Big Loser is Watching

I found this article about corporate emails. I didn't read it all but it did remind of a situation that happened at one of the companies I used to work for.

(I won't give any names to protect the guilty) I was working at as a software developer for a large Edmonton company that provides optimization and process control services and software to clients. My supervisor suspected that one of the IT peons were reading our emails. One day he sent our group an email with a small note to the IT peon in question, even though he was not in the send to list. Not surprisingly he replied. Either he was:

1. Amazingly dumb


2. Incredibly brazen and confident in his job security

The more we interacted with him the more apparent it became that assumption #1 was correct. If you have figured out what company this is and you are working there, its the creepy, little guy in IT who is reading your email. Tell him I said Hi.

The Big Lighter Conspiracy

The pirates are claiming that the music, software and movie industries are inflating statistics that indicate how much money they are losing to piracy. The MPAA wouldn't do that would they? This is a case of one thief calling another thief crooked.

But that is not what I found interesting in the article. There was a link to the contraband product rankings. In there I found a couple of fascinating things:

• What is the difference between human trafficking and human smuggling?


• Trash smuggling? How do you sneak around with a load of trash? It smells and is quiet possibility radioactive.


• The possibility of counterfeit airline parts installed on any flight I take scares me. Although after my last trip on United not so surprising.


• 30% of the lighter market is counterfeit? Can it really be that profitable to sell counterfeit lighters? What are they 35 cents each?

Just some thoughts as I wait for 412,000 rows of data to be inserted into a table.

Just a Question

How is it, no matter the situation, that women always find something to make them angry or displeased?

Resolving My Faith

Religion has been on my brain lately. Mostly because it seems half of the blogs I come across using the next blog button is about how somebody found Jesus. Today I came across this article (it is a long but an interesting read) that actually helped me focus my thoughts on what I have been feeling about religion.

Events over the last couple of years have made me question the role of religion in my life. I used to go to church every Sunday like a good little Christian. I stopped doing that a little over a year ago. While I am certainly not an atheist I am going down the path of agnosticism. In the article author Sam Harris found the words that I have been feeling but not able to articulate. To me following an organized religion is the “denial of tangible reality.”

As we continue learn about the universe around us it becomes less plausible that God exists in the way we have been taught. My believe is that there is some higher power but how and where it exists is something that is an evolving mystery.

To Do My Duty and Obey the Copyright Law

This one made me laugh out loud. Now that the MPAA has no one left to sue they have some spare time. This has lead to some unsupervised thinking time. The Boy Scouts are now going to reap the rewards of the ingenuity emanating from MPAA think tank. They are going to educate our future leaders on the evils of breaking copyright laws. In return for their good work in spreading the MPAA swill the younglings will receive a spiffy merit badge.

I would expect the MPAA to do something like this. It is as stupid as it is funny. I would not expect the Boy Scouts to pander to a self-important organization and their bastardly ideas.

Everyone involved should be awarded a “Head Up Your Ass” merit badge.

Rotten Apples

Something has been bothering me for a while now. Every time I turn the TV on I end up seeing one of the new Mac commercials. The ones where the “cool” Mac shows us how much easier he is to use than the nerdy, incompetent PC.

I have experience with both Mac and PC in my working career. It has been my experience that a high percentage of Mac users are incompetent and dimwitted (and most likely Red Sox fans). If all you want to do is look at pictures and videos of your dog licking himself than a Mac is probably right for you. In fact at a previous we gave the Macs to the employees whose only job was to place pictures of cars into documents. The people who actually had more than one useful purpose (developers, accountants, the receptionist) got PCs. My point is that Mac's suck and so do their lame ass commercials.

I just wanted to say that. Thanks for your indulgence.

The Real Curse of the Bambino

My blog is evolving into something I had not originally intended it to be. That's OK. I think it is much fun to let this have a life of its own. (segue in three, two, one....) According to an evolutionary expert the human race will evolve into two distinct subspecies. (See how I used evolution as a tie in? Brilliant!)

The “upper class” species will be tall, slim, healthy, attractive, intelligent, and creative. Much like I am now.

The “under class” will be dim-witted, ugly, squat goblin-like creatures. If you take a look at a Boston Red Sox fan you will get a preview of what this genetic under class will look like. One can assume that future subspecies will be slightly less dim-witted but probably still Red Sox fans.

Sometimes an Emoticon is Just Not Enough

I suffer from road rage from time to time. Mostly because the drivers on the streets of Edmonton are complete assholes. I'm sure many people suffer from web rage too. It is easy to talk a big game from behind a 17 inch flat screen. Never have I heard of anyone acting on their web rage, until now.

It does not surprise me that the perpetrator collected enough information to find where his victim lived. What does surprise me is that the fight broke out on a religious chat room for people who have an interest in the Muslim faith. Maybe that shouldn't surprise me actually.

Allah would not be happy.

Tips on Using the Potty

It has been a while since I have made a post here. Today I am going to have blogarea. Which leads me into a couple of points I want to make about bathroom etiquette.

• If you use the last of the toilet paper please be considerate and replace the roll. Or at the very least please inform your spouse of the TP shortage before he goes ahead and delivers and epic dump to the plumbing. It benefits everyone.


• When you share a washroom (particularly when you share one with other offices on the same floor of your building) the double flush rule is always in effect. No exceptions. Yes fat man from office #905, I know it is you who is violating this code of toilet conduct.

That is all.

Get Off My Lawn!

I am getting older. It is a fact of nature. Yesterday I discovered that I am aging far quicker than I need to be. We decided to go out to our new local leisure center for some exercise and fun. My Wife took my Son to the children’s play area while I went for a workout. The place was packed with teenagers. It was difficult to get on any of the equipment as there seemed to be packs of the adolescents hovering around each station. I managed to get most of my workout in but I was becoming cranky.

I went downstairs to take my Son to the pool while she went for a workout. As I searched for a locker in the change room I quickly noticed that most of the keys had been broken off of the locks by some little delinquent. My mood continued to sour as I tried to navigate though the flock of screaming kids, who were without parental supervision, on the way to the pool.

Eventually we made our way back to meet my Wife again. After plodding through another gaggle of hyperactive youths she asked me how things went at the pool. I told about my experiences and her comment was “It sounds like you did not have a good time.” I was about the agree with her but then I stopped and asked myself “Who’s fault was it that you got so ornery?” At that moment I was afraid to look into a mirror for fear of finding a weathered old man chasing young whippersnappers off his lawn.

It made me think back to when I was much younger. My brother would spend every single day at the golf course during the summer. I wonder what all the “grown-ups” thought about us when we would spend half of our round walking in the woods looking for lost golf balls. Probably the same thoughts I had yesterday at the leisure center.

Like my brother and me on the golf course these were just kids having the fun that kids have. We adults quiet often forget what having mindless fun is like. The pressure of being a responsible citizen does a good job of sucking that out of us. It also turns your hair grey. Yesterday I realized how important it is to hold on to that youthful silliness just a bit. By letting it go it makes me old and it takes something special away from my son and the people around me.

It is now time to have fun.

Course Correction

Already I am falling behind on my nefarious plans to become Supreme Overlord of all the Internet. Last week I was sidelined with the stomach flu. My son and wife had previously caught but my immune system had resisted it for a while. By the time Friday hit I was lying on the couch curled up in pain as my intestines convulsed trying to expel anything I tried to digest. Things got worse as I watched Mike Weir double boogey the 18th hole to miss the cut by one stroke. I was in misery.

Fortunately I bounced back quickly and was able to enjoy an amazing Thanksgiving dinner prepared by my lovely Wife. I even felt well enough to partake in the trash talk that came along with our annual family cribbage tournament.

Amid all this excitement I have been able to do a little bit of reading. In my research I have decided that just learning HTML will not be vary useful. I have switched my focus and will be learning all about XHTML and CSS. XHTML is going to be the standard for the new, more structured web that will take us into the future. CSS (cascading style sheets) is a useful tool that will no doubt make it easier for me to rule the information super highway! Muuuuwahahahaha!

Those plans will have to wait however. Tonight the Oilers are playing the evil Sharks and another survivor is getting kicked off the island. It’s all about priorities.

#1 The Saga Begins

The first thing we need to have is some kind of text editor to create and edit our HTML files. Something simple will do for now. If you have a PC and are using windows Notepad will suffice. If you are using a Mac, HTML is probably over your head.

First we will start by creating a new document in Notepad and typing the following.

<html>
<head>
<title>Nothing but the Thruth</title>
</head>
<body>
The Boston Red Sox suck.
</body>
</html>

This is the anatomy of a very basic HTML page. An HTML document consists of different tags that tell your web browser what to do. HTML tags are surrounded by the < and > symbols. In most cases a tag will be accompanied by a closing tag indicated by a “/” symbol.

What does each tag do? Let me tell you.

The HTML tag tells your browser where the HTML document starts and ends. Pretty simple.

The HEADER tag quite cleverly contains all the information that is contained in your document’s header. None on the information within the HEADER tag will be visible in your browser window.

Inside your HEADER tag you can have a TITLE tag. The text contained in this tag is what will be displayed in your browser’s caption.

Finally we have the BODY tag. This is where all the links to naked women and porn valuable information you want to share with the world goes. This is the stuff the gets displayed in your browser window.

You can now save your file with the .htm or .html extension and open it in your favorite browser (I recommend Firefox). You are now a web developer. Go rule the world.

This was just the basic, simple stuff. Like I said I am going to start from scratch and learn this properly from the beginning. No matter how bored I get.

Slow Start

Already I am slacking and finding excused not to get started learning. I have been heavily distracted by the baseball playoffs which are safe to watch as the Boston Red Sox are not part of it (as you know the Red Sox suck). Also the hockey season has just started and in addition to cheering on the Canadiens and Oilers I have a hockey pool to worry about. It adds a whole new dimension to my viewing habits, much to my Wife’s dismay. There are also my regular duties of throwing the Boston Bruins some hate.

I have a good feeling that I will find some time today.

Qualifier

Before I get too far along I wanted to fill you in on some of my background. I am far from a neophyte as far as “writing code” goes. I have seven years experience of creating windows applications in Delphi. I have also dabbled a little bit in C++. I have even done a little bit of HTML and JavaScript but not enough to claim to be anywhere near an expert. I have moved out of software development for the time being (at some point I will post about how this came to be) and I am currently working in software support for a company that makes software for the automotive industry.

In any case I have decided to start learning HTML from scratch to hopefully eliminate some of the bad habits I have picked from my small forays into web development in the past.

Introduction

I have tried on several occasions to start a blog. I have tried to write humorous blogs. I have tried to write cynical blogs. I even tried writing a sports blog. All of them quite frankly sucked. Despite these failures I still find myself wanting to give it another kick at the can. I am not sure why I keep trying but here I am to make another attempt. Now the big decision is what should I blog about.

Just recently I have decided to learn more about web development. Reading about me learning the intricacies of the img tag will certainly be far from entertaining. To spice things up a bit I will also be writing about the many excuses I find to avoid doing any learning and the many events in my life that may legitimately affect such learning. If we are lucky I may even chime in on some of the events going on in our world and perhaps I may give you some insight on why the Boston Red Sox suck (there are so many ways that they do).

The bottom line is that this blog will basically be a personal blog with a focus on my efforts to become master of the World Wide Web. Har! I hope you enjoy what I am schilling out. Please leave comments. I would love to link to your blog.