Miracles...

8 and 8 on the year! I think it's going to be a good season next year.

Merry Christmas from Kingman Arizona

A public service and christmas message all in one...

Got kids? Going to be having kids? Have a couple of 20 somethings that hang out like they were your kids?

You need to read the following article on Wired.

Merry Christmas / Festivus for the rest of us!

A message....

Not directed at anyone person in particular... mostly... don't think these messages are for you? Print out this blog post and write in your name, instant personal message from Tom!


Hey ___________ I picked up the new TOOL DVD today... I basically paid $10 for a 8 minute video and a 45 minute documentary. Yet I don't feel ripped off! You should pick it up or borrow it next time your in my neck of the woods.

Hey ___________ I heard this line and thought of you.... "finally I get to save the earth with deadly lasers instead of deadly slide shows" (al gore)


Hey ___________ They hypnotoad commercials aren't nearly as good as the hypnotoad show... all hail hypnotoad!

Why only three? Well if you read more often you would know that now wouldn't you.

Ok just so you don't feel left out you big baby...

Hey ____________ Catch this movie trailer before it's taken down from the site it's posted to!

What was that scar? Situated from afar....

So I upgraded to Leopard the day it came out on my Mac. Yeah I know I'm adventurous I also downgraded to Vista on the same day. In the almost 7 weeks and change I've been very happy with Leopard as compared to Vista. I have had one gripe though, the performance is not what I was expecting Leopard has been kind of chunky at times for me. I chalked this up to the fact that I did a upgrade instead of a clean install.

Why on earth did I do that? Simple, every piece of literature I read on upgrading MAC OS X said you could do a straight upgrade and not have to worry about a clean install. I bought it because I had done several upgrades on Linux boxes rather then do straight reinstalls.

So I broke down the other night and popped the Leopard disk in the drive and did a clean install. Holy crap talk about the easiest install I have ever done. 4 clicks of the mouse to get it kicked off. Three more clicks to start the restore process from my Time Machine disk. Total time the old "Aluminum Falcon" was out of commission? One hour forty five minutes. And when I was done everything was back in place and worked just like it had before. Programs, Play lists, Pictures, Passwords in both Safari and Firefox everything worked perfectly!

This joy was tempered by the experince earlier in the week of talking to a vendor support person for a application at work. While we were chatting and waiting for things to happen on the machine at work I mentioned in passing I was thinking of buying a MAC (I do this to gauge how friendly people are to the idea of other operating systems and ideologies other then windows). I got a 10 minute talk on why Windows was better. And honestly most of it was the same crap that I've heard for years. Sad and she sounded kind of hot too.

Yes I just completely rejected a woman based on attitude to a Mac.

And just to make sure the universe did right it self at some point Cody and Eve (aka Mr. & Mrs. Content) have pegged my envy meter yet again by a new and redesigned death-by-blog.com blog...

Where I begin to question...

My sanity or the sanity of my coworkers....

This was the first email I opened at work this morning.....

----------------------------
From: Nathan
To: Andrea; Brad; Sherpa; Greg; Jim; John; Scott; Tom
CC: Victoria
Subject: I got elfed
Date: Mon, 3 Dec 2007 23:35:42 -0700

Hey, I just made a total elf of myself. Check it out by clicking the link below.
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1157868405
---------------------------------------------

Some days it just doesn't pay to get a second cup of coffee...

A trip down analytical lane....

Back when I did this blog on Geocities while using Frontpage I would from time to talk about various stats regarding the blog... As I go back and read those entries I pretty much deride the one or two "dirty mac users" out there and was pleading with them to change operating systems.

My how times change.

I stopped doing that kind of entry because I lacked a tool in blogger to measure traffic. That is until Cody told me about Google analytics. You people have no idea how hard it has been for me to not talk about what and who comes here on a regular basis. Tonight your no longer that lucky.

Ok here is the setup... I'm looking at data for the last 30 days, so basically since I got from vacation to now. I've had 256 visits total.... these stats are pulled from those 256 visits.

Top browser OS/Combo -- IE/Windows (It should be noted I do not use windows at home... so for all I know this site looks like crap in windows)

Mac accounts for ~16% of all visits with the overwhelmening majority using Firefox

1 person is using Linux... and since it's only person I'm willing to bet I dialed up this page while looking at something on one of my Linux boxes.

And now for something completely different... I can now see what networks visitors are coming from... The top two are "Frontier Communications of America" and "Cablevision of Kingman" which means my parents and brother have hit this site way more then any else... actually of the 256 hits... 96 are directly from Kingman, seriously get a life. (Average time on site 13 seconds)

#3 is Comcast cable at 35 and when I do a map overlay of who comes from where I see I get 35 hits from Colorado... So Eve and Cody are keeping up with me (Hi Guys!) (Average time on site 6 seconds)

#4 is cox communications with 34 hits.... That is folks down here... average time on site 1 minute 59 seconds... Is their porn posted on this site I don't know about?

among some of the more interesting network locations that have viewed my site or whatever reason in the last month....
bay area rapid transit district (bart)
hampton inn oklahoma city (I have no clue on this one maybe a GE field engineer?)
state of nebraska / office of the cio (is their something the state of nebraska wants to tell me?)

Ok that's enough.... next time I do this I will find some othe wierd and unusal facts... in the mean time I'm going to go try and figure out why people are spending minutes at a time on my site.

Many times I've wondered how much there is to know...

In France the "Full Time" work week is 32 hours.... that means that the average French man has a 3 day weekend every week.

When one is spolied like that I think they may lose sight of just how great a 3 day weekend truly is. I'm pretty sure that is why we Americans like to pick on the French so much. All I know is I get 3 guranteed 3 day weekends a year. I may take a day off on my birthday and other then that I'm not really one for taking much time off. So when I take a 3 day weekend for no reason other then I worked a Saturday and I'm taking the time that is due me from work it is a glorious weekend indeed.

This weekend has been made all the sweeter by the following items...

1. Super Mario Galaxy; when your old 8 bit friends come back afte a 10 year hiatus.... it's been a good year for us old school Nintendo gamers; Link, Samus, and now Mario (strangely Luigi is hinted at but is not to be found as of yet)

2. What can only be desctibed as one of the best Saturday's ever.... 5 gallons of beer in the fermenter, a exceptionally good time at Rula Bula, and perfect weather for both events.

3. The Cardinals hitting 5-5 on the season and the playoffs being more then just a distant dream (hell at this point a winning-ish or .500 season would be good).

Oh yeah a good Nascar race to end the season and Elk for dinner.

Yep our French breatheren may get a 3 day weekend most every weekend, but we americans truly appreciate it.

And now another word from a really good bottle of scotch.

So the writers strike, it starting to suck for me... I'm lacking my John Stewart fix. I mean I'm lacking my John Stewart fix to the point that I'm actually watching CNN. It's kind of weird to watch the news and not have a montage of some sort pop up where people are saying things that are 180 degree's from what they were just saying.

So this distinct lack of John Stewart pushed me over the edge, what the hell is this strike about?

The internet is a wonderful thing.

I landed on everyone's favorite Star Trek wonder kid, voice of Aqua Lad and in my world "A" list blogger Wil Wheaton Oh hey he has a couple of links to something called "unitedhollywood.com" WAIT WAIT HE HAS A VIDEO! IT'S FROM THE COLBERT REPORT!!! Oh wait their is no Stephen Colbert, but it's a writer from the Colbert Report. That is good enough for me.

I watch the video and finally decide I wonder where I go when I click on "Unitedhollywood.com"

Oh it's the blog for the writers HEY LOOK MORE NOT JOHN STEWART BUT HIS WRITERS! I got my John Stewart fix finally and then way down at the bottom of the page is a link to a video that talks about what each generation of writers has gone through to get where they are today. It's actually a start contrast to the John Stewart/Stephen Colbert combo.

I read, I watch, I ponder... I ask "What does Ronald D. Moore think?" I check the Scifi.com blog, nothing there since June, check Wikipedia and BAM! Their is a link to to rondmoore.com
and it's my personal fiction writing hero of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Battlestar Galactica. The blog is new and done in iWeb but it's Ronald D. Moore uncensored, the only thing better is Ronald D. Moore with a bottle of Scotch, the smoking lamp turned off, and a podcast recording under way.

Cody as a side note, remember the poker table with the midget from the show "Carnival" when we were in Vegas? This is the guy who wrote the first season, he left before the second season to do Battlestar Galactica!

So I've read and pondered for a while now, and I've come to the conclusion that we should all find a good book/game/hobby and snuggle/curl up/next/to our very bearded/pregnant/sleepy loved ones because this folks is going to a very long haul and we need to do everything to make sure the writers get everything they are asking for.

And for the record yes, I'm a Ronald D. Moore fan boy (didn't know screen writers had fan boys did you?)

Where were you?

So 2.5 years ago I went on a little rant about how downloading TV shows would be the savior of television and gave an example using Star Trek:Enterprise. The things I talked about were merely the logical extensions of a business model that had become wildly popular in the music arena (i.e. tv shows via iTunes)

So after 2 years of itunes goodness of tv shows how many have I downloaded? A total of two, both of them free. What gives? I of all people should be all about watching TV shows off of iTunes. True, however their are a few things that have pretty much stopped me.

1. I got a DVR aka TiVo
2. I got a big screen (like bigger then any computer monitor I will ever have big)
3. I already pay for cable.

So with these three things in place the $1.99 of iTunes just doesn't hack it for me... I will pay <$.0003 per program and fast forward through the commercials myself. Apple TV doesn't hold up compared to my TiVo (in both price points and performance). So where does this leave the whole tv on the internet market?

Kind of in a pickle, people aren't flocking to internet TV, well except for High School Cheerleader Coaches who did a tame routine compared to what she's teaching the girls to do on the field in front of hundreds of people. And even then she didn't post it one of her students did!

Honestly trying to predict the future of television is like reading animal entrails... I'm going to leave that euphemism to you the reader.

Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah, go outside and read a book.

And with out of the ashes rose a "Pegasus"

So when I got home from hunting I came home to a desktop rig that would not turn on, after 3 hours of dicking with it I still couldn't get it to post. This is the 5th time this year it's done something like this to me and 3rd time since August.

So I did what any sane normal person would do, I ordered the parts for a new PC.

So 3 days and a bit of money later I now have a desktop rig and laptop rig that are truly on par with each other in almost all aspects except for one.

After screwing with Vista for 3 days to finally get it where I want it I am no longer of the opinion that those Mac vs PC commercials were were advertisments... THEY WERE WARNINGS!

Vista vs MAC OS X, hands down no contest MAC OS wins and I'm not saying that just because I have special place in my heart for Unix based operating systems either. It truly is the better OS, except for that whole playing games thing... Steve Jobs, hell Fake Steve Jobs even, if your reading this GAMES ARE NOT BAD THEY ARE GOOD!

So yeah I'm on Vista but it is nice to have a desktop rig that can play all of my games again. I guess that is why I bought a MAC so I could do work on it and not be bothered with all of the games.

Two final thoughts...

1. I know a few of you (Clint) are probally kind of curios as to what I got for a rig, The general specs are a.... Intel E6850, 4GB of RAM, 500GB HD (main system drive), 8800 GTS 320MB Video Card.

2. I also upgraded from Tiger to Lepoard on the Mac over the weekend... I found the icon for a PC file share server to be how you say... Intersting : )

Pay no attention to the Moose, the Squirell, or the Wapiti

As is tradition for me since I've moved to blogger I take the month of October "Mostly off" to do whatever it is the fuck that I do when I'm not working.

This year has been no different. From the 10 year high school reunion to a successfull elk hunt to spending money like I have a endless supply (which for the record I don't... I get paid next week, two weeks after that I should be good though).

A while back I talked about my indecsion on going to my HS reunion, well the stars aligned and the truck drove true and I went. I had a great time until Jack D, showed up... it was all down hill from their. My brother provieds a nice synopsis on his myspace... you should go their and read it yourself. Of course you need to be my brothers friend to read it, so you probally need to friend him while you are at it.

Anyway the reunion was fun I only did the main Saturday night dinner and dancing thing. I once again confirmed that I can't dance nor do I have rythm. On the whole it was a good experince it was good to see some folks I haven't seen in a very long time and catch up. And if anyone from KHS97 is reading this feel free to drop a line.

So after two days of recovering from the reunion Dad and I went elk hunting, much as we have done for the last 15 years. Unlike the last 15 years we actually have something to show for our efforts. If you would like the full story drop me a line, since I don't want to bore the general public with the tails of my hunt.

So since the hunt ended 4 days earlier then we planned I actually had a couple of days of downtime, man that is a unique concept for me. With 5 days of straight downtime I planned on getting a ton of crap done... and as is so often the case with everyone I only got a very small fraction of it done. Eh oh well.

I now return to work, and I'm almost scared for what awaits because I know the next month is going to be rough.

Peace in the pasture my ass...

Swung by the grocery store this evening on the way home... had to pick up a few essentials you know beer, milk, more beer.

So I'm wandering through Safeway towards the milk and I go for the half gallon of organic that I always buy since I'm trying to healthy and the experation date is 11/18/2007....

5 weeks from now? Wow what is this some sort of super organic milk? I start checking, all of the milk with the same batch code has a experation date of 11/18/2007!

Holy Cow! No really what kind of cows are they getting this from holy cows? So now that I'm curious I look at the regular non organic milk and the best date I can find is 10/27.

I don't know how they do it but I don't know how "organic" organic milk really is.

Angry Tooth... you may meet your end.

I work in a hospital you would think that I take pretty good care of myself...

yeah right...

Take for example my jaw, a few weeks back I started having some pain on one side of my jaw for no real reason. I ignored it for about three weeks. Why did I ignore for three weeks? Because I'm tough like that and I really dislike going to the Dr's office. I have more important things to then sit in a office and be told how badly I'm not taking care of myself. If I wanted that I would go visit mom at least then I don't have to pay a copay and I get fed.

So I make a appointment for the dentist, and get an appointment for the next day. Wow what a difference dentists offices are in Phoenix compared to Kingman. It's like a Jiffy Lube for your teeth. So I'm in the dentists office and they poke, prod, and x-ray. Come to find out that I have had the crown of a tooth collapse and it's not doing so hot back there... and oh yeah it's my wisdom tooth in the back of my mouth. Joy!

So I'm given the option of either getting it pulled or a root canal done. I've heard horror stories about root canals so I opt for the tooth pulling. Have you ever read about how your tooth gets pulled? You should turns out that only school you really need to goto is the "school of hard knocks and better dentistry" these folks offer classes online and on campus just in case your interested.

I'm also given the option of Nitrous Oxide or full general anesthetic... Well hell I've always heard good things about Nitrous I will take that doc! So I get an appointment with the oral surgeon for a week later to get the tooth pulled. I guess if it hasn't killed me by now it isn't going to kill me in the next week.

So a week rolls by and it's time for my appointment...

I get my nitrous

I get my local number (3 shots!) (OH BOY CUZ I LOVE SHOTS ALMOST AS MUCH AS I LOVE DOCTORS!)

I get 10 minutes to myself to contemplate the deeper meanings of life while breathing Nitrous Oxide with a contraption that bears more then a passing resemblance to Miss Piggy's nose attached to my nose.

The doc starts to do his thing and says "Now let me know if this hurts"... HOLY CRAP THAT HURTS!! Like bring tears to my eyes hurt... so I get 2 more shots of the numbing agent and I now have enough on board for a "horse"

Wow if it takes that much numbing agent for or a tooth what other things are are horse like about me? My appetite? My Attitude? Other things?

So I get another 5 minutes of contemplation before the doc comes back this time he's pulling and pulling and tells his assistant "Yep this is a classic angry tooth"

What the hell, it's bad enough I'm pissed off half the time but now my tooth is too?

So one or two more good yanks and the tooth comes out. I get my gauze and some post op instructions and am sent on my merry way...

48 hours later the only thing that hurts is my jaw when I open real wide other wise I'm fine. I'm sure your all concerned.

The moral of this story? If your getting your tooth pulled and you have the option for a local anesthetic take that.

Blackhole sun, won't you come?

Soundgarden was a great band, but you really have to wonder about what kinds of drugs they were on. You know between the lyrics and the Iron Butterfly esque guitar solos, I would be willing to bet it was a great live show.

As all of 3.2957838 (<-- almost to 3.3 loyal readers!) know in addition to thinking that Soundgarden was the best band to come out of Seattle in the 90's I'm a pretty big Pearl Jam fan. So when Eddie Vedder comes out with what is basically a solo album I take notice. The rub is the "solo album" is actually the soundtrack to the movie "Into the Wild". OK Eddie did a movie soundtrack so I go and read about the movie. This guy gives up all of his worldly possessions for a life as free of trappings of modern life where he eventually ends up in the Alaska wilderness living off the land. Which appeals to me because I've always had this desire in the back of my mind to drop off of the grid totally and disappear. Problem is the only person who would notice would be Kristina since there would be leftovers and beer for Curtis all of a sudden.

And how did I know all of this about a movie that I hadn't heard of up until two weeks ago? Why Cody of course! So Cody and I go see "Into the Wild" at what I call a "Art Theater" because it's the first theater I've been to in Phoenix that has less then 20 screens (it only had four?!). Of course when you goto the movies they have the commercials before the movie now instead of just the trailers... don't get me started on commercials before movies that is another rant in of itself. The last set of commercials are for Team Fortress 2!!! It's a fucking brilliant commercial (click the link to see them all, the one that was in the theater was the "Meet the Heavy") I thought it was a brilliant commercial.

So the movie finishes which was also excellent you need to go see it! And I'm looking at all of the people in the theater... Cody and I are the youngest ones in their. Wow they must have been really annoyed by the Team Fortress commercial. It's a great commercial from a gamers perspective but if your not a gamer (Cody) then I can understand your annoyance.

So as a somewhat direct result of that commercial I purchased the Orange Box and have been playing Team Fortress 2 on and off all weekend. Holy cow that game is fun!!

So looking back at the title of the post it is rather true, because Team Fortress is a "Black Hole Sun".

And oh yeah to top off a great weekend the Cardinals offed the Steelers!

Really?

You find the most interesting things on Wikipedia... I have to say that I am a bit surprised by this...
--------------------------------------
The Packers' fan base is famously dedicated: regardless of the team's performance, every Packers game at Lambeau Field has been sold out since 1960.^{[citation needed]} Despite the Packers having one of the smallest TV markets, the Packers have developed one of the largest fan bases in the NFL. Each year they consistently rank as one of the top teams in terms of popularity.^[6] The Packers have one of the longest waiting lists for season tickets in professional sports with about 74,000 people as of May 3, 2007.^[7] That is more names on the waiting list than there are seats at Lambeau Field. The current wait time for season tickets is approximately 35 years. For this reason, it is not unusual for fans to designate a recipient of their season tickets in their wills or place newborn infants on the waiting list after receiving birth certificates.<sup>[8]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Linkage</sup>

It's a battering ram..... OYE OYE OYE

Ok so 88 degrees is a bit much to be sitting out on the back porch and type, at least it's not as cheesy as 98 degrees.

Sorry bad boy band pun, bad blogger bad!

Every now and again I like to reflect on where I've been and what I've done. And if your a regular reader you know that those two things main consist of drinking beer and consternating myself about Linux. So I thought I would take a real change of pace tonight and wander down memory lane.

Turns out that memory lane has been bought by a rather unscrupulous developer and is now a 10,000 home subdivision renamed "Best Times of our Lives Acres" which is really a misnomer since everything out there is measured in Hectares.

If you don't know what a "Hectare" is you should probably brush up on your metric system I hear all the cool countries are doing it.

Honestly though it's been two years since I bought the house in Mesa, it feels like home. Three Years since I switched to blogger from my own perverted system of frontpage and yahoo. And 10 years since I started college.

Speaking of 10 years since I started college, I got the invitation to my 10 year High School reunion in the mail a while back. Yes my parents are officially old! I on the other hand have always found the concept of a 10 year reunion dubious at best. Add on to that how much I "love" large gatherings of people that I have no vested interest in whether or not I care what they think about me and then add a 200 mile one way trip along with a dash of $30 to get in.

And oh yes, it's in Kingman too... and we all know how much I love Kingman. I love my family but I am really starting to understand why certain Aunt's and Uncle's only visited during the holidays.

Take the other side of the coin, I can see how I'm doing compared to other people I went to school with which will either completely inflate or kill my ego... and since my ego has been on life support for the last 9.5 years I'm not really that worried about it. I also know that I can eat and drink my way through $30 with not allot of a problem.

Which leads me to my final question, when people ask me what I do for a living do I tell them...

1. "I work in health care IT on a group of systems known collectively as PACS. Think of it as Flickr for the body, and with big magnets."

or

2. "I'm laying my final plans for world domination, you will be calling me 'Lord Zod' by the end of the year"

hmmm decisions decisions.

Heaven Beside You...

Whoo Hoo!!

http://arstechnica.com/journals/apple.ars/2007/09/11/free-iphone-unlock-supposedly-pending

Now the only thing standing between me and a iPhone is a lack of storage and a pesky contract on a cell carrier that actually works well for me.

And they gave no quarter...

A few observations from laying on my couch all weekend due some weird combination of what I think is a ear infection and a head cold... I think they are related but I'm not totally for sure, it would be a first for me if they were.

- Dennis Green has been cropped into those Coors Light commercials hawking 24 packs of Coors Light with tickets to the Super Bowl. I find this to be a unique choice to say the least on the part of the people from Coors.

- Remember when there really only two trucks and those "other" guys? No? Me neither... I've seen enough truck commercials this weekend to drive me up the wall. My favorite one? The Tacoma commercial. Why? Because I only saw it once! (And bull shit a F150 can stop a C-130)

- John Norris is still on MTV... again I was laid on my couch and surfing... I was bound to catch it sooner or later.

-Football, whoo hoo! Now it's time for Tom's totally meaningless picks 2007....

Team most likely to disappoint me for the 8th year in a row... Cardinals
Team I follow most likely to actually do something... Chargers
Team I follow mostly to piss off Clint.... Chargers / Broncos
Team that is going to win it all... Not the Cardinals, and not the Chiefs.

There you have it kids... musings of a sick man. But I did finally figure out John Madden's purpose in the football universe it's to explain things in such simple terms that even someone with the attention span of a nat (like me this weekend) can understand.

Someone to Belive in...

If you do nothing else useful with your day read this link and understand what is happening to us as a society and what we must do to protect ourselves from ourselves.

http://newsite.michaelrighi.com/2007/09/01/arrested-at-circuit-city/

blatantly stolen from Cody...

Email Silliness...

Got a couple of email's that I had to share;

First up Greg and his adventures with fast food...

From: Greg
To: Tom; Nathan; James; Scott; Victoria; Keith; Eric
Cc: 'Tuffelmire'
Subject: McDonalds Southwest Chicken Sandwich

I had the same experience today.......Had to surf today to make sure my McDonalds Combo #5 was correct for $5.06

http://burningbuilding.blogspot.com/2007/06/mcdonalds-has-taken-its-latest-step-to.html

Luke said...

I hate MCDONALDS!!!! I went there yesterday for the first time in a few months because I didn't have any food in the house and I was in a hurry. I drive up the the order thing and see this amazing looking Southwest Chicken Sandwich. I was strong enough to order just the sandwich. No 76oz of cola or a bag of potatoes stuffed inside a piece of cardboard, Just this amazing juicy looking southwest chicken sandwich. I was so hungry that I ripped open the paper and tooka huge STICKY DRY BITE!! There was nothing on this chicken sandwich. I swear to god it was a bun, a pickle, and a dry piece of fried chicken breast. I almost choked. My teeth were covered in rubbery bun. I wish I would have purchased the 76oz of cola.

June 28, 2007 1:52 PM

Post a Comment

No butter, mayo, or spicy southwest sauce.......

Greg

I would make a smart ass comment to Greg, but he suffered enough with the sandwich.

Next up Mom, and a reaffirmation as to why she doesn't email more often.

Did you know there is no such word as lefted?
Mom

mom picked the wrong day to pick on me, and my response....

"Righted" isn't a word either yet everybody else uses it.

Please read the following...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft

and

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Also please see smart ass picture, as I've been waiting a while to do something like this on MAC.

Keynote from PAX

IF your a gamer, go download this recording from PAX 2007

http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2007/08/pax-ftw.html

You can thank me later ;)


Update... It seems someone forgot to make it a link... and I know how lazy you damn dirty gamers are.

Pegasus revisited....

3 months of MAC Book Pro bliss and I have to say I'm not regretting my purchase one bit. Dual booting with Win XP and the MAC OS is nothing short of the best of both worlds. Granted I think my total time in Windows is something like 6 hours while not playing "Supreme Commander" other then that it is all Mac all the time. I would even go so far as to call the Mac my primary computer.

However to every "Ying" there is a "Yang" and the "Yang" in this case is my desktop. All 75 pounds of it. I've been mulling over the next iteration of "Yang" for a while and I know it won't be a iMac... I love my Mac Book but honestly I do use my desktop primarily for one thing.

Gaming.

While I can game on the Mac Book under Windows I do like that I have a desktop with a full size keyboard. And after a couple of hours you really begin to apperciate that full size keyboard.

And the fact that I have come home to a computer that says "failed cpu test" on boot twice in the last month tells me it's time to start really thinking about a new rig.

I have the case picked out... it's my usual ungodly huge case.

I'm having pain and consternation with other pieces parts and I now am formally soliciting input. Please note that this input will be throughly hashed through and then hashed through again with another party (you know who you are) before landing on a final configuration.

Here are some talking points...

- Dual Core 6750 vs Quad Core 6600.... the dual core has a faster front side bus and is more over-clockable then the quad core. The quad core is a quad core. Price diffrence is ~$75

- SLI.... It seems like a good idea if you actually do it. The kicker is when you strap together two mid range cards you still don't equal the current high end. And for the over all cost of the two mid range cards you can get a kick ass high end card. Also which platform Nvidia 650 or 680?

- Hybrid drives will be out soon if they aren't already. I'm not one to pick up on new technology very often but this one does seem like a winner.

Other considerations, the new chips from Intel and AMD will be out in the next couple of months. Is there enough reason to wait for those chips or utilize what is out there currently? (Personal thought, most of the new chips will be of the quad core and 1300mhz fsb variety and may very well warrant sitting tight).

I'm defiantly in hurry to build this rig as I'm happy with the MAC Book and my Wii (and since Metroid 3 comes out next week I know that is going to keep me busy).

Intersting....

He's not that stupid....

Return of Furbee...

I saw "Furbee" on TV this evening, so between that and the sudden rush of football games one can only assume that football season is on us yet again.

So it is now only a few weeks until the Cardinals march onto the field and school their opponet of the week in the ways of the bird... for the bird is the word.


Yes here is to the hopes of entire group of maybe twenty people that the Cardinals will be 8-8 this year.

Go Cardinals!

Freedom of Choice is what you've got...

Checking the old Google analytics for the blog the other night I found the following entry for properties of network visitors

I don't know which I should more worried about... that the "man" has read this 3 times in the last month or that 2 of the larger healthcare companies in North America are stalking me.

I'm probably on a no fly list now...

Oh no not me...

It's August....

I hate August...

I hate August more then I hate any other time of year.....

All of the good pod casts are on vacation and putting up repeats....

Geek Brief with Cali Lewis, Ask a Ninja, and Battlestar Galactica (granted it's been off line for a couple of months now and won't start until the 4 season picks up in the new year)

Comics are on "hiatus" damn you non-sequitor

Football is in the presason, the games aren't even that good. The first string of the Cardinals can beat up on the second string of the Steelers.

Computers die in August... that always costs me money.

I hate August.

Drool.....

Sports cars and IT pro's a dangerous combo

As seen @ DEF CON15

Where do I sign up and is it verizon compatible?

8 months later....

They are now making displays out of PS3's still can't find a Wii to save your life though

A thousand diamonds strewn across the blue blanket...

More back porch blogging.... it's only 95 according to the weather thingy in Firefox. This is the first time in a while when I've been outside and it's not been stiffeling or something like that.

July in Phoenix... it's a wonder people live here this time of year. It's only 110+ during the day in the shade. When the wind blows it feels like a blast furance and lets not forget the generous amount of particulate matter that make the overall feeling of a sand blaster.

Now on the "cooler" days, you know the ones where it doesn't feel like a oven or blast furnace, it's got to be some cruel joke by the people responsible for the weather. The "cooler" days in summer are like a messed up sauna. Puts out alot of heat a just a bit of humidity enough to drive you up the wall but not enough to truly do anything.

The heat is sometimes maddening... but you know what makes it all worth it? Come December/January/Feburary you can't swing a broken laptop with out hitting a damned snowbird. In other words it's great weather just alot more people are around.

The big difference between right now on the back porch and earlier musings of a back porch is the ambient noise. I normally can hear Dobson and Guadalupe roads. Tonight all I hear are crickets, and I can't remember the last time I heard crickets. Now the lack of traffic might also be chalked up to the 7 A/C units that are within earshot and going full boar. I'm going to say it's because there is no one out tonight.

The 300(th)

So if your a long time reader you may remember that when I was in the process of moving to Phoenix from Kingman 2 years ago I wrote about my then 14 year old cousin who came to visit.

Well Matt returned to Kingman for another visit. I didn't get up there this time around but we had a conversation that made realize that the kid is going to be alright.

-----------------------
Matt:
its the only way to do it in my opinion i ever pose/convert/paint my own models you should see my demon prince hes sick looking



ME:
Your not playing the video game?

Your playing the table top?

I am so proud of you right now it's not even funny.




Matt:
ahh well warhammer 40k is a table top game i play chaos(demons) they had a video game made after it called dawn of war maybe youve heard/played it

ME:
Haha... No...

Supreme Commander and Wii those are my current addictions.


Matt:
ahh well if ya got alot of free time then you could consider playing warhammer 40k



ME:
Oh you know the usual, work, friends, and more free time then I know what to do with.


Matt:
hows life treating ya
-------------------------------

The kid is going to be alright, the rest of the family might be worried but I'm not.

How does one tell Flickr....

That you only want to be friends?

Dream on....

So in the last 3 weeks I've sat down four or five times to try and put some sort of drivel up for you my loving horde of 3.2 readers to look at, consume, digest, and throw back at me at "crap" it is the order of things here in this little corner of the interweb.

So in the course of the last three weeks I've given you

2 - posts about my personal ramblings on the iShit.

1 - 4 year old singing German death metal

1 - email from a uncle about he and my aunt's tour across the Maryland country side (ok I have to admit I did find the picture with the tank rather unique and I will probably print it out to put on the fridge)

and 1 - post with quotes from work.

I already have fairly low standards for this corner of the internet... ya know. Most all of the words spelled correctly, almost proper grammar (thats more miss then hit), and a something that is more then two sentences when I'm dones.

When I started doing this back in 2000 (shit I have been doing this for some time) Actually I've been doing "blogging" in one sort or another for damn near 10 years now I just don't have any of the old websites and I really didn't start doing it "consistently" until 2000. Getting back to the point of this paragraph was to relate that when I started "blogging" I held my self to the standard of at least 2 pages of text in word. Can you tell I was in school when I was started?


The point of this post? No real point I'm just padding numbers to #300 on blogger and I'm just trying not to make them all pictures from the phone.

Bike Like No One is Watching...

I got this email today from a Uncle that has a flair for the writing and creative stuff. Since it involves neither computers or cell phones I thought it would be a nice change of pace and it also confirms that at least one member of the clan is quasi-normal.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi,

A few pictures to share with the family about Monica's transition to becoming a biking babe. Cycling over 50 miles the first day, Monica easily completed a half century in an estimated four hours as she peddled her way across the back roads of Maryland's Chesapeake at a brisk pace of 12 mph. She started out the day with an easy thirty miles as the goal, her farthest distance prior to participating in the three-day Cycle Across Maryland event, http://www.onelesscar.org/CAM/2007/index.php.

Feeling the cool morning air (7:30am) breezing past and eyeing the lush green farm fields ahead, she confidently followed me to the "right" of the fork in the road instead of the "left". Without even a glance back and still following the painted fluorescent arrows on the road marking our path, she powered forward knowing the day's accomplishment would put her into the Kern-Cornelsen Hall of Fame. Friday's ride began at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore campus in the town of Princess Anne and followed a meandering route through extensive areas of wetlands and coastal villages to the Chesapeake fishing town of Crisfield, better known as the "Crab Capitol of the World," http://www.onelesscar.org/CAM/2007/images/map_crisfield.pdf.

After a 22 mile rest stop for replenishing the body with Gatorade and a buffet of fruits, donuts, peanut butter sandwiches and other carbo delights, she mounted her trusty Jamis hybrid and peddled off into the morning sun with her sights set on cold watermelon served at the finish line and a shower in the luxurious dorm accommodations. Lacking neither breath nor stamina, Monica effortlessly cycled her way into the hearts of the many veteran cyclist cheering her on to becoming another lycra clad, but oh so cute, peloton.

Barely did Monica break a sweat during the three days of riding as she chatted animatedly with fellow pelotons cruising down the roads of Maryland about the condition of corn and soybean fields to be harvested passing by, the calls of Killdeer and mocking birds heard on quiet lanes, the colorful sights of caterpillar and foliage or the latest in comfortable cycling apparel. Braving temperatures in the mid 80's and humidity levels climbing, Monica cycled over a hundred miles from Friday thru Sunday. Slathered in sunblock and stocked with pints of water and protein bars in her Camelback, Monica's only luxury was a 30 minute massage provided by sports massage therapist on the second day of her adventures.

Should anyone be interested, her husband's claim to fame is completing two half centuries back-to-back (one which turned into a 60+ due to incorrect interpretations of a clue sheet and finding the mistake after miles in the wrong direction) and final three-day mileage of approximately 150. On our last day, winding down the three-day adventure with a quick 36 mile route, we discovered the newest defense system in the Maryland's farm land. While our seats still fondly remember the curve of the saddle, our pictures provide more entertaining memories.

Love,
Dean & Monica

----------------------------------------------------------------
For the record I responded to my uncle asking when he was going to join the 21st century and start a blog of his own to record his exploits. You know surely what he has to write is better then my drivel.

The reply went a little something like this "Maybe if you put better stuff out there, the social life would improve?"

That's just COLD Uncle Dean....

Quotes from work...

I don't talk about work much.... but here are some out of context quotes from this week that hopefully you too drop on your coworkers


"We're saving lives here man, were not rolling out grass and planting trees"

"When your space shuttle is going 19,000 miles an hour and 1 inch off the launch pad, you best make sure your shit is working like it should"

"Dan read your monitor" (As Dan is trying to figure out if a character is a "5" or a "S" on a 6 foot projected image)

Q - "Why do you guys have such big monitors?"
A - "Easier to look at porn on"

Go Go iShit!

Ok the iPhone has been out for a week now and every technology pundit with a computer and internet connection has given their $.02.

Time for me to give my $1.25 about their $.02.

There is no way to make a technology pundit happy... they always find some flaw with the item in question that will then be repeated by every half twit out there (I would have used more colorful language but this particular half twit has used technology pundititry in more then one or five cases...) So the biggest complaint about the iPhone has been the lack of inclusion of 3g data for it's data service (HSDPA for the GSM folks or EVDO Rev 0 or Rev A for the CDMA folks). The official line from Apple is something to the effect of...

"Current 3G chips suck power and we have included WiFi to use instead of 3G data" And they are absolutely correct. I will take a shitty WiFi connection over a good EVDO connection any day of the week.

Now for the counter point to the iPhone when Palm released the Treoo 700P it included EVDO data for CDMA (The Treo 750 on GSM has HSDPA) and what did the technology pundits roundly criticize?

"But it doesn't have WiFi"

Mary MOTHER OF FUCKING.......

And now I remember why I stopped watching TV news... because at least with technology pundits I know they are idiots... With political talking heads they could be feeding me a steaming pile of shit and I wouldn't know the difference... though that probably has more to do with the fact that I tend to skim over the politics sections of CNN and the BBC.

So where does this leave us? Well the iPhone is a interesting piece of technology that will be unlocked shortly (I give it 3 weeks from this posting and 6 weeks after that before it's so easy that my brother and mom could both do it) I'm still out in the cold since there will not be a CDMA version of the device unless Apple launches the iPhone in Japan and just happens to leave the door open for the device to work with CDMA carriers in the states.

Me? I'm going to pass on the iPhone in it's current revision and wait for the iPod with touch screen and upgrade. Of course I need it to be at least 40 Gigs before it's worth the money to me. I don't feel this great need to condense my gadetry down to one device between my Treo and iPod I'm good and for those long hauls I always take my laptop with me.

So there you have it kids the iShit from the iTwit's brain.

Never thought to question why.....

Web 2.0 is a wonderful thing.... it has brought us many sites

myspace...

facebook...

gmail....

you tube...

Ah youtube the first place to look for bad video's or once upon a wonderful time to find clips from the daily show. Sadly I have been reduced to watching the daily show on my DVR.

A unfortunate side effect of you tube type technology coupled with cell phones that take video and cheap digital video cameras.... is every freaking website has a video show on it now.

Ok not every website but the web sites that I goto that I actually care about.

Case in point Tom's Hardware... they have a review of how "Games of the year" hold up down the line. It's not a article it's a clip! Ok it may not be the best example but come on guys I don't want to listen to a good gamer / bad gamer banter about games that I stopped playing LAST YEAR! It's quite frustrating when all you want to do is read article and you people completely kill it for you.

Damn you web 2.0.

Here is a thought guys... do a PRINT article on the best games your not playing "Supreme Commander" anyone?

Beuler?

Beuler?

Beuler?

Du Hast -- As done by a 3 year old

Brandi and Clint should be proud!

Chuck waits... You wait...

A week into the whole Mac transition and it's been way more painless then I thought. I've had more consternation about what to do with my music and photo's more then anything else. (two copies at the moment). It has not been all smooth sailing I have run into issues getting some web apps work. Don't worry it's all related to my work and that is why Steve Jobs gave us BootCamp.

Of course what Steve giveth Bill really fouls up....

I of course loaded boot camp and windows on to the Mac. And Windows runs great, I just have to boot into the Windows side to use it. I'm going to be honest I've never been big on booting between operating systems. So I've been checking out virtualization for OS X. The good news is there are some really excellent options out there. The bad news is that Microsoft has some really fucked up licensing.

This one has me a little ticked off so if you don't want to read about Microsoft and Apple for the rest of this post I would just go some place else if I were you.

I decided to load XP, you know since it's stable been out for forever and a day, and way cheaper then Vista. See now you can get two versions of XP full... OEM and Retail. The difference is OEM instantly gets tied to your hardware set. Meanwhile retail has some flexibility built in to help with those pesky hardware upgrades. Turns out that you can virtualize a retail version of XP but not a OEM copy unless you install the OEM copy directly into the VM. (This is really good info for anyone thinking about doing this).

So where does this leave me? Well for the time being I don't know I haven't landed on a virtualization setup that I really like. I would like to just do it and move on. At the same time though I still have my work laptop that I bring home and my desktop that isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

Honestly for me the best solution would be a VM type appliance that contained I.E. and access to Java in the VM. After that I could really care less about Windows.

So other then the whole I need I.E. to do some legacy web stuff for work that I can do on another computer just as easily I think I could recommend a Mac as your next computer.

Unless you Curtis or Clint... there is just no talking any sense into those two.

Just not right...

Any one else slighty disturbed by this?

Reflections in F.U.D. and you

Being a I.T. guy from time to time I get asked by certain indviduals for help for things that fall outside of my normal day to day duties.

I like to call these individuals Doctors.

So I get a call today from a doctor who wants to use his shiny new MAC to work from home with... I feel his pain. I agree to help him.

So as I'm talking to him I ask if he has made a boot camp partion for his MAC. You know since running windows in a virtulized environment is the least painful way to get 99.9% of windows only apps (read as active X or require IE) to work in MAC.

"I don't want to load windows on to the MAC and have to deal with anti-virus"

Wait, you don't want to deal with Anti virus in Windows on your MAC?

Ok on one side I can see the point... I mean that is why you bought a MAC isn't it? So you didn't have to deal with all of those stupid Windows viruses... On the other hand...

What on earth are you bitching about? Antivirus programs are so dirt simple that they should be the first or second thing you load up on your computer! And you don't want to deal with them?

My god man...

For the record I do have Anti virus on all of my boxes (Norton and AVG mainly) Windows/Linux/Mac

Just because Lord Steve says it's secure doesn't mean it's true kids...

And they called it the "Aluminum Falcon"??

Simple pleasures in life for me really....

Weekends on call that don't have many calls...

Playing video games... seeing movies that any other time of the year wouldn't make 20 million make 57 million in a weekend.

Selling a house and finally being back to one house payment... (<--- honestly how often does that happen?)

Yes it's been a good weekend.

Of course the first thing I did when I sold the house was to buy a new laptop.... and not just any laptop a Macbook Pro...

Wait why did he buy a Macbook Pro? He is the "PC' in those commercials!

Yes I know... honestly though this thing rocks.

It has everything that my Linux boxes have but with the stupid ease of Windows!

It doesn't help that I've wanted a high end Mac Laptop since I laid my hands on the first PowerPC G3 Powerbooks almost 10 years ago.

I do have a few comments that are just apart of the learning curve but I thought I would share with the reading public that doesn't get to see me at least once a week.

1. When I bought the Mac the sales guy at the Apple store was chatting with me (you know sales guy chat) wondering why I wanted such a beast of a computer... I told him I was a gamer and IT guy next words out of the sales guy mouth "Please tell me you aren't going to install Windows"

Windows wasn't the first thing I installed (that honor went to Firefox) but it was the first project. So far I haven't booted into Windows unless I'm playing a game and since I've only got two installed it's not much that I've been in Windows.

2. What is up with these keyboard short cuts?

Honestly what is up with these keyboard short cuts? It looks like a gate address from a episode of Stargate.

With the exception of the first symbol I have found all of the corresponding keys.

Also for future refrence the up arrow is "Shift" no the up arrow key...

3. And I thought Linux programs were tounge in cheek....

OK I'm a I.T. guy... And their are certain programs that I just always use one of them is "VNC" it's small, stable, very robust, and about as close to a universal application is it comes to for systems management.

There are a few others but VNC is the only that I always load up. My first couple of searche kept turning up commercial applications that are VNC compatiable. That's nice folks but along with being a I.T. guy I'm also a tightwad (except in matters of hardware). It took a little bit of doing but I found "Chicken of the VNC"

Come on how could you not like a platform that has a application name like that?

And the name of this computer? The "Aluminum Falcon" of course! (click on the link to get the joke)

They call it fire water...

Providence math

For the record....

My PACS Vendor + Open Bar = Tom out of shell...


Thank you and good night I will be out of my shell again the second tuesday of next week.

Providence Dogs

Hmmm time to get ready for the trip to Providence for my confrence....

15 Episodes of Star Trek DS9 ripped from DVD and ready to be transferred to laptop?

Check!

Clothes washed and to a point of being able to be packed?

Check!

Cell phone updated with latest PRL?

Check!

Requisite freak out and anxiety attack over every little detail that is not with in my control?

Check and still in progress!

yep I'm gonna have fun with this one...

Like Suicide (Acoustic Version)

I'm a pretty big Soundgarden fan.

Now I'm not the worlds greatest Soundgarden fan, I'm not a "back in the day before they blew up Soundgarden fan", I'm not "crazy about Chris Cornell like some people I know are about Kurt Cobain Soundgarden fan"

I'm just a pretty big Soundgarden fan. To the point that of the 90's rock bands that came from Seattle Soundgarden is my favorite of these bands (though Pearl Jam does rock Eddie and CO can't hold a candle to Soundgarden).

So you now have my thoughts on Soundgarden and how they rock.

The only people who rock harder then Soundgarden is Tenacious D.

So for whatever reasons I was looking through iTunes this evening and found an acoustic song of my favorite Soundgarden song.

"Like Suicide"

It was never released as a single and is 7+ minutes long. If you've known me for any amount of time then you know that a song must be at least 7 minutes and feature generous amounts of high minded guitar playing (thank you Kim Thayll)

And yes "Like Suicide (Acoustic Version)" I would highly recommend it for anyone who has ever listened to music.

Except for Curtis, he doesn't like Chris Cornell...

And before you say I should get some newer music I would like to point out that there has been no real music of note that has come out in the last 10 years that I haven't already talked about.

It's not that often....

That I can say the following and truly mean it...

Can someone please tell me how I got this thing?

I honestly can't remember what the hell I did to get it.

Holy crap

It's only been 7 months and I finally found one on the shelf!

Just sad...

In the previous post I mentioned the age of "35" once upon a time that number was "30"

It's truly a sad day.

"Premium" cable shows and you...

Fucking Cody....

Fucking Little Brother....

It's not often that friends inspire ire in me, when they do it is worthy of blogging. The last person who got this kind of treatment was Curtis with SEVEN SEASONS OF STARGATE!!

Actually I can't blame Cody all he did was say how much he liked "Entourage" which is even more impressive because Cody gave up TV a year ago. Which leads me to thing that Cody has pulled a "Hoff" with regards to TV and non sporting type events.

No No the real enabler in this whole scam is my brother who gave me two and a half seasons of "Entourage" to watch (for some reason the producers of Entourage put the second half of season 3 on a separate DVD set did I mention how much that annoyed me with Battlestar Galactica?). So to you little brother I say thanks a fucking lot... now I have to go spend the extra money on my cable get HBO so I can get my Entourage fix in a somewhat timely manner.

Ok now undoubtedly you the loyal reader of 5 years (Curtis) why don't I bit torrent them. Well Curtis we have already had this discussion but for those of you who weren't there who were there but didn't listen and just heard alot of "beeps" "bops" and "boops". Downloading TV shows is something of a legal grey area... I'm already paying for cable and so the show has already been sent to my house I just missed it. There are some schools of thought that think of the internet as a giant TIVO. So while yes you are in the wrong for downloading a TV show you've already received the content. Now HBO is a little different, if you aren't paying for HBO you are defiantly in the wrong if you download one of their shows.

So hence my dilemma... of course I could just wait for Scott to keep buying the DVD's but honestly I don't know if I want to wait that long.

And in the interest of full disclosure yes I have downloaded TV shows... I dare you to find someone under the age of 35 who's used a computer for more then a Day and hasn't downloaded a TV Show.

While Watching the Suns...

Things of note...

1. Large number of Suns fans wearing nose band aids and head protection in support of the Suns.

2. The crowd booing in surrond sound every time the spurs get the ball.

3. Pointing out to my brother how good the game looks in HD.


GO SUNS!

States of mind....

So every now and again I hit a point where things just move along swimmingly and I don't have anything that really inspires me to write. I call these events "life" events with in my "life" as of late drive me to write. You know the occasional trip to wal-mart that generally sets me off in more ways then you can imagine.

Why do I keep going there when I have so many choices available to me that are just as easily reached? Simple you can't beat the prices on the same high quality name brand merchandise that you get at other department stores. There is no fighting the evil empire, just accept it and move on.

Speaking of evil empires, my coworkers and friends will tell you that I know way to much about cell phones. And to that charge I completely agree. They are intersting bits of technology that you can tell alot about a person from.

Smart phone... either they are trying to look smart (me) or it was issued to them (check for barcode on the back of the neck)

Music phone/Camera phone... I don't get these they have iPods for a reason people. The nice things about music phones is they are also camera phones and you can tell how naughty someone is by how much they react to their cell phone "disappearing" I know one or two people who are really naughty.

Basic phone.... they use this phone to talk... how quaint.

Anyway I ran across a article about how a quarter of all people under the age of 30 only have cell phones. So I stopped to think about this for a second. I could only come up with 3 people under the age of 30 who had land lines. And if I wanted to get ahold of any of these people I would call their cell phone and not even bother with their land line. So that means that 90% of the people that I know are totally wireless. Granted this is way shifted towards the under 30 crowd. But still you get the idea.

So I started to think about why do I have a land line? Honestly it's thrown in free with my cable tv and internet (i.e. it costs the same if I have my cable service and internet with or with out the phone option). Granted I have a couple of upgrades to my cable but that is beside the point. Why else do I have a land line? I send all of my credit cards there, you know since you have to call and activate credit cards from your home phone line. I just don't feel comfortable doing this with a cell phone. I've read enough articles over the years to know that cell phones are just as susceptible to cloning today as they were 15 years ago.

Paranoid? you betcha...

Final reason? I send my voter registration to that line. So since voter reg is not under the federal do not call lists I get a million and one calls during election season. Last year I got enough phone calls on my land line that didn't goto my cell that I was happy to keep it. And that was a off year!

Would I ever give up my land line? Yeah, and probably goto some sort of cheap voice over IP setup (like $5 a month cheap) or cheap cell phone. But since VOIP isn't exactly that cheap and pay as you go phones are a huge rip off in my mind the land line stays collecting dust.

Lights Make Monkey Happy....

Alright here is the setup.... When I was in Kingman I had a workstation light that I kept on the top of my monitor to illuminate my desk. Why did I have this you ask? Simple there was no light in the room. It was a nifty Eclipse Computer Light that I picked up from Thinkgeek and damn did that thing rock. Sadly I had to retire it to my desk instead of monitor in 2004 after I picked up my first flat panel monitor. You know flat panel being flat and all I really couldn't fit it on there anymore.

So that was December of 2004 and in July 2005 I left Kingman. In October of 2005 I moved into my current house. And along with me came the eclipse light. When I got the new office setup I had a dimmer switch on my lights so I figured that I wouldn't need the eclipse light anymore.

And for the better part of 2 years that is what I did. Then my bulbs burned out... DAMN YOU KHAN!!! (I always blame Khan for my light bulbs burning out... mainly because he's evil like that). So I do what any somewhat socially conscious person would do I head to wal-mart and purchase some Compact Fluorescent Light bulbs (Notice that I said somewhat socially conscious, if I were truly socially conscious I would have gone some place else... but that is a rant for another time). I bring home the new environmentally friendly light bulbs and duly do not install them for 2 weeks...

Finally the darkness starts to annoy me and I install the lights... much to my disappointment in my dimmer they have two settings... On and Off... it's a binary state like Drunk and Not Drunk.... I'm not pleased by my new highly illuminated surroundings. So enter my eclipse light... not only does it fit on my Dell Monitor it fit's PERFECTLY!

Yes I know it's sad when the best thing in a week that I have to blog about is my Eclipse Light... but hey at least you get a nifty picture out of it!

Obligatory Millionaire Joke....

What do you call a bunch fo Millionaire's watching the Suns and Spurs?


THE L.A. LAKERS!!

Sorry I couldn't resist.

GO SUNS!

Once again....

It's that time of year.....






















GO SUNS!!!!1111!!!!ONe11111!

Thanks Beth!

Thanks to Beth who has been hunting for a Wii for Mii for several months now!


Condolences to Mr. Smith who wasn't at lunch yesterday and couldn't speak up for it

Is that...

A SQL pocket guide in your pants or are you just happy to see me?

Tales from the punch bowl... the punch bowl that is my back porch.

Favorite thing about living in Phoenix? The wind doesn't blow 100% of the time.

Yes I know, thats pretty lame. Where I'm from though the wind never stops blowing ever... it's always windy. Here it actually dies at night, to the point where you can sit on your back porch with a beer your work pager (because your on call this week and your a good doobie) and a laptop and just start writing. Actually 5 of the last 7 posts have been made from the back porch.

Wow when you turn down the screen back light it doesn't hurt your eyes nearly as much... that is so cool.

Diffrent theme tonight... I've got "Massive Attack" on the old iTunes and the Moose Drool Beer is going down rather smoothly (thanks again Eve (the woman not the game) and Cody (the mac to my PC)).

A while back I wrote about the "file wenches" at work (as I lovingly refer to them) and how they pretty much figured I hated women. So somewhere between now and then the hot one (Izzy) has made it her personal crusade to get me to stop drinking coffee (currently I'm a 2 cup a day man). To which she has made some inroads (like I'm almost willing to try the mix stuff from Nestle...almost) now this being at work my coworkers aren't exactly helping her out... I'm a bit nasty when I haven't had my sweet sweet caffiene fix.

So as I keep asking Izzy "what is the incentive for me to give up coffee?" She and she keeps trying to break me... Risking life and limb to get to me before 9 AM on somedays to try and break me of my oh so lovely habit. To say that the deck is stacked against her is probally understating the challenge in front of her.

So if I suddenly stop drinking coffee and become way more irritable then I normally am I must have found an incentive to give up coffee.

The new coffee machine at work

Someone has been listening.

Wind w/ Fire!

So I've been dicking around with my Linux server this weekend...

It's pissing me off.

That is all I will write about Linux... needless to say the thought of lighting several DVD's on fire to exercise my Linux frustrations is really appealing to me right now.

While dicking around with said Linux box I wandered back to the ole website of long ago (rollingskull.com) which really didn't come into existence until I moved down to Phoenix but for all intents and purposes it's the same damn sight I had when I was in Kingman and doing this with Frontpage and Geo-cities.

I got to reading the old posts and I had forgotten how much I enjoyed opening up the old semi-journal to random emails from readers (all 3.2 of you). I got to thinking that I should do something like that again... then I thought if Curtis AND my brother both have a blog then there really is no point.

So while my install of CentOS 5 died for the 5th time in a row I was thinking...

Maybe what I should is something along the lines of that post card site where people mail their post cards in anonymously... it's sometimes a riot other times really sad and typically it's both on the same day.

So maybe I should open this thing up to a anonymous emails of whatever? (Thanks to Eve who reminded me it's postsecret.com is what I was thinking of)

I like the idea... and it gives you (all 3.2 of you) a little bit of interactive opportunity.

So here are the rules (I know always rules)

1. Send the email anonymously.... ideally from a one time use site it's up to you how you want to do it. If your to lazy to do that and send me an email from your regular address that kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it?

2. Send the email to cignus20 at hotmail dot com use the subject line "Wind w/ Fire!"

3. I will post received emails (if I get any at all) up here...

If you don't like the rules you don't have to email.

This one never gets old...

Which OS are You?

The stone beneath my feet.

"More hay, Trigger?"
"No thanks Roy, I'm stuffed!"

Do not believe in miracles -- rely on them

Those who don't understand Linux are doomed to reinvent it, poorly. -- unidentified source

'Interesting how the Windows™ logo is a picture of a window deteriorating...

The most likely way for the world to be destroyed, most experts agree, is by accident. That's where we come in; we're computer professionals. We cause accidents. - Nathaniel Borenstein

"Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer." Dave Barry

Free speech only goes so far until you need the right to bear arms.

The telephone is a good way to talk to people without having to offer them a drink. -- Fran Lebowitz, "Interview"

The world is coming to an end. Please log off.

You should make a point of trying every experience once -- except incest and folk-dancing. -- A. Bax, "Farewell My Youth"

"Some people shoot to kill, some people shoot to maim...they're missing the point here. the point is you get to shoot somebody." -- Scott Kern "One night in August of 2004"

Because not everyone is....

Obsessive compulsive like me....

Once again the nurds at google have done it.

http://labs.google.com/goog411/


who needs a Treo when you got this.