Check this out.
That's a method on the java.lang.System object. WTF? Doesn't that belong in the java.util.Arrays class?

My only guess is that it manipulates low level memory to make the copy go 'fast', but still.... arraycopy on the System object just makes me queezy...

Well, last night was the freeze... I transplanted my basil indoors and picked all the ripe->almost ripe tomatos. The Romas were a disaster. The cherrys were an enormous success. Now I have about a buschel of the damn things and no idea what to dow ith them (normally, they are garnish, for salads, or quick snacks).
So I figured, what the hell, I'll try a sauce with them...
Here's my preliminary idea:
2-4 links hot italian sausage
3 cups of halved cherry tomatos
3 cups of pureed cherry tomatos (for me, I'll take'm with skin... I'm lazy)
~4 cloves of garlic
1 small onion (really small)
fresh parsley
fresh basil

Will sweat the garlic and onion with a touch of oil... then add the sausage. Give it lots of time to cook before adding in the pureed tomatos, season with the parsley and basil. Bring to a simmer and let the flavors soak. About 30 minutes before finishing, I'll add the halves to give them time to soften, but I don't want them entirely broken down (for a different flavor and texture).

Any opinions on changes? If not, I'll tell you how it turns out...

I spent ALL DAY Saturday at a soccer game and King's Island with my wife and children, my sister-in-law, and her 3 kids. That's 5 kids, SIL's boys are aged 6,5, and 1, and Joey is 4, Jenna is like 16 months.

So we wake up for Joey's 9am soccer match. Let me put a 4 year old soccer match into perspective. They know to kick it in the right goal. That's about the limit. And they play 4-5 year olds, so you have 'experienced older kids' and 'completely clueless'. My son falls into the latter category. He kicked the ball twice. Once when there was an out-of-bounds kick.... for the other team. The other was after it was out of bounds. He chases the crowd instead of chasing the ball. The ball can literally be right on his toes, but he's more concerned with following his teammates, so he just walks away instead of kicking it. I tried soooo hard just to get him to kick the ball.... I didn't care if he kicked it the wrong way, or even scored a goal for the other team... but to see him get into the thick of things and kick the ball, or at least trip up some of the other players (What?? I'm a football fan, remember). Nope... what kinda summed up his playing is "Mommy! Look at the butterfly!"
I know I know... they say "next year, he'll understand it and get into it." I'm only doing this until he's old enough for peewee football (which he's already interested in).

After the game, we went straight to the amusement park. This is a pretty big thing for me. I hate rollercoasters. No, I'm not afraid of them or anything... I've been on the Millenium Force at cedar point and all that, I just don't get a rush from them... well, I guess I get a small rush, but its always killed by the 30 minutes queuing. They usually give me headaches, and I hate overcrowded amusement parks. But this was for my kids. So we spent all the time in the nick-jr land... anytime the two babies couldn't go on a ride, I volunteered to watch them. Then, after 8pm, I even offered to take all 5 home so the wife and her sister can go on the big rides. Took'm all home and put'm to bed. So give me some 'good father/uncle points'. I'll have to cash those in in November for a new Wii.... ;)

If Ben can't give the defense a chance to catch their breath, every game will end up like last nights.... start off the defense dominates, giving the offense an opportunity to get in a rhythm, but when Ben starts screwing around, throwing up lame ducks like he has, and the offensive line (the hyper-powered o-line of last year) is getting tossed around, well the defense gets tired.
Props to Phillip Rivers, though... that kid had a great game.

So... maybe I'll end up as a Bears fan. Anymore room on that bandwagon, Em? Heh, and I'm seeing St.Louis as a quiet little sleeper on the NFC side of things, too...

For those that watch "Lost" I have a theory...
Fake Henry Gale (aka "Ben", now) has been put in place to be 'him'. I don't think he's 'him'... in fact, I'm starting to believe Rousseiau is 'him'. She 'captured' Ben... she gave 'Ben' to the losties...
I don't believe he 'purposely' got caught... I think he's 2nd in charge and when something bad happened (like the whole Ethan debacle), he was punished by infiltrating the losties by being captured.

There ya go... in 2 seasons when they get down and dirty with the whole hierarchy, we'll see if I'm right...

FYI - last nights episode didn't do it for me. The first 10 minutes were FANTASTIC, but the rest? Meh... too many questions, not enough answers.

Top 10 Weird Al songs (with embedded youtube vids of them).
What would you have said in the mid 80s if someone told you Michael Jackson would end up being a child molester, and Wierd Al would still be doing his thing in 20 years?

Sounds kinda Yogi Berra-ish, eh?
Worked 16 hours last night (9am-1am). Started around 11am today. Slept in, yet I'm still having a hard time concentrating and its taking time for me to understand things...
When I was fresh outta college, I had to pull a few all-nighters at my first job, and it hardly affected me. Now I think I'm going to be out of it until this weekend and that's only if my wife lets me catch up on sleep...

As I've mentioned many-a-times, my wife is a type-1 diabetic, and we usually do the Walk for Diabetes in Cincy when it comes around. This year, they allow donations online, so if you'd like to donate to our walk (all proceeds go to the American Diabetes Association), please email me and I'll hook you up with her link.

Since I'm in a cave and never heard of it, thought I'd pass it along to everyone else in case someone else hasn't heard of it. AntiFreeze mentioned it in TL's latest JE:
Synergy - Software to share your keyboard and mouse between machines, seemlessly, even if they are different OS's. Definitely some pretty neato stuff. Will try it tonight.

And now... the most important lesson of week 1...
IT'S WEEK ONE OF THE NFL!
If there's one thing you need to know about football is that making predictions after week 1, you'll do nothing but make a fool of yourself. Only 20% of what I said will probably end up true. Reanalysis:

• Pittsburgh is still the champ! Still a convincing win.
• The Dolphins aren't a Superbowl contender. New OC & DC takes time to get used to. Still played a good first half... fell apart to a stout defense.
• The Ravens are for real. I want to see this defense against a veteran QB that can handle pressure, not some kid that has been pampered to his whole life. Lets see how they do against the Bengals and Steelers... And McNair is really brittle... I don't expect him to start the whole season.
• The Pats have finally fallen. The Pats won the superbowl with a crappy secondary. Now their secondary is in decent shape and their WRs are crappy. Bill will find a way to get the most out of them. I expect them to step it up and still be a contender.
• Philly's offense is SUPERPOWERFUL! Against the Texans defense. Enough said.
• The Jets (Chad Pennington) look HOT. I can't really disagree... just want to see if Pennington can continue this way through week 6...
• Detroit has a heck of a defense. The head coach is making that defense work and put in the extra, and it shows. We'll see how long it lasts...
• Seattle gets the superbowl jinx? They had to play in the hornets nest that was Detroit. A few games against Arizona and the 49ers will help them reset and get their offense on track.
• Arizona has a high powered offense! While I'm not entirely disagreeing, if they can pull a win off of Seattle, then I'll agree the team has finally turned around. James can't run behind that shoddy line, though...
• The Colts are still good without James. I'll be expecting every defense against the Colts to play constant nickle and dime (even quarter) packages. Their running game stinks. And their run defense is just as bad (Tiki was having his way with them)
• Oakland is a joke. I'll restate what I said: Aaron Brooks is a joke. Al... time to step down and get yourself a good GM. Maybe its time for the Walters experiment. Brooks isn't doing it. I hope Shell tries to work on the running game... that's how to get the most out of your O-Line...

Now you can comment :)

Been waiting to put this up... lessons learned from week 1:

• Pittsburgh is still the champ! Ousting the Dolphins convincingly WITHOUT Randle El and Jerome Bettis. Defense looked as strong as ever, and the Steelers proved they were deep at QB and WR.
• The Dolphins aren't a Superbowl contender. Looks like the win streak at the end of the season was a fluke. Culpepper did break down (as much as his O-Line). New O-Coordinator and D-Coordinator changes things around in Miami.
• The Ravens are for real. As long as Steve McNair stays healthy, the Ravens have their D and have an offense to help score points instead of help keep them in the game...
• The Pats have finally fallen. While they beat the Bills, Tom Brady didn't look like his old form, and the WR core has fallen apart.
• Philly's offense is SUPERPOWERFUL! Donte Stallworth wide open? Wow!
• The Jets (Chad Pennington) look HOT. Defensive guru Eric Mangini makes an offensive juggernaut?
• Detroit has a heck of a defense. Shut down the Seattle offense? Its only a matter of time before Martz makes the offense strong...
• Seattle gets the superbowl jinx? No TDs vs a mediocre Detroit defense? Sounds like they'll be another Superbowl contender that chokes the next year (Shaun Alexander is on the cover of Madden, btw)
• Arizona has a high powered offense! All the offensive weapons have finally come together!
• The Colts are still good without James. Beat a strong Giants team!
• Oakland is a joke. Aaron Brooks is a joke. Al... time to step down and get yourself a good GM.

No comments, cause this is a two-parter...

You're either a money-grabbing, world wide wrestling loving, gun toting rich bastard, or a tax loving, 5 million new buracracy suggesting, dirty hippy.
The one thing I hate about our political system is the extremists. Either Bush can do no wrong, or Bush can do no right. Either the liberals are just digging for something to bitch about, or they are doing hard work.

So, I've got an idea. Tell me your political swing (somewhat conservative, hardcore liberal)... be HONEST...
Now tell me what you AGREE WITH on the other side.
So its a little reverse roleplay... instead of bitching on whats wrong... lets talk about the pieces we LIKE from the other side. If you are a hardcore liberal, tell me some things about Bush you like. If you are a hardcore conservative, tell me what points the liberals complain about that you agree with...

And please... PLEASE... stay civil... the idea is to point out things we like, not bitch at those that agree with stuff you don't agree with.

Someone bought something off of my amazon wish list. I got the real name (which I won't post here), and the message "Just Cause". If it was someone here, I'd like to thank you, personally. Its a food chopper I've been eyeing for a while, and will be using it on my basil for some pesto (I've waited soooo long to actually make some fresh pesto)! But, again, I'd really like to know who it is so I can thank them (and make sure it just wasn't someone mistakenly sending it to me instead of someone else).

Anyone?

I'm a bad techie. Why? I just learned about PGP (and GPG) and how to use it. I knew it had to do with those Hex blocks and encryption... just never took the time to learn about it in detail.
I already maintain one project that uses gpg, now a new one fell on my lap and I had to tell the vendor how to encrypt data. So I learned everythign I could about it in a couple hours. Simple to use, simple to understand.... that's some cool crap! We use GPG, and even on the command line its a piece of cake if you have the help docs up (gpg --help).

Its very cool stuff. I'll have to generate my personal public key tonight and publish it on my website... now only if gmail will handle pgp....

Oh, and the vendor doesn't know what they are doing. A good sign that this project will be me working tech lead for my project AND basically running tech lead for THEIR project. I hate tiny companies with an IT department that isn't technical at all.....

Coming home from church today, out of the blue, my son says "Daddy, you and I are going to have a sword fight!" I simply replied, "OK. As soon as you get home, get out your sword."
The boy has a little plastic "Lord of the Rings" sword.
Little did he know, I have an authentic Scottish Claymore in the basement storage from when I was young and stupid with my money.

Suffice to say, he surrendered when seeing it ;)