Death Cab

I bought tickets for Death Cab for Cutie this weekend. I haven’t seen them live in quite a while and i’m stoked! It’s gonna be good music, good people, and booze. Really, what more can you ask for? The show will be at the Louisville Palace, which is supposed to be a nice venue. I’ve never been there, i don’t think. The last time I saw them play it was at the Brown (Browne?) Theater, and that was very nice 😀 It was built in the early 1900’s and supposedly there were still secret passages that were used by bootleggers in the ’20s. I love places with actual real history.

I’ve also been looking at getting new wheels for my car. Currently i have some crappy snow tires on, which were put on to try and protect my current wheels from the dangers of Kentucky roads during the winter. But lately i’ve been thinking of just plain replacing my rims with something new and not as worn and damaged; the rims that came on the car aren’t bad but do have some damage and the chrome is missing in some spots.

The new wheels i’m looking at are black 18″x8.5″ in the front and 18″x9.5″ in the rear.
You can see them here. I’m going to save up a few more paychecks before i get them, since I have to make sure that I can still pay the rent, car payment, cell phone, interwebs, etc etc. For just the wheels with no tires it’s going to run me about 1000 dollars. I think it’ll be worth it though, Silver car with black rims and dark tint.. *drooool*

*a wee edit*
I’m bored again at work. I figured I’d talk about some of the stuff i bought this weekend. I got 3 albums.
The lastest Cut Copy.
The new Pierce The Veil.
And the latest Digitalism.

I’m really digging Cut Copy. It’s got a bit of an 80’s feel to it, like a mix of the Cure and electro. Pierce The Veil isn’t bad, a bit on the cookie cutter side of things. I’ve been trying to find their cover of MJ’s Beat It, but it’s turning into a difficult find. Digitalism is pretty good, a bit lacking in vocals, so it’s not as good as, say The Presets.

And now back to work 😛

Why can’t we just use common sense?

I guess i’ve been thinking about that a lot. While at work I get bombarded with FOX News all day long, constantly spinning their web of blah blah blah.

Ok, i get it. People will have different opinions about this, about that. But most of the time the opinions being conveyed are very narrowly focused and don’t take into account any other situations or topics that have an impact of the topic being opinioned over.

Lets take this talk about taxes. One side is saying, “To help fix the economy, let’s tax the rich!”. The other side is saying, “How is taxing people going to fix the economy? You have to lower taxes!” Each side has proper points. Each side has their view of the world and to them their statement is the only way. But in reality what probably should be done is take a bit of each side and find a solution that will work for more people than just one side of the divide.

The issues with taxes. Democrats want to help bail out every industry that seems to be getting into trouble. I get it, help the struggling industries get back on their feet, and the economy will fix itself since they get to keep people employed. Republicans on the other hand want to have taxes lowered so citizens have more money in their pocket, and as such have more money to spend on things which will in turn fix the economy.

Both are valid ways of looking at things, but which one will work quicker, and which one will be more effective?

It’s a tough topic, because this one issue ties into so many other things.

Let’s say that the government bails out some of the struggling industries (auto, banking, etc etc) and now the country is in debt passed it’s eyeballs. So the country now needs to increase it’s income. The easy way to do this is to raise taxes. Simple, everyone just chips in a little more of their hard earned cash. The problem here is that people have less money in their pocket and now the economy slows down since less money is being passed through consumer purchases. Another solution? How about cutting back on imports?

Currently the US is importing much more than what it’s exporting. Another problem now though is what does the US have that others would want to buy? Personally I have no idea. Take the (and all of this is my opinion, none of it is hard fact) auto industry, the quality of American cars isn’t as good as imported brands like Toyota, Audi, BMW, etc. While we in the US buy American cars, most other advanced countries, especially those in Europe and Asia don’t buy American cars.  What about electronics then? I don’t think I really have to say anything about that, when was the last time you saw an American-made HDTV or DVD Player or Computer? Everything comes from Asia.

So what does the US sell? Without having to go into actual research a few things pop into my head. Entertainment (music and movies) and textiles (ie: cotton). That’s about all i can think of.. Basically, if we’re going to fix our economy we need to bring money in from outside our country, export our stuff, import monies. Once that’s done the economy can truely recover.

And then on top of that there’s the spending on other things that the government does, and while we all hate the financial bean counters, i think they’re a necessary evil. Especially when you give money to areas that don’t have good enough sense to spend the money wisely (ie: Military spending, I’ve seen plenty of Plasma screens and software bought just because someone had left over money at the end of the year and was about to lose it). But that’s a rant for another time.

Anyway. The big topic is that to fix any issue you have to take a look at how and where that issue connects with other issues and problems. Then find a fix that doesn’t cause those other issues to worsen. It’s hard, but it’s the only way to permanently fix anything. Do it right the first time and you don’t have to go back and do it again. ..or.. Do such a horrible job the first time that we throw a coup-de-tat and install a new government. It wouldn’t be the first time something like that has happened.

Enough ranting for now, i’ve got to get some work done.

Web Lingo and Rules of the Internet

Warning!! THE LINKS LABELED NSFW IN THIS ENTRY ARE NOT SAFE FOR WORK (or those easily grossed out)!!

So i recently commented on a friends’ blog with some commonly used gamer and internet lingo just to be replied to with, “WHAAAAA?!?!” So I’ve decided to put together a quick list of expressions and abbreviations that are commonly used across these intertubes.

  • Interwebs – Internet
  • Intertubes – Internet
  • wtf – what the fuck
  • lol – laugh out loud
  • “WordPress is made of win and kitteh” – win refers to the fact that WordPress is awesome and is hense made of win (awesome things). Kitteh refers to the LOL area of the web and the religion born from there.
  • EPIC! – when something is epic, it’s well, erm.. EPIC?
  • fail (insert term) is fail – means something sucks horribly

Ok, on to rules of the internet.

  1. Do not talk about /b/ (NFFW!!)
  2. Do NOT talk about /b/ (NFFW!!)
  3. We are Anonymous
  4. Anonymous is legion
  5. Anonymous never forgives
  6. Anonymous can be a horrible, senseless, uncaring monster
  7. Anonymous is still able to deliver
  8. There are no real rules about posting
  9. There are no real rules about moderating either – enjoy your ban
  10. If you enjoy any rival sites – DON’T
  11. Any carefully picked arguments can easily be ignored
  12. Anything you say can and will be used against you
  13. Anything you say can be turned into something else – fixed
  14. Do not argue with trolls – it means that they win
  15. The harder you try the harder you will fail
  16. If you fail in epic proportions, it may just become a winning failure
  17. Every win fails eventually
  18. Everything that can be labeled can be hated
  19. The more you hate it the stronger it gets
  20. Nothing is to be taken seriously
  21. Original content is original only for a few seconds before getting old
  22. Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality
  23. Copypasta is made to ruin every last bit of originality
  24. Every repost is always a repost of a repost
  25. Relation to the original topic decreases with every single post
  26. Any topic can be easily turned into something totally unrelated
  27. Always question a person’s sexual preferences without any real reason
  28. Always question a person’s gender – just in case it’s a man
  29. In the internet all girls are men and all kids are undercover FBI agents
  30. There are no girls on the internet
  31. TITS or GTFO – the choice is yours
  32. You must have pictures to prove your statements
  33. Lurk more – it’s never enough
  34. There is porn of it, no exceptions!
  35. If no porn is found at the moment, it will be made
  36. There will always be even more fucked up shit than what you just saw
  37. You can not divide by zero (just because the calculator says so)
  38. No real limits of any kind apply here – not even the sky
  39. CAPS LOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL
  40. EVEN WITH CRUISE CONTROL YOU STILL HAVE TO STEER
  41. Desu isn’t funny. Seriously guys. It’s worse than Chuck Norris jokes.
  42. Nothing is Sacred
  43. The more beautiful and pure a thing is – the more satisfying it is to corrupt it
  44. Even one positive comment about Japanese things can make you a weeaboo
  45. When one sees a lion, one must get into the car
  46. There is always furry porn of it
  47. The pool is always closed.

Guide to Internet Usage

So as you can see the internet is like another universe with it’s own rules and society. Interwebs are the future, and we must learn to lurk with the best or GTFO.

For more practice about how the internet works, you can always start trolling forums, or hell, 4chan

New Phone Pics

So like I promised, here are pictures of my new phone! It’s beautimus!

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When it first arrived!

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Another box inside the box!

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ooooooh! pretty 🙂

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Still with it’s protective screen on

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With the keyboard exposed.

I’ve only had it a day, and so far i’m very happy with it. It’s my first real smartphone so i don’t have anything to compare it to. Well besides the iPhones that i’ve played with. This has a similar feel in some ways, but in other ways it’s totally different. I do admit, i like the keyboard even though it’s tiny.

I’ll give more impressions as i find them. I might even be able to post from my phone to my blog! that would be very nifty!

New Phone!

Yesterday I ordered a new phone. I haven’t gotten a new phone in years. I seriously can’t remember the last phone I’ve had, so this is a momentous occasion! I order an HTC Touch Pro through Spint with a new account. That means I got some nice perks, like not having an activation charge and getting some extra discounts for ordering online. For whatever reason they offered free Overnight Shipping, so I took it. I’d never use Overnight before, and apparantly it’s fast, I pulled up the tracking page for my shipment and it says the phone is out for delivery already! That’s less than 12 hrs turn around! I LIKE FREE OVERNIGHT SHIPPING!

I’ll post more once i get my phone and i can take pictures of its’ sexiness.

Power is back!

I have power again! And heat and internet and hot water! It all came back on early Sunday morning while I was still over at my parent’s place. I’m glad that I had somewhere to go. Today being Monday, I’m back at work and I get to hear all the stories of everyone who still doesn’t have power, and how they’ve had to survive by building fires in their backyards to boil and heat water, or go and buy a generator to give them simple power back. Then there are really lucky people who never lost power at all! What’s really weird is how the power outages were so splotchy. One street would have power and the next wouldn’t, or one street would have power back after only being out for a few hours, and the next street still doesn’t have power after a week. Check out services from Sacramento tankless water heaters related to this issue.

While at the parents house I did some perusing of the internet music archives. I found some new and exciting things, as well as some old bands that I’d long forgotten about. I also discovered that I’d let my ratio get way low, almost under 50%!! So I need to do some serious seeding! Hopefully I’ll be able to get back up to 60-70% pretty quick. I hope.

Well, time to get back to catching up on all the processing we missed last week.

Oh god.. Brad’s sleeping again.

Ice, Snow, and No Heat

The weather has been a bit on the cold side the last few days.  On tuesday we had a two hour delay due to the sleet and flurries. I even got let out early from work because the roads were getting so bad.  After I got home it was more of the usual, watch TV and play video games. I did however go to bed a bit early. I blame the stew Sean made. It attracted the ‘Z’ monster and it got the jump on me. I didn’t sleep too long though, because around midnight I was woken up by Sean telling me that there’s no power. Apparantly the power had been out for a while at that point already. At first I was going to try to sleep it out. But I just couldn’t fall back asleep. I got up and helped Sean set up candles throughout the house to give us some light. We decide to go to Wal-Mart to get more candles before everyone else gets the bright idea.

We arrive at Wal-Mart, and by now it’s just raining, even though it’s 20 degrees or something. We go inside and the place is practically deserted. We see a few people doing some midnight shopping, while we see others scurrying about with carts filled with the craziest combinations you could imagine. We pretty much make a b-line for the camping section. But we’re too late! All the propane is gone! So we head to the candle isle and pick up some of the big three-wick candles. After we purchase our candles we decide we’re hungry and don’t feel like going back to a power-less house. So we head to J-Boy, since their lights are on.

The food there was good, and the place was warm. Sean and I talked about strategies about getting more people from our Eve Online corp into 0.0 (Zero-Zero). Every once in a while a new group of people would come in looking for a warm place to eat. After we ate, we stayed and talked and watched people for a while longer. After about our second or third refill on sweet tea we paid and headed back to the house.

On the way there we encountered multiple downed trees and power lines in the road. The trip back took us far longer than usual. It seemed that only the city center had power, all the outlying areas were dark.  Driving over downed power lines is scary stuff.  You never know what’s going to happen. I probably should have taken pictures of all that. I bet they would have come out great.

The house was still surprisingly warm. I guess anything would be warm compared to the outside temperatures.  I curled up in my bed, lit a few candles and read a book I’d been reading for a good while; Guns of the South by Harry Turtledove. I finished a few pages and then went to sleep. I woke up a few times during the night only to find that the power was still out and that it was colder outside my blankets, so i curled up tighter and went back to sleep. The next morning the house was still without power, but still warmer than what i was expecting. That didn’t last too long though. The longer I was up and moving around the colder the house seemed to get. I texted Zach and called my Dad to see if they had power. Zach didn’t, but my parents had just gotten it back. Zach let me know that for those people with Nolin Utilities it could take up to a week to get power fully restored. I HAVE NOLIN!! oh noes. I started packing a few days worth of clothes and packed up my laptop. Sean did the same and we headed over to my parents place. Sean stopped by his girlfriend’s mom’s house to make sure she was ok  and then met up at my parents place.

Dinner was absolutely amazing. Hot goulash on a cold day really hits the spot. We hung out and watched the weather channel and the news to see what the rest of the area was like and what we could expect over the next few days. More cold, more snow, and more ice, that’s what.  I took the opportunity to take advantage of the hill in our backyard to do some sledding. I haven’t been sledding in ages! It was actually pretty fun! If only the hill was taller 😛 We all went to bed around midnight, Sean had headed back to Radcliff to check on the house.  I watched a few episodes of Dexter and then fell asleep.

Today, I plan on checking on the house and Sean, to make sure he didn’t freeze last night. And then.. i’m not sure. I guess hang out for a bit longer?

Uncertain Tempuratures

🙁 I’m sitting at my desk, everything is fine. I’m wearing my hoodie because it’s cold in the office. I start feeling this warm breeze come across my desk. Things are warming up, and it feels good. I take my hoodie off and keep working. Then the warm breeze gets cold and i start to shiver. I put my hoodie back on. Ah, nice and toasty. 10 minutes later i’m back to sweating and prepare to take my hoodie off when the cold air starts again.

This is starting to get really annoying.  I’m surprised i haven’t gotten sick from the massive tempurature changes.

In other news the weekend is over and i’m back at work. Nothing much happened over the last three days. I spent time relaxing, playing Eve, and going out to celebrate my brothers’ birthday.

Friday was grocery shopping. The fridge was filled and now there’s plenty to munch on in the house. I also made some pretty good granola bars. They’re awesome with a glass of milk, heh. It’s kind of like eating cereal in a bar 😛 We also went to Barnes & Noble, and i got a book on RegEx (Regular Expressions). So far it’s been very helpful in my quest to learn the way of the code ninja.

Saturday evening we went to Buca Di Beppo’s for Nick’s birthday and man it was delicious! It’s an Italian family-style restaurant, where a small portion is enough to feed two people. There were about 10 of us and we all ordered something different. After all the food was out, we were barely able to try a little of everything! So much food!! All i have to say is that i didn’t have to make anything the next day for lunch. Plenty of leftovers 😀

Sunday was hanging out at the house and then going to my parents’ place to do some laundry and eat dinner. I picked up some mail that was still going there and played with the dogs. Man, it’s like i’ve been off on an expedition to the far side of the world when i come over. One more sign that dogs are loyal. Such excitement can rarely be encountered elsewhere.

Well, one more hour to kill at work. Time for more Professional Development 😀