Well, I guess it's about time to stop smoking. I found a brown spot under my tongue today. I've probably got jaw cancer. Which probably means they'll need to cut off the lower half of my face, and reduce me to a freak whose tongue just hangs out of a jagged hole under his nose, wagging impotently with every attempt to speak, unable to articulate a sound, just emmitting some sort of excited whistle of gratitude when it's time for my mush.

Fuck, how did it come to this? I'm only thirty-five. My grandfather smoked for 60 years and only quit because he died. Otherwise, he'd be right here next to me, hooting appreciatively through a tube sticking out of his chest, then we'd go outside and pick up some hookers. Sleep well, Grandpa Arry, you deserved everything you got.

You know, that moment when you start typing, when you start groooooovin', not working at it, let the blog do the work for a change. This thing's been buggin' me, beggin' me, asking me please feed the hole, your publikum is waiting on you, Rube. But you know what, Blog? I'm fucking busy, whiny ass. I've got things to do, people to meet, bills to pay and letters to send. T'aint room here for two jefes, so one of us needs to get a-buggin, and I do believe that would be me. So, now, as long as I'm the one doing the buggin', you be the one doing the list'nin'. Now you listen to me, Blog, and you listen good. Velociman has a boil on his choad, Acidman's got a bug up his ass, and Lousiana ain't feeling so good his damn self. But me? I'm doing jes fine. Rube done took his blood pressure yesterday, after speed-snorting a liter of coffee, and it was 106 over fucking 60. I was on my way to work on a fuckin' Sunday, hands shaking like Katherine Hepburn's favorite vibrator, and you just sat here like a bump on a log waiting for it to find you.

Write yourself, you ungrateful little fuck. What's that? Oh, yeah, anytime, pussy, anytime.

Since I'm too busy at the moment to keep this rickety jalopy running, I've decided to post anything which the dregs of society decide to throw my inbox's way. I need a spam filter...

Case in point:

Chapter 1: A Viking Funeral
Author Unknown

He's gone, I heard the good doctor tell my wife and sister who apparently were somewhere in the near vicinity. No I wanted to scream out but couldn't. What the hell is going on? My eyes were shut tight and try as I might they would not open or even flutter. My entire body was frozen and refused to respond to any mental commands that I issued. Darkness held me captive.

"He wished to be cremated and have his ashes strewn over the homes of all his exes and meaningful lovers etc., the meaningless to receive condolences thru the mail or whatever", my beloved wife Andy relayed the info to the Doc or someone.

Then my beloved, somewhat frugal Sister, chimed in "My God stamps alone will cost a small fortune". "Just put a notice in a few fish-wrappers". As for scattering ashes, forget the former wives as they would make every attempt to bring the aircraft down before the payload could be delivered. The meaningfuls would be more receptive but squirm with discomfort while trying to explain the gesture to their current meaningfuls. We were only friends won't wash".

"Well, his 2nd wish was for a "Viking funeral", Andy offered. Maybe we could get some of his old drinking buddies to heave "Molotov" cocktails at a small vessel as it floats near the "Lil' " River Bridge that spans the infamous Alatoona Lake. Henry Bryan and Jackie Dempsey will gladly secure an old fishing boat I'm sure".

The 2nd wish prevailed. Somehow my wife and sister pulled it off. It was near dusk on a late August day when the much publicized event began. Bells Ferry road was closed to traffic in both directions, so the bridge would be open to the throngs of expected onlookers. Twenty cocktail hurlers waited in formation for the funeral barge to pass beneath, carrying yours truly to Valhalla. All at once the small boat came into view in tow behind a larger ski boat. When it neared the bridge, someone severed the tow line. Now the vessel was drifting under the L.R.B. Finally it emerged on the other side as the cocktails were lit, awaiting the Hurl command. Then it came, Ready! Hurl! All at once 20 arms obeyed the order! A few struck the small craft, causing it to ignite. The burlap wrapped corpse was now slowly engulfed in smoke and flame.

"My God it moved" a horrified deputy sheriff screamed!"Saw it thru my field glasses". Henry Bryan snatched the glasses from the grasp of the now hysterical lawman. "Let me have a look see"! Naw, must've been your eyes doin' tricks, what with it being nearly dark and all.

Only small remnants of the remained by now, floating on the surface near a large patch of ashes, surrounded by a mysterious ring of grease, all floating away toward a distant beach. Show was over and the crowd began to thin out. Some were puzzled by the behavior of Henry B. and Jackie D. however. Both were giggling and high-fiving anyone nearby. Eventually they were joined by the widow and sister of the deceased. Both ladies suppressed their own laughter all were aboard the Merc convertible belonging to J.D.. Now as the white Mercedes sped south on Bells Ferry Road, Henry B. broke the silence! There must be a God, what an unexpected bonus!He was refering to the fact that one of the hurlers was none other than George Tweedy.

It seemed that "Old Pruneface" (George) inadvertantly dropped his flaming cocktail all over himself! J.D. quickly pushed the "Human Torch" over the bridge railing and downward toward the murky water some 50 feet below. As luck would have it, George missed the water and upon the rocky shore. "Close but no cigar" would be this poor old wretches final epitath.

All 4 occupants wiped tears caused by derisive laughter from their eyes as the speeding vehichle reached it's destination. Now all entered the Villas of Kennesaw clubhouse bar, which had been previously reserved for the evening. "Did he suffer"? I asked. "Which one?", my wife asked. "Huh"!

Finally H.B. was able to speak and relay the tale of "Old Lonesome George's demise". Loud guffaws filled the room, it was gonna be a great night!!!

Stay tuned for Chapter Two:
Where in the world Is Gary ASSitelli?

Didja ever sit and wonder, just how horrendous X1-X10 must have been? I mean, network transparency is admirable, but it's all in the impelementation, folks.

At these sorts of cabbage-patch spectacles that crop up every now and then, it's important to remember the training. Macs are special. Macs are different. Macs are premium consumer items not meant for every 300 lb. frizzy-haired slushee-sucker who buys her computers at the grocery store.

Remember the training. Steve? Are you there? Have you forsaken us? SAY SOMETHING FOR THE LOVE A JESUS!

But Steve's probably just cackling like Renfield in some white marble penthouse, calling Gates on the phone; "Bill, you couldn't buy this kind of publicity!"

"Plates & Dishes: The Food And Faces Of The Roadside Diner" (Stephan Schacher)

A trip across America is the dream of many Europeans. At the tender age of nineteen, photographer Stephan Schacher undertook a typical sightseeing tour of the United States, from coast to coast on the Kerouac trail, visiting the cities and monuments, both natural and man-made, along the legendary Route 66. Almost 20 years later, Schacher decided to take a second trip across North America. This time, however, things would be done a little differently: Driving from upstate New York to Northern Alaska, almost 11,000 kilometers across Canada and the United States, Schacher decided photograph every meal along the way, as well as every waitress who served it.

What may sound like a goofy, drunken college idea dreamed up at three o'clock in the morning became a serious undertaking for Schacher. Eating exclusively in roadside diners, the author blazes a low-brow culinary trail across the continent, braving greasy hamburgers and questionable seafood platters. The book itself is handsomely crafted. After turning page after page of greasy diner cuisine, one begins to wonder just how many t-bone steaks and onion rings a man can eat before his heart explodes.

Using specialty paper, muted colors, and creative typography, it sits well on the nightstand or coffee table for the casual reading session. Making meticulous records of his mileage, food expenditures, and the times of arrival and departure, Schacher is able to painstakingly recreate his entire journey in facts and figures to complement the irresistibly personal experience of the solitary roadside meal.

This is a good sign...

[root@freak1 chkrootkit-0.45]# ls -al
bash: /bin/ls: Input/output error

On my poor little Linux box, who just sits in the corner and never hurts anybody. When he was in the kitchen, next to my refrigerator, he once had 700 days of uptime, damn near 2 years without a reboot. He even spent the better part of an afternoon in a half-inch of standing water, when I accidentally left my freezer door open.

Brave little man, go gently into that great /dev/null in the sky. And take my fucking django projects with you, you weak little twat. Jesus, why do I only do backups for other people?!

That's what I'll be. Sitting in the server room, surrounded by untold generations of in-bred housecats, all playing little banjos and admiring my pouty lips. Crazy ol' Cat-Rube, wondering where all my friends have gone, why my children never call, and why, way back when, in aught-five, nobody wished me a happy System Administrator Appreciation Day.

Fuck you guys. I'm deleting all your mail.

As I was googling around, debating whether or not to install the copy of Office XP I've recently come into, in order to upgrade my slowly rotting-yet-beloved copy of Office 2000 Pro, I came across 1) enough evidence to deter me, and b) what has to be the best screenshot caption I've ever seen:

Some may have noticed that in the last 6 months, YouBitch.org has skyrocketed in popularity, owing to various influences viz bribery and dirty, dirty tricks.

It's grown so popular, in fact, that you'll find YouBitch.org in the Truth Laid Bear ecology sandwiched between ROFASix and "Test Page for Apache Installation".

How the hell do you come in behind a Test Page for Apache Installation?

Sometimes it's the little things that make it worthwhile. Today, for example, I spent 2 hours working on a network firewall whose brand name, Ben Hur, is eerily close to the Bavarian phrase, bin a hur, which means, roughly, I am a prostitute. This is why I giggle to myself when I think there's no one watching.

Also, I get to swear a lot a work, since none of these cretins speak English well enough to know what "oh you cocksucking piece of fucking shit" actually means, in the book sense.

In a related train of thought, I was in Kissing, Bavaria yesterday. Streams of consciousness being what they are, I immediately thought of Henry Kissinger, whose name means someone who comes from Kissing, and then I thought to myself, jeez, I haven't come from Kissing since high school, which then dead-ended into a search for a half-joke that cratered into a mixed-metaphore here at the usually-reliable youbitch.

Indeed, the little things can make an otherwise dreary, grey, and cloudy day all smily.

Oh, and there was a bug.

I never thought I'd see these words written by an adult:

why do I get the feeling you guys are yanking my chain? I guess I'll have to ask Sandy, she will be straight with me!

I would suggest that Lippy Livey prepare herself for amazing new levels of betrayal, shaming, and a chain-yanking most people only read about in Penthouse Forum. Sandy?!

I had all kindsa Sandy riffin' on Zonker links to pan out here, but sandy moved :-(

Sandy's new home is here. By the time Longhorn/Vista comes out, or Duke Nukem Forever, whichever comes first, I'll even update my sidebar template!

Hugs,
Rube

Check out the smoke on slashdot. There are a few very important reasons for a company to switch over to Macs. Viruses, Spyware, and Solitaire, to name just three. I just installed Windows XP on a fairly run-of-the-mill mini-PC, the ASUS Pundit-R. It took me two day to get all the drivers sorted out. I've still got an entry in the device manager for a mysterious "USB Controller" with a yellow exclamation point next to it which doesn't seem to be covered by the ASUS or ATI driver downloads. You can re-install a Mac in about an hour, all drivers and applications included, no matter what model. If you're feeling adventurous, you can even tell the install program to leave your home directory alone, and all your application settings will remain.

On the other hand, I've had a lot of customer contact lately. Most of my customers have irresolvable reasons to stay on the platform they're on, almost invariably Win32. Whether it's a Tax-Consulting program that makes extensive use of COM and the Windows version of Microsoft Office and Outlook, or an embedded controlling program for an industrial baking machine that only runs on Win98 SE, these people are locked in, and generally at ease with that fact. But with that, the 'vendor lock-in' argument against Apple Computer goes right out the window.

Companies shouldn't switch platforms just because somebody on Slashdot can provide an overpowering argument. Switching is expensive, no matter which direction. If you switch to Mac, you have to know that you can't realistically have more that one choice for an office productivity package, ironically MS Office. On Windows, you've got native versions of OpenOffice, Hansa Office, Corel WordPerfect Office (my personal choice at the moment), and just about anything else you can think of, none of which exist on Mac. Mac does have Pages, which beats rings around Word for 99% of what you're going to want to do, as long as what you want to do doesn't involve other companies being able to interact directly with your documents.

There are many arguments against Macification, and many more in favor. It all comes down to whether or not the boss wants to pony up the money for some sexy-ass hardware.

[are you there?]
yes

There's a lot to be said for good work habits. At least that's what I've heard, mostly from people who have good work habits, and also have, perhaps not coincidentally, fairly recent iPods. It's hard to balance abject sloth and material greed, I've found, so at some point you just try to find the path of least suffering. Just give a smile on the sidewalk to some girl who's trying so hard to make an impression. You don't have to express your loathing each and every minute to the untermenschen that you are forced by God and man to walk past when all you really want is to get from point A to point B to take the money from party C. Party C understands that you're not there to talk about the weather, but it's protocol, so just fuckin' do it.

Good work habits are more than just Knowing Your Shit. Good work habits include getting out of bed before noon, whether you have to or not [glance at Andy]; not masturbating in front of customers [glance at Thomas]; coming within 4 significant digits of your proposed budget [glance in mirror]; using your spellchecker when norms will be reading; and, last but not least, not fucking the co-ops [no glance necessary].

Good work habits involving knowing your product, and know when not to bend your customer over a barrel, which does occasionally make sense. Call your mother every now and then; do your paperwork; and for God sakes, stop using the fucking copier to make visuals of your goddam buttocks. I know this is all very difficult for you scrubs, but please, do make an effort: We're in this game to win. Now get out there and kick some ASS!

It seems as though Lawrence's fattest cat, Eldloe, has passed away. As a catperson, I propose a drink to the memory of Edloe. As a drunkard, however, I didn't need a dead cat to drink a beer, now did I.

There's a place in Heaven for good cats, assuming Edloe was one, and the cat waits for you there, in the fields, when you're dead.

Sleep.

bling!

borf!!!!1

Puew! Brweeeeeeeeg! Noooooörf!

So are the dangers of drinking and blogging. Normal, hätte I the bling to glop what I blingin' dorf. You know?

Plow!

Here I am again, waiting on the old lady in the Worst Bar in the World. The Worst Bar in the World, by the way, has improved itself. It, like a woman, responds to slaps and degradations in the correct manner, vis it adjusts, tries to understand the reasons for its punishment, evolves. The Worst Bar in the World is no fool, and has its sights set on my money apparently. In short, the staff no longer spends its time smoking cigarettes behind the bar, wondering what all these people want from them. They pour beer now, and do it quickly.

On the other hand, there's the New Worst Bar in the World. I'm not a completely negative person, so I'll start with the positives: The New Worst Bar in the World is very clean. This is probably because after about 11 P.M. the staff do nothing other than clean the kitchen. They are nowhere to be found. You can walk in, take a seat, have a cigarette*, and proceed to load all the furniture and silverware that isn't currently being polished into the back of your car and drive home, nary an eyebrow raised. The New Worst Bar in the World is purportedly without pre-defined closing time, meaning, from my admittedly biased perspective as customer, that you can can drink all night, it being a bar and all. Such tag-lines can be deceiving, of course. Open all night means different things to different people, and here the customer is not always right. The bar, as you or I would understand it, closes about 11:15. After that point, it becomes more of a non-contact peep-show for dishwashing fetishists. The staff are not to be disturbed, and, if you don't mind staying overnight until the doors open up again, you can stay as long as you want.

The service in Europe sucks, still, even 2 months after my return.

*-The New Worst Bar in the World hides the ashtrays behind the bar, so you'll have to ash on the floor.

Oh, I'm droolin' here. Sam gives us the enviable role of doing exactly what we want with a comment/trackback spammer, without fear of retribution. Normally, I'd say turn him over to the police for a hitherto non-existing statutory transgression that will bring nothing, seeing as the perp more than like lives in a country whose name consists of 17 letters, not one of which is a vowel. So let's think outside the box for a minute.

First, you take a 12-foot length of 400lb fishing line. The you put a mess of fish-hooks on one end of it, and a ping-pong ball tied on the other end. Now, you take your subject and remove all his teeth, or at least the upper incisors. Then, you bind his hands behind his back, and lay him face down, naked, on your basement floor. You take the ping-pong ball, and force him to swallow it.

There's some funny things about the human body. One of those funny things is peristalsis, which is the process by which things are moved along the intestines 'til they get to the business end. Seeing as the human digestive tract is about 24 feet long on average, and needs about 5 hours for a complete tour, your subject will have about two and a half hours to watch that roll of fishing line unravel, and the fish-hooks travel towards his maw. There will be a lot of comic relief during this period, seeing as he'll be trying desperately to chew through the fishing wire with his gums, but this stage is all about anticipation.

Once the hooks get inside, the subject will have another 2 and a half hours to contemplate exactly what it feels like as his own body's muscular contractions pull a handful of fishhooks through his alimentary canal, and into his large intestine. The pain will be excruciating, but that's irrelevant, as this is a dead man walking. Well, a dead man laying toothless and naked on a cold concrete floor with a gut full of fishhooks, but we've all been there, now, haven't we. Once the intestinal wall is breached to any significant extent, the poisons there will flow out into the abdominal cavity, condemning all the vital organs to a slow, toxic death, and the host to death by septicemia.

At this point, the innkeeper can go for the quick thrill, letting the subject's small intestine take over, with its quicker peristaltic pace, raking the hooks 12 feet behind, leaving the subject screaming in agony until his inevitable death through internal blood loss. Or, if he has the time and/or patience, he can take the subject to a secluded parking lot, toss him out, and call an ambulance. There's no helping him, of course, but it will be amusing to watch him mutate into a swollen, jaundiced, piss-smelling monster while paying $5000 a minute for all manner of dialysis and blood-purification procedures, all of which will not stop the fact that his liver and kidneys have been handed down the death penalty. This could go on for six to eight months, and never ceases to amuse.

I'm a quick-thrill kind of person, myself, but to each their own.

There are cases, of course, where nobody wants to be number 1.

So, I was just sitting here, and I realized that my last blog entry was in something like 1963, and I thought to myself, how the hell do you fuckers do it? It's bad enough when you want to post, but don't have time. What's even worse, is when you don't want to post, when the shining light within you has guttered and died like a wet match, but the hole calls. The hole must be fed.

But I think now, I've taken a little break. I would like to start putting stupid little thoughts into glass boxes again, and have to defend them against Gentoo zealots and Islamic terrorists. But drawings are always good. So, here's an old drawing that I kinda like.

Makes me think of Guantanamo.

marcy say:

Hangin' round downtown by myself
And I had so much time
To sit and think about myself
And then there she was
Like double cherry pie
Yeah there she was
Like disco superfly
I smell sex and candy here
Who's that lounging in my chair
Who's that casting devious stares
In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream

Hangin' round downtown by myself
And I had too much caffeine
And I was thinkin' 'bout myself
And then there she was
In double platform suede
Yeah there she was
Like disco lemonade
I smell sex and candy here
Who's that lounging in my chair
Who's that casting devious stares
In my direction
Mama this surely is a dream
Mama this surely is a dream
Yeah mama this must be my dream

"I was overwhelmed by the hellish imagery, the abject violence, and the complete inhumanity. A vision right out of Bosch's worst nightmares, with Hell let loose upon the Earth with brimstone and sulfurous fumes. An utterly loathsome firestorm of Evil waiting to be unleashed upon this world of ours, just biding its time till it bursts out into the open and wreaks destruction. I could barely sit through the whole thing. Man, I've got to lay off the pesto gnocchis.

"The movie? Oh, it was OK, I guess."

Here's one more reason to watch the Keynote Monday.

I guess it doesn't really matter if Apple switches to Intel chips. They go where they want, and always seem to come out unharmed. For the record, though, I don't believe a word of it. I've heard OS X-on-Intel fantasies since the '90s, and I don't think Apple will be doing that particular dance in the foreseeable future.

If they do, though, it will disappoint me terribly. I wanted a new Cell-Driven Powerbook.

not a shrinking violet » Moooooo-vie Meme:

Well, on about a week ago, Liv meme-tagged me. Unfortunately, the email all my blog notifications get sent to is gone, for whatever reason, so I failed to notice. I'll have to be updating that. Also, I've been unable to either blog or read blogs for the past few weeks, seeing as I've been busy 'n' stuff. Sorry, Liv, I'll get to the meme now.

1) Total number of films I own on DVD/video:

Well, I think it's about 30 now. I used to have more, but I've sold about half of them on Amazon over the past few weeks.

2) The last film I bought:

The last film I bought was...hmmm...let's see...

"Der Soldat James Ryan (DTS)" (Steven Spielberg)
(saving private ryan, subsequently sold for a handful of magic beans)

3) The last film I watched:
Star Wars, Episode IV. Meeee-mo-reeeeees.

4) Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):

"Memento (2 DVDs)" (Christoper Nolan)

"Die üblichen Verdächtigen" (Bryan Singer)

"L.A. Confidential" (Curtis Hanson)

"Die Verurteilten" (Frank Darabont)

"Affliction [UK IMPORT]" (Paul Schrader)

5) Tag 5 people:
I don't think I will, because I've missed the meme-wave. Sorry folks, I'll try to get my blog-butt in gear.

According to my "This Day in History" applet in Dashboard, on May 13, 1846 the United States declared war on Mexico. Davy Crockett eventually had to get involved, unless I'm not mistaken.

I'd heard the belly-laughs rippling through the so-called "blogosphere" about the Huffington Post, so I figured I'd check it out. I've never seen a more wretched hive of shallowness and drivelry. It's like a high-school newspaper consisting of only an uninteresting entertainment section. It looks more like a National Lampoon spoof of a group-blog than an actual one. For example, check out these unintentionally hilarious concessions from, ahem, Ze Frank:

i agree that if we all start shouting about anal intercourse all of the time our country will fall into ruin.
...
I told a guy at Starbuck's to go f*ck himself when he cut me in line. I also peed on a car that took my spot outside my apartment. Might I not also symbolize the Left's flirtation with the Demon's of Anarchy?

Ignoring for the moment the hideous diction abuse rampant in this post, I'm happy about the anal intercourse thing. Shouting about it won't make it happen, and it's good that we're all in agreement. Other than that, I have to say I'm actually dumber for having read the entire entry. I'm still reeling from trying to figure out what the point of writing it was. I think if I got the chance to write for such a highly-visible page like the renowned Huffington Post, I'd actually, you know, try and say something; give advice; help the children.

The American Left needs advice, that's for sure. They're getting squeezed out of Washington about as fast as those hump-backed Caribou in Alaska will be once Smirky McHallibush gets the oil contracts for his oil-drilling cousins. The reason, of course, is that they're getting all their advice from absolute knuckleheads. For example, just get a load of the mental game of Twister that some nobody who goes by the obvious pseudonym "Deborah Rappaport" has to say:

Myth #1 We need the right candidates: If the Republican Party has taught us anything, it is that with a clear purpose and a well-defined, consistent message delivered over a long enough period, anybody can be elected president. Your mommy and daddy were right. Any child in the United States can grow up to be president. We can’t wait for the second coming of Bill Clinton or John Kennedy or FDR. We need to create the environment that allows a good enough candidate to win. We need to trust that the electorate is smart enough to understand us when we talk about progressive values and ideals. And we need to trust that when we speak authentically about those values and ideals, the electorate will respond by electing our candidates.

Myth #2 We need to win the next elections: Well, duh. But if all we do is worry about the next election, we have taken our eye off of the ball. A coherent party, speaking from the gut rather than the brain, will lead to winning elections. A strategy of trying to just win the next one, and then everything will be OK, has led us to where we are now. What we need to win are the hearts and minds of the people. The Democratic Party has done a woefully bad job of speaking to the truths of people’s lives. Instead of standing up and talking about what we really believe in--society’s responsibility to all of its citizens, fairness, equality--we get dragged into arguments that serve no purpose but to cause us to lose sight of what we were fighting for in the first place.

Got that? I'm assuming Debbie works like I do, when I actually feel like writing a document someone will read. I start with an outline, then flesh it out, just like in 6th grade English. However, I can't believe I'd run with an outline that started out with A) we don't need the right candidates, and B) we don't need to win the next elections. Nobody could seriously write this kind of stuff and actually think it made sense. You'll notice that she states obvious inanities in bold print, then burns through 1200 characters a piece trying to justify them. That's modern Democrat thinking for you: You can bullshit your way out of any jam, as long as your audience wants to believe you. But that audience is getting smaller.

So here's the deal, Deb. Assuming you want to supply America with a viable, democratically necessary loyal opposition again at some point in the future, you do, in fact, need the right candidates. You also very much do need to win the next elections, because that's what defines success in politics: Winning elections. But that's just politics. Maybe if you change "Myth #1" to "Rule #1", Myth #2 will just disappear.

Letting the courts decide elections, ceaselessly filibustering important congressional decisions, and spending more time on the road whining about why you lost instead of doing the job you actually got elected to do is no way to run a party. I mean, it was amusing for a while, but it's turning into a one-joke show.

I'm sitting here watching my temporary doghouse roommate play what has to be the second most boring racing video game I've ever seen, Forza Motorsport. It's. Soooooo. Sloooooooow. It's like watching a NASCAR race consisting entirely of '84 Buick Regals. There are no pedestrians to run over, no nitro button, and you aren't even allowed to run the other cars off the road into the woods.

Another snoozer is Microsoft's Flight Simulator. I just got through flying 11 hours over the Atlantic in the real world, and I think it's insane anyone would even imagine making a game out of it. Only Microsoft could get away with such blatant perversity.

The award for most boring video game ever, though, goes without a doubt to 18 Wheels of Steel. It's like Flight Simulator, except you're driving a semi truck across the United States in realtime, and you get bonus points for staying within posted speed limits and delivering your load of photocopiers or whatever on time. Jesus, why not just get a job as a truck driver and actually get paid for the same amount of wasted life? A co-worker of mine would actually come in with bags under his eyes from playing this game all night, and bitch about the way people drove on the American Interstate. That's just wrong, wrong wrong.

I noticed this entry a while back at Velociman's place, and finally got around to taking the draw-a-pig test. Apparently, the guys who run this page can tell all about your personality by what your pig looks like. Here's mine:

(click for full-size)

It didn't give me an answer right away, so I sent it off to the admin of the site. As soon as I get an answer, I'll be sure to post it here!

Hugs,
Rube

I've got this recently-was-hot 2.8GHz Pentium 4 hyperthreading processor in my Windows box. There was a time when that much processing power was too bad to be had. But it's slow now. I thought maybe I was just getting used to the performance, and that the 2-year speed-freak fix time was coming up. But now I'm not so sure.

I wonder what the efficiency level of a patched, firewalled, and virus-protected Windows box is. I mean, every byte you read off the disk has to be read at least once by the virus scanner. Every accessed byte of memory has to be scanned; every email you send goes through the virus scanner, the firewall software, and then gets scanned by every single mail server along the way, just to make sure. And that's in addition to the normal operations that have to be performed on a message, like typing it, spellchecking it, and looking up all the nifties that it takes to route an SMTP message from here to yon.

It's not just for email, either. Every web page you load gets scanned. Every document you open, every jpeg you view, and every movie file you watch has to be scanned and monitored before you ever see it. Every byte that gets read from your hard drive or from the network has to be compared to a table of hundreds of thousands of Windows-based viruses for similarities; and, if you've set your virus software up that way, heuristically analyzed against a second table of virus patterns. Your firewall does it, too. Every connection you try to open gets put through a series of tests to make sure that the program opening the connection is authorized to connect to that address, at this particular time, and for how long. I'm sure these programs are well-written, and as efficient as they can possibly be under the circumstances, but still, it's a huge amount of overhead.

Basically, I'm wondering just what percentage of the world's CPU cycles are actually spent wiping Bill Gates' ass for him.