Month: September 2010

Another day at the races

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Well, I’ve completed the last part of my job hunt that requires me hoofing it across the city! Across two days, I’ve compiled a list of just about every business in my city, omitting those that obviously dead weights, like hair & nails salons. I’m not qualified for their work, nor have I any sense in trying to sell them on computerising things lol. My intention is to cross reference all the info into a data store on my computer, than have a program compile it down into an order of contact:

  1. Which ones to cold call and offering my “Services” as a super geek.
  2. Which ones to apply for online out of necessity.
  3. Which ones to walk in and apply.
  4. Which ones to call and see if they are hiring.
Believe it or not, more companies have moved their application processes into the clouds than you would think, to the extent that the only way to apply is by a computer. For how shitty web sites tend to be and how little point I see in a kiosk subbing for one, I actually prefer walking in and dealing with a paper application. O.K. maybe I am old fashioned in some ways, even if I usually groan at the notion of hard copy >_>.
On Friday I collected about half the city using a mixture of car and foot travel, the main central hubs for work in this rattle trap. By that, I mean it’s a city where people live and most commute, be it for work or pleasure lol. Today I took off on foot and got the other half. I think this year, I have seen more of this place on foot than I have seen in 10 years of riding in cars. Tonight or tomorrow I’ll get a program thrown together for the data entry procedure; which is a trivial task for my programming skills.
Somehow it figures that have nearly 5 hours of marching almost continuously, it’s an hour of sitting with my feet up at home that makes my legs stiff as a board! On the upside though, I absolutely love my new boots and the boonie hat really keeps me cool :-D.  Then again, anything under 40 C is practically like air conditioning for me lolololol.
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According to the BBC, it seems that some people think modern technology is making people stupid. I think they were already stupid ;).

The Internet in particular tasks us with the acquisition and evaluation of knowledge, something that separates me from Joe Blow from kokomo, is my super power to quickly gather and parse massive amounts of info, evaluate the details, and push forward using it.

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If there is ever a zombie invasion, I am so kicking ass Left 4 Dead style.

Chain of Command

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Caught most of an interesting film today, called Chain of Command. The jist of it, is during talks at sea with Taiwan, the U.S. president is kidnapped in order to use his football to attack China. Since President Eisenhower, there’s been an attaché case that an aide carries for the C’ in C’ in case of all heck breaking lose. Basically it’s a way for our President to say nuke the bastards and do it yesterday.

So, during a meeting with the president of Taiwan, the secret service detail is wiped out… except for one luckly stiff who walked off to take a leak before the shooting started. To bad he didn’t take the nuclear football along lol. One lone secret service agent on football duty, has to outsmart a bunch of AK knock off packing goons, stop the ship, rescue the president, and recover the football. Of course being a day where it doesn’t pay to get out of bed, agent Connelly ends up in Hong Kong when things get even worse. To top it all of, the bastards manage to launch an American ICBM against Beijing, causing the Chinese to retaliate with an “Eye for an eye”, targeting D.C. Both cities get toasted in short terminator’esque clips.

Finding himself with the lead villain holding the president hostage on his 12, and a traitorous agent on his flank, our hero does exactly what I would’ve done: remember the first rule of a no win situation—change the rules! So he shoots the president in the leg, and caps the two bad guys while getting himself shot in the process. Since the Commander in Chief is killed during subsequent cross fire, the poor sap has to find his way back to the states with the football.

Mean while the Chinese have decided to drop nukes all over the U.S.A. believing that our arsenal is hopelessly in terrorist hands. I don’t know how high tech the nuclear football has become, other than that it isn’t nearly so powerful as in this film… even we’re not nuts enough to give one person the ability to launch nukes. But seriously, I would hope that if the President had that much power to trigger a launch, that Standard Operating Procedure would mean: if the president is compromised, cut off the footballs ability to order or launch a strike! For corn sake…!!

The movies ending, however is quite American at heart: after regaining control of our launch systems, the Vice President tells the Chinese to blow their missiles and they refuse, thinking it’s a bluff. That being an obvious problem, as acting C-in-C she orders a stage one nuclear strike against China and threatens to take it to the next level unless the Chinese self destruct their missiles in flight, ours will be sprouting mushrooms all over their lawn ^_^. Obviously the bastards in charge are forced to back down, when they see a mass of American warheads touch off, and their one minute deadline ticks past fast, hehe.

That’s how the United States of America is, you fuck with us and you won’t have a pot left to piss in. 😉

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Hmm, the big question is whether I should write my l4d series survival guide straight in the blogger interface, using Google Docs and publish as a separate web page (Blogger integration was killed off in the ‘new’ gdocs), or just vim it together in markdown or docbook+xsl, and c/p it here.

Hmm.

Army boots; good hat; new belt. Yippie-kai-yay!

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Today has been a productive day! Spent the first part of the day waiting in a doctors office, reading notes on SML. Ma had to go in early over something with her meds. After that, we took about an hours ride to an army/navy surplus shop located in the same city, as Doc Holiday was born in, interestingly.

While the selection on some things could have been better, the prices there were awesome: typically 30%-50% less than what the ones in Atlanta are displaying in their e-stores, not to mention several estores in general. It was also nice that most things are stocked in ACU/Woodland camo depending on the age, plus black or navy blue and olive drab variants. Despite what some people (like airsoft players) may choose, I refuse to wear an army camo uniform and ACU-patterned gear without enlisting. I would consider it disrespectful, even if it’s cheaper than going to Walmart for civilian cloths. Something like combat boots on the other hand are a different story!

G.I. TYPE DESERT TAN SPEEDLACE JUNGLE BOOT

They only cost about half of what most places have had to offer, and I have been wanting military style boots for ages. I have never had *real* decent footwear in my life and well, when I am seen looking for shoes, it usually means the ones I’m wearing just redefined the words “Riding a dead horse”. In this case, I currently have a large cache of “Hand me down” sneakers: experience has lead me to believe military boots would do way better. The army/navy surplus store had the type of jungle boots that I had wanted but these ones were just such a better fit for me, and just a wee bit more in price than the black leathers. The fact that the only shoes I ever loved were lace-less black suede shoes, means that I know exactly how durable that material can be—plus unlike the black leather Jungle and Tactical boots they had stocked, these suckers don’t need polishing!!! My new boots are probably not going to take wet weather in the way I would like, but I have seen suede take some heavy punishment, so at least I know the bloody things will last in the environments I frequent. I’ve also learned the hardway not to let very heavy things land on my toes lol. In comparing the leather blacks and the tan suede’s, both had sole structures that would likely out live my feet: unlike most of the sneakers I’ve had to make do with. That is the part that usually gives out on me first, wearing down to a couple of millimetre worth of outsole between me and the ground; well give or take wearing a shoe until what’s left of the outsole splits off from the rest of the shoe xD. Also in favour of the suede boots is the gripping insole pad and the type of nylon is a much more breathable kind than the regular jungles have. I guess being made for Temperate Weather has its upsides; it’s not like I’m going swimming in them either. Unfortunately the only socks they had to go with it were an order of magnitude larger than my size, so I ended up buying a pair from Walmart. Usually I skip socks as a matter of comfort, I’m in shoes to much; in this case however I want decent socks lol. The ones I’ve just gotten will have to do…

In poking around at what they had, including the packs, MOLLE gear, and tactical vests, I found boonie hats in just about every colour and camo an American could possibly dream of finding lol. Was a little more expensive than what I wanted to pay but I used to have one and found it worked well in wet weather. I reckon it ought to be good for walking under the hot sun too, so I bought myself an OD boonie hat! Been wanting to find a new one because my old stopped fitting a couple years back. In Georgia, most of the time I don’t wear a hat unless it’s raining but that should probably change, at least when out for a long walk. When I was a child, I liked umbrellas for wet weather because you can sword fight with them in between outings in the storm. Dripping rain coats are also not my bag and I’m to old to have fun otherwise in the rain. A good hat is all I want when it is pouring down rain! I’m kind of weird about rainy weather, love being out in it, long as my feet stay drier than walking in a puddle.

While we were in the store, I also nabbed a dark web belt to supplement my grandfathers. As I got heavier in weight over the years, I gave up on ‘regular’ belts and adapted an heirloom instead. Grandpa’s web belt has been able to keep pace with my waist, even after dropping several jean sizes lol. It was something he picked up in World War II during his time in the Navy, and despite being over 65 years old, it still kicks the ass of any other belt I have ever encountered. As long as it keeps my pants up and is quick to put on/take off, I’m happy beltwise. I just don’t want to be bothered! The one I bought for $5 has a cheaper belt buckle and lacks the strange character (I assume a Japanese character or some meaningful symbol from the look of it) on my grandfathers but this one has the actual belt itself made from a more modern nylon. It’s like a fraction of the quality of my grandfathers’ web belt but, unlike grandpa’s I don’t have to worry about wearing out a family heirloom!

On the way back home, of course we had to stop at Walmart for ma to do grocery shopping >_>. My mother also had to point out that I took longer to shop for boots than she took at the doctors lolololol. Tomorrow is a trip to the pharmacy and some more shopping, so hopefully I’ll get to break in my new boots. That reminds me, I need to wash the socks!

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Somehow it figures, that after getting through *almost* 5 out of 5 levels on advanced, barely taking any scratches, and shooting zombie A through on to the finale! Instead of high tailing it to the rescue boat, I take care of a lazzo’ed teammate and end up mobbed in zombies he limps clear.

Of course all 3 of my teammates have to leave me for dead, when they could just through a pipe bomb to distract the zombies and someone pick me up lol. Nooblets 8=)

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While I generally have a passive nature, get my dander up enough, and I make ready for war.

Stoking the fires of war

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Well, today sets a new precedent in my family’s affairs: blocking my mother on all digital medium ^_^.

First notch on the list:

For years (i.e. since gaining steady ‘net access) I have enjoyed the Internet, as it is well beyond my mothers competency to exert much control over what I can and what I cannot do. This includes censoring my freedom of speech.

Second notch on the list:

Rarely being able to say a damn thing without having my words taken out of context and turned against me ad nauseam, whenever my choice of words were not “Agreeable” enough to my mother’s mood.

Third notch on the list:

Being regularly threatened with physical harm, property destruction, and discrimination whenever I refuse to comply with her orders to not express in voice or text what I feel, think, or reason about beyond the scope of my brains own internal monologue. I consider attempting to exert that level of control against someone (i.e. me) who has reached the age of majority, to be a violation of that persons (i.e. my) rights as an American citizen. In plain English my mother is trying to gag me from saying anything she doesn’t like. If the government is forbidden from enacting laws doing such a thing by the first amendment to the U.S. constitution, I rather doubt rather doubt my mother has the legal right to do something similar in this household.

Recent events:

Being verbally attacked (see third notch) for having written this, which you can bet is nothing my mother hasn’t gotten told worse to her face over the years. One of my friends found my mother’s threats over that journal entry, to be rather ludicrous (to describe her reaction with my own words). Another incident (see third notch, above) involved this comment on my Facebook wall: “I find my families lack of logical comprehension disturbing.” Which is also very true, because most of my (immediate) family has very dim comprehension of logic. I often tell my mother to learn English when she annoys me, by not comprehending very simple ideas, like if you do X then Y will follow. I’ve taken enough crap that I’m tired of being threatened.

End result:

I’ve blocked my mothers Facebook account, her e-mail address, and will add any other digital forms as appropriate. Whether or not I will continue to speak to her in person, is a matter for me to think over thoroughly.

In my point of view: my legal rights as a human being and a citizen of the U.S. state of Georgia are being impugned by a hateful control freak. I don’t know any polite synonyms for control freak. Case in point, if as a citizen of the state of Georgia in the United States of America, am allowed to exercise freedom of speech within the scope of what is legally acceptable, I ought to be able to do the same on the Internet without being threatened by my mother.

If I have to take much more of this bullshit, I’m going down to the local courthouse and finding out how to litigate this matter. You don’t screw with geeks.