It's a minor annoyance, but still, an annoyance. For those who have clicked on the "Random Website" icon over there on the right, it takes you to a random website. The people who bring you this service have a home page that forces you to click again to proceed to the random site. I figured, why bother... I'll just feature the actual link. To me, it's the same as featuring the link to a person's weblog, rather than to their home page. If it's the weblog you're after, why bother with the interim stop. And if you are interested in the homepage, you can usually find a link to the homepage from the weblog.

Anyway, I'm annoyed that the keepers of this site regularly change the target address for their link. This forces me to keep in step, resulting in me changing my template and republishing my archives. As the archives grow, the republish takes longer. I know this is not a battle I can win in the long run. Eventually, I will tire of this, and just put a link to their homepage. But until that day comes, I'll just be annoyed.

I've had a few really frustrating days. Several years ago, you could find almost any programming tool you needed, free, on the BBS's and then on the internet. Now, all the good stuff has either gone commercial, or disappeared altogether.

The most infuriating thing is, I had all the tools I needed a while back. But, when I changed computers, many of the antiquated utilities were left behind. My reasoning was that I had no need for them, and I could always find them again if I did need them. I can't even understand how a packrat like myself could have ever had such a thought! Anyway, after almost a week of looking, I finally found what I've been looking for, but still have to verify that it will work.

On the packing front, I'm actually starting to get serious. Over the past two days, I've packed up nearly half of my "storage room", but the last half will be the hardest to pack.

And the final decision has been made to NOT bring the cat with us to our new place. I've been searching for a new home for her, where she will get the love and attention she deserves, and where her penchant for soiling carpets and furniture will be overlooked.

How do you spell relief?

After more than three days of trying, rescuers made contact with all nine men trapped nearly 250 feet underground in a coal mine. Finally, some good news!

I'm being scanned

Is it my "secret project" or something else? Whatever it is, it appears that someone, somewhere, has latched onto me and has begun around the clock port scans. It started a few days ago, but hasn't let up at all. Since I have no "server" here, and have never downloaded any "peer-to-peer" software, I really don't know what the attraction might be. For now, my firewall is blocking and tracking the intruder. But it's just so annoying.

How to become an entrepreneur

I received the following in an email...

A city boy, Kenny, moved to the country and bought a donkey from an old

farmer for $100.00. The farmer agreed to deliver the donkey the next day.



The next day the farmer drove up and said, "Sorry son, but I have some

bad news, the donkey died."  





Kenny replied, "Well then, just give me my money back."

The farmer said, "Can't do that. I went and spent it already." 

Kenny said,"OK then, just unload the donkey." 



The farmer asked, "What ya gonna do with him?"

Kenny, "I'm going to raffle him off." 



Farmer, " You can't raffle off a dead donkey!" 

Kenny, "Sure I can. Watch me. I just won't tell anybody he is dead."





 



A month later the farmer met up with Kenny and asked, "What happened

with that dead donkey?"

Kenny, "I raffled him off. I sold 500 tickets at two dollars a piece

and made a profit of $898.00."

Farmer, "Didn't anyone complain?"

Kenny, " Just the guy who won. So I gave him his two dollars back."

Kenny grew up and eventually became the chairman of Enron.

It's time to pack? Already???

I'm a packrat. In this household, that's an endangered species. With the move coming soon, my wife has been diligently packing up most of the household belongings over the past couple of weeks, liberally ridding herself of anything she feels she won't need in the new house. I've assigned myself the three rooms I use most often: my home office, the adjoining "storage" room, and the TV room. Yesterday, I started packing in earnest, spurred on my by wife's not-so-subtle ploy of piling all the empty equipment boxes in the room where the equipment resides.

Since I've been spending most of my time recently in my office, I started there. I can't actually pack the "working" PC equipment just yet. The movers will probably have to pry me away from this equipment when they come into the house. Instead, I have started with the older stereo equipment located in the storage room - the equipment that still functions perfectly, but was simply replaced because newer models had more features, more power, or just more appeal. In many ways, the older equipment is far better - showing rare quality control and artistry of design that is missing from much of today's equipment.

It goes without saying that I can't bear to part with any of this older equipment, nor do I have an easy time allowing these serviceable units to "pass on" to other family members who might benefit from them. Beginning yesterday, I lovingly placed all the older equipment back into their original boxes, along with original receipts, manuals, cables, remotes, and in most cases, the sales literature (glossy brochures) that brought me into contact with them in the first place. Unless I build some museum, it's unlikely any of these pieces will ever see the light of day again. But you never know...

I did manage, as a token gesture, to consent to the disposal of two pieces of computer equipment that stopped functioning over 10 years ago. An original IBM green monitor, circa 1983, and an early uninterruptable power supply (circa 1984) were taken to the city dump today, where they were given a hero's sendoff. I'll probably have nightmares about this trip, but to see the look on my wife's face when I hurled the monitor into the trash bin, it was worth it!

When 0 == 1

My secret project is progressing amazingly well. While I look for a paying job, I've resurrected something that has fascinated me for nearly 20 years, and I'm dusting off my rusty 'C' skills to implement the time-critical elements of the system. I spent the weekend perfecting one of the modules. It works, all the time, no errors. Which is why it's disconcerting to see the final message: "Completed task with 1 errors."

Since I wrote the entire program, I went to the source code to see how this last message is generated. For the 'C' freaks among you, here's the reader's digest version of the code:


int i, ret_code;

ret_code = 0;

for (i=0; i<10; i++) ret_code += function_call(i);

printf("Completed task with %d errors", ret_code);



Seems simple enough. When I saw the error, I went to "function_call", and had it print out the value of it's internal return code before ending. It ALWAYS printed 0. So, now I need to decide - is there an insidious bug in my program waiting to bite my ass when I get too complacent, or is there a bug in the compiler that is conspiring to drive me insane.

My money is on option 2.

Tag - you're gone!

Whatever is happening with www.8op.com is really none of my business. But, it's quite annoying to see a dead service taking up room on my blog, so for now, the tagboard commands have been commented out. Should the service re-emerge, I will reinstate the code.

A day without blogging is like...

• a busy day


• a day with nothing worth saying


• a day when I get sleep and things done

Take your pick. Yesterday was an "away" day. I was actually at the keyboard most of the day. But, I was WORKING on something. I can't say what it is yet (Kare's not the only one with secret projects), but it will be far less important to humanity and far more mercenary than anything she did - that, I can promise!

She's back! And not a moment too soon!

Photoday Pics

Here they are. A day in my life, told through pictures...

PhotoDay

The PhotoDay is over. For me, it started at 8:00AM Saturday morning, and my last picture was snapped at 7:30 this morning. I'm just in the process of putting together a gallery page, and that should be done shortly (yes, I did nap for about 3 hours after taking the last shot - and I'll need more sleep once I'm done posting the photo page).

Windows of opportunity - closed

Windows operating systems seem to be prone to vulnerabilities of every description. We do our best to firewall our networks and virus-scan our PCs, but the security conscious consumer also applies security updates when they become available. These updates have been supplied, until now, via Microsoft's own "Windows Update" feature. So, it was particularly annoying this past week when ALL the PCs in the household were informed that Windows Update will only work with Windows 2000 or Windows XP. My still-not-old copy of Windows Me seems to be out of date (and me, out of luck) when it comes to getting the automatic updates.

Microsoft is clearly looking for another PR nightmare with this policy. Trying to muscle people into upgrading their operating systems just so Microsoft can deliver corrections to security flaws seems unfair. But, that's just my opinion. What do you think?

I'm participating in Patti's PhotoDay. I have stuff to do tomorrow afternoon, so I thought I'd get an early start. I started my portfolio at 8:00AM this morning, and will continue until 7:00AM Sunday. I'm still trying to figure out where I will post the pics, but I will.

Here is the link to Patti's site.

Anybody know what's happening at www.8op.com? They are the hosts of my tag-board, which has been down for more than 24 hours.

Guilt by association

There are certain "news" stories that should be buried. Stories that, when read by the "crazies" out there lead to bad things happening. I read a story today about home-made viruses, and I was going to link to it (call me a hypocrite). But, I've thought better of it. I'd hate to think something I said would ultimately lead to an act of terror.

A hero's welcome?

Ben Kelly

Last month, 17-year old Ben Kelly and some of his friends were driving around when they came upon a serious car accident. A stolen car had earlier raced past them, and had run through a construction zone, crashing into earth moving equipment. With its two occupants unable to exit and fire engulfing the vehicle, Ben led the charge to rescue the driver. It was too late for him, but the teens were able to rescue the passenger, who had been severely burned. The passenger survived. Ben was called a hero by the police on the scene. Ben's boss also had something to say.

Cries wolf once too many times

Found via this site, this kid was crying wolf. Dumbass!

As one of the people who requested this new feature from Hossein Sharifi (creator of YACCS commenter), he has graciously invited me to be a beta tester. Check it out...

When you click on the COMMENT link, you will see the content of the actual post prior to the area reserved for comments. Isn't it cool!

The song is over

Who is Gene Kan? And why is he dead?

Update:  It wasn't an accident, apparently.

I'll sleep better knowing this!

Windsor in the Headlines again

Windsor is a small city by the standards of it's regional neighbors. At 200,000 people, it's significantly smaller than London and Toronto, and a whole lot smaller than it's closest neighbor to the north, Detroit Michigan. Normally, things are pretty quiet around here. This week, however, lots of Windsor-based events have made the national headlines. Just a few days ago, I posted about Sean Dickson - perverted teacher, and today's headlines involve Katharine Nordstrom. Talk about your non-typical criminal mastermind!

My sister continues to send me pearls of wisdom. Rather than posting them here (like I did with the Zen post), I've decided to create a randomizer (like kd's) and put them at the top of my blog page.

The cheque is in the mailbox

Oh happy day! My mailbox was overflowing today, and the news was all good! A total of six letters, with FOUR addressed to me from the Unemployment Bureau. Two looked like cheques, and two looked like letters. The first thing I thought was damn, they've sent everything in duplicate - now I'll have more troubles. But I panicked too soon! The two letters were official responses to my appeal. One letter said in effect you're right - you've proven that you worked LEGALLY in this country. The second (not a duplicate) said in effect you've convinced us that you're looking for work, available for work, and could even work in the U.S. again (though that is not a requirement) if you had the appropriate sponsorship.

And now for the cheques: the first one I opened was for the amount I had become aware of during my informational call. The second cheque was for the five week period PRECEDING the most recent cheque. Since both cheques had been issued on the same day, and the system is aware of only the LAST one processed, it didn't tell me that there were TWO cheques on their way. So, as of now, I have received payments for ALL WEEKS SINCE MY TERMINATION!!!

And since I continue to look for work, I know there will be up to 16 more weeks (8 cheques) available, in case I don't find work before then.

Thank you, God (and the Michigan Unemployment Agency), for turning the red-tape to invisible tape!

Infection fighters lose final weapon

I feel like the aliens in War of the Worlds. Doomed to die of a common infection. Doomed because so many stupid people have used antibotics incorrectly, despite very specific warnings from their physicians. As evidenced by this article last year and this briefing from the CDC published on July 3rd, our last line of defense against common bacterial infection is no longer effective.

Here is a sobering analysis and timeline of the bug army's advance. That analysis was published before the terrible events of this week. Now, the hypothesized doomsday has arrived!

In a heartwarming story, I am pleased to see that sole person rescued after the collapse of the World Trade Centers, Genele Guzman, will get an all-expense-paid fairytale wedding.

Thanks to Brian for finding this article.

Guilty!

In a verdict that restores some of my faith in human nature and justice, Sean Dickson, a teacher from this area, was convicted of two counts of inviting sexual touching.

Over a two year period, Mr. Dickson had been filming students as they sucked suggestively on lollipops. He had tried to convince the court that the purpose of the videos was as props to a class on advertising, but the judge saw through the bullshit. Mr. Dickson will be sentenced August 29th.

I hope they put him in general population.

There's no place like home!

I bet you thought I'd forgotten to post about the house-hunt. Well, no, I hadn't forgotten. I just wanted to be sure things were settled before I posted. Both sides of the transaction are complete, and I can now officially say we've sold our home and purchased another. Moving day will be August 8th, and I have no idea how long I may be "off the air" during the transition - what with packing stuff up, unpacking, and getting cable modem service installed at the new place... I'm already having nightmares.

The house we ended up buying is in "move-in" condition for people who don't mind older places. I am a bit of a snob in this regard. To me, move in condition is a hotel. A place with clean linens, furniture already in the room, a clean floor and fresh paint... So, before this home will be in "move in" condition, it needs some upgrades.

Here are some of the things I'd like to be able to do before moving in:

• Rip out all carpeting and floor covering, and replace it with new carpet and tile


• Upgrade the house to 100 amp service


• Install cable TV and internet service


• Install electrical outlets in the kitchen to accommodate our electrical appliances (the current residents have gas appliances)


• Convert the family room to a bedroom (that means adding a partial wall, with a door)


• Install a through-the-wall dog door, so the canine members of the family feel right at home


• Fix the holes in the deck, and extend the deck to allow the dogs access to their dog door


• Extend the fenced area of the yard to give the dogs more running room


• Add a small extension to the fence to prevent dogs from getting to the pool without supervision


• Install central air conditioning (after removing the current wall-mounted A/C units and patching the holes)

Realistically, not everything on that list will get done before the move. And it's even questionable whether all of them will get done until I have found work. Because we're living in a much bigger and newer house now than the one we're moving to, we've built up considerable equity. That will give us some cash to pay for these upgrades. But, I'm also in "cash-conservation" mode at the moment, so I don't want to go overboard.

All these years, I thought my parents didn't appreciate computers - the opportunities they presented for entertainment, correspondence, aggravation. Then today, my sister pointed out that my mother has her own website. Go figure.

Hebrew is a phonetic language... the letters of the Hebrew alphabet have a characteristic sound (yes, there are exceptions), and the basic letters of the alphabet are all consonants. The vowel sounds come from additional dots and dashes that are added above, below, and off to the sides of the consonants. I can read Hebrew (because it is phonetic) even though I don't know very many words in the actual language. I therefore marvel when I see Hebrew bible scholars reading biblical Hebrew, which when written, does not contain any of the vowels.

Imagine what it would be like to read English without vowels (mgn wht t wld b lk t rd nglsh wtht vwls)

I don't do very well under these circumstances, and there is a class of puzzles that deals with trying to decipher entire sentences without the benefit of vowels or word breaks. (mgnwhttwldblktrdnglshwthtvwls).

Today's puzzle would have stumped me like all the rest, were it not for the fact that it's the 4th of July: SFRMGVMLBRTRGVMDTH - is the very first one of these puzzles I've ever been able to solve.

My sister is on someone's joke-email list. When she receives something funny, she forwards it to me. The past couple of days has seen a dramatic increase in the quality of humour she's forwarded. Again, I must share it with you...


A Few Zen Thoughts For Those Who Take Life Too Seriously

Save the whales. Collect the whole set.

A day without sunshine is like, night.

On the other hand, you have different fingers.

I just got lost in thought. It was unfamiliar territory.

42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

99 percent of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

Honk if you love peace and quiet.

Remember, half the people you know are below average.

He who laughs last thinks slowest.

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

I drive way too fast to worry about cholesterol.

Support bacteria. They're the only culture some people have.

Monday is an awful way to spend 1/7 of your life.

A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

Change is inevitable, except from vending machines.

Plan to be spontaneous tomorrow.

Always try to be modest, and be proud of it!

If you think nobody cares, try missing a couple of payments.

How many of you believe in telekinesis? Raise my hand...

OK, so what's the speed of dark?

How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?

If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.

Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.

Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don't have film.

If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?

What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.


And your final zen thought for the day.....

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?



Thanks, Miriam.

I guess my bark is worse than my bite!

Here's the result of test I took. Thanks to Eric for pointing out the link to this test.

Your Likelihood of Committing Murder is 5% If you have a score of 1 to 20: You have a few little quirks here and there and no one ever did find your childhood cat, Fluffy. But, when it all comes down, you are a really good person. Your strict moral code is hard for others to live up to, and you probably don't get laid much. But, there's definitely a harp with your name on it. You might want to give your conscience the weekend off and have a few drinks, the world can be pretty fun if you loosen up a little.

In truth, these are NOT the results I had the first time I took the test. Here are my original results:

Your Likelihood of Committing Murder is -16% If you have a score of 0 or Below: You are the perfect being. Any psychotic tendencies you may possess are neatly balanced by you desire to help others and your devotion to the lord above. Well you could be an excellent human being, but you're most likely in denial. Try the test again, and try to tell the truth this time. If you still get a score of 0 then you may very well be the savior of the entire human race.

There were a couple of questions that I had to hesitate on before answering on my first pass. I don't know whether the hesitation was caused by really not knowing the answer, or in realizing that the answer made me appear "abnormal". So, the second time, I answered those questions differently - accounting for the difference in scores.

To my friends in the U.S.A., please accept my wishes for a safe and happy holiday.




This image was found at www.cromers.com

The cheque is in the mail

I'm not sure why I called - I had no reason to believe anything would happen this quickly. But, when I called the MARVIN line to check the status of my unemployment claim, the answer I got was different from any previous call. It said that I had fewer than 26 weeks of eligibility remaining. That was odd, since every call before today's indicated that I was eligible for the full time period. It only started to make sense when I asked the second question - when was my last payment sent.

To my surprise, and unrestrained joy, the message said that a payment had been issued yesterday! My appeal of the ineligibility ruling was granted, and I didn't even have to go for a hearing to get results! I am so happy, I could kiss my caseworker!

Terrorism grows from hatred. Hatred grows from ignorance. This week at Wimbledon, we see the effects of government sponsored hatred on an otherwise peaceful union.

There's probably a website that contains tons of these, but I had to list them here. I received these in today's batch of emails...

The letters in the following words/phrases can be rearranged to form other curious phrases:

Start with...	End up with...
George Bush	He bugs Gore
Dormitory	Dirty Room
Evangelist	Evil's Agent
Desperation	A Rope Ends It
The Morse Code	Here Come Dots
Slot Machines	Cash Lost in 'em
Animosity	Is No Amity
Mother-in-law	Woman Hitler
Snooze Alarms	Alas, No More Z's
A Decimal Point	I'm a Dot in Place
The Earthquakes	That Queer Shake
Eleven Plus Two	Twelve Plus One
PRESIDENT CLINTON OF THE USA	TO COPULATE, HE FINDS INTERNS

I wonder how long it took to come up with these?

For the holiday weekend, we've invited Laurie's mother, daughter, granddaughter, and daughter's boyfriend over our house for a swim and a meal. In addition, Laurie's son moved back home this past week, so he's also here.

I've spent most of the day indoors. Even at 5:30PM, the outside temperature is about 93 degrees, and I can't stand it when it gets over 80. I had downloaded a trial version of Backup MyPC at the end of May, so it was scheduled to expire yesterday. On Friday, I purchased the full version and today, I spent nearly 5 hours backing up my PC. The process should have only taken about 3-1/2 hours, but during my first backup attempt, the program came across a bad spot on one of the brand new CD-R discs I had been using. Instead of marking the spot as unusable and continuing on, the process failed with an unrecoverable error. All told, that first attempt wasted three discs.

The second attempt went to completion without incident, but during the verification readback step, the program signalled several errors, and now I don't know whether the backup is readable. I've also installed the software on my wife's PC, but she hasn't had an opportunity to use it yet. I don't know why, but I've had premonitions of a serious disk crash, and I just want to be prepared.