Brimstead

dang phishers

2006-01-25T13:13:00.000-08:00

So, I have a post that has gotten some "comments" from a phisher that goes like this:

"I read over your blog, and i found it inquisitive, you may find My Blog interesting. So please Click Here To Read My Blog"

Whatever, dude. It's inquisitive, huh? Did it ask you questions? What did it ask you? Did you talk back to it? What other inanimate objects talk to you?

I'm not going to visit your "blog". I don't think it would be interesting.

quotes

2006-01-25T13:11:00.000-08:00

So ... I think it is pretty safe to say that the "thrill of the blog" is lost on me. That having been said, I found a couple of good quotes today that I want to keep. This seems like a good enough place.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

The more I think about the physical portion of Schrödinger's theory, the more repulsive I find it...What Schrödinger writes about the visualizability of his theory 'is probably not quite right,' in other words it's crap.
--Heisenberg, writing to Pauli, 1926

The Day After

2005-12-19T10:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was pacing around Kroger when my eye caught a movie on the bargain bin. It is called "The Day After". It was a made-for-TV movie on ABC in 1983. I vividly remember this movie because it was filmed and set in Lawrence and Kansas City, KS. It depicts the unimaginable results of a nuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. After the film was shown on TV there was a panel discussion with real people like then Secretary of State George Shultz. It was frightening.

I picked up a copy for myself and for my dad. I knew he would appreciate the nostalgia. I watched my copy last night. OH MY GOD! It's unbelievable. Combine the devastation of Katrina, the Asian Tsunami and the earthquakes in Pakistan: that's a picnic compared to nuclear war and the aftermath. I remember thinking when I was a kid, watching it the first time, that if that ever really happened I would just want to go downtown and wait for the bomb to kill me. I wouldn't want to live through it. My sentiments on the matter are reinvigorated. The film is certainly dated. The Russians aren't (most likely) going to nuke us. But it was less scary when the Russians were the only bad guys with bombs.

It's worth the $9 purchase. To wet your appetite, check out:

http://www.lawrence.com/news/2003/nov/19/fallout_from/
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/D/htmlD/dayafterth/dayafter.htm

The best quote from these articles is this:

"The making of the film was to date the most worthwhile thing I ever got to do in my life," Meyer asserts. "Any movie that the President of the United States winds up saying changed his mind about the idea of a winnable nuclear war is not an insignificant achievement. The Reagan administration came in thinking about 'acceptable numbers' of nuclear casualties. (Reagan's memoirs reveal) what he had to say about the effects of what 'The Day After' had on his thinking.

"When he signed the Intermediate Range Weapons Agreement at Reykjavik (in 1986) with Gorbachev, I got a telegram from his administration that said, 'Don't think your movie didn't have any part of this, because it did.'"

The World Is Tilted - Issues 2006 - MSNBC.com

2005-11-30T07:57:00.000-08:00

This is a fantastic article. Read every word and be afraid.

Phone Home

2005-11-29T08:30:00.000-08:00

Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "Et" Civilizations

Is this a real article? Did these people actually say these things? "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head." Holy cow.

Questions:

Are these people completely crazy?
Why are the ET's always qualified as 'ethical'?

Do these people have a different tactic for dealing with 'unethical' ET's?
What IS an ethical ET?
Is it unethical for ET's to stick mind probes in our anuses (I'm setting up a joke there; feel free to have fun with it)?

If it is unethical for other species to stick probes in our anuses, are we unethical in the way we deal with other species? That's not exactly a joke, what about how farmers run around sticking their whole arm up their cattle's anuses?

The article includes the following sentence:

Vancouver-based Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS), whose International Director headed a proposed 1977 Extraterrestrial Communication Study for the White House of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who himself has publicly reported a 1969 Close Encounter of the First Kind with a UFO, filed the original request for Canadian Parliament hearings.
Who had the close encounter, the international director or Jimmy Carter?
Wouldn't it explain a great many things if Jimmy Carter had been abducted and molested by aliens? I KNOW he has had plenty of things in his anus, including his head. A mind probe would surely fit up there as well.

Are these people completely crazy?

Black Mountain

2005-11-28T07:54:00.000-08:00

I was just searching for a free e-card. I Googled over to bluemountain.com. I didn't use their service, but I did leave this comment.

HA HA HA!!!

PAY for online cards! That's the best laugh of the day. That's awesome! I think I pooped myself I laughed so hard.

Well, I guess I'll just have to pay the money and join. No sense in using one of the million free services out there. Great business model. You must be very proud.

Discouraging

2005-11-09T14:57:00.000-08:00

Today I was almost done with my run when the music player decided to play "The Long and Winding Road" by The Beatles followed by "World of Pain" by Cream.

One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church

2005-11-02T15:43:00.000-08:00

I have, for a long while, maintained a fascination with the Catholic Church. In high school and college I enjoyed an occasional trip to a Catholic mass. I loved going to Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. A couple of weeks ago Mary and I went down to Germantown in Nashville for Octoberfest. Before consuming a gallon or so of beer, we entered the Catholic church there and sat for a while. A really nice guy explained some of the statues to us. He explained that a depiction of a saint can be identified by the articles that he/she carries. For instance, Saint Peter (the Apostle and first Pope) often holds a key and a book. The key is the 'key to the church' that he posesses as the first Pope and the book represents the fact that he wrote a book that is accepted in the Holy Cannon.

When we were in London a few weeks ago I saw the saints on Westminster Abbey

and thought that I would like to know who each of them is. I just started doing some digging. It is so fascinating. Check out this article on Saint Peter. What do you think of the titles, "the first pope, Prince of the Apostles, and founder, with St. Paul, of the see of Rome." Does that make you bristle? I love it!

Check out Saint Paul. What do you think about him going "... to Jerusalem to see Peter and pay his homage to the head of the Church."

How about this article. Check out the section titled "A Saint for the 21st Century". I really like this language. I particularly like:
"Each generation needs to hear God saying "this is what I care about" - "this is what I find important". One of the ways God does this is through the persons God calls to sainthood."

Isn't that true? How ironic that protestants often criticizes the Catholic Church as being archaic. When, in fact, that is so relevant. I feel like we get too stuck in the first century that we refuse to listen to what God is saying today. He's still talking, isn't He!?!

This WikiPedia article, I think, is a bit cheeky about the Great Schism, but is an interesting read as well.

Rest of Loughborough

2005-10-26T15:13:00.000-07:00

OK, so ... didn't update during the week in Loughborough so much. Credit can be divided in the following ways:

I am a lazy blogger; but you already knew that.

Adcock's monopoly of the computer until the wee hours of the morning.

Mark's 'coincidental' hard drive meltdown while we were there. :(

The odds of me completing a proper blog are ... 0%. Deal. Maybe the best way to see my experience is to check out my Snapfish collection. Maybe I'll get on there and add captions like Tiffany did ... probably not. Do the Snapfish pictures stay up there forever? How does all that work? If you aren't a Snapfish member, then you have to go through all that registration crud. It won't kill you.

Here's the link

16.10.2005

2005-10-16T14:38:00.000-07:00

Church. Lunch. Hung out with Loughborough folks. Practiced (frantically) for skits. Evening church. First skit. Snacks. Dinner. Meeting. Bed

Church was good, very traditional. Bart did a great job leading singing. They say they have a hard time leading singing, though they enjoy singing once it gets started.

Lunch was a potluck. I think the American stereotype is that English food is bland. I thoroughly disagree. Think about English food that we frequently eat. Fish and chips are good. I LOVE shepherd’s pie. Of course, I can’t wait for a good Guinness in a proper pub. :)

Loughborough folks are very friendly. The congregation is not that big. Not sure how many, but certainly less than one hundred. All age groups hang out and interact with each other.

Skit practice was hectic but fun. I think I shocked a few folks by actually getting serious and keeping people on task. The funniest thing of the whole trip happened today. Can’t explain it yet. Will have to in person.

The rest … non-eventful. G’night.

Hangin’ out at the church for lunch. Notice the kid trying to pelt me with the ball. It's in the upper left hand corner of the picture, coming for my head.

More hangin’ out at the church for lunch.

Aw! My dumb picture hosting company doesn’t do video. I did one just for Katie.

England Part I

2005-10-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

I am going to make a small attempt to record the adventures of the intrepid group from Otter Creek that travelled to Loughborough, England to help with a Holiday Bible Camp (like VBS). We are fortunate enough to stay at a house that has internet access, so I am going to try to blog / post a few pictures as I go. You’ll have to get with us when we get back to see all the pictures in their proper quality. Let’s see how this thing works.

It is 20.06 local time. We have been awake for about 30 hours or so ... I think. We are all pretty exhausted. I hope we all get a good nights rest so we can hit the ground running tomorrow. Today’s pictures are of our travels from Nashville, through Chicago to London and finally to Loughborough.

Um ... so this doesn't take up tons of visual space, I'm just going to post the links with small descriptions. Click the images to open a new window and a larger picture.

14-15.10.2005

London near King's Cross Station

Sheep on the English countryside

Loughborough

Phil at an old church in Loughborough. He is standing on a sidewalk that is made of former tombstones.

Others at the same church

Lesley talking with Mark at the entrance of the Loughborough church.

Welcome Back Me

2005-10-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

So ... I haven't blogged in a long time as many of you have pointed out. >:|

I would say that the biggest culprit is the fact that, in my little crackerbox, rat hole of an apartment, I do not have cable or internet access. When I move (probably December) I will have these things turned on. I tend to blog late at night instead of sleeping. Until then, here's a really outdated description of a trip to LA. I'm two days from leaving for England. I'll probably get pictures of that up ... next year.

enjoy.

PDC

2005-10-12T09:16:00.000-07:00

I spent September 11th through the 16th in Los Angeles attending the Microsoft Professional Developer Conference. It was AMAZING!!! Computer programmer heaven. I took a few pictures with my phone. They're not the best quality, but they convey the message on the web. Here's the highlights:

I had a layover in Pheonix that started here ...

... and, 20 minutes later, ended here.

It was basically like programmer summer camp

13,000 programmers took over the LA Convention Center

There were about 150 classes

Fantastic breakfasts and dinners were provided for us

Amazing new technologies that you guys probably could care less about like LINQ, WPF, WCF, and WWF ... no, not World Wildlife Foundation or World Wrestling Federation, it's Windows Workflow Foundation. These are the things I should be playing with instead of writing on this silly blog.

LA turned out to be a lot better than I had expected. LA is beautiful. Southern California is beautiful. I really expected LA to be trashy, brown smog, dangerous, gangs, etc. etc.. I am sure that is there, but I didn't run into it. LA was sunny, 75 degrees, much more 'normal' than I expected.

Granted, I didn't get out a whole lot because I spent considerably more of my time in the convention center in class than I planned. I skipped only two sessions; one to catch the plane home and one to go running. The convention center and my hotel were very close to Dodger's Stadium, so I ran out to it, did a lap around it, and returned. That was a lot of fun. Most of the run was through a Hispanic neighborhood. At the time, I thought nothing of it. I felt perfectly safe. A little, middle aged guy even waved at me ... and he wasn't the only one.

I went out to dinner two nights with the fellas. We went to Sunset Strip in Hollywood both times. Loved it. It's a lot like Green Hills. It was insane real estate prices for old houses that, quite frankly, weren't that spectacular. I can imagine multi-million dollar celebrities living there and going to the grocery store and Best Buy and ... almost being normal.

On our way to ... somewhere ... we walked by the Whiskey a Go Go. Awesome! I wanted to go in but was overruled by the rest of the gang. That's where Guns 'n Roses got their start. It's holy ground to me.

I was RIGHT THERE hob-nobbing with rediculously smart folks; folks who WROTE parts of Windows or Host Integration Server. Bill Gates was there. He did a spoof of Napoleon Dynamite with the actual actor who played Napoleon. It was hilarious!

Bill rented out the Universal Studios theme park for us one night. All the food and drinks were free ... as they were at the convention center all week.

Bush Bashing Fizzles - Yahoo! News

2005-08-01T12:11:00.000-07:00

Bush Bashing Fizzles - Yahoo! News

This guy is, maybe, a little over-zealous with his finger pointing, but it's a fun little blurb.

A year after his famous article appeared in the New York Times in July 2003 accusing Bush of "twisting" intelligence, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a bipartisan report, concluded that [Joseph] Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his dispatch to Niger and Chairman Pat Roberts said that his report bolstered rather than refuted the case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa.

Miracle?

2005-07-28T16:48:00.000-07:00

So, last night at church this dude, Don Finto (check him out here http://www.calebcompany.com) talked about Messianic Jews and miraculous conversions. Most of y'all that read this blog were there. What do you think of that? I think many 'Conservative American Christians' find it hard to believe that in the modern world there are things like people being dead for a few days and coming back to life or visions of God or understanding strange languages or things like that. At the end a member got up and basically said that the reason we find that so shocking is because our faith is so weak. You know, I agree. I think it is actually a MORE LOGICAL statement to say that it isn't God that decided to stop doing miracles after the first century, it's US that decided to stop believing that He could.

Senator Idunno

2005-07-28T16:38:00.000-07:00

I really like Tucker Carlson. I used to watch him with Bill Press in 'The Spin Room' on CNN during the 2000 election. This was back in my uber-political junkie phase. I just read this article that sites a recent study that revealed, "the greatest consumer of online pornography are children between the ages of 12 and 17." Ok, that's a bad thing. So, Tucker conducted an interview with a Senator sponsoring a bill to tax internet pornography as a way to discourage underage consumption. the topic itself is not the issue. I certainly agree with the spirit of the Senator's attempt. The part that absolutely flabbergasts me is how amazingly inept the person is. She cannot complete an argument, make a point or defend her position AT ALL. If you were to sum up the conversation, it would be something like this:

Carlson: I don't think this a going to be a successful deterrent because of [fact, fact, fact].

Stanebow: Well, I have several things to say about that. Firstly, [illogical rambling on a single point that does not address any of the mentioned facts]. Do it for the children.

Behold my favorite examples (underlines are mine):

CARLSON: As I understand it, this will tax monthly memberships to porn sites. I don’t think most children have monthly memberships, because most kids don’t have credit cards. So, how is this going to protect kids?

DEBBIE STABENOW, MICHIGAN SENATOR AND BILL CO-SPONSOR: First of all, it does three things. It would require that children have to verify that they’re at least 18 years of age, in other words, not be children, to get onto adult pornography sites. Pornography sites right now, I should mention, according to a study done by the Third Way, an independent group, says that the fastest-growing consumers on pornography sites are children ages 12 to 17. It’s really astounding. It’s very concerning to me as a parent, as well as a senator.

Tucker goes on to talk about how most of the porn that these kids are getting IS FREE!!! or labeled as 'art'. Debbie (bless her heart) doesn't even get it.

CARLSON: OK. But, at some point, somebody is going to need to make a hard determination.

STABENOW: Not at all. We’re talking about somebody who says, I’m selling pornography. I have a pornography site. I’m signing up as a business. And, right now, we know that children ages 12 to 17 are the fastest consumers of those sites.

CARLSON: Right. But I support keeping online porn away from children. Very much including my own. However, here’s the problem, it seems to me. As soon as you tax it, then you give website operators a real incentive not to declare themselves pornographers, right? You have an incentive for these people wanting to escape the tax to call themselves artists and to call porn art. So, at some point, you are going to have to decide. You’re going to have to regulate this even more. And somebody from the government is going to have to decide what is porn and what is not. Are you prepared for that?

STABENOW: Well, first of all, child pornography is already illegal.

ROFL!!! WHAT IS SHE TALKING ABOUT!?! Tucker makes this home run argument, he exposes a loop hole in her thinking that is big enough to drive a mack truck through, and she doesn't even address it!

I wish this woman success. She's doing something, I guess, and her heart is in the right place. This article is just an shocking reminder that sometimes our leaders aren't exactly the sharpest tools in the shed.

Here's the article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8742696

You can't make this stuff up

2005-07-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

As the saying goes, sometimes truth is stranger than fiction:

Tempest in a "teapot"? Cult followers arrested - Asia-Pacific - MSNBC.com

John "Playa" McCain

2005-07-19T07:29:00.000-07:00

OK. I'm not the biggest John McCain fan. Sometimes he pi$$es me off when he screws up what the party is trying to do. Other times, I respect him for it. Right here, I like that he can have a sense of humor.

WorldNetDaily: McCain on sexy film: 'I work with boobs every day'

Chinese Nukes

2005-07-15T06:47:00.000-07:00

Here's a pleasant bed time story for you.

"If the Americans draw their missiles and position-guided ammunition on to the target zone on China's territory, I think we will have to respond with nuclear weapons," said General Zhu Chenghu.

FT.com / World / Asia-Pacific - Top Chinese general warns US over attack

Holy Yesterday Batman!

2005-07-08T08:55:00.000-07:00

My main computer is a few minutes from being thrown through a window. It is having some boot-up issues, so I am using another one at my desk. I was doing so good, too! I got here today at 7:30! That's about an hour and forty minutes earlier than usual. The past two mornings I have had to be at a dentist's office in Franklin at 8AM, I made it both times and thought that was a good precedence and if I could keep it up it would be good for me to start getting to work at a reasonable time. I didn't count on spending every minute of my 'extra' time trying to TURN ON my @#$@%#@#$ computer!

Since I can't do any actual WORK at this computer, I might as well do some heavy blogging. I've got lots to say anyway.

So ... yesterday was a big day. I got to work and did my usual routine. I checked work and personal email, checked the bank and then started reading news. Of course, the big headline was the London bombings. Now, before I tell you the story I am about to tell, I'll jump ahead and tell you that three of my best friends in Nashville are in England right now. So as I read this article, here's what I am thinking:

"Certainly this wasn't the french! They were pretty ticked about loosing the Olympics hosting, but there's no way they could be responsible for this. They're too cowardly to actually use weapons of any sort."

- btw, it is still entertaining to read about how upset the french are about loosing. Check it:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8500436

"Wow. 30 people dead? {at the time} Multiple attacks? Oh, what do you know? Muslim extremists. Go figure."

- then ... after reading half the article, I finally had this thought:

"The girls are there!"

I sent a little email to our group asking them to keep the travelers in their thoughts. No big deal, whatever. But then I started thinking about it and reading more and I got pretty concerned. Several of us started exchanging emails. I dunno, maybe we got each other in a lather unnecessarily. We started trying to find ways of getting in touch with their parents to see if they are alright. One of Amanda's friends was talking to her brother, Katie tracked down LB's parents. I tried calling Mary's apartment to ask for her emergency contact, presuming they were either her parents or someone that could get us in touch. Turns out that they can't really give out any information. In fact, they couldn't even confirm to me that Mary lived there or not. So, instead I gave them my contact information and asked them to pass it along to Mary's emergency contact. They wouldn't even confirm to me that they would or would not do that. I, actually, think that is all a good idea and applaud them for protecting their tenants' privacy so well. Turns out that they did call Mary's folks, her dad called me last night. However, there were still some gems from the conversation with the apartment office. Thus follows snipits of that conversation:

Me: "You have a tenant that is vacationing in London. There have been attacks in London today.
I am attempting to get in contact with her parents."

Her: "Attacks?"

Me: "Yes. Terrorist attacks."

Her: "Oh." (As in, "Oh, You scared me for a moment, I thought it was something serious. But now
that you have cleared that up, I am less concerned.")

- I hear someone enter her office and start talking.

Her: "Can you please hold."

Me: "Sure."
- Apparently, somebody's noise complaint or late rent payment is more pressing.

... (blah blah, I give her my contact information.)

Me: "Mary's parents probably will not know me, please tell them that I am a friend from the ##### Church."

Her: "Was she on a mission trip?"

Me: "No. She is on vacation."
- thinking: "What the @#$@## does that matter?"

Her: "Oh, just curious. {hee hee}"

Now that I know that they are safe, I can blog about this and have a good humor. Yesterday, however, I wanted to crawl through the phone and beat the girl senseless.

Terror?

2005-07-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

If you know me, you know that I have never really 'gotten over' the attacks of September, 11 2001. Whereas I despise country music, I like that one song with the chorus "have you forgotten?" No. I never have and I never will. Yesterday's attacks in London once again revived my rage. However, I discovered an interesting conundrum. To me, the fundamental problem are the radical, militant Muslims. I certainly do not believe that the problem is Islam, or that all Muslims are trouble. Muslims are not inherently militant or radical. But the radical militants are THE root of the problem.

Now, I'm about to say something that is a bit inflammatory. If you disagree with this coming statement, stick with me for a while.

The only way to end their terrorist ways is to kill or imprison every single one of them. That's right. 100% of them. Leave a single one out there and he will recruit more and / or strap a bomb to himself and go right for it. The argument that we should just leave them alone and they won't attack us is utter crap. According to their view of their religion, those that do not think and believe as they do are an enemy that deserves death. Do you think that Osama bin Laden would hesitate for one minute if he had the opportunity to reduce the entire Western world to a smoldering ash heap?

I would say that the majority of 21st century western thinkers find that particular line of thought to be abhorrent. To over generalize, we are tolerant of differences and understand that the guy next door probably isn't going to look or act like ourselves. Certainly, we value human life over our opinions and the inconvenience of differences.

Therein lies our simultaneous strength and weakness while fighting the radical militant Muslim. Genocide is unacceptable. We will not go to the Middle East and nuke the entire place. Though, I have to admit that idea has held a certain appeal, especially right after 9/11. It is our value of human life that is our difference from the radicals. And it is that difference that allows them to continue to live and do their work. Great Britain values the lives of innocent Arabs and is therefore rewarded with bombs that kill 50+ of her own innocent citizens. It is absolutely not a matter of COULD we obliterate them from this Earth. We certainly could do it. It would take about a half hour. It is a matter of us knowing that there is no feasible way and it is wrong, and therefore we SHOULD NOT do it. Thus, if it is impossible to win a 'war against terror' without destroying all terrorists, and we are unwilling to do the horror that it would take to actually destroy all the terrorists. We appear to be at a stalemate.

The exception to this is to introduce a true free market society to the region. THAT is why we are in Iraq. We are there to help a nation grow from a brutal dictatorship to a thriving economy of personal accountability. It is working, but it will take a looooooong time. Russia is still not there. There are tons of communists in Russia pining for the 'good old days'.

So! God bless Great Britain and be with her suffering. God bless hers and our troops and the heroic work that they do. God bless the Iraqi merchant who opened his first shop a few months ago. And God visit his wrath upon those that would willingly and intentionally kill innocents.

Journal

2005-07-08T08:52:00.000-07:00

About two years ago, Microsoft gave me a really, really nice leather journal. I have hauled it to meetings all over this campus. I LOVE it. When I first got it, I thought it would be really nice to have one just like it (sans the Microsoft logo) to take to church and write notes upon.

I really thought about that. I have sat through literally thousands of sermons, Bible studies, classes, chapels, etc. I have spent a good percentage of my life at these things. I couldn't tell you about two of them. They're gone. The only way to keep all of that is to write it down. Hence, the little journal looked perfect.

Two years ago, the manufacturer didn't sell their wares online. In fact, no one did! I couldn't even find it on eBay. And I never have been able to find another nice leather journal that I liked as well. So I procrastinated. Well, just the other day I tried again. Lo and behold they have an online store now! I ordered my journal. It is sitting on my desk right now. I LOVE it! I can't wait to use it. I think I want to go to a nice office supply store and buy a nice pen to go with it. Come sit by me at church and check it out.

It's friggin' hot here.

2005-06-29T23:14:00.000-07:00

It's ridiculous in Nashville these days. It's in the 80's and the humidity is enough to choke a horse. Sunday I ran three miles outside and it felt like 50. No joke, I lost 2 pounds (of sweat) from the time I went outside to the time I came in. I ran inside on a treadmill today.

Tonight I stopped by the townhouse on the way home from church to check on progress. None. I was roaming around when I heard this hissing sound. Turns out I got a nail in a tire. That's probably going to keep happening. So I raced home (1.5 miles, nice) and changed clothes so I could put on the spare. This is a side note, but the spare shouldn't be a spare, it should be a fifth wheel that gets rotated in and out with the rest of them. Nope. I must have neglected that the last three times I got new tires because I don't even remember ever getting BFGoodrich tires for this vehicle, ever. But I digress. This simple process, in the dark, rendered me profusely sweaty. As in, my hair and shirt were soaked. I had to go inside and take a complete shower.

Vegas isn't this way. I agree with folks who say, "It's a dry heat." I LOVE it out there. 115 degrees with zero humidity is wonderful. I can walk from one end of the strip to the other, or traverse a dessert all day, the whole while feeling perfectly comfortable. The Nashville Rainforest, however, is miserable. What's Kansas City like?

Selling the spirit - Hardball with Chris Matthews - MSNBC.com

2005-06-29T07:12:00.000-07:00

Selling the spirit - Hardball with Chris Matthews - MSNBC.com

How cool is this? I didn't know that the 'Christian Industry' had such a presence in Nash-Vegas. That's pretty sweet. I think I could handle working for a church-oriented business.

Some light reading for you

2005-06-28T13:58:00.000-07:00

Jane's Information Group

I think this is kind of like 'Consumer Reports' and 'People Magazine' for the international intelligence community.

$200 Trillion

2005-06-28T07:16:00.000-07:00

Do you have $200,000,000,000,000 just lying around? 'Cause I think this is a great idea and if a few of us get together we could do some very valuable good for this planet.

http://www.livescience.com/technology/050627_warming_solution.html

Fat & Happy

2005-06-27T15:59:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't blogged in quite a while. I can't think of anything good. My title borrows from an Amanda phrase. I respect a woman that can confidently utter that phrase.

Last night we thought that blogging about SFBPC (sweaty-forehead-boy-pants-chic) would be funny ... but I think it's a had-to-be-there story. If you're confused, last night we had a waitress that had a sweaty forehead and wore boy jeans.

I'm happy. Life is good at the moment. I even have a few things that I could be all upset about if I wanted to. I live in a prison cell, I drive a Nissan P.O.S. that cost me another $400 today. But I am not even the least bit perturbed about that. Now, you jerks (you know who you are) are leaving town for a hundred million years. That has me bummed.

I don't even think I have anything funny to say. I think most of my humor is usually laced with of sarcasm. I got nothin' right now.

If you have a link on the right hand side of this site, chances are you are directly responsible for my positive mood.

Thanks.

The Guster of Oz

2005-06-06T09:42:00.000-07:00

Song / Album / Artist

What You Wish For / Lost & Gone Forever / Guster

"... once had this dream, crashed down in oz
not black and white, but where the colors are ..."

Come Downstairs And Say Hello / Keep It Together / Guster

"Dorothy moves to click her ruby shoes
Right in tune with dark side of the moon ...

...

Voices calling from a yellow road
To come downstairs and say hello ..."

I have found after many years of intent listening to The Beatles that they have several themes of imagery that they reuse in many songs. The most obvious example being the use of the sun and rain (Here Comes the Sun, Sun King, I'll Follow the Sun, Rain, I Am The Walrus "... Standing in the English Rain"). The sun tends to represent hope or greatness. Rain is melancholy. Paul, in particular, uses birds, usually to describe fear or loneliness, (Blackbird, Bluebird, Free as a Bird "John never completed this song, Paul picked it back up", And Your Bird Can Sing). John even intentionally reuses their own lyrics or song titles (Glass Onion, How Do You Sleep?, All You Need is Love)

There are others. The sum of which weaves a cord or continuity to their collective works. It also gives a common lexicon of important keywords that can describe the purpose of the lyrics without a lot of verses.

Having been trained to find such continuity by The Beatles, I tend to pick up on these things in other bands. Thus, I caught in two Guster songs on two different albums (referenced above) that they must have a thing for The Wizard of Oz. Funny, that the two aforementioned songs are probably my favorites off each album. I wonder what their fascination is with The Wizard of Oz. They use it rather effectively. It tends to add a touch or surreal or dreaminess (stoned?) to the song.

I think I am really starting to dig Guster. If I can compare them to The Beatles, that's a lot in my book.

attitude

2005-05-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

Do you think it matters a great deal when a developer is proud of what he creates? I do. Imagine, if you will, two developers who build exactly the same app (exactly the same code). They have exactly the same environment, manager, support structure, pay, home life, etc. etc. They are both exactly at the same level of competence and both understand the application to exactly the same depth. One truly believes that he wrote a compelling product. That it was well architected and is a very high quality reflection on his own abilities. The other thinks it is crap. He thinks the architecture is overcomplicated or too simple. He thinks the code is garbage. Now give these guys a year or two to support the app. I would imagine that the "happy" developer will be supporting a shiny, tip-top application whereas the "unhappy" developer will have an app with bugs introduced over that year. I even think he will understand less and less about it. I think attitude is a self-fulfilling prophesy.

I imagine that this applies to most other professions as well.

a short story

2005-05-25T15:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a million years. I have been pretty busy. This short story to LB earlier pretty much sums up what has been going on with me lately:

A SHORT STORY

By Dan Norton

Once upon a time I left Blackstone and drove all over Nashville looking at dumpy, crack-town condos and far away houses. On the way home I stopped at Green Hills mall and watched Star Wars again. Despite the fact that I hate theatres and I will not have much reason to step in one again after Star Wars goes to DVD. I think watching Star Wars in a theatre is one of the most pure forms of enjoyment for me. Now I am going to go downtown and look at overpriced, "metrosexuals 'r us", ultra-modern lofts. Joy.

THE END

Appendix A: The lofts were just as I described them. They were $200K - $400K for 700 sq/ft apartments!!!

Parking for guests? Well, glad you asked because the answer is, "No. But they can park across the street. Hardly anyone has been mugged there today."

The big compelling reason to live in them was, "Hey! You're WALKING distance from the Tin Roof!"

To which I thought, "I couldn't imagine ANYTHING better than that ... except running my nether regions through a meat grinder."

Twin Towers II

2005-05-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

Twin Towers model at MSNBC (David Shuster)

I casually clicked on this news article. When I saw the towers my heart leapt. When I read:

... for a brief moment today, we saw why so many people feel it is so important that newer, safer, stronger Twin Towers be built at Ground Zero.

I nearly got a shiver.

I have been semi-following the recent events surrounding the redevelopment of Ground Zero. From what I understand, construction was about to begin a few weeks ago when Governor Pataki brought the whole thing to a grinding halt and issued an order to "redesign". Whoa! At the time I figured that meant it would take longer then my natural lifetime to have anything there but two big holes in the ground. But right now, this very moment, I feel excitement that one day I will go back to NY and see two huge towers dominating the southern skyline of the city.

I am not a New Yorker. I have no real dog in this hunt. But I am an American who was, and still is, deeply touched by the events of September 11, 2001. A few weeks after the attack I watched Mayor Giuliani make a plea that he had enough volunteers, enough food and enough blood. What he really needed were tourists. A few weeks after that, I emptied out my bank account and got on a plane. I saw the twisted metal and the holes in the ground. I walked all around it. That's my only trip to New York thus far. However, I sympathize with New Yorkers that believe the only reasonable plan is to erect two new Twin Towers. Anything else is less. It is cowardice. It is letting those @#$@%# win. It is unacceptable. I agree wholeheartedly with Donald Trump who says about the Freedom Tower:

The last thing we need in New York is a skeleton representing the World Trade Center. I think it's not an appropriate design.

I didn't like the design of the Freedom Tower, but I figured that was the speech of someone who lives hundreds of miles away from New York. I thought, if New Yorker's (for the most part) like it than so be it. It's their city, after all. But if there is a wellspring of New Yorkers who support rebuilding the Twin Towers, I salute you, I stand by you, I THANK you and I will prove it by coming there and spending more money ... well, I'll do that anyway, but you know what I mean.

New Twin Towers would be a tribute to the victims. It is the ultimate example of American resiliency. It is also the second biggest insult to the bastards that toppled the first ones. Of course, forcing them to live in a treacherous mountain region and survive on a diet of their own cooked feces while hunting them like wild animals and killing them is the ultimate insult, but we're already working on that one.

Cinco de Mayo (I hate the french almost as much as I hate hippies)

2005-05-09T22:38:00.000-07:00

Angelica gave us a loverly history lesson on the true meaning of Cinco de Mayo.

I don't know. I'm sort of torn on this one. On one hand, good job for beating up the french. I'd certainly raise my margarita glass to toast you on that one. On the other hand, you beat up the french. Why is that noteworthy? It's like celebrating sleeping late. Is it because the war against the frogs began on 5 May and ended on the same day, thus making it the fifth or sixth quickest ass-whoopin' they received ... that year?

I certainly agree with Pennington's thoughts on the nazi's, so this is not an endorcement of the folks in the picture. However, I don't like frogs. If I ever, for some unholy reason, have to step foot on french soil I promise to wipe my shoes off in public before departing. Anyway, this is my favorite picture of paris:

btw, that picture comes from a pretty funny site.

Water

2005-05-09T22:05:00.000-07:00

I ate sort-of a big dinner, and I ate it kind-of late. That's not the best combination in the world. After that I felt really, really thirsty. I think I drank at least 12 glasses of water in the past hour and a half. My mouth is telling me that I could drink more. I am now laying in bed exhausted. I can't sleep because I am full of water. If I move from side to side real fast I can hear it sloshing around. When I press on my belly it's so full it doesn't mush in. I think a fish could swim around in there all night and live. This is miserable.

Can't Help it Star Wars Ramblings

2005-05-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

So ... I was looking at this:

http://msnbc.com/modules/starwars/map

and realized how unafraid Lucas is to kill off almost ALL of his important characters.

There are 33 squares on the map. Two of them represent organizations: Droid Army and Clone Army. While both of these incur thousands of fatalities, I will exclude them from this calculation. One of them has two people: Lars family. Two more are duplicates: Anakin Skywalker / Darth Vader and Senator Palpatine / The Emperor (imho, "The Emperor" just sounds cooler than "Emperor Palpatine", so kudos to these guys). Get rid of the duplicates and that leaves us with 30 "people".

Of those 30 there two for which, by the end of Episode VI, we do not know the fate: Lama Su and Jar Jar (maybe he gets offed in EpIII, but I doubt it). While Padme does not die on screen (I assume), Leia tells us she is dead. Also, we can assume that Bail Organa was on Alderaan when it blew in Episode IV, though the makers of this site neglected that point. There are 9 characters that we know survive all the way to the end credits of Episode VI. That leaves 19 characters on this map that get whacked on screen. There are a few that die in Episode III ... I hope I am not spoiling it for you if you don't know that. I am making the assumption that none of these people, er "retire" before Episode IV.

These aren't 'red shirts' either. Darth Vader, Obi-Wan, Yoda and Palpatine are, pretty much, the four most central characters of the whole deal. All dead. Besides these guys, the most powerful Jedi (Qui-gon, Mace)? Dead. Most beloved baddies (Boba Fett, Jabba)? Dead. Now ... how 'bout this one that I haven't thought about until now. 'Empire' is generally accepted as a fan favorite and the most dark of the OT (original trilogy). Besides a bunch of bumbling Imperial officers, that's the ONLY movie where a key character doesn't die. Interesting.

If you are reading this, you know I think about Star Wars constantly and could blog about it until my fingers fall off, but I haven't because, "Who want's to hear that?" I thought this one was worthy because the thought was spawned by LB's hypothesis on another popular saga. I don't want to agree that either Hermione or Ron will die by the end of the last Harry Potter book, but ... oh man, I concede. It really could happen.

btw. If you are after some GREAT SW meat to tide you over until the big day, read all of this:

http://darthside.blogspot.com

I just read this snippet. That's GREAT!!!

I meditated in the carbon freezing chamber as Skywalker approached. Out of the steam strode Qui-gon Jinn, shimmering and insubstantial. "Anakin," he called. "The time has come to test him."

"He is only a boy."

"He is stronger than you think," Qui-gon pronounced, and vanished.

So...chalk one up for Qui-gon. The boy is strong. Stronger than I could have imagined.

... or how 'bout this one. RIOT!!!

"I've been waiting for this for a long time," he went on. "Gettin' a chance to talk, just you and me. You wanna know why?"

"Pray tell, Captain."

"I know who you are!" he shouted.

Though my masque betrayed nothing I was startled. Did Luke know about me? I knew the liar Obi-wan would never have told him the truth...but could this smuggler know to tell him? How could that be possible?

"You can't hide it from me any more!" Solo continued. "Your cruelty reveals everything, Lord Vader."

"So, you know the truth..." I said, suddenly afflicted with a pain in the control circuitry of my left leg.

"Yeah, I know alright," spat Solo. "You're my father!"

It took me a moment to absorb that. Then I shook my head and smiled behind my masque. "No Solo," I pronounced darkly. "I killed your father."

Solo winced as if I had struck him. "That's not true," he muttered. "That's impossible."

This is the very best one. He-larious!!!

Dear House of Ozzel,

I regret to inform you that your son has been killed in the line of duty.

He was an incompetent, yammering boob and he will be missed by none. I have allowed the men to pillage his personal belongings, which is why we have enclosed nothing but the sole remaining item: a torn advertisements page from a magazine of midget pornography. May it shock and disturb you, and may you think of it always when you remember your dearly departed son, the ninny.

Know also that his limitations as a sub-par military professional caused the deaths of many of the Emperor's loyal soldiers, whose funeral expenses will appear on your next tax assessment.

Sincerely,
D. Vader

Only 9 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes left!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

cmm pics

2005-05-06T12:22:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah! I kick your ...

See more here

LB's Zingers Part I

2005-05-05T22:01:00.000-07:00

Lara should be an author. She comes up with these zingers that make me laugh almost daily. I know that I have already started to forget some, so I have to write them down. Here's the best ones from the past couple of days. LB, can you think of any others that I liked?

In reference to adopting a dog, "They provide toys, food, crate, and vet care. You provide a face to lick."

Asking us to share a moment with her after a long day, "Can someone PLEASE meet me for a beer before bowling? Pretty please? With foam on top?"

On feeling a bit disheveled, "I combed my hair with a pork chop."

HA! These are priceless. Thanks.

Bright and Shiny

2005-05-04T11:06:00.000-07:00

After watching Bubble Boy last night I decided to waste some time today looking at reviews. The movie struck me as one that tanked in the theatre. I don't know why I care enough to look. Here are some reviews from rottentomatoes.com:

I like these:

"Often terrible, yet strangely watchable."
-- Kim Morgan, OREGONIAN

"It's not good. It's a bizarre mix of cute and disgusting, innocent and evil. It's all wrong. So why was I laughing so much?"
-- Dave White, IFILM

"Bubble Boy's producers should never be allowed to SEE another film, let alone make one."
-- Tony Toscano, TALKING PICTURES (U.S.)

"Has a goofy and over-the-top way of making its point, but as long as you’re not stuck on it fitting a particular mould, it’s a fun - and meaningful - ride."
-- Brian Webster, APOLLO GUIDE

These I disagree with (--> is my comment):

--> Looks like somebody got offended. Poor wittle fella.
"Certainly the meanest-spirited film ever associated with the Disney hallmark."
-- Stephen Hunter, WASHINGTON POST

--> Well ... it wouldn't really be 'Bubble Boy' without the ... um ... BUBBLE!!! IDIOT!!!
"Someone like Tom Green or Carrot Top probably could have done a better job of reacting to Jimmy's issues and done it without a darn bubble in their way."
-- Ward Triplett III, KANSAS CITY STAR

--> Philip Martin is a Brianist.
"...the most anti-human movie to surface since Showgirls."
-- Philip Martin, ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Headlines - 5/3/2005

2005-05-03T21:28:00.000-07:00

The editors of MSNBC.com would like to bring you the following grossly obvious, non-funny reports:
- U.S. military report: Wars straining U.S. power
- Africa worst place for mothers, children

Holy Cow! Ligers are real!
- Liger, liger, burning bright

I've always thought the same thing
- British geologist Dougal Dixon, in the book "The Future is Wild," creates a scenario millions of years from now in which humans become extinct and are replaced by an animal kingdom dominated by a giant land-based squid.

31 seconds too many

2005-05-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

Official chip time was 2:00:30. So it's more like 13.1 = 2. I'm still happy with myself. My nipples are healing nicely. Thanks for asking, Corny.

Run, Music City!

2005-04-30T11:33:00.000-07:00

13.1 < 2

Whoo - hooooooooooooo!

How 'bout that!?! I got up at the butt crack of dawn this morning with the intention of limping across the finish line at around 2:20 or so. Not today, Junior! I don't know where I got it but I had tons of energy and I was ready to run. It certainly wasn't from my slack training the past few weeks, or the four whole hours of sleep I got last night.

Now, I have some clarifications. Technically, I might not have come in under 2 hours. We don't get official results until tonight, but I want to blog this desperately. At any rate I know I am within a minute or two. The clock time was 2:14. I know we were more than ten minutes behind the leaders to start. As usual, I had to make a restroom break. This time it only cost me 3-4 minutes. So if you subtract that then I am pretty sure I came in under 2. At any rate, I am close enough to 2 to call it a victory. If you don't like it then to heck with you! >:|

Last year I pretty much did the whole thing alone. It is exponentially more fun with people there to run with and to cheer me on. Thanks! You guys are great!!!

OK. I wanna make a detailed account of the day, not so much for publishing, but for my own recollection. If you aren't interested in the gory (literally) details, it won't hurt my feelings if you stop reading.

Let's see ... I'm not exactly sure what the clock time was when Amanda and I crossed the start line (Go, Amanda!), but I crossed 1 mile at 22-23 (something like that), so I am going to assume that we crossed at around 23-24 minutes. It was ridiculously cold, and I kept teasing Amanda that we were about to get poured on (it really looked like it). Literally, when we were queued up to go, I still believed that I was going to suck wind the whole time. About a quarter mile in I thought, "Wow! I feel unusually good." so I broke away from Amanda and just started truckin'.

My music was PERFECT for today's run. It was comical that in several places the song that came on fit exactly what was going on. I had forgotten to start my MP3 on a playlist that I had meticulously crafted last night, so it just played the songs in the order they were copied to the disk (or something like that). The first few songs were The James Gang. I hadn't listened to The James Gang in forever and it ROCKED. I listened to Funk #49 twice.

I saw LB (dear, cheering, helpful friend!) at about 2-3ish. I got to 4 mile at exactly 50:00. "Out Ta Get Me" by GN'R comes on. "They're out ta get me/They won't catch me" I was feeling awesome! Shortly thereafter I crossed the point where I had to make my disastrous break last year. I had resigned myself to it this year. It happens all the time; 3 miles, 10 miles, whatever. There's nothing I can do. So shortly after 5 I started getting the gurgle (right on queue). I was tailing one of the Nashville Strider's pacesetters. He was a marathoner with a 4:15 sign. At this point I had no thought that I would get close to 2, so I was pretty happy that I was hanging with that dude. Around 6 I had to stop. This year there were, thankfully, substantially more facilities. I took care of that and never stopped again.

So, for the rest of the race I will rely on my songlist. If you know how my mind works, you will know that I remember events through the songs I am listening to at the time. Hence, the following is helpful to me.

Complete song list:

Artist	Song	Comment
The James Gang	Walk Away
The James Gang	Funk #49
The James Gang	Midnight Man	LB, there's a line in this song that a woman sings,"Midnight Man, you're pretty." Thought of you. ;)
The James Gang	The Bomber (Closet Queen)
The James Gang	Woman	Ok ... getting tired of The James Gang right about now.
The James Gang	Funk #48
Lynard Skynard	The Ballad of Curtis Lowe	This is a running song from last year.
Guns n' Roses	It's So Easy	Perfect!
Guns n' Roses	Nightrain
Guns n' Roses	Out Ta Get Me
Guns n' Roses	Mr. Brownstone
Guns n' Roses	Sweet Child O' Mine
Audioslave	Cochise	I got a HUGE burst of energy from this one. I sprinted about a 1/4 mile.
Audioslave	Gasoline	This is where the break was. From here I switched to the playlist. Little did I know that the next song was "Can't Find My Way Home" by Blind Faith. Shoulda' waited.
Cream	Crossroads
The White Stripes	St. James Infirmary	The White Stripes own!
The White Stripes	Slicker Drips
Led Zeppelin	Hey, Hey What Can I Do	I am invincible when running to Led Zeppelin
Beck	Today has Been a F#@ked Up Day	There is much, much history with this song
Led Zeppelin	Misty Mountain Hop	I don't remember listening to this?
The White Stripes	Do
Black Sabbath	Sweet Leaf	This came on right as I was passing the Belmont Church choir. HA!
Guns n' Roses	Sweet Child O' Mine	Didn't care. Didn't want to fool with the player.
Velvet Revolver	Set Me Free	This came on during that miserable stretch on The Gulch, under Broadway. This was also right about the time that it registered with me that I had a legitimate shot at 2. I got a mean look on my face and took off. The Gulch is my bitch!
The White Stripes	Broken Bricks	I feel like I have listened to a thousand White Stripes songs and the good ones never come on.
The James Gang	Woman	Holy Cow! I've had enough James Gang
Cream	Sunshine of Your Love	I do not remember this song
Cake	Stickshifts and Safetybelts	I think this came on right about the split. Thank goodness that huge billboard from last year is gone. It said "Marathon runners! 15.(something) miles left to go!". That sign convinced me never to try a marathon.
The Black Crows	Soul Singing	This is about mile 11ish. I have had it. I am fighting with myself to stop.
The Beatles	Don't Let Me Down	This is the most perfect one of them all. JOHN LENNON is cheering me on! I sped up.
The White Stripes	Astro	There you go! A good rock out 'Stripes song.
Ted Nugent	Stranglehold	And that brought me down that street in front of the Coliseum and past the finish line. Perfect! Especially if you know how that song has a particular significance to my running (Pennington and Cornfed).

After crossing the finish line I realized that I was in some pretty good pain. My knee felt like somebody took a sledgehammer to it, and my nipples hurt. I peeled back my number bib to see this horror:

This grodiness is a link if you don't want to see

Finally, LB took my shivering, useless body back to HCA where I stood in the shower for 45 minutes. Much better now. I think I might do it again next year!

Reading the tea leaves

2005-04-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

If the previous recession has taught me anything it is to be cautions. These are today's "Stocks and Economy" headlines from MSNBC.com:

Stocks lower after downbeat GDP data
Economy grows at softest pace in two years
U.S. jobless claims rise, as expected
Durable goods orders drop unexpectedly
U.S. consumer confidence drops in April

On the site's main page today is a link titled ...

More signs economy is weakening

... that points to the same article as the second one in the list above.

It makes perfect sense. Rising energy cost increases the cost of business and reduces consumer activity. Put all that together and wonder if right now is the best time to be making huge financial decisions like selling a house, entertaining other job offers, etc. But there is a new, nagging thought from this weekend to not live in fear.

Got My Tickets

2005-04-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

22 days; 13 hours; 14 minutes. I am going to explode.

2005 Draft

2005-04-25T23:04:00.000-07:00

So we drafted Tennessee punter Dustin Colquitt. I guess Vols fans are pretty happy with his family. Let's hope he does the Orange to Red transition better than Casey Claussen did. I wanted to throw up seeing him in a red jersey ... once ... in preseason. ;)

We also drafted a wide receiver named Craphonso Thorpe. That poor kid. It's not a good sign when the first four letters of your name are 'crap'. Can you imagine the nicknames he had in high school?

Why did we draft a freakin' quarterback AND a wide receiver? If Trent takes a boot to the face and is out for the rest of the year then forget it, we're sunk. Period. What is a rookie wide receiver going to do? If Tony Gonzalez breaks his neck, then so should the rest of the entire team. I think for the 2005 season we need to concentrate on the 2005 season. After this, Vermiel is gone, Priest might be gone, our hopes are gone. This is it ... well, 2003 was it ... curse you, Payton Manning!!!

With insomnia, nothing is real. Everything is a copy of a copy of a copy.

2005-04-25T22:28:00.000-07:00

So Caroline wrote this and inspired me to tell a story (hush, LB).

I am, similarly, NOT a morning person. The primary reason is that I cannot go to bed on time. Tonight, for instance, it is 12:30AM and I am up typing blog entries. Why? Anyway, I have similar stories from high school. EVERY MORNING Pop (my dad) would spend 30 - 45 minutes as my personal, human alarm clock. He came with a snooze button. He would say something to rouse me. My response would be something to the effect of, "werwerw wer wregf gfdew ygfojidsknewr y5bt3krwejhfds!" He would go away. Ten to fifteen minutes later this exchange would be repeated.

At Lipscomb, every morning began with this strict ritual: I had a CD player alarm clock that would start playing an audio cd. The same track of the same cd every day. It was on the other side of the room from my bed. After about ... I dunno, 5 - 10 minutes of it blabbering I would get up and hit the snooze on it and (of course) return to bed. This would afford me about 2 - 3 minutes of deep slumber before the alarm clock next to my bed would go off. I would reach over and use the Force to trip its snooze button. Two to three minutes after that, a desk lamp which hung on the wall about 2 feet from my face would turn on (it was on a timer). It would scorch my flesh just long enough for me to turn it off immediately before the cd started playing again. This cycle would be repeated for about 45 minutes to an hour.

Did I mention that I had a roommate that endured this EVERY DAY? He can STILL quote the first chapter of my audio book. When he would describe my ritual to others, he would include hilarious accounts of my facial expressions as I became aware of each alarm. He said I looked as if I was shocked that morning actually happened, as if it made no logical sense to me that I had to wake up in the morning.

His alarm clock system comprised of the following: a single alarm clock with a beep almost as loud as a squeak in a tennis shoe. Most mornings it wouldn't go off. He would beat it to the punch. If it ever did go off, it would beep ONCE.

Now, some mornings he would get up early to do homework. He had a computer in the room and would type his papers or what not. When he did that (keep in mind my previous story), I swear it sounded to me like he was pounding on the keyboard so hard that he was about to ram the keys completely through the back of the desk. Of course, he was just typing like normal. It drove me crazy. Whenever I would point this out to him (that's a nice way of putting it) he would remind me of my ritual.

Songs of the Church You Kind Of Know The Words To

2005-04-25T20:55:00.000-07:00

We are now home from the singles group retreat this past weekend. I think there is a consensus that it was a great success. GREAT JOB LESLIE AND JANEL!!! Personally, I feel spiritually challenged and significantly closer to the group after this weekend.

I think there is also a con census that one of the most enjoyable times of the weekend was the completely unplanned and unscripted "ole' time song service" on Saturday night. In between guffaw laughter, my mind kept matching the fun we were having to these following thoughts. Many of the songs we were singing were in fun, sprinkled with an appropriate portion of irreverence. These were the songs that I grew up with and remember as a kid in the Church of Christ. They conjured up memory of a stuffy church, but, I infer, a pretty typical C of C for the 80's and 90's. During some of the songs I actually felt a prick somewhere in the far back of my mind saying, "Whoa! You can't CLAP to that song!" Caroline had a pertainant comment at the end of her account (here)of these events. I agree with her assesment of that classic, "Jesus is Coming Soon". What a riot. Now, none of what I am saying is intended to be critical. In fact, I kept thinking just the opposite. I have spent my entire life in the Church of Christ, and church related activities have usually taken up most of my "free time" (i.e. not work time). The culture of the C of C is part of my personal wiring. Singing all those old songs the other night reminded me of how different a "mainstream" C of C is these days. While I appreciate the change, and I am ... proud (?) ... of the church for its growth, I appreciate our heritage. The thought occurred to me then that while we can all joke and be critical of our church history, I really appreciate it. I LOVE a good C of C joke, but at the same time those quirks and cultural nuances give us an identity. Saturday night was a great example. A room full of folks that, literally, grew up all over the country can sit in the dark in a room and sing the crustiest old songs for hours from memory. We even had the four part harmony some of the time. AND they didn't feel crusty, they felt familiar. It was fun to sing those old songs, though I can remember, as a kid, trudging through them for endless Sunday's. There's a double entendre there, "endless Sunday's" as in an uncountable number of them, and Sunday's that would never end. The difference this time around is that those old songs immediately reconnect me with the history of the C of C, as well as my own personal history, as well as to each of the other individuals in that room. We have a shared culture. I also got to thinking that while I appreciate other denominations, and it has been suggested to me innumerable times that it might be good to switch denominations and try something new, the C of C culture is so much a part of me and it is such a precious thing to share with others that I don't want to change. I couldn't switch to a Baptist church and be able to share all those years of history with them. That shared history and culture is very important. It is a huge part of being family.

Giovanni Paulo Santo!!!

2005-04-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires."

- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger

I read this article and picked up on Cardinal Ratzinger's comments. I would tend to agree with that. I think that the protestant community wholesale rejects Catholic teachings rather blindly. There are innumerable examples of the most compassionate, learned, Christ-like individuals in history being members the Catholic Church. I like 'em and would like to learn more.

All of the fuss lately about the Pope and the Catholic Church has renewed my interest in Catholicism. I understand when people feel that the Catholic Church is stuffy or too filled with ritual. Some find disagreement with the idea of a single man leading the entire Church, or praying to Saints and all that. I, for one, really appreciate the (literally) thousands of years of Church history. It connects the present age with thousands of years of Christians. I do think that praying to Saints is kind of weird, but I don't think it is a salvation issue. Ultimately, they believe in Jesus the Christ and power that He displayed in his crucifixion and resurrection. That makes the rest of our differences merely cultural, even (especially) the ones that we get so upset with each other over.

RSS Bandit

2005-04-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

If you are like me and read a bunch of blogs, it can get monotonous to click around to a hundred different web sites just to see if there is anything new. This is especially true for blogs that belong to friends. These might get a couple of posts a day for a few weeks and then go months without one. I am especially guilty of that.

Most blogs have RSS feeds. These are basically a different form of your blog that programs can poll for changes. All of us that have blogsot accounts have the option of allowing RSS feeds, and most of us have ours turned on. There are a number of programs out there that can download all these RSS feeds and let you view dozens of different blogs at a glance, much like reading email. The program that I use is called RSS Bandit. You can get it here. Here's a screenshot of what mine looks like:

Hey! You! Get off of my Cloud!

2005-04-14T16:07:00.000-07:00

Check it, yo. I have a new friend. I just welcomed him to my blog and told him to check out the ones listed on yonder left links. I hope he swings by. His 'American' name is Cloud and he lives in China. He is one of Linda's students. For those of you not in the know on that one, she is a Harding friend that teaches Engrish over there. She's been there for ... years. She has a blog too, but maybe we should keep that under wraps (you know why).

Anyway, Linda and I have put together a group of 'Chinese Pen Pals' from about a dozen folks at OC. Cloud is my Chinese pen pal. So, be nice to him if he comments on your blog.

Take three ...

2005-04-13T13:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I haven't posted on here in a thousand years. Some friends in Nashville have started up some blogs, so that is inspiring me to try again. I am going to change the rules. I am going to see what it is like to allow any registered blogger.com user to post comments. No cussing!!!

Dissociative Disorder

2005-04-13T13:34:00.000-07:00

WHAT IS DISSOCIATION?

Dissociation is a mental process, which produces a lack of connection in a person's thoughts, memories, feelings, actions, or sense of identity. During the period of time when a person is dissociating, certain information is not associated with other information as it normally would be. For example, during a traumatic experience, a person may dissociate the memory of the place and circumstances of the trauma from his ongoing memory, resulting in a temporary mental escape from the fear and pain of the trauma and, in some cases, a memory gap surrounding the experience. Because this process can produce changes in memory, people who frequently dissociate often find their senses of personal history and identity are affected.

Here's a topic that I think I could ramble about forever. I'll try to keep it brief.

It seems that the past year or so has been riddled with close friends experiencing very dangerous illness. I have recently thought a lot about how wired it is to deal with that.

Just for LB, here are a bunch of stories.

About this time last year, the mother of one of my life-long best friends was dying of cancer. My thoughts revolved solely around the friend and worried for him and how he was going to deal with it. She died that July and still, a year later, every couple of days I think that it is just inconceivable that the Earth still revolves around the Sun without Melissa. She's not actually gone?

Last winter my best friend from Lipscomb was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease. I have seen his thin, short hair, his IV-lump-thing in his chest. He has told me about enduring chemotherapy. But I think I emotionally click the whole thing off because I don't think I can deal with him being that sick. I KNOW he deals with it better than I do. It's like we talk about nonsense and whatever and then he tells me about what is going on and POP! my brain disconnects from my heart until we move on to some other topic. He is supposed to have his final treatment of chemo this week. I CAN'T WAIT!!! That's just crazy. I'm all excited for him, even though I couldn't allow myself to get upset at any point. I keep saying, "He's going to be fine." not as a faith (or Goldeneye) thing, but as TOTAL denial.

Just a few weeks ago an old (not an old person, just friends for a long time) friend from KC calls me and tells me that she is going in to get a lump removed from her breast in a few days. She is very distraught. She's upset, her sister is upset, her mom is upset. I couldn't come close to "getting upset". I prayed for the girl with emotion analogous to "Lord, let her rent check not bounce."

Last night a relatively new friend from church was diagnosed with MS. A bunch of us went over to her apartment and hung out to "keep her mind off of it". We did great! Laughed, told stories, had a great time. COMPLETELY ignored the part about her just finding out that she has an incurable degenerative disease.

NOW!!! Here's where this gets sticky for me. This in not a joke, nor even intended to sound funny. A couple of weeks ago Pennington sends me a text message that says, "Taco Via burned down." This is my favorite restaurant in the whole world. I was near tears. A few minutes later he sends another one, "Just kidding. Debbie says hi." I felt like I just got punched in the face. I had that feeling for three days. I can connect with this one. One day, Taco Via will be gone. I know that. I know that my time with Taco Via is limited so I must appreciate every chance I get to eat there.

I cannot imagine a world without my favorite adopted mom, even though that IS the current reality. I cannot imagine Shaun having cancer. BUT HE HAS IT!!! Slater may be nuttier than squirrel turds, and we may have gone years without talking to each other, but she will never die (at least as far as my mind tells me). Three weeks ago, Clair was the picture of health, and all of a sudden BAM! it totally changes. I can't imagine life without these people any more than I can imagine myself not existing. But I CAN imagine a world without those yummy taco's, and therefore I can feel all the pertinent emotions.

Here's my theory. I think my mind makes a barrier for things that are just too difficult to deal with and deflects them. Taco Via going away stinks enough to make me upset, but it isn't bad enough to make me ... numb? People I love becoming very sick or dying slams right into the barrier and never gets properly processed.

So here's another twist. I don't think this one applies to Clair because there isn't that history, but it is generally applicable to the others. If I'm numb, then I may not be the supportive friend that I should be. And if I am detached or not supportive enough during their trials, would these friends not think of me as the friend they thought they had? So a fear creeps in that they would think, "Well, he wasn't a good enough friend during all of that crap. To heck with him." NOW I experience fear of loss. Because a diminished or lost friendship IS conceivable and falls under the emotionally acceptable barrier.

... OK. Cutting myself off ... Darn you, Pennington! You had to send that message and ruin by blissful ignorance.

Crack?

2005-02-26T17:19:00.000-08:00

So ... I'm googling for information on how to remove silicone sealant from a shower (long story). I (stupidly) thought that it would be a common product: just next to the silicone sealant. I don't know what I was thinking. I did find some rather easily ... IN AUSTRALIA! WTF?

I keep hunting and come across this article. Yeah ... read it.

here are my favorite quotes:

- ... the only bathroom is down the hall and shared by everyone on the floor - of both sexes.

- ... you have to remove the toilet paper from the bathroom to keep it dry while you drench the whole room with your shower.

- ... your knees get very clean, but the floor gets very wet.

- ... hot water may be available only once a day ...

- ... European towels are annoyingly nonabsorbent.

THAT IS DISGUSTING!!! I now never want to go to Europe. Reading between the lines here tells me that Europeans just can't be very clean people. The whole continent probably smells like a sweaty butt-crack.

But the story doesn't end there. Curiosity got me and I wanted to see what a bidet looked like. Googling that gave me this picture:

I don't get it, but whatever. That actually might be MORE clean than Americans who just wipe the poop (or whatever) around with paper. Think about it.

But it looks like there is a BIG trade off! Did you notice THE TOWEL BEHIND HER!?! You've gotta be KIDDING!?! You wash your crack and then wipe it off WITH THE SAME TOWEL that the last yahoo used?

No.

Thanks anyway, I'll just keep to wiping the poop around.

Osama bin-in Iran

2005-02-21T07:58:00.000-08:00

Just now on http://www.drudgereport.com/ he reported the following. I'll include the text because, knowing how his site works, the link will be changed in a short while:

Iran denies rumors it has arrested bin Laden
Mon Feb 21 2005 10:20:00 ET
Iran denied Monday suggestions on some local Internet sites that it arrested Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, the Western world's most wanted man, on the border with Pakistan.
"This information is wrong and bin Laden has not been arrested by our security forces," government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said at a weekly press briefing.
Some Iranian Internet sites quoted American officials as saying the Al-Qaeda leader, who has a 25-million-dollar US bounty on his head, had been arrested two weeks ago by Iranian forces.
The Saudi-born militant is blamed for the September 11, 2001 terror strikes on the United States and a string of other attacks around the world.

Here's my two cents: I have a gut feeling that they have him and that right now the US and Iran are in pretty constant contact. If this story just 'fades away' then my bet is that Iran is providing refuge to Osama and we will never get him.

back again!

2005-02-18T16:53:00.000-08:00

Well we got off to a great start with this thing, then it has been a week or more since I last posted. What have I been doing, you might ask? First, I'm pretty sure I am selling the house. That's going to be a crap-load of work. Last weekend the folks came up to help me start cleaning.Secondly, at night I have been reading Lord of the Rings. I am completely engrossed. That is the primary reason why I have been silent for a while. I can't take that 'precious reading time' away. That will wear off as I get deeper into the four million page book. Finally, it's marathon season and I'm in the mood. Every day this week I have ran and I intend on keeping that up for a while.

So. I was deeply impressed with Cornfed's knowledge of what SWLABR means. BTW, I have seen the W stand for [was, walks, walked] ... who knows.

As for Pennington's recent rants on high school, I love the '92 and '02 pictures. Damn we looked young! We really need to do something fun in 2012, we must have beer in our hands.

Now, you ass-hats! Quit posting to my blog. Post to yours, and then we can all comment on each other's. sheesh! :)

Camping photos.....

2005-02-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

Remember our camping trip our senior year? Do you still have those pics? You should post them. What ever happened to that oppossum?

Slow Hand

2005-02-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

Didn't know you were a Clapton fan. We need to hook up and go a concert this summer if he will be in KC, long-hair too. Cream kicks ass, perhaps they will release another album from the Albert Hall concert, like the 24 nights album.
Have you seen the concert schedule and locations?
SWLABR

Super Bowl Ads

2005-02-06T22:42:00.000-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6916226/

I thought the godaddy.com add was ridiculous. My favorite was the Ameriquest ad (cat and spaghetti sauce). I loved the Anheuser-Busch ad that applauded the returning troops. But ... I couldn't help thinking the whole time how much of a stark contrast that is from the welcome that Viet Nam veterans received. Then I got all mad thinking about those spineless, treasonous, @#$@$$@# @#$@##@$ hippies. You think liberals are bad now? Those #@#$$#-ers throwing crap at the vets and calling them baby killers is one of the darkest moments of United States history.

DAMMIT!!! I hate hippies!!!

It was forty years ago today ...

2005-02-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

Here come several posts about aging musicians. I tend to scoff at people that even give two thoughts to celebrities and their depraved lives. I could care less why Brad and Jennifer broke up. I saw a headline today about the 'beniffer' ring being up for auction. Who cares? I lost a ton of money on my engagement ring, and that a$$-clown is going to MAKE money on his just because it was on J-Lo's finger. Anyway, that's not the point.

Later today, I realize that I am a bit of a hypocrite in that I always run to articles about musicians that I enjoy; especially about the older guys like the Beatles, Eric Clapton, Led Zeppelin, etc.

And whereas I roll my eyes at kids wearing 'Cobain Lives' t-shirts and all that crap, I genuinely 'miss' George Harrison. I have been on a Beatles kick this week. Sometimes when I hear his voice in a song it kind of makes me sad. I don't think the same thing about John; he was dead before I knew who the Beatles were.

I genuinely wish these guys well, and I can justify that. They have brought happiness to my life, I don't think there is anything wrong in wishing it in return. And though they don't know me from Adam, I have spent a significant part of my life with them ... in a sense.

Furthermore, despite the legendary debauchery of their younger years, I am always amazed at how 'normal' many of the aging rockers have become. Behold several evidences to follow ...

... Part I ...

2005-02-05T18:02:00.000-08:00

So, first, I read today that Eric Clapton's wife just pooped out her third offspring by him. WHAT!?! I didn't know he was married. So I started google'ing that. He was 57 when she was 25, giving birth to their first. They have since wed and spawned twice more.

Read this

and this

Isn't that crazy!?! First, I couldn't even fathom a human being raised in the Western hemisphere who doesn't know who Eric Clapton is. Second, I would never imagine that the afore mentioned god would fall for a frumpy looking 'normal person' from ... Ohio (WTF?). She is certainly no Patti Boyd (shown here on with George Harrison whom she divorced to marry Eric).

But ... whatever. I hope he's happy.

But more importantly that that, here's what else I found whilst snooping ...

HOLY COW!!! CREAM is reuniting for some shows at the Royal Albert Hall in London! I don't know much about it. Are they really reuniting? Are they going to make more records? Tours!?! I clicked here and for a split second before it told me that the shows were sold out I was considering going. That would have been amazing.

... Part II ...

2005-02-05T17:59:00.000-08:00

So while I was looking for a good picture for the link to Patti Boyd, I started googling her. I'm getting tired of typing, so I will keep this short. In my humble opinion, Patti was easily the most beautiful and intriguing of all the Beatle wives. She IS the epicenter of my favorite rock history story; the whole George / Eric thing ... um ... here is good enough for now.

I remember seeing a shot of her attending George's funeral and thinking that she's still beautiful ... for a ... 50-something year old. But check this out. here's a picture of her with her current guy, 'Rod'.. What a DORK!!! Rod. huh-huh.

... Part III ...

2005-02-05T17:57:00.000-08:00

This is actually the first one I was going to post, but it got sidetracked by the others. Check this article out

And so, the former Beatles star has come full circle. Considered among the most edgy entertainers in the world during the 1960s, he has now become the safe choice.

"I had a slight inkling that there might be something like that attached to it," McCartney said at a news conference Thursday. "That's OK. It's an honor to do it."

Again, I'm tired of typing. I'll leave it at this: They're right. Of course the Beatles were edgy and 'rebellious' in the early sixties with their long hair and later with the drugs. Now, he's quite mainstream. BUT!!! He's a Knight of the British Empire and he can do his work and not let the naysayers get to him. Do you hear in his statement how confidently he shrugs off the criticism? He has nothing more to prove, but that doesn't mean he's 'done'. He is Sir Paul McCartney and he knows that he is one of the very best ever at his craft.

XTerra

2005-02-04T16:32:00.000-08:00

Today I got two messages from you two (you know who you are) inquiring about the XTerra. I thought I would respond to both here since we are doing all this blogging stuff.

Cornfed said:

I heard that you have an Xterra and I was shopping for vehicles and was interested in one but there were some bad reviews online such as: poor acceleration, gas guzzler, hydroplaning, bad in mountains, and something about removing the rear seat cushions to fold seats down and the clips break. Is any of this true? Do you like your Xterra?

Most everything in that statement is true.

poor acceleration - It's as nimble as an RV with a pack of Weight Watcher dropouts in the back.

gas guzzler - It get's about 14-15 mpg. That's AWESOME when I drive 26 miles to work (one way).

Hydroplaning - yup, done it.

bad in mountains - It's been to Great Smoky Mountain National Park several times. This isn't as much of a deal considering #1.

...rear seat cushions... - yup. stinks.

clips break - Well, haven't had that one yet.

The flip side is that it does a great job as an SUV. It can haul crap but still be a decent 'car'. Just like all my other cars, I have beat the hell out of it. I've had a few issues with it; I had to replace the transmission at about 100,000. I put a huge dent in the top of it (long story) a few months ago, but that is entirely my fault. However, I have no intention of ever fixing that. I already mentioned that it has gone to the mountains a bunch. It is PERFECT for hauling me in and out of campsites. It has cool stadium seating, it looks nice. It's a good SUV. Plus, despite the revolting fact that the frogs own Nissan, it was made right here in Smyrna, Tennessee.

My intent is to pay it off and then drive it until I can save up for a normal car. Then I'll keep it in the garage forever. Because of the mileage and the dent, I have no intent of ever selling it or trading it in. I wouldn't get enough value out of it to warrant parting with it. So, I literally intend on driving it until it falls apart.

I don't know anything about cars anymore, so I couldn't compare. My dad is about to get his ... fourth or fifth XTerra, if that tells you anything. I tend to compare the XTerra unfavorably to my mom's Grand Cherokee, but I am sure that thing is much more expensive than an XTerra.

Heartless, soul-less witch.

2005-02-04T11:22:00.000-08:00

MSNBC - Wreck victim recalls using blood for last words

Unbelievable! So ... I'm sure you have heard the story of the dude in the train wreck a couple of weeks ago that scrawled love messages to his wife and kids with his own blood. His 22 year old daughter has this to say about it:

"It’s very sweet and I know he cares about us a lot," she said. "But he should have been worried about keeping the blood inside instead of playing with it."

What a bitch! You know, I accept that I have about as much skill, understanding and experience with women as I do with a nuclear warhead. But I think she is a typical example of the cruel nature of the current generation of American females. Boys of my generation were raised on G.I. Joe who told us that "knowing is half the battle." What cartoon or cultural influence taught girls, "cruelty, hatred and spite are golden virtues."

Even if she THINKS this stuff, she couldn't just say, "Aw! Daddy! That was so sweet!" and leave it at that. NO!!! She has to get on public TV and say, "My dad is a dumb-a$$."

OK. So I'm pretty cynical about women these days.

Why?

2005-02-04T10:46:00.000-08:00

Ok. So the headline picture on MSNBC right now is this:

Doesn't this dude look like the Ayatollah Khomeini? Did we send hundereds of thousands of kids over to Iraq (with over a thousand dead so far) to put THIS GUY in power? How many years before we have to come back and remove him?

News of the wierd

2005-02-02T19:53:00.000-08:00

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6898403/

Under Jewish law, a mohel — someone who performs circumcisions —
draws blood from the circumcision wound. Most mohels do it by hand with a
suction device, but Fischer uses a practice rare outside strict Orthodox groups
where he uses his mouth to draw blood after cutting the foreskin.

um ... eww.

NFL

2005-01-30T15:09:00.000-08:00

Of the thousands of reasons why I love the NFL, here's another one that just occurred to me. I didn't miss it at all today. I have enjoyed this 'bye week' and look forward to months more of them. The season starts and ends at exactly the right time. It starts right when I am about to gnaw open my own arm with anticipation and ends right about the time I am sick of looking at a TV screen. Perfect.

Man peed way out of avalanche

2005-01-29T05:05:00.000-08:00

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_1261997.html?menu

A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.

[Fat, ugly teen] Sentenced for Releasing Computer Worm

2005-01-28T17:27:00.000-08:00

Link Here

OK. So, I'm a computer programmer and maybe I side with this kid too much. But I just don't think these lawyers really understand the severity (or, rather, lack thereof) of this kid's actions.

"...that crippled 48,000 computers in 2003"

is this a lot? this kid didn't manually go out and screw up these computers. The whole intent of his program was to propagate itself across the Internet. (we / they)'re lucky it didn't affect millions of computers.

"He had faced up to 10 years in prison ..."

So ... murder, these days, gets you ... what? ... 5-10 years? a COMPUTER VIRUS gets you 10!?! Apparently, the loss of life is bad, but the loss of data files, well, that's just intolerable. WTF!?!?!?!?!

"(The Internet) has created a dark hole, a dungeon if you will, for people who have mental illnesses or people who are lonely," U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said.

Has this judge ever used a computer? Does she know what the Internet is? She talks about it like it is some physical place.

"Excuse me. Could you direct me to the Internet?"
"The Internet? Yes, your honor. It's a couple of miles south of Mordor in Middle Earth."
"Is that before or after the Land of Oz?"
"Before, your honor. It's between Morder and Oz."
"Oh. Thank you very much."
"Yes your honor."

"...saying his neglectful parents were to blame for the psychological troubles that led to his actions ..."

Holy Cow! Talk about criminal! This judge needs to be locked up for that statement. It really should be a crime ... a felony ... to use such ridiculous, irresponsible language. "It's not my fault, the devil made me do it." So, if his mommy didn't breast feed him equally from the right one and the left one then that's a license to get a machine gun and mow down a shopping mall?

"Hey, you created me, I didn't create some loser alter ego to make myself feel better, take some responsibility."
- Tyler Durden

"... against a Microsoft Windows update Web site as well as personal computers. ... crippled networks worldwide."

Ok. I am a Microsoft bigot. In my humble opinion, they are the top software company in the world for a very simple reason; they make the best software in the world. I get soooo tired of listening to MS bashers gripe about it. 99% of them can have their gripes boiled down to the simple fact that they do not understand how to use the software appropriately. The other 1% are just hippies that want look "cool", "rebellious", or "intellectual" by preferring inferior software. They're the same kind of people that shun elements of popular culture simply because it is part of popular culture, not for any valid reason. Go feed a starving whale and STFU. Or better yet QUIT USING IT!!! If it sucks so bad SWITCH! When you say that to them, what do they say? "Well ... " they whine, "None of my programs work on other software." OK!!! If MS is bad, then that's still better than one that doesn't work at all.

... anyway, I digress. Back on topic. Who deserves most of the blame here? The kid deserves blame because he wrote the virus. But these lawyers do not understand how ridiculously simple it is to write them to an operating system so replete with security vulnerabilities. Microsoft deserves some of the blame for that. But, really, the users deserve some blame. If memory serves, Microsoft released a fix to this vulnerability months before this kid released the virus. In fact, wasn't the kid inspired to write the virus by reading about the fix?

So, the analogy goes something like this: I just bought a house (Windows) in a rough part of town (the Internet). I bought this house from a shmoe (Microsoft) who never put locks on any of his doors. the police (hackers, anti-virus companies) come by and tell me that my house is not safe without locks on the doors. The fact that they stopped at my house sort-of telegraphs to the rest of the neighborhood that I don't have locks. The shmoe offers to come back and put locks on all my doors for free. I decline the offer. A few days later a fat, lazy punk kid comes by and takes all my crap. The kid broke the law. The shmoe was a retard for not putting locks on the doors. But I am the biggest moron for not fixing the problem.

I guess I can extend that analogy and say that I am not going to jail if the kid steals my stuff. But, then, should I get a complete check from my insurance company if I didn't make a reasonable effort to secure my house?

Britney's kid sis

2005-01-28T16:06:00.000-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6881646/

"still kidlike and disarmingly polite at 13"
Must ... resist ... dirty ... thoughts.

Japanese Cat Torture

2005-01-27T15:54:00.000-08:00

Check this out:

http://www.petoffice.co.jp/takuhai/ippan/catprin/test.htm

To me, the funny part is how pi$$ed off
the cats look. But, you wouldn't know that if you didn't have cats.

I think this one is my favorite:

It looks so humiliated.

MSNBC - Heisman winner Crouch signs with Chiefs

2005-01-25T19:33:00.000-08:00

MSNBC - Heisman winner Crouch signs with Chiefs

So ... he signs with the Rams, but leaves because he isn't getting his way. Then, the next year, he signs with the Packers but leaves because he isn't getting his way. THEN he signs with the Chefs ...

Has this guy ever PLAYED defense!?! I think it's great that we are recruiting defensive players. I think it would be greater if we were recruiting defensive players that have played defense

Director Fred

2005-01-25T08:01:00.000-08:00

I'm going to cut and paste text to protect the innocent(?).

So, my boss (um ... let's call him 'Steve') sends me this email from an IT director outside of the corporate office (let's call him ‘Fred'):

Daniel, would you call Fred and answer his questions? Thanks..

________________________________________

From: Director Fred
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 6:23 AM
To: Jones Steve
Subject: FW: Assistance with Dev Tools

Steve,

Do you have any direction on the production of operational documentation and any standards or forms that are available in regard to the Corporate setting today. As well as any information on how and when the operational documentation is produced in the project. I was not able to find a reference in Dev Tools that answered this fully.

Please advise, Thanks

Director Fred
Group Director of Information Services
Someplace

What does that mean? Does the guy speak English on a regular basis? I had to read this out loud to myself just to try to get a handle on what he was trying to say. This man is a director and barely has a working command of English grammar. The very next email in my inbox was another one from the same dude:

Here's another one
________________________________________

From:
Director Fred
Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 12:33 PM
To: Jones Steve
Subject: Enterprise Software

Steve,

In regard to enterprise software where functionality is spread across multiple servers and operates in concert rather than server centric software where all of the processing resides on a single machine, are there any special considerations you have made in similar software for Corporate to accommodate the needs of real time scanning for anti-virus software and for backups by external vendor software? Would you have a moment to discuss with me?

Please advise. Thanks

Director Fred
Group Director of Information Services
Someplace

Holy cow!!! We gotta get this guy and Don in a room together. They could talk for hours without actually making a valid point. This is impressive. So, right about the time I decide to start composing this, Steve walks by to get his hourly handful of seeds (half of which usually end up on my floor). I tell him that I got a chuckle out of the emails he forwarded me. His first reply is that it sounds like he just cut and pasted headlines from a magazine into an email and shot it off. Then, he looks at me seriously and says, "Be careful how you respond to him. He can kind of be a snake in the grass. Measure your words carefully."

Well that's great. Here I go. I'm gonna call Fred now. What do I say to him? "Hi Mr. Fred. I'm calling on behalf of Steve Jones, who doesn't want to talk to you. I'd like to try to answer some of your questions. Let's start with this; what the hell are you saying?"

ROBERT GRAZER'S 100 FAVORITE ALBUM COVERS

2005-01-23T22:41:00.000-08:00

Pennington's thing about "You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish" made me Google it. I stumbled across this interesting read:
http://www.geocities.com/mjareviews/covers.html

My favorites:

60. Smog - Dongs of Sevotion - Sort of like the above Chemical Brothers cover taken up a degree. I mean, who on earth does Bill Callahan think he is? In all seriousness, this being Smog (and one I am unfamiliar with) the music is most likely far less bombastic than the cover might suggest. Actually, it looks like it might be a fitting ELP cover.

56. Cream - Disraeli Gears - Simply the ultimate psychedelic cover, I don't think anyone will dispute that. (dan says: AMEN)

35. Jefferson Airplane - Bless Its Pointed Little Head - Another thanks to Fredrik Tydal (see his comments on it below) for this, one of the funniest covers I have ever seen

Lost Frenchman survives 35 days on wood, clay

2005-01-23T11:11:00.000-08:00

I can't even count all the different ways I want to comment on this:
http://www.newsletters.newsweek.msnbc.com/id/6858012/

48-year-old described as 'weak' after ordeal in southern France

OK. First off, aren't all frenchmen 'weak'? Why is this newsworthy?

Jean-Luc Josuat-Verges, 48, told French newspapers he had gone to the deserted caves at Madiran in the Pyrenees in December seeking isolation during a spell of depression which had left him considering suicide.

Wouldn't it be embarrassing if 'Jean-Luc' and 'Michelle' were the manliest names you can come up with?

If he went to the caves to go kill himself, why did go to such great lengths (eating clay) to save his own life?

If he had a spine at all, he'd shoot himself. But we all know the french inability to handle weapons. Is this how your typical frog kills himself? Wandering around until he collapses of starvation? Useless people.

His abandoned car was found 35 days later by three children who were not at school because their teachers were on strike.

french authorities are unable to contain the thousands of 'rabid' children running amok across the french countryside. Commented one police officer, "Despite the fact that they are half my size and unarmed, I am terrified of them. They might bite me or make fun of me."

Firefox trick

2005-01-23T10:14:00.000-08:00

So ... I read an article about Firefox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/) and had my interest piqued when the article made a very good point that since the 'browser wars' ended, MS hasn't really innovated much with IE. I agree. So I got on the bandwagon and downloaded Firefox and have been trying to use it instead of IE. I really like it.

Now, that having been said, one of my reasons for starting this blog in the first place was to have a convenient place to put quick little helpers that I find. So here is one I just stumbled across. You may or may not already be aware that in IE you type a particular domain name in the address bar and then hit [CONTROL] + [ENTER] to fill in the "http://www." prefix and ".com" suffix. So, for instance, you can type google and then hit [CONTROL] + [ENTER] and the browser will fill the address out as http://www.google.com/ and begin the download.

So here's where this applies to Firefox. Firefox can do that too, BUT it can also do another handy-dandy one. It can also do ".org" with [SHIFT] + [CONTROL] + [ENTER]. Oooooooh! So, for instance, if you type mozilla and then hit [SHIFT] + [CONTROL] + [ENTER], it will take you to http://www.mozilla.org/. Nice.

I just happened to fat finger a request and found that one. I'll betcha there's more than just this one.

Visual Studio: Visual Studio Extensibility Center

2005-01-22T09:54:00.000-08:00

Visual Studio: Visual Studio Extensibility Center

The Matrix

2005-01-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

First, watch this:
http://www.adcritic.com/interactive/view.php?id=5927

Did you click on the Take Action link? If you thought the video was a hoot, the link is hee-larious. Leave it to the ACLU to come up with this crap.

http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=16021&c=39

Watch out!!! The government is creating a program called the Matrix to take over your life. I also hear it is being developed by aliens at Area 51. Once they get the Government ID chip implanted in your forehead (like mine) you can’t even get unplugged. You really need to correspond with your representative. I did, I said, "Dr. Frist! Help me! I don’t want to be like Neo! I want to take the blue pill!!!"

SMTP through telnet

2005-01-14T15:36:00.000-08:00

telnet
open smptserver.domain 25
HELO fred.com
MAIL FROM:fred@fred.com
RCPT TO:joe@joe.com

Data

freddy

.

quit

quit

Eddlemanism

2005-01-14T09:19:00.001-08:00

Eddlemanism - To replace commonly understood, well documented terminology or technical metaphor with obscure or undescriptive terminology for no other apparent reason or value than for the enjoyment of the changer of the word. For example, replacing the word 'folder' with the word 'context', or 'library' with 'facility'. Thus replacing the easy exchange of ideas and gaining of understanding with an endless repetition of the following conversation:

"What is a context?"
"It's a folder."
"Oh. Why don't we just call it a folder?"
"Because _______ said so."
"Ah! Gotcha."

Worms

2005-01-14T09:19:00.000-08:00

Why do worms crawl out onto the concrete when it rains? Do you think they say,

"That sidewalk must be pretty cool. Jimmy went out there last week and he never came back."

CBS fires 4 for roles in Bush Guard story

2005-01-10T07:23:00.000-08:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6807825/

The investigators reported that a "myopic zeal" to break the story about Bush’s National Guard service was a key factor in explaining why CBS News had produced a story that was neither fair nor accurate and did not meet the organization’s internal standards.
The investigators also said CBS News had compounded that failure with "rigid and blind" defense of the report, which aired on the "60 Minutes Wednesday" news magazine.

CBS News is incredible. Not that it is unbelievable that a news organization is biased. Rather (pun intended), they are not a credible news source. Outrageous!

2005-01-09T22:09:00.000-08:00

I was just looking for a good definition for 1-3 normal form. These do pretty well.

A relation is in 1NF if and only if all underlying domains contain atomic values only.
http://www.cs.jcu.edu.au/Subjects/cp1500/1998/Lecture_Notes/normalisation/1nf.html

A relation is in 2NF if it is in 1NF and every non-key attribute is fully dependent on each candidate key of the relation.
http://www.cs.jcu.edu.au/Subjects/cp1500/1998/Lecture_Notes/normalisation/2nf.html

A relation R is in third normal form if it is in 2NF and every non-key attribute of R is non-transitively dependent on each candidate key of R.
http://www.cs.jcu.edu.au/Subjects/cp1500/1998/Lecture_Notes/normalisation/3nf.html

F1st

2005-01-09T22:03:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to put one of these up forever. The first item is not exactly the reason for the blog. I intend this to be the simplest use of the tool. It's whatever comes to mind to put up here.
so, here goes.