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July 31, 2006

Very busy but a good day

So today was a good day. I mean it was kind of a culmination of a very busy week for me, but I'm not going to let that get me down.

Today I picked up the rings for the wedding, and honestly I'm pretty jazzed about it. It just feels right. I'm so lucky to have found a jeweler that I can trust and who can make these custom rings by hand. There's nothing like knowing you didn't just pick something off a shelf, but designed it with them. I highly recommend it.

Hell of a commute though...stupid jewelers row...

- Could you really stay mad at this thief?
- Best Xbox 360 mod EVAR! Oddly enough I find myself wanting an xbox more and more...maybe if they came out with a killer rpg or something.
- Whatever you do, do not run yourself over with your own car during an attempt to impress your friends. I blame this stupid drifting craze and Initial D.
- Swimming lessons for cats. Oh....lord, I'm sorry jessamine but it's funny....please don't hate me.

July 29, 2006

I had so many friends in rehab...

With only 13 days to go until the wedding we're really both kinda shocked with the number of unreplied invitations.

Now understand, these are people we knew wouldn't be able to make it because of need of travel. We aren't screwed up in terms of seating or anything like that because of it. But there are two reasons it's offending:

1. It's just rude.
2. Do you know how much those fucking stamps cost? What the fuck to you think that I'm make of money? Seriously its not that hard, just open the letter, realize you can't/don't want to come and check the little box that says "can't attend". Then put it back in the freaking tiny little envelope conveniently enclosed with return postage already on it and drop it in the mail. If this was a competition you could probably do it all in less than 5 seconds.

The current theory is that people feel if they respond they will feel they have to buy something from our registry. And I guess I can see that, I mean most of these people have probably never even met me, and wouldn't care less if I dropped dead tomorrow. But dammit, we put a lot of effort into those damn things...at least return it so I know it wasn't totally wasted. It's just rude.

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So I'm using IE beta 3 right now, and I was just thinking about how nice it would be if you could click and drag a tabbed brower window out onto the desktop and make it its own window. Instead of doing a cntrl+n and then copy and pasting the link. Would be very useful for those of us who use multiple monitor setups.

Also, wtf is up with it breaking google spell checker (in the google toolbar)? I had to remove and reinstall the toolbar to get it working right again. Simple fix...but kinda just one more damn thing I don't need to do.

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So yesterday was pretty busy for me, but when I got home there was this horrible noise randomly popping up in the house. At first I thought it sounded like an uneven load in the washing machine or something, but after tracking it down it turned out to be the blower fan in the furnace. So I ripped the blower assembly out of the furnace and hauled it upstairs into the garage to clean it. It was totally covered in this nasty greasy dirt from the years of the previous owners and their smoking. Nasty stuff that wouldn't even come off with normal soap and water. So I disassembled it just like the steps in that link pretty much. The only problem was that I couldn't find the oil spot to put any in it. So I ended up popping the cap off and adding oil there...now I didn't think WD40 would work...to think, and lithium grease is two thick....so that left motor oil from Jen's truck. :)

So far so good, been about 24 hours w/ it running and so far no bad sounds, smoke or anything else negative. We'll see what happens. Odds are that the bearings took some damage...but I'm curious to see how long it will last honestly...

yay i'm smartyiest!

You Passed 8th Grade Science
Congratulations, you got 7/8 correct!

July 28, 2006

super mother farkin' tired

so far this has been one hell of a busy day.

Our DSL went down....again.

Had to dissassemble the furnace blower fan and oil it because it sounded like a dying cat.

And here I am sitting on a conf call about an outage in Ohio.

I am very tired.

July 27, 2006

Nobody sleeps around here

As I sit here waiting for my script to finish that is checking the default ppp interface compliance with RFC 1918 I realize that I am very very tired.

These maintenance windows are for the birds....being on call this week doesn't help either. Doing two jobs on top of that is just really kinda sadistic if you ask me.

So I finished Radiata Stories earlier today. Well at least the non human storyline. God, what a huge disappointment that game was. I'm really having a hard time convincing myself to bother to play the human side of the story. Game play, pacing, non linear scheduling of missions that led to me missing some of a few key ones simply by resting at an Inn. I just can't believe it's the same people that produced Star Ocean 3.

Seriously...huge waste of my time. I'm not looking for shakespeare here, but the story was just stupid and told like a bipolar 5 year old was narrating it.

I'm just angry the game sucked, and it didn't have to. Total waste of time :(

gotta go, scripts done....

July 22, 2006

Always 72 degrees

Oh. Lord.

Well I just got a 4 hour crash course on Netopia 3346's...man...what a way to spend your day off I swear. But despite my incredible commitment to AT&T and our customer's happiness I still managed to get the lawn mowed. Yeah, I rock like that!

btw, that was a joke.

So last night we (Jen) made pizza's from scratch all with stuff from Trader Joe's. You can buy the pizza dough already in a bag, good to go. You just plop it out, add sauce (ironically from the same store) and toppings.

It was honestly...shockingly good. Seriously, I totally recomend it. Just make sure you get some corn meal and sprinkle it in the pan first. You'll be amazed I swear. Oh yeah and we (Jen) made sure to leave the dough out for a while before using it.

Pump the water, build the pressure...it's the perfect job.

- Want to repair XP without reinstalling everything for 5 days? The guide you need is here. Worth a read if you've ever had to repair a PC.

July 21, 2006

Headlock

Jen forwarded this video to me today, and it's hella funny

- Drunken Friend Alarm Clock.

Work safe, and very hilarious. Don't watch while drinking any fluids unless you don't like your keyboard very much.

I'd post more about exciting things, but between wrapping up wedding stuff (and realizing how much more there is left to do) and work there isn't much to say. I could talk alot about work, but most of it I actually can't discuss in public due to government regulations. Crazy eh?

I was able to finally get to level 11 of that de-animator link though last night...apparently a few beers help :) Somehow shooting zombies just never get's old.

July 19, 2006

I don't believe any of it

Can somebody explain the reason why after drinking a mug of coffee I suddenly find myself wanting to lay down and take a nap? It makes no sense, but I get so sleepy after caffeine sometimes...

Ok, so the BBQ went pretty damn well I think on Saturday. Finally had to kick people out around 9:30pm, but all in all I think it went off without any major hitches. Considering the wedding's coming up here in...oh 24 days...we didn't really have the most time in the world to put any effort into it. Plus with me doing two jobs right now at work, i'm crazy busy with projects. Although that's gonna have to stop soon...one job or the other...I'm not gonna kill myself forever because somebody thinks they can keep using me forever. Argh...whatever....

Anyways, I digress, tomorrow we finalize the menu for the wedding and pick out the cake. And any day now i'm expecting a call from the jewler that the rings are ready....which I'm sady excited about. I think my ring is gonna be hella cool.

- Jessamine sent me this link in an earlier comment. It takes you to a blog that shows a cat and a snake getting along. *shudder* I kept scrolling down expecting the last pic to be one of the snake with a suspicious cat shaped bulge. I get the feeling that they're not left unsupervised, and it was kind of a one time thing...but still....

- I found this link a while back, about a motorcycler in CA who got nailed with a rock in the arm. I did stupid shit as a kid, but this is way beyond the line. As a biker, this crap scares the hell out of me sometimes. Just another reason why I don't ride without full gear.

- Dammit Nick....he sent me a link to the De-Animator. Thankfully killing zombies at 5am didn't really distract me to much from working. btw, press the shift key to switch to shotgun...and hello? why does it take him so long to switch. They're farking zombies...as Chef Ramsey would say "MOVE YOUR ARSES"! Still can't get past level 9 dammit...

Been listening to a lot of Imogen Heap, Venus Hum and Goldfrapp (my god what artist doesn't have a myspace page?) lately....but I heard this cool remix of Seven Nation Army by Adam Freeland...if you can find it check it out. Oh and the Venus Hum cd is pretty good, so is Imogen...so props to Jen for recommending them to me.

July 18, 2006

GIAIS

I haven't had a lot of time to post, with the BBQ on saturday and work this week I've been hella busy.

Doesn't help that last night I made dinner, and somehow managed to make myself sick off it :(

But...anyways, there's this cool conference call I'm on tomorrow for GIAIS. It's like the UN of ISP's, talking about how to bust bots, zombies and other Internet bad guys with voltron efficiency. It might not be exciting to some people, but I think it's hella cool.

July 16, 2006

A series of tubes remix video

Oh lord...if you've heard of the whole stupid net neutrality speech by Ted Stevens, you need to go watch this techno remix video:

http://www.13tongimp.com/index.php/archive/dj-ted-stevens-a-series-of-tubes/

f**king funny as hell....

July 14, 2006

tomorrow is bbq day

So I found myself thinking something today. Streaming video is cool and all, but what good is it if you can't see anything because your upload is so small that you have to drop things to 25kb just to get 10 connections?

So Instead of streaming video (which is great for single uses, but not multiple users on a home line) i'm going to use webcam software to capture a 640x480 image every 10 minutes an push it up to my server.

The result will be a better picture, and better experience for everyone else......of course if they really wanted to be part of it they'd be here....but hey, I can understand being nosy :)

http://www.dennisjudd.com/bbqcam.htm

July 13, 2006

It's a series of tubes

Well I was able to get the streaming webcam running again for the BBQ Saturday. Nothing big, just some friends over....and on the bright side I don't have to hang the stupid thing out of my window this year....yay me!

- Funny video from the Daily Show, John Stewart comments on Net Neutrality, and the moron in charge of regulating it. It's making the rounds right now, so you've probably seen it elsewhere, but it's damn funny.

- Damn....Rollin' w/ Bob Saget. I don't want to think it's funny...but I can't help it...I just can't stop thinking this is exactly right.

July 12, 2006

Just some links

- Coolest watches you'll ever see. Don' t know if I could ever tell the time on them...but they're cool looking.

- Super Mario Brothers Z episode 1, episode 2, and episode 3. If you've ever watched Dragon Ball Z you'll think this is hilarious. In fact it will probably be the highlight of your miserable day.

This morning was clean cage friday for Ralphie:

July 09, 2006

damn costco

hey....HEY!

yeah you fatty....is that where shopping carts go? Huh? Right next to some landscaping little island in the middle of the parking lot?

Why don't you try burning off some of those dunkin' donuts mocha-chinos and waddle your fat suburban hairy ass the ginormous distance of 20 feet and actually put that cart in the.......wait for it.....CART RETURN!

fat balding mother farker's....pray to whatever god you believe in I'm never king of this world....

rototilling sucks...and other observations...

So we ripped out a few bushes in our yard about a month ago, and we've been meaning to clean up the gaping wounds that left behind.

Neither of us likes the landscaping in our yard from the previous owners, so we decided to just say screw it and put sod down over the area. After some reading on the internet, I came to the conclusion this meant tilling. I tried to do some of it by hand using a garden claw, but with the high clay content in the soil and the roots from the old bushes...that wasn't happening very well.

So smart me decided to rent a rototiller. A 5hp gas one was only 12 bucks an hour to rent, sounds cheap and easy right?

My back still hurts....that thing is a farking monster. Of course it could be because of the high root content, or the fact that I was tilling an oddly shaped little area on both sides of the driveway, but damn it was a lot of work. It took everything I had to hold that thing back from just tearing into the lawn like a fat kid at a buffet.

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I'm sure due to all the wedding stuff I'm sure, we've started getting calls from PRO HEALTH ULTR (616) 301-8608 saying we've won a fabulous honeymoon vacation, and all we need to do to redeem it is call an 800 number.

Now, I'm a suspicious person by nature, but I'm sure of a few things:
1. If we had really won something, any notification would have come certified mail
2. An 800 number? Who needs that for an individual winner?

So a little googling and it turns out this is a high pressure cookware selling scam. They get around the no call list by leaving an 800 number for you, and by claming you've won something. Which by the way you'll only get if you attend one of their seminars where they'll pretty much do anything to make you buy a shitload of overpriced crap. Lovely....just lovely.

- Talking cats. Kinda creepy really...I can imagine waking up in the middle of the night hearing this and pooping myself.

- The Dell De-crapifier. I've done this alot manually on new dell's for friends. Usually takes me a few hours, so this is pretty cool sounding to me.

July 06, 2006

Ever feel like you have an idiot magnet up your butt?

Jen and I have felt this way for years, it seems that no matter what we do somehow if we leave the safety of our own home we're going to somehow run into somebody that just makes you wonder how it was that their sperm was the fastest.

In honor of this, I whipped up this little pic:

Here's to you:
- Slowest check out person in the whole store
- Person talking on cell phone who can't drive
- Door to Door meat salesman
- Bagger who can't understand that refridgerated products should probably stay together in the bags
- Liquor dept checkout lady who takes the last person in line first when they open a new terminal
- VH1.com...no I will not install an active X plugin just to watch a stupid video

All of you were the very best in genetics your father had to offer....sad...so sad....

July 05, 2006

Bottom of a well

I just found out that Mike Doughty released a new CD back in may.

Mike Doughty...who's that? You might also know him as the lead singer for the now defunct Soul Coughing. Yeah...him....

Just in case you want to check out his sound, here's a video for "Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well".

July 03, 2006

Faded

Never underestimate the power of people to disappoint you.

I'm by no means a great person. I'm not the kindest I could be, or the most forgiving of others flaws. I'm rash, judgemental, opinionated and sometimes arrogant. But the difference between me and some other people is that I want to be a better person. You might not know it, but I try to actually help people sometimes.

I wish I could just get along with everyone and have a whole bunch of friends that don't matter to me and look all popular, but when it comes down to it, I'd rather have one good friend, than 10 shitty ones.

When I give somebody the benefit of the doubt, even though they've been a pissy little baby about shit they have no right at all to question me about, and they stab me in the back when I give them one last chance.....well, you know I just don't need that shit. I have no requirement in my life for that level of drama or crap, when I've done nothing but help them their entire life.

Bah...I need to go relax...stuff like this just isn't worth stressing about...

July 01, 2006

Soup from stones

God google ad words can be so frustrating at time....what fucking moron would click on a donate to hurricane katrina banner now? Stupid morons....ads that aren't relevant to the content are of no use at all. And every time I write them they just say "wait 48 hours".

Moving on...I'm really not at a 100%, but despite not feeling well I did manage to get a muffler installed on our Central Vacuum.

Looks impressive? Not really...if I had known what was in it before I probably would have tried to make my own out of 4" pvc and some foam. Not a single baffle, just some foam inside....it's crazy, but it does work.

I've been porting the exaust outside for almost a year now, using plain jane 2" pvc and a bathroom vent kit from a local home store. The problem is that it dumps out right hear a neighbor's window, and when I turn it on the whole neighborhood must know I'm vacuuming...hella loud.

I made a video of the effect before and after on the noise, first 5 seconds is old way, last 5 is new. Unless your deaf you'll notice the difference.

- Oh hey Nick, you were right, disabling the keyboard error bios option did remove the need to press F1 to bypass the fan failure notice on my Dell 8300. Good tip.