Category: Writings

I just got it today. The Canon PowerShot A510. My first digital camera ever.

Look what I got today. That’s right. I was just sitting in my apartment, minding my own business, when FedEx shows up, 20 minutes before I have to head to work.

So, I’m making up for it now. Kinda.

Please keep Megan and her family in your prayers this week. She is in Gregory right now attending to a family emergency. The thoughts and prayers of my family go out to you and your family, Megan.

It’s amazing what listening to three+ awesome acoustic versions of a song will do for you. It’s not too hard to play, either.

Hello
I’ve waited here for you
Everlong

Tonight
I throw myself into
And out of the red, out of her head she sang

Come down
And waste away with me
Down with me

Slow how
You wanted it to be
I’m over my head, out of her head she sang

And I wonder
When I sing along with you

If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when

She sang

Breathe out
So I could breathe you in
Hold you in

And now
I know you’ve always been
Out of your head, out of my head I sang

And I wonder
When I sing along with you

If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when

She sang

And I wonder

If everything could ever feel this real forever
If anything could ever be this good again
The only thing I’ll ever ask of you
You’ve got to promise not to stop when I say when

She sang

Just when you were sure you would never see a Jurassic Park rip-off on the Sci-Fi channel starring Coolio, you were wrong. Let me introduce Pterodactyl.

Wow. If I’ve never seen a worse movie. This was a movie that was terribly naive about itself. First, it thought it was clever to jump on the Jurassic Park bandwagon. Even a read of the cable guide description called it “cliche” and “formulaic”.

I missed the very beginning, but this group of college kids end up at one of Turkey’s borders. And, apparently, an earthquake released Pterodactyls into the area. Then there’s a group of American Special Ops soldiers, led by Coolio, and some group of people who had accents that the Americans wanted to shoot. It was terrible.

New version of Movable Type. It’s not too bad. I haven’t found a whole lot that is useful or mind-blowing that I didn’t use before. A decent-sized change to the interface.

It seems, however, that the Movable Type system is completely unusable in Firefox. I just tried to post in Firefox, and clicking the “Save” button did nothing. Then, I opened Movable Type in IE and not only does it work, but it looks really nice. Even the icons are different. It’s as if Firefox is only good enough for black and white, crappy icons, colors, and functionality.

I’m a little hurt. I had so much respect for MT, but it now appears that I might be switching to WordPress. I haven’t completely made up my mind, but I like the fact that WordPress is written in PHP, which makes me feel more comfortable in writing and altering plugins and templates and the wordpress engine itself.

*sigh*

I’m so tired. I don’t understand it.

Working on some things. Hopefully done soon. Finished HP4. Starting on Mein Kampf, Rapture of Canaan, and Canadian Spies, a gift from Molly.

I got the weirdest junk mail in my Hotmail.

The subject line was meet theHunnies

The message? Well, I didn’t keep the actual link from the email down below, since it’s porn, but what was really interesting was what followed.

meet theHunnies:
http://www.happyandhothunnies.com
Le président de la commission sénatoriale des affaires étrangeres,
M. Richard Lugar, qui a joué un role important dans la libération
de 404 prisonniers marocains détenus par le Front Polisario dans

And that’s it. A link to female sex toys and then a short blurb in French about Richard Lugar (R) Indiana. I looked but wasn’t able to locate the article quoted above either in French or English.

What the deal.

I know you’ve seen adverts for Just Like Heaven. Here are some of my reasons why this movie will suck.

1. I don’t like Reese Witherspoon
2. It looks like the 6th Sense as a chick-flick
3. Mark Waters‘ last film was Mean Girls
4. His film before that was Freaky Friday
5. The line, “If we can touch, do you think I might wake up?”
6. The line, “I think she has some pretty intense feelings for you, bro.”
7. Jon Heder isn’t playing Napolean Dynamite, which is the only role he will ever be known for

Okay, if you’re looking forward to that, then you’ll love Undiscovered.

1. Ashlee Simpson
2. I don’t like movies that give teenagers adult-esque dramatic situations
3. It looks like The Doors as a coming-of-age pre-teen chick-flick
4. Meiert Avis‘ last film was Jennifer Lopez: The Reel Me
5. Four of his films before that were U2 music videos.
6. The line, “Rockstars can’t have girlfriends.”
7. The line, “He wants to make it, but on his own terms.”
8. Ashlee Simpson

Fortunately, today is a Gilmore Girls marathon on the Family Channel. Unfortunately, I get to see all these commercials 7 or 8 times an hour. I have to find Gilmore DVDs somewhere. I am so confused with the haphazard way the WB and Family channels show their reruns and new episodes.

Gotta love TLC.

• TLC 8 – 9p
  • Face Eating Tumor
    • Documentary

It appears that Radiohead has an online journal called Dead Air Space. So far Thom has been the only one to post, and his posts often seem to be … reminiscent of his lyrics.

Also, finished Harry Potter 5 last night. That’s going to be a hard one to put into a movie. So much of the book takes place in Harry’s head. But it’s also, I think, the most frustrating book. I almost want to yell at Harry for being such a hothead. “SHUT – YOUR – MOUTH – POTTER,” a red-faced Miles Rausch yelled at the book. Also, I think I read the words “(s)he replied coolly” 2,000 times. J. K. Rowling seems to love that phrase, especially in the “teenage-angst-bad-attitude” book 5.

In some neat news, Colleen Flynn, Megan’s mom, and Kevin Miles, my uncle, are taking the same master’s classes on Catechism. I heard it first from Megan last week, then from Colleen on Sunday when we were moving Megan in, and then yesterday when Kevin called me. So now I’m telling all of you so no one else tells me about this. Though, during the course of our conversation, Kevin and I managed upon the topic of HTML and web design. Afterwords I sent him an email containing links to some $100+ worth of books on the topics.

Mmmm, books…

The new Sigur Ros album, Takk (icelandic for thanks), has been leaked online.

Mmmm, Sigur Ros…

Now, go away. I’m at work.

Hi.

Sometimes I wonder about the updates that developers push on us. In the current state of software and web development, everything is instant gratification. We can add lines of code and recompile in a second. What does it matter how well we write the code to begin with? We can recompile with no costs.

But, then, (inevitably) software is released that is buggy. Half of the PeopleSoft install is all patches and fixes. Installing the product means that you now have a broken set of code that is useless. In the words of every stereo-typed Rabbi, “I woke up for this?”

Even working on our own Monitor.net (screenshots) at Cresh, we must have created 90 different versions of beta 3 testing different image types, sizes, and colors. Now, none of that got released, and I’m sure all software development companies trade around working / half-working / demo / test versions of the software in various stages of completion as a means of testing and (ahem) gloating.

Typically, though, the software has to ship. That means the software has to be finished. Some projects, you just have to say, “Get it out of here,” or people would be working on it forever. And it ships with bugs that email hackers your passwords as you type them or erase all your fonts to leave only those three different versions of Wingdings. And while covering your computer in cryptic picture messages seems like a good idea, it’s not. In the words of every stereo-typed African American, “That is whack.”

Microsoft is notorous for having a buggy operating system. It seems to be the OS that we love to hate. We’re the laughing stock of the Apple community (but at least we have video games, you art nerds). With Windows XP came Windows Update. It, if everything goes right, sits there and waits for updates. Then a shield pops up and gives you a little balloon of instructions.

Mine will say, “You have updates. Click this balloon for more info.” So, I do. Up pops Windows Update Manager or something. And I click the download button, and then the manager goes away. And I sit there wondering, “What the hell did I just do?” Then another balloon pops up. And, tell you w’a’, I hate those little balloons. Most of them you click on them to make them go away. Microsoft balloons, however, have to be closed by clicking the “x” to make them go away. So, absent-mindedly, I click the balloon and the manager is back. Yea! But now my balloon is gone. I didn’t even read it. I minimize the manager. Which, seconds later, pops back up. “Done downloading, m’lord. Now I’m installing.” Ok, good. New ballooon, same fiasco. When the balloon, manager, and I get done grappling for power, the manager pops back up. “Done installing m’lord, but now you have to restart.”

No. I really don’t. What did you do to my computer that we have to start over?? Or do you just fancy the boot screen? Trust me, she’s real. No custom job on that. But yeah, I now have to close everything and restart. I can just click the “Remind later” button, but Microsoft’s patent on “later” is defined as being equal to or less than 2 minutes, tops. In the words of every stereo-typed indie, emo, artrock, coffee-house, ipod wearing, poetry weeping goth wannabe, “But I don’t wanna! No one understands … my pain!”

I restart. I’m curious as to what Microsoft is putting on my system. Well, tonight, after joining up with Microsoft’s Genuine Advantage program, I discovered that the much-needed necessary updates are two KB (KB stands for “Kuarter Back” for you sports-dumb idiot retards out there) updates and, of course, French Spelling Checker and Thesaurus. That one was really getting me. It kept saying that “meurtre avec une hache” was not a real French frase, and I distinctly remember typing it into Babel Fish Translation.

*sigh* I guess to calm down I could write in the new multi-author blog on dootdoot.com. Or I could make custom graphics for it! Or I could go to bed and dream about casting spells on people who park poorly at work. In the words of every stereo-typed scar-tissued, messy-haired boy wizard, “Silencio!”

I put some of my favorite pictures from the August 05 photoshoot up on deviantART.

These are pictures that I submitted as is:
21716970,
21717325,
21717505,
21717616,
21718435,
21718685,
21718959,
21719081,
21719517,
21720024,
21720490,
21720631,
21723244,
21723327.

Man. The acting in Jurassic Park III is atrocious. It’s just so ackward. And I had read somewhere that the director had hoped that it would be the best Jurassic Park. Yet, watching it, the computer graphics are worse than the original.

You have to wonder if a creature as big as that would even consider humans to be worth running down. They can’t be very filling to eat. I would think that they would rather have a nice big T-Rex or any of the browsing herbivores, the brontosaurus for instance.

Okay. Back to this crappy movie, the raptors aren’t acting “realistically” at all. I just watched a raptor grip a man’s head in his mouth and then snap his neck before leaving. Wouldn’t it be crueler to leave the man shredded and bloody? And why didn’t their razor-sharp teeth leave any marks in his head? Just bite his head off.

I think that they were trying really hard to recapture the wide-eyed innocence and discover of the first movie. There are a lot of “omgAwesome” moments. And then somehow these 6 adults (including the Dr. Alan Grant) can hardly do as well as a 14 year old boy. A boy who has lived on that island for 2 months.

You know what’s even worse? I heard that Michael Crichton has been asked to “at least come up with a story for” Jurassic Park IV. Sometimes Hollywood gives me the shivers.

Pteradactyls. Those things were supposed to be in the first movie. There’s a whole scene in the book involving them. In the book, Grant and the kids are on a raft floating down the river, which just happens to go to the aviary. The problem with pteradactyls is that they turned out to be extremely territorial. Having not paid much attention, I don’t remember which island III takes place on, but they did escape out of the aviary by river, so maybe they’re on Isla Nublar.

And then there’s the T-Rex unicorn dinosaur. Of course. Oh, and Elly manages to convince two branches of the armed forces to go to a Costa Rican island on no hard evidence that there is anything wrong or that he’s even there. She just gets this watery, screamy phonecall. Of course. And then we get another helicopter / going home shot at the end. And, the divorced mom and dad get back together. Of course.

Forget it. I’m putting in Memento. The menu system is just as frustrating at JPIII, but the payoff is much bigger. Plus, there’s a guide on Christopher Nolan’s website.

Awayken [] Plans

There was a click and a bright flash, white like the snow so far behind him now. He advanced the tiny, credit card-thin camera to the next blank frame, then he put it to his eye, framed the document, and there was another click. The shutter on the camera pulled open, giving the blank, receptive film a path to the light. In the next split second, the flash went off, the image of the plans on the table were instantly burned into the film. Permanently. Not unlike the shadows of the Hiroshima victims, he thought.

Four pictures; no more, no less. If he had done his job well, four frames were all that were necessary. He tucked the camera away in his right jacket pocket. With his other hand he produced a worn pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He tapped out a cigarette, put the pack away, and bent his head to light the cigarette.

“There he is!” There came a shout, and he swore, ducking. Someone from the hallway to his left had spotted him. Two security men began to fire at him. Bullets flew around him, whistling around him. Partially thanks to the complete cover of dark, and partiallyl thanks to his sudden appearance, the would-be assasins had no yet realized that he had ducked down. Pieces of wall broke apart and became nearly as dangerous as the bullets themselves. Suddenly the only window in the office, the one he had been standing in front of, burst into glass and showered around him.

“It’s now or never,” he told himself. Still low to the ground, the firing still continuing, he pulled grappling hook and rope from pants cargo pocket. Securing it around a foot of a desk, he tied the rope around his waist. “Alright! I’m coming out!” The firing ended. He stood slowly, with his hands up in the air, but he backed slowly towards the open window.

“Hey, wait a minute! Stop!” Grasping the rope in his hands, he lept backwards out of the window. But not soon enough. One final slug tore through his left shoulder causing his arm to go numb. Suddenly, the rope pulled taught, and he swung down in an arc back towards the building. His feet hit hard against the metal and glass exterior of the building. He was about five floors up.

There was a burst of static in his ear. Then an unfamiliar voice said, “We know where you are, Agent 9.” He panicked. This mission had gotten extremely out of hand. He fumbled with his right hand, trying very desperately to undo the knot around his waist. There was only one way out now.

With a sudden jerk, the rope was loose. He dropped straight down. To his benefit, there was a spattering of shrub plant life below him. While this didn’t provide much to break his fall (with a painfully physical or painfully audible snap, his leg broke), it kept him alive. He had to get moving.

He ran, as best he could with one leg and one arm, in the only direction that he could – forward. He had landed on grass, but not ten feet from building he had just fallen from was desert clay. He tried his best not to drag his feet or otherwise kick up dust. He carried on until he felt safe, then he collapsed against a tree. He was surrounded by dust, by death. He was a long distance from home, from the snow-capped ski slopes, from hot chocolate and a roaring fire, from a family that depended on him. He remembered the day he enlisted, almost bitter now. His children would have no father; his wife no husband. The winter was always the hardest on them.

“No,” he said. He narrowed his eyes and decided that no one was going to benefit from his sacrifice. He reached into his pocket, took out the camera, and considered it in his open palm. He could see the starlight reflecting off of it. If he leaned close enough to the lens, he even saw his own reflection, stretched and contorted across the spherical glass surface. Then he heaved it, sending the instrument as far as he could. If there was anything he could do before he lost his life, it would be to make sure no one would benefit by his sacrifice.

To the desert, he appeared to be standing there contemplating something, but he was tonguing a patch loose on the inside of his mouth. “God. Please forgive me for this. I know that taking my own life is a sin, but I’m sure you could let this one by. After all, you’re third on the list.” He chuckled and looked up at the heavens. “Please take care of them while I’m gone. I know you will.” Then he bit down on a tiny capsule that he had worked out in his mouth. He felt his muscles spasm and weaken.

He closed his eyes. He wanted to be surprised.

Guess who‘s back and living with her Daddy. That’s right: Spider-Man. He watches everyone who comes into my room, and he greets that person with a frozen, robotic wave.

Last night was chicken and shrimp marinaded in teriyaki sprinkled with sesame seeds on a bed of rice with a side of thai mushroom noodles. I thought of adding vegetables and egg rolls, but it was too late for that. Next time, next time…

I crossed a new item off my ToDo List widget, “Learn How to Photograph”. Though I really don’t have a complete grasping of the nuances and complexities of photography, the photoshoot went fairly well. Due to the heat (and the rather boring landscape), we did the entire shoot in her upstairs, and we did a color roll and a black and white roll. That, and she had a one-use camera that she wanted to finish up.

“‘Cranking Metallica’? If that is some sort of drug reference, then it isn’t funny.” Oh, Gilmore Girls.

I got the Kunek CD the other day. It’s called “Flight of the Flynns”, which is ironic as all of Megan’s family has the uncanny ability to fly. If only it would have been “Radiation of the Rauschs” implying that we all have the power to radiate or “Regurgitation of the Rauschs” giving us the power to projectile vomit. If only indie rock albums could come true.

I like Kunek. They have a very laid back attitude, a sort of depressed, spacey, voices-in-the-back-of-your-head echoing sound to them. On closer inspection of the lyrics, I found them to be richly dark and paranoid. They ring with the sentiment that monsters exist, but we can’t kill them, so let’s just move on. The ice age is coming.

Strangers on the airwaves
control you from the sky.
Taken by the slipstream,
they’ll feed you to the fire.

I find that the more I listen to this CD, the more I like it.

I’m never leaving the windows down at work again. Our offices seem to be located wonderfully near some sort of field. And, unfortunately, most fields are comprised of, aided by, or mixed with manure. The smell was awful, and there were flies everywhere. I hate that place a little more each day. If it isn’t the parking (or lack of), it’s the random odd people coming by like just because my cubicle opens towards the break room means that I want to talk to them, or it’s the disappearances.

Ok. I’ll forgive them, but only if they fix the dollar bill part of the Pepsi machine.

There’s just something about Bender that I find humorous. A talking Robot who smokes, drinks, and otherwise puts everyone down for the sake of a joke. Like how he is made Captain and begins calling Fry by the nickname “Wiggles”. And I just like his voice.

I got my second free item from Microsoft today. By virtue of accidentally getting two seperate cases for the same broken piece of hardware (my mouse), I managed to acquire two new pieces of hardware as a solution. The first was a new Wireless Optical Mouse. The second, which came today, was a new Wireless Desktop Freedom 2.0 keyboard / mouse combo. This, actually, is the next version of the wireless keyboard / mouse combo that I originally had. Except, this thing is an full-on upgrade.

“Come here, Bobby. Come on, boy. Come here, boy. Come on, Bobby.” I laugh everytime.

I tried one of those “Complete Meals” that my mum’s been on about. I’m starting to get frustrated with those meals in boxes. They seem to either come with too much food or not enough. In this case, I had already thawed chicken when I realized that they had included chicken. Stupid people. But, it all turned out alright. I made Chicken and Shrimp Fettucini Alfredo Casserole. It was pretty good.

My mom’s also always telling me I should do roasts. “They’re easy. You just set them up in the morning and they’re ready by supper time.” Well, for one, since when do I know what I’m doing for supper in the morning? But also, I’m not a big fan of the beef taste. Sure, I love steak. And I really enjoy hamburgers, but I’m really more of a chicken guy.

And it’s posts like these that explain why no one reads this website anymore.

I’ve been hacked twice now since moving to asmallorange.com. The first hack was [Forget.Me.Not]. Some Saudi Arabian group managed to delete all the files and folders. But, thankfully, one quick jump into the MT admin and I managed to rebuild the whole damn thing. But, lately, I lost Travel. This hack didn’t take out any files or folders – it just deleted my posts. Well, yes and no. If I go to “Manage Posts” nothing shows up, but under the Main Admin page, I can see all 4 of my posts. I looked over my main template, and I’m not sure if it was altered or not. It’s either my templates were changed or my admin skin (which makes my WordPress admin page look like Mac OSX) is acting up. From all of the options that I found, the page should be showing the last 11 posts, not the last 11 days, so no matter when I posted, they should show up.

*sigh*

KT Brass would not believe that I went to Costa Rica. And Molly thought I was lying at first, too. You make up one story and pay for it the rest of your life.

I am currently renting a digital video camera from the university. I’m elated and terrified at the same time. I did some screen tests that only proved that I’m going to need a lot of light and that I don’t look very good one screen. I might have to use that information when considering my character. Now I just need a firewire cable and a memory upgrade. If only Microsoft sold memory.

At work, John and I made some large advances in the design of Monitor.Net. Check out some real and mock-up screenshots at my Cresh.Net page. I actually like the real version slightly better than the mock-up. At least, I like the buttons a lot more.

Bah. Time for another chapter in Harry Potter 6, then I’m off to slumberland.

“For the future, in case you’re wondering, ‘Crime. Boy, I don’t know’ is when I decided to kick your ass.”

– President Josiah “Jeb” Bartlet.

I love that quote. It makes me laugh everytime.

The internet has produced a lot of things that people aren’t proud of. It has allowed a lot of people to produce content that seems cool at first, but then after a week you want to burn down all the servers that link to it. Then you soak your face in gasoline and make like an orange monk.

I have my share of dark, internet secrets.

I just found Students Against Bad Food, a site written by me and Collin Janes. This had to have been Freshman Year of college, and it was largely in response to the terrible food being served to us. The food in the Trojan Center, or TC, was awful for the longest time. Prices were extraordinary, and the quality of the food was minimal.

Things have gotten much better, due (in large part) to our website which, honestly, was never put online ever. Until just 5 minutes ago. And guess what – every link worked just fine right away no problem.

You know that “verification” thing? We got that from the “Warning!” page of a porn site. We wanted this page to have the same seedy underground feel to it, but we were too chicken to look at it. I mean, what if the one-step-ahead-of-you Computing Services guys caught us? My face would be SO RED.