Nekomimi Mode

http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=185195&title=debt-to-america

Why is it ok to hand out 700 billion dollars to corperations who knew the risks of a public and volitile market, but not ok to hand out 700 billion dollars to fund public education (including universities), fund health care in this country (we spend more than any other country on earth on healthcare, but get worse results), or help veterans from foriegn wars get back on their feet?

Think about it - if the free market, and capitolism are ideals you hold true these people shouldn’t be bailed out.

John Stewart may call this move - the red hand of Stalin, but its more facist than it is communist if you think about it for a minute. Public financing of private corperations isn’t all that different than what totalitarian governments frequently engage in.

And no oversight? Come on - if I loan someone 20 dollars I at least expect them to pay me back ;).

Penny Arcade Expo was a lot of fun. I think there were more companies pushing MMO’s than previous years - which is always exciting. Warhammer Online looked exactly like WoW, Lord of the Rings also looks an awful lot like WoW. I think the only game that didn’t was Eve Online from CCP. My brother Jason got to preview the next Need for Speed game - which looks kinda fun. There were few cute girls operating booths which I tried to get pictures of:

Random cosplayer - clue what she is dressed up as :(.

Main character from X-Blades from South Peak Interactive. Never played the game - looks pretty dull.

One of the babes from the Nokia booth. They had demos of their n-gage games on their phones.

Another Nokia girl - they actually had maybe 8 of them?

Ooh another girl? Yup - its a model of Onyxia.

The PC tournament.

The draw tommorow’s Penny-Arcade comic. This event is always popular.

My brother testing the new Need for Speed game. It actually crashed on him - the tech blamed it on the Xbox overheating.

You’re truely driving home for the day :).

This is kind of a funny link:

http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2008/07/then-well-grab.html

I’m sure the owner eager to cash in on foreign visitors did some quick work at the sign shop to get this done. Oh well ;).

Here’s some pictures I took from Ottawa:

The Canadian government is very efficent. This is the lawn out in front of Parliment Hill - its quite large. This guy was really going back and forth across it.

Canadian parliment - this is the seat of power in Canada.

The original peace tower (in the background) burned to the ground at the stroke of midnight it fell and this bell was left there as a reminder of what happened. Interestingly enough the bell itself was made in New York (thats what it says at least).

Parliment library on the left.

Parliment hill cat santuary - didn’t see any cats unfortunately.

View from Parliment Hill - thats the Ottawa River on the right.

View from on top of the Peace Tower.

One of the few pictures that turned out ok. This is the Senate debate chamber. Its kind of like the House of Lords in the UK. All these people are appointed by the majority party and the main opposition and they have strict rules for attendance etc. The House of Commons chamber was occupied in closed session - so I couldn’t take any pictures :(.

Thats pretty much it. What was I doing in Ottawa? Well I was visiting the Tier 2 agents at Adobe. The Adobe office in Ottawa is where a lot of work is done for developing and supporting Livecycle products. Last year they moved the Tier 2 support for Acrobat, and all of the Creative Suite products there as well.

First of all I have to apologize for not updating this blog lately. Its just I’ve been so busy… I’ll just run down the list. Pretty much the only people who will even see this are those who have this blog on rss.

Work:

I’m kind of neurotic - at work things are falling off the table (figuratively) left and right for quite some time now. It’s been almost a year since they did the re-org and fired most of the team. We lost one member, almost lost another and will probably lose another at the end of the year. I scramble around to get things done to look good because sadly if stuff doesn’t get done I get the blame. Certain people I work with seem to think engineering can fix every single bug they escalate no matter how big or small the customer. It also seems no-one there knows just how long researching, testing and writing up these issues takes.

Taxes:

Trying to find the insurance paperwork on the stolen motorcycle, which is stressing me out - I know its in my mess somewhere.

WoW:

Its fun - plus it helps take the edge off life. Its especially fun to play with friends. I should probably cut back though - I realized this as I have 3 level 70 characters (max level in the game) and 2 level 60+ characters. I quit the guild Dragonfire because I didn’t think they took it seriously, but then what does that mean (its supposed to be a game after all)? They usually chose players who were in their immediate family over those who had better gear and better skills for raids. I’d like to do some of the more challenging 25 man instances, but to be honest with my job I really think it would be more of a burden right now - however fun it may be. Lately I’ve been playing Alterac Valley on my warlock - its fun, and you can do it solo, but you do have to check your dignity at the door because you go up against other players - often better equipped than you.

Screwing around:

So… (I’m being silly here) I found out a way to browse the net on my phone… I’ll have to write that up on here. The Nokia N95 is rather capable - it even works with Youtube and has a full Internet browser (I say this because if you watch Apple iPhone ads you’d think they have a monopoly on this). Oddly enough playing with your phone during boring meetings looks far more suspicious than playing with your computer during boring meetings.

Apple:

You’d think I’d have a general disdain for Apple products in general. I’m typing this on a Powerbook actually - so there you go. I’ve never been baptized in the church of Apple however and I’m not afraid to point out their products flaws. The Powerbook (and Macbook by association) are flawed in a lot of different ways. The glowing light when its on standby is annoying if the computer lives in your bedroom, the lack of a second mouse button, and the fact that I frequently open it up - upside down (at first glance its hard to tell which side is up) are some of the minor annoyances these machines have. The computer is freezing at first to put on your lap, and gradually becomes extremely hot is another major flaw. I’ve actually gotten in the habit of putting a blanket on my lap before putting the laptop on my lap. It also seems to stuggle playing back video - especially Flash videos which is unfortunate as I love to browse Youtube for fun.

Anyhow there you go - have a wonderful week :).

Tools for Wellness is one of these sites that sells expensive cures to problems we all have in life. This sounds simple enough, however most of these things are placebos at best, dangerous at worst. It may sound innocent, but someone is getting rather wealthy off these items. They removed it, but they had a copper bar on their used to protect land etc - for $300.

BTW - if you want to protect yourself from electronic fields, my brother in-law has a copper  clad room (at Intel) that works quite well. To be honest standing inside it with the door closed felt no different that standing outside it, except my cellphone quit working.

Krispy Cream Cheeseburger… As if Krispy Cream’s weren’t gross enough - someone had the brilliant idea of putting a cheeseburger, with bacon in a glazed doughnut.

People wonder why American’s are so obese…

So I’ve been a State Farm customer for a while, but recently I missed a bill. I probably lost it during the move :(. Anyhow they dropped me as a customer - and told me frankly that I’d be better off getting a policy with another company since they were going to sign me up as a new customer - for a considerable amount. Then she told me - "I’ll be honest you’re probably better off with another provider" - so I switched, but its not cheaper than what I was paying. Oh well - live and learn :(.

I saw this email in my junk folder:

Normally I’m like delete, but then I was like - I did give the IRS a lot of money and I’m always short a bit of cash. Turns out it takes you to a site hosted off http://int.touritour.com - they probably rely on an older security flaw in your browser.

Why was I fooled? The email doesn’t even have a To:  line :(. I’m getting rusty.

When I was in Scotland I read about a new bike from Suzuki GSX650F - which is a budget sport touring bike. You can read all about it here - or search Youtube for videos of it. I like the way it looks, I like the riding position and it has good economy (around 55-60 mpg). Its also very comfortable.

I’m thinking maybe I should get one to replace the Yamaha that was stolen :).