Time Cannon

Wow. Almost two weeks without an update. That’s pretty sad. Every time I say that I’m gonna update more often, the longer the periods of inactivity become. Oh well, here’s one for Whome and the fella’s at the TVA… “Down goes Frazier, Down Goes Frazier!!!” Howard Cosell The neighborhood I grew up in had about six kids my age or within at least a year of my age. So, most of the time you could always find someone to pal around with on those long summer days. But there was the rare occasion that everyone else was off somewhere doing chores or out of town. On those occasions, I would have to actually stoop and (gasp!) play with my younger brother. Didn’t happen often, but it happened. This fateful day, the game of choice was baseball. How can you play base ball with two people? Well it’s pretty easy when one can’t hit the ball. And my brother, at the age of nine, could NOT hit the ball. I would stand on the sidewalk, lob him some slow pitches and he would...

"Itsssssssss Friiiiiiiiiiidaaaaaaaaaaaay!" Local Oogla Antagonizer Vacation Day today. No reason. No plans. Just thought you'd like to know. Also, last week I forgot to wish my bud Whome a happy birthday. So, happy late birthday man, I hope Chuck E Cheese roooled!

Ralphing Kisses After reading my buddy Escapes post about his faithful dog Maynard, it seems a good time for a dog story. The day before Christmas Eve, we had decided to go out to eat. I had started gathering the candy that I was going to put in the stockings and had left it on the corner of the end table out of site. Or so I thought. When we returned from dinner, I notice little bits of what looked like aluminum foil around the house. I followed the trail until it ended directly under the Christmas tree. There sat an empty bag ( a ONE pound bag mind you) of Hershey Kisses. Shaye the Weenie dog, well into her 10th year had eaten a pound of chocolate in our absence. She was also nowhere to be seen. Anytime we return to the house and she didn’t greet you at the door wagging her tail is a bad sign. It usually meant she did something she knew she would get in trouble for and was firmly entrenched under the back corner of the bed, her favorite hiding spot. She was there,...

"It's not the tale, it's he who tells it" Stephen King, Different Seasons When you have a child in elementary school, you look forward to the school work they bring home, especially when they are young. Your refrigerator is covered in their artwork. Almost always, it brings out the “aww, how sweet factor”. But on some occasions, they bring home something that is so far out of left field you wonder how the heck they came up with it. Such was the case for @ in second grade when asked to write a scary Halloween story. Below is scan of the actual story. We got a good weeks laugh at this. Even @ cracks up still. Now he’s a Freshman in High School, and he still hasn’t topped this one. Please note, feel free to tell this story around campfires etc., just don’t hold me responsible for the sleepless nights it will cause. “ I was trickortreting. I got so scard I peed in my pants. Guss who jumped in front of me. Elves Prestly. Great balls of fire .”

Of Deanna Peoples and the Hall of Mirrors Late September and early October mean one thing if you live in Dallas, The Great State Fair of Texas. Having lived here my whole life and attended the Fair regularly, I’m sure it’s lost on me what a special tradition it is. Sure other states have their “state” fair, but this is TEXAS man, and in Texas everything is bigger. That’s almost cliché, but it’s true. Growing up, the Fair was all about the midway. How many rides could we fit in without throwing up and having to go home? How much money could we lose to the Midway barkers telling us, “you only have to make one to get the prize!”? The fair is about the food. World famous corny dogs. Texas Tornado-Taters. If it’s a solid food, they can, and will, fry it. They even had fried cheesecake this year. The Fair is about the Auto building, where “you to can view vehicles that you could NEVER be able to afford in TWO lifetimes!”. But most of all, when I go to the Fair now, it's about the nostalg...

"I only had a high school education and believe me, I had to cheat to get that." Sparky Anderson As I mentioned before, the boy is playing high school baseball now. The Freshmen aren’t supposed to play “Fall Ball” but they need players on the Junior Varsity, so they are throwing the Freshmen to the wolves. Heck, they aren’t doing half bad. This weekend’s game was at my old high school. It was really weird, pulling into the parking lot. Not too much has changed. As we got out of the car I paused for a second, looked around and realized that I was one parking spot away from my Senior parking space. I guess its sad that I remember that. I also remember, 20 years ago. walking down that sidewalk, getting in the car and thinking, “wow, I did it. Whats next?” Seems like yesterday.

“Hobbies of any kind are boring, except to people who have the same hobby.” Dave Barry I pride myself on not letting what’s going on in the world get me down. Christ, do you ever watch the 10:00 news? Is there a more depressing 30 minutes of TV? So I avoid it. I also read comic books. I hang out on IRC and act like a moron with my friends (HaCsA Roolez!). I subscribe to MAD magazine. I have every Three Stooges short in mpeg format (Thanks Snard!). I spend 8+ hours watching football on Sunday during the NFL season. I do these things because if you stop and think what’s going on out there, it’ll scare ya to death. Is avoiding things the best way to deal with life? Nope. But as Popeye says, I Yam What I Yam. So while people are fretting where the next attack is coming from, just remember I’m driving somewhere around Dallas looking for a place that sells Sea Monkey food. Im all out.

"Thats no moon, It's a space station!" Ben Kenobi With the release of the Indiana Jones Trilogy on DVD this year, there remained one Holy Grail movie left to be released on DVD. That, of course is, Star Wars. Unless you live in a cave, you know the long wait for Lucas’ trilogy is over. It was released yesterday. While in line to purchase I counted nine people in front of me, all nine had the set it their hand. Please don’t mistake me for a Star Wars fanboy who can name each minor character along with their family lineage etc, etc. That’s not me. Not that that is a bad thing. Star Wars came out in 1977. I was the ripe old age of ten. I walked in Northpark Cinema I & II (where the rich people went!) with absolutely no idea what kind of movie my dad was dragging me to. Why do I care to see a war movie?? Two hours later, the way I looked at the movies was forever changed. It wasn’t the story, heck the good vs. evil motif has been used countless times before and ...

Football Isn't a Contact Sport, It's a Collision Sport... Duffy Daugherty In my book, the start of the NFL season should be a national holiday. The previous Friday and the following Monday should be free of work, all focus should be allowed on the game. I'm serious. Even the wife, who, bless her heart, knows how much football season means to me, had the Chili going before kickoff. The chips and dip set out and the beverages were extra chilled. During the NFL season, my Sunday consists of the following: Get up at 10:00am and start watching the ESPN Gameday. Fire up the wireless laptop and get connected to DirecTV's Game Tracker. This in conjunction with DirecTV's NFL Sunday ticket package is the ultimate way to watch the games. 11:30 fire up the lunch for the game (Frito Pie, Chili, Brats, etc., etc). 12:00, settle in for the next NINE hours of gridiron action. Am I sick? Probably. Do I care. Not a bit, ya only get 17 weeks of it, so I savor it all.

It's A Long Way To The Top, If Ya Wanna Rock n Roll... The Late Great Bon Scott @ has played drums for almost a year now. He asked for a kit for Christmas and I was reluctant to spend that kind of money on something that I assumed would be collecting dust in 2 months. We found a person that had to sell their $2,500 kit for $900 bucks. That's a very expensive Christmas present, but I bit the bullet and bought 'em. Since Christmas day, I can't think of 2 or three days in a row where he wasn't out in the garage for at least and hour playing. He's still taking lessons but has become very good in a short amount of time. He has a friend that plays guitar and another that plays bass. They have been threatening to get together and "jam". Last Saturday, they finally got their schedules together and gathered in my garage. They attempted a couple of songs. Lets just say I have patient neighbors. I can't begin to describe how loud it was. I'm talk...

Urine Trouble I am consistently floored by the amount of people that exit the public restroom without washing their hands. Now, I can understand if your just lazy, but even though, if you see someone else in there with you, at least fake it. We are compiling a "PeePee Hand" list here at work. I might just sneak it up on the Intranet too. So come on people, start washing up, you may get called worse than PeePee Hands.

"Stand firm in your refusal to remain conscious during algebra. In real life, I assure you, there is no such thing as algebra. " Fran Lebowitz Seeing some of the homework @ has brought home has made me have flashbacks to my High School days of yore. His Algebra homework really made me cringe. Mathematics have never really been my strong point. In school, I got behind early, and stayed there. The jump from regular math to Algebra (Eighth to Ninth grade) completely exposed my math "skills". Up until that point, I could usually not pay attention in class, daydream, then get home and kludge my way through the homework. Just enought to get by you know. Well, I thought I could do the same in Algebra. But a pivotal moment, the fourth day of class really highlighted how much trouble I was in. The Algebra teacher was walking the class through a problem on the overhead machine. Step by step carrying out the problem, moving the x down the equation until finally he ...

23 Years??!! Well the boy started High School Monday. An expensive Catholic Prep school to boot. The phrase living check to check has re-entered my life after a long (and appreciated) absence. Monday morning, I was trying to dole out Fatherly wisdom, as he was visibly nervous. So I told him that it "seemed just like yesterday when I started my freshman year, it was..", I paused to do the math, and then said, " only 23 years ago!" Holy Cow! TWENTY THREE years. He noticed the shocked look on my face and asked me what was wrong. I said, "Dude, I'm OLD!!" His reassuring response was, "What, you didn't know that?" Nice.

Ok Ok Ok, Im Back Thanks to a little push from Vadergrrrl, I guess Ill continue with this little experiment. Both you readers out there can look forward to more trials and tribulations of the Time Cannon. Tell me when it gets boring....

"You Have 6,184 Unread Messages" (local spam magnet)   Got a call yesterday from an employee that stated he never checks his email and wanted me to look at something for him.  I wander back to his workstation and he points to his inbox in Outlook.  6,184.  That’s how many unread email messages he had.  I asked him if he uses his email address to sign up for things and he swears he doesn’t.  Yeah, right.  After deleting all his messages I notice that during the deletion time, he had already received five new junk emails.  I had investigated some enterprise spam programs for Exchange, but never followed through.  A former co- worker pointed me to ORF ( Open Filter Relay from vamsoft ).  They have a 30 day trial version with full functionality.  So I installed and configured it. It took less than 10 minutes, and I was dropping junk email off the server like a bad habit.  The program has a real time statistics counter.  F...

Zed's Dead Baby Movie quotes.  Why do I contstantly quote movies?  I will hear something and my brain will immediatley correlate it with some obscure quote in some obscure movie.  I don't know why I do it, lord knows it drives my wife nuts.  Heck even my blog description is a movie quote.  " Just a fly in the ointment Hans... " from the multi-quotable Die Hard (arguably the best Action movie all time, think about it, after Die Hard came out, every action movie touted itself "Die Hard on a Bus! or Die Hard on a Boat!"). Anyway, Entertainment Weekly just did an entire story on the best movie quotes.  Suprisingly " Hello, My Name is Inigo Monotoya. You killed my father, prepare to die " from another great sorce of quotes (" Inocthhhheeevable!") The Princess Bride.  Great quote, but I sure wouldn't think that it was the most popular of all time. I would have thought it would have been " Say hello to my leeeetle friend " or...

Please Enter Your Initials (local Donkey Kong machine)   There goes another.  A part of my youth torn down.  Heading home from work on my alternate route when traffic is bad , I saw it.  "Putt Putt Golf-N-Games  CLOSED - Auction 8/7/04". Wow.  I grew up in the 80's.  Video games broke, and broke big in '81. Putt Putt was THE place to be on Friday and Saturday nights. No, not for the mini-golf, but for the arcade. I can remember it like it was yesterday, the sounds, the smells.  The people packed around the newest games.  Saving lunch money all week for the precious friday tokens.  Walking around, hoping to run into a certain girl and acting suprised when you saw her.  That certain girl walking with you to the (finally!) open Donkey Kong machine seeing you put the cherry on top, by putting her initials in the high score after dominating like no one else had that day. Did it get any more chivalrous that that?!  Putt P...

The Summer Blogging Doldroms Wow. Almost 2 weeks without new stuff here, at first, I though it was just the 4th of July holiday. But after another week, I realized that I didn't have anything to say. Bloggersblock. Anyone I can sue? Seriously, how do you people put up something interesting DAILY? It's amazing. Well, this week, I will try to get back into the routine. I will leave you with a line from my favorite comedian Mitch Hedberg. "I had an ant farm once, them fella's didn't grow SHIT! How 'bout a carrot, or something man!"

Audiobook Review #3 The Taking by Dean Koontz I have always been a Dean Koontz fan, and have rarely been disappointed with his work. The Taking, his newest novel, has left me wondering if I liked it or not. Have you ever finished watching a movie and not realize whether you liked it or not? Only days later do you form an opinion. Maybe it's just me. That's the way I feel with this book. I enjoyed it. I never found myself looking forward to it ending (which is my simpleton benchmark for something good or not). But I still don't quite know how to feel about it. The story starts off in a couples isolated home in California, a torrential rain (unheard of at this time of year in California) has woken our Heroine, Molly Sloan from sleep. This is no ordinary rain, it has a faint luminous quality to it, and a scent that doesn't smell like rainwater. The rain continues, and reports of this phenomenon are being reported globally. Gigantic waterspouts are spotte...

Back to the Coal Mines What an absolutely relaxing Fourth of July weekend. I weaseled Tuesday off and left early the Friday thus making it damn near a five day weekend. I didn't accomplish one thing over those five days (unless you count blowing up an obscenely expensive amount of fireworks on Sunday) , and that's the way I like it. Returning to work Wednesday, an employee brought in a computer and asked if I could look at it. She said its been running slow, and has a bunch of pop-ups. My workspace is ideal for this and I even have on network connection patched over to the "outside world" T1 which allows me to connect a computer to the internet, and keep it OFF our internal network. After getting past the "hot teen sex" pop ups, I was finally able to get Norton Antivirus to run. 2,121 virus instances later, it completed the scan. Someone call the Center for Disease Control, we have ourselves a genuine world record. I felt the sudden urge to ...

Same Bat Channel After a brief blogging holiday, Time Cannon will resume it's regularly scheduled updates tomorrow, hope everyone had a Happy Fourth!

Sign o' The Times So Iv'e told you before that the field department of our company attracts a rather colorful type of individual. Drunks, druggies, and good ol rednecks. Yesterday I was working on a PC in one of the field managers office and noticed a piece of paper hanging down over one of the field crew's in-box. The print was about a 3rd grade level and it said: " Do not call me, I will be drunk and won't can understand you. Thanks. Joe ." Looks like Joe has his vacation planned out.

No Goodniks There was a pretty nasty vulnerability exploited in Internet Explorer this weekend. Hackers infiltrated web servers of some pretty popular websites and planted a nice little virus for anyone who happened to visit the site using Internet Explorer. This code dropped a Trojan horse on the persons machine and started transferring the persons personal data to a server located in Russia for use with bad intentions I'm sure. Microsoft's response was that people using XP with service pack 2 are not vulnerable. That's nice, considering that Service Pack 2 is still in beta and 98 percent of your average users wouldn't know where to download it. The other alternative is to set Internet Explorers security settings all the way to High . Which of course, breaks just about any webpage you want to visit. Er, how about patching the hole in IE? The server in Russia that was the destination of the stolen data, was shut down by the "authorities". So th...

We Can Improve Your IT Service At Half The Cost Local Outsourcing Telemarketing Moron I got an interesting phone call today. A person from Global Pardigm Solutions asked how I was doing. When my '90s Corporate Buzzword meter exploded at the sound of that ridiculous company name, I should have went ahead and hung up. But I'm a glutton for punishment. He began his speil, not letting me get a word in. He explained to me how he and his company can end our IT woes by outsourcing all the technical functions for one low cost. Heck they'd even run our Email server for us. When he finished I asked him if he knew what I did. He said that he knew we were in the Land Survey business. I then told him that I was the person he was trying to replace. After a few stammering words he attempted to backtrack. A fella named Mike could swing by the office and have a ten minute meet and greet. I have found that on sales calls, the best way to get back at them is to let them think t...

"Dude, can I borrow your ticket stub? Local Burnout Concertgoer The concert was great. As I said previously, I'm not a huge Rush fan, but they put on a hell of a show. When you've played together for 30 years, I guess you have it down pretty good. This was @'s first show. They played for three and a half hours, over 30 songs, with a 20 minute intermission. He didn't know many of the songs but never looked bored. That's the great thing about a big rock show, if there is a lull in the action, you can always people-watch, especially an older established band, with older fans. My buddy and me had a bet, whoever guessed the opening song got free beer that night. My guess (Spirit of Radio) was the winner. I took full advantage of my victory. Good thing, too, as beer was ridiculously priced at EIGHT FIFTY a beer. The best part of the show was, as with any Rush show, the drum solo. Universally regarded as the best rock drummer of all time Neal Peart d...

"Invisible Airwaves Crackle With Life..." Rush, Spirit of Radio A big event happens tonight. I'm taking the boy to his first concert. Rush is currently on their 30th Anniversary tour and coming through Dallas. While not a huge fan of the band, I really wanted to take @ to see them because @ plays the drums. And anyone who knows anything about Rock N Roll, knows the best drummer in the known galaxy is Rush's Neil Peart. Even if @ only knows two songs (Tom Sawyer and Limelight) you can't go wrong spending two hours watching someone who is the best at what they do. Even better, is the location of the seats (Section 101, Row n), thats 13 row center stage my friend. I'm really looking forward to it, nothing like a good loud Rock N Roll show to get things back into perspective.

Screwed Who's the guy they named the Phillips head screw for? Is someone out there heir to the vast Phillips Head Screw Guy Fortune? Just wondering.

Logitech MX510 Last week I replaced my trusty Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer with the new Logitech MX510 , and I couldn't be happier. I had read lots of online reviews and had two co-workers swear by this mouse. I was a little hesitant, because its a corded mouse, but wireless has it's detractions also, mainly the fact that it drinks batteries like no tomorrow. Currently the mouse comes in 2 versions, blue and red. The 'hologram' paint cannot be justified in a picture, you really have to see it to see how cool it is. I got the supposedly hard to find blue model at CompUSA, justifying the fifty dollar purchase as an early fathers day gift (God bless my wife, I don't know why she puts up with me). It comes as a USB mouse with the PS2 adapter and installs quickly. I immediately noticed a difference from the start. The MX510 is so much smoother than the Intellimouse (as the Intellimouse is 400 DPI and the Logitech is 800 DPI). Working in Photoshop, cropp...

Ya Can't Take The Mom and Pop Outta The Shop Our company is trying to take the step from "small business" to "medium - to large" company. In the last year, we've moved from and eight thousand square foot rental office to purchasing a thirty two thousand sqare foot office building. Thats no Microsoft, but considering this thing litterally started in someones garage. It's pretty amazing. It's also the reason that I'm still working here. I could probably make a little more money elsewhere, but I think I'm in on the ground floor of something that could, and has, really start taking off. But I digress, for whatever reason, the Land Survey business attracts (at least for the field work) an interesting type of individual. To put it blunty, most are drunks and druggies. Hey, I ain't throwing stones in a glass house here, I don't do it at work. Until today, that is. The owner of the company started in the field. They drank a...

" And summer's lease hath all too short a date. " William Shakespeare Where did the time go? I have a 14 year old in the midst of enjoying his summer break, and it makes me pine for that two month vacation of youth. Why couldn't someone have sat me down and said, "look, these summers don't last forever. Savor every single care free minute of them. Stay up until two in the morning every night. Get up and ten. Enjoy it every bit, because once they are gone, they don't come back. You will never again experience these days unencumbered by pressure. Sure, you'll take vacations, and if your lucky, you won't start worrying about the real life traumas that await your return at least until the second day of your so called vacation. But this, you will never experience again." But no one told me that. Instead my asshole father wondered why the hell I was sleeping all day, and why I didn't do anything he considered productive. Only wi...

Check The Physical I'm a Systems Administrator for a medium size company. Were big enough to have an IT department but small enough to only have one IT "guy". I'm it (no pun intended). The range of issues I deal with is literally one end of the spectrum to the other. We also have a small office in East Texas, with about 10 users that I support. I've got everything out there locked down and running smooth. The following actually happened, the names have been changed to protect the innocent. It's a transcript of an actual call. I swear. Bacon : This is Bacon can I help you? EastTexasBob : Yeah, we just hired a new guy and I'm trying to get the pc on the network and its not working. Bacon : (Checks the IP Spreadsheet for an address to assign the new machine) Use this IP address and gateway, x.x.x.x and x.x.x.x EastTexasBob : Ok it's asking to reboot. Bacon : Ok, EastTexasBob, go ahead and reboot. E astTexasBob : (After reboot)...

The Smell of Aqua Velva In The Morning... I'm one of the lucky few who has a private office at our company. It's not big, and it's not fancy, but it has a door. There are obvious benefits to an office, the main being, it's much easier to sluff off. They have hired a new person to sit in the empty cubicle outside my office. He's about 58. He has a very distinctive odor. I have pinned it down to "old man" smell, combined with a tad too much Aqua Velva. My door is no help here. Everywhere he goes, that malodorous trail follows him. I can almost picture it, like PePe' LePew in the old Warner Brothers classics. You can go in the break room and immediately realize that approximately two minutes ago, Aqua Velva Guy was here getting coffee. Maybe it's how he marks his territory. While at the grocery store I came across the candle section. Aha! I will neutralize Aqua Velva Guy with a sweet scented candle. Result? My office smells li...

Every Day Spent Above Ground Is a Good One My favorite television show (besides The Simpsons, of course) had their season premier tonight on HBO. Six Feet Under began it's 4th season tonight. I had read previews that said that this season was going to be upbeat and a little less dark. Maybe after the first episode. Picking up right where they left off, there has never been a more dysfunctional family on TV than the Fischers. It's like a train-wreck, you can't look away. If you dont't watch this show, and have HBO, you really need to check it out. I usually Tivo this show (when it comes on at 8:00) and watch it later when the family is in bed. The Tivo decided that it would record the repeat that airs on Monday night. ARghhhh!! Ive waited over a year for the return of this show! So I stayed up to catch the 11:00 airing on HBO2. Im sure i'll pay in the morning, but it was worth it.

Kwik Lubed I'm pretty technically savy when it comes to things electronic. But, mechanically, I have no clue. Especially when it comes to cars. I couldn't change the oil if you paid me to. I have always taken my car to a local oil and lube place (Kwik Kar) in my town for oil change and inspections. Recently they changed management, and it seems the service has gone downhill. Today, I was right at my 3,000 miles since my last oil change and dropped by to be serviced. I should have turned around and left when the grease lackey asked me what the name of the fourth ninja Turtle was. I looked at him like he was crazy, and he said they had a running bet. After the oil was changed, Ninja Turtle Boy asked me to come out, he needed to show me something. He had the fuel injector housing removed and ran his finger through the front of the cylinder showing me how much carbon buildup I had. Knowing that their goal is to get you to buy more than an oil change (my car only has 2...

Audiobook Review #2 Deal Breaker by Harlen Coben Those of you waiting with bated breath (yes both of you) for my next scintillating audiobook review after the first installation your wait is over. I read a book called Tell No One by Harlen Coben. It was a GREAT mystery book, a real page turner and a quick read. After checking out the authors website, I found that he previously wrote a series of novels about a Sports Agent wannabe detective named Myron Bolitar. The series of books popped up on Usenet (the last bastion of complete and unfettered copyright protection violations) and I decided to give the first of the series, Deal Breaker , a listen. If you are an AudiobookPhile such as myself, you know how important the reader of the book is. The book can be the best thing since the Bible, but if the reader is bad, it will ruin the audio book. My initial reaction to Jonathan Marosz was negative. Didn't like his style at all. But after the first chapter it got a bit be...

Get the Funk Out Extreme Bizarre day. Walked around in a funk. Nothing was specifically wrong, it was just one of those days. We ate at Posada's a Tex Mex joint, where the greeter (it HAD to be her first day) asked us if we would like to sit down. Uh, now we prefer the standing section thank you very much. The meal was ok, nothing to write home about. I tried to watch TV, but lost interest in everything I tried, Monster House, CSI Miami, but just ended up saying screw it and turned it early. A regular ball of fire I am!

All Due Respect... The season finale of The Sopranos was tonight. For twelve weeks there has been a showdown brewing between the New York boss of bosses Johnny Sack and Tony. It was going to be a bloodbath, Armageddon, no one gets out alive. It never materialized. The Johnny Sack situation was solved by the FBI as one of his own ratted him out. It seemed a bit to tidy for me, the problems Tony wrapped up all nice and neat with a simple arrest. That being said, this was by far the finest season of the Soprano's yet. Hopefully they can top it in the final season next year.

By Mattel (TM) My sister has a birthday Tuesday. It got me thinking about birthday parties of my youth. You would take the invitations to school. You would invite people that you might have said hello to once. The more you invite, the more presents you get right? That was the goal. I remember one birthday specifically. It was still in elementary school, but I can't place the grade. The hot "toy" at the time was Slime by Mattel . You remember, came in a little green trashcan, and had a penchant for ruining new carpet? I wanted a can of slime. I wanted it bad. When it came time to open presents, most of the goodies in wrapping paper looked suspiciously alike. A coincidence I thought. I grabbed the first present, and tore through the paper, I had my first coveted can of Slime (by Mattel TM). Ten minutes later I opened my seventh can of Slime. It was incredible. I was on fire, never before had there been a Slime run such as my guests were witnessing, I was in ...

Screen Real Estate Summertime in Texas brings with it the threat of severe thunderstorms. Something you get used to after 37 years. I just wish someone could tell me why its neccessary to take up 98.4% of my television screen when there are weather warnings? Scroll across the bottom when there is a warning, that's ok. No, that's not good enough, now we have to scroll across the bottom in English AND Spanish. Wouldn't want to offend anyone. Some local station executive had the bright idea of not only scrolling the warning, he decides it would be a nifty idea to superimpose a little map of the counties in the top left portion of the screen with the affected counties highlighted. Add the semitransparent Station logo in the bottom right corner and you literally have a third of your screen covered in weather warnings. Not annoying enough? Just wait until an important part of your television show, they wait for the perfect moment, and the local weather guru will pop ...

Cherrypicking a Career The main reason that we went to the East Texas office yesterday was to take inventory of a survey company that was going out of business (which our East Texas office had a lot to do with). This company had been a fixture is this sleepy little East Texas town for 40 years and they had agreed to sell us the office. It was located in a house that was at least 70 years old. It was like visiting my grandmothers house. It had the crystal doorknobs throughout the house, the keyholes in which your stereotypical skeleton key fit and the great ceramic gas heaters in the wall. Our East Texas office manager lacks your basic people skills, lets just say tact is not in his lexicon. He paraded through the house while the owner, and his 3 employees (all of which have been employed by this company for over 20 years) watched. He would state things like, "I can't believe they still do THIS , we did THIS 10 years ago." and "wow look at this old piece of s...

Head East Young Man Once about every other month, I have to go out to our office in East Texas to apply the latest patches and just make sure their small network is running smooth. It's about an hour and a half drive from Dallas. I don't particularly look forward to these jaunts but it actually can break up the monotony. This trip, my boss decided to go with me, which is good, because he drives. It usually takes less time when he drives, because his BMW is a tad faster than my rice burner. On a particularly long open, empty stretch of highway, I mentioned that the fastest that I have ever gone in a car was 110 miles per hour. He promptly jumped on the accelerator and we were and 120 mph in two or three seconds. Quite exhilarating, that's for sure. It had plenty left under the hood too, but IM glad he backed down to ninety. As I said, these little trips sometimes break up the monotony.

Storm of the Century As usual my headline exaggerates a bit. But MAN did we have a storm last night. Summer time in north Texas means thunderstorms. Very common. But the one last night, was stronger than usual. No stuctural damage to the house, but our big tree in the front yard lost one of his main branches. Will have to call a "tree guy" out to fix it correctly. I need another expense like a hole in the head. The residential streets on the way to work were littered with branches and runaway trash cans. As of this morning, the news was reporting that up to 500,000 people were still without power.

End of an Era Well the 8th Grade Baseball season came to a crashing halt tonight. Not and unexpected end, but after last weeks surprise performance, there was a sliver of hope that we could have a Rocky like run through the playoffs. Offense was dead again, @ having the only hit and RBI once again. Their pitcher was so much better than any 14 year old should be. It almost wasn't fair. Our defense returned to it's normal pourous self. The coaches son (shortshop) was a bit more horrid than usual (5 errors, 0-3 at the plate). During one sequence of the game, THREE straight hits went directly between his legs. I wish I were exaggerating. So our brilliant coach (IE: Dad) finally moved him to second where he could make two more. Another fine move. Oh well. It's over. @ had his finest season at the plate ever with a .938 on base percentage getting out only twice in 12 games. Im looking forward to what he can do at the high school level with some good coaches. But you...

Morning Pomp and Circumstance The "do absolutely nothing" three day weekend ran into some trouble today. It started out with attending our friends daughters graduation. At NINE AM!! Graduation, at nine AM in the morning? Isn't that crazy? I halfway expected to overhear one of the students say "hey man, what do you want to do after graduation? Hit the Waffle House or go back to bed?" The graduation in question was my old high school. It was held at Reunion Areana, former home of the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Stars, the same place mine was held in 1985. Nineteen years ago, I was down on the arena floor awaiting my piece of paper verifying twelve years of hard labor, wondering what the future was holding for me. Well, I'm still here, healthy, can keep a roof over my head, not in debt up to my eyeballs, and have a family that loves me. I don't know if you can ask for much more. After the graduation we were invited for lunch at Campesi's....

Cartoon Cartograpahy My favorite show on televison is The Simpsons. The show has been on the air for fifteen years and still is consistently the funniest show on the tube. SlashDot had a link to a "fan created" map of Springfield . It's good way to pass a couple of hours. Give Fox's reaction to unauthorized material, you might want to download a copy while you can.

White Trash Beautiful On Fridays, six of us at work grill lunch in the back parking lot. The company actually bought us a grill for our club. We call it White Trash Friday. When it's your turn to cook that week, you buy the whole meal and cook. The other five weeks, you eat free. The menu, actually far from "white trash", regularly includes Ribeye Steaks, Butterflied Porkchops, Grilled Quail, Shish-K-bobs and other fine delicacies. It's a nice way to end the week. This week it was my turn to cook, and I broke my normal Ribeye tradition, and settled for Hot Dogs and Burgers. The best thing about WTF, is EVERYONE can smell the grill when it fires up and people always file by the break room, wondering what fine meal we have prepared. Some even try to trade their frozen dinner for a plate of food. I think not.

Arwyn is outta here! Actually got in the mood to scan a comic tonight. Sojourn #34. The final issue of the comic, that basically drug me back into the hobby. Greg Lands art (sadly not in this issue) is so far above and beyond whats on the shelves now it's not even funny. And for Crossgen to cancel their highest selling book, well that just tells you how bad they were on the business side of things. Rumor has it they will be out of business mid June at the latest. Talk about your rags to riches to rags story. A damn shame.

"Boooooring" Homer Simpson A rather blaise day as such things go. Not much, if anything worth writing about. Work went by at the speed of a glacier. I guess the prospect of having a three day holiday this weekend slows things down to a crawl. Fantasia wins American Idol. Wooop Te Do. Best singer won, no shock there. Now, all you people screaming racism, please go crawl back into your mossy caves now.

"Do you believe in miracles? Yesssss!!" Al Michaels The little league playoffs began tonight. For some crazy reason, all eight teams make the playoffs. On Sunday, if your a loyal reader (both of you), you'll recall the spanking they received. As luck would have it, us being the eighth seed we get to play the number one seed, one of the teams that killed us Sunday. This would be a fitting end to a dismal season. But a funny thing happened. Being the visiting team, we batted first and scored two runs. Those two runs had an amazing effect on the team. They realized that they aren't as bad as they have been playing. They realized they could play with these guys. That confidence actually transferred defensively as we cut down on our errors and and played a back and forth game. In little league, you never make it to nine innings so the two hour time limit usually comes into play. When we hit the two hour mark, the other team was batting and the score was t...

Paranoia By Joseph Finder Ah, welcome to book (audio) review #1. I don't care what the experts say, listening to an audiobook, is almost, as good as reading the text yourself. And with the amount of free time I have, it's better than the alternative, which is don't read OR listen. Adam Cassidy is your above average slacker. A junior product line manager for routers at Wyatt telecom. He hates his job, spending the day doing just enough to not get fired. A great bullshit artist, Adam hatches a scheme to divert corporate money in a fund to throw a lavish party (ice sculptures and all) for a retiring dock worker, who wouldn't have even gotten a thank you, if it weren't for Adams party. Adam fully expects to get caught and fired. He does not expect to get caught and threatened with embezzlement and Corporate Espionage, a felony with guaranteed prison time. To his surprise he is made and offer by the Nick Wyatt, the arrogant and ruthless CEO of Wyatt Teleco...

"The Play is at third!" Local Baseball "coach" You've seen my ramblings about @'s baseball team, a bunch of good talented kids, with absolutely no help from their coach. The coaches son plays shortstop. If such records were kept, we surely would hold the record for Worst Fielding Percentage By a Shortshop in the History of All Man Kind . But, since he's the coaches son, the errors continued mount. @ pitched the second game of a double header today. He gave up 13 runs. TEN OF THEM UNEARNED!!!!! He only gave up only four hits that were not a grounder, he had absolutely no help from his "defense". I swear I'm not one of these crazy sports parents that lives their lives vicariously through their son. It's just frustrating to see these kids underachieve because of the coach. Think I'm being a bit harsh? We're in the field. The other team has a player at third and one out. The coach yells: "be ready infield, the...

"I Got a Fever. And The Only Prescription is More Cowbell!" Legendary Record Producer, Bruce Dickinson The Perfect Saturday. I'm such a homebody, a hermit almost. I'm most comfortable at home. I feel sorry for *, it's got to drive her crazy now and then. My list of accomplishments today included the following: Sleep late, take a nap, surf the web, download comics, hang out on IRC, watch HBO Boxing (I STILL can't believe Roy Jones Jr. got knocked OUT !) and stayed up way too late. I wonder what my thoughts on the entry would be if I could have time traveled at 21 to read this entry in the future. I do know my definition of Perfect was a tad different back then.

Gettin' The Hell Outta Dodge Middle school graduation was tonight. @ was really pumped. Not at graduating 8th grade, but finally leaving SPX. Grades 1-6 at the Catholic school were fine. The last 2 years, though were a royal pain in the ass. The teachers have been there too long are underpaid and had lost interest in guiding these kids. I think I was as happy as he was after the ceremony. I won't miss dealing with those people at all. Right before we left, I told him it was time for us to give him his present. We had gotten him a cel phone but I want to string him along a bit. On Tuesday when we switched plans both * and myself got new phones also. That night, we were showing off the features of the new phones to him. He played along, acting like he was happy for us, all the while wanting his own I'm sure. I purchase a belt clip for my phone and his. I put the clip in a bag and wrapped it for him. When he opened it, there was a look of "what the hell...

"The music does the talkin' says the things you want to hear" Triumph - Magic Power The other day, while browsing the Netflix site for movies to add to my queue, I found out that Triumph (probably my second favorite band) has released a concert DVD, A Night of Triumph Live . It was shot it 1987, just as the band was reaching their pinnacle of popularity and success. It arrived today. Couldn't WAIT to pop it in and crank the surround sound. Wow, what a disappointment. The music was great, the band was tight, but GOOD GOD MAN, whoever directed this ought to be shot. When I watch a concert or concert video, I would kinna like to see the band every now and then, not a shot of the mullet headed masses every 5 seconds. It was amazing. I actually stopped the DVD when, during Midsummer's Daydream (a GREAT little acoustical piece), the camera was BEHIND Rik. Nah, I don't want to see that amazingly fast fret run from one end of the guitar to the other, than...

Internal Audit The very first entry in the Time Cannon dealt with my haveing acute prostatitis. That entry, (and this one perhaps) will never be enshrined in the Blog Hall of Fame for Outstanding Entry In a Personal Blog, and surely falls into the category of Way Too Much Information (tm). But, as a major trauma in my life it must be noted. The first time I went to the doctor (my birthday, thank you very much) I had no clue that I was going to have THE EXAM . So when he told me what he was about to do, I didn't really have too much time to worry about it. The checkup was today. I knew that I would have to have THE EXAM . Not knowing you are going to get THE EXAM , is much better than knowing your are going to get THE EXAM . I can tell you that personally. The report was good, all seems to be well, and we won't have to revisit that particular area until I turn 40. Another positive that came from this is a pretty fun website I stumbled across while looking for one of...

"Little League baseball is a very good thing because it keeps the parents off the streets." Yogi Berra The Little League season is winding down to a close and it couldn't come any sooner. I know it's all for fun, but the absolute and utter lack of coaching is about to wear me down. With the talent level of these kids, we should not be as bad as we are. To call our team the Bad News Bears would be an insult to the Bad News Bears. To be fair they faced a hell of a pitcher, I mean this kid could bring it. He held us to one hit (@ had it, a little seeing eye grounder between first and second, that plated our only two runs). But the defense was horrible as usual, with just about everyone contributing to the error-fest. Add to that the incredulous coaching descions and you have the recepie for a 14-2 rout. One example of coaching prowess encapsulated our entire baseball carreer under this guy. Our main pitcher, complained that his arm was hurting. When a young...

Mooooove Jimmy Falon as Nick Burns, The Computer Guy My rant a couple of days ago against "computer idiots" has come back to haunt me. About once a week someone will ask me if I can look at their computer to take the latest virus off or get rid of their extensive spyware. If it's slow at the office, I don't mind doing it. Today, the owner of the company brings me THREE pc's he wants "upgraded". The first two are Pentium ONE 100's!!! The other was a decent AMD, a newer machine. When I tell him that you can't upgrade the P1 machines (both motherboards only support 100mzh chips) he gave me a look that made me think it was MY fault. What kills me, is this guy has money, and instead of spending 400 bucks to get a decent machine, he wants to upgrade a machine thats over 10 years old. I finally talk him into ordering a new machine. The parts arrive from NewEgg tomorrow. Now for the Cherry on top of my Wednesday, the CFO of the company h...

Adventure's Waiting Just Ahead!! When I arrived home from work yesterday, a late birthday present had appeared on the kitchen table. It was the Limited Collector Edition of Speed Racer Volume 2. Does she know me or what...

Kill Bill @ graduates from Middle School Friday. Yeah, I said graduates . Kids theses days, they have kindergarten graduation, middle school graduation, high school graduation and on and on. He has been hounding me to get him a cel phone for about 2 years now. I have adamantly refused, playing the responsibility card. The more I though about it, the more I decided that I would get him one for graduation. Maybe it will instill some reponsibilty in him. So I trekked over to the local AT&T Wireless store to see what kind of plan I could work out. Looks like it was a good time to buy. My current 2 line plan (analog) ran $62 per month. What I ended up getting, was upgraded to the new GSM network and adding a third line. Upgrade to GSM, means three new free phones, 200 more minutes and free nights and weekends for $59 per month. Add a line get 3 new phones, more minutes and pay less. A rare win for the consumer. Hopefully I wont be posting any "I took away @'s cel...

"Rock N Roll 'Aint Noise Pollution" AC/DC A sad day in Dallas Radio history today. KEGL, a long time rock fixture has switched formats. No matter your taste in music, you should be sad. The demise of the medium by way of "Corporate Radio" is almost complete. I find it ironic when the word monopoly is thrown around, Microsoft immediately comes to mind. ClearChannel is worse in my opinion. They are almost singlehandedly responsible for the generic playlists that float through the airwaves today. Now Dallas (the fifth largest advertising market) is left without a true rock station. Like we need more syrupy stations playing Billy Joel and Barbera Streisand. Sure there are a couple of classic rock stations, an alternative rock station, neither of which will fill the hole KEGL did. If you know me, you know what type of music I like. Good 'ol 3 chord blues influenced rock n roll. Thats it. I have severe tunnel vision when it comes to the type of musi...

My First Comment! Woo Hoo! Received my first comment on the blog yesterday (Thanks Kelley). I started this thing just a an outlet to jot stuff down for myself. It's cool to know someone else actually reads it. Boring as it may be. So, don't be shy, lemme hear from ya!

"If size did matter, Dinosaurs would still be around." Wendelin Wiedeking Monday night, that means Monster House. This weeks installment (a repeat that I had not previously seen) is called Jurassic House. I know I always wanted a T-Rex skeleton in my living room. This was nicely done, the theme was carried throughout the house, unlike shows of late where there are just individual projects that don't mesh together under one motif. "Hey Man, Why is My Computer Running So Slow?" Computer Idiot That phrase make my skin craw. I know a lot about computers. I can build one and I can fix one I can network one, and I deal with them for a living. I though that this would be a good thing, ya know, maybe a little bit handy you'd think. The sole problem with knowing this, is the fact that someone eventually finds out. I don't mind helping people, I really don't. But for the love of all that is holy and pure, could someone PLEASE tell me why...

"Adultery Is The Application of Democracy To Love" H.L. Mencken One of my favorite Sunday morning rituals is to watch Cheaters (taped from the previous night). If you haven't heard of this show boy are you missing out. People who think their significant other is cheating, submit their case to Cheaters detectives. They then follow the philaderer and try to catch them on hidden surveillance camera. That part is good, but they save the best for last, The Confrontaion. Fists usually fly, and people will STILL deny that they aren't doing anything wrong while being shown a video of themselves caught red-handed. And the fact that it's shot in and around Dallas, makes it all the more intriguing. At least two times they have had cases in Mesquite. I'm still waiting to see someone I know. "You guys. You lollygag the ball around the infield. You lollygag your way down to first..." @ had a 4:00 baseball game in Richardson. It was about 35 de...

Saturday Night Lazy Another fairly free Saturday schedule-wise. @ went to the Byron Nelson golf tournament with his girlfriend. * stayed in and watched Sea biscuit. She liked it, I still haven't seen it. Its funny, when I actually come across some free time, I'm never in a movie mood. I Took @ to a surprise party and surfed the rest of the night. Caught Saturday Night Live as usual and found out that it was Jimmy Fallon's last show. I guess he is going to follow Chris Kattan's blockbuster movie career. I think I'm one of the few that found him pretty un-funny.

Blood From A Turnip This is the first week of my new "they won't give me a raise Ill get overtime every week" schedule. Payments on @'s tuition start next month and it has me worried as hell. Five hours of overtime a week should take care of the extra expense, but we are walking a fine line financially. I could have worse problems I guess. Come Sail Away I had been give free tickets to a concert tonight, Styx and Peter Frampton. I asked @ if he would like to go, and to my suprise he said yes. So we decided to go to the concert. Which is pretty cool, not many 14 year olds would care to be seen with the old folks at a concert. We weren't going to be able to catch the whole show as we had another baseball game, but should be done by ten o'clock. As usual the game ran long, and we weren't able to make it to the show.

Uneventful Today was pretty blah. Not much interesting happened. Work was slow (IE: Nothing broke). We had a baseball game scheduled, but was cancelled at the last minute. I don't know why, but it honestly didn't hurt my feelings. Watched the final survivor tonight. Rupert got the extra million. Now we have to wait until September for the next installment of Survivor.

Drag n Dropout Im the systems administrator for our company, were approaching 200 users and have a decent sized network. Peoples main duties during the day are to access CAD files on our main file server. When starting a new job, they create a project folder under the proper year, month folder on the server. It was pointed out around noon yesterday that there were a range of files missing on the server. Cries of "The server is having some problems" or "the network sure is acting weird" began to filter down. After doing some research we found the missing jobs were in a 2004 folder nested under the 2001 folder. Everything was put back where it belongs. Another computer illiterate mullethead accidentally drug the file panicked an stopped it, never bothering to tell anyone. Another prime example of the network is guilty until proven innocent. AIF (Audiobooking is Fundamental) One of my other big hobbies is to listen to audiobooks on my spiffy Ipod. I ha...

You Call That Art? I read comic books. I admit it. I like em. I am NOT one of the stereotypical convention type comic geeks. I swear. I'm Married. I know and have conversations with other women, I watch sports. So don't pigeonhole me. Anyway, back to comics. Perhaps my biggest hobby deals with digital comics. People scan and distribute comics for people to download. They are distributed in many ways, peer to peer sharing, IRC and my favorite, Usenet. With a premium Usenet server (I suggest Giganews ) you can download up to 300 comic books a week. There is something for everyone, ranging from newer comics to Silver Age beauties that you would never have a chance to read if not for this cool hobby. Not only do I download comics, Im an active scanner. I have scanned and posted over 400 comics to Usenet. I helped found a comic scanning "group" called HACSA (Half Assed Comic Scanning Authority). Its a group of friends with similar intrerest that hang out...

Slim Pickin's Now I realize, if I am to try to update this blog daily, there will be entries like this. Nothing but fluff and "today I went to the mall" boredom. I needn't kid myself about this blogs purpose, there aren't 100 people checking back to see if I have updated. This is for me. So I'll bore myself thank you very much. Heading out to the H-Iway Emailed @'s teacher today to find out if he has a chance to pass history class. I can't tell you how glad I will be to get him out of this horrible school. Hopefully in better surroundings he can develop the study skills that he desperately needs. Ten days and its over. On to bigger and better things. Out Damn Spot! Installed Mailwasher today. Eighty percent of my email box is now spam. This program works as a "front-end" and checks the mail on your email server before you download it with your client. It checks for blacklisted senders agains 2 popular spam lists ...

Mothers Day Had a nice breakfast at Luby's this morning. Food sucked but the company was good. The mother and brother in law also brought my birthday gifts. Got a nice golf shirt and the ol' Best Buy gift card. Can never go wrong with the gift card. I believe I will use it to buy the Survivor: Season One DVD. After breakfast we went to my sisters to see my mom. It's amazing after all the events of this year that I actually considered not going over to see her. I had more important things to do. What does that say about me as a person. I went, but the fact that I considered staying home troubles me a bit. She's looking good and getting better every day. This was a special mothers day, even if it took me a bit longer to realize that fact. We had steak and baked potatoes. Can't go wrong there either. Of Survivor and Such Well, the big finale was tonight, ordered Dominoes and settled in for three hours of reality TV heaven. So what Im a Survivor...

Lazy Saturday Nice lazy Saturday. @ is not with us this weekend so I had zero on the schedule. The file server at work still didn't have the sasser patch so I decided to head up to work and patch it and get my XP cd's so I can re-gen @'s machine. The "cannot install hardware - Data invalid bug has officially kicked my butt, so reinstall. Tomorrow is mothers day, and breakfast at Luby's is on the plate.

Triumph! Triumph at the US Festival . You remember the US festival right? A poor mans LiveAID. With actual rock n roll. This is the first time I've seen Triumph on DVD live. Only 7 songs in the setlist, but really cool to see the band live in their prime. Sports o Rama Nothing caps your long workweek off better than sitting at School Sports banquet. Three hours of monotonous droning. Maybe another kidney stone would be better ?