6/3/08
For those pug members looking for the WWS info, the link is: http://wowwebstats.com/izevl54vydg1i
To download the Omen Mod: http://wow.curse.com/downloads/details/9101/
7/7/07
3/23/07
World Of Warcraft is indeed addictive.
http://www.practialdesigns.com/images/shouldnothavedied.jpg
Stuff like what is portrayed above just pisses me off. The guards don't attack even when I'm being killed 2 or 3 yards away. Booty Bay is better,
but not by a whole lot.
1/12/07
I've been playing too much World Of Warcraft of late to come up with anything witty, so here is a screenshot.
1/1/07
Happy new year everyone. It's 12:49 a.m. and I have to get to bed now since I have to be to work at 7:30 a.m., but I hope that you all have a happy and safe new year. With any luck, I will have more content in the new year!
12/26/06
Well, I feel a great deal better. That's for sure!
So, I've taken up playing World Of Warcraft, casually. Man, some of the silliness you can pull off in that game....
12/25/06
Merry Christmas
I'm sick and running a fever, but that's no reason not to be happy, right?
12/07/06
Where did the year go to? Seriously though, I need to update this site more often, I pay for it after all. Today I want to highlight one of my favorite comics, Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. It's a nostolgic story about the life and times of an robot named Alpha. It revolves around her everyday activities and the wonder she finds in them in the world she lives in.
10/01/06
A super unique crows nest that was popping out regular old crows. The rub? It's lightning immune and that is my lightning (Charged Bolt) sorceress. :D Not only that, but I run up to it and swing at it with a crappy swirling orb... and it dies! Seriously though, that's quite amusing.
7/25/06
Every year I get myself a new tech toy, something pretty heavy. Last year it was a digital camera; I had always wanted a digital camera and since I was going away on vacation to the 1000 Islands, New York, it seemed like an opportune time. This year I wanted a new MP3 player. The first MP3 player I ever bought was a 128MB Creative MUVO (Though mine only supported USB1.1). When I got tired of that, I decided to buy a 1GB Zen Nano Plus. This was a big step up, not only because it held 4 times as much, but because it had a screen! A tiny screen, but hey! Well, this year I decided I wanted an even bigger step up, one with a big screen and one that could play videos as well as music. I did a great deal of research on the web, and even flirted with the idea of a PSP for a while. In the end though, I decided to go with a 30 GB Creative Zen Vision. In part because I could transfer the information from the Memory Stick PRO memory cards I use in my Sony Cybershot DSC-W1 digital camera. This is a blessing, not only because it ensures I don't need to buy more memory cards, but because transferring pictures to the computer from the camera eats the camera batteries alive! Of course, I use NiMH batteries, but it's still a pain. Well, during my vacation, all sorts of strange occurrences went on with my new music player; it would stop playing after 15 minutes and freeze. It would boot into the recovery console (Yes! Built in!) and not want to boot out of it. Even after I got it home, got it to booted up while attached to the computer, and wiped it clean, the player didn't want to behave. After contacting Creative via E-mail, they asked me to send it back. They only wanted the player, not the boxes, not the discs, not the cords. Though I had to pay to ship it to them, they paid to ship it back. And would you know it, they sent a brand new player, no questions asked! Not only that, I got a whole new set of cords, disks, earphones, etc. Needless to say, I'm a happy camper! :)
On to headphones. Last fall my father bought me a pair of quality headphones for my birthday. Quality, as in $100 a pair. You may think us nuts, but they sound like your in a movie theater. After doing a great deal of research, we came up with two companies Grado Labs and Sennheiser. Both produce good headphones, but the Grado headphones got the best reviews across the price spectrum. He ended up buying me a pair of Grado SR-80 headphones. The first problem I had with them was that the metal headband came out of the socket where it met the earphone casing on the left side. A bit of Gorilla Glue fixed that fine; no big deal, it happens. About a month ago, the plastic headband sleeve that surrounded the metal headband began to separate. And then, where the right and left channel wires met at the neck connector, the plastic sleeve around the wires just wore out, exposing the wires. So, I E-mailed Grado Labs explaining my problem. They told me no problem, send them in with a short note. Well, I sent them out in the original box along with all of the inserts and the steel stereo adapter, and got them back on the same day. They put a new plastic headband sleeve on, put an all new cord on the, sent me a gold stereo adapter, and even hand painted (as near as I could tell)( the lettering on the side with silver paint; even the invoice was hand written with thank you written on it. Had I not noticed the slight bit of glue where I had glued the headset back together again, I would have sworn they where brand new headphones! Now that is excellence!
7/17/06
With no good games that I want to play out at the moment, I've started Mudding again. The mud of the moment is RetroMUD and my client of choice is ROAClient. If you want a good time and don't want to pay fees for a MMORPG, its an excellent alternative.
7/15/06
I'm still not sure if the Landover Baptist Church site is real or just a hoax to heckle evengelicals, but either way, it's funny (if a bit scary) stuff.
7/13/06
I'm not really into the whole podcast thing, but I recently found the Security Now podcasts. For geeks like me, this stuff is pretty intresting, and it's not even that hard to follow if your not a computer guru.
5/16/06
The following was quoted from PvpOnline
Wikipedia entry on Net Neutrality, the origins of the term and what it means
An article in the Baltimore Sun about net neutrality and the COPE ACT
Savetheinternet.com has a lot of good facts and an online petition to sign.
Locate and then call your congressman or woman and tell them you don't like what you're hearing. Don't just write them. Try to reach them on the phone.
Isen.com. David S. Isenberg is a former senior AT&T executive. He knows his stuff and he's got a lot of good information for you to consume on this.
5/12/06
I took the following video, of my uncles car engine when my brother was tearing it apart to fix it last month. It can also be found on google videos.
5/07/06
Have you applied for your free credit check yet? I would suggest sending one out in the mail, so there is a record, but you can also do so online at http://www.annualcreditreport.com/
4/22/06
The following is the completed paint-by-number that appeard in the Sunday, April 8th comics section for Foxtrot
3/22/06
I was watching TV, when a Fex Ex commercial involving cave men came on. I was laughing so hard I nearly choked. I quick google search came up with the commerical on google videos. Apparently, it was firest aired during the Super Bowl. I'm not a football fan; I worked throught he super bowl because of it. I've got to say though, this was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time.
3/20/06
I've added a quick and dirty tutorial on how to refresh your network connection under Windows XP. It was meant for my boss from work, but I would imagine other people might have a use for it.
1/08/06
Seventeen Facts American Shoppers Need To Know - But Don't
12/31/05
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/
13523149.htm. Immersion journalism indeed. More like immerision in stupidity; the school he goes to ought to take a hard look at whatever ciriculum is advocating this stuff.
11/03/05
The issue is settled, I'm definitly not going to be playing World of Warcraft anytime soon, and certainly won't be playing any of their upcomming games, like Ghost, on my computer. :(
Blizzard Entertainment Uses Spyware to Verify EULA Compliance
It turns out World of Warcraft is a Trojan Horse, no different than Kazza in that you get it's added value by agreeing to their EULA and allowing malware on your system. The next logical question now becomes, can their future games be trusted?
It's a real shame, too, that they have had to resort to spying on their users to keep the game fair. I say had to for a reason. I got hooked on their games waaaaay back when the origional Diablo was out. I played Diablo. I remember my first Demonspike Coat, my first Windforce. I remember those DAMNED ACID SPITTERS! >_< . How many kids nowadays have ever played it, and no, I don't mean installing the copy that came with your battlechest and then deciding to try it out only to quit five minutes later. Back when Diablo was still the thing, every account had an number assigned by Blizzards servers that was stored in the registry. You could track a person accross Warcraft II, Starcraft and Diablo with this number.
Harrasment was so rampant websites sprang up that showed you how and where to delete the specific registry keys that held the number, forcing the server to give you a new number.
There where programs devoted to detecting cheaters.
Five Words: Godly Plate of the Whale; only the oldest of us remember that it was available only in verson 1.0
Cheating got so bad, you basicly had to play only with trusted buddies. It literaly ruined the game in so many ways.... Then came the Realms. Hackers broke those too. And it was a shame.
Suffice to say that I understand why Blizzard does what it does. But I also understand that in the process of trying to beat the cheaters, they have become something worse, and I don't like it. I will be taking their advice, and not playing at all.
10/31/05
10/30/05
I can't say as I have much to say right now. I've a new computer, a real beast:
- Pentium IV: 3.2 Ghz on a Intel Desktop Board D915GUX
- Melco (1 GB DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAM) : One in each of the Four DIMM's
- Barracuda 7200.7 SATA 200822 : 200GB HD
- ATI Radeon X7000 LE (RV140)
- Toshiba DVD Burner and a Toshiba DVD Drive
- 6 USB 2.0 ports (2 in front and 4 in back)
And all for a cost of about $1700 USD. I had my old, 1 GHZ computer for nearly 7 years, I'm going to have this one for another 7. :D I have to say, I'm impressed with the power of this thing. By actually changing the settings for the Radeon at the ATI Catalyst Control center I was able to improve the performance and look of some of my games (Neverwinter Nights: Platinum Edition), as well as being able to jack all of the quality settings up to full in some of my other games (Warcraft III: Frozen Throne). I'm still bedeviled by slow framerates in Diablo II: Lord of Destruction from time to time, but even with a framerate of 25FPS and a Skip of 20 it's still better than my old computer.
9/02/05
What is my position on Modern Science? Succinctly, Modern Science isn't. Modern Science has the air and swagger of a modern theology. It has a dogma, a following, preachers and defenders. This is only natural since Modern Science is perpetrated by and upon humans. And that is precisely the problem. The primary way that www.dictionary.com defines science is:
- The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena.
Science deals with the empirical, not the divine, though both seek to explain the world around us. The difference is that while Science is an exercise of the educated, Religion only needs one to believe. Science itself doesn't care about god or spirituality, but men do. When a Scientist is asked, is there a god, the correct answer is I don't know. God isn't empirical, god is ethereal (if he exists at all). Unfortunately, the answer you usually get is no, there isn't a god. Why? Scientists only believe in the empirical, so the only logical answer is there is no god. When it's easy to show their ignorance by choosing not to believe in the ethereal because of the empirical, rational people conclude arrogance on the part of science.
People are not Real numbers, they are not floating point numbers, they are not radians or statistical samples. They are people… emotional, irrational, and occasionally logical. And Science knows that, it acknowledges that error and humanity go hand in hand. Scientists oftentimes become absent minded when presented with this condition, but it's there.
People conclude, since you can't prove god exists, he might exist. And if he does exist, then it's perfectly reasonable to assume he might have created the world in 7 days, or that the earth is really flat. Science says the world isn't flat and certainly wasn't created in seven days. It doesn't know about god (yet) but It can tell you that much. Scientists have to worry about research grants, about paychecks, about prestige and self esteem. They have to eat and sleep like everybody else. They have their own biases and opinions. People intuitively know that. Educated people understand a good scientist divorces herself from her own biases as much as possible, and then critically evaluate what the scientist puts forth. Tragically, scientists all too often don't distinguish between ignorance and plain stupidity, even when they know the difference. As a result, the ignorant only see an upper class, sneering down the nose at their beliefs. But do not take my word for it; just look any fundamentalist Islamic country.
So the Scientific community ends up trying to keep the Intelligent Design Beast out of our schools with a Bunsen burner while the (Christian owned) Gas Company is busy shutting off the gas. And while they are otherwise pursing cerebral pursuits, the masses are busy obeying their lord, building their families and adding to an army of God, which will sweep away the infidels.
People are not stupid, they can reason for themselves. And when their Priest, or Pastor, or Imam is busy with socials, and pick-nicks and down-to-earth projects like building that new community center, where are all the well meaning Scientists? They are trying to figure out why all of those people don't want to pay taxes for a good, solid science program.
The tragedy being, science itself already has the answer.
Download the Rant: science.txt
8/31/05
Hurricane Katrina. What kind of people build their homes in a flood plain. Then don't maintain their levees. Or the pumps. Of course, neither likely would have stopped Katrina anyway. Still, I have trouble feeling sorry for them when they took the risk of living in a freakin' flood plain. How much do you want to bet the survivors will build their new homes on the precip of a volcano next time around?
Finished a picture. I only drew it, oh, back in May:
8/20/05
Yes! Finaly, a religion I can believe in! Keep, I say, Keep! Ramen!
8/06/05
My co-workers have told me I'm a slave driver. Why? Because when the Grocery manager isn't around I'm in charge (since I'm both the full-time clerk and the guy with the most seinority)? Or because I won't let them stand around gabbing with all the nearly undressed girls comming through the doors? Or maybe it has something to do with my attempts to get them to do some work now and then. Hmmm.
8/05/05
As it turned out, the construction crews moved the demolition of the rest of the bakery at work up by a day. So wouldn't you know it, but they needed vendor goods (Pepsi, Coke, Frito, Millbrook, Mayfair, Goya, etc.) moved thursday. Well, we where not planning on having the vendors moving it until friday. Guess whom it feel to?
Josh & I
Well, no sooner do I start but all of the concrete dust, regular dust, Styrofoam insulation and all manner of mold start raining down. It got in my eyes and nose and all over my clothes. I said to myself, "This sucks." Then went and got some goggles and a few dust masks. Josh joined me a bit later and helped me stack off the rest of the Mayfair and the Millbrook. Chuck was the last to join us; he took the above photo with his cell phone. I am on the left and Josh is on the right.
This morning, I had to rotate and stock baby-formula. Tops has implemented a new policy where we have to apply the store stamp (Name, Store Number, Address, etc.) to all cans of formula. It was a royal pain in the ass to stamp those and a bit tricky to keep them from smearing. Basically... grip the stamp close to the body, apply light pressure but not so light you don't get an imprint and roll the can, not the stamp!
Setting aside what a pain in the ass it is to do, I have to say it's probably the most intelligent thing I have ever seen corporate do from a shrink control standpoint. Add to that it can be chalked up to a customer service win and you get quit a nice trick.
For those of you not in retail, you should know that baby formula is one of the most tempting targets for shoplifters that a store can offer. The cans are easy to conceal (and 18oz can is about the size of that can of peas your mom/wife keeps in the cupboard) and costs ~$4.00 at my store. They shoplift it, take it to Wal-Mart and "return" it for a profit. When you figure that only ~20% of all shoplifters get caught, and those that do get a slap on the wrist, well, it's a good return for little work so what do you expect?
Ah, but stamping the can makes it much harder to pawn off. Another store likely won't take it and anybody with even half of conscience can't rationalize it away if it's offered to them as a special deal. Now add to that all of the phone calls I have to answer asking if we carry this formula or that formula; when the mother runs out she only has to look to the can to see where she got it and since we sold it before it's likely we will sell it again.
8/02/05
Man, where did the summer go? It's rather scary, actually. I blew my whole summer, or did I? I don't have any money to show for it, but I do have a few new expensive toys; my digital camera being one of them. Of course, I've used that with my e-bay listings and also with some of my graphic design work too. And of course, I have more anime and more manga.
I need to find some less expensive hobbies. To that end, I went rummaging through my art-box. My art-box is a fishing tackle box full of all sorts of odds n' ends. Couple hundred dollars in prismacolor markers (never did get the hang of 'em), crayola colored pencils (expensive ones are, well, too expensive). India Ink and caligraphy pens... ah, now those I was messing with. I was pleasently suprised at the amount of control I have with those; and I can get a very fine line using the finer tips. Of course, standard computer paper soaks up the india ink and bleeds a bit, but it's not so bad. No worse than a sharpie marker, anyway. I do have some heavy bristal board paper, and it comes out beautifully. I'm going to need to get some more of that.
7/23/05
Ahhhh, I'm such a dumbass. No wonder nobody is bidding on my E-Bay Auctions; I've set the shipping to USPS Express which is basicly overnight shipping. It's calculating shipping costs that are greater than the actual bid amount on the item! >_<
Well, anyway, I'm pretty stoked by the science fiction novel I'm reading, Steel Beach. I can hardly put it down to type. See ya!
7/22/05
A book on money, book on workers rights, a fiction novel... and a comic book compilation. Quite an elective mix... I need to write up a budget, and for that matter, stop spending so much money on food. Packed lunches for me for a while. Oh yeah, and that place needs a makeover.
7/20/05
Man, reading all these buisness magazines really lights a fire under my ass. Seriously, I'm going knowhere, but how to get somewhere, hmmm. I think I will go to the library tommorow. I'm not sure what I will end up with, but I seriously need to do some more reading up on something. But what?
7/15/05
I'm having a blah day today. I had to work from 7:30 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.. Now, I'm not a morning person and I'm limiting my soda intake (no Mountain Dew!) so I got to work this morning and I tell you, Congress in election year moves faster than I do. It took a mighty effort to get moving, but I somehow managed to get into the rythm. Well, come 4:00 I get out of work and get home. No sooner than I sit down on my bed, but I'm out like a light. Ouch. I didn't get up again until 10:00 p.m. Looks like I will be awake for a while.
7/12/05
Well, I had an intresting afternoon. A couple of weeks ago I bought one of those blow-up pools at wal-mart. A powder blue affair, 10' x 6' x 22". Since I have severe allergies, I can't very well go swimming at any of the local ponds; and I'm not too keen on chlorine pools. It's not terribly dignified to be sure, I'm a 6'5" 23 year old. But when it's 95° and the humidity is ~70%, you take what you can get. I had it set up in my back-yard, (which is fenced in) but it was killing the grass. After my buddy and I where done using it, we dumped it on the lawn and thought that was that. Well, 20 minutes later a police officer came to my door. Apparently, the water went under the fence and the neighbor complained. Whoops.
Well, these people are the ones we call the neighbors from hell. Why? Well, we have two dogs. When we put them out in the front yard, it's on a plastic coated steel line. Dutchess is a lab-mix mutt. Brandy, is a 13 year old beagle with arthritis. The neighbors claimed our dogs where defecating in their yard and threatened to call the police. It wasn't the first time they threatened to call the police over trivial things, and we knew the dogs hadn't been in their yard. We where tired of their threats so we called the police. Would you know it, the lady next door couldn't keep her story straight. Whoops.
