it's hard to come up with titles for these things

Some interesting things have happened this week, but I haven't really had much motivation to write about them. I'm beginning to become very busy at work due to our implementation of HIPAA security policies. There's a phrase on the whiteboard by my desk that says "HIPAA will kill us all', and I believe it. There's an amazing amount of crap that has to be completed by the IT department, and the funny thing is we should have been doing most of it already. The good thing is that it's one of those job security things.

So I guess i'm going to have to adjust the tagline on my blog. I bought a Dell XPS Gen 4 (with a 19" LCD) and an Inspiron 8600. So I guess I finally was able to afford an LCD monitor. Although I will still be spending the vast majority of my time in front of a CRT here at work. I was offered a 15" LCD for my desk, but it doesn't get anywhere near the resolution that I typically need. Needless to say, I am VERY excited about playing WoW, Half-life 2 and Doom 3 on my new computers.

There is a fairly interesting thing that happened at The Church of the Aposltes here in Lexington. The whole church, priest and all, picked up and left to start their own "Anglican" church. In America, the difference between an Episcopal Church and an Anglican one is that the Anglicans don't like the fact that we have a gay bishop. Very Christian if you ask me. Way to be inclusive and love everyone! Such a great example! Assholes...
Anyways, the priest that was in charge of the church, Martin Gornik, has been acting like a real ass for the last year or so. I knew him since he was a priest at Christ Church, and I always thought he seemed like a nice, charismatic guy. Little did I know that he was extremely conservative, and obviously homophobic. Really, a shining example of a person that shouldn't be a priest. There is a silver lining, though. The Bishop has decided that he wants to take the church and make it young adult oriented. We don't really have anything like that in Lexington, so I think it's a great idea. We're having an organizational meeting tonight at 6:00 in case you hordes of readers out there want to come. It's located at 1321 Trent Blvd., off of Man O' War. Here the article from the Herald-Leader, Parish splits from Episcopal Church

Slow week in geek news. Most interesting is that Microsoft is going to turn off Windows Update for pirated versions of XP. The caveat is that updates will still install if you leave on automatic updates. Seems kind of pointless to me. Someone will just find a way to repackage them...

I'll try to be more interesting next week...

Goodbye Howard

Fudge. I am really pissed about this recent turn of events. In a complete retarded move, LM Communications has decided to drop Howard Stern from RepubliTalk 96.1. I really enjoyed listening to Howard in the morning, probably more than I can explain. I'm so mad that I'm completely boycotting all their stations, one of which happens to be my favorite music station B92. I never listened to anything besides 96.1 and 92.1, but now I'm SOL. I'm asking all of my friends to stop listening to their stations as well, and if possible to call and complain. Tell them you're boycotting their stations. The contact information for LM Communications is:

LM Communications
1300 Greendale Rd
Lexington, KY 40511-8710
(859) 233-1515

Please call them and tell them how upset you are about dropping Stern in the morning. And they replaced him with Imus! Fucking Imus! Jeebus! This whole thing makes me sick to my stomache. Here's the blurb from Howard's site:

GOODBYE KY

A fan from Lexington, Kentucky called in early in the morning all upset because the show was not on. He said they were running Imus' show in Howard's place. Howard said he hadn't heard anything about being dropped from the Lexington station but he wouldn't be surprised. He knew that once he signed his deal for SIRIUS this sort of thing would happen and so far, he's been right. First it happened with Citadel, then in Miami and now apparently Lexington. Howard said he felt really bad for his fans who go to tune him in like they do each morning only to find Imus instead. Howard said he was amazed that they'd replace him with Imus because Imus also works for Infinity. No one really believed him when he said this kind of thing would happen, but he knew. He said that the industry is freaking out and feeling threatened by his departure. Howard said he really believes that SIRIUS is the future of radio and it will eventually become the dominate force in the market. But that will take years and, in the mean time, it makes no sense to Howard why any station would alienate their audience these have. Howard said that when stations take him off with no warning the only people they are hurting are the listeners, not him. Howard said he is only leaving radio because the government has become too oppressive and the broadcasters are the ones letting it happen. So Howard going to satellite is a big F You to the government. Howard promised he'll get to the bottom of the Lexington situation.

[Lexington Update: Gary finally got in touch with someone at the Lexington affiliate by the end of the show. He was informed that the station was in the middle of changing formats and even though Howard's contract with them isn't up until February 1st, they decide to go ahead and remove him earlier. When Gary asked why no one here was informed of the move, the guy he talked to said that the decision was made last night and then quickly got off the phone, claiming there was a problem in the engineering studio. So it looks like the fans in Lexington are joining the growing list of markets who can't listen to the Howard Stern Show….for now anyway. Of course, the entire country will be able to listen to the Howard Stern Show on SIRIUS satellite radio starting in January 2006 at the latest!]

At least we can still get shows via bittorrent. Better late than never. If anyone else wants to get shows, the tracker is up here. This is a really good site run on a shoestring budget, so please leave your downloads open and donate if possible. If this site goes, we're really out of luck (until satellite anyways).

I got two awesome programs lately, Skype and Picasa from Google. Skype is an online voice chat program that works really well. The client is similar to popular IM clients and very easy to use. If everyone with broadband would get these headsets, we could all talk for free. I supports conferencing with up to 5 people, and will allow calls to regular phones for a small fee. Picasa is a free image organizer/photo album similar to Adobe Photoshop Album. It's really slick and I highly recommend it if you've got a digital camera. It's got a Macintosh feel to it as far as UI, and a lot of handy manipulation tools (resize, rotate, redeye reduction, etc.) The only thing it doesn't do automatically is upload to Flickr, but I imagine that Google and Flickr consider themselves competitors. Oh well, it'll automatically post to your blog. Check it out...

So I went through a giant riggamaroll over the last three weeks trying to replace the remote that originally came with my receiver. It was multifunction and controlled everything flawlessly until it busted. I had already lost it and had to replace it once (for fourty damn dollars), so I wasn't about to do that again. Actually the orignal stopped working with the receiver, but worked for everything else. Naturally I figured that the IR receiver in the amp had broken, so I had it fixed under warranty. In the process of fixing it, the remote disappeared. So the amp came back and I ordered another remote, and everything was basically fine. I say basically because something inside the receiver wasn't working correctly - anything hooked up via digital sound wouldn't work normally. I had to turn on ProLogic II to get sound. This wasn't a problem before - it would just downmix to audio or use dolby if it could. Anyways, it was basically working, and the same thing happened - the remote stopped controlling the receiver. By some odd twist of fate, we dropped the remote and it physically broke, so we bought another multifunction. Much to our surprise, it worked on the receiver. So I imagine that at the very beginning, the remote was what was bad, not the receiver. Had I just tried another remote, I probably could have saved a lot of trouble. Anyways, after getting this new multifunction, we realized it wouldn't control the cable box. I exchanged it for another, which wouldn't control the receiver. I exchanged that for another, which wouldn't control anything. Finally, I purchased an "All For One" brand remote which seemed to do the trick. The reason I purchased this one last is because it's damn ugly. So if you ever need a multifunction remote, save some time and get an All For One. I think they put out the first multifunctions, and they appear to have won the Pepsi Challenge.

my server is old and decrepit

this site is hosted for free. that's probably apparent from the constant, unexpected periods of downtime. i was able to actually sit down infront of it and do a little work, so i installed a new kernel to try to address occasional lockups. the situation should be a little more stable, so hopefully there will be some improvement. at one point after reboots a VERY strange login prompt came up that looked suspicously like a keystroke logger. so the server may be hacked, but there's not very much valuable info to steal. i couldn't find any immediate evidence of new accounts, but i haven't looked too hard. i will investigate further when i have the time. hopefully i'm not serving out the newest warez, although there's only 14 gigs of HD space total. hey, SCSI drives were expensive when i built the damn thing. last i checked, they still are.

*drumroll*

here are the much anticipated screenshots from world of warcraft...

hell yeah. big pimpin. lots of people are getting very pissed about some of the "situations" happening in the game. some of the fuller servers are going down a little too much, and retail copies are nowhere to be found. i have four friends that want to start playing, and they can't because blizzard won't release more copies until the servers are fixed. i guess that's a good thing. in the mean time, i'll just keep leveling up my elf.

well, this weekend was about as uneventful as it could be. chilled on saturday with some folks from vocare and watched garden state. i really liked it. i'll probably buy it. just a good movie. really up my alley.

anywho, don't feel like writing any more.

oye como va.

it's official: i'm psychic

Damn i'm smart. Joe Crawford is coming back. Mr. Gregg Doyel of CBS SportsLine had some very interesting comments yesterday. Worth the read definitely.

Oh well, I just wanted to point out that I was a genius. I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend o' fun as it's the first time in two weeks I haven't had to go out of town. It's been a slow news day, and nothing really interesting on the geek news front.

Apparently World of Warcraft is sold out everywhere so I'm just treading water until my friends can get the game. I'm glad I had the forsight to buy the game when I could. Never doubt Bilzzard - they always come with the hot shit. They've got a pretty attractive Job Opening right now. I'd like to apply just for fun. I'm missing the 3 years personnel management experience, but I've got just about everything else. Maybe not quite 7 years of IT experience, but what the hey. I'm good at what I do :). April is not too hot on the idea, even though there's no way I could ever get it. God that would rule, though. Being a game master would be awesome if I lived in Irvine, CA...

I can dream, can't I?

the price is right

  

Rajon Rondo is the MAN! Holy craptacular crapbags, Batman! Woo! That was fun to watch. Well, the parts I got to watch anyways. For some reason I told some friends I would come look at their wireless router setup at 6:30 on wednesday, the game being at 7:00. D'oh! Anyways, listened to the game on the way over, watched it while I was there.
I had originally set up this access point, so I felt obliged to fix it (getting paid helps too). Doing trouble shooting over the phone the week before, the wireless signal strength had steadily decreased over time, probably due to neighbors getting WAPs for christmas. I was able to get it fixed over the phone, but it eventually stopped working again. After coming over to look at it, I found the wireless link was fine, but they were getting a private IP from their ISP. So I sit on hold for about 20 min waiting to get through to tech support, and it turns out they didn't pay their bill. So no big deal, I get paid for my time, and leave. I was watching the game most of the time anywho. So on my way home, April calls me and tells me that the neighbor of the people I was working for called because he had hit my car. I didn't even notice. So I ended up getting paid about $20 to get a large dent in my drivers side rear door. Good thing my car is a complete POS or i'd be pissed. At least the guy was nice enough to call me. I'm sure it must have been embarassing going over to his neighbor to get my number...
In other sports news, Joe Crawford is still dumb. He admitted to leaving because of lack of playing time, and now is bitching because UK won't let him out of his letter of intent deal. Don't see how that's UK's problem. It was his premature, selfish decision to leave. He wants to go to Michigan State, but I doubt Tom Izzo would have his team ditching ass. He'd be smart to come back here and see if he can just finish out the semester. I hope it happens, Tubby lets him back, and makes him sit the bench for the rest of the year.

So in the IT dept., we just all happen to eat lunch the same time 'The Price is Right' comes on. It's become a bit of a running joke since one of our co-workers, Tony, hates the show (although I'm starting to think it's just an act). I dunno why he did this, but he found a site that has links to tons of TV Show theme songs. So now every day, at 11:00, 'The Price is Right' theme blares out across the NST area, serving as a makeshift lunch bell. Hilarious.

I haven't really talked about Vocare at all, so I suppose I should. I had a great time. It was a chill weekend and a lot of fun (plus awesome domain food). I almost always have fun at the domain, although more and more people have started to disagree about the direction some things are taking. We had some lame weather at times, but sunday was beautiful. All the candidates (read: non-staffers) had a good time, which is what's important. Staff (especially Amanda) did and awesome job, my small group was awesome, and I got some hilarious video on my camera phone. I will post it as soon as I get some bluetooth action with which to transfer stuff off. The most important/promising thing that I saw was a lot of people in my age group that were ready to take some action and get something done. The church doesn't really offer shit for people our age, and the only way to get them to is to make them. Certain people think this is an impossibility. The old "sure it sounds good but it will never happen in real life". But we have an awesome Bishop, and a lot of very cool people, so I don't see any reason that we couldn't do something. Even if we all just get together for beers occasionally, that's a step. Oh well, I've got lots of things that I think the church should do. Some day I will be King of the Church. And my proclaimations will come down from on high. All will be right. Yessssssss....

Somewhat related to that, Justin Gabbard gave an awesome talk at Vocare. Unfortuantely it wasn't written down so I can't post it. Maybe I can convince him to put it in written format, although some of it will be lost. The content was awesome, but another part of it was really good delivery. I just wish many of my friends could have heard it because I think they would have gotten a lot out of it. I guess I will have to start tape recording my life so I don't miss things like this in the future.

I know everyone is sad to hear that my screenshots from World of Warcraft didn't turn out so well. They were all too dark for some reason. I will try to get some better ones soon. I know everyone is itching to see pics of my badass Night Elf Hunter.

I'd like to write more about work, but I keep reading stories about people getting fired for blogging disparraging comments about their workplace. I don't have anything negative to say at all, but now I'm paranoid. Oh well.

TTFN!

Oh sweet irony

really. this isn't funny. really.

Amish teen electrocuted by power line in buggy wheel

i love headlines

holy crap

this is damn scary. you'll just have to read it. i don't even know what to say.

mish mash

I have a backlog of crap to post.

There are some cool game previews for 2005. PC games only, but they look really cool. I'm a bit behind on my gaming. Honestly, the computer I have won't play the majority of cool games. I will have to live vicariously through Charles, as he is getting a new fattie graphics card. Said card just happens to be hooked up to a 62 in. DLP HDTV via component cables. Looks pretty nice.

Please take note of the ads on the left side of this page. Clicking on them gives me money. Yessssss...

Jacob ate some curry for lunch today. Apparently he is on the forefront of Alzheimer's research. It's interesting all of the ailments that Americans get that aren't a problem ANYWHERE else in the world. Alergies, Osteoperosis, Alzheimer's. I guess it's all that BHG in our food. My little brother would argue that it's all the genetically modified fruits and vegetables as well, but he works at a health food co-op so his opinion is biased.

April is getting ticked that i've been playing quite a bit ot WoW recently. While not completely untrue, I feel that I need to point out that i'm completely addicted to the game. Plus it's winter, about the only good time to really vedge out. I like to spend summertime out doors, and probably won't play much then. Just gotta get some quality time in Azeroth. It'll probably slow down a bit as well since I have a few friends getting the game. We'll being playing as a party, which means we'll have to coordinate our adventures. Obviously there will be less common time that we can all play. I took some in game screen shots last night that were pretty neat. I'll post them when I get home.

Stupid ass Joe Crawford is leaving UK because he's not happy with a playing time. What a retard. He's the first person to lose an extra year of eligibility because he signed a letter of intent. He will effectively have 1.5 years to prove himself as a viable NBA aspect. Just seems so impatient and selfish. And DUMB. Oh well, just another player to transfer and disappear into oblivion. Sucks because he really looked like he had some talent.
Oh well, Go Cats! Hope they cream Vandy tonight.

In technology news, the cybersecurity guy at DHS is gone. I mentioned this in one of my first posts. Not a surprise. Both IE and Firefox have new bugs, IE predictably being much worse. We'll see how long it takes for the Firefox fix. Obviously, I wish I was at CES. LOTS of cool shit there this year.

Random links (mostly from boingBoing)
Turtle adopts Baby Hippo - way too cute
Info on the new Rick Linklater movie, A Scanner Darkly. - Based on a Phillip K. Dick (Blade Runner) book. Looks killer.
A little conspiracy theory never hurts
Cool Art
Cool pictures - From the USGS, now in the public domain. Click on one of the links

I'm going to try to get April to create a WoW character tonight. She loved The Sims, so there is a vague similarity there. Wish me luck.

Sweet

Weekend fun

It's official. We are going to Lake Butthead. I love it when people do stuff like this. I guess if you work in the census bureau, you've got to have a sense of humor.

Well, I'm going to Vocare this weekend at The Cathedral Domain. Unlike most of my friends, I'm a religious and spritual person. I happened to be raised by Christain parents, so that's the particular brand of religion I subscribe to. I like to think I would have discovered spirituality in some form no matter where I happened to be placed on this earth. I think it's important to have some type of faith, no matter what kind. All the different creeds come down to the same basic ideas, right? Love one another, be accepting, don't steal, don't kill, etc.
I can go on and on about this stuff, and probably will in future posts (April is nagging me for more content and less links). At the very least, I'll let you all know how the weekend goes, and post some pics.

In the meantime, SecurityFocus says WEP is dead. Hope you've got an access point that supports WPA.

link roundup

The Holy Grail is in England

interesting stuff on slashdot today:
Y2K: Hoax, Or Averted Disaster?
Interesting stuff about UI design - one of my geeky interests.
What Do You Believe Even If You Can't Prove It? Incredibly interesting ideas from people smarter than me.
It always makes me laugh when this happens. Why can't Bill Gates demo a product without a BSOD? Karma, I suppose. Here's a link to the presentation, although i'm not sure if it works.

Boingboing roundup:
These are awesome. Unsecured webcams just sitting out there. Some are controllable via an interface. Nifty...
Also, Wikipedia rules , Jon Stewart won, and tee shirts can be turned into underwear. While you're working on those new underoos, why not make some nip toys for kitty styled after americanized asian cuisine?

Oh yeah, Kentucky won. (Yessssss!)

ha!

Couldn’t pass this up.  Loser of the Year 2005: Ashlee Simpson.  What a turd.

i heart toys

Wow. this looks cool. So do these.

If you own a server facing the internet, please patch it. Sheesh.

The EFF is doing some interesting stuff. Anonymous internet sounds cool. Being married to someone who just found out they were a victim of identity theft, the idea is intriguing.

On a completely different subject, the word 'blog' is everywhere I look. Jeebus. Maybe the constant bombardment is what pushed me over the edge to start writing myself. I guess I should stop now, because this post isn't very interesting.

And maybe I'll just pass out some cheese sandwiches...

Tons of crap

Word of the day: Folksonomy

 

This sounds really interesting, even though I don’t really understand it.  I registered for an account at del.icio.us, so hopefully I can setup a linkblog soon.  Got things rocking at flickr, although pics there will also be posted here.

 

Lets cover some things from the past couple of days.  First of, I found this but Jacob beat me to the punch: Napoleon Dynamite soundboard.  Dang!  Also, Jacquez has copied some good music to our MP3 server at work.  I’ve been listening to this and this and they’re real good.  Yesssssss!

 

Check out my wife’s blog here.  It’s girly.

 

This is pretty fancy, and I’d like to do it soon.  The tool the guy talks about, DVD Shrink, looks rockin’ as well as free.  Woot.

 

Well there were a million other things I wanted to write about yesterday, but I can’t get them all back in my head right now.  I’ll probably post some more later today…

Kitties

Kitties on the porch...

blog-a-rooney!

well i've punked out finally. here it is. i hope you all enjoy my
regurgitation of slashdot/boingboing/endgadget and the various odd emails i get during the day.

dang!