I’m a coffee addict. I admit this freely. I am a Slave to the Bean. It’s not a pretty addiction, but there are far worse vices out there, legal and illegal, that I could be chained to. I know my limits – I have little willpower for such things, and I’m not a quitter, so I wouldn’t even play with the addictive drugs that are out there. So I’m a BeanHead. Having said this, it is very, very dangerous to fuck with my Bean. Plain and simple.
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Network Monitor on XP
If you’ve already made the move from Windows 2000 Server to Windows XP Pro, you may have noticed a number of new applications to use on your desktop. Of the applications, that was noticeably missing (at least my skewed point of view) is Network Monitor (NetMon). — Since I still have Windows 2000 Server available to me, I got creative and ended up with a working version of Network Monitor running on Windows XP Pro.
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Suzyn Waldman
A couple of years MSG Networks made a “radical” decision and put their first woman play-by-play broadcaster on for Yankees baseball. The sporting world yawned as such a move, but the media at large went ga-ga over the fact that a woman was going to announcing games in a “Man’s World”. Me, I didn’t care really, provided the announcer in question was worthy of the Yankees – I come from the times of the Scooter, who would miss plays during the game because he was busy talking about his wife’s lasagna. It was entertaining, even though it might not have been the most “intensive” sporting broadcast – lets face it: baseball is great live but you usually need more than just stats when watching it on TV. So I was almost optimistic with a new broadcaster.
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J2ME in a Nutshell
Tis a rare thing, a technical Rant, for something that is such a popular topic, but what in the hell is wrong with J2ME? Java, version 2, Micro Edition, has become the little darling of the wireless industry. The press talks it up, middle managers are scrambling for news on it, and upper management has a hard on for it, yet it’s becoming the biggest pooch screw since Microsoft‘s Bob. Lets address them, one at a time shall we?
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Israeli Conflict
The last few days I’ve been watching the Israeli crisis with the rest of the world. First question I have is why is it a crisis? Who’s surprised, really? People have been fighting there for at least three millennia. Have we evolved so much that there wouldn’t be fighting there? Duh. Be that as it may, fine: call it a crisis. Want to know what’s causing this crisis? It’s easy enough, from my point of view – screw those people that have degrees and long winded speeches on CNN. This is simple.
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Laura Joh Rowland
What am I reading today? Today we’ve got a murder mystery from Laura Joh Rowland. More than this one book, Rowland is responsible for writing the seven different books in this series of novels, starting with Shinju. The whole series centers around a scholar, turned police detective, in Japan during the 1600s.
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Problems in the Media
I can bet you anything that this will be one of those reoccurring things throughout this web site – complaints about the Media. There’s a lot of gripes I’ve got with this nebulous group that has such a driving force in our society today… there’s never a shortage of complaints, with the largest one I have being Clinton’s election and then re-election, but today I’m going to point the finger at an even large target: the mass populous.
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“Let’s Go Yankees”
For those of you that haven’t met me, I’m a Yankees fan. I was born into the Pinstripes with a strong hatred (speaking in the form of sport rivalry, of course) for the Red Sox. I was there in the dark years of the 80’s. I would leave school for the summer, and the NYY would be in first by 4 games. I’d return in the fall and they would be in last by ten games. I’m not the type to jump on a bandwagon; win or lose, they’re my team. I’m also a hockey fan and while I do follow a team (Rangers, since ’89 so don’t start any of that “since 94” shit with me – the 1940 chant still rings in my ears) I’m a fan of the overall game. I have a jersey collection of about 15 different teams – college, Olympic, minor and pro – and I’ve been known to wear many of them on occasion. With baseball, I have a similar collection, but with the exception of one Bridgeport Bluefish jersey, all the jerseys are for only one team: the Yankees. I’ll wear no other.
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Domain Name Finally Registered
You would think that when you register a domain name and they tell you it’s 24 hours, it would be 24 hours. Even 36 hours… even 48 hours would suck, yet be not TOO bad… how about seven days? That’s how long it took for VeriSign to get me this domain. For the last seven days, I’ve spent money waiting for VeriSign to get their plug outta their collective asses and get this domain “processed” whatever that means. I filled out the paperwork correctly; they fumbled. Not only did they fumble but they ran me around in a circle everytime I called – at least they answered the phones quick enough. Could have been nice to have gotten an answer that was useful – would have been a nice change of pace.
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The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World
Anyway, for my first “review” (if that’s what you call these things) is just as suited for the GeekStuffs page as it is a book write up. It’s for the programming industry, but it has made such an impact on me that I’m considering it Required Reading for anyone that even flirts around the field; it’s a good look into the mind of an engineer that is constantly trying to “fix” marketing and sales. The book, The Career Programmer: Guerilla Tactics for an Imperfect World, was written Christopher Duncan, is about 200 pages and offers some strong opinions and insights on the industry.
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RAVE: Ericsson’s t68
Tech review time, and it’s actually a Rave. I’m a phone-addict. I can admit this – it’s also part of what I do for a living, so it gets an addiction that gets feed well. Over the last year I’ve have a Nokia 8290, Motorola P280, Samsung Q-105 and a Ericsson t68. I’ve had many others – the beauty of having VoiceStream as a carrier is the GSM portability of the SIM chip. I take my lil’SIM chip, plop it into a new phone and my phone number (as well as contacts and other settings) go with me. I can even take the chip to Europe or Asia and use their phones because most of the world is GSM based – in the states we’re 1900 band, while the world 900/1800 so the phones aren’t always 100% capable of ocean jumping but the numbers are.
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Happy April’s Fool Day
Over the holiday weekend, one of my relatives asked at least four times what we “all did before we had these damned cell phones” in our lives. This tickled me on a number of levels… I mean first was the “damn” on Easter… a quick dip into the pool of irony never hurt anyone – unless you go into the pool within the first 30 minutes after eating a meal – so that wasn’t too bad. But I was of two minds with the whole technology gripe.
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Maxima Drivers
I’ve recently formed a new stereotype in my mind’s eye that I felt like sharing… Maxima drivers. They all suck. And I mean suck bad. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed? I can’t tell if there’s a 90% blind spot around the car, or if the drivers choose not to look. I haven’t figured out if it’s the overloading of horsepower in the engine or there’s some type of airborne pollen in the car’s climate control system that make the drivers drive too fast or just completely recklessly. I don’t know. Maybe they screened people in high school gym classes and that’s the group the Nissan targets.
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Rush
Random music notes… no pun intended. Latest thing I hear is Rush is slating their new CD (Vapor Trails) to be out soon. Now, before I start to take crap from people out there, let me say this: there’s no way that just three people should be putting out this kind of sound. They’ve been together for over 25 years, so they know each other’s styles well and frankly, they’ve done every type of music conceivable. That earns my respect as a musician; if you don’t agree, you suck. Probably a Rolling Stones fan at that, too. Talk about a lack of talent, those guys should have never gotten their first contract much less been going on all this time… I hear Charlie Watts needs an extra 100 volts from the local CPR machine to keep him going before each show… anyway, Rush fan’s can check out http://www.atlantic-records.com/rush/index.html!
PS2: Grand Theft Auto 3
This won’t be the first time this happens, but I need to share a Geek moment with the “world”. Also, and please don’t be shocked, but this is a Rave and not a Rant. It could easily be turn into a Rant, depending on what the nay-sayers of the world do with this, but for right now it’s a Rave… and this Rave is for Grand Theft Auto 3 by Rockstar Games. Before we go any further, let me get on the soap box right now: This is for Adults only. Should you see anyone under the age of 18 and they have this game, go yell at their parents; for as great as it is, it’s all about adult humor.
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