Why is the sea of troubles never ending?

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

— The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act III, Scene I, William Shakespeare.

Hmm, different problems, (surely different ends), but still.. a “sea of troubles” without an end in sight.

Who builds these things !?

Well, I finally had it with the sound popping in/out so I decided to crack open my case, yank and reinsert the card. Sure enough it was loose.

I blew the dust off the Audigy 4’s board and set it aside when I noticed the air-duct like thing sucking air in and across the mother board was dusty.

I finally removed the masking tape that whoever assembled the bloody thing used to keep the line going from the PSU to the SATA drive used to glue the cable between the duct and the CPU’s heat sink (_don’t_ ask). I pulled off the ducting and looked at the fan blades, never been dusted.

Tried to unplug the fan so I could set it aside for cleaning but it proved, shall we say less then worth it. Blew out as much dust as I could from the venting and the CPU’s heatsink. Which on the air-ward side was starting to look like cobwebs :

The fan is mounted in the duct which is ‘hung’ on the side of the case… If it wasn’t for the handle to pull it out, it would fall out if I put the case on it’s port side. If the thing didn’t get seated properly, it would be resting ontop of the hard drive mounting.. Honestly I don’t know what people are thinking these days.

Still had more dust in the air-vents for the fan and I couldn’t see to hang the duct right. So I noticed these few clips sticking out of the front-side. Pushed the in and pulled off the front plastic panel (‘face’) of the computer case.

Holy guacamole !!!!

It was so bad I fetched a face mask to keep the dust away from my nose and mouth, to bad I didn’t have a pair of goggles to boot. Cleaned the entire computer throughly and hung the fan/duct. Using the air-vents to line up the placement. And then put the panel back on. I thought about popping the bezel setting with the card reader and inserting an old floppy drive because the case design would keep the dust from seeping inside.. But to insert the FDD I would have to remove my PSU and the CPU’s heatsink which is not really worth bothering with lol. Managed to get the case put back together and wiped off the monitor, keyboard, and rat for good measure (y).

Computer cases are fairly simple but I’ll never understand some of the things I’ve seen in pre-built computers… Who the hell puts tape less then half an inch over a heat sink which is there to help cool a really hot CPU, and it is like the BFG 9000 of heat sinks compared to Vectra’s Katmai P3 500 lol.

Really I think if I ever had the opportunity to build my own case, I would do it. With the right tools and materials one could actually pull it off, might not look sexy but it sure as heck can’t be any worse then the this Gateways case !!

Hmm, one of these days I really need to clean out the keyboard of my laptop but I’m not really interested in taking it apart right now. I wonder why, stripping down a computer always gives me strange ideas >_>

Managed to get done with work in half the time today, I don’t mind getting home early !

Haven’t managed tog et much coding done today though… Hopefully tonight, tomorrow, and the weekend :

Took sometime to relax, fired up Halo: CE and finished off the game on Heoric. Came in at what was left of Captain Keys as the shoot out was about to start. Not very hard, just move down the ramp to trip the area-triggers on the flood goons and back pedal off the dais and use the pillar at either corner for cover while doing some hit’n’fade and sharp shooting work.

Blew away the flood 2 or 3 at a time with my Assault Rifle and Shotgun then reloaded on my (very low) supply of grenades and ammunition from the corpses. Since several previous attempts told me there would be a covenant attack squad full of elites and grunts including fual rod guns. I stock pillied weapons near the corner, (ab)using the weapon swap to prep my fall back point. I setup a plasma rifle and pistol in the strong corner and left my assault rifle and a plasma pistol on the opposite side from the covenant door. Then loaded off my shotty and picked up a needler for some long-range work.

I figured, if I couldn’t take out the attack squad when I went for the door — lobbing grenades into there midst while letting rip at survivors with a needle gun. I’d do a fall-back by suppressive shotgun fire to the pillar, fall back point (FB) one. If I got boxed out of there, I’d fling the empty needler, frag out and rush to the assault rifle over by FB two, a last stand and run for ye life moment.

Brains over brawn 😉

So I went over to the door, tripped the auto-open and chucked in a few grenades as the grunts threw back, blew most of them up. Then applied needler fire to deal with the living critters and put some more grenades in. Took it easy and fetched full supplies hehe

Halo I think is very much a game where you need to learn when to stand and fight from a distance and when to kick down the door and storm the enemy position, if you want to survive. After 15+ years of gaming and thousands of hours in the shoot house with my teammates training room clearing in RvS & SWAT, it comes a bit easier tome then it used to.

After that, made it off the ship (while dodging endless streams of plasma grenades) and down to the pillar of autumn. Fighting through armies of Covenant and Flood, even going toe to toe with Hunters (up close and shotty). Blew the ships reactor and high tailed it out… Halo’s ending really is a bit anti-climactic compared to the pump up to get through the end game lol.

Game felt much shorter and much easier this time around 0.o

One thing I like about Halo is the Elites are almost the Master Chiefs equal, on legendary if your not paying attention a single blue elite can kill you. Heroic, well is not that challenging imho but it gets the job done for R&R. I find the best way of dealing with Elites is to use the range advantage — and hit there shields with accuracy. The 12.7mm pistol and covenant plasma rifle work best, but the needler also works great in open ground. And you can always use your own movements and grenade tosses to control the AI’s movement patterns, Halos AI ain’t that bad for the Elites (although the rest suck) but they don’t do long range work well and like any half realistically intelligent creature of an AI, they know RUN FOR COVER. Which makes grenades great for flushing out elites and forcing them to move towards ground more favorable for you to pick them off.

I also like going “up close and personal” in situations where I can use mobility to close and avoid more hits while finishing them off. During the control room missions I did that a lot, blast’em with the pistol then close in with the plasma rifle and rifle butt any slugs that got to close.

Halo is far from one of my ‘preferred’ styles of game but the single player makes good relaxing. Multilayer, I avoid though. Whenever I play Halo online I usually get owned for actually trying to capture the flag. Or I spend the round shooting the heck out of the other team like a crazed one-man-army and screaming at my stupid teammates for having the tactical ability of a slug, for camping our base instead of taking advantage of the perfect time to launch an attack !!!

Modern siege warfare favors the attacker in the long run.

Hmm, code time soon !

Oh… Fell asleep after dinner, woke uo around 2200 local and went to bed, just got up about 0100 local. Dang I needed that !!! I slept like a stone. I think an atom bomb could’ve gone off and I don’t think I would’ve noticed :

Ended up dreaming about being knee deep in World War II with a Thompson and a captured Lee Enfield, bit odd but.. Whatever. To being stuck in a bad bat man movie, to being stuck on a space station, to being in the middle of a F.E.A.R. part III about to happen, when I decided enough of this crud time to wake up >_>

That’s one thing that’s kind of strange, I usually know that I’m dreaming when I dream, maybe because my dreams are almost always crazy. And when they are not, usually startle me in different ways…

I’ve basically been working since Saturday night straight, breaking to go to work, the bathroom, sleep, and eat lol. Haven’t had much time for the usual forums lately … so may as well take a moment to catch up now.

The advantage of all of this? It might be a bit of working oneself into the ground… But it’s getting things done in a week rather then by next year lol. And if I get done early… I get to relax on the weekend hehe.

Ahh… Almost got everything done for the week.

I need to finish some adjustments to the test bed module and one library module to match changes made tonight and get things that are working back ported to the main. The test bed module will be a cakewalk to adjust, probably will have that done tonight.

I’m itching to move onto my next primary objective… But it will have to wait for another day 🙁

With a wee bit of luck I should have all of my web matters done before Thursday, so I can kick back in TG#3 and PG#1 for a little R&R before moving onto ‘off duty’ week No.2 -> working on the SOP Rewrites.

You know, that is one good part about making like a workaholic with piled up stuff — if you get done early, you get to do something else for awhile xD

/*
 * head hits keyboard, begins to snore loudly
 */

Days work and chuckles

Today has been a very productive day, probably because everyone else was either not home or sound asleep most of the day !^_^!

I’ve tested some major work on the site ACLs that’s just been begging for doing, all looks good in the sandbox. So all I should have to do is get it transitioned to the production system and volla… We’ll be ready to rock’it and roll. Then I can finish a few other modules that need work and get to work on the ‘special project’ hehe. Oh baby is this gonna be good when it gets deployed.

I’ve managed to get some rest at least, caught the end pf Aliens which is one of my favorite movies (y). A refreshing change, Robon Hood: Men in Tights started after it. That’s a funny movie but not one I’ve seen on often this past decade.

I’m rather glad the special edition of Aliens has mostly become the normal cut on cable. I remember the first time I saw it, I was extremely pissed off at the hack job they had us all watching for years! I can understand having to trim things down, yeah. But there is some point where the time saved ain’t quite as good as what your losing in the process :

Robin, haha I haven’t seen it from start to finish in ages. Like most movies related to Mel Brooks, it can’t keep a straight face for more then 2 minutes ^_^.

The castle repo man, the rabbi (Brooks) with the drunk mule, the moron of a sheriff of Rottingham, the cook “Latrine” whose family changed the name from “Shithouse” lol The huge little john who starts drowning in a tiny puddle after a ridicules fight with Robin over the bridges toll (“it’s the principal of it”), who would build a bridge over a puddle in the first place? Robin Hood losing the archery contest, “Whhat!? I’m not supposed to lose! … checks script … Wait, I get another shot !!!” rofl. And King Richard renaming all the toilets in the kingdom “Johns” after his brother, for defiling himself. And making him part of the tour after throwing Prince John in the tower of London 0.o

And not to forget the ending during the fight with Rottingham, the key that Robin inherited goes flying and lands right in Maid Marians chastity belt and he’s like, “I knew it was the key to the greatest treasure in all the land!” and ir just keepa rolling from there lol, Down to the end scene with the wedding night after the credits.

[Rottingham slices off Robin’s necklace, sending his key flying. The key falls into the lock of Marian’s chastity belt]

Robin Hood: It is the key to the greatest treasure in all the land!

Maid Marian: This means you’ve always been my one true love because it’s just the right size!

Sheriff of Rottingham: It’s not the size that counts… It’s how you use it!

[Robin and Marians wedding night]
Robin Hood: Umm… You’re not going to believe this
Maid Marian: What?
Robin Hood: It won’t open
Main Marian: WHAT !?
Robin Hood: Wait I have an idea, call a locksmith !!!
[voice echos outside] Call a locksmith

/* rolls on the floor laughing */

Writer’s Block: For the Day Off…

If you’ve got Monday off, how are you spending it, and with whom?

Live Journals Writer’s Block

With my computers, working on PHP, SQL, designing and testing libraries, website systems, and various pages.

I’d rather be… uhh, well thinking about that ain’t gonna get this done any easier ^_^

It would be a good time though hehe.

Oy…

Was to tired to get back to work on the website last night. Went straight to bed but willow wouldn’t let me sleep, as usual.

My original plan was to lay down for a few and theng et back to work, so much for that idea +S

I’ve gotten most of the coding end done, just need to setup the test case for the database, proof the changes and get it scripted and transfered after hours.

Now if my sound would stop shorting out… The F’ing wintel machine is the only PC here that has problems with damn near everything :. I’ve changed headphones to the best pair I have left, and it’s still screwing up so that means it’s not the headphones >_>

Norton to the rescue? Wow it actually did something useful

Hmm, for the first time in my life I’m actually glad that my Mom runs Norton on her PC.

She got an e-mail from the bank warning about repeating login failures on the account and that it was going to be suspended for T time unless she updated the account. I think that would have my heads anti-fraud warning bell ringing on it’s own right but hey, I’m paranoid at heart >_>

The message had a dead give away (for me) that someone might be trying to fake it, you probably would have to be familiar with building such things or just a heavy web surfer to spot that one though. When she clicked it it redirected her to a fake page to login which Norton shouted FRAUD before harm could be done.

The address was an obvious fake once you see the real URL, but how many causal users even look at that I wonder? So maybe despite it’s annoyance to people like me and those that just want to get stuff done, useful for watching over the uneducated.

She’s currently going through a spell of FUD over security but I’m familiar enough with the possibilities and they ain’t that bad thanks to Norton. The next best thing to actually educating users — babysit with resource hogs :

Now if only it could do something about her (greater then mine) paranoia, so I could get back to rewriting code lol.

Oh wells.

overstocked and under budget, yippie ki-ay!

Executed the clothes shopping raid today, took longer then planned 🙁 but I got everything that I wanted (according to plan), got more of it, and while my original budget was $150 I spent a little more then $120 xD

*does the victory dance*

4 jeans, 14 briefs, 8 pocketed T-Shirts, and I hate socks enough to start with that the ones i have can stay lol.

Ripped apart the closet, unscrupulously chucking everything that I ain’t gonna wear, don’t want, or can’t fit in anymore. 7 bags are piled up +S, for donation or trashing it’s outgoing and good riddens !!!!

Also got some Trident gum which is worth while IMHO. Glad that the clothes shopping is over and done with… Next phase is to have an oder placed for that Sennheiser headset — it’ll be nice to be able to talka gain on TeamSpeak.

Since I was under budget I split the remainder and gave part of it to Ma to add to the LORD’s money, and refused to take no for an answer. My Grandmother always used to keep a $100 tucked away in a clip in case of emegency. And she always would end up giving it to my mom whenever things were bad, it’s her goal to someday replace it. It’s been over a decade since my Grandmother passed on but I’m not sure if she’s ever totally replaced it, every time it’s gotten close we’ve always had a financial kidney-punch :. With luck in a month or two it should be at the mark.

The LORD’s been good to me, much better then I deserve… Despite what issues I have with my life, it’s the closest I’m likely to get to tithing with the money I have.

I’ve also posted my ‘two weeks off’ on [SAS]. I figure one week to concentrate on the website, one week to concentrate on the SOP rewrites.

There is really nothing of great importance to get done with the website, anything important is already taken care of :-).The stuff I need to get done, is more the sort of it’s better that it gets done but it won’t kill anyone if it don’t get done, assuming someone remembers why it works as it does in 20 years lol. I could swear… Wiz and I are probably the greatest two morons at this stuff when compared to our predecessors (professional) educations at it. But at least we are trying to make things better, not leave a pile of kludges behind for the next poor sap.

Wiz’s great thing was securing the website, thanks to him it’s locked up tighter then a ticks ass after an all you can eat special. For me the big thing, really is leaving it better then how I found it… I’m self educated but I’m still a programmer, and I’m a lover for engineering and designing things at heart. Some of the things I see make my head hurt, it works but it’s like… If your going to do it, do it right for Pete’s sake.

One thing that I really like about my duties as Warrant Officer Class 1 on the team. Is although I’m more busy then I was as an RSM + Associate Webmaster, as WO1+Webmaster I’m able to work on things that people don’t see. I like that, most of the things I do, no one will ever get to see or know about and if they did, I’d probably have fsck’d it up anyhow. I like being able to work in the background, take care of the unseen ins and outs of keeping the clocks running. But I know, when I’m done… Whoever becomes webmaster after me (I’m not immortal) will hopefully have a well done and easy to maintain website. None of the things Wiz faced when he wound up in the boots, and none of the cruft I’ve got to deal with along with the rest of the Admin Team.

Operation Excalibur will never be what I originally dreamed it to be, but by George it is gonna be completed !

With the SOP rewrites, a lot of it is done.. But it needs to get the finalization work done,hammer it home so GCHQ can review it, hopefully approve it without shouting, and the SNCOs can train the NCOs to train the Trps/Rcts and life can continue. The SOP rewrites have been like my careers work in [SAS], I’ve tinkered with it since I was a humble LCpl… Tried to make a strong effort at it as an SSM when I was now officially allowed to help out with it. And eventually found myself as the only asshole able to oversee it and being RSM, responsible for it getting done.

It’s my goal to do my best to give my team the best set of SOPs that us guys can create… If I was the only writer the SOP Rewrites would’ve been done a year ago but with Rasa’s help these are going to be even better. It’s great that when one of us gets to far out of whack, the other knows how to deal with it lol.

Being the coder of the lot, I’m doing every thing I can to leave the SOPs in a state where it won’t become what my generation grew up with. Stale, out dated, insufficient, and nearly impossible to modify… However good they are that’s how I feel the old SOPs have scaled with the years. That’s what I fight to prevent happening again, you could say I find it comforting to know that half the clan could be hit by a shooting star and our groups tactical heritage will continue on to the younger generations.

And why do I feel so damn old, I’m only going to be 20 in June !!!