Error In Translation

Amber and I have been yelling at each other on and off for the past hour or so, due to the problems she is having with her current math project. I'm glad she's sloughed off her English project, as doing five people's annotations, comparisons, and evaluations of Shakespeare's Othello on her own was clearly wearing thin on her.

Unfortunately, she doesn't own a copy of Microsoft Office, which includes Excel, which is apparently what she needs. A few months ago I pointed her in the direction of OpenOffice, but errors in conversion and viewing (Comments made in Word won't display in OpenOffice, but they will work vice versa), changes and differences in interface and menu placement, broken features, etc etc., have been an endless source of frustration for her. I really wish I knew how to use it at an expert level, but it just seems like I can't help her, because I know so little about the software. Having to communicate via the phone doesn't help, either.

I'm heading over there after work, maybe I can help her more then. Hoorah for another night of sleep deprivation!

I'm working on a document that will be printed and posted in various places around my apartment.

"No more parties until the apartment is spotless."

I'm livid.

Extravagant Self Gratuity

I just invested in $500 worth of targeted advertising for GWing Roleplay. So, what's the total impact upon my wallet?

A grand $5 in activation fees.

Big shoutouts to Computers.net for pointing this out. I was thinking of organizing a group of friends to throw multiple instances of these offers into advertising for GWing, but I realized that it would be difficult to target the advertising properly, as I found it rather complicated to create my own template of keywords and negative keywords to match the optimal result for what we desire in our community. If you sign up for these offers, be sure to carefully monitor your expenses! The billing is most likely set to recurring, and will continue to charge your credit card after your account balance has been used.

Alternately, I woke this morning to find DoesMyGeek's New Podcast, and was greeted by a shoutout and a link over the air to yours truly, and GWing Roleplay. What an amazing podcast, talking about the classic combination, roleplay and beer. Here's to you guys. ;)

One more - I just got linked to Michael Robertson's Evaluation of a College Degree, and found the article particularly interesting in this time. And now: back to work.

Early Enough?

Is the reckless abandonment of normal sleep hours for the purpose of seeing someone for a grand three minutes considered obsession or insanity?

Early Resolution

Tomorrow I'm a new person. I'm going to wake up at 6:00, I'm going to go see Amber, and then I'm going to run an undetermined amount that is greater than 1 mile. I'm going to do ten pushups every hour at work, as well as ten crunches. I'm going to watch my diet, and not take seconds. I'm going to beat my ass into shape.

I'm going to start actively job hunting a little more, and I'm going to strive to save my money. I'm going to explode into studying, I'm going to start looking more seriously at my education options, and how I'm going to get to that point. I'm going to start looking at my potential.

I'm going to become a better listener, a better friend. I'm going to be more understanding, caring, and loving. I'm going to become a better lover.

Silver and Gold

Christmas time is here! The incessant Christmas music on the radio, the lights around this quiet little town, the music played over the speakers on main street, and the greenery and otherwise unusual happiness of the general populous. The best time of the year, many say - I can see why. I just hope the radio music doesn't wear thin on me too soon...

I'm getting over my sinus infection, with only a minor headache right now. Church went extraordinary, and life (as of right now) is good. Earlier this afternoon, Amber and I put together a French Meringue for her class at school, which looks absolutely gorgeous. We used an old lace napkin to pattern the surface with a delectable pattern of powdered sugar, and it came out well.

I just cleaned off her computer desk, just on one of those random cleaning spree (read: obsessive compulsive) things. I sorted her father's CDs, to much satisfaction. We also raked the yard... and now we're decorating her house. Well, they are - I'm cleaning up her father's computer now, too. What a day!

Spats lost!? I feel that he deserved the win, but that's not what the judge determined. I'm glad that Kouketsu took care of those flames in the "who do you think will win" topic, because I don't think I can last much longer dealing with such complete and total disgraces to the ideals of quality text fighting.

GWing seems to be picking up some more, there is a lot of progress being made in the Growth area. Several new moderators (critics...), namely Circ and Dovey, are preparing an awesome system for reviewing authors' submissions. I think I'm going to try and influence Amber to provide SOME input, as it is her forum, and it'd help her to get back into writing.

Dinner time. Ja ne!

Sick!

I have a sinus infection. It feels like someone punched me in the face.

Had a good thanksfiving day yesterday, mostly spent sleeping.

I love my Amber. Poor girl - she had to go in to work at 3 this morning. She will be receiving a lot of love tonight, provided she's still awake. Heeeaaaart.

Pine cones go in here...

Early this morning, somewhere within an hour of me getting in to work, there were a large number of sirens in my otherwise quiet town. Come to find out, the IGA (International Grocer's Association) down the road got robbed at gunpoint. The police showed up, chased them down the road and through town, crashing just near our watered version of downtown. Apparently one suspect has been apprehended, and two are still on the loose. There have been helicopters circling the area for a while, and intermittent sirens. The police and of all things the fire department have blocked off sections of roads, last I heard.

A wonderful start to a week, don't you think? Hey, at least there's something going on instead of the usual droll mood of a small town. To some ill effect, however: the internet here, Bellsouth, seems to have slowed to a complete and utter crawl. It seems to be letting up slightly now that the excitement is over, but this is unacceptable from a business class DSL service. It likely has to do with the news channels showing up and perhaps plugging in to landlines for their newscasts?

I had a good rest on Saturday, after a rather long night on Friday, and enjoyed my time with Amber. Sunday turned out to be a work day for me, as I was looking through a client's server logs in the morning, fixing my own computer woes, and then fixing an install of Linux for my family while my laundry ran. I left to fix MORE personal computer troubles, then headed out to finally relax with my love that evening.

Alternately, I found an awesome five things to know when you switch to linux post. Check it out. :)

Fights begin, finger prints are took, days is lost, bail is made, court dates are ignored, cycle is repeated.

Oekaki Contest

Kindigo posted an awesome Oekaki contest over on GWing, and will be awarding 10,000 GWing Credits to a winner, every week. I can't wait to see some of the submissions. I think I'll participate, too. Maybe. <3

An Oekaki, for those of you who don't know, is a sort of online version of Photoshop. You can use an Oekaki to draw, sketch, and discuss all the little splurge-arts that you might have. A lot of fun, indeed. For an example, you can check out the GWing Oekaki, and maybe even draw something while you're there.

Don't be afraid - take a look at some of the shameful submissions I've posted!

ZOMGFRIDAY

Wow, it's Friday already. Payday. Christmas gift time.

So, I've been pondering if I should go to an online university, a community college, or just straight to an in state school (UNC, NC State, possibly Duke)?

Scissors and Strands

I got a haircut last night - I'm down to maybe half a curl of hair. I don't have any pictures yet, but as soon as I do I'll post them here. Tonia killed me two or three times over when she found out. Sorry!

On another note, I'm writing this post in Google Docs. Since I'm using the Blogger Beta, I wasn't able to do this up until about a week ago, but I'm only now testing it out. It's a fairly easy setup, all I've had to do is select "Blogger (Beta)" from the Blog settings here in Docs, and then enter my username, password, and finally which blog I'd like to post to. This last bit of information is optional, and they said that they'll post to the first blog they find if you don't specify it.

We're (GWing Roleplay) looking at some excellent affiliate options, and will be presenting the community with a good number of resources in the near future. There are some outstanding opportunities that have presented themselves, and we're striving to give GWing the best environment possible for the roleplayers. We'll keep you updated as things progress, we promise!

How to Kill a Roleplay

I was putting together a "Top 10 Ways to Kill a Roleplay" list, and I figured I'd post it on the GWing Roleplay site to get everyone's input on the issue. Roleplayers there should spread the votes across all of the options, for the most part. I'll probably take the top 10 and make this top 10 list a bit more intuitive.

On another note - a friend from my childhood found me on Facebook last night, and we were talking this morning a bit. It's good to hear from her, it's been a few years. Her mother called me on Saturday, and we chatted for a short while. It's always good to stay connected. Okay, maybe not always, but this circumstance DOES apply.

Though, it doesn't quite make up for Facebook's broken note import feature.

Life

An amazing, life-changing, and pivotal chunk of knowledge was imparted upon me today.

Afterwards, I spent the most WONDERFUL afternoon with Amber. Never mind the rain and cold - I cuddled inside with my sunshine until far beyond sunset.

The Weekend

I just found an awesome list of Open source applications for Windows, and thought I'd take the time to update.

I think I'm sick or getting sick from the weekend, which was awesome all in itself. Rode over to Ian's on Saturday, enjoyed a good night with some new friends, playing Unreal Tournament (the original, what else?) until somewhere around 3AM. Ah, good times. I woke up the next day in time to give Amber a call before she left for work. We got to gaming shortly after lunch, and for once, our ship didn't esplode! (partly because we left it behind for the majority of the game...)

Sunday we relaxed and watched football, both American and World. Poor poor Chelsea! I ended up rolling in at about 4PM, and proceeded to put together some home cooking for when Amber got off work. Unfortunately, my plans were foiled by her work schedule, and she got off at six instead of the planned five, denying us the opportunity of going to the park to eat while the sun set. We enjoyed ourselves nonetheless, and had a good cuddly evening.

Work today was a pain, though. Internet was out, and Bellsouth took until 5PM to bring us a mediocre solution. One of our major clients was having email problems, which I couldn't troubleshoot until the internet was up. Pity.

And, now I come home, GWing is having some people problems, and the GT League is bumbling along as usual. Now, about that roleplaying social reform...

Today is mulling along

Work is work, as per the usual. I'm work at a company called TechNoggins, doing all sorts of various things. Primarily, I am Callcenter Manager, handling calls for three states and eleven major cities. It's unfortunately fairly slow today, which means my salary isn't augmented by the influx of web development work. Sad day.

I've been messing around with some of Facebook's features, recently. I just linked "My Notes" to this blog, which seems like a cool feature, but it needs some work. It imported my posts what seems to be twice?

Someone posted LeekSpin on the Grand Tournament forum. I've been subtly amused by the music to which this has been put, and have been listening to it for just over an hour now. You want to talk about overplaying, hrm? Full immersion, hrrrm?

Well, looks like I have a PC here in the office that I need to fix. So, until later, I'm gone. :P

IRC Nerdiness

I'm growing weary of the community that thrives on IRC, particularly of the fighter portion. (When I say fighting, I refer to a sport called text-fighting.) Andrew describes them quite eloquently: arrogant. They seem to believe that the IRC world is all there is, and that it is necessary to determine which channel, and perhaps even network, is better through means of blind hatred and ignorance.

Take, for example, this Animelab and SurrealChat thing. The GWing chat is hosted on SurrealChat. We often get users from Animelab telling GWingers that they suck and should die, in much more vibrant color, because SurrealChat is stupid, and they hate SurrealChat. Granted, this conflict has died down, but it does seem to be an epidemic.

I love when a conversation of these IRC nerds proceeds as follows.

"I'm the best roleplayer on this server."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am."
"How about a hybrid match to determine that, then?"
"Okay. Stance up."

Does my point need to be exemplified any more clearly?

Fighting a hybrid match is NOT ROLEPLAYING. Morons.

A Resolution

We ended up wandering the neighborhood to see a couple of the spectacular "haunted candy walks" with Max, the German exchange student. We headed back inside by about 7:30 to watch The Punisher and to cuddle on the couch until it was time to leave.

Hrm, I wish I could get pictures of the pumpkin I carved for them - I'll try to do that tomorrow night, maybe.

I love my Amber. <3

Halloween and Sweets

Happy Halloween, everyone.

We (Amber, her mother, and myself) went to see Marie Antoinette on Saturday (At least, I believe it was Saturday. My recollections are always somewhat hazy...) after a decidedly long day for me. Amber had been wanting to see it for some time, and I think she was satisfied with it. Something of a chick flick, I suppose - but a well done movie, overall. The first half of the movie was about the utter lack of sex in Marie's arranged marriage, and the drama that such a scandalous endeavor would entail. The movie evolved into further drama, and proceeded to end as a glorified drama. I wasn't particularly impressed, but I did enjoy my time.

So, converging back from the semi-related tangent to a more relevant topic, Amber and I are trying to decide exactly what we're going to do tonight. I'm still stuck here at work, and she's finishing up some work for school. We're likely going to end up snuggling on the couch watching a movie of some sort. Perhaps there will be some horror films on SciFi, or something of the like?

Here's to a Happy Halloween night for everyone.

Halloween Party and Love

Well, Amber, Chenoa, Catinka and myself went to a halloween party tonight...

My legs are exahausted, my head hurts (from the music), and I'm only slightly sleepy at 1:52. Perhaps it's only 12:52 in my mind. But then again, this is the last year for daylight savings time, isn't it?

Here's what we looked like before we left. :)

From Amber

I'm a priest, and she's a little girl. Think V for Vendetta, here. Actually, her mother(!) made the comment, "Shouldn't you be a little boy...?". So, dun dun dun.

So I come home, clean up a bit at the apartment, and sit down on GWing. I didn't feel it was worth my time to respond to anything as of yet, and thought like usual that I would leave it to the community to say more effectively what I would say in a single sentence or word. After browsing around and reading all the new posts since this morning, I thought that I'd look at DiggDot.us' newest posts, since they're on my Google Homepage.

I found an interesting post on what love is, and thought it was a touching read. Kids certainly do say the darndest things don't they?

Why I Hate Beauty

Here's an interesting article on the effects of beauty on the human (particularly the male's) mind. It raises several awesome points, particularly on the matter of the damages to intimate relationships caused by beauty.

It's particularly interesting to see this in relation to Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty and the accompanying marketing video. Our society proves once again to be vain.

Food for thought.

Pimp Status and further updates...

Now that I've upgraded to Google's Blogger Beta, I'm tweaking a bunch of controls on my blog. I am continually running into the user-friendly syndrome, where a feature is too user friendly and I can't get down to the nitty-gritty tech side of the application. While it saves me the five minute trouble of setting up a Wordpress or similiar in-house blog, it constantly reminds me of the merits of having the Wordpress, and consequently influencing me to neglect posting here at all.

I woke up this morning to a completed upgrade from Ubuntu's Dapper Drake (6.06 LTS) to Edgy Eft (6.10), after encountering some problems resulting from my own stupidity. Upgrading from the servers took a grand total of 16 hours, start to finish. This includes my time working out the kinks from my said stupidity, which I won't go into further here. Due to the complications, my personal alarm clock (XMMS and an alarm plugin...) failed to wake me at the goal of 5:30 AM, having not rung at all. Sadly, this caused me to miss the chance to see my beautiful Amber, with her leaving for school at 6:30, and me waking at 7. *grumble*

After rebooting the machine to seal the deal, I opened up my shiny new Firefox 2.0 to look at the GWing RSS feed. I clicked the most important thing at the time, a new topic titled A Tale of Two Wreckages: A True Story. I then proceeded to heartily laugh my way through the time I had remaining before I had to leave for work.

Pimp status, hrm?

Interfaces?

Touch Screen.

Whoa.

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net
http://gwing.net

Female Lycans

Amber and I were walking home from a walk, when I look up and beaming
through the trees was a huge moon.

"Hey, look! It's a full moon tonight." I immediately exclaimed,
regardless of whether or not it really was full.

Amber casually glances over and says, "It'd suck to be a female werewolf."

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Because they have TWO times of the month."

We got inside about ten seconds later, and I began to type this entry.

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net
http://gwing.net

PWN3D

Random videos of people getting pwned?

I like it.

PWN3D!

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net
http://gwing.net

Duality

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a really weird movie, and it really scared me.  Not only is the concept nail-head-on, but I used to be called Jim Carrey, and some say I bear a striking resemblance to him in my expressions.  Well... yeah.  It's difficult to explain.

So what, I got over that.  But then, just when I thought the worst was over, I was *randomly* Googling - the verb form of to search the google search engine - and then... BOOM! HEADSHOT!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/ww2/A5089836

Okay, I can handle someone from WW2 looking almost like myself - and the fact that he's a pilot, one of my dreams.  Okay.  I can handle that.  And then...

http://www.artofcombat.com/instructors.htm :
The training group (SOI) in Dallas was small and under the guidance of Eric Martindale (which promoted Ralph to 9th kyu), ....

I can handle a martial arts instructor being named Eric Martindale as well, a little odd, but then again, I've always been involved in martial arts, haven't I?  Eric apparently promoted that guy to 9th kyu, right?  So don't you have to be 10th kyu?  So he's 1337 like that, right?    ...      And then...

And of course there's the soccer referee, or is he a player?  I don't remember.  He's another Eric Martindale.  A little weird, too... but I've played soccer since the age of five.  And then...

http://www.rtpnet.org/troop200/history/T200Eagles.html

I became an Eagle Scout, too.  When I was a young boy... I was once a cub scout aspiring to be an Eagle Scout.  Dun dun dun.  The plot thickens.

http://www.e-budo.com/forum/showpost.php?p=211703&postcount=15

Once again, I am involved in a martial arts situation, and I believe referring to the same Eric Martindale.  And then...

http://nhpresbytery.org/pdf/Graduates01.pdf

Holy crap, that IS me.  For real.  Only slightly unexpected at this point... after all of these STRANGE entries.  Slightly.  O_o ....

And then...

I've apparently lost myself on http://lostfriends.org - or is someone looking for me?  Oh... that's what I meant to say.  I haven't *found* myself there yet... but apparently Google did.  And then...

http://north-carolina.injuryboard.com/view.cfm/Topic=77/PAGE=2

I WAS on this page at some point... and this one is somewhat entertaining.  Apparently, in Charlotte during some point about a year ago, someone named Eric Martindale died in a car accident.  I believe I had four people come up to me that day and ask if I had died... I was about two hours north of charlotte at the time, and the "Eric Martindale" news had reached most parts of North Carolina and Virginia, and I got two phone calls, one from my mother - asking if I had died.   .... ... ... ... ....   And then...

http://www.faqs.org/usenet/news.announce.newgroups/rec/rec.autos.rotary

I'm the president of a North Carolina rotary club.  I've always been a fan of rotary engines... but this is ridiculous... WTFH? ....  I'm becoming very frightened at this point... very frightened.  I love rotary engines.  That rotary club is two cities away.  ...  And then...

http://www.wrestlingusa.com/02%20wusa%20web%20root/highschoolnews/wisconsin.html

I used to wrestle, but I've never been to Wisconson.  Or.   Have I.

"The One", any one?  Whoa!  The Matrix!  42!

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

The Great Gamer Championship

Jayme and I have decided to determine which one of us is the best at playing games.  We're in the process of choosing the games to be played to determine the best of the best.  (Or atleast between us two.)  We're trying to get an equal amount of games on both the console and the PC, since he's a console gamer, and I'm a PC gamer.  The winner of this will get bragging rights an' all that, but I think we'll need to write an agreement of some sort stating that the winner is final, no bitching about how the choices of games are sucky, and how lag killed you, and that when entering, you agree that it is FINAL.  So yeah.  Here's what we have so far, and by no means is this list final:

FPS (Console):  Halo 2 (XBOX)
RTS (PC): Starcraft w/ Expansion

Fighter (Console):  Guilty Gear (X or XX) - (Playstation/PS2) 

Simulation (PC): Mechwarrior 4:Mercenaries w/ MekTek's MekPak 3

Sports (PC?): Pong

Puzzle (Console): Tetris

Arcade (Arcade): Initial D v3+  -OR-  DDR

So that's a tally of 7 games so far, 3 console, 3 PC, and one arcade.   Of course,  I'd like to have two more, including a FPS for the PC, such as Unreal Tournament... and an additional game on the console to account for this.  Perhaps a 3D Fighter such as Tekken 4/5, Mortal Combat: Deception/Deadly Alliance, or King Of Fighters: Maximum Impact?

We'll see.

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

GWing.net - Home

GWing.net - Home

Got a new face for GWing - kinda exemplifies the idea that it ISN'T JUST GUNDAM. But it still has a picture of a Gundam like, RIGHT THERE. Grr.

My Kids....

Glancing through some of my old text documents (I have a file called 'New Text Document (97).txt' ) and came across this:


Master says:
I took a Dremel and cut into the back of the thing.
Master says:
Removed the embedded battery
Master says:
>=D
Elijah says:
x_x
Master says:
Duct tape works wonders man, I tell ya.
Elijah says:
If you have kids, I hope they go to bed when you tell them.

ABC News: Saddam Hussein Removed From Court Room

Is anybody seeing this?

ABC News: Saddam Hussein Removed From Court Room: "Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein argues with chief judge, Raouf Abdel-Rahman after his half brother, Barzan Ibrahim, not seen, was forcibly removed from the trial held in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, Sunday Jan. 29, 2006. Saddam Hussein's trial quickly collapsed into chaos after resuming Sunday with one defendant dragged out of court and the defense team walking out in protest. The former Iraqi leader was then ejected after shouting 'down with traitors' and 'down with America.' Saddam and his seven co-defendants are charged in the deaths of about 140 Shiite Muslims following an assassination attempt against the former Iraqi leader in the Shiite town of Dujail in 1982. At left is Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid. (AP Photo/David Furst, pool)"

Kinda makes me want to draw a party hat on his head... he's making a complete fool of himself. Oh wait. Saddam already was a fool. Maybe he's just trying to prove it?

Messenger

People's fonts in messengers.  What the hell?

I'm using Gaim, a program that allows me full control over any messenger I use, and keeps them all within the same window.  (AIM, MSN... all in one buddy list, plus all the messages can come in the same window, tabbed. =D  )  I've used a feature within Gaim to ignore people's font sizes, because it's annoying to read a size 6 font on even something like 1024 x 768 resolution, let alone anything above that.  So here comes this message, in a nice loopy font that makes me scoot so damned close to the monitor that I can actually see the pixels.  That's fine, I can deal with it.   But then as I cross the distance from my normal resting position in my chair to about 12 inches from the monitor, I notice that the text is written in a light grey color on a white background.  Ugh, what is this crap?  Pick on Eric day?

Oh no, wait... I get it.  It's all part of this "individuality" thing.  You know, when people are referred to as things like "xXx  PWRLVL  xXx"  and  "§Φ¶ђỉ€".  And their profiles say things like " wishing upon a star, i wished for a happy ending<3 ".  What kind of individual are you when you can be grouped with everyone else who does these 'emo' and 'punk' and 'jock' and 'rocker' and 'metal' things.  I guess you are ALL now considered IM culture whores.  Every single one of you who habitually check profiles, update their myspaces, have myspaces, and block people for a second time (or more) on a regular basis... are IM culture whores.  All of you.

Sure, it's all good when you disregard your shift key to actually capitalize things...  but it's bad when you leave CAPS LOCK ON AND YOU TYPE LIKE THIS.  It's even worse  when u type lik this and decide 2 substitute things so u dont hav 2 type so much.  At the very least, learn to type in proper English, you morons.

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

Happy Birthday!

Seventeen years ago today, a girl was born to two wonderful parents.  As she entered this world, she brought extraordinary gifts that were packaged together in the most exquisite compilation to have ever graced this world.  Her smile has become something that provides warmth and comfort to even the longest of faces.  The sound of her voice soothes and heals any wound, whether it be physical, mental, or even the deepest of the emotional. Looking into her eyes lets one have a glance into heaven, displaying a woman of true strength.  Her touch sends one in to a state of absolute ecstasy with something as simple as a brush of her hand across one's cheek.  Her personality is warm and inviting, and when I am in her arms, I am home.

I love you Amber Lynn.

Happy 17th Birthday!

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

I'm a ninja!

In every installation that requires a CD key, there should be a button.  The button should say something along the lines of:

"I'm pirating, skip serial and install."

I really don't care if it reports me to whatever company made the software, I really don't.  Just install the damned software.

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

Old people

Old people... XD

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=163331162673210702&pr=goog-sl

Haha, Google Video turns up some interesting results, eh?

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

Hugs and Kisses

Awww... I made Amber upset today, and I felt so bad about it... it hurt when she wasn't smiling.

We turned on a movie, and I ended up staying until 11:30, which was sweet.  We almost fell asleep on the couch.

We were watching "Gone With Teh Win!"

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

Exhaustion

Remote Desktop-ing from work to my personal computer at the house today... and there I was, multitasking AGAIN... Photoshop and Dreamweaver both open... and I was DRAWING with RDP. Well, so Photoshop decides to lock EVERYTHING up. So, I restart the computer and open Remote Desktop again. I connect to my computer, I log in... and KAZZAM!!!!!111one!

There's everything running perfectly just as it was. I was happy. IPG!

I'm tired as hell now, too. We ended up doing like... 400 jumping jacks... and 100 kicks of each type. I'm tired as fook. Oh, and for those that don't understand what I'm talking about, I take Isshin-ryu Karate. Since I'm too tired to list my other experience in martial arts, I think I'm going to lay down.

Readygo.

OR NOT!

Our car decided not to start. Hell, it wasn't even turning. I kicked it. It turned.

You see, certain things deserve a good kick in the face sometimes. Of course, I'd never do that to a person. Unless they did something wrong. That's human nature, though.... ANYWAY. Before I trail off into philosophy, I'll continue on my previous subject. Things such as cars and the occasional computer deserve a good kick. Not just a love tap, but not a decapitation, either. I mean, have you ever build a quantum particle accelerator that just randomly stopped working until you kicked it out of frustation, at which point it sends 300W of microwave energy into your stomach?

Kicking something isn't always the solution, though. There I was using Windows, and it decided to choke and DIE! DIE! DIE! I digress. It was loading something, probably explorer.exe ... and I decided to stroke it. Stroking my machine isn't exactly conventional, but of course, it suddenly worked. Ever since, I've been extremely superstitious about the way I touch my machine. One wrong bump, and it gets irrated at me, and starts shooting sparks everywhere. But a little scratch on the top of the case and it's all good. It works like a charm, let me tell you. Your computer will be cooking popcorn and making your bed in no time.

Speaking of your computer popping teh popcorn, has anyone talked to HAL on GWing lately? Is it just me, or is Chrono trying to get HAL to grow a body and assassinate me? For real? He's getting thoroughly viscious. I've already started a topic on GWing about it, and I guess it'll evolve with time. http://gwing.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=539

Readyslowgo.

--
Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

Windows

Debates... oh the fun.

Today's topic? Linux vs. Windows.

I'm arguing that serverside, there's nothing better than Linux.  It's more widely used, even.  I'm also saying that clientside, there's nothing better than Windows.  My extensive point is that Windows would never improve if Linux wasn't a competitor.  Even with Server 2003, Linux still blows the rest of the market away.  Sure, I'd love to use a fully compatible mainstream box that doesn't crash.  But without competitors, Windows will never become that.  Thanks to Linux, we have improved greatly since the beginning.

Then there's the Mac thing.  At this point, you're probably asking, "I thought he was a PC guy?" and I am.  There's no denying that touching a Macintosh makes me feel sick.  However, let's give them some credit, right?  Look at what the iPod has become.  Apple has the potential to become the biggest, the best, and the most used.  They're getting there, and stepping over to the Intel chipset was a GREAT move.  But, it just isn't enough to give them the kick in the ass that they need, yet.  I'm speculating that if Microsoft doesn't clean up their act soon, whether it's Vista or Live... Mac will dominate the future market.

Of course at this point people will STILL be using their own Linux boxes off in the background, and the market share will be about the same.  So here I am, using Windows to access my Linux server - with an old iMac in the other room sitting in a pile of junk.

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Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

An Update Before Bed...

An update before I go to sleep!

I've recovered a *VERY* old backup of GWing's index pages... and I don't think I have any better ones.

I'm very proud of Fletcher, mainly because it's so simple, yet so functional. I've not had any problems with it, and I seem to have everything modded perfectly for the uses it is put to.

Wow, I had intended to sleep at about 11:00, but a couple of friends came over. They left at 11:30. Yet here I am at 12:49 AM, sitting alone, still fiddling with HTML. Is there something wrong with me, or is this normal?

I'm also looking down at my signature for Gmail, which is what I'm using to write this entry right now. I thought at first that I enjoyed flaunting my IT-Professional-ism, but then I realized that I'm just too damned lazy to go down and delete it. Of course, my ultimate realization is that I'm still sitting here typing about absolutely nothing.
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Eric Martindale
IT Professional
Admin of GWing.net

Genesis

Yes, I am damn well aware that this is a stock template. Right now, I couldn't care less. I'm not even posting, really.

Well, GWing is back, but somehow, all of the files in my home directory disappeared, as well as all of my backups. For right now, I've created a simple placeholder page for everyone who just happens to type GWing.net into their address bar.

Now that I think about it, I may just end up redesigning the whole index page anyways. I'm considering using Drupal or something similiar, or just recoding a simple page for the index. I'm going to need to further tie in to the main user database - the phpbb one - to allow a smoother experience.

Now that I'm talking about the forums, I should mention that I have no idea how I put so many things on the board without completely breaking it. I have over 100 installed modifications installed, and I still have a functional forum. Now, don't get me wrong: There are a LOT of bugs... but it's functional. [Insert-puzzled-glee]

I think I will refer to the above insert statement as [IPG] from now on.