Ramblings of an Anonymous Coward

Washed Away

i may have something to share when i return in june, but for now i leave you all with this...

chalk-white man of the deep blue sea
for in life, death shall be
respect care joy belief
washed away, replaced by grief
man sits, alone in a crowd
floating on a dark black cloud
crying laughing frowning smiles
close to home, far in miles
deep blue man of the chalk-white sea
for in death, life shall be

Walking In LA

seeing as i'll be in the city of angels this weekend, i decided to update radio free ac, which is what the little headphones to the right are all about. i added a few appropriate songs like missing persons' walking in la and under the bridge by the red hot chili peppers. there are a number of other new tunes there too, including foo fighters and on the softer side norah jones. enjoy!

speaking of music, i'm so peeved... i meant to put a bid on some alice in chains cds -- there was 30 minutes left, and wouldn't ya know it, i got stuck on the freakin' phone and distracted. by the time i got off (and i swear it only felt like 15 minutes) the auction had closed. and just to piss me off further, the winning bid was under what i'd have bid. sass-a-frass'n... grumble, grumble.

Last

i haven't done a list meme in a while, so i've shamelessly stolen one done by enigma. but hey! she stole it first. that's gotta count for something. i'm guessing the meme would be called lasts.

Last Cigarette:: never, unless my mother smoking while i was in-utero counts
Last Alcoholic Drink:: couple days ago i guess -- mikes hard lemonade
Last Car Ride:: yesterday, to/from blockbuster
Last Kiss:: yesterday i guess
Last Good Cry:: crying generally isn't "good". i dunno
Last Library Book checked out:: hmmm, maybe 1988 or so?
Last movie Seen in Theatres:: 28 days
Last Book Read:: currently reading "High Performance MySQL"... for pleasure -- "Zen Flesh, Zen Bones"
Last Movie Rented:: got big fish and LOTR::ROTK at the same time
Last Cuss Word Uttered:: shit
Last Beverage Drank:: coca-cola
Last Food Consumed:: handfull of fritos, waiting for dinner
Last Crush:: orange or maybe it was grape, i don't remember.
Last Phone Call:: a wrong number
Last TV Show Watched:: sopranos on sunday
Last Time Showered:: yesterday morning. yeah, yeah, call me sticky boy if you must
Last Shoes Worn:: i'm usually in sandles, like now
Last CD Played:: superunknown by soundgarden
Last Item Bought:: a finger eleven cd on ebay
Last Download:: a very large database for work
Last Annoyance:: that i'm typing this rather than eating
Last Disappointment:: that i'm still typing this rather than eating
Last Soda Drank:: coca-cola classic
Last Thing Written:: uh... <--- that
Last Key Used:: key to my office on tuesday
Last Word Spoken:: ok
Last Sleep:: this morning, 8am. yes... AM
Last IM:: dave f, telling me he now has a gmail account. me laughing about how so last month that is
Last Sexual Fantasy:: heh. wouldn't you like to know.
Last Weird Encounter:: having my cfo's friend call asking for help with a computer problem. that guy was .... mmm... a little off
Last Ice Cream Eaten: probably a plain ole ice cream sandwich
Last Time Amused:: see IM question/answer above
Last Time Hugged:: today
Last Time Scolded:: by someone else?
Last Time Resentful:: dunno.
Last Chair Sat In:: i'm sitting right now
Last Underwear Worn:: boxer briefs. right now.
Last Bra Worn:: never. nor would i admit if i had, thankyouverymuch
Last Shirt Worn:: i'm wearing one now. it's from a hockey tournament a couple years back.
Last Webpage Visited:: excluding the mt-edit form i'm using right now, my bloglines page.

ya know... it sounded a lot more fun before i started this. oh well, i'm done now.

T.O.M.

i've heard and seen a lot of interesting uses of wireless technology and networks, but here's a new one -- think of me rings.

Soy Vey!

bon apetite!

Shanghai. (Interfax-China) - The Chinese government has shown an unusually high level of concern as a result of a bold media exposure towards a scandal in which human hair was used to make soy sauce. The government has now ordered an immediate inspection of all domestic food seasoning plants before the end of January.
[...]
By producing soy sauce from such raw materials, the producers were said able to cut costs by half. Workers employed at the plants, however, never bought soy sauce marked as "blended" on the packaging, because that usually meant that human hair was the basic material in the sauce.

Absent Elements

when i can't share anything better, i'm left to sharing what others have shared. links and more links of things that i've found interesting. perhaps someone will enjoy them too. it's the thing to do.

• i sometimes wonder if life is simply an illusion... that nobody really exists in our own little worlds and that all events are strange fantasies we have built to pass time. this flash file creates one of the cooler illiusions i've seen/done. give it a whirl, it's worth the 60 seconds you have to give it.
  
  
• along the lines of sensory perceptions, i hope to goodness i'm not the only person that looks at these speakers and thinks the product's designer was in a bit of an erotic mood that day. meow.
  
  
• impossible objects have always been cool, but they are getting even more cool. they put a baseball in a jar, i'd love to see a hockey pick in one... perhaps with a "break in case of emergency" enscribed on the outside.
  
  
• creating your own illusions can be fun, but being practical can also be important. or not. if you take pictures, someone created a nice tutorial for photoshopping pictures.
  
  
• now back to the cool stuff. or in this case coulheur (pardon my french). this clock takes the three primary colours, shades them off and divides them… on three transparent disks which are associated with the three time units respectively. i just don't get how you tell time with it, but it's pretty and geeky. i like it!
  
  
• segwaying to pretty... did you know some employers require you to be pretty? no, i don't mean hooters. seems even the outsourcers are getting picky. and in china... tall with symetrical breasts. go figure.
  
  
• tired of my crap yet? maybe there's a reason. maybe, just maybe it isn't me. maybe it's a matter of CDA + CD +KF = TMT? here's my chart...
  
  some people have said the results are way off. for me, they are pretty reasonable.
  credit to collision detection for the pointer.
  
  

yawn! i need a nap.

Word Association, Week 68

1. Finale:: end
2. Martial arts:: kung-fu
3. Flirt:: n' with disaster
4. Energy:: bar
5. Flavor:: orange and vanilla
6. Guess?:: what?
7. Accomplishment:: achievement
8. Prom:: date
9. Diploma:: college
10. Bloody:: hell

unconscious mutterings brought to you by LunaNiña.

AC's Are Like Onions

ok, i admit it. shrek rocks! and the folks at dreamworks have made the first five minutes of shrek 2 available on-line. it's in theatres now, but my cheap ass will almost certainly wait until it hits dvd.

Pissed

i dunno what these guys are thinking, but pissing on one's hands is just not an appealing proposition regardless of the benefit. funny thing is, it apparently doesn't even do what they think it does. go figure.

speaking of people being pissed off (rather than pissed on), there is a decent breakdown of blogging software. blosxom looks interesting to me mainly because it is done in perl. i need to re-remind myself that i can do php without having to have it as a server module. i forget that sometimes. ummmm, make that often. and that makes b2evolution look good too. in my case, mt still meets my needs, so i'm in no hurry to switch.

One Thing

exactly one year ago i made my first post and since then over 400 more have followed as have the 250 comments to go along with them. i was tempted to sift through my archives and pick out some favorite or meaningful posts and share them here again; however, i just don't have the energy. during the latter half of this blog-year (kinda like a fiscal year i suppose?) i've focused on dates and events to reach, and this was one of them. so i guess i made it. well, this far at least. and i shouldn't have been surprised that i didn't have much to say about it. i will, however, end this post with a quote.

Do not condemn the judgement of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong.
-- Dandemis

Thousand Mile Wish

on the eve of my one-year blogaversary, the sharks were eliminated from the stanley cup finals. while the team exceeded all expectations for this season, it was a heart-breaking way to end the season and i'm left feeling like i could have done something to have changed the outcome. i know that is a silly notion, but i always seem to feel that way at such times.

i know i'll climb into bed tonight wondering what else i could have done, but regardless of the 20 things i come up, none of which would likely have made a difference, i'll still be left with the disappointment. i will still have this feeling that i didn't give my all. but one thing is for sure... i gave my heart, and i guess that's why it feels so sad.

You've Gotta Have Sex?

i think i'm going to be in favor of these people not having children. they take being naive to an all new level.

Word Association, Week 67

it seems i'm hopelessly addicted...

1. Playoffs:: stanley cup
2. Morris:: robert t.
3. Break up:: sad
4. Eggs:: scrambled
5. Parker:: brothers
6. Hardy Boys:: nancy drew
7. Deluxe:: edition
8. Protection:: maximum
9. Girl Scout:: cookies
10. Salsa:: worthy

unconscious mutterings brought to you by LunaNiña.

Nick Berg Video

i generally avoid politics; however, i just saw the nick berg video over at burnt-fuse and in a word it was sick. blood, guts, and gore generally don't bother me and frankly the film isn't graphic by hollywood standards, but to see those 5 scumsucking bastards do that to a real person made my skin crawl, much less considering all of their underlying motives.

not that an event like this could ever be truly understandable, but one thing that sticks in my mind is this. if these 5 people (and i use that term loosely) believed so much in their cause and found this murder to be just --- why did they hide their faces? why wouldn't they be proud to fight for their cause and take credit for their actions? cowards! fucking cowards! that is what al-qaeda must translate to in english -- fucking cowards! clearly they aren't fighting for a cause, they are pure evil and need to be stopped.

i hope when our soldiers in the middle east start feeling bad about having taken lives while they were fighting for their cause -- for our cause -- that they remember nick berg and others like him. that they show their faces, take careful aim, and are proud of what they are about do.

lastly, and it may be terrible to say, but having seen that video, i have far less sympathy for the peoples as a whole over there. maybe i should feel more for them (the innocent ones at least) who are all but forced to live there, but i'm not. you want your lives spared, then rise up! simply point out where these scum-sucking bastard terrorists are so they can be removed from your devistated country (in body bags). then we'll leave. it's that simple.

update: 5/16
apparently there are some conspiracy theories going around and some interesting points are being made, i'll give 'em that.

What Color Is Your Brain?

What Color is Your Brain? brought to you by Quizilla

At work or in school: I work best by myself. I like to focus on my ideas until my desire for understanding is satisfied. I am easily bored if the subject holds no interest to me. Sometimes, it is hard for me to set priorities because so many things are of interest. With friends: I may seem reserved. Although my thoughts and feelings run deep, I am uneasy with frequent displays of emotion. I enjoy people who are interesting and of high integrity. With family: I am probably seen as a loner because I like a lot of private time to think. Sometimes, I find family activities boring and have difficulty following family rules that don't make sense to me. I show love by spending time with my family and sharing ideas and interests.

*found at burnt-fuse who got it from BLTB.

MT 3, Coming or Going?

so sixapart has announced and released a developers edition of MT 3.0. on this surface this all sounds greate; however, it seems that there are going to be some changes to the free versions of MT even though mena says:

With the new licenses going in effect today we will continue our tradition of offering a fully functional free version, there will also be a large variety of paid licenses that come with the structured support that we never felt that we could give our donors enough of.

it looks like derek has dug into it a bit more and it's not quite the same.

for me it really doesn't make a difference, when sites are completely different i tend to do seperate MT installs so they can operate independently with individually configured plug-ins, but i do see his point. it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out. perhaps this will create an opening for a quality opensource blogging platform. i only wish i had the time and energy to start such a venture.

update: metafilter has lots of comments and some links to alternatives. the MT folks are catching quite a bit of flack already.

Movie Review Two

while i'm sitting here killing a little bit of time, i thought it might be time to mention the movies i've watched since i last posted back towards the end of march. i'm sticking with the simple 1-5 rating and there are definitely a few i'd recommend (in bold).

• Gothika (3)
  i was expecting something eerie and it came up short; however, the general idea of the movie was cool -- female psychiatrist (halle berry) wakes up as a patient in the asylum she worked at.
  
• Melvin Goes To Dinner (3)
  this movie has a rather voyeuristic characteristic about it, probably because everything seemed so... ordinary.
  
• Shattered Glass (3)
  real story about a real ex-journalist. this might certainly make you question some of the things you read.
  
• 21 Grams (2)
  i dunno, maybe i was simply too tired when i watched this. the premise seemed interesting enough, but i was bored to tears well before the midway point.
  
• Something's Gotta Give (4)
  if you want a good chuckle and like jack, this is a must see.
  
• House of Sand and Fog (3)
  i hadn't heard of this movie before renting it. a simple story, but well told i think.
  
• Owning Mahowny (1)
  don't waste your time. yawn.
• Matrix Revelations (4)
  certainly a change of pace from the prior two, and a must see.
  
• Timeline (3)
  a decent movie that plays the going back in time card quite well. their foreshadowing was a bit obvious, though comes with a twist.
  
• Veronica Guerin (4)
  a real story and well done, which makes me bump it to a 4.
  
• Training Day (2)
  this has been out for a while but i never got around to seeing it. i put this into the -- it was ok category. and it will stay there until it rots.
  
• Kill Bill: Volume 1 (4)
  if you like martial arts with a tarintino twist, this is a flick for you.
  
• Ripley's Game (2)
  had a few good parts, but just didn't meet expectations really. this is probably a good candidate for the top of the 2-star list, but that's it.
  
• Monk - The Premiere Episode (4)
  yeah, this was good and i'm looking forward to watching the series. just waiting for it to come out on dvd. the casting for this show is excellent and it's very easy to like the characters as if they were real. adrian and sharona can hang out with me anytime.
  
• Haunted Mansion (3)
  cute. was about what i expected.
  
• Master and Commander (3)
  i liked the movie, but i just don't see what the big todo was over it. the hype was just too much for this film.
  
• Win A Date With Tad Hamilton (3)
  predictable, sappy, and the world just doesn't work that way now does it?
  
• Tears From The Sun (3)
  has been sitting on the shelf and i finally saw it. not bad, but i really hope it didn't cost more than $9.99
  
• Darkest Knight (1)
  this was one of those buy it for $4.99. the title and cover were cool. it's definitely old school with effects and is like watching tv in the 70's.
  
• Love Actually (4)
  actually, not bad. i'd probably have given it a three; however, it was chalked full of quotes that i liked and amusing scenes. i'm sure we all can identify with a character in this movie. i'm mostly a mark i think.
  

  while at peter's wedding, standing at the altar...
  Peter: No surprises?
  Mark: No surprises.
  Peter: Not like the stag night?
  Mark: Unlike the stag night.
  Peter: Do you admit the Brazilian prostitutes were a mistake?
  Mark: I do.
  Peter: And it would have been much better if they'd not turned out to be men?
  Mark: That is true.
  

• Calendar Girls (2)
  not as bad as my rating might seem. it was adapted from a true and endearing story, but was way too long with obvious places cuts could have been made. knock it down to 90 minutes and it would have been a lot better.

I Blame Jeremy

so i'm peaking in on jeremy's linkblog to see what interesting things he has stumbled across today and i read his recent entry as:

randombits.com it's just what you think it is

hmmm, i muse to myself. must be a site which helps seed random number generators or some such. i mean, what else can it be? right?

having a spare moment, i click through. aye-carrumba! it wasn't randombits.com, it was randomtits.com.

uh, hint, that link is not work safe.

so jeremy, if you read this... i'm blaming you. i blame you for all 128 times i clicked that link. (just kidding)

Hot Or Not

the ageproject experiment was interesting, though i couldn't resist and checked again. my average age crept up to 34, but this was after 548 guesses. it's a bit younger than i am, so i suppose i can't complain too much.

so what's an anonymous coward to do to top this public display? the unexpected of course!

for no reason other than shits and giggles, i put myself up for display on hot or not. oh yes i did! now i get to be rated for more than just age and the results have been quite amusing so far.

unlike the ageproject, this site actually tries to get people hooked up with one another. so if you don't want to be hassled or are not available like me, it does seem that making this clear in your profile does the trick. my results so far show that i rate a shocking 7.4 after 63 votes. one person even had the audacity to rate me a 10. i guess this site supports the blind. haha!

now being the geek i am as well as being self-critical, i took a peek at the numbers. well, the graph actually. as it turns out, they don't do straight averages. yeah, i knew my rating was too good to be true. i guess i'll have to tear up my latest love letter to olivia newton john and continue on with my life. enough with that... back to the geeky stuff.

as you can tell from the histogram to the left, clearly the actual scores do not average out to 7.4. by my rough estimate based on the graph, my real average is more like 5.3. so why is this? this is apparently answered... kinda sort... in their faq #18:

Official HOT or NOT scores are normalized to account for things such as the fact that different people have different voting styles. For instance, some people, for reasons unknown to us, only vote 1-5. Should a 5 from these people count as a 5?

Many standard scoring systems use normalization techniques, including the Olympics and the tests people take to get into college in the US. We still give you the chart, which represents raw data, just for fun.

this has got to be particularly brutal to the scores for some of the women! you get some horny bastard clicking 9 and 10 for all the little blondes, and when a reasonably attractive woman pops up and they pick say 6, it's going to get normalized down. i suppose if there is a string of -- um, lesser attractive ladies -- the same could work in the same persons favor. for the record, let me just say -- dumb, dumb, dumb. fellas, just give the raw average. if you want to play with your math skills, how about providing traditional mean, median, and mode. hell, get fancy provide the variance and standard deviations. want to show distribution, calculate out sigma(1), sigma(2), sigma(3) to show whether it's a normal distribution or not. come on guys... be geeky!

Bitten By Bug

confirmed by six apart authors of moveable type blog software -- if your entry is set to exactly midnight, it won't appear in your archives. i thought i was going nuts, but alas i just tripped over a bug.

hopefully they will fix it in MT version 3.

Scentless Apprentice

so much to do, so little time it seems. i got way too distracted with that whole ageproject thing too. i kept going back. before long, far too many people look familiar. kinda weird!

so i'm looking through my access logs today to see where people are coming from to find me. i see the normal kind of stuff or places where i've managed to be blogrolled for some reason or the other, but every so often one pops up that i just can't figure out. and i don't mean the access log spam where they put into referrer a porn site or something someone is trying to sell.

but first, i thought i'd mention that if you are a mozilla / firefox user, bloglines has a nifty plug-in notifier which will poll your blogline account and let you know when/if there are any unread feeds. i've just started using myself. so far, so good.

so you want to be a poet? here's some sensible advice from a site i ran into for the first time -- unqualified offerings. it's not the sort of blog i see myself following closely, but i did like the authors article. i guess that fact is just more justification why there are sites that find useful links like this and give them some visibility to those that may have not seen it otherwise.

anyway, back to the how did they get to me thought. this site was in my referrers and i just don't see how. they have a pretty extensive blogroll, and i wasn't in it. i didn't see any articles referencing my blog. clearly we (me and this blog's author) visit some of the same places -- based on the blogroll and the word association posts. go figure. so why do i mention it? oh, because i wanted to reference their post which they too found elsewhere. it is a meme (could of guessed huh?) and it goes like this

Pick a band or an artist and answer only using that band/artist's song titles.

i'm a sucker for these sort of things especially when i can tie in something like music interests. here are my answers... i was going to add commentary to explain some of the answers, but i'd just as soon let them stand.

update: enigma pointed out in my comments that i did this wrong. i was only supposed to pick one band. well shit, that makes it hard, but i'll try. first: my original answers...

1. Are you male or female?
   i am a man of constant sorrow, soggy bottom boys
   
   
2. Describe yourself
   comfortably numb, pink floyd
   
   
3. How do some people feel about you?
   basketcase, green day
   
   
4. How do you feel about yourself?
   i hate myself and want to die, nirvana
   
   
5. Describe your girlfriend/boyfriend/interest:
   strangers in the night, frank sinatra
   
   
6. Where would you rather be?
   under the bridge, red hot chili peppers
   
   
7. Describe what you want to be:
   bring me to life, evanescence
   
   
8. Describe how you live:
   heart still beating, ottmar liebert
   
   
9. Describe how you love:
   i want to know what love is, foreigner
   
   
10. Share a few words of wisdom:
    love hurts, nazareth
    
    

now my answers using just one band/artist -- nirvana...

1. Are you male or female?
   the man who sold the world
   
   
2. Describe yourself
   negative creep
   
   
3. How do some people feel about you?
   territorial pissings
   
   
4. How do you feel about yourself?
   i hate myself and want to die
   
   
5. Describe your girlfriend/boyfriend/interest:
   about a girl
   
   
6. Where would you rather be?
   on a plain
   
   
7. Describe what you want to be:
   scentless apprentice
   
   
8. Describe how you live:
   all apologies
   
   
9. Describe how you love:
   heart-shaped box
   
   
10. Share a few words of wisdom:
    come as you are
    
    

happy?

Come As You Are

just came across the age project which shows you pictures and you have to decide guess how old the person is. it's kind of interesting really. i think after going through maybe 50 photos, i managed to only get 2 correct. i estimate that i was within a couple years maybe 20% of the time. not so good huh?

i seemed to have particular trouble with womens photos. i'd mistake a 24 year old for being like 17, then i'd see someone i thought was 35 and they would be maybe 25. one woman i guessed was in her 20's and she was like 45! seeing as they show the average guess, i wasn't too far out of the norm as the average was in the low 30's. i'm sure she's pleased.

anyway, give it a whirl -- it's quite interesting. for grins, i submitted a photo of me since they don't associate names or anything with the photos. i'll be interested to see if people see me as a young whipper-snapper or an old coot.

final update: 5/10 @ 14:49
269 people have seen it, average guess is 33.

Jesus Doesn't Want Me For a Sunbeam

it's been a while since i've written here and i'm really not sure how much longer i will. i find myself unable or unwilling to share as much anymore, but i like to think it is all for the better. i'm definitely hanging on until may 20th so i too can have a one-year blog-aversery. i will note, however, that everytime i think about stopping, i end up posting a lot more for a while. who knows? maybe i'll end up doing that again. maybe not.

somehow i found myself at a site called supervert 32c, inc. -- it was in my bloglines somewhere. i don't know what caught my eye, put i popped it in a new tab and have just started poking around. oh my! quizzes. not safe for work quizzes no less. yes, yes... lead on mcduff!

ok, they are calling them surveys and tests. whatever. so i started with the two surveys, since those were the most noticable and showed results. i answered them with complete honesty and when scanning the results, it was nice to see i was for the most part in the norm. in fact, if i recall, i was in the majority for all except maybe one or two questions.

• computer sex survey
• sexual perversity survey

now in the perversity survey, i hope to goodness that some of these people were just putting bullshit answers to be out of the norm. for example, at the time i saw the results, 11 people said they had sex with a minor that was between 0-5 years old. that is fucking sick! as a percentage, it was still low, but jesus... thats 11 people that need to be eliminated from this world if true or smacked upside the head if they thought they were being funny.

i expected the 16-18 category to be high (it was actually kinda low), because i'm sure there are plenty of border-line (e.g. 19 having sex with a 17/18) cases.

so while i may be wrong, i'm going to believe some of this shit just is bs, and i look at the result of 12 people saying they have sex with dead bodies frequently. ew! that number is close enough to the 11 i cited earlier, so it must be the same peckerheads. or at least i'm going to believe that. i am. i am. i must!

if you decide to take the shockometer test, please do so before reading on.
seriously.

it makes a difference.

i'll wait.

so i took this test and was a bit disappointed. if you took it, you're likely to know why. i'm not squeamish in the least and was sadly hoping for some pictures that might actually be shocking. no dice. however, i don't fault anyone if they find them disturbing... a couple defintely are when you consider they are real. my results:

As a result of your "winning" performance, the profiling algorithm indicates that you are a person of strong will and high self-esteem. You have the confidence and the drive to attain your goals -- even, however, at the expense and the welfare of others. Your compassion for the tragedies of the individuals depicted was "over-rided" by the compulsion to complete "the game". While you are probably a high achiever, you are blind to the high price that others pay for your accomplishments. Your strength in will corresponds to a weakness in morality. While playing the "game," did you not consider for a moment the horrible plights of the victims depicted? Do you know how truely horrible it would be, for instance, to be tortured and beheaded during war? You may have "won" the game, but you have "lost" at humanity.

If the shockmeter reveals anything, it surely must be that you shock yourself.

dear profiling algorithm -- while i can't totally dismiss your assessment, it is clear that you are confusing an ability to view material that is "shocking" with necessity of not being shocked. and that is dismissing the fact that the photo quality was poor and you only got to see the image for a split second. i don't want to throw you for a loop (pun intended), but i never looked at your test as a game... i just wanted to see the pictures. it was curiousity, and thankfully i'm not a cat.

next i moved on to the color test. in fact it was the luscher color-test. i have a book that has this test in it. how cool. my results:

situation
You seek a solution to existing problems or anxieties, but are liable to find it difficult to decide on a right course to follow.

stresses
You are sensitive and prone to absorbing enthusiasms. You seek an idealized, but so far unfulfilled, situation in which you can assume with another a complete accord and mutal depth of understanding. You feel there is a risk of being exploited if you are too ready to trust others and therefore you demand proof of their sincerity. You need to kneed exactly where you stand in your relationships.

interestingly, they have you take the test twice. the answer above is from test-2 which is said to be the more accurate. my test-1 said for this...

You strive for straightforward relationships, founded on mutual trust and understanding. You wish to act only in conformity with your own convictions. You demand freedom to make your own decisions without beign subjected to interference, outside influence or the necessity of making compromises

sadly, that sounds more like me.

desires
You take pains to control the situation and it's problems by proceeding cautiously. Has sensitivety of feeling and fine eye for detail

problems
You need to protect yourself from your tendency to be too trusting, as you find it is liable to be musunderstood or exploited by others. Therefore you seek a relationship providing peaceful and understanding intimacy, and in which each knows where the other stands.

You do not wish to be involved in differences of opinion, contention or argument, preferring to be left in peace.

lastly, since it was under the color test, i kinda thought this might be a test of some sort, but sex lingo is a dictionary of sexual terms (slang) and tells you what they mean, often with a picture. ummmm. yeah. i'm not sure what to think seeing there were plenty of terms i had never heard before. guess i'm a prude after-all.

well, i've spent more than enough time on this site...

Things To Share Today

randompixel is a really cool idea. i'm looking forward to seeing more of the pictures that make their way back. some of the ones they have gotten so far are quite excellent.

A camera, alone in the world. Each Randompixel camera was given to a stranger. Stickers on the camera instruct the recipient to take a few pictures and pass it along. When the camera is done, it is dropped in the mail, it returns home, and the pictures are posted here.

well shit! apple is rejecting iMix lists. they have all the fucking songs there for sale, i just don't get the point they are trying to make. i mean really!

ebay does it again -- facilitating a sale for something well above the value. there was the giant cheeto and now applesauce with (admittedly) an interesting batch code on it. ebay is truly and american company! and i mean that in a good way.

this article on an upcoming baseball marketing deal lends new meaning to the phrase all your bases are belong to us.

conflicted

i guess things usually do balance out in the end, but i think i really hate it more when the good and the bad are so close together. take today for instance, the sharks advanced to the conference finals for the first time in team history. on any other day i'd have been glowing, but it just had to be a shitty day at work didn't it?

to make matters worse, the shittiness was mostly a reaction to news which really should be no big deal at all. why is it that sometimes the little stuff can bug the hell out of you more than the big stuff? happens to me far too often i think! such is life i suppose, but i'd really appreciate it if life would spread it out a bit more.

if it's going to be a crappy day, let it be totally crap. don't taint an otherwise pleasing experience. and if it is going to be a good day, be great. let me bask in it's wonderfulness for a bit... before piling the crap back on. is that so much to ask?

inquiring minds want to know.

on second thought, maybe i don't.

Living In Color

Word Association, Week 65

1. Sexy:: to me
2. Clique:: exclusive
3. Pledge:: endust
4. Carbs:: i'm not counting
5. Dream Job:: brainstormer
6. Sweeps:: week
7. Soundtrack:: original
8. Hero:: streets of fire
9. Shave:: and a haircut, dunt, dunt
10. Christina:: applegate

He's Baaaaack!

ok, so i'm back. big whoop. lets just say i'm back just in time for vappu which would be much more interesting if i were in... say finland. but hey, in a few more days we'll have cinco de mayo. for you non-left-coasters, that's the 5^th of may -- more or less mexico's version of independence day.

if you were curious, gmail is quite nifty, i've been participating in the beta test and it flat out rocks. it's their products like this that make me very upbeat about their ipo. now if i only was able to get my hands on some shares.

ok, so i have a few other things to share. it's not like you were expecting a post with substance were you? i mean really, when was the last time i did anything like that. huh? huh? see what i mean?

i've collected coins since i was a little kid. aside from the fact that i have always like to save up money -- sure i splurge now and again as well as having my spending weaknesses -- but back to the point. this 4 new quarters every year has been quite a trip. now if they really did this one, that would be cool!

not to leave the ladies out, a russian museum has announced that it will be putting on display grigory rasputin's penis -- all 30cm (11.7") of it. now i know why they call him the mad monk.

we had two earthquakes over 3.0 in the last week. the one on monday was pretty noticable; however, thursday's was much more so. it definitely rattled a few things around on my walls. hopefully the shift helps unstick the front door.

wholly shit! i so saw this -- well, after the fact. i was coming back from my hockey game and noticed the troppers off on the left, it was causing traffic to slow down. then i noticed the body some 30 yards in front of the car. didn't look like an accident as the car wasn't noticably banged up. sounds like she got out of her car and got hit. another car was stopped on the right about a quarter mile further up the road. now i wonder if they hit her and didn't realize it or something and just thought something hit their vehicle. shit! i wish i could remember what that car looked like. that's kinda creepy.

this isn't quite related to any of the super-duper secret stuff i've been working on (so don't ask!), but it is certainly noteworthy. now you can download mp3's for roughly 5-cents per song. now whether it is legal is left up to the courts. no, not the normal peer-to-peer stuff like kazza, but a service out of russia called allofmp3.com. now most of you probably can't read cyrillic, so make sure you hit the english link over on the upper left. and to answer another question that could possibly pop up -- "no, i haven't tried it yet". like iTunes, these guys are missing a lot of stuff too. i mean come on -- i'd really like to get lunascape's cd reflecting seyelence and perhaps their new one called mindstalking (cool name eh?). so much for us having a "world economy".

alrighty... now if you can excuse me so i can go scream a silent scream, i'm outta here.

Aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh!