This is probably the funniest Error 404 I have ever seen.
November 2002 Archives
that NOTHING can ever go fucking well in my life?
I'm leaving today.
I'm heading home for Turkey day this afternoon. Turns out my never ending procrastination won me a battle this time. We are supposed to get a nasty winter storm in the Northeast tomorrow. I was supposed to leave tomorrow. Sooooo happy I am leaving today. I hate driving at night (catching a 6PM ferry, but its better than driving in the snow.
OK, 5 hours to go before I leave, I better get some work done.
NP: Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Eve and Other Stories
(is it too early to be listening to Christmas music?)
A page on the Islander's Home Page called A New Look In Islanders Country! shows off the Islanders new third jersey. I like em.
First track off of the new Phish CD is available here. Go listen!
Interesting song. First off, it feels like two songs in one. The first half starts off with some nice piano work. It leads in to a minor jam which sounds pretty good. From here though, it gets kind of slow for the first verse. It stays a little slow like this for a while and then seems to die completely. Then it comes back with some drums and a real nice part for the rest of the song. All in all, interesting stuff. Hopefully the album will be real good.
so put on some clothes.
It's COLD in my office. It's amusing, since it was pretty warm / hot inside for a lot of the summer due to some AC problems and now its too cold. Especially for people like me who sit right under vents.
I may be a bit tired. I almost just fell asleep at my desk. Not good.
Are these guys as much of idiots as they show themselves to be while comentating on games? A few weeks ago Tim and Vinnie were over and we were laughing our asses off for a good twenty minutes after the commentator said something along the lines of, well, they will win the game if they score more points than the Patriots. Thanks genius! We thought you could win by scoring less points.
Well, the guys on Fox today, just said "He's 11 of 11 from the no huddle offense, when they don't huddle". Is that what no huddle means? I guess the meaning of no was being used in the literal here, instead of that no meaning yes kind of way. Thanks for clearing that up.
that Sunday and Monday are not a weekend. They keep advertising Julia Roberts Weekend because they have Julia Roberts movies on Sunday and Monday. That just doesn't work :)
when you get in at 8:20 and people show up a few minutes later and ask you if you slept in the office the night before.
Last night I went up to Lowell to see Tori Amos play at the Tsongas Arena. Overall, great show.
The Arena
Well, never having been here, I did not know what to expect. We got there right at 7:30, the time the show was supposed to start, as we didn't care to see the opening act. After we parked. we headed to go inside, but found that there was a line WAY around the corner. That sucked enough. Line moved pretty quickly though, but then as we got to the door they freakin took my cigarettes away. I hate this new trend of "let's not hire enough security to make sure no one smokes, instead lets take away everyone's cigarettes", it's bullllllshit. I definitely wasn't getting back in line after putting them in my car. We get inside and then they don't want to let us take food and drink down to our seats. We were, after finding a very not easy way to feed, able to get waters down to the floor with no questions.
The Show
Well, we were in the fifth row, center. so, the seats, well, kicked ass. When Tori came out we had a perfect view of her playing both her piano and keyboards. We couldn't see the drummer, but that wasn't who I was there to see.
I go to see Tori because I love her music. She is a great artist. I find it amazing that she can sing the way she does night in and night out. She sounded awesome at the show last night. I also really like that she has the talent to be able to play around with songs and do some improvization at the same time. Just amazing. I thought the set list was great. Always disappointed when Winter and Precious Things are missing, but still a great list overall. It was:
Wampum
Sorta Fairytale
Sugar
Crucify
Bliss
Crazy
Take to the sky
Black Dove
Wednesday
--- roadside cafe ---
Silent all these years
cloud on my tongue
Famous blue raincoat
Strange
--- end cafe ---
Taxi ride
Little Earthquakes
Caught a lite sneeze
Pancake
Can't see New York
Spring Haze
Encore 1
Corflake Girl
Your cloud
tear in your hand
Encore 2
Sweet Sangria
Hey Jupiter
Overall, I had a blast.
not getting to make those decisions one way or another is even less fun ;)
having to make moral decisions can be no fun ;)
So, yesterday, when I plugged in to my docking station, I came out at 800x600. The sucked. I ran Xconfigurator and put it up to something like 1300 or something by something. It looked like CRAP. I quickly jumped on irc and asked how I could set up anti-aliasing, whcih I thought was the problem. I also re-ran Xconfigurator and put the resolution all the way up to 1600x1200. After doing these two things, X/Gnome2 looks AWESOME. I'm psyched. I even have 1024x768 or something on the regular laptop screen. The best part of the whole thing is that now the web looks awesome. With some new fonts and the anti-aliasing stuff all done, everything on the web comes out exactly like it is supposed to. Very nice stuff. Nice to finally see what some web sites I previously thought looked like crap now look pretty nice :)
since I took a day off:
Laundry
Dishes
Paying Bills
Going through old mail
Cleaning the house
Reading a book
Catching up on moderator stuff for my mailing list
Figuring out the secret to finding a nice sane female (this should only take a few hours, right?!??!)
Playing Guitar
Finding a way to make more money
Writing a budget
What I am doing:
Watching TV
Surfing the Web aimlessly
Ugh, I need some motivation.
nothing to say right now.
I think I am still on CA time, this is NO good. Work is gonna SUCK tomorrow. I do think I am going to take Tuesday off though, so maybe that will help. Heading to the Other Ones tomorrow and Tori Amos on Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday will probably be laid back (well, Wednesday will be, at least ;) Friday is up in the air, Saturday I have a dentist appointment in the afternoon to get 2 more teeth fixed (some day this will be all done) and then a party which I am considering going to for Lukas's birthday. Could be fun, but don't really know anyone going, so I may try to drag a person or two.
Hmm, the acting governor has meningitis, that's not good, but it looks like she is ok.
Lots more proof of my girls are insane theory this weekend :) Are there any sane women out there? It's not like I have high standards, I just want someone who is freakin sane. I keep meeting girls who do not meet that one standard. Obviously looks and intelligence are important, but I see to be able to find girls with those things, but not ones that are sane. Argh.
The weather this weekend blew. Can it go away please? Now saying rain will end by daylight, that's nice, since I really don't want to drive in the rain again.
OK, time for bed. Hopefully I will fall asleep soon.
Congratulations to Tony Stewart on winning the Winston Cup Championship today. I know I'm happy and Kori and Sandy are definitely very happy. Nascar.com's coverage is here:
NASCAR.com - Stewart caps tumultuous year with championship - November 17, 2002
I just read an interesting article over at the New York Times entitled You Are a Suspect. The article by William Safire is about the Information Awareness Office and its new database that it is trying to pass in to law. The point of this database would be to track EVERYTHING an American citizen does. The person running this office is none other than John Poindexter, famous for a little thing called the Iran-Contra Scandal.
This scares the crap out of me, as I don't see how this could be good. Why make everyone a suspect? It makes no sense to me. I think invasions of people privacy like this is ridiculous. I think it may be time to leave the home of free and head to somewhere where they really understand freedom.
Well, Phish has announced 2 dates in Vegas. YAY! Don and I are already making plans to head out. It's on President's Day weekend which means it will probably be a Thursday to Monday trip or something. I can't wait. Anyone else want to come?
Green flag out, let's go Tony!
After a week in San Fran, I am back. Still trying to catch up on everything. Had a buddy in town for the weekend so haven't been here all that much. Also, in the process of setting up a new laptop, so that has taken some time. Dentist appointment yesterday for a cleaning, its amazing how much nicer it can be when you have gotten better about your dental hygiene. Today will be a lazy day, just trying to catch up.
that trade shows are a good way to increase your alcohol tolerance. Ugh. Can I go back to bed?
It's skadz dot com!
I made it to San Fran in one piece, currently hacking away in our booth to get everything all set up.
More later ....
The San Francisco treat or something, right?
Well, that was just a random reference to San Fran, as I am headed there in the morning. For work, of course, I don't have fun anymore. I am heading out for Oracle World to work the booth for the company I work at. It should be a good show for us, so I am excited to see who comes through the booth.
Hopefully this time out, I will be able to actually enjoy San Francisco more than I did last time. Last time, it was work or team dinner or something constantly, I really did not get a lot of free time to just relax and hang out.
I will be trying to blog the show, most likely more as an end of the day wrap up rather than an in-show report. Also, as I will be work the booth, I don't know how much time I will actually get to wander around the show to see what else is out there, and I almost definitely will miss most of the keynotes. Hopefully I can at least get out to one.
An article up on MTV.com says that Christina Aguilera showed up for the 8 Mile premiere. Very interesting. I just wonder why she showed. You think she finally gave in and is now all over Eminem? Who knows.
I really want to see this movie. I think it could be very good, especially with all the critics talking about how good it is supposed to be. I really think Eminem is a great artist in his music, so I think that he probably could pull this acting thing off pretty well, as well. Also, since it is based on his own life, I don't think it will be too hard for him to act the part.
Oh yeah, and Britttany Murphy being in it can't hurt, right?
then what should you be? Axl Rose no-showed their first North American tour date in 9 years. Oh yeah, and a riot broke out after that. Ugh. Dumbass.
There is a story over on CNN entitled Bubonic plague suspected in NYC visitors - Nov. 7, 2002. I really thought the plague was a thing of the past. Rather interesting that New Mexico has the largest number of cases in the U.S. I guess I can check that off my vacation possibility list. I think the list of Ireland and Las Vegas is long enough anyways.
This post has been stewing in the back of my mind for a while and I am going to try and get it out correcly here. I have noticed a trend on the radio lately (more lately because I actually listen to the radio now, as opposed to just CDs) that really bugs me. I hate the fact that they overplay artists and more so specific songs from artists. This has been going on forever, they get a hit song and just keep playing it and playing it. The trend that I notice now is that they don't move along when an artist tries to move on from that song and release new songs. One case in particular I have noticed lately is Avril Lavigne. She came out with the song "Complicated" some time earlier this year, I can't remember exactly when. Well, she has released a new single Skater boy (though it really is something like sk8ter boi or some such spelling), which I think is just as good, if not better than complicated (shows more of her raw edge than the rather poppy "Complicated"), but I still can hear "Complicated" at least 3 or 4 times a day in the hour an a half I listen to the radio. Why can't these stations just move on? As someone who really loves music, I woudl rather hear more than just one song by an artist and would like to really hear even more artists. I feel the more music we can listen to, the more people can see what is really good music as opposed to just listening to what the record companies tell us to listen to. Most of the music I listen to on a normal basis people who just listen to the radio have never even heard of, though it is some of the best music out there. Obviously you have cases where radio airplay means nothing to a band (eg Phish), but this is the exception rather than the rule, so I wish that more people could be exposed to more music and decide what they want. I know some of my favorite bands are bands that I either saw open for someone (eg Guster or was told about my friends (this list goes on forever as there are always music suggestions on the Ytsejam Mailing Lists). I just wish some of these bands could get the exposure they deserve so that more people could be exposed to them.
NP:Dave Matthew & Tim Reynolds - Live at Luther College
HAD being the operative word here.
CNN.com - Michigan 'Santa' charged with murder - Nov. 7, 2002
Yay! Red Hat release an updated glibc that will now work correctly with remote MySQL connections. This means I can finally get the rest of my CDs in to the CD Collection software I wrote. Woo! Something to do while watching TV tonight. (Yes, I have gotten rather boring lately).
So, last night, I am just about to head to bed and I hear a plane flying rather low. It scared me. I have a view of both the Prudential and Hancock buildings in Boston, so I just watched for a minute to make sure all was well. It pisses me off that I now have to double check tall buildings in the area when I hear a plane flying low. It really sucks to live in a world where you have that fright in you that a plane could crash in to a building at any time.
Now, in the end, I figure with the crap weather in Boston yesterday, they had just changed some of the flight patterns and altitudes and that's why I heard the planes so prominently. But still, its rather annoying to have to have that worry in the back of your mind.
NP: Saliva - Every Six Seconds
to be about 10 minutes from work and hear on the radio that the current weather conditions of the town you work in are: rain, snow, sleet, hail, and wind. I came close to turning around. But, then I get to work (like 6-8 minutes later) and its partly sunny with the clouds quickly going away. Amusing ...
And I don't want anyone to get cancer on it!!
South Park returned this evening with a rather amusing episode. Forget the War on Terrorism, who will fight in the War on Heaven? Obviously not the Tree Hugging Hippies. If only George W can convince the UN, but he isn't high, so he may not be able to.
This post brought to you by the Eric Cartman is god of all living things foundation.
Have I mentioned how much I hate driving? Well, I do. Mostly I hate it for the other idiots on the road. My biggest pet peeve today is people who drive at speed X, but over the course of a mile or two, they are suddenly, for no apparent reason, driving at X-10. I have almost slammed in to a few of these people. Its rather annoying. I understand if there is a cop or something, or even a slower car in front of you, but this is for no apparent reason, they just plain start going slower. Rather annoying.
My other peeve today, is people who only pay attention to the moment, not what is happening in front of them. They are doing a bunch of construction on the block over from me. Near the end of the street (as I know because I drive down it every day) the street narrows to one lane. Well, all the nice smart people in the front get in to one lane. This morning, a bunch of people decided thyey needed more lanes, so they jumped in a lane that was about to end and pushed their way all the way to the front and then tried to merge in. Who the fuck is so excited to get to work in the morning that they need to drive like an idiot? Argh.
Do people really spend so much time with their cell phones that they have time to play DOOM on their Nokia 7650?
I like this show. I didn't really watch it last season, but the times I did, I found it rather interesting. I like the way it weaves many stories in to one. It's like a book that way. Hopefully this season will be really good and not get too out of control.
I am amused by Massachusetts. One of the stations here just projected Mit Romney to win the governor race. He's the Republican candidate. I find this amusing for one reason, there are 10 House and 1 Senate seat up for election, every one of them CNN is currently projecting the Democrat to win. How the hell does a predominatly (sp?) Democrat state end up having a Republican governor? Very confusing. I'm just hoping 1 passes, then, NO MORE INCOME TAX IN MA. WOOOOOOOOOOOO! :)
This is my 100th post. There is nothing real to say. Hopefully lots more to come.
I realized in a meeting today that I am not the best person in the world at expressing myself. I can be good at times, especially in a one on one situation, but in a group situation, I am not good at expressing my thoughts. This is mostly when it comes to non-technical people when talking tech, but I see this in general as well. I think I do not come off as smart as I really am because I lack some wordsmithing skills.
I think I am getting better at writing my thoughts down, due largely do this blog here, but I still think I am not good at talking to people. I need to work on this. I think I need to work on talking to people in general. I tend to talk hardcore tech to people and that's about all I am good at. Or else telling stories. I am not good at getting my point across in other situations.
I think part of the problem is that I focus too much on the technical and logical side of things and don't work as well on the "marketing" side of things. I need to learn to sell ice cubes to eskimos as it were. Not necessarily being slimy and lying, but more in that I need to learn to speak on a non-technical level to non-technical people. I even need to work on this when talking to technical people. Basically, just being able to have every day conversations in an intelligent manner is something I need to work on.
Well, enough rambling....
If only I had the cash to be the guy that this shirt could be talking about :)
at the beginning of a new week. Some people do a Sunday - Saturday week, I am definitely not one of them. To me, the week ends when I go to bed on Sunday and starts back up with a new work week on Monday.
Weekend was nice and relaxing. Watched a number of movies, spent some time with cms and his wife, watched the Pats kick Buffalo's ass, etc. I didn't see a bar all weekend. Rather scary. I wonder if Sissy K's has sent out a search party yet.
This week should be an interesting one. It could turn out nuts, it could turn out calm. We'll see what happens. I have a huge project at work, which I need to get done this week. I say this week, because Saturday I am flying out to San Francisco for Oracle World. I am supposed to go see Rush at Mohegan Sun on Friday, which is looking less and less like a possibility. Don is trying to drag me to a show tomorrow, but I think I will pass on it. As I said, could just be a big work week, could turn in to a nuts week.
Slashdot seems rather unhappy this morning. I guess maybe their server move did not go as well as hoped/planned.
Weather Underground currently says that the forecast for Boston tonight is Clear. BUT, the current conditions say Mostly Cloudy. Huh?
I watched 3 movies this week (so far). Some quick reviews ...
Spider-Man
This movie was great. I felt they did a great job with the plot and getting across who Spider-Man was and how he became that way and then proceeded to almost make another movie from that back story. The action sequences and special effects were awesome. The fact that Kirsten Dunst looked awesome through the whole movie had no affect on this review, I swear :)
Pecker
I think this movie was trying to make a point. I got it, but I didn't feel a movie was needed to get it across. I think it could have been a good movie, but tried to be too abstract and wierd. I dunno. Not the movie I was hoping for, I guess.
Insomnia
I was really looking forward to seeing this as it was directed by Christopher Nolan who wrote and directed Memento, one of my recent favorite movies. This movie was good, but definitely not anywhere near as good as Memento. In Memento, the audience became very confused as they were seeing much of the movie from the point of view of someone with amnesia. It basically messed with your head. In this movie, Pacino and Williams characters tried to mess with each other's minds. I didn't feel they worked it as well as they could have. I think Pacino did a good job in his part, though I didn't feel he showed as much emotion as he could have in some of the later segments as he did in the earlier part of the movie. Williams seemed rather dry to me. Though this might have been part of his character, I don't think it was the same dryness that someone going through what he was going through would have shown. I'd like to see how he pulled off a somewhat (at least from the previews) character in One Hour Photo.
to watch football when your team is playing against your fantasy team's quarterback.
I was told in a meeting this week at work that I was too accomodating. I find this amusing. I didn't realize there was such a thing. I always thought that being nice and being helpful were good things. I like to help people and do whatever I can to help.
I find it even funnier because I have been told this in the past. A few years ago at a Christmas party for my old company, one of the women who worked in the parent's company (after a couple of cocktails) yelled at me for being too nice and told me that's why I had such trouble getting women.
All in all, rather amusing. I wish I could be less nice, but I guess I just enjoy being nice and helping out. Was just the way I was raised. Ya know, if people don't like it, they can just deal. Ohh, was that me almost being mean? Maybe I could get good at this :)
So, Laundry and Movie night turned in to Movie and More Movie night instead. I just never got motivated enough to do laundry. I did watch some of New Jack City, all of Spider-Man and most of Pecker though. Reviews some time in the near future. I passed out on the couch, woke up about 4 times over the course of the evening, but in general, it was just an unproductive (though relaxing) evening.
The funny part about staying in on a Friday, you get up early on Saturday. I was up around 8 this morning. Watched most of Sports Center on ESPN to start off the day. I then decided it was time to attack the laundry pile. Well, now at 9:52, I have a load in the washer, a load in the dryer and a load by the door ready to go as soon as the dryer is done and I can rotate all the loads. Very good. Basically, by 1, I should have 3 loads of laundry all washed and dryed and hung up. That's a rather good start to a Saturday for me, as Saturdays are usually non-days (as are most of the weekend).
Girls having orgasms on radio may affect your driving.
Amusing email I just got:
A little boy wanted $100 badly and prayed for two weeks but nothing happened. Then he decided to write God a letter requesting the $100. When the postal authorities received the letter addressed to God, USA, they decided to send it to President Bush. The President was so impressed, touched, and amused that he instructed his secretary to send the little boy a $5.00 bill. President Bush thought this would appear to be a lot of money to a little boy. The little boy was delighted with the $5.00 and sat down to write a thank you note to God, which read: Dear God, Thank you very much for sending the money, however, I noticed that for some reason you had to send it through Washington D.C. and, as usual, those crooks deducted $95.00.
Have a nice weekend!
Or maybe not. Tonight is going to be the all too wild laundry and movies night. I currently have Insomnia and Pecker from Netflix. There is also a possibility that I will get Spide-Man today, or else tomorrow from them. Also, I still have Black Hawk Down on DVD and A Beautiful Mind on Video. Somehow, I think 5 movies should hold me over for the evening. And I know I have enough quarters for 3 loads of laundry, so that should get a lot of stuff good and clean.
Tomorrow, I am going to head over to cms's house some time during the afternoon and hang out over there. Probably do some geeking out, movie watching, eating, etc.
Sunday will be NASCAR and Football day.
I also have a ton of work to get done this weekend. It's gonna be a CRAZY weekend, see.
I hate nights like tonight. First off, I am not a fan of halloween at all. I don't know why, just not. Second, it should have been a good night, but I was just being sensitive. Why? I don't know. I mean, it was not like things were much different than any other Thursday night out. The Bell was a little more crowded which caused me not to get my normal "seat", but it was people I knew there, so that didn't bother me too much. I had issues with the large crowd and getting pushed around a bit too much. Had I been provoked, my little self would have caused a fight, trust me. That was the first thing, the next was a friend was being a little overly friendly (as always), which just got to me a bit tonight. Lastly, another friend was not in a good mood in the least. I understand where he was, and it just sucked. I felt bad for him. All in all, just another shitty Halloween. Whatever. Time to watch ER on tape and get some sleep. Night all, sweet dreams.
