Because Even Zebra's have Fans!

www.nfl85.com

Tuesday night games

Tuesday nights are game night, tonight the coffee shop we meet at us
much quiter and there is fare to much studying going on.

It's weird I've never known ASU students to study...

--
Tom

"Party on Wayne"
"Party on Garth"
http://www.rollingskull.com
http://rollingskull.blogspot.com

And Grandpa always gave us hell....

Growing up my Grandfather always gave my brother and I hell because we never beat any of the Super Mario Games....

Grandpa I now give you the reason why we never beat any of those games....

You know some days this is what it feels like....

It's that time of year again!

Now Accepting Applications....

After the following txt message conversation with my brother I'm now accepting applications fill the role of "little" brother.

Little Brother - Just saw a teaser for the new Star Trek, I'm kind of immpressed
Me - Don't get me started on that pile of crap... Every self respecting nerd knows the ncc-1701 was built in space and not on the ground.
Little Brother- That's why it immpressed me.
Me - And you probally think that Orion Slave Girls should be hot and not green
Little Brother - If they want it to be a blockbuster, yes.

Please email applications or leave your application in the comment box. The successful candidate will get a box of Nilla Wafers and maybe a call out of the blue from me.

I wouldn't count on the call out of the blue from me though.

Prolonging the magic....

I work in I.T. which I'm pretty sure all 3 of you know. I'm sure all 3 of you have called me up at various intervals in the last 7 years and heard me utter the following phrase "I can't come out I'm on call".

Call at Scottsdale isn't nearly as bad as it was in Kingman. The call volume is much lower and I get paid to be on call. Lower volumes and paid or not it's still damn annoying to be on call. Mainly because it puts my social life on hold for a whole damn week.

I know what your thinking right now... Wait when did Tom get a life? It happened a long time ago but those are details that you don't need to know.

Finally this week I threw caution to the wind while "On Call" and said fuck it, I'm going to continue my social life "On Call" or not. Now I'm not a dummy if your going to talk the talk you have to walk the walk, so to that end I took advantage of several "perks" of being on call for Scottsdale. Namely a laptop (which is actually my daily usage computer for work) and a celluar broadband card (you know those nifty data cards you people with when your in the park because the park doesn't have free WiFi yet). Laptop and Broadband card aren't the only things you need when your on call you also need your pager (yes pager because in my particular line of IT work cell phones are still new fangled technology not to be trusted), Cell Phone (of course your personal cell phone because other then the random grandparent who doesn't have a cell phone these days), blue tooth head set (have to type when your on call), and since you have so much crap anyway why not throw in a backpack for good measure. Oh and don't forget the Keyfob because it looks really bad if you can't dial to fix a problem when your on call.

OK now that we have our "On Call" kit built lets go out to dinner on a Friday night at (rolls 100 sided dice for dinner location) Rula Bula! And for kicks lets round out our party with the usual D&D sterotypes (Ogre, 2x pixies,rouge on a motorcyle, and a Paladin). OK good so we have our party established (IT Geek, Ogre, 2x Pixies, rouge on a motorcycle, and a Paldin in a pear tree) off you go to dinner...... ***BUZZZ*** ***BUZZZ***

FUCK! the pager just went off.... and you are like a block from Rula Bula!.

Drop off your party and tell the rouge on the motorcyle that you have to work. The Ogre gets the laptop booted before he bails, thank you Mr. Ogre. Once again you are alone and call into the help desk to find out what the problem is, oh this is a two for one special and you are going to need to dial in. So you find a nice parking lot and log into your laptop and fire up the broad band card which con.... dammit it won't connect.

Reboot the laptop, login, restart broadband card (throw the dice to see if it will connect this time....) and nope no connection. Repeat this act 4 more times in the next 10 minutes. While rebooting also throw a dice for how helpfull the report from the helpdesk is... not very.

So at this point it's very apparent that your laptop isn't going to work with the broadband card, start looking for a Starbucks. Hey look a Borders! They have WiFi and are always quiet on the inside. OH look all the inside tables are full, but there are a few out side that open it's only 100 degrees and you won't be dialed in for long. You sit down and start looking for WiFi score you found some! Your finally logged in to work have your bluetooth rockin this problem (throw dice for ambient noise...) This is when you notice the following things... The water fountain built in to the ground... the two guys who are far to faboulus to the left... and the two women who have hair cut to a #1 blade... both couples are not being quiet neither is the water fountain and (roll for help desk volume) the help desk is speaking in a very soft voice as well.

Damit...

Your quest for a quiet place begins again... after several minutes you find (roll for location...) the drive through of a Bank of America. So with laptop, bluetooth, and empty drive through you begin your quest to start fixing what ailes your caller. So starts your saga... (roll for time to fix problem...) 1 hour later in the same bank of america drive through you finally fix the problem (roll for problem fix...) by rebooting the whole damn server.

You close the laptop, and deposit all of the items into your back pack of IT trinkets and stash the bag in the truck. You find your way to Rula Bula! to rejoin your party. Upon rejoining your party you sit down (roll for action....) and drink the Ogre's beer.

The Ogre is not pleased.

Can you identify?

This device and it's purpose?


Winner gets a beer and a couple quality hours with Grand Theft Auto.

Still Alive...

Yes I'm still here outside of the random picture message to this rather dried up and crusty part of the internet.

Yes I'm Still Alive

That said... what the hell have I been doing?

Well the things that stand out in my mind are several marathon sessions of Rock Band in Colorado and even more marathon sessions of Grand Theft Auto in Arizona.

Speaking of Colorado I went to "Beer Mecca" aka "The Fat Tire Brewery" so there is that.

But yeah alot of Rock Band and Grand Theft Auto.

Rock Band has a strange effect on how I listen to music, no longer do I listen to a song I start to think about how the various pieces parts will interact in Rock Band... Like the drum opening to "Jambi" by TOOL... or the Guitar Solo's in just about any Led Zepplin or Pink Floyd song. I have questions about Pearl Jam too specifcally "Lukin" At one point there was supposed to be the capablity to import your iTunes library into Rock Band and be able to play those songs. I'm sure that got nixed because some record label exec was mad that they weren't making a sufficent amount of money from anything.

I do have say, any time I hear a Disturbed song on the radio I cringe when I think about the guitars/drums/vocals that would be required in Rock Band.

Good bye Denver

It has been a good trip!

No really welcome to Denver...

Ok that is more like it!

Welcome to Denver international...

From Eve (the woman not the game)

I got this txt message from Eve... I have to say I'm both disturbed and simultaneously proud of her .

"What do I type to get root?"

Why I love LINUX reason #356

When typing a privileged command you get this...

***************
tom@tk-linuxpacs:~> sudo wireshark

We trust you have received the usual lecture from the local System
Administrator. It usually boils down to these three things:

    #1) Respect the privacy of others.
    #2) Think before you type.
    #3) With great power comes great responsibility.

root's password:

*******************

Lets see Windows do that!

Great American past time enjoyment.

D'backs for the win!

When turning left is more then you can handle...

So I went to NASCAR for the spring race here in Phoenix last week. I am just now finally coming back into alignment with the universe.

More importantly the redneck smell has gone back to normal levels that I got calls from a few friends out of the blue. I did not know that redneck could be transmitted via cell phone.

It was a good time and lots and lots and lots and lots of cars turning left. And like any major sporting event half of the fun is the people watching. NASCAR is a most fertile ground. Grab a beer, find a concrete barrier and just wait. You will not be disappointed. TRUST ME!

What kind of people? The whole gamut... Professionals playing hookey from work (yours truly), guys with really nice Class A motorhomes that fix their NASCAR flagpoles on the top of their RV with a cigarette hanging out of their mouths, and the mullet is alive and well at NASCAR.

Am I going back?

You betcha!

Am I going to upgrade my accommodations? Not right away but hey you never know what could happen next.

Your tax dollars at work

April 7, it's an important day....

For many reasons, among them....

1933 - Prohibition is repealed for beer of no more than 3.2% alcohol by weight, eight months before the ratification of the XXI amendment.

1964 - IBM announces the System/360.

1969 - The Internet's symbolic birth date: publication of RFC 1.

And not just events important people have been born on this day too!

1954 - Jackie Chan, Hong Kong actor

1964 - Russell Crowe, New Zealand actor

1975 - Ronde Barber, American football player
1975 - Tiki Barber, American football player

And some really important people passed away on this day as well.

1997 - Tomoyuki Tanaka, Japanese film producer (Godzilla) (b. 1910)

1947 - Henry Ford, American automobile manufacturer and industrialist (b. 1863)

And it's a particularly special day in Compton...

Compton, California - Eazy-E Day

Pretty much all of this stolen from the good folks at wikipedia...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_7

I will find my way from your lost wheel....

I know the weather has been way to good when I've been spending more time out doors then I have indoors. I'm move just as much when I'm outdoors (little to none) but the bright side is that I'm way more motivated to write.

And I can hear the clicks of like 3 maybe 4 mice right now as they all close their web browsers and go do something constructive rather then sit there and read this drivel.

Cool now that everyone has left lets turn the geek up to 11 here.

-- OSIRIX a DICOM VIEWER

OK chances are 99% of you have never dealt with this application before. It's a Open Source application for the Mac OS that is capable of advanced diagnostic image manipulation and reading. Translation, it's a program for looking at X-rays in digital format.

Nothing special in my world.

It's actually a pretty nifty program and I do have it loaded on my Mac and it works as advertised. Now normally something being either;

A. Open Source
B. DICOM Capable

Would not warrant mention on their own. Heck even together they barely merit mentioning. Then why talk about them? There are two versions of Osirix one being 32bit and the other being 64bit. The main difference other then the processing bits that the program utilizes is that you have to pay $149 for the 64bit extensions on a Open Source program.

I gotta say I'm having mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand they are doing nothing different from Redhat/Suse/Mandriva and the other big Open Source vendors if you want their "product" you can pay for it. Here's the rub though, every one of those products is available to freely download and use if you choose to. When you buy a license you are in effect buying support for the product. Which has been common practice for years and will continue to be. With Osirix this does not appear to be the case. You download the product and their is no support option if you would like the same product with 64bit extensions then you get the privelage of paying for it. Which when your spending $8k on a Mac Pro processing station $149 doesn't seem like much. To me though it seems dishonest from the Osirix group and flies in the face of everything that Open Source stands for.

Point is this, I don't care if a company/group/gang makes a product under Open Source and then tries to make a buck off of it. They have that right so long as the source code and all of it's pieces parts are available to whomever would like it. My biggest thing with this project is that Osirix is distributing under a GNU license yet I can't find anything on their site about the status of their 64bit offering.

Most frustrating.

Of course these are things that only I would worry about.

-- Blackberries

I'm talking about the cell phone email machines that run on celluar networks and not the fruit.

Though the fruit is most delicious.

A while back I traded my Treo 700P for a Blackberry Pearl on the Verizon network. It was a good trade. The Treo was/is a good phone, but the best way to describe smartphones is one of two ways. Those that are PDA's with phone functionality (Treo, Most Windows Mobile devices) and those that are phones with PDA functionality (Blackberry, iPhone, Sidekick, Symbian). For a while I figured I was after a PDA with phone functionality so I picked up a Treo. And while it was a good phone the speed and parts of the interface left alot to be desired in my book. Also the fact that it could be used as a defense weapon was not helping it's cause either.

The Pearl defiantly falls into the phone first category. The interface moves much more smoothly then the Treo did and sound quality is excellent (it was on the treo as well). For me the best part has been the size of the device which is very small and can be fit into most any pocket. Unlike the Treo which while it could go into a pocket it really felt much more comfortable on the outside in a holster like device. But why is this worth writing about? Simple the Blackberry works flawlessly with my 64bit Windows Vista. The Treo never as able to pull that trick off.

I flirt with the idea of letting the contract expire and then buying a iPhone, but I have a couple of qualms with this. First it's the AT&T network in Phoenix which has never inspired much faith in me (and reading reviews on the gadget blogs it seems like Phoenix isn't the only place where the AT&T wireless network would appear to be having issues). Second paying full price for a phone and still having to sign a two year contract? Bullshit I will do that!

So as I sit here waiting for a stable unlock of the iPhone from AT&T's network in the States so I can take it over to T-Mobile where their network may suck just as bad but at least they have great customer service!

OH and I won't have to sign one of those pesky contracts either. Of course a CDMA iPhone would be even sweeter, and I'm sure that will come with the flying pigs.

Reqium for a morning show....

I never had a morning show until I moved to Phoenix.

We got Vegas radio in Kingman, but I was never up early enough to listen to it and when I was my total drive time was all of 5 minutes (10 if I was going to the other side of town)

I never got up before noon when I lived in Flag.

When I first got down here Scott recommended the morning sickness to me... and I didn't care for it fart jokes and all. I instead drifted to Chuck Powell's Morning Ritual. It was smart, funny, and they played music (which at the time for me was a big deal). That was 2005.

So in the 2.5 years since I moved to Phoenix, a few things have changed like for instance The Morning Ritual. It is so canned and pre-formed now it makes me sick... 7 to 7:30 is the topic of the day call in (todays was worst daytime soap opera story line ever) after that I stop listening because it takes me 20 minutes to get into work. When I listen in work it's the same kind of drivel interviews and other things, but nothing substatinal and it all fits very nicely into the space of a 3 minute chunk of time.

I think the start of the long down hill slide was last year when Vince left... Yeah I'm pretty sure that was it. They started cutting corners here and there (the call in thing) news from the edge at the bottom of every hour (used to be twice once at 6:40 and 9:20). I think the thing that finally killed the Morning Ritual for me was last friday...I was listening to the Morning Sickness during their "Easter Keg" hunt and that is when I realized I was listening to the wrong show.

Well maybe that and Guadalupe Squares as well....

Yesterday I decided to give the Morning Ritual one more chance... and Chuck kept saying "Chuck, Colin, and Sam with you" oh no problem... Cori and Drew are just out sick they will be back tomorrow. I tune in again this morning, same thing weird, normally Chuck says something about people being sick. Don't ask me why but I decided to swing by the morning ritual myspace page and no mention of Cori or Thrillride... I bounce over to Cori James's personal myspace page and sure enough she was let go due to "budget cuts". A little more digging around the intertubes reveals that Drew is gone too.

/sigh the least they could have done is announced it maybe they did and I just missed it. Sadly the morning ritual is no more for me.

I've never given up on a morning show before.

At least it didn't become a Mariachi station on me.

The Song Remains the Same...

It's not often I get a text message that says "fuck you, I'm going home" it's even less often when I get that very same text message from my own phone. Needless to say my liver is not real happy with me and hasn't come out from under the bed for a couple of days now.

The reason?

Oh that's easy, I spent the weekend in Californa for Kinsey's wedding. Which I have to say as weddings go is one of the better ones I have been to. The personal highlight for me was the "Super C" theme as done by the "Minibosses" which if you haven't checked out well you will know very quickly if you will like them or not. As always the groom looked his damn goofy self and the bride looked stunning... Congrats guys.

And is true for all people in their late twenties when someone gets married it's a reason to spend money and abuse your liver... Which is why mine is snoozing rather soundly under the bed. Along with the drinking there was much discussion on everything under the sun, but the discussion that sticks with me the most is the one about music.

Basically it went something like this....
Nick... I usually give the iTunes store $12 a week, but I haven't been lately since nothing good has come out.
Tom/Scott/Cody.... it's not you nothing good has come out recently.
Curtis was there but he was more interested in the either the magazine or the basketball game it's hard telling with him.

That one conversation sent me down a deep dark path of thinking of what have I bought recently that is good?

The last album I bought was Bauhaus, which is a 80's new wave band that has put out their last album ever. It's ok I don't like it as much as I thought I would. This was all in the last two weeks.

Before Bauhaus, the last album I bought was the remastered Led Zeppelin Collection "Mothership" which I have been listening to alot since I bought it in November.

And as I look at the iTunes emails from the last year or so with very few exceptions I have mainly been buying "Bests Of" Talking Heads, Social Distortion, Led Zeppelin. Along with some older stuff... Pink Floyd and a couple of missing pieces parts in my Soundgarden/Pearl Jam collection.

The new music I've picked up has been real hit and miss....

The Raconteurs... not as good as I expected, but not bad
Silversun Pickups.... Crap
Chris Cornell's new album..... mostly crap
Chemical Brothers.... weak compared to their older stuff
Smashing Pumpkins.... weak and completely forgettable (in the interest of full disclosure I find 98% of Pumpkins stuff to be crap)

Mind you I had to look through my old email receipts from iTunes to tell you what I bought. So on the whole pretty forgettable.

The only band I have nothing bad to say about is "The Yeah Yeah Yeahs" and that is pretty much it.

Of course looking at the new music on iTunes I saw that "Fall Out Boy" has covered "Beat it"

I really hope that works out as well for them as it did for that band that covered that other Michael Jackson song a few years ago.

Now if you will excuse me, I'm going to go try and coax my liver from out under my bed.

Where I decide California isn't all bad.

A few moments that make think California is kinda nice. Shocking since I'm from Arizona.

You know while I'm at it...

This story isn't helping my love of airlines....

http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/03/love-it-or-hate.html

Edit #1

So while I'm sitting on the public Wi-Fi at Sky Harbor I going to blog some more... this part is really more for Eve (the woman not the game) because she was somewhat intersted in the kind of people that goto a NASCAR race (and Eve if you want to go just let me know we will goto the fall race).

Here now I give you my running observations of technology at the airport....

Laptops.... Including myself there are 7 laptops that I can see in about a 50 ft radius... three of them are Macs (two white iBooks and my Mac Pro) two are Dells and one is a HP... not surprising the users of the Macs are all under 30.

Cell phones... ususal suspects.... lots of razors and mid to low range flips from a variety of carriers... highest concentration of "smart phones" was in the bar... and it was a 3 to 1 ratio of Blackberries to Treo's. A couple of random windows mobile smartphones and only 3 iPhones the whole time in the airport. I expected there to be more iPhones. The Razor is still the worlds favorite cell phone probally because the world is two cheap to upgrade out of contract.

There seem to be a unusal number of people wearing Balitmore Ravens Shirts... I haven't figured this out yet.... I bet if I look on the departure board I will see a flight to Balitmore.

Cell phone talking is the favorite past time of people in the airport... reading is second... strange guys blogging on their Mac's is third.


OK I need to find the little bloggers room my beer is catching up with me.

A Post we've all read before....

Flying to San Diego (Spanish for "The Whale's Vagina") for a California wedding.

As usually happens when I fly what can only be described as my own personal version of a anxiety attack. So I give you now the three reasons I hate to fly... and if you have been reading for a while you know these reasons already. Please feel free to review there will be a test when I see you next.

Unless your pregnant in which case you get a free pass.

1. If the seat cushions turn into a floatation device in the event of water landing why doesn't the plane turn into a boat?

2. I'm pretty sure the plane will take me directly to the scene of the crash... I'm also going to bet we beat the paramedics there.

3. I'm not happy that Southwest does not provide parachutes.

I personally only take credit for #3 the other two I stole from other "things"

At least the two $8 24oz Air port beers are helping.

Pigs (three diffrent ones)

So with the recent demise of HD-DVD as a viable High Definition physical video format I've been kicking around the idea of making the jump to Blu-Ray and all of it's glory. This thought was helped when my brother bought a PS3. And since he is not a game one can only assume that he bought it for Blu-Ray movies. And over the course of the last month or so as I've mulled this decision over in one form or another I kept hearing about how integrated the PS3 was and all of the other normal chest thumping when the users of one particular technology smell blood and indecision in the water.

I honestly had not been bombarded with so many reasons as to why the PS3 was superior to every other platform out there since Jr. High when Donny Witt and I used to spend hours on end taunting each other as to which was the greater the 16-bit system Super Nintendo or Sega Genesis. Hey when your 13 these things make a difference. And just for the record the Super Nintendo still kicks the Sega Genesis's little white butt!!!1!11!!0ne

However I digress, so through some weird combination of coworkers, an alignment of stars, and a promise to not hack or break anything I have been loaned a PS3.

Que jaw dropping... for those of you keeping track the last time I owned a Sony system willingly was 1996 when I bought the then state of the art Sony Play-station using money from my job at Albertson's. I had sold it within a year and bought a N64 which I still have to this day. I do have a PS2 that my brother gave to me, however I have not hooked it up and have made no attempt to. In the ten years since I sold that first Play-station I've bought two other Nintendo systems and when I've played them I've enjoyed them immensely. Key phrase "when I play them". I'm a PC gamer and I hold a special place in my game playing heart for all things Nintendo as I've often stated here I don't care much about games other then are they fun? And my general experince with Nintendo games is I often find them to be immensely fun!

So what gives with the change of heart? First off, at $400 the PS3 is a bargain of Blu-Ray player right now and will be BD 2.0 compliant when that spec comes out. And since Blu-Ray is a Sony format you know damn well that any future profiles will be supported by the PS3. Second it's backwards compatible with that gianormous library of PS2 games and more then a few are sure to classics when we look back on them in 10 or 15 years (classics in the way I see "Super Metroid" and "The Legend of Zelda a Link to the Past" as great games of my youth). Finally all of the new gaming platforms support some sort of link to your PC so you can play movies, show pictures, and stream music to your living room (sorry Windows only apparently Mac/Linux et all don't want to support or just don't care to support anything that would make their platforms accessible to the box in the living room (yes Tivo does run a Linux Kernel, but it's heavily modified and we will get to why that is not a media platform in a bit)).

So for the past 5 days I've been playing with a PS3...

It's more fun then I expected so it's got that running for it. The downloadable games from the Play-station Network makes ALOT of sense and I do I really like it. Even if the selection is somewhat limited at the current time. Hooking up with my home network was no worse an experince then the Wii or the Tivo was. It's a good media server for the front room of the house and I could see me streaming things to the PS3 with out to much of a stretch of the imagination. The games were "OK" I had a couple loaded onto the Hard Drive (Teken 5 being the closest thing to a "A" title and unless your a 12 to 18 y/o male a fighting game won't hold your interest for long). Teken has held up suprisingly well over the last decade or so and I have to give the the developers credit it's still the fighter to beat. "Call of Duty4" was a abysmal experince.... the game looked good, but I've never liked FPS type games on a console with the loan exception being the "Metroid" games. I'm a PC gamer first and foremost and "COD4" on the PS3 reminded me of why this is in spades.

So what finally turned me completely off to the PS3? My cable provider! One of the big points of the PS3 is that you can stream music and videos off of it onto your PSP over the wireless network in your home or the internet! And the PSP can play Tivo To Go files too! Imagine my utter dismay when I was presented with the following screen.



And this is true for about 85% of the shows on my Tivo, there doesn't appear to be any rhyme or reason other then for some obscure reason Cox sees fit to set the copy protection flag on certain programs. Ultimately this what led me away from the PS3/PSP combo more on principle then problems with technology. Since if you look on current TIVO and PSP advertising they each tout how you can transfer tv shows from your Tivo to your PSP! This killed it for me right here.

That and after watching "300" on Blu-Ray I could not tell a difference in picture quality, but the sound did seem improved. Not enough of a reason to switch physical media formats. But enough to give me faith that Apple may be onto something with the Apple Tv.

Good night and good luck.

3 more to go...

So Christmas was a while back and as is tradition in the Kern household we gave each other gifts... Parent's get the kids junk, kids get the parents junk, and the cycle perpetuates itself. This year was a little bit different as the junk count was down, but the at the time percived awesomeness factor was up.

My little brother got me a ice chest filled with Coors, now the gift was the ice chest but he couldn't give it to me empty so he gave it to me with a 30 pack of Coors in it. With each CAN being lovingly wrapped by himself and his assitant.

Did I mention there were a few that were double wrapped? No? They were....

So for the better part of the last 2 months I have had all of this damn beer in my fridge slowly working my way through it. Because as we all know I like fat tire and Guinness, in a pinch or when I'm on call I will drink Coors.

Why not throw it out? Well first off it was a gift that is just rude, and second you don't throw out or cook with beer (except keystone it's ok to cook w/ keystone just replace all water wth beer). So I've been "suffering" through getting all of this damn beer drunk.

I'm down to my last three and two of them will be gone in the next hour and after that I only have one more to go.

Finally....

And what did I do to extract revenge on my brother? I bought him "Call of Duty4" for his birthday. He gives me coors, I give him somehting that will suck the social life out of him. I'm just evil like that.



Happy leap day!

Cool!!

As someone who like both Anime and Batman I find this to very cool.

Imagine if....

Rich didn't care for me all that much... instead of being a side note in part of his contest I would be the target of the contest.

Let this be a lesson to you folks don't piss off a security geek.

P.s. check out the contest since I think there are a couple of you out there that may have a story that qualifies.

Rich's rather cool contest... at least I think so.

Oh and for the record I did not call Rich a slacker, I said I was looking forward to him typing while drugged up. Ok same difference.

Up in smoke?

I don't often take a activist type stand on the old blog but I thought that this particular story merited some additional time and analysis above and beyond the usual mass of not caring that I usually imbue on to a article in the East Valley Tribune.

http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/story/109768

The cruxt of the article is this. In 2006 the voters of the state of Arizona passed a law that made it illegal for people to smoke in public places you know bars, restaurants, theaters, museums, libraries, and doctors offices. You know all the places it was already illegal to smoke, but now it was just actually put down into law.

The original intent of the law was good and I will admit I've enjoyed going out much more now that there isn't a cloud of tobacco smoke hanging over every nook and cranny of every place that I go to. However we as a society need to question the actions the of the Arizona Department of Health in going after these particular establishments. They don't serve food and only have a liquors lisc so that they can provide a full variety of drinks to the customers. I think it would be safe to say that Mr. and Mrs. along w/ Peanut will not be going to one of these establishments.

So why then is the Arizona Department of Health on what amounts to a crusade against these places? That I cannot answer since I'm not a investigative blogger I'm just a guy who's been to Stogie Cutters down the street a few and have grown to know Rich and Jen (the owners). Do I smoke cigars? Not a regular basis, I've given it a couple of shots, but the results are never positive. I do however like the clientele that shows up there and sometimes you just have to watch the Suns play with other people who care.

I've never been one who agrees with the state taxing "sin" items (alcohol/tobacco) but I put up with it since it's about the only way that any taxes get paid in Arizona it seems. Hey I live in a urban area I want my police department to armed to the teeth and well trained. As it stands today the Mesa Police Department is well trained and doing a stand up job, but if things keep going like they have been that won't be the case for long.

So basically what I'm saying is we all need to call the Arizona Department of Health Services on this and tell them to knock it off. They may be trying to help, but at this point they are doing more harm then good.

Ramble on...

Must be a presidential election year... sure as the tides change, the moon has an eclipse, and our country goes into the bowels of a of yet another election cycle I look up from whatever the hell it is that I'm doing and go... "shit I'm tired of how I've been blogging for the last 4 years I need to change some things up."

So if you've been wondering where the hell I've been at for the last six weeks other then a couple of sub par posts most of my time has been spent in fierce battles of Team Fortress 2 or honing my skills as a interstellar space pirate. Which is to say I've picked EVE (the game not the pregnant blogger we all know and love (but not love her, like her husband)) in between my fits of flights of fancy I've also managed to keep my thoughts coherent and focused long enough to put together two websites. One of a professional nature and the other... well we are just going to have to say that it's the natural evolution of what I do at night when I'm not doing what I do so well during the day.

The professional site is azpacs.org and is geared to be a site for the busy informatics professional. It's a work in progress and I've enlisted some help that and my TG-WOW said I needed to get another tax write off. So I went and built me another tax write off. Just hope it pasts muster with the TG-WOW next year.

The other site is a honest to god serious attempt at a word press type blog.

So your probaly asking what the address is... well I'm not going to tell you, but I will give you a hint. I'm not a terribly creative person and the main content of the address is already contained within the address of this pile of drivel.

Now why start a word press type blog? Well two things really 1. I'm always up for experimenting with new apps and I've heard generally positive things about word press. 2. Cody told me how much he was paying for hosting and when I looked at what I was paying and not getting from my old provider I decided to move... and as with most things that involve me a few beers and rainy weekend it just kind of snowballed from there.

For the time being I will be keeping both blogs going updating one and then the other. I'm not totally committed to the idea of moving the blog. I've figured out a few things that I can do to help make the transition easier, but I have to get other pieces parts working.

And just in case your sitting in your jammies with a rocky mountain high going on around you I'm writing this email on my back porch at 8:00 at night, it's 60 degrees, and not a snowflake to be found.

Of course come July we will see who's laughing last.

Provided I haven't spontaneously combusted.

Beyond tunnel vision.... like shadows into the light

If your a new reader you've probally never read my reasons to get a TG-WoW do yourself a favor and go read that post right now. For the rest of you who continue to not listen to my advice I don't want to hear any whining.

You know who you are.

The weather has been excpitonally warm this weekend and as a direct result I've been spending a fair amount of time in the backyard. This has led me to a revelation of sort. Why on earth are pine trees planted in the desert? It's not like we have ton's of water out here yet I have two 30 foot+ pine trees in my back yard. The house in Kingman also had two giant pine trees! Really what possesses someone to plant these giant water sucking trees? You know if you could make beer from the things I could understand. Still that is just stupid ya know?

I think I'm just bitter I have to clean up all of those pine needles and don't get any of those Rocky Mountain Views.

Yes, I like Phoenix I just have to question some random person's motivation every now and again.

In our continuing series....

Our continuing series of things that are wrong with the world today....

First up I present the "Fox Sports Football Robot".


I don't need to go further, the grass skirt should be all that you need.












Just a whole diffrent level of evil... and the back label actually said "Made with the same high quality ingredients as our beers". Just what the world needs tasteless BBQ sauce.

For the record the missing one is from someone else I opted for the "Ladies and Gentlemen my life is in this bottle" bottle of Stubbs BBQ sauce instead.





Thanks for reading our continuing series of things that just shouldn't be. Good night and good luck.

I believe in miracles....

I believe in Eli Manning and the New York Giants, they can and will beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl.

What gives me this confidence and insight?

I'm a Cardinals Fan! We had a not losing season this year therefor the NFC team in the Super Bowl must win when playing in a NFC teams home field! If nothing else I do feel that the Patriots should be taken down a rung or two on the old totem pole.

What more can you ask for?

A hail Mary or three and hope the either Tom Brady or Randy Moss trips over a Playmate at the Playboy party.

What not to get for your babies crib

This is for all the pregnant friends who are from arizona and now live someplace else.

I think I have a new favorite game reviewer....

Even if you don't like gaming (eve/cody/brandi/scott/everybody else) you can apperciate this guy.

The one with alot of words...

No I haven't been watching friends... there is no gratitous nudity in that show. And I'm on a Led Zepplin kick so it's kind of hard to use a line from one of their songs.

Why?

Because there are 3 other posts in the last 4 years with some sort of Led Zepplin refrence. Ok here's a game for you, find two of the three titles with lines from Led Zepplin songs and you will win dinner on me... and when I say on me I will meet you at like a Chilli's in a strip mall some placy buy you a beer and dinner. I'm not really going to let you eat dinner on me unless you 20 something cute and female in which case goto town.

Now your probally asking yourself why only 4 years for this game Tom? Well that's easy that is about how long I've been on blogger you don't honestly expect me to expect you to search all 8 years of this shit do you?

Wait 7 years? Oh good lord it has been 7 years... December 1, 2000. I started blogging in the 20th century! There has to be some sort of award for that. "And now to present Tom with the award for the most pristine and occasionally amusing pile of shit on the intertubes is Kate Beckensile" (and if Kate Beckensile isn't around snag Cylon Model Eight aka Boomer aka Athena to present the award) This pile of crap is older then some of my friends kids and is defitnaly older then all of their marriages.

I wonder if it's time to graduate from blogger to a honest to goodness domain name and some sort of open source web2.0 social networking esque website with a content managment system that would allow me to blog in real time as I thought of something, post pictures when ever I saw something that was amusing to me!

Or I can have another beer and go get some books packaged together for more friends having their first peanut.

I think I'm going to do that, personal jesus would be proud.

On how many levels?

is this wrong?

With his mind he says.... "NO MORE"

Hmmm I guess I should explain my title this evening. I'm listening to music as I often do when I write. And in the case of this evening I happen to be listening to a playlist I call "Seattle Sounds" which if you can't figure out from the title contains mainly music from Seattle like Pearl Jam.

So when I start writing I write the line that is playing when I open the page... and in this case it happens to be what amounts to a Pearl Jam protest song, against President Bush.

Why do I feel the need to explain this? I have alot of knuckle dragging republican family members that read this drivel... And I mean knuckle dragging in the most positive sense of the word possible :)

Ok now that I've offended 2.8 of my readers lets get on with it already.

So a loooooonnnnnnngggggg while back I was having a beer with a coworker and her husband who had just started his own I.T. consulting business. As we sat their drinking our Fat Tires in the late Arizona summer the subject turned to blogs and other thing web 2.0. At which point Rich (the coworkers husbands name) tells me about his blog Securosis. A couple of weeks later coworker and I are talking and I mention I've been reading Rich's blog and mention what I like and don't like... Ok I mainly like everything I'm an encouraging person like that.

A week or so later coworker comes back and says something to the effect that Rich liked the feedback and if there is anything I want to ask him I can and he will publish it on his blog. Several weeks pass and I can't come up with any thing good, finally I come up with this little gem

Yeah it's not much but I think it's cool and Rich is respected in the I.T. security blogger circuit. At least I didn't ask him about the best ways to find new and intersting p0rn... I'm pretty sure I have that one covered.

Don't you trip like I do?

You know I really need to do something about all of this crap on my floors and all of the tripping that then follows the crap around. It's bad enough I'm tripping lord forbid the roomba trip over itself...

Oh yeah I got what could only be called two of the most throughly awesome xmas gifts one being a 30 pack of Coors light (individually wrapped (thanks Scott)) and a Roomba (Thanks Grandpa, people are going to have to work hard to top that gift) The roomba is a awesome little piece of technology while it does not replace traditional cleaning it makes the time between cleanings a little less dirty. I've actually been very surprised at how well it works, and it has a 5 pin serial port so we all know what that means... roombas with chain guns and rockets.

I may have to put a lift kit and beer cooler on the thing to just to complete the redneck motif.

Oh and I need to find a Tony Stewart bumper sticker for the roomba too!

Hopefully everyone had a quiet and pregnant new year where no streaking or feats of mass quantities of alcohol were consumed... Hell I was just happy that I didn't spend this year curled up in a ball sick like I have 3 of the last 4 years. I did break with one tradition this year and watch Dick Clark on ABC... uh yeah... he's going on the top of my death pool this year or at the very least most likely to end up cryogenically frozen in Scottsdale.

What does 2008 hold in store? Who knows thats why linear time is so cool! My only hope is that 2008 holds more quality strippers then 2007 did (for the record the # of quality strippers in 2007 was 8 one night in April)

And world peace... but honestly I would just be happy with more strippers.