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/