POSTS FROM March 2002

My ex-roommate (who was 26 at the time), had his mother fly out from the Midwest to help him pack. These were the results:

At long last, the first release of Mozilla is in sight after what seemed like an eternity of vaporware. There are just a few things that are keeping me from switching:

No Google Toolbar: This little utility has improved web browsing by a factor of 10. If you're running IE and you don't have it, you need to get it.

Dismal bookmark utility: It just plain sucks. If I wrote down all my bookmarks on a post-it note and stuck it to the side of my monitor, it would be just as usable.

Slow browser interface: I'm not sure why this is so, but interacting with the menus and windows of Mozilla make it seem like someone accidentally turned off the turbo button on my PC (anybody remember the turbo button on your 386?)

In spite of these minor complaints, the lightning-quick rendering engine, tabbed browsing, and pop-up control definitely put Mozilla as a big contender in the Windows browser space.

In America, people often celebrate Easter by taking their children to fluffy bunny related events where dozens of small children and some over-zealous not-so-small adults go on hunt and devour missions, looking for chocolate candy scattered around a yard by over-zealous bunny-suited adults. Consequently (and in line with the other American tradition of consuming as much as possible), Easter has become one of the biggest candy selling periods—second only to Halloween.

In the Czech Republic, tradition calls for the men to find some females and whip them with willow sticks, douse them in perfume, or shove them into a cold shower (junior high style, I would imagine). A 22-year old journalist laments, “I hate it. I always get thrown into the bathtub.”

Here's a confirmation story about that elderly woman who was stuck in a newspaper vending machine because a Wal-Mart employee couldn't be bothered to spare 50 cents.

I bought this cool little digital camera that's the size of a zippo lighter, the Che-ez! SPYZ.

A tech-support friend sent me this email she received:

Hello;
This may or may not be the right location, but please redirect. I own a small computer company, and recently was the victim of a theft. (computer hardware) My question is: I am seeking information in regards to tracking down the stolen computer. It contains information that if accessed could mean the end to my company. I did take all the precautions to protect the info. However I really can't afford the prospects. I am seeking info about the feasabilty of tracking down the stolen computer. Considering the ID info contained within, surley technology has progressed to the point where this is possible. In case that it is not clear.....I am a desparate man. Any assistance you can provide will be greatly appriecated. I do use some of your products with some of my clients and your company has always provided top quality support.

Thank You
XXXX

PS If I can trianglate and pin point a cell phone, I am praying this is possible

This normally wouldn't be considered too outrageous, but the guy owns the computer store! You'd think he'd be a little more knowledgeable.

Speaking of computer stores, I used to work at a small computer shop while I was in high school. I remember that when Windows 95 came out, we were expecting a flood a people to come in because Microsoft launched an ad campaign that was of titanic proportion. Well, what we ended up getting were a lot of confused people calling—the most memorable being a gentleman who called and wanted to know if we were selling Microwave 95.

Today I heard The Devil Came Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniel's Band sung in spanish. Trippy.

Here's a true achievement for the gadget lover: a cat door with face recognition that denies access to a cat if it has something in its mouth.

Kenny, a friend of a friend of a friend I met in Portland, rants about the ills of wearing 4 beepers at once.

Oh, the tangled web we weave. It seems that during the period when the US supported the Taliban (yes, that was only a couple decades ago), our government decided to publish books that supported a Jihad against the former Soviet Union and issue them to Afghan children, in hopes that it would help spur more resistance against communism. A page from the math primer uses knives and ammo like Count Dracula uses blueberry muffins to count.

The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict fundamentalist code.

What makes the situation more complicated is some legal experts are saying that it violates a constitutional ban on using tax dollars to promote religion.

How do you create a website that violates all usability and common sense guidelines, such that it makes you gasp upon looking at it? Well, here's how.

I've finished my redesign of the site, making it comply with all sorts of things, such as XHTML, CSS, and the WACG-AAA. Let me know what you think, and also if you find any problems (especially if you use a non-standard browser).

I'm working on a scheduling application for Habitat for Humanity, and as it turns out I have the pleasure of working with Rasmus Lerdorf, the original author of PHP. It's very nice working with someone who truly knows what they're doing.

The original research paper on Google, by Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page.

The lack of general kindness and community in America is sometimes appalling. An elderly woman in Geneseo, Illinois was getting a newspaper out of a vending machine at Wal-Mart when she let the door shut, trapping part of her jacket inside. A store clerk was alerted to the situation and concluded that she couldn't spare 50 cents to open the door again because they weren't allowed to tamper with the machines thus leaving the elderly woman trapped for over 20 minutes. Simply deplorable. I'm just waiting to see what kind of lawsuit is going to arise from this.

It is such a relief to see that people still are making fun of our political parties and all their shenanigans. John Scalzi's piece, “I hate your politics” is a refreshing lambasting of our nation's categorized circle jerk—er, party system. He writes,

Not every conservative is an old wealthy white man on his third wife, but nearly every conservative aspires to be so, which is a real waste of money, youth, race and women. Genuinely fear and hate those who are not "with" them — the sort of people who would rather shit on a freshly-baked cherry pie than share it with someone not of their own tribe.

What's even funnier, though, are his hate-mail guidelines:

"Choad Mongering Krill Fucker" — Now we're talking. This insult works on so many levels. "Choad," of course, is a great piece of slang, not nearly utilized to its full potential in everyday invective, so it's still a nice fresh slap to start the insult. "Mongering," likewise a great verb: Sounds great, first off, but also obscure enough to thrill — after all, who mongers very much anymore?...Finally, the phrase lends itself to multiple variations: "Dick Whoring Shrimp Porker," for example. The possibilities really are endless.

Be sure to also read the follow up to the hate-mail guidelines.

Have you noticed that the critic quotes used in TV and movie teasers are becoming unbearably verbose? For as long as I can remember, praise for books, movies, and TV shows had been limited to very succinct one-liners and even one word superlatives, such as “A tour-de-force!”, or “Irresistibly compelling!”. “Magnificent!”, and “Spine-chilling!” were de-rigueur for movie trailers and paperback covers.

However, in the past year or so they must have finally run out of words and exhausted their one-liners because that one guy who does all the movie trailers is running out of breath trying to recite the critic's play by play of the movie. It is no longer in vogue to actually describe the movie or show, but rather describe what kinds of actions the viewer will be taking while watching the show. The first instance of this that comes to mind is of the trailer for Fox's 24, where the review is something to the effect of,

“You will look at your clock in amazement that the show is already over and go and program your VCR to record the next show!”

I guess Hollywood has finally given up on subliminal messaging and just decided to blatantly tell us what to do. Other variants on this including telling us what everyone else is watching, such as in the promo for NBC's Leap of Faith where the only thing we are really told is to,

“See what 31 million other viewers saw last week!”

Again, nothing is actually revealed about the show itself other than the fact that everyone else is doing it, so supposedly that means we should too.

Well, if there are any Hollywood writers who have also exhausted actual descriptions of their show and must rely on these new mind-control teasers, I'm generously offering a couple freebies for you (I've always thought I'd make a great promo writer).

“Watching [Insert show name] will make you want to jump on the internet and rave about it to millions of strangers through horrendously tacky fan pages and unsolicited spam!”

“Once you watch [insert show name], you will realize that you can now die a happy person!”

“See what 25 million other crack addicts have sold their cars to be able to watch!”

“After watching [insert show name], you will wonder what the hell you've been doing with your life and have a sudden urge to go join the Navy, send a letter to [name of network] saying how [show name] changed your life, and then agree to have your letter and your likeness used as a shameless promo for a completely unrelated show!”

“Watching [insert show name] made 10 million Muslims convert to Christianity, and then program their VCR's to record the next show!”

The World Press Photo winners and the Pictures of the Year International winners have been announced. These pictures definitely make me realize that I have a long way to go before I can say that I take good photos.

Awesome discovery for today: Fake breasts make the best wrist rest for your mouse. Heidi's roommate used to work for Curves and she had a set lying around. She said a lot of people at work used to use them as a wrist rest, and after trying it out I definitely agree that it's a hell of a lot better than the stupid gel thing I'm using now. The main problem would probably be trying to explain why you have a breast sitting on your desk for ergonomic purposes and not for, uh...other purposes.

How many of you have tried to find out information about someone using the internet? Well, check out this story: girl meets guy, guy asks girl out, they both enjoy the date, girl then finds guy's weblog about his shortcomings in bed, girl promptly doesn't want anything to do with guy anymore. The moral of the story is to remember that if you're going to go into gory personal details, at least do it anonymously lest you enjoy being rejected forever.

During my time as a child and then a teenager, I very rarely ever had nightmares—probably because I spent my time doing absolutely nothing. All that changed when I got to college. Now not only do I just have nightmares, but I have them about failing classes both in college and high school. The setup is usually the same, but the classes are different: I go into class having not been there for months, and then discovering that today is the day of an exam. I start looking at the test, realizing that I don't know a thing and then proceed to panic about not graduating. That's when I wake up. The weird thing about the high school ones is that I've already graduated, but for some reason I have to go back and finish up some courses.

Anyone who has attended Cornell (especially the engineering school) will probably not be surprised that the experience has somehow traumatized me. At times it seemed like psychological boot camp, having to deal with the turbo-paced class schedule, cutthroat competition, and oh that dreaded weather. There even was a term for the constantly cold, gray, and drizzling weather there: ithacating. Needless to say, this environment led to a lot of turbo-paced drinking as well—certainly on par with the nation's top partying schools.

What's funnier than The Onion? Corporate failures!

My favorite is number 95:
Having lured Mariah Carey with a $21 million signing bonus and an $80 million, five-album recording contract, EMI decides, after only one album, to pay her $28 million to go away. The net result: EMI pays $49 million for the soundtrack to Glitter.

Also: e-business failures for 2001.

What kind of weird things do you remember doing when you were a kid? I woke up this morning and saw that we were out of milk, and I suddenly remembered that one time long, long ago I also encountered a dearth of milk and decided to try substituting orange juice in my cereal.

Naturally this spawned a whole slew of flashbacks from my childhood:
I used to think caution was pronounced kay·oo·shun.
I would hit my little sister until she cried, and then immediately try and make her laugh (so as to not get in trouble).
I wore shorts with tube socks pulled all the way up to my knees.
I thought io.sys and msdos.sys were extraneous files on my computer. I quickly learned that they were, in fact, not extraneous.

Today is one of our government's shining moments: The INS approved the student visas for 2 of the 9/11 terrorists. Ah well, I'm not surprised at all. In fact, I think we should cut them some slack seeing as though that new color-coded terror threat warning system concocted by our Homeland Security office must have taken up all their resources. I know that if I was commisioned to create that warning system, I would still be trying to decide whether to use periwinkle or snow pea green. Yeah, periwinkle sounds good. Ah, damnit—I colored outside the lines again! Now I have to do it over again.

A while ago I mentioned how the real-world GDP of the fantasy game Everquest had eclipsed that of Russia. Well, judging by this particular Everquest player (and all those creepy sig graphics) we all know why. Are you as frightened as I am?

Policemen who prank call 911 in order to watch porn: I think this deserves a yellow warning on our new alert system.

I have a debilitating condition. Whenever I start watching a movie on television, I feel compelled to finish it no matter how terrible the movie is. In fact, the more crappy the movie is, the more I want to finish it. I've been entranced by far too many B-rate movies already, including Hanging Up, Mystery Men, and the more recent Fast and the Furious—a prime example of what happens when you spend 90% of your budget on props and spread the remaining 10% amongst the writers and actors. You are now probably correctly assuming that I have too much time on my hands and need to get a life, to which I reply: yup.

But what really pushed me over the edge into this new level of self-awareness is the fact that I've been getting pay-per-view free for the past day. For the uninitiated this means 5 movies—that I've probably never seen—are shown a day, ultimately rendering me a hapless couch potato for a good 6 hours. Today's blockbuster hit was The Princess Diaires, which I bemoaningly sat through for an hour and a half. If you are fortunate enough to have missed this epic motion picture, let me summarize it for you: ugly girl (who obviously is a pretty girl playing an ugly girl) finds out she is a princess, ugly girl gets makeover, ugly-pretty girl ditches homely guy for popular boy who ignored her when she was just ugly, finds out popular boy sucks, gets back together with homely boy, becomes princess.

Ugh. I have no idea what causes me to flagellate myself with this kind of movie detritus. I think I'll call it obsessive degenerative cinematic disorder or ODCD. Anyone else out there have this problem?

After 30"+ of snowfall in the Sierras, there was no question that I had to go up to Tahoe for some snowboarding this weekend. But who needs to wait for the weekend when you're the boss? Nancy, my night-shift-working-gets-Friday's-off friend, made an excellent suggestion to go today so naturally I agreed. Of course, I set the time on my alarm clock wrong and set AM instead of PM so I didn't get up until 7:30 this morning, completely missing the chance to go play in the fresh powder. Nevertheless, we made it up to Sugarbowl for the half-day and redeemed our late-coming by finding a parking spot that was right next to the lodge instead of on Route 40 where everybody else was (yes, in this case it is a big deal because walking in snowboarding boots for any distance over 500 feet is not desirable—especially after a day of boarding.)

So how was it? It was niiiice. Another observation I'd also like to pass on is: Sugarbowl seems to have a lot of cute chicks. Those of you who care, you'll thank me later.

But on a sour note, a snowboarder was killed today at Sugarbowl when he was crushed by an avalanche outside of the resort's boundaries. The weird thing is, I'm pretty sure I saw the three guys while they were climbing the peak. I saw them from the lift chair and was thinking to myself how much fun that looked, since that peak was fairly untouched. Poor guy.

I have decided that my next money-making scheme will be in weight loss products. It's like taking candy from a baby! Seriously, is anyone else boggled by the number of gullible people that have been suckered into products like Body Solutions or that ab electro-shock belt?

Let's take Body Solutions, for example. This product promises that it will magically cut your weight while you sit on your ass and eat the same junk food that you've always been eating. Now, if I gave you a bottle of magic green potion and told you it would remove 7 pounds of fat in 2 weeks, would you believe me? I highly doubt it (or I least I truly, truly hope that you don't). So why is it that when I replace the phrase “magic green potion” with “scientifically proven weight-loss formula”, people go and buy it by the gallon?

What's even better, though, is the ab electro-shock belts—you know, the belts that send electric pulses to you ab muscles and make them contract. This decades-old technology is used by physical therapists to prevent muscle atrophy and not personal trainers to help tone the body. So how come people have only found out recently that it can turn your spare tire of a gut into a ripping six-pack? Not surprisingly, this product also violates the age old rule that you can't have something for nothing. Of course, if you've already purchased one of these items, I can help. I've developed a perpetual motion “power module” that is designed specifically to work with these ab belts to deliver lipid-tuned energy pulses that directly attack the fatty cells in your abdominal region ($39.95 plus shipping and handling).