Pauls Rants and Revelations

Today is my sons birthday. It seems only yesterday that he sloshed out of moms womb and now he is six years old. Where does the time go?

And since this is such a huge deal, I decided that it is time to get him a skateboard. I mean a real one; not the tiny play one like at Target. This is an official World Industries board with a nifty flame boy decal on it. He was totally excited about it and started riding around in the house. Now we just have to wait for a non-rainy day and off to the park we go.

We also got him a huge lego set that we spent the entire next day putting together (which his cousin destroyed the next day; bummer) and games galore. Board games, mind, not video games.

He was really stoked with everything including the black-light pirate themed mini-golf we did in Portland, which was a bit of a trip actually. We also had a pirate ship chocolate cake. It was just coincidence that it worked out that way since I ordered the cake and my wife  set up the mini-golf.

Everything considered, it was a really good birthday and my little dude was quite happy with everything.

-Cheers

So I am finally moving this wonderful little distraction onto its own domain now. In the next few days paulsrants.com will be the new home for this blog.  You can update if you feel like it.

-Cheers

If anyone has read The Mist by Stephen King, then they could see how interesting this could be as a movie.

The premise is that a scattered group of townsfolk are trapped in a super market when a mysterious mist (hence the name) rolls in and brings with it some, well, unfriendly things.

I wont spoil it for you (although the trailer does a good job of it for me) but it does remind me of time when a buddy of mine and I were heading through a somewhat dangerous part of L.A. when we got cornered by a group of gangsters. This ‘friend’, as I refer to him in type now, unceremoniously pushes me forward toward the group, vaults the wall we were against, and disappears into the alley. I was seriously standing their with a classic ‘what the fuck’ expression at the behavior of my friend; enough so that the gangsters were even saying “Man, thats fucked up.”

Turned out that they were only playing, and let me use a phone to call a real friend to come and get me. It was an hour before she showed up but my and my new gangster friends passes the time by playing Super Punch Out on the SNES (at which I sucked at).

OK. Enough reminising. If you are interested in it, I would suggest reading the book first as the book is always better then the movie. But if you just like movies (or cant read, which if you cant then why are you reading this post?) then by all means just see the flick. Either way you won’t regret it. Until, that is, you go to sleep that night, anyways
-Cheers

So it happened that I was in the Apple store in Bridgeport Village when they were rolling out the latest and greatest version of Apples new OS. I was there to help out a friend but I was quite taken with Leopard once I got to playing with it.

For instance, the Time Machine is nothing short of spectacular. You can save a file, make changes to it, and still recover an original version that is weeks old at the click of a button. Also, the nifty scrolling features in the Finder and the fact you can preview files without actually opening them is really impressive. Also, from what my boss said, it takes full advantage of the Intel chips power so everything is just plain faster.

I haven’t gotten my copy yet but am planning on obtaining it (leagally, mind you) soon. I almost had one of the Apple store blokes convinced to give me one off the shelf for free but it didn’t pan out (bummer).

Despite the fact that everyone is toting this is as the great OS to date, there are still some that are having problems. Reports of BSODs on the Apple support forums got me worried a bit, but the fix was as simpel as booting to DVD and selecting “Archive and Update”.

If you have any great stories (either good or bad) leave a comment. Once I get my copy Ill let you know how it goes.

-Cheers

Well, what can I say about this weekends festivities? Only that they were a lot of fun and am really sore from it all.

For those of you without dirty minds, I was at an archery festival in Vulcanfelt (Union Gap, WA) and was shooting archery all weekend. Aside from the fun and games I got burned in the day and smashed at night (I blame the fellow who brought the rum). As for the competitions go, I got second place in the Clout shoot which is shooting at a stick 180 yards away, sucked at the royal round, and did an abysmal job in the York. But at least I had a great time doing it.
And now, Monday has come again and it is back to the grind.  But at least now I get to use a pimped out new Macbook Pro.

-Cheers

Yes friends and enemies, I have myself a brand new top-o-the-line Mac Book Pro, courtesy of my super fabulous boss and super-rific boss’s boss.

Its a strange feeling though. It took about 5 minutes to set up everything and I was off and running soon after installing apps (Firefox is a must as well as Skype and Paralells) and the whole while I am thinking “this is so easy and it works”. I am even still amazed since I got it home and started copying over info (ok, its mostly music) as I can still do tasks like write posts and not have any problems. No slow downs or lag (sweet).

Im still getting used to all of the new functions and such but its becoming easier the more I use it. Ill post pictures of my new uber mac as soon as I find the USB cable to my camera (not the built in one, my camera camera).

Oh, and to those people who contributed funds to the “get Paul a Macbook Pro” fund, I will be issuing you a refund soon.

Sorry for the lack of any interesting posts lately but I have been super busy with work and preparing for an event in a few days. I promise that after the event I will post something interesting (possibly me getting shot with an arrow, but who knows).

In the mean time, here is some fun stories to keep you distracted.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/odds/bofh/

-Cheers

Its quite sad. 10 years ago we seemed to be quite a decent country. But nowadays more and more news articles come out describing events and happenings that I would not have believed possible in this country.

Heres a quick list just from today:

• 1000 people issue a citizens arrest on Pres. Bush
• A high school girl has her wrist broken by a security guard for dropping cake
• Bush caught lying about 9/11 (with video)
• Chicago cops are investigated for 5000 incidents of abuse
• High school student suspended for wearing John Edwards tshirt.
• Religious group get $100k to improve science with creationism views

The headlines were enough to make me gag, but actually reading the articles made me rather revolted. I am not even sure, from reading the articles among other sources, what the hell is even going on in this country. All I can see is a lot of our countries allies are pissed and our enemies are laughing. Our citizens are angered and our politicians are deaf.

About the only good thing to come out of the news today s a rather good article from the Consumerist about how to properly write to congress and say your piece.

I think I’ll do just that now. Here is the Consumerist article if you are interested.

-Cheers

OK. I’ll admit it. I have no solid idea about how the US great depression came about. I think I was sleeping in economics or history (or both) and missed that bit. Sad? Definitely. Which is probably what lead to the current problems this country now faces with its failing economy.

Not me specifically, mind you. But most of the country doesn’t seem to know what the problem is with the Canadian dollar surpassing the value of an American dollar. I certainly am not too aware of the implications. All I know is that everyone is saying that the next great depression is right around the corner, but no one is saying whats causing it. So I had to go and look up the cause myself.

The links below are just some info I have found related to the current economic shit storm we are now in the full swing of. If you find them helpful, or think one should be added to the list, let me know.

Cause of the Great Depression

Cause of Deflation - Here and Here

Current Economic Troubles - Here and Here

As usual, if anyone has any light to shed on this info, please let me know.

-Cheers

I never realized how difficult it is to actually move a server without anyone complaining.

Sure, some would complain about down time but that can’t really be helped. And still others would complain about their email not being their or having to change some setting. That one I think is the most annoying.

My favorite complaint is from a hosting client. She called me on the phone (which is a shock) and wondered why her website is down. I told her that I’m moving the server (standard response at that point) and she said that this outage is intolerable. At the word ‘intolerable’ a wheel click and I remember who it was. A former hosting client who, at the time of her call, has had her site turned off for the better part of a year. Sigh. People this stupid should not be allowed computers.

Oh well. At least everything is mostly moved over. Just waiting for a few tid bits and its done. At least I learned a few things; such as I never want to deal with another windows box again. Ever. Its a small bit of wisdom but a valuable one I think.

-Cheers