Tuesday, September 30, 2003

 
Wait a Tic?!

I just thought of something while posting that last update. Take the two following articles both based on lawsuits/laws. RIAA Here, and Telemarketing Here. Here are the quotes I am specifically looking at:

From the Telemarketing case: "’Fifty million Americans can't be wrong,’ U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-Louisiana, said Wednesday”

From RIAA: “62 million Americans who participate in file-sharing networks“

So to recap, 50 million Americans can’t be wrong, but 62 million Americans are criminals. I think the Telemarketing companies aren’t paying off their elected officials anymore.

posted by Jason 1:04 PM |

 
The RIAA Is really smart

From the following article.
CNN.com - Music group settles with 52 file sharers - Sep. 30, 2003

"The RIAA also said 863 people have requested amnesty from future lawsuits, in exchange for a formal admission they illegally shared music and a pledge to delete the songs off their computers."

"...there are roughly 62 million Americans who participate in file-sharing networks. He called those seeking amnesty a small ratio of total users. "

A Small Ratio?!? "SMALL???" That works out to 0.0014%! I don't think I would have used the word small. Minute, itsy-bitsy, miniscule, so insignificantly tiny it's not worth mentioning. Those are ways I would describe that number.

posted by Jason 12:46 PM |

 
Whew, that was Close.

This morning I had to tell the president, and vice pres, of my company that we likely lost all faxed orders that came in over the weekend. I then had to tell them that there isn’t really anything we can do to help prevent the problem from possibly re-occurring in the future.

Then we had a minor phone system problem, so I called our service provider, and he said, “Try rebooting.”

So I did, and then nothing, the whole phone system went down, and never came back up! I went into panic mode, thinking I was going to have to tell the president that I have now broke his phone system as well. Mental pictures of my head being placed in a guillotine flashed across my mind as I waited on hold for the technician that told me to reboot.

But all was well, for some strange reason it didn’t like the first reboot, but a second one seems to have fixed both problems, and the phone system was down for only about 5 minutes. It appears I will be able to keep my head for another day at least.

posted by Jason 11:50 AM |

Monday, September 29, 2003

 
The Negative energy is visible around here anymore.

I am in IS (Information Services), thus I am invisible. Not like invisible, no one sees me or knows I am here boohoo for me. More like I walk into a room at work, and no one stops talking. This could include the HR manager and an employee with severe personal problems talking about what to do now. I walk in to fix a computer or some-such, and they continue talking away as though I wasn’t there. Normally I just disregard the conversation I hear, or leisurely pay attention just to catch the mood. This works well for knowing the most about any given department than anyone else in the company. The problem is recently, all I am hearing is everyone bashing on other departments, or how bad management is running this company into the ground.

Now I have been at this company for over 3 years, and have been in other companies in the past, so I am no stranger to the office gossip and the ranting over other departments, and always about bad management. But recently here the ranting has picked up at an astounding rate. At this rate the top of the graph will make it to the moon, before Europe’s new satellite does. I am not sure what has caused this gigantic swing towards the negative, but I am bound and determined to find it. Right after I play my computer game tonight.

posted by Jason 5:02 PM |

 
Damn Social Life!

I never would have thought “I” would be saying that ever. You see if you haven’t already guessed I am kind of a geek. Although not in the cool sense of the word that seems to have come about since the start of the internet boom. No I am just a geek, nerd or dork, which ever you prefer. I always have been and likely always will be. Anyway, I just picked up a new RPG computer game this weekend, and wanted to play it. Well, apparently since the last time I played computer games, I have developed a slight tinge of a life, and dang-it it gets in the way.

I had my plans all laid out. I was to buy the game on Saturday, install it, and do some house cleaning/dishes (I do dishes usually once a week, and Saturday seems to usually be that day due to necessity.) Saturday night, and Sunday would then be free to waste all kinds of time doing nothing but drinking Mt. Dew, and playing games. But No, my “friends” wanted to come over and play games and watch movies, so I said that would be fine, assuming I would be able to play the next day, but then Sunday rolls around and these so called “friends” come over again to watch football. Then football ends and they don’t leave! More “friends” come over and we play some board games, they finally left around 10:00 and then I had to go to bed due to going to work this morning.

In reality I had a really good weekend, in fact it was definitely better than had I sat at home by myself and played computer games, but it ruined my plans! And now at work all I can think about is, “Tonight I should finally be able to play this game, I bet it is really, really good.”

posted by Jason 2:55 PM |

Friday, September 26, 2003

 
Only men are good at Volleyball Apparently (Rant Warning)

So I joined an amateur city league for volleyball, and last night was the first game we played, and my last.

I am not sure what prompted all of these rules, but personally I find them sexist, and stupid. I understand where the concept came from for the rules, but implementation was very poor. Some or most of these rules are not that bad unto themselves, but added together with the rest, make a bleak representation of the capability of women playing volleyball. Here are the rules I had a problem with even being a guy, and think most women should to.

1. You cannot play a game with 4 guys and only 2 girls, although 4 girls and 2 guys is acceptable.
2. If the ball is hit more than once on your side of the court, a girl must have touched it. (i.e. a guy stops a spike, and it almost makes it over the net, but needs a little help, it cannot be a guy to help it.) Although 3 girls can touch it without a single guy touching it, and no penalty is given.
3. If a girl serves and it hits the net, but does go over it, the serve is good, and playable, if a guy serves and it hits the net, then goes over, the ball is considered a bad serve and the other team takes possession.
4. At no time can there be 3 guys closer to the net than a girl, even in the middle of playing, while people are moving around to save the ball from hitting the ground.

For an amateur team, this is a lot to keep in mind, when your team has a problem getting the ball over the net anyway (No malice intended toward any of my teammates.) So I told the friends I had joined with that I wasn’t going to play anymore, since I did not have fun playing.

I want to have FUN while PLAYING a GAME, and if I can’t then I don’t see the point in PLAYING.

posted by Jason 11:21 AM |

 
And the ball is in . . . . I Have no idea

CNN.com - Do-not-call registry faces tougher challenge - Sep. 26, 2003

Quote "The registry creates a burden on one type of speech based solely on its content, without a logical, coherent privacy-based or prevention-of-abuse-based reason supporting the disparate treatment of different categories of speech," Nottingham ruled.

Whaaaaa?!?! What the hell is that supposed to mean?
posted by Jason 10:58 AM |

Thursday, September 25, 2003

 
Yeah again!

CNN.com - House votes for do-not-call registry - Sep. 25, 2003

Does anyone else feel like they are watching a tenis game or something?
posted by Jason 1:41 PM |

 
Rude awakening

I own a 70 Lbs Alaskan Malamute, I love him dearly, but he has got to find a better way of letting me know he has to go to the bathroom early in the morning.

This morning I was awoken to a sneeze right in my face, from about 1 ½ inches away. See my dog doesn’t bark very much so he doesn’t make noise to let me know things very often, instead he had gotten used to waking me up by getting his nose an inch or so from mine, and then breathing on me until I wake up from the hot humid air, then he runs out of the room as soon as I open my eyes. This means, he has to go.

My guess is this morning, he had been breathing on me for a while and I hadn’t woke up yet, when he needed to sneeze he did so. It just so happens he was still very close to my face at the time. (Boy am I glad I didn’t have mouth open drooling at the time, or I wouldn’t have been able to tell his slobber from my own.)

posted by Jason 1:02 PM |

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

 
Go Figure

U.S. court blocks anti-telemarketing list - Sep. 24, 2003

Not that I get any telemarketing calls anyway, but it was a good idea for a little while.
posted by Jason 3:52 PM |

 
And Now the D%&*% Blogger doesn't work!

Toss another log on the fire of the day.
posted by Jason 3:21 PM |

 
Psssss BOOM!

I have a rather short fuse today and I am unsure as to why. Male PMS???? I don’t think so, and if you mention it again I will ram it down your throat!

Ummm, Sorry. So far today I have snapped at 2 different people for things that weren’t even their fault, and I have practically growled at anyone that so much as opens my office door. I also told someone that there was no way the problem they were experiencing was caused by my systems, and then realized that I was wrong.

I slept well last night, and it’s not a full moon or anything? I guess it will just be one of those mystery things. Although I hope it goes away by tomorrow, since important things are happening then that I don’t want to be in a bad mood for.

posted by Jason 3:21 PM |

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

 
Read This Post!

I was heading off for lunch this afternoon, and once again I am a little low on gas. When my Explorer gets low on gas, has a low battery charge, or the engine is about to blow up a little light pops on that says, and I am not kidding, “Check Gauge”. The first question is always “Which Gauge?” Then the reality sinks in that you are already looking at all the gauges, it’s not like “Check Gauge” means to stop the vehicle, pop the hood, and check the thermometer attached to the side of the engine block, No it means “look at your stupid gauges you idiot!” This seems rather superfluous to me, but it gave me an idea.

I am always rather annoyed at all the stupid and idiotic lawsuits going on in my country (USA in case you didn’t know.) And before I have always thought I was annoyed because they are eating up our court’s time with dumb things, like “McDonalds made me Fat!” Although now I have realized I am annoyed because these idiots might actually make money off of something so simple and stooped, and all it cost was a little bit of dignity, by publicly admitting “I am a sheep and cannot think for myself.” Why didn’t I think of that, well now I have.

I am going to sue all consumer products on the market right now, that have warning labels. I am suing them because they did not specifically tell me to “Read This Warning!”

Now you may be thinking that is a stretch, but hear me out. The light probably came about by 1 of the following 2 methods. Someone tried to sue Ford for not informing them that 1 of the gauges was informing them that something bad was about to happen, and then it did so it was obviously Ford’s fault, and this was Ford’s way of remedying that problem from happening in the future. Or, an engineer decided that just looking at a gauge sitting below the ‘E’ was not enough information for the average consumer to realize that action needed to be taken.

In either case consumers are apparently not as smart as they should be, so I feel that telling people to read the warning, is what is required to help educate the consumer to better handle these sorts of situations. (After all I am only concerned for the mass’s well being, and definitely not my own popularity, or wealth.)

posted by Jason 12:52 PM |

 
If I work 1 more minute on this project, my Brain will implode!

For the last few weeks at work I have been working frantically on a project who’s due date was yesterday (literally). Needless to say, I did not finish it, but I am still trying to salvage a minute sense of timeliness by getting it done at least in the same week that it is due. (As opposed to previous projects completed within the same year they are due.)

Now I have had large projects before, but this one is a little different. First, this project has been on the schedule all year, and was originally scheduled for completion on July 1. (See I told you, we try to complete things in the same year as their due dates.) Anyway through lots of re-prioritizations, lack of synergy, and too much thinking outside the box, the schedule got pushed back, then about a month ago this project became the managers sole purpose for living, thus I have been working like a mad man since to complete a 3 month project in 3 weeks. I am almost done but this morning my brain has stopped cooperating with me, and I can no longer even type correctly. (As I am typing this in Word the entire document looks like Christmas puked all over it with little red and green squigglies all over the place. I will fix most of them before I post though so please no looking for all of my mistakes.)

Although on the bright side, when I am done I will be able to claim on my resume that I have had a brain transplant.

posted by Jason 11:24 AM |

Monday, September 22, 2003

 
I am not gay after all

While installing my curtains last week, I had installed them wrong, due to bad measuring, so I had to re-hang them this weekend. Well I have proven I am a guy, and not gay.

I was unable to complete a home repair without losing, destroying, or forgetting at least 1 necessary component of the repair, thus requiring me to make at least 1 extra trip to the hardware store. And since no MAN can complete a repair without more than 1 trip to the hardware store, I take this as conclusive evidence that my house did not after all make me gay.

posted by Jason 1:59 PM |

Friday, September 19, 2003

 
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Arrr, ye matties, scurvy dogs, and pretty lasses, today be thee grand ole’ talk like a pirate day!
posted by Jason 9:05 AM |

Thursday, September 18, 2003

 
Anyone got a few million Dollars?

I have the best, sure fireway to be guaranteed to make 1000% more.

Just give me the money, and I will light it on fire. Or you could invest in this guy.

[H]ard|OCP - Behind the Infinium Phantom Console

But I would recomend the first option.

posted by Jason 3:18 PM |

 
I really need to stop going to this Taco Hell.

For lunch today I and a friend decided to hit the good ole Taco Hell. When we made it up to the Drive-up menu, a hand written sign say’s “Please Say ‘Hello’.” Not instilling confidence in this particular restaurant, once again. (I have had previous bad experiences with this location.) So anyway, after saying ‘Hello’ I was greeted by a young man asking me what I would like. I made my order, and then my friend made his order. Except he had had asked for Mexi-Nuggets instead of the taco a change to 1 of the meal options, and then a young woman came on and stated, that wasn’t an option, so we discussed it and decided to go with the soft version of the taco offered, and a Pepsi. Then a completely different person came on and asked if that was all. We stated yes, both with confused looks on our faces.

So we drive up to the window, and a young man (Probably the first person we talked to.) took my money, handed me my drink, and closed the window. After a while he came back and asked:

“Did you order a drink with your meal combo?” . . . .
“Yes, we did, we ordered a Pepsi” . . . . .
“Oh, OK hold on”

And he headed back in to get the Pepsi, handed it to us, and closed the window again, to which I asked my friend, “so how screwed-up do you think this order will be?” His response: “I won’t even guess.” By the way, we didn’t even see a young lady working in the Taco Hell from our vantage point.

So after a while we got the food, and drove away. I was surprised that my order was completely correct! My friend’s was almost, except no Soft Taco, just a hard one.

The Story I make up is that the young lady didn’t actually work for Taco Hell, and was just a customer they handed the microphone to and said, “Here you tell them they can’t have what they want. And feel free to ignore anything they say after that.”

posted by Jason 3:15 PM |

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

 
What disappointment

So I just found out that my grade school principal has read my blog. She had nice comments about it, but that is not the point. As I have now been thinking today about what I was like back then. . . . .

Frequent visits to the principal’s office, constantly getting in trouble for fidgeting, being grounded on a regular basis for screwing off, or doing something I wasn’t supposed to, getting beat-up for being a nerd. Dang I miss those days. . . .

Oh Wait, No I don’t! Although I think about what I would have thought of myself now, from when I was that age. ???(I don’t understand that sentence either.) Anyway I think you get my point. I am pretty sure I am somewhat of a disappointment to what I would have wanted back then. I don’t break very many rules, and I agree with almost all of my parents disciplinary methods. In fact I agree with them so much, I am pretty sure I would have grounded myself for years straight if I had been my parents, back then. Hopefully by the time I have a kid of my own (..shudder..) I will be more forgiving.

And generally as proud as I am of what I have become, for today I will reflect on what I would have become, if all of my aspirations from fourth grade had come true. . . . .

OK Enough of that!

posted by Jason 4:45 PM |

 
Dear RIAA

It has been brought to my attention that in making my comment yesterday about the RIAA I may have implicated myself in some illegal act, if they aren’t already investigating me, that would draw unwanted attention. If that is the case, I would like to make the following public statement directed to the RIAA.

“I don’t share my music!”

It took me painstaking countless hours over many, many years to collect my enormous collection of digital music (err, to convert my already owned collection into digital form). Why would I share it for free?

. . . . . .

I am sure I could get money out of it somehow.

posted by Jason 1:49 PM |

 
The Grinch who stole Christmas.

That is what I have become.

There are a few things that bother me about the way people use e-mail. I won’t even go into forwards during this post, but things like backgrounds, and Smiley faces, and stuff like that. Well anyway, I had someone from my church just ask me where to get the Office CD from so she could install more stationary for e-mails. So when I wrote back I wrote my objections to stationary in the e-mail and then informed her of where to get the disc (the real location not a smart-ass comment about “Where” she could get the disc.)

She wrote back and said . . . I quote. “I will remove my stationary immediately.” Now I feel like the Grinch. I am happy that this trend is stopping, but I also feel kinda bad for having stolen all the joy out of her e-mails for something that is more likely just a pet-peeve of mine.

So I am sorry, for steeling your joy in this matter. And I promise to not even mention my pet-peeves for cutesy mouse pointers, holiday screensavers, and hot-pink borders on Windows.

posted by Jason 10:07 AM |

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

 
All those hours of Game playing Just saved my Life!

I had what I am assuming is a government agent (No Doubt working for the RIAA.) just try and take me out! I was innocently on my way back from lunch when a black car up the road from me, pulled off into the shoulder, and waited for the car in front of me to pass, and then just as I was approaching, they jetted out into the road in what looked like an attempted U-Turn. My Honed driving skills, perfected by countless hours of “Need for Speed” and “Star Wars Pod Racer”, allowed me to swiftly swerve, and just barely squeeze by. Had I not re-acted so swiftly and perfectly, the “Agent” would have actually run into the side of my car at a full lunge. And since I likely would have been turning to avoid him, but still going 40, my SUV would have likely rolled over crushing me to death!

Ok so the guy was really just a dork that wasn’t paying attention, and I probably wasn’t in any real danger of bodily injury. But I like my version better.

posted by Jason 1:21 PM |

 
Plug the Dam, the flood is coming!

Never mind too late.

I have made the foul, above all fouls, for someone in the IT industry. I have given what should not have been given, and I gave it in too much quantity all at once, and now am going to pay the price for the rest of eternity.

For those that want to know what I am talking about, I shall give you a brief back-story.

It started earlier this year, when I was approached by my church to handle their computer and network support. I weighed this greatly in my mind, and decided hey, I wanted to be more involved in the church and here is a way to utilize my skills to help out. (Ok so there might have been a little bit of “No one else could do as good of a job as me.”, and yes, in case you are wondering I am working on the pride thing.) So . . . anyway, I took the job. It started out pretty simple. They wanted a few new computers, and a network. OK after some planning and ordering, a few months later, whalla! It was so.

One of the other requests was internet access. Here is where I have gotten my-self in trouble. I set them up with a Cable modem and set them free about the internet. (Please accept this as my formal appology to the rest of the internet. ;) )

Well up to this point I have had a few calls saying one-thing or another isn’t working right, and I would meander over there and fix it. Well last night I setup their e-mail system and gave them all a brief training on how to use it.

That was my blunder, that I shall ever repay.

So far, in the span of a few hours I have already gotten 6 e-mails stating problems and issues with all kinds of things, no wait make that 7. I fear the coming weeks will be rife with e-mail reply-ing and frequent trips down to the church after I get off work.

Oh well live and learn right. (You would think after this many years doing this business I would have already learned though.)

(And for anyone at the church that might read this. I have enjoyed working with you all on this and I am not complaining in anyway about you, or my decision to help you guy’s. Keep the e-mails coming, and I will do my best to get the problems worked out as quickly as possible.)
posted by Jason 12:34 PM |

 
I need a kid.

OK, so the few of you who know me just shuddered at the thought of that. And I am not saying I need a kid of my own. I just need one to do all those chores my parents used to make me do when I was a child. I spent most of this weekend doing chores around my house. I vacuumed, dusted, washed dishes, cleaned the bathrooms, raked leaves, and cleaned out the gutters. As I recall all of those except maybe the last one were things that us kids did, not my parents. So I have decided I just need a kid I can assign chores to (of course without paying.)

posted by Jason 11:26 AM |

Friday, September 12, 2003

 
My House has made me Gay.

So I have owned my house for a few months now, and I have just now gotten around to buying curtains for my Living Room (before I used a white sheet thumb tacked into the wall to cover the window.) I originally went to pick these out with Massild and his wife, but when I went down to purchase them I was alone. This was almost a disaster.

For one, all I had done was pick out the curtains, not the few hundred other things I needed to actually put the curtains up in my house. So now all by myself I had to explain to this poor lady what I wanted without knowing anything about what I was talking about. Example:

Me: “I also need one of those things to hold up the clearish, whitish, thingy that goes between the curtain and the window.”
Her: “Are you talking about a Sheer?”
Me: “Uh, is that a clearish, whitish, thingy that goes between the curtains and the window?”
Her: “I am not sure, I think so”
Me: “Ok then we will go with that.”

So to make a long story short, I had to learn a whole bunch of new terms, like Sheer and Valance, and Skirt in order to actually take home what I needed. I thought this was going to be “Hi, I need some Curtains for my Home, I like those.”

Anyway, why my house has made me gay. I got the curtains installed last night (Wrong, but installed) and today at work, I have been all happy about actually having a somewhat complete home. So a few people have asked me about them, and when I mention “I installed the curtains last night, but I need to re-hang them because I measured the height of the sheer wrong.” They look at me kinda funny, and all I can think is, “The last time I used the word Sheer I used it in reference to seeing through some girls clothes.”

posted by Jason 3:33 PM |

 
Skype!

I have run accross this new software/Instant messenger/VoiP program called Skype. This is a handy program by the makers of Kazaa. The program is an instant messenger, and a p2p phone system. I downloaded it and had my good friend Massild install it on his computer, and we tested it today. There are definetly some bugs for them to work out still but the first call we had went very smoothly for the first 10 minutes. The delay was less than my cell phone, and the audio quality was better too.

Anyway, since you can instant message and talk at the same time, the conversations went very weird. For a while I was typing to his wife, and talking with him, and then he took back over the keyboard, and the typing morphed into a MST3K version of the conversation. You know those things you think would be really funny to say, but the other person is still talking, and you don't want to interupt them? Well type it to them, and listen for them to bust out laughing in the middle of their speach as they read what you typed. It was all very ammusing. I highly recomend at least trying this software out, if you have friends.

www.skype.com
posted by Jason 3:00 PM |