Time Cannon

Thats how it started. Funny how that phrase shaped what I wanted to do with my life. I didn't know it at the time, but it's easy to see looking back. For those of you unfamiliar with it, thats the opening line of the classic text adventure Zork. Although, when I first adventured into the white house and down into the Great Underground Empire, it had not reached its commecial form and was called Dungeon, floating around the big DEC mainframes. I had a friend in 1979 whose dad worked for DEC. Personal computers were still a year or two away and his dad would bring home a dumb terminal (literally a keyboard and a green screen monitor with a 300 baud modem)to use in the evenings to login from home and work. If there was time when he was done, he would let us get on and show us some of the "games" we could play. Eliza, they Psychic, the Star Trek simulator, the old standby Lunar Lander simulation etc. We would spend HOURS playing the crude games. I was fascinated, I wanted...

A Death In The Family Amazing Live (not anymore) Sea Monkeys! Some sort of algea infection has claimed the life of my beloved Sea-Monkey's. This was the longest living batch ever in my long history of raising the little critters. This batch stayed alive almost THREE years. Amazing. No telling how many generations. So, how 'bout a moment of silence please, for those Amazing Live (now dead) Sea Monkeys...

Freedom! And thats all I have to say about that....

Takedown The Pursuit and Capture of Kevin Mitnick This marks the return of the Audiobook review. With the new jobs added drivetime, I should be able to churn through books a bit faster now. Tsutomo Shimomura one of the nations leading computer security experts had his machine compromised Christmas of 1994. Little did he know, the perpetrator was the infamous Kevin Mitnick, who was at the time, on the run from the FBI and the NSA. Takedown is the story of Tsutomo's detailed steakout and final capture of the nations top computer criminal. This book is almost 10 years old. But I think that is one of the main reasons I enjoyed it. It's always fun to read accounts of the beginnings of the "popular" internet. This books is peppered statements like "we will never have use for hard drives over 4gb" etc, etc. Tsutomos detail used in this book will likely be a huge turnoff for the casual non technical reader, but to those interested in computer security will no doubt ...

YES!! Local Ecstatic Interviewee "Dear Mr. Bacon, We are please to offer you a position..."

Five Months No new posts in 5 months, I guess my blog frittered away to the last place you want your blog to be when you have your naive high hopes in the beginning that "this blog" will be a hit and visitied daily by millions daily! Oh well. I have a HUGE job interview tomorrow. The recent Real Life (TM) stress (and the major contributor to this blog "fading into 'Bolivia" as Mike Tyson so eloquently said) could be alleviated with the attainment of this job. I really think this could be a watershed moment, one you look back on and can say, "thats where things took a turn for the better". Anyway if anyone for some unknown reason stumbles across this between now and Monday at 10:00 CDT, send out some nice vibe my way, to say I need em is an understatement...

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....