Mainly putting this here for my own reference, since I posted it on another site, and promptly forgot where it was. Some newer hardware does not support the default Ubuntu/Mint installation, and requires some flags in order to get it work. This was the case for my MSI GT780 DXR laptop, which I use for work (mint 12) and home (win 7).
I got it to load Mint 12 off the DVD. Mint 10 worked, but drivers were a big pain to deal with, and newer distros automagically have them. Note that this is from straight out of the box hardware.
First, remove any former raid setup, and install Windows 7 first.
1) After BIOS post, press CTRL + I to enter RAID BIOS
2) press 2 to delete RAID
3) press 5 to exit
4) enter system BIOS (delete key) and setup SATA from RAID to AHCI
5) press F10 to save and exit
6) (re)install Windows
Next, install Mint 12. This is sort of a carpet-bomb approach as regards to the settings, so I know a majority of these are pointless, but here's what I had set for the boot from DVD to work (I assume this works for the newer Ubuntu distros as well, since Mint is built on it):
1) BIOS:
USB Options:
Legacy USB: AUTO
XHCI: Disable
EHCI: Disable
2) Boot off CD, press any key to stop the 10 second countdown. Press TAB, and change the following:
REMOVE: quiet splash (optional)
ADD (before the --): noapic noapci nomodeset acpi=oldboot
I have a suspicion it's just the "acpi=oldboot" that is the magic fix on this one, so someone with more knowledge can chip in at this part.
I can confirm that wireless ethernet adapter AND the webcam work for the install.
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Booting into it after install:
uhhh...new problem. Boot fails...not surprised. We need to edit boot options.
Boot normally, and it fails, so you'll have to edit the boot command. Fun stuff:
1) At boot menu, press "e" to edit the boot command.
2) Go down to where it says "linux /boot/vmlin"
3) Remove "quiet splash" (optional)
4) Add "noapic noapci nomodeset acpi=oldboot"
5) press F10 to boot into it. The first time I did this, it actually froze while booting. Did it again and it worked (I might have misspelled something first time)
6) Now you're in!
7) Change the boot permanently: Open Terminal
8) sudo bash
Now, at this point you can edit the existing boot, or make your own script. I made my own since I'm a noob and can't comprehend the existing boot scripts yet. All I did was copy the innards from the boot menu, and added the working options.
9) gedit /etc/grub.d/01_gt780dxr (or whatever your favorite editor is :P) (you can change the 01 to any number to change the ordering - with it at 01, it comes before the other options in the boot menu)
10) SCRIPT: ("simply" copy what is there in the other script when you press 'e' on boot menu - we're just adding the other options in the linux boot line)
#!/bin/sh -e
echo "I hope this works"
cat << EOF
menuentry "Mint 12 - MSI GT780DXR boot options" {
recordfail
set gfxpayload=$linux_gfx_mode
insmod gzio
insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root c876a7ef-2ae7-4492-a481-c5150cd69408
linux /boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=c876a7ef-2ae7-4492-a481-c5150cd69408 ro noapic noapci nomodeset acpi=oldboot vt.handoff=7
initrd /boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-12-generic
}
EOF
11) chmod +x /etc/grub.d/01_gt780dxr
12) update-grub
13) exit
14) reboot and pray it somehow works...oh wow it worked
Now I hope some linux script god will reply and tell me I did this all wrong and post an easier way to do this
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So yeah. You ever have a moment like the following?
Last week, I went to the used bookstore, and while waiting in the checkout line, there was a cute blonde at the register. Nice body, and really tight pants. Short blonde hair that's styled really cute. You're like "alll riiiight".
And then he turns around.
Note: I am a heterosexual male.
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Might as well throw this one in the mix.
Ok, no walkthrough for installing BURG, so tough...plenty out there. HOWEVER, I wanted a custom background for the "radiance" theme I was using. Sure, can customize a new theme entirely, but the look and feel of radiance is good enough...just needs a new background.
1) Terminal, need to "explore" to the location of the current background...
gksu nautilus2) Go to
boot\burg\themeand open up the theme you want to change the background for. In my case, this is "radiance".
3) Open up background.png, and mess around with that. Ideally, you want the same "details" as the existing image so as not to have a weird, distorted image:
1680x1050
72dpi
RGB
PNG4) That's it! Reboot and be surprised at how easy that was.
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Man, I'm in a customizable mood today. Sigh. I need a Mac just so I can cover all 3 bases. For now, here's the only 2 I use.
Mint 12:
Code Sample:sudo gedit /etc/lightdm/unity-greeter.conf
Change the line that says "background" to a file location where your picture is. I tried with a PNG, but it didn't work, so stick with JPG:
Code Sample:#background=/usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint/default_background.jpg //old backgroundbackground=/home/sykohpath/Pictures/mikulogin.jpglogo=/usr/share/unity-greeter/logo.png
Logout-login, and you should see your background. If it's a black screen, check your file location and letter casing. I'm sure Image size doesn't matter - I'm using a 1920x1080; the default is 1920x1200, so I think as long as it's bigger than your screen, it'll fill it properly.
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Windows is harder than Linux...nice!
Windows 7:
1) regedit
2) HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, select Find
3) Search for OEMBackground
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWAREMicrosoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background4) If the key doesn't exist, create DWORD with the name OEMBackground. Change the value from 0 to 1
5) Open Explorer, and go to
%windir%\system32\oobe6) Make a folder named "info", and in that folder, make "backgrounds"
%windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds7) Copy-paste your background in here, and rename it:
backgroundDefault.jpgNOTE: File size must be less than 245kb.
8) That's it! AMAZING. Log off and you'll see it.
There's also programs that can "automatically" do this for you, but come on! where is the fun in that?
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heptadecagon, with a feline twist.
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I'm one of those people that like to have everything updated every day. So, every day when I log-in, I run Update Manager. Well, that's freaking annoying, why can't it run automatically? CRON JOB TIME.
First, get this through Software Manager, or whatever you use. The package is called:
unattended-upgradesNext, open terminal...well, open this biglong filename:
Code Sample:sudo gedit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/02periodic
And cram all this stuff inside:
Code Sample:# Enable the update script (0 = disable)APT::Periodic::Enable "1";# Get package lists every X days - apt-get updateAPT::Periodic::Update-Package-Lists "1";# Get upgrades every X days - apt-get upgrade --download-onlyAPT::Periodic::Download-Upgradeable-Packages "0";# Clean every X days - apt-get autocleanAPT::Periodic::AutocleanInterval "0";# Allow unattended script to run# Requires the package “unattended-upgrades” and will write# a log in /var/log/unattended-upgradesAPT::Periodic::Unattended-Upgrade "1";
Change how often you want to update...heck, just read the comments, it's pretty self-explanatory.
Next, confirm the settings for what you actually want to download.
Code Sample:sudo gedit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades
My default didn't grab "stable", so I had to add it at the top:
Code Sample:// Automatically upgrade packages from these (origin, archive) pairsUnattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins { "${distro_id} stable"; "${distro_id} ${distro_codename}-security";// "${distro_id} ${distro_codename}-updates";// "${distro_id} ${distro_codename}-proposed";// "${distro_id} ${distro_codename}-backports";};// List of packages to not updateUnattended-Upgrade::Package-Blacklist {// "vim";// "libc6";// "libc6-dev";// "libc6-i686";};// This option allows you to control if on a unclean dpkg exit// unattended-upgrades will automatically run // dpkg --force-confold --configure -a// The default is true, to ensure updates keep getting installed//Unattended-Upgrade::AutoFixInterruptedDpkg "false";// Split the upgrade into the smallest possible chunks so that// they can be interrupted with SIGUSR1. This makes the upgrade// a bit slower but it has the benefit that shutdown while a upgrade// is running is possible (with a small delay)//Unattended-Upgrades::MinimalSteps "true";// Send email to this address for problems or packages upgrades// If empty or unset then no email is sent, make sure that you// have a working mail setup on your system. The package 'mailx'// must be installed or anything that provides /usr/bin/mail.//Unattended-Upgrade::Mail "root@localhost";// Set this value to "true" to get emails only on errors. Default// is to always send a mail if Unattended-Upgrade::Mail is set//Unattended-Upgrade::MailOnlyOnError "true";// Do automatic removal of new unused dependencies after the upgrade// (equivalent to apt-get autoremove)//Unattended-Upgrade::Remove-Unused-Dependencies "false";// Automatically reboot *WITHOUT CONFIRMATION* if a // the file /var/run/reboot-required is found after the upgrade //Unattended-Upgrade::Automatic-Reboot "false";// Use apt bandwidth limit feature, this example limits the download// speed to 70kb/sec//Acquire::http::Dl-Limit "70";
Aaaaand you're all set. So now I can simply log in and magically...not manually update every dang thing.
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Ok so, I don't know *why* I had trouble finding this info. Here's how to automount a drive in Ubuntu:
1) First, open up terminal, and determine what type of drive format it is:
Code Sample:sudo blkid
With a second hard drive, it'll most likely be /dev/sdb1 or something around there. If you've labeled your drive, chances are it'll say LABEL="your label". Note the TYPE="xxxx", which will determine which of the following you'll use. In my example for my secondary hard drive:
/dev/sdb1: LABEL="Storage" UUID="92DEADA8DEAD8557" TYPE="ntfs"2) Now you'll make your directory for your new mount. I like to keep the name of the folder the same as the drive label, but you can name it whatever you want.
Code Sample:sudo mkdir /media/Storage
3) Man this is so hard. Now open up your fstab...
Code Sample:sudo gedit /etc/fstab
4) And depending on your drive type, follow only the appropriate one:
*NOTE* It doesn't show up correctly here, but there is a tab where every space is. This is important! Copy-paste from here won't give you exactly what you need, so simply delete each space and TAB once.
/deb/drive /media/location type defaults 0 0
Also, make sure you replace "/dev/sdxx" with your drive (such as "/dev/sdb1") and the "/media/xxxxx" with your same directory name you did above (such as "/media/Storage").
ntfs:
Code Sample:/dev/sdxx /media/xxxxx ntfs defaults,umask=007,gid=46 0 0
fat32:
Code Sample:/dev/sdxx /media/xxxxx vfat umask=0000,uid=1000,gid=1000,auto,rw,users 0 0
ext3:
Code Sample:/dev/sdxx /media/xxxxx ext3 defaults,noatime 0 2
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WELP. On New Years Eve, I was in bed by 8pm. April 1st? Here it is 1am, and I'm still up. YAY.
Normally (?) I'd screw up my site on the 1st, or make some random post on here about how I'm joining a monastery or something way out there like that. This time? meh. How about I just sleep this one off, since I have a full-on cold right now. Yeah, body is messed up all over, which is partly why I'm up at 1am.
Now that I think about it, I should have made a list of what I've done over the past years. ooo...actually can't remember what all I've done...that's sad. I've had some good ones! I promise!
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ok, time for a long script!
This generates an image that shows your recent viewing history on
My Anime List. Of course, it's all tuned for me, but it's all easily changeable. I've seen a few signatures for MAL already, but I didn't like how they worked, exactly. Some were just plain badly coded (not that mine is 100% perfect), so I decided to write my own:
Code Sample:<?php/* ----------------------- MyAnimeList.net User History Signature Generator ()----------------------- */ $url = "http://myanimelist.net/rss.php?type=rw&u=" . $_GET['u']; $file = fopen("$url", "r"); //store page contents into buffer if (!$file) { //if we can't create a file MAL is down, so create appropriate message as image instead! $image = imagecreate(600,110); $textcolor = imagecolorallocate($image, 255,255,255); imagestring($image, 5, 85,26, "Unable to connect to MyAnimeList.net", $textcolor); exit; //should make this end prettier } else { $buffer = ""; while (!feof($file)) { $buffer .= fgets($file,1024); } fclose($file); } //strip special chars $buffer = str_replace("n", "", $buffer); $buffer = str_replace("r", "", $buffer); $buffer = str_replace("t", "", $buffer); //parse RSS tags //grab all item things $pattern = "/<item>(.*?)</item>/"; preg_match_all($pattern, $buffer, $match_items, PREG_SET_ORDER); if(!empty($match_items)){ $x=0; foreach($match_items as $matches){ //[0] includes item tags, [1] does not //title $pattern = "/<title>(.*?)</title>/"; preg_match($pattern, $matches[1], $match_title); //description to determine status $pattern = "/<description>(.*?)</description>/"; preg_match($pattern, $matches[1], $match_description); //date $pattern = "/<pubDate>(.*?)</pubDate>/"; preg_match($pattern, $matches[1], $match_date); //link $pattern = "/<link>(.*?)</link>/"; preg_match($pattern, $matches[1], $match_link); //grab only "watching" if(strpos($match_description[1], "Watching") !== FALSE || strpos($match_description[1], "Completed") !== FALSE){ $anime[$x]->title = $match_title[1]; $anime[$x]->status = $match_description[1]; $anime[$x]->date = $match_date[1]; $anime[$x]->link = $match_link[1]; //optional formatting - will change "title - TV - Completed - X of Y episodes" to "title - X/Y" $anime[$x]->status = str_replace(" of ", "/", $anime[$x]->status); $anime[$x]->status = str_replace(" episodes", "", $anime[$x]->status); //Pre PHP 5.3 $before = explode(" - ", $anime[$x]->title); $anime[$x]->title = $before[0]; $anime[$x]->status = strstr($anime[$x]->status, " - "); //PHP 5.3 only //$anime[$x]->title = strstr($anime[$x]->title, " - ", true); //$anime[$x]->status = strstr($anime[$x]->status, " - ", false); $anime[$x]->status = str_replace(" - ", "", $anime[$x]->status); //increment object counter $x++; } } } $image = imagecreate(600,110); $background = imagecolorallocate($image, 0,0,0); $bgtextcolor = imagecolorallocate($image, 50,50,50); $textcolor = imagecolorallocate($image, 200,200,200); $linecolor = imagecolorallocate($image, 255,0,0); // ---- scrambled text background ---- // (OPTIONAL) $characters = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz01234567890~!@#$%^&*()_+-=`[]{}:;'|,.<>/?"; for($vcntr=-1;$vcntr<60;$vcntr+=2) { for($cntr=-1; $cntr<160; $cntr+=2){ $letter = substr($characters, rand(0,(strlen($characters)-1)),1); $spacing = (rand(1,10)+($cntr*4)); $vspacing = (rand(1,10)+($vcntr*4)); imagestring($image, 5, $spacing, $vspacing, $letter, $bgtextcolor); } } // ---- logo image merge ---- // (OPTIONAL) $logo = @imagecreatefromgif("http://www.sykohpath.com/images/sykohpath.gif"); if($logo){ //logo was loaded imagecopymerge($image, $logo, 15, 12, 0, 0, 50, 50, 100); imagerectangle($image, 15, 12, 65, 62, $linecolor); } // ---- generic linkback ---- // (OPTIONAL) imagestring($image, 4, 485, 90, "sykohpath.com", $linecolor); // ---- anime title status lines ---- // (REQUIRED) for($i=0;$i<5;$i++){ if(!empty($anime[$i])){ //readability lines imagerectangle($image, 85, ($i*16)+25, 580, ($i*16)+25, $linecolor); imagestring($image, 5, 85,($i*16)+10, $anime[$i]->title, $textcolor); imagestring($image, 5, 400,($i*16)+10, "(" . $anime[$i]->status . ")", $textcolor); imagestring($image, 5, 480,($i*16)+10, date("Y M d", strtotime($anime[$i]->date)), $textcolor); } } // ---- border ---- // (OPTIONAL) imagesetthickness($image, 2); imagerectangle($image, 0, 1, 599, 108, $linecolor); // ---- generate the image (finally) ---- // header( "Content-type: image/png"); imagepng($image); // ---- free up resources ---- // imagecolordeallocate($linecolor); imagecolordeallocate($textcolor); imagecolordeallocate($background); imagedestroy($image);?>
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The last episode of Black Rock Shooter (tv) aired, and goodness, quite a ride.
I absolutely love the "other world"; great visual effects surrounded by action and fantastic designs by
huke. I've actually ordered his art book, which should be here next week - it's full of BRS designs, and comes with a figma, too! For the other-world part of the anime, it's 10/10.
Then there is the "real world" aspect of the anime. In looking at nothing but the reality part, we're presented with hyper-emotional girls and an apparently sadistic counselor. In the end, everybody is happy, but the presentation just seemed to drag down the quality of the story. Just this part is a solid 6/10. Yeah, it wasn't as enjoyable as it should have been.
Overall, the anime is a 7/10, whatever that means. Since it's part of the BRS world, it's impossible to avoid comparison with the OVA; the same characters are used in the same setting, with a similar story. The OVA focused entirely on the relationship between Mato (Black Rock Shooter) and Yomi (Dead Master), and I wanted to see more of the other characters within the world. The TV series used the other characters, which I enjoyed, but the story in the OVA I felt was stronger overall. The character designs had some minor tweaking, although Dead Master had more of a "wedding" theme with more green; the green is better, but the outfit in the OVA felt better (not to say I didn't like the TV version).
Again, I'm anxious for the art book to see if there are other renditions of the characters.
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Current status: Episode 3/12
Just watched 3 episodes in a row, and was taken back by a rather nasty twist at the end of this episode.
From the start of episode 1, we're presented with a "ghost story," and we quickly figure out what's going on. All is fine and dandy in creepy-anime-world, and then...expectations are suddenly smashed with a hammer. Seriously. It was surprising enough where I had to come to this blog and do an actual anime post about it. No spoilers, of course, but I have to say, "Another" is a rather good anime, at least for the first 3 episodes.
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I was once a professional exterminator (Terminix). At the time, we had these cans that would shoot really fricking far, and "insta-kill" wasps. It didn't have any staying power, however. It would just soak a nest, but of course, wouldn't kill any wasps inside (plus there's ones "out" that would eventually come back).
So yeah, that would cause us to get called out multiple times if we only used the spray. Here's what we would have to do. Each of us had a de-webber that would extend like, 10' or so. We also had our normal pressure-canister of bug-killer (the stuff that is preventative and lasts 30+ days or so). Using the dewebber, we'd knock the nest down, and then simply spray using our preventative on where the nest was. Wasps return home based on memory, so they'd eventually land in the preventative spray and die that way.
------- vietnam flashback follows ------------------
Biggest nest I've had to deal with was larger than a volleyball, and was on a mobile home. There was no "cover" for me, and there were an assload of wasps just flying around. Our dewebbers were bright yellow, and made a great target for wasps (better than us!). Every time I got close to this nest, however, wasps would not only go after my distraction-wand, but after me as well. So what to do if I can't get close to it?
I know that wasps need to have time to land before stinging. Also, we were required to wear long-sleeve shirts and pants. Our only exposed skin was hands and head. Most of us wore hats as well (Everything company-issued). I was a good distance away, so I just started running, with my wand joust-style up in the air aimed at the nest. The instant I hit it, a HUGE BURST of wasps exploded from the nest as it fell, and I swung my dewebber away from me as I turned and ran the fuck away from the huge mess I just caused. Of course, I was dragging the wand behind me in the grass, looking for wasps on my hands and trying to pay attention to anything in my hair or on my face. Once I was far enough away, I dropped the wand and checked my clothes for wasps. None of the bastards were on me, thank goodness. There were quite a few attacking the yellow tip on my dewebber, but those were easy to brush off into the grass. Looking back at the mobile home, there was a really large cloud of pissed off wasps I now had to deal with.
The majority of wasps are pissed off for not very long before they determine there's no threat nearby (cocky bastards), so I took this time to walk back to my truck, prepare my preventative spray, and then arm myself with one can in each hand of the insta-kill spray. I essentially respecced from melee to ranged.
The thing about the insta-kill spray, is that it knocks wasps out of the air immediately. They fall to the ground and sting whatever is in reach, before dying within two minutes after contact. This was a day I was grateful for wearing (steeltoed) thick workboots. Also, I taped the cuffs of my pants to my boots, to prevent any crawlers from getting up there (not likely with the spray, but why chance it).
So, I walked toward the cloud, guns blazing. My first spray knocked directly into the middle of the cloud knocked down a visible hole, so I just went all-out. I used up 6 cans of the stuff before most of the cloud was gone. The grass looked like it was moving; so many dying wasps exercising their stingers for the last time in their lives. The still active nest, lying on the ground was the final target, of course. Amazingly enough, it still held its round shape, except for a nice dewebber-sized dent in the side. Apparently paper doesn't hold too well to vinyl. I soaked that motherfucker until it was flat.
I finished off the massacre by spraying preventative spray all over the area where the nest was. Mind you, the whole time this was happening, wasps were returning from their scout-missions, wondering what happened to their castle-sized nest. Whenever a nest is knocked down, wasps will try to rebuild on the same spot, so eventually a nice gathering of wasps were getting covered in the spray. It's slow-acting, with the intent that the spray will "accidentally" be applied to other insect that touch each other. Good stuff, but damn it's slow.
The next month for my regular service call, I inspected the area. Not one wasp was in the area. Mission complete.
Also, still to this day, I have never been stung by a wasp or bee.
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Speaking of memorable stories:
One customer had a dead and just starting to rot squirrel in their driveway. They wanted me to dispose of it. I was brand-spanking-new on the job, and apparently we weren't supposed to take care of things like that. Oh well, too late. I put it in a trash bag and threw it in the back of the truck.
At the end of the day, I remove the bag from my truck, and put it in the garbage can back at the office. I mean, this is a special garbage can made for disposal of hazardous things, so I figure that's the best place for it. I go on my happy way, thinking job well done.
Now, about a month later, during an office meeting, the branch manager starts telling a story about how the higher-ups decided to make a surprise visit at the branch, and how on that same day "someone" had put a dead squirrel in the garbage can. Needless to say, they weren't pleased (regardless, we were still the best branch in the region).
For my boss's birthday, I got him an emperor scorpion (big black thing). He fed it black widows. He also had a bug container that he kept black widows in (he collected them from jobs).
Oh yeah, one of his stories. He and his boss had to clear out a crawlspace of this really freaking old house. This place was bug-heaven, apparently. For example, they found an old roll-top desk that was literally crumbling. On opening it, a bajillion baby/spiders were exposed. Anyway, they had to clear out the crawlspace - so they remove the door to it (was inside the house I guess), and there literally wasn't a clear spot to go down; the entire entrance was webbed and had black widow spiders living under the door. My god, if I had pics of this, I would have so much karma...anyway...
They had to put on full-body suits, and just...well, jump down into it. I think they did the pyrethrin dust treatment - a machine that pumps out a ton of the dust, and kills on contact (preventative mainly). This thing pumps out a TON of dust. What it does, in short, is affect the nervous system, causing bugs to become overactive - that's a symptom that happens within seconds. So yeah, they're down there, and turn this thing on...basically have to crawl around the crawlspace and dust every square inch of it. So now you can imagine an innumerable number of pissed-off black widows crawling over these two guys. Fortunately the suits are pretty thick.
As you can imagine, when they finally finish and get out of the crawlspace, they're covered in black widows. He didn't say how they got them off, I assume their massive balls crushed all the spiders under their weight. Anyway, one of them did manage to get under his full-body suit and bite him on the shoulder. Left a nice big black-ish mark.
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Let me say this...avoid Mexican and Chinese restaurants/markets lol.
Ok here's by far the worst one I've ever treated:
Now, I was a tech in a major-ish city, and with that comes neighborhoods with the standard good and bad areas. The reason I say this, is because it seems like the health department has never heard of these mom and pop places. I swear I'm not racist, but this is just how things were. The Chinese and Mexican restaurants were filled with a grease-like substance. I mean, it coats the walls. The longer the establishment has been operating, the thicker the stuff on the walls is. I'm not talking about chains, mind you; they at least have some sort of cleaning schedule (not to say they're immune from infection, it's just...less). This is of course mainly noticeable in the kitchen area, so if you can somehow sneak into one, run your finger on the walls and you'll see what I'm talking about.
There's a Mexican food market in a bad part of town that has just signed a new pest control contract with us. I arrive there, and no one speaks a word of English. From high school, the best I can say is "yo hablo poco espanol" (high school also taught me Spanish swear words, but those weren't applicable on the job - one time I said "el cucaracha es muerte" and got a funny look). So anyway, the people there point at the walls, and it's obvious what I need to do. I need to burn the motherfucking place down. Unfortunately, that kind of treatment is not allowed by our branch.
Let me point out a tip about cockroaches: they like darkness, dampness, and heat. If you see a roach in the light, more than likely it can't find a hiding place - meaning that all the hiding places are already full of cockroaches. This place had roaches scattered all over the walls (they like to hang out around the top edges of rooms, and congregate into groups). One of the best prevention tips is to keep food in sealed containers, and to make sure there are no water leaks anywhere. There's a reason I mention this. Also, a common theme I see with (cheaper) Mexican and Chinese places is that they build furniture-things with these massive gaps at the joints. Whenever you visit a restaurant, look at where the wood meets, and you'll see what I'm talking about. You'll also spot roaches in there, too.
Ok, this is a Mexican market. It's in a strip-mall, so it's likely that any infestation has already reached the other neighboring stores. It's literally impossible to stop this infection, but I won't be told I didn't try. They have exposed food lying on counters. I'm talking meat. They leave it sitting there all day, and overnight, exposed. In the back of the store is a very small bathroom with a toilet, and water dripping from some random spot in the wall, with water on the floor. Oh yeah, all the walls in the store were half-finished, meaning that the front of the store had sheetrock, but there was nothing behind the walls (except the normal side walls and back of the store). There is a drop-ceiling, with about a foot of space between that and the real ceiling. So we're talking hiding spots everywhere.
They let me into the store, and expect me to treat everything like it is. The chemical we used at the time for roaches was on-contact nasty stuff. We had to wear respirators and gloves, since any contact with skin was bad. Let me say it would be illegal for me to treat around exposed food and water sources. I turn around and try my best to tell them that food needs to be covered and stored...fast forward an hour or so, and everything is finally set - food has been moved into plastic bins (lol), and water has been cleaned up in the bathroom. I can finally get to work...mind you, the store closed at 11pm. The employees wait out front for me to finish since they have to lock the door when I'm done.
So yeah, I find where the main counter meets the wall, and take a flashlight to the crack. Queue the part where several roaches freak out and try to escape the light, which consists of running out into the exposed light. Yep, this is where I'll start. I shoot into the crevice, and flood out an innumerable amount of the little bastards (oh yeah, another thing I forgot to mention - we needed to tuck our pants into our boots and tape them to prevent roaches getting in). There's roaches crawling all over my legs almost immediately after I spray just this one area. Spraying that one crevice also flushed out a black stream of roach-shit - normally roach droppings are around the size of a grain of sand - this was...black colored pest control fluid.
From there, I go around the perimeter of the store, hitting the edge of the floor and ceiling. The drop-ceiling part needed pyrethrin dust (since it was a hollow space), so I needed to put a puff up in there at every ceiling tile. By this time, the walls were literally moving. Roaches were covering all of the plastic sheets covering the store's product (also dropping from the ceiling). I go behind the fake-ish walls, and by this time, they are nothing but moving masses of black. Normal treatment is just perimeter, but I switch the sprayer to "fan", and just crop-dust the walls. For some reason, the bathroom didn't have any roaches in it by the time I got that far (besides the ones I brought in that were crawling on my clothes). Also yeah, I had to constantly flick them off my neck and face. Thank goodness they don't bite. Also, every step I was taking had at least a "crunch" or two.
I end the treatment, and go out the front door. The lady sees that I'm finished, and walks straight in the store, all the way to the back, and turns off the lights. She then walks through the store through the front door and locks it. Even though she has just walked through the seventh level of Hell, she acts like it's just a standard stroll in the park.
They called me back the next night...its impossible to explain that these treatments need time to work, but meh, it's a good excuse to survey the damage. Dead roaches have been swept into piles along the walls. Food was back on the counters, still exposed, with dead roaches lying on the other tables and shelves in the store. The back area wasn't even bothered with, so it was just a carpet of crunchiness. The workers had moved in stock boxes into the back, and apparently just stacked them on the roach-carpet. I opened one of the boxes, and sure enough, it was infested. Welp, I tell them that they need to put the food away properly, and then do a light perimeter treatment...even off that, roaches were still crawling out of the cracks. I finish up without any other issues.
A few days pass, and I'm meeting with my boss. He tells me that they had called the next night, and that he personally went out there to see what was going on. He could tell I treated everything, and noted that the roaches were still left all over the place, without proper cleaning. He said he got the hell out of there, laughed, and called the Health Department.
I drove by there a few days later out of curiosity and they were closed.
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I mentioned we service in the winter...heh can't believe I forgot about this one.
Randy had to occasionally ride around with other techs as part of his training - mainly to observe and write up reports about how we did service. I pick him up at 6am, and only have 4 stops on my list for the day. Shoot, we'll get this shit done in an hour, tops. The thing is, these stops are up in the mountains. As I'm driving up there with him, it starts to snow.
The trucks we are assigned are not 4wd. They're Ford Rangers from 1980 something. They have no power to them at all. Fortunately we carry chains, but we figure we'll put them on at the first stop (since we're almost there). Well, suddenly I have to drive up a steep hill in the snow, and make a left onto a sideroad up the hill. There is quite a bit of traffic coming down the hill, so I take up the middle lane, and sit there with my signal on. A rather large semi-truck pulls up behind us, needing to turn on the same road. Finally, and opening, and I slowly hit the gas. We're not moving. The tires are spinning, but we're just not going. Randy hops out, gets behind the car, and starts pushing. It's successful, but, we're now in the middle of the opposite lane, and cars are trying to stop going down a hill.
Randy turns on his Hulk powers and pushes us into the side road - a sliding car nearly kills the poor man, but he's running and it barely misses him. He's yelling "GO GO GO" as I go on the side-road, and I see why; the road is covered in snow, and goes up another hill almost right away - if I stop, we're probably going to slide back into traffic. So yeah, I'm trying to build up speed, and Randy is running as fast as he can beside the car, trying to catch up and hop in. We barely make it up the hill, and he says to stop in order to put the chains on. We hop out and get to work on the chains. Randy stops and says, "I think you pissed off the truck driver." I look, and sure enough the semi driver is cussing and putting his chains on his semi in the middle of the street - there is no way he can get any traction to pull onto this side-road.
We finally make it to the first stop. This is in a neighborhood further into the mountains, and the snow has been continuing nonstop the whole time. Randy helps pull out some of the equipment, and we treat as best we can around the house. This whole time we can't believe how awful this is going. I mean, it's really coming down. At the third stop, the snow has built up to be as high as half the truck height.
The next two stops are similar, but nothing exciting happens - just an assload of snow, shoveling, and pushing a truck around (even with chains haha). It's around 6pm, and the last stop is back down at a low elevation - it's a rough drive going down, but I swear, the instant we drop below a certain point, there is NO SNOW, and it's literally 60 degrees. The last stop is a self storage spot, and Randy sits in the back with the sprayer while I drive around each building.
He marked my report "pass" with no other comments.
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So yeah, there were bad places, right? Here's the worst residence I treated. This is pretty bad, so advance-warning.
Part of my route covered a "not a safe part of town" residential area. At the time, I was a young, naive white kid in a pest control uniform. Scared shitless, I've been given this one-time-treatment contract for this...shack.
It's a duplex, but, one side doesn't have a roof. My contract is to treat the whole thing, too. I walk up, and this guy with no shirt, and this LARGE gauze bandage on his stomach answers the door. He doesn't answer it cheerfully. I say I'm here to treat for bugs, and suddenly he lights up and is the friendliest person one could ever meet. He calls his girlfriend(?) over to point out where they saw bugs (specifically roaches). This side of the duplex is fairly clean and well taken care-of, however, they have a teenage boy that "lives" in the other part of the duplex. I'm lead to a door that opens up into the other side.
When you open a door into a residence, you should not be hit in the face by the sun at noon. I give my best "wat" expression, and she motions me to go in. She won't enter the place, and for good reason. There's dog-shit all over the floors. Undisturbed dog-shit. Apparently the son had a pet dog, and the dog squat down wherever it felt like on the floor, and not the fenced in yard outside. I'm talking mine-field here.
The bedroom had a mattress with one yellowed sheet. I couldn't tell if that was the natural color, or the dog/owner had just simply pissed the thing all over and left it like that. That was all that was in the bedroom (besides dog-shit). I hope you haven't forgotten that I've mentioned there isn't a roof on this side of the duplex, because, it's still not there. This dude literally camps out under the open sky every night.
The kitchen had no doors on the cabinets. You know what? I literally can't describe anything else in this place, since there literally wasn't anything else in this place, besides missing doors, a mattress with a yellow sheet, and did I mention dog-shit?
I do a perimeter treatment, and do what I can as far as a normal treatment. I bait for roaches in the cracks, and finish up this side. Alright, got this done. I open the door back into the "civilized" part of the duplex, and the man that had the gauze on his stomach was now lying on the couch, gauze removed, and preparing a new pad. This guy had no skin on his stomach. A visible cut-square of flesh was just missing, and the fat-layer was just there, exposed to the open air (no blood, mind you). He started talking to me like nothing out of the ordinary was happening, "See any bugs?"
I finished treatment of the place, and the amusing part of it all? I saw 0 bugs in the entire place. I never got a return service call to the place either. I assume the dog-shit half of the duplex had scared away all the bugs, causing them to move into a better part of town.
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Ok, this one client was batshit insane. He lived out in the middle of nowhere, and his place was powered by generators. I mean, if you met this guy in real life, you wouldn't suspect a thing, but the instant you saw his mobile home out in the middle of nowhere, the first thought that would cross your mind is "I'm not leaving this place alive".
He had this rusty barb-wire fence surrounding his property, and he had signs saying something like "You're under surveillance" (memory is foggy on what exactly they said - they were generic warning signs of "keep out", but with more conspiracy theory themed wording). There was a weedy, narrow dirt path leading up into his place...oh yeah, he had one of those large metal swing gates. He was nice enough to already have the padlock unlocked, so I could open it. I didn't see any cameras, but his place was easily visible from the front gate. I mean, if the guy had a sniper rifle (assuming he did haha), he could easily get a clear shot straight down to whoever was messing around with his gate. This was one of the times I was glad there was a giant "Terminix" logo plastered on the side of my truck.
Oh yeah, another worry? No address letters. I mean, at the time, there was no GPS or Google maps. We had these large map-books of the area, and the best detail they got was just a scribbly line with the name of the street. You want "Dead Bodies LN"? That's in Square I-4. Good fucking luck to you if you find it, because the map drawer didn't even bother driving up that road. So yeah, I had to "guess" that I had the right place, most of the time for first visits. After that, it was easy to spot-memorize locations.
So I drive up there, knock on the door, and the guy answers. Really nice guy, and kinda nerdy. He invites me in, and there's hardly anything in the place. I mean, he had these HUGE antennas on top of the place, and of course, crazy-person signs all around the outside, but the interior was spotless (everything was decorated brown...linoleum floor, panel walls, countertops). No dogs, which I kind of expected from these out-of-the-way places. He gives me a quick tour, and in one bedroom, he has this massive server room (has about 7 computers under a fold-out dining table, with 3 monitors on top, also has wires running up to the antennas). Never bothered to ask what it was (fearing for my life as it is at this point), but yeah, suspicious much? You bet. The guy didn't even have a tv in his place.
So yeah, getting to the actual pest story. He wants a normal treatment, but he wants me to get rid of a possum living under his mobile home. At this point, who am I to say no, even though this was after I found out we don't deal with "animals". I figure I can scare the thing away and then tell the guy to seal up any holes in the skirting.
He takes me out back, and he has this fire-pit made of cinderblocks. Apparently he burns his trash in it. Anyway, what he did was, he came home one night and heard something rustling in his garbage can on his back porch. It was empty at the time, so he lifted the lid, and there was a possum at the bottom, just staring up. The crazy son of a bitch lit his fire-pit and dumped the possum in there. Of course, the animal didn't like that one bit, so it jumped out and ran right under his house, still having bits of flaming paper stuck in its fur. He said he's left the can open several nights since, but it hasn't jumped back in, even with "bait" (who can blame it haha).
He removes a panel, and I crawl under - immediately, I see light coming through a hole in the skirting, and make a note of it. I crawl around, and shine my flashlight, but I never do find the damn thing. I crawl back out, and inspect the skirting around the outside. There's scratchmarks and "chewing" at every corner of the place. I assume this is an outpost that gets attacked by zombies every night, by the looks of it. I tell him the problems, and he agrees to fix it.
The guy initially signed a 1 year contract, but after my visit, he immediately cancels his service. He never paid his bill, either.
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Most embarrassing story? Yep, here it is:
Did I mention I'm afraid of heights? Yep, I was, and still am. I honestly can not for the life of me remember why I had to get up on this client's roof, but I did. It was a two-story house, so there was no way I could even get to the edge of the roof without panicking, and had to basically just sit on the roof and scoot around.
Wait I remember now, they had a wasp nest in one of the air-vent thingies up on the roof. The bastards were flying down into it and were somehow getting into the house, but the made a nest in the top outlet of it. Yeah, painfully easy to treat. Shoot em and run. Of course, it was toward the peak. The whole time, I'm scooting around on my ass, mind you.
The thing about roofs is, shingles aren't smooth. They're rough. So, scooting around on them, that's gonna cause some fabric issues. I don't even notice that there's an issue until I give the customer the invoice, walk away from her to my truck, and sit down. I feel the truck seat, so I reach down, and feel bare-ass skin. Customer never said a thing for following visits (however, she did say I was the best tech they ever had, since I got rid of the wasp problem haha).
One of the tips is to keep spare clothes in the truck, due to unforseen situations. Yep, this was a situation, so I drove off, parked the truck in a non-public-visible area, and changed my pants in the truck. The roof had shaved some skin off as well, so I had a nice scar that lasted quite a long time as well.
Ok related, and I swear this is just a myth-story told to pest control tech-noobs:
Tech answers the door, and a lady answers the door wearing nothing but a robs / nothing at all. Fucking lies, that never happened on my route.
We're not allowed to take tips, by the way. However, if you offer us water or food, you're basically Jesus in our eyes from that point forward. Skimpy clothing would probably not be minded as well, but I'm still convinced that's made up.
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On Reddit (a place full of viruses and pornography), I had posted some "war stories" of when I worked as a Pest Control Technician for Terminix. They got an amazing amount of positive responses, so I'm putting all of them up here for the 2-3 spambots that hit my site to have something to do. Enjoy!
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I used to be a pest control tech, and Mexican and Chinese restaurants are the worst, especially the "cheaper" quality ones. If the arcade machine is any indication of the restaurant, you probably shouldn't read this if you want to continue eating there without feeling paranoid and sick.
There's usually a layer of "grease" on the walls, especially in the kitchen. If you go into the bathrooms, you'll probably notice lack of care and/or unfixed water problems. One common trend is that there are a ton of dark crevices. You know what likes grease, water, and dark crevices? Roaches. The next time you're there, keep an eye out, and see if you can see in the cracks. What's even worse, is if you spot any roaches out in the light, especially along the top edge of the walls against the ceiling (if you notice groupings of black specks, that's roach shit), that means that the roach has ran out of hiding spots, since they're already filled with roaches. They like dark, damp, and heat. At night, they travel all over the restaurant, getting into any exposed water and food.
A fun trick you can try to check on your local restaurant - buy some small glue traps (it'll say for mice and whatnot). Set one up in a hidden spot, like behind the toilet. If you can go there the next day and check it, it should be clean. If there are any roaches (or even mice) on it, GTFO. Now, if you leave it there a week or a month, it should catch spiders and possibly ants...those aren't bad, and more common than you think (spiders are good!). It should NOT be full of roaches.
In fact, at the table you sit at, take a look under the table. There should be no roaches...if there are, there's a rather severe case of infection at the place. You can also check around the booth seats, and any of the cracks in the shoddy craft booth dividers. Roaches tend to stick by food sources, so they'll be in the kitchen, and to a lesser extent, bathrooms. If they're out in the seating area, that's really bad, I mean, it means they are overflowing from the kitchen. It could also mean that they don't clean the dining area very well - common occurrence to have them in the dining areas of buffets.
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Time experiment complete. err..."Time Change" experiment complete. When the time change occurred in fall, I decided to adjust my clock, yet keep waking up and going to work at the same "time" my body was on (work from 7 to 4 instead of 8 to 5). I did this all winter.
As of this morning, since the time change "spring forward" hit, it means that it was a success; I went the whole winter going to work at the "same time". Here's what I learned:
1) It's fricking dark. Like, pitch black.
2) People like to jog/walk wearing dark clothing during these times, and tend to do this on the busiest side of the road.
3) Leaving work at 4pm, it's still light out. This avoids the "dark when I go to work, dark when I leave work" pattern.
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New todo list...in fancy numbered code list, since I'm really happy how it works!
Code Sample:tag field for entriesarchive calendarauto-format anchor-href tags to support links. Regex, probably.comments? not sure I want to add that...
Hmm, that's it?
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muahahah fixed it all...sorta. dang, I can't read the form text now...whoops.
Ok, here's now to made "fake" bbcode tags, and autoformat numbered code lines (simply remove the Y in the tag, or make up your own tags to whatever you want):
PHP:
Code Sample: //fix html tags for specials //faked bbcode $text = str_replace("[Ycode]","<code>",$text); $text = str_replace("[/Ycode]","</code>",$text); $text = str_replace("[Yp]","<p>",$text); $text = str_replace("[/Yp]","</p>",$text); $text = str_replace("[Ypre]","<pre>",$text); $text = str_replace("[/Ypre]","</pre>",$text); $text = str_replace("[Ycopy]","©",$text); //copyright symbol $text = str_replace("[Yreg]","®",$text); //registered symbol $text = str_replace("[Ydeg]","°",$text); //degree symbol //numbered code generation $pattern = "/[Yncode.*?](.*?)[/Yncode]/"; preg_match_all($pattern, $text, $matches); if(is_array($matches)){ if(is_array($matches[1])){ //means there are multiple matches foreach($matches[1] as $value){ $replaceString = $value; $codeLine = explode("<br>", $value); $value = "<ol><label Sample:</label>"; foreach($codeLine as $codeRow){ $value .= "<li><code . $codeRow . "</code></li>"; } $value .= "</ol>"; $text = str_replace($replaceString, $value, $text); } } } //finally, remove the marking tags! $text = str_replace("[Yncode]","",$text); $text = str_replace("[/Yncode]","",$text);
CSS:
Code Sample:code { font-family: Courier, monospace; color:#000; /*font-style: italic;*/ font-size:10pt; background: url("http://www.sykohpath.com/images/background.jpg") repeat; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 10px; display: block; border:1px #c01 solid;}ol { background: #c01; overflow:auto; font-family:Verdana; text-decoration: bold; color:#eee; margin: 0px 10px 0px 20px; padding: 0px 2px 2px 25px; border: 1px #ffccee dashed;}ol li { background: url("http://www.sykohpath.com/images/background.jpg") repeat; font-size:10px; font-family:Verdana; text-decoration: bold; list-style-type: cjk-ideographic;}
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Today is "black out websites to protest SOPA and PIPA".
I'd do that for this site, but unfortunately, no one visits it. However, this site IS IN VIOLATION because if you scroll down, you'll see a screenshot from World of Warcraft. SOPA and PIPA would deem this "bad" and my website would be blocked from having anyone visit it (I could be fined and prosecuted as well). How asinine is that? Over a screenshot? Sounds ridiculous, because it IS rediculous. This would be a step backward in progress.
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time to start learning japanese again. whee.
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I got our cat "Professor Stinker" 10 or so years ago.
He was walking out in the middle of the desert-area behind the condos, and one of our friends at the time found him. It was a pet-free complex, but screw that shit, we took him anyway. We never got caught the whole time we lived there. Thinking he was abandonded, we put an ad in the paper to make sure he wasn't lost, and didn't find any "missing pet" posts for a few weeks, so we kept him.
He had a wonderful temperament, and was already fixed, too. We moved across country. He HATED to be in a cat carrier, so for the first 4 hours of the 2200 mile trip, he hurt his nose on the carrier until I said "let him out" so he could walk around the U-Haul cab. He loved it - he spent most of his time in my lap, and up on the dash in the window.
One of my favorite pictures is of him lying on the dash (the other favorite pic is of him sitting on the coffee table, during his "fat" stage). At the new place, he was a indoor/outdoor cat, since the place we lived at was a shithole, and had a door with a large hole in it (can't count how many possums I had to chase out through there). He fought with the local neighborhood cat (who later "adopted" us by laying on the couch when we came back from a vacation once - we called him "Evil Kitty"), until we got that cat fixed. Got divorced, and she kept the majority of material crap - stuff I didn't really care about anyway, except for a few sentimental things. I wanted a new start, but dammit, I was taking the cats. I even took the neighborhood cat.
I moved in with a friend (he had a cat too!), so we were up to having 4 cats in the house at one time. This place was more out in the woods, and a few times I took Stinker for "walks" with me out in the woods. Got a better job, and moved into my own place...he moved with me again, but I made him full-indoor cat. He still snuck outside whenever he could - if the door wasn't closed all the way (or still space while closing), he would run out. Heck, if the door wasn't latched properly, he could pull the door open and run out. Most of his days he was around me; if he wasn't in my lap, he was sleeping on the bed, or by my feet.
I got a better job, and moved AGAIN. He lived in the new, much larger house for about a month. Took him into a new vet to get his teeth cleaned. Brought him home, and he was howling, and could barely walk. Kept bringing him back to the vet, but everything "checked out fine". After a few days for the medicine to be completely gone, he didn't improve. In fact, he got worse. Apparently he had a stroke (was blind, and lost most of the use of his back legs), and must have had smaller strokes after.
By Friday (took him in for teeth cleaning on monday), he couldn't even stand or move his legs. He wasn't improving at all, so had to take him in to be put down. You bet your ass I stayed with him. Even though he couldn't see, I made sure he could smell me. He went to sleep as peacefully as he could. I had the option to keep his ashes, or to have them scattered. Since I found him out in the wild, no idea where he came from; I think it best to have him go a similar way.
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2 days late...oops
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Small tweaks to this highly ignored site. Graphics line up and generally "fit" the look of the site better. Also, test.
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Put my vinyl logo on my snowboard helmet...I think it turned out nice!
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Happy Halloween by the way. My costume is a "killer whale"...I mean, it's a hoodie with cut-out index cards stapled to it. It got a good reaction haha - I'll post pics later (edit: blatant lie).
I purchased "Torchlight" on Steam for 20$ - wasn't going to do it, but I saw an article about how this company went out of their way to make one person happy over a problem. Just off of that, I decided to give the game a shot. I was pleasantly surprised! I never would have paid attention (or cash haha) for this game if I didn't see that article. 20$ for a game is a steal to beginwith...Review: "Buy It"
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How's this for a work week? Main server goes corrupt, and there's no backups. Well, there's a backup, but it's from February. Tech support for the system has been awful, overall. From being put on hold for over 4 hours (well, was 6 hours if you include the disconnect), their phone had some horrid distortion so I could only hear half the things the guy was saying (not like it really mattered once he remote-accessed the computer), and well, they didn't solve any of the problems I called in for. In short, I restored from backup, and then reinstalled a companion program.
So far it looks like it's working, but that remains to be seen.
I found a super-really-awesome deal on REI Snow equipment. I got a helmet, goggles, and day pack for...100$ total. Separately and not on sale, they total out to over 250$. WIN.
I joined Crossfit in order to "train" for my snow trip in 6 weeks. I have the gear, now I just need to get in shape for it. My biking for 5 months has been a nice increase in endurance, sure, but I need other attributes worked on besides legs.
It's been 2 weeks that I've been in Crossfit. Total Weight Loss: -4 pounds. Yes, I lost -4. I'll admit my diet hasn't been necessarily good. However, I AM getting stronger because of Crossfit. Already I'm noticing increased energy and mobility, as well as being able to tackle warm-ups better. Last night was a leg warm-up...it killed my legs. Tonight is for "the other half." That's the thing with Crossfit - it's a full body workout, in that it nails every square inch of your body. I mean, I can feel it in warm-ups. The 5-warmup (not sure of the name) consists of the following: Air Squat, Situp, Pushup, Pullup, Back extension. I forget the order, but once one loop is completed, my body is "ready" for the next loop. That is, starting with squats, then cycling around the exercises, mid-way through my legs are just about completely "rested" for the next round. I'm at 4x5 rounds now (started at 3x5, which I was unable to complete 2 weeks ago).
I view Crossfit as a class. It feels like college-level "training," in that I'm having a teacher show me the movements, and I apply and learn those movements. I'm currently working on lifting (name escapes me - Burgner?), and those are some straaaaange movements. I mean, lying in bed last night, I've felt muscles that I've never felt before - quite an odd feeling that I'm starting to get used to the more I attend.
The biggest thing is that my foundational "core" is being built-up. This is commonly ignored by gym-rats, who go for looks, since the core isn't necessarily that visible. Working just arms and chest may look good, but in practical use, those people are on the same level as someone like me, who can barely make it through a Crossfit warmup (at least, that's what they tell me!). My "coach" guarantees that in a month, I'll be much stronger - I mean, I can't even do a pullup at this point, so I've made that as my first Crossfit goal. Next goal after that? To complete a Workout of the Day.
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The timing of things.
Something happened quite often during the trip - since nothing was actually "planned" beyond "go to the convention on X days," we ended up wandering around and running across some things that would have otherwise been missed. My
traveling companion and I ended up covering most of downtown.
For instance, one day we were riding the bus, on our way to an Archie McPhee store, and I wasn't paying attention to the bus stops. We ended up 2 miles away, and we decided "screw it, let's walk." We ended up walking through a beautiful park and lake, and after that, discovered a restaraunt with the best food ever made. A double hamburger and onion rings never tasted so good - we would have never had found it if we got off at the right stop. Several other occurrences like this happened all during the trip, and my friend and I met quite a few people that we would have otherwise had missed. The path-not-traveled is more exciting than the main road in this case!
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Thrings brought home from PAX09: 2 anime figures, 2 "sand" globes, Gunnar glasses, Vibram 5-finger shoes, and a sore throat with cough. Most of those were free. Trip was awesome for the most part - my camping gear served me fantastic on the floor of the condo, and walking a minimum of 10 blocks every day plus almost non-stop walking lead to 10 pounds of weight loss.
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Within 1 hour of getting home, the cats, in a fit of rage, managed to knock a lamp off (breaking the lightbulb), spill water across half the kitchen, and spray cat-litter over the same half of the kitchen. The dog was happy to see me, and didn't cause any trouble.
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whew...ok, been wearing these
Gunnar glasses for roughly 2 hours now. After the burning sensation, weird color changes, and blurred vision, these glasses aren't so bad.
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Free-play computers...on some nice freaking computers. Razer headphones, mouse, keyboard...Windows Vista 64bit, intel quad-core @ 2.66ghz, 4gb ram.
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Just got slapped by Ashly Burch
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Games that caught my attention: scribblenaughts, star trek online, muramasa the demon blade. Picked up Gunnar optic glasses for 70$, original 140$!!
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In PAX line at 6:50am and now in queue room with 10,000 other people.
This is the "business card" that I'll be handing out to random celebrities.
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Ok, about the healthcare reform? If you're against it, please refer to this:
Matthew 25:41-46 (New International Version)
Code Sample:41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.' 44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' 45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.' 46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
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New background. It's randomly generated:
Code Sample:<?php $db_img = imagecreate(800,600); //size of image $background = imagecolorallocate($db_img, 0,0,0); $textcolor = imagecolorallocate($db_img, 150,0,0); $linecolor = imagecolorallocate($db_img, 0,0,0); $characters = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz01234567890~!@#$%^&*()_+-=`[]{}:;'|,.<>/?"; for($vcntr=-1;$vcntr<60;$vcntr+=2) { for($cntr=-1; $cntr<80; $cntr+=2){ $letter = substr($characters, rand(0,(strlen($characters)-1)),1); $spacing = (rand(5,10)+($cntr*10)); //x spacing $vspacing = (rand(5,10)+($vcntr*10)); //y spacing imagestring ($db_img, 5, $spacing, $vspacing, $letter, $textcolor); } } imagesetthickness($db_img, 5); header( "Content-type: image/png"); //specify the type of image imagepng($db_img); imagecolordeallocate($linecolor); imagecolordeallocate($textcolor); imagecolordeallocate($background); imagedestroy($db_img);?>
Save as something like, background.php. Next, call it in and it's MAGIC...css:
background: #ffffff url("background.php") fixed;
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Ok! Test image time...
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ooo I forgot to post Sunday's kanji. It's "Day", which, by some encoding miracle, looks like this: 日
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aww, the Japanese characters aren't inputting correctly. Todo: change database encoding.
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Technically, "tuesday" in Japanese is 火曜日, but I've shortened it to just the first kanji, which kinda changes the meaning. It's like, instead of saying "Today is Tuesday.", it would be like saying, "Today is fire."
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So far, I like how this new site template is working out. I'm going for a minimal-functional approach with the style. From doing the Flash site, I really liked the look of "quick posts", and in fact, I'm using the same database for these new entries. It's easier for me to post. Also, in regarding the flash site...I didn't get far. That's because I found out that while Flash makes some pretty sites, it isn't fully compatible with everything out there - newer stuff, yes, but older stuff, no - that is, the majority of internet users don't have a way to view flash. So, I decided to switch back to PHP for this site. I'm taking a slower, more design-based approach. I've also had to take the same approach at work - one site I was working on for them, I now have to redo in PHP...while it's "lost work", I did gain valuable knowledge from doing it, which is always a plus.
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"I do not know where family doctors acquired illegibly perplexing handwriting nevertheless, extraordinary pharmaceutical intellectuality counterbalancing indecipherability, transcendentalizes intercommunications incomprehensibleness". This is a sentence where the Nth word is N letters long. e.g. 3rd word is 3 letters long, 8th word is 8 letters long and so on
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First official entry, which is a test.
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This is a test entry! wooo
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sykohpath.com