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August 31, 2004

Friendster coder fired for blogging

From the ironic department comes this little turd of a story. Joyce Park is a coder for a company called Friendster. Friendster, as it's clever moniker implies, is a website dedicated to creating a network of friends via "6 degree's" type smoozing. Basically they make money by intruducing people and getting the to talk and communicate. That fact in mind, the recently fired....nay, shitcanned one of their programmers for discussing the change from java to php in her blog. While this information may seem technical, the disclosure of it in no way could affect security. Anyone with half a brain would be able to tell just by looking at the page. The primary goal of the post was to discuss the scalibilty of php over java in terms of meeting performance goals for the main user interface. They fired her for blogging. Not about corporate information, releasing proprietary code, or lack of productivity. They simply fired her for this one post. No warning, no notice, just a dismissal for blogging about something readily apparent in the url. if you have a friendster account I suggest you follow these directions to cancel it. More information:
- Fired for blogging
- shitcanned
- Fired from Friendster for Blogging
- Scott Sassa is a clueless newbie (I was gonna use the term asshat personally)

Friendster coder fired for blogging

August 30, 2004

just ripe, for the picking


I am not evil, I am just misunderstood. Now get out of my site before I have you chopped up into little bits and buried alive. - Son of a bitch lits cat on fire and throws it off balcony. Now heading to "pound me the ass" federal prison where I hope he enjoys his new boyfriend.
- When flying your plane, it always helps to make sure the oil cap is on firmly.
- Help the drunk walk.
- No Ipass? Prepare to pay double. In related news, Illinois Tollway Authority heard laughing their fat, rich asses off. Remember the tollway was supposed to become a freeway after the bonds were paid off......
- Jaws in 30 seconds, re-enacted with bunnies.
- Alien in 30 seconds, once again re-enacted by bunnies.
- Stupid parking garage game...dammit Jen....*grumble*

August 28, 2004

but there's a lot of old bills we have to pay...

This is our fireplace mantel, it is a cheap hunk of wood

Now....not so much...

Jen? Why do you have that camera?

I am not stoned in this pic, I swear to god.

Somehow I doubt that helping is his main motivation...

dammit Nibbler, how many times do i have to tell you that is "not a step"!

Cute little video of nibbler climbing up the ladder...

August 27, 2004

SP2 and feeling fine...

- Man dies. Body isn't found for 2 years, condo fees were automatically withdrawn and nobody seemed to notice the full mailbox.
- Catch up on everything you need to know about the Olympics by watching this.
- Canadian woman drops her 17 month old retarded child from bridge on "accident". But that's not the link, the rub is she's now trying to sue the bridge owners for stress. Rumor report Satan making space for one more.
- Slavery reconciliation walk is coming up on Sept 29th. "Complete fucking moron's milking slavery's past for everything they can, and further stressing race relations by dredging up the horror's of the past which don't pertain to their generation" walk still being scheduled.
- If your going to list a house online try to make sure that there are no dog's humping in the pic.

DMB poop update

I just read this, and had to share. It's a first hand account of a guy who works on the chicago tour boat that got poop/urine dumped on it a while ago. Today was one of the worst days I've ever had at work. Allow me to explain. I work as deck crew for a sightseeing boat company in Chicago that does architecture tours on the river downtown. I had already worked two 15 hour days Friday and Saturday and intentionally showed up a half hour late this morning to try and squeeze another half hour of sleep in (I knew what had to be done in the morning on the boatthat I was on, because I left it eight hours previous, and knew how long setup would take). Needless to say, I was already ready to go home. Then came the 1 o'clock architecture ride. 117 ticketed passengers on board plus an extra four who showed up on Michigan Avenue for a boat ride that actually launches out of Navy-•••••••-Pier, whom we were nice enough to let on for free. We're puttering down the river, we turn north at the junction and proceed, as we do on every tour, beneath the Kinzie Street bridge. Now, the bridges all have grated decking. You can look up and see the sky through them. In the Captain's pre-tour safety announcements it's usually mentioned one should not look up with your mouth open in wonder, since a car might go by and you might get an unpleasant "Taste of Chicago" ha ha ha. (The Taste of Chicago is an annual summer food festival held in Grant Park.) Now, that really never actually ever happens. Not that I've ever seen. Today, of course, had to be different. I'm relaxed in the pilot house with a crossword (since during the rides themselves I just sit while the people get their tour from the volunteer docent, and the crossword kept me awake) when I hear this splattering noise, like a heavy rain, and a few scattered yelps. I get up, go outside, and look out over the passengers seated on the deck. The passengers on the left side are all wet, and appear horrified. Something behind the boat is raining through the bridge into the river.
"Shit," I think, "some idiot Streets & San employee just went over with a street sweeper and soaked our passengers."
Then I notice the passengers appear a lot more horrified than that. "Oh my god!"
"It got in my mouth!"
"It's urine!" The smell hits me. It's old urine. Ah, shit. I look up onto the bridge and see a black coach bus, like the kinds old ladies take group vacations on, disappearing past the buildings. They had gone over the bridge, and being ignorant ••••s probably decided they could skip a pisstank pumpout by just opening it into the river, through the bridge. Talk about the wrong place at the wrong time. I said to the captain, "Turn the boat around. Now." Now, being the assigned deck crew on this ride, I have to handle this. The captain has to drive. Needless to say, I'm not entirely sure how to handle 60 people who all need to be sanitized and given antibiotic shots at once. We train to handle people falling into the water, heat stroke, shit like that, not a torrential downpour of human waste beneath Kinzie street. All I can do at this point is hold my breath and give away every paper towel and work rag on the boat, and wait until I have a clear idea of exactly what to tell them as a whole. Some passengers are of course visibly distressed. Women have hair matted to their face, peoples clothing is sticking to them, babies are crying. I'm close to being sick all over the deck, and really worried that someone else is going to, because I know as soon as someone does it's just going to be a domino wave of barfing that will sweep across the boat like a sickly sweet stomach shockwave. Nobody did. Thank God for small favors (you know, the ones He thinks make up for shit like this). These people, to put it bluntly, were very pissed off. Now I also get to be the company PR face, so like a good little worker bee I try and balance being as helpful and understanding and apologetic as I can, with helping to maintain the balance of the Bureaucratic Tower of Shit looming above me. The captain's already on the cell phone doing damage control. I'm to tell everyone they are, of course, granted full refunds, and anybody that needs anything extra on top of it because of what happened will get it. I'm specifically told to mention that while we can't call ten ambulances down because the situation is not life threatening, a lot of them are going to want to visit a hospital sometime soon. What I don't mention is some of the shit these people will now have to worry about, ranging from tetanus to hepatitis. The best we can do for them is pay for a cab to Northwestern Hospital for anyone who needs it. Then come the usual asshats. "We want a representative on the dock, to take names of everyone involved in this."
"How is all this stuff of mine going to be replaced? There's no way I'm going to pay for this."
"You coming out here and telling us that we can have refunds and cab fare to a hospital is downright ••••••• insulting. I want a bus for these people."
( You want a bus? Excuse me, then, Spartacus, while I pull one out of my ass. )
"Refunds? A lot of us have jewelry on that's now soaked in urine."
( I wasn't aware gold could be used to soak up liquids. )
"I have a flight to catch at five, and now I've got urine in my phone, in my clothes."
You have three ••••••• dots on your sleeve, and let me remind you this is not our fault. It's not as if the captian saw that shit pouring down and drove under it anyway. The problem, of course, was that little bridge joke. It's funny only if it doesn't happen. Now that they've all got that "Taste of Chicago", people have the idea in their heads this shit happens all the time and that we know about it, and are therefore to be held accountable for what is in reality a rather •••••• up act of God (see above). We're back at the dock, and an army of urine-soaked people march on the ticket office. Great, they're gone and now they're Diane's problem. "Well," I thought, "The dock guys are gonna help clean up the boat, and I get to go home early." Nope. No such luck. As the five of us, including the bartender on the boat, are scrubbing off all 104 chairs and the deck, The captain reappears. "Who's been telling people there's no 3 o'clock?"
"Not I," says I, then I stop in mid scrub. "Wait ... there's a 3 o'clock?"
"Yeah, they want to send us back out on the 3, and then the 5 after it."
Ah, shit. "Are you kidding me? My shoes and pants legs are soaked in piss and boat soap and they want us to turn the boat around in a half hour for another god damned ride?"
"Yep, 'fraid so." The Bureaucratic Tower of Shit, I think, is defined as people at the top having no idea what's actually going on at the bottom, and vice versa. A call is placed to my father, who now has to make a forty minute drive into the city with a change of clothes for me. (He didn't make it by 3, and I had to spend the next 90 minutes trapped on the boat in ••••••• nasty clothes thanks to the main office and their money.) Meantime, though, as I scrub my way to the back end (stern), I'm basically running the hose directly into the all-weather speaker to try and get rid of the smell back there. It won't go away. I then look up at the American flag flying off the pole on the stern. Ah, shit. It's soaked too. We cut it down, I take it and make sure I fold it proper, with the triangles and shit, and then of course we smuggle it around past the pilot house where the passengers won't see us placing it into a trash bag to deal with later. Cleanup continues, until a guy on the dock wants to talk to me. I've had people coming up constantly and asking things, what do I do about this, where do I go for that, and I just point at the ticket office and say "Talk to them." Before I can do that to him he says, "Hi. I'm a photographer for the Chicago Tribune." Ah, shit. Company policy is that all press stuff has to be directed to our main office. The main office is out in Palatine and nobody there knows a god damned thing about what goes on on the dock anyway besides how much money we make them. He adds, "I've been getting some good shots of you all cleaning up the boat, and I thought it was touching the way you still folded the flag properly. Can I get your name?" A 3 o'clock, huh? Yeah, you can get my name. I'll spell the son of a bitch. So now at least it's over, I'm showered, and I may be in the paper tomorrow. Any Chicagoons have any ideas as to who might have shat on our boat? Black coach bus, gold letters (nobody got a chance to read them). A few people independently described it as a "Rock and Roll bus," which I can't really explain the meaning behind but it seems important. I finished the crossword except for 7 letters too.

August 24, 2004

dirty bastard

I've been watching a lot of olympics lately. I mean a lot, like more than ever before in my life. Which isn't a hard feat to topple since I've never watched any before. That being said, the brazilian women's vollyball team scares me. Every time they scored a point against the US tonight, they hugged. And I don't mean a quick one second "yay, we're the bomb diggity bomb" hug...I mean the lengthy, uncomfortable, dear lord are you trying to stroke the sand off her ass? kinda hug. Perhaps they thought touching nipples would activate some hidden brazilain wonder twin power? Then one of them could take the form of water and make the sand into adobe bricks and lock the americans in place...? Either way, Contrat's to May and Walsh. Lord knows both teams could probably kick my sorry butt anyday in just about anything. :)

August 23, 2004

blue skies

Yesterday was a very busy, sweaty day for us as we installed the last subfloor in the family room. Nothing like hauling and cutting 7/16" OSB all day to get some exercise. Not to mention all the screws we had to put in.
Won't find backgrounds like this at the Sears photo place:

That damn angle for the fireplace was a bitch to figure out:

Imagin me doing this about 700 times, that was what our day was like:

Shortly thereafter, Jen made the obligitory "coming out of the closet" joke.

The finishing touches:

Phew....all done. With a sheet to spare. Damn we're good....

Poor Gizmo, he's so freaking cute but we have no idea why he just sits in the corner all the time.

Ever have a feeling like your being watched? That poor chipmunk has no idea that there are 3 blood thirsty animals inches from him. Thank god the glass is strong.

August 22, 2004

Damn you Toblerone

I forgot how good Toblerone's are....damn tasty. They had some at the food bank yesterday and were using them as "snacks" during break. So I want to post, just because. Was really busy yesterday moving everything out of the family room into the living room so we could put plywood subflooring down today (which we're going to do after I post this). So here's a before, before, before and after pic of the living room. It's only a temp setup:



As and additional bonus, if you call right now and order you get a free picture of Nibbler attempting to mind control me into getting him some tuna.

August 20, 2004

Max Payne 2

- NY DMV cracking down on illegal immigrants with driver's licenses. My question is, how the fuck did they get them in the first place? Don't they freakin' check to see if perhaps somebody's used the same social security number 57 times? Dimwits. (thanks to Jen for this one)
- Girl with Crohn's goes to Old Navy shopping. Girl with Crohn's disease asks to use the bathroom. Asshat manager says no. Pooping ensues. Fran Dresher heard laughing in the background.
- Remember the Old SNL skits about colonblow? Well believe it or not it really does exist. I just want one of their T-shirts :)
- Ever hear of Judicial Immunity? Basically and Judge can do anything in the name of carrying out justice and never be held accountable for any of it.
- Yogi tired of picnic baskets, want's your beer instead. Now the question is "does a bear have the beer shits in the woods?". (courtesy of Nick)
- Try staring at this for a while and not going crazy...doesn't count if you already were crazy.
- This is all over the net, but in case you missed it, a 22yr old jeep pulls an H2 off a itty bitty widdle tree stump. Kinda reminds me of this. In other news, got the bike back from the shop a few days ago. She's been starting up and running much better now that they've cleaned the carburetor. I think I'll need to take some time and give her a good cleaning now that she's running so well.

August 18, 2004

everybody got their something


The End of the World I know it's old, but I had to do something to get the Magical Trevor song out of my head :)
- Want a Con Ed tatto? Just fall on one of their grates in NY.
- GM wins in Derrick Thomas wrongful death suit. Wow....anybody can sue over anything now a days eh? Hmmm...speeding, weaving, no seat belt, ice.....well thats not an accident, its Darwinism.
- AVP kicks everyones ass. Movie reviewers now looking for jobs as weather men where nobody expects them to ever be right.
- Man splases cop with puddle. Man gets's arrested. If your gonna stand in the street...perhaps it might be a good idea to not do it by a puddle...dumbass.
- cute, stupid little kitty thing. Here's a litte link for anyone reading this from Hazelwood, MO. Good luck to everyone out there, if it's any consolation the extra money saved by your jobs being phased out will allow some executive to buy a new gold plated enema bag.

August 16, 2004

Nothing like a hot shower...

I've done a lot of things in my life, and like to consider myself a pretty handy guy, but jesus christ this house is killing me. It's like every time we fix something, something else breaks just to mock us for thinking we could get ahead. So I dremel'd out the grout and replaced the bad spots in the master bath, then I recaulked it with the best caulk money can buy. Then we let it sit for like a week to cure. Then we finally test the water, only to notice the drain is now leaking magically. I then proceeded to spend a very difficult 1/2 hour chistling out lead from the old drain, and pulling out the oakum. And if that wasn't hard enough we decided to replace the drain completely.* So armed with a new drain assembly I decided to remove the old one. Guess what...it's not easy. Took about 6 cutting wheels to get thru the metal (fiberglass reinforced even). After that it was pretty much easy though. Although reaching the nut from the bottom via the hole the downstairs bathroom fan was in was very hard. I think I pulled a muscle..:( behold the joy that was my life for 1/2. Damn near blew out my kness crouching like that for so long:

Mmmmm...yummy. Most of that dust is actually the damn cutting disc's

Shot from below of the old pipe, and drain sleeve freshly cut off (bottom part anyways)

Better shot after I cut off the pipe...god what a cheap piece of crap drain assembly!

Yummy, this is what 10 dollars will get you at the local store :)

Just a dry fit to make sure the cuts are all correct, the pipe has to be perfectly centered in the drain hole pretty much. When working with pvc always dry fit your connections first.

Voila, new drain in place. The nice thing is the new drain uses a compression gasket instead of lead and oakum. Very snazzy.
*see, here's the thing. If we kept the old drain then I'd have to repack the sleeve with oakum and use some type of lead substitute to seal it. And the odds of that working are pretty crappy, especially if the leak is caused by the drain sleeve itself.

August 13, 2004

Back up

Got the website back up, for some reason the database was crashing out when the margins were blown on a post I made. The simplest decision was to lock down all the posts and delete the ones that were erroring out. fun, fun, fun

Enough slacking, here are links!

- Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Of course I won't ruin it by pointing out it's about as real as a 3 dollar bill.
- Light brite online. Now you don't have to worry about your dog eating all the pieces.
- Your on a boat tour. The boat goes under a bridge. You get drenched in human feces and urine. Your probably still cleaner than if you jumped into the chicago river.
- Wow, employees of the Transportation Security Administration caught stealing from people's luggage which looking for bombs. I'm completely shocked...shocked I tell you.
- If you aske me, I just think the pilots wanted a closer look at the nude beach.
- Hey Mr. Nord? We found your car that was stolen from you the other day. All you have to do is come down to the police station and pay the tow truck to get it. Or we can knock 10% off the price if you let me brutilize you with my nightstick.
- Remember that murder of 7 people in Fla I mentioned a few days back. Now they're saying that the victim made 7 calls to 911 before the mass murder. Seven fucking calls....excuse me while I go polish my hand gun.

August 12, 2004

traffic increase

i'm really confused. There has been a huge increase in traffic coming to my site, and I just don't know why....it's cool, don't get me wrong, but I just can't tell from where:

Monthly Statistics



Hits Bytes Visits PViews Month
81,414 9,310,029,691 10,285 32,512 Nov 2003
103,373 9,292,031,068 10,631 40,050 Dec 2003
154,797 14,344,573,710 13,490 49,639 Jan 2004
177,561 30,978,194,310 17,527 61,855 Feb 2004
204,174 17,219,534,916 17,066 65,932 Mar 2004
220,347 19,981,598,236 19,411 70,899 Apr 2004
278,065 19,999,865,397 17,006 94,212 May 2004
232,720 51,211,574,844 25,832 105,729 Jun 2004
208,017 18,238,878,086 15,390 77,936 Jul 2004
275,302 58,657,130,539 43,135 208,820 Aug 2004
guess I was hoping that maybe some people could post where they came from.

August 11, 2004

learn something new every day

S.N.A.F.U = Situation Normal All Fucked Up.

August 10, 2004

yay yay yay the cow is back

I hate this damn link: Magical Trevor Can't get the stupid song out of my freakin' empty head. And to top it off Jen keeps turning it on behind me randomly....ARG! - Play city jumper here, and get no work done today.
- Have lot's of back hair? Need to remove it? Don't fear, or ask your spouse...Razorba is here to lead you to back hair removal independance.
- Xbox leads to brutal slaying of 6 people in Fla. Truly proof that humanity is in a downward spiral. Let's see if the leader can play Xbox while getting pounded in the ass in prison.
- Bumwine review site....now we have a model to base our own beer review site on. Now accepting paypal donations for a new liver.
- Small business finds that spending on the employee's increases productivity. Now if only my damn job would give us back the free coffee.
- Great photoshop over at Fark. What would classic nintendo have looked like if it had been run by microsoft. Some real funny stuff here.
- Never trust your friends.

August 09, 2004

Free stuff is always good

Got a free magnet today from Guinness. It's not quite a bar towel, but it will do.

August 08, 2004

Damn, we're good....

We spent the weekend doing a large chunk of the moulding in the living and dining room. We were able to get most of the base cap on and quarter round. Now we just need to finish paining the last bit of base cap (the store didn't have enough when we bought it, so we had to wait for more to come in) and then we can fill the nail holes and do the final paint touch up. Here's the first corner with the base cap being put in:

You can see Jen lining up the next piece here, they're about 8' long

Jen want's you all to know we're #1 at pergo!

Oh, look an actual shot of me doing work....I guess one of the cat's took that one.

Garage is a mess....but makes for a good work area

Close up of the base cap on top of the base moulding

This is a great shot that shows how all the parts fit together. You see the 1"x4" we routered (3/8" bit), the base cap on top, and the quarter round on the bottom.

Living room to dining room transitional half wall corner

When there's no room, you have to eyeball the measurement, we're actually getting pretty darn good at it.

A finished shot of the moulding, hasn't been filled or touched up yet....but the T moulding's in for the pergo.

August 07, 2004

indignation

There are few things in the world as rude as returning a gift because you are so self absorbed in your belief that the world revolves around you and only you. Congratulations on finding a very effective way of pissing me off.

August 06, 2004

Stolen

I'm a weakling,
you are strong.
Pick me up from where I lay.
Here on a stolen sidewalk.
Baby, don't make me beg.
I am not right,
you're not wrong.
I can't last another day.
Here on a stolen sidewalk.
Baby, don't make me beg... you smell like butt
congratulations. you are the "you smell like
butt" bunny. your brutally honest and
always say whats on your mind.


which happy bunny are you?
brought to you by Quizilla This is my (Jen's) happy bunny!
you're so dumb
you are the "you're so dumb" happy bunny.
you are brutal in your words and enjoy putting
others down.


-Jen found this yesterday on the internet. It's Swedish Chef Tv. BORK! BORK! BORK!
- Ebay scammer's are getting smarter, sneakier, and all around just more evil. Personally I look forward to seeing them in hell with Hitler and a large pineapple.
- Cruise Passengers Told to Abandon Ship. I know it's really not funny....but it is :)
- Inner city boy goes to camp. See's bear. Literally dies of fright. Saved from being found dead in the bathroom in a few years after beating off.
- Fark sells out. Say it ain't so.....
- The English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator. OMG D3NISJUDCOM1!!!1!1 IS DA BST W3BSIET EV3R MAED!11!11!1 OMG

August 04, 2004

rube goldberg

- Family rushing to hospital to give birth, given ticket instead.
- Guy steps on 5 year olds foot in crowded subway. Tries to apologize. Father of afforementioned kid punches him in the face. Guy falls backwards, hit's head, and dies. Reverse darwinism confirmed.
- Almost all laptops are made by the same companies, and just rebranded.
- Teamster's (union guys) picket graveyard during funerals. Kharma's gotta be a bitch on that one.
- Pet Cemetary retroactively begins charging for lawn maintenance fee.....30 years later.
- Once more, genius from the master. How much gold is in Goldschlager?

August 02, 2004

Doom 3 comes out

Doom 3 comes out tomorrow, but as we all know somepeople have gotten advanced copies of it and now it's all over the web for download. Still some people haven't been able to get a copy of it, so they result to despirate measures, as seen here on Fanta News. On a different note, next time you think your life sucks...think again:

Let prohibition begin...

We accomplished some more manual labor this weekend, despite pretty much losing all of saturday to a BBQ. The bottom part is just standard 1x4 with a 3/8" router bit curve in it. Then we're gonna put some base cap on top and then quarter round. Should give it kind of a fancy, old colonial look....hopefully.




August 01, 2004

Busy weekend

Today is my sister's birthday. So everybody wish her a great big happy 39th birthday