Wednesday, 31 March 2004, 19:49:32 EST Perm Link

Okay, I have populated the gallery with some images. It seems that the two pictures I uploded to my test site were not enough to actually lay out the individual albums. I will have to do some more work to it later but for now it is pretty good.

Wednesday, 31 March 2004, 18:38:35 EST Perm Link

Well, today I just didn't feel up to actually working. I was going to go home but we were short staffed today at work so I stayed at work and worked on a gallery for this site. I really should have been finishing up a schedule manager that I am supposed to be working on but I intend to have that done by the end of next week any way and I just didn't feel like looking at it today.

There isn't anything in the gallery as of yet because I need to get all the pictures I have taken from my home machine so that I can look through them and see which ones I had up last time to put them back. I have evidently taken about forty-eight megabytes of pictures since I got my camera so downloading them all from my home machine is taking a while. The third party gallery software I was using stored the information in such a way that I don't want to mess with it. I could write a script to import all the old data but it just isn't worth it. I will actually probably cut out the old "Idiots" section unless there is some sort of interest in seeing it make a come back.

Any way, as soon as I have access to all of my pictures so that I can sort through them I will start populating the gallery. The gallery is pretty slick if you ask me; the script is only forty-one lines with the HTML template coming in at forty-six lines.

Sunday, 28 March 2004, 23:10:33 EST Perm Link

Well, my grandfather and I are quite possibly the slowest mechanics on the planet. We spent five hours this afternoon replacing one of the struts on my car and we still have three left to go. It probably would have gone by a little quicker had we actually read the directions before we took everything apart. Spending more time searching for sockets and wrenches than actually using them probably didn't help matters either. No matter though; at the end of the day we each had more knowledge than we started with and it was a good way to spend the day. I can tell you one thing though, when you go to the mechanic to have the struts and/or shocks replaced in your car and he tells you that it will be about $230.00 in labor he isn't kidding with you. It is a severe pain in the ass. I like the fact that I now know what it takes to do such a job and will have a better idea of a good price for the job in the future should I have to have it done on another car (I won't be doing it again).

Aerosmith has a new album coming out on the thirtieth of this month (Tuesday). The first single has been getting a fair amount of air play the past month or so. Just about every time it is played the dj has to make some sort of comment about it. On 96 Rock the djs seem to think it is an original tune and hype it like the best thing since Walk This Way. This afternoon I heard it on Z93 (which has really changed recently - for the worse in my opinion) and the dj claimed it to be a Who "classic!" Who is he kidding? To the best of my knowledge The Who never even recorded a cover of the song. They did record Please, Please, Please which is very similar in the lyrics at least (I don't think I have ever heard the song). The song that I am ranting about is called Baby Please Don't Go and was made famous by the band that gave Van Morrison, whom is the man by the way, his start. The song was orignially written by Big Joe Williams, a delta blues artist. I just want to make sure some people out there, that may have heard it on the radio and the resultant dj blather, realize that Aerosmith did not write this song. Evidently djs don't need to know music history to press the shiny buttons in the booth but can just spout off crap that they think sounds good.

Any way, while doing some research, to be sure I gave you all the correct facts, I came across a double CD that I did not know existed. Evidently back in 1998 Van Morrison collaborated with Polygram Records to release the album The Story of Them Featuring Van Morrison. It is fifty tracks by Them with Van Morrison on vocals. This album looks so good, and the reviews boasted it as such, that I had to track down a copy at Overstock.com that I could afford and purchase it.

Thursday, 25 March 2004, 11:50:35 EST Perm Link

If you have ever gone out to eat with me you know that I don't tip as well as the server would like (sorry Jason) 99% of the time. I make a great deal less that a good waiter/waitress makes during the week so I tend to get the cheapest item on the menu and put down $2.00 on top of the bill. I basically rely on other, better paid, patrons to cover my cheap ass and hope the server doesn't get pissed at me. I vaugely remember getting in to this discussion with some of Jason's friends from work last year at his birthday party (damn one of them for getting me to drink half a bottle of Crown Royal) and their argument was that I should just not go out to eat. That is completely retarded in my opinion, it isn't like I want to short the server. When my buddies say "Hey, let's go over to hoosawasa and get some grub" what am I going to do? I am going to go get some grub that is what. Any way, I digress. The whole point of this was to point you in the direction of a really moving post that deals with this subject.

On a funnier note, George Carlin will be coming to Atlanta on May 8 and I intend to be there for the funny. If you want to join me then leave a post and some way to get in touch with you and I will see about getting us some tickets in the same section. I will probably order them around April 15 (next pay check I can do frivolous things with).

Tuesday, 23 March 2004, 19:07:42 EST Perm Link

Something occured to me today when reading the games section on Slashdot. There is a lot of talk about the, supposed, upcoming release of Half-Life 2 by Valve Software. Some time around 1996 Valve picked up the rights to a very, very, popular QuakeWorld modification called Team Fortress. They stipulated that the current mod could continue as is but any other mod that copied it feature for feature, in any other game, would be met with harsh legal action. They did this because they wanted to release Team Fortress 2. Well, here it is 2004 and the last news update on the official TF2 web site was made on January 23, 2001. Did everyone just forget that they were making a game based on the most popular Quake mod ever? Why is everyone surprised that Valve is not meeting their release dates with HL2? Seems to me that they have a clear history of missing release dates. Hell, if you pick up an original Half-Life CD you can view a video promoting the "soon to be released" Team Fortress 2. Vivendi Universal (Sierra's parent company - long gone are the days of Roberta Williams *sigh*) will even provides a link to buy the game. Just something to ponder next time Valve misses their release date.