Aykonika :: tickling your HerdBrain

Update Jul 08

2008-07-21T19:59:00.000-07:00

Now in Texas, with family again. It's good to be here. I'm a lot happier than I've been in a long time. Things just might work out. I've been remiss to talk much, be seen much, and I don't have much of an excuse, more just a promise to do less of that in the coming months. Some of you will come before others. Some of you I just can't like. Some of you I rather miss, though. If you have any doubts, ask. For future updates, they won't be found here, but here. I might merge the two of these pages at a later date.

Few years, few more changes

2007-05-23T21:05:00.001-07:00

No longer in the navy, spent some time in Virginia, now I'm in Shelton. Taking more meds than before, and have married, and also had a baby boy, named Ian. You can see his pics at flickr Anyone still out there?

Distractions

2005-09-13T05:59:00.000-07:00

More and more I realize that the President in our system of government becomes the scapegoat for when people want to yell at the government, make their displeasures heard. This is fine, people piss and moan, it's what they do. But when it keeps them from firing the very people responsible for the problem? Yeah... take out your anger on this punching bag... there you go... now elect your governor, your congressman, your city council member... very good! Here's Tom with the weather!

I know you are, but what am I?

2005-09-07T21:24:00.000-07:00

Not to cross into normally avoided territory, but I've been defending our current administration for the last week or so in light of the fact that Katrina caught the nation with pants encircling ankles. Many conversations have sprouted up, and many fires have started. Not necessarily here in this forum (although I sure see it in a lot of places!), but with this on my mind, I figured I'd get it into words, so I can look back on it later.

Post 9/11, it was realized that no one truly had the power to respond to an attack here on our own soil. The Office of Homeland Security was originally the White House itself, and afterwards, a new department was spun off, to establish a structure specifically to deal with events of that nature. At this point, Bush II appointed Tom Ridge to head up this new organization, but it was quickly pointed out that Mr. Ridge didn't have control of the resources he would need to mobilize in the event of a national crisis. Ergo, Joseph Liberman (the first instance I can find in my search) suggested that those agencies be merged with DHS. Initially, the Bush administration resisted this idea, but later on, after Congress passed the Homeland Security act of 2003, Bush aceded, and signed this into law. So far, great idea on paper. However, within DHS, the mandate was perceived to focus on terrorist activity. The best reason I can find for incorporating FEMA into DHS was the idea that any sort of disaster would have similar recovery actions. But that's not what happened. FEMA was internally split by the DHS, leaving behind the response capabilites, but not the preventive structure that was the other half of FEMA.

Now, I still feel that the largest part of the blame goes to the government in Louisiana, as well as New Orleans itself (and yes, Mississippi too). The federal government has normally advised local infrastructure to be prepared to wait as long as 72 hours for assistance in the event of an emergency. However, I do recognize that the wrong people are in the job, and those people were in fact appointed by the President. I do question the wisdom of immediately firing them, however. Simply put, wouldn't it cost even more lives to bring a new leadership up to speed?

As far as I'm know, the executive branch is in charge of ensuring that the law is followed. If a law doesn't exist, then the executive branch is largely powerless, especially when these things happen on our home soil. Yes, some decisions were made that did not take an event of this magnitude into consideration. Yes, hindsight is 20/20. But I do remember a large public outcry post 9/11 about "Why did we let this happen?". DHS is what it is because of that outcry. Should it have restructured faster? I believe so... Could it have? I have no idea.

I however will not pass the blame upwards to lie on any large part on the President of the United States. Lots of things broke here. Lots of people made mistakes. I certainly hope that we learn from them. But seriously, people... if you just have to get angry about something? Get angry at the big picture... don't ratchet down your focus to a single point because it's easier to pick at.

This just happened on the other side of the world. They learned from it, and they moved on. They didn't point fingers, drag out soapboxes, or run smear campaigns. They cleaned up the mess, improved their chances of weathering a similar event, and they moved on.

And we like to think we're so mature, and civilized...

Don't believe everything that you read...

2005-09-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

Just something to help keep your heads on straight... don't let the news get you down too much, and remember that for every bad thing you hear, a lot more good ones happen. Regardless of what the media would have you believe, things aren't that bad... you're just getting the worst slice of the pie.

Don Henley - Dirty Laundry

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something-something I can use
People love it when you lose,
They love dirty laundry

Well, I coulda been an actor, but I wound up here
I just have to look good, I don't have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em all around

We got the bubble-headed-bleach-blonde who
Comes on at five
She can tell you 'bout the plane crash with a gleam
In her eye
It's interesting when people die-
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know, the boys in the newsroom got a
Running bet
Get the widow on the set!
We need dirty laundry

You don't really need to find out what's going on
You don't really want to know just how far it's gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down

Kick 'em when they're up
Kick 'em when they're down
Kick 'em when they're stiff
Kick 'em all around

Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybody's pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry

We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When it's said and done we haven't told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!

Dream

2005-09-05T07:11:00.000-07:00

in a large mall - terraced, jumping over edges
i don't work here, but someone i know does
all the stores are empty
teaching some sort of class
fire drill of some sorts...
i attempt to go about my business
finally leave due to fire
topic of suicide comes up
someone says something meaningful
i thank him by giving him a peck on the shoulder?
running thru a playground with a long pane of glass (apts i lived in at 12)
scenes from incoming hurricane
ships grounded in harbor
i'm on some sort of derrick, being thrashed against another structure (both floating)
we're hanging on (don't know who else)
suddenly, derrick breaks free, tumbles end over end out of the inlet
miles and miles away, the derrick comes to a rest...
the others on the derrick are now inside a missle for some reason
they climb out
we return to the submarine (how did we get to here?)
i'm accused of the whole disaster by sabatoging the ship

Asshat

2005-09-03T22:44:00.000-07:00

Just to put things into perspective, Mr. Kayne West, the fellow who said on live television that "George Bush doesn't care about black people" is pooling from the same pool of wisdom as he did when he implied that the AIDS virus was a disease created by the US government for placement in African communities.

This gentleman has also criticized politicians for "riding home in their Benzs and Bentleys" while poor people starve...

I wonder what Mr. West drives...

Had it's way with me today, life has

2005-09-03T07:45:00.000-07:00

Well, more than today... but if I say lately, that invalidates the fact that I was doing pretty good for a few days. I certainly don't want to do that. I forced myself to sleep, and sleep, and sleep. Now I'll try the reset tactic, and see if I can coast on by... maybe dump the clutch and see if the bitch starts, even...

I'm sitting here, and the lines of communication have been reopened. I had them locked out rather tightly for a while. It's not that they are going to be used. It's that I check them constantly when they are open. Nothing will remind you of your lot in life, faster than "No new messages"... because you went to the bathroom.

Course I did take a look at where she went. That made me feel a little better.

Welcome to the fold

2005-09-01T09:55:00.000-07:00

QDB quote #4753

The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?

I helped my co-worker start a blog today. He's an idealist, so I don't think I'll be looting (*snicker*) linkage from his page... I try not to get too terribly spun up at the average intellect of my fellow humans, other than the initial exclamation of "WTF?!?". Still, I read that someone else starts one of these things about every 8 seconds. His thoughts? "I can't believe how easy this was!?".

I'd tell him the depth of the rabbit hole, but... no. We'll just see how far he goes with it.

Today the naval hospital gave me a buzz... asking if I had an appointment sometime this week, and informing me that the insurance might not cover my doctor visits... they're only about a month behind the power curve, since I told them that on the 8th of August...

Another appointment this evening... I have nothing to report in terms of dreams... I did have one last night that might have been that relevant, but forgot to put the pad of paper next to the bed. Maybe next time...

Aykonika :: tickling your HerdBrain

2005-08-31T12:21:00.000-07:00

Each time I go to the shrink, it seems things get stranger, and more intense. Yesterday, I actually had a visit scare me a bit, and was warned that the session could trigger some unpleasant dreams. I was pursuing something ... some tangible gordian knot of hate, anger, a no-man's land of mystery and haze. I encountered incredible resistance to my probing... I focused instead on sounds, trucks passing outside, the ticking of the clock, the tactile transducer in my right hand being noisier than the left...

As I skirted the boundaries of this bolus of emotion, I was experiencing intense concentration... a generalized anger, a slow burn of tears. I couldn't find a source... the grain at the center of the pearl, as it were. The shrink told me during this, she saw expressions of rage, then focus, then pain transition across my face.

I found that imagining the sound of screams, picturing tortured faces opened the valves somewhat... but after some time of this... it faded, and I couldn't grasp it any more.

I wanna live, I wanna love
But its a long hard road, out of hell

B. Warner

Fella's got issues

2005-08-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

This fellow needs much more anger management than me...

It's All in a Name

2005-08-29T14:32:00.000-07:00

British visitors find the name of F---ing, Austria, so funny they keep stealing the village signs. Local authorities are not amused. "We will not stand for the F---ing signs being removed," the town's police chief told the The Sunday Telegraph. "It may be very amusing for you British, but F---ing is simply F---ing to us. What is this big F---ing joke?" Local guide Andreas Behmueller says only the Brits seem to focus on the name -- Germans want to see the Mozart house in Salzburg, Americans are fascinated with the setting for The Sound of Music and the Japanese want to visit Hitler's birthplace in Braunau. "But for the British, it's all about F---ing," Behmueller said. Guesthouse manager Augustina Lindlbauer complains, "Just this morning I had to tell an English lady who stopped by that there were no F---ing postcards." -- Beverly Hanly

from Wired

Asplundh and the Shop Vac...

2005-08-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

Gripe for the day? Those tree shredder people. Why can't they haul the chunks of the tree elsewhere, and then make that god awful noise to turn it into 'beauty bark', which they turn around and sell for oodles of cashola...

Good thought for the day to counter... for those of you that get fruit fly infestations during the summer months, it's great fun to chase them down with a shop-vac. Where the heck did that come from? Was it 'I love Lucy'? I know it was in some David Spade movie, but I swear I remember seeing some woman chase moths with a vacuum as well...

Oh, I promised some sort of explanation... even if it is drug out over a period of time... Post tramautic stress disorder. Normally, divorces don't give you that... but my circumstances are a bit extenuating. Call it synchronicity, but the life I've had meant that whenever someone that I thought really cared decided to leave, it was going to take me down hard. It did, it has.

I've been visiting a much better doctor for the last few months. There was a spot where the insurance was refusing to cover it, and I wasn't going to be able to afford it on my own. (regardless of my decent employment, I can't cover 640 a month... and that was discounted by a factor of 3...)

Most sobering piece of information that I've gotten from this particular venture? When the therapist confessed that she was "suprised that I was still sane"...

ELP - Karn Evil

2005-08-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Missing header, but other than that, managed to recover this old thing. And resurrecting it, no less! Once upon a time... blah. Today I spent 5 hours cleaning up my living room. I can see the floor! I haven't done that in... well, not since I flew off the handle, and thought about offing myself. That was about a month ago. And I didn't clean for very long either... I stopped and contemplated going to the emergency room.

Anyway, all that will come out in the next few weeks, if not more.

Nice of you to drop by... more to come.

Don't Panic

2005-04-01T06:42:00.000-08:00

Trailer for the Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy found here... does a great job of making fun of movie trailers... yet makes me eagerly anticipate this adaptation of the late Douglas Adams' book...

More asnine shit...

2005-03-23T13:14:00.000-08:00

My wonderful military healthcare system refuses to pay for an abortion. In this story, a Navy wife is being billed for her procedure, citing that...

"although anencephaly is ultimately fatal," some anencephalic babies have lasted a few months, and in one noted case more than two years. "Although anencephalic infants are 'permanently unconscious,' they 'maintain a heartbeat and respiration without medical assistance,' " the government argued, quoting from medical journals.

... even though she was medically advised by her doctor to do so, considering the following....

Anencephaly is a neural tube defect that causes a fetus to develop without a forebrain, cerebellum or cranium and which is 100 percent fatal to the fetus, although not to the mother, medical experts say.

from MSNBC

This is a case where morals display their pathetic opposition to logic... and where being so terrified to 'set a precedent' is making the government look like a bunch of idiots.

Yappers

2005-03-22T20:45:00.000-08:00

One of these days, I'm going to start a chain of businesses. For anti-social people. The people inside won't start yapping at you about some meaningless drivel, forcing you to pretend that you don't think they are competing for the "Idle Conversation Award".

In other news, current events make me love religious people so much more... like these zealots fighting over the Florida woman. It wouldn't bother me so much, except for the fact that they are convinced she will recover... when the doctors say otherwise. It's only been 15 years...

tinySpell: Check your spelling with this freeware

2005-03-19T09:06:00.000-08:00

I've seen this functionality in a few Linux distributions, but with my habit of putting expensive graphics cards in my machines, I tend to run Windows all of the time.

In any case, this is the first time I've seen an application like this for Windows machines. There are about 4 words that I mispell on a regular basis, and maybe this will fix that. Check it out here.

Here's another interesting thing I found... made me laugh a few times...HTML Hell. Some of these things I am guilty of, notably having dead links, and using fixed width tables. Guess I need to get working on that.

Google Search: 68.36.63.115

2005-03-13T17:11:00.000-08:00

Hello 68.36.63.115. I hope you are enjoying the read...

Yesterday I socialized for the first time in 3.5 months. Hung out next door... had a decent time. Now today I'm hiding in my house. The neighbors son has come over about 6 times, peering in the windows and the like... I haven't answered. Half the time I'm trying to sleep.

I want to order pizza, but then he'll know I'm awake, and I'm just not in other people mode right now. So maybe in a while I'll just eat another Hot Pocket.

I'm not doing so well... various things I've been doing flash the 'danger' sign in my peripheral vision. How do people do this every day? What's the point?

That's all I have to say right now.

Nine Inch Nails :: Getting Smaller

getting a little erratic here and i don't know who to trust i guess they got a way of reading my mind i guess i gotta adjust i got my arms that flip flop flip flop flip i got my head on a spring well, i thought i got you on my side i haven't got fucking anything

i'm just a face in the crowd nothing to worry about not even trying to stand out i'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller and i have nothing to say it's all or take it away i just behave and obey i'm afraid i'm starting to fade away

uh huh

i kind of seep thru the cracks when i press up at the wall i'm not looking to stand up real high i'd be happy to crawl i think i'm losing my grip but i can still make a fist you know i still got my one good arm that i can beat the--- mmm... i can beat myself up

i'm just a face in the crowd nothing to worry about not even trying to stand out i'm getting smaller and smaller and smaller and i have nothing to say it's all or take it away i just behave and obey i'm afraid i'm starting to fade away

hey, for what it is worth i really used to believe that maybe there's some great thing that you can achieve and now i cant tell the difference know what to feel between what i've been trying so hard to see and what appears to be real

fading away fading away fading away fading away

my world is getting smaller every day, (hey, hey, hey, hey) and that's okay my world is getting smaller every day, (hey, hey, hey, hey) and i say my love is getting smaller every day, (hey, hey, hey, hey) and that's okay my world is getting smaller every day, (hey, hey, hey, hey) and that's okay

MSNBC - What to watch for between Super Bowl plays

2005-02-01T19:55:00.000-08:00

Another ad that failed to make the cut suggested a possible cause for last year’s infamous costume breakdown. The ad, which was killed by Anheuser-Busch, showed a beer drinker backstage at last year’s Super Bowl unwittingly using Jackson’s dress to open a bottle of beer.

from MSNBC

I guess we're so anal we can't even make fun of our own foul ups anymore. Damn shame... the commercial is online, I just don't remember where... I found it funny, and inoffensive. What happened to When Animals Attack, FOX?

FOX used to have balls... now the FCC has another jar for the mantlepiece...

More cell phone rage...

2005-02-01T12:50:00.000-08:00

Hmmm... more examples of hypocrisy in our society... I love it. In 2 months, I get my drivers license back. I've been riding the bus since February 27th, 2004. Yet this study talks about people who even on a hand-free model are less adept than drunken drivers (BAC above 0.08).

Allow me to get colorful. This is fucking bullshit. You and I both know they are never going to outlaw the usage of hands-free cell phones while operating a motor vehicle. But the wonderful people over at MADD aren't saying a word. Why? Because they really don't give a damn about saving lives. Remember that next time you see one of their public service announcments showing a small child. Remember that next time you see Ms. Soccer Mom or Dad in their SUV behemoth, yakking away on their cell phone.

Oooh... this one is fun

2005-01-30T09:23:00.000-08:00

Care for a game of Ping Pong?

Saved By the Beer

2005-01-30T08:42:00.000-08:00

When in doubt, crack open a cold one. A Slovak man, trapped in his car under an avalanche, did just that. He couldn't dig his way out, since the snow would just fill the vehicle before he could reach the surface. But Richard Kral realized if he drank all 60 half-liter bottles of beer he had with him, he could melt the snow with his own urine. It worked, and four days later rescue teams found a drunken Kral staggering around the Slovak Tatra mountains. "It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt," said Kral. "But I'm glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there."

fromWired

Changes

2005-01-27T00:19:00.000-08:00

Now optimized for firefox, and not IE. Wow... looking at the page in IE is terrible! I'm going to have to put a disclaimer up or something... or figure out how to make it browser specific...

Worksafe War Phun

2005-01-25T21:36:00.000-08:00

Insurgents beware!!!

MSNBC - Free To Be Angry

2005-01-25T06:13:00.000-08:00

I knew this article was going to piss me off... but I read it anyway. Now, the questions I ask myself, they won't get any answers. And I'd be best to let this go in 20 minutes or so, as it won't do me any good to let my general frustration with this crap drag me down.

Anyway, in terms of the article...

Last week in the insurgent-friendly town of Baqubah, Americans and local officials tried a novel experiment. They invited wanted insurgents to come under an amnesty to a "peace conference" and to sign a pledge not to resist the government in exchange for dropping charges. "This pledge commits you to not even speak against the Americans," said cleric Fouad Attiya, 40. "If I call from my mosque for occupation forces to leave my country, does that make me a terrorist? Is this the freedom and democracy they are bringing us?" Like most of the others, he refused to sign. Saddam, of course, would have had them killed on the spot for such effrontery. The Americans kept their word and let the troublemakers go.

from MSNBC

Hmmm...'insurgent friendly'... that kind of translates to 'western reporter eating'... so I'm not so sure this chump left the Green Zone. Gosh, but he makes it sound like he's there though... and I'm sure the 'insurgent' spoonfeeding him his story is very happy that you, the reader, actually believe this crap every day...

Think about that...

Sad, but true?

2005-01-23T21:32:00.000-08:00

Make your own here.

Thanks BoingBoing!

82 percent of web searchers cannot identify advertisements

2005-01-23T21:06:00.000-08:00

On the offhand chance that any of you are part of this statistic that can't tell the difference, I'm all for undermining advertising...

Google marks such ads as "sponsored links," Yahoo terms them "sponsor results" and Microsoft's MSN uses "sponsored sites." Such ads are placed to the right and on top of the regular search results, in some cases highlighted in a different color.

from Wired

Tell your friends, your neighbors, your worst enemies... Spam is spam... regardless of the can.

What You'll Wish You'd Known

2005-01-22T03:16:00.000-08:00

This is great... I wish my high school had let this guy come speak... I might have finished...What You'll Wish You'd Known

U.S.-trained Thai also says U.S. partly to blame for high death toll

2005-01-11T17:48:00.001-08:00

Workers at the Hawaii center have said they tried in vain to warn Indian Ocean nations about the possible effects of the earthquake but they were not equipped to monitor that part of the world and didn’t even have phone numbers for the right officials.

from MSNBC

Thanks, Thailand. How dare you let one of your government officials blame even a part of your lack of foresight on the United States.

Oh, wait...I'm sure even though you didn't think you needed to spend the money on an early warning system, you certainly let this data center in Hawaii know how to get a hold of you in case you were full of shit. We've kept China from bombing you back into the stone age, and putting you back under communist rule, and we are doing all we can to help. This must be your gratitude in action.

Varifrank: Today, I was "Unprofessional"...

2005-01-10T10:57:00.000-08:00

Today, during an afternoon conference that wrapped up my project of the last 18 months, one of my Euro collegues tossed this little turd out to no one in particular:

"See, this is why George Bush is so dumb, theres a disaster in the world and he sends an Aircraft Carrier..."

After which he and many of my Euro collegues laughed out loud.

And then they looked at me. I wasn't laughing, and neither was my Hindi friend sitting next to me, who has lost family in the disaster.

I'm afraid I was "unprofessional", I let it loose - "Hmmm, let's see, what would be the ideal ship to send to a disaster, now what kind of ship would we want? Something with its own inexhuastible power supply?

Something that can produce 900,000 gallons of fresh water a day from sea water? Something with its own airfield? So that after producing the fresh water, it could help distribute it?

Something with 4 hospitals and lots of open space for emergency supplies? Something with a global communications facility to make the coordination of disaster relief in the region easier?

Well "Franz," us peasants in America call that kind of ship an "Aircraft Carrier." We have 12 of them. How many do you have?"

from MSNBC

for your amusement

2005-01-08T03:40:00.000-08:00

Work misfires...

2005-01-08T03:02:00.000-08:00

Overheard at work...

"So that we can get all your ducks in a row in a row..."

Convergence

2005-01-05T21:22:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to notice that I see the same stories popping up at Wired, MSNBC, Boing Boing, and Slashdot... is there not much happening? Are these sites increasing the amount of raw material that they publish? Where do you get your geek fix?

The Command Line In 2004

2005-01-05T06:44:00.000-08:00

If you never read Neal Stephensons's "In the Beginning was the Command Line"... here's a link to an updated version, sanctioned by the author himself.

And don't tell me you're not a geek.

excuses

2005-01-05T06:28:00.000-08:00

The reason I haven't been posting/commenting so much is that Firefox doesn't seem to want to rememeber form data (for blogger or haloscan). If anyone has any pointers, please... pass them on.

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

2005-01-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

Second e-book I've read lately... taking a moment for a bit of a gripe. When you hit page down, it should go down a page. Not go down to the beginning of the next paragraph. You shouldn't have to hunt around for a few milliseconds, searching for just where you left off... PDA readers are smart enough for this... but not word, wordpad, notepad, firefox, opera, or IE. Does no one else see this as a flaw?

Xcelis - A way to not pay long distance for a local call...

2005-01-01T08:11:00.000-08:00

This man is afraid that you will realize the mobile phone carriers are screwing you.

"To sponge off the success of other companies and attempt to steal their customers is brazen and illegal."
— A rep for a major cell phone carrier looks askance at a new unlimited VOIP calling plan that piggybacks on existing mobile phone services.

Tsunami videos

2004-12-30T09:51:00.000-08:00

Here is my local copy of the torrent I am helping to host... has several different tsunami footage clips from the recent disaster... get BitTorrent here.

space invaders > the story of an invasion

2004-12-30T00:05:00.000-08:00

This is just fackin' neat. Someone please do this in Seattle... it will get me away from my computer... in search of the elusive creatures...

MSNBC - Bush defends U.S. generosity

2004-12-29T13:44:00.000-08:00

Blah blah blah. One of the people in the article mentions how the U.S. only gives 0.14 percent of our GDP to the needy, contrasting that to Norway, who gives 0.92 percent. What they don't mention is the other side of those numbers... that this results in 160 billion dollars contributed by the US... that's ninety-three times as much as Norway.

Let's think for a minute about the definition of the word 'needy'... I'm not seeing how 'need' is directly proportional to 'have'. If someone wants to point fingers about this tsunami tragedy, how about we start with the countries that decided an early warning system wasn't necessary.

I get sick of all this US bashing.... it's the equivalent of a drunk choosing the tallest man in the bar, and deciding to prove his mettle... it's pathetic.

Breaking IE

2004-12-25T11:49:00.000-08:00

So I encountered some malware yesterday that in the process of disablement, managed to take this machines internet connection with it. I managed to fix it, and get rid of most of the problems, but there is still a process running cloaked somewhere which occasionally tries to open an IE window, and go to a page. I managed to keep it from going to any pages, but it was still irritating.

First I tried finding IEXPLORE.EXE on the hard drive, and renaming it. Said magical process in the background immediately replaced it with a new copy. (If anyone knows how to find out what program created a file, please let me know). I did some more digging, and decided to share my results.

So, to make your lives easier, some links of interest. A two-fold approach to breaking IE, some for XP, and some for other versions of windows.

How to disable Internet Explorer in Windows XP. - SillyDog701 Message Centre

Replace and Disable Internet Explorer Now This article goes into not only the how, but also the why... good stuff, I'd recommend at least reading it.

P.T. Barnum's birth rate statistics

2004-12-24T01:37:00.000-08:00

I can't help it. I know I'm not going to win an iPod, or whatever the hell it is they are 'giving' away. But when one of those banner ads comes up to use a shotgun on a bunny, or punch the boxer... whatever.... I just have to play... it's fun! I like the ones with the gunshots. I turn the speakers way up and try to miss as many times as I can. I'm sure the neighbor loves it.

Alabama jackass...

2004-12-23T10:48:00.000-08:00

So there's this judge in Alabama, who is 'bucking the system' by wearing a robe in court with the ten commandments emblazoned on it in gold.

The judge said he wants the scriptural foundation of modern law to be acknowledged. Without the biblical "truth" he said, "there is no law."

So, for some brief analysis, teardown, whatever you want to call it.

I am the LORD your God, who freed you from slavery in Egypt. Do not worship any god other than Me.

You must never make any statues or pictures for worship.

You must never use the Name of God disrespectfully.

Remember to observe the Sabbath as a holy day.

Honor your father and your mother.

You must never commit murder.

You must never commit adultery.

You must never steal.

You must not bear false witness.

some

You must never be envious of another person's house or possessions, or want to have sex with their spouse.

You know, I thought those scales of justice were symbolic or something... that judges were supposed to be impartial, and to only look at the facts and the laws.

Words of wisdom about the 'hood'

2004-12-23T06:54:00.000-08:00

"Xzibit says, "Black people don't really see ghosts or aliens. People who see aliens and shit, they never see them in urban settings. Aliens don't fuck with the hood, you never see some brother saying, 'Oh man, and then there were some lights, and it just came down.'"

Thanks, Die Puny Humans!

I wonder, what someone, (and no, not just black people), thinks they see when they smoke crack in an 'urban' setting?

Peas and carrots, and then just mashed peas...

2004-12-21T23:54:00.000-08:00

My late night browsing of BoingBoing has led me to a few gems, one of sick hilarity, that you see below, and also to a new mashup, specifically the Beastie Boys meet the Beatles

So, what can you find an ebay ad for?

Oh yeah, what's up?

2004-12-21T09:28:00.000-08:00

I have (for most intents and purposes) 2 weeks off from work, which ='s less posting... as there is so much more to do (distraction) at home than work when it comes to the computer. I've been playing a lot of Counter-Strike (and actually coming out with a positive score sometimes!), and even doing a few tweaks on this page itself. I fixed a local version so that the sidebar displays properly in Opera (haven't checked firefox), and now just have to get it into the template in Blogger.

All the fun is gone from Star Wars Galaxies, and I'm likely to cancel my subscription before the month is out.

Support the Space Race!

2004-12-18T09:00:00.000-08:00

The statistical risk of humans getting wiped out in the next 100 years due to a super volcano or asteroid or comet impact is 1 in 455. How does that relate? You're 10 times more likely to get wiped out by a civilization-ending event in the next 100 years than you are getting killed in a commercial airline crash.

It's not the point that we should move (to another planet). It's the point that the technologies that we need to live and work in other places in the solar system will help us survive on Earth when these bad things happen.

John Young, via /.

Anyone see that movie "The Siege"?

2004-12-18T04:17:00.000-08:00

Poll shows U.S. views on Muslim-Americans

Nearly half of those surveyed say some rights should be restricted

from MSNBC

This is scary. I had to seriously engage in some prioritization before I remembered that "Hey, this is wrong!"... and so I can't blame people for having the same problem. But, I can try to make a difference. I'm going to watch what I say about 'turning the middle east into a giant glass parking lot', because it's not so much different from what scares me about this article.

Mmmm... snacks

2004-12-16T09:08:00.000-08:00

False Alarm

2004-12-15T14:34:00.000-08:00

Here is my retraction... I apologize for the error... I posted information without research... something that bugs the hell out of me when others do it, more so in this case...

There's been plenty of confusion -- and a lot of misinformation -- in recent days as an e-mail works its way around the Internet warning people about a directory of cell phone numbers that will be released to telemarketers on Jan. 1.

Just so you know: The e-mail information is absolutely false.

from MercuryNews.com

Say again?

2004-12-15T12:20:00.000-08:00

Related to the other post office rant, I have another question about our esteemed mail system...seeing as how zip codes have been around forever, and are rather well established, why do we still have to address letters with city and state? It's redundant. It says the same thing twice.

See? Stupid, isn't it?

Statistical tomfoolery...

2004-12-13T20:32:00.000-08:00

I paid attention to that bit in math class about statistics are skewed... sometimes it comes in handy when reading news stories that use them. Here's an example.

So, obviously, the second generation on the bar graph far surpasses the others, right? I mean... it even spans a shorter period of time! If you pay attention though, you see why this isn't true. If the graph was consistent, then every measure would be 10 years in length, and not just the 3rd column and onward. The second column is taller because it is missing the ages 15-17. Those would drop the average, and that's doesn't support the story, so lets just ... push those over there...

That's better. Now the statistics say what we want them to say... which is the point of making measurements anyway, right?

Pay attention, people. It's all a bunch of shit if you look at it long enough...

image from MSNBC

More Bullshit

2004-12-13T13:09:00.000-08:00

The military compensates me for my service in several different ways. They pay me, in the form of Base Pay. They also provide me with money for me to eat, in the form of Basic Allowance for Substinence, and Basic Allowance of Housing so that I have somewhere to live.

Makes sense, right? So why is it that BAS and BAH count as income for the purposes of child support in Texas, even though the federal fucking government doesn't even tax the money as income?

I hate my life.

LIFELines Service Network - Content

2004-12-13T08:55:00.000-08:00

More of a reason to not have a cell phone...

Starting Jan 1, 2005, all cell phone numbers will be made public to telemarketing firms. So this means as of Jan 1, your cell phone may start ringing off the hook with telemarketers, but unlike your home phone, most of you pay for your incoming calls. These telemarketers will eat up your free minutes and end up costing you money in the long run.

from an internal email

And it's got a pretty alluminum case...

2004-12-12T15:54:00.000-08:00

'Nother one of those PC overhauls... went from a 900 mhz to a 2.4 Ghz on the browsing machine, b/c I'm tired of it taking forever to encode a movie...

That wasn't the only push though, it didn't help that for some reason I was

missing 77 GB of HD space
couldn't copy more than a couple of Gig from one drive to another w/o crashing
Internet Exploder had perma-spyware

And no, I don't use IE. I use Opera and Firefox, most often the previous because of the built in password system, and a few other things... but being the paragon of learning that it is, UOPX demands that you use IE and onlyIE to set up your newsgroups... after doing so, I promptly went back into IE and broke it by using localhost as a proxy server (redirects all outgoing http requests from IE... you guessed it, right back to my pc...

I want I want I want...

2004-12-09T12:02:00.000-08:00

Ooooohhh.... thin stream of drool... a 400Gb drive for $383... it's so... so.... big.

How would you like to eat your cell phone?

2004-12-09T10:28:00.000-08:00

This makes so much sense...

2004-12-08T09:08:00.000-08:00

If you're too cool for school, you're probably not very smart. Some of us would rather build rockets than friendships.

from Wired

Why we tromp the globe, cocks in hand, fingers on the trigger...

2004-12-07T06:11:00.000-08:00

On the morning of December 7, 1941, planes and midget submarines of the Imperial Japanese Navy commanded by Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, carried out a surprise assault on the United States Navy base at Pearl Harbor, and against the Army Air Corps and Marine air fields nearby on Oahu, Territory of Hawai'i, now Hawaii. This attack has been called the Bombing of Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Pearl Harbor but, most commonly, the Attack on Pearl Harbor or simply Pearl Harbor.

[edit]The Japanese planes bombed all the US military air bases on the island (the biggest was the US Army air base at Hickam Field), and many of the ships anchored at Pearl, including "Battleship Row". Nearly every plane on the ground was destroyed; only a few fighters got airborne and offered any opposition. Twelve battleships and other ships either were sunk or damaged, 188 aircraft were destroyed, 155 were damaged and 2,403 Americans lost their lives. The battleship USS Arizona exploded and sank with a loss of over 1,100 men, nearly half of the Americans dead. Its hull became, and remains, a memorial to those lost that day.

from Wikipedia

Moore lies

2004-12-06T22:13:00.000-08:00

Oh, this one just speaks for itself, doesn't it...

"It's actually the opposite. Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story."

By no means am I saying that the other of the two evils doesn't lie. I just didn't think this guy could make a bigger ass of himself than he has already... I stand corrected.

And there was much rejoicing...

2004-12-06T14:20:00.000-08:00

Transactions made using electronic systems including debit and credit cards have surpassed paper checks for the first time, according to a study released Monday by the Federal Reserve.

And this bit is for those of you that still write checks. Stop it. You're wasting everyone's time. And for any business that still takes cash, but not plastic. Fix it. A physical representation of currency is no longer necessary.

Oh, and Rosa Parks gets to live rent free for the rest of her life, courtesy of a publicity stunt. Yes, I know those two words don't appear anywhere in the article, but I'm not stupid. Nevertheless, in a related bit, Ms. Parks' lawyers are suing rapper OutKast for having the audacity to use her name as a song title.

Let me get this straight. She can't pay her rent. But she has lawyers ! I don't even have one lawyer. I generally find having one precludes paying the rent.

I love junk mail.... charge me more to get it please...

2004-12-05T06:30:00.000-08:00

Something that I'm sure a lot of you have heard... the esteemed USPS is raising the price of stamps (again) for the fifth time since 1988. Now, read carefully, because the point here isn't that the USPS is raising prices... all companies must do that, to respond to the changing value of the dollar. My problem is this... less and less people are using the USPS, right? More and more are using email, and other means of communication. However, the amount of junk mail that the USPS delivers has continued to increase... and shows no signs of slowing.

So by raising the price of stamps a little here, a little there, the USPS continues to alienate the actual customers, and instead charges them more so that it can continue to deliver mail that YOU DON'T EVEN FUCKING WANT!

Send the USPS an email here... let them know what you think... Do you think they should charge bulk mailers more money, and leave the declining customer base alone? Do you think they are doing their own employees a favor by paying them 30% more than someone else in their position (so that they can go out of business and leave those same employees with no job)? Do you think that they should continue to spend your money on advertising?!? Do you think that the government should continue to subsidize them with your tax dollars, even with numbers like this? (taken from their own website)...

The Postal Service™ is once again the highest ranked delivery company on Fortune’s Global 500 list of the world’s largest corporations. With $66.46 billion in revenue last fiscal year, the Postal Service moved up two spots from 29th to 27th on the list.

Where do our competitors rank? Deutsche Post comes in at 88th with revenues of $40 billion, UPS 120th with $31 billion, and FedEx 217th with $20 billion.

at my house, I sleep on the floor...

2004-12-04T08:08:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am. I can't apologize for my dissappearance... and I'd be hard put to explain it as well... but I'm still making CO2 out of O2, which is what all us good little human beings are here to do at any rate...
There were some boundary lines I should have drawn from the outset... I want to get those out of the way now.

If I talk about a situation, I more than welcome your opinions and comments regarding it. I do not welcome deriding me for feeling the way I do. It comes from within. It's not a choice, or a 'bad' habit. It's who I am.

Everyone has had a fucked up life to some extent or another... no one has it all perfect, as much as we would like to think so. I try to remember that... that the worst pain anyone has experienced is the same as another... whether it be a bee sting in a bad spot, or having to saw your arm off with a swiss army knife. I guess what I'm saying is that some things, for some people, are a lot more difficult for them to handle than others. The conflagaration with Sara was one of those things, for me. If I could just 'get over it'... push a button, whatever... I'd be all over it...

With that being said, I'm glad that anyone even reads this drivel at all... as hard to understand as it may be. I ask that your feedback be intended to help, and be easily identifiable as such...

I'd appreciate that...

David

Books read since last post:

Some friday funny history....

2004-10-22T06:32:00.000-07:00

Don't let the blue color fool you, this is a real post. In dire need of humor, the author decides to share an account from Wikipedia about the origin of Murphy's Law. The storm appears to have passed... or is it just for now...

Accounts differ as to the precise origin of Murphy's law, and the details about how it was initially formulated. From 1947 to 1949, a project known as MX981 took place on Muroc Air Force Base (later renamed Edwards Air Force Base) for the purpose of testing the human tolerance for g-forces. The tests used a rocket sled mounted on a railroad track with a series of hydraulic brakes at the end.

Initial tests used a humanoid dummy, strapped to a seat on the sled, but subsequent tests were performed by John Paul Stapp, then a Captain. During the tests, questions were raised about the accuracy of the instrumentation used to measure the g-forces Captain Stapp was experiencing. Edward Murphy proposed using electronic strain gauges, attached to the restraining clamps of Stapp's harness, to measure the force exerted on them by his rapid deceleration. Murphy's assistant wired the harness, and a trial was run using a chimpanzee.

The sensors provided a zero reading, however; it became apparent that they had been installed incorrectly, with each sensor wired backwards. It was at this point that Murphy made his pronouncement. According to George Nichols, another engineer who was present, Murphy, in frustration, blamed the failure on his assistant, saying "If that guy has any way of making a mistake, he will." Nichols' account is that "Murphy's law" came about through conversation among the other members of the team; it was condensed to "If it can happen, it will happen," and named for Murphy in mockery of what Nichols perceived as arrogance on Murphy's part. Others, including Edward Murphy's surviving son Robert Murphy, deny Nichols' account, and claim that the phrase did originate with Edward Murphy. According to Robert Murphy's account, his father's statement was along the lines of "If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way."

from Wikipedia

More discussion

2004-10-21T11:57:00.000-07:00

This might go on for a while.

First off he has always known where I am. He has had my address to both of my apartments that I have had. He has sent me mail here so I know he has it.Regardless of that he has my families addresses. So he has known where she is.

This is not a correct statement. Since Sara moved out of her mothers house (sometime in February), until she told me the address over IM sometime this summer, I did not know where she lived. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had to serve her divorce papers twice, and they would have been served at her residence, not her place of work (which I had to figure out by calling every Walgreen's location in Fort Worth). Nor do I know where her family lives... her mother and father were evicted, and I don't know their address, I just know how to get there were I to drive. And I have never known where the other sister lives, other than somewhere in Fort Worth.

As for another post. Moving on is what I'm doing. I put my pictures on my profile page. He is on dating services so really what is the difference? hotornot, friendfinder, adultfriendfinder...

The point about the picture is not about the pictures. It's only about the one picture. I don't know how many times you have to be told that. And yes, I've signed up at some matchmaking sites. You're on some as well.

And David I have been reading this site for a while just didn't tell you about it. If I didn't care or wasn't trying to get past things I would be here I wouldn't have talked to you, to call you, and like I've said before you bring up the fact that you thought I cheated on many points you can't let that go when you just thought it how do you expect me to let it go so easy when I know? It's a different thing I don't just supsect it I talked to the woman. I don't bring up the cheating every chance I get. I have tried to let it go just to forget it happened but I have noticed over the last year everytime he mentions to me hanging out with another woman or talk to them I have this suspition. I get jealous and I get where when I ask him what goes on and they say just friends those words pop in with what he said with Shannon.

I've let go of the fact that I think you cheated one hell of a lot more than you have, considering I never wanted to terminate our relationship for longer than a day or two based on that belief.

Anyhow I understand you guys are his friends and that is cool I think it's great. So I know regardless of anything you don't care to hear my side. And again that's fine. For cheating...all we are, as he has put it to, is paper.

The reason my belief about marriage changed was that's what you told me when you left. Not before.

We are not together. He said with shannon that was not cheating because we were seperated. Anyone he sees now is not cheating. Divorce papers in the middle of being done. Oh and David nice one about me stopping the papers because of the visits you wanted. BS. I have told you over and over to come whenever you want so why the hell would I stop papers for that.

I'm just going on what you told me about why you stopped the papers. You told me you did not agree with the visitation, that you wanted it to be a mutual agreement, and not controlled by a court. As the custodial parent, that would have given me ZERO legal visitation.

And I have not changed my emails or my messengers.

I never said you did. I said I did. Go back and read again please.

Basically coming on here and even making a comment I didn't want to see all this stuff about me from ppl that don't know me. For the ppl that say I should wonder about bailey asking "why couldn't daddy stay?" Right now I'm dealing with "Why won't daddy come see me why is he always working, and does he love me" So I'd be willing to deal with the other questions at the time. I'd rather her get something then nothing which is what I have tried to explain. And me being here is shit to do with my family.

You left Washington because of your family. That's why you are in Texas.

Cost of living here is hard enough much less moving back to washington where it is twice as much then in a month moving to where ever else he gets stationed.

I said I would help, and I meant it. I've never been late on voluntary child support, and I supported you as a spouse for over a year while separated. If you think I would hang you out to dry, you are wrong.

I should still follow him in the military pick us up and move us every time he moves? Any of you with kids wanna do that with your ex? Pick up and move everytime they do regardless of your job, school, kids school, friends, a life?

I'm not saying you should move everytime, I'm saying doing so would be a way of showing just how important my relationship with my daughter is to you.

Allow me to retort...

2004-10-21T06:43:00.000-07:00

Preface: This comment was almost the end of this page. However, this is the only thing I have found that really helps me. So, I cleaned it up, and made it easier to read...For those of you that this doesn't interest... I apologize. Please bear with me.

Comment from Sara

To everyone, I placed a picture of me and my friend from a trip on there with many other pictures of my and my friends (guys and girls) on my profile.

I don't know if this one is going to fly, Sara. You're not resting yourself on any of the other people, and none of the rest of them are driving the car that I bought for you.

Simply put...I have tried for the last year and a half to get david to come and see his daughter. I have told her every time she is crying about him that I am doing all I can do to get him here. He has not had the money or place to stay as he has told me. I have told him he could stay here but he refused. I wouldn't be comfortable with it either but it's for her not us. I have stressed over and over to him that it is about her not us.

Meanwhile I have tried to convey that I want to either see my daughter on a greater basis than just vacations.

We are done. We split up for 2 months in 03. We got back together then he cheated with a married woman. For those of you that think I'm the bitch for that and for what is going on now that's fine. Like I have said to david in past IM's for the longest time he didn't want me to talk about bailey because it hurt him. I respected that..when that changed I talk about her all the time. I voice up information about her all the time. I am still trying to get him to come see her to call her on the phone.

I don't think anyone thinks you're a bitch for that. Maybe you need to go back and read the responses to your question again. They think you are a bitch because you don't answer the phone on the day of her surgery. They think that because you have put yourself in positions where I didn't know where my daughter lived. They think that because you've promised on more than one occasion that you will send me a weekly email with how she is doing, yet you keep breaking that promise. You have sent one such email.

I have also stressed in the past that I'm sorry to him that I can't get past his cheating on me. He has tried to get me (in a very mature way for him) to get me to move on and find someone else. I refuse to get into a relationship till we are officially divorced.

I'm glad you find it very mature of me. You have also stressed in the past a contradiction of the same, that maybe you could get past what happened, and that maybe we would work things out.

As David both of us are the same most his friends are girls and most of mine are guys. I'm not going to be called tacky for simply having a guy friend with 99 percent of you guys on here that talk to him are female. Basically I have my side of the story and he has his. And as any person knows there are 3 sides.

No one gives a shit that you have a guy friend, Sara. They give a shit about you posting a picture, where I could find it, with you being affectionate with another man. And I'm inclined to agree with them. That's tacky. See above request to go back and look at the comments again.

I don't judge anyone on their lives and I just didn't see the point in ppl calling me a bitch when they don't know what goes on as far as me. You don't know my relationship with my daughter you don't know everything that goes on with me and David. I'm not playing the blame game. Like I said to him last night I'm not fighting anymore I'm tired of it.

If you're tired of it, then why after changing all my email addresses, and asking you to leave me alone, do you come and do this? Why are you worried about vindicating yourself to all my "little friends"? You didn't give a damn about this page until I said something that you didn't like. Remember when you flipped out because I was checking your email and snooping on you? (To whom it may concern, it's what men do when they find condom wrappers in their bedroom after coming home from sea). Then consider it a violation of my privacy to even be here. It was ok before, but now... no, I don't think so.

I just want to go on with my life. We didn't make it and it sucks but all this shit has got to end and that's all I want. As for the comment of being thankful he pays child support. Here's the deal...I have said this to him in the past too...I rather he come and see her then pay me a dime. Money isn't what I want from him I want him to come and see his daughter. I want him to call his daughter. I am tired of telling her or trying to explain to her about his work and why he can't. He had plans to come see her this fall and I'm praying he still does. Cause regardless of me and him she needs him. He doesn't see that he tells me she is better off without him so any friends of his out there I would appricate if you explained to him how wrong that comment is. Thank you

We might be able to fix things. Your refusal to come here to work it out is what is preventing that. As for the rest of this paragraph? Where to start? So if it's more important that I see my daughter, then why are you in a place that I can only see her on vacations? Why did you tell me that "I would never see her again" when I told you I wasn't going to send you money? Why did you stop the divorce process because you didn't want me to have the visitation I was asking for? Why don't you meet me halfway, and send those weekly emails like you promised?

Further more, you still fail to understand why I think she is better off this way. So, I'll try.

Once again. I don't want to be a half ass vacation daddy. I don't want to be a 'visitation' parent. I want to see her nearly every day... as you have for the last year and 2 months. I want her to be around. You married me in the navy, and you chose to have a child with me in the navy. Yet you decided that your family who has now shamed you, and abandoned you, was more important than that. Yet even now, when their true colors have shown, you still refuse to put yourself in a place close to me. I've told you I would help. I've told you I would let you live where I live. I've told you I would stay in the barracks if I had to. I've told you so many things, that when omitted from view, yes, they do make my comment wrong.

But if you're going to try and convince people that I'm wrong, then maybe you're going to have to own up to the fact that even you are wrong from time to time. Just a few weeks ago, you said you were very upset, that you didn't understand how it got this far, and that you regretted setting this chain of events into motion. So time and time again, I have offered to try to turn that tide. You systematically refuse, and then you wonder why I get frustrated.

The Noose

2004-10-20T06:08:00.000-07:00

"The Noose"

So glad to see you well
Overcome and completely silent now
With heaven's help
You cast your demons out
And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you off your cloud
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're planning to go about
Making your amends to the dead
To the dead

Recall the deeds as if
They're all someone else's
Atrocious stories
Now you stand reborn before us all
So glad to see you well

And not to pull your halo down
Around your neck and tug you to the ground
But I'm more than just a little curious
How you're planning to go about
Making your amends to the dead
To the dead

With your halo slipping down
Your halo slipping
Your halo slipping down
Your halo slipping down
Your halo slipping down [repeated]

Your halo slipping down to choke you now

lyrics by a perfect circle

information

2004-10-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

To whom it may concern. My contact information has changed. I still recieve comments, and will update you accordingly on my new contact information.

David

Question for all of you...

2004-10-19T17:27:00.000-07:00

Open question that I have been asked to ask you. I don't want to twist words around, or anything... so I will use a direct quote.

then ask them how I'm a bitch for after a year being seen with a guy when you cheated and had a girlfriend and a few dates and flings why the hell am I a bitch for after a year being back to being me?

Please respond, especially the people that responded to the post with the picture of my wife.... thanks

Cant... get ... out .... of ....bed

2004-10-18T13:48:00.000-07:00

Good monday, everyone... This weekend I finally bought some food for the house, and even some for work too. I sure hope the dawn simulator I bought shows up soon. I can't afford to take a taxi when I wake up late... and I've had to do it 3 times now. Quite frustrating.

Watched Red Planet and Day After Tomorrow this weekend. I'm tired of finding political messages in movies. I watch movies for entertainment value. Perfectly capable of thinking on my own, and coming to my own conclusions... if I wanted that crap, I'd read more of the news, which I'm doing my best to avoid right now... only 3 more weeks to go!

the way to succeed... and the way to suck eggs

2004-10-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

I doubt my readership will be able to figure out the title reference... but it's how I'm feeling at the moment. Here's another weekend. Yay.

Good thing the election is almost at hand... I'm still dodging other's political posts, as I don't really ever agree with anyone when it comes to that area, (cept' one person, you know who you are), and I wish to maintain that tone of respect when it comes to other opinions. Besides, I'm much too angry at the world to take it out on someone for daring to think contrary to my train of thought... after all, it's not their fault that life is this way. (sucking eggs).

I do like it, however, when candidates that are pro enviroment post up all their picket signs made of poor little trees all over the place. Reminds me what politicians are.

Cheese and whine...

2004-10-14T14:17:00.000-07:00

Reached some resolution on the wife issue. (Read :: I know now that she is alive, and is not homeless, and that she works at another drugstore). Evidently the power was shut off. We slugged it out over email for a while. I considered posting it here, but decided against it. I'm not really communicating the reality of the situation very well, and I know a lot of people feel I have options that I don't have. It can't be pleasant to try to communicate that to me.

Go to work early tommorrow. I'm actually here at work late again, because lately, I haven't been in a hurry to go home at all. Same thing goes on there as here, cep't there I waste more time on video games, hence the lack of a functional website, and a reasonable amount of literate content to peruse when you, my friends, stop by.

Fixed the sidebar problem for all of you, I think, thanks to Ang's help... and also ran my page thru a html validator. I still don't like the way it looks, but I don't want to tweak it out too much... disturbs the natives.

various swear words...

2004-10-13T01:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I do believe that's that.

This is my wonderful wife, who I found out yesterday has been misleading me about where she works for over half a year now. This, combined with the fact that her phone has been disconnected, and she has not contacted me with any changes, and this picture you see above, means that she has spit in my eye, and disappeared on me. Glad I'm not going to be the one that has to answer my daughters questions someday. I know I tried.

I wonder what her motivation was in posting this picture on her profile? Oh, I'm sure this is her "best-friend" or something equally innocuous.

So fuck it. I can't fight her anymore. Nor do I have the energy, strength, or financial resources to drag her in court, when the judicial system is on her side from the start.

I suppose my course of action will be to pretend she never existed. I may have done a lot of things, but none of them warrant hiding my child from me.

Thanks Sara... maybe you can sleep better at night.

Sunday morning coffee...

2004-10-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

Well, these have been rare, and far between as it stands, so let us just see how far we can go w/o that whole falling in the rabbit hole thing.

Gotten some comments from the neighbors about the whole video game thing... one from mom, asking me if I was still in touch with reality (what is reality, anyway.. pshah!), and the other from her son, informing me that playing video games all the time is "bad for me". I don't think those were his words though, as he proceeded to play some sort of Zelda game on his GameBoy for about 4 hours straight after that.

New movies watched... Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within, dayam! but they did a great job on the graphics for that movie... I spent more time looking at detail than paying attention to the plot... Also watched Below, which was relatively haunting... certainly not to the caliber of Alien, but somewhat in the same vein. Also finished off Virgin Suicides (heh... finished off)... take the Wonder Years, mix in a little Schindler's List, and there's 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.

Soooo... what else... trying to take my movie collection, and squeeze them... I have a lot of movies that are taking up over a GB of space, and working on taking that down to a more reasonable (read : fit on one CD) 800 MB. And yes, you can do that... don't worry about what it says on the CDR...

Started another college class this week, online of course (me, get out of the house?!?)... looks like this one is going to be a piece of cake. This professor actually realizes that writing a whole asston of pretty formatted papers does not learning generate.

So what's new for you?

Don't fall for groupthink!!!

2004-10-08T12:16:00.000-07:00

Please, people... learn from this story... blogs are like email... you don't know what's true or not without doing research... don't go off half cocked about someone's opinion... whether you agree with it or not.

These people are horrible examples of the community. Don't repeat their mistake. (Link in title)

under the wire, for some...

2004-10-07T21:12:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I didn't make the East Coast, but for the rest of the country, I managed to write a post today. Sorry so late. I finished reading 1984. Not as in depth as I thought it would be, actually... and I can see elements of it in many stories I have read prior to.... And you know what? Sometimes I have thought the world would be a better place with that sort of environment. I guess that shows some facets of my persona, not all of which I am proud of, of course pride doesn't change who I am. But then again, I look at the prolefeed that I refuse to watch on television, the spam I constantly delete from my inboxes, and I wonder... with ignorance being bliss, woudn't most of the world be happy with just this? If they believed untruths until they were true? Seems it would beat agonizing over things that you can't change....

What? Not Spam?

2004-10-06T12:48:00.000-07:00

Wow, I'm quite proud of this... showed up in my inbox yesterday...

Congratulations David! Members of United Universists, the global freethought movement, have selected your site as an excellent Faithless Site! The Faithless Site Awards are presented to carefully selected websites that proudly demonstrate secularism, pluralism, empiricism, and eschew religious faith as a valid worldview.

The forces of religion have successfully made "faithless" a dirty word in today's society. We are fighting back. We will wear the badge with pride. Please show your solidarity with the movement to promote faithlessness by placing one of the following buttons on your site:

Engaging rant mode in 5...4...

2004-10-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

This is me going off on the world. I do it often. Not always do I let others hear it.

This time I am.

This politics bullshit. How many people realize who the target audience for all these debates actually is? Note to all you people who already know who you are going to vote for. IT'S NOT FUCKING YOU. You aren't going to change your mind, and they know that. They're going for the fence sitters. And fencesitters aren't the kind of people that go around spreading their opinion like a pyromaniac with a napalm gun. People that do that are passionate. And that's great. I'm glad people have passions. But if you already know who you're going to vote for, you also know you aren't going to change your mind. Neither is the person you are arguing with. So PLEASE!!!! For the LOVE OF GOD!!!!!! Put the fucking drum away!!!!

I request that you not argue with me. I'm not arguing with your viewpoints. I see no usefulness to all these debates, and arguements, and 'discussions' that are occuring in living rooms, radio shows, bus stops, and water coolers nationwide. What a waste of brain power. So don't waste your intellect on my ranting.

Bag of chips and all that...

2004-10-04T11:09:00.000-07:00

Think I'll just do a bit of freeverse today. Not that there isn't any thing substantial in my brain, but it is the lull of the day. It's just past lunchtime, and I ate too much. I've also got those leg jitters where it hurts if I don't move them a lot. I'd like to go lay down somewhere... nap for a bit. Not that I would ever do that. That would be horribly wrong...

This morning, I didn't want to get up, didn't want to go to work. That's not a very good sign, especially considering it's happened for about 4 workdays in a row now... but I've been in a decent mood most of the rest of the day, so I dunno what gives.

Was foggy on the way to work this morning. Pretty cool, walking over the Manette Bridge, not able to see the ends of the bridge or the water below... I like it when the world does that. Reminds you that it's only there if you choose to look at it.

Got to the bus stop, and realized I had left my pass at home... frantically looked, looked some more, and then looked for show until the driver noticed me. Fortunately it worked.

Site traffic has dropped considerably since the last overhaul... I'm thinking of going back to the more minimal approach. I don't think anyone but me would use the content in the left bar anyway... so it's probably coming across as more clutter than anything else.

Fourth class passengers...

2004-10-01T13:11:00.000-07:00

This post is reproduced from a comment left on Kat's page, and I thought more would be entertained, so I am placing it here... Enjoy!

Once, I took a MAC flight (no similarity Fleece, Military Airlift Command) from Washington to Florida.

The cargo bay door was conveniently located in the passenger compartment, where the whole front left side of the plane folded up. After entering the aircraft (through the tail), we took our seats, and watched slightly unskilled individuals ram forklifts into the side of the plane, loading all of our baggage on pallets in front of the seating area. After the loading of the luggage, we observed the attachment of cargo netting, presumably to keep our luggage from bludgeoning us to death in the event of a landing "in the field" (read::crash).

With a protesting groan, the crew shut the cargo door... and then entered via the tail of the plane, shut that door, and proceeded to climb OVER our luggage to reach the cockpit.

I tried to take pictures of Mt Ranier out of the window, but the numerous scratches (presumably from attempting escapees) prevented this from working very well.

Somewhere over Eastern Washington, the "Door is ajar!" light came on, so we had to land to investigate.

And I thought "steerage" on commercial airlines was bad...

IgNoble awards

2004-10-01T12:45:00.000-07:00

For all you bottled water drinkers out there... bit of a heads up. If it happens in one place...

A chemistry IgNobel went to Coca-Cola Company of Britain 'for using advanced technology to convert liquid from the River Thames into Dasani, a transparent form of water, which for precautionary reasons has been made unavailable to consumers'.

Five hundred thousand bottles of the product were pulled from the market last March after unacceptable levels of bromate, a potential cancer-causing chemical, were found. Coke is seeking a new British bottling location. "

Thanks MSNBC!

you have ... 357... new messages

2004-09-30T13:34:00.000-07:00

Wow, work hit like a brick shithouse today! I've been doing something non stop for about 5 hours now... Sorry I missed posting yesterday... I had a rather weird day, and felt rather strangely all day long. Not in a bad way, just weird. I meant to fix the rest of the tags in the table today. I figured out how to make tooltips show up for Windows users, and to make for cross-browser capability is not very high on my list of priorities. (Don't say it... I know I rip on IE all the time, I use Opera at home, and I just deal with the things that don't look right.)

For other items... hmmm... are there any? Oh yeah, ... no wait... that's nothing new... ummmm... yeah. Thanks for stopping by. I'll try to do better tomorrow.

Ch ch ch changes...

2004-09-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

Allright... link table up... if anyone knows how to change the contents of one cell based on the mouseover of another cell, PLEASE give me a shout....

Well, I went to a fireworks show last night. In my game... HAHAHAHAHA.. you actually thought I did something social? Pullllleeeze. I'm watching one of the people in my office wait on the printer... I watch this a lot... your tax dollars at work.

Netflix movies start rolling in tomorrow... then I can watch movies while I play my game at the same time! All I need then is to install the intravenous nourishment system into the chair (and lets not forget the waste removal subsystem as well), and I won't even need to get up for ANYTHING...

Ooohh!! The processor is a stone tablet!

2004-09-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Once again, technology comes through for me... a broken link not only detector, but also repairer... that will make the web a better place. Course along the same thought lines, so would pages that actually have content instead of "this is coming soon" crap. Okay okay... I'll see if I can put some of that up today. The only thing I'm truly procrastinating about is writing my own tagboard.

This weekend, I looked inside an old computer of the neighbors, figuring out how much it would cost to bring it up to speed. See, the neighbors son is always coming over, wanting to play SWG. And seeing as how that's all I do, and you can't play both at the same time... yeah. I don't think I'm going to get a 166Mhz with 32MB of ram to play minesweeper, much less a 3D game of any sort.

Today I start building a computer for a 'customer', if the parts show up that is. Ought to be pretty easy...speaking of which, there's something I have to do at work in support of that. Thanks for reminding me...

New scam to watch for

2004-09-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

"Suspicion of these callers led me to Google for answers, and I wasn't too surprised by what I found. While some of these calls are outright scams, the other, more 'legitimate' callers do little to nothing for the groups they claim to represent--in most cases, the telemarketing company working on behalf of a police charity give as little as 15% of the 'take' to the charity. "

Thanks, Boing Boing!!

Personal Ad of the Week

2004-09-24T06:01:00.000-07:00

I am 27, live in Washington, have blondish brown hair and am looking for that special someone to go out with, talk with and cuddle at home with. I am looking for an Sincere, Honest,and Fun person to spend time with and get to know each other. I like to do mostly anything and like to learn how to do new things.

So she's not looking for a frivolous boring liar. Good to clear that up. And, usually, I don't go here. But if you're going to chose a picture, how about you pick one that doesn't show off the missing teeth?

No more star support....

2004-09-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

He was cool until now... any politician that fucks with filesharing makes it on my shit list...

California governor Arnold Schwarzenneger -- a man who found considerable fame and fortune in Hollywood -- signed an MPAA-backed bill into law Tuesday that requires anyone sharing a file that goes to more than 10 people outside their immediate family to provide a valid email address and title of the work.

Thanks Boing Boing!!

hey kids!

2004-09-22T13:43:00.000-07:00

Why bother making an internet reservation if you're just going to call and confirm it? That's what one of my office mates is doing at the very moment... *sigh*. I haven't been working much on this here page lately... but the large collection of empty soda cans in my kitchen (and living room) can attest to just how much I've been doing lately. Or how little, as may be the case.

Bit of an uproar lately, good friend of mine in quite the unpleasant domestic situation, of which I'm trying to help, certainly wish I could do more. More monkey wrenches into my legal mess, but hey, at least I'm within 6 months of getting my drivers license back.... so it's not all bad. Moody, I have found self there, that's for sure. Thanks for not giving up on the page, I promise I haven't, just had a bit of a hiccup there.

For some news bits, the Pentagon is considering making it a violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice to solicit prostitutes. Since, according to this guy, "Women and girls are being forced into prostitution for a clientele consisting largely of military services members " , which of course, is the military's fault, not that of the countries that happen to do nothing about it.

And of course, this is funny...
President Bush's political team is orchestrating a vastly larger advertising campaign than thought possible under federal law, taking control of millions in Republican Party funds simply by inserting the phrase "our leaders in Congress" in selected commercials.

Guess we'll see which is more valuable, ketchup, or oil...

my effect....

2004-09-20T16:42:00.000-07:00

live in this, i live inside the clear and sometimes guess
without blame, testify this time and time again
truth is hard, hardest diamond shining in dark seas
without me, the world twists in circles at same speed

it's so bluish
it's my skin
it's so bluish
fading in
it's so bluish
my suppression
it's so bluish
i'm fading in

and when the ripples cross and cancel out you're left in doubt
for that single moment when the waves and troughs level out
my ears they pound
this crashing sound
it tears me down...

i'm living in it, it's gone
i'm hoping for it, it's gone
so beautiful it, it's gone
why wish for it, it's gone

With all new features bugs

2004-09-17T06:37:00.000-07:00

Wow, that quote box over there is buggy as all hell, isn't it? When I scroll, the quote changes, and half the time the text is corrupted, and if it isn't that, then the quote is too big for the box. That's one thing to start on today... also, if anyone is having a popup problem now, please let me know... Regan is having one, and I'm no longer running active scripts, so if something is doing it, I need to hunt it down.

The computer is up and running... the only notable event is that I'm spoiled. I'm used to running more than one hard drive in the computer, so now a single drive system seems slow to me during transfer ops... going to have to do something about that. BTW, the webserver shouldn't go down as much now, I rarely will need to restart this computer...

Also going to work on getting rid of another construction gif today... we'll see how that goes...

Personal ad of the Week

2004-09-16T06:42:00.000-07:00

I like guys that have a nice hard body and you have to be hot. I am not looking to date any fat out of shape guys. They just repulse me. You have to know how to treat me and you have to know how to make me laugh. I also love to be spoiled.

And you, my dear, repulse me.

Priorities

2004-09-16T06:25:00.000-07:00

I want to stay home today, and build my new computer. Arg! I've got a 2.4Ghz processor, a motherboard with 4 memory banks and an 800 Mhz FSB, a 9600XT 8x graphics card, 512 MB of DDR RAM, all waiting for an installation of Win98SE (low overhead). But I have to go to work. Blah.

I had a sneaking feeling the below picture wasn't going to be the Adonis some were hoping for, I'm rarely photogenic. The picture on my profile is a lucky shot... from happier days that are ... well ... long gone.

Any suggestions/complaints on the new template? Too flashy? Things look scrunched together? My stats from extremeTracking (before they folded) said that most of you were running 1024 by 768 resolution, and that's what the new layout is designed for.

uniform...

2004-09-15T14:14:00.000-07:00

As per request

Who has the darts?

So, hereth the new template...

2004-09-15T05:04:00.000-07:00

Still some work to be done, namely where you see the construction signs on the left, some cross-browser compatibility (looks dumpy in Opera, haven't tried Netscape yet), and a re-write of the tag bar that doesn't generate pop up ads.

Got some picture requests, and I have 2 that may fit the bill... one is old though... and I'm going to try to find the other first. But I do have a work related picture that I can show now... even though I'm not in it.

Click to enlarge

Witty title #448452a

2004-09-14T06:37:00.000-07:00

Good morning, good morning, one and all. Well, unless you have multiple personalities, in which that statement is somewhat preferential. So rephrase it however you want to hear it. Mmm' kay?

My side job of fixing this computer is going pretty good... I was a bit befuddled, but it didn't help that I was changing from geek think to layman term explanation every few seconds. I finally offered to take the PC home, and not charge by the hour. Turns out there is a class action lawsuit against the manufacturers of the hard drive. Replaced it with a spare, made some other changes. Today when I get home, I'm going to attempt to pull the original data off of the crap hard drive.

Still working on those template changes by the way... I had an idea that may change some of the work that I have done already... going to mull through that some more @ work today, as I have jumped way ahead in the work I normally have to do. Ah... speaking of that... must remember to take a hat to work today. I forgot mine yesterday.

rumble rumble

2004-09-13T14:06:00.000-07:00

So they're going to make us buy a whole set of uniforms again eventually. One of them is a type of cammies that are shades of blue, and I'm having a little bit of trouble understanding the reasoning behind it. Are we going to hide in the water? Hide against a ship so they don't think anyone is on board?

Ugh, I'm so hungry... I miss being in a normal household where everyone does their own part to make a total home... I certainly ate better in those days, even if it was Hamburger Helper.

Overall, I'm in a pretty good mood though... a bit wistful, maybe even jealous of others, but doing ok.

...

2004-09-12T09:50:00.000-07:00

Got a bit frustrated, bent out of shape, wrapped around the axle thursday and friday... one of those things that never goes away I suppose. And in that episode, I realize that some of you that I know give me a lot more than I give you. I don't know how to respond to that. I've never been very good at being a friend, but I'm doing my best to not be me by shutting it all out, and shutting down.

In other things, I actually have a side job on Monday, fixing someones 'puter for ten bucks an hour. Prolly underpriced, but at the same time, let's see just how many different configurations I can fix before I go deciding that my services are that valuable.

So here I am, on a cloudy Sunday morning, listening to Sara Mclachlan, with my feet tucked beneath me in the chair. I really am a strange guy, I think sometimes. I'm going to go take my meds now...

A slight footnote, to the person that left the anonymous comment under my 1...2...3 post. It has no importance about how you think I should care about my kid, I might not be perfect about it, but don't even think about implying that I am "a little much"... nothing is too much, and I do ALL that I can. Get a sack, own up to who you are, so we can come and tell you how to lead your life, Mr/Ms Perfect.

You're not where you think you are...

2004-09-10T09:33:00.000-07:00

The reason for all the errors is that I'm at work, and my home webserver is down... allthough I did manage to give the ability to redirect to my comcast page (hence the different address you see up there in the window... As for the images that I host, now that I know how to do redirects, I will upload the pictures to the backup website when I arrive home, and restart my crap server. I sure wish I knew what the problem was...

Personal Ad of the Week

2004-09-10T06:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, those ad sampler emails just truncate the text in the wrong spot, spawning all sorts of innapropriate endings.

I'm an out going girl looking to find a down to earth good hearted man to spend time with. I'm an outdoorsie girl and I enjoy hunting, camping, fishing and riding. I enjoy hang'n...

Indians?
ex-boyfriends?
stray dogs?