The Robot's Thoughts

This is going to be a quick blog post. Last night I went to see the midnight showing of superman returns, knowing full well that 4am EST, our users in germany would begin using it to process documents. 

It turns out we had a few production issues, all of which I easily resolved (not bragging, these were 1 line development fixes) but it doesn't change the fact that when you're messing with the backend of a production system, no matter how sure you are, you're navigating a minefield. 

My goal, now that I've finished napping, is to ensure our next release won't require any backend tweaks to make sure everything is working 100%

 

This is a picture a friend of mine sent me (I was surprised by the source). He/She said it reminded him a of a friend of ours from college. He/She mentioned he thought this would be what our mutual friend looked like if she kept partying and exposing herself to the hot sun in 5 years.

Personally, I don't really think it looks like her, but the eyes share attributes. I don't think she'd age this un-gracefully, however, you never know.

Anyway, I find the picture hilarious.

Also in retrospect, I'd like to retract the nickname I gave her freshmen year. It was harsh of me to judge how she felt as she fought the realization that her boyfriend at Temple was cheating on her. I'd never been in that situation, and I was quicker to judge back then. Okay, I lie, I'm just as quick to judge. Its always easier for an outsider to summarize a situation and render judgment. Maybe I was upset that I couldn't be strong for her.

One thing in retrospect still stands: There were moments where maybe, the two of us alone, might've had a feeling germinate. We didn't act on it because one of us was involved. Later, those feelings passed. I still think it was smart of me to think with the bigger of two brains in those situations and not act. Later, when I failed such a life test of my own, by acting in a situation similar to that, the lesson I learned was how easy two (three?) hearts can be ripped apart. A voice of reason in my life fell silent.

The last thing I realized but still to this very day fail to understand is how someone, anyone, could have learned to love something like me. Something so petty and insolent, so disloyal. So self-involved in a world of mostly boyish jargon. And how empty the bed we share feels at 3:30am when you're not in it with me.

So to my mutual friend, when you read this, bored out of your mind with nothing better to do, killing 5 more minutes before traveling off to some big party where people know that you love vodka and cranberry as much as you love it when guys do a double take watching you dance, think of this not as mockery, but advice: Don't get drunk and fall asleep in the hot sun repeatedly. There could be an unexpected downside later down the road.

Oh yeah, to everyone else expecting some witty banter, I got nothing except: Go see superman.

I couldn't sleep last night for the life of me, even though I knew I had an early day today. Or my intention was to have an early day today. My mind was full of stories. Stories with no titles. Stories I wanted to write down.

There was the one about the car accident in Philadelphia. Where fireman help a small boy out the shattered side window of a crushed minivan. The broken glass cuts his legs. Blood and sweat and trickling down his forehead and getting into his eyes. His glasses are missing. The fireman keep making him repeat his name and location, fearing a concussion. He's so blind without his glasses he has to be led by hand as his family wanders the streets at night.

Or there's the one about the swing dance contest. It was still trendy then, even though you could say that a dance style that's stood the test of time for nearly 70 years never really goes out of style; just on and off the cultural radar. The boy and his date got lucky on the final dance off and won the grand prize. After the dance, he found out that the local university was showing Spaceballs on the big screen. Score! He took his date to the theater, helped her with her uncomfortable shoes, and massaged her feet while watching Rick Moranis give the order to go to ludicrous speed.

Just as I decide to invest some of my serious "alone time" (when the apartment isn't being shared and I don't have any chores) into an MMO, my internet goes on the fritz. Its a wierd wiring problem. Around 12:30 at night, it comes back on on, until the morning. When morning comes, its dead. Its gotta be that the downstream power is too high, as I've checked that on the cable modem. I'm going to spare everyone the nerdy details of me debugging my cable modem connection.

So I did what anyone would reasonably do without internet for 72 hours. Cleaned my apartment heavily, cooked, and read.

So its a slow weekend and its too late for my to give anyone a compelling story for today. I do say I am relived to find that I did not check Reddit.com for 72 hours and the world continued to turn.

I will attempt to provide some content later this in the day. Enjoy.

I put a Weapon R cold air intake into my car two weeks ago. I promised pictures, so here they are:




I know, I know, I'm not exactly the most fast and furious thing on the road, nor do I intend to be, but I think of it as a way of personalizing it. I enjoy driving my car, now that it has a little bit more pick up, I enjoy it more. That's that.

I've been advised the next thing I should upgrade is my exhaust header. I don't know if I'm going to commit the time and effort to that. But then again, I really owe installation of the cold air intake to my friend Mark, who had the tools and was more than willing to help out. I knew what I was doing, but Mark had done this sort of thing before when he was working on his Mach 1 Mustang. It made me feel confident that he knew what to look for in terms of mistakes. So again, I thank you, Mark.

I'm up late because I lost track of time and I was having some fun working on my current track, scattered lullaby. You can listen to the work in progress by clicking on this sentence.

Other news, I put a cold air intake into my car. I've been having to adjust my driving to be less aggressive. The 15-20HP boost has definitely made the speed demon in me come back out. I think I will move my seat back one click.

I've also been busy taking photographs of my friends from my hometown while visiting them for both a bachelor party (which I've previously ranted on about) and the succeeding (and beautiful) wedding. I've been trying to publish these and the video that I took so that everyone who was in it would have something while we waited for the wedding photos and what not. Fuck it, i just feel like using my "multimedia skills" and have been publishing like a mad house.

While others take the time to organize, comment, and share things via Flickr, I'm just going to leave everyone with a preview.





I took a (poor quality) video of the two exchanging their wedding vows. Congradulations Brian and Melissa. May your love be ever lasting and blossom both in happiness and hardship.

I need sleep.

Brian, from BrianDylan.com is getting married to the love of his life this coming weekend. I'm not in the wedding, but I got an invite.

I was, however, invited to the Bachelor party. It was my first Bachelor party, and I was slightly disappointed that the groom himself had obeyed his fiance by instituting a "no strippers" rule. She'd kill him, he claimed. I was a minority voice in reminding him that it was supposed to be his night, as he will spend the rest of his life doing what she says. Alas, I was a minority voice, and it was decided that we would be doing a bar crawl at state college.

State College is essentially like any big college town, its essentially just like a mini-morgantown. What I mean by that is you can feel free to be a jackass, or to get closer to the point, I felt free to be a jackass.

Our first stop was an authentic Korean restaurant. It is apparently one of Brian's favorite places to eat. It was quirky: They had Japanese and Chinese dishes on their menu, but you couldn't order them. They didn't make them anymore. It essentially eliminated 2/3rds of their menu, but what they did make was good.

There was an incident, however, my former supervisor and good friend, who will we call "The Don" on this particular blog entry, had ordered a dish that they only served to Koreans. Americans, they explained, did not like it and wasted the food -- ate only a few bites and left the remainder.

It was the noodles, they claimed, they were thin and stringy, and it was hard to cut.

Now "The Don" is particularly well traveled, and has experience with Asian cuisine. They were speaking his language when they told him that they don't serve Americans. He felt compelled to try it. The waiter, bless his broken English, was adamant.

I jumped in, "Couldn't you make him an honorary one of your people for the duration of the dinner?"

That drew looks from the rest of the party. When the waiter left, Brian looked at me and said, "You know they're going to put extra jizz in yours, right?"

Those remarks set the tone for the evening. There would be stupidity. Think Dave Chappelle's skit "Dude's Night Out", minus the tranny sex.

Tis the season to be married: We kept running into bachelorette parties. The first one was driving by slow in a strech limo with their windows down, yelling at us. I did them one better by running into traffic, up to their window, and reaching in and shaking all their hands, and telling them to call me.

Our first stop was the saloon, where we proceeded to drink with intensity while the drink specials were in effect. We went through two pitchers of beer and two pitchers of a mixed drink known locally as bong water, and mingled with bridal parties, and then we were on our way to the second destination: The Rapscallion.

The Rapscallion is essentially a dive bar. Think Cumpie's, or Boomerangs, it has no class, and neither does the cliente. This is where I almost started a bar fight.

There are certain fashions that mere fads, fluff without statement, that exist merely so you can broadcast what demographic you belong to in the consumerist food chain. In this case, the fashion faux pas I'm talking about is the "wearing collared shirt with the collar intentionally up as an elitist statement".

Now it has been pointed out to me that I've worn a red visor backward on my head for the better part of a year when that was the "in-frat" style, the point I'm trying to make is that anybody could've said something to this guy, its just that I apparently said it with such hostility.

So, to the guy wearing a pink polo shirt with the collar up, I yelled, just loud enough that he might almost hear it (he'd have to make a saving throw on perception and awareness) "Hey douchebag, you're collar's up."

He didn't hear me. His buddy, however did. He started making comments about the fact that I was wearing my hat in the middle of spring and "how cold it was". I decided to keep hammering it home, with an insult that just hit me on the spur of the moment.

"Yeah, you'd better bundle up. You never know when you and your friend might get caught in a downpour of Its Raining Men."

At that point, his eyes narrowed, and he was sizing me up. I continued to stare him down.

"Why is it always the scrawny fuckers that start shit in bars," Brian said, as I sat between him and another 6'3" member of our party, Woot, "I haven't been in a bar fight in like six years. I definitely do not want one at my bachelor party."

Nevertheless, I proceeded to continue to stare this guy down. I had already figured he wasn't going to instigate a fight when his party had women with them, and that if it came to it, I don't see his friends risking spending the night in jail just because someone thought his buddy's outfit was laughable.

They left. We got another pitcher, and everyone continued to berate me for starting shit. That lasted until the morning.

We crawled to another bar, The Dark Horse, that actually had a decent live band. Mexican_AM_Radio, headed off in search of a dance partner. Brian continued to drink, as did the rest of us. The band was really good. Especially for an accordian band.

At some point, I decided to start talking to women for speed racer's behalf. I would approach a girl that "looked smart", and open with, "Excuse me, but do smart men turn you on? (not giving them a chance to answer just yet) My friend is a little shy, but he's a math graduate student, a Cornell alumni, an actor, smart, funny, well groomed, sensitive, and in possession of dick that is dinosauric in size."

They would usually laugh and ask, "Is this friend you?"
Note to self: I must look like I have a cock dinosauric in size.

The good thing is that speed racer actually talked to women. While not a first, I think this is first time he actually flirted, a little. I remember it was hard for me, but some of his acting lessons have definitely paid off. I think he blew it when he took off his long sleeve black shirt to reveal he had a red t-shirt underneath with a lithograph print of the Pentium II masks. In laymens terms, he had a "blueprint" to a C-P-U.

Brian, unlike most people, doesn't get sick when he drinks. He doesn't get rowdy, either. Quite the opposite. His body shuts down. While everyone else was having fun, Brian was falling asleep at the bar. In an effort to keep him awake, I began to poke and prod him and verbally abuse him. When it seemed like all is would be for naught, I ordered him a shot. "The Don" stopped me.

"Brian, take note," The Don said, "Chris really isn't your friend deep down."

We got thrown out of the dark horse around 1:30, before the band had stopped playing, because Brian could not keep his head above the bar. We walked back to the motel and let Brian pass out. Brian's fiance called and told us about her wild night. She had definitely had a few.

And then we slept.

This is a bad rendition of a great night, and a lot of details have been omitted, for the sake of keeping some of it as a private thing, something for the eight of us to own. While I was initially disappointed, I also realized why I came in the first place, it wasn't for some ridiculously fake-boobed strippers, but to see my friends from my hometown in good spirits. That alone was worth the trip.

They're not really organized, but you can view them.
Just click here to view my photostream

I went out with my friend, who I'm calling "the Mauler", because that's what her last name sounds like. We were going to see this guy she knows play acoustic guitar. She was talking about how she and some other girl were going at it (not physically) to see which one of them was alpha bitch. Mauler said, "I never bite my tongue, that's just how I am."

I jumped in, I couldn't resist, "You've never had a girlfriend, have you?"

She giggled, "No, why's that?"

"Because the art of keeping a girlfriend is knowing to hold your tongue."

That got me a fist pound. I could tell from the energy that tonight would be fun.

We get there around midnight, and the singer is almost finished warming up. Perfect timing -- the bar's not busy and it gives us enough time to order a beer and let the Mauler check on her sports scores.

"I'm tired of growing up. I'm tired of going down.
I'm tired of myself, I'm tired of this town."

The singer performed an incredible rendition of Tom Petty's "Last Dance with Mary Jane." It made me make a mental note: See Tom Petty Live.

Everyone decided tonight we were going to get up close and personal with the singer. We pulled a table and our chair upfront, maybe 3 feet from the stage. Another set of couples pulled a table up onto the stage.
The singer commented that this is how he'd have to do a live recording. Up close and intimate with the audience; also, the fact that we still applauded loudly and yelled made it just seem like there were more people there.

"I know someday you'll have a beautiful life.
I know you'll be the sun...in somebody else's sky
but why, why, WHY can't it be...can't it be mine?"

An acoustic rendition of Pearl Jam's "black", from the album Ten. I was 13 when that album came out, and was still behind the times so that I ended up having it on Cassette and CD. People sang along. I was one of them.
Afterwards, when there was pause in his procession, as he tuned his guitar, I asked him if he knew the rare acoustic track performed by Pearl Jam known as "Footsteps".
Its one of those favorite songs you always remember and never forget. It went out to the Ten Club as a B-side extra as a christmas gift to Fans the year Ten came out. They performed it live on a seattle radio station, alongside a 2 hour interview. I had a bootleg copy of that given to me by some stoners at Bucknell growing up. I listened to Footsteps over and over.

"Don't even think about reaching me.
I won't be home.
Don't even think about stopping by.
Don't think of me...at all.

I did
what I had to do
if there was a reason
it was you."

The singer didn't know the whole song. Its not like its requested as often as the doors. He made a good effort and told me, "Come back next week and I'll play the whole thing for you."

Sold!

Now, the Mauler was driving, so I was taking it upon myself to take advantage of the $3 Jager bomb special. And $2 bottles. And I was also aware that she was totally crushing on this singer -- but he was too short for her. The Mauler is tall, and into tall guys. Munchkins like myself need not apply (which I'm not, since I'm involved, the point i'm saying is she can't bring herself to date a shorter guy.)

The singer's face would come right up to her chest.

Now, normally, I'm not one to tease. But the Mauler's positive energy, quick wit, and je ne sais quoi, brought out the little brother in me, so I can began to tease and poke and prod her about liking the singer.

I'm sure I annoyned her. For that, I'm sorry. But I figure the Mauler is tough enough to take a joke.

Also worth noting was that people seem to get really rediculated on a wenesday night. There was a girl stumbling. Then making out with guys. Then grinding guys, to an acoustic cover of Tool's "My Shadow". ( I know, songs from an album dealing with sexual abuse as a child _always_ puts me in the mood, seriously, right?)

It was fun. The Mauler rocks. The music rocked. And hopefully, this post rocked.

I mentioned that I'm starting a Flickr.com group, if there isn't one already, about cars that have been pimped out but shouldn't be. You know the type. The Geo Metro with the 3 foot spoiler. And dents in the hood. Or the honda with the coffee can muffler, the K&N Cold Air Intake logo, and a busted tail light.

The cars where people are throwing good money after bad. The cars that belong to owners that haven't figured out that their taste is much, much worse than that of the professional designer who gave their car its stock "look". The cars that all the other cars laugh at.

Well, I'm not there yet. But I have something to tide my audience over.
Malinger's Photo Set on Los Angeles

She does her view/social commentary in a way that is cruel and funny. I'd say like "Sam From American Idol", but I don't watch American Idol. My Idols have to at least know how to play an instrument.

The photoset kind of opened my eye to how vain we are as a society. She just captures so many people who've been augmented by cosmetic surgery. I've never really had a problem with it, granted, I'm also hesitent to let someone take a knife to me, since I was never close to any level of 'perfection'. I was just cute and quirky. And you fall out of love with cute and quirky as fast as you fall in.

I'm not knocking people who've gone under the knife, but its a vanity at a price, and Malingering's surface jugements seem to hit home and make us laugh, even if we can't judge a book by its cover.

I've been neglecting my blog, I don't know why, but I guess I've been less self-absorbed.
So I'd like to take this time to thank everyone who helpped out two weekends ago in cleaning out my parents house. Everyone who's known me from my hometown has always said the exact same thing when they walked into my house. "Wow, that's a lot of books."

And if they had severe allergies, they would promptly die. From the dust.

The Woot, cppmonkey, Unabomber, and Jamie all helpped a great deal. 8 truckloads of junk got cleaned out of my parents house. And that's really the beginning.

And I just wanted to say thank you. I'm amazed everyone came out and put in such hard work on a saturday. We all really made a difference.