Saturday, July 31, 2004

Ohh...My Stomach...Can't Go To Work...

Ahh...sick days. If you were to ask my boss what I was doing right now, he would tell you that I am at home puking and dealing with some kind of flu bug that I have had for the past couple of days. If you were to ask me what I am doing, I would say that I was faking it and enjoying the weekend. :) The best part is that another guy in my department mysteriously came down with the flu as well with symptoms that match mine. Funny thing is, we never talked or planned this out. I think he just took a cue from me. I like being a trend setter.

Last night while I was worshipping the porceline gods, I went and saw "The Village". What an excellent movie that was. It is definitely M. Night Shyamalan's best work to date. The movie has the best story of all of his films largely because of its depth. The characters are also very well cast and I loved the scenery. For those of you that go and watch it, think about the moral decisions that had to be made by the characters in the film. I think that is the part that stood out the most for me; all of the people in the film were motivated by a sense of loss and I found it very interesting to follow their actions throughout the film. The Village is a must see.

I am modding a friend's X-Box tonight so I am trying to get all of the stuff I need in order. This will be my fourth modding experience so I am pretty confident. The X-Box is a pretty easy machine to tinker with and modding it is my only justification for owning that system. They are just damned handy to have around.

That is pretty much it for now. I may post more later on today depending on how I am doing with the chores that I need to wade through today.

Thursday, July 29, 2004

Fun Day At Work

So yesterday, I am working....or at least making it look like I am working and some ladies come up and want to look at some stuff in the jewelry counter. They wanted to see earrings. This is no big deal so I take them over to the display, unlock it, and get out the sets of earring they requested. This is where it gets weird.

The ladies actually took the earrings they were wearing out and put the display earrings in their ears. That grosses me out every time when women do that. Uhg. Anywho, when they were done seeing a pair of earrings, they would give them back to me and expect me to fumble with the piece that was in their ear and put it back on the display stand. This is not going to happen...I don't like handling things that were in other peoples' bodies, even if it was just an ear. I inform the ladies that they needed to put the earrings back on the display stand themselves before I would get out more earrings for them to look at. Both of them seemed fine with this and did as they were told. The odd thing was that one of them was so lazy that she only used one hand to do it.

Over the next few minutes, the ladies look at a couple more pairs of earrings and the one lady starts to kind of complain that I am making her put the earrings back on the display stands. What was her problem? She had two hands and could use both of them to put the earrings back if she wanted to, she was just being lazy. Then her sister comes over and starts to help her put the earrings back on the displays, odd.

It was then that I noticed something; the lady's arm that she had not been using...well...it wasn't an arm at all but a prosthetic. Oops. I felt kind of bad about that, had I known that was why she was having difficulty I would have helped her out. On the other hand, there was some humor to be found in that situation. Those prosthetics are starting to look too darned real. What ever happened to hooks and peg legs?

BTW I saw Bourne Supremacy last night with Mushi and must say that it followed the first film pretty well. Not a bad movie at all. Anywho, off to work again. Later!

Tuesday, July 27, 2004

Go To Jibjab!

Mushi showed me this site yesterday and then as soon as we finished watching the parody of "This Land," Jay Leno had the two guys that founded the site on his show. Everyone must go to this site and see the parody of "This Land". It is funny and makes fun of both Democrats and Republicans which I think is good, Fair and Balanced after all. :P Anywho go to this site and watch their stuff, its funny.

Jibjab

Why Shareware Fosters Piracy

Over the past few days I have been thinking a lot about software piracy and peoples' motivations for doing it and I think I have a theory that explains why some people may download stuff illegally. Before I begin on my theory, I will say that I am guilty of piracy. Come to think of it, all of my friends are as well in varying ways and degrees. Am I ashamed of this, no, but I am willing to own up to it and offer my reasonings behind why I do it.

Back in the day, when the internet wasn't something that everyone jumped on each morning to check news and stock tickers and what not, existed BBS's. I loved BBS's and had a handful that I loyally visited each day. I played games on them (ahh Falcon's Eye) and chatted with people on them. The big draw for me was the ability to download stuff from them....shareware or freeware usually. I was in junior high and Doom was the "in" game to play. I spent at least one whole day downloading the shareware version of that game and once finished, played it quite extensively. It was during this time that I learned about cracks and patches. Who would have thought that by cracking Doom's shareware version you could play the whole game for free. This was a wonderful thing and I began looking for cracks and patches to other games and shareware that I used. Doom was my gateway drug to software piracy.

It was such an easy transistion; download shareware, download crack, apply it to shareware and get the whole thing for free. I don't even think that I realized that what I was doing was wrong until a couple of years ago. Downloading shareware is not illegal. Downloading a crack is not illegal. Combining the shareware with the crack, now that is illegal. It is like turning household cleaning chemicals into a bomb.

Who is to blame for this? I would vote that shareware designers hold a large chunk of responsibility. Do not get me wrong, I love shareware and feel for the guy that asks for a five buck donation for his clever piece of software and over the entire span of its creation only gets fifty cents. That sucks. Does that mean that I donate to him, no. Why? Because I am a jerk. In my entire computing life I have only known one person to donate that specified amount to shareware designers, Dustin, I salute you.

In my case, had the shareware people set a price and demanded it, I would have paid. But they didn't and I took advantage like millions of others. By the time I hit college, piracy was not stealing, it was a method of survival. People would come to me for software or music and I would get it for them. If I wanted to play a game, I got on the net and downloaded it. If I wanted to hear a record, I jumped on Napster (the good version of it) and got the album. I guiltlessly ripped off a lot of people. I know that now and for the most part, have stopped pirating everything known to God or man. But it is most definitely and addiction. When you are used to getting stuff for free and then start making yourself pay for it, it sucks.....a lot.

So why did I write this post? Because, I want all of my readers to ask themselves how much stuff they have pirated over the years and why they started. Do I want all of you to feel sorry for doing it? Am I trying to guilt trip all of you? No, I just want people to be aware of how much stuff they have downloaded illegally and the next time you go to grab Winzip or mIRC, maybe think of paying the guys that created it...just a little bit. I think I may start doing that from now on....or at least once in a while. :) I don't know, maybe I am one of the few jerks that do not pay for software and maybe the rest of you will read this and think I am a punk, but I doubt it.

Odd Happenings During A Slow Couple of Days

Sorry that I haven't posted in a few days, nothing of great interest has been going on. There have been several quirky things that have popped up, however, so I will share those with you.

First, the workplace. This past Saturday my work had one of its bi-annual inventories. What a ton of fun that was. At my workplace, inventories are an entertaining time, a time when we find out just how much has been ripped off in a six month period of time. My employers are ok with theft as long as it does not reach more than one percent of the entire sales total. What does this mean? It means that my work is okay with fifteen year olds with nothing better to do, coming in and ripping off DVDs and video games so long as the total dollar amount they rip off does not exceed $100,000.00 in a sixth month period of time. It almost makes me want to start stealing things but alas, my morals and my conscience will not let me do this. Anywho, the key to doing inventory in a warehouse the size of mine is looking busy. Spyder Mayhem and I spent almost 45 minutes walking around and talking about City of Heroes while the people around us hastily counted the merchendise in the store. We then snuck out early. I get a gold star for my work ethic.

Second, the homefront. Mushi (my wife) has started her own blog and I have created a link to it that can be seen on my sidebar. Go Mushi! BTW she and I kind of live in a slightly ghetto neighborhood of Boise and to highlight this fact let me tell a story of what we saw tonight as we drove to the store. There is a lady that lives on a street close to ours that enjoys sitting out in her driveway and watching traffic pass. This is all and good except for the lady is large...very large....and she enjoys watching the people pass in nothing more than a pair of sweat pants and a bra. I am personally surprised there are not more accidents on that street. Well, tonight Mushi and I drove past her house and she was not in her driveway but in some bushes on the side of the street. What was she doing there, your guess is as good as mine. The upside is, she was at least a little more clothed this evening than usual. If I can I will get a picture of her someday but she is quick for her size and can sense it when I am going to drive by to try and catch a glimpse of her. Wily she is, this strange urban beast. Lastly, my brother and his girlfriend came over for dinner the night before last and that was a good time. I used my new barbeque for the first time and made some excellent tasting steaks. I will post my marinade recipe sometime.

Third, the computer front. Well, my trip to City of Heroes has been delayed. I borrowed Spyder's discs to install the game but it wants a different serial key because he already has the key listed for his account. I am going to have to buy the game just for the key. I did not want to buy the game because I was already going to pay $15 a month to play it and did not want to spend more, but what do ya do? The past few days have been aggravating because my main system is still acting up and being a little whore. It keeps randomly rebooting! I tried uninstalling SP 2 but this had no effect, which leads me to believe the problem is in the RAM or the CPU heat. I will probably disassemble my system in the next couple of days and put everything back together slowly until I can determine the problem. I fear the issues might be related to my earlier power surge that I wrote about on here more than a month ago. If my sytem can just hang on a couple of months, an upgrade is just around the corner.

As I have said, the past few days have been pretty run of the mill. I am getting used to the new house and being a husband and all of the fun that coems with it. I am not being sarcastic when I say this, being married is a blast. The next few days should be a little more interesting than the past few. I am modding another Xbox on Saturday and am probably going to try soundproofing my big system soon as well. That may come when I take it apart to try to fix the rebooting problem. Anywho, expect more from the blog in the upcoming days as they should be more eventful. Good Night!

Thursday, July 22, 2004

Why Talk Shows Are Good For Society

Since the dawn of time people have enjoyed seeing freaks and wierdos. It is human nature to want to see something odd and out of the ordinary.....and plenty of people qualify as being odd these days. Since Freak Shows and Sideshows are no long PC where do people go to see the oddballs of humanity? They turn on their televisions of course. TV is filled with freaks and weirdos.

Take Maury Povich for example, today his show was one of those run of the mill episodes in which women try to prove that a certain guy is the father of their child. Normally these shows are boring, except for when the women, after screaming and carrying on about how their boyfriend is such a jerk and ass becasue he won't care for HIS child, are proven wrong and it turns out that she was a whore and was banging other people. I love it when Maury says that the kid is not his and then the woman runs off the stage freaking out because it is her own fault that she is in the situation she is in. The people in these shows, both men and women, lack accountability and that makes me laugh. People are strange creatures sometimes and talkshows prove that. They exist to make people realize that no matter how bad their lives are, they do not have lives as bad as the people on tv and that makes them happy. It is a very shallow re-affirmation for the viewing audience that their lives are ok.

Mainstream society is crazy.

Tuesday, July 20, 2004

Moving to the City...

...The City of Heroes that is! For those of you that are not aware of City of Heroes, it is an up and coming MMORPG that I grew quite fond of when I was beta testing it. After the beta ended and it went from being free to subscription based I stopped playing. Games are a lot more fun when they are free.

Unlike other games that I have played, despite the fact that I will have to shell out $13 per month to play it, I miss playing City of Heroes so I am going to get into it again. My buddy, Spyder is the one who turned me on to this game and I am greatful. I think City of Heroes has a greater lasting potential than some of its other competitors. Let me explain.

Everquest attracts a different kind of gamer than City of Heroes. In Everquest, people camp and tool around for hours to get a certain item that will grant them some spiffy ability, like the Fiery Gauntlets of Squirrel Milking which adds a +4 to Endurance when milking said squirrels. It is a draining experience trust me....something that would make you want a smoke when finished. Anywho, there is no camping and there is no questing after rare items in City of Heroes. Come to think of it, there are no items in the game at all. This is where the hardcore "marry that sexy elf in your guild and divorce your real world wife" people get turned off. "No items," you say. "What is the fun in a game where you don't get stuff to build up your character?" In response, you do build up your character but it is with buffs that you win after fights. There are no super rare buffs or power-ups to my knowledge but you are able to develope your character over time using the simple ones. There is also a levelling system that suits the game very well. The bottom line is, hardcore gamers that are level 60 in Everquest becasue they play 9 hours a day, will not lord over City of Heroes like they do in Everquest and it gives the little guys a chance to have fun.

Next cool thing about COH is the city itself, IT IS FREAKING HUGE!!!! There are so many places to explore and no overly long loading times to wait for to go from one place to the other. Transition between areas is smooth and does not affect gameplay most of the time. Spawn points are a little better thought out than in EQ and when you go on quests it changes to make the experience unique to your group. Seven groups could be doing the same mission but it would be a totally different experience from group to the next. COH is very smart in this area.

Lastly and most importantly is character creation. If you play COH, hours will go into character creation. IT IS A BLAST! In all of my time playing the beta, I never saw someone that looked the same as someone else. There are so many variations and colors that super heroes are like snow flakes in the game. Very cool. If you like comics, you will like City of Heroes.

The only downside to the game is that there are no capes, but they are coming and there is no PVP...yet. City of Villains will be the next expansion and that will change everything. You will be able to be the bad guy and have a base and all sorts of other stuff bad guys should have. Lot of fun to be had there.

In closing, I will probably start playing again on Friday. I am getting anxious. BTW if you are wondering why I only compared the game to EQ it is because that is the only other MMORPG that I have played extensively. I have just been craving games horribly the past few weeks and I am hoping this will satisfy those cravings. If you want to learn more about the game I have included a link in my sidebar that will take you to the COH website. Now I have to start coming up with names for my hero again.

Monday, July 19, 2004

Security Level: Orange

Over the past few days I have been getting an abnormal amount of port scans on my network. The scans don't really go anywhere because they are against my WAN IP and not my actual network. My WAN IP is part of my ISP and there is nothing at the IP they have been testing. So why does it keep happening? Beats me. Though since I am paranoid like that, I have starting taking new measures to prevent attacks and snooping against my network.

Sooner or later I was going to format my system partition and do a clean install of XP Pro and so I decided to do that at 1am last night. I popped Service Pack 2 RC2 on there and have been impressed with the broader range of functionality it added to the basic Windows firewall. Overall, SP2 is great for those that use IE6 because that is where the majority of changes are noticable. I use Firefox so I could care less.

Anywho, I think I am going to try out Zone Alarm on my main system and see how that does. I also made some changes to my router. I am feeling a tad more secure now and all security really is anyway is a mental state. You are never truly secure.....ever. If someone wants at you or your systems and they are determined, THEY WILL FIND AWAY. That happy thought of the day stems from my finishing Kevin Mitnick's book, "The Art of Deception". It is amazing how crafty some people are and how stupid everyone can be given any situation. Mitnick's book is a good read, though I question his intent when writing the piece.

Next on the list of things to do is to wipe my laptop and do a clean install on this. Once that is done I will bo good to go until Christmas time when I do my Yule Tide formatting. It makes my computer feel new and more like a Christmas gift. :) Yeah, I am a tad pathetic. But for now, it is time to get some sleep.

Saturday, July 17, 2004

The Longest Day

After I return to work from a vacation, I usually will bask in about a
week or so of very quick moving days where the time just seems to fly.
This has not been the case as of late. Today was seriously one of the
most drawn out and dull days I have experienced in a while. Everyone
that came in to shop knew what they wanted and didn't ask me many
questions at all, which sucks because to me, that is what speeds
everything up. Oh well.



Another thing I have been especially keen to the past few days has been
people that insist on interrupting me when I am helping someone else. I
was helping a guy today when another gentleman in his thirties walks up
to me and just starts talking and asking me questions. I very curtly
cut him off and told him I woul help him when I was finished with my
current customer. He did not like this answer and stopped off in
disgust. People can be such jerks sometimes.



Not too much else to report. I worked on Spyder's computer tonight and
have decided I hate computer companies that try to make their own
bios.....like Dell. Argh. But in the end I made the computer bend to my
will. Anywho, it is sleepy time now. Hopefully tomorrow will be more
eventful.

Thursday, July 15, 2004

A Night at the Movies

But first.....today was a good day. I had an interview with the Boise School District this morning and I think that went very well. Basically, when applying to be a history teacher they make you jump through a bunch of hoops. You have to have three letters of recommendation by people who have seen you teach, you must pass a background check, and then there is that little thing about having a degree and being certified....minor details and what not. Then once you have all of this stuff and a sheet that shows what you scored on the state tech exams (got a 93% in 20 minutes) and the state history and writing tests you are finally allowed a screening interview. That is what I had this morning. The guy that gives the interview is the head of the entire social studies department for the school district. Think of him as the head history teacher, the yoda of history teachers if you will. So I went to Dagobah....err....the district office this morning and meant with him. We talked for about 40 minutes and I think it went very well.

Here is the downside. Even if I aced my interview with him, which I think I did, it is like scoring a 50% on a test. Now the district must get an opening and I must be placed on the manifest for that opening. Then, the principal of the school conducts interviews with the people whose names were on that manifest. Finally, the principal makes a choice and hopefully I will be the one he/she chooses. It is a long and drawn out process and I am probably about half way to my goal of being a teacher. But I am glad this step is over, now I play the waiting game and hopefully I will get an interview in for the Fall semester, which is rare. More than likely if I get hired, it will be in the Spring.

Now to a totally different subject. I just got back from seeing Spiderman 2 and I must say, it rocked. I was probably one of the better movies I have seen in the past handful of months. The movie had everything; a very well done film. Good job Sam Raimi. Now all of the big named studios need to realize that George Romero needs his shot and let him make the fourth Living Dead film. With the couple of B-Movie directors that are cashing in, George needs to get on that bandwagon. Anywho, Spiderman 2 was a tight movie and well worth the cost of your firstborn to go see it.

Julius Day Commences!

Like almost every red blooded American, I crave fast food from time to time. But I have a problem. No, it is not the high fat food, not the grease or cholesterol, nor the burgers that are sometimes rubbery or the buns that are sometimes soggy; my problem lies with the fast food chain employee. The sixteen year old kid that works a crap job to pay for his 1981 Honda box car is the bane of my fast food experience. I want to reach out and strangle the life out of every single one of them....with the exception of one. More on him later.

I have no problem with the kids personally, just the fast food chains that hire them. When I pull into a McDonald's drive-thru to order something that is taking seconds, if not minutes, off of my life, I expect a couple of things. They are as follows:

1. I expect to be greeted in a nice but not too peppy voice. If they sound bored, while I can't blame them, they aggravate me. If they sound too peppy, I know one of three things.
A) They are on drugs. B) They need to be on better drugs. C)Or the poor sap just doesn't know better. An overly peppy McDonald's employee annoys me more than a bored one. At least with the bored ones you know they are real people with a sense of what is currently wrong with their life.

2. When ordering, I despise being interrupted or cut off. This is the #1 peeve. If you do this I will get pissed at you, my voice will raise, and I will become an asshole customer. I DO NOT LIKE BEING CUT OFF EVER! For example, when I go to McDonald's I have a certain way I order things. My usual McMeal is a #4 Value Meal which includes a double quarter-pounder, a fry, and a soft drink of my choice, Coke. When I order, the usual scenario goes like this,
"Hi, welcome to McDonald's. Order when you are ready."

"Yeah, can I please get a Large #4 with a Coke and on the burger, just cheese and ketchup only please."

"Ok....what would you like to drink?"

"A Coke."

"And did you want to Super Size that for just a bit more?"

"Yeah, I'll have a large."

McDonald's trains their employees to ask certain questions and enter the response. This is irritating because if the damned person would just listen to me, I have compiled my order in a very efficient, easy to understand way that would answer all of their questions in one fell swoop. But they don't. And I grow impatient with each worker that does not listen to me or interrupts my order to ask me these questions. The latter of course, being the action that as I have said, irritates me to the utmost. But tonight was different.

As my wife and I pulled up to the ordering area, we were greeted by a male voice, not too bored, not too peppy, just right. And then when I made my order, an angelic silence fell over the microphone and speaker. I was not being interrupted or questioned, just listened to. Beautiful, glorious, listening. When my requests had been made he did not question me further. He listened and by listening, he was able to complete the transaction. He was polite and quick. His name was Julius. He is easily the best McDonald's employee I have ever had the pleasure of ordering food from and should be worshipped as an icon by other teenagers in the food service industry, if not by all mankind. Julius, today is your day, I salute you.

BTW the food was good and the order was not screwed up in anyway. Julius was looking out for me. Thank you, drive through.

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

A Day at the Buffet

Today is Din Fung day! Din Fung is a very good Chinese buffet that I have given way too much money to over the years. Demonator and I are going there today. When I was still going to school, I would drive to Din Fung for lunch almost every two days if not every other day. I really like eating at this place. At $6.75 for an all you can eat Chinese extravaganza, you can't go wrong.

Chinese buffets are really a hit or miss affair. Most of them are just okay, while others downright suck. In Boise, we have 2.5 good Chinese buffets. Din Fung, The China Grand Buffet, and the .5 goes to the Great Wall. The Great Wall is sometimes really good and other times horrible, but the times they are good, they are pretty good. The China Grand Buffet has the best selection of food. It truly is a grand buffet, the downside is, with such a huge selection they really have a lot of stuff I am not horribly fond of. But they have Dim Sum and are the only place in town to make authentic homemade Dim Sum so for that, they get points.

Chinese cuisine is easily my favorite food. There are several good non-buffet Chinese places around town too. The Twin Dragon is the best out of all of those, though I may be biased seeing that my friend's family owns the place. They do have good food though....yum. Anyways, now that everyone has heard my food preferences I am going to get ready to go and pick up Demonator for lunch.

Near Perfection

As I type this entry I am eating very good pizza, drinking a cold Barq's Red Cream Soda, and watching the first episode of Batman: The Animated Series on DVD on my new Pioneer 6.1 surround sound setup, while playing on my laptop. I ask you, does life get much better? Does it? In my humble opinion, the only thing that would be closer to perfection than this very moment would be sex. That is about it. Yup.

On another note, I was able to pick up a Microsoft Wireless G USB adapter today, after I searched all over, Best Buy had two left. Yay for me. I also picked up the presell for Sims 2 and of course, Volume 1 of Batman:TAS. Batman: The Animated Series is easily one of the best cartoons out there and I am extremely happy that they finally started popping the episodes on dvd for me. Now if I could nab Exosquad, The Smurfs, and Ducktales, I think I would be happy for a while. :)

Now that I think about it, September is going to be a rocking month as far as entertainment goes. The Sims 2 comes out as well as the original Star Wars trilogy....life is good. Now I am going to get back to giving my complete attention to Batman as he struggles against the infamous, Man-Bat. Ohhh...Ahhh....the intrigue, the excitement. Joy.

Sunday, July 11, 2004

Back to Work

Beh. I went back to work today after a 3.5 week paid vacation and to no one's surprise, it sucked. It wasn't too bad but it was a cruddy enough day to wish I hadn't come back. My manager was glad to see me but that could be because I am one of the few people around there that know almost all of the day to day workings of the department and can be depended on to go about my business and not screw anything up.

Lets talk about my boss for a moment. To protect the innocent we will call him....Bert. Bert is a nice guy. I think that is part of my problem with him, he is too friggin' nice. Everytime he sees me he has to tell me that I am doing this awesome job and that he is greatful to have me working under him. Usually these little pep talks end with a handshake and me saying, "Uhh...yeah...thanks." I do not like these pep talks. There are those that tell me to be greatful he likes me because it is better that way than if he were to not like me but honestly I don't care. I would be happiest if he just pretended I didn't exist. If I could just go about my business and he his, life would be great.

The second thing that irritates me about "Bert" is that he has no big goals in his life. His biggest career goal is to someday be a store manager. What kind of a goal is that? Bert is not a dumb individual and he is exremely motivated. He says that "Insert Store Name Here :)" is the best place for him to work because they pay him well and he can move up without any kind of college education. I asked him why he didn't go to college and he said that by the time he graduated from high school he already had two kids and just couldn't juggle it. Good answer.

Anyways, it is not that I do not like Bert, I just don't want to work with him.....he is too peppy. I have often contemplated on quitting on him right after one of his huge pep talks just to confuse him and leave him to dwell on what he must have done wrong in order to make me want to quit. Bert is the kind of guy that would let this eat at him.

Lastly, Bert now has five kids. Five. And a wife to boot. Does Bert spend time with them? No, why, because Bert is busy planning out stuff that has to do with work. The guy is a workaholic. He has been known to leave my coworkers and I two page "love notes" that tell us we are doing great jobs and what tasks he would like done for the day. He actually contemplated coming in on his daughter's birthday. He also likes to leave two hours late and then call us an hour or two later to see how sales are and how the department is doing in his absence. Bert is a sad sad man.

Bert and I are exact opposites and they may be why he annoys me. But he is a nice guy and tries his hardest to make everyone happy so I guess you can't expect much more from a manager.

Saturday, July 10, 2004

Wedding Gift Opening Day

Well, Becca and I have just returned from opening our wedding gifts at her sister's house. All I have to say is HOLY CRAP! We opened enough gifts to last us for two or three Christmas's. Not to say I will be put out if I have to open gifts again come Christmas time but damn, we got a lot of stuff.

The challenge now is to come up with space to store everything. As of right now, all of the gifts are in our guest bathroom/laundry room....and flooding out a bit into the kitchen and other surrounding areas. I think it is safe to say now that we have the means to compile a fully functional bar in our house. We have new Martini glasses, a champagne bucket, and margarita glasses. Now all we need is more alcohol.

On another note, tomorrow is my first day back to work in almost a month. Woohoo. I don't mind my work because it gives me money for watching tv and it adds a sort of rythym to everything but I can't say I am overly excited to get back to it. I have a meeting with the head of the history department for the Boise School District on Thursday so hopefully I won't be doing the current work gig for too much longer. We will see.

Anywho, time to get to bed because I have to get to work before noon tomorrow. This is bad because lately my lazy butt has not been getting out of bed until noon on most days. Good night!

Friday, July 09, 2004

Construction Time!

As you have probably noticed, I am making some changes to the blog now. I switched templates and then modified the background color and the links on the sidebar. I know it is not much but this is my first foray into webpage building/editting and so I consider the effort a success seeing as you can still read and access everything on the site. The "Blogs Worth Mentioning" section is something I built from scratch. This stuff isn't too hard to learn after all. More changes soon to come.

And He Thought I was The Dumbass

So I am going to a friend's house today and a funny thing happened.

As I was sitting at a stop sign, waiting to pull out into traffic, a scruffy looking guy on a bike was approaching me from the sidewalk to the left side of the street I was stopped at. Yes, admittedly I was pulled up a little far into the street and the biker was going to have to swerve around me in order to get by, my bad. Having said that, this guy had absolutely no right to swerve out of his intended path toward my driver's side window and yell in a very rude manner, "Thanks! Dumbass!"

I replied, "Fuck you!" What right did this guy have to start bomb throwing for a miniscule incovenience that everyone who has rode on a bike has had to endure? There was a car behind me and so it was not like I could have backed up, I looked.

After we exchanged those endearing words to each other he then swerved in front of my car and that is when it happened. The guy looked back toward me for a split second and then he bit hard it right in front of my car. WTF?! I starred in disbelief, amazement, and amusement. The first thing that went through my head was that this guy was going to try scamming me and say that I hit him. Which did not happen, thankfully. From my window I asked if he was okay but he did not respond. He picked up his bike and walked it for a second before he got back on it and rode off. On one hand, I felt kind of bad for him because he scraped his elbow and it was bleeding and its never cool when someone gets hurt. On top of that he had just fallen off his bike in front of the guy he was antagonizing so he probably bruised his ego more than anything. On the other hand, that was friggin' hilarious. Had he not swerved out of his way to yell at me, the accident probably never would have happened.

Moral of the story: Karma is a bitch. :)

Thursday, July 08, 2004

The Wee T Ranch

Earlier I told you that sometime I would write about a guilty pleasure of mine, midgets. The wee people, the vertically challenged, the small, the liliputin, shorties........midgets. I have always found midgets funny. I have no problems with them personally and have a couple of friends that are midgets but the bottom line is that they crack me up. The following is what I would do if I was a billionaire....which is probably why I will never be a billionaire.

Imagine a place just a short drive from town. A ranch. As you drive up the winding dirt road to the ranch you go through the big entrance arches and see the ranches cattle brand, a very large W setting atop a very small T. As you get closer to the ranch you start to see heards of cattle roaming the grassy lands. Not a big deal? Here's the catch, the cattle are small. Oh yes they are adult cows....just shorter. You would also see a heard of fainting goats. If you have never seen a fainting goat you should check them out. Mother nature gave them the funniest survival mechanism of all, when they get scared or startled they freeze and fall over. If a goat is jumping through the air and gets frightened mid-jump it will freeze up and hit the ground as if it were dead. They are hilarious. Anyways.

You would also see other cattle, llamas and alpacas....why....because they're funny. And I am a big Simcity fan. You would also see something else though. You see, I would be rich therefore I would not have time to keep the place up by myself so I would have to have a little help. Who better to man the Wee T than small people.

If my guests get a little hungry, small chefs will be there to cook a big meal. At the Wee T, the staff may be small but the portions are not.

If my guests want to go sight seeing there will be small guides to lead them through the wilderness and tell them campfire stories at night. At the Wee T, the land may stretch far and wide but the knowledge and ruggedness of our guides is no tall tale. The guides would also ride small horses across the range.

There will be midget driven rickshaws to take guest to and from buildings and activities while on the ranch. There will also be little maids to tidy up after my guests leave a big mess. I may even arrange the occasional mini-buffalo hunt for birthday parties etc.

All in all, the Wee T would be a lot of fun. Yes, the ACLU would crucify me for this but they have better things to do like looking for small towns that have crosses in their town crests and making them remove them.

BTW if you think the whole midget thing hasn't been done before, think again. The famous Medici family that lived in Italy during the Renaissance was known to keep a whole house of dwarves by their estate so they could go and watch them live. Think of the Sims with real people. The Medicis were quite enamored by little people. They would also have them fight animals for their entertainment. Check out the link below for a story about the Medicis have a dwarf fight a monkey while all of the tall people watched merely.

http://www.medici.org/news/dom/dom012002.html

I wonder if I am in any way related to these guys. :)

Wednesday, July 07, 2004

I'm BAACCKK!!

Hey everybody!

And then you are supposed to say back, "Hi, Dr. Nick!"

Ok that was a stupid Simpsons moment, my apologies. You have probably guessed that I am back from my rockin' honeymoon, if you haven't guessed that, too bad. Seattle was fun and if you ever get a chance to go there check out the Sci-Fi Museum and the Experience Music Project. Both were very cool museums and well worth the cost of admission. The part that I found kind of funny about the Sci-Fi museum was who contributed most of the artifacts that nerds like myself gawked at. None other that Microsoft co-founder, Paul Allen. As I wandered around the exhibits, I could not help but notice that more than half of the stuff came from Paul Allen's "private collection". And I thought I was a packrat, damn. Rayguns, props from "This Island Earth", and other B-movies from the Fifties, Paul Allen collected it all. The museum is basically an extension of his house. I knew he threw a bunch of money in to start up the project but I did not think he donated a good portion of the items as well. What ever gets ya off I guess. Then again, if I was worth several billion dollars I would probably collect some pretty wierd stuff too....like midgets. Sometime I will write I whole entry on the vertically challenged and probably offend someone by doing so.

Anywho, now that the honeymoon is over comes the fun part, cleaning the damned house. I would say that 98% of my belongings are finally over here. Now we just have to find room for them. And when we are done finding room for that stuff, we then have to make room for our wedding presents. Becca and I are opening those on Saturday and by the looks of it, we have a ton of them. Becca and I opened a couple before we left for Washington and one item we received was an Ice Cream Maker from my buddy's family. This is supertight. This is tighter than Dick's hatband. Don't ask. I, like many chubby people around the globe, appreciate a good ice cream cone every now and then. Now I will be able to produce my own arcane but tasty flavors. Ahh...the world is mine. We also got a rummikub set, coffee maker, griddle, and some spoons. Getting married is like having Christmas twice in one year. This is not something I expected but I am not going to complain. BTW, if you have never played rummikub and like domino-esque games check it out. Its quite entertaining.

Lastly, I stumbled across I very good deal for those who like Linux. Go to this link:

http://www.novell.com/community/linux/order.php

You get 10gigs worth of Linux isos from Novell for free. Yes, FREE! Most of them are SUSE Linux but there is other stuff as well. Phear, this one is for you. All you have to do is fill out shipping info and some IT related questions and the stuff is yours. I just got my confirmation email from Novell so it is definitely a legit deal.

Thursday, July 01, 2004

Relaxation on the Bay

Hello Everybody!

Well, I haven't posted in a few days so I figured I would update you on the honeymoon. What have I been doing, you ask? NOTHING!!!!!! Becca and I have just been chillin' and going into a cute little tourist town named Port Townsend. It is all quite relaxing and quiet. We have a condo right on the water front and leave the windows open all the time so we can hear the water outside. A seal comes up by the beach almost everynight and we have dinner on the deck whenever we can. All in all, it is quite serene. We go into Seattle day after tomorrow and spend 4th of July there. We will probably hook up with my brother and his girlfriend while we are there. It should be quite fun.

Well, I have to go now. The computer I am on is a shared computer. No wifi but what can you do. I will post when the chance becomes available. Have a good day!