ring tones

$2 per and a $1 per month to keep them ...
let's see .. 3 tunes (10-20 seconds) at $3 per + $12 annual ... no stinky way!
My father mentioned iTunes. They are $1 each ... so, I could pay $1 for a whole song, or $2 for a clip of a song?

That's just wrong. I haven't and won't buy any. That's like premium gas. Why? What do you get out of it? The manufacturer couldn't put together a high performance, efficient engine that ran on regular? Well, skip 'em!

Drinking too much

Maybe, it's not the beer. Maybe, it's the drinking.

High School Madness (series) ep. 1

"Who is PROG11309 and PROG11286 ?"

The two guilty parties in PASCAL class were given admonishment and a penalty. What was the crime?

Mr. Frey had special guests in the building and the room to look at the VAX 3000, during which time the class was to be seen and not heard. Johnson and someone else decided that the RQ command (request bell to verify that the printer was online and active) would be funny. It would be especially funny if you did it about every 5 seconds, offsetting each other, so that it pinged lightly about every 2.3 seconds. After about 20 minutes of this, students were called aside (see above).

Study hall ... senior year, I had two back to back. You weren't allowed to leave early, and the study hall ... no sleeping, no talking, no rustling of paper, no wriring of non-school work. Thankfully I had to endure that only 3 classes before other opportunities became available.

On ocassion, TS and I were able to slip out and eat lunch at a Mexican restaurant nearby. They had the free chips and salsa, so they didn't ever get much money from us while in high school.

--- back to PASCAL ---
Those unaware of this ancient mini-computer ... meaning the forced network of terminals to a refridgerator-sized computer may not understand the relative boringness of the system. It did, however have a few neat features. Before the globalization and broader use of the internet, people had no purpose in naming their computer. Now XP expects you to name it, as it is networked, either in a building, house, or the net. Naming was a neat feature back then. We would often entertain each other or chat through name changes. It was untrackable unlike phoning or mailing each other.

I was no stranger to adolenscent humor and rudeness of names. It was mostly a little geeky white boy class. I think there were two girls and two black boys in the class. Out of 18-24, that isn't a big ratio. Anyway ... I was out of school on one day, which saved me a little lambasting.

There was a list of users on the system, listed in order of account number, such as PROG (programming class) 1100 (PASCAL) 56 (person 56 out of 2 classes).

ACCOUNT NAME LOCATION
PROG110056 RUTHLESS FWWHSFWCS

now ... when you have a bunch of guys together, you have a list of names that you can read down the center making nearly a sentence, omitting those not participating. There were a couple of students who named their computer the same thing day in and out. On the day I was missing, sniff, sniff, apparently another nosy teacher (later in this message and others) viewed the names.

SANTA
RAPES
BELGARIAN
ELVESAND
REINDEER
WITH
PLEASURE

There were a couple of others that got netted in there too. "Belgarian" was a kid who never changed his name, but was dragged into the mess because it was incorportated into the sentence.

I understand that their accounts went dead at one point, while others worked on. Carey (aformention teacher) came out and read off the account numbers. There was some stupid punishment like essay apology or something.

Carey, who required perfect Enlgish in the comment areas (areas that are for remarks and explanations only that do not affect the functionality of the program whatsoever) and would scrutinize it continually until he was happy. He had a control issue, that showed well here. He had other things to do, yet logged on, read the names and found it appalling that teen boys would act like ... uh, teen boys.

Frankly, I think Frey, our teacher, wouldn't have minded at all or cared, as long as we got our assignments done by the end of the semester.

A few words about Carey: my folks know his family, so I never really had any opinion. I did have one when I saw his ... painfully useless critique of spelling, grammar, and sentence structure when it mattered to no one. Also, more to the point, his unlike-a-teacher comments to MR and Monkeyjack, indicating that they were losers and would grew up to be losers. I'm sure that MR and Monkeyjack can explain this better.

Middle School Madness (series) ep. 2

Swinford, our P.E. teacher in middle school was a riot. His guy's only statements and approach was funny, perhaps rude.

"[MR, using his last name here]! You still all worked up about that kid cuttin' a fart?" (stated while MR was nearly rolling on the floor with laughter).

"What happens if you don't follow my directions?"
"Gonna get in trouble" (was the mumbled response from someone)
Swinford, either making fun or clearly not hearing him, "Jump ya? What do you think he is ... a kangaroo?"

"What are you doin' over there?" stated to people not participating) "Go do a couple of laps!"

insult

whoever posted this should die of spam

oh, wait ... that's me

nice Scoobys

Lori was wearing a Scooby Doo shirt, some years back, and the graphics were over her chest area. I saw the shirt, thinking nothing, and said, "nice Scoobys".

"Oh. Is that what they're calling them", was Lori's quick response.

Speaking English

I don't have a problem with "español hablado aquí". I do have a problem with people writing it off as ... well, we need to offer Spanish. Okay, why not Japanese, Madarin, Cantonese, Burmese, Sudanese, Swahili, Farsi? How many Chinese-speaking person are there in urban areas? Where I am, "city of churches", many immigrants are brought over through a church group. They are friendless, helpless, and their English is poor. How do they get help ... um ... they learn English through low-cost and no-cost ESL and English language services.
I find that many Spanish speakers are, well, dis-interested in learning English because they don't have to learn it. There are Spanish channels, books in Spanish, etc. I realize that America is butted up against Mexico, a Spanish speaking nation and is neaCentralal America, a Spanish speaking region, as well as Spanish-speaking South America and Spanish-speakinCaribbeanan islands. I understand that English isn't spoken as much down there, because it isn't a national language. Like it or not ... English is America's official language. During America's inception, there was a vote. Votes for English and German were close, within one vote, but English won.
Even though there have great demographic shifts throughout the history of the US, English is still the official language. Sadly, urban areas allow non-English by principle. I remarked on an earlier post about Urbanese being a pat substitute for English. Sadly, laziness wins over reason and Urbanese is entered into standard American usage.
Personally, I think I can go throughout my life never using: bling, "g", pimp, tap, dat, thu, thugger, mack

"pimp my ride" -- really? You are going to allow others to drive your car, then charge them when they are done? Oh, you mean make it look like you are a pimp -- one who sells women and collects the money. That would make you a charming person, no doubt.
"g" I don't like the mafia. Why would I favor other gangs who can't spell?
"tap dat azz" -- I'm sure that all women secretly hope to be penetrated this way and being likened to a beer keg
"dat" -- apparently "th" (4-6 year old development) is too difficult
"ho" -- again, I'm sure that all women secretly desire to be referred to as inflatable, mindless sex toys or female beasts in estrus. Wasn't Soddom destroyed because of rape, beastiality and other deviances of nature, sex, and humanity?

I don't use the terms, because to use them, I accept the conditions of their being. I don't call women beasts or garden instruments. I won't pimp anything and prefer to use known languages not neologisms. *

* either real words with bizarre or completely different meanings, or completely self-generated words used by psychotics. That's right. You can start complaining and drawininferenceses here.

Communication turf wars

Locally, Comcast and Verizon are battling for communication to the house each now offering cable, high speed internet, and phone service. I hope that the consumer wins.

Comcast, who once tried to buy Disney, still raises its rates. Let's get that straight. A compnay, that had a ton of money, so much so, that it bid for Disney, doesn't have the money to lower rates? I think that statement doesn't even look good on paper, let alone bear out any reasonable scruntiny.

Even though Verizon is here, offering higher speed at lower costs, I haven't seen Comcast offer any better prices.
Verizon offers fiberoptic. Comcast offers coax.

A bit about Verizon:
The local phone service here is Verizon. Thankfully the wireless industry still has a number of names, though the competition is becoming smaller. If you get Verizon of lan line, like you have much choice, and them for wireless they screw you on one detail. If you call from your Verizon lan line to your Verizon Wireless phone, you get docked minutes. Am I missing something here? Doesn't the company have the same name ... same headquarters, same logo. You already have my money. Shouldn't I be able to call my cell phone without penalty or my home phone from my cell without penalty? How isn't that reasonable?
blankity blank blank money grubbers.

Comcast: from digital cable and high speed internet, monthly its around (meaning $2 less up to $30 more) $100 per month. Lets see ... for $1200 (about) annually, I get channels I'll never watch and ads on the view screen. If I'm paying $1200 annually, the company will allow me to select the channels that I will get, will deduct any and all money due to loss of signal (remember their little "done with the dish" ads). If you want to expand your selection, does a person come out to the house ... no. They change it there at Comcast. If you want to reduce your selection, there is a surcharge, other fees, taxes and a person comes to your house to "change" something.

Any phone company does something the same. If you want to expand the features on your phone, do they come out to your house ... nope. They do it at the center, free of charge. If you want fewer features, they charge you for the change. "Wellllll, (stated in song-like extended voice word that rhymes with duck) you!" *

* opening minutes of Friday, when Jehovah's Witnesses have a door slammed in their faces

Barnes & Noble

They're spammers! I'm again getting 2-3 email ads per week. The web site should be considered:
b-n.com
(ads) bar none

Spend money, spend money, rah rah rah!! We have Starbucks in our shops, but want to buy Starbucks so that we own everything.

You know what makes you a geek?

I noticed in this article, it didn't mention a family being wife, children, pets ... go figure.

Perhaps he has a Janeway (not tarzan, not Dick) complex?
Wacky? Make it so.

I suppose he was always looking for 7 of 9 instead of 6 & 9.

not taken seriously

"Look! I'm not kidding! This is my job!"*

I had three kids try to play hide-and-seek with me today instead of working with me. What is it? Did I put on the wrong hat ... the wrong badge?! You do understand that, although playtime is fun, we are at school and we are doing ... you know ... school work.

Cute kids, but I don't understand. Normally I don't get this reaction. I guess I'm not the sinister meany I think I am. I've got to work on that.


* Animal House

old Trek game

Who's the bigger geek, the geek who seeks or the keeper?
Buy it? Get it on a 5.25 disc? What are they, mad?

That's like the 12's that were as large as LPs (long play 33 rpm records for those unaware). They don't typically install 3.5's now. Who, other than a parts geek would have that? Getting XP to recognize it would, I think, take some tweaking.

Chariot Races -- long, detailed, not fast at all

Kristia brought over a game Circus Maximus. It looked like it should be fun. Unlike the pictures on the link, we used it straight out of the box and spent no extra money or effort on it. The game was interesting, until you found the amount of effort it took to identify where things went, how far, what got damaged, etc. It was a good game, if it were on a compter, with or without special graphics. You raced around the track and could battle each other on the chariots. You could fall off, be dragged off, jump onto another chariot, but time between people's turns was about 12 minutes without thinking.

Another game I remember at this same time was ascii graphics game "begins.exe", which was a Star Trek simulator. You put in the number of and types of ships that you would battle on a two-dimensional plane using phasers and torpedoes. I liked it. It was semi-turned, but the PC would make moves around every 20 so seconds. You could have a flagship and direct all the other ships to either battle independantly or to command them to do other things.

A great little quirk was to transport your entire crew from one ship to another. Scott had this game. I remember we set the self destruct on the flagship, transferred all the crew (actually exchanging crews) to another ship. "Those poor people" * had 10 seconds to live before they were atomized. Very, very funny!

* Galaxy Quest, which was a very funny movie based on a Trek-like show.

Uncle Ducky Show

Monkeyjack, Scott, perhaps even MR was there while I made that fateful call.

It was Halloween 1991 (or 1992) and we had flipped through channels to see a local access channel. Although I had never seen the show, Scott recognized this right away. The Uncle Ducky Show was airing its usual fluff, trying to be funny. They were taking phone calls. I tried to get through for a bit and finally succeeded. The rest of the conversation went something like this.

Hello. You're on the line. Who's this?
Me: Satan, from Hell (said in a deep, dark voice)
Hey, Satan. How the hell you doin'? What the devil do you want?
Me: I just want to say one thing ...
Okay, you devil!
The Uncle Ducky Show (build up) shucks! (notice I didn't quite say sucks)

Did he say shucks?!
What is he, a farmer?
He's a Hoosier!

They got to use the heckler as a joke. Wonderful! I quickly turned the channel, not to speak of it agian that night.

What not to do

Don't talk politics. This is especially true when around family and friends. Sadly, this well known tabboo was broken today. I found other things to do to not say anything about these hot topics.

Lost turn for the worse

Sheeba brought you here.
No. You see, we fell from the sky.
It was Sheeba who made you fall from the sky.
You will bring back to us Sibalinga.

later

They took their children. They stole them in the night while they were
putting out a fire.

Sound familiar? It's Lost and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Mind you, "doom" was perfect due to the relative shoddiness of the movie.

I'm waiting for Lost to talk about lost stones with diamonds in them.

observations and incantations on "Lost"

Writers and producers are:
J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof, Jeffrey Lieber

J.J. Abrams .... executive producer
Jack Bender .... co-executive producer
Jack Bender .... executive producer (2005-)
Bryan Burk .... executive producer
Sarah Caplan .... producer
Carlton Cuse .... executive producer
Leonard Dick .... supervising producer
David Fury .... co-executive producer (2004-2005)
Ra'uf Glasgow .... co-producer
Javier Grillo-Marxuach .... supervising producer
Jean Higgins .... producer
Adam Horowitz .... producer (partial season)
Adam Horowitz .... supervising producer (2005-)
Jennifer Johnson .... co-producer (2004-2005)
Edward Kitsis .... producer (partial season)
Edward Kitsis .... supervising producer (2005-)
Damon Lindelof .... executive producer
Lynne E. Litt .... consulting producer
Steven Maeda .... supervising producer (2005-)
Craig Wright .... supervising producer (2005-)

...
I had mis-stated myself about the show having a mess-load of writers. It instead has a messload of producers.

Darren Aronofsky as the director

It seems that 44 or 48 was chosen due to the production staff. Perhaps each one having a characature character on the show.

Still, with so many directions ... I think the show is either going in many directions or no where.

bringing the dead back to life

The boys and I played Jedis last night. When a Jedi had fallen during battle, he had to be brought back. How, one might ask:

0 - raspberry (blowing fart noise) onto a soft part -- belly usually.
0 - tickling

What a great world it would be if battles were of tickles, raspberries and hugs.

Later, they were tossing rubber animals into the air ... frog and lizard. When one would land belly up, it would be dead. Jared would revive it with kisses on its belly.

Charlie, patterning after me, would have the critters be sneaky and go into my shirt. Often, I would tell him a toy was sneaky and push it into his pants pocket, shrit pocket, shirt or pant leg or even a jacket pocket if he had a jacket.

His cackling really got me. It was very funny indeed!

elements of a good pizza

Sadly, many companies and establishments forget this.

Dough: does it rise, does it taste good alone? If it doesn't taste good alone -- it shouldn't be used.
Sauce: the right amount is tough, but taste is critical. If it's tomato sauce and no spice or flair ... don't use it. Sauce is very critical because you primarily taste it and the cheese.
Toppings: fresh, realistically cut pieces. I'm not going to be too harsh on Pizza Hut, but the salad and toppings prep worker may not eat these toppings, therefore have an understanding that a fist-sized tomato should really be sliced or diced, not quartered.
Cheese: mix cheese together to make a nice, tasty mix -- mozzerella, romano, parmesean.

Together, these elements make a great pizza that you'll order again.

Last night, a non-franchise pizza: great dough, nice sauce (limited, as it was a little lightly spread), good toppings and layered cheese. It was a good pizza.

East of Chicago: while okay, their veggie (a type that we limited/non-meat eating tend to order) has far too many olives ... many, many, many olives.

Pray for Sid

I love this little girl. I hope that things change and that she gets better -- now!
She has an intestinal mass and likely liver cancer. Pray that these are diagnostic errors.

She's also known as: "Siddy Soo Su"