Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Sunday, December 21, 2008

When did I get to minnesota?

(lovely weather for a crv-ride together)

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

breaking news!

Asshat gives child controversial name and acts surprised by controversy.

Godwin's Law


no word on whether he has a little girlfriend named Eva.


it's appealing

Zero Punctuation - Waters of Knowledge mug @ SplitReason.com
Zero Punctuation - Waters of Knowledge mug design @ © SplitReason.com

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Mid-december flurry

Don't know if I'd call it a wonderland.. Last night at 11pm it looked like daylight outside. The streetlights diffused through falling snow.

Pond is definitely frozen out back, but it's not a foot deep in this part. Later I'll need to go see how the fountain is.

The good news is that that pic above is oriented the way i wanted it to be.

The better news is that there are a number of pages available of the Tao of Igor. Scroll down, hit next, repeat as necessary.. How sweet it tasted



i came close to using the bangles version

hold onto your hopes

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

how not to win at fantastic contraption:

http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=4851544

Yeah, I've been playing a lot of contraption lately.

http://FantasticContraption.com/?designId=4851814 is a bit better.

beyond your latest ad campaign

Friday, December 5, 2008

Love y'all....

"My power is my mass times the speed of light squared"

Thursday, December 4, 2008

tis the season..

Work in the support department has been slowing down enough to breathe a little. . May have another update later today.


i demand a rematch

what the hell is with the blue band around his head?


[edit -- apparently i'm not as original as i thought i was]


Friday, November 28, 2008

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Whozits and whatsits aplenty

Greetings from my new computer!

It's put together, more or less. Assembled with blood, sweat, toil and tears.

Well, tears mostly.

Initial assembly happened a day or two ago. Case-- mobo -- cpu -- fan, plug in various thingies.

Shelved. Yesterday I put more parts together. Put the little backplate on (had to pull the motherboard to get it on there, and then push hard and screw in the mobo to put it in place.

Powered it on. There was a long beep, three short beeps, an unhappy sounding beep, and then the computer shut down.

I connected it to a monitor and tried again.

Apparently there were a few issues
-- cpu fan error
-- no keyboard detected (I knew that, I hadn't plugged on in yet)
-- usb unhappy (I don't remember the exact error message)

I disconnected the usb for the front of the pc from the mobo (I'm sorry, audience -- motherboard, the thing all the other components connect to)

No more 15-second shut-down, but warned of no OS. Understood, I need to connect a drive and install an OS. Probably ubuntu. I'm going to work hard at not putting any pirated software on here..

This brings me to today. Have time and resources to put in a cd rom (borrowed out of an old machine someone gave me, it would do until i could spend the meager amount of money for a SATA dvd burner.

Power on with keyboard, mouse, ubuntu install cd.. No luck. Kernel panic!

Screwed around with bios http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifoptions, pulled the video card, pulled one of the ramsticks, pulled the hard drive's connecting cable.. something was seriously unhappy.

I checked on the cpu fan error. I hadn't been too concerned about it because apparently there are going to be multiple places to plug in a cpu fan on a motherboard. If you don't put it on the right one, the BIOS (the OS of the motherboard itself) won't know the fan is working. It spun up, so I went into the BIOS option to ignore readings from the cpu fan.

I started testing with a windows install cd as well. BSOD every time the process got to "starting up windows" or something similar. It was consistent..

Grumble, growl, google, repeat. I finally tested unplugging the old cd rom drive and starting up, leaving the "unable to boot" message on the screen. 20 minutes later it was still there. I yanked out that cd drive, and removed the DVD-rom drive from my other PC and put it in.

Success! I was suddenly able to install. Everything works... well.

Outstanding problems --
1. CPU Fan Error -- The "right" connector on the motherboard, according to it's user guide, has four pins. The power plug fits three. That's why I put it on what is apparently intended for an extra chassis fan. I think I'll have to be calling some tech support folks, or googling it.

2. Front USB ports -- The plugs for these have been conveniently prebundled into a brick by the computer case's maker. However, the problem I'm having can apparently be caused when the case maker and the motherboard maker don't agree on what order they should be in. So I have to check the wires on the brick against the diagram in the user guide. A project for another day, I think

3. I was going to have the very clever arrangement of
Flatscreen monitor to "primary" slot on video card, old clunker monitor to secondary, through a KVM switch, which will also connect to other PC. That way I can switch back and forth on the old monitor between them, but have whatever screen is on the primary monitor stay. Somehow this arrangement upset my kvm switch, it started spastically jumping between them. Could be a coincidence, a byproduct of new connections it wasn't used to. Could even be that my new computer is supplying more power than the KVM switch would prefer. Either way, I may be going to a two-keyboard and mouse setup, or installing synergy.

4. I'm going to have to spend some time figuring out how to get games running on the linux build. Hopefully after christmas I'll have fallout3 and "the orange box", neither of which is likely to run on the old pc. Not sure if either will run happily in emulation on this box. I may have to dual-boot, or virtualize.

[edit] i now have a two-headed configuration with xinerama running (so I can throw an application from screen one to screen 2. the nvidia driver is working. couldn't load it with envy, had to use nvidia's own loader. Also it turns out I need to open a terminal session and run sudo nvidia-config, running it from the gui breaks because it doesn't have the right permissions. I tried editing the run command for nvidia-config by adding sudo, but that causes my computer to hang. Have to reboot as it sits waiting for a password on a terminal session which I can't access. Almost metaphysical, that is.


10 09 AM -- Restate my assumptions..

Sunday, November 16, 2008

not sick (or as sick) anymore...

have some thoughts, but they may wait a bit longer

sleepy now.

Isn't he a bit like you and me

Thursday, October 30, 2008

i'm hanging by a thread here..

This morning I had a weird moment of gnostic crisis as I passed by a leaf hanging from a spiderweb. At least, I perceived it that way. I couldn't actually see the thread, the leaf appeared to be floating in the air. It wasn't necessarily swaying in a way to imply that it was suspended, but maybe the line went down to the bottom.

As I didn't verify this, for all i know it could be held up by magic. I was tempted to go back and test this theory, but I was
a) in a hurry
b) unsure I wanted to dispel the illusion...

What does it say if I'm afraid to test whether something is really magic or not? I know spiderwebs exist, it doesn't bother me especially. Am I concerned about confronting myself with the idea that magic doesn't?

Should have taken a photo

I know this isn't a freaking novel. At least it's not more offsite links.



I can hold my head still

Saturday, October 25, 2008

my new desktop image

























Sorry for another link this morning


honestly i am planning on doing some writing this weekend.

isn't anyone noticing my blatant whitespace?


sweeter each season..

Friday, October 24, 2008

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

close to home...





continuing with the linkage because my brain isn't working..

i really recommend the escapist this week

they have a series of articles on "god" games... I was thinking the other night about reinstalling Black & White.

building a big boat to leave here for good

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

About which I am still confused about.

Ending sentences with prepositions...


I've been fighting an uphill battle in my own speech lately, trying not to end sentences with "of, about, under, off, at", and other relational items.

You see, the problem is that I'm speaking a bastardized germanic pigdin created so romanized angles and their saxon neighbors could sell sheep to one another.

Oh, and I've been sick in the sense of "long string of coughs followed by blowing my nose like a foghorn". My co-workers haven't been amused.

this man is a genius

Friday, October 10, 2008

I'll claim I'm just doing this because I'm sick

Actually I'm doing just this from now on because it's so much easier than typing.




band montage...

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Positive thought.

No, really!

(pic taken of establishment on north 99 in Everett. Haven't been there, but I'm sure they're great people)

Monday, October 6, 2008

Mmm.. Comfy.



Not from me playing dwarf fortress. Don't have time. Instead I read about other people playing.

Here's a shovel, can you dig it fool?

Friday, October 3, 2008

Mmm... Spikey....

Perhaps I shall think of something funny to say in tine....

Pinehurst... Heheh... Hurst.....bleh...

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Thursday, September 25, 2008

EA to customers: SHUT THE HELL UP

"Please do not continue to post theses thread or you account may be at risk of banning which in some cases would mean you would need to buy a new copy to play Spore."

I'm not sure I ever want to give another penny to a company that treats their customers that way.


Unless they figure out a way to let me download playable songs on my Wii. Then I will have to buy rockband 2.

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Yeah, I've been there...

Dilbert.com

Frequently when I was doing support for the cell-phone company, customers would contact me regarding some major and vexing issue. My personal rule was that the difficulty in solving a problem was in inverse proportion to the size of it.

Massive problems usually have simple fixes. I knew them, I applied them.

Then the customer smelled competence, it was like blood in the water. They then presented me with some minor inconvenience which took hours to untangle.

If only I hadn't solved the original problem so easily, they wouldn't have wanted to bother with the second.

At my new job when this happens I get to say "one problem per incident", make a new trouble ticket and shove it in the queue for some other poor fool.

Sunday, September 7, 2008

Possibly too much information

I've always wanted a picture of this sign. For years th grocery store where this was taken was a regular haunt of mine, but I never got around to taking it.

I've wandered through other stores in the same chain looking for it (they're above others, shall we say), never had it. I wondered if someone had finally had the sense to remove them.

Went to the original location, a place which had seen many board games played, many cards hurled in anger or jest, and there it was.

And here it is, for your amusement, or to help cement your understanding of what a juvenile twit I am.

Saturday, September 6, 2008

Accidents happen..



I don't know if that is a game they used to produce this, but I must find it.

according to comments on the youtube video..

Monday, September 1, 2008

It's 3:30 in the morning

And it's damn cold.

The auctioneer across the street is still clinging to conciousness, I hear his amplified voice reverberating through the walls of the old mill across the street where he is no doubt also feeling very cold.

Here in this little town you've never heard of, things are mostly quiet. A generator is humming and grinding steadily to give them light, and my vending machine mocha is almost too hot for me still.

Nice, just now as I type this I heard Mr. Taylor thank his remaining audience. That means shortly they will wander out into the frigid night, drive back to their favored sleeping nooks, and the rest of this night shift will be still and calm.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

in case anyone cares


Yay! Kittens! Now I won't have to buy another cat!

It's autumn now, no immigrants yet. Built a depot, moving some stone into stockpiles because I'm tired of everyone tripping over it. Also my slacker-dwarves will look for any excuse to get out of a job, so it's nice for everyone to have some hauling to do. Good healthy excercise, makes everyone a bit tougher.

You're gonna spend the night...

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Strike the earth!

So as I may have mentioned, I tried out Dwarf Fortress.

The graphics are in ascii, the interface is confusing, the complexity is ridiculous.

It appeals to me immensely.

After generating my first world, I set out to create my new fortress, which several minutes hitting "Random" finally resulted in "Dragondoor" I considered "Stablefortress" when it came up, but I didn't feel it would be honest.

To start the game, you select your starting location off of the world map, then pick some dwarves:
buy them some stuff:

Usual assortment. Picks for digging, plenty of lumber because there's no trees where I'm going, some mushroom "seeds", plenty of booze for the hardworkers, and...

*inhale*

mule meat, horse meat, donkey meat, cat meat, dog meat, perch, turtle, fox meat, racoon meat, deer meat, rainbow trout, groundhog meat (I needed two of these for some reason), rhesus macaque meat, mountain goat meat (again, x2), hoary marmot meat, char, and salfin molly.

There's actually a reason for this amazingly unappetizing survey of low-grade animal flesh(I could eat some perch right now, though). One barrel holds 10 pieces of meat. If you buy at least one of something, the merchant "throws in" the barrel to carry it, and doesn't do the sensible thing and pile all your game in together. Therefore you buy one each of anything which costs only 2 plat.

I can only imagine that this involves repeated visits, buying one piece of meat, leaving the store, putting on a fake mustache, returning, buying another piece of meat, repeat until you're wearing about 20 mustaches.

Our intrepid (and gamey-smelling) wagonload of small bearded men arrives. The land is cold, unfamiliar, and I think I saw some antmen.

And this just has to stop.

We begin digging in:
Our little dogs and cats wander around as the digging begins.

The X on the far right of my little tunnel is a stairwell, and my wagon didn't actually vomit, those are barrels of booze, bags of seed, and lots and lots of lumber.

A stray kitten bleeds to death. :'( Wasn't really sure why.



We dig out, begin working on farming land. On the right you'll see the stairwell. That goes up to the level above. Not sure how many Z-levels (as the third dimension is called in this game) are supported, but I'm told it's well over 100. Probably 256, if I know how coders think. The engine keeps track of everything on every level, whether or not you can see it.

That's powerful, complex, and this little ascii game DRAGS on my pentium III laptop. For this game I switched over to running it on the p4 in the office and playing it over VNC (watching the little dwarves jump around the screen wildly as the screen refreshed. this got better in 256 colors (which you may notice from the later screenshots.

When I saved and quit I was having some problems..

My dwarves weren't really in trouble, but all the animals we brought have been lost to antmen attack (I think I have a cat left, but that's not enough to have kittens unless she's already pregnant)

They don't seem to pose any threat to my dwarves, I'm thinking I'm going to try to make some animal traps and cages, catch the little bastards.

It's a deep game, too deep in some ways. The interface is a pain, but there are compensations. If nothing else, reading the official forums over at bay12.

"I accidentally dislodged a single tile at ground level while trimming the hill around the fortress entrance, and it punched through a lava moat, a gem stockpile and a bone stockpile before coming to a halt in someone's bedroom. The bedroom's owner, a planter, was in bed at the time, and he got up and walked to the door just in time to get a coating of lava, gems, bones and scorched legendary miner chunks." -NCarter

dig dig dig dig

Nagblogging--

Didja watch the fine 45 minutes of content on that embedded hulu video?

Why the hell not?

I don't blame you if you didn't spend the time reading about Boatmurdered

Someone who read through all of that might be accused of being strange.

Someone who finally pushed past the ascii graphics and terrible interface to play some Dwarf Fortress might have some screenshots to post later today.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Real NPH

Not from concentrate!

Friday, August 22, 2008

Hope I was right...

On my way home today, I saw a man standing by the side of the road with a begging sign.

He needed money to get home, a job fell through. His kids were in the van.

I didn't stop. I couldn't keep myself from thinking that he was most likely a scammer. It disgusted me that he'd be using his kids in that way.

I stopped for gas, and a young man asked me for money, he was stranded, needed money to get home. He pointed to his girlfriend, who had tears in her eyes. He commented on how his credit cards were maxed out, so they were no use.

I told him that I wouldn't be giving him any money, because I couldn't tell who was a scammer. He said that he would rather give someone the benefit of the doubt than take the risk of refusing help to someone who really needed it.

On my way home, I was thinking about the anatomy of the scam. Both were fundamentally the same...

1. The person tried to make themselves look as something other than a common beggar, by giving the impression this is a "one-time" request, something borne out of desperation.

2. The person tried to make you feel sympathy for someone in their care. A girlfriend, or three young children.

I could have why there was no-one at home, no friends, no relatives, who could send them money to get home. The answers would have just been a lie.

I really hate not being able to help someone who appears to be in genuine need. But there's just no damn way to tell.

It's also damn curious how on a sunny friday afternoon, prime party weather the day before a major concert at green river gorge, people are in need of money to "get home"

it's a gas..

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

How I've been spending my three extra hours..

Working on housecleaning...
Preparing for trips wherever
Recovering from trips wherever,

And today, sick as a dog.

And it's not a reaction to reading about Boatmurder.

Fat stupid hobbits..

Friday, August 15, 2008

Keeping with the serious tone of Clone Wars

It's a republic starfighter with an "Emo Anakin" bobblehead.

That is all I have to say about that.

Friday, August 8, 2008

The mighty i850

Macguyvered, apparently.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

I found this hilarious

Before getting drunk tonight. No guarantees what I might moblog this evening...

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Yes, this is a photo-driven "phoned-in" blog entry

I can stop any time I want.

Yes, that's a raccoon head with binoculars inside. It's blinding me with science!

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Riding off perpendicular to the sunset...

In the squeaky metal cage one last time.

As I may have neglected to mention, I will be moving, tomorrow, to a new shift, starting close to the time the sun rises. This means getting there on time will involve a starting time which is not acknowledged by transit and many species of bird.

What does this mean? Less moblogging. When I post it will generally be at a proper computer, from which I can post proper links to lyrics or youtube.

Also will mean a bit more time, say 3 hours, during which I need babysit no customers or children. During this time I may exercise, write computer code, construct model siege equipment, study for my trepannier's license, maybe even finish Zelda:Twilight Princess or Pharaoh. Every single day, almost. It's a fantastic notion, really.

In local news, we seem to have broken this whole "nice sunny day" habit. It was an unhealthy indulgence, and could only further embolden californians to move into our neighborhood and drink coffee at our diminishing supply of starbucks locations. Not sure how I feel about the rain today, which seemed to be mostly mud. Maybe a bit more sunshine wouldn't hurt. C'mon, jetstream, don't hold out on me..

Later.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Blogging towards Gomorrah

Or Everett, I think.

Not Gamera, probably.

Been reading a lot of Shamus Young's blog, lately. If you'll forgive me for being 2.0 here, I found that this was a riveting read: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=141 Even though it has afflicted me with the urge to dust off the ol' compiler, and severely reduced my productivity for a little while, bouncing between it and actual work.

The bus ride home is a ritual which pleases me less than the train did, but I have become accustomed to it. I can't object to it in a serious way, and is probably easier on my wallet than driving will be (which starts in a couple weeks).

Not too much of importance else to say. I have a gift for one of my readers... I discovered it on my trip through oregon, and will need to mail it, or order another and have my chosen e-tailer ship THAT one, keeping the first for myself.

Servers are heavy. Not the ones that bring you coffee, but the ones that bring you email. The former are probably just as tough to lug around, but generally you only have to carry the latter, really..

I'm a little scattered due to my obedience, right now. Shortly before leaving work, I was ordered to imbibe a Pabst Blue Ribbon. As I wsas short on time, I elected to drink it without pausing. As a thousand tiny blades bit the back of my tongue, it was declared that I would be reasonably expected to produce an impressive belch after finishing it. I believe I did not disappoint.

You know we ain't gonna die.... http://www.lyricsfreak.com/a/alice+in+chains/rooster_20005966.html

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

How I'm spending lunch today...

Because from an hour before I was supposed to take lunch to an hour before I was supposed to go home, I was persistently working on a problem.

Well, two problems... Person problem, and VPN problem. One made the other take too damn long.

Why? I'll tell you, it was --

OOOH! Something shiny! What's this?

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Dropping the captchas

And allowing anonymous posts.

Gotta be free... Having to moderate will give me something to do.

Monday, July 14, 2008

A daddy's pride

Forgive this sappy post about my family.

Tonight, as I put my little four-year-old to bed, I asked if he wanted his lightning mcqueen night-light on.


He said "no thanks daddy, I don't need it anymore."

Pride.. unrestrained pride.

Just like me he quotes movies as an alternative to actual conversation. >MY< son.

save some time for dreaming..

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Fun fact!

When I type the word "dammit", my phone's autocomplete suggests the word "woman" to follow.

Friday, July 4, 2008

That poor dog...

Doesn't even know his delicious ketchupy fate.

Hope y'all having a good nationalist explosion day.

We're tired from moving, and still have more to do. The good news is we signed for 18 months.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Moblogging- no pics available

In case you haven't noticed or aren't in greater seattle area, it's a little warm outside.

[picture of melting face from indiana jones movie ]

The advantage of this is that as the weekend goes on, many ladies around my and other neighborhood will be dressed in less than the usual amount of clothing

[picture of woman in bikini top and shorts ]

There may, however, be corresponding disadvantages, some that may constitute danger to one's sanity.

[picture of banana hammock]

In other words, today wasn't a good day at work. I felt generally very stressed and distressed. Then, they gaved me beeers. Unfortunately, the first was apricot-weizen. And you have to finish a beer once you start it. It's a rule-no really.

[link to kisw's "The Men's Room"'s Men's Room Rules]

[Link to Sublime's Summertime with text over it "well qualified to represent"]

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Monday, June 23, 2008

Back in the crosshairs again...

back at work, my workload is about as bad as I expected.

Driving back from the very southern tip of oregon to north of seattle takes about 9 hours. 12-14 if you have a 4-year old with you who has just mastered the art of not soiling himself.

In other news, fire emblem is awesome.

I made a list of things to say

Monday, June 9, 2008

Hot damn

This is on a metro bus?

Also, the double-decker is nice. It's not quite like the train, but it's going to work.

Monday, June 2, 2008

down the checklist

1. Put boy to bed.
2. Read stories
3. Do dishes after promising to come back "in a little while"
4. Setup mail server on linux box, verify ability to send email with an apostrophe in the email address -- verify reciept on my gmail account
5. Take out garbage..

Rather a productive evening, I think.

it can even mean nothing at all...

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Monday, May 26, 2008

@mushroom

Commenting doesn't work from windows , so as usual I'll just phone it in via the bloggomatic 6800

1. It's their loss. You're a good tech. Also my loss.... Wanted that damn signing bonus.

2. It's all fun and games until you pre-open the new bottle and reclose it witth epoxy.

3. We're adding a compost trashcan in our lunchroom for pizza boxes and soiled paper plates. I was pleased to learn that they will be lined with compostable green bags, but I dearly hope they get emptied every day as promised.

There are a number of official functions that require faxing because email is not listed in the legal requirements. web2fax services are okey-dokey

Last morning in the place

Where the people do the thing until the next time. Beaten, battered, and I still need to clean up and pack the car.

Crimes against bathroom walls.... Next to "Tasia (Heart) David, someone has penciled in ME 2... Firstly, who was in the boys room writing a girl's name loves a boy's name.. And who was also in the boy's room saying me 2 to that..

Not sure if this is any worse... "MK (heart) DK" I hope this represents a married couple, or a coincidence of last names beginning with a K (a rare and germanic couple)... I don't know if myy hope will be validated..

Nevermind that this is the fricking boy's room!!! Scrawl some obscenities like you've got a pair!

Saturday, May 24, 2008

I have no objection to personal religious beliefs. If you think God would rather you didn't work saturdays, I won't criticize you for it. But if you are so disinclined to work on saturdays, a profession in which saturday is one of your vital and profitable days may not be for you.

Greetings from Big Bottom Country!

Not describing a person, but a place...

Anyways, the other day I got an email from one of my managers around 11 at night... It was a reply to a thread also involving some clients, I was an "also involved" but not really expected to reply.

I know this manager. He's a good guy, but he's a blackberry guy. Reads most of his email on the go, and probably checks it at odd hours when he happens to be awake.

I was thinking about this, and then it hit me that at 11 pm at night (on a school night) I had read his email too.

I still maintain that I'm not a blackberry guy.... I'm a pocketpc guy. That's better, right?

Look for a few mobile updates this weekend. Fleamartastic!

Friday, April 4, 2008

Monday, March 31, 2008

Just hangin on...

Keeping busy working...

Wish I had more to say...

birth, school, work, death

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Clearly this is marketed

To thos people in the seattle area who don't feel they have enough blackberry plants on their property.

Not sure if I this made me sad

To see it thrown away, or sad that I don't have room in my home to salvage this.

It passed the spellchecker!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Sorry for the lack of updates.


Heading to Mordor-tana. May have something to say about it.


Just ramblin on..

Monday, January 28, 2008

i don't get this whole unboxing thing...


Last week my assassin robot from the future arrived. I don't even remember ordering the thing. According to the invoice, I bought it on woot six months ago. Still doesn't ring a bell.. Anyways, I put it to work tracking those responsible for the new terminator show having a repeat only 3 weeks in. Then I checked the link and found that they claim a new one for tonight. Whups.. Already sent it off. Live and learn. [edit]tvguide.com clearly shows no new episode tonight.. conscience clear[/edit]

There is something bothering me about the Terminator series, though. Not the show specifically, although it's rampant abuse of time-travel makes it no exception.

If I am Skynet 2071, and I can send a robot back in time to 1980-something to kill Sarah Connor, what is to stop me from sending back a few robots to help Skynet 2015 win the war before it even gets to me? There's no question of the san points lost in time travel, whatever I remember seeing that the future me did is obviously justified if it worked. If it didn't work, I'll have to send back twice as much muscle.

The only problem is that the plucky humans have stolen my time-travel technology, and are sending back some of their pluckiest fellow humans (and some killer robots who have been programmed to do good).

Doesn't this lead to a sort of temporal arms race, with greater and greater numbers on both sides being sent back to flash-point time-events, to the point where it's not even possible for anyone to understand how the war would have started without both of us having sent back armies of robots to make it start?

It's infuriorating.


Thursday, January 24, 2008

At risk of becoming family circus...

My son came to me with two golf clubs, requesting my assistance in dragon slaying.

We walked to his room, I let him equip me with one of the weapons, but the dragon failed to appear. Shortly therafter I returned the club to his care.

He came back to me.

"Daddy, can you help me fight the dragon?"
"I need to work on dinner, son."
"Daddy, please, I need you to help me."
"This is a battle you may have to face alone."
"You can have the yellow club!"

Who's with me?

If you should youtube that song, i believe the term to be used is "fist-pumping"..

The boy is keeping me a bit busy for a longer blog entry. Gotten a little annoyed at my DS game, so the train rides are kind of dragging, perhaps you'll see something tomorrow...

Perhaps not.

Friday, January 18, 2008

Zero equals one.

But only for unusually large values of zero.

I find myself checking my blog every day on my Sprint Mogul ($$), but don't always find the energy to update it.

We're seeing a light at the end of the tunnel at work right now, most should be able to guess what that light is. Choo-Choo!

Fridays are better when you feel like you have accomplished something... I feel muc more sanguine now than I did a week ago. Perhaps tonight I will get some of my back burner projects looked at.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Note to self

And all others driving in the snow..

If you should find yourself in a clean lane, directly behind a snowplow, and should think of passing the beast, please consider whether or not you are actually in that much of a hurry.

I am fine, the car is fine.. So I passed the plow, then realized I didn't like how fast I was going, and put on the brakes. Brakes, it turns out, don't fuction at their best when the tires can't get proper traction. I found myself rounding a broad corner, going downhill, skiing essentially, and hoping desperately not to wrap my car around a signpost. Actually the signpost would have probably lost, but just as glad I didn't find out.

I felt my tires bounce off the curb, all the excess velocity had been killed, and my son got to hear an anglo-saxon noun. He asked, from under his blanket, if I was ok. I told him I was fine, had just been a little scared. This brought me into one of those traditionally endearing conversations with a 3-year old.

"Daddy was just scared."
"Why was daddy scared?"
"Becausee daddy was going too fast."
"Why were you going too fass?"
"It was an accident. A poor decision."
"Why did you have a poo cision?"

Keeping this blog up to date has a low priority, I will make no bones about it. Last week it didn't get touched, even mobile (as I am now), because some wonderful person got me a DS for christmas. She got hers for her birthday, and got plenty of games for it for the xmas, I am borrowing those... Love me some fnal fantasy. Love me some black magery in those games. There may in fact be useful applications of magic that don't inflict pain and suffering on others, but most of those can be replicated with cheap and effective potions.

Stay safe, folks. I was well aware of the hazards of snow driving, and one little choice nearly caused me a wreck. A choice that would have been ok if there had not been a hill so soon after. Scary stuff.

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