Z.Monkey’s Blog

Last night’s Bruins game was fucking awful.  Okay, I take that back.  The first 50 minutes were fantastic.  The B’s dominated the Saber (who have yet to mark up their loss column this year) for the first 2 and a half periods; notching 4 goals and only giving up one.  But then they fell into the prevent defense (dump and chase, I guess).  They needed to skate and keep attacking!  But they didn’t and the Sabers score 3 goals and ended up winning in the shoot out.  WTF.  It looked like the Bruins just stopped; like they became another team!  I thought I was over the frustration from last night but the recap on the radio this morning flared it up again!  Damn it.
To sum it up the Saber fought back even with a huge deficit, they never gave up, and the Bruins were/are unable to play an entire game.  This is why the Sabers are in first place and the Bruins are second to last.  Sigh.

Pretty much nothing. I’m wide awake but brain fried. I think it may have something to do with working 10 hours yesterday and getting less than 7 hours of sleep last night. The changing of the clocks is messing with me a bit more than usual. Is it screwing with anyone else?

Okay, I did pick my team for fantasy congress, so I guess I did something.  It looks like only two others have signed up and that none of them have actually picked there teams (why tizzom? why?).  I’m thinking that I’ll activate the league after the middle-term election… I’ll have to revamp my team depending on gets elected and who controls the house and senate.  If there is democratic majority in both then the big players will probably be dems.  Hmm.

…but I think their new Reader is an interesting product. The thing lasts 7500 page turns and the E-Ink technology allows the thing to keep the page up with using any more power. But in typical Sony style they are charging $350 for the thing. What?! You still need to buy the books, which are priced about the same as a book you can buy in the store so you end up saving no money. This could only be useful if you travelled a lot when you don’t want to have to carry a ton of books on a flight or pay the premium for buy a book in an airport. Who would need to use this at home? On a side note, I am kind of surprised that the books at Sony’s ebook store are not outrageouosly expensive. The cost would probably make me read lots of classics while I was travelling.

I would like to play with one for a bit, though I bet there will be significantly cheaper ones coming out in the near future. I bet it doesn’t even come with a built in reading lamp.

I may have said something about Jefe and I going over to the university proper to do some Labview coding.  This is intented to be something we can do on the side to make a little bit of beer/video game money.  Anyway, there is a person on campus, whose job it is to make sure that labs there have the equipment and knowledge to do the shit people do in labs (experiments and stuff).  He is the person we are working for and he is kind of difficult to work with.  When he is in the room, he hovers over your shoulder touching things, poking the screen and taking the keyboard away from you.  He even sat on my foot!  He questions everything you do and wants to do everything his way.  Basically he is a typical micromanager.

Have any of you had to work with these kind of people?  How do you get through it?  We find that if we just wait til he leaves the room we can usually hammer out any problems, but nothing can really get done while he’s hovering there.

Do you wonder if we all should have read this before starting to blog? One of the things this article tells you to do (so that you don’t start a blog) is read 5 random blogs for a month. I think this misses the point of the blog. You are supposed to read about stuff or people you are interested in! If I pick 5 random books to read I’d probably end up with some Romance, an Anne Rice book (boo…), and some crap targeted at toward young adults. Of course I’d be disappointed but that doesn’t mean the book medium is crap.

I need to comment on the DPL’s new book download program. The program is run by Overdrive and uses DRM handicapped WMA files. Now, I personally think that DRM is bad for business… and the Overdrive is a good example of why. Apple and Microsoft have competing DRM specification (both are proprietary) and neither is universially excepted. I doubt that Microsoft’s new portable media player will be able to play Apple DRMed media and I know that Apple iPod’s do not play DRM WMA files. Which basically means that we cannot use this new and potentially cool serve (unless we burn the audio files onto a CD then use those CD, or ripe the audio from those CDs and put them onto the iPod). It’s just annoying, especially when those things aren’t that cheap. (btw, the new iPod shuffle is very cool) On a funny aside, the DPL gave away a free iPod Nano this summer to some kid… I hope he doesn’t try to download any books! Maybe I get steal D14’s old non-apple MP3 player.

I’m tired.

I’m getting tired of this home buying process.  The condo we are buying appraised for about $7K less than we expected (yeah!) but that has held up the mortgage approval or restarted it (boo…).  I thought we were already approved so why would we need to get re-approved for less money?  So now it turns out we may not be able to close on Wednesday.  If this is the case I’ll be rather annoyed.  I want the process to be done with already!  I want to start moving in!  I want to be able to enjoy our new patio for a least part of the summer!  Sigh.

So now it should not be a problem.  Argh!  I kind of wish I had some idea of what was going on.  I feel like every time I ask ‘What do we have left to do?’, I’m told ‘Nothing. Everything is going fine.’  Then something comes up and I have to stress out for several hours before it resolves itself.

So I lost my notebook yesterday. That is where I write down shit I need to do… now what will I do today! Plus I am now required to go to the red light district to get a new notebook (which happens to be my car as I bought a three pack last time). Sigh.

One thing I did remember to do is to call up Verizon about transferring my account to our new condo. Here the deal (in a D14-esque complaining spiel). Yesterday I called up Verizon and went through their nice automated, voice recognizing menu system, and, finding no option that fit my need, decided to just hit buttons (say things) until I could talk to a human. The only problem was ‘please stay on the line while we direct your call to the next available operator’ was directly followed by ‘the number you are trying to contact is currently unavailable please call…’. WTF. I gave up, deciding to call again the next day.

Upon getting home, the scientist encouraged me to call again (much to my chagrin) and this time I was able to get through, but that department was closed (Indian call centers just aren’t what they used to be)! Blah.

So, I called again this morning and got through successfully… and here’s the deal. If you have a dry loop dsl plan (dsl with no phone) then you cannot transfer your account. You are required to cancel your account and, once the old account has been cancelled (note that this is several days after the date you tell them to cancel it) you can call them up and start a new account. Convenience at its best. Oh, and I also have to ship back our modem. On the plus side, as I said we were going to sign back up again they waived our early termination fee ($70. Though the email I was just sent told me that I am still subject to the fee. Sigh.)… hmm… this information could be used for evil. ‘Hello, Comcast?’

I’m sure all of you have seen/read something about the British government saving our citizens from terrorist attacks. And I’m sure you’ve seen our federal governments response (i.e. Banning all liquids in carry-on baggage… including toothpaste). Awesome, I almost never check a bag because getting your bag off the carousel adds hours onto your flight (there is nothing like standing in a airport lobby at 1am waiting for your luggage and wondering if you’ll fall asleep on the drive home). So now I can’t bring toothpaste, shampoo, shaving cream, or even water. Tis pretty annoying, if you ask me. But what really gets my goat is that no one is really taking this ban seriously. If they were would they be doing this? Seriously. I really hope terrorist don’t start using book bombs… the movies they show on planes are awful!

An accessory for all you ladies… it’ll go well with your Barry White CD. Um… This does remind me of the accessory that came out with the game REZ.

Answer: You are still allowed to bring your OhMiBod onto a plane… but no lubricant.

Okay, if you watch Jeopardy on UPN38 you may have seen this ad for HeadOn.

“HeadOn… Apply Directly to the forehead.”

It is annoy as hell, because they repeat the catch phrase over and over and over again. Blah! It gives you a headache, which I guess is their way of making people want their product. Watch this one… it doesn’t give you a headache.

“HeadOn… Apply Directly to the forehead.”

Or if you are French Football fans.

“HeadOn… Apply Directly to the forehead.”