John, over at the now optionally boobless inluminent/weblog, is buying a house. And being the Info-God that he is, has prepared himself fairly well. He also did us all the favor of putting links together and running down the list of Stuff You Should Know. If you plan on buying a house in the next 1-5 years, check his resources out. They will prove very helpful.
I couldn't watch the whole thing. It really was the most boring speech I've ever heard. Jr. was as riviting a reader as an average 3rd grader. The hushed, measured tones did not agree with me at all.
It was nice that he talked about hydrogen powered cars. Though if it became a priority, Trevor would be riding one to his first day of school, not in 17.75 years when he's allowed to drive. And the irony of him making this a SOTU point after ridiculing Gore for having the same initiatives during the campaign was too rich for my blood.
I like the idea of cutting spending. I just couldn't figure out how a >$200,000,000,000war or $20,000,000,000 Office of Faterland Security was in line with those goals.
His greatest achievement was correctly pronouncing "nuclear".
Brandt actually listened to the whole thing, and we generally have simlilar reactions to these things. So go read his commentary.
[edit] I see too that Derek has a very nice thread going, complete with ad hominin arguments.
From the second funniest blogger (The guy named after the piano is tops on my list) comes the most innovative advertising innovation since car dealers started putting those damn stickers on new cars:
I now have a big screen TV. I like it. Shit, I love it. New entertainment center, too. Click for a larger picture:
It's a Mitsubishi VS-50501 50" RPTV (Rear Projection TV, for those not hip to the AV Geek vernacular). It's from their 99-2000 product year. It's not HD upgradable. Standard format. So it's not the greatest thing by any means. But it and the entertainment center were free. And for free, it rocks the casbah.
Where AV equipment is concerned, I am very much a believer in Supply-Side economics. Just as the 50" trickled down to me, my 32" trickled into my computer room, where I can now sit in the comfort of my futon 3' away and play video games while watching TV on the PIP. Again, click for bigger pic:
For both of you reading this, I was in training last week (MS1572) and thus out of my daily routines. So didn't do any posting, and very little reading of others last week. If any of you really cared, I would apologize. But I know you don't.
I've also resolved to not link so much. If you want to know something, use Google.
Shit. APC is recalling Back-UPS CS 500 models due to a problem with them overheating, melting the case, and causing a fire. I have 2 of these at home. Not a huge inconvenience.
But I have ~70 at work. That's 70 units I have to tell someone to go around and collect serial #'s off of. Now that I think about it, this isn't something I have to DO, just oversee. I guess that's not too big a deal.
It's good to be the Admin, and have desktop guys to do crap like this.
I just cannot explain how joyful I am that whenever someone searches google for the words "Fuck Michigan", I'm the first listing.
I just dropped my can of Dew. Onto my lap. It was freshly opened. I look like I dress to the right.
Jeremy has a nice rant about the Java Docs, and how they don't have a search function. Well, Z, I looked around your site, and found you to be lacking one as well. :P
Contrast that with Kasia's blog. It's far more search friendly. There is a box right below the calendar.
Unix-Girl: good
Jeremy Zawodny: less good.
Oh, it's not just Kasia. Mark (diveintomark.org) gets it too.
I got a trollish message on this post today. Traced the IP, and found it went to a school district in California. Thinking it may be a teenager, and given the content, I forwarded it to the districts webmaster, and urged him to find out who the kid was, and let his teachers/counselors know about this possibly suicidal message.
Now, I don't know if the person is really suicidal. I really hope he/she isn't. Ideally, he/she was being a shithead, and he/she gets to find out when he/she goes to school tomorrow that the Internet isn't such an anonymous place. So will his/her parents.
Seems a local road will be closed for a bit today so that a herd of cows can cross it. Now, I used to live in Cow-Town, and this never happened. So I'm bit suprised.
PETA is boycotting KFC for their treatment of chickens. Now, my first response was 'What? They weren't already boycotting them?" So I read the first couple paragraphs, looked at the pictures, read the captions, and was reminded of something I did in College.
One of the 3.4 million pizza joints in Bowling Green had an excellent Chicken pizza. This was before it was something you could get at any chain store. It was a delicacy of sorts. So we were having a party of some sort and needed grub. I call Myles' to order a Chicken pizza. And I ask the guy:
"What kind of chickens do you use? Are they Free Range?"
He pauses for a few moments, the hamster wheel in his head squeaking loudly, then shouts to the back of the kitchen: "Hey Tom, do we use Free Range chickens?"
And I can hear Tom reply: "No, they're frozen."
Granted, I'd had a few beers by then. But that was pretty damn funny at the time. And I still chuckle whenever the issue of Chicken Treatment is raised.
Or fire a shotgun at his head.
Dumbass hillbilly cops first wrongly detain a family, suspecting them of a carjacking. They refuse to close the door of the car (after they were informed that dogs were back there) and the dogs got out of the car. They ran away from the car, then circled back towards the family. The Officer saw this, and unloaded his shotgun into the dog's head.
There is a video, but I can't watch it.
Now, if Zoli (pictured below) were to get out of the car, he would have done EXACTLY the same thing. Run away a few meters, then come back to me. This is the dog that lets small children ride him like a horse. The one who all but indifferent to strangers we meet on our infrequent walks. But he would be dead, because they let some fuckhead in Tennessee have a badge and a shotgun.
Zoltan (Zoli), our youngest dog, turns 2 today.
This is when we met him: 
And this is from not too long ago: 
He was 18 pounds @ 9 weeks when he came home. He got up to 115 last fall, but is down to a healthy 105 just before christmas. Workinghis way down to 90-95, where I want him.
I don't have anything to say today. I'm sure I could generate something. But I have a ton of email lists to modify. And need to move our ticketing system to a different webserver. I'm kinda busy.
It was nice to have a few weeks where nothing was expected to happen at work. But now things are moving again. Lot of stuff happening at work. Big projects which I set improbable timelines for. I don't plan on being terribly gleefull for the next two months.
Thankfully I have Trevor to smile at me. Nirvana.
First time I've done this. Be gentle.
January 3, 20031. Do you wear any jewelry? What kind?
Yes. My wedding ring. And tonight I'll be wearing a necklace composed of Buckeyes.
2. How often do you wear it?
The Buckeye thing is only for game days. The ring is always on.
3. Do you have any piercings? If so, where?
My wit.
4. Do you have any tattoos? If so, where?
Nope. I have scars. Scars are way cooler.
5. What are your plans for the weekend?
Watch the Fiesta Bowl. Run up to VA for most of the weekend to visit some family. Watch the NFL playoffs.
Ok, not really. These aren't Jimmy's Canes. They are Butch Davis'. And I like Butch. So I retract the fuck thing. But I still hope they lose.
Bobblehead Jesus will be recieving my request for his blessings and intervention. The Buckeye Binky will be in place. And Trevor is bigger now, so the necklace will fit better than the last time.
Yesterday Pine prompted me to save sent-messages as sent-messages-dec-2002. It does this every month. I always say yes. Then it prompts you asking to delete sent-messages-monthprior, for each folder you have. Well, I had about 16 folders. So Each month I get the prompt, press Y, then N repeatedly until it stops asking.
Well yesterday I was doing something with the kid, and wasn't paying attention. So I pressed N for the first question, then Y repeatedly. Which means I deleted every sent message since roughly mid 2001. Doh!
Saw this on ?>. Something we'd toyed around with doing in college. We played a TON of foosball. Actually, a modified version of the game called "Foseball" which was played on a modified foosball table. That's a story unto itself...
Anyhoo...some geeks @ NYU went ahead and wired their foosball table with sensors to track scoring. Built a login system using a card reader (which reads student IDs) and tracks statistics via a database. Displays game info via a Macromedia Director Movie. Pretty sharp. I know some combination of Andy, Jeremy, and beer would wind up with a better system. But this one seems functional. [link]
I was playing foosball on NYE at a nieghbor's house. It was a kid's table, not regulation. And I was a lot better than they were. But it was still fun. Sometimes I wish I hadn't sold my table before moving down here.
Just thought we could celebrate something equally as arbitrary as "New Years Day".