surrounded my morons
2003.08.28 12.53
I updated my eBay profile today to express my discontent with the seller jj_watches. I also have a discussion board session going on eBay, but it is more of a venting session. I'm pretty satisified that if I file a claim with eBay and follow their procedures that I will come out O.K. in the end. Yay.today's birthdays
2003.08.27 16.29
- Actress Alexa Vega ("Spy Kids") is 15.
- Singer Mario is 17.
- Rock musician Jon Siebels (Eve 6) is 24.
- Actress Sarah Chalke is 27.
- Rock musician Tony Kanal (No Doubt) is 33.
- Super-Genius Mark Shields is 34.
- Rap musician Bobo (Cypress Hill) is 35.
- Rock musician Mike Johnson (Dinosaur Jr.) is 38.
- Writer-producer Dean Devlin is 41.
- Country musician Matthew Basford (Yankee Grey) is 41.
- Gospel singer Yolanda Adams is 41.
- Actor Peter Stormare is 45.
- Rock musician Glen Matlock (The Sex Pistols) is 47.
- Actress Diana Scarwid is 48.
- Rock musician Alex Lifeson (Rush) is 50.
- Singer Willy DeVille is 50.
- Actor Paul Reubens is 51.
- Country musician Jeff Cook (Alabama) is 54.
- Actress Barbara Bach is 56.
- Actress Marianne Sagebrecht is 58.
- Rock singer-musician Tim Bogert is 59.
- Actress Tuesday Weld is 60.
- Musician Daryl Dragon is 61.
- Bluegrass singer-musician J.D. Crowe is 66.
- Actor Tommy Sands is 66.
- Cajun-country singer Jimmy C. Newman is 76.
again here we go...
2003.08.18 20.08
Because it has been too long since we played...
Ask Your CoWorker
Today's Question: ''What did you do during the blackout?"
 ''Wasn't that the name of a Steven Seagal movie?'' |
 ''Though I'm embarassed to admit it... Self love.'' | |
 ''I was stuck in the elevator between the 28th and 29th floor... with the FEDEX guy.'' |
 ''I played Quake 3 against myself. I kicked my own ass, like, 5 times.'' | |
 ''There was a blackout?'' |
 ''Why? What have you heard? Did you hear something? Come on, who told you?'' | |
 ''I sang the entire sountrack to Phantom of the Opera. Here, let me demonstrate.'' |
 ''Ohhhh! So that's why I couldn't see anything!'' | |
 ''I was so mad! I was in the middle of sorting my silverwear by atomic weight. Now I have to start all over!'' |
 ''I listened to Wham! on my portable CD. What the hell did you think I did?'' |
oops
2003.08.16 23.58
Never trust technical support that's been farmed overseas. They suck. I don't care what country it is or how much you may think they are qualified. They are bottom of the barrel as far as quality customer support goes. I followed their advice about how to get my new 250 GB drive working with my home computer. What ended up happening was that my partition for an existing 120GB drive was deleted. Nice! Luckily I have this bad ass tool called File Scavenger which can basically find anything off a harddrive as long as it can spin. I'm not saying that the process is fast, however. This took me about 16 hours to get everything done. From discovering what I'd done, to running the recovery tool, to merging the recovered files with the most recent backup I made three weeks ago, to making a new clone of the restored volume. I'm good. Tell your friends.Hey, I'm making my own list of Where The Hell Are They Now friends. If you know any of these people, find them and have them drop a message to me. I especially have been trying to get in touch with Richard Noble. The last time I talked to him was in 1997 when I was about to leave for Microsoft Tech Ed. He was getting married that weekend. When I came back into town to call him back and the number he emailed me, my Outlook PST file was jacked up. This was before I was as good as I am now, by the way, just for clarification. So, I never heard from him since. Wah. Here's my list:
- Richard "David" Noble (Jersey Village High School)
- Eddie Montijo (Jersey Village High School)
- Warren Carlson (Jersey Village High School)
- Carol Fariss (Longfellow Elementary, brother Darrell)
- Mark Hayden (Longfellow Elementary)
- Michael King (Longfellow Elementary)
- Tommy Krueger (Jersey Village High School)
- Trey D'amico (Guitar Playing Friend from the 300 Daud Days)
defending your right to say F
2003.08.14 15.23
Read this amazing legal document defending the constitutional right to use the F word. Wow.PUNK'D
2003.08.13 7.12
So I'm watching The Osbournes last night and enjoying the good times. The episode is the season 3 finale and has all the markings of any other episode. Kelly and Sharon are fighting. Jack is going on to everyone about waking up from a deep sleep and getting really violent. ''Does that happen to you,'' Jack inquires to everyone who will listen. ''No, not really,'' responds everyone who listened. Ozzy is being Ozzy. But then things get... weirder. Sharon tells Kelly that she doesn't want to be her manager any more. Kelly hears her family bickering over her breakup with Burt and packs her bags and leaves the house. Jack is in a deep sleep when the pomeranian Minnie wakes him up -- so while still asleep -- Jack picks up the dog and KILLS it. They don't really show you this, but the next morning Jack is clearly seen putting what appears to be Minnie's lifeless body into a duffel bag. He makes a hasty exit from the house while you can hear Sharon and Ozzy screaming Minnie's name, desperate to find their favorite dog. Later, the phone rings. Ozzy picks up and it's Jack who confesses what he's done. Ozzy informs Sharon. Sharon screams in agony. Ozzy is shown on the phone again -- only this time Sharon is on the other end and telling him that she has to go away for awhile and be alone. Ozzy is now all alone in the house. He goes to the TV. The remote control won't work and the TV is stuck on The Weather Channel. He screams for Jack. Then for Kelly. Then for Sharon. No answer. He throws his hands up in the air and walks into the bedroom.Then, something really freaking unusual happens.
An MTV camera man holds up a clapper and yells CUT! Ozzy is suddenly happy and wants to make sure that it's all over. He just as suddenly is now speaking clearly and concisely with no slurring. How strange. Sharon and Jack and Kelly are then shown standing behind the cameraman. They're happy that it's all over. ''It's the end of season! Yay!'' say the Osbournes. Minnie is there. Alive. This whole episode was a PUT-ON! And then -- to make you wonder if we've really been watching a reality TV show all this time or not -- they show the famous scene from the first season where Ozzy says, ''I love you all. I love you more than life itself, but you're all f***ing mad!'' -- only this time they show him saying it but flubbing the sentence. A guy steps into frame and says ''Take 2'' and Ozzy tries again and again until he *finally* gets it right. I'd thought this was something he'd said off the cuff. Now I'm like, ''What the hell?'' What any of it real? Am I in The Matrix? Did they recreate that scene to jack around with my brain?'' I have no idea. But I do know one thing -- I'm freakin' there for Season 4. Woo hoo!
am i dreaming?
2003.08.10 18.20
Look, Katherine. This is why wax museums are cool.are you slow or something?
2003.08.08 15.01
Had an excrutiating phone call with the postal inspector. I told this woman the details. She then says, "AHA! You have a signature delivery confirmation number! You said you never got it! Ergot, if you have confirmation then it was delivered!'' and I'm like, ''Hello? Are you even listening? It was never delivered, and yet the confirmation says it was. *THAT* is my problem. I have video that shows it was never delivered -- and that nobody ever signed a thing.'' She reduced her glee when she realized she hadn't been Paying Attention to the Story. I am now supposed to gather information about how the package was shipped, but she informed me that the post office will not be able to provide restitution for the missing item. This sucks, of course. After the seller gives me the details for my Form 1015, I will probably have to sue him for 1) sending the item without telling me he had shipped it and 2) for being stupid enough to send a $200 watch in the mail without insurance.I just found out that the new Hardiplank siding on my house is going to result in a $200 savings on my homeowner's insurance. Hmmm. That evens out my loss of the watch. I still want the watch.
I want to go to the movies this weekend and maybe revamp this site and maybe take Chew Chew to Petsmart for The Treatment and maybe get my hair trimmed up a bit. I will most likely be working the next weekend because we are deploying the massive application we've spent the last two years building. I don't talk much about it, mostly because there is a lot to it. I'll try to summarize as best as I can. I've been in charge of developing the user interface standards, building navigation models, ensuring intuitive usability, customizing the reporting system front-end (this uses third-party software for both back-end and front-end), programmed the front-end java code for IBM Access Manager security in the Jakarta Struts tags, developed the letter writing system (this uses third-party software on the back-end) -- and this is the most cool part -- letter writing seamlessly integrates your browser with any version of Microsoft Word (even Word 97) on any modern Windows platform (even Windows 95) and allows you to transmit and receive the Word document within a normal HTML form thanks to clever BASE64 encoding and decoding via kick-ass ActiveX controls. In addition to writing all the scripting that drives that stuff, I wrote a hell of a lot of javascript code to improve usability... and enhance overall coolness. Toss in some PhotoShop graphic work (both vector based and traditional RGB graphics) and you've got the last two years of my life in a nutshell. Oh, yeah, I also made prototypes of everything and came up with a cool training module system that uses real system HTML. Oh and I wrote a batch deployment script using my favorite deployment application ROBOCOPY. It's not a full-rounded project until you've somehow incorporated ROBOCOPY into it.
The sun isn't setting on the project, however. There is lots of work to be done. Not to mention my other goals in life. Getting to be a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live. Lofty goal? Exactly.
smile! you're on candid camera
2003.08.07 13.52
I suddenly wish I lived in California so I could vote for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Very cool. I was awake at 2 AM and did my usual crawl out of bed and into the black leather sofa chair to surf the net when I read the news. I definitely made the 'OHHH!' sound. Chew Chew will confirm.The saga of my stolen Casio wristwatch continues. The postal service police are a pain in the ass to contact. In the meantime, I've been in CSI mode and was able to watch full motion video of the actual delivery on 7/19. I've pretty much come to the conclusion that the postman just forged a signature and either 1) kept the package for himself or 2) didn't actually drop the package off until Monday. Not sure why he claims someone signed it, cuz he is in and out of there with only minimal ''Good morning'' contact with other residents. The reason why I think he may have not really dropped it off until Monday? The package left on 7/19 is too narrow. When I came back in from Houston on Sunday evening -- I ignored it. A package on 7/21 (Monday) left near my mailbox was picked up by some suspicious character before I got back from work. This guy owns a condo in the building on the 5th floor. I say suspicious because when he took the package, he kind of paused, looked to the side as if he was checking to see if anyone was coming, and then picked up the package and took off. I have to wait until Monday for a description of the box from the seller. For crying out loud, if you buy anything from eBay, make sure the seller tells you EXACTLY when he puts something in the mail and when to expect it, along with how he is shipping it and insuring it *AND* make sure your mailman is competent. Okay, so, I do not know how to assure competence, necessarily, but I believe a simple I.Q. and urinalysis will suffice. Regardless of that outcome, I assume a severe beating may be necessary to recover the watch. We shall see.
And speaking of incompetence... the guys who did the siding on my house managed to fry the garage door opener by mis-wiring an electrical box they had to remove while siding the car port. These same savants had a similar problem when they mounted the outside air conditioner condenser unit breaker box. When they remounted it to the wall they put a bolt THROUGH the freakin' wire. This heated up until eventually burning up in the box while my roommate Queen Beth was out of town. Luckily, the fire was confined to the breaker box. It was all replaced last night by my awesome A/C Repair Guy. Needless to say, I am making sure I have decent homeowner's insurance given the possibilities for disaster.
On a lighter note, this guy Gary has joined the tiny ranks of my fellow Back to the Future DeLorean replica makers. Honestly, I am not really a replica maker. I farm out the work, mostly. I do have a few pieces that I've fashioned out of wood, but Gary as gone all out by making everything himself. Visit his site and check it out. Good stuff. I'm linked, so I will return the favor when I eventually have this rare thing called ''free time'' and revamp my site.
confrontation
2003.08.06 11.53
My sleeping schedule has not yet returned to normal. I was asleep at around 9:30 PM last night. I awoke at 2:30 AM. I goofed around on the internet for 30 minutes. I heard some kind of shouting match outside. A car was in the middle of Race Street, and the passenger and a pedestrian were screaming at each other. Not sure why. The only words I was able to make out included: ''I will bury you, man!'' and ''You don't F with me, man!'' and ''Bring it on, man!'' and other variations on the topic. I got bored with it after 15 minutes and called the cops. Four minutes later the parties dispersed before the police showed up. Either the they saw the cops or they were just finished being mad at each other and were ready to move on. Nice. At least in Houston I would get to watch confrontations between stupid people on my cool video surveillance camera.Yesterday I bought a scale that measures body fat in addition to weight. I am pretty sure I've leveled off at 155. That's 16% body fat, which is right in line for my ideals. The thing makes you input your height (5' 10 1/2'') your neck size (14'') and your waist size (33''). It then measures impedence and tries to figure out your body fat based on these factors. It seems to be fairly consistent. No idea if it's really accurate. Me and a Philly cheesesteak are ready to meet up this weekend, dammit.
batman returns
2003.08.05 11.55
I've been back for just over a day and I'm still working on sorting through the return to Eastern time and to all my programming duties. The return trip was just as pleasant as the trip there. Kudos to Czech Airlines. The free wine and Coca-Cola Light was appreciated. I brought home a slew of Czech newspapers and restaurant cards for everyone to examine. I am thisclose to buying a scale just to make sure I'm not going all over the place with the healthy eating. This morning I was thisclose to wearing baggy brown cord pants with a green shirt -- until I realized that doing so would make me look thisclose to being Shaggy from Scooby Doo fame. I am wearing maroon instead. Safer. Neutraler.There were a small range of fires to put out when I got back. My hours got lost in a vacuum due to a faulty mail server. My box with Casio watch has still not showed up or been found. I just found out I can talk to the Postal Police for that. Exciting, no? I am dealing with morons at the Philadelphia Parking Authority. They are pure evil over there, I assure you. More later. Worker-time.
day 7
2003.08.02 12.21
Saw ''The Shape of Things'' last night and then had a nice dinner at a place called The Louvre. Dead rabbit was on the menu. You know what they say in the Matrix: ''Follow the dead rabbit.'' After eating the dead rabbit it was off to The Chateau for another round of people watching. The hot Yugloslav girl that we'd met up with two nights earlier was back and needed to borrow a phone to make a call. Katherine just replaced her phone so I think she's got a favor coming back to her at some point. The night ended around 1 AM. USA 1. Rabbits 0.It's Saturday and I'm back yet again to the Spika internet cafe. My standard espresso is piping hot next to me. There was a quick lunch at this Mexican food place called Piquante's. It was decent. You'll find that a lot of the American type restaurants such as this have free refills. Free refills are good. We then went to the Prague Museum and managed to wander through three of four floors before becoming art-ed out. It happens. I am gathering together a few of the things I bought while shopping which I'll detail later. I can't really recall what any of my friends wanted as far as what to bring them from here. The only really freaky ass cool thing are the plastic guns that look just like the real things. They sell them for cheap but there is no freakin' way I'm going to try to get on an airplane back to the states with one of these things. If I ever need to make a movie with realistic guns, I'll be sure to send Katherine an email requesting fake gun shipment.
You may or may not hear from me again on Sunday. My plane leaves for Toronto at 1:30 PM Prague time and then nine hours later I will have a short layover until I get on the flight back to Philadelphia. Only 7 hours will have passed on the clock. I assume I will be groggy and out of it, so be forewarned if you've left a voicemail on my phone expecting a return call. I'm off.
day 6
2003.08.01 8.24
I'm back at the Spika (pronounced "speaka") internet Cafe in Prague. I am here solo while Katherine takes care of work related issues. She's decided to stay here in Prague and that means that some of the relationships that were severed must be reattached. Job, telephone, etc. While I've been in a similar situation, as far as my working in Philadelphia away from home, I've also had the advantage that I'm only a cheap roundtrip flight away from The Great State of Texas. From Prague it's an expensive veryverylong flight. Aside from matters of cost, there's a degree of comfort in working away from your home base. My company is establishing an office in New York City which is very exciting for me considering I'm only a 90 minute train ride away. Maybe I'll get to do something there. I wish her good luck in her journeys, of course. Having a friend in Prague that you can visit is a good exchange for their distance. Having a friend that knows where all the good cheap bars are and will let you crash on their sofa is an even better exchange.Okay, so I'm not going to get philosophical and weepy. Let me discuss something that has concerned me ever since I arrived here in the Czech Republic. What am I talking about, you say? Hot Czech Girls. More accurately there are hot Czech girls and hot Yugoslav girls here. They are everywhere. They speak English for the most part, and they are all over 5 foot 10 inches tall. I'm surrounded by freakin' Amazons! Did the NBA send over a bunch of players here 18 to 25 years ago? Was there some kind of exhibition in 1980 that I can't remember? Holy crap. I don't exactly know how I'll document this unusual phenomenon. I'll see if I can put together a video segment dedicated to the topic. Someone else do some research on the NBA in 1980 and we'll get together. Stay tuned.
I believe the bus trip is off now that the timing isn't going to work out. Returning the tickets is not an option. They've gone bad. It was only $20 for both and I believe Katherine paid for most of them, so I'm not terribly depressed. There were hot baths and mineral waters that supposedly cured all ills. I wasn't extremely excited to drink funky water, anyway.
The food in Prague is still as good as ever, and I've only indulged outside my strict regiment a couple of times. Okay, maybe three or four times. The cottage cheese, which I finally ate last night, reminded me of eating Philadelphia cream cheese in a way. It didn't kill me, which is of course the most important thing. So far, nothing has left me unsettled outside of a small bout with the Pakistani cuisine. The ''ultra super hot'' sauce was a little too much for me. At the end of that particular meal, we were presented with what looked like parakeet birdseed. They were sweetened grains with these little Red Hots like little dots of candy mixed in. Quite tasty. I have some video of that -- perhaps this is the first video ever of people eating birdseed.
Last night we all stayed in. Matt, Katherine's flatmate who is basically in charge of all housing payments, welcomed a new flat mate who took over the section of the house where Aemelia had been staying at days before. Aemelia was Anthony's ex-girlfriend. Anthony and his new girlfriend Aria were also here briefly yesterday to leave for Berlin. Aria is the photographer of the bunch. There is film and photos all over the place that she has taken. A guy named Lars has also lived at the flat at some point. Everyone who lives there ends up leaving some of their stuff, supposedly to one day return for it. Aria has her own pile of junk, but Lars' pile of junk has the most interesting bits which include some extremely old photo books -- some of which contain photos of people and families doing family things like getting married and going out in the circa 1930's -- and some of which contain photos of people in the circa 1970's practicing to get married and practicing making families. Comprenez-vous? Jeff, a friend of Matt's who uses an iMac and spent some time trying to convince Katherine that iMac is superior to the PC, was also briefly in. He let us watch one of the ''Animatrix'' episodes. I've already seen them, but can't turn down a chance to see some Matrix goods. He was also off to Berlin, only not via hitchhiking which was Anthony and Aria's planned mode of transit. Katherine spent the evening cleaning up the residence and quizzing Matt on whether something was trash or not. This continued until midnight after which we all retired to sleep for 12 hours. Good times.
Well, I'm off to check my mail and finances a few more times. It's been around an hour since Katherine went to work. Check back tomorrow for what may be my second to last Super Genius in Prague update.
