Normally when I'm in here I don't really touch on political matters. It's not because I don't want to rile people up or piss people off, it's just that, honestly, usually I don't care. I don't have the time or the energy to try to check-and-balance everything that goes on in the world. I have to trust that the people in charge know what they're doing.

Lately, though, I've been getting a little worked up about things. I guess it all started about a week ago when Marty started going off about things in his blog. I had stuff to say about those things, I just never got around to it. Then I went and rented Bowling For Columbine and I have stuff to say about that, too, but just didn't get to it.

Well, I finished a lot of stuff today, so I'm going to take a break and write this stuff up. I'm sure this will be a long one, so read on...
Let us first address Marty's original rant that started all of this about bicyclists. Marty's point that bicyclists are generally a bunch of fucking morons that can't figure out how to obey traffic laws is absolutely correct. I can't tell you how tired I am of coming to a four-way stop, having my turn come around, start going, and then have to slam on the brakes because some numb-nuts decides he doesn't have to stop for a stop sign.

I don't give two shits if you think you're "too small to have to obey the law" or whatever. You're on the road, you obey the traffic laws. This means that you signal when you turn, you follow the lights and the signs, and you ride on the correct side of the road. If you're coming at me head-on in my lane, you're probably going to lose, and I'm not going to feel bad for you.

I also have to fully agree with his shopping cart rant in which the general conclusion is that the assholes riding bikes who can't figure out how to obey traffic laws are the same people who can't figure out how to manipulate a shopping cart through a store in a courteous and efficient fashion. If you're too stupid to work a shopping cart without parking it in the middle of the aisle and blocking traffic, you're too stupid to shop at my store. Get the fuck out.

Also on that note, if you bring your family shopping with you, we have something called "single file" in my country. Try that out - you don't have to walk side-by-side down the aisle like you're playing Red Rover or something.

I do take a bit of an issue with the part in his rambling where he talks about the Portland funding of a baseball team. God only knows that I think baseball is, like, the most boring game ever and that whoever thought it up should be shot. However, I'd like to point out that the taxpayers, to the best of my knowledge, are not funding the stadium; the stadium is coming from taxing players' salaries. At least, that's what I heard on the morning news.

Regardless, I'd rather that money went to other things. Baseball is bullshit, and I don't think we need more. I've been to a Portland Rockies game, folks, and let me tell you - the stadium wasn't remotely close to filled. Somehow I think you've got like 500 people out there who want this thing really bad and they're forcing the rest of us into it. As long as I don't have to pay, I guess...

And now, on to Bowling For Columbine.

Basically, what the movie does is explore the reasons why people in the US are so violent. How come other countries can have in the low hundreds of shootings every year and the US has in the tens of thousands?

The thing I liked about it was that the filmmaker (Michael Moore) explored the differences between our country and other countries - we have the same movies here as in other countries; we have the same video games; we have the same number of guns as other countries; and in many cases, we have less blood on our hands historically than other countries. So what is it?

The conclusion I drew from it was that the media - particularly the news media - is to blame. If you watch the news in the US, you see shootings and stabbings and kidnappings and all sorts of death and destruction. You watch the news elsewhere, and they show you more uplifting things more often; it's not all just chaos and despair. Of course, I've never personally watched the news from other countries, but I'm going from what the movie showed, which could admittedly be biased.

But Moore didn't seem to want to stick with that, and that's what irked me about the film.

Okay, the Columbine thing was terrible. A couple of kids get some guns, go down to K-Mart, buy a bunch of bullets, and come in to school and kill people. That's really tragic, seriously.

But does that mean that you should go to K-Mart and tell them that their sporting goods section should no longer carry bullets? I don't think so, but that's what they did. What, precisely, does that accomplish? If you've already made the conclusion that it's not the guns that are the problem, what difference does it make if a store doesn't sell bullets? They still sell the guns anyway, moron.

Or how about this: A lady has this job to pay the state back for the welfare she took. To get to this job, she has to get on a bus and travel for an hour each way to get there (that sounds familiar, except I have a car). Okay, well, the job doesn't make ends meet so she has to move in with her brother. Fine. One day, the lady gets on the bus to go to work. After she leaves, her six-year-old kid finds the uncle's gun, takes it to school, and shoots one of his classmates. One six-year-old killing another six-year-old. Tragic? Yes. The fault of the welfare system? I don't think so.

Moore does seem to think so, though. He goes and finds out that this lady worked for some American Bandstand restaurant in Ohio that Dick Clark owns. He then proceeds to fly to California to confront Dick Clark about this - that the lady wasn't at home watching her kid because she was working at his restaurant.

Dick Clark, of course, has nothing to say and drives away. I'd have done the same. What did this guy expect? That Dick Clark, who probably has his name attached to the restaurant and that's about it, has some sort of explanation or answer for this? No, no, no.

Then Moore decides that it's time to confront Charlton Heston, actor and president of the National Rifle Association. Let me remind you, lest you've forgotten, that Moore has already come to the conclusion that guns are not the problem.

Moore commences his interview and he asks Heston what the cause of all the violence in the US is. Heston says he thinks it might be the culture. Moore says that, no, we have the same amount of violence in our culture as other, non-violent countries. So, Moore asks, what else could it be? Heston says he thinks maybe it's our history of bloodshed. Moore says that, no, we have, in many cases, less blood on our hands than other countries. So, Moore asks, what else could it be? Heston fumbles around, looking for an answer for a guy who's obviously not going to be pleased with any anser, and then ends the interview.

I think Moore was trying to make Heston look bad, but I think he only succeeded in making himself look bad. I mean, where was the constructive discussion? What happened to the conclusion that the media was to blame? Argh!

All in all, it was an interesting movie, though. I learned a lot about stuff I didn't know the US was involved in. If anything, rent the movie just to see the statistics and whatnot. But I'm not sure where Moore was trying to take this one. Maybe he just wanted people to think. If that's the case, I guess it worked. I mean, I'm writing this now, right?

This all has spawned some interesting discussions between me and some of my coworkers about the state of governmental affairs and what needs to be done. One of them brought to my attention that there's sort of a cycle that society goes through, like first there's Slavery (of one form or another), then Freedom (from the Slavery), then Apathy, then Plenty (if you're just sitting around accumulating material wealth...), then Slavery again. Looking at the way things are going, I think we've just exited the Plenty phase and now we're headed into Slavery. Slavery to our jobs, to the government... No good.

And there's no way I can see to get out of it, short of a complete overhaul of the way government works, from the ground up. Less "tolerance" and "consensus" and more action. I mean, the way things are now, it's like 12 Angry Men - rather than just getting things done, we all sit around and discuss the impacts of this and that, then discuss the impacts of our discussions... No. Just fix things already. It's not that simple? Yes, it is.

Get rid of these pork barrel projects that keep the politicians rich and just soak up the government funds. Find people for office that are experts in their field and want to actually get things done. Fire all the existing politicians. Ensure that there's not a fortune to be made in government - if there's a career to be made that can make a person fat, the person will probably focus on the career and less on the work. Make lobbying illegal - all lobbying. Money or not. Let the people decide, not the various "causes" out there.

On a different note, we probably also need to overhaul the whole legal system, too. Less tolerance. Less "human rights." Seriously. We live in a world where someone can break into my house, I can shoot them, and if they live, they can sue me and win. There's something very wrong about that. If you break into my house, you just lost all of your human privileges. If I decide to tie you up in my basement and get out a pair of pliers and the blowtorch, there's nothing you should be able to do, man. You broke into my house. Period.

Obviously the pliers and blowtorch might be a little much, but you get the idea. There's something wrong when the legal system can consistently work against common sense.

I wonder sometimes if it might be better to go all the way back to the Code of Hammurabi - eye for an eye (code #196) and all that. No lawyers, just one guy against another, and a jury using common sense rather than looking for legal loopholes. Would we convict a few more people wrongly? Maybe. Reduction in crime? Almost definitely.

There you go, my controversial post for the week. Got something to say? Either leave a comment, or, better still, go bitch in the forums.

I got a comment from a friend of mine about how Punchy creeps her out, and it made me think that it might be time to have a showdown: Kool-Aid Man vs. Punchy.

Once and for all, it's time to decide who's got the better juice.

PRO
Kool-Aid Man	Punchy
Has multiple flavors of juice Juice packets are inexpensive Can break though walls, doors, etc. Catch phrase: "Oh Yeah!" High percentage of name / face recognition Can help you dye your hair / clothes / housepets	Keen hat Knows how to surf Juice comes premade Juice is good mixer with rum Juice doesn't separate Catchy name: "Punchy" Best red juice on the market Juice sometimes in 7-11 Big Gulp dispenser

CON
Kool-Aid Man	Punchy
Too fat to ride in car Spills liquid everywhere he goes Always sweating Liar - holds real fruit in his hand when he should be holding powder packets High level of personal property destruction in his wake Juice requires "mixing" and separates if you leave it sitting too long Stupid, generic name: "Kool-Aid Man"	Low level of name / face recognition Only one flavor of juice (the best flavor, though) Short - only other job he could do would be work on Fantasy Island looking for De Plane Juice only comes in 64 oz. containers; should come in 5 gallon buckets No catch phrase ("Wouldn't you like a Hawaiian Punch?" doesn't count)

You would think that looks pretty even, but if you closely analyze the pros and cons, you'll see that THE WINNER IS PUNCHY. With his never-beaten red juice, keen hat, and Big Gulp opportunities, it's not hard to see why. Maybe next time, Kool-Aid Man.

I've been living up the Amplitude, and I'm finding that the more I play, the better I get (as you would hope but not necessarily expect). It being a musical game and me with [what I would like to think is] a decent sense of rhythm, the only real thing you have to figure out is how to get your fingers to move in the appropriate pattern.

Jenn was watching me last night as I was going through a pretty complex set of tracks and was saying that she didn't think her brain could work that fast. That's when I realized the key to the game: You can't think about what you're doing, you just have to do it. If you take the time to analyze and cogitate the pattern, you've already taken too long and you're done. I guess it's sort of like any other inherent sort of talent, kind of like riding a bike - you don't think, "Okay, now I balance this way, now I step on this pedal..." You just ride the bike. I think that's one of the things I like best about the game - no analysis, just raw action.

I decided, since I've fought enough with SharePoint Portal Server 2003 today to last three lifetimes, that, in the immortal words of McDonald's, "I deserve a break today." Though not necessarily in the implied proverbial "McDonald's Way." Instead, I went to the cafeteria and got myself a pepperoni and garlic pizza, a favorite among my colleagues in the department.

Jenn and I watched a movie last night, Holes. It's a family movie, but it was surprisingly well done and I didn't feel cheated out of my time like I usually do with family films. The character played by Jon Voight reminded me very much of my grandfather, which was a little scary.

I got notification today from Microsoft that I'm officially a Microsoft Certified Application Developer in .NET, and I should be getting my certificate (suitable for framing) in the mail shortly. That's cool; it signifies that I'm making progress, which I like.

I think Jenn and I will be going boating this weekend with some friends of ours that we haven't seen for a long time. It'll be good to get out, and even better to see them again. Fun stuff.

While cruising around, I found this site called JList that carries all sorts of Japanese contraband of dubious nature. They've got some Domokun stuff on there, which is cool but expensive, as well as some... interesting "photobooks," as they call them. Heh.

Drs. Foster & Smith, Inc. 2253 Air Park Road, P.O. Box 100 Rhinelander, WI 54501-0100 Toll Free (800) 381-7179 Fax (800) 776-8872

August 26, 2003 Order Number: XXXXXXXXXX

Bill to:

Travis Illig [Address Info Removed]

Ship to:

Travis Illig [Address Info Removed]

Credit Card: Visa: xxxxxxxxxx

Item #	Description	Price		Qty		Extended
9B-3258	Scat Mat (48" x 20")	$59.99	x	1	=	$59.99
Subtotal					=	$59.99
Expedited (2-4 Business Days)					=	$14.98
TOTAL					=	$74.97
Order Comments: SOONER IS BETTER, MAN. I HAVEN'T SLEPT IN TWO DAYS BECAUSE MY CAT WON'T STOP CRYING AT THE DOOR. CAN'T LET HER IN BECAUSE I'M ALLERGIC. SHE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THE MAT THAT MAKES NOISE ANYMORE AND JUST LAYS ON IT TO WAKE US UP. PLEASE HELP ME TO NOT GO INSANE.

I've figured out that there's something odd with the way the SSL is working with my webmail access, so accessing without the SSL has let me into my 147 messages. Actually, much less than I expected, but most of them are spam, which was exactly as I expected.

My email is still down (at least, the web mail access) so I sent a note to the support folks that maintain the server a note to find out what's up. Which means that I'm going to have like 4,000 spams waiting for me by the time I'm able to get it.

For the last two nights, my Tiny Cat has decided that she's bored or something so every two hours or so she cries and then lays down on the pressure-sensitive alarm mat we have outside the bedroom door. Apparently she's figured out that it's equally annoying for the humans and that if she can lay there long enough, someone will come out and chase her around the house. What a fun game!

Sunday night she did it enough that I threw a slipper at her, so she got mad and peed on the bathroom floor. I can't believe she peed the floor, but I guess I should be happy it wasn't on carpet.

Next step is to get the electronic shock mat - she can stand on that and get a jolt of electricity all she wants. I'm tired of this. It's not like she doesn't get total love and attention when we're awake. We play with her, we buy her toys and stuff... she's totally spoiled. But she wants more. Not much I can do about that. There's a whole other cat she could play with, but apparently that's not as much fun as playing with humans.

Needless to say, I'm draggin' today. It's going to be a long one.

Jenn and I went out to eat last night at Applebee's and I got the all-you-can-eat rib tips. I'm not a big ribs fan, but the promise of "the meatiest part of the rib" convinced me, so I tried it.

Eh.

Ribs, in my opinion, are way too much work and not enough payoff. If I wanted to eat barbecue sauce, I'd just go buy a bottle at the store and throw a straw in it. Plus, they're really fatty, and I'm not a fan of the chewiness of fat. Next time I'll get the chicken.

I also went and got my nice Sony earbud headphones at the local Circuit City. They're awesome. I'm listening to them right now. They're everything earbuds should be.

I saw a couple of news articles this morning that got me thinking.

First, there was a pedestrian killed in the middle of I-5, so the whole thing was pretty much shut down. I don't really feel too bad about the whole thing, though... I mean, what was a pedestrian doing on an interstate highway? No, no, no.

Second, the Portland police apparently requested some suggestions from the "Police Assessment Resource Committee" or something like that to find out how they could better deal with police-involved shootings.

Now, for the record, I think that if you're in trouble with the law and you run when they tell you to stop, then they shoot you, you probably deserve it. If you shoot at the cops and get shot, you definitely deserve it.

One of the recommendations of the resource committee was that the police not be allowed to shoot at moving vehicles. I think if I was a criminal, this would be great. The thought process would be something like this:

Oh, shit, here come the cops and me with all this crack that I'm selling to kids in grade school... What am I going to do? I got it! I'll just get in the car and drive away! They can't shoot me while I'm in a moving vehicle!

Morons.

I've been drinking altogether too much Hawaiian Punch lately. I think that pretty much any juice that's red is tasty. Like, fruit punch, cranberry juice, raspberry juice, mixed berry juice... Love the red juice. I found that Hawaiian Punch is cheap at the dollar store, so I stocked up and I'm loving every minute of it. How can it be bad if it tastes so good?

I haven't been able to get my personal email at work all day today because they shut down POP access at the firewall (thanks, W32/Sobig.f@MM) and the webmail interface to my mail is not working. So I'm sure I've got like 30,000 emails waiting for me, but I'll just have to put off answering them until shit settles down. If you emailed me, I'm not ignoring you, I just can't get to your message.

Came home Friday evening and, after dealing with the illegal parking on the part of my neighbors, was greeted with the sight of our tubby cat impersonating a box of Clif bars. She is too much.

Friday night rented Chicago, The Guru, and Versus.

I thought Versus was supposed to be some really cool Japanese sci-fi thing, but it turned out it was more like some guy who got bored with his buddies and happened to have a videocamera. What a load.

The Guru was clever and funny, though not necessarily too original. Fun for a rental, glad I didn't pay theater prices.

Chicago. Sigh. I really don't know what to say about this. I'm not a fan of jazz music. I'm not a fan of the 1920's - 1930's era. Two terrible tastes that taste like shit together equals Chicago. Technically the movie was well done - good costumes, good choreography, good cinematography... as an entertainment piece, though, suck-city. I only paid a buck to rent it and I didn't feel too cheated.

Saturday did the usual chores and whatnot. In the evening Jenn and I hung out with some friends of ours and watched the Best of Will Ferrell DVD, which is too funny. It was nice to have some folks over.

Oh, also on Saturday I took like six or seven games for my PS2 (they were both PS and PS2 games) in to the used game store and traded them in for credit. With the credit, I bought a used copy of Amplitude (a music game that's like the most fun party game ever) and reserved a copy of Soul Calibur II for when it comes out on Wednesday. Should be fun.

Sunday Jenn and I washed our cars and gave the tubby cat a bath. I thought she'd be all wild, but she just sat there, stunned that we would even conceive of such a notion as bathing her. She's not so tough looking when she's all soaked.

Wow, now that I've typed it out, it looks like we didn't do much. It sure felt like we were totally busy. Weird.

I've got these neighbors that own these two gigantic boat/cars. The cars themselves are what lots of people would call "classics" but I consider them more accurately "road hazards" since they are piloted by people who can't walk across the parking lot unassisted. Not only that, but I'm sure they get all of 10 miles to the gallon on the freeway.

Anyway, due to the inability of the drivers to navigate their way on foot across the parking lot, I come home all the time to find things like this going on:



What? What is this going on here? Look closely, and you can see it - the red curb marked "No Parking" that the car is parked along. For those not in the know, this is called the "fire lane." It's there in case we have a fire so the fire department can get to the apartment complex.

Let's get a closer look, shall we?



That's what I thought. Old people who shouldn't be driving, parking illegally for hours at a time and risking the safety of my apartment. Not to mention the car is so big that with them parked there, you can barely get in and out of the reserved tenant parking spots the car is parked behind. Of course, mine is one of those blocked spots. A simple 30-point maneuver later, and you can mostly park.

I think it's time to have some cars towed. I hate old people.

I took my latest test - MS070-320 Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and the Microsoft .NET Framework - today at 10:45a (I was scheduled for 11:30a but got there early) and PASSED!

What that means is that I've finished the requirements for the Microsoft Certified Application Developer in .NET certification. Further, that means I have only two more tests to go before I can get the Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer in .NET certification, which is my overall aim here. I may go further and take two tests beyond that to get the Microsoft Certified Database Administrator certification, but I'm not entirely sure. It's been a lot of work so far and I'm honestly very tired of studying for these things.

Regardless, I passed the test so I'm feeling really good. King of Developers, baby!

8:30a

Marty has come up with some interesting rants on his site that are definitely overdue, Marty being the person he is. Some I agree with, some I don't; some arguments are convincing, some aren't; some blame is correctly placed, some isn't. Regardless, I'm glad Marty's decided to "stir the pot," so to speak, because it's his trademark inflammatory nature that I've looked forward to seeing since he started his site. I may just come up with some rebuttal arguments to his entries when I get time. Until then, check out his site, then discuss in the forum. We're hoping to get some good debate action going on in there.

8:39a

I'm the devil and I'm here to say
I'm the most evil rapper in the USA
All my homies and my bitches say "Ohhhhh!"

10:58a

I've finished the last lab of the class, I've filled out my course evaluation, and now there's only a final review to do and that's it. I'm going to go ahead and post so I can high-tail it out of here when it's over.

8:04a

I got here about 10 minutes ago, but had elevator problems.

See, the stairs are locked on the ground floor until 9:00a. Class starts at 8:30, so that's not going to cut it. You have to use the elevator.

There are two elevators. They unlocked ONE of them at 7:45a. The other one is still locked now. Every time I called an elevator to go up, the LOCKED one showed up. For the life of me I couldn't get the unlocked one to appear.

Eventually someone came DOWN in the unlocked elevator, so I was able to snag it before it disappeared on me again. Argh, how annoying.

Didn't really do much last night other than park in front of the tube. Cleaned a little, cooked some dinner, that's about it.

8:53a

Done with review of yesterday and lab.

10:08a

Lab time. This time it's on XML Web Services, which I took the week-long course for, too. It's a good review, but I'm still waiting for the last couple of chapters on configuration and security.

10:34a

Done. The next section is on managing state and should be a good one. This is where it starts getting interesting.

12:22p

Done with the lab on session state. This was actually a pretty good section and filled in several gaps I had on state management.

The next section, I believe, will be even better - configuration and deployment.

1:23p

I couldn't help myself - I bought some of those "Natural Cheetos" I was mentioning the other day. They're actually pretty good - they taste a lot like SmartFood popcorn.

I got an email from my boss saying something along the lines of "When are you coming back? We miss you." I replied that basically I'll be back but am reluctant due to the disgusting commute and the lack of desire I have to work on the project I'm currently assigned to. His response to that was that maybe I should change my drive time to better accommodate the traffic.

For those unfamiliar with Highway 26 in Portland, it's a four-lane highway (two lanes each direction) that extends from downtown Portland to Hillsboro where all the high-tech jobs are located. Regardless of which direction you travel - into Portland in the morning or into Hillsboro - the commute is awful. All the time. Seriously. You can get on the road at, like, 10:00a - the rush hour should be over, right? - and it's packed. The schedule is something like this:

• 5:30a - 10:00a: Morning rush "hour"
• 10:00a - 3:00p: Lunch rush
• 3:00p - 8:00p: Evening rush "hour"

So the alternative, then, is for me to work 8:00p to 5:00a, which isn't really an alternative because then I have no social life anymore. I can't win.

The real answer, as much as I hate to admit it, is to live closer to work, or at least somewhere such that I don't have to drive Highway 26. I like living where I do, and I hate the Hillsboro area, but I don't see any decent alternative other than that. Quit, maybe. But then I can't pay for stuff, and that's not good.

I'd also accept not having to work on the project I'm assigned to as a viable solution. I'm really sick of it and am tired of constantly battling with things to make them work. It'll be nice to finish, but in all honesty, even once it's "done," I don't see that I'll be able to escape the maintenance and administration of the beast.

They definitely don't pay me enough for this.

2:34p

I just tried to buy one of my own shirts from my Junk Store, but the Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration Server (the stupid proxy) keeps fucking up the page that CafePress is trying to send me.

One more reason proxies are a huge bitch.

Guess I'll do that from home.

2:46p

Here's an interesting thing: Microsoft, in the certification exams, pimps the Windows Installer setup method of project deployment.

They don't even talk about it in the ASP.NET class I'm in. They talk about the file-copy method, but don't even refer to setup projects.

Weird.

Oh, and I thought of one other way I could maybe be happier at work - half days. Getting out early enough to get stuff done in the evening is huge for me. It makes me feel more alive.

Okay, last lab of the day.

3:24p

Done. I'm Audi.

8:00a

I forgot to mention earlier that this weekend I went to Safeway and picked up this soda called "Red Twist." It tastes just like red licorice. That may sound gross to some of you, but I'm sucked in. It's awesome.

8:25a

I got my credit report last night because Jenn had received a free one and saw a bunch of stuff that probably shouldn't be there, so I got concerned. I ordered the 3-in-1 version from Equifax which shows you all of your information from the major three credit reporting agencies. Luckily, everything on mine was pretty much up-to-snuff. There are a couple of discrepancies I have which I will dispute - for example, I had a credit card with a company that ended up going out of business and that credit line still shows as "open."

Also, I scheduled my next test - MS070-320 Developing XML Web Services and Serviced Components with Visual C# and the .NET Framework - for this coming Monday at 11:30a. It's scheduled for two and a half hours; let's hope it doesn't take that long.

9:46a

We're almost done with the first section of the day, which was an overview of ADO.NET. For those in the cheap seats, ADO.NET was the three-day in-depth class I took last week, so I can't say this wasn't a bit slow for me. What really got me, though, was the guy in my class who was also in my class last week... I think he was sort of "playing dumb" because he was quiet whenever the teacher asked any question, and I know we went over this stuff.

It got me to thinking that in classrooms everywhere, there are two major roles that get played. There's the teacher, who will always ask questions of the class and actually expect to get an answer. Then there's the student, who will never offer an answer regardless of whether the answer is known. I wonder why people do that - sit silent when they can answer the question. I don't; I'll answer, but then it seems like I'm the only one ever answering anything, so I start getting quieter and quieter so I can give the other students a chance... and they never take it. How irritating.

My mom emailed me and it seems that the table I thought Fred Meyer carried - a bar-height table to go with some nice bar stools - was ony a figment of my imagination. So I guess I'll continue looking and will probably end up with the Bordeaux Bistro Set I saw this weekend online.

10:10a

Lab.

10:22a

Done.

Looking at the next section, I see that we've got another ADO.NET review. Well, I guess my game of Spider Solitaire will just be improving...

11:57a

We're finally done with the ADO.NET chapter, and it's lunch time before the lab. Whew. It's been pretty slow, and I'm ready to get up and go.

12:39p

Got the "nacho beef bake" at the store today. For being $8 a pound, this is the best thing I've had from there so far. Pretty tasty. I only got half a pound, but I could probably have eaten a whole pound if it hadn't been so expensive. Maybe I'll have to get that again tomorrow. I think it's going to give me heartburn, though.

Something else I forgot to mention: I played the demo for Soul Calibur II on PS2 this weekend. Loved it. It's a fighting game similar to the DOA series that I like, where you don't have to remember 30,000 different button combinations to get things done - you have "vertical attack," "horizontal attack," "kick," and "block." I think I can figure that one out. I may have to pick it up. Folks say it's one of the best fighthing games ever, and from what I've seen I tend to agree.

1:05p

Done with the lab. Seems that several folks stayed through lunch and finished it up, so I guess I'm about even with them now. That's okay, maybe we'll get out early again...

Looks like the next chapter is more ADO.NET. I understand why they have an overview in every class - it's important stuff - but we seem to be dwelling on it in here WAY more than any other class (other than the dedicated ADO.NET class that I just took).

1:23p

Heeeeeartbuuuuuuurn.....

This looks like a rockin' game.

2:10p

We're a full chapter ahead today. We had the option of leaving early or going through another chapter, so we chose another chapter so we can try for a half-day Friday. I think we'll still get out pretty early, and that's just fine.

2:21p

Oh boy. This chapter starts out with "What Is XML?" The end gets into some good stuff, though.

3:00p

We're about halfway through this chapter and we're starting to get to the good stuff. We'll probably leave the really good stuff for tomorrow, though.

3:28p

We're at the last lab for the day. I guess we're going to do it tomorrow, so I'm outta here. Which is fine; it should take about 10 minutes to do it.

8:01a

I got a lot done last night! I mean, mods to Greymatter, the Toxic Waste shirts... stuff I'd been meaning to do for a long time, and it finally got completed. I think it's amazing how much more energy you have when a) you're not working four peoples' jobs at the same time; and b) you aren't spending an hour each way commuting to that four-in-one job. Got home yesterday and felt... like I could still accomplish something at home besides getting ready to pass out on the couch in front of the TV. It was good.

I did forget to schedule my next test for next week, but I can do that tonight after my haircut when I get home.

8:17a

My hair stylist called and moved my appointment to Thursday, so I guess I'm going home right after class. Fine by me.

8:29a

There are grounds floating in my coffee. Mmmmm.

9:55a

I'm going to try to merge my mods from last night (Greymatter) into the latest version of Greymatter (1.21d) since I'm not on it right now (I'm at 1.21c). However, the proxy server here doesn't seem to allow FTP through, and my HTTP-based file manager didn't get set up right in the transition, so I guess I'll wait until I get home. Bah.

10:02a

Break time. We're working on "events" in ASP.NET, which are pretty straightforward, especially now that I've already taken the Windows Applications programming course. Pretty much the same thing, actually, which is good - standardization appeals to me. It seems that it's a hard concept for some folks in here, though, but I suppose never having written anything web-related will do that to you.

10:40a

Thank goodness for WWW2FTP. Fileman is up and running.

11:14a

Got the first lab of the day done, and we're starting to get into some stuff I'm interested in. That's good.

I'm going to go through (if I can) and see what's different in the different versions of Greymatter. I think it'll be minor stuff, but we'll see.

11:36a

Well, I just went through the Greymatter source and compared my modified version of 1.21c to the latest version, 1.21d, and merged all the changes into one primary version, which I'd like to think of as 1.21e.

I noticed while going through the code that whoever put together 1.21d actually removed a bunch of security-related code (the encryption of passwords, etc.). I left that in my build, though I can see how it might stop it from being used on Windows-based servers that don't have the "crypt" command available.

The 1.21d primary change was a small security fix where folks on using a PHP exploit could somehow corrupt your Greymatter site. Not sure what that exploit is, but I left the security fix in place.

So my version, the unofficial 1.21e, has:

• All of the features of Greymatter 1.21c
• The PHP security fix from 1.21d
• An updated comments posting routine such that when a user posts a comment (and you choose to be notified by email), the email will actually come FROM the user (if they provide an address) so you can potentially reply to the comment directly (the email layout is a little nicer, too)
• Updated configuration so you can specify your Amazon Associate ID
• Updated add/edit entry screens so you can use CTRL-SHIFT-E to add an Amazon Associate link, just by entering the item ASIN
• Updated the CTRL-SHIFT-A link hotkey (when adding/editing an entry) to automatically add a clause (more often than not, I want that)

I am considering modifying it slightly so it will write an RSS file when you add/edit entries, but I'm not sure if I want to do too much more work with this if I'm just going to migrate to Movable Type anyway.

12:04p

Lunch. I'm not sure what I'm going to get yet, but I'm thinking I may chance Zupan's (the market) again and see what sort of funky stuff they have that might NOT taste like Chef Boyardee.

12:38p

Back from lunch. Went to the market again, but this time looked around a bit more before I settled on their deli fettuccine alfredo. That was pretty good, actually, so if they have it tomorrow, I may get that. Also picked up a Tazo Lemon Ginger iced tea, which is tasty.

While I was there I saw a couple of interesting things. First, I saw a four-or-five ounce bottle of balsamic vinegar that costs $130. I'm not sure how you can justify paying that much for vinegar, but some people have money to burn. Second, I saw Natural Cheetos - Cheetos with supposedly no preservatives, artificial flavors, or artifical colors, flavored with white cheddar. They looked sort of like little cheesy larvae in the bag, sort of white and poofy. How can you have Cheetos without the orange fingers?

1:30p

Just finished an interesting lab involving tracing the execution of ASP.NET pages. A few things clearer there, and learned a couple of things I didn't realize you could do.

2:02p

We're looking at validating input, which is all well and good, but my brain has checked out. I'm remembering why I was never a fan of school; I can't concentrate on any individual thing for this long. Plus, lecture/classroom learning, while better than just reading the book, isn't the best way for me to learn.

I don't know what the best way for me to learn is. Maybe I should avoid it altogether.

2:30p

Another lab down. Learned a bit about some of the functionality of the validation controls you can use. Don't get me wrong, it's neat stuff, but man... it's programming. Ugh.

2:56p

Last lab of the day...

3:06p

Done. Yeah, boyeeee.

3:11p

There must be some stupid email thing going around again, because I'm getting spammed with all of these virus-laden mails with the subject lines "Re: Approved," "Re: Thank You!," and "Re: Re: My details." To all the morons out there: Stop opening up attachments from people you don't know.

3:12p

I guess that's it for the day. I'm outta here. YAY, ME!

Check out the Junk Store now! I've added some I <Heart> Toxic Waste shirts for the whole family to enjoy - men and women alike!

So I just did a little hacking on the Greymatter source code so now I have some additional functionality:

• In the configuration, there's a spot where you can specify your Amazon Affiliate ID (for link creation)
• When you add or edit an entry, you can hit CTRL-SHIFT-E to create a link to an Amazon product by entering the ASIN for the product
• Links that you add to other sites, etc., all open in a new window by default

I'm pretty pleased. This makes it much more usable, especially for the way I blog.

9:26a

We're partway through the first module and I'm kinda bored. It's the same "overview" module they have in every single other class I've been in and I can almost recite it along with the teacher.

It's amazing, though, how few folks in here have really done any web development. In a class of six, only two of us really have done anything. Some folks don't know HTML even, which could be an issue considering that's a prereq.

This guy Albert is in my class, and he's been in two other classes. It's cool to see him again; he's a nice guy and it's good to see a familiar face when you come to these things. Sort of "small world"-ish. He's on a certification track, too.

9:40a

We just finished the first module, and so far, so good.

Let me quickly go through the weekend. Actually, there's not much to go over. Um... oh! I found the dinette set I want, but now I've got to find a couple of different places that carry it so I can get the best price. It's called the Bordeaux Bistro Set by Hillsdale House, Ltd. Jenn digs it, too, so I think that's what we'll end up with. It's free shipping right now, so maybe I'll just go for it.

Went to a barbecue at my friends Dmitri and Holly's house on Saturday. It was good to see them (and some other friends) there, and met a couple of new friends. They have a poker night at their house every couple of weeks. I suck at poker, but it might be fun to get together with them anyway and lose a couple of bucks.

Oh, and remember the meager drink selection we had in class last week? This week there's no drinks. You get to pay $0.35 for a $0.25 can of Diet Pepsi if you so choose. I'm not a big coffee drinker, but it's free, sooooo...

My friend Aaron has started a blog. That's pretty cool; I'll have to stop by regularly so I can keep up with him. I've found that I don't keep in touch with people very well, so it's hard to catch up with folks. I'm telling you people, this is the best way to go if you want to make sure folks know what you've been up to. Centralized, easy maintenance. Plus, from a time perspective, you can put a LOT more thought into your entries online than you can into 30 different "hey, what's up?" email responses.

10:07a

We're going through the "how to start Visual Stidio.NET" section. Yawn. I guess that's good for some of these folks, but I'm surfing.

10:30a

I'm pricing computers at various online places and I'm finding that any computer with the stuff on it that I want will run around the $2000 range. Sigh. More than I really want to spend for a machine that won't get too much use, but then, when I do use it, I want it to be good.

11:09a

Looks like I can get a decent machine from HP for about $1700. Better than $2000, but with a few less features than the Dell $2000 machine I was looking at.

11:53a

Lunchtime! I think I'll head over to the local supermarket and get some lunch on the cheap.

12:30p

I went to the supermarket down the street which is supposedly some sort of gourmet place (you know the type - they cater to the well-to-do so they charge too much for everything and offer weird products you don't want) and ordered a half-pound of their lasagna.

It's Chef Boyardee if I've ever tasted it. Seriously. And that's not complimentary.

Tomorrow I think I'll try something different, or maybe just buy ingredients to make something myself.

So I thought of a few projects that I need to get on, and maybe will work a bit on one of them tonight.

First, we need a really cool home page at the MildPeril top level and I have a cool idea, so I'll see if I can get something together for that.

Next, I use Greymatter right now for blogging, and while eventually I want to move to Movable Type, I need to do a little customization on Greymatter to hold me over. For example, when you add a link to a site while you're editing your blog entry, you can type CTRL-SHIFT-A and it will automatically insert the link. I need the link to be inserted with a attribute, though, so links will open a new window instead of taking you out of my site. Also, I add links to stuff I buy (a la Amazon) and I want to add a hotkey combination to automatically generate those links so I don't have to. That's probably like 10 minutes of work, but it'll save me some time in the long run.

Also, I have a couple of t-shirt designs in mind that I want to do. One is the "I (Heart) Toxic Waste" shirt like the one you see Val Kilmer wear in Real Genius. Another is the Turd Ferguson shirt I've spoken of previously.

Finally, I have a really cool idea I've been toying with for a configuration file editor in .NET. I think that if I could get it to work, it'd be really, really handy, but I am lazy. I won't lie to you. It will probably never see the light of day, but it'd be pretty cool.

I've been studying for my next test and while it felt very complicated at first, now that I've been through the questions on the practice tests a couple of times, it's feeling much more familiar. I think I will schedule the next test for sometime next week so I can get it out of the way and move on with life.

12:49p

I just went looking at some different Flash animation products out there and...

You know, I used to be totally into Flash and front-end technology. I was pretty decent at it, and getting better all the time. That was, like, two years and two versions of Flash ago. Now I look at this stuff and all the things it can do and feel completely overrun. Which really feels bad because when I got into web development in the first place, it was specifically to do the front-end development. Now I spend so much time coding and doing the back-end stuff, I can't remember how to do the fancy front-end stuff anymore.

Further and further away from where I wanted to be when this started out...

And now I don't see that there's really any way to go back. I've got too much experience programming and not enough practical design experience to get a job doing anything but programming. I'd do it at home for my own benefit, but I'm so wiped out when I'm done with the day at work (programming well and truly takes all of my energy) that I don't even really turn on the computer at home.

I wonder how many people this sort of thing happens to - trying desperately to go down one career path but being dragged by your ankles down a totally separate path.

Huh.

I went to this La Femme Nikita web site and it looks like (as of July 27) they may or may not put out season two on DVD. I really hope they do; I love that show. Right up there with Alias in the "suck-me-in" factor. I can't not watch.

1:05p

I found a shirt for Jenn.

And one for me.

1:21p

I just got some more web site stats from Marty and it seems my average visits count just keeps going up. Who are all you people?!

1:34p

Well, that 30 minute lab just took about eight minutes.

People might ask, "If you already know this stuff, why are you in the class?" I have an answer for that.

This beginning stuff - the first, say, five or six modules out of 17 - are definitely review. The rest, though, are going to be complementary to my existing knowledge: reinforcing the stuff I already know and filling in the gaps for the stuff I don't.

Plus, it's very validating to see that I'm so familiar with this stuff - it shows that I have, in fact, learned the stuff I've set out to learn. That's a good feeling.

Besides, not being at work is almost the same as being on vacation. Isn't it?

2:07p

We just started the next module, and I just finished with the lab for it. Maybe I'll get out really early...?

3:50p

I just wrote a really cool VBScript that I can use in these classes to quickly set up a machine's environment for use. It automatically adds the "Command Prompt Here" functionality (like the Windows Power Toy), updates the registry so the command prompt will automatically set up the environment for Visual Studio.NET when you run it (rather than having to use the "Visual Studio Command Prompt" all the time - what a pain!), adds a shortcut to Notepad to your SendTo folder (so you can right-click on things and send them to Notepad), and sets the path completion character to TAB. I'm stoked.

Looks like we're way ahead today, so we're outta here. Rock on, man.

Last night while I was watching movies, our kitchen sink started dripping so I had to turn the water off and go down to the apartment office this morning. The repair people still aren't here and I'd like to use the kitchen sink, if you know what I mean. I'm tempted to fix it myself, but... nah.

Jenn's at work today, so I'm tooling around alone. I decided that I should go to Fred Meyer to get a look at the chairs and tables they had since (thank goodness) our dining room set sold at my parents' garage sale. (For a while there I thought I was going to have to go the classified ad route and fight this thing out the door, but got lucky.)

I found that Fred's had the chairs I want, but no matching table. Looking online, I found a nice set I liked, but for more than I am really willing to put out. So now I'm going to have to keep looking.

While at Fred's, I picked up the SNL: Best of Will Ferrell DVD because, hey, it's got Turd Ferguson on it and I can't pass that up. My Turd Ferguson t-shirts may soon become a reality.

Decided then to go to The Wherehouse to look at the used CD selection. On the way there, saw that a video game shop had a giant inflatable Mario standing on top. I need one of those for my cubicle at work.

Anyway, picked up Opus III - Mind Fruit and Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik. Then decided to head over to my parents' to see how the garage sale was going.

My dad, as usual, tried to pawn off all of his unsold stuff on me, which I, of course, denied because it was all junk. At the time, my table hadn't sold yet and I was worried for a while that it wasn't going to, but by the time I got home, Mom called to say that just as soon as I left, someone came along and bought it. Crisis averted.

Got home and found my tiny cat sleeping with her ear all wonky. That's pretty typical for her. I wonder how she can think that's comfortable. Then again, maybe she doesn't even notice.

And while I've been typing this stuff up and surfing the web, Jenn's sister - knowing that Jenn's at work - has left two voicemails already. Ridiculous. She's not home, so don't call here for her. Sigh.

I'm liking the whole picture-taking-thing here. What do you all think? Are pictures really worth a thousand words?

Well, I've got training once again next week, this time for, uh... ASP.NET. Damn, I go to so many of these things that I can't even remember which class I'm going to. I just sort of show up and learn stuff.

I got a statistics report from Marty to show me how many folks are visiting. According to the report, I average 83 visitors a day. Let's assume that up to half could be either repeat visitors or search engines, that's still like 40 people a day coming to read about how clever and funny I am. I can probably pick out maybe 10 folks I know show up... who are all the rest of you people?

This is an official APB for comments - if you read this bad boy, leave me a comment so I know you're out there. It doesn't even have to be anything special, just a "hey, I'm out here lurking" sort of thing. I'm really curious how many folks are coming in from out of town, so to speak.

I bought the Evanescence album Fallen today and I'm really digging it. I like the song "Bring Me To Life" from the Daredevil soundtrack, and the rest are just as cool. If you're into the alternative rock scene, go get it. It's sort of like Sarah McLachlan goes Linkin Park.

I took a couple of pictures over the last few days I thought might share with you folks. This being my first foray into photojournalism, don't expect much.

First, I took a picture of the extraordinarily meager drink selection that they offered at the training facility I attended the last few days. There were a couple of cans of orange and grape flavored pop, too, but those went quick.

And second, I came home a couple of days ago and found that our 16-pound cat had decided to make herself at home in the middle of the coffee table.

That cat may be a girl, but she's got a solid set of balls on her.
Here's another angle so you can see how truly huge she is.

9:34a

Cankles.

The bitch has cankles.

Last night Jenn and I went to Fred Meyer to check out pricing on the dining room set that we're going to get if we can offload this old one we're using. Of course, when we got there we found that they still had the chairs we like but the table wasn't there. I don't know if they were just out of stock or if they no longer carry them. Bah.

We just did an hour's worth of review, and now it's time to get moving.

11:03a

Okay, she just asked me what I've been typing, so I told her - my blog stuff. Then she wanted to know where my web site was, so I told her. I don't know if she'll ever get here, but if she does, here's my message to her:

I don't necessarily think you're a *bad person* per se, but you are exceptionally demanding and attempt to cover up your annoying habits with faux kindness. The world does not revolve around you, and saying you're sorry about it doesn't make it better, it makes you bitchy.

So. That's that.

We're skipping labs, so moving quickly. Maybe I can get out early.

12:43p

We're out early! Yay, me!

10:17a

I'm back, and I'm still pissed off at this chick next to me, but she's playing it low-key today so I'm not going to have to throw down, at least, not yet.

I continue to study for my next test, but the material is feeling more and more comfortable to me, and I think that's a good thing.

I took our dining room table apart last night so it can be more readily transported to the garage sale. If you want a nice Ethan Allen table, come on by my parents' place this weekend. It's a $1500 table with six $250 chairs. Decent condition. I'm hoping to come out of this with enough for a table that's more me.

I've gotten bored already this morning and decided to draw a picture of my pop can. Again, witness the skillz.

This class is coming pretty naturally to me. It's amazing the parallels between the other database classes I've taken and this class (which teaches how to access databases from your programs). All of the terminology and everything is the same, so it's a breeze to map this new stuff onto concepts I already understand.

Which means I'm done with the hour-long lab in like 20 minutes because it's easy. Fine by me - it enables me to chat with you fine folk.

10:35

My keyboard just froze up for no reason so I had to reboot. Bah.

We've got until 11:00 to finish the lab. Guess I've got some time to kill.

11:49a

Lunchtime!

12:50p

I went to lunch at a place called Fat Albert's Breakfast Cafe. I'd heard about it and driven past it a couple of times, but I'd never actually eaten there.

It's pretty darn good.

I ended up having a "Spanish Omelette," which basically means "cheese and jalapeños." I liked it. It was a little spendy for a lunch (I'm cheap, so $7 for an omelette for lunch is spendy) but it was tasty and there was lots of it, so I'm not complaining.

1:38p

Finished the lab ahead of time again, but only due to my previously having taken the Windows Apps in C# course. They're really throwing some advanced Windows apps concepts at folks who are just trying to learn a simple concept.

The bitch is piping up again, though. The teacher is trying to negotiate with us to determine how much time folks need to get the lab done, and while he's trying to figure that out, she's all, "I can't work while you're talking..." Does she work in a sensory deprivation chamber or something? It's called fucking ignore it, lady. There are three of us in class, and she's the only one not done with the damn lab. This is bullshit.

There are class prerequisites. She doesn't meet them.

3:24p

Lab's supposedly over at 4:00p, but we've got a lot to cover still today so I'm hoping the bitch can hurry her shit up. She wants us all to stay late (like, 5:30p or 6:00p) because she can't figure her shit out.

I found out that the instructor lives in the same apartment complex as I do, just a couple of buildings down. Plus, he used to work with a bunch of the guys that work with me now. Small world!

Actually, he's a really interesting guy. He's from Cambodia and was there during the whole Khmer Rouge thing. He's got stories about how he's gone two or three weeks without eating anything but roots and bugs. Crazy shit, man.

4:25p

The bitch complains that she doesn't get enough time to do the labs, then she leaves early. Irritating.

Well, I've finished with the last lab of the day, and thank goodness we've caught up to where we're supposed to be. We pretty much flew through the last chapter, but it was a good pace because the teacher skipped all the "if you don't meet course prerequisites..." crap. I like that. He's a good guy.

Time for me to fly...

10:18a

Okay, so I'm in the first day of a three day class on ADO.NET, and so far... it's okay. I think this first day's going to be pretty much review for me anyway, since I've done some ADO.NET stuff before, so I'm enjoying the review while it lasts.

This is the first course the instructor has taught on ADO.NET, so you can tell it's a learning experience for him, too, while he determines what people will expect to get out of the class. He's a good guy, though, and I think he's got it pretty much down.

It's a different training facility than I usually go to, and while it's only like 10 minutes from my house, the facility is not as good as the one I usually go to. There are free drinks, like the usual place I go, but it's your choice of four generic caffeine free drinks, which aren't helping me at all.

A quick rundown of the weekend: Went to see SWAT, which was a lot of fun that maybe I'll write a review on later if I'm so inclined. Spent a lot of time studying for my next test and I'm beginning to realize once again why I hated school so much. It's too much work to learn stuff that you probably won't use except to pass tests. Went shopping to buy some new clothes because I've been watching La Femme Nikita episodes too much and now feel compelled to dress like the Roy Dupuis character, Michael. Went to the comic store and found that a guy I used to go to high school with works there now, so took some time to catch up with him. Went to Krispy Kreme to get some donuts. Went out to eat with my friend Gerb, who just moved back to town, and met a really cool waitress at the place we ate. Other than that... nothing.

My parents are having a huge garage sale next weekend, so Jenn and I are going to try to sell off our dining room set because it's this huge wood menagerie that really doesn't fit our current tastes (or space). We'll take the money from that and get a more stylish wrought-iron-and-glass affair, probably something closer to bistro style. We don't really eat at the table anyway; it's used mostly as a place to stash things that need a home. A smaller "stash area" just means we'll need to be more vigilant in putting things away, which is fine by me.

I should probably do the lab now.

10:44a

Lab's done. Five minutes, baby. Piece of cake.

11:47a

I've been wondering why these machines are so slow, but I went looking at the properties and they're single-processor, 500MHz machines with 256MB of RAM. Running Visual Studio .NET. And SQL Server 2000.

Let's just say there's a lot of waiting going on.

Mmmm. Caffeine-free generic lemon-lime soda. All of the calories, none of the waking up. Love it.

11:58a

Lunchtime.

12:53p

I went to Pizzicato for lunch, thinking, you know, that I'd like some pizza. It'd been a long time since I'd been to Pizzicato, but I remember there being some tasty pizza there. So I went.

I don't know when they stopped offering conventional pizza flavors like Canadian bacon and pineapple or whatever, but now you have your choice of cheese, pepperoni, or, like, "barbecued chicken and artichoke hearts." What?! Um, I'd like a slice of Hawaiian, my friend. Where's Pizza Schmizza when you need it?

I decided to bust out the ol' iPod while I was eating, which was cool, but I was using some cheap headphones that I got as a promotional giveaway item (they automatically wind themselves up, which is nice for travel). The headphones suck. No bass response, no power (you have to crank the volume to hear them), no left/right markings...

I will bring the iPod stock headphones tomorrow, but I do need those in-the-ear jobs I was looking at.

While I was in town heading for Pizzicato, I think I saw this girl Sarah that I used to go to high school with. I remember her telling me at the reunion that she worked in that area, so it was probably her. I didn't flag her down or anything, I just thought it interesting that I saw her.

1:15p

There's this lady in my class who... she means well and all, but she's kind of annoying.

See, this is a three-day class. There's probably four or five days' worth of material, but it's a three-day class. The teacher has told us that, due to the short time we have, we can either go through the...

OK, now I'm pissed.

She just sent me a little "note" to ask me to stop typing because it's hard to "concentrate on what the teacher's saying." Fuck this shit.

See, the thing is that there's not enough time to do all of the demos, practices, and labs, but since the labs are the same as the demos, the teacher has said we should do the labs rather than all of the demos. This chick in class thinks we should do both the demos and the labs, so we can sit in here for 10 hours each day instead of the scheduled eight. For a while, I was thinking, "Well, okay, you know, you learn your way and I'll learn mine, but while you're learning yours, I'll type up my blog and whatever."

Then she passes me this fucking note because she "can't concentrate" or something. Sounds like a personal problem to me, the inability to multitask or function around - gasp - keys clicking. This bitch has stepped on my last nerve. I really want her to ask me for help now. Just ask, bitch. You'll be talkin' to the hand, 'cuz the ears ain't listening. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.

2:56p

I'm done with the lab, about 30 minutes ahead of schedule. Now I'm going to type my ass off to irritate this lady. I don't even have anything to say, but if it'll get me to type louder and longer, I'll type it. I should, like, just find something online or whatever to copy, like some e-book or something. Or I could just do some stream of consciousness style writing, almost like I'm doing right now - just come up with crap off the top of my head to type.

Heh.

I won't bore you with that. Maybe I'll just pound keys or something, just mashing the keyboard in a pseudo-random fashion. But not here. (It's totally random here, not just pseudo-random.)

3:06p

Penny Arcade has a brilliant discussion about the views of the uninformed when it comes to First Amendment rights in relation to video games. Apparently there was a political cartoon released that makes it sound like video games are designed specifically to dement today's youth. I tend to agree more with the distinct lack of parenting argument. Folks, let's put it very simply: Your kids will turn out OK if you pay attention to them. It's not the game's fault if your child is unable to discern between fantasy and reality.

3:15p

Here's an interesting thing that I didn't know was possible - people can have different sets of DNA in different body parts. It's called "Chimera twins." Sort of throws a wrench in the works for CSI, doesn't it?

The Internet connection here is really shitty... or they have a slow proxy server. It takes around 15 seconds just to do a DNS lookup on a server, which doesn't count the time it takes to load a site.

3:50p

I've run out of random stuff to type. Bah. I've .

4:37p

I think we'll be running late here. Thanks, bitch.

4:48p

That's it for today. Onward to tomorrow. Gotta go home and study.

We had an "all hands" meeting today. This is a once-a-quarter occurrence where they take an hour or two, feed us donuts, and then try to re-sell us the jobs we already have by putting up colorful slides and throwing out statistics that must mean something to someone.

Frankly, I think it's fucking boring. I mean, I work here already. Don't sell me on our "potential opportunities" and all that - isn't that what we pay some of the folks here for already? To figure that all out and get us going in that direction?

Plus, I don't think it should take an hour to explain where we're going - cut to the chase already. The only thing I'm getting out of this is a glazed look and a loss of my will to live. Tell me what I need to know, and let's move on. I got shit to do.

I was actually discussing that a bit with my boss today. How I'm really sick of working on the project I'm on right now (and have been for the last eight months) and now I look for little things - anything - to do instead of working on the project. He says it's a "grass is always greener" sort of thing - that any other project is going to be a better thing to work on, but then that's still not as good as the next project... I think it's more of an "attention deficit" sort of thing - I don't like working on huge projects for extended periods of time because I lose interest. I like to do a variety of things. The spice of life and all that.

Oh, and I have a problem with the "employee recognition" program they've got set up. Maybe not a problem, but an interesting observation. I've noticed that the people who primarily get recognized are salespeople. I think it's great that they're selling the product (isn't that their job?), but I don't think they're the only people working here, you know? Today we actually had a couple of folks recognized for doing some legitimate above-and-beyond stuff, and that was cool. But I'm starting to think that this place works a lot like a stage production - the actors and folks on-stage get a lot of credit and come out for the curtain call... yet there's a whole crew of technical folks, makeup artists, propmasters, and so on that keep the production rolling that don't get all that much credit. I mean, what about the guys in my department who keep the systems up and running daily with less than the requisite staff? When things go right, nobody cares. When things go wrong, we hear about it until the cows come home. Irritating.

Subject change: I brought home a bunch of my class books to review while I study for my next test. It's a good thing I did - some of the stuff I reviewed last night was stuff I didn't remember too well, and stuff I had seen on the practice tests I've looked at already. I have a lot more work ahead of me. I can't wait until this one's over.

I've started studying for the next test I have to take, MS 070-320, which is entitled Developing XML Web Services and Server Components with Microsoft Visual C# and the Microsoft .NET Framework. what it should really be called is Everything You Don't Know.

I mean, I've taken loads of classes, including the classes that they recommend to prepare you for the test. I felt that I did pretty well at them. I feel like I remember the stuff, and it all seemed pretty reasonable. But I'm looking at the practice test, and I'm wondering if the people who came up with these questions realize that I'm human. It's nuts. Like if you took a Spanish class and on the final they start asking you what the Latin roots of certain words are. Pretty ridiculous.

So I'm taking home my class materials from those classes and will re-read them (because either I've forgotten stuff or they really didn't talk much about this stuff), and then will continue working on the practice tests. Crazy.

I've decided, though, that if/when I pass this thing, I'm going to reward myself with some better earbud headphones because the ones that I'm using right now (the ones that sit sort of precariously and sometimes painfully toward the outside of your ear canal) are, well, not so comfortable. I want to get some of these Sony ones that actually go in your ear. From what I've seen, they're pretty awesome.

I'm still working on SharePoint Portal Server version 2 stuff here at work, which is getting older than I can possibly explain. It's review time at work, and one of the things on the review is to determine what your goals for the coming year are. I have one goal - to not work on SharePoint Portal Server. I've been working on the same stupid project for like eight months with no help and no light at the end of the tunnel. Every time I think I'm getting near the end, there are more "enhancements" or there's something else that gets "included" in the project. I mean, what I liked about my job before was the variety of different stuff I got to work on. There ain't no variety anymore, folks.

Speaking of which, I should probably get back on that. There's a lot to do and I found out today that I don't have as much time to finish as I thought I did. Which figures.

By the way, I got this shitty little digital camera that I can take pictures with to post up here. It's not great quality, but something is better than nothing. Now I'm almost hoping that my stupid neighbors park in the fire lane [again] so I can show you how ridiculous it is.

The company has decided that they not only need to have me on call 24/7 via phone and throw requests at me constantly via email, but now I need to be bombarded by "real-time spam" via Windows Instant Messenger.

They're putting in a Real-Time Communication Server (or whatever Microsoft is calling their IM server nowadays) and we all get special IM clients to log into this thing.

The problem I have is that whenever I have my Instant Messenger logged in, everyone sees that I'm marked as online and as soon as I sign on, I get accosted by thirty bazillion messages. The thought process I'm sure goes something like this:

Hey! Travis just logged on. Obviously he has nothing better to do than to answer my questions or respond to instant messages. I wonder how he's doing? I'll just send him a quick 'Hey, dude, what's up?' style message to let him know I'm here. He's obviously too stupid to look at the list of his contacts and see that I'm online.

It's pretty ridiculous.

The other thing I notice is that if I leave the thing logged in (as I am wont to do because logging in and out is just one more thing I don't want to deal with), it could be, like, 1:00a and people will see that my IM is logged in (even if the status is set to "Busy" or something) and will send the ol' "Hey, Dude!" messages. I'll come in the next morning and see a load of messages cluttering my desktop from the insomniacs in my life.

And then they complain that I never responded to their messages. Bah.

The answer is that they need to add one more status to the list of possible statuses. See, "Busy" doesn't work. "Appear Offline" sometimes works, but defeats the purpose of presence information. I need something that says... "I'm online, but I sure as shit don't want to hear from you." Something like this:


Until then, I think I'll just skip the whole IM thing. It's more trouble than its worth.

I saw a preview this weekend for a movie called The Underworld. It looks like Interview With The Vampire meets The Matrix, which is to say, fucking awesome. Vampires vs. Werewolves in a dark, digitally-enhanced action flick? Count me IN.

Jenn's like, "Eh. Whatever." I'm like, "I'll be the first person at the first damn showing!". Some people just don't get it.

Life is just a roller coaster ride, isn't it? I mean, yesterday started out rockin' with me passing my test and getting my site moved over to the new server, and then I got home and got the mail.

Remember a while back I tapped a lady's bumper? Well, I got my insurance bill. It went from $800 every six months to $1300 every six months. That's right, nearly doubled. Fucking ridiculous, that. I've got a totally clean record except for that one incident. And, of course, the insurance company's got me over a barrel on that one for 36 months from the reported time of the accident, so I'm looking to be paying out the ass for the next three years.

You know that thing where they say your insurance goes down when you turn 26? Mine didn't. No change. God forbid these assholes give me a break.

On the other hand, I can't complain at all about the service. If I need anything, they're on the stick. There's never a time where I have to wait a day or two to hear back from them (the way it's been with other insurance companies I've been with) and they're always open and let me know what the status of things is. Plus, they're cheaper than the rest of the places out there.

Of course, now they're gouging me.

Such is life, eh?

My boss had me schedule a meeting today to "open communications" between the project team (me) and a couple of the people that are being impacted by the project I'm working on. I already know the questions they're going to ask me, and I don't have (what I would call) satisfactory answers for any of them. As far as I'm concerned, I'm implementation, man. If they want to provide requirements, they need to talk to the requirements people, which isn't me.

Bah.

I watched The Original Kings of Comedy last night on TV. I hadn't seen it before, and I like Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac, so I thought this would be pretty good.

Eh.

See, I'm all about talking about "the differences between people" and "the battle of the sexes" and all that sort of thing, but when a comedian harps on one particular thing over and over, it gets old. It's called variety, people - look into it. See, on their TV shows, Cedric and Bernie have a good variety of humor topics - kids, men vs. women, black vs. white, common problems... all sorts of things.

Not so in their stand-up.

In their stand-up comedy, the only topic available is "black people vs. white people." That's it. And let me tell you, while I enjoyed about 75% of it, it got old pretty quick.

The same thing happened to Ellen DeGeneres when she first came out of the closet. Her show was really funny, then she came out and every single joke on the show was a gay joke. Yawn. Variety is what keeps folks entertained. Without it... disappointment.

So, disappointment.

Finally, I printed off the practice test questions for my next test and looked them over a little bit.

Whoa.

I've taken a lot of Microsoft classes and whatnot, but I don't recognize shit from these practice questions. Seriously. At least with the other tests, I pretty well recognized some stuff but had a difficult time with a few of the key areas or technical details. I don't recognize any of this stuff.

Which brings me to another interesting insight I had. Before, when I was taking my first test, and most of the way through the second test, I was very much in favor of knowing exactly how a given technology worked in order to understand why test answers are what they are. I was all over that - sort of like knowing how to do math before you get a calculator. Looking at this new set of questions has changed my opinion. You can't possibly know everything there is to know about any given technology. You work with about 30% of a technology - the common parts. The rest, if you need it, you look up in the documentation or check out code samples. There is never a time you'll be stranded without any resources and have to have everything memorized - there's just too much. So now I'm starting to see the merit of learning the technology you'll use and learning the answers to the test questions so you can pass. I don't honestly see any other way around it. Does that make me feel good? No. Will it help me to pass and get on with life? Yup.

Okay, here's another of my million dollar ideas that I had yesterday in the car:

You know how you can go to sex shops and joke gift shops and get that penis-shaped pasta? Well, what do you put on that pasta when you want to eat it?

The Answer: Bearded Clam Sauce

You read it here first, folks. Just get a bunch of cans of prepackaged white clam sauce, slap a new label on (or, better, partner with the manufacturer), and voila! you're a millionaire.

Jenn told me that if we had the money to throw away, I could hire a full-time personal assistant to follow me around in a French maid outfit. This, my friends, is the key.

Well, folks, things seem to have worked out reasonably well for me today. I have:

• Passed my Windows Application Programming in C# test
• Moved my site over to my friend Marty's box
• Not eaten anything but Sour Skittles all day long

The Test: I actually thought I failed this while I was taking it. Seriously. There were 58 questions, and only around 35 of them were on my practice test. The rest were pulled out of someone's ass and I had no clue on them. Obviously I'm a skilled guesser (thank God they're multiple choice tests) because I passed. Honestly, I don't care how I passed, as long as I did. So, moving on to the next test, right?

The Site: If you're here reading this, you can see that the site move went acceptably. I've put up a redirector page for folks whose name servers haven't updated to the new location. Hopefully that will propagate through within the next day or three. Regardless, I'm here now, with some ample breathing space, meaning I can post pictures of my stupid neighbors and their fucking Titanic car parked in the fire lane and all the other shit that gets my goat. I'm stoked, and you should be, too.

Sour Skittles: I think they speak for themselves. Though I should probably take some time and eat something substantial.

All in all, not a bad day. Now maybe I should get some work done...

Well, gang, today's going to be a busy day. But first, the weekend.

Went to see American Wedding and liked it quite a bit. It wasn't by any means original - I mean, you've got the first two, and this is a sequel - but it was enjoyable.

Watched a few DVDs at home, washed the car, did the usual house-oriented stuff. Nothing too exciting.

Today, though, is going to be a big day.

First, we have my "Programming Windows Apps in C#" test, which I don't anticipate being too difficult, but I'm always leery of things that seem too easy.

And second, I've got space on a new server and I'm going to try to move the blog over there. I don't think it should be too hard - basically a copy/paste style operation - but, again, I'm leery of things that seem too easy.

Anyway, the net result of that all is that I'm a little anxious. Plus, I probably won't post again (and will be turning off the comments feature so the site can't change) until I've gotten the site moved over, which should hopefully be by the end of the day. I'll throw redirectors and notices up here for folks that have stuff bookmarked to ensure that everyone can get back here.

Wish me luck!

The day started off so well, then about halfway through took the biggest nosedive in the world.

I'm working on building up a new corporate web server at work to replace the existing site and server with. It's a Windows 2003 box that it took me like three days just to build and secure (it was locked down, man) and get so it could be remotely administered from our corporate network yet not be a threat if it was compromised. It was solid.

Well, we put some security patches on it that came out recently and the web server portion of the machine started denying everyone access to the site. I mean, not even ask you for username and password - just straight up denying you access.

After fucking around with it for like two hours, I come to find out that it's a sort of "intelligence" that's been built into the system.

For the technical:
The machine was a domain controller (on its own domain) with a one-way trust between our corporate domain and itself. The machine also ran IIS for the web site stuff. It turns out the security patches we did (or something related, though I couldn't say what) made it so that only Administrators were allowed to log on locally to the box. Even if the Domain Controller Security Policy said otherwise. Even if everything else - all other policies and settings - said otherwise. It just wouldn't let anyone in. That includes the IUSR_MACHINENAME anonymous user account. Which means you can't run an anonymously accessed web site on a domain controller - even if you want to - unless the anonymous user account is a local administrator. Fucking brilliance.

For the non-technical:
Microsoft decided to make things more "secure" by not allowing you to "accidentally" do certain things. Even if you specifically want to do those things.

Thank you very much, Microsoft.

So now I have to build up a whole new domain controller machine and a whole new web server, reconfigure and re-secure both machines, reinstall the web site (thankfully written in ASP.NET so it's easy to deploy), and hopefully be back at square one by the end of next week.

Bah. How irritating is that?!

I started off this morning by waking up at 6:00a to my stupid fucking downstairs neighbors starting up their "classic" convertible 70's Cadillac and revving the engine for a few minutes, then shutting it off and going back inside. Nice.

That, of course, put me in a bad mood, which is not uncommon for me in the morning since, frankly, I hate waking up. I'm not a big morning person. I can stay up all night long if I know I don't have to get up early for work the next day. But this was a worse than usual style mood, which is bad news. I didn't expect much from the day.

So far, though, the day is very pleasantly surprising me. I think my friend Marty is going to hook me up with some space on his server, which would allow me to post pictures of things like my stupid downstairs neighbors' car, which would be altogether too enriching for the lives of my readers. I like that.

I got my Amazon Associates kickback gift certificate in email - a whopping $11.05 this quarter, mostly generated from me ordering things through my own damn site thank you very much - and I do have to say that free money in the mail is never frowned upon in my household. Rock on.

Of course, I promptly used that $11.05 while pre-ordering Alias: Season 2 and Angel: Season 2, both sets I have been waiting for with baited breath, neither of which I realized were coming out. Good times there.

And, last, but not least, I've scheduled my 070-316 test, "Developing and Implementing Windows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET," to occur this coming Monday at 11:15a, since I have been studying the questions on the practice test and they all make some weird sort of natural sense, like I might actually know on some instinctual level the answers to the questions. Seriously, the practice test is almost unreal in its relative ease, compared to the last test I took. After talking to another guy who has used practice test software from the same company as the practice test I'm looking at, he says that his practice test was pretty dead-on for what he saw on the actual exam. If that's the case, I'm thinking I should pass without too much issue. I don't want to get overconfident, but after looking at the practice test... I can't help but smile. So - Monday. We'll see what happens there.

And that's all just up until now. It's only... uh... 10:39a by my clock (will probably be a little later by the time this gets posted, but still), and things are going swimmingly.

Nobody'd best come over and fuck up my mood or I'm going to be busting some caps.