Any idiot can drive fast in a straight line

Friday, June 15, 2001

'Don't you just hate it when you're using Instant Messenger and you go to type "yeah" and what really comes out is "yeha," like you're a big cowboy or something? I hate that. ' - Adam Kempa

I've never been called a racist in my life, nor do I believe that I ever will. When most people (especially men) are accused of being racist, they vehemently exclaim "But some of my friends are black!". This may very well be true, but well assured that these 'black' friends act more 'stereotypically white' than the average. I could almost say that I fall into this category. Two friends of mine are just these sort of friends. They have normal midwestern accents, wear t-shirts and average clothes you can find at the mall, etc etc. Lastly, they have extreme public courtesy. The public editor of the Chicago Tribune comments on the lack of public courtesy that some blacks have. By the way, the editor is also black. Does agreeing make me racist? No, I equally discriminate against anyone that pisses me off.

So, I have to get up before 8 AM in Ann Arbor for the first time in almost 2 months. This is due to a major server upgrade to the most important software package at work (gotta upgrade the only NT server to Service Pack 6a, then install a JVM for EJB). Since I usually wake up around 11, breakfast is more a lunch issue. Today, I decide to eat the remaining packets of Quaker Instant Oatmeal. Open the package, what do I find? Larvae! The package was completely infested in some sort of insect. Jamie almost puked, and I decided I wasn't so hungry anymore.

Wednesday, June 13, 2001

::Gasp, choke:: Cant.. breathe... stinking pile of feces that is pop music... wearing me down...

Sunday, June 10, 2001

Update to the previous post (OpenBSD): OpenBSD 2.9 has been released. My server at home and all the servers at work are now using it. So far, I haven't noticed much of a change. I guess they were all working so well with 2.8 that they can't get much better! Most people say that the greatest change is the use of soft updates in the FFS filesystem. Nothing is terribly IO intensive on these servers, so no changes have been noticed...

Update to the previous post (Java): In the past 6 months I have flirted with PHP, perl, and now Java. Michigandaily.com is completely dependent on PHP, not only for displaying the pages but for creating the pages. Using a cheap iMac, perl, and a bunch of OpenBSD tricks, I created a backup server. Good thing too, our web server died just two days ago! As for Java, these skills are mostly for future consideration...

Update to the previous post (Pokemon): The reason why I am playing Pokemon at all is because of PvP. Player vs. Player is another online comic that I am reading now. Most of the characters talk about playing their favorite PC games (mostly FPSs like Quake III, Half-life, and UT). A running gag is that the troll of the group, Skull, only plays Pokemon. I read the entire archive and all of the mentions of Pokemon warped my mind.

For all of your having trouble with Pokemon Silver, here is a walkthrough. You can thank me later!

I have no shame. A few days ago I was looking for emulators on the web. Finding a free Gameboy emulator proved almost impossible but I found a Java Gameboy emulator. Other than the lack of sounds, it is quite amazing. I started Java programming (Java, Java servlets, and JavaServer Pages) recently, and the code to the emulator is understandable and clean. As with most applets, don't try to run it on a Mac; it crashed IE 5. The next discovery was the No$ (no cash) emulator. With a name like No$, I am thinking free. Five minutes into playing Pokemon, the game quits and the program pops up with "Pay us or you only get 5 minutes of playing at a time!!". Bastards. Didn't I say I had no shame? Well, yes, the only reason I wanted these emulators was to play Pokemon! And play Pokemon I have! I have put over 8 hours into Pokemon Silver in the past three days. Does that mean I found a free emulator? No, but I found a way to circumvent the No$ 5 minute rule... Want a copy? Come and get it.

So, Blogger has been eating my posts ever since I moved the website. I made that move right around the time of that April 28th post. The move was from the server stuck between two dressers in my bedroom (fireball) to the new 1U server in the server room at the Daily (queen).