get your geek on

Oh, and there's going to be a Ghost in the Shell game for PS2? I'm all over that like white on rice!

09.27.05 11:41am(6 comments)

Change Marshall Fields? Are you mad?

As you may imagine, Chicagoans are pissed.... PISSED! Holy crap are they pissed. Not only are these people fucking with a truly Chicago icon, they're putting a NYC name on it too boot. I won't go into the Chicago vs NYC deal right now. The least you can do is:

1. go sign the petition

2. Don't shop at Macy's. I won't be.

09.21.05 2:09pm(0 comments)

The bigger they come, the harder they fall, one and all…

It all started on last friday afternoon where I went to reboot our case management server and it didn't boot back up again, some gorbage about the boot.ini and ntloader. So after working on it for a little bit, I determined that the scsi raid controller card was bad, but since this was a dell poweredge server (yeah, I know... I didn't buy it) I gave dell a call and asked what they could do for me. As it turns out, not much, big surprise there. Saturday, Albert , the network admin, and I both go in to work on this server. Albert tries to pull the hard drives but can't because the server is locked and there is no key to be found. A locksmith is called, after a minute of lock picking and 190 dollars later, we had an unlocked server and were on our way to getting thsi setup again. Tom and I were there on and off the phone with dell until about 11:30 Saturday night when one of their techs finally conceeded that it was probably a bad scsi controller card. However, since the server was 6 years old (!) and had been out of warranty for 3 years, we'd have to call aftermarket sales to get a new scsi controller card. Of course they weren't open at 11:30 on a Saturday night.

Since there really wasn't much we could do until Monday morning at 7am, when aftermarket sales opened, we took it easy on Sunday, played a bit of kingdom hearts, and headed to the German American festival in lincoln square. Let me tell you, these people know how to have a German American festival... Complete with big refillable plastic beer steins, sing and dance alongs with the polka band, and bratwurst and kraut on a thuringer. Perhaps its hardwired into my genes to drink beer, sing and dance and thats why I love it so much. But you don't have to have any German in you at all to like to drink beer, sing and dance, so who knows. After all, in heaven they have no beer so that's why we drink more here! Good times had by all, including the guy that we saw stumbling home, drunk off his ass with no shirt or shoes, mumbling to himself.

Monday, I spent the day trying to track down a raid scsi controller. We could've purchased one from dell, but it was 1400 bucks and we'd have to wait until friday to get it. Fortunately, CDW is based in a Chicago suburb and I heart CDW. They were able to get us a part by Monday afternoon. Unfortunately, it was only a scsi controller and not a raid scsi controller. So we got a new part on monday morning, but it was PCI-X and not PCI-64. Finally, third times a charm, we got 2 parts on tuesday afternoon, both of which were the right part and the first one we tried was functional. Also fortunately, Albert had been purchasing scsi drives to rebuild the server, so we just popped those in and set it all up with the new drives.

Back to Monday night, I started my first grad school class. I can't tell you how incredibly nice this program is. All of the classes are recorded and can be played back from the website. My professor is a native English speaker, funny, and fairly good and conveying concepts so far. Also, since this class is comprised of mostly working professional grad students, our program submissions are being graded on a turned in / not turned in basis. They don't have to compile, you see, they just have to be turned in. That way, if there's a problem that you're stuck on, and you cant get your program to compile, as long as you turn it in, you're OK. Granted, you need to know the concept from the program by quiz time (of which there are 4 throughout the quarter with the lowest quiz grade dropped). I've been burned by just this issue in the past, and it turned out to be a problem with my alpha account at bg that prevented my program from compiling, but since it didn't compile, I ended up getting a low grade on the biggest project of the semester thus giving me no chance to get higher than a D, so I took and F so that I could retake the class and replace the grade. Still sorta bitter about that. Anyway, java is very similar to c++, so I should be OK with learning it.

Fortunately, also, there seemed to be only 1 kid in the class, a younger guy who must've gone straight to grad school from undergrad, who needed to "share." You know the type. They're always blurting out things in class, personal information that no one really gives two fucks about, and only partially related to whatever it is that the professor is talking about at any given time. Now, I would rather there be no sharers than 1, but 1 is certainly better than 2, who get into a sharing competition, and then you have two assholes blathering about in class when you're trying to learn stuff. And this time, I'm really trying to learn stuff, instead of you know, growing up and learning about life, and boys, and money, and all that happy horseshit that diverted my attention from being a good student during my undergrad days. That being said, I'm still annoyed by any "sharers" and it seems as if the professor was too, so we'll see how this works out.

Back to the server, so we rebuild it and are ready to put the data back in, but when we look on the drives, the data along with the folder that it was contained are completely missing. Nowhere to be found. Okay, that's fine, lets check the backup... Corrupted, probably due to the bad scsi controller card. If you don't have good data going into your backup, then it's hard to pull good data out of it. Our last good backup was the previous friday night, leaving one weeks worth of work lost. Yeah, that's really bad. We ended up sending off the drives to a data recovery place who will be able to restore the files, but at a hefty fee of 2500 bucks and in about a week. At least we're getting our data back, although it will be a bitch merging it all back in. I've got a few ideas of how to do that though that should be welcomed by the staff and not too hard for Albert and I to setup.

Warning: this part has a lot of personal info, so if you're the type of person who says "Like, oh my wow, TMI!" then you probably want to skip down to the # sign.

0h, and on top of all of this, I'm dealing with all the joy that is the woman's monthly cycle, AND I've got the bladder infection from hell. Now, I'm prone to bladder infections. I get them maybe once or twice a year, and have been since I was much younger. My mom made me down kegs of cranberry juice when I was a kid, but since then I haven't been all too concerned with keeping up on my cranberry juice regimine. And this was the queen of all bladder infections I've ever had. I was feeling fairly miserable, so friday afternoon, I go to the doctor. She says, "So you think you have a bladder infection Holy crap, I guess you do!" Apparently, being warm all last week didn't phase me, but I had been probably running a fever since Monday. She gave me some drugs and sent me on my way.

# Welcome back TMI-ers.

Friday night, having taken my meds and feeling a wee bit better, Tom and I have a quick dinner at one of the two Thai restaurants near the damnen brown stop and headed to the loop to meet up our friends for board game night. I came across these folks on craigslist, thinking that it might be a good way to meet people, and that the type of folks that play board games on friday night are probably my kind of people. And they are, and everyone is really cool, nice, and we've got quite the little group going. So we met up and played one full game of trivial pursuit - 90's edition, which was fun because I don't think I've ever played a full game of trivial pursuit, and Tom got to show off his intellectual prowess, which is always impressive. We played some catch phrase and then someone mentioned that we should play kickball on Saturday, so we're making these plans and I offer up the park near where Tom and I live. We chat more about it on the train and I promise to send out an email (which someone else beat me to, but I was really drunk and didnt read my email before sending this one out). I also suggested we have a little bbq and our place after kickball.

So everyone came over saturday afternoon for a rowsing game of kickball. It was a lot of fun, but since we only had 10 people, that meant 5 people per team, and lots of running around. I don't run, so I was kind of a dud. I did, however, kick the perfect ball right over someone's head for a home run bring the score to 20 - 20 in a "to 21" game - this home run, athletic stuff being a first for me. Alas, the other team was able to score before us, winning the game. We all had a good time, though, and relaxed in the shade afterwards. Everyone was really worn out and sore the next day, Tom and I included.

So the party moved to our apartment, which is a little small for parties, but I think we managed it OK. Sybil had to get a little barking in at everyone, since she's a good guard doggie and all. Once that was out of the way, she was licking faces in no time (that lil slut will make out with *anybody* ;) ). Tom and I offered a selection of my special blend hamburgers, hot dogs, portobello mushrooms for the veggies (and janette brought her own high quality veggie burgers as well), chips and a veggie plate with hummus. The burgers were a hit as were Tom's charcoal stylings :) We all had a good time, just chilling, chatting, and eating the good food. A few people headed out but we also watched the MST3k "Final Sacrifice," which is one of my favorites. Good times :) By 9:30 or so, everyone had headed home and Tom and I were beat, so we cleaned up a bit and headed to bed not long after. Pictures for both events can be seen here.

Because on Sunday we were going to FARM AID!!! So we got up and around on Sunday morning, packed up some leftovers from the cookout, and headed to the tweeter center in Tinley Park, which is about a half an hour south of Chicago. Unfortunately, we missed the supersuckers, who I really wanted to see, but the first act we saw was Susan Tedeschi, who was really very good. Tom and I snacked on our packed stuff throughout the day, saving ourselves tons of money by not buying concert food. The acts following included, emmylou harris who is one woman who has aged beautifully, buddy guy with John Mayer, which was quite an act. There were these two hipsters, who were sitting diagonally to Tom and I and who were looking very obviously disinterested in all of the acts, so Tom and I speculated that they must be here for dave mathews. Sure enough, Dave Mathews came on to sing a set with Widespread Panic, and these people came to live... which prompted me to start making fun of them, of course. "Ohmygoddavemathewsissingingwithwidespreadpanic

andthey'resoawesomeilovedavemathews

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" That sort of thing :) It gave Tom and I a lot of entertainment throughout the night.

The highlight came, when Barak Obama (yes *the* Barak Obama, D-IL) came out to give an inspiring speech and introduce Wilco. HOLY SHIT! I was so excited I almost peed my pants. How utterly fucking cool is that? Needless to say, I got a little bit of my own medicine, "OHMYGODBARACKOBAMAUSSENATORCAMEOUT

ANDINTRODUCEDWILCOANDTHEY'REALLySOFUCKINGCOOL

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Tom and I tried to get some pictures, but I'm not so sure they turned out so well.

After wilco, I headed out to explore the grounds because I didn't care too much about seeing kenny chesney or dave mathews. Unfortunately, all the free sample booths were closed and even chipotle (yes there was a chipotle booth) was out of food. So I headed over to the patchwork farms booth, where I bought my "stop factory farms" shit when I went to farmaid in columbus in 2003, picked up some brats for Tom and I, hit the leinenkugels stand (the only other decent beer was pilsner urquell, and it was 9 bucks a beer) for some honey weiss at 7.75 a beer (I can buy a leinie's six pack for five fiddy! What a ripoff!). I came back during the kenny chesney set to find Tom playing tetris on his phone. We ate our meal and stayed seated for dave mathews, while the hipsters near us lost their minds and left shortly after the set was over. Following that was an awesome set by John Mellencamp (no cougar). I'm sure you can imagine the songs he played...

Let's talk a little bit about Neil's set. You can tell that this was a very angry man who was trying to get his point across without coming out and saying it. His first song, was "walking to new orleans" which he sang with an angry face. Then, on a stage lighted blood red, he sang an angry rendition of "southern man," which really took on a whole new meaning with the way that he presented it during this concert. I'm sure his overt subtlety fell upon many deaf ears, but I certainly got what he was trying to say.

Willie had some chick come out and sing a few gospel songs, then had his son, Luke, do a few songs. Tom and I speculated that Willie was trying to set up Luke as some sort of hank williams jr., except that Luke was really talented. Then, of course, Willie wasn't too stoned to play and went into his medley of songs in sort of a rush to end the concert. Then, there were some native americans on the stage in tribal garb, while willie sang some gospel stuff, which created a little mental disconnect for me. Meh, it was a good concert despite that, Tom and I were able to find the car, and headed home relatively easily despite all the traffic.

damn this is a long post...

09.19.05 11:47am(3 comments)

PUPPY!

click on the first commercial in the list

Oh, and I was accepted to DePaul's graduate program yesterday. They waived all but two classes, one of which I can still test out of. I still couldn't escape the reaches of Java though, so I'll be taking this class starting on monday. w00t! Grad School is teh 4w3s0me!

09.07.05 7:21am(2 comments)

It won’t work for you anymore…

- President Bush, September 1, 2005

This may have worked for 911, but it's not going to cut it anymore. Stop trying to tell the American Public that no one could have anticipated this. The people are pissed, and someone will be held accountable.

09.01.05 10:18pm(66 comments)