Month: March 2007

  • Stream-Of-Happiness

    (An entire week went by? Ack!)

    It’s late and I should get into bed, but here’s a stream-of-consciousness barrage of the good things that filled most (or at least some) of the last ten days: BT’s “Emotional Technology”, Epic Super Munchkin Bites, The Art of the Catapult, The World Forestry Center, Scorched Earth 3D, steak, the Eden Trial, Doctor Who, Apocalyptica, pizza, A.E.I.O.U., Koyaanisqatsi, orange creme Hershey’s Kisses candy, Object Desktop, cocoa, and the company of good people.

    Because dwelling on the good stuff is healthier than the alternative, usually.

  • Not to be mistaken for the other kind of children.

    Lil’ directed me to Literally, A Web Log which led me to This Is Broken at which I found a “caution” sign made funnier by virtue of my being a totally sick individual.

    So, remember. This is all Lil’s fault.

  • Photo Periodic Table Posters

    So. Who wants to pony up and buy a late birthday present for everyone’s favorite little grey duck?

    Okay, I kid. I’ll probably buy one myself at some point in the near future. I just wanted to get the link posted here so I won’t forget that I want one, let alone where I found them.

  • My son brings the funny, as usual.

    The following just came in from Alexander. (If this keeps up, I’m going to have to give the boy his own login to the website…)


    So my mother and I were watching the beginning of the animated movie, “Robots.” As those first few minutes went by, it was revealed the robot babies came from… assembly kits.

    So I said to myself, “You know, that has got to be a father’s favorite private joke.”

    Think about it. If a child comes up to him and asks, “Where do babies come from?” and the boy’s about eight, he can’t just give him the birds and the bees talk, can he?

    So the dad sees an opportunity for a joke. “Well,” he says, “most people go to the store, buy the kit, and follow the assembly instructions.”

    The shocked kid exclaims, “I came from SEARS!?”

    With a smile, the dad shakes his head and replies, “No, but you were a blue light special at K-Mart.”

    Mom cracked up at this story, and immediately demanded that I send this to you.

    ~Spud

  • Two time zones for the price of chaos.

    The “DST 2007” fallout isn’t quite as bad as I originally feared, but I’m not completely out of the woods. For instance, there are all of those Outlook recurring appointments to help people straighten out. The stunner, though, is that for some reason certain copies of Windows XP selected the wrong Pacific time zone when they received the DST update patch. What used to be “GMT-08:00 Pacific Time (US & Canada); Tijuana” is now “GMT-08:00 Pacific Time (US & Canada)” and “GMT-08:00 Tijuana, Baja California”.

    Spiffy. Guess who gets to figure out how to find and squash this particular dilemma? Sure, it’s not a difficult problem to fix on an individual machine, but try scripting the fix across hundreds of client machines in a variety of environments without breaking something else in the process. My efforts aren’t helped by a (possible) bug in our managed services platform which is preventing me from checking the value of a Windows registry string.

    Of course, thanks to the DST change itself, I’m handling all of this after getting up at what felt like four-thirty in the morning. I’ve had worse Mondays, I suppose…

  • Ubuntu Forums: More Accurate Than My Mom

    I received the following email at 4:00 in the afternoon today, the 7th of March:

    We at Ubuntu Forums would like to wish you a happy birthday today!

    Well, at least they’re more accurate than my mother. The Ubuntu Forums are only off by about eight hours, while Mom called three entire days early. Still, I appreciate the sentiment, automated as it may be…