wearing the red hat

Security Woes

2009-10-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Our company is attempting to get everyone using ePost to eliminate having to hand out tax documents and pay stubs. So last week I went through the arduous task of setting up my ePost account only to discover that I've forgotten the credentials. No worries, I thought, I'll call the toll free number and get this straightened out. Unfortunately, I was not able to confirm my phone number or answer the secret security question correctly, but apparently all I needed to gain access to an account is the user name and a rough address: Over the phone my account was reset and a new password was verbally given. How can I bring this idiocy to the attention of Canada Post without becoming a martyr? Traditionally, the only way to convince someone that their security sucks is to publicly embarrass them, which can result in the arrest of the good Samaritan. The most I'm going to do in this situation is bitch about it in a blog post.

The Blending of Science and Religion

2009-02-28T21:40:00.000-08:00

In cell biology, the nucleus (pl. nuclei; from Latin nucleus or nuculeus, or kernel) is a membrane-enclosed organelle found in all eukaryotic cells. JESUS IS YOUR SAVIOUR It contains most of the cell's genetic material, organized as multiple long linear DNA molecules in complex MASTURBATING IS BAD with a large variety of proteins, such as histones, to form chromosomes. GAYS ARE EVILThe genes within these chromosomes are the cell's nuclear genome. The function of the nucleus is to maintain the integrity of these genes and to control the activities of the cell by regulating gene expression.

A comment by FishHammer on How_to_spot_a_hidden_religious_agenda

Innapropriate Interspecies Intercourse

2008-11-29T07:21:00.000-08:00

I found these odd figurines being sold in the Calgary Zoo gift shop. I'm guessing they were intended to be cute, but it misses the mark and just comes off as weird. Enjoy, but don't look at them for too long.

List of churches endorsing Yes on 8

2008-11-09T07:21:00.000-08:00

The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.

I'm posting this list to help prevent its removal from the Internet.

Includes evangelicals, fundamentalists, Anglicans, Baptists, Southern Baptists, Catholics, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Scientologists, and Mormons.

(Copied from http://rmuser.infogami.com/churches-endorsing-yes-on-8 which got it from the Google Cache)

A. V. Alpha & Omega Ministries, Palmdale
Abundant Life Assembly of God, Copeland
Abundant Life Christian Fellowship
All Seasons Ministries, El Cajon
Alpha and Omega Arlington Apostolic Church, Riverside
Alpine Anglican Church, Alpine
Amador Family Fellowship
Baldwin Park Church of Christ
Bethel Christian Fellowship
Bible Fellowship Church, Ventura
Biggs Community Assembly of God
Bright Mission Chapel
Bundy Canyon Christian Church and School, Wildomar
Calvary Assembly of God
Calvary Assembly, Milpitas
Calvary Baptist Church
Calvary Baptist Church, Modesto
Calvary Chapel of the Harbour
Calvary Chapel Chino Hills
Calvary Chapel Rancho Santa Margarita
Calvary Christian Center
Calvary Church
Calvary Temple
Camarillo Community Church
Canopy of Prayer Ministries
Canyon View Church of Christ, San Diego
Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament
Centerpoint Church
Central Baptist Church of Indio
Centro Cristiano Pan De Vida
Chapel in the Pines, Arnold
Chinese Evangelical Free Church, Monterey Park
Chinese Grace Bible Church, Sacramento
Christ Driven Church of Fowler Ca.
Christian Life Assembly
Christian Life Center
Christian Life Tools
Christian Outreach for Armenians, Glendale
Church of Christ, Upland
Church of the Living Christ
Church of the Living God of Perris
Church of the Nazarene
Church of the Rock
Church of Scientology of San Diego
Community Counseling Services, Inc.
Community Christian Alliance Church
Core Christian Fellowship, Murrieta
Cornerstone Baptist Church
Cornerstone Baptist Church, Nicholasville KY
Cornerstone Christian Church, El Dorado Hills
Cornerstone Community Church of San Clemente
Cornerstone Fellowship, Livermore
CrossPoint Community Church of the Nazarene
Dan Kricorian Ministries Int'l
Dayspring Christian Fellowship
Desert Stream Ministries
Destiny Faith Center
Divine Mercy Knights of Columbus (14158), Natomas
Door of Faith Ministries International
East Clairemont Baptist Church, San Diego
Eastside Christian Church
El Cajon Wesleyan Church, El Cajon
Elsinore Christian Center, Lake Elsinore
Evangelical Free Church of Walnut
Faith Chapel Church of God in Christ, San Diego
Faith Community Church by the Sea, Encinitas
Faith Tabernacle
Faith to Faith Fellowship, Temecula
F.C.F. Int'l Ministries
Filipino American Community Church
First Baptist Church Anaheim
First Baptist Church of Fillmore
First Baptist Church of Hesperia
First Baptist Church of Menlo Park
First Baptist Church of Taft
First Baptist Church, Lomita
First Evangelical Church of Cerritos
First Fil-Am Christian Church
First Foursquare Gospel Church of San Jose, San Jose
First Fundamental Bible Church of Monterey Park
First Presbyterian Church, Amarillo TX
First Southern Baptist, Yucca Valley
Fontana Foursquare Church
Foxworthy Baptist Church
Free Indeed Christian Fellowship, Perris
Freedom Community Christian Church, Perris
Freewill Missionary Baptist Church, San Diego
Freewill Missionary Baptist Church, San Diego
Friends Church, Yorba Linda
Friendship Christian Fellowship Church, Moreno Valley
Gem of the Valley Church, Murrieta
God’s Word Church, Apple Valley
Golden Altar Ministries, San Jose
Golden Gate Christian Church
Hamilton Square Baptist Church
Harvest Christian Fellowship
Heart of the Canyons Church
High Desert Church, Victorville
Highland Springs Fellowship, Banning
Hillsdale Baptist Church, North Highlands
Hope Vineyard Church, Santa Clarita
House of Luke, Hemet
Independent Church of Lake Elsinore
Irvine First Chinese Baptist Church
Joy Ministry for Christ, Los Angeles
Jubilee Family Church, Oskaloosa IA
Kingdom Conditioning Ministries, INC.
Koinonia Evangelistic Center, Moreno Valley
Lake Murray Church, Assemblies of God
Life Center Church, Lakewood
Light by the Bay Church, San Lorenzo
Lighthouse Assembly of God, Murrieta
Lighthouse Community Church, Lathrop
Live Ride Christian Church
Living Faith Christian Fellowship, Garden Grove
Living Stones Ministries
Living Word Christian Church, San Diego
Love and Unity Church of God in Christ, Compton
Luke Four Eighteen Ministries International, Temecula
Maranatha Chapel
Maranatha Chapel, Rancho Bernardo
Menlo Park Community Church of God in Christ, Menlo Park
Meridian Southern Baptist, El Cajon
Mount Pisgah Baptist Church, San Diego
Mountain View Community Church, Temecula
Mount Zion Assemblies
Napoleon Washington, Jr. Evangelistic Assn.
Nations Harvest Church, Sunnyvale
New Birth Kingdom Covenant
New Covenant Ministries Christian Fellowship
New Day Church
New Destiny Christian Church, Inc.
New Life Presbyterian Church
New Light Church of God, Riverside
New Seasons Church
Newhall Church of the Nazarene
New Venture Christian Fellowship
Northside Christian Church
Oasis of Faith Christian Center
Oroville Nazarene Church
Our Lady of the Redwoods Catholic Church
Our Redeemer Lives Church, Lake Elsinore
Paradise Hills Southern Baptist Church
Progressive M.B.C. of Berkeley
Rancho Baptist Church, Temecula
Ray of Hope Church, Pomona
Redemption Christian Fellowship
Refuge Ministries
Resurrection Power Ministries
Revival Christian Fellowship, Menifee
Ripon Grace Brethren Church
Rose Drive Friends Church, Yorba Linda
Rubidoux First Assembly of God
San Antonio Heights Community Church, San Bernardino
San Diego Christian Worship Center, San Diego
San Jose Church of Christ, San Jose
San Jose Foursquare Church, San Jose
San Jose Open Bible Church, San Jose
San Jose Word of Faith Christian Center, San Jose
San Mateo Pro Life
Santa Rosa Diocesan Council of Catholic Women
Set Free Ministries of San Diego, San Diego
Seventh Day Sabbath Second Advent Church
Sierra Madre Congregational Church
Shepherd of the Hills
Skyline Wesleyan Church, El Cajon
Solid Ground Brethren in Christ Church, Alta Loma
Sonoma Valley Community Church
South Coast Christian Assembly
South Valley Christian Church, San Jose
Southwest Christian Church, Temecula
Southwest Community Church, Indian Wells
Spirit Life Worship Center
St. Andrew Orthodox Church
St. Joseph Church
St Timothy Orthodox Church
St. Mary Catholic Church
St. Patrick's Church
State College Blvd. Church of Christ, Anaheim
Survivors of Assault Recovery/Living Word Christian Church, San Diego
TEN27 Church
The Bridge Church
The Calvary Chapel Churches
The Church of God of Prophecy, National City
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
The Home Church, Campbell
The Oasis Foursquare Church
The Rock Church, San Diego
Trinity Baptist Church
Tyler Baptist Church, Riverside
Valley Christian Church, Chino
Victory International Church, San Mateo
Victory Outreach of Eagle Rock
Vineyard Family Christian Fellowship, Downey
Vista Hope Church of the Nazarene
Voices of Hope Ministries
Whittier Church of Christ, Whittier
Wildwood Calvary Chapel
Windsor Hills Baptist Church, La Mesa
Word of Life Ministries Int’l, Riverside
Word of Truth Ministries
World Overcomers Church International
Zion Christian Fellowship, Spring Valley
Zion Lutheran Church, North Highlands, CA

Perhaps this list has been removed because it is feared that violence will be carried out against members of these churches. Please don't carry out violence against religious bigots.

nerdalicious

2008-09-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

My wife and I visited Vulcan Alberta on the weekend. We experienced nerdom in a pathetically entertaining way gazing upon life size cardboard cutouts of Captain Kirk, Tuvoc and Q.
Pictures do not do the tackiness justice but you do get a taste.

I'm guessing this is supposed to be the NCC-1701, but it is missing the satellite dish that protrudes from the neck of the ship. They couldn't even get the federation registry number correct (FXG something in the picture). A closer look reveals that the ship is made of sheet metal.

This shuttle is next to the tourist centre and it serves as a warning for what you will see in the building.

Inside the main tourist centre. I believe you can buy those life sized cardboard cutouts. Buying one would classify you as insane though.

I wanted to buy my wife a borg bear doll, but she didn't want to spend the money. It would be much better to borgify an already well known teddy bear like Ruxpin or a Care Bear though. A borg version of Grumpy Bear that said something like "Resistance is futile" when his belley is pressed would make a lot of money.

We also noticed that the town logo declares quite proudly that the purpose of the town is to be a haven for Trekkies. That much surprised me because I always assumed that there was just a small Star Trek exhibit.

If you plan on visiting you should know that we saw a for sale sign on the Star Trek family restaurant, so you'll have to pack a lunch.

Boxed Up Cubicle

2008-08-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

When a coworker leaves on a long vacation to someplace exotic, this often makes his coworkers jealous. One way to deal with the jealousy is to vandalize their cubicle space with tinfoil or styrofoam chips. The problem with tinfoil is that it is expensive and it is kind of hard to reuse (that's the most important 'R' of the three R's). Styrofoam chips are also wasteful and more importantly, some cubicles just have way too much volume to make it feasible. I found a bunch of old empty boxes in the basement of my company's building and decided that filling the cube with boxes would be both economical and good for the environment. About 120 boxes later this is the result:

I wanted to fill it up to the ceiling, but sadly my box supply (the shipping and receiving department) ran out. The victim's computer and belongings were placed in random boxes throughout the cube.

After we were all through most of the boxes were taken back to be used by the shipping department and the rest were taken by a coworker to help her move into a new place.

added security for protests at the calgary chinese embassy

2008-08-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

The protest:

Our fearless law enforcement:

Back at a safe distance, so that no one can tell that they are there:

CBC Article about the event:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2008/08/08/calgary-tibet-chinese-falun-protest.html

Stephen Hawking Is My Hero

2008-06-20T17:31:00.000-07:00

I came across a number of interesting comments on a digg forum on Stephen Hawking. It seems like Chuck Norris might be fighting for his job.

Stephen Hawking. That man is the true meaning of bad-ass. Chuck Norris holds no candle to The Hawk.

Stephen Hawking has two speeds, reverse and kill

E = MC Hawking

Professor Hawking does not like titles. In fact he dislikes the whole concept of them

He only turned down knighthood because he can't ride a horse.

He should get [a voice] that sounds like Sean Connery. He'd get more tail than he'd know what to do with.

Don't underestimate Hawking's mind. He'll use permutations and know exactly what to do with every known instance of tail.

Stephen Hawking has two voices, DECtalk DTC01 and voice-of-god.

Stephen Hawking is so brilliant that the universe sprung into existence with a full falsified history the instant he was conceived.

Sources:
http://digg.com/general_sciences/Stephen_Hawking_confronts_UK_government_over_science_budget
http://digg.com/general_sciences/Stephen_Hawking_goes_on_Safari_in_Search_of_African_Einstein

Facebook You Have Been Mustached

2008-03-27T19:07:00.000-07:00

Here I present some of the contestants of the World Beard Championship with their goods superimposed on a some what random sampling of my Facebook friends list. Each picture was taken from their profile picture which is visible to all so I didn't ask for permission. If you are not amused to see your picture here, then let me know and I'll get you to sign a waver form. I could have chosen my own Facebook picture but I find that picking on others is a much more enjoyable past time.

Due to laziness I often consider growing a beard, but I am consistently reminded by my wife that my facial hair grows in little tiny spikes that are probably capable of drawing blood. Since I never plan on growing out my red spiky beard of death I should get laser hair removal. I won't though because without the ability to grow a beard I would feel somewhat emasculated.

Mystery Men Meets Heroes

2008-03-01T11:56:00.000-08:00

Why are all of the people in Heroes/X-Men given cool genetic enhancements? Genetic variation doesn't have to be beneficial. Here is a quick list of various demi-heroes.

The Flake
Feeling that something is true for her allows it to be actually true in reality. Psychokinesis is an ability that uses the mind to influence matter but what about all of the other thinking organs in the body? It has long been known by the religious that the gut, heart, and appendix are equally useful in reasoning. The flake has an abnormally large thinking heart that gives her emotionkinesis which is the the hearts muscles ability to influence matter. Unlike the brain the heart isn't stimulated into action with sight or sound, so the flake must use intense emotion to allow her to move things with her mind. The flake draws her emotional energies from driving her kids to soccer practice, watching Oprah and Touched by An Angel.
Catch phrase: "Care bear stare!"
"Because it is ego-driven, head thinking can often be delusory. Heart thinking is focused on reality."
- Heart Thinking

The Resistor
The only human able to resist our alien overlords mind control. Unknown to everyone but the resistor, aliens are currently controlling all government officials.
See alien plot to trick Albertans into destroying the environment by developing the tar sands.
Catch phrase: "You'll be sorry, you'll all be sorry!"

Passive Aggressive Man
Able to think negative thoughts about the people that give him a hard time. Passive Aggressive man is incapable of verbally voicing disapproval.
Do to his inability express frustration Passive Aggressive Man leaves his mark on the world through nefarious actions:

Anonymous written diatribes
Think nasty thoughts
Crying alone in the fetus position under his office desk

Catch phrase: "It could be worse."

Garbage Pail Kids
Creepy children from the 1980s with various genetic defects and or enhancements.

Shoeverine
Shoes for hands instead of claws. Need I say more?

Garment-kinesis (making women's clothes fall off)

Random thought
Ever notice how Radiohead sounds like it is sung by Herbert off of the family guy?

What's your favorite demi-hero?

Tea Towel Wrapping Paper

2008-01-03T17:02:00.000-08:00

My wife and I decided to go the environmentally friendly route this Festivus so we purchased tea towels to wrap our gifts in. Each present was wrapped in one or more towels held together by a simple stitch that comes apart easily when pulled. The towels were purchased at The Bay and cost about a dollar each. Although we didn't think it would be appropriate to reuse existing tea towels, I plan on reusing any tea towels used as wrapping paper that may come our way.

Next year we might end up using bath or beach towels, a blanket, or a tarp depending on the size of the gift.

This Blog Was Rated G

2007-12-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

And now bring on the pr0n!

I found this video on a top ten list from double viking. Apparently some people get off on watching paraplegics climb stairs. I'm sure it has more to do with how predators react around wounded prey and less to do with sexual desires but then again I'm no psychotrist.

Mommy, what's that lady doing?
Oh she's just making a porno movie

Support The Troops Followup

2007-11-18T19:10:00.000-08:00

I think we can all agree that the following image is an improvement over the original:

I'd love to get a sticker like this and put it on my bicycle.

It's Okay, I'm a Scientist!

2007-11-04T21:08:00.000-08:00

This is the official Scientist badge that can be worn proudly and shown to those who would stand in defiance of the laws of nature. After watching the original Ghostbusters movies it became clear to me that the heroes of the film would have faired much better against the felons of reality (ghosts not teachers from Kansas) if they had a little bit more respect. The directors of the future remake of the film would be wise to use badges like this one.

What Does Support The Troops Mean To You?

2007-10-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

I'm seeing these stickers everywhere and I am really curious as to what it means to the people displaying them. Can anyone enlighten me? How does one support the troops anyways? Does the sticker indicate that the wearer donates money to the war charity? Probably not... Or maybe it means that they voted for a political party that supported the war? Probably not since both the Liberal and Conservative party supported war with Afghanistan. Maybe they think they live in the USA and feel that we should support the Presidents decision to stay in Iraq?

I have heard people claim that the stickers are not meant to be political, but merely meant to show their support of troops serving in various countries that we help invade or occupy. If this is so, then how does placing a sticker on a vehicle help the matter? Traditionally stickers for breast cancer, aids, Lyme disease, etc. are shown to remind people that issues exist and need our financial support. I highly doubt there exists a war charity where you can donate money to help our soldiers hunt and kill dissidents. It is easy to see how political the issue is when you consider what would happen if the majority of the country disapproved of the war effort. The result would be that soldiers would feel down and under appreciated where the only solution is for us to silence our disapproval. Politically the military then becomes a very powerful tool within a democracy as anyone wielding the might of our armed forces can do no wrong. After all, if we complained about how the tools/soldiers are used, then we might hurt their moral.

Although it may seem like I am asking for people to step forward and explain why they have chosen to place a sticker on their vehicle, this is merely a trick to get you to reveal yourself. The most likely result is that I will forever label you as a right wing neo-conservative monster. This comic sums up my hatred:

Thanks Mike for forwarding this comic from overcompensating.com

Environment Canada Weather

2007-09-16T10:46:00.000-07:00

Here is my first attempt at creating Google gadget that can be placed into Google Desktop (somehow...according to the documentation) or into iGoogle. For those who haven't used iGoogle, I highly recommend setting it up (www.google.com/ig). The gadget displays the weather that it screen scrapes (a geeky way of saying retrieve) from the Environment Canada website. Unlike other weather gadgets and tools you can find, this one actually displays accurate weather that is updated frequently by money from our taxes. The city can be customized in the preferences menu, but there is a limited selection right now. Let me know if you're city or town isn't listed and I'll add it to the menu. I couldn't get imperial units to work correctly, but I really didn't try too hard either. Don't embarrass yourself by telling me that you prefer imperial units :)

Luddite Cell Phone

2007-08-12T17:36:00.001-07:00

cell phone idea
Originally uploaded by ShellCore

The rotary dial uses touch tone dialing and it duals as a hand crank generator allowing the battery to be recharged.

This phone's minimal set of features and lack of LCD display allow it to go months without being recharged.

It comes with a stack of post it notes, which conveniently stick on the top part near the ear piece. The post it notes function as the address book and a way to "text" message other users of the post-its technology. Refills can be purchased at any local office supply store.

No Yogis Were Harmed During the Making of Your Pants

2007-08-06T13:19:00.001-07:00

Organic Fair Trade Yoga pants are here once again and this time they're low in cholesterol and Atkins friendly. Only the children of the highest quality yogis were chosen to make our newest line of clothing.

Every year it seems there are more marketing buzz words that pollute the biomass. Is there anything special about a shirt that makes it a yoga shirt? Is there anything special about a pair of pants that makes it more or less organic? Aren't we just talking about cotton here? I don't believe that I was planning on ingesting a pair of pants anytime soon, so I'm not sure why I need to have them grown in a cotton field that didn't use pesticides. If this is a case where the clothes are more environmentally friendly, then isn't the correct marketing term 'green' or 'environmentally friendly'? I guess green doesn't fit, since people may assume that all of the merchandise is a shade of green. Environmentally friendly is too long of a word to be useful as there wouldn't be enough room on the sign. It appears as though I have stumbled upon a new use of the word, where environmentally friendly now can be interchanged with organic. This should please right wing conservatives as their vocabulary can now be simplified further when denouncing the evils of leftism.

This picture was taken at Community Natural Foods on 10th Ave and 13th Street SW. I swear the day before I took this picture the sign read "Organic Yoga Pants Now In".

Where's My Gmail Nanny

2007-07-13T19:45:00.000-07:00

hole sofa brunette drugs abilities queen load pill lad asian loser grandma stethoscope teen anime blonde kitchen friend housemaid amateur

The above is a sample of all of the nouns found in my gmail spam folder that are neither expletives nor sexual in nature by themselves. It is interesting that even though I have removed all of the sexual & offensive content the result is some things that can still be recognized as unpleasant. Somethings just are so filthy that no amount of anti-bacterial cleansers will take out the smell. Gmail really needs a febreze button next to the spam folder that will go through and delete all of the emails in the folder containing smelly titles - forgive my synesthesia. I really don't want to imagine what grandma might be doing in the kitchen with her stethoscope and amateur abilities.

Ramblings On The-Now

2007-06-15T21:37:00.000-07:00

Why bother living in the moment experiencing things first hand when I can just download the memory of an experience. Now happens for an infinitesimal amount of time anyways, so it hardly seems worth the effort making homemade memories. I'm so lazy that I just acquired a nice batch of memories of a time when I wasn't so lazy. Its hard to evaluate the worth of the-now or life without it, because every memory we have includes it. Life would be so much more efficient if babies born were immediately given a lifetime worth of memories, and then they could promptly be snuffed out. After all, they lived their lives didn't they? How is a life actually lived any better than one that was simply borrowed and implanted? One couldn't know the difference anyways as the only way to reflect and answer that would be to rely on memory, which isn't reliable. The memory of choosing to live in the-now could simply have been implanted. So will I decide to implant a lifetime of memories by an award winning author from the local memory bank? Wouldn't I then end my life which would then clearly be full? I should probably, because I clearly can't continue to compete with a best selling author. For efficiency sake only one set of memories is required. Real human interaction doesn't have to occur so there is no need to be creative and assign different memories to different people.

Slow News Day

2007-06-04T19:01:00.000-07:00

Behold! The too full bottle of Nestea. So amazing I had to show the world! Imagine the sticky chaos that would result if this bottle got a little too cold on the trip to the convenience store.

My New Wallet

2007-05-18T22:29:00.000-07:00

I'm sure I'm not the first to come up with the idea to make a wallet out of an old iPod. I read a story a while back on a cassette tape wallet which led to the idea.
The only issue with it is that it won't hold more than a couple hundred dollars...not that I carry that much cash around with me.

The only tools I used was a glue gun, screw driver and scissors.

Viva La Revolution!

2007-05-01T21:02:00.000-07:00

You won't have to look far to find numerous blog posts, images on deviant art, tee-shirts on cafe press all about the censoring of a number. A number used to encrypt HD-DVDs. At the risk of having my blog taken away from me I have decided to participate in this civil disobedience by posting my favorite lucky number:

hex09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
or
13,256,278,887,989,457,651,018,865,901,401,704,640

Now don't go using this number to decrypt any HD-DVDs. I certainly wouldn't want to see a bunch of high def movies show up on the pirate bay.

Good /. article covering the madness.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/01/1935250&from=rss

Wedding Card

2007-03-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

On the weekend my wife and I went looking for the perfect wedding invitation for a friend of mines wedding. Our (or maybe I should just say mine) criteria for the invitation was that it should contain absolutely none of the usual hallmark poems written by mentally challenged soccer moms. Any word like aura, soul, spirit, heart, faith, love, wub, wuv, or essence were automatically rejected. I'm pretty sure I could write up a program that would randomly concatenate various prepositions and nouns with this list to produce Hallmark quality like:

Souls love companionship, but they will always find a place within our faithful spirits.

Looking on the net I see a bunch of sayings generators that I could probably modify. Even Chairmain Mao has his own generator...although I can't get him to say anything interesting.

Anyways, we found this card in the "congratulations" section of the card store, which had quite a number of classy cards for various occasions. It is especially fitting since the reception will be potluck and we plan on brining cookies.

In Soviet Russia Posters Watch You!

2007-03-13T21:17:00.001-07:00

Kultura 074
Originally uploaded by bpx.

This photo is part of a flickr collection of Soviet Russia propaganda posters that I found really fascinating. Inspired by Premee's Tape Worm poster I thought that I'd post this collection I discovered a while ago.

I was tempted for a while to print a few of these out and put them up in my office, but I then reminded myself that I'm trying to improve my office reputation. See, I have a tendency to be rather coarse and severed heads posted up on my walls may give people the wrong idea about me....or maybe the right idea... in any case, I'm prepared to spend a lengthly career avoiding all of the insanity around me and at the same time I'll try and go about my day with a smile on my face. Such an inspiring poster.

Unconventional Diet Tips

2007-01-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

In response to 10 Unconventional Diet Tips

What I expected to see from the article.

1. Smoking
I've always heard that one of the side effects of quitting smoking is an increase in appetite, so it only makes sense to me that picking up this new habit will help reduce appetite. Rather than picking up a fork, why not go outside and have a smoke? Find some fellow smokers and turn it into a social. A less effective but lung friendly alternative would be to try out the nicotine patches to get that daily dose. Unfortunately, this may have the opposite effect by allowing the addict to avoid most of the aerobic activity that accompanies the smokers lifestyle. Nonetheless, the increased stimulation and distraction from food might just do the trick. This seems to be a popular weight control method used by young people: http://www.annecollins.com/weight_health/body-image-smoking.htm

2. Crystal Meth
The longer you stay awake the more energy you burn right? Meth addicts are extremely fidgety and are able to stay awake for days on end. I've never seen a meth addict that didn't look like some skinny zombie from a post-nuclear b movie. Ride the snake for two weeks to see the results. I'm pretty sure that this is the cheap stuff that is put into diet pills like the ones the single mother took in Requiem for a Dream. This technique reminds me of the hooker that worked across the street from my first apartment in Calgary. It was quite the freak show watching her put on her jacket, take it off again and repeat the process over and over again. Plus the mind deteriorates so much that the addict doesn't even know they are on a weight loss diet.

3. Stranding oneself on a deserted island
Really there isn't any place left on this planet where you won't be found or die too quickly to make this work. A slightly more modified version on this theme would put the dieter in a poverty stricken country to live in a community filled with starving orphans. Only a severe lack of morals will allow this method to fail.

4. Bubble Gum & Hot Dogs
Cheap and effective. Neither digests that well in the stomach, so eating a plateful every so often should have a similar effect as stapling ones stomach. Plus think of the energy required for all of the chewing required.

5. Boot camp. Join the army
Give up your free will and join the army! The side effects are similar to crystal meth in that you lose much of the control over your own life and a portion of your intelligence. A great low budget diet perfect for those that live in the states. And, now that the states are desperate for new recruits anyone that can manage to stand mostly up right and sign their names can now join.

6. Sterilize your intestinal bacteria
Intestinal bacteria is believed to play a significant roll in the amount of energy that humans absorb in the intestinal tract. Using the right kind of toxic beverages should allow one to kill off enough bacteria to influence your weight. I'm betting a hot glass of moonshine taken daily will do the trick.

7. Tape worms
Critics of this diet claim that you'll end up with a pot belly filled with mucus plus the host will pick up a whole host of other diseases due to lack of vitamins and nutrients the body needs (more info). Actually what the critics fail to realize is that these are all just side effects that need to be taken into consideration. In some small hillbilly towns it might be cool to be pregnant and now the dieter can lose weight and fake a pregnancy at the same time. And of course, once enough weight has been lost a quick trip to the hospital might do the trick.

These methods while unconventional and damaging, may actually be healthier than weighing 300+ pounds.
Ride the snake all the way to marginally improved health today!

My iPod Loves Karl Marx

2006-12-12T20:08:00.000-08:00

iPod's really need to come with a longer default warranty. After almost two years it has started to show its age and developed a clicking sound indicating that the hard drive was shot. I was sure we were going to have to toss it and buy a new one but we managed to fix it using a neat trick we found on the Internet. Our fix was to put pressure on the hard drive, which I'm guessing is to keep the read-write arm from moving up and down too much. The right amount of pressure calls for a business card, so I went through my wallet looking for the most useless one I could find. I found a business card for a provincial candidate representing the Marxist Leninist Communist Party. I obtained that card listening to some nut job in a pub going on about how smoking is actually good for you and everything is big conspiracy trying to take away our freedoms to smoke. I was very surprised to see that card buried deep within some forgotten corner of my wallet. So as another victory against socialism, I have buried that card in the guts of my iPod where no one will ever see it again. I figure the amount of broken iPods that will end up in the dump will make it pretty unlikely that mine will be chosen for some archaeological discovery in the distant future. The iPod responded well to its medicine...almost too well.

Fourth Quarter Earnings Winter Holiday

2006-11-15T20:00:00.000-08:00

Have a merry gift exchange day! I had to post a link to some awesome wrapping paper. Don't buy it from thinkgeek, unless you live in the US and A. Having Global Logistics (or whatever company that purchases the cost of taking the goods over the boarder) pestering whoever is on the shipping address is extremely annoying. Nothing says Chrismahanukwanzakah like threatening letters that demand payment sent to the person that you had the gift shipped to.

Every Santa day I go through the same ordeal of trying to pick out gifts for everyone. Fortunately, I get to punish everyone who I buy gifts for by making myself impossible to shop for. This is easily done by either acquiring extremely expensive hobbies or by giving up on the whole capitalism thing. It is also great way for an egoist like myself to force people to think about me that extra amount during the holidays. Someone who is easy to shop for must feel so lonely without that constant attention of someone nagging them for a list. Oh, and not providing a list helps too.

What do people think of the idea of having a post Festivus Chinese gift exchange? Each person brings an unwanted gift to exchange with other gifts that people didn't want. A little tricky to pull off, since all of the people attending shouldn't be connected to anyone you gave or received a gift from. I'll just whip up an invitation to all my acquaintances and people I don't spend time with to join me for a lovely evening of awkward silences and strained conversations about the weather. Seriously, I think I could make it work, as we do know a bunch of people that aren't connected to family and I've never been one to buy gifts for friends.

New Shared Feeds

2006-11-05T20:19:00.000-08:00

Here is my shared feeds from my collection of RSS feeds:
http://www.google.com/reader/shared/03616220405568857193

On this site you'll see my favorite blog entries that I come across. I have quite a few interesting blogs that I subscribe too now, so you might even want to subscribe to my collection of favorite entries from my RSS feeds with this RSS Feed. You may even decide to add it to your own RSS aggregator, in order to create a...thing that really can't be described.

Make sure to at least check out Theros on neave.tv

The Most Eccentric Thing You Can Order At Starbucks

2006-10-14T13:10:00.000-07:00

Short, medium roast coffee in a single cup. This can be a confusing order that often causes frustration for all involved. Really it is surprising since this same order would be called a "coffee to go" roughly ten years ago.

First, the size of the order may throw people off because it isn't listed anywhere on the menu. It is a secret code word for what was once a regular sized coffee. Second cup has one of these as well called the extra small. Probably the only store in the world that has both an extra small and extra large. Recently I was told by a Second Cup employee that the extra small has been removed as no one was ordering it, to which I didn't reply "probably because it isn't listed on your menu". There really isn't any point arguing or pointing things out to mere peons, as the most impact that can achieved would be to hold up the line or cause unneeded frustration for the server. Actually, that's the point of ordering eccentric beverages so disregard what I just said.

Ordering medium roast certainly doesn't add any jazz to the order, but I have noticed that ordering plain coffee has gone out of fashion. The fancy drinks are all the rage extending out the name of the order as much as possible for the perceived effect of adding self-identify and importance. Little do these unique snowflakes realize that a simple order of coffee at a coffee shop is all that is required to throw the whole rhythm off in the ordering line and will elevate their order to avant-guarde status. Extra points for insisting that the size of the coffee is to be short when encouraged to pick medium, light or dark roast.

Every time I have made a nuisance of my self with this order the part that really hits home is insisting that only one cup is used. The short order is the only cup with a diameter smaller than every other, so the regular heat sleeve will not fit. To resolve this issue, both Second Cup and Starbucks use two cups instead of one. Since I enjoy the feeling of birch wood nestled firmly between my loins, I am naturally against this extra waste. Usually after I give my order the server will pause after taking two cups off the stack, separate the two and then hold one up to confirm. Once we both agree on how to count to one, I am instructed that the coffee is hot and I should be very careful not to burn myself. At this point I can either turn back and pretend to be shamed at my ignorance, or go on a pointless rant about how this is completely unnecessary waste. Should I choose the latter, I can point out the proper way to hold a coffee cup so as not to risk injury.

Hold the top of the coffee in place over the perimeter of the lid with the thumb
Using the pinky, ring, and middle finger hold the base of the cup right in the first join of each finger
The index finger can be extended out as much as possible to give that extra bit of eccentric flair
The base of the cup has a rim around the outside that serves both to protect against condensation damaging furniture and to allow for the fingers to hold up the cup without risk of injury
Use enough pressure to prevent dropping the cup and not enough to squeeze coffee all over your hands.

Rotating Monitors & Wikipedia Wallpapers

2006-09-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

I keep seeing stories on the top wallpapers found on the net. It surprises me that this one of loch lomond doesn't show up ever on the lists. It ranks high on my list as it is the best wallpaper that scales down to 1600x1200 resolution. Simply stunning. Wikipedia now (recent discovery of mine) has a section for featured wallpapers that are top notch. Quite a few high resolution images exist on that sight that supports my new monitor setup, which is effectively 3200x1600 resolution. Yes, I know I brag too much but I'm quite happy now that I have a video card in my computer at work that supports rotating the 21" wide screen monitors and I can't help but be giddy. Really, all wide screen monitors should be rotated as a default option. Most people use their computer to work with and having a very tall monitor allows for most of the work (documents) to be displayed without having to scroll. For those who don't know, you can rotate many flat screen monitors by going into the display properties dialog, navigate to the settings tab, click on the Advanced button and then attempt to locate a tab or a setting somewhere called Rotation. It will be different depending on the graphics card.

corey and shelley southpark

2006-09-21T20:31:00.000-07:00

corey and shelley southpark
Originally uploaded by ShellCore.

I enjoyed spending an hour making this picture. The south park studio (http://www.sp-studio.de) is quite fun and it was pretty simple to put together this image. I realize that there probably should be a few more sky scrappers and apartment buildings, but this was enough to satisfy my artistic urge.

Hat Tricks

2006-08-20T18:32:00.000-07:00

Here is my collection of hat tricks uploaded onto youtube.com. I wanted to try out both my new camera and the youtube.com service, so I whipped this up real quick...probably too quick. It's not very good, 'cause I didn't bother rotating the video and I didn't bother putting it to music or anything. Oh well, enjoy!

wedding

2006-08-20T18:23:00.000-07:00

Reception Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99102889@N00/sets/72157594210305152/

Tofino Wedding Photos:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/99102889@N00/sets/72157594178712827/

Bullshit Things I Learned In Grade School

2006-07-30T19:40:00.000-07:00

No pain no gain. When your running and you get a cramp or you get uncomfortable, just run past it. Consequence: a popped lung because pain isn't a good thing.
Cable TV is required in order to keep up to date with things. Cable TV doesn't provide any extra local news channels above peasant vision.
Save all of your receipts. Honestly who the fuck is going to keep every receipt for every coffee they purchase in the mornings.
There is a proper way to pick up babies, that will insure that you do not break their arms, legs or neck. Babies are capable of handling the abuse from a whole range of bad parents. I doubt very much that people have to take a course on how to pick up a small child. Teaching people this does nothing but add unnecessary fear.
Math isn't required throughout your life. Most all of it will be forgotten, so just put up with it now and get through it. Math is used throughout university and many college courses, which is a big part of your life. Not to mention that it will probably be used in your job if you care enough to get a job that requires education.

Beating The Nighttime Heat

2006-07-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

Lately my wife and I have been having trouble sleeping due to the heat in our new condo. I got the idea that we could use the humidifier to cool off the room. I had an old humidifier sitting around and I recalled some digg or slashdot article on makeshift refrigerators that used evaporating water to keep food cold. After telling a few people about my efforts I've found out that devices called swamp coolers have been around a while and are great at cooling off for dry climates. The humidifier alone was okay, but we turned it up a notch by adding a fan over top of it to circulate the cold air blowing from it a bit more. Tonight I've added a tray of ice cubes to the reservoir, hopefully this will get us down another degree.

How To Clean A Keyboard

2006-07-04T20:19:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine introduced me to a clever way to clean a keyboard. Simply put it in the dishwasher on a regular cycle with the normal amount of soap. Afterwards hang it to dry or better yet, have an fan blow on it for a couple of hours. Once you are convinced that there couldn't be any more water hiding in the cracks plug it back in and your golden.

Top 10 Poorly Understood Americanisms

2006-06-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

10. Why all of their analogies seem to be either about foot ball or war
9. Approval rating of George W Bush never lower than 30%
8. Their hate for hippies
7. Their love of violence
6. Belief that every one has a right to all types of weapons
5. Constantly mixing up socialism, communism and fascism
4. The religious right belief in lack of social programs to help others in need
3. The religious right belief in the death penalty
2. Attitudes towards stem cells
1. Unusually high levels of racism and xenophobia

New Apartment Civilizations

2006-05-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since my last update and a lot has happened. Well I don't have a big list of things, but the move to our new place counts for a lot. It took us a full week and we still aren't completely setup, but the majority of work is finished and we have the Internet and our computers working. It would have been much smoother of a transition if we would have remembered to book an elevator to get into our new place. Instead we showed up and expected to use the elevator, which was a problem since someone else booked it for the day. It turns out that you have to book the elevator a week in advance and get the super to observe the move in for security reasons and to see that we don't cause any damage to the common areas. After pleading with the super he agreed to give us a chance by giving us the key to the elevator after the people moving in were done with it. This only gave us a couple of hours to move all of our stuff in, so we had to come up with a different plan. We ended up moving all of our boxes into our storage room in the basement by backing our moving truck right up to the storage room door. With most of our stuff in storage, it took us a week to move all of those boxes up to our apartment. To celebrate all of our moving sufferings, we are going to hold a house warming party this Friday. For those interested our place is the Axxis building in Downtown West End and we'll be starting shortly after work and go all night!

On an unrelated note, I have decided to stop playing Civilization IV. It has sucked too much of my life away from me that I will never get back. For documentation purposes, here is my short tips & tricks list for playing:

1. The aggressive attribute of a leader isn't worth it. There are far better attributes that will help you along. I always go militaristic, but I have never found it worth it to have this attribute. Barracks are cheap enough as it is and the bonus experience points you get for your units is far too marginal of a gain.

2. Go easy on farms. Previous Civilizations have taught people that there are only three improvements: farms, mines and roads/railroads. Farms used to be a good thing in old civs, but they have much less value in IV. The problem is that they produce a growth rate that is too high for the rate in which you can build buildings to combat the sickness and unhappiness. You'll end up spending all of your time building things to make your people happy and healthy and have no time at all for the other aspects like expansion, military, spreading religion, and the economy. My rule of thumb is to keep the average amount of food produced by a tile down to 2. Cottages/Towns/Villages are the way to go IMO.

3. Culture isn't that big of a deal as you might think. Don't waste your time building temples attempting to take your enemies over with culture. The most you'll accomplish is taking over 2 or 3 cities over the course of a whole game. I have always gone with a creative leader and then ignored culture issues. Producing science buildings has enough of a culture side effect to ward off enemy borders making your life more difficult.

4. Slavery is awesome! It took me a long time to realize that slavery has no upkeep at all, which is better than barbarism. I always wondered why the computer spent the time switching to slavery. Early in the game it is the slight economical boost required to keep your science as close to 100% for as long as possible. The real power though is if you go the militaristic route. You can force a city to become happy as soon as you gain control over it. Simply build a coliseum and use slave labor to finish the production, the population will drop by 3 and you'll gain +2 happiness, which is almost always enough to make the population happy. I use this technique all the way to the modern era to take over large cities that will drop in population anyways due to starvation. Don't worry about the population loss, the city will grow back much quicker than you think.

Weekend Update

2006-04-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Shelley and I rented a car on the weekend and headed up to Lacombe for the easter weekend. We originally had Greyhound tickets, but we couldn't use them on Friday or Sunday on this weekend, which didn't fit with our plans. So we looked elsewhere and found an awesome deal for a car rental of $18 a day. It was nice to have the freedom of a vehicle as we were able to finish off weeks worth of errands Friday morning. With such a cheep rate I was a little miffed at the final bill. It turns out that the cost of gas and insurance put the total cost well over the cost of bus tickets. We did enjoy our short time of freedom, so it still was money well spend, it's just that we won't be renting a car every weekend.

A couple of days ago we received a gift from the health and wellness group in our company. Each person received a plastic toy to help stimulate the mind and relieve stress. I however, received a stinky, sticky plastic ball that will stain everything but glass (the warning label tolled me about the staining). You have to wonder how someone would go about marketing such a toy as the similarity between it and feces is just a little too close. Perhaps children like playing with leaky bags of crap? Fortunately I was able to exchange mine with Mark's since he was away on holidays. I'll tell him of my treachery when he returns... if I remember.

We'll Miss You

2006-04-10T17:11:00.000-07:00

I found out today that I am being transferred to another team. It is the end of an era and I should be happy about this. For the most part I am happy, I can finally stop whining and complaining about having to work in C and having to answer questions from our support team. I love the fact that I am going to be apart of a extremely talented team, which will allow me to grow my skill sets immensely. I do think that things will be difficult as the new team is under a lot of pressure to deliver on a major milestone that will determine the future of the product. The managers on this new product have said that they expect me to make a significant addition to the team and to help them meet a deadline that is just barely a month away. This obviously doesn't sit well with me since I have no idea if I will be able to meet their expectations, which probably are a little too wishful. The new team feels like they are in a do or die situation: If they do not meet their financial targets, then the company may decide to go in another direction and disband the team. Our company has already expressed a desire to incorporate offshore outsourcing into the fold, so it is critical that our current software developers continue to demonstrate their worth by meeting its targets. And so I've made the entire fate of all of the developers in the company lie on my shoulders because I am an egotistical and self centered. Yup, I have figured it all out, so it is time I forget all of this and erase all doubt and self loathing from my mind.

Along with the move to a new team, I am celebrating the end of a project that was mothballed. I have been working for the last 2 months on a data card project. This would have presented summarized information to the user in a series of grids and panels. I coded up a very interested data access layer that retrieves data through an existing large and complicated dll. It dynamically created the code to access the dll and return the data, which is all driven off of configurable xml files. I used reflection and code emitting from the .NET framework to accomplish this. I'm quite satisfied with myself with this clever way of adapting our data access model to match that of another teams so that we can share code. It is because of the pride and satisfaction in this task that I now have to morn its death. Time of death was some time in the afternoon of April 7^th 2006. The coroner did not give me specific details, but told me that it died kicking and screaming at the hands of a blood thirsty product manager.

In loving memory of the data card project,

Corey Stewart

Just a bunch of negativity

2006-04-04T18:30:00.000-07:00

Oh yes, I really have grown to hate C programming. I've been away from it so long now that I've grown lazy and unappreciative of how good I have it coding in the managed world. Recently, I've been trying to solve a performance issue in some contouring code for our GIS app. The problem has been traced to a thousand line function with a while loop encompassing the whole thing. Somewhere in this mess is an overly expensive operation and it took me a half a day to find it. You'd think that I could just use a perf tool to tell me where the issue it, but sadly the tools out there don't work with our extremely large mixed managed app. I find it hard to believe that I am working with a product that is so different than everything out there.

Yes, the users of the application I work with hate me. At first it was just a suspicion brought on by their hatred for all things new and different. Now I see they are deliberately screwing themselves over to make my life more difficult. A few users have been calling in claiming that their files just magically altered themselves into an unusable state. I know our app didn't do it, so I can only assume that they did it themselves.

Web Comics

2006-04-01T08:22:00.000-08:00

Shelley and I are in dire need of new comics to read in the morning. I need something to read as I eat my morning cereal, and the back of the box just isn't stimulating enough for that time of day. It seems like all of our favorites are disappearing. I know that there is a huge variety of comics out there, but it's hard to judge a strip from looking at just a few comics. Even the great ones like pvponline and penny-arcade have their low periods. I need to solicit people for their top ranked comics so I can eliminate time spent reading the crap that's out there. To get an idea of where my interests lie, here's my thoughts on the comics that have occupied my bookmarks in the past.

Sinfest has to be the most under appreciated comic out there on the net. The jokes focus on gender roles, religion, philosophy and rantings about the establishment. God making fun of the devil with a silly sock puppet would have to be the epitome of Tatsuya's work. Unfortunately, Sinfest now seems to be only updated roughly once every two weeks, which is sad because that would have to be the top ranked in our list. It's not the traditional comic which duals as a personal blog for the author, so we don't have any idea why Tatsuya has abandoned us. Maybe I'll buy one of his books on amazon and give it away for a birthday present, I'm sure that will make all the difference and we'll be back to the daily comic submissions.

Angst Technology had to be one of the better comics out on the net. It was composed largely of gaming, and IT related jokes but it also mixed in a healthy dose of substance abuse (caffeine), office politics and slapstick. I thought that it disappeared two years back so I axed it from my bookmarks. Now I find that in 2005 a whole schwack of new strips had been created. Even though the strip hasn't been updated in 9 months, I think I'll continue to check back on it. It amazes me how often I see those strips taped up to cubical walls around Calgary offices.

Foxtrot finally got the axe today. I really don't know why I ever bothered to bookmark it in the first place. I really don't think that I have ever laughed at one of the strips. Perhaps a half chuckle once in a fortnight, but nothing to ever warrant bookmarking it. The sight hosting the comic strip is quite interesting, you have to wonder what is going through the heads of the advertisers when they riddle the site with pop up and under, and annoying flash adds that blare sound and flashy images. Oh well, I'm going to suppress all of my memories of Foxtrot. Hopefully with time the memories will disappear to free up space for other bits of information that have slightly more value than a family circus comic.

You'd think that if the ucomics site bothered me so much that I'd steer clear of it, but sadly Calvin & Hobbes keeps me coming back. I'm really surprised that that type of comic could be so popular as the jokes tend to be a little too high brow for the Sunday morning comics. Great way to learn new words though, how does that 6 year old know so much? Too bad the authors been in retirement for almost a decade now.

Sluggy Freelance has kept my attention right from the start. This comic has been around since '97 producing a descent comic 6 days of the week. This one definitely takes the award for most consistent. Oddly, I don't remember ever laughing at any of the comics, but somehow it keeps my interest. The value of the comic is more in the character development and story telling that is perfect in the mornings like Saturday morning cartoons used to be. I don't recommend this one to anyone unless they are willing to read through nearly a decade of comics.

Moving

2006-03-30T18:24:00.000-08:00

15 more days! Well, maybe 15 more days. We heard through our relater that the guy who's selling us our new place is moving out mid month and leaving the place vacant until our possession date. Maybe we can convince him to give us the keys much earlier. I really hope so, as it would be awsome if we had a couple of weeks to slowly move our stuff over to the new place.

We have so much crap in our apartment that we are able to get rid of thanks to freecycle.ca
Moving should be a breeze once we get rid of our hideous furniture. Although, hideous is nothing compared to the first set of furniture that I picked up for my first place in Calgary on my own. Absolutely nothing can top a couch with missing legs, a floral pattern and few stains here and there. But hey, it was free. Things seem to have changed since I was desperate searching for free items to furnish my apartment. We had a lady come and look at our current couch to see if she wanted it for free. She took one look at it and said yeah... no. How picky can you be? It is a free couch! And its really not that bad aside from the cushions that don't want to stay put.

I've recently converted over from slashdot to digg for my daily dose of geek news. I'm really quite enjoying the new system. The comments on the stories seem to be lacking in comparison though. Not that I really cared for the slashdot libertarian view of the world. Any given article on digg seems to have only a comment or too worth reading. I really haven't quite understood why someone would bother to post a comment like "that's cool". Oh well there not harming anyone I guess. I think with time digg will convert over the slashdot masses, and then I'll be ranting once more at the supposedly insightful/40+diggs comment on how one group of people should be to blame for the results of our society. Oh how it irritates me when people toss blame around with no useful suggestions on how to address the problem.

First Post!

2006-03-29T19:55:00.000-08:00

Ah yes, so it is about time that I started wasting my time with something other than video games and booze...well I am drinking as I write this, so maybe I'll take one thing at a time.

So why start a blog? Well, I thought I'd start becoming a member of this infamous internet user community. The media has informed me that one direction I can take to enter the fold is to start my own blog. So here I am bad engrish, grammer and etcetera. I think I'll share this site with friends, family and any passer-byers.

Since my interests lie in the area of technology, I'll probably fill this blog with rants about working in the software development industry. At the moment work has completely left my mind and I am trying to find a number of reasons why this blog will be worth while. Since I have at least one rant a day, I bet it will be interesting to keep track of them to see the progress I am making towards becoming a cynical old tyrant. I wonder if blogger will keep my interest for that long.