glurt
in words of five or fewer letters.
  

The 24 Hours of LeMons blog

my poor old car 
Juno Reactor - Pistolero
2009-02-12 12:55:46



Storage charges will accrue daily until the vehicle is released.

- -the notification letter

In 2004 while I was working in Dallas, I bought a 1984 Mercedes 500SEL. It was a nice car, with some neat options like a reclining rear seat, adjustable sport suspension, heated seats, and it was the European model so quite fast. It needed some work (we should all be familiar with this story by now) but I kept it around for a while before we decided to get the BMW instead. I sold it in 2005.

About a week ago, I saw the postman coming down the walk, and he handed me a certified letter from a towing company in San Marcos. They had my car, and wanted $286.50 for fees. Apparently whoever had purchased it had never changed the title over. My brother-in-law and I went down yesterday to have a look, and a sad sight met our eyes. Mechanically, as far as I could tell, the car was exactly how I sold it four years ago - even the odometer read the same within a couple of hundred miles. Cosmetically, it was horribly maimed. Someone had painted the entire car, even the chrome, with dull black spray paint (and it had pretty nice black paint when I sold it). Both turn signals were missing and replaced with crazy wire and yellow cellophane contraptions. The inside of the car was full of stuff - all fairly neatly packed as if someone had been moving (versus living in the car, but who knows), and the front seat was reclined nearly all the way back. It was locked, and of course I no longer had the key. The stunted little man who let us in said it had been towed from an apartment complex.

After Erroll and I had our look, we went back to the office, and I asked what the fees were. The woman behind the counter (who to her credit had been quite polite to us the entire time) rustled through some paperwork and said $550 something. I said "Oh no, that's too much, thanks!" and turned and left. I think the woman was fully expecting us to get our car back, and she said "Oook" as we left. Anyway, it was strangely sad to see my neat old 500SEL so hideously ruined. The reason why someone felt the need to cover the car in black spray paint eludes me. I guess there is someone out there missing a carload of stuff too.

my iPhone review 
Sasha and John Digweed - Northern Exposure Vol. 1
2008-11-11 11:06:22



These waves happen all around us now...radio waves, television channels, X-rays....

- - "These Waves"- Young American Primitives

I've had my iPhone for a few weeks now, and this is what I think. I think you should get one. I really do. My last phone was a Palm Treo 650, which was useful but not easy to use. There are about 55 things I deeply love about the iPhone, and three or four that I hate with the heat of a thousand suns. So I'll start with the negatives first:

1. No MMS. This is a giant, glaring, nearly deal-killing fault. Why this was left out is a mystery, since it's really a crucial part of having a phone with a camera. Picture transmission, HELLO!! Yes, you can email pictures very easily, but receiving them is right out, and other phones find it pretty hard to email pictures. Apple really screwed up here.
2. The battery life is really bad. In my normal usage, it lasts about a day. I've started off in the morning fully charged, and at 7 PM it's been down to 10%. I've left it fully charged and off the charger overnight and the next morning the battery has been down to 30% (without any network use as far as I know). This is with normal calling, internet use, etc. The Treo always lasted at least two days, sometimes three, but with less internet use. The iPhone will charge from a USB port so I just leave it plugged in all the time at my desk.
3. It's rather difficult to get custom ringtones working. I have a pile of MIDI files I used on all my other phones, and on the iPhone (which won't play MIDI) I have to convert them to a .wav in iTunes, edit with Audacity to less than 30 seconds, save as an mp3, change the extension, then reimport to iTunes. Also, you can't change the SMS tone at all from the four or five default tones.
4. Safari crashes occasionally and has no Flash support, which is annoying sometimes.
5. I can't stream from my server's mp3 stream (which uses ampache). Other Internet radio stations work fine though.
6. No cut and paste, which I occasionally used.
7. No tethering. I could tether my Treo via Bluetooth with a little work, and it came in handy once or twice. With the ubiquity of wireless access points, this is less of a concern than it used to be.

That's all the bad stuff I've found so far. Everything except the lack of MMS I can deal with. Now for the lovely good stuff:

1. The interface is everything people say it is, and more. Intuitive, easy, functional, I can't say enough. Apple has always excelled in this area and this is no exception. There are some minor inconsistencies in where functions are located on different screens but you really don't notice.
2. The App Store makes this phone really, really useful. Everything I knew I needed (except MMS) and some things I didn't realize I needed can be found there. Some are free, some cost money, but the wealth of applications is exciting. The games are fun too, even the free ones.
3. Email works great and is easy to use on my IMAP server.
4. The wireless and GPS connectivity are wonderful. I especially like that applications can use the GPS information.
5. The keyboard and text recognition work just fine once one gets used to it. Occasionally the text recognition gets in the way, but for the most part it helps you type rather faster.
6. The camera is just fine except in really low-light situations.

So in short, I have a love-hate relationship with the iPhone. If it had MMS and a better battery, it would be more of a love-slight dislike relationship.

anniversary 
BH Surfers - Electriclarryland
2008-11-06 08:39:57



The jingle of a dog's collar would be good right here.

- BH Surfers

The Statesman is running a "Hot or Not" basset hound contest, which made me miss Hugh as the third anniversary of his death approaches. He was a beautiful, unique, and good-natured dog (although he did get a little habit-bound and stodgy in his old age), and he and I were just about inseparable for 12 years. I submitted his picture to the Statesman so if they accept it he'll be in here somewhere:

Best Bassett Hound

Solving Netflix DRM problems over S-Video

value as a function of credit 
Boards of Canada - Trans Canada Highway
2008-10-22 12:11:57



A lesson from Duck Tales

- Duck Tales

A frequent topic of discussion lately has been the credit crisis, and how the credit bubble has affected prices of new and used goods. I was aware several years ago of a huge decline in demand for used electronics, especially computers, printers, and monitors. I had computers and CRT monitors that I couldn't give away, even though they were perfectly useful, in fact functionally equivalent to new items. A computer monitor displays the same image whether or not it's a CRT, LCD, plasma, whatever. If someone needed a monitor, any monitor would work (ignoring details like power usage and refresh rate, of course, just talking about basic viewing needs). But no one wants these things any more, because (for instance) Dell offers credit and new computers with flat panels for only $20 a month. This leaves the market for obsolete yet useful equipment in sad shape. This is a problem, since it's inflating consumption and prices for everything - easy access to credit causes a rise in new product purchasing and inversely the market for ugly yet functional used products atrophies.

As for the monitors, I tried to give them away for a couple of months, and finally left them on the curb with the garbage. They sat there for a couple of days and finally the garbagemen picked them up. I have a couple of perfectly functional four- or five-year old computers about to suffer the same fate because no one wants them for any reason. I am curious to see if the restriction of credit has any effect on this (although last evening at Home Depot, they had delegated an employee to ask customers if they wanted to refinance their house, so apparently it's business as usual).

the death of the iPod 
U2 - B-Sides
2008-10-10 08:22:56



All roads lead to where you are.

- U2

Steve Wozniak has recently predicted the death of the iPod. I never purchased an iPod, actually. I won a Dell Digital Jukebox for being a good employee at my last job, which has served me well. It's large, very large, I would say brick-like except that would be unfair to bricks. But the battery lasts 18-20 hours, it's 15GB which holds plenty, and it's simple and easy to use.

The thing is, I find myself not using it much. I've ripped my CDs to mp3, and put them all on an external drive plugged into the server. I use Amarok in the house to play music, and when I'm traveling, I just stream from the server on my laptop. When I haven't got my laptop, I stream through my Treo using Pocket Tunes (the only non-free part of this) and Ampache. I use the mp3 player on airplanes, and that's really about it. It all sounds a little complicated, and it is, but I predict plug and play solutions as the wireless network increases in bandwidth. The nice thing is that this was all fairly inexpensive - the software is all free except Pocket Tunes for the Treo, which cost about $40. The server of course cost a little, but any old computer will work for this, with Linux (I like OpenSuse or Ubuntu) and Apache installed (which it usually is by default). Amarok is awesome and free. Ampache is also free. The Treo itself I purchased used from Craigslist for $150. The data plan for it is $20 a month, give or take. High-speed internet at this point is pretty much a given (and one of the nice things about Ampache is that you can downsample, and stream everything at 96 or 128 kbps, well within the means of most upstream DSL connections). Costs all taken together with the exception of the data plan and assuming the repurposing of an older computer, my setup costs less than an iPhone. It's not hard to set up, although it does take a little work, but now that I have it, I find the iPod becoming just a device for niche use when no internet connectivity at all exists. That situation is becoming quite rare these days.

ramirez! 
Paul Oakenfold - Ramirez-Hablando
2008-08-25 13:25:16



What is this?

- everyone

Half the house is now tiled, and now we have to tile the other half. The first half wasn't too bad - we sold some furniture we didn't feel like moving, and made room for the rest in the other half of the house. The bedrooms, though, seem to attract the largest amount of immovable objects (shortly to meet my irrestible force), not to mention innumerable knickknacks that of course we can't get rid of because each one means something. I told Melanie we would have to start writing down what they meant, though, because the stories were getting fuzzy. If anyone walked into the house right now, they would see a pile with items like the following:
1. A matching pair of 100ml Pyrex flasks, with stoppers;
2. A 6" piece of landscaping timber;
3. An empty bottle of Diamond Hill Merlot;
4. A strange array of LEDs in a silver box.

etc.
Now, in context - the flasks are from the old IQA lab at Hitachi, and are about the only artifacts I have from my years working on the S-806 SEM there. The piece of wood is the one we gleefully sawed off at our wedding, in the game organized by Dirk and Claudia. The bottle was the $200 bottle of wine Marcelo and I accidentally ordered at the old Mezzaluna restaurant on Colorado (it was good though). The LED array is a binary clock Anne gave me for my birthday years ago, and makes me feel like a smart person explaining it to guests. All these things must be saved and organized and made to look attractive!

burglars 
Jane's Addiction - Ritual De Lo Habitual
2008-08-22 15:55:11



Is it Friday already?

- The Usual Suspects

My sister sent me a text message a while ago "I just went over to mom's house and it's been broken into!!" and indeed it had. The greasy perps had either forcefully jimmied or kicked in the front door and rampaged through the house taking....nothing, except my brother's ancient Playstation (version 1). They didn't take the TV, DVD player, computer, jewelry, second TV or DVD player, camera in leather case on my brother's bed in plain view, DVDs, or the bowl of quarters on the end table. It's almost criminal to have to replace a door because of a raggedy old Playstation. Anyway, quote of the day goes to Mother, who reportedly said the following in something of a temper:
I bet they took something really annoying, like the microwave!


feature creep 
Orbital - Live at Glastonbury
2008-07-25 11:44:58


"The icemaker takes up too much room!"

- my lovely wife

I was poking through the refrigerator about oh....three weeks ago and realized everything felt not quite as cold as normal. Also the ice cream in the freezer had been a little soft, and I started to get a bad feeling. This premonition was borne out a few days later when everything in the freezer melted. It's a Kenmore refrigerator, and I took it apart and discovered the compressor was burning hot and the coils were just a little chilly. Lasted 8 years, oh well. We went to Home Depot, Best Buy, and finally Lowe's (which had by far the best selection of the three), and weren't able to make up our minds, so finally I decided to try and order one online. I found www.homeeverything.com, and ordered a nice Whirlpool from there. Well...after a few days no shipping confirmation had arrived, so I called to check (their customer service was actually pretty good), and they told me it was backordered, and to wait 3-5 days. So I did, and called back after five days - whoops, model was discontinued, we'll give you the new model for the same price, it'll be 3-5 days. I waited five days, and called back again - factory wasn't delivering the new models until August 15, which basically meant a month without a refrigerator. (Actually, the Kenmore sputtered to life again and we could at least use the freezer as a refrigerator (except it kept unexpectedly freezing things not meant to be frozen), and I have a little beer fridge in the garage which we could stuff a few things into, so we weren't too desperate.) Anyway, I finally cancelled the order for the Whirlpool and bought a GE that had the same features I wanted, but cost considerably more, and shipped that afternoon, and will be here in a couple of days.

Anyway, I don't know what the real point of this story is...it's not that you shouldn't buy large appliances online, but in any sort of emergency you should be prepared to take what you can get and don't fixate on integrated water dispensers and ice makers unless you're prepared for three weeks of non-refrigerated food.

on the road 
Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
2008-06-06 11:44:32



On the road again -
Just cant' wait to get on the road again..

- Willie Nelson

I had a packing dilemma for the motorcycle trip, since I was flying to DC first for a business trip and then returning to Colorado Springs to pick up the motorcycle. I had to pack my gear plus my clothes, laptop, documents, endless amounts of stuff into two quite small bags. The helmet and my leather bomber jacket (which is unparalleled for cold weather motorcycle riding) and my boots were the most unpackable items. Melanie found a hideous blue duffel bag with sort of a mouse-ear design on it for $2.50 at Garden Ridge, and I managed to get all my clothes into that and everything else into my backpack.

My flight out of Dulles into Denver left at 6 AM (Eastern) and I dragged myself out of bed at 3:45. I made it to Colorado Springs around 9 AM (Mountain). I called the guy who was picking me up, and it turned out he'd just locked himself out of the house and had to go to where his wife worked to get his extra set of keys. So I waited and walked around the airport in the wonderful May weather, with Pike's Peak looming in the background, until he arrived. We did the deal, went to lunch at a brew pub (no brew for me, of course, worse luck because it looked pretty tasty), and I managed to get the bike packed with the ugly duffel bag crammed into the side case, my backpack bungeed to the luggage rack and the GPS fastened more or less securely to the handlebars. I motored out of Colorado Springs around 4 PM and headed south down IH-25. The scenery was beautiful, and the weather was fine, and there wasn't much traffic. I meant to stop and take many more pictures than I actually did, but either I forgot or there wasn't a good place to stop.

One of the first things I noticed was that my throttle hand kept going numb, from my gloves I suppose which were a bit too large. The Throttlemeister helped a lot with this, and after figuring that out I was much more comfortable. I rode down out of the mountains and into New Mexico, and at Raton I left 25 and headed down 87 towards Amarillo. I passed the Capulin volcano, but by this time it looked like I was about to get rained on. I suddenly realized I didn't know if my backpack (with my laptop inside) was waterproof, so I hurried past without taking a picture. There was as nearly as possible no one on the roadsAbout 9 PM (Central) I arrived in Clayton, NM, and stopped at the Kokopelli Best Western, which turned out to be pretty nice, and after getting the bike up on its center stand for the first time (which took some effort and pinched off a piece of the sole of my boot....obviously I did it wrong) I took off the side cases and backpack, dropped everything on the floor of my room and collapsed into a deep and well-deserved sleep.

Saturday morning I ate a quick breakfast and got back on the road about 8AM. I went through Amarillo and headed south on 27 for Tulia, where I got on 86 to Silverton where my dad lives. I stayed there Saturday night, and got back on the road early Sunday, after some comedy in getting the bike out of my dad's gravel driveway...deep gravel.

I had been following a cold front nearly the whole way, with the resulting 40MPH or so wind on the plains buffeting me around. I rode through Turkey and noticed it was getting steadily colder as I reached Roaring Springs. I saw 45 degrees on a bank sign at one point, and the heated grips were coming in handy. Things warmed up though and by the time I reached Abilene, it was a balmy day. I ate lunch at a Subway and then started on the last stretch south towards home. It was getting hot as I reached Goldthwaite, and by the time I neared Austin I had my jacket unzipped and the visor open. I had to stop and fumble around for change on the 183-A toll road, but after that I cheered up and zipped home, pulling into my driveway around 5 PM. The trip odometer read just over a thousand miles.

i zoom 
Fluke - Oto
2008-05-19 11:23:16



You'll put your eye out.

- A Christmas Story

I love the Mercedes but with 10.5:1 compression and gas the price it is (3.95 for premium this morning) it's wasteful booming along by myself to work every morning. (In its defense, we got 17 mpg in it, going 80 mph loaded to the gills with the AC on and a howling head wind, both ways, on the recent trip to Silverton to see my dad.)

The answer to this problem was (as the answer to any problem should be) a motorcycle. I had a battered 1986 Honda Rebel 450 for a few years in school, that I put about 23,000 miles on, but I wanted something nicer this time and settled on a 2004 BMW R1150RT, with about 13,000 miles that turned up in the Cycle Trader. The settling process was long and involved. When I called about this particular bike, it turned out the owner was in the Army and had just relocated to Colorado Springs, CO, with the bike. I initially dismissed it but after several other prospects failed to pan out, I began thinking Colorado wasn't all that far away.

Everything then fell into place and I ended a business trip to Washington, DC by returning not to Austin but to Colorado Springs, met the seller and the bike, was pleased as punch with everything, and did the deal. I'll post the story later!

canned history 
Global Communication - 76:14
2008-05-02 14:14:43



Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

- George Santayana

I just finished reading William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It's an excellent book, accurate and compelling. Such is my life that I read nearly all of it while in the loo. I should point out though that my normal reading time has lately been taken up by Jekyll and Lost Room, and by mowing the lawn because the batteries in the lawn-mowing robot have failed. So don't feel too sorry for me.

let the words be free 
Massive Attack - Mezzanine
2008-03-27 19:16:34


Journal

- xkcd

First off, let me say I hate the word blog. It sounds like something that happens the morning after fish and chips night, except it's taken on a pretentious tone lately that collides incongruously with its onomatopoeia. I do not consider this a blog, because blogging intimates that an audience exists, and they are hungrily hanging on to every worth that comes blogging forth. I am under no such illusion - maybe two people read this with any regularity and I am one of them. I write it for me, because sometimes I like to read what I've written. Narcissistic? Sure.

All that being said, my wife (who, when asked, admitted she doesn't read this) has started her own blog. Unlike me, she has an audience. (I find myself slightly jealous, even though the audience is just my large extended family.) It's quite good, I think, I have actually found myself having a look in the afternoons to see if she's put anything else down for the day (although it gets rehashed between us in the evening anyway). Now if I can just help her figure out her MP3 player, we might actually start living in the 21st century here (I'm just kidding, Mel, I love you :))

Haiku No. 2 
Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet
2008-02-19 17:18:21



-

Imposing tape safe.
Try the handle on a whim:
Exception noted.


a bit of vacation 
Fluke - Switch/Twitch
2008-02-18 10:30:21


Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore!

- The Wizard of Oz

I had some work to do in Covington, Tennessee, which is as remote a location for a mainframe as I've ever seen in this age of connectivity. I was planning to visit a friend in Memphis (who deserves congratulations on her recent achievements!!!) and decided to fly Southwest to Nashville to get the double credits. (Please ignore the fact that I could have flown to Little Rock, which is about an hour closer - Tennessee fools me that way often.) I just missed the storm of tornadoes that wreaked havoc across the state. They hit Tuesday evening and I flew in Wednesday evening and drove down I-40 to Memphis. It was very dark but I started to see debris glinting in the trees such as green road signs, and tin, and the highway had muck all over it, and then I passed a large truck smashed at the side of the road, and strange gaps appeared in the trees to each side. It looked pretty bad even in pitchy darkness, and I shuddered and drove on to Covington.

I spent a nice peaceful weekend hanging out and having fun and then drove back to Nashville Sunday. On the way back that afternoon (which was very nice - cold, breezy, and sunny) I saw more of the damage: a thicket of pine trees all snapped off about 10-15 feet high, wads of heavy debris in trees and hedgerows, a line of people walking through a field that had apparently once contained a house but now exhibited only shredded furnishings smeared colorfully across the trampled grass. There is a fine line between drinking beer and napping comfortably on a chaise lounge in a sunroom and being reduced to animal survival (if one is so lucky) after having the whole thing thrown down around your ears in a tornado.

But such thoughts were banished quickly - I had a great time (thanks!) and my opinion of Memphis improved considerably (in many ways it's like Austin). The food and drink and rest and companionship were excellent, and there were no tornadoes, so what more could one ask for a bit of vacation?

word is the enemy of English 
Gallant Lady - Ken Henry and Don Keith
2008-01-24 14:05:30



Let your fingers do the walking.

- Southwestern Bell Yellow Pages slogan

Word ruins my typing skills. My fingers have words memorized - if I need to type a phrase I commonly use such as

The control appears to be designed appropriately.

then my fingers know just what to do and I can type it quite fast. Word, with its autocorrecting, encourages my fingers to do strange things like constantly type "desinged", because it autocorrects and I don't have to go back to type it again the right away. Encouragement of bad habits leads to typing anarchy!! '

the last day of 2007 
Fluke - Tosh
2007-12-31 17:59:00



For disappearing acts, it's hard to beat what happens to the eight hours supposedly left after eight of sleep and eight of work.

- Doug Larsen

It's the end of 2007, 2008 is tomorrow and the great cycle of the year's work starts right over again. I googled the quote this time. Normally I don't, I have something lurking in my head that's appropriate but this one was quite apt, echoes the atmosphere of this last year. The year has gone by quickly, and I expect next year will pass even more quickly, and so on until I'm old and gray. Ian shoots up like a little sprout, odometers tick upwards, the Fiat slowly reassembles, a parade of computers enters and leaves my den, the numbers on the scale oscillate in a steady frequency, and age and slow decay settles in.The other day I realized that something I had left on a corner of the bookshelf to find a home for later had been sitting there for a year unmolested except by the duster.

But new years bring new breezes, and it's up to you to make something of what the wind carries.

not much difference when you think about it 
Silversun Pickups - Carnavas
2007-11-15 14:42:12



-

I wonder how many people realize the Decemberists are actually from Portland.

doctor who is required 
Ravel - Bolero
2007-11-12 16:43:53


When you have some guy dressed in a fish suit with a bowl on his head you had better have some story to go with it.

- me

I've been watching Doctor Who for nearly 25 years. The funny thing is that I started watching it about when it really started to go downhill, at the end of the Peter Davison years, around 1984. Luckily they were rerunning all the old episodes on KLRN back then and so I got hooked on William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton instead of the idiocy of the last two Doctors that passed as entertainment in the mid-late 80s. Not that the old ones were on the level of Stanley Kubrick - anyone who's seen them knows the production flaws inherent to old Doctor Who. But the stories also had a mild psychosis that the new Doctor with its polished production seems to lack. I like the new Doctor Who, it has some new elements I find interesting (and a few I find annoying) but it just seems a bit flat sometimes.

KLRN aired Doctor Who at 9:30 or 10 PM on weeknights, so I very rarely got to watch. My dad spent quite a lot of time recording the shows for me - I'm sure he must have been fairly sick of it after a few months. (Remember this was back in the day, when VCRs didn't have reliable programming and no One-Touch Record - was I ever excited when that feature appeared - so he had to start and then stay up to stop it.)

The new episodes are not bad, but Daleks seemed a lot scarier in black and white. There were other touches like the mind-eating Krotons, and the forest of words, and the Mechanoids, which were just weird. (Too bad they're gone for good, at the end of the episode their city burned like Styrofoam.) The Doctor had to arrange Jamie's face which had been turned into puzzle pieces in The Mind Robber, and he got it wrong. There aren't any wicked little touches like that these days. Yes, the production values are better, but good production is a dangerous crutch for writers.

once more into the breach! 
Mazzy Star - Into Dust
2007-11-06 19:40:01



Go ahead, Steve, tell us your lame excuse.

- Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Parking idiot No.2, in cream sauce:

This wasn't as egregiously rude as the last one, but still funny. I'm looking forward to a lot more of this as the holiday stress takes hold in everyone except me. I'm staying out of it all, of course - I don't think I set foot in a retail area last year for any of my Christmas shopping. The Internet is my friend. This Christmas is going to be fun! We've rented a large party house and I've brewed 10.5 gallons (that's 40 lovely liters folks) of beer. Say goodbye to stress, and hello to the holidays!

I can has parking? 
Snow Patrol - Shut Your Eyes
2007-09-20 20:04:54



Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

- Hanlon's razor

We went to the Drafthouse to see The Bourne Ultimatum (sold out, saw Transformers instead) and while hunting for a parking spot saw this junky Caprice parked in not 2, not 3, but 4 spaces in the middle of the crowded lot. They must have been frightened of door dings or being boxed in - guess they didn't think of keys.



garage lifting 
Decemberists - The Crane Wife 3
2007-09-19 12:25:48


How could they walk away with a two-foot-tall umbrella vase without anyone noticing?

- one of us

We had our yearly garage sale last weekend. Every year the HOA advertises and puts out signs and we drag all our crap out onto the driveway and make a few bucks. Some of the stuff we realize we owned is pretty hideous. Melanie turned up a candle holder that looked like half a grapefruit, for instance (sold for 25 cents, lucky us). We had some china pieces of some brand that's supposed to be collectible - I forget what it is at the moment but it's one of those manufactured collectibles like Precious Moments or Beanie Babies or whatever (although these were much more tasteful). However, they apparently were not as collectible as all that because I tried repeatedly to sell them on Craigslist and Ebay with zero success. I put them out, scribbled $3 on the box, and waited like a spider. A lady came up to me clutching them to her chest as if she'd just discovered the rare purple Beanie Baby Monkey Butt, and asked how much they were. I said $3 and she gave me the money and scurried away like she was afraid I might call out, "Wait, wait, I'm sorry, they're valuable, they weren't supposed to be out here!" But I was just like, I'm so glad someone bought those damn things.

But the things that sold and didn't sell surprised me. Some old lady bought a bunch of computer parts, but not the nice stuff, only the old serial cards and modems and 2MB video cards. People completely ignored the stroller but bought baby clothes. Melanie had several unopened packages of Pullups she was selling for half price, which no one wanted. At some point someone stole one package. A couple of years ago people descended on us and caused a diversion while the garage sale crew backing them up took anything they could grab that wasn't nailed down. This is not valuable stuff we're selling - old wineglasses, pots, picture frames, ancient hard drives, a fifth-hand copy of "V" on VHS....typical garage sale junk, yet it seems people will steal it if they can. To be fair though we weren't all that peeved (except for the umbrella vase, which wasn't ours) since generally we just donate anything we don't sell at the end of the day.

the winds of war 
Depeche Mode - Behind The Wheel
2007-08-22 12:47:05



This huge two part miniseries was said to have been the 'last of the miniseries'.

- Wikipedia

I never understand people who only read a book once and never go back to it. Changing times bring new perspectives on old stories, and so you can never really squeeze all the juice from a good book. I read a couple of Herman Wouk books to tatters years ago, The Caine Mutiny and The Winds of War / War and Remembrance. I remember seeing The Winds of War miniseries. Anyway, I've been rereading the books again - they are very good and I highly recommend them. Wouk has some common themes in his books, at least the ones I've read - the lazy, intelligent kid who matures and learns responsibility, the overachiever who is killed in a heroic manner involving fire, bored wives getting themselves into trouble, and mismatched romances. The history is accurate and the human experience is always very well described....lots of lessons in these books, and the older I get the more I realize their value. I'll probably watch the miniseries again now although I remember the first one at least being rather "Thorn Birds"ish in nature with too much soapy drama and not enough gritty detail (not to mention Jan Michael Vincent, who just makes me think of Airwolf and laugh painfully). Now I'm trying to remember other famous miniseries from the 80s...Shogun anyone?

three's a crowd 
Depeche Mode - Policy of Truth single
2007-07-29 10:05:24


"Just wanted to find out some opinions on trail mix. Is this stuff ok?"

- well is it?

I have to admit I'm a closet trail mix eater. Especially if it has stuff like dried apricots in it - you can pop one of those in your mouth and BAM! you've just eaten a whole apricot in one bite! No pit, no fuss, no muss, all the fiber you can handle and what did you have to do for it? Not much, that's for sure! And then on top of that you still have all the nuts and raisins and assorted bits to nibble on! what can possibly be better than that??

every day is like Sunday 
The Sundays - Here's Where The Story Ends
2007-07-24 14:42:43


"I don't know how many times I've thought, "I don't like the Pogues" and then I hear a song and say, hey that's pretty good, later to find its a Pogues tune...."

- Radio Paradise comments

I have to admit I'm a closet Sundays fan...I don't even know why, it's probably her voice. I think "I don't like the Sundays" but find myself listening to them when they play, and it makes me feel just that little bit of special.

black and white 
Banco De Gaia - Last Train to Lhasa
2007-07-22 11:21:12


"Long story," said Ron.

- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I have to admit I've been something of a closet reader of the Harry Potter books - mainly listening to them in the car while commuting. I splurged and bought the last one, and finished it yesterday evening. I thought it was all right, the ending was about what I expected, but what struck me (and the more I think about it, the more of a hole it seems in the story) is - what is there left to do? SO there's all these good people left, doing good things and occasionally dealing with a misdemeanor such as a flying car, but really, where's the struggle? The existence of everyone was more or less defined by the evil of Voldemort and I had this mental picture of everyone just looking at each other for the next nineteen years and saying, "well that was a damned close-run thing, glad it's over.....what do we do now?" The epilogue kind of fell apart under that vision - happy little children running through strawberry fields forever, to where?

a whole lotta nothing...but wait, there's more! 
Stereophonics - "Moviestar"
2007-07-17 13:06:27


"[stupid article about hacking an ATM by entering cardinal numbers] 1 2 3 4 5 - Why, that's the same combination as my luggage! ORDER THE INVASION! And change the code on my luggage!"

- user Evil-Dragon on digg.com, cribbing from Spaceballs

Sometimes I have nothing to say, and this is one of those times. We're eating pizza from Brooklyn Pie Company and trying to get some work done. It's pouring rain again. The quote made me laugh, I need to watch that movie again, and I'm listening to Radio Paradise, as usual. Lunch break over, back to work!! Oh yeah, and I'm going to be promoted. :)

on the road 
Emmylou Harris and Mark Knopfler - "Right Now" on Radio Paradise
2007-07-13 17:37:45


Important: Installation...of non-BMW approved accessories...may cause extensive damage to the vehicle....or affect the validity of the BMW limited warranty.

- BMW sticker

I got my Treo to stream internet radio-it's super awesome. Last Tuesday I hooked it up in the BMW on the way to work and enjoyed Radio Paradise, from the internet. I am actually posting this while riding down 15th on the way home. Technology marches on!

Haiku No. 1 
Aphex Twin - SomaFM - Space Station Soma
2007-06-06 10:24:58


Music soothes taut nerves
but some days are Aphex Twin days
and some are not.

- Me



the sound and the fury 
Sounds From the Ground - Kin (on SomaFM)
2007-06-05 11:13:10


Once I take care of the humans, I will start my war...against the bees!

- Invader Zim

My mother-in-law is moving so we were over at her house helping clean up for looky-loos. I had my pressure washer out to wash the siding on the second story and Melanie had a rake to pull down some of the ivy that's grown up there. Judy and Ian were looking for lizards and I had just started washing, when Melanie yanked down a vine and a spout of angry bees boiled out from a hole under the siding. Everyone scattered like cockroaches in a strong light except me, I am proud to say. I fought the ravening swarm with my pressure washer while trying to figure out the best way to turn off the engine, put the cap on the soap bottle, and run away all in one graceful motion. Clouds of bees began circling overhead in preparation for a massive Africanized dive-bombing run and I capitulated and ran like a little girl. After a while I ventured inside the garage and put my ear to the wall and I could hear the hive buzzing inside. I like honeybees, I am quite happy to see them in the flowers but having a buzzing hive within the walls of one's house is another matter entirely. A beekeeper came and vacuumed up free bees and removed the comb from the walls, bees stinging him all the while...not a job I envy. A friend of Judy's who had the same problem told us the beekeeper removed a 30-pound comb from the walls of her house.

stick it to the man 
The Lash - "Lucky One" played on Radio Paradise
2007-03-12 21:14:19


When you download MP3s, you're downloading communism!

- Anonymous

There's shenanigans going on with internet radio. Everyone is up in arms about the increase in internet radio fees. It's a puzzling problem since I probably bought more CDs because of music I heard first on the Internet than from any of the crappy radio stations. When I worked at Dell, I had a little radio and listened to 101X all day long...it was horrible. The same loop of songs, over and over and over, with an insane amount of time devoted to commercials. Later on at the long slow time at TXU, I listened to SomaFM for hours on end, and life was much better. So why the death blow to internet radio? The last time this happened (in 2002), Hilary Rosen, then the head of the RIAA, said rather caustically that if the internet radio stations couldn't come up with a business model to support their costs (after a huge increase in performance fees), they deserved to go out of business. So just as for most other evil, follow the money -> Let's think about the vast difference between regular radio and say, Radio Paradise. 101X plugs the same few songs in heavy heavy rotation, based I suppose on the premise that people tend to like what they hear often (and also that people pretty much only listen to the radio in cars, so for a fairly short period of time while commuting). With the advent of devices to play internet radio anywhere, such as cell phone, internet enabled car radios, etc. the old business models prevalent in analog broadcasting are being threatened. (Don't get me wrong, I like analog as a technology, I think it should stick around, but just not play crappy songs all the time.) Anyway, internet radio is somehow threatening to someone, so I guess we'll see what plays out. Maybe a negotiation will be reached, maybe not, but in the meantime enjoy the forest of music available on the internet because it may not be around for long.

a little crazy 
Jules Verne - 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
2007-03-09 21:07:38


I agree with you dude, but you sound a little crazy.

- -user "trubbleshute" on digg.com

I had to make a post just to use the quote, which made me laugh pretty hard. BUt yeah, the "band" does say "Jules Verne"...we are listening to the audio book while commuting and it's really prety good. I read it when I was a kid and sort of dismissed it then, but in spite of the laughably crazy science and weird turns of phrase, it is a pretty good yarn. Rich man gets deposed, builds a super kickass submarine and starts ramming his enemy's ships...now where have we heard that before?

all things come 
Fluke - Puppy
2007-03-02 18:36:01


Beware the fury of a patient man.

- John Dryden

Back in the day, I bought the game Marathon 2:Durandal for my 486 PC. I played the original Marathon on a friend's Macintosh, and was happy I could play the sequel under Windows 95. Then I heard Marathon:Infinity was being released, and imagine my woe when I discovered it was only available on the Macintosh.

So years passed, and I occasionally wondered what happened in Infinity. Imagine my joy when I discovered it had been released as an open source game by Bungie. I just now installed it on my Ubuntu system, and it works great, and after all these years i finally get to hear the end of the story. The super added bonus is that I can also replay the original Marathon! Fun fun fun!

guess who's back 
The The - 45RPM
2007-02-11 13:44:35



Change is the illusion of progress.

- unknown

A year or so ago I decided to install Wordpress in place of the pile of steaming scripts that is Glurt (brewed up by me after digesting my new knowledge of Perl and PHP). As it happened, I prefer the old Glurt, and so out went Wordpress and here we are. The bad news is that several months ago I moved the database from one server to another, and in the process managed to lose the backup. So several entries have been lost - not many, but of course every one counts. Maybe I'll find the backup CD, maybe not, but at least everything else is back and working.

do you have a joystick? - 04/17/04 16:21:10 CDT
> White Stripes - White Blood Cells

Here's the next game in the old game series: Thexder. This game on our old Tandy 1000 was pretty cool, I thought - it had wonderful 4-channel music (which unfortunately seems to be lost forever, as it only plays single tones on the PC speaker now). Some of the levels were really interesting, as well. I was severely disappointed when I got to the end, though. After all that work!!

which OS are you? - 04/17/04 16:08:22 CDT
> - Master and Commander Soundtrack

I was a little surprised at this, but upon reflection it seemed appropriate.

You are Amiga OS. Ahead of your time.  You keep a lot of balls in the air.  If only your parents had given you more opportunities to suceed.
Which OS are You?

thothware - 03/06/04 16:17:11 CST
> - Myst Soundtrack

"Durandal's last instructions were for us to reactivate a dormant Sph't AI..."

- Marathon 2:Durandal

I was digging through some old 5-1/4" floppy disks a while back and found one full of games we used to play on the old Tandy 1000 EX. Yes, those were the days. (I still have the daisywheel printer from that system, works great.) Anyway, for some reason playing these antique games from 1986 reminded me of the scene from Marathon 2 where you have to reactivate the ancient computer. I can't believe any of this stuff still runs under Windows XP, but they do, sometimes really super fast. Anyway, I'm gonna post one every now and then for my faithful reader(s). Here's Spacewar by B. Seiler, which we played to the point of epilepsy when we were kids. Too bad the opening credits run so fast, because I always thought they were pretty cool. More to come, although this one is probably the best...I wish someone would port it to Linux.

knoppix is good pix - 03/03/04 18:07:52 CST
> Charlatans UK - Us and Us Only

Es ist keinerlei Installation auf Festplatte notwendig. Auf der CD k�nnen durch transparente Dekompression bis zu 2 Gigabyte an lauff�higer Software installiert sein.

-http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index.html

I'm running Knoppix at the moment, quite impressed with it actually, and debating what to do about the server. Does it get FreeBSD, SuSE, Gentoo, or what, and once I've decided that, then the fun's just starting. EVMS, neoMail, PHP5, mySQL 4.whatever, oh yes! and the projects that will ensue are mind-boggling. Of course, I don't have the time to do any of this anyway, slaving away at Dell, but at least it gives me something to think about to take my mind off urine-soaked computers. Someone must have been quite upset that day.

resolution revolution - 01/02/04 16:49:35 CST
> White Stripes - Elephant

The more I watch, the more I learn...

- Course of Empire

It's a new year, and I have no resolutions. I've decided that if it's not important enough to be on the list already, then the hell with it - my life's too cluttered already. The list is long and daunting - get rid of junk, fight the black dog, and make things work, beginning with my laptop modem and ending with the Fiat. Nothing new here...just resetting the trip meter and reloading the Matrix.

grind - 12/17/03 18:31:44 CST
> The Crystal Method - Legion of Boom

This is not my idea of a good time.

-Garbage

It's winter again. Promises to be dreary this year, what with me working 60 hours a week and the lack of anything exciting happening. I did get Linux installed and running on my laptop, so that was rather exciting. Hooray for me.

home alive - 08/16/03 14:06:37 CDT
> - Tomb Raider 2 Soundtrack

You told me not to drive,
But I made it home alive,
You said that only proves that I'm insane.

-Billy Joel

Just took a long trip to Georgia to see my brother, then down to Florida to see a friend of mine down there. The Mercedes performed admirably, aside from a couple of small, easily repaired mechanical problems and a leak that kept flooding the floorboards when it rained. And did it ever rain. Rain-X is wonderful stuff. Anyway, I got to see the South, just about all of it there is. Ten days and three thousand miles later, here I am home again, well-exercised, in time to save a couple of babies and then get my wisdom teeth pulled. No good deed goes unpunished, while many bad ones escape notice.

Work 01 - 07/12/03 13:23:32 CDT
> Front 242 - Front By Front

If it keeps on rainin levee's gonna break...

-Led Zeppelin

Ever had one of those moments when an unexpected confluence of events brought on a strange euphoria? No? Well, you're missing out. I got my first real consulting gig yesterday. There's a hurricane coming, and the sky is starting to look a little disturbed. I am sampling the latest batch of beer. The air conditioning in the Mercedes is finally working. My first load of inventory arrived yesterday. Maybe it's just the beer, but the excitement of actually having some real brain-work, the chance of some foul weather to enjoy, knowing that the last batch wasn't a waste of time, being able to drive while being blasted with cold air, and having a pile of computer parts to play in makes life a little more exciting.

bear, bear! - 06/26/03 12:03:17 CDT
> REM - Document

Josh, My friend A____ is even more of a princess than I am, and wants to know if there are any hotels nearby. Think you can help her?

-email

We are about to go camping with a bunch of people. Several have never been camping before, and so it should be highly entertaining after we've ingested a proper amount of alcohol and made bear noises outside their tents. (I should note we are going to the Guadalupe River State Park, where the most dangerous animal is likely to be a lost armadillo, or maybe a rampaging wild fawn stomping on people's tents.) It should be fun, though, telling ghost stories and roasting marshmallows, and sleeping in a TENT. I don't have the heart to tell them we aren't camping for real. There's showers and running water (no electricity though), and toilets, and we are sleeping on air mattresses and eating filet mignon. Real camping is sleeping on the ground and eating fish that you have to fight the bears for.

a mystery - 04/08/03 01:24:54 CDT
> Autechre - Incunabula

This is unexpected...like squirt from aggressive grapefruit.

Charlie Chan

In the mail today was a Priority Mail box, and upon first seeing it, I thought it had been delivered to the wrong address. Then I realized it had actually been returned to me. I couldn't remember sending a box like that recently, though. Then I looked at the postmark - it was sent August 2, 2002, over eight months ago.

This was pretty strange, and I had no idea what was in the box, other than it must have been something I sold on Ebay since I did not know the addressee. I took it back in the house and opened it (somewhat gingerly), and inside was a circuit board that I had sold and long since forgotten about. I'm sure I was paid for it, since I sent it - what happened to the buyer? He obviously never received it, yet I had had no further contact from him, much less any complaints.

I've been reading old Charlie Chan mysteries lately, so, being in a detective frame of mind, I examined the box which held my only clues to this mystery. Where had it been hiding for the last 8 months? There was a stamp from the post office above the crossed-out address: "CMDA REFUSED". The addressee's name was written in marker on the end of the box. A quick Google search revealed that CMDA stood for Commercial Mail Delivery Agency, and there were several businesses listed using the same there - so it's most likely a mailbox rental place. That's probably why the name was written on the box, to aid in sorting. I was unable to dig up anything about the address, but it seems likely that the buyer had rented a mail box, and then either cancelled it or stopped paying his rent. I tend toward the latter theory, since it would explain the eight-month limbo this package apparently endured before returning to its point of origin - the coffee table in my den. Well - mystery mostly solved, I guess. Sorry it wasn't any more exciting.

Mark gets a new Macintosh, circa 1993.

screaming temporal doom! - 03/05/03 16:32:58 CST
> Front 242 - Tyranny >> For You <<

hell yeah

Laugh and frolic in your meats of evil. Meats of EVIL!

YES! you are ZIM! As an elite Irken Invader your aim is to prepare Planet Earth for the approaching invasion armada by laying waste to the horrible... stink... people... things that inhabit it.

You hate human affection,
especially the part with the beans!

Take The Mighty Invader Zim Test!

Quotes

ice pirates - 02/25/03 21:45:07 CST
> Romeo and Juliet - Soundtrack

Most of the United States north of Dallas will laugh at me even mentioning this, but we never have problems with ice here. I've lived in Austin six years, and the most white stuff I ever saw was a snow flurry a year or two ago. It just doesn't ever snow here. If it does, it melts really fast. Well...this is the worst weather I've seen in a while. There's at least an inch of ice on the ground, and the thermometer outside hasn't risen above 25 all day long.

Well, of course, bad weather comes and I want to sally forth into it, just to see how bad it really is. The Mustang is stranded downtown, since I picked Melanie up last night just before the storm started. Once we came out of Scholz's, and realized how bad it was getting, we left the poor Mustang to hibernate in the parking garage and drove home in the Mercedes. Today, Melanie had an important meeting, so I got the Mercedes started and uniced enough to see out of, and off we went.

People in Austin can't drive on ice. I've had some experience, luckily, but the ice doesn't scare me anywhere near as much as the idiots here that either pass me going 60 miles an hour, or the people creeping along at 5 mpg with their hazards flashing. I'm like, yes, we know there's a hazard, thank you. But there weren't a lot of people out, and it was kind of fun puttering along in the Mercedes with the diesel-powered heater on, and watching cars slide down hills and into the ditch. Melanie was a little frightened, but oh well, what price adventure.

fire burn, cauldron bubble - 02/11/03 11:00:16 CST
> Machines Of Loving Grace -

In Himmel gibt es kein Bier.....

-the smart beer song in bad German

Seems like there is a real home-brew craze starting. Mel's ex-step-dad brewed really good beer, and I thought I would try and do it too, but before I got around to it suddenly everyone else is brewing beer!! I'm behind the curve as usual.
I finally got in on the action. It's pretty fun! I had a chemistry set when I was a kid, and I like to bake bread. This is sort of a combination...a chemistry set you can drink. The question now (assuming I haven't brewed a bucket of pure Southern Brown Nasty) is - who is going to drink all this beer?? All my friends are brewing their own..........hey there is a certain wedding coming up.

Oil 1 - 01/19/03 21:40:30 CST
> the Police - Best Of

Total engine oil capacity....8.0 l/8.5 US quarts

- Mercedes 300D owner's manual

I just thought of a funny story, and I have nothing better to do at the moment so I'll tell it. I drove the Mercedes on its first long trip (Austin to Dallas) after the engine work. I had been driving it around town with no problems after 500 or so miles, so I confidently set off to Mother's house, packed around with Christmas presents. Nice day, nice drive, car is a pleasure, etc. After about an hour and a half, when I reached Waco, I started thinking about food, so I stopped at the first place I saw, which was a Sonic....how lucky this chain of events was, I had no idea until a few minutes later. I pushed the little button and ordered my hamburger, and sat there lolling my head on the headrest, listening to the engine...klatta klatta klatta klatta....and then I glanced down at the oil pressure gauge. Simple gauge, zero through three, should be on two when the engine's idling. Well, it wasn't on two. It was below two. This was enough out of the ordinary that I looked at it for a second or two longer, and I saw it drop a little. I began to worry. I turned off the car, and just then the cute little hamburger girl came with my burger (and she WAS cute, too, and gave me the eye, in my big blue Benz.....if she only knew about the little present I was leaving her) and I started the car again. The pressure gauge was heading south towards one at a good clip. I backed out of the parking spot and drove to one several yards away in front of a little strip mall, just to avoid the embarrassment of my car breaking down in the Sonic parking lot. By the time I got there the gauge was nearly at zero, and I killed the engine again. This was a very bad thing - engines don't just lose oil pressure. I got out to check the oil, hoping maybe the gauge was just on the fritz, but when I opened the hood and looked down I saw oil gurgling out on the ground below the engine. I stared down for a second, and then looked behind the car, and saw the trail of oil leading back to where I had been parked at Sonic. In the space I had just vacated was an enormous, spreading, Exxon Valdez pool of pitch-black diesel oil. It was running down the gutter, it was on the flowers, it was everywhere. I looked underneath the car, and the oil drain plug was missing. I looked at the pool again, half-expecting to see otters struggling in it, and saw another trail leading back the way I had come down the frontage road. So the plug had fallen out on the road, and was for my intents and purposes gone forever. No oil, no plug to hold the oil in.
I got back in the car, and decided to eat my hamburger and think about what to do. I started calling around for auto parts stores, thinking it would be cheaper to take a taxi over to get a new plug, rather than having the car towed. As it happened, there was a NAPA about a mile away, so I trudged over there and got two gallons of oil and a temporary rubber plug. I lugged this all back to the car, and prepared to put things back together and get on my way - but the plug didn't fit. It was a little rubber plug with a bolt though it to compress the rubber in the hole, and the head of the bolt was too large for the hole. But I, prepared for all eventualities, had a sledge hammer in the trunk. So I beat it down until it fit, and it worked great. Lucky me. Lucky I wasn't on the highway, because I wouldn't have noticed in time. Lucky I stopped at Sonic, rather than a normal drive-through. Lucky I even got hungry when I did. Lucky it was just a loose drain plug. I suppose the plug might not have fallen out in the first place, but if it had to fall out, it did it in the most graceful manner it could manage, and for that it has my thanks. If God or the ghost of Rudolf Diesel was watching over me, they have my thanks too.

disconnected - 01/19/03 20:11:08 CST
> - Henry V Soundtrack

"We are proud to have been able to serve you."

-DirecTV Broadband letter

I'm without internet!! The server's down, I'm cut off from the outside world. I feel that guy in The Matrix when they sprang him from his tank and all his wires disconnected, with little popping sounds.
DirecTV provided excellent DSL service. I never had a problem with them, and they were cheap, too. That's probably why the broadband unit went under. Now I'm stuck with SBC...no static IP or anything. Plus, when I signed up with them, for some reason they disconnected the old DSL (which was good until the 31st), but the new service won't be installed for a week. Where is the sense??? I can just hear email to kalpol.com bouncing. It makes little popping sounds.

end - 12/16/02 17:31:14 CST
> Live - The Distance to Here

Where you goin' now? What's your plan?

Live, "Where Fishes Go"

I have one exam left, and then it's all over. I'm going to walk out of that classroom, and never come back. Time for another major life change, isn't it. Time to wake up early and go to work, Monday through Friday. Time to start wearing nice clothes again, and stop carrying a bookbag around. Time to make money, instead of being a black hole in the income tax system. Time to return to what I once was, if I can remember how. It's going to be pretty strange.

context-free language - 11/05/02 13:44:54 CST
> Course of Empire - Telepathic Last Words

Let p be the pumping length given in the pumping lemma.

-some damn theorem

big test coming up. after studying frantically for a week or two, one enters a state of (mostly caffeine-induced) euphoria, where the test doesn't really matter any more, as long as it's taken and done with. i assume this is the point where i actually know enough to pass. bring that $#@$#@! on!!!

dieseling! - 10/08/02 14:56:51 CDT
> Depeche Mode - Violator

Melanie: "What do I do if I can't find diesel?"
Me: "Isn't that little star on the hood cool?"

I am the proud new owner of a Mercedes-Benz! I've wanted one ever since I knew Rick and his gray-market 190E 2.3-16. Mine is a 1985 300D diesel sedan, so I'm rather off the mark, but when I closed the driver's door and heard that unique thunk sound, I knew I'd returned to the world of fine German automobiles. (Also the first car with a turbocharger I've ever owned....cool huh?)

Now those of you who know me are asking yourselves two questions. The first one is, "What's wrong with it?". Well, don't worry about what's wrong with it, just glory in my new acquisition. The other question is, "What happened to the Fiat? Nothing happened to the Fiat, or the Mustang, for that matter. They're all sharing the garage, Italian, German, and American, in the true spirit of globalization. Via, strasse, or street, it will all fall to me no matter what I'm driving (or what's wrong with it).

not too bright - 08/23/02 15:41:48 CDT
> Leftfield - Rhythm and Stealth

The only thing worse than a stupid person is a stupid person who is proud of it.

- Mark Twain

I was reading about the school in Florida that's telling kids F = Fantastic. It seems like so many completely brainless actions get in the news lately that I don't even pay much attention anymore - I just assume that most people aren't that dumb. Maybe I'm wrong, I don't know, but hopefully these Fantastic children won't be too screwed up and Darwin's Law will take care of the rest. That's the one problem with a safe and secure environment - organisms that normally would be stupid enough to get eaten (by a saber-toothed tiger, say, while they're out being Fantastic) grow up and breed. I'm not well read in philosophy and the dynamic forces of civilization, but it makes me wonder whether any civilization can survive forever, since the very act of making a safe environment produces softness and eventually weakness from all the losers who would otherwise never stand a chance. I'm probably unknowingly expounding some radical Nazi theory, but one does wonder.

turn that beat around
> Ned's Atomic Dustbin - God Fodder

I just reversed the order of entries here. Nice, huh. Now I'm gonna go to Dairy Queen and get a blizzard.

work hard
> New Order - Substance

You've got to work hard if you want anything at all.

- Depeche Mode, "Work Hard"

This is my last semester of school. I survived the summer, finished my last math class (seemingly more by luck than by anything I learned in it), and in the next few days I'm going to start flooding the market with my resume. It's not a very good time to be out looking for meaningful employment, especially here with a tide of laid-off tech workers flooding every available job.
A tough question to answer is, what do I want to do? I've enjoyed setting up and learning about my web server, and if I could choose my perfect job that would probably be it (unless i score big time and find a position as a QA systems engineer in a nice semiconductor fab somewhere). I enjoy programming, but not the hard-core kind - writing some server management programs in C++ would be about right. I like creating things and watching people use them. So I guess we'll see what turns up. Finally to be earning a paycheck again, after four years of lean living (and that coming after the fat days at Samsung, which made it twice as hard) - but the only thing i really learned in school was how to learn, and no matter where I work, I'll never stop learning.

Life's tough that way sometimes.

this is a test
> Depeche Mode - Music for the Masses

This is a test of the emergency broadcast system. The broadcasters in your area in voluntary cooperation with the FCC and state and local authorities are conducting this test to keep you advised in case of an emergency. If this had been an actual emergency your ass would be grass already. This is only a test.

- anonymous

For years and years I've been meaning to fool around with Perl, and now I've finally done it. I patched together a script to update this page, and had an inordinate amount of fun doing it. I know I'm a nerd - it's ok, I've accepted it and by doing so I have left it behind me. You can't tell from looking at me on the street that I have pi memorized to 20 or so decimal places (3.14159265358979323846), that I know how to fix a broken laser printer, or that the computers on my network have names from Lord of the Rings. You just wouldn't know.....until I sneaked up behind you and BIT YOU ON THE ASS.

9.11.01

Let's have a black celebration....
to celebrate the fact
that we've seen the back
of another black
day

Fire, destruction, and death. Apprehension, doubt, and arguments. War.

The flow of life in the United States before and after the knife-edgeof September 11 is as different as white and black. We were a complacent, self-absorbed nation in the Nineties, riding the wave of the bull market and cheering for bread and circuses. Now it all seems superfluous. I couldn'tbelieve that CBS and NBC did not broadcast the president's speech so theycould show Survivor and Friends instead. The world we live in has changed - we do not have the luxury any longer of being shallow.

The saying I am most sick of hearing is "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind." Some said we should show our greatness by turning the other cheek, and that we should not hate. I completely reject being nice. If we are to remain a great nation, our hate must remain fresh and clear, so it may fuel the power of our response to those who would bring us down. Lance Morrow pointed out in Time that there is a reason for hate - it is a mechanism for self-preservation. We cannot love those who would destroy us. We must not take an eye for an eye. We must take their head and hands so that they may take no more eyes, or we will be in for an endless succession of black celebrations.

That kind of day

Tasteless.

 

crash v2.0

I was coming home from school yesterday, on the motorcycle, when I saw a tractor-trailer in front of a car in front of me start to change lanes, from the left-hand lane. Then suddenly he swerved back and I saw a great cloud of blue smoke come up from his tires as he locked the brakes. The trailer hopped up as if it had run over something, and then I saw the rear of a car flip up into the air, and it landed on its roof and slid.
The car in front of me disappeared - apparently not stopping, although at that moment in the chaos i was much more concerned about cars behind me panicking and running me down. I stopped by the concrete barrier, jumped off, got my helmet off, and ran to the wrecked car, fully expecting to see squashed dead people. The woman in the passenger side was wearing her seatbelt,and was hanging from it, very much alive, holding herself up. I tried to open the door, but it was jammed, so I stuck my head in the crooked window to see if there was a latch i could get to on the inside. Another woman in the back started screaming at me to take her baby, and she was trying to hand him to me through the space between the roof and the seat, when two more guys ran up, wrenched open the back door, and took him. Another man showed up with a pocketknife, and cut the seatbelt holding the woman ,and I pulled her out through the window. The driver was lying across the middle of the roof, but she seemed OK, and then some DPS officers arrived, and the crisis was over. There was a sour smell in the air from the crushedbattery.

Everyone wonders how they will react in a crisis, and I learned a great deal about myself and my nerves in that two or three minutes. The problem with a sudden emergency is that at first there is no data upon which to base a decision,so the first bits of information one sees often decide one's course of action throughout the rest of the situation. I saw the woman in the front - therefore my first instinct was to get the front door open. It never occurred to me to open the back (although, to my credit, I'm sure I would have thought of it in short order if no one else had). After about a minute had passed, and everyone but the driver had been extricated, I was quite calm, looking around the car for leaking gasoline and trying to turn off the ignition(although I couldn't reach it). My lack of time sense surprised me, as well. I saw the accident in slow motion, getting worse and worse as the hundreths of seconds ticked by. Then suddenly the emergency was over, and all that was left was to look at the wreck.

 

the grading script is down again

"You could do that, but it would be baaad."- Dr. Van Wieren, CS328

The most exhausting class I have ever had in my life is almost over. The worst thing is that this is the second time I've taken it. Nothing I learned the first time had any bearing. I'm actually glad I took it again,because it's an important class, and gaps in my knowledge that would otherwise go unfilled are nicely puttied over and sanded flat.

Something I think about often in the course of a semester is how lazy I must have been the semester before. Every semester I work harder than the last semester, and I say, Damn, I'm working hard. Then the next semester comes around and I realize that not only was I not putting forth my best effort, I was doing an amount of work about on par with watching Invader Zim. This is quite frightening - it makes me wonder if, in the now-distant past of my professional career, I was lazy. Did people go around and say, that Josh, he's a lazy ass, what a schmuck? Surely not...I remember getting a hell of a lot done. I did have the feeling for the first time (except in EE316) that, while I was not at my limit, I was being pushed pretty close to it. People may say those splay trees are easy to code, but I think it took six months off my life expectancy. None of it matters anyway, because the grading script is down again.

motorcycle madness

You must be fast, cuz I was haulin' ass whenI passed you!

-on a T-shirt

I made a midnight trip from Dallas to Austin on the motorcycle.The bike's not very fast; it's only a 450, and if there's a stiff breeze I'm forced to put my feet on the rear pegs and get down on the tank to make what Melanie calls "cheating death" speed, which for the bike is about ninety. (I'm not sure if she means I'm trying to outrun death (cf.It, where Bill Denbrough runs to beat the devil), or rushing headlong into its bony clutches. No matter.) It's relaxing to be out of the wind,and when there was no one else on the road, the sky was like a great black bowl turned over my head, with little pinpricks of light. The headlight made a little semicircle on the asphalt, and it seemed sometimes that nothing was moving except the road unwinding beneath me, dark behind and ahead the dim spark of a distant tail-light leading me on towards home.

 

in the end everyone is even

"Standish looked quite sheepish and shuffled his feet...But he sanctimoniously replied that his generosity was a way to soothe his deep shame about his past. He said he would one day have to answer to his Maker, and that he wanted to depart the Earth knowing that he had fully atoned for his sins.The fool! Does he not realize that you find religion only when you're on death's door-step, when you beg for the Lord's forgiveness like a pathetic wretch? I cannot tell you how many times I've done that. Then I invariably recover and return to being a capital ass-hole." -The Onion

 

 

 

 

 

crash

"Oh my God, Josh just wrecked! Hahahahaha! "

Andrew, watching me wreck the Fiat in his rear-view mirror, 1994

Ok, visualize me on my bicycle, racing down Speedway (or speeding downSpeedway???) in high gear trying to make it to Latin. Got it? OK. My cap started to blow off, I grabbed for it, and the laws of physics were agains tme. In front of a couple of hundred screaming fans, I crashed, hard.

Now, I don't know why I get so lucky, but I slammed down on my belly and slid along for a little. When I stopped, I couldn't move for a moment,and I lay there, in the middle of the road, listening to people call out,"Is he all right?" I finally managed to slowly roll over on my back, and then sit up. Someone, God bless them, brought me the damned cap and someone got my bike, and asked me if I was OK, and I croaked,yes I was fine, and was my nose bleeding? It felt very large. I slowly got up, and got my breath back, and then thanked everyone, got back on the bike,and went weaving down the road to Jester and Latin.

The pain began to set in as I went dazedly up to class. I kept looking at the palms of my hands, which were perfectly fine (among my other talents,I apparently never plant my palms when falling off things) and wonderingwhat i had done to myself. I entered Latin class, and everyone stopped andlooked at me. I said,"Am I bleeding? I can't tell!" Someone said,"Oh my God!" and the professor said "What happened to you?".I said something about eating it on my bike, and he told me to go wash upbefore i got infected.

I got to the bathroom and finally saw myself. My nose was fine, but I had a bloody forehead from smacking it on the pavement, a scrape on my swollen upper lip (how that happened without touching my nose I'll never know) a good deal of road rash on my upper forearms, and skinned knuckles. (thatexplains the palms...apparently I go "Oh crap!" and clench my fists when falling off things.) The worst part was that I had torn that little flap of skin that connects the inside of one's upper lip to the gums- in retrospect, I must have come close to knocking my front teeth out.

Anyway, add to that a great swath of road grease down my front and Iwas not in very good shape. But the point of this whole thing is that I ought to have broken something, and the fact that I can wreck, at speed,and come out of it with minor cuts and bruises means I must not be getting old enough yet to worry about breaking a hip. Hooray for me!

 

 

 

rant: we all know conspiracies are dumb

Up all night long
And there's something very wrong

-blink 182

blah blah blah blah.
corollary: Who gives a rat's ass anyway.

 

somebody set up us the bomb

blast from the past: http://www.kalpol.com/jjmode

Some of my old friends remember my old web site. Well,it's back. Remember, those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it.

 

My schoolcareer, metaphorically

 

 

how old am I, anyway?

"Cogito, igitur, hoc tempus vitae esse iucundum."- Cicero, De Senectute

In class the other day, someone discovered how old I really am. This isn't that big of a deal to me, anymore-- I got over the spasms of turning 25, and now I just let time flow over me and go about my business. Everyone thought I was a lot younger than I was, which explains why everyone laughed at the directions I sent out to my apartment, in which I said to look for a black convertible in front of the building. This led to jokes, because, don't you know, what college student has a black convertible unless Daddy bought it for them? But now things are clear, and there won't be any more comments. If there are, I'll have to break some kneecaps. When you get as old as me, you know who to call to get stuff like that done.

the death of the hired man (1999)

"He studied Latin like the violin, because he liked it." -Robert Frost

A new year rolls around, and I've bailed out of Samsung and gone back to school. Samsung was a good company to work for, and in that thought lies my dissatisfaction--the very idea that my entire goal in life was to find a good company, one where good wages, benefits, and 80 hours paid vacation a year made me feel GOOD! The hell with it all, I said, (toddling off with my lunchbox in my hand and directions pinned to my shirt so the bus driver wouldn't lose me.)
School is.... fun (at least for now). I feel (for the first time in a long time, and possibly never so forcefully) that I am doing something worthwhile, and making something out of myself. Stuffing new facts in my mind has gotmy creative juices, flowing again--the great rusty machine in my head is creaking along, and hopefully practice, like oil, will smooth it out and make a steadily pulsing engine. (heheheheh i just love cheese.)

 

christmas time comes once a year (1995)

and I wanted to say to you
how much I need to be with you

Erasure, "She Won't Be Home"

It seems like more happens to me around Christmas than at any other time of the year. Summer always just goes by, with my birthday breaking the flow like a semicolon. Summer is hot, and limp, and lifeless. I always feel slightly drained in the summer. But once the heat breaks (and that's exactly what happens, here, it'll be 98 degrees until the first cold front hits, and then it won't get above 70 until next spring [Note: I must have been drunk when I wrote this, that is SO not what happens - cf. dart conversation with Angela, lessons learned!]) I feel much better, and the kind of day I like best are those cloudy, blustery days where it's not all that cold, but you know it's going to get that way pretty quick. I love snow, too. When it snows I always find an excuse to go driving in it. Lots of old memories crop up during this season, as well....some best forgotten, some best when remembered.

 

 

if I was a car would you have me sent here? (1996)

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine


Last night saw the end of the Rx-7. The transmission went finally, quietly,even though the car had been dropping pieces of exhaust system daily and vibrating ominously as if it were promising a spectacular finale. Instead,nothing at all. The motor just suddenly revved up and the car started slowing down. Et finis.
I felt a little sad, because the Rx-7 had served me well for much longer than my mechanic promised, and delivered quite a few thrills. I also felt like I do with all my cars when they explode, implode, catch fire, or just die quietly--I wonder what it would say if it could talk. Would it tell me strange places it's been, people it's seen, events it witnessed? Has it heard compromising rumours spoken only on the freeway?
Weigh that against the pure embarrassment of being seen in such a piece of crap, and getting rained on, and the really bad gas mileage, and the stuff that kept falling off (here I must apologize to that poor guy on 360 who encountered my catalytic converter in the middle of the road) and waking up the neighborhood at 3 am, and I am relieved to see it go. I am sure everyone else is, too.

 

spankimus maximus

As is happens, I've neglected all this crap for a long time,and so I went back and deleted most of the old writing.......time for fresh glurt! These aren't really in chronological order, although the newest ones tend to be at the top, and a year or two separates some of them. The really old ones are now dated.


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