A Month of Sundays

That's no moon..

2009-06-14T09:49:00.000-07:00

Endless distractions

2009-06-12T14:50:00.001-07:00

I think it's become obvious that the problem is not any particular distractor.. Myspace, dwarf fortress, my wife and son, facebook, online videos, and endless forums, but my capacity for being distracted and seeking out other sources of distraction (just kidding, dear)

House-hunting is weird. You walk in looking for a place you want to own, and either you're buying an empty home, or one that someone else is trying to leave. I find myself looking for clues about the people who had lived in a place, why they made one decision or another with paint, or landscaping..

Our realtor does her job, pointing out all the reasons not to buy.. Siding that will sponge up too much water and sprout fungus, roofing that won't last the winter, rooms that are designed oddly and will be difficult to use as we would want to.

I feel like I am forever passing judgement on the former or current residents.. Trying to figure out how i'll do a better job with their space than they have.. Or just trying to figure out who they are as people.

I shouldn't be considering any humans that won't be living with me. Writing little stories in my head about the people we will replace is too much of a distraction.. But i'm good at those.

Take it easy, i'll post again when I get to it..

BIRTH! SCHOOL! WORK! DEATH!

I love the flea mart.

2009-05-25T12:00:00.001-07:00

caller ID surprise

2009-05-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

Up at the big honkin flea mart this weekend, across the street from Mr. Taylor, and what should appear on my caller ID?

Mushroom

YAY! MAYBE HE'S IN TOWN!

"Oh, hi .. I hit the wrong button trying to call someone.. Err.. how are you?"

Busy, but not busy enough to excuse my lack of social maintenance.

Been happily running a D&D game for several months, for some folks who seem to view all storyline as window-dressing for tactical miniatures combat, and who say things like "Ooh, the plot train is going that way.. CHOO CHOO!" whenever I give them a slight nudge (even when I intended it as misdirection).

Work has been whelming. Not overwhelming or underwhelming, just whelming.

I slacked off a bit recently in favor of rampant nerdiness, and went from top dog to "doing as well as expected dog" for about two weeks time.. Not sure I like that position, so I'll be barking a bit harder in the coming weeks.

My boss, even though he had seen me frequently playing games when I should have been working, clapped me on the shoulder and said "spend some time where you are.." when my numbers dropped. Guess I should take it as a blessing, but pride makes it hard for me to sit there. I might slack off of normal work in favor of "extra-cirricular work", things like writing articles that are actually more useful to my career than Dwarf Fortress..

Peace out, y'all. I won't promise more frequent updates.. but I do regret not having delivered some.

My vital organs chug away inside me

What the....

2009-04-03T04:29:00.001-07:00

sorry about the silence

2009-01-24T10:34:00.000-08:00

have been busy, not as much as some...

President To Face Down Monster Attack, Own Demons In Action-Packed Schedule

when earth and sky was first divided

Attention Metro

2009-01-06T04:37:00.001-08:00

Judging by the number of people on the first bus into seattle, you might take the hint that some folks would like to get into town earlier. Maybe even before 5 am.

Train service that early would be nice, too.

'Go round and round-- all over town

Blue steel!!

2008-12-31T23:33:00.001-08:00

Happy new year!!

When did I get to minnesota?

2008-12-21T12:19:00.001-08:00

(lovely weather for a crv-ride together)

breaking news!

2008-12-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

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 design @ © SplitReason.com

Mid-december flurry

2008-12-14T08:29:00.001-08:00

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

how not to win at fantastic contraption:

2008-12-09T10:38:00.001-08:00

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

Love y'all....

2008-12-05T22:11:00.001-08:00

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

tis the season..

2008-12-04T04:59:00.001-08:00

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]

Hey

2008-11-28T06:09:00.000-08:00

Have a ball..

Does that sound wrong?

to see what you will do...

Whozits and whatsits aplenty

2008-11-26T20:37:00.000-08:00

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..

It's hard work...

2008-11-17T15:46:00.000-08:00

YouTube Contest Challenges Users To Make A 'Good' Video

i think it only applies to original content

we can make him not so tall

2008-11-16T18:04:00.000-08:00

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

i'm hanging by a thread here..

2008-10-30T07:29:00.000-07:00

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

my new desktop image

2008-10-25T10:05:00.000-07:00

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..

games as storytelling

2008-10-24T05:16:00.000-07:00

I really have to stop doing this.

If you listen close to everybody's heart..

close to home...

2008-10-21T11:43:00.000-07:00

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

About which I am still confused about.

2008-10-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

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

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

2008-10-10T15:55:00.000-07:00

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

band montage...

Positive thought.

2008-10-08T21:20:00.001-07:00

No, really!

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

Mmm.. Comfy.

2008-10-06T22:09:00.000-07:00

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?

Mmm... Spikey....

2008-10-03T22:29:00.001-07:00

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

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

!Firebreathing

2008-09-28T15:20:00.000-07:00

!Cheap seats.

2008-09-27T13:34:00.001-07:00

EA to customers: SHUT THE HELL UP

2008-09-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

"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.

A view from the cheap seats...

2008-09-23T19:09:00.001-07:00

[fixed for mushroom]

Yeah, I've been there...

2008-09-14T11:20:00.000-07:00

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.

Possibly too much information

2008-09-07T13:26:00.001-07:00

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.

Accidents happen..

2008-09-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

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..

It's 3:30 in the morning

2008-09-01T03:34:00.001-07:00

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.

in case anyone cares

2008-08-28T16:14:00.001-07:00

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...

Strike the earth!

2008-08-26T14:06:00.000-07:00

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--

2008-08-26T05:44:00.000-07:00

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.

Real NPH

2008-08-23T22:21:00.001-07:00

Not from concentrate!

Hope I was right...

2008-08-22T15:28:00.000-07:00

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..

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

2008-08-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

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..

Keeping with the serious tone of Clone Wars

2008-08-15T17:21:00.001-07:00

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

That is all I have to say about that.

The mighty i850

2008-08-08T12:11:00.001-07:00

Macguyvered, apparently.

I found this hilarious

2008-08-07T18:49:00.001-07:00

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

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

2008-08-03T13:29:00.001-07:00

I can stop any time I want.

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

Riding off perpendicular to the sunset...

2008-07-31T17:12:00.001-07:00

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.

Blogging towards Gomorrah

2008-07-25T17:27:00.001-07:00

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

How I'm spending lunch today...

2008-07-22T16:20:00.001-07:00

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?

Dropping the captchas

2008-07-16T08:01:00.000-07:00

And allowing anonymous posts.

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

A daddy's pride

2008-07-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

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..

Fun fact!

2008-07-08T21:44:00.001-07:00

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

That poor dog...

2008-07-04T21:25:00.001-07:00

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.

Moblogging- no pics available

2008-06-27T17:22:00.001-07:00

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"]

It's a spraycan of pancake batter....

2008-06-26T18:32:00.001-07:00

No comment available at this time.

Back in the crosshairs again...

2008-06-23T12:15:00.000-07:00

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

I'm sure this isn't canon.

2008-06-22T20:52:00.001-07:00

America's largest petting adventure!

2008-06-21T11:31:00.001-07:00

Also a little chilly.

2008-06-21T09:49:00.001-07:00

Beach clothes not always appropriate at the beach.

Oregon is pretty.

2008-06-21T09:47:00.001-07:00

Not even slightly pretentious

2008-06-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

In a nutshell, EVE can be described as an alternate reality, similar in many ways to virtual reality as depicted in, for example, the film "The Matrix." The only difference between the Matrix and EVE is that instead of accessing the world through a neural jack, it is accessed through the Internet and participants interact with it via a computer.

What a complete waste of energy...

Hot damn

2008-06-09T06:56:00.001-07:00

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.

down the checklist

2008-06-02T21:58:00.000-07:00

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...

I normally wouldn't do this...

2008-05-28T16:44:00.001-07:00

But it's so damn... personal.

I definitely wouldn't do this to you... Or would I?

I can't think of an actual quote from this song..

@mushroom

2008-05-26T15:20:00.000-07:00

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

2008-05-26T10:53:00.001-07:00

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!

2008-05-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-05-24T08:02:00.001-07:00

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!

Please forgive my captchcas.

2008-04-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

too much virus spamming going on here.

badger badger badger

Just hangin on...

2008-03-31T20:22:00.001-07:00

Keeping busy working...

Wish I had more to say...

birth, school, work, death

Clearly this is marketed

2008-03-20T21:23:00.001-07:00

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

2008-03-20T21:20:00.001-07:00

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

It passed the spellchecker!

2008-03-20T21:17:00.001-07:00

That was supposed to have had a picture...

2008-03-16T12:01:00.001-07:00

Retroactive email test

2008-03-16T11:56:00.001-07:00

See if this works...

Sorry for the lack of updates.

2008-03-11T16:39:00.003-07:00

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

Just ramblin on..

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

2008-01-28T20:33:00.001-08:00

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.

At risk of becoming family circus...

2008-01-24T18:54:00.000-08:00

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.

Zero equals one.

2008-01-18T17:17:00.001-08:00

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.

[edited to conceal mistake]

2008-01-13T20:24:00.001-08:00

Whups...

completely unrelated.. just felt like posting it since I've been re-watching Bebop

Nothing to see here

2008-01-13T18:12:00.001-08:00

Move along...

Note to self

2008-01-08T06:52:00.001-08:00

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.

Addendum... I love my wife.

2007-12-27T22:02:00.000-08:00

Because you're near me..

Kudos to our televised overlords

2007-12-27T21:55:00.000-08:00

Today, while cleaning my office, I watched two episodes of Scrubs on NBC.com. I had to watch commercials, didn't really pay attention to them or care.

Saved me the trouble of torrenting them. You see, I'm perfectly happy to let the evil corporation make a buck off me enjoying their media, if they give me the option. If they don't, I have trouble feeling guilty about doing otherwise.

It's as American as manifest destiny, which is to say it's okay to steal things as long as you believe you deserve them. I can't see myself applying this principle to say.. a shrink-wrapped dvd on a store shelf.. but a freely available electronic copy that doesn't actually deprive anyone of property by making it (and which WILL make me more likely to shell out for the DVD if I like it).. it's a grey area.

Not for me, but for a friend whose life is complicated in ways I hope to never experience.. Why did they change the locks?

Yule tide lyric break

2007-12-25T09:36:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Season's beatings...

2007-12-24T23:26:00.000-08:00

At this moment I find myself in an overheated home, mp3s in one ear, family in the other, it's late in the evening and we'll be up later to wait for baking to complete.

Holidays are the time when family gets together to bitch about one another... Good times.

Perhaps a full blog post on boxing day. Heehe I almost typed boozing day.. That's a holiday...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dciDcRZovP4

This machine can only swallow money.

2007-12-19T17:12:00.001-08:00

As the yule tide weekend (4 days--sweet) approaches, I continue to feel the crunch of work, I have trouble taking even part of a lunch, and I need to go shopping after a long day at work, in the company of a young man whose sworn duty is to disrupt such outings... Oh well, maybe he will know what to get his mother for christmas.

Stay frosty, watch your six...

Testing......

2007-12-16T00:11:00.001-08:00

This is my first omg mobile posting to my blog. Not because I am in some exotic locale, or I am too lazy to get out of bed and use a pc (well, that at least might be a factor), but because I just set it up today so I can.

No song lyrics today... Just hum something until I work out how to post a hyperlink from the phone.

on that day we stopped a little...

2007-12-14T19:47:00.001-08:00

the last two weeks have been busy. went to the beach, got trapped there by inclement weather, lost a good friend i haven't seen in at least 6 years, lied about having written a long blog post, and realized that my job is going to be there every day whether or not I kill myself doing it.
Last night saw me in a bar not drinking to the memory of someone I had let go of too well, and got re-acquainted with others I hadn't remembered to let go of... people who I should have been a friend to and wasn't. Nothing like a loss to remind you that you've neglected the people in your life.

So this morning I showed up for work 20 minutes early, rather than 50, I planned to take a full lunch but there was a schedule conflict, a training I had forgotten about.. I'm going to go to my job and do it the best I can, and not beat myself up trying to be the hardest worker. I made myself sick once before, I think because I had been constantly stressed. I'm learning to let go of the stress, trying to keep the productivity. Becoming a better employee is something that will happen because I love to learn.

Christmas is coming too soon. My wife does such a fine job of shopping for all the people in our lives, I really should harness this somehow, get her to shop for her own gift (just kidding, dear). We're having two christmases, one with my family, one with hers.. Plenty of wrapping, plenty of preparation. How do I find time to write this entry? Procrastination and guilt. The great thing is that procrastinating on one project for something I feel guilty about generates plenty of guilt to drive me on the thing I neglected.

Wish you were here..

This is the greatest and best blog post ever's

2007-12-05T20:04:00.001-08:00

tribute.

It was amazing. I can't even tell you. I wrote it in three acts, each more beautiful than the one before, and the first tied into the last with perfect rhythm.

Damn refresh button lost it. Could never produce that again.

Too darn sleepy right now.

Cue the happy music

2007-11-18T16:38:00.000-08:00

Bad news first: I'm no longer eligible for overtime pay, and I'm going to continue working OT as much as possible until things cool down...

Good news.. my new job likes me so much that as of friday I am a regular employee, making 5/4 my previous pay, which was a pittance more than when I was babysitting crackberries and their owners. Now I'll be babysitting people who are supposed to know what they're doing. And usually they do. woot. WOOT!

Not much else to write about, really. We had a medical situation in the family which was not an emergency, not a surprise, more scary than it should have been, and absolutely necessary.

Me, I'm sporting a new (massively ancient) toy i need to setup, and because of it i need to make some hard decisions about my home network setup. Also need to decide what computer crap I'm keeping and what I'm getting rid of, as thursday i have to drive to seattle and will therefore be able to swing by a recycler. seems you can't legally throw away computers.. for good reason, really. Anyone want an EGA monitor?

the blood that lights your eyes

Did I say "week"??

2007-11-10T07:38:00.000-08:00

I meant month...

Friday I had the first half of the day in training.. back when i was in a "call center" that would have been great.. No calls to take, maybe a bit of a queue to kill when i got back, but i still got breaks and time to relax.

No more... training was more intense than I ever had at the old place, and when I got back my customers all still needed to be helped... and my boss told me "Take care of the premium customers (they pay more for support), any anyone with a really long wait time, but mostly I need you to take as many new cases out of the level one queue as possible, and we'll deal with the fallout from this on Monday."

Joy of fricking joys.

I'm already up and gone..

A week of mondays

2007-10-22T20:59:00.000-07:00

Gotta love it.

We're busy at work.. consequently, every day I will be rising at 5, out the door by 6, and back home at 6:15. Sadly, this is just to get in an extra hour each day of work.

Learning a ton, though. Starting to get the feel for phone conversations, even if I do feel like I have to actively conceal my ignorance on calls. This is what I signed up for, though. A chance to learn things I had never been exposed to before.

I shouldn't complain, though. Tonight I get to actually sleep next to my wife, and tomorrow, and for two more days after this. Also, and I know better than to say this is more exciting, tomorrow night I should theoretically be able to master a dungeon. Hain't done that in a damn month.

Aeria gloris

Treading water

2007-10-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

And thinking of taking a swim..

The new job is starting to fit better. After 7 working days of doing my job, and a week and change before that of independent study, I had some regular training. Something seems a little out of order there.

Didn't stop me from actually talking to customers yesterday. I was a little shaky on one call where the customer needed a walkthrough, but I found ones where there was a tricky problem to solve were not that bad. One I was able to crack no problem, another one was super confusing. I told the customer I'd call him back with a fix within half an hour. 40 minutes of four more experienced people also scratching their head later, we found the problem. Turns out that if you take the configuration file from a machine in network A, put it in a machine doing the same job in network B, you can probably get by, until you expect those two networks to play together. "No, that's MY subnet! No, it's mine! MOM!!" called dude back, fixed it quick.

Another call I knew the answers, but it was going to be a lot easier to type up everything without the customer asking me eight thousand questions that weren't related to anything I support. So I let him go, researched one odd error message he'd asked about, typed up instructions on the fix to his original problem, and updated the case.

Good times.

You load sixteen tons an' what do you get?

Trying to be a bit less filtered...

2007-10-16T19:30:00.000-07:00

And failing.

I love my wife.. not much else I'm going to say.

Celebrating my new handheld

2007-10-15T19:59:00.000-07:00

With a look at things I do when not at work or home.

Which mostly covers my time on the train..
(seriously, is that an ampersand? If so, why?)

And on my lunch break.
(exterminate, exterminate)

I see some things on the way which engage my interest as a general nerd, which apparently includes "train nerd"
(I just need one more of these and a microphone.)

And wasting time with one of my electronic toys..
(not so much a gameboy with tetris, as an automated smackdown device)

My many electronic toys
(some might say, too many)

Oh, on the top right there? That's a 6800 from $carrier. It has it's foibles and idiosyncracies, which I am used to as a former support dork for similar time-wasters.

Which the awesome power of this pocket computer, I

1) listen to the radio (fm reception is crappy along the train's route) via the internet
2) ???

I've loaded a Sega Genesis emulator, but my game that I still play on the genesis doesn't emulate well on it. (some emulators can handle the code they used to display menus, some don't).. I've gotten my work email setup, which is great if you actually want to bring your work home.

I've had limited success with the web browser. I loaded opera mobile, which teased me by allowing me to think i was logged in and able to post on my blog, but crashed when I hit the submit button.

Now I've updated my blog, for those who have complained.

Maybe I'll launch a moblog, since I'm planning on doing some walking of the streets during my lunch breaks.

Gadget Envy

2007-10-09T11:21:00.000-07:00

[edit: I love my wife. I really really really love my wife. We talked tonight, she said I can buy my new phone tomorrow. She hadn't even read this pathetic whining here. ]

It is a constant with public transportation that while it relieves you of the stresses of traffic and driving, it leaves you with a large amount of time to kill. I have this:
People near me have these...

Just sayin, is all... 'snif.

Ain't life a mystery?

Internal or External?

2007-10-08T13:32:00.000-07:00

Recently I've been giving a lot of thought to a long lost friend. Two of three nights, another person who has drifted away from me was in my dreams. I can't help but wonder if this is my own sub-conscious trying to purge the buffer of unresolved issues, or a message from the Cosmic WhatIf that for my own spiritual growth I must deal with these matters.

Last night was very disturbing, in many ways. My nocturnal bride didn't come to bed until well after midnight, and I had conked out well before it. After I got back to sleep, in my mind it was a warm summer night, and a social to-do was going on. I was thinking heavily on the subject of the late hour, and that I had been awoken at the late hour, and I knew I needed to get myself back to sleep so that I could be refreshed for the next day of work. Instead I was caught up in meetings with the aforementioned fragments of my social circle, and I watched with great concern as time ticked away, and I had only the time to actually go to work from the party. I began walking away from the place, and as I got to the boundary of this dreamscape, prepared to step on the street outside it's boundaries, I collapsed to sleep, waking up to realize an entire day had passed, and I had missed work while asleep.

I think I woke up somewhere in the middle of the party, checked my alarm clock, found it was an hour before I needed to get up, and returned to the same dream. Strange when that happens, makes it hard to figure whether you actually woke up. I remember the physical feeling of my body resting on the bed, sore from sleeping on one side for so long, so I think it was real, but there is no real certainty in it.

Back to the recurring thoughts of those I've left behind. It's October. This month is considered by many cultures to be a time of death, or more to the point, of transition through renunciation. I find myself wondering if this is a sign that I should seek resolution, but not to reclaim these friendships, simply to let them go. In both cases, letting them go altogether is a painful thought. Neither has given me a reason to think that holding on would be valuable, or good, but I've never had any skill with ending things.

In other news....

The job is going well. I'm actually able to do my work now, which is a huge relief in many ways. Spinning my wheels was driving me crazy. I'm making mistakes, but I'm also having successes. And anything I do wrong is currently being caught by my boss, and can be regarded as an essential part of the learning experience. Later when I begin working over the phone, without that safety net, should be interesting.

But their world has flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream

I am what is wrong with the internet.

2007-10-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

In the last hour, I have added "teh", "gotta", and "zomg" to my MS Office dictionary.

Getting back into the swing of things, a fun weekend behind me, and entering my second week of training with (zomg!) actual training. Not that all the reading I did last week was time wasted, I can tell you I needed it, but it's nice to have something a bit more hands-on.

Lunch break is short and Herfy's was every bit as delicious as I had feared. Less dangerous to my checking account than my waistline, too.

If you find time in your life to sit down and play a board game, and you should make the sound decision to play RoboRally, I would recommend the following time-saving measures.
1)Play without the option cards, or with their use sharply limited (like 1-per player)
2)Limit the number of boards sharply. They can take longer than you plan.
3)Be prepared to change the "final goal" if your game goes long.

If you want a shorter game, I was recently introduced to Fluxx. It's much much easier to learn than it appears. It's amazingly fun.

Most anything that says "Catan" in the title is also good.

And here you have seen me drift topic for no apparent reason. Another reason that I am what is wrong with the internet. Now excuse me while I use company bandwidth to look at pictures of cats.

TGIF, or something

2007-09-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

My hour zero appears to have been taken from me. It seems that the time I get up now, at least two days out of the week, is plenty to get myself and my son out the door in time for him to visit his mother at work and me to catch the train (last night he was insisting I would fall off the train, hasn't happened yet), but it doesn't give me time for ~~dilly-dallying~~ personal projects. I'll have to see how the train goes Monday.

In other news, there's a Herfy's almost directly adjacent to the new office building. They don't do shakes, sadly, but I may still find it impossible to resist "forgetting" to bring a lunch on Monday. "Oops! Shucky-darns..."

Finding a rhythm that works.

2007-09-26T13:30:00.000-07:00

I have a little advice for anyone with a long commute. See if you can take a train. Did that this morning, it was comfy, it was stress-free.

If you're gonna take the train, plan on taking the one *before* the one you need, at least for the first few days. I discovered this morning that the train runs on time. I showed up 4 minutes after it was supposed to have been there, and there it wasn't.

If you're going to take a walk at noon to figure out your route to get the train home, don't wear a heavy leather jacket. It may be stylish but you'll be sweaty.

Taking the stairs everywhere (including up and down 5 stories) is healthful, but prepared to have an embarassing shortness of breath the first day you do it. Maybe the next day too. I'll let you know.
Back to work in a few. Thanks for reading!