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April 29, 2002
Eat that, Team Turmoil!
In case no one was paying attention, the Ottawa Senators eliminated the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday, which gives me gloating rights in the office over all the Philly folks. Ah, that's a nice feeling to have.
In other hockey news, it's a shame that the Canucks got booted out since they were having such a nice run toward the end, but at least it was to Detroit. Of course, Detroit is old, so we can only wait and see how long they last. The Leafs and the Habs are doing alright. It'd be great to see the Habs win their series tonight, as it'd mean that the #7 and #8 seeds in the East would move on. If the Leafs and the Islanders can keep their game clean enough, it should prove to be an amazing Game 7.
Posted by KinCross at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
Speaking of cats
New cat pictures are up. These were mostly taken in the morning for my sister, who needed pictures of cats for a brochure. Brother Ian is royalty free and has a cute little girl and a digital camera. Guess who got the call.
Posted by KinCross at 01:14 PM | Comments (0)
Flo Control
With a name like that and my Chemical Engineering background, how could I not take a look, especially when it was IM'ed to me by Dazz whilst I was speccing out hardware for an Exchange server. Here's one person's ingenious way of keeping out the cat's little outdoor presents.
Posted by KinCross at 01:12 PM | Comments (0)
April 26, 2002
Apple's Innovative Design Expands I'm
Apple's Innovative Design Expands
I'm waiting for the Titanium Toilet, though.
Courtesy of B3TA.
Posted by KinCross at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)
How safe are you in the Village?
Find out how well you would survive a walk through Greenwich Village.
Can you tell if she's a female or a shemale?
Can you tell if he's gay or straight?
Courtesy of B3TA.
Posted by KinCross at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)
April 25, 2002
My job is to deal with blue screens
I only wish my blue screens looked like this.
Courtesy of Rob W.
And here's the full pictorial. (WARNING: It gets naughty. Probably not suitable for viewing at work, unless you work in porn.)
Courtesy of Google.
Posted by KinCross at 07:26 AM | Comments (0)
April 23, 2002
I was apartment hunting
So my friend Dazz sends me a real gem. I'm glad he likes cats, cuz I've got two.
Update: Alas, it appears the site has put the posting on hold. Here's the text for the apartment, advertised at $700/month: "This is a killer deal for the right person. You get your own PRIVATE 1300sq.ft loft w/ private kitchen, living room, bathroom and bedroom everyday/night of the month, EXCEPT SAT. nights when it is opened up with another seperate 1200sq. ft loft for S/M type parties. (Your bedroom WILL be locked/kept private though). This is a steal for someone not here on Sat. nights or cool with being here for S/M type parties on Sat. nights. IF you are a Dominatrix(but you do not have to be), even better as I have a seperate dungeon next door. Call me at (718)***-****, GREGO"
Posted by KinCross at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)
Incentive to play golf
I really don't think I have to say anything about this picture. Remember, you have to win in order to do this.
Posted by KinCross at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)
Yay Sens! (Revisited)
3-0, baby! At home! I think that's the first time I've ever seen two empty-netters.
Posted by KinCross at 04:52 PM | Comments (0)
April 21, 2002
Yay Sens!
After a disappointing overtime loss in the mid-week game, hooray for the Senators, who came back tonight and handily won 3-0 against the Flyers in Philadelphia. Now, they take it back to the Corel Centre with the series tied 1-1. Damn, it'd be sweet if they got past the first round this year.
Posted by KinCross at 01:18 AM | Comments (0)
April 20, 2002
A Saturday Evening Tee Time
Too bad it was just me on the greens.
Courtesy of Mata.
Posted by KinCross at 04:24 PM | Comments (0)
The ultimate in geek gamer gear
If you've ever wanted to have all of your gaming devices all in the same place, you might want to give Yoshi a call and have him make a Boxx for you.
Posted by KinCross at 01:28 PM | Comments (0)
Strange Wants
VH1's been aggressively advertising their first original production, "WARNING: Parental Advisory," which features Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" prominently in the ads. Now I'm wondering where I ever left the LP.
Posted by KinCross at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)
Jesus Saves!
In case you've ever wondered if God was ever with your favourite sports players on the field, you might be heartened to know that he sent His son to inspire the next generation. At least hockey is represented on the second page. For the Feng Shui people, they've got martial arts, too.
Posted by KinCross at 01:20 PM | Comments (0)
Catfish and Trimmings
At this very moment, my cats are laying on the hardwood floor by the door like -- as my friend Jeanne puts it -- dead fish. Alas, I can't really think of what kind of fish they look like. Maybe a black bass and... well, there aren't any fish coloured like Diva.
Diva, by the way, has the most incredibly soft fur. Petting the two, there is such a marked difference between the sleek coarseness of Hack's fur and Diva's silky feel.
I am loving this Enrique Iglesias video ("Escape") with Anna Kournikova. Sorry, my pool has a shallow and a deep end.
Alright, so far this has been a lot of disjointed little thoughts. Why stop now?
I've been sweating a PS2 for a couple of weeks now. I want it for one game: Virtua Fighter 4. It's a silly reason. I don't have the time to play it and that likely wouldn't change if I got one. Hell, I've got an X-Box now and barely spend any time on it. Mind you, it would probably be more fun if I had a roommate to play with or friends that came by more often. Funny how guys would come over to play games in college and just don't do that sort of thing anymore. Then again, all of my Hoboken friends are either coworkers whom I don't usually hang out with outside of work or martial arts buddies who are usually busy taking classes.
Speaking of martial arts, I finally got off my ass and got a doctor's note so I can take that Jeet Kune Do trial class. I had attempted to take it back in the fall but checked the wrong box on their waiver form and they wouldn't let me take the trial class without a doctor's note. So now I've got one. I'll probably hold myself over on trial classes at various schools until I have the money to commit to one. The frontrunner is still Su Yu-Chang's school, though.
On the topic of kicking some ass, I'd really like to lay a foot into the people over at Fidelity Pacific. These are the people that are the "parent" company of Syonic, the web host where I had placed CTHB.org. I had split on a five year contract with a college friend of mine. Altogether, it was $600. There was a 90-day guarantee where the money would be refunded, no questions asked, if we were unsatisfied with the service. After trying to deal with their technical support a number of times, I was thoroughly dissatisfied with their lack of response. So I bailed under the terms of the agreement. They killed my account access about a week later. True to form, I got no correspondence from them on status. My emails are unanswered. Their phone numbers lead to voicemail, fast-busy (failure to connect) signals or something that sounds like a fax machine. Needless to say, the money has yet to be refunded.
Something for the tech people: a history of Novell Clients available for download at Salford Software.
Finally found some new pens. I had to buy them myself because the office pens were really starting to suck. We used to have some nice Uni-balls, but now all that's left are some crappy bulk Bics and Pilots. Went out and bought some Uni-ball Gel Impacts, the non-retractable kind. Took me a few days, though, since the black 4-paks were sold out for awhile. Yeah, I guess it's kinda sad that I'm so picky about my pens. I have a $35 pencil. Go figure.
Thanks, Dazz, for noticing that it was hot in my neighbourhood this week. We hit a record high a couple of days ago, somewhere in the mid-90's. It's the middle of frickin' April. It shouldn't be this hot, especially when the previous week had highs in the 50's and 60's. I'm dying over here. Put my A/C unit back in the window on Wednesday and it's been much more pleasant since in my apartment. The week's been an exercise in trying to figure out where the best A/C is and how little clothing I could get away with while staying within dress code.
A/C is a strange beast. I think that it is evil. I don't think it's evil when it's hot and I need a cool place to escape for a moment, but I think it's evil because it perpetuates the silly thought among the general populace that it makes sense still to dress in full suits in 100 degree weather. Who in their right mind -- their logical mind would think that, on a day where it's stupid hot and humid as hell, it would be a good idea to put on an undershirt, a shirt, button it up to the top and noose yourself with a tie, then put on trousers and a jacket? Hello? What happened to light, short-sleeved shirts and shorts? That would make a hell of a lot more sense to me, but instead we have people dressing up and therefore require A/C to remain comfortable. Meanwhile, everyone who is sensibly dressed will freeze their asses off as soon as they walk into a building. A/C should be there to temper the temperature to a more sensible level, not to bring it down to the frigid levels. The shock of going from hot to cold and back to hot is probably the most discomforting feeling I get in the summertime.
Furthermore, the cost in energy and chemicals to maintain these A/C systems aren't cheap, as the landlords love to tell tenants when they're cooking in their offices and the heaters are still blowing out hot air. I can't imagine how dropping our temperature at the expense of fossil fuels should make us feel better when that very same use of fuels is what's causing the global climate to gradually warm or move to extremes.
I'm not looking forward to this summer. I have a bad feeling in my bones that this week was an omen of a nasty hot summer. The drought's been severe here. We're supposed to be watching our water consumption severely. We've had so little rain that the pollen has been flying around rampantly, even in the concrete jungle, brought on the wind from New Jersey. My allergies haven't been this bad since I lived upstate.
Taxes are done and mailed off. I e-filed two of them on Sunday night, but I had to wait for acceptance from the tax bureaus before I could print out the signature forms and mail them in with supporting documentation. I'm just happy that it's dealt with. Anxiously awaiting the return now. Time to get back on my feet.
Just watching the Jewel video for "Break Me" and it reminded me of war, which plopped me over to the plight of a friend in Israel. It's been rather surreal reading things from him as he talks about the bombings and then being recalled to emergency duty in the armed forces. He's done his duty, though, and is scheduled to be discharged this weekend. I don't think that means the same thing as it does in the US and Canada, though. Even though he's discharged from duty, it sounds like he's still considered a reservist and could be recalled again in the future. Call it being discharged from this particular mini-tour of duty.
Israeli-Palestinian conflict: I have no opinion on the conflict itself, because I have sympathy for both sides, but I have a distinct feeling that I don't know enough about the history behind the conflict and the underlying causes of it. I suspect that most people are in the same boat, but it grates on me when they get all worked up with incomplete information. It also grates on me that the reporting in this country has been so one-sided. I want to hear the counterpoints.
As I can see the sky beginning to grow light, I think I had best slip off to bed and get some sleep. I took a two-hour nap shortly after I had my moment of tranquility, but I think that all that the nap has done is give me a false sense of alertness.
Go Sens.
Posted by KinCross at 02:11 AM | Comments (0)
Odd Discoveries
This evening, after crawling out of my work clothes, I flopped onto my bed and lay there for awhile playing with the cats. I haven't done that often enough, playing with the cats, and rarely in the bedroom. A chance glance outside gives me a view into the backs of a few other people's apartments, though that's not really what I was writing about. I've been leasing this apartment for two years less a month and half, living in it for maybe half that time (the other half spent in Cleveland), and this was the first time that I ever noticed that I can see the top of the Empire State Building from my bedroom window.
It was one of those odd little moments where everything just stopped and I was able to appreciate a simple vista, with shadowed brownstones with incandescently lit windows and people going about their evening business in the foreground, and peeking up over them, the Rocket Pop coloured Empire State building with its Red, White and Blue lighting scheme.
Everything else that has been bothering me in life, whether it was a feeling of being in over my head at work or the somewhat precarious state of my finances right around tax season, just fell away and for maybe ten minutes, it was just me, the nighttime outside, the city lights, and the soft fur of Diva curled up against my chest while I petted her.
I wish I had more moments like these.
Posted by KinCross at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2002
Porn or Furry MUCK LARP?
Those who love sausage or revere the law should watch neither being made. And porn.
Courtesy of m d.
Posted by KinCross at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)
Balls of string have twiney goodness
Sometimes, I don't want to know what kinds of conversations my cats have while I'm gone.
Courtesy of m d.
Posted by KinCross at 05:34 PM | Comments (0)
April 15, 2002
A symptom of the times
I'm sure someone has noticed that my production lately has dropped off rather severely. Sorry. I'm not sure how it can be helped.
The basic deal is that work is getting busier and due to the nature of it -- I work on billable hours -- if I'm futzing around at work, I'm not generating revenue. If I finish what work I have, I'm supposed to find more instead of slacking off for the rest of the day. So, therefore, I haven't really be posting from work.
For that matter, I haven't really been reading blogs from work either, though that is more due to my reluctance to have my web surfing monitored than time. Yeah, they started filtering our email here and, knowing the products that they're using to do it -- after all, we sell the same products to our clients -- I know that they are capable of monitoring all sorts of Internet traffic. So, not much blogging input or output at work. That leaves after hours.
After hours are mostly taken up with me doing stuff. I'm doing a decent job of keeping my New Year's resolution to "Get out more," to the chagrin of my pocketbook. It's getting warmer now, so I can thankfully bump off to do things that don't cost as much money, like spending all of a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Central Park on inline skates. Mind you, any benefit from that was mitigated by raiding Smith & Wollensky Grill for a big slab of prime rib.
Today was just as beautiful as yesterday, if not moreso. Alas, I'm indoors, but I suppose that's not an entirely bad thing. Dropped off my NJ State taxes at the post office and will have to wait to see if the IRS and NY State accept my e-filings later tonight when I get home. Here's hoping everything is fine and I can just send in my signatures and W-2's and be done with it.
This brings back an interesting memory. Filing taxes last year was a rather unique experience for me. I filed them in Cleveland, all of them, printed out on paper and slapped into envelopes. I was working in Cleveland then and didn't have a chance to file them on the scant pieces of weekends when I was home in the NY metro area, so I had to tote them out to Cleveland with me and find a post office to send them in and get that all important postmark. I hopped a cab to the post office and there, standing out in the cold non-70's and 80's weather of New York, were a bunch of postal workers picking up tax returns on the street as cars passed by. I was thoroughly amused. Drive-through tax filing. Hah!
There aren't many benefits from living in NY metro and commuting to Cleveland for work. I was there for the better part of ten months, starting with two or three days a week and eventually reaching five days a week between November 2000 and late spring 2001. One of the few benefits was that I racked up a few points on my corporate AMEX card. With nothing better to do with them, I cashed in 50,000 points for $500 in gift cards at Brooks Brothers. Daddy wanted a brand new suit. I picked it out sometime in late March and picked it up today at lunch. I'm pretty happy with it. Got it on sale at $399 and had some alterations done that brought the total to just $0.97 shy of $500. What really shocked me was the original price of the suit. I caught a glimpse of it while they were ripping the tag off the sleeve: $1898. Nineteen hundred dollars for a suit? Isn't that a little ridiculous? Maybe it's one of those ludicrous MSRPs that no one ever pays attention to so that they can claim that their prices are 50% off despite the fact that no one's ever sold the suit for more than $999 anyway. Says a lot about markup if they can sell a suit for 79% off the original price. Either that or they took inventory and they're selling a suit for any money they can get back having already had to count the thing as sold.
Wishing I had a PS2 and VF4. Okay, really more wishing I had VF4. I don't care what platform it's on.
Poking fun at MTV, here's something I found on their site regarding Nickelback, a Canadian band:
With all the attention and contention surrounding the Canadian skating and hockey teams at the Winter Olympics, we thought we'd take the opportunity in this week's chart and sales analysis to lavish a little intercontinental praise on Nickelback."So when did Canada get booted off of North America? Methinks some MTV news hack needs to learn the difference between the prefices "inter" and "intra."
That's it for now. In parting, I will leave you with this thought:
"I'm Ozzy Osborne! I'm the Prince of Fucking Darkness! I can't have bubbles!"
Posted by KinCross at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)
April 11, 2002
Just when you thought society couldn't get any worse
First there was the Realdoll. Then the Realdoll came standard with three orifices.
And then someone decided that we really needed to cater to the people who like Hamsterdance.
Posted by KinCross at 08:01 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2002
Early morning... what?
I apparently say some pretty odd things in the morning, especially in IM to my friends:
Friday, February 01, 2002 09:14:25 AM Ian - My company feeds me with oatmeal. I am happy with my company. As long as they keep the apples & cinnamon in stock, I'll stay.This, of course, has absolutely no bearing on my real opinion about my work, though the free oatmeal is nice. And the occasiona bagels and schmears when the catering company screws up.Friday, February 08, 2002 09:32:36 AM Ian - They have free oatmeal here at my office. This makes me very happy.
Friday, February 08, 2002 09:32:44 AM Ian - Happy enough to blog about it. Hold on...Monday, February 11, 2002 10:35:58 AM Ian - Did I mention that oatmeal makes me happy? :-)
Monday, February 11, 2002 10:36:20 AM her - A few times, yah. :-)Thursday, February 14, 2002 09:24:15 AM Ian - Every morning I have this meeting with Wilford Brimley.
Thursday, February 14, 2002 09:25:03 AM her -And then you tell me about it! :-) Monday, March 18, 2002 9:18:39 AM Ian - Yay, free bagels and croissants.
Monday, March 18, 2002 9:27:24 AM her - No oatmeal??
Monday, March 18, 2002 9:27:39 AM Ian - That's still around, but fresh baked items are hard to pass up.
Posted by KinCross at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)
April 03, 2002
Old news, but not so good news
I don't know if this was blogged to death back when it came out in mid-December because, quite frankly, I wasn't really paying attention to it at the time, but this VeriChip thing from Applied Digital Solutions is a little scary. It conjures images of Demolition Man. Hmmm... happy day, Leona Huxley.
Posted by KinCross at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
Small-Dicked-And-Compensating vs. Eunuchs
For those of you following the We Have the Way Out hubbub over the past couple of days, you'll probably be tickled to find out that the site has gone offline.
Here's the first taste I had of this issue, regarding the Microsoft and Unisys venture to promote the security of the Microsoft software over that of UNIX, among other things. As it turned out, the site was launched on a UNIX box (FreeBSD, running Apache web server). Slashdot has a great stream of consciousness about this thing. Too bad you have to pick through so much crap to get to the good stuff. I keep my threshold at 4 and it's done me pretty well.
Of course, the computing community being what it is, could you have not expected the counterpoint?
Posted by KinCross at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
April 02, 2002
Fear the Mom
My sister told me a story last night on ICQ that had me in stitches. My mom's older than me and wouldn't forgive me for revealing her age, but suffice it to say she was not a teenager when I popped out. As such, it's understandable that people of her generation may not be as interested as mine to pick up on this whole "Internet thing."
They wired my mom's college (she works in one of the administrative units) to the Internet awhile back and made it openly available to the employees. I remember my mom talking about taking classes in email and such. Enthusiasm wasn't strong, but she seemed to be open to the idea, at least. To this day, we don't talk that much in email, in part because I'm really starting to suck about replying to my email, especially when it requires thought; if I can fire off a quick one-line smartass remark, those get answered quickly. For the past year or so, I've been getting periodic e-cards from my mom for the major holidays and such. It's kind of interesting to get these from Mom, because I never really saw her as the type to send these things out.
Last night, that misconception was blown completely out of the water. My sister told me the story of the day that Mom discovered e-cards. My sister was at work or at a class, I believe, working, whatever, etc. My mom's at work, discovers these e-cards and sends one to my sister. Well, figure that my sister is pretty shocked that she got an e-card from Mom. Figure my sister was floored by the demotivator card she was sent by Mom. The first e-card my mom sent out was about Procrastination.
My sister wrote back: "Don't you have to work or something?"
While were here, this is what I do: Consulting
Posted by KinCross at 06:14 AM | Comments (0)
April 01, 2002
Find your job at Monster.com
If your job ever makes you feel horrible, just remember, you didn't have to dress up as ClipIt for a Microsoft launch.
Posted by KinCross at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)
N'Sync Empire squashes Rebellion
It looks like the N'Sync boys have taken over theforce.net. Better check it out while it's still 1 April.
Posted by KinCross at 06:31 AM | Comments (0)
My Constitutional right to copy stuff
Here's a good article about the misconception of "fair use" as a Constitutional right. At the risk of tossing out an unpopular opinion, I'm all for fair use if people use it fairly, and I'm all against the wholesale copying of music and video to MP3. It's the digital equivalent of bootlegging.
Posted by KinCross at 06:21 AM | Comments (0)