There was something that I was going to say when I sat down to write this post, but I can't remember what it is. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I don't feel like I got as much work done this weekend as I needed to. Fortunately this week isn't super hard (no content only projects) so all is not lost.

I've noticed that my music selection of the past few months (stretching into last summer) has been much more fast paced/energy driven than it was before. Current theory is that since life isn't providing the excitment that it used to I am listening to more "psych" music in order to get that feeling. Still, I miss the days of listening to jazz for countless hours. Hell, I miss having countless hours. I'll have to fix this problem over the summer.

There is an ever-growing list of things that are going to be rectified in the summer. I hope that I'll be able to get them all accomplished.

I've got dinner with J tonight, which is always a good thing. Jeez, I sat down with shit to write and now I feel that I am rambling. Out.

M

Well, fortunately for me Bruckner came to my rescue last night and we went out for a while. We went to Moondog's in Buckhead, which is fine because they serve strongbow so I was able to drink something aside from hardliquor. We went out with this girl that Bruckner is seeing (and hopefully hooked up with last night, and that is 'hooked up' the way it is meant to be: fucked) and a bunch of her friends. But then there were a bunchof people that I already knew hanging out with us, like Drake and some of the Tech BBoy posse, and a few others (Luke Senscher was there and hing out with us for a while). Dance floor was crowed as hell, and Drake and I spent time talking about there seemed to be no ladies out there, then I came up with my physics dork analogy that the ladies werethese nagative charges and every guy was trying to get in on the action, so each lady had about three or four guys dancing around her. The other thing htat we made fun of was since the dance floor was so crowded all you could do is whiteboy dance (move your upperbody side to side) or grind on someone's leg.

Evening went well, I spent some time talking to this girl named Bonnie, and then I went to get a drink so and got sidetracked on the return, where I ended up talking to this girl named Tammy for a while. She's a student in Fashion at AIU, which is something you don't see everyday. She spent a good bit of the time sitting in the booth with the rest of us pick on people's outfits. Eventually she disappeared talking to some guy, shame. I eventually found her again later and talked to her somemore, but at this point she was trying to finish someone else's pitcher and I was keeping it from her so she tried to get it and bit my nose . . . strange.

Final events of the evening was talking to Bonnie who pulled me out on the dance floor for a bit. Drake made a charged particle joke on the way out, so I flicked him off. At some point he was out there. I got to talk to Bonnie a bit more, which was cool, she wants to be a teacher, so we had something to talk about.

The one overriding concern of mine while out last night was age. I got the feeling I was hanging out with a bunch of kids in college again. Most of the girls were with Bruckner's lady and were from Emory, so their 22 at best. Tammy was 23 I think (4th year, but transferred). Regardless I was the old person of the crew again. The issue isn't that I mind being the old person, but I feel that by only hanging out with people younger than me I have in advertently condemned myself to dating a younger person. No numbers were dispenses last night, however you never know. Out.

M

Man, I fucking hate being bored . . . and not having a girlfriend anymore. I have this habit of hitting this point in my life often when I get really restless, and want to be out doing things. It usually happens when I have work to do, and when all of my friends are busy, but not always. The thing that really sucks is that no matter what I do it doesn't seem to sate my desire for something.

And so I sit here at that point tonight. I should grade my papers (I have a lot of work to do), but my attention isn't there. I could sit and play some video games, but it feels wholly unsatisfying (which is a strange feeling). It's nights like these that I need to go do something that is exciting. Usually, going out on a date would solve this issue. Back in school I would soak this time up by playing pool, at least until I got bored with that and then went home. I would eventually get so bored that I would just ride around the campus on my bike looking for whatever I could to do. Maybe it is a funciton of my definite wanderlust. Regardless, it sucks, and I've been here often and have yet found a way to get out of here. Very frustrating.

There's a slim chance that I will end up going out with bruckner and his new potential girl. Check this out, he met this girl at the sametime I met the Ashley from Valentine's day. When we talked about it later he said he wasn't really interested in this girl, and they're still going out. I was very interested in Ashley, and it didn't work. Life's strange. I'm going to find something to do now before I get so bored that my brain shuts down.

Oh, and I won my first game of Settlers, I hope you are proud Mark.

M

oh. martin. yes. the posts are being catalogued. but that's different functionality from that which removes posts from the front page. i think that's some setting that you can diddle from the administratrix options. and yes. i realize that those options are at my mouse-pointer-tips as i write this post. you wanna make something of it?

the windows ui sucks.

there was a time when i didn't really see much difference between the way that windows did things and the way that macs did them. well, ted. you were right again.

i don't know if this is something that other people in the peanut gallery have expreinced or not. in my estimation, few people even think about this kind of stuff. maybe i just think too much of myself.

putting the title bar at the top of the screen letting all windows for all applications roam free and intermingle with one another is right. associating all windows of an application together and confining them within another (worthless) meta-window is so much less right that is, in fact, wrong.

now, if you run all of your applications in full screen all the time, you're reading the wrong post. now that i'm doing some database programming at work, i see the point of minimal screen real estate usage. say i have a copy of the database open. then an ie, a netscape (for testing), homesite (to write the code) several other browser windows (you know -- for not working), email, terminals, and about 25 file folders (cause i still haven't figured out the nuances of effectively using the new-window-per-folder file browsing mantra). i've long since passed being able to see the desktop. that's not really the important thing, though. i mean, i could just click on the 'show desktop' button, and sweet jesus thank you for that button.

the problem is that i want most of my windows to be small so i can see most of the other windows while they're open. i also want to be able to bring one window from a group to the foreground with out bringing all windows from that app up. sadly, this cannot be done, as each application has an associated gigantic meta-window. say i have two database tables open. even if i make them narrow, i must make the owner window the width of the sum of its component windows in order to be able to see both at once (or not to have to scroll around inside the parent window to see what i'm looking for later). that's a lot of wasted space if i only need one of the windows. it's worse if the window is maximized, but even in this state, all of the gray ground of the window obscures the windows behind it so the menu can be 'easily' found at the top of the active window, as opposed to in the same place, forever and ever, world without end.

unfortunately, this is only one of the aspects of the sucking windows ui. unfortunately, i think that many of the other aspects of brokenness have now snuck over from windows into the new mac os (os x as they call it). for instance, browser windows break file system navigation and the spatial feel of the desktop, but they're there in the new macos. it's a discussion i don't really feel like having, though.

i'd also like to be able to hide applications (a la macos, and whoa, expose or viola, or whatever clever name they have for it), but i only have the option to hide all windows. and there isn't an option to bring them back.

using a computer should not be such a fight.

encounters with bears in the woods. you expect a fight there. but i'm not in the woods. neither are there bears around. get my drift?

ah yes, the snow day. all we really need now is for mark to move up to the frozen north and then we can all talk about how much we love the weather where we live and not have to complain all the time.

i think that it's great that in the south everyone is totally unprepared for the snow and so when we get a fucking quarter of an inch the whole joint shuts down. that's fine. it doesn't bother me even a little bit to not go to class/work/whatever and go and fuck off with my friends.

sure people can't drive in the snow. but for the most part, they know that and are too terrified to go out on the roads, so it's actually not that bad. the roads are pretty barren and people are being less rediculous on the road. i'm all about people not fucking my shit up.

so yesterday -- "SNOW DAY" -- i went to martin's. so we didn't manage any of the revelry that a snow day really deserves, but we had a good time. the suckers at tech were the only public school kids in the whole of north georgia who had to go to class HAR HAR. martin and i busted out his old magic decks and played a while then took warioworld to task. the gameplay is great, and the difficulty is scaling well, something that martin and i both appreciate, i think. it's certainly not as hard as it should be, what with unlimited continues at a paltry fee, but it's aight.

the one annoyance (and i'm gonna rant a little here) is the camera control. 'it sucks' is the phrase that first comes to mind when you play. but that's not really the problem. it's that for the majority of the game, moving the camera is completely unnecessary. and it's in those unnecessary zones that the camera control is worst. it's a pretty straight forward platformer without any deeply hidden items or action so you don't need to move the camera. as as result you can only move it maybe a quarter of a screen in one of three directions. what the fuck is that? i guess that the reason you can move the camera at all is so you know it's possible for the couple of zones where you reall need some more fine control. anyway, it's weird.

anyway, snow day ruled. snow day!

SNOw DAY!!

snow day!

Although the snow ain't nothin for you scruffy Chicago types,
SNOW IN ATL!.
Martin, I am pleased to hear that school is canceled. The feelings that well up when you wake up to snow and learn that school is canceled is near the top of my list. I think it only happened once in Jacksonville, FL when I was 10. I think that was the first time I cried out of happiness.

Of course, here I am now up in Alpharetta at work, but I'm still excited.

SNOW DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup, the cobb county school district isn't as hardcore as Ma Tech, and the snow on my ground means that I don't have to go to work today. Sad, since I worked so hard on that lab, but nice because I got to sleep in to a fucking amazing 8:30 today. Holy shit!!!!

The slightly down side is that unless something happens I'm going to spend much to the day writing my test and grading papers, hardly the exciting life that a snow day warrants. Maybe I"'l play some games before that, but today deserves some sort of trip to the arcade, or slaughter of a bull or something. Maybe I can find J and play some DDR. Out.

M

Let it ne'er be said that life isn't an interesting thing. The past few days I've been reminded of one thing that I really liked about school . . . pressure. Maybe that is why Tech was the right school for me, but I love pressure. I love having the game on the line and having to perform well or lose. Lord knows that I am competitive and that might be why.

So for the past few days I've been on my heels trying to prep for my classes. Being out of town set me back pretty far, so I've been walking up in front of a group of fucking wolves every day trying to teach them about shit that I don't really understand (although I am beginning to get this whole EMag thing). I have a lab that I am orchestrating tomorrow, that I have no equipment set up for, and didn't even have a procedure for until a few minutes ago. I was worried that I would show up tomorrow with out anything for my students to do, and get fucked. It looks like that won't be the case, because even if everything goes horrible wrong (as it has before) I managed to weather the first storm and get my lab written in time. The next step is to write the test that is going to happen friday in the 1.5 hours I have for planning so I can make photocopies for friday. Fuck yeah!! Shit like this is why I like being alive. Few feeling were as great as when I had a huge project due and only a few days to do it and you actually fucking pull it off. Sweet. I haven't felt this good in a while.

In other news, I called the Ashley girl on monday, but not as early as I thought that I would. I avoided being a dick and calling her when I knew she wouldn't be in, and called her at a reasonable hour. Haven't heard back from her yet. Can't say I'm not disappointed, but I'm not. The strange thing about this whole mess, is after my less than good date, I was fine hanging the sleats up and waiting for another time to go date another girl. Then she asked if I was going to call her, so I decided to give it another shot. But then, and this might be jumpingthe gun but I am known for my quick reaction time, if I don't get a call back I feel like I am being screened, which makes me feel like an idiot. I was fine walking away, then was called back only to be told that I wasn't welcome. Sounds like some fucked up high school shit (and I'm getting very familiar with highschool shit).

Jeremy and I played the long on the shef Warioworld. Jeremy said that he liked it and I have to agree. It isn't the best platformer that I have every played, but it is fun so far, and that is what I am looking for in a game. THUG is on the shelf for a bit as a power outtage made me lose some data (apparently a theme in my life), not to mention the goals were gettingreally fucking hard in that game. Definetely something I will pick back up when I have time this summer.

Speaking of the summer. I hate fucking cold weather. I'm suck Ted is living it up in Chi-town right now, but here in the ATiaintgonnaevensaythemotherfuckingL it is colder than I like and I have had enough of it. Well I think that is all that I have to say right now. Out.

M

Isn't this thing designed to archive at certain intervals or something? It seems like there is a lot of shit here, but then again, there are more people than just jeremy and I, so maybe I am imagining things. Out.

M

Well, the tourney went well. There were not many mixed teams (4) and the others sucked. So we won pretty easily. We then bumped up into the open division and did well. There are many stories to tell, however I am at work and don't have the time to go into them right now.

In other news, I told Ashley that I was going to call her tonight, so I think I'm going to do that. The only thing is I kind of want to throw the ball back in her court, so I'm going to call her on my trip to the VW dealer to fix my car. I will be before 5 so she will still be at work. That way, if she doesn't want to go on another date she can conveniently forget to call me. Jason is a smart man when it comes to the ladies. Out.

M

well, hanging around with mn has caused some diffusory learning of things chemical. however, all the information i provided you was gleaned from google. mmmm... google.

the wondewindow stuff was tight as hell. as matt is greg's only employee, he's written all of the wonderwindow code, and this grants him certified badass status. if the list was still up, matt would be on there. matt, you're the so the man.

so what's sally gonna do in guatemala? is she still at the terrible job with the perfect job description (for 6 more weeks)?

No, I haven't asked her dad, but that is definitely my plan. Things are certainly getting to this point though... I'm really excited about it. Roxanne is incredible.

Anyway, Jeremy I'm leaving your party now. Needless to say, I had a fucking blast. I'm packin up the lights and headin on out for some bikin... hopefully with no vomiting action. For those not at the party, I brought 3 Color Kinetics Color Blast 12 LED fixtures, which have an ethernet interface through a PDS-150e control box. It was very cool to control the lights wirelessly on my laptop via our wonderwindow control software, which we just released 1 hour before the party. Please feel free to download this stuff and write Tetris for the Atlantic station building. We're hoping that our open source kit will intrigue developers to write video games for building displays like wonderwindow. woot! i'm out. as i can barely type this...

mmmmm, good old parties

Wow, Matt. I did not know that things between you and Roxanne were getting to the point of others expecting a marrage proposal. By the way, have you asked her dad? It is tradition to do that, not that you need to or anything. Just that... I didn't know I was supposed to when I proposed to a prostitute in Vegas.... wait... wrong story.

Thats cool, though. I think it is increadibly cheesy to propose on V-Day. But, thats just my take on things. I know it has worked for a lot of other people though.

My sister is going to Guatamala sometime this summer. That will be fun for her. She is also quitting her job in about 6 weeks which she is really excited about.

mark, you'd know a shit ton of chemistry too if your girlfriend was a chemistry phD. ;)

valentine's day included joining my mom and pop with roxanne's folks at a vietnamese restaurant with big screen tvs blasting vietnamese sing-a-long shit. roxanne's mom was dead set in her mind that i was going to propose on valentine's day. i did no such thing. so the dinner was a little awkard. i'll write more later.

martin, jeremy, see you on the dance floor with a beer in each hand.

Wow, Jeremy you're so smart. Who knew you knew a shit ton about chemistry. ;-) I did remember the oligopoly as a monopoly composed of only a few key companies (like the auto industry). I did not remember the oligarchy of ancient times.

Changing subjects, Martin, did you check your email? What are your plans for your spring break? I am planning to go to Colorado I think the week of April 12 - 17th. I have not set anything in concrete (ie. no tickets purchased, no plans made).

Lastly, it is good to have a window at work so that every once in a while some really good eye candy passes by in front of it. About twice a week this happens. Ahhh....

oligomer refers to polymers that have low molecular weight owing to the fact that they have few repeat units. it's a way to catagorize polymers by size rather than some structural property. oligomers are composed of between 2 and ten monomers, usually. dimers, trimers (you can guess what these are), for example, are all oligomers.

this nomenclature might seem familiar if you remember that one of the myriad governments that the greeks invented was the oligarchy -- rule by an elite class small in number.

i'm not sure if there's any significance to this catagorization -- if there's any physical luxury that they have owing to their small size...

Well, Martin I am sorry that you had a bad date... or more specifically a not good one. I think that she may not be the girl for you but certainly could be a girl that you could (given the right circumstances) have good conversation with and maybe a little more fun. I wonder if the next time you two spend time together if you should go out with her and some of her friends. That puts you at the awkward hey, I don't know anyone position but you are a cool enough guy to handle it. I wonder if she will open up more being around a comfortable group. I dunno. Just a thought. If you want to get good quality conversation, it should ideally be under non-tipsy events. So, getting hammered will probably lead you two to talking (and maybe making some borderline decisions) but that most likly will not get you to the winning conversation. You follow?

Whatever the shit, keep us updated. This is like a free tele novella. Although, lacking much of the intrigue and whatnot that tele novellas contain.

So, anyone out there know a thing or two about Chemistry? And I'm not talking the type that was lacking on Thursday for Martin. I'm talking about the type involving oligomers. As in many polymers? Maybe? I think I have the idea of monomers (points in space, or golf balls in a bucket) and polymers (long chains of monomers, like a spline, could be strong if the polymers cross link and lay across each other getting tied up) but what is an oligomer? Polymers going in random directions with multiple off shoots? Or some other cross linked version. If anyone knows or knows someone who knows (hint hint) please tell me.

In other news, yep. Thats about it.

in that case, it sounds like this girl is worth another date and you're facing some combination of three outcomes --

• the girl doesn't really dig you but has that problem where she can't stand anyone not to like her so she compulsively goes out on extra dates to 'let you down easy' <- this is the biggest crock of shit girls have going.


• she likes you and really was just tired and/or upset about having just wasted two hours of her life at a terrible adam sandler movie.


• she's a spy

obviously an option involving the spy idea is best. keep us posted.

Fair enough. How's about: I'm coming to your fucking party toonight, because I'm not leaving as early as I thought I was. I'm not drinking and will have to leave early because I have to wake up at fucking 5:00 am on saturday. Oh, and I have to do laundary before I go. Bitch bitch, bitch bitch. But I'll still be there. . . cock.

Really, thought, thanks for the reminder. I was a little absorbed in my own shit when I posted last, my bad. See you tonight. Out.

M

well, here's what i hear you saying:

'jeremy, i'm not coming to your party on friday because i am a cock.'

can't help you there, buddy

Post Date Update:

If it is any indication it is now midnight, and the movie I went to see with Ashley was over around 11:20. I'm back at home.

Needless to say, not a good date. Definitely not the chemistry we had on saturday night, but maybe the lack of drinks was a large factor to that. We went to go see the new Adam Sandler movie, which was fine I guess, but he has fallen into the realm of another standard romantic comedy guy and lack the cutting edge that he had in his early career. Movie starts at 9:30 (she picked the late show, I should have pushed for the early one) so I get to her place around 9:00 as she asked. I figured since the theatre is really close to her that it wouldn't take long and we would spend a few minutes talking or something before hand. Not the case, as soon as she meets me at the front door we are off, she drives since she knows where we are going, and we get there in a matter 5 minutes. I already have the tickets purchased through moviefone, so there is no line (although I saw Dominique Wilkins at the theatre!!). We talked a little bit on the ride over, and she told me that she had to wake up early tomorrow (today) and get to work by 7:00. We get to the theatre and talk some more, but none of the conversations are coming very easily. I'm starting most of them and then she's giving me one sentence answers and letting them die.

Movie starts and she's quite through the whole thing, no jockeying for position, just watches the movie. When the movie ends she basically puts on her coat and is ready to leave. During the movie I tried moving around a bit to try to get some sort of contact or interaction at all to happen, but to no avail. So we head back to her car, I'm still trying to drum up conversation, but not getting any give and take. She mentions that she is beat. I'm thinking the evening is dead but that there is a slim chance that she will invite me up and then we can talk for real or something. Anything to get past this barrier that seems to have been there all night. No luck, as soon as we get out of the car she asks where my car is. It is nearby, and trying to berak down this fucking berlin wall I put my arm around her as we walk over to my car. With all this said and done I'm basically thinking date's over, it sucked, time to go home and never mention it again (don't get your hopes up for a comeback there isn't one). Out of the blue she asks me to call her when I get back from Savannah (tourney this weekend, gonna fucking win it!!) . . . ? ? ? huh? I just sat trough the worst date that I have ever been on (but I've got a pretty good track record) and she asks me if I will call her when I get back?? I don't really believe it, so I say "so I get to see you again" to which she giggles and says yes.

I'm still on the fence about the whole thing, it was a terrible date, but then again the first night I spent with her was great. I figured, based on how bad this date went, that I would never see her again and that is that. Part of me still believes that is the case, that her statement was more of a polite gesture than a genuine desire to see me again. But on the other hand, she VERY EASILY could have not said anything aside from good night. So I'm left in the middle. I really want to call her back and get to the bottom of this, but that certainly wouldn't help. Time gives you perspective, so the next day or so (and then the weekend) will tell me what to do. Any suggestions/heckling you guys have is more than welcome. At this point I think I will end up giving her a call, still somewhat in disbelief, and tell her that when I call her. Lay it out that I want to go on a date where we talk, or do something, not just sit and stare at a screen. We'll see if that stace holds up through the weekend.

Of course the hard thing will be making it through tomorrow. I'm giving quizzes all day, so I will have plenty of time to think, which is always bad. Once I leave for the SAV on saturday morning it will be all game time and the focus will be on.

The other thing that looms in the back of my mind is that I still can' definitevly say that this is the girl for me. Part of it is that I still don't know too much about her. There are things that are really cool and I think will make us click well and then there are things that I think will prevent us from connecting. Hopefully another date or phone call will help sort things out.

Well, since I am home, I might as well get to bed. Can't say I'm not disappointed with tonight, but who knows what the future will bring. Out.

M

Our crack team of researchers has done it again.

Martin and I were off giving checks to GSU the other day (sure its a two man job. specially with the man trying to give martin parking tickets and tow his car away. but thats a whole nother story. one of high speed chases and gun fights and helicopters and other things contained in stories of that nature.) So after we finished up at GSU, martin took some backward ass roundabout way of getting home, (or maybe it was on the way there) anyway we passed some sort of Ga Pacific building, in front of which were a bunch of guys holding a biiiig sine that said "Labor Dispute: Shame on Georgia Pacific" which was confusing, cause no one really told us why GP should be so shameful.

But this morning, I happened to find a flyer on the bus for a "carpenters rally".

Apparently, Georgia Pacific is Desecrating The American Way of Life! Can you imagine my shock and surprise to discover that this horrible allegation has been alleged against GP, allegedly?

What a bunch of bastards. how dare they Desecrate The American Way of Life. But dont worry. The Reverand Al Sharpton, vanguard of The American Way of Life has come to The American Way of Life's defence. He'll be the key note speaker at this carpenter's rally against georgia pacific and the Desecration of The American Way of Life. Which was yesterday. So hopefully, the raleigh was successful and the Desecration of The American Way of Life has been stopped and now everybodys happy and we can all go home now and have a big ham sandwich with lots of mustard.

So the moral of this story is:
EAS2601 is one helluva boring class
and
If youre going to Desecrate The American Way of Life, then you'd better goddamned know that this sort of thing used to be civilized.
The End

i was recently introduced to a band called the asylum street spankers led by the nearest approximation of ted i've ever seen -- wammo.

these people are fucking incredible genre-defying musicians who put on fantastic wholly unamplified shows that will rock your face off. you have a with destiny.
ted, for you it's april 17 at schuba's.
mark, your appointment is march 26 at the mucky duck.
and me and my atlanta peeps can go and appreciate the extreme wackiness at smith's olde bar on march 11.

really. don't miss it. they do things like mixing country murder ballads with gangsta rap, and play mah-na mah-na live for 15 minutes.

so go to the bar. get yourself a couple of barley-pops and enjoy. buying the dvd and drinking homebrew on your couch will save you some cash, but it doesn't compare.

wow. your job kicks my job's ass. being a consultant sucks. but it pays the bills, and ostensibly i'm helping the community.

i think that the only one who might have a worse job than me (depending on your opinion of being a tech student) is mark. brad's doing his ie stuff, matt's writing code with naked-matt's-boss, martin is enriching young minds (which isn't coaching or sports science, but is probably at least rewarding), ted is a no-shit engineer, and mikex0r's still in school.

perhaps this will give me some motivation to fill out those applications, cause i'll do just about anything to not be one of those guys who hates their job.

Wow. So having a real job makes a hell of a difference. I've been doing some junior-level strength of materials calculations for the past two days. Today went something like this:

• Other Engineer checks over my work, finds minor problem. Suggests easy solution.


• I redo calculations without as many assumptions. Takes twice as long. Result: We're 10% over allowable stress.


• Other Engineer loans me a specialized big thick book (on loading of steel beams) so I can further unassume stuff. Calculations take twice as long.


• Now we're 60% over allowable stress

For M, M & J, that means we are completely and totally boned. However, I made some worst-case unrealistic loading assumptions which will probably get way undone tomorrow.


I like my job. I don't like the commute, but I can live with it until I move closer.


I sure wish Matt's Naked Boss needed a lead Mechanical Engineer before I moved 700 miles away. Actually, Chris and I figured out how to get to my apartment in hotlanta terms - Get on 41 Highway. Go about 715 miles past the Big Chicken. Turn left three blocks after Loyola. Ring the buzzer that has "FORTNER" on a slip of paper taped across the existing name. Bring me booze.


Having to get up in the morning ain't my bag, but again, I'll deal.


Y'all sure noone has hacked together a display driver for that jammie in linux? I'd certainly be suprised if it hadn't been thought up and done yet. Or something.

eureka!

so this could be the answer to our led display problems. it sells at sam's for about 150 bucks.

next, we've gotta figure out how to make it talk to a computer running a real operating system. the pinouts and shit cost money (at least right now they do). so that's another expense. but after that, it's just a programming project away from people being able to message us over the web.

i've found a couple of resources, but there's reading to be done yet.

we did that website that you looked at.

here's the crux of the problem with the aforementioned contractor: he owns his own design shop, but he's the only employee, and techbridge is his largest if not only client. so essentially he's our employee. but he still can't manage to get stuff done right the first time and when he's asked to. yeah, we've got backups, but there's an issue with that too. we can't just restore from backup, due to this 'content management tool' (anyone remember our adventures with SAP in 98?) that allows the client (alliance theatre) to make changes to the website on the fly and without needing to know html. see, they've been running around changing everything behing our backs and then dood comes in and fucking blows away all of techbridge's work, and now even though we have backup, we'll have to go in and cut and paste from the backups so we maintain the bleeding edge of their content while fixing the navigation/editing/images/site is broke-ass ness issues that happened over the weekend.

what's the count mark? 14?

Jeremy, don't you silly guys have backups of the code that you have coded? Haven't you computer people learned to back up your shit? Preferably to a remote site? Silly guys. As for the contractor, what does he care if some hippie website doesn't get to display their events correctly. Or whatever. I myself am a contractor and I know first hand what it means to work "like a contractor." I will say that I myself have morals and scruples and that those ideals force me to do a good job, even though it sometimes takes longer and is tougher. But, for most that is not an issue.

So, what exactly are you doing for the alliance theatre?

My sister recently saw Big Fish and loved it.

haaaaaahh. mark's mom came to tejas for some valentine's day nookie. haaaahh mark.

so i'm not into the let's buy some candies and cards and blah blah of valentine's day either. we made a big fucking meal for ourselves and some friends and it was tasty-cakes (tm). then there was much watching of rented dvds. my kind of 'valentine's day'.

so a work event occured today that threatened to make me explode. there's this bigass project that we contracted someone to do the bulk of the actual work for. well. he fucked it royal. then we asked him to fix it in the nicest (and then progressively less nicest) terms. things came along at a snails pace, so we had to jump in and fucking fix the whole shebang. sofar, i think that this is mostly par for the course as far as contractors go. the real problem came when over the weekend, dood decided to finally get his shit in gear and finish the job he was assigned. well, he didn't bother to look and see that it was already done. whoa, no. he just went in and over wrote a bunch of completed project with a bunch of amateur bullshit. now we have to go and fucking reinvent the wheel part 2. i hope this is just the longest deja vu i've ever had and that i'm not actually going to have to shiv anybody.

dammit ass.

Well, my mom was in town for Valentines Day. Insert mom joke now. I had a good time seeing her and visiting. We spent a large portion of time in Texas City playing card games with my uncle and grand parents. All in all, a good valentine. When my mother arrived at the airport I had a card and candy bar waiting for her. Awww....

On Sunday I played again in my Warhammer 40K league and earned another $10.00 of store credit. Woot. I did not stay long to play others afterword though because I wanted to get back to visiting with my mom.

Wohoo! Go Martin. I'm not going to make such bold predictions as the night that Ted stayed out all night long at whats her name's place. But, whatever happend during those unaccounted for hours..... woot.

Lastly, if you are in the mood to waste even more time check out finsler films for some GI Joe public service announcements. The website is here. Stay off the ice (#5) is my favorite followed closely by Pork chop sandwiches (#7). 15 and 24 are also quite good.

Hope all is well in GA.

Man, fuck all you bitches with this whole 'back in the saddle' bullshit. I've been riding your mom's with a saddle for the past few months just to keep my game up (and it counts as coimmunity service hours). So I'm now stuck in the swingers, how many days to you wait to call, mode. Which seems like a good time to watch swingers. My day will be spent grading and watching movies so if any of you are near by feel free to stop by.

Oh, and I saw Mark's look alike today walking Tech's campus. It is like there is a little tiny mark flying around.

M

i'm at a qwerty (ironically the only thing easy to type on a qwerty keyboard) keyboard, so i'll mae it breif --

i second ted's motion:

fuck yes, get some!

way to get back in the motherfucking saddle, you sack of shit.

WOOOO GET SOME

Word up, Martin. Congratulations on whatever happened and I hope it was good.


As some/many of y'all know, valentine's day is special for me because I hate it. I hate the whole "TODAY IS SPECIAL SO BUY CARDS CANDY FLOWERS DINNER ETC FOR YOUR GIRLTHING" stigma that goes with it, and needless to say, I've pissed off my share of girlthings is holding this attitude. Fuck it. I'm not gonna be bullied into doing nice things because I'm supposed to do nice things on one day.


That being said, Nikki & I had a nice, relaxing day. After some afternoon food shopping and checking out TVs & DVD players (already planning on how to spend my first few Real Job Paychecks), we went back to her apartment, cleaned it up and started dinner. Realizing we forgot the wine, I drove to Trader Joe's, picked up a $3 Argetenian Melbec (yummy) and $6 Australian Cabernet Sauvingon/Shiraz/something else blend. Lesson learned: Never drive anywhere near Lakeview on a weekend. Took me over an hour to drive 1.5 miles, park, 10 minutes in the store and drive back. Ugh. Shit reminds me of Atlanta.


Long story short, we hung around her place and had a quiet evening. Also discovered that adding triple sec to melted chocolate causes it to sieze instantly. I'm not sure why this occurs but I fully intend on researching the food science to find out why.


I start my new job tomorrow. Stay tuned for updates on how that works. I left my old job at around 15:30 in the afternoon because I didn't feel like staying until quitting time. Besides, what were they going to do, fire me? BWAHAHAHAHAH. I already got my last paycheck, cashed it, had 3 beers with coworkers at the Billy Goat (cheezeborger cheezeborger cheezeborger), turned in my RFID key fob and everything. I think my last thoughts about that job were "Fuck it" as I walked out with all my personal effects in a milk crate. When I got home I had an email from my now ex-boss saying something to the effect of "blah blah suprised by you leaving w/o saying goodbye blah blah good luck blah blah" and as a post script "IMO, 'noxious' is a strong word for people that provided you with a job." Now then, out of all the adjectives I've used to describe them, "noxious" was certainly not one of them. "Theiving sons-of-bitches", "money-grubbing assholes", "illiterate jizz-moppers", "morons" and "jerks", I'm sure were all used by me at one time or another. Regardless, I am no longer employed by a pissant company to do bullshit work, which makes me deliriously happy.

well, I'm not sure how your valentine's days went, but mine was eventful. I felt like a cop out and went to a Q100 radio singles party from 8-12. I had a good time, it was like any other club, which isn't always my scence so it was different. I spent some time cruising the party and some time on the dance floor, but I found what I always seem to find, few people looking to meet more people and lots of people interested in hanging out with the group that they came with. Since I went by myself it wasn't working too well. I was able to drink a good bit (place was too expensive). True to the British drinking roots that I have, I was unable to keep a drink in my hand for more than 5 minutes (I went through 6 rum and cokes within the first hour). At this point I was well off in the alkihaul department, had spent my time on the dance floor and was looking to sober up so that I could move on to the Library where Girls Gone Wild was apparently going to be (sweet!!!!!). I sat down to detox around 10:10 or so, and started talking to these two girls, Dana and Ashley who had basically been wallflowers the entire evening, doing some quality people watching.

I end up staying the rest of the party hanging out with these girls. I have another drink or so, which further inhibits my ability to go home. The party is wrapping up and apparently we are moving on to Front Page News, nearby joint with a pubish feel, which works for me. Fortunately the ladies knew where we were going. Get there, slam a guiness to top the night off. I've learned that I finish the average guinness in three tips of the glass. Ashley was talking to her DJ friend and I got to learn more about Dana, a "almost 30 year old" physch person who helps kids with issues. While we're at the place someone hita transformer and half of the lights go out, so we're sitting there in the close to dark talking. Ashley had requested some some and asked if I wanted anything, to shich I of course responded with my song, Young MC's Bustamove. Song cues up and I hear some rumbling's from a circle on the dance floor. A whiteboy circle had formed and that was a circle I could break in. So I hit a few moves, through my drunken state, high five like white kids do and then checked back into the table.

At some point Dana gets a call from her man, lights up 'cause she gettin' some tonight, and decides it is time to leave. Ashley is hungrey, and I'm still too toasted to make it home (I think it is 1:30 by now). Dana heads to the highlands, and Ashleyand I get a cab over to the old IHOP, which is now a disco diner. We sit there and eat for a while, and talk a good bit. We had a lot of odd similarities that keep the conversation interesting. Eventually the food is done and we decide to move on. Dana was her ride home, so now it is me. We start to leave, realize it is really fucking cold outside (and niether of us has a jacket) so we call another cab. While waiting for the cab she see's one of her friends, oddly enough one that she was supposed to find earlier that night, because she had her jacket. So we get a ride back to my car, then head to her place. She invites me in . . . and that is where the story will end for now. I eventually got home around 5:30 in the morning. Easily the most eventful valentine's I have had. Also I think this is the first time I have ever gone home with a girl I met at a bar. So what happened with you guys??

M

well, it is cool that kai has checked out. We'll see how things develop in the future.

I hit a critical point with my class today. I decided that EMag is stupid unless you just get to circuits and backtrack everything else. So we're spending the next day or so working on a arts and craft thing where we make an electric field (what we've been talking about in class), then we'll calculate potentials at each point, make sticks and . . . shit I'm bored already. Fortunately the kids are reasonalby interested in the project, maybe because it isn't me standing in front of them lecturing for an hour and a half.

Legs are, knock on wood, feeling better than they have in a while. Keep your fingers crosses.

M

let it be known that kai has moved out, leaving the fort (and i'm talking about #4 here) once again unoccupied. just some food for thought.

Hello again from the working world. I spent the weekend in Charlotte NC coaching the Emory women to a semi appearance. Not bad, but then again not good. Work is still taking up a lot of time, however I think that the reason for that is I am teaching EMag right now and I don't like Emag. This will be over in a few weeks and we will start Newtonian physics . . . y'know the REAL physics.

Aside from that things seem to be going well. I find this dicussion of beer amusing since my views are so skewed. My positive chart o' drinking is as follows (though I'm sure you all know it already). For thoze confused this is what I will drink.

Strongbow
Guiness
Baileys
Car Bombs
Other Ciders
Rum and Coke
Gin and Juice

The idea of trying to decide between Ultra and wine cooler is nonsense to me.

M

i propose that we put box wine in quotes and use that term to refer to the skanky wine that comes in the box with the picture of pink water that we get in the states. "box wine" is some nasty-ass-ness, much as michelob ultra (the same as with all ultra, and even light beers) or iron city. however, those european hippies box much of their wine because it stacks better that way. and the shit is good. and it's not so god-awfully expensive as the states, since there isn't a SUPTA (stuck up pricks taxing authority) over there trying to bring back prohibition.

When it comes to beer, I have relatively few rules. I am not a proud man but one that enjoys beer. If it is free, I will have at least one. But yea and verily, there are few beers which probably not have any. Mark, you hit the nail on the head about Michelob Ultra. It's ultra-nasty ass. Keep in mind that comes from a guy who enjoys PBR and malt liquor (yes, I'm still an Olde English "800" man, altho Steel Reserve is giving it a run for its money). In fact, I've put Michelob Ultra below Iron City beer on my "no thanks" list.

Shitty alcoholic beverages I'd rather drink that Michelob Ultra (in no particular order):

• those craptastic new flavored malt beverages (citrona, bacardi whatever, etc)


• wine coolers


• cosmopolitans


• Iron City beer


• Corona


• your mom


• Boone's Farm


• box wine


• mat shots

I have not posted in a while either. I want to talk about beer. Good ol' oat soda. Now, you have to make a conscious decesion about beer. That is, will you drink bad beer if it is free? And, how bad a beer will you drink? Will you drink really bad beer if someone pays you? Note, this decision must be made of sound mind because once you have had a few good beers, your judgement can get seriously impaired. So, everyone take a moment and decide (right now) for yourself whether or not you will drink bad beer for free. I have made the decision that yes I will drink bad beer for free. However, I will not drink really bad beer for free (though I would drink it if someone paid me... and not very much money would be required). I recently had to distinguish my judgement (made of sound mind) when I had Micholobe Ultra, the low carbohydrate beer for people who want to watch their weight. This beer is disgusting. Horrible. The worst of the worst. The bottom of the barrel (which is a brewer's term for beer that is really malty and thick) is better than this beer. It tastes like really bad water. Like a soda water that had beer which has already been through someone's urine stream mix in with the water. I strongly suggest that you (everyone) avoid this beer. If you are going to drink bad free beer, please reconsider this choice while you still have your wits about you. This beer has gone on my "No thanks" list. Along with anal sex and trepanation.

In other news, I feel that Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake planned the whole thing and didn't get the reaction they were looking for so they made up the "wardrobe malfuction" line. If I had known that there was going to be free porn during the superbowl halftime I would not have switched when I saw the N'sync dude come on stage. I was instead watching the surreal life marathon on WB. This was not much better quality programming than Justin. But, oh well. I think that if there is a live telecast you should not be shocked to see shit go awry. I'm not saying that one should expect it, but one should not be surprised. They (CBS) are going to have a longer tape delay for the grammies to try and prevent the MTV Kiss or this Super Fiasco.

Hope everyone is well.

Mark

this is what I've been doing

the blue squiggles are a speech signals, and the little red dots are the beginning and end points. (every thing outside of the beginning and end points is silence)

no, I havent been arbitrarily putting little red dots on squiggly blue graphs, I've been telling computers how to.

Haven't posted for a while, so I thought I'd check in.

I got an email from the USOC telling me that there is a temp position available for me between now a June if I am interested. Of course I can't really take it . . . can I? I do want the job, but am happy with my higher paying (??!!) teaching gig that I have now. I definetely said that the only reason I would leave teaching would be for one of a few jobs, and this is the one I had in mind (the others existed in a fantasy world and paid more money . . . they also came with a free hooker). So the very small dilemma begins. I don't feel like I can take the job, but at the same time I would get me where I want to go. I'm going to email Dr. Stone back and tell him regardless I am going to come out there for spring break to work for free, just to get back in the mix. I also am going to tell him that I am very interested in working therethis summer if that is a possibility (with the extra schooling they are going to try to make me do I doubt it will be). More discussions will be coming shortly.

M

OH hell yes about DJ Assault and his spreading empire. some funny ass shit.

SO WHO WANTS TO GO CAMPING THIS WEEKEND?! leave saturday morning, come back, at the latest, tuesday night. or earlier if need be which is almost certain for the workin folks. ian clark and i are the only ones goin at the moment. greg was originally going to come but he backed out. we're planning to go the smoky mountains and hike in the snow. temperature will reach below 0 at night if it's anything like last winter. we can procure gear from orgt. oh shit, i just realized none of us are students anymore except mike.

i got a damn speeding ticket this morning. 61 in a 45 on south cobb drive. damnit.

commuting to alpharetta everyday is rough but i'm trying to remain sane about it. oh yeah, ted you may know this already but i'm working with greg again on his new company called playmotion. crazy sheeeit.

Yeah, Mike, I saw some vaguely homoerotic sporting even on a three lettered network and saw the audacity that was Janet's boob. I immediately poopooed the idea of it be "accidental" because of the dumb sunburst nipple shield she had. I'm sure Mark will agree that you'd NEVER wear anything like that unless you were planning on showing it off very soon.

I still maintain that the best superbowl watching event was when Mark and I watched it 2 years ago with a friend of his and all her lesbian friends. We were all HAW HAW EVERYONE HERE LIKES PUSSY NOW WHERE'S MY BEER.

Mike, step 0 when relighting the furnace is to turn the gas off and let what collected around the pilot to dissipate. Then turn it back on and immediately light the pilot. Or whatever the thing is that makes the big part go burn. If that doesn't work, bitch mightily to your landlord. Also be glad that you don't live here, since it hit a low of -11 on thursday (warming up to a balmy -8 degrees Farenheit when I walked the half mile to the train) and got up to a blistering 5 degrees above zero by 1 pm. My breath was condensing right in front of my face and freezing in my beard. We're having a damn heatwave now as it broke freezing today for the first time in about a month or so, which also means snow and lots of it. It really only snows when it's between 25 degrees and 35 degrees. Any warmer or colder and it turns into rain or just doesn't, uh, snow.

Martin, congrats on the teaching job. I was seriously considering getting my certification in Illinois, since there's such a huuuuuuge lack of science and math teachers (and we all know how much I like math and science mmmhmmm). But that was before this other job fell in my lap. I'm interested to see how it goes for you. Keep us updated.

Also my copy of DJ Assault's "Off The Chain For the Y2K" was stolen when the house on Center street got broken into. Through a bizarre chain of events, DJ Assault hisself mailed me a copy of it in an effort to seduce more Chicagoland hoez into his multitude of asses wiggling & titties jiggling.

FILTH FLARN! MOTHERFUCKER! DICK, PUSSY, SNOT AND SHIT. GOODNIGHT!

SUCK MY DICK, BYE BYE.

I guess you never really appreciate your eyebrows until you almost lose them.

ok so the little wheel is actually attached to the inducer motor, which is the part that aint working.

Scratch that with the furnace. it doesnt pass the can-i-get-it-to-work-again test. ergo, vis-a-vis, its still broke.

heres some observations on a broke furnace slash ac machine:
the ac still works, (now all I need to do is stick some sort of inverter on the output and we'll be fine, right?)
its apparently getting gas (see earlier post)
when I turn the heat on and kick it up to 90, a little wheel (3.5 inches in diameter) mounted on a transformer starts to turn. if that goes well, something turns orange, and the gas ignites.

and the last and most important observation so far:
the little wheel usually stops turning before the gas ignites

Martin. Apparently you didnt hear the news: my printer has a new ink cartridge in it so feel free to use it. We havent fixed the big HP one yet though, and it doesnt look good. That thing has to be at least 10 years old. oh well. Also, the heat seems to be working now. Heres the proof:

Theres a blue flame in the furnace part and warm air coming out of the vent parts
ergo
it seems to be working.
QED

In other news I saw some football game on TV last night. Anybody else happen to catch it? it was on one of those small 3 letter networks ABC or NBC or CBS or one of those things. Too bad it wasnt on the powerhouse of sports broadcasting, Jefferson Pilot or whatever the hell its called.

Well, I finally saw 28 days later (the zombie/apocalypse flick from the trainspottiing guys). It was very good, however not too zombie moviesque. I doubt Brad would classify it as such. It was fun because we watched it with Ewald, and he hates scary movies, so he was on the edge of his seat for the entire thing, trying to look away and shit.

I've finished (I hope) my first test writing experience. I'm going to have some problems with it tomorrow. I can try to print it at work, but they don't have equation editor and that causes problems when printing. Regardless, I need to get them copied for monday so something will happen.

Of course the superbowl is tomorrow. While I don't care who wins since the Pack aren't in it, I am interested in a good game and good commercials. I'm snagging a projector from work tomorrow and we're going ot set it up to watch the game. Should be a good time.

In other news, I'm looking into moving to a new place later on this year. Locations are limited since I am interested in living in the city AND not increasing my commute. I also need to figure out what I am going to do during my spring break since it isn't the same for all of my college bound friends. I'm sure something will come up, but I don't know what it will be. That's all for now, I'm tired and will be getting cranky soon.

M