Ramblings of an Anonymous Coward

Two Interesting Quotes In One Day

via the spam-l email list, the user that calls themselves bob o'bob provided the following quote with no futher attribution:

Never argue with an idiot -- They'll drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.

i'll certainly have to remember this one!!! but then i saw on ottmar liebert's blog a post that concluded with:

Some solutions seem unusual, but they work. Reminds me of the space programs... NASA spent thousands of dollars developing a ballpoint pen that would work in the zero gravity of space... and the Russians simply used pencils...

and that was so apropo given some things at work recently.

Random Crap Because I'm Unmotivated Today

• after reading mcsweeney's 7 habits of highly successful people i think i better understand why i'm not in that group.
• the printable ceo is an interest, albeit not totally unique, way to help stay on focus. ideal for self-run consultancies.
• hand sports. heh, not what you're thinking.
• get the direct url for iTunes videos.
• turn your flickr photos into a coffe table photo album with services from qoop.
• we all need want to know the top 100 theorems in math. don't we?
• get your dna as wall art. this is very cool, but do you really want to be handing over your dna to them? i'll wait for the home version.
• there is always interesting stuff over at mindhacks. i didn't know which of the many saved posts i'm likely to never read completely to pass along.
• tim bray points to work from jon udell on web services.
• forgetfoo is an good site after you wade through the authors periodic babe .vs. babe type posts. he seems to hear about new things pretty quickly... like meebo the web based im client.
• there are so many start pages popping up. the lastest i heard about was netvibes. i'd like to see one that was the code rather than hosted.
• and as if i have any time... a couple pointers on building your own pvr -- build your own pvr and tivo alternatives.
• oh, i'll throw in a link to info on the new $100 laptop. no, it isn't at walmart just yet.

  i've got like a gazillion more links, but have to simply stop here.

  Posted by ac at 04:12 PM | Comment

Quote Read Today

A man is only as rich as the number of things he can let alone.
-- David Henry Thoreau

Always Short Movie Reviews

man has my movie watching declined. i've gone from probably 5 or so per week to the same per month. notable in this post is that i saw one of the movies in a theatre. at $10 per ticket, i'm reminded why i don't do that, but having been given a bunch of gift certificates recently, it sorta made it free. kinda sorta.

• Million Dollar Baby -- i get why it got all the awards now. they strayed from the expected hollywood plot and ending and made it real. it felt real to me anyhow. definitely 2 thumbs up (4 of 5 stars). my only complaint is that it was a bit long.
• The Virgin Suicides: classic. hadn't seen it in ages, so much so that i confused it with another movie at first. i give it a so-so rating. lets call it 2 out of 5. i'll wait another 15(?) years before i consider seeing it again.
• The Machinist: is the guy crazy or is he doing bad things? you make the call. this is no big-time film and had little budget, but it feels natural and i liked the way they played it out. a solid 3 of 5 stars.
• Monster In Law: predictable. but i still laughed a lot. and call me crazy, but jane fonda doesn't look half bad for an old lady. this one is good for anyone wanting a light-hearted movie and a stream of chuckles. 3 of 5 stars.
• The Wedding Date: predictable, part deux. yes, you know it was going to be sappy from the start, but that's ok. they throw in a few twists as it goes along and it ends with a fairly expected ending. a decent "chick flick", but i'm gonna have to give it 2.5 out of 5 stars.
• Crash: it had sandra bullock in it, so i had to give it a look. it wasn't at all what i was expecting. part of me liked the movie and how they treated racial tensions, the other part of me wondered why i watched it to the end. the movie simply had no plot that i could see... you just got to watch the lives of a half-dozen or so people and see how they interwined. it did have one good tear-jerker moment -- that is a warning for those that cry easily. despite sandra b, i have to give it 2 of 5.
• Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: it didn't follow the book closely... get over it. however, it stayed at mildly amusing and never allowed the authors wit to come out entirely. sorry doug, no 42 for you. i'll give you the 2 though.
• Proof: you'll either like this movie or not. i heard comments from other folks saying to one another "i'll never let you pick the movie again". frankly i liked it. wasn't quite what i expected, but the feel of the movie worked for me and i enjoyed my time watching it. besides, a math geek band with a song called i which is 3-minutes of silence. heh. i give it 3.14159 out of 5.
• The Longest Yard (2004): despite my thoughts when it first came out, i did watch it. they strayed from the original in so many ways. it was fairly funny, but the changes were much too distracting for me. having burt reynolds play coach was a good call, but i think hollywood would have been better off letting the original stand. i have since rented the "real version" and will wash my mind of this movie. 2 of 5 stars. chris rock died, that has to count for something. no, i have nothing against chris rock... he can be funny as hell.

May We Have A Cone Of Silence

so many title ideas to choose from. 86, 86'd by life came to mind first, but i went with a pun on a moment of silence. well, it looks like KAOS, or life really, didn't miss maxwell smart this time. don adam's the actor that played agent 86 on the series "get smart" died today at the age of 82. had he held on for four more years, i would have definitely gone with "86, 86'd at 86.... news at 8, film at 6". anyway, it is a bit sad seeing characters you remember as a kid dying off. gilligan (john denver) died not too long ago as i recall.

• CNN coverage: link
• Y!News article which has a picture that makes him look a bit like bob barker. link

Kyle's Dad on the Loose?

if you don't get the reference, that is ok... read the article about armed and dangerous dolphins anyway.

yet another short pointless post by your's truely. makes me think i should move this blog to livejournal. lol

Brain Cancer and Grape Jelly

i sat down, yesterday, to demonstrate to a co-worker the cause/effect of an email issue they are having and to back up my reasoning as to why following RFCs is important when i noticed an email from an old friend in my inbox. i took a quick glance just to see what it was about and was simply stopped cold in my tracks. in the message was the obituary of a mutual friend. a guy we both worked with on several occassions, most recently when they formed a game company and i joined bringing the company size up to 3. eventually we grew to about a dozen before the end. and that is an entirely different and long story.

i kept in close touch with doug afterward, doing a little consulting for his new company, but as time went by and he was enticed away from company to company and eventually moved back east, we all but lost touch. it had been years since i spoke to him last -- he was going to be lecturing at washington university for a while as a change of pace.

as i sit and think about him, i remember a lot of things. our offices were next to each other and i can literally see him sitting at his desk as i round the corner. i can hear his voice call my name saying "come here, ya gotta check this out" and up on his screen would be some wiz-bang graphics demo he hacked together to show off the features of some new graphics card.

the funny thing is the fact that what i remember most has nothing to do with technology and the excitement that revolved around building a company and product. nope, it was having breakfast with him and a couple other members of the team and remembering the fact that he would only eat grape jelly on his toast.

i can't be back east for his memorial, but my friend is going and will pass along my condolences to his family and friends. with his last wishes in mind, i'll dig through my drawers and find something purple to wear that day and probably manage a pbj sandwich for lunch. grape jelly of course.

If Ignorance Is Bliss

i don't know where i heard it, came up with it, or what have you, but i do oddly enough remember when i started saying it -- my freshman year of high school. what is that?

if ignorance is bliss then i know too much already

i don't recall the context in which it was first said, but it has stuck with me for all these years and still seems to apply far too often.

i wrote about my dad having cancer a few days ago and have since found out it has spread beyond they area they knew about. chemotherapy is in his future. i guess that puts it into my future too -- indirectly for now -- directly if it is genetic. time will tell. now i am not a person that will talk your ear off unless you hit my topic of the moment, but strangely it seems like i am supposed to be talking about this but find myself not really having much to say. i don't tell people because i don't want the faux sympathy and genuine care makes me completely uneasy.

one of the things that has come up has been seeing him. the right thing to do is to go and spend as much time as you can with them, but i wonder about that sometimes. see, when my grandmother was ill i selfishly didn't go out to see her. first off, she had altzheimers (sp?) and she wasn't going to remember anyway. the main and selfish reason was i much preferred to remember her how she was -- a bright vibrant woman. to see her in any other state would have shattered that image forever. and the self-inflicted ignorance has worked. i know what the disease does, but my memories of her remain pure. ignorance is in fact bliss at times.

i've seen my father age. it is a sad thing to see. i do remember him in a more healthy condition, but his image is tainted. i've seen him getting older and weaker. and it only seems like it will get worse. in fact i know too much already and question how much more i really want to know.

knowing is such a double edged sword and is coupled with the fact that it can not be undone. the best you can hope for is learning what you know is wrong -- as if that is really any better.

Broken Promise

i told myself i wasn't going to comment on the hurricane katrina disaster because frankly i didn't think i had anything worthwhile (meaning new) to say about it. but what i am going to do is point to an excellent post by clive thompson that i think sums a few things up to a tee.

his post, Blaming the victim: A how-to guide, left me thinking... "yeah, what he said". i kinda wish i had said that stuff myself.

Quote Of The Moment

Computer games don't affect kids, I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music.
-- unknown

Contradiction

what a better way to get your mind off of things than with a silly quiz. a prior quiz pegged me a geek, this one a loner with geek being at the bottom.

You scored as Loner. Loner 94% Goth 69% Punk/Rebel 44% Drama nerd 44% Ghetto gangsta 31% Prep/Jock/Cheerleader 31% Stoner 31% Geek 25% What's Your High School Stereotype? created with QuizFarm.com