My Modern Day Rarity: Funny SNL skit

I had to link this youtube video courtesy of NBC. It is apparently an uncensored version of a skit performed recently on SNL. What shocked me most is that it was funny. Yes, an SNL skit managed to elicit a laugh.

Note: may not be safe for work

My Merry Christmas

Well, it's Christmas, and Talitha is in Milwaukee and I'm stuck in the bay area. Despite being home alone for Christmas, its not all that bad, though.

For one, one of the things I love about Christmas is cold weather, and snow, and unless you live in Denver, you probably are having A Bay Area Christmas. For example, as I type this post, its overcast at 46F in the Tri-valley, 36 and overcast in Milwaukee, and 37 and raining in West Lafayette, IN. Not exactly what Bing Crosby was singing about in "White Christmas". Oh, also Florida is getting Tornado-spawning Thunderstorms for Christmas - what a present!

Second, there are two football games in a row this afternoon, and I've got plenty of beer and junkfood in the house. Since Talitha is not here, she won't mind that I veg in front of the TV all afternoon.

Third, the Linux gods finally decided to cut me a break, and aligned the planets appropriately to get Xgl+Beryl working on my Athlon64 box. Believe it or not, it was _MUCH_ easier to to this with Gentoo than it was/is with Ubuntu.

Now my computer setup is not bad. I've got a 3-d enabled Linux desktop, using my USB Apple Keyboard and Mighty Mouse, and I've got all of that mapped to work properly with my MacBook via synergy. Now I just got to get nice looking X fonts.

All that gunk aside, despite spending the day alone, I most certainly didn't feel alone. Several IMs and phone calls from my beautiful wife, family, and friends really made my day. So to all my family and friends: Thank you and Merry Christmas.

If you have visited digg.com recently, you've quite possibly come across articles posted under the Apple section about the Microsoft Zune. To those of you who keep digging these up, down, or sideways: PLEASE STOP.

Nobody wants to read about some Fanboi's blind hatred of an MP3 player, even if it is Microsoft's.

Similarly, no one wants to read "ZOMGWTFBBQ MY ZUNE IS TEH BEST" from either non-Zune owning Microsoft apologists, or Zune-owners trying to justify their purchases to themselves.

How about some articles that have real information?

Oil Vey!

So I took my car for an oil change this morning before work at the Mazda dealership. Turns out I have a minor seal leak in my power steering pump, so they're ordering a new one to replace under warranty. No big deal, I pay for the service, grab my car and head to work. About a 1/2 of mile from work, I notice a strong oil smell, and smoke coming from my hood - definitely not something I would expect from a brand new car.

So, I pulled off the side of the road, popped the hood and of course, the engine compartment is covered in oil, and my crankcase is staring me with a big hole; the kind that says: "Where is my goddamn oil cap!". Of course, the crank case's question is really rhetorical. We all know where it is. It's sitting on top of the coolant tank, where everyone puts it when they're changing the oil. I'm pissed, I'm late for work, and worried about my car. I put cap back on, put on my BT headset and call the dealership as I drive back over the bay to have them fix it.

I surpressed my urge to be a real dick, because the manager was very apologetic and upset that it happened (and that the mechanic wouldn't apologize). They got me a rental for the day (another story), and the manager had the engine compartment cleaned, changed the oil again, and had the car detailed. After I went back to pick it up, I pointed out that the hood lining (heat shield) was stained (thanks for the tip, Eric!) and he said he would replace it.

So, despite the fact that I lost a couple hours of work which I've been making up this evening, and the fact that it happened to begin with, I think the manager handled it as best he could. However, they've got one more chance to give me hassle free service. The last time I brought it in, they failed to rotate my tires despite charging me for it, and I had to call them on it.

Bay Area Traffic Unhackable?

So, as an accidental "affluent suburbanite" here in the Tri-valley, I am lucky enough to have an hour long commute to and from work each day (note that is 2 hours total, each day). My journey begins on Interstate 580 at the 680 split, headed west out of the valley, and into the city of Hayward (10 mi, 10-15 mins), then winding through the streets of Hayward (3.5 mi, 15-20 mins) I finally make it to CA-92, which eventually goes over the bay (Hayward/San Mateo Bridge) (14 mi, 15 mins), and then on to 101 South (2 mi, 10 minutes). This cycle repeats in the opposite direction, except that the 2 mi jog North on 101 is about 15 minutes than it is headed South in the morning.

So obviously when I saw this site ( I think linked through Digg a few days ago), I was very interested in the possibilities of hacking the traffic on my daily journey in an effort to shave a few minutes off my commute, and maybe even a few points off my blood pressure.

If you don't want to read it, the very brief and admittedly poor summary of the article (ca. 1998) is: Large gaps between cars on the freeway, or "anti-traffic", consume stop-n-go waves of traffic, and allow traffic to mesh (gear or zipper-like) properly at merges. The author posits that even a single car creating a decently sized anti-traffic bubble can eliminate some nasty stop-n-go traffic waves.

Now, this seems pretty obvious when you sit and read it, but try imagining what its actually like out there on the Freeways. What's that? Imagination broken? Well, lets see if we can give it a kickstart. Imagine your going home from work on a late fall day like today; its 6:00pm, rush hour. It's dark and chilly outside. You make your way to the freeway. You fight your way out off the on-ramp into the far right lane, you get out of the merge, and eventually (if you're not driving on 101), your speed picks up to about 55-60 mph. That's all well and good, except that there are tons of people on the road, all wanting to change lanes, all wanting desperately to go 70, when traffic is still moving less than the speed limit. You're a mere few feet from the bumper of the guy in front of you, he's the same from the guy in front of him. Likewise, is the guy behind you; his headlights barely show in your rear-view mirror. Suddenly, a brake light goes on several cars ahead of you, the guy behind the breaking car, taken by surprise in the middle of his cell phone call hits his brakes, same with the guy behind him, and so on and so on, each car having to break more than the one ahead of it. Finally, you hit your brakes hard to avoid the stopped/stopping traffic in front of you, as you look up in your rear-view praying desparately that the guy behind you was paying attention, has good brakes, or at least has insurance. Then all of a sudden, traffic is back moving at the sub-speed limit rate it was before, as if nothing happened. You're puzzled, and cautious knowing this can't be right. You give yourself some room between you and the guy behind you. Suddenly, you start noticing every asshole with a BMW, Lexus, or Mercedes using your cushion space as a bounce point to get around a slow car in the lane next to you. You get pissed: "How dare they!?", you accelerate a bit more until you're right behind the guy in front of you again. Suddenly, several cars ahead of you, brake lights go on......

Yeah, you get the point. That's what its like to drive in the Bay Area, presuming your lucky enough to avoid a car accident, the errant hilariously-out-of-place-debris in the number 2 lane, or the World's Longest Parking Lot. So, on Monday, I decided I would not be one of these typical drivers. I'd stifle the competitive driver in me, I'd create my anti-traffic bubbles, and ride the fortunes of smooth traffic all the way into work!

Aww, sometimes I'm so naively enthused it's cute. I'm like a 16 year old eagerly awaiting his first tax return thinking about all the things I can do with that return money.

I've tried, really I have. Both to and from work, I've taken extra precaution to keep my anti-traffic gaps in front of me. I've tried making them moderate (6 car lengths), and bigger (1/4 mile), but alas, it doesn't seem to work. Those spaces quickly fill up with other cars, despite what our author claims:

"But what about the adjacent lane? Won't they all fill my empty space? Nope. A few do change lanes, then they rush to the end of the empty space. This filters out the aggressive drivers from the adjacent lane, letting them move to my lane at the end of my space, and leaving sane ones next to my empty space. They don't change lanes. They don't care that there's a huge empty space growing and shrinking right beside them. They form a big plug, and aggressive drivers behind them cannot get to my big empty space."

The above may hold true in Seattle, but I'm afraid it does not hold true in the congested Bay Area. There are simply too many cars, too little lanes, too many junctions, that it is impossible to maintain any meaningful "anti-traffic" gap. Instead, these gaps are just traffic sinks. Cars are attracted to them, and nature continues to abhor its vaccuum. It's too bad too, because the author isn't smoking crack; he's on to something. The anti-traffic bubbles really do work in areas where the flow of traffic is somewhat constant, like on the San Mateo bridge where you have roughly 10 miles of freeway with no exits or onramps; just straight away. I've readily observed the anti-traffic phenomenon at work here. You see, the western-most span of this bridge is a high-rise which allows for shipping traffic in the bay to pass under it. When you're coming down the high rise headed East, you get a nice look at the remaining 7 miles of flat span ahead of you. During rush hour at night, you can easily identify many of these stop-n-go waves off in the distance. If you then get yourself a nice anti-traffic bubble, you can ride the rest of the bridge without ever having to brake, despite the car ahead of you doing so.

But so what? It was a smooth ride, but you know you could have made it over the bridge 2 minutes quicker if you'd just lane-hopped and kept bumper to bumper with the rest of the traffic. And did it really help anyone out behind you? Maybe, but you know that they're all tail-gating each other, so its just a matter of time before new waves are created behind you. So in reality, for me at least, this just made the commute a bit longer, but a bit less harrowing, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's definitely reminded me how much better it is to not drive at warp speed sandwiched in between cars, but it really hasn't made my commute quicker, or have any meaningful impact on anyone else's commute. Bottom line: the efficacy of this method is inversely proportional to the traffic saturation; therefore, when all possible traffic space is occupied, this method is 0% effective.

So, does this mean that Bay Area traffic is unhackable? Not necessarily, it just means that the anti-traffic bubble approach doesn't work well in such a highly congested area (something I believe the author touches on). Instead, I'll have to look for other ways to hack traffic. For now, I'm stuck with alternative routing, (e.g., taking El Camino Real instead of 101) until something better comes along.

New toy

Well, I finally decided it was time to get a mobile internet device. I
went with the sidekick3 from t-mobile as they offer the best rate plan:
unlimited for 29.99/mo. So far I like the device much better than the
blackberry I previously carries at my old job.

--
posted from sidekick

Happy Thanksgiving.

The Thanksgiving weather has been beautiful here in the bay area, as this picture should illustrate. This is a shot of San Francisco and the Western span of the Bay Bridge taken from Vista Point (just off the Golden Gate) just after 2:00pm on Thanksgiving. It's been pretty chilly at night and in the morning, but we've had 60 degree days. I'm definitely not used to this sort of weather around Thanksgiving!

Obviously, since this is California this weather isn't too surprising. However, my shopping experience on Black Friday was. I had to do some shopping for both Talitha's birthday and our anniversary (1 year and we're both still alive!). I found an decently close parking spot in front of Nordstrom's at the mall. I managed to stop and pick up one of her presents and stop at the [packed] Apple store and get out of there in less than a half an hour. Target wasn't any busier, so I got in an out of there rather quick.

On top of all that, we got our Christmas tree, and Talitha and her niece Sierra got it all decorated. It looks great! I'll have to put up a picture if I get a chance this weekend.

Also saw "Borat" today. Long story short: Funny movie, but not as funny as I expected after all the hype. It's still worth seeing, though I wouldn't trip over yourself to see it at the movie theater.

Capitalism at its ...sigh...

So what's more surprising:
1. People who have the cash/credit to buy one or more PS3s for ~$600 a pop, also have the ability to waste two days waiting inline outside a store to buy them..
2. That there are people willing to buy these things at an incredible markup on eBay?

To be honest, I'm surprised that Sony and its retailers just don't cut out the middle man, and just offer the damn things for around $2,000, which is apparently about what they are going for on eBay. Yes People will pay strangers on the intarweb $2,000 for a first rev gaming system, when they could just wait six months for the larger supply and pay $600. Oh well, no one gets hurt, right? [ As I read this, KRON-4 news was doing a report about a "stampede" at a store in Wisconsin where a man had his jaw broken when he was slammed into a light poll in a parking lot while waiting to buy one of these units.]

Edit: This article discusses some good old fashioned teenage violence, and also sums up some other PS3-related violence including two different robberies.

Decorating Python

I thought I might throw together a quick example on what Python decorators are and how to use them, since I usually use them with CherryPy and I forgot exactly how they worked since I last used them.

Python decorators simply allow you to wrap a function call with one or more function calls. The idea is that you can write a decorator to modify (i.e., decorate) the behavior of many like functions. For example, in CherryPy I use a decorator on exposed class methods to wrap pages of content with an HTML header and footer.

For the purposes of this post, lets take a simple example.

def print_hello(name):
  print "Hello, ", name

def print_goodbye(name):
  print "Goodbye, ", name

print_hello("Matt")
print_goodbye("Matt")

This outputs:

Hello, Matt

Simple, right?

Okay, so maybe we want to gussy up our function, say by surrounding both print statements with a string of twenty dashes. We could modify each function like:

def print_goodbye2(name):
  print "-" * 20
  print "Goodbye, ", name
  print "-" * 20

print_goodbye2("Matt")

Producing:

--------------------
Goodbye, Matt
--------------------

Of course to do this, we have to change both functions. What if we want to write the dash-output code and apply it to each function? This is where we can use a decorator!

In the following code, we create a decorator function called add_lines. It takes a function as an argument (the function its decorating), and returns a function _decor, which takes the arguments passed to the function it is decorating.
Inside the _decor closure, we print a dashed line, call the decorated function (with its expected arguments), and print another dashed line. Then, we define our functions print_hello and print_goodbye and we put @add_lines before both funtion definitions. This tells Python that we are using add_lines to decorate the following function.

def add_lines(fn):

  def _decor(*args):
     print "-" * 20
     fn(*args)
     print "-" * 20

  return _decor
#end add_lines

@add_lines
def print_hello(name):
  print "Hello, ", name

@add_lines
def print_goodbye(name):
  print "Goodbye, ", name

print_hello("Matt")
print_goodbye("Matt")

The result of calling our decorated functions is:

--------------------
Hello, Matt
--------------------
--------------------
Goodbye, Matt
--------------------

So, when you call print_hello or print_goodbye you are effectively calling add_lines which in turn calls the original function.

You can also pass arguments to decorators using an additional closure:

def add_char_lines(char):     #function with expected arguments
  def _wrap(fn):             #closure that receives the decorated function
     def _decor(*args):      #closure that receives the decorated function's args
        print char * 20
        fn(*args)
        print char * 20
     return _decor
  return _wrap
#end add_char_lines

@add_char_lines("*")
def print_hello(name):
  print "Hello, ", name

print_hello("Matt")

Produces:

********************
Hello, Matt
********************

Finally, you can also apply multiple decorators to a function. The following works, even if it is an unlikely example:

def add_lines(fn):

  def _decor(*args):
     print "-" * 20
     fn(*args)
     print "-" * 20

  return _decor
#end add_lines

def lower(fn):
  def _decor(*args):
     nargs = []
     for arg in args:
        if type(arg) == type(""):
           nargs.append(arg.lower())
     fn(*nargs)
  return _decor
#end lower

@add_lines
@lower
def print_string(a_string):
  print "STRING: ", a_string

print_string("A STRING")

Which produces:

--------------------
STRING: a string
--------------------

The Python wiki takes a much more in-depth look at decorators.

Yo mamma's teeth so yellow.. she spits butter!

Welp, my MacBook top-case finally started to discolor. It didn't show until about last month, and now its slowly getting worse. Functionally, this causes me no problems, and its only really noticeable at the right angle or lighting condition (had to futz with the camera to get a picture where you could notice it). However, I am irritated that I paid a good price for this laptop and its starting to look like nicotine-stained teeth - you know, that shitty dingy yellow. Unfortunately, everytime I've gone by the local Apple store, the "geniuses" are busy helping other customers, that I've not been able to get an answer to my question: "What's the turn-around time to get this fixed?" Honestly, I rely too much on this laptop to drop it off whenever, so I'll have to wait until we go on vacation or I buy a new desktop before I take it in.

The garbage men who empty our trash bins every Tuesday and Friday, do so with the swiftness and efficiency of a cat burglar.... By cat burglar, I mean a 250lb mans man learning how to perform leaping ballet moves in a china shop all while nursing a severe inner ear infection.

There's also somone with a 1997 Camry which is _always_ parked next to one set of trash bins. It has a car alarm tuned so sensitive, its been rumored to detect earthquakes well into the Pacific Ocean. Anyways, it has become the emergency back-up alarm clock, because the garbage men without a doubt set that shitty car's alarm off constantly while emptying the trash - and its almost always 7:45 when they do it.

Bleh. Time to make the donuts.

Yeeeuck haw

Talitha and I were going to meet her former research advisor for drinks, as he was visiting the area. We decided to stop and get dinner at an unamed steakhouse, as it was the only restaurant nearby. I did not have a good experience. The atmosphere was.. well, cramped and a bit stuffy. You had the feeling that you were the cattle being herded into stalls for feeding. The food was, okay. I would rate it closed to Applebee's, except for the veggies. Applebee's has better veggies and salad, in my opinion.

There were a few things that I learned about the cowboy experience, which I can use if I ever open a similar restaurant.

1. Clean dishes aren't required; in fact they're forbidden. Do you really think that Tex has the time to clean off his mess kit when he's out there rasslin' broncos? I don't think so. If Tex can eat off of the remains of previous meals, so can your customers! If they complain, just bring them new dishes...with different food particles stuck to them!
   
2. Part of the cowboy code requires that if another cowboy is celebrating his birthday, all of the other cowboys have to come out and chant happy birthday at the top of their lungs. Sounds a little gimicky, right? Wrong. They end it with a whooping "YEEEHAW". Authentic.
   
3. Use "Pardner" a lot, and give "cowboy" lingo lessons at odd places all over the menu. This gives the visitor the impression he/she is having a nice old ranch hand (think Sam Elliott's character from the Big Lebowski) going over the menu. It's also a good education - did you know that "Firewater" is an acceptable term for "Whiskey"? I don't know what this "Whiskey" thing is, but it sounds dangerous. I'm glad the cowboys have to handle it.

Time to make the donuts!

New tool from OWASP called Pantera announced this morning. It's a web app assessment tool written in Python that looks like what I've wanted to write or better yet, find. It resides within the browser - looks like I'll have something new to try at work today!

TGIF amirite? -or- Useful Firefox Extensions

I was going to post something deep; perhaps a dissertation on California politics, or maybe a good quality rant on bay area commuters (idiots, all of them).... but I'm tired, damn tired. Perhaps I should stop going to bed at 1 in the morning?

Nah.

I thought for today, I'd just post a few of the Firefox extensions I use for web app security testing. They're nothing special, just a few handy things that makes leet haxoring a little easier (I'm tired, remember?).

Caveat: Not all, but most work with Firefox 2.0

• TamperData - hands down, I use this the most. So much better than loading up a heavyweight Java proxy, when you don't need all the extra bells and whistles.
  
• LiveHTTPHeaders - Handy tool for quickly viewing and modifying header requests and headers sent with loaded pages.
• URLParams - This gives you a nice sidebar which will show you form elements, and allows you to manipulate them and submit them. It's probably most useful for quickly viewing hidden form inputs without looking at the source or using WebDeveloper
• View Cookies - View cookies is great, despite being very simple. It basically puts a "Cookies" tab in the page info dialog. It's very handy for seeing all of the cookies that get sent to the target page.
• Add N Edit Cookies - Ever wanted to bake your own cookies?
• CookiePie - Basically, lets you have a cookie exist for a single tab - great if you can only use one web browser instance for testing multiple user sessions simultaneously.
• Firebug - This is a great DOM inspector and JS debugger. I use it for going after those so-called web 2.0 applications (you mean you need to perform authentication on ajax calls?!!)
• SwitchProxy - This is a must if you are using tools like Paros or Burp proxy. Lets you switch quickly between proxy profiles.
  

It's by no means exhaustive, and I'll add more, as I don't have all of the ones I use installed on this computer. Feel free to post any others you find useful in the comments!

Thanks to all of you dedicated plugin developers; you've really made life easier for a lot of us.

Like/dislikes about my Mazda3

I'm not really used to strange people coming up to me and asking questions that I don't expect. What I mean by this is that I'm not suprised by someone asking me: "Do you know where the Wyndham Hotel is?" or "Can I get the time?", or even the occasional "Do you have a cellphone I can borrow for a quick call?" (answer to this one is always no). However, when someone who I don't know comes up and asks me an opinion question I'm not ready for, I kind of get caught offguard. Over the weekend, I was parking my car in Trader Joe's parking lot while Talitha was starting some shopping. Some guy comes up to me and asks me how I like my Mazda3. He wanted to know what I liked about it, what I didn't like about it, etc.. at first I thought he was just bored, maybe he was looking to buy one. At any rate, it made me think about it, and I thought I'd list out what my true likes and dislikes of the vehicle are.

I'll preface this list by saying that overall, I really love my 3. I got a good deal on it, and its fun to drive.

Dislikes (in no particular order):

• No audio input on the stereo. Yeah, in the era of iPods and after market satellite radio, there's no audio input on the stereo used in all '06 Mazdas. From what I've read on the Mazda3 Forums, Auxmod is probably the best bet. It clips into the MD port on the back of the stereo and provides a 1/8" audio jack. Unforunately, it is sold out. The guy who designed it has a prototype for a new one that offers an additional RS/232 serial connector, LCD text display, and I hear the steering wheel controls will also be usable with the iPod. Unfortunately, it was due to be out in August, but has yet to be released. Until then, I'll have to stick with my FM transmitter, which sucks in a highly populated area who's airwaves are so crowded with radio stations.
• Here's a annoying one: the gas pedal is too close to the accelerator. I know its a compact car, but come on! The gas pedal is jammed right up against the center console, and the break pedal is right next door. I think I'd rather replace the wide break pedal (its an autostick) with a smaller one like you'd see in a MT car.
• Insurance prices are a bit higher. About, $120-200 depending on your insurability in CA, at least. I've seen a lot more 3's on the road here, so probably more accidents.
• Laggy transmission. Yeah, of course its not as responsive as an MT, but first gear can be very laggy. The autostick can also be very laggy as well. If you're using the autostick, you have to anticipate the shift by a second or so so that the shift kicks in when you expect it. For example, if I want to shift into second from first, I need to kick the the stick to + at 4,000rpm to get it to shift at 5,000 (with the accelerator moderaly pressed in).
  
• Idle's rough mostly when it just warms up. Its not necessarily bad, and no inspections revealed bad motor mounts or anything. Just a little annoying choppiness.
• The Bose stereo leaves a bit to be desired.
• Blind spots can get you; I have my mirrors tilted all the way out, otherwise other compacts get lost in the cars blindspots.
  

Likes:

• Tight suspension, tight steering. This makes the car very maneuverable, especially in heavy traffic.
• Lots of power at the top of second, and all of third gear - this car's power is in 3rd.
• Small turning radius, which really comes in handy out here in California, since you usually have to make at least 3 u-turns to get anywhere.
• It's fast, though it won't win you any drag races. You'll want the Mazda3sport for that :-)
• The sportshifter (manumatic, autostick, whatever) is fantastic for getting that power quickly when you need to pass someone on the freeway.
  
• All of the controls are easy to reach and make sense. For example, its nice to have a wiper-mist function again (Camry didn't have it).
• Decent gas mileage. I average 27-29 miles per gallon.
• Lots of space, especially for a compact car, and definitely with the hatchback. Sure, if you need to move anything of appreciable size, you won't be able to have passengers in the back, but you can still fit quite a bit back there.
  
• Glove box like a walkin closet. Seriously, I can put almost my entire arm in the glove box without touching the back.
  
• The car looks smart, and sporty. In the land of the Prius, the 3 is king.
• The red-glow of the displays, and the blue electro-luminescent dashboard is really easy on the eyes at night.
  
• Fun to drive. Hands down, this car is fun to drive.
  

BEAR DOWN CHICAGO BEARS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1h71vEQtCM

Denny Green looks he's been playing Madden 2006...

that damn cheating game!!! *shakes fist*

HAHAHAHAHA

http://www.notdustin.com/istache/


Crazy stache-related apps aside, a few I don't want to forget:

CoRD - OS X Remote Desktop Client that doesn't suck
Onyx - Handy preferences 'control panel' for hidden OS X options
MenuMeters - Various system meters for Menubar

Getting adjusted...

Well, we've been here for a little over two weeks and are still getting adjusted to the lifestyle. Surprisingly, we're still adjusting to the time change - especially Talitha. She's been getting up at 5:30 or earlier every day, even on the weekends. On the other hand, it means we've been able to develop a decent routine. She gets up early, starts the coffee, I get up about 20 minutes before she has to leave, take her to the bus, then I come back and watch the traffic report before heading to work. The weather is still beautiful out here, though. It's 56F right now, but not a cloud in the sky. It's supposed to get up to 86F here, and mid-seventies on the peninsula.


I eventually did get my car registered with the DMV. This was quite a different experience for me, coming from Indiana. First, I'm used to spending no more than 15-20 mintues at the DMV in West Lafayette and second, I've never had to have a car inspected ($$). The DMV, the mechanic, and the ARB were all quick to tell me I couldn't register my car, as if they got a kick out of it. You see, I have a 2006 Mazda with under 7,500 miles on it. According to this, I'm an evil, awful nasty person if I have a new car under 7,500 miles that doesn't meet California emissions. Thankfully, there is an exception for persons who have relocated and will "certify" that they've registered the car in another state that they were a resident of, prior to moving to CA. The woman at the DMV told me twice that they audit this, like I was trying to cheat the system or something. Nevermind that she was holding my Indiana original registration certificate, a copy of my Indiana BMV title application, and I still had my Indiana license. ..sigh.. I guess they have a big problems with Californians trying to skirt these laws.

On Saturday morning, I woke up really early and was surfing the web. I finally decided to get Vonage so we did't have to use our cellphones as home phones. The box should be here mid-week. Ironically, no more than an hour later, I realized I had lost my cellphone sometime the previous night. You see, Talitha and I have dubbed Friday night "Mexican Food" night. We walk across the street to this Mexican restaurant where we eat. Well, I think I left my cellphone there, but I can't remember for certain as I had one too many margaritas. Anyways, its gone.. no one turned it into the restaurant, and it wasn't in our apartment (the only other place I was at after dinner). The replacement (thanks Insurance) will be here mid-week as well, but will cost me a $50 deductible (thanks Insurance).

Anyways, more later. I've got to drive to work!

Following the Oregon Trail

Day 2:

08:20 CDT - Des Moines, IA
Got up reasonably early. Set to leave here before 0900 local. Got McDonald's for breakfast and gassed up the car. Tensions are running okay at the moment. Also trying to not burn my mouth on my McDonald's "Premium Roast" coffee. Fun fact: Nebraska and Wyoming speed limits are 75mph! K-Rad.

Day 3:

07:53 MDT - Shitstain, WY

Didn't get a chance to log yesterday's events, because I was so tired. Driving through the rest of Iowa was pretty uneventful and boring - lots of cops too as you get closer to Nebraska. Nebraska itself was awful. How anyone can live anywhere else that isn't Lincoln or Omaha is beyond me. The terrain was flat, uninteresting and uninspiring. There were stretches of road that were so uneven though, that it felt like driving the car over train tracks. We finally made it to Wyoming at around 4:00pm. The terrain certainly got interesting, and it became very clear that the cruise control in the Mazda3 does not know how to handle hill/mountain grades. Sometimes, the thing would kick down into 3rd gear and hold it at the rev limiter, so I'd just cancel it, because it could handle 4th gear just fine.

We attempted to stop in Rawlins, WY to grab some quick dinner before making it to our goal. We got out, and the wind was howling. The Taco Bell/KFC hybrid we stopped at was packed with drive through customers and had a pretty decent line inside. Inside, it was somewhat surreal - dirty, flies everywhere so we decided to eat in the car. Talitha tried to eat her Taco Salad but was disgusted by it, and threw it out - refusing to ask for something else. This precipitated a really stupid fight - you know, the ones that start for no good reason and are really ill-timed?

Finally, we said we'd just push to Rock Springs, WY where we could get dinner at a sit-down place and retire to a hotel. We drove another 120mi through the dark wasteland, passing odd dust clouds, and watching thunderstorms build - some of the lightning was spectacular. Finally, just as it seemed like we would be driving forever, we made it to Rock Springs. It was like an Oasis in the desert; Applebee's, convenience stores, all sorts of fast food, and every hotel you can find.... and all of them were booked solid. We were forced to drive to Evanston, where I right this now. We used our smarts and called ahead as soon as we left Rock Springs and got the last room at the Holiday Inn express. We made haste, got in, quick argument, grabbed dinner, came back and crashed.

967 miles, 14.5 hours of driving. Ugh.

Now, we're just cleaning up our stuff and ready to pack up the rest of the car, and to get breakfast. Then, its to the Wal-mart, and then off to Salt Lake City for the next leg of the trip. We estimate, with mountain driving, that we'll only be able to get to Reno, NV before we're done for the day.

For now, we're off.

Travel: Day One

09:36 (EDT) - West Lafayette, IN
Well, the movers got here. Arrived at around 8:45 just as T and I headed out for the DMV. We decided we better turn around, so she dropped me off and I'm just waiting for the movers to do their thing. At the moment, I'm wondering where the hell I put the digital camera.

23:21 (CDT) - Somewhere near Des Moines, IA

Check that. The digital camera was in the glove box. It took the movers (only two of them) over 6 hours to move our meager apartment load of stuff into the truck. Apparently, there were supposed to be 3 movers, but the third had a doctors appointment. He later called to find out if he was still needed - they said "no". So, cut to 4:00pm; we finally drop off the keys to the apartment, drop off the vacuum at Davids, stop by Follett's, and then get on the road.

Traffic was surprisingly good through I-65 and I-80 near Chicago. Lots of speed traps courtesy of the Illinois Highway Patrol in the second half of the state. All I can say is: "Thanks, Beltronics." We stopped in Iowa City for dinner around 8:15 localtime. Scarfed down some dinner over very few words, and headed for Des Moines listening to "Rush: A Farewall to Kings". We arrived in Des Moines and I decided that I best not push it to Omaha (another 135 mi).

We stopped at a Holiday Inn, and are staying the night there. Nice king-sized bed, free WiFi, and added security thanks to some Police thing going on here (there are tons of Cop cars from all over parked in the Parking lot). Talitha is mad because I forgot to ask for a smoking room.

The plan for tomorrow? Leave around 9am and head for Cheyenne. It's only ~630mi so we can probably make it to Rawlins (700mi). More later, time for TV and sleep.

Shipping Update

Fedex finally updated their tracking information. My package made it to Syracuse NY from Sacramento CA yesterday evening. (Two days after UPS delivered). Of course the "estimated delivery date" shortly changed from 7/27 to 7/29, which oddly enough is a Saturday, and Fedex doesn't deliver on Saturdays. Its still in NY, so I can expect to get it sometime next week. Definitely not impressed with Fedex ground vs. UPS.

----

I should mention that the item was actually delivered on Friday, the 28th. So, it took Fedex an extra 4 days to go an extra 1000 miles?

I wish commercials were this funny...

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=18616

Is it me, or does Google video only contain the following content:

* Idiots putting Mentos in various sodas
* Two German girls playing Milli Vanilli to a bunch of shitty pop music
* The oh-so-obviously fake "girl caught cheating on webcam" video which is posted at least three times under varying titles

Okay, perhaps not but the stupidest stuff is in the top 100 right now.

UPS v. Fedex update

21JUL06 1118 EDT, UPS reports that the package has been shipped to a hub in PA.  Fedex still has not reported that they've even received the package.

22JUL06 2229 EDT, UPS reports that the package was en route to Lafayette very early in the morning. I suspect that it won't be processed until Monday, but it will be delivered on Monday. Fedex has finally reported receiving the package as of 5:30am yesterday, but has shown no change since.

24JUL06 2039 EDT, UPS delivered the mini-DVI to video adapter at noon today. Looks like they win, though to be fair, they had less distance to travel. However, as far as Fedex is concerned, the item is still in Sacremento as of this afternoon! They are also estimating that it will arrive on the 27th. Hope it does make it here by then, I plan on using it on the 28th...

The shipping race.

I ordered both Apple mini-DVI to DVI and mini-DVI to composite/S-video adapters from Apple today.  Both adapters are being shipped separately, and by different shipping companies (interesting).  The race then, shall be to see which one gets here first.  So far, only the UPS-shipped item has had its origination scan (Pennsylvania).  The Fedex item has still not listed an origination, but I suspect it will be coming from CA or somewhere out West.  Who will make it here first?  

MacBook = teh awesome

Saturday, went to the Apple store in Indy and picked up a base MacBook Pro, 2.0GHz core duo - I'm very impressed. However, it was obvious right away that the stock 512MB of RAM wasn't going to cut the mustard. Thanks to David I found 2 1GB sticks of DDR2 200pin RAM for $70 a pop at newegg, and got them today. Slapped them into the machine and crapped my pants. The thing starts up in less than 8 seconds, and is a completely different machine!!

Junk

In the interest of making our up and coming move to California a little more managable, I began cleaning out old crap that's just taking up space in the apartment. I went through two simple plastic crates full of all sorts of semi-worthless things like computer power cables (worthless until you need it) to broken palm pilots. For some reason, whether it be sentimental or laziness, I tend to keep crap for no particular reason. I finally got the guts to get rid of a few things and figure that I would document them here for posterity, before they met the dumpster.

Note: One other thing I learned today is that I do not know how to consistently operate a camera. This should become obvious with some of the pictures below.

The first item is a semi-ancient Asanta 10Mb hub. I have no idea why I have it, where I got it from, or why I was keeping it. No clue if it worked, and I never acquired a power supply to run it.





The second item is a Cirque touchpad of unknown model. I remember I got this a long time ago, because apparently money was burning a hole in my pocket. I never liked it, and used it maybe two or three times before it was relegated to a forgotten box.



You may remember the CueCat. I believe like most people, I acquired this from Radio Shack. Never used it, and I think most of us have long since forgotten them.



Here are a couple of old Sun laser mice. The kind that needed that stupid metal mouse pad with the tracking grid on them. I hated using those things - good riddance!



My first MP3 player, was a Create Labs Nomad. It sported a 32MB SD memory card and an FM tuner. Ran off of two AAA-sized NiCd batteries and was great for jogging. It's a shame the model I had only used a parallel port and only had drivers for Windows 98.



Here's a gem that I got from David, and will be going back to him. :-) It's a remote power switch that you can hook up to a phone line.



The Zip Plus was a great companion back before broadband to the home was readily available. Worked on both Mac and PC, and was exceedingly useful for bringing files back and forth from home to school. Never once experienced the "zip click of death".



Here's my PalmPilot Personal - I believe this was the first palm pilot available from Palm Inc. back when they were still owned by USR. Back before mobile internet was mainstream, these were actually useful! Now, the only thing these sorts of personal organizers are good for is hooking up to GPS receivers. As you can see, I lost this one to a cracked screen. It was a shame too, because I had the IR and 3MB memory upgrade that made it close to a Palm III.



Finally, I found my first two cellphones. The following pictures include an open and closed Motorola RAZR for comparison.

This is an Audiovox analog phone.



This is an NEC Analog/Digital Phone.



Here's a picture comparing the width of the NEC to the RAZR.

Love the writing on this bit:

10 awful tech items, Q2 2006

Also, good to see Firefox is still eating away at IE.

The costs of living...
Setup a lease for our move out West. We pay, oh say $600USD for a 2-bedroom apartment in West Lafayette. In the California East bay area, we'll be paying $1800USD for the same thing.

If you're ever called a "Septic"
A friend of mine got me into watching a British TV show called Top Gear (really entertaining and sometimes informative car show). Anyways, I picked up another bit of Cockney rhyming slang that I'd not heard before. If you're an American, and a Brit calls you a "septic", it's their charming way of calling you a "yank" (rhymes wif "Septic Tank", guv). Supposedly derives from the belief that most of us Americans are "full of shit"....cute.

+5 recognition of capitalism

http://www.2jdhosting.com/ge/logogame/index.php

Don't you hate it when you have to be to bed early for early travel, but can't seem to fall asleep? It almost always happens to me. Anyway, decided to take the Lafayette Limo to Indy for the trip since I want the car to stay back to have its windshield repaired. Unfortunately, the Lafayette Limo leaves at 4:35am from the closest place to my apartment. My wife has graciously offered to drive me the 3 blocks to the boarding spot. :>

Spidering...

So, of course I go out to my car the next day to find that the lovely small divot in my windshield has now become a nice sized crack that I expect will grow at a rate which has it finding at least two ends of the windshield before I can get it fixed. To make things more fun, no one repairs windshields in Lafayette IN on the 4th of July, and I will be flying out of Indy for a job interview first thing tomorrow morning. I've decided that its best not to drive the car to Indy so I can leave it at home and it can get repaired, if it can be repaired! Of course this means I have to take the Lafayette Limo which, while convenient in a scenario like this has me getting up at 3-3:30 am to make a 8am flight out of Indianapolis! ...sigh.. Time to go to bed!

Oh, and Happy Independence day!

Reason #14 for hating Interstate driving.

So, I can put 60,000 miles on this without once chipping my windshield, despite having numerous debris (mostly stones of varying shape and size). However, I don't even have 1,500 miles on this and the first bloody stone to bounce off my windshield has to chip it. I suppose there could be a variety of reasons including the aerodynamics and size of the Mazda3 versus the Camry, or it could be a difference of quality between the two manufacturers. Whatever the reason, I find it extremely irritating.

I wish I had my camera...

Don't you ever have those moments where you wish you had your camera? About 12:30 in the morning on Sunday, my wife and I stop by a bowling alley on the southwest side of Milwaukee so she can see a friend. As we're entering the parking lot, we see about 5 cop cars and an ambulance leaving the same lot. I puzzled on this for a moment, but assumed it must have been a fight. So, we head into the bowling alley, and everything seems business as usual for a bowling alley in Milwaukee: the lanes are empty and everyone is at the bar drinking. Anyhow, we find Talitha's friend and they start chatting. I excuse myself to the gent's room, walk in, take a look at what can only be described as a blood bath , and then immediately do an about face, meet back up with my wife, and join in the conversation while trying to stifle my urges to do the pee-pee dance.

The entire wash room was covered in blood. All over urinals, all over stalls, all over the sinks, walls. It looked like someone might have exploded in there. I wish I would have had my camera because words couldn't describe it. I mean, it wasn't gory, there were no bodies or brains, or anything like that. However, it was all a bit too much for my mind to take in while I was attempting to relieve myself. Anyways, the bartender explained that someone had taken a Lite bottle and smashed it over someone else's head - I can only hope that it was "I'll cut you" style. I presume a fight broke out between the head smasher and the head smashee, and that's how the blood got all over the place. Reminded me of a forensic science class presentation by a blood patter expert where it was explained that a little blood can look like a lot of blood.

Happy New Year!

Was a good New Year. Talitha and I spent the weekend in the Middle of Nowhere, Indiana visiting some good friends from college. Jealousy abounds as we saw what it was like to have your own house you can customize.

Anyhow, poking around on the intarweb this evening, I've finally found something I've wanted for a long time on Windows (when I use it) - a multi-tabbed terminal!

The following link is to a blog that will give you some good options. Being a gnome user myself, I found option #3, pre-compiled gnome-terminal packages, very enticing.

http://jroller.com/page/thuss?entry=tabbed_terminals_for_windows_redux