November 2002 Archives

Rain, rain, rain. Homework, homework, homework. Coffee, coffee, coffee.

And on the ol' stereo:

Pearl Jam - Ten
Pearl Jam - Vs
Pearl Jam - (Some really bad bootleg live recording from Italy!)

Sad, sad, sad. I have to admit that we joined the rest of America and went shopping at 6:00am this morning. Now, on any normal day after thanksgiving, you could not pay me enough money to go near a shop let alone that early in the morning.

Today was a little different though. I'd had my eye on a TV in the base BX and they had it on sale (6:00am to 8:00am only) today. So, we got up at 5:00am and drove bleary eyed to the base to buy the damn thing. Took us 2 trips (we got the first one home but the top of the TV was smashed) but we eventually got it home. I had to ask Daniel (neighbour) to help me carry the bloody thing in the house though. I swear it weighed more than Sally!

Then we went out again and finished the rest of the Christmas shopping. We are all done now. I'm absolutely knackered. Time for a glass of wine :-)

Yum. Ate loads, finished decorating the Christmas trees. Watched 3 Harrison Ford movies in a row. Oh, did I say I ate loads :-)

The rumours about being able to leave work at lunchtime turned out to be true! So, I'm off to the post office to post my Sister's Chrissy presents (I'm so organized this year) and then I'm sodding off home :-)

There are two houses on our street that have their bloody Christmas lights up already. So, not to be outdone, we put up some of ours as well :-)

I only have to work two days this week (today and tomorrow) because I was on vacation yesterday and we have Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving. Today I've got my head in some PL/SQL programming books trying to figure out why a former co-worker of mine wrote some code a certain way. The scary thing is that I'm beginning to actually like PL/SQL.

The ol' car CD player has been belting out the following today:

Kraftwerk - Radioactivity
Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express
Kraftwerk - Electric Cafe

All Kraftwerk, all the time :-)

Today was my birthday. Had a good day. We went out to Claim Jumpers and had an excellent meal. Ate so much food I didn't think I was going to be able to drive. The restaurant isn't exactly close by either and I had visions of falling asleep at the wheel :-)

Gav wrote a spiffy plugin that allows you to get the local weather from Intercept Vector. You'll see what I mean on the "Today In The Desert" section over to the right.

That's got me thinking of a couple of plugins of my own. Not that I have any free time to work on them of course. In fact I got up early this morning to do some homework. As of right now I have done precisely bugger all. Upgrading Movable Type and playing with plugins was fun though :-)

Now running version 2.51 of the great Movable Type. Nice :-)

A month or so ago we had a big hail storm. In the past few weeks a lot of houses in my neighborhood have had roofing companies come out and replace the shingles on the roof. My next door neighbour has damage to his roof and he's having the shingles replaced in fact.

So, I thought I'd better have a peek at our roof. So, like a total spaz I went up on the roof to stare at the shingles. Now, bear in mind that I wouldn't know hail damage if it came up and kicked me in the nuts. Nevertheless, I was determined to at least look to see if I could find obvious things like dents & stuff. I did actually find a couple of dents in the small area I scanned.

Our house insurance covers hail damage so I'm having the roofing company come out next week to have a look. If they say I need the shingles replaced then we'll file a claim and an insurance adjuster will come out and see if we need the work doing.

Our office went out to lunch yesterday to say goodbye to one of my friends from work - he's moving to Wisconsin to be a DBA for Kraft foods. We went to a really nice Mexican restaurant called Ajo Al's. Had a good laugh actually. He's a really nice guy and I wish him all the best. I'm going to miss our daily venting sessions that's for sure.

I take it all back. The repairs were less than $100. Made me grin that did :-)

1) I wish that filling out mortgage re-financing forms was something other than a complete pain in the arse.
2) I wish the Explorer wasn't leaking engine coolant and did not have to go in for repairs tomorrow.
3) I wish said repairs weren't going to cost me 16 bajillion dollars - you know give or take a few.
3) I wish I could stay awake to read more than 1-2 sodding pages of the book that I've been trying to finish for months.
4) I wish my cats wouldn't wake me up every morning at 4:00am bless 'em.
5) My wife is an absolute star.

Now back to work :-)

From the "we're getting closer to big brother every week" department:

Seems like a lot of things are "...tucked into the Homeland Security Bill" and joe public has no idea - they're certainly not advertising this on CNN. Interesting article from the Washington Times outlining the broad "snooping" that the new Secret Police, er, I mean Department Of Homeland Security will be doing.

Of particular interest is the man who will head the new Security Advanced Research Projects Agency (SARPA) - Admiral John Poindexter. Here's a good quote from the Washington Times article:

Adm. Poindexter first hit the public eye as national security adviser for President Reagan during the Iran-Contra scandal. He was convicted in 1990 on five felonies including lying to Congress and destroying evidence.

Well, glad he'll be in charge then.

So the new Harry Potter film didn't make much money then :-)

Ok so I feel a little bad about calling my instructor an utter wanker. He replied to my e-mail saying that he forgot to include my score in his weekly class progress report. So now he's just a wanker instead of an utter wanker. There is a subtle difference you know :-)

And hot on the heel's of their win over New Zealand last week it was nice to see England beat Australia at the weekend.

The 'utter wanker' award for this week goes to the "instructor" of my Java programming class. He's managing to piss just about the whole class off - we're all e-mailing each other with our frustrations. The straw that broke the camel's back for me this week was the fact that he didn't give me any marks for last week's homework. Of course, there's no explanation as to why. In fact, he gives us no feedback whatsoever on our homework - just a score.

I sent him a surprisingly nice (considering my mood) e-mail asking him to explain why he felt I deserved fuck-all for my effort. It will be interesting to read his reply. I guarantee my next e-mail will not be as nice ;-) Stay tuned...

I wonder how many blog entries around the world begin with the word so. I know I'm guilty of it - there are lots of others as well :-)

Mental note to self - think of another opening word for your entries...

So, there's a Fox News helicopter hovering right over my office building at this precise moment. Been there for about 20 mins now. Not that it's getting on my nerves or anything - but it's bloody loud :-)

I'm assuming it's filming the Veterans Day parade through downtown Phoenix.

Yet another step closer to Big Brother.

Well it's been a while since I've had to post any car woes. So, let's get caught up shall we. The back lights in the Saturn have gone again. So, it's back to the dealer on Monday morning. This will be the 4th time. Grrr.

Blimey, what a complete slacker - I didn't write anything here for most of the week - lazy bugger.

Didn't do a whole lot this week. Lot of homework kept free time to an absolute minimum - oh I did make Saint at The Monastery so that was nice. So, let's have a peek at what happened around the world this week instead.

• Republicans practically win everywhere in the mid-term elections showing that Americans really don't care about the crappy economy and got bamboozled by Bush's stance on Iraq - sigh.
  
• England beat New Zealand - excellent.
  
• Guns N' Roses opening night of their first tour in years is cancelled - fans riot.
  
• Prince Charles in rape cover-up
  
• Winona Ryder found guilty of shoplifting.
  
• UN votes on new resolution, Saddam calls emergency session of parliament.
  

Oh and last but not least, there are a few blogs I try and read on my lunch break everyday. This week, one in particular had an interesting little summary of the mid-term elections.

I've already discovered that there are not enough hours in the day to get done everything that I want to get done. So, what do I do? I decide to add another TV program to my weekly 'must watch' list. Good one Kev, that'll help out :-)

CSI:Miami. Good old CBS, milking a popular format to death. Exactly the same as the original CSI except it's on a different night, different cast, different city. Best of all, I like it :-)

So tomorrow is the big election day. Others (who are actually American citizens, so they can vote!) will be voting in new Governors, Senetors etc. I for one will be glad when it's over. If I see another bloody "Vote For..." sign on the side of the road I'm going to scream. They're everywhere, there's no escaping them.

Oh, and er, my homework tip of the day - don't leave it all until Sunday, sort of spoils the ol' weekend it does.

Getting really cold at night now, brrrr.

Blimey, this week has absolutely flown by. Can't believe it's Friday already!

Last night was fun giving out the candy to all the kids. Actually it was somewhat quieter than last year and we had loads left over. Many of our usual neighbours didn't bother giving out any candy last night which was a surprise. What Halloween would be complete without the yearly airing of Halloween - this year we've got it on DVD though as the VHS version had seen better days.

Sally dressed up to go to work yesterday. Like an idiot I forgot to take a photo - bugger. She dressed up as 'static cling' - she looked like she'd just come out of a tumble dryer. She had socks/clothes & dryer sheets stuck to her and in her hair (which was completely messed up of course). She looked really good.

Survivor was good last night too - I'm so sad :-)