General Rambling

Voicemail Message Etiquette

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I just cleared out my voice mail box, and I made some observations about voice mail messages: First, I hate voice mail. Email me instead. You don’t have to tell me what time it is. Voice mail is time-stamped, and it usually doesn’t matter that much. You do need to say who you are, because voice mail doesn’t record that. Do this in your first sentence. If you are with a vendor you should say that, too, especially if I’m waiting for a call from you. Please use your full name. You might be one of my closest friends but sometimes phones make people sound weird, cell phones cut out, and background noise sometimes makes it hard to figure out …

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doodle.ch Rocks!

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So far I have nothing but good things to say about doodle.ch, a site that helps groups make decisions or figure out dates for activities. I always hate finding a time when everybody is free, so a tool like this helps immensely. The nice thing is that you don’t need to register, log in, or give up any personal information (besides your email address) to participate. I had my poll up and running in less than two minutes. Well done!

Star Trek iPhone Ringtones

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I decided yesterday that I need a new ring for my iPhone. The venerable CTU ringtone just wasn’t cutting it anymore, and since tons of people have iPhones now it’s hard to use a built-in ring. Given that I also refuse to use a song as a ringtone I thought Star Trek sounds might be appropriate. These seemed best. Updated: not just for Star Trek anymore. 🙂 Star Trek TNG – Alarm Klaxon.m4r Star Trek TNG – Photon Torpedo.m4r Star Trek TNG – Tricorder.m4r Star Trek TNG – Door.m4r Star Trek TNG – Incoming Subspace Message.m4r Star Wars – Blaster.m4r Green Tree Frogs.m4r Cattle – Cows Mooing.m4r Cattle – Bull Mooing.m4r If you have an iPhone, enjoy.

My Day Today

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I got this from mmk_kobayashi’s Flickr photostream, which is an amazing collection of images. Some are somewhat NSFW but it isn’t too bad. Regardless, I thought this was absolutely appropriate for today. Update: I removed the link to Flickr, because apparently the account was removed almost immediately after I linked to it. More proof that this is perfect for today.

Harold & Kumar, The Square Root of Three

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I saw “Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay” tonight. Pretty funny, but not as good as “Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle” in my opinion. The end is terribly anticlimactic. NPH does a good job, though. Mmm, unicorns. Kumar does recite a poem by David Feinberg, “The Square Root of Three,” which I thought bears more attention since it’s my kind of dorky. Props to FilmChat for having a copy. I fear that I will always be A lonely number like root three The three is all that’s good and right, Why must my three keep out of sight Beneath the vicious square root sign, I wish instead I were a nine For nine could thwart this evil …

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Vizio Goatse?

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Undoubtedly you’ve seen goatse at some point in your life on the Internet. If not, don’t look for it. It is downright awful, and it’s decidedly NSFW. However, if you have seen it and been scarred for life perhaps you will be as amused as I was in seeing Vizio’s HDTV packaging.

But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me

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I had an opportunity today to read “I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me” by Trevor Paglen. It’s a short read and pretty interesting, as it’s all about the insignia that classified DoD teams have. Beyond the title of the book being pretty cool, my favorite patches are “Sneeky Pete, World’s Oldest Known Flying Pig,” and one that proclaims “Gustasus Similis Pullus,” meaning “tastes like chicken.” Heh.

Obama's Gun Gaffe, or Rural vs. City Folks

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Undoubtedly you’ve heard Obama’s closed-door fundraiser remarks about small town folks being bitter people who cling to guns and religion. The thing that I never hear mentioned, though, is the rift between big city folks and small town folks. Obama’s comments are just a symptom of a problem: big city folks don’t don’t understand small town people, they don’t care how they think, and they write them off as hicks. And small town folks basically do the same to the big city people. Now Clinton and McCain are talking about how his words are so condescending, etc. etc. They aren’t any better, though. Most of their money comes from the big city folks, and when it comes right down to …

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Goodbye Kitty

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Hello Kitty? I don’t think so! Thanks to my friend Bob my refrigerator door will never be the same: A friend (who had several awesome cats) used to have a sign I really liked, too: “Cat, the other white meat.”

Upgraded My Mail Client… To Alpine

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A few months ago it was revealed here that I used Pine as my email client. I was mocked by all, especially since the problem I was complaining about ultimately turned out to be a problem with Pine itself. I would like to report that I have seen the light: I have upgraded to Alpine. It looks just as sexy in green-on-black terminals as Pine did. Props to the UW for releasing it under an open source license, as well as retrofitting it with the autoconf system. To preempt this round of mocking I say that as a sysadmin I spend a lot of time using SSH, and Alpine fits nicely into that. I use VanDyke’s SecureCRT for all my …

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