Ramblings, v.2

Representative Corrine Brown (D-FL) is God-damned disgusting.  She voted against cutting government funding to ACORN, the group that supports child sex slavery, tax evasion, human trafficking, mortgage fraud, and VOTING fraud.  Ms. Brown, you and the 74 other Demonrats who voted to continue funding this atrocious  “organization” need to be fired immediately.  To quote our dear leader, let me be clear: I do not wish physical or emotional harm to Ms. Brown, as I don’t want to see the inside of a federal penitentiary.  I damn sure know who I will be voting for when her term ends: anyone else.

ross rant-o-matic evil, hypocrite, jacksonville, jax, liberals, politics, rant

Here’s my take on the right-to-lifers and, somewhat by extension, folks who rally against selecting egg/sperm pairs based on (a) genetic compatibility, (b) physical characteristics, and (c) penchant for disease.

The whole argument is that you’re denying life. Right-to-lifers say that life starts at conception. Anti-genetic filtering-ers essentially say that life starts before conception.

Ok, taking those two pieces of information and assuming them as truth for purposes of a thought experiment, riddle me this [batman]. How many counts of murder should we charge an assailant with who kills a person (man or woman)? If the victim is a man, how many sperm could be created by that man that, by Anti-genetic-filtering-ers standards, is already life? And if the victim is a woman, the same question for her eggs. Now, extend that one step further. If even a single sperm or egg matures and becomes a living, breathing, walking human, how many sperm/eggs will that human create? And so on. We quickly see that the assailant should be charged with essentially infinite counts of murder. (For those who are confused and believe that there is a finite number, look up the mathematical term “limit” in your nearest pre-calculus book.)

This is wholly ungainly. Sure, the assailant has committed murder either way, and will face the stiffest penalty of the jurisdiction.

I do agree that the view held by some segments of our population – that looks at abortions like going to the dentist – is horrifying, but I also see that, in certain cases (rape, terminal illness, etc.) the parent(s) should be allowed a choice – assuming they pass a proper psychological screening and such.

As for genetic filtering, I think that selecting out certain genes – cancer (if determined), chrons, etc – is valuable and necessary for the survival of humanity.

So there. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

ross rant-o-matic batman, hypocrite, politics, rant

Congresswoman Brown:

Would you vote for a bill that creates and regulates every building code in the country and will purposefully overrule any “city, county, parish, city and county authority, or city and parish authority having local authority to enforce building codes and regulations and to collect fees for building permits”?

Would you vote for a bill that reaches into every neighborhood by eradicating “any private covenant, contract provision, lease provision, homeowners’ association rule or bylaw, or similar restriction” to force localities to accept “green technologies” whether it fits in the neighborhood or not?

Would you vote for a bill that defines “energy-efficient mortgages” (with our favorite GSEs, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, so what could possibly go wrong?) that artificially boosts the income of the borrower based upon how much “green technology” is employed? In other words, the socially engineering mortgage underwriting standards again? (This is just as the Democrats did in the nineties, which will lead to yet another financial disaster.)

Would you vote for a bill that moves billions in new expenses into programs that govern every aspect of human life including, but not limited to, farming; fertilizers; animal husbandry and animal diets; feedstock; soil; land use (forested, cleared, wetlands, etc); “manure management”; and creates gigantic new government bureaucracies (unionized, of course) to regulate, monitor and control American citizens?

YOU JUST DID. And that was only in the Waxman-Markey “Managers Amendment”!

Shame on you, Congresswoman Brown. You voted FOR a bill that will destroy this country. Did you actually READ HR2454? Or is abominable addition, delivered just 17 hours before you voted for it? If you didn’t read it, you’re nothing better than a lemming, following your Demonrat…sorry, forgot a “c”… colleagues off the cliff. The really terrible part is that you’re going to pull all of America over with you.

I will do everything in my power to see you NOT re-elected and have an intelligent, conscientious, worthy person put in your place who will actually READ the drivel put out by the current majority.

——————-
I did email this to her and will likely snail-mail it to her as well. I thank Doug Ross’ post for a wonderful summary of everything the Manager’s Amendment – 300 pages of filth delivered just 17 hours before HR2454 was passed – contained. Those of you who did vote Democrat in this last election, PLEASE go read the post and see what your side pushed through. Read past the obvious slams on your party (there are actually few for how much text is there), and see what they think you approve of – which boils down to removing any and all personal freedoms. If you don’t approve of this, and I sincerely hope you don’t, vote appropriately in 2010 for a new congress. More importantly, send your states’ senators this letter or one just like it, as they will be voting on it in the next few months.

ross rant-o-matic evil, fail, hypocrite, jacksonville, liberals, politics, rant

Kinda. Here’s the story.

The company I worked for was a registered iPhone Enterprise Developer. They wanted me to look into developing iPhone software to be deployed to sales pukes spread across the country. They were cheap, and I already had an iPhone, so they said to just put the beta stuff on my personal phone instead of buying me one specifically for dev purposes.

• March 17: Apple announces 3.0 beta 1
• March 18: Apple’s site is finally available for me to download 3.0 beta 1 from. I did, and I installed it on my phone.
• March 19: I got laid off.
• March 20: I checked developer.apple.com, and my former employer had removed my developer’s access to 3.0, effectively barring me from any future betas before the final release.
• April 12 (today): Fired up my phone after waking up to see the “connect me to iTunes or only make emergency calls” screen.

Plugged the phone into iTunes, and it told me that my phone’s software had expired and that I’d need a newer version to continue to use it. ‘Cept I don’t have access to download 3.0 beta 2. I could torrent it, but it probably wouldn’t activate with iTunes. So, now I’m stuck with a $400 brick.

I called Apple’s iPhone support number. After talking with a script-reader, she transferred me to a “Product Specialist”. I gave him my sob story, and he authorized a warranty replacement. Yay? I would have preferred access to beta 2, but oh well. Bye-bye copy/paste and notes syncing, wide-screen email and texting, and the bugs that cause half the apps I’ve bought to not work. He told me to just go to a local Apple Store and they’d take care of the replacement. Ok, cool. That was this morning. Well, today is Zombie Jesus day, which means ALL THE APPLE STORES ARE CLOSED!!

Kudos to Apple support. I’ve had issues with Apple products before, but their support staff always makes it right. Any problem I’ve had they’ve been able to fix. Apple and Nintendo are two great companies when it comes to supporting their loyal customers.

For today, I’m stuck with Melinda’s old Sony W580i and none of my phone numbers cause she can’t find the sync cable. I feel naked. (I’m not – I’m fully clothed at the moment.) I don’t have my calendar, no email, no games. How will I survive the next 20 hours?

Oh yeah, I’ll be packing my shit into boxes. So: surviving, painfully, and exhaustingly.

Of course this has to happen within a week of us moving to the other end of the country.

ross rant-o-matic Apple, iPhone, moving, Nintendo

Me and 20-odd others just got shit-canned at SPI today. Fine. You just fired both your software guy AND your hardware guy. Your only computer support is your CIO. Good freakin’ luck.

In other news, I was already planning on giving notice – I accepted a position with the Jacksonville, FL Sheriff’s Office on Tuesday. Melinda, Kona, and I will be moving down there in the next few weeks once my start date has been set. We’ll miss all our friends, but good riddance Wisconsin.

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So I found this article, where the first paragraph saying (cause the rest is just fluff):

The capital flew into a bit of a tizzy when, on his first full day in the White House, President Obama was photographed in the Oval Office without his suit jacket. There was, however, a logical explanation: Mr. Obama, who hates the cold, had cranked up the thermostat.

Ok, no biggie. But then there’s this great article (which is only great in the context of the above quote) where Obama was quoted:

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times [...]“

Riiiiiight.

Look, I get it that most politicians are hypocrites. But this… Obama was supposed to bring “change” and “new ideas” to our government. Instead, he’s bringing the same old idea of hypocrisy (…and socialism, but that’s not the purpose of this post).

In minor site news, I’m going to be keeping track of my hatred for our current president by both tagging all posts regarding him with “hypocrite” and naming posts specifically about him “The Great Hypocrite“.

ross rant-o-matic hussein, hypocrite, politics, rant

2009, that is.  Cause the first 10 minutes or so SUCKED ASS.  The sucking actually started at about T-minus 12 seconds, when I realized I’d lost an entire dimmer pack (one of three), meaning I was out the left blinder and both green and yellow color can lights.

I should add here that the band I run lights for, Left On Sunset, was playing a show at the Brookfield Sheraton hotel in their Grand Ballroom, a gig that, for the past 6 years, was played by the Boogie Men.

T-minus 11 seconds: brain went to naughty words and trying to gather all possible causes for the loss of an entire dimmer pack: (1) blew a breaker (2) blew a fuse in the dimmer pack (3) loose cable.  Then it was T-minus 10, and my plan for the countdown was shot out the window with four of my ten color cans being out.  I can’t remember what I did, but it was probably some sort of flashing junk to make it look acceptable.

More pre-midnight backstory: Melinda decided that (somewhat correctly, but not very conveniently) that I MUST make out with her AT midnight.  I explained at least three times that I had too many things to concentrate on (lights, fog, balloon drop, etc) to have time for that.  Did she listen?  No.  ‘Course not.  Also need to add that, at this show, I was forced to use THREE separate light boards – one for front lights, one for the back color cans, and one for all the moving lights.  The balloon drop: 20-odd feet long, about 2-3 feet in diameter, we figured about 250 balloons, and at least 4 hours to fill the balloons, load them into the net, and hang it from the ceiling.  Each end is zip-tied shut, and the bottom is stiched together with fishing line that can be pulled at the correct time (and not a SECOND before) to release the balloons.  The line wasn’t long enough, so we got another spool of fishing line to tie on and make it long enough to reach my post.  My instructions from the band were to NOT pull the balloons at midnight when they started playing Auld Lang Syne, or even when they started the next song, 99 Red Balloons.  Find the song, listen to it.  About a minute into the song, after the first breakdown, the song really kicks in and starts pumping.  THAT’s when I needed to release the balloons.  I spent 10 minutes at Jeff’s (the drummer) house going through that song specifically so I knew when to pull.

T-plus 2 seconds: walked over to Melinda (who was right behind me) yelled (cause it was already loud in there), “I just lost a third of my lights.  Happy New Year,” and kissed her.  Turned back to my work only to see FOUR PEOPLE HOLDING THE LINE FOR THE BALLOON DROP.  Once it was loaded, the only person allowed to touch it was me, and only when I was ready to pull.  I can’t count how many times I yelled at the top of my lungs at these drunk bastards (including one of the technical managers for the hotel) to NOT PULL THE F*#%ING LINE!  Meanwhile, the band was staring up at their end looking worried that it might drop too early.  I had other waitstaff and audience members behind me telling me to pull, and I had Melinda yelling at me that the band was motioning me to pull (which I found out later they weren’t).  I musta pissed off about 15 people in those few minutes, but I finally got them off my ass and away from the line.  As the band was finishing with Auld Lang Syne, I had to change the lights up a bit, but I was still holding the line that I had just gotten away from the horde.  The tech manager was still standing there, looking fairly pissed off, and I said/yelled, “HOLD THIS RIGHT F*#%ING HERE!  DON’T F*#%ING MOVE IT, DON’T F*#%ING PULL IT, DON’T LET ANYONE ELSE F*#%ING PULL IT!” and handed him the line.  He thankfully listened.  I fixed up the lights as best I could, then returned my attention to the line.  I grabbed it from him, pulled the line taut, and when the band hit the right note of 99 Red Balloons, I pulled.  Man, I pulled like there was no tomorrow.  The balloons dropped, and for a few scant seconds, everything slowed down.  It was amazing.  Literally over a hundred people crammed on the dance floor, arms up, cheering, getting covered in balloons.  To borrow a word from my friend Matt, it was absolutely stunning.  And just like that, the joy ended when that tech manager walked around behind the table with the look in his face that he was going to punch out a few of my teeth.  He didn’t, but he did leave me a few choice words of his own.  I turned back to my table and realized that in the process of pulling the line out, it knocked over a small plastic cup of champagne all over one of my light boards and Andy’s laptop that we’d been using to play music between sets.  Picked up the light board first, turned it over, shook it, and set it back down, still working, thank Jesus.  Picked up Andy’s laptop (a 2+ year old Macbook Pro I convinced him to buy) while holding the power button with my thumb to force it off while letting it drain.  I handed it to Melinda with instructions to take it somewhere and dry it off, then told one of the sound guys from Badger Sound to get me paper towels for my board and the table.

Side note: in reliving this to type this entry, I’ve become so re-furious I’m literally shaking.

He finally got back with the paper towels, and I dried off what I could.  Whatever the next song was (wasn’t paying attention), I ran up to the stage, pretty much knocking over anyone in my way, to diagnose my dead dimmer pack.  Thankfully, it was simple – power cord pulled out somehow.  Plugged it back in, and it fired right up.  Problem 1 solved.

Problem 2: all the people I pissed off, most importantly Melinda.  Never found the tech manager, but I did flag down the guy that hired LOS, Adam.  (Using his name because he was really cool about the whole night, and really liked the band and our production.)  I gave a somewhat-inebriated Adam the Cliff’s Notes version concerning the tech manager, and he said not to worry about it because it looked great and made all kinds of sense in how it was [eventually] executed.  That helped.  I didn’t (and still don’t) want to be the reason LOS isn’t invited back next year.  As for how angry at me Melinda was, we straightened that out as amicably as a married couple can.

Problem 3: Champagne-ified light board and laptop.  With the laptop off, there was no way to play music after the end of the third (and final) set, but thankfully the band left me a few CDs that they’ve used in the past.  Handed one to the sound guy with instructions.  3a solved.  With nothing else available, I spit-cleaned any sticky areas of the light board.  I don’t know if any liquid got inside (which I expect it did, around the buttons and sliders and stuff), but the board continued to work without issue the rest of the night.  3b solved-ish.  Andy’s laptop: all I can say is that I turned it off as quickly as possible.  This morning, he said he was able to turn it on and use it, so it might be alright.  I don’t think any liquid got to the keyboard area or onto the trackpad, so I think it’s just some sticky areas on the case and spots left on the screen and keyboard that he’ll need to clean up.  3c solved-ish as well.

When the show was completely done and over with, we (four band members + me) unanimously agreed that this was the best show ever for the band.  With confirmed attendance over 300 (still waiting on the exact numbers), it’s the largest crowd LOS has ever played to as the headlining band.  We had every age group in attendance represented on the dance floor, from 21 to 71 (and maybe older).  The guys played Shout (Bon Jovi style, without Bad Medicine tho) and Jump Around (with sequenced-in high-pitched screech), neither of which they’d played before to a crowd (maybe shout, but I don’t think so), and both completely owned the entire room.  It was beyond amazing.  Every single song was a hit, from Every Rose (has a Thorn) to Crazy Bitch, from Save a Horse to My Own Worst Enemy.

My right knee kills, my voice is screwed (probably from F-bombing so much), and my throat feels like 2-grit sandpaper (yes, two).  (To be fair, I’ve had a cold since Sunday night, so the drainage isn’t helping at all.)  I made over twice what the band usually pays me, they bought me a room package deal so I could just sleep at the hotel after the show, and I made another $15 from a drunk guy who wanted me to add a couple songs to the between-set music playlists.  Listening to the band talk today during cleanup, it’s obvious they have a ton more confidence now after last night’s show.

Here’s to hoping the rest of 2009 is better than the first 10 minutes.

…you know, I never did get any of that champagne.

ross mindless prattling, rant-o-matic

Borrowing from the ill-fated Zune ad campaign:

Welcome to the Socialism.

I’d salute, but I need to excercise my left arm as it hasn’t been raised and outstretched for a while.

– edit –

I could go on and rant about how socialized healthcare doesn’t work, about how bankrupting the coal power industry isn’t the greatest idea, about how Mr. (and I use that term begrudgingly) Obama hasn’t even yet proven he’s legally allowed to be president, about how his campaign was started in the home of one Bill Ayers (a known domestic terrorist), about how Obama wants to force unionization on workforces who don’t even want to be unionized, about the rapidly-dropping tax-”cut” limit, about how the liberal media basically placed him in office, about the hypocisy of preaching “spread the wealth” but leaving a brother in a shack in a squalid housing project in a run-down country living on $1 per month, about how Obama wants to form a “Civilian Defense Force” with as much funding as our military gets and essentially force people to join (reminds me of some left-arm-raising folks in Germany), and about how ACORN commited enough voter fraud to take care of any conservative votes the media didn’t convert.

Oh wait, I just did.  Silly me.  I sure hope I’m wrong.  Then again, history has shown that there will be greener fields ahead.

ross rant-o-matic

I’m just tired of it.  I’ve had it in my Google Reader account for a couple years.  Every day, there are more and more stories getting pumped into the main RSS feed.  More and more stories are mostly crap.  Check out this screenshot:

I remind you, these are the stories that made the front page.  As in, enough people “dugg” these articles that Digg’s fanciful, mysterious algorithm decided it was important to foist upon everyone.  Let’s take a gander at that list and try to determine why they made the front page. 

Strip Search of 13-Year-Old for Advil Ruled Unconstitutional

Horny teenage boys see “strip search” and “13-Year-Old” and immediately digg it.  Commie and hippy left-wingers see something about a pharmaceutical and the word “unconstitutional” and immediately get a Down-With-The-Man stiffy and smack the digg button.  Bam, front page.

Cute Girl: “You know, I’m really just a geek inside” [COMIC]

Starts with “Cute Girl”.  ‘Nuff said.

Analysts: 150 U.S. Banks Nationwide May Fail Next Year

Basic fear-mongering at work here.  Yes, it’s possible, but hyperbole gets you everywhere, including the Digg front page.

Redskins Football Team Allowed to Keep Racist Name

Ok, seriously.  Racist?  The team’s name is no more racist than calling crackers (the snack food) crackers.  The author puns his way through the short article: “A group of Native Americans went on the warpath then went to the courtroom…”  The judge took the right stand and basically told the plaintiffs they waited too long to look for the payout.  The best part: Sports Illustrated commissioned a poll that ended up showing that 75% of the Native Americans asked don’t mind the team’s name.  Thankfully, the court system denied this idiot of his payday.  Too bad the same court couldn’t have handled Nintendo’s controller suit.

10 (More) Pieces of Incredible Transforming Furniture [PICS]

Please.  This is the same 10 More I saw last week.  And the week before that.  And two weeks before that posted on College Humor.

Bush is Burning the World to the Ground

No, he’s not.  Has he picked up a flamethrower?  Ordered napalm dropped from our geosynchronous satellites?  Nope, pretty sure he hasn’t.  Although I didn’t even read the digg summary of the article, I assume the original writer invokes the Goreacle’s sacrosanct Global Warming (which doesn’t exist, btw).  C’mon, get some facts before you digg trash like this.

Develpors [sic] using unfair practices in the Apple App Store

First, does no one use spell check?  Second, I read this article the day before at TUAW.  Old.

Give Me #3 Value Meal, Super Size, With An Order of Linux

Ok, this one I actually remember reading.  I didn’t see it posted anywhere else I normally check for a couple days.  First good article in the list.

How To Beat The Claw Game

Man, this one (like the Claw Game), has been beaten to death.  Just Google it.

Turns out that Give Me #3 article is the only article I actually read from this whole list.  However, did it enrich my life?  Not really.  It just made me a little more disgusted with Best Buy for trying to sell Ubuntu for $20.  Made me more disgusted with the average consumer for not knowing better.  And, I saw it on other sites I regularly read anyway a couple days later.

Why does this piss me off?  Every time I check GReader, the unread digg story count is over 100.  I normally check it at 6:30 am, 11 am, 4 pm, and between 8 and 10 pm.  That’s over 400 stories to (pardon the pun) dig through every day for only a pinch-full (less than a handful) of worthwhile articles.

Here’s the best part: about once every couple weeks, a story bubbles up about how broken Digg’s algorithm is.  Here’s an article I found with a simple google search about it.  Here’s another.  And another.  And another.  And another.  The results just keep going.  Look, kudos to K-Rose and the rest of their team.  Digg pretty much launched Revision3, and quite a few of their shows rock.

I’m just tired of Digg.  Too many stories, too little quality.  Digg needs to implement some sort of maximum diggs per time period limiter to stop people from just digging at the first three words of the title.  That might actually make some of these snot-nosed bumblefarts from digging anything with “girl” in the title.

I chucked Digg into its own folder in my GReader account a week ago, and I’ve only opened it once.  Accidentally.

Good riddance.

ross rant-o-matic

Handed in my letter of resignation yesterday. April 4 is my last day with my employer. I’ll start the following Monday at my new job. Let’s hope this new company won’t screw me out of a bonus. Or treat me like a criminal.

ross rant-o-matic