L. Ron Hubbard + Elrond = Elrond Hubbard (Thanks, Nomad)

Sage investment advice:

$1000 of Enron stock one year ago is worth $16.55 today $1000 of Worldcom stock one year ago is worth $14.50 today $1000 of Sam Adams beer one year ago is worth $40 today (5 cent deposit)

How to do your laundry - An essay by Plutor

1. Put your dirty laundry in the washer, using your nifty Smart Card(TM) to pay for it. Be sure not to notice that you don't have enough money left to dry said laundry.
2. Wait 25 minutes.
3. Take your laundry out of the washing machine, put it into the dryer, then act surprised when you can't start it.
4. Assume you have no money. Do not, under any conditions, check your wallet.
5. Call your wife, because you don't want to go to the ATM, and she might have squirrelled some away in a shoebox. Women plan ahead like that.
6. If your wife tells you to use your precious change, say OKAY.
7. Go all the way to the other building to add the aforementioned change to the aforementioned Smart Card(TM).
8. Discover the Smart Card machine doesn't accept change.
9. Return, dejected, to your apartment.
10. At this point, it is safe to check your wallet. You will have a single dollar bill.
11. Go all the way back to the Smart Card machine.
12. Discover that the Smart Card machine doesn't accept bills smaller than $5. Why didn't you notice that the first time you were there, retard?
13. Return -- AGAIN -- to your apartment.
14. Get in the car, in your pajamas and sandals, go downtown to the ATM, get money, and return.
15. Try put the laundry in the dryer without killing or maiming yourself.

Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 21:06:32 -0500 (EST) From: “DomainMonger.Com” <service@domainmonger.com> To: <log@wsvw1u.com> Subject: Automated 30 day renewal reminder 2002-11-02

This message is to inform the owner of the below listed domain name(s) that it is time to renew your domain name(s). There is no disadvantage in renewing early as the renewal years are added to the current expiration date not the date you renew. So do not postpone your renewals.

Thank you. Domain Name, Expiry Date wsvw1u.com, 2002-12-02

You know you’re an obsessive-compulsive standards snob when you get upset at non-standard behaviour of utilities like rotatelogs (included in the Apache web server). It does exactly what it sounds like: rotates your logs after a period of time, however long you define. It names the logs whatever you tell it, even allowing you to use strftime() syntax.

But, it doesnt use the local time to rotate the logs, like a normal sane application would. Oh no, it takes your local time and then MUNGES IT TO FUCKING UTC! You have to tell it how many hours you are from UTC! That means I have to change my httpd.conf next sunday!

I have created a solution though.

Trigonomery refresher: Solved!

In the break room here at Priceline, the basket that the ‘hot cup’ lids are in is apparently where the tea bags used to be, and it’s still labelled “regular” and “decaf”. Every time I go in there to get a lid, I think of making the joke “Damn, they’re out of decaf lids again!” But no one I know is ever in there at the same time, so I never have the opportunity to make the joke.

Trigonometry refresher:

You are at the top of Castle Craig in Meriden, CT, 1002 feet above sea level. Given an impossibly clear day, is it possible to see Mount Washington in North Conway, NH, 6,288 feet above sea level, and 311 km away? Hint: You must know the radius of the earth.

There are very few places where the lack of something is a tourist attraction. Ground Zero and the Grand Canyon are the only two I can think of.

This morning on my way to work, I spent some time behind a police truck. This particular truck was towing one of those automated “You are going this fast” machines, probably to some far-away location. I wished it had been on. Would it show negative speeds? Could I get my speed within 1 mph of the speed of the truck?

Unanswered questions.

The lack of words that I come up with when I want to discuss my upcoming wedding is almost scary. I feel nervous, but not about being married; about the wedding itself. The timer at the bottom of this page is going to be basically useless for the next week. Sorry, chumps.

Ever since I got my CCNA certification, I’ve been seeing the OSI networking model everywhere. In human interaction, for example. Eyeballs (and photons) make up the physical layer. The part of your brain that interprets the images into faces and bodies constitute the datalink layer. The portion of the brain that then identifies people and matches names to them (sometimes inaccurately) is the network layer. This analogy continues with the session layer – holding a conversation – and even all the way to the application layer – where you can have a long-term relationship with other individuals over many conversations and meetings.

I skipped some layers because the metaphor isn’t perfect, but it’s pretty close.

Steve Irwin + Arwen = Steve Arwen

If you freeze water chestnuts, do they become ice chestnuts?

Are puns funny in sign language? Answer in rot13: Chaf ner arire shaal.

I consider The Wave to be the single greatest work that Mankind has ever created. A hundred thousand diverse individuals can – and often do – work together with no clear leadership or supervision. A single individual’s responsibility is quite simple. So simple, in fact, that even the most dimwitted participants would be able to figure out what they should do. In comparison, the Pyramids and the Parthenon aren’t even worth mentioning.

Oh, and I started working at Priceline today.

This weekend has been the best weekend of my life. I graduated from college, in what I considered to be a huge ceremony, but others might dismiss as trivial. I also received a job offer from Priceline. It’s hard to imagine that next year, I’ll be solely in the Real World, with no classes, no homework, no tests or exams, no Academic Integrity agreements, no syllabi, no GPA, and no Tuesday-night parties. It’ll be like a different planet.

Someone asked me about Ow, My Foot! today, after seeing the wonderful mug my wonderful fianceé made for me four years ago. I thought about the one-dollar bottomless coffees. I thought about the sharp December breeze and the dingy downtown funk. I remembered Dilbert and Flash Gordon inspired almost-spoken word. I remember Vanilla Steamed Moo. I smell the people, I feel the carpet, I taste the angst and the hippies and the yuppies.

“It was a band I was in,” I told him. I wiped a tear from my eye.

You’d think I’d be excited that graduation is a mere nine days away. But in all truthfulness, the stress over the job situation, the wedding, and the mystery of where M and I will end up has been preventing me from really enjoying the fact that I’m done with seventeen years of “organized education”.

Should I be excited about Episode 2? I’m still trying to decide.

My newest project is up and running. In order to stem the tide of ignorance and the use of the Imperial Measurement System, I’ve created Go Metric. You may rejoice.

Okay, so I’m giving in and updating. Thanks for the boot in the pants, Chris.

The wedding invitations are out, and people have started receiving them. The wedding is in about two and a half months. I’m two weeks from the end of college classes, and a month (and one day) from Commencement. I’d like to find a job in the next month, but it’s no easier now than it was six months ago. Anyone need a CCNA certified Network Engineer with lots of UNIX and programming experience? (I’ll pass the BSCN by graduation, and am interested in pursuing my CCNP)

It’s too hot.

MrSplatz: dude, update your blog Plutor: bite me

Back from a nice relaxing spring break. Played some paintball, did some cleaning, and top it all off with a visit to M and wintry Rochester.

Splatta sliced up his hand something awful today while assembling his mom’s new computer. He’s got some non-greusome pictures up on his webpage, and I hope to see the bloody scar when the bandage comes off. Stay tuned!

I passed.

I’ve been spending a lot of my time lately studying for the CCNA. In fact, almost all the time that I’m not in classes, I’ve been reading or testing myself, or rereading, or going through lame Exam Cram flash cards. I dream about RIP holddown timers and split horizon. I eat fragment-free switched sandwiches. I drive an IETF encapsulated car. It’s taking over my life.

And really, how useful is all of this? It seems like they took the basics of every single networking concept and crammed them into the CCNA. I won’t be able to really construct anything expertly, but I can administer everything adequately. Frame Relay? ISDN? I say WAN connectivity should be on a separate test altogether.

I’m having an increasingly difficult time preventing myself from rationalizing a purchase of a Gameboy Advance. It’s got more power than the SNES, and a game selection that is getting better and better. The Portable Monopoly lighting system will be released soon, and appears to solve all of the related lighting issues. And at $70 in some online stores, the GBA only represents about 5 hours of work.

On the other hand, how many hours of work will it end up costing me in the long run?