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Stuff on the Net XII

Stuff on the Net

Want to know what really happens in chat rooms? The Parlor. (Not Safe For Work)

One of my favorite Reno 911 sketches.

The Last Saskatchewan Pirate.

Rollin’ with Bob Saget. (Not Safe For Work)

Your ears you keep and I’ll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, “Dear God! What is that thing,” will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.

The Home Stretch

Random Thoughts

Yesterday’s home inspection went well. Nothing is wrong with the house that we didn’t already know about and budget for. The lawyers for HUD finally got their act together and the closing is set for next Friday. So in a week I will officially be a homo… err… home owner.

It feels good to finally get through all the mess. The waiting, the preliminary paperwork, the ninja utility work… yeah, the HUD contractors are complete idiots, so we snuck into the house one night and capped all the open water pipes and gas hoses so that we could turn the utilities on for the inspection. If we hadn’t done that I suspect our inspection might have occurred some time in August with us moving in perhaps before 2007.

This whole experience gives me absolutely no confidence in government institutions. Its not just the triple paperwork, but the sincere lack of job pride that these overpaid overbenefitted slackasses possess. I would be hardpressed to find people outside of cushy government jobs who work so little and manage to make it sound like its hard work.

Anyway, one more week and I’m done with them for good.

Thar be rapscallions among us

Gaming

It seems odd t’ say that thar be a seedy underbelly t’ Puzzle Pirates, but I be jus’ nay ready t’ believe that so many swabbies be actively roleplayin’. This underbelly I speak o’ be greed.

When ye get on a ship t’ job an’ pillage, th’ expectation, I would think, be that ye would hit th’ high seas until either th’ rum runs ou’ or th’ hold be so full o’ booty that th’ water threatens t’ flood in through th’ port holes. However, ever’ time a ship sets sail wi’ me aboard, after we`ve attacked an’ beaten one vessel some o’ th’ other shipmates begin clammorin’ fer the’r share o’ th’ booty. Now, booty be nay normally split until we return t’ port, so ye end up wi’ half th’ boat demandin’ we return t’ port after one successful swashbuckle.

On the’r part, this be very short sighted. Fer one, if ye feel th’ need t’ leave, ye`ll still get a share o’ th’ loot when ‘t gets split later. Ye dasn’t be havin’ t’ be present. Th’ other, an’ more pertinant issue, be that when yer crew be sixty ruffians, an swabbie split o’ e’en a haul o’ 50,000 pieces o’ eight will only be about 500 pieces, maybe a wee more or perhaps a wee less.

Th’ irritatin’ thin’ be that these swabbies jus’ will nay shut up. Cryin’ like infants they`ll keep demandin’ we port an’ split th’ cash, swashbuckle after swashbuckle, an’ if ye know anythin’ about th’ way th’ puzzles work ye know what that means. If ye dasn’t, well, if ye be talkin’ then ye aren`t workin’. So, get back t’ work, ye barnacles!

Design By Committee

Random Thoughts

As a programmer, I pride myself on being able to, after the grunt work is done and the program is made functional, make my programs look pleasing, pretty. Usually this involves picking a color scheme using the well known color wheel (paint stores usually provide free ones, they are worth picking up). I start with the company colors and pick others that are complimentary and so on. I pick colors that sharply contrast for things such as alerts, alarms and errors, to make them stand out. I also usually fire up my trusty copy of Paint Shop Pro and craft some graphics to help round out the designs of menus and reports, and I always keep the sizes small so they don’t impede the loading time of the pages.

Then I give the program to the testers and the clients who usually come back with the most idiotic of requests. “Can we make the highlight color a light green text on a purple background? It will be easier to read.” “Can you remove the graphics from the menus? Just leave them blocky tables, we don’t need them to look good.” “Can you make my name appear on the top of every single page in giant 48 point font so that I always know that it is me who is logged in so I don’t use someone else’s account?”

And I have to do them, because my boss thinks that “the customer is always right”. But I know, since it happens every single time, that once the testing phase is done, they are going to ask things like “Why does my name appear in 48 point font on the top of every page?”, “Green on purple is awful, why did you choose those colors?”, and “These menus are so bland, can you jazz them up a bit?”

People wonder why I hesitate to put in my best effort the first time around…

Working From Home

Random Thoughts

I look forward to the new house. There are many many reasons for this, but one of the ones on top has got to be my office. The house is a two story, three bedroom house. The three bedrooms, living room, dining room, kitchen, and two full bathrooms are all on the “top” floor. I put top in quotes because the front door for the house is in the middle of both floors, with a half flight of stairs going up and a half flight going down. Originally the lower level was unfinished leaded some people to describe it as a “raised ranch”, ranch meaning everything on one floor with raised meaning they put a basement under it. Anyway, the bottom floor also has a full bath, but most of the floor is a large media room/living space that has a place where there was (and will be again) a bar. Then there is the garage, also on the lower floor. Originally (I believe) it was a 2 car garage that ran deep, with lots of room for a workshop or something. The previous owners enclosed that part of the garage and made an office. This is going to be my room.

Working from home has always been a problem for me, mostly because there are usually two places to work: my computer desk or in front of the TV. In front of the TV never works. No matter how stupid the show, you can always find something on the idiot box to stare at. My Super Sweet 16 is the most offensive and retarded show ever. I think I’ve seen them all. My computer desk isn’t much better because its where I do all my gaming and stuff. The temptation is just too great. The one thing I’ve always wanted is a room that is more dedicated to work, separated from the TV and my gaming PC where I can be a little more easily focused. So this new room, my office, is going to freaking rock.

Aside from location, the biggest issue with working from home has to be the tendancy to remain in my pajamas. I think some people enjoy doing that, but for me, if I don’t shower and get dressed it will take me about 4 hours to get my day going instead of being able to jump right in. That’s a personal thing to deal with, but I feel that having an office in my house will help with that because since I have to pass through the garage to get to the office, I’ll be more inclined to be dressed, and I can actually make a morning routine of it because I’m still “going to the office” in a manner of speaking.

Sometimes though, I just like going to the office to get out of the house, so even if I am allowed to work from home all the time, I’d still prefer to have a place to go to escape distraction. We’ll have to wait and see what the future holds, but not too long, I should have my home office by the end of the month.

Stuff on the Net XI

Stuff on the Net

Ever wanted to know everything that was never true about Television? Go here. Every time I go, I find something to laugh about.

It came from Ofasoft… a well intentioned thread about Pirates of the Caribbean 2 turns into a discussion about Johnny Depp’s Americanness.

Picard vs. Vader … at last the “Trek” versus “Wars” dispute is settled.

A guy I know is in a movie… check out the preview on its MySpace page: The Signal.

People want the President of Russia to answer some questions. Mostly about young boys, humanoid robots, and Cthulhu.

Over on Yahoo, Stephen Hawking asks “How can the human race survive the next hundred years?“

Just the Fax, Ma`am.

Random Thoughts

Why isn’t this technology dead yet? With scanning, PDF formats and email, why are we still using the fax machine over the phone line?

I only ask because in the pursuit of my home loan, I have had to fax over one hundred pages of documents, forms, and other assorted junk. Do you know how long it takes to fax a hundred pages? It takes… like… forever, or nearly two hours at least. And you can’t even load all the pages in at once because the weight will cause multiple page pulls through the machine and jam, which means you’d have to start all over again and that is just not happening!

Join with me folks! Take those fax machines outside and set them on fire! Smash them to bits with baseball bats! Tell them to take their toner filled asses back to hell where they belong! Unite! Down with the fax!

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man`s Chest

Reviews

Did you like the first one? Yes? Then you should go see this one too.

Pirates of the Caribbean 2 is just as good as the first one, the blend of action and comedy with a few nostalgic bits thrown in for those of us old enough to have seen the Disney ride before they began to overhaul it, but it does have one minor flaw. If you have seen the Back to the Future trilogy of movies then you are well familiar with this flaw. Since they filmed movies 2 and 3 at the same time, there are elements of the second film that are clearly setup for the third. In fact, from a purely story and plot standpoint, number two is not a satisfying film because while the story moves along nothing is really resolved.

But the swordfighting and ship combat is as good as ever. Seeing this movie will leave you itching for the final chapter… which should be along for Memorial Day 2007.

Currently Not Reading

Site News

You may have noticed the Currently Reading section over to the right has been empty. Let me tell you, it definately is not from lack of material. I have got a stack of books just waiting. No, I am currently not reading anything because what is usually my reading time, riding the bus to and from work, I have been using as work time.

See, I spend roughly two and a half hours on the bus each day. About an hour going to work, and an hour and a half coming back. Since my work has been so kind as to provide me with a laptop, I have been doing program code while I travel, which in turn allows me to only need to stay in the office about six hours each day.

It is a sweet deal. I mean, if I was driving myself to work, that same amount of time (a little less, the bus takes a longer way, and the transfer from bus to rail can be a time killer) would be just lost. I would be spending is dodging idiots on the highway and trying my best to adhere to an “Arrive Alive” policy.

So anyway… I do have a dozen or so books waiting for me, and there are like another ten or so coming out in the next couple months I plan to pick up, and I’ll get back to reading and reviewing them just as soon as I buy my house. Ha! Yeah, like I’ll have more time once I have a house to work on! I crack me up sometimes.

Independence Day

Random Thoughts

Freedom. It is a word that many of us here in the United States take for granted, and often, not comprehending the worth of it, are willing to trade for security. Elsewhere, people fight for freedom, and our forces fight for their freedom, whether they want it or not. But I’m not here to talk about politics.

If you’ve followed my blog, you know my feeling on the crutch of New Year’s Resolutions. Sure, they work for some people, but they are so horribly open ended that most people end up picking things that are just too much to hinge of the turn of a year. So I am proposing a new tradition: Freedom Day.

July 4th every year I am going to pick something that is holding me back, something that is oppressing my advancement, and I’m going to break free of it.

For our inaugural year we going to pick something simple: my weight. I am not a fat man. I’m 5’9″ at 200 lbs. and all my extra poundage is centered around my waist. If you dig, somewhere on this site you might find a picture of me with my shirt off. So, what I am breaking free from this year is my excuses for not exercising. I always seem to find some reason to avoid it. “I have work to do.” “I’m tired.” “I’ll do it tomorrow.” “I need a home gym.” “I need new shoes.” Well, no more. I have home equipment, an eliptical and a Total Gym, and work I can do pretty much any time I want, I have shoes, being tired is part of the reason I need to get in shape, and tomorrow never comes.

Three days a week minimum, starting this week. I’m out of excuses, and I will be free.