August 2001 Archives

I'm on a conference call right now. Must...fight...stay...awake...

We did really well at trivia tonight. Even though we came in last place. The top score was 59, and we had 57. Not much room to fit 8 teams into the money tonight. Of course, the winning team only really had 58, but they had a extra point from last week, and we really only had 56 since the people grading our sheet couldn't add. I'm convinced that our table is the only table that can consistently grade papers without screwing up.

I could be wrong.

Today beej and I went back to Linux World Expo to hear Rob Malda, founder of slashdot.org, speak at the OSDN booth. I felt kinda bad for him because nobody had any real questions for him. I made some up on the spot. Is running slashdot worth the personal attacks? Have you thought about a subscription model? Those were my only two good ones.

I have to be on a conference call at 7am tomorrow morning. I really hope it won't be a long call because I plan to call in from home and go into the office after the call. If you try to go into the city too late into the morning, traffic starts to suck. I think we all feel the same about traffic in the city...

So, just got back from the Free Dimity Party. It was okay. It was actually in Kat's building, or rather the building where she works.

First off, not to complain, but it they had told us they only had enough money to get kegs of bud and miller, I would have brought a keg of Sierra Nevada, had a cup and then donated the rest. Oh well. I donated a little money while some dude was zooming in on the transaction with his video camera. Now I can watch CNN and yell, "Hey! Those are my twenties!" It wasn't a huge turnout, but the allseer and eff people seemed happy about the number of people who showed up.

I got to chat with a guy from the eff about the inter position I want to get. Seems like it should be pretty cake to get, I just have to email the guy directly. That makes sense. Why did I think I would have a shot using the email address on the job posting. Silly me.

Dimitry got up and gave some nice words of thanks to the people who showed up. He seemed to be in good spirits, seeing as how, you know, he wasn't in a jail cell anymore...

The first real speaker, Lawrence Lessig was short and to the point; The system is fucked. His first point was that this isn't Dimitry's fight. This is a fight for lawyers in a small smoke filled room. The second and more frightening point is that copyright is being redefined and the consumer will be the big loser of this redefinition if and when it happens.

Remember the day the web turned black?

Up next RMS. Oh the joy of having to hear, 'it's GNU/linux' over and over and over AND OVER. Does he even need to speak? We know what he is going to say. Props for all the hard work he has put in and all that...but I don't want to hear it.

At least I got to hook up with the eff folk. That was cool.

Oh yeah, good luck Dimitry. You're going to need it.

So tonight we (brian,von, and myself) are going to some fund raiser for Dimytry Sklyarov.  If you aren't a member of the EFF yet, why aren't you?

Stallman will be there (yes the RMS one).  Beej want's to ask him if he installs the GNU tools on windows should it be called GNU/Windows?  I think it's a good question.  I doubt it will get a response.

I'm going to talk to the EFF guys about that internship for the web archive thing.  It looks cool and I want to do more than just give money.  Even though I know it's really important to pay for lawyers and junk.

We'll see how it goes.

Well, my wait is over. I finally say Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. I read the reviews. I knew what kind of movie it was going to be. I'm cool with a movie full of 'dick and fart' jokes. Kat of course corrected me and now that I know that it is a 'dick, fart, and weed' joke movie. Which again, is fine by me. I'm sure she will have more fun at the Jade Scorpion, but I caught her laughing quite a bit.

The trailers were a bit of a let down though. The Iron Monkey looks good, which means it probably came out in Hong Kong 67 years ago...

Oh yeah, JASB...if you like any of his previous flicks you will like this one as well. Doesn't really take a genius to figure that out. It would be nice to see it do well so he can stop appologizing for Mallrats (which was great by the way).

Since when has working at home been considered a bonus? Personally I think it sucks. I have plenty of other home type things I could be doing at home.

Anyway, the project from hell is coming in fits and spurts. One day I have plenty to do, the next...nada. I can only imagine what making a schedule for a project like this must be like.

I was planning on seeing Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back tonight, but not only did I have work work to do, 20% of Kat's company got the axe today. Or at least, 20% were supposed too get the axe. Somehow they managed to not be able to tell everyone today. So some lucky souls get to come back tomorrow to find out they can promptly turn around and go home. How fucked is that? Kat said that no matter how they did it, it would seem wrong. But this seems like one of those wrongs that is so much more wrong than all the others you should avoid it at all costs, if not for the people you axed, then for the poor slags that are left.

The rise of Dilbert is upon on generation. We thought it would never happen to us. We would never be in jobs where stupid Dilbert stuff happened. Well, welcome to the second coming of Dilbert.

Maybe I can catch JASB tomorrow and do a movie review. I'm sure dick and fart jokes would cheer Kat up...right?

What a wacky weekend. Saturday night Kat and I went to a Whiskey-Fest. Not the kind where you see how much Jack you can down, but the kind where you bring something "good" and everyone samples a little and you all talk about it's "thundering aroma" and whatnot. It was fun. Although, I'm still no a big whiskey fan. I did spend a good part of Saturday researching whiskey though.

I bought a bottle of 12-year old Tullamore Dew. It wasn't the worst stuff their, but it wasn't the best. There was some nasty 107 proof stuff there that would seriously take rust off metal. Many taste buds died that night.

Sunday a person who just quit Kat's company (the company Kat works at, not her company) had a house party and invited a bunch of people from the company. Only Kat and one other peson showed up. Yikes. She seemed nice to me. Of course a lot of the people she invited were in SF, and sometimes people from SF just can't be bothered to come up to Marin... ;-)

I also sent in an application for an intern position at the EFF. It's an old posting and I won't get it, but damn it would be cool to work for those guys. I have about 25 days of vacation time, plus I accrue 1 day for every two weeks I work. They want someone to work one day a week (or more) for 6 months. That's only 24 days! I can do that. I just work 4 day weeks and work for EFF on the 5th day.

But I won't get the position...so I shouldn't get my hopes up.

I've decided I will see if anyone really wants to read what drips out of my brain and onto my keyboard. So I've started to drop this URL here and there. We shall see.

The Giants got their ass kicked by the Mets again tonight. Three in a row to those loosers. Looks like the playoffs may get put away on is road trip after all. What a loyal fan I am, eh?

I gotta get off this work rant thing. I'm starting to think I've turned into one of those people who do nothing but complain about how bad their job is without doing anything about it.

Don't you hate it when you get an itch to hear a song you don't have? You could wander down to the local record store and plunk down some obscene amount of cash for a CD, or you could brave the current world or pirated mp3z. They both suck, but for different reasons ;-) I just had to hear the Sopranos opening theme done by A3. Don't know why. Just had to. So instead of paying $16.95 down at Tower for the soundtrack, I used limewire instead. Sure I would rather have bought the song, but I didn't want the whole CD. So fuck 'em.

I realized today that I need to get more pictures for some of the categories that I use here. Some I just don't use simply because I have no picture for them.

Kat got me a PAID stamp, so that when I pay the bills I can put a big stamp on them. I think it's more for her, to know that I actually am paying the bills and not spending all the money on DVDs and CDs or dumb computer stuff.

Not that I know anything about anything...but my work is becoming more Dilbert-fied every day. At least we don't have a cat for HR. Yet.

There is a strip where Wally is fired, but gets hired back at a higher wage as a contractor. This helps the bean counters out as they now have a worker that sucks up less cash, since there are no benefits to pay other than salary and whatever amount of electricity their computer takes up.

There was also a Donesbury strip where the guy who starts the dot com company and has all the utopian delusions about the company. Then his girlfriend tells him to go take a look around. He comes back shocked to find the people have posted Dilbert strips.

Life? Art? Which immitates which again?

The Creative Director at work asked my (for the 30th time) why HTML sucks and why doesn't everyone move to flash based sites. Loaded question, hyperbole, call it what you will...it's still something I have to deal with everyday. Designers demanding pixel perfect web pages with fonts and graphics that look the same everywhere.

Now that you have gotten your uncontrollable laughter under control...

I gave him the standard answers. You know, the ones about how HTML was never designed as a presentation markup, only a content markup and blah blah blah. Nothing he wanted to hear.

Next I had to lay into flash. Now, while flash has it's purposes, it totally breaks when you want to do an entire "site" in flash. Saw what you will, I haven't seen anyone do it yet. Of course, I'm not looking, but that is so far beside the point that I still don't care.

Anyway, so now I'm getting to the guts of the new site I'm working on. On the surface it seems like a fairly clean design, but it requires a ton of tables to do the layout. I can't go full on CSS-P because there is still a large Netscape 4 contingent out there flipping me the bird and saying, "fuck no I'm not going to switch to a browser that isn't broken because this is where all my bookmarks are!"

Yeah, well I've got news for you. All you bookmarks point to 404 Page Not Found errors because they are so friggin' old! Switch already! I don't care to what. Netscape 6 or IE 5.5 for windows. Both can import your bookmarks. I promise.

So anyway, I have this nice looking site that is heavy as a lead brick because of roll overs, and drop down dhtml menus, and text that should be in <h2> tags but are graphics instead. There are 20 (count them...20) menu items in 4 drop down menus. Luckily only the 4 drop downs have roll over states.

ARGH!

So I'm still wearing a small velcro-on brace for my screwed up ankle. It's kinda wierd because I can go for a while walking around like a normal human and then all of a sudden it will hurt like hell.

I don't get it. But then I don't fix 'em, I only break 'em.

I really thought the doctor was high when he said I would be out for 4 to 6 months. I'm starting to think he may know what he is talking about after all. Damn him. If only he had said 2 to 4 instead it would have healed faster! I'm going to sue!

Of course I'm talking about Real the company that makes Real Player. Pardon my french, but what a complete hunk of crap. There are no less than 6 areas where you have to disable it from altering your setup or sending you crappy email. I don't care if it is the free version that has all the ad crap, it is still the same suck-ass codebase. Talk about something to bury and forget about... I would prefer quicktime since it seems to play pretty well on Mac and PC. WMP is okay, but the mac support is a little flaky. I won't get into MS disabling Netscape style plug-ins in IE 6 because it is still beta and all the people who care about their plug-in will re-write it as an active-x control and nobody will care except that they will have to download a new plug-in. Big deal. While the active-x model isn't the most secure in the world, I'm sure active-x controls work better with IE than Netscape style plug-ins. I'm all for stability at this point...now when they go and stop supporting HTML and only support MSHTML then I will get my panties in a bunch...

I'm sure that day will come.

This whole thing came up as I wanted to watch to funny video on Moby Online where he pretends to be a Scottish native working at one of the UK festivals Moby played at. It's funny. Trust me. Here it is.

28 years ago today I was born is some nowhere town on I-5 called Redding, CA.

The best thing about the 25 to 28 birthdays is that they stop asking you how you feel. The down side is they start in with the 'almost 30' crap. Like I care. I have the mental maturity of a 16 year old still. Why would I worry about being 30? More so, why would I worry that in 2 years I will be 30?

People are strange.

The folks are coming down today and the in-laws from SF are dropping by as well. Pretty low key non-event. Unless that crazy wife of mine did up a secret party and everyone I know will be here with garbage bags full of large unmarked bills. Yeah, I'm not holding my breath.

Kat's birthday is early next month, so we will probably do a combo party again. Maybe I will fix up our site while I'm at it.

Oh and a special note to Shin: Still no fan mail man...are all the good stalkers taken?!?!

Every Thursday night a group of us go to the Mayflower Inn in San Rafael and take place in a trivia contest. For the last five weeks the usual guy has been gone on vacation. He is a high school math teacher so he has to take his vacation time when he gets it. We have done horribly the last five weeks.

Finaly Team Gonzo has come back to the winners circle!

Well, we placed in the money at least. $20 for four people and it only cost $3 per person to enter. So we each made two bucks. Of course that was offset but dinner and three beers!

It's good to be "back in the money" so to speak. In case you are interested, you can buy questions at Howard's website.

You know I could go on and on about how screwed up some things can get. But I won't. You already have dealt with hellish projects and while it way more fun to read about other people's screwed projects you really don't want to hear this one.

Trust me.

I have accepted my fate. I can only do what I can do. I shouldn't worry about what I can't do because I can't do it. What I can do will have to do.

I'm starting to sound like President Bush. Shoot me now.

There is no try, only do. Okay, okay, okay...I'll stop now I promise.

Where do you start on a project gone to hell and you know the blame for it being late is going to land on your desk?

I think calling in sick is where I will start...

*cough* *cough*

I'm not feeling well today.

I can't go to baseball practice, Kyle has cancer...

But then I guess I should try and look on the bright side. I might get hit by a bus before it's all over!

I either haven't had time to write, or I have nothing to write about. I can't quite decide which it is. Of course you will be the first to know.

Lets see though, what have I done lately. I helped setup a mp3 jukebox. I clapped at lot at the softball game (kat went 2/4 with a run scored). I'm preparing for all the annoying crap those goes along with a birthday. August 18 is the big day. In case you are wondering...send cash.

Anyway, I just had to get one story in and hopefully that will get the ball rolling. See this weblog for much more interesting writing.

Okay, I've calmed down enough to write up the last two movies I saw. Guess which ones they were.

Very good!

First up: Legally Blonde. Now let me first note this was an after work excursion which should be filed under the 'happiness is mandatory' section. With that out of the way let's start off with the obligatory rating. Legally Blonde gets a Rental rating. [My scale: "Movie Ratings"]. I laughed a lot. I cringed a lot. I went home thinking that $9.25 is too much for any movie.

Next up: Planet of the Apes. Marky Mark is a dork and I don't know how he has managed to fumble his way into leading actor status. Of course I have no idea how John Cusack did it either, and I actually like him. Anyway, we all know the story so the only thing you have to look forward to is what new elements Mr. Burton introduces. Oh and Tim Roth. He is simply amazing in this role. Roth alone is worth a matinee rating.

Fuck. Sometimes just when you think things can't possibly get any worse and the only directions things can go are up...you get kicked square in the nuts. Again...and again...and again.

I went to Chico this weekend and last weekend. Both weekends something went wrong in the office. Last weekend our primary name server died and since secondary dns hadn't been setup by anyone prior to me having to do all this crap we were dead to the world. That was easy enough to fix. So of course it must get worse.

Does it ever.

It started Friday when our net connection went down. I checked all our machines and they all seemed cool. So I called UPNetworks and told them our connection was hosed. They claimed it wasn't their gear either so it must be Pac Bell's fault. So we finally get a Pac Bell guy in the shop and he futzes around with stuff for a couple of minutes and says, "All you stuff is fine. Looks like you ISP is a bunch of dung throwing Howler monkeys." Damn, he's good!

So when I left Friday everything was working. So of course sometime Saturday everything broke. Luckily the other guy who doesn't know much about IT stuff went it. He spent all day running around with the monkeys, err I mean UPNetwork guys and only came to a point where they didn't know if the fried router was ours or theirs. Just between me and you, it's theirs and they were in the office two weeks ago to fix it.

But wait, there's more!

Over the weekend we had some major power spikes. Of course we have everything running through a UPS and surge protectors, but I guess that didn't matter. So a bunch of our servers, including the big pile of shit Exchange server is very unhappy at the moment.

Good thing it's only Sunday night. Now I get to cringe going into work for the next 13 hours...

Somebody shoot me now please.

Where do I even start? First work has been totally crazy. Too much stuff, not enough people. IT is two engineers who kind of know what they are doing, but not really. I know because I'm one of them.

Our T1 went down today. I spent way too much time dealing with Network Solutions. I have to build a DNS server that won't get hacked in less than 15 hours of being on the net. On top of that I have web sites that have to be worked on, but no comps to work from. Yet they would love to see "something." Yeah, I got your something right here...

One of my friends got in a minor car wreck last night. Nobody was hurt.

I saw Legally Blonde, but I have to save that for a special movie story.

I miss everyone that got laid off. They say you don't know what you have until it's gone. Bullshit. I knew what we had when we had it, and I loved it.

Off to Chico this weekend for Grandma's birthday. Maybe I will get an update in. I need to that's for sure.