Damon's Daemon

One of the more entertaining (if not a little enlightening) things about hosting your own website is that you get to log all of the accesses to the site and then review the logs whenever you want. One of the things that browsers do is send a “Referrer” header along with the web requests. This usually shows the page a person is coming from when they click through a link to your page. In the case of a search engine, you often get to see the search terms people use in order to come across your pages.

I was reading Slashdot today, like I do most days. Today they had a discussion regarding the “Save” icon. Currently, almost every application uses a picture of a floppy disk to denote the icon, the subject of the discussion was what, if anything, should replace this now that so few people use floppies on a regular basis.

That’s not what I’m posting about…what I am posting about is that there was a website one of the people in the discussion posts which has a very unique way to deal with all of your excess 3.5inch floppies.

Turn them into Star Trek Enterprises!
mirrored here because the original content was hosted on a slightly-less-than-family-safe site

Jim has been going through his files in his final days here at Wizmo. He ran across an old email he saved which I sent to him one morning as an excuse for not being at work…read on!

As part of pulling the all-nighter on the project on Sunday night, I purchased the last bag of Bugles from CUB for my snacking pleasure.

Yesterday, we got to talking about the practice of putting them on your fingertips and pretending you were a witch or some other pointy-fingered character. Funny thing is, it is nearly impossible to do this now. Did all of our fingers become that much bigger, or have Bugles become smaller/flatter?

As another aside on Bugles, you may try going to the link above. As of this writing, it redirects to itself for some strange reason.

I believe this is incontrovertible proof of a Bugles conspiracy, possibly rising to the highest levels of the snack food world government! Beware snackers of the world!

I can’t wait to get one of these…I bet it will increase the battery life of my iPod by 200%, increase my gas mileage by 300% and wash all my dishes for me in half the time!

Tell me about the Retro-Encabulator

(Courtesy of eBaum’s World)

There are many times during the day when I need a quick 5 minute distraction.

Sometimes this takes the form of intensely listening to a song, or maybe striking up a conversation about something completely unrelated to whatever I was concentrating on with someone nearby.

The last few days, this has been my distraction of choice: The flash-based game of Bubbles

I don’t even remember where I ran across this first, but it looks like the creator of the game has a website here. I downloaded the game to my desktop after playing it just one time, so it is always ready for a quick game without needing to connect to a remote site. The music is fun, graphics are cool, and there are lots of different ways to play. I especially love the “Druggie” bubbles!

Enjoy!

Well, I just passed the 50 mile mark on the rebuilt Twinkie engine today. On the whole, it is great being able to drive Twinkie around. Knowing that my Dad and I put together the engine propelling me down the road makes the joy of driving Twinkie that much sweeter. The big huge steering wheel makes driving the non-power steering vehicle a lot of fun, as does the tempermental transmission which loves to play tricks on you when you’re in stop-and-go traffic. Hearing the roar from the engine in the back (which modern drivers pay thousands of dollars in custom exhaust parts to duplicate) also brings a smile to my face.

The biggest headache (sometimes quite literally!) right now is the exhaust fumes in the cabin. Either due to the amount of fumes coming out of the tailpipes OR the method my Dad and I used to vent the heater boxes the cabin gets quite a smell at times. I guess it is even worse in the back, according to the passengers who have braved the seatbelt-less lands of the rear cabin. I’m sure a bit of noodling and some experimentation will solve this problem, tho.

Speaking of passengers, here’s the list of brave souls who have dared to ride so far:

• Kelly
• (New) Theresa
• JManDoo
• B-Squared
• Lana Banana

In other non-engine related news, I popped up the camper top for demonstration purposes at work on Tuesday. Even tho the top hadn’t been opened in 3 years, the canvas walls were still in great shape. Didn’t see any damage in the slightest to the canvas by pests or other creatures who love to eat fabric. Yay!

The only other thing I’ve really noticed - I’ve been having an issue using pronouns with Twinkie. Is Twinkie a he or a she? Right now I find myself mostly thinking she automatically, so she Twinkie may become.

Had my first demo of “The Project” today. All did not go according to plan, but the fix list is short.

Which is good. Worked all night (and I mean literally all night). Time for rest. It wins this round. But the battle is not over.

This just handed to me from KARE-11 Your Weather:

“Tonight: Freeze warning. Clearing and cold. Wind: NW 10-20(diminishing) Low: 27”

Funny on a such a cold day JManDoo and I have been working on firewalls!

Thanks to the efforts of Max Laier we got a pair of CARP/PF/PFSync FreeBSD 5.3-BETA6 firewalls up and running. Just completed the rest of the configuration today, everything appears to work great. We’ve got a simple lab setup running, but we’re eager to throw some real load at it next week.

I’m up looking at the weekly iTunes free download and I see an ad for Green Day Collectible CD-R’s.

I’m not a huge Green Day fan, but I admire the band for putting together something like this. I mean, how cool? Professionally silkscreened artwork, perfect for your “Best of Green Day” collection.

My old boss, Jim, used to buy those Verbatim “Vinyl” CD-R’s at a premium for creating his compilation CDs for all the bands he used to listen to back in college. Neat, I thought, but at the premium they were priced over standard CD-R’s I didn’t necessarily think they were worth it.

But, combining the two options, wouldn’t it be kinda neat to go hit a website, browse a catalog of CD-R silkscreens and then order a bunch in quantity? I use my iPod most of the time, but it would be neat to burn some of my favorite mixes off to a neat themed CD-R. Not necessarily artist-themed, but more generic. I could imagine, for example, burning one of my workout soundtracks to a CD with a bike on it…or burning my “August Joy” CD to a CD-R with a big crayon drawing of the sun.

JManDoo, Accounting Nicole and I have a ritual of solving the MENSA Puzzle Calendar each day.

Today’s puzzle was particularly notable:

GIGANTIWORD

FILL IN THE BLANKS TO COMPLETE THE WORD BELOW:

F _ _ B _ E _ _ I _ I _ _ E T

JManDoo actually got close, even tho none of us had ever heard of the word before…

OK, so now I’ve moved back towards the other way. Only I know why.

For this brief bit while I’m on this side of the pendulum’s swing, the question which came to mind was about laughing.

Do we know why we laugh? I mean, people laugh when they are nervous, when they are happy, when something funny happens…I’ve even seen people laugh when they cry.

I’ve personally seen monkeys and other species laugh. Dolphins seem to laugh, although I don’t know if this is a trained behaviour or a natural one.

I’ve heard reports of elephants mourning their dead. Do they laugh, too?

Investigations forthcoming…

Cost models get me HOT

So, last night I felt a bit of a sore throat coming on while I was cleaning up the apartment, but I just shrugged it off. I thought it a bit unusual that I was so thirsty before bed, but once again I shrugged it off.

Woke up this morning with a full-on sore throat. I came into work, all full of energy and chipper, but by lunchtime I could already feel myself getting worn down.

For those of you playing the home game, you’ll know I hardly ever get sick…so I’m fairly certain this was a super germ engineered just to target me. (No one else around me is sick in the slightest!)

Agents have been dispatched to track down who gave me this bug. So far everyone’s alibis check out, but my agents won’t rest until they’ve figured it out.

everybody join in!

15 years ago today, I would have been…
1. 13, 8th Grade, living with my parents in Spring Lake Park, MN
2. Finishing my sixth and final year in the Metropolitan Boys Choir with a tour of Germany and Austria the following June
3. Had my first serious girlfriend, Jennifer Burnett. We would always sit together at lunch and play footsie.

10 years ago today, I would have been…
1. Just arrived at GMI in pursuit of a computer engineering degree
2. Logging into ISCA BBS for the first time
3. Figuring out how to forge email From: addresses

5 years ago today, I would have been…
1. Contemplating leaving Investment Advisers Inc. after 7.5 years to go work for Agiliti
2. Finishing up Y2K Compliance documentation and testing
3. Driving Twinkie through downtown Minneapolis in a shirt and tie, commuting to work

3 years ago today, I would have been…
1. Going to couple’s therapy
2. Refinancing the house
3. Preparing for the worst

1 year ago today, I was…
1. Trying to keep all the plates spinning
2. Moving Wizmo HQ across the street
3. Finishing up the first summer of bicycle commuting

So far this year, I have…
1. changed my hairstyle
2. fixed up Twinkie
3. dropped 4 inches around my waist

Yesterday, I…
1. worked a full day
2. cleaned the apartment
3. reconnected with 2 long-lost friends

Today, I…
1. sat in meetings all day
2. had dinner with the ‘rents
3. fixed my Dad’s computer

Tomorrow, I…
1. meet with customers
2. take Mel for a ride in Twinkie and have dinner
3. call for new tires on the Beetle

Today over lunch we finally hooked up with Jodi, an old coworker of ours.

She left us when she had Nahlah, her daughter. It was great to catch up with her and to finally see Nahlah in all of her baby-like splendor.

Nahlah and I had a few moments to talk with each other, too…we watched the other people in the dining room, looked out at the trees swaying in the wind, drooled excessively. (Well, only Nahlah did the last one!)

I’ve been eager to have a kid for a long time now, but after seeing Nahlah I’m even more baby happy than usual.

…or Today’s Honorary AssBeaver¹:

About a week ago I followed a very, very poor driver about 2 miles back to my house. The driver pulled through an intersection from a “Left Turn Only” lane. He was completely oblivious to his error and the fact that he was cutting off everyone who was in the proper lane. Then the driver proceeded to drive up the big hill at a turtle’s speed (the car could easily have taken it much quicker), make a right turn without signaling at the top, signal AFTER the left turn in front of the apartment complex and then spend 2 minutes while I remained stopped behind him - the whole time spent digging for his garage access card or something. Finally, he pulls in (I follow after being a good boy and sliding my access card in to restart the garage door timer) and I have to wait a bit more while he pulls into his parking spot, then pulls back out, then back in to realign.

I dismissed him as being distracted, a moron, or both. I didn’t think it would really matter.

So, tonight I pull into my parking garage after returning from the Durand Family Board Meeting. As I turn the final corner, here the guy’s car is parked in the middle of the driveway. I pause for a moment, looking for the driver to once again be realigning his car and noticed no one was sitting in the car.

I pull my Beetle off to the side, ponder what to do next. I go back out and look, there is no way I’m gonna get my car around his and down to my assigned spot. I look inside, see the flashing red light indicating the alarm is set (It is a Jetta, VW uses the same components in many of their vehicles) and I notice the parking brake isn’t set and the car is in neutral.

Yes. This man parked his car, hopped out, set the alarm and walked away as it rolled back into the driveway. From the looks of the positioning of the concrete pylons, I’m guessing it bumped against one of the pylons as it rolled out in the middle of the thoroughfare, then came to rest right in the middle.

I thought about pulling my car back out into the parking lot and parking it there for the night. ‘course, that would mean I’d have to carry in all my stuff in the drizzle. Never mind the fact that there were 4-5 other spots empty past the car where I’m used to seeing parked vehicles, meaning others would be inconvenienced as well.

I decide we shall not all suffer because of the acts of a single moron.

I gave the car a test push and it rolled easily enough. The wheels were aligned perfectly to roll right back into the assigned spot just fine. I knew it would just roll back out if I left it unblocked, so I knew I had to find a block for the wheels.

I went walking down to my parking spot, looking for something I could use to block one of the rear tires (better make it big so the guy will notice he’s blocked in) and found one of those tubes of sand. (They were in my parking spot when I moved in…no one’s ever claimed them, so I just leave them forever in the community property area) I pull the tube of sand down the 120 feet or so to his assigned spot and line it up so I can slide it quickly underneath the rear passenger tire.

I give the car a push up and back into the parking spot, move to the side and push the bag of sand behind the wheel. After making sure the car came to a complete stop, I hop back in my Beetle and drive down to my spot.

I consider the ineptitude this guy has displayed on not only this but the previous occasion and decide I better leave a note - else he think someone put the bag of sand there as a decoration. I find a scratch piece of paper; leave him a note written in absolutely most simplistic language I could manage. I wish it were possible to express myself monosyllabically, since I have a feeling this would be the moron’s preferred vocabulary, but I figure if he can’t read it he can ask someone to help him:

“You forgot to set your brakes on your car. Found it rolled out in the middle of the garage, blocking traffic. Rolled it back into the parking spot, put a bag of sand behind the rear passenger wheel.”

I thought about adding in a comment about his intelligence, but decided against it. Prbly should have added that this was his second strike in my eyes, but I have a feeling he’s got a lot of strikes built against him already.

¹ JManDoo and I decided that all poor drivers would henceforth be referred to as assbeavers. We even registered the domain AssBeavers.com, thinking we’d establish a clearing house for reporting assbeavers you may encounter on the road. You can identify an assbeaver by the following behaviors (this IS not meant to be a complete list!):

• Driving really slow in the left-hand lane
• Pacing cars in other lanes - hindering any attempts to pass
• Incorrect use of turn signals/indicators
• Over-compensating for weather-related road conditions
• Generally being a poor driver

While we were out at lunch today, JManDoo offered up this great joke. I believe that this joke may be the best humor litmus test of all time:

A woman’s pet duck falls ill, and she brings it in to her local veterinarian.

“Doctor,” the woman exclaims, “my pet duck has fallen ill. Can you take a look at him?”

The doctor immediately takes the duck back to the examination room. A few minutes later the doctor emerges and says,

“Ma’am, your duck is dead.”

The woman is crushed. She doesn’t believe this is possible.

“I brought my duck in and he was only ill. I cannot believe he’s dead! Surely, doctor, there is something you can do!”

The doctor reluctantly lifts a dog up onto the examination table. The dog sniffs around the duck, nuzzles against it a little, licks it a bit. After a minute or two of this, the doctor picks up the dog and puts him back down onto the ground.

“No, ma’am, your duck is dead.”

Still considering this impossible, the woman again pleads with the doctor to do anything he can to save her duck.

The doctor picks up a cat this time - places the cat onto the examination table. The cat nuzzles against the duck a little, licks his head, paws at it a little. The duck doesn’t move.

“Ma’am, I don’t know what else to say. Your duck is dead.”

Finally, the woman relents…”What do I owe you?” she asks the doctor.

The doctor takes out a slip of paper, scribbles on it furiously, hands it over to the woman.

“150 dollars for you to tell me my duck is dead? How can you get away charging so much?”

The doctor responds, “Well, if you hadn’t made me do the lab test and the cat scan…”

JManDoo and I both find this joke incredibly funny. Do you?

I spent most of the weekend getting over this nasty cold/sinus infection/sore throat thing going around. For those of you playing the home game, that means that I’ve been sick twice already this cold season! What happened to my insanely great immune system? It’s still there…the only people I could have gotten this from have had it much worse that I have. Indeed, current thinking is that I’m gonna get better before they do!

Why don’t I just go to the doc? Certainly, there is a belief of youthful invulnerability influencing the decision a bit, but it really comes down to the co-pay. Here I am, fairly well paid; I can easily afford the co-pay. Nevertheless, I sit here just waiting for the yukkiness to pass - since I’ve gotten tired of going into the doctor only to be told it is a virus and there’s nothing to be done. Why pay for that kind of advice?

Might I benefit from some antibiotics? I really don’t know. I know if I get REALLY sick I’ll go into the doctor in a week and complain, and end up with some major illness.

To the health insurer, I’m sure the risk is one they end up saving money on in the long run as millions of people are pushed into the same decision.

However, one of the biggest reasons for companies to provide their employees health insurance - so that they can be more productive workers - is invalidated in this situation. I end up taking more time off work, spreading the disease to others, decreasing productivity as I move through my days waiting for my immune system to win the battle.

It might be interesting to take a holistic look at the cost/benefits of raising the co-pays in an employer-sponsored health plan. Especially one where most of the employees are younger, single workers. (As opposed to plans where most of the employer dollars go to sponsoring family coverage)

One of my fellow Wizmo-nians alerted me to this week’s premire of the MTV show Pimp My Ride featuring a VW Bus restoration.

I set it up on the Tivo (with the necessary 5 minutes of padding on either side since experience has proven to me that MTV loves to run late/early) and waited for it to appear on my Now Playing list.

Tonight I come home and checked it out. The VW Bus was a splitty but was in horrible shape. Rust all over, windows missing, hot-wired ignition. It looked like the kid had tried to do some restoration work, but we found out during the show that his family had some problems come up and had given up his restoration money to help out.

A 40-inch LCD flat screen, Playstation 2, electric surfboard rack, electric dryer and loads of body work later he ended up with one sweet ride. They gave the splitty a very classic paint job on the outside, complete with safari windows and an original bright green/white combination paint job. Definitely gave me some great ideas for Twinkie - including the installation of a retractable stop sign on the body similar to a school bus crossing sign. I think something like that is definitely gonna make its way onto Twinkie eventually. (I don’t think I’d have mine say “Chill” tho)

The MTV style and the length of the half-hour show didn’t lend itself to lots of detail about the work involved beyond a all-too-quick discussion about the electrical demands of all the equipment on-board but it was still worth a viewing. You could tell the kid loved his VW a lot even before the pimping…which makes me glad they did it for him since he’ll get years of enjoyment out of it. Although now he’ll get even more enjoyment out of it - since I have a feeling the TV in his Bus is prbly bigger than the TV in his living room!

Last Friday, the phrase of the day was, “Lemony Snickets”

Monday it was “Lab Work”

I’m pleased to announce the phrase of the day today is “Binomial Nomenclature”

Spread it far and wide. Announce it from the rooftops. Celebrate its wonderfulness.

I spent a few good hours today going through The Boxes™ which have been filling my living room for almost a year now. Besides the known quantities of holiday items (suitable for decorating a house when I have one again) I found an inordinate amount of desk toys.

When combined with the 4-5 boxes of desk toys I have in my storage closet I come up with about 10 copier paper boxes filled with desk toys. Considering I’ve been working at a desk now for more than 12 years now, it prbly should surprise no one that I’ve got so many. But the question is…What does one do with that many desk toys?

My current desk has about 2 more boxes worth of desk toyrs. So, we’re looking at about 12 total. I’m never gonna have a desk that big, obviously. Do I eBay all of the items, at least get it down to a managable amount of items which I may use once again someday in the future? Do I just throw most of them out? Do I give them out as holiday gifts?

I used my dictatorial powers over lunchtime-decision making today and we all went down the U of M to pick up Chick-fil-a.

Every time we go down there, I’m reminded of the fact that I skipped college. Sure, I got a taste of it my junior and senior years in high school, but I never got to go full-time in my post-secondary life. While I wouldn’t change my life at this point, I really wonder how things would have been different had I gone the normal route and spent a few years attending some institution of higher learning. Seeing all the socialization taking place, all the ideas being exchanged, pure learning without the pressures of the corporate world.

I’ll be writing a bunch of journal entries as I have time and getting them up as soon as possible.

Headlines:

• I’m feeling about a 9 out of 10. Still tender, still feeling a bit rundown.
• Durand Family Turkey Day was a hit. Had issues with the turkey and the cranberry sauce, as well as being disappointed a second time with the gravy.
• Excited to leave for my trip
• Got a lot of crap to do before I leave. 1.5 days of work I missed plus my work today condensed into 6 hours.
• Still need to pack, but everything should be washed and dry by the time I get home.

Finally made it back to work after feeling yukky most of Wednesday afternoon, out almost all of Thursday and half of Friday. We’ve got a new customer turning up on Wednesday night, which considering I was going to be gone after 3 today I knew we had to get sealed before the end of the day. Managed to squeeze in a quiet 30 minute lunch at Noodles with New Theresa which about my only downtime of the day. Otherwise, I moved from project component to project component making sure everything was lined up (or at least could be by the remaining staff after I left). Finally got out at 4, ran home, packed until 5 minutes before my parents arrived.

Got on the road around 5:15, out of town and traffic by 6, didn’t turn out too bad. We stopped for 45 minutes or so to have Famous Dave’s in Owatonna, otherwise we’ve been driving down I-35, the spinal column of America! The back of my dad’s 300M is absolutely perfect for me and my Dell laptop, just enough room to flip open the screen to just the right angle and everything works great. Indeed, I’m writing this (and all the backentries) from said position.

It’s great to finally have some downtime after the past 5 days or so. Either I was sick or completely running on adreniline and stress in order to accomplish something on time. As I told people from work…after the past few days, it might be nice to just throw on the headphones and stare out the window. Which is what I plan on doing next.

Woke up at 7:00 this morning. My sister and Davin would arrive at 7:30 to pick me up from the hotel so we could go to Central Market and pick up a bunch of items. We got to Central Market a bit earlier than we thought, since we took the George Bush Tollway out to Plano. After picking up some Starbucks, we headed over to it. It wasn’t quite what I thought it was gonna be. Listening to my sister and brother-in-law talk about it all the time it made it sound like a farmer’s market. This was just a gigantic supermarket.

Least that’s what I thought before I stepped inside. (I hadn’t looked at the website, which would have clarified things quite a bit, I suppose!) When you walk in you land in the produce department, like many supermarkets. But this really was like a farmer’s market inside. The produce department was unfinished, kept around 65 in order to ensure the produce remained fresh. The selection was huge - it really rivaled many of the farmer’s markets I’ve seen. Everything was properly presented, either on ice or room temp, cranberries floating in a “bog”, etc. You’d select your produce, put it in a bag, then walk over to one of many stations. At this station you’d put the produce on a scale, punch in the produce’s number and a sticker would print with all the price information on it.

You then moved into a gigantic butcher area, which rivaled any butcher’s shop. They not only offered ANY cut you wanted, they would steam your seafood selections for you while you finished shopping. Then you walk into a huge wine section with row upon row of fine wines and champagnes. Next up is a huge section of bulk dry goods, then a huge bakery with every type of bread I’ve ever seen (and many I hadn’t!) Top it off with your ethnic foodstuffs, spices, imported goods, florals…I could go on. It is an amazing concept - I can only hope we get one (or someone starts a similar concept) in the Twin Cities area soon.

We then headed back to their apartment, hung out, played a little XBox and read passages from “America: The Book” which I brought down since I saw it on their Christmas list and wanted to give them a little taste of it since I had picked it up a few weeks ago when it first came out. It was a huge hit…we all ended up reading a few pages aloud over the course of the day. Michelle and I checked into work, then my parents arrived and we started the tourism day.

We picked up lunch at Cheddar’s. I was excited…if you know me, you know how much I love Cheddar’s “Smashers”. My sister claimed to eat there all the time, ‘cept she had never heard of them. I didn’t believe it, but sure enough, it wasn’t on the menu down here. I’ve had it in the Rockford, IL, Ann Arbor, MI and Des Moines, IA locations…unbelievable. I managed to get a close second…a chicken tender platter with mashed potatoes and gravy for dipping sauce.

After the meal, we headed down to Dealy Plaza to visit the Sixth Floor Museum. It was a truly moving experience, which I’ll write more about later I think. We spent most of the afternoon there, even viewed the display on presidential TV advertising, which was upstairs on the 7th floor. I really enjoyed visiting such an important place; you could feel the grief still floating through the air 40 years after the fact.

We then scooted home, relaxed around the apartment while Davin did some cooking, I took care of a bit of work that cropped up on our way home and the family visited. We headed out to dinner at “On The Border” which was excellent chain Tex-Mex. Yum. After visiting some more back at the pad, my parents and I said our goodbyes for the evening and headed back to the hotel.

Quite the wonderful day. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, obviously, so the feast is the primary focus of the day. Hopefully we’ll get some gaming in as well…I have a feeling Trivial Pursuit is in our future! Yay!

Someday I want to have a job with power like they do in all the old movies featuring the military or senior business professionals.

I want to be able to reach over, pick up the phone and instantly be able to utter, “Get me the President!”.

‘course, the “President” part of the statement could be changed to almost anything…the important thing is that my time is SO important that there is someone constantly listening for me to pick up the phone and request to be connected to someone.

I wonder if this was merely a dramatic device or if it was reflective of the state of affairs at the time. Were there really people who had so little time on their hands that their secretary was listening for them to utter a connection request with no notice at all?

Regardless, I want this kind of job!

Today is officially the start of the Damon Durand Holiday Music Season. The long relegated iTunes playlist, “Holiday Tunes” has been playing most of the day today.

Throughout most of the year, “Holiday Tunes” is only referenced so that its songs can be excluded from my other smart playlists in iTunes. Any holiday-esque music is added to this list; almost all playlists exclude any songs appearing on this list. This works out great for playlists like “Played > 10”, which as you might guess, lists any songs which have been played more than 10 times. Many of the holiday songs would normally fall into this playlist…but most of the year I don’t really care to hear them when I’m shuffle-playing.

(Actually, for those interested…I have two playlists: a regular old playlist “Holiday Tunes (Manual)” which I can add individual holiday tunes to, then a second “Holiday Tunes” smart playlist which includes anything in the genre of “Holiday” and includes any songs which are in the “Holiday Tunes (Manual)” list. I then use the “Holiday Tunes” list as an exclusion criteria for almost all of the smart playlists which may encounter frequently played music.)

MONTHS ago, I got a postcard in the mail from Verisign, offering a copy of their brochure, “A Guide to Securing Your Web Site For Business”. I wasn’t all that interested in the guide; I almost threw away the postcard. Before I did so, I noticed another tidbit on the postcard…the first 125 people to respond to the offer got a free robot dog!

The instructions led me to this site; I entered the code they wanted, filled in my mailing address and clicked submit. This was, I repeat, MONTHS ago, if not almost a year ago.

Up until today, I had forgotten all about it. When I got back from lunch, I was greeted by a medium size box on my chair from Verisign. At first I considered that it may be a bomb…we had moved all of our SSL certs over to Thawte a few months ago. Maybe this was an attempt to scare us back into buying over-priced SSL certs.

I tentatively opened the box and found a copy of the guide AND MY FREE ROBOT DOG. He is a Biocybie Dog by Geospace. The blurb from the product catalog reads as follows:

“Say “HELLO” to BIOCYBIE™ DOG, the interactive robot dog from GEOSPACE®. He is animated and can see you, hear you and even feel your touch with his built-in interactive sensors! BIOCYBIE™ DOG will bark, pant, and whimper as well. He also moves forward, backward, and spins around. He performs over 15 commands and functions and interacts with other BIOCYBIE™ PETS. Includes infrared controller. Requires 9 AA batteries, not included. Ages 6 & Up. Case Pack: 12 Pieces. Package Dimensions: 15” × 7.75” × 8.75” Price: $35.00.”

While we were removing him from the package, we got a chance to admire the great workmanship that went into his design and production. One of the ears was loose, the battery covers were held in place with a twisting tab-like peg and his legs were completely hollow. Upon further inspection, we found two drive wheels on his underside, along with two free wheels hidden under his rear feet. The designers simply took a tank toy, replaced the tank shell with a plastic dog shell, added a motion sensor and shipped it.

Nonetheless, we were eager to get the dog powered up. We collected 9 AA batteries from the pager stash, slid them into him and powered him up. He sprang to life, barking and panting his way around the table. Maybe this wouldn’t be such a silly toy after all.

Oh, how wrong we were. The controls are so sensitive that it is impossible to make the dog move forward. (This would involve pushing both joystick controls forward, as if you were driving a tank!) Hit the button for him to bark, he’ll think about it. Hit the play button…or feed button and the robot dog will run around as if he was rabid. The only way for you to control him is through the infrared transmitter, which only seems to work after you’ve sent the command 3 or 4 times.

We went back to the website, in total disbelief that this dog would cost ANYONE $35 dollars. Upon re-reading the catalog entry, it became obvious…

“…Ages 6 & Up. Case Pack: 12 Pieces. Package Dimensions: 15” × 7.75” × 8.75” Price: $35.00.”

The $35 dollars is for 12 robot dogs! Of course! I can believe that this dog would sell for $3.

We’re currently debating what to do with this dog that cost more to ship to me than it did to produce. For a few moments, we thought we could turn him into a guard dog for the development office here at work…but upon testing the “guard dog” feature we found the motion sensor was really only a light sensor…and a poor one at that. You basically have to cover the hole in the plastic dog shell that the sensor is behind in order to get a response out of the guard dog.

Today’s “Mensa Puzzle Calendar” reads:

“Start with the number of letters in the answer to 7 × 3, subtract the number of letters in the country just north of the United States and multiply by the number of letters in the postal abbreviation for the state of Florida”

Um…is this really a Mensa-level question? Did they get this far into the year and run out of challenging questions?

Whenever I’m at home and wanna sketch out an idea, I find myself missing my nice big whiteboard at work.

Why isn’t there some kind of application for a PC which emulates all the good things of a whiteboard? I use Visio all the time, but you can’t use that to sketch. Could I just use something as simple as Paint if I got myself a tablet?

I dunno…but right now I’ve got ideas I wanna get down on paper and work out…and the concept of plugging it all into Visio doesn’t excite me at all. Off to find paper and a pen.

My boss left this waiting for me on my desk when I got into work this morning:

My boss loves to refer to any kind of development, engineering or programming as “those ones and zeros”. (Considering he’s got an accounting background…one wonders how many ones and zeros he works with on a daily basis?) He’ll utter, “Why don’t you go back to working with your ones and zeros?” if I stick my nose into some sales activity too far. He’ll walk into the development office and query, “How are the ones and zeros today?”

Now that I’m thinking about it…I wonder if he’s calling us zeros? Hrm…

RULES AND REGULATIONS

1. All food and beverages allowed
2. No ear protection required
   1. This rule may be changed if a game of Lacrosse is in session or JManDoo is playing one of his WB TV show soundtracks
3. Cell phone use allowed
4. Because of the proximity of working areas and lack of ventilation in the data center, please practice proper personal grooming before entrance
5. There is no number 5
6. Only ones and zeros are allowed to be processed in this data center
7. Due to the lack of a raised floor, all cables shall be managed using the �Ninja-spaghetti� style upon the work surfaces
8. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200
9. There are no cages to be opened, so don�t ask for the key
10. If you walk your robot dog, be sure to clean up after it
11. Robot dogs and all non-technical employees must be kept on a leash at all times
12. This area has been designated as a fallout shelter
13. In the event of an emergency, raise your hands above your head, run around screaming �Help me, help me!� and pray to your chosen deity
    1. If you have no chosen deity, feel free to borrow one from the provided deity cubby
14. Any explosives or hazardous materials must be kept in your pockets
15. Management bans guns on this premises � but we don�t care if you use them anywhere else
16. At some point, you can get too many items on a list

ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY

Only authorized parties can access this data center, including but not limited to:

• Booty Rap Dance Parties
• Pool Parties
• Development
• Operations

Expressly unauthorized parties include:

• Management
• The Carrot Top Ragtime Band and 1-800-Collect Banjo Players
• Boobahs

Today’s “Mensa Puzzle Calendar” reads:

“Which of the scrambled words below is least like the others? The difference has nothing to do with syllables.
THOUGHT GNU BRIGHT BEGIN”

First off, we thought, “Oh, cool, a bunch of one word anagrams!” We came up with GUN for GNU and BEING for BEGIN. But we were stumped on the other two…after a few minutes of pondering possibilities, “The Billpayer” peeked at the answer and announced, “They aren’t scrambled.”

That set us down the path of which word was least like the others…which came to us all rather quickly.

I think it is true that the calendar is getting easier during the month of December. Is this to motivate you to buy another calendar? “Wow, I’m rocking at this now, I must be getting smarter…I need to buy next year’s calendar!”

Meanwhile, the rest of us wallow in the simplicity which is the Mensa Puzzle Calendar’s December series of questions…

I don’t see many ads with the Tivo, but during one of the holiday shows (I think it was “A Charlie Brown Christmas”) I saw the OfficeMax Holiday Rubberband Man Ad. I hadn’t seen any of the previous “Rubberband Man” ads OfficeMax had produced, but the holiday one was slick. They filmed it in that stop-motion animation style made popular in all those holiday TV specials. Even the Rubberband Man had been modeled!

The thing I fell in love with the most was the choral version of Rubberband Man featured in the ad. JManDoo used his black voodoo and isolated the track for me (and you, coincidentally)! Enjoy!

Holiday Choral Rubberband Man Ad Soundtrack

This last week has been a hectic one - not only have I not been keeping up my site but I’ve fallen woefully behind keeping up with everyone else’s blogs. Bloglines 920 articles that are unread. Ugh.

What’s been keeping me busy? Well, between finishing all the chores leading up to the holiday AND work-related projects coming to a head I have hardly had time to keep up with real-life communications.

For those of you wondering…this also means the home theater system mentioned previously has yet to be opened. Which is just as well…it will be more proper to open it up after I open up the rest of my gifts. Something about it being a Christmas gift just screams to me not to open it early.

I’ve got some really exciting presents I just can’t wait to give this year…but I must not write about them here. Least not yet. The receivers may find out what they are getting before they get it - which would be rather unfortunate from the surprise perspective.

There’s also some exciting things in store for Damon’s Daemon in the new year. Right now, the first feature will be starting Feb 1. My mind is already a flutter (in its spare time) thinking about the wonderful things I’m gonna try to write. Hopefully I’m gonna get close to the NaNoWriMo total of 50,000 words.

Now I lay me down to sleep. Got a lot to do tomorrow, even tho I thiink most of my retail shopping visits are over after the grand tour I made tonight. Whew! Smooth sailin’ from here.

I picked up these antlers many years ago…just the perfect thing to wear around the office as we approach Christmas!

As you can see, the holiday celebration is in full swing here at the office. I’ve got my holiday lights up, causing epileptic seisures for my coworkers who look upon them all day long. Holiday music has been blaring, too! Yay!