Horny Manatee

What? I'm sorry, did you just mix "horny" and "manatee" together in one sentence? Oh, absolutely! I have been following this drama from Conan O'Brian for the last week and a half. Horny Manatee is absolutely fabulously disgusting. I have never seen such a gross display of dirty humor. Mr. O'Brian has gone too far! This exploitation of an endangered species must stop. Well, ok, it is really funny. Conan said the words hornymanatee.com on his show and as a result NBC bought the webpage name. It was previously non-existent. So they put together a web page for everyone to enjoy about horny manatees. I would like to point out to parents that this is not suitable for children and old people. We don't want to destroy the young children's minds and the old people are already too far gone to understand this. Enjoy the manatee videos and the sweet manatee action. Also consider purchasing a shirt. A portion of the proceeds will go to help save this endangered sea cow.

John Stewart on Blogs

After having recently been turned onto the "blogging revolution" by a friend of mine, I stumbled upon this report from John Stewart about blogs. This one is good. Of course nothing here is or ever will be newsworthy.

Free Image Editor. And Its Legal. No License Fees

I know what you are thinking. You can't be serious? Oh but I am. For nearly three years I have been using a little known program called The Gimp. It stands for the Graphical Image Manipulation Program. Now, before we get into a flamewar between PhotoShop and The Gimp, let me first say I'm not writing this for the benefit of professional graphic designers. I'm writing this for the average home user who has no idea that there is software as cool as this that is just as good for home use as PhotoShop.

But I'm not going to just tell you about it. I'll show you. Here is a collection of screenshots. And if you would like to download it and try it out, no licensing fees, ever! (That means it is Free)

Here are a few examples of what I have done with The Gimp:

Random Fortunes!

Your Fortune Is

Support bacteria -- it's the only culture some people have!

The Wacky Fortune Cookie Generator

Goodbye Ubuntu - openSuSe has bested You

Its been a good ride. Ubuntu did well freeing me from Mandriva. I have spent a lot of time searching and trying to find a distribution that worked for me. Mandriva 2007, Slackware, Arch Linux, Freevo, SuSe 10.1 ect...

With the advent of SuSe 10.1 I was very impressed. It did everything I wanted and so much easier than Ubuntu. However, the wireless module could not keep a connection to save it's life. Fast forward six months. SuSe 10.2 is now out. I'm still impressed, and I'm keeping a good wireless connection.

Whats my reason for switching? Well, its quite simple. I have spent a lot of time dilly dallying trying to get a lot of stuff to work properly in Ubuntu. I am of the opinion that in order for a distribution to be for the masses that all system configuration must be able to be done through a graphical interface. Ubuntu still has quite a ways to go in that arena. Don't get me wrong here. I love the command line. I'm just tired of fiddling with system configuration. Its time to get down and get some work done.

The Microsoft/Novell deal does have me a bit on edge. I'm not happy about it. That is the one thing that would keep me away from openSuse. However, openSuse has really made some great headway on the Linux desktop. A few tweaks here and there and I'm browsing the web looking at flash videos, listening to my music collection, and listening to realplayer media streams. They were easy tweaks by the way.

So Ubuntu, it has been fun. I learned more about Debian from you than I ever learned from Debian. I already knew the command line before I got to you so I felt quite comfortable with you. But it is time for me to buckle down and get to work now. So I say, Adieu, for now.

Dr. Haws - The English Major Engineer

Now I don't normally make fun of my professors, but this liberal has it coming. This is the only professor I have had that is not only an Engineer but also and English Major. This is a deadly combination. Not only are we combining a pompous English professor but also an uber bright Engineer. Combining English and Math into one uncontrollable liberal is a bit over edge for me.

I just got my final paper back from this man. The first page is covered in scribbles. it looks as if he needed something to color on. "Too Wordy" he says. Well, I know that there are a lot of words, thats what an essay is. Now, if I could read the rest of his chicken scratch, I might agree with what he has to say. I did bring up some good points on the subject of Open Source software and how it can benefit us. I also pointed out that Boise State University uses Windows for their servers and for their mail. I only used this example to help him understand how unreliable it can be. The Boise State webmail was down for nearly a week this semester. Next to this paragraph is more illegible chicken scratch.

Overall, I didn't do too bad on the paper. 35/40. But I'm finished with English classes, thank you. I have put up with enough English professors to last a lifetime. So, yet again. i bid farewell to another liberal English professor and hope that I have no more to come.

Name Our Baby

If you did not notice the large poll off to the right at the top of this page then you should seriously look into getting some vision enhancement of some kind.

It is simple. We would like some input into what we are going to name "mini me". I would call it "mini she" but we know its a boy.
So vote, vote, vote away,
you can vote once per day!

Letterman's Farewell to Mr. Gates

I saw this sweet video of Letterman's goodbye to Mr. Gates and I could not help myself. This is quite funny.

Don't Fight It, You Know You Want It!

The 25th Army Band goes to Lewiston, ID every year. This year was especially good. Not because the dance was fun. It really wasn't. Not many people danced and there was really not a great turnout in the first place. But the greatest part of the trip was me growing closer to the leadership of the band. Don't fight it sir, you know you want it.

Our First Sergeant decided to let me sit on his lap. That was kind of fun. It felt like I was visiting Santa Claus. The great thing was that everyone decided to pull out the cameras and First Sergeant Flaherty was all cool about posing for those pictures. He even has that nice leather jacket. Of course if I had not been carrying around a cup full of water, I would have never had the confidence needed to sit there.

Next came Mr. Durfee. In the middle of a concert band rehearsal Mr. Durfee decided to lie down and take a quick nap. Either that or he was doing a silent protest about the way we sounded. Anyways, I just so happened to be sitting up front when he lay down. He put his hands up under his head and that little area under his arm looked so inviting. Don't let this picture fool you, he had his arm around me before he realized that the camera phones were out! Thats when he tried to jump up. Too late sir, Sterner already got the evidence against you. Better luck next time.

So even though the dance was a drag and the ride was long and curvaceous, we still got some good times in.

Baby it's cold outside

Wow, look! Its snowing! Lets go light up the Christmas tree because the temperature is below freezing! Oh its so Christmas like. Especially this time of year.

Thats all fine and dandy when your not a tuba player. I'm standing on the steps to the state capitol building with a frozen mass of silver plated brass. As you could imagine this is quite unpleasant to hold on to. Luckily for me a nice soldier let me use his gloves. That sure helped a lot. It seemed to help until I had to put my lips on that frozen musical instrument. Every time I have to put my lips on a below freezing mouthpiece I think of that movie, A Christmas Story, where Ralphie puts his tongue on the frozen flagpole. Of course the fire department comes to rescue him.

What would happen if my lips or my tongue stuck to that frozen mouthpiece? Who would rescue the pathetic tuba player who is literally stuck on his instrument? I'm sure the fire department would not come running. They have better things to do, like putting out fires. Perhaps I would just be stuck to the tuba until I could blow enough air through it to warm the mouthpiece enough to free myself.

But alas, that has not happened thus far. Maybe Ralphie being stuck to a flagpole was merely a Hollywood stunt that never happens. Maybe I could talk a young elementary school child into trying it out.

I Totally Wiped Out

So I'm on my way to class, peddling along and minding my own business, and I totally wiped out. Yeah, thats right. I crashed on my bicycle.

Let me give a little background. I have been riding a bicycle since i was 5 years old. Yeah, I remember riding around before I went to kindergarten on my sweet ride. Oh it was a good bike, and it was black! I suffered a terrible crash on that particular bicycle when i was 6. I scraped the skin off most my leg. I lied on the couch for two weeks until the scabs started falling off. In the process of that same crash I also ruined some of my favorite corduroy pants. It was a rough crash, it caused a lot of pain and grief. Not only because of the scabs, bleeding, and rocks that fell out of my leg, but also because of my ruined pants.

That was my first real bicycle accident. I suffered another tragic accident the next summer. I was riding along and tried to stop my bicycle with my foot on the front tire. This caused my frail little body to fly over my bicycle and fall ass over teakettle. That crash especially hurt because it knocked the wind out of me. Hitting my head on the road was also quite unpleasant. And to top it all of the friendly neighbor lady came out and asked me if I was O.K.

I have been crash free from that time on. At least I had been crash free, until today. My front brakes stuck on as I was turning a corner causing me to fall ass over teakettle for the first time in twenty years. It isn't all that bad that I bit the dust in such a terrible way. The thing about this crash that will stick with me and possibly cause me future grief is that I crashed in a crosswalk. I crashed in front of a whole line of cars. Some lady asked me if I was O.K. Well, that made me feel like I was 6 years old again. I had a flashback to twenty years before when I flipped over my handlebars.

So I'll suffer with these bruised knees for a few days and in the meantime I'll also try to come to terms with my flashback to when I was six.

Class Evaluations

Its that time of year. Oh yes, the time when professors hand out worthless class evaluations that neither help or hinder the class. They simply waste time. However, for my Ethical Dimensions of Technology class we get to do these wonderful course evaluations on-line. So here is my comments to the question: "Overall, how would you rate the quality of this instructor?"

How good can you be in a class this size? [sarcasm] Sometimes listening to Dr. Haws was like listening to nails scratch a chalkboard. If the subject matter was any more dry we could use it as a preservative. The subjects and lectures were often so dry that I almost chipped my brain on them like one would chip a tooth on hard candy. The subject matter was so dry I nearly died of dehydration every time I went to class. It would have been easier to read the Encyclopedia Brittanica than to dredge through another chapter concerning pleasure and pain. The lack of excitement in the lectures now causes me to go into slight seizures whenever I hear Dr. Haws' voice. [/sarcasm] But hey, nice job on showing some sweet Star Trek.

And a note to Dr. Haws:
I know this will upset you. It would upset me too. However, before you go through and nit pick the grammar at least consider how true it is. And I'll be driving around if you need to give anyone the bird. ROTFLMAO!

Wifi HotSpot?

So where do we draw the line? Where does it end? When does it go from a "Wifi Hotspot" to classified theft? Seriously, MB9G5 has secured their Internet connection. Linksys has not. Is this an open invitation to use their Internet connection at will? There are two other computers connected to this same linksys router, Ganymede and Rufus. Neither of them were sharing a printer, and neither of them were sharing important documents. But where do we as society draw the line? Is looking at someone's computer on an insecure network like looking in the window of their house? Or is looking at someone's computer on an insecure network considered breaking and entering? Would this be considered similar to walking into a house that is not locked? There are some issues we need to resolve as more technology comes out that allows us to see deeper into each other's lives. As for this situation and Rufus, I'll just keep this on the downlow. SSHH! I need an Internet connection when I visit my in-laws.

"Mine is a Mega-Something"

Oh yes, the incompetence continues...

My retarded brother-in-law, from henceforth shall simply be known as Tard, is at it again. This afternoon his steadfast wife called my loving wife and asked her to ask me to help Tard install a game on the family's newly acquired computer. I would like to point to my last blog entry which stated that the computer was given to my nephew. So the question is this: Whose decision is it to modify said computer? Does that right belong to the incompetent Tard? or does that right belong to my nephew? Does the responsibility lie with the nephew or with Tard?

Now that the ethical dilemma of who actually owns the computer is out of the way let me throw another twist on the story. This computer has a dual-boot with Linux and Windows 2000. It will go directly into Linux unless otherwise told. I did this for a reason. This computer used to belong to my mother-in-law who was new enough to computers that she did not need to worry about the fuss with viruses, spyware, and adware. And every application and task she needed to do could be easily accomplished in Linux.

So here Tard sits, looking at a Linux computer, staring down the Konqueror Desktop Environment (KDE). This is when Tard gets the great idea that Command and Conquer would be great to install on this computer. First of all, Tard, its Linux, not Windows. It does not natively run time wasting games such as Command and Conquer. However, it does run time wasting games such as Doom III, Heretic, Enemy Territory, Blag, Scorched 3D, Tetris, and yes, even the classic Solitaire. We all know that no real computer operating system is complete without Solitaire.

So like I said, Tard is staring down KDE and wondering how to install this game. However, if Tard had realized that when the computer booted that he could choose Windows 2000, then we would not be in this predicament would we? On the other hand if Tard was looking at a Windows 2000 screen he wouldn't be calling me asking me how to install Command and Conquer, he would be calling asking for the administrator password.

So I say to Tard, whose incompetence sits on his shoulders in a thick mass of dense space he calls a brain, figure out how to get into Windows and then we can talk. Until then, enjoy solitaire. In Linux we call it PySol. (python solitaire for anyone still lost.)

ThanksGiving

ThanksGiving is supposed to be spent with family... Well, mine wasn't. I'm sitting at my mother-in-laws house with her new husband and HIS family. I have never really felt like i missed my family too much, however, today is an exception.

On the laughable side of things my brother-in-law is a complete retard. My mother-in-law gave to my nephew an old computer I had given to her. The specs on it are marginal. 1 Gig processor and 256mb of ram. So my retarded brother-in-law says to me, "My computer must be faster because it's processor is a mega-something." And with that I had no choice but to leave the room so I would not blurt out profanities about him.

So I end with this: What is the difference between in-laws and outlaws?

Ubuntu Edgy Eft

So i figured it was time to post another comment. It has been a few days. I'm not quite as faithful about blogging as my friend Greg is. So I installed the new Ubuntu linux on my laptop, Edgy Eft. It seems to run a lot better than Dapper Drake. However, Ubuntu sure does have a long way to go. Most other Desktop Distros have a graphical configuration for most things. Ubuntu does not. Ubuntuguide.org does a good job of walking someone through the setup using the command line and text file editing. This is quite fine with me, but new linux users are quite intimidated by the command line.

So here is my first blog ever. I do not expect anyone to ever read it. This blog will probably end up never being used. Maybe I'll use it to document my Linux experiences. Maybe my family. who knows...