Toaster Of The Future

Republican Dunderheads

2008-09-10T22:08:00.001-04:00

Must See Photoshop Tutorials

2008-01-21T22:55:00.001-05:00

If you haven't been keeping up with BoingBoing, Laughing Squid, Lifehacker, or other noteworthy blogs, there is a new series of tutorials for Photoshop from MyDamnChannel.com. They are utterly brilliant in their hilarity and usefulness.

You Suck At Photoshop #1

You Suck At Photoshop #2 (personal fave...especially if Laura views it)

You Suck At Photoshop #3

Mid Air Ravers

2007-12-05T22:48:00.000-05:00

Here's a clip of the Su-30MK. Most of what your seeing is unimaginable by aeronautical engineers.

Gorgeous.

Everybody tuck ya trousas into ya socks...

2007-07-10T17:02:00.000-04:00

The CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) system that generates all those squiggly random text snippets you have to enter to post to your blog or whatever online has been cracked by spammers. Why must digital image processing be continually used for evil?

CAPTCHA is annoying but is the only solution right now to prevent spam floods in blogs and web account generation. To read more about CAPTCHA, here's an awesome article on the guy who invented it and other Man-Teaches-Machine web technologies. Good news is on page 5 saying that CAPTCHA 2.0 (reCAPTCHA) is on it's way and it will also populate data for the Internet Archive's digital library project. Given the web's viral nature, you'll probably see a lot more blog spam paired with a huge rush to reCAPTCHA by service providers.

UPHOLD OUR RIGHT TO BEAT GAYS

2007-05-04T09:36:00.000-04:00

After listening to Sean Hannity and Mark Levin (and the entire Republican machine for that matter) call the Emergency Funding for Iraq Bill, the "Surrender Bill" (Nevermind the "emergency funding for the troops" part of it) I think we should call a spade a spade and call this veto to the update to hate-crime laws to extend protections against gay and transgender people the "BEAT GAYS NOW EXECUTIVE ORDER".

I'm a little on the fence about Hate crime laws in the first place, but to have them currently in our system and not include these protections seems a little off. "But what about my priest talking about the evils of homosex!?" Read the bill. It's about violent acts not speech. The last I heard, the KKK can still say they hate everyone.

Suck it up gay bashers. BEAT GAYS NOW. BEAT GAYS NOW.

Those Goddamn Democrats

2007-02-26T20:46:00.000-05:00

It's been a long time since I FIFOed this blog, and it looks like a few people have come a knockin for new content.

Alas, I find myself with nothing to say. It has been a sad sad 3.607 months since "T" day (Terrorist Victory Day). You may not have known this but I took the month off before Nov. 9 to petition door to door not only for to get people out and vote "YES! YES! YES! OH GOD YES!! OOOOOH YES! IT IS SOOO GOOD YES!" VA Ballot Question 1, I was also petitioning U.S. Congressmen for a ballot initiative to reinstate FDR's Executive Order 9066. No! Not to exercise war-powers on Japanese Americans and immigrants (though their mother country's meddling in our industrial sector is a threat and they could someday take over our great nation from within), this time I was calling on Congress to amend it to replace the word "Japanese" in "Japanese Internment Camps" to "Democrat" to protect us from our most imminent of threats....Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. Why? If you had a chance to stop Hitler from invading Poland would you? Have you people lost your minds!??!?!

For you insolant fools who voted these eunuchs into power, let me point out what GWB has pointed out a thousand times in the past 6 years:
A) Terrorism is Evil
B) People, no matter what their nationality, who aid terrorists are enemy combatants in the war on terror.
C) Enemy combatants have no right to clog up our nation's busy courts
D) If you are against the Iraq war, you our giving enemies comfort
E) comfort is a form of aide

A+B+C+D+E = F, Mass Liberal Detainment
This is the ONLY way to move forward and those of you who voted "D" on Nov. 9 voted for "T". The logic is simple and flawless here people. It doesn't take Archimedes to understand it. My man, the VP, the veep, the Big Dick of the Back Door to The Oval Office, set Pelosi straight on her non-kitchen-sculpted rear-end by standing by his comments saying she validated al Qaeda's strategy. Al Qaeda has their strategy, WE HAVE OURS! Adaptation is a THEORY taught only at LIBERAL war colleges.

So lock em all up. And when we do, we can turn their cozy little urban penthouses into corn crops and make all the ethanol we need to power their cozy new detention centers.

Post 9/11.....06

2006-09-12T22:25:00.000-04:00

Booming voices from the kitchen had driven me from my comfortable bed Monday morning. The volume on my kitchen stereo/alarm clock was up to high. As I navigated my way to the kitchen to kill the sound, the announcer of Morning Edition said that "this morning's Diane Rehm show" was soliciting listeners to call in to express how 9/11 had effected them besides politically...fitting since I had been thinking about it for quite a bit this year. Although I could think of personal changes, my mind kept crawling back to politics. From today's shitball fight in congress about the president's address, I couldn't think of anything else but the big bang theory and how it relates to our now divided life in America and how we got here.

Sins of Our Fathers
This year has been one of education, not only within my field, but looking at modern history. I've long thought about how we inherit the problems that our previous generation created. In war it seems to be the most apparent. The world's grandparents passed on the invention of atomic weapons starting an arms race between the U.S. and Russia. Through the generational handover, our fathers entered Vietnam through the policy of containment of communism. As we were born, the pictures of the fall of Saigon fresh in the national psyche, the new policy was that of "The enemy of my enemy is my ally." Our policy was to support anyone fighting against communist forces. When the fall of the iron curtain came about, we had already muddied our hands in supporting Mujahideen in Afghanistan, supporting Saddam's rise to power and supplying him with dual use biological agents in his war against Iran, sold weapons to our enemy to aid the Contras in Nicaragua, and began to protect American interests (oil) in the Persian Gulf. Terrorism is by no means something whose roots began growing in the past 10 years and 10 years is essentially how far back the media looks (even if that far) for investigative purposes. It is our generations inheritance. No seven hundred 100-megaton ICBMs flying our way for mutually assured destruction, just some crazy people hell bent on killing anyone via any means.

Oh Wikipedia...
I've turned into a wiki addict, I've come to know it's shortcomings, but I definitely see its value in communicating general facts (especially cited ones). I started with Israel, mainly because I knew very little about it except that many participants in middle east strife reference it, regardless of conflict, and that we've supported her throughout the course of her history. This search kind of had a snowball effect. Granted, wikipedia isn't exactly fact but it's a beginning of inquiry...something every free person should partake in.

Interesting reading on our "global war on extrema-islamo-fasci-terrorism."
U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup (interesting timing of article and lack of consequence)
Operation Desert Storm (why the overnight 180 on Iraq?)
Osama Bin Laden (interesting role in the 80's and early 90's)
Mujahideen (in particular the group in Afganistan fighting the Soviets)
Taliban (we thought THEY were the voice of moderation?)
Dick Cheney (interesting timing of having his first daughter)
Donald Rumsfield (what kind of envoy during the early 80's?)
Iran
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mohammad Khatami
Gaurdian Council (of Iran)

Granted, I read all these in one sitting so my outlook seemed to creep downward pretty quickly.

Our Broken Society
In tatters lay our once great unity. The Clinton administration and the caustic 2000 election had divided a nation but for a brief time, we came together to help each other in grief and support, no matter the color of our state, the amount of money we had in the bank, or the way we swung. It all seems rather Tibetan in that once a being is conceived, thus begins its demise. Instead of sewing together tighter, our leaders have sought to divide us. Why? Because the more all of us focus on how much we disagree with each other, the more those in power can dominate the headlines and change the subject away from their own ineptitude. The two parties need each other to demonize, to feign effecacy over the other, and somewhere to lay the blame. Ideas don't flourish; each side panders to their extreme to bolster their support, and by support I mean...

AMERICAN CASHITO....DOLLARINES...NO CHECKS!
Not only is this one of the most polarized of elections, it's also the richest: To date, $934 million has been contributed to races all over the nation. Business is BOOMING. What does all that money do? For the candidates: pre-election dollars for all those wonderfully nasty campaigns that become post-election dollars for the candidate's interests or their party's political slush fund. Here is Virginia's (which from what I gather, seems to be the norm among states):

Amounts received by a candidate or his campaign committee as contributions that are in excess of the amount necessary to defray his campaign expenditures may be disposed of only by one or any combination of the following: (i) transferring the excess for use in a succeeding election or to retire the deficit in a preceding election; (ii) returning the excess to a contributor in an amount not to exceed the contributor's original contribution; (iii) donating the excess to any organization described in Â§ 170(c) of the Internal Revenue Code; (iv) contributing the excess to one or more candidates or to any political committee that has filed a statement of organization pursuant to this chapter; (v) contributing the excess to any political party committee; and (vi) defraying any ordinary, nonreimbursed expense related to his elective office. It shall be unlawful for any person to convert any contributed moneys, securities, or like intangible personal property to his personal use.

Webb v Allen 2008 for Pres baby! (Better get a bucket, I'm gonna throw up)

Lobby, not Liberty, and Justice For All
For the constituents: Waters down what the individual has to say and minimalizes their role in a democratic society. In order to be heard and avoid those rubber stamped standard Congressional Replies, we must go through 3rd parties: The ACLU, The NRA, etc. etc. We may only feel strongly about one topic they are lobbying for, but as a participant you are guilty by association on all other topics. Ahh, the wonder of social generalizations. ALL of our leaders* can't find shit in a chili cookoff portapotty so taking one from Maggie's dad's playbook:

Dear Congress,

Fuck you.

Sincerely,
James P.

P.S. Strongly worded letter to follow.
C.C. Executive Branch

*More on the Do-Nothingest Congress later.

Words to Think About - 7/21/06

2006-09-12T22:18:00.000-04:00

Name the politician who, in an address July 2, stated:

"Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason." Principles must be "accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all."Now, this is going to be difficult for some who believe in the inerrancy" of sacred scripture. "But in a pluralistic democracy, we have no choice. Politics depends on our ability to persuade each other of common aims based on a common reality. . . . At some fundamental level, religion does not allow for compromise. It's the art of the impossible. If God has spoken, then followers are expected to live up to God's edicts, regardless of the consequences. To base one's life on such uncompromising commitments may be sublime; to base our policymaking on such commitments would be a dangerous thing."

Was it:
a) Nancy Pelosi
b) Rick Santorum
c) Barack Obama
d) John McCain

She's dead.....DEAD....AHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA!! - 7/20/06

2006-09-12T22:02:00.000-04:00

I KILLED HER
That's right, she (the Prelude)is without a doubt, dead. No persistant vegetative state, no hospice, no d...ownstairs dusting, ....she's done. Dead. Pushin up the daisys (albeit oily daisys...ok ok Burnt Oily daisys). I must say she put up a good fight.

WHAT HAPPEN?
CEO Jayson and I were headed out to Seneca Rocks, West Virginiiiiieeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to get some totally sweet trad climbing in with our brand spankin new camelots. For some spectacularly brilliant reason, I offered to drive. We made it down I66 and I81 but after a 15 or so miles out on route 55, something didn't feel so good, and it wasn't the McDonald's hashbrowns mixing with the previous night's Taco Bell Burrito Bucket. No no. We were heading up a moderate hill when I noticed a loss of get up and go from the engine. I mumbled something resembling a curse word, laid off the gas, depressed it again, and just short of nothin. I listened to the car as we crested the hill and it sounded exactly like a go-cart engine. We pulled over and smelled something burning and that something definitely wasn't a clutch (thanks for the lesson in that one Waan!). Nothing out of the ordinary: No steam, No leaks no torn belts, nothin. So we thought it would be in our (ok my best) interest to get the car as close to home as possible and stop along the way and see if we can get a quick diag from a local mechanic. We stopped in Cityvillechestertonfield, VA (@ the intersecting of 55 and 81). The mechanic there advised us that it was in fact a misfiring cylinder and that driving on it a whole lot wasn't "a jolly good idea" (because that's how they talk in Cityvillechestertonfield). Jayse and I made it back to his place and jumped in his Tahoe because as we both agreed, not climbing was not an option and headed to Great Falls for the day.

PROGNOSIS: NEGATIVE
The earliest I could get the car to be looked at by Honda near my place was Tuesday. You can't see me but I'm totally patting myself on the back for moving forward with my Bike To Work campaign before this happened. Honda didn't get a chance to look at it until 3:30...I received the call at 4.

Honda: Hello, may I speak to James?
Chief: That's me, what's the damage?
Honda: Well, sir...I don't know how to put this.
Chief: Give it me straight doc.
Honda: Have you been driving particularly hard recently?
Chief: Hmmm....No actually! I've been babying her since her last breakdown.
Honda: Well, you see...it looks like you need a new *long pause* motor.
Chief: Awesome! She's dead! That bitch has been nothing but trouble these past 7 years. She *is* dead right?
Honda: Yea. On a compression test, where the normal pressure is 150, none of your cylinders passed. One was 122, Two was 127, Four was 125, and Three wasn't compressing at all.
Chief: I'm looking at having to buy a new car or get this one repaired. How much would you fucksticks charge for this?
Honda: I can only estimate here: $800 for a new motor, $400-$500 for misc parts--
Chief: That's not too bad---
Honda: ...and about $2000 worth of labor

OH WTF
Well after the whole MR2 fiasco (entirely different story) and a bunch of other factors, I have come to loathe the idea of getting a car. Mr. 2 showed me that the so-called curse on my prelude wasn't so much a curse on the car as it was a curse on me, conveniently timed around December of every year. Secondly, is it me or are drivers in this area getting dumber...oh wait, they are. So anything I get is ultimately going to be destroyed by most likely my curse, myself, or a Maryland driver. Also, my biggest gripe with the MR2 was that I never had an opportunity to drive it like it should. Aside from driving habits, curses, and gas prices, the biggest reason I hate the idea of a new car is a new car payment. Debt is really my archnemisis; I fucking hate it and I carry none of it. If I can't afford to have something now, I shouldn't have it now (with the exception of equity and education).

So now I am again, sans auto, and again borrowing a car...this time from Maggie. Hopefully she hasn't read last year's post from when I borrowed the Porsche. I'm torn between getting a supermondo econobox (Toyota Yaris, Honda Fit, Nissan Versa) or getting a Mazda3 which now that everyone owns one, would be hilarious. So much for the promise I made to myself "No 4 door cars until your 35."

The Calm Before The Storm - 7/20/06

2006-09-12T21:54:00.000-04:00

Hopkins should be interesting this year. This fall, I'm taking Intermediate Dynamics:

Course topics include kinematics and dynamics of systems of particles and of rigid bodies, applications of the conservation equations, orbital motion, vibration theory, Lagrangian mechanics, gyroscopic motion, and Hamilton’s principle. The course is oriented toward a balance between classical theory and practical problem solving. Matlab is introduced and used as a computational and plotting tool throughout the course.

Dynamics was a class that was a total sophmore engineering weed out course. The Engineering Science and Mechanics department had a weekly tutor session with this TA who essentially explained out the assigned homework short of giving us the final answer. I started attending this session 3 weeks into it and after the first exams were handed back to all the sections, it grew from about 10 of us to about 30. By the end of the semester, it was about 50. Needless to say, I'm not looking forward to this one but it will serve as a good refresher.

Spring, I am super siced about. First we've got Kinematics and Dynamics of Robots:

This course introduces the basic concepts and tools used to analyze the kinematics and dynamics of robot manipulators. Topics include kinematic representations and transformations, positional and differential kinematics, singularity and workspace analysis, inverse and forward dynamics techniques, and trajectory planning and control.

Finally some actual robotics classes. Next is one not on my radar until this past month - Orthopedic Biomechanics:

This course is an introduction to the field of orthopedic biomechanics for the engineer. The course will cover the structure and function of the musculoskeletal system, including detailed discussions on the material properties of bone, ligament, tendon, cartilage, and muscle. Other topics of discussion will include viscoelasticity, bone remodeling, and injury mechanisms. Journal articles from the biomechanics literature will be used to explore current areas of active research.

I think it will totally help me in my whole Haptic Systems/Human Interface slant to my masters. It would also help me in what I'm thinking is my next masters: Physical Therapy. Hopefully by spring time, my mind will be adjusted enough to night classes that I can handle both. Classes start September 6th.

Cracks Knuckles Over Keyboard

2006-09-12T21:48:00.000-04:00

It's high time I knock a little dust off this blog. Prepare yourself, for I have no mercy for you.

Random Photoshop

2006-01-18T00:16:00.000-05:00

Following in Mike's footsteps.

Boiling Point

2005-11-07T21:33:00.000-05:00

It hasn't been easy living the life as an independant/moderate in America post Sept. 11, especially in D.C. My view is that partisan squabling burns american government worse than either party at the helm, especially when the arguements taken in context of say, 60 years, makes no difference whatsoever. The word "Bi-partisan success" in terms of bigger ticket issues gives me warm fuzzies...say like a ban against torture of persons held by the U.S.

Shame...
I remember the winter of '04 vividly; it was a time when America became my America...specifically, "What the fuck is my America doing?"British tabloids publish photos of detainees with bags over their heads and dogs being restrained at the U.S. occupied Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib. Stories were released detailing despicable acts to get information out of prisoners. Evidence was released showing earlier pentagon knowledge. It was a time that I remember thinking that this global war on extremism, just got another 10 years longer than the 10 years we anticipated. I remember thining "if the world didn't hate us enough already for invading Iraq." I remember thinking "these, are my countrymen." People all over the country, the world, denounced these actions, no matter what level of government it went up to, for the act in it self was deplorable.

Anger...
Then came the reports of the private jet liner, run by the CIA, flying Very Important Terrorists, to countries where torture was legal in act of "rendition." No pictures appeared, thankfully, and we were left to our government's word that no one was being tortured. The idea was to elevate the level of intimidation. "Hey, we can hand you over to your folks right now and have your right ball removed, or you could talk to us." Frankly, if this were the case, why not just blind fold the guy, do a few laps around the continental U.S. and land somewhere in the Arizona desert, and get a whole bunch of pakistanis to say they were in Pakistan and use the same arguement.

Fastforward to October '05....10/5/05 to be specific. Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) provision calling for a ban on torture was voted 90-9 to be included to a military spending bill. After such a "bipartisan" success, President Bush threatens to veto the bill because of the provision, arguing that it would "limit the president's ability as commander-in-chief to effectively carry out the war on terrorism." What? That just full blown ridiculous. Im sure once the public hears about this, the administration will change their stance.

November 2, 2005. Dana Priest reports for the Washington Post on a network of secret prisons located in Eastern Europe, Thailand, and Afghanistan used by the CIA to perform interogations on high profile terror suspects outside of U.S. borders.

I sometimes read the Whitehouse Briefing by Dan Froomkin on washpost, a blog that I find a bit slanted to the left, but the format is great with full quotes and hyperlinks to full transcripts and articles. Since the "black prison" article, there has been increased attention on the lobbying being carried out by the administration to keep the CIA exempt of the McCain anti-torture provision. I thought I might as well see what they have to say about it? Right? eh?

Full Blown Hate
The first page of today's Whitehouse Briefing had a few kick in the balls for me. You can read it for yourself, but when Bush, when posed the question that his administration was seeking an exemption for the CIA to the anti-torture provision, Bush, not denying this assertion, had the following to respond:

..."We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture.And, therefore, we're working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible -- more possible to do our job."

For a bunch of guys who make a big show to save one woman on a feeding tube, to "preserve the culture of life," "checking our shit" doesn't seem to be in their strategy. If the Vice President told me that torture was the only means, I'd say right back to them "That's all you got to save us? Raping prisoners with glow sticks?" I can see where the administration is going with this; say if we apprehended a suspect who knew about a plot to explode something big in a city in the next 24 hours, we should do anything and everything to stop it, which includes torture, if it will save the lives of countless americans.

Would we really be put in such a situation? Could the terrorists successfully craft a large bomb of some sort without anyone knowing, including their own? Is our color coded alert system, our heightened detection systems, higher awareness not good enough to prevent this scenerio from unfolding? And here is where I was going with this diatribe (philosophy and morality exluded); throw out the time aspect of this situation:

If a large threat was posed and had the high likelihood of succeeding that in the administration's eyes "warranted" torture, the government has already failed us twice over. First, the failure to identify the threat via intelligence beforehand. Secondly, compromising our values and becoming more like our enemies by lowering ourselves to torture.

As for the first, I'd say "WHY THE FUCK IS OUR GOD DAMN DEFENSE BUDGET SO HIGH AND OUR INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM STILL SUCK ASS?" (Yes, I know they are seperate budgets) The torture exclusion for the CIA screams that we are still chickens running around with our goddamn heads cut off in respect to intelligence activities post-9/11. If another successful terrorist attack did occur, don't you think they would hold a panel exactly like the 9/11 panel to find out where we failed and wouldn't the accountable sector of our government again be national intelligence? Or, given the unlikely ability of terrorists carrying out that quick a full blown attack without us knowing, then why do we run these black sites, why do we perform renditions? Signs point to torture. If we don't, then we'd better start explaining because that's what the rest of the world thinks.

Secondly, according to all the evangelicals, we're the moral authority of this world, that's one thing I'd like to agree with them on but hesitantly do not. Even having the option to torture shows that we are flexible in our morals. This not only creates more anti-american sentiment from our allies but increases the hatred of those who wish to harm us.

This war on terror (global extremism, whatever the fuck you want to call it) doesn't demand armies, it demands accurate and voluminous intelligence with succinct analysis without denigrating ourselves to what is universally unacceptable. In the past, everyday americans were asked to sacrifice for the greater good (well at least for WWII), to join the military, to save metal cans, etc etc. What we do today? Bitch about the housing market. If there was a greater cause to all this, it would be greater intelligence. Instead of calling for greater military recruitment, the government should create something like a clandestine civilian branch of the CIA. Train the crap out of people about languages, geography, culture, history of their assigned locations, have trained analysts at every location taking in the data. Throw so many americans out there that they are afraid to even breath the word jihad.

Or just do your goddamn homework and ixnay on the owstickglay.

I mean...Damn.

2005-11-02T21:48:00.000-05:00

My life is like a car on the highway with no brakes...I'm steerin but I can't pull over to take a piss. I really wish I could update this thing more, but between night grad class @ Hopkins, swimming, climbing, overtime, hanging out, and keeping it fucking real, it's hard to find the time to type out all the fun stuff that oozes from my brain and into my bran flakes every morning. Shit, look at my last post, it's dated September 22, 2005. I just published it tonight, Nov 2...and it starts out with "this entry has been in my PDA for 3 months" That means it's been poking around since...well JUNE.

It's funny sometimes. If you've never tried the RSS (real simple syndication) reader function of Mozilla Thunderbird, or any other RSS reader I highly recommend it. I use Thunderbird; not only does it tell you the minute someone posted something to their blog, it also allows you to subscribe to any news outlet with the little orange RSS box, where it gets funny sometimes, which was I guess the meaning of this post. I am now convinced that NASA/Wal-Mart or someone is scanning my brains and sending my thoughts to the media because by the time I think about something enough to write a post about it, some media agency goes and publishes something about it.

Let's go with a recent example. Since I first downloaded my entire collection of 5.7k songs onto my Uber-huge mp3 player, I've been frustrated with the absolute retardness of it's random number generator. The thing is that my mp3 player gets into "funks" in that it will play some song by artist X on album Y from the thousands of songs I have, play another random song, but return back to another song by artist X or from album Y...sometimes even playing the next track on the album. At first, I thought when I pressed the random button on the player, it would shuffle the songs, assign them new numbers, then randomize this new song ordering, like shuffling a shuffled deck. This was eliminated as a possibility pretty quickly after seeing song's assigned numbers in the entire queue a few times. So then I thought "this is fuckin absurd...out of 5700 songs, what is the probability that within 30 random songs, I would hit 5 songs out from the 4970s to 4990s range?" Then I started noticing concurrent "funks" where i would hear artist X, then artist Y, artist Z, then may be a few songs later I would hear songs from artists X and Y again (I've actually seen funks of 5 or 6 artists at a time, which can be quite frustrating when they are something like MC Hammer, Winger, M, and Mr. T when all you want are some chill tunes). So I started poking around, knowing that statistically, this random number generator was apparently performing magic (or sucking...I say tom-ay-to, you say toe-ma-toe). One of my climbing trips, I started poking my friend Abe's head for more info on his field of Alchemy/Comp Sci and how random numbers are generated knowing computers are dumber than crap and many random functions are based off of a digit of Pi (my one true love). He didn't remember too many functions but told me to look up stuff like Chaos math and the like. No later than a week after this exchange, Wired Magazine goes and publishes the article "My Ipod For A Random Playlist" This is seriously like the 7th time this has happened. After they publish it, I'm just like "yea...uh....what he said." Which makes for a wonderful blog article doesn't it.

It's not just with Wired...Jim Hoagland, I putting you on alert. You may be an extremely instightful and intelligent columnist, but stop stealing my publishable ideas.

Musicssss

2005-09-22T23:53:00.000-04:00

My god...this blog entry has been in my PDA for 3 months. Time to get it out.

Back before I put myself in the poor house, I set aside about $100 a month to buy me some new tunes. I figure some of them have to be good and if I don't like what I hear, I can at least discern what I don't like about it and then home in on better CDs.

So taking it from the top:

Lovage - Music To Make Love To Your Old Lady By
From the title of the album, you'd think this album was straight out of the Naked Music label, or expect it to be a bank of porn groove tracks, (which is probably why no one ever got it for me from my X-Mas wish list) but really, it's neither. It's just trip-hop, with some dirty-dirty talk in it. It was my most moistly anticipated album of this volley, because it had some of the first few songs that I was completely blown away by when I first started listening to LaunchCast in 2001 (well, that and it was on 6wk back-order). Hearing a few of the unheard songs kind of disappointed me a bit, but for every dumb "short" track, there is a fucking brilliant quintessential trip-hop song, and with 16 tracks, that ain't bad.

Thievery Corporation - The Cosmic Game
After hearing all of their previous albums, listening to their newest release, The Cosmic Game, one learns that these guys really like the words "__-national" and "Babylon." That and NPR loves Thievery. Like Outernational Sound in the previous order, Cosmic Game was my "Never heard any of it but can't go wrong with Thievery" purchase and I was right (which of course is always the case). Thievery embodies what I like most about Downbeat and Trip-Hop, and that is experimentation and collaboration with other artists to produce the next incredible groove. This album was no deviation working with artists from the trippy Flaming Lips to the much heralded David Byrne of Talking Heads fame, as well as many of the Thievery native vocalists from albums past. Regardless of the "never heard anything from it" situation, this album easily takes it's place as best album of this buying binge.

Miss Kitten - I Com
"You know Frank Sinatra?...he's dead....DEAD AHAHA!!" Ahh if only the FCC knew about our early morning public broadcasts. For most, this song is their only Ms. Kitten experience (actually, I'm in this class of listener...but Uno was fucking awesome), and I think if and when these people listen to her latest album, they might be a little disappointed. Where as Sinatra and Uno are Euro-Minimalist Techno (NOW ON SPROKETS WE DANCE) with little vocals, except when they are hilarious, I Com really shows off Kittens avant-garde (at least for America) style and let's her voice flow. People who like the previous songs for the comedic value will appreciate Requiem For A Hit; a song who's rhythm is derived completely from a guy saying "I'll Beat That Bitch With A Hit." There are some hard-hitting tracks like Meet Sue Be She and Soundtrack of Now but I think the album really shines with Kitten's vocal tracks Happy Violentine and Dub About Me.

Bebel Gilberto - Tanto Tempo
My immediate reaction to this album was "WHAT THE FUCK!?!?!" (as in WTF, STFU SNOW NOOB). Why the sudden fiery disdain for my love, Bebel? The first track is actually her singing along with Amon Tobin's Nova from his album Permutation. Then I looked and she coordinated with him on a few tracks, but this one was the only one pulled from Tobin's collection. The song is originally an instrumental fade out of his album Permutation; it opens this album to create a mixing of classical bassanova style with subtle electronic samples covered with a thick helping of hot/sultry smooth portugeuse vocals. Although this album doesn't have the immediate attention grabbing/listen for hours and hours value of her second self-entitled CD, Bebel Gilberto, it definitely is well worth the its value for tracks like Mais Feliz and Samba e Amor with Bebel's vocals in her native tongue taking center stage with jazz and downbeat samples.

Dzihan & Kamien - Gran Riserva
This was on of those "Hey, I've seen this album pop up on my LaunchCast station and in my Recommendations from Amazon.com" purchases. LaunchCast is incredible by the way. Anywho, since I rated the 4 songs I had heard from them positively, I thought I would take the plunge and get the album. But Alas poor urok, I knew my $10 well. There were some additional tracks I liked but for the most part, the rest of the album went a bit to far by gratingly distorting classic jazz instrumental tones (Ford Transit) and beat repetition (Sliding) by stirring in a few too many disco and house nuances you'd think came straight from a Ibiza club DJ trying out Jazz. Ok, so it was worth at least five of the 17 dollars it cost.

Previous Volley

Theivery Corporation - Outernational Sound
This may be a case of new music overload. With the purchase of Richest Man in Babylon, and its inherent quality, this album has gone relatively ignored after the first listen. It's like I hop in my car, say "Hey, how bout some Thievery" and automatically reach for the one I like better. But this album has got a lot of good stuff in it. I like how the one Porn Groove song on the album was aptly performed by group called "Crazy Penis". The best track in my mind is ReReturn of the Original Artform by Major Force. "SwEEeeeet-azzzz Funk". From this track, the album gently slides itself from the aforementioned sweetazz funk into East Asia suck, and closes on reggae with a decent remix of Richest Man In Babylon.

Thievery Corporation - Richest Man In Babylon
I really have no idea why I didn't get this CD sooner. Even after high ratings in my LaunchCast Station AND seeing them perform many of the songs live at the 9:30 club, I still hesitated. My only complaint (other than the annoying lyricist in From Creation) is that this album is much to short. It's runtime is something like 40 minutes. This is one of the google-plex reasons why I really think the music industry is such a racket. I always view CD purchases as price per minute, and when I can listen to an entire album during a commute home, I feel extremely short changed. All albums are NOT created equal. But I digress. Singer Emiliana Torrini leaves me continuously wanting more, especially in Heaven's Going to Burn Your Eyes, with her extremely cute singing style which makes me want to write Thievery and say "Keep her on Payroll or I'll come to the 18th Street Lounge with Hobo clothes under my metrosexual nipple bursting clothes and embarrass you pompous yuppie fucks. P.S. I love you."

Zero 7 - When It Falls
Thank god, their back. Zero 7 is one of those groups that always appears on those "ULTRA CHILLED TO THE MAX HARCORE STYLE AND IN YO FACE" compilations. These appearances are a few key tracks from their first album, Simple Things, which in all honesty, is one of the most soulful albums I have ever heard in my life. Their second album Another Late Night came up completely short, sucking most, if not all of my ass hair out, so I was a bit skeptical upon first hearing tracks from When It Falls. But Zero 7 pulled it off and came out with a return to my "groups I'm not going take a number 2 during one of their shows." It's still not up to code of Simple Things, but with tracks like Somersault and Passing By (to name a few) it is hard to say its anything less than "really good."

Waldeck - The Night Garden
Surprise! Another LaunchCast pick. I must say my taste for dark, brooding, trip-hop does not mean I have to like every group that sounds like Massive Attack. Waldeck is, after hearing this album, one of these artists, hiring a male vocalist that sounds a little too close to Massive's Horace Andy (ex. Slowly), and a female vocalist with equal sound abilities as Massive's Elizabeth Fraser. Let's see...Massive came out with a hit single called Angel, so let's make one called Fallen Angel (ok, I admit, this is a really money song). But shit, Waldeck even uses some of the same exact sound samples as Massive Attack. That being ranted, the latter half of the album is tasty trip-hop treat with Cat People Dub and Floater, but leaves little for aftertaste.

Less Than Jake - Losing Streak
This selection was purely for its nostalgic value in that I can remember a time when I had these tracks and they didn't skip. I initially ripped half of this album from an old hallmate of mine, Spencer, and since I had no idea what mp3s were at the time, I burned them and half of a Jimmie's Chicken Shack Live album to a piece of crap CD. There isn't a single CD in my collection that gets gentler treatment. So in a restoration effort, I added this to my monthly call for music out of the ether. If you aren't familiar, Less Than Jake was pretty big on the Ska/Ska-Punk scene, and this album was at their highest in creativity and quality. Anyone who sings a song about how Johnny Quest Thinks We're Sellouts is good in my book. I think it goes along with my whole humor based in all that is absurd.

Fatboy Slim - On The Floor At The Boutique
Yes, the album that caused unstoppable shouting of "DISCO DANCING" through a FunMic in Mike's Prelude. I gotta say that I appreciate the sheer amount of sound samples Fatboy must have in his collection, because each song is chalk full of crazy shit. The album puts out some sweet beats in this way, but on the other hand, being assaulted with all these simultaneous sounds detracts from the overall experience in two ways. 1) It makes a lot of the songs sound similar making repetitive sounds (mostly voice samples...see "Disco Dancing") act as the distinguishing factor between songs and 2) It makes complete song recollection even more difficult (i.e. play the tune over in my head and still maintain all of the instruments in proper coordination). Other than that, Fatboy put together a pretty high energy album with nearly flawless track to track mixing. Or may be he wrote it to be just one big song.

Tenacious D - Tenacious D
I can't think of a time that a CD, such as this, has touched me so deeply and lovingly such that my poopchute is 4 times as big after hearing it. This album is goddamn bliss in CD form. Jack Black, of School of Rock, Saving Silverman, Orange County, etc. fame and his guitarist Kyle Gass are complete experts in all that is rock styling history and use it to deliver their genious/madness comic routine. I have to say this is one of my favorite albums of all-fucking-time. They hold to no social ettiquite, asking for listeners to take shits on their chests, ponder how many times they can lift themselves off the ground with just their boner, and pay homage to the greatest song in the world that they can't remember. All of this wrapped up in rock that actually fuckin rocks. It's like they studied every single aspect of rock history, took all the typical rock styles, rifs, effects, build-ups, releases, and my favorite-rock screams. (Try Tribute: 2:59 elapsed time, one of the best I've ever heard). So yea, I'd totally do Jack Black.

Tonight, Jamie Takes On The Big Issues

2005-09-21T23:59:00.000-04:00

Ok so yea, I've got a bunch of "diary" entries to write but these things keep popping (or pooping) in my head. Tonight's first round goes to...

Katrina

2005-09-21T21:49:00.000-04:00

You expect a post of the government response? FUCK NO! Read about that shit on your own time. Let's think constructively, shall we?

Like all great ideas, this came to me in the bathroom:

NATIONAL
DRINK FOR HURRICANE RELIEF
NIGHT

One night in the whole year that you can actually justify drinking at a bar alone, or mean it when you say "I'm drinking to stop the dying," to say "Hey mom, my drinking isn't the problem; it's the solution." Essentially, we would have to send out an APB to all the bars in America (because all of them run the Booze line of Unix servers put out by Sun Microsystems) saying that "on (month) (day) we will be charging $1 more on each drink people buy which the entirety will go towards aid for Katrina."

Say the beer companies put this out a month in advance, you could get the PR machine all greased up and moving not to sell you on why you need a big pool in your backyard with 17, if not 18 bikini cladded women in it, but to mobilize people to come out, show some support by doing something they'd be doing anyway on the weekends: getting shloshed.

That would be some corporate gusto. Not only are you selling more beer that night, but you're also raising a shitload of money for people who need it. The fundamental question, "What can I do?" can be posed by corporations just as much it can be by a person to themselves.

Evolution

2005-09-21T21:30:00.000-04:00

After reading this article from the NY Times (registration required), I was left with a certain distaste in my mouth. That feeling you get when you come across a person who is so actively closed-minded that you actually want to throw up on the person. SO I figured I should throw my two cents in the mix.

The new debate on creationism (and it's gangly half-brother Intelligent Design) versus evolution has reached MONUMENTOUS levels of cultural clash that it received an entire week's worth of coverage by The Daily Show, the absolute Last Word in Journalism. A Gallup poll shows that 54% of Americans believe that we didn't evolve from previous species. But I can't help thinking that throughout this entire discussion, we've missed something. We've covered that whole "A higher power created us" thing and the "no one 'created' us" deal but we haven't covered the "I created us" side of the arguement. Scienctists push their idea of answering questions through theory and understanding of our natural world independant of god, creationists push their idea that god created man, but I am here to push on to you, the reader, that I am God and your existence is simply a result of a randomized algorithm for what I call my own experience. You may think you are alive, but you are simply a byproduct of thought processes of my subconscience, which in its self exists to keep me entertained by keeping me guessing. "A brain can't do that" well, I haven't seen my brain, in fact, I haven't even seen myself except for in a "mirror" so how can I be sure these aren't creations of my subsconscience? "Who created you?" Who created God? "But we are a figment of your imagination, your experience, then you are in fact, the creator, and therefore espousing to creationism, albeit a sick and twisted version of it" Well, I guess you could say that, but kids these days should be exposed to differing opinions, right? You could fairly say the same thing, that you are God and I exist only in your own experience.

Teaching evolution in high school biology just seems to me... consistent. Once you mix creators/designers/hair dressers in there, the biology class is knocked off course into theology and into what's worse (that I've shown here), philosophy.

NO ONE USURPS MY BLOG

2005-09-16T00:13:00.000-04:00

It's not dead....just resting. Now I will show you who what kind of a man you all are gathering behind:

Warren
Pronounciation: Warren, Owen, Woron, Waan, Waan-Waan-AssWaan, waan, ing,Wayne, One, Juan, Vaughn, Loren, Lauren, Tracy
Etymology: Estonian Whoren - tasty flesh, from old german Warrund - Baby Eating Monster.
1. chiefly British: a place legally authorized for keeping small game (as hare or pheasant)
2. an area where rabbits breed.
3. a maze of passage ways or cubbies
4. a. a city in Pennsylvania, U.S.A. b. A county in Ohio, U.S.A.
5. a. a North Carolina, U.S.A. based manufacturer of automotive engine lubricants. b. Warren Oil.
6. a. a Minnesota, U.S.A. based manufacturer of wood. b. Warren Wood
7. a a dam in the Nile River, Egypt to control area flooding. b. Aswan High Dam.
8. A style of mustache worn in during the civil war.
9. A lone gunman born in the arctic slowly making his way towards America determined to shoot you in your fucking face when you aren't looking...through your face...and stuff.

How conversations degenerate

2005-09-15T23:46:00.000-04:00

An email conversation with Drew, my blond haired arch-rival and nemisis.

Drew: Yea, they're building some vestibule between buildings.
Me: Vestibule? What, we're going to have a physics altar between buildings now?
Me: Well crap...looks like I was completely wrong on that definition (I used to work at a church when I was a kid)....and by completely wrong, I mean now I'm thinking you guys are installing definition 1.c from this:

http://www.webster.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?sourceid=Mozilla-search&va=vestibule

...
Drew: Man, who knew about 1.c. You were an altar boy? That explains a few things.
Me: No no. I was a secretary in the front office.
Drew: How'd you get that gig?
Me: They saw my genetic predisposition for paperwork...or may be it was to fulfill some kind of scripture.
(accusations fly of me sleeping with the staff)
Me: No no, my official title was Master Sensai and the priests always brought me the heads of the non-believers. Who knew you could behead someone just by reciting a few lines of the bible backwards.
Drew: Well, I don't have my Ninja to English translation book on me today, but I think I remember Sensai means "suckysucky", well congrats on achieving Master status in that arena, but ummm, most people wouldn't brag about that. Plus, I thought you trained "under" Master Baiter.
Me: Well you thought wrong brutha! In the Ninja to Catholic translation part of the bible, Sensai means "kicker of unholy ass" and "chewer of divine bubble gum" Then the church went all Religious Right on me and asked me to leave, saying that going around cutting off hippie's heads in the middle of the night with my band of priests wasn't part of their whole "culture of life" thing...Lamers.

Metaphysical Calculus

2005-06-27T16:09:00.000-04:00

Can there be a Delta Change? Change here meaning the the grander definition of the word, not of metal currency. Ok well may be not delta, which most of the time refers to the TIME-rate-of-change of the variable that follows it (Ex: Delta Chi is the change of cack over time). d-change would be a more accurate representation of this meandering, the differential change of change. I guess I can't remember if it is mathematically possible to have a differential value without a dependant variable. Change is entirely relative in that there has to be a beginning state and an after state. The dependant variable I guess could be anything: time, position, temperature, goat. Yes, d-change/d-goat...step aside Descartes.

But what if we used the standard meaning of Delta (as in change over time). So if it was Delta Change, then it would represent the rate of change OF changeover time. The equation would be:

change'(t) = (d-change/dt) change(t)

People often say "Life is always in a constant state of change." I'd argue that this assessment is only slightly wrong. Mathematically, if change was constant, then a time rate derivative of change would be zero, meaning that change is not changing over time. But if you take this historically, the rate of change of change seems almost geometric. The Dark Ages lasted x amount of years, The Renaissance lasted half that time, Colonialsm half of that, Industrialism, Information age and so on, each having greater amounts of change in each. Just think about all the forms of communication that have stemmed out in the past 10 years: first email and newsgroups, then web based discussion forums, then instant messenger, Blackberrys, blogs, wikis, etc. Gadgets are the same way. PDAs hit the scene in the late 90's and now they're seeing them headed to obsolesence in the next 3-4 years. This whole concept ofchange of change is almost like Moore's Law for human existence.

So what have we learned from this?
- Jamie really needs a hobby
- change(t)=2t
- The expression should be "Life s always in a constant RATE of change"
- Humans are going to have interesting lives when change is 16 times faster than it is now.
- Jamie has just wasted at least 3 minutes of your time that you could have spent travelling to your local cinema to watch Batman Begins again (or for the first time for you people terrified of your own dorky alter-ego)

Your Personal Information is our Job #2 or 3

2005-06-06T15:00:00.000-04:00

2005 will be known as "The Year of Botched Identity Data Security"

Seriously, let's take a look at the timeline here of the BIG losses, including today's:

February 2005: ChoicePoint (Personal Data Vendor): personal data for 145,000 (known, may be up to 500k) unsuspecting individuals stolen by hackers
February 2005: Bank Of America: data for 1.2 million charge card customers lost when computer back up tape lost in shipping accident
March 2005: LexisNexis (Personal Data Vendor): personal data for 310,000 (originally thought 32,000) unsuspecting individuals stolen by hackers
April 2005: Ameritrade: data for 200,000 personal accounts lost when computer back up tape lost in shipping by courier
May 2005: Wachovia AND Bank of America: Informed that data for 100,000 customers were stolen internally and sold to collection agencies
June 2005: CitiFinancial: data for 3.9 million customers lost when back up tape lost in shipping by UPS

Granted, the back up tapes were encrypted, but most of these incidents involved data not only including name and account information but DOB, mother's maiden name, social security numbers, linked accounts, and a shit ton of other info that is fodder for ID thefts or just thefts in general. ChoicePoint and LexisNexis, are data brokers, as in they got your skinny through other means and sell your information to people who like to fill in your mailbox with useless shit. So for the 455,000 people who's information got ganked, you got double-fucked. Thankfully, Congress has promised to look into this matter next year sometime.

I'm glad to see some progress being made by states changing their Drivers License#s to something other than your SSN, as well as colleges for their student ID numbers.

As stated on the Social Security Administration home page:

"You should treat your social security number as confidential information...Giving your number is voluntary even when you are asked for the number directly. If requested, you should ask:

Why your number is needed
How your number will be used
What happens if you refuse
What law requires you to give your number."

Thanks SSA!......."Way to go, kids!"

WTF Are They Saying:

2005-05-15T23:15:00.000-04:00

1) Family Guy - Opening Theme
- "...on which we used to Reeeeely.....________ is a Family Guy..."
2) Girls Gone Wild w/ The Man Show's Doug Stanhope Video Comercial
-Doug: "SHOW Us where babies feed."
-(shlut shows titties)
-Doug: "It's....It's ______" Natgil? Agil? Natral?

Any suggestions? Any other unintelligible quotes?

OMFG HAPPY B-DAY ALI!!!!!1!!!!one!!!

2005-05-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

Today serves as your 25th time you've been reminded your parents totally got their hot DJ freaky deeky on. :)

Updating the Updates

2005-05-05T22:04:00.000-04:00

Well the backlogs of updates have finally been flushed out. After linking all the posts below, I realized just how boring I have become. The posts below all talk about either 1) cars, 2) robots, 3) my completely offensive and overbearing beliefs, or 4) some complex permutation of the first three (example: my strict belief that everyone should experience robo-road head at some point in their life)

Why The Slow Down?
My company decided to start "monitoring" everyone's internet traffic to make sure we are using it according to our company policy. This is kind of a big deal when there are only about 30 people in your company using the internet. So not only can I not draft and post to my blog, I can't respond to comments on other people's blogs. So drafting has become a practice of typing notes into my PDA while waiting in line for lunch (it really is amazing at the difference in quality of posts when drafting on a monitor than to drafting on 2.5"x 2.5" screen). I have set up an "email post" address..but I haven't had the time to QA the process.

Blame Laura.
This deluge of back updates was somewhat of kick in the pants from her. (girl impersonating voice) "WHY HAVEN'T YOU UPDATED YOUR BLOG?! What the hell else am I going to read at work...the NEWS?" I thought about it for a while and I concurred...I get giddy as a school girl when my RSS reader shows me one of your guys's blogs have been updated.

Now that I'm all caught up, you can only yell at me for not having anything interesting to write about. In case you've missed em, here they are:

Moving on......moving on.
Carder.rr.rock climing.
Mechanical Engineering in D.C.: A Job Seekers Guide
Talk to people and they talk back? You lost me.
Daylight savings time sucks ass...
IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT, WHERE ARE WE GOIN?!?!?!
Ryan is Dr. Frankenstien
Club a Baby Seal Robot
2005 Edition of Getting To Know Your Friends
Uh oh...my sis found my blog....
"Who Are The Ad Wizards Who Came Up With This One:"
Yet another nail in the Dork Coffin
Stunted Blog Growth
Trust No One.
Fuck you ID3 Tags...
SWM Seeks SWF.
And The Winner is.... [Part 2]
And The Winner is.... [Part 1]
Time Magazine's Man of The Year: GOD
Christmas Puzzles
I Got Aural* While Driving My Brothers Alfa Romeo
A Taste of Italy
OK, Fess Up

And I deleted 11 drafts along the way. Damn, Diemos.

Wisconsin is starting to look pretty appealing.

2005-04-17T22:42:00.000-04:00

When I saw this little headline I thought of " 'Eat Bertha's Mussels' ... no that wasn't it... it was 'I love cats...they taste like chicken.' "

I really don't hate cats... I just enjoy the thought of punting angry cats through field goal uprights.

Moving on......moving on.

2005-04-07T22:40:00.000-04:00

I know you people have been looking forward to getting rid of this ugly visage, but it looks like you guys are stuck with me at least the fall of 2006. All letters of rejection to grad school are present and accounted for.

D'oh
I'm actually not that bummed about it. For one thing, I've pretty much been running on the notion that I won't be getting in since my application submission deadlines, but the biggest thing is that I no longer have that feeling of "I may not be here next year" which has been kind of a wedge in my sanity. Work has been funny: "James, you should start a 401k...." "uhm, not yet...I'm saving for, uhm, a new car." "James, you should get into the housing market...." "uhm, yea...still haven't bought that new car yet." "James, you haven't bought that car yet...." "uhm, yea...I'm saving up for a new...uhm....Escalade." May be that isn't the biggest thing, may be the biggest thing is that I have a job that I enjoy for a company that I'm really into. May be it's the fact that I am a stones throw from 85% of my friends and 80% of my direct family. Or may be it's because I live in the bondage capital of the world.

I, Pimpbot
Some may be asking "Wait, Grad school? What the hell would you do there?" Two words: Fuckin.....Robots. For those who don't really care or are afraid of big words, skip to the next section.

My real interst lies in the relationship between humans and mechanisms, and how the two can better society. My greatest interests lie in a few key subsets of Robotics (ok, Electro-Mechanical engineering). The first is Haptic Systems, which can basically be summarized into "force-feedback devices" Applications include hand steadying mechanisms for surgeons, teleoperation of machines, enhanced physical rehabilitation machines, and sweet platforms to play Wing Commander on. The second area is Advanced Prosthesis. With tougher materials, smaller processors, and advanced sensors, synthetic limbs are about to get a whole lot more complicated. And studying how the brain takes in information and hashes it out to create meaningful motion is some fascinating stuff. Then, I guess if I had too, I could work on surgical robotics.

Upbeat Bullshit
This isn't so much an end to my application process, just small bump in the road. That's one good thing about being obsessive....you always have back up plans, and back up plans to your back up plans. It gives me the chance to buy that piece of real estate I've been lookin at, or start that side business...you know, the research group whos aim is to define impact biomechanics of hamster structures in a plasma armature rail gun environment.

Carder.rr.rock climing.

2005-04-06T18:21:00.000-04:00

What has it been...7 years since I did any kind of outdoor climbing? The last time I went out was when Evan and I were part of the climbing club freshman year of college and we went to Bozoo, WV.

This time around, Sandy, Amy, and Brian invited me to meet them out in Carderock, MD to hit up the routes they have there. The weather was absolutely fantastic, so I skipped out of work early to avoid the Cluster Fuck known as the innerloop of the beltway. The Carderock climbing area is just a bit downstream from Great Falls on the Potomoc with half of the climbing area sitting right on the river and the other half about 50m inland. The parts next to the river are pretty cool with a section with a path that seems like it was some Eagle Scout project to give climbers a base to belay from and another section where you had to rappel down to the river to start your climb.

I've been told about the dicrepency between the difficulty of indoor climbing vs outdoor, but was initially put off by the absolute lack of huge florescent target hand holds and colored duct tape to direct my route. The first climb I did was a 5.5 (inclined away from me, very easy) and was completely lost with the complete lack of good handholds. So like a blind man in an orgy, I felt my way through. The first few routes were mostly mastering balance on the tiny nubbins the rock presents you; the little white protrusions on the rock face. It was crazy how my hands made for little use other than to maintain arm position while pushing up with my feet.

All-in-all a good trip, with no collapsed foreheads or angry mobs of hippies. It makes me want to bust out my old Climbing Anchors book along with all my gear and try some better rocks. Which reminds me: my rock climbing gym gives me 3 Guest-Gets-In-Free tickets per quarter, so if anyone would like to join me, you got my number. It's an assload of fun with a lot of good people.

Mechanical Engineering in D.C.: A Job Seekers Guide

2005-04-06T12:00:00.000-04:00

So you just graduated/got fired/quit your job because you were tired of doing everyone else's shit with no help from management, now what are you going to do? Although not being employed has some perks, like waking up at the crack of 2pm and walking around your house naked, you probably look into this whole career thing.

For a fledging Mechanical Engineer trying to get his start in the National Capital Region, finding work is a little....difficult...if you're not into the whole HVAC (Heating Ventilating & Air Conditioning) or construction thing. M.E.s with Thermo and Heat Transfer skills will find the NCR a very welcoming place, where as those with experience in machine design or controls will need to push a lot harder to find those jobs in those specialties.

A Note on Location
I want to begin by saying that limiting your search to one geographical location is extremely confining. There are "centers" in America for different things you want to do. Generally speaking, anything that needs a lot of land to do, will not be located anywhere near a city. Airplanes are built in the desert for a reason. When you think of big cities, think of "desk job" with a little bit of a disconnect from the final product (except in HVAC or Construction).

Given this problem with search confinement, some circumstances can require you to confine your search. Perhaps you're married/engaged, or may be all of your friends ended up in one spot, or simply you love the smell of your local cat food factory, but the biggest confinement issue is money. You simply can't just pick up and move to a new city that is big into your specialty with no cash while you are unemployed, the risk is huge. Another kicker is that employers aren't really into hiring someone who is unemployed from outside of their zone of influence. They'd really prefer not to pay relocation expenses or take a hit in the PR department for not bolstering the local economy by hiring an outsider.

So You're Stuck Here!
The National Capital Region isn't all that bad. My distaste for its job market is only because I was a mid-summer graduate (read: out of hiring season graduate) smack in the middle of the most recent recession, resulting in 6 months of unemployment, taking a job that left a bad taste in my mouth for 8, then another 4 of unemployment. Most people wouldn't talk to you if you were an M.E. without a top secret security clearance. But things are much better. The NCR's economy is one of the fastest growing ones in the nation and since it is heavily government, one of the most stable.

Good Enough For Government Work.
If you are one of those people who says "I will never work for the government" the NCR probably is not a good fit for you if you are an engineer. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of companies here who don't contract to the government, but when it boils down to it, the biggest industry here IS government. You can either work for it directly or be a contractor.

Where's The Meat?
Ok, so I've been bumbling on enough about background information that I could go on and on about like that time I...ok, I'll stop. Your question is HOW HOW HOW? Well I'll tell what worked to improve my odds in my search. The theme here is to reach a point where you are not the only one looking for you for a job.

1 - Network
Everyone tells you to do it, so I'll keep this short. Find a friend of a friend of a friend of your mom...whatever. Just talk to people. I highly recommend getting into a trade association like American Society for Mechanical Engineers because they usually hold local meetings with lots of time before and after to talk.
2 - Job Site Whore
This is the meat. Put down those classifieds you found in the paper...they are near useless to you. Buying spots in the classifieds now isn't all that cost effective for the advertising company, so when they do, you know their desperate. Not only that, but hundreds of upperclass twits are looking at them too, so it might be hotly contested over. No the Intarweb is where it's at, and you need to set up an aggressive "ME, baby, ME" marketing scheme.
---2.1: Internet Sites. This was my observed ranking among internet job sites for the D.C. area based on volume of jobs and which companies used them.

1) www.monster.com
2) www.careerbuilder.com
3) www.usajobs.com
4) www.washingtonjobs.com
5) www.hotjobs.com
6) www.dice.com
7) www.flipdog.com
8) www.thingamajob.com
9) www.hirehealth.com

---2.2 Resume Whore. We all have several interests and abilities within our field, but we only have one resume. Glory to this is that each of these sites allow multiple resumes to be listed in their database. Have different resumes to target different industries.
---2.3 Getting those clicks. Premium access puts your name at the top of searches but who knows how effective that is. It could just scream "Desperate". Make creative titles for each of your multiple resumes on each of these sites like "Fluid Mechanics Engineer" or "Control Systems Engineer". Me? I am big on Robotics. "Robotics Engineer" "Electro-Mechanical Engineer" "C4IS Engineer" (learn buzzwords to the industry as well) The header is everything to your resume. Mine usually had the title with "(1yr Exp.)" tacked on at the end. The resume should also be taylored to the title with the relevant experience for that field at the top. Also related to my buzzword comment, go to big time company sites and search their databases for job titles.
---2.4 Persistance. A lot of these sites have tracking information like how many times your resume appeared in search results, or how many views you got. Keep tabs of names your resumes and experiment with the effectiveness of the words you put in the header. I rotated mine every week and a half to two weeks. But here is another key: Visit every site, every day, and hit that "update resume" or "post resume" or "reconstitute resume" because many times, search results come up with names listed by how recently active a resume is. People don't want to see that this resume has been up for 5 weeks, they'll assume you're not looking anymore. Assume the same about job listings this old on these sites as well.
---2.4 Give it up for everyone... Almost everyone. Any midsize to big company will have internet job application/resume database sites. Give them your resume. Where do you find a listing of the bigwigs for the area? The Washington Posts: Post 200 is an excellent source for this.

3 - "Here I am using my own brain like a sucker"
There are a lot of opportunities to work on a Contract basis with companies. Companies usually ask an engineering recruiting firm to find them a candidate to work on projects for a set amount of time. This allows the employer to avoid all the work it requires to set up a new employee (set up benefits, pay roll, etc.), then subsequently terminating the employee after the end of the job (which requires a hefty amount of work), and just pays the recruiting firm X amount of dollars for the contracted amount of time. I got about 6 offers during the economic slump for contract work (4 of which were in Tennessee). The good thing about contract work is they pay you a higher pay rate because you have to pay for your own healthcare provider. So these recruiters find candidates in two ways 1) Pulling from their own resume database pool, 2) Pulling from sites listed above. Find recruiters and register in their databases to maximize your exposure (Google terms: engineering, recruiter, contract). What are they getting out of it? For every hour you work, they get a piece of your soul/paycheck/babymaker.

Another good thing about these recruiters is that they not only find contract work for you, they can also find you a "contract-to-hire" job. This would mean you would do work for company X for the contracted time (getting paid through the recruiter), and at the end of the assignment (if they liked you) you would be hired full time by company X. I had the best luck (and granted, the only one I registered with) with Aerotek, Inc.

4 - Publish That Shiz!
Now I never got to far with this, but I know a few people who have. Set up your professional website. Put your multiple resumes up and google-ize the shit out of it. Put buzzwords in your metatags, put up examples of your work. You are no longer confined by the borders of those stuffy websites I listed above...but by all means, don't put any info in there that could be used for identity theft like middle names. Phone numbers and email are alright, but set up a temp email address because spambots will probably pick up your "mailto:" link and sign you up for every penis pump catalog out there.

I think that about covers it. I invite anyone who actually IS in the HR business to say "yes this is good", "You could try this also", or "no this is all wrong...no wonder you were unemployed for so long."

Talk to people and they talk back? You lost me.

2005-04-05T22:30:00.000-04:00

For a year now, I've been going to the same rock climbing gym and essentially doing the same work out. Do a few laps along the base of the tall climbs to warm up, then boulder for an hour.

Recently, I few of my bouldering friends challenged me to put on a harness and climb some walls, and surprise! it's a completely different workout. Of course, for the past few weeks, they've been razzin me for being such a wimp. Thankfully, tonight, a big group of their friends came out to provide me with some cover. (That and I totally sended my first 5.10a)

After a good 2 hours of raggin on each other (we all found out that the majority of us were engineers), we partook in the age old ritual of post-climbing drinking and waitress harrassment. One of the guys told this gem (fitting for a bar full of engineers other than us):

Four engineers were sitting around one day trying to figure out what kind of engineer he would be given the design of the human body.

The first guy says, "I think he might be a Mechanical Engineer, because of joints and muscle and sense of balance." The other three nodded their heads and said, "Yeah, could be."

The second guy said, "I think he might be an Electrical Engineer, because of the nervous system and neural network." The other three nodded their heads and said, "Yeah, could be."

The third fellow said, "I think he might be a Chemical Engineer, because of hormonal balances and metabolism." The other three nodded their heads and said, "Yeah, could be."

The fourth fellow snaps his fingers and shouts out, "I know, he HAD to have been a Civil engineer!" The other three ask "Why?"

"Well,who else would put a waste water drainage right through a recreational area?"

Zing!

Daylight savings time sucks ass...

2005-04-04T23:04:00.000-04:00

...but I wouldn't know. My weekend seemed to absorb it rather well. Weekend times are only measured by how long until the store or bar closes. So instead of the standard "Oh fuck, I'm losing an hour of sleep" thing, I was more like "Oh fuck, Different Strokes, usually aired at 2am Sunday morning, won't be playing this weekend."

As I laid in bed, I thought to myself "Welcome to my world, rest of the world" and didn't sleep.

"I am Jamie's smirking antipathy."

IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT, WHERE ARE WE GOIN?!?!?!

2005-04-03T23:21:00.000-04:00

WE'RE GOING TO SAFEWAY MUTHA FUCKA!!

No seriously, this was THE event of the weekend. Safeway's Grand Re-Opening at Panam Shopping center. It's about friggin time. I mean I had to suffer the indignity of shopping at GIANT of all places...Jesus H. Tits.

Having Safeway open was killer. When Safeway was open, I would eat out occasionally, but ever since they closed and we have been in the new house, I've let Betsy get entirely too comfortable with the amount of space she is taking in the refrigerator and particularly the freezer...the location of my Delta Ops Pizza Squadron. Joining the ranks are a Digiorno Thin Crust Supreme, a Quadra-cheese Freshetta, 4 tactical Red Baron Supremes, and a Calfornia BBQ Chicken to bolster morale.

My fleet has formed around the frozen peas....you'd better watch your frozen-flour-behind Betsy :)

Ryan is Dr. Frankenstien

2005-03-31T20:27:00.000-05:00

And I am I-Gor. My Prelude is back from thee deeaad...and HOLY CRAAAP. He took it upon himself to give me the gift of chiseling out my catalytic converter.

We declared this past weekend "fix your car at my house" day. The bro brought over the Alfa to do his brake pads, ryan pulled up my 'lude to work on the cat, and I replaced my brake rotors. Ok, so it was more like "everyone come over and help Jamie repair his cars with the option to work on your own". Regardless of monicker, apparently, this type of activity is frowned upon by the homeowners association which we found out after I was covered in myriad of brake gunks and Ryan drove off in the lude without an entire exhaust system (RrRRrrRrrRRrrrrr). I was apologetic and introduced myself, reaching out for the air-handshake...they extended 4 Spatën Optimators and said only "don't ever do this again."

Well I still got the valve cover gasket to replace...may be if I fix that, they'll give me 4 Delirium Tremens's.

Club a Baby Seal Robot

2005-03-11T16:04:00.000-05:00

Paro, the robotic baby seal, was developed to decrease loneliness of elderly cooped up in retirement communities in Japan.

Apparently, 2005 is the "unofficial year of the robot" for Japan, with widespread adoption of synthetic replacements of all kinds of things in Japan. Seeing eye robots, "get me a beer" robot (also known as the wife robot), secretary robot (also know as the "damn, now who am I supposed to cheat on my wife with" robot), and of course, the cute cuddly favorite of most Japanese kids, the lawn-mowing robot. The consumer robot craze over there has created such an industry that the government started a special commission on developing safety guidelines on consumer interactive robots.

Sounds like a shit load of fun to design. The States isn't lagging behind too much in "the year of the robot" but the scope of our robotic development is limited to mostly military functions.

2005 Edition of Getting To Know Your Friends

2005-03-03T18:08:00.000-05:00

This was originally a chain email from Mrs. Shelly. I figure instead of forwarding it, I might as well post it on me blog. Arr.

----------------------------------------------------
1. What time did you get up this Morning? At the crack of 1pm.
2. Diamonds or pearls? Given their superior molecular strucuture, I'd have to go with Diamonds. They double as bling and superior cutting material.
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Constantine. The movie Mike forgot to add to his weekly update after KATSUCON.
4. What is your favorite TV show? Spider-man cartoon circa the 1990's. I would slit people's throats if they interupted me. Kram-man and JoeJoe know what I'm talkin about.
5. What do you have for breakfast? A premium blend of complex carbohydrates, amino acids, and vitamins I like to call my "diboxyl riboflava-pops" breakfast. I think you might call them "Berry Berry Kix"
6. What is your middle name(s)? Since this on the internet, I won't put this down...but it's so cool that I share it with my good friend Shipwreck Navaro.
7. What is your favorite cuisine? I'm sure Zebra Cakes do not qualify for "cuisine" status, so I'll go with Italian. I'm sure I run on a constant .23 BPPC (Blood Pizza/Pasta Count).
8. What foods do you dislike? Anything cooked by women. The delicious flavor just screams "WE COOK BETTER THAN YOU...NOW IT'S MIND CONTROL TIME."
9. What is your favorite CD at the moment? This is a tough one. Is "at the moment" defined as today? This minute? Because it really does depend on what second of the day it is. I'd say it's pretty chill while I type, so Kruder & Dorfmeister - The K&D Sessions.
10. What kind of car do you drive? '94 Toyota MR2, or what I like to call "A fly on the American SUV windshield."
11. Favorite sandwich? Philly Cheese Steaks; I eat those like candy bars. And they make a wonderful deoderant.
12. What characteristics do you despise? Closed mindedness. Life is a learning process. Never believe you or any institution are completely right even for a second.
13. Favorite item of clothing? My Toyota MR2. It's sleek, form fitting, and doesn't make my butt look big. My new speedo jammer nuthugger is a close second. After two drag suits splitting down the front center, I figure the gaurds seeing my junk is nothing new.
14. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Summertime: Explore the many countries of Europe. My new targets are Ireland, Sweden, and Austria. But I'd have to stop in and say hi to my German and Italian peeps. Winter: Anywhere I can go Glacier Skiing.
15. What color is your bathroom? Duck Turd Green and white.
16. Favorite brand of clothing? Anything that doesn't make me a walking billboard to the manufacturing company.
17. Where would you retire to? The Bedroom? The Den? Retirement isn't something I'm expecting.
18. Favorite time of day? 10:30am post-coffee dump time. Toilet paper is an underutilized corporate benefit.
19. What was your most memorable birthday? I'd have to go with the stereotype here and say my 21st. There simply isn't anything like waking up in your bathroom in a puddle of your own vomit, only to find out that someone had slipped you 3 shots of Bacardi 151 at the end of the evening to get you there.
20. Where were you born? McDonalds on Rte 50. I'm fuckin serious.
21. Favorite sport to watch? College Ice Hockey. It simply doesn't get any better.
22. What fabric softener do you use? Hey, I'm not that gullible. First you tell me about some miracle product that makes fabrics soft, then you'll say that there is an equally amazing product that somehow eliminates my clothes from fading. I'm not buying.
23. Coke or Pepsi? Coke. They don't have butt-ass annoying commercials.
24. Are you a morning person Or night owl? Night owl...I prefer the taste of field mice to that of Foldgers Crystals.
25. What is your shoe size? 46 EUR...whatever that is.
26. Do you have a pet? No. For good reason. If I had a cat, I'd engineer a window slingshot and use it as ammo as I play pirate ship ala Monty Python's Meaning of Life with the neighbors across the street. If I had a dog, I'm sure it would have to be a dog with no legs so it wouldn't bother Mikey.
27. Who do you least expect to send this back to you? Bryce Dallas Howard.
28. Person you expect to send it back first? Teletran One.

Uh oh...my sis found my blog....

2005-03-02T21:54:00.000-05:00

Hi Jamie,

I just started looking through your blog-- it's very entertaining so far! In the spirit of awful advertising, here's a poster outside a fitness center near my apartment. :)

Now that's getting right to the point.

BOOOM!

2005-02-04T14:26:00.000-05:00

From WIRED 8.08: Heard the One About the Rocket Car?

An excellent read for anyone who tinkers. It, like my writing, is long winded and goes into a bit too much detail, but unlike my writing, it's friggin hilarious.

"Who Are The Ad Wizards Who Came Up With This One:"

2005-02-02T15:40:00.000-05:00

I found this in a search on the ThomasRegister for ceramic screws. I can't put my finger on it, but this company logo creeps me out. May be for two reasons.
1) It's a Nut Jockey.
2) The image of the owners sitting around thinking up logos and one stepped up and said "Look, it's a guy....riding a bolt like a horse. It shows that our screws are the fastest."

Yet another nail in the Dork Coffin

2005-01-26T22:32:00.000-05:00

Amon Tobin (of 4-Ton MANtis fame) has written a soundtrack for the up and coming Splinter Cell game for Xbox. Gamespot.com interviewed him. Full Text

I was losing my shit when I read this:

Gamespot: "... Were there Ninja Tune fans at Ubisoft who were familiar with your work and lobbying on your behalf?"

Amon Tobin: Oh, sure. Definitely. There were a surprising amount of people. I guess. Computer programmers and nerds in general is my demographic right now.

NERDS!! [points at self...and waan...and mikey...and john]

Stunted Blog Growth

2005-01-26T20:17:00.000-05:00

Ok, so you're going to have to bear with me. Chaos has besmirched the past 4 fortnights, but I have been able to maintain a list of drafts detailing all of the events. Unfortunately, I'm still not out of the thick of things, and my "Saved As Draft" list is getting larger and larger.

My main motivation in holding back, even the stories that HAVE been completed is that I wanted to publish them in chronological order and keep the dates straight for when I show this to my kids and say, "This is why Daddy drinks, not because you cry." But seriously, for me, whenever I come upon someone's blog, I'm always like "What's the newest headline?" and if it is old, then I move on to the next internet pit-stop. You, the reader, are justifying my existence by reading this tripe bullshit, and the thought of publishing something about myself that you haven't read, frankly, keeps me up at night.

So this is The Official NEW STUFF BELOW THIS LINE, I SWEAR post. Anything between this and "The New Car Search" is ripe for the taking/judging. My count shows 16 drafts.

Sincerely,
Governor Fuck-Head

Published Jan. 26, 2005. First Drafted Jan. 10, 2005. Hooray Turn-over.

Trust No One.

2005-01-15T22:39:00.000-05:00

You know, if it's not one thing, it's another. What is today? January 15th. What does this mean to you? Probably nothing, but to me? It's application deadline time baby.

AND WHERE....are the letters of recommendations from my professors?

THEY'RE AT HOME....WASHING THEIR TIGHTS!

No seriously. Last years application process came to a screeching halt because I didn't have a second academic recommender. This year, that was one of the first things I secured. This year, I talked with both of them extensively about my interests including why certain programs interested me. I talked with them about how to maximize my potential of getting in. And here we are, game time, and they haven't mustered up to their promise, even after several reminders.

My sister says I may not be too fucked, but that I'm still kinda fucked. I can kind of understand why the professors were late. One is starting up a robotics research lab and the other is starting up a small company to supply the navy with active sound insulating ear plugs. But still. I'm fucked.

My old boss, Chris, came through in spades though. Not only did he come through by the deadline, he also wrote an amazing letter of recommendation. Such amounts of high praise coming from him meant a lot. My work at (INSERT CELL PHONE MANUFACTURER HERE) was one of the two most shaping experiences of my life, and I have Chris and Tom (my mentor) to thank for it. But that's an entirely different 3-4 page blog post.

Fuck you ID3 Tags...

2005-01-09T20:08:00.000-05:00

you're sucktitude knows no bounds.

If you have ever discussed music with me you would know about my extensive collection of albums. I started backing them up for a few reasons. The first? Since the birth of CDs in the early 80s, the CD manufacturing industry has done nothing to increase a CD's durability despite advancements in material sciences. See those things they are selling now to put over your CDs to protect them from scratching? You should be asking why this material isn't already on the disc? The second, unfortunately, was seeing Mike's entire collection get ganked from under our noses thanks to the wonderful invention, the CD binder; an invention we all must use when the majority of your listening experience is in your car.

In order to keep my music regardless of these two possibilities of destruction, I decided to move my collection to a more durable media: the MP3. And of course, this transition had to be done in a completely anal and quality oriented way as per the jamie norm.

I started this transition back in 1999, and what I soon found out was how completely suck ass the CDDB was at the time. People would enter in things like '[[MetallicA]] - Ride_The_Lightning' or 'L337 |-|@XX0|2 - I pwned the cddb'. I set my naming standard as - - .mp3. So the process was scan -- CDDB -- rip -- de-l337 file names and put into standard form -- place in genre folder. But the l33tness remained in the ID3 tags, the meta-data standard for MP3s and what would show in winamp's playlist. So instead of cleaning the tags, I just deleted them.

Fate is rarely on my side on small endevours such as this. It turns out, most portable players, in-dash head-units, etc. all rely on these tags. I discovered this after getting a Creative ZenTouch 40GB for Christmas. Not only does it dump all of your MP3s into a single folder on its tiny hard drive, it also only reads files by id3 tag. So not only was my naming standard moot, so was my by-genre directory structure.

My only wish was to have my entire music collection at my fingertips while driving my car. It seems that won't be happening until I write a program to populate the id3 tags for each of my kabillion songs.

It's been hilarious researching ID3 tags and mp3 file structure. A little digging I found that an integer value represents the genre of the song. Genres ranging from "Fast Fusion" to "Porn Groove" but this is priceless: Genre code 108 represents the genre "Primus."

This just reaffirms that Les Cleypool is the lynchpin of our society.

(for mike: The company that identifies music by audio content instead of track length etc.)

SWM Seeks SWF.

2005-01-03T16:47:00.000-05:00

Single White Male seeks Single Working Female to marry to exploit marriage law/Tax Code. Must meet with lawyers for pre-nuptial aggreement for no shared income. Appearance and personality are not disqualifiers. Can sleep with other men, be on "extended travel", and exit from agreement at anytime.

The debate rages on blurring lines between dogma and law, or what I what I like to call it: Lawgma. Or Dogamalaw.

Congrats.
Before starting this tirade, I'd like to extend a hearty congrats to the states that voted to ban gay marriage or unions, bigotry has now regained political legitimacy in America.

The sanctity of it all.
This is a joke right? Protect? The Sanctity? of Marriage? Can someone explain this to me? We want a constitutional amendment to "protect the sanctity of marriage," to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman?

Sanctity? I think we are overlooking a few abhorent problems in American Marriage.
1) Divorce Rate hovering around 50%. Of the half that do stay together, how many are couples who have legitimate reasons to divorce but can't because their religion prohibits it? And of the half that doesn't stay together, how many seperated couples rethink "yea, we probably could have worked through it"?
2) Highest amount of Annulments in the entire world. For those who aren't catholic, Annulments are essentially "recognized" divorces, allowing for the seperated person to legitimately remarry by the catholic church, because catholics aren't allowed to get divorces. Annulments can be granted on grounds of impotence, the refusal of a spouse to have children, and psychological immaturity when they tied the knot. Conveniently, annulments handed out by American dioceses make up 2/3's of the annulments granted in the entire world.
3) Let's not forget about Adultery. Once, a male dominated field of expertise, men and women cheat on each other in almost equal amounts. Adultery is the antithesis of marriage and to see that it is more prevalent today shows a greater disregard of the vows taken during marriage.

And this institution (regardless of issuing religion) is somehow STILL sanctimonious? "Fuck you Jamie, guess what, we've got problems yes, but we don't want to add even more problems to this shaky institution."

Ok, I'm always up for logical discussion, let's say we amend the U.S. Constitution to include these definitions...this "protection." Done. Oh but wait, since we have set precedence to protect this institution, and we have not, by any means, done as much as we can. Divorce is out of control and is eroding this institution. We should make a constitutional amendment to iradicate it. Husband beating you? Oh....sorry.

Oh but if we banned divorces, another dire consequence would be an elimination of an entire legal industry as well as mid-day TV entertainment. Let't change it to, say, slapping the 2 people with new (and huge) "failure in judgement" fines. On top of that, since infidelity is one of (if not the top) reason for divorce, let's fine (or even jail!) the people who sleep with married people and call them "homewrecker" fines / sentences.

And we could create and amendment putting a requirement on length of courtship. If you haven't dated for 2.5 years, you can't get married. The possibilities are limitless!

"Jamie, what you are suggesting would not be allowed to happen." Well of course not, because my suggestions, although tempting, are a bit outlandish. But my point with these examples is that an amendment to define or protect marriage sets a slippery legal precedence. Not only are you ignoring the most threatening problems to marriage today (divorce, et al), you are asking the government to do more of what so many in this country want less of: Regulating your life. "We don't want the government in our wallets, but I definitely want them dictating our social morals and virtues." "We're willing to bend our (and others) values as long as you leave more money in our pockets." That's fabulous.

But what we all are overlooking in this national (and I stress national) discussion is the main ingredient of marriage: Love. To claim that we, humanity, know exactly how love behaves is extremely egotistical. Writers from all different time periods and all different walks of life show just how unpredictable love is and how it affects us. And I figure that if more couples legitimately love each other, the better off we all will be.

Marriage is a religios entity just as much as it is a legal entity, and justice is supposed to be blind. 100 years ago, white's couldn't marry blacks; before then it was considered "unnatural"and "untraditional." The tradition arguement is an easy fall back. Tradition was to have kings and queens, surfs, and slaves. Tradition before 1776 was not to have freedom. Tradition was to get around by horse and carriage. Tradition was to interact with people face to face only. We are a society of revolutionists. This arguement is only used because we repress our urge to say "Let's write an amendment because fags wierd me out!" Once tradition is left out of the equation, the only thing left is religious law, which has no right in being involved in a "free from religious persecution" society. The fight for marriage is a religious battle, the fight for a societal and legal recognition of love is one of unbiased and universal reasoning.

God I sound like such a hippie.

And The Winner is.... [Part 2]

2004-12-29T23:32:00.000-05:00

For the past 2 weeks, I've been scouring the online classifieds for a black (or red), '95 (or '94), Normally Aspirated, unmodded Toyota MR2 T-Top within 250 miles of D.C. (yea, I really am this picky). Since the recent chilly weather, the Alfa has been acting a little peculiar, and I'd rather my brother experience the performance of its first winter in his ownership. This being the case, I had to hasten my search and therefore be a little more flexible in my requirements. I found this little gem on autotrader.com.

I've actually had my eye on it for the past week. When it first came up in my search, I wrote it off because it was green, but after getting more information on it, I couldn't have found one in better condition this close to D.C. A '94 Dark Green NA Toyota MR2 T-Top with a clean bill of health from both CarFax.com and Autocheck.com. The only hitch? It's in Pittsburg, PA. At first I thought "no prob!" when that couldn't be further from the truth logistically. First, I have to test drive and inspect it. Second, I have to have an independant professional inspect it. Third, I need a car to drive up to PA. And fourth, I need to drive said car back to D.C.

Fortunately for me, my dad has taken off all of this week for the holidays and volunteered to be the return car driver.

We started out early this morning, and drove 4.5 hours to Canonsburg, PA. On our arrival to the used car dealer, I walked in, said who I was, asked for the keys, and drove off (without even presenting ID) with the car to the nearest Toyota dealer who I had an appointment with. They performed their 130 point inspection and found that there were only a few minor oil seals (surprise!) that needed to be replaced.

Then it was my turn to inspect the car. Having as many accidents and mechanical failures as I have had in my Prelude, I've become sort of an automobile forensic scientist. From the pictures the dealer sent me before I came up, I thought I was going to need to do a little sprucing up with the interior, but that turns out not to be the case. The seats in the pics looked very sun bleached and somewhat stained and upon looking at them I thought the dealer should invest in a better digital camera. The seats and the interior were remarkable for a non-parish owned '94. It even had the OEM radio from Toyota with the "LOUD" button. The paint I was very suspicious of from seeing it both in the pictures and up close. The color is a deep dark green, but it is a little sparkly (kind of like crest sparkle if you remember it) giving me the impression that this was not the original paint job. Under the hood, it was the same color, a good sign, so I checked underneath the passenger side door to see if it was as well, and sure enough, it was. If it wasn't original, it was done extremely well so I didn't mind that much. [Edit from the FUTURE] I later found out this color was one of two colors with the Toyota "Pearl" designation. These Pearl colors were the only two colors that were Clear Coated (makes colors last A LOT longer). There were very few blemishes in the paint and the bigger ones were on the front bumper. The exposed yellowish plastic of the front bumper and extremely slight warpage gave me the "aftermarket shit" taste in my mouth, and when I got down to look closer I could see that the radiator has a big ole dent in it, telling me this car had been in a minor front collision. Bargaining power. The rest of the body was in tip top shape; no evidence of frame damage/repairs, no dings or dents, and no irregular body seams.

But what about the Oil, Magellan? For you just joining us, my Prelude's oil burning power is why the price of crude is so high right now. 2 quarts per 12 gallons of gas. A-mazing. This at least gave me the knowledge of what to look for in the engine. I opened up the engine compartment to find.....oil. BUT. From the pattern I was seeing, it was from a one time event as opposed to oil refill after oil refill. The oiled area was rather large on the block, very dusty brown, and didn't show signs of the ceramic coating flaking off, so my guess is that they left the oil cap off one time a while back, and just didn't clean it off the engine block. Aside from this puddle, the engine looked pretty tight.

After taking the long way back to the dealer, and deciding that I had to have this car, I sat down with the dealer and started haggling. And by haggling I mean cry about how I drove 250 miles to see a car with a few problems. After agreeing on a price, we started processing the paperwork when who should walk in? A cute girl there to see the MR2. (HAha! IT'S MINE BIATCH!) She was looking all over for MR2's to test drive. We all discussed how hard they were to find and she asked if I could drive her around in it (THAT'S RIGHT, IT'S MINE) and of course, being the gentleman that I am (MINE...BACK OFF) I did. During the drive, I was amazed at how knowledgable she was of the MR2 (She had read her history as well). She said she was looking for a yellow one (probably the rarest of the rare MR2s) to replace her sports car her recently-exhusband (yea, she was like 27) was awarded in the settlement. So... cute, loves sports cars, has knowledge of a pretty niche car, recently single through divorce, and talking to me voluntarily!?!? (GET THE FUCK OUT, IT'S MY GOD DAMN CAR....OUT OUT OUT....MINE MINE MINE) Line up sister.

My dad and I left the dealer at 5pm and headed back home. 11 damn hours in a car in one day. Many thanks to my dad, I'm sure he wants to kill me at this point.

And The Winner is.... [Part 1]

2004-12-29T23:17:00.000-05:00

The Toyota MR2 Mark 2 (Normally Aspirated)!

My brother owned a Mark 1 MR2 and to this day, he still raves about it. He got his up to 192k miles with almost no major repairs until a lady driving a Suburban had an epileptic seizure and ran over the passenger side of the car, killing the car and thankfully, not my bro. He took me driving in it whenever I visited him and the things it could do. He'd take sharp 90 degree turns at 50, through it into second, whip the tail into a controlled spin, and shoot out the other side without even wincing.

Not that I'll be doing any of that. I've just loved the Mark 2 MR2 ever since it came out, the only thing I had to overcome was buying a used car again (They stopped selling MR2s here in the U.S. in 1995.5). The "used" car thing was itching me for a while, but given my position in life (grad school or no grad school), I didn't want to deal with a long term loan as well as lose an assload of it in depreciation the minute I drove it off the lot. Given Toyota's reputation for durability I can somewhat stomach no warranty.

I guess that, and I would be completely eliminating the option of having a back seat. And storage capacity. But at this point in the game, I'm not ready for a "pratical" solution to my lack-of-car problem. I'll call it my quarter-life crisis purchase. That's the buzz term right?

Anyway, the MR2 has got some quality history behind it too. A lot of car enthusiests view it as one of the classic cars to come out of the past 2 decades. MR2 officially stands for "Mid-Engine Runabout 2-wheel drive." A lot of people don't like "runabout;" I guess the word is too Star Trekkian, so they replace it with "Rear wheel drive." It isn't called MR2 every where it's sold, in particular France (which immediately came to mind). If you say the letters in French it is "Em-Air-deux" which is entirely too close to the languages word "merdieu" meaning "shitty." The MR2 graced the United States from 1984-1995, with the Mk2 coming out in '91. Since it came off the U.S. shelf, it was beefed the hell out of in British and Japanese markets (god I'm jealous). But the origins of the MR2 are what really strikes me as interesting. It was long rumored that the MK1 MR2 was an old design by the English SuperCar designer/manufacturer, Lotus, under the project name of the x100. When GM (I vomitted when I found this fact out) bought Lotus, relationships that were in place between Toyota and Lotus were severed, and the x100 project scrapped. Toyota eventually picked up the design, did its process optimization thing (Damn Kanban), and WHAMMY, the MR2 arrived. But this was not entirely true. Lotus, the engineering powerhouse, did not give the x100 project to Toyota, but lotus engineers designed-wait for it- the MR2s insane suspension (as well as oversaw the MR2s overall design).

Even if the entire car wasn't designed by Lotus engineers, the resemblence between the MR2 Mk1 and the X100 are striking, as well as, and I know Ryan will disagree with me, the MK2 resembling the Elise.

Time Magazine's Man of The Year: GOD

2004-12-27T11:28:00.000-05:00

One thing's for sure, he sure has been talked about enough. God and prayer have reached mainstream media status. Frankly, when I see a constant headlines like "Man survives Tsunami on raft, Prayer" on CNN, Tabloid cover stories like "The Ultimate Prayer Healing Issue", I think it just cheapens faith all around.

The thing that grabbed my guff was how much the recent presidential candidates talked about "their relationship with the almighty." It's absolutely fascinating how a country could go from completely fearing the influence of a religious body to requiring an open "relationship" with the christian god. When John Kerry came out and said "I'm a Roman Catholic" blah blah blah, I thought back to my mom who told me about how everyone in America was fearing voting for JFK because he was a R.C. and the possibility of him answering not to the American people but to the Vatican.

To me, seperating politics and religion is an obvious thing. Terms like "Greasy Politician," "Can't bullshit a bullshitter," "in industry's pocket", "Clinton" come rushing to my mind. "But Jamie, we can set a new standard of politicians, ones that are so morally rightous." Save it. Would I want God intermixed in a scandals like watergate? The cuban missle crisis? I don't want my politicians saying "we need to build more nuclear weapons" and run on the God bandwagon. I imagine Truman saying "May God bless every man, woman, and child I'm bombing in Hiroshima"

For friends of mine, this must look like from left field because they can say that I am not a religous person. I guess that this is a fair judgement since I do not participate in religious norms and activities. But this is somewhat of a misconception, with reason behind this is key: I don't advertise. Why? Because I can see (and have seen) the evil in "spreading the word."

Sunday school is an interesting place. The ongoing development of kids to do the right thing, to be good people, to be god's humble servants. Once you get old enough to understand death, you raise your hand and you ask "Where am I going when I die."
"Because you're X, you'll go to heaven."
"Where will my friend Craig go? He's Y?" This is always when you see the shortcomings of sunday school teachers...
"You mean to tell me Craig won't be there? He's my best friend?"
"He goes somewhere else." And why? He picked wrong, or his parents started him wrong. After all the lessons, the memorization, the coloring, you mean to tell me that I am required to be better than someone? What about this whole humble thing? The pride being a deadly sin thing?

But the "somewhere else" reply is a fun one to interpret. One way to look at it: Regardless of how moral you are, we are all going to somebodies hell.

It doesn't matter how you cut it, some religion, sect, denomination, cult, or what have you has you slated for an eternity of damnation for a belief that you hold, some value you asribe to, some action you've taken, not being part of the judge's religion, or simply because of the geographical location of your birthplace. Shit, tons of people are going to Jerry Falwell's hell, I know that for a fact.

But if all people of faith who are good and follow their religion exactly get into the pearly gates, then why is my religion better to study than little Craig's if it doesn't matter in the end? I could wear condoms in other religions and still get in.

It's been a struggle these past few months.

Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church came out and told me that if I voted for someone who was not pro-life or was pro-stem cell research than I would not be able to take communion and thereby forfeit a ride to the pearly gates at the end of my life. They of course rescinded these comments a week later. After this controversy, before election day, my church decided to take a less aggressive stance, but ultimately say the same thing, to support the less evil candidate, to only partake in "material cooperation with evil."

The above statement and politicians stronger embrace and showmanship of religion, have left my mind in a moral tailspin. A conflict of Common Law, a code developed even before America to govern all, and Religious Dogma, a code to govern people of faith. Where Common Law and some of religous beliefs are based on Universal Truths. Killing hurts people, stealing hurts people. Easy stuff. Now I'm being told that if I don't help my religions dogma become common law, I could be blocked from entering heaven, when I know people in other religions (or with no religion) in america, good people, don't believe in the same dogma. So we're right and law should state we are right? Where do we get the nerve telling other people that they are completely wrong when our judgements are based on that which is unknown (i.e. faith). Where do other people get the nerve to tell us we're wrong?

"Religion is a good thing...taken in moderation" ~Coleman - Trading Places

Christmas Puzzles

2004-12-26T21:47:00.000-05:00

I was talking to one of my co-worker's girlfriends at my Christmas party, and I outed the information that I was raised matholic. She burst out into laughter because she, much to my surprise, was raised by a math teacher and a math professor. I told her about my family's tradition of mathematical Christmas gift tagging and she emailed me this:

Chocolate Math

Original Message:

This is pretty neat how it works out.

This is cool chocolate math!!!!!!!

DON'T CHEAT BY SCROLLING DOWN FIRST!

It takes less than a minute......Work this out as you read.

Be sure you don't read the bottom until you've worked it out! This is not one of those waste of time things, it's fun.

1. First of all, pick the number of times a week that you would like to have chocolate. (try for more than once but less than 10)
2. Multiply this number by 2 (Just to be bold)
3. Add 5. (for Sunday)
4. Multiply it by 50 I'll wait while you get the calculator................
5. If you have already had your birthday this year add 1754.... If you haven't, add 1753.
6. Now subtract the four digit year that you were born.

You should have a three digit number.
-The first digit of this was your original number (i.e., how many times you want to have chocolate each week).
-The next two numbers are ........ YOUR AGE!

When I read this, I was doing this:

C (# of "chocolate times")
2C
2C + 5
100C + 250 [= 50 x (2C + 5) ]
100C + 2004 {add the 1754)
100C + (2004 - BY) (BY = birth year)
2004 - BY = Age, and 100C shifts the digit C over by two places.

It was hilarious because she also attached her parent's reply to this email, which was identical to mine except for the variable names.

You didn't know about my parents mean way of labeling Christmas presents every year?
Normal kids get tags like "To: Bobby, From: Mom"; my siblings and I got tags like "1F2A". Yes, hexadecimal folks, and then after you deciphered your hex, you would have to be able figure out which numbers corresponded to your gifts (ex. divided evenly by the number you are in the order of birth [So I would be 3 for born 3rd]). But this was only one years puzzle.

Why would we have these sick math problems?
I guess learning and shit, but I think it went more like this. After I got wind that the notion of the jolly old fat man was an outright lie, my parents started putting out our Christmas gifts on Christmas eve with no tags so we couldn't tell who's presents were who's, and therefore make it impossible to cheat and find out if you got that "Johnny Exploding Head" you asked for. And if you tried sneaking a peak at a suspected present, you have the possibility of opening someone else's present, and that would be rude.

I worked around their tomfoolery that year. They underestimated how knowledgable I was on the items I was receiving and had successfully rounded up the majority of the unwrapped boxes that were mine into a corner that night. The leftovers were left to figure out, which I guess is another premise on to this coniving little game..."If you want to open all of your presents, you'll have to figure out the code."

I guess like all things in life, once someone figures out an exploit of a system, that system must be overhauled to make the honest people's (my sibs) lives miserable with more layers of complexity. But my sibs and I usually had the cipher by the time my parents got out of bed Christmas morning. I had a knack for identifying what was in a box so I concentrated on dividing the pile into three smaller ones with gifts I hypothesized were to be someones. My bro and my sis have a knack for math and patterns (I'm more fond of shiny objects) so once my sensory opinion was made, they would track patterns in the letters, numbers, or symbols that were on each tag.

My parents war with my sensory ability didn't stop there. To prevent the packaging geometry/shape cues, they wrapped my presents in bigger sweater boxes to confuse mine with people who legitimately received sweaters. That didn't work because I usually found away to rattle the package to hear what's in side. Vibrations of different materials are extremely telling. Shake a CD case or slide it around a cardboard box...you can tell if it is a CD because of that distinct ABS plastic lid clacking sound. DVDs are even easier. What also helped was the fact that the only person asking for sweaters was my sister, as well as squeezing a box full of tissue paper felt very different to squeezing a box containing a sweater. Tactile cues were easy, but another great auditory cue was the travel time to impact. Tilt something from side to side, and you can get a pretty basic idea of the geometry of the sliding object inside.

As we grow older, the more boring our tastes become in gifts. "What's this?" (shake shake shake) "Well, it's in an envelope so it's a check. Ooo, what are you?" (bend) (shake) "You sound like nothing, therefore you are a book. And we all asked for books." The a priori information is significantly decreased when we all ask for books, cds, dvds. "Ooo, this CD clacking sounds like that Goldfrapp album I asked for" So some years, it boils down to trial and error.

This year was pretty tough because not only did our request lack any sensory cues, the cipher was history based instead of math. Each gift had a label with a historical name on it (some from complete left field) and the century to which this figure was born would indicate who the present was for. 1700's - My Sis, 1800's - My Bro, and 1900's - Me.

I'll have to think up some creative gift requests for next year.

I Got Aural* While Driving My Brothers Alfa Romeo

2004-12-19T22:13:00.000-05:00

I really fell into my groove with driving the Alfa Romeo. Up until the commute home today, I had yet to even press the power button of the CD player, oh but when I did....oh man.

I've always had a thing for female vocalists, from Kitty to Portishead. (Contrary to what some of my friends say, liking female vocalists does not necessitate not having a penis or an affinity for gay man love**) Tie this in with my Downtempo kick I've been on for the past few years and my return to Jazz and Blues music thanks to my extended stay in Chicago in dickity-ought-three and you get a picture of a guy who defines mello...when that couldn't be further from the truth :)

Anyway.
My brother had left a gem from his personal collection waiting to be spun in the CD player. What came out was a medley of an upbeat jazz rhthym, classical jazz instrumentation with a slight twist of downtempo and triphop effects, and topped off with the alluring vocals of Bebel Gilberto from her self entitled album. I couldn't describe her voice to do it justice, but in some of her tracks, she sang in some language that was not english, spanish, or italian, but it was absolutely enthralling.

At the end of my commute home, I googled her. It's funny to see how things can be so interrelated and still have them feel like they came from left field. Bebel Gilberto actually did some work with one of my favorite downbeat bands, Thievery Corporation, as well as worked on a few tracks with Deee-lite's DJ Towa Tei. She's also a native Brazillian, home of Bossanova (Brazillian Jazz) and that crazy language that Ryan breakdance fights to, Portuguese.

*Joke credits to Warren's WUVT away message
** How can you be straight and not think Deee-Lite's Lady Miss Kier is smokin.

A Taste of Italy

2004-12-18T23:49:00.000-05:00

More Good News:
Today I had a HUUGE blowout in the Porsche. I was on the outerloop of the beltway just passing over the Springfield interchange, when the back left tire of the Porsche exploded. I pulled over immediatly, which happened to be on the overpass of I95 on the Beltway, and realized I couldn't be in a tougher place. If I walked towards Van Dorn, I would have to cross 95N-onto-495 on ramp traffic, If I walked towards Braddock, I would have to cross 495-onto-95S off ramp traffic. Or I could have waited 2 hours for AAA. All of this to inflate the spare.

But something great happened. I had about 4 of the lugnuts off when the CVS roadside assistance van pulled up. Now this is community service. The guy came out, an impact wrench in one hand and an airpump in the other and got me rolling in less than 10 minutes. Turns out the vans are part of the "Samaritan Program" run by CVS, whos aim is to help the general public along motorways, and it's completely free. To me, this is going above and beyond what I would expect from any company, so CVS has earned my deep seeded respect and owe them my business and graditude.

Fast forward the day a little bit - The Bro gets the call. "You killed my Porsche?! Just kiddin. I'll come by tonight and trade you the Alfa Romeo for the Porsche." Might as well drive all of his exotic cars, right? Here's a pic of an Alfa Romeo Spider.

The Bro arrived and we headed out to teach me how to drive the Alpha Rodeo.

The A-Rod definitely requires a distinctly different mindset while driving. Where the Porsche is the "Leave everyone behind you" the Alfa is "No one can stop me from sitting back and enjoying the ride." But the Alfa comes with some quirks, ones that leave me more nervous than with the Porshe (partly due to the feeling that The Bro prefers the A-R over the P). First and foremost is the transmission. First gear must be shifted into no faster than 4 seconds, lest you bring on the grindies. Since the Spider has been out (I think since the early 60's) it has only gone through 3 model upgrades. Therefore the manual recommends to downshift only occasionally and when you do, to double-clutch. The clutch itself is pretty tight, and again I am left realizing my clutch on my 'lude is toast. The shift assembly is rather unique as well. Over the years, A.R. engineers concluded that it is much more ergonomic to have the shifter protruding out of the dash center console. The idea is that the most comfortable position is your hands at 10 & 2 and with the shifter being only 8 or 9 inches to the right of this position (as opposed to 8-9" right, and 10" down on the floor). The next hurdle was getting used to not having power steering. This was the first car I've ever driven without power steering and I have to say it is a shocker. You absolutely have to get the car moving before you can turn the wheel. You can forget about any sub-10mph maneuvers. Also, grooves or bumps running slightly non-parallel to your lane can actually push your steering in that direction.

The next lesson was how to fit our 6'4"+ frames in the car. We both laughed at how strange it must look with both of us in this tiny car. Since it is winter time, the hard top has been installed, encouraging us taller glasses of water to slouch a little to gain us some head room. Next was the simple fact that the car was so low to the ground. The hood of the car barely gets to my mid-thigh. Next was the pedal cluster. The distance between the clutch and the brake was fine, but the distance between the brake and the accelerator was just ridiculous. The pedal is located a little more than an inch away from the wall, and the brake is about a half an inch away from the accelerator. This requires one to remove their right shoe to drive.

Quirky, but oh so classy. Quirks are some of the most lovable aspects in a relationship. They are what make people unique. I just have to get beyond my first few date jitters.

OK, Fess Up

2004-12-17T16:43:00.000-05:00

I'm convinced that one of us in our circle of friends writes for The Onion. These two "In the News" side headlines appeared no less than 2 weeks apart, and somehow they seemed to have struck a chord in 3 of our groups jokes.

The Evidence:

My bets are on Warren. He threw that Columbo gag in there to make me think it was Kramer.

The New Car Search

2004-12-07T15:10:00.000-05:00

My mind has been a flutter for the past few days about what car I should get. Although I'm 25 and society wants me to grow up, I will try and stay true to a promise made to myself years ago not to get a 4 door car until I reached 35. The problem is: I'm picky as hell. Here's how.

The OH-NOES!!:

Korean made: (ex. Kia, Hyuandai) Reason - shitty mechanical parts, good warranty. What good is a car if it is always in the shop?
American made: (GM, Chrysler, et al) Reason - perpetuating the english standard of measurement. Their failure to advance engineering as a whole and lack of applying engineering ethics is deplorable. Ex. Chrysler transmissions - "hey to save some $$$, let's use last years transmission design that is 10 yrs old and breaks all the time."
Volvo: Reason - Too mature looking for me. They just recently started making coupes in the past 6 yrs and carry a hefty price tag.
Mercedes: $$$ You've got to be the Count of Monte Cristo to afford these. They actually have a line of cars in Europe called the A-Series, that is cheaper and marketed towards younger (read: less rich) people than their normal customers. Coupes are ~$30k+ used.
Cadillac: I'm not that old or pimpin at this point in my life.

Realisticly eliminated:

Ford Focus Coupe SVT: New. Ford has actually impressed me with the Focus. Their first successful paradigm shift interms of keeping up with the Japanese in manufacturing efficiency. Combine that with the SVT race engineering/innovation branch of Ford and we have ourselves an American candidate. Unfortunately, their reliability sucks ass (although improving through the years).
Honda Prelude Type SH: 2001. An impressive car to say the least, but its fundamental flaw is that it carries the name Prelude. Although the curse that my car bears is a bit of an extreme, I've heard a lot of bad Prelude stories from pretty much every owner I've ever encountered. It doesn't help that most Honda mechanics will tell you straight away that Preludes simply just bong oil in their later years....all generations, not just mine. Sounds like a little bit of the American car manufacturer mentality got into the Hondas.
Honda Accord Coupe: New. The car that replaced the Prelude as the heir to the Honda non-roadster sports car throne. All 5 generations of Preludes were built off of the accord frame, and throughout those years there was always an Accord Coupe. It was deemed the "Not Exciting Prelude" because of its lower power to weight ratio and its conservative exterior design.
Acura RSX: Slightly Used. Suffers from the same affliction that many tall girls suffer from: Disproportionate Ass Syndrome. I mean, the ass is HUGE, but not Corvette Huge Ass HUGE. Other than that, it essentially has the body of a 4 door, but the designers thought that making the ass bigger and the door longer, and not calling it a sport sedan was a good idea. The Type S classification saddens me because unlike the original Type R class, this is just another line item package you can opt for when buying the car, and NOT completely maximizing every drive system with Acura engineer tested and approved performance parts.
Acura Integra: Used. With the Ricer population being as big as it is, I don't want to drive the one car that is considered the lynchpin of their community.

My list of options:

Unrealisticly Wanted:

Nissan 350Z: 2003. Even used, financing would require paying an assload for 60mo...but oh my god. The innovation in subsystem design is incredible, and hot dam is it sexy.
Toyota Supra MK4: 1996. They stopped making them in 1998 And the used ones still go for entirely too much. '98s can still run you as much as a new 350Z. But I gotta have some incentive for Ryan to come over and butt hump me right?
Honda S2000: 2002. Honda made this their only sports car when they retired the Prelude in 2001. When it first came out, it was said that the S2000 engine was the most efficient non-diesel engine ever produced, and could beat the Porsche Boxter (whoopie! you've beaten the woman's Porsche). I've sat in a BMW Z3 and a Mazda Miata...both were a little...snug. Oil me up and peel back the sunroof for some Jimbo Sardines.

Most Likely:

Subaru RS: 1999. Frankly, I think the American WRX is an ugly stick slap in the face to what the pre-2000 Japanese version once was. In particular making it a 4 door car, but I can't argue with its under-the-hood design. A dealer told me that you could get a valve timing chip to up the horsepower by 100hp, and that they had to dumb down the performance for the US version because of some regulation. Must be the "Not Allowed to Out-Muscle and American Gas Guzzling Shitbox Muscle Car" regulation. Back to my point, Suburus are awesome cars. All wheel drive and turbo (or supercharged) standard on all models are killer selling points. The second best Subaru ever made in my opinion was the RS coupe. It's not as aggressive as the WRX, but its somewhat unassuming appearance and impressive performance gives it character.
Toyota MR2 MkII: 1994-1995. One of my first purchases in my youth with my $0.25 allowance was my first matchbox car: A black Toyota MR2 MKI...and it was beast. I totally put lowering springs and performance shocks on it, and man did it handle through those little orange turns. Nah, but really. I remember when the MKII series came out and just being amazed at it's metamorphosis. My bro had MKI that he introduced me to at 50mph around 90degree turns. Utterly amazing. They say that the 94-95s are less "tail crazy" than all MR2 predecessors, and given my luck, I'll home in on the version that has the least potential of killing me every December.
Mazda RX-7: 1994-1996. I've got one word, and one word only: Wankel. The trick with the rotary engine is that it is extremely difficult to seal the different volumes from each other during operation (controlled explosions is the name of the game in combustion engines). I'm impressed by the very fact that Mazda has stuck to its guns this long with a different technology other than the standard 4 stroke engine. Still researching maintenance costs on this one.

Don't Be Shocked But.... (I'm also considering some 4 doors)

Mazda3s: New. I can overlook the fact that this car was once the Protege (even tho IMO the Mazda Protege 5 was pretty hot). The 3 is a little bigger, but more stylized and with more power than its previous Service Pack. A whole bunch of us spent a day race driving these suckers around the FedEx Field parking lots in last summer's Mazda Challenge. Not a bad drive. Although I've only driven the automatic, I'm not exactly enthused about it's low end torque...or its suspension for that matter. Even in the beefed up suspension race models we drove during the challenge, we still only experienced handling comparable to my Prelude. Still, for a 4door econobox, it's pretty smokin.

BMW 323i: 2000. Yes, I know they are expensive to maintain, but many owners say that although repairs costs are higher than other cars, the rate at which you need to repair is lower compared to other brands. The 300 series is sleek (read: HOT), somewhat peppy, and it's a friggin BMW. I can atleast give the ladies a false impression that I'm loaded.

Other Considerations:
The Chrysler K-Car
The Dodge Omni
The Hummer H2: New. Actually no. Fuck you, your kids fuckin soccer team, and the fucking Tank you call the "Family Vehicle." Be sure to check off the "Armor Plating Option" for all of those roadside soccer balls that you might be hit by.

The Autopsy

2004-12-06T15:10:00.000-05:00

This morning I woke up with one thought on my mind: Man, my transmission is FUCKED! It turns out the guy signing in Sunday morning "arrivals" of my nature, is collecting all 5 generations of the prelude (They actually started making the Prelude in 1979), and he needed a 4th Generation (mine). I told him to wait until I get a diagnosis to see if I was going to sell it.

At work today, I get a call on the celly from FairFUXMEINTHEASS Honda telling me that they started looking at it at 6 this morning and still haven't determined what was going on. He started listing off what they had found wrong:

All of your spark plugs are fried and are coated with some kind of mixture of what we think is oil and anti-freeze but your head gasket isn't blown.

Since it would be too expensive to actually look at, we are pretty sure your valves are coated in the same crap and a few of them might actually have been bent in the process.

After a compression test, we found that number 3 cylinder was not maintaining pressure and could be indicative of a blown piston seal or ring - we don't know.

Your check engine light came on at some point and turned off again before we started it to and it shows that one of your cylinders wasn't getting enough air or too much air (hooray for data analysis right? I could have programmed that in assembly in 5 minutes)

Your transmission and clutch actually look fine. It's just we can't get the car above 3000rpm even up on the lift.

Since green team can't figure out what's wrong with it, we had our best mechanic start looking at it.

4:50pm roles around: "Hey Mr. P, uh, well, our best mechanic still doesn't have an answer. There is about 5 of us helping him out, and we still can't find the problem. We'll keep you posted.

Awesome. 5:30pm: Ok, we got it. Your catalytic converter is broken. It appears that who ever did your timing belt job last (Billy Craft Honda, Lynchburg, VA) missed the timing by just a little bit which caused oil to seep into the cylinder when it was igniting causing carbon and not so burned oil to build up in your CAT. This build up eventually lead to pieces of the CAT to break and obstruct flow from the exhaust port of your engine. So let me read off what you're gonna need done:

Get a new catalytic converter

Get new heat shields for the CAT because the last ones are toast

Replace heat shields that are inbetween the exhaust manifold and the catalytic converter

150,000 mile service. We'll replace the bad spark plugs, put in new drive belts, adjust your timing belt CORRECTLY, and clean out the valves and check them for proper shape

Your cam seal is leaking and will have to be replaced.

And the grand total is: $2131.00

Not too bad actually. I was expecting upper threes. Looks like I gotta get a tow truck and tow this guy back to my place.

If you're calling about the missing Egg Legs,

2004-12-05T16:12:00.000-05:00

Then you'd better check this shit out:

I can't figure out which is more hilirious about this pic - the guys face that says "I would crush you all if this thing could only walk down the stairs of this stage" or the prancing ?female? who is obviously strung out on some kind Japanese Meth-Cocaine-Bacon-Gasoline drug hybrid.

The full press release can be found here. Check out the DJ ROBOT on page 3.

Porsche Mania

2004-12-05T15:06:00.000-05:00

The key epitomizes it all. Since my car is FUXXORED, I asked my bro if I could borrow one of his 17 cars, and he hands me this key. If you have any soul in your body you would recognize the pewter emblem dangling from the single key (ok ok, you people who don't know it is a Porsche have souls too). In awe I looked at him, thinking to myself "this it! My right of passage into manhood"...a single key to the insane family sportscar. There are no house keys on the ring, no gym locker keys littering any of its circular real estate. No. This key is for one thing, and one thing only: Driving. With it, there is no soccer practice, no groceries to bear, no flip down tv with DVDs running, no "I'm too busy to drive cuz I'm retarded and talking on the cell phone". None of that cat crap.

But then he took the key away :-) He did so in order to demonstrate what I was dealing with. We drove out to Pope's Head Road (one of our favorite rat racing spots) and while doing so, my brother gave the history of Porsche, Porsche Engineering mentality, Porsche Racing mentality, and made it clear that I had a duty to maintain the dignity inherent to the car. First, only Ferraris are allowed to pass you. Second, you probably won't be able to take too many people off the line, but you'll smoke 'em in the end because Porsche's are designed to be race cars, not shitbox rice rocket dragsters. Third, when trying to pick up ladies in the car, be sure to to turn down the blasting phat german techno beats before talking to them.

It's actually a 1987.5 Porsche 944 Turbo, one of the best ever made, and when it was my turn to drive, this was extremely apparent. My brother played down its off the line acceleration, but then again, I drive a shitbox Prelude; what would I know. The real fun kicks in with the suspension...it simply...does....not....move. No matter how fast you are going or how aggressive your raceline through the corner is. Once your midway through that corner, you punch the gas and the Turbo slingshots you out of it. The highways are pretty fun too. When you drive stick, you develop kind of a shift timing during certain situations. "on ramp: 3 seconds - shift to 2nd gear, 3 seconds - shift to 3rd gear" etc. Doing this with the Porsche results in you entering the highway and shifting into 5th at 90mph (did I mention 90mph is at top-center of the speedometer? 55 is a quarter of the total gage). 5th gear is reserved for 85+.

With great fear of destroying something so wonderful, I dropped my bro off and the Porsche drove me home. I have no F^ckin clue how I'm going to be able to shop for a new car.

Jamie: "Man this piece of junk is slow."
Sales Douche: "Sir, this is the fastest model in its class according to this year's Motortrend AND Car And Driver."
Jamie: "Ok ok, I'm sorry. May be I shouldn't have put it so harshly. So how much are you charging for this shitbox again?"

The Car that just wasn't meant to be

2004-12-04T15:06:00.000-05:00

My car has always had...issues. I always think of it as an evil voodoo curse. The first day off the lot, the battery completely died; 5-6 months later is when the curse took on its first incarnation: repairs. Apparently the dealer who sold it to me did such a good job of steam cleaning my engine that oil leaks where completely impossoble to determine. After a ton of gasket replacing, a few tune ups, and a few other LARGE repairs, it stopped leaving spots on the driveway.
Then came the second, more costly, incarnation: accidents. Apparently the car's red color and size indicates to morons "BULLSEYE." 4 out of the 5 major incidents were caused by someone elses negligence. Negligecting to check mirrors, neglecting to notice that I hadn't moved at a stop sign, neglecting to hang up the cell and notice I hadn't moved, and...hmmm what am I forgetting...oh yea, neglecting to have a dead tree cut down after a hurricane before the next storm.

After reviewing my maintenence record spreadsheet, a trend appears...big things happen in December. This December it seems, to be no different.

On my way back from Tech tonight I had a little "trouble." Why was I going home from Tech when we just won the ACC Championship? Laura's b-day party that had promises of punch and pie (and a crazy good time), that's why. So I make my leave and notice something that I've run into in the past: the Prelude having difficulties getting up steep inclines (the car used to be a crazy hill climber...just ask Mtn Lake Rd). This time around it was getting to be a bit more appparent.

The symptoms? First, it gradually slowed down going up hills. Shifting to a lower gear didn't help at all. Second, after a while of going uphill, it started feeling like the car stutters/lurches; like someone is tapping the break pretty hard and pretty quick. But before tonight, it was only going up the big mountainn before the Blacksburg exit off of 81. This time it was any hill. If I kept my speed above 82mph, it wouldn't have a problem. If it dropped below, it would gradually have more difficulty getting back up to this speed and hills just compounded the problem.

Finally, after following a slow ass truck onto I66, it started happening. The thing just couldn't go faster than 65. Then 55. Then 45. At this point, my only motivation was to get it as far as possible to reduce the towing mileage...well, and not get myself run over by a semi. These two convictions came colliding at exit 24. Continuing on at 45mph was going to turn me and my tiny red prelude into one of those red lane divider reflectors. Once exited, the car couldn't accelerate to save its life, even off a dead stop. I dumped it at the nearest gas station.

Having dealt with the amount of problems this car had in its lifetime in my ownership, it was not all that difficult to put aside the ominous fact that I was stranded, I've faced worse. So I downshifted into my first priority (Laura's party [fabulous {Who needs more nested parantheses}]), called Mikey to pick me up (who I will forever be in debt to...much thanks dude), and told the tow truck guy that I was leaving to get fucked up so he can pick it up whenever he felt like it and the wad of cash in the sun visor was for him. We'll see how bad Fairfax Honda wants to fuck my ass with the repair bill come Monday.

Newman Library: Old Favorite Place to Study

2004-12-03T16:32:00.000-05:00

New Favorite Place to Take A Dump

I mean for real people. The can in the handicap stall of the 4th floor mens room allows for tall peoples legs to bend at a 90degree angle instead of making you feel like you're poppin' a squat.

You know it really is amazing.

These Essays are going to Kill Me

2004-12-03T11:10:00.000-05:00

Among other things, I've come down to tech to get some forward progress on my grad applications. Progress here equates to scoring two academic recommendations. I know I already have secured a stellar one from Dr. R, but I've got to convince my old mechatronics prof that I deserve his recommendation.

I met with him last year and he seemed moderately impressed with my interests, skills, and ambition. He is more of a realistic person, telling me what my current short-comings are and what I can do to impress admission offices in other areas to make up for them.

This time around I asked him a lot about how I would fare at my current list of schools and see if he had recommendations as to where else to apply. My current schools are:

Carnegie Mellon - Biggest robotics research institute in the world
Johns Hopkins - Excellent interdisciplinary opportunities in medical robotics
Univ Texas: Austin - Well known robotics program and hey who can argue with a high concentration of hot chicks?
GA Tech - Ranked #5 in the country in Engineering with a lot of overseas study opportunity
Rensselaer Polytech (added) - My brother went there. Apparently has a mechatronics specialty

I also needed a few answers in terms of the essay; mostly how to structure it and what to include/not include. Ok..ok...how to write the damn thing. After speaking with my prof, this will be the fourth iteration. Each iteration having a different focus. It's been driving me insane for the past 8+ weeks. I should have taken Tom's advice to keep things simple:

Tommy: KARNAGY MELAN GOOD
Jimbo: GET IN ZEE CHOPPPA!!!!
Tommy: I'M RIIAGHT HEEYA! ACCEPT ME!!!

If only it were that easy Tommy. If only.

After scoring this prof's recommendation, I went to hang with Dr. R to see what crazy robotics shenanigans he was getting himself into (and to make sure he'd still recommend me). I was very impressed...he's got like 5 new robotics programs going with DoD and others, all for Autonomous vehicle development. Sweetness.

I had to stop my grad application process last year because I didn't have enough faculty recommendations, so I was on such a high after leaving Dr. R.'s office that I went to my old hangout (Newman Library) and cranked out a significant portion of my new essay iteration. I should have taken this trip a loooong time ago.

Pop Vs Orchestra

2004-12-02T22:58:00.000-05:00

I know pop has been around for a while, but its appreciation still eludes me. I've been rockin out to Led Zeppelin for the past week (Rock on Tommy), and just thought to myself "I wonder how much influence producers had on this process." When I think of music production I immediately think of sound booths and mixing boards and seperate members of the band playing/singing their part of the song to the prerecorded base. Start out with the percussion track, guitarist records his part listening to the percerssion track, and go all the way down until you have a finished song.

Then I wondered "Do the seperate sections (percussion, violin, chello, etc)of the New York Symphony Orchestra record under the same method when they record albums?" Albums usually signify the "best" or completely unfettered ability of the artist, so would they seperate them to get the best results? Would they put their sound through synthesizers or pitch modulators, alter the song digitally to make up mistakes?

The live performance now becomes a show of how well a group can recreate this sound while completely pumping up the audience. Pop, with lip-synching and digital voice enhancements, pretty much eliminates the first half of this equation and transforms the live performance into a live album tasting with small people doing backflips on stage you have to squint at to see.

We really need a grunge-like revolution. More skill...less silicon.

The Magical Number Seven

2004-12-02T16:54:00.000-05:00

The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information

An interesting reference to Human Interface Design. Did I mention I love this shit? I remember explaining this to someone who thought I was a nut job driver. My arguement was that although we have 5 senses, we still can have several processes going on in our heads at any one moment, and the number of processes wasn't limited to by the number of senses one has. My examples of inputs/monitoring processes while driving were Rear Car Count, Forward Traffic Pattern, Steering wheel vibration, accelerator pedal vibration, seat vibration, tire traction sound pitch, and it was which mode of driving you were in that would dictate which processes to follow.

Did I mention I hate being called a crazy driver?

My Black Junks

2004-12-01T21:22:00.000-05:00

I estimate that Fairfax County Rec. Centers are the source of 82.883% of my personal anecdotes which I guess is understandable because I am there for 2 hours every other day.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I posted about the lack of updatage of my wardrobe. This also carries over to my swim gear, which was purchased sometime around 1997. In my heyday (read "High School"), I usually blew through 1.5 suits per swim season. When I went to college (read "Was a lazy asshole"), there really was no motivation to get new stuff because the old stuff just hadn't gotten any mileage. So naturally, when I restarted my swimming gear in April, I just used the old stuff. But now, things are really starting to show.

A little fact: Chlorine bleaches the shit out of everything.

Evidence: My Lap Suit.

The original color here folks, is yes, the same black as the SPEEDO tag and the black stiching. This color is a little enhanced because when photographed, it was about 5% damp. When I first put it on before a swim, I essentially look like naked white guy with fleshy bags hanging from my waist.

Today, I set out to hit the 2 miles in an hour mark (200yd free warm up, 18x 100 any stroke, 2x 200 free pull, 2x free kick, 6x 100 any stroke sprint, 200 free cool down). Because of the kick part of my work out, I really have to step it up a notch in my sprints to make the hour. Today I was off by about a minute (which rocks), but the sprints were insane. As I stood there in my lane, proud of my new time, huffin and puffin, I spy this girl in the upper deck looking at me with a big smile. "Alright, I've got fans now!" My body relaxes a little bit, and my neck drops to rest, and as it does, something isn't quite right with what I am looking at.

Another little fact: Prolonged exposure to chlorine deteriorates materials; especially the tensile strength of stitches.

The front of my lap suit had ripped in half, exposing the completely unbleachable black nylon suit liner.

I am Jack's semi-exposed package.
The absolute hilarity of the situatuation washed over me, and busted out in laughter as did my new 16yr old fan. My nylon-contained-fruit-basket was sticking out of the rip as a lone volcanic island sticks out of the sea. Thankfully, the Old Lady Aqua-Aerobics class let out a half hour prior so there was no threat of an Old Lady Orgy Class starting if I got out of the pool.

I'll turn your nuts for $38 an hour

2004-11-19T17:14:00.002-05:00

Ahh...the pleasures of manual labor. For the past 3 days, I've been on-site constructing a HUGE FRIGGIN LASER (HFL) that will eventually be amplified by our OX COCK LASER OSCILLATOR (OCLO). I always love these days. Research design on a budget means overly simplistic design that weighs 5 tons and requires $28bil in allocated funds for stainless steel socket head cap screws. The cool thing about it is that you can either 1)Zone out if you're ass tired or 2)Be completely contemplative or 3)Play Teamster all day. The only things you have to worry about are the quality of your work (easy thanks to simplistic design) and making sure no one gets hurt. Many thanks to the inventors of both the impact wrench and the 2-way ratchet.

Mmm, I smell delicious. My stink is the combination of epoxy floor grout, denatured alcohol, cutting oil, B.O., and climbing shoes. I'm going to get all the ladies tonight in Old Town.

THEY STOLE MY IDEA

2004-11-19T08:19:00.000-05:00

But made it ROCK!

Of course my idea still retained the functionality of a toaster.

News.com did a wonderful piece on how far some people have gone to mod their computer. Most are based off of the Via "mini" motherboard. If you rifle through the images, you'll see one guy who turned a toy Millenium Falcon into a computer.

A Debate: Christmas Sprawl

2004-11-16T08:59:00.000-05:00

Other people my age have told me my observation is wrong, but it has seemed to me that stores keep pushing forward the date in which they bust out their Christmas decorations. I saw many stores start selling Holiday type paraphenalia after the "Back To School" rush. September people? Come on.

To me, it seems almost like watering down the spirit of the holiday. I am no marketer, but this is how the Christmas Equation works.

Holiday spirit creates a warm fuzzy for most people
People are more willing to buy things when they are happy
People want to get Holiday shopping out of the way early
Ergo, push the warm fuzzy earlier and in increments to get people to spend more and shop earlier

But on the non-material side of the house, this incremental approach of Christmas imagery creates people to think about the other feelings that Christmas produces (like closeness to family/friends, good will towards man, etc) earlier as well. So instead of having a month of relatively high levels of these feelings, it can be argued you get 4 months of only somewhat heightened levels of feelings (but building up towards the end of course).

I mean c'mon. It's not like Christmas is any where near the coolness of Halloween.

7 Beers and All Faith In Humanity Is Lost

2004-11-15T08:29:00.000-05:00

Now that I have an easy means of recording my thoughts all the time, including when I am drunk, it turns out that I'm a pretty cynical drunk. Here are some snippets a recent diatribe in the notes section of my Palm phone:

"I've been trying to maintain that humanity as a whole is good and should be
fought for, developed, and aided in any way possible."
"The only interest I've observed is self interest. People are asking less of
"what can I do for the common good," and instead are asking "How can I screw the
other guy for my personal gain.

The comments after that were a bit more caustic and stuff I generally don't accept as being true, but it is still funny to see what was going through my head whilest drunk off my rocker.

Here is a tidbit thanks to dictionary.com:

Word History: A cynic may be pardoned for thinking that this is a dog's life. The Greek word kunikos, from which cynic comes, was originally an adjective meaning “doglike,” from kun, “dog.” The word was probably applied to the Cynic philosophers because of the nickname kun given to Diogenes of Sinope, the prototypical Cynic. He is reported to have been seen barking in public, urinating on the leg of a table, and masturbating on the street. The first use of the word recorded in English, in a work published from 1547 to 1564, is in the plural for members of this philosophical sect. In 1596 we find the first instance of cynic meaning “faultfinder,” a sense that was to develop into our modern sense. The meaning “faultfinder” came naturally from the behavior of countless Cynics who in their pursuit of virtue pointed out the flaws in others. Such faultfinding could lead quite naturally to the belief associated with cynics of today that selfishness determines human behavior.

Ahh, those were the days....able to walk through town and masturbate on the street without recourse.

$5 Tax on The Freakishly Tall

2004-11-14T16:21:00.000-05:00

I came to the realization a few weeks ago that the newest item in my wardrobe is well over 2yrs old, and it was a gift. The t-shirt reads "Are you looking at my nuts?" and has a picture of two bolts underneath. After coming to this realization, I scanned my closet and started to take inventory of when I got each item of clothing in there. It was absolutely pathetic.

Some of the highlights:

Only pair of tennis/running shoes: Purchased Summer 2000
Only pair of hiking boots: Purchased Spring 1996
Only pair of dress shoes: Handed down to me in 1997
Newest T-Shirt purchased by yours-truly: Summer 2002
Oldest T-Shirt still in regular circulation: Fall 1996
Newest Sweater: Fall 2001
Newest pair of work khakis: Summer 1998
Newest pair of casual khakis: Spring 2002

As you can see, I'm not really an avid clothes shopper. But this time/item inventory made me realize I need some new threads. So I journeyed out into the wilderness, known to the feminine species as the "mall," looking for a few critical wardrobe items that needed to be updated.

Shopping has never been my style, mainly due to the fact that the industry has placed me in their freak category, and therefore make no attempt to have variations to match my frame. Apparently, the average consumer above 6'2" has a waistline of 36+, and shoulders of a linebacker. To get a t-shirt with normal length (proportional to one's body), I gotta get a large->x-large. The drawback here is that the shoulder seam falls somewhere low to mid-bicep, making me wish that I had taken those steroid in gym class early in life.

Eddie Bauer fortunately has a solution to this: Tall sizes. TADA! Congrats on that revelation. This being the case, I headed there for my first acquisition. Found something, tried it on, fit great, right length, went to check out and WAM!... $5 extra for tall sizes. Knowing a little about manufacturing and economics, I came to terms with it.

"$5 FOR BEING A FREAK?! What are people, sadists?!? Isn't it bad enough that everyone in the architechture business is out to break our foreheads? Car makers forcing us to buy big cars? Levi Strauss making us buy 38"W jeans when we wear a 32"? FIVE DOLLARS YOU SAY!?!?"

"Do you take credit?"

Iraqi Casualties and How Little We Hear About Them

2004-11-12T13:52:00.000-05:00

Economist.com The Iraqi war

This is only the 2nd article I've seen published during the war on the loss of life in Iraq. In my opinion, Iraqi casualty figures is some pretty powerful data for or against the war. I started poking around once I heard on NPR that there were sites out there taking journalistic numbers ("10 dead today in a car bomb" type data) and converting them into casualty data. I said to myself "yea, I bet that's accurate." One site had a conservative estimate at the time of 4,000 civilian lives lost, where another one counted as high as 10,000. This new report says somewhere around 15,000, and is argued to be conservative because the total amount of deaths is rarely recorded (some die on the way to or at the hospital, some are missed by reporting agency, etc.).

These sites exist because the Pentagon's position on foreign casualties is that it's not their responsibility to keep those numbers. It is up to the leaders of that foreign body to account for their dead. In an invasion setting, it would make sense not to keep count, mainly due to the fact that you simply can't identify with 100% certainty that the person you just shot/bombed was carrying a gun and had the intent to kill you, therefore you don't know if they were a civilian or not. You also can't tell which people insurgents were using as human shields.

But as the invasion transformed into an occupation/rebuilding effort, a system should( or should have) been developed. How many more enemies are we making in our efforts to free Iraq. The whole model for success is that once people get a taste of freedom, they will forgive that U.S. bombs killed their parents when they were children (or vice versa). The U.S. is not the only society that holds retribution and vengeance in such high esteem.

Making enemies? Sure! When the U.S. first set out on this mission, they said we were going to 1) Oust Saddam, 2) Destroy his stockpiles of WMDs, 3) free the iraqi people. (Listed in order of priority of course). So a country came into mine, concerned about their own freedom (threat of WMDs), arrested my maniacal dictator, brought their ongoing war to my homeland, and killed many of my good countrymen, and were completely wrong about the threat to their country. But they DID give me freedom and secured it by killing all the evil people who would poison my freedom.

The U.S. is going to be there for a looooong time, because if Iraq were to fall back into corruption....you'd have an entire nation wanting revenge.

This Just In: I'm Not Adopted

2004-11-11T14:16:00.000-05:00

I've been joking with my parents for a while now that I was adopted. This view was based on the grounds that I am the only one in my direct family who has an immune disorder, a heart defect, an IQ lower than 182, and has not needed braces or glasses...until now.

I was filled in about my Parishhood by my dentist. I asked him about the 0.5mm gap between my top and bottom front teeth when I bite down, and he soon discovered that only about 4 teeth were touching when I bit down. Taking into account confusion behind my lineage, he put it to me softly. "Holy Crap! How do you eat?! You're going to need braces if you want to eat normally." Blast.

An interesting factoid I learned during this visit: Sipping sugary drinks such as coffee and soda over a 20+ minute period is HORRIBLE for your teeth. When sugars mix with saliva, the PH of your mouth decreases (making the mix acidic) and has a certain fall off time to get back to a neutral PH. Sipping maintains this acidic PH in your mouth and eats away at your teeth. Solutions for me: 1) Inject Mt. Dew intravenesly, 2) Splash hot morning coffee in my face to take in caffeine transdermally, and 3) Use Expresso Shots instead of Visene to moisturize eyes.

Circumcising my Prelude

2004-11-10T22:57:00.000-05:00

Dear Abby,
My car has lost a little something since I replaced its muffler yesterday. What is the matter? Is it something I said?

~Missing That Growling In My Pants

No, seriously. For the past, oh, year, I've been driving around with a pretty sizeable hole in the pipe that runs between the catalytic converter and the muffler. Sizeable enough to change the sound of my car from normal rice-burner status to around "MY CAR PEENER IS TWICE THE DIAMETER OF YOUR CAR PEENER....I can pass grapefruits through my car-peen." Well, may be not that big.

Well, I finally take the curs-ed car to get it inspected, and sure enough it fails. Turns out, that hole corroded to twice the size (probably from the constricting abilities of the muffler to not allow any hot carcinogenic evil to pass) than I remember. So deciding to NOT take it to Fairfax Honda (they blow liquid ass btw), I get a new one for half the price, and makes it sound like a normal Honda. How the hell am I going to pick up chicks with a wimpy sounding muffler AND a small penis?

May be they sell Muffler pumps at MVC.

Homicidal Dorkdom: A Tribute To November

2004-11-09T10:10:00.000-05:00

November is going to be a tough month...lots of things to kill these next few weeks according to my trusty PDA-Phone/death scheduler.

Hmm, let's take a look shall we?
Nov 2: Killzone (PS2) - Isolated human colony gets angry for being isolated and mutated. They make a sizeable space naval fleet out of sticks and twine and set out for revenge.
Nov 15: Metroid Prime: Echoes (GC) - Loner, hot, single, galactic bounty hunter manages to get herself into trouble AGAIN by AGAIN losing all of her power suits abilities that will need to be collected, lest the universe be destroyed (or she's self-conscious about her ass just not looking right without her Varia Suit upgrade). Obtained key item "Wave Purse"
Nov 16: Half-Life 2 (PC) - "Fleshy headed mutant, are you friendly?" A lot of mutants this month. This time you're a scientist who has had it up to, uhm, ^^^Here^^^, with mutants and you want to kill them all with your ability to perform multivariable non-linear Fourier/LaPlace Transforms in your head.
Nov 17: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (PS2) - {Original Title: MGS 3: Answering "What the Fuck Was I, Hideo Kojima, Smoking When I Made MGS2?" referred to in development as MGS3:WFWIHKSWIMMGS2 for short} I've got between now the 9th and the 17th to ram the plot of MGS2 into Mikey's stomach.

Not to mention that for my birthday (IN JUNE), I received Nightshade (From Joe), and Time Crisis 3 (From Mike), which I haven't played because the area of the world I live in can not support Playstation 2 crops due to it's high concentration of BullShitanium in the soil.

But it seems like I'm missing something here....something.....hmmm. November. Wyclef coming back in November? No. Oh yea!

HALO FUCKING 2!!!!

Ok, so I was fucking with you. Joe and I pre-ordered our copies of Halo 2 Limited Edition from EB Games in Fair Oaks. Everywhere halo was being sold, stores had a "Midnight Madness" event the Midnight of Nov 9th. I must say I am truly proud to have played a part in this congregation of social outcasts (present company not excluded). Mike says Joe and my obsession of all things Halo pales in comparison to his obsession with video games, and I think, now that I've seen this crowd, must be somewhat cathartic to him. "I'm bad, but look at these guys." I hate judging people, but goddamn people! Every other person in line was either 1) Playing Tetris on their GameBoy Advance, 2) Playing Tetris on their cell phone or 3) Making phone calls to arrange a post Midnight Madness LAN party.

I mean, c'mon people, we're at least waiting until Thanksgiving to have our first Halo 2 LAN party.

BATMAN?!!? Batman?

2004-11-09T09:42:00.000-05:00

Could somebody tell me WHAT kind of a world we live in, where a MAN dressed up as a BAT, get's all of my press?

THIS BLOG NEEDS AN ENIMA!!

Damn you mikey...

2004-09-14T19:12:00.000-04:00

Making me register with blogger just to post a comment to your blog. I hate you :-P