2007-06-21

No wonder kids play video games

Everything I did as a kid is now waaaaaaay too dangerous. We all know about playing alone outside, bike riding without a helmet, skateboarding, arc welding and petting stray dogs ... but now ... from the joy that is Health Day News ... digging holes in the sand can kill:
Digging Holes in the Sand Can Be Deadly
06.20.07, 12:00 AM ET

WEDNESDAY, June 20 (HealthDay News) -- Digging that hole to China on a sandy beach is a summertime rite of passage for many kids. But a new report reveals that those holes -- even fairly shallow ones -- can collapse and kill.

By sifting through news reports and other sources, researchers found 52 cases of sand-hole collapses in the United States and three other countries -- Australia, Great Britain and New Zealand. Sixty percent of the victims -- 31 people -- died, while many of the others needed rescuing and CPR.

There may be many more cases that weren't reported, said report co-author Dr. Bradley Maron, an internal medicine resident at Boston University Medical Center. "We're trying to increase awareness of something that's generally not associated with a life-threatening event," he said. When people are on the beach, "their concern for safety is directed toward the water," he noted.
So, as I said, no wonder kids today stay in the house and play video games. They can't do anything else.

2007-06-16

Happy Father's Day!

To all you Dad's out there ...

Happy Father's Day.

Me being me, well, I got the coolest gift I could receive:


This thing's AWESOME!

And after my day at the Pittsburgh Air Show lugging around my old shoulder bag, this thing will make Comfest significantly easier on my back, which is hurting today!

Oh, and there's a flippin' tri-pod holder on one side; and a drink holder on the other. HELLS YEAH! :D And there's a LAPTOP sleeve, too. OH SNAP this thing rocks!


2007-06-11

2007 Comfest Schedule ... FINALLY

Um ... rarely have I waited so long for so little.

2007 Comfest Schedule = Y.A.W.N.

Here's where I'll be ...

Friday - June 22 (maybe)
6:00 - Leah Carla Gordone - Gazebo Stage
8:00 - Willie Phoenix - Gazebo Stage

Saturday - June 23
4:00 - Miranda Sound - Offramp Stage
5:00 - Stretch Lefty - Bozo Stage
6:35 - Sadie Thomas - Solar Stage
8:15 - Megan Palmer & The Hopefuls - Gazebo Stage

Sunday - June 24
4:25 - X-Rated Cowboys - Offramp Stage
8:00 - Aaron Tashjian - Gazebo Stage

I think this is the thing that pisses me off the most about Comfest's schedule this year:

Schedule Conflicts.

There are THREE acts I'd like to see Friday - they play at the same time.

Jen Miller
Leah Carla Gordone
Elliot 12Trees

Sunday ... 8:00 p.m. ... ditto.

Aaron Tashjian
The Receiver
The Spikedrivers

Damn. I need clones. Who can help?

The Geek Dictionary ...

Not an original list ... but worth sharing.


404:
Someone who is clueless. From the Web error message, "404 Not Found," which means the document requested couldn't be located. "Don't bother asking John. He's 404."

Adminisphere: The rarified organizational layers above the rank and file that makes decisions that are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant.

Alpha Geek: The most knowledgeable, technically proficient person in an office or work group. "I dunno, ask Rick. He's our alpha geek."

Assmosis: Remember "Osmosis" The process by which some people seem to absorb success and advancement by kissing up to the boss rather than working hard.

Batmobiling: Putting up emotional shields. Refers to the retracting armor that covers the Batmobile as in "she started talking marriage and he started batmobiling."

Beepilepsy: The brief seizure people sometimes suffer when their beepers go off, especially in vibrator mode. Characterized by physical spasms, goofy facial expressions, and stopping speech in mid- sentence.

Betamaxed: When a technology is overtaken in the market by inferior but better marketed competition as in "Microsoft betamaxed Apple right out of the market."

Blamestorming: A group discussion of why a deadline was missed or a project failed and who was responsible.

Blowing Your Buffer: Losing one's train of thought. Occurs when the person you are speaking with won't let you get a word in edgewise or has just said something so astonishing that your train gets derailed. "Damn, I just blew my buffer!" (Synonym: "Head Crash").

Body Nazis: Hard-core exercise and weight-lifting fanatics who look down on anyone who doesn't work out obsessively.

Bookmark: To take note of a person for future reference. "After seeing his cool demo at Siggraph, I bookmarked him."

Brain Fart: A byproduct of a bloated mind producing information effortlessly; a burst of useful information. "I know you're busy on the Microsoft story, but can you give us a brain fart on the Mitnik bust?" Variation of old hacker slang that had more negative connotations.

CGI Joe: A hard-core CGI script programmer with all the social skills and charisma of a plastic action figure.

Chainsaw Consultant: An outside expert brought in to reduce the employee head count, leaving the top brass with clean hands.

Chip Jewelry: Old computers destined to be scrapped or turned into decoration. "I paid three grand for that Mac and now it's nothing but chip jewelry."

Chips and Salsa: Chips = hardware, salsa = software. "First we gotta figure out if the problem's in your chips or your salsa."

CLM (Career Limiting Move): Used by microserfs to describe an ill- advised activity. "Trashing your boss while he or she is within earshot is a serious CLM."

Cobweb: A WWW site that never changes.

Crapplet: A badly written or profoundly useless Java applet. "I just wasted 30 minutes downloading that crapplet!"

CROP DUSTING: Surreptitiously farting while passing thru a cube farm, then enjoying the sounds of dismay and disgust; leads to PRAIRIE DOGGING.

Cube Farm: An office filled with cubicles.

Dead Tree Edition: The paper version of a publication available in both paper and electronic forms.

Dilberted: To be exploited and oppressed by your boss, as is Dilbert, the comic strip character. "Damn, I've been dilberted again! The old man revised the specs for the fourth time this week."

Dorito Syndrome: The feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction triggered by addictive substances that lack nutritional content. "I just spent six hours surfing the Web, and now I've got a bad case of Dorito Syndrome."

Egosurfing: Scanning the Net, databases, etc., for one's own name.

Elvis Year: The peak year of popularity as in "1993 was Barney the dinosaur's Elvis year."

Flight Risk: Used to describe employees who are suspected of planning to leave a company or department soon.

Generica: Fast food joints, strip malls, sub-divisions as in "we were so lost in generica that I couldn't remember what city it was."

Glazing: Corporate-speak for sleeping with your eyes open; a popular pastime at conferences and early-morning meetings. "Didn't he notice that by the second session half the room was glazing?"

Going Postal: Totally stressed out and losing it like postal employees who went on shooting rampages.

GOOD job: A "Get-Out-Of-Debt" job. A well-paying job people take in order to pay off their debts, one that they will quit as soon as they are solvent again.

Gray Matter: Older, experienced business people hired by young entrepreneurial firms trying to appear more professional and established.

Graybar Land: The place you go while you're staring at a computer that's processing something very slowly (while you watch the gray bar creep across the screen). "That CAD rendering put me in graybar land for like an hour."

High Dome: Egghead, scientist, PhD

Idea Hamsters: People whose idea generators are always running.

Irritainment: Entertainment and media spectacles that are annoying, but you find yourself unable to stop watching them. The O.J. trials were a prime example.

It's a Feature: From the old adage, "It's not a bug, it's a feature." Used sarcastically to describe an unpleasant problem you wish to gloss over.

Keyboard Plaque: The disgusting buildup of dirt and crud found on some people's computer keyboards.

Link Rot: The process by which web page's links become obsolete as the sites they're connected to change or die.

Meatspace: The physical world (as opposed to the virtual) also "carbon community" "facetime" "F2F" "RL."

Mouse Potato: The online generation's answer to the couch potato.

Ohnosecond: That minuscule fraction of time during which you realize you've just made a terrible error.

Open-Collar Workers: People who work at home or telecommute.

Percussive Maintenance: The fine art of whacking the crap out of an electronic device to get it to work again.

Perot: To quit unexpectedly. "My cellular phone just perot'ed."

Plug-and-Play: A new hire who doesn't require training. "That new guy is totally plug-and-play."

Prairie Dogging: When something loud happens in a cube farm, causing heads to pop up over the walls trying to see what's going on.

Ribs 'N' Dick: A budget with no fat as in "we've got ribs 'n' dick and we're supposed to find 20K for memory upgrades."

Salmon Day: The experience of spending an entire day swimming upstream only to get screwed in the end. "God, today was a total salmon day!"

Seagull Manager: A manager who flies in, makes a lot of noise, shits over everything and then leaves.

Siliwood: The coming convergence of movies, interactive TV and computers; also "Hollywired."

SITCOMs: What yuppies turn into when they have children and one of them stops working to stay home with the kids. "Single Income, Two Children, Oppressive Mortgage."

Square-Headed Spouse: Computer.

Squirt the Bird: To transmit a signal up to a satellite. "Crew and talent are ready...what time do we squirt the bird?"

Starter Marriage: A short-lived first marriage that ends in divorce with no kids, no property and no regrets.

Stress Puppy: A person who thrives on being stressed-out and whiny.

Swiped Out: An ATM or credit card that has been used so much its magnetic strip is worn away.

Tourists: Those who take training classes just to take a vacation from their jobs. "There were only three serious students in the class; the rest were just tourists."

Treeware: Hacker slang for documentation or other printed material.

Umfriend: One with whom one has a sexual relationship; as in, "this is Dale, my...um...friend."

Under Mouse Arrest: Getting busted for violating an online service's rule of conduct. "Sorry I couldn't get back to you. AOL put me under mouse arrest."

Uninstalled: Euphemism for being fired. Also: decruitment.

2007-06-06

Random Links and shit

Because I'm not feeling like writing but have things to share ... enjoy:

If you like sports and movies ... check this gem of a graduation speech that is comprised of nothing but lines from sports movies.

If you like LOST ... check out this amazing recap of Season 3 done in Innernets speak.

If you're like me and think $2 for a large coffee at Dunkin Donuts beats the hell out of anything at all from Starbucks (a.k.a. Four Bucks), welcome to my church.

This is, without a doubt, the funniest thing to come out of Wisconsin. Imagine a street-fight battle-to-the-death between the characters of Star Wars and the Peanuts Gang. This guy did it. Read here. (for the record ... does anyone have anything else funny from Wisconsin other than the "Bong Recreation Area" (it's a real place)?

John Moe takes on Billy Joel's "Piano Man" in his latest "Pop Song Correspondence."

If you happen to do things like download movies, music, or anything else that, um, might get you noticed ... here are some tips to do it a little stealthier. Personally, I'd use 1 and 5. If I were to do such things.

I'll be one of six people watching the Stanley Cup playoffs tonight.

And finally ... as part of USAToday's on-going self-congratulatory 25-year anniversary, here are their Top 25 Things that have disappeared in the past 25 years.

Better late than never

Well, between work, school and ... well ... my new TV addiction of "Dead Like Me" ... I've not had much to blog about.

But "Dead Like Me" is a great show!

I love TV on DVD.

2007-06-04

Well, there goes my vote

Looks like I have a valid reason NOT to vote Hillary in 2008.