Category: Uncategorized

So yeah, the whole point of these “Lost Posts” was that I’d get caught up and I could go back to posting the small stuff, but once again I got distracted with work and stuff. So anyway…

I’ve only owned my house for three years now. I’ve been living in it for seven or eight, though. When I bought it from the ex-landlord I also bought the appliances as well, because they already had appliances in the other house where they were moving. The refrigerator was relatively new, but the oven/stove/microwave combo, the dishwasher, the washer and dryer were all as old as the house, which is about 22-23 years now. A few years ago, the microwave “died.” And by “died” I mean I spent $50 for a service call to determine that it would cost another $200 to replace a $.50 piece of plastic in the door latch that lets the microwave know the door is closed and can therefore turn on. (A $200 I opted not to pay.)

So I was due for another appliance dying. I should have suspected something was amiss when the dryer started taking longer and longer to dry a load, even when cleaning the lint filter. So, sure enough, halfway through a load of my laundry, the dryer died. I ended up having to air-dry that load and we couldn’t do any more loads; this was a pressing issue. I realized that when replacing the dryer I should probably replace the washer as well, for aesthetic reasons, because the washer’s probably not going to last much longer, and because Sears was having a deal where one major appliance was 10% off, two were 15% off and three were 20% off. (Although I was tempted, I opted not to replace, oh, the dishwasher for the extra 5%.)

So to Sears we went. Jenny was there because she’s one of those people who just has to be around when people do shopping for big items, I guess. And Hung was around because we made a dinner trip out of it. I found the dryer I wanted after not too long, but was torn between its matching brother (or sister, I’m not quite sure of the gender of appliances) and a cheaper, non-matching, not quite the same height so it wouldn’t line up other model. The matching model happened to be a front-loading high-efficiency washer, which came with two additional rebates, one from the power company and one from the water company. So it ended up not being too much more and the decision was made.

Two days later:

Shiny. They’re all high-tech and junk and the washer is so amazingly quiet, except for the spin cycle where it spins crazy-fast.

85% Dennis Kucinich
84% Mike Gravel
82% Barack Obama
80% Chris Dodd
79% Hillary Clinton
79% Bill Richardson
77% John Edwards
75% Joe Biden
45% Rudy Giuliani
36% John McCain
33% Ron Paul
29% Mike Huckabee
28% Mitt Romney
19% Tom Tancredo
17% Fred Thompson

2008 Presidential Candidate Matching Quiz

Four years ago, I did a similar test. Looks like I was 71% in line with Kucinich that time, yet 84% this time. *shrug* It looks like I’ve got a view which is sort of in line with the general Democrat’s view, but not directly in line with any of the candidates. So this makes the primary choice interesting, but I’ll probably be “kinda okay” with any of them for the actual election.

I should do actual research into the exact issues that each candidate agrees with me on. Then again we all know how much the candidate’s views actually impact policy when elected. (hint: not as much as the party’s.)

So on a lighter note… back when I had more disposable income, I bought stuff that I thought would look cool hanging on my wall. Then I kept putting them in poster tubes and an art portfolio and they never saw the light of day. I don’t remember the impetus, but I finally got the motivation to get them framed and to hang them up.

Actually I do think I remember. It was because I cleaned out the two corners of my bedroom that hadn’t been cleaned in years and I ended up rediscovering these items. Anyway, I measured some of the prints and posters that I knew would be standard-sized, and took the portfolio to Aaron Brothers. I knew that ‘s girlfriend worked there, but I didn’t actually expect her to be the one who helped me through the framing process. In the end, I only ended up getting three of the things framed. There’s still a Thunderbirds 2086 cel that I could get framed, but it’s kind of weird because it’s a cel with an overlay so if it were framed, I’d either have to ignore the overlay or permanently hide part of the character’s body and I didn’t want to worry about that.

Pictures of the actual framing inside

I’ve been meaning to write about a few things recently, but as you may have noticed from the lack of entries recently, I… um… haven’t. So instead of making one big post like I normally do in this situation, I’m going to actually split them up so I won’t get the TLDR factor and people skip right over the wall of text.

So anyway, first subject: My car is trying to kill me.

About two or three months ago I got sick, pretty much just a normal cold (just about the time the Lego Millenium Falcon arrived so… um… let’s see… *looks at his entries* October 5th? Okay, so three months ago. After I got over the cold, I was skill coughing occasionally. I did what any normal person would do: I bought some cough drops and drank tea and just tried to wait it out. After a month of this on-and-off coughing, I started to wonder if there might be some external factor that was continuing to antagonize my throat. I began to suspect the car, but it wasn’t until I drove down to my mom’s house for Thanksgiving and was coughing the entire way that I became pretty sure of it.

I took the car to the mechanic last week, and it turns out there was not one, but two leaks in the engine. There was a transmission fluid leak, and a loose gasket that was causing some oil to burn. The thing is, I can’t smell anything, so I was suspicious. I got those things fixed anyway at a cost of about $600 (ignoring some other things that needed to be fixed for another $500 because I’m going to be getting a new car soon anyway, knock on wood) and I haven’t driven it much since then, but it’s still bugging me.

Someone I know who works in a car dealership mentioned it could be mold in the air conditioner and that there’s a service the dealer offers that basically forces air through the system and cleans it all out. I’m guessing this isn’t a cheap service, so I tried parking the car, opening all the windows, turning the air to full and spraying Lysol into the engine, hoping it would come through the system. When I smelled it in the cabin, I knew it was, so I did it a few times.

It didn’t seem to help. I’ve been feeling kind of light-headed and tired recently, and in the fear that it might be related, I’ve made a doctor’s appointment. I’m sure it’s going to be something silly, but hey, I’m insured now.

I Am A: True Neutral Human Wizard (4th Level)

Ability Scores:
Strength-10
Dexterity-11
Constitution-11
Intelligence-15
Wisdom-15
Charisma-10

Alignment:
True Neutral A true neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. He doesn’t feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most true neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil after all, he would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, he’s not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way. Some true neutral characters, on the other hand, commit themselves philosophically to neutrality. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. True neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. However, true neutral can be a dangerous alignment because it represents apathy, indifference, and a lack of conviction.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Class:
Wizards are arcane spellcasters who depend on intensive study to create their magic. To wizards, magic is not a talent but a difficult, rewarding art. When they are prepared for battle, wizards can use their spells to devastating effect. When caught by surprise, they are vulnerable. The wizard’s strength is her spells, everything else is secondary. She learns new spells as she experiments and grows in experience, and she can also learn them from other wizards. In addition, over time a wizard learns to manipulate her spells so they go farther, work better, or are improved in some other way. A wizard can call a familiar- a small, magical, animal companion that serves her. With a high Intelligence, wizards are capable of casting very high levels of spells.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

It appears as though I tied on Neutral Good vs. True Neutral and Human vs. Elf.

Real post maybe later.

Yes, I’ve finally written code instead of just struggling with configuration and learning and proprietary setup. And it even sort of works.

The project all managed to consolidate the people into one building, which is good. The building, however, is not quite finished, and the top three floors have people in them and the bottom three are still under construction, which is bad. Also, because we can’t use the third floor bridge nor the hallway on the first floor to walk directly to the other building where the cafeteria and coffee bar are, we have to walk out the front door and around the building. This wouldn’t be such a bad deal because we’re getting fresh air and exercise, except that it’s been kinda gloomy recently and I just know any day know it’s going to start raining.

Also, this is the second time here at Yahoo! that I’ve moved from one building to another that’s basically the mirror image of my previous building. This wouldn’t be such a big deal except that when they obviously just did a reflection of the building blueprints they forgot to account for the bathrooms, so they’re switched from what they are in the other building. Again. You think they’d learn this important lesson.

Once again, I find the internet isn’t working when I get home. Only this time, neither is the phone — no dial tone. The earliest that AT&T can send someone out is Monday, so if you need me, call me on my cell phone. I’ll be amusing myself like it was 1992. Or cleaning my room.

Usually when you have a post subject like this, it’s metaphorical. In this case, it was quite literal.

My stepdad was in town for the weekend (went to see another Sharks Ducks game, this time there were like ten Ducks fans in the arena. See, winning the Stanley Cup can double attendance!) and after lunch on Sunday when I was about to drive him to the airport, I tried shifting my car out of park into drive, and instead of shifting, the button popped out of the shifter.

This is one of those moments where it just takes a second for your brain to process what happened, because it’s so far off the charts of what you expect to happen.

Long story short, there are two screws that hold the outer shell of the shifter to the inner post, and both had fallen out. After calling AAA, I figured this out and got it to shift, just as the tow truck arrived. It’s a good thing too, because being stuck in park would have made it hard to tow, and the position of the car in relation to the parking lot would have been a pain as well. Not to mention it was Sunday and nothing would have been open. Thankfully, the driver said I wouldn’t be charged for one of my AAA tows.

On a different note, I’m down in the O.C. again for Thanksgiving. This means I don’t get to play with all you folks who bought Rock Band. In a bit, I’m going to be running out to buy a copy of the FFXI expansion, hopefully the PC version, but the XBox360 version if I have to and just use the code from that and install the PC version from… other sources. *cough* The reason why the PC version is late is actually kind of funny if it wasn’t such a pain. You see, the boxes were printed with “For Windows Vista” on them instead of “Compatible With Windows Vista” and so Square-Enix got all panicked that people would think they needed Vista to play it so they recalled all the boxes and slapped stickers on them.

And on a completely non-chronological note, the drive down was atypical. I left after work instead of taking off a day, and ended up driving from about 7pm to 2am. It might have been faster except there was an accident in Gilroy that prevented me from turning left onto 152. Then there was the same stupid construction on I-5 that narrowed it down from two lanes to one. (Although it was kind of awesome, at one point the right lane was zooming by way faster than it should have, as it was the lane that was merging into ours. So a trucker a bit behind us started straddling the lanes to keep people from zooming past. Go truckers!) Then finally the intersection of the 5 and the 91 was being worked on, so I had to take the city street detour.

Yes, I referred to freeways by name three different ways in that last paragraph. And all are appropriate for their relative locations.

The more I learn about J2EE, the more I’m developing a seething hatred for it. At least I’m making progress, though. At this rate I might even understand what everyone’s talking about by the time I need to start writing code! Which is like next week.

	I know what that is	Tutorials are fun	My own project works	I understand other projects	Fully programming
Java	X	X	X
Maven	X	X	X
Tomcat / JBoss	X	X	X
Struts	X	X
Spring
Hibernate	X