Friday, 22 August 2008, 10:32:36 EDT
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The last time I went to get my haircut I was sitting in the waiting area when I noticed a magazine with an odd title — Garden and Gun. I just had to find out what this magazine contained, so I started reading the table of contents. That's when I found the article entitled Sweet Tea. Being the southerner that I am, I immediately flipped to this article and read it. I really enjoyed the article. The author does an excellent job of capturing the southern obsession in print:
No matter the source, our affection for sweet tea characteristically reaches religious fervor. Ask any Southerner where the best sweet tea is served, and he or she will have an opinion. I once knew a man who would drive forty-five minutes to a south Georgia Chick-fil-A because it had what he deemed th ... (view rest)
Monday, 05 November 2007, 11:06:46 EDT
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I'm not usually one to give to charities. I'm not exactly brimming with cash, time, or empathy to give. But Friday evening I contributed to the Child's Play Charity. I had told myself in the past that if they ever hooked up with Children's Healthcare of Atlanta I would do something. One of my good friend's daughter spent a lot of time at that hospital. I guess, in a way, I feel like I'm supporting my friend and not just random people I've never met.
Anyway, you can click the image above to visit the charity's website. You can contrib ... (view rest)
Monday, 03 September 2007, 00:18:46 EDT
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By now you have probably seen the video of Miss South Carolina 2007 responding to the question "Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can't locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?" Clearly she wasn't prepared for the question. But even when given the opportunity to answer it again the following day, her response still doesn't address the problem, in my opinion.
The simple truth is that our public school system is worthless. We teach test taking skills, not actual knowledge. I know there are good teachers in the public school system, and they love it when a bright student comes along. But, for the most part, they have become jaded by the system and treat their job as nothing more than that — a day job. So when their administrators tell them "We have to raise test scores by 10% this year. Emphasize these skills in your lessons," they just sigh and comply. Thus, they end up teaching fictitious skills like "cross multiplication." (As an aside, here is one where a teacher asks why cross multiplying works. Truly sad. ... (view rest)
Friday, 25 August 2006, 19:16:19 EDT
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I have some more numbers for you. On my way up to, and way back from, Michigan I kept track of the distance I traveled in each state. I didn't decide to do it until I was entering Kentucky, and I only used the last three digits on the odometer; so the numbers are not extremely accurate. There is a bit of error introduced by exiting the freeway to get fuel and/or lunch and my missed turn when I got to Michigan. Still, I find the numbers interesting. So here we go.
Traveling north, I entered Kentucky at 98232, Indiana at 98375, Michigan at 98658, and arrived at my destination at 98738. Thus, I traveled 143 miles in Kentucky, 273 miles in Indiana, and ninety miles in Michigan. I went 222.7 miles after my last fill-up in Indiana and a total of 817.0 miles (these two figures were taken from the Trip A and Trip B counters on my truck).
Traveling south, I started the trip at 99058, entered Indiana at 99131, Kentucky at 99435, Tennessee at 99576, Georgia at 99736, Tennessee(!) at 99741, and Georgia at 99757. So I traveled seventy-three miles in Michigan, 304 miles in Indiana, 141 miles in Kentucky, and 176 miles in Tennessee. I forgot to write down my final odometer number and trip numbers when I got home so I don't have totals for Georgia and overall distance. I was just too tired when I got home and forgot about it the next day.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I took a different route home than I did going to Michigan. The new route wasn't too many more miles and it kept me on the freeway the whole trip. However, it seemed like it took me more time to make the journey back than it did going up. I did hit a few more slow construction areas on the new route, so mayb ... (view rest)
Friday, 03 February 2006, 22:52:06 EDT
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It seems that thirty years ago, Bill Gates wrote a letter to the Homebrew Computer Club. Essentially, he called everyone there thieves and asked them to pay him for the software they were using. He didn't feel he was being adequately compensated for his time in writing Altair BASIC. In the subsequent month's newsletter there was a response to his letter. The very last sentence of this letter is awesome: "And, by the way, calling all of your potential future customers thieves is perhaps "uncool" marketing strategy." It is the same way I feel about the book store on campus.
A couple years ago, the campus book store lost some books to someone with a backpack. Evidently, they couldn't keep an eye on people during the rush at the beginning of the semester. Their solution for their ineptness was to make people leave their backpacks, and laptop bags, in a room outside of the book store during the first couple weeks of the semester. Well, it didn't take too long before someone lost a laptop as a result of this stupid policy. Did that make them remove the policy? Nope, they just stationed someone in the room to check-in/out the bags. When the University Center opened, the book store decided to implement the policy full time. They decided to call every patron of their store a thief year-round — I stopped shopping there except for when I can't get my book any where else. I have only had to purchase one book from them since, and that was because I was unable to register until a couple days before classes started. I buy all my books online; mostly via campus-i.com.
I suppose this is one of the problems with a monopoly (even though MS wasn't then; they just always been morons). They feel like they can tell the consumer how high to jump and get away with it. The RIAA will eventuall ... (view rest)
Thursday, 05 January 2006, 14:47:40 EDT
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Well, I have actually started working on a new gallery script. I searched for one that would meet my needs several times during my winter break. I found several that would have worked well functionality wise, but they either had horrible navigation systems, horrible visual design, or both. I almost caved in and used Zenphoto, but, for reasons already mentioned, and its inability to disable comments except through editing the templates, I decided against it. I had actually given up on the whole idea all together but I just couldn't get it out of my head. Monday night, while trying to get to sleep, I had several ideas for the project and immediately got out of bed and typed them up. They seemed simple to implement at first; indeed, I decided to take on the project because I felt I had boiled the problem down to a very simple implementation, but as I have been working on it the past two days it has grown in complexity. The idea remains simple: stick the pictures in directories, and sub-directories, and let the PHP script dynamically build the gallery as the user navigates it. This means that the gallery wouldn't require some clunky upload system, the files can just be uploaded with an ftp client or whatever else, and there wouldn't be any need for a database of any kind (initially). I do have some features in mind that require a database to implement but I don't deem them important enough for a first release (or do I?). So where has the difficulty arisen? The difficult part is reading the albums, and any sub-albums, from the disk. So far, it is requiring more loops than I wanted, though I have trimmed them down, and I haven't started on the sub-album code, or even listing the pictures, yet. I have essentially built the skeleton of the program thus far and now need to put some flesh on it. I haven't been feeling 100% the past couple days so work has been slow. If I am feeling better tomorrow, I might be able to compl ... (view rest)
Friday, 16 December 2005, 12:52:55 EDT
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I really don't like Gallery. I used the first version a long time ago but got frustrated with it and wrote my own. Since they finished the second version, and I haven't had a chance to rewrite mine, I decided to give it another shot. It was working fine, and I even had a plugin for iPhoto that allowed me to upload photos from iPhoto directly to my photo gallery. Then it stopped working. I tried to upload my Thanksgiving photos the day after Thanksgiving and the exporter would stop uploading after the first picture and give an error that it uploaded zero pictures. If I went to the website, I could see the album I created with the exporter, browse to it, and see the first photo; repeated for every vain attempt I made at uploading the pictures. Sure, maybe it is a problem with the exporter and not the gallery software. That doesn't change the fact that Gallery sucks. It is a pain to keep maintained (the authors evidently don't know how to write decent code) and the administration interface is confusing. I would really like to be able to post pictures in a browseable manner but it looks like I will have to write the code myself. I have done some minimal searching and come across a couple other packages but none that strike me; Zenphoto came close but it is still too early in development. If I am going to use half baked software I might as well use my own. Maybe I wi ... (view rest)
Sunday, 16 October 2005, 15:46:02 EDT
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A few weeks ago I came to the conclusion that I need some place to jot down notes. Sort of like a scratch pad. I had the idea to write an interactive website to solve the problem. Then slashdot ran an article with a link to a site that does 98% of the idea I had. So, I decided not to waste time on that. At least one of the other 2% of my idea required a unique login to access the notes because I don't like the idea of a notepad with as easy access to the notes as mailinator gives to spam mail.
Today, I decided that I want to keep track of how many calories I consume and burn. I want to be able to figure out how close I am to my basal metabolic rate so I need to keep a rough tally for a while. There are plenty of programs specifically designed for this sort of thing. The problem is all the good ones are shareware and since I am a cheap bastard I don't want to pay for such a thing. Thus did idea number two strike me.
I was thinking about all of this on the way home from the grocery store today and came up with a solution. I determined that a ... (view rest)
Friday, 14 October 2005, 21:14:28 EDT
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I dig the hell out of Garage Band. After my last post I started messing around with the program again. Today, I finished up a new track. I didn't do much beat slicing in this one, though. I concentrated more on learning how to modify software instruments and apply effects to them. I think it turned out rather well. Give it a listen.
In other news, midterm week is now over. It arrived in a hurry and departed even quicker. So far I have a B in each of my three classes. Since midterm grades don't include all of the work done thus far they are a rough estimate of how you are doing in classes. My calculus and Smartbodies grades are on the high end of the range and my linear algebra grade on the low end. I will be completely satisfied if I keep the B in linear algebra; I cannot stress enough how bad the book is for that class. If I can finish off the semester with As in the other two classes, though, I should make the Dean's List again. That is my goal. If I can swing that, my GPA will continue going the way of the Jeffersons.
I've been listening to The Financial Aid Podcast recently. I really like it. It is a half hour show about everything relating to finances that would concern a college student. Everything from credit card debt to bills before Congress that will affect federal financial aid. I highly recommend giving it a listen if you are in school. It has reminded me quite effectively that I need to qu ... (view rest)
Monday, 29 August 2005, 19:20:04 EDT
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Friday, 24 June 2005, 09:39:48 EDT
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I like to keep track of my finances using a computer. I used Gnucash for quite some time. Once I learned how to use it, I was able to keep track of my finances rather well as long as I entered my receipts on a regular basis. Gnucash, though, is more of a QuickBooks type application than a Quicken application. That is, Gnucash is more for a small business than it is for a personal finance manager; as such, Gnucash does way more than I needed it to do and what I did with it Gnucash was not particularly suited to do. I think that if you need an application to keep track of your business finance records then Gnucash will cover your needs. You may to give it a trial run though because the application suffers a problem that is generally uncommon in the free software world — file format lock-in. Sure, the file format is a basic XML file that anyone can write a parser for but no one has. So, if you are using Gnucash and decide you want to use something else then you either have to write your own format converter or forget about transferring the old data to the new application. This is a problem I encountered at the beginning of May.
At the beginning of May I had my Powerbook for about two months. I was really starting to get comfortable with it and decided that I would like to be able to manage my finances on-the-go. I was also getting tired of Gnucash's complexity. Well, about a month earlier someone asked the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts mailing list for personal finance software recommendations. A program that I had heard of, but forgotten about, named Moneydance was mentioned. It happens that Moneydance fit my needs: it works on any platform having been written in Java, it is designed for personal use, and is easy to use. I decided to give it a shot, using the trial 100 transactions, knowing that if I liked the program I would have to fork over $30.00 to buy a license for it. It is almost two months later, I started using the program May 6, and I am still using the 100 transaction trial — when they run out I will be buying a license.
Moneydance is quite nice. When first started the program asks if you would like to use a default account configuration, lite account configuration, or no configuration. I decided to start with the default skeleton so that I wouldn't have to recreate a whole bunch of expense accounts. The default skeleton worked out very well; I only had to remove a couple that did not apply to me and add a couple that I preferred instead. Gnucash and Moneydance can both generate reports and graphs from the data that you have entered. However, I have found that it is much easier to generate useful graphs and reports with Moneydance than with Gnucash.
Moneydance has some features that Gnucash doesn't have, or at least features I never figured out or found. Moneydance can generate budgets from your finance data either automatically or tuned based on some values that you define. I have not used this feature much yet because I don't have much of a budget to work with and not that much data either. But, I can see how this would be quite handy. The feature that I like the most, though, is the reminders calendar. Moneydance has a calendar system that allows you to create one shot or regular scheduled events. The event can be a "general reminder" or a "transaction reminder." The general reminder is useful for everything from birthdays to pay days while the transaction reminder is particularly useful for bills where you know the amount that will be charged. For example, I have a transaction reminder setup for my auto loan payment. I can quickly look at the calendar to see when the payment is due or wait for it to show up in the upcoming reminders list a couple of weeks out. Once I make the payment, I can click on the reminder, verify that the form is filled out correctly, and click a "make transaction" button to record the movement of money from my bank account ... (view rest)
Wednesday, 09 March 2005, 11:48:30 EDT
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Yes, it has been a while since I last updated. I was sick last week and have been too apathetic since then to really do anything. That includes fixing my email server. If you have sent me an email in the past couple of weeks, and it has been returned, I am aware of the problem. You should probably go ahead and update your address book with a new address for me any way. Nine out of ten emails that I receive via the broken email address are SPAM and I am probably going to retire the address. The address I have been using recently is james dot sumners at gmail dot com (spelled out to reduce harvesting attempts); I will update the contact information on this page soon(ish).
I did receive my PowerBook on Tuesday of last week. I have been using it almost exclusively since then and can truly say that I am pleased with the machine. It is exactly what I was looking for in a laptop. Th ... (view rest)
Monday, 01 November 2004, 11:04:06 EDT
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I have made some more changes to this this site. Foremost, I finally fixed it so new months don't start with a blank page until I have a chance to post. The last time I tried to do this my solution broke the archives in strange ways that I still don't understand. This time, however, it works just fine. The solution was extremely simple and I have no idea why I didn't think of it before. Basically, if a month has less than five posts the front page is built so that it has a maximum of five posts. The older posts disappear from the front page one by one until the current month has reached at least five posts.
The other change is in how the archives are navigated. I removed the cumbersome drop-down box and replaced the "Search Archives" link with an "Archives" link. This is a better way to do it for several reasons. It is easier for all clients to navigate. It integrates the archive searching with the list of available archives in a more cohesive manner. It allows me to more easily create spiffy layouts for the ... (view rest)
Thursday, 19 August 2004, 23:09:39 EDT
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Slow month here I know. It is probably just the end of the year blues as the end of my year is coming up very soon. Or, it could be that I just haven't had much to write about. Jonathan links to my site saying it is a very technical place and that is the way I like it. So, when I am not really doing anything interesting, technically, or reading about interesting things I don't post much.
Lately I have been doing some new stuff at work. Mainly, I have gotten to try my hand at wiring data closets. Some would say it is an insanely tedious and boring job. I can see that; but, if you are working alone and allowed to go at your own pace it can be a very acceptable task. To clarify, when I say "wiring data closets" I mean plugging patch cables from patch panel to switch and fitting them in the wire manager. I must have done at least 700 ports this past week or so and I evidently did a good job. Everyone who saw my work said as much. However, the true test came today when the closet nazi had the time to take a look at the closets I worked on. Evidently the words used to describe my work were "he is my new closet boy." I would post some pictures of what I did but they are not that exciting and rather blurry. Today I had to go back and document which patch cable relates which port on the switch to which port on the patch panel. Doing it the way I did it made the documenting a snap. When I got to the only closet that is undocumented an ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 03 August 2004, 22:49:09 EDT
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Out with the old in with the...old? Doom 3, one of the most hyped and anticipated games ever, came out today. Being that a demo will not be available for some time yet I went ahead and bootlegged a leak of it and played it last yesterday. I am very happy that I did not spend $54.99 on this game as I have found it to be the same as its predecessors just with better graphics. This thread on Slashdot accurately describes the game and its shortcomings. While the thread starter got bored with the game after an hour I gave it thirty minutes more before I turned it off. I have not had any desire to play it since then. That does not bespeak a good game; a good game is one where you look forward to the next time you have available to play it. Unreal Tournament 2004 was like that for me and still is to some extent. The Doom3 engine has promise but the game they wrapped around it to demo it does not captivate me in the least. If you like linear predictable game play then you will love this game. If you like a gaming experience that can change every time you start up the game then don't bother. Just wait until October for GTA: San Andreas to come out.
Unrelated to gaming, I found an awesome quote at bash.org today. I liked it so much I turned it in to a shirt ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 25 May 2004, 22:12:21 EDT
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A few weeks ago my mother gave me a paper shredder that she did not want any longer. Last night I cleaned it up and tried to use it. The basket is cracked on the side and the prongs that hold the shredder in place are bent and won't support the shredder any longer. I was going to live with it and try to use it because the shredder stayed in place decently enough to do the job. There was only two problems: 1) the shredder is only a straight-cut shredder and 2) the shredder choked on some of the papers that I really want to be able to shred on a regular basis. So, I went over to Staples after work today and picked out one that suits my needs. I bought Executive Machines' EPS-711X shredder. This thing is awesome. It will shred seven sheets of paper at once and is a cross-cutting shredder. Not only will it shred paper but it will shred credit cards. When I got the device home I immediately set to work shredding papers I had been saving since early 2001. I was shredding paper for about an hour and a half straight and filled the basket four times.
Gnome 2.6 was released a couple of months ago and I have been eagerly anticipating it moving in to the Debian unstable branch so that I can start using it. It has been caught up in Debian's slow approval process, one of the things I like about Debian, but in today's Debian Weekly News it was mentioned that the process of populating unstable with the Gnome tree from experimental is finally taking place. So far only GTK+ 2.4 has been committed but it shouldn't be lon ... (view rest)
Thursday, 20 May 2004, 22:29:04 EDT
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Last September I posted a link to forum thread that is filled with pictures of extremely hot women. I also included a link directly to one of the images that I happened to like a lot. Well, evidently if you go to http://images.google.com/ and do a search for "hot chick" the first result is from this very web site. No big deal there, you can do a lot of searches on Google and get links to the page in the top ten results. Heck, just search for "James Sumners" and the second link hits this page. Anyway, the strange thing is that I am constantly getting emails about this girl from people wanting to ... (view rest)
Monday, 03 May 2004, 19:58:49 EDT
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Last night I was going to work on a web page. A web page that really needs to be worked on. But, before I started working I decided I wanted to beat race 102 in Need For Speed: Underground first. It was just going to be a quick race and then on with the code. That was at 7:00PM; at about 8:30PM I had beaten the game, all 112 races. I just got sucked in. I ended up racing online until 11:00PM. I have determined that the racers online are cheaters (literally) and will hit you any time you are in the lead just so that they can win. I find it extremely sad that people have such a burning desire to "win" that they have to employ dirty tactics and even stoop to cheating.
Also, some of you may be interested in a project I have started. You can read about it, and keep up with it, at ... (view rest)
Sunday, 02 May 2004, 18:59:13 EDT
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James has updated his site to include a comments system and monthly archives. In all actuality I just hooked him up with the most basic parts of my code to get him started and give him an example to learn by. But, it is now in such a state that I have added it to my friends list. Any way, drop by his place for some interesting reading.
If you are an addict like me then you probably realize that Final Fantasy Tactics is not an original concept and was probably inspired by the likes of Shining Force. Also, if you have known me for a while then you probably know that I absolutely love Shining Force 1 & 2. I can sit down and beat SF2 in just about a day and still get all the hidden extras. Well, the day of reckoning ... (view rest)
Wednesday, 14 April 2004, 15:49:29 EDT
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The world wide web is evidently the best place ever to post personal opinion, experiences, and feelings. My soon to be room mate has decided to start posting his life on the web as well. You can find his page at /~jfries/. As soon ... (view rest)
Monday, 12 April 2004, 21:56:01 EDT
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I am sitting here listening to the Majority Report on Air America Radio through the online stream. I am really digging this radio station; I wish I could listen to it on an actual radio instead of having to use the Helix Player, the new Real Player, to listen online. From what I heard earlier today, you shouldn't rush out and pick up an XM radio to listen to it. Evidently, they preempt some shows with alternate ones. So, if you can not tune in through the AM band you should tune in through the online stream. Don't get me wrong, you should still listen to stations like WSB AM750 so that you can hear different takes on issues. I do think that you get to hear more information on this new station though. They tell you where they got their information, give you web sites, and etcetera. I particularly love how they are working really hard to illustrate how stations like CNN and Fox News only give you the information they want you to hear, the information that benefits them the most. I fully agree with this. If you ha ... (view rest)
Friday, 02 April 2004, 15:50:26 EDT
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Well, the day of stupid is over. I just don't get why everyone has to put out false information on April 01. I read news sites to get news not made up stories that have absolutely no significance. Bah. I am glad it is over.
Since I put up the gallery I can actually link you all to a picture that I took last time I went to a lan party out in Conyers. I was just driving along wishing traffic didn't suck and that I could get to the gaming quicker when I saw this truck. I was so bored that I started thinking about the object in his rear window and how, if things keep ... (view rest)
Thursday, 25 March 2004, 11:50:35 EDT
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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 ... (view rest)
Sunday, 21 March 2004, 16:02:53 EDT
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Aside from going alone (well, I did meet up with Tsaroth there), the show last night was awesome. Actually, Tsaroth was there so I didn't go completely on my own but the birthday boy didn't go so neither did Jason. There was not quite as many hotties there as I was hoping there would be but it isn't like I would have had the gumption to talk to any of them any way. Speaking of hotties, there was a chick there that is evidently fairly well off who had a body guard. Why would you need to have a body guard at a rave? People are there to dance and have a good time not get in fights. At the end of the show the body guard decided he didn't like some guy standing next to him and got violent - that was just uncalled for. Any way, the music was bangin' and the crowd was lively. There were very few rave kiddies there which was good. I liked the fact that the crowd was mature and not running around like a bunch of tweeked out junkies. I would have pictures for you but I didn't take my camera. I thought about taking it but I am glad that I didn't because the way I dance (badly) it would have been hitting me in the face all night. There was a dude taking pictures who seemed to be with the DJ so maybe I will make it in some of those and will let you know if so. Bad Boy Bill took over the turn tables at about 12:45AM, about ten minutes after I got in the club (traffic was freakin' crazy; half a mile took forty minutes), and would have kept spinning until he ran out of records had the promotors not told him to wind it down at 2:55AM. Atlanta has taken the stance that all the clubs need to close at 3:00AM which is just lame. He did do a quick encore though; and by quick I mean like a two minute encore. Overall I had a blast - you all should have gone.
And now for some seriousness. There is an abby just outside of Conyers. They are falling on hard times because of mounting medical costs. The youngest monk at the abby is forty-five and the older monks are suffering from old ... (view rest)
Monday, 08 March 2004, 23:41:36 EDT
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Just in case you live under a rock I will fill you in. Google is preparing a new look. At first I was skeptical; a few days ago the topic in #web on freenode was something to the effect of "I don't know anyone who has ever looked at Google and said 'this needs more frivolous shit'." I was pretty much in agreement with that statement until I started using the new design. It is a bit slicker and easier on my eyes. Some how it seems to draw my attention to the results more than anything else on the page unless I am lo ... (view rest)
Thursday, 04 March 2004, 19:48:48 EDT
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Well hot damn Jason finally got his internet connection fixed and posted some new content to his web site. I should download the new Quake III maps he has there and try them out but Unreal Tournament 2003 is calling my name.
My headphones are starting to show their age. I really need some new ones. The problem is is that I want the model up from the ones. While the new pair is now the same price as my current pair was when I bought them they are still too expensive for me right now. My current pair are really showing their age though; the "leatherette" is almost completely gone from the left ear piece and is flaking off more and more on the right piece every day. Who wants to save me from my headphone hell and by me the MDR-V700DJs?
Wolven reminded me today how much I love Green Jellö album Cereal Killer (technically it is a sound track but I just like it for the good Metal that it is). Since I have evidently lost my compact disc somewhere along the way I hit up EBay like a crack fiend and put in a bid on an original copy printed before they were legally require to change the name to Green Jell˙. Hopefully no one will jack the bid up past the $3.99 it currently is in the next six days. I doubt they will because just about no one likes the band and would hardly even dream of buying the CD. Here is to hope against hope.
Also, I have been getting more and more aggitated with the piss poor grammar skills of people who post text to the internet. Damn it people, pick up a book and do some reading. I promise it will d ... (view rest)
Thursday, 26 February 2004, 20:21:32 EDT
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Last night we had a "winter storm." What that means is there are patches, patches, of snow on the ground in random places. Because of this, CCSU closed down for the day and I in effect got an unwanted unpaid day off. Yay! But I did make the most of it by finishing up the new site design and casting an early primary vote (don't ask because I won't tell you).
If you are in the mood to laugh your ass off then read this guy's "Top Ten Worst Things I've Ever Jacked Off To". It is some hilarious stuff.
Also, if you like machinima you need to check out this ... (view rest)
Monday, 23 February 2004, 13:50:16 EDT
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Evidently I work at one of the very few computer help desks that actually help people. This article (you have to watch a flash ad first to actually read it) came across Slashdot today. In it is a technicians description of his job at a tech support oursourcer and how they are, basically, required to do anything possible to get the person in need off the phone within twelve minutes - problem be damned. I can't even begin to count the number of times I have had to spend upwards of forty-five minutes on the phone with a distraught person because they don't really know their ass from a hole in the ground. There is just abo ... (view rest)
Monday, 02 February 2004, 12:45:21 EDT
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N!xau is no longer with us. It seems he died from terberculosis last July while hunting. You can read his obituary here and more about him as a bushma ... (view rest)
Wednesday, 10 December 2003, 00:53:13 EDT
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I am really digging Gnome 2.4. It is very easy to use and allows a great deal of customization. I am particularly fond of the sticky notes applet.
I finally decided to organize my home directory tonight. I spent an hour on it and am not even halfway done. I have a 92GB /home partition and when I started cleaning up and organzing my directory I had ~8GB of that free. I know have 20.4GB free but ... (view rest)
Sunday, 23 November 2003, 11:35:19 EDT
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I was wandering around Best Buy yesterday trying to convince myself not to buy Need For Speed: Underground and I ended up going through the removable storage section. I don't know why but I really really want one of these: Plextor 708A. I don't even burn man ... (view rest)
Monday, 03 November 2003, 22:34:07 EDT
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Public access television is probably the worst thing ever. While looking for something to watch after dinner tonight I came across Take The Risk on ... (view rest)
Monday, 20 October 2003, 14:47:01 EDT
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Yet some more links for my own benefit.
Bonsai Web: A good overall resource dealing with the art of Bonsai (it has a large forum).
Bonsai Primer: This site looks to be perfect for the Bonsai beginner.
I already have a trident maple staked out at my grandparent's house. I don't want to move it until I know a little more though.
*** Update December 3, 2009 ***
It has been brought to my attention that the Bonsai Web link is no longer valid. Jen Reil from helpfulgardener.com ... (view rest)
Saturday, 27 September 2003, 10:35:31 EDT
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Wolven found the answer to the very odd duck question I posted a few days ago. Here it is:
In radio's heyday, Ish K. Bibble asked of Kay Kayser (on Kay Kayser's Kollege of Musical Knowledge) if he knew the difference between a duck. Kay allowed he didn't, and requested Ish to answer his own rhetorical question. Ish said: "The difference between a duck is that one of its legs is both the same."
Ish is also known for ... (view rest)
Tuesday, 23 September 2003, 18:47:26 EDT
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Someone please explain what the hell this means to me:
"Q: What is the difference between a duc ... (view rest)