Just Another Code Monkey

Time Warp to 1775 Anyone?

This bill (Missouri Bill SB32) is being proposed by Missouri senator Matt Bartle that will mandate a tax to"pay a $5 admission tax for each person entering a sexually oriented business."  This surely is a feeble attempt to put "sinners" out of business.  While people may not agree with the type of business that this tax will apply to it is government sticking their noses where it should not be.  I agree with having an age restriction on a business, maybe even carding at the door.  However, if a person is old enough to enter, is not being dragged in by a rope tied around neck/arm/leg/other extremeties and does not have a gun impacted into the back of their head, it is their own volition to enter such a business and should not be treated any differently than any other entering of a business.

Missouri Senate Debates Urgent Issue Overnight ...

"Senators endorsed the legislation shortly after 6:30 a.m. -- nearly 14 hours after the debate began. It was the Senate's first all-night debate in at least 20 years..."

What were they debating you ask?  Was it stem cell research, budget defecits, or education reform?

No, they were debating whether to change the name of "Southwest Missouri State University" to "Missouri State University"  Are you serious?  If they really can put forth the effort to debate about something so trivial, why can they not work out the issues that matter to the other 99.999999999% of Missouri.  How about discussing the scholarship dollars that were cut so that students could attend said university that were used to fund stadiums and other yet again trivial things.  Apparently, we as citizens should have spent more time considering what trivial person to elect into the trivial position to debate for hours on trivial matters.

"Nectar of the Gods!"

Peach Nehi has  to be absolutely the most underrated carbonated beverage in the world.  It's a shame that it has not caught on and I have to drive 120 miles to buy it here.  When I run out it's as if I just got an uppercut to my jaw by a pre-Buster Douglas Mike Tyson.

Continue reading ""Nectar of the Gods!""

Snow! Ice! Oh My!

Well, 3-6" of snow have fallen and you would think that the sky is falling.  I wonder how many of the other metropolitan areas with over a million inhabitants handle the news of incoming snow/ice storms.  In Kansas City, it seems everyone goes into a panic as if  armageddon is right around the corner.

Certain news stations broadcast nothing, but "Storm Tracker" information with traffic information, and people telling their stories of getting stuck, accidents etc.  Snow storms in my experience do not move that quickly.  The grocery stores are barren of bread, milk, and other neccesities as if the buyers of these products will be trapped in their houses for weeks at a time.  You never realize how good a job a store does of keeping everything in stock and face until you visit the store a night before a "major weather event" and it looks like they're having a going out of business sale with the amount of chaos and lack of goods in the aisles. 

How did this happen?  Is there some kind of historic begining of this?  Or is it just a great fear inducing broadcast of all media in the area? Comments?

Gmail Spam!

It seems gmail has fallen from grace a bit.  I'm now receiving 100s of spam a day.  I do not use my gmail account posted on any website and I do not use it when entering billing on an invoice.  It's nowhere near as bad as yahoo or even hotmail, but the faucet has definitely been turned on.

The Apprentice Voiceovers: The Donald in The Boardroom

Am I the only one that notices the Apprentice voiceovers? The Apprentice is one of the top reality shows in America and definitely one of my favorites. The contestants are getting judged on their quality of work, but week after week there are horrible voiceovers that any kid coming out of the 6th grade let alone film school should be able to detect and know that they are just awful. The Donald must be 2-dollar-love-you-long-timing whoever is responsible for those voiceovers because there's really no other explanation for them. The Apprentice voiceovers make that god awful sound quality of your city's city council meetings look pretty damn good.

They could at least pause in between starting and stopping them so they would not be as evident. I'm not sure where they are recording these things, but wouldn't have been smart to do it in the board room with the same environment as when you created the show and not in what sounds like the hole that Saddam was dug out of after having to run from The George. Please Donald tell The Whatever-His-or-Her-Name-Is that makes your show worse than Ashlee Simpson lip syncing blunder week after week: "You're Fired" and save us from sledge hammering our televisions due to insanity of not understanding how a billionaire like yourself can't apply the same rules to his own show as he does the people participating.

The Donald since you are the leader of this organization there's only one thing I can do. You've let this go under the radar for too long and week after week it continues to be a problem The Donald: "You're Fired!"

Microsoft NOT in bed with Firefox?

If you have Firefox goto http:://www.google.com 2 colons and any website will do. It goes to www.microsoft.com? Anyone care to share why this happens? It happens with the linux version as well as Windows version. I will update when I have more info.

Ok, here's what happens. Apparrently anything that doesn't fit the norm does a google search and thus http::// does a search on google for http and microsoft is the first result so that's where it takes you. Nice eh?

Trogdor gets me chain letterinated

Having the email address trogdor@yahoo.com, I get ALOT of spam. Trogdor is a character in the geeky weekly flash cartoon, Strongbad Emails on the HomeStar Runner Site. I knew it would be a cult classic the minute I saw the cartoon. It has since lead to merchandise featuring trogdor on the site so you can display the pencil drawn dragon in all it's glory.

So because of this popularity I get so much garbage from people not wanting to use their own email address, but instead using mine. I have classmates, aol, wedding plans, ordering for tons of random things, but yesterday I got the weirdest one of all. It read "sory shfiftyfive and trogdor, i needed 7 email addresses and you are probably the most common ones....".

So I was added to this chain letter because the kid did not have enough friends and he likes Trogdor so I'm the lucky one who gets the email. Oh, lucky me. Note to everyone on the web: CHAIN LETTERS ARE JUST SOME MADE UP BS. They aren't going to make you money, save a kid from cancer, improve your love life, add additional funds to charity, or protect you from some thing that wasn't coming you until you got the freaking chain letter. It's all a load of crap. You are only stroking the ego of the creator and helping to promote stupidity on the Internet. If you would like to be the King of Stupid then keep sending chain letters and I'm sure one day the throne will be yours.

Note to Missouri Gas & Energy

Easter Sunday, yesterday, there was a certain funk coming from the laundry room where the furnace/water heater etc are. So my girlfriend convinced me to call Missouri Gas and Energy, and have them come out to check it out. I was telling my findings to the customer service rep on the phone and he said it should smell like rotten eggs etc etc, and that if I was around it I would know the smell. He was trying to talk me out of having someone come out!!!! Well, Gas does not smell like rotten eggs, while the guy came out and tested it I got to smell enough of it when he was messing with the meter, and it smells more like human feces than it does rotten eggs, whoever started that myth is full of human feces also.

I did indeed have a gas leak, however it was not enough to "blow anything up" and to think that the customer service rep tried to discourage me. I think for the safety of your customers, please just come out and check any report especially when you are giving them false information about the smell of gas.

George Says...

From the man who brought you the church sign generator, we now have George Says... Now You too can have your favorite president say whatever you'd wish he would have said at that crucial moment. I can only imagine the kind of chaos this is going to create. Hopefully, it's all taken in good fun and no one claims that anyone else is a terrorist. But who knows? Let the games begin.

Social Networking: Bah!

Take a look at this short film dogging the social networks out there. There's a lot of buzz about social networking and the new "opportunities", but it's sort of like a family tree, what real advantages is this going to give you? Yeah so you have 100+ people that have said they're your friend, how does anyone make money off this besides the website that's selling the advertising of which you're spending 4+ hours a day voyeurizing all the people in your network. It's like your own personal "Real World", hosted by you. It's social pornography, meaningless relationships so you can rationalize your existence or how cool you are based on the quantity of "friends" in your life.

What about the quality of friends? I would much rather have 2 or 3 good friends than 100 people i barely know. How about Friendster adds a ranking for each friend in your network from 1-100 on how much of a friend you are with them? That may actually benefit you, people taking you out to dinner just to improve their ranking or giving you money? Hmmmmm...Now wouldn't that be interesting.

Cuban Forces Reporters to Read His Blog for Direct Quotes!

Mark Cuban due to being misquoted and fined 10K dollars for what he didn't say will only respond to the media on his blog. I think more people should goto this tactic as it provides the true story on things instead of the media's spin. You can see his posting here

Billionaire Blogging!

Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks Owner/Technology Innovator/Billionaire, who is known for being straight forward and accessible despite being a person in power has started blogging. Check out his blog here. Now we can get it straight from the source, and not from the skewed/misquoting/out of context media.

Could SCO be Microsoft's Hitman?

According to this article in ComputerWorld Microsoft Executives admitted that they suggested a VC Firm take a look at SCO,which then provided SCO with a $50 million investment last October, a spokesman for the fund confirmed. Why would MS care about an OS company that's obviously a sinking ship? Maybe to go after the Linux Distros as a quasi hitman? That might explain why SCO would actually think about doing something so ludicrous as going after every major company, including the deathstar IBM, and thinking it's going to help their company. It's not!

What SCO is doing is putting fear in naieve executives worldwide that they too may be sued for using Linux, and therefore turning companies back to Microsoft. While I know this rant may sound like an online version of the Inquirer, however it's something that just might be very interesting IF it were true.

P.S. Microsoft, I'm not accusing you of anything so do not come after me I have nothing you'd want, however I do have a bunch of bills which I'm sure you could pay with that 50 billion in cash if you'd really like to.

Charlie Rose Interviews Bill Gates

Charlie Rose, the best interviewer hands down IMHO, interviewed Bill Gates after visiting Harvard. It's definitely the best interview that I've heard/seen with Gates. One of the points that really hit home with me is that the real excitement about computer science has kind of died down and that if we don't revive that then the technology is going to go elsewhere. I think the majority of this is due to the media really just not finding tech interesting anymore and the PC and Internet in the home becoming more common place.

There is the subconcious thought that everything that's been invented for the PC is already there, however if you look at alot of the new technologies that have really started to popup in the under realm or elsewhere, i.e.wireless networking, mass-micro storage, and blogging/rss, you'll see that at least among a few people some really exciting things are going on. I try to stay associated with these type of people and technologies just to stay on top of things/keep me excited because if you don't you will go stale like an open bag of chips.

Atom + RSS: Get er' Done

Feedster says that they'll support the combining of Atom + RSS. I'd really like to see this happen, as you can see the debauchery that is HTML 4.0 when noone can come to terms and compromise on something this important. If it is not done soon there will soon develop a "David Vs Goliath" on who chooses sides. Most of the aggregators are going the RSS route, however Google has gone with Atom for it's own personal self interest because it bought Blogger,which uses Atom syndication. I personally prefer RSS as it is more strict with it's XML, and I do not like the applications that encourage malformed tags, *cough*IE*cough*.

Also, maybe they'll combine the acronyms, and geeks around the world can get some much needed "ASS".

Yes We'd Support It (Atom + RSS)

Not that anyone has asked but we'd support this effort.� Just my .02


View Extended Entry

Google's Bastard Child

It seems Google has given RSS the bird, as it bought a company, "Blogger", that uses ATOM feeds instead of the well-formed alternative RSS.

I don't quite understand how people can support ATOM, considering it's not well formed XML. It seems this pissing match will end up like HTML 4.0, whoever throws more money at it will win. Therefore, I'm hoping that Yahoo will stand behind RSS and not support ATOM so that at least we can agree to a standard that's well-formed and not end up with the mess that is HTML 4.0. If blogs are going to proceed and move forward as a useful technology, this war of standards has got to be won. It's hard enough for people to understand syndication let alone the difference between RSS and ATOM.

Google has killed RSS via Blogger
"Well as of today I have killed 4-5 other blogs I had that where being run on Blogger as Google..."

An ode to TastyBite Indian Food

As a HUGE fan of Indian food, a really crappy cook, and someone who codes into the wee hours, this is the next best thing i can do to sponsoring someone from India to come and be my personal cook. Oh I forgot how frugal I am. You also have the geek factor of them sealing each little meal into a little pouch and sealing in all the goodness. Now all I need is the rice cooker and basmati rice. Say goodbye to taco bell lunches.

An ode to TastyBite Indian Food
A couple of weeks ago UPS dropped off a 30 lb. box of Indian food from TastyBite. Ever box has been absolutely delicious. My personal favorites are the Kashmir Spinach, Madras Lentils, and the recently discontinued Curried Mashed Potatoes....

BudNet: King of Data

BudNet, Budweiser's Not So Top Secret Anymore Network of Data collected at the store level by distributors, was featured in the current issue February 2004 of Business 2.0. The article covers talks about BudNet, as if it were some special oracle that's nearly magic. Budweiser does have 60 some percent market share in the U.S. among beers, and that is pretty amazing considering there is no monopoly factor at all involving Beer. Imagine if every other car you saw on the road was a Honda, it's just unheard of. I don't think it's what Budweiser is neccesarily doing, it's what the others aren't doing. Anheuser Busch is the most thorough and strict when it comes to collecting data. Anheuser Busch also require ISVs to pass rigorous testing to ensure that the data collected for them and those ISVs are then on a published approved vendor list as to what vendors have passed the tests. This allows for tight control on the data fed up to them, despite the 100s of independent distributors. It seems pretty simple right?

However, the data is only half of it. The other half is doing something with the data, and empowering their drivers with the same data. Collecting competitor data is something HUGE that they take careful note of. If Coors Light is selling well they want more "facings", the number of products wide on the shelf(ie 3 facings of Coors Light would be 3 products wide x however many deep the shelf allows), of Bud Light. Facings are very important as to the mentality of what's popular and Budweiser takes very careful note of "the other guys" facings and makes decisions based on that. It all comes down to the age-old adage "knowledge is power".

So what are the competitors going to have to do to compete, how about tracking what Budweiser does reacting to your own companies decisions. That's the only way they're going to compete. What happens when you get a new facing? what does Budweiser do? What happens when your product goes on sale? Which one does Budweiser put on sale and how much? etc etc. Only then can "the other guys" begin to compete against their enemy Big Budweiser. Oh, and don't forget to put your name in front of a customer and/or sponsor every sporting related show on television. At this point I think they should be happy to survive as Budweiser is truly the "King of Beers" and is positioned to remain that way for a very long time.

Planters busts a nut

Planters bust's a nut with new "Nut Poppers".

The new fire fox

The new fire fox logo looks like road kill. I hope it is not an omen.

Mozilla Firefox 0.8 Release Notes

Mozilla Firefox 0.8 Release NotesWoohoo, a namechange and a new version. I always thought firebird was too meth-head, mullet, ac/dc listening sounding.

Nokia not so brilliant

Just an update on my Nokia 3200: The templates that go into the faceplate I have removed and opted for the techno geek look with the clear case. The templates just got on my nerves and looked kinda cheesy to me. I like everything about the phone except for two things.

1)The headset is not a standard headset. It's this huge connector probably an inch long that goes on the bottom of the phone. It's not easy to snap in and is sure to cause me to wreck my car if I'm not careful. You really have to force it.

2)The FM radio can be played through the speakerphone, however the handset must be plugged in! WTF is up with that? If I can play it through the speakerphone why does the headset need to be plugged in? Does the engineer of this brilliant option have some kind of headset fetish that he's trying to start? I mean really Nokia is very intuitive for the most part, but how in the world did they f#$@ this one up so bad.

Everything else about the phone is great, and I'd definitely reccommend it. The reception is FAR better than my 8390. I had several dropped calls with my 8390 and have yet to get a one with the new phone. It's a great phone for the money despite it's idiocy.

AT&T; Gets A Point!

My cellphone bit the big one and has been giving me trouble for months and just as I was about to give At&T; Wireless the proverbial "Boot to the head" they came through for once. I talked to their customer service after being on hold forever, they first told me that I had to choose a "current promotion" in order to get a new phone. I told them that there was no way I was going to do that, due to the fact that I have unlimited minutes with my current plan and only .01 cents a minute per KB for internet and 1MB included per month. They then put me on hold and told me that I could renew my current plan, so I decided to goto the AT&T; wireless store explained my situation and had a new phone ready to go within 5 minutes of choosing one. I got $70 for extening my contract 2 years and I still get to use the rebates. So for $100, I got a new Nokia 3200 with camera/speakerphone and much better reception than my POS 8390 that bit the dust. So for now I'm happy with AT&T;, however I'm sure next month I'll have a tiff with them when they don't receive my automatic bill pay AGAIN!

Janet Jackson's Nipple Ring Picture at the Superbowl...disturbing

Here's what really happened just to clear things up. How old is Janet Jackson now? Anyone know? The nipple ring is kinda freaky/disturbing if you ask me. Maybe their whole family is in the looney bin. Full Animated Picuture / Movie Shot of What Really Happened(NOTE: Not kid approved!)

Breaking News from CNN!

I just heard from CNN News today, school in New York has been cancelled. This is ground shaking, how is the economy going to function with all those school kids at home and not out spending their money on overpriced New York Bagels and Starbucks. Why didn't all the other schools around the U.S. get the news and cancel school too... since everything revolves around the Big Apple, and if they don't go to school then kids across the country should also be off. We can not allow any of the non-priveleged, non-New York school children to get ahead in their intelligence or lack there of.

Seriously, why the f!$% is this on CNN. When my school was canceled it went across a little blue bar at the bottom of the screen of the LOCAL traffic/weather news and hosted by we-are-doing-this-news-because-we-suck/are ugly/hot but dumb and they-don't-want-our-faces-making-men-women-and-children-thinking-this-channel-is-run-by-a-bunch-of-ignoramuses type people. Certainly they didn't put it on CNN.

I'm tired of all this New York my milkshake is better than yours menality. No one gives two f@#$! if little Johnny or Billy-Sue-Joe-Bob is staying home from school, eating falafels, and watching reruns of "Leave It To Beaver". That is all.

What not to do when sending your employees to do a software install!

So I am up here in Des Moines where it's -22 Freaking degrees and it's been a fun journey. Here are some things you should not do at a software install at a client's site.

1)DO NOT send different people than the ones who were up doing the install the first two weeks so they can look like total monkeys. Wait monkeys is too much credit, more like ameobas.

2)DO NOT let the customer get away with not having a dedicated connection to their server, so that EVERYDAY you have to haul their equipment(Monitors, Servers, Docks, Handhelds, Printers etc. etc) back to the hotel in the -22 Freaking degrees weather.

3)DO NOT send your coders to work in an office that has no water heater, no heater, and the office is actual a converted elementary school bathroom.

4)DO NOT send the monkeys to go do an install that has 20 manual things they have to do that you forgot to tell them about and rediscover that you already knew about the first 2 times you were up there.

5)DO NOT try and send the coder out with driver's of routes when he has no clue about the handheld software and would be even more clueless than the driver you are sending him out with because he has only worked on the host system and is not a handheld developer monkey.

6)DO NOT even tease your coder telling him he would be done on Tuesday when their is no chance in utopia that THAT was going to happen.

7)DO NOT tell your coder he's just going to have to watch to see if something goes wrong when there are more things going wrong than right.

8)DO NOT send everyone up there when there are still OBVIOUS issues that have not been corrected with the handheld software with small things like DISCOUNTING not calculating discounts AT ALL.

I'm not complaining. I love my job.

Listen to the Crazyness that is Dean.

Dean's insanity concession speech (audio/mpeg Object) Dean sounds like a WWE wrestler clown that's been kicked square in the nuts, but that's exactly what happened in Iowa.

UPDATE: It appears Drudge is retarded and took down the mp3 to Dean's concession speech. It's now linked above to the video section on Fox News which has the full speech available. I apologize for the thousands of you that have gone to the link only to see "Page can not be found".

Note to Drudge, if you are going to stay in this media game, please do not remove links just because they are getting some traffic. If you plan on taking down the media/mp3 once it starts getting traffic, please let people know so they don't link to it and seem like assholes for having broken links on their site. That is all.

CNN.com - Microsoft takes on teen's site MikeRoweSoft.com - Jan. 19, 2004

CNN.com - Microsoft takes on teen's site MikeRoweSoft.com - Jan. 19, 2004
Microsoft is picking on little kids again. If the kid's name really is Mike Rowe, then what would be so infringing about it. Microsoft seems to be infringing on him, claiming that they own his proper name. I hope Mike Rowe sticks it out and Microsoft yet again makes the evil empire look like the big bully that they are.

It's The Doc!: Rules of Anime.

It's The Doc!: Rules of Anime....Simply too hilairious not to post!

#2 - Law of Differentiated Gravitation: Whenever someone or something jumps, is thrown, or otherwise is rendered airborn, gravity is reduced by a factor of 4. This is the funniest/most annoying thing about anime. Even though you are 2 feet in front of me, I must jump 150 feet in the air to attack you.