Wall of Death

I am actually impressed with the structure but disappointed that they didn't burn it.

Conficker, batten down the hatches April 1st?

While eating dinner a few days ago, my girlfriend and I were watching the national news. a sixty year old reporter was informing us that the Conficker worm was coming for our children on April 1st and we should be extremely concerned. While working in the Information Technology field, it has prepared me for situations like this. I remember the Melissa, Blaster and Storm viruses and they didn't really cause anything other than an annoyance to companies and users. No power grids went down, no toasters exploded but some companies were hit hard taking care of these issues with manpower and hours worked. This sounds like something that the media was fed during the Bush Administration a few years ago, a.k.a. duct tape and plastic wrap. I predict that the CONficker worm will come and go causing a small bump in the road, just as those mentioned before. If you know that something is coming and already have a fix for it, what is the panic and alarm? DDOS attacks or Denial of Service Attacks are about the only thing that I am even considering as a possibility. So hopefully my blog isn't on the radar of the botnet puppeteer or you may not get a chance to read this! Most likely, some website or service is going to get hit hard. Sometimes this is a good thing, it's kind of like an impromptu bench mark test. I could see where that would help ISP's and hosting services prepare for the next big scare.

Fish tank

 

The fish are starting to get larger and the tank is finally almost done.

Uniq Fruit? WTF??

I noticed this a few weeks ago while walking through the super market and thought that I would share. WTF? I am sure that it is delicious but as Samuel L. Jackson's character in Pulp Fiction said, "Sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie but I ain't eatin the mother fucker."

Church of D and B, turn it up.

This is a video mashup of bible thumpers and thumping D and B. Those crazy evangelicals.

Fun Reverse Motion Photography

Balancing Point from DANNY BROWN on Vimeo.

I think that this is really cool. Also, I was impressed that they used john frusciante in the soundtrack.

This just sounds dirty to me

I was walking into the gas station the other day and saw this sign posted in the window. The title of the foundation did not make any sense to me but it does sound funny. I don't know who would want to be a member of the Christ's Starfish (Asshole) Foundation but I know some that I might refer to it. Just think of it, people can have business cards made up for the Christ's Asshole Foundation.

The Joker weighs in on the bailout

The Dark Bailout

Funny but scary

Awesome Chick Fil-A #1 mod

During our last vacation we stopped in Atlanta on the drive up to Indiana and had a bit to eat at Chick Fil-A. As usual at almost any place that you eat, they place the most idiotic shit on your table to get you to buy more product. This is really apparent at places like Chili's, Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse, etc. Here is a picture of the piece of advertisement on out table that I modded.




I just wanted to tell these guys how I feel about crap being on our table while we are trying to eat. I am really surprised that places to eat still do this crap. Restaurants in other countries do not do this kind of needless advertising on the tables of where you eat. It's a waste of space, resources and time. Other than that, the sandwiches were delicious.

Asteroid Impact Simulation

Very cool simulation and great soundtrack!

ShowBiz Pizza band, still rockin?

If you are familiar with ShowBiz Pizza then you are definitely familiar with the animatronic band that played there. Many times in my youth, I was subjected to watching the robot gorilla sing some silly songs that you really could care less about. The cool thing was that they are robots. I thought that these things would be sitting at the bottom of a landfill or that they maybe turned them into Kia's. After coming across an article on the Laughing Squid website that said that people actually buy and restore these animatronic works of art and program them to perform music of all sorts.





Who would have thought that people would keep these things up and running? By the way, if you are in a different part of the country than me, I think they are called Chuck-E Cheese. Grab a beer and enjoy the show!

Text to speech is fun!

I dropped some knowledge on my co-workers by showing them the AT+T labs Text to Speech page. It will say pretty much anything that you can phonetically spell. We have entirely too much fun with this. Try it out.

http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

Buy.com flat out sucks

I made the mistake of using a different website to purchase a set of VModa Vibe ear buds two months ago. Immediately I knew that I had made a mistake in using this website when I logged into the site the day after I had paid for the merchandise and my order was not able to be located. I contacted the customer support and they were not able to locate my order either but my credit card was indeed charged. Two days later, I sent another email to customer support with the transaction number and I received a reply that stated that I had made the purchase through buy.com but it was through a third party seller. I told them that I knew that the purchase was through a third party seller, kind of like Amazon.com. Hmmmm. They were still not able to locate my order. I explained to the (buy.com) customer service that even though the purchase was with a third party seller, I made the purchase THROUGH buy.com and they should easily be able to display and track my order. A week later, I received an email from the third party seller stating that the order has been received but not shipped. I needed the ear buds seven days after I ordered them but this was not going to happen. I tried to cancel the order through buy.com but they mysteriously couldn't find my order yet again. I then contacted the third party seller and cancelled the order directly. I received an email from the seller stating that the order was cancelled and to have a nice day. Five days later I received the ear buds from the seller and the old credit card was charged yet again. I FINALLY got the second charge taken off and just kept the ear buds. Now, the ear buds are shorting out. To return the ear buds to VModa, I need a receipt of purchase to send them back and no one seems to want to acknowledge that I bought the ear buds either the seller or buy.com. What is the moral of the story? Stick to Amazon, Newegg or whatever your familiar website is to make your purchases. Thanks buy.com for wasting hours of my life that I will never get back.

The Hoover Dam

NBA Summer League, Las Vegas NV

I have just recently returned from a two week adventure in Las Vegas, NV. The NBA Summer League took place there from July 10th to the 21st. I don't care what anyone says, twelve days in a row in Las Vegas is too many. The "norm" for most of the visitors that I have encountered in Las Vegas is that they are staying two to five days. This was my second work trip to Vegas and my fifth trip overall. Let me start by pointing out that I worked thirteen straight days without a break. With that said, let me turn my attention to the work that I was doing. I was the courtside engineer for the stats crew. I sat through thirty five games, three or four at a time, back to back with only ten minutes between games. All in all, it wasn't a bad experience but it made some of the people that I worked with, as well as myself, a little testy towards the end of the day. Everyone made it home and are on speaking terms now, so that is all that really counts. Sorry guys! With that said, I would like to do a review of some things that I noticed in at the NBA Summer League, Las Vegas. Let call this section of the blog: Cool vs. Not Cool.

Firstly.


Drinking with friends and making new friends while drinking is cool. See picture to the left.












Drinking so much that you pass out at 2:00 p.m. at the NBA Summer League is not cool. This guy sat directly behind us at the scoring table and slept for a full hour and a half before security kindly asked him to leave. He had an L.A. Clippers jersey on, no offense Clippers.











Secondly-


Eating peanuts and throwing the shells on the floor at a Roadhouse of some sort is cool. If the management is cool with it, then so am I.
















Being a fat and lazy PR guy that sits at the table and eats a bag of peanuts, 3 hot dogs and some nachos and then throwing the peanut shells on the floor is not cool. This PR guy that works for the Portland Trailblazers didn't see the problem with this. Lazy and not cool. See evidence below.


























Thirdly-


Going out in Vegas is pretty common and most people that go there do this. The guys always want to look good and smell good, of course. That's cool.
















Wearing so much Drakkar Noir that when I have to sit next to you, for hours at time, makes my eyes water is not cool. Hey guy, Drakkar Noir went out with the nineties, switch it up. This guy wore so much of that crap that I had to get up and put drops in my eyes twice during a two hour game. Not cool. Hey, we get it. You are going out right after you get done with this gig. Bring the bottle with you in the car and put it on when you get to the place. Check your head gear guy.











Other than that, everyone else was cool. Good event people. I did actually get to visit the Hoover Dam or Hoover Darn as some say. I will post those pics soon.

Captain America, Fuck Yeah!

I feel the patriotism. I found this video on Boing Boing today and thought that I would share. Someone took the Team America "Fuck Yeah" song and added it to a REALLY crappy Captain America TV show from the 80's. HAPPY 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July Mr. President!!

I think that this is exactly what those that wrote the First Amendment of the Constitution had in mind when they created it.

Hey Mr. President, did I hear someone say "Sic, Semper, Tryannus?"

George Carlin will be missed

I was very sad to hear that actor, comedian, writer and all around funny guy George Carlin died today. In a world of half truths and whole lies, he entertained the world with his insight and observations of the world around him. He was the first host of Saturday Night Live and had a supreme court ruling passed for his actions on a New York radio station regarding free speech and obscenity (look it up). I could list his stand up, books and movie appearances but it would not even come close to giving him the credit that he deserves. He worked doing what he was best at up until the week that his life ended. He had reportedly had a show in Las Vegas last week that was his last. This makes me extremely upset because I am slated to go to Las Vegas in July for work. It would have been nice to make it to one of his shows even in his elder years. Thanks for the comedy George.

Freshwater Cichlid tank

Well as the saying goes, "The two best days for a fish tank owner is the day that they bring it home and the day that they sell it." I finally got the tank finished after adding some more rocks and upgrading the lights. We now have three Jack Dempsey Cichlids and three Convict Cichlids living among us. The best part is that my dog Canada sits and watches the fish with the same interest that we do.

So I guess that when we are at work the dog has some entertainment. As with all fish tanks, they are a work in progress and tend to change with time. I like the current set up that we have now though. We haven't had any casualties yet but the fish have only been in this tank for 10 days. I have a feeling that one of the Convicts isn't going to make it since he is not eating as far as we can see. The dog hasn't given us any complaints yet but I am waiting for the attention monster to rear its ugly head.

KISS Rick Roll

I guess that the members of Kiss were feeling like some Rick Rolling.