IHOP lunch

Sometimes, only pancakes can cure your day.

Exxon not poor

Exxon posts record $11.68 billion profit. Wow, what a load off my mind. Was really worried about them, but then they announced that they made money last quarter... and not just a bit, but apparently a lot. Thank god. They must have been sweatin for a while, what with all the talk about electric cars and crap. Way to go Exxon! Good for you buddy! And totally awesome that you have enough money to buy back your own stock! That could only mean good things for you in the future right? Valuations gonna go up and up. Gonna just keep on pimping that oil well... and us dry. Nothin' says, hey people, get ready to be totally f*cked some more cause we're gonna make even more super crazy profits, like buying back your own shares. But I guess you want to own as much of yourself as you can seeing how you make $1,485.55 a f*cking second.

Nice old guys at Staples

So I was in Staples today to get a new laser printer. The one in our accounting office died, so naturally everyone in there went into a ritualistic freak fest. Let's just say it involves a lot of nagging... people that annooooy you Mr. Marsh.

Anyways, we couldn't wait for our contracted awesome tech people, so I went out to Staples to get a new laser printer. There I met a really nice, older gentleman that was very pleasant and helpful. It was fun because he was a bit of a technophile... which I think is rare and very cool in someone that is 50+ in years. Anyways, the person that was at the register was older too... they were like Staples buds. Very nice pair. I rarely have a nice shopping experience. Most of the people that work at these places are zombies. Really odd to find someone so into their job and be so helpful.

So after that I came back into the office to install said printer. Which by the way, for $150, it was a really nice Brother black and white laser printer with built in Ethernet and wireless! I know! $150 right? The equivalent HP was like $300+. So it was back to nag central. Kinda went like, nag, nag nag nag, nag nag, nag. Nag? Nag, nag nag. Nag nag? Nagna, nag nag. Nag?! Naaaaaag. Nag nag.

3DS Max

OK, I haven't posted for a bit because I've been distracted by a new application. Probably be boring to most, but I really like 3D applications. I've used Lightwave for a while, Caligari Truespace as well, but I've always shyed away from 3DS Max... not sure why.

Anyways, I've made the transition to 3DS. It's clearly a superior program to Truespace and... to my sadness, Lightwave (I really like Lightwave.) Anyways, as a orientation project I thought I'd make a cellphone. I haven't wrapped my head around the photometric lighting system 3DS employs through Mental Ray (yet), so I've just used old fashioned Ray Tracing for the lighting and materials system. Photometric is a far superior renderer capable of absolute real world lighting... hope to figure that out by the weekend. Still, I have a lot to get used to before I try modeling something larger like an office building.

Rock band dual

Just want to proclaim my victory at lunch today over Sung. We had a guitar dual in Rock Band where I completely crushed him. Crushed.

Eye twitching

So since last night around 9pm I've had this eye twitch in my left eyelid. Yeah, and I was fine this morning and it started up again when I got into the office. So like everyone else, I referred to the Internet before a doctor, because all doctors are useless.

Anyways, I came across this:

Causes of Eye Twitching
There are various causes of eye twitching in its serious and not so serious formats. The more common causes for eye twitching include:

• Corneal irritation or injury
• Stress
• Lack of sleep
• Fatigue
• Prolonged staring or eye strain
• Neurological disorders
• Possibly Hereditary

Of course I immediately focused on Neurological disorders. So if you have an eye twitch, it could mean there could be something wrong with your brain? Honestly I'm hoping it's stress related or something less deadly than... yeah, sorry but your brain is "f*cked up."

Then I've had this blood pressure thing, and sometimes you can kinda feel the upper hemisphere of your brain... at least I think I do. Then sometimes I get this thing where your vision gets marred by these bright strands. Not a lot, but at least once a year. Aaaargh. I can only hope I don't have a brain tumor. I'd go to a doctor, but again, they're useless.

Link time

Just wanted to share this. It's the opposite of Fox News... it's HappyNews.

Finally, a news agency that takes winning a Hemingway look-a-like contest seriously.

Need to eat less for lunch

I think lunch ends up being the biggest, least healthiest meal of my day. I really need to cut down on what I eat at lunch and where I eat. Bottom line... I need to exercise. I may have to take up my UFC training again. I really hated having to give up my octagon fighting matches in the jungles of Peru, but I just couldn't take the airline food anymore.

Nice people

So yesterday my wife had a flat tire when she and the girls got into the parking lot. Wait, reverse a bit. They were about 45 minutes from home at a church which happens to teach language classes... and that's what they were there for. Well, she got out of the parking lot and the drivers side front tire was flat. About 8 people from the church came out to help with the tire and keep the girls cool. It was 95 degrees or something out there yesterday. Nice people. I would have been a lot more worried if circumstances were different... but seems like everything was under control. I was at home watching over the pudgy little baby boy at the time.

Anyways, after the event she gets a call from a member of the church, which suspiciously ended up more like a recruiting call. I'm usually wary of "chuch people" as they always seem somewhat cultish to me. They were wonderful people, but we just couldn't think of any way to find time every Sunday. So seems like it's just too far and potentially troublesome to go that far for language class. We'll have to find something closer for the girls. Though I do wish more poeple were that nice without having to be part of a church.

Staying positive

So I found out last night that my sister-in-laws husband was just recently laid-off. They have 3 boys and a home they purchased when market prices were high. But it was a home they really wanted for the kids... and there's nothing wrong with wanting for your kids. I think in the short term it's going to be rough for them. It sucks, but it's a story you hear more often these days. I don't think our economy has ever recovered since the dot-com crash. I remember just when things were looking better, we had 9/11. It's been downhill ever since. The loss of real wealth compounded by the loss of home equity has been really harsh. Mix in the war, rising inflation and fuel costs... times are tough. I don't think the economy has ever had so many concurrent problems at the same time... serious problems.

I can only hope he gets back on his feet as soon as possible. If not, it's going to be very stressful on their family... on any family. I think my wife and I may be more paranoid than they were. We do without large vacations, opting instead for small day trips. We've tried to make vehicle purchases for the long term, because you just loose too much money in the cost of swapping out vehicles. We've invested in some commodities, things that will go up in value as things get worse. But even still, I know things can still go horribly wrong at any time. It's tough to stay positive. You could try to ignore everything that's happening to be a bit more blissful... but really at your own risk.

But it's also not healthy to dwell on these things. I know if I obsess about these things, I tend to miss the good that happens. For the most part, they're little joys like watching my little boy get into that pudgy baby stage. He looks so cute and absurdly silly at the same time. Enjoying the moment of a nice cool breeze, or finding a place to people watch. If I look closely into my little girls face, and she smiles... I can believe things will be better, and that I can net out more positive than negative in life. If I can paint a perfect stroke... I can imagine a prosperous future. But I know for my sister-in-law and her family, things are going to be hard for a while. For them, the poor economy is just too real. But I have to believe things will be better for them, because I want to believe the same thing for me and mine.

... and I want to believe the same for you too.

Cockmeat champion

OK, still a bit on the subject of douches... or in this case, just a plain old monster. So Israel did a prisoner exchange this week. They wanted back two of their fallen soldiers. In exchange, they handed over five Lebanese prisoners and about 200 bodies. Yeah, that's a lot of bodies. But people are mostly outraged over this winner below, and mind you, this is the happiest picture I could find:


Samir Kantar (cockmeat eating champ for all time), pictured right with his buddies, and oh so happy. Anyways, he's free now. He was in an Israeli prison for killing a police officer, a father and daughter of four. He shot the father and made the little girl watch, then killed her by smashing her head in with the butt of his rifle and a rock. The mother who was hiding tried to keep her two year old from crying and giving away their location, accidentally smothered her own child. The mother is the sole survivor of that night. Samir, you look like a monster and you are a monster. Way to make your mother proud.

Middle East... what the f*ck is wrong with you? Why do you consistently blanket my airwaves with these horrible, miserable, idiotic, in-human stories of just complete mind-blowing craziness? Is there any way that we can at this point just sever you from the rest of the human race, because it's clear to me that you're not going to make it anyways. I feel like investing in the Middle East is like buying a Pinto. No matter how much effort and money you pour into it, in the end it's just going to explode.

Another item. I think my standing policy now is to just stay away from people that look like psychos... because if the news channels are any indication, they probably are a psycho.

Worlds not so greatest dad

OK, just had to share this one because the irony is just so comical. Guy was arrested in a child sex sting looking like this:



Man, these child sex offenders always look like champs, don't they? High five dude! Way to be a douche.

Useless

Do you ever get one of those people that work with you and are just clearly lazy. You know, those people that always ask you a question in hopes that your answer will align with their desire to do less work or none.

I have one... and he's really pissing me off.

In fact, I'm borderline on just letting this asshat go if it wasn't for the fact that he just makes me look super awesome in comparison.

I'm not saying you should be chugging along all 8 hours of your work day non-stop. People take breaks, they browse, they do personal errands. Honestly I don't f*cking care as long as you would at least get your crap done. Hell, I'm blogging right now from work, but at the end of the day no matter how many deadlines I have, they will be done. I'm not going to avoid them, or shove my workload onto someone else.

There used to be this absolutely horrid girl that worked here. She would send me a request for something at 4:50 in the day, and jet at 5. She would come by my office at 4:55 and ask if I got her mail from earlier today. She would then claim she sent it in the afternoon. I can check all timestamps on the mail server you stupid wh*re... you sent it at 4:50. She is one of the most useless, lazy, cocaine snorting, disgusting, wasteful things on two legs I have met thus far. How she has survived life is an absolute anomaly.

Then there's the stupid moron that would go on vacation and not alert anyone of the status of their jobs. Mostly because they were all in shambles. And these are the assholes with "many accomplished years" of experience in the field. Useless. Absolutely useless. Go find yourself a railroad and lie down, because you're useless.

We've even had someone throw their company BlackBerry at a wall in frustration because they couldn't handle the stress of the job. What stress?! You had one job to look over, and you f*cked that up so much we lost the client! She apparently had accumulated 30+ years of experience in Useless. Probably graduated Cuma Lum Crybaby.

If our economy is run any longer by similarly experienced people... I'm moving to Mongolia. No, better yet, THEY should move to Mongolia, then the Mongolians can jeer at how useless they are.

No more food

Ugh... made the mistake of making 2 hamburgers on Saturday... and eating them one after the other. I haven't felt right since. No more burgers. In fact, they have doughnuts and other snacks in the break-room today. I'd usually pounce on them, but not today... not this week.

Morning cookie

So recently, we got one of those soda vending machines. It's been here for about 3 weeks and already it's out of Mountain Dew. Useless.

But I got a little surprise on the nearby table. Sometimes snacks will be left for all to share, and this morning it was a bag of Famous Amos Cookies.



By far, they have to be my favorite cookies. I like the dry cookies. I don't really care much for the- out of the oven freshness moist cookies. I like my cookies like hockey pucks... not sure why, but always have. Had to get a pathetic Ginger Ale to wash down my spectacular cookies.

iPhone Super Monkey Ball

Now I've owned my fair share of consoles and hand held game devices over the years. Most of them were pretty decent, like the Nintendo DS Lite and Sony PSP. While the DS had a slew of fun games, the PSP was able to push out much better graphics. In fact, the PSP is like having a portable PS2 in your hands. I wasn't expecting the same level of graphics or speed that the dedicated game devices were capable of. I am pleased to find that I was wrong. Ohhh Super Monkey Ball, you are fun to play. I'd say the iPhone is almost on par with the Nintendo DS. With Super Monkey Ball, you need to tilt the playing field to move the monkey around. The sensors on the iPhone are amazingly sensitive. It was actually very easy to make minute adjustments. It was almost like having a flat board in your hand, and moving a marble around on top of it. It felt that good. So, pretty excited so far into my first foray into the iPhone games downloads. Damn you Apple for figuring out more ways for me to part with my money.

UPDATE:
"Sung" just played a few games, and killed many monkeys. You'd think he'd want to save as many monkeys as he could. Bad Sung! Bad!

iPhone 2.0 day

Updating my iPhone to the 2.0 OS now. I have already updated iTunes and peaked around in the App Store. So far so good. There seems to be a good amount of useful software out there. Looks like most of the things people complained about the iPhone have been addressed by third party software makers. Very smart of Apple. Not only do they get 30% of the revenue on any app sold on iTunes... they saved their own development costs by letting the open market fill the gaps. Then they have quality assured those apps before they even allow them onto their marketplace... the only place to get software for the iPhone. I have to say, Steve Jobs is a very savvy business man.

A lot of these applications pretty much turn the iPhone into a real PDA... and potentially with the development of software, the best one on the market. If you have stock in RIM, I'd suggest you sell it now... maybe use the money to buy Apple stock, or oil futures.

UPDATE:
I have a bricked iPhone. Apparently when you update to the new 2.0 Firmware, the phone still needs to contact the authentication servers at Apple through iTunes. Well, those servers are currently flooded and you can't get a connection. So I have a paperweight until I can connect. Hate being without a phone :(

UPDATE:
Success! Have updated the phone to 2.0. But now I can't seem to sync with iTunes to get my stuff back onto the phone. Oh well, minor issue. At least the iPhone is usable again. Will try to get an app on their later if I feel lucky.

Time flies

I don't know about you, but this year has zipped by me. I can't believe we're in July already. At this rate, I'm going to blink and it's going to be Thanksgiving. I really need to figure out how to slow down time. That or find another way of life because this is getting me old, fast. I don't want to be old...

peanut gallery - Too late!

Yeah, yeah... beat you to it. We keep talking these days about sustainable energy. I wonder if there is anything like sustainable living... without being a smelly poor hippie.

iPhone for cool kids

OK, I wasn't going to obsess about this damn phone, but as the day draws nearer (July 11th) I'm thinking more about it. Now, I already have one of the first generation iPhones. It's an 8gig phone that I payed about $299 for. Let me say I have been very happy with it. For once Apple didn't make a product that sucked rocks. Actually, they make pretty nice stuff. I just wish you didn't pay such a large premium for their products.

OK, so what will I get if I stand in line for the new iPhone? Well, for one there's the 3G network. The first gen iPhone works on the EDGE network, which is about the speed of a 56K modem. According to Apple, their 3G iPhone will be about 2.4x faster than the EDGE version. So, not as big a difference as I had hoped. The 3G network is actually able to transfer more data over the air, but the hardware version of 3G that iPhone uses is in the mid range of this data band. Not sure why they didn't go all out. Alright, next up is the integrated GPS. The first gen iPhone used cell towers and a database of wireless access points to figure out where you were. And pinpoint it isn't. It draws a circle about 500ft of where you could be. It's still useful but will not be accurate to a few feet of the new GPS version of the iPhone. Item number three is a slightly better screen resolution. It's almost not worth mentioning as the DPI increase is just 3. It will use a minutely better screen used in the iPod Touch for the production of the new iPhones. I dare anyone to tell the difference. Now the last item is a bit annoying. With the new 3G iPhones you will have to pay more for your AT&T service contract. Basically instead of $20 for the EDGE network usage you can now expect to pay $30 a month for the 3G data plan. That's $240 dollars more over the life of a 2 year contract.

So in the end. I will not be getting the 3G iPhone... maybe. Data transfer rates don't seem to be that much better to justify the upgrade, and there are other things to consider as well. The new 3G iPhone is slightly fatter, and not nearly as slim as the original. And as an owner of the first gen iPhone, I will get to download the new software update, version 2.0 of the OS. So in that sense, I am not missing out on any of the new software functions. And with the new Application Download function, I'm hoping to see a new bevy of interesting software toys to play with through the iPhone. Yes, I may be a bit jealous of a new 3G user. I may feel a bit inferior standing next to someone browsing 2.4x faster than I am. But in the end I'm still using one of the best damn cell phones out there, unlike those losers with a Blackberry. Only the "Man" and people who club baby seals use a Blackberry.

Fuel economy

I was driving into the city yesterday and saw one of these Smart Cars built by Mercedes and man are they small. As you can see by my scientific image above, the Smart Car is as high as 0.718 Gary Colemans. Oddly, right behind it was a Toyota Prius. Man, all these people in their super fuel efficient cars. I was feeling a bit of envy. But honestly, I don't think I would want to be seen driving in a Smart or a Prius. I just don't want to compromise THAT much car. I did a bit of poking around and found some interesting MPG facts.

The Smart Car, in real world use gets about 40 mpg which is pretty nice. You'd expect that from a car that is so tiny with a top speed of about 90 mph. The Prius gets about 45 mpg, and is a bit larger so more practical in my opinion. My BMW 323i sadly gets about 25 mpg. So in the US, these hybrids and mini cars seem to be great when it comes to fuel economy.

Now, we don't use diesel in our cars here, but abroad it does seem to be more common. Diesels are an issue here mostly because of the emission problems. But most of those concerns were 20 years old and solutions have been found by now. So here's the thing. If I purchase a BMW 520d (diesel), which is a much nicer looking and a better performing car than any hybrid or shoe sized car, you get 41 mpg. A Honda Accord diesel gets 52 mpg and a Volkswagen Polo gets 60 mpg conservatively. The somewhat smaller companion, the Volkswagen Lupo gets almost 80 mpg. And none of these cars look gay. Unless we're going to introduce pure electric cars at reasonable prices any time soon, my next car will be a diesel. From a mpg standpoint, it just doesn't make sense to purchase a hybrid. So suck it Leonardo DiCaprio. If you really cared about the environment, you'd be driving around in a monumentally more efficient Lupo.

And screw you Ford and GM for pushing crap cars out for all of eternity. I hope you do flounder and go out of business, because I'm sick and tired of my tax dollars being used to bail-out your cruddy asses for poor business practices and no vision. Goes for you too American Airlines.

Note to girls

When asking a guy "what looks better?" between the cute short dress, or the cute long dress... short dress ALWAYS wins. Now whether or not it's appropriate for visiting the grandparents is a totally separate and in my mind, irrelevant matter.

July 4th

Just got home from seeing our local fireworks display in Manatawny Park. My oldest enjoyed the show while little Katherine took some coaxing to wake her up. Once she was up though boy, she was thoroughly... un-impressed. Not even the loud booms that followed the explosions impressed her much. I think she'd rather have gone back to sleep.

Funny hair

So, I'm in the conference room and there is this woman with one of these hair dews with the round bun on top. So picture a snowman with only 2 spheres... made of hair. Well, she was sitting at an angle where, every time I saw her from the corner of my eye it looked like someone was standing in the doorway. And every time I looked at the doorway, I realized it was just her hair. Good thing she didn't dress her hair dew with a little tiny suit, or else you would think there was a little man on her head all day.

Why, why, why

Things you should never ask me if you are a graphic artist:

"So, I printed these invitations out, but some are on glossy and some on just the 20# paper. I guess the glossy was mixed in the tray. Can I just leave it? Does it matter?"

Ok, a few things wrong with that question.

1. Check your trays before printing you moron.
   
2. NO IT IS NOT OK TO HAVE DIFFERENT PAPER STOCK FOR THE SAME INVITE.
   
3. As a graphic artist you shouldn't have even asked me. You should have just quietly redone the job properly.

"I don't think it's right that they expect us to turn around the requests in the same day. These changes should be done next day, or at least plan a day ahead."

1. Tell our client that. I'm sure Coke will be super impressed with your answer.
   
2. Are you f*cking with me? I may go through multiple changes of said project in the same day. Are you slow in the head?

Ahh, the quiet little warning signs of failure. This kind of thing may seem adorable on a cute girl. Honestly, if you were a girl and had asked me these questions I may have just petted you on the head. Coming from a 6 foot dude that looks like Clay Aiken "with experience"... not so endearing.