farmdevil.net

Scott posted all of the pics from his camera on PowaLlama (Win2k3 server) the other day so I thought I’d go through them and pick out which ones I took. This is one that I took a while back. This is the original keyboard from my Dell Inspiron 8000. This keyboard was never quite right since the incident with the Ohioan and the Vodka (if I recall correctly) so I replaced it last year. When Roger was out here in January, we decided it would be appropriate to blow it up. We used a few of Scott’s bunker busters and my pencil torch. If you look carefully at the picture, the space-bar has the end blown off of it! That was the result of a well-placed bunker buster right under it. After we were all done torching it, it continued to smell bad and make a crackling sound for quite a while.

For a few years now I have been suggesting that the plural of Lexus should be Lexi and the plural of Mercedes should be Mercedi. It only makes sense after seeing the word cacti. They are formed the same way. Well, I am pleased to announce that it is catching on. The other day, I heard a radio ad for a Lexus dealership (If I remember correctly) that uses the word Lexi. I was so excited.

and sure enough, it’s still there! I was there Thursday-Sunday and not much extraordinary happened. I had the usual meals in Searchlight and Laughlin, accompanied by some gambling (not too successful overall). I removed some spyware from the neighbor’s computer and cleaned the carpet in the living room. Other than that I just hung out watching tv and playing with some C stuff on the PowerBook. There are lots of fires up there in that area. When I was coming in on Thursday, there was a pretty neat sunset in the smoke over the mountains. I wish I had a decent camera (not my point-and-shoot Canon) with me. I really do need to get some color film and play with the Nikon F a little. That would have been a great chance. Also when I was coming home this afternoon I saw how close the Cave Creek fire is to civilization. It’s pretty crazy how things were going so well and then all of them started like that.

I have mentioned this idea to a few friends already. So you may have heard it.

I have heard that there are devices to detect lightning for use in photography to make the camera take a picture in the split-second that lightning is present. Well, I was thinking why not apply that technology to photo-cops. Why not mount a couple large flashes (one pointing forward and one pointing back) on the roof of a vehicle. When the detector detects the flash of the photo-cop it would trigger my own flashes, causing the picture to be overexposed.

A couple things should be taken into consideration:
1. I probably wouldn’t want this contraption on the roof of my BMW. It is more suitable for a truck.
2. It is probably illegal considering it is illegal technically in most places to drive with your brights or foglights on. But, the way I see it, the police wouldn’t have much grounds to bust you for it simply because they are doing the same thing. If they try to say that yours is a dangerous distraction, what does that say about theirs?

Other ideas that I’ve come up with regarding photo-cops include (but are not limited to):
1. figuring out a way to drive such that I am mooning the camera (with my ass right where my face should be). If they sent me the ticket, I could go in and say, with a completely straight face, “This is clearly not me!”.
2. 1 word (sorta)….. paintball

Today I was at the coffee shop and I picked up a section of the Arizona Republic. An editorial from the Boston Globe caught my eye. It pretty much says everything I have been meaning to say regarding conservatives and their willingness to look past the facts. The facts are unimportant. All they have to do is muddle the science. Here is the article. Note: It is necessary to sign up to view Boston Globe content. I have never had a problem with spam from them, so I recommend it.

You have probably noticed that there is now a Google search box living on the right. You also may have noticed a couple of Google ads down at the bottom of this page. For the n00bs out there, Google ads are targeted. They are generated based on what content Google finds on my page. During my testing phase, I found that apparently Google thinks I am a religious man. [bad link] is evidence. It’s a rare occasion that I get amused enough to take a screenshot. Back when I had my Dubya site, Google put all Republican ads on my page.

I noticed that Google hasn’t crawled my site recently so the search isn’t very up-to-date. If you run into any problems while using the search, please alert the concierge.

I was reading cnn.com just now and I saw that Jeb Bush is doing further investigation into the Terri Schiavo case. First they all wanted an autopsy to prove that her husband abused her or that she was capable of recovering. As you probably know, the autopsy report came out the other day. The republicans were wrong. Every single thing that they said when trying to keep her alive was incorrect. Her brain was half the size of a normal brain and she was blind. But, as with White House foreign policy, facts mean nothing. The republicans immediately attacked the doctors who performed the autopsy, saying they shouldn’t make such statements. Are they going to start threatening doctors now like they did to judges last month? Are they going to start condoning attacks on doctors like they did last month to judges? Anyways, we are getting off the point. The point is that, since facts mean nothing to republicans, they are now going to continue to find ways to make life miserable for Michael Schiavo. So they will just keep investigating. If they never get a result they are looking for, then they will just keep investigating forever. However they probably will get whatever fact they are looking for, because republicans aren’t very scientific. They will just threaten people in the right positions until somebody twists the facts the way they (and the media) like.

I was just listening to Air America Radio, my favorite station, on the way home from Scottsdale. Lately they have been playing this game sometimes called “Name That Holy Book”. It is absolutely genius. They read a passage and the caller has to guess whether it was from the Christian Bible or the Qur’an. It is actually really hard to tell the difference. I think that is the point. But the funny thing is just how screwed up the phrases from the bible are. Some of it is stuff about mutilation and torture and things like that. Christians seem to enjoy looking down on the Muslims and acting like they are all terrorists but I think this shows just how similar they are. In fact, in many cases the Christian passages are far more screwed up than the Muslim ones. I think it’s hillarious!

I start with a pic that Scott took in Jerome last weekend. I took some black and white pics but they are still being developed.

Anyways a lot has happened actually since my last post.

On Friday night Scott, Pete, and I went to the art walk downtown. Now that everybody knows about it and it has become trendy it kinda sucks. We saw some cool artwork though. One day when I am rich maybe I will be able to buy some.

Sunday we went to Jerome. Pete always talks about going there so I decided that I wanted to go. We had a good time wandering around taking pictures. In the mid-afternoon, we heard a band practicing in an abandoned building. I hollered up to a balcony and they invited us up. The band’s name is Test and they are a local Jerome band. They were working on their new song, A World Of Many Deceptions. It sounded pretty damn good. Of course that’s why I hollered up at them. On the way back we stopped in Prescott to eat at one of my favorite places, The Prescott Brewing Company.

During the week I did some stuff around the house and I played with my new Fedora box. It is coming along nicely. I have set it up as a web server and done some basic tasks. I’m learning slowly but surely. I also worked on my cousins’ computer. It was so trashed with spyware and adware I decided to take it home for a couple nights. I got it all fixed up and now I gave them separate accounts and fewer permissions so hopefully they will be more contained and things won’t get so screwed up like they have been every 3 months. Most nights we also watched movies on our new 92″ screen

Hopefully in the next few days we can get our entertainment center built so my living room will look a little less trashed. Also for some reason my PHP died on the Fedora Server so I would like to fix that. Once I get that going I will work some more on the Paradise Picture Frame website and I may start working on an e-commerce site for Scott’s brother.

My mom called me yesterday to tell me that she got a package from the University of Tampere (in Finland). I had her open it and it turns out I have been accepted into one of the M.Sc. programs I applied for. Now this is a great thing… I suppose. The only problem is that now I have to decide whether to go. I have 3 months until I would start. I have also been admitted into the Industrial Engineering M.Sc. program (in human factors) at Wright State. Tampere is good because it is far away and I would get to experience another country for 2 years while getting what seems to be a decent degree. It is also (of course) in the same area of the world as Sweden and I love it over there. Tuition is free but I would need to come up with a way to pay my living expenses. Plus I’m a little frightened at the prospect of completing grad school with the language and culture barrier. Wright State is good because I have been offered a research job as a Java programmer and that means free tuition and possibly a stipend. I could also live at home which would be free. I don’t really want to leave AZ but I also don’t want to be stuck with just a B.S. degree. If I’m going to go on in school, there is no time better than the present I suppose. Over the next couple weeks I will be doing alot of reading about the programs at WSU and UTa and hopefully I can come up with a decision. I may also look at a couple of internships in Sweden and a couple of jobs here at Intel. ARGH.. decisions…