http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=363449&cc=5901
Wow. The motherland is struggling a little bit these days...
Friday, March 31, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Monday, March 27, 2006
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Why must Dell computers always give me a headache?
Tonight I finally had time to set up the new family PC, a Dell Dimension E510, that had been sitting beside the front door for the last week-and-a-half. After hooking things up and plugging them in, I turned on the computer, ran through some setup wizards, then began uninstalling the numerous unnecessary programs.
After getting through a few of them, I ran across one that prompted me to restart in order to make the changes. When I hit "Cancel" to restart later, the computer promptly restarted...without logging out or saving any settings. Upon restart, I didn't make it through logging in before I was greeted by the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (or BSOD, as I fondly refer to it). Two more restarts yielded two more BSODs as soon as I logged in.
Hmmm...I sense a PC restore is in my near future...
After getting through a few of them, I ran across one that prompted me to restart in order to make the changes. When I hit "Cancel" to restart later, the computer promptly restarted...without logging out or saving any settings. Upon restart, I didn't make it through logging in before I was greeted by the dreaded Blue Screen of Death (or BSOD, as I fondly refer to it). Two more restarts yielded two more BSODs as soon as I logged in.
Hmmm...I sense a PC restore is in my near future...
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Wanted: soccer chicks.
My indoor soccer team is in need of more female players. We play on Tuesday nights sometime between 18:00 and 23:00. If you are interested or know someone who may be, please holler.
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Monday, February 27, 2006
Looking for a gay-friendly travel destination?
If so, check out Orbitz's Gay and Lesbian Travel page. The fact that they have one is pretty amusing...in a slightly awesome kind of way.
On a side note, did you know that Gay Games VII will be held in Chicago this year? Go to their official site for more information.
On a side note, did you know that Gay Games VII will be held in Chicago this year? Go to their official site for more information.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Adventures in computer maintenance.
For the past few months, I have had to deal with a defective Bluetooth card in my notebook computer. The symptoms were random BSOD/crashing (especially with the Bluetooth radio and/or VPN client enabled), pop-up warnings about a USB device not functioning correctly, and a randomly repeating (highly annoying) warning tone.
After trying to reinstall my Bluetooth driver on two separate occasions, I called up Dell a month-and-a-half ago and asked for a new Bluetooth card. After letting the card sit in my room for the last month, I finally decided to install it. This was a good two-hour ordeal which involved disassembling the laptop's keyboard, display assembly, and palm rest. In any case, things seem to be working much better now. Here's a picture of my laptop disassembled:
After trying to reinstall my Bluetooth driver on two separate occasions, I called up Dell a month-and-a-half ago and asked for a new Bluetooth card. After letting the card sit in my room for the last month, I finally decided to install it. This was a good two-hour ordeal which involved disassembling the laptop's keyboard, display assembly, and palm rest. In any case, things seem to be working much better now. Here's a picture of my laptop disassembled:
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
This week's fortunes.
You have a [sic] important new business developing.
Look around; happiness is trying to reach you.
Look around; happiness is trying to reach you.
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Wrong address.
As I lay in bed a few minutes ago, the doorbell ring startled me. When I went to the door, I saw a couple of EMTs with a stretcher, and there was an ambulance in the background. As I opened the door, they realized that they were looking for number 12017, not 12107, on our street. They apologized and left.
My thoughts on this incident: it kinda sucks for the people at the other house to have help arrive five minutes later than it should have because of a misinterpreted address.
In case you're wondering, yes, we do get their mail from time to time...and they get ours.
My thoughts on this incident: it kinda sucks for the people at the other house to have help arrive five minutes later than it should have because of a misinterpreted address.
In case you're wondering, yes, we do get their mail from time to time...and they get ours.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
I will soon be published!
I contributed to a paper that was presented at the Society for Experimental Mechanic's IMAC XXIV conference, which is currently taking place. Here are links to the abstract and to the conference site. I can't claim that much credit, as I was only the third author on this. In any case, I will officially be published whenever the conference proceedings are released, probably sometime later this year.
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Thursday, January 19, 2006
If you're looking for boots and you live in St. Louis...
...go to Chuck's Boots Superstore. They have, for the lack of a better expression, A TON of boots...of many different kinds. They also have some western-ish clothing, belts, buckles, hats, and sundry other items. I purchased a pair of Laredo Black Eagle Harness western boots there earlier tonight. I'd post a link to a picture, but I can't find them online and I'm too lazy to take a picture myself.
I witnessed a bird's suicide today.
I was merging onto I270 from Page on my way to work this morning, and a bird flew from out of nowhere into Tina. I'm not sure where exactly the bird hit, but it was somewhere low in the front. When I looked in the rearview mirror, I witnessed a puff of feathers, just like you'd expect to see in the movies. I was distraught for all of about 10 seconds.
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
I'm boycotting the city of Chicago.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Penalized for doing the right thing...
When I placed my newly purchased CD copy of the album Z by My Morning Jacket into my computer at work, I was greeted by an End User License Agreement (EULA) which mentioned the installation of DRM-protection software if I accepted. My immediate response: Uhhhh...no!
After more research with the help of my friend the Internet, I found that "the SOFTWARE" (as they fondly referred to it) was SunnComm MediaMax Version 5. Sony BMG was responsible for this and another DRM software package, First4Internet's XCP, which installed a rootkit on Windows computers. For those who are not up to date on their tech news, XCP created a huge controversy because it opened a security hole when rooted on computers. In addition, Sony's initial uninstall program also had a security flaw.
The MediaMax support website insists that the two software products, MediaMax and XCP, are unrelated. However, I observed that both had similar symptoms and both were initially fixed incorrectly. Hmmm...
Needless to say, I was not happy about this. And neither are many other music fans...a Google search on the topic yields countless blog posts which protest against Sony. Even the artists are quite displeased...My Morning Jacket, for example, has a link to help pages about working around the DRM protection on their website. It's also been reported that they have sent out over 100 copies of burned non-DRM copies of the album to friends and fans who have had trouble with it.
Fortunately, when I ripped the tracks onto my laptop using Yahoo! Music Engine, I was neither prompted with the EULA dialogue box, nor affected by the DRM malware. The ripped tracks play fine, and when I downloaded and ran the MediaMax uninstaller it informed me that the software was not found on my system.
Alas, this brings us to my views on the issue. Though I was not harmed by this malware, I am still enraged. These days, I acquire the vast majority of my CDs through legal means. This is not because I am more ethical than thou...it is actually mostly because I am lazy. I would rather use a subscription service, such as Yahoo! Music Unlimited (shameless plug), to check out what's hot in music and then order albums that I like off Amazon.com, than spend hours scouring the Internet for high-quality versions of songs. The few exceptions to my legal acquisition are when a friend offers to burn me a copy of something he thinks is the fire...this usually leads to me buying more albums by the artist anyway. I think it's a shame that someone who acquires music legally is put at risk by buying the CD. Oh, and Sony is wac.
After more research with the help of my friend the Internet, I found that "the SOFTWARE" (as they fondly referred to it) was SunnComm MediaMax Version 5. Sony BMG was responsible for this and another DRM software package, First4Internet's XCP, which installed a rootkit on Windows computers. For those who are not up to date on their tech news, XCP created a huge controversy because it opened a security hole when rooted on computers. In addition, Sony's initial uninstall program also had a security flaw.
The MediaMax support website insists that the two software products, MediaMax and XCP, are unrelated. However, I observed that both had similar symptoms and both were initially fixed incorrectly. Hmmm...
Needless to say, I was not happy about this. And neither are many other music fans...a Google search on the topic yields countless blog posts which protest against Sony. Even the artists are quite displeased...My Morning Jacket, for example, has a link to help pages about working around the DRM protection on their website. It's also been reported that they have sent out over 100 copies of burned non-DRM copies of the album to friends and fans who have had trouble with it.
Fortunately, when I ripped the tracks onto my laptop using Yahoo! Music Engine, I was neither prompted with the EULA dialogue box, nor affected by the DRM malware. The ripped tracks play fine, and when I downloaded and ran the MediaMax uninstaller it informed me that the software was not found on my system.
Alas, this brings us to my views on the issue. Though I was not harmed by this malware, I am still enraged. These days, I acquire the vast majority of my CDs through legal means. This is not because I am more ethical than thou...it is actually mostly because I am lazy. I would rather use a subscription service, such as Yahoo! Music Unlimited (shameless plug), to check out what's hot in music and then order albums that I like off Amazon.com, than spend hours scouring the Internet for high-quality versions of songs. The few exceptions to my legal acquisition are when a friend offers to burn me a copy of something he thinks is the fire...this usually leads to me buying more albums by the artist anyway. I think it's a shame that someone who acquires music legally is put at risk by buying the CD. Oh, and Sony is wac.
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