I haven't been keeping up with my email recently, primarily because it's a giant pain in the ass to do so. As it sits right now, I have to bug Layla (and drive into Redmond) to check on the essentials and get whatever information I need for the next few...
I can't sleep at the moment. This is a serious bummer. The biggest problem is that I'm switching from a damned-late/too-much-sleep schedule to a buttass-early schedule. Invariably this will involve me not getting nearly enough sleep tonight. So tonight I write and screw around with the hope that I'll be...
I somehow missed posting this picture before. Scandalous!...
It worked! Wooooo! Thankfully, only the index file was trashed. It only took one command to fix the screwup. Amen. So, back to business....
Despite the fact that my fileserver is not actually online, I nevertheless use it to compose and backlog posts so that when I do go online, it will all be finished for me. Earlier today, I was adding a post when the entire machine stalled and rebooted of its own...
I just got back from a trip across the Sound from Seattle to Alki Park. "Park" is somewhat of a misnomer. It's really more a strip of land between the road and the waterline. At no point is it more than a hundred meters wide. But it is fantastic. The...
I spotted an ad earlier on CNN—apparantely E*Trade is now using a security system which involves a keychain toy which generates strings of digits every 60 seconds which are used in lieu of passwords. The ad says it's, "convenient and revolutionary." I agree—if, by "convenient," they mean, "pain in the...
I just heard a very conservative-looking late-60-year-old spokesman for the US Chamber of Commerce (Mr. Donahue) say the best thing on CNN today: If you remove all the illegal immigrants from this country, you'll hear a loud sucking sound from the economy. Awesome....
Liz and I tried to go to Canada today. We sortof almost made it. Here's why we didn't. Right when we came across this sign, two biker dudes rolled up next to us and one said to the other, "I think the road is closed." And then Liz said, "I...
I've had these damned screenshots lying around since I reviewed Soylent Green oh so many weeks ago. So here we go. Soylent Green. WEST SIIIIIIDE! And here are two more....
I just got done watching one of those really forced CNN weekend segments on 911 calls. It involved one of those stories where a 911 operator saved the life of a lady who had—get this—been blown up inside a Petco building. Right. The point was, the show that all this...
My temporary housing comes furnished. Looking at the rate schedule in the provided housing booklet, it looks like it's costing something around $300/month to provide me with amenities such as a bed, dresser, plates, and a vacuum cleaner that hasn't yet been used. One oddity, however, is that although the...
The weather in Seattle has been atrocious for the last few days: sunny and warm. I'll show you what I mean. Actually, this really isn't bad, but it was sortof weird moving out of New Mexico and into Seattle and finding sunnier weather here than was back south. Today, though,...
Only without the XXX. Oops. I found out two things today:My new Nokia (and possibly my old one—I haven't checked) has French predictive text. Awesome. I just sent a message in French to Will. Everything else I sent to Will over the last few days ... probably didn't get to...
Remember my post about changing time zones? Yeah. I forgot to update Movable Type. Motherfucker. So now I've got a bunch of posts with incorrect stamps. Thankfully, MT doesn't retroactively apply timestamp changes, so all my old old posts are done correctly—it's only the ones posted since I've been out...
I posted earlier about the worst car I've ever driven. Just so we don't forget what an abomination this thing is, here's another picture. Oh that's bad. Something occured to me while I was driving around today, though: the Pontiac Grand Am that I rented when I was out in...
This usually happens any time I switch timezones. I'll remember to change the time on my watch, but I'll totally forget to do so on my camera and whatever else I'm using. Thankfully, I just now got it fixed on my camera and computers. But all the shots taken up...
Liz and I went to Seattle yesterday. It was pretty damned sweet. First, we had to go to her swing dance camp so she could register for the weekend. Parking was expectedly atrocious. The camp itself is held near Capitol Hill, a place to which I had never been previously....
I didn't have a chance to write about this when it happened. So here it is now. On Tuesday (I think—it could have been Monday...whatever) I was over using Layla's internet connection when I remembered about the Craigslist/Googlemaps widget that a PhD student threw together. It's sweet. So, we started...
Holy hell. I just saw on CNN a report stating that heavy truck traffic in the United States has increased 58% and automotive traffic has increased 41% between 1990 and 2003. That's incredible....
The "Early Out Delivery" stickers that came with my moving packet are, I have found, most humorous applied to my zone. Nevertheless, my early packages arrived today. Now, the moving company actually gave me more stickers than I had packages (and I could have asked for more), so theoretically, I...
After something like three years, I finally got a new phone. The old one has been having some serious issues for a long, long time. In specific, the "select" button and the "up" button (easily the two most operated buttons on the Nokia 3390) were busted. Additionally, my battery was...
Jarrod, John, Layla, and I all went to the Crab Pot for dinner. The idea is that for $20–$25/person, they steam up buckets of seafood and literally dump them out on the table. You then dig through everything and eat ... everything. Of course, this invariably leads to talking mullosks...
Among other things, Layla and I got lost (again) looking for the Seattle Humane Society today. Eventually, we found it. We went to look at kitties. Wooooo! Now, I had pulled up the Society's cat listings a few days prior, and noticed that most of the cats that they had...
The reason that I have titled this post as such is that I intend to quit writing about my job pretty quickly. It's important enough to me that I don't feel like compromising it, and there's enough else going on in my life that I don't think it's necessary to...
Today, I went to Ballard. Technically, I went to Seattle (so I could finally hang out and spend some time in the city), but I ended up in Ballard. Most importantly, I spent some good time just doing nothing at all. Hopefully I can get as much of this in...
I like C-SPAN. A lot. Every once in a while something superboring will be on (e.g., legislation that names post offices after politicians) but most of the time it's really interesting and relevant stuff. Today, for example, I found out that the Yucca Mountain fuel dump is going to cost...
Layla and I went to a place called the Lai Thai earlier. Mmmm Thai food. I realized two things at dinner:I'd love to learn whatever the alphabet is that's used to write Thai, even though the usefulness of it is pretty much zero, and how the hell long have I...
Won't you get down, on your shanananananakneesnanaknees shut up. Well, here's my housing. It's small but well-equipped, like a midget in porno. Aleph hasn't really eaten anything yet (good) and it looks like the blinds are all metal (also good). However, there's no obvious place to hide the toilet paper...
The reason my rental car is called the "Chevrolet Classic" is because General Motors was too lazy to pull the fucker off the lines after they had introduced its replacement. That's right—this is last year's Chevy Malibu still sold to rental car companies. And it is, without doubt, the worst...
We're passing over the suburbs south of Seattle right now and it still hasn't hit me yet, really. The land ~100 miles east of the city is surprisingly brown and looks almost like New Mexico. Odd, that. And now that we're passing over the clouds and haze, there's a rainbow...
My first-class ticket cozy has an advertisement for ameniti.com, a luxury travel service. My coach ticket snuggie from yesterday features a rather garish red-and-white spread for hotels.com. Indeed....
During a haircut I got on Friday, the barber mentioned that I have an oddly-shaped cranium. Well, that explains a lot....
I'm in Denver and I'm still not excited. Admittedly, I did get a bit nervous when I could actually see Denver upon approach, but I suspect it will be around the time that I actually spot Seattle that the adrenaline will start flowing....
Back on my plane kick, I'd like to relate how I nearly shit myself flying on the CRJ-70. Here it is. Sweet little plane, actually. It seats four across (three in first class—I got the single) and what seemed like 12 or 15 rows. My flight involved the quietest takeoff...
I just spotted a Boeing 777. These planes are big. Unbelievably big. So big that if you really know how big a 777 was, your brain would try to suffocate itself. Sorry. I saw the HGTTG movie recently. Back to the topic at hand. Anyway, the B777. The interesting thing...
There are a bunch of houses off the east end of primary at KABQ. We overflew it at around 500 ft., and this is a comparatively quick plane. It must suck when heavies fly through....
I just want to say that it looks really funny when Flight Attendant A (who is giving the safety lecture) gets ahead of Flight Attendant B (who is pantomiming "The Passenger in Peril") enough that Attendant A has to wait and Attendant B has to don the oxygen mask in...
I'm sitting in an airplane waiting to be pushed back from the gate. This is the furthest I've gotten so far on my quest to Seattle—further, in fact, than I got yesterday. So, I see this is a positive thing. I was a bit surprised when I found the plane...
Those of you who know both my AIM screenname and the license plate that I used to have on the Scirocco will likely find this humorous. Much thanks to Ashley for actually pointing it out to me, because I'm a blind bastard most of the time. Boomshakalaka....
Wow. What a day. I'm still in Albuquerque. During my trip to drop Ashley off at the airport, I had an opportunity to chat with the United desk agents. "Is my cat carrier OK?" "Why certainly. As long as you have supporting health documentation and a small water bowl, this...
Yesterday afternoon, Ashley and I went to the Coronado mall to take care of a few things. Beyond the usual mall things that I do (mope, look disinterested, etc.), I spotted this. Phoon!...
On Thursday night, James, Will, Sara, and Ashley and I went offroading at the sandbox. Ass was kicked ... mostly Will's. Overall, awesome time. Here's a photo. I don't have much else to say besides that. Enjoy....
Remember my discussion about cleaning and packing the house? Let's step back to Thursday and discuss the school side o that day. [insert wayback machine noise here] Over the last six years I've been in school, I've learned something very important about administrative staff: keep them happy, because they can...
I'm currently sitting at Albuquerque International. One of my pairs of glasses is smashed*. And, oddly I'm still not excited at all—all in good time, I'll explain some history first. * Glasses were smashed due to a woman cursing the TSA crew about the fact that she had to remove...
I'm in a bit of a rush at the moment—I'm at my folks' place posting and I haven't had a chance to shower or to get my stuff repacked for the flight, which I need to leave the house for in less than two hours. I'll fill in the details...
After the movers bolted, Will came over for the washer and dryer. This washer/dryer pair have a funny history. I originally found an ad for these posted in the mail room and the university. I ended up buying them and moving them into my then-new house on El Camino Real,...
There are two hilarious things about the movers:They're a company called S&M Moving Systems and I now have a bunch of boxes labeled "S&M," and the movers arrived in a giant blinged-out pickup truck. I'm not kidding. Photos are forthcoming, once I can offload the camera. Update: camera offloaded. Phototime!...
I'm moved. Finally. Looking back, I remember choose my move date somewhat arbitrarily. It literally came down to the fact my moving coördinator asked for a move date over the phone and caught me off guard, so I pulled one out of my ass becuase largely, it didn't matter. Thinking...
I've realized that there are some very noninsignificant hurdles impeding my illustrated and timely contribution to this journal. Specifically, I've already shot ~50 pictures today and will likely not have an opportunity to unload the camera until Saturday at the earliest. And even given the opportunity to unload, I don't...
So, officially welcome to /tmp. My fileserver (earl) is in the process of shutting down at this moment, meaning that /dev/null is completely unavailable. Do remember that I won't have fantastic internet access in Seattle before I start working, so I'm going to journal my entries by hand and then...
I've inserted this post back a week so it's obvious you all know where the new stuff begins. For those of you wanting to catch up on what's happened since /dev/null has been down, start here. Everything above this is post-/dev/null-shutdown!...
Well, folks, it's getting near that time when I'll be shutting down /dev/null for a while. I expect downtime will be approximately 1-2 months. Thankfully, Mouser is hosting a temporary journal for me at /tmp, and I'll keep updating that. So here's a quick overview of what has happened and...
The automotive scene in Socorro is very very hot....
I spent all day walking around campus today. Paperwalk, really. Twas bad. It turns out that my key debacle had not actually been cleared—I had originally guessed that the business office had declared leniency considering my state of tenuous key-depositing, but it turns out that they had actually just screwed...
Traditionally, my grades have sucked. Terribly. I got out of highschool with a 3.15—and I don't think there are any high schools in the US that are terribly difficult, so a 3.15 isn't anything special at all. I was (and, I maintain, still am) a giant giant slacker. My work...
I haven't posted pictures of Aleph recently. Enjoy. My cat is a giant dork. DORK...
It's been a nutty-go-round week. This is primarily why there haven't been the usual slough of updates here. Most of my time has been claimed by The List. I've been building The List since January and it's got everything I need to take care of before I leave Socorro and...
Yet another reminder about the upcoming journal switcharoo. /tmp It's looking like I'll be shutting the homestead down on the 18th instead of the 19th, so be sure you don't get caught awry with the changeover. Set those bookmarks for stun, Mr. Spock....
Now, /dev/null runs on Movable Type 3.15, which is nearly π-tastic, among other things. /tmp, on the other hand, runs on MT 2.661, which is at least 15% less MT needed to bring you the clean refreshing taste of my ranting. So there you go. Choosy programmers agree, I should...
I posted a number of copies (5ish?) of my flyer around campus. As of the last check, one was missing (not sure why) and there were around fifteen little name/email strips gone. In the end, I had around ten hits asking for more information. Of those, I suspect five were...
Honestly, I'm not really sure what to say right now. I get this feeling that this wasn't my weekend. In the last four days I've been sunburnt on three different occasions—the last of which got me pretty badly. I'm feeling like crap, accordingly. I had also mentioned previously that there...
Unless I get a bug up my [deleted] to talk about something else in the next hour or so, this is going to be my last post as an undergraduate student. And the next post is going to be a really ranty one. Eegah, what a weekend....
Today, I spent around eight hours on the road, got a speeding ticket, and got in at 2am. My room is around 85 degrees, which means I can't sleep, and I need to be awake and rested in six hours to go to my graduation ceremony. And the only reason...
This is the best thing ever. When I originally downloaded the file called, "Double Guitar.wmv," this wasn't what I was expecting. Deedleeedleedleedeldeee!...
The sound card that Jason gave me (thanks again!) seems to be working. Woo! First, I've gotten through several DVDs so far, without any crashing whatsoever. You may remember that this simply wasn't possible in the past. There are two other things I've noticed, as well:The software control panel has...
So...I've only got a few days until graduation (3, specifically), and I still don't have any final grades. Teachers (and staff—but they don't really count) all have instructions to grade any remaining work submitted by graduating seniors before Tuesday and to have grades calculated by late in that day. The...
It took 31 minutes for me to finish my last final. It was for a technical class and spanned 7 pages. Bam. So, that's it, really. I presume this is the last time I will have sat in a classroom as an undergraduate—although I'm not dumb enough to actually say...
My third final is done. Three more to go, and unfortunately two of them are take-home finals due tomorrow at 3pm and 5pm. Motherfucker. The one I just finished was French. Our teacher assured us that this was, "at least a two or two-and-a-half hour final." Of the eight people...
The Huffington Post was launched today. They note that they, as our motto says, has been delivering news and opinion since, well, a few hours ago. Within the first few hours, they've got columns by Walter Cronkite, Sen. Corzine, Elaine from Seinfeld, a Cusack, Ellen "she's gay!" DeGeneres, and—of course—Arianna...
Here are some shots I took today. This is why I like having an easily portable camera. Behold, the naked roof! It was cooler with all the jacked-up shingles on it. Ohwell. Next, I spotted this character rolling through the Smith's parking lot. By the time I rolled around to...
I appreciate honesty in advertising. Spammers tend to be terrible in this regard: subject lines on spam are generally "cleverly" designed to look like "hi" messages from friends. My favorites are the ones which read like Re: hello how r u or something equally ridiculous. I'm pretty goddamned anal about...
Because my incessant bitching fixated on the poor stability of my sound card last week, Jason stepped up to the plate and offered one of his old sound cards for my machine. Awesome, thanks again! I'm pleased to report that it does, in fact, make sound. Unfortunately, fully testing it...
To determine Aleph's attitude toward travel, I threw him in the cat carrier and took him to my parents' house in Rio Rancho. Somewhat unfortunately, he cried the entire way up there and was completely hoarse when we arrived. Thankfully, on the way back, he actually shut up and slept....
The Killing Fields was just on the TV. I thought I had posted about this previously, but searching through my entries hasn't revealed what I'm looking for. So, here's the story. I originally heard about the "killing fields" of Cambodia through a Wikipedia random link. In specific, I think I...
In a month, I'll be throwing money at geek toys. I need your help. I BESEECH YOU, COMMENT VERILY ON YE OLDE AMUSEMENTS FORTHWITH! In specific, I'll be in the market for:Laptop Digital SLR camera Cell phone Car1, and likely, a new stereo head unit 1 I already have The...
I really do. I absolutely hate this damned book. It's got nothing to do with the content (which I haven't really read at all). It has to do entirely with the fact that I'm a giant cheapskate. I'll explain. This is a required text for a CS class I'm taking....
Well, it's not really a system, per se. Just a bunch of related and largely uncoördinated interactions. On Monday I commented that I was impressed about the El Defensor Chieftain's response to concerns that one of Rep. Steve Pearce's letters was penned by a conservative think tank. I'm doubly glad...
At 8am, it sounded like Michael Flatley was going to town on my roof. That's actually not what I thought at 8am, although I'm pretty damned sure it was funnier than the Flatley comment—I just have no idea what the hell it was. Anyway. The fun started on Tuesday when...
I commented earlier that Al Jazeera is the best place to get nutty shots of western politicians. Just to highlight, here are the pictures from BBC, CBC (via news.google), and the Jaz. BBC CBC Al Jazeera Moo....
Mouser sent this to me a minute ago. And then he had to explain it, because I'm a total idiot sometimes. Ahh yes. "the logo speaks the international language of... ass sex."...
American news outlets (especially ridiculously biased ones—pretty much anything that ends in Post, Times, or Chieftain) are fantastic for getting goofy pictures of American politicians. Sometimes the editor has a bone to pick with the Democrats, so printed are goofy pictures of Ted Kennedy. Maybe the owner of the paper...
I'm not sure what it is this morning—maybe it's the sound of traffic outside my window, or maybe it's the haze that's hanging over the town...but whatever it is, it feels like Los Angeles here this morning. Eesh. Good thing it isn't....
It turns out that Microsoft has a new column dedicated to Office productivity tips and tricks. It's called Office Space. Wow. That's tragic. I just hope they remembered to put the covers on their TPS reports, because they're doing that now. Yeah....
It occured to me earlier that if there existed a "proper" age at which to play video games, it would be when one is really really damned old. Youth really is wasted on ungrateful little bastards (myself included), and I suppose I can't blame anyone ancient for busting out some...
On or around May 19th, I'm going to be shutting down my machines and packing them in boxes. Because one of the most critical elements of a journal is timeliness, I've got a temporary blog set up where I'm going to post to while I'm not around. Mouser has gone...
We ran out of trash bags yesterday, so I put Aleph in my trash can. Excitement ensued....
Awesome. I've mentioned previously that I was missing good shots of Rob's post-sale Supra. It turns out that the post was made just over two months ago, and I had said, "I'll try to get a picture in the next few weeks." So, eight weeks is now defined to be,...
Alles Gute zum Geburtstag, Miguel!...
I need a new soundcard, stat. I've currently got a Diamond MX300 card based on the Aureal AU8830 chipset. It causes my machine to lose audio output and get really slow every once in a while, which is infuriating when I'm actually trying to get something done. Additionally, it pops...
I emailed my recruiting coördinator over the weekend. My email went something like this: HE|_|_O PLEASE TO HAVE T0P |\|AME \/IAGRA F0R LOW LOW PR1CE5! SH0P WWW.BIGBOOTYDRUGS.COM WWW.BIGBOOTYDRUGS.COM WWW.BIGBOOTYDRUGS.COM FOR CH34P \/IAGR4 C1ALIS AND MORE WWW.BIGBOOTYDRUGS.COM No. Really, though, it went something like this: I remember we agreed on May...
Rat Race was on the TV last night. This was one of those surprisingly good films disguised as an otherwise crap film. Although it seems I originally thought this film was better than I think it is now, it's still pretty good. Of course, the end is terrible. I recommend...
Because I'm sick of cranking on code at the moment, here's a screenshot of my desktop. The left half is shown on my second monitor, which is why it's slightly smaller than the right half. All the black and green stuff on the right is a bunch of terminals I'm...
I just ran across this in the manpage for rand(): FreeBSD adds a function void sranddev(void); that initializes the seed for their bad random generator rand() with a value obtained from their good random generator random(). Strange. What's doubly odd here is that the words "good random generator random()" are...
My experience has been that running a paper—even a small paper like Socorro's El Defensor Chieftain—is a difficult thing to do. Hell, even NMT's Paydirt takes a ton of effort from people who are genuinely interested in informing the public. I guess their website takes even more, because it appears...
At James' suggestion, I upgraded the Scirocco flyer a bit. Oh yeah. Hot....
I haven't even put the VW flyer up yet around campus, and I already have four semi-serious inquiries. Just so there isn't any confusion: first payment (or desposit of, say, $100) takes it. In the event that two people pay me nearly simultaneously, a coinflip will be used to determine...
Writing my Alfa article, I noticed a few things. Or rather, I noticed one thing in particular about the BMW E90 1 Series, the Audi A3, and the Alfa 147 GTA. Behold: + = I poked around more. Check out another picture of the 120i, and a four-door (or five-door—whatever)...
