Okay, I wasn't going to mention this but it's the second time I've seen this guy. He's the biggest ass clown I've ever seen. He drives a Chevy Suburban LT 4x4 (i.e. the biggest SUV GM sells) with not one but two "War is not the answer" stickers. Why two? Because his car is so big he needs both.

It's nice that you think war is not the answer. Now if you could get off your lazy ass and maybe drive something a little more practical maybe it really wouldn't be.

Tonight when I got home I turned on the light switch in the kitchen and was stunned by the amount and quality of light emitted. It was much brighter and cleaner than what it was just yesterday.

Earlier today my brother and I installed four recessed light in the kitchen. Three over the counters and one over the stove. My brother is working with my dad now too.

It was fun working with my brother. Though a little strange. He's my older brother, but I have to show him how to do everything. Having all of five months experience on him I'm sure it'll even out soon enough.

We used to just have this really lame fixture in the center of the kitchen. It had four candelabra bulbs ( the type usually reserved for wall sconces ). I'd strongly advise anybody against installing a fixture of this kind. The bulbs were constantly burning out and even when we had all of them running the lighting wasn't all that good.

When it comes to kitchen lighting recessed lights are the only way to fly. The light is nice and white as opposed to the yellow light of normal bulbs. It's always very bright since the light comes from many sources it doesn't get blocked easily. Plus the light is concentrated more where you need it (in the work areas) and less where you don't want it (the rest of the room).

Please excuse me while I go stand in the kitchen and basking the "glow" of my labors. :-)

Okay not really. I posted 50 comments in the last 24 hours. which is apparently the limit. God, how pathetic is that. Comments disabled because I can't answer them anyhow.

I'm listening to Morcheeba - Charango on my dad's stereo. How is this historic you ask? Well I downloaded all the tracks off the net, burned them to CD-R and it's all legal. It cost me a tenner and I probably could have found the used CD cheeper. I would've had to get off my lazy ass and I doubt I would have found those MassiveAttack remixes for under 5 dollars. So I guess it's a wash.

I really like the design of the apple music store ( their selection leaves a little to be desired though ). It's really easy to use, my mom could do this, probably my dad too. I'm beginning to think it's the whole reason they made safari, and the browser was just an afterthought.

On the other hand 99 a song and $9.99 is a little steep for just a download. These days you can buy a CD for close to that price. Yes I'm willing to pay for downloads but packaging + media adds value.

Of course there are what I like to call the counter revolutionaries. Dirty Vegas won't let you buy Days Go By (their one hit) without buying the rest of their rather mediocre albums. They will however let you pay 99 any of the other songs on their albums. They also renamed the acoustic mix to "Untitled (Bonus Track 1)" and upped their price for the album to 12 bucks. Audioslave won't give you a break on the album. They'll only let you buy it a track at a time. I'm noticing a lot more of this as I look deeper it's really annoying. I wonder what happens to the poor sot that buys a few of a bands filler tracks and then later decides he want's the hit song too. Do they charge him twice for the songs he bough already? Do they have him pay the difference? I'll try not going to find out the hard way.

To prove that I got the mad hookupz I've set up a dedicated BF 1942 server for the nerdfarm. It's co-located at exidus and it doubles as a DNS server, but it should server our needs. IP: 64.70.50.8 Pass: lgbewbz.

Feel free to drop by for some practice rounds.

UPDATE: Saturday 5:50 PM. I think I figured out the problem that GMH was having. To connect to the server first hit the add server button and fill in the IP address. Then hit the "Join" button. Don't hit the "Ok" button or it'll give you an error about not being able to find the server. This is because it's currently unlisted.

UPDATE: Tuesday 12:09 AM. The server is now listed and I took off the password (sorry LG we still love you) so we could get a few players in there. I also changed the map to El Alamein.

My W2K box has been really buggy. It would just hard reboot at random intervals. At first I chalked it up to standard windows bugginess I tried a few thing to troubleshoot it. It would sorta work then the problem would come back.

Tonight it got really bad. Then I realized what the problem was. My power-supply fan isn't moving. That is definitely in the bad category of thing.

It looks like I have to go to fry's again. I might as well pick up one of those GameVoice thingies while I'm there.

I really wanted to play UT2K3 tonight. :(

I now have a W2K box and I've installed a few games on it. RTCW, GTA 1, Wolfienstine + SOD (yes the old ass games from 1993) Quake 3, UT, BF 1942, Re-volt, BF 1942, Warcraft 3.

Anybody want to play?

So they've announced the lineup for the next installment of Coachella I think I'll go again this year if I can scrape the dough together.

I was thinking about if I were to make my own music festival who would I want to be there. Here is my list.

• Groove Armada
• Tricky
• Jungle Brothers
• Massive Attack
• David Bowie
• The Streets
• Morcheeba
• DJ Shadow
• Dub Pistols
• Freestylers
• DJ Qbert
• Télépopmusik
• Röyksopp
• Lemmon Jelly
• DJ Rap
• BT
• Felix Da House Cat
• Underworld
• The Cranberries
• Beth Gibbons(Remember the girl from portishead? Well, she's gone solo now. )
• The Cardigans

Quick list of things I wouldn't want.

• Blue Man Group. The power of suggestion at work. keep telling people something is great and they'll believe you.
• Dirty Vegas. They had a cool song that got waaaaaaaaaaay plaid out and all the rest of their songs sound exactly the same.
• Marolin Manson. (His fans scare me)
• Michael Jacson. (ditto)

Thats all I could think of just now. What would you want at a music fest?

It's been a while since I wrote anything here and I've been posting a lot less lately. Slashdot has become more of a chore really. So many Journals to keep up with ( I currently have 36 unread message ). I spend most the time on #slasdot instead.

Anyhow that said here is my day...
Today I went down to the "Supply Sergeant" on Hollywood Blvd. I needed a new belt as my last one was about to fall apart. I also needed a good pair of boots with steel toes because I work construction now (well close enough).

I picked out a simple black web belt and took a look at the boots. I wasn't really into them. What I really wanted was a pair of Doc Martins. Say what you will about the Brits. Any country that makes boots like that can't be half bad.

I walked down to that newish shopping center at Hollywood and Highland and found the "O'MY SOLE". I walked in and the first thing I noticed was the girl working there was hot. I picked out a good pair of boot and was out the door in under 5 minutes.

The girl gave 10% off. She said she is allowed to give out discounts at a maximum of 10% to people and she does it for "the cool people."

w00t hot girl at "O'MY SOLE" thinks I'm cool. Can I get an unf?

I picked up my car from the shop today. I took a few photos.

It's still not registered. The paperwork is all fscked. On the pink slip the guy signed off only in one of the two places required. Then I got a bill of sale from him. The only problem is in the bill of sale he uses his name and on the pink-slip it's registered to his business. Now I need to do the bill of sale thing again this time getting it from his business. The woman behind the counter implied that I should do him the favor of signing it for him.

You know I'm at the point were that doesn't seem like such a bad idea anymore.

Massive Attack is releasing another album. OMG! I thought the day would never come. Here's hopping it doesn't suck royally.

...at Ottawa civic Hospital. I'll let you figure out the rest.

This is it the end of the road. Once I finish this last project I will hang up my ssh and quit the web-dev stuff for a while (never say never).

Once you find yourself making arrays of code segments to be evaled. So you can validate a form with no special cases. It's time to move on. Because you're really just doing it so you won't be bored.

My second batch of films from netflix showed up today.

First batch was:

• Surf Nazis must die. This is just about the worst movie ever made)
• Amelie. I love this movie
• Abre los ojos. I made a point of avoiding Vanilla sky so I could save myself for this movie. That and I just don't like Cameron Crowe

Second batch contains:

• Enemy at the gates. This isn't such a bad movie if you can get past the Russians with British accents thing. Why do they do that? Do Hollywood directors really think that Romans, Russians, and Vikings all spoke with British accents?
• Y tu mamá también.(And your mother too) This movie is apparently really good. I haven't seen it yet so I shall see.
• El Espinazo del Diablo. The Devil's backbone. I saw the trailer for this, but I never heard about it getting into theaters. I must have missed it

A little sidenote about netflix. Did anybodyelse notice that whomever designed the return envelope is a fan of "The Cider House Rules"?

I was at the coffee shop the otherday and this guy had an ant-war display. He was collecting signatures and promoting various books. Many of them written by Nome Chomsky. I told him he'd forgotten my favorite one. "When you ride alone you ride with Bin Laden". The store is sold out of those. Way to go Bill Maher.

On my way home I thought of a great gorilla/political prank. Get a bunch of bumper stickers that read "This car funds terrorism" and place them on SUVs. Though coming from a GTO owner that might be a tad hypocritical.

Since it's the off season I can get a round trip to London from LA for under $500. That would be a hell of a way to celebrate my 20Th birthday. Too bad I don't have my green card yet.

Which of course bring me to my new years resolutions

• Get my damn GreenCard.
• Get my car working
• Maintain my weight. I'm a good weight right now. A little on the lean side. I could stand to gain a few pounds. I just don't want them to be in flab.
• Learn to drink. I either don't drink at all or I get smashed. I need to find that happy medium
• See at least one foreign country this year (Canada doesn't count though I should go there too.)

I've been out of town for a while I hope you are all doing well. I have quite a few stories to tell.

Christmas shopping went okay. I waited till the last minuet as I always do. I had a short list this year so it wasn't that hard. Mom, Dad, Sister, Brother + Sister in law.

I did all my shopping with my sister. She is skilled in the evil arts of shopping. First time somewhere around the 20th we went this open air shopping center by the farmers market. The place is very nice they even have an old fashion trolly. I a marble slab for my father and my sister pick out some pajamas to get for my mother.

While we were shopping we somehow wound up in the shoe department. It's an odd phenomenon, take my sister shopping for anything and you will end up in the shoe section. I have yet to find an explanation for that. I saw a pair on trendy red sneaker like shoes and remarked "I have to meet a girl that wears shoes like that".

The marble slab weighed a ton so we left it at the store and retrieved it when we were ready to go home. Watching the girl behind the counter try to hand it to me was funny as hell. "Let me get that for you... oh, I see why you left it here."

My sister and I have a tradition of picking out our own gifts for each other, swapping and going to the register. Of late I've been getting a bit tired of my jean selection. I'm down to two pair that I like and a bunch of others that I'm indifferent about. My sister is also really into clothing but can't justify spending 150 buck on a pair of pants. I though it would be a good idea if we both went and picked out a pair of designer jeans and bought them for each other. That way she's not spending it on clothes she's spending it on a christmas present for her favorite brother.

It's the 24th and I still can't think of anything to get for my brother. My mother tells me he really wants a new ironing board. The one he has is very flimsy and it's all you can do the keep it from falling over while you iron. A call to linens and things later and they have one on hold for me. All I have to do is get to Glendale. Now we all know what a "joy" Glendale is, but hey it's christmas.

Christmas day was alright. I spent the day with the family and saw "Two weeks notice" which didn't suck nearly as much as I thought it would. "Equilibrium" wasn't playing anymore.

At the end of the day I had to quickly pack for a trip to she my grandmother. As we had the redeye out of LAX. Considering the time constraints I did quite well. I even found room for my PS2 and "GTA:Vice City".

We had a second christmas up there. I got, some pajamas, a turtleneck sweatshirt, and these light up things you put behind your ears.

After a day or so at my grandmothers house we went to visit my aunt and my oldest cousin. He's about a year older than me and is visiting his parents (my aunt and uncle) on his christmas break. One of his friends from high school who is misfortunate enough to be born in late december. Was having his 21 birthday party at his parents house in town. He invited my cousin and it was okay if he brought me along.

We took his mom's car to the party and got there about the right time. Most of the guests had arrived, but there was still plenty of beer. My cousin didn't really know anybody at the party except birthday boy since it was all his collage friends and the rest of the high school friends didn't show.

Anyhow back to me. I'm starting on my second beer and I spot that a few of the girls are milling around talking about something. I notice there looking at me. Then I hear one of them say something like "I think he's 22 or 23." So I pull out my drivers license and toss it to them. "Oh he's nineteen I was way off." "Hey I'll be twenty in less than a month" I replied.

As the party progressed I started to notice one girl in particular. She was sort of quiet. and she hovered around the birthday boy a lot. Which meant that she's either his sister or his girlfriend.

After my third drink I decided a good way to find out which would be to check the family photos on the wall. If she's in them than she's obviously his sister. As I'm doing this she walks over to me and I start a conversation. "So you're his sister, right?" "Yeah, do you want to go outside for a smoke?"

We're outside smoking and we start talking about music. Apparently I look just like the drummer from that icelandic rock band who's name I can't recall at the moment. We talk about what bands we like. She likes Röyksopp and Lemon-jelly. I've never heard of Lemon-jelly myself. So she says we have to go listen to it in her room.

We're listening to music and talking when the odd pause happens. I lean in, so does she and like in all those cheesy hollywood movies her brother walks in the room. "Your mom called. They're coming by to pick you up soon. I'll come and get you when they arrive". After he leaves we continue making out till my parents arrive.

My parents come by and I tell them I don't want to leave just yet. The new plan is for me to get a ride home with my cousin and we'll all stay the night over at my aunts house.

Now I'm feeling really guilty. This girl is younger than me. She's almost 18 which makes it a little over two years. That and I'm over at this guys party getting with his little sister, how fucked up is that? I stopped making out with her and go back to the party.

I pull my cousin aside and ask him about the girl. "She cute and I think she likes me but, I don't know if it would be right. She's your friends sister that seems a little offsides don't you think?" "Nah. Go for it." "Seriously? It's all good in the hood?" he nodded and affirmative. I go listen to some more music and he has a few gin and tonics.

Fast forward an hour or two and he's drained the bottle of gin and passed out on the kitchen floor after shouting random D&D references. "I have the thaco, armor class, and he saving throw!" We carried him over to the couch and put the wastebasket in front of him just in case. My cousin and I come from a long line of drunks so I've seen worse. Okay lets be honest I've DONE worse.

Birthday boy tells me There are a bunch of people staying over and they need the couch. In other words one way or the other we had to get out.
Him:"Do you have a drivers license?"
Me:"Well, sort of"
Him"What do you mean sort of?"
Me:"Well, I have one but I'm not a very good driver and I've had a few drinks myself"
Him:"You look pretty sober, how many drinks did you have in the last two hours?"
Me:"Four"
(I lied I hadn't had a drink since my third a few hours prior. I just didn't want drive on snow. Plus his sister said I could stay in her room which I found to be a rather appealing offer.)
Him:"Okay, drink a few glasses of water and wait an hour. You'll be just fine."

I chill for a while till birthday boy tells me it's time to go. He gets two friends to carry my cousin to the car for me and writes down some directions along with his phone number just incase we get lost on the way. Then I'm off.

I'm driving to my aunt's house and before I get to the first corner my cousin starts to vomit. It's just a little bit leaving a little circle on his left shoulder. I continue on hopping that will be all of it. Sure enough before the next turn he's vomiting again this time a lot more. I'm too nervous to think straight. Obviously I should stop the car and let my cousin vomit on the street. All I can think to to do is talk to him. keep him talking that way I know he's not choking on his own vomit.

Between my cousin vomiting and trying to read the street signs in this suburban hell I ran a red light. didn't see it the light till I was almost through the intersection. to late to turn back now. Luckily for me nobody was driving on the road crossed. Unluckily someone was coming down the opposite side of the road I was on. This someone just so happened to be a police officer. Now I'm not sure of the law I'n my cousins state (Ohio) but in California anybody under 21 with a BAL of 0.01 or over is DUI. (the legal limit is usually 0.08).

I saw it all before my eyes. The officer would pull me over for the red light, see my cousin, then ask me to take the breathalyzer. Now I'm not drunk or even bussed but I did have a some drinks earlier and if the slightest hint of alcohol is still on my breath I'm losing my license and possibly going to jail. (Thank to misses Dole and M.A.D.D.)

I tried not to think about it and kept on going. After about two blocks I started breathing again. Thanks to fates the officer didn't notice or chose to ignore that I ran the red light.

I made it to my aunts house and the door was locked the house key on my cousins keychain didn't work so I rang the doorbell. After a few minuets that felt like hours my dad opened it. I guided my cousin into the house were he staggered into the living room and passed out on the floor. Moving him is pretty impossible since he weighs about 50 pounds more than me. Instead I elected to put a pillow under his head and give him a blanket.

I called birthday boy and told him we got in alright, thanked him for the directions, and apologized on behalf of my cousin. He said it was cool and that his sister wanted my email address.

I checked my email when I got back just a few hours ago and she sent me one. Now I'm wondering what to do. I mean I think I like this girl but I don't want to lead her on incase I don't. Then again those shoes I pointed out to my sister, she has a pair just like them.

All in all though I think that night was an important change of perspective. You see I'm the one who usually hits on women I'm too young for and I'm the one who gets shit-faced and has to be carried to the car. Now I know how they feel.

I have 50 /. messages in my queue so I think I'll just hit the submit now.