What's going on!? it's been over a week, and I haven't posted. Well I'll put it to you quickly... we have a week at work every semester called "Hell Week" and this one topped all others. mainly because that worm leaked in and we had to put it out because that many machines tftp'ing our main router brings it down... so yes, our work was up and down with internet connectivity... plus, we got 200+ new computers... which means we had to put those 200+ in place, and take the 200+ that were already there and either excess them, or cascade them... suckage... major suckage. my experimental asthma treatment is in the phase where it feels worse before it'll feel better. I worked all week extra hours, and then saturday for extra hours... I don't get overtime, because my boss doesn't budget for it... we get comp time... so whatever extra hours we work, we get to take those hours off later... of course, me being me, I argued that since overtime is time and a half, comp-time should be that way as well... so if we stay 4 hours extra, we should get to take 6 hours off... if we stay 6 hours extra we should get 9 hours off.. ect... That didn't go over very well. So after talking to berger, I decided to pull out my airbrush... only problem is that this brass fitting that used to connect the hose to the compressor is missing... I can't find it anywhere. it looks like a little brass hat. I'm hoping I can go to the local hobby shop and find an airbrush hose... my airbrush is a $180 Aztec airbrush, dual action... 4 different size nozzles... it's a real nice piece of equipment.

I'm going to get going before Julie wakes up and scares me half to death... my computer has me with my back to the door, so whenever Julie walks in it scares the shit out of me... I look back and see this silhouette of EVILNESS, becaue my brain sees scary things before the good ones... it's wierd that way, this is why I'll NEVER own a handgun, I'd be the jumpy one to shoot someone on accident. well, later all!

So I watched a rousing game of Chronopia, it seems pretty cool. I'd like to play it for fun with my friends, so I ordered a few of the Firstborn, so I can play... or at least have cool miniatures to paint. I dream of a miniature game... but not one where you fight someone... one like DnD, where you can group up with the other players... and then go fight monsters. It would have a GM, who would hide all sorts of things on the board, it would be like an RPG miniature game... that'd be so cool. You could go back to DnD 2nd edition rules to make it easier... I just think it'd be cool. I want to make elaborate landscapes for my miniatures to roam on, like tiles that are individually small, but snap together for a big board. I guess I geeked out there a bit.

So, I'm at work, and I had this message on my phone.. I'm going to name the caller McGruff... so McGruff called, and said he needed those 25 multicast disks by monday to ghost the lab... I said.. hey first off.. I don't have 25 disks... and second... I haven't gotten the new ones to work yet, so just use the old ones. work sucks. I am the lowest paid full time employee in this department, and I have the most to do.. that just isn't right... I don't feel well today, I was thinking of going home. I don't know if Julie would take me or not... I'm not feeling that bad, but I'm just uncomfortable. I do want to go to the LCAS picnic tonight, it's the astronomy club I'm in. It's a pretty cool club, with the exception of the website... it's hideous... it's an embarrassment to me... it's hosted on my server, but it's not in any way done by me... Check it out here Hideous... there's some good info on it though. I need to go to the hardware store for some nuts... my telescope adapter that I made needs nuts, but I can't find the right size, I feel like a useless individual... I bought 3 different size nuts and none fit. And unlike my own nuts, I can't just bang them into something to enflame them. whoa, that was pretty gross.. but what do you expect, it's me.. talking about nuts!

Theft... to steal something that doesn't belong to you... Here's something you may not know... in section 309 of the patriot act, stealing with a computer is considered terrorism. As you may know... the RIAA thinks trading music files is stealing... with a computer... which would mean every college student in America is a terrorist. Fortunately, for right now, trading files is just a copyright infringement... so don't let anyone tell you it's stealing, because that would make you a terrorist! But more recently SCO thinks everyone using Linux Kernel 2.4 or higher has stolen from them... which makes normal everyday citizens... you guessed it... terrorists! I nabbed a copy of conan O Brian's show, with Triumph the dog... technically I stole that... even though there's no way to buy it, and it was transmitted over standard airwaves... I'm a terrorist. Thank you Patirot Act... and thank you representatives for making America such a great place for everyone!

But really.. I'm at work now... and work is going SLOOOOOW. I have tons of shit to do, and it all sucks so I'm putting it off, like a slacker... or something that rhymes with it. But This patriot act crap pissed me off.. again... so here's my blog... on it.. The interesting thing is.. in the Patriot Act itself, are 3 separate references to Section 309... but Section 309 is missing. Call Mulder!

I never got into Java... I always felt it was this wierdly pushed language, that was too constrictive, yet so open... It reminds me of the history of pants... Java is like the codpiece. It opens up some convience but looks really stupid, and it's not THAT convienient. Maybe I just have a problem with ONLY using classes.. I love objects and all, but I kinda liked the straghtforward entry/exit point of C++... and not being able to manage your own memory, that is a little frustrating. So when you think of it.. Java is like only useful for like office apps... like spreadsheets and word processors... if you deal with graphics, you'll notably want to interface directly to the video card in some way, usually through an API like directX or OpenGl. I'm sure java can access an API like directx or opengl, but then it goes against its cross-platform design, so accessing said API's is really an afterthought, and will never be integrated to the level that would make it advantageous to use. In other words, I'm a geek. Thanks, later!

Well, last night I went to the fanciest wedding to end all weddings... The whole wedding put me in a surreal sort of mood. all the way from being told not to bring cameras... which I did NOT listen to... I nabbed some great pictures of my friends.. I'm pretty good at no-flash low light photography, my first SLR had no flash, and the flash socket didn't work... so I got lots of practice. anyway, about the surrealness of it... We had Macaroni and Cheese served in Martini glasses with golden spoons during cocktail hour... they had a guy sauteeing mushrooms... I was able to try a johnny walker and sprite.. black label, it was pretty nice... I love johnny walker whiskey. I own a bottle of johnny walker... red label... blue label is like $220 a bottle... black label is only a little more expensive than red label... I got my red label for $22, black label was like $27.... the order goes.. red, black, gold, blue. red being the cheapest, and blue being the most expensive. gold label is about $70 a bottle... give or take. It was berger that introduced me to johnny, while we were hanging out in a smokey pool hall... he brought over some shots of whiskey, and said, "Try it!" unbelievably it was smooth! I was used to the harsh bite of Jack... but it was smooth. Thanks berger!

Okay back to the surreal wedding... the ceremony was surreal as well... there were about 4 video cameras at random angles, and 3 very untalented photographers snapping away almost nonstop... It was scripted to the point of insanity, I really felt that if either one wanted to back out, none of the wing directors would let them... pure insanity I say. It felt like the set of a TV show I think is the best way of putting it... you know they practised all their lines in rehearsal and now they're delivering them. Her dad paid for most of it I think, he's a doctor of some type... I think. The only descriptive adjectives I heard when people from opposite families were describing their new In-law was... "he/she's great" I kept thinking of Futurama, the episode when Fry was dating Amy Wong, Amy's family basically owns mars, and are filthy rich. So Bender says to Fry, "Looks like you bagged yourself the perfect woman, Amy's rich, I'm sure she has other qualities..." And I couldn't stop thinking about that... or saying it... I was, I think, the most obnoxious person at the wedding... I just felt bad for my friend Foss... he only had $5 to his name, and had to drive around the jam packed city streets for an hour to find a place where he could afford to park... it was $20 to park at the hotel. Julie and I took a limo in... and looking at the home-bound traffic, we're glad we did! A limo was still $100 cheaper than staying at that hotel...

Then there was the illogical crying of the bride's sister during her speech... it's your sister... she's been living with this guy for almost a year... damn... the crying, it just made no sense.. I expect parents... and grandparents to cry... not the sister, I expect them to be happy, but not too happy because of the nagging jealousy... maybe my world views are screwed up... yes... in fact, I know they are. The food was good, I liked the way they made the potatoes... it was like, fried mashed potatoes... it was crispy on the outside, and soft inside... It was definitely fancy... I think the fanciest wedding I've ever seen... When I get hitched... I think it will be a midieval theme... all the groom's wedding party will wear their formal jerkins... I don't know if I want inside or outside... but it's gonna be FUN, and not extremely fancy... but definitely fun.

Suicide... an interesting thing. What's more interesting is that it's against the law, like that is some kind of deterrant. So I've been tabulating some statistics... firearm suicides are most likely to suceed. Wrist slitting is one of the least likely. Basically, if you're suicidal, I think you should join an alaskan fishing boat. It's a dangerous job, so being suicidal helps, it pays well, about $15k a season, with 3 fishing seasons a year, and if you're depressed because of people, you'll be far, far away from them... in fact, you'll be far far away, and living in a boat paying no rent, and making lots of cash. Then after a few years of that if you still feel like you killing yourself... use the cash you made from fishing to build an experimental space plane that you plan to test yourself. if it works, you'll have no reason to be depressed... if it doesn't.. problem solved, and other space plane people can learn from your mistakes... either way you've contributed something instead of being a red spot on the rug of your parents house. Well, that's it for today's episode of Caring, with Brent... tune in tomorrow when I regail you with a story of workplace horror!

This bit goes out to a special lady... Miss Jackie. Happy birthday and stuff!

So I was working my ass off at work the other day, and I kept thinking... if aliens took over and forced us to work.. I'd probably have less to do. As I intended again, but forgot again.. to look at mars.. again. The problem here isn't that it won't still be close, but late in the season mars usually goes through some weather system where it will be covered by a dust-storm... so that kinda sucks for me.

So I had the ever exciting Mac vs PC discussion today... I won. It's too easy to bash the Mac back down to what it really is, a glorified calculator that now runs off of PC components. Years ago this myth was started that Macs were better at graphics than PC's were. The Myth centered around graphics hardware. Well it turned out that it was really software, and the Mac did have a pretty good edge on the PC. Later on, most of the companies that wrote for the Mac decided to do PC ports... well, now those companies are rich beyond belief... because of Mac? no.. because of the PC market. Still don't believe it, just check out the size of the software shelf in any computer store... then look at the Mac section... smaller isn't it? So small that Apple had to build their own store chain just to have all 150 software titles in the same place. Well at any rate, the Macs have just upgraded to Geforce 4's while the PC guys have the GeForce FX 5900 ULTRA... oh yeah... graphics are better where mister mac man? I dunno, if I could half my polygon count, maybe we could race. Plus, Macs are ungodly expensive... too expensive. the crap-mac is $999, while a crap-PC is $499... How do you justify that? I dunno... I'm spent, I'm going to nap. At work... and nap.

I was thinking again today... look out! So, I was thinking about a lot of things... like 100 years after we made the first airplane, why are we so non-advanced... why haven't we discovered new and better ways of propulsion? So to my actual thoughts... roads are ugly, and environmentally damaging. We have roads that go everywhere, it's almost impossibly to find a place without a road. And locally they are still spending hundreds of millions of dollars maintaining and making new ones. Now if you've never heard of the SkyCar maybe you should. This is a single personal aircraft, gets 27 mpg, and travels at 350mph, and is capable of VTOL (vertical take off and landing), plus it's equipped with 2 fuselage chutes with a spreader gun... that means that even critical engine failures at low altitudes will be non-fatal. So why hasn't this cool invention made it further? well.. Once this is released it will be half a million dollars per unit. Once it goes into mass production, it'll cost about $75,000 per unit, less than a hummer. At that point, every cab company will have more than one, every upper-middle class household will have one, and the roads will begin to get less congested. later, as more companies make these sky-vehicles, more and more people will have them, until the roads will become a wasteway of asphalt, forgotton... broken... a home for illegal street racing. Then I realised why this hasn't happened... the airlines. They have a large legislative lobby... the loss of these contsituates would most likely be felt by our corrupt elected officials, so the skycar will probably be held under red tape for a few decades. Kinda like Marijuana... I'm convinced that the only reason it's not legal is because the tobacco companies didn't grow it and market it... it's been studied in several areas, and they test out about the same.. except marijuana contains THC instead of niccotine, and ciggarettes have niccotine instead of THC.. I think laws are fine in a society, but too many unneccessary laws turn normal people into criminals. How many of you curse aloud? if you do, then you could be imprisioned in Michigan for 2+ years. I could say shit all day, and it won't hurt a fucking thing, but if I say shit out loud in michigan and some fucking freak calls the cops, I'm a criminal. However there are some laws that benefit everyone... in Gurnee Illinois it's illegal for a woman who weighs more than 200 pounds to ride a horse while wearing shorts... now that's a law EVERYONE can agree with. Where was I going.. hell I don't know. Julie's talking to me about stocks... I'm trying to listen and remember where I was going... but I can't... who am I.. crap... I need a break... later guys.

So mars is supposed to be closer now... but I still can't stay up late enough to see it... oh, and it's fucking raining every evening... I hate sunny days, and love clear nights, but I usually get clear sunny days and cloudy nights... it's like I'm cursed, or hexed. So I have these friends that are hosting a "painting party" I view it as a way of pimping out free labor... well she said "drinks and snacks. " What kind of way is that to motivate people? It's not! dammit, you need to say "Beer and Pizza" or something to that effect... or "Beer and grilled food" something that doesn't sound like sprite and chips... that's all. I'm sure my dwindling readers will have plenty to say. all I can say guys is.. I'm sorry, I went on vacation, I thought I'd have internet access... I was wrong... I had all these cool updates planned too, but they were all shot to hell. forgive me?