Garbage Can Thief

To the jerk who stole my garbage can:

 

This is the second garbage can to go missing from my property. The first was a fine Rubbermaid garbage can. It was green and had white specks all over it from when I painted my house. And now you have gone and stolen my generic metal garbage can.

What I don't understand is why you chose to steal a garbage can with my freaking address painted all over it. Not only that it had a few good dents.

I don't know who you are. There is no reward and I will pay no ransoms for I have no money for either. But what I do have is a particular set of skills. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you bring my garbage can back now that will be the end of it. I will not look for you. I will not pursue you.

But if you don't; I will scour the alleys for you and my can, I will find you, and I will shoot you.

osascript

I've recently become aware of the power of osascript. It is a command line tool, or program, that can be used to perform many tasks on OS X. My first encounter with osascript was to use it to change the volume as follows:

osascript -e 'set Volume 4.5'

You can use a basic integer of 1 through 10; or use the decimal system for a more accurate volume.
This is particularly useful when your child is playing an obnoxiously loud game and you have a desire to adjust the volume without interrupting them. Or perhaps you are just hopelessly lazy and don't want to get up to change that volume for iTunes. All easily accomplished through a secure shell connection in the command line.
I've also successfully used this while I was away from home, with an internet connection, but without a phone. I was able to get Share to email me a much needed file.

Perhaps you would like to play an April Fools joke on someone running OS X?

osascript -e 'tell application "System Events" to sleep'
osascript -e 'tell application "Finder" to sleep'

Nighty night remote mac.


osascript -e 'say "Hello, $name! I am your mac." using "Zarvox"'

What your computer has somehow attained artificial intelligence using a very computer sounding voice! For a really lively conversation type out a good number of responses and questions to easily cut and paste into the command line. To have everything said to the tune Night on Bald Mountain, use cellos instead of Zarvox!


osascript -e 'tell application "[Open Program Name]" to quit'

You know that the application did not crash, but will they?


How about a list of iTunes controls?
open /Applications/iTunes.app
osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to play'
osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to stop'
osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to pause'
osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to next track'
osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to previous track'
osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to set shuffle of current playlist to 0' (Shuffle OFF)
osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to set shuffle of current playlist to 1' (Shuffle ON)
osascript -e 'tell application "iTunes" to sound volume as $integer' ($integer being a number as previously mentioned.)

All very nifty. I still haven't figured out how to populate the playlist with desired tracks, albums or artists. Apparently there is a way if a playlist exists but it should be able to do it without one.

There is a plethora of things to do with osascript. I've just begun delving into it. All potentially useful if you are a command line junkie or if you just cant be physically next to your mac for some reason. Like perhaps you want your mac to loudly play music while you are away on vacation? A few hours of that may give the impression to passers by that you are at home. All of that could even be timed and executed by a cron job.

I've returned

Current issues with my hosting provider has caused me to return here. I may stay a while.

ISP strikes again...

It happened again. The Idaho State police pulled me over. Its all quite simple really. I didn't come to a full and complete stop before exiting the NAPA parking lot. At first I didn't think he would pull me over but as he followed me around the corner I saw him putting his hat on. "Crap," I thought, "He means business." His lights turned on and I made my way into the nearest parking lot.

I still stand by my premise that police officers should never be allowed to ask if we know why they just pulled us over. If we agree to answer we waive away our 5th amendment rights, if we don't answer then they just think we are stupid.

I also don't think its very cool to have bad hayfever when you get pulled over. Then the police officer seems to think drugs have been taken and alcohol consumed simply because you have got red eyes. "Well," you think to yourself, "Officer you should lay off the doughnuts because your eyes are glazed!" But you don't actually say anything like that because you are the one who could be recieving the potential ticket. Darn those first amendment rights that get pushed aside while you speak to police officers.

So this officer pulls me over and guess what he asks? Thats right, "Do you know why I pulled you over?"

"Uhm, No."

"You didn't stop as you left the parking lot back there."

"Oh, I just thought I could yeild when there was no traffic."

"No, you have to come to a complete stop. Do you have your license?"

"Yeah. Do you need my insurance and registration?"

"No, that won't be necessary" - This is when I took a huge sigh of relief. "Do you still live at 110th North?"

Now here is the problem with that question, I don't live there. I haven't lived there for over two years. Matter of fact I have moved three times since then. So what do I say? I don't remember ever updating my address with the DMV. If he runs my driver's license number will he get an address from Boise? I wasn't sure, so I took a chance. "No."

"How long have you not lived there."

"About three months." - Yeah, an obvious lie.

"Well, your supposed to update your address within 30 days of moving. If anything happens to you we want to go to the right house."

"Oh," and this is where I thought a ticket was coming.

"I'll get you a form to fill out and you can mail it in."

That caught me a bit off guard. He wasn't going to ticket me for it but was actually going to give me the proper paperwork to update my address with the DMV. Amazing.

I'm not sure how I did it, but I drove off without a ticket. That makes four times that I have been pulled over this summer. The thing that I am the most proud of is that I'm still ticket free. No moving violations here. Now that is some sweet action.

Pull Over!

In the last four weeks I have been pulled over three times. Yeah, thats right, three times. To my amazement I drove away from all of them with no tickets. To me thats pretty amazing. The pulling over is as follows:



#1 - June 14th - Traveling back to Idaho Falls from Heise Hot Springs. I'm doing 75 in a 65. I look up and a Bonneville County officer drives past me. I know how fast I'm going. I see it in front of me. It took him a while to flip on his lights and turn around but a few miles later I was pulling over onto a side road.

Officer: Do you know how fast you were going?
Me: Uhm, not until you passed me.

At this point the officer asks for my license and registration. He stood next to our car looking at it for a while. He keeps looking into the back seat at my sleeping child. He finally hands me back my documentation and tells me to slow down. Whew! I dodged a bullet on that one!

#2 - June 30th - I'm in the NAPA truck getting off the highway at Lindsey Boulevard. An old guy is going 15 mph down the off ramp. At the stop sign he takes his time to turn out onto the road.
With his slow wandering he nearly gets hit by oncoming traffic because he took soooooooo loooooooong to get out into his lane. My first reaction is to make my stop and then get out and around him as soon as possible. Just as I'm pulling around him and back into the lane I look in the rear view mirror and see an Idaho Falls police officer entering the road. He quickly turned on his lights and I knew it was for me. Ironically enough, this police officer also passed the old man to get to me.

Officer: Do you know why I pulled you over?

This question has got to be a violation of the 5th amendment in some way. For some reason we all still anser it anyways...

Me: Because I passed in a no passing zone.

Remember the officer did the same. Although he did have his lights on therefore making it legal.

Officer: Why did you do it?
Me: Because that old man was going ridiculously slow.
Officer: Where are you going?
Me: To deliver auto parts to Commercial Tire.
Officer: Was the time you wasted talking to me worth it?
Me: No.
Officer: Then don't do it again. Is your lisence current?
Me: Yes, do you need to see it?
Officer: No, Are you on probation?
Me: No.
Officer: Alright, slow down, relax and don't do that again.

Whew! I dodged a bullet on that one too!

#3 - July 9th - On the corner of Foote Dr. and Highway 20. I pull up to the stop sign, make an effort to stop while looking for oncoming traffic. See no oncoming traffic on an otherwise busy intersection. So I keep going. Again, rear view mirror, but this time it was an Idaho State Policeman. He pulls up behind me as I get up to the stoplight. I figure he is simply going to follow me for a while to make sure I don't do anything else. I nearly stopped right? The light turns green and I begin to move. Much to my disappointment his lights came on.

Officer: I'm pulling you over because you rolled through that stop sign. Can I see your license, registration, and insurance.
Me: Sure, (I hand him my license) I assume my registration and insurance is in the glove box. I haven't had to pull it out before.
Officer: Thats good.

He looks things over and mulls over it all for a bit. Of course he asks where I'm going and I can't give a simple direct answer as I have multiple destinations who need their auto parts. Finally, after an awkward silence...

Officer: Well, I'm going to save you $75 dollars today. Make sure you stop completely at all stop signs. You were so close to stopping at that last one.
Me: No problem. I'll do that from now on.

Whew! I dodged a third bullet on that one!


I really need to stop getting pulled over.

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