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My blog has a new home. It is http://lordsnapcase.wordpress.com

How to destroy Angels

I checked NIN's site and lo and behold Trent Reznor has released a new album as part of new band called How to Destroy Angels. Yay! I downloaded free album. The whole album is sung by Mariqueen Maandig. The first song "Space in between" is a slow song and it is my favorite. The second song Parasite starts off with a lot of distortion that is quite so like NIN. I wasn't particularly enthralled by the third song 'Fur-Lined'. The fourth song is interesting. It back the same style as the second. So is the fifth. The sixth one is like the first and is great

John McClain validated!

Classic Darwinism in action, we get to see John McClane in Die Hard-4 validated. In one of the scenes McClane launches a car at a helicopter by letting it run up a toll booth lane ramp and taking the helicopter down. Now watch this drunk driver do the same. It wasn't just John McClain who could do it. Even downright drunk dumb asses can pull it off! I am quite glad that nobody got hurt. Please don't drink and drive folks.

Muscle Bagel

This is Q's concoction. The recipe is tad simple. Cut an eggplant length wise. Fry it with a tablespoon of olive oil. Set it aside. Cook eggs (sunny side up). Add a layer of grated Romano cheese on the eggs. Add a strip of bacon on the side and let it cook. Toast the bagel. Pile up the eggplant, the eggs and bacon. This is what you get.

A wild guess says it has a lot of proteins hence 'la muscle bagel'

MSR Drangonfly Stove

I bought a MSR Dragonfly stove upon B's recommendation I took it to a camping trip. I had an epic fail moment. I couldn't get it to work. It it was mistake I made and apparently it is a common mistake. I didn't slide fuel line all the way in firmly. It is tad difficult to slide it all the way, there is a decent amount of resistance. I had stopped prematurely. There is also a certain way in which the pipe needs to be slid into the fuel pump that comes with the stove. The fuel bottle is sold separately. I got a 22oz fuel bottle.



The yellow circle is around a knob that should be facing in the same direction as the wire handle. The fuel line needs to be firmly pushed to the very end and firmly locked in. The latch then needs to be swung around to be latched in on the other side on the grove.

The stove works just fine. It is fairly simple to get it work once the fuel line is attached to the fuel bottle. The stove comes with a windscreen that is also a heat reflector. The wire handle on the fuel pump and on the fuel line offer a greater amount of control on the amount of fuel that is burnt.

AC Vents & Jane's addiction

If there is one thing that can drive me nuts at workplace, it is the AC vents. The side effects of it are many.
Folks start to speak louder in an attempt to drown out the noise. Resorting to working from else in the work area would earn you the title "The nomad, the one who never sits at the desk, the one who is not reachable for face time" etc. This is when noise cancellation headphones come to rescue! The ones from Bose work. Listening to music using these headphones has been a very good experience. However there are problems with that. It drowns out all the "hallway conversations/discussion of ideas" that you can always join/contribute and learn from. Arrggh.

God quips in as usual: Numbskull you can get reusable earplugs for less than $5 instead of using the headphones and adding to the landfill with the batteries that you use for them.

Me conveniently ignores God. Who listens to he/she/it anyway? Come on after all God is responsible for the biggest fuck ups till date by creating/evolving humans!

I digress. Over the long weekend, there was a huge seating reshuffle. I got shafted to smaller desk area and near a louder air vent. Arrrgggh! All the team members are kind of annoyed. They share the pain. This is when Jane's Addiction came to rescue. I started the day with Kettle Whistle. It is a pretty good song.

I heard Jane's Addiction for the first time at NIN's farewell tour in 2009. I drove couple of hundred miles to another city to go that tour since I missed their performance locally :D JA's opening was a full blast of raw/energetic music that blew me away. I bought 2 cds of JA. Yes, I buy cd's. I buy them from used cd stores. I am not a fan of online music stores.

Q and Exits

Q and I were at Costco today. We as usual had done our usual monthly purchase of fruits, bacon, port loin chops, eggs, milk and pasta. We tend to not buy a lot from Costco since the produce ain't exactly fresh and cheap. We tend to prefer local farmer style stores. As I started to drive out of the parking lot, I was looking for the exit and then Q says "That appears to be a valid exit!". I turned and looked at him and said "Dude, what you said is logically correct, but ordinary folks say, 'there's the exit or that's an exit we can take or take that exit' ". Arrggh! Normal lingo please!

Operation Rescue bagels!

The department Q works (not the math) in had a conference. Q jetted early in the morning. I came back home around 9.00pm and Q walks in on me few mins later beaming.

Me: How was the conference?
Q : It was good. I am glad I went. Some of the stuff was useful for my research.
Me: Cool
Q : There was a lot of food and there are lots of bagels left over. Like 40 of them! They are likely to go waste.
Me: Hmmn. You want to rescue them?
Q : Well, I don't want to take bagels away in front people I know.
Me: Oh, that's just fine. I will lead the way and you follow. Lets hurry before the cleaners get there!

Hustle, hustle and 15mins later we race down in my car and we arrive at the dept. We glance inside and there are few of his colleagues sitting at a table talking and drinking some wine.

Q : I cant go now, there are people I know.
Me: Alright listen, walk in, say hi to them, ask about the conference and tell them to have a nice weekend and sneak up. (we are getting bagels for crying out loud , not stealing diamonds). You can do it dude. (Cue eye of the tiger song)
Q : Alright.

Q goes, says hello to guys and sits down to drink wine with them. WTF! Grrrr I am sitting out here in the car and this D-bag is drinking wine! He then goes up and packs all the bagels into a bag and walks down quickly in 10mins. He goes 'I got them , lets go!'

We get home and methodically pack all the bagels into the freezer and sit there grinning like a bunch of idiots. Operation rescue bagels is successful and quite bit of food is saved! Woo hooo

Introducing Q

Q is a roommate. He is a whiny bitch. He is also a math geek. He is very fashion conscious and creative in cooking. He is a whiny bitch. He is European and has lived in Japan and NZ for several years as a kid. He is a nice guy. He is a whiny bitch. I will chronicle some of our conversations. He likes to analyze stuff and explain stuff using mathematical terms. He is quite logical. He is still a whiny bitch and I tell him that.

Avatar

Hmmn, it was a visual extravaganza and a predictable story line. Watching the movie in an IMAX theater was worth the money. The anti-war, pro-environment, to some extent anti-capitalist and human decadence messages are crystal clear.

Drum and Bass

It seems like an eternity and I feel like if I struck gold! I cry that I didn't come across this before. Mini explosions go off in my head with each beat of the music track. The struggle of keeping a smiling face when all your face wants to do is to contort into different expressions expressing the joy! The impossible immobility that is required when all your body wants is an escape from the confines of the chair and break out into a dance!

This is what happens when you listen to a Drum and Bass cd collection with the Bullet Time (Spor mix) as the starting song. An early day in the office and I got bored of the usual music I listen to and turned to this cd collection my friend shared with me. Mistake, a big Mistake! I am hooked! I can't turn this collection off! Help me! I am working and listening to this. I am being pulled into opposite directions. Help me!!!!!!!!!!

Shutter Island

It is a mind fuck! As simple as that. It is a psychological thriller. It puts you in a tense situation of where you don't know who you can believe. Leonardo Dicaprio as usual delivers a terrific performance. A must watch!

Skiing

I went skiing for the first time and took a beginner's lesson. I was doing okay in the beginner's lesson until my friend egged me to go on a slope with higher difficulty. After many protests I relented and went, after all what could go wrong? Aah famous last words!

So I am waiting in line to get on the lift and my friend gives me instructions on how to sit on the lift and how to jump off it. Cool, not so difficult, except when I need to jump off, my ski's get entangled and lo and behold I am stuck. The lift operator reacts immediately and stops the lift and helps me off. Wonderful, a great start!

I start skiing in a halting manner and I ended up skating on the outer edges. Arrgh. Since I am skating down in a halting manner, I have enough time to notice others going by.

I see kids probably of 4-5 yrs age coasting by without any ski-poles and my jaw drops wide open. Awesome! That did wonders to my already sinking confidence. Nevertheless I was determined that I could do this and became resolute to finish this.

Yeh, things went downhill literally from there. Multiple falls, slamming into a tree, struggling to get up, refitting the skis on, took me 45 mins to get down hill. No broken ribs or any other injuries. I didn't go back up again as it was time to go. I will back to conquer the slopes.

Clearance! : take 60% off and take additional 20%

With the holiday season almost gone, no doubt one has seen such notorious and blatantly misleading sales pitches. I have wondered many a time as what the mark up price was and I got my answer yesterday. It is more than 100%. I was at Wilson's leather to buy a jacket and I found one that was marked at 119 MSRP. I figured that seemed reasonable enough.

The girl at the counter rings up 229.88! Huh what the hell just happened. Among the many tags attached to the jacket there was another tag with the price 229.88 written on it! It turns out the tag with price 119 was set by the parent company G-III apparel and the 229.88 a discounted price Wilson's Leather was selling it at. The tag from Wilson's leather was half torn. I would be hazard a guess that it could be have been sold at a price 250+.

The girl at the counter nonchalantly says explains that they mark up the price just before the holiday season and then offer discount. This gives the customer an illusion that they are getting a good deal when in fact they are paying the original price of the item. Oh well!

God Booms: Stop acting as if you discovered Antarctica. It is elementary sales strategy and my minions in the corporate board rooms need their yachts!

Me: Yeah yeah and you have the nerve to call greed a sin when you have your minions doing this!

God: Piss off! Its my creation and I can do whatever with it.

Me: Grrrr

Grits and loads of fat!

I was in NC visiting a friend. We went to a local diner for breakfast.Ordered a big breakfast of eggs and pancakes and grits. I let the grits sit while I attacked the eggs and pancakes. Taking my own time. The butter on the grits had melted and coalesced into this. Yeh, I lost my appetite for it. Damn!

The New Regime

NIN's drummer Ilan Rubin released a solo album titled "The Coup". It is available for free download and also be streamed from band's site.

Role Models

Watched this movie. It was meh! One time watch. Watch it if you if it is free or you can spend time on something else.

Freedom has a price!

Its was a Friday evening and I got lost in a book. Sipping home brewed ice tea, I finished the book "The Complete Persepolis". It is a biography of Marjane Satrapi in the form of a comic.

The childhood of a girl with the Iranian Revolution as the backdrop, her personal revolt against new regime,her move to Venice as a teen and back, her marriage and post divorce life make an interesting read. Rather it be pure prose or a biography penned page after page, the comic approach does a great job in keeping the reader visually and intellectually involved through the roller coaster. The black and white illustrations complements her story.

The strong foundation of a woman laid by her parents in a conservative country that has archiac/sexist laws, sees her through all her tumulus teen years. An identity crisis coupled with little gestures that are made in defiance against regime are very insightful of the problems that women face and yet is inspiring. It is sad, it is hilarious, it is revealing, it is a story in ways one can relate to.

It is worth a read.

Holy Crap! Kansas Supreme Court just ruled

The daily trip to reddit and I chance up a link to this blog entry when I caught the tag line of 60 million mortgages could get invalidated. My interest was piqued. I looked up the original court ruling and it is here. I read it.

Disclaimer: I AM NOT A LAWYER and my summaries can have errors.

My summary:

A guy buys a house and takes 2 mortgages. The second one is from Millennia Mortgage Corp. In the mortgage that he signed MERS, (Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc) is defined as a nominee for Millenia Mortgage Corp. Some time later Sovereign takes over the mortgage but doesn't notify the local county of it.

Unfortunately for the guy he has to declare bankruptcy. He declares Sovereign bank is the creditor and files intent to surrender the property.

The company that gave the first mortage Landmark Bank, files a petition with the Court intending to forclose the property and names the guy and the Millenia as the defendants. Now the important event. Landmark doesnt serve notice of the litigation to MERS or Sovereign.

Since there are no answers from the guy or from Millennia so the court enters a default judgment. The property gets sold and Landmark files a petition confirming the sale. Now Sovereign goes "hey hold on", files a petition requesting that sale be be invalidated and the summary judgment be overturned, says it was not notified and MERS is a part of the action.

Court goes OK and listens to arguments from all parties and defers judgment. MERS makes an entry and files a petition to vacate summary judgment.

Court says, thanks for playing, you don't have a ground for objections, lo and behold DENIED becoz
1) MERS is an agent, a Thanks for trying.
2) Sovereign didn't register with the local county about it getting the mortgage. Sorry, better luck next time.

MERS and Sovereign, files motions to reconsider. courts go hmmn, no thanks. DENIED!

Lots of stuff happens and the case ends up in Supreme Court of Kansas. The supreme court does a brilliant job of breaking down the agreement that the guy signed and what role MERS plays.

The orginal mortgage was split into different securities and sold. MERS is a electronic system owned by a private company that keeps track of who is the owner of the mortgage that gets split as securities and sold to other investors. MERS also is considered as a nominee of the banks and act on their behalf when it comes to buying, foreclosures and stuff.

The court concluded:
"The relationship that MERS has to Sovereign is more akin to that of a straw man than to a party possessing all the rights given a buyer. A mortgagee and a lender have intertwined rights that defy a clear separation of interests, especially when such a purported separation relies on ambiguous contractual language."

Damn! The court also concludes that the practices of MERS makes it almost impossible for the public to find out who really has the deed to the property on which the mortgage is taken on. If the mortgage is split so many ways, then who has the deed?

Quting the court:
"The practical effect of splitting the deed of trust from the promissory note is to make it impossible for the holder of the note to foreclose, unless the holder of the deed of trust is the agent of the holder of the note. [Citation omitted.] Without the agency relationship, the person holding only the note lacks the power to foreclose in the event of default. The person holding only the deed of trust will never experience default because only the holder of the note is entitled to payment of the underlying obligation. [Citation omitted.] The mortgage loan becomes ineffectual when the note holder did not also hold the deed of trust." Bellistri v. Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC, 284 S.W.3d 619, 623 (Mo. App. 2009). "

Which means MERS which foreclosing properties can possibly no longer foreclose properties. Damn, double Damn! If this stays on, then we are looking at a big problem. A wild ass guess as to the fall out,

1) People who are forced to foreclose by MERS can get more breathing time , peace and some justice.
2) The tax payer will get shafted again unless the public hounds congress to hold people in wall street accountable.

Fun times. bah!

Calvin and Hobbes

ROTFL! The comic still makes me laugh.

Source: http://progressiveboink.com/jon/images/calvinhobbes/jon4.GIF

My fancy

For some odd reason Lewis Carrol popped into my head when thinking of poetry, here is a nice one.

PAINTED her a gushing thing,

With years perhaps a score;

A little thought to find they were

At least a dozen more;

My fancy gave her eyes of blue,

A curly, auburn head;

I came to find the blue a green

The auburn turned to red.




She boxed my ears this morning--

They tingled very much;

I own that I could wish her

A somewhat lighter touch;

And if you were to ask me how

Her charms might be improved,

I would not have them added to,

But just a few removed!




She has the bear's ethereal grace,

The bland hyena's laugh,

The footstep of the elephant,

The neck of the giraffe.

I love her still, believe me,

Though my heart its passion hides;

"She is all my fancy painted her,"

But, oh, how much besides!

Source: http://www.poetry-archive.com/c/my_fancy.html

DexTer

Started to watch this series. It seems interesting, It kind of stood out odd that the central character is a forensics/blood expert yet when he opens doors or cabinets at potential victims place is not wearing gloves and is leaving behind fingerprints. So much for being a show on forensics/blood expert who is a serial killer. The 4th season starts in a few days, might watch it.

Puffy rulez!

No puffy is not a dog or any other 4 legged animal. It is a pufferfish, it is the mascot of OpenBSD. I decided to give OpenBSD 4.5 a try. It has been a while since I used it. The install was a breeze. Grab the iso and I have a minimal X session working. I liked the fact that ifconfig could do wireless configuration instead of using a different binary in the Linux world.

ifconfig iwi0 wpa wpapsk "0xlongasskey"; ifconfig iwi0 up ; dhclient iwi0. Lo and behold I was connected to net via wireless. pkg_add -i was easy enough. I like aptitude better though. The FAQ was good enough to get the system up and running. Now I have a OpenBSD system with an Gnome that is consistent with my Debian system. Nice!

I need to get encrypted filesystem up and running, that's on my list of things to do.

You are naked!

The internet has made the world a true global village. Edward Bulwer-Lytton coined the phrase "The pen is mightier than the sword". I would today rephrase it as "The keyboard is the mightier than the sword". People have been either stripped or stripping themselves digitally, consciously or unconsciously. No. I don't mean porno you pervs. I mean loss of privacy. Just as people leave stuff around in their house that can reveal their dna if examined, like hair, people leave digital footprints in their own computer or in places they have no control over, revealing a lot about them.

Lets say, my friend gave me a laptop to examine and tell me what kind of person used that laptop, I could begin with as simple as.

1) Examine list of installed software.
2) Examine the browser.
Fire up the browser and look at the following
a) History
b) Bookmarks
c) Cache
d) Temp files.
e) Cookies.
f) Stored passwords.
An average person probably keeps a lot of cached files around.
3) Look at IM logs.
Take Pidgin/YIM/Trillian as examples, you dont even has to be logged on to find this information,
a) They reveal the person's friend's list
b) If the person logged conversations, they would be in plain text or in the case of YIM (XOR'ed with your id)
4) A peek at my documents application data directories is a treasure trove of information, especially if a the person is well organized.
5) History of applications (Microsoft Word/Excell/Photoshop) that reveal the person recently edited.
6) Media players what the person recently watched.

I can now take a good guess about a person's personality. In yester years it was gossip or public actions that tradionally led others to know about a person. Now combine the above with the ones below, a stranger can know a lot about a person even without meeting or talking to the person and without 3rd person gossip.

Take it to the next level and determine the social connections and personality of the person.

7) Examining the social connectivity of the person via social networks. If the person has a public profile, then it is the Holy Grail!
a) Type of friends.
b) Events attended
c) Hobbies, ratings on different quizzes.
d) Self expression.
e) The causes supported
f) The political standings
etc
8) Blogs, Forums,

Think I am full of crap, well check out this article that was reported on Slashdot.

Take it to the next level of what the government can know about you. This presentation titled "Death of Anonymous Travel" is a good indication of how data can mined and where technology is headed.

All one can do is be careful about the digital footprint they leave behind. Stuff posted on social networks can easily come back to haunt a person.
Ex:
1) Suggestions on what not to do
2) Tweet about a job offer
3) Facebook and boring job
4) Boss and Facebook

Recommended reading: Future of online reputation

Future of Dating!

Hilarious!

Look in thy glass

OOK in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest

Now is the time that face should form another,

Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,

Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.

For where is she so fair whose uneared womb

Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?

Or who is he so fond will be the tomb

Of his self-love, to stop posterity?

Thou art thy mother's glass, and she in thee

Calls back the lovely April of her prime;

So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,

Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.

But if thou live rememb'red not to be,

Die single, and thine image dies with thee.

Back!

I am back! I been traveling and dedicating my life to corp slavery which kept me away from the blog. Hellooooooo Digital world!

Shoe Laces: Being a kid again

God booms, "dude u needed help in tying shoe laces? you suck!" and goes back to making the world a confusing place.

Me rolls mah eyes "Yeah big G, I did and thanks to my friend, she rescued me when I need help, unlike you, who would have said, Gee boy, did you say prayers or say God helps only those who helps themselves :p thank you very much!".

Why did I need help tying shoe laces? Aah the reason is simple. I went hiking up in the mountains with my friends B, her bf, D and my friend M. We drove up to a mountain trail, up north with lots of gear. I haven't been hiking in the winter before, so had a wee bit of trouble, with the plastic snow boots. I messed up the way the laces were to be tied and B being a nice gal, she is, showed me how.

Made me feel like a 3 yr old again :p, learning how to tie laces.

Population 436

Population 436, just about 20mins into it, you can tell right away it is of the same genre of The Wickerman, The Reaping, it is all about small towns and greater good or some odd belief that their life is perfect. Well if you are bored and have absolutely nothing to do and no other movie to watch, this is passable. It is a movie that you can turn on and pay paltry attention to when you are working.

The Band's Visit

"The Band's Visit" is a simple, unpretentious movie and devoid of overt drama. Its far from the run of the mill stories. It is a story of people. Each scene oozes with meaning and significance. The characters are quite believable in their portrayal of everyday folks. A message/theme that is echoed through the movie, is that of love and music being a universal language.l

It is a story of an Egyptian police band that travels to Israel to perform in a local Arabic Cultural Center in the town of Beit Hatikva. To their dismay they find out that they landed in the wrong town. They were supposed to go to Peit Hatikva and not Beit Hatikva. They stranded and hungry. The story is then onwards is their experiences till next day morning when they catch the bus to the right place.

The band is lead by old Lt Col Tawfiq. He is their no-nonsense, mr-iam-not-flexible-and-rulez-matter leader. The youngest of the band is Haled. Being a young guy he tries to pick up ladies with his singing. He is also the guy Tawfiq tries to bring in line for his non-conformist ways.

Dina, is a restaurant owner who informs the Band that they are in the wrong town. She offers them food and later lodgings after Tawfiq requests for help. Haled and Tawfiq stay at Dina's place and some of the band at restaurant and some at out of work local who frequents Dina's place.

The night becomes a night of change, a night of people opening up, a night of confirmation that people from the across the Arab and Israeli are just normal folks who enjoy the same pleasures in life. The conversation of Dina and Tawfiq at the local eatery, the walk to the park, the outing of Haled with locals and his encouragement of young man in the ways to talk to a woman, the quite family dinner at the local's place, to Tawfiq's confession, his warming up to Haled and their departure from Dina and their performance at Peit Hatikva are scenes were emotions flow, sublte facial expressions and body movements convey the meaning.

It is one of the decent movies I have seen in recent times. I should get the DVD sometime.

USB Cable Hell

I was visiting my friend and settled down to read the latest news buzz. I find it difficult to use the touchpad of a laptop hence carry a mouse all the time. Digging through my backup I came across my set of usb cables that are tucked away for use. I was stunned at the number of USB cables that I carry.


1. USB cable from Hell aka Apple product
2. USB cable for a camera
3. Common USB cable. (4 of them)
4. USB cable for a music player.

I have 4 products with non-compatible usb interfaces which makes life difficult. I wonder how I landed with the 4 of the common usb cables. I carry one and backup one in case I loose the first one. Come on, who hasn't forgotten their cellphone charger or didn't need to connect mulitple devices with varying length at the same time to the laptop.

God booms: People who don't carry so many devices and people who charge all their devices during the night, don't carry so many usb cables, retard!

But, but if you are on the move all the time it is easier to use the laptop as the charging source! :D I know, lame excuse. I shall vow to clean up my backpack of all the unnecessary USB cables.

Child Safety : ISTTF report

Its funny how many links one has to jump to get to the original report. A link from Slashdot to Nytimes to search on google lands one on Enhancing Child Safety and Online Technologies. It is an interesting report that shed's light on real problems than the hysteria that "Internet is dangerous" and one has to protect the children.

I ain't saying that there aren't any dangers. The dangers are real and the victims are real. The dangers being any of the following

1) Stolen identities.
2) Personal pics leaked on the web and morphed.
3) Cyber Stalking/Bulling
4) Fake personalities.
5) Harassment.
6) Sexual solicitation/harassment.
7) Gossip.
8) Fraud (419 scams)

In the case of minors, the bogey man is the pic of some creepy sick old "man" trying to get to children and is the predator. The media presents the same picture as well. According to the report, while this threat exists there are other threats that are more important and profound.

The findings of the report are contrary to the public perception of problems of the internet. Minors face the same kind of problems that face in real life in the cyberspace. A large number of sexual abuse comes from someone in the family or someone known to the minor in real life (stats from different reports) and cyberworld doesn't really exacerbate it. A significant contributors to the problem are minors themselves. That is, minors bulling, soliciting sex, spreading gossip, they being victims and the perpetrator themselves.

An easy example is say 2 15 yr olds, who are bf and gf exchanged naked/sexual pics of each other. According to laws in some states they are both victims and both perpetrators. Perpetrators since they are distributing child pornography. Well that is what prosecuting attorney is going consider as the basis of filing a case if these pics were found. The supreme court of US has ruled that teenagers can be tried as sex offenders.

The registration of a teenager as a sex offender has life long impact on the teenagers. The only group that makes me sad is the group of teenagers who do dumb stuff not realizing the future consequences and end up getting charged in court and convicted and registered as sex offenders. I can't help but wonder if the society is punishing them way too hard, punishing them for life. I wonder what is adequate punishment for stupidity, actions becoz of lack of proper guidance, I don't have an answer.

One should read "Future of Online Reputation" to get an idea of the scope of audience and how reputation gets tarnished or built.

Laundry basket stolen

The past long weekend will go down as the most weird, surreal, ironic and irritating one. I had to travel on Sat and Monday, so went to do my laundry Friday night than leave the chore for Sunday.

I put the laundry for wash at the laundermat nearby go back after 30mins. My empty laundry bag/basket (call it what u want) was stolen from the laundermat. ! Whaat? Yeah it was stolen. Who steals an empty laundry bag/basket from a laundermat in a tad upscale town in the night? I laughed my head off and then I became irritated. I had to lug my clothes to the car, arrgggh, it is not fun when the wind chill is around 0 F or lesser.

WTF! Seriously WTF!

There are other things that happened. I will share them someday.

Laptop batt status cmd line

I was looking at /usr/bin and looking at binaries that I don't recognize to see what they do. A while ago I was thinking of writing a script to poll info out of /sys for power information but this command does it all!

halflife@darklord:~$ acpi -V
Battery 0: Discharging, 99%, 03:34:12 remaining, design capacity 7800 mAh
AC Adapter 0: off-line
Thermal 0: ok, 39.5 degrees C
Cooling 0: Processor 0 of 10
Cooling 1: Processor 0 of 10
halflife@darklord:~$

Wanted: Movie

The movie was, eh. Angelina Jolie was sexy, Morgan freeman's role non-existent, some flashy action scenes and a story that kept me yawning all the while. Save your money and don't rent it or buy it.

Knife & Port Epic Fail

Being a recent fan of Port, I bought myself a bottle of port. Got myself a sumptuous dinner and rubbed my hands in glee about to open the bottle of port. What ensued had me laughing at my stupidity for days. Oh well life is boring without such moments.

The cork, yes the stupid cork was not firm enough. The cork screw miserably failed to pull out the cork. I tried to gently coax it out, but alas it refused to budge. I tried 2 different corkscrews. Arrgggh! Plan B. I started to chip away at the cork with a knife hopping to get to the bottom of the cork and out of the bottle. All is good until I reach to less than quarter inch of the cork. I am stuck! I can neither reach with the knife any more nor can I reach with the cork screw or anything that is long enough to get to the cork.

%#@^&*

What do I do now, What would you do? I did what an annonyed person would do and here is the result.


If you are scratching ur head as to what I did I figured my knife was strong enough to break the top of the bottle and I ended up with a broken knife! Epic Fail! ROTFL! I never imagined that the bottle was so freaking hard that it succeeded in breaking my knife! Put it the other way I never imagined I could break a knife in perfect slice by hitting it againt the bottle. Daaaamnnnnnn!

Duddeee! Yeah I broke the top of the bottle by smashing against the kitchen sink without spilling port. Yummy!

Been a while

I managed to disappear from the digital world before christmas and make a grand appearance now! :D The twists and turns can only be matched by the impromptu stream that is formed when it rains. Not knowing where it is formed and not knowing where it ends. I wonder what the year ahead is like?

Prisoner of Birth

Jeffery Archer rulez. I have been a big fan of his writings. "As the Crow flies" was the first book that I read of his and I was hooked. I have read most of his books. I was thrilled when I found his book Prisoner of Birth in B&N. So here is the plot,

Danny Cartwright, your regular bloke, proposes to his fiancé at a bar and she says yes! Her brother joins them and enjoy the evening until four drunk guys ruin their evening and Danny ends in jail after being convicted for his fiancé's brother's murder.

Danny while in jail starts educating himself with the help of his cellmate. and shuts himself off from outside world when his appeal fails. He urges his fiancé to move on. In a twist of fate he escapes from prison impersonating his cell-mate and then plots his revenge against the four people who were responsible for sending him to jail and killing his fiance's brother.

It is a fast paced thriller and well written. It is worth the money

Nigerian Scams

Once in a while when you are bored out of your skull and in a chat room, you run into scammers . It is interesting how they trap gullible folks, here is one such conversation.
scammer: hello
me: hello
scammer: pls can u assist me in a business transaction involve a huge amount of money and we both stand to make a good money out of it at the end

[ Ha ha ha ha Nigerian scammer in action]

me: really
scammer: where are u from?
me: US
scammer: 34f from lagos nigeria
scammer: i work as a banker
scammer: u?

[ Really? And we are so dumb]

me: I work as a assistant in an office
scammer: wat post?
me: administrative assistant
me: you know the kind that take calls and book appointments and plan conferences
scammer: oh ic
scammer: ur age and name pls?
me: david 22
scammer: nice meeting u david
me: what is your name
scammer: am Lauren by name
me: nice meeting you lauren
scammer: u are welcome

[ Yawn Pleasantries, establishing rapport]
scammer: i want u to assist me financially in a business transaction involve alot of money and we both stand to make a good profit out of it at the end
me: oh wow
me: how ?
scammer: i need ur assistant to stand as next of kin and sole beneficiary to the sum of $6.5million usd lying unclaimed in the bank i work
me: you are kidding right
scammer: this is not a joke or child play david
me: oh ok

[Show sense of indignation to establish that you are legit]

scammer: i want this transaction to be a top secret between u and me 'cos u know how much am talking about here
scammer: can u keep a top secret?
me: yes yes
scammer: alright
scammer: listen carefuly
me: ok
scammer: This funds was deposited here in the bank by Mr Toni Choate an american contractor who died wit wife and only daughter in an auto accident in the year 2001
me: oh
scammer: ever since the death of the late Mr Toni Choate this funds has been lying down unclaimed in the bank and all effort made by bank to locate the next of kin to this funds prove abbortives
scammer: u wit me?
me: yes
scammer: good
scammer: now i want u to act as the next of kin to the late Mr Toni Choate by contacting the bank managing director for the claim of the funds so this funds can be release into ur bank account in usa
me: huh? wont i get in trouble for acting ?
scammer: listen
scammer: there is no trouble involve in this business
scammer: i want u to be rest assured that this transaction is legal and %100 risk free which am going to protect u from any breach of the law
me: oh ok
scammer: all i just need from u here is ur deep trust and honesty that u wont betray me when u get this funds transfer into ur bank account
me: of course
me: you can trust me
scammer: good

[ Hilarious, trust, its legal, 100 risk free (rotfl), protection from law]

me: what do i do
scammer: if there is nobody found to claim out this funds from the bank the bank wil forfiet the funds and it wil be transfer into the bank treasury room which means this funds could be share among the bank top directors
me: oh, not the bankers!
scammer: good
scammer: i dont want this funds share among the bank top directors 'cos i believe this is a golden opportunity in life
me: yes it sounds like one
scammer: u wil write a letter to the bank email address explaining that Mr Toni Choate is ur late uncle and u are ready to claim out ur funds as the only beneficiary so the bank can instruct u on how the funds wil be wired into the bank account
me: ok and
scammer: at the conclusion of this business %40 wil be ur own share of the total amount of the money
me: oh wow
scammer: dont take this as a joke or child play
scammer: i wil also send u all legal documents that back up this transaction so u can know am for real

[ha ha ha ha legal documents!]

me: okay
me: u have a cell no to talk to you about this ?
scammer: yep
me: what is it
scammer: am contacting u here 'cos this funds can not be approve to a local person here in Nigeria except someone from foreign country who know and have adequate info about the funds can stand as the next of kin
me: i understand
scammer: am only contacting u here as the first foreigner wit believe in God u wil never let me down at the end
me: yes i will not let you down
me: what is your cell number ?
me: do you have a pic ?
scammer: thats my pic in the display
scammer: or u check my profile to see me pic
scammer: +2348080781092
me: okay
me: do you want me to call now ?
me: ur pic is not clear in profile
me: or display
scammer: alright
me: shall i call now ?
scammer: yes
me: says the number is busy
scammer: i got ur missed call
scammer: but is hidden number
me: yes i am using a calling card for international dialing

[ of course i am not gonna call you with my real number! that's what voip phones are for anyway]

scammer: ic
scammer: listen
scammer: before u apply for the claim of the funds there are some vital processing that need to be done by me here in the bank
me: why didn't u answer the phone
scammer: am at work
me: so what
scammer: u really want to speak wit me right?
me: yes
scammer: alright
scammer: call me
me: i can't understand a word
me: u said

[some unintelligible gibberish]

scammer: yep
me: what did you say
scammer: i said my boss is here wit me
scammer: come online so we can talk
scammer: i dont want to get myself in trouble
scammer: u know this as to be a top secret between u and me
me: yes yes

[sure top top top top secret, geez]

scammer: before u apply for the claim of the funds i have to first open a beneficiary file here in ur name
me: ok
scammer: and i wil also insert ur full info into the bank central computer as the next of kin to the late Mr Toni Choate so when u contact the bank managing director for the claim of the funds ur full details wil appear as the next of kin
me: ok
scammer: but if u contact and ur info is not found in the bank central computer the bank wil find it very difficult to believe u as the next of kin
me: of course
scammer: so i wil need the info as follow so i can start the processing rightaway
scammer: Full name
scammer: Residential address
scammer: Occupation
scammer: Fax and Mobile number
scammer: Date of birth
scammer: Email address

[first round of personal information, second round would be bank information anyway]

me: ok
me: and what other information do u need
scammer: thats all i need from u so do the processing
scammer: then after am done u can know apply for the claim of the funds
me: david fubar, 1650 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500, 202-001-0911, davidf@419eater.com
scammer: very funny david
scammer: wat do u mean by 419 eater?
me: that's the website i have an email address with
me: what'
me: what's funny about that
scammer: sound funny to me
scammer: well u know wat
scammer: i can never force u to do wat u are not sure of
scammer: i know and also understand how cheat is going on in the internet
scammer: so we dont know who to trust
me: that coming from you is hilarious
me: you complaining about cheating is hilarious
[silence :p]

For those who are wondering what the whole 419eaters.com is , well check it out it a site dedicated to busting Nigerian scams. You can read FBI's warning on these scams here

Arrrgh Winblows!

I hate windows! It is the bane in my life! I have a laptop's whose disk always trashing. I fire up a couple of softwares from sysinternals,

1. procmon
2. procexp
3. filemon
4. autoruns

Jeez, there are so many freaking apps that are running, here is the list that turn out to be the culprits.

1. Windword
2. symantec antivirus daemons
3. spysweeper
4. encryption daemon

2-4 are killing my laptop to the point of no productivity. The folks in IT and security would be very unhappy if I attempted to turn of 2-4. They have promised they are gonna improve performance by Jan. I hope so too. Time to run to my debian box!.

Wine and dine!

A Sunday afternoon, a snow storm raging, all cozy at home, sipping hot choc and I get call from my friend, yo, wanna come over for dinner, I am cooking dinner. Me goes,

Snow storm or not, me gonna have a delicious dinner ;)

Greeted with 4 different kinds of wine and cheese! Wooo hooo. With slices of home made bread, some wine and cheese and Christmas music, the evening is off to a good start! My friend who is a great cook made, sliced oven cooked potatoes, a dish of brussel sprouts, asparagus, baked lamb with gravy made with port, flour and butter and spinach cream. He followed it up desert wine and crepe with filling made from ricotta cheese and strawberry jelly! Yummmy. Following that was a movie screening of "Half Baked", Ha ha ha, it was fun seeing it again. Dave Chappell is hilarious.

Life is good! A fun evening

Credits: Image above can be found here

Warmth in the Cold

The snow storm is all raging, dropping loads of snows, the wind blowing and me driving up the street, slowwwwwwwlllllyyyyy. Yeah don't want my car to skid and slam into an ice bank. I see this guy who is like limping slowly bravely, mid 30's and seemed harmless. I pulled over and asked buddy do you need a ride, he was like yeah, a couple of blocks down. 10 mins later he is dropped off front of his house. He goes, "thanks man, thanks a lot, god bless you".

:) Yeah at 12.30am in the harsh snow storm, the warmth from helping another person is far higher! I hope someday someone would help me out when I am need of such help.

Earlier in the day I was reading a news article about a school student group that formed to give people hugs and do acts of kindess and a teacher told them "Go do your nice acts somewhere else" and called the cops on suspicious behaviour. The goal of the student who started it was that, yes it is still okay to help strangers and act of human kindness is still a good thing rather be wrapped in suspicion. I lost the link to that news. One can find the needle in the haystack of news aggregation sites.

Epic Fail!

Recipe for Disaster / What were you thinking / Dumbass moment

1) A snow storm
2) A good evening of fun
3) 1.00am
4) 1ft of snow in ur driveway
5) Broken shovel
6) No parking allowed on the streets.

What would you do? What would you do?


This is all that stands between my apt, my cup of hot choc and me! Snow!



A broken shovel can't be much of help, the dude who is supposed to plow the snow ain't gonna be here for another couple of hours.

A battle between intelligent decisions and stupidity reigns. Lo and behold stupidity wins! Yeah I know, evolution's flaw manifests itself in the combination of curiosity of what would happen if you did the dumbest thing, knowing it is the dumbest thing to do and it would cause you grief.

Well here is the aftermath!

ROTFL! Yup, I backed up my car and just drove through it and I got stuck in the snow. :D Yeah epic fail moment. Man and Machine vs Nature. Nature won. Humbled again.



I had to call a tow truck and got my car out.

FAQ:
1) What the hell were you thinking?
Nothing, just pure fun of challenge of the heavy car and the ability to drive through a couple of feet of fresh layer of snow that hadn't hardened yet. The snow along the kerb was tad harder than the fluffy snow in the driveway. Damn plow trucks!

Credits:
Thinking cap pic source Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com"

Coffee Art 1

What do you do when you get a new mini camera, a real cheap one, a 5 ft coffee machine and free coffee mug from work?

1. Just drink coffee and get on with life
2. Don't drink coffee and be healthy
3. Take pics and drink coffee
4. Take pics and not drink coffee
5. Take pics of you drinking coffee
6. Take pics of just you
7. Other...

Mua, chose other. I looked at the coffee mug after I got some random coffee and I was immediately struck by the spirals. My mind is churning away, fractals, spirals in bubbles, oil films and I never cease to be amazed by the beauty of it. So I figured I would start taking pics of what kind of shapes I could get by just shaking the coffee mug.

This is first cup of coffee, a little shaken. Its kind of interesting, it looks like

• A dolphin
  
• A dude standing inside a structure and operating something
• A mark on the head of a bird.
  

• A mermaid
• A swan
• Still thinking
  

Started with a mushroom shaped and ended up with a spiral below! A lil shake here and there!

Know not I

Know not I,
Soul stirring than thy touch,
Know not I,
Mirth, exciting than thy joy,
Know not I,
Bewitching than thy smile,
Know not I,
Heavenly than thy kiss,
O fair maiden, it is
You, I seek.

When forty winters shall

Time for sonnet 2.

HEN forty winters shall besiege thy brow

And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field,

Thy youth's proud livery, so gazed on now,

Will be a tottered weed of small worth held:

Then being asked where all thy beauty lies,

Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,

To say within thine own deep-sunken eyes

Were an all-eating shame and thriftless praise.

How much more prasie deserved thy beauty's use

If thou couldst answer, 'This fair child of mine

Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,'

Proving his beauty by succession thine.

This were to be new made when thou art old

And see thy blood warm when thou feel'st cold.

Source:

Once I understood that sonnet 1 was about a guy, his vanity and the offerspring that he supposed to have, the context and the meaning of Sonnet 2 becomes more obvious. This sonnet is all about the encouragement and the question of what the youth did with his lustful ways and did he have a son to feel warm in his old age that he is being seen in the form of his son.

Hmm, it is a nice sonnet, didn't feel the rush though.

Belay On!

Belay On
On Belay

Climbing
Climb on!

The four communication phrases that have been a regular exchange during rock climbing. Earlier in the week, I had gone for my second visit. I had to take the belay test. I took the test with a random lady as a climbing partner who turned out to be not so random after all. It was the usual commands, check, harness, carabiner and the fall test.

Aced it! Turns out that the lady was my colleague's friend who was supposed to meet us. Cool. There are 4 of us now and I start climbing. An easy course marked green 5.6 grade, made it up pretty quick. Next one was 5.7 grade, it was alright, kind of cheated in a place or two. The third one was a bitch! It was 5.8 grade, and one had a stretch a lot.

It was one of those routes were the wall starts leaning towards you creating a ledge impression and you need your upper body strength to push your self up. In the first attempt I did some quick moves to get to the ledge and then my arms started to scream, my palms were sweaty, it wasn't gonna be easy trying to reach into the chalk bag to get rid of the sweat, but held on. The arms started to scream loudly and I loose a footing and I fall...

I am dangling in the air, as my climbing partner has me covered, damn I almost had it, I had almost reached over the next hold , damn , I yell "take" and I get lowered. Alright time for another try.

This time I forget to pull the quick moves and I am hanging off, with my arms screaming like a the howl of the strong wind, I fall.. Bah! Another time

Time for a break then climb another route. Attack of the pink happens! It is a 5.7 grade climb and the route is marked in pink! If you are scratching your head wondering what's with the attack of the pink check this.

All in all a couple of climbs it was good. The knots are perfect, I should get some rope from the guy next time to practice on my own different knots.

Fractal Art

Source: This is pretty interesting digital art. Its done by user ricdiggle on flickr.com

Green Pit Viper!

F*** I almost pissed in my pants when I saw that. That's one mean looking f*****. As usual, I was trolling the web, when I landed on national geographic's website. The article which can be found here was talking about new species found in Asia. This is a Gumprecht's green pit viper which can grow upto 4 ft long.

PC vs Mac Vs Linux

I was thumbing through my bookmarks and I came across this link that I had. Ha ha ha! It is a funny flash animation of southpark style. Check out the video.

Fairest Creatures

I have read shakespeare stuff as a kid and have always been interested in reading the sonnets just not gotten around to it to dedicate time to it.

Fun fact: I played the role of Antonio in Merchant of Venice as a kid!

ROM fairest creatures we desire increase,

That thereby beauty's rose might never die,

But as the riper should by time decease,

His tender heir might bear his memory;

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,

Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,

Making a famine where abundance lies,

Thyself thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel.

Thout that are now the world's fresh ornament

And only herald to the gaudy spring,

Within thine own bud buriest thy content

And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding.

Pity the world, or else this glutton be,

To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee

source:

So reading through the sonnet, I got lost half way through, when I landed on

But thou, contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,

What on the earth is the WS talking about? I kind of got the idea he was talking about a guy and he being his own enemy and his child. Yeah, tried a couple of times but the above three lines threw me off. So time for www.google.com or wikkiiipppedddiiiaaaaaaaa.COM to understand the context under which the sonnet was written.

It turns out that the sonnet is about a guy and his vanity, that instead of procreating he is lost in his own self and robbing the world of his lineage. Check out this link for more detailed explanation.

The sonnet is pretty interesting!

We ain't here to do e-c-e

F***ing Hilarious

Source: bash.org

Insult:
:arkan: You know, you really ought to have a bra with 403: forbidden on it.
:Labyrinth: And you really ought to have a pair of boxers with 404: not found.

Rap:
:djahandarie: we ain't here to do e-c-e
:djahandarie: we're here to do c-s-e on the w-e-b
:djahandarie: listen to me spit these rhymes
:djahandarie: while i program lines
:djahandarie: and commit web accessibility crimes
:djahandarie: word, son
:http402: You talk like your big on these I-Net kicks,
:http402: But your shit flows slower than a two-eighty-six.
:http402: I'm tracking down hosts and nmap scans,
:http402: While Code Igniter's got you wringing your hands.
:http402: Cut the crap rap,
:http402: Or I'll run ettercap,
:http402: Grab your AIM chat,
:http402: N' send a PC bitch-slap!
:http402: peace
:djahandarie: you're talkin bout down hosts and nmap scans
:djahandarie: while i got other plans
:djahandarie: you're at your new job, but you can't even do it right
:djahandarie: you just create a plight with your http rewrites
:djahandarie: i've been on the web since the age of three
:djahandarie: you just got on directly off the bus from mississippi
:djahandarie: respect yo' elders, bitch
:http402: You've been webbin' since three, but still ain't grown up,
:http402: Gotta update your config and send the brain a SIGHUP.
:http402: You say you're that old? No wonder you're slow!
:http402: You're knocking at the door while I run this show!
:http402: Elders my ass, you're shit's still in school,
:http402: Hunt and pecking at the keyboard like a spaghetti-damned fool,
:http402: Rim-riffing your hard drive like a tool,
:http402: Face it. I rule.
:djahandarie: i erase my harddrives with magnets (bitch)
:djahandarie: all you can do is troll on the fagnets
:djahandarie: and son, my brain's wrapped in a nohup
:djahandarie: it wont be hurt by the words you throwup
:djahandarie: dont mind me while i emerge my ownage
:djahandarie: while you're still over there apt-getting your porridge
:djahandarie: you say i'm still in school
:djahandarie: but the fact is that i know the rule
:djahandarie: cuz you need to go back to grade three
:djahandarie: and you better plea, that they take sucky graduates from c-s-e
:http402: Time to bend over and apply a patch,
:http402: Your brain's throwing static like a CD with a scratch.
:http402: Your connection got nuked and you've met your match.
:http402: You run a single process like a VAX with a batch.
:http402: I'd pass the torch to a real winner
:http402: But it'd just scorch a while-loop spinner
:http402: Caught in a loop that you cant escape,
:http402: I run clock cycles around your words and flows,
:http402: Cuz your rhyme is like a PS fan: it' blows,
:http402: Your water-cooled lyrics leak and it shows,
:http402: Take your ass back to alt.paid.for.windows.
:djahandarie: Good god, I can't even respond to that. :P
:djahandarie: You win haha
* http402 takes a bow

Curiosity killed

Curiosity killed the cat,
Curiosity killed my heart,
Curiosity killed my ignorance
Curiosity killed my hope
Curiosity killed my stupidity
Curiosity killed my boredom
Curiosity killed my love
Curiosity killed everything...
------------------------

Dunno if it qualifies to be a poem, whatever

I believe in Love!

Yup, that was Elton John. I was listening to Elton John when I started on a 3hr drive. Started the car and Nine Inch Nails started to blare, nnooooo NIN at 10.00am. Slapped in the connector to the mp3 player a then Elton John was on, then came the soundtrack of Notting Hill.
I was driving, with the sun rays hitting me alternating between the trees, filling me with the warmth, on a cold day, the music, just did it,

The rendition of She "Elvis Costello" is just great! The lyrics (source: http://www.lyricskeeper.com/notting_hill

_soundtrack-lyrics/64576-she-lyrics.htm) ,

She may be the face I can't forget
The trace of pleasure or regret
May be my treasure or the price I have to pay

She may be the song the summer sings
May be the chill the autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of the day.

She may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a heaven or a hell

She may be the mirror of my dream
The smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem
Inside her shell

She, who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud
No one's allowed to see them when they cry

She may be the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows of the past
That I'll remember till the day I die

She may be the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I'll care for through the rough and ready years
Me, I'll take her laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes, I've got to be
The meaning of my life is...she

Whoa, ohhhh...She
-------------------------

Elton John's other songs like the ones below are some of my fav's.

• "Candle in the Wind"
• Sacrifice
• Can You Feel the Love Tonight

Then came some other assorted stuff and out of the blue I was reflected on the moment. At that moment there I was, a part of me

• Enjoying the scenery of the drive
• Enjoying the music
• Maintaining a calculative look at the traffic far ahead
• Maintaining a 3 mirror rule.
• Of course reflecting on the moment

Fun! Yay! for multi-tasking.

Poem or gibberish?

Know know know
know who you are
know know know
know what you are
know know know
know where you are

But

do you ever know who you are?
do you ever know what you are?
do you ever know where you are?

But...

----

it is just one of really random ramblings... Philosophy or superficial bullshit?

Nooo! don't feed your daughter to the croc

LMAO!!!



Image source : tm-tm's photostream (Signage-Set)

Down by the Sally Garden

I had a sudden urge to read poetry. As a kid, I remember memorizing long poetry to recite in competitions in school. William Wadsworth Daffodils, gave me nightmares memorizing that. I remember WB Yeats, so looked him poetry on google and the first one that I come across is this.

DOWN by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;

She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.

She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;

But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,

And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.

She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;

But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

Awww f***, it is poem on love and it is a tragedy, Way to set the mood, buddy! thx.

source: http://www.poetry-archive.com/y/down_by_the_salley_gardens.html

Secrets of a Coffee Machine

I was sitting in the kitchen area at work, during lunch, typing away my previous blog entry, sipping coffee and watching the people pass by and lo and behold I see 2 guys open up the coffee machine and mess with it. They were replacing the labels on the different types of the coffee that it could serve. Now there are lot more options.

I need more coffee, tea bags and water doesn't do it. So I walk up to the coffee machine to see what it looks like inside of a 5.5 ft tall coffee machine. Alright nothing fancy really, no blinking lights and stuff, just regular plastic holders of different powders. So I ask the guy if he could give me how the machine worked.

The guy is all animated now and launches into an explanation. So this machine has several holders. IT has a holders for

• Coffee beans
• Chocolate powder
• Cream made from veges imported from Netherlands (eh? fancy that)
• Vanilla

So the there is a boiler and a piston. When some one gets coffee, the piston pushes the hot water through the freshly grounded coffee causing it have a right mixture of 4oz and it can't do more than that. Apparently in European that is the standard for amount of grounded coffee. He goes on to with disdain that here in the US, people are just used to drippy drippy coffee and lots of it. That made me laugh, seeing his expression, the expression of disdain and pain as if something precious was desecrated!

LMAO! He goes I have trouble with customers, they want 24 oz of coffee, which means regular 4oz of coffee with lots of water. Our machine serves only 8oz. He goes on to rant that the difference between macchiato and regular coffee is the amount of water and of course the preparation style! Ha ha ha ha, yeah buddy laugh away at the difference of amount of water but the preparation style matters :p.

Talk to my Italian friend C about pizza and he will rant the same way :p, you cannot get him to eat dominos pizza! I digress,

So the machine has seperate preparation chambers for hot choc with the creamer, that doesnt mix with vanilla, to give it a better taste and not some lingering taste of vanilla. He then goes on to talk about Starbucks was instrumental in introducing the whole measured way of preparing expresso than the large coffee pot style. That's interesting.

I ask him so what kind of controllers does this vending system use and if there was a SDK available for us with mess with. He laughed, yeah I can connect the coffee machine to the internet or to the phone jack. Now imagine that, before you leave your desk you tell the machine what coffee you want and lo and behold it is ready when you get there! And he goes, I won't be too happy if you guys messed with it. Aww come on what can us innocent engineers do :D We are totally harmless ;)

The coffee machine apparently uses MDB protocol to communicate to a software that runs on windows system (Yuck)! You can hunt for MDB/ICP protocol for details and see this video for open source coffee machine. Well he was done with changing of coffee machine and was on the way out. I couldn't help but laugh at his rants, funny as hell

Thank you Jesus!

My tummy goes growling, demanding attention, demanding that I have some itty bitty to satiate it. Me goes, alright alright, slowly drag my rear off the comfortable chair, groaning looking at the weather outside, f****, it is an eternity to walk 5 mins across to the cafe to get lunch. Yeah I am, being a cry baby and a lazy bum and need a good whack on my head to straighten me out. But hey I was working all night, so cut me some slack!

Each step, oozzzing with laziness, I make it to the cafe, arrrggh, no I am not getting salad today, tired of it and today is not the day for it. No wrap, sandwich either, leaves me with teryaki salmon, rice and mixed veges. hmmn ok, so I get that and a nutrient drink and walk up the checkout lady, she is talking to another customer, "Oh yeah it is friday, finally it is a friday, have a nice day" and I walk up to her, she goes "How are you", I am fine thank you, how about yourself", "Good good, its Friday, its Friday", and then she sings out loudly "Thank you sweet Jesus it is Friday", I am like wtf, whoa lady, easy there, it is nice to be happy and all , but wth is with that shouting?

Maybe I am being a jackass, maybe I need a chill pill, maybe the lady is just too demonstrative and everything is alright with me ;)

I came back to my desk I was laughing my ass off when I thought about it, oh well it is was funny

Rock Climbing

So made it to the local rock climbing place, took the basic course as refresher again. I was able to tie the knots fairly easily. I struggled last year with the knots when I tried them. Itz kind of weird that I was able to get it right on the first time after a year's time. I wonder if somethings that you learn just get etched in your mind that you struggle with it the first time but you do it well a time later. I guess its like how you learn to ride a bike and you never forget.

The instructor seemed like a cool guy and laid back and us (3 of us) let try stuff out, rather than go through a whole drill of lecture. The usual communication of what to do before climbing, checking the harnesses, the knots, the slack etc. Did a couple of climbs, falls and belaying. It was fun. The muscles of my arms were burning after a couple of climbs. I will probably come here more often than just a week since there are guys from the office who come here regularly.

Time to go digging for information on ropes,knots for starters. Wikipediaaaaaa.com!

Dude the expedia ad , with the whole expeeeeedddddiiiiii ddot COOOM! ruined it for me! I was humming wikipedia in my head like that, arrrgggh!

Restless Part Deux

If you are wondering what's with the whole restless saga, read about my first severe bout of it here. Lately I have been a little too restless. I realize of one reason, which is no longer relevant. I haven't run to seek safe haven in the comforting arms of music this time. Gave it a little thought. A large part of it I have concluded is that I have too much of time on my hands now. For the past couple of years I was doing volunteer work which I stopped earlier this year. The volunteer work took up most of my free time during the week and the weekends. After I stopped that, few things at work happened and suddenly the hours doubled and that was for a couple of months.

Now that work pressures have come down, I have a lot more time. This is what is causing me to be more restless. A friend of mine is teaching me salsa, I will be starting rock climbing again from today, I am planning a couple of ski trips as well, but all this is not enough. Wonder what is that I will find that is more full filling....

Expensive Cars!

Fairly recently my interest in expensive cars started. Earlier it was like what car is giving the best mileage and cost yada yada yada. I put a lot of miles on the road in recent years. As usual cruising in cyberspace and I land on this list of most expensive cars. Bugatti Veyron at a cool 1.7million. The videos of the car on Bugatti's website are pretty cool. The handling in the snow at high speeds was pretty impressive. I am not a huge statictisc rattler who has all details of how many seconds does it to take to get to 100MPH. I could care less. It is more of the design, elegance and the sheer power of the car that is interesting.

Speaking of which the second most expensive car Enzo Ferrari eh, not so much in appearance. Same reason the Pagani Zonda C12F not so much, the whole 2 mirror in the front on the hood, doesn't seem to appeal. The Koenigsegg CCX however had me drooling. If I were offered a choice amongst all the ones on that page I would pick this one. The others are kind of cool, but Koenigsegg, oooolllllaaa lllaa!

Archive.org

I had known for a long long time that http://www.archive.org existed. I never took the time to visit the site and look at it. I have been to LibriVox, Gutenberg Audio Books to get audio books of classics. I wanted to listen to some during driving. Somehow the experience is not the same as reading. I don't remember how I landed on archive.org anyway, so I was checking it out. I was ecstatic when I found they have an archive of live recordings! This has opened up a whole new world of music that I haven't explored before. Nice! Since its the end of the year might donate money to the organization.

Don't mess with the ZOHAN!

Ha ha ha ha, turn off your brain and watch the movie. If you are an Adam Sandler fan you will enjoy it. I like some of his movies, they are funny. It had its laughs and moments.

Plot, Adam Sandler a counter-terrorism in expert in Israel, gets tired of stuff he is doing and decides to fake his death and escape to USA to become a hair stylist. After a couple of attempts he then joins a hair salon run by Dalia, a Palestinian woman. The hair salon in in the midst of a street that is split with a Palestinian side and an Israeli side. The movie is about how his identity is discovered and how there are failed attempts to kill him, his antics in the salon and how he joins hands with his arch nemesis to save the street from becoming a mall.

One can watch it if you are in a mood for brain dead comedy.

Double Cross

Yeah, B&N had this book by James Patterson on sale so figured I would buy this. Been reading a lot of heavy stuff lately so figured this would be fun. It was eh! Nothing too exciting. It was okay.

The plot, a serial killer Kyle Craig is in a max security prison and he vows that he will be out soon. He is Alex Cross's former colleague in FBI. As Alex is relaxing taking a break from the force, a new killer is on the loose who acts out different personalities and kills people in front of public audience as if it was a theater performance. The new killer is dubbed as the Audience Killer. The race is on to find this killer and meanwhile Kyle manages to escape from prison adding to Alex's troubles.

Spoiler Alert! The Audience killer is a fan of Kyle. He and his sister are also actors and they enact roles of a marine and a teacher seeking therapy from Alex Cross to add a twist. Rest of the story is how all this comes to an end with both Kyle and Audience Killer having a race to who is gonna kill Alex first.

Yeah, there are a lot of holes in the plot and chapters end really quick just when you expect some tight knit logic on how the killers got access to the FBI agent who is killed. Buy it if you are bored out of skull and just want to read something.

Drill Baby Drill

Drill baby Drill! Lets wipe out beautiful towns and letz get OIL baby! Lets get the black gold so that we can drive few more miles. Lets wipe out beautiful town that make tasty wines. Lets convert a beautiful country side into a dead zone baby! Letz do it! Letz do it by misleading the locals, lets do it by misrepresenting the project in the papers, let pull a viel over the locals and hope they won't find out.

Well that is what ENI tried to do in small towns of Italy. The struggle of the locals against ENI's proposed oil drilling that would wipe out a lot of rich natural flora, national parks and local wineries is a classic David vs Goliath story. The story has not ended. You can read about it here http://apocalisseitalia.blogspot.com (Italian) and here http://savethemontepulciano.blogspot.com (English).

In this day and age when the focus is on alterative fuels and reducing global warming, it doesn't make any sense to convert lush green areas with people living there making wines for long time, into a dead zone of pollution and destruction. Please take the time to read it and support it. Any information that you can gather about and share would be helpful.

Incredible Hulk

I like to watch a lot of movies. Many from the international arena too. Time to watch another one and I picked the Incredible Hulk, for some reason I thought it was a sequel to the previous one. It wasn't. A surprise. Hmmn.

I am a fan of Edward Norton. He is a great actor, been following his movies from his second movie Primal Fear. He is a brilliant actor. So I was all excited to watch the Incredible Hulk. The movie starts out with laying down the background on how he became the Hulk. an experiment gone wrong. The ultra secret division of US armed forces that does experimental stuff of building a super skeleton is still hunting for him because they wanna make a weapon out what's in him.

The early parts of the movie is all about him learning to control himself. Due to an accidental cut, his blood drops into a soft drink bottle (he works at a bottling factory). The soft drink makes across to US and a guy gets sick and the secret gov group knows. The hunt starts. Meanwhile Banner (Hulk) is communicating secretly with somebody to find a cure, not very successfully though. Well they find him and then he runs and rest of the movie is about how he gets to univ to meet his old love, how the secret gov decides inject the serum into of their own creating the new monster that Hulk as to fight in the end.

The movie was enjoyable. It was a good action movie. Liv Tyler as usual was gorgeous and lit up the screen. :D

Bettle the Bard

Last night I was in Barnes and Noble, I was there to buy the book, Lord of Light. I was getting it based on a ex-colleague's recommendation after he read this blog entry. I stroll around, make my way to the Starbucks there, to get whatever is their this season's offering. I have tasted most of Starbucks stuff, I am not a huge fan. I seem to be a fan of local mom and pop coffee shops which kind of have more life in them. Arrgggh the queue is long, like really long, screw it, I go looking for the book that I am here for and my eye falls on "Tales of Beetle the Bard".

Holy shit. I completely forgot that this book was being released in Dec. Yeah, in case you missed, I am a HP fan. The cover illustration was great. Picked it up and it was pretty thin! I scratch my head and I am like I am going to buy this or just read it here :D . My urge to read the book won out and found a place to sit and started to read it.

Yeah it was laid out as a children's book. Lots of spaces between lines, just a couple of lines per page with the author's introduction to the tales. The tales of

• The Wizard and the Hopping Pot"
• The Fountain of Fair Fortune"
• The Warlock's Hairy Heart"
• Babbitty Rabbitty and her Cackling Stump"
• The Tale of the Three Brothers"

are there in the book. While the stories themselves are fairly simple ones, with The Warlock's Hairy Heart being a lil graphic. What is most interesting in the book is the notes of Albus Dumbledore. The notes are of what the tales really mean. The notes are brutally honest in conveying their message of what's important in life, what is the smart thing to do. I didnt expect the author to talk about censorship that parents trying bring about in order to protect their lil darlings. On the other hand it is not so hard to imagine why since there have been orgs trying to get HP out of libraries and denounce it. Reads notes of Albus in the story of "The Warlock's Hairy Heart".

I finished the book, returned it to the stack, probably buy it later. I do that sometimes, when I like part of a book or whole of the book, I tend to buy it later if needed. I got the book Lord of Light. It will be a while before I finish this book.

Aah, the coffee shop just announced free pastries! Yummy croissant's with choc filling is what I grabbed. They are closing up in an hour, time for me to bail as well.

After Athens

Itz a Sunday morning, itz a morning for feeling extremely lazy, a desire to just stay under covers and drift away back into sleep. Yeah, itz a day for hot chocolate in bed..... if only wishes had wings. A shout across the room, dude lets go for breakfast, that's my ex-aptmate Q ex(?)-Italian bf C . Grrrrr. Alright, in a couple of mins I am ready, not before I check emails and stuff and we head out. We drive to the middle of the town to see what's open. At 11.00am, the only place that even looks decent is this restaurant "After Athens". I am not really enthusiastic, since the last vist, a long time ago wasn't that great.

So we stroll in and we opt for the brunch. The dude there, directs us to through a door to another big room, which I don't recollect seeing before. My eyes lit up, the room beautifully laid out and the brunch buffet spread was mouth waterring. It was a good surprise. A great way to start the morning. Nice, it is going to be a good day inspite of the rain outside.

We sit down, order our drinks, water no ice for me as usual and we dive in. A start with lil salad, slices of fresh cheese, small muffin shaped french toasts laced with sugar, some bacon to get me rolling. While we dive in, we talk about normal stuff, idle gossip, till I go, "so C, what about that blog you were gonna start a while ago", then the conversation took a serious turn which I shall write about later. Time for in between to get another helping of the delicious food. There was the sausage patty, the chicken cooked in some delicious sauce which I can't name, tomatoes, cucumber, small wraps, boiled and fried veges as a side, to wrap the brunch.

Yeah, I am definitely going back there for when I visit Q again. We head back and I am off on my way to meet my friend from CA who is in town staying with his brother. The last I saw him was almost 2 yrs ago. Yeah this thanksgiving holiday will go down as a good one, save for one weird/embarrassing/insulting incident. The details of course have been long forgotten, conveniently ;)