Reflex Rant

This week, it seems, is going to be one of those weeks where overall job output is low, though not for a lack of trying. We're just getting inundated with phone calls, quickie repairs that are in and out in 30 minutes, and other assorted picayune. Meanwhile, longer jobs from last week languish as we have only a few moments to sit down and poke at the keyboard. While it's always important to service our customers ( no George Carlin jokes, please ), it puts us in a bad position with the customers who are patiently waiting.

Especially frustrating at these times are our habitual service hogs. Those customers who may spend $30 a year with us, but by golly we better be at the ready when they want to have a one hour phone conversation on the merits of an upcoming technology. Or perhaps the customer who has short five minute questions.... twelve times a day. Grrrr....

"Yes, I brought in my computer this morning, and I wanted to call and see what you found."

"Uhh, lady, we said there would be a two day wait before we could get started."

"Yeah, I just didn't know if maybe you had a chance to start on it early."

"Not only have I not started on it, it's now going to take longer because I'm having to answer your well timed query. Kudos to you, madam."

Anyway, it's not always that bad. It can sometimes provide a welcome diversion from the doldrums of hunting down rouge drivers that HP was so thoughtful in not posting on their website.

Actually, I'm in a pretty good mood, despite my minor rants. However, there's only so much I can type about being happy and cheerful without actually having related events to discuss. Ergo, I give you the previous tedium. Try to contain yourselves.

Saunter Along

Very little news today, very little going on. Spent some quality time with the family last night. Had a lovely time, except when my mother decided that I should have my blood sugar checked. I've been told for over a year that I probably have diabetes, I guess because of my weight. I shocked the critics when it came out quite normal. Of course, being inexperienced in stabbing my finger with a needle, it took three tries before I was able to produce enough blood for the damned test. Actually, I learned that when using the needle on your finger for the purposes of drawing blood for a sugar test, one does not stab ones' self, but rather, it is considered a lance. ( I swear to God, just look in the manual with the test kit. "Lance your finger..." )

The good news in all those health hijinks is that I also got myself weighed for the first time in almost 3 years. You see, when you step onto a scale and discover that you've reached the pinnacle of human fitness ( 355 pounds, to be precise ), you tend to act in a sane and healthy way whenever seeing a scale in the future. ( Like, for example, giving it the finger. ) However, since I'm on my crusade to have a waistline lower than my IQ, I decided I should give it a whirl.

First up was the ultra modern digital scale with LED readout. Folks, let me tell you something: When you step onto a scale, who's whole existence is to provide you with an accurate assessment of your gravitational quotient, and it responds by committing seppuku, you know you're a fatass. Actually, it just displayed a red E , which roughly translates the same. Reading the instructions on the bottom of the device clearly indicate that it has a weight limit of 300lb. Hmm, ok, so I haven't had any miracle weightloss of 56lb in the last few months. That's okay, I can hang with that.

Next up was old reliable, the analog scale with the rotating disc. After carefully calibrating my old-world relic, I noted that this scale only reads up to 280lb. Well, not to worry, because unlike these craptacular digital scales, an analog scale will keep on weighing after it wraps around zero. So, whatever my result, I just add 280.

With no further ado, my weight is now at 312. Not great by any stretch, as I still have over a hundred pounds to go, but at least I'm safely below my all-time high. Why, lose a few more pounds and maybe I won't be rejected by the digital demon! ( Yeah right, it'll find some other way to shun me. )

I've also been playing The Movies, and it's been pretty interesting. Just going through the regular mode for now, so that I can acquaint myself with the controls ( which are way too sluggish ). I'll saunter into the sandbox mode after I've pissed off enough of my stars by giving the best trailer to an extra. Hey, that's just how my studio rolls.

Possibilities

My mind has spend a large portion of this weekend weighing the current state of things, and of the possibilities for the future. Getting specific with you would be a mind-numbingly long process. However I can say that I feel pretty positive about the coming year. In fact, this is the most upbeat I've felt about things in at least five years, maybe longer.

Someone pretty close to me seems to have been inspired by my efforts for a healthier body. I'm really glad I could help inspire this person into action, however I feel it may not work out just yet. They feel the best motivation to exercise is going to be through buying the most expensive piece of equipment they can, because then the guilt of letting the money go to waste would be too great to bear. I feel that this strategy is doomed to failure. ( See Babylon Five, Season Two, Episode 21 "Comes the Inquisitor" for a pertinent quote from Lennier.) I seem to be working off of rewards at the moment. ( I know I started off with anger, but things change. ) Complements from others provides short term rewards that help keep me motivated, but there are some long term goals and rewards I want, which provides my main motivation. Hey, if positive reinforcement can work for mice in a maze looking for cheese, it can work for a simple guy like me.

On the topic of fitness, my old friend Mark ( mentioned earlier on this blog ) gave me a lot of good information that he used to get into shape, and I've been pouring over it. Some of it is not relevant to my situation ( extreme weight training ) but a lot is. Thanks Mark.

Ya know, it's beautiful and sunny out right now, at 62F. To hell with sitting in front of a computer, I'm going to go find something to do outside... Later.

God Speed Challenger Crew

I was in the fifth grade at Erie Street Elementary School in Fulton, New York when the space shuttle Challenger made it's final flight. I remember those moments very clearly. I did not see the accident live, but the sixth grade class, who was normally across the hall from us, had a TV set up out in the hallway to watch. I remembered excusing myself to go to the boy's room, which was three flights downstairs. When I came back up, the shuttle was in flight, and I watched it for a moment before returning to my class. I had only been back in my seat for a few seconds when pandemonium broke out in the hall.

It's impossible to describe the feelings I had that day, as they were a jumbled mess. I remember my mom and her next door neighbor friend, Shannon, were crying when I got home. Everyone just seemed to be in a state of shock, and it was as if the world stopped turning for a little while.

I'd like to leave this post with a link to my favorite article ever written on the disaster, by Dennis E. Powell. Powell was nominated for a Pulitzer for this article, and I consider it mandatory reading for everyone.

Jiggery-Pokery

Shortly after my Random Goodies post, I decided to throw the Sennheizers on and listed to a little music. So, clicked on WinAMP, clicked to open a file, and browsed out of the Gorillaz' Demon Days album to find something a little lighter. First stop was the newly acquired Johnny Horton CD. Well, not so fast. Although the directory was there, there was a complete lack of music. Hmmm... ok. Maybe I did some weird cut and paste and they're in another directory. Oh well, let's try Billy Joel... er, no, that's gone too. Ace of Base, nope.

As you might imagine, panic started to set in a bit as every album I've ripped from my CDs is missing. "Ok, maybe something is wrong with WinAMP." So I opened explorer, browsed to the music on the server... nope, still gone. Okay. Opened WinAMP again, which was still defaulting to the gorillaz directory. IT still had music, but nothing else did. Hoping that it was some kind of networking glitch, I decided to VNC into my server ( it's running headless, so no direct connection available ). Umm, no, VNC is down too.

Okay, as a last resort, maybe something in the server is just a little nuts and it needs a reboot. I didn't want to kill my runtime ( which extended back into the Summer of '05 ), but it had to be done. Here's where things get really interesting, because after hitting the reset button, my server just won't boot. D'oh!

Now I'm pissed. I move a monitor and keyboard over to the server to take a look around. My SuSE install was only barely booting into the kernel before reporting that some critical file was corrupted. Now I'm starting to think the hard drive died, at least for a second, before remembering that the music and the OS are on two separate physical disks. So either TWO drives died, or something is seriously wrong with my hardware.

My next course of action was to load up the Ultimate Boot CD for some hardware diagnostics. Well, yeah, that's a great idea, except that while the CD's menu would load, within two keystrokes I would always be sitting at an error screen. Swapped out CDROMs to make sure it wasn't bad, and even tested the CD in my workstation. Both were fine. I had a dead system. Insert your favorite four letter F word here.

After regaining my composure, I decided I had two courses of action. First, I could continue diagnosing the problem, working one PC part at a time until I narrowed down the bad component and replaced it. Or, I could just do a massive upgrade right now, swapping out motherboard, CPU, and power supply at once to just get up and running as quickly as possible. Since it was already late and I was tired, I chose option two.

Luckily for me, my very kind brother Brandon had previously offered me his old mobo w/ 3ghz Athlon, and I knew I had a spare power supply. From here on things started to go a little smoother. Drove across town to get the mobo, came back, and swapped parts. A fairly uneventful process if you've ever done this kind of work.

Once everything was assembled and running, I was overjoyed to find all my files intact. Didn't have to reinstall or repair the OS to get working with the new motherboard ( unlike some other OSes I could mention ), just had to supervise the autodetection of the new drivers. SuSE is really good about this, and I didn't have to intervene whatsoever. Really, the only place I had to reconfigure anything at all was where my network services were concerned. Since the new mobo included an onboard gigabit ethernet adapter, I wanted to use it and take one of my 10/100 cards out. This of course means mapping services to the new NIC ( In YaST, NICs are identified by their MAC address. ) like Samba and setting the internet interface for my firewall, but this was to be expected. All and all, a pretty painless fix.

Anyway, my apologies to my less technically inclined listeners, but this was a rough two hours for me that I had to get off my chest. Everything worked out in the end, but at the point that I realized I may have lost all my music and would have to re-rip all my CDs, I felt a bit ill... that was a lot of work.

Sorry, We're Closed

No update today kids. It's quite late, and I've got too much stuff to bring everyone up to speed on. I'll make up for it this weekend. Honest!

Random Goodies

• Here's a funny tech-support related movie made with The Movies.
  
• Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
• Interesting tidbit on how our brains process pictures from our eyes.
• This genius decided to water-cool his computer... by filling it with water!
• Some street punk gets his ass kicked by a Star Wars nerd.
• This guy was really sneezing his head off.
• Funniest Home Videos meets Martial Arts
• This is how I used to wash my BMW

Today was full of work and stuff, nothing interesting going on unless tales of my washing and vacuuming out my car enraptures you. In that case, please call me for a blow by blow. ( Call Goldberg. 800 - 600 - 6014 )

Old Friends

Got to chat today with an old friend I used to work with a long time ago, back in a restaurant called The Caddy Shack. Mark worked as a server while I was in the kitchen. We got to BS about the old days some, and also got to talking about losing weight and general fitness. He was pretty excited about it because he's dropped a lot of weight, and he was eager to talk about how he did it. Of course, since I'm in the process, I was only too happy to listen.

Did get me thinking a bit about a lot of people I've lost contact with over the years. Not just people I've known here in Alabama ( where I've lived since '90, for those who don't know ), but people I knew back in Michigan, Maryland, West Virginia, New York, New Hampshire, Indiana, and Oklahoma. ( I was too young to know anyone outside my family before Oklahoma. ) I've known a lot of good people in my life, and I'm lucky to still call many of them friends. Too bad I can't arrange an all encompassing reunion with everyone I've known, just to say hi and see what's up. That would be pretty cool.

Oh, and allow me a moment of your time for a quickie rant, if I may. Ladies and gentlemen, just a reminder: You don't require three car lengths of space between you and the car in front of you. Pull the f'ck up! Did you ever think that someone behind you might have wanted to get into the turn lane? Now I have to wait for the next light, asshole. Perhaps if you weren't driving an urban assault vehicle you might be able to see closer than a mile ahead of you.

Voices From Above

Just a quickie, as I'm hosting "Jonathan Night" tonight. I usually see prayer as a wonderful tool for self-affirmation, because I believe everything has been set from the beginning, so there's no chance to change the course of events. ( You're getting the 10 minute oil-change version of my religion, please bear with me. ) Maybe I should look at it as more of a "Butterfly Effect", because ripples in the water do run into other ripples and can add up to great waves. Because when you ask for a sign, and it comes, it's a great f'ing feeling. ( Unless of course you're asking for the sign of something bad, like your doom. Then the feeling is probably not so great. ) Maybe I should try this stuff more often.

Oh, on an unrelated topic, Jonathan just introduced me to "SurvivorMan", a new show on the Science channel. A survivalist gets dumped in a new hostile environment every week, and must survive for seven days. But he gets no food, no water, no camera crew, no matches, nothing. He has to manage his own cameras, find his own food, everything. Pretty interesting stuff. One week he'll be in the jungles of Costa Rica, the next he's be on top of the Rocky mountains in Canada. If you get the Science channel, I'd definitely give it a whirl.

Well, time to rejoin the fun. Next up on the watch list is The Transporter.

Quick Notes

I've run a list of my DVDs online now for a while. I don't know why it didn't dawn on me to link them to this blog before. Anyway, if anyone is interested in knowing what kind of stuff I watch, or if a friend has anything they want to borrow, here's the place to check. I may be missing an item or two, but this should more or less be my entire collection.

Spent the last 24 on the Ennis Ranch. Basicaly just talked, watched stuff, and had questionable bathroom breaks. ( Don't ask. ;-) Got to hang out with Joey too, which is a rare occasion for me as of late. A good time was had by all.

Came home from that to find Black and White 2 sitting on my computer desk. I don't know if it fell from the heavens or what, but I won't ask too many questions while installing it. :-)

The Tale of Triton

Cold, empty, bloodless, not seen,
Kept confined to a space that's quiet, serene,
In orbit high above a Neptune so blue,
Bound to my fate by the great cosmic glue.

Looking, longing, toward the within,
Spying the seven who dance on in sin.
Coveting the warmth of yellow and red,
"Yet stoic and brave is my life", I said.

Years pass, and more,
With nothing in store
For the moon at the end
Finds this quiet will rend

My core into two.
My jealously askew.
"If only the Sun could shine more on me!"
Alas, getting just enough light to see

The seven, all dancing, all merry, all snug,
With the warmth of the Sun a perpetual hug.
My spirit was crushed and convinced I was cursed,
No release for frustrations, I feared I should burst.

Yet ho! What pierces the darkness abound,
But a comet of ice and rock so round.
"Fear not Triton, your woes known to me,
I shall avail you of this deep, cold, blackened sea."

A thud I did feel,
The sensation quite real.
The comet, making a sacrifice,
Upon my surface now, just bits of ice.

Sorrow I knew for a moment or two,
Until a lurch, I felt, in the great cosmic glue.
Slipping, slowly, falling away,
with my companion, Neptune, I could no longer stay.

Fear, in my core, like never before
as untested waters wash upon my shore.
Crying "Help me, please!" as I continued to advance,
"I've not been here before, I don't know this new dance!"

Yet dance I did, as the seven before,
Uranus, the first sinner to open his door.
And Saturn, and Jupiter, the next on my list,
bade me farewell with a wave and a kiss.

The Sun, the Sun! Much brighter was she,
Red and yellow rays now washed over me.
The warmth of her hug so loving, so nice,
I didn't mind that she was melting the ice

From my surface, my shield from blackness of space.
No more would I need it as I continued to race
to the center of all, my beloved yellow Sun,
from who's love my needs for protection were none.

Beyond Mercury at last, no sinner then lay
between me and my Sun. We continued to play
And dance! Oh we danced in fanciful glee,
with the Sun's loving rays just consuming me.

At last we could touch, she kissed on my cheek
but against such strength of desire I was weak.
My core, it did crumble, unable to bear
the weight of satisfaction my existence found there.

Google vs. Government

The Justice Department has decided to sue Google in response to Google's refusal to hand over a week's worth of search data, including the IP addresses of those who did the searching. Why has our government requested this information, you should ask? To gather data on a person's ability to find sexually explicit content online, and to use such data to defend it's beleaguered Child Online Privacy Protection Act, which has been successfully contended twice in lower courts and now faces a hearing in the Supreme Court.

So saith the Justice Department. However, if all they seek is to prove that online search engines can provide pornography to anyone with a free hand, why require the IP addresses? Those don't help in the government's declaired endeavors. Unless, of course, the government has other interests.

Truthfully, what government wouldn't want a map to every person who's downloaded child pornography, or to everyone who's read up on the Little Red Book, or who's been reading up on atomic energy, or how to grow your own Marijuana, or how to do any of the hundreds of things the government doesn't want you to know about. Well, with this handy research data in hand, we can place wiretaps on every flagged IP, making it sooo much easier for our dear Uncle to keep the baby eagles in the nest.

Apparently MSN, Yahoo, and AOL don't care quite so much about this possible abuse of power. ( Let's not get ahead of ourselves, after all. No one has done anything with the data yet. ) Thank you, Google, for caring. I may not do any of these things ( Well, I do like to read up on atomic energy from time to time ), but if I want to search the web for a picture of a man scratching his ass, I'd like it if that fact were not a matter of federal record. So long as you have my interests in heart, you'll have my trust.

楽観主義者

The above kanji is pronounced "rakkan shugisha", which means "optimistic person". No reason to be optimistic in particular, but to quote Simon and Garfunkle, I'm "feelin' groovy".

Got to hang out with Jonathan last night for the first time since the new year. Brandon also joined us. Caught the newest by George Romero, and it wasn't too bad. Unrated director's cut, so there was lots of gore. If anyone knows how to do gore, it's Romero. Didn't get to it, but I'm looking forward to catching The Transporter 2. The first one I was tepid toward, because I didn't realize that it was a true action movie. And when I say true action movie, I mean as in they literally wasted no more than 5 minutes on plot, the rest was pure action. Being a plot guy myself, I was let down until I decided that plot simply wasn't what it was supposed to be about. It's just supposed to be about a guy kicking ass. In that endeavor the movie succeeded wonderfully. So I hope for more of the same from #2.

Today was spent entirely on two service calls. The first was to a local non-profit, and the second was to the director of the non-profit's home, so it really felt like one big call. Kinda cool in a way. Especially since it wasn't just sitting in front of AVG and Ad-Aware all day. I got to dig through a pile of donated computer parts, figure out what was what, get it together, set it up, network 'em, figure out who should get the newer printer and who should get the printer they were now losing... it was a fun change of pace.

Got some good comments from a pseudo-relative who worked there; I hadn't been by since Christmas and I got some complements on my apperance, which felt quite nice. It's good to know others can see the changes, even if I can't. Still have to keep my nose to the grindstone of course. I've got a long way to go.

Nothing new to report on the aquarium, except that some internal fears about my new leather coral may be unfounded. I thought it didn't look as healthy after I added it to the tank, but I think it's just the angle that it was placed on the rock; Sort of gave it a droopy appearence. No big deal.

Groovin' out.

Between Love and Lucidity

Aside from being the title of a great track from Christopher, lucidity is also the topic of a dream FAQ that I found interesting. It's a list of tips and tricks for you to use to have a Lucid Dream. I've never actually tried to have one, but I can remember a few dreams in my lifetime where I was quite self aware, though I can't say I had full control over myself.

Now, out of body and shared dreams.... ummm, sure. Sounds like great fun, call me when you can prove it. ( Or better yet, make sure I have one. )

Obsession

I'm apparently too obsessed with my aquarium. I buy better water for my fish than what I get for myself. I spend 2 minutes microwaving my bowl of soup for dinner. My fish get seafood, which I dethaw, chop up, and mix with saltwater, vitamin C, and garlic extract. Then I feed it to them, one spoonful at a time. Then I add some microvert food for my invertebrate, ya know, so they can have a varied diet.

It's worth it though. It's like training for when I have my own wet, finned children. :-)

For anyone interested, there's a sneaky way you can know when I'm exercising. I throw the headphones on while on my bike, and I have a particular playlist I run that's pretty high energy, but with slightly slower songs placed strategically throughout to keep me from having a heart attack. I noticed that I tend to pedal harder for songs with a faster beat, or through a particular chorus. Anyway, here's the current playlist ( artist, album, song, time ):

• 311 - Music - Visit - 3:40
• Ace of Base - The Bridge - Beautiful Life - 3:41
• Madonna - Confessions on a Dance Floor - Hung Up - 5:37
• Freeze Pop - Amplitude Soundtrack - Super Spr0de - 3:15
• Justin Timberlake - Justified - Rock Your Body - 4:27
• Cake - Fashion Nugget - The Distance - 3:01
• Beyonce - Speak My Mind - Check On It - 3:33

Total Time - 27:14

Sometimes I'll let Winamp roll the playlist over and I'll do another song or two, depending on how hard I pushed myself during the more intense songs. Anyway, if you see some of these songs on when visiting the blog, I may be pumping my fat little legs like mad on the other side.

Hope that was a pleasant image. :-) Hey, could be worse, I could have pointed you to tub girl!

Introspection, Torn Asunder

And really, why not? Is it not a good idea to reboot your computer once in a while, rather than trying to restart the TCP/IP subsystem using the command shell after having the LSP stack hijacked by some nefarious web-born uber-virus? Wipe the slate clean and start over again. Bye bye.

No, honestly, it's not that bad. ( Assuming you made it through the first paragraph unscathed. ) If you force yourself to touch the bottom of the deep end of the pool, for the first time in many years, there are sometimes mental or emotional hurdles to overcome during the process. Especially if, when reaching the bottom of said pool, one finds a lazy clown; Sitting there with his red paint smile, little air bubbles streaming out on occasion. At that point, sometimes it's best to just get out of the pool, catch your breath, and recheck your steps used in determining whether reaching the bottom was such a good idea in the first place. To borrow an appropriate phrase, you can sometimes get hit in the small of the back with a lemon wedge wrapped around a large gold brick.

This turn of events may prove troubling to some. To others it is merely another adventure. I tend to ride shotgun in the second posse.

Now, without letting this entire update devolve into an REM album, here's some mundane news for the not so psychotic. Managed to drag myself out to my brother's place last night, which turned out pretty fun. Got to wish Brandon a happy birthday again, and I also got to hang out with Jason and Nathan again, whom I rarely get to see. We played some NBA 2k6, but mostly just hung out.

Today's big event was a trip to the fish store, where I spent more money than I should have. It was all for a good cause, however, as my new larger tank needed several things to guarantee it's continued smooth operation. Among these were dual 150watt stealth heaters ( read: no glass to break ), about a dozen snails, two hermit crabs, a brittle starfish, a leather coral, and various foods and supplements to help ward off my Royal Gramma's minor Ich infection. Everything has been acclimated to the tank already and seems to be doing fine.

Not much else I can say at this point that wouldn't get me into trouble at some level in my life, so...

Deflation

Ah well, congratulations to the Redskins on a tough fought season. Although we didn't win against Seattle today, our squad has come a long way in a short time, and I truly believe legendary head coach Joe Gibbs has a lot to do with that. Anyway, can't wait to see what you do next season!

Other than watching the game, today is turning out to be a slow day. Gonna hit Coral Reef Aquatics tomorrow, as a visit today would have made me miss some of the game. Been invited to go over to Jason's house to hang with him, Brandon, and Nathan. Not sure exactly what's planned, though I think they wanted to watch an NBA game. Not sure if I'm going to join them or not yet, as there's a part of me that really wants to grab some more sleep. Guess I'll just wait for the wind to blow, and follow it to my destination.

Repose

Although the first few hours of indented labor burdened my spirit with great weight today, I must confess that the hours after noon passed much easier. Coughing of throat and running of nose not withstanding, my greater proximity to the freedom hour felt as the first warming rays of sunlight, cast upon a child newborn in the night. Perhaps the profound meaning of this particular Friday evening lay in my relief from working with biological stresses on the body; Or perhaps from the strain of our first full workweek after many shortened by government sponsored holidays. Or perhaps, just perhaps, I was pleased to have another opportunity to enjoy life's true comforts: Time spent with family and friends.

Tonight was spent with my youngest brother Brandon in celebration of his twenty third day of birth, which officially began at 11pm CST. This particular hour was chosen because his birthday did not start until Saturday, and since he was born in the Eastern time zone, I adjusted for our current situation. I am an anal retentive bastard, after all.

We decided to eat out at Aldoria's, which had stood as the finest Mexican restaurant in all of the metro Decatur area. I use the past tense, because tonight we discovered that Aldoria's has closed it's doors for good, to be reborn like the mariachi phoenix into some other Mexican restaurant who's title escapes me. I am deeply educated on the subject because an eight and a half by eleven sheet of paper hung by 3M brand scotch tape from the glass door. It's contents were read to me by my roommate Jessie and his girlfriend Kelly, who were to join us for the meal. After several helpful suggestions from all involved, Brandon selected our local Logan's Roadhouse, opting to sate his hunger by chewing into a bit of beef.

"Nay," saith the lunchtray of fate unto the hungry masses. "Ye shall not sup here, for I have declared the parking lot full." And it was so. Onward our metal horses rode into the parking lot of Applebees, and verily did we find parking for our noble steeds. Unfortunately, we could not find parking for our noble arses, as there was a line extending out onto the cold sidewalk. I then came to realize the problem which plagued our hearty band of adventurers: All of Decatur was to eat out in celebration of my brother's grand day! Oh what a joy it must have been for him to know that his people cherished him so. In fact, our venters cried out of joy for it.

So we ate at the Golden Phoenix: Decatur's best Chinese buffet. The meal was good. We had fun. After dinner Brandon and I retired to his quarters to play some NBA 2k6 on his XBox 360, which was quite fun. Although basketball isn't my first choice in sports, I enjoy the game a lot, and this particular incarnation was very well made. Then it was off to Deadwood for two more episodes of the second season. I wasn't sure about this season at first because a lot was happening all at once, but now being five episodes in I feel comfortable again. I really do enjoy this show, if for no other reason than the fact that they actually have a writer, who can, you know, write interesting stuff to go on the screen. It is a strange fetish of mine to actually have a good story with dynamic characters who have interesting things to say. I'm afraid this makes me a member of a very small minority group. Perhaps there is some silver lining: I hear you can get good scholarships for such things.

Here endith the first night of my weekend odyssey. Stay tuned for more sordid details as they develop. Oh, and at the risk of jinxing the team's best showing since 1999, go Redskins!

Dancing Animals in Love

I have to believe that opiates were involved in the conception of this video. Well, perhaps they're just required to view it.

What ever happened...

...to just plain crazy?


Anyway, took off early from work today to get some rest and hopefully shake some of this cold off. I tried taking some non-drowsy formula Dayquil this morning and, ummm, yeah, it made me drowsy. So that didn't help my productivity. I did get a few customers finished today, so I don't feel too bad, but I always feel like I failed somehow if I can't tough it out.

Besides getting better, I also need to finish planning a trip to Coral Reef Aquatics this weekend. They are by far the best place for marine aquarium goodies in North Alabama, but right now they're only open weekends. I need to buy a heater, I need a refill of RODI top-off water, and I should look into expanding my cleanup crew for my tank, since it's so much bigger. I figure I need about another dozen snails, maybe a hermit crab, and one more cleaner: a star, urchin, or seahare. I should also start planning exactly what kind of light setup I want to end up with. I know I'm getting metal halides, but there is a wide variety of bulb colors and wattage options, and lots of different reflectors. I need to keep it on the cheap side though: I'm going to cap myself off at ~$350.

The above picture is of my "anime-buddy" Steve, caught at my place of work while I was testing a customer's digital camera. I don't have a lot of experience with digital cameras, but that camera was nice, and I seriously want to pick one up now. It was a Fujifilm Finepix E510, and it looks like you could shop around online and get it for under $200. Pretty good value I think, for a 5 megapixel with it's features. I've been playing with the idea of getting a camera for a year now, but I never did any research into it. I will now.

Tales of an American Fat Ass

Yeah, I'll admit it, I have my own zip code. My ass has so much gravitational pull that NASA must include me in it's orbital calculations for the International Space Station. My last pair of pajamas were made from a disused circus tent.... you get the idea.

All self-deflating jokes aside, I've long had a weight problem, and I've long known about it. I knew I was overweight twenty years ago. Yet for all my self-declared "intelligence" and self-awareness, I've done little to stem the tide until very recently. I suppose, deep down, my brain was addicted to the satisfied feeling of a full stomach.... hmmm... I had to sit there for a moment and think about what I just wrote. It's hard to follow up on that.

I also need to lay some partial blame on my addiction to games. Since at least the age of six, I've had some form of video game entertainment at my disposal. Not long after, at nine, I got my first computer, a Commodore 64, and I learned that playing games is fun, but making your own is even better! Of course, my having grown up around computers has lead me to have some form of a career, so there are positive aspects, but I almost shudder to think back on other aspects of my life I've denied myself because of it. I was less interested in human interaction than I should have been, which was reinforced by my unspoken embarrassment over my growing waistline. Well, at least eating made me feel better. *cough*

So, now at 30, with almost half my life over, I've had what recovering alcoholics call a moment of clarity. I see all the plans and dreams I had begun to lay out as early as five years old, and I see none of them advancing beyond the narrow compound of my skull. Hell, if nothing else it'd be nice to be able to ask someone out without feeling like a complete ass for putting the poor girl on the spot. Why should I force her to fabricate some excuse to keep from hurting my feelings? I know I'm a fatass. Let's cut the middleman and declare my invitation a failure. There, better for everyone.

Well, anyway, I think I may finally have enough willpower to make it all go away, and perhaps enough to recover some of my childhood dreams too. Four years ago I managed to quit smoking two and a half packs a day, after seven years, and I haven't looked back. It was simple now that I think back on it: I had only to reinforce the idea that cigarettes were not my friend. They were f'ing up my life, killing me with every drag, and I was just sitting there taking it. I had to get myself angry! I needed to hate my cigarettes to keep them away, and you know what? It worked.

Why is food any different? Sure I need food to survive, but that's no excuse. People around the world survive on less than a hamburger a day, so why should I need so much more? The strategy: eat only enough to make hunger pain go away. If I don't feel physical pain, then I don't need to eat. Pain is, after all, your body's way of telling you that your stomach is empty. So why eat if it's not empty?

Okay, so step one is out of the way. What's step two? Get off my ass and move! Losing weight is going to be a slow process with diet alone. It took me three decades to put this weight on. By God I'm not waiting another three to take it off. So, instead of sitting in from of the latest shoot-em up all night, I've installed an old exercise bike in my room. I also have about 50lb of free weights I can lift around.

This is actually what made me decide to write this little self-rant tonight. I was on my exercise bike earlier, and I wasn't feeling very good. In fact, I actually have a bit of a cold. I was tired, cranky, and unenthusiastic. "I rode my bike for the last few nights, so shouldn't I be okay to take a night off?" I asked myself. As I rode along, weighing the pros and cons of my argument, it dawned on me that I really did need to continue tonight, even if I felt bad. I couldn't think of all the reasons at the time, so I figured writing them all down was the best way to reason with myself. And, quite frankly, I can't imagine how public disclosure and humiliation could be anything but more motivation. Hell, maybe I can score some sweet marketing gig off of it, like Jared from Subway or something. That would rule.

Intelligent Bee Design

Slashdot recently linked to an article in which scientists discovered how bees fly. The article goes into some minor detail on how a bee's flight is unique from other forms of flight, as well as the methods used to discover them. First off, good for them. I've always been a man of science, and I think the more we learn about the world around us, the better.

However, the article, as well as the researcher interviewed, use this opportunity to take a jab at the concept of Intelligent Design. Apparently, the fact that we can discover how something works is proof that it wasn't designed to work that way, but rather a product of evolution. Seriously, no other evidence of ID's failure was revealed, so I'm assuming that's their reasoning for dismissing it in the article.

No matter what side of the ID fence you sit on, no one should expect to be able to dismiss the concept with such a flacid retort, especially in the "Scientific Community". We expect facts, gentlemen, and we also want documented procedures so that we can verify your results. If you have a personal opinion about something, fine. That is your right. However, mixing your opinions into the facts of a scientific study only serves to cheapen your discovery.

Now that we have that out of the way, there is absolutely no reason that evolution and intelligent design have to be mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they work together surprisingly well. Ever play dominoes? Me neither. Instead, I always would stand them up on end, one after another, in interesting patterns until my supply of mass-produced monoliths expired. Then, with the flick of a wrist, they fell, one by one. Beautiful, elegant, and thoroughly planned out. I watched as my plan unfolded, one drop at a time. However, each domino would not have fallen without the one before it. It was a series of fortunate events, as it were, and the last domino would never have changed its' state ( from standing to fallen ) without the changes that came before it. It only became a fallen domino because of those changes. Almost sounds a little like...... evolution?

Here's a concept: What if, instead of setting up the universe to start in the year 1000BC or whatever, the Creator set us up, one by one, from the Big Bang through to the end, decided it was a good plan, and flicked his wrist? Would that not have the appearance of evolution? Would that not be planned? See how beautiful the concept is? Tired of my paragraph of questions?

Anyway, it's just a thought. A thought that, if the above were true, is just another domino falling in the chain. Maybe I can now claim to have been a member of a chain-gang. *BA-DOOM-CHING!*

Nada

Not much to report. Things in the new aquarium seem pretty stable, which is always a good thing. Work is work... if you've cleaned one spyware infested computer you've not cleaned enough. Got hooked up on del.icio.us, which you can explore on the sidebar. Not many links in yet, but I want to be a little picky about what I decide to post.

Oh yeah, went on a rampage of virtual exploration through the depths of extensiondom in search on the ultimate combination of Firefox plugins. I'm sure this isn't a complete list of must-haves, but I think I'll be happy for a while:

• Forecastfox
• Adblock
• Blogger Web Comments
• Google Safe Browsing
• Viamatic foXpose
• SessionSaver
• del.icio.us

A little expeditious googling should put you on the path. And of course, the obligatory "If you're not running Firefox you have no business online." Actually, that's not true: Konqueror is fine too, just thought I'd get a jab in at my roommate. ;-)

Oh yeah, NaDa.

Quickie update before work: Got the tank, and also got the owner's old stand for $40, so I'm very happy. ( Retail $120+ ) Spent yesterday afternoon and evening getting water in it, adding salt, arranging rock, etc. Didn't have as much heating power as I'd like ( one 200w and one 50w heater ), so temperature was very slow to rise. I had to fill gallon jugs of hot tap water and float them in the tank to help it rise faster, or else I never would have been able to move my critters over. As it is, everyone seems to be adjusting to their new home pretty well. Now I just have to get the sump/refugium return plumbed and buy some metal halides for lighting. Oh yeah, I'd still like another 200w or so of heating power.

Also added a cheesy "What am I listening to now?" widget to my blog, because it is of the upmost importance that everyone know what I'm doing right now. I just hope I remember to turn it off before I watch more colorful content. ;-)

Aquatica

Getting ready to go pick up my new aquarium. I was running a 29 gallon reef tank, but it sprung a leak that I couldn't repair by re-caulking. So, I'm now going to have a custom Oceanic 58 gallon tall. Don't have a stand yet, nor the light fixture, nor enough sand and rock, nor enough plumbing or heating... Hmm, guess I'm going to be broke for a while.

I'm also going to have to rearrange my already claustrophobic room to get it to fit. Not that I mind; I feel that changing around one's everyday living space on occasion can be relaxing and can help restir the soul. But listing it here just makes my list of grievances seem that much more impressive.

Revelation

Hmm, well this blog has already caused a minor ripple in who I thought I was. While doing all the basic setup, filling out my profile, etc, I noticed that they calculated my Chinese Zodiac sign based on my birthday.

"Great!", I thought, it'll be cool to show everyone that I'm a rabbi... tiger? WTF?!?

A little research reveals that Blogger is correct: although most representations of the Zodiac use the beginning of the western calendar as the start of the new year, the real Chinese Zodiac used years based on the lunar cycles. So, apparently, I'm a tiger. I didn't know that. Growl.

The Ascending

Aside from the obvious comparison of a blog being a direct door into a person's deepest mind, the title "Cellar Door" was chosen for it's audiogenic aesthetics. We also have the fact that I couldn't really come up with anything else. Such is life when you've been awake for 20+ hours.

I'm an old hat to this interweb thingie, but blogs have always scared me. I don't know if it's my fear for being ignored, or my fear for becoming too popular. Neither is likely.