*Meow*

in

That's the sound of a cat coming out of a bag. It's official at work, so time to start talking about it here; I'm moving to Colorado in about a month! How cool is that?! Now I can start writing about all the fun details that you have to go through when planning a cross-country move.

"Tina(My favorite pic; her least)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040131_judys_60th/P1010002.jpg was in this past weekend, and that is the last time I'll see her before she flies out to help me move... certainly not as much boxing of stuff as I thought we might do (i.e. we did none), but we at least did one thing to prepare; took one of the cats for a ride in the car around the block a few times. My plan is to rent a moving truck (already reserved), get a flatbed trailer to tow the car behind, and let the cats run loose in the car with food, water and litter strategically placed. This scenario has 2 benefits for me; one, the cats won't be confined to carriers and will probably be happier for the 24 hour drive, and two, I won't have to hear them even if they aren't happy. When I drove Sydney from NJ to PGH it was the worst 6 hours of my life. I had him strapped into the passenger seat in a carrier, and it was constant yowling from the moment we started. By the end I was a blubbering wreck; trying to explain to him as softly as I could that he was going to have a much better life where we were going, and if he would just shut the fuck up, we'd get there sooner!

In any case, he still yowled yesterday the whole time, but he wasn't too fluffed up, and settled in as soon as we got back to my apartment. A few treats, and all was well. "Tina(Rollin' in the Rover)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010019.jpg suggested keeping a little bag of kitty treats in the car, and bring all the kitties at one time or another on little car rides.

Alright, so my list of things to do is as follows (feel free to add anything else I might have forgotten):

* -Tell work- * -Rent moving truck- * -Call vet about getting drugs for cats- * -Start packing boxes and giving crap to Goodwill- * -Send email begging friends for moving help- * Send change of address form to post office * Notify utilities of shutoff date * Call "Comcast":http://www.comcast.com/ to get an installation date the day after I get there so I can have broadband access for work. * Set up VPN machine here BEFORE I leave * Divvy up remaining "gym":http://www.theclimbingwall.com/ membership among my poorer friends * Schedule appointment for move-out cleaning service/carpet cleaning * Bring mountain bike to sis on last trip to Jersey before I leave for CO * -Renew PA registration (apparently cheaper than CO)- * Tell car insurance about move; cancel renters insurance at the same time (or move?)

Unspeakable

in

Tired of my bathroom sink draining so slowly I decided to pull out the little plug thing in the drain and have a look at what was going on. The drain plug and drain itself were completely covered in some _organic_ material, actual composition unknown. There were little bits of hair and stuff, but mostly it was almost clay-like clumpy stuff. (Maybe it was "mold":http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/toothbrush.html.) Anyway, I had an old toothbrush that wasn't going to be used anymore so I got down and dirty and scooped all of the black muck out of the drain and off the plug, wiped it on to some TP, and flushed it. I was *very* careful to actually throw the toothbrush away when I was done, because I could certainly see myself being stupid enough to rinse off and put the damn thing away and actually use it by accident.

Yes, it drains much better now, thanks for asking.

In happier news, "Tina(she loves having her picture taken)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040131_judys_60th/P1010002.jpg is coming for a visit again this weekend (yay!), which should be fun. No set plans, other than going to a coworker's engagement party, and maybe "punk rock karaoke":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000163/ Sunday night with whoever else wants to come along. Other than that, I'm forecasting good eating, with a chance of some scattered makeout.

Mmmmmmm..... politicalicious.

in

Just cancelled my MBNA credit card after discovering they are they 2nd largest "contributor":http://www.opensecrets.org/2000elect/contrib/P00003335.htm to bush's political campaigns (second only to Enron, and even then only "by a few thousand":http://www.bop2004.org/bop2004/candidate.aspx?cid=1&act=cp). The woman who took my call was rather shocked, and quickly said "I can't debate this with you" before switching me to her supervisor. I wasn't even debating, I swear... just explaining why I was closing my account. I don't feel like a vote matters all that much when corporations have such a strong hand in what happens in politics, but I can at least "vote with my dollars":http://blog.forclark.com/story/2004/2/3/14443/35325.

Howard Stern off the air in Pittsburgh

in

Definitely an "interesting bit of news":http://biz.yahoo.com/rc/040225/media_clearchannel_stern_2.html. There are two things at work here that annoy me about this. First off is the new "zero-tolerence" policies of "Clear Channel(Press release in PDF format)":http://www.clearchannel.com/documents/press_releases/2004_02_25_CC_Decency_Initiative.pdf and "Viacom":http://zfmq.fimc.net/Article.asp?id=19523. This is all due of course to "boobie-gate":http://www.fleshbot.com/archives/janet_jackson_exposed.php, and the new moral standard that politicians are clamoring for in the absence of doing something useful, like maybe finding out about Iraq pre-war intelligence, or investigating the "Valerie Plame matter":http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_02_22.html#002605. I have said it before, and I'll say it again: it is not the media's job to raise your kids, people... it's yours. Quit trying to pawn them off on everyone else, "take some responsibility":http://www.loonyboi.com/blog/archives/000328.php for monitoring what your kids watch and listen to, and be active in their lives. Sure, when you "got knocked up(The Onion | Pregnant Woman Acting Like No One Ever Got Pregnant Before)":http://www.theonion.com/news.php?i=1&n=3 you didn't think that it would actually require work on your end, but sorry; it does.

The second thing, and bear with me on this one, is the relationship between Clear Channel and President bush (note the upper-case "P" and lower-case "b"... respect the office, not the man). There is absolutely no question about the seedy relationship between "CC and bush":http://www.google.com/search?q=%22clear+channel%22+%22president+bush%22. In recent weeks, I've noticed Stern shifting from his previously unwavering support of bush; probably in no small part due to the FCC's stringent and vague new definitions of obscenity. He recently "reviewed Al Franken's book":http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/31420 on the air, and even just yesterday in talking about bush was saying "...it's time for him to go. You'll be a one-term loser like your father." We already know that this is an amazingly vindictive administration, outing CIA operatives and "already-out gay journalists":http://gaytoday.com/events/072103ev.asp left and right as payback for anything less than unquestioning support of policies, so it's not much of a stretch to think that CC, either because of a phonecall or maybe even just trying to be a go-getter political lackey decided to pull the plug on Stern.

However it came about, I still have ways to hear what he has to say about it this morning. My feeling is he'll be out of his job at Viacom and on to satellite radio within 6 months.

*Update:* Apparently I'm not the only person with this same wild theory. Check out "this Salon piece":http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/03/04/stern/index.html which draws pretty much the same conclusion that I did.

The first one is the hardest

in

Dusted off the bike this morning and rode in. I had been a little leery of the ride in, since so much of my ride is on 2-lane blacktop with little or no shoulder as it is, and the tremendous amount of snowfall and cold temperatures we've had here this winter have reduced the shoulders to piles of dirty ice. However, there's been enough thaw the last few days, and the weather is so lovely today (as Brian "already noted":http://www.ankle-biter.net/log/archives/2004_02.html#000376), that I decided to give it a go. It was hard. All those months of not biking came back to bite me, but I guess I'm still alive, right? I only stopped briefly to take off a layer or two, so I'm pretty happy that I didn't need to take a "real" rest break. Everything took longer that I thought, tho; got up a little late to begin with, then putting air in the tires, finding my colder weather clothes, and the ride itself took a little longer than I remembered, even with my "new shorter ride":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000562/ (and this is only the 2nd time I've done it!), so I rolled in around 9. Oops.

Funny emails

in

"David":http://bigbrit.blogspot.com/ and I have been swapping some funny emails yesterday and today. As a little bit of background, he's been really hot to set up some sort of web collection to buy "this hot dog suit":http://www.allamericanhotdog.com/hotdoginflatable.htm. As a further bit of background, today is his last day at his current job. bq.. From: David To: Matt

it was only 2k....

think of all those site that people set up to ask people to dontate money to help pay off debt/whatever...

could be interesting experiment.

------------------------------

From: Matt To: David

ok, but i think you have to offer users something.

for example: "http://www.giveboobs.com/":http://www.giveboobs.com/

now.. if you would swear to go out and do goofy things in public wearing the hot dog, and i would either videotape it or take pictures, that would be something.

------------------------------

From: David To: Matt

but i don't want implants...

------------------------------

From: Matt To: David

are you kidding?

you can get that hot dog suit surgically grafted to your body!

now _that_ would be hot!!!!

i wonder if that girl is the same as the "http://www.readmyboobs.com/":http://www.readmyboobs.com/ one (Not Safe For Work link)

------------------------------

From: David To: Matt

no safe for work?

it's my last day, i'm looking at porn right now

cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock cock

Die, fuckers.

in

The trickle of "comment spam":http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/01/12/mt_comment_s/index.php that I've been seeing in my comments has finally increased to the point where I was finally driven to install "MT-Blacklist":http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam/, and I have to say I'm amazingly impressed with how easy it was to install, and how clean the interface is. Imported the "current blacklist":http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam/blacklist.txt without any problems, and it even found a stray comment that I hadn't realized was spam (it was trying to give me some line about how my site didn't work in OSX; nice try, sister!).

Drinking contest

in

In order to liven things up, we're having a drinking contest here at work today. Not the alcoholic kind; water. We all will have our measured containers, and whoever downs the most during the course of the day wins. I will update throughout the day with current tallies, because I'm sure you'll all be on the edge of your seat. "*Dan*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010002.jpg: 0 "*Matt*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010003.jpg: 0 *Pat*: 0

*Update 9:52 AM* "*Dan*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010002.jpg: 36 oz "*Matt*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010003.jpg: 64 oz *Pat*: 34 oz

As you can see I've taken a commanding lead, and have yet to "break the seal", although that's about to change in the next few minutes. Pat's comment was "So, what are we going to have for lunch, salt?"

*Update 10:48 AM* "*Dan*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010002.jpg: 90 oz - 5 bathroom breaks "*Matt*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010003.jpg: 96 oz - 2 bathroom breaks *Pat*: 68 oz - 2 bathroom breaks

Dan is catching up, but he claims he's going to be slowing down soon. I'm feeling good; loose. I also started tracking bathroom breaks... that's not part of the contest; just more of an informational thing.

*Update 12:44 AM* "*Dan*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010002.jpg: 126 oz - 8(!) bathroom breaks "*Matt*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010003.jpg: 128 oz - 5 bathroom breaks *Pat*: 136 oz - 6 bathroom breaks

A few things become apparent, midway through the day. First of all, Dan has a bladder the size of a walnut. Second, when you have a little bit of a headache it's a good idea to back off a bit. Third, Fritos are my friend.

*Final Update 5:oo PM* "*Dan*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010002.jpg: 284 oz - 16(!) bathroom breaks "*Matt*":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20031224_3wisemen/P1010003.jpg: 160 oz - 7 bathroom breaks *Pat*: 306 oz - 11 bathroom breaks

Pat takes it, and in fine style. I pretty much gave up at lunch; it was giving me a headache and in general making me feel like poo. In total, we drank almost "6 gallons":http://www.google.com/search?q=750+oz+in+gallons, or 22 litres. Crazy.

Oh _really_?

in

But you authorize the release of everything to settle this? President Bush: Yes, absolutely. I don't really care at all if he didn't want to go to war; that shouldn't be what defines someone's character. In fact, I'd be happier with someone at the helm who was less eager to do so. I guess it's easy when you send kids over there instead of yourself, and your Veep's former company makes an assload of money from it, to boot! Score!

In any case, why not release all the records? It wasn't really an issue until you made it one. My guess it has something to do with his mysterious grounding... fail the pee test, maybe?

(Image from Kevin Drum at "CalPundit":http://calpundit.com/)

Wake Up!

in

For "my birthday":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000844/ my mom got me a "CD alarm clock":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000UL34C/, which I sorely needed. The alarm clock I had was probably at least 15 years old, and would make a nice loud pop when the radio alarm would turn out that basically sounded like a small gun going off in the room... not the most peaceful way to wake up. So, all eager to try out the CD function, I put in "one of my favorite":http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000036X3/ "Yo La Tengo":http://www.yolatengo.com/ discs last night. Problem is, you can't pick which track it starts with; it just goes from the beginning. I have to say that waking up to this song is probably not not the most motivational way to get out of bed.

Oh no... Three Oh!

in

Last weekend I turned 30. Not a big deal; not like I have a big hangup about my age. In fact, I had a much worse time when I turned 27 1/2, for some reason being halfway between 25 and 30 seemed like the end of the world for me. My only real issue with being older is that I didn't start climbing sooner. I know it's not too late; all I need to do is hear Jerry Moffatt in "Black Lung(Black Lung)":http://trulycrap.com/movies/blacklungbig2.mov talking about how you can be stronger in your 30s and 40s than ever as long as you climb smart.

Anyway, on to my birthday weekend! I thought it would be nice to have a little vacation, so I went out to Colorado to visit "Tina":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040131_judys_60th/P1010002.jpg.

First thing was I had to actually get to the airport. Instead of going through downtown during rush hour traffic, my co-worker suggested I sort of head north and then south-west; avoiding traffic. Ha ha ha. Big mistake. Instead of being stuck in highway traffic, I was stuck in single-lane back roads traffic. My flight was leaving at 5:45, and what should have probably been about a 1/2 hour trip turned out to be more like an hour and a half. I had visions of missing my flight and either sleeping at the airport waiting for the next flight, or bagging the whole trip. Anyway, I get to the ticket counter at about 5:30, and the automatic checkin kiosk doesn't want to work. Put in one credit card (for identification only) and it doesn't know who I am. Put in a second card (for identification only) and that one doesn't work either. Luckily there's the one USAir guy helping people with auto checkin, and he prints out my boarding pass right away (without checking my ID), and tells me there's no way I'll make it through security in time.

I take off in a dead run, movie-style. Make it through security without a hitch, which was funny considering I had about 20 gizmos in my messenger bag; Tina's "iPod":http://www.apple.com/ipod/, my "digital camera":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000192/, and enough cords and charging cables to make it look like I was going to blow up not just a plane, but the whole damn airport. Make it on to the train, and more movie-style running through the terminal. Finally get to my gate, and everyone is still standing in line. Apparently boarding was happening late, which would have been a nice thing to be told by the guy who printed out my boarding pass.

After the flight and a late dinner at "California Pizza Kitchen":http://www.cpk.com/, it was sleeeeepytime.

Saturday morning after getting some "fantastic":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010012.jpg "presents":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010013.jpg, we headed off to downtown Boulder to have some breakfast as "Le Peep":http://www.lepeep.com/ (which I haven't been to since I moved from NJ) and check everything out. Boulder is a super-cool town, "wacky cults":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010023.jpg aside. We walked around, saw a cool bike shop that had "tools tied up":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010026.jpg outside where anyone could just walk up and use them, day or night. Biking is huge in/around Boulder. There's bike lanes everywhere (although jackasses still use the sidewalk to ride around), and you can even ride your bike on the interstate! Yep, instead of signs saying that biking/hitchiking/walking is prohibited, they instead say "bikes keep far right". I still don't think I'd want to do that; helmet or no, you get pegged at 70 mph and you're D-E-A-D.

Saturday afternoon we went to the "massive REI":http://feralboy.textamerica.com/?r=375511 in Denver to exchange the snowboard pants I had gotten for my birthday, and then we stopped at the "Denver Chophouse":http://www.chophouse.com/ for dinner. I'm not really a huge red meat fan, but Tina and I both had the buffalo filets with gorgonzola cheese... Best. Meal. Ever.

Then we headed off to Breckenridge for the night. The weather Sunday morning was projected to be cold/windy/crappy, so we didn't bother to bring any snowboard gear. It was more just to have a little getaway and check out Breckenridge. Our room was really nice, with a "great":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010028.jpg "view":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010030.jpg, but I was so tired that I passed out on the couch watching Star Wars.

Sunday a.m. we walked around downtown Brek and looked at the remnants of the "snow sculpture competition":http://torus.math.uiuc.edu/jms/Snow/ from a week before. Lots of "neat":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010039.jpg "stuff":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010041.jpg.

On the way back to Boulder we stopped at the "Pearl Izumi":http://www.pearlizumi.com/ outlet, and I'm proud to say that I didn't let myself buy anything.

Back to Boulder, and a night of Limit Hold 'em with Tina's roomies. Didn't do as good as my game with JR last week; lost about $15.

Monday was a pretty quiet day. Quick lunch of "sushi":http://www.japonsushi.com/ in Boulder, topped off with a trip to "Cold Stone Creamery":http://www.coldstonecreamery.com/, and then off to the airport for my uneventful flight home. Certainly one of the best birthday weekend I've ever had.

Oh, and the best "picture(Photoalbum of my 30th birthday weekend)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/?folder=20040207_my_30th of the weekend? "Right here":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040207_my_30th/P1010048.jpg.

Fuckin' Microsoft....

in

This morning when I get into work there was a "Critical Update":http://www.microsoft.com/security/security_bulletins/20040210_windows.asp waiting for me. I installed it on my XP machine at home, no problem, so I figured it would be the same thing here. Nope. After the reboot it said that my boot.ini file was invalid, and then there was a problem with NTOSKRNL.EXE. After some head-scratching I fired up the bootable Win2k CD and went to the recovery console to look at what was in boot.ini. That's funny, it's just not there! Lemme go look on a co-worker machine... hey, it's not there either! The fix wound up being creating a new boot.ini from scratch, and making an educated guess about which disk/partition my installation was on. I was half-tempted to just wipe and reformat, then put XP on, but I've got so much configuring that I would need to do (mail, Visual Studio, little apps, etc.) that it would probably take most of the damn day. Hey, I figure 2 hours lost isn't really all that bad, so I just made a fresh "Emergency Repair Disk":http://www.microsoft.com/WINDOWS2000/techenthusiast/tricks/administration/erd.asp and chalked it up to experience.

Must... control... Fist... Of... Death!

in

I saw a story this morning about "a lawsuit being filed":http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/janetsuit1.html against "Janet Jackson":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000816/, Justin Timberlake, CBS, MTV and Viacom by a 47-year old bank employee because viewers were caused to "suffer outrage, anger, embarrassment and serious injury." A quick Google search turned up a page about the Plantiff's "attorney":http://www.rfdlaw.com/WayneRitchie.html, and I couldn't resist sending him an email.

bq.. Dear Mr. Ritchie,

You are kidding, right? You absolutely have to be kidding me, right? You can't honestly expect that your frivolous suit filed against JJ, Viacom, etc. ("http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/janetsuit1.html":http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/janetsuit1.html) is going to go anywhere, can you?

You, sir, are what's wrong with this country. Some bank employee who hates her life so much that she thinks making a quick buck she didn't earn is going to make it all better comes to you, and all you can see are dollar signs. Have you always been morally bankrupt, or did law school suck any last semblance of humanity and/or common decency right out of you?

I'm sure the only thing in an email that would get a response would be something along the lines of "I done hurted myself on a sidewalk and I likes to sue so's I kin watch Jerry Springer all day long", but I wanted to tell you that I truly hope there's a special room in hell for the likes of you, Jack Thompson ("http://www.loonyboi.com/blog/archives/000328.php":http://www.loonyboi.com/blog/archives/000328.php), and that woman who claimed a Wal-Mart DVD player ran her over (I'll bet you wished you could have gotten in on that action, eh Wayne?). Maybe you'll be serenaded by Yoko Ono until your ears fall off.

If there's any justice in this world, not only will your suit get laughed out, but you'll be required to pay the legal fees for the defendant, as well.

Yours very sincerely,

Matthew Comroe

P.S. Tort reform is going to come sooner rather than later, and you better brush up on your other skills for when that day comes. You can probably get a head start by standing in front of a mirror and saying "Would you like fries with that?", slowly and clearly.

p. His email address is war@rfdlaw.com if you care to drop him a little love note. After all, Valentine's Day is right around the corner.

Site updates

in

Couple of small changes yesterday. I added the fantastic "MTLinkTitles":http://www.rayners.org/2003/06/06/mtlinktitles.php plugin from "David Raynes":http://www.rayners.org/, which goes out and grabs link titles from pages I link to (since I'm lazy and don't always put the TITLE attribute, even though I have that nice floating tooltip dealie), but the only problem is that rebuilds in MT(Movable Type) are taking a really long time now as my site tries to go out and hit every page that I've linked to in ALL my posts. It takes way too long, and I'm getting CGI timeout messages, but it's supposed to cache the retrieved titles and not have to re-fetch them, but still trying to get through the inital link title fetching. Also disabled immediate posting of comments, and instead forcing you to preview first, which "might help(Simon Willison - Solving comment spam)":http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2004/01/28/solvingCommentSpam cut down on "comment spam":http://www.jayallen.org/comment_spam/ a little, until I get around to "upgrading MT to 2.661(Simon Willison - Moveable Type now kills PageRank on comment links)":http://simon.incutio.com/archive/2004/01/21/mtPageRankKiller, or maybe just wait for version 3.0 to come out. I don't get a lot of spam, and I haven't had someone go through and hit every entry like "Joshua":http://firepile.com/log/ has, but that doesn't mean I _want_ it to happen.