Trouble with imbeding images...InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, etc...

I have been having a hard time attempting to make a credit card authorization document for use internally to my company. The main problem is that I want to display our company logo inside the document. This is easy enough for a word file, but I want to turn the word file into a PDF. Here comes the hard part. How do I make the logo appear in sufficiently high quality on the PDF? I tried exporting the logo in several different formats, originally from .ai, and then into other formats uncluding .eps, .jpg etc... The best result I could get was with a PNG file...however even that had problems when displayed in the PDF format...jagged edges on the lines of the logo. It looked acceptable when printed on paper...but still I thought I could do better.

I decided it was time to ditch Microsoft Word and attempt to build the document from something more suited to graphics. Using Adobe Illustrator would take too long and I would have problems with text formatting. I decided to use Adobe Indesign (formally Adobe Pagemaker). I have Adobe CS3 Web Premium installed on my computer, and I figured it would be included....but no. InDesign is not included with CS3 Web Premium. Luckily I had upgraded from CS2 Standard...which included InDesign. Unfortunately, I had uninstalled the entire CS2 suite when I upgraded to CS3. I had to reinstall standalone InDesign from the CS2 suite...which appears to work fine.

Then I was easily able to setup the document using InDesign, and import the logo in vector format, which looks really sharp. Now the problem became that the credit card "placeholders" which were in the original word document were generated with "word art" whatever that means. Even though I could copy and paste them into InDesign, it would not translate them onto the printed or PDF versions of the file. In a quick fix effort to get the project done, I took a screenshot of the word document, imported the card placeholder imaged into Photoshop, tweaked them a bit, and then sent them over to InDesign. Should I decide to spend a bit more time on the project, I will re-do these placeholder images in Illustrator and replace the low-rez ones.

RealArcade can suck it

So a guy who sent me an email from yahoo had their standard advertising link at the bottom. For some reason, I noticed it and saw that it was an add to download an updated version of Monopoly to play on the computer. Turns out it was an add for RealArcade. Regardless, I downloaded and started playing the game, only to get about 3 minutes in and have the game stop the free trial...please fork over $20!!! I can get the actual Monopoly board game for $17.66 and have something that I will never accidentally erase or lose interest in.

RealArcade = Real Networks = Real player = all worthless crap...

Do I really look like any of these people?

Trillian doesn't work well with Vista

I have been having a lot of problems with Trillian on my new Vista machine. Basically it refuses to retain a lot of my preferences and history and stuff when I restart my computer or restart the program.

Reason?: From the start I believed it to be some kind of permissions problems or something related to Vista's OMG SOMEBODY IS HAXXORING YOUR COMPUTERZ security features. Reason 32703944 why Vista blows...

Solution?: Install directly to C: instead of within C:/program files. Everything seems to be working perfectly now...did several restarts and it is now retaining everything I need retained!

Now...I love Trillian...but please, please go faster with your new Trillian Astra.

Distractions

I got distracted about a bazillion times today for one reason or another...mostly because I was covering for Sales, who had nobody in the office today (lucky me.)

One of the things I found was this image of what Wikipedia looks like....I think it is probablyh fairly accurate, though you could substitute the yellow circle for Star Wars certainly, or WoW or something similarly enthralling that geeks pursue in their spare time.

Anyone need an Industrial Ultrasonic Cleaner?

I want to talk a brief minute about Ultrasonic Cleaning Technology. Companies make ultrasonic cleaning systems and generators for precision cleaning applications. How does it work? Well think of high frequency sound waves that shoot through water to create bubbles between particles of dirt and the surface of the part. The bubble forms and collapses creation a detergent action and cleaning the part.

Barack Obama for President

Today I donated to Barack Obama's campaign. It is the first time I have ever donated to a political campaign. I hope that Obama can bring change to America and lead the country into a prosperous future.

I think that everyone should check out his campaign and be a part of an experience like no other.

Best Animated Movie Ever

Most people don't care for it too much, but I feel South Park, The Movie was the best animated movie of all time. For these reasons (and probably more):

1. Lines like these:
"Mr. Garrison: Eric, did you just say the F-word?
Cartman: Jew?
Kyle: No, he's talking about "f(beep)k". You can't say "f(beep)k" in school, you f(beep)king fat-ass!
Cartman: Why the f(beep)k not?
Mr. Garrison: Eric!
Stan: Dude, you just said "f(beep)k" again!
Mr. Garrison: Stanley!
Kenny: F(beep)k!
Mr. Garrison: Kenny!
Cartman: What's the big deal? It doesn't hurt anybody. F(beep)k-f(beep)kety-f(beep)k-f(beep)k-f(beep)k.
Mr. Garrison: How would you like to go see the school counselor?
Cartman: How would you like to suck my balls?
Mr. Garrison: What did you say?
Cartman: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Actually, what I said was...
[picks up a megaphone]
Cartman: HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO SUCK MY BALLS?
Stan: Holy shit, dude."

and

Terrence: You're such a pig-fucker, Phillip!
Phillip: Terrance, why would you call me a pig-fucker?
Terrence: Well, let's see. First of all, you fuck pigs.
Phillip: Oh yeah!

any many more, some of which can be found here.
The social commentary is the best I have seen, ever. No subject is left untouched.

2: It is a musical...and the songs are sometimes better than the quotes. Also Robin Williams sang Blame Canada at the Oscars when the song was nominated. It didn't win, though it should have. They gave the Oscar that year to the Phil Colins song from Tarzan. Disney movies always win, even if they suck. Does anyone even remember Tarzan? Yeah, I didn't think so.

3: more to come.

Jarrett writes about how he became a music pirate, but at least he tried. A clip

"...But alas, my suspicion is that anyone who would have been cool enough to work at Rhino in their heyday some twenty years ago would never be so callous, foolish or shallow to allow these kind of absurdities to occur.

Since I've resigned myself not to waste any more time with the music business, I suppose I'll have to resort to purchasing used CD's & records, or having my friends occasionally make me a copy of one of their newer CD's.

Call it piracy. Call it whatever you want. But at least I tried. I gave you several chances and you failed miserably at every level."

Verizon payments by check? ummmm....no

A "Need-to-Know" bit of informaiton included on the latest Verizon Wireless bill states:

"Your check authorizes us either to make a one-time electronic funds transfer (EFT) from your account or process as a check. An EFT may be withdrawn from your account the same day you make your payment and your check is not returned to you. ...If payment is returned unpaid you authorized us to collect an additional $25 fee through EFT from your account."

Really? I don't see anywhere on a check where if says you have open access to deduct whatever funds you want from my account through the ACH. I also doubt that is within Verizon's rights to debit through ACH more than the account holder has specifically authorized. I don't have a problem with them converting a check to ACH, as it cuts down on processing time for them, makes for less waste, etc... However, if my check bounces through my own fault, and Verizon decided to deduct some extra $$ to cover the cost of dealing with my bounced check, then they can forget it. There would be no way in hell a bank would allow that to happen to a customer account. Also - use of my cellphone does NOT constitute agreement....FU Verizon!

we are already screwed...how depressing...

I used to call this blog, La fin du monde est..., which basically means "the end of the world is..." Well I guess we are more closer to the end than I really thought.

Nick Monahan writes (almost 5 years ago!) a very moving story about a horrible experience in dealing with airport security. He relates the events that he believes led to the breech birth of his son. His most profound comments show us that we need to stop worrying about the impending loss of personal freedoms and the slippery slope that we will go down if we don't do something. We don't need to worry anymore because it is already too late. He writes

"...this country has changed for the worse and will continue to change for the worse. There is now a division between the citizenry and the state. When that state is used as a tool against me, there is no longer any reason why I should owe any allegiance to that state. And that’s the first thing that child of ours is going to learn."

I hope that I will be able to prevent the brainwashing of my children into thinking that our country is a wonderful place. That freedom is the very essence of our society, because by them time they can even learn what freedom is, they will have lost the chance to have the experience. Yes the United States is better than some places, but it is no longer the land of opportunity and hope that my great grandparents came here for.

So do we stop worrying now? Will we be screwed no matter what we do? Can anyone do anything to make really make a difference anymore? Will voting for a new president make a difference? What if i get 5 friends to all vote for him, or 50 or 500 or 5000 or 50000? That just means another guy gets to deal with all the shit that the last guy let happen, and perhaps the guy before him as well? It is depressing really, how little any one person can really do to change anything.

drupal fix, nerdcore for life,

Stupid Internet Explorer and their strange interpretation of certain code. Had a slight formatting problem with a site I manage using Drupal. IE was reading a cell spacing tag in the CSS file and inserting a tab at the first line of the page. Firefox had no such problem. So removing the spacing in the css eliminated the problem...for now. Thanks to brenda003 and archivschachtel both drupal forum members for their solution(s).

*****
In other news, ytcracker, a nerdcore rapper and friend of Server Central recently released an album called Nerdlife. On the album, on the last track #17 at about 1:55 you can hear him give props to the best datacenter around! I don't think he will mind if I promote his album some here by linking to the track in question.

Fart Sandwich Takes 3rd

I previously posted about the Lumines competition in which my friend was competing. It took them the better part of 60 days to finally post the results. Though they have not yet contact my friend or sent him his prize.

All hail the LEGENDARY FART SANDWICH!

Cubs tickets on sale today

Last year I blogged about the first day of ticket sales for the Cubs. By 3:45pm last year, 21 games were sold out. Of course "sold-out" doesn't really mean all tickets int he 40k+ stadium are gone, just most the general seating. They reserve blocks for group sales, and the remaining "close to the field" seats that aren't season tickets go on sale at a later date to kind of even out the rush I guess. This year, by 5pm only the following 15 games were sold out:

April 9th – vs. Houston Astros
April 21st – vs. St. Louis Cardinals
April 22nd – vs. St. Louis Cardinals
May 18th – vs. Chicago White Sox
May 19th – vs. Chicago White Sox
May 20th – vs. Chicago White Sox
June 2nd – vs. Atlanta Braves
June 16th – vs. San Diego Padres
June 30th – vs. Milwaukee Brewers
July 14th – vs. Houston Astros
August 4th – vs. NY Mets
August 5th – vs. NY Mets
August 17th – vs. St. Louis Cardinals
August 18th – vs. St. Louis Cardinals
August 19th – vs. St. Louis Cardinals

I think the discrepancy between this year and last year can be attributed to some of the following:
-The Cubs has a worse season in 2006 than they did in 2005.
-There is one fewer home series against the Cardinals this year (last year even had 1 four game series)
-Last year had Ryne Sandberg jersey retirement day.
-The Braves played a series in Chicago, which doesn't happen very often, and I guess some people like the Braves.
So those four factors, plus others I am sure, led to games not selling out as quickly. Plus I think their system was not functioning very well today, as I will explain below.

My personal ticket buying experience was pathetic. I was granted the opportunity to buy tickets online only twice throughout the day, running with 2 different web-browsers. The first time I caught window right as it flipped at around 11:30 am or so, but was unable to actually "purchase" any tickets because it said the system was busy - this did not happen last year, perhaps they reduced system capacity to lessen the ability of people to snatch up tickets? The 2nd time, I didn't catch the window in time and it kicked me back out. The 3rd time was a repeat of the first, but it was 5:23pm and still I can't buy a ticket!??!?!

Finally around 5:40pm I was able to buy tickets. I choose the 9/19/07 night game against Cincinnati because it is the final night game of the year. Should the cubs be doing well at that point, it might actually be a fun game to go to. Also I got bleacher seats...hoping for a drunken good time. Then I got in again about fifteen minutes later and got some terrace reserved tickets for the 6/26 night game against Colorado. Finally at aound 6:20pm, I bought my final set, Saturday 4/14 against Cincinnati again. Much cheaper tickets but decent enough seats in the upper deck infield. Figure I will invite the family to come in (and bring jackets.)

I really wish it was easier to get cubs tickets. Perhaps next year I will bite the bullet and go to the field to get tickets in the morning on the first day. I figure I would get a better shot to get decent seats.

Zazzle - It really works!

I previously talked about Zazzle.com. Zazzle is a site where you can create merchandise like t-shirts and hats and stuff, with your artwork printed on it (similar to a lot of other sites like threadless). Zazzle lets you earn a commission on every item you sell. Well a total of 4 people bought my t-shirt and Zazzle sent me a check for about $10. I was going to make the t-shirt anyway, so now I recouped about 60% of the cost of the original t-shirt for doing absolutely nothing! Now...if only I can find a way to get people to buy other fun t-shirts I make....

Farewell Chief Illiniwek - Goodnight Sweet Prince

Last night was the final halftime performance of Chief Illiniwek at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The NCAA has decided to discard its stated mission of "governing competition in a fair, safe, equitable and sportsmanlike manner, and to integrate intercollegiate athletics into higher education so that the educational experience of the student-athlete is paramount." Instead it has decided to regulate politics and free speech in America. Mascots and symbols have nothing to do with "fair safe equitable and sportsmanlike competition." The despicable and underhanded way the university and the NCAA handled the situation is deplorable. Adding fuel to the fire, schools such as FSU can retain their "symbol" because they have a relationship with the Seminole tribe. So because there is no existing Illiniwek tribe, Chief Illiniwek has to go. Dumb...really dumb.

After years of battle the politically correct left have finally won by using the almighty dollar! Since the UofI was prohibited by the NCAA from hosting post-season championship tournaments and competitions, they would be losing sponsorship, brodcasting and general revenue from these events, and I guess they couldn't bear that loss anymore. I assume that there is some financial considerations going on with the Seminole situation...so again they win, we lose.

While I couldn't make it down to the game last night, and also couldn't watch it on tv (stupid local broadcasting combined with crappy Illini record this season), I was able to scrape some videos off of Youtube showing the halftime performance. An honorable end to a longtime tradition. The curtain call at the end was probably the best part (probably the only time the Chief has ever acknowledged his own performance).


*Full performance with the pre-roll video, from higher up in the stands.

*"Official video" by Illini Productions including high quality pre-roll footage, continues until Chief stops to wait in the hallway for the team.

*Full performance from television feed. Shows Chief exiting into the hallway.

*Courtside view of whole performance, little shaky, but good enough.

*Better quality courtside view of whole performance, 1st half.

*Better quality courtside view of whole performance, 2nds half.

Apparently there was also a large movement to coordinate a switch to black clothing for the 2nd half of the game. Partially documented by this picture.

RIP
Chief Illiniwek
1926-2007

Update: illinoishomepage has some good videos and news coverage as well. Though their streaming sucks right now (probably because they don't use Cachefly). Should be better tomorrow or in another day.

Chris wanted these books

Chris wanted these books, so I decided to get them for him! (Please file under professional dev :)


MySQL and Perl for the Web

and

CGI Programming with Perl

Enjoy Chris!

Train-ing While Tired, Tax Refunds

I seem to have a problem with commuting in the morning.
This is the second time that I have not paid attention while riding the CTA trains in the morning and suffered a commuting mishap. Probably due to being tired.

The first time I got on the right train, but didn't pay attention when the conductor said the train would be going the wrong way due to problems with switching. I was counting the number of stops without paying attention and quickly got off at the appropriate numbered stop. Then I realized the stop looked different. I was confused and disoriented. I didn't know where I was for a minute or so. Eventually I went down to street level, and figured out which way I was walking and walked the rest of the way to work, turning a 20 minute trip to a 40 minute trip. I could have walked directly from home to work in less time.

Today I was waiting at Roosevelt for the orange train. Normally the trains come through there alternating between green and orange. A green came and went and I thought the next one would be the orange. Stupidly, without looking at the sign on the train, I got on. I didn't pay attention when the train went the wrong way and found myself going around the loop the wrong direction. So I decided to just ride around the loop the opposite direction. By the time I realized that the green line does not go around the loop, rather straight west, it was too late, so I got of and decided to go the other way, but again the green line does not go to Quincy in that direction either. So I ended up walking to work again. And again it would have been faster if I walked directly from home to work.

The moral of this story is, I need to pay attention to the trains in the morning.
---
While walking to work today, since I screwed up my train rider, I want past the Thompson Center. In the plaza H&R Block was holding a "National Tax Advice Day," which was simply a media stunt with obvious H&R Block employees standing in a tight pack cheering about tax advice or something. I believe they were getting people to sign up for some kind of tax service. It was ridiculous and almost not worth writing about here. If only I didn't have a major beef with their current ad campaign "I got people."

I am certainly not an English scholar, in fact Alyssa was berating me last night about they way I spell certain words (I 'am' getting better...slowly). However, the "I got people." campaign, discussed here, is only contributing to the dumbing down of society. Do the lower income people in Chicago, those being targeted by H&R block, really need to be spoken to at their level of literacy as well? In addition, an income-tax refund loan is at exactly the same level of a payday loan. 30% or so annual interest rate isn't much better than the 40% loans offered at the local Currency Exchange. These loans take huge advantage of people that can't manage what little money they have.

Another big FU to H&R block.

My first video game console

Knuttz has an interesting graphical history about the evolution of the video game console. My first video game console was the Gemini system (pictured right), which played Atari cartridges. It was fun and provided entertainment for years when I was growing up.

I later purchased my very own Nintendo Entertainment system (pictured left). I saved a lot of loose change and did loads of odd jobs around the house to get this gem. My sister was still playing hardcore on the NES through to the late 90's.

My Neighbor had first an Atari 2600, then the Coleco Vision, then a fully tricked out NES with running pad and all, then he eventually got a SNES (then I moved away). I thought the Coleco was cool because you could play some games that were slightly more advanced than the Atari. Plus it had the older school paddels.

Current I have nothing, but if I was to buy something, it would probably be an Xbox 360.

Fart Sandwich got Youtubed!

My friend, aka Fart Sandwich on XBox live, is currently in contention in the Lumines competition. He normally sites at 1st place in the weekly rankings, but this week they are doing a contest where 1st place gets a 42" plasma tv. As luck would have it, he is currently riding 3rd place, with 2 unbelievable scores above him. He did beat his person best last night by 4 points, but that still leaves him 15 points or so down on the current 1st place person. The whole game only lasts 60 seconds, but it is lightning fast.

Unknown to him, someone posted one of his previous 1st place games on Youtube a month or so ago. Apparently he is LEGENDARY in the Lumines circle.

blogging from the toilet

I have had my new Blackberry Pearl for about a week now and I am really starting to get the hang of it. I am getting better at shuretype and typing long sentences is starting to come naturally.

I just spent a few minutes looking on amazon through the phone's browser. It was pretty easy to search for what I was looking for but unfortunately they did not have the exact item. So I will have to open the laptop to find it.

I am now done on the toilet, I guess I will post this and get off the pot!

Got my first BlackBerry

Got my first BlackBerry Pearl on Friday. Don't quite have it fully working yet, as I have to wait for the work email server to get upgraded. But in the meantime I guess I will have to Accessorize! Including a 1gb MicroSD Card, some Screen Guards, and a Case

Goodbye Bell's - How we loved thee

It is a sad day in Chicago and all of Illinois really. Bell's Brewery, after a falling out between the brewery and distributors, is pulling out of the Illinois market. I have often chosen a fine Bell's draft over many macro-brews simply because they taste good and I enjoy drinking them. Oberon, one of the most beloved summer choices, will now just be a faint memory. The choices expected to fill the void, Two Brothers, Three Floyds and Dogfish Head are decent alternatives, but nothing really compared to Bell's. I guess my next favorite would be Three Floyds, then Dogfish. I don't really care for Two brothers, as I think most of their beers taste too "homebrewed" and they generally lack character.

The real tragedy is the state of distributorship's in Illinois and the laws that enable their monopolistic ways. The laws are anti-competitive and need serious attention. People should be allowed to sell their products to whomever they wish.

Here's to Bell's. May your return to Chicago be just a sip away. Salud!

A big fuck you to Cnn.com's videos

I have a big problem with Cnn.com's streaming news videos. They always play a 15-30 second commercial before the news clip, which is annoying itself. Honestly I don't want to be forced to watch a stupid commercial for a 1.5 minute long news clip.
Though the commercial itself is not the biggest problem. The biggest problem is that often the commercial loads and plays fine, then when you get to the video, it craps out, fails to load, is jerky or otherwise doesn't play. This is unacceptable. In fact I have decided right now that I will no longer visit cnn.com. They suck in general. Their news coverage is always sensationalistic and they takeup way too much space on their site with entertainment news. I don't give a fuck what katie holmes is doing, but i do kind of care about wars, economics etc...
I will take the bbc news over cnn anyday!

1st time with Critical Mass

I rode with Critical Mass for the first time on Friday. I joined Fred, as he has gone several times and is much more hardcore of a biker than I. I thought of this first time as an experiment more than anything else. I might do it again, but this time was just to see what it was all about.

The wikipedia article on critical mass is good and fairly accurate from my knowledge of the event.

I was once stopped by the mass, (2-3 years ago) while in a cab going someplace. The mass had entered the polish triangle area (division/ashland/milwaukee) and had decided to ride around the triangle. We were 2 cars back from the edge of the intersection and Alyssa decided to jump out of the cab and go talk/yell at somebody and find out wtf they were doing. The guy that she talked to was obviously not a spokesman for the group and his answer is basically bikes are trafic too. I was somewhat amused by the situation, though I guess i would be slightly pissed off if I was held up while going somewhere important. Then again the point made in the wikipedia article about motorists causing most traffic jams is probably the greater truth.

So I rode with the group on Friday. There was probably around 1500 people i would guess, though i often over estimate...but i tried sampling sections and then estimating...1500 is probably a good guess. About 2/3 had some kind of halloween costume on, which was kinda fun. Generally throughout the route I observed the following:

-The majority of the participants are good willed and pretty much just there to participate. They shout things like "happy friday" or "happy halloween" to people in cars, bars/restaurants, on the sidewalk, etc...

-There are a handful of jerks throughout the group, who think everyone in the LP neighborhoods are stupid rich fucks etc...

-A good bit of drinking goes on.

-A handful of riders have some form of music playing, ranging from a handcarried boombox, to a full stero system with a large woofer on a bike trailer.

-A lot of people in cars are more or less content to wait the extra 5-10 minutes while the group passes. Most bus drivers (and other city workers) are in full support of the group, honking their horn in celebration and waving as the mass passes.

-There were a handful of bike cops present for a majority of the ride. They were slightly dickish, but generally attempted to prevent scuffles between the bikers and motorists.

-Occassionally, someone, usually a woman or young lady, will roll down their window to yell and scream at the bikers...this usually only serves to make more bikers stop and surround the car until a majority of the mass passes...the both the bikers and driver are left to go on their way.

-There was one major incident, which basically caused the entire mass to surround a single car. I was about 20 feet away from this car when i saw this blonde chick jump out of the passenger side of a car and confront/attack a girl who was "corking". I stayed right at the front of that car for most of the duration of the incident...pretty much because i couldn't move my bike through the mass that was surrounding the car. Eventually the blonde chick pushed the corker away which caused the corker girl to push back, which caused the dodge neon guy to get out of the car. Once the guy got out of the car, he started randomly going off on people...throwing punches, though i didnt see any land. Anyway it went on for a while and I would assume the mass eventually passed through as they got tired of watching the guy be an asshole....
The incident was documented in these flickr photos:
http://flickr.com/photos/jessipervola/281704229/in/photostream/
http://flickr.com/photos/jessipervola/281704254/in/photostream/

-Overall impression: A big party on bikes that happens to frustrate a few drivers for a few minutes. Eh, you got time....slow down, relax, wait for the group to pass and then go on your way.

DRM is bad for you

These are some of the best anti-DRM stuff I have ever seen.

http://freeculture.org/blog/2006/10/13/contestwinners/

Crazy Ray Lamontagne

You probably heard the anthem of the summer of 2006, Crazy, by Gnarls Barkley (Cee-Lo/Danger Mouse). British musician Ray LaMontagne recorded a much better version.

Courtesy of Village Indian you can download the MP3 of Crazy

I also scooped up Ray's album Till The Sun Turns Black

The last 8 years in 155 words

Lets see, last 8 years recap:

-Attended and graduated from UIUC with a degree in Theatre Lighting +/- lots of beer and general shenanigans.

-Worked on probably 25-30 or so shows during college.

-Worked professionally in Chicago on about 6 shows with 2 different companies.

-Met Alyssa in 2000 and married in 05 (she is now in her 2nd year at University of Chicago studying Diabetes)

-Met a guy who started a company, I was his first employee, I still work for him. 6+ years

-Moved to Chicago in 2002, moved in with Alyssa in 2003, and we just bought a place in Chicago's South Loop neighborhood a few weeks ago.

-Traveled to Australia, Costa Rica, California twice, Vegas twice, Colorado twice, Kansas, Philly, all around the Midwest.

-Went skydiving 7 times (it got expensive and i more or less stopped)

-Got into website design and consult with a handful of companies now on that.

Air travel and your luggage

Bruce Schnider writes about a way to better ensure your luggage is not lost during air travel. He says to simply pack a starter pistol along with your luggage, declare it, show it and then tsa/airline will better hold on to your bag so as to not LOSE a GUN. I think this is a fantastic idea, people always say, i have flown tons of times and they never lose my bag. etc etc...well the fact is that bags are lost all the time by everyone.

lets count my experiences and those of my immediate family and friends.

1) Lost my bag on a weekend trip to Vegas, delivered to my hotel room around 2am.

2) Sister lost her bag while traveling to italy with my family.

3) Grandma also lost her bag on the same trip, cept on the return flight.

4) While living down at school, a neighbor returned from a school break and apparently had lost his bag. Sometime late at night a courrier, having driven several hours from Chicago, knocks on our door and asks to leave this heavy-ass bag with us, as our neighbor is not currently at home. Ummm sure?

5) I will bet $20, $50 or $100 that at least 50% of the people in my office will have a similar story or related experience. This is wayyyyyy too much lost luggage and just a terrible way to do business for the airlines.

Things learned while buying a condo

I recently bought a condo and I have completed moving. I have learned a few things through the process.

*Clothing inside the washer does not mean that the washer works. Remove clothes and test.

*Always look behind furniture during inspection.

*Aim high when asking for credits for repairs, painting, etc...

*Retention of a good lawyer is awesome.

*Movers want to be tipped, but it is hard to tip them if they break something.

*Empire Carpet (588-2300) is a decent place to get carpet, but probably not the cheapest.

More to come if I think of any.

Jansport To The Rescue

Jansport doesn't make the nicest or best quality backpacks in the world, but at least they stand by their lifetime guarantee. They promise to repair or replace any pack or part of a bag or pack that has failed before the bag had generally worn out from use.

Well I had a backpack that I got back in highschool - probably around 1994 or 1995. It served me well for a few years but eventually the zipper got stuck a few too many times and eventually would not stay zipped. So I kicked the bag under my bed for a few years, and moved it around a few times mixed in with other various bags and packs. Then finally I was going to throw it out in conjunction with my current move, but I decided to investigate Jansport's guarantee which I had heard about. Their website says to send it in to an address where they will repair or replace it for free if they deem it to be broken to their standards. I concluded that the bag was still in fairly good condition except for the zipper and that it would be worth $1 of company postage to see if I could get a working bag or perhaps even a brand new bag. (I was really hoping for a brand new bag.)

So I sent it off and about 3 weeks or so later I got it back int he mail, they replaced the zipper...and the bag is back in working order. So Jansport makes good on its promise, and I might consider buying another Jansport backpack or luggage if I am so inclined again in the future.


(I was really hoping they would send me a new bag or like a certificate for a new one or something as i don't particularly like the one I had. The main zipper goes all they way down about 80% of each side making it somewhat difficult to get something out without spilling the entire contents of the bag. Oh well)

buba69 8 out of 10 on google

Google is showing 8 out of 10 of the top results to be my own for searches for buba69. Good news I guess in that someone is not parading around the internet as me. Though this does not bode well for any of the places I that I try to use buba69 anonymously.

F U Joe Liberman

What the fuck happened to this guy. Joe Liberman saying his oppents call for phased withdraw from Iraq gives the edge to the terrorists!!!!! WTF? I thought you were a democrat Joe. I thought you were generally against the war? Yes i know that since we are there we have to ensure stability, but that doesnt mean that pulling out gives the terrorists the win. This is going to make it very hard for you Joe, siding with Cheney is never the right thing to do.

Get your Messerschmitt T-shirt!

Buy My t-shirt!

I created this t-shirt on zazzle.com. Zazzle is a website where you can design custom t-shirts. You can even take your designs and let other people purchase them. If someone buys your design, they pay you a small amount. They also have an affiliate program so you can get paid even more.

I found this logo while running through pages on wikipedia and I thought that this logo would make a good t-shirt. It turned out ok, but I think if i were to do it again I would take the logo and re-do it in photoshop or something. Clean up the hard edges and then take some kind to noise filter to it to make it look "fake" old.

Buy My t-shirt!

Liquids, gels, etc...banned on airplanes

God fucking damnit. Just when it couldn't get any worse for air travel, some fucking asstards decided to blow up water bottles filled with alcohol or something... and because of a handful of terrorist assholes, the rest of the world, the millions of people who fly every day, will have to deal with an even more unpleasant experience. Flying already sucks...so what if you can get across the entire country in 6 hours...I am not willing to pay a dime more than it actually costs. Now the airlines, TSA and all the rest of the assholes inbetween are totally free to lose my luggage and I am totally fucked...totally. I can't bring toothpaste, contact solution, a bottle of water, diet pepsi, probably even spreadable cheese...all of this will probably now be banned forever!!

I refuse to believe that inconveniencing everyone in the name of security or with the goal of screening out a handful of terrorists is WRONG. I would rather drink my diet pepsi on the plane, the one that I brought with me in a bottle, instead of drinking a small can of diet coke or whatever crap they happen to have left over. If some asshole wants to blow me up, well go ahead and blow.

WE CANNOT LIVE IN FEAR!!! Why should we fear them? Why can't we just go on about our business. If we ignore them, pay no attention to them, stop fighting them on all fronts, then they will have nothing to fight against....then perhaps they will just go home.

Gifts from abroad

A few years back Alyssa found a website called Novica. It is sponsored by National Geographic and is a great place to find one of a kind gifts. The company finds artists from around the world, usually those that could not get exposure on their own, and sells their artwork through the website. You see who the artist is and often the artwork listed on the site is one of a kind...AND most of the money goes directly to the artist instead of middlemen as the products are shipped directly from the artist. It is really a neat idea.

Alyssa bought me a necklace from the site a while back, and also bought something for her sister or mother or something.

from the site
"In association with National Geographic, Novica today serves as an online arts agent for more than 1,700 artists in countries around the world. Visitors to the Novica Web site can read about the artists, explore their cultures, view photographs of their work and select from more than 8,500 handcrafted works. Novica arts and technology teams (staffing Novica offices in El Salvador, Brazil, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Thailand, Venezuela and Zimbabwe) interview each artist, photograph their artwork, post the interviews and photographs online, and handle all packing and shipping on behalf of the artist. International couriers deliver the artwork directly to customers, eliminating numerous middlemen and transferring the savings to creator and customer alike."

Read more

Follow up to original ideas

It would seem that at least several people liked the shirt design that I came up with. I would suspect that much of the reason they liked it was due to the good illustration, by Holly Gindlesperger The original idea is shown first The final version is second.

Customer service calling me!

Just got off the phone with American Express. Some lady calling me, the administrator of our corporate account, to ask how our "Amex Experience" is going (paraphrasing). I told her that we are getting along just fine, with one exception. As the administrator of the account I have no power to actually pay the bill. If i call and say I am me, then they refuse to let me make a payment, even though I can verify every single bit of information associated with the account or any of the cardholders. So I tell them that I will just call back and say I am one of the cardholders and then make the payment. They don't seem to care, so that I what I proceed to do. Granted I have not done this process in several months, wishing not to waste anymore of my time than is needed. I tell the lady all of this and she tells me that she shakes her head at these types of things.

Hopefully she will call me back to say she has resolved the issue...but I doubt it.

Google maps, a setp backwards

Google updated their pictures of downtown Chicago sometime in the last few days. The previous versions were more than a few years old, lacking the 'improvements' to Solider Field, the area on the corner of Wacker and LSD was a golf course, Millenium Park was under major construction etc...

So now they have newer pictures, taken Fall of 2005 or so I would suspect judging from the progress on the Trump Tower site, lack of boats in the harbor, sand humps on the beaches...

Google maps used to have a pretty good view of the new condo as it was a shot from the southeast, instead of the current southwest view. You could clearly see our balcony and our whole side of the building, now...nothing. Perhaps google will come out with some kind of mapping revision thingy where you can see how places looked every few years...yeah that would be cool. (btw, original thought of the day...).

One of the biggest problems with this update is that the images are of a somewhat lower quality, perhaps taken with a different satalite than the previous pictures. Which is unfortunate because they sacrificed quality for the more up to date pictures.

Also the old apartment has lost its good southern shot favoring a more northern view. Naperville was not updated and there is still no closer images of Freeport.

Original Ideas

I have had very few original ideas in recent months, but lately things have just been coming to me. I am now on a streak of...two. Two original thoughts in as many weeks.

1) A t-shirt design for a trade show. Idea just popped into my head, didn't see it anywhere or try very hard to come up with the idea. Just needed an idea and I thought of one.

2) An idea for a certain type of insurance/add-on service. This one is also original. In the never ending quest to get people to pay for things they will never need or receive this insurance idea really takes the cake. Too bad we will never be able to get the people who could really benefit from the insurance, the fucktards, to signup. We would only get people to signup who have a very low chance of ever needing the service.

More ideas as they come...but breath should not be held...

Google Ranking, Me = Success!!111!!!

So my quest to unseat the dude who was always listed above me on google searches for my name is a total success. Through a combination of cross-linking to my own personal websites (my main site, my lighting portfolio, this blog, etc), work press releases and main page, theatre events and web pages, I was able to get searches for my name - IN ALL VARIATIONS - to the top several places on google. So now if you search for any of the following you get links to me or to my sites:

Matthew Arata
Matt Arata
"Matt Arata"
"Matthew Arata"

Searches for just Arata come up with a lot of other crap that is not me, but I guess that is too much to hope for.

Two other arata's are currently near the top, which people may mistake as being me, but they are not. I will have to do some additional work to have more sites that I control link back to my stuff.

Intellectual Property Run Amok

Thanks to Larry Lessig for his link to Clara Jeffrey's article on the abuses of intellectual property:

VENICE INTRODUCED the patent concept in 1474. Infringers were fined 100 ducats.

IN 1982, Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti told Congress that “the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston Strangler is to the woman home alone.”

A DAY AFTER Senator Orrin Hatch said “destroying their machines” might be the only way to stop illegal downloaders, unlicensed software was discovered on his website.

BILL GATES had the 11-million-image Bettmann Archive buried 220 feet underground. Archivists can access only the 2% that was first digitized.

AMONG THE 16,000 people thus far sued for sharing music files was a 65-year-old woman who, though she didn’t own downloading software, was accused of sharing 2,000 songs, including Trick Daddy’s “I’m a Thug.” She was sued for up to $150,000 per song.

MICROSOFT UK held a contest for the best film on “intellectual property theft”; finalists had to sign away “all intellectual property rights” on “terms acceptable to Microsoft.”

ONLY ABOUT 5% of patents end up having any real commercial value.

IN 2002, Valenti described Hollywood’s antipiracy campaign as “our own terrorist war.”

THE CLASSIC civil rights documentary Eyes on the Prize can’t be aired or sold because much of its archival footage is copyrighted.

TO PREVENT PIRACY of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a Montreal cineplex monitored audiences with metal detectors and night-vision goggles and checked popcornfor video cameras.

U.S. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY is valued at $5.5 trillion, equal to 47% of our GDP and greater than the GDP of any other nation but China.

BY PASSING the memorial Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act, Congress added 20 years to copyrights. “I Got You Babe” now won’t enter the public domain until 2061.

NINETY-ONE pending trademarks bear Donald Trump’s name, including “Donald J. Trump the Fragrance” and “Trump’s Golden Lager.” He failed to trademark the phrase “You're fired.”

NEARLY 20% of the 23,688 known human genes are patented in the United States. Private companies hold 63% of those patents.

HUEY NEWTON’S widow is trademarking the phrase “Burn, Baby, Burn” for use as a BBQ sauce slogan.

IN THE LATEST ROUND of a 13-year battle over the title “Surf City USA,” Huntington Beach, Calif., filed for a trademark last year. A state senator from Santa Cruz retorted, “You can’t trademark a state of mind” and proposed a Senate resolution declaring his city to be the real Surf City.

GEORGE FOREMAN has earned $113 million by lending his name to a grill.

LAST YEAR Mister Softee spent $170,000 to track down and sue 45 competitors for copying its blue-and-white trucks and playing its copyrighted jingle.

“SENSORY TRADEMARKS” include a duck quacking (AFLAC), a lion roaring (MGM), yodelling (Yahoo!), giggling (Pillsbury), and a “pre-programmed rotating sequence of a plurality of high intensity columns of light projected into the sky to locate a source at the base thereof” (Ballantyne of Omaha).

FOR INCLUDING a 60-second piece of silence on their album, the Planets were threatened with a lawsuit by the estate of composer John Cage, which said they’d ripped off his silent work 4’33”. The Planets countered that the estate failed to specify which 60 of the 273 seconds in Cage’s piece had been pilfered.

A FRENCH DIRECTOR had to pay $1,300 after a character in his film whistled the communist anthem, “The Internationale,” without permission.

AFTER INTEL was sued for libel for calling someone a “patent extortionist,” one of its lawyers coined the term “patent troll.”

THE WORLD WRESTLING Federation changed its name to World Wrestling Entertainment after the World Wildlife Fund sued over the rights to “WWF.”

HOOTERS SUED a competitor for stealing its “trade dress,” i.e., the packaging of its waitresses.

THE PUBLISHER of Super Hero Happy Hour removed “Super” from the comic book title after Marvel and DC Comics stated they own the phrase “super heroes and variations thereof.”

42% OF ALL VIDEO files shared online are pornographic. No porn-sharing cases have yet been tried in the U.S.

LAST YEAR Disney and other media companies sued two small L.A. shops for selling $15 piñatas of Winnie the Pooh, The Incredibles, and Nemo.

THE ROCK AND ROLL Hall of Fame sued several journalists for naming their website “The Jewish Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” They renamed it Jewsrock.org.

AFTER ROSA PARKS sued OutKast for using her name as a song title, the group and their label settled by paying for a Parks tribute CD and TV special.

PATENT LAWSUITS have more than doubled since 1992.

RENTAMARK.COM makes money by claiming ownership of 10,000 phrases, including “chutzpah,” “casual Fridays,” “.com,” “fraud investigation,” and “big breasts.”

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.’s estate charges academic authors $50 for each sentence of the “I Have a Dream” speech that they reprint.

THE VILLAGE PEOPLE refused to let their songs be used for a documentary called Gay Sex in the ’70s because they want to be thought of as “mainstream.”

i thought i was going to be jack sparrow

At least I didn't score as Laura Croft...

You scored as William Wallace. The great Scottish warrior William Wallace led his people against their English oppressors in a campaign that won independence for Scotland and immortalized him in the hearts of his countrymen. With his warrior's heart, tactician's mind, and poet's soul, Wallace was a brilliant leader. He just wanted to live a simple life on his farm, but he gave it up to help his country in its time of need.

William Wallace 75% Maximus 58% Captain Jack Sparrow 58% Batman, the Dark Knight 58% Indiana Jones 50% James Bond, Agent 007 50% Lara Croft 46% El Zorro 46% The Amazing Spider-Man 46% The Terminator 42% Neo, the "One" 38% Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0

...as heard the other day...

...
T-dog: one of these days K-dog
T-dog: (work) is going to degenerate into poeple in their offices popping pills and binge drinking
all before noon
T-dog: and A-dog will be fucking one of our female employees on the conference room table, against her will.
K-dog: waving his gun around
T-dog: and i'll be all for it, because he'll have worked that out of his system...

Cubs Tickets - recap

Single game tickets for the Cubs 2006 season went on sale today at 10AM. By 1pm 6 games were sold out including the White Sox series (of course) and a majority of Cardinals games.

By 345pm there were a total of 21 games sold out including:
Cubs vs. Cardinals 4/7/2006, Cubs vs. Cardinals 4/8/2006,
Cubs vs. Cardinals 4/9/2006, Cubs vs. Braves 5/27/2006,
Cubs vs. Braves 5/28/2006, Cubs vs Tigers 6/17/2006,
Cubs vs. Tigers 6/18/2006, Cubs vs. White Sox 6/30/2006,
Cubs vs. White Sox 7/1/2006 , Cubs vs. White Sox 7/2/2006,
Cubs vs. Mets 7/14/2006, Cubs vs. Mets 7/15/2006
Cubs vs. Cardinals 7/27/2006, Cubs vs. Cardinals 7/28/2006,
Cubs vs. Cardinals 7/29/2006, Cubs vs. Cardinals 7/30/2006,
Cubs vs. Pirates 8/5/2006, Cubs vs. Cardinals 8/18/2006
Cubs vs. Cardinals 8/19/2006, Cubs vs. Cardinals 8/20/2006,
Cubs vs. Giants 9/2/2006

This is of course totally absurd. The only way you can get face value Cubs tickets to any decent games is to get them within the first few hours they go on sale. Even the games that I DID get tickets for were not all that great of games, nor were the seats that great, but they were night a weekend games, which will be mostly sold out by later tonight, except for single seats, and who want's to go to a baseball game by themselves?

OK - the only decent series this season is the White Sox series of course. That being said, there are several games that sold out quickly and I have no idea why:

Cubs vs Tigers 6/17/2006 and 6/18/06 - OK so they have Mags and Kenny Rogers, but that is not really enough to make a team. They finished 4th of 5 in their division with a 71-91 record. Is the fact that it is the first weekend series in June the only reason why it sold out already? plz...

Ok so pretty much all the weekend games are going to sell out on the first day for the reason that they are simply weekend cubs games, and I guess a weekend cubs game is both popular for the general public (take your kids to the game and all) and also popular with the ticket brokers - for probably the same reason.

conclusion - The situation has got ridiculous - but I still blew my wad on tickets today in spite of the ridiculousness.

UPDATE: as of 3/1/06 30 games are sold out. Almost 40% of their 81 total home games in less than a week. Old man Wrigley is rolling in his grave.

Dilbert advertising...really?

This advertisment popped up when i was viewing dilbert cartoons

Considering dilbert is mostly targeted to business/computer geek type people, I have to ask a question. Is this type of advertising really the best kind to appear on dilbert's website? I mean do intelligent people really buy this shit?

fun with random AOL IM sessions

Occassionally people mistake my screename for someone they know. Apparently I am not the only one who gets these. They start to have random conversations with me. Usually I respond as if I know the person for a while until I figure out that they are random and probably are trying to talk to someone else. Then the fun begins.

Occassionally I have had streaks of random people lasting several days, a whole group of people (usually one person and their teeny bopper friends). I manage to convince one of them that I might be the person they are trying to talk to and they tell their friends.

Eventually I get tired of the charade and let them in on my joke - and sometimes after telling them flat out that I am not the person they think I am, they still don't belive me. Then the fun begins again where I really try to fuck with them in earnest. This went a little to far one time when I started saying things like "wanna cyber?", "send me naked pics" or other historically awesome internet pickup lines. Then some 14 year old girl's mom pulled my email address from my profile and threatened to call the police on me. I responded by demanding that her daughter stop IMing me, stop thinking that I was one of her BFFs even after I told her I was not, and stop emailing me before I get my friends at AOL to cancel their account. Trust me, I say, I have more friends at AOL than you. To some extent that is probably true, I am probably only 1-2 hops away from an AOL sysadmin that could easily make her account disappear.

Though not the best one by far, this is an example of a typical IM conversation with me from a random person that does not know me, comented where appropriate:

SunnyHun6910: who is this?
SunnyHun6910: ???
myscreenname: you first
SunnyHun6910: i asked u first
myscreenname: yeah well i didnt IM you first, so you can tell me who you are, then I will answer who I am. Or if not I will block you and go back to what I was doing
>>>you would think this would stop the conversation>>>
SunnyHun6910: i am betsy
myscreenname: i only know one betsy - what high school did you go to?
>>>I did know a Betsy in HS, but there was like 1 in a billion chance of this actually being her>>>
SunnyHun6910: how old r u?
myscreenname: how old are you?
SunnyHun6910: grrrrrr
SunnyHun6910: bye
myscreenname: np
>>>short for no problem - again thought the conversation would end with her giving up here>>>
SunnyHun6910: what is np?
SunnyHun6910: wait do u live in ct?
myscreenname: what is grrrrr
>>>another appropriate response I thought
SunnyHun6910: idk
>>>no idea what IDK is, perhaps 'I don't know'?>>>
myscreenname: no - but I bet you do
>>>no i dont live in CT, guessing that betsy does>>>
SunnyHun6910: ugh.... no i live in outer space duh!
SunnyHun6910: well uuh....... yea
SunnyHun6910: just tell me how old u r
myscreenname: whats with all these questions?
>>>started to get bored>>>
SunnyHun6910: otgnw'DS
SunnyHun6910: nfm
>>>random character time??>>>
myscreenname: pqrst lmnop
SunnyHun6910: jdsf jfdsjfkjfds what the ; jksafjksfjdsa;f
myscreenname: huh - you dont say
SunnyHun6910: ok u must be like old cuz u have an aparment number and everything
>>>she must have found my address somewhere, aim profile?>>>
myscreenname: how old do you have to be to have an apartment?
SunnyHun6910: over 18
myscreenname: really? i never knew that - i think i know some people that have an apartment that are under 18
>>>any pop star under the age of 18 im sure has an apartment/house/condo>>>
SunnyHun6910: just tell me how old u r
myscreenname: you first
myscreenname: and does it really matter how old i am?
SunnyHun6910: yea....
myscreenname: i dont think so
SunnyHun6910: BUH BYE FAT ASS!
>>>wait salvage the conversation, this is just starting to get fun>>>
myscreenname: do you have an apartment?
myscreenname: how do you know how much I weigh?
>>>classic>>>
*** Error while sending IM: This user is currently not logged on
>>>damn>>>

More search engine work

In my never ending quest to fix my search engine ranking, I have added more links to my mattarata.com page. Hopefully this cross linking will improve my place to beat out the guy who has been listed above me forever.

My thinking is that, especially with the Server Central page which is highly cross linked with a lot of hosting type search engines, that somehow the relevancy factor will get kicked up a little on my 'Matthew Arata'.

UPDATE: These changes finally worked. I succeeded in kicking off the guy who was listed above me. The simple linking on the main mattarata.com page probably did the trick. Making relevant things cross link back to themselves is apparently what google likes, though only if it is legit content, which all of my stuff happens to be.

The 50 beer/wing challange

After reading the post from Jason Mulgrew about his 50 beer/wing challenge (dead link), basically a personal mission for him to consume 50 beers or wings within an 8 hour period, I was inspired and posed the same challenge to my friends.

They accepted. We held the challenge yesterday during the superbowl, starting at around noon and ending by the time the game ended. We had 6 contestants of which 4 finished all within the given time period.

#5 got to 32wings, 8 beers and #6 quit at 30wings 7 beers (a 7th competed remotely and got to 30 wings and 9.5 beers)

The toughest competitors in our group finished early - within 4-5 hours - sticking to the 45wings 5 beers method. Another of our group went down the wrong path with the 35 wings 15 beers. He both finished and was finished. I personally hit the 41 wings 9 beers mark and took the entire 8 hours to finish.

chicago card - snafu

I got an email from the CTA saying that there were not enough funds in my account to debit my monthly pass. How absured! I manage my company's transit benefit program and I know for a fact that this month's deposit went through just fine. So I check into the situation and realized that it started using my monthly pass money for pass back swipes, then there was not enough $$ to debit the monthly pass, so I had to update my credit card on file, then it charged me $9 and gave me my monthly pass.

So note for next time, if you go up to the quincy platform intending to take the purple line home, after the purple line stops running, and then go back down and up the other side to hit the brown line, it charges you for a pass-back...which it shouldnt...there should be like a manual switch or something on the chicago card where you can tell the station that you are the same person you were before just going the other way.

Stupid CTA and their shitty quincy el stops.

Face of Muhammed - Drawings of Muhammed

Face of Muhammed - Drawings of Muhammed - link to blog created specifically for hosting the images. However I have pasted them below incase, for some reason, the existing blog goes down. These are the images that have caused the entire muslim world to go ape-ahit.

My copies are here: mattarata.com/muhammed

UPDATE:
A very extensive account of all the dipications of muhammed from through out history
http://info2us.dk/muhammed/

RIP Couch

After 2 posts to craigslist, 25 responses, and an afternoon of back and forth emails, the couch is finally out of my apartment.

sometimes i feel this way

from postsecret
then i go get a cup of coffee

Went to the Red Ivy on 1/14 to watch some basketball/football with mooman/wife/pooters. Red Ivy is a new bar/lounge establishment on Clark st by Wrigley field. Interesting place and a different kind of take on the typical bar/pub in the area. They have decent food choices and the interior is well laid-out.

So that day the "Bacardi Girls" were there giving away free swag. I got a t-shirt and a tiny nerf football. The football went in the trash and the t-shirt will be added to my rotation. There were hardley any people in the bar at the time, and the girls obviously wanted to get rid of the swag and get out so everyone in the bar got some stuff.

Went to the same bar on 1/21 while I was killing time waiting for Poohbear to get done eating dinner. And what do ya know this time "Heineken Girls" were there giving away free Heineken swag. The t-shirt I got this time was somewhat nicer quality than the Bacardi shirt, with its embroidered logo and everything.

So - two trips to the bar and two t-shirts. Fuck shopping, i should just drink beer.

diversion gone wrong

Some coworkers and I went to happy hour yesterday. I stayed an for an appropriate length of time, but when the booze starts flowing it is apparently hard for others to quit. I left after 2 beers, a shot of jager and some dang qasadillas. They left a short while later, only to walk down the street to another bar, one that is apparently a little cheaper and somewhat less stuffy.

While at the bar they decide that they need to start chatting up a few girls on the other end of the bar. Problem - the girls are already getting chatted up by a guy, who just happens to be wearing a pink shirt. Not that there is anything inherantly wrong with pink shirts. It was decided that one of the group would create a 'diversion.' So the diverter goes up to the guy and says "Hey! That is an 'awesome' pink shirt!" "What?" asks the guy. Repeating "That is an awesome pink shirt!" my co-worker says. (apparently this was not the type of distraction the guys were looking for.) So within a minute or two a big meathead friend of the pink shirt guy comes over to the group. And tries to start shit - a defense was mounted but someone apparently intervened and talked the guy down.

Well I guess the diversion worked, as some of the group swooped in to the girls and started the chat up. Though apparently to no good end as everyone ended up the night drunk/tired and at home alone....or so reported to the rest.

Scott McClellan and George Bush can die

The White House's comment in response to the filing of a lawsuit by the ACLU
on behalf of several journalists, authors, scholars and organizations against the National Security Agency over its "no-warrant wiretapping program" was ridiculous. Scott McClellan basically said "If you are not a terrorist, then you have nothing to worry about." "If you aren't doing anything wrong, then you have nothing to worry about."

Well I say Fuck You Scott McClellan and Fuck You George W Bush!

If they are not obtaining warrants for the wire-taps, then they have no need to gather evidence to see if the person they suspect is a terrorist or not. They have free reign to operate simply by 'suspecting' that a person is a terrorist. What if they are wrong? What if there is a mix up? What if they spy on me because they 'suspect' I might be a terrorist. I am not a terrorist. At least I am pretty sure I am not. But George Bush could think that I might be one, and order a wire-tap on me. Free speech gives me the right to say what I want, to whomever I wish without the government listening in. If they had to present evidence to a court that I was a terrorist, then they would obviously not be able to wire-tap me and ohs no that would make it much harder to wrongfully convict me or hold me in a jail without a trial because I am an enemy combatant!!!

I got a plan. Lets call George Bush and Scott McCellan terrorists. They look kinda funny, so maybe they are actually terrorists. (lets also say that I am a spy - this whole blog thing would kinda elude to my spy status, but those fuckers wouldn't know the difference anyway). So as a spy I order a no-warrant on Bush and McCellan's phones. I decide that they use the word 'Terrah' instead of terror enough times that they just might be terrorists. Nevermind they are on TV or in the media an average of once a day. So now these terrorists have to be rounded up and shipped off to a camp somewhere so that we can interrogate them to see if they have any friends. I suspect they have lots of friends, so we will probably have to hold them for a really long time. And of course we wont let them have a trial or anything, because they are probably planning on attacking America and that would qualify them as enemy combatants. So they will be locked away forever and we can have Dick Cheny as President - who will hopefully have another heart attack in the next few days...

Lessig Presents arguments for Google Print (google Book Search)

Though his article is mostly about his experiments in trying to set his recorded lecture to his slides, I found his argument contained in the video to be most fascinating. I am also helping him seed the video overnight tonight.

Basically he says that Google print should be allowed in the same way that thumbnails for image searches are allowed according to a previous decision. For example google image search takes the image, modifies it so that it is not the original and not accepted as the original. Same as with google print that they are modifying the original book by pulling excerpts which cannot be accepted as the original - making a comparison to quoting or referencing someone else in your own published book. He also argues that because copyright law is so flawed and because there is no mechanism to secure rights for 75% of published literature currently in existence, there has to be a way to easily obtain that literature.

I would very much like to hear more of Lessig's arguments.

The Chief - in summary

This article by George Will pretty much sums up the general feelings of most chief supporters. Why the NCAA is out to get the Chief is beyond me. Apparently if the Peoria tribe simply says "The Chief can stay" then he will be allowed to stay. But the Peoria tribe doesn't give two shits about the petty squabbeling of a big ten university vs the NCAA. Doesn't the NCAA have better things to do? Like concentrate your efforts on Marcus Vick.

Home depot, ups

The Home Depot parking lot looks much different at 9am than it does at 6pm. At 9am the lot is filled with non-descript white vans with tool/ladder racks on the top, etc... Inside are contractors stocking up on supplies for the days work.

At 6pm the parking lot is filled with mostly SUVs. These are the yuppies that are running to get parts etc... for their home DIY projects (DIY = Do It Yourself - also a term which I mostly despise).

conclusion of this observation = none

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UPS has a neat feature on their website (old skoolers would access the feature over the phone). This feature is not new as it has probably been around 8-10 years at least. Basically you tell them when your package is ready to be picked up and then they come and get it from your house or office or wherever. Depending on what type of account you have, the service is either free or costs between $2 and $4 per package. All of the major private delivery services (Fedex, DHL) have this ability though it is best serviced through UPS. It is really cool that you can do this. I wish the USPS could do this. In fact I wish the USPS could do a lot of things that it either doesn't currently do or does sucky.

The major beef I have with the UPS "Schedule a pickup" service is their timeframe option. You tell them when the package will be ready and when is the latest time during the day in which they can pick it up. I find that drivers either ignore these fields or simply think they don't matter. Often times I schedule a pickup for a time later in the day, to make certain UPS comes, yet also to give me time to get my package ready. The driver usually comes to get the package either way before the scheduled time or sometime after the time I say that we close. Why even have the option if the drivers are never going to abide by it?

benny - funky buddah - understanding

I finally figured out why Benny was always wanting us to go up to Chicago to Funky Buddah. It was because Benny is a hardcore party guy. He has partied a lot in his life and been around a lot. So one time he went up to chicago and someone took him to the Funky Buddah Lounge. It was probably the only 'club' he ever went to in Chicago, so it was there that he suggested we go, all of us in the class. Too bad we were all mostly underage at the time.

It would have been fun though, to go out and party with Benny. I psudo partied with him at his house, but he was very much under control at that time. I know he can party. I heard a story of when he went on a canoe trip with some people in Arkansas and brought along martini making supplies. MARTINIS!!! Most people just bring some beer or something in a cooler. Bought he brought martini mixing supplies...then started to ask around to see if anyone had an ice...

BENNY!!!!...i get it now....lets go party!!!

Christmas, Amazon, Narnia

Amazon wish lists are the awesome.

Make one, send it to your family when they ask what you want for christmas or your birthday, and you will probably end up getting some of the things on your list.

Of the things I had on my list, I received the following:
March of the Penguins DVD
DEWALT 18V Cordless Drill
Apple iPod USB Power Adapter
DigiTech RP50 Modeling Guitar Processor
The Big Lebowski DVD
Vieuphoria Live (a collection of Smashing Pumpkins live performances)
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (the book)
Smashing Pumpkins - Greatest Hits Video Collection DVD

That is really a pretty good haul considering past Chirstmas's. It is really nicer to get stuff you want than to get stuff that is nice but that you don't really want.

In other Christmas news...

At 4:30 mass on Christmas Eve, the pastor gave a semon that basically pimped The Chronicals of Narnia, the movie currently in theaters. He said that it was the basic christ story, with Aslan as Jesus and the lion sacraficing himself to save everyone and all that. While I dont care much that he made the parallel, especially to all the little kids in attendence at mass, I do care that it was probably beacuse the church received the movie studio's press packet. Genious...really...some underpaid movie studio exec got a big bonus for coming up with that one...

New office

I have to say something about moving into the new office.

Lots of us are excited to be moving into a 'real' office. Others are glad to be closer to mass transit (my window looks down on part of the loop and front door of the building is about 200 feet away from a stop). Some are yearning for a door that they can close to block out everyone else and maybe actually get some work done and some for the variety of lunch choices which will be available. A few are lazy and dread having to go to an office more than 20 feet from where they live.

I am hoping the move to the new office will do the following:
1) improve employee output. Currently there is much distraction caused by close proximity of everyone to each other, also the breakroom is very near to where 2 people work, and if you go to get coffee or something, you often feel compelled to talk with them. Also - some people are getting private offices which should lead to those people working with their door closed more often and getting more things done. I know that I can get more done between 5pm and 6pm, after everyone leaves, than I can between 3pm and 4pm.

2) improve office decorum. Currently some staff members are pre-occupied with dick and fart jokes. There is always a time and a place for that stuff, but as our company grows we need to focus a little more on business and a little less of fucking around. We are at a critical juncture . If lots of things don't all start moving in the same direction, shit could start to hit the fan. There is also something to be said for going to work at a real office. People should generally feel that they are at work; and while at work they should be doing work. Current attitudes are more on the play side than the work side, though most people get their work done. Eliminating the feeling that people are not 'really' at 'work' should help this. The goal should be for everyone to work hard, but also play hard. Make going to work a good experience, yet getting the most productivity out of everyone. If we keep this goal in mind, the new office will not seem as crappy a place to work as people might think.

3) get us out of the ghetto. Simply stated the neighborhood of the current office is shitty and most of the time I dislike going to and from work. Plus there are fewer and fewer places to eat or get coffee or whatever.

4) improve customer and vendor relationships. Being in the loop should lead to better business relationships with vendors and customers who now know we are serious and successful. It has been said that within the first 2-3 months or so we will be having a 'lot' of vendors and other people coming to visit us. This will be good but also probably waste a lot of time.

5)Provide better working space. The new office has 2 conference rooms, wherein we can have good meetings with good numbers of people. The senior offices are large enough to have meetings of 3-5 people and those meetings will no longer bother the people working nearby. Even the junior offices are big enough to have a meeting of 2-3 people. The breakroom is closed off and away from the work area. There is a reception area. There is a storage area. All of these things were generally combined into one giant area in the current office.

All of the above being said, when I was going in to college and when I was in college, I always said that I didn't want to have a job where I work in an office all day doing the same thing over and over and over. That is why I became a theatre major. It was a chance to be doing something different all the time. When I was about to graduate I realized that the job opportunities in theatre involved a lot of non-steady work or long night/weekend hours - so I went for something that was more secure, more 9-5 and less corporate. The current job is getting more and more like what I didn't want to be doing each day. I do have responsibilities and experience that I probably would not have had studying for an office job, but they come at the cost of being overall less fulfilled, tired and frustrated a lot.

Conslusion? New office will be good for the company in general. Hopefully it will lead to good things and a change for the better for the company. If in 12 months from now, everything is still in basically the same state, just in a different location, then it might be time to move on or start changing things myself.

flickr

Tried flicker for the first time last night....man is it slow at 11pm on a Monday. I mean SLOOOOOOWWWW. This morning, totally lighting fast. And the limit is somewhat tough to deal with...20mb a month? With bandwidth costs being what I know them to be, especially pull bandwidth like that, you would think that they would want to increase their pull as much as possible. I would really like to see flickr's bandwidth graphs.

thingy overlords...

from slashdot article talking about IPv6 and how with 6 billion people and billions and billions of personal devices, IPv4 is just not able to cover everyone.


I for one welcome our new.... thingy overlords...

self heating coffee

Found this in the bargin basket at Jewel for $.50 - it looked interesting and a bargin at 50 cents so I got it. Only reason i can figure is that it had a small dent at he bottom corner of the can. Also maybe it was simply older than the rest of the cans they had on the shelf (by 30 days or so).

Anyway - the coffee tastes ok, about as good as any starbucks coffee i have ever had or any gas station latte. Regular price off the shelf $3.49 so again about as much as it would cost at starbucks. Cheaper in bulk I would imagine as they do sell it on their webiste (albiet some generic variety). Heated to full temperature in about 8 minutes (top end of stated range) but was totally drinkable immediately upon opening.

The container is made by Ontech. Apparently they have a shit load of $$ and time spent in this thing. It really seams like a simple device. Some quicklime and some water are all that make the heating reaction, i guess it took them time to design just the right shape container, amount of chemical, manufacturing technique, etc... The technology itself is not really new, but Ontech's design is the true marketable feature. Totally self contained self heating beverage that doesn't need refrigeration. I think if the price comes down a little, or they do a little better job of marketing, this device will really take off.

A nice review and disection of the thing here

the times, they have changed

from Jason Mulgrew's old blog (dead link)
"When my dad was 26, he had been working full-time for eight years, had a two year old son, and a wife of three years. I’m 26, and I’m spending my Sunday afternoon hungover in a cell phone store trying to customize my number around vulgarities so that I can buy a phone that represents 5% of the cost of my dad’s first home. God bless America"

It is totally absurd what I will spend my money on. I bought a used Ipod mini a few weeks ago from a guy I work with. I spent more on this than I normally spend on gifts for my wife for her birthday or Christmas (perhaps I will have to start buying nicer gifts).

I am thinking about spending around 200k for a condo sometime in the next year. This is also totally absurd. I am fairly certain that this is approximately 160% of the value of my parents current home and at least 50k more than my parents last home which was sold in 1994. Granted my parents live out in BFE and I live in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country (at least Im not in NYC). I have no idea how I can afford this, or why it is even possible. I take a quick look at the numbers, at what is available, and what I think i will want etc... and this is probably what will end up happening.

But I still don't give money to the bums on the street, which, on average, I run into about once a week (I dont walk around a lot). I figure I give money to charities from time to time, and I am forced to give to many government sponsored programs, through my taxes, of which most of them could be taking advantage. I know if I ever ended up on the street I would do everything I could to keep from having to beg people for money including looking for every government hand-out available. Perhaps that I why I am not out on the street.