Am I The Only One?

Am I the only person left on the face of the planet who thinks Napoleon Dynamite is a very NOT FUNNY moron? Am I the only one who didn't fall for the whole Austin Powers unfunnies? And finally, am I the only person who watched X-files and was just, well....annoyed?

I am beginning to think yes. Hark, all you unfunny recognizers and reveal yourselves!

iPods, Beer, & Movies

Have you ever had one of those Monday morning's in which you were trying to recall your weekend, and realize that you did way too much? This morning is like that for me. Living in the crappy town that I do, it is completely gray, cloudy, rainy and not warm, and so I think back to the weekend for the fun things A and I did.

Friday was a pretty cool day. I finally gave in and took the iPod dive. I have to say, it is quite trendy and I usually don't go for things of this sort, but the iPod is a lot of fun. I got it at the Apple store, which is completely neat. They have all the Mac notebooks, iPods and iPod minis, some flat screen monitors that are two and three times the size of my TV screen, and a bevy of accessories for the iPod and Macs in general. I think one of the reasons the iPod is so cool is that there are so many cool things you can buy to make the little machines do anything you want. Their marketing scheme was working on me, hell I wanted to buy a docking station, a little transmitter-ma-jig to make it play on my car radio, a set of Bose speakers to plug it into at the house, and this, and that, and oh this too, and wouldn't this be cool, and now I have no money and I'm living in a trash can....with my iPod. **Warning---To all of you out there who are considering an iPod purchase, don't fall for the ol' "your iPod won't work unless you have a USB 2.0 connection." Mine works fine and I don't have USB 2.0, and it really is NOT THAT SLOW***

Enough about the little contraption; Friday night I got off of work around 9:30, went home & picked up A, changed clothes, went to the bar, ate dinner and drank beer. Not a bad day all in all, except that work interfered with my life.

Saturday was one of those days which by the time I did wake up, piddled on the computer, and basically did nothing for a few hours, I realized it was a beautiful day outside, almost sixty, and it was high time to get outside. So, I took A back to the Apple store....I know, it's terrible. After ogling for a minute we headed downtown and drank beer at one of my favorite bars for a couple of hours. I noticed a new style that I cannot take part in. What's up with all the guys wearing either bright multi-colored sweaters with crazy designs or brown blazers? I guess I'm just not a stylish guy if that's what it takes. I saw a guy wearing a bright blue sweater with a big Panda stitched right there on his belly. Then there was a group of three guys who came in all wearing brown blazers, every last damn one of 'em. (I'm starting to sound like Joan Rivers, I'll shut up) After the beer drinking and sweater watching we went to see the new movie "Hitch." It's hilarious, and you can get away with calling it a "chick flick" for the you-owe-me-one-violence-and-car chase-guy movie.

Sunday we went to this authentic Mexican restaurant that has been around for nearly thirty years, it was DELICIOUS. Some of the best Mexifood I've ever had, and I eat a lot. Sunday night A got this brilliant idea to rent a movie friends of hers had been raving about. It was awful. "Napoleon Dynamite" doesn't even deserve to be called a movie. They should show it in little bits and pieces on Nickolodeon so that no one has to endure such torture. I got about thirty minutes into it and started diddling on the computer.

So now it's Monday morning and like I said, I did too much. Sorry 'bout that one for all my impatient readers. If you made it through this whole mess drop me a line and any iPod tips, hints, and accessories would be appreciated.

An Interesting Conversation

"Well, at the very least it makes for an interesting conversation..."

I said those words to a dear friend of mine in reference to one of many employees who reports to me at my place of employment. The topic was to what standard should we hold those who make up the bread and butter of the American economy-the blue-collared everyday next door hard-working American.

I have changed quite a bit since I first began my role in management. Going in, I felt it was a corporate right to hire and fire at will, which I still believe it should be. However, what I didn't realize was to what extent that corporation has influence on the individual, as long as the corporation so chooses, and in that same regard I did not realize the desperate need of the corporation for those beautiful people who are completely content in their particular place in our culture. It is an intricately complicated web of hierarchy. Some of my best are those who will never have the opportunites I now have, nor have had in the past, but are those who enjoy the simplicity of understanding their place, and although they will in all likelihood not advance to a higher level, they know they are damn good at what they do and they take pride in it.

But in all honesty, knowing that you are damn good at something and being content in only doing that thing because you know you are good at it is something that is often looked down upon from a management perspective. This is precisely where I have changed my perspective. Beauty can be found in simplicity, in so-called complacency, and in a job well done, even if it is deemed unambitious by those who are responsible for the job getting done in the first place. This closed-minded view is archaic, and should be contradicted with an enlightened understanding that we are no stronger than the pieces that make up our foundation.

And so I ask... to what standard are we as 'ambitious' citizens to hold those who do the things we manage, those things that when done well make us successful? Did we do that thing, or did we ask it to be done and by some certain stroke of luck it was done so well that we received the commendation for managing it and are thus given the description of being 'high-potential?' Do we dub these do-ers as unambitious, inferior, and complacent, or do we embrace them as the cornerstones of our societal and individual successes?

At the very least, it makes for an interesting conversation...

Gmail, Ubuntu, beer, & a mountain bike

The highlight of my Saturday is that I've been waiting to get gmail forever and I finally got the invite this morning....so sweet. I love it thus far and have enjoyed playing with the labeling feature; hell, having 1 GB of email storage alone makes me enjoy it--Thanks Google! To all you friends out there...send me a note!

UbuntuLinux is still working lovely, but I can't seem to get the live cd to recognize my printer nor can I use my zip drive. I may just not be doing something right. This just gives me more reason to play around with it.

I've just finished up a project I've been working on for some time now. A big monkey just jumped off my back.

Tomorrow being Sunday, we'll head downtown to our favorite local bar, which features a draft beer list topping two hundred different breweries. There's not much better in my opinion than a lazy Sunday afternoon, a good friend(s), and an endless supply of ale you've never tasted.

To top it all off, if the weather holds up I'll get to hit the trails tomorrow morning and get a ride in.

Oh, and Kick, I know you visited this site because I saw it on my site meter. For not posting a comment you can visit the golden triangle.

Ubuntu Linux Shuts the Windows

Apparently my computer has been sleeping with other promiscuous computers. It is quite the whore. And so like many machines in the said profession, it got sick.

Trojan. Yes, it goes quite well with the whole 'promiscuous' theme, but it didn't go well with my pc. I was running around 330 processes and using up 100 percent of my capacity. Trojan locked up my computer, made it impossible for me to function, and basically prompted me to do something I have wanted to do for a long time. I am now bringing DavidBlog to you via Linux! Ta daaaaa. Or for those of you lucky few familiar enough with it, Ubuntu Linux.

After rebooting my computer in safe mode and backing up all the files I needed, I spoke with a dear friend of mine who has bailed me out of more computer problems and crappy Windows junk for longer than I'm sure he cares to remember. You know who you are....Thanks TB! I ended up having to reinstall Windows and I bought a Linksys broadband wireless router...sweet. It kind of felt like someone came into my home, threw away nearly everything I owned, and then refurnished my place with a nice few basics. It hurt like hell watching all my stuff go in the trash, but when I looked up and saw a clean, neat, simple pad it was well worth it. A fresh start. I just took the fresh start and re-decorated.

TB, we'll call him the all powerful, let me in on a way to run Linux immediately, and I can do so until I can get the software to partition my hard drive to install it there. It's basically an old concept, but it's nearly a 600Mb file downloaded and then written to a CD, from which you boot your computer. Voila.....Linux lives. It is slower because it is on a cd, but I have all the security and virus-free living that comes standard with Linux. My computer loves me...for umentionable reasons.

All you Linux-ers out there let me know what you think and/or what you know about Ubuntu! I'm new to the Linux world but have been an admirer for quite a long time as I have been quite disappointed with Microsoft for some while. As of now I've only been up and running for a day, but so far I am thrilled with it!

Showing Your Undies

Am I the only one who is a bit disgusted by this Bill that was passed in Virginia? (see link below) We have so many issues going on that need congressional attention at the state levels, but we choose to allocate our time to teenagers who are 'busting a sag." You don't like to see a kid's boxers hanging out? Well neither do I, but my advice would be to deal with it. I don't like to see old men with their shirts half unbuttoned and their harry bellies sticking out either, but fining them for doing so is unwarranted.

On the other hand, it would be quite comical to hear these congressional members of Virginia debating on whether or not 'low riding pants' is a freedom of speech issue.

Congressman A: It is high time we honor the citizens of America by putting a stop to the neanderthals who deem it necessary to show their underwear, lets impose a fine of up to $50 if we see one buttcrack!

Congressman B: Well Mr. A, don't you remember when we used to have long hippy hair?

Congressman A: That's different! Everyone likes long hippy hair! I wish I still had hair. We were making a statement! I didn't inhale!

Oh the joys of American government.

The referred link can be found at:
Low Pants

Yesterday's Ride

Being that it is February, and that it is still relatively cold to be engaging in strenuous outdoor activities, yesterday marked my first bike ride of the year. (The four posts below are pictures of the local trail I ride most often) Normally during the warmer months I've gotten to where I ride up to three times a week. I will go at least once a week, and almost always twice in any given week.

At any rate, mountain biking is something I love to do, be it for the rush of whizzing by trees two inches from my handlebars, getting good ol' muddy, staying in shape, or just because I love to be outside in the first place.

As I said, yesterday was the first ride of the year. My lungs were burning so bad I thought they were going to jump out of my throat and catch fire. I guess the cardio part of my being in shape went in the dumper over the winter months. On the upside, I was pleased with the way I have maintained my leg strength, but don't ask me how I did it. It was a bit odd, I could hammer up hills, tear through mud, and basically pedal through any obstacle I wanted, but when I stopped and noticed what my heart and lungs were telling my brain I damn near puked!

All the more reason to ride...

Beautiful February Day

Ride the Bike!

Singletrack into the woods

Bike the Lake Trail

The Dooper Bowl

So another Super Bowl has gone by and this makes something like the third one in a row in which I thought the disgustingly expensive commercials were not at all that impressive. It's been downhill ever since they got rid of the Bud Bowls. (remember those?)

Never mind the game, I wasn't at all that interested. I would have liked to have seen the Eagles win just because the Patriots are creating something of a dynasty, but hey, it is somewhat cool that Boston has a championship football & baseball team in the same year.

Returning to the commercials, what's up with the random Taco Bell ads? I guess they wanted to make sure everyone watching the Super Bowl knows they sell burritos. Here where we were sort of watching, they even had a local commercial for an ambulance chasing lawer. Then there was the weird Olympus commercial, and of course Blockbuster Video aired their ripoff of Netflix. There were a few ads that made me laugh a bit, but for the most part the Monopoly game I was playing (yes, during the game) was much more interesting.

Blah, I guess we'll wait until next year to watch another two teams play in what has become something well outside of football. It's an event that is now an American celebration of money, glamour, advertising, capitalism, and corporate sponsorship.

Oh and by the way, was I the only one who found the exploitation of our current military status and war a bit dramatized? It's bullshit that Fox would use the war in Iraq to add some type of 'flare' to the freakin' Super Bowl. Come on, where have we allowed our perspectives to be carried off to?

The Week in Review: From Social Security to the $2.4 M commercial

Well, the business week has finally come to an end, and I'm glad that I've made it to another Friday. (That's a great movie by the way). At any rate, I thought I'd jot down a few things that caught my ear and attention.

First, I've been hearing and engaging in quite a few conversations about Bush's new Social Security plan. As I have not had the amount of time necessary to 'learn up' on this issue at present, I'll reserve my written opinion for now. However, from the overview I've received from biased parties thus far, I understand the issue to be allowing Americans to allocate a greater amount of their wages that would have previously gone into the black hole of Social Security to be used for their own 401k plans. Sounds good to me thus far, as I'm always for less government influence. Hey Gov, leave me the hell alone.

Another issue that kept coming up this week was one I had been aware of since the drive back home in the wee hours of Christmas morning. As I am a nerd, and I had an eight hour drive, and I didn't get off work until about 4 am, I flipped the AM/FM switch and started listening to the AM. It definitely kept me awake better than a whining country star doing a tired rendition of Silent Night. At any rate, the topic was the military's death benefit tax. A senator from, Ohio(?) maybe, was proposing we increase the death tax to $100,000 from the meager $12K offered at present. The opponent was surprisingly a widow whose husband had perished during Desert Storm. Now no one in their right mind would argue against helping a fallen soldier; they deserve their nation's utmost. However, the issue is whether or not there are better ways to provide this assistance, as first of all we can't afford this proposal, secondly there are already readily available insurance policies available to our finest, and lastly the death benefit was never meant to be substituted for any type of insurance policy whatsoever. (Anyone that thinks $12k is an insurance policy need not breathe any longer) It's definitely an intriguing issue that often leads to heated personas, but to me it's just another batch of political pork. Who would ever sacrifice a political career opposing giving assitance to our fallen heroes? Bush sure as hell didn't.

And finally, what the hell is the world coming to? What's that magazine that would always have the "signs the apocalypse is upon us?" Well, I wonder what that magazine would think about 30 seconds of air time going for 2.4 million dollars in a game that everyone already "knows" who is going to win. Never mind how far 2.4 million would go in Sri Lanka right now, or even Baghdad. If you don't believe me see the blog titled "Baghdad Burning."

That's it for me this posting. If you've had an interesting read please let me know what you think and give me your blog address so I can hit you back! Take care everybody.

The Revived Crap Jet

Sweeet. So I talked to a few people and have tried a few more things once again. If you have an Epson that doesn't work, read carefully.

I scrolled through the menu options until I got to the "change cartridge" option. Then I opened up the top of the printer, and as a result the print head moves towards the left so that it can be accessed for cartridge change. (Still following?) Then I manually slid the print head to the left some more, and unplugged the printer so the print head would stay where I put it. This allowed me to see the 'felt' or (rubber, or whatever the hell it is) piece that goes down into the printer, and from the looks of it you can easily see that ink must pass through this piece. At that point I took a straw, dipped it into some de-natured alcohol, and dropped the alcohol on there. The idea is to clean out the ink. I also used a few q-tips and paper towels to soak up some excess ink. Anyways, I did this a couple of times, and the last time I did it I put a honkin' big drop on it and then moved the print head back in place, turned it back on, and left it for 24 hours.

It was working yesterday, but I'm still happy with my laser jet. Now I can use the ol' crap jet for copying purposes.