Ramblings of an Anonymous Coward

Wagenschenke

wouldn't ya know it... i plan to take a 5 minute break or so and catch up on some blogs and what do i stumble into? worse than a test -- it was a game! thanks to enigma, i found myself playing this silly little game called home run apparently written for albanafest 2004.

the point of the game is to help one of the party go'ers home. obviously there was a bit of beer drinking going on, so this would be no easy task. i spent about 15 minutes on this darn thing and only managed to get the poor fellow to the 66 meter mark. after that i left him to sleep on the side of the alley way while i got back to work. give it a try, it's pretty amusing.

Word Association, Week 73

1. Lounge:: lizard larry
2. Photograph:: def lepard
3. Catacomb:: spelunk
4. Crucifix:: inri
5. Fired drill:: chinese
6. Tube:: steak
7. Dropped:: on my head
8. LTD:: tla
9. Panther:: os/x
10. Formica:: counter top

Sing It Freddy

I've paid my dues, Time after time
I've done my sentence, But committed no crime
And bad mistakes, I've made a few
I've had my share of sand, Kicked in my face
But I've come through, And I need to go on and on and on and on

We are the champions - my friend

"We Are The Champions" -- Queen

last week we defeted the #1 seeded stars. this week we faced the #3 team for the championship and finished the season in style. allowing perhaps a dozen shots on net, our defense shut down one of the leagues scoring leaders while our forwards pumped in a walloping 10 goals! one would have been enough as the final score was 10-0 in the victory. not bad for a team that squeaked into the playoffs and played the bulk of the season with only a line and a half.

Down In A Hole

i'm definitely in a funk as far as writing. even the notes i keep for myself have gone to a trickle. sure, every now and again i get a burst of bits and pieces but i just haven't generated anything worth sharing. funny thing is... all the good stuff (or at least what sounds good in my head), i never manage to write down. so that leaves me with leaving you with links and other oddities...

• hints and tricks for gmail.
  
  
• then there is the kid that had to write an apology in blood. and i thought all the weird shit came out of florida or germany.
  
  
• on the sex gage, i'm an 8 (hot). there is also a psychic test too where i rate a 6 and am merely intuitive.
  
  
• looks like there are other uses for an ipod. plenty of them actually.
  
  
• a photo essay

Word Association, Week 72

i almost didn't do it this week... hell, i missed it last week. but i'm back to doing word association, it's irresistable!

1. Abundance:: natural
2. Casino:: royale
3. Shell:: bourne
4. Overpriced:: movies
5. Cancellation:: fee
6. Eternal:: life
7. Lyrics:: music
8. Faith:: no more^*
9. Because:: just
10. Wimp:: y's hamburgers

Go Team Go

my hockey team took on the number one seeded stars tonight in the playoffs and won by a score of 5-2. i only managed a single assist in the contest, but it was on the game winning goal (go me). we advance to the championship game next week and play the winner of the #2/#3 seed game. while it's no stanley cup, it would be nice to win the title. stay tuned.

Haiku Review Part Deux

the last two movies i've watched were 50 first dates and shade. if for no other reason, shade, was ok because of the awesome display of card manipulation. the director played a lot with the time sequences (in a pulp fiction sort of way), though wasn't as sucessful. it was good for a rental, but it's obvious why it didn't stay in the theaters for long.

now adam sandler's 50 first dates was excellent! very much a chick flick, but sandler delivers the goods making it good viewing for the fellas too. drew barrymore fit the role of lucy whitmore perfectly and well worth the efforts henry roth (sandler) put forth to make a life with her. the end result is romantic as hell, but i guess a lot of fantasy is. in the end, it was nice to sit for 90 minutes and believe.

50 FIRST DATES who are you, i say? our first kiss is every day love to remember

SHADE ten, jack, queen, king, ace card mechanic and con man ante up my friend

More Foo

it has been hit and miss productivity wise today, but regardless i am enjoying my new foo fighters cd that i have been anxiously awaiting. while relaxing to the musical stylings of dave grohl and the boys, i figured i'd share a mess links i've gotten over the past few days.

• an excellent way to not register for sites that require registration. (e.g. nytimes.com)
  
• wow, looks like there is somewhere i can rid myself of all these extra gmail invites. perhaps i'll pick up an orkut one in return? or something cooler.
  
• i'm thinking of using bosxom for some projects at work. it loooks like pretty robust and free weblog software.
  
• six apart has announced a greatly improved pricing model. i'm glad they are seeing the light before it's too late.
  
• i was pointed to gfd's site to read a post on 6/16. i link it here for no particular reason at all.
  
• i vaguely recognize the whole two things thing. some of the ones provided are so true!
  
• so much talk about the da vinci code... the upside is nice articles like Good stories, pity they're not true in devlin's take over at the mathematical association of america. ah! golden ratios and fibonacci sequences. good stuff!
  
• another lorem ipsum generator.
  
• and yet another color palette creator for non artistic schmucks like me.
  
• excellent ways to do lists on the web. a good example of the power of css.
  

found on another site, but since i think it might eventually go away, i figured i'd just snag the text. i'm quoting it verbatim so all credit or complaints should go elsewhere. this could save you $10/month if you are a sprint pcs customer.

Tired of SprintPCS dropping your calls????

I have been a customer of SprintPCS for the last 5 years or so. Recently, due to a job change, I needed to switch cell-phone carriers. I was having a large number of calls dropped in addition to not having adequate coverage in the new areas I traveled for work. When I called Sprint to cancel, customer service gave me one hell of a run around - they even threatened to not let me cancel my account - WTF? Finally, in a last-ditch effort to keep me from canceling, the rep told me how I could get credits for dropped calls and thus lower my bill. The procedure is easy - every time I had a call dropped, I simply needed to do the following :

• Call *2 on your SprintPCS phone (calls customer solutions)
• When greeted by "Claire" (their automated customer service system) and asked what you need help with, simply reply "Dropped Call Credit"
• Sprint will then credit your account 1 minute of airtime at the highest local rate, usually $0.50

The rep went on to tell me "this was permissible for up to 20 times per billing cycle.” Do the math and you will see that it will save you $10.00 per bill. Additionally, if you have a family share plan you can repeat this for each line, saving you an additional $10.00 per line during each billing cycle. The rep stated that even she "does this every month, regardless of whether or not she has had 20 dropped calls. It saves [her] $10.00 per month!”

Yeah, What He Said

what you know you can't explain, but you feel it. you've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. you don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad.
-- morpheus

First Law Of Emotion

we're all aware, from high school or university physics, of newton's laws of motion -- particularly his third law which tends to be summed up as "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". i've had this little theory rattling around in my head that i think i'll dub as ac's first law of emotion for the time being. after recent events, i thought it was worth sitting down for a few minutes and trying to document and share.

emotion is the result of a push or pull upon the heart (or soul) which results from its interaction with another being^*. unlike in newton's laws, there is sometimes no measurable or identifiable force thought it's presense is incontrovertible. as with the physical world, emotion has states and is subject to resistance, friction, and tensional forces along with a wide variety of "distance forces" such as societal perception and expectations.

gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love
-- albert einstein

lets not forget inertia! emotions, too, have a natural tendency to resist changes to their state. be them highs or lows, we tend to keep doing what we are doing until acted upon by an unbalanced force. this of course is in direct opposition to more popular conceptions where time is viewed as contact force -- "you'll get over it in time".

so what brought this on? i have noticed lately that every time something happens where i experience the emotion of joy or happiness, there has been an equal and opposite reaction. now my mind spins this a couple ways. i've subconsciously cringed as happy feelings arise in anticipation of an oncoming depression. the other side is my justification that when "shit happens", like the system outage i had to deal with last night, i'm left hopeful that the pendulum will be shortly swinging back the other direction. there are clearly other forces at work here, because the swings aren't always to extremes, but those thoughts will have to wait for another day.

^*interaction with inanimate objects can also stimulate emotions.

In My Head

over at dive into mark, he posted about a life assessment quiz that he took, making it sound pretty interesting in the process. it was a quiz... so you know what happens next don't you?

so i take this quiz and scored 34 out of 100. it did say to be a tough grader, so i was. i scored 4 in physical environment, 11 in well-being, 11 in money, and 8 in relationships. while they suggest you try and work your way to the full 100 points, honestly, that just doesn't seem practical, but i suppose it did give rise to the thought that perhaps i'd feel better if i corrected at least some of these things.

much more interesting, while reading marks comments, i was reminded of this recent user friendly comic which i'm sure others can relate to as well. then there was also a link to a site called authentic happiness which has it's own slew of quizes, sadly all they do is compare your results to those of others which have taken them. not even particularly interesting results either. i think they are just trying to sell more copies of that book! bet that statement doesn't help my optimism score results.

Monster

monster (no not that sort) is the story about highway prostitute, played by charlize theron, who was executed in the state of florida for killing seven men in the 80's. while i knew nothing of the real story, theron did a fabulous job portraying her character and clearly deserved the oscar she won for the role. it's a 4 out of 5 stars movie. and now for my haiku review...

who knows where it goes?
life, death, tragedy and love
don't stop believing^*

^* journey's song don't stop believing was prominent in the movie between the two main characters. and it's 5 syllables. neat huh?

Wrap, Weird, Future, Hung

while winding down from meetings and code, i found...

• the best wrapping paper selection ever. (via: boingboing)
• the 25 weirdest things you can buy on amazon.com (via: jeremy)
• survey results from nerve on future of marriage (via: metafilter)
• the william hung experience. (via: ernie)

Skip Doctor

this weekend i took a chance and bought a skip doctor, which is essentially a product that is supposed to help repair scuffed and scratched cds. it has the "ronco, as sold on tv" look about it, but i have to admit the thing has worked damn well so far!

to date, it has fixed 2 music cds which skipped terribly, 2 dvd movies which also had nasty and repeatable skipping problems, and one playstation game which was unplayable. this little device fixed them all right up!

normally i'd either not have risked such a purchase or have leaned towards a cheaper one, but i bought the $49.95 motorized version and am quite happy that i did. the other had a manual crank and having done 5 disks now, i would have found far too cumbersome. with this i just spray it with the water, pop the disk in, and flip a switch. it requires two revolutions and it's done. total time for repair of a disk is under one minute. if you've ever considered buying one of these things but were sceptical, let me tell you they work. well, mine does at least.

Word Association, Week 70

oh my! i nearly missed it again this week. and to think i missed week 69 all together. oh the horror of it all! there is just something about LunaNiña's meme...

1. Charity:: event
2. Scale:: do-re-me-fa-so-la-ti-do
3. Jennifer Lopez:: maid in manhattan
4. Coercion:: twisting
5. Meter:: maid
6. Pressure:: stress
7. June:: july
8. Infestation:: ants
9. Serial killer:: son of sam
10. Anguish:: great sorrow

RIP RWR

Ronald Regan: 1911 - 2004
it was sadly announced today that former president ronald regan died at his home in los angeles, california. he was 93 years old.

“Whatever else history may say about me when I’m gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears; to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty’s lamp guiding your steps and opportunity’s arm steadying your way.”   -- Ronald Wilson Regan

• Yahoo! : Former President Ronald Reagan Dies at 93
• Bloomberg.com : Ronald Reagan, Former U.S. President, Dies at 93
• Regan Memorial

Weekends In A Flash

in theory one is supposed to kick back and enjoy the weekends and i do take out some time for myself, but as usual am saddled with work i really need to get done. none the less i've come across some flash based games which are great for taking a break or two during the day.

• bubble fun is yet another one of those bubble oriented games, but this time you pump 'em up to solve the puzzle.
  
• bow man reminds me of the old atari / apple game called artillery, where you set the initial velocity and angle and try and hit the other guy.
  
• tontie is pretty much a version of whack-a-mole if you're familiar with that. best placed with the numeric keypad.
  

enjoy!

Shrek 2 : Haiku Review

while in la i saw the movie shrek 2. my cheap ass didn't wait like i thought i would. oh well. on to my haiku review...

ogres they shall be
togetherness matters most
love is sacrifice

Shocking!

this is one friggin' hard flash game. after 3 tries i could only muster up a score of 34. i'll try it again later, but for now i leave you with the link to try it yourself.

Big Fish

still reeling a bit from watching the rest of big fish last night, but here is my haiku review.

become immortal
knowledge gives life adventure
may time stop for you