Morgajel.net Welcome Guest | Login or Register

I’m claiming the win on this one… remember that the tinyURL that this bot messages is in fact a link to tubgirl.

15:14 -!- Pats-Sox [~no@fw.mdchomes.com] has joined #asp
15:18 < @lanshark> we dont want any chowda heads in here
15:25 < Pats-Sox> “chowda head”…I don’t know why that just caused a really really bad “yo momma”
         joke to pop in my head
15:28 < Pats-Sox> I just googled “chowda head” for the heck of it.  This site is pretty funny…
         http://www.boston-online.com/glossary/
15:28 < Pats-Sox> Chowdahead
15:32 < myles_> !search Chowdahead
15:32 < Crusher_> myles_ > Your search returned 12 results. Press alt + z to receive a link to them.
15:33 -!- edmundo [~bla@78-0-185-182.adsl.net.t-com.hr] has joined #asp
15:33 -!- myles_ is now known as myles
15:33 < myles> !search Chowdahead
15:33 < Crusher_> myles > Your search returned 12 results. Press alt + z to receive a link to them.
15:35 -!- edmundo [~bla@78-0-185-182.adsl.net.t-com.hr] has left #asp []
15:36 < Pats-Sox> !search chowdahead
15:36 < Crusher_> Pats-Sox > Your search returned 12 results. Press alt + z to receive a link to them.
15:38 < Pats-Sox> it can’t be a coincidence that edmundo left immediately after the post to press alt
         + z….twice
15:39 < Pats-Sox> once is funny, twice is HILARIOUS
15:39 < Pats-Sox> nevermind, one was a join.  jokes on me
15:39 < @morgajel> Pats-Sox: you think it’s funny, but you didn’t even see what happens AFTERwards
15:39 < @morgajel> the bot does send a link.
15:39 < Pats-Sox> do I dare ask to what?
15:40 < @morgajel> only one way to find out.
15:40 < unEZ> lol
15:41 < Pats-Sox> Don’t take it personally, but I’m not trusting you right now
15:42 < unEZ> what? after you’ve known me for 15 years? wait, thats someone else. I see your point
15:42 < Pats-Sox> I’m thinking that a bot can’t process the key combo because the key combo is
        processed by the irc client, therefore exiting the channel before the bot can catch the key press
15:43 < @morgajel> worst case scenario, I’m wrong, you pop out, pop back in, and I laugh like a retard.
15:44 < @morgajel> if I’m right, the bot messages you and gives you the blue pill.
15:44 < Pats-Sox> A normal key, z, could not possible work as well alt-F4.  It just can’t.
15:46 < myles> pornocracy
15:47 < @morgajel> Pats-Sox: only one way to find out
15:48 < @morgajel> my do-not-push-the-red-button sign, let me show you it.
15:48 < Pats-Sox> alright, I’ll take one for the team….
15:48 -!- Pats-Sox [~no@fw.mdchomes.com] has left #asp []
15:48 -!- Pats-Sox [~no@fw.mdchomes.com] has joined #asp
15:49 < Pats-Sox> …and my technical analysis of the situation was absolutely incorrect….
15:49 < Pats-Sox> and the IS THE SINGLE MOST REPULSIVE THING I have ever seen in my life
15:49 < Pats-Sox> and I am a farely demented individual

Here’s a story from Christmas that I almost forgot to share. Every year we get together- my parents, brothers, aunt and uncle, cousins and grandparents. We go through dinner, do the present thing, then the grandparents leave. That’s when things usually degenerate below the average level of stupidity.

The incident started when my brother Jamie (24) and cousin Walker (29) were talking about getting high from nutmeg. I don’t think Jamie believed it, so Walker offered to eat a tablespoon of nutmeg for $10. My aunt was very vocal about them NOT doing it, so of course they headed to the kitchen to look for spices. The discussion moved from whether or not it would get you high to whether or not you could keep it down.

Since they couldn’t find nutmeg, they needed to find a suitable substitute. I suggested they try Cinnamon instead- it was roughly the same type of powder, and we had a big jug of it available. I laid down $10.

The bet was that Walker couldn’t keep it down- the cruelty came when we said he couldn’t drink water for 30 seconds. So we took a 1 tbsp. measuring spoon, filled it full of Cinnamon, and headed outside.

My youngest brother Brian (21), Jamie, Walker, and I stood outside as he shoveled the spoon into his mouth. The powder instantly dried his mouth like a fistful of chalk. As those around him laughed, he coughed a bit, sending a bit of cinnamon into his lungs, causing him to cough harder. A plume of brown smoke rolled from his mouth. He coughed again, releasing another cloud of smoke. This is when my brother’s and I began roaring with laughter.

Moments later he began the dry wretching. Then came the vomit- he vomited up probably 1/8th of a pound of roast chicken with all the sides, mixed with a thick brown paste. My dad was pretty pissed that he yacked on the sidewalk, so he took a snow shovel and began dumping snow on the vomit to keep the dogs from eating it.

All in all, he lasted maybe 15 seconds. While Walker is a pussy, I don’t think many others could do much better.

So this brings me to the purpose of this post: are you man enough to take the Cinnamon Challenge?

*update*
Apparently there’s a whole section on youtube dedicated to this.

Whew, it’s been a busy year. Back in 2005 I wrote a list of things I’d like to do eventually that I’d be able to do if I had the time and resources that winning the lotto would provide. I’ve made a positive step towards realizing a couple of those.

Family

The big change this year was the addition of Ian. We didn’t get off too well in the beginning, but we’re doing pretty good now. He’s just now to the point where he’s taking his first steps. He’s a smart kid, very inquisitive, but stubborn. Within a few years he’ll be learning how to read and write- I’m guessing it won’t be long until I’m teaching him how to program. He’s got an eye for any type of electronics, but goes nutty for my blackberry or laptop. Yeah, he’s a geek in training.

Jackie’s been doing fairly well, all things considered. She’s been staying home with Ian rather than going back to work, and it’s driving her a little stir crazy. To help ease the cabin fever, she got a laptop for christmas- Ian wasn’t letting her stay in the office, so now she has a way to keep in contact with people from the living room.

Weddings

This was the year of the wedding… Brad and Erin, Jordan and Beth, Matt and Carrie, William and Charleen, Jackie’s friend Joslyn, Jackie’s sister Lori, and Paul and Kristen. I only made it to 4 of the weddings, but I was standing up in two of them. The ones we went to were all in Grand Rapids, so we had the joy of driving back and forth 155 miles each way, with the added bonus of dropping Ian off somewhere along the way

Work

Work started off pretty rough. I have a habit of reflecting the attitudes of those around me, and my supervisor at the beginning of the year was pretty negative. That coupled with Ian’s birth and all the associated expenses turned me into a pretty miserable person. Fortunately the supervisor left and was replaced with a cautious optimist. Things got better- so much so that I just passed the 1 year mark at my current place and still find it interesting and entertaining.

Technologies

I’ve played with many new technologies this year- Jboss, Netscaler and CentOS being the three foremost. I’ve dug back into ruby with a couple of new projects, as well as LDAP and a plethora of new utilities. I even picked up a bit of python. This trend doesn’t look like it’s gonna let up, so the job should be exciting and interesting for some time to come.

Projects

This year saw me move away from music and go back towards software (although I have been playing harmonica in the car at stoplights on the way to work). I joined the Luma team as head cheerleader and started the QT4 branch. After becoming frustrated with the python, qt3->qt4 transition and the codebase in general, I started an unofficial sister project, Ruma. I still sit in the Luma channel and help when I can, but I’m gonna sit back and wait until we’re ready for QT4- hopefully we’ll scrap the entire codebase and start fresh.

Right now I have two other developers “working” for me on Ruma, Lars and Hiro. They’ve put a lot of effort into bringing this bad boy to life, and I’m thankful I’ve had their help. For those of you not aware, Luma and Ruma are LDAP administration tools. As a System Administrator, I use LDAP a lot, so having specialized tools can be helpful.

Another project I started this year was competing in National Novel Writing Month. I finished the rough draft for my first book, Sinblade, a week early. It’s only 150 pages or so, but not a bad start all things considered. Jackie’s (sorta) working on revising it, and once she’s done I’ll open it up for others to start giving me feedback. I’m excited and nervous about it. If it takes off and people like it, I have 6 or so more books that I’m interested in writing.

The money situation is still pretty tight, but it’s getting better. Hopefully next year will be as much of an improvement over this year as this was over last year.

It doesn’t get better than Chocolate Chip Bacon Cookies.

Since this is actually the second link I’ve seen about bacon that I wanted to share, I’m gonna start a new Bacon category.

So it’s the end of November, and the final count is 53,708 words. I’ve submitted it to the nano site and got a nifty little image to display:

It’s sorta funny because I finished early- I had a week left when I stopped writing, and I probably could have hit 60k if I had more plot. Maybe when the revision process starts I’ll get some ideas for back stories and such that I can weasel in there.

At 11:50pm on the 21st of November, I completed the NaNoWriMo challenge, writing 50,300 words for my book, Sinblade. I’m not done yet- I still have another 5-10k words to go before I’ll consider the rough draft complete. Here’s my ideal lifecycle for the book:

• Rough Draft: First complete version of the story.
• First Draft: First revised version I send out for people to read. Continuity and plot are checked.
• Second Draft: All first draft changes are merged. English is checked. Plot is evened out. Facts are checked.
• Third Draft: Spell-checking, punctuation, and formatting.
• Fourth Draft: Repeat of third draft with different audience.
• Final Draft: What’s sent to Lulu.com for printing.

My goal is to get the Rough Draft done by December 1st, and that seems a easily reachable goal. Next is to get the First Draft (the first copy to leave the house) out the door for editing and revising by the end of December. I’m not sure how reasonable a goal that will be- I have some catching up to do on my neglected Ruma project. As for the rest of the draft, there are no hard and fast rules- I suspect I’ll be lucky to get to the second draft, let alone the third or fourth.

The end goal is to self-publish through Lulu.com, a print-on-demand book service. This means you’ll be able to buy an actual paperback copy of my book! How cool is that?

Seeing as how it’s now 40 minutes into Thanksgiving, I think I should send out some thanks to those that have helped me:

• Jackie: for bearing with me through another time-consuming project. Hopefully this one will make money.
• Ian: for mostly behaving when I was trying to write.
• VP: for encouraging me to compete in NaNoWriMo with his books, Shining Star and Pulling Strings
• yojimbo, dev_null, mylo, my coworkers, and everyone else who offered to help me: I’ll be taking you up on your offers to help revise

Thanks again everyone for the support! Wish me luck!

Update: Don’t take this post as an example of my writing- it was 1am.

November is National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. Basically there’s a month-long open contest to try and write a novel that’s 50,000+ words. My friend VP has written two books like that, Shining Star and Pulling Strings (both are good, go buy them). This year I thought I’d give it a try- I have a couple of stories kicking around in the back of my head that I’d like to write some day, and I figured this would be the perfect chance to stop putting it off.
The contest started yesterday, and I managed to get off to a great start with 4000 words on the dot- you can check my progress here.

ok, now back to the important writing.

So those of you who know me, I’ve never really been a fan of Microsoft- so much so that I refused to buy an XBox on general principal. I’ve not really been a fan of Sony, either, but I still own and loved a PS2. So why the change on this new generation of consoles? Well, Sony has pissed me off quite a bit recently. The following is a list of reasons why I won’t be buying a PS3:

Sony: The Company

• Sony is part of the RIAA- I disagree with their extortion tactics in general.
• Sony is part of the MPAA- same as with the RIAA.
• Rootkit CDs - remember when sony rootkitted all of their customers who bought certain CDs? They brought the word rootkit to the general public.
• Continuously pushed DRM - Sony has been a big proponent of DRM. While pretty much all large tech companies have at some point (Apple, Microsoft, Google), it gives me one more reason to dislike them.
• Sony Cameras use a proprietary usb cable format- I have a lot of regular interchangable usb-to-miniusb cables and only one for my sony camera. The camera is great, but it’s a pain in the ass to connect to. Hopefully they’ll change that in the future, if not already.

PS3 Specific

• 10 year lifespan -Sony says that the PS3 should last 10 years, while the 360 will only last 5- here’s the thing to keep in mind:
  • Warranty- I’d rather pay $400 every five years than $800 every ten because of the warranty- you’ll have more coverage if you were to get the machines more often.
  • Processing power- the xbox 720 that comes out in five years will be cheaper and much more powerful
• Cell processor- it’s so powerful that it’s frustratingly difficult to program for (from what I’ve heard). That means games will be difficult to write and not use the full power of the cell proc. That’ll still be the case when the xbox 720 comes out 5 years later with as powerful of a processor that’s simple to develop for. Now, if you’re a production house, which would you rather produce games for?
• patented “locking a game to a specific console” - Whether or not they implement it, it sort of frightens me that they might go that way. I’m sure 5 years down the road when they have their userbase, a simple firmware upgrade could implement this, then they could require all new games be require that the firmware be installed whether it uses it or not. From there, movies, games, whatever could be controlled by this, and since Sony owns the Blu-ray format, they can require that anyone who wants to sell in that format use the locking system. It honestly scares me a bit. Since Sony patented this, at least I know microsoft won’t do it.
• Price - we can’t forget price. I’ve had my Wii ($250) for half a year. Will the PS3($600) be 2.5 times more fun? Are the games 2.5 times better? Are there 2.5 times as many games for this? I can pick up the newest xbox 360 elite for under $500. Will the PS3 be more fun than my Wii and a 360 combined?

And while I dislike Microsoft, I have more faith in their system than the PS3. The battle isn’t over, but it’s not looking good for Sony.

So Jackie’s been sitting at home with Ian for 4 months now and is incredibly bored. All she every does is read. I suggested a hobby, but she doesn’t really have any (except scrapbooking, which is expensive)- So what I want to do is get some ideas from all the people who read my site. Here are the base rules:

• cheap- no more than $25 start up cost and that must last 3 weeks.
• work from home- Jackie doesn’t have a car during the day
• Not computer-related
• Space limited- it’s a small apartment, so Float-building is out.
• baby friendly- Ian is still a factor since she’s home with him all day:
  • baby safe (no toxic fumes, molten metal, etc)
  • drop/pickup easily (Ian gets hungry/poops often and unpredictably)

I’m sure there’s more little rules, but those are good enough for now- Here’s what I’ve thought of:

• Carving:
  • Wood figurines
  • Plaster figurines
  • Soap figurines
• Painting:
  • figurines/miniatures
  • small statues
  • ceramics
• play with electronics (we have a 100 in 1 electronic experiments board)
• Music:
  • Learn to sing
  • Learn Keyboard (have one)
  • Learn Bass (have one)
  • relearn clarinet (she has one)
• making puppets/muppets/marionettes
• find a work-at-home clerical/dataentry/paperpusher job (what she’s currently looking for)

Any suggestions guys? I really need some help with this one.