Gimme Gimme!

Drooool!!!

I think I like this nuevo retro look more than the Audi TT.

Weird Day

Man I don't know if I'm dealing with mild depression or what, but nothing sounds fun. I find myself wanting to escape in TV or movies. TV hasn't been very helpful today. Not much of anything worth watching on. I'm thinking of going to see The Core tonight. (Sorry no link and searching for "The core movie" on Google give more "soft core" than The Core results.)

I woke up late, finding little reason to get up. I had to run some errands this morning and stop in at the office to fix the voice mail computer. (It needed a new CPU fan and power supply.) Good thing I planned on that today. The CPU fan totally died right before I turned it off. It's been making bad noises all week.

I find myself torn. I want to have fun and get over this "blah". But I also want to let it take me and just be all sapped out. Luckly I am fighting it. I don't like being depressed and I don't give up the fight easily.

I'm sure i'll get over it. Just a matter of being happy. I think I will go see a movie tonight. Getting out of the house will certainly do me good. Maybe stop at Applebees before the movie, have dinner and maybe a beer. Don't worry the movie theater is right next door. Besides, you don't want to drink a lot before going to see a movie. Sheesh, that's just dumb! LOL

In all seriousness, don't worry about me. I'm just using my blog today as an outlet. I'm a tough bugger and i've been though a helluva lot worse than this.

Fridays suck

I don't know why it happened or specifically when it happened but my Fridays have turned into Mondays and I hate it. I just want to go home. The first two hours were phone call after phone call with petty little problems that could have been gotten around, but of course the callers felt that it was the end of the world! Of course I exagerate, but thats how it begins to feel after the 2nd or 3rd call from the same person.

I kinda regret winning the employee of the year for 2002. Now expectations on me are even more intense. I place many on myself, but I'm getting a bit tired of being reminded that I am employee of the year now. Odd that something I have been wanting to get for the last three years I'd give up now so quickly.

There are personal reasons why this friday is difficult too but I will not get into those. There are some things that should remain off the blog. But work stuff on top of personal stuff is HARD. I've known many others who deal with it on a regular basis. I have new respect for their abilities to cope with crap at work. I'm not so good at dealing with my own emotions. I can't hide it well. I find myself appologizing a lot to coworkers when i growl at them on the phone or while fixing their computers. They aren't the targets of my frustrations and anger, nor are the people in my personal life. Probably 99% of the time its simply with myself.

I've noticed myself saying, "Sorry, I'm not mad/frustrated with you." Luckly i've gotten a fair amount of understanding. A few have gotten worried though. That because I'm frustrated with certain systems, that they must be failing or having problems. Systems that these other people use and of course when the tech looses faith they worry. I feel bad for making them feel that way. it wasn't my intention but my lack of emotional control has leaked out. I put my foot in my mouth more often when I get like this.

Everyone thinks things they know they shouldn't say. Some say them because they are mean or don't care. But in my case when I say them it's because my emotional/mental barriers that normally keep my foot from flying into my mouth are damaged or down. The gaurds are asleep at the gates. The only thing I can think of to do is to remain calm, but as everyone knows, that's not always possible.

I'm one who lets things slide off his back. I take promises with a grain of salt. I have faith, but I'm realistic. I accept that people make mistakes and would rather blow it off than get mad about it. But there are things and times when that's just not possible. When that happens, when my stress level is high I turn into an idiot. As I suspect most people do. I hate it. I feel like Dr. Jeckel and Mr. Hyde.

Just an FYI

In case there was any speculation that I've changed my views since things have started getting more difficult in this war, due to my lack of posts in the last few day, I want to assure you that I still feel this was the only way to get rid of this murderous bastard and his crime ring of "leaders".

Long live the soon to be liberated Iraqi people.

“Oh no. They’re surrendering at us from all sides.”

We only want Saddam and his leaders. We do not want to kill innocents or even soldiers for that matter, if we don't have to. Wake up world. We are not the bad guys here.

The surrenders continue and if they need to the "enemy" troops will kill their officers so they can surrender! You know something is wrong with a country when its soldiers would rather be in the hands of invading troops.

I wonder if these war protestors have bothered to listen to the Iraqi people?

Surrender

"These guys are not from the Iraqi army," Al Sahaf said. "These are not Iraqi soldiers. They are not members of any of the Iraqi armed forces."

Ok buddy, but these guys are still happy as can be to get the hell out of Iraq. That says to me that they fear YOU more than US. Hell they are surrendering to anyone, even the press!

The Iraqi people want peace. They want this war over. It's Saddam who is causing this pain to Iraq. Why burn the oil fields? Because he thinks it'll detur us from the goal. But we are not there for oil. We are there for his head! All he is doing by burning the oil fields is hurting his own country.

Hypocrites

The majority of Americans are Christian or Jewish. Many churches have programs to help the unfortunate. And now these same HYPOCRITES are protesting the war, saying we shouldn't be over there. We shouldn't be helping liberate these poor, hungry, beaten unfortunate souls.

Hell I'm agnostic and I have enough heart to know these people need our help!

It's not just America either, it's the whole world. Saddam is an evil man who will teach his children to be as cruel and ruthless as he is. Why allow a dangerous circle like that continue? Is it easier to turn your back on your abusive neighbor than to do something about it? Easier to make deals with the devil than to fight him?

I've read how this about oil and how we are declaring war on Islam. What the hell are these people thinking?? The United States has its own oil fields in Alaska, possibly as large as those in Iraq. I think the oil arguement is paranoid. And when has Islam ever been an issue here? We have no problems with Muslims. We have problems with evil dictators who lie, murder and rape.

To all those Muslims out there; we have no problem with your beliefs. Look at the United States with all its various religions and denominations. We are open to all beliefs. Do you really want to claim Saddam as a brother?

And so it begins

May the war be quick and merciful to those who are innocent and long and painful for those who are guilty. Iraq will soon be free from tyrany.

Still workin'

Did I say how much I hate databases??

I'm getting some dinner. Whoopie I can come back to work and wait some more. Goodie!

Working Late Again

Sometimes I hate databases. Oh wait...thats not sometimes, that's most of the time. In rare occations I am happy with them, but most of the time they are just a pain in the ass.

I know this is overly techy, but here is what I have to do.

1. Run a backup on the database. (30 minutes, at least) While this runs I'll sit and twiddle my thumbs.
   
2. Run a database "rebuild". (30 mintues) Twiddle thumbs some more.
   
3. Add some specific data calculations to particular database fields. (5-10 minutes) At least this is active work.
   
4. Run another rebuild to apply the new calculations. (45-60 minutes) Go get some dinner.
   
5. Test system to make sure nothing blows up. (10-15 minutes)
   

Total time 2 to 2 1/2 hours, starting at 5:30pm because I cannot do anything while people are still in the system.

I wish I had a TV here or something. Ugh. I'll probably actually do some other work. I can't stand sitting here doing nothing.

They don't get it

The AP is saying that people may start sit-ins and other social distruptive activities if war breaks out in Iraq. They don't get it do they?

If war starts we cannot go in half assed then pull out and back in. If we go in we have to finish this. Doing what we did during Desert Storm will not work and will only cause the destruction and hell everyone is so afraid of. We have to get rid of Saddam and then help the country rebuild. It has to be all or nothing.

These activists and protestors think that if they cause enough trouble here they can stop the war once it's started. Well if they succeed I say the lost lives and destruction that was caused for nothing is on THEIR heads.

If this war starts we have to be unified and support those troops that are risking their lives. Support those people who will be liberated once we are done.

The college student war protests were almost funny. "Books Not Bombs"?? This is nothing but a political ploy by those who are trying to get more funding for colleges. They are taking advantage of the situation and young students who are fairly gulible (hey I remember college, its not easy to get talked into dumb things). It's really pretty sad and pathetic of the person who started that little campaign. Hell even if we weren't going to war they wouldn't get the money so what is the deal?

I for one am going to be really f'n pissed off if people start treating our soldiers like they did the soldiers back during Vietnam. Those guys deserve our respect and support.

Too little too late

U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix wants us to believe that Iraq is disarming. Come on! Saddam has had YEARS!! He doesn't WANT to disarm. He will not comply. Why would he? He's got France in his pocket and Germany and Russia are being wimps too. What's the deal? Saddam knows he's got the UN licked. The UN has lost its teeth.

I'm actually disappointed in Germany and Russia. Both countries know what it's like to be ruled under fear by a heartless dictator. Did they forget already? Actually I believe the PEOPLE of those countries are more open then the goverments.

This is scary

I was hoping this threat would go away with the end of the USSR, but I guess that was just nieve.

Lets hope this can be defused. Needless to say we can't just waltz in to North Korea like we will Iraq. Scary, very scary.

If I were a villian

I'd be...

What Type of Villain are You?

mutedfaith.com /
<º>

MUAHAHAHAHA!!!

I hate working late

Here I am STILL at work. Our primary database blew to bits over the weekend and I've been spending the day trying to fix it. As soon as I thought I got it, nope, no dice.

So here I am sitting here waiting for the backup from THURSDAY to load. The Friday backup was when all hell broke loose. Something got scrambled pretty bad.

Opps, time to test it. Wish me luck!

---

YES!!! It worked!! Now I can go get some dinner and relax. So much for the gym tonight. That sucks. Now i'm off a day. Ugh. It was truely a Monday today.

The one shining light all day was Melly. :)

oops

Sorry guys, made a mistake. The Windows-L shortcut that I discovered (to lock your system, or log it out in XP Home) only works with Windows XP. I does NOT work with Windows 2000, which surprised me.

Sorry about that.

Who Are We?

I had some interesting thoughts this morning. If we were suddenly pulled into a galactic community, what would we be called to our neighbors? What would we call our sun and our planet?

Sounds simple enough but wait before you answer.

Our sun, our star can be called a couple different things; Sun or Sol. Sun gets the English vote, but what about the rest of the world? Sol is the Latin name but still doesn't cover a large portion of the worlds population. What if China and India don't like those names? They certainly make up for a HUGE portion of the human population. Something to consider.

At some point, very possibly in antiquity, someone decided to name the sun after the Roman god of the sun, Sol. Seems fairly sensible to me. Going after fact here, the Oxford English Dictionary offers that in Canterbury Tales (1386), Chaucer writes "Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe." This would appear to be metaphorical, but the OED credits gold and silver as actual, obsolete definitions for Sol and Luna. The first cited use of Sol as the proper name for the sun is the 1450 Ashmole Manuscript Treatise on Astrology "Sol is hote & dry but not as mars is."

Our planet is just as tricky; Earth or Terra. Though I suspect this one will be much easier to agree on. I think it's pretty much universally accepted that our planets name is Earth. Terra just never really took off though it still has potential. Earth, as a word, is fairly generic as a reference to soil, rock, sand and the "stuff" that makes up our planet. An alien trying to translate the name of our planet may discover that it translates to the name of their planet because they too used the same generic term. Of course the same could be said of Terra. Anyway, that's a tangent.

The biggest issue will be what are WE called? Are we Human? Are we Earthlings? Are we Terrans?

If you take Science Fiction as a queue, then you can see that many other races use their planets name or their stars name as the basis of their race name. You have Vulcans from Vulcan and the Centauri from Alpha Centauri. If we choose Human are we throwing a wrench into the works? Will we want to be called Human and end up being called Earthlings by our alien neighbors?

This question even comes up in a different degree without aliens in the picture. What if we colonize the moon of Jupiter, Europa. Will the residents of that moon be called Europians? Or perhaps Europeans? Even spelled differently they sound very much alike. Europe, will exisit for a long time, even after all the nations of the world merge into one (it WILL happen) there will still be a European region, as there will be American and Asian ones as well. So what now? Do we group all the Jupiter colonies into one name, perhaps Jupiterranean? Sorta works, "The Lands of Jupiter", but even then the individual colonies will want their individuality, as the moons themselves are very different.

Time will tell and this arguement will never be solved in my life time. Aliens likely know we exisit and choose to let us be as we are still very much barbarians, in the grand scheme of things. It'll take a few hundred years, perhaps more, before these questions will have to be asked with any seriousness. Now they'll just be asked by geeks like me. LOL