one am unimpressed with either candidate.
I'm already sick of the Campaign stuff. Here I am adding my two cents to the fray. The presidential elections and the Olympics in the same year, how do the networks cope?
Burning Things
I've spent most of the day burning things. It is fun to watch the sparkle as I load and unload the DVD tray.I figure I will burn 16 data DVDs before the flame dies. That is quite a bit, even by my standards. I can only get 4.3 gigabytes on a DVD. If they were all full the total would come to 68.8 gigabytes. With loss, I end up with more like 55 or 60 gigabytes on the lot.
Movie Reviews by the Masses
This is why I like the whole P2P experience. It is not run by corporations (yet). People, just plane people, run the entire thing from top to bottom. Here is a review for the movie "The Seventh Seal".
Not really my kind of movie, in fact I could only sit through half an hour of it before switching it off but, seeing as it's in the IMDb Top 100, a lot of people must have liked it.
Good enough for me. I'll pass.
Artist: Jem
Song: Come On Closer
Album: It All Starts Here.
Nader for President
I don't like the idea of Nader being president. I love the idea of him running. right now I think every dollar given to Nader's campaign is two given to Bush. Four years ago the liberals in Florida kicked themselves because they realized if they had voted for the democrat, Bush would have lost the presidency. Something like 5000 votes separated who won last time. Your vote does count, if you are in Florida. I'm in Texas. Guess who is going to win this state. I would almost like Bush to loose Texas just to see the look on his face. It isn't worth it though.
Texas is not a "battleground" state. I'm sick of that turn. It should be against the law for news organizations to tell people which way a state is going to vote. You wonder why people are complacent. They know, or think they know, who is going to win. I for one am unimpressed with either candidate.
I'm already sick of the Campaign stuff. Here I am adding my two cents to the fray. The presidential elections and the Olympics in the same year, how do the networks cope?
| Culkin |
|
 |
It looks like Macaulay Culkin is
growing up.
This isn't the best way to make the other Hollywood starts respect you
. Does any one know of a childhood star that isn't fucked up when the
hit their twenties? He looks drugged out and like he has been smacked around in this photo. Check out the bags under his eyes. |
Burning Things
I've spent most of the day burning things. It is fun to watch the sparkle as I load and unload the DVD tray.I figure I will burn 16 data DVDs before the flame dies. That is quite a bit, even by my standards. I can only get 4.3 gigabytes on a DVD. If they were all full the total would come to 68.8 gigabytes. With loss, I end up with more like 55 or 60 gigabytes on the lot.
Movie Reviews by the Masses
This is why I like the whole P2P experience. It is not run by corporations (yet). People, just plane people, run the entire thing from top to bottom. Here is a review for the movie "The Seventh Seal".
Not really my kind of movie, in fact I could only sit through half an hour of it before switching it off but, seeing as it's in the IMDb Top 100, a lot of people must have liked it.
Good enough for me. I'll pass.
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