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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 !

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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.

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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

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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…

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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.

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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

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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!

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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 !!!

Writer’s Block: Lame jobs

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What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?

Live Journals Writer’s Block

The

worst

job I have ever had…

Without a single doubt that is definitely one of our old clients. We used to work there every Thursday, boss one of the kind it don’t matter if the worlds coming to end your still wanted to come kind of jobs. Also the kind if the phone rings in the morning, you pray it means you don’t have to show up !!!

The mother had energy problems so she never cleaned anything, with that house who wouldn’t have energy problems (no offense meant). The youngest daughter ADHD, although it’s classified as an attention span disorder… The way that kid was, I called her HDD — Hyper Destructive Disorder, I never noticed an signs of ADHD, just that she practically demolished the place lol. The elder daughter was going to and from collage and planning a wedding… So she was in the boat, trash it but don’t leave it better then it was found 8=)

To top it off, they had like 6 dogs and two floors. Oh my word was that house a nightmare…

Every week there would be garbage piled everywhere, leftover food, dishes, snacks, homework, dog wastes, clothes, everything plus infinity composited into one massive mess and us two stooges (workin’ cheap) had to pick it all up, no one in the house ever lifted a bloody finger : (can you say taken advantage of). Just bending over half way would get my nose running and sneezing from proximity to the hardwood floor, what was _left_ of it that is. With my allergies I usually travel ‘fully loaded’ with a paper towel in each pocket but it wasn’t enough for over there.

I don’t mean no disrespect and have nothing against them (nice family) but, holy guacamole ! If they ever tried to sell that house, no one on earth would buy the place. The family would have to burn the house down, fumigate the ashes, then drop a tactical nuke on the vacant lot before rebuilding… It really was that bad man, like if you had to sit on the floor to do something, you’d want to disinfect your ass on the way out kind of nasty.

Needless to say, when the client couldn’t afford us any longer…

when I heard we were being let go

,

IT WAS THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE THUS FAR !!!!

I’ve had to do lots of crap over the years but there are only two jobs that I’ve ever regretted having to do. To me work is work, that’s it — you get your fat ass out of bed and go to work, even if… You’d rather be anyplace but >_>. That was the dirtiest, most stressful, most exhausting job I’ve ever had to live with and I’m glad it’s gone.

This reminds me of a scene in Wild Hogs when Martin Lawrence (a plumber) comments about wearing condoms on his shoes:

Tim Allen: Did you ever wake up one morning and wonder what happened to your life?

[John Travolta nods his head]

Tim Allen: You know, I thought my life would be an adventure. All of a sudden, I’m a suburban dentist.

Martin Lawrence: Look, Doug, I feel your pain, man. I mean I swore I would never return to a job where I had to where condoms on my shoes.

John Travolta: You’re still at The Firm?

Martin Lawrence: Yea. I get yelled at by an ungrateful wife. I swear the whole thing has made me…

Tim Allen: …a wimp.

Martin Lawrence: I was gonna say miserable.

Martin Lawrence: [pause] What? You think I’m a wimp?

Tim Allen: No, I thought you were gonna say wimp, so I’d thought I’d say it for you.

John Travolta: You’re a wimp, Bobby. I’ll say it. I mean you’re afraid of women. It’s kinda embarrassing.

William Macy: I’m afraid of women.

John Travolta: You’re afraid to talk to women. Bobby’s afraid they’ll kill him in his sleep.

[Tim Allen and John Travolta laugh]

William Macy: Wow… now I’m really afraid of women.

Wild Hogs is a good movie (y), I liked the end scene though hehe… When they’re riding and Macy ends up on the wrong side of the road, and he’s like, “Yeah!” he had finally made it without crashing into something. And his friends are there, and then they look ahead, and oh shit! And crash while he’s driving off chuckling. You could say that the Code Monkey had the last laugh xD

Breathin’ in and out.

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*sigh*

Life’s really been quite a lot of just keep putting one foot in front of the other lately.

Most of my time spent workin’ all day or slavin’ over some project, and my nights login’ for something more.

I’m currently sitting on about $300… My grandfather sent me money for my birthday early. I was a bit worried that he might’ve sent it because he could’ve thought he might not be here come June… But my aunt says he’s doing pretty well now. To be honest, I’d rather have my Grandfather then the money.

All I’ve ever really wanted from him for my birthday is a birthday card, never have gotten one though… But as my mom says it’s just not his way of doing things :.

For me it’s largely just another day, but I don’t say that aloud because my father would say the same thing lol. I know I’m going to get stuck buying clothes and the sad thing is I agree, I need to lol. Most of my clothes are getting to be like rags between the holes, rips, and clorox stains between home and work wear & tear. You could say I’m a lot like my father, when I like my clothes I wear those and not much else, and I wear them until they fall apart. I remember my mother telling me that when he died, he held up a pair of his jeans and could see light shining through them, they were so thin ! And yes my shoes are usually splitting apart by the time I’ll agree to buying new ones 😛

I’ve alloted a budget of $150 which is enough to replace everything I essentially wear and enough of it to last. Very hard for me to do it… Although I’ve never had a problem with spending inordinate amounts of money, I’m a very well thought out person when it comes to spending money, because I never have any to spend lol.

I know the value of a buck, and when they are rare you learn to spend it wisely ’cause if you don’t, ya ain’t gonna get another chance. If I ever had a real sum of money I think I would invest it, grow it so it could be used for some thing worth while someday. Hell, if you could save even $1 everyday, you could have over $3,600 in 10 years. in just over 40 years you’d have like $15,000. I’m not a big fan of spending money on myself, so it’s probably good to be single atm.. Other wise I probably would be doubly broke lol.

I also utterly hate shopping, at least when oogling computer parts isn’t involved that is >_<. I know exactly whats on the target list, and the raid will be conducted with brutal military efficiency ! Anyone planning on doing any 'one more thing' ing is gonna wind up in the dust rail hehe. Getting me to go shopping _willingly_ is a feat of it's own, let along to get me to waste time at it ^_^. One thing I do know, since 75-80% of my wardrobe isn't used, if I'm paying -> I’m chucking everything I don’t want (give away, donate, or trash), along with the throwing out the ‘rags’ that I’m stuck doing away with hehe.

I’m also getting a new headset one way or the other… Don’t know if I’ll be able to order it off the web but I’ve got a nice pair of Sennheisen lined up with a mic. Last time I had to open Ghost a slot in PG#1, I needed to ask Big12 to come on TS to tell Ghost when the slot was opened for him… Because his laptop can’t handle XFire and I can’t talk over TeamSpeak with a Mic, and texting over TS doesn’t help when the other parties full screen in Rvs lol.

I need to save a bit for school and I’m not sure how that is going to work out…, But having the funds stored will be helpful for it. Although I’d rather like to upgrade my laptops memory while I can it’s not important.

512MB of PC2700 ain’t terribly fast but it gets the job done. For $300 I could get a barebones kit and scrape together some parts from another PC and get a 5th machine running in this house but I don’t really need another computer, for the cost of some PC2100 DDR and a Wireless card I could get a junked PC I’ve got here running anyway.

I once set aside a $100 to do some thing I’ve always wanted, make a donation to my clan… But family managed to bleed me dry before I could. Things are going well with [SAS] in that regard because of our members, one reason I’ve always wanted to donate is because I know whose asses the bills come out of at the end of the day. Because of my family, even if I did managed to succeed in it I wouldn’t trust the USPS as much as Random to get it to the right place and that’d be my only option 😐

So I guess that’s out, I don’t really care much for spending money on myself, aside from more computers that is >_> but as much as I really would like to take most of the $300 I’ve got and just

SAVE IT

for the future. I know if I don’t spend it, I’ll eventually spend it on my family eventually when they run short lol.

It don’t ‘pay’ to be a nice guy you could say but, I’m who and what I am.