BunkBlog

Money is the root of all marital troubles.

Anyone declared bankruptcy? What did that do to your life?
current_mood: cold

So, Microsoft and the DOJ finally reached a settlement, which does nothing. So far as I can tell, this is no more than the Consent Decree which Microsoft agreed to in 1994 and violated numerous times over the subsequent years.

Now, the new settlement says that MS will stop doing bad things, and the Department of Justice will keep an eye on them for five years. After five years, if the DOJ determines that MS is still a naughty monopolist, they’ll extend the monitoring another two years.

You will play well with others, or we will taunt you a third time!

Your tax dollars at work (well, except you Canucks).

Update: Apparently the state prosecutors are not willing to give Microsoft the leeway that the federal government is. According to this article, the settlement is unpalatable to the states, which are showing a lot more sense than the DoJ, in my opinion. Why trust MS now, when they have broken decrees in the past with such impunity?
current_music: Nickelback – Woke Up This Morning
current_mood: tired

Hello, LJ team? Wakie wakie! The Status page says nobody is awake yet, and is marked as being updated at 1pm EST, which is 10 am in California. Damn, you guys sleep late.
current_music: Linkin Park – Papercut

So, riddle me this: Why do some folks start a second (or more) journal on LJ, and cease using their old one? Would it not be easier to delete old entries or make posts friends-only, depending on what you’re attempting to accomplish?

For that matter, why do so many people monitor their “Friend of” list and get offended when someone they’ve never met has stopped reading their journal for reasons not stated?

Just random rants. Please continue with what you were doing.

A great big hug goes out to , my best friend and least loquacious LJ user. I’d like to reiterate, “We’re not old, dammit!”
current_mood: chipper

OK, all you Wesley Crusher fans, the “Ask Wil Wheaton Anything” answers are up at SlashDot. Go nuts, you silly girls.

Favorite quote:

I think he used the money to buy rugs. Not drugs, rugs. My brother has had a rug habit for years. Persians, throws, areas, even Berber carpets. Sad thing is, he can’t admit he has a problem. He’s probably at Carpeteria right now.

I must evangelize for a band that has not yet attained the level of critical acclaim they deserve: Cracker. That’s not Uncle Kracker, mind you, but a cool bluesy band with a new album, Forever, coming out in January. It is, of course, available on the newsgroups. They are fronted by David Lowery, from Camper Van Beethoven.

Here’s a great lyric:

You are so beautiful, you should be guarded by monkeys.

Now, where else can you get something like that, outside a Barenaked Ladies album perhaps? And, they sell their records at the wonderfully named Pitch a Tent. Gotta love it. Dandy Warhols meet John Lee Hooker…
current_music: Cracker – What You’re Missing
current_mood: giddy

<rant>
As I peruse random LJ users, often linked from another of my “friends”, I notice something. Those who tend to espouse highly extreme viewpoints do so with very poor English skills. I’m willing to give a lot of slack to folks for whom English is not their primary language, of course, but a frightening number of Americans seem incapable of remembering something as simple as, “I before E except after C.”

Honestly, if you’re going to try to convince others (or the world at large) of the correctness of your views, doing so in language that would make a sixth-grade teacher cry is not a good way to do it. I have a very difficult time believing that you are capable of forming an informed opinion on a subject if you can’t spell “which” for example. Since so few of these people will listen to opposing views, no matter how simply and logically explicated, I assume this rant will fall on deaf ears. So be it.
</rant>
current_mood: bored

OK, so here are some of the ways in which San Angelo is better than Sierra Vista. If I’ve missed any, let me know.

There are more restaurants, more and better parks, more people and thus the concomittant increase in other options.
The housing is cheaper, by an astounding amount.
We’ll have a whole mess of babysitting options.

Most importantly, they have two broadband internet options for reasonable prices, while Sierra Vista has none.
Gotta have priorities.

According to my stats page, the 4th most popular place to go is the store. In fact, if you add up the 3 different entries, that area gets bumped up to second place in my list of popular pages. YET, nobody buys anything. Oh, well, nobody has bought any books from Amazon via my Books page in the past couple years, either.

Maybe I should be a camwhore and start auctioning off my underwear or bed or something on eBay. hehe

Oh, very damned funny, T Shirt Countdown weasel! Because of the unprecedented (and therefore highly suspicious) jump to 3rd place, I’ve been unceremoniously dropped to like 1000th place, stripping me of all my legally gained votes and leaving me with a measly 28 votes. I had over 300 legitimate votes, darnit! Grr…

Oh, well, silly things to do. What else shall I do to be completely random?
current_mood: amused

OK, this is totally bizarre.

According to T Shirt Countdown, my store got 589 votes in one day, vaulting it from 12th place to 3rd. I’m sure someone must have run a bot or something to generate those votes, since I know nobody is buying my shirts and mousepads and such. Oh, well, maybe I’ll sell a bunch to the 102nd folks and veteran types. 🙂
current_mood: amused

Darn! I’ve dropped from my high of #11 back to #12 on T Shirt Countdown. I’m never gonna make the top 10. 🙂

No new designs in the store, but I’m thinking of some Christmas designs.
current_mood: thirsty

OK, I’m #11 on the T-shirt Countdown. That’s pretty cool, but the Top 10 are the ones who show up on the front page of the site. Anyone want to help push me over the top? Hit my store to vote me into the top 10. You know you want a new shirt…

OK, so not only is the 19th the boy’s birthday, and my sister’s birthday, it turns out to be ‘s birthday as well!

Just stacking up the birthday wishes, here. Well, Kit, happy birthday, and we’re having a dinner party for the boy, if you’d like to stop by for some lasagne. Might be a bit of a drive, but I offered anyway. 🙂
current_mood: chipper

The award system at work resembles the military way too closely. I realize, with an organization that supports the military and with the vast majority of the employees (and more importantly, the management) being veterans, such things are inevitable. This is absurd.

My Boss (B1) works for B2. B1 recently (under duress) recommended everyone on his team for awards, which have to be sent through B2. B2 now feels that it is imperative that B1 get a comparable award when we peons get ours. So, every award that I get is another award for my boss, as well as each award that he gets personally.

This is like Amway. He gets an award for any work he does, and anyone he can recruit under him as well. I thought Ponzi schemes were illegal.

Perusing my webstats page (Yep I’m bored), I noticed that the most frequent visitor so far in October is from Compaq.com. Following that address are the proxy servers for three large military sites. Glad to know my friends still in uniform have plenty of time on their hands…

Exactly why is NL the most common non-US domain this month, anyway? I got used to AU being up there all the time. Maybe my inlaws are spending lots of time looking at cute pictures of the boy.

I got this in email at work today. Figure and would enjoy it, at the least.

With all of this talk of war, many of us will encounter “Peace Activists” who will try to convince us that we must refrain from retaliating against the ones who terrorized us all on September 11, 2001. These activists may be alone or in a gathering. Most of us do not know how to react to them. When you come upon one of these people, or one of their rallies, here are the proper rules of etiquette:

1. Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to humanitarian.

2. In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in the nose.

3. When the person gets up off the ground, they will be very angry and they may try to hit you so be careful.

4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell them if they are committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are saying.

5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are correct.

6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much harder. Square in the nose.

7. Repeat steps 2 – 5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes how stupid an argument he/she is making. There is no difference in an individual attacking an unsuspecting victim or a group of terrorists attacking a nation of people. It is unacceptable and must be dealt with, perhaps at a high cost. We owe our military a huge debt for what they are doing for our children and us. We must support them and our leaders at times like these. We have no choice. We either strike back, VERY HARD, or we will keep being hit in the nose.

Case closed.
current_mood: amused

So, if you didn’t know already, I’m kind of an Origami freak. I got a book a few months ago that has a bunch of dollar-bill folds. Some are quick and easy, like making a simple US dollar into a 5-pointed star. I’d make that and leave it as a tip in a restaurant.

A coworker has bought a bunch of these off of me now, and I’ve been working through the book. My personal favorite so far: the elephant. Very cool looking. Maybe I’ll make a bunch and take a pic of them to post for everyone’s entertainment.

So, if you were a waiter/waitress, and you got a triceratops as part of your tip, would you unfold it and spend it or keep it as a cool piece of memorabilia?
current_mood: tired

LJ is insanely slow today, giving me much more than the usual number of timeouts and such.

Meanwhile, my shirt designs have jumped up from 16 to 13 tonight, on the T Shirt Countdown site.
current_mood: tired