Do it yourself, with shredded foam!
|
12.31.2000 |
Oh my... Hope everybody had a good Kwanzaa. Myself, I went home, that
being Chicago these days. I got into town, we hung out at my parent's
house for a while then headed over to Wisconsin for the annual Christmas
with the extended family. Muslims go to Mecca, devout Christians may visit the birthplace of Jesus and tour Jerusalem. I got to make my annual pilgrimage to Lambeau Field on Christmas Eve. It was an excellent game. Tampa Bay fell to the Pack in overtime after the Bucs missed what would have been a game winning field goal in the final seconds of the game. This was the first time I've gone to a game at Lambeau when it's been cold out, and I had been looking forward to it for a while. I grabbed my cousin on the way up from Chicago and he and I went to the game together. I wish I remembered the actual temperature, but the high for the day was in the single digits, well below zero with the wind chill. An interesting phenomena occurs when the temperature is that cold. All the fluid in your nose freezes onto your nose hairs. It's quite an interesting sensation. My cousin brought along a pair of snowmobiling pants for me, and I was well bundled up with jackets, scarves, etc. I regret to inform you that I failed to paint a G on and bare my chest, but really I could have. Even when it is that cold, when the sun is out, you don't really feel it. Plenty of folks were shirtless (for brief periods of time, at least). I thought the most interesting thing was the snow in the bleachers. There was snow actually on the benches, and on the ground in between the benches. My cousin also brought along chunks of styrofoam to put on the bleachers and on the ground. Getting your feet up out of the snow makes a big difference. The head coach for the Packers didn't want the team to be looking up at the scoreboard for the Bears-Detroit and New Orleans-St. Louis games, so we didn't get anything other than rumors circulating from people with radios. As it turns out, the Bears did their job putting Detroit out of the playoffs, but New Orleans wasn't playing for the Pack, and fell to St. Louis, giving the Packers' playoff position to the Rams. I did notice that they did manage to knock them out yesterday... Bastards... Every year, we do a gift exchange with the aunts and uncles still in Wisconsin. We pick a theme for the gifts, and then two of the aunts come up with a game of some sort to distribute the gifts. This year's theme was "around". So we had to come up with some gifts related to that. My family brought a box full of stuff from around the house, a very annoying stuffed doll which sang a round, and two other things that I can't remember. The game to distribute the gifts evolved as the night went on. We were all told to come up with 10 general trivia questions. The questions were put in a hat, and we went one by one picking questions out of the hat. If you answered the questions correctly you got to select a present. Once everybody had one, we got to continue choosing questions for the right to open your present, or if yours was already open to trade with someone else. I know nothing other than computers, music and politics. I avoided computers almost entirely, but apparently I couldn't come up with any music or politics questions that anybody would be able to answer. Luckily, I didn't actually put my questions in the hat, but instead put in 8 strips of paper with my name on it. When my name came up, I asked one of the questions on my list. After the fourth question I asked, I was tired of hearing people complain that mine were too hard, so the fifth time I was picked, I said that I was out of questions. Two that I did get to ask were "What instrument did Sting play in The Police?" and "Who was Bob Dole's running mate in the 1996 election?". Hmm... But the evening was smoothed by copious consumption of peppermint schnapps. My flight was supposed to leave Chicago for NW Arkansas on Tuesday, but due to the ice storm, all flights into XNA were canceled until Friday. The way American Airlines chose to handle this was to continue rescheduling me for flights on a daily basis, and not canceling them until about 45 minutes before the flight was due to leave. (Side note: http://www.aa.com is American Airlines. http://www.aa.org is different.) So I made a total of three fruitless trips to O'Hare before finally leaving Friday on a flight delayed for 5 hours. I spent those five hours in an O'Hare airport bar (no smoking in the airport bar, and come back through security after every cigarette outside). I met a single woman at the bar who was from Chicago, flying to Chattanooga for New Years. She actually knew what both Perl and Oracle were. I didn't get her number. I'm a moron. I think I'm going to start hanging out at airport bars more often. Everybody is there alone, and you have something in common with pretty much everybody there (delayed flight). But my hair is just about dry. I'm going out to Chester's tonight to see Big Smith for New Years. Hope everybody has an intoxicated New Year. |
|
12.18.2000 |
Fucking Tampa Bay... It doesn't look too good for the Pack. In order to even get the opportunity to lose in the first round of the playoffs, first off, they have to beat Tampa next week. That's at Lambeau, and I'll be there, so they have that one. Also, the Rams have to lose to New Orleans. Normally, I'd be upset at that prospect, but New Orleans apparently kicks ass this year. So that's looking good. Finally, Chicago has to beat Detroit in Detroit. Doh... I'm going to sleep now... |
|
12.17.2000 |
I survived the drive in to work. The Packers just took out the Minnesota Vikings. I unfortunately had to cheat near the end and make it so you fine people couldn't turn off my TV. It's the first time I've cheated, but the game was just too damn close. Sucks that the Lions won today. If Tampa Bay loses to St. Louis tomorrow evening, Green Bay beats them on Christmas Eve, and the Lions lose to the Bears, the Pack makes it into the playoffs. I bet Tampa won't pull out the game against the Rams, and the Pack can beat anybody at Lambeau. Kind of sucks to have your playoff hopes hanging on the Bears winning a game, though. In related news, I'll 90% likely be at the Tampa Bay/Green Bay game next week... Watch for the fat guy with no shirt and a big G painted on his chest in the -30 temperatures... |
|
12.15.2000 |
Quick Update: She's coming to the Christmas Party. I'm reading Children of Dune. I watched Waterworld last night. My brain still hurts. Now I'm going to dry my hair and try to drive in to work. Wish me luck. This may be the last update ever. |
|
12.13.2000 |
Hey everybody! Look at Mr. Snow Boy! I'm going to complain about morons who can't drive in the snow! Look at that moron driving 10 MPH on a perfectly clean road! Ha ha... What a moron! Wait... what's this? My car's stuck in a ditch? I'm getting a ride back to my apartment in the back of a police car? This isn't right!!! I'm Mr. Snow Boy! |
|
12.12.2000 |
Thank the lord. Gore's done. |
|
12.12.2000 |
Good thing I didn't do the hot tubbin. I'd probably be dead right
now. I had the worst phone interview of my life yesterday afternoon.
Besides giving some downright stupid answers to questions I should
have been able to answer better, about halfway through the interview
my voice pretty much died. I spent the short remainder of the interview
responding to each question with about four words before my throat
would sieze up again. Then I would hack and wheeze and try to talk
further to no avail. Oh well... the position didn't really sound like
a great match for me anyway. But the throat thing didn't give up there. I woke up this morning feeling none too well... As things stand right now, I'm going back to bed. Perhaps I'll be feeling better a little later, but for now I think I'm going to do whatever I can to stave off death. Have a good day everybody... |
|
12.11.2000 |
It's snowing in Arkansas. I just went home for lunch, and on the way back, people were driving 15 MPH on perfectly clean roads. I think I'm up for some hot-tubbin tonight. If it keeps snowing, I'll be sledding tomorrow night. All are welcome. |
|
12.11.2000 |
I finished up Dune Messiah last night despite repeated attempts
to extinguish my light source by you fine fellows. Does anybody have
a copy of Children of Dune I can borrow? Looking for more jobs in Boston. |
|
12.10.2000 |
Last night I went out with some friends to a club around here. I was
full on the Teriyaki dinner we had, and since I was driver-boy for
the evening I wasn't drinking. I was out with a male friend and two
girls. One song, the girls got up to dance. I didn't join them, as
I certainly didn't have enough OH groups in my bloodstream to dance,
and besides it wasn't the kind of music I dance to anyway... A couple
of older women were sitting at the table next to me. One of them passed
me a note, which I will type here verbatim: Your chances of scoring with that girl will be exponientially increased if you go dance with her!! I didn't, so I'm not sure if her advice was correct. I've been interested in one of the girls we were out with for over a year now. I actually worked up the guts to ask her out to do something on two different occassions. The first time was at her birthday party out a club. We were all sitting around talking, but I was unfortunately edged out by this fucker I know. He was all over her, shitty drunk. Fortunately, by the end of the evening, I found out she was seeing someone out of town. She and I hang out with the same people when we go out, so I continued to hang out with her over the next couple of months. I found out later that her long distance relationship went bust not too long after that birthday party. So I worked up the nerve to call hear again. I did, but never caught her at home. I saw her later and she told me that she got my message but her machine cut off my number. Hmmmm... Anyway, I found out the she was seeing someone again. I've just found out that she's newly single again. I think that I'm going to ask her to my company's Christmas party. In the past, they've always been good. I'll let you know how it goes. |
|
12.09.2000 |
Just about all the lights in my apartment are now hooked up. New Home Control options on the left bar. |
|
12.08.2000 |
Well,
did some work on the site. The webcam is now working... You can get
my cool little auto-refresh popup window with the "Webcam"
link under "Stuff" on the left. Now your friday nights can
be as exciting as mine. I got my switches in today, and they're all hooked up now. If I wasn't going out for a beer right now, I'd add them to the navigation bar too, but I need a beer. But watch for "Living Room", "Kitchen", "Bedroom" and "Computer Room" light controls soon. They all seem to work, except the computer room one. For some reason, I can turn it on from the remote, but can't turn it off. If I get a chance tomorrow, I'll unhook it and re-wire it. Correction: Four Time Jeopardy Champion Raj Choudhary notified me that he didn't acutally mention Young Pups on his fourth show, but on the fifth show, where he lost. Damn Young Pups, says he. Young Pups - destroying lives since 1994 or so... Well, the site has actually been getting some hits lately. Not that anybody seems to be staying for too long, but the statistics page is definitely interesting. It looks like I'm indexed by AltaVista, Lycos and AOL's search engine. I've received some hits from them already. From AltaVista, I've been found searching for "jebus", "simpsons", and "bushgore". More interestingly, I've been hit from AOL with searches the look like they might have been "free poster sluts", "penis size", "women and penis size", "penis sucker", and "big hooters". That'll show me to put the word "penis" on my page... penis... penis... penis... Plus, I'm still getting plenty of hits for "shredded foam". I can't imagine why anybody would be searching for shredded foam, but I don't particularly understand "free poster sluts" either... But I now have the beer crew waiting in the living room. Time to head out. Have a nice night everybody. |
|
12.08.2000 |
Well, I found some webcam software that seems to work for now. My camera definitely is not a low light camera... Try clicking here to view the current image. I'll get a nice little pop-up with an auto refresh going this weekend. And I'll try to make sure I'm always fully clothed in the living room... Nobody needs to see me in my boxers... |
|
12.07.2000 |
I apologize whole-heartedly for jumping off half-cocked and declaring
that the election mess would be over on Monday. I just had a gut feeling
that Gore was going to get back on his medication and regain sanity.
I was wrong. I apologize. My new analysis? This will never end. I
will be proclaimed supreme uberlord over all the cosmos as a solution
to the weak-willed indecision of the electorate. All will yield to
my strange and terrible powers. Actually, I think I'm going to draft a constitutional amendment to do just that. I'll submit it to all the pertinent legislators and see if I get any response. A recent issue of the New Yorker contained an article called "My Fake Job". I thought it was a pretty damn funny article. It was about a guy who wandered into some unnamed dot-com company in New York and pretended to have a job there. It reads as a daily diary of his experiences at the company. Well, it turns out that he didn't just wander in, his mommy hooked him up with the job. Suck talks about it briefly today. I still haven't gotten the webcam working... I messed with it yesterday, and found software that I thought would do the job, but it just stopped working. Then I got upset and vowed to write my own. So I spend several hours last night working through theForger's Win32 API tutorial. Then I succumbed to the wily charms of Age of Empires II. I'll play with it some more tonight. And last, but certainly not least, Young Pups' own Raj Choudhary just taped Jeopardy. Or, I guess we ought to call him "four time champion" Raj Choudhary. Congratulations, Mr. Pi... you make us all proud. As a matter of fact, he won so many games, they ran out of bio material to talk to him about during the interviews, and on the fourth day, he mentioned Young Pups on the show. Watch for his appearance in mid-march. And again congratulations. |
|
12.06.2000 |
Final
verdict on Dune:
I liked it. I thought their treatment of the Wierding Way was more
faithful to the book than Lynch's movie. My complaints: Too many of
the characters were wussified. Jessica in particular spent more time
whining than I got the impression that she did from the book. Did
we know that Paul was Harkkonen? I thought that that was a new revelation
in Dune: House Atredies. But I never did completely finish up the
original series, so I can't know that for sure. The final battle could
have been more hectic. Though slow motion does by definition make
everything look 70% cooler, I wasn't too impressed by the device of
all the shots of Sardukar, Harkkonen troops, and Fremen falling to
the ground. I would have preferred more wide shots of thousands of
ninja-like Fremen slinking around enemy troops and stabbing them in
the back. But I am being too picky. I'm a big David Lynch fan, and
I really did like his movie. The miniseries was pretty good, and I
can't wait for them to do the next one. I don't know how this one
did in the ratings, but I would assume fairly well, and maybe the
next will get an even bigger budget... I'd like to see some nice Jihad
battle scenes. Filler today in Suck is on idealism, a problem I struggle with on a daily basis. A good read as always. In Gimpysoft.com news, I've had my camera for five days now, and have yet to set things up to get a webcam on the site. I've been busy watching Dune and tutoring. Now Dune is over, and I'm not tutoring again until Thursday. Hopefully I'll get it going tonight. I also ordered four more switches, and I'll have those linked up as soon as they come in. Well, time to head in to work now. Have a nice day everybody. |
|
12.05.2000 |
Looks like the election mess is just about over. Thank you lord. My
prediction is that Gore concedes this evening at 6:30PM CST. I was almost worried about the new Dune miniseries after Sunday night. But last night Paul was a lot less whiny and there was a lot more Fremen ass-kicking. Plus orgies. You've got to love orgies. This guy is the only guy listed on Weblogs.com who mentioned Gurney Halleck by name. I'm a big fan of Patrick Stewart, and though I miss his freaky "As a Wild Ass in the Desert, go I to my duty..." speeches, I do like the new Gurney. He's a bit more boisterous, and I like the accent. However, as pointed out by a friend of mine, he is missing his inkvine scar. Another complaint about the new mini-series. I don't really understand why they need to change the pronunciation of every word used in the series. I think the one I liked least is when the Fremen showed up to be trained by Paul and said they wish to become Feh-dike-en... Feyd-ah-keen is a much cooler sounding term. It's almost like the new director just had to go out of his way to make things different from the Lynch version. But I'm being too hard. Despite occasional slowness, especially in the first segment, all in all it's pretty good, and I am definitely looking forward to Dune Messiah. |
