Category: Blatherings

  • STFU – The Finest Education Around!

    I was telling Ben about my awesome new email address – stu@sfsu.edu – and he was saying it would be better if it was stu@stfu.edu. Well, now I have a new life goal, to start STFU – Southern Texas, Falfurrias University.

    My main email address remains the same – stu@sfsu.edu simply forwards to it.

  • Copper Thieves Ruined My Saturday Morning

    Friday was a good day, overall. I got to come into work late because I had to stay a couple hours late. Some super-easy after-hours network maintenance needed to be done. I got home at around 7:30 or 8 and chowed down on a store-bought rice, cheese, and bean burrito. Then my new buddy Alfonso gave me a ring, we went out and had a couple beers, shot a few games of pool, and called it a night. I came home, talked online and read for a bit, and hit the hay at 2am. I love not having a strict wakeup time on the weekends – it makes the previous night a lot more relaxed.

    Well, so much for that. At 7am Saturday morning I got a call from work. “Union City is down.” That’s where the paper is printed. Three separate circuits went down at the same time, and the phones. Well…that is a little strange. I did the troubleshooting that I could, and chalked it up to a power outage. Not much else I can do, I thought, so I stopped working on it at 8am. Surfed the web for a little bit, and then right when I laid down in bed, my phone rings. “It’s not a power outage. Could you go into the San Francisco office?”

    “Sure, I’ll be there in 45 minutes,” I said.

    45 minutes later, I rolled into the office. We managed to find a spare T1 that wasn’t being used, patched it in, and at least now the paper could get printed. After sticking around for a bit longer to make sure there wasn’t anything else I could do, I headed out.

    Come Monday morning, I found out that our circuits, which were running over fiber optic, were cut. By copper thieves. After cutting our stuff, they realized it wasn’t copper, went across the street, and cut someone else’s copper.

    DAMN that pissed me off. It would be one thing if it was some equipment failure at the telco, but someone scaling the phone pole and actually cutting the fiber? That’s crazy.

    At least I get Friday off this week for this and other weekend work. Should be a nice break.

  • SFSU, Finally

    As some of you know, I am taking a couple of classes at City College of San Francisco this semester. A couple of snoozers – Critical Thinking and a Speech class.

    But because I am taking those classes, I am now able to attend SFSU next semester. Woo! I have been looking forward to taking some History classes for a while. Also, I am guessing the campus will be a bit nicer, because the CCSF campus is kind of old and falling apart (especially the bathrooms).

    Some downsides: It is further away. The night classes start at 7pm, which means I will get home no earlier than 11pm two or three nights per week. And it is more expensive. Time to start saving…

  • Truly Off His Rocker

    The worst of the worst…here is a recent installment of the daily comic Marmaduke:

    Really. This truly makes no sense whatsoever. The comics are almost never funny but they usually at least aren’t completely absurd.

    Thanks to Joe Mathlete for bringing this and all the other Marmaduke comics to my attention in all their awful glory. As Joe Mathlete points out, Marmaduke is hopping up and down on two legs for some unexplained reason. The dog catchers, who are in their truck which is floating in mid-air, somehow confuse this with the moonwalk.

  • 2.33 Terabytes

    My personal computer storage is now up to 2.33 Terabytes. Sweet…

    But I could totally use about another 3 drives.

  • Yay For Mornings

    One of the few good things about the morning is when I wake up I can almost always count on having new email to read. Wheee how fun!

  • WordPress Upgrade Party

    As if you hadn’t guessed from the last post, I am a nerd. And hence…this event on Wednesday is something that I would really like to go to:

    WordPress 2.3 is coming out on Monday, so come out Wednesday evening and upgrade your blog with the pros. How badly can you screw it up when the developers are right there? If you upgrade your blog before Wednesday come and help out others and make feature requests.

    Super-chill event, just bring your laptop, yourself, and your WordPress blog. I’ll provide booze, soft drinks, and wifi.

    Topics of discussion will include Trackback Etiquette: Ping on the First Date?, Join the Conspiracy to Relabel All Websites Blogs, and Putting the Friend in XFN.

    Unfortunately, there is another event that I would rather go to that night. Naomi Klein is coming to San Francisco to talk about her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

  • Last Night As a MUD

    Here’s part of last night portrayed as a MUD:


    > go party
    You have arrived at a party.
    > look party
    You see several people. You also see several beverages.
    > drink mead
    There is no mead.
    > look beverages
    You see wine, cocktails, and beer.
    > drink wine
    > talk people
    > drink cocktail
    > talk people
    > drink beer
    > talk people
    > drink beer
    You feel slightly inebriated.
    > talk people
    Several people are preparing to go to a bar.
    > go bar
    You arrive at the bar.
    > order cocktail
    You order a cocktail. Your inventory has decreased by $7.
    > talk people
    > go dieselboy
    You arrive at Dieselboy with a party goer. Your inventory has decreased by $20.
    > order 2 beer
    Your inventory has decreased by $12.
    > listen music
    You listen to the music. It is quite enjoyable.
    > dance
    You proceed to get your schwerve on. You go boy.
    > order beer, water
    Your inventory has decreased by $8. You feel slightly inebriated.
    > look watch
    It is 2:15AM.
    > talk party goer
    You talk to the fellow party goer. It is time for him to go home.
    > dance
    You proceed to get your schwerve on. You go boy.
    > dance
    You proceed to get your schwerve on. You go boy.
    > look watch
    It is 3:10AM.
    > go home
    You go home.
    Congratulations, FourMajor! You have leveled up! You have two skill points to allocate.
    > train social
    You train your social skill. Your social skill is now at 9.
    > train confidence
    You train your confidence skill. Your confidence skill is now at 8.
    > exit
    Goodnight, FourMajor! Until next time…

  • Wait, What?

    Holy crap, my Yelp profile has been viewed over 1000 times. Crazy.