Of all the stupid...

This is going to be my last post before the holiday season, I'm pretty sure. (And my last post from my current job.)

The point:

Everytime a band from back home, Slowcoaster, come to town I never know about it. Turns out that they played in a bar downtown two weekends ago. I need to start stalking them so I can finally catch one of their live shows. To make matters worse, they're playing a New Years eve party at a bar back home, which of course, I'm going to be back in Fredericton attending a New Years celebration that doesn't feature Slowcoaster performing. I'm a little peeved about that.

But on the upside. Here's a clip of them performing in PEI last year.

Seasons of Change...

Happy Holidays.

In honour of the holiday season I shall share with you this picture that i have found of Santa a-la-South Park.


In other news my tiny area of the unread web will go on a small but temporary hiatus over the holidays while I visit some family and gorge myself on Turkey and gravy... mmmmm Gravy.

In yet, more news, who knew that this would be such an exciting day?, I have accepted a position with another company less than 3 months after starting the job that I'm currently at. I'm leaving before I even finished my probationary period.

Coincidentally, its the same company that I left in the first place. They had contacted me to contract out some work for 3 or 4 months when we started talking about things that have opened up. My basic job function will still remain the same, I'll be responsible for maintaining some web servers and applications as well as providing some training and minor development, I will also get the genuinely terrifiable task of becoming the lead trainer in the Brunei project.

This would be where I'd be going. [all the way on the other side of the world, like 16,000 KM away.]

View Larger Map

Play this and tell me it isn't fun....

Here and here and here and over here is a game, its called "Don't Let Go."

The premise is simple:

* Click the Ball
* It will move, keep your mouse on the ball.
* Don't let go of the mouse.

I've been playing it for a bit this morning and managed to score 34.2221 seconds, let me know if you can beat that!

Made in Canada = Illegal in Canada?

I first heard the above from Urban Ichthyosapien in their blog which has much to do about the wrong doings in Canada politics. (Such as the DMCA that I was bitching about earlier.) Watch it and tell me why Canadians can't buy a car thats built in their own country because its illegal. The selling point of the car: it has ZERO emissions. Here

Awards and Strangeness

Thanks to the ever lovely Odd Facts I have received my very first award. Isn't it pretty. You can see it right here. <-----

Now, I don't quite know what I've done to receive my award apart from having a blog thats scattered and all over the place, but still it makes me feel special that there's someone out there who actually reads.





As for the strangeness I've mentioned above, there is some news on the horizon concerning a few areas of my life. I shall not tell you what they are for that might jinx what might be going on but to say the least, its very big news.

My cousin is arriving from London, England today for the holidays. It's been a few months since I've seen her but I always look forward to hearing from her and see what quirky words she's picked up since the last time she was home.

Did you know that "Crimbo" is slang for Christmas? Neither did I. You learn something new everyday.

------

I've mentioned that we've got another kitty in our house. I don't know if I told you her name. We originally (yes, its going to be one of these stories) had named her Goliath, but that was a stupid name for a girl cat. We then decided upon Susi, since that was a very cute name. We took her to the vet for her very first checkup and the vet lifted her tail and exclaimed... "She's a he." I kind of looked as him puzzlingly and rolled over the turn of events in my mind.... I thought, "Damnit, now he needs a new name." After much debate and fighting Nico was decided up as the name for the new kitty. He's getting along much better now and there hardly is any hissing with the other cats. They're even sleeping together now too.

News & Excitement

Music Listening to: The Tea Party - Coming Back Again

I was given a joyous task tonight at work, really it was my first thing to do that wasn't studying for the tests that I don't want to write.

I was told to go through old training material for a donut shoppe (where people are often found “dunkin” their donuts) and look for references that need to be removed. Initially I thought that it would be fun because I could easily look at the slides and makes notes of what needs to change.

NO.

Then I thought that I could listen to music while performing this menial task. Atleast that would be entertaining.

NO.

Then I thought, well, this certainly is going to suck. It shouldn't take me too long to do it.

NO.

I had to go through VIDEO's. Boring, monotone videos describing workplace safety and how to properly interact with the disabled.

Normally I would look at this task as a little bonus that enabled me to further myself in the eyes of my employer, but mostly its just busy work. So I don't surf the 'Net the entire time I'm at work. (And by surf the 'Net I really mean spending time downloading music and watching YouTube.)

.... As for the news. I can't really say, but there might be something interesting happening.

In other news. We got a new KITTY!!

She's right cute. We took her to the vet today and found out that he's not a girl and that wasn't a vagina I seen on him.... I wonder what it was then?

We're calling him Nico. I'll post a picture of him soon.

Nerd much?

Sad... but cool.

In the spirit of Christmas, here are a few of the things that I want.

"Football (soccer) fans are snapping up toasters in club colours which brand slices of bread with their team's initials. Ipswich sold out of the £45 appliance in only two days. (Mirror)"

Thats right, you can buy you're very own toaster that brands your toast with the initials/logo of your favourite team. How cool would that be? You could strategically place your strawberry and blueberry jam in the grooves of the logo to recreate it in the appropriate colours.

I'm still trying to find a link where I can purchase these toasters.

---

Remote Control Missle Launcher

(http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/warfare/8a0f/)

Attach the cord to your computer. Install the software. Launch the missles. How much fun could that be. Now if only they would install it with a webcam so that you can mount it in odd places and control it remotely. This has already been placed on my wish list.

---

Water Powered Clock

(http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/757e/)

Based on this description: " How does it work? Magic mostly. And a little bit of science too. " I want it now.

---

Binary Clock

(http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/59e0/)

Are you a nerd? Do you know binary? Show off your ability to your friends by getting this neeto clock. You can then tell them that its now: 1000:0000 1000 pm. (8:08)

---


Plasma Mug

(http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/mugs/60c3/)

Think of it like a static ball in a GLASS. "Touch the outer glass with your fingertips, and watch as the colorful plasma magically follows your every move!"

---

Mood LED Jellyfish

(http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/9a8c/)

Did you ever have a lava lamp and think it was the coolest thing in the world? Well now you can toss out that '70s hippie crap and replace it with JellyFish! (The page has a really cool video showing off its coolness)

----

Posable Magnetic Robots

(http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/6748/)

They're robots what more do you need to say? And with a description like this.... who could resist?

"Get a bunch! They love to play together and they'll stay happier longer. You want your Acrobots to be happy don't you? Oh, and never forget that no matter what happens - YOU are always their King. That way you can never feel guilty about how you pose them."

-----

Blunt Office Signs

(http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/cubegoodies/7476/)

"This Isn't An Office: It's Hell With Fluorescent Lighting!" hehehehehe

-----

Stuffed Tux

(http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/plush/288e/)

Yes! He will be mine!


I should never be allowed to be alone on this website EVER again.

Realizations...

of a sort.

Normally I don't post links to other sites on the Internet but I found this today and I can't help but continually reading the little dots. If you've ever wondered about American foreign policy over the years this will shed some light on interesting things that have happened. Some of the items highlighted I knew about (Saddam's funding for war on Iran after the leader of Iran went crazy after being appointed by the US). Take a look I'm sure you might find something you've not known before.

Here's something a little more light. Basically, its a random bit of IT buffoonery over the years as reported by various Techies all over the world.

---

As an update from my last post. My recent installation of Linux over the weekend*. Went surprisingly well, I managed to get Ubuntu Linux installed, configured and setup correctly twice in that time frame.

Twice!? You may be asking. Let me explain.

For some reason my laptop would seize up and after unplugging the power and booting again the OS would be completely dead and beyond repair, thus warranting a re-installation.

For the couple of days that I had my laptop setup I absolutely loved the environment that I was working with Ubuntu is a fantastic place for anyone to start their use of Linux. The only downside that I have found was the fact that my wireless was not properly detected and installed, which I was expecting and had researched ahead of time.

I may give the re-installation another opportunity during my next set of Days off, but I may hold off until after the new year and my next Certification exam has been written.




* it was my weekend, your mid-week

On again, off again, on again ...

Listening to: Hanzel und Gretyl - L'Experience des Dificultes Technique | Nine Inch Nails - Love is Not Enough (Live)

I just wish I'd make up my mind sometimes.

It looks as though my migration away from Windows is going to be happening again. And its all thanks to my wonderful laptop.

Don't get me wrong I love my laptop I think its a fantastic piece of machinery. I've never had a computer as good as the one that I have now, but there seems to be some interference.

I noticed last night while I was working that my mp3s tend to skip and stutter sometimes. You never come between a geek and his music, thats sacrilege.

At first I thought it was due to bad sound quality or faulty songs. As a test I put one of the offending songs into each of my mp3 players on my computer (of which I have 5) and it played with the same stuttering results. Test one passed.

I then copied the song to my MP3 player where upon the song played perfectly without any problem what so ever. Test two failed.

After doing some quality research (5 minutes on Google) I discovered that I'm not the only one encountering this problem. There are loads of other people with my particular laptop who are experiencing similar problems. The most common problem was the microphone from the webcam was interfering with the sound. So, I disabled it.

No better. Test three failed.

Other times it was because of old / out-dated drivers. I uninstalled and reinstalled drivers for my soundcard.

No better. Test four failed.

All the time I was buzzing around the internet trying to see what the problem was. Then someone casually mentioned that they had solved the problem by changing some settings in their *wireless* settings.

Could it be true, could my wireless intenet be causing all of the headaches that I've been having with my MP3s. (I've been re-ripping *tons* of songs.)

As a test, I flicked off the wireless internet and started up my test song.

Played flawlessly. Test five passed.

More swearing ensued.

And then I rejoiced as it has finally given me a reason to install Linux for good.

Stuck in the middle of ...

Listening to: Nine Inch Nails - Closer

Were you ever left alone at work to fend for yourself?

I'm sure we all have at one point or another, most of the time its not even really much of a big deal. Sometimes it happens as a test to see how you can deal with certain situations, other times its because there isn't anyone around to assist you.

But then there are the times where you really wish there was someone around who could have been there to deal with what you just went through.

It seems weird that I was just helping a student with something that I knew nothing about, yet everything that they said made complete and total sense. It was even to the point where I knew that they had made a mistake in their calculations.

Actually, the only saving grace was that they knew exactly what they were talking about.

I didn't do a damn thing to help them.

Now, I'm going to spend the next 4 hours of my work learning what they were talking about...

I've been quietly sitting back and looking at the world lately when suddenly out of nowhere, here & here.

Let me summarize.

For years I have been proud to be living in Canada for the simple fact that I can walk into anyones house and make a copy of one of their CDs and have it be perfectly legal. The same goes for file sharing, I could obtain obscure songs from artists that have only printed 200 copies of a vinyl record pressed in Estonia and not worry.

Now, it turns out that the tide might be changing. The “Industry” minister wants to implement and update the copyright policies within Canada. What was the point of this? Who called for it?

The RIAA and MPAA.

The new laws that he wants to implement are in the best interest of the INDUSTRY and not of the consumers. These laws protect the media conglomerates that own most of the music that we buy; the companies that have profits close to $2 or $3 billion a year.

The part that gets me is that its going to be illegal for me to rip a song from a CD that I own. They are going to attempt to make me buy the digital version of the song to put onto my iPod. Fuck them.

The only thing that the DMCA will establish, and look at the US for guidance, its going to turn the average consumer into a Pirate. When in actuality they should be concentrating on finding ways to stop the people who distribute albums and movies before they're released.

I have this fear that some day soon there are going to be 20,000 lawsuits of fans in Canada for breaking the law and infringing on copyright. But then again they might try to make it mandatory for us to install software on our computers that would inhibit our ability to do illegal things.

There is no law you can put in place, no locks on media that you can install that will not be broken. Hell, they already broke the code in HD-DVD's to copy them, I think it took them a week to crack.

Oh, by the way, if there are any of you out there who want to be the next “Weird Al” Yankovich... you're screwed. They're removing the Parody clause meaning its going to be illegal to create a parody song and post it somewhere. Doesn't matter whether you're selling it or giving it away for free.

I think I'm going to move to Sweeden.

Coffee Problems Update

So, I've managed to track down and fix the problem that I have been having with my Java application. It was quite simple actually. I was missing a single line in my code that caused my "smoke" message.

I've spent too much time trying to figure out how to get my program to print messages to me that I forgot to actually look for the cause of the problem. Its strange how you can easily get distracted by the simplest things... ooooooohhhhh shiny.

If I had simply directed my attention to an area about 6 lines up from the error message I would have noticed what was missing. Or... I would have noticed what wasn't there so I couldn't have noticed it was missing.... thats still not right.

I noticed something was missing, but couldn't quite tell what it was initially. F*ck I hate sentences that are worded weirdly. (Yet, I go out of my way to make that last one as hard to comprehend as I could. Go figure.)

I could bore you with the details of how I fixed the program, and what exactly was missing. But I think its better suited for an explanation using the smoke detector analogy.

Solution steps:

After receiving the terribly worded "I smell smoke" message when I attempted to run my program, I noticed something.

I didn't put batteries in the smoke detector in the first place.

[Its a simple way of saying that I didn't declare a variable.] {Damn those details creeping in.}

Java Problems

Did you ever build something completely from scratch to fill some purpose in your life?
Did you ever get to the end only to realize that someone else built something just like it?
Did you ever test it and decide that it works just fine?
Did you ever want to show someone what you build and have it break on you?

Thats where I am at present. I built an application for one of my clients in town.

They wanted it to keep track of their own clients and allow them to do a search through it based on key words. Its basically an overly simple search tool that they could have easily cooked up in Access given the right amount of time.

It didn't take me long to build and test, in all about 12 hours is what I billed them for. I brought it into the office for them to view and they absolutely loved it. They had a few suggestions for me to add functionality, which was worth it.

A few months had passed when I realized that they didn't actually receive their copy of the software. I gave them a call to mention it to them and share a laugh; turns out that they had actually forgotten that they paid for it. They had actually had been concerned with finding a new laptop to upgrade their P3 desktop computer.

(I'm not evil and didn't make them pay for it twice, though I did under charge them in the beginning.)

Back to the point.

After bringing the software to their office I copied the files onto their new laptop and installed the tiny database and Java Runtime. Took less than 2 minutes.

I double clicked the executable, and with a grin on my face waited for the interface to load....

I swore.

I swore like a sailor.

NullPointerException....

If you've ever worked with Java, this is basically the worst error message you can receive. Its general, vague, and difficult to track down since it can be caused by many different factors.

Think of it like having a talking smoke alarm.

A good message to receive: "The lamp in the corner of the living room is smoldering on the east side of the 2nd floor of a 10 story building."

This is what a nullPointerException message would be like: "I smell smoke."

Now, you can sense the frustration that I was feeling.

Minimalist world view...

Here is a little story I came up with this morning. Its about life in a park on a windy day and how people don't take the time to see the little things around them. Life on the planet is so relaxing as it happens before your eyes.

~~~~~~~

The trees lean towards the left as the breeze cuts across the park. From across the park I can see people hurrying in and out of shoppes; scurrying like mice in a rain storm. Not a drop of water has fallen yet but the everyones faces will tell you otherwise.

A steady line of leaves roll past my feet as I sit on the bench. Alternating between red, orange and brown; they jump and dance in the air as if happy to have escaped from the clutches of the trees.

Naked and alone, a single sapling stands shivering to my right. If it were a person I would gladly give it my sweater, as I'm finding it a little warm today. I wait for the tree to get swept out of the ground as a strong gust picks up. The tree seems determined to hold its ground, not willing to move for anyone.

From around the corner of a building a man in a suit comes running. With a briefcase in hand, he attempts to seek refuge from the impending storm. He runs across the park with one hand on his head and the other holding his briefcase over his head. He is attempting to keep his hair piece from blowing away; days like these make me wonder why he even bothers.

He runs without looking. His eyes are fixed on one thing only, making it across the park without getting wet. Full of determination and confidence, he looks as though he has just negotiated the contract of his life.

Feeling as though he's still in control of everyone around him, the high powered business man almost knocks over a toddler playing in the sand. He quickly side steps the helpless child and curses under his breath.

A snarling mother looks on from a nearby bench. She begins to yell at the man, but he is too wrapped up in his own mind to even care what she has to say.

From this distance I can not make out any of the words. I sense the anger by the look on her face.

I want to intervene as he runs by me, glaring at me from the corner of his eye. I want to tell him that he can't do as he pleases.

Words escape me.

Instead I watch helplessly as the man tramples on the tree, snapping it near the base.

It is motionless, no longer swaying in the breeze. He did not even glance to see what he had stepped on.

The man is now around the corner of the building. On his way to snuff out another life, I assume.

Inside my head I can no longer hear the chatter of the tree telling me about his heritage. Emotion swells up in my eyes as I look at the tree trying to determine if it will be able to continue to grow. Maybe the tree will grow up with some character, a good place for children to play and build a fort.

My hopes are quickly dashed as a heavy gust picks up blowing a newspaper around. The thick and heavy paper gets tangled in the small branches of the tree. When the paper passes over top of the crippled tree only the stump is still there.

As the wind dies down I can see the trunk of the tree sticking out from underneath the sports section just a few feet in front of me.

From across the park I hear the muted laughter of the child playing with their toys. The sadness is lifted from me, the world is moving on.

A bird lands near the paper, foraging for some materials to fortify its nest. The instinct to protect its young is strong. Seeing the remains of the young tree the bird quickly hops over to it and carries it off into the sky.

As I stand I can feel the ache of pain in my knee from the impending rain. I turn to look back on the park and the happiness it brings.

I make a note to myself to return tomorrow with another tree to put in its place.

Looking at the world, in rose coloured glasses...

Now, I've never really understood the meaning of that phrase. My take on it gives me the impression that people actually like walking around the world drunk to make it seem more interesting. Don't get me wrong, its quite a novel idea to attempt to see the world in a different light. Then again it might be better to see the world in a different light while intoxicated.

That rose coloured light could turn out to be a little bit skewed after the amount of alcohol that would need to be consumed in some instances.

My wife and I traditionally are good with money (*giggles*) and yesterday on a whim we decided to splurge on a new purchase. We managed to pickup a new TV. Thats right, we've joined the ranks of all of the other geeks out there and bought a new widescreen tv. It looks strikingly similar to the one pictured below.


As soon as we got it home the first thing that I did was to turn it on and toss in a widescreen movie. Transformers seemed like an excellent choice, I tossed it in and kicked up my feet to see in greater detail.

Turns out my wife is becoming a widescreen junky now too. She was at home watching a regular fullscreen movie today, and realized how much better it is on our tv.

There were other TVs there when we were looking at it, but a 32" TV is more than enough for most people, and quite frankly paying $1000 for a television? People need to have their head examined.

I love my TV. If I wasn't married I'd marry the TV and have little surround sound children.

















http://www.amazon.com/JL421-Badonkadonk-Land-Cruiser-Tank/dp/B00067F1CE/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=miscellaneous&qid=1196440713&sr=8-2

Official Retardation...

I have just recently come up with a fantastic idea for the names of our children, my wife isn't that thrilled but that will be discussed in a minute. Typically people find a name that they like and they stick to it, most of the time to the displeasure of their significant other.

My wife and I have been pretty amicable when devising names for the children we haven't conceived. Normally, the names we come up with are standard names, Zachary, Stephen, etc. I sometimes like to stray from the norm and suggest names that I find cool like Vladamir. Its a really strong name, I can't help it.

I'm generally not a fan of my name, Albert, you know it does kind of suck. But then again, when I have an idea like this I warm up to my name even more.

The world knows I'm a dork, and I want my children to know I'm a dork as well. What about naming them after me? That is generally a noble tradition that has been handed down for generations of wealthy people in the past. How can I take that tradition and geekify it?

Albert , version 2.0 - That is what I will name my first son.
Albert, version 3.0 - will be the name of my second child.

I mentioned this to my wife as a humorous note to see how well she'd take it. As you may have guessed, she didn't share my enthusiasm for the venture.

Until I can win her over, I'm going to slowly rename our cats from Puddles and Jacques to Cat 1.0 and Cat 1.1.

Ah, the life of a dork.

Where'd the time go...

It turns out that if you don't use your time off wisely it just kind of disappears on you. Case in point: I recently had my standard 4 days off of work and realized last night that I had to come back into work this morning. But then again when you have a stomach flu for the better part of that time, all bets of doing anything are completely off.

Normally, I'd have something intelligent to say about a worldly event then again, I am brain-dead. Depending on who you would ask this might be a regular occurrence.

Buy Nothing...

Today is Buy Nothing Day.

To celebrate, I'm going to go nowhere, and spend absolutely nothing today. Mind you I won't have much of a choice since I'm working the 12 hour day shift. Still, I completely support this venture and I encourage you to become educated and participate in this as well.

Also, something else I support is Buy Nothing Christmas.

Once the first of December hits you will not find me anywhere near the stores in any of the malls, anywhere. People are generally, unforgiving, cranky and panic stricken. Too much emphasis is placed on finding someone the "perfect" gift that will make them the happiest. Isn't Christmas about family, and religion? When did it get converted into a commercial extravaganza?

For extra bonus points, each of these campaigns was started by a Canadian organization called AdBusters.

Creative Writing...

Its a weird world in which we live. Its strange to think that we remember so much of the things we've forgotten.

Judging by the profoundly confused look in my own face, I may have to explain the above statements.

I have been carrying around 2 stories in various stages of completeness for the better part of 2 years. These stories, as I've explained before, are ones that I've started at a different time in my life, at a time when there were endless possibilities for what I wanted to do and the time that I had to spend doing it.

I sat down today, taking some time out of my day from work, and begin to reread these master pieces of horror and macabre. Within the first 10 minutes of reading the pages I was immersed back into the world that I had created, the plot came flooding back into me, the little nuances of the characters became the focus of my attention. I flipped to the end to read what I had concluded about the ending, and deciding that it needed to be re-written. Based upon a few notes that I had included in previous pages I had formulated an entire alternate ending, a complete plot twist from how it was originally intended to conclude.

I have begun to notice that I have not enjoyed a movie, book, comic, tv series where every single loose end is tied and you know exactly what happens with the characters after the cameras are turned off. Take the movie “Children of Men” where the movie ends with the characters on a boat, waiting to be rescued. That is the kind of thing that interests me, if you don't what happens next then you are bound to be intrigued and formulate your own opinions with your friends and co-workers. That is the main point of a story if you ask me, to have people remember it and talk about it among themselves spreading the word.

That is the goal of my writing.

Results

I guess I should mention that I did pass my exam yesterday morning. I scored a 914 / 1000.

Thats all for now, its looking like a slow day at work so I might be able to create something fun with my time. I'll let you know how it turns out.

70-290...

I'm moments away from writing my first MCSE exam for the company that I'm working for. And I'm nervous as F@CK. I don't know why I'm so nervous, more to the point I don't know why I'm writing the Microsoft exam in the first place, other than its required for all employees in my position.

I'm 2 days away from wiping out both windows installations on my home computers and installing Ubuntu Linux. I'm tired of denying myself the pleasure of using something thats free and doesn't require me or prompt me to validate or prove that I own the system. Screw that.

I recently saw a blog that was part of the Blogs of Note - PureDistortion who holds a Red Hat linux certification, which in all honesty has more appeal to me than the Microsoft stuff that they're making me write here. I might talk to my boss later on and see if they'll let me become Linux certified.

Nerves suck. They make you forget things. Such as my lunch, and my security pass. Which are both sitting safely and securely on the counter in my apartment. (Though, I've made a plan to run home after I've finished my exam to get them without telling any one.) The other thing about nerves is the fact that they make you doubt yourself, personally I'd like to know as I'm going along, question by question which ones I got wrong and what the correct answers are. This shit about getting the exam mark back at the end, thats just a waste of time for me. I want to know which ones I got wrong.

Alright, time to do some cramming.

T-Minus 1 hour.

Moativated...

As I sit here at work, I'm just barely noticing that I haven't written anything of half-descent quality in a while. While I have not lacked the creative prowess to write a bit of fiction, I have been lacking the time to sit down and begin to compose anything. There are a few ideas about what I have to say in the future.

I've also had the thought of splitting my blog into two parts, one for creating and writing random story ideas, while the other would be used solely for my day-to-day musings. Then I run into the dilemma of: which will get to keep this area? Would you want to see the day to day stuff here? Or the creations? Personally I like the title for creative things, while the URL for the blog would be good for day to day stuff.

I'm open to suggestions.

Destination Unknown....

or known, as I know where I am travelling to.

So, tomorrow is going to be a giant whirlwind of an adventure. The sun will be barely rising over the horizon when I will be climbing into bed after a long night at work.

The main goal will be to become extremely well rested so that the drive to Cape Breton in the early afternoon will be as pleasant as possible. Judging from the past few days I think we should be doing alright to dealing with my crankiness, well that is until we hit the causeway then I can't guarantee that I will be at all pleasant. I feel bad for my wife, I really am going to try my hardest to be not cranky at all.

The other goal will be to see how long I will be on the Island before I order pizza. There seems to be a running family tradition that involves quickly ordering pizza from the local pizza shop immediately upon entering the house. My brother currently owns the record for pizza consumption for eating 7 pizzas over a period of 8 days when he was home a year ago. Personally, I'd enjoy beating that record while being home for 3 days, but I don't know that my wife and wallet will let me do that. Too bad really, its good pizza.

The best part about the trip will be to see the scenery that we'll get to see along the way. Driving along the water through the highway in Cape Breton, though it'll be dark well before we reach the island though.

There are only a few more hours to go until I am finished work for the day, and its an extra special night as well because its the last night shift for the next 3 weeks. (Thank frig.)

I have reached the point of no return right now where I'm rambling and talking incoherently while blankly staring at the corner of the screen with a semi-glazed look in my eyes. This would be a perfect time for some RedBull if it wasn't 5am.... mmmm caffeine.

Sporadic nordic

I have been slacking with this thing lately, I don't know that I've posted much in the last few days apart from some scattered narratives, but then again I never said this would be a daily blog.

A few things have been happening around here lately that I would like to share, first and foremost, I get to meet my nephew for the first time in a couple of days. My sister flew home with him last week. The wife and I are going to be driving up on Friday for a couple of wonderful days to see them. Its going to be a long drive home, not that a 6 hour drive isn't easy to handle, the problem is I'm going to be getting off a night shift at 7am, and we'll be hitting the road at 2pm.

Have I mentioned how much I miss being in Cape Breton? If there could be one place that I could be right this very moment (that wasn't home in bed with my wife) it would be in Cape Breton. It really wouldn't matter where exactly I was there, just as long as my feet were touching the soil. There is something relaxing about the Cape, that I just can't quite put my finger on, the only thing that I'm sure of is that it comforts me.

~~~~

The other thing that happened which is fairly important. There was a death in our family recently. It was a welcome addition to our family when it arrived a few months ago. Being tiny was to its advantage as it could climb into the smallest places and wait. It had the cutest little orange stripe running down its front, it would basically glow when it was happy. I'm going to miss my external harddrive and all of its wondrous contents. This will give me an opportunity to clean out most of the crap that I've been pack-ratting on it.

RIP External Drive

~~~~~

I have this sudden creative urge to write. These last couple of days I've been finding more and more that people who do the same thing that I'm doing, end up getting book deals and write scripts. Now, I'm now where near saying I write as good as them, But I think it would be really, really cool if at one point that it could happen to me too.

When I came to work today I pulled the two shells of stories that I have been working on out of my other bag and tossed them in with my laptop. It would be nice if I could get the changes that I have marked on the pages completed so that I can continue working on my draft and eventually publish it (probably on my site) for everyone to read.

.... It would be cool though.... I have many dreams, but lets just find out how much ambition I have.

Opening your doors...

Hello, my name is AY@tes and I have a problem. I have recently scummed to an addiction to free software. Normally this would be met with a multitude of lawsuits from companies alleging that I have obtained their software illegally. This is not the case. What I am referring to specifically is OpenSource software, the kind of software that is totally free of charge.

I'm not stating that I am completely against all things Microsoft Windows related as many of the openSource software have been ported to Windows as well. As a certified Microsoft Professional, you would think that my motives and desires would be lead toward all things Windows related. I should devote an entire entry to spouting the benefits of using their software, ... lets not and pretend we didn't as no one would want to read it.

I do not mind paying for the software the I use if I am going to benefit from using it. Then again, as a employed person with a job and a plethora of background education you would also think that I would want to be frugal with my money and save it for the things that are important, such as making payments on my Student loan and getting a new LCD television. As I am a certified professional, if I get caught with any pirated software (read: “obtained from a friend software”) then I can loose my certification and not be eligible for any future certifications which would hurt my ability to gain work experience.

There are lots of benefits to switching to an OSS (OpenSource Software) solution, but it can be time consuming to set up initially. Although, once you have a computer configured with the setup and configuration that you need then the system is extremely stable and reliable.

Many people don't realize that most of the websites they connect to daily, and the search engines they use are completely Linux based. Why is this? Because its stable and reliable. Its as simple as that.

I would like to ensure that my employable status remains for as long as humanly possible, so I am going to begin my transition away from proprietary software in the coming weeks. [That an using free software is cool.] Although it will be a long and difficult process to say the least.

This will entail a great many things that I will have to sacrifice. The first and foremost will be the use of my Adobe Lightroom software for organizing and managing my photography. I can go back to using Google's Picasa but I have tasted the brilliance that they are offering and I don't know that I can part with it. My only other option would be to buy a Mac laptop which isn't in the affordability range right now.

Migrating away from iTunes I had thought would be particularly hard, but there is a great alternative for Linux (Banshee) that works great with iPods and will even import your library as well. So that saves me hundreds of hours for re-rating the songs, I like it when things are that much easier.

You can do a search online and find hundreds or thousands of open source software which function as great alternatives to all of the software that you pay hundreds of dollars for. There may not be as many of the features in the OpenSource version, but 90% of the daily functions you will require will be there.

I also read recently that a small company had switched to using OpenOffice for their office computers, which were 60 in total, not a lot by any means. They had called Microsoft and asked for a quote on getting the latest version of Office, which is 2007. Can you guess the cost of putting the software on all of their computers? It was $15,000 can you believe that? I can.

Here is a great article about how Linux can be great for use with a Small Business:
http://www.itwire.com/content/view/15298/1023/

With all of that said, (and said in a very scattered and diluted manner, I should work on my writing if I ever want to get better, that can happen another day as I really don't want to mess with it right now. Its late and I need to get back to working.) it will be a long and difficult process but with the many headaches that users are having with Vista I can see many more people having to install Linux on their computers in an attempt to have something that functions.

[Again, I'm making an attempt to keep from bitching out Windows as it could last for days.]

an incidental theory of chaos

I was sitting around this evening watching a few movies sitting in the living room (if you wanted to know I was watching Crank and Sherrybaby) when I just started writing a few scattered images and words that were popping into my mind. Some may make some sense while others have been added for the sheer simplicity that they provide. There are no hidden images or meaning in this, there is only a small story about life and how everything may tie together.

overwhelmed and consumed by a mountain of disdain and disappointment. laying to the left in a crumpled heap on the floor is a piece of paper that I once held close to my heart. torn and tattered it sits there waiting for someone to reach over and touch its soft texture. the feeling is still there after holding it, the pressure of the edges rubbing against the fingertips as if it were still pressed against the skin. dropped to the floor, rolling around the room like a butterfly navigating through the forest. Delicate beauty uncovered and naked for all of the world to see. exposed to the elements and blowing with the breeze floating through the air. scattered around the area are a few of the stray images of the past that reflect the great things in life. past present and future can be found here, all things have their beginning and their end in this room; sometimes towards the beginning without even realizing it seeds are planted. growing and germinating life is abundant all around. the simplicity of starting over putting you feet firmly in a single location and having life spread all around. one step forward never yields two steps back unless it is willed. bad things only happen to those that want it. the winds of change have been blowing working its way into your life in an attempt to cause chaos. in theory, the strongest foundation will survive the strongest storm.

Wishing upon a star....

Did you ever have one of those realizations where suddenly everything that was in your life finally made sense; where you can close you eyes and suddenly see a solution to a problem that has been plaguing you... I wish I had one of those realizations right now.

Things would seem so much clearer if I could suddenly see past the hurdles in life. Although I suppose that if I had such realizations other people would want me to help them out with their problems so that I wouldn't have such an unfair advantage against them.

At one point or another there was something important that I had to say regarding this post. I really like the tricks that my mind plays on me at 3am, working nights is the greatest thing on the planet next to actually sleeping.

My mind has been playing terrible tricks on me lately, waking me up after only getting 4 hours of sleep during the day. Telling me that I'm hungry when I'm really just tired. Its not fair.

I really should work on making a coherent entry at some point or another..... aaahhh screw it.

Cloak of invisibility

At one point in time I thought about doing many things with this site, which not only included posting some of my writing but also posting some reviews of some kind. Whether it was in the form of movie or music reviews, I thought about doing that sort of thing, but then I realized that there was a good chance that no one would want to know what I thought of the new KiEw album or the latest indie flick that I saw. In order to appeal to more people I'd have to discuss the latest and greatest things that I are in the theatres and on the radio... but I wouldn't want to do that so you'll have to be satisfied with my over tired ramblings

Speaking of which.... [yeah, I a) lost my train of thought, b) lost my motivation to continue my sentence.]

Options....

Pick and choose your poison.

Sitting here looking around the barren landscape, tattered papers laying on the floor. A breeze creeps around the corner emanating from a nearby open window. The corner of the papers lift off the ground showing its delicate underside; the faded words are showing a glimpse as to the knowledge that they contained. The words are bleached from sitting idly on the floor.

The area seems to have been abandoned some years ago, people have fled abandoning everything that was dear to them. Looking at the archaic items scattered on the tables you attempt to understand how people had lived before they had fled. The air is stale and devoid of all scent, dust covers your progress forward and is beginning to hide where you had come from.

It seems like eternity since a person has stepped foot into this area. Large pockets of dust have started to collect on top of the machines that were once the cutting edge technology. They have been forgotten; turned into relics that no one cares about.

After careful observation, it appears as though not everyone had fled initially. Some brave individuals seem to have stayed behind, you notice that there are stains on the floor indicating some kind of struggle had taken place in time after the event. They seem to have attempted to rebuild their society in this location in an attempt to maintain stability.

Looking to the left there is a single pole standing in the middle of a large open area that was once reserved for the most important gatherings. It has been reduced to a scene of desperation and violence. The remnants of a once noble piece of furniture have been reduced to embers in a vain attempt at fighting off the cold that has ravaged this area.

The pole has scene better days as well, once the focal point of presentations it was briefly turned into a sacrificial shrine as desperate people had turned to violent rituals to make the suffering and pain stop. The most revered and important individuals were bound to the pole and ritualistically beaten in an attempt to keep the evil spirits from entering into their new homes. From the state of the surrounding landscape it looks as though this did not help to ease their suffering.

Needless violence was determined to be the cause and the solution to their plight. How can a society take a step back in time in an attempt to solve their problems? Haven't we learned from the mistakes of the past....

.... What the !?

9:52am -- I'm still awake, for some reason I'm still awake and sitting on the couch here at home, personally I think I'm slowly going insane, but thats not really news now is it? Alas... there does appear to be an end to this madness though as the painter guy, who is the person I"m waiting for is just about finished. Although I'm *this* close to actually going into the back room to nap....

I like this painter, he just sanded stuff off the wall and then he wiped it up... so cool! To top it all off he came into the house and took off his shoes. I know small minds are amused by small things, and exhausted minds sleep on the floor in the back room with the cats. I'm impressed.

Can you tell... ?

That I'm bored at work? They say that sleep deprivation makes people go crazy. I'm almost willing to test that theory, the only point that I'm not looking forward to is the fact that I actually have to utilize part of my brain for my job. I only say part because most of the time I'm barely conscious while I look at the screen to begin with.

Its now 3:30am and I'm quite content with my progress to this point. I've had one can of RedBull and I'm not feeling the effect quite yet, maybe if I shotgun the other can I might be able to stay conscious on the way home in the morning. Although, I'm doing better than a colleague of mine who has been napping off and on for the better part of 45 minutes. For some reason I just can't bring myself to sleep at work, I'd end up snoring a lot.

... some other stuff happened.... your guess would be as good as mine as to what it was. For fun lets say it involved juggling, scissor kicks to the groin, swine, and automatic machinery reinvented. That could make for an interesting story if I had capable mental powers.

5:16am -- some of my coworkers are attempting to solve a problem concerning a dozen questions sent in by one particular user. I have knowledge in this particular area and have been speaking with them offering them suggestions and answers. There is one member of the team who I'm not sure really enjoys my involvement in answering questions of this nature as he has been deemed the expert in this area. Its kind of frustrating to see your answers fall on one set of deaf ears only to be systematically reworded and branded as a fresh new answer. I feel like I'm in marketing and a colleague just stole a pitch for a billion dollar ad campaign.... I should stop watching so many movies.

5:49am -- I have come to the realization that my previous statement regarding not sleeping at work is a total crock of sh*t. I'm just too proud to sleep at work thats it. Plain and simply put, damn me and my pride.... also, the aforementioned colleague who was napping is full on sleep at the moment complete with snoring sound effects. That reminds me of something that I heard on the radio this morning, did you realize that of the 4 people running around screaming in my mind at the moment, that there is only one of them who is capable of using a pen?

Let the mind f*ckery begin....

This is my first actual night shift while in posession of this bemusing site of wonderment that I call a 'blome' (my new made up word for 'blog home', and since thats not really a word either.... ). What I'm starting to say before being wildly interrupted by my other inner voice is that the writings here, however frequent tonight, may be a litle crazed and off topic. I've been awake for about 18 hours to this point and must survive another 6 hours of being awake and smarter than the people I talk to.

This should be entertaining considering I'm not feeling particularly smart at the moment.

Normally, I'd come up with some sort of creative musings about the world around me and how if you stare at the corners/sides of the monitor long enough you can actually see the refresh bar going down the screen. But none of that interests me at the moment, I'm more concerned with getting my eyes uncrossed and having some of the pain in my knee dissipate so that I can walk properly.

Again, with the wild tangents from my original topic, not that there was much of an original topic to begin with. Speaking of which, has anyone seen my orange?

By the way, if you see my friend Denise can you tell her that I'm mad a her for thinking about going away for work before I can get a chance to go home and see her for the first time in 10 years. It would be nice if everyone could gang up on her... I'd give you her email address but its too complicated for my mind at this stage in the game...

Fallen in a hole...

I seemed to have fallen off of the planet lately. I guess that would explain the lack of content and updates to my site as well as the lack of sleep... scratch that. That would explain the 10 hours of sleep a night and the feeling of utter exhaustion.

This past weekend we moved into our new apartment, which wasn't very far from our last place, two doors up to be exact.

I guess that explains the aching muscles and sore joints from going up and down the stairs two-hundred times or so. Though the only blessing that we had was the fact that we had our dear, little hatchback. This weekend we essentially treated it like a small pickup truck, carting boxes, odds-n-ends, and anything else that would fit in it up the road. Its getting a good rest now thats for sure.

The great thing is we managed to get our bed up the stairs (after nearly having to sell it when we moved in), as well as a few of the larger items that wouldn't fit in the car, outside and over to the new place before the rain started. Although we did start to move the last of the items as it was raining.

As the rain started my friend Stephen and I took a little break to chat and drank a beer to wait out the rain and move more things. I was even nice enough to give my landlord a beer while he was putting up some of the hardware on our cupboards. I felt bad though because Stephen wouldn't let us give him a drive home in the rain and instead wanted to bike home in the pouring rain.

The new apartment is totally amazing. I'll take some pictures to post tomorrow sometime (if my brain recovers) to share. The painter is coming back tomorrow to fix up some stuff that he screwed up the first time, now the only problem that I can see with that is I'm going to be want to sleeping when he's there and thats going to piss me off if I can't sleep. Jerk better be quick fixing up the bedroom or I'm going to be pretty peeved....

Wishes

HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

(almost missed today.)

Things to do on Halloween eve....

shoveling isn't one of them.

In honour of receiving our first snowfall last night I thought I would title todays post appropriately. You have read it right, last night we received about 2 inches of snow, now its bad enough that I was working at 7am this morning, but the last thing that I wanted to do was to clean off the car. Actually, the last thing I wanted to do this morning was get up and go to work, but alas, here I am.

The spirit of winter, though, has yet to awaken from it summer slumber and the “Fall Guy” has decided that he was going to bitch his entire way through the day.

Generally, I'm all about winter. Its my 2^nd favourite season to take pictures in, Fall being the first with all of the colours. The first snowfall of the year, makes the trees, in particular the Pine and Fir, stand out from the rest of the forest. My new work environment is completely surrounded on the back by forest so I have spent a good portion of the morning looking out at the trees and the way that the snow is hanging on the branches.

The downfall of the winter, now that I own a car, is the expense of maintaining it in the winter. Seeing as how the East Coast of Canada gets a lot of snow and freezing temperatures the general consensus of people around is to put “winter tires” on the car. Now, really, who the hell can afford to put winter tires on the car? Not me. Though I am looking forward to the first time that I have to shovel my driveway when I own a house, that novelty will wear off once I figure out that it means that I have to get up an hour earlier to get myself *out* of the driveway.

There is one more thing about winter that I like, normally people are happier in the winter. Yes, people love the sunshine and the warmth of the summer, but you will hear more people complaining about the stickiness and how they can't enjoy anything outside because of the heat. In the winter, everyone already expects to not do anything because of the weather so they are accepting of this and walk around with rosy red cheeks and a smile on their face when they reach the comfort of indoors.

Just thinking about going outside after work and taking in the fresh air is making me smile and is turning my day around already. I think that today just might be a great day...

Being off the grid...

something I really and truly suck at. For once.

So, you may or may not have noticed that my apparent news of going “off the grid” seems to not be going that well. Not only am I still frequently using MSN (btw, if you see me there say Hi), I'm still not using this newfound “time away” from technology to complete the tasks that I want to do. Boy am I ever slacking with this, but on the plus side, I've managed to only reactivate my Facebook account once within this time. And the only reason I had done that was to clean out my friends list, though I may have deleted a few too many people and you may inadvertently been one of them, if you find this the case let me know if/when I reactivate my account.

Thats right, I'm admitting that I suck at this, damnit all to hell. I'm a geek and taking away my toys doesn't really work that well.

I'm sitting here at the keyboard staring at the screen trying to find something to say, when really, I've got nothing. My fingers are poised at the kyboard hovering over the keys just waiting for something inspirational to enter into my mind so that I can show the world how smart and witty I am. I'm left sitting here with a blank stare on my face looking like a child who's just been told that there is no toothferry. This isn't a new occurrence though, I'm frequently looking blankly at the screen first thing in the morning, must have something to do with Caffeine withdrawl or something.

Though as we all know the tooth ferry does exist, she's the main cause of tooth aches when eating ice cream. True fact!

Another true fact....

Motivation

lacking the proper words.

Today I am totally lacking any kind of motivation for anything at present. I have lots of ideas of things that I want to say, write about and document but there seems to be a complete lack of words going through my mind right now its kind of funny actually.

I started something this morning actually, a small little paragraph about my drive to work and how driving while exhausted just isn't as much fun as it used to be when I was 'younger'. I'm not the same kind of person that I once was, there was a time when I could stay up all night and function more or less as a normal part of society on about 4 hours of sleep. Now, I'm lucky if I can keep my eyes open after having only 6 hours of sleep. Whatever happened to those days? The days when there wasn't a care in the world and there was nothing holding you back? Oh right, I apparently grew up and joined the real world.

If there is something to be said about my current line of work, its this: working night-shifts has really started to make me appreciate those people who work full-time nights and raise children. I have the utmost respect for those people who can balance that and still function.

But I digress, I guess I was originally going to mention how much you mind can play tricks on you when you are experiencing some serious sleep deprivation, but I suppose I already proved that already with the scatterbrainedness (and made up words) of the post. Personally, I love being sleep deprived somedays as it leaves your other senses heightened trying to catch the things that the rest of you just may miss.

With that I will get back to sleeping with my eyes open....

Clarification

or some more confusing words to hide the point of it all.

As my valued reader(s) [which I'm assuming to this point is just me.] may or may not have noticed, I've essentially dropped off the face of the planet in an online instance. No more Facebook. No more chats. Nothing. Well, except maybe for this.

The thing that you may want to understand is my reasoning for this, I may not have written the clearest explanation possible earlier. It may seem as though I'm just abandoning everything and everyone that I'm close to (AD has gotten a few emails/messages from people asking why I'm not longer their friend on Facebook). That is not the case, all I have done with my Facebook is deactivated my account, it still exists and all of my contacts and information remain there but I'm hidden from everyone while I get everything together again.

There are a few things that I'm trying to accomplish with this. The first and foremost is to spend some more quality time with my wife, I feel as though I have been neglecting her these past few months spending more time getting in touch with old and new friends than I have with her.

Also, I have been sitting on a website and potential business opportunity for the past few months (since August I do believe) that I have done nothing with. I'm shelling out all of this money for something and yet I can't seem to get it off of the ground. There are all kinds of ideas in my head that I want to get out and get on paper but have yet to find the motivation and time to get it done.

Its never an excuse to blame an incomplete project on the lack of time and resources to get the job done (well thats what many companies blame it on), I'm still going to use it for my case though. A few years back I started writing a little story, simply called The Lumberjack. It was a modern day horror with some throwbacks to the story telling of cheesy classics. Simply stated it was an imaginative story surrounding survival, past-lives, and a close encounter with some seedy individuals. I have visions for this story to be completed at a running length of 90 – 100 pages, its nothing by modern story lengths but I'm new to writing fiction so I'm allowed to be ambitious.

On top of this there is a second story that I have on the go, which may end up getting scrapped in the near future simply for my lack of ambition in continuing on with the recent string of horror related items that I've been writing. I've picked up the proverbial pen a few times in the last couple of years but could not muster up anything more than a few scattered sentences surrounding a keyword that I had in my mind.

I'd really like to utilize this time to write something worthy, something heartwarming. Though as we all know, heartwarming is harder and more time consuming to write than anything else simply for the fact that you have to make people care about what happens to your characters. Its easy enough to write a story involving a couples love for one another and a hardship that they endure; its harder to make those characters dynamic enough that you actually want to see them make it through their ordeal.

What I'm really trying to say is this: there are so many things in life that are worth doing, why are we so preoccupied with flashy gizmo's and convenient technology that we put the things that are most important to us so far away?

Off the grid

As you may or may not have noticed, I have deactivated my Facebook account and have been using MSN Messenger less frequently.

There is one simple reason for this. I have lost touch with myself and the things that I stand for in the last few months with my obsessive use of the above mentioned applications/sites. I am ceasing to use these in an attempt to correct my life and become one with the things that I have long forgotten how to do.

Those things would be writing and reading. I have two started stories/novellas which have been sitting on the back burner for the past two years that I would like to finish at some point. There is also a continuing stack of books on my shelf that I frequently pick up but have yet to open and read.

I will still frequently update this area of my life as there are some things that require me to say and you can always reach me via email: ajyates AT gmail DOT com.

Photography....

Or something like it.

Driving down the road today after dropping my wife off at class made me realize that I've missed almost 90% of the good fall pictures simply because I've forgotten about taking my camera when I go out side. All of the lovely fall colours seem to have fallen from the trees and are rotting in the gutters on the side of the road while I lay indoors staring at the ceiling wondering what tomorrow will bring.

Well, no more, from this day forward, my camera will no longer leave my side. I have already made plans to go out tomorrow afternoon driving around the city looking for scenes that require pictures to be taken.

Since I have been thinking about pictures today, I thought about posting some here within this area, but then realized that this would be pointless as I plan on having a Photo gallery within my site when it is designed eventually. In any case, there may be a few pictures cropping up here and there in the next few days.

Peaceful and serene...

with a touch of chaos.

One of the most peaceful things that I can think of doing at any point in time is driving. Just you and the open road before you as you attempt to reach your destination within a certain time frame, if you are so inclined. The only thing that matter and keeps you company is the little voices inside your head, or a talkative passenger.

The drive home from Sussex last night was one of those calm moments. The patter of the rain on the car; the sound of the water as it splashes on the underside of the car. Its one of those moments that you want to capture on tape and listen to over and over again in your most stressful times.

The lights shine up ahead of you revealing bits and pieces of the road, essentially showing you your future. Up ahead, a sign informing you that highway 880 is to the left and coincidentally to the right as well. Just past the sign on the side of the road the leaves jump up from their rest on the side of the road and begin their dance with the wind. As you drive past the leaves continue to dance in their upward spiral trying to climb up high one more time.

Theres something to be said about the naivety of the night. It may be dark and cold but it does not know what it contains on the outskirts of your circle of light. Around the corner there may be a dear waiting for it to be safe to cross the road, there may be nothing. An intense feeling creeps over you as you being to make the gradual movement in the turn. You're attention turns everywhere as you try to determine the safeness of this particular turn. As you exit the corner, you breathe a sign of relief, you are safe again.

When you're in the car with me, I am determined to keep you safe; to prove to you that there is nothing out there that can harm you.

What the F....

cuk!?

I opened my eyes this morning after my nice refreshing sleep, I glanced over at the clock to see what time it was. To my utter horror I had discovered that time is mocking me. Every now and then, without realizing it, Mother Nature and Father Time get together to frolic in the bushes. When they do that the whole world goes to hell. Disco? Their fault. 80s Hair bands? Their fault. My last girlfriend? Their fault.

If you notice any bizarre occurrences happening in your life, things that normally otherwise wouldn't happen. For example, a lapse in judgment causes you to buy purple socks to go with your brown pants, something that you normally wouldn't do; you can totally blame that on their fornication.

Back to this morning. What I discovered this morning was that not only was I a little chilli, I also discovered that it was 6am and I was AWAKE. Normally, this is the time I get up when I go to work for 7. But today is a special day, it was my day off, and I'm up!? How the hell did that happen? I lay there watching the ceiling, listening to the cats run around the apartment chasing each other, listening to the annoying clicking noise that the ceiling fan makes as it spins on it pre-determined cycle, and counting the minutes down until it was a reasonable time for me to get up. One last look, after what seemed to be an eternity, to check my progress is when it happens. I glance over and see 5:58. What the hell!? Time didn't go backwards did it. I squint my eyes hard and try to focus on the the digits. To my relief Father Time had finished in just enough time to set the correct time, it was really 6:12. Phew. I still had a lot of time to go.... and many more annoying things to listen to.

Whats the point anyways?

Now, I'm not really much of a fan-boy for much of anything these days. My loyalty with software, hardware, and computers in general is only limited by what is going to offer me the best bang for my buck.

Case 1: I own an iPod. Yes, I caved and spent the money to get a 30GB iPod for myself after years of “thinking” about getting one. I absolutely love it. I especially love the scrolling wheel it makes playing with the settings that much funner. But, I've also been looking at other devices on the market, and at the time when I purchased mine there wasn't much in the way of competition to the iPod in a feature for feature comparison. In about 3 months I'll have changed my tune because I know there are newer items in development soon to be released to the market place that I would gladly replace for my iPod.

Case 2: I own my very first official copy of Windows. I loathe XP, and all subsequent Operating Systems offered by Microsoft. Its not the fact that they're the dominant OS on the market. I spent two solid weeks searching the Internet for drivers to replace my wifes installation of Vista with the more user friendly XP. I had almost given up and installed the latest version of Ubuntu Linux when I found one in a last ditch effort.

Case 3: I won't use Office 2007, ever. Now, I know that O2k7 was developed to be integerated seemlessly into the Vista environment, but you think they might have included a guided tour of how the new interface and “menu” structure correspond to the older interface. I know many people who can't find a bloody thing in the software and have given up completely on it. A good solid recommendation for someone like that would be OpenOffice, it fully supports Office 2003 files and even has a built-in export to PDF.

Case 4: OOXML. I'm of course referring to Office Open XML, which is Microsoft's attempt at an international standard for documents. Notice how its OpenOffice backwards? I think that they did that so that they could try to hook users of OpenOffice without knowing. Their first attempt at a standard failed as many of the voting countries refused to adopt it (Canada, India, China). The main problem, you can't have an open standard that requires a user to use one and only one product, that defeats the point of being open. Note: you should be informed that OpenOffice had their document format approved by ISO almost 2 years ago.

If you couldn't tell I'm a huge fan of Open Source software. Software should be free, hell, many people pirate software to begin with because it is too expensive to buy. Open Source software allows a community of users to develop and provide input in creating alternatives to off the shelf software. What people are scared of with Open Source is they feel it is not secure and contains spyware, Open Source contains less spyware and harmful code than regular off the shelf software. If thats true, what is everyone scared of? Their own shadow? Or Change?

I've given XP a deadline of 3 months to get the hell off of my systems so that I can use something a little more “real” and affordable. I'm referring to installing Linux on my computer. The only thing at this point that is holding back from installing is the lack of Wi-Fi support for my wireless card. I have a newer card that is not readily available, if I had a standard wireless card the installation of Linux would pick it up in most cases. The problem with mine is that there are NO drivers at all for me to use. My iPod works great, my camera card reader works great.

I've got time to kill while waiting for the new files to become available, until then I plan on finding all of the replacement software that I can find.

Things that go bump...

in your head.

Sitting in the car today I was looking around the road at the lights near my house when out of the corner of my eye, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I quickly snapped my head to the right to see what was moving when I saw the tiniest little thing running across the road. The blurry shape didn't stop moving for what seemed like an eternity, scurrying this way and that, finally coming to rest on top of the front steps a of a little grey house. Perched on the top step like he was the king of the world was a chubby grey squirrel.

Staring off into the darkness, the squirrel was trying to determine the level of danger in the area. Unaware of his surroundings he tore off into the darkness underneath the step.

What was a squirrel doing up this early in the morning? I didn't know that they started their work day the same time that I did. He could have been coming home after a long night of heavy drinking. A little over ambition never really could hurt anyone, especially a little squirrel who needs to hide his nuts. You never know what those tricky guys are up to....

As I drove away, I kept checking in my rearview mirror to see if I could see the brave little squirrel. I wonder if I'll ever see him again. As the house gets further and further away the squirrel leaves my mind and floats off into the darkness.

Yeah, so I'm full of crap. I made that shit up.

Bumbling through the morning....

talking to myself. <-- This is the rest of my title. I do weird shit like that from time to time.

So, here I am back at writing here again. When do you think I'll get over the novelty of having a blog that noone reads? Probably in a week when I start waking up and try to force myself to write something here.

The only problem that I can foresee myself having with this thing is feeling the necessity to keep it upto date and free of lies. Yeah, right.

Something else that I may point out, is that when the mood strikes I may end up writing somethings that resemble poetry here. I haven't really decided if/where I will keep those items, but the good ones, or the really bad ones may end up making its way onto this blog. Just as a heads up.

I sometimes have the creative urge to put words together. Case in point:

Standing at the side of the road
tall white horse beside me,
my trusted companion,
spent years helping me to cross
the endless desert.

What am is this person doing with a horse? I dunno.
Who is this person? I dunno. You? Me? Everyone?
Why is the desert endless? Had you wandered there from somewhere else? If so, then its not endless, just long.

Also, at times the words that I put here may end up coming across as dark, dreary, negative, sad. This does not necessarily mean that I'm depressed, it just means that I'm having a bad day, and feel like taking my frustrations out on my vocabulary. I think that everyone should have a blog for themselves, even if its just for themselves. Its a great way to rid yourself of some stress and frustration.

Ciao.

Initial Rambling

It seems fitting that I open up a blog again to keep myself entertained and amused while I should be working. What is the point of it? I haven't decided what I will say here but if I get some kind of idea, I will sure as hell put it here.

Starting off I should mention that I woke up this morning thinking it was Monday and that it was my last day of work for the week. Boy was I sadly mistaken. I guess it helps that I've been completely out of it for the last few days. I don't know whether up is down and down is up. The only thing I know is that play on my iPod tends to make me happy.

I guess I should mention something personally about myself. Screw it. I don't want to.

Ciao