Guide

I often feel much like Arthur Dent. Always a page behind everyone else, and not exactly sure what's going on.

Mom

My mom gets this way sometimes, where she'll go on a bitch-out tyrade. She came down on me this morning about breaking her car as I was trying to get the seat to lay back so I wouldn't be in pain. I said "I'm not gonna break your car" and she threw a shit fit. Right now she's spending christmas eve tired and alone. Me, if I weren't all in pain and ready to pass out, I'd be out with the family laughing it up. Sure, I hate the bastards, but how sad to have to spend christmas even alone. I guess that's the life she wants though. Just push everyone until they don't want her around. What you gonna do?

Final Diagnosis

Reactive hydrocele. No reason why. Pulled the drain today. Feels a whole lot better now. Once the hole it was in heals up, I should be good to sit down again. I'm just a little worried about dropping a deuce in this condition...

Surgery

It's finally over and I'm in a lot of pain trying to sit here and type this. I have a drain in my junk and some oh-so-funny stories to tell. Maybe when I'm feeling better, I'll sit here long enough to write them out.

Scared

Yeah, I'm man enough to admit it. I think I have a right to be, though.

Oh, and dialup sucks.

So Much Pain

It's gotten so bad that I can't even sleep laying down anymore. I've been reduced to sleeping upright on the couch. That's not an easy task. I can feel it all the way in my back and emptying my stomach becomes the only thing I can focus on. Not exactly how I want to wake up every couple of hours. Wednesday can't come soon enough.

Countdown

Graduation!

What a Week

It has been such a long week. And for more reasons that I care to dig into. So much has happened since the 9th. I have a job, I know how much I'll be making, I lost a friend and made 10 fold more. I hurt, I laughed, I man'd it up a bit, and in one day I'll have graduated. It's a bit much for the old noodle to sort through at times.

In other news, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is a buggy as all hell game. I can't stop playing though, because the storyline absolutely rocks. If they would just fix the damn problems with it, I wouldn't feel so bad.

I should also point out, DaVinci Code is a good book. You should read it. And if anyone out there actually reads this, how do you find good books to read? We have this problem over here where there are only a few do any actual reading. This makes it hard to know what's good and what's not (and there are a LOT of books out there to pick from). It'd be cool to know how others handle that dillema.

Countdown

1 day until graduation.

And I'm sore as hell.

Mulligans

I don't know what I can say about the night I just had. I guess I don't walk so well. It's more about the people and that's cool by me. Jordan rocks, Caleb rocks, Jenn is an absolute sweetheart (and Caleb is a lucky guy to have her), Tom rocks, Shane rocks, all the people I don't remember right now rock, and the two most beautiful girls of the entire night (the asian looking lady and the girl in the pink) absolutely rock, even if I'm still not funny enough to talk to them.

I think more nights like this are in the future. They seem to like me, and maybe I'll level up a bit because of it. My ability to stay in check seems to function despite it all. I think it's like Caleb says, it's not as bad as Mom and the TV make it seem. I'm actually a smart enough person to be okay. Either that or he'll lay me out long before I get into trouble.

Countdown

2 days until graduation.

Countdown

3 days until graduation.

Countdown

4 days until graduation and counting.

And All That Could Have Been

I'm an idiot. For some reason, I never picked up the Deluxe Edition And All That Could Have Been CD, with the Still bonus CD included. Apparently you can't even buy that sucker now. I'm pissed at myself for being stupid, so I stole all the songs off Kazaa and compiled it until the thing becomes available to buy again (crossing my fingers there). I really like the song And All That Could Have Been, so here's some lyrics for you all:

Breeze still carries the sound
Maybe I'll disappear
Tracks will fade in the snow
You won't find me here

Ice is starting to form
Ending what had begun
I am locked in my head
With what I've done
I know you tried to rescue me
Didn't let anyone get in
Left with a trace of all that was
And all that could have been

Please
Take this
And run far away
Far away from me
I am
Tainted
The two of us
We're never meant to be
All these
Pieces
And promises and left behinds
If only I could see
In my
Nothing
You meant everything
Everything to me
Gone fading everything
And all that could have been

Please
Take this
And run far away
Far as you can see
I am
Tainted
And happiness and peace of mind
We're never meant for me
All these
Pieces
And promises and left behinds
If only I could see
In my
Nothing
You meant everything
Everything to me

Cemetery Gates

The reverend he turned to me
Without a tear in his eyes
It’s nothing new for him to see
I didn’t ask him why
I will remember
The love our souls had
Sworn to make
Now I watch the falling rain
All my mind can see
Now is your (face)

Well I guess
You took my youth
I gave it all away
Like the birth of a
New-found joy
This love would end in rage
And when she died
I couldn’t cry
The pride within my soul
You left me incomplete
Memories now unfold.

Believe the word
I will unlock my door
And pass the
Cemetery gates

Sometimes when I’m alone
I wonder aloud
If you’re watching over me
Some place far abound
I must reverse my life
I can’t live in the past
Then set my soul free

Belong to me at last
Through all those
Complex years
I thought I was alone

I didn’t care to look around
And make this world my own
And when she died
I should’ve cried and spared myself some pain...
Left me incomplete
All alone as the memories still remain

The way we were
The chance to save my soul
And my concern is now in vain
Believe the word
I will unlock my door
And pass the cemetery gates

Terrible Lie

I smashed myself to pieces
I am gonna fuck myself up
I'm sifting through the ashes
Oh what I have become
I threw it all away now I'm nothing
I let you slip away now I'm nothing
All that I can do is break myself in two
I fucked it all away now I'm nothing
Wave wave wave wave goodbye
Wave wave wave wave goodbye

Dimebag Darrell

Had a conversation about bands leaving their mark on history. Pantera came up as one I feel will leave a burning mark on the world of true metal. RIP Dimebag Darrell.

Pain

I feel of much shit lately. I knew something was wrong, so I finally got the nerve to look into it. I was right. It takes a lot for me to trust someone, especially when I know deep down that they're not really someone safe to trust. I'm guessing that's what makes it hurt in such an odd way. I could've just turned my back and said no when I knew that saying no was the right thing to do for myself.

The world would be so much better if people could just be trusted. If they could have the balls to own up to mistakes and take the necessary actions to rectify them. To have the balls to put fear, shame, and ego aside to do what they know is right even if it might mean the worst. It's not just a lesson for dealing with other people, but for dealing with so many of the things that indirectly effect others. We talked a lot in my software engineering class about how important it is that we can trust software. If we can't even trust people on a basic level, how can we trust anything they do, say, and create?

So I've lost someone close to me. For the second time in a single year. I guess that makes me a fool twice over, so we all know where the shame lies. I'd like to think I'm man enough to own up to that deficiency and avoid letting it happen again. I'd also like to think I'm 6' and built like a brick.

Normal Maps

Oh snap! Normal maps are working! It's only taken like... 3 weeks to figure it out. This whole tangent space thing is making some sense and it looks soooo damn cool. I can see why Doom3 is the best graphical engine out right now.

Snow

It finally dumped here and things are going to start happening in a couple days. Unfortunately, the injury is keeping me home. Fortunately, alown will take some pictures for me. I guess that makes him my proxy snowboarder for now. I don't hate him any less though.

Cross Your Fingers

Any sign is a good sign. Lotta sick people out there could get a whole lot better soon.

Hydrocele

2 days down, 1 month to go. I like to think I'm leveling up a little every day.

Graduation

Pretty soon, I'll have a BS in CS. I don't think it adds any letters to my name, but it sounds cool to append Bachelor of Science some times. It's kind of cool to know that even when all my rights are eaten up, no one can take that title from me. So even though it may not get me the great job everyone promised, there's some pride in the hard work.

Also, I thought this was cool when I came up with it:

while(true) {
do fun() while(!other_stuff);
handle_other_stuff();
}

Genius

Sometimes, when I have a quiet moment to think, I imagine what the world might be like if it were some kind of eutopian dream. A world where no one was satisfied with something unless it was the very best that it could be. A world where the dollar was a sacred note which everyone fought, tooth and nail, to relieve us of. Sure, it would be cutthroat and not giving in to our lazy nature would be a struggle in itself, but no one would ever wonder if they were being screwed. No one would ever wonder if they're hard earned money was being used to support something dishonest and sub-par. There would be no middle-man and the quality of living would have nowhere to go but up.

Pride in what we do, the things we create, and the lives we live has lost ground and is continuing to lose ground. If there's an easy way out, we take it. If there's a way to make someone else do the things we don't want to, we do it. It may be that Bill Watterson is speaking only of the comic strip industry, but I think it stems from a much larger social problem that should be the foremost of our daily concerns.

Hey, Fuck You G4

So after moving everyone from S.F. to L.A., G4 has decided to let them all go. I'm not saying I liked any of those people or their shows (though I really did), what kind of assholes do you have to be to force someone into moving and then let them go for no good reason? It's wrong on so many levels, including several moral, that I think I might just have to block G4 on the DVR. That's how pissed I am, and I want whatever ratings that might get sucked off by the cable company to reflect that. I don't care that Morgan Webb is hot, X-Play sucks lately anyway. I feel for the people let go and I wish them the best. They brought me a lot of good times and I owe them at least as much as doing whatever I can to not support G4.

In other news, I got snowboarding stuff today. It's a graduation present. I'm stoked like you can't even believe. Now I need to snow. So everyone out there, do the snow dance. Do it good and right so I can get off to the mountain soon.

Job

Oh man! Oh man! I might not have to babysit retards with alown! Oh man! I think I'm pooping myself right now. I must've done something right at some point because this is like some kind of good luck that I just don't normally get. Ooh man!

Couldn't Say it Any Better

From wilwheaton.net:

Apparently, my country holds a fundamentally different set of values than I thought we did, and that scares the shit out of me. I still believe that Bush is bad for America, and though I'm virtually certain that the next four years will be an absolute disaster. Not just because we have gotten four more years of the Bush agenda, but because this election has been an enthusiastic endorsement of that agenda.

I hoped I would wake up this morning to the good news that our long national nightmare was over.

It's not over.

It's just beginning.

Nintendo does it right

I spent the better part of 2 days telling myself Nintendo is not evil. Then I see this and it's like all of a sudden, my faith that not all large corporations are out to end life for consumers is restored. They were protecting their IP and the children that largely follow that IP. They made a mistake. They apologized and extended a hand of good faith. Why is it that a company HQ'd in Japan is the one to do this? Maybe American companies could take note at how many people are commenting in that thread about how good this makes Nintendo look to people who probably aren't even fanboys...

I'd also like to point out the number of Mario and Zelda clones out there that Nintendo has no problem with. Go ahead, count them. Now count the number of clones of any game from Microsoft or Sony that haven't gotten a C&D letter. Yeah, I'm seeing a trend as well. Viva la Gamecube, baby.

Talent

Will someone please tell me, at what point did it become acceptable to judge someone's musical talent by how many notes they can hit, how perfect their voice is, and how much money they make? I got the above linked article from Wil Wheaton's blog. In that article is a link to Tom Waits on Dave Letterman. This man has no talent by today's standards. His voice is old, scratched, and worn. He can't hit them notes and he don't make the money. Yet he has magnitudes of talent far above and beyond that of Mrs. Simpson. Why? His music is from the heart. It's from a lived life and born of the very pains that we all have to accept as part of being alive. Ashlee Simpson knows no life and certainly knows no pain. She hasn't been poor. She hasn't fought for the right to live a decent life. She was given what she has by MTV and her father.

Have you ever listened to Hendrix? Not Hendrix the guitar god... Hendrix the musician. That man had a voice that would turn a deaf dog over. It was that bad. Yet when he sang about war and drugs, everyone listened and thought about it. He was giving you the life of a poor, under-educated black man trying to make a living at a time when the very fact that you were black still meant you were less than the dirt white people walked on. Maybe I'm too soft, but that sure seems like a lot to deal with. Hendrix didn't lip-sync and he wrote his own music. To say that Ashlee Simpson has any semblance of heart in her music, is to spit on everything that real musicians have worked so hard for. Hell, I'd even be willing to be that today, Hendrix wouldn't get his word out because no one wants to sell someone without that perfectly pitched voice.

I love Nintendo

Check that out up there. In particular, check out the shots at ilovebees.com. Both games come out around the same time, so this is some pretty funny marketing stuff. Considering Metroid is a much better series than Halo (and the sites are done way better), I think we know who the winner here is.

Awww.... el-oh-el

Alown's in love. How cute. It's like watching a kid in 7th grade find girls for the first time. He was even upset because she didn't answer the phone when he called because she was... get this... at work. Hilarious shit. That's Hilarious with a capital H.

Quaternions

I don't like them... not one bit. Handy suckers for a few things, but I'll be damned if thinking about them doesn't make my brain hurt like a son-of-a-gun. At least the Camera class is coming along. My graphics class would be so much easier if the professor new a thing about the math we're supposed to use for this kind of stuff. Bleh.

Double-u Tee Eff?

Went to dinner with my mom tonight. Apparently some bitches (she's a good source for this info) were out by the freeway in one of our dirtier towns here... taking shots at cars. Some random lady ended up getting a bullet through her car and into her leg. I asked her if they caught the stupid son of a bitch and she said yeah... then I asked her if they beat him until he couldn't walk. Fucking assholes need to learn that this isn't SoCal and we don't have room for gangs. I'm all for taking a Bradley to their part of town and putting a direct end to this problem.

In other news, I picked up some new shoes today, to replace to the ones with the holes in the bottom. Steel toed hiking boots. Not exactly the skate shoes I was dreaming of, but I guess the normal places I get shoes figure it's easier to sell pseudo-skate shoes rather than real skate shoes. You know , the ones with no ankle support and a thin bottom that a skateboard will eat right through in a week that the kids will buy up for no other reason than they say DC on them... and obviously that makes them cool. Kind of like buying Doc Martins because Nikes are for posers. You gotta be a real fucking moron to fall for that shit.

Meh?

I fell off my skateboard again yesterday. Right into the road... again. Different spot though. Hit a rock this time so I ended up rolling rather than sliding on the ground. I think my brain has started turning itself off any opportunity it gets that I'm not concentrating. Case in point, I fell asleep during my graphics class the other day and I seem to zone out a lot in my software engineering class. When I'm in my OS class, though, I'm all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Funny thing is, my graphics class is only 5 minutes after my OS class. Bizarre...

Shell

Just got my grade on my shell project for my operating systems class. Looked over the source to refresh for the next part of it. Realized... I really love to program. Not as much as I love to eat bacon, but still high enough to understand why I chose this for a profession.

One of those days

To recount my day yesterday would go something like this:

1) Found out work actually did cut me off at 20 hours, so I have less $$$ than I thought I did

2) Picked a fight with a good friend for no good reason

3) Fell off my skateboard for lack of paying attention

4) Got semi-confused about direction in the town I grew up in

5) Nabbed a decent Kamigawa tourny pack

Today I'm stiff and sore on my right side from the fall, left wondering if I'll have my friend on Monday, and staring down homework I don't want to do as well as wondering how much food I can buy with the $$$ I have. Just one of those days, I guess...

Two Things

1) WTF is the point of having a FAQ if it's filled with questions that aren't frequently asked? I'm looking into programming apps for Danger's Hiptop and their FAQ is full of questions that no right minded developer would ever ask. Maybe they should call it a 'Questions we want you to ask that we know you don't care about the answer to' section.

2) Alan Cox is the man. Check that link up there. The man understands the Unix philosophy for applications (think grep | sort | cut) and why they work. KISS is a fundamental ideology for every other engineering field, yet programmers seem to think that the more features something can have the better it must obviously be. Or maybe it's business people that fail to understand what makes decent software. I'm personally for the idea of plugins and modules. Build the core functionality and add features in a simple, enclosed (and secure) way.

Son of a Bitch

Apparently the 2.6.9 kernel will have its changes apply to 2.6.8 and not 2.6.8.1 (decided about 2 rc's ago). This new development model is going to make keeping an up-to-date system a real pain in the ass. Having to undo bug fix patches for the new release is lame. Really lame.

Some things in Linux are really cool. Excellent scheduling system, common interfaces to every peace of hardware on the system, semi-micro monotholic kernel, small apps based on the Unix philosophy of "do one thing and do it well". But a lot of crap is damned irking. Bugs upon bugs in lots of applications, inconsistancies over sets of applications (one day xcdroast works, the next it doesn't), obscure dependancies for useful applications, and this new kernel development model. It's just crap that makes using the system an unnecessary pain.

Did I mention the book I'm reading about the design of the 2.6 kernel was written by someone 6 months younger than me? Talk about making your life seem wasted. Jeeez...

Just planting seeds...

Wouldn't it be cool if we could spread my controller all over? Get it ranked up on Google or something? Yeah... that'd be cool.

Just in case

For those that don't know, all the stuff I do for myself is GPL'd. So if you go to get the WinAmp controller, you'll get both the daemon and the client, as well as the source to both (MSVC++.NET 2k3). It's pretty straightforward C++ using the latest WTL from sourceforge. All the other programs on my site have the source with them as well, though they're old so they're not as nice and pretty as the WinAmp controller.

Updates

I updated my website with an RSS feed and the network WinAmp controller I made for the roommate. It's in a half-assed state but it does what one would want it to do. It's also pretty lightweight and not too ugly. If anyone out there ever starts using it (they won't), I might go back to fixing and documenting it (I won't).

Fucking redshirts

You read that. Fucking redshirts.

Java 1.5

So, I've always hated Java. A lot. It's just an ugly way of doing things and it's slow. Until now. This new release pretty much adds everything one could hope for in a modern OO language. Generic types, autoboxing, and variable arguments for people coming from C. I don't have time to say much about why I like these things, but I do think they'll really help Java get further ahead. Probably won't take me away from C++, but it will definitely make me think twice when doing a cross-platform application.

Truck

Roommate got a new Sidekick II yesterday. He showed it to me today as I was leaving for work. It has a cool camera phone in it (including a mirror for the vain) so I decided to take a picture of my truck real quick. It's gonna be his picture for when I call.



It's easy to see from that picture why I want nerf bars and some 33" BFG A/Ts.

Peeple R Stoopid

Check that link up there down at the "What a jerk" post by Gabe. What kind of a sick human being does one have to be to think that helping terminally ill children on christmas is some kind of egoism. Sick kids need the best out of life that we can give them (well, all kids need it really, but that's what parents are for in the conventional situation), and something tells me $200,000 in video games and toys is probably heaven on earth for them (and will, using my etcha-sketch calculator here, last more than a couple years).

If you get a chance to help out with Child's Play this year, do so. Not because it's altruistic or an egoism or whatever other hippy buzz-word you wanna throw on it, but because it's a good thing to do for kids that could use a good thing from time to time.

Sing along redux

Thought these lyrics were kinda cool:

Whistles the wind, blowing my way

Sweeping me back, back here to stay

Can winners be losers running on the same track?

Some head for glory, others refresh



Well it breaks my heart to see you this way

The beauty in life, where's your God?

And somebody told me, you were doing okay

Somehow I guess they were wrong



My isolation, now there's a sobering thought

A minute alone, a lifetime too long

See the face in this mirror, so pale it could crack

Desperately wanting a color in lacks



Well it breaks my heart to see you this way

The beauty in life, where's your God?

And somebody told me, you were doing okay

Somehow I guess they were wrong



So you drank with the lost souls for too many years

Time to be right cause they'll cripple with fear

Never been righteous, go sell them, we're wrong

Life's only life with you in this song



Now there's an ocean between us

Where I am and where I want to be

So you prayers in doubt, doubt not for me



Well it breaks my heart to see you this way

The beauty in life, where's your God?

And somebody told me, you were doing okay

Somehow I guess they were wrong



Well it breaks my heart to see you this way

The beauty in life, where's your God?

And somebody told me, you were doing okay

Somehow I guess they were wrong



Whistles the wind

Whistles the wind

Whistles the wind

Whistles the wind



Oh you'll find your way out, but there's no going now

Every woman and child drags you down for the good

It's not safe being free, can't give back what you feel

You said you'll always be in heaven with me

Not bad for a band I originally thought was just about drinking and pirating.

Good Musics

Killswitch Engage is not a bad band.

More Firefox

So I just now discovered that little Google search in the upper right of firefox. Also discovered it searches more than just google. Almost crapped myself. Damn hot stuff there.

Also found out about user mode Linux from a professor of mine. Stoked to start learning about that. It'd be real nice to test my kernel modules for that class in 2.4 w/o having to boot out of 2.6.

Thank you Mr. DMCA

So the DMCA is being used to crack down on Magic Suitcase. Not sure how far they're taking their copyrights (images, text, etc.), but it appears as though they want people using their online gatherer search engine. Bunch of crap if you ask me. I was all excited to use suitcase for my ChoK deck building. Guess I'll have to find another way to do it. I think maybe creating an app for proxy decks that gets all its data via gatherer might be a neat idea. They can't really do anything since it'd just be an automated proxy creater rather than a full on database of copyrighted information.

It wouldn't be as nice to use as suitcase since suitcase is offline and all, and I've always been scared of the HTTP protocol, but it might serve as a temporary solution for someone to code up.

Meat

Just because it's the cheapest package of meat, doesn't mean it's edible. Remember this.

Magic and Truck... again...

Getting all excited cuz my Kamigawa deck is coming together and my first chance to play test is gonna be tonight. Might throw together a Mirroden deck for Friday night magic, but I'm not sure if I wanna hit that or not. I'm psyched for Kamigawa, but I'm missing getting my game on. Funny thing though, roommate can't go to the next Kamigawa tournament. So I'm gonna have to go alone and pick up lots of cool cards for myself. I don't know the people there real well, so it might be a little ackward. I just really want them new cards and a chance to play some games.

In the truck department, had a talk with the roommate (who is currently being hunted by the ghost of Bob, just read his blog to see it) about taking the truck somewhere and having him show me how to handle it off-road. Still scared pantsless about breaking it or getting stuck, but I think I'm in a spot here where I can be without it for a week or two. I'm really close to school and work so I can walk almost anywhere. Other things can probably handled with rides from friends. And if I do break something, I'd probably have to fix it myself to afford it, which means maybe meeting people that are do this kind of stuff for fun that wouldn't mind showing me how to keep my truck in good shape. Either that or I'll break it once and never do it again. I don't know. We'll find a good day and I'll make sure and post about it. Maybe get some pictures, but I doubt it.

Python

Been spending some time taking a look at Python. I've been wanting to get some RAD cross-platform going and this seems like a really good way to do it. It's really handy as a scripting language but seems to be very proficient as an application language as well. Normally I might want something like Perl, but the OO nature of Python is catchy (I might dig more into O'Caml, but functional languages are rough for me). I'll see if I have the gusto to keep in it for a while and maybe I can show off something soon.

Pre-release

Played in the Magic: the Gathering pre-release yesterday. I actually did a lot better than I thought I would. My first opponent was a newb like me, so we went 1-1 and then he had to leave so I took the round. My second opponent was one of the guys from the place my roommate regulars, and he's also fairly good at the game. He handed me my ass both matches. Final round was against a kid that just had some bad luck, I think. First match goes to me because he can't get any red mana. I basically took him out with a 2/2 Bushido 1 in about 10 turns. Second match goes to him because he keeps removing all my creatures and returning his to his hand from his graveyard. Last match ends up mine because I draw my foil Tatsumasa the Dragon Fang. On my 6th turn, he Stone Rains one of my lands, so I have to wait until my next turn to drop the Fang. 8th turn I swap in the dragon. 3 turns later, it's over and I'm walking away with 4 extra boosters of ChoK. Not a bad haul (1 tournament pack, 6 boosters) for a $25 tournament.

The funniest part of the whole night? Roommate gets screwed in the ass by the people at work and has to drop from the tournament a round early. He coulda walked out with the same card count as me (his deck was way better than mine) but instead ends up waiting at the apartment for the people at work. He tells himself it works out because if they hadn't given him time off, he wouldn't have gone anyway... I say he's just sucking his thumb to feel better about it. Funny stuff if you ask me.

On the last bit of news, my shell is smashing some crucial data and causing malloc() to segfault. I'm very not happy about this because it's a very hard bug to catch. Into the debugger for the rest of the day I go.

Is this possible?

Check that link up there. I'm having a hard time following the idea that Microsoft can put the hammer down on a standard like that. It's kind of scary that a company can have that much push over something that really isn't their territory. It makes me wonder how people will react to something like this. It probably won't be pretty, whatever it is.

Vacation

I need a vacation. Too much to do and I don't give a crap about any of it.

Obligatory "about my truck"

Yeah, it's that time again. I got some fresh oil put in that sucker and it's back to purring like a mountain lion... or at least it is in my head because it's actually really quiet what with being a 4cyl and all. I've had this urge to get some window visor things. I used to think they were really only for Nampa-style vehicles (people from here will maybe get what that means) but I've seen them on some Toyotas around town and they do look kinda cool. Give a little bit more wideness to the truck. I haven't looked into if they look better w/ tinted windows and bad w/o tinted windows, but before I make any decisions I think I should look into that.

I often find myself wishing I had a friend that was really into vehicles so that I could take them off-roading and when something breaks, they could show me how to fix it. And maybe show me how to take care of the more... complex things (or at least what to look for). Like, I was reading about the timing chain in these pickups and one site showed a picture of it. They talked about how they're built using plastic guides that tend to break... and if they do break and the chain comes loose and eventually off the guides, it can destroy the engine (it's actually right in with the camshaft). There's also things like the water/fuel pumps that I don't know what to do about... and some more things that the Toyota book talks about but shows no picture of, so I'm left wondering wtf to look for. With the whole offroad thing, you're talking about some serious damage to parts that aren't like "yeah, just turn this here and it'll be good again" and having someone that could help with that would be nice.

Unfortunately, I know no such person. So I'm left going slowly over areas I know I can't get stuck in, hoping that my luck holds through and nothing ends up breaking. It's kind of worrying to think that I'm putting a lot of money into taking care of whatever I can on my truck... and yet some stupid thing like a plastic guide could end up taking the whole thing out. Not that I wouldn't mind throwing a newer, bigger engine in it, but I just can't afford the new engine or all of the changes that would be needed to accomodate a larger engine. Programming I can do, but mechanics are very much a mystery to me.

Sunbird

Just got Sunbird up and going at work. Very happy with the performance and probably going to get the same thing going at home to remind me to do homework. I really feel sorry for anyone using Outlook at this point. I wonder what it feels like to know you blew that much $$$ on a product that's wholy inferior to the free, open source suite from Mozilla.

Some nerds were bitching about how OpenOffice doesn't work right. Something about how nothing can open its documents and nothing looks right. I wonder how such idiocy can be perpetuated throughout the world. I've been using OpenOffice for every school project the last 3 years as well as my resume and to open every .doc file given to me. It's also handy for creating easy .pdfs. Why people cling to MS Office like children to their mothers is really beyond me.

Everyone sing along

*Stone the Crow - Down*

A bout of deep depression.
Can't seem to move it forward.
My lying eyes lie awake.
Not sure what I am after.
I never died before.
Can't live what happened yesterday.
I never stoned the crow, no.
Flip through endless stories.
A life of hand-written pain.
No one can share this hurt that is mine, mine, mine.
I never died before.
Can't be what happened yesterday.
I shouldn't stone the crow, no.
Ride on!
Same old city, same old pain.
No matter how I try,
No matter what I say,
I'm blamed, I'm shamed,
I'm judged unfairly.
So now I've died before.
It feels as bad as yesterday.
I never stoned the crow, no.
You too have died before.
It's more than less of yesterday.
I never stoned the crow, stoned the crow, no, no.

I tell you what... if rock could be this good all the time, I think I'd have nothing to complain about anymore.

Interesting

Check out that link up there. I'm a little torn about the whole thing. On the one hand, fuck pirates. It's my livelyhood on the line if they steal my software so what do I care if they lose their documents? I don't. On the other hand, I don't have a problem sharing some software/games with close friends. They're close friends and it rarely leaves them. One of the links in the article makes a similar argument, except they care about not deleting things from people's harddrives (Mac users are a little off anyway). I'm sure the guy regrets what he did because it was obviously just a childish "if you're going to steal my software, I'll mess you up!" response. I really do like shareware (it's the next best thing when open source won't work) and wish it could get a bigger following. Heck, demoing software is pretty much the only way to get me to buy any of it.

In other news, new Rancho's on the truck! Stiff sum' bitches they are. It's become painfully obvious my truck needs an alignment as well. Going to maybe schedule that for next week or something when I get my fluids changed up. I wish I knew more about the automobiles so I could do this stuff myself... and maybe have a better idea of what mods are better than others so I can have my truck a really long time. Unfortunately, science is a mystery to me and we is dumb, so I'm stuck relying on word of mouth and expensive repair shops. Kind of embarrasing, but if it keeps my truck running good then I'm all for laying down the greenbacks. It's a love afair, really... mainly me and my truck.

All I need now is them 33" BFG ATs, nerf bars, and some exhaust fixups. Smooth frickin' ride there my friends... smooth frickin' ride.

Tough Call

I'm not just afraid to be alone... am I? I...

LANing

I'm at a LAN.... and I want to be somewhere else very badly.

Fuck ESPN

So I paid like $70 to park at school... in addition to the $2000+ to be here. And it turns out, when there's a football game gonna be on the ESPN, I can't park here. At the place I paid nearly $3000 to be at and park. This is fucked up. And I'm pissed. I skateboarded the whole way here and my heart is like "Dude... seriously... I'm passing fucking McDonald's through right now... stop moving!" It hurts. Like a god damned son of a bitch, it hurts. And I smell bad because of it. Plus, I put them 6x9s in my truck and was all like "hell yeah, I'm pimp shit now" only to find out, I can't park here!

In other news, I'm no longer going to be saying "e-mail" or "mail of the electronic variety". I will henceforth use the term "gmail" when referring to things of that nature. This is because what we've used up until now for electronic mail has been nothing but a joke played on us by rich white people. Gmail is the way it was meant to be and the way it will forever be. Not really because of the massive space, but because the interface rocks my world. You all should get gmail too.

The Balancing

I'm a little worried right now. The universe must in some way balance this... and it's going to be bad when it does. At least I paid attention when it told me what to hold as important. If I can be a good enough person to keep my perspective, maybe I can be happy, have my cake, and eat it all with ice cream too. Maybe.

I was gonna write something very lame in this spot... but I decided it'd be best to not, because unlike the kids, I know what things aren't for the world to know... and that electronic crap does in fact leave a paper trail. I think this weekend will be the time for a short conversation to clear some things up. It's called "social skills".

God damn you half Japanese girls

I'm sorry... there is just something damned hot about a girl that talk ATHF and carries a d20 in her bag. Frickin' hot. Lip jewelery is also hot, though not as much as the geeky part.

EDIT - Before we all get excited. She's married. Still hot though.

Hero

Watched Hero tonight. Damn good movie. It's definitely a thinking movie. We didn't get the major part until about five minutes after the end of the movie, which is a pretty good sign that something bigger than you'd find in most American movies had gone down. I think Jet Li takes on kind of a jesus role in the movie. A mortar for a different time and different culture, only instead of the son of god, he's just a man looking for revenge and finding truth and enlightenment instead.

Some times I think it might be good to leave for a while. A sojourn to somewhere that might set me on my own path to truth and wisdom. Speak the sacred Ohm and let the universe communicate itself clearly to me. I don't think it'd be wise for me to experience all facets of the self as one should, but a quiet journey of suffrage and humility might do me some good. At least get me away from everything. I guess my last real communion with the universe came when I wasn't even paying attention... just lost in my own thoughts and fears. But it also came when I let go of everything keeping me from being myself, so maybe it's just a matter of letting go again, speaking the Ohm, and freeing myself from the shackles of the self. I sure could use the wisdom of the universe right now. Something tells me that the journey to that wisdom is the important part of being an adult, rather than the actual acquiring of that wisdom. I'm glad not all things are so complicated.

Life Sucks

Why is it always so hard to turn our backs on the things we really want? I think someone out there will find me worth it, so I should be strong again in time.

I don't like you either

It's back. I want it gone. You know the voice that says you don't deserve this, but you do it anyway because even though the voice is right, you don't want to listen? I'm starting to listen... I really, really don't deserve this. It's my time to be happy now.

Yucky Ramen

While we're trading quotes... I've always been kind of attached to this one:

"And eating yucky ramen can also... be an interesting experience."

10 points for anyone that can guess where that's from with an extra bonus of 20 if they can say why it's such a good quote. No cheating though, I'm watching you.

Some updates also:

A) It's not ringworm. It itches, but the bump is gone.
B) The dog has a swolen salivary gland. So it's a huge relief and I can now make fun of him for having spit problems.

Also had a moment today... in my old room. I would've thought that I'd want to be home so bad, but when I'm there it's like a different place. Not like it's not home or anything... it's just not where I feel like I belong anymore. I don't belong here the city either, but I don't feel out of place in life. It's confusing, but I'm happy. I also had this feeling that I haven't felt for a while now... and I didn't like it. A feeling I fought very hard to put away... it scares me because just a day ago I was thinking for upteen hours, "just get me out of this car... so I can say that I don't want this in my life anymore and turn my back on all of it". Six hours or so of thinking that to myself, "I'll just say I don't want this and leave me alone and then someone will come and save me." Bullshit is hard to deal with sometimes. Feeling betrayed and lied to and then feeling the same as I did when everything fell apart is hurtful. Somehow I deal, but it's hard to try and watch my back all the time. I just don't want to hurt again...

On the side... I hate nerds. Well... I mean... I like geeks. I hate nerds. You know, the guys who know more than the professor and know that they know more, so they ask inappropriate questions at irrelevant times just so they can inflate their own nerdy little ego. I wonder if they see me laugh in front of them when they ask their question, because I know the answer and know full well the professor doesn't know. I had one professor this semester already say that avoiding questions like that is called "social skills". Sometimes I wish I were seeking a profession where people had a bit more of those.

A Relevant Post

That link up there is exactly why I have a very hard time trusting people... especially of the female variety.

One other thing...

I think I got ringworm from the trip. Not sure, but I have a bump on my arm that itches and is red around the bump... just like ringworm. Gonna have my mom take a look at it tonight (she's a nurse and has a bunch of books with really disgusting pictures in them) and see what she says. Hopefully not ringworm, cuz that sucker itches like a mother.

Seattle

So let's talk about the trip I mentioned yesterday. Took off on friday, slept in a tent in Yakima, arrived inbetween Tacoma and Seattle on Saturday. First stop was downtown Seattle to see the homeless people and the market stuffed with people selling me things I didn't realize I needed. It was very... well, it was a lot take in when you're from a place like Boise. I've been to places like San Francisco and San Diego, even been on Fisherman's Warf and in the thick of D.C. But that was all before I realized how much I actually enjoy seeing dirt underneath my feet and mountains/foothills backdropping short buildings. It reminds me that there is actually life other than humans, pigeons, and concrete out there.

Took a short tour of the outter cities after the trek downtown. That was a lot nicer for me since things seem to move a bit slower outside of the towers. Had some dinner at a Denny's where the fellow taking our order was on his second day. All I wanted was my damn milkshake...

The second day was more interesting to me (my travel-mate was there to see the buildings, so for her I'm thinking the first day of taking pictures of buildings and walking all to hell and back was the fun part). We went to the Boeing air museum and got to see up close a Blackbird (cruise speed of mach3), a P-51, and a whole mess of other really badass aircraft that us civilian folk don't get to see much of. Though I actually lived in a place where right before school would start, a P-51 and a bomber would fly over our house a couple times a day. Very loud planes they are.

The last day of traveling home was rough. Some not-so-good things went down and it's left me feeling a bit uneasy. It got some resolution at the end and maybe can be mended back up. Some stitches are in place and a good couple of tugs should seal it up.

Funny story before I get back to work. I said on the way up and on the way back, "better slow down, cops don't like 90 in a 75". I got called a wuss over the text messages. I said, "gonna get pulled over, hope you can afford it". Low and behold, on the way back, we're pulled over in Oregon. That woulda been a $240 ticket if not for the cop being generous on the holliday. Good times my friend, good times.

Hot Dog

I came back from a trip over the holiday (more on that later)... found we had some rotting watermellon that had festered in its own filth, some lettuce that had turned a nice shade of orange and brown, and some hot dogs that had turned themselves into a liquid that spilled over onto the bottom of the fridge. Eww dude... eeww... and now the garbage smells really, really bad.

And in moment...

... I am humbled.

I did a bad thing, Rem... I did a bad thing.

Rough day. Was angry at a friend, but gave up on that because it's not worth it and she did the best she could. More angry at myself and the way the universe chooses to balance itself with my life. But I need to talk about something else.

A long while back, my family picked up a couple of chocolate lab puppies. We watched them grow, and when my step dad passed on they became the big link to a time gone by for my mom. About a year and a half ago, they passed away from old age and the various cancers of life. It was a rough time. Maybe a month later my mom found a yellow lab at the pound and brought him home. This dog has had the kind of life you only see on the Animal Precinct show on APL. He was once beaten so hard that he was paralyzed in his hind legs. He still has a hump where his spine has been bent out of shape from the blow, and his fur there doesn't grow nice and soft like it should. He cowers when you raise something over your head and he gets agitated at strange men wearing hats or strange men taking a jog. He knows pain and yet he's still lively and loving. Everyone that's been around him has fallen in love with how sweet he is. He turned four sometime this year.

I went home tonight to do some ironing. Watched some baseball with my grandpa and griped at my mom about the man, the system, and how Winco won't take debit cards in the year 2004. I also got to be the one to find the bump, roughly the circumfrance of a baseball and the thickness of about a half-inch in his neck. I'm not scared... or worried... I'm just sad. The universe has a sick way of balancing itself out sometimes. Hopefully the vet will shine a ray of light on this.

eDork

I felt like being an ass today. Something about girls makes it very hard to deliver on such things, so I just grumbled to myself about idiot professors and life altering decisions. I'm looking at a flyer trying to decide if free pizza is worth spending time with a bunch of nerds talking about a club I don't give two tinkles about. She said "we'll talk about competitions and funding"; I think, "and I care because?".

See what I mean, ass.

Something got dropped about toga's at a football game and I immediately look for the door, only to realise that class hasn't even started. It's not that I have no school spirit, or that I'm super lazy... I just have no school spirit and I am one lazy mofo. Of course I'll be gone a trip for the game, but it breaks my heart no less to miss the excitement. What once I thought was some kind of spark seems to be just a generic how do you do and even though my interest is still peeked... I'm small fry in a big bowl with lots of swimming and exploring left to do. Maybe... maybe not. We'll let the attitude calm with some sleep before making a rash decision.

Silver lining? New 6x9s for the truck! Courtesy a good friend. Another good friend will help install them at a convenient time and finally some ellipses may drop another cm or two. Speaking of ellipses, I think I learned an integer equation to draw them today. I'm not sure because the ramblings of a professor that doesn't understand what she professes are about as hard to understand as someone speaking giberish at me while pointing at equations on the board. It's not easy to understand, you see. The book is no help here either because it seems to have been written by folks without a mathematics background. You know, the ones that think flashing equations is enough to justify $100 more on the book price while never explaining why or what the equations are for.

Okay... enough rambling. I'm tired, there are dishes to be done, and there's never enough variety in my diet to manage a strenuous day in a healthy manner.

Gimme

I want that mouse. Bad. Real bad. It fixes everything I dislike about the mouse I currently have (and absolutely adore because it kicks major ass). Lithium battery, battery level on-mouse, horizontal scrolling. Mmmm....

Now, I just need to see if Logitech makes a new wireless keyboard that's better than the one I have (no key-state LEDs and it interferes w/ other wireless peripherals).

The Full Monty

That's it... right there. If it doesn't scream nerd, I don't know what does.

Down

So when I said the other day that Down is better than Pantera, I meant better in the way that your body prefers water to other liquid substances. Sure, it may let you take in Mt. Dew or whatever, but it's gonna be far more well off with a little H20. Seriously, this is what metal would be if it had something to say. It's honestly that good for your aural senses.

In other news, I stumbled on libgmail today via a link on /. about the gmail filesystem (so you use your gmail account as another 1GB partition). This means I can finally check my gmail through Thunderbird, which was about the only thing keeping me from ever using gmail. I'm not sure what kind of holes running a local pop3 proxy brings, but I think it should be okay behind my firewall.

Bed

I finally got a bed. I've had a matress on the floor since we moved in here and it's been the pits. I now have a short little bed frame and a piece of MDF keeping me and my matress up off the floor. I'm so happy, I think I'll treat myself to a glass of apple juice.

Also got the coffee table my grandpa made for us. It's really nice. We've been using a box we named Bob (you know, he has bitch-tits) to eat off of and put our feet on (as well as play M:tG on). It's going to be so nice having a nice, clean table to eat on and all that. We're living like frickin' rich people up in here.

M:tG Tournament

First friday night magic tournament tonight. I lost the first round and spent the rest of the time watching Caleb lose. Still good fun though. I'm excited for the next block to start so I can really begin my collecting and deck building.

Also, the girl from the other floor is back. Good friend is going to see if he can get me an in. I'm excited enough about this one to probably crap myself. Hopefully I can hold that in when it all goes down.

Pantera

For a conversation I had earlier:

Pantera = Good, but broken up
Down = Even better, no longer making music
Superjoint Ritual = Not so good
Damageplan = Just like Pantera, but with a new singer

Crap, now what?

Cute girl in two of my CS classes. WTF do I do now? I can't be all like *drool* because every nerd in the place is doing that (and unless she's an idiot, which I doubt, she knows it too). She actually sat by me and made conversation. I won't look into it at all because of the afformentioned nerd thing.

<rant>
I also need to say something... I absolutely hate these damn nerds that are always like "*snort* I'm so smart! You're wrong about whatever you're talking about because I feel the need to argue every minute point *snort*". What's even worse is when they're actually idiots, so all they do is perpetuate the false information being spouted by whoever they're arguing with. I really, really hope that in the real world, computer people have some kind of clue about engaging in normal conversation that doesn't involve the Ghz of their processor.
</rant>

Olympics

Had a conversation today about the Olympics. I've basically given up on the male end of the American contribution to the games. Our baseball team couldn't qualify, our basketball team sucks, our gymnists suck, a couple swimmers are okay, but overall they suck. However, our women are rocking the damn house. I told the guys this and they seem to think it's because other countries don't have an emphasis on women's athletics.

I'm not saying I totally disagree with that statement, but it seems an awful discredit to what these women are doing. Our softball team has shut out all but the Australian team. I don't know much about Australia, but something tells me they work just as hard as our women. Yet, we only gave up one point to them. Our women gymnastics (aside from being nearly the only non-anorexic girls otut there as well as the cutest) are medaling in almost everything they do. I could go on about diving, track, and the other events they're bringing home, but it'd just be beating a dead horse.

My point is this: our women rock. You can't take that away from them. It's on film for crying out loud.

School

School starts tomorrow. Yeah. I think. My first class is at 4:40pm. This is going to be a long semester, I can feel it already. Luckily, it's my last so as long as I don't fall into the "just 100 more days" rut, I should be good to go.

I forgot about this eariler... the damn comic store has more than one girl working there. The one yesterday wasn't as cute, and she was on the phone telling a customer that she really doesn't know much about comics. I'm wondering if maybe it's not just a marketing ploy to get suckers like me to hit their store a whole bunch just for the girls.

WACD

Been working on a remote control app for WinAmp (so we can have music on the laptop and change it up w/o getting out of our chairs). It's coming along pretty nicely. The only problem is that as of now, you can't load playlists or play CDs. Not too big of a deal, just some inconveniences.

Also got a gmail account yesterday. Suprisingly, all the names I wanted were taken. I didn't think many people watched ATHF but I guess enough did to take up all the cool names. Ended up choosing one that works out well (no, I'm not gonna post it here) and still lets people who know some things know that I'm a complete dork.

I Love Bees

I told myself I wouldn't fall into it. I absolutely hate marketing campains meant to grab the weak minded and force them to buy things they don't need and can't afford. Then I saw that it's coming to my town... in fact very close to where I'm sitting at this exact moment. So I guess I'll be there. I read the story and as much as I hate the idea of it making sense, it's interesting and might work itself into Halo 2 really well. I even visited the ninja bees Wiki to see what others had gotten. That's where I found the GPS and the time. Should be either very interesting to see what's going on, or I will make a complete ass of myself (and only to myself if I keep it on the down-low).

Of course I have no idea what's going on, and I'm not really even sure if it's attachment to Halo 2 is something worth looking into, but again, it's just that interesting.

Bestest night evAr

Decided to do a bbq last night. Find out a couple other guys were coming over to leach the fire and get some free food. They brought some shrimp so I'm not complaining. We ended up eating some semi-raw potatoes with it all while watching them cute little girls do their gymnastics routines.

Where it all gets to be a blast is when the other fellows leave and my roommate convinces me to bust my saxophone out. I haven't even opened the case for this thing since the last day of my senior year of high school over 4 years ago. It was not a pretty sound that came out of it but I ended up really surprised at my ability to remember a lot of the fingerings (in fact, I was amazed I could even read the music any more). He's excited to go get some reeds and some rubbing alcohol so he can play around with it. It makes me reminisce about all the good times I had playing that thing.

We also tried to jam some drums and guitar, but thing of all things, I can keep on a beat and play other people's music really well, but when it comes to being creative with my own music I'm like some kind of idiot uncreative person thing. Very not pretty.

We also had several hours of going back through yearbooks (we went to the same high school as well as worked together for like 2 years after I graduated), looking at all of the girls that were amazingly hot but are now probably fat and popping kids out like machines. Lots of funny stories were told, lots of bitching about the place we used to work (they bastardized my layout for their website after I left). Lots of good memories in high school... makes me wonder wtf happened in the last four years to make everything not as fun.

We're gonig shopping tomorrow. I want to stop by the comic book store again. It's funny because this whole being single and hanging with the guys thing has been really, really fun... but I miss talking to the female variety of people. Most of my friends in high school were girls (and now I can't even make idle conversation with them) so when the initial nervous wears off it actually ends up better conversation than I would have with a guy. I know I'll make an ass of myself, but I think talking to the comic store girl might be a good idea. Take my mind off of some things I tried so hard to put behind me, before I get not happy again.

Morgan Webb redux

I <3 Morgan Webb says Morgan Webb did an 8 page shoot for FHM. Still just a rumor but man has she let some dignity slip. Not that there's anything wrong with showing off what she obviously knows she has (and it's not like I wouldn't front some $$$ to see it anyway), but come on, smart chicks that respect themselves are hot.

In life's news, I'm tired. I don't know. I left work early yesterday for a nap that didn't happen. I seem to be sleeping okay (I wake up a couple times though when it gets too hot) so I'm not sure what's up. When I wake up, I look like I haven't slept for a week. I know I'm not sleep walking because there's no way I'd get down them stairs in my sleep without hurtling myself off the balcony. It's very confusing.

Serenity

A couple of things to think about:

Bill Hicks quotes
Bill Hicks website

Magic: The Gathering

My roommate has gotten me back into the obsession. I haven't played in something like 8 years and I feel really behind the times with it. I'd like to build up a really good couple of decks, but I'm so poor that it's going to be really hard to break out of the pre-cons you can buy at the store. He's got some great tips and everything, but with such a limited selection I'm not sure how well I'll be able to do at it. Either way, it's a lot of fun to get in a couple of games when we're both here, even if I do end up losing almost every game.

FYI - The guy below us is a real dick when it comes to loud music. Luckily, his tastes don't seem too far off from mine so it's getting to be not so bad.

Update

Mac & buger - Dry and cruddy... and plenty left.
Sticky Rice - Mmmm... and there's enough for tomorrow.

They say not to store sushi rice... I say why not? It's still good the next day if you just want to eat the rice.

Cooking

I hate cooking. I'm making some kind of hamburger macorroni thing. It looks terrible. I'm also trying my hand at some sushi rice so hopefully that'll be the saving grace. I also hate shopping because it seems like nothing lasts more than a week around here and it's all so damned expensive. Is everything in adulthood this much of a recurring pain in the ass?

I picked up some comics yesterday as we were hunting for my first Magic: The Gathering cards in about 8 years. I got some Ultimate Spider Man's that are supposed to introduce the new Carnage. I don't know who dropped the ball and where it happened, but these Spider Man comics really suck the big one. In the original, Carnage was the offspring of Venom and attached to Kletus Cassidy... a serial killer. Lots of blood in every comic he showed up in. This new Carnage is now some kind of genetic thing spawned from Spider Man's DNA and instead of killing people in a mass homocide he just sucks the life from them and leaves a mummy. Not cool. I'm an adult and I deserve an adult Spider Man.

Speaking of comic store, the girl working there was really cute. I might head back this week to see if she might like to do something. I know it will just end poorly for me, but I can't really afford many comics so it shouldn't too bad of a loss if she says no.

Schooled My Shit

So the other day I said Lacuna Coil is a good band. I was wrong. This band is some of the finest music I've heard in a while. It's like someone said "Hey, let's make a good goth/hard-rock band... only instead of having a pussy ass guy sing falsetto, we'll get a hot chick who can actually sing like an angel" and Lacuna Coil was born. The only reason you have to not check them out is if you were either born without ears or have had them removed in some horrible accident. And it better have been a severely horrible accident or your excuse isn't good enough.

Latest Obsession

Jessica Alba. Mmmm....

Extensions

I'm starting to wonder if maybe Microsoft is extending itself a bit too much. I say this because if you click the link up there you'll find an article about SP2 being a mixed bag for people. Some really like it, others hate it. In particular I note that the new XP firewall can be turned off by an arbitrary application (given suitable rights, which most XP PCs will have on the default user); MSVC++.NET 2k3 remote debugging has issues; remote desktop ports are closed off even if remote desktop was turned on before SP2 install; and IE updates are still far too minimal.

What really stands out is that the IE updates people really want are still missing. No tabbed browsing, poor PNG support, and a lack of standards compliance overall. The solution most people turn to is 3rd party browsers such as Firefox. I'm left wondering why Microsoft has left IE in the dust until Longhorn ships? Why make the push for browser integration and then drop it like a bad habit when it had such a large corner on the market? Overextension is about the only thing I can think of. Too many people working on other things and products that aren't even on the market yet. I honestly can't see any other possible situation that could lead to something like this.

Atomic Bomb

I got done reading something just now about the dropping of the second atomic bomb on Japan. I honestly don't understand why people have such a harsh reaction to that event (as well as the dropping of the first bomb). It really makes me wonder if the people pissing about it really checked into what was going on at the time.

If you look at almost any battle America had with Japanese forces, these people would literally continue fighting until they could fight no more. They would not give a position until they absolutely had to. They suffered immense casualties in normal warfare because of this. They fought savagely and brutaly (hence the image of archaic asian people from the 40s and 50s). We dropped the bombs because we knew that if we brought the front line to them, it would cost more lives than dropping the bombs did. Most importantly, it would cost more American lives. The math was done and the bombs were dropped. If there were another choice, it would've been taken.

It's an unfathomable thing in an era where precision air strikes and special forces take care of the dirty work, but at a time when real people had to do real fighting and dying (not to mention the fact that I've heard somewhere that the Japanese government was intending on having civilians fight with whatever they could get their hands on) the only option was to kill enough to people to make them say "hey, this fight isn't worth the cost". Anyone who does enough looking will see that the Japanese were and still are an extremely proud people. Just the same as we would stand in the streets with rocks and defend ourselves if we had to, so would they.

I'm not saying it was the best that could have happened, I'm just saying it was necessary and given the available options and probably outcomes it ended up saving a good amount of lives from being lost over a long period of time.

Now I'm going to go back to watching my anime and enjoying my Sony music system.

Note to Self

Lacuna Coil is a good band. Probably influenced Evanescence.

PVP Fun

"My brain is hung like a horse." Absolutely brilliant!

Comics

Linked up there to today's PA post. I like to think this new movement parallels the Open Source movement. People doing what they love and doing whatever's necessary to continue doing those things. I for one welcome our new webcomic overlords. I'm sick of Charlie Brown and Family Circus and I think only good things could come from this.

Not to mention that PVP is one of the funniest things on the internet. I had no idea Scott Kurtz had a book deal with Image. Might have to check that out.

Eggs

I just messed up my first scrambled eggs attempt. Not sure where I went wrong, but the ended up spotted with yellow instead of just yellow. The book had a big thing about mixing milk with the eggs and I was like, "Mom didn't do that, just put the eggs in the pan and see what happens... you know it'll be fun". Now I have to eat it.

On the Doom3 front, I made it to hell and back yesterday. That was probably the most intense part of the game. They really put a lot of effort into making you feel like you are right in the pits of the worst place imaginable. But I now have the soul cube and am tearing through zombies and demons like a madman back on Mars. It's slow going, but I guess I have to deal with real world responsibilities before I can vanquish evil for good.

My favorite (well... something like favorite) demon so far is the Cherrub. This thing is like a half-insect half-baby thing that sounds like a cute little baby when it's coming to attack and it screams like a baby being pinched when you shoot it. It really gives me the creaps every time they pop up.

Annoyance

So we got our cable yesterday. Thought I'd hit some Doom3 online. Guess what? The server browser is fux0r3d. Major fux0r3d. Seems every server is password protected, but the password filter doesn't work so you can't get rid of them. It also appears as though some people have found a way to get more than 4 players on a server... but when you try to join the 3/10 match, it tells you the server is full. The sort by ping... doesn't sort by anything, it just reverses the order of the servers. And to top it off, the people touting the co-op mod were actually allowing server admins to steal your CD key. Aren't people great?

So it looks like I'll be sticking to LAN Doom3 until a patch is released that gives us a server browser that actually works as advertised. I'm still trying to get through the single player portion of the game, it's just become very difficult trying to do so when other things keep coming up.

Still no internet

I was up playing Doom3 last night (when it finally got dark) and man did it scare the crap out of me. I have some lights on my computer that change colors, and when they change it gets dark, which just so happens to look like the shadow of someone walking by out of the corner of my eye. I almost jumped the first time it happened.

So far the game is absolutely amazing. The only problem is that I feel very disengaged from the story. Like I'm just doing my thing with this bigger plot going on around me that I can't actually be a part of. I don't really like that because it's more like watching a movie than playing a game. However, there was one part where a lady is whispering to you, and if you follow her voice it takes you... wait... no, I won't ruin it. Let's just say it was as creepy as anything I've ever seen in a great B horror flick.

DOOM3!@!!!

It's here! We tried to snag a copy early last night but it didn't work out. So during my lunch break we went and picked it up. I'm now at work late because I couldn't stop playing. It's a damn hard game, looks supreme, and the 10 minute multiplayer we played was pretty cool. You really have to see this game to believe it. And you know what? I'm playing on Medium settings and it still looks great. A couple slow downs but nothing major.

So back to work I go so I can get back to the apartment and back to Doom3.

Waiting

My truck is in the shop getting the exhaust fixed. They said "We'll try for 12" with the look of a lier on their faces (this is at 8:30 in the am). It's now 2 and I have a feeling I'm going to be sitting on this empty floor for the rest of the day. I'm wondering if it wouldn't have been better to shell the cash for the dealer's promise of 1 hour.

In other news, no cable until thursday. Luckily Doom3 will be here either tonight (if we can convince the best buy folks to get a couple of copies out for us) or tomorrow so not having the internet won't be that bad.

Closer

And now I'm on the floor of my nearly empty room. This is probably the worst part of moving (I've now moved three times in the last 5 years, which isn't much but still more than I care for). Doing computer stuff on the floor is probably the single easiest way of giving yourself CTS, back strain, and neck cramps without ever getting up.

*Drool*

Taking a break and admiring my now half empty room and ended up talking about Sushi in an e-mail. I'm now officially hungry and if I'm not mistaken, I can taste the wasabi I crave in my saliva. Maybe this is weird, but I don't think I'd mind drinking a bottle of soy sauce.

Packing

I'm moving out of the parents house and in with Caleb. I'll be honest, I don't think I've ever been this scared in my entire life. I'm at the edge of honest to god freedom and yet if I screw up it's not only my ass, but in some cases, his. I consider myself a pretty easy going person when it comes to a lot of things and I'm hoping that pays off here so everything goes smoothly.

In other good news, we've heard rumblings that some folks of the female variety have acquired the apartment next to ours (in fact, the one we originally wanted). We're hoping it's not the crackwhores it probably will be so send some karma our way to keep the fantasy alive.

And lastly... Morgan Webb is hot. I've grown really tired of X-Play but I can't seem to turn away from it and miss her latest outfit. It's true... it's true.

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith

Oh yeah!

Anchorman

What a hilarious movie. If you get a chance to check out Anchorman, do it. I've only been able to take Will Ferril in The Oblongs and this movie, and he is damned funny in both.

Also came across this article from a game developer about publishers and piracy. I'll be the first to admit, we don't control the game copying at our LAN parties and it is definitely 9 times out of 10 people not wanting to haul around their entire CD collection to play a couple of games. It's unfortunate that publishers can force developers to maintain CD keys and copy protection.

Funniest /. Story Evar

While playing the game, I came across the story linked up there. I read every e-mail I could (which is basically all of Justin's because Sal's are too hard to read). I am thoroughly impressed with the way Justin handled that. I don't think I could've been anywhere near that level-headed when faced with the loss of over $1,000.

The Game

I know the game, I just don't like playing it. It's not a failure on my part, I've just been far enough down the road to know what I don't like. Dissapointing and I feel bad about it, but life goes on and like all things it'll be forgotten in time.

Two things

a) A lot of people are saying Tweaker either ripped Tool to make the Doom3 theme, or Tool did it and it's not being credited right. I must admit, the song sounds like Tool. A lot like Tool.

b) No 2.7 branch? Let distributions bring the current release up to stable? Wow. Who screwed the pooch on that one. Check it out here. I'm not exactly sure why they think distributors make a good QA group considering not all of them are large corporations. How exactly is Patrick Volkerding supposed to fix the main line kernel as well as keep his distribution going? I guess when the money starts rolling in, even the things you thought were staying true lose sight of the goal. Unfortunate, really.

As a third thing, I got Mushroomhead's "Superbuick" today. One more down for my ever growing collection.

Voice mail

I officially hate voice mail.

Just Missed It

I was pulling out of the parking lot today and was waiting for this litte red car to putz along the road before I could go. It was going slow enough that I got a good look at the person in the passenger seat... and I'll be damned if it didn't look exactly like a guy I knew in high school that I haven't seen in about four years. I didn't get a chance to make sure though, so I'm pissed because I'd honestly give my left arm to see this guy again. It's nearly impossible to figure out where everybody went as we all split off to do our own things.

What a great day

Our club hotmail account's inbox was trashed. People we sent our latest notice to are getting virii spam. Another thunderstorm rolls through (I loved the rain though). And best of all, since I'm only taking 11 credits I don't qualify for dental insurance. Like one more hour a week is that much time lost. So now I either have to find somewhere else to go for it, deal with not having it, or pack a class I don't care about onto an already hard-as-shit schedule. I'm about to go project mayhem on the man's ass... I swear...

Tweaker

Looks like Tweaker did the Doom3 theme. You can check it out at that link up there. Honestly, I've not heard much of them though I really dig Vrenna's work with NIN. The theme sounds a lot like Tool and nothing like the other Tweaker songs on the site. Something's up with that.

I've a hankering to put on some Bill Hicks and re-work our LANs website. Don't know why... just feeling some HTML creativity lurking. Never lasts long (HTML is a bore) so I should probably capitalize on it. In the meantime, I'm gonna add a link to our site over on the right there, so go check it out. We don't have many pics from LANs (february and april I think) but they show off what we pull in during the semester.

Taco Bell

Watching the '99 episode of I Love the 90s tonight. Found out Carlos Alazraqui (Garcia on Reno 911) did the voice of the Taco Bell dog. I remember the summer before my senior year of high school, there was a girl that was into that damn dog's catch phrase more than any other person I'd ever met. Fucking "Yo quero Taco Bell" every god damn day.

Of course I just now go to IMDB to see what else he's done and what do I see? He was the voice of Rocko on Rocko's Modern Life. This is almost as cool as finding out that Billy West was the voice of nearly every character on Futurama as well as almost the only voice on Ren and Stimpy.

Speaking of Taco Bell, the BSU Pavillion (that's the sports center at the university I go to) was recently bought by Taco Bell. The reason? They couldn't pull in enough money through sports and tuition. What once was the Pavilion is now the Taco Bell Arena. Maybe this means my tuition can now go to education resources and better professors... but I doubt it.

Modem

Anyone reading this know of a good v92 modem that isn't a winmodem? My 3com 2796 got fried in a thunderstorm and I need to replace it. It's a v90, which is fine but I'd like some of the v92 features. Unfortunately, all I can find are v92 winmodems, which won't work in Linux.

Had another successful LAN last night. This one was a little funner than the other summer ones have been. Played some UT2k4 Invasion, some Jedi Academy (really fun multiplayer, not nearly enough maps), and some Warcraft 3 (always fun getting slaughtered by the computer in that one). Haven't been bringing in as many people as we get during the semester, which makes it easier to trash talk people. We need to find some new games to play though. It's getting a little stale after a couple rounds of these ones we've been playing for so long.

Torn

I can't decide... order D3 online, or camp out at the mall. Never been much of a mallrat (it's not the hot spot here as it seems to be in the movies... or maybe I'm just too poor to notice), but I don't think going a day beyond release will be possible here. Sure, I know, 20 some hours of excitement and the game's over, but you gotta live for the rush.

I was talking to Caleb last night at the movie... about TechTV... and it occured to me that The Screensavers has gotten really, really bad. Normally I wouldn't say anything about it, because I loved the show so much when it was 2 hours and shot in what looked like someone's basement, but I just can't watch it anymore. I don't know exactly what it is either. Does Kevin really annoy me that much? Was my attachment to the show really just some fleeting obsession with the duo of Patrick and Leo? Did I become a lost soul when Morgan left and the set changed? I don't know... but I hate G4 for doing this to my favorite channel. They aren't even gamers. They're some kind of highly paid poser wanna-be thing that doesn't play games unless there's a check attached to it.

I've also heard that Unscrewed (you know... the show that did a week long special on pot as well as an entire show recounting all of the porn stars that have been on) has been neutered. Looks like they can't give out web-addresses and have to do a disclaimer before their hazardous dark-tips. This is the same show that has melted countless pieces of hardware with thermite, designed a flame-thrower from a water gun (even learning the hard way that you have to replace the tip with something metal, or you get a very nasty bomb in your hands), and several wonderful electric shock pain inducers. All with no warning. Yeah censorship. I guess the warnings keep the kids safe, right? Oh wait... I've seen CKY so I know that's not true...

Go get 'em Tiger

Saw Spider Man 2 last night. I feel the need to geek out for a minute. They totally introduced characters in this one that had me as excited as the kid next to us was about his light-up shoes.

IIRC, in the first movie, we saw a very... very... very small cameo by Eddie Brock (aka Venom). In Spider Man 2, we're slightly introduced to John Jameson (aka the guy that brings Venom to Earth) as well as John Conner (the Lizard) and the beginnings of Harry's decent into the land of the Green Goblin (which I really, really hope will get us somewhere close to the Hobgoblin and the Dopplegangers). I'll tell you something though, in the last scene of the movie, with MJ and Peter... I was litteraly squirming in my seat hoping she would call him Tiger. That's like... the biggest trademark of the Spiderman series, other than Spiderman's always devestating quick wit (which didn't seem to have the spark in this film that it should have).

I am really hoping they pull out the Venom/Carnage series. I know it's a little darker and bloodier than a movie 'for kids' should be, but come on, it's only the most popular set of Spiderman comics ever created (I actually have no foundation for that, but who's gonna argue?). I started reading Spiderman during the first Venom series and really picked it up during Maximum Carnage (the second appearance of Carnage). That was it for me, I was hooked. You really got to see what the life of Spiderman did to Peter Parker, and Carnage was by far the baddest bad guy ever created. I mean... his name is Carnage for crying-out-loud! Good stuff coming down the vine either way.

Second thing for today, Marianela Pereyra is a very pretty lady.

It's gold!

I'm sitting here, installing six copies of XP to make our LAN systems run nice again, and I pull up /. like the loyal geek I am. What do I find awaiting me? Doom3... gold... August 5th. My shorts must be changed now.

I've been waiting for the last four years for this game to drop, and it's finally here. EB has it listed at $50, which stinks considering a lot of really great new games have been hitting in at $40. What ya gonna do?

I've got my fingers crossed for bot support because I don't think I'm gonna get many takers at our bi-monthly LAN (it's all about mass players, vehicles, and objectives with the kids these days). Either way, the single player should be interesting. I've not gotten my hopes up too much because I know id's track record with stories and engaging gameplay. It's mostly about the graphics, physics, and memories of a day gone by when gaming was about getting your shit schooled by zombies and demons. It also means Half-Life 2 is just around the corner...

Does he 'get' it?

Saw that story on /. today. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe Gates is just getting to old for this business. He just doesn't seem to 'get' it anymore. People don't want computers making decisions for them. I cannot imagine anyone being satisfied with a TV that decides what they want to watch for them. I'm not an automaton, I am capable of making decisions about what I like, do not treat me like a child. Fucking idiot anyway... tablet PCs my ass.

Awareness

I'm suddenly aware of how happy I am that no one reads this...

A moment of seriousness

Some books came in today. Mostly stuff for the next semester, but I also managed to sneak in a copy of Just a Geek by the man himself, Wil Wheaton. I feel something compelling me to talk about this book, but I'm not sure of what to say. It touched a sore spot in me. Not like a brutal thorn from what looked like a safe rose bush, but more like the sting of soap and warm water in a nasty cut. You know it's a good thing, it would just be nice if it didn't hurt so much at first.

The book is basically an anthology of the last three years of Wil's life on the internet. The content is comprised of his blog entries during that time mixed with his current thoughts on the events he details and some very personal reflections on what he was really feeling at the time. His constant need to come to terms with life after Star Trek and the importance of being a good husband and father (which I think in the end is what makes a man a good man, rather than the riches he accumulates or the status he acquires). I am absolutely amazed at how openly Wil presents his demons. It takes a lot to watch securities in life fall apart, and it takes even more to bear the scars it leaves to thousands of people that, in his situation, you could very possibly end up talking to some day.

What got me in the end (aside from the tear-jerking reflections on life) was his struggle to accept who he is and to be okay with that person. Most of us will never be on TV, but that's not the part that's worth relating to. It's the part about accepting being Just a Geek (TM). Part of his acceptance was to put behind him the nay-sayers and to not let Star Trek, and all it encompases, rule his life. I've been dealing with something similar to that myself. Trying to not let a bad experience and broken trust be the end of everything I have going. He nicely put his coming to terms with Star Trek as having his security bubble broken and having to deal with being outside of its safety. Some people will attest that I'm having to do the same. I'll tell you folks... it's not easy. I found a slice of peace on my trip to our cabin, which has helped me a great deal. I've accepted that right now I need to find a way to be okay with me... and not worry about finding someone to fix my security bubble. When it's time for it to be fixed, it will be. Maybe it's just a way to not deal with things, but it seems to feel a little better.

The other thing that got me, before I forget, was Wil's attention to his step-children. As the only child of a single mother who's been without a lot of male influence and been put in the middle of a broken family I want no part of... I know how important it is to have a father. I get upset when I hear about kids having sex and getting pregnant and the guy takes off, not caring for his child. I get upset when I hear about high divorce rates and people treating marriage and child-bearing like some kind of game. I get really upset, so it's nice to see that someone out there who hasn't had those experiences understands how important it really is.

I'm going to give this book a 10/10. It's one for everyone to read, geek or not (though without the geek part, some parts of it and some inside jokes probably won't make sense). The stories in it are the kind of stories that most people can relate to because we all have to grow up at some point. We all have to make the decision between family and career. We all have to take our masks off at the end of the day and assess whether what we're doing with our lives is really what we want to be doing, and decide how hard we wish to work for the things we really want. We all have to come to terms with who we are, the things we've done and will do, and accept that being okay with that is the first step to enlightenment. It's one man's story, but it may as well be all of ours.

Slackware 10.0

Got my copy of Slackware 10 today. Getting back into update mode sucks the big one, but by the end of the night I should be all set. I must say... I'm really impressed with how things have come along with Slackware recently. Lots of good apps included, installer is easy to use, and it actually runs like a modern distro.

In related news, I'm looking into going back to xfce4 for a while. Not sure why I switched back to fluxbox (maybe a l33tness thing?). It has such a clean look to it and it's XML config is really easy to use.

Well, back to work...

Pay attention kids

Speaking of Guttermouth, read up and ye ol' shit shall be schooled: Guttermouth. In particular, check out the tour stories.

Warped Tour

Saw the Warped Tour today. Bands of note:

Rise Against (picked up a CD of theirs)
Vandals (picked up a CD of theirs)
The F-Ups (will get their CD on the 13th)
Go Betty Go (the singer was cute, and chick punk is kind of a turn-on)
Flogging Molly (yeah, I was a hard sell on these guys, but they rock pretty hard with that wierd shit they do)
Guttermouth

Bands you should avoid:

IMA Robot
Atmosphere
Anything emo (that's not a band, it's a genre... and it sucks)
Anything radio pop (again, genre, not a band)

I actually went hoping IMA and Atmosphere would hold up... I was wrong. 0 for 2 there and it's upsetting. I kept hearing about the band Thursday, but never saw them. I might d/l something of theirs this weekend to see what's up.

Lots of cute girls there. Naturally I couldn't talk to any of them (that's how my life goes when it comes to girls, either it ends up going for years at a time, or I can't talk to them). Most were a bit young... but I've heard I can't be arrested for thinking things. I recommend catching what good band there are and avoiding the cell-phone and truth booths. Not that I'm for smoking or anything... but I'm not cool with falsifying statistics to make a point about people's bad habits. Life's too fucking short as it is without people trying to push what they think is right on the world.

Weather

Some shit weather here for the last week. For exactly (yeah, exactly) one week, we have had nothing but hot days and thunderstorms at night. It's getting old. I have half a mind to inform someone that this weather is not only 'so yesterday', but it's nearing 'old school' classification. So cut that shit out.

I'm leaving tomorrow on a trip for the 4th. Yeah me. A weekend of fighting family and sleeping in my truck. It's times like this that I wish I weren't alone, because it's rough to find an escape in a place I'm not familiar with. The silver lining seems to be fishing and a trip to West Yellowstone for some shopping. I'm not usually much for shopping that doesn't involve computers and video games (it's a guy thing), but sometimes some really cool gear comes out of these small western towns.

Last thing before I turn off and avoid the storm, if you get a chance, chek out the band Ra. They've got what I'd call an eclectic sound, but it's really just western rock with some middle eastern influence. I like them, though they can be a bit pussy rock from time to time. Since pussy rock has no place in my blog, I beg an exception to be made just this once. I'm also kind of excited to catch the Warped Tour next friday (Caleb... I'm talking to you). I always say, fuck punk rock, but it's a good time and there are a couple of bands I'd like to see (and yeah, hypocrite I am, some of them are punk bands).

More quotes

I just saw these Bill Hicks quotes. Please, for the love of god, squeegee your 3rd eye before proceeding.

"What business is it of yours what I do, read, buy, see or take into my body as long as I don't harm another human being on this planet. None of your business! Take that to the bank, cash it and go on a vacation out of my fucking life."

Freedom is a gift of life. Never accept anyone taking that from you. (That's me speaking).

"Life is just a ride. We can change it anytime we want. It's only a choice between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love, instead, see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all the money we spend on weapons and defense each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world -- which it would many times over, not one human being excluded -- and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace."

What would the man have to say today?

Fahrenheit 9/11

That's right. I saw it. And as before, I tried to find something to refute the claims. It's a lot harder this go around because the movie is so new (and since it takes a while to get some good caps on the net, nothing really comprehensive is readily available... at least, that I can find). What did find is this: Lies of Michael Moore, and this: Ray Bradbury, which is really funny IMHO. IP rights are so fucked up.

That article really isn't very good. It's more about the way Moore represents his views. So, it's not really refuting what Moore has to say, as much as the way he has to say it, only it's presented as an attack on his view.

So... what're my opinions of the film, you ask? I really don't know. It was disturbing. Even if I were to assume half of it were made up... it still leaves me wondering what's going on here. It's really hard for me to get my head around people that can justify the lost lives of our soldiers. That's not to say I'm a pacifist, because I'd be just happy to nuke the entire middle east as I would be to have anything else I didn't care about happen. What I have a problem with, is wasting the lives of American kids who trusted us to not take their sacrifice for granted. If that makes me some kind of racist... then I guess that's where I fit.

You know what gets me fired up even more? People who are pro-war and DON'T know anyone over there. If you happen to fall in that category, your opinion is worthless.

Where does this leave us? Same place we started. The world is a fucked up place. Whatever side you pick, them's still the cards. It's unfortunate nothing can be done to quell the amount of fucked up there is. I think it's a good time to reflect on what we've all learned from Bill Hicks. I am not special and neither are you.

I really hate extremists

I had the pleasure of viewing a screener of Bowling for Columbine last night. It's been a while since I've laughed so hard at the violence of modern America. But, being the kind of guy I am, I wanted to know what others were saying about the show. I'm what one might call naive... From time to time, however, I can admit to this and begin a slight investigation into what the real facts might be. This is hard. Very hard. I'll explain this in a minute.

After a bit of googling, I found this site: Bowling for Truth. This fellow exposes most of the claims made by Moore in his film. The nice thing about this site is that he provides sources for a lot of his claims (something Moore leaves out of his films). Sources are A Good Thing (tm). The problem is that, like Moore, he is an extremist. There is no middle ground. If Moore made an accurate claim, it's conveniently left off of the site. Not too disimilar from Moore's ability to leave certain facts out of his film.

The other problem comes when you see the fellow's other sites: Richard Bushnell and Richard Land. It's here that you begin to wonder just what kind of person is behind the rebuttal. It's kind of like in high school, when they tell you to be on your best behavior at other schools because you're representing the entire school, or when you go in for a job interview and everyone recommends you represent yourself well. If you can't represent yourself well on one site, why should anyone care about your others? I don't mean to say I'm any better at doing this (see this blog as an example), but I'm at least smart enough to not link to my bad sites from my good sites.

So why is trying to find the truth an NP hard problem (I like CS nomenclatures, don't you?)? Facts and details that cover the middle and present both sides of the extreme are far and few between. This is why I utterly despise extremists. A quick look at a statistics text will show that extremes cover truth. That's not to say they don't have their advantages, after all it is the extremes that uncover a lot of the lesser known facts about events. It's just somewhat depressing that both tend to tout their righteous adherence to presenting a fair and truthful view that is really just as tainted as those they run against.

On the plus side, coming across that site brought me to this site: Britney Clone. If that doesn't make you think about all those times you wanked to a Britney pic, I don't know what will.

Links

Got some links I wanna share... no reason for it though.

Penny Arcade
PVP Online
Megatokyo
... (This one doesn't open for me for some reason)

Here's some good news while we're on the subject. Slackware 10.0 hit a couple days ago. I would be creaming my geek shorts right now, but Patrick (we're on a first name basis here) decided the 2.6 kernel should wait... as should gcc 3.4.0 (which is pretty much the coolest thing to happen with gcc since the 2.95 line). You can still get them going via the /testing packages, but I'd prefer them as defaults. Oh well, perfect is a bit much to ask.

I ended up getting my free Athlon XP 3000 the other day. It's not what I'd hoped for (but it was free, so I'm sure not going to piss myself about it). I had a 2600 previously and they seem to perform about the same. The 3000 runs at 2.16Ghz, which is only 80Mhz more than the 2600 at 2.08Ghz, so it's not really much of a surprise. I think the biggest thing my current PC needs is another stick of DDR to get me running dual channel.

I actually learned a bit about how all this hardware stuff works internally in my computer architecture class this last semester... but most of it seems to have slipped out already, so I can't post much about it. What I do remember, however, is the rule of shrinkage. As the semi-conductor technology makes it possible to put smaller logic on the chips, space opens up. So why does this matter, aside from it being the reason we now have both L1 and L2 cache as well as the floating point logic on-die? Dual core processors! And it looks like AMD is going to drop their first one next year. Now if that doesn't get your spider-sense tingling... well... I sure don't know what will.

Quotes

A conversation today reminded me how much comfort I find in the ideas put forth in the movie Fightclub. I want to share some of my favorite quotes:

"It's the greatest moment of your life and you're off somewhere else. Our fathers were our models for God. If our fathers failed, what does that tell you about God? Listen to me. You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you. He never wanted you. In all probability, He hates you. This is not the worst thing that can happen. We don't need Him! Fuck damnation! Fuck redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it! First, you have to give up. First, you have to know, not fear. Know that some day you're gonna die. It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

"We are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday we'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won't. And we're just learning this fact. So don't fuck with us."

I think modern life has provided us with a certain perspective on what it means to really be alive. The internet is proof of this. A few minutes of searching will provide countless examples of people bickering over which application is the best for viewing compressed clips of Peter North money shots, people debating which of the big three provides the best cup holder and reclining, vibrating leather seat with the built-in DVD player and Playstation 2, and the ever popular sect claiming some such religion provides the obvious answers to the questions we all have to ask ourselves at some point... which just so happen to come from a 2,000+ year old book that has been translated and re-translated by more people than Jenna Jameson has managed to sack up with in her elustrious career (is that making my bias too obvious?).

Does any of that really matter when everything is lost? I think that's the point we should all hold onto. Of course the twist here is that I am a dependent of my own collection of consumables, so who am I to find such things truly philosophical?