Pretty Fly White Guys

10.23.2002

Yesterday I was on my way home when in front of me at a red light was an old Honda with 3 guys in it. Odds are they were somewhere in the 16-19 range, and they made me laugh.

The driver had on a football jersey featuring the number of his favorite Tennessee Titans player. In the back was the nerdy guy, complete with button down shirt. The guy in the passenger seat I could only see the outline of.

But they were all bobbing their heads to the bass coming from the stereo.

Except none of them were bobbing to the same rhythm.

It was like every black comedians favorite joke come to life. The kids had rhythm, they just weren't sharing it with one another.

I beleive it was Gloria Estafan who once said "The rhythm is gonna get you". I guess they weren't listening to Gloria.

Plane Update: After retreiving the plane, I thought I would try flying it again yesterday. After about 20 minutes, I flew it into a tree again. The good part (ok, I'm stretching here) is that I at least flew into a completely different tree. I know better than to fly into the same tree! Bob managed to fly into the tree I flew into the last time.

Plane Update II: 9:30AM. Thanks to 2 guys in a bucket truck from SAIC, the plane is once again free and ready to be flown into another tree.

Permalink

Kazaa Guru

10.22.2002

About a month ago I finally bit the bullet and downloaded Kazaa, A file sharing utility that may or may not be ripe with spyware. Since the demise of Napster, I just haven't gotten any good music, so I thought I would see how good it was.

Basically, you can find almost anything you want.

Jer soon downloaded the lite version, and we both noticed that there is a "user rating" which neither of us really knew what it alluded to. It seemed to be "Low" with a random number in parenthesis. This is probably documented somewhere, but who cares enough to look?

After a weekend of downloading files, I noticed my rating had gone from Low(18) to Guru(212). It also seemed that a lot of people were downloading the files from me that I had downloaded - sounds like an old shampoo commercial. I did a couple more searches, downloaded some more files, and before long noticed that I was no longer a Guru(212), but not a High(199). So it seems the ranking is the number of files uploaded minus the number of files downloaded? It kind of makes sense. I remember a couple of file sharing websites where you had to upload X number of files before you could download 1.

But the thing I still wonder about is whether or not anyone cares what their Kazaa rating is?

Permalink

Bird Crap!

10.21.2002

Whenever I get home, I always roll down the driver's side window while pulling into and parking in the garage. I've done it ever since I bought the house. It helps to keep the car (or truck) from getting that stuffy, musty smell.

Yesterday, Gina was going over for our weekly lunch excursion, so I went ahead and opened the garage door tomake it easier for her to get in. When she got there, she asked "Did you see your little birdie?" Evidently, a bird was seeking the solace of my garage. Oh well, I can be a bird sanctuary.

We got in the truck to go to lunch, and what did I see on the steering wheel? A bird turd. Follwing by another on the steering column. No big deal, easy enough to clean off. Except then Gina looked in the backseat and saw the bird had been there too (Luckily, not for too long, for there was only one little present).

Now I hate birds. Away, damned birds, away!

Plane Update: Sometime over the weekend, the plane made a valiant attempt to free itself from the clutches of the evil tree. It was successful, but not without a price. It now has to undergo a tailfin-ectomy (not bad, since tail fins are only $10).

Permalink

Laying Some Smackdown On Some Lighting

10.18.2002

I found out that this weekend Jason (as featured in the JasonTracker is being presented with an award for Lighting Designer of the Year this weekend in Las Vegas. Woo hoo!

I talk about how he does the lighting and stage design for the WWE, but he really does a lot more than that. I know in the past year he's done a couple of television specials like the Dove Awards, and a stray music concert or two. All of this on his road to eventually doing movies.

Before long, I'll have to talk him into getting me tickets to the Oscars instead of Raw.....

Plane Update: 9:23 AM. Still stuck in the damn tree.

Permalink

Giddy Programming Time

10.17.2002

Since getting back from Da Beach, I've been pretty much brain dead. Not a good thing when you've got 2 websites to be working on. Maybe it's just my little vacation trying to hang on, but yesterday everything I was trying to do was taking two to three times longer than it should have.

This morning I got some good new that I think is going to help motivate me. I got some feedback from someone using the Southerland Station website (the toy store I was working on during the waning days of ResGen). This was the first website I did on my own for a customer, so I was hoping people wouldn't look at it and say "Hey, that sucks!"

Luckily, I got the following:
I love the new website. The layout is appealing and it is informational.

I think that's pretty close to "Hey, that doesn't suck!", don't you?

Mid-Day Tangent
I went today and finally got an R/C Plane today. I flew Steve's a couple of months ago and noticed how easy and fun it was to fly. Today, I went with Jerry and we each bought one. Even though it was a little windy, we got them up in the air. 30 minutes later Jerry was down a wing and a propellor, and mine was stuck 60 feet up in a tree. Maybe the wind will blow it down tonight? Update tomorrow!

Permalink