November 2001 Archives

Today somebody plugged a space heater into one of our UPS protected powerlines. The UPS didn't like that at all. It wasn't really their fault since the line wasn't labeled as such. Oh well, good safety tip. Always label anything that is plugged into the UPS

There is a Thursday game tonight. The Eagles, who are fading fast, travel to take on the rising Chiefs. It's one of those annoying games where you know the Eagles are a better team, but the Chiefs are playing better. Who do you pick as the winner?

My gut feeling was to pick the Cheifs. Since I was wrong on so many games last week, I'm going against my gut feeling on this game.

So today was another PTO day. Paid Time Off in case you were wondering. I should say I didn't get anything done today because I did get the old in my car changed. That counts for something, right? I also played a little frisbee with the dogs.

But other than that, I sat around all day. Of course there are lots of things I could do. I need to finish a new theme for the weblog. I need to finish cataloging my CD collection. I need to add some features to the football pool. I need to keep writing stories, which I have been slacking on.

I did listen to a lot of classical music today. Not enough so that I can tell the difference between Chopin and Beethoven. Which sounds silly I know, but I can't. Someday. I even put Classical Music For Dummies on my wish list. Hope it helps.

Too many times I've decided not to go to a concert, only later to discover that it was an amazing show that I should have gone to. Well I didn't make that mistake a 10th time! I went to see Paul Oakenfold at 1015 Folsom (aka Release SF). It was a great show.

When I first heard about the show I bought two tickets. I figured a guy who can sell out 80,000+ seat stadiums in Europe can probably sell out a dinky place like 1015. Guess I was wrong on that one. Ticket went unused. It also means I went to the show myself, which could have gone better. I guess nobody is into the whole 10pm-3am show thing. I can understand that. I'm tired as hell right now.

The one thing that was interesting is that at almost any concert there are always a few types of people. I thought this show would be different, but it wasn't. First there is the 'Bulldozing Couple.' It's a simple technique to get to the front of crowd, the guy stands behind his girlfriend and pushes her through the crowd. It's very effective because rarely will a guy crack a girl with an elbow for pushing him in the back. He might take a few cracks at the bulldozer driver when he goes by though ;-)

Then we have the 'Human Totem Pole.' This is where a girl who can't see the stage climbs on her boyfriend's shoulders to get a better view, while the rest of us get an ass in our face.

Anyways, it was a good show.

Well the big Thanksgiving holiday is almost over and I only managed to see one movie. Monsters Inc., again! At least I only had to pay Chico matinee prices this time.

The trip up to Chico Wednesday night was horrible. Traffic was fine until we hit Hi-way 80 east. It was a mess. I'm sure it was a mess all the way to Tahoe. Good thing we were getting off at 505 north. It took about an hour longer than it normally does, so I guess it could have been worse. I just hate dealing with idiot drivers that think they can zip around in crowded traffic and actually get ahead some significant amount. I hate to break it to y'all, but you're still only about 30 seconds ahead of me and I haven't changed lanes in half an hour.

Happy holidays, morons...

Now that it's even easier to update my log, I find myself doing it less.Anyway...the Thanksgiving Holiday is coming up. Kat and I are taking the usual trip to Chico to hang with the family. It looks as though it may rain all week, so all that work into getting the basketball hoop ready for the holiday may be for not. But it's the though that matters, right?Other than that...things seem pretty calm. But you know this can only mean one thing...

This is test using AppleScript to post a news item from BBEdit 6.5 on Mac OS X.

So I stayed up last night to watch the Leonid meteor shower. It was pretty cool. I only caught the first 30 minutes or so. It started earlier than I though it was supposed to. I was on my way from from Karim and Rebecca's about 1am and started to see streaks in the sky here and there. Not in any great frequency, but greater than that of a 'normal' night.It was a good show.

I only wish that our back yard had a more open view of the sky. The big cedar tree blocks at least half of the sky and the front has street lights...and I didn't have any reclining lawn chairs, so my neck got tired of it really quick.

When all else fails, go for a song-of-the-day! Todays song of the day is Democracy [ mp3 ] by Killing Joke.

Democracy is changing...

It made it onto my "How to Drive 1,000 MPH" CD compilation. I also got my ACLU newsletter in the mail today. It's pretty depressing to read...and yet I know I have to try and do something about it.

The Bush administration is doing all kinds of pretty evil things under the guise of national security. It's so bad that even 'big media' is starting to pick up on it, and not just NPR either.

How long until I get to vote for a new President?

So I tried last night to redo the theme on this weblog. It wasn't as easy as I thought it might be. The bits to the themes are scattered all over the prefs. I have to copy the html out of the forms, paste it into BBEdit, and then try to make sense of it all. On top of all that, IE 5 on my mac was doing some pretty unusual things when it came down to CSS.

I'm trying to get rid of tables. But Pat, you cry, won't that make your weblog look like crap in Netscape 4? Yes. Yes it will. <evil cackle>

First off, I know that I'm not 31337 enough to have a ton of people reading this. In fact I'm amazed at the 3 of you keep coming back for more ;-) Oh, and the random two of you who come from the weblogs.com homepage because I was the first link in the changed weblogs, thanks!

But I will try again today. It will be my excuse to get out of yard work. Yeah, I know it won't work either...

This is a test of the new AppleScript that will let me post from TextEdit on Mac OS X.

Ok, it worked. This rocks. Other than the fact that the deparment gets set to "Other" this rocks.

http://jarretthousenorth.editthispage.com is where you can get the scripts if you want to play with it.

The more I look at this site, the more I want to change the whole look...

I think I will try and take this theme instead.

It's simple and clean. But since I've hacked away at the current theme, I don't think it will be a 2-minute switch over. Maybe I better wait until I have another day off.

I'm also trying to put together a CD compilation called: Driving a 1,000 MPH. I got the idea from a former co-worker. The short list of bands so far is:

• Curve
  
• KMFDM
  
• Damage Manual
  

Hey...I said it was a short list. I'll post the track listing once I get it nailed down. It should be a great driving disc.

This article at news.com shows exactly why Larry doesn't get it. He wants you to replace exchange with some Oracle software running on top of 9i. Heh...yeah, right.

First some myth busters about people who run Exchange:

• We don't think it's stable.
• We don't think it's secure (nor is it's main client, Outloook)
• We know it's more expensive than most of the other stuff out there.

Now that we have that out of the way, what does Exchange have going for it?

• Free/Busy scheduling of large numbers of people and resources all through Outlook, which everyone knows how to use.
• Fairly easy install that even a linux/mac dweeb could do with little to no knowledge of how Microsoft networking works (I know this for a fact since I was that linux/mac dweeb).
• It runs on Windows servers, which some may argue are easier to administer.
• Better marketing.

That, Larry, is why Exchange will always kick your ass. You want to try and sell an e-mail system which will need an Oracle DBA?!?! Hahahahaha. You would like to think that will drive sales of your software wouldn't you?

Larry, you just don't get it, do you?

So, I wrote a little football pool for my family and friends. I usually do pretty well. Well, this week I got kicked around by nearly everyone. Here are the .

It's ugly.

I can't believe the Raiders always choke when I have big points on them and always win when I have small points on them.

Bastards!

Now, I know better than most people how worked up you can get when you are taking part in any kind of competition. But I'm sitting here watching the Packers take one the Bears and a Bear player just got kicked out of the game for punching a packer player in the face. The only problem is that the Packer player still has his helmet on.

Now I've never punched a brick wall or a NFL helmet for that matter, but I can't image it would feel good.

So Saturday was a busy day for movies. Py, beej, Kathleen, and Josh came over and we went to see 'The One' with Jet Li. The story was by the numbers for a kung-fu action flick. But we all know you don't go to a Jet Li movie for plot or character development or amazing action. You go for KICK ASS KUNG-FU! 'The One' delivers on this. Did it borrow some effects from the 'The Matrx'? Sure. Did it improve on them. Yes. It's not just freeze and then spin around in the air. They are truly special effects. "Movie Ratings" for 'The One' is matinee.

When we got out of the movie it was raining. So instead of climbing up Mt. Tam we decided to go see 'Shallow Hal'. Now, I'm not a big Farley Brothers fan. In fact most of the movies they have done I have not liked at all. It's a certain genre of comedy that I just don't find that funny. But obviously it's just me because their movies make butt-loads of cash. 'Shallow Hal' is by the numbers even more so than 'The One' but Jack Black gives it some moments. "Movie Ratings" for 'Shallow Hal' is rental.

Yeah, I know...there are a lot of articles on MS these days...

Here is another. The one thing I found most interesting about this one is that it also bags on java.

"Java GUI is dead. Go to Best Buy and look for Java apps. They aren't there. Java's platform independence was all about satisfying a million clients running Windows, Unix, Mac, etc. and then we abandoned Java on the client because it was too slow and klunky[sic]."

Ah, just when you think something is dead you start using it without even knowing it: Limewire. One of the most popular "file sharing", not just mp3 sharing, clients out there is written in...wait for it...Java.

One app. Big deal. Well, yeah...I know, but the point is people may be using java without really knowing it. I know the Mac version is all wrapped up in a special java runtime app. The windows version has a script, which has the same icon so people don't care. Double-click and go download is all they care about.

Limewire shows that the Java GUI is not dead. It is not too slow to use on the desktop. You can write an app that runs on Windows, Mac, and *nix. Everything that was promised in Java 1.0 is finally a reality.

My prediction, you will see more apps following Limewire's lead.

So, I've been in a bit of a music rut lately. I got the new Garbage album and it was so-so. I picked up the Nine Inch Nails remix cd which also was so-so. Nothing new has really jumped out and grabbed me.

I've tried the recomendations at Amazon and CDNow and they all spit back stuff I have or trance compilations. I have enough trance for now. After 6 Paul Oakenfold CDs...it all kinda blends together...

Too bad the new KMFDM won't be out until next year...I think I'm ready for an Industrial Revival. More Damage Manual please!

I haven't seen a great movie in a while. Sure K-PAX was a good movie, but I wouldn't call it great. Monsters Inc. is a great movie. I'm going to give it an Opening Night rating plus I'm going to throw in a bonus Matinee rating since I will probably go see it in the theatre again.

The last movie I bothered to see in the theatre more than once was Pulp Fiction...and I saw it 5 times in the theatre. Yeah yeah...I was in college. Lay off.

But back to the movie...as with any animated movie, it relies on the voices of the actors to give life to the characters. Everyone is great. Not only do the characters voices give them life, but the geeks at Pixar have once again set the bar very high. I know they may not have the latest whiz-bang rendering techniques, but their animation is superb. Plus, you can always count on them to actually give a crap about the story and not just sell you on CGI.

Go see it. You won't regret it. Probably.

I'm now on a weekly schedule. I have submitted my first draft to "Kim" for her to take a red pen to and have me it...or probably re-write it all.

I don't know if I will actually get into an acutal schedule where I can say for certainty that a new story will be posted on a certain day every week...but I will certainly try.

Hopefully tomorrow I will get a review of Monsters Inc. up. Of course, I will have to go see it first...

The stance that our government is taking right now scares the crap out of me.  If you aren't with us, you are against us.  Okay, hands up: who likes terrorists?  Oh look...nobody.  Amazing.  Everyone is with us.

Just because some people feel that bombing will not stop the terrorism (and it won't) does not mean they are 'against' us.  Damnit Shrub!  Open your tiny little mind once in a while.  Debate is a good thing you twit.

How stupid is it for us to yell and scream about defending democracy and freedom around the world and yet punish people who express those same freedoms in this country.  It's fucking insane.  It's completely and utterly ludicrous.

I'm knee deep in rhetoric and it's rising fast...

Two headlines, barely a week apart:
Governor Answers Critics About Bridge Alert
Bush Says Al Qaeda Is Seeking Nuclear Weapons

Who is the fear monger now Shrub?  What's a matter?  Afraid of Davis kicking your sorry ass in 2004?  You should be...hell you should be scared of Guilliani as well.  I'm sure both of them could easily take the White House in 2004.

Looks like my friend Kim got another story/interview published.

http://www.fabulamag.com/books/books3.html

What can you really say about a movie like K-PAX? I tried to avoid the trailers, so as not to find out every single plot twist. Luckily there were a few things that I didn't see in the trailers.

It was pretty good.

Adam said it was, "Basically it was two hours of watching Kevin Spacey act. Which isn't a bad thing."

I agree. If you like bananas, you'll like K-PAX.

I give it a Full Price rating. If you are not familiar with my "Movie Ratings" you shoud check them out.

I'm going to need a new topic icon for "Pat's Lame Writing"...

"Secrets of the World" is my latest installment.

Enjoy

"The Great Family Reunion of 2001" is a story I have been meaning to give to Kim for a project she was working on. She is really sweet and insists that I'm a good writer, or that at least I sometimes write good stuff. I know, there is a huge difference and I'm going to assume the latter.

Anyway, the project won't be going anytime soon due to the normal reasons that one encounters when trying to do a large project with no money: lack of participation. I include myself in this, but not because of the lack of money. But because I have no confidence in what I write. To me it all sounds like cynical, jaded bitching and moaning while attempting to be funny.

But maybe that's just me ;-)