I just snorted a Linux

Most of you won't care. But, just in case: I just formatted my C: drive and installed Fedora 8, which is a public open source Linux distribution. This was on my desktop, a '01 Dell Pentium 4 1.7 Ghz 512 MB RAM and a 120 GB / 40 GB hd setup. I previously had 2 XP installations running dual boot, now i have Linux and XP dual. Fedora wants to play right out of the box. Sound, Vid, everything works like a champ. Networking? It's a go. Sees my other XP box without even trying. Even two XP boxes don't play this well together. Am i converted? Yes. Until something goes wrong. Oh yeah, and it's fast.

Snore

I spent half of yesterday in meetings, and the other half researching the difference in the non-profit status of a 501(c)(3) and a 501(c)(4) entity. Needless to say, I am very ready for it to be the weekend.

I am also very ready for it to be a weekend where I don't have to go anywhere. Sweet Jebus, I can sleep in. Or, I could sleep in were it not for the stupid fact that the only time I seem to be sound asleep these days is in the half hour before I have to get up to get working. Stupid malicious insomnia and it's cruel sleep depriving jokes. You would think if anything would put me to sleep it would be reading tax law, but apparently not.

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Anyhoo.

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Anybody watch the Celtics/Knicks game last night? Quite a competition, eh? I'm not positive, but I think I saw several of the Knicks players flatline on the court last night. Yeah, that's right, I said it. The Knicks have no heart.

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Tried to read a book last night called Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert. Supposedly it was out of the Tipping Point/Blink/Freakonomics mold, but concentrated on the fact that people basically don't know what makes them happy. Sort of. Well, the book might have gotten interesting if the stupid author didn't think he was so funny. Oh, and trust me, he was not funny. At all. I last about three pages in and had to close the books. Stupid academics and their snotty nose in the air sense of superiority humor. Now I need to go back to the library and find a book to read that doesn't suck.

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Anyways, my office has cleared out for the weekend, which is nice. That means I can either a) turn up my music all the way and actually get some work done, or b) go home. It's a tough call. Thank god I don't know anyone who I could talk into going out for a beer right now, because then I would have an option c) See how many Guiness' I can drink before it gets dark out.

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Yeah, I think there's a real possibilty that the c)s would have it if only I could convince someone else this was a good idea.

Alright, I'm outta here. I gotta make some calls.

Wade Boggs likes beer

Drunk Monkeys

Watching this never gets old.

Time for a crisis

Soon enough, I'll be making a momentous turn into my third decade. That's right people. Despite by boyish good looks, and my obvious immaturity, not to mention the fact that I just learned how to tie my shoes last year, this January I will be turning 30.

Ack.

So.. I suppose it's time for a mid-life crisis right? I never really have been the convertible type, but maybe I can buy myself a nice big power boat. I've already got the trophy wife, so that's taken care of. What are some other symptoms of a mid-life crisis? Maybe I should quit my job and go build a cabin? Does building a shed count? If so, quitting my job can certainly be arranged.

Well, fortunately I have a little over a month before the day of doom hits. Because, to be honest, right now I'm not feeling all that panicky. I mean, I don't particularly miss being younger, really. I could do without the beer belly that shows up every now and then, and I liked playing HS baseball, and don't get me wrong, college was a good time. Some days, the responsibility of owning a house and being married seems like a lot. But honestly, it's really more reassuring than anything. I don't miss paying rent, or sharing a wall with neighbors, and I certainly don't miss the dating game. Not even a little bit.

I do kind of miss playing intramural sports, and playing pickup basketball everyday. Also? The random Tuesday nights in York Hall when we would accidentally drink way too many busch bar bottles watching some random movie on the Campus movie channel. That was fun.

Read, damnit

Sometimes I wonder why I bother writing my little, crappy book reviews. I mean, I'm perfectly aware that none of you actually read them, and that those that do have no intention of ever reading any of the books I talk about. That's fine. Hell, nobody really reads anymore, anyways. (This link is a pdf, but I couldn't find a link to a text version of the report.)

Anyways, I'm writing another book review. Read it, don't read it, look at it longing for picture books, do what you will.

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Largely due to the fact that I am a gigantic dork, one of my favorite things to do is to wander through libraries/bookstores looking for books to read. Recently, I have been informed that I can't buy anymore books, as I don't seem to have anywhere to put them all. Sad state of affairs, really. So.. I've been confining my wandering to the library. And to be honest, it's paying off. I've written about a couple of the great books I've found this way, and yesterday I found another.

Soon I Will Be Invincible, by Austin Grossman is a debut novel, and I will not do a good enough job describing the plot to make anyone want to read it, but I might be able to get the tone right. Roughly speaking, SIWBI switches back and forth between two narrators on opposite sides of a battle. In some ways, this is a cops and robbers sort of book. In others, it is a set of character studies, as both narrators describe the same (and different) stories from their perspective.

Oh, did I mention that this is a book about Superheroes? One of the narrators is a Cyborg named Fatale, and the other is a megalomaniac genius intent on world domination, in the mold of Dr. Evil or Lex Luthor.

See that? I lost you already.

All I can say to convince anybody to read this book is to describe how I'm reading it.

Some books, I can't put down, I'm so anxious to get to the end and figure out what happens.

Some, I can't wait to put down, because they suck so much.

Others, like this one, I wish I could make myself read slower, because I'm enjoying it so much I don't want to finish. I read half the book last night, and will probably finish it tonight, because I'm dying to get back to it, but I may just finish the book and turn back to the first page to read it again.

Does it get old?

Nope. It really doesn't.

The Brady Song:



And even though they don't really hold up to the original, there's more where that came from...

"A committee is...

"A committee is a group of the unprepared, appointed by the unwilling to do the unnecessary."
-Fred Allen

I think the dog is trying to send us a message.

I suppose it's possible that it's time for us to turn the heat on .

"Sweet Caroline" revealed

That Neil Diamond ditty they play during the eighth inning at Fenway Park? Turns out it's about JFK's daughter. Breaking years of silence on the subject, Diamond has revealed that Caroline Kennedy was the secret inspiration for "Sweet Caroline," the 1969 smash hit that's played at every Red Sox home game.

http://www.boston.com/ae/celebrity/articles/2007/11/21/sweet_caroline_revealed/

Not sure I'm ready for this...

Snow.

It's snowed in Orono already this year, but this is the first real snow. It's been snowing maybe an hour, and the grass is white. In fact, already the University looks a bit cleaner.

Ugh.

Maybe, the sooner winter starts, the sooner it will be over. Right? Come on people, lie to me.

Jesus I'm not sure I'm ready for this.

An Entirely New Sort of Fandom

I've been a fan of winning teams before. During my college years, the Yankees won the World Series 3 of 4 years. (1996, 1998, 1999.) Of course, they also won in 2000, but I was a working man at that point. But the nature of being a Yankees fan in New England is a weird one. The only games you get to see are the Yankees/Red Sox games, or the random ESPN games. With a sport like baseball, you only get a true feel for a team by watching the teams day in and day out. I remember watching game 7 of the 2004 World Series with a friend of mine who was a huge, huge Red Sox fan. He had literally watched or listened to every single Red Sox game that year. His experience watching that team, who he had seen play 176 games, was entirely different from mine, watching maybe 10 Yankees games the first time I saw them win the Series. Also, I was a freshman in York Hall, and while this might surprise some of you, I remember being ferociously over-served that night.

Anyways, my point is, that I've never followed a great team, and been able to watch them day in/day out. Yes, the Pats are great, but as I've said before I am more of a bandwagon Pats fan than anything else. If they started losing tomorrow, I wouldn't care. Plus, football generally bores the shit out of me. (Other than, of course, fantasy football. Which is a whole nother story.)

I do follow the Celtics though, and this years team looks to have the potential for greatness. I vaguely remember the last Celtics championship, but I had no investment at that point. Since I can really remember, and since I have cared, the Celtics have been generally awful, with the occasional burst of mediocrity. Even their run into the Eastern Conference finals a few years ago was not an exercise in greatness, it was an exercise in, well, watching a successful train wreck.

This year's team though, is legitimately good. At times, many times, they are actually great. I really don't know how to root for a basketball team playing like this. Last night, for example, the Celtics lost their first game of the season. They played hard, but just didn't have it. They were on the road, playing a good team, and lost by 2. They even had a chance to win on a Paul Pierce three at the buzzer. In years past, this would have been a moral victory in many ways. Now? All I could notice was everything that went wrong this game that hadn't gone wrong the previous games this season. What's wrong with me? The Celtics have already won 8 games, they only won 24 last year. I should just relax and enjoy the ride, right? Easier said then done. Now I want them to win every game, and to look great doing it.

Oh well. While I may not know what I am doing in this new sort of fandom, I am enjoying it. I'll learn.

Rock Band

...will kids in the future discover pivotal, genre-defining bands like the Rolling Stones through this very medium? And of those who maybe get inspired to start a band or jam with their friends, how many will forgo the garage experience for the living room? Will we read, in an interview with the next Kurt Cobain, that the first time he heard "Gimme Shelter" or the Sex Pistols was in a video game?

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2007/11/the-rock-band-1.html

Countertops and sheds

Spent this last weekend doing work on the house. Actually, more accurately I spent last weekend helping other people do work on our house. In a roughly chronological sequence:

Off to a slow start.

So, Visco created this sweet blog to have everyones well formed ideas,thoughts, passions expressed onto this whiteboard medium, just to see no one write anything. So we are off to a slow start.

I'd like to bring back an old blog both Steve and I touched upon at one point. The topic of discussion was about the length of time to stay at your current employer. Both Steve's dad and my dad have been at their jobs for 30+ years. I have had 4 different jobs since I been out of college and guess what? Yup, next Monday I'll be on my fifth.

Sounds a little crazy, I know. But I really attribute my short term record to the profession that I am in; Computers, programming. My positions requires me to learn new things every day. It's a constant game of sudoku or crossword puzzle. With learning new things all the time, or at least wanting/needing to learn new things all the time, it becomes clear of your companies stance on growth. You easily see the direction that they are heading. This vision has been a clear reason for my new job searches.

I am really excited about my new position. I will be the technical lead at a company that does not have a strong technical division. I will have the chance to mold and form this division as I see fit. Almost like starting my own company, but already having a thriving company behind you. The name you ask? Well, I'll leave that out, but call me /email me if you want any more juice details. I'll still be in p-town.

So let the comments pour in. How long have you been at the same employer. Have you ever left? Why?

Slowly, slowly, slowly

This time of year, I get out of work and it's dark. Now, people like Liz, this is the norm. Of course, for normal, non-vampires, this kind of sucks. (Get it? Vampire? Sucks? Seriously, this stuff is gold people.)

So, as I enter into my seasonal depression, I am once again attempting to exercise afte work. Chasing the dog around the block may count technically as exercise, but for me it's not quite enough. Lifting weights with my physique is obviously out of the question, due to the embarrassment factor.

So... I'm dragging myself back to the pool. Last year, I started swimming again. At one point, I was a fairly good swimmer. I had two hour practices every day where I swam ungodly distances. This was obviously before York Hall, beer, and well, my late 20's. Starting up last year was a blow to my ego, but I got in a routine, and swam a mile or so about five days a week for four months or so. Unfortunately, I had to travel a lot last year, and every time I went out of town I would break my routine, and it got harder and harder to slip back into it, until by February I was done.

Well, like I said, I dragged myself back into the pool this week, and once again, it has been an ego-denting experience. Monday, I swam about a half mile, and by the end of it I felt like I was dragging an anchor behind me. Today was a little better, in that I was pretty sure I wasn't going to drown. Not positive, but pretty sure.

It's times like these that I think back to some of the abuse I've put my body through and think to myself, "Self, maybe you shouldn't have done that." I call the me that thinks that Good Steve. (It's also Good Steve that thinks, "I'm never drinking again", and "Maybe I SHOULD start volunteering somewhere."

Then, as soon as some the self-loathing misery of being an out of shape slob wears away, I drunk myself a little vino, and think to myself "Self, you should probably have another glass, that last one was pretty damn good." We call this Steve, well, we just call him Steve.

you are a sad, strange little wagon, and you have my pity.

The wifey's working late tonight, so I'll write something tonight. I'm going to go ahead and assume that you all know how to post, if you don't, let me know and I'll talk you through it. Also, if you know anyone else that you think might be interested, let me know and I'll invite them. Right now the people who can post a message are: Jeff, John, Major, Ryan, me. Anyone can comment, and anyone can read it. If you all want to change the design, settings, or whatever, just let me know and I'll tackle that.

Until then,

Slogan

Now that we've named the blog, we need to decide on a slogan. Any ideas?

goodwin rocks

yup, it works

Testing

If you can, post something. Just trying to figure out how this whole piece works.