Naginata

Weekend

Had a great weekend with the better third... here's some highlights:

- What's the deal with Catholic weddings? I mean, it was going along great until the priest started chanting I got more dominoes than yooooou dooooo or whatever it was. At least it was mercifully short (100 minutes or so), because I was starting to get tired from all the standing and sitting and kneeling.

-I got a "chair massage" in the airport... I think the woman giving the massage had her feet off the ground at points. Something about a woman who is maybe 5'4" trying to loosen up the shoulders and back of a fairly muscular 6'3" man who has never had a massage in his life is just funny. Still, she did a great job - everything from my shoulderblades up was so relaxed for the next few hours that, by contrast, my lower back was unacceptably tight. I didn't really notice it before, but now my lower back is killing me. The solution is either a full body massage to work out my lower back too... or to just wait a few days, and hit my back extra hard on my weight routine, to tighten everything back up, and then go back to ignoring it.

-Speaking of massages, since I had a lot of time to kill, and spent less on my trip than I had budgeted, I tried the "oxygen bar" too. So much for that. Seriously, save your money. If you want the same "high" as you get from an oxygen bar, do 20-30 pushups as fast as you can, then chug a light beer, and you'll pretty much get it. All my senses came alive... and then went to sleep.

-Llew is the man.

-I had this beer called "samichlaus" that... wow. If you order a pint of this stuff, don't make any plans. (Review)

That pretty much sums it up. I confirmed that I am (1) really bad at no-limit hold-em, and also (2) really bad at cornhole.

I think I'd be better at both if I played them more than once or twice a year. It turns out that in a 3 dollar hold-em tourney, I just get bored and stupid after about 45 minutes.

Which is tragic, because if you're playing sane, limit hold-em, I'm pretty good. The point is, I need practice.

Sith.getRevenge()

This is brilliant... and I was going to snip the whole thing, but I can't make the formatting look like I want, and don't have the time to play with it.

So... go here and read the original.

The Agitated

So, I've added this "The Agitator" guy to my regular readings, even though he's not on the roll on the side. Today's piece is, if not the most astonishing or amazing thing he's written, certainly fairly typical of his efforts.

kids and soda

Every time I read something on his site (well, ok, 90% or so), I find myself saying "yeah... why didn't I post about that!". The man is like a younger Neal Boortz, plus grammar skills and less "intentionally trying to piss people off".

The Third Way

I've said it before, I'll say it again, there's at third way in the filibuster issue.

The Republicans don't have to change the senate rules. All they have to do is force the Dems to filibuster. Bring the cots into the halls, make them read the Lord of the Rings on the senate floor, I don't care how they do it, but make them talk around the clock. Those judges will get an up-or-down vote, or SOMEONE will be called to task for the filibuster and the halt of government work.

Personally, I don't care if it's the Republicans or the Democrats that take the heat for it. I think it should be the Democrats, but the dems have a more skillful hand when it comes to spin, so... who knows. The point is, it's a ridiculous situation, and the Republicans need to drag it into the light of day so we can all see how ridiculous it is.

Also, Democrats, stop saying "minority rights" when talking about your "right" to filibuster. It's clever, but it also fills me with rage.

Weekend Things

Notes from this weekend:

1) Somehow I gained 5 pounds between friday morning and monday morning. In that time, I ate a total of 7 meals, one of them very small, so... I dunno what the deal is. Hopefully someone's using me to smuggle large quantities of heroin between my house and my workplace, and will remove the questionable substances and pay me for my time and effort on my lunch hour.

2) My headphones died. I got them almost 10 years ago, refurbed, for around 100 dollars, and they've run like champs ever since. I tried all I could to rehabilitate them, but they're gone. They were Sony MDR-D33 headphones, and I loved them. If you ever see that model somewhere, they'll be between 60 and 100 dollars, don't think, just buy them. If you don't like them, I'll buy them from you. They're exceedingly comfortable and provide excellent sound. They are the omega headphones, the single template from which all other headphones were wrought.

Anyway, I like to think that I'll buy some nice headphones, in that same price range, online somewhere to get the best deal. In reality, since I'm not a "real" audiophile, and do need new headphones, I'll probalby just go down to fye on lunch and buy whatever is closest to 100 dollars without going under, knowing that I'm being overcharged by at least 15 or 20 dollars. It's worth that for instant gratification in this case.

But if you have some headphones you'd like to recommend, please, link me to a place that sells em over the interweb and I'll take a look. You've got a good 4 hours, anyway. Oh, and they must be closed headphones (no sound leakage) and surround the ear, rather than cover it (because I wear them 10 hours a day, and the ones that surround but don't touch are much, much more comfortable).

3) Kung-fu Hustle was. As in, it was a Hustle. As in, they'll take your money and then give you a big ol bag of crap in return. If you want to see Kung-fu Hustle, here's what you do - go to the movie store and buy Shaolin Soccer. I realize that's twice the price, but your ROI will be much, much higher.

4) Went down to Linda's for some hash browns on saturday... walked out the door and it was very, very lightly raining. Sat down in lindas and there was a torrential downpour outside. About the time I paid my bill, it wasn't raining again. It was a charmed day. Also, I think there's something vaguely sexual about thunderstorms - is that wrong?

5) Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Let me give you the timeline of me playing this game:
T+2 minutes: Why the hell am I doing this?
T+5 minutes: I guess I'll stop wasting time and start a battle or something
T+10 minutes: Well, that was fun, yet somehow also pointless. Why do people even play this game?
T+30 minutes: Can't type. Too busy playing FFTA. Try again in 2 weeks.

Headphone update: one of the guys in the office saw me splicing and offered to take my old ones home and see what he can do with em, apparently he's much better at this sort of thing than I am. So... please, make your suggestions, in case he fails, I'm going to go for quality. Also, headphones that fold are a plus. Studio monitors are fine, but I'd like something I can travel with, and plug into my iPod without needing various adapters :)

Stories

Express Programming Tools

Microsoft has attached a face to each of these products. Now to each face I am going to attach a story.

Meet Lisa Chen. Lisa is a college student and former livejournal user who has realized that livejournal is stupid, as are all the people that use it. As a result, she decided to explore other options for inflicting her opinion on other people over the interweb. She tried Moveable Type for a while, but ultimately decided that she's smarter than those people too, and so she's started writing her own buggy, half-finished blogging package, that only she will be able to understand. Visual Web Developer Express gives her the power and flexibility she needs. She puts "experienced web developer" on her resume.

Meet Tommy Sterkowski. Tommy is a member of the Phi Iota Gamma fraternity at State University majoring in scuba diving. He's there on a lacrosse scholarship. One night, while doing some quick drunken napkin math about their beer consumption, Tommy and his friends realized that some of their brothers weren't pulling their weight in the beer budget. Since Tommy was the only one who could figure out how to use the internets, they drafted him to write a program to track the PIG beer budget. Tommy develops an application that has big, bright, drunk-friendly buttons, and which conveniently undercharges him and only him. Visual Basic Express gives him the ability to design highly usable forms-based applications despite questionable sobriety.

Meet Mona Smith. Mona worked her way up through the ranks at an advertising and design firm. Along the way, she became familiar with a lot of different software tools, but lamented that she couldn't use them for her personal projects because of the cost. One day she stumbled across the paint.NET project, and thought "you know, I can do that". She downloaded C# express and began looking through the code, ultimately teaching herself how to write new image filters. She tells people how her programming hobby helps her at work, but thusfar, hasnt' been able to back that up with concrete evidence.

Meet Adam Johnson aka "phr3n3tyx". While a student at the City Institute of Art, one of phr3n3tyx's friends showed him a program written using the CrystalSpace engine, and he realized that the future of art is in computers. He picked up a book about C++ and read through most of it in a single afternoon over a half-soy half-nonfat latte down at the Brew-Ha-Ha. Now phr3n3tyx has developed a program that can turn crash dump files into art. Visual C++ Express helps him develop and implement efficient algorithms for turning random data into artistic masterpieces as fast as he can dream them up. He hopes to either create a robot to put his work on canvas automatically, or a virus which will crash the infected computer and display a unique work of art on the screen each time. In the words of phr3n3tyx, "It's just like, if people would step away from the computer, and see the beauty in their memory when they do, we'd all be happier man". He also laments that he can't get managed C++ to run on his mac.

Meet Amir Naianajab. Amir manages a datacenter outside New Delhi. His operation provides technical support to American customers, 24 hours a day, for low low prices. Now his center has so many employees that he's having trouble keeping track of him. With SQL Server Express, Amir has been able to test several solutions for tracking all his employees work and schedules on a production-strength database, without paying production-strength prices. Now he can migrate to a pirated copy of SQL Server effortlessly.

Meet Brad Wilson. Brad is an junior vice president at Globacorp. Brad started out as a COBOL programmer, a long time ago, and has worked his way up the project manager chain to the point where he has many project managers reporting to him. When Brad heard about Visual J# Express, he decided it was time to get back in to programming. After getting himself up to speed, he's decided to quit his job and start a consulting firm converting customers' existing Java code into microsoft .NET code. At least, that's what he tells himself while he's sitting in his Z3 every day, an hour each way, on his commute. Actually, he just downloaded J#, and wrote a program that retrieves the current temperature from weather.com.

Frist, Fillibuster

This one is going to speak for itself.

bam

Pardon me, I'll be AT WORK at 11am. But good luck, kids.

General Aviation

A small private aircraft entered restricted airspace around the US capitol yesterday. The capitol was evacuated in a hurry, and the plane "escorted" out by a blackhawk helicopter and some fighter aircraft.

That guy shouldn't be allowed to fly for a couple of years, at least... but I gotta tell you, I'm sick of the bad rap that general aviation takes.

I'm going to keep this really short and "not proofread" on purpose... sorry, I just don't have a ton of time.

In brief: on the radio, people we're talking about general aviation airports in the area. The preface to the story was something along the lines of "rich executives for whom first class isn't good enough..."

Excuse me? I know 3 people with private pilots licenses, and none of them are "rich" or "executives". But it's much easier to heap scorn on someone in the media if you can invoke class envy, I suppose. Common sense, that's the lesson from this story - if you're in a small airplane, and you can see the US capitol, you're IN THE WRONG AREA. Probably it's a good idea to avoid the inside-the-beltway area altogether.

Laura Bush

Is awesome. Watch her inappropriate-for-CSPAN speech in the "link of the moment", or right here. <3.

From Craigslist

This one has since been removed. Enjoy!

I'm the Chappaqua blonde, grey eyes, great smile and skin, 115,
who was looking for a married man, 40-45, reasonably fit, must send pic
etc etc.

I found my guy - the exact guy, in fact, that I was looking for
from the outset: my philandering husband. To the other 250+ married
creeps who replied over the last two days - you should all pray your
wives don't catch you out like this. Its so easy and obvious .. one
doubts your collective intelligence. BTW, the 'meeting' at Starbucks in
Greenwich never happened. I thought it made for good 'realism' though.


Andy:

We won't be meeting next Tuesday at the Yorktown Starbucks. I have
moved to my sister's house. "Jenni" who you spoke with on the phone was
an actress and probably earned the easiest $500 of her life. My lawyer
taped the conversation. My lawyer also has a copy of your response to
my ad, and transcipts of our three IM conversations.

To send "Jenni" a pic, including me with my face blacked out, taken
at our anniversary party, was utterly unbelievable and underscores the
contempt you apparantly have for me.

I've also taken the PC and your other laptop. My lawyer will have a
computer expert check them. I suspect you've done this more than once.

No doubt you think you've been very clever. I suspected something
was wrong in February when M****** told me that you and C****** had
been talking about internet "dating" at the club. C****** told M******
that you seemed very knowledgeable about it and that you had mentioned
Craig's List casuals several times.

I'm not heartbroken now. That was yesterday. You've lost a wife who
adored you. Faith is a two way deal and you blew it. You are an a-hole
and a complete shit.

I've left a print out of this on the kitchen counter although I
suspect you'll probably read this online before you get home, when you
next check out the casuals.

I have had somebody remove and destroy our bed. When you get home
you can sleep in the guest room. I have cancelled our dinner with J*
and P**** Friday night. I have told my parents that we are divorcing
and why. You should speak to your father. You should understand that as
a consequence of your actions you will cause great sadness and
heartbreak to a good man who has shown me nothing but affection, and
whom I love dearly.

I've put all the jewelry, and the wedding ring you gave me, into
the storm drain at the end of the road. I've sent your mother's rings
back to you father by recorded delivery. I didn't enclose a note - you
can explain to him.

I have an appointment for a full STD check this afternoon. If I
have the merest hint of any infection, I will send copies of your
email, the IM chat and the pic you sent, to all our friends, your
family and your work colleagues. Believe me, you will understand the
meaning of the saying "revenge is a dish best served cold". I suggest
you say a prayer that you haven't given me anything.


I'll see you in court. Don't call me - if you do, my lawyer will get a protection order against you.


Jennifer

Tuesday Grievances

The following are 10 common grammar/spelling/typing mistakes that annoy me.

#10 Gay. You're gay. You're so gay. I hate this one. Of all the various "correct" definitions of the word gay, none of them apply. Plus, this is the lowest common denominator in internet discussion. It is to the internet what the hitler card is to politics, or the race card is to legal proceedings. Funny, clever, or roundabout ways of calling someone gay are fine, and often funny. "You like Zelda 2? That's so gay" annoys me. "I bet your boyfriend likes Zelda 2 too, janx" is somewhat funnier.

#9 Its intead of It's. Or the other way around. Just remember, the apostrophe is for contractions.

#8 Run-on sentences. If you're going to say something that requires more than one or two lines, think it through ahead of time. If it's worth taking up that much time, effort, and space, it's worth a little consideration so that you don't end up with a run-on monster.

#7 Last word freaks. You just have to get in the last word, no matter what. You know who you are, and you made the list.

#6 Lollerskaters. People who use "LOLOLOL" frequently, for other than comedic purpose. If you find yourself typing "LOL" for other than parody, more than once per... oh, lifetime, there's a good chance you're wrong. It's important to understand the difference between "u're the sux lololol" and "OMG U R TEH SUX ROFFLE ROFFLE". One is funny, one is tragic. Context, audience, and tone will reveal which is which. When in doubt, stick with english.

#5 Non-native speakers. I'm guessing that most of the people I put in this category are actually native english speakers, they just can't speak it WELL. For example, people who would have an entry #5 looking like this: "non native-speakers. im guessin most th epeople i put in that category re actually native englsih speakrs, but theyre cant speak it well." I'm not exaggerating. In fact, that was better than a lot of people in this category. I try to type bad english, but I can't. Let me take another swipe at it: "than he says that he was gone to punched him in her face". There, that's more like it. If you're in this category, and I ask you how far along you are in your english lessons, don't get offended. I'm just curious.

#4 Word abusers. People who use words incorrectly a LOT. Common words misused: racist, fascist, literally.

#3 Excessive Pingers. If you're chatting online, it's appropriate to say "hey" or "are you there" or "ping" or "hey nagi" before you start talking. It is not appropriate to do this:
reet> hey
reet> nagi
reet> are you there?
reet> got a question
reet> thought you could answer
reet> since you know .net
reet> it's about delegates
nagi> /stabstabstabstab

#2 Your instead of you're. Most people say "Whoops, I meant to say you're". Fine, everyone screws up every once in a while. Some people try to defend it because it's 2 keystrokes shorter. Those people bask in my scorn.

#1 UR instead of "your" "you're" or "you are". You people make me sick. U R is just as bad. Worse, even, since you put some actual thought into it. If they instituted a death penalty for anyone who uses "U R" on purpose, I wouldn't complain very loudly.