Latest Posts

What happened to .plans?

Site News

Many moons ago, when technogeeks were first beginning to form within the webs of what would one day be called the Internet, people with shell accounts on company systems could manage a ‘.plan’ file. In it they would keep a list of projects they were working on, tasks for the day. And system admins could poll the .plan files to see what people were up to (when they weren’t looking at porn).

Later, as the technogeeks formed their own companies… gaming companies… some of them still maintained .plans. They would write about the work they were doing, graphics, game engines, world physics, pasta recipes… all the important things (like porn). This was when I started. As a fan of all the gaming sites, I read the .plans of the guys at id and the other game companies daily, and decided to start my own. First in IRC, then on a GeoCities site, then one of my own sites… through loadfix.com, squadleader.com and on to probablynot.com.

Somewhere along the way, retards started abusing the internet. They didn’t understand ‘.plan’ and because most of them read like journals they just called them weblogs. Then more retards came, and ‘weblog’ was just too long a word, so they called them blogs. And now, with the internet bursting at the seems with retards (and porn), blogging has become a national passtime… (why couldn’t they have chosen porn?)

I’ve given up on calling mine a ‘.plan’ because… well.. its not anymore. But I flat out refuse to call it a blog… weblog is as far as I will go. The line in the sand has been drawn. This is my weblog.

Enjoy.

The Truth Isn’t Out There

Random Thoughts

We’ve all heard the stories, now its time to hear the truth.

Time and again, stories like this one grace the world’s newspapers. Dolphins selflessly saving people from danger, often from sharks.

It’s all a ruse. Dolphins want safety for humans about as much as the sharks want to eat them. Each of these so-called “rescues” is in fact a failed attempt to capture a human.

These dolphin terrorists seek nothing more than to kidnap unsuspecting people to use them as bargaining chips in their fight against the oppression of zoos and marine biology centers.

How is it that these sharks find people anyway? The dolphins tell them. And do these dolphins ever notify the authorities? They do not. Instead they swim, circling the victims until one of our many Navy or Coast Guard security vessels happens upon them. Then its all squeeks and cute tricks to buy time for an escape and to confuse their captives.

People “saved” by dolphins unanimously agree that they were in fact rescued by the dolphins, completely unaware of the reality, the gravity of their situation. They continue on with their lives regailing stories about the dolphins, and spreading the propaganda of their kindness.

Recently though, scientists have cracked the code of the dolphin speech. Their plans are clear: to obtain and hold human captives to exchange them for the release of their brothers and sisters languishing in captivity.

Make no mistake people of America… Dolphins hate freedom.

Better Than Ezra

Reviews

I’ve reviewed them before, and considering that they are my favorite band, its likely that I’ll review them again… and again.. and again…

There are bands out there that have had bigger success. Bands that play sold out stadium shows, whose members live in regal mansions, whose albums go quadruple platinum in the first week despite the fact that there are only a couple of good songs on it. Better Than Ezra isn’t one of those bands. Put in any one of their CDs and there isn’t a song I will skip. Sure, I like some songs more than others, but there isn’t a “bad” one in the bunch. And then to see them live… they are tight. They know how to line up songs to flow through a set. They know their own songs, and songs of their peers well enough to know which songs can blend seemlessly from one of their’s to a medly of covers and back into their song (like going from “Recognize” into Nelly’s “Ride With Me” into “Personal Jesus” by Depeche Mode and back in to finish off “Recognize”). And they know how to bring the audience into the performance, to make them feel like they are a part on experience not just watching a band, and all without the use of cheezy sing-a-longs.

Last night BTE dropped into Atlanta for the 99X Sinners Ball, their version of a Mardi Gras celebration, and they rocked the stage. I’ve seen the Ezra gang do well with enormous crowds at festivals in stadiums, but in a smaller setting like Kenny’s Alley at Underground Atlanta is really where they shine. Here are some really crappy photos I took with my camera phone, proof only that I need a better camera to take to shows like this.

Better Than Ezra
Better Than Ezra
Better Than Ezra
Better Than Ezra
Better Than Ezra

BTE has two albums coming up… if you don’t know them, or think you don’t know them, they have a Greatest Hits album dropping on March 15th. And they have a new album hitting shelves in April.

And of course, if you haven’t seen them live… do so. I promise you won’t be disappointed.

I hate thread

Random Thoughts

Specifically, I hate little balls of thread, the kind that come from my clothes and fall to the floor and lay there so patiently looking exactly like a dead bug, but that I know is not a dead bug, and when I reach down to pick it up makes me scream like a little girl because not only was is not a little ball of thread but it also was not a dead bug, and instead was a live bug which managed to skitter halfway up my arm before I managed to swat it to the ground and jump away doing the “Oogie Boogie” dance as the goosebumps form all up my arms and back.

I hate thread.

In Good Company

Reviews

I have a problem with the business world… it has become cold. Mantras like “It’s just business.” have become the defacto for meaning “I’m going to destroy your life and I refuse to feel the slightest bit of guilt for it.” Companies are sold and bought, people are downsized, reintroduced to the market, and let go. And more and more I hate dealing with them in any fasion.

When I call a help desk… excuse me, a call center with a problem, I want someone to listen to me and assist me in finding a solution. Instead these days I get my “data” collected and I’m entered into the system. I can’t remember the last time someone said they would call me back and they actually did so. Instead I’m left calling them back in a few days and re-entering the system, starting over.

When I go into a store or talk to any salesman, I never get the feeling that they want to actually sell me a product. I do get the feeling that that want to take my money. When was the last time you heard a salesman say, “You know, I don’t think this product is really the right one for you. Perhaps you should look into a …” without it being a disparaging remark about your social status but an honest assessment of your needs and the capabilities of the items they sell.

I knew going in to see the movie ‘In Good Company’ I was going to like it. Its the story of a good business, a sports magazine, whose head of sales actually cares about his product and his clients, that is bought by one of those global conglomerates who emphasize numbers and profit, and couldn’t care less about the people who work for them and their lives.

I really don’t want to talk about the movie too much, only to say that its excellent, as long as you aren’t on the side of the global conglomerates.

The Duality of `Doo`

Reviews

Let me begin by saying that neither ‘Scooby Doo: The Movie’ nor ‘Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed’ are real winners. Neither is going to win any awards, and neither is really going to stand the test of time and become a classic in twenty or so years.

However…

These two movies wind up being perfect partners. The first Doo is an attempt to take the cartoon characters and put them in the ‘real world’. They give them real problems and make them deal with them, while telling a story thats mildly interesting and moderately funny. The second Doo is a live action cartoon, complete with ‘running in place over an empty pit’ and the goofy ‘sneaky big step walking quietly’ they always do. Its story is pretty much exactly out of the old cartoon, and the humor is actually better simultaneously comically paying homage and sending up the original.

** SPOILERS AHEAD **

If you just missed it, I’m about to tell some specifics of each movie, so stop reading if you don’t want things to be ruined.

I mean it. This is your last warning for the spoilers. If you keep reading and get mad because of spoilers, you are an idiot.

Now, on to the spoilers…

In the first Doo the biggest laughs really came in the Scrappy Doo scenes. Admit it, you hated him too. EVERYONE hated Scrappy. He totally ruined the Shaggy/Scooby & Fred/Velma/Daphne formula of the show that made it as enjoyable as it was. So when they show a flashback of Scrappy Doo being an ass, peeing on everything and then getting left in the middle of the desert I was literally cheering. YEAH!! Then at the end, when the villain turns out to BE Scrappy in a robot-human suit, I was rolling on the floor laughing and having trouble breathing. Sure, the movie had some other funny scenes, but the flashback and the end were head and hands above the rest of the film and made it worth watching.

The second Doo movie was overall more enjoyable. I was snickering and laughing through the whole thing because it was just like the old cartoon only with bad actors too. There is one scene, Shaggy and Scooby are running from the Black Knight Ghost and are piling items up on a door to block it, and I’m already laughing, I see it coming. The Ghost comes in through a secret door and starts handing items to them, Shaggy says ‘Thanks’ then put the item on the barricade, pauses, looks back the ghost, says ‘Zoinks!’ and he and Scooby freak out! Classic Doo. Then in a send up of it, Fred comes in with a shield, says ‘Bring it!’ and the Knight bangs the shield about a dozen times rattling Fred’s noggin, he stands dazed for a second, says ‘He brought it’ and passes out on the floor. There is even a bar where all the ‘unmasked’ villains go to hang out and share their hatred of all things Mystery, Inc. called ‘the Faux Ghost’. They ring a doorbell and get a voice warning saying to ‘Go Away, or Else!’, Shaggy says they shouldn’t ring it, Fred asks ‘What could possibly happen?’, and when he rings it again a trap door opens and they all fall, one at a time, and Scooby runs in place for a couple of seconds before doing so. And the ghosts… the Black Knight Ghost, the Thousand Watt Ghost, the Tar Ghost, the one-eyed skeleton ghosts, Miner Forty-Niner… hehe, pure Scooby Doo.

** SPOILERS DONE **

Yeah, whatever, you read the spoilers anyway…

The only other thing I have to say, besides the fact that these movies are worth watching at least once, is that Matthew Lillard is a horrible horrible actor… however, he is perfectly cast as Shaggy. Perhaps if they keep making enjoyable Scooby Doo movies, we can keep him from making anything else.

Crossing the Great Divide

Random Thoughts

There is a joke I love to tell… “One of the worst things while driving is when some guy gets right up on your bumper, you know, right in your tail pipe, and he just stays there. You are driving over the speed limit already but this guy is right on your ass. Burns me up. Worse than that though are those people who drive so slow, I mean, you have to get right up on their bumper to get them to move!”

The funniest thing about that joke is that everyone laughs, and at the same time a good 75% or better of your audience is only laughing to cover up the fact that they know they are guilty.

Because of jokes like that, and my desire to avoid as much irony in my personal life as I can… hey, irony is great when you catch other people, but being caught in an ironic situation yourself just blows most of the time… I try to avoid tailgating people, people who tailgate and other like situations while driving.

One that I cannot avoid though are the people who block intersections. First off, when you take the driver’s exam, one of the rules you study and one of the questions you have to answer covers this. Don’t block intersections. Now, the main reason for this is if an ambulance, fire truck, or police car need to go through and you are blocking it… well, lets just say you wouldn’t like to get to heaven and find out that the reason you died was because some schmuck blocked an intersection and delayed EMS in reaching you in time… nor would you like to die and go to hell and find out that you are there because you causes the death of some very nice people because you needed to get to the mall 30 seconds sooner than if you had just waited through the next light.

And that’s the crux of what I don’t get… most traffic could be avoided if people just stopped thinking about themselves and thought about the bigger picture. Traffic sucks, but its a fact of driving. By blocking the intersection all you are doing is making it suck more because while you hang there all the cross traffic can’t go. You might think to yourself, “This traffic sucks so I need to take every advantage I can to get where I’m going.” But do you know why the traffic sucks? Its because other schmucks are blocking other intersections.

So, to rectify the situation… step 1, learn your car. Is your car 10 feet long? 20? step 2, learn to spot length from a distance. You know, you don’t have to be spot on, but if your car is 20 feet long and there is only 6 inches of space on the other side of the intersection, 20 feet clearly does not fit into 6 inches. step 3, don’t pull into the intersection until there is enough room or traffic movement to accommodate your car. It’s actually pretty simple, if the cars aren’t moving and there isn’t enough room, don’t go. If there is enough room, go. If the room is a bit short but you can clearly see cars moving and the light is green, go. And just because the car in front of you can make it doesn’t mean you can. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose… and sometimes you have to wait a whole minute for the next light. Turn up the radio and enjoy the wait.

All was quiet…

Random Thoughts

… on New Year’s Day.

2004 is over. Time to put it on the shelf.

So what did we learn?

Well, I learned that life does, indeed, go on. A year after my mother’s death and I’m still here. It still hurts, but the days are getting easier.

I learned that parking downtown is, in fact, dangerous. I really need to just stop believing in the kindness of strangers. Not only did my car get broken into twice and my stereo stolen, but a man who claimed to see it happen fled the scene when I asked him to stay and describe the perpatrator to the cops. The roadside emergency kit I carry in the back of my car was stolen in my own parking lot when the door got left unlocked.

On the other hand, I did learn that some people can be nice, even though they might be stupid. I ordered a gift for Jodi for Christmas. It was very close to the holiday and it was going to be risky getting it in time. Now, lets say I live in an apartment who’s number is 9921… the FedEx driver tried to deliver it to 9291. Those people weren’t home. Instead of taking the package back to the distribution center, he decided to give it to my (their) neighbor in 9290. I guess he was trying to be nice… but see, I live in building 99, and building 92 it 7 buildings away, those people don’t know me… and appearantly are too stupid to read the address. When she gave it to the people in 9291, they read it and didn’t open it… but they also made no attempt to get it to me. The FedEx website listed that the package was delivered to the front office and my signature was on file… of course, he never actually went to the office. Meanwhile, I’m going to war with the front office accusing them of losing my gift (which wasn’t exactly cheap). I apologized to them once a non-idiot at FedEx customer service told me that the website was wrong and told me where my package was (9290). After that it was just a matter of tracking people down. In the end, I got the package… three days after Christmas. I guess you could say I learned that FedEx blows and that stupid people, while nice, are in fact stupid.

I learned that I buy too much crap and have put a stop to it.

And I suppose that’s about it… Not a very fruitful year I guess… mostly it is what in business would call a “rebuilding year” … 2005, here I come.

The Night Before…

Random Thoughts

You know… usually this time of year I put up special Christmas logos and decorations on the site, but I’ve been so busy with work, family, and actually doing stuff for and of the season I just haven’t had time.

Its Christmas Eve, and I’m about to head over to my father’s house to spend a few hours with my family. Jodi and I will return home tonight, and spend some time together, then tomorrow she’ll work, I’ll clean house and run other errands, and then we’ll return to my father’s for Christmas Day.

Tonight, I hope that each and every person out there has someone… a husband, a wife, a friend, a lover, a father, a mother, a daughter or son… someone to share the night with… and to everyone, whether they have someone or not, Merry Christmas.