You could try this...

You probably won't check out Steve Gibson's site, but I'll tell you that it's worth a poke once in a while to see how you stand, security-wise.

I just checked it and came up "full stealth mode" or something.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

Immediately following Christmas there are specials galore and the ever-present air of barter... I love it so.

However, there is a season even more dear to my heart: Valentine's. I'll call it a season because Wal-Mart makes it so. But Wal-Mart isn't for my wife. No dime-store floozy she! No, I shall find a gem of rare quality to gift the beauty and wonderfulness that my wife possesses. To show her what she means to my life, I must seek out things that no mere mortal may lay hands upon.

This year I'm looking for an Artifact/Holy Avenger +7/+12 vs. Frost Giants and Former bosses. (Formir bosses? Hmmmm...)

Good morning!

On top of the usual grief I suffer, my wife is sick today. Was sick yesterday. I had to leave our youngest with a woman that can barely lift her arm in order to get everyone to school (self-included).

Oh, and I'm sick.

So the kids wake up late (on account of my hitting the snooze button about 6 times) and we're all late, and I'm rushing out the door and I kiss my wife and I'm just about in tears because I can't move but I have to and I can only imagine what that poor woman is going through since I don't even have the worst of it, and I change the youngest and make sure the dishes get done and I didn't have breakfast and lunches are made and ohmygosh we're going to be soooo late and I drive off and get a ticket.

Oh, but the value of the ticket was not assessed at the time, which I found interesting, but I know that it was because I couldn't find proof of insurance so I have to go to court in order to provide said proof.

-CAPTAIN RUN-ON!

Ubergeekery

Oft times I can find myself floating the web looking hither and yon, and it occurs to me that I might be the geekiest person I know.

This and the people I hang out with.

I blame Picard

You are THE OCCASIONAL USELESS GAL
Take Which Useless Man are you? today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Personality Test Generator.

You are THE OCCASIONAL USELESS GAL, using biting sarcasm and venomous barbs to keep men in line. The men do not understand your sarcasm, and just think you are either a) hormonal, or b) PMS ing, or c) both. Offers of ice cream for a peace offering are just ploys to get some make up sex. Mainly, if you are THE OCCASIONAL USELESS GAL, it is because you are a girl.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed...

As you may have noticed, the Mrs. posted a list of events from her birthday, as reported by Wiki.

Not to be outdone, I've selected a few items for your consideration. The date? September 17.

1394 - King Charles VI of France orders all Jews expelled from France.
1630 - Boston, MA founded.
1787 - The U.S. Constitution is signed.
1859 - Joshua A. Norton declares himself Emperor Norton I of the United States.
1908 - Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge dies as a passenger of the Wright Flyer. He is the first airplane fatality.
1916 - The Red Baron wins his first aerial combat.
1928 - Third deadliest natural disaster in US history, the Okeechobee Hurricane, strikes southeast Florida.
1956 - Television first broadcast in Australia
1972 - first episode of M*A*S*H
1976 - first Space Shuttle, Enterprise, unveiled.
1988 - Opening ceremony of XXIV Olympiad in Seoul, South Korea.
1991 - First version of Linux kernel released to internet.
2006 - The WB TV network goes off the air.

Births:
64 - Julia Flavia.
1677 - Stephen Hales - geek.
1730 - Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben - Prussian officer.
1739 - John Rutledge, Chief Justice of the U.S.
1826 - Bernhard Riemann... you know the guy.
1860 - Billy the kid.
1907 - Warren Burger, Chief Justice of the U.S.
1923 - Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank Williams.
1928 - Roddy McDowall.
1931 - Anne Bancroft
1939 - David Souter... another Chief Justice of the U.S.
1948 - Jeff MacNelly (cartoonist... creater of Shoe)
1956 - Rita Rudner. Yes, she's that old.
1962 - Baz Luhrmann, Director ("Strictly Ballroom")
1965 - Bryan Singer, Director ("X-men", "Superman Returns)
1966 - Doug E. Fresh, with a name like that... comedian.
1994 - Taylor Ware, Yodeler

Deaths:
1179 - Hildegard Von Bingen
1997 - Red Skelton

Mostly, entertainers. The list of deaths wasn't particularly sad (Spiro Agnew? Who?), so I pretty well skipped it.

Holidays:
Sacrifice a pig for the fourth day of Eleusinian Mysteries! Whoo!
Feasts of Saint Lambert! - RC Saints (martyrs) Also, Hildegard Von Bingen! Sweet!
National Heroes Day! in Angola!
Constitution Day, Citizenship Day, and Von Steuben Day here in the U.S!

It's all about the Pentiums

I have a job now. It's only 6 hours a month until Summer, when it becomes full-time until the Fall.

I have a desk. With, indeed, a dumb little placard.

The guy next to me has more books on Java than have been published this year. He claims to have read them all.

During the semester I'll still need to look for jobs that aid us in getting through (mostly I'll be stuffing envelopes*)

I think I work at something like "Humid Packers," or something. Except that it's all dry and cold.

And there's a gold computer case on my way in to work.

*My apologies** for my hand in the following:

Japan's mass mailings of Dish Network CDs.
Little envelopes with Tom Hanks' ear** in, descending on parts of Texas.
"Sports" magazines to West Palm Springs (although you get a free energy bar, so it's not all bad.)

**I do not apologize for mailings to other companies or subsidiaries of companies. You pretty much have to suck it up. Or sue.

Praise Allah!

Gas prices are down around here. Used to be something like $2.95, but now we're hovering around $2.10.

Since no good comes from our government, it must be theirs that did it.

Black Birds

Kensington Gardens, if you'll recall, is a place for little boys who won't grow up. It's often enough that boys don't want to grow up. Adulthood is a scary place, with monsters well beyond the nightmares they suffer. They get the beautiful.

Apfen Furnaces is for those who cannot grow up. It's a dark and ugly place, slick with oil and smelling of coal.

They have a saying...

My son has just watched the TV movie "In The Beginning". It is, in essense, an episode of Babylon 5*. When he was finished he said, "it... it makes me want to watch more."

I cannot tell you how glad I was to hear that. He knows the power of a good story, even if he doesn't know he knows. Now all I have to do is get all 5 seasons on DVD. Woe is me.**



*I promised my father that link. If he visits, he'll get it.

**I already have season 4, by some odd bit of luck. And I wouldn't purchase, for my family, more than one season per year anyway... so I must wait out the long hall to my birthday, when I will purchase Terry Pratchett's latest book and wonder what it was I thought I needed so badly.***

***Knowing yourself this well is a curse. Self ignorance may well be the true path to inner happiness.

Proving grounds

My son has been asked to sing "White and Nerdy" for his classmates. By his classmates. Well, by golly, I won't have him facing that kind of thing without good reason.

This year we start his trek with the Klingon Dictionary.

I will not, however, purchase for him, nor anyone else, a fanny pack. And I shudder to think of the uses he'd put bubble wrap to. He's already been a member of chess club, so I can't say we're really starting here. I bet we can reinforce the heck out of it. I'm also working on my programming logic skills so I can probably get him working on JavaScript.

We already own copies of season one for ST:(TOS and TNG). So, we can, in a years time, ask him which Captain he prefers (perhaps subjecting him to a few movies as well).

I doubt Satan will permit him to attend the RenFest they have down her way, but she'd probably be happy to put his name on his underwear... as long as I don't suggest it.

I'm the beta-test geek

I'm not Alpha geek, and I recognize this, but I'm the geek that you pass things to, and if I react positively to it you can be certain that other geeks (of a given subset of 'geek' (i.e. "drama geek") will react in a similar manner.

But I'm not sure I'm geek enough for toys. I certainly wouldn't react positively to this.

Just because I fantasized about it as a child, drooling over the packaging for it and similar does not mean I'm excited about the mere existence of these things.

(Don't ask me what I was doing on those sites. Must've wandered over from Da Wiki or something.)