My dining room table is in at the shipper's warehouse, but they only deliver between like 10 and 4, so I've got a two-hour window in which I need to be at home tomorrow so they can bring me my goods. I told my boss that and he said I should just work from home tomorrow, so I think that's what I'm going to do. I haven't really done too much work from home before, so we'll see how it goes. I'm sure that the trade-offs will quickly appear; while some distractions won't exist (phones, other people), others will rear their ugly (or, in some cases, cute) heads (my bad cats).

Regardless, I should have a table by 4:00p tomorrow, which will be sort of nice and sort of not. I was enjoying the fact that my apartment looks ten times bigger when there's no table, but I'm kind of tired of sitting on the floor when I need to do any sort of writing or whatever.

I still need to post the Enchanted Forest pix, but I have downloaded them off my camera and they're almost ready to go. You can really see the shortcomings of my shitty little camera in them - bad lighting, nothing is centered in the frame - but I guess they're better than nothing.

I also need to do some more work on my pMachine implementation. The home page is pretty much done, but the entry pages haven't even been started yet, and there's definitely some fine-tuning to be had. It looks good, though, and I can't wait to move over. It offers so much more functionality. You guys will love it.

The Rundown is not a deep and meaningful art film focusing on character development and subtle subtexts that intertwine themselves to create a complex storyline.

The Rundown is the most fun I've had at the theater in a long, long time.

The Rundown stars The Rock as a guy named Beck who works as a collector for a loan shark. Beck doesn't want to be in the business, but he owes the loan shark, so he's doing his time. As a last mission, the loan shark sends Beck into the Amazon jungle to retrieve his son Travis, played by Seann William Scott.

Beck heads into the jungle and havoc ensues. He runs into trouble with the local warlord (played by Christopher Walken), he gets mixed up with the rebel army fighting the warlord, and he keeps managing to lose his target, Travis.

In the end, of course, everything works out, but it's the journey that's the fun. The movie starts you right out with a great fight scene and doesn't slow down. The humor is great, the characters are quirky, the action is brilliant. This is everything an action movie should be, and I'm disappointed that they don't turn more out like this.

The Rock finally really establishes himself as a viable action star (we all knew he was, but this part was made for him). Seann William Scott shows us he can be a character other than Stifler. And Christopher Walken... well, I mean, it's Christopher Walken, man! How could it be bad?

This one's definitely worth paying full price for, and maybe even twice. I'll definitely be getting it when it's out on DVD. If you haven't seen it - go right now. If you have, see it again. Yes, it's that good.

I totally lost sleep over this stupid demo thing I'm supposed to be doing for work so I came in this morning and was like, "Look - I'm good, but I'm not a magician. You guys want help? Fine. You want me to do like 700 pages of work in five weeks of half-time work? I don't think so. Not really what I signed up for."

Besides which, I don't get paid nearly enough to be putting in 80 hour weeks for this shit.

So I'm stressed, and probably vastly undercaffeinated, and I think maybe I need a job that doesn't involve computers. Maybe something like costume design or sculpting.

I went to Enchanted Forest this weekend with Jenn's gaggle of girls. I took pictures, and when I get a chance I'll tell you all about the trip and post the photos in the gallery.

I also went to see The Rundown this weekend and loved it. Again, if/when I get a chance, I'll post a review and let you know how you need to just go see it right now.

Oh, and I went to the fabric store to get some fusible interfacing for my costume and came to the conclusion that, if I'm ever single again, the fabric store is a great place to find hot single chicks.

Today's Traffic Asshole was driving a black Ford Escort station wagon. Let me set the scene for you.

I was driving along, going about 65 in the left lane (there were only two lanes). The right lane was going around 55. About four car lengths in front of me was another car, also going 65. Out of nowhere this black station wagon hauled up onto my ass. I figured that there was no point in getting over into the slower traffic, since I was passing them anyway, and not four car lengths ahead of me the traffic wasn't going any faster. No action required on my part.

That isn't the way this guy saw it. He got over into the slow lane, zoomed up onto the ass of the person who happened to be in front of him, then got in front of me and zoomed up onto the ass of the car that was previously in front of me. What was the point of that? Four car lengths and no speed gain? Where did he think he was going?



Lesson for the uninitiated: Regardless of how fast you might like to go, your speed is always regulated by the line of cars in front of you.

I just got commissioned to work on a demo for our product. It's supposed to be static, so that a user could take the demo, unzip it on their desktop, and just start right up with IE... but I looked at the existing demo, which fills this requirement, and it's hundreds of pages, all of which have embedded Javascript to take care of any sort of dynamic stuff.

Fuck that shit, man.

I'm going to see if I can at least make some use of dynamic stuff, at least for automatically including common elements like headers and footers. I'm supposed to come up with two new demos (one new, one a revised version of an existing demo) in five weeks of half-time work?

I don't think so. Not the way they're asking for.

I got home last night and Jenn was working with the new sewing machine I bought her for her birthday. She's making some pajama shorts or something. I went in the room to see how she was doing, and she was fussing around with some fabric, mumbling about the buttonhole foot on it. It sounded to me like she thought it was broken or something. She just couldn't get it to work.

I sat down and asked her if she followed the instructions. "Oh, yes," she said, "of course I did!" All of the instructions? She looked insulted.

I started looking at the instructions, at which point she decided it was time to start cutting something and then get pissed off because I was instantly in the way, so I left and figured I'd look at it later.

She left for her meeting, and after a while I decided I'd check it out. I mean, how hard could it be? Don't these machines do everything for you?

I picked up the piece of test fabric she had sitting there, and, following the instructions in the manual, proceeded to try three times to make a buttonhole. And you know what?



It is that easy. The machine does do everything for you and I got three perfect buttonholes - one on each try.

Let's get a closer look at this, shall we?

Here's one of Jenn's "buttonholes." Note it's not so much a "hole" as a "rat's nest of thread."



Here are my buttonholes. Note that I am the Buttonhole Master.



Turns out that Jenn didn't really follow all of the instructions, just most. Funny how you can't just skip the steps you don't understand or don't "feel like" doing.

Reminds me of this one time I sent some instructions to one of my users on how to fix a problem he was having. He calls me back a few minutes later and asks how come step 8 isn't working. I'm like, "Did you follow all the instructions?" and he said, "Yeah - I did step 2, then 4, then I went back and did 3, then 1..." You get the idea. I never thought I'd actually have to specify that you need to follow the numbered steps in the order they're provided.

Lesson learned: Follow all of the instructions in order prior to saying a process doesn't work. Chances are, the instructions are there for a reason.

I was driving in to work thinking, "Man, it's already Wednesday and I haven't found a Traffic Asshole yet. Well, hello! It's like the devil knows you're thinking about him."

There, in a feeble attempt to pass, was the Traffic Asshole.

We were coming up on a pretty heavy interchange where not only does a major highway merge with the one we were on, but the road goes from three lanes down to two. (Yeah, we can discuss the logistics of the traffic planners later. I've got a beef with them myself.) Anyway, this guy saw that there was a huge truck hauling cars that was merging in front of him, so he zoomed up alongside me and tried to get into the narrowing gap between me and the car in front of me.

Fuck that, man. You get back where you belong.

He ended up having to merge in behind me. God forbid the guy get in behind where there's nobody, he wanted to get into the tiny space in front of me. Asshole.

We eventually get past that bottleneck and the road thins out a bit, so he decides it's time to pass again. By this time, I had the camera out because I was going to try to get a rear view mirror pic of the guy. That was when he made his move, so I aimed the camera out the side and shot...



Voila! A perfect side view of the Traffic Asshole of the Week! (I'm pretty amazed that turned out. He was moving past pretty fast so I only got the one picture.)

Of course, as is usually the case when assholes want to pass, they pass really quickly and don't realize the traffic is stopped up there. If you could have gotten through up there, you'd be there, right? Some people never learn.



Gotta love people.

Remember the Space Pen I lost a while ago so I ended up buying a new one? Yeah, well, I found the one I lost. It was in my car, under the seat, between the floor mat and the metal track that the seat sits on. Since it's dark down there, the track is black, the carpet's black, and the pen's black, I didn't see it. But I dropped a quarter in there, and when I reached in to get it, there was the pen. So now I have two Space Pens, which isn't a bad thing.

I posted my Underworld review yesterday, so I'll tell you what I did this weekend today. Now that it's already Tuesday.

Friday was the intern at work's last day, so we took him out to lunch at Chang's Mongolian Grill and signed this terrible shirt that Jenn's grandparents got me for Christmas and gave it to him. The Worst Shirt Ever. And there's another one, waiting here for the next intern. Yeah, I got two of those mothers.

After work, Greg and I went to see Underworld, the review for which I've posted already. It was decent.

Woke up the next morning to find that Chang's had a negative effect on me all the way around. My stomach was rumbly and the apartment smelled of farts and garlic. I guess I woke Jenn up in the middle of the night by farting in my sleep (hehehehehe). I think I'd best lay off the Chang's.

Saturday I went to the first Winter Hawks game of the season, and I hope that the season opener is indicative of what we can expect the rest of the season. Not only did they win and fight, but they also scored during the "Pizza Schmizza Magic Minute," which means we all got free pizza. Doesn't get much better than that.

While at the hockey game, I was talking to my friend Jerry's daughter, Suzanne (who, by the way, is hot like Alicia Silverstone in Clueless), and I came to find that she didn't know what funk music was. How do you describe funk? I named several artists, and she'd never heard of any of them. She's 21, and I'm only 27, but that makes me feel old. Kids nowadays, man.

Sunday I went to see Bubba Ho-Tep at Cinema 21 with my friend Darren. It was a reasonably funny movie about Elvis in a rest home, fighting a mummy who eats the souls of old people. Sound silly? It was, but it was entertaining.

Yesterday was my sister Tai's birthday, so Jenn and I headed over to my parents' house for cake and ice cream. It was a decent family gathering. Tai said she was glad I was there, but was a little disappointed that I didn't call her in the morning to say happy birthday. Two things on that: first, I don't call anyone for holidays, or much anything else for that matter; second, I don't remember getting any call on my birthday. Hmmm. Okay, then.

Sunday (the 28th) is Tori's birthday (my other sister). But she's in Utah, so no family gathering.

I was listening to the Scorpions song, "Rock You Like A Hurricane," and I was thinking about the whole "Hurricane Isabel" thing going on right now and how it used to be "Tropical Storm Isabel," and it got me wondering... when the Scorpions wrote that song, did they sit around and think, "Hmmm... 'Rock you like a tropical storm?' No... 'Rock you like a tornado?' No... How about 'rock you like a squall?' Uh-uh. Oh, I got it! 'Rock you like a hurricane!' Yeah, I like that!"

Friday night I went immediately after work to see Underworld, the new hyper-stylized Matrix-wannabe film.

Don't worry, I knew exactly what I was going into.

See, I liked The Matrix. I liked Bram Stoker's Dracula. I liked that both had their own interesting visual styles and artistic approaches. So when I saw the previews for Underworld, I was all over it. I mean, how can you pass up something like that? Two great tastes that go great together.

The story is about Selene (played by the almost ridiculously hot Kate Beckinsale), a vampire "death dealer." She and a group of other gun-toting vampires spearhead the vampire side of the vampire/werewolf battle. (See, they have silver nitrate-filled bullets that they shoot the werewolves with, right? And the werewolves have UV irradiated liquid filled bullets that they shoot the vampires with. That's how they rationalize the guns. Just accept it and move on.) While Selene is out hunting one day, she sees that the werewolves (or "lycans," as they are called in the film) are taking a special interest in this particular human. Turns out the human has a special quality to his blood that lets him become both a vampire and a werewolf, and stronger than both. The werewolves think this is great; the vampires, not so much. Battle ensues. Asses get kicked. Much shooting. All becomes well with the world.

In all honesty, I wasn't disappointed. They did a great job of bringing the whole vampire/werewolf mythos into a contemporary Matrix-esque setting. The visual style was keen, the guns were cool, the chicks were hot. What more could you ask?

Well, there were a few issues I had that would have made the movie just a little better.

First, the visual style, while keen, was a little overdone. Ever notice how everything in The Matrix has a sort of greenish tinge to it? Everything in Underworld was done in twilight blue. There really wasn't much in the way of color or light, which made it hard to see what was going on at times. Cool? Yes. Hard to see? Also, yes. I mean, blood runs black in twilight. That's great and all, but it sort of lacks some of the power of seeing the red of blood in battle. Maybe laying off the camera filters just a little would have been helpful.

Second, the guns. I thought it was a really, really cool idea to have fully automatic pistols. Portable death in quantities. I like that. But, you know, pistol clips only hold like 9 or 14 rounds in them. And with these huge .50 caliber bullets (or what looked like something that large, since you have to have a huge bullet to hold all the liquid you're shooting), you're only going to get 9 in there. Which means if you hold down the trigger on your fully automatic pistol, you've got about a second worth of shooting in it, then you've got to reload. Where was the reloading? You can't take out an army on two clips. They reloaded sometimes, but not nearly enough.

Third, the love interest. Selene gets this vampire/werewolf/human guy and runs him all over town trying to save him (over the course of a couple of days) and somehow, without really having any conversation with the guy, falls in love with him. No, no, no. If Kate Beckinsale drug my ass around town for two days and all I ever did was cause her trouble, she'd only end up hating me. Not so in this movie. I didn't buy that part.

Finally, the chicks. I won't see eye-to-eye with some of you on this one, but the folks in my camp will know what I'm saying here. If you're going to stick Kate Beckinsale in latex (or leather or whatever), and you're going to parade around a bunch of vampire women in ultra-tight corset-style tops and so on and so forth, and you're going to the trouble of putting in the obligatory love interest, and you're going to get your movie rated R for violence and language, then you'd best go all the way and show me some tits. Seriously. Where were the boobs in this film? This is worse than a Washington strip club. Don't start the launch sequence if you're not going to fire the missile. Here's hoping that stuff shows up in the deleted scenes or the director's cut or something on DVD.

Long story short, I liked this and I'd say it'd be good for a matinee or a rental, but don't pay full price unless you're really into the vampire/werewolf thing.

We went yesterday to Chang's Mongolian Grill (all you can eat, baby!) for lunch, and while I love Chang's, Chang's doesn't seem to love me. I've had terrible gas since then (woke Jenn up at around four this morning with my farting in my sleep), our whole apartment smells like garlic, and I just dropped a loaf that would kill a small army. Damn.

I'm still working on my pMachine upgrade. I've got some good ideas on paper, now I just have to compose my thoughts on the computer. I tried a couple of things yesterday that turned out like crap, so I've started that over. We'll see how it goes.

I've been working with the Microsoft Log Parser, a tool that allows you to query - like a database - activity logs from your web site. It's pretty slick and really fast. Plus, it comes with a programmatic component you can use to write your own programs that take advantage of the fast and easy parsing capabilities that Microsoft has already built.

We have a guy at our company who wrote his own log parser that analyzes logs for security attacks. I suggested that he look into using the programmatic component in his analyzer because, well, why reinvent the wheel? Especially in the case of program code that you don't want to have to maintain. Why not use the robust engine provided you for free?

I got the response that the log parser isn't smart enough. Huh? Sure, maybe the canned executable version isn't, but the componentized version is only as smart as you make it. Sounds like the thing not smart enough is the guy writing the program. Oh, well. Can't save everyone from themselves.

I guess they're trying to patent this thing, too, which I hope does not imply that they're going to try to sell it, because I've seen the reports it spits out and legible they are not. Maybe they should hire a UI guy to look at that stuff... but, of course, with the code they've got built up, who knows how maintainable (or adjustable) it is? Some people program when they really just shouldn't.

I got my new Fisher Space Pen yesterday in the mail.



I'm actually pretty stoked about it. It looks really cool, and I think the grip on the end of the pen is pretty nifty. Anyway, there it is - if you find it somewhere, it will be because I lost it, so please give it back if you do. So far, I've had it sitting right here just fine all morning.

I think tonight I'm going to go see Underworld. Can't really pass on the whole Matrix-like thing, plus, you really can't beat Kate Beckinsale in tight garb.

And one final treat - a great picture of Jennifer Garner arriving at last year's Emmy Awards ceremony. Yow!

It's time once again for... Traffic Asshole of the Week! This week, the Traffic Asshole is brought to you by Lexus, which is the kind of car the asshole was driving.

Or, at least, he was brought to my bumper by his Lexus.

So here's me: Cruising along coming in to work this morning, going reasonably fast (the freeway's only a 55, so... well, faster than that), and I'm in the fast lane, passing people in the slow lane (only two lanes, mind you), when this guy comes flying on the freeway and runs right up on my bumper. I'm not really sure what he's trying to accomplish, since we're already going both faster than the speed limit and faster than the slow lane. Not to mention I see that, just up ahead, everyone's slowing way down because of an interchange where folks are merging.

This guy continues to ride me, close enough that I can't even see his headlights, which is pretty fucking close. I consider doing the brake-tap thing, but then I think, "I don't trust this guy's ability to actually stop in time," so I don't.

Instead, I decide to try to take a picture. Perfect traffic asshole moment, right? Camera's right there, so I pick it up, flip it around, and snap a photo:



Okay, so that didn't work too well. (You guys all think I'm taking a bunch of time when I get these pictures, but I'm actually just pointing the camera in the general direction and snapping a bunch of them, hoping for a decent one.)

That's when I get this idea - take a picture of him in the rear view mirror!



That works much better. You can see just the tops of his headlights because he's backed off a little there.

At this point, the asshole decides that, even though we're almost to this interchange and traffic's really slow, he's going to try to pass me on the right.

Uh uh. You wanna be an asshole? I can be one, too. Plus, I'm pretty sure I can give you a good run for your money any day of the week, buddy. Time to floor it.

I end up running the guy right up to the slow traffic, when he decides to cave in and get back behind me.

Long about the time I'm getting ready to exit for work, I find out that he's exiting at the same place. Now's his chance! Time to make the move!



Well, exit time, so I'd best get over, too. Oh, no! I'm feeling bad about myself now! I'm behind the asshole!

Oh, wait a sec, we're all going really slow in a big long line of cars. Gee, getting that one car in front of me really got you far, man.



I know what it was, though: He was excited to get to work to see if he had made Traffic Asshole of the Week. Congratulations, buddy, you did it!

The commute home sucked. It's only 14.3 miles between work and home, and it took me an hour and a quarter. That averages out to around 11.5 miles per hour.

Here, check this out:



Traffic backed up as far as the eye could see. Ridiculous. And you know what it was? An accident coming in the opposite direction. Good, people. Rubberneck. That'll definitely get us home faster.

Got home, gave Jenn her presents. I got her some movies (Amelie, Pretty Woman, and Can't Buy Me Love), a foot massage spa thing, a Perfect Pancake, and a sewing machine. Not a bad haul considering none of her family showed up. Her parents are out of town for their annivesary and her sister had plans involving Jenn's niece and a school get together or something. So it was me, Jenn, and my parents eating tiramisu torte and berry pie. Yum.

During the party, I noticed that the Tubby Cat was doing her best impersonation of Gene Simmons. She's funny when she does that, and I can't figure out why. I heard that when cats are content they stick their tongues out. She must love laying on that paper! Click her head to see the full-body view.

Aside from that excitement, it was a nice, quiet evening at home. And now we're at today, the tomorrow we talked about yesterday, and it's back to the grinder for me.

Lots of stuff getting upgraded. Let's see...

Jenn's birthday is today, so her age has been upgraded. We'll be getting together tonight with my parents and her sister and niece.

I got - free from MSDN - a ViewSonic V37 PocketPC. Very nice, if I do say so myself. I've migrated the stuff from my old Compaq iPaq 3600 onto this new machine and I'm not looking back.

I've installed pMachine so I can potentially provide some better blog features for you nameless masses who show up here to read about me every day. I've just got the base install complete, no customizations or anything, but I'll be working on setting that up and getting it just right, after which I'll import my blog entries from here over to there and get you going over there. I think my templates will change a bit, since I'd like to shake things up. My current idea is sort of a cobalt blue and black theme a la Mulholland Drive. So that's getting upgraded.

Speaking of cobalt blue, I somehow lost my Fisher Space Pen. My favorite pen, black with a gold "US Ski Team" logo on it (I could have done without the logo, but the pen itself was the bomb. I had it in my pocket yesterday, and now... nothing. No idea where it went. So I ordered me up a new blue one, sort of like something you'd see out of Mulholland Drive. It's cool, and I'm looking forward to getting it. So my pen is getting upgraded (from "no pen" to "really cool pen").

Finally, I forgot to mention it, but a couple of days ago I broke down and ordered my new dining room table. I had found it at a different site, but then at the last minute I saw it on the Sears web site, for $55 cheaper. Can't beat that. So my dining room is getting an upgrade. Of course, that's not going to be here until October 13 or so. Shipping. Bah.

Got home Friday after work to find my neighbors were in the fucking fire lane again.

Other than that, didn't do much Friday night. I rented, um... I don't even remember. Oh, wait - it was Malibu's Most Wanted, which was reasonably funny, but I'm glad I only paid a buck for it.

Saturday was quite the day. I went down to Fry's Electronics and picked up some CD cases for my DVDs. We had our DVDs on a bookshelf but ran out of room, so we decided it was time to put them into binders. I chose CD binders instead of DVD binders because of the cost - I have about 300 DVDs, and most DVD binders only hold 40 discs with the paper insert things... which means I would need like eight binders to hold everything, whereas I only need four of the CD binders and I still have plenty of room to grow. Of course, I miscounted the movies the first time around and ended up having to go back to Fry's on Sunday to get another binder. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Saturday afternoon was Jenn's parents' anniversary party at the local Masonic lodge. There were no fez-wearers, which I was disappointed by (though should have expected), and the "party" itself was more of a calm social gathering with food involved. Nothing too much. I did notice a couple of things I thought interesting, though.

First, I realized that at these sorts of gatherings there is always a "grandma" entity who sits semi-alone wearing those gigantic black sunglasses, and there was the token sunglass wearer at this party, too:



Second, there was this guy in the back who was wearing quite the interesting "American Flag" shirt. "Fashion Police! Pull over!"



We saw Jenn's grandparents there, which was nice, and they gave Jenn her birthday gift since Jenn's birthday is on Tuesday (tomorrow). The thing is, these grandparents are notorious for the... interesting... gifts. For example, the gift wrap is always re-gifted / recycled. Looking at the top of Jenn's gift, you wouldn't notice, but flip it over...



...and we see there's a little bit of wedding wrapping paper in there.

Inside that package we found a frame that allows you to "magically" swap your pictures in it like an album. Check the close-up on that frame. Like the plastic wicker look? So did we.

Jenn also got a wool blanket (in a Christmas box marked "To Jim From Louise") that has probably been in someone's attic for 30 years (the stink was incredible). Navy blue with snowflakes on it the size of dinner plates that have been cut out and sewn on. We think we can redeem that one by trimming off the snowflakes and giving it a thorough washing.

Sunday Jenn and I washed our cars (it'd been a while and they both looked terrible) and watched View From The Top with my parents. I made that second trip to Fry's to get the last binder we needed and I studied for my next test.

Speaking of my next test, I'm not sure about how well I'm going to do. They refer to things I've never heard of, and it's all case study sorts of things (you read a case study then answer questions about it). But it's not even entirely logical. Here's an example question with all the background info you're given:

Events Plus (the company you're contracting with) currently books 5000 events per month using their existing booking system. You're creating a new system for them. This new system should allow multiple rate schedules for each event. Most events should have fewer than 20 different rate schedules associated with it, and rate schedules should only change two or three times per event.

During the first two years after they release the new system, they anticipate it will increase their event bookings by 20%. After the first two years they expect a 10% increase in bookings each year.

Audit information for rate schedule changes must be stored in the new system. You are estimating the additional amount of storage needed for this audit information. Each audit trail record will be approximately 850 bytes. Based on the information from the case study (reprinted above), approximately how much disk space will be required for the audit trail during the first two years?

972MB

2334MB

1GB

2.6GB

26GB

Give up?

Now when I solved this, I figured it this way:

5000 events per month * 12 months per year * 1.2 (for the 20% annual growth) = 72000 events for the first year
72000 events the first year * 1.2 (for the 20% annual growth) = 86400 events the second year
72000 first year events + 86400 second year events = 158400 total events
20 rate schedules * 3 times each schedule can be changed = 60 audit records to maintain per event
158400 events * 60 audit records * 850 bytes per record = 8078400000 bytes = 7889062.5KB = 7704.2MB = 7.52GB

Notice how that's not one of the choices?!

The way THEY calculate it is:

5000 events * 1.20 (for the annual growth) * 24 months * 850 bytes * 20 rate schedules = 2448000000 bytes (the storage required for the rate schedules proper)
5000 events * 3 rate changes * 24 months * 850 bytes = 306000000 bytes (for the audit trail records)
2448000000 bytes + 306000000 bytes = 2754000000 bytes = 2.56GB

Huh? Why are they calculating how much storage is for the rate schedules themselves? That wasn't the question. And when they calculate for the audit trail records, what happened to the annual growth? And why is the annual growth averaged over two years and not compounded like annual growth is supposed to be? And I thought each rate schedule could be changed 3 times... it's 3 times TOTAL?! ARGH!!! (You might think I shorted you on the info I provided in the question, but I didn't; that's seriously all you get.)

When you look at the "References" section on the practice test to see what you can study to figure out how to answer this, it says,"References: General Knowledge and Information – None." Gee, thanks.

Anyway, all the questions are ridiculous like this. I don't know how folks pass these things, since there's no logic to me. Plus, if you have any questions in the real world, you can make a quick phone call and find out what someone meant. They expect you to make assumptions on incomplete information here and to make the same assumptions that they do. What a load.

I got in this morning, all ready to get down to it, if you know what I mean, when I got a call from one of our sales guys saying that there was a problem with this event registration app I have running - a customer tried to register and got an error.

On quick investigation I found that in the new site conversion, a part of this app was overlooked. No biggie, this was a chance to improve the app.

I worked on the update all morning and finally got the functionality done. The last step was to import the existing registration data from the app into the new database. In the meantime, I thought it would be nice to show the guy I know has a vested interest in seeing how the new app works. I sent him a link to the app and said, basically, "Here's the app. Give it a look. The last step is importing the existing data, which is what I'm working on right now." Short, to the point, just an FYI.

No problem, right?

Riiiiight.

This guy forwarded the email (intact) to his supervisor, who is pretty high up in the company. The supervisor then forwarded that to something like half the living population of the US. Finally, the supervisor sent me - and copied all of these folks - a note that said, basically, "Hey, that's great and all, but not all of the data's in there. We need that data in there!"

No shit, Sherlock. Did you read the email? That part where I said, "I'm working on importing the data now" - that translates into "I'm working on importing the data now." Just in case that wasn't clear.

Gotta love people. Sort of leads me to believe that the higher ranking you are, the less literate you become.

I said that Traffic Asshole of the Week may occur more often than once a week, and I was dead on. This morning I found another canidate for the title.

I was heading in to work, when I see this guy in an SUV (big surprise there) fly across three lanes of traffic without signaling:



That's right, all the way from the on ramp to the fast lane, no signal, no pause. He then runs right up on the bumper of the car in front of me and slams on the brakes. Good job there, man.

Then, just as fast as he flew into the fast lane, he flies back across the three lanes of traffic...



... and gets OFF THE FREEWAY!



What, may I ask, was the purpose of that? He wasn't on the freeway for more than maybe a mile or so; why do all this ridiculous maneuvering?

A perfect candidate for the title Traffic Asshole of the Week.

Saw a good suggestion from Marty to have a Traffic Asshole of the Week feature, so I'll start that up and try to keep it going. I usually have no shortage of candidates for the position, so it may be more than once a week. But maybe not. Let's just try this out and see how she goes, shall we?

The Traffic Asshole of the Week will be anyone who has trouble properly working with their automobile. This could be someone who can't drive, someone who can't figure out the rules of the road, or even someone who can't comprehend the concept of parking.

There were three candidates for Traffic Asshole of the Week just yesterday, so let's run them down in ascending order.

In third place, and probably in the Traffic Asshole Hall of Fame, are my neighbors, who were, once again, parked in the fire lane and effectively blocking me from my parking spot.

In second place is a guy in a U-Haul truck that I saw on my way home from work yesterday. At the intersection of highways 26 and 217 (for those in the cheap seats, these are two really busy, terrible commuter freeways), there was an SUV parked in the emergency lane with its hood up. U-Haul truck guy, towing a Mercedes behind the truck, decided it would be nice to stop and help SUV guy, so U-Haul guy parks the truck in the fast lane and gets out. As I passed, the U-Haul was sitting there, driver's door hanging open, with the U-Haul driver talking to the SUV driver. Good job, buddy.

And in first place... I came out of work, ready to go home last evening, when I was greeted with the sight of yet another SUV owner who doesn't know how to park. Check this shit out:



Hey, doesn't that look a little close? I thought so, but I figured I'd just sort of squeeze my ass in my door and call it a day. But when I opened my door...



...I found that the guy had actually parked so close that I couldn't even fit my leg inside. Next time, leave me a fucking can opener, asshole.

This just goes to prove that SUVs are the bane of human existence. Not only are they resource guzzlers, but they are driven by idiots and soccer moms who never go offroad and never actually have to haul anything. (My parents bought his-and-hers Ford Explorers, and they're well aware of my feelings about that.)

If you're going to own an SUV, at least learn how to park it. Yes, that may mean you get out of the truck and see that, "Oh, shit, I didn't park very well." Get back in the truck and fix it, shithead. "Whoopsie!" and walking into the store (or wherever) doesn't make it so I can get into my vehicle. Oh, and understand this: Your SUV is not compact, so don't try to park it in a compact spot. It's not going to work. Learn to fucking park, or don't drive the SUV. It's that simple.

I realize that the whole September 11 attack thing was a really tragic, terrible occurrence. Am I the only one in the world who thinks society would be better served by remembering but moving on? It seems to me that folks seem just a little too emotional about the whole thing.

For example, New York wants to build new stuff on the site of the old World Trade Center twin towers. I think that's great - a positive action moving forward with a memorial statue or something on the grounds. But there are all these protesters who are concerned with the fact that the new building may not use the same foundation as the old building... What difference does it make? It's called a new building, not rebuilding the old twin towers. There are limits to my abilities to respect tragedies like this, especially in regards to people who are so emotional they can't rationally contribute to a positive comeback.

Oh, and (admittedly selfish, but) let me say how tired I am of hearing about it on the news. Seriously. Move on.

As mentioned previously, Jenn's birthday is coming up. I, as always, ended up ordering stuff from Amazon. Now, usually Amazon is pretty good with their packaging. They throw whatever it is into a plain brown box (porn style, right?) and it's a mystery what's inside. Is it your whole order? Half the order? One thing? A bunch of things? Who knows? Knowing that, I figured I'd be okay shipping everything to our apartment. Add a little pre-birthday mystery to the gifts. Imagine my surprise, then, when I see this (which Jenn has pulled in from the doorstep):



Hey, Amazon! Thanks! I wonder what's in that box?!

Morons.

On my way home from work yesterday I noticed a cop in front of me in an unfamiliar car. On closer inspection, it was a Washington cop. What are Washington cops doing patrolling 20 minutes south of the border? Or is it a joyride? Misappropriation of resources? Hmmm...

I saw that Marty suggested a new potential feature, Traffic Asshole of the Week. I think that's a pretty keen idea, and no sooner had he recommended it than I had multiple candidates in a day. So I'll get on that next.

Here's my issue of the day:

I'm working on this huge project - a full Knowledge Management Initiative - within the company, the prime result of which is the rollout of SharePoint Portal Server 2003. I've been working on this project for... I don't know, like nine months now. It takes pretty much all of my time.

At the outset, Microsoft was paying some contractors to help us organize things, define requirements for what needs to be done, and implement the stuff. That was good, because I'm the only Corillian developer working on this thing, and it's a pretty huge task.

Bad project management reared its ugly head and we ran out of contracting hours with the folks organizing things. Twice.

What did I net from them? A couple of 90% complete web parts. A half-complete requirements document for a portion of our extranet and a mostly complete infrastructure document for our intranet. Nothing about the front end. Nothing about the programmatic elements that have to be developed.

These people spent hours in meetings with the key players in the company gathering requirements. What happened to all of that work?

Bah.

Just goes to show you can't count on anyone but yourself.

[Side note: I just got an email in my inbox from one of the guys in my department that begins, "I have received approval to approve the following..." Approval to approve? Does he read the shit he sends out?]

So, anyway, I'm feeling a little overwhelmed. I've been going back and forth trying to gather requirements on my own, but it's been difficult at best.

It's sort of like writing a paper in school. Your teacher says you need to write 200 pages on some nebulous topic that you don't particularly care for or have anything to say about. No guidelines on points to cover in the paper, no discussion of style or structure. Go. That's what this is like - "You need to roll out a new extranet and an intranet. Go." Huh?

I'm sure I'll look back on this (at some point in the distant, distant future) and say, "Holy shit, I'm still working on this project?"

Seriously, though, I know I'll look back on this thing and say, "Wow, that was a huge project and we (reads: I) did a great job rolling that sonofabitch out. Glad that's over. Moving on to bigger and better things now." But that day is a long time from now and it doesn't seem to be approaching at any measurable pace.

Supposedly this thing needs to be out in "Q4." Um, yeah.

Well, I just rolled out the new Corillian web site and it's pretty snazzy if I do say so myself. The graphic artist here did the graphics and animation; I implemented that all in code and hooked up the back end stuff. Now it's cleaner and faster than the last site, and way easier to maintain.

I went home last night and Jenn went to one of her meetings, so I played Playstation until my thumbs started to hurt, which, surprisingly, wasn't as long as I thought it was going to be. I'm getting better at both Soul Calibur II and Amplitude, though I have to say that at this precise moment I'm more sucked into SC2. Loads of fun.

My boss has requested that I stop sending him emails that have the word "fuck" in them. Heh. That'll happen.

I printed out the practice test questions for my next Microsoft test and this time it looks like it's different than the other tests I've taken. This is more "here's a case study, now answer questions about how you'd implement their solution." That's going to suck ass when it comes to actual test time because it's going to be nigh unto impossible to see the case study and the question on the screen at the same time. I don't even know if the test software will allow you to do that.

Anyway, I'll be studying that stuff soon.

Once I finish that test, I'll have an MCSD.NET certification. I'm not sure whether I want to go another two tests and get an MCDBA or not. I'm really, really sick of studying in my free time, and I'm not sure what, if anything, it'll end up getting me. Here, probably nothing. Maybe it'll open up doors at other companies. I'll think about it.

I think I need to put a ShimmerScreen in my house. I don't know where, but somewhere. These things are cool.

I'm feeling restless today. I have a lot of work to do, but it's all shit I hate doing (reads: Portal Server). They need to make motivation in a pill form so I can get a prescription for work. I'm having issues, man.

I haven't found anywhere else that carries the dining room set I want, so I may just end up ordering the set online, even though it's a little spendy, and call it good. I'm tired of searching around; I've found what I want, I just need to get it.

Jenn's birthday's coming up on the 16th and I've been shopping for stuff, but it's hard to shop for someone who doesn't know what they want. I ended up getting a list from her and buying mostly stuff on the list, but I've always been of the mind that a good gift is something you want but don't need, and is probably something you'd never buy yourself but would love to receive. Hard to do that for someone who doesn't want anything. I think it'll work out all right.

Man, I realize as I sit here typing that I don't have jack to say. Like, I mean, aside from the traffic lately just pissing me off (it's Oregon, people, it rains here... figure out how to drive in it!). Maybe I'll come up with something better later.

Or maybe not. You never know.

I was listening to my iPod this morning, set on random, and it only seemed to play either German music (in the original German, like Nena's 99 Luftballons or Falco's Vienna Calling) or music about rain (like Tina Turner's I Can't Stand The Rain or Eurythmics' Here Comes The Rain Again). It was sort of eerie.

I passed my test yesterday, and it was sort of interesting because they had stopped giving scores on the Microsoft certification tests, but I got a score. I passed with a 913 (700 being the minimum passing score). Assuming all of the questions are equally weighted, that means I missed five of the 55 questions... but since that doesn't quite work out to 91.3%, I don't think the questions are all worth the same. Regardless, they also broke the score up into topic areas (like different points the test was trying to cover) and I got "strong" ratings on all of the areas (ratings range from "strong" to "needs development"), so I'm feeling pretty good.

That leaves me with one more test before I get my MCSD.NET certification. The next one, Analyzing Requirements for .NET Applications (or something like that), I haven't had the class for; I only have the practice test. I will have to look over the practice test to see how the questions look. From the title of the test, I'm thinking I may be able to muddle through.

But not tonight. Tonight, in celebration, I'm taking the night off from studying and, since Jenn's out at one of her meetings, I'll be playing Playstation. Oh, yeah.

You know, this morning driving in to work I had a lot more to say. I don't even remember what now. Man, such is the way my life's going anymore. I can't remember shit.

My boss was telling me that he may not be able to post his thoughts as cathartically on his blog as I do on mine because he "might say something he'll regret." I dunno about that. I mean, it's your site, right? Why be censored? There's gotta be somewhere in the world where you can just be you without having to factor in what everyone else thinks, otherwise you're living in a prison. I mean, if the company wants to fire me because I say something they don't like, well... I guess in that instance I'd decide that working for the Third Reich is not quite where I needed to be. But that hasn't happened (yet) so let's hope it never comes down to that. Right?

I've been getting random job-offer-related spam lately in my inbox (how can you take a job offer that gets mass-mailed seriously?). For those recruiters who are sifting through sites and wanting me to come work for you, here's the deal:

You have to offer equal or better benefits compared to what I'm getting now. You definitely have to offer better pay, and probably significantly so since changing jobs is a big pain. The position has to be a permanent, full-time position - I don't do contracts since I don't like guessing whether I'm going to get paid again, and I don't do part-time because I do need to pay the rent. I'm not interested in relocating unless you're really paying well, and by that I mean I'm not relocating if I can't get rich off you or have the potential of retiring 10+ years early. Moving around for the same amount of money just won't cut it. And, finally, I am getting certified as an MCSD.NET. That means I'm working with some pretty recent technology and am doing well with that. I really don't want to go back to programming VB6 stuff or writing low-level shit like device drivers, nor do I feel the need to work in Windows 95 or even Windows 98 anymore. If you're not in the now, don't bother spamming me.

A good weekend was generally had by all, yet it still seems like it could have been longer. Amazing how that is.

Friday my friend Darren called me up and let me know that his brothers Greg and Glen were in town on tour with Delerium and Conjure One, and wondered if I'd like to go.

Hell, yeah!

Headed over to the Crystal Ballroom, caught some awesome tunes, finally met Darren's brothers, and had a great time.

Jenn wasn't so into it, but what can I say? She likes what she likes and she's not really a "music person," if you know what I mean.

Saturday I went to Fry's and Costco and ended up getting a couple more Best Of Saturday Night Live DVDs. I got the Adam Sandler one and the Molly Shannon one.

After watching them both, I'm now remembering that Adam Sandler, while funny, didn't actually do a whole lot on SNL. Molly Shannon, though... she just cracks me up. I hope they come out with a Cheri Oteri disc. She's my favorite.

Saturday afternoon Jenn and I went to my cousin Jenni's son Shane's (what does that make Shane to me? is that a cousin too?) birthday party. Pretty much my whole extended family was there from my mom's side, so it was good to see them and catch up. Most of them live in the Seattle area, so I'm going to have to plan a trip up there to visit soon.

Cousin Jenni starts chemo for the tumor behind her left knee on Tuesday. Ugh. With any luck, she'll pull through. I'm sure she'll be fine; she's a survivor.

The party was sort of interesting, though. Not only was my family there, but Jenni (and her husband Jesse) had their friends, too. Jenni and Jesse are into the Harley motorcycle thing, so there were a lot of biker folks there. Interesting people, but I did feel a bit like I was guest-starring on American Chopper.

Sunday was pretty relaxing. Didn't do much, and it was the first day of rain we've had in a while, so it was a good day to stay in. Played some more PS2. Watched some movies (Identity, From Justin To Kelly, A Man Apart). That's about it.

Today, I'm finally wearing normal shoes (not sandals) and one of my I [Heart] Toxic Waste shirts, Real Genius style. I have a test at 2:00 today on ASP.NET - the second to last test for my MCSD.NET certification. One more after this, and it's done. Jury's still out on whether I'll go for the MCDBA. It's a lot of work.

My boss finally put up his own blog. Took him long enough. I figured he'd have jumped on this bandwagon long ago. Let's see how long he'll keep up with it before he gets too busy and stops posting or just generally forgets it's there...

It turns out that my cousin has had a lump the size of a walnut sitting on the back of her knee for the past two years but was afraid to get it checked... and now it's the size of a tennis ball and wrapped around her vascular system. She went in and got the official word - it's cancer. She'll be starting chemotherapy on Tuesday. Unfortunately, due to the way it's wrapped around in there, they can't operate on it. If the chemo doesn't work, she may lose her leg.

The day just gets better and better.

I scheduled my next test, MS 070-315: Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C#.NET and Microsoft Visual Studio.NET, for this coming Monday at 2:00p. It's scheduled to run for two-and-a-half hours, but I'm hoping it doesn't actually take that long. The last few have been like that - scheduled for a long time but only taking about an hour. Here's hoping. I've been studying the practice test I have and it's feeling pretty good. It covers pretty much everything that wasn't in the training course, which figures. I think I should be able to muddle through reasonably well with my existing experience and some good old logic. Maybe.

Jenn's birthday is coming up and I nearly had to beat her to death to get a list of things she'd like for gifts. She says she doesn't know what she wants, but somehow expects me to come up with some surprise thing that she wants but doesn't know it. Riiiiight. I basically laid out that I'm tired of being the critical thinking problem solver when I provide a HUGE list for people every holiday (like, over a hundred different things) and people still complain that I didn't provide a big enough selection. Fuck that, man. No list = Sizzler gift certificate.

I was playing Amplitude again last night and the more I play it, the more I realize how true it is that you can't think while you play, you just have to play. I mean, like, Jenn was trying to talk at me (more "at" than "to" at the time, methinks) while I was working on a particularly difficult song, and while she was talking there was no way I could do it because I was trying to concentrate on her words. Same goes for checking the score - I can't be looking around, thinking about the score or anything - I just have to play the game. No explicit brain work involved; simple implicit functioning. And let me tell you how nice and relaxing that is. To not have to think, just to do.

I believe that's what's wearing me out at work. When I'm at work (which, seriously, anymore I totally dread), I'm wiped out. Why? Because I don't just get to program stuff and exercise knowledge that I've learned; I only ever get to fight these difficult uphill battles of me vs. technology - work on undocumented product with no help and too much to do... you don't realize how totally exhausting it is.

Plus, for the last few months I go home and I study to take the certification tests. So it's not like I get a break when I get home. I don't remember most of college being this stressful, but the parts that were... well, let's just say that I took a break from studying over the Labor Day holiday last weekend and I didn't miss it a bit.

All that, combined with stuff like "I don't know what I want for my birthday but I won't be happy with a gift certificate so you'd best figure something out" makes me either want to pass out or kill someone. I'm honestly not sure which.

I'll survive. It would just be nice to not have to fight all day to get things to work. It would be nice if I could do something easy for a change. It'd be nice to work on something other than SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Somehow, I don't see ever escaping this thing, though. Even after rollout, there's user training and continued development and everything else on SPS 2003, so regardless of how optimistic my boss is about "seeing the light at the end of the tunnel," I'm convinced it's more a black hole than a tunnel. There's no light, just endless dark.

I wonder what's on Monster today...

So the mayor of Portland forced the police chief to resign a week ago and then had a press conference to tell us why.

She said something about how there was a "rift in the community" and that she was trying to get people to come together.

This morning it clicked for me as to why this happened, and it looks like Marty sort of had it click, too.

See, back in May, this cop pulled over Kendra James, an African-American individual who had existing drug and escape charges against her and a warrant out for her arrest. They told her to get out of the car, she didn't. They tried to pull her out of the car. She wouldn't come out. Then she started driving away, so they shot at her. One shot hit her and ended up killing her.

Now, I don't know about you, but if the cops tell me to get out of the car and I decide not to and try to drive away, I fully expect them to shoot at me. If I end up getting killed, it's probably because I was doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing. I mean, you get fair warning, right? It's not like you don't know you're in trouble.

Further, consider this - she'd been in and out of jail for other robbery, theft, and drug convictions. Four times she'd been in and out of jail for this stuff. Am I sorry they shot her? Well, I don't like the unnecessary loss of human life in any event, but let's just say it's not hurting my feelings that my tax dollars don't have to support her delinquent ass in jail. Again.

So, anyway, this got huge in the press around here. Holy shit, man, a white cop from a precinct headed by a white cop shooting a black lady? What is the world coming to? God forbid we try to stop the bad people in the world, but especially don't try if they're a minority...

Back to the forced resignation of the police chief:

The mayor said she wanted to get the community back behind the police, and I didn't understand why the resignation of the chief would do that... until I saw that she had appointed a black guy to be the new chief.

Huh. That's an interesting thing. Everything's going well, except for the media coverage... but everything else is fine - the chief's doing a decent job and wants to continue doing so. The media goes south, and we've got a new police chief. Funny how things work.

For the record, I hate racism. I think it's a deplorable act to be prejudiced against someone based on the color of their skin (or, really, for any other reason - I'm totally in favor of tolerance and acceptance for all). And if you're a criminal, you should get what's coming to you. Regardless of your skin color. If you run from the cops, you're taking that risk on yourself. It's not the police's fault you decided to resist arrest. And it's not the color of your skin that's making you rip off the local liquor store. Face up to your responsibilities and accept the consequences of your actions, people. Things would work a lot smoother around here if you would.

So I decided to go to Burger King for one of their tasty under-three-dollar cheeseburger meals today for lunch. I'm sitting, getting ready to turn left, when I notice something happen that probably should not have happened.

See, the street I'm turning left from has two lanes going in each direction and a single left-hand turn lane down the center. Like a lot of streets around here. I'm sitting in the left hand turn lane when I see this lady in a minivan pull up next to me on my left-hand side.

For the folks not from the US or those not really paying attention, that means she pulled up and stopped in an oncoming traffic lane. And she's just sitting there, not really paying any attention to anything. I turn and look at her, horrified, and she looks around like a dazed panda and then looks back at me and gives me that "whoopsie!" shrug that moronic drivers give you when they know they've done something wrong but are too stupid to do anything about it.

Still flabbergasted, I watch as four or five more cars line up behind her. Like lemmings, ready to file off the edge of the cliff, they line up in oncoming traffic.

Meanwhile, the oncoming traffic has seen that there are morons in the way, so the largest traffic jam in the history of traffic jams proceeds to set in. Especially not helpful in a place where the lights only let like four or five cars through before changing again.

My light finally changed, so I went, and eventually I see her run the red (because she made no motion to go while the light was green - no signal or anything) into the oncoming traffic.

Sometimes I wish they would genetically engineer some sort of plague to kill off all the stupid people. The people sitting in oncoming traffic? Yeah, those are the people who call me up asking for technical support. Society, the welfare system, and yours truly don't need those people clogging up the earth like shit in a drainpipe, needing to be plunged.

I think the list of what we didn't do this weekend will be shorter than what we did do, but let's go through the activities anyway. It was a really, really packed three-day weekend, let me tell you.

Friday night I went home and played a couple of hours' worth of Soul Calibur II, which I continue to maintain is the best fighting game ever. It's so totally accessible and easy to pick up... yet the challenge is configurable so that even the experienced players can make it fun. I like it because I can just start playing, generally figure out how a character works, and on the "normal" difficulty, I can run through an entire "arcade mode" series of levels with just enough challenge to make it hard, but not so much challenge that I get pissed off and turn off the game.

The controls are well done and are simple to remember but complex enough that you can do some pretty cool combos and things. Plus, the "Weapons Master" mode is awesome - like a story or something. I dig it.

Saturday I did my best to get the household chores done (vacuuming, etc.) in the morning because that afternoon we decided to go to the Kia dealership and get Jenn into a new car. Her old car, a Pontiac Sunfire convertible, was a piece of crap and she needed something a little more reliable. We got there at 1:00p or so (without eating lunch, stupid us), and after four-and-a-half hours of painful negotiation, we ended up getting Jenn a Kia Spectra GSX in the "pewter gray" color. It's a manual transmission, which she's not used to, so there's a bit of learning being done, but it's all good. She enjoys it a lot, and I'm glad she's happy.

Let it be known, though, that when I stepped onto the Kia lot, it was definitely not the same experience as when I went to get my car at the Acura lot. It was almost a different culture. Not necessarily bad, just different.

Sunday we went boating with my friends Jason and Tracy. We got off to a sort of poor start because somehow the boat battery was dead, but we discovered that while we were still at their house so we were able to charge it up a bit before we left. Jason's brother, Adam, decided he didn't want to rely on the charging job we did, so he decided he didn't want to go. Whatever, man, he missed out on a good time.

Put the boat in the Columbia River in Goble, OR, and then went to a beach a mile or two down the river to eat lunch (just drove the boat right up onto the beach, basically, and got out to eat).

After we ate, we drove around on the river. It was pretty choppy, so none of us got into the water, but driving around was fun. (I wouldn't have gotten on an innertube behind the boat or anything anyway due to bad past experience, but I'll get to that later.)

We alternated between driving around in the boat and hanging out on the beach for about three hours. A lot of fun was had by all. I noticed Jenn and I were pinking up a bit, even though we had sunscreen on, but I figured that's the price you pay, right?

The plan after boating was to go to a local comedy club, but we got back to their place and found out that the club had overbooked by 200 people, so we cancelled that idea. Instead, we got a bunch of people together and watched the latest Robin Williams stand-up act on video, which was hilarious. Played a little pool after that and then went home.

Monday morning Jenn and I woke up and realized that "pink" didn't nearly accurately describe the sunburn issues we had going on. We were red. Like, really red. No blisters or anything, but totally stiff, totally in pain. I [somehow] burned the tops of my feet, so wearing shoes and/or socks was unbearable. My neck was red and burning like fire. My face was just sore... Jenn had similar problems, except for the feet burn.

I ended up going to a sporting goods store to get some cheap sandals (the sandals I had on while boating were really crappy and had caused a nice hole to be worn in the side of my foot) so I can walk around with some semblance of shoes on. You'd be surprised how hard it is to find anywhere that carries sandals at the end of summer. We went like four different places before we found these, and at bargain prices, no less. No complaints here.

Went home after driving around to Jenn's parents' house to show them the new car and played a bit more Soul Calibur II. Also played some more Amplitude, then watched a Xena episode and turned in.

Speaking of Xena, when you buy the DVD box set of the episodes, you get a little coin. Each season has a coin that goes with it. You can order a "free" (with $5 shipping) coin display holder thing to put the coins in. You have the option of calling a toll-free number or sending your check in the mail. I wanted to make sure my info was received, so this morning I called.

Bad choice.

I got to talk to Shirley, an Asian lady with a mild grasp of English. I told her I wanted the free coin holder thing. She proceeded to hard-sell me on every Xena merchandise item they sell, from DVDs to replica swords, for the next 45 minutes. Seriously. Every time I told her no, or that I'd call her back later for stuff, she would make a last plea for that item to be bought and then move on to give me the "next special offer." I got the Hercules coin holder just to shut her up (an additional whopping $5), but she was worse than a Kinney Shoes salesman. Fuckin' vultures. Terrible. Next time I know to just mail the damn check and hope for the best.

So, a few follow-ups...

First, my friend Doug got the list of stages that history goes through (in reference to the political raving I was doing):

• Bondage / Chains
• Spiritual Faith
• Courage
• Liberty
• Abundance
• Selfishness
• Complacency
• Apathy
• Dependency and Degeneracy
• Bondage / Chains

Looks to me like we passed through Abundance and Selfishness in the 80's, hit Complacency and Apathy in the 90's, and we're currently heading through Dependency and Degeneracy and into Bondage / Chains. Not the "good," S&M kind, either. Bah.

The book this is from is Exploring American History by Michael McHugh. According to his book, "all recorded history proves that the rise and fall of every nation has followed the above pattern." Interesting, eh?

Finally, why won't I go waterskiing or on an innertube behind a boat? Well...

I tried to waterski once. I had a pair of skis that we were using to "train" the newbies on - the fronts and backs were tied together. Apparently the really hard part is keeping your legs together and in front of you long enough to get up. Seemed reasonable to me, right? So, I got in the water and was told that if anything goes wrong, let go of the rope and the boat will come around to get me. Cool.

The boat started going, I started getting pulled, and then I started losing my balance and wasn't feeling comfortable, so I let go of the rope...

... which then wrapped itself around the rope holding the skis together and I got drug underwater for an undetermined amount of time that was altogether too long for me. Water up my nose, in my mouth, unable to breathe... the worst ever. No thank you.

On a separate occasion I thought I'd try going out on one of those rocket-shaped inflatable deals that get towed behind the boat. Fun, right? Everyone loves those things. Plus, no rope to wrap around your skis and drag you underwater.

I got out there with a cousin of mine who had been on them before. I had never, and said straight-up that to begin with I'd like to go pretty slow so I can get used to the feel of it. No problem, I was told. Just do a thumbs-up / thumbs-down to say faster or slower.

We got going, and we were doing okay, but this cousin of mine decides we needed to go faster, so he jerked his thumb up high. I wasn't ready, so I started doing a thumbs-down, but this asshole in front still wanted faster, so was doing thumbs-up. Which took precedence? The thumbs-up, obviously, as we continued going faster. I leaned over to this guy and said, "Look, buddy. I'm not ready for this. We need to slow down so I can get used to it, or I'm dumping us both off this thing." "No way," came the reply, along with another thumbs-up sign to the boat.

Fine. Over we went.

Or how about this one? I'd never been on a jet-ski before. A friend of mine happened to be riding one and wanted to know if I wanted to go for a ride behind her. I said fine, but I'd like to go slow to get used to it. Sounding familiar? Guess who went really fucking fast and wouldn't slow down for me until I was yelling and screaming at her.

Never again will I waterski or go on anything towed behind the boat. Never again will I be a passenger on a jet ski (there's not a lot to hang onto, folks, and those stupid handles on the sides of the seat don't fucking count). If I'm not directly in control of the speed or direction of the watercraft, I'm not having anything to do with being towed behind it. It taught me that, basically, I can't trust anyone to drive in those situations because no one believes in letting a beginner get used to what's going on. Never again.

Anyway, that's the weekend. Long but fun, and not really relaxing. Sleep when you're dead, right?