Nashville Flashmob Group
Looks like someone else thought this was a good idea too. A flashmob group has been formed at Yahoo (bleh). You can find out more at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nashvilleflashmobproject/
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July 31, 2003
July 30, 2003
The F-Word
Those that that are offended by profanity may want to skip this entry, but I think this is pretty funny. I've always wondered what it is that make some words "bad" while other words with identical meaning are ok.
Well, The Smoking Gun has selected this for their 2003 Legal Document of the Year award. This motion was drafted to dismiss the charge of disorderly conduct against a teenager that apparently called his principal a variety of profane names. Everything you ever wanted to know about the F-word is contained within. Enjoy.
July 29, 2003
It has begun
It was a dark and stormy night... it seemed an appropriate time to purchase the components to what will be my first Windows based machine since the 12 Mhz 286 Packard Bell I had over 10 years ago. Yep, we finally broke down and decided to make the new system a Windows machine. I'll be building it myself so there is a strong possiblity that' it will never run. Here's the breakdown of my order with NewEgg, let me know what you think:
| Motherboard | Abit IS7 |
| CPU | Pentium 4 2.4GHz/800MHz |
| Memory | Corsair XMS PC-3200C2 512MB X2 |
| Case | Raidmax Model 278WSP |
| PS | Antec P4 ATX 12V 400W |
| CDRW | Lite On 52x24x52 LTR-52246S |
| HD | SEAGATE ST3120026AS 120GB |
| Video Card | Chaintech FX71 GeForce FX 5600 Ultra |
| Monitor | NEC 17 inch LCD1760V |
| Kbd/Mouse | Logitech Cordless Duo MX |
| OS | Windows XP SP1 |
Hopefully I can overclock this machine into the 3GHz range :)
BTW Mac people, I'm still keeping the PowerBook for my main computer. The PC will be the computer for the wife, kids, and the game of Unreal Tournament.
July 25, 2003
Nashville Flashmob?
OK now this is very cool. If anyone wants to assemble a flashmob in Nashville, let me know. I'd love to be a part of one here in the Music City. Any ideas for what we could do? Oh what fun we could have with the tourists!
Kidisms
This morning Alex was playing with her friend from next door and running around the house and so forth. Alex came up to me and told me about it and said, "I'm going to be feeling that tomorrow".
A couple days back Alexandria got in trouble for hitting her little brother and making him cry. After time-out we asked her to tell us what made her punch Aaron. Alex said, "Well you see we were playing and then my brain got a little crazy and so I'm punched him". She's not even 6 yet and is already trying to cop a temporary insanity plea.
A few days earlier Susie poured Aaron some juice and when she handed it to him he told her, "Tank you lil' lady".
July 24, 2003
A whole week!
Wow. It's been a week since I've wrote anything here. Bet ya'll are glad. Well, I need to change that.
OK, first, as for my health: I finally broke down and went to the doctor's over these strange momentary stabbing pains that I've had in my chest and the top of my hand. After explaining my symptoms, the doctor was pretty certain that they aren't cardiac pains, but to be sure we did an EKG and a chest X-Ray and I wore a portable EKG thingy for 24 hours, and everything looks great. So I'm relieved that I'm not having tiny heart attacks, but disappointed that I still don't know what these pains are. Oh and I do have really high cholesterol. Not much of a surprise there, guess I'll try and drop a few pounds... like 40. We'll see how that goes.
Second, the obligatory comment that the whole Iraq thing still sucks. And so do politics and government in general, but that really goes without saying. Maybe I should number my complaints. Some people have the 100 things about me lists. Perhaps I should come up with 100 things that piss me off. I don't imagine it would take long.
Third, and possibly most important is that some of you still haven't seen The Moon Song. It's stuff like this that really makes the internet worthwhile.
Fourth, yeah, I got hacked last week (again) by a bunch of bored Brazilian guys. But no permanent harm done.
Finally, last night me and a friend, Mark Rowan, went down (or is it up) to Uptown Mix and saw Ben Folds perform. I don't go to a lot of shows so I can't say with authority that it was really good, but I had a great time and enjoyed the show a lot. By the way, I don't go to a lot of concerts like I said, but is the encore basically a formality now? After Mr. Folds finished the set there was the usual cheering and so forth calling for an encore, and after the requisite amount of time he came back out an performed another couple of tunes. But the cheering wasn't deafening or anything. Is there a minimum noise level required to bring about an encore or is it a formality?
Oh yeah, and the wife and kids are great. Aaron is potty-trained now. Alexandria is reading pretty well now, yada yada yada.
So there's a little update on what's going on in my world. What's going on in yours?
July 17, 2003
Fantasy Football
It's that time of year again according to an email I received from Sportsline.com. Time to start thinking about fantasy football. Last year, me and some friends and family formed our own league on NFL.com and had a good time. I thought for sure I was going to win the whole thing. Sadly, Preist Holmes didn't help much as much down the stretch as he did in the beginning.
So, anyway I checked NFL.com this morning to see about putting together another league or two, but they have decided to charge money this year! It's $14.95 per team. Which isn't awful and yet mathematically, it's infinitely more than last year. And so we are left wondering where we should put together our league this year. Anyone have any opinion about the other fantasy football options out there? Right now we are leaning Yahoo I think. If you have an opinion or you want to talk fantasy football or football in general, pop by the football forum.
July 16, 2003
What is the purpose?
Maybe someone with experience working for a video rental store can help explain something to me: I went to Hollywood Video the other night to pick up a copy of The Gangs of New York. Generally, I'm a happy Netflix customer, but I was feeling impatient and decided to bypass the Netflix "Long Wait" and go pick it up from Hollywood Video. After a brief search I located what I thought was the DVD. I was a little suspicious, however, as the case said "display case only". Perhaps you bring the case to the counter and exchange it for the movie or something. After all, they wouldn't just put this case that says Gangs of New York on the shelf for no reason right? Wrong. The gentleman behind the counter explained that this was a display case only, or "disappointment case" in his words. And so, no Gangs of New York. I was too stunned at the moment to ask for an explanation behind the display case only concept. But now that a day has gone by, it's starting to aggravate me. What purpose could it serve? Perhaps to indicate to store personal where to place the non-display case only boxes when they are returned? But if so, why do they need 15 of them as Hollywood Video seemed to? Anyway, if anyone know what the point of these display cases only, please let me know, it's really bothering me.
July 11, 2003
Where's the outrage?
Several years ago a large percentage of the American public was outraged and demanded the impeachment of then president Clinton because he lied about receiving oral sex from an intern named Monica something. I was one of those people I did not like Mr. Clinton back then.
Now, the distorted truth and in some cases, I'm convinced, outright lying by the current administration about the intelligence, or lack thereof, regarding the threat posed by Iraq and particularly the alleged, still alleged mind you, weapons of mass destruction goes by basically unchallenged. Sure there has been some political posturing, but the typical man on the street seems to care less... at least in this country.
Now, this is the particularly interesting to me. Why is it that we as a society feel that sexual impropriety is much more scandalous than the killing of a few thousand Iraqis and a hundred or so Americans and British under false pretense? Why is it that if a movie is rated R that it is typically because of the horrifying sight of a bear breast or some such and a PG-13 movie can contain depictions of scores of killings? I don't understand the mentality? I mean, these were living breathing human beings. Someone's sons and daughters. Shouldn't we demand that there lives we taken for legitimate reasons and not simply for political gain or whatever the reason? Aren't their lives as meaningful as a stain on a dress?
A couple articles this morning that got me thinking again:
White House 'lied about Saddam threat'
Rumsfeld shifts stance on Iraq weapons
July 7, 2003
The Dangers of Cocoa Addiction
I recently discovered these tragic images in an email from my friend Mark. His son Aidan, apparently wacked out on 37 tablespoons of Nestle's Quick, was discovered in this state by his mother Jeanne who snapped these photos, graphically illustrating the dangers of cocoa abuse. Not to worry though. Word has it that Aidan, after a lengthy detoxification process, is at home resting quietly... relatively so, and is expected to make a complete recovery.
Top Ten survey
Your response (or lack thereof) has been noted and I'll be discontinuing the monthly Ancestor Top 10 (sorry Dad). I never managed make it into the top 10, but I'll still be keeping an eye on those logs. This month I came in at number 39. Oh so close. My Dad was not in the top 50 (sorry Dad).
July 6, 2003
5 years (mostly) injury free
Another Independence Day has come and gone and our annual celebration with our neighbors, Rich and Tracy, continues to grow every year. And again, improbably, no one has been seriously injured for the 5th consecutive year. We did have to beat some sparks out of Tracy's hair at one point, but no harm was done :) Every year me and Sue, Rich and Tracy and other friends and family come together for grilling, adult beverages, swimming and finally the pretty explosives. And every year we try and get just a little bigger than the last. This year was was no exception, though my new car payment put a damper on my fireworks spending ability. Fortunately Rich and the others were able to pick up the slack. This year's total came to roughly $750 if I figured correctly. And it was a great show as many other neighbors will attest. We're starting to attract a nice little crowd. And after the fireworks the entertainment continued as Rich had one or perhaps two too many. The neighbors may also recall screams of "Free Bird" ringing through the night from my slightly inebriated neighbor after the show had concluded.
Anyway, a great weekend (so far) I've avoided all news and have no idea what color the national fear level is. And this afternoon we're are going cap off the weekend by watching a movie starring another American institution, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Hope everyone had a great weekend and God Bless America! ... Freeeee Bird!!
July 3, 2003
Told you so!
Remember last week I wrote a bit called Only a matter of time? I said that eventually all of these "security procedures" were going to end up costing innocent people their lives. Fortunately, no one was killed, but I just read this in today's AVweb newsletter:
GA SECURITY IN PRACTICE -- FUEL STARVATION...
A pilot who said he ran out of fuel while circling outside the Washington, D.C., ADIZ, waiting for ATC to find his flight plan and clear him to enter, crashed four miles short of the runway on Sunday. The pilot and his two passengers suffered minor injuries. The Cessna 172 went down near Baltimore's Martin State Airport shortly after noon, according to the FAA Preliminary Report (scroll for Record 10). "The controller told me they couldn't find me in the system," pilot Dale Roger told the Baltimore Sun, and he kept circling for about an hour, waiting for an OK to enter the ADIZ so he could land at Martin Airport. More...
Granted, the pilot bore some responsibility here, but is the red tape and bureaucracy really making us more secure? I'm not suggesting we throw all the rules out the window, but surely there was some way to expedite this guy's clearance. Oh and if he'd been a terrorist, my guess is he wouldn't have bothered with the whole clearance thing.
July 2, 2003
Who's getting lucky?
I got an email with this subject:
1000 men will get laid tonight - be one of them
OK, according to the the Census web page there are 6,302,680,242 people in the world. Half would be men, so that's 3,151,340,121 guys. Let's say only 1/4 of those are sexually active (seems very conservative!). That's about 787,835,030 guys and of those 1000 will get lucky tonight or 1 in 787,835. Which also means that on average guys are only getting lucky once every 2158 years. This seems a wee bit low to me.
Note to porn spammers: I'd say a very conservative estimate would be that the average guy is having sex at once a month or so, and so the email would be more accurate if the subject were:
26,261,167 men will get laid tonight - be one of them
Things my kids say
Last night as I walked upstairs to tell the kids goodnight and Alexandria was coming down. "Alex, what are you doing out of bed?", I asked. "I heard an 'eh' in my room Daddy. Can you check it and see if you find anything?". Further investigation revealed nothing that might produce and 'eh' noise. Later that evening she claimed to hear something that made an "ee" noise.
I few days back Aaron was watching Susie at the mirror as she splashed some water into her eyes. Aaron, who had watched her put her contacts in recently, asked, "That you eyetacks Mama?"
July 1, 2003
Mac or PC
I didn't get a whole lot of responses on my last entry regarding my new computer. So I thought possibly if I asked more specific questions, it would generate more feedback. I have made one decision regarding my next machine, it will have at least 2 OS's installed. If it's a Mac, probably Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, and a Linux distro. With a PC, Windows XP and a Linux of some kind. I'm partial to Gentoo Linux personally. So anyway bear in mind that I'll have Linux available on either system. Here are some of the things I've been wondering:
- Roughly, where would a 1Ghz iMac rate performance-wise compared to a 2GHz PC? About the same?
- What percentage of PC games make it to the Mac and how long does it typically take to port?
- How does Virtual PC perform on a 1GHz G4 these days?
- How does iDVD compare to Movie Maker?
- How does The Gimp compare with Photoshop 5.5?
- How does iTunes compare to whatever it is people use on a PC?
- How does iPhoto compare to whatever it is people use on a PC?
- How easy will it be to move all of my music and photos between the two?
- Anything besides the iTunes store and a coherent user experience that is Mac exclusive?
- Anything besides a greater games selection and the ability to impulse shop for software at Wal-Mart, Best Buy, etc. that is PC exclusive?
- Anyone besides Apple make a nice wide screen LCD display?
- Where can I find a good site to describe the differencs between various PC chipsets? Not specific motheboards, but chipsets.
- Specifically, what is the difference between an 875P chipset and 865P chipset?
- Which platform has the best user/login system that is kid friendly too?
- Is it a pain to set up mySQL, php, and Apache under Windows XP, or easier to boot into Linux for web development work?
and finally
- Who is more evil, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates?
Continue the tradition?
It's the first of July and you know what that means... Only 3 more days til I get to blow up lots of up. Note to any and all CIA / FBI operatives that might have popped in for a visit, that means fireworks and nothing else. At least intentionally.
But besides the annual exploding money festival we like to have on the 4th, I've been doing this ancestor top 10 thing every month here at pr3d4t0r.com. It's interesting to me to see who people are searching for, and it's also a way to try and spotlight ancestors and let people know a little more about them. But, is it interesting to more than me (and my Dad who monitors closely for his reemergence into the top 10)? Let me know.