Category: general

Where I put something when I’m too lazy to categorize it.

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sometimes you just write

Add it up, add it up.
Friday y’all. Friday and I don’t have to wake up tomorrow. But now, Thursday night, it’s getting late and I have only the Lindsay Lohan and World of Warcraft paragraphs done (read on, you’ll see what I mean) – and if that’s all I can muster, you’ll never read this. I have no real original content tonight, just links and link commentary.

My new Maxim came with a free 14 day trial of WoW, and I am so tempted to install it and give it a shot. So many people I know are obsessed with it, and it does seem to be right up my alley. See, these are the things my sedentary lifestyle allows me to think over: whether or not to install a free game and invest some sitting-on-my-ass time in running around in it. I’m no gamer, but I have a feeling I could become addicted to a large fantasyish MMPORG like WoW or EverQuest. And… why I’m writing about this, I have no idea. Let’s move on then.

Found an interesting link today while doing random browsing of del.icio.us, a free online book (in PDF format) written by Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. But, this is no comic strip, just what Adams calls “… a 132-page thought experiment wrapped in a fictional story,” and recommends that, “For maximum enjoyment, share God’s Debris with a smart friend and then discuss it while enjoying a tasty beverage.” So, I figured I’ve got plenty of smart friends, and the premise of the book does sound interesting: Imagine that you meet a very old man who—you eventually realize—knows literally everything. Imagine that he explains for you the great mysteries of life—quantum physics, evolution, God, gravity, light, psychic phenomenon, and probability—in a way so simple, so novel, and so compelling that it all fits together and makes perfect sense. What does it feel like to suddenly understand everything? Compelling, no?

I’m about 40 pages into it and already it’s struck several chords with me, Divine omniscience vs. human free will, the odds of choosing the “right” religion, what exactly quantifies “belief,” etc. The narrative style reminds me a lot of Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael, actually. To temp you even more into reading, should you be the temptable type, an excerpt I particularly liked:

“Let’s say that you and I decide to travel separately to the same place. You have a map that is blue and I have a map that is green. Neither map shows all the possible routes, but both maps show an acceptable—yet different—route to the destination. If we both take our trips and return safely, we would spread the word of our successful maps to others. I would say, with complete conviction, that my green map was perfect, and I might warn people to avoid any other sort of map. You would feel the same conviction about your blue map.

“Religions are like different maps whose routes all lead to the collective good of society. Some maps take their followers over rugged terrain. Other maps have easier paths. Some of the travelers of each route will be assigned the job of being the protectors and interpreters of the map. They will teach the young to respect it and be suspicious of other maps.”

“Okay,” I said, “but who made the maps in the first place?”

“The maps were made by the people who went first and didn’t die. The maps that survive are the ones that work,” he said.

“Are you saying that all the religions work? What about all the people who have been killed in religious wars?”

“You can’t judge the value of a thing by looking only at costs. In many countries, more people die from hospital errors than religious wars, but no one accuses hospitals of being evil. Religious people are happier, they live longer, have fewer accidents, and stay out of trouble compared to nonreligious people. From society’s viewpoint, religion works.”

Scott Adams, God’s Debris

And we all blog about the same things in the end, don’t we?

Finally, while I’m not a big pop-culture fan, I did get a chuckle out of Stereogum’s relating of the Lindsay Lohan / Jason Lewis thing (although, I must admit I didn’t even know there was a “Jason Lewis” to impersonate). I think I like it more for the 007 famous-people-infiltrating aspects than I do for any vicarious thrill from this guy’s brush with Ms. Lohan. You can read it, and then when you’re done you’ll feel like my blog today was full of good stuff – it’s the power of linking.

I thought you were gonna start a blog, pussy.

Give up Dave, you obviously have nothing to say. Goodnight.

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one-solid

Do it now.
Evening folks. With this I’ve closed out one-solid (that’s one entry a day for a week), and that makes me feel good seeing as I was convinced I had dried up just last week. It may not be good, or even mediocre, but it’s here… so read it; pussy.

So, I didn’t post it every day this week like I said I would – but there’s still time to make your mark on the sounds familiar Frappr page. Go there now if you’re not representing your zip code with pride yet, or, go there now to help me understand how this page gets hundreds and hundreds of hits a day but only has ten readers willing to admit it (I know, they’re all Levitra and holdem robots… bastards). Anyway, do it now pussy.

Been on an entry-fixing kick since last night, and re-motivated today by a comment posted on an old entry; an old entry full of crazy ASCII artifacts from my the database hacking I had to do to make the move to WordPress. Fixed that one, gave it a title, removed the funny characters – and was then inspired to go back and title/fix some more old entries. With an eventual goal of 100% titled and categorized… I’ve still got work ahead of me though. At least the first months of 2004 seem to be on their way… Anyway, do it now pussy.

9:30pm and I’m beat… heavy-eyes tired for some reason. I think, for the past couple days, I’ve been fighting off a cold, beneath the surface. I get little signs now and then, like fatigue or congestion in the morning, little things that just tell me my immune system is fighting a silent battle somewhere deep inside me… fending off whatever it is that’s determined to take me down. Way to go immune system, we’re all rooting for you; we’ve put little yellow ribbons on the back of our SUVs as a show of support for you and we pray every weekend for your safety as you protect our wellbeing.

Y’know (stay with me, it’s semi-related), I don’t just get Maxim for the babes… they occasionally have some decent writing. This month’s issue actually had a piece I really enjoyed, not for the writing style, which I found kinda hackneyed, pandering, and overly heartstring-tugging, but for the story. It’s a collection of sad tales about American vets, recently returned from our latest wars/engagements. For those of you thinking I’m trying to make some political point, I’m not; I’m sure there are just as many happy and triumphant tales of homecoming to balance these. I’m just saying I liked the article; anything that’ll keep me in the bathroom, breathing the stench of my own feces, has got to be a pretty compelling read. If you wanna check it out, they’ve got it online in its entirety here.

Guys I dunno… I just don’t think I have another paragraph in me. Now… go to the Frappr page, pussy.

Goodnight.

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there’s a doctor i know can cure the boy

I'll wait for you.
Daylight savings time doesn’t do much for me, aside from making me feel depressed walking out of work under cover of dark. Leaving work in the dark sucks, it truly does.

Halloween was typical in our new neighborhood, slim on trick-or-treaters but what we had seemed appreciative of the effort. New neighborhoods just don’t have the same things that established ones do: throngs of all-aged kids, trees, you know. It’s OK, the compliments we do get make it worth it to me… heck, I’d do it for one kid because I don’t even care. I cued up the music, flicked on the strobe light, and fired up the fog machines – all for about twenty kids. Don’t matter though folks, I still love this holiday; can’t wait to experience it through the eyes of my daughter, either.

If you noticed from yesterday’s Halloween images, I abandoned my Gallery 2 install in favor of Coppermine, another open-source image gallery app. I liked Gallery, but I always did think it was a tad too option-heavy. I tend to like a lot of functionality that’s presented as if it were being used by dummies. Coppermine’s install took all of 1min and it just worked. Not only that, but the bulk-upload feature works like a charm, and the editing/commenting/rating features are great. The interface is simple, speedy, and skinnable. Anyway, I think I’ll move to this long-term as opposed to Gallery, especially since G2 “lost” the ability to let users vote/rank files.

I think you know you ended up with the right person in life when your deepest-rooted escapist fantasies still include them. If I could have my way, and get away from everything for a while to be surrounded only by things which bring me joy – Sharaun’d be there. OK so yeah, maybe it’s sappy, but I’m for really. I’d need some music, comfortable clothes and maybe a few books, and my wife; that’s all really. I could ask for good weather and tasty food and a host of other amenities I suppose, but that’s more of a utopian fantasy than the escapist one I’m writing about (shit, I’m off track again aren’t I?). In reality even my die-hard “get away” scenarios (the ones that aren’t Thoreau-esque fantasies of extreme solitude, which aren’t long-term anyway) see her with me. To me, that’s a good thing.

Nightnight.

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compliance

Tracks of testosterone.
Evenin’ folks. Not much going down, not much at all.

This week work is picking up again, and I’m actually liking it. I mentioned that the aimlessness I’ve been experiencing there has contributed to my recent slump, so having some stuff to track down and deadlines to meet is actually making things more enjoyable. I get to a certain point were I’m a well-oiled machine, going through motions I’ve memorized, executing at 100%-plus and not missing a beat – I like that feeling. I guess I can’t really slump forever anyway, it’s not good for a body. A body needs to feel useful, wants to feel needed, enjoys some recognition. It’s time I get back in the game.

They’re building a mall over by my house, and the construction site is right on my way to and from work. Every day I pass that place, and let me tell you this is a major operation. Trenches wide enough and deep enough that dump trucks drive down into them and disappear below the ground; massive earthmoving machinery pushing tons of dirt and rock around with ease, hydraulics in full effect. Let me tell you, I am absolutely fascinated with large machinery and the process of “creating” something where there was nothing before. I nearly crash the truck every day craning my neck to watch the multi-yard buckets scoop up dirt and move it around… I don’t know why I like it so much. I swear I could sit across the street and just watch them do their massive dance all day. I remember when I was a kid watching a show on TV about the biggest earth-moving machine ever (at the time), just the treads were several stories tall. I guess that’s why little boys get yellow dumptrucks with knobby plastic tires and little girls get pink convertibles their Barbies can drive around in. Male vs. female, who knows.

Turns out the motor I got to replace the flying crank ghost’s burned-out one is just too RPMey for the application. I knew when I bought it that it was designed to operate at 160RPM at 12V, but early tests at 3.3V showed a promising reduction in RPM – something that would work for the ghost. I did my best to see if the torque at 3.3V was significantly less, but the “pinch the turny thing and see how hard it is to stop” method isn’t terribly accurate. Turns out that the thing just doesn’t have enough oomph at 3.3V to pull the ghost’s head (her heaviest part) up once it gets down. For kicks, I gave it 5V and it could operate the ghost no problem – although she was now a flying crack ghost, as in crackhead, because she shook and jittered and about pulled herself apart as she was jerked around at breakneck speed. If there’s anything good about redoing the whole thing, it’s that I was able to make significant improvements to the ceiling-mounting system I’ve been using for the past two years… but it’s small consolation since she’s still just hanging there being boring and static.

Did some work adding some links to the header at the top (one currently not implemented), bulked up the “links” thing on the sidebar, and did some general stylesheet cleanup. Stylesheet’s still a mess, but at least it’s better than before. All that work and nothing to show for it but three little color-changing links – not much reward I tell ya.

Gotta take the trash out. Goodnight faithful, see you tomorrow.

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green again

Off into the sun.
Yeah, we’re back to the good old sickly green layout. Hope you didn’t get too attached to the pink. Likely gonna be a short entry tonight, I’ve got lots to do before I’m ready to split tomorrow. So let’s get on with it.

Picking up prescriptions and getting haircuts and doing laundry: must be the eve of international travel. And, it is; tomorrow (today as you read) I’ll be taking wing en route to popping my Shanghai cherry (can I say that?). Dunno if I mentioned it, but I’m not staying at a hotel while there. Our group rents an apartment there, since we often have travelers on-site. It’ll be me and two of my closer work buddies crashing there this coming week. I fully anticipate some college-esque late-night tipsy chat sessions – and am looking forward to a week of unbridled maleisms: objectifying women, taking about bowel movements, ragging on each other, and being generally female-repellent. It should be fun. Hopefully the work part will end at the appointed time each day, and I’ll have my evenings to enjoy some of the city.

Tomorrow, on the way to the airport, I have an appointment to call the work travel folks and arrange my early December trip to India. Yeah, making reservations for an international trip while on another international trip. India. Now there’s something different. It’ll be my last trip of the year, and not just by virtue of the year being nearly over by the time I get back. I’m excited about it, and I’m also looking forward to it being one of the last big trips before Lil’ Chino comes. Sidetrack: Oh, and yes – we’re still calling the little girl in my wife’s belly “Lil’ Chino.” I don’t care if it’s not a girl’s name… it’s a great name for a fetus. So there. OK, back to… whatever. I’m planning to cut down on travel starting next year. God sometimes this stupid thing sounds so boring and self-serving. So many sentences starting with “I” and a body starts to get tired of talking about himself.

Until Monday in China. Goodnight.

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slaying giants

Sprung forth.
I made a pink blog and a blue one; was ready with either. That’s how much I care about this stupid thing …

Well, we had Lil’ Chino’s sexy test yesterday. We didn’t see a penis, so that either means we’re having a girl or there’s gonna be six more months of winter. A girl! Wow, I was dead-sure that we were gonna have a boy. When they told us, I was actually surprised… I had fully expected to hear “I think this baby is a boy.” Not disappointed, mind you, just surprised. Being honest, the prospect of having a girl scares me more than that of having a boy. I know that may sound silly, but I think of girls as such delicate or fragile little things… and boys being a little more rugged. I’m worried that I’m not gentle enough or something. I guess you know by now that this isn’t a “real” concern of mine, not truly a “worry” at all – just my first thoughts knowing we’ll soon have a little girl.

Sharaun and I both took the day off for the event; well, the sonogram and to get some time to hang out before I leave for a week. After the sonogram, we headed out to an artery-clogging breakfast at the local greasy spoon, and then proceeded to the Babies R Us to look at all the incredibly overpriced and somewhat doubtfully necessary baby merch. My lord y’all, babies need a lot of stuff! She needs a crib to sleep in, a bassinet to sleep in, a car seat to ride in, and a portable crib/playpen thing to sleep in. I think I can accomplish quite the same with an empty Xerox box – a perfect universal carry/sleep thing. Sharaun did not like this idea.

Hey… it’s been a while; let’s talk God a bit, shall we?

If the Catholic church can really pull this off, it may be the single biggest sea-change in the history of modern-day Christianity. Shock and horror, the Biblical tale of creation and the flood are similar to countless other cultures’ creation and flood stories – and are likely myth, not literal history. I think the majority of “young” believers know, in their “heart of hearts,” that the Bible is not 100% literal. But, in some cases, those thoughts are squashed as blasphemy and tickets to Hell by their chosen faith. So, to see the world’s major faith stand up and tell its adherents that perhaps Jonah really didn’t live inside a fish’s belly is refreshing.

Oh sure, TBN will say this is simply Satan’s toehold in the eventual complete degradation of God’s perfect message. But get real folks. In my opinion, in order to survive, hard-line, legalistic, over-literal interpretations of Christianity will need to recognize that times are changing and the masses are no longer satisfied with “magic” as an explanation for things they don’t understand. They’ll need to embrace this and adapt, or settle for a following of unbalanced extremists. Don’t worry TBN, you can still keep your message and you offering plates – just give up and admit Methuselah, while he may well have looked hundreds of years old, probably never really made it past 75.

Turning again to the topic of the Halloween project. I had forgotten that the cylinder I ordered has a 1/8″NPTF inlet, and it seems that no store in the world carries anything but 1/4″ NPT and the occasionally 3/8″ NPT. So, I’m once again hindered by jumping the gun on the project ingredients. I do this every year, and swear every year I won’t order everything the next year until I’ve thoroughly planned out the whole project. And, turns out I was able to get a solenoid for even cheaper than the Ebay deal that feel through. The only drawback being that I now have to wait until halfway through October before I can even assemble and test the coffin prop. I usually like to get the decorations up at least a week-and-a-half in advance of the big night, which only gives me a week after coming back to ensure everything’s working right with all the props.

Tada.

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pulling up grass

Koff.
Today I got all developer and GIMP’d up a favorite/bookmark icon for the blog. If all works well, instead of the plain Firefox or IE page icon in your bookmarks, you should now see a little green thing that matches the page’s banner scheme. Ahh… so much work for something so few people care about.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me folks. I’m feeling supremely frustrated, or burdened, or something. I’ve got this strange sense of desperation, invoking my fight or flight response – which for me is nearly 100% flight – which leaves me with an overwhelming desire to run away, to drop out. I get like this sometimes, I don’t know what it is. I just get to feeling like I need to take off, mostly from work. Just take a vacation and get away… completely disconnect from everything that’s running around in my head. It’s times like these that I fall back on my fantasy of taking Sharaun and running away to some remote location, a desert island, perhaps, and just doing nothing – just enjoying each other. I’ve been like this since I was a kid, I guess you could call it temperamental or sensitive. In gradeschool, I used to just decide to spend an entire recess sitting alone in the far corner of the field on the playground. I would cross my legs and pull up grass and make chains from those little flowers (yeah, yeah, insert gay jokes here, it’s cool). In some ways, I did it because I knew it would draw some folks out to me… curious as to what I was doing. But, for the most part, I did it to just get away and sulk, or think, or not think, or… whatever. All my life, I’ve always loved being alone with things I enjoy. Listening to music alone, working in the yard alone, reading a book alone, being alone with Sharaun, etc. It’ll pass, but maybe I should consider some time off… just for the heck of it.

The other day in the airport, Tony and I happened to strike up a conversation with a girl who was studying to be a veterinarian. Our conversations turned to equine surgery and pet insurance and all other various nutty topics. At one point, she mentioned something about taking care of a cat with diabetes – giving it special food, insulin, taking it for regular checkups, etc. That’s when I made my mistake, as well as an enemy for life. I mentioned that, should my cat come down with kitty diabetes or feline AIDS or tore her tiny ACL – she’d be out of luck. That’s right, I like our cat – but not quite enough to spend multiple hundreds of dollars for kitty surgery. I’m sorry; you’re a cat – you’re pretty replaceable. You can get a new one of you for like $20 at the pound. When you’re born, people give you away – that should tell you something. Anyway, this girl was shocked at my callousness… that I would dare consider a cat expendable. Thankfully, our plane began boarding before she could report me to PETA. Honestly, sometimes I don’t know why I even try to write…

Sitting here on the couch when I should really be doing dishes instead, they’re up there taunting me, being dirty on purpose.

Goodnight.